ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - February 27th

"A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM MASTERS" 

released in 1987

Dream killer Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) seeks to murder the last of the Elm street children who have been institutionalized in a mental hospital. But an old nemesis from his past, Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) returns to help the kids fight Freddy on his own ground, in Chuck Russell's A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors! 

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Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette) is a young girl who dreams herself into an abandoned house in Elm Street where she is chased by serial killer Freddy Krueger (Englund). She wakes up and goes to the bathroom, where she is attacked by Freddy again, who slices her wrist with a straight razor. Believing her to be suicidal, her mother Elaine (Brooke Bundy) has her sent to Westin Hospital, run by Dr. Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson), where she fights against the orderlies who try to sedate her, for fear of falling asleep. She is eventually calmed by intern therapist Nancy Thompson (Langenkamp) who recites part of Freddy's nursery rhyme and earns her trust. Nancy is introduced to the rest of the patients: Phillip (Bradley Gregg), a habitual sleepwalker; Kincaid (Ken Sagoes), a tough kid from the streets who is prone to violence; Jennifer (Penelope Sudrow), a hopeful television actress; Will (Ira Heiden), who is confined to a wheelchair after a suicide attempt; Taryn (Jennifer Rubin), a former drug addict; and Joey (Rodney Eastman), who is too traumatized to speak. Later, Kristen is attacked by Freddy again (this time as a giant snake), and unwittingly pulls Nancy into her dream with her, allowing them both to escape, later revealing to Nanacy that she has had the ability to pull people into her dreams since she was a little girl. Over the next two nights, Freddy throws Phillip off a roof in what looks like a suicide attempt and kills Jennifer by smashing her head into a television that she was watching.

In their next group session, Nancy reveals to the remaining patients that they are the last surviving children of the people who banded together and burned Krueger to death many years ago. Nancy and Neil encourage them to try group hypnosis so that they can experience a shared dream and discover their dream powers. In the dream, Joey wanders off and is captured by Freddy, leaving him comatose in the real world, where Nancy and Neil are fired. Neil is told by a nun, Sister Mary Helena (Nan Martin), that Freddy is the son a young nun who was accidentally locked in a room with hundreds of mental patients who raped her continually, and that the only way to stop him is to lay his bones to rest. He and Nancy go to her father, Don Thompson (John Saxon), to discover where the bones are hidden, but he is uncooperative. Nancy rushes back to the hospital after she hears Kristen is going to be sedated, while Neil convinces Thompson to help them. Going under group hypnosis again, Heather leads Kirsten, Kincaid, Taryn and Will into the dream world to confront Freddy and save Joey, while Neil seeks to destroy Freddy's remains in the real world!

TRIVIA:   In the Australian state of Queensland, Dream Warriors was banned by the then Bjelke-Petersen government due to its drug references, particularly the scene where Freddy's glove becomes a number of syringes as he injects Taryn with an amphetamine overdose. The Australian public at the time thought the ban was absurd, as the film was not very graphic, and Dream Warriors was later released in 1990.

Top and Above:   Freddy's arch nemesis, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) desperately searches for a way to save Freddy's latest victim, the gifted Kristen (Patricia Arquette).

Although having nothing to do with the sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge - not believing that Elm Street was capable of spawning a franchise - Craven returned to the series to write the screenplay for the next installment, as producer Bob Shaye felt the previous sequel strayed too much from the original formula. Interestingly, Craven's very first concept for this film was to have Freddy Krueger invade the "real" world, emerging to haunt the actors filming a new Elm Street sequel (New Line Cinema rejected this metacinematic idea at the time, but years later, Craven's concept was finally brought to the screen with Wes Craven's New Nightmare).

The first draft of the Dream Warriors script was originally much darker and contained far more graphic language. According to Craven, the idea for the mental health facility treating the Dream Warriors was inspired by real life establishments, "At that time there was kind of a movement of such places that even advertised on television", Craven explained, "'Send us your troubled child and we'll make them okay.' And, essentially, they were like prisons, or insane asylums." With Craven and Wagner's script delivered, New Line approached director Chuck Russell and his writing partner Frank Darabont to write the subsequent drafts. While many elements were changed - including a greater emphasis on the then taboo subject of teen suicide - one of the more shocking moments from Craven and Wagner's script remained; the climactic death of heroine Nancy Thompson (Craven later stated, since he created the character, he should be the one to kill her off).

TRIVIA:   For the dream sequence in which a Dick Cavett interview is interrupted by Freddy Krueger, actress Sally Kellerman was originally in the script as the guest. But when Cavett was allowed to pick the person he'd be interviewing, he picked Zsa Zsa Gabor because he thought she was the dumbest person he'd ever met in his life, and he'd never have her on his show in real life. Additionally, if there was one person Cavett wanted to see killed by Freddy on his show, it would be her!

Top and Above:   Kristen uses her gift to bring Nancy into her dreams to confront Freddy (Robert Englund)!

While he and Darabont continued refining the screenplay, Russell began the task of assembling the Dream Warriors, by first casting young star Patricia Arquette in her debut role as heroine Kristen Parker. In a later interview, Robert Englund stated that he knew Arquette would go on to be a big star one day, explaining how all of the guys on the set were head over heals in love with her and would, between takes, even go to Englund to get his advice on whether or not he thought they had a chance with her and should ask her out. Former model Jennifer Rubin was cast as punk, former drug addict Taryn White, Rodney Eastman as mute Joey Crusel, and Bradley Gregg as artist Phillip Anderson. Ironically, TV star Penelope Sudrow was cast as the TV-obsessed Jennifer Caulfield, while Ira Heiden - who was in real life a  Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master - was cast as the similarily Dungeons & Dragons loving, wheelchair bound Will Stanton.

