All language subtitles for severin111

- "When you smashed an axe into a head,

you were actually breaking a system

that had provoked a great deal of
unconscious frustration." Paul Naschy

- Cinema has always found a way

in which to subvert the demands
of the institutions.

- Because of
the dark history of Spain,

because of the terrible
history of violence,

of abuse that happened
under the Franco era,

it still reverberates.

- Spain was controlled for many years

and that forges a mindset.

- After Franco died,

there was no censorship at all.

All of a sudden, the floodgates were open

so filmmakers could
make whatever they want.

- What cinema gains is that
one could say absolutely everything.

There is no more fear.

It was like a boiling pot,
and you suddenly take the lid off.

Everything inside wants to come out.

- "I want to be the first to show you

what has never been seen
on a film screen before."

"Let's see who can stop me
from saying what I want to say."

- In 1931, after eight years

of military dictatorship,

Spain finally had a
democratically-elected government,

whose progressive policies
sought to modernize the nation.

New measures were passed
that restricted the power

of big land owners and
the Catholic church,

while simultaneously
restructuring the military,

encouraging secular, mixed
education, allowing divorce,

and granting women the right to vote.

But while much of Spain
celebrated this progress,

the landowners, the Church, and
the military could only see

a loss of privilege and a weakening

of their traditional values
of family, country and God.

On July 18th, 1936, under
orders from pro-fascist generals

that included Francisco Franco,

a portion of the Spanish
army launched a coup d'etat

against the government.

The result was a violent civil
war that lasted three years.

- The fratricidal
fight of the Civil War

is very difficult to forget

because it belongs
to our grandparents' past.

I mean, my father was in the Civil War.

This is a climate that they've experienced
at home and shaped their minds.

And we all have a kind of nightmare,

as in a Lovecraft tale.

It's like a nightmare
that whispers in the night.

- Spain's Civil War is bitter.

Barbaric.

Countryman against countryman.

- Franco obtained
the support of Hitler

and Mussolini, who sent ground
and air support to Spain

for what would become a dress
rehearsal for World War ll.

April 1st, 1939, Franco and
his rebel forces captured

the capital city of Madrid.

The war was over, but
new forms of brutality

and oppression had begun.

- He is declared
El Caudillo, the leader,

the dictator of all Spain.

- We can define Francoism

as a dictatorial regime
of a fascist nature

sustained by the Church,
the army, and big money.

- The State joins hands
with the Church.

Catholicism once again
becomes the official religion

of Spain, with large
government subsidy

and control over
education and censorship.

There is no freedom of religion in Spain.

- Any form of
dissent to Francoist values

was severely punished.

- The 40 years that
Spain was under the rule

of General Franco
was terrible.

- These men would unclench their fists.

And the brotherhood of the open hand
and the outstretched arm

welcomed them with the generosity
that the Spanish Empire of a bygone time

always had with the vanquished.

- There was no political
dissent whatsoever,

the Catholic church ruled over
everything with an iron fist.

Women were basically considered
little more than chattel

and had virtually no rights.

- Society made sure that women
were always put

in a secondary position.

- I have a job, do you hear me?

- I'll believe it when I see it.
- I have a man's job.

And you'll wear this apron.

Get into the kitchen,
that's your place.

- Not even her body was her own,

but her body was to serve men.

- José, do you take Maria Victoria

as your lawfully wedded wife,

as ordered by the Holy Catholic
and Apostolic Roman Church?

- Yes, I do.

- Religious fanaticism

and a culture of fear were established.

- In the name of the Father, the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

- A new ideology
was quickly codified:

the Spanish race as a
paragon of Catholic values

and heir to an imperial past
of great military heroes

and exploits.

- Those who feel in the depths
of their spirits

the superior seed of the race,

have been chosen for the great task
of returning Spain to its rightful place.

They, not you, deaf materialists,

will carry their banners
to the altar of triumph.

For them, inevitably,
the joyful clay of victory must come.

- Cinema became a valuable tool

in furthering Franco's
dictatorial doctrine.

Franco himself, under the
pseudonym Jaime DE Andrade,

wrote the feature film RAZA in 1941.

- Isn't it lovely? What's this called, Mom?

- It's called "race," my son.

- Given the film's
alignment with Nazi ideology,

Franco ordered the negative destroyed

when Germany lost World War ll,
but a single surviving print

was discovered in Berlin
in the early '90s,

which allows its preservation to this clay.

All cultural endeavors,
especially cinema, were subjected

to strict censorship that
would ensure the content

was in line with the
values of the dictatorship.

In addition to political oppression,

sexual repression became the
main goal of the censors.

- Oh, they censored the kiss.

- Sex could never be
used for pleasure,

but only for procreation in the context

of a traditional Catholic family.

- Good morning, family.
- Good day, Dad!

- Orgasm was a sin
requiring confession.

- Francoism lasted from '39 to '75,
but the dictatorship is not homogeneous.

The dictatorship of the 1940s is not
the same as in the 1960s or the 1970s.

- There are erotic,
political, or violent films.

- Franco banned all these kinds of genres.

- Censorship works very
differently as it progresses.

But some constants remained.

- The censorship included 37 very detailed
and complex rules:

Illicit sexual relations,
abortion, prostitution, divorce...

- Spanish cinema ends up going,
on the one hand,

towards some sort of white comedy,
in search of that purity,

that shaping of the family as a nucleus.

- Have you seen Mother?

- Yes, I couldn't resist the urge.

I stayed in a corner,
no one saw me.

I saw everyone.

I prayed with devotion...

And I'd say,

"|t's because of you.

It's because of you...

Mother!"

- On the other hand, a kind
of symbolic justification

of the reasons for the military uprising.

- This is Lopez,

one of those men of 1936.
Nobody could keep off his mind

that part of the hatred he
encountered in his youth

was so because some of us could live
and others could not.

This is a heartfelt and moving account

of a generation of young Spanish men

who once risked their lives

for the joy of putting the people,
threatened by poverty,

back on their feet.

- First, the script was presented.

- The first level of censorship to obtain
what was known as the filming card.

It said the things to be changed.

There were always dialogue
and image corrections, and so on.

- Then the filming began

and the censors could visit the set,
and they made sure

that what they had changed
in the script was done.

- The American shot, the three-quarter;
the Spanish shot reached the nipples.

They weren't shown.

- Imagination, at that time,

went further than what you actually saw.

- Leave it!
You need delicate hands for that.

- Then there was the final stage,

which was when the edited copy
was presented.

They intervened again
on this first version.

- You'd modify the film again.

You'd change scenes, the editing,
and so on.

And you'd present it again

to attempt to get permission
for the film to be released.

All films shown in Spain
were very authorized

and super-censored.

A pre-screening was held for a priest.

They made you cut certain scenes.

- During the censorship,
the classification board

became modernized

and more "professional"
filmmakers joined,

and less military and priests,

who were the majority
of the original censors,

who had no knowledge of cinema.

[speaks in Latin]

- But censorship, interestingly,
also included

the prohibition of cruel
and violent scenes

against people or animals,
and scenes of horror and morbidity.

Why this concreteness
regarding horror images?

I think it could be interpreted as fear

to reveal the horrors of the Civil War.

- Every Spaniard had in his vicinity

a war casualty.

And every Spaniard had seen a corpse.

- By eliminating these images,

in a way, they were erasing history,

preventing wounds from being reopened,

avoiding the exhumation of the graves,

which are classic horror film images.

- And generally the
Catholic church does not...

They don't want anything of the fantastic

unless it's to do with God and Jesus.

Yes, Jesus, you know, his body
is bread, his blood is wine.

But that's the only sort of
fantastical mysticism you'll get

officially in Spanish culture.

But the reality is somewhat different.

- Marcelino, are you afraid?

- I am.
- Come closer.

Now the thunder will come.
- It doesn't matter anymore.

- In the early 1960s, the
government wasn't doing so well.

There wasn't a lot of money coming in.

So they put money into film production,

mostly co-productions.

- Suddenly, they realized that
there is a very popular audience

who conceives cinema as a form of leisure,
rather than a cultural element,

for those who love genre films.

- They encouraged other
European countries to come,

other countries in general to come,

and make a lot of films in Spain.

- Why not get together and cut costs?

They were looking for a new phenomenon
that would maintain that system

of foreign co-production,
of foreign sales.

They work wherever they are seen.

A Spanish film can work in Italy,

an Italian in Germany...

- Above all because of Paul Naschy,
but also thanks to others,

Spanish audiences started to enjoy a type
of horror that's very much our own.

Thematic and representational lines
are quickly overflowing

because the genre demands violence;

it demands blood, sex,
and supernatural stories.

From the moment
the State itself sees

that Spaniards want to see horror
and that it's an international success,

the State and the producers
embrace horror.

- Serrador's film
THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED

or LA RESIDENCIA,

these films just started to boom.

They were popular with audiences
both in Spain and abroad,

and they started to get
a little more dangerous.

