Original subtitles

To everyone watching this fucking show,

the end of the world is tonight. Do you understand?

Tonight!

Very good.

Awesome!

Nothing is black or white.

The 80s were a complicated time for cinema,

and Pilar Miré reacted to the poor quality

of Spanish cinema by proposing the infamous Miro law.

The Miré law tried to force prestige on Spanish cinema in the wrong way,

I think. It assigned priority to films with

deep social and historical significance,

and opposed films that were considered to be of a freak mentality,

films of niche interest.

Fantasy films no longer existed.

Fantasy had declined

to the point of extinction.

The genre was nearly wiped out, both commercially and artistically.

When I started work on my first short film,

I remember that this

competent and ambitious fantasy genre

was just starting to bloom.

This resulted in some directors, who were already

experimenting with the genre in short films,

taking the leap into full-length films.

Alex de la lglesia being the most emblematic.

I think the explosion of fantasy films in the 90s

had to do with something generational.

Those who made films in those days

had a very similar movie culture behind them,

Amenébar, Alex de la lglesia, Balagueré,

and even myself.

We shared the same references:

JAWS, Sam Raimi, John Carpenter.

We also shared a sense of alienation

from genuine Spanish cinema.

Suddently, people who could, without prejudice,

see Spanish fantasy and horror movies in a different way,

started to appear and suggest a new approach to the genre,

both thematically and stylistically.

There was an intent to renovate Spanish cinema

from its foundations.

People didn't talk about it as "New Spanish Cinema,"

as had happened in the 60s and 70s,

but I think it was a revolution.

Without these young directors and their short films,

Spanish cinema would have become a desert.

I told Alex,

"Alex, I've written a short film and I want you to read it.

We should make films together."

Alex read it

and said, "I'm in!"

That was

the starting point and that short film would become MAMA.

It was

very intense, and really crazy,

mainly because of our lack of experience.

It was an ambitious short film, as in those times movies were meant

to take a more intellectual approach

and carry heavy political baggage.

We just wanted to have a good time.

Alex was

a brilliant young man

with freaky looks:

the French goatee, his glasses.

He was an activist, restless and very gifted.

There was a moment when being an art director no longer suited him.

He felt the calling

and wanted to take the leap from art director to film director,

and he did so with his short film MIRANDAS ASESINAS.

We were able to shoot MIRANDAS ASESINAS thanks to

another short film, AMOR IMPASIBLE.

We were working on the production of someone else's short film,

and it was a disaster.

We thought it was a waste

of time and money,

with all that scenery.

He liked the scenery so much

that he said,

"Maybe we could take advantage of this and shoot something."

With the setting

of a bar,

we started thinking of a story.

A man enters a bar,

takes a tube out of his raincoat and puts it in the counter.

Then, using automatic writing,

we came up with what would later be MIRANDAS ASESINAS.

To avoid problems with the other short film,

as they both shared the same set,

we made it in black and white. And with a clear expressionist style

to make it look like a different place.

Since we thought it wouldn't win any prizes,

we created our own festival.

It was the first festival for

16mm black and white short films

about soft drinks.

MIRANDAS ASESINAS was the only contestant.

We held a party where we showed the film and we won the prize.

Alex gave hope to

all the young people that were making short films,

or were thinking about making a living from filmmaking in Spain.

Alex took the first step

and made a film.

And he took what would only happen in short films,

and made it happen

in a feature film,

the true commercial cinema.

It was the start of everything.

We started to work on another story for a short film,

and we decided to make it about space.

A short film set in a spaceship.

We wrote the screenplay

and we thought, "This is going to be expensive.

How are we going to do it?"

He showed me the screenplay

and I was blown away.

I thought he was crazy.

It was science-fiction

set in this country.

If he didn't do it right it could've ended up

being another awful Spanish movie.

"No, no, we're doing it right. We have a French FX team," he said.

He was really motivated with the pre-production.

Almodévar was interested in the project,

but he thought that as a short film it wouldn't have a place in the market.

So he asked if it could be made into a miniseries.

We made three episodes of the series,

and we were told again that Pedro loved it,

but that it was still too difficult to sell for TV.

They asked if we could make a movie out of it.

Alex and I told them, "Yes, we think so."

If Pedro would have told us

to film a documentary about whales, we would have done it.

If they would have told us to adapt the old testament into a comedy,

we would have done it.

That film was made

in quite an unorthodox way.

When we were filming ACCION MUTANTE,

the prop department kept telling us

that we were doing everything wrong.

I remember Arri's epic response.

"Yes, this is how you make cinema,

because we're making cinema like this."

THE DAY OF THE BEAST

was possible thanks to the success

of ACCION MUTANTE and MIRANDAS ASESINAS.

The first versions of the screenplay showed an obsession with Bilbao.

