Sometimes movies end up showing scenes that you cannot forget even if you try, and not in a good way. The scenes haunt you for a while leading you to question why or how did the writer come up with such horrific ideas. Something similar happened with Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario written by Taylor Sheridan.
The action thriller revolves around the story of an FBI special agent recruited to defeat the brutal leader of a Mexican drug cartel. During the opening scene, special agents Kate Macer and Reggie Wayne go through with a raid on a safe house where, while they don’t find any hostages, they do come across dozens of decaying corpses hidden inside the walls. Taylor Sheridan opened up about a story that indirectly inspired him to create such a haunting scene.
Taylor Sheridan’s Inspiration Behind the Gruesome ‘Sicario’ Scene
After finding the corpses inside the walls in the opening scene of the 2015 film, the special agents were seen throwing up outside and we don’t blame them. If we walked in on something that horrifying, we would never be able to erase it from our minds. Just watching the scene was traumatizing enough!
A scene like that does make one wonder: what the hell was going through Taylor Sheridan’s mind?! Well, the powerhouse opened up about it to Variety in 2015.
When the publication brought up the topic of the hidden corpses and stated how they couldn’t wrap their head around the “arbitrary and bizarre” scene, Sheridan replied that he didn’t really understand it either nor did he want to understand it.
I don’t understand it either. But there’s so much of what’s done that I don’t understand. And I don’t try to understand it. I just show it.
He then went on to recall an equally haunting murder story where a man skinned his victim’s face and stitched it to a soccer ball which he then kicked down the street.
I heard a story about someone who literally cut the face off of this man and sewed it on a soccer ball and kicked it down the street. How do you — there is no understanding that. But ignoring it isn’t going to help.
Well, Sheridan does have a point. You cannot really bring yourself to understand the reasoning behind such inhumane and diabolical acts. But you cannot also remain in the bliss of ignorance as this is an unfortunate but very real occurrence in the world.
Creating a Dark Atmosphere for Taylor Sheridan’s Dark Script
By now, even if you haven’t seen Sicario, you know that the film is no walk in the park. It is intense and brutal and will leave you questioning the world for days. Sheridan left no stone unturned to create an unsettling script that would leave the audience stunned.
So how did Denis Villeneuve succeed in bringing Sheridan’s intense story to life? Well, the filmmaker knew from the get-go that he would have to preserve the writer’s drive and bring the screenplay’s fear to life.
He told LAist that he specifically asked Joe Walker to edit the film without any music and still keep the tension alive.
First of all, it all started with Taylor Sheridan’s screenplay, that fear was so alive in the screenplay from the start. So my job as a director was to protect that drive and when we started to edit the movie, I said to Joe, I would like the tension to be alive without music. So we edited the movie without music, without any single note. It was important for me to extract from each scene it’s full potential without having to deal with any music that will help us.
When Jóhann Jóhannsson finally came on board to do the film’s music, Villeneuve told him that he “wanted music that the audience will feel before they hear it.” The director’s vision board for Sicario’s score looked a lot like Steven Spielberg’s Jaws and Jóhannsson delivered exactly what Villeneuve wanted. He even went as far as to state that it’s the best score that he has ever had for any of his films and if you have seen Sicario, you know he’s not wrong.
Sicario is available to stream on Prime Video.
