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Monthly Archives: May 2012

SCREAM QUEEN OF THE MONTH-MAY 2012-ROSE McGOWAN

May 30

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Do you want to know when you’ve achieved hotness as a horror hottie? When you can spend the second act of a film with a wooden table leg in place of your real one; and the last act of the same film with a machine gun in place of the same wooden table leg that was a substitute for your real leg in the first place and look damn sexy either way. That’s exactly what Rose McGowan did when she starred as Cherry Darling, ex-Go Go Dancer turned bad-ass zombie killer in Robert Rodriguez’ “Planet Terror“. Miss McGowan has had quite the career in the horror genre with roles in “Scream” (1996), “Devil in the Flesh” (1998), “Phantoms” (1998) and the television series “Charmed” (2001-2006). She is in post-production on “The Tell-tale Heart“, based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe; and in pre-production with Julia Stiles and Virginia Madsen on “The Bell Jar”, based on the novel by Sylvia Plath. It looks like Written in Blood’s Scream Queen of the Month for May 2012 is just…cherry.

TRIVIA

Auditioned for the role of Lisa in Girl, Interrupted (1999). The part eventually went to Angelina Jolie.

She won the role of Tatum Riley in Scream (1996) after Melinda Clarke turned it down. Coincidentally, the two would later work together when Clarke guest starred on ”Charmed” (1998) in October 2002.

Has agoraphobia and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).

Quote: “I think if I had lived back in Salem, I would have been burned at the stake.”

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SCRE4M

May 29

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SCRE4M-United States-2011

Courteney Cox as Gail Weathers-Riley

Adam Brody as Deputy Hoss

Emma Roberts as Jill Roberts

Hayden Panettiere as Kirby Reed

Marley Shelton as Deputy Judy Hicks

Directed by Wes Craven

Written by Kevin Williamson

New Decade, new Rules, same old re-hashed, re-booted, regurgitated garbage. You know, I was all ready to actually like Scream 4. The beginning was promising with the whole movie within a movie before the actual movie even starts shtick. I really thought Scream 4 was going to go places that “Scream 2” and the abhorrent “Scream 3” had only had wet dreams of going. But alas, ‘twas to no avail as Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson rob our wallets with  yet another Sidney Prescott pity party slash (pun intended) psycho with a knife and a stupid mask mash-up. We all know that Sidney is going to return and the body count is going to begin anew. We all know that the killer will be someone we least expect, but suspected all along. We all know that the hot chicks with big tits and small brains are going to have their guts rearranged. Hey, here’s a newsflash, Wes; TELL US SOMETHING WE DON’T FUCKING KNOW!! Where is the Wes Craven who directed such horror masterpieces as “The Hills Have Eyes”, “The Last House on the Left” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street?” Where is the Wes Craven who wasn’t afraid of controversy and pushed the envelope as far as it could be pushed? I’m terribly fucking sorry, but that Wes Craven is dead. He was crushed beneath the weight of bad sequels. His epitaph reads, “Here lays a man who was once an individual who believed in the power of his craft. Now he is merely a franchise that believes in King Dollar.” May we all rest in peace.

TRIVIA

Ashley Greene was considered for the lead role, but ultimately, Emma Roberts was cast.

The film suffered two casting changes in quick succession as shooting had begun. Lake Bell had originally been cast as Judy Hicks but was forced to drop out (which she announced via her Twitter account on June 24th 2010) due to “scheduling conflicts.” She was replaced by Marley Shelton. Six days later, Lauren Graham, who was originally cast as Kate Roberts, dropped out also citing “scheduling conflicts” as well as “script changes.” She was replaced by Mary McDonnell.

Each of the new central characters is an archetype for one of the characters from the original: Jill (Sidney), Kirby (Tatum), Trevor (Billy), Charlie (Stu), and Robbie (Randy).

