La Noche De La Ira — La Noche De La Ira( Blu Ray)

La Noche De La Ira aka Blood Hunt is a 1986 Spanish crime thriller from director, Javier Elorietta (Pacto de Brujas, Rojo Intenso and Wild Boys) starring Patxi Andión (Puzzle, Asesinato en el Comité Central and Eloy de La Iglesia’s La estanquera de Vallecas), the directors sister, Beatriz Elorietta (La Colmena, La Mujer del Juez and Juana la Loca... de vez en cuando), Yolanda Ventura (In the Name of Love, Muchachitas and Cómplices al Rescate) and Aldo Sambrell (Fistful of Dollars, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and For a Few Dollars More). The movie fuses the Spanish exploitation genre (Quinqui) with the American-style rural revenge flick to create a unique and effective shocker.

Doctor, Alejandro Liema (Andión) is posted to a position in a small village somewhere in rural Spain. Right from the beginning, Liema feels something isn’t quite right in the village. After he meets a teacher named Marta (Elorrieta) the local traditions begin to make more sense to him, however his contentment is short-lived when local leader, Gonzalo Cruz (Agustín González, Bicycles are for the Summer, The Grandfather and Belle Epoque) who has decided Marta is destined to be his re Liema sorts to violence against Liema. Around this time, Liema also discovers what appears to be a drug rehabilitation clinic. After speaking to the clinic’s director, Fabian (Aramis Ney of The Wild Boys, The Naked Target and Brácula, Condemor II) Liema remains unconvinced by his unconventional methods and his armed guards, who he claims are only there to protect the patients from wolves. As he continues to dig further into the town’s history, he uncovers a very strange local custom, where drug addicts are kidnapped, held captive and eventually used as the quarry in a Running Man-style hunt. The reason for this is that in years gone by, during a local village feast, desperate drug addicts attacked the village with the intent of stealing whatever they could. Unfortunately, things got out of hand, there was a fight and several locals including Gonzalo’s son were killed. This led to the villagers new annual tradition where locals take retribution on addicts from the city. Can Liema prevent this from taking place and can he avoid becoming the one hunted by the villagers?

This release from Severin is the film’s first appearance on disc in America and features a rather lovely new 2k scan of the feature. The disc also features an interview with director Javier Elorietta and a trailer, sadly that is about it for bonus material, but to be fair it’s just nice to finally see this film given a Blu-ray release, especially as the new 2k scan looks lovely. The colours are crisp and natural and the picture is sharp and clean.  The film itself is a solid enough thriller with plentiful ideas of its own to ensure it doesn’t just become a rip-off of other movies, most notably The Most Dangerous Game, directed in 1932 by Irving Pichel and Ernest B Shoedsack and starring Fay Wray. On top of this the action sequences are often compared in reviews to the work of Sam Peckinpah and to be fair this is very accurate. Anyone watching this cannot fail to see the similarities with Peckinpah’s work. Overall, this is a solid and interesting movie, it is perhaps not one that I will return to time and again, but I was pleased to finally see it, especially in such a lovely release.