They started to get a little more violent.

If you look at the werewolf
films of Paul Naschy,

they were getting a bit more violent.

Most importantly
with these films,

because there still was
censorship at the time,

you couldn't just have
a horror film

that the government
would approve of.

So they had to be coded as foreign.

- Seances, walking dead,

wax dolls...

Laurence, this is Scotland Yard,
in London,

in 1972.

- They couldn't be set in Spain
because they were trying

to maintain the image that Spain
was a safe country,

that it was a non-violent country;
the Civil War had ended

and all the trauma of violence and blood

had to be forgotten,
it had to be erased.

- If it were not excessive,

I'd speak of a ritualistic murder.

- It's not possible, doctor.

In our country, there are
no diabolical cults or covens.

Forget it, it's the 20th century.

- In Spain, having films where
these wounds are reopened

or the graves were exhumed,
with the living dead, or whatever,

would clearly tap into the horrors
of the Civil War.

But they wanted to erase it

as part of what is called
"collective forgetting."

- Often these films were clubbed in English,

even though they were filmed
in Spanish or another language.

Sometimes you had actors speaking

two completely different languages on set,

but they would be dubbed in English.

They were often not set in Spain,

they would explicitly say
that they were not in Spain;

they would be in France, or
Germany, the United Kingdom,

or they just would never
mention they were from,

even if you had a car
going down the street

and it was clearly Madrid or Barcelona.

- What would you like?
- A cheese sandwich.

- And to drink?
- A glass of wine.

- I can shoot in Vigo,
but I'll say it's Hamburg harbor.

I can shoot in Toledo,
but I can say that it's a Swiss city.

Whereupon censorship says:

"Well, if this is Switzerland,
women can show their thighs.

If you say it's Toledo,
I have to censor you."

- Beth!

- Hello!

- Almost from the beginning,
there are many filmmakers

who see in the fantastic
horror genre a vehicle

to tell the stories that censorship
wouldn't allow them to tell any other way.

- LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE

and TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

are films that talk about
something that happened to them.

These zombies are
not just for the sake of it.

- There are some very clever filmmakers

who see this as a way to infiltrate
and insert their subversive messages.

- I think it was a way
of circumventing censorship

because films couldn't
just be nuns and rosaries,

masses and weddings,

happy families...

They were a way
of rebelling against censorship.

- Not all directors were subversive.

Fantastic horror was also a way
of making films and attracting audiences

and keep working in their trade.

Some directors are not
so politically positioned

but they made groundbreaking films.

Why? Because they did not know
the material they were dealing with.

Showing half-naked women
was also something political.

- The first thing we see in
THE WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN

is that the lesbians started appearing.

Or vampires, or women who
touch themselves too much.

At first, they're dark or in
the backdrop, but in the next film

they have a main plot.

Until they finally become protagonists.

It's a fantasy of a heterosexual male who
likes to watch women touching themselves.

But we're now seeing lesbians,
women who enjoy sex with other women,

in popular cinema
during the Francoist era.

- I've never managed to forget you.

And you haven't either.

You have to remember what I taught you.

- It was very often the
case in the earlier part

of the decade, like early
'70, mid '70s,

that a Spanish film that was
going to have nude scenes

would have clothed
version shots.

So the same scene with the
same action, the same dialogue,

the same actors,
would be shot twice,

once where there
would be nudity,

and that was for
the export version,

which was the version that
was played everywhere

except for Spain, and once
where there would be no nudity.

So, you know, a sex
scene may have someone,

you know, on the nude version
they would be fully nude

and there would be sex.

In the clothed version, they
would be fully clothed

or wearing a nightgown
or underwear or something,

and it would cut off

before anything explicit were happening.

- Officially, there were not supposed
to be double versions,

but a lot of people did them.

- The issue is that
they had to compete

with other films that didn't have that.

Since we have no money,
since our budget is scarce,

since we don't
have the capacity

to get closer to an
American production,

let's offer something else.

So they offered affordable
and cheaper things,

like sex or pouring syrup on people.

- Fantastic horror films
cannot be described

as particularly transgressive
or subversive films, quite the contrary.

In these films, any rebellion,
like the hippie generation,

drugs, homosexuality,

or any such deviant moral conduct
according to the Regime,

were always associated with negative,
diabolical characters

or evil, and end up punished.

- It was providence.

A punishment of providence.

As for Narciso lbéfiez Serrador,
although he works in Televisién Espafiola,

and works within mainstream
and commercial cinema,

there is political and quite
subversive content in his films.

THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED
is a film about repression and censorship,

which says some very strong things

against this repressive
and censorious apparatus.

Although it is framed within a residence,
it's clearly translatable

to what was happening in Spain.

- Ladies.

- Or a film like EL TELEVISOR,
which was made by Televisién Espafiola,

and is a very cruel and radical film

against a society, lulled by television,

and against the Francoist
apparatus in some way.

- Be careful with this device

because dangerous people
can come in through there,

things that don't...

- What sort of things?

- Things kids shouldn't see.

Nor you.

- I think the thing that
really distinguishes

Spanish horror, at least in
the early to mid '70s,

from the types of horror films being made

in other countries,
including the United States,

is just how extremely
gory a lot of them were.

You know, everyone thinks
about the extreme gore

of Italian horror films
of the late '70s

into the early '80s, but the
Spanish stuff being made

at the time, like in the
early to mid '70s,

was every bit as violent.

I mean, it's kind of amazing how graphic

some of the death scenes were.

Like, lots of dismemberment, decapitation.

- The trauma of the Spanish Civil War,
perhaps, allows Spain

to have greater tolerance
to graphic violence,

absurd violence,

a certain surrealism, too.

One of the things they say
about the trauma of World War ||

is how it influenced the Surrealists.

We could argue that the Civil War

influenced all these films,
such as the fantastic horror genre,

in which there is
a lot of unintentional Surrealism,

and how that connected
to the trauma of war.

- Spain has always been a
country where the culture thrives

on the grotesque.

Obviously, there's a lot
of cultures that do,

but if you look at the, for example,

you know, the black
paintings of Francisco Goya,

they're very much of the grotesque

that has sort of been steadily there

always through Spanish culture.

- In Spain, violence,

pain, suffering, and death
have always been present.

It's not uncommon for this presence
to have seeped into artistic practices.

Spanish culture and society

have always had significant
contact with pain and violence,

largely because it has
been a fully rural society.

What happens in rural areas?

You have cattle,
livestock, hens, chickens...

You kill them to feed yourself
and to sell them.

Spanish culture strives
to sublimate this rite,

which is a rite of murder, and turn it
into an aesthetic ritualistic tradition.

Take bullfighting.

FAR FROM THE TREES
is a very special film

that defines Spanish
culture extraordinarily.

It's a perverse but fascinating culture.

It's a Spanish Mondo

featuring the brutality
of Spanish folkloric festivals

and the rites performed in the villages
during their festivals.

Jacinto Esteva proves
that we cannot stop looking.

- Censorship, of course, cut it savagely

and even banned the original
title of the film, which was

"The Land of All Demons."

- From the best times of the Middle Ages,

some peasants in these lands were
considered to be possessed by the devil.

The demon-possessed went on pilgrimage
to Our Lady of Corpifio in Lalin,

hoping to be free from the Evil One,

which, they believed,
tormented them mercilessly.

- The male gaze is clearly dominating.

There's a very determined
attitude towards women,

which is the cutting up
and stripping of the body.

Making a woman's body just an ass or tits

is also part of, perhaps,

a certain fear of men towards women,

precisely in the historical
period we are talking about,

a historical context in which women
were beginning to gain freedom,

more relevance, and were
becoming more self-reliant.

- Every time I hug a woman
I feel like killing her.

- Of the representations of women
in the cinema of the '70s,

one that seems to me more interesting
and redeemable

is Vicente Aranda's
THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE.

Because here we see a type of woman

which was not so common in fantasy cinema,

or cinema in general.

- Say it.

- I hate him.

- Say it again.

- I hate him.

- Say it from the heart.

- I hate him.

- He has defiled your body
to humiliate you.

- He has defiled my body
to humiliate me.

- He has used his strength to subdue you.

- He has used his strength to subdue me.

- THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE
clearly strives

to blow up the institutions of
the Regime, such as marriage,

and to claim

women's role.

- Open up, Susan.

- During Franco's regime, women were seen
entirely as accessories to men.

Your own body and decisions
were subordinated to men,

both the father and the brother,
as well as the sons.

It is a very interesting film
to understand feminism,

and it's also full of symbolism.

Simén Andreu's own character
is called "Him."

He doesn't even have a name.
He is "the patriarchy."

The symbolism of blood, of the dagger,

of a rifle, which is, clearly,
a phallic symbol of power.

Perhaps this fear of the new,
more liberated woman

results in the stripping
and violation of women's bodies

in cinema.

