Fede Alvarez Speaks Up About Don’t Breathe at Trailer Premiere Event!
Ted Hentschke
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I don’t normally research the movies/games/shows/alternate reality experiences that I cover. I know… as a lauded and critically acclaimed Dread Central journalist, I should be well-read and up-to-date on every casting decision, script update, scheduling change, and catering menu detail for every horror film currently or ever having been in production.
Part of my ignorance is willful, as my age and cynicism have jaded me to a point where going into something with even the most meager of expectations is a recipe for a lengthy and bitter rant masquerading as an article.
There is an exception to this rule: demons. I’m a huge sucker for demons (and found footage, but I’m no longer willing to admit that in daylight). Argue with me all you want about whatever the fuck happened in Evil Dead, but that was some demonic shit. As a bullshit millennial, I wasn’t really around when all of those wacky cult hits from the 80’s came out, but even I have a great love for Raimi’s iconic franchise. I know there was some debate over Alvarez’s remake (The audacity to remake a classic! Who ever would dream of it?), but I loved it. The tone was pitch black and the palette crimson.
As a result, I had been eager to get the scoop on Alvarez’s next flick, Don’t Breathe (review), for some time. So when I was given the chance to check out the trailer premiere event, I hopped in my car and made the infernal drive from San Diego to Satan’s Asshole (Los Angeles). On the docket was a trailer premiere, room escape game, and—the real draw—a chance to speak to director Fede Alvarez.
If you haven’t checked out the trailer yet, be sure to watch it below:
I had plenty of questions coming into the event, but the trailer left me with many more. My time was brief, so I focused my questions on how Alvarez’s experience and style contributed to Don’t Breathe:
“There are many similarities in some themes and ideas, but this is because Don’t Breathe was also co-written by Rodo [Sayagues], who worked with me on Evil Dead. So our sensibilities tend to go to a very similar place. They say that directors make the same movie over and over again, which is in some ways true. We’re telling a different story with different themes, but you can see similar stylistic elements. Gore is definitely not one of them. With Evil Dead it was all about, “Let’s make a modern gorefest.” With the budget we had, we wanted to do it right. All practical effects. I made it for fans of that, which just so happens to be me and my friends. There’s also nothing supernatural. I’m just sick of everything coming out now being supernatural. I wanted to tell a story about real people and what could really happen.”
He went on to explain how he gave Don’t Breathe its own identity:
“Coming off of Evil Dead, there were two things we wanted to do with our next project. The first was make something totally original. A lot of people coming out of Evil Dead said, ‘I liked the movie, but I don’t like that it was a remake.’ So remakes were out; we wanted to write from a white page. The second thing was not throwing buckets of blood at the screen. People like blood, it’s fun, but it can be easy. I wanted to make an exercise in great horror and tension without all of the gore.”
When asked if that meant the movie would be toned down, he elaborated:
“That doesn’t mean that this is going to be PG-13. We aren’t rated yet, but I would be very surprised if it wasn’t R. It gets pretty fucked up. That’s one of the things that I think Evil Dead had. Whenever you thought it wouldn’t go somewhere, we went way past that. People think that just because you are in some multiplex theater, that it’s a safe space. We want to expose people to all of that anarchy. We want to break the rules and make them feel unsafe. People that see this movie are gonna wonder what the hell we were thinking.”
He went on to explain what this movie personally meant to him:
“I was actually driving back from Comic-Con San Diego with my co-writer, having done promotion for the Blu-ray, and we realized that there were people that actually really liked our movie. Before a movie’s out, you do these promotional things, but no one has actually seen the movie. You get a lot of reception from fans who are fans of the series or who just want to see Bruce Campbell. But now that the movie was out, we got to see people who were still excited. We saw people with tattoos of our Evil Dead on their bodies. It made us realize that there are people in this world that care about what we do in the world of horror thrillers. What we did mattered and could last. So we wanted to make a worthy follow-up to that movie. What stood out to us was the idea of this blind villain. Usually it’s the victim that’s disabled, but how does a predator evolve when you take away one of his senses? That was the first seed of this whole project. From there, we created a character who you can really understand how he got to this point. All of this stuff has happened that led him to who he is now. What if someone tried to take something from him then?”
It was a brief interview, but a candid one. For only having about 10 minutes to answer our questions, he gave some good insight into his process and what to expect from Don’t Breathe. I wish I could have had more time, and only 20% of that is because he’s a suave, tall, and handsome South American artist. Alas, all I could do was shake his hand and mumble out that I really liked Evil Dead before being pulled away into the room escape event.
I had never done a room escape challenge before this. As a oafish internet person, human contact scares me, and groups of strangers are only good for slasher film fodder. Still, I’m a professional, so I sucked it up and stopped being antisocial long enough to mull around a room with some strangers looking for keys.
I don’t really get how to emote, hence why I seem to be mildly aroused by terror.
To be honest, I had a pretty good time once I got over my natural instinct to hoard and started working with everyone else. It was based on the trailer, so they built it around needing to break into a blind person’s safe. Small domino-like pieces were hidden about, showing letters on one side and a series of dots on the other. I figured out pretty quickly that it was Braille, and so the hunt began to find all of the pieces and translate the combination to the safe.
After that, we were chased into a secret room by the blind killer and had to figure out how to escape. This time a number of puzzle pieces were scattered about, and we had put them all together to decipher a message. There was also something on the roof which had to be lowered to get another key to escape. The gimmick this time was that the room was totally black, so we had to use our cellphone lights to look around.
Once out of that room, there were some good jump scares and a fevered dash to the exit. I figured out the code pretty quickly, and out we went. It took us about 20 minutes to complete, which I have no frame of reference for being good or bad.
I have really no idea how to review these events, but I had a lot of fun. It felt a few times like there were far too many cooks, especially in the cramped pitch black room. Putting together a puzzle with two people is fine, but when eight people are trying to do it, then it’s a bit messy. If I were being asked to review the experience I had at COUNTDOWN Live Escape Games, I would describe it as phenomenal. The actors were great and helpful, aesthetics top-notch, and challenges real. Each task was multi-layer, with red herrings and extra clues to trip you up. If you haven’t done it before, I’d highly recommend it.
At the end of the day, I was impressed by what they put together for just a preview of a trailer. I’m excited to see what the film has in store for me on August 26th. So, what do you think? Excited for Don’t Breathe? Let me know below!
Categorized:News
