Filmax picks up 'Underground'

Gonzalez debuts with subway horror

By JOHN HOPEWELL

MADRID — In the run-up to the American Film Market, Filmax Intl. has taken worldwide rights outside Spain to “Underground" (ASD: Alma Sin Dueno), the feature film debut of helmer Tinieblas Gonzalez.

Gonzalez, whose first name means “shadows,” is one of Spain’s best-known young genre filmmakers. His reputation has been established through a series of shorts that range from the semi-autobiographical and macabre — “Por un infante difunto,” about a boy’s visit to a butcher's shop — to ambitious gothic pieces, such as the Edgar Allen Poe adaptation “The Raven...Nevermore.”

Written by Gonzalez, Koldo Serra (“Backwoods") and Txabier Alastruey, “Underground” combines Gonzalez’s gothic horror hallmarks — it’s set in the grimy galleries of a subway — with an action storyline, turning on four young graffiti artists who decide to daub a new subway system. Pursued by security guards, they stumble upon a half human creature.

Shot in English, “Underground” toplines a young U.S. cast of Brendan Coughlin (“CSI”), Francia Raisa (“Bring It On: All or Nothing”), Doug Haley (“Nightworld: 30 Years to Life”) and Deance Wyatt (“Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror”).

Now posting f/x, “Underground” also features Robert Miano (“Dungeons and Dragons: the Movie”).