and that Fenix has kept a mannequin of his armless mother for performing on stage and at home, which also now appears in reality to be a thoroughly dilapidated house. He destroys the home-made temple and throws away the mannequin with the help of his imaginary childhood friends, Aladin and the clowns. Alma proceeds to lead Fenix outside the house where police are waiting and order them to put up their hands. As they both comply, Fenix watches his own hands in awe as he does so. Fenix's realization that he has finally regained control of his hands brings him joy and peace. Cast Production Development Roberto Leoni, who had worked in the library of a psychiatric hospital where he had been in contact with people suffering from mental disorders, developed a story about dissociative identity disorder that he told Claudio Argento during a time they worked together. Argento appreciated the story and added to it, and with Leoni, they decided to present it to the director who seemed to them the most suited to the material, Alejandro Jodorowsky. After his cult film The Holy Mountain of 1974, Jodorowsky was asked to direct a film version of Frank Herbert’s epic 1965 science fiction novel Dune but the project had collapsed, and except for the children’s fable Tusk in 1980 he had stopped directing films, working as a comics writer in France. Jodorowsky developed this story, also telling Leoni the story of Gregorio Cárdenas Hernández, which were in some respects similar, and together they wrote the script of Santa Sangre. Writing Roberto Leoni stated that an episode with a patient in the psychiatric hospital was probably the origin of Santa Sangre because over time he conceived "a story in which even the worst demon actually can't forget he is an angel." In fact, Fenix the character that Leoni created together with Jodorowsky is a serial killer, but "…every time he kills you feel sorry for him, that is you are sorry more for him than for the victim." Release Though a Mexican and Italian co-production, Santa Sangre is in English. In the United States, it was primarily rated NC-17 for "several scenes of extremely explicit violence". An edited version was released with an R rating for "bizarre, graphic violence and sensuality, and for drug content". Regardless, Santa Sangre did not receive a wide release in the U.S., only screening at a