FearNet:David Slade on ‘Eclipse’ Decapitations and What Scared the MPAA

David Sladeset

Having seen the movie, the said decapitations are COOL and have the best sound ever totally unique. It was actually funny. When Alphie wrote her review, she wanted to include the word decapitations and dismemberment, but Summit asked us not to for fear MPAA would look at it again. The euphemism Alphie used instead was “characters die on screen exactly how described in book”. Looks like they aren’t concerned about a relook at rating now :

“Was directing a PG-13 Twilight film such a major change for Slade, whose previous features earned R-ratings for “disturbing violent behavior” (Hard Candy) and good old-fashioned bloody vampire violence (30 Days of Night)? What skin-ripping scenes in Eclipse were too extreme for the MPAA? How did he get Taylor Lautner to wear a skin-tight gray spandex wolf suit on set? And lastly, what message does he have for hardcore horror hounds reluctant to give his Twilight movie a chance?


Was there a discernable transition making the jump from your earlier, R-rated genre work to the Twilight franchise?

It wasn’t that hard. We have like six decapitations in Eclipse! We smash people’s heads off, bite people’s heads off, I mean — I was amazed we got the rating we did, the MPAA only threw back one thing: we had this one part in the battle where Emmett just tears someone’s face off. The face kind of breaks off into pieces of crystal that shatter. I was like, ‘Whoa, yeah!’ But the MPAA said ‘No, you can’t do that.’ So the shot’s still in there, but you don’t see the face come off, you just see little bits of stuff breaking off.

See more on FearNet