All language subtitles for Cursed Films S01e04 The Crow

I think the one film that really hit me
hard that came out of those formative

years of me being a cinephile was The
Crow.

I was in high school.

I was a big fan of the James O 'Barr
comic book.

I remember traveling to New York to meet
the man and have my graphic novel

signed.

I first came across the comic The Crow
when it was a very small

printing of its first

and immediately was engrossed in the
story of this first issue.

Its plot is about a guy who is killed
too soon, and he comes back, and he

vengeance.

It's just about a guy who is in love
with a woman, and she gets killed, and

come back from the dead, and you avenge
her death. And as a high schooler, it

was just angsty enough to connect with
me.

Crow is kind of the hand of God.

that allows that person who's been taken
to heaven to return to put something

horrible right.

Within that lies a beautiful underlying
story of love and the

conviction that if a loved one is
harmed, there is an opportunity to

justice for those who have lost people
dear to them through tragic

circumstances.

So that began my odyssey to option
material, develop it and turn it into a

feature film.

We started filming on February 1st, 1993
in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Everyone was invested a thousand percent
in trying to make, you know, a film

that would stand shoulder to shoulder
with any studio release on a fraction of

the budget.

I think there's plenty.

of material if you want to find a curse
in the making of the movie The Crow.

When they set up pre -production
offices, they had a voicemail message

said, don't make this movie, bad things
will happen.

On the very first day, principal
photography, two of our electricians had

terrible accident.

Everything's ready to go. Remember, they
only shot at night, so night had

fallen. They were driving there.

pickup truck with a cherry picker. He
backed his cherry picker up into a live

wire. He caught on fire.

It ended up hitting the high tension
wire, high electric wire that

would carry the voltage to run all the
lights and the back lot set.

He was rushed to the hospital. He had
second and third degree burns all over

body. He didn't die.

He lost his ears.

But it was a terrible tragedy.

And then they had to start shooting.

We went through the storm of the
century.

The hurricane is now at its peak with
winds reaching speeds of more than 115

miles an hour.

That was a terrible hurricane that
destroyed our back lot set

where it had gotten back to people in
Hollywood. And

there was an article from Entertainment
Weekly that called what was going on in

our location the Curse of the Crow.

One of the staff in the production
office decided to make an ill -timed

that things have happened, but she said,
it's not like anyone has died.

When I had learned that they were making
a crow, I followed that like crazy. You

know, I read Fangoria, I read
Entertainment Weekly, I was following

that was going on with Brandon Lee.

What we needed for the role was someone
who was a true athlete and

a great actor.

We'd gotten an opportunity to see Rapid
Fire.

We were absolutely sold. The only person
we made an offer to was Brandon Lee.

Brandon Lee was trying to make a name
for himself, was trying to kind of come

out from the shadow of his father and
was making films which, in the realm of

action films, weren't so bad. Rapid
Fire, Showdown in Little Tokyo.

He, like his father, had so much
potential.

You're seeing his star rise, and then he
got robbed, just

like his father did.

I'm Lance Anderson, and I worked on The
Crow as a special makeup effects artist.

My job was to take care of Brandon, to
do all of his makeup throughout the

This is the original script that I kept.

It has a lot of my original continuity
shots.

This is establishing makeup.

As it progresses, the makeup starts to
get more worn.

This is when he falls out the window.

Kind of strange looking at those photos.

Yeah.

We hired the immensely talented actor
Michael Berryman to play the role of the

Skull Cowboy, which was a character that
appears intermittently in James O

'Barr's comic, The Crow.

Well, I got a call from my agent and
went to a meeting.

And the next thing I knew, I was flying
to North Carolina, to Wilmington.

I spent hours and hours and hours
getting a full body cast and head cast.

We made this suit for Michael Berryman,
and it had a complete bodysuit sculpture

for the whole ribs and the whole thing.
He basically wore a giant suit and

articulated fingers.

Very difficult to wear.

