Julian Morris has a lot of blood on his hands. After making a horrific splash in Cry Wolf, Morris also got messy in a recurring role on TV's ER and Valkyrie. Now the 26-year-old actor is returning full-force to the horror genre with Donkey Punch and Sorority Row. Morris spoke exclusively with FEARnet about the two projects, which both feature a series of events gone awry and their terrifying consequences.

After doing Cry Wolf, what made you want to return to the horror genre?

After Cry Wolf, I didn't return to the genre immediately. I did Whirlygirl, which was a love story, and Marple, which was a period piece in England. But what has always motivated me is the material. If it's a great character, a great script, and because of my age, a lot of those films are going to be thrillers or horrors. They are like the bread and butter of young Hollywood. They tend to do well and, as a result, studios tend to put money in them. I tend to like fast action pieces, so I thought the scripts for Donkey Punch and Sorority Row were fantastic. Yeah, I had done the genre before, but I found them very distinct from Cry Wolf and each other. And Donkey Punch was filmed in Cape Town on board this luxury yacht with six other English actors. I had the time of my life making it. Sorority Row was filmed with some of the most gorgeous girls I've ever laid eyes on, up in Pittsburgh.

Were you familiar with the original House on Sorority Row, and, if so, how faithful is this remake?

I had heard about the original, but it wasn't a movie I had seen. When I read the script for the new one, I watched the older version and have in fact met the original writer and director, Mark Rosman. He actually came to set a number of days when we were filming the new one. He's a huge supporter of the new one, which is a totally different animal. Characters are being changed and the killer is different. The new version is definitely contemporized.

Who do you play in the film and how does he get sucked into all the chaos going on?

I play Andy, the boyfriend of the lead girl, Cassidy, and at first, I see her in this awful sorority house with these awful sorority sisters. He doesn't know about their prank gone wrong, so I'm not sure why she's trying to distance herself from the sorority. Being the good boyfriend, I give her my support. I'm also the valedictorian. I give a speech and initiate the graduation ceremony. Of course, when the serial killer starts striking, I'm the one who has to save my girlfriend.

The guilty pleasures of many horror movies are the gruesome deaths. Which one made you squirm the most?

I don't know if it's because the writers of the script are sick or the director is sicker but this one is really good. A lot of the deaths involve a slight edge or dark twist of humor. It makes them all the more perverse and worse. My favorite one involves Margo Harshman's character Chugs who is seeing her psychiatrist and having an affair with him. Of course, it's not the therapist who is there but the killer. I don't want to give it away but it's fantastic. My death is pretty good as well.

Is the whodunit aspect as important as the gore?

For this type of film and genre, it often is. The great thing about Sorority Row is it's a horror, but not in the same vein as Hostel or Saw, where it's gratuitous violence. It harkens back to the genre pieces of the ‘90s, like I Know What You Did Last Summer or Scream, where you have that humor running through it. It's slightly self defacing and self referential. Particularly for these films, the whodunit aspect is vital. That's very true for Sorority Row where you are wondering who did it and how the killer knew about the prank. Is it one of them? An outsider? Are they from the sorority house? A lot of these sorority sisters are awful people so when they are killed, you really enjoy it. In a way, you are rooting for whoever is behind this mask and graduation gown. It's also thrilling when you have the reveal to see who it is.

In Cry Wolf, the deaths were mainly smoke and mirrors, so how much corn syrup did you have to deal with for Sorority Row?

A lot. It's funny but Cry Wolf was pretty tame in comparison, but at the time I didn't think it was. There is a lot of corn syrup in this one and it does have an R rating.

You recently had Donkey Punch released on DVD. How do you explain what that is to your parents without blushing?

Actually, I was the one blushing because my Dad explained it to me. "Dad, I'm doing a movie called Donkey Punch," and he's like "Come here son. That's the part of the birds and the bees conversation I didn't tell you."

What causes things to spiral out of control for this group of youngsters on the boat?

This movie really is in two parts. You have the first part, which is the best of youth. These seven characters, four guys and three gorgeous girls, are on this yacht in the Mediterranean Sea. The sun is setting, we are skinny dipping, we are getting high, and we start talking about donkey punching. We go down to the cabin and it's almost a natural progression into the sex with the video camera out. During a sex act, my character Josh performs a donkey punch which leads to the death of this girl. From that point onwards, everything changes. Naturally, they decide on how to deal with this. Should they call the police? They don't want to do that because their lives would be over. Josh wants to be a lawyer, but he'd go to prison so he pushes them into dumping the body overboard with the plan they'd go back and say she drowned. However, they dump the body and it floats. The other two girls freak out, thinking the other guys are going to rape them or have ulterior motives. Everything we try to do to make things better just makes the situation worse. It's like Lord of the Flies with these young people performing the most horrible deeds.

Is it more interesting being the catalyst for the chain of events, as in Donkey Punch, or swept along such as in Cry Wolf or Sorority Row?

That's a really good question. It really depends on the character or script. Owen Matthews in Cry Wolf was a great character, because in a sense he was forced into madness and into believing events were happening, to the extent he kills somebody. In the case of Josh in Donkey Punch, you could argue they come from a state of madness already.

What else do you have in the pipeline?

I just finished ER which was amazing and very different to horror. I start a new movie in two and a half weeks once everything is signed on the dotted line. I don't want to say anything yet but it's a horror thriller. I keep getting these scripts that I really like. I need to ask my agents to do a nice romantic comedy, but I'm never going to leave this genre. I really genuinely love it.