Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Alvarez is a name you’ve probably heard a lot in recent months. Alien: Romulus just released to critical and fan acclaim and has made over a staggering $315 million at the box office. Many are celebrating this as a return to form for the franchise and for all intents and purposes, it absolutely is. The Alien franchise’s previous entry, Covenant, failed to make an impact with audiences and critics. With future a follow-up canceled, Alvarez saw it as an opportunity to inject some life into a series he loved and he had the resume to prove he could do it.
Let’s rewind a bit to Alvarez’s origins. Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, Alvarez found a passion for film and exploring the sci-fi and horror genres early on. From 2001 to 2005 he made a trio of short films but in 2009 he hit the genre jackpot. Ataque de pánico! Was made for the 2009 Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre, a genre film festival with a focus on sci-fi, horror, and fantasy. The five minute short film depicts an attack on the city of Montevideo by giant robots of unknown origin. What sets Ataque de pánico! Apart from other contemporaries is how it builds a bleak tone of hopelessness ultimately ending with the entire destruction of the city and everyone in it.
Alvarez uploaded the $300 short film on YouTube thinking not much more would come of it. What he didn’t expect was rapper Kanye West’s blog to post a direct link to the short. By the following Monday, Alvarez was receiving offers from major Hollywood studios hoping to work with the aspiring director. One of those studios that reached out to him was none other than Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert’s production company Ghost House Pictures with an offer that would alter his life and career forever.
Ghost House Pictures was looking to revive the long dormant Evil Dead franchise, a series that had not seen a new entry since 1992’s Army of Darkness and even that particular entry had grown away from the original 1981 film’s original concept. Fede Alvarez and his screenwriting partner Rodo Sayagues from his short film days pitched a reboot that would return the franchise to its gory and horrifying roots while telling an original story in the process. With Evil Dead being such a beloved franchise in horror fandom the reboot (especially one with leading man Bruce Campbell) seemed like a monumental risk, after all negative fan backlash is what killed a previous remake attempt back in 2009.
Alvarez and Sayagues’ gamble paid off and Evil Dead hit theaters in 2013 to critical and fan acclaim. The film was a brutal as hell gorefest that celebrated everything fans loved about the series while doing new things with established lore from previous entries. The film follows Mia (Jane Levy) and her friends as they travel to a desolate cabin in the woods in an effort to get her clean from drug use. During their stay they discover the “Naturom Demonto”, which summons demonic forces and turns the rehabilitation trip into a fight for their lives.
Evil Dead stood out from other horror releases at the time by having a focus on practical effects and only using CGI to touch up the visuals rather than have it be the main source. Fede Alvarez came from a visual effects background from working on his own short films and applied his sensibilities to a larger budget project. Some noteworthy effects include limbs being ripped apart, skin being boiled, and a literal rainstorm of blood. Fans were satisfied and hungry for more but Alvarez soon had his sights set on another dormant franchise.
After taking detours to make Don’t Breathe (which would become a franchise itself) and The Girl In The Spider’s Web (an attempt to revive the Millenium franchise), Alvarez and Sayagues were recruited by Legendary Pictures to produce and develop a sequel to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. After the success that Blumhouse saw with revitalizing the Halloween franchise, surely Leatherface could end up in the spotlight once again. The duo came up with a “requel” of sorts, a sequel to the original set of films that ignored films like the 2003 remake and the Lionsgate duo of Texas Chainsaw 3D and Leatherface. Though Alvarez was handing off directing duties to David Blue Garcia, he would still produce and oversee the story.
2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre follows Lila (Elsie Fisher) and her friends as they buy a ghost town in Texas in hopes of turning it into an influencer’s paradise. After a run-in with one of the locals they inadvertently awaken Leatherface (Mark Burnham) which draws the attention of Texas Ranger Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouéré), lone survivor of the original film. While this entry served as a direct sequel to the original film, it updated its themes and commentary to match the changed times. Whereas the original film commented on hippie culture this entry serves as a gory send up of influencer and cancel culture, mixing in sentiments on gun rights and mass shootings to very mixed results. Regardless, Leatherface was back in the spotlight and was the most streamed film on Netflix in its release. Since then numerous pieces of merchandise and haunted houses based on this particular film have been made.
This brings us to the present day and how Alvarez’ deep love of the genre and lengthy track record have allowed him to make the right moves in the latest entry in the Alien franchise. Alien: Romulus is not only a love letter and return to the aesthetics of the original two films or an extension of the lore Ridley Scott set up with Prometheus. It’s not purely an homage, Alvarez and Sayagues are able to distill what works about a franchise into its purest form and then they lean on their passion, craft, and vision to bring new experiences to the screen that remain true to their franchise roots in ways that bring fans and old and new to the theater. It’s what makes Alvarez something like a horror revival king, spurring curiosity about what he’s going to turn his attentions to next.