- It also happens

that young filmmakers who are
starting to develop their careers

see in horror films

the door by which to enter the industry.

The most interesting case
is probably Eloy DE la lglesia.

He's one of the great filmmakers
of the '70s and '80s.

- Probably after Bufiuel, he's
been the most radical director

that Spain ever had.

- Perhaps the most groundbreaking filmmaker
in the history of Spanish cinema.

CANNIBAL MAN

- I have a friend with a big beard
and very thick glasses

who would say that you
and I are two declassed men.

- What? Two what?

- Nothing.

Intellectual things.

- Eloy DE la lglesia realizes
that in the late '60s and early '70s

the most important thing
is emotional repression

and not political repression.

Why can't I experience sex as openly

as my neighboring countries?

Eloy DE la lglesia starts making stories

that always feature
sexual repression.

- A highly-censored film

that was completely ahead of its time

featuring extreme filmmaking images

which were not even done outside Spain.

And, above all, it had a gay story

that was unthinkable.

In fact, it was heavily censored.

Then we found the images
of the whole story,

but even as it is,

as it was released in its day,
it was understood as

a very subversive story.

- Eloy DE la lglesia, he
was an out, gay filmmaker,

which was really hard to do,

certainly before General Franco died.

You really couldn't even
mention the word "homosexuality"

in any way, shape or form.

Everything had to be coded,
or maybe not so much coded

in his film like CANNIBAL MAN.

- So, essentially THE CANNIBAL MAN
is being marketed

essentially as a guy who's going around

with a bloody hatchet, but it's
not quite as simple as that.

- A very clear example of how,

despite the fact that the censors
kept asking for cuts,

they took umbrage with the film.

In the end, it was released,
it was seen, and this film

is one of the first cases

of what "S" cinema would become.

Saying: "There are no limits here.
I'll tell you what I want.

So if I need gore, I'll give you gore.
If I need unseen sex, I'll include it.

And I will see how far I get."

I think that explains

a large part of the narrative
of Spanish cinema in the 1970s.

"Let's see who can stop me
from saying what I want to say."

- In the summer of 1974,
Franco fell ill.

International pressure
against the regime increased,

along with clandestine
political opposition

within the country.

This led to strikes

and protests, which were
brutally suppressed.

Franco's body was dying while
his regime disintegrated.

When his health deteriorated
even further in 1975,

his inner circle chose to
keep Franco on life support...

Almost as the living dead,
to delay the inevitable

as long as possible.

-|t's interesting to see
that the year Franco dies,

the cinema that was made
in the months leading to his death

had clearly become uncontrollable.

- Whose dolls are these?

Do you have a sister?

- THE KILLER OF DOLLS is a completely
extreme and unthinkable film

out of that moment.

- Save your help and
compassion for your sick.

| am young.

I have a living body, while you...

- Please, Sheila. You must listen
to me, for your own good.

- Shut up!

- Now, finally in 1975,
General Franco dies.

- I always said that I didn't
want right-wingers.

They were nothing but criminals.

When he got ill, I said...

When he was so ill, I said,
"Why won't he die?"

- Spain will be Republican tomorrow!

- But I'm so glad he's dead.

He should have died much earlier.
- We have taken a step forward.

- Spain will be Republican tomorrow!

- So, censorship was
still around officially

for another two years,
but unofficially a lot

of filmmakers could
perhaps push against this,

and they decidedly did.

- In those years, films such as

WHO CAN KILLA CHILD?
were released.

- The last censored films.

1976 is a total boom,
an explosion of

"let's see what we do
with what's going on."

- This is very clearly
a film that is critical

of the government.

This couple may be British,

so therefore it's coded as foreign,

but this is about the
children fighting back

against the violence
imposed on them by years

and years of fascist Francoist rule.

- What is the great theme of films
during the Transition?

Criticism of the family.

The family had been a pillar of Francoism.

How many films criticize the family
during the transition? All of them.

- It's killing me.

- What did you say?

- I feel it inside me.

It's killing me!

It's one of them.

One of them.

It's one of them!

- Franco's system was made to last.

With Franco's death,
the containment wall disappeared,

which was the figure of the dictator.

- Tom! What is she doing?

- What does this mean for cinema,
for society in general?

The desire to regain what had been lost.

- Why?

- What was lost most of all was
the possibility to say everything.

- Why have you done this?

Why have you done this?

Why?

- During the second half of the 1970s,
cinema gains

that everything can be said now;
there is no more fear.

- Once here, prejudices and convictions,

compassion, and even your doubts,

are to be set aside.

I expect you to be ruthless,

in the fulfillment of your desires.

- THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK is full
of subversive and transgressive ideas.

- The film featured
eight or ten characters

who were ambassadors
from different countries

that came together to have
a high-level meeting,

but the basement was actually
a nymphomaniac orgy room.

I don't know, one of these strange things.

- There were already drugs,
people were getting laid,

couples were living together
out of wedlock.

In other words, there was already...
Francoism was beginning to crack.

- Repression is spoken of
in a way that's also very wild.

There is a reflection
on concentration camps...

In other words, there are very powerful
and very subversive ideas

against the Francoist regime.

- It was like a boiling pot,
and you suddenly take the lid off.

Everything inside wants to come out.

- Like THE SKY IS FALLING.

- This is a film that
certainly foreshadows

the type of really rebellious,
transgressive original movies

that would come out of Spain
starting in the late '70s,

and certainly continuing
on to the present.

LAS FLORES DEL VICIO,
it's an interesting

example of a movie that was made in Spain

before the removal of the
more sexual censorship

that is quite sexual in nature,

like the narrative is sexually motivated.

And also graphic violence, of course.

Worth noting, I suppose, is the presence

of two interesting American actors:

Carroll Baker, who was at the
end of her European phase,

and Dennis Hopper.

- You understand?! You understand?!

- In one of the definitely
stranger roles that he plays.

- It's as if Spanish society
had been getting ready

for the 40 years of Francoism
for what was to come.

P Are your garments spotless? P

P Are they white as snow? P

I' Are you washed in
the blood of the lamb? P

- The idea was "You will see
whatever you can take.

I want to be the first to show you
what has never been seen before

on a cinema screen."

- During the Transition,
everything changed a lot.

In Transition films, there is something
very interesting, which is the denunciation

of the extreme right.

They're saying, "Watch out.

There is a danger.

We are conquering freedoms
step by step, clay by day."

There is a very violent
reaction like in '36.

So, the cinema of the Transition
reflects all that.

- The whole family is here.

And even if my parents hadn't come,

I would've walked here alone
no matter what.

- I'm a 100% Francoist.

What we need in Spain is another Franco.

- People want peace, tranquility, and work.

- Long live Spain!
- Long live Spain!

- Long live Christ the King!
Long live Spain!

Long live Spain!

- I learned one thing,
and I learned this in DESPUES DE...,

and the fact is that at demonstrations,
people are eager

to communicate that they are
against something.

It's the richest film there is
from that period, almost, isn't it?

One thing is the official story,

and another thing is what was happening
with the people on the street.

Official TV didn't send anyone,
and then, well,

as it turned out, we were the
only ones who were there.

MURDERED BY FASCIST GROUPS

YOUNG COMMUNIST STABBED TO DEATH IN MADRID

- Because of the terrible
history of violence,

of abuse, that happened
under the Franco era,

even though it's so long
ago, it still reverberates.

- On the street, in bookshops...
The Antonio Machado bookshop

was stained red several times and so on.

In cafés, they'd come in and order you

to sing "Cara al sol"
or they would beat you up.

- That's where so much of
that Spanish horror influence

comes from, always having
one foot in the extreme,

but one foot in reality as well.

- Franco found Spain in ruins;

unmade, full of lice, full of corpses,

miserably plundered by
Communism and freemasonry.

And he left us a wonderful Spain.
Spain was at its highest level.

And they have destroyed it.
They've left it full of terrorism,

misery, and lawlessness.

We shall overcome and we shall win!
We have faith in God.

We're Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman.

We know we have to get through
this bloodbath.

But the Sacred Heart of Jesus
will help us.

- Franco dies, the dictatorship ended.
What shall we do now?

Let's all get together and say,

"Will we form a world

where we can all talk together?

Or will there be a total war to the death
among all Spaniards?"

There was no telling
what might happen then.

- The cinema of the '70s, of the Transition,
has not been made again in Spain.

It's a cinema connected to its time.

- In 1977,
the Spanish people participated

in the country's first
democratic election since 1936.

The UCD, a centrist coalition,
won by an ample majority.

The Socialist party became
the leading opposition.

The period that begins
with the death of Franco

and culminates with the consolidation

of democracy in the 1982 elections

is called "The Transition."

Power has been given back
to the Spanish people,

and the transition sees
the return of political

and civil rights that
had long been denied.

One of the concerns of the
far right was excessive sex,

drugs, and violence in
films, music and books,

which threatened to erode
Catholic morals and decency.

