Panic Beats (Blu-ray)

Combining the plot twists of a dark psychological thriller with the gore and guts of the horror genre, top Spanish horror maestro Paul Naschy writes, directs, and stars in this grim tale of a centuries-long curse and the weakness of man. Paul Marnac (Naschy) is a philandering husband under the control of the four women in his life. His ill but very beautiful wife, Genevieve (Julia Saly), is fabulously wealthy, but her money only serves to underscore his inadequacy and self-doubt. His secretary (Silvia Miro) and mistress is blackmailing him into staying with her, while the young and gorgeous Julie (Paquita Ondiviela) uses her seductiveness to weave a web of entrapment and conspiracy. Lola Gaos plays the creepy old housekeeper who has been tormenting Paul since childhood. Legend has it that an ancestor of Paul's, Alaric de Marnac, had centuries ago murdered his cheating wife and children he couldn't be sure were his, and that he returns every hundred years to clear the lives of his descendants of troublesome women. So begins a bloody rampage, fraught with some of the most brutal murders ever to appear in Spanish horror.