Sacamantecas

For generations of Spanish children, the Sacamantecas was the bogeyman, the man who'd come for them if they misbehaved. Behind the legend there was a real man: Juan Díaz de Garayo, a farmhand from Álava who raped and killed several women around Vitoria in the 1870s. 'Sacamantecas' is the third feature from David Pérez Sañudo, who leaves behind the intimate portraits of 'Ane' and 'Los últimos románticos' for a period thriller with the feel of a western, spoken almost entirely in Basque.

Álava, late 19th century. The Third Carlist War is in its dying days when women start turning up strangled on the outskirts of Vitoria. One of them is the sister of Ángela Berrosteguieta, a teacher living in Burgos who comes home for the funeral. Back with her niece, she soon realises that nobody seems to care who killed her: the authorities would rather cover up the murders, and Pío Pinedo, the head of the town's constables, has hardly any men to spare with a war on.

While Ángela sets out to find the culprit, the film also follows Garayo himself, an illiterate man of few words who wanders the province looking for his son, who's gone off to fight for the Carlists. It never hides who the killer is. Instead, it turns its attention to the victims, their families and a society that would rather look the other way.

Antonio de la Torre, who won the Goya for Best Actor for 'The Candidate', plays Garayo, and Patricia López Arnaiz, who was born in Vitoria and has won two Goyas, for 'Ane' and 'Sundays', is Ángela. The pair had already worked together on 'Glimmers'. Josean Bengoetxea plays Pío Pinedo, with Eneko Sagardoy, Haizea Carneros, Luis Callejo and Urko Olazabal also in the cast. Pérez Sañudo wrote the script with Sergio Granda from a story by Asier Guerricaechevarría and Joanes Urkixo, and Kenneth Oribe shot it.

Filming began in Vitoria in October 2024, with the city's Santa María Cathedral among the locations. A Spanish and Belgian coproduction from La Claqueta PC, Amania Films and Caviar, it premiered out of competition in San Sebastián's Official Selection in September 2026. Critics have praised its period detail and its two leads, though several found it a little cold, and the 19 outlets collected on Movienco give it an average of 6.6 out of 10. It opens in Spanish cinemas on 6 November.

• Drama
• Thriller