Director Pablo Aragüés' fantasy thriller 1,200 SOULS has been slipping under our radar up to this point, but it has our attention in a big way after being mentioned on the latest episode of the Mick Garris-hosted podcast Post Mortem. The film was brought up by the guest – who happened to be legendary master of horror John Carpenter.
During their conversation, Garris asked Carpenter if he was still writing music, to which Carpenter replied,
Yes, yes, yes, and I'm gonna do some scores this year. Gonna do the HALLOWEEN score, I guess. And 1,200 SOULS is a movie being made, I'm gonna do the score for that. Yeah, it'll be fun."
Well, if this movie is going to have a score provided by John Carpenter, it's one I'm going to be watching for sure.
1,200 SOULS is the first Spanish film for French actor Jean Reno, who was born in French-ruled Morocco to Spanish parents and moved to France as a teenager. Reno will co-star in the film with Ingrid García-Jonsson. The script, written by Aragüés, is set
in a small town nestling in the lap of the high Pyrenees, to which a young woman, Carla, returns to scatter her mother’s ashes, only to be confronted by violence, deaths and the seemingly supernatural, such as the spontaneous combustion.
Reno is playing a character that was written with him in mind, "Jacques the Frenchman, a hermit who knows more than he lets on and proves the only villager who stands by Carla as she seeks to get to the bottom of events."
The story has its roots in the 1930s Spanish Civil War, when thousands of Spaniards fled their country and tried to reach France by making a treacherous journey across the Pyrenees.
1,200 SOULS is scheduled to go into production this summer, with filming to take place entirely in Aragón, Spain.