‘Boy Kills World’ Director on Making Sure the Hyperviolent Revenge Epic Wasn’t ‘Overly Sadistic’ and How Sam Raimi Helped Him Avoid Censorship

German director Moritz Mohr‘s feature debut is the colorful and bloody revenge tale “Boy Kills World,” which opens Friday in theaters. Bill Skarsgård plays the titular character, a mute fighter hellbent on revenge, complete with a dry inner monologue voiced by H. Jon Benjamin. As he aims to topple a dynastic crime family, led by Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen), that rules society and kills his family, scores of enemies are destructively dispatched, sure to leave audiences surprised that the increasingly creative and gory violence made it past the MPAA. Mohr, who also co-wrote the story the film is based on, spoke with Variety about the film’s unique fighting style, the challenges of shooting a sprawling adventure during COVID and how producer Sam Raimi helped his vision get made.

What inspired “Boy Kills World”?

We wanted to make a movie that we would all like to watch. In 2016, we shot the proof of concept trailer, where the story originated from. We all worked in TV and advertising. It became a little stale, so we put everything in that movie that we love. We created this canvas for a lot of people — especially production designers and the costume department — to let their freak flags fly.

How did you decide on the fighting style used in the film?

We always treated this as a comic book movie without a comic book. That’s why it’s so colorful, but also dark. We also were heavily inspired by video games and anime. When you work on these fight scenes, you have to figure out what the scene is about. Is this showing the fun of him killing people? Or is this the first time we see him fighting? Is this him overcoming an obstacle? That informs all the action scenes. It gives a deeper meaning in the context of the story.

What are some action movies that inspire you and the team?

We love action, but we were all trying to do our own thing. One of the goals is to stay fresh and not rely on anything that has been done a million times. There are so many great action movies out there, and a few of them redefined the genre. I’m not saying we got there, but we wanted to do something that is our own language, and that’s why we added all these little things here and there. We talked a lot about ‘What weapons does he use here?’ That’s where we came up with the cheese grater. ‘A fight scene with a cheese grater — have we seen that before? I don’t think so.’ So all right, let’s go for it.

You don’t hold back on the brutality and blood in this movie. Were there any fights with financiers or censors along the way?

No fights whatsoever. When we got Sam Raimi on board way in the beginning, I knew we were in good hands. We can’t do anything this man hasn’t done before, or shown to some degree. We knew that we had a lot of leeway there, and all the other producers got with it as well. What I kept thinking about while doing it was, ‘Everybody should get what they deserve.’ You can’t kill that little henchman so viciously. If you’re brutal, you go, ‘That’s a bit much.’ You have to find something that makes sense at that moment, and don’t be overly sadistic. But I think we struck a line and there’s always the fun aspect to it.

How else did Raimi impact the project?

He’s a personal hero of mine. “Evil Dead 2” and “Army of Darkness” are two of my all-time favorites, and working with him was pure pleasure, because he’s pretty hands-off when it comes to producing. He supports the director’s vision. He’s asking these questions and that’s super helpful during the script-writing process and the editing. He was just immensely helpful to work with.

This is an ambitious first feature. Was there one day while shooting that was the most challenging?

We shot at the tail-end of COVID, and COVID struck a couple of times during production, like it did with any other production. I was on set and talking to the actors, and a PA came over and said, ‘So one of the tests got back. That actor is positive. We were taking them back to the trailer.’ We have to switch it up, we’ve got to do something else. Suddenly, the whole day is off, you have to do something different. And it happened a couple more times, where we had to shoot an entire scene with the doubles over three days, going over the shoulders.

The film lends itself to a sequel. Is that something you’ve thought about already?

We talked a lot about that during the entire course of the production and there are so many great ideas out there. The only question right now is do people want to see that? Since it’s not a big studio movie, we have to wait for a moment and see how it turns out. If people like it, we have a few stories that we could tell, and I’d be super excited to do it.

Are you a fan of the sitcom “Boy Meets World”? Was the film’s title an intentional tip of the hat?

I watched a few episodes back in Germany, but it has a different title. That was a happy accident, where we were trying to think of a title in 2016. ‘I think it should be a three-word title, like a band name.’ Ten seconds after that, I thought, ‘Boy Kills World.’ 15 seconds after that, I reserved the internet address. And I’m still surprised we never changed it over seven years — nobody came and said it doesn’t translate. It hit me a year later when I first took it to the U.S….Oh, yeah, there is ‘Boy Meets World’!