An idealistic attorney's world is turned upside down when the world becomes a HUNTING GROUND, on Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro.

Defense attorney Adela (Assumpta Serna, WILD ORCHID) is an idealist who believes that society is to blame for criminal delinquency, promising material wealth and leisure but closing the doors to opportunity for the young and the poor. Her impassioned view, however, does not prevent her from becoming the victim of a crime when her car is stolen by hoods Mauri (Luis Hostalot, Almadovar's WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?), "Travolta" (José Antonio García Romeu), and Chato (Sahli Mimoun Amar El) who discover among her belongings the deed to a weekend cottage in the country. Discovering that Adela and her family – physician husband Jorge (telenovela star Víctor Valverde), son David, and daughter Laura – spend their weekends at the cottage, the trio plan to rob the cottage as soon as the family head back to the city. They do not, however, plan for Adela, Jorge, and mother-in-law Carmen (Montserrat Salvador, CANNIBAL TERROR) to drop by to pick up Adela's papers; whereupon a struggle between Jorge and Mauri over a shotgun ends tragically. Mauri, Chato, and Travolta flee, leaving behind Mauri's lookout brother Juani (Manuel Rodríguez) who has had a seizure due to the excitement and is apprehended. Adela gives a truthful accounting as to the accidental nature of her husband's death and is content to leave the investigation and prosecution to the courts; however, Mauri, his mother, and his gang start a campaign of terror against Adela to force her to retract her statement and free Juani, escalating from intimidation to terror when further tragedy strikes.

Seasoned genre viewers should know better than to expect a standard rape-revenge film or even a female DEATH WISH from the director of BLOOD CEREMONY and THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE. While Grau was extremely critical of authority in his living dead film, here he creates a realistic world of clashing beliefs and ideologies where violence can breed only more violence. Adela is subject to chauvinism in court, lectured by the police when her car is stolen about how her leniency towards criminals results in more crime – as well as the clerk suggesting that she would be more successful investigating herself since she has "relations that are cordial with trash" – the police describe her truthful account of her husband's death as a "charitable declaration," the judge handling Juani's case calls her naïve and says a plaintiff who is innocent today will be guilty tomorrow, Carmen call Adela's outlook cowardly while Mauri and his mother finds it false and condescending, and even Jorge's casual dismissiveness of her work seems to suggest he agrees with his mother (as does David later on). While not entirely sympathetic, Juani's unwillingness to speak is out of loyalty to his brother – who has beaten up Juani's mechanic boss who fired him for getting sick on the job – and he is preyed upon by the prison cleric (and believed to be a snitch because of it). Although Hostalot makes Mauri a suitably vile character whose only ounce of true humanity is when he is on the opposite end of a shotgun, it is ultimately Serna who carries the film, and even at the end Adela does not make the about face from pacifist to vigilante, leaving things more ambiguous with the echo of her statement "the day I come to believe that the world is just a hunting ground, life will lose all meaning for me."

Unreleased in the United States – apart from boots of a Greek VHS release – HUNTING GROUND comes to Blu-ray from a brand new 4K restoration of the original 35mm camera negative. The cinematography of Eloy de la Iglesia regular Antonio Cuevas (FORBIDDEN LOVE GAME) is very much in keeping with the clean look of many eighties Spanish mainstream films, and the new transfer brings out textures in skin, hair, and wardrobe – including Serna's fur-collared coats which take on thematic significance not only for her socioeconomic status but also as "prey" – and brings out colors and hues of the Christmas setting from the largely subdued color scheme and the twilight shopping scenes later in the film. The newer transfer also draws the eye to some details that seemed odd upon earlier viewings like the push in on some dead, unplucked ducks in the supermarket early on. The Spanish DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track sounds clean and better balances the highs and lows than the included English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track that sounds not only of slightly lesser quality but also is an inferior dub job overall (the priest is made to sound effeminate from the start so his putting his hand on Juani's thigh is not the shock it was intended to be). Optional English subtitles are provided for the track.

Apart from the usual Mondo Macabro clip reel, the only other extra is an archival interview with director Grau (49:24) from 1999 which may have been the one excerpted for Mondo Macabro's Eurotika "Blood and Sand" special from the same year as well as by Blue Underground for the Anchor Bay's 2000 DVD of LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE and was transcribed for an issue of Video Watchdog. Grau recalls getting into an amateur film club in Barcelona where he learned that cinema could be used to direct the eye (in contrast to working on the stage) and eventually making a documentary for the Ministry of Housing, working on the Spanish co-productions of Riccardo Freda's AMBUSHED IN TANGIERS and Sergio Leone's THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES before getting a scholarship to Rome's Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. He then discusses his early film credits, moving from the semi-autobiographical and Rossellini-inspired SUMMER NIGHT to the more experimental ACTAEON.