Sestao was actually going to be hell. It didn't take place in Madrid.

The priest originally traveled from Deusto University to Sestao.

The story was from a mix of many things, like many projects are.

The different pieces glued together, create the puzzle.

We read "Claviculas" and

"El Wanilo Bues.

A lot of real books.

Edgar Allan Poe, of course.

Ambrose Bierce, Hawthorne, and all the authors of the nineteenth

and twentieth century.

We discovered the great Lovecraft,

whose literary world is extremely present in THE DAY OF THE BEAST.

The idea of the main character

being an old man, instead of a young,

handsome man is fundamental.

We wanted the priest to be alone,

but we thought, "He can't just talk to himself, he needs a partner."

He couldn't keep speaking in voice-overs, like in TAXI DRIVER.

Though TAXI DRIVER was an influence,

its device for transmitting the character's feelings really did inspire us.

In THE DAY OF THE BEAST

the main character is half crazy

and has a partner,

like in Cervantes' "Don Quixote."

José Mari is clearly an echo of Sancho Panza,

and the pastor is a crazy man

who sees monsters.

It's a similar story

and we used it as inspiration.

At first we tried to produce the film ourselves,

but it was impossible, so

we entered that period of desperation

that every filmmaker suffers

as he tries to shoot his second film in this country.

It's easier to convince people to make your first film,

but for the second one you have to say,

"Hey, I'm the same idiot as before and

sure, I know that last one could've been better, but

this one is going to be really good."

We hoped to team up with El Deseo, but they weren't interested.

Alex tried to get Gerardo Herrero

to produce it, then he tried Sogetel

and other production companies.

They probably didn't like the story.

Even Pedro, generous and kind as he is,

told us that he was scared.

He didn't want to produce

a film about the devil.

I accepted that and our

friendship carried on wonderfully.

I saw ACCION MUTANTE,

and I found the 10 first minutes

to be fantastic, spectacular.

The rest of the film not so much,

but I saw a director.

I knew that Alex and Andres Vicente were going to get along well.

Both of them,

they're very courageous, daring, and reckless.

They always go beyond

what's expected.

Besides the references he pulls from Spanish and international genre films,

he has a taste for fantasy,

extreme and politically incorrect filmmaking,

that he links to the best of Spanish cinema.

There's this sort of "post-Berlanganism,"

a reclaiming of Berlanga's figure.

Alex kicked open the door

of the industry,

connecting with the audience.

He made a genre film

that was purely fantastic

and purely Spanish too.

It was deeply anchored to our culture:

Berlanga, Azcona, and the culture of the grotesque.

All this, mixed with fantasy cinema and horror cinema,

was something unheard of in this country,

especially coming from someone that young.

The film didn't try to be an American film.

It's a Spanish film, nearly it's own genre.

I don't remember seeing another film like THE DAY OF THE BEAST to date.

It's like... Wow!

It's like breeding

Jaques Tourneur's CURSE OF THE DEMON

with P0lansky's ROSEMARY'S BABY.

It marries two different ways of seeing fantasy and horror films.

It takes elements from Z movies.

Also elements from gore movies, at that time nearly non-existent.

Cinema against the current.

It didn't look at all like a Spanish film.

It could've been made by someone in a developed country,

and that was marvelous.

It was perfectly Spanish,

but it had this international language.

It didn't use the type of language

that was used in the national films.

It played with foreign ways of creating cinema.

It's a horror movie about Satan

with big set-pieces, moments of the

grotesque, and black comedy.

In fact, Alex said in an interview

that what inspired the film's hostel

was Fernando F. Gémez's EL EXTRANO VIAJE.

ACCICIDN MUTANTE and THE DAY OF THE BEAST

both try to reclaim popular culture,

the fantasy genre in itself,

comedy,

and a kind of weaponized frivolity.

It depicts an ostensibly traditional family,

and its relationship with freak characters.

The Spanish gothic nightmare of the family,

in central cities like Madrid,

is a recurring theme in Alex's films.

It was a theme to explore.

We had our own gothic,

a country that was still suffering from

the Francoist and Neo-Catholic nightmares.

The metalhead and the priest are two stereotypes easily found in Madrid.

It's a very explosive mix,

but without losing sight of Berlanga, and the absurd surrealism

of this city

and this country.

All this, added to the apocalypse,

the Nazis, Berlusconi, and TV.

There were very strange shows.

When I tell people about Jesus Gil hosting a show in a jacuzzi surrounded by girls,

they don't believe me.

It's that blend of the world of television

and right wing extremism.

We didn't want to reflect

any specific group.

We just wanted to reflect

a Fascist environment.

Seeing what happened with

ACCION MUTANTE and THE DAY OF THE BEAST encouraged us.

We saw that it was possible. It wasn't a utopia,

it was a reality.

