Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt
Director: Paco Plaza
Starring: Julian Sands, Elsa Pataky, John Sharian, Gary Piquer, David Gant, Luna McGill and Maru Valdivielso
Running Time: 100 Minutes
Release Date: TBC
Reviewed by: Pam Creais
Brian Yuzna's Factory Films has come up with a number of low budget horrors from its Spanish base, many leaning towards the canon of H.P. Lovecraft. Romasanta marks a step up in budget and direction for the company. Julian Sands stars in a tale based on real events that unfolded in Allariz in Spain during the 18th century.
Manuel Blanco Romasanta (Sands) is a charismatic travelling salesman and writer of letters, who is held in high regard in a period where a large percentage of people are unable to read or write. He is also a serial killer who renders the fat on his victims into soap that he sells to oblivious townsfolk. He becomes involved with Barbara (Elsa Pataky) the sister of one of his victims, unaware it is she who will become his undoing.
The real Romasanta was captured and tried for the murder of thirteen women and children but claimed he had no control over his actions, as he was a werewolf. On this basis he was not executed when found guilty at his trial, but sentenced to life in an asylum. The film takes that central premise but plays with the scenario a little so that what is real and what is invention is not clear. In one forest scene Romasanta turns from a wolf to a man in the pouring rain, witnessed only by his partner in slaughter, Antonio (John Sharian). The impressive and non-CGI (hoorah!) transformation may only be a figment of the lycanthropic Antonio’s mind but who is to say?
The film looks a vivid and well-realised version of France in the 1850s and though the acting, Pataky’s performance apart, is nothing special. Julian Sands is considered an underrated actor on these shores with good reason some might say. There’s not a lot of difference in his performance here when compared to his Phantom in Argento’s version of the classic Gaston Leroux tale, or going back even further, his Alex, the vampiric anti-hero of Shimako Sato’s Tale of a Vampire.
Curiously enough, Romasanta is almost an arthouse picture with its thematic concerns of illusion verses reality, it’s slow pacing and dreamy ambience. I’m not sure this is what Brian Yuzna wanted to achieve but it’s certainly an interesting development. Factory Films seem to be moving away from the formulaic.
