Fede Alvarez’s “Panic Attack!”
Sundance Madison is jam packed with three new festival releases tomorrow. If you’re not making your way to Hilldale anytime soon though, this weekend’s wide releases don’t offer much. That is, unless you’re a fan of cash grabs (Jurassic Park 3D) or horror remakes (Evil Dead).
Steven Spielberg is a household name, even to people who don’t know the difference between Catch Me If You Can and 1941. Fede Alvarez on the other hand, is a different story. Who is this Uruguayan unknown hired to update Sam Raimi’s 1981 classic Evil Dead for a new generation? iMDb lists only four short films in Alvarez’s filmography, at least two of which are readily available on YouTube for the ultra low price of “Free.99.”
Panic Attack! (2009)
Avarez’s most recent short, Ataque de pánico! (or Panic Attack!) is little more than a mini budget, effects-heavy music video for John Murphy’s “In the House, In a Heartbeat.” Murphy’s fantastic mash of rock sounds and slow burn dynamic changes has been overused to no end — though sometimes to great effect, like with Big Daddy’s extended action sequence in Kick-Ass — but you’ll likely remember it best from Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later.
Panic Attack! opens on a young boy playing with a toy robot before real robots show up from some unknown planet or crater or galaxy. Our little cherub runs and gazes in awe at the giant metallic invaders before Alvarez moves outward to the rest of the city’s reaction. And that’s when the effects take over everything.
Alvarez has little to work from story-wise, so much of Panic Attack! relies on his direction and a visual style that tries its best not to be compromised by loads of CGI robots, spaceships, government fighter planes. While the CGI isn’t of the highest caliber, for a short it’s still pretty good, considering it was produced by Ghost House’s Rob Tapert and Evil Dead’s own Sam Raimi. And Alvarez is smart enough to keep our gaze at a distance through smoke and fog. The grime and grit add to Alvarez’s messy construction of zooms and dutch angles; think of a budgeted Danny Boyle or more adventurous Michael Mann.
Panic Attack! makes for an entertaining but disposable approach to standard science fiction cliches. It’s just unfortunate there’s little substance underneath the style.
El cojonudo (2005)
Before Panic Attack! — or a decent effects budget from established directors for that matter — Alvarez directed 2005’s El cojonudo. Its title refers to brash bankrobber Mr. Balls, who, as his name suggest, also happens to have a well-sized pair of… biceps. Alvarez frames Mr. Balls’ story within a reckless, Def Leppard-loving young couple, whose jalopy breaks down in the midst of a small Uruguayan town. The pair must wait for the only capable mechanic to arrive, passing time with some backseat fornicatin’ and listening to the rambling babbles of a crotchety old man. Cloaked in shadow and clutching his pipe, the old man tells the couple about the legend of, you guessed it, “El Cojonudo.” Mr. Balls. You see ten years ago, Mr. Balls’ getaway car also broke down, in the midst of a rainstorm, and our well-endowed bankrobber was forced to take shelter at the rickety house of another crotchety old man. The challenge for Mr. Balls was resisting the temptation to prove his namesake to the old man’s amorous daughter. And to hide all that stolen money, of course
Alvarez’s Evil Dead connection becomes a clearer after watching El cojonudo. His storytelling mechanics, while not nearly as polished or mature as Panic Attack’s four years later, have much more personality and eccentricity to them. It isn’t hard to see what might have attracted Sam Raimi to backing a filmmaker like Alvarez in the first place, considering they use so many similar techniques. There are abrupt shifts in events and tone and often violent jump cuts within scenes. But Alvarez’s schizo storytelling doesn’t stop there, abetted in large part by a wonky score of oboes and accordions. The demonic polka tracks play behind cautionary tales of youth not respecting their elders and lessons on the finer properties of bull testicle soup.
El cojonudo has a lot of personality, but it never comes together as well as Raimi’s Evil Dead, even on a slim 1981 budget. El cojonudo’s humor is all over the place, and any thematic tissue strains the viewer as to why this story was framed in such a manner to begin with. Are we supposed to respect our elders? Or rob banks? Start eating bull testicle soup? El cojonudo is a stylistic effort — even more so than Panic Attack! — but it’s definitely a rawer and very NSFW piece of Alvarez’s filmography, for those of you who remain curious.
His jump from Uruguay to Hollywood isn’t quite as dramatic as that of a Marc Webb, whom Sony hired to reboot the Spider-man franchise less than a year after his (500) Days of Summer played at Sundance, but Fede Alvarez clearly impressed Sam Raimi enough to support a remake of his thirty-year old movie. Alvarez’s other two shorts, El último Alevare and Los pocillos, might be drastically different from his more recent projects. However in piecing together Panic Attack! and the “Legend of Mr. Balls,” it’s not all that ridiculous to see why a studio’s $15 million gamble on a relative unknown just might pay off. We’ll find out this weekend.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get some soup.