To ease tensions with these
hard-lying conservatives,

the newly-appointed Prime
Minister banned censorship

in 1977 and instead
approved a new rating system

that would protect audiences
from films with extreme sexual,

violent, and political content.

"S" classified films were restricted

to those over 18 years old,

with the warning that their subject matter

or content may offend the
sensibilities of the viewer.

- "S" is a classification

that began to be applied
to films from 1977 to 1983,

and this category is exclusive
to Spanish cinema,

which was eventually applied to 400 films.

- The classification board,
finding films eminently erotic,

didn't know where to put it,
how to classify it.

So, a member of that board,
nobody knows who,

had the happy idea that,
from that moment onwards,

those unclassifiable films

that couldn't be banned because
they weren't pornographic,

were to be called "S" films.

- I'm all that is forbidden,
all that is shameful.

A black woman of undefined sexuality;
shameless, irresistible.

- Anything that couldn't be classified
as "X," which will arrive in the '80s,

they make up this letter

that became a catch-all in which to put
what we didn't know how to classify.

- Category "S"

always seems to lead us to think

that it's related to sexuality,
that "S" stands for "sex."

- A big slice of the pie, of the market,

is erotic cinema,

or cinema that is not erotic
but has a high sexual content.

It's cinema that not everyone can see;
it's not for children.

- Sexuality begins to manifest itself

since our birth as something natural,

even if when we talk about it
we are branded as immoral with a huge

- But it's actually a category

that refers to the word "sensitive."

So it's used for films that hurt
the viewer's sensibilities.

- You sat down to watch the film
and the first thing that popped up

was a sign announcing that this film

could affect your sensitivity.

SENSITIVE CONTENT

- How do "S" films hurt
the viewer's sensibilities?

Well, through two fundamental elements

which are, well, Eros and Thanatos,
love and death.

Or what we could also call
eroticism and violence.

- Are you crazy?

Hand me the shotgun.

- I'll kill him.
I'll kill him if he comes back.

I swear.

- What bloody character
you have in this country!

- Freedom equals nudity.

Not just being naked,
but having the chance to watch it.

- Freedom!
- Here!

- Freedom!

Freedom in love!

- Most "S" cinema is very wild and playful,

and overthrows what's suggested.

- These films were good because
you were looking for a plot.

And, apart from the plot,
you understand, you'd add some sex.

Sometimes, if you will,
using a shoehorn.

But you added it.

- Who will watch the "S" movies?

They aren't going against the regime,
they're watching nudes.

- How much was a straightforward,
almost intellectual, authorial proposal?

How much was just fooling around?
It is very difficult to know.

- Some of them were definitely
just about making money,

but a lot of them was a reaction

to finally coming out of the fascist era.

- The act of walking into a theater
and having nobody asking.

You can watch whatever film you want.
It's an act of subversion,

or it feels like subversion
because it was,

because you couldn't a few months earlier.

So it is a clear sign that Spain
was no longer a Francoist country.

- And the violence wreaked upon
the people both, you know,

literal violence and
psychological violence

of living under that time,
that came out a lot

in these "S" classified movies.

- "S" films could also be "P" cinema,
for "pulses."

I mean, we need to see these things,
don't we?

- And then there is a period
between '77 and '83,

where the State is funding, so to speak,

a violent, explicit,
and transgressive cinema.

- Humans sometimes need

those fantasies that we may have...

Darker, about sex, violence, and death.

We need to see them,
to exorcise them on screen.

- So it is quite logical
that many plots and many situations

are disrespectful

to the older institution or
the previous generation.

- That's why it's a very detailed cinema;
it's very much based on detail,

in seeing the detail, in seeing stripping,

blood, seeing the knife sinking in,

to see the ins and outs of all kinds,

to recreate that kind of inner pulses
that we have.

- Anything that is too strong
for the average viewer of the time

is classified as Category

- Category "S" started off as a stigma...

Well, a warning against these films.

In the end,
it turned out to be quite the opposite.

It became some sort of attractive label.

- Soon producers realized

that having the "S" label, which was
very distinctive inside a circle,

on the posters attracted the public.

- Sometimes they placed it
without officially having that title

because it became fashionable
and it attracted more viewers.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST SCREW

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS OF A HOT BLONDE

- I think there was a time
when if you talked

with a Spanish viewer about "S" cinema

or you asked what they thought
or knew about "S" films,

what people remembered most
were the titles of the films.

- At that time, in the "S" films,

having a good title accounted
for 50% of the success.

- They even changed the title of the films

to make them sound like "S" Cinema films.

- To find the best title,

to compete on a billboard
full of erotic cinema,

they did very fun pirouettes.

- The titles of the films themselves
are sometimes embarrassing.

THE PIPE CLEANER.
Well, you say...

- Creating puns

that would attract a lot of attention.

- We thought, "Even if it has
nothing to do with the argument,

come up with fun titles."

- For example,
DON'T TOUCH MY DICK, I GET IRRITATED.

- IN SEARCH FOR THE LAST SCREW.

- KLITORIS PECATA MUNDI.

- THE PLUMBER, HIS WIFE,
AND OTHER THINGS TO PUT IN...

A very famous title.

- DANCING BREASTS!

"Yes, this one,
'Dancing Breasts,' it's funny."

And that's how we created titles.

- Jesfls Franco's film

BLOODY MOON, in English,

was called RAPED SCHOOLGIRLS in Spain.

- RAPED SCHOOLGIRLS. Sometimes
films flirted with the idea

of taking it beyond eroticism.

Going beyond eroticism and into violence.

- We hadn't even really seen the film.

We would create titles,

and we would use some of them
and not others.

- Or CANNIBAL SEX.
That is,

films that really said,
"Look what I have here for you,

which is not the same
as what you have in the other room

which is just sex."

- Do you know how many times
I have dreamt of this moment?

- I love you.

- We produced a film that
was called, commercially,

SWEDISH BISEXUAL NEEDS STALLION.

The film had nothing to do
with the film's title, right?

And it was a great success.

It made 80 million at the box office
at the time. So much.

- It grossed more money than
any other Spanish film that year.

It even beat the film that
had just won the Oscar,

BEGIN AGAIN.

So it made more money
than BEGIN AGAIN.

Classifying a film as "S"
would fill the theater. Fill it.

- The viewers, hundreds of thousands
and a few million and all, so...

- If it wasn't classified as "S,"

it was very difficult.

- There are moments in '80, '81,

where you see that most of the films
on the screen are classified as

So it's a matter of statistics.

- We had to write

and practically start pre-production
at the same time.

Because we didn't know when
the good streak would end...

- We worked with little money.

With a lot of imagination
and little money.

- These films paid for
themselves immediately.

And, at that time,
with the distribution advance,

you would normally cover
the cost of production.

- A distributor would say,
"Look, I'd like you

to make a film for me that more or less
goes like this."

- No one read your script.
I mean, no one...

What they wanted was a sheet of paper
where you told a bit of the story.

- And at night you'd get on, write it,
and in two days the script was finished.

- I think we wrote the script,
shot, and edited it in one month.

- At that time we were
shooting films with,

I don't know, a week or
ten days of preparation.

- I was hired by months, not by film.

So, in one month I had to write,
work as an assistant, and dub.

- We'd locate the places,

the technicians and actors,
and start filming.

- Sometimes as an actor,
as a director, the last few times.

I mean, I did everything.

I made up to four films in two weeks.

- And the funniest thing in the world was
that this could possibly be the industry.

- Just switching the same actors a bit.

Now A is with B, B has to be with C.

"What film is this?"

"Well, this one is called
TITS AROUND THE WORLD.

The other, HOLDING TITS."

It was like making churros.

- The sub-industry was the
somewhat intellectual films.

That was a sub-industry.

Because the cinema, for the most part,
were films of that sort.

- I think cinema was
better then than it is now.

Because now you have a lot of means,
and people don't make the most of it.

Cut!

Cut!

- The end of censorship

allowed for the direct depictions

of diverse sexual identities onscreen

for the first time in Spanish history.

Homosexuality had been
a felony until 1978,

so was adultery,

which punished women
more severely than men.

Franco's Spain had repressed any form

of sexuality outside Catholic marriage,

and the end of his
regime saw the emergence

of social movements that
championed women's rights

and queer identities.

The "S" classification was born
at a moment in Spanish history

when sex went from being a sin

to being an expression of freedom.

- "S" films showed a country
of hyper-sexual people, men and women.

- We somehow, even if we didn't want to,

portrayed what was happening in Spain
at the time.

- People who can't wait to have sex

with the plumber, who arrives
with the neighbor, at each chance.

- Sweetheart,
the gas technician is here.

- Madam, please let me go.

- What's the issue then?

- He's very handsome,
I feel like making love to him.

- Women are also beginning to find models
in film and on television.

- Because you finally
were seeing sex on screen.

- They allow a woman to consider
not having children, for instance.