Someone made it happen

and it was successful.

He caused an explosive situation

that gave rise to fantasy films and let them attain importance.

Young people saw that it worked, that there was a path.

All the members of this new "family" of directors,

Balagueré, Paco Plaza...

are in one way or another influenced by THE DAY OF THE BEAST.

I believe Alex is one of the most

important directors in European filmmaking.

On a sociological level,

for the amateur filmmakers,

Alex was the one with the machete in the jungle,

clearing the path for everyone else.

It was a triple somersault.

I didn't even know where I stood,

I was in another world.

In a hellish Madrid,

living a cathartic experience.

It shows what would be normal for Alex:

a guy with a shotgun, shooting on Christmas, Santa Claus,

and of course, in every sequence,

there must be millions of things happening.

He dares to depict a nightmarish Madrid,

instead of showing the capital as a place of total happiness.

The Madrid of democracy

turned into a nightmare.

The time we spent living in Madrid was very important.

You could feel the vibe,

when serious things took on a comical, even a

pathetic atmosphere.

It was a mix of things.

The apocalyptic Madrid of those times,

with Gran Via full of junkies,

was quite brutal.

The movie is so Madrid-esque.

On an urban level, the city is just like another character of the plot.

It's an absolutely brilliant idea.

It tells a fairy tale, grotesque and ironic,

but it springs from reality,

because Madrid is real.

Real, tough,

and dark.

When we were shooting ACCION MUTANTE and went to Madrid,

when we entered the city

we saw a really weird structure that was being erected.

It was completely crooked.

A couple months later

we saw that they were actually building two bent towers.

If an image appears in his mind, he makes up a sequence for it.

I'm sure that when he saw the KIO towers, he thought,

"I have to do something with these fucking towers."

As soon as we saw them we said,

"We have to use this for something!

It's a symbol!"

They symbolize evil,

the horns of the goat.

The thing is that the KIO towers are the Bankia headquarters,

which has been the biggest scam for Spanish citizens.

They gave their execs limitless credit cards.

I mean, it was madness.

The interesting thing is what happened

in those towers after the movie.

Evil was really there after all!

I don't know, after 20 years I see a parallel.

Alex decided to put the devil there,

and he kind of foretold the coming economic disaster.

That's the brilliance of this film,

because

those towers are called "The Gate of Europe."

Attention!

Think about that.

Maybe TV and Europe

are as evil as the devil, who knows?

The only way to make the film bearable

was to succumb to an eccentric, comical view.

Everything was going to be serious,

but it wouldn't look serious.

Perhaps the tone of the whole movie came from the protagonist himself.

From the beginning it was going to be

this short priest with his cap, arriving at a place.

We thought of Alex Angulo,

and that set the perfect comical tone.

The role was created for Alex Angulo.

A short Basque priest,

who becomes satanic in order to find

Beelzebub.

The idea was absurd, innovative, and stimulating.

I'm green with envy.

He's a very straight-faced actor

who could easily fit every register and director,

but I think he's never been better than with Alex de la lglesia.

And in THE DAY OF THE BEAST in particular,

he exuded tranquility

and concentration.

I always admired the

calm and respectful approach he had

with everything that surrounded him.

His eyes were full of tenderness.

He was a man with

a beautiful inner world.

He was one of the most extraordinary

collaborators I've had in this profession,

when it comes to generosity

and humility.

He was an awesome person, and he always had been.

To me he wasn't an actor, he was a true friend.

Regardless of his ascendancy as an actor,

he always had this smile,

a morning greeting, and a goodbye.

Alex Angulo was easy to get along with.

He was really pleasant,

relaxed,

with no poses or pretensions.

I don't think I ever saw him angry.

I saw him focused,

maybe tense,

but I never saw him lose control.

He was such a nice guy.

I don't like having to talk about him in the past tense.

I was lucky enough to run into Alex at a premiere,

about a year before his death.

We bumped into each other and I told my son,

"I'm so very happy to have spoken to Alex again.

I thought he wouldn't even remember me."

Alex Angulo will always be in my heart.

He was a great actor,

a great friend,

a magnificent colleague, and a great worker.

Nothing stopped him.

Superb!

-"I have a mission to accomplish.

A thing I have to do in the city."

"You're a satanist, right?" -"Yes sir, and from Carabanchel."

The role of José Mari

was quite difficult.

We wanted Javier Bardem, but he refused.

I wanted Bardem to play the junkie role.

Bardem refused because he wanted to have a gay role.

Javier had just appeared in DIAS CONTADOS,

in which he was a drug addict.

The role wasn't that similar,

but he said he didn't want to do it.

We offered the role to Gabino Diego,

but when Alex asked him to shave his head he refused.

He also refused the role because it was Christmas

and the Devil scared him.

