German director Moritz Mohr has a spectacular feature film debut with Boy Kills World. The insanely violent actioner takes place in a dystopian city, suffering under the tyrannical rule of the murderous van der Koy family (Famke Janssen, Michelle Dockery, Brett Gelman, and Sharlto Copley). A shredded Bill Skarsgård stars as the deaf and mute Boy. He swears vengeance against the van der Koys after his beloved mother and sister are slaughtered on “Culling Day.”

Mohr explains how Boy Kills World “went from nothing to the absolute top” after a fateful meeting with the iconic Sam Raimi, who produced the film. Mohr had “shot this proof of concept trailer featuring Dawid Szatarski.” He went on to become the “action director,” a.k.a. stunt coordinator. Mohr “flew to LA on a whim trying to get it made” after “a year” spent “coming up with ideas.”

Boy Kills World has amazing action scenes shot with minimal edits and creative camera placement. Mohr used “gimbals and drones to get these kinetic movements.” He creates “a flow where you don’t really have to cut.” Mohr acknowledges Skarsgård’s “insane commitment” that required “three months of prep” to get in shape and learn the complex fight choreography. Please watch above and read below our complete interview with Moritz Mohr.

Getting Boy Kills World Made

MovieWeb: This is a fantastic film. I was really surprised by the kinetic energy. Talk about the beginning process. How did this start for you?

Moritz Mohr: It started for me in 2016. It was a bunch of people in Berlin, Germany. We were all working in advertising, TV, or other jobs. We wanted to make something that we would actually want to watch ourselves. We shot this proof of concept trailer featuring Dawid Szatarski, our action director on Boy Kills World. He was Boy in that short movie, and he designed the actual sequence for that. We were like, “Oh, this is something special.” We want to make something around that

Moritz Mohr: That’s when we started coming up with ideas. That took us a year, and then I flew to LA on a whim trying to get it made. I couldn’t even imagine where it went from there. I think I met Sam [Raimi] after like four days. It was only, I think, the seventh meeting or something. It was way in the beginning, and just went from nothing to the absolute top. Sam is one of my personal heroes, like one of my favorite directors. So yeah, that was crazy.

Bill Skarsgård’s Insane Commitment

MovieWeb: Bill Skarsgård is amazing. Everything he does is purely by facial inflection. The physicality of his process is mind-blowing. What was the casting process like in order to find the perfect fit?

Related Boy Kills World Review: A Wild Ride Not for the Faint of Heart The deaf and mute Boy (Bill Skarsgård) swears vengeance against ruthless oppressors after his family’s murder.

Moritz Mohr: Bill is an amazing actor. I knew that before I talked to him. But the big question was, is he ready? Does he want to do action? Is he ready to do action? Is he ready to sort of put the work in, so to speak? After talking to him for the first time, he was like, “Yeah, I’m going to get in shape. I’m going to put in the work. I’m going to train for this. I’m going to do the choreography.”

Moritz Mohr: He was aware of how many weeks and weeks this actually takes. You can’t just show up first day on set. You need to be there two months, three months before, and prep all this. So his commitment was insane. When I first met him, it was online because of COVID. It was the first day of shooting on set. It was a shot from the trailer, where the camera sort of tracks around him, and we should see his muscles. After the first time, I was like, “Oh, my freaking God. This is amazing.” I was super, super impressed at that moment.

Shooting the Unique Action Scenes

MovieWeb: Boy Kills World’s action scenes are spectacular. Was there anything that inspired you for those shots? Or was that something that you had deep inside ready to go?

Moritz Mohr: We’ve been working on this since the original proof of concept trailer. We use gimbals. We use drones to get these kinetic movements, basically creating this flow where you don’t really have to cut. This is where we were over the past six years. We just improved, and improved, and improved on it. This is the result, basically.

Related 20 Movies With Really Unique Fight Scenes These movies all have one thing in common: they all have really unique, creatively choreographed fight scenes.

MovieWeb: I was impressed by the climax of your film. You have that twist that really blows people away. So I have to ask the question. Are we going to see more of Boy in different adventures?

Moritz Mohr: I do hope so. We’ll see. We literally have to see if people are going to watch the movie before we really start working on it. And yeah, I’d love to.

Boy Kills World will be released theatrically on April 26th from Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate. You can watch the trailer below.