MALDITO BASTARDO!

(A.k.a. DAMNED BASTARD!; EL TONICO DEL DR NATALIO)

Bored one night, Fonsino (Tamar Novas) asks his grandfather to tell him a story round the fireplace. Despite the face that Fonsino's clearly too old to be requesting bedside yarns (he's a bearded young man), the grandfather obliges.

His story opens by setting the scene: the mist-enshrouded house on the hill that belonged to crazed Dr Natalio (Juanillo Esteban), some forty years ago. This allows us to cut without delay to footage of the Natalio in his atmospheric mansion, surrounded by caged naked captives in his basement.

Natalio performs crude cranial surgery on a gagged male victim/patient, barking at his inept middle-aged nurse (Carmela Lopez) as she struggles to keep up with his manic demands. When the patient dies, Natalio blames the nurse.

Somewhere not too far from Natalio's nuthouse lives poor Alvarito (Alvaro Novo), in a wooden shack rooted in the heart of the Spanish woods. Alvarito is a simple man-child, governed by his fearsome mother Florentina (Pilar Miguelez). Florentina teaches Alvarito to be wary of foreigners and time (it's deceptive, you know), proving the latter point by ramming a fork into his hand and leaving it there for one minute - demonstrating how, in times of pain, a minute can seem like much longer.

Alvarito's life changes forever when, back at the forbidding mansion, Natalio's nurse mistakenly injects her diabetic boss not with insulin but with the deadly disease he's been cultivating. This gives Natalio just forty-eight hours to discover an antidote and save himself. A review of his patient notes reveals that Alvarito - who he treated a year earlier in a bid to cure him of his stupidity - may hold the cure in his genes. All Natalio need do is lure Alvarito up the hill then extract his fluid (that's piss) so that he drink it and be saved.

The nurse duly sends a telegram to Alvarito, urging him to visit the mansion.

Florentina is certain the doctor is offering her son a job, and so bullies Alvarito into travelling up the hill without delay. So off Alvarito sets through the foggy woods, losing his jacket along the way to a foul-mouthed mugger.

When Alvarito's arrival at the mansion is delayed, the nurse sends Straw Man (literally made out of bags of straw) to Florentina's house. There, Straw Man meets his match in Florentina, who puts up one heck of a fight against him.

Meanwhile Alvarito does actually make it to Natalio's mansion. Unfortunately for him. He's soon duped into being strapped down and force-fed what looks like Ready Brek. A tube is attached to his penis so Natalio can siphon out the urine to drink. But an overdose turns Alvarito crazy and …

The story is interrupted as Fonsino's grandfather breaks to take a pee. Frustrated when his grandfather doesn't return, Fonsino urges his frail grandma to continue the tale. Realising he's reached a particularly juicy part, she agrees to do so and carries on with relish.

The film then returns to Natalio's mansion and we're treated to arguably the highpoint of the tale (escape; murder; anal rape) before the mutated Alvarito goes on a kill-crazy rampage while making his way back home through the woods.

This leaves Natalio seething for revenge. He has two aces up his sleeve - a tree monster that he's created, and his trusty (if primitive) robot sidekick …

From hereon in, MALDITO BASTARDO! gets progressively wilder, tossing in chain saw violence, dead people coming back to life and lashings of mordant humour.

MALDITO BASTARDO! is a pretty deranged spectacle, a comic book-style race through what apparently is an old Spanish legend (I'm only going off the back cover, I'm new to this one). From what I can gather though, this is a sequel-of-sorts to 2004's LA CONSULTA DEL DR NATALIO, which itself was based upon the painting 'The Extraction of the Stone of Folly' …

The film never lets up in terms of pacing, making for a frantic 84 minutes that ultimately become a tad wearing.

Having said that, it's nigh-on impossible not to be bowled over by the sheer panache of this low-budget production from director and co-writer Javi Camino. Shot on what looks to be 16mm, the film is a veritable trove of visual ideas - set design, colour schemes, imaginative camera angles and sharp editing techniques: the film is extremely accomplished on a technical level.

For all it's visual flair, BASTARDO! doesn't suffer from stodgy professionalism: the energy running throughout it is palpable. Each performance is intense, with screaming and shouting so rife that they may induce headaches in some viewers. There are lots of sight gags to be enjoyed too, as well as some deliciously silly dialogue (think MONTY PYTHON).

Most of the gags work, some are more vile than others, and if anything it's a positive criticism in saying perhaps less is sometimes more: there's almost TOO MUCH going on at times. The film could've done with a few more sedate moments to allow breathing space and punctuate the more explosive scenes better.

Still, barring some overly broad moments of farce (I didn't appreciate Natalio's comical asides to the screen) and an air of occasional smugness, this is madcap filmmaking that will appeal to all low budget enthusiasts. The violence is ample, the language is positively obscene and the pace is unrelenting. Imagine a low-rent ACCION MUTANTE on crack.

Overlong perhaps, but enjoyably insane nevertheless.

The film was presented in this screener disc uncut, in a reasonable anamorphic 1.78:1 transfer that boasted strong colours and decent detail despite natural grain.

The Spanish 2.0 audio was clear, and the optional English subtitles - although not without a lot of errors - were sufficient. Optional French subtitles were also provided, but I can't vouch for how accurate they were …

Although there were no menus on the promo disc provided, the film was graced with 21 chapters.

An interesting if flawed addition to the crazy, politically incorrect world of Spanish comedy horror, MALDITO BASTASRDO has left me intrigued by it's predecessor. I'll hunt it down.

For more info, visit www.malditobastardo.net.

Review by Stuart Willis