NOTE: The below Blu-ray and 4K UHD captures were taken directly from the respective disc.

ADDITION: Vinegar Syndrome 4K UHD (February 2026): Vinegar Syndrome have transferred Eugenio Martín's A Candle for the Devil to Blu-ray and 4K UHD. We reviewed the Scorpion Releasing Blu-ray from 2015 HERE. This Vinegar Syndrome (through sub-label Bizarro) is newly scanned & restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative and presented in both its original Spanish language soundtrack with newly translated subtitles and the English DUB track. The old Blu-ray had a strong blue-leaning where the 4K UHD is brighter and more earthy - and shows significantly more in the frame (side edges.) Really it is the improved clarity and textures with the higher resolution that is the impressive video upgrade.

It is likely that the monitor you are seeing this review is not an HDR-compatible display (High Dynamic Range) or Dolby Vision, where each pixel can be assigned with a wider and notably granular range of color and light. Our capture software if simulating the HDR (in a uniform manner) for standard monitors. This should make it easier for us to review more 4K UHD titles in the future and give you a decent idea of its attributes on your system. So our captures may not support the exact same colors (coolness of skin tones, brighter or darker hues etc.) as the 4K system at your home. But the framing, detail, grain texture support etc. are, generally, not effected by this simulation representation.

The 2025 4K restoration reveals consistent grain: warm earth tones and golden sunlight outdoors versus cooler blues, deep reds (symbolizing corrupted blood or communion wine), and inky shadows within. Symbolic editing amplifies this: cuts to flaming ovens, sharpening blades, or grotesque paintings (like Medusa or hellish scenes) punctuate moments of moral judgment. Voyeuristic zooms and tight compositions trap characters in the inn's confines, making the space feel increasingly like a tomb. A standout effect in the film is the permanent scarring on victim Margo Philippe's face, resembling acid burns from Bonnet's corrosive touch, which proves more disturbing than the final mask-like transformation, criticized as unimpressive in motion despite looking striking in stills. The major upgrade 2160P encode presents a richly detailed, film-like image with natural grain structure that feels organic rather than artificial. Sunlit exteriors in the whitewashed Andalusian village glow with vibrant, naturalistic colors - golden daylight, earthy tones, and bright tourist attire - while the inn’s shadowy interiors reveal deep blacks, textured wood and fabrics, and the visceral crimson of the wine vats. Facial details, costumes, and gruesome practical effects (severed limbs, blood) show marked improvement in sharpness and depth over previous Blu-rays, with excellent contrast that heightens the film’s feverish duality of bright repression and dark obsession. Minor source damage remains visible in a few shots (vertical scratches on the right side of the frame), but it never distracts; this is easily the best the film has ever looked on home video.

NOTE: We have added 80 more large resolution 4K UHD captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray and 4K UHD, The set includes both the original Spanish-language mono track and the English dub, each presented in clean, lossless DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel. The Spanish soundtrack is the clear standout - more authentic and emotionally charged, letting Aurora Bautista’s zealous intensity and Esperanza Roy’s conflicted vulnerability shine through with natural timbre. Antonio Pérez Olea’s (Violent Blood Bath, The Blood Spattered Bride, Fata Morgana, The Forest of the Wolf) eclectic score (church organ swells, folk motifs, and tense guitar stings) has excellent presence and separation within the mono field, while amplified ambient effects - crackling ovens, axe chops, and echoing footsteps - heighten the claustrophobic dread. Church organ cues evoke ecclesiastical menace and the sisters' twisted piety, swelling during acts of "divine justice" with bone-chilling solemnity. These contrast with lighter folk motifs, traditional Spanish elements, a strumming ukulele for ominous undertones, and even a surprising rocking guitar riff when tourists arrive - highlighting the intrusion of modernity. A haunting folksy theme with vocalizing adds ironic beauty to disturbing moments. Sound design is equally effective: amplified everyday rural noises (crackling oven flames, clucking chickens, axe chops in the backyard) become harbingers of horror, while moments of silence or sudden cuts build unbearable tension. The English DUB is functional and better preserved than many vintage dubs, though it inevitably flattens some of the Spanish actresses’ nuance. Newly translated subtitles for the Spanish version are accurate (NOT DUB-titles) and well-timed, making this a versatile and sonically satisfying presentation. Vinegar Syndrome offer optional English subtitles for the Spanish track and "only English" option for the un-DUB'ed Spanish still part of the English DUB track. These are a Region 'A' Blu-ray and Region FREE 4K UHD.

Vinegar Syndrome 4K UHD packs this 2-disc set has a focused supplemental package befitting Bizarro’s launch title. All housed on the second disc Blu-ray - new interviews form the core: Sitges Film Festival director Ángel Sala’s 1/4 hour “The Spain That Wouldn’t Die” provides sharp historical and cultural context on Franco-era genre filmmaking and Martín’s place within it; Lone Fleming (Martín’s partner) delivers candid, moving insights in the 19-minute “Courage Under Censorship,” discussing the shoot’s difficulties and her admiration for her Spanish co-stars; and actor Vic Winner (Víctor Barrera) offers a generous 28-minute career retrospective in “The Rider of Fantaterror,” rich with anecdotes about the fantaterror scene. Judy Geeson’s charming 19-minute “A Devil in Spain” (carried over from Scorpion) adds an engaging English-language perspective. Rounding things out are a short feature on alternate English-language titles and both the original Spanish and international trailers.

