In the box set "Iberian Terror", filmmakers Eugenio Martin and Carlos Puerto cut to the heart of Francoism

In Spain, the fantastic, nourished by the weight of Catholicism, generated deviant images and traumatic scenes. The publisher Carlotta had the good idea of bringing together in a box set two horrific curiosities, A Candle for the Devil ( Una vela para el diablo , 1973) by Eugenio Martin (1925-2023), and Blood Doll ( Escalofrio , 1977), by Carlos Puerto. These two specimens are representative of the vein of the 1960s and 1970s known as "fantaterror", the wave of Hispanic terror, a local response to the surge of the English studio Hammer.

While the Madrid Movida of the 1980s celebrated post-Franco liberation, the revolt had begun earlier, on the fringes of the genre, as the death throes of the dictatorship saw a relaxation of censorship. The films presented, marking this period of democratic transition, convey an imaginary world at the crossroads of the macabre and the erotic, which then played a role of catharsis, as much as of thrill ride.

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