4 November 2007

Alex de la Iglesia is one of those directors who seems destined to remain in the realms of cult and whose work is as likely to offend as it is to delight, depending on your viewpoint. We're huge fans here, of course, not least of his 1995 horror-with-comedy El Día de la bestia (The Day of the Beast), but we've also got a warm spot for the film that first brought him to the attention of UK audiences and riled a few critical voices, the 1993 Acción Mutante.

In the near future, the world cruelly pitches the insanely rich and diabolically beautiful against the tragically ugly and unfortunately poverty-stricken. But salvation is at hand for the underbelly of society: they call themselves Acción Mutante.

Yarritu, their fearless and incorrigible leader, recently released from prison and anxious for change the fortunes of his misshapen band of cultural terrorists, steps up a plot to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy mogul. But when the plot goes disastrously wrong, the gruesome group of renegades crash lands on the planet Axturiax. Pursued across space by a ferocious government, the grotesque and the gorgeous must take matters into their own hands and look to each other for survival. This hysterical sci-fi comedy horror is like nothing you've ever experienced.

Like his countrymen Guillermo del Toro and Acción Mutante producer Pedro Almodovar, Alex De La Iglesia injects his audacious, hyper-stylised cinematic assaults on the senses with the vibrancy of a master filmmaker. Here, his wild, weird and whacked out debut springs to life for the first time on UK DVD.

Nine years later with another four films under his belt, including the controversial Perdita Durango and the wonderful La Comunidad, Iglesia did what several modern indie directors do and made a film about his own cinematic influences. 800 Bullets (800 balas) is a loving, stylised tribute to the spaghetti westerns of Iglesia's youth that combines action, hilarity and panoramic beauty in a movie made by film fans with film fans in mind.

Young Carlos (Luis Castro), discovering his grandfather was an infamous stuntman on the Almeria-sets where hundreds of epic westerns were filmed, including those of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood, embarks on a journey that will change his life forever.

With his mother's (acting legend Carmen Maura) credit card in his pocket and her on his tail, he sets off and sets his sights on Texas-Hollywood, where he discovers a band of outsiders still brawling, battling and chasing their dreams of stardom amidst the arid dust of the scorching Spanish desert.

Calamity, hilarity and death defying feats of stupidity and bravery are never far away in this acclaimed action comedy from one of modern cinema’s unsung masters.

Acción Mutante and 800 Bullets will both be released on UK DVD on 26th December 2007 by Metrodome at the RRP of £15.99 each. Both will include a 30 minute 'making of' featurette as an extra feature.