Like an appendectomy with no anesthesia, it feels good when it's over and thank God you only have to do it once.

As Bestas (The Beasts) is a Franco-Spanish thriller that starts off tense and relentlessly turns the screws ever so tightly until you're begging the movie to just fucking kill you or let you go.

Rodrigo Sorogoyen directed this on razor wire with absolutely no missteps and the result is a suspense that feels more like a horror movie than any horror movie I've seen this year.

Because The Beasts is billed as a rural thriller, but it feels more like a horror film because the real horrors in life are the horrible acts people are capable of committing against one another, and how easy it is for them to get away with it.

From the beginning, we know that the disagreement between two Spanish brothers in a rural village and the French couple who has chosen to retire on a small farm next door is going to escalate, but the intensity of the decline and the excruciatingly slow pace of the decay is mentally and physically exhausting. By the time the film had ended, I was shook.

The change of focus between the 2nd and 3rd acts is a little abrupt, but in the end does little to detract from this impressive film you'll want to run out and recommend as soon as you're glad it's over.

How much spoiler you can put on a poster? All of it it seems...

The movie exposes some of the xenophobe caused by material issues that can happen anywhere in the world, but in Spain in this case against a couple of French that survives by an ecosutenatible live.

The tensions rise up to peak and unavoidable point. Good acting, believable story, hard to watch - but with and open end that we (hope) wish for justice.

A 7.5 out of 10.0 for me, B+. But could be better.

"Olga" (Marina Foïs) and husband "Antoine" (Denis Ménochet) have recently located to a remote Spanish farming community where they are trying to make their living in as organic fashion as they can. Their neighbours, "Xan" (an excellent Luis Zahera) and "Loren" (Diego Anido) immediately take against them as they are determined to accept an offer from a wind turbine company that will see them realise some money from their land and offer an alternative to their otherwise pretty subsistence living. What now ensues is one of the finest examples of cinematographic intimidation I have ever seen. Director Rodrigo Sorogoyen allows the tension to build without providing a spark-point. The angry characterisation of the bully that is "Xan" simmers as former teacher "Antoine" tries almost everything to avoid losing his temper. When the pot does over-boil - as is inevitable - the story starts to falls away for me a bit and the last half hour, though poignant, increasingly lacked plausibility. The said, there is a palpable degree of nastiness portrayed here that is way more effective than any you will see in an horror film. The writing is clever and sharp and the exposure it offers us to just how communities can turn on each other when money rears it's ugly head makes this a remarkably effective character study of human nature and venality. Some fine cinematography helps to deliver a perfect scenario for this menacing drama that sees a competent cast knit well and present a truly scary story.

Living in a small town of retarded drunks who take a dislike to me for petty, subconscious reasons is probably my worst nightmare. This film brought my nightmare to life. Scary!

Taut rural thriller from Director Rodrigo Sorogoyen. A French couple; Antonio (Denis Ménochet) and Olga (Marina Foïs) move to Galicia in North Western Spain and start to live a more eco friendly, idyllic life. That is until they fall out with a local family, the eldest brother Xan (Luis Zahera) being the most hostile.

What follows is a dangerous feud that is hard to write about without spoiling, but it gets tense. Very tense. There is one superb scene in the local bar that is a single long take, and feels like the characters could erupt at any moment. The acting from Menochet and Zahera at this point is off the charts. It is so natural that the viewer feels like they are sat at a nearby table in the bar looking for the exits.

'The Beasts' probably takes it's name from the annual festival named 'shearing of the beasts' in the Galicia region that involves the locals gathering up the wild horses that roam and branding them. The very first slo-mo sequence shows this taking place. However, there is so much subtext in the film, that the title could refer to the huge wind turbines that dominate the sky line of the region, and provide a driver to the animosity between the two families in the film. It could refer to the outsiders, the beasts who have invaded the Galician land that has been inhabited by the same families for decades. Or it could mean the families themselves who are overly hostile to any form of newcomer to their homeland.

Either way, The Beasts is a finely crafted, very well acted thriller which deserves to be seen by many.