There are so many action movies for audiences to choose from that in order to make one that stands out from the crowd, filmmakers need to think outside the box and turn tropes on their heads. Directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen seem to have stumbled into a winning formula with Novocaine, which blends multiple genres to create a unique experience audiences of all kinds can enjoy. While the film features plenty of hard-hitting violence, those sequences are complemented by moments of comedy and a love story that gives Novocaine an emotional core. All of those elements work together to create something special.
“I think the thing is, is that if it were just the gore, it would turn too many people off,” Olsen said in an interview with ComicBook. “I think you need the palate cleanser of a joke every now and then, and the earnestness of the love story and the friendship story that are in it. I think without those things, it would just be gross out for gross out’s sake. But this concept … what drew us to it was the mixture of violence and heart — because a lot of times movies will be one or the other. And it’s rare that something is quite gory, but also meant to elicit laughter in a good time.”
Berk added that the film’s test screenings were encouraging for him, recalling, “People have seen it, like people who are like, ‘My wife hates gore. She can’t watch these types of movies, but she loves this one.’ We’re like, okay, I think we’re onto something.”
Novocaine is described as, “When the girl of his dreams (Amber Midthunder) is kidnapped, everyman Nate (Jack Quaid) turns his inability to feel pain into an unexpected strength in his fight to get her back.”
[RELATED – Novocaine Review: Jack Quaid Earns His Bone-Breaking Breakout Role]
Throughout the film, Olsen and Berk have a lot of fun with the premise. One of the movie’s standout scenes is when Nate is being tortured and has to fake being in an excruciating amount of pain. Quaid explained that was the sequence that drew him to the project.
“[T]hat scene really, like, sealed the deal,” Quaid told ComicBook. “I was like, ‘This is something I’ve never really quite seen before.’ Because it’s taking this premise of a guy who can’t feel pain and flipping it on its head. Now he has to pretend to feel pain.”
Of course, every action movie needs a great villain, and Novocaine has that in the form of Ray Nicholson’s Simon. Throughout action movie history, there are plenty of memorable antagonists to draw from, but Nicholson wasn’t influenced by one in particular.
“Honestly, I watched a bunch of movies,” he told ComicBook when asked about the inspirations for his Simon performance. “Like, I couldn’t say that there was one thing that I picked out … I tried to show up and have as much fun as I could and see where that landed.”
Novocaine opens in theaters on March 14th.
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