Ken Sagoes stated in an interview he really didn't want to audition for the role of Kincaid, but his agent talked him into going. On the day of the audition he walked in heavy rain to catch a bus to the location. He showed up completely drenched and had to sit and wait for a few hours due to the auditions running late. When it was his turn, director Chuck Russell told him, "Do whatever you want to do". Sagoes was so frustrated and mad about the whole ordeal that he yelled "FUCK YOU!", and then proceeded to scream and curse out Russell. Russell immediately hired him.

For the adult roles, Priscilla Pointer, Laurence Fishburne and Clayton Landey were cast as the hospital administrator Dr. Elizabeth Simms, and orderlies Max and Lorenzo respectively, while actor Craig Wasson, best known at the time for his performance in Brian De Palma's horror thriller Body Double, was cast as fellow psychiatrist (and Nancy's potential love interest) Dr. Neil Gordon. Returning the series from the original Nightmare on Elm Street film were John Saxon - reprising his role of Nancy's father Don Thompson - Heather Langenkamp as Freddy's nemesis Nancy Thompson, and, of course, the ubiquitous Robert Englund returning to his role as the evil Freddy Krueger.

Dr. Neil Gordon: Nancy has something to say.
Nancy Thompson: I know who's trying to kill you.
Roland Kincaid: Don't humor us. We're not in the mood.
Nancy Thompson: He wears a dirty brown hat. He's horribly burned. He has razors on his right hand.
Taryn: [scared] Who is he?
Nancy Thompson: His name is Freddy Krueger. He was a child murderer before he died, and after he died he became something worse. Six years ago, he killed my friends. He almost killed me.
Will Stanton: Why is he after us?
Taryn: Yeah, what did we do?
Nancy Thompson: It's not you. Your parents, my parents, they burned him alive. And now we're paying for their sins. You are the last of the Elm Street children.

Top:   Dr Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson) and Dr. Elizabeth Simms (Priscilla Pointer) are at a loss to explain was it happening to the children;

Above:   The last of the Elm Street children - Joey (Rodney Eastman), Kincaid (Ken Sagoes), Will (Ira Heiden), Taryn (Jennifer Rubin), Kristen and Jennifer (Penelope Sudrow).

Production on Dream Warriors began on October 15th, 1986 in Los Angeles. However, constant script revisions and tightening budget constraints made for an incredibly tense set - not a particularly ideal setting for the-then 18-year old Arquette to make her film debut. On her first day of filming, the production was already so behind they didn't get to her scenes until 4 AM by which point she had forgotten her lines. It took 52 takes of her feebly making her way through it before they simply fed her the lines via cue cards behind the camera. Arquette later stated it wasn't a pleasant experience for her, while Russell said he may have pushed her too hard. Likewise, when her character Kristen comes across a classic nightmarish image of a roasted pig on a table, and then it comes to life and growls at her. They art department roasted an actual pig, let it spoil, and had prop guys puppeterring it from beneath the table. Cinematographer Roy H. Wagner later claimed the pig's stench was so overwhelming on set, that he can still smell it to this day!

Englund also had a particularly stressful time during production. For one week during filming, Robert Englund was working 24 hours every day; by day, he was wrapping up filming on his TV series Downtown and then would report to the A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors set at nights.  After a particular tiring day on set, Englund fell asleep in his dressing room still in full Freddy make up, only to wake up to see himself in the mirror scaring the hell out of himself! Nevertheless, Englund continued to improvise quite a few of Freddy Krueger's one-liners, including his best-known example which happened in Dream Warriors; in a scene where Freddy emerged from a television set and killed a girl by smashing her head into it, his line in the script originally was "This is it Jennifer, your big break on TV!". Englund said this line for the first two takes, but on the third take, when Russell went for an alternate angled shot, Englund changed it to "Welcome to Prime Time, bitch!". Russell couldn't decide which version to use, so he edited the two together, with the different camera angles making it easy to edit the two lines together, probably becoming Freddy's defining one-liner of the series.

TRIVIA:   The theme song, "Dream Warriors", was written and performed by the American heavy metal band Dokken. The success of the single led to the following sequels to include a heavy metal song in its soundtrack.

Top:   Robert Englund on set;

Above:   Englund with heavy metal band Dokken.

For Dream Warriors, make up effects designer Kevin Yagher returned to supervise Freddy's make-up, as well as design the infamous Freddy-Snake. For the latter scene, the crew only had one hour to film, so they didn't have enough time to paint it and just covered in a green goo substance to overcome the "pinkish hue." (but still came out looking unintentionally too phallic!). For the shot involving the Freddy Snake attempting to swallow Kristen, the action was filmed backwards and then played in reverse due to the gums on the puppet being too flexible and were folding over themselves. For the "sexy nurse" scene, actress Stacey Alden was originally fitted with a prosthetic for her transformation into Freddy, but Russell later found the effect unconvincing and changed the sequence to have the nurse spit out a series on tongues that tie Joey to the bed. To achieve the effect of Joey bound of a fiery pit, the set was rotated 90-degress, so that Rodney Eastman was actually standing up when he appears to be strapped to the bed. But after a few hours of being spread eagle on the bed, Eastman literally passed out from his blood rushing from his head (Eastman later compared the experience to a crucifixion, adding perhaps that is why horror producers continually hire young actors - because of the abuse they can put there bodies through without more serious injury!).