Something like that.

Andrés told me to offer the role to my friend Santiago,

to which I said, "No, no. It's a very complex character."

One night, we were having a drink, and I met Santiago.

The next morning I suggested him to Alex.

When I first met Andrés,

he looked at me in a strange way.

I wasn't sure at first if he liked me or

if he thought I was suspicious.

But later he told Alex,

"What about your fat friend? The hairy one."

Alex told him I wasn't an actor,

but in the end they must have thought

that if I did it wrong

they could at least hit me.

Alex said he'd think about it,

and after 20 minutes

he called me back and said,

"if you're up for it, let's do it!"

In conclusion, they gave me the role, and I later found out

I was chosen because nobody else wanted it. But, oh well.

-"What, you pay for one and you take four?"

He did a great job in the role.

Besides, the film proved to be

key in Santiago's career.

The first option didn't work,

but in the end,

the result is even better than what could've been with the first option.

During the writing I asked

what the film was about.

They told me the story: the devil, a priest... Wow!

And I said, "What can I do?"

They had a small role for me.

Alex told me,

"A Vagabond

who preaches the end of the world,

and is burned by Fascists.

You go toward the camera burning..."

I said,

"What is this shit?

A homeless man that gets burned?

This is your great idea?

Get a stuntman!"

They told me there was this gel that you put on so you won't burn.

I got mad. With friends like these I'm doomed.

-"Fucking brilliant! Have you ever seen black pudding sausage?"

-"I had a sandwich earlier."

-"Well, my friend,

this is the human version!"

The director didn't tell me who the lead was going to be.

When I met Santiago, I didn't know who he was.

I didn't even recognize him physically

when we shook hands.

I told my son that the role was for an unknown actor.

I preferred to work with a well-known actor,

naturally,

but it wasn't essential.

By the third day of shooting

I knew I was going to stay with the film,

because you couldn't do better in any other movie.

What Segura came up with was a departure

from his work in TORRENTE.

He's an archetype.

I've never been a metalhead.

Alex knows me, I'm the guy who leaves a club because of the smoke.

I don't even drink.

I mean, I'm pathetic. I wasn't the most well-suited guy for the role,

but that didn't matter. We were dealing with a film, not a documentary.

I had to perform.

I remember telling Alex that

I felt like I was exaggerating the accent.

He told me to speak more naturally.

I tried my natural suburban accent

and he liked that.

One day we went to a heavy metal club, so I could learn how to dance.

He kept screaming, "Come on! Come on!

Feel the music!"

He's a great director.

He gives you so much power and freedom.

He's awesome.

I think that Santiago is

brilliant, very funny,

and totally unique.

-"And now,

the investigator of the occult."

I suggested the role go to Pepe Sancho,

but later the co-producers

demanded an Italian actor.

He never understood.

Obviously he said I was a moron,

and unfortunately

we haven't worked together ever since,

because he couldn't stand me.

He showed me a sketch

he'd drawn

of the ideal Professor Cavan.

He looked like me, but with a beard, and he had a ring just like this one.

In fact

when I told him the story of this ring,

he said, "My father had the same ring."

In a casting in Italy

I was lucky enough to meet Armando.

He's an incredible guy, extremely funny,

and he gives the film a special vibe I'm very proud of.

Cavan's fashion sense was very of the time when we were shooting.

Our Cavan had to be sophisticated,

like a Jiménez Del Oso,

who only worries about winning easy money

until he believes the priest's theory is true.

I performed Professor Cavan

as if

I really believed

that the antichrist was going to be born that same night in Madrid.

And little by little,

I come to accept

that an incredible story can be true.

He's sort of like

a television icon

who comes up with scams to keep the audience

glued to the screen.

Oh! Exorcism!

Garlic!

Exorcism!

Cross! Cross!

But because of the priest,

he becomes aware that

a scam can be real.

When he realizes that the devil exists,

he knows that...

There's a line at the end of the film in which he says,

"Shit!

We've saved the world

and nobody knows."

-"I'd like to have one of them here in the motel.

I'd blow off his balls with the shotgun!

Coward!"

Terele's case is like Lola Gaos' in Borau's FURTIVOS.

To bring back an actress

who'd been fundamental

in a type of Spanish cinema, but had been forgotten.

Andrés said, "Anyone but Terele."

I said that if Terele wasn't in, neither was I.

There was the typical producer vs director fight.

I won

because I spread around

that Andrés wanted Bibi Andersen to take the role.

Terele Pavez plays the character most informed by

the grotesque tradition. Super black,

that world enclosed in itself

in her motel.

I loved my character. A marvelous person.

She deserves a whole novel about her life,

and what she does

with her son and her life.

I thought I was going to play a more friendly character.

I laughed a lot trying to perform

the crushed soul of the character.