Eugenio Martín's A Candle for the Devil stands as one of the most incisive and unsettling entries in the Spanish fantaterror wave of the early 1970s. Directed by the versatile Eugenio Martín (fresh off the international success of Horror Express,) the film operates on multiple levels: as a sun-baked psychological thriller with giallo-inflected suspense, a grim exploitation piece laced with nudity and gruesome violence, and - most powerfully - a veiled but ferocious critique of Franco-era Spain's religious repression, sexual hypocrisy, and generational/cultural divide. At its core, the story follows two middle-aged sisters, the domineering and fanatically devout Marta (a ferocious Aurora Bautista) and her more passive, conflicted sibling Verónica (Esperanza Roy - Return of the Evil Dead,) who run a modest inn in a sleepy Spanish village. When a young British tourist, May (Loreta Tovar - The House That Screamed, The Loreley's Grasp, The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff) sunbathes topless on their terrace - an act the sisters view as brazen immorality - an argument escalates, and May falls to her death through a glass window. Rather than report the accident, the sisters conceal the body (later dismembering and disposing of it in wine vats in the basement) and rationalize it as divine justice. This first kill awakens Marta's zealotry; she begins systematically targeting other "sinful" female guests - those who dress provocatively, stay out late, or embody the liberated 1970s tourist ethos (often British or American women). Verónica, torn between loyalty, guilt, and her own secret affair with a much younger local man (Víctor Barrera), becomes a reluctant accomplice. The tension peaks with the arrival of Laura (Judy Geeson - Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, To Sir, with Love, Berserk!, Three Into Two Won't Go, Goodbye Gemini, 10 Rillington Place, Fear in the Night, Doomwatch, Brannigan, Adventures of a Taxi Driver, Dominique (aka Dominique Is Dead), Inseminoid,) May's sister, who grows suspicious and begins investigating, leading to a claustrophobic cat-and-mouse climax involving the police and villagers. The performances anchor the film's psychological depth. Bautista delivers a tour-de-force as Marta: a woman whose religious fervor masks profound personal trauma (she was abandoned at the altar years earlier) and simmering sexual repression. Her self-flagellation after spying on naked young men swimming - walking through thorn bushes as penance - reveals the masochistic core of her fanaticism. Roy's Verónica provides a nuanced counterpoint: outwardly submissive yet harboring desires that contradict the sisters' puritanical facade, making her complicity tragic rather than monstrous. Geeson, though somewhat underutilized as the "final girl" figure, brings a grounded, modern contrast to the sisters' feverish intensity. The supporting cast, including Lone Fleming (Tombs of the Blind Dead, The Fourth Victim) in a memorable turn as another doomed guest, adds flavor to the parade of victims who represent the encroaching modernity the sisters fear and loathe. Thematically, A Candle for the Devil is richly layered. It indicts the perversion of Catholicism under Franco's dictatorship, where piety became a tool for control, misogyny, and violence. The sisters embody the "old Spain" - rural, insular, authoritarian, and sexually repressed - while the tourists represent the "new Spain" of tourism-driven liberalization, hedonism, and foreign influence. Martín (drawing partly from his own experiences in strict religious schooling) exposes how moral superiority masks jealousy, sexual frustration, and revenge: Marta doesn't just kill for God; she punishes beautiful, liberated women for the power they wield over men, a dynamic the film links to centuries-old superstitions like witch burnings. Gender double standards are sharply critiqued - men are portrayed as weak, lustful creatures excused for their appetites, while women are held to impossible standards and demonized for any transgression. The ironic title itself suggests the sisters are unwittingly lighting a candle for the devil through their "holy" murders. In the end, A Candle for the Devil transcends its exploitation roots to become a haunting portrait of fanaticism's corrosive power. It warns that when piety curdles into paranoia and repression festers into violence, the true devil isn't the "sinful" outsider - it's the monster one nurtures in the name of righteousness. Martín's film remains disturbingly relevant, a feverish reminder of how moral crusades can justify the worst atrocities. Vinegar Syndrome’s new Bizarro imprint makes a stellar first impression with this 4K UHD edition of A Candle for the Devil, finally giving Eugenio Martín’s grim, thematically potent thriller the definitive home-video treatment it has long deserved. The restoration is reference-quality, the audio options are strong, and the extras provide fresh, valuable context that elevates the release beyond mere catalog rescue. For fans of Spanish fantaterror, repressed-horror allegories, or boutique physical media in general, this uncut, beautifully presented 2-disc set is an easy essential purchase and a strong recommendation. It transforms an underseen cult item into a must-own showcase of 1970s Euro-horror at its most socially incisive.

Gary Tooze