And then on my head, I had a mandible
jaw that was acrylic, and it

was bolted front to back with a top
piece that had...

these little servo transmitters, and
these little paddles would move the

underneath the latex. It was pretty
extensive makeup.

I've been asked, where did the Skull
Cowboy originate from?

And it obviously came out of the
creativity of James O 'Barr.

James wrote because it was part of his
therapy.

His fiancée was killed by a drunk
driver.

And in order to remain here on this
earth, in this physical plane, he had to

come to grips with it.

And so he wrote.

Sometimes in life, you can take from
what you have experienced and bring

a piece of that into the character that
you're developing, and it can help you

heal.

It can help you have a cathartic
experience.

And it enhances the performance.

There had been lots of press material
touching on the curse nature of the

That perhaps it was a continuation of
the curse of Bruce Lee, who died under

mysterious circumstances while shooting
a film.

Pretty much everyone discovered Bruce
Lee after he passed away.

Then you start doing research on who he
was.

And then as you look into how he passed
away, that's when the theories start.

There's theories that there was a hit on
him from the Chinese mafia for

betraying martial arts secrets.

One of the interesting fantasy theories
is that Bruce Lee was struck by a death

blow. And a death blow is a specific
type of strike.

Which its impact doesn't take effect
until days, weeks, months, years later.

There's one theory that Bruce Lee's
passing was part of the Lee family

Bruce Lee's parents...

lost their first male son.

This was attributed to a belief that
there was a curse or a demon after the

males in the Lee family.

You had an older brother, you see.

He died in childbirth.

The demon took him away from us.

A firstborn man child is very valuable.

He was sometimes dressed in girls'
clothing, sometimes referred to by a

name, again, in order to deflect and
break the curse on the males of the

We dress human dresses so the demon
wouldn't know I had another son.

Now he knows.

And he's coming for you. In Dragon, the
Bruce Lee story, Bruce Lee is portrayed

as being haunted by a demon, this kind
of dark figure in kind of samurai armor.

And there's a scene where he's trying to
protect his son in these kind of

dreamlike pursuits.

The actual circumstances around

Bruce Lee's death are much more banal.

Yes, he was found dead at.

the apartment of a young starlet who he
may or may not have been having an

affair with.

While at this apartment, he took a
painkiller.

He went for a nap and didn't wake up.

They attributed his death to having a
hypersensitivity to this particular

painkiller.

Recently, there's been a biography
published, Bruce Lee, A Life by Matthew

Pauly, and he puts this theory forward
that it was a heat stroke which killed

Bruce Lee.

leading up to the last year of his
death, he had his sweat glands removed

because he wanted to look good on
screen.

A month or so before the day that he
passed away, he actually had a seizure

a stroke.

And so this potentially could just be
the reverberations of the previous

misdiagnosed heat stroke.

Game of Death is Bruce Lee's final film.
He doesn't live to finish it.

And that's already a weird parallel with
what happens to Brandon Lee and the

Crow.

It gets even weirder when you consider
that Bruce Lee's character is shot on

set of a film in Game of Death, which is
exactly how his son dies in 1993.

Gentlemen, these are blanks.

Only aim upward.

There's a wad of paper that comes out
and can injure someone.

Roll sound.

Action.

It

was

the night of March 30th, 1993.

We were a day.

47 out of what then grown to 52 days and
nearing the end of production.

In the scene, Eric Draven has just
returned and the villains are already in

the home and have been treating Sophia
Sheenis' character, Shelley, very

violently.

I was down in the trailer getting a rig
that I had rigged for Brandon to wear.

where a knife is thrown at him when he
comes through the door.

And I built a harness.

They would throw the knife and then the
knife would be embedded in his chest.

So I was down there getting that ready
and they told me they need me on set.

And the director said, we're changing
that scene. He's going to come through

door and he's going to get shot.

Eric puts himself between these
villains.

and Shelly and Michael Massey as Funboy
takes a gun and fires

at the character of Eric Draven. The
camera was in the wrong position when he

came through the door, and it didn't
look like he was aiming the gun at

So they either moved the actor or they
moved the camera or something to get a

better angle so it looked more realistic
that he's being shot.