Terele is like a wild animal,

untamable.

She's a beast.

All day long she has a big personality. She's very strong

and she's a great actress.

Actors like her and Alex Angulo

make your job easier.

It's very easy to work with them because they're very generous.

-"No, sorry, the only vacant room is under construction."

-"Anything will do."

-"The thing is that I'm not allowed to take anyone in at this time."

Nathalie Sesefia

is more than affection.

I've always thought

she's one of the best

national comedy actresses in Spain.

And besides I find her beautiful.

They couldn't have chosen a better girlfriend for my character.

It was perfect for me.

One day I was having lunch with Santiago and Alex.

Alex asked me if I would be up for a role in his film,

and I was thrilled.

He sent me the script

and I read it in a single sitting.

I asked Alex

more about my character,

but he didn't give me any clues.

While we were shooting he told me to be more likable.

I read the character, and I tried things.

To him it seemed good.

I imagined her as very innocent.

A naive girl

in this motel,

at the service of the beast that is Terele Pévez.

-"Grandpa!"

-"Grandpa."

-"This is my grandpa."

-"He's hilarious."

That character...

You can be free being 100 years old

and being in a corridor full of shit.

He was a very well-loved guy in the neighborhood.

He was really funny

and we wanted to give him a role,

so we gave him the naked grandpa.

What a man! He was a bit scary.

We couldn't laugh.

What madness! He was amazing!

He's a free man.

Even if he's in misery,

he knows he's free.

Suddenly

we caught him masturbating

in front of the girls on the team.

Sometimes I feel a bit embarrassed about...

the old man. Oh my god!

Once we were in a waiting room and he was completely naked.

He was really odd.

They informed me that he was

touching himself.

And I told him that he should stop,

that people didn't understand him.

He said, "if you're going to film me,

you don't expect me. It will not work,

and we'll have to stop for lack of material."

We had a great time.

This one was great!

One of Alex de la lglesia's virtues has always been his direction of actors.

He makes the most of them.

He has a temper,

UL

you know that with him at your side, you're not going to get lost.

That everything is going to be okay.

Alex is

one of the few directors I would call a genius.

I find him very genius-esque.

He keeps things clear, and has very good ideas.

The thing is that people who work with him tend to get annoyed,

because he has a quick temper.

Alex is a lot of...

He taught me not

to abandon my instinct.

He's always respected his team

and we want him to reach his goal,

to accomplish his aim.

There's a scene where he said, "This is not a fucking school!"

He shouted to the extras

as if he was some kind of general, but not quite.

"This looks like a damn school!

A damn school!

Okay, guys!

We only need one,

one,

to do it wrong,

and will not be credible.

It won't work, right?

Let's try it again!"

He knows what he wants, and sometimes

he pisses you off, because

when something doesn't work out

or the crew relaxes,

you do need someone to yell at you.

Truly, after eleven hours of shooting,

when you're tired,

the film needs someone to tell the actors to give 100%,

because what's filmed lasts forever.

In THE DAY OF THE BEAST

every mistake and every wise move is there.

What makes the film good

is that there was a great director pushing the limits.

The preparation was delightful.

We spent

6 or 8 weeks working exhaustively,

locating the Gran Via,

interior and outdoor locations.

We started sketching the film,

and what we chose as scenery didn't work out.

We designed the motel and Cavan's house.

But then we found real places.

All the design work was out,

and we had to rethink everything.

We'd put a lot of work into the set design of

Cavan's home.

Then we found a real place, after a whole morning

of marking with tape how everything was going to be.

We were happy

that everything matched.

We told the producers that

it had to be that house.

They called the property

and they told us that it was gone.

Right before us, Rappel (a well known tarot reader)

had seen the place and had already paid for it.

We freaked out!

In the end we had to do it where everybody shot.

On Desengafio street

there was a kind of film set,

the apartment of a retired military soldier that was rented out for film shoots.

There we built Cavan's home,

the motel,

the possessed kid's home.

Obviously everything

is a set. The reverse-angle shots in

Cavan's apartment,

behind the windows there were photographs.

What we did was create a cyclorama, a semicircle.

The window they went through had just enough space for them to get out.

At that time neon advertisements were common,

so we put in some fluorescent bulbs

and a large scale picture of the Gran Via.

When we saw it in the movie...

Wow!

It was a very simple and effective trick.

We chose a street in Malasafia for the exterior of the motel

that was under construction.

Halfway through the shooting they finished.

We knew this might happen,

although Alex didn't want to admit it.

The process of requesting permission and then being approved is so slow

that we couldn't wait for it.

The effects team had to put some construction

fences and buttresses up, so that it looked similar.

Where we suffered most was on the TV set.

It was a warehouse of empty Coke cans.

It was a very strange site with millions of cans.