Opening in 1,343 theaters in the US and Canada, Dream Warriors grossed an impressive  $8.9 million in its opening weekend, eventually earning  almost $45 million at the domestic box office. Dream Warriors was also a critical success, with Kim Newman from Empire Magazine writing, "Arguably the most imaginative of the horror franchise, with a fair number of truly resonant scenes... bringing to life the sort of bizarre images which used to be found only on comic book covers". And while Roger Ebert, reviewing for the Chicago Sun-Times, had some positive words for the film, calling it "slick, it has impressive production values and the acting is appropriate to the material" and "If some of the special effects are good, the movie also contains a classic line of dialogue. The child-killer, we learn, was conceived after his mother was held captive in a madhouse; he is therefore, and I quote, "the bastard son of a hundred maniacs." Now that would make a great title for a movie!", Ebert nevertheless rated Dream Warriors 1.5/4 stars, stating, "So why did I find myself so indifferent to the movie? Maybe because it never generated any sympathy for its characters. This is filmmaking by the numbers, without soul."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   74%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - February 26th

"THE CRAZIES" released in 2010

The inhabitants of a small Iowa town is suddenly plagued by insanity and then death after a mysterious toxin contaminates their water supply, in Breck Eisner's remake of the classic George A. Romero film, The Crazies!

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In Ogden Marsh, Iowa, sheriff  David Dutten (Timothy Olyphant) is forced to kill local Rory Hamill (Mike Hickman) who suddenly threatens the community at a baseball game with a rifle. The sheriff's wife, Dr. Judy Dutten (Radha Mitchell), later examines Bill Farnum (Brett Rickaby), who is also exhibiting a strange behavior; and that night, Bill traps his wife and son in their home and then burns it to the ground, killing both. The following morning, the sheriff and his deputy, Russell Clank (Joe Anderson), are called by three hunters who have discovered a dead pilot in the nearby Hopman Bog, and find a large airplane at the bottom of the bog. As they investigate, the army suddenly seals off the town and imprisons the population in tents and concentration camps, where everyone is examined for symptoms of infection. Before Ogden Marsh is completely sealed off, David, Judy, Russell, and a medical assistant Becca (Danielle Panabaker) escape. They quickly learn that the plane was airborne with a biological weapon and crashed into the bog contaminating the water supply of the population. And To make matters worse, there is no antidote for the victims who are doomed to die or become incurably mad. As the four survivors  try to find a breach in the containment to reach the next town, they find they are being hunted by both the army and the ever growing number of Crazies!

TRIVIA:   Actress Lynn Lowry, a star from the original film, makes a cameo in the remake billed as "Woman on Bike".

Top:   Sheriff David Dutten (Timothy Olyphant) walks through a deserted town;

Above:   As the infection spreads, the army quarantines the town and contains the townspeople.

In February 2008, it was announced that director Breck Eisner would be filming the remake of George A. Romero's 1973 classic horror film, The Crazies (Romero would also act as the remakes Executive Producer). While the original films was shot in the small Pennsylvania towns of Evans City and Zelienople, the remake was mostly shot in and around central Georgia, with locations including the Georgia National Fairgrounds and Priester's Pecans in Perry, Georgia, the Fountain Car Wash in Macon, Georgia, areas in Dublin, Georgia, Peach County High School in Fort Valley, Georgia. Some scenes were also shot in Lenox, Iowa.

"If we were to pitch something to Breck, about, if you know, one side of his face should look like this, Breck would immediately want to know what disease it came from, and what version of reality it could be implemented into Trixie. But the most important thing was to make sure it felt real. Make it feel like you could get it, too."

Make-up Effects Designer, Robert Green Hall

The makeup for The Crazies was designed by Robert Green Hall of Almost Human Studios, who also did makeup for other horror films such as Quarantine, Frankenfish and Prom Night. At first, Eisner first visions of what the infected would look like were zombies, with molds and sketches of what the infected should look like, with deformities and skin hanging off. Eventually, Eisner grew tired of the "zombie" look - which he believed to be too cliché - and decided to go for a more realistic "go under the skin," in which the blood vessels would appear to be bursting forth and face and neck muscles and tendons tight and wrought (Eisner described this look as "hyper alive"). With this new direction, the make-up effects crew consulted medical consultants and books depicting rabies, tetanus and Stevens–Johnson syndrome. Each "Crazy" design had about 21 separate pieces that took over three hours to apply for the final effect seen in the film, with the main focus of the design on the veins and eyes; the contact lenses covered the actors' entire eyes and required eye-drops every five minutes to prevent permanent eye damage.

TRIVIA:   In 2013, George A. Romero claimed he would enjoy making a sequel to his 1973 version The Crazies called The Even Crazier. However, he said it was unlikely due to predictably poor reviews and an apparent lack of interest.

Top and Above:   Dutton, his wife Judy (Radha Mitchell), nurse Becca (Danielle Panabaker), and deputy Russell Clank (Joe Anderson) desperately search for a way to escape the town, all the while pursued by the growing number of Crazies!

On it's release, The Crazies became the 12th film to be released in select D BOX-enabled cinemas, located in the US and Canada - as had distributors Overture Films release Pandorum the previous year (a D-Box motion feedback track allows the viewer to feel movement and vibration effects in sync with onscreen action). Unlike Romero's film, the remake was both a critical and commercial success, grossing almost $55 million at the US/Canadian box office and receiving mostly positive reviews.

Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune awarded the film 3½ stars of 4 commenting that he "greatly prefer this cleverly sustained and efficiently relentless remake to the '73 edition. It is lean and simple." Ty Burr of The Boston Globe also gave the film 3/4 stars touting the film as "extremely solid stuff – about as good as you could hope from a B-movie retread", while Variety film critic Dennis Harvey sdimilarily praised the film, writing "While not a slam dunk, this revamp by helmer Breck Eisner (of the enjoyable but underperforming Sahara) emerges an above-average genre piece that's equal parts horror-meller and doomsday action thriller."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   71%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - February 26th

'EVILSPEAK" released in 1981

An outcast military cadet taps into a way to summon demons and cast spells on his tormentors through his computer, in Eric Weston's Evilspeak!

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During the Dark Ages, Satanic leader Father Estaban (Richard Moll) and his followers are approached by a church official on the shore of Spain, telling them that they are banished from Spain and denied God's grace unless they renounce Satan and their evil ways. In the present, Stanley Coopersmith (Clint Howard) is young cadet at an American military academy, where he is a social outcast who is bullied by his classmates due to him being an orphan, and treated unfairly by his instructors who believe him to be inept at everything. When he is punished for no clear reason by cleaning the church cellar, he finds a room belonging to Father Estaban which contains books of black magic along with Father Estaban's diary. He then uses his computer skills to translate the book from Latin into English, in which the translation describes Estaban as a Satanist and the book contains rituals for performing the Black Mass along with a promise by Estaban citing "I Will Return".

Over the next few days, Coopersmith sets up the computer and runs some inquiries into the requirements for a black mass. Searching through various bottles in the cellar left by Father Estaban, he attempts to initiate a mass but the computer informs him that he is still missing crucial ingredients, namely blood and a consecrated host. Coopersmith steals the host from a church, and, using the translation, he attempts the ritual and is suddenly attacked by his classmates wearing masks and robes. Waking up from the beating, Coopersmith, thinking he has successfully performed the ritual, is told by his computer that the ritual was incomplete and a pentagram appears on the computer screen. Believing he failed, Coopersmith endures further torment from his classmates, including the death of his puppy. In desperation, Coopersmith finally translates the remaining entries in the diary and releases Estaban's demonic spirit, unleashing a brutal and bloody vengeance on all his tormentors!

Stanley Coopersmith: I command you, Prince of Evil, heed my call. Give life to the instruments of my retribution.
[Stanley's face changes into that of Father Esteban]
Father Esteban: Imbue these creatures with your strength and force. Let them avenge me, and I will pledge my soul to you and serve you for all eternity!

Top:   Satanic priest Estaban (Richard Moll);

Above:   Centuries later, bullied cadet Stanley Coopersmith (Clint Howard) discovers Estaban's diary

Shot in three weeks using locations in Santa Barbara, the production also shot at a South Central church in Los Angeles, that had been condemned and scheduled to be torn down. When the aged minister saw that the crew were refurbishing the church, he didn't understand that this was "show business refurbishing" and that the church would ultimately be burned down, dropping down on his knees and thanking God. Nobody had the heart to tell him the truth at the time, but the church was burned down three days later, filming the finale.

According to star Clint Howard, one night after shooting a scene he drove home while still wearing his bloody cadet outfit. When he stopped at a light and noticed a woman staring at him from a nearby car, Howard turned and smiled at her - and she responded by immediately locking all of her car's doors! Howard, however, did experience some difficulty during filming. While filming the church massacre scene, one of the prosthetic heads was accidentally made too tough for the decapitation scene it was intended for, and when Howard struck it with the sword - to his embarrassment - it merely bounced off. Frustrated, he found a large sledge hammer then took some time to practice swinging it around until the added weight made wielding the sword seem easy by comparison, and when the scene was shot again he finally took the head off.

TRIVIA:   Clint Howard and Don Stark agreed not to socialize during filming so that they could maintain the hostility that existed between their characters.

 Top and Above:   Constantly bullied by his fellow cadets, Coopersmith uses a computer to translate Estaban's diary and unleash demonic forces to wreck his revenge!

Amazingly, Evilspeak earned over $400,000 the first week of its release, quite a large sum for its time, especially since it was only shown on 91 screens in Los Angeles and New York, although received mostly mixed to negative reviews.  PopMatters gave the film a 7/10 grade, despite writing "What started as a standard wish fulfillment/revenge scheme mixed with Satanism flounders with a lack of focus", while DVD Verdict wrote "Evilspeak is a crazy movie. Like, crazy. In a good way. Unfortunately, it's also kind of boring at times, taking well over an hour to get where it's going. [...] Despite the slower spots—and there are plenty of slower spots—Evilspeak remains an enjoyably overlooked horror film just for its eccentricities."

In the United Kingdom, Evilspeak was banned for a number of years as part of the Video Recordings Act 1984 (otherwise known as the infamous "video nasties" ban), thanks to its gory climax and themes of Satanism; although, according to Howard,  director Eric Weston's original version of the film that was submitted to the MPAA was longer and contained more blood, gore and nudity than the unrated version of the film, especially during the shower/pig attack scene and the final confrontation. Evilspeak was reclassified and re-released in 1987, but with over three minutes of cuts, which included the removal of most of the gore from the climax and all text images of the Black Mass on the computer screen. It was then subsequently passed uncut by the BBFC in 2004 and is now available in both an uncut form and a version re-edited by the distributors to tighten up the dialogue.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   43%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - February 25th

'CURSED" released in 2005

A werewolf loose in Los Angeles changes the lives of three young adults who, after being mauled by the beast, learn they must kill it in order to avoid becoming werewolves themselves, in Wes Craven's Cursed!

