Fright Night Horror

There are horror films. Then there are public domain fever dreams where a beloved cartoon sailor turns into a gore-splattered vigilante with forearms that could pulp a man’s skull. Popeye the Slayer Man, a horror reimagining that’s as bloody as it is bizarre, belongs to the latter camp. And standing tall at the centre of the madness is Jason Robert Stephens, a former real-life cop turned screen slayer. As the film launches in the UK on Amazon and Apple, Stephens sat down with Masters of Horror to talk through the physical demands of becoming Popeye, improvising emotional beats between kills, and yes, who he’d like to slaughter in a potential sequel. This version of Popeye is definitely not your grandpa’s sailor, how did you prepare to embody such a gritty, slayer-style version of this iconic character? Mentally, it was pretty easy to get into the character. Once you have all that makeup on, the costume, etc., you kind of have to become that character. It was actually really fun to play...