Watch The Day of the Beast For Free

Undescribable Perfection

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A different way of telling a story

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Of the three main characters, they had to kill a metal-head. Not the priest, not the TV guy, but the metal-head. Not fair... R.I.P. Jose Maria :(8/10

I'm focusing on the ending and leaving the rest of the movie for others to discuss. If you haven't seen the film yet, you definitely DON'T WANT TO READ this.The ending is abrupt, confusing, problematic, anti-climactic and unnecessary. It's way out of step with the gratuitous movie that precedes it. It's near impossible to follow on the first viewing and if you do manage it then you're still left with a heck of a lot of questions: Was the homeless baby the child of Satan? If so why did the thugs kill the child? If the thug boss is supposed to be Satan, was he always Satan or did Satan possess him only this night? Following this enigmatic confrontation scene we get an enigmatic "conclusion". Why are the surviving characters living as bums? How have they escaped public attention? Why don't we get more insight into their own interpretation of events? It may be the writers were going for an "art house" European ending, designed to make us think about the nature of fascism. However that could have easily been accomplished without derailing the whole birth of Satan narrative. Personally I suspect the editors accidentally destroyed 90% of the ending footage and patched what remained together as best as they could.Here's some more problems with it (basically everything feels wrong!!!): The heroes see the homeless couple trying to sleep with their baby under some cardboard. Suddenly the thugs attack - one thug, apparently holding a revolver, shoots a dozen shots without reloading. He misses the heroes at point blank range. You would imagine the couple would panic and desperately protect their baby but inexplicably they remain trying to sleep under the cardboard and are killed by the thug.Next the priest and the metalhead jump in an elevator which immediately takes them to the top of the building site. Why is this apparently important building site completely unguarded? Why is the elevator switched on and fully functional? The elevator seems a little bit too fast for a typical work site in my opinion. And why are the heroes completely relaxed at this point? Shouldn't they be panicking or planning their next move? Wtf? The next scene or two play out passably. The metalhead plunges to his death, the priest grabs a gun and heads downstairs. He surprises the two thugs and shoots them dead. He sees that the couple have died with their baby (they have died face down with the baby on top of them? Surely not). Next up Satan tries to sneak up on the priest with a baseball bat, knowing full well the priest is armed with a pistol. Is Satan really that stupid? Terrible anti-climax. There is zero suspense, the scene is over before we can even understand what's happening. You would imagine that Satan would at least have the courtesy of exploding away into some hell vortex. But no, nada.

I'd only heard good things about this Spanish film " Instant classic etc " and went in to it knowing that it wasn't a full blown horror film . I'm guessing that most of the poor reviews on this page were by people who expected a full blown horror film and were disappointed by THE DAY OF THE BEAST being something it patently isn't ? However after seeing the movie I too was feeling some what let down too . Not by what the film wasn't but by what it is - a black comedy that ran out of steam The first third is excellent . Catholic priest Father Angel Berriartua decides if he commits enough sinful acts then he will meet the anti-Christ who will be born on Christmas Day in Madrid . In effect it's an anti redemption plot and there is much amusement to be had as he conducts a one man misanthropic war against passer bys . This sets up the introduction of two more characters Jose Maria a death metal salesman and Professor Cavan a TV host on the occult and at this point you think you'll be enjoying a sort of Spanish Catholic version of MONTY PYTHON as all sorts of anarchic tasteless anti establishment gags come to the fore as a sort of La Vida El Brian The bad news is that the plotting and story telling does indeed become anarchic but is also a bit too screwball . The tasteless biting black humour of the first third of the film disappears and we're subjected to more and more over the top humour . You can believe the situations of Father Angel taking place earlier in the film but when more and more characters take place the credibility disappears . Tight corners such as a shoot out with the police are resolved by very lazy scripting and perhaps the greatest sin the film commits is that it does become a film about redemption at the end

As films like "Perdita Durango" prove, Spanish director Álex De La Iglesia is a specialist for macabre humor. One of his earlier films, "El Dia De La Bestia" aka. "The Day Of The Beast" of 1995 is a perfect example for this director's talent, a macabre and hilarious black horror comedy that entertains highly from the beginning to the end. A catholic priest (Álex Angulo) goes to Madrid in order to prevent the birth of the Antichrist, which he believes to take place there on Christmas Day. In order to find the exact place where the Antichrist is to be born, the kind-hearted priest is forced to commit 'Sins', and furthermore associates with the surprisingly friendly Death-Meal lover and Satanist Jose Maria (Santiago Segura)... Angulo and Segura both fit very well in their roles, especially Angulo is very hilarious as the priest. Armando De Razza is furthermore great, and hilarious as Cavan, a hypocritical TV psychic. Director De La Iglesia did a great job making this film a hilarious Horror-comedy and still maintaining a dark and somehow gloomy atmosphere. If you like satirical Horror, make sure not to miss "El Dia De La Bestia", and enjoy 100 minutes of macabre humor and originality. Highly Recommended!