Clerks filmmaker Kevin Smith has had horror on the brain for awhile now. His flirtation with the genre began in 2011 with Red State and has continued uninterrupted with Tusk, Yoga-Hosers, and a segment in the horror anthology Holidays. Tusk and Yoga-Hosers form the first two installments in his Canadian-themed, Johnny Depp-starring “True North Trilogy”, with a third installment (Moose Jaws) expected to film late this year or early next. Smith isn’t resting on his laurels until then, however. In fact, he’s actually down in Florida shooting another genre jaunt as we speak: KillRoy Was Here.
KillRoy Was Here is an anthology horror film seemingly based upon the popular graffiti character that was popular around World War II. FX guru Robert Kurtzman has created a long-nosed monster for the film that is inspired by the classic cartoon doodles. Little is known about the plot at this time, but this project hasn’t come out of nowhere. Instead, there’s an odd history behind it…
“We were gonna make this Krampus movie and then somebody went and made a Krampus movie,” Smith . “Ours was an anthology that played more like Creepshow. Or, to appeal to the modern day kids, Creepshow 2. Or, let’s say, Black Mirror. So yeah, it’s kinda like that. It’s an anthology. So our Krampus movie – which was called Comes the Krampus and then later on, Anti-Claus – it got shelved. So we decided to re-engineer that dopey script. We turned it into a different movie. We just changed the Krampus character – it’s almost the same script. Took the Christmas elements out of it. Instead, we’re calling it KillRoy Was Here.”
An odd gestational direction to take, but color me curious. After all, despite being in the minority, I enjoyed both Red State and Tusk. It’s rather strange that horror is his new home these days. This isn’t entirely by design, as Smith’s had other projects simply fall apart (Clerks 3), stall (Mallbrats), or just outright gathering dust (Hit Somebody) in recent years. As long as his heart is in it, he can make whatever he wants. I wasn’t really a fan of Yoga-Hosers or his Holidays segment, but I’m not ready to give up on him as a filmmaker just yet.
