August 12, 2016

This week on the new episode of the Blumhouse.com produced horror podcast Shock Waves, we had very special guest Fede Alvarez, the director of the upcoming horror thriller DON’T BREATHE (in theaters August 26th!) and the 2013 remake of the classic EVIL DEAD. And one fun tid-bit came out of the candid conversation that kind of blew all of our minds.

Alvarez had inadvertently made his mark with his 2009 short film PANIC ATTACK, a mini-movie that not only showcased his abilities as a filmmaker, but really was something he made for fun and to test the latest Visual FX software. He explained on Shock Waves, “I wanted to do something that showcased my city, but with something that was big. And just (felt) like part of a Hollywood movie with giant robots and an alien invasion. But I didn’t want to see it in New York or Los Angeles. I wanted to see it in my town, in my corner (of the world), in the place I grew up.”

“I’d been obsessed with every part of the craft of filmmaking so at that point I was a Visual FX artist,” he continued. “I did everything on that short with a friend who helped with some of the modeling. But basically, it was me doing the whole thing. Just to put this into perspective, I finished it. I showed it to one of my best friends at home. He was like, ‘meh. Whatever.’ I just put it on You Tube and went to bed. And You Tube had just released an HD format.”

“I put it on You Tube for the purpose to share it with my friends, and for whomever would see it in Uruguay. I went to bed, woke up and I had 150 emails from Hollywood, thinking who are these people? I had no idea what an agency was! I was just scrolling through these emails having a laugh with friends.”

When co-host Elric Kane wondered aloud who it was that shared the video clip that really caused it to spread, Alvarez had a surprising answer about Patient Zero! “You know who it was? It was very easy to trace it back because You Tube shows you the links of where all the hits come from. It was Kanye West.”

“He used to have a very influential blog in the animation world. He was doing really good curation of animation stuff and music videos. This was 7 years ago now, and he was doing that. He picked it up from this other small website. And he really was the one that blew it up here in Los Angeles. If one day I ever meet him, I have to go ‘hey dude. Thank you!’ I had no idea who Kanye was at that point. It was like 3 years later when I thought, ‘wait a second!’ (Laughs)”

You can listen to the whole amazing story about his short film PANIC ATTACK embedded below on episode 12 of Shock Waves. It comes in around the 1 hour 15 minute mark. Also, plenty of fun tales regarding the making of EVIL DEAD and his upcoming flick DON’T BREATHE!