The odyssey of the Spanish horror film that “should not exist”: from the industry’s rejection of Stephen King’s recommendation | Culture

“We made it to premiere it in Sitges, and the first slap in the face was that they didn’t want it. Then a large distributor told us that The dining room table should not exist. And an important person in the exhibition circuit urged me to leave the cinema, which this movie “It should only be seen in a madhouse.” The journey of Caye Casas’ second feature film, as he himself remembers, could not have started worse. He even described it as “cursed.” But in a matter of a week the tables have turned. Its two-year odyssey ends this Friday with its premiere on the Filmin platform, thanks to the encouragement of Stephen King. A name that I would never have expected to come across in this film shot in 10 days, at the director’s friend’s house in Terrassa.

The horror genius has become a machine for recommending series and movies, wherever they come from, and not always with the same quality. He did it with The paper house, Servant and Wedding night. Last Friday, the writer surprised again with his choice in a message on the social network X: “There is a Spanish film called The dining room table. I don’t think you’ve ever seen a movie as dark as this one in your life. It’s horrible and terribly funny. “Think of the Coen brothers’ darkest dream.”

The message soon reached the Filmin offices and the red phone turned on. The platform had planned to release the film on June 16, but it had to be brought forward. They feared that pirated copies would begin to multiply, acknowledges Jaume Ripoll, the company’s editorial director, who saw the film for the first time at the end of 2022. Said and done: after an arduous race for its distribution, The dining room table arrive at streaming Spanish, paradoxically, after having been released abroad. A manna that comes thanks to one of the great internet prescribers. “The country where she was least loved was Spain,” Casas recalls to EL PAÍS by phone.

But what is this film about that received so much rejection? The director acknowledges that it is better not to know, but warns that it is not for all audiences or weak stomachs: “I am a big fan of horror, but I see more of the same, it disturbs me less and less and it is less scary. They are made with a lot of pasta, but they don’t stir me. So my co-writer Cristina Borobia and I thought about creating something really disturbing, that people will not forget and that will make them feel strong emotions.”

The question they asked themselves was: what is the scariest thing in life? “They are not zombies or ghosts, but the bad luck that you can have if fate is cruel. How do you survive one of the greatest tragedies happening to you? We wanted to capture everyday terror. One of those bestial stories in the news, a tragedy that is not told, something worse than death. There is no gore, just anxiety and stress.” Everything focused on the anguish of the protagonist, played by David Pareja.

The genre has believers all over the world, and, despite the lack of distribution, that opened doors for it. The film has taken Casas to 15 countries and won more than 30 awards at festivals such as the BIFFF in Brussels, the San Sebastián Fantasy and Horror Film Week and Terror Molins, although the creator remains with a moment in Romania. A room of 1,000 people was filled with silence when, during the discussion, a woman told them that the same thing had happened to her: “I was frozen, but she thanked us for taking the risk. She told us that it had been cathartic and that she was going home with more peace of mind.”

In all that time, not only “was there no one who wanted to distribute it in Spain,” but also last December, one of the film’s supporting characters, Itziar Castro, the muse of Casas’s shorts and with whom he was preparing other projects, died. “Two days before she died, we talked about going to a discussion. We had premieres in very small theaters, they were almost theater gigs,” she remembers. Yes, it was released in other countries. Among them: USA, through Amazon Prime Video. “That was the moment of change. They started recommending it tiktokers and influencers cinema. Even director Mick Garris, who has adapted works by Stephen King such as The glow and Apocalypse, saw her at a festival. She shared that she had blown her mind. King saw her message, and called his friend: ‘What the fuck is this? How can I see it?” recalls Casas. Then, the Catalan received a private message from the director on Facebook asking for a viewing link for the author of Item: “After six hours he had seen it, and he wrote to me telling me that he had loved it, that it was like a very bad Poe story. It’s surreal. There was a better chance of being hit by lightning.”

Casas, who is traveling this week to present the film in Italy and then to sell it at the Cannes festival, says that, 20 minutes after King’s message, representatives from the United States called him. At the moment, he continues working to sell his ideas and the four scripts he has written, which range from horror to black comedy. “I don’t know if anything will come of it, but I just hope to be able to make my next film with resources. The opposite is exhausting,” says the director, who, although he does not reveal the total cost, assures that he had to put 1,000 euros out of his own pocket to finish it: “There are short films with a much larger budget. They have never given me a subsidy. It is an experience that I do not recommend to anyone.”

“For me the problem is those in charge. I think they should expand their editorial line, because when you present a film with strong emotions or risk, it can grow through word of mouth. We didn’t have a euro for promotion,” she remembers. This is what happened with The hole, the fourth most watched non-English premiere in the history of Netflix and about to release a sequel. Ripoll also remembers Friend, which had a better international tour than in Spain. Casas adds: “They are wrong to depend only on the algorithm. I hope this helps to have the budget to work as God intended, pay my people well and get paid myself. And if I have to learn English with Duolingo (the app), I will go without fear. “I just want to tell my stories.”

_