½

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SCREAM 3

May 28

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SCREAM 3-United States-2000

Courteney Cox Arquette as Gail Weathers

Patrick Dempsey as Det. Mark Kincaid

Lance Henriksen as John Milton

Matt Keeslar as Tom Prinze

Emily Mortimer as Angelina Tyler

Parker Posey as Jennifer Jolie

Deon Richmond as Tyson Fox

Patrick Warburton as Steven Stone

Directed by Wes Craven

Written by Ehren Kruger

Based on characters created by Kevin Williamson

I actually considered re-posting my review for “Scream 2″ as my review for “Scream 3″. All I would have to do is change the main setting from a college campus to a movie studio and toss in the names of a few new supporting cast members and there you have it; the plot of “Scream 3″. “Scream 3″ is more of the same old same old that “Scream 2″ was and to be honest I am running out of shit to say. Neve Campbell returns as Sidney Prescott blah blah blah yada yada yada. David ‘I was WCW champion, dammit!’ Arquette returns as Dwight ‘Don’t call me Dewey’ Riley and Courteney Cox returns as Gail Weathers, about whom I have nothing witty to say. Toss in Patrick Dempsey, Jenny McCarthy, Patrick Warburton, Parker Posey and a few supporting characters that I could care less about as well as a killer that has become a complete joke and I am now in horror movie hell. Oh wait, I almost forgot. There’s still “Scream 4″ to watch and review. Kill me now, please.

TRIVIA

Throughout Scream 3 the actors of Stab 3, the movie-within-the-movie, complain about rewrites and three different scripts. The complaints actually originated with the actual cast of Scream 3, because of frequent rewrites and three different endings.

Wes Craven agreed to direct Scream 3 only after Miramax allowed him to direct the inspirational drama Music of the Heart.

“Scream 3″ never had a public test screening. The cast and crew only had their first chance to see the finished product at the premiere because of fears of spoilers being put out on the Internet.

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SCREAM 2

May 27

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SCREAM 2-United States-1997

Courteney Cox as Gail Weathers

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Casey Cooper

Jamie Kennedy as Randy Meeks

Laurie Metcalf as Debbie Salt

Jada Pinkett as Maureen Evans

Liev Schrieber as Cotton Weary

Directed by Wes Craven

Written by Kevin Williamson

Ninety-five percent of the time sequels are inferior to the original film that spawned them in the first place. They either go in a completely opposite direction to the first film; or else they completely rehash the plot of the first film with the same characters and a few new ones thrown in for good measure. Scream 2 is no exception to that rule. Neve Campbell returns as Sidney Prescott, the ‘final girl’ with what appears to be a magnet in her ass when it comes to killers in black robes and ghost faced masks. David Arquette reprises his role as dorky Dewey ‘My name is Dwight’ Riley, and Courteney Cox is once again opportunistic news reporter Gail Weathers. Change the setting to a college campus and begin the whole thing over again for a 100% brand new same old experience. Boring! I say boring! The entire Scream franchise has always revolved around whether or not art imitates life or vice versa. The trouble with that theory is that the audience has to buy into it. For the sake of argument, I for one do not. I believe that if someone is truly evil (or perhaps insane), then they’re going to commit murder anyway; and that it’s not going to matter whether they saw Jodie Foster playing a twelve-year-old hooker or Ghostface slicing and dicing bubble headed teenagers. Art imitates life, not the other way around. Scream 2 is just another tired unnecessary  sequel spinning its wheels.

TRIVIA

The cast was not informed of the identity of the killer until the last day of principal photography. Also, the cast did not receive the last ten pages of the shooting script until it was time to film the scenes contained therein. Furthermore, the last ten pages of the shooting script were printed on gray paper in order to deter illicit duplication of them. All cast members were required to sign confidentiality clauses as parts of their respective contracts that precluded them from discussing the outcome of the story and the killer’s identity.

Randy’s reference to fake nude pictures of Gale Weathers on the Internet was inspired by fake images of Courteney Cox that appeared on the worldwide web prior to production of Scream 2.

The rules for a horror-movie sequel as stated by Randy are: 1. the death total is always greater; and 2. the murder scenes are always much more elaborate, with more blood and gore. The third rule to surviving a sequel was cut from the movie, but appears in its trailer, “And number three, never, ever under any circumstance assume that the killer is dead.”

Robert Rodriguez directed scenes of “Stab,” the movie-within-a-movie of Scream 2. Rodriguez directed the Casey Becker scene and the Sidney and Billy scene.