A very big site where they stored cans before filing them with liquid.

We planned on shooting

in a normal TV studio.

I don't know if it was

Tele 5 or Antena3,

but at the last minute

they cancelled.

So we had to improvise a TV set.

It was a set with an audience,

and after putting on make up I heard, "Action!"

So I started speaking,

"Good evening and welcome once again to our show.

Tonight's show is going to be..."

And I heard: "Stop! What on earth are you saying?"

"I don't know, I'm improvising.

What am I supposed to say?"

"Damn! The lines!"

"I don't have any lines."

"Someone give him a script!"

We were already running late.

They gave me a script and it was a whole page

that I hadn't seen in my script.

I looked like the fool who didn't know anything.

In my script this page was missing.

When I got home I checked and that page had been pulled out.

I did what I could. I was nervous,

but it worked.

I thought, "What a mess."

The scene will start with everyone walking the same way

as the first shot.

The filming was also particularly tough.

He'll shoot a man standing here.

General panic!

Mothers, with fear, get the children!

We started during Christmas,

and we used the city lights

on Preciados Street and Gran Via Street.

We paused the shooting and we started again in February.

Very hard,

very wild.

It was at night, and it got very cold.

We worked many hours.

My advice for this:

A lot of coffee with liquor!

It warmed us up. If not it would've been impossible,

in a convertible wearing a silk shirt at -5° Celsius.

We needed the alcohol.

We suffered a lot because it was Madrid at Christmas

during a very cold winter.

When it rained

the water froze on the cars,

and even on the camera lens.

We had to stop to remove ice from the camera.

Four, five, six degrees below zero.

A very cold winter,

and we were always shooting at night.

One day [ told Ale,

"I'm supposed to be a metalhead, but not an idiot

wearing a vest in the cold."

Alex told me it was for the tattoos to show. I was like, "Yes, but I'm freezing!"

Santiago couldn't say the lines because he was shivering,

so we ran around the block

until we warmed up.

I was trembling so much I couldn't say the sentence.

The day we shot the phone cabin scene,

Alex told me,

"Come on, buddy!"

He started massaging my shoulders.

"Let's run a little bit!"

We just ran one block

because we were both overweight,

but it was enough to warm up

to be able to say the lines.

It was agonizing to be unable to act because of the shivering.

It was a pretty hard film to shoot.

We stopped speaking to each other for quite a long time afterwards.

We stopped speaking to Alex.

The film was very challenging for everyone, on all levels.

When you walked around the house

you'd find people sleeping!

Some technician

that couldn't bear it anymore.

People worked extremely hard.

It was a constant struggle with time limits, money, our lack of experience,

and the lack of confidence the production team had in us.

That was one of the few things that went smoothly.

Schweppes paid for the sign,

as we couldn't possibly pay for it.

We built a copy 10% smaller than the original.

The Schweppes sign on the Gran Via,

it was a hassle to make,

to assemble,

to create the access for the actors simulating the window.

To reflect reality,

it was really complex.

Suddenly we saw that it was still gigantic,

and it didn't fit on any set in Madrid.

We had to shoot in an industrial warehouse in Guadalajara.

Like a pharaoh's tomb.

Get the camera, climb up, and shoot downwards.

We even threw a camera.

There's a scene in which Cavan falls face up,

we did that with chroma keying.

And then we threw the camera, shooting upwards.

When we built the thing, it was 8 meters high.

It's not 50 feet, but the fall was equally fatal.

If you fall, that's it.

We were tied

for security,

but we were 15 meters high.

We were really frightened.

He forgot to tell us about his vertigo,

so when he was there on the neon sign...

Someone who has vertigo can't stop it.

It's a reflex.

There he was, screaming, telling us to bring him down.

But he was already tied,

so we took advantage of the circumstance to shoot him.

He didn't say his lines,

he only screamed,

"I have vertigo, bring me down!"

"Alex!"

"I can't!"

"rm

I was next to him thinking, "Poor man, he's having a bad time."

Alex was screaming,

"Don't talk! Act!"

We later dubbed him

saying the actual dialogue.

-"We never stop working, jumping...

It's horrible.

Armando has come all the way from Italy and they're treating him terribly.

They won't let us rest."

-"The dolls...

the dolls are getting dirty."

On THE DAY OF THE BEAST I was particularly obsessed

with everything running smoothly.

-"Two washers that don't hurt the goat,

and you fix her to the floor so that she doesn't move."

We had to nail the goat to the floor, literally, for it not to leave.

But it pulled out the floor.

The goat that played the role of the devil went mad. Everybody had to get out

so the goat could release her energy on the furniture.

The goat was wild.

She was a beast.

She pulled out the wooden floor,

knocked over a camera, and attacked a group of onlookers.

