By Gill Pringle & Jeremy Nigro
Fede Alvarez is fast proving himself to be an expert audience manipulator, first with 2013’s well received Evil Dead remake (which followed four eye-catching shorts that the director made in his native Uruguay), and now with the new horror thriller, Don’t Breathe. In this controlled exercise in tension, three lowlife friends (Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette, Daniel Zovatto) try to burgle the home of a wealthy blind military veteran (Stephen Lang), only to have the tables turned on them when he’s revealed to be a serial murderer who likes to do his killing with the lights off. Alvarez is old-school when it comes to his horror touchstones. “My interest in scary movies came from my father showing me Hitchcock films,” the director explains. “I remember the words that everyone used when they were describing those movies. They were never ‘scary’ or ‘horror’…it was always ‘suspense.’ They were scary because they were suspenseful. So we really wanted to go back and create a movie that could have been one of those stories.”
Alvarez takes that inspiration and utilises it in Don’t Breathe. “He always makes the audience an active participant of the movie,” Alvarez says of Hitchcock. “Hitchcock said that suspense is the idea of two guys sitting at a table talking about something random, but then the camera shows that there’s a bomb underneath the table waiting to go off. That means that the audience knows something that the characters don’t know. So it was really all about how I could make a very suspenseful film.”
There’s one particularly disturbing scene which has been resonating with audiences. “I have videos of the audience reacting,” Alvarez laughs. “The first time that we show the movie, we usually have the audience on the night vision camera. It’s so great to see that in slow motion. It’s insane…I have to release that one day, because to see that in slow motion is so funny.”
Alvarez elaborates on the psychology of the scene, which involves Lang’s veteran seeking to use Jane Levy’s Rocky for his own nefarious needs. “Antagonists in movies are basically always after power, and there’s nothing more powerful than a woman who can give life,” the director asserts. “As men, we don’t do shit. We just give the semen and they give back a person. That’s mind-blowing, and I thought that would be a great thing for a villain to want…to want a life, and to want a person.”
Horror fans are in for a treat with Don’t Breathe, but those easily disgusted may want to avert their eyes, especially in this particular scene. With a broad smile, Alvarez is more than happy to warn the audience. “It’s not that I’m a sick fuck,” the director laughs, “it’s just the way that you do it in real life!”
Don’t Breathe hits Australian cinemas on September 1.
