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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom starts out like a big, loud action movie with volcanoes and desperate escapes - that we already knew. But in an interview for the latest issue of SFX Magazine, Fallen Kingdom director JA Bayona opened up more about the movie's second half. If you've seen any of the trailers, you probably remember that scene of a raptor lurking in a little girl's bedroom.
“Having a monster sneak into my bedroom through the window was one of my biggest fears as a kid,” Bayona said. “And I had the chance of shooting that for this movie." According to Bayona, that scene is much more than an appeal to the audience's protective instincts. Bayona, who made his name directing Spanish horror classic The Orphanage, doesn't plan to disappoint; Fallen Kingdom just gets creepier from there.
"I think [Colin Trevorrow, the Jurassic World director/co-writer who returned as a co-writer of Fallen Kingdom] already thought about having a darker, more dangerous and suspenseful sequel,” Bayona said. “I was interested the first time Colin told me the story: ‘The first half, you will find all the elements and situations that you would expect from one of these movies. It’s focused on adventure and danger. But then there is a second half that you don’t expect, which plays with this kind of gothic element in a mansion, in a claustrophobic context.’ I really enjoyed being able to play with dinosaurs while doing the kinds of things that I love, playing with the design of shots, playing with the shadows and with big corridors. It’s very Hitchcock.”
It sounds like the main monster of the second half will be the Indoraptor, the genetically engineered dinosaur that is Dr. Henry Wu's greatest - and most ill-advised - creation. According to Trevorrow, its malevolence is deeper and more twisted than the usual gonna-eat-ya kind the other Jurassic creatures run on: “I thought that it would take the whole franchise into a slightly different space, and also allow us to focus on the pure evil, the dinosaur you should be really scared of. It’s this sort of Frankenstein-like creation that has gone too far.”
By contrast, the recurring Tyrannosaurus Rex (who we met in the original Jurassic Park, and who most recently helped kill the rampaging Indominus rex in Jurassic World) seems kind of… nice? Except for eating that one lawyer, I mean, though he was a jerk. Trevorrow noted that the T-rex "is kind of a hero to us" at this point, and Bayona was eager to expound on the giant lizard's cultural symbolism.
“She represents the result of our sins towards science,” Bayona said. “She’s the monster to remind us that we’re doing the wrong thing with dinosaurs. Every time we cross a red line, we have the impact of the T-rex there to remind us that we’re not doing the right thing!”
For more on how life (and horror) will always find a way, pick up the latest issue of SFX Magazine, out now.
