Errementari

What a great find I stumbled on. So refreshing to watch a film, which does not have to rely on big budgets and flashy special effects. Simply a great piece of story-telling, like watching a live theatre show.

Terrific writing, acting, directing, costuming... A dark fairytale that is intelligent, dark, funny, disturbing... so many colors and three-dimensionality. It was wonderful!

Being an 80s kid.. I grew up with Dark Fantasy movies and wow did this one ring the Bell...literally... highly recommended guys...just watch it....the detail in each scene....good acting and ambient.... with a touch of dark comedy....a Jewel.

This movie is pretty bad ass!! A fantasy movie that tells the tale of Paxti, once a soldier, during the First Carlist War of 1833, in Basque, yea I had to look that one up too, he sold his soul to a demon named Sartael, so he could return home to his wife... This dude survives a firing squad, then kills every one of em! Now we find him working as a blacksmith, with his homecoming shrouded in tragedy and has made him a pretty brutal no nonsense type guy... And oh yea, using the same tricks demons use on us poor humans Paxti uses on Sartael, and he's now under lock and key... And he wants it to stay that way, because once the demon is free, well, he will be taking a certain blacksmiths soul to Hell, and he's done a pretty good job at it, until a government man came asking questions, and an interesting orphaned girl named Usue, may break through that hard shell. It's a Hell of a ride, straight thru it in fact! it was like if del Toro made a Buffy-esque fable, it'd look like this! Filmbufftim on FB.

An intriguing visualization of a classic Basque folklore tale representing the hubris of humankind and the question of what is good and evil. Oddly rewarding and disappointing at the same time; rewarding in the sense of a well designed period piece and visualization of a region-specific folktale, but disappointing in the casting choices and acting methods of some of the roles. I was impressed with the boldness of the religious hypocrisy portrayed in this film as well as the representation of Hell as seen from the 19th century Christian church. I find it interesting how different cultures find similarities in Hell while completely changing other facets of its representation. Although I would not recommend multiple viewings of this film, and in the end it left me a bit underwhelmed, I would recommend a single watch simply to see a film version of this folktale and how the director and writers viewed their version of Hell.

Another reviewer labeled this as a "Dark Fantasy", and that is simply spot on! It's not really a true horror movie; almost more a morality play based on Basque folklore, and is scary in a proper "Grimm's Fairy Tales" sort of way. If you're familiar with the movie "Legend"(1985 w/Tom Cruise), this movie should be next to it on your shelf... or I guess these days in the same folder on your computer/tablet. As to viewing options, and some of the complaints about the acting, I'll say this: the English dub is pretty bad(for both dialogue and overall audio), which often over or under sells the actor's delivery. If you are one who can handle subtitles, you're best experience will be listening to the original Basque audio, and the subtitles of your native language.