- And sometimes it was sex dramas,

but sometimes it was sex comedies.

- In other words, to give up, so to speak,

to the idea of a home,

family, being a mother, a wife...

- I freed myself from all that long ago.

Long ago.

- In Spain, people didn't
meet the sexual freedom

of the late '60s, or
the leftist counterculture

of the late '60s, like
in France or in the States.

So the liberation had
been delayed eight years,

and when finally, like, Franco died

and like a new Spain was going to start

all this pressure that they
had for one decade exploded.

- There was a very
strong interest in showing

what had never been seen in sex.

- And those were years of real debauchery.

We didn't care about anything!

- Strip them naked for the
bisexual liberation movement!

- Leave me be!

- Some of it was just because
they couldn't show sex before.

- Sex is not necessarily seen
as a negative thing,

but as something very
radical in a person's life.

- And we discovered a sexuality
that existed.

- Now it's like, no, accepting the reality

of people having sex outside of marriage.

- My parents are really cool,
they spent their whole lives

exchanging partners with their friends.

Democracy has been a godsend for them.

- And then, among what had
never been seen, suddenly,

gays and lesbians started to be seen.

BATTERED FLESH

- You like women, Berta?
Would you fall in love with a woman?

- I don't know.

- Don't you see?

You still belong to that society
that is terrified of sex,

that has turned the most
natural thing into a taboo.

- For the pleasure of heterosexual men or
couples who went to the cinema a lot...

- Lesbian films were very successful.

Especially because men
really liked to watch.

They found it sordid to
see two women together.

- And it's true that in the end
they are films made to show

girls making out.

- If you didn't add two or three
lesbian scenes, you totally failed.

- But the reality is that we see
lesbian stories.

- And above all, sexuality, bisexuality.

- We see stories of women who feel love
and desire for another woman.

- But the important thing is
to appear virginal and pure.

And no rebelliousness.

Like good nuns,
they want us to say "amen"

to everything, you know.

- BATTERED FLESH is
another very interesting title.

It is probably one of the few
that are appreciated today.

I understand that it
has a feminist reading,

which is interesting
for the 21st century viewer.

And I think it is a recommendable title

if one wants to watch
the cinema of the time.

It has violence, it has sex,

but it has a very non-conformist
line of thinking.

It's very critical of the system.

THE PRIEST

- People enjoying sex with
partners of the same gender,

this was finally being explored in films

by Eloy DE la lglesia.

He is one filmmaker
in the late 1970s

and early 1980s who had gay
characters in his films.

- When THE PRIEST was released in Spain,

oh, for sure it had an "S" rating,
it's a very weird movie.

In all his movies there are characters

that are very right-winged
or close to the cops

or to the military,
and it mostly shows you

there are two kinds of Spams'.

The leftist Spain and
the Francoist Spain.

But you can see it's
like a castle of cards

that is falling to pieces

and that the old Spain
is meant to disappear.

And all his films are
about that moral collapse

of Spain in the late '70s,
early '80s.

- It is shocking to think
of such sinister excursions

to the French border
to watch immoral films.

Can you imagine that, on your return,
one of these buses had an accident?

How many souls would be damned

for the simple fact of having
witnessed a disgusting show?

- THE PRIEST is a very peculiar film

within the peculiar
trajectory of Eloy DE la lglesia.

- So even a film like THE PRIEST,

which is not a horror film by any stretch,

but it is a film which contains
some of the most disturbing

imagery that I've seen
from a film of that era.

- The film was very successful,
and had an ending

that left no one indifferent

because it is really
a very extreme ending.

- That's the kind of thing
that could not have been made

a few years before in Spain,

and probably a lot of other places.

- Especially the scenes with the children;

they're images that
could not be shown today.

- So this is a perfect example
of that veil being removed

and being able to actually be critical
of the Catholic church

and also create some cinematic imagery

that you will not forget.

- So in these milestones of the
cinema of the Transition,

of what could no longer be clone and
what today's political correctness

wouldn't let us do either, THE PRIEST
occupies a very high place.

- Hello.

- Oh, my goodness,
did the sexologist send you?

- Yes, of course.
- Come in, come in.

I will introduce you to my wife now.
- Hey! Have you seen that ass?

- Crazy. The poor thing, you know,
doesn't like women.

- No?
- No. I'm telling you, look at her.

- But then that third gender came in,

the transvestite.
That's how they called them.

- Trans people.

- Beautiful women
and beautiful men

who had transformed
themselves into beautiful women

with tremendous sexuality.

- Well, I've soaked long enough.

- Officially, you are dead now.

Flee to the mountains.

And if fate puts you in my way again,

make sure it's on my birthday.

- DIMORFO is an anomaly
in Spanish cinema.

It's also a queer anomaly.

- There are real fans of this film.

This film is as cultured as it is dark.

- DIMORFO can be interpreted
as a version of Passolini's THEOREM,

where one character,
played by the director, Rodjara,

comes to the house...

- I'm not sure,
but be careful if you try it.

They say it's an aphrodisiac.

- ...turns family life upside down,

but at the same time he frees them
from all their repressed sexual desires.

Everyone wants to sleep with Solomon.

From the mother, to the son,
and daughter-in-law too.

- Speak up, I am prepared
to hear the worst.

- Do you want to be my husband?

I can see you don't want to.

- I think that in all of Spanish cinema,
no film comes close to DIMORFO.

- What's the matter?

What's so special about
a woman shaving? Huh?

- The FUhrer!

- Heil Hitler.

- BACANAL EN DIRECTO is probably
the clearest example of

"|'ll show you a lot of sex
so you can see how horrible it can be."

- The film has an ultimately
reactionary reading

because it tells the story of this couple

who end up going to an orgy
organized by a film director...

- Facing the sun in my new shirt

that you embroidered in red yesterday.
- Shut up!

Shut up!

If the priests and nuns knew how
many blows we're going to give them

they'd come down from the choir singing,
"Freedom, freedom, freedom."

- It falls into a category of
erotic cinema of the time,

not only "S" but international
cinema, on orgies.

- Many male showers.

- Wild parties.

- There is a parade of Nazi cocks.

- It introduces you to
different characters.

There's the gay sissy,
there's the most promiscuous woman.

- Hymns are sung in pursuit of freedom.

- A gallery of characters,

none of them are good,
none of them have salvation.

- Fuck and fuck.

Fly the soul to Heaven.

Dust returns to dust.

The rich fuck the poor.

The living fuck the dead.

- Amen.

- One way to understand this is the ending.
If it's a happy ending

and people have enjoyed it,
we can say, "Okay, sex is good."

- And that orgy ends really badly
and in a very sinister way.

- The end is destruction.

- Don't hit me, murderers!

- Rather than saying "good or bad,"

"conservative or liberal,"

I think they are films that tell you,

"Enjoy this,
you won't see it anywhere else

and you couldn't see it until just now."

- Most of the "S" classified
film production

was devoted to sex comedies
and softcore dramas.

But horror and genre cinema
gave filmmakers the opportunity

to further subvert the values
of the former dictatorship.

- Satan exists
because Evil exists.

- Unfortunately, the majority
of "S" classified films

do fall into the comedy and drama,

then every so often there's
a little action film

or a thriller.

But there are also some
really interesting, weird,

creative horror films

and those are really
the ones that stand out.

- Carlos Puerto's SATAN'S BLOOD
is the first film

within the "S" category that also
uses elements of horror films.

- After JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH,

he said, "|f you have an idea."

But it was originally
Juan Piquer Simén's idea,

who clearly sees the seam.

It has very few actors, very few sets,

it's a very cheap film in terms of budget.

- Ana.
- What?

- Do you know them?

- Who?
- The people in that car.

- Hello.
Blaqui, shut up!

- I gave him an idea
that he liked at first,

"Oh, yeah, hey. Four adults,
one house, Satanism. Fantastic."

Then there was the second part,
in which that part of that Satanism

came from him, as a producer,
because he wouldn't let you live.

- Do you find that interesting?

- Let's say it piques my curiosity.

I'm going to help Berta.

- Carlos Puerto and Piquer Simén
cast Sandra Alberti,

who had been on the cover
of IDtQFViU magazine.

- Looking for something?

- We started it with great enthusiasm,
but even the actors had a big problem.

"What do we do with these people?
Are they going to strip or not?"

- Father of incest, curse us.

Serpent of Genesis, curse us.

- And I remember that
had a very quick solution.

We went to Piquer's office,
we all got naked except Piquer,

and we had a chat.

- Stay there. Don't move.

- A half Satanic, half paranormal plot.

- We saw that it was fine for the director
and the actors to chat in the nude.

It was a go and they accepted it.

- But at the same time it is
an erotically-charged film.

- Someone inside might say,
"What am I doing in this film?"

- It has some very successful
and terrifying moments.

- But, it was funny,
it was part of his filmic world.

- With a certain message against repression
and against the institution of marriage.

- That image of Christ on fire.

