Returning to Colorados Stanley Film Festival for its third year, again to present the Master of Horror award, filmmaker Mick Garris took the stage on Saturday with news of his own. Just prior to introducing a 35mm print of Stuart Gordons immortal horror-comedy Re-Animator, Garris brought up Mexican-born filmmaker and author Sandra Becerril to announce hed be directing Spanish-language feature, Soy Miedo in Mexico this July.
Teaming with writer/producer Becerril, the Stand director and Masters of Horror creator will head into production on Soy Miedo (I Am the Fear) this summer. Announcing the film, Garris explained the contained, Repulsion-esque, descent-into-madness thriller would be a departure for him not only in terms of the spoken language, but the nastiness on display.
In October, I was at a festival in Mexico in a small town called Tlalpujahua for Feratum Film Festival, and I was a guest there and met a lot of local filmmakers and film fans and people there, Garris tells Shock. Sandra was premiering her directorial debut, a movie she had written and directed. I made a bunch of friends, principally Sandra. We hit it off, we have a lot of similar opinions about the genre. There are a bunch of genre loving people there. I found this creative goldmine in Mexico and we kept communicating and she quite shyly asked me if I would ever consider making a Mexican movie. I said, If its good, sure.
She sent me this amazing script, he continues. Its a very controlled environment, it all takes place in an apartment and its about the descent into madness and where it comes from. It comes from a lot of experiences that she had had, including working in a neuropsychology center and knew people like this.
Its claustrophobic, Becerril adds. Ive worked on the script for ten years. The main character he cant get out of his house. Everything happens there.
Of the story and its presentation, Garris says, Hes afraid if he were to go out the front door of his apartment, he would burst into flames. He puts his hand out, and we see a lot of things through his perspective. There are multiple perspectives in the film, but only one lead character. We never really leave his apartment, other than to go out to the hallway, and theres a scene at the end. Otherwise its all in his apartment and all through the perspective of his reality, other people around him and what they perceive, and then the audiences perception of what the reality is. There are three different levels of reality here that shes created in a brilliant way. The job is, how do I visualize those things, cinematically?
Seemingly with a lot of blood. Garris teased Soy Miedo would see a different, possibly more brutal side to the filmmaker. Sandra has had nine published novels, ten produced screenplays, and she comes up with much more brutal ideas than I do. In the course of telling a story, everything is fair game. Im not a big fan of brutality for brutalitys sake in movies. Im a little bit squeamish about it, if its just to revel in the brutality. This doesnt revel, but it goes farther than Ive ever gone in a film, before.
Its also of a different culture, and so I want to stretch my boundaries not just artistically, but culturally. Theres a lot of Catholicism that goes into Latin filmmaking, and though its not a guided theme in this, Im sure that the sangre is very much a part of the horror tradition in Mexico. Spanish films, as well, are steeped in the blood, whether its of Christ or anyone else.
Prior to Soy Miedo, another film Becerril is writing and producing, From Your Hell, shoots this month. Though her written work remains untranslated, you can follow and find out more about Becerril here.
Correction: An earlier version of this post had the title as Yo Soy El Miedo, It is simply, Soy Miedo.