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High-schooler Jimmy Myers (Jesse Eisenberg) is picked up on Mulholland Drive by his older sister Ellie (Christina Ricci), who has just returned from visiting her boyfriend, Jake Taylor (Joshua Jackson). Driving home, Jimmy and Ellie collide with an animal and another car, and as they attempt to rescue the other driver, Becky Morton (Shannon Elizabeth), but an unseen creature slashes the siblings before it drags Becky off and rips her in half. When interviewed by police, despite Jimmy's belief that it was a wolf or dog-type animal, the official report credits it to a bear or cougar. Jimmy does research about wolves in California and starts to believe that the creature was a werewolf, sharing his thoughts with a disbelieving Ellie. But later, Ellie is surprised to find herself attracted to the smell of blood on a co-worker, but eases her concerns by touching a silver picture frame and not getting burned. Meanwhile, Jimmy is becoming much stronger and more aggressive, as shown when a bully named Bo (Milo Ventimiglia) coerces him to join the wrestling team, where he easily defeats three wrestlers, including Bo.

Ellie starts to believe the werewolf hypothesis when she meets a boardwalk fortune-teller Zela (Portia de Rossi), who warns about the effect the coming full moon will have, while Jimmy proves that they have indeed been cursed when he holds a silver cake server and gets burned - revealing that the picture frame Ellie touched earlier was only stainless steel. Realizing what's happening, Jimmy goes to warn Ellie who has deduced that Jake is a werewolf. But when the siblings confront Jake and another werewolf attacks, Ellie and Jimmy must embrace their new powers to defeat the rampaging lycanthrope!

Kyle: Okay, all psychics back in their seats please.
Zela: [to Ellie] The beast is human, too. Don't forget that. And it's closer to you than you think.
Kyle: Maybe you can just follow me...
[dragging her away]
Kyle: [turning to Zela as they leave] Shouldn't you psychically know when you're annoying someone?

Top:   Siblings Ellie (Christina Ricci) and Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg) get involved in a car accident, after hitting a "large dog" in the Hollywood Hills;

Above:   Another driver involved in the accident, Becky (Shannon Elizabeth), is not so lucky after being attacked by the werewolf!

After the successful release of Scream 3 in February, 2000, screenwriter Kevin Williamson pitched Bob Weinstein (of Dimension Films, the studio that released the Scream movies) his script for Cursed. The original plot line had three strangers brought together by a car accident in the Hollywood Hills and the subsequent attack of a werewolf, with the leads to be played by Christina Ricci, Skeet Ulrich and Jesse Eisenberg. With a budget of $38 million, Cursed commenced shooting March 2003 in Los Angeles using the same sets used for Sunnydale High (for Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and West Beverly High (for Beverly Hills, 90210).

Although, while filming the original version, producer Bob Weinstein told Craven he was happy with the film, he later changed his opinion and ordered for the movie to be re-shot with a new plot - with production to resume in November that year. While the production stalled, many cast members had be recast (or cut from the script altogether) due to scheduling conflicts with other films, including Illeana Douglas, Heather Langenkamp, Scott Foley, Omar Epps, Robert Forster, James Brolin and Corey Feldman. Mandy Moore - who had also shot her scenes for the movie - was cast originally as Jenny, but was replaced by Mya for the reshoots. Lead cast member Ulrich dropped out of the project before the recommencement of photography when he was unsatisfied with his characters changes in the rewritten script. His character was then totally re-written and renamed Jake, which was then played by Joshua Jackson. The replacement of Ulrich created certain creative problems for the few parts of the opening scenes at the pier from the original shoot that were kept; this included actress Shannon Elizabeth (playing Beth) filming the scene twice (once with Ulrich, and a second time with Mya) with the footage being edited together - although a one point when Becky turns at the fortune tellers tent and calls out "Vince" (Ulrich's character) she has been obviously over-dubbed in post to call out "Jenny". 

[describing the werewolf's human form, Joanie, to the police]
Jimmy Myers: I - I don't know... what a - about 5 foot 10...
Ellie: [cutting Jimmy Meyers off] She's got a bony ass... and fat thighs... and ugly skin.
[the werewolf breaks through a window, roaring, and gives Ellie the finger]

Top:   Ellie's boyfriend Jake (Joshua Jackson) tries to understand the "changes" happening with Ellie;

Above:   The werewolf attacks at the art gallery.

Effects designer Rick Baker, who provided the werewolf effects for the original version of the film, was certainly no stranger to the werewolf genre, having designed the creatures for An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, the Fox TV series Werewolf, and, much later, The Wolfman. However, once Weinstein ordered re-shoots, all the scenes with Baker's effects were deleted and Greg Nicotero of KNB EFX was hired to take over. However, after massive re-shoots, Weinstein told Craven that he still didn't like the new ending leading to yet another ending where Jake attacks Ellie and Jimmy in their home - despite some obvious incoherence with the rest of the film.

"I don't know why that movie got so fucked up. I don't understand it. I thought the script was fine. Honest to God, I didn't get the big deal. I don't know who kept making them fuck with it... Then we shot the movie for, like, seven years. I think they said we had four movies worth of footage. It was so fun, but so weird. I don't get it. I couldn't figure it out."

