Ten years since our first Terror Espanol instalment, we’re back for another dip into the murky waters of Spanish genre cinema!

First up, let's get this straight. There’s not a whole load of 'terror' here. At least not in a traditional sense. What we have instead are some choice slices of straight-up delirium from the golden age of European Trash Cinema, the 1970s. Call them Spanish Giallos if you like, but you won’t find much in the way of mystery, beyond wondering what was going through the heads of the filmmakers when they fashioned these headscratchers.

Lead film 'The Killer of Dolls' (1975), is a berserk psychodrama concerning a repressed mummies boy and his murderous regressions into the world of fantasy. Thrown out of medical school due to a fear of blood (!), and possessed by an irrational fear/hatred of dolls, he finds himself unable to distinguish between real live humans and mannequins. After weeks of random outbursts and moping around the park in which he inexplicably lives (Gaudi’s Parc Güell of all places), his parents go away on holiday, after which he loses the plot completely; donning a creepy mask to run amok in the park at night murdering young lovers on make-out sessions, whom he is now unable to distinguish from dolls. Along the way he manages to meet a wealthy heiress (who wants to seduce him), alongside her daughter (who brings out his romantic side), both of whom somehow completely fail to notice his unhinged nature. Can he be saved from his mannequin mania? Why does no-one notice all of this craziness? Come and find out!!!

With a fantastically unhinged performance from lead actor David Rocha, this supremely daft thriller exists purely in its own universe, and is all the better for it. Veering wildly between sub-Freudian musings, tasteless psychodrama, and utterly bizarre weirdness, often in the same scene. In other words, it’s top grade wonk. Y Viva Espana!