Interviews
[SXSW Interview] Fede Alvarez Talks ‘Don’t Breathe’ and What’s Going On With ‘Evil Dead 2!’
Director Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead) blew audiences away at the 30th Annual SXSW Music, Film and Interactive Conferences and Festivals with his latest film Don’t Breathe (read my review), which was the festival’s first Midnighter. I was lucky enough to sit down with Alvarez and chat about the film (and maybe a little bit about Evil Dead as well). Check out what he had to say! You can also check out my interview with the films stars Dylan Minnette and Daniel Zovatto here.
Bloody Disgusting: Hi! Nice to meet you.
Fede Alvarez: Nice to meet you as well.
BD: First I just want to say that I loved the film, and I was very happy that I didn’t know anything about it going in.
FA: Thank you I’m glad you watched it! Yeah this was interesting. Nobody knew shit about this movie and you never know what people are going to expect. With this, my goal was that no one would expect anything.
BD I definitely think that’s the best way to watch the movie though. I feel like nowadays trailers spoil so many things that to go in blind is nearly impossible so this was a real treat. But moving on to the film itself: What made you want to write this as a follow-up to Evil Dead? What gave you the idea?
FA: It was just me and Rodo, my co-writer on Evil Dead and this one too. We’re friends and we were just driving from Comic-Con in San Diego back to Los Angeles just trying to think about what we were going to do next. We knew- we kind of imposed some rules based on our experience with Evil Dead.
1) We knew we didn’t want it to be a remake. We wanted to do something fresh and original and new.
2) Because we used so much blood on Evil Dead. It was so much about that, you know? It was for shock value. So we said “Okay, let’s do a movie with no blood.” That was our rule: to not make a bloody film.
3) Let’s make it about suspense. Evil Dead didn’t have a lot of room for suspense so we wanted to make this one all about suspense and not related to the supernatural at all. That was and still is the trend for thrillers and horror right now. It’s always supernatural. We can tell great stories in the world that are not supernatural. If you go back to classics like Psycho, there’s nothing supernatural in there. There’s definitely enough real scary stuff in the world to make a movie out of.
So that was definitely what we wanted to do.
BD: I mean slashers are my favorite sub-genre so I like the reality of the situation.
FA: Cool
BD: So I may be wrong, but I feel like I read an interview after Evil Dead with Jane Levy where someone asked her if she would do that again and she kind of skirted around the topic. You put her through the wringer on Evil Dead so it must have been tough on her. Did it take convincing on your part to get her back for this film because she gets put through the wringer again.
FA: She said yes right away. She had read the script as soon as it was done because we are good friends, but no one had made an offer to her yet. So I called her out of the blue one day and asked her if she wanted to make this movie and she was like “Fuck yeah, let’s do it!” But I think once she got on set and she started to realize what we were doing she asked herself ” Shit, why did I get myself into this mess again?” I think she did an amazing job though. I was watching her on the screen and I was so proud of her. She really delivers.
BD: Yeah she’s two for two with you. I watched her on Suburgatory when it was on and she’s definitely got range, what with being able to do comedy and horror so successfully.
FA: Yeah, definitely.
BD: So was this an easier shoot for you? Or was it more stressful?
FA: [hesitates] No shoot is easy and if it is then you’re probably making a shitty movie. Like when you watch Evil Dead and you see all of those effects you know that it’s not easy to do and it pays off in that way for the audience. Don’t Breathe had a lot of that too where it wasn’t an easy shoot at all. That doesn’t mean that it’s a negative experience or anything like that. Some of the best movies ever made were very hard to do and have nightmarish stories about how they made them but the audience doesn’t care. They want to see a good movie. That’s all they care about. I don’t mind making things even harder in order to give the audience a good experience.
From Left, Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues, Daniel Zovatto and Dylan Minnette
BD: That’s good that you have your audience in mind when you’re making a movie. I feel like it can be easy to forget about them during production.
FA: You can’t make excuses when you’re making a movie. You can’t say “oh we didn’t have enough budget to do this” or “we couldn’t do this because we didn’t have time.” The audience doesn’t want to hear that. You get the shot. You get the moment. You want them to see something unique. Don’t Breathe definitely had many challenges though.
BD: I imagine one of those challenges was telling a story with so little dialogue. What did that script look like? Was it a really short script?
FA: No, it’s probably a 90-page script. It was always the idea that were were going to do something that was almost a completely silent film. It was ambitious though. At first we didn’t want to have any music, but changed our minds. And I think that Roque Baños did a great job with the score. It’s very simple with great moments here and there to hit you with tones but he never overdoes it. Wait, we were talking about the script weren’t we?
BD: Yes.
FA: Right. Well it was a proper script. Everything that you see in the movie was actually in the script. Most of the film’s beats are definitely in there.
