Superstition Meets Tragedy in Rural Spain 🐺🌲😔

Pretty good mystery/terror movie with terrific acting by the always great José Luis López Vázquez.

Un Canto a Galicia (but not the one Julio Iglesias sung...)

Helga Liné in The Vampires Night Orgy (1973)

Florinda Bolkan in A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971)

Geraldine Chaplin in Remember My Name (1978)

Friedrich Schoenfelder in Mark of the Devil (1970)

José Luis López Vázquez in The Ancines Woods (1970)

Víctor Israel in The Ancines Woods (1970)

José Luis López Vázquez

Amparo Soler Leal

Antonio Casas

Carlos Martínez-Barbeito

Pedro Olea

Juan Antonio Porto

Benito Freire is a peddler who lives miserably in an environment dominated by ignorance and superstition. He is dedicated to peddling by the Galician towns and suffers severe attacks of epilepsy. Through the region begins to sprea...

El bosque del lobo

In my defense, I&apos;m a werewolf.

The Ancines Woods is loosely based on Spain&apos;s first recorded serial killer, Manuel Blanco Romasanta (1809-1863), who admitted to thirteen murders but claimed that he wasn&apos;t responsible for his crimes since he suffered from a curse that turned him into a wolf.

José Luis López Vázquez plays the film&apos;s murderer, Galician pedlar Benito Freire, who has been afflicted with an unspecified ailment since childhood - now, when acting as a guide for travellers, he suddenly becomes gripped by a madness that drives him to kill. Freire is shown not to be a werewolf, but rather suffering from a mental condition - schizophrenia, perhaps - that makes him act in a violent manner against his usual character. The killings are brutal, with the murder of a child being particularly disturbing (he starts to strangle her and then accidentally sets her on fire).

The film is very gradually paced, so much so that it&apos;s easy for one&apos;s attention to wander at times (I soon started to notice all of the flies in the film), but it is well acted, José Luis López Vázquez putting in a convincing central performance as the killer who evokes pity as much as he does fear. The story builds to a satisfying climax, as Freire&apos;s lies eventually start to unravel, evidence mounts against him and he becomes the subject of a manhunt.

7/10. For a more recent version of the same story (but not as good), check out Romasanta (2004), starring the late Julian Sands.

Wandering through various Galician towns, peddler Benito Freire regularly suffers from severe seizures. Rumors about him begin to spread throughout the region, claiming that Benito is a werewolf and possessed by a demonic spirit.

Trailer

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMGRjYjQxOTEtYTFiOC00NmQxLWJlM2ItOTNkZTliYTkzZDYwXkEyXkFqcGdeQXRyYW5zY29kZS13b3JrZmxvdw@@._V1_.jpg

The Ancines Woods is loosely based on Spain's first recorded serial killer, Manuel Blanco Romasanta (1809-1863), who admitted to thirteen murders but claimed that he wasn't responsible for his crimes since he suffered from a curse that turned him into a wolf.

José Luis López Vázquez plays the film's murderer, Galician pedlar Benito Freire, who has been afflicted with an unspecified ailment since childhood - now, when acting as a guide for travellers, he suddenly becomes gripped by a madness that drives him to kill. Freire is shown not to be a werewolf, but rather suffering from a mental condition - schizophrenia, perhaps - that makes him act in a violent manner against his usual character. The killings are brutal, with the murder of a child being particularly disturbing (he starts to strangle her and then accidentally sets her on fire).

The film is very gradually paced, so much so that it's easy for one's attention to wander at times (I soon started to notice all of the flies in the film), but it is well acted, José Luis López Vázquez putting in a convincing central performance as the killer who evokes pity as much as he does fear. The story builds to a satisfying climax, as Freire's lies eventually start to unravel, evidence mounts against him and he becomes the subject of a manhunt.

7/10. For a more recent version of the same story (but not as good), check out Romasanta (2004), starring the late Julian Sands.

Benito Freire is a peddler who lives miserably in an environment dominated by ignorance and superstition. He is dedicated to peddling by the Galician towns and suffers severe attacks of epilepsy. Through the region begins to spread the rumor that he is a werewolf and that he is possessed by a demonic spirit. And it will be precisely the stories that people are telling about him what start to make him go crazy.

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El bosque del lobo

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