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SCREAM

May 25

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SCREAM-United States-1996

Courteney Cox as Gail Weathers

Matthew Lillard as Stuart ‘Stu’ Macher

Rose McGowan as Tatum Riley

Skeet Ulrich as Billy Loomis

Drew Barrymore as Casey Becker

Directed by Wes Craven

Written by Kevin Williamson

Do I really have to go over the plot of Scream in great detail? The movie is over 15 years old, for crying out loud. Just read the tagline; “Someone has taken their love of scary movies one step too far. Solving this mystery is going to be murder.” See, wasn’t that simple? Watching the film last night was the first time I’ve watched it since going to the theater to see it with my ex-wife in 1996. I remember having a lot of fun that day; not because of the movie itself, but because my ex-wife was a horror film snob and I got sheer enjoyment out of watching Ghostface scare the living shit out of her. I can’t tell you the number of times she tugged on my arm and said “Do you wanna leave? Let’s leave!” to which I would reply “No way, I paid fifteen dollars for us to see this movie.” Yeah, I get my laughs where I can. The best part about the whole thing was that she’s the one that suggested we see “Scream” in the first place.

But I digress. What I like most about “Scream” is the way that although the characters know all the do’s and don’ts of surviving a horror film they continuously do them anyway. Scream is a horror film first and foremost; but there’s also enough subtle humor in the film to make it a near hilarious comedy. Sidney (Neve Campbell) tells Ghostface over the phone “What’s the point? They’re all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door. It’s insulting.” Thirty seconds later she’s running up the stairs to get away from the killer. Hilarity ensues!!

So, those are the reasons that I like “Scream”. It’s scary, funny and it scared the shit out of my ex-wife. I mean, seriously, what more could you ask for in a horror movie?

TRIVIA

To keep Drew Barrymore looking scared and crying, director Wes Craven kept telling her real life stories about animal cruelty. She is a keen animal lover in real life.

Rose McGowan discovered that she could actually fit through a pet flap.

Drew Barrymore was originally cast as Sidney Prescott (eventually played by Neve Campbell). But Drew Barrymore insisted that if she played Casey then it would make the audience think anything could happen.

The use of caller ID increased more than threefold after the release of this film.

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MOTHER’S DAY

May 24

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MOTHER’S DAY-United States-2010

Rebecca De Mornay as Natalie ‘Mother’ Koffin

Jaime King as Beth Sohapi

Briana Evigan as Annette Langston

Patrick Flueger as Izaak ‘Iki’ Koffin

Deborah Ann Woll as Lydia Koffin

Jessie Rusu as Melissa McGuire

Shawn Ashmore as George Barnum

Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman

Screenplay and Screen story by Scott Milam

1980 Screenplay by Charles Kaufman and Warren Leight

I haven’t seen the original “Mother’s Day” from 1980, so I can’t use it in comparison to this, the 2010 remake. From what I do understand the original was more of a gore fest. Although there is gore in the remake it’s more of a psychological thriller. To be honest I must say that it was better than I anticipated.

Three brothers are involved in an (off-camera) robbery. One of them is shot and is taken back to the family home until the other two can decide what to do with him. The only catch is that it’s no longer their home. ‘Mother’ wasn’t able to get a message to them to tell them the house had been foreclosed on. The place had been purchased 2 months prior; so at the same time that the brothers burst through the door the new owners, Beth and Daniel (Jaime King and Frank Grillo) are throwing a house-warming party with a small group of their friends. I’ll give you a moment to imagine how that goes over with the three brothers. I’ll give you a hint: not too fucking good. Pretty soon ‘Mother’ (Rebecca De Mornay) arrives and the fun begins. By ‘fun’ I mean the psycho head games, beatings, burnings, shootings and all that jazz.

What impressed me the most about “Mother’s Day” is the way that it not only pits ‘Mother’ and her boys against the hostages; but it also puts the hostages against each other for reasons that become more evident as time passes. The expression ‘you are your own worst enemy’ reverberates quite heavily with this group.

The last time I saw Rebecca De Mornay was in “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle“. I honestly didn’t recognize her when I first saw the trailer for “Mother’s Day” and was pleasantly surprised at her performance. Her character is to me what Kathleen Turner’s role as Beverly Sutphin would have been if John Waters had decided to make “Serial Mom” a straight up horror film.

“Mother’s Day isn’t a perfect movie. It drags in the final act and I found myself checking the time quite a bit. All told, though, I would have to say that I recommend it for one of those evenings when you have nothing better to do. ‘Mother’ and her boys will certainly do their best to keep you captivated.

TRIVIA

The first cut of the film was completed on December 11, 2009.

