Behind the scenes of Drive Angry‘s unique firearm
Last year, Shock Till You Drop brought you to the Shreveport, Lousiana set of Patrick Lussier Drive Angry, but there was one topic of conversation that was strictly off-limits until now: a six-barrelled sidearm known as “The God Killer”.
Design and production of the weapon arrives through the wicked genius of Gary Tunnicliffe, an FX artist whose work has appeared in dozens of genre films, including Blade, Candyman and six Hellraiser films.
Shock caught up Tunnicliffe outside the film’s prop trailer where, through the door, could just be made out bloody limbs and a partially-exploded human bust. He proudly pulled out the God Killer’s faded carrying case, something that he said was as tricky to get right as the gun itself.
“I just thought that the God Killer, this mythical weapon in the film, should have a history when you see the case to it,” he said, “I ended up spending an enormous amount of money making a case for it… Patrick was very specific. He said, ‘The case should look like it’s from Hell and has been through Hell and traveled a million miles.”
Beginning with an 18th century Chinese attache case, Tunnicliffe tracked down (through the invaluable resource of Ebay) a number of antiquated items to base the age of the case off of, including Civil War-era gun holder, complete with dents, scratches and even a burned-on handprint.
Inside the case, surrounding the gun, is a set of special bullets. Supposedly made of a mythical material, the idea is that the actual shell is eternally hot and must be surrounded by a larger, glass covering filled with Holy Water. Inside the gun case is a set of tongs that Cage’s character, Milton, uses to lift the bullet and smash them open right before loading the weapon.
Instead of a single rotating cylinder, the gun features five massive rotating barrels and is engraved on the hilt with the latin words for “God Killer”, “Deus Iuguolo”. From the ivory handle, engraved with demonic imagery, there hang a variety of “Anti-God” charms, lending a decidedly demonic bent to the weapon’s firepower.
“The original design had it 27 inches long, Tunnicliffe said, “I built a 27 inch version and it was fucking ridiculous… It was like a hand cannon, so we ended up shrinking it down slightly.”
Because of it’s huge size, the gun (which Milton has from the film’s start), was simply too big to be carried in a traditional holster. Instead, Tunnicliffe designed a body holster designed for a fast draw. Still, while elements of practicality factored into the design, one of the most important factors was that it stand as one of cinema’s badass firearms.
“I geeked the shit out of it,” Tunnicliffe laughed, “I wanted something that Nic would open for the first time and go, ‘Fuck, that’s a cool gun!’
Catch the God Killer when Drive Angry hits theaters on March 25th.
Source: Silas Lesnick
