Tina Kakadelis
August is upon us, and that means the air will soon turn crisp and cool. Corn mazes will crop up, apple cider will begin to flow, and Halloween looms. It’s the time of year when horror movies feel especially scary, bringing us killers who lurk in the shadows. Jeremy Rudd’s Die’ced: Reloaded introduces audiences to a new slasher villain, one who wreaks havoc on Halloween night. Ahead of the film’s limited theatrical release and upcoming video on demand release, Rudd sat down with Film Obsessive News Editor Tina Kakadelis to talk all things spooky season.
Die’ced: Reloaded began as a short film directed, written, and edited by Rudd. The short film, Die’ced, was an hour long, just under what’s considered feature-length for most. Die’ced went viral online and gained a cult following, which caught the attention of DREAD and Epic Pictures, who approached Rudd about expanding the film to a full feature.
“Some of the feedback from when we put out the first one was that a lot of fans wanted to understand more about Benny’s background,” Rudd explained.
Benny (Jason Brooks) is Die’ced: Reloaded’s bloody slasher villain. The film opens with him escaping from an asylum on Halloween in 1980s Seattle. He slices and dices his way across the city with his sights set on one person: Cassandra (Eden Campbell). Why Benny is so obsessed with her is the film’s central mystery, and one that’s answered after quite a lot of blood has been spilled.
Speaking of the deaths that make up the DNA of a slasher film, there’s something odd about being the writer who has to brainstorm a series of interesting and new ways for people to die. Horror fans love seeing the new kills, but what’s it like to sit down at the writer’s desk and daydream about murder?
“I’ve never been asked that one,” laughed Rudd. “When I wrote the script, I knew there was going to be a kill scene at certain parts, but I left the actual way of killing blank. I brainstormed with other people. How should we kill this person here? There’s a party scene where a guy walks into the bathroom. I left it all blank until we got into the bathroom, and then it was like, how can we kill this guy?”
What makes a horror franchise last through the years is the relationship between the killer and the Final Girl. For Die’ced: Reloaded, that’s Benny and Cassandra. Part of Rudd’s inspiration for the film came from the slasher greats of the ’80s and ’90s, but he wanted to make sure the two leads had their own voices as part of the larger legacy of the villain/Final Girl dynamic.
“I felt like scarecrows were definitely under utilized in the horror industry,” said Rudd about Benny’s signature scarecrow look. “There are a lot of clowns out there, and I just wanted to have something different. The guy who plays Benny, his name is Jason, he’s a 6’5”, 200-pound guy. He played a really good villain.”
The opposite side of Benny’s coin is Cassandra, the Final Girl. “I just wanted to have a Final Girl who’s very relatable to a lot of different people,” continued Rudd. “I wanted her to be a badass who could just kick a lot of people’s asses. Especially the villains. I wanted that good dynamic, the cat-and-mouse, back-and-forth they have going on throughout the film.”
To Rudd, everything about Die’ced: Reloaded feels bigger, better, and bloodier. “Epic Pictures improved on everything. From the sound to the color grade to the editing. Everything. Remixed and remastered. It feels a lot better when you’re watching it. I really like what all they were able to accomplish with the film.”
At the end of the day, it’s the movie’s villain who tends to stick with people, popping up in their nightmares. When asked if Rudd thought he had a chance of surviving the wrath of Benny, his answer was immediate.
“No,” Rudd stated simply with a smile. “Against Benny? Definitely not, I don’t think so.”