The story is loosely based on a true life home invasion, The Wichita Massacre, also known as The Wichita Horror, where brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr perpetrated a murder/assault/rape/robbery spree against a home owner and his guests in 2000. It remains one of the worst crimes in Kansas state history.

During the filming of a scene that involved guns, the actors were pulled over and held at gun point by the police after mistaking them for people that actually robbed a bank not too far from where they were filming. After realizing that it was all a big misunderstanding, the police and the film team all had a good laugh about it.

½

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THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

May 23

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THE QUICK AND THE DEAD-United States-1995

Sharon Stone as Ellen

Gene Hackman as Herod

Directed by Sam Raimi

Written by Simon Moore

A lone woman rides into the town of Redemption and enters a quick draw competition. Her sole reason is icy cold revenge against the town’s ruthless land baron; the man responsible for the brutal murder of her father years ago. That is the entire plot of “The Quick and the Dead” in a nutshell. However, before you think I’ve gone off the deep end in reviewing a western for a horror film blog, allow me to explain. First of all, let us take note of the cast. There is a who’s who of sci-fi and horror alumni in the reels of this oat opera. There’s Lance Henriksen of “Aliens”, “The Terminator”  and “ Pumpkinhead”  fame, Keith David from John Carpenter‘s masterpiece “The Thing”, Tobin Bell from the” Saw” series, Roberts Blossom from “Deranged” and “Christine” and Mark Boone Junior from “Se7en” and “Memento”. That’s enough genre talent to make your own horror film with.

Now let’s look at  the lead cast; all of whom have either starred in great films prior to The Quick and the Dead, or have gone on to stardom since then. Sharon Stone (“Casino”, “Basic Instinct”) is great in her role as Ellen, the woman set on revenge against her father’s killer. In that duster and those leather pants, six guns by her side and a swagger in her hips she is Annie Oakley cum Jim Morrison as she blasts her way to the inevitable showdown. I will argue that next to “Casino” this is her finest hour as an actress. Equally brilliant is Gene Hackman as Herod, the town leader against whom she seeks retribution. Hackman is a master at playing villains of this caliber, and while some may argue that it’s merely a re-hash of his performance in “Unforgiven”, I say so what? No one plays a role like this quite the way Hackman does and I don’t think anyone ever will. Then of course we have Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio; both of whom have gone on to major stardom with their films “Gladiator” and “A Beautiful Mind” (Crowe); and “Titanic” and “Inception” (DiCaprio). In “The Quick and the Dead” their roles are smaller, but no less important.

Finally, we come to director Sam Raimi. Yes, that Sam Raimi. The man who made a star out of a guy named Bruce Campbell. The man who made us believe a man could swing from a web and look cool as hell doing it. The man who dragged us to hell and beat the hell out of our senses with The Evil Dead and the great sequels that followed. The Quick and the Dead has the Raimi stamp all over it. If you don’t believe me then compare the camera tricks in the film to the ones from his horror films. Especially awesome is the ‘bullet through the head’ cam. Yes sir, this is Raimi’s baby all the way.

I’ve watched “The Quick and the Dead” at least once a year since its release in 1995. Every time I watch it I come away from it with the feeling of having been entertained for the ninety or so minutes that I’ve invested my time in it. The film impresses me with the fact that it features a strong female lead in a genre that has long been dominated by men.

So there you have it; “The Quick and the Dead”. A western film with its feet dipped in the horror gene pool and all wrapped up in a neat little package with the Sam Raimi seal of authenticity. Isn’t it adorable?

Okay, scratch the ‘adorable crack’. That was a little bit too Perez Hilton.

TRIVIA

Sharon Stone hand-picked ‘Russell Crowe (I)’ to be in this film. The studio was initially unsure about this choice because Crowe was a complete unknown to the American audience.

Sharon Stone was so insistent that Leonardo DiCaprio appear in the film that she paid his salary personally.

Bruce Campbell had a cameo appearance during a wedding scene, but the scene was cut. Campbell says Sam Raimi created that scene for the specific reason of giving Pat Hingle something more substantial to do and was never intended to be in the movie in the first place. Campbell was also visiting the set on his day off when Raimi drafted him to play a skid-row character in several background shots. Although all of Campbell’s appearances ended up on the cutting room floor, he is still listed high up in the credits.

