Fede Alvarez Talks ‘Don’t Breathe’ and What’s Going On With ‘Evil Dead 2!’

By Trace Thurman on March 18, 2016

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.

BD: 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!