1. Plot

2. Cast

3. Production

4. Censorship

5. Release
    Theatrical release  Critical response and legacy  Accolades 

6. References
    Notes 

7. External links

The Ancines Woods ({{lang-es|El Bosque del Lobo|lit=The Forest of the Wolf}} also known as The Wolf's Wood, A Forest Wolf , and The Wolf's Forest) is a 1970 Spanish drama/horror film co-written, produced, and directed by Pedro Olea.{{sfn|Dyer|2015|pp=223}} It is based on the novel by Carlos Martínez-Barbeito, and is partially based on the life of Manuel Blanco Romasanta and his alleged lycanthropy.{{sfn|Perez|2017|pp=183}}

Plot

The film focuses on Benito Freire, a lonely and miserable peddler whose world is dominated by ignorance and superstition. Wandering through the Galician towns, he regularly suffers from severe attacks of epilepsy. Rumors about him begin to spread throughout the region, rumors that claim that Benito is both a werewolf and possessed by a demonic spirit. As the rumors about him continue to spread, Benito slowly descends into madness.

Cast

• José Luis López Vázquez as Benito Freire
• Amparo Soler Leal as Pacucha
• Antonio Casas as Abad
• John Steiner as Robert
• Nuria Torray as Avelina
• María Fernanda Ladrón de Guevara as Gabriela
• Alfredo Mayo as Don Nicolás de Valcárcel
• Víctor Israel as Lameiro
• María Vico as Queiruga
• Fernando Sánchez Polack as Vilairo
• Pedro Luis León as Minguiños
• María Arias as Mujer de Nicolás
• Porfiria Sanchíz as Vigaira
• Pilar Vela as Sabina

Production

Censorship

While writing the screenplay for El Bosque del Lobo, writer/director Olea was forced to tone down the novel's more explicit violence, negative portrayal of religion in order to avoid possible censorship, stating in an interview with Nuestro cine that, criticism had to be 'more indirect, subterranean, more through the tone of the films than the concrete situations they reflect'.{{sfn|Hopewell|1986|pp=252}} In spite of this, the film was subject to censorship and was denounced by Spanish critics for its perceived anti-religious message and its denouncement of Spanish society of the time.^[3] It also received minor controversy when Admiral Carrero Blanco tried to prohibit the film from being released, after viewing the film in a private screening.^[1][4]

Film historian Román Gubern stated that "while the censors allowed the screening of graphic 'bloodsheds performed by British and Spanish Draculas', El Bosque del Lobo was made more palatable by severely softening the depiction of violence and brutality, therefore neutralizing the critique contained in the novel's 'study of criminal anthropology'".{{sfn|Lazaro-Reboll|2012|pp=278}}

Release

Theatrical release

Critical response and legacy

Modern reassessment of El bosque del lobo has been mostly positive, with critics now praising Vázquez's performance and Olea's direction.

In their book Performance and Spanish Film; authors Dean Allbritton, Alejandro Flórez Melero, and Tom Whittaker praised Vázquez's performance, writing, "In dramatically reshaping his usual intonation and diction for the role, López Vázquez's voice becomes snarling and inarticulate. His ramshackle appearance was as much of a radical departure as his vocal performance".{{sfn|Allbritton|Flórez Melero|Whittaker|2016|pp=102}}

The film was not without its detractors.

Antonio Méndez from AlohaCriticón.com gave the film a negative review, writing, "It could be interesting, but the plot is poor, it lacks strength, it has a love subframe and it sins of a scarce psychological treatment that focuses more on superfluous facts than on the sickly and interior emphasis of its characters."^[7]

The critical and commercial success of El bosque del lobo, brought widespread attention to director Olea,{{sfn|D'Lugo|1997|pp=88}} who would later go on to direct a series of films which included the 1992 adaption El maestro de esgrima (The Fencing Master) which received and Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film.^[8]

Accolades

References

• {{cite book|ref=harv|last1=Allbritton|first1=Dean|last2=Melero|first2=Alejandro Flórez|last3=Whittaker|first3=Tom|title=Performance and Spanish Film|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WWMwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA102|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-9772-0}}
• {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Bentley|first=Bernard P. E.|title=A Companion to Spanish Cinema|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M6kRqqwNMm0C&pg=PA218|year=2008|publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd|isbn=978-1-85566-176-9}}
• {{cite book|ref=harv|last=D'Lugo|first=Marvin|title=Guide to the Cinema of Spain|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hVIyvw7_8BkC&pg=PA88|year=1997|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-29474-7}}
• {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Dyer|first=Richard|title=Lethal Repetition: Serial Killing in European Cinema|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nSBdDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA223|date=29 November 2015|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-84457-926-6}}
• {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Hammer|first=Tad Bentley|title=International film prizes: an encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lVQOAQAAMAAJ|year=1991|publisher=Garland|isbn=978-0-8240-7099-1}}
• {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Hopewell|first=John|title=Out of the past: Spanish cinema after Franco|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t-FkAAAAMAAJ|year=1986|publisher=BFI Books|isbn=978-0-85170-188-2}}
• {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Lazaro-Reboll|first=Antonio|title=Spanish Horror Film|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NwirBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA24|date=20 November 2012|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0-7486-3640-2}}
• {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Perez|first=Jorge|title=Confessional Cinema: Religion, Film, and Modernity in Spain’s Development Years, 1960–1975|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JWspDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA183|date=16 June 2017|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-1-4875-1245-3}}
• {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Schlegel|first=Nicholas G.|title=Sex, Sadism, Spain, and Cinema: The Spanish Horror Film|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uyR1CQAAQBAJ&pg=PA198|date=11 June 2015|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-1-4422-5116-8}}
• {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Senn|first=Bryan|title=The Werewolf Filmography: 300+ Movies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4igSDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT286|date=6 February 2017|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-1-4766-2691-8}}
• {{cite book|ref=harv|last=St-Georges|first=Charles|title=Haunted Families and Temporal Normativity in Hispanic Horror Films: Troubling Timelines|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F4ZTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA100|date=20 April 2018|publisher=Lexington Books|isbn=978-1-4985-6336-9}}
• {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Vronsky|first=Peter|title=Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers from the Stone Age to the Present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MF4_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT116|date=14 August 2018|publisher=Penguin Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-698-17614-0}}

Notes

External links

• {{Allmovie|159130|El Bosque del Lobo}}
• {{imdb title|id=0064105|title=El Bosque del Lobo}}
• {{Rotten tomatoes|ancines_woods_the|El Bosque del Lobo}}

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