That's a bit profane;
it's a bit blasphemous for some people.

- And you have to let go
and enjoy your bodies.

- On the contrary, I think it's one
of the moments of the film.

- And sex and Satanism
and anything else we felt like.

- It's a warning that there's a lot
of stuff that can burn in there...

- Nico, you've lost your mind.
- I had no other option.

There's no compromising here.
- Help! Help!

I'm burning!

- BEYOND TERROR is, in effect,
an intersection between

the Quinqui and "S" cinema.

- I adore you...

After I have given you my soul
for you to dispose of it.

- Now it's time to praise this film,

which I think has gone very unnoticed
for a long time.

Well, it starts out like a Quinqui film.

That is, with a girl mugging a
gentleman and then immediately

it seems that it'll follow the
codes of Quinqui films:

juvenile delinquency,

violence, some sex,
let's see what happens.

But the amazing thing
about this film is how

it switches gears halfway through the film,

and it ends up being a film about
the occult, Satanism, and zombies.

- Come here, all you
fornicators of the world.

- We will send a powerful jet of semen
to all those who deny sex.

- It's pure and simple transgression.

- Forgive your people, Lord.

- We also see two brothers
almost make out with each other.

In other words, an attempt at incest.

- Watch out for the priests.

And undercover cops.

Remember,

keep your nose and ass clean.

- I don't think we've ever seen
such a mixture, have we?

Then at the end of the film,
like many "S" films,

it ends with the moralizing stick.

- Help! I'm burning!

- In other words, at the end,

all the bad guys" the criminals,
in this case-- die.

So that after so much transgression,

after so much wickedness,
after this spectacle of perversion

this "S" film has, in the end,
the viewer goes home happy.

"|'m going home, and in the end
all evil has its punishment."

- BLOODY SEX by Manuel Esteban.

When I watched it for the
first time, it was like,

"This is fun, this is fine."

And then when it finally
tied... you know, it starts

with, like, I think a radio
announcer saying something like,

"Franco has died."

- The head of the Spanish state,
Francisco Franco Bahamonde,

had just passed away
at the Ciudad Sanitaria La Paz

of the social security system,
at the age of 82.

- And I thought, "Okay,
this is sort of interesting,

but like, what's the point?"

Like, you know, where's this gonna go?

And it pays off in a
really, really clever way.

- It figures in the film that, in a way,
there has already been some freedom,

but there is always
a fear of what might happen.

Because when there is such a
radical change, you say,

"Well, now there's been a change,

but who's to say that we won't
change again and go back?"

And we will end up being marked.

They've already got you: "You're this,
you're right wing, you're left wing."

Do you understand?

- What's interesting about BLOODY SEX

is that it really makes a point

to deal with Spain's
recent political shift.

- There were a lot of
left-wing people in Darenz.

So we would sit down sometimes

in a bar that used to be a hotel.

We used to sit with a group
of older people

and they would share their stories.

That's how we wrote all those scripts.

From one place and another,
we mixed one thing with another,

and what was left you made up.

- Look at me.

- That's definitely a rarity
in Spanish exploitation film.

I mean, not completely unheard
of but the vast majority

of exploitation films, and
certainly "S" classified films

that I've seen, even
when they're political,

they rarely go overtly into
government stuff.

- Who is buried in the
flower-covered grave?

- My father.

- Is that the man in the portrait
in my room?

- A good, intelligent man.

During the Republic,
he was an exemplary mayor.

- What happened to him?

- He had no choice but to cross the border.

Like so many others.

- By the way, how are
your recordings going?

- Manolo's godfather was a leftist
and escaped to France.

In other words, these things
always happened in families.

Some are right wing
and some are left wing.

Unless you're an only child.

- MORBUS is my film.

And not because I'm the main character,
but I love this film.

Above all, I love it because
it has become a cult film.

People see me and say,
"Wow, Carla Dey from MORBUS."

- I was working in the
advertisement industry,

and while the editor was
working in the studio,

he had a 19-year girl

whose name was Isabel Coixet.

- May the spirits illuminate our footsteps

on the road ahead

towards the mansion in the forest.

- And the editor says,
"Hey, this girl writes.

She writes scripts. Maybe..."

Well, I talked to her and she says, "Hey,
what if we bring two genres together?

Let's combine horror and sex

and make a parody of both genres."

And that's when she got me.

For us, it wasn't If anything,
it was a parody of "S" films.

Because, of course, it was labelled
as "S" when they saw

that more than half of the film
they were wandering around naked, so

And the distributor says,

"Thank goodness
they didn't listen to you

because with the "S"
we will sell the film."

- We cannot waste time.
- I have a gun with silver bullets.

- And it turned into a freak show. The fans
began to see the irony of the film.

And that is where we, Isabel and I,
felt rewarded.

- Shit! They don't work.

We have to get out before
they surround us. Move!

- It has more impact now,
after so many years.

I wish it had this boom at its premiere.

But MORBUS' well-deserved
success has come too late.

HUMAN ANIMALS

- In the '80s,

HUMAN ANIMALS by
Eligio Herrero came out,

one of the latest examples

of a particular cycle of apocalyptic cinema
that took place in those years in Spain.

In it, these characters fall from the sky

and end up in a sort of desert.

A man and a woman in party dresses.
We don't know who they are.

And we get to know them.

It's similar to a re-reading of Genesis.

And they kind of start to form
a new society.

And they find a dog and the thing ends

in a very tragic and lurid way.

It addressed the end of a civilization
and the start of another.

They're talking a bit about the Transition,
and they're talking

about this new Spain
that they didn't know.

In which, some more than others,

trusted that this change could
come to fruition.

HUMAN ANIMALS addresses everything
in a very radical

and almost experimental way,

as the film has no dialogue.

At first it is closer to art cinema,

and the second half of the film turns
towards sexual revolution cinema,

dirtier and more decadent.

HUMAN ANIMALS also had...
A sequel to the film was written,

which was called "Why is Every Future
the Antechamber to the Past?"

And we don't know why
it was never produced.

- This is in 1981,
a Paul Grau film, MAD FOXES.

- Hey, you, womanizer!
- Motherfucker!

- A sex film and violent exploitation.

- We're going to sit. Bring
the champagne over there.

- On one hand you have
a playboy, a rich man,

who has at least three girlfriends.

But there's also the violent side.

One of his girlfriends is violently raped

by a gang of Neo-Nazis.

This rich boy and his friends
who were at a karate school

go and attack the Neo-Nazis.

- Cut it off.
- No!

- Some of them get away,
and it's a back and forth

between the Neo-Nazis and this playboy.

But in the meantime, this
playboy also has time

to have sex with several women.

So it's almost two films in one.

So is Paul Grau examining the violence

wreaked upon Spanish people?

Or is it simply, you know,
"I have two ideas for movies,

let's put them together.
It's cheap to make

and will make a lot of money."

It's hard to say.

- Three directors
in particular thrived

within the “'5“ classification:

Jess Franco, Jose Ramon Larraz,
and Ignacio lquino.

Iquino came from the
Francoist film establishment

and saw the financial opportunity

that "S" classified films provided.

Jess Franco and Larraz
both worked outside Spain

during the first part of the
'70s, gaining recognition

within the horror and
erotic thriller genres.

When censorship was abolished,
they saw the opportunity

to return to Spain and tell the stories

they hadn't been allowed to before.

- Do you like that?

- Mm.

- Now we go to watch
the film with the censor...

- Are you English?

- What makes you ask?

- You don't look English.

What are you then?

- If I told you,
you wouldn't believe me.

- Try me.

- Easily one of the
best-known directors,

in at least the English-speaking world

and certainly in the United States,

who was a Spanish filmmaker

and made exploitation films
is Jose Ramon Larraz.

- He was a Catalan director

who lived in England and developed

the first stage of his career there.

And he makes a very European, very elegant
cinema, erotic, psychological...

What he liked best
was psychological horror.

- He is a director who
was, from the beginning,

very interested in making movies
that were sexually explicit

and also narratively
themed around sexuality.

- I swear I won't tell anyone.
I promise, not a word!

- Not a word to anyone?

Ever?

Give me a kiss, a real kiss.

Like you know how to when you want to.

Like you kissed Aunt Sarah.

- His movies do not feel...

Like, nothing about his
films feel very British.

They feel like an outsider
making a movie in England,

not so much someone who's coming

at it from British filmmaking mindset.

- He was a very Mediterranean character.

A bon vivant, he loved the good life,
eating, partying, music...

When the censorship ends,
he returns to Spain

and begins to work mainly
with producer José Frade.

He pitches to Frade
THE COMING OF SIN,

which is a perfect project
in the producer's opinion,

because he says,
"We're going to make an EMMANUELLE."

A very elegant, classy erotic film

which can be seen by men and women,

but in the world of flamenco and with all
the iconography of flamenco,

Andalusian Spain, and so on.

The issue is that the film
doesn't turn out very well.