BD: Did you have a lot of blocking instructions in the script? Or is that something you thought ahead and brought to the shoot?
FA: Before shooting we sat down at my house with our production designer Naaman Marshall, cinematographer Pedro Luque and costume designer Carlos Rosario and put a big map on the table and drew the house. We made it like a chess game and put the characters on the map and moved them around as we were reading the script to illustrate what we wanted to happen.
BD: So basically it was your version of storyboarding?
FA: Yes, exactly.
BD: I’m getting the cue to wrap up, and I have to ask that question you’re probably tired of answering.
FA: [Looks down] Oh, man. Don’t even start.
BD: Are there any plans for Evil Dead 2?
FA: [Laughs] There are no current plans. We’re not talking about it with Sam [Raimi] at all. Like I know right now it’s all about the show and everybody is very happy with that and that’s it.
BD: What’s next for you then?
FA: I don’t know.
BD: Nothing?
FA: I have no clue, man. There are probably things but I just finished this movie. Literally just finished it a few weeks ago and the way I work is I don’t pay attention to any other projects while I’m making a movie. I think I owe that to the audience to really give them the feeling that they’re being taken care of and that I really care about every moment in my film. That’s why I don’t start thinking about doing anything else until I’m done with what I’m working on. Now that we’re finished I’ll go back to Los Angeles and start thinking about what I’m going to do next.
BD: Good! Well again, I think it’s a great film and I’m really excited for people to see it.
FA: Thank you so much.
Check out Don’t Breathe when it hits theaters on August 26, 2016!
Interviews
George A. Romero’s ‘Day of the Dead’ Gets New Life After Search for Long-Lost Film Elements
“I was told that this couldn’t be found by some people that I worked with, and that just set a fire in me,” Scream Factory producer Jeff Roland says of the newly restored Day of the Dead in 4K from the seemingly long-lost original interpositive.
The four-disc release, loaded with special features and new interviews in addition to the restoration, arrives almost exactly three years after Roland began his long pursuit of the missing elements that he was warned were lost to time.
It’s a fitting journey for Day of the Dead, the third film in horror master George A. Romero‘s zombie series, considering the film’s long road to reappraisal after its initial failure at the box office in 1985. A huge departure from the popular Dawn of the Dead, the third film set its battle for humanity’s survival in an underground bunker, waged between a small group of scientists and ruthless soldiers.
It was underground where Roland began his pursuit of the missing interpositive elements, starting with the old-fashioned paper trail in Scream Factory’s basement, sorting through records from their 2013 Blu-ray release.
Scream Factory’s Years-Long Quest to Restore a Horror Classic
“So, there I was, going through boxes and boxes and boxes, trying to find this one specific invoice for a delivery company amongst thousands of pieces of paper,” Roland tells Bloody Disgusting. “That was the start. I was able to figure out the delivery service, and from there, it just went into a whirlwind of… drama? Yeah, there was some drama in there at one point; I thought it had been stolen by someone.”
Roland notes of his Indiana Jones-like journey, “the short and sweet of it is, it took forever, I was trying to find leads. Anything. I was seeing ridiculous things online, you know, like it was in a diamond mine in South Africa. I even followed up on that. I thought it would be hilarious if it were actually being kept in the Wampum mine. So I called them, and this poor woman who answered the phone sounded like she got this call every other day.”
Roland notes, “The records, for film vaults and such, aren’t the greatest. I’ll just say that. So, I think that’s, over time, that’s something that we definitely need to improve upon in this business.”
John Harrison Reflects on Day of the Dead‘s Surprising Legacy and Original Vision
While now considered another Romero zombie classic, critics and audiences rejected Day of the Dead at first, especially the Caribbean-style theme music from composer and first assistant director John Harrison.
Few are as surprised by the massive shift in the film’s reception as Harrison. The filmmaker and longtime Romero collaborator reflects, “Now, if you had asked any of us, and George included, that, ‘hey man, you know, in 45 years, this movie’s gonna be considered like a cinema classic.’ We all probably would have said, ‘Oh, we’re making a movie, man. We’re just having fun making a movie, and God, can you believe it, that people are paying us to do this?’ I don’t want to minimize it. I don’t want to say that we were just goofing around.”
Harrison continues, “All of us were really serious about our craft and about what we were trying to do. But I don’t think that any of us, maybe George, hopefully, had some feeling that his films would last for a while. I was a kid, you know? I just wanted to have fun, make movies, and be part of that whole scene. So, it was really disappointing when Day came out, because it was a bomb. I mean, let’s be truthful about it. It was a bomb. And people hated the score. So, 40-some years later, it’s become, for some people, the apogee of that first dead trilogy. The best of the three in its own way.”
