CHAIN REACTION

FEDE ÁLVAREZ REMEMBERS THE first time a flesh-masked maniac took a chainsaw to his brain. It was a life-altering wound; the kind that spares skin and bone but slices deep into the raw matter of imagination.

“When I was 12, I suddenly discovered this thing called horror,” the writer and producer tells SFX. “Like a lot of things in my life, I got obsessed with it and wanted to watch all the movies. I probably started with A Nightmare On Elm Street 3. You watch that and you go, ‘Hey, it’s fun, this horror thing!’ It was the time of VHS and like an addict you went to the store and asked the guy to give you something stronger. He’d look at you and say, ‘You’re a little young…’ Then he gave me the original The Evil Dead. And that fucked me up.

“Once I’d recovered from that, he said, ‘Well, maybe you’re ready for this,’ and he gave me . It was like watching porn. Completely. Shame on you for watching that film, young man!”