Cursed star Judy Greer, Buzzfeed Interview, 2014

Later in the fall of 2004, Dimension further cut the film to a PG-13 rating, instead of the planned R rating under Craven's direction. Unfortunately, this meant that most of KNB's effects - those that hadn't already been replaced by CGI after Weinstien was not satisfied with the effects, that is - were further cut from the film, including Jenny's death scene in the elevator; originally much gorier, her dead body is shown with her belly ripped apart, but that scene, to this day, has never been released (although some stills from the scene were printed in Fangoria magazine).  Craven later commented to the New York Post in 2009 that "the contract called for us to make an R-rated film. We did. It was a very difficult process. Then it was basically taken away from us and cut to PG-13 and ruined. It was two years of very difficult work and almost 100 days of shooting of various versions. Then at the very end, it was chopped up and the studio thought they could make more with a PG-13 movie, and trashed it ... I thought it was completely disrespectful, and it hurt them too, and it was like they shot themselves in the foot with a shotgun."

TRIVIA:    The original plot had a final sequence shot on a wax museum in Hollywood. When the screenplay was re-written, the final scenes took place on a movie-oriented club. Fortunately, Art Department supervisors had the ability to use the same props and sets for both the shootings.

Top:   Director Wes Craven;

Above:   Craven on set with Shannon Elizabeth

With the constant delays mounting, Craven (who had already passed on another directing project - Pulse - to continue production on Cursed) had already finished principal photography on his next film, the Dreamwork's thriller Red Eye, before Cursed was even finally released on February 25th, 2005.

Cursed was a commercial and critical disappointment, grossing less than its original budget at the box office (less than $30 million) and received mostly negative reviews. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Cursed is a third-rate effort, with a weak script, cheap-looking effects and no genuine frights", while Film Threat stated, "Not that it doesn't make movie history. Until this past Friday, the worst werewolf film ever made was, hairy hands down, Mike Nichols' Wolf. Cursed now assumes that dubious distinction and someone is going to have to try very hard to wrestle it away."  Cinema Blend critic Rafe Telsch granting the movie 2 out of 5 stars, felt that "Cursed isn't a bad film, and actually takes a unique approach to modern day genre movies by styling itself as an older one... The film is a fun little romp in the werewolf world, although Cursed never really sets any rules for the creatures themselves, leaving itself open to keep cute faces like Ricci's uncovered by makeup, but leaving the audience unsatisfied that there aren't really many werewolves in this werewolf movie."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   16%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - February 23rd

"FROSTBITEN" released in 2006

When a doctor is offered a chance to work with a famous Swedish geneticist, she and her 17-year old daughter move to a small town in northern Sweden. But the geneticists sinister past inadvertently  leads to a horde of vampires being unleashed during Sweden's midwinter - where there will not be sunlight for another 30 days - in  Anders Banke's debut horror/comedy film, Frostbiten!

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During World War II in Ukraine, 1944, the remnants of 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking are fleeing from The Red Army, seeking shelter in a remote cabin in the woods, but as darkness falls they are attacked by vampires inhabiting a hidden crypt under the cabin. In present-day Sweden, a recently divorced doctor, Annika (Petra Nielsen), and her teenage daughter Saga (Grete Havnesköld) are moving to a town in Lappland, so Annika can work close to the famous Swedish geneticist Gerhard Beckert (Carl-Åke Eriksson). Since Lappland is located above the Arctic Circle, the polar night has begun, where there are only a few hours of sunless twilight each day before complete darkness for the next month. As Annika starts to work at the hospital, she meets the lousy medical student Sebastian (Jonas Karlström), who has been stealing a can of strange pills with which Beckert has been treating a comatose patient. Thinking the pills are drugs, Sebastian tries them rather than getting high, he starts to develop acute hearing and improved vision, and is tormented by extreme thirst! Later, an enigmatic gothgirl Vega (Emma Åberg) - whom has recently befriended Saga - shows up to procure the drugs for a party that night.

Meanwhile, Annika is bitten by Beckert's "comatose" patient - who is in fact a vampire child named Maria (Aurora Roald) - and later discovers that Beckert is the last survivor of the massacred platoon from 1944, and has been "experimenting" on Maria to create a master race of vampires. While Annika frees Maria and attempts to flee the hospital, Saga arrives at John's (Niklas Grönberg) house for the party and finds all hell has broken out when John and Vega have turned into a vampire - the pills being capsules containing the vampiric blood of Maria enhanced by Beckert - and narrowly escapes as the pair rampage through the house killing or infecting several party guests, leaving Saga as the only non-infected person in all of Norrland, with dawn just over a month away! 

TRIVIA:   Frostbiten held the record for most visual effects in a Swedish film for over three years, before it was displaced by the comedy science fiction film Kenny Begins in 2009.

Top and Above:   Annika (Petra Nielsen) moves to the small Norrland town with her daughter Saga (Grete Havnesköld) during midwinter - and it's going to be a very long month without the sun!

Swedish filmmakers Ander Banke and Magnus Paulsson had been trying to make a Swedish horror film for years but with little success, until a script by Daniel Ojanlatva was sent to them about vampires showing up in Norrland during midwinter -  Ojanlatva had grown up in a small town named Kiruna, in the Norrland region, and thought it because there are no sunny hours during the dark and cold Nordic winter days, it was the perfect environment for vampires. With a first draft completed in 1998, the script originally set to be a Pulp Fiction-style movie with several stories and characters who went in and out of them (the original script also called not only for a vampire dog, but also a vampire flower, but this was cut for budget reasons). Screenwriter Pidde Andersson was brought on board, and the two writers completed another fourteen drafts of the scipt, concentrating on a single main character, Saga - played by Grete Havnesköld, who was best known for playing the titular character Lotta in Lotta på Bråkmakargatan (a film based on the bestselling series of children's books by Astrid Lindgren).

