'The resurrected', the greatest nightmare of Spanish cinema or the holy grail of fantaterror

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There are films that are defined by their most intimate impossibility. Orson Welles dedicated his entire life to a Quixote that he was unable to finish because, quite simply, to finish it would have been to betray a project whose meaning was none other than infinity.

is not exactly Orson Welles, but against the light, let's admit it, the plump image of one next to the other, hits the spot.

nor does it bear many similarities to the adaptation of Cervantes that the director of Ciudadano Kane devised in the 1950s and that he continued to prolong, transform and mutate until his death in 1985. But, in their own way, both impossible films share the same devotion and venom that segregates the dark room. In both cases (squeamishness and prejudice aside) the substratum of all obsessions is the cinema that devours cinema.

The documentary

, by the speleologist from the corners of Spanish cinema

tells the story of precisely The Resurrected, the most blissfully cursed movie that Hispanic fantaterror has given

The documentary sews and unsews a quixotic and therefore

(or vice versa) larger than life itself. "I always thought of it as a tribute to a genre that has been unfairly treated," says De Bobadilla. At his side, Matellano offers his own version, already macerated by time. “For me, The Risen Ones has always been something different. The first time I heard of it, it was presented to me in the form of a myth. It was that tape that everyone around me, and especially my friend Paul Naschy, was talking about. Then it became a funny, epic and, above all, chaotic story. And eternal. And, now, finally, it is a unique life experience in which many of us can look at ourselves, "says the director of

, which premieres this Friday for what it is: the reflection of a reflection in which one manages to see the very meaning of all desires. «I see myself and I don't see myself in the documentary. It's Victor's reading. But the passion is still intact, ”replies the father of the original creature.

To situate ourselves, it all started in 1995. At the same time that Álex de la Iglesia was filming El día de la bestia, a very young fan of the fantastic genre devised the perfect conglomerate of an entire tradition in which everything from Amando de Ossorio to Eugenio Martín was quoted by León Klimovsky or Tomás Aznar. And all of them without forgetting the always tireless Jacinto Molina-Paul Naschy. “And the works of Iván Zulueta”, specifies the filmmaker. Arturo de Bobadilla was 24 years old. Today he looks 52. He had no script (or nobody ever saw it) or budget (the sandwiches between takes were paid for by his mother) or a fixed camera (he shot in various formats to the cry of "Engines!"). But he had the immeasurable longing for a passion that was undoubtedly quixotic. and

. And that meant that both Santiago Segura and Manuel Tallafé, accompanied by Antonio Mayans or Zoe Berriatúa, did not hesitate for a second to show up on time for each of the erratic summonses to shoot. And above all, Dr. Daninsky himself from The Mark of the Werewolf. That is, Paul Naschy.

recalls Tallafé.

«I was one of the group of fans who met at Paul's house to see his old movies. In one of the sessions, he told us about it. And he was excited. He thought he could even relaunch his career, "recalls Matellano. Putting up the plot of the tape is hard work. But, with effort and a little will, it can be achieved. Inspired by the stories and legend of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, the film tells the funny story of a soldier from the Tercios of Flanders possessed by the devil and willing from beyond the grave to end the Kingdom of Spain. So so. More than two decades later, the film was finally finished and was finally screened twice: at the

And just at that moment it became the darkest and at the same time the most resplendent secret of Spanish cinema.

The secret of a secret.

The legend of a legend.

It was a myth because it was unfinished and a myth exactly the same because of the opposite.

Once seen, no one ever dared so much from the clear and resounding certainty of nothingness.

Segura and Tallafe

“I have always followed the project closely.

I was one of those who, every time I met Arturo, asked him how everything was going in a ritual of identical answers.

When it wasn't a printing problem, it was a mounting problem... », says Matellano.

"It's hard to explain why it took me so long.

Better let it go.

It's over," De Bobadilla insists.

It's hard to hold back laughter when Segura and Tallafé recount at the same time how they faced a script that never existed.

they say. No less delusional is the episode in which an accident really made one of the actresses bleed while performing, to the delight of the special effects department, which obviously never existed either. And about the "culotes" of the sandwiches... "Not everyone remembers the same thing," De Bodadilla points out. And he adds: «But Naschy always took a taxi to his house».

For Matellano, his film is essentially about our fragility.

Of that, and of course, of the indefatigable passion of a man facing windmills, demons and lazy realities.

For De Bobadilla, this film that is now being seen (not his) is a leap into the void that confronts him with the need and obligation of The Resurrected 2. And for both of them, it is first and foremost the certainty of cinema understood as the creator of desires and, of course, of myths.

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