She was supposedly

trained, but

The scene where she stands up is a digital trick.

She didn't do anything,

only charged at the furniture.

It was a really big goat,

and when she broke free

everyone chased after her, while she chased Alex through the corridor.

It kept charging against the walls.

If someone would've filmed it,

it would've possibly been better than the film itself.

We couldn't make her do anything,

not even look at the camera.

I wanted her to look directly into the lens,

It felt like she was playing with us.

We let the goat roam around

while we rolled on two cameras and filmed her roaming the apartment.

After an hour

she finally stopped

and gazed into the lens.

"The goat's a bit clumsy, eh?"

The invocation was real, so was the pentacle.

We really wanted to do that.

Everyone said that thing moved,

but the only thing moving were the fleas from the bed we were shooting on.

There was a psychic called Tristanbraker who said,

"Santiago Segura is a smart man,

but he has played with the forces of evil,

and that puts him in danger."

We found that kind of nonsense amusing.

Suddenly,

in a Polaroid picture of the set for the making-of,

a beam of light appeared

over my face.

It was really similar to THE OMEN.

If we hadn't seen that, we wouldn't have noticed,

but it looked just like

the bar piercing the character

in THE OMEN.

We started to believe in all the devil nonsense.

I believe in evil, and that there are really bad people,

but I don't believe in the devil, occult forces, or

an Almighty God.

Well, I'm not clear on it, I'm still considering it.

But anyway, I wasn't afraid

of playing a satanist from Carabanchel in a film.

"Hi, what's up?

We're Def Con Dos

and we wanted to say

that from now on, we're going to direct Alex's films,

and Alexis going to make the music.

He thinks we're better suited for films than for music."

When the shooting started

he hadn't asked us to make the song for the film yet,

it was a decision that was made later.

It was a film with a big budget,

but everything was very improvised.

When we played the role of "Satannica"

in the concert scene,

we were contacted the day before!

"From abroad they used Pantera, Ministry,

and a couple other bands.

Helltrash was the name of one.

This is going to go around the universe."

Alex was fascinated by Ministry.

He kept telling us,

"THE DAY OF THE BEAST has to be like

a Ministry song!"

I wanted Ministry.

We asked for the copyright, but they had to be renewed every 15 years.

We started with Siniestro Total

and later we got Def Con Dos.

The friendship with César was extraordinary,

an overwhelming mental connection.

During the shooting

in Revolver Club, there was a Ministry song on loop.

The idea was for us to sound like that.

We were starting to become known,

and Alex thought we would add interest with certain audiences,

although we appear very briefly.

I wanted a close-up, right?

But no luck.

The songs of Def Con Dos could have been perfectly written by us,

or at least we would've liked that.

We looked like twin souls.

It was iconic,

because although the songs didn't appear in the film,

they reflected the underground vibe of the film.

The rock'n'roll vibe,

very urban.

It conveys it very well,

the hardcore punk mood of the film.

The idea was

using lighting and color to convey the feeling of the night world.

The clubs, the dens, luxury, austerity...

We basically did it with color.

There were no pure colors,

we tried to mix all temperatures to tell the story.

In the bars

we made the fluorescent lights look green.

We looked for the dirty vibe of some places.

I think that THE DAY OF THE BEAST is the first Spanish film with digital FX.

For the first time, digital FX were starting

to gain importance in Spain.

They started to mean something.

It was something new,

digital FX,

especially

when it came to shots,

makeup, Quetglas' work on clothing...

Reyes Abades

and his team did a magnificent job.

"We'd see if the take was good, and if it wasn't we'd do another one. Fuck it."

"Does it hurt or not?"

"Of course, damn. I'm hurt, but see if it was good..."

The effects are very well done.

It's like

when you watch ROSEMARY'S BABY,

you see little effects but

you believe them.

They're very realistic.

Plus,

like in all of Alex's films,

there's a certain crude aspect

that gives the film a kind of Italian realism that I really enjoy.

It's not the American effect of cosmetic perfection.

It has a European mood.

It can be perfect, but it needs a bit of

asymmetry,

a bit of error, because that's what's natural.

José Antonio Sélnchez designed the model,

and I made the mechanism.

Maybe Sénchez did

the hardest part

and I did the most simple.

We had to teach the disabled actor how to walk on stilts.

Sénchez did this very well.

It was a horror film.

It was a film of deep horror.

In the KIO towers

there would be Satan, and 5000 priests who were walking

through a wooden bridge that connected both towers.

This was our vision.

And there were dozens of bags full of newborn babies.

The Basque priest found

the 5000 priests who had come

to worship Satan.

He joined the queue, and when it was his turn,

Satan (in the form of a goat)

showed him his ass.

The great black kiss.

He kisses Satan's ass,

and like in many medieval engravings,

the devil's ass has a face.