Petra Nielsen and famed Swedish actor Carl-Åke Eriksson were soon cast as Saga's mother, Annika and the evil Professor Gerard Beckert respectively. Emma Åberg, Jonas Karlström, Niklas Grönberg and Aurora Roald were then selected after having taken part in an open audition. Per Löfberg, who had been in the hit romcom Ha ett underbart liv and in the cult film Evil Ed, was cast in a then-secret role of Young Beckert from the opening of the film. Kristian Persson was selected to play the part of the hideous supervampire, The Shape (at one point called the Wraith), because he was tall, thin and had the uncanny ability to open his mouth wide much further than is usually possible. His costume took six weeks to make and took five hours to apply, with Pehrsson having to wear the costume for at least 16 hours each day before taking over an hour to remove the full body latex suit. To even fit into the prosthetics, Pehrsson's ears were glued tightly to his head and every inch of his body was covered in the tight foam latex suit, making it impossible for him to sit down during filming (or even go to the bathroom!).

TRIVIA:   All of the hospital scenes were shot in a real hospital in Kalix, where - much to the horror of the actors - the morgue scenes were filmed in a real morgue.

Top and Above:   Famed geneticist Gerhard Beckert (Carl-Åke Eriksson) is discovered experimenting with a vampire serum, that has inadvertently infected the local teenagers, including Saga's new friend Vega (Emma Åberg).

Shooting in Kalix in the winter of 2005, the cast and crew where plagued by the extreme cold, with temperatures falling below 30 Celsius zero. During many scenes, the cameras broke down because of the cold and had to be warmed up. During her final fight scene star Havensköld lost all feeling in her feet. She eventually started to cry and a sound tech had to take her into a van and warm her feet in his armpits. In another scene when Karlström was hanging in a lamppost covered in fake blood, it started to rain, despite being far below zero. The rain then froze on all the equipment and clothes, creating a layer of ice on everything. Banke later referred the feeling like "napalm - but with ice!" (during the final showdown with the cops and the vampires it also started to rain, creating the same problem). 

Frostbiten was the most special-effects-heavy film ever made in Sweden at that time - totaling over 300 effects shots - requiring two companies to handle them; Swedish effect company Fido Film and Ulitka Post, the same team who did special effects for Night Watch. Ulitka Post created the opening title, removed wires and created the long, physically impossible take in the cabin scene, while Fido Film and Kaj Steveman did all the creature design, created the different vampires, animated the talking mouths on the dogs and created the knife stabbings. The original design of the vampires resembled the chiropterans in Blood: The Last Vampire and was done with mostly practical effects, requiring 2 to 3 hours to apply. However, the make-up prevented a lot of facial movement and it was decided that CGI was to be used on the teen vampires to make them different from the other vampires and allowed the transformation to be shown in camera.

 Above:   The supervampire, known as The Shape (Kristian Persson), corners Annika in the hospital!

Frostbiten opened at Gothenburg Film Festival on February 3, 2006, before it's official release on February 23rd. Unfortunately, the film was commercial failure in Sweden due to not being able to find Swedish distributors; the biggest distributor in Sweden did not want to give it a big release and did not give it much promotion thinking it was too low quality. Ironically, Frostbiten was by far the most popular Swedish movie at the Cannes Film Festival that year, and was sold for distribution to over 40 countries. In fact, US studio Paramount Pictures bought the rights to the Swedish home video market after watching only 20 minutes of the film! Frostbiten was a such a big hit in Russia that it launched Anders Banke's career in the Russian film industry, where he has subsequently made Newsmakers (2009), Chernobyl: Zone of Exclusion (2014), and Warg (2016).

In Sweden, Frostbiten was met with mediocre to negative reviews, with tabloid newspaper Expressen panning the film, calling it "a meaningless splatterfilm".  A reviewer for the site Film Threat wrote, "Ever since Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Scream infiltrated the fear-film genre, something's been rotten in Transylvania. Playing horror for winking insider references and juvenile giggles, any real juice has been extracted from the cutting-edge school of cinema that spawned Re-Animator, Dead Alive, and Evil Dead, three brilliant examples of horror that combined ferocious splatter with truly inspired humor. In comparison, Frostbite is too little, too late." The reception was far better internationally, with Bloody Disgusting giving the film 4/5, calling it a masterpiece, saying that the film had a strong cast, great special effects and the film the most enjoyable vampire film since the 80s, filling in: "The way the screenplay is written is fantastic, as you can see above the film has many plants that grow and flourish into one hell of a film". 

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   40%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - February 19th

"SHUTTER ISLAND" released in 2010

In 1954, a U.S. marshal investigates the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane, located on an island in the middle of Boston Harbor, in Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island!

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Federal Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) travel to Ashecliffe Hospital, a government-run mental institution for the criminally insane on Shutter Island, near Boston, when there is a report that one of the prisoners, Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer) - committed to the asylum for drowning her three children - has gone missing. Daniels, still traumatized from what he saw when his army unit liberated one of the Nazi concentration camps at the end of World War II, has his own reasons for wanting to get to the island; haunted by the recent death of his wife Dolores (Michelle Williams) in an "arson" fire, Daniels believes the arsonist, Andrew Laeddis (Elias Koteas), is also incarcerated on Shutter Island. The head of the hospital, Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley), outwardly cooperates with the Marshall's but others give the agents a less than warm reception, including the Warden (Ted Levine), Deputy Warden McPherson (John Carroll Lynch), and German doctor Dr. Jeremiah Naehring (Max von Sydow). As their investigation continues, Daniels is increasingly drawn to Ward C - a ward reserved for the most serious and violent offenders (which is off limits to Daniels and Aule) - and the ominous island's lighthouse. Daniels paranoia increases as he peels away layers of deceit, which inevitably leads him to the lighthouse where Daniels will learn the truth surrounding the mystery of Shutter Island!

