Silent but Deadly: How "Hush" Became BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER'S Most Frightening Episode
One of my all-time favorite episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer was “Hush,” and it was also one of the most terrifying episodes that were produced for the series!
First of all, let's talk about those creepy floating monsters, known as The Gentlemen. These guys are the stuff of nightmares, with their creepy shit-eating grins. They roamed from town to town stealing voices in order to gather seven human hearts. It's like Joss Whedon crawled inside our collective childhood fears and brought them to life on screen.
Whedon shared that the creepy-ass vampire from the 1922 silent film Nosferatu scared him as a kid and served as inspiration for The Gentlemen. He said: "I just have always been afraid of bald, smiling men who float! They just creep me out." Yep, I agree, and that’s why I I loved this episode so much!
And let's not forget the fact that for most of the episode, there is absolutely no dialogue. No witty one-liners, no heartfelt speeches, which is what the characters in the series were all about… just silence.
In the story, Buffy and her friends must communicate with one another silently as they try to discover why no one can speak and find whoever is murdering the townspeople. They must also find ways to express their feelings about each other and keep some semblance of control as the town descends into chaos.
"Hush" isn't just a scary episode, it's also incredibly smart. Whedon has always been known for his snappy dialogue, but by taking away the characters' voices, he was forced to tell the story visually, and he nailed it. Every shot, every movement, and every expression tells a story and moves it forward.
Whedon talked about what inspired him to make this episode, and tell a story with no dialogue telling IGN, that he wrote "Hush" to save himself from "hackdom." He said:
"And the inspiration for the episode ... part of it came from my feeling that I had started to fall into a hackdom, if you will. I'd been directing for three years, I'd directed, like, 10 Buffys, and I was sort of falling into a very predictable visual pattern, which is what TV mostly does. It's radio with faces. I thought if I had no dialogue, I would be forced to tell the story visually."
It's not just about the fear, though. "Hush" also explores the idea that when we can't rely on words, the truth of our feelings can come out in very different ways including the use of facial expressions. The series creator and showrunner went on to talk about that saying: "I realized that what I had to talk about was communication and how words get in the way, as somebody once sang. When we stop talking, truths start coming out."
Whedon was worried he wouldn't be able to convey the fear that he wanted to see visually and while was hard, he awesomely pulled it off and said it was "the most fun imaginable."
As for what the cast thought of “Hush”, Sarah Michelle Gellar, who played Buffy, described it as being “so hard” and “an exercise in how you communicate without words." Anthony Head, who played Giles, said: “I didn't see any of the filming, so when I finally saw it cut together, I was blown away. It was genius!"
This is an episode that is alway worth revisiting!
Source: /Film