He said it was because

the only good performance was the horse's.

Because it creates a very dreamlike,
surreal world, with very powerful images,

which are, we could say, somewhere
between Dali and flamenco,

and all that Mediterranean iconography
that he wanted to add in there.

So, I think that the film, in short,

although he did not manage
to make an EMMANUELLE,

he managed to make something
even more interesting for me.

He was not particularly interested

in eroticism and horror films.

He always said that he did it because
he sold his films better that way.

But he said he always had
a thorn in his side

because he wanted
to do something more ambitious,

a little more interesting
than what he ended up doing.

- Babe, what's wrong?

- BLACK CANDLES is kind of
one of his early '80s...

essentially a softcore movie,

but, you know, people like Jose Larraz

are not content with just
doing a softcore movie,

that's too dull,

so it has to involve all
kind of devil worship

and goat-fucking

and stuff that actually
makes it of interest

and keeps it of interest
to this audience today.

- You've heard of the
evil eye, haven't you?

It's bad luck.

No, you don't really
know about those things.

- The film attracted a lot of attention
because of the famous goat scene.

Another animal takes the limelight again,

as in THE COMING OF SIN
and the horse,

which is quite unforgettable
and quite remarkable.

- That's it.

Doesn't it feel good?

- It's a film that mixes
in a very interesting way

sexual freedom and horror films,
two of his specialties.

He said that he had once gone
to a black mass

and that he went under the condition

that they didn't kill anyone,

and they said, "We won't kill anyone."

So, referring to the film BLACK CANDLES,

he always said that he had managed

to reproduce what he saw at the black mass
he had attended.

- Larraz found a workaround,

and as such his filmography is hard

to fully classify as Spanish.

But, on the other hand, it's so evocative

that it's impossible not to look at them

as like a probable point of
inspiration for other filmmakers

who began taking advantage
of the relaxation

of censorship in the late '70s.

- After a moment... Bang, bang,
bang! Gunshots in the distance.

- Ignacio lquino is a very
curious case of the recycling

that democracy brought
into the film world.

- |quino's story is terrible because he came
from an anarcho-syndicalist union.

- When religious cinema
becomes fashionable,

cinema with children, Spaghetti Westerns,
he always did what people wanted.

- Of course, when Franco won,
he became a right-winger.

- Perhaps comparing himself to Carlos Saura
and the greats of the time,

he understands that he also has
to have a say in what is going on.

- He had the good fortune to say,
"|t's time to make films

showing a powerful sexual freedom."

- When the "S" films arrive,
he's among the first to realize

that it will be very popular.

- And he made right-wing films.

Almost always with love affairs and so on.

But with a moralizing ending.

- I am sorry for all the offenses
I did against him.

Deep down, those fits of arrogance

were just to hide my bitterness,

seeing myself so sunk by his side.

Now I would give my whole life
to have been a decent girl.

I regret everything I have done.

Today I cried for the first time.

In prison, I will try to remember
all the prayers I learned as a child.

And I wish my sentence to be very long,

so that when I have served it
I may walk the path of truth.

- Well, the casting was very peculiar,

because I walked in...
He's a very serious man...

- I didn't like working with him because
he had a very bad temper.

- He said, "Open your mouth."

Like a horse, a very odd thing.
"Smile."

Then he said, "What's your name?"
I answered, "Carmen Serret."

"That name isn't going anywhere."
"|t isn't?"

"I have to change your name
if you want to work on one of my films."

Then he was quiet for about five minutes,
and he says, "Carla Dey."

- In the 1970s, when Spain began
to have freedoms,

or certain political freedoms,
he invents "denunciation cinema."

And quickly with his entire production
company, a well-oiled machine

after decades of filmmaking, he starts
producing one title after another.

- For example, the first one he made

was a tremendous success
called CRIMINAL ABORTION.

- Yes. Don't be afraid.

- He brought two French porn actresses

to show more than necessary.

But in the end, after seeing a thousand
naked ladies in a thousand positions,

making love, whatever you want,
he ended up saying

that abortion is very dangerous,
that it should not be done,

and this is immoral.
Of course, immorality was

the transport he made
towards this morality.

But he always believed
there should be that moral part.

- THE DAWN RAPISTS is one of
|quino's most peculiar films

of his "S" period, and I think
of his entire filmography.

- Leave it on my account.
I'll keep him under control.

- How long does this fascism
of yours have to last?

Didn't you see that I'm a man?
- A man?

- Yes, a man.

With the same needs as you.

When did you expect to give me
proper sex education?

- I wrote the script with him.

Of course, at no point did
I see a moral thing there;

I saw something as detrimental.

- This film is difficult to defend
from a 21st century point of view.

- These films were made
under a false umbrella,

under the false umbrella of
"denunciation cinema."

- It speaks of a shared fear

that part of the right wing
of the time was strongly promoting

how democracy and freedom had
brought much violence along with it.

- You can't walk alone in the street at
dawn because you may be attacked.

Girls must be accompanied
by their parents.

- But then come explicit scenes

of rape, violence, sex,
and that's about it.

- It is an unpleasant film.

It is a film to violate the viewer,

not to eroticize them.

- We are not raising any debate.

Don't sell me a debate
because there is none.

This awakens the most basic drives
of the male gaze, full stop.

- SECTA SINIESTRA
is a real favorite of mine.

It's in the Italian tradition.

So you get just completely ridiculous

murderer set pieces, lots of gore...

Ridiculous plot twists...

- Margaret, soon I will be in Hell.

And I will get my revenge!

- Just trying to describe
the plot is kind of pointless

because you don't watch a
movie like this for the plot,

you watch it for the
absurdity of everything.

And it really delivers that.

There isn't a single five minute period

in which someone doesn't get
killed or maimed or menaced,

or gets naked, or a frog gets stabbed

or something like that.

And it's just, it's a lot of fun.

I think the director was about
80 years old when he made it,

and I found that that's
actually kind of a great age

for some directors to make
their exploitation film.

Like the director of ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST,

also known as DR. BUTCHER M.D.,

was about 80 when he made that,

and we see how wonderful that turned out.

(speaking in Latin)

- So, yeah, more
geriatrics, octogenarians,

should try to make an exploitation film.

- The cinema is a show.
It must be a good show.

- Jess Franco told me on,
I think the first time

I ever interviewed him, out
of many, that he left Spain

because he was not able
to make the kinds of films

that he wanted to make.

And I think the Minister,
the Cultural Minister,

basically said something along the lines of

"Well, we have to abide
by a certain censorship code."

And Jess Franco told them,
"Those are your rules,

not my rules, fuck you, I'm outta here."

And that's when he left Spain.

P I open my eyes P

P And then I started to cry P

- Jesfls Franco, one of the most peculiar
directors in Spanish cinema,

just at this time of change
and Transition

also considered returning to Spain.

♪ Day after day P

P You know that day after day P

- And by the time he came
back, he could have made

whatever he wanted.

- Jeslls Franco returns with the intention
of continuing to do what he wants to do.

That is what he has always done
and what he likes to do most.

- Jess Franco made at least 18

"S" classified movies during this period.

- JesUs Franco is an icon.
He is a god, isn't he?

A person who shot
several films at the same time,

who dealt with
impossible subjects,

who had no shame
whatsoever,

and who only wanted to
enjoy the craft of filmmaking.

- The Bressacs have always
been an exemplary couple.

- Only in appearance.

- Jesfls Franco came into contact

with Golden Films International,
which is the production company

who will work with him
the most during the 1980s.

P Day I was born P

P You know the day I was born P

P I opened my eyes P

- He made some of his
most personal movies,

like MACUMBA SEXUAL.
The films he made

for Golden Films International

are very much pure Jess Franco,

because it was him, Lina,
Antonio Mayans, a few friends.

- They give Jesfls the freedom
to do whatever he wants,

as long as he makes "S"-rated films,

and within a fairly limited budget.

- Going to either the Canary Islands

or somewhere similar,
where they would take over

some sort of abandoned
hotel during the off-season

and just make their movie there,

with no creative
interference whatsoever.

- Which is precisely what JesUs needed:

a producer who would not
interfere in his work,

give him the money he needed,

and that he could do as he pleased.

- They knew that "S" films were popular

and that they could make so much money.

We were given very little money
to make them,

but we made them with very little money.

- Jesfls Franco reinterprets

the myth of Dracula;
he revisits this myth

but in the style that I've called
"Gothic-Mediterranean."

And what's more,
while clearly keeping its own style.

It is a film that reminds us of

Jess Franco's films in every scene.

- Jesfls called me: "Listen,
if you want to, come here to shoot a film."

"Well, yes. But now?"

"You have to be here tomorrow morning."
I said, "Okay then."

And on Sunday he called me,
"Hey, come back,

we're going to keep rolling,"
and we rolled another one.

And that is the beginning
of a great friendship.

There was a year in which we made
ten films, Jesfls Franco and me.

