By Christina Radish
One of the most popular wrestlers in World Wrestling Entertainment, Kane is bringing his bad-boy image to his role as the reclusive psychopath Jacob Goodnight in the gruesome horror thriller See No Evil, opening Friday, May 19. Holed up in the long-abandoned and rotting Blackwell Hotel, Goodnight is alone with his nightmares until eight petty criminals show up for community service duty along with the cop who put a bullet in his head four years ago.
At seven feet tall, and over 300 pounds, Goodnight has a rusty steel plate screwed into his skull and razor-sharp fingernails that pluck out his victims’ eyes. When one of the juvenile delinquents is kidnapped by the killer and her fate is uncertain, the remaining lawbreakers must fight this indestructible force of nature with a violent score to settle.
“Jacob Goodnight is an extremely large, violent, sadistic sociopath,” the WWE Superstar tells MediaBlvd. Magazine. “The thing that separates Jacob from other characters that might come to mind is the fact that Jacob has a lot of emotional depth throughout the movie. You find out that he had a very horrific childhood that affected him and twisted his psyche. The end result is that some very horrific things happen when the other characters in the movie meet up with Jacob.”
As its first foray into filmmaking, WWE Films knew that See No Evil would be a perfect vehicle for Kane and his massive popularity. A non-stop bloodbath that features a string of gruesome death scenes, the film will undoubtedly please both devotees of the horror genre and Kane fans.
{quote_top}“The screenplay was written by Dan Madigan, who happened to work for WWE, so the script was always written with me in mind. My fans will enjoy this. Also, I think people that come to see the movie, who are just casual moviegoers and fans of horror movies, will see what I do in See No Evil, and become WWE and Kane fans because of that.”
Although Kane has not actually had any professional acting training, he feels that his 10 years with the WWE serves as his audition. “The character is a natural fit for what I do in the WWE naturally, so it was good. I have a lot of experience, in that respect. In the WWE, I’ve abducted a woman and made her marry me against her will, and I’ve set people on fire. I’ve done all sorts of things like that, so I’ve had a lot of experience getting inside Jacob’s head.”
Having never really considered acting in films prior to this, and not really making any plans to pursue it in the future, except for the off-chance of a possible sequel to See No Evil, Kane admits to being an avid horror film fan. “The first Halloween and the first A Nightmare on Elm Street are two of my favorites. I liked The Exorcist and Carrie. I also like psychological thrillers, like The Silence of the Lambs. I think that is what’s great about See No Evil. The characters, especially Jacob, are real. He’s a real human being that chooses to do what he does. He’s not just an instinctive killing machine. Also, there’s the physical presence that I bring to the movie. When you see people getting thrown around, I do that all the time, anyway, so it’s very believable. See No Evil is a frightening movie because it’s realistic.”
Before See No Evil, the film’s director, Gregory Dark, has made a name for himself as one of the top music video directors in the world, having worked with the likes of Britney Spears, Mandy Moore, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Outkast, Linkin Park, Korn and Sublime. He was able to translate his video style to the big screen with a shocking intensity.
“For the most part, Gregory let me develop the character. Of course, there were some things that had to be done for camera reasons, but for the most part, I was able to become Jacob. Where Gregory really shined brightest was in his attention to detail. I didn’t really appreciate that until I saw the film in its entirety and saw how everything comes together. The way that the movie is edited and the style, it’s almost a visual assault, at some points, and that’s a real credit to Gregory. He also did a good job of pacing the movie. There are times that the actions become so intense, you almost get breathless, and then it will just shut down, and then it will start ramping up again. He did a real good job of taking you on a roller coaster ride.”
{quote_middle}Undoubtedly not surprising to his wrestling fans, Kane admits that he has not only fantasized about doing some of the things that Goodnight does in the film to his opponents in the wrestling ring, he actually attempted to do one of them recently.
“Just recently, I tried to gauge a guy’s eye out, unsuccessfully. The stunts in the film were a lot like the physicality of what we do in the WWE. Of course, it wasn’t nearly as physical as that, but it was something that I could do.”
Since Goodnight has very little dialogue throughout the course of the film, Kane had the difficult task of conveying his character’s emotions with his eyes. A daunting undertaking for even the most seasoned actor, the pro wrestler credits has years with the WWE for his ability to get that across on screen.
“For years, in the WWE, I had a mask on when I performed, so I had to learn to convey emotion with body language and subtle movements, just to survive. That was all I had, since I didn’t have facial expressions to work with. I had years of experience doing that, so it was something that I was better at than someone who doesn’t have the experience doing that.”
With all of the physical stunts in the film, Kane says that it was emotional scenes that were most difficult for him because he had to adjust to the subtlety necessary for film, versus his live performances in the wrestling ring.
{quote_bottom}“You have to keep your movements subtle. In the WWE, when we’re in front of a live crowd, we’re performing, not only for the people at ringside, but also for the people that are up in the furthest reaches of the arena. There was also the challenge of not having those 20,000 people there. The artificialness of a movie set, and not having the energy to feed off of, were big challenges.”
See No Evil may be the first project from WWE Films, but it definitely won’t be the last. “WWE Films is going to be a great opportunity for all the WWE Superstars. What they’re doing is taking the Superstars who are already extremely well known and extremely popular, on a worldwide level, and putting them into a different environment, to take advantage of their fan popularity.”
Certainly, the success of films like Hostel and Saw, which were made with relatively modest budgets and went on to see huge box office success, means that it is only natural that the WWE would want to capitalize on that success.
"See No Evil is not just about the violence and the gore, which are there, in a big way. The more times I get to see it and think about it, there’s a lot of things going on between the human beings. It’s a good movie, on many levels. I think that’s what separates a superior horror movie from just another horror movie. Films like Saw not only have the gore and the violence, but they also have a story. After awhile, you become accustomed to the gore and the violence. It’s the story that keeps you interested.”
