'El Carnaval de las bestias' (1980) – Paul Naschy.

The early 80s proved to be a very fertile period for Spain's premier horror film polymath, the beloved creator of the immortal Lycanthrope Waldemar Daninsky authored another one of his more singularly sinister spook-shows with the quite literally beastly B-Movie 'El Carnaval de las bestias'. In this specific instance he plays burly Bruno Rivera, a single-minded, if somewhat duplicitous mercenary, ostensibly tasked by his erstwhile lover Meiko (Eiko Nagashima) to steal diamonds, but quixotic Bruno may have a secret agenda!

With the diamond heist not exactly going to plan, a severely wounded Bruno awakens deliriously in an unfamiliar locale being lovingly tended by two exquisitely beautiful women, and, following the usual Naschy trope, both appear to be aggressively enamoured of him, and from this juncture, this deliciously strange shocker takes a distinctly animalistic turn into a macabre existential nightmare darkly redolent of 'The Beguiled' and Marco Ferreri's eerie epicurean explosion 'La Grande Bouffe'. 'El Carnaval de las bestias' aka 'Human Beasts' is a rich, schlocky stew with a startlingly bold finish that leaves a distinctly chewy aftertaste.