THE APOSTLE (O APÓSTOLO) is an animated feature-length film combining “terror, humor and fantasy” in the Gothic style of Tim Burton’s CORPSE BRIDE, though the producers tell Fango that visually, the production is taking inspiration from the likes of Roman Polanski’s THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS and Burton’s SLEEPY HOLLOW. The plot concerns an escaped convict and his attempts to recover loot which he hid years before in a decrepit house in an isolated, fog-bound village. Murderous old yokels, strange disappearances, ghosts, a weird priest, the shadow of bubonic plague, a sinister old crone “from another place” and a cantankerous archbishop (Naschy) with a guilty secret all play a part in his adventures, until he ultimately finds himself condemned to a captivity far more terrifying than the harshest prison sentence.

The action is situated along the “Camino de Santiago,” the medieval route across northern Spain used by Catholic pilgrims from all over Europe journeying to visit the shrine of St. James the Apostle in the crypt of Santiago cathedral. In recent years, this Pilgrim’s Way has been revitalized and today forms an important mainstay of Spain’s tourist industry—and in an echo of films like HOSTEL, THE APOSTLE includes a hapless German tourist who ends up wishing she’d stayed at home.

Written and directed by Fernando Cortizo, an award winner for his macabre stop-motion short LEO—about a mutilated ventriloquist, his ambitious assistant and the titular dummy—the movie melds Galician superstitions about witches, black magic and a wandering host of limbo-locked spirits of the dead (A Santa Compaña) with the legend of a village cursed by the Black Death and a real-life incident which smacks of TWO THOUSAND MANIACS! “I read about some villagers who moved the signposts along the Pilgrim’s Way in order to detour travelers to their own village,” Cortizo tells Fango, “and thus share some of the profits which the hostelries of neighboring towns were making from the tourist trade. It started me wondering, ‘What if somebody did the same for more sinister reasons?’ ”



The cast also includes Geraldine Chaplin (fresh from reprising the Maria Ouspenskaya role in the WOLFMAN remake), Jorge (BLACK SERENADE) Sanz, Luis Tosar, Celso Bugallo, Manuel Manquiña, Carlos Blanco (pictured above left with Naschy) and Xosé Manuel Olveira. Following the technique employed on LEO, which “starred” Blanco and Olveira, all of THE APOSTLE’s dialogue scenes were filmed live with the actors, both to provide direct sound for their diminutive alter egos and to give the animators footage on which to base the movements and body language of the foam-latex characters when the animation process begins next January. Cortizo explains that he’s particularly keen on this way of working, as it gives the actors a chance to actually live their roles and give more creative performances, as opposed to the usual method of just having read lines in a studio. The outdoor scenes were shot in the grounds of the hotel where the cast and crew were put up, and interiors were recorded inside a ruined old house in a nearby village.

“It’s certainly one of the most relaxed shoots I’ve ever taken part in,” Naschy laughs, while Sanz, who plays his ingenuous assistant, jokes, “I’ll be able to put on my résumé that I was a DVD special feature,” which is where these live-action scenes will eventually appear. This pair (who, like their characters, hail from outside Galicia), along with Chaplin, also had half as much to do as the rest of the cast, who are all locals; each take was recorded in two versions, one in Spanish and another in Galician.

The movie is being made by Artefacto Producciones, with financial backing from a number of Galician cultural organizations and a private foundation; shares in the production are also being sold to the public at 30 Euros apiece at the company’s website here. Cortizo says that an English-language dub is certainly in the cards, and he’d like to count on the collaboration of well-known American or British actors to revoice the characters. Speaking of Hollywood stars, Blanco says that while performing his scenes as Ramón the convict, he envisaged the role as the type often essayed by Bruce Willis: “A bit of a rogue who projects himself as a tough guy, but really has a heart of gold.” Perhaps Cortizo will bear that in mind when looking for English dubbers…