Strays director explains movie’s most shocking scene

Strays is a new R-rated comedy about a dog embarking on a quest to bite off his owner’s penis. It’s crude, lewd, and very rude, and one scene is particularly shocking, so we asked director Josh Greenbaum to explain how it came about.

Strays received an R-rating in the United States for “pervasive language, crude and sexual content, and drug use.”

In the Dexerto review, we wrote: “Sex features in most scenes, thought it usually involves inanimate objects, like a couch voiced by Sophia Vergara. While cursing is in all of them, with Strays very possibly the sweariest movie ever made.”

But one scene in particular will have audiences shocked and stunned. So we asked Strays director Josh Greenbaum how it came about. Meaning SPOILERS ahead…

Strays director explains movie’s most shocking scene

Strays’ most shocking scene occurs when the lead dogs eat mushrooms and start hallucinating. They find some cuddly toy bunnies, and joyfully rip them apart. Then sober up and realize the rabbits were real, and they just went on a killing spree.

“We knew we had to push the envelope,” says director Josh Greenbaum of the scene in question. “It seemed funny to me that while the dogs were high on mushrooms, they might think that they discovered a bunch of toys.

“Because certainly I think that my dogs – when they are playing with their toys and ripping them up – it’s some primal evolutionary itch that they are scratching. They’re tearing out the insides of an animal. And so the idea that maybe they did that by accident while high on mushrooms really made us all laugh.”

Why Strays isn’t for children

We also asked if Strays is the sweariest movie ever made, to which Josh Greenbaum responded: “I don’t think so. It’s got a lot of cursing, for sure. When we were writing the script, we definitely searched to see how many swear words we had in it. And were surprised to see that we did not have nearly as many as we thought.

“If you go on Wikipedia, there is an entry that tells you how many f-words are in a movie. You would have thought it would’ve been the R-rated comedies – the Sausage Parties – those raunchier, louder movies. And in fact it’s a lot of Scorsese’s films. You forget that all of his films have a lot of swearing in them, but not for comedic effect, it’s just the way his characters speak.

“We have a lot – I’m not going to lie. It is not for children. But unfortunately I don’t think we can take the top prize.”

Having a look at that list, something called Swearnet: The Movie has the most f-bombs. While there is a lot of Scorsese, with The Wolf of Wall Street and Casino making the Top 10. But expect to see Strays joining the ranks once someone does a swear count.

Strays is in cinemas now, while you can read more about the movie via the below links:

Strays review | Cast and characters | The one thing Will Ferrell’s dog wouldn’t do | Movie’s best cameo explained | Does the dog die? | Post-credits scene explained |