A cult director, his work is reminiscent in tone and style to that of Guillermo del Toro. At one point, scheduled to shoot the Doom (based on the video game) movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it fell through. His films have a kind of comic edge to them that is very similar to the early films of Peter Jackson. Unlike Jackson or Del Toro, though, his work has not yet reached a large enough audience here in the US. Day of the Beast (Le jour de la bête (1995)) and Action mutante (1993) have their own very strong but small followings, and Dance With the Devil (Perdita Durango (1997)) will go down in history as probably the weirdest Javier Bardem film ever made (it was released in the US only a few years before Avant la nuit (2000)).
Belongs to the "unofficial" new generation of Hispanic filmmakers which includes Guillermo del Toro (Mexican), Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Mexican), Alfonso Cuarón (Mexican) and Robert Rodriguez (American).
