Based upon a true story of Manuel Blanco Romasanta, a travelling vendor who killed people and used their body fat to make soap. Some mutilated cadavers are discovered giving way to the legend of the Werewolf of Allariz. A man, Romasanta, a travelling vendor who's a charming man and is appreciated by the women in the villages he visits. But he's also the werewolf feared by all. He meets Barbara who discovers who he really is and hunts him down to bring him to justice.
This movie had bad written all over it, I should've known by just looking at the cover, it looks way too cool to be any good. So here I was expecting a gorefeast accompanied by some werewolf action, but instead I got a slow-moving drama with little gore and no action. If I would have known it would be a drama, things might have turned out a little bit different. But what's up with the cover, it sure looks like horror to me, and I hate when they do this with covers, trailers, promotions. That is fooling people into thinking it's something that it's not, and I don't see the reason why anyone would do so, all that's gonna happen with that is just that it's gonna disappoint a lot of people. Well, it sure fooled me.
The only thing that kept me from turning the movie off and that was a tiny bit interesting was the fact that it is based on a true story. I had never heard about this legend of Romasanta before, so it was a little interesting to see what the man did and how everything happened. Not interesting enough though, I was still bored out of my mind throughout the whole flick, and had to take small breaks every now and then to not loose it completely.
The movie follows Manuel Blanco Romasanta, a soap vendor, and a man who seems so sensitive it's kinda disgusting at times. I guess that is to show that even though he was a beast, he was still nice and everything and you're supposed to feel sympathy for him. It's too much anyway and took a lot of energy to sit through. He's portrayed by Julian Sands who might be a good actor but that I got completely feed up with within the first 10-15 minutes into the movie.
This girl named Barbara is trapped by a wolf in a barn and when Romasanta walks in, the wolf runs away in fear, so he ends up saving Barbara's life. He then leaves Barbara to take her sister and her sister's daughter to another town to find a secure place for them to live due to all the recent wolf attacks. But since the man is pure evil (but at the same time sensitive like a little girl) he kills the two females on the way to the new town. He then returns to seduce Barbara, but she suspects that he had something to do with her sisters death. So together with the men that found her dead sister, she sets out to have justice brought upon Romasanta.
Even if the story was a little bit interesting, you just couldn't care less what was gonna happen. This girl Barbara, played by Elsa Pataky, is really nice to look at so at least it had that going for it. We even get to see her tits but it's so not worth the time. Since it takes place around the 1850's, it has this old fairytale feeling to it which is a nice touch, but that doesn't really help much either. So anyway, the man is eventually caught in 1852 and confesses to have murdered at least 13 people, although he claims that he's innocent because he's was a werewolf. He was later diagnosed with the psychological condition of lycanthropy and were never sent to death as some people thought he should've been, but instead he was sent to a full life sentence.
Ok, so the story and the fact that it has actually happened for real is somewhat interesting, but I've could've read about that for like 10 minutes or something instead of wasting 90 minutes sitting through this boring flick. I guess it will work for some people, but don't expect a horror movie, because it's really not. I sure couldn't take it and the flick is now resting in the garbage can.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Werewolf Hunter - Legend of Romasanta
MOVIE YEAR: 2004
DIRECTOR: Francisco Plaza
WRITING CREDITS: Alfredo Conde, Alberto Marini
GENRE: Horror, Thriller, Drama
CAST: Julian Sands, Elsa Pataky, John Sharian
COUNTRY: Spain
RUNTIME: 90 min
RATING: 2/10
Romasanta Website/IMDB Click here
Romasanta Trailer Click here
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