On Saturday evening, I met with Guillermo Del Toro, here in Austin. He flew up here excitedly to share with his friend, Robert Rodriguez the news that he has managed to pull off a miracle. He has completed filming a Spanish-language remake of the Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur classic CURSE OF THE DEMON and noone found out about it.
After MIMIC, Del Toro wanted to make a deeply personal film on his own, and having a life long love of the Dana Andrews classic, decided to mount a low budget, gritty remake set in and amongst the trappings of mexican mysticism. Filmed deep in the Yucatan in and around the area of Palenque, the film details the story of Dr Juan Holden (played by Ron Perlman), who must wrestle with his belief systems after a piece of paper slipped to him by Dr. Julian Karswell (played to perfection by Federico(Men With Guns, Cronos) Luppi). Helping Dr Holden in his pursuit of the truth is Josefina Harrington played by Consuelo (El Mariachi) Gomez.
Del Toro told me that instead of burdening his film with expensive CGI effects, he went back to the Lewton school of filmmaking, using the horror of what you don't see to influence what you do see. Something the X-Files tv series once was great at. His roughcut was just rushed off to Cannes, and with half of the picks yet to be chosen, Guillermo is hoping for a bid. The opening sequence is quite honestly... some of the most powerful horror tension, I have seen in the last 10 years of the genre. I can only hope that Cannes has the balls to give it the bid, it deserves.
Guillermo does not yet have a distributor for the flick, but if it is picked up at Cannes look for Dimension Films to run to the side of this genre art flick. I know if it's anywhere near as great as Cronos, it will have a long run with discerning film audiences. I wish he had shown me the entire flick. Come on Guillermo, have a heart, you can't do this to me. Give me a break. Man, I can't afford airfare to Cannes!!! (actually I can, thanks to the next scoop)