TRIVIA:   As the characters of Edward Daniels and Rachel Solando are anagrams of Andrew Laeddis and Dolores Chanal, even the title Shutter Island is an anagram of both "Truths and Lies" and "Truths / Denials".

Top:   US Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives at Ashcliff Asylum on Shutter Island with his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) to find an escaped patient;

Above:   Daniels is consistently given cryptic information by the head psychiatrist Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley).

Columbia Pictures first optioned the film rights to Dennis Lehane's novel when it was first published in 2003, as a directing vehicle for Wolfgang Petersen. However, there were considerable modifications made to Lehane's novel in order to create a more action-driven blockbuster, which resulted in numerous delays. Peterson subsequently left the project to make the remake Poseidon, with David Fincher briefly considered to replace him. However, the delays mounting, the film rights inevitably relapsed back to Lehane, who subsequently sold the rights to Paramount Pictures based production company Phoenix Pictures.

With the working title of Ashecliff, Phoenix's producer Mike Medavoy then spent a year developing the screenplay with writer Laeta Kalogridis, before approaching veteran filmmaker Martin Scorsese to direct. At that time, Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio were in the middle of developing a film adaptation of The Wolf of Wall Street for Warner Bros., but could not get the studio to commit to the financing. To prepare to shoot Shutter Island, Scorsese screened Out of the Past (1947) and Vertigo (1958) for his cast and crew to give his actors an idea of how his film would be stylistically (Scorsese was also influenced by some of Val Lewton's 1940s zombies movies in creating the film's mood).

[last lines]
Teddy Daniels: You know, this place makes me wonder.
Chuck Aule: Yeah, what's that, boss?
Teddy Daniels: Which would be worse - to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?
[gets up and walks off]
Chuck Aule: [unsure of who he's talking to] Teddy? 

Top and Above:   While Daniels investigates, he is confronted by the lies from patients (and staff) regarding the escapee, and finds himself inexplicably drawn to the ominous lighthouse on the island.

Shutter Island boasts an incredibly impressive cast, including two Oscar winners: Leonardo DiCaprio (playing Marhsall Teddy Daniels) and Ben Kingsley (as Ashcliff's head psychiatrist Dr. John Cawley); and five Oscar nominees: Max von Sydow (Dr. Jeremiah Naehring), Michelle Williams (Teddy's wife Dolores Chanal), Jackie Earle Haley (playing inmate George Noyce), Patricia Clarkson (as "Dr. Rachel Solando") and Mark Ruffalo, playing Daniels' partner Chuck Aule. Before Ruffalo was considered for the part, DiCaprio and Scorsese also considered Robert Downey Jr. and Josh Brolin, before Scorsese recieved a fan letter from Ruffalo saying how much he wanted to work with him. Joining the cast were Emily Mortimer, Ted Levine, John Carroll Lynch, and Elias Koteas playing (respectively) inmate Rachel Solando, Ashcliff's Warden, Deputy Warden McPherson, and arsonist Andrew Laeddis.

Originally the production wanted to film at the old Worcester State Hospital, but because of the pending demolition of the facility, filming was not approved and instead the filming took place at Medfield State Hospital. The exterior settings for Shutter Island were; East Point, in Nahant, Massachusetts was the location for the lighthouse scenes, Borderland State Park in Easton, Massachusetts was used for the cabin scene, while Peddocks Island was used as a setting for the story's island.

The traumatic killing of Nazi guards of Dachau concentration camp was an actual historical event, taking place on 29 April 1945 when the camp was liberated by the US Army. For these scenes, the production moved to Taunton, Massachusetts, with the old industrial buildings in Taunton's Whittenton Mills Complex replicating the Dachau concentration camp. Initially, the Dachau dream sequences were intended to be shot entirely in 65mm, but on the second night of using the 65mm cameras, they broke down entirely (however, a few shots in which Teddy goes through the camp in civilian clothes survive in the movie). 

TRIVIA:   The only film of the partnership between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio that failed to receive any Oscar nominations. Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) all received Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture.

Top:   Director Martin Scorsese;

Above:   Scorsese on set with Ben Kingsley, Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo.

First scheduled to be released by Paramount in the US and Canada on 2 October 2009 - so to be in contention for that year's Oscars - Paramount later pushed the film back to 19 February 2010 due to financing problems. Although another reason cited for the push-back was DiCaprio's unavailability for the interview circuit due to other filming commitments. Shutter Island did, however, have a special "secret" screening at Austin's "Butt-Numbathon" film festival in December of 2009, with critics attending the screening being asked not to release their reviews until the official release date. 

Released on February 19th, 2010, Shutter Island grossed over $41 million in it's opneing weekend, the highest box office opening for both DiCaprio and Scorsese at the time, and would eventually earn almost $300 million worldwide. Garnering mostly positive reviews from critics, with Lawrence Toppman of The Charlotte Observer gave the film 4/4 stars claiming "After four decades, Martin Scorsese has earned the right to deliver a simple treatment of a simple theme with flair."  The Wall Street Journal, John Anderson highly praised the film, suggesting it "requires multiple viewings to be fully realized as a work of art. Its process is more important than its story, its structure more important than the almost perfunctory plot twists it perpetrates. It's a thriller, a crime story and a tortured psychological parable about collective guilt." Awarding the film 3½ stars out of 4, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote "the movie is about: atmosphere, ominous portents, the erosion of Teddy's confidence and even his identity. It's all done with flawless directorial command. Scorsese has fear to evoke, and he does it with many notes."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   68%

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