Horror Facts Vol. 14: The Millennium

The 14th edition of Horror Facts features 20 facts from 20 years ago. The list focuses on horror films from the year 2000 including Scream 3, Cherry Falls, Urban Legends: Final Cut and more!

/ Due to the Columbine massacre and other recent school shootings, Ginger Snaps had a hard time getting proper funding because the film featured teenagers in violent scenes.

/ A good portion of the news footage shown in Final Destination is actual footage from the 1996 explosion and crash of TWA Flight 800 near Long Island, New York. The music playing throughout the film is by John Denver, a music artist who died in a plane crash on October 12, 1997.

/ Director Mary Harron reveals in the DVD commentary of American Psycho, that during Christian Bale’s first shower scene, all of the women on set gathered around to watch. During the famous chainsaw scene, Bale would hang out between takes wearing only a sock over his d*ck, along with running shoes.

/ Hellraiser: Inferno was originally a totally different horror script owned by Dimension. To save money on writing an original Hellraiser screenplay, the script was edited to include Pinhead and the Cenobites. The same happened with Hellraiser: Hellseeker in 2002.

/ The playing of the tapes backwards in Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is a reference to 1973’s The Exorcist.

/ At around the 45-minute mark in Scream 3, Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) punches Jennifer Jolie (Parker Posey), who is playing Gale Weathers in the movie production Stab 3 in the face. At around the 30-40 minute mark in Scream and Scream 2, is when the real Gale Weathers is punched in the face by Sidney.

/ Michelle Pfeiffer said that to prepare for her role in What Lies Beneath, she used Drew Barrymore’s method of displaying fear to help her get into character.

/ Cherry Falls is one of the few horror movies that have the end credits run backwards, top to bottom instead of the conventional bottom to top.

/ In Dracula 2000, when Dracula says “I don’t drink…coffee” it’s a reference to the 1931 version where he says “I never drink…wine”.

/ The snowstorm scene in Urban Legends: Final Cut wasn’t planned or expected. This is ironic since the first film was intended to take place in a winter setting, which explains the killer’s costume in the original.

/ Guy Pearce and Edward Norton were up for the role of Sebastian in Hollow Man but Kevin Bacon ultimately landed the role because of his ability to be both charming and diabolical.

/ Cate Blanchett’s characters car in The Gift is the Delta 88 Oldsmobile Classic. The car appears in every Evil Dead film and almost all of Sam Raimi’s other movies.

/ Four different endings were filmed for the movie Supernova.

/ The desert scenes in Pitch Black were filmed in the same location as Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985).

/ The movie Lost Souls starring Winona Ryder was originally set to release in October 1999, with trailers first appearing in the summer of 99. Due to an influx of similar “end of the world” films like End of Days (1999) and Stigmata (1999) the release was delayed. A new date of February 4th, 2000 was planned but cancelled after Scream 3 was set to release on the same day. Finally the release date of October 13th, 2000 was chosen, which ultimately ended up being the same day as The Exorcist (1973) re-release.

/ The role of the original Killjoy was played by Angel Vargas. Angel was slated to reprise his role in Killjoy 2: Deliverance from Evil (2002) but declined for other movie offers. Trent Haaga was cast instead and reprised the role in Killjoy 3 (2010), Killjoy Goes to Hell (2012) and Killjoy’s Psycho Circus (2016).

/ After The Cell, Jennifer Lopez didn’t want to star in any science fiction or horror movies for a while because she didn’t want to be typecast as a Scream Queen. Cry me a river Jlo!

/ In the original script of Bless the Child, a character is purposely pushed off a subway platform. This scene was changed to make the fall accidental before the Toronto Transit Commission would allow filming to take place on its property.

/ The house in Ju-on: The Curse was a real location, not a constructed set. After the film was released, it became a tourist attraction until being demolished in 2019.