Justin Harding & Peyton Elizabeth Lee Talk Bringing Heart & Horror to CARVED's Sentient Pumpkin Tale

Image courtesy of Hulu

By Shannon McGrew

Based on the short film of the same name, CARVED centers around a heartbroken teenage playwright (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), her younger brother, and a disparate group of survivors who become trapped in a historical reenactment village on Halloween night. They must band together to survive a relentless assault by a sentient and vengeful pumpkin.

For the release of CARVED, Creepy Kingdom's Shannon McGrew spoke with director Justin Harding and actor Peyton Elizabeth Lee. During the chat, they discussed the challenges of adapting the short film into a full feature, blending horror and comedy, their favorite kills, and more.

Thank you both so much for speaking with me today. Justin, what was it like to bring your short story to life as a full feature?

Justin Harding: It was challenging. Tonally, this is a very challenging film to bring to life. With the wrong script and approach, it could be a very corny, slapstick idea which was not what we wanted. We wanted something that felt timeless, something like Gremlins, which in and of itself is a tonal rollercoaster. If you try to make a cult classic, it doesn't really work; it isn't easy. It was challenging to get a script together that we all felt could be a timeless movie and not just a pumpkin movie for the sake of it but something that actually feels organically part of the Halloween season that we can revisit.

Peyton, congratulations on this being your first horror film! What was your experience like filming this?

Peyton Elizabeth Lee: It was a really fun experience. This film is very different from anything I've ever done. I've never done anything in the horror or straight comedy genre, so this film has a lot of both. It was really fun getting to collaborate with Justin and the rest of the creative team and our cast and really build out these characters, figure out the story and the tone, and watch some horror comedy movies that I'd never seen before to really get into the right energy of it. It was so fun getting to do something that's so creatively specific and unique and required so many really talented, cool, inspiring people. It was all around a great experience.

Image courtesy of Hulu

The film features some very creative kills at the hands... er... stems of the pumpkin. Do either of you have a favorite kill?

Justin Harding: The trailer has a shot of it, but these characters are historical interpreters. They're actors who are essentially theater kids, and one of them does puppet improv, and that's his thing. There's a kill that involved his puppet hand.

Peyton Elizabeth Lee: That one was really fun! That was one of the only kills I got to see up close. A lot of the other ones were shot at another time, or we were shooting something else while it was happening, and that one was really fun to get to really be up close and personal with it and see it all come together.

Justin Harding: Jonah Lees, who plays that character, was his last moment on set, too, because we wrapped him just right after that. It was the last thing we shot with Jonah, and it was one of those kills where everything worked. The blood spray worked, and the prosthetics worked. These kills are challenging, but for that one, everything worked, and that wasn't the case for most of the kills. It was fun to shoot, worked in-camera, and was practical.

As the film wrapped up, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the pumpkin. Do you want people to sympathize with it?

Peyton Elizabeth Lee: That was a piece of it, for sure. I hate being like, well, in the end, you're supposed to feel this way or that way, but I definitely think Justin was very specific about the pumpkin having real motivations. It's not just a random killing spree because the pumpkin's evil. The pumpkin is a mother. That very human motivation causes this visceral reaction in all people. There is that feeling; in the end, there is something sad about it and upsetting about watching what happens. It's fun to me to have an end that has layers. Is it a happy ending? Is it a sad ending? Why do I feel this way ending? Having all of those little pieces that different people can hopefully interpret differently and feel differently about is what's kind of fun about it.

Justin Harding: It was very intentional. I very much subscribe to the Guillermo del Toro school of monster design, which is that monsters are not evil. This is a creature that was pulled away from its environment and put into a new environment where its kind is being slaughtered all around and celebrated within the slaughter, so it was very intentional to sympathize with this creature. Even though the design is scary, it also looks like it has tears. This is a sentient pumpkin that has real emotions.

CARVED arrives on Hulu on October 21, 2024.