‘Lucha Underground’ Director Picks His Favorite Shots From the Series (Photos)
“Lucha Underground” has become a cult hit with wrestling fans, thanks in large part to the elaborate backstage segments that have given the show an otherworldly mythology that has gotten bigger with each season. Skip Chaisson, director of those cutscenes, takes TheWrap behind the scenes with notes on his favorite shots from the El Rey series and what inspired them.
Episode 1: The Opening Fight Scene: “Inspired by an old El Santo comic, this was our first big fight. It established what we were doing with Lucha “real world” fights.
Episode 4: King Cuerno’s introduction: “This was one of the moments where I knew we were on to something. The sun was setting and King walks out to the edge of the roof a la “The Dark Knight” with no fear, a total badass hero come to life.”
Episode 4: Fenix’s introduction: “This was another step we took to build the show’s mythology. It was all practical effects here with no compositing. The police almost shut us down that night.”
Episode 17: Revenge is Coming: “‘Batman Begins’ and ‘The Master’ were the inspiration for this shot of Konnan in the rain. Tons of water, high speed, and very stylized.”
Ultima Lucha: Darkness Falls: “This was a promo we filmed exclusively for YouTube with Vampiro, inspired by the Indonesian action film “The Raid.” This was filmed before a similar hallway fight scene was shown on “Daredevil” but released after that show came out, so a lot of fans thought we were trying to emulate that scene but it was not the case.”
Season 2, Episode 1: Vampiro in the Asylum: “I always loved the scene in ‘Terminator 2’ when Sarah Connor loses it in the asylum. Then Chris [DeJoseph, showrunner] came up with the idea of the doctor talking to Vampiro like he’s Jason Voorhees and we combined the two films for this scene.”
Episode 202: Puma vs. Pentagon: “Both Puma and Penta are huge Bruce Lee fans, so they were totally into this homage to the flipkick from ‘Enter The Dragon.’ They nailed it in one take.”
Episode 202: PJ Black’s Motorcycle Fight: “Inspired by the motorcycle gang fight from the Ridley Scott film ‘Black Rain.’ It’s always fun when we’re able to take ‘Lucha’ out into the real world. So taking over a classic location and closing down streets for the motor cycle chase was awesome.”
Episode 204: Sexy Star Escapes From Mariposa: “This was inspired by Ripley running through the ship in “Alien.” I used to talk with Ridley [Scott] about how he got the shots in “Alien” and we used his style to put the audience into Sexy’s terrified mental state.”
Episode 206: Famous B’s commercials: “This was inspired by the old Cal Worthington car commercials and by ‘The Kentucky Fried Movie.’ Chris wrote some hilarious stuff for Famous and Brenda, so we leaned into the ridiculous world of low budget car commercials and out of synch fight scenes.”
Episode 207: The Nunchuck Fight: “This was a hilarious shoot. Everyone was so excited that we were going to take advantage of Drago’s nunchaku skills, everyone wanted to get into the act, so we went from one character having Nunchakus to EVERYONE having Nunchakus, crew included.”
Episode 211: Killshot at War: “I’m a huge fan of ‘John Wick’ Gun Fu blending martial arts and gun play. It was a perfect fit for Killshot. This was another time where Brynne Chappell, our crackshot producer, was able to get us a fantastic location and Sifu Ray and his stunt team really delivered.”
Episode 216: Dario Meets Delgado: “Inspired by the tracking shot from ‘Goodfellas.’ We’re always looking for new settings we can shoot the characters in so we can expand the ‘Lucha’ world.”
Episode 301: Dario Leaves Prison: “Inspired by ‘The Blues Brothers’ when Jake gets out of jail. The whole opening sequence from Dario getting out of his cell, to picking up his giant key, walking through gates and a puddle to get into a limo…all the shots are stylized and shot so close to each other you’d never know it.”
Episode 314: The Snake Tribe’s Lair: “This was directly inspired by ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’ and is one of my favorite sets. Our production design team, led by Kelly Van Patter and Nenci Bates, always do an awesome job.”
Episode 316: Snake Tribe vs. Aerostar and Fenix: “I’m a big fan of ‘The Warriors,’ and you can easily see the influence from the bathroom fight in that film here. We have no roller skates, but we do have snakes, a time traveler, and a phoenix.”
Episode 322: Cage Murders Delgado: “I love how this scene takes a seemingly mundane setting and turns it into something unexpected and shocking. That’s total Quentin Tarantino and Tony Scott. Cage handled the possession aspect of the gauntlet wonderfully in his performance.”
Episode 325: Dante Fox is Tortured: “Influence by the flashback torture scenes from ‘Body of Lies’ and ‘Rambo.’ – Dante was so good here. You see his pain,frustration , sorrow and anger. It’s amazing how much the crew was able to get to make this cross cutting/match cutting scene come to life.”
Ultima Lucha Tres: Dario Cueto is Murdered: “As soon as DJ sent over the script, I knew exactly what to suggest to everyone: the baseball bat murder from ‘The Untouchables.’ The shocking scene needed a poetic pay off, this was a day where our Director of Cinematography Chris Stevens took over and nailed it.”
Episode 404: Matanza’s Lair — “‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ immediately came to mind when we picked the new set for season 4. This great shot is thanks to our lighting director Dave Navarro.”
Episode 405: The White Rabbit’s Lair — “Kelly and Nenci’s team built this amazing forced perspective room based on the waiting room from Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice.”, It’s things that you’d never expect from a wrestling show but on ‘Lucha,’ it’s embraced.”
Episode 414: Rise of Marty the Moth — “Robert Rodriguez and I were inspired after watching the re-release of “The Shining” on the big screen at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. I texted DJ and Chris Roach that night and they loved the connection of Jack Torrance and Marty the Moth immediately.”
Episode 413: Catrina vs. Melissa — “This is the most elaborate backstage fight we ever filmed, and it was inspired by ‘The Raid’ and the fight between Uma Thurman and Daryl Hannah in ‘Kill Bill Vol. 2.’ This was a total team effort, but I can’t say enough about how hard Karlee and Melissa worked on this. They totally committed and went for it. Our fight coordinator Sifu Ray guided them expertly. They wanted to create a classic fight and they did it.”
Read original story ‘Lucha Underground’ Director Picks His Favorite Shots From the Series (Photos) At TheWrap