For obvious reasons, this is the only Sam Raimi film to date (2002) where his trademark beige 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 doesn’t appear in its original form. However, according to Bruce Campbell, the car makes an appearance in the form of a wagon’s chassis. He claims the car was disassembled and the chassis was used for the wagon.

½

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THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK

May 22

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THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK-United States-1972

Directed by Charles B. Pierce

Screenplay by Earl E. Smith

I said once that it’s easier to tear down a bad film than it is to build up a great one. “The Legend of Boggy Creek” totally flies in the face of that philosophy. Charles B. Pierce’ docudrama about the existence of a Bigfoot like creature in the wilds near Fouke, Arkansas is a new kind of bad that is nearly indefinable. For starters, Pierce decided to cast over 90% of the townsfolk as themselves. It’s bad enough when you suck at portraying another character; but when you suck at playing yourself…well that is a whole new level of suck. There are moments in the film that could be perceived as scary, like the infamous ‘Bigfoot attacks local yokel in the bathroom while he’s taking a crap’ scene. However, Pierce’s direction is so idiotic that he takes the thrills out of each and every scene. The only good idea he came up with was in not showing a clear shot of the creature, thereby leaving its appearance to our imaginations. Even so, “The Legend of Boggy Creek” is cause for Bigfoot to sue for defamation of character.

I wasn’t allowed to see “The Legend of Boggy Creek” when I was a kid. I was ten years old at the time of its release and I suppose my parents thought it would be too traumatic for me. It wasn’t until I was 25 years old before I finally tracked down a copy of the film to watch. That’s like waiting 15 years for a really big turd to come out of my ass.

TRIVIA

The film was a tremendous success at drive-ins. It grossed 22 million dollars, making it the 7th highest grossing movie of its year.

The film is largely based upon actual reported encounters with a Bigfoot creature in the Fouke-Boogy Creek, Arkansas area throughout the 60′s and early 70′s. Most of the actors in the film were the real people from the encounters playing themselves.

Though Vern Stierman narrates the film it’s actually director ‘Charles B. Pierce’ heard interviewing some of the locals during audio clips. Pierce also sings the film’s folk theme song.

½

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BATTLE ROYALE

May 20

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BATTLE ROYALE-Japan-2000

Aki Maeda as Noriko Nakagawa

Taro Yamamoto as Shogo Kawada

Kou Shibasaki as Mitsuko Souma

Masanobu Ando as Kazuo Kiriyama

Beat Takeshi as Kitano-sensei

Directed by Kinji Fukasaku

Screenplay by Kenta Fukasaku

Based on the novel by Koushan Takami

If there is anyone out there who knows Chris Jericho personally would you please tell him that I said thank you? Five or so years ago I was reading his commentary on his web site and he mentioned two films. The first was Takashi Miike’s psychopathic masterpiece “Audition”; a film that was everything “Fatal Attraction” could only dream of being. The other was “Battle Royale”; a film that “The Hunger Games” owes a great deal of gratitude to.

The plot of this Japanese tour-de-force is as simple as it gets; everything has gone to shit and the grownups blame the youth for all their troubles. So, every year they randomly select one 9th grade class out of thousands to participate in the Battle Royale; a game of kill or be killed that makes the TV show “Survivor” look like an episode of “Gilligan’s Island.” The object of the game is this: each student must fight to the death to be the last person standing at the end of three days. They are given supplies befitting their genders; in other words the girls get tampons and stuff like that, and each of them is given a weapon that may or may not be beneficial to them. In addition, each student has a remote collar around their neck that will explode if they are in a danger zone or if they try to forcibly remove it. At the end of three days if there is no sole winner then the surviving students are irreversibly screwed because that will also cause their collars will explode. There can be only one Battle Royale survivor.

The first thing to grab me by the balls about this film was the beautiful brutality of the whole thing. Each kill is a danse macabre that surpasses the one before it. Guns, knives, crossbows, stun guns and poison all come into play and none of them seems ridiculous or mundane. The other thing that I loved about the film was the way the hierarchy stayed in place outside the confines of the school. All the cliques and friendships and rivalries that were a part of school are a part of the Battle Royale pecking order. Had that not remained the case it would have lessened the impact of the film.

To put it mildly, “Battle Royale” is a film that should never be re-made by any studio, American or not. You can’t improve on perfection and this is as close to perfect as you’re going to get. I still intend to see “The Hunger Games”; but I will tell you it has some mighty big shoes to fill.

