Survivors of the post-apocalyptic world become fixated on sex as fitting to the S-classification Spanish exploitation film HUMAN ANIMALS, on limited edition Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro.

In the aftermath of a devastating nuclear holocaust, three people wake up in a barren, ashen wasteland: a pair of fair-haired sibling (PANIC BEATS' Carol Kirkham and model Geir Indvard) and a comparatively coarser-looking dark-haired man (José Yepes, TAUREG: THE DESERT WARRIOR). They seem to have no memory and what remnants of a world prior to their waking vanish before their eyes, including photographs, text in books, paintings, and the faces of clocks. A tense confrontation with alien-looking crustaceans rising out of the soil after the blast provides their first sustenance, but it is a strange German Shepherd (Larry) that leads them inland to discover a thriving jungle of fruits, vegetables, clean lake water, sheltering trees, fish, and game animals. Once their survival needs are satisfied, thoughts and libidos stray to creature comforts, jealousy and aggression sets in, and the woman finds preferable making the beast with two backs with a beast with four legs.

Shortly after the death of General Franco, Spain's government loosened the reigns on censorship, creating an S classification for domestic and imported films of a violent and highly sexual nature (it was during this period that Jess Franco was quite prolific for the first time in his own country), with the cycle of increasingly explicit sex films reaching its peak in the early eighties; as such, it is perhaps not entirely surprising that HUMAN ANIMALS as a Casificada "S" film is not wall-to-wall sex. Although the story is pared down to basics – there is absolutely no dialogue and the "mystical" happenings are soon accepted and no longer questioned by the characters – the first nudity and sex scene does not occur until nearly a half-hour into the film, and the remainder of them are parsed out through the duration. While the film does deliver the exploitable elements, there is something worth pondering narratively as characters without a past fall into old patterns. The dog helps the woman hunt, but her work is devalued by the hut-building and tool-making men, the dark-haired man catches a large bird for food but tosses it aside as worthless when the fair-haired man turns up with a bigger beast, and the fair-haired man gifts his coveted handmade knife to the dark-haired man for an opportunity to have sex with the woman. When the two men have been ousted from the woman's bed by the dog, their attempts to "lick one another's' wounds" seems to turn sexual only for the fair-haired man to violently rebuff the other because he can only see such an arrangement as placing him in the position of the woman being ravished by the beast. As if to underline the contrast between the refreshed Earth and reminders of past negative behaviors, the score shifts between bombastic library music seemingly from two decades or more before and some Vangelis-esque electronic music. The film's use of bestiality as a hook is not particularly novel, having previously been exploited in post-Franco Spanish cinema in Eloy de la Iglesia's LA CRIATURA and Jess Franco's SADOMANIA along with various Euro imports like George Eastman's DOG LAY AFTERNOON, Nico Mastorakis' ISLAND OF DEATH, Larraz's BLACK CANDLES, and the third segment of Walerian Borowcyzk's IMMORAL WOMEN; the latter particularly relevant with its oppressed female liberated physically and sexually by her faithful rapist-castrating Doberman.

Given the subject matter, it is perhaps not surprising that the film was not released in English-speaking countries; however, the lack of any dialogue made the film more exportable during a period in which dubbed films were becoming less attractive to buyers. The film had tape releases in Germany and Australia, and last year it had a DVD release in the former country. Mondo Macabro's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray is derived from a brand new 4K scan of the original camera negative. Apart from some moments of poor focus – noted as a fault in the camera in prefatory text – the restoration is stunning, from the Canary Island deserts and tropical jungles to the "heated" bare flesh of the leads. As mentioned before, there is no dialogue, but the LPCM 2.0 mono track delivers the music, effects, and the human groaning, grunting, and screaming cleanly enough. The only instances of English subtitles are for the title card and a Spanish optical subtitle translating a bit of writing on a photograph before text and image vanish before the characters' eyes.

Besides the usual Mondo Macabro clip reed (13:49), the only other extra on the disc is a substantial interview with writer/director Eligio Herrero (50:55) who started in film distribution, having much success importing exploitation films including THE TOXIC AVENGER and ANTROPOPHAGUS, breaking just even with the small theatrical venues for his films. Because of a law that required the production of one Spanish film for each import license, Herrero moved into production, knowing that S classification films required very little money so long as they delivered exploitable elements, first working with Javier Aguirre (COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE) who insisted on casting his wife Esperanza Roy (RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD) in leads, then Miguel Madrid (GRAVEYARD OF HORROR) who directed Herrero's script for BACANAL EN DIRECTO, leading to a trio of films starring Azucena Hernandez (NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF) whose relationship with production manager Ángel Huete was a distraction, and Herrero was eager to dissolve the partnership. HUMAN ANIMALS was produced back-to-back on the same locations with the cheaper JANE, MY LITTLE SAVAGE – a sex comedy riff on THE BLUE LAGOON – as a safety film in case HUMAN ANIMALS flopped. Of the film, he recalls the initial difficulty of directing the actors in performances without dialogue, directing sex scenes, frustrations with the untrained dog, his impressions of the story – he notes that the blonde man and woman are siblings, introducing incest alongside bestiality – including class divisions, and the standout poster artwork for the film.

HUMAN ANIMALS is the first volume in a new Mondo Macabro line called Series Clasificada "S" (no subsequent titles announced as yet). The numbered red case limited edition of 1,200 copies comes with a reversible cover sleeve with original ad art for the film on each side and a 24-page booklet with brand new writing on the film by Spanish film expert Ismael Fernández. Since it accompanies the inaugural release in this line, it is appropriate that about three quarters of the fully-illustrated page count is devoted to discussing the S classification, the main players (directors, starlets), and the various sub-genres with only a handful of pages devoted to the feature at hand, offering a briefer overview than the interview but noting that it stands out as an attempt to do something different when the cycle was on its last legs (in spite of some harsh contemporary criticism). (Eric Cotenas)