What we couldn't do was sell ten films

by Robert Foster,
or ten films by Antonio Mayans.

In other words, "I brought you
ten films by Antonio Mayans."

No producer would want them.
He'd go to a producer

and say,
"I have five Antonio Mayans films."

"It's cool," this and that,
and they bought them.

Then I'd tell the same producer,

"I have five more by Robert Foster,"

and he bought them
without even watching them,

because that was the business.

- You can tell when Jess is,
like, following

his own fever dream,
inspiration, his creativity,

and then other ones where they said,

"Okay, Jess, we need a horror
movie with a cannibal in it.

We need it by Tuesday."

- Cannibals were the new fashion.
It was what it was.

The producer would say,
"What the hell now?

Cannibals are the thing, man,
so let's film a cannibal."

A cannibal...

It was all the same to us.
"Yes, no problem."

- He'd be like, "Sure, got it."

And would go off and make that, too.

THE DEVIL HUNTER's probably
a good example of the latter.

BLOODY MOON as well,
actually, is definitely

a job for hire that he made.

As brilliant as it is a piece of cinema,

it's definitely not one
that he would've made

had he not been asked to do a
American-style slasher movie.

- In 1982, the Socialist Party won

the general elections.

Amongst other cultural policy
goals, the socialists aimed

to highlight the value of
cinema as a cultural asset

and appointed Pilar Miré
as the director

of the government body
that derives policy

for film and media.

Pilar Miré was the first
woman in Spain to graduate

from film school,

and the first woman to
become a TV director.

She was also a film director,
whose second feature,

1979's THE CRIME OF CUENCA,
was seized by the military

due to its depictions
of torture carried out

by Spain's civil guard in
the early 20th century.

Following a military trial for
slander, the ban was lifted

and Mirc'>'s movie was
finally released in 1981

as an "S" classified film.

- Don't you understand?

I don't want to spend
half my life locked up.

- At the end of 1983,
a law was approved

that ended the "S" classification.

Instead, it authorized the "X" rating

for films considered extremely
violent or pornographic.

The public funding process
was radically revised

and a new system based
on the artistic merits

of productions was created.

A committee of industry professionals
would assess projects,

but Pilar Miro would have the
power to veto any production

that she considered to be of poor quality.

- By the end of 1982,
there is a film industry in Spain.

There are a number of producers
who produce films,

a number of distributors who distribute
them and the theaters

that project them, and there
is a gear that makes it all work.

That industry may seem better or
worse to you, but it is an industry.

There is a capacity to make films
and Pilar Miré ruined all of that.

- She was made, you know, head of the...

Director General of
DE La Cinematografia,

in the early 1980s.

And sort of she was in charge of saying,

"Okay, which movies are
going to get funding?"

She and her people had power,

because they wanted films to be made.

They said, "Let's show Spain
to the world through cinema."

- The Miro Law came to say that Spanish
cinema could no longer be supporting,

not even symbolically,

most of the production, of our
production, which was "S" cinema.

- It was a necessary kind of cinema.

Evasion, entertainment.

Easy, simple, for the person who works
14 hours a day,

who sits in front of the screen
and just wants to have fun and laugh.

- The Miré Law destroys this idea
of industry.

She doesn't believe in the industry,
she believes in big industry.

- It was a very specific moment
in the history of Spain,

which they wanted
to completely erase.

- The filmmakers who
produced most of the "S" films

quickly saw themselves
as victims

of a new legislation
that said that your films

could not be shown in any theater,
just in "X"-rated ones.

- As a result of the Miré Law,

the number of films produced in Spain

was dramatically reduced.

In 1982, the year before
the law was approved,

nearly 150 films were produced.

After the law was passed,
the amount steadily declined.

By 1989, only 47 films were made.

This translated into an employment crisis

for film technicians and
actors who needed to reinvent

themselves and transition
into TV and theater.

Or, in many cases, leave
the industry altogether.

- Many actors and actresses,
especially actresses,

they had a very bad time
after the mm Law

because they were labeled
as erotic actresses.

- It was like, "|f you've done
'S'-classified films,

we don't want to see you again."

As if you weren't even an actor
or an actress.

- Once "S"-classified cinema was over,

it took me many years
to get back into filmmaking.

Many, many years.

Because I was the "dirty one"
from the porn films,

the "dirty one"
from the erotic movies.

- I don't think she was thinking

of erasing a film genre just like that.

But she wanted to put an end
to the films of sexual freedom,

what were known as "Spanish cliché" films.

- So, on hand, she created
a good thing

what was called "quality cinema."

But that "quality cinema"
was to the detriment of the industry.

- Any of the directors making
genre films of the time

throw a fit every time
they talk about Pilar Miré.

They accuse her of ruining their careers

and of having put an end
to the Spanish film industry.

- By the way,
what is "quality cinema"?

Who decides what is "quality cinema"
and what is not?

So if she said a movie was "quality
cinema" it would obtain public funding.

- That is a scam.
It seems like a very big scam.

- You like other kinds of films, other kinds
of scripts, other actors, that's great.

But let others do what they want to do
or what they can do.

- The Miré Law

was very good for some
and very bad for others.

The fact is that the second
cinema has disappeared.

- As a result, all Spanish production

becomes homogeneous,
interchangeable.

- It was a cinema
very worried about its past.

Very worried about
big literary authors.

In the same way as "S" cinema went
from being potentially super-liberating

to become something
very conservative,

the Miré Law, which was going to be the
big progressive law for an open cinema,

very quickly turned into
a straitjacketed cinema.

- A person who allows himself
to be carried away by his passions

loses the force of sanity

and becomes an outcast,

a crazy person.

_ Why,

when it comes to
giving an opinion on something,

do we have to say
right away that it is crazy

or sensible,
good or bad?

- These were going to be serious dramas

about the Spanish Civil
War and its aftermath.

- He says that it is a
matter of grammar,

and that the reason for this
should be asked to the academics.

- These were going to be
literary adaptations.

These were gonna be social
realist dramas and comedies.

They were not gonna give
money to horror films,

they were not gonna give money
to science fiction films.

Fantastic genre films were not
films they had any interest

because to their minds,
those films weren't Spanish.

- How dare you disobey me!

- In summary,
all the "S" films disappeared.

Well, the ones that had been filmed
could not disappear,

but it practically wiped
out all this cinema.

- In other words, they cut off
your wings and your freedom.

The new form of censorship
is called public funding.

- Don't move.

Be patient, you'll like the show.

' No'.!

- POPPERS is one of
the last films

of this period of freedom
and unusual cinema in Spain.

It's a film from '84,

and it is a film that we can clearly
classify today as a queer film.

It's a very interesting film because,

in a way, it's talking about the country's
transformation

and how old Spain, Franco's Spain,

was ushering in this modern Spain.

- Just as Franco wanted to control
cinema with his censorship,

in democracy,
different governments have also attempted

to force cinema to conform to their ideal.

But when time goes by, you see the history
and watch the films, it's never

what governments wanted as their ideal.

- It's a very interesting film that plays,
visually too,

with a very comic book aesthetic,

closely related to comics of
the time such as El Vibora

or the Ceesepe comics,

and also with the music,
playing with flamenco music,

which is usually used to illustrate
these old streets of Madrid,

where some old prostitutes appear
and so on.

And modern synthesizer music,
which is the music that accompanies

Miguel Ortiz most of the time,
who is the protagonist.

- Guys,

this is not a tragedy,

it is an Anglo-Saxon amusement,
and therefore

it's elegant, cold, and perverse.

Do you understand me? Perverse!

- So the film tells the story
of a young man

who belongs to this group of modern youth
typical of the Movida Madrilefia,

where you see inside the clubs,
with the music, sex, and drugs

from Spain of the '80s.

And then these two Spains
confront each other: the old Spain,

represented by old-school actors,

among them Alfredo Mayo,
an actor who was starring in RAZA,

and who was... who had even

fought during the Spanish Civil War
on Franco's side.

He's one of the protagonists of
this kind of sect of older men

who are devoted to hunting

human beings in Count Zaroff style.

- "S" cinema is the scarlet
letter of our Spanish cinema.

It is largely unknown and the first
option is to ignore it and forget it.

It is a cinema
of which we are ashamed.

- It's a pity that no one
has really taken the trouble

to say,
"This existed, for better or worse,

but it existed."
It has been part of our history.

- The "S" classified movies really came out

of a very particular time,

a time when those kinds of
films were in a sense necessary

for the burst-out of filmmakers
who'd been held in so long.

Sometimes we just wanna see sex on screen,

sometimes we need an
extremely violent image

because that is how we feel inside,

that is how we were treated for so long.

- Our cinema could be bad,
awful, lacking in quality,

because we were going a thousand
miles an hour. With no time.

But what I can assure you
is that there was freedom.

The freedom to do
whatever we wanted to do.

- Transition films will never be made again

because those longings for freedom
have never reappeared.