Watch the $300 Sci-Fi Short That Launched Alien: Romulus Director Fede Alvarez Into Hollywood

The elevator statement for Fede Alvarez’s 2009 sci-fi short, Panic Attack!, is arsenic follows: “Giant robots invade Montevideo!” Frankly, the aboriginal manager of Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe, and Alien: Romulus would person had america astatine “giant robots,” but it’s adjacent cooler present that the abbreviated has been jazzed up and re-shared to YouTube.

The abbreviated runs conscionable nether 5 minutes, but that was agelong capable to bring the Uruguayan filmmaker to Hollywood’s attention—and the remainder is history. (You tin inactive ticker the archetypal mentation here.) Not atrocious going from making your ain calling-card sci-fi communicative (Alvarez directed, edited, and did the VFX; helium besides had a manus successful the robot design)—to 11 years later, making a caller Evil Dead movie, and past 15 years later, helming a caller introduction successful the Alien franchise.

Sharing the caller mentation of Don’t Panic! connected X, Alvarez wrote, “14 years agone I made a abbreviated movie with $300 and a batch of assistance from friends and colleagues. It everlastingly changed my beingness and opened the Hollywood doors. Here is is, remastered and upscaled. Check it out!”

Alien: Romulus bursts retired of chests and onto the surface August 16; ticker Don’t Panic! below.

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