Harrison also points out that Romero’s Land of the Dead would later face a similar reception and reappraisal, which was all the more fascinating considering early budget cuts caused Romero to drastically scale back Day of the Dead‘s story. A lot of what was excised was later revisited in Land of the Dead. “That was actually part of the original Day of the Dead concept,” Harrison explains of the 2005 film.
“Because of budget and schedule and so forth and so on, and ratings,” he tells BD. “George couldn’t do it, and that’s why we ended up with the more condensed version of Day of the Dead, which everybody now knows and loves. In a way, I’m kind of glad, because it has a real identity being trapped in those caves, and the end of the world, the two sides of society. Going at it, headbutting, to try and survive. But the whole Fiddler’s Green idea and all of that stuff that ended up in Land of the Dead was part of the original Day.”
George Romero Predicted Social Media and Modern Culture
Suzanne Romero, founder & president of the George A. Romero Foundation and the late filmmaker’s wife, breaks down the film’s trajectory even further. “The original Day of the Dead script, I think, at one point, it was written for a $12 million budget, and it was basically cut in half. And it’s a great script. But that’s what happens with filmmakers, and you gotta make do.”
She continues, “But I really think that this film is really for the fans and people who love physical media. And in terms of the foundation, well, anytime George Romero is mentioned is good, because what we are doing is to provide a healthy legacy. We’re uplifting his legacy, we’re supporting the archive, and we’re also supporting the Horror Study Center. So, all of these three things are what the Foundation is striving to do. As far as I’m concerned, the more we say George Romero’s name, the better it is.”
The mention of Land of the Dead brings up one recurring theme of Romero’s work: the filmmaker’s ability to keep his pulse so thoroughly on the current social climate in a way that feels prescient.
Roland agrees, “I think one of the most amazing things that doesn’t get talked about enough is in 2007, he came out with Diary of the Dead. That pretty much predicted YouTube culture. I mean, we’re going through it right now, the exact things that were happening in Diary of the Dead. It’s incredible.”
“Well, that was intentional,” Harrison says, “because I was part of that and worked with Peter [Grunwald] and George on developing that whole script and production. And that was definitely intentional. There was nothing accidental or, ‘Great timing, guys!’ It was not like that at all. It was intentional.”
Suzanne Romero agrees, “[George] was very wary of social media, but very wary of the internet. He was always very suspicious and thought that we ought to beware; we ought to be walking very carefully into this space.“
“Which we haven’t done, of course,” Harrison adds.
“No, of course not,” Romero responds. “And AI. I mean, he would be writing about AI right now and thinking, danger! What the fuck are you doing, people? But not only that, but he also did it in a layman’s way. You know, he really brought it to very familiar language, and people that spoke to each other, it was in a very natural way, and it was the way he developed characters. The way he evolved with how his women were more powerful, because he kind of regretted that in Night of the Living Dead, [Barbra] was weak. He always thought the women ought to be much stronger, and I think it started with Season of the Witch.”
Everyone Wanted to Be a Zombie in a Romero Movie
George A. Romero’s legacy certainly looms large over Scream Factory’s impressive new release, offering a comprehensive look at Day of the Dead through a dizzying number of new audio commentaries, featurettes, and interviews detailing everything from the “mine fever” that spread among the cast and crew to Ernest Dickerson‘s high-pressure day on set running the second unit camera.
That’s also reflected in Romero’s zombies themselves, dating back to 1968’s Night of the Living Dead.
“In Pittsburgh, it was a badge of honor to be a zombie in a George Romero movie,” Harrison recounts. “Everybody from the Dean of Students at Carnegie Mellon to the presidents of corporations. I had a story that came out of Dawn. I was pitching a commercial for my own little company, and I’d done a bit for George as ‘Screwdriver Zombie’ on Dawn. I didn’t get cleaned up enough, and I went to this meeting at the first thing in the morning. The vice president of this bank is looking at me, going, ‘Is there something wrong with you?’ I said, ‘No, no, that’s what I know? I’m fine.’ He said, ‘Well, you’re bleeding out of your ear.’ Okay, so then I had to tell them the whole story. And he listened to it, and I thought, well, this is gonna be ridiculous. I’m coming in talking about being a zombie in a movie, and I want to sell him this, like, multi-thousand-dollar commercial that the bank is gonna pay for. He listened very carefully to me, and he said, ‘Well, listen, we’ll talk about the commercial, but do you think I could be a zombie in one?”
That hasn’t changed in the present, either.
Suzanne Romero confirms, “We’re producing George’s film, Twilight of the Dead, and we get requests, ‘Can I be a zombie in this film?’ So, even today, people are very interested, and yet it’s terrible. I mean, it’s hours and hours of makeup.”
Scream Factory’s Day of the Dead four-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray Collector’s Edition releases on June 16.
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