The rise of 'smart' low-budget horror

Spoon-feeding

Alvarez, who brought in almost $100 million with Evil Dead on a $17 million budget, prides himself on trying to "spot what everyone else is doing and (running) in the opposite direction."

After directing a relatively conventional remake, the 38-year-old Uruguayan wanted to avoid haunted houses, chain saws, zombies and all the other go-to devices in the horror tool kit.

Brought up by his father on a diet of Alfred Hitchcock - Psycho, followed by Vertigo, Strangers on a Train and many of the others - Alvarez says that, for him, horror was "never the scares and the jumps, it was always about suspense."

"A couple of things I love and I wanted to bring to this film: one was suspense and the second one is that the characters always have shady morals," he says. "If you take Janet Leigh stealing money in Psycho, or in Strangers on a Train obviously plotting to kill the guy's wife ... they're not your everyday Hollywood heroes."

If you give your central characters nuance, he argues, you'll keep the filmgoers guessing about who they should be rooting for, who deserves to survive, who should get the money and how it's going to end.

"I like that you have to choose who to root for and I'm not spoon-feeding you about who's a hero and who's a villain, who's the funny guy," the director says.