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Released by: Mondo Macabro
Released on: August 8th, 2023.
Director: Paul Naschy
Cast: Paul Naschy, Manuel Zarzo, Paloma Cela, Sergio Molina, Jose Alvarez
Year: 1992
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Night Of The Executioner – Movie Review:
A rare non-horror effort from legendary Spanish genre stalwart Paul Naschy, who wrote, starred in and directed this picture (his final full directorial offering), 1992’s Night Of The Executioner is set in Madrid and sees Naschy play Dr. Hugo Arranz. When the movie begins, he’s celebrating his fiftieth birthday with his wife and daughter but the celebratory mood is shattered when a violent gang break into their house hoping to steal any jewels and cash that may by stashed inside. The Arranz’s are all tied up while the gang does their thing, but it isn’t long before they decide they want something more. Arranz’s wife and daughter are brutally raped and when Hugo protests, they cut out his tongue. Assuming he’s dead, they leave.
Bad move.
See, Hugo isn’t dead at all. It does take him awhile to physically heal, but his mind is shattered. He gives up his work and decides to take on a one man mission of vengeance against those who destroyed his family. He trains for this – learning how to use weapons and getting himself into peak physical condition – and then heads into the seedy underbelly of the city to track down the men he intends to kill.
A gritty, if not especially original, film from Nashy, Night Of The Executioner feels very much like a mix of Death Wish and Hardcore but depicting Naschy’s character as essentially mute along with the Spanish setting give this enough uniqueness to make it well worth watching. Naschy is very good here, throwing himself into the physicality of the role with plenty of enthusiasm and portraying his character with some genuinely sympathetic tropes but also cutting a pretty imposing figure and performing with no shortage of intensity.
The movie does slow down a bit in the middle stretch after starting out with a surprisingly rough opening. The rape sequences in the movie are genuinely unsettling and leave little to the imagination, and while the stretch where Naschy’s character preps for his mission of righteous vengeance does go on a bit longer than it probably needed to, it picks things up quite nicely to deliver an appropriately strong finale.
Night Of The Executioner – Blu-ray Review:
Night Of The Executioner arrives uncut on Region A Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.33.1 and taking up 21.6GBs of space on the 25GB disc. Taken from a ‘brand new 4k restoration of the film negative,’ the film looks really strong. Detail is nice and strong and black levels are good. Skin tones also look lifelike and natural and the image is free of any obvious compression artifacts, edge enhancement or noise reduction problems. The image is also very clean, aside from the odd white speck here and there it is pretty much completely free of print damage.
The only audio option for the feature is a Spanish language 16-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono track. Optional subtitles are provided in English only. No problems to note here, the score sounds really nice and the audio is clean, clear and properly balanced without any hiss, distortion or sibilance to complain about.
Extras start off with a new audio commentary by The Naschycast's Troy Guinn and Rodney Barnett that does a solid job of dissecting the film. They go over where Naschy’s career was at this point and detail some of the influences that worked their way into the movie while also going over the contributions of the different cast and crew members and general trivia about the making of the movie while also doing their typically solid job of explaining what they appreciate about the movie.
Up next is an interview with Sergio Molina that runs thirty-six minutes and sees Naschy’s son discussing his father’s career and personal life during this period, some of the real life events that inspired the movie, Naschy’s affinity for Bronson and more. Actor Pepe Ruiz speaks for twenty minutes about working with Naschy but also about how he himself came to be an actor in the first place and memories of some of the genre pictures that he was involved with. Actor Manuel Zarzo is also interviewed on the disc, speaking for twenty-four minutes about how he got into acting as a kid and then moved into theater and then film, as well as what it was like to collaborate with Naschy on this feature.
Rounding out the extras on the disc are the Mondo Macabro promo reel, menus and chapter selection options.
Night Of The Executioner – The Final Word:
Night Of The Executioner borrows a lot from other movies but Naschy’s unique performance and some seriously intense moments make it more than worth a watch not just for Naschy fans, but for anyone who can appreciate a sleazy action movie or trashy rape/revenge film. Mondo Macabro has done a really solid job bringing this obscurity to Blu-ray with a very nice presentation and some strong extra features. Recommended.
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized Night Of The Executioner Blu-ray screen caps!
