Back in 1985, (God...that was last century!), in a small city in Uruguay, South America, -(now it sounds like the beginning of Star Wars...) a sixteen year old kid approached a local TV station with a thirty pages script that nobody read...The General Manager of the station, (who was one in three employees who worked there and was also the anchor of the only news program), told the young kid: "Sure, if you get ten sponsors, we'll make the movie for you." The kid took his bicycle and rode all over the city, looking for ten sponsors. He found twenty...So the script that nobody read turned into a half an hour movie and its title was "Posesión", (Possession, - you don't need to be a bilingual genius to figure out that one....)

Posesión was aired on March 26, 1986 at 10:30 PM on Channel 3 TV, Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay, South America, planet Earth...The whole city, (about 60,000 Christian souls and two Buddhists) watched the movie because they wanted to laugh at a few crazy locals trying to make a horror flick...

However, they wouldn't laugh...Not only because it wasn't funny, but also because it was damned scary; and more than one young adult today remembers the night they had to sleep with mom and dad because they were told a funny movie was going to be on TV and it wasn't  funny at all... That night they learnt two things...Mom and dad don't always know what they are talking about, and...those crazy locals can be as scary as the actors with weird names, (should we say "gringo" names?), who make big movies on a big silver screen...

The kid who wrote, produced and directed that spooky weird half hour show, was known as Ricardo Islas, a normal...okay, ...a kid who grew up watching and admiring Chris Lee and Peter Cushing and anything and everything that had the name Hammer somewhere, except for Stacey Keach playing Mike Hammer. (Nothing personal against Keach, except that he was playing a role that had previously been played by Darren Mc Gavin, who also played Kolchak, his other idol.)...So now we know...Hammer Films with Lee and Cushing on one side, Darren Mc Gavin playing Kolchak on the other side...and on a third side, (which doesn't mean third in order of importance), Vincent Price and anything with the name Roger Corman in production, direction or at least a position as an extra, would be his inspiration and role models... 
 

DISCLAIMER:  IF you made it through the previous paragraphs up to this point and the names you've just read: Lee, Cushing, Mc Gavin, Corman, Price...mean something to you, then you are probably going to enjoy this website. IF  you made it through the previous paragraphs, and you've heard those names but you are not sure who they are, then you might still enjoy part of this website. IF you made it through the previous paragraphs, you know those names and never got interested in what they represent, then you might need to re-consider surfing this pages... IF you made it through the previous paragraphs, and you have no idea what we are talking about, then you might belong in the so-called generation X and we recommend that you keep watching Hollywood movies, eating fast food and you are most likely to become C.E.O. of an important corporation or even a Senator... IF you DIDN'T make it through the previous paragraphs, then you are not reading this anyway...

Back to history...After "Posesión" and for the next ten years, Ricardo Islas and all of those he could gather, would be responsible, (although some people would call them "irresponsible" ), for over ten titles, going from local to national television, from small neighborhood theater to main city ones, from home shelves, to nation wide home video shelves. At this point, middle 90s, we would start to hear the word cult and since the late eighties, the word awards would also come up on board of this story.

After winning every single award his country would issue to filmmakers and after being on national media attention for years, Islas was hitting his head against a low ceiling at age 26... 

It was then, when the flick Mala Sangre, (Bad Blood), was selected to participate in the International Chicago Latino Film Festival, bringing Islas to the States, in April 1996. 

Since then, ALPHA Studios, (former ALPHA Producciones in its South American version...At some point they would call it ALPHA Entertainment as well, but they would give up on that name, since they would slobber trying to pronounce it...) - has found a new home: Chicago. 

Five years in the United States, two mini-series, ( Hispanos and Amor Brujo ),  and two length feature movies, ( Headcrusher and Haciendo el Amor..Brujo )...

ALPHA Studios is just getting started...

TO BE CONTINUED...
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