PopHorror Let's Get Scared
If you’re looking for a break from the usual film tropes of masked serial killers, possessed dolls and haunted houses this spooky season, look no further than Carved: Hulu’s latest offering about a sentient, murderous pumpkin.
Carved, directed by Justin Harding, follows heartbroken teenage playwright Kira (Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Prom Pact 2023), her little brother Trevor (Wyatt Lindner, Afraid 2024) and a disparate group of survivors, all of whom become trapped in a historical reenactment village on Halloween night as they battle a relentless, vengeful pumpkin. The movie is based on a short film of the same name, which Harding also wrote and directed for a shorts program for Huluween Film Fest. He teamed up with Cheryl Meyer to pen the feature version.
PopHorror recently spoke with Lee and Harding about Carved, which they believe has the potential to become a Halloween favorite that’s revisited by audiences year after year.
PopHorror: Justin, I’d love to start with you and talk about this pumpkin. In some scenes, it has a spiderlike quality to it, in other scenes, it’s more snakelike. Can you talk about your vision for it, what you wanted to achieve with its look? And also, were there any designs that were discussed but didn’t make it into the film?
Justin Harding: Oh, yeah! This project took a while to get to where it is now. So six years ago, we made a short film, which was a totally different design. And I knew I wanted to take it into a different direction. I’ve gone through many designs, we’ve made full makets. There’s multiple versions of this pumpkin that exist more humanoid, where it’s vines are like a body with arms. There’s other ones where it sits on top of a bed of vines that move. I knew I wanted it to move like a spider, like an octopus. If you’ve ever watched an octopus walking underwater, I wanted that.
It went through maybe a dozen different designs, and then eventually we came up with the idea that the vines come out from different parts. They don’t come from the stem and then all kind of bloom out, they come from different parts and then it has the flower blossom that comes out on top. And so that’s where we went, and then it was a matter of trying to figure out how to make that thing walk around like a spider, which is a whole other thing, a whole other set of challenges.
PopHorror: Peyton, I believe this your first horror movie?
Peyton Elizabeth Lee: Yes, it is!
PopHorror: How does it feel to be entering this insane world?
Peyton Elizabeth Lee: [laughs] It’s so exciting, it’s so fun. Making this movie was such an experience, and a use of creativity in a way that I’ve never seen before both, I think, for myself and also just watching everyone. Between how great Hulu was collaborating and how great Justin is, and our whole creative team, everyone was just kind of all hands on deck, so excited to just go out and try things, and make something fun and different and unique. And that’s something that I’ve always wanted to do and have experienced in certain ways, but it really was the most all around intensely creative, “how do we make this thing happen” project I’ve ever done. And so I was just so lucky to be a part of it, and excited to get to experience that.
PopHorror: Can you talk about getting into the mindset of your character? I feel like she has so much on her plate already with her boyfriend breaking the news that he’s leaving, her little brother under her care, and now she has to battle a demon pumpkin. What was that like getting into her head?
Peyton Elizabeth Lee: That’s one of the reasons why I very quickly was excited about this project. I think Kira is such a fun character. She has so many layers to her. I love that she’s into writing and directing, and has this creative outlet, and so I think that was something that I really tried to lean into, and kind of get into her head about because those creative directorial tendencies are what end up being a real asset to her in this crazy journey with the demon pumpkin. So that was a big thing.
I think, obviously, the breakup with Cody (Corey Fogelmanis, Ma 2019) is something that, you know, heartbreak’s rough, and so kind of attaching some of my own experiences, and just knowing what that feels like and putting that in there. So I think just trying to find pieces of Kira that I related to the most to bring her character to life in a way that felt real. And then when she’s put in these crazy circumstances, you get to see how all of those nuances in who she is really come out in surprising different ways.
PopHorror: There’s so much to watch this Halloween season, so many movies to choose from. What, in your opinion, makes this stand out from the rest?
Justin Harding: It’s a horror comedy that is designed to feel like an instant classic. So this is something that’s supposed to feel like a Halloween adventure that you return to year after year after year. We really leaned into violence and gore in a way that’s funny and sort of honors the genre, but it’s also not ugly. It’s definitely a horror movie, and the blood and the kills are very inventive and creative. But then it’s also got heart, and it also has a lot of characters that are hilarious, and there’s a great character journey and a great Halloween adventure all wrapped up in this movie.
Peyton Elizabeth Lee: I really think there is something for everyone. People that love the big kills, there’s that, there’s gore, there’s scary stuff, there’s funny stuff, there’s a little bit of romance. There really is a lot of everything that all comes together in this really fun way. And the whole film just feels very unique. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. I’ve definitely never made anything like it. And so I hope people watch it and just enjoy it because it’s a fun ride, and hopefully people come back to it year after year.
Justin Harding: If you like films like Tremors and The Thing and Aliens and Gremlins, this is designed to sit alongside these movies, but just with a sentient, murderous pumpkin.
Thanks for speaking with us, Peyton and Justin! Carved is now available to stream on Hulu.
