“For a handful of coins!”L'uomo più velenoso del cobra [The Man More Venomous Than the Cobra / Human Cobras] (Bitto Albertini, 1971)
May
19

Leslie (Erika Blanc) and Tony Garden (George Ardisson). DP: Emilio Foriscot.
“For a handful of coins!”L'uomo più velenoso del cobra [The Man More Venomous Than the Cobra / Human Cobras] (Bitto Albertini, 1971)
May
19

Leslie (Erika Blanc) and Tony Garden (George Ardisson). DP: Emilio Foriscot.
Una libélula para cada muerto [A Dragonfly for Each Corpse] (León Klimovsky, 1975)
May
14
Martedi
.png)
Grimy looking Inspector Paolo Scaporella (Paul Naschy) in intense phone conversation. The wall calendar reads Maggio 29 Martedi. DP: Miguel Fernández Mila.
Goya 3 de mayo [Goya, May 3rd] (Carlos Saura, 2021)
May
3
1808

Saura's reconstruction of Goya's anti-war painting El tres de mayo de 1808 en Madrid (1814). DP: Sergio De Uña.
Fata/Morgana [Left-Handed Fate / Panik 75] (Vicente Aranda, 1966)
Mar
9

Gim (Teresa Gimpera) modelling in a photo studio. The photographer, another woman in silhouette, has an identical hairstyle and outfit. DP: Aurelio G. Larraya.
“You represent everything I detest in a man.”Paranoia [A Quiet Place to Kill] (Umberto Lenzi, 1970)
Feb
13
J&B
.png)
Carroll Baker as Helen pours herself a stiff drink while a guy in lettuce-coloured pants struts in. She's deserves it. Damn it, we ALL deserve it! DP: Guglielmo Mancori.
– Lily Harmer
Amore di ussaro (Luis Marquina, 1940)
Jan
1
1900
.jpg)
Margarita (Conchita Montenegro) and her hussar Leonardo de Vargas (Luis Sagi Vela) hold each other on New Year's Eve when the year changes from 1899 to 1900. DP: Carlo Montuori.
Accidente 703 [Los culpables] (José María Forqué, 1962)
Dec
21

A darkened room. People take care of a man slumped on a coach. A wall calendar tells us it's the 21st. DP: Juan Mariné.
“Fascism is not to be debated, it is to be destroyed.”20 de noviembre de 1936 ¿Te acuerdas de esta fecha, compañero? [20th of November] (1937)
Nov
20
1936

Soldiers in silhouette. Disclaimer: I am not 100% sure this still is from the correct film. DP: anonymous.
A documentary made by the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo in honour of anarchist Buenaventura Durruti, who was murdered on November 20, 1936.
– Buenaventura Durruti
“Well, as I said before, I say again, here's… Here's to a son… to the house of Frankenstein.” Frank Stein (Iván Zulueta, 1972)
Oct
30
Karloff

The Monster (Karloff) in Zulueta's recut (via). DP: Iván Zulueta / Arthur Edeson + Paul Ivano.
A [favourite] Boris Karloff film*
– Baron Frankenstein
Zulueta's mycotoxic fever dream of Whale's Frankenstein.
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.
“Again he shook his head. The world's gone mad, he thought. The dead walk about and I think nothing of it. The return of corpses has become trivial in import. How quickly one accepts the incredible if only one sees it enough!” Soy leyenda (Mario Gómez Martín, 1967)
Oct
3
zombies

Robert Neville (Moisés Menéndez) looking out over an empty rooftop. DP: Jesús Ocaña.
(A favourite) zombie movie*
Now, settima. Of all the zombie movies in the world you had to pick a vampire story? Why yes. Yes I did.
– Richard Matheson, I Am Legend (1954)
Just like my actual favourite zombie film, that one from 1968, Soy leyenda is based on Richard Matheson's post-apocalyptic horror novel I Am Legend (1954). The story describes a world where the living have become undead vampire-like creatures. A lone man tries to rationalise that new world through reason and science, and legend.
In the man's mind, the undead become the familiar, the vampire. In our mind, watching this, we believe to see the foreshadowing of the popculture zombie. The abandoned well-known landscapes, the ceaseless repetition of what the old life had instilled, the normalcy of the grotesque. Oh how familiar they have become.
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.