ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the film that readily associated the name Jodorowsky to cult status, El Topo. Cult film scholarship of the last ten years has yielded a familiar account of the reasons that have made El Topo a cult film par excellence. The chapter looks at non-Anglophone context of exhibition, consumption and reception: Spain. It seeks to tell thestories of the transnational circulation and reception and the shifting cultural status of El Topo. The circulation of El Topo in the midnight movie circuit and its critical reception in the United States is well documented. If coverage of El Topo in 1976 had been circumscribed to the general chronicling of a festival devoted to Ibero-American cinemas, reviews on El Topo in 1980 circulated in a range of publications, from the mainstream press to cultural magazines to popular film magazines.