The face was going to be the priest's, he was going to kiss himself.

It didn't appear in the film,

but the priest had a flashback to when he had seen a coven.

There was a sequence in which the priest,

with his family,

saw a witch gathering.

The ending was changed at the last minute.

I think the ending was really good, but

when they saw it, it was so devastating that they didn't dare to include it.

They thought killing a newborn was very violent,

even if it was the antichrist.

I wasn't sure that in a country like this

the audience was going to understand that a baby was shot.

The day of the shooting

Alex came up with a new ending.

He was unsure of that ending.

We had to come up with some kind of Nativity scene

at the construction site of the KIO towers,

with a gypsy famiW-

The ending became more ambiguous.

I shot the last scene in two hours,

when half the crew had already left.

They told me that they had to load the trucks

and leave,

but we still needed to shoot the last scene.

The encounter with the antichrist,

the dead baby...

Alex Angulo and I shot it

with the help of Jorge, who was still there.

We were debating whether to shoot the child in the head or not,

and we ended up not doing it because we didn't have a suitable doll.

We would have put the gun against his head.

The film was selected for the Venice Film Festival.

We were

super happy-

The Venice Film Festival!

We were all happy.

We met Armando there.

He'd told us that he was a celebrity in his country,

but at the festival

nobody asked for a picture with him.

He said he was very relieved, because with his new goatee

nobody recognized him.

I was like, "Yeah, sure."

In Venice, I remember reading some patronizing reviews,

especially when the reviewers weren't fans of the genre.

They said that it had very homemade effects.

But the visual and technological parts are on point.

While we were returning in the "vaporetto,"

I was at the rear end

and saw Alex really angrily reading all the newspapers

in which they spoke badly of us.

He was quite disappointed.

In one review they said,

"it sounded awful,"

but later we found out it meant "poor, but effective."

Alex was devastated, and

he conveyed that to all of us.

We arrived at the airport totally shattered,

thinking it had been

a failure and

that no one liked it.

Venice didn't understand the film very well.

There were several reasons:

the Pope,

Catholicism,

the devil,

and Christian democracy,

which has been our biggest problem for 50 years.

In Sitges I remember

a certain hostility from the critics,

but later it gained success.

Suddenly some really good reviews came out.

It was surreal.

I remember

the division of opinion,

something that has always happened

with Alex de la lglesia's films.

Later, it slowly became a cult film,

a total success.

At the premier in Madrid, we were at Alex's home

and when we left

to start walking to the Gran Via,

we looked at how many people were in the distance.

There was another premiere, APOLLO 13.

Alex was afraid.

A Hollywood film.

What would happen?

The APOLLO 13 premiere was empty,

while THE DAY OF THE BEAST premiere had an immense queue.

It was strategic.

We could have chosen

any cinema in Spain,

but I thought of premiering at the Rex theatre,

because with only 500 seats

the chaos could be important.

I remember with affection when they told me that there were lines.

I saw them from my home because I lived nearby.

It fascinated me.

In effect,

we premiered the film at the Rex theatre,

and during the first week impressive lines formed.

The thing is that the earnings were quite low,

because the Rex was really small.

They later showed it in other cinemas,

but the strategy of premiering at the Rex was mine.

THE DAY OF THE BEAST became one of the most emblematic films of the year,

everyone watched it.

It was a success, and a fantastic film.

When we sold it abroad it translated really well,

and it began to be an important film.

When I saw the film, I said

that what just happened was really important.

It was the beginning

of a new golden age,

even if it's a cliché to say this,

of the Spanish fantasy genre.

If people dared to follow Alex's trail,

the lovers of the genre would live happy days.

Like every movie,

THE DAY OF THE BEAST

has gained importance with time.

Alex brought freshness,

innovation.

Or maybe he forced it.

I don't know how to explain it,

but it marked a milestone.

It has an unusual power

in the genre,

and in Spanish cinema.

I think when we saw it,

people who wanted to make films

saw that it broke something,

a barrier in the industry.

I still believe it's one of the best films by Alex de la lglesia,

and one of the best films of contemporary Spanish cinema.

A great film.

What fascinates me is what it's caused.

THE DAY OF THE BEAST represents a new type of cinema.

It didn't only excite me,

but it also opened so many doors for me.

It's an unforgettable film.

I believe it's a fundamental part of Spanish cinema.

THE DAY OF THE BEAST is

the essential film in understanding Alex de la lglesia's cinema.

It's maybe the film that defines me most.

The passion for the histrionic, exaggeration, horror,

the tenderness of a small individual

as the main character,

disenchanting endings,

all of this is

part of the films I make.

It's...

the most remembered film,

and the one I'm best known for.

It fills me with joy.

It's a film I deeply love.

"Attention!

The best is yet to come."