Movies - TV
Joss Whedon Used Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Hush To Save Himself From ‘Hackdom’
By JENNA BUSCH
Arguably, the scariest episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is Season 4, Episode 10, entitled “Hush,” where horrifying, floating monsters called The Gentlemen steal the voices of people before stabbing them. In a 2003 interview with IGN, series creator Joss Whedon said he wrote “Hush” to save himself from “hackdom.”
Whedon explained The Gentlemen were inspired by the German film “Nosferatu”: “I just have always been afraid of bald, smiling men who float! They just creep me out.” He also spoke about the impetus for the episode and admitted “part of it came from my feeling that I had started to fall into a hackdom [...] I thought if I had no dialogue, I would be forced to tell the story visually.”
Although he was worried he wouldn't be able to convey the fear visually and the process was difficult, Whedon said it was “the most fun imaginable.” The lack of dialogue proved to be difficult for the actors, too, with Sarah Michelle Gellar, who plays the titular role, saying, “It was so hard ... an exercise in how you communicate without words.”