When I decided to make my version of Poe's stories, I wanted to respect the original material or to at least get closer to what his stories are really about. Most other adaptations I've seen sort of follow the story but they never satisfy me as an audience member or as a reader.
When horror turns into gore, when you show the monster, the killings, and the blood, it loses its suggestive powers. It loses part of what makes a horror film a horror film, which is that the images you see develop in your brain and you become the one imagining what you are not seeing on screen.
In a way Poe was a big influence for Conan Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes. I think he really did influence many artist of the time like Baudelaire, who was a big fan of Poe, and who was the one that brought attention to Poe's work in Europe.
I've worked in animation for a long time. I started in Spain and I wanted to make feature films. That desire to figure out how to make animated features brought me to the U.S. to work for Disney.
The biggest problem in countries that don't have a tradition in animation or a film industry, is that precisely, that it's not an industrial activity as it is in Hollywood where there are clear production procedures. Because of this we all become snipers making our films any way we can and crossing our fingers to get distribution so people can see them.
In a certain way working in animation has become very democratic because now anyone with the right technology can at least prepare a project from home in order to attract investors. Some people can even set up a small home studio and start working.
Independence can be tough. Without a studio to back you up, when you finish a feature and want to start a new project you have to start from zero.
