HOME FEO'S STORE FEO AMANTE THEATER REVIEWS INTERVIEWS SCIENCE MOMENT UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT
Movies

ATAQUE DE PÁNICO!

Panic Attack!ATAQUE DE PÁNICO! (Panic Attack!) - 2009
By Fede Alvarez

A kid is playing with toy robots. Then giant robots come out of the fog and attack a city.

Fede First Introduces PANIC ATTACK! to the World
CGSociety

ATAQUE DE PÁNICO! (Panic Attack!)
on Wikipedia.

YouTube short lands budding director $30M movie deal
A budding filmmaker from Uruguay, whose low-budget alien invasion short became a viral video hit, has landed a $30-million US movie deal in Hollywood.

Continued at CBC.

Fede, who began this movie in 2006, was inspired by both Steven Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS, and this short film from 2004, TYRANTS FROM AFAR (Geweldenaren van Ver).

Fede Alvarez Talks 'Panic Attack!'
By Bill Desowitz
Last November, Fede Alvarez went from being an obscure Uruguayan filmmaker to an overnight sensation after uploading his $300 short to YouTube about a massive robot invasion of Montevideo. The apocalypse went viral (it currently has around 6 million hits), Hollywood came calling and before he knew it, Alvarez had a seven-figure deal to direct a $30 million feature for Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures. The 31-year-old explains how he did it and updates us on his proposed feature.

Bill Desowitz: Congratulations on your great success with the short. What's the latest with the feature?

Continued at AWN.

Panic Attack Director Federico Alvarez Lands a Film at Ghost House
The web can do wonders for your career. Film Junk is reporting (translated from El Pais) that Uruguayan filmmaker Federico Alvarez, who unleashed his hugely popular short film Panic Attack (watch it right here) a few weeks ago online, has landed a directing gig at Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures.

Continued at FirstShowing.

So-

Fede Alvarez made this exciting short Science Fiction Horror Thriller movie, right?

Interview after interview, Fede talks about wanting to make Science Fiction Thrillers, right?

Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures whisked him away to Hollywood to recreate his short into a feature length Science Fiction Thriller, right?

So what are the two movies that Sam Raimi had Fede work on first?

Supernatural Horror.

Good going there, Sam. That's really working for you at the box office, is it? Well I guess not, because now it's over ten years later and, despite the wave of Kaiju and Big Horror SciFi monster movies during this ten years*, Rami utterly, repeatedly missed the boat as he guided a man who likely could have knocked it out of the park.

* ignited by Gareth Edwards' ultra low budget movie, MONSTERS.

Gareth went on to direct big budget GODZILLA (2014 -$160,000,000 budget), a smash hit after a string of Godzilla failures. Then, at a time when the Star Wars franchise was wobbling and uncertain, Gareth was tapped to direct mega-budget Rogue One: A Star Wars story (2016 - $200,000,000). It too became a smash hit. Gareth's career is still soaring.

TANGENT: I'm aware of CLOVERFIELD from the year before and how much better box office it did. I know we could have a debate on which was more influential, the Hollywood studio blockbuster or the home-made low-budget that came out of nowhere, but this page is about Fede.

UPDATE -

As of 2021, Alvarez is no closer to making a PANIC ATTACK feature than he was before he met Raimi, and is stuck making Sam's vanity projects like low budget remake EVIL DEAD (2013 - $17,000,000 budget), DON'T BREATHE (2016 - $9,000,000 budget), as well as remakes like GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB, a DON'T BREATHE sequel, and still another remake of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.

At least Fede's working in the feature film biz. More than that, he shines! Yet I really hope his dreams for ATAQUE DE PANICO! come true. Like Spielberg, you've proven himself in the trenches and deserves better.

And on a more selfish note,

I Want To See This God Damn Feature Film!

There are more movies at the Feo Amante Theater. Go to NOW SHOWING!

This review copyright 2011 E.C.McMullen Jr.

Panic Attack! (2009) on IMDb
DRESS NICE
YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
(Sub-Section: BIG HORROR)
The Iron Giant The Incredibles Cloverfield
THE IRON GIANT
MOVIE REVIEW
THE INCREDIBLES
MOVIE REVIEW
CLOVERFIELD
MOVIE REVIEW

Return to Movies

 

FEO AMANTE'S HORROR THRILLER
Created by:
E.C.MULLEN JR.
COME FOLLOW ME @
Amazon
ECMJr
Feo Blog
IMDb
Stage32
Twitter
YouTube
Zazzle Shop