Saban Films will release the horror/supernatural thriller Warhunt in theaters, on digital and demand on January 21, 2022. The film stars Mickey Rourke, Jackson Rathbone
“1945. A US military cargo plane loses control and violently crashes behind enemy lines in the middle of the German black forest. Immediately ruthless Major Johnson (Mickey Rourke) sends a squad of his bravest soldiers on a rescue mission to retrieve the top secret material the plane was carrying. Led by Sergeant Brewer (Robert Knepper) and Walsh (Jackson Rathbone), the soldiers venture deep into the forest near the crash site,” says the official synopsis. “They soon discover hanged Nazi soldiers and other dead bodies bearing ancient, magical symbols. Suddenly their compasses fail, their perceptions twist and straying from the group leads to profound horror as they are attacked by a powerful, supernatural force. Fighting for the dainty and struggling to survive they must uncover the shocking truth behind the force before the Nazis and do everything they can to remove all evidence it ever existed, even at the cost of their own lives.”
ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief spoke with Warhunt star Jackson Rathbone about the film, its supernatural elements, and his love for the Twilight fanbase.
Tyler Treese: In Warhunt, your character is dealing with a lot going on. There are illusions, voices, all kinds of supernatural stuff. Can you discuss your approach to portraying this character that’s kind of unprepared for the situation and is dealing with so much?
Jackson Rathbone: I play Walsh, who is a special operative that is sent behind enemy lines during World War II to presumably fight the Nazis. However, there’s a certain supernatural element that rears its head that the squad is not quite prepared for. However, the more we see of Walsh, the more we realize that he maybe knows a bit more than he is letting on. So it was fun to play a character with a certain sense of mystique and maybe against type a little bit.
This is kind of a natural spin on war films because Nazis were doing so much crazy research into the occult and stuff like that. What did you find most interesting about that aspect for Warhunt?
That’s what I loved the most about Warhunt. The idea of kicking some Nazi ass. That was great. Then to imbue it with a supernatural element, which is true. Hitler was obsessed with the occult as were certain members of his inner circle, the higher-ups, and I think to kind of explore that within the realms of historical fiction was fun. I think it leads to a fun movie.
That’s certainly a rabbit hole you can go down. What kind of preparation did you do for this role?
I’ve been lucky enough in my life to have my closest friends be stunt performers at the highest caliber, and I’ve spent years training with them in hand-to-hand combat and stage combat. So I kind of have that in my back pocket at all times. So when it came time to do set fights and everything, I was able to work with the choreographers and gun performers and really try to craft something visceral with the limited resources we had making this film.
Then also, I’m from the south and I grew up with guns, so I know gun safety. It was drilled into me ever since I was a young boy scout and I remember day one, when they handed out the guns to the actors, we have a lot of European actors, who’ve never really seen a gun before, except for a prop on stage. They started playing around with them, like just silly kids to be honest. I had to kinda like whip out the dad voice like, “Nope, nope. We’re not doing that. Do not point the gun at your own head. Do not point the gun at the other actors.” Then I called together a safety meeting and I was like, “This is how will we will be holding our guns. We hold them, we point them up or we point them down. We never point them at each other unless we’re in the middle of a take and we understand that it’s safe and we’ve checked everything. I’m a bit of a stickler for set safety, especially when it comes to firearms. I grew up with that training. So that would be my background for Walsh.