Oh, and thank you, Chris Jericho.

TRIVIA

Kiriyama, the film’s main villain, does not utter one word throughout the entire film. He does, however, make a noise through a megaphone at one point.

The magazine containing bomb-making instructions that is used by Shinji Mimura and his gang is titled “Hara Hara Tokei” (“The Ticking Clock”). This magazine is a real bomb-making magazine published by an anti-Japanese-Government activist group called Higashi Ajia Hannichi Buso Sensen (East Asia Anti-Japanese Armed Front) from the 1970s.

One of the top-10 highest-grossing films in Japan.

Despite the belief that this film was banned in the United States, it is not the case. There are, however, several conflicting if plausible explanations as to why it hasn’t been released there as of yet. The first is that Toei refuses to license the movie for North American distribution and has already rejected offers from several American companies. The second is that Toei’s licensing fee is unusually high for this kind of film, so smaller independent distributors can’t afford it and larger distributors that can afford it refuse to pay it. A third story was that no distributor was willing to pick the film up after the Columbine school shootings, due to the plot line of high school students killing each other.

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CANDYMAN

May 19

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CANDYMAN-United States-1992

Virginia Madsen as Helen Lyle

Tony Todd as Candyman/Daniel Robitaille

Xander Berkeley as Trevor Lyle

Kasi Lemmons as Bernadette Walsh

Directed by Bernard Rose

Screenplay by Bernard Rose

Based on “The Forbidden” by Clive Barker

‘They will say that I have shed innocent blood. What’s blood for, if not for shedding?’-”Candyman”

Leave it to the mind of Clive Barker to create an urban legend from an urban legend. What, didn’t you know? The legend of “Candyman” is a variation on the tale of Bloody Mary. Go into your bathroom, turn off your lights and say ‘bloody Mary’ three times into the mirror. When you do, she’ll appear behind you with a bloody butcher knife and slice your throat from ear to ear. Or maybe it was a razor. I heard the story from a friend of a friend’s second cousin twice removed on his uncle’s roommate’s side, so the story may have gotten a little diluted or maybe even embellished. Anyway, go try it. I’ll wait right here.

Hmmm, I see that you’re back but that there are less of you. Oh well, for those of you still here I can assure you that although “Candyman” is a derivative of an old urban legend that certainly doesn’t make it any less frightening. Quite the contrary actually; the film, which is loosely based on Barker’s “The Forbidden” from his “Books of Blood”, is one of the most atmospherically unsettling films I’ve seen in a long time. There is a feel to certain scenes that make you feel as if you are watching with a lead weight on your chest. The first time I watched the film I literally felt as if the room were closing in on me and I am not claustrophobic in the least.

Tony Todd as the “Candyman” brings to life a character that is deservedly every bit the horror icon that Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees has become. He is pure menace wrapped in vengeance and angry evil. The best way to describe the “Candyman” is by his own words: ‘I am the writing on the wall, the whisper in the classroom’…’I am rumor’…’To be whispered about at street corners, to live in other people’s dreams. But not have to be.’

To give you an example of the effect that “Candyman” has on us I will share with you this little tidbit; of all the friends that I have who have seen the film not one of them has ever had the guts to say his name five times in the mirror as the film suggests. ‘Whisper in the classroom’, my eye. We all believe in the “Candyman”.

TRIVIA

There is a Guy Fawkes mask hanging next to Helen’s bathroom mirror. Fawkes is an infamous figure in English history (an influence from Clive Barker’s original story perhaps), who attempted to blow up the English Parliament on November 5, 1605. Every year the British celebrate Guy Fawkes Day by lighting bonfires and burning Fawkes in effigy.

Virginia Madsen is allergic to bees, so an ambulance was always on set while filming the bee sequence.

Exterior, hallway and stairway scenes were actually filmed for a few days in the infamous Cabrini-Green housing projects, though the producers had to make a deal with the ruling gang members to put them in the movie as extras to ensure the cast and crew’s safety during filming. Even with this arrangement, a sniper put a bullet through the production van on the last day of filming, though no one was injured.

The architecture flaw of the medicine chests and people being able to sneak in, is something that Bernard Rose discovered in his research for the film and there was actually a series of murders that were committed this way.

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