Human Beasts (El carnaval de las bestias) is a 1980 Spanish-Japanese co-production written and directed by Paul Nashy. Naschy of course also stars.

It starts off giving all the appearances of being a violent action thriller (other elements including full-bore horror will pop up later). Naschy plays Bruno Rivera, a hitman and former mercenary who is employed by a Japanese terrorist group to steal some diamonds. Bruno double-crosses them. The terrorists hunt him down. He’s alone and there are five of them, but he is a ruthless professional and they’re amateurs. He wins the fight, but ends up grievously wounded.

His problem is that one of the terrorists is still alive and she’s out for revenge. Mieko (Eiko Nagashima) was madly in love with Bruno. She thought he was going to marry her. Now she has a whole bunch of very good reasons to hate him, the fact that he killed her brother being the main one, and when a woman after revenge is also a woman scorned you figure that the revenge she has in mind is quite nasty.

She is also a fanatic.

Bruno, near death, is taken in by Don Simón (Lautaro Murúa) and his family.

Don Simón is a doctor. This is where the movie changes gears a bit. It gets weirder and more twisted and more perverse. The household comprises Don Simón, his daughters Mónica (Silvia Aguilar) and Alicia (Azucena Hernández) and a black servant named Raquel (Roxana Dupre). At least we assume at first that she’s a servant, and then we discover that she is Don Simón’s mistress. They have a passionate and apparently mutually satisfying sadomasochistic relationship. Raquel enjoys being punished.

The two daughters are almost scratching each other’s eyes out for the chance to be the first to get Bruno’s trousers off. Mónica wins that battle. Bruno is still very weak but he still manages to pleasure Mónica very successfully, while Alicia seethes with jealousy.

Apart from the rampant sexual perversity there are other odd things about Don Simón’s household. Apparently they have very tight security. Why would a simple country doctor and pig farmer need tight security?

It might begin as an action thriller but it defies easy genre categorisation. There’s the woman-seeking-revenge element. There’s also a man seeking redemption. Bruno has been a very bad man but now he has discovered he has a conscience and he has regrets. Whether such a man can achieve redemption, and self-forgiveness, is another matter. He has terrible nightmares.

And then there’s the ghost.

There are flashbacks aplenty and dream sequences. Past and present bleed into each other. Reality and dream bleed into each other. The viewer can’t be sure what’s real and what isn’t and nor can Bruno.

And then comes the totally wild ending. It’s foreshadowed but it’s so outrageous you’ll be taken by surprise anyway.

Naschy is in good form, doing a fairly good job of making Bruno’s change of heart seem convincing. Eiko Nagashima makes an excellent driven woman. The supporting players are all fine.

This was a fairly early directorial effort by Naschy but he handles things very competently. And his screenplay is pleasingly outré.

There’s a bit of sleaze and some definitely visceral horror.

Human Beasts is a bit of an oddity but it’s interesting and disturbing and generally quite impressive. Highly recommended.

This film is included in Shout! Factory’s Paul Naschy Collection I Blu-Ray boxed set. The transfer is very good. There are no extras of note.