In the past year alone, we’ve seen some pretty out-there action set-pieces on screen. Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell climbing through train carriages in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. The endless staircase fight in John Wick – Chapter 4 – actually, make that every set-piece in John Wick – Chapter 4. Lily Sullivan’s Beth getting her leg finely sliced with a cheese grater whilst trying to get away from her possessed niece in Evil Dead Rise. But there’s even more action madness on its way soon, in the form of Boy Kills World, the ultraviolent feature debut from German director Moritz Mohr. And it’s fitting that we mention Evil Dead Rise, given original Evil Dead creator Sam Raimi was so impressed by Boy Kills World's wild energy, he came on board as producer.
“It was complete insanity,” Mohr exclusively tells Empire in our new December 2023 issue, remembering how it felt to know Raimi would be watching the short, proof-of-concept trailer version of Boy Kills World. “I was showing my phone to everyone around me. ‘You see that?!’ Two hours later, we were all hanging out at a Five Guys in LA. The email arrived and it just said, ‘Sam flipped.’ It became our battle cry for the next few weeks.” Mohr is a long-time fan of Raimi, and had slipped sneaky nods to the Evil Dead movies in his previous shorts. “Meeting him and getting to work with him was just the absolute dream come true,” Mohr says. “It was ridiculous, man.” He’s one helluva horror legend to have in your corner, that’s for sure.
Raimi was surely drawn in by the unique vibe of Boy Kills World, which combines being a brutal, dystopian revenge thriller with a surreal, comedic tone. It stars Bill Skarsgård as the titular ‘Boy’: deaf and non-verbal, he’s trained in the jungle by a mysterious martial arts master, played by The Raid’s Yayan Ruhian (as seen in the exclusive image above), to take down a nefarious family dynasty. Expect plenty of weirdness and surprises – this film will go places you don’t see coming, and that’s entirely the point. “I’m still waiting for somebody to write, ‘This fucking tone is all over the place!’” Mohr admits. “But that was really, really intentional.”
Read Empire’s full Boy Kills World story, including an interview with director Moritz Mohr from Toronto International Film Festival, in the new Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom issue. On sale Thursday 26 October – pre-order a copy here. Boy Kills World does not yet have a UK release date.