Sci-fi action movies don’t come much more frenetic—or just plain batshit insane—than Russian filmmaker Ilya Naishuller’s Hardcore Henry, out today. Shot almost entirely from the titular cyborg hero’s point of view (thanks to custom GoPro rigs), Hardcore Henry is, in essence, a filmed first-person shooter videogame. It’s relentlessly paced, totally ridiculous, and liberally splattered with blood and viscera. (Seriously, we’re talking an Invasion of Normandy–level body count here.)

The film, Naishuller’s first, is a “spiritual sequel” to the 32-year-old’s “Bad Motherfucker,” the 2013 POV music video he shot for his punk band Biting Elbows. That rapid-fire, ultraviolent clip went viral—it’s got nearly 33 million YouTube hits to date—and won kudos from Darren Aronofsky and Samuel L. Jackson, the latter of whom tweeted the highest praise imaginable.

This is some Buck Wild shit! This coming from a BMF! http://t.co/oG5S3KyXkz — Samuel L. Jackson (@SamuelLJackson) March 22, 2013

Naishuller recently phoned from Russia to discuss the making of one particularly “Buck Wild” sequence in Hardcore Henry, a roadway chase shot south of Moscow over the course of five days.

“A lot of people said we we’re not going to get the scene,” Naishuller recalls. “When people were reading the script, I remember them lifting their eyes off the page and looking at me like I’m a nut job. And I remember looking back at them and nodding my head and saying, ‘That’s exactly what we’re going to get—believe it or not.'” Here’s how Naishuller and crew did, in fact, get the scene.

1. Worst. Carpool. Ever. (:09-:12)

At the onset of this scene, Henry is riding sidecar in a motorcycle driven by his friend Jimmy (in this sequence, a stuntman standing in for actor Sharlto Copley). All the casings flying from the custom-made Gatling gun are CG, as is the damage to the enemy van. “I love how the roof flies off at the end,” says Naishuller. “The CG company added that. It’s what I call a little gold nugget.”

2. Blow the Doors Off (:14-:17)

“In this particular sequence, pretty much every time Henry turns his head is a cut,” says Naishuller. (Two stuntmen take turns as Henry in the course of this minute-long clip.) That’s the case here, as the protagonist turns around to witnesses the enemy van flip and go flying—a stunt achieved using hydraulics. The explosions and flames, on the other hand, are pure CG.

3. Van Wilder (:23-:26)

This is three shots stitched together. “It’s a great combination of 70 percent practical effects, 30 percent digital, to make it look like it’s happening in one smooth take,” Naishuller says. He adds that during the middle section, inside the van, “if you slow things down, you’ll see one of the mercenaries is totally blown up—it looks quite disgusting.” The front of the van is ripped open, courtesy of hydraulics, to grant our hero passage.

4. Have Gun, Will Travel (:29-:32)

“This wasn’t in the script,” Naishuller says of this particular stunt. “On the day of shooting, I said, ‘How about if [the bad guy’s] holding on to the gun, then we shoot him, and he spins with the Gatling gun?’ A regular stunt coordinator would be like, ‘Fuck you, it’s not gonna happen.’ But my guy said, ‘Give me 10 minutes.'” Naishuller adds, “There’s a crane above the guy and a wire coiled around him so when we pull the trigger and the Gatling gun spins, it sends him spinning. That was a 30-minute addition to the day that was very well worth it.”

5. Van Wildest (:35-:38)

The bike that he’s jumping from is fixed to a platform, which is in turn attached to a vehicle running alongside the van. There’s also a crane extended above Henry, who’s wearing safety cables, and the crew manually hoists him up atop the van, where he demonstrates his kicking skills. At this point, Jimmy, riding alongside the van, tosses Henry a grenade—all courtesy of some complicated CG that involved “quite a bit of physics,” according to Naishuller.

6. Grenade Drop! (:43-:48)

Once the grenade goes off, there’s a cut, then “the guy playing Henry is yanked upward on a wire,” Naishuller says. “The van does a kick flip and our guy goes flying, practically, behind this van that’s going pretty damn fast and dangerous through the air.” There’s another cut, and Henry is suspended, via cables, onto the motorcycle, which is connected to an off-screen truck by a “big metallic rod.” From there, the mayhem continues apace. And you thought your morning commute was bad.