[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Fear Street 1978.]There’s a number of brutal kill scenes in the Fear Street trilogy, but nothing ripped my heart to pieces quite like Cindy’s (Emily Rudd) death in Fear Street 1978.
After spending so much time at odds with her sister, Cindy and Ziggy (Sadie Sink) finally reconcile in the 11th hour with all the hope in the world that they can finally end the curse by reuniting Sarah Fier’s hand with her body. However, then they come to learn that her body isn’t under the hanging tree after all and, at that point, they’re standing in the middle of an open field with the Shadyside killers closing in around them. With no hope left, Cindy opts to sacrifice herself to give her sister a chance to escape. Trouble is, Ziggy doesn’t get very far and then we get a significant amount of bloodshed as Cindy is axed by Nightwing and Ziggy winds up on the brink of death courtesy of The Milkman.
It’s an emotional gut punch given the strength of the character development and everything that they've been through, but it's also especially horrific due to all the stabbiness and bloodshed involved. As someone who’s wildly fascinated by the art of gore and special effects makeup, discussing Cindy’s demise was a top priority when Emily Rudd joined us for an episode of Collider Ladies Night.
Rudd began by detailing the movie magic of mouth blood:
“The shot that they actually used where the blood came out of my mouth, they poured the blood in and we thought we were gonna go in two minutes. It ended up being probably 20 minutes. So I’m just kind of laying in the grass, in the middle of this field in Atlanta, Georgia, the fake blood just sort of marinating in my mouth and I’m just waiting, and when we finally go, it built up because it mixes with your saliva and it just, whoosh! Like a fountain! And Leigh was like, ‘Yah! That’s it!’ And so of course, we used it.”
Whether it was for that particular shot or any other blood and dirt-heavy scene in the film, director Leigh Janiak had one consistent demand — more. Rudd explained:
“Leigh really did just go, ‘Add more blood. No, no, more blood.’ That was sort of like her tagline throughout the entire filming process. She was like, ‘More dirt. More blood. More dirt. More blood. Do you know what they’ve gone through? More dirt. More blood.’ So yeah, I think it was like we started smaller and then she kept going, ‘Hm, let’s add some more. Just pour it on. Just pour it on.’”
Yes, ultimately, all that dirt and blood looks extremely legit in the final film. But, scary isn’t always the word you use to describe a kill scene while it's being filmed on set. Sometimes making something look real on screen requires an unexpected approach on set. Rudd highlighted an especially amusing tactic they used to film Cindy being axed by Nightwing:
“I’m laughing because thinking about it now is very, very funny. I’m, you know, getting axed and they’re filming me and you can see the ax going in, obviously with SFX, but my body is obviously kind of rocking because that would happen if an ax was going in and being pulled out. When we’re filming it, it’s Lloyd [Pitts] the stunt guy standing above me pulling the punch with the ax and then you have our AD, Doug [Torres], at my feet and he is kicking the bottom of my shoe to make the body movement happen as the ax hits. So really, when you think about it, it’s just me laying in the grass, you’ve got a dude over me with an ax not quite hitting me but close, and then you have our AD just kicking the bottom of my shoe, and he’s like, kicking away. Thinking about that, yeah, that’s sort of like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe this is what it takes to make a death scene happen. Here we are!’”
This right here is just two Fear Street 1978 stories of many! Be sure to listen to our uncut conversation with Rudd in podcast form below to hear more about her experience working with Sink, to find out which Fear Street cast members Rudd thinks could survive a slasher movie, and loads more!