Carved is nearly here, and Hulu’s newest movie brings an incredibly wacky concept to audiences: a killer pumpkin intent on killing those who carved up his fellow produce.
The film takes place on Halloween in a historical reenactment village where, after discovering a large mysterious pumpkin, the night gets deadly. The moment people start a pumpkin carving contest, bodies start hitting the flood, all thanks to the deadly vines of a seemingly unnamed killer pumpkin.
Carved Introduces the New Killer Pumpkin With a Superstar Name
The Direct’s Russ Milheim sat down with Carved actor Peyton Elizabeth Lee, who plays the leading character (an aspiring teenage director), and director Justin Harding to discuss their new horror movie about a killer pumpkin while also revealing the soon-to-be horror icon’s real name.
The deadly produce doesn’t actually get a name in the movie. When asked if they ever named it on set, Lee gleefully revealed that she named it "Shakira:"
"I did name it Shakira. And it was funny. We were just like, we were throwing around different names, and I said, Shakira, and for some reason, it stuck. And then all the times we had the big pumpkin out and were puppeting it around, we had Shakira play Hips Don't Lie."
Harding made sure to add some more details on why that name fit so well for their circumstances:
"We filmed this at the Shaker Village, Pleasant Hill, which is a 3000-acre historical village where The Shakers were, and it's been preserved from the early 1800s. And Shakira [is a Shaker], and we're in the Shaker village. And then our key puppeteer, Jonathan Craig, who puppeteers this thing every time he came out because he wears an Easy Rig, that holds cameras normally, would hold the pumpkin on a cable. So every time he came out, dangling his puppet, we would play Shakira. And the whole crew would dance."
Ironically, since the movie went through production in April, the director shared how the production had a rough time finding all the pumpkins they needed to make the film at all:
"We just wrapped this movie and shot it in April when there were no pumpkins. So we learned the hard way that pumpkins don't exist in April, and we had to find pumpkins and keep them in a temperature-controlled storage-controlled storage unit so that we had pumpkins in April and filming the movie."
While the movie is obviously insane, there are grounded elements to it.
Lee talked about how the big challenge for the movie was making elements of it believable so that audiences could grasp onto something to care about:
"I think a big challenge for us in making this whole thing was how to make something that was silly and fun and in many ways over the top and crazy, but also, I think for audiences to watch it and care, It has to be believable to some extent, and you have to care about these characters and what they're going through. And so I think we were kind of constantly walking that line of when to really make it crazy and fun, and when to really make sure it felt somewhat believable…"
She continued, noting how she felt the "Acting performances were relatively grounded:"
"I think that was kind of a constant interplay. And I think the fun kind of juxtaposition is I felt like as much as we were in these crazy scenarios, I think that acting performances were relatively grounded, and then so that in combination with these kind of crazy circumstances, you get this fun combination of elements that I think provides a unique ride."
For Harding, he admitted that "It’s a very delicate balance to keep it grounded" within a "concept that is inherently ridiculous:"
"It's a very delicate balance to keep it grounded in a concept that is inherently ridiculous, and so pitching the movie early on, I was saying to everybody that the key is to understand that the characters don't know they're in a horror film. And the films that inspired this were really films that are comedic and are respectful to the horror genre and scary films…”
He went on to bring up Ghostbusters as a great example of how to be grounded in something that’s "inherently fantastical:"
"Like 'Ghostbusters.' If you watched that movie, the characters aren't acting silly. The idea is fun and they're funny characters, but they're not acting funny. They don't know they're in a funny movie. So, the key is to ground as much as possible through casting, performance, and the script because it's inherently fantastical. And so you ground it, and then that keeps the balance."
When asked if the two of them had thought about sequel ideas, Lee laughed while recalling what she and the rest of the cast had thought up, which included an Easter and Christmas movie:
"So there are two parts to this. The first part is that while we were shooting, the cast and I were coming out, coming up with ideas for the sequels; we have 'Cracked,' which is our Easter film, and 'Chopped,' which is our Christmas film. And so that was kind of half of it. And then Justin has actual ideas."
Harding did confirm that "there is an idea for a sequel," and it’s "something [he’s] very excited about:"
"There is an idea for a sequel that I'm in love with that works really well, but it's all obviously top secret, but it's definitely something I'm very excited about."
Carved is now streaming on Hulu.