When he came through the door with the
grocery bag, they do the shot, and then

he drops down, and everybody waits for
him to get up.

And he didn't get up.

He just stayed there.

He just didn't move.

And somebody says, I think he's really
hurt.

And call a medic.

Call a medic.

The medic came.

And he's been shot.

And I just, I felt all the blood rush
out of my body.

And I just dropped down. And everybody
was around me was doing the same thing.

They were just shocked.

Did you go to the hospital?

Yes.

I... I don't

want to talk about going to the
hospital. Can we... We went

to the hospital.

And we waited around for hours.

And then they came out and told us that
he'd passed on.

It was one of the most horrible things
in my life to see that happen and be

there.

Michael Massey was, I mean, to put it
mildly beside himself, he was broken by

the experience of...

having pulled the trigger, I don't think
he could have taken on any greater

responsibility on his own shoulders,
although it was not by any means his

Plain and simple, and it wasn't his job
to be responsible for that particular

weapon.

Chinese mafia executed Bruce Lee and
then his son.

I mean, that's where things were going,
you know, with the tabloids.

Blood on the set.

What really happened?

How could a bullet end up in a gun?

Well, it wasn't a bullet.

It was a dummy head.

The dummy head was still in the chamber.

And it blew it out.

What occurred was that there was a dummy
bullet loaded two weeks before

that had lodged a real bullet in the
barrel of the gun.

These are different caliber dummy rounds
that we have, and the whole goal to

making dummy rounds is to make an
imitation round that would lead the

believe that it is a live round.

So this is the dummy round, and this is
the live round.

Even though this is a dummy round and
it's had the gunpowder removed, the

hasn't been removed or struck. When we
do a dummy round, it's always important

to remove the primer cap from the
center.

What happened on the Crow was when they
put the dummy round in, they forgot to

remove the primer.

And what happens is, again, that primer
has enough force to dislodge the lead

round and actually push it into the
barrel.

We're actually going to pull the
trigger.

and it'll have just enough force to
lodge the round in there.

So you can see in there our dummy round.

We'll index it.

Three, two, one.

So just with that simple action, that
little snap, the cap's gone off, no

gunpowder, but what we'll be able to
prove is the hung round inside the

Inside that barrel, we have the
obstruction.

But if you look down the barrel, you'll
notice that there's no light coming

through. So that would tell me that
there's an obstruction.

In this case, a lead round, a hollow
point.

That's the one thing they didn't do.
They didn't check the barrel for an

obstruction. The problem with that is
when you put a blank in there, then

whatever's in there, be it rock, dirt,
or a hung round, that round comes out

flying at 3 ,000 to 5 ,000 psi.

So when we're ready, I'll put a round in
here. It's going to be a blank, a half

-load blank.

This is it. There's no lead projectile.
It's just crimped at the end, but it's

got powder.

The crimp's hot, but this produces
enough powder to push this lead round

that board through two inches of
plywood.

So when we're ready, three, two, one.

The round's gone off.

I can go check downrange.

We can actually see the round.

Got punctured through it.

Right here.

That's your round.

That was the hung round that got pushed
into the barrel with just the primer

cap. And what you can see is, I don't
know if you can see the striation, but

actually fired the round. So this would
definitely be a lethal round.

This would be something you don't get up
from.

After this tremendous tragedy unfolded,
We, as filmmakers,

our initial response was that we
couldn't film any further

without Brandon, even though we were at
the end of our schedule.

And it was because we just couldn't even
fathom

moving forward at that time.

We heard from Brandon's fiance, Eliza
Hutton, who's to be married to a

short time after we completed
photography, and his mother, Linda Lee,

Brandon was incredibly proud of the work
that he had performed.

And they said, you know, if you are up
to it, we want you all to

finish this.

I didn't want to come back, but I kept
thinking about...

This is Brandon's film. This is a film
that he wanted to be a launching pad for

him.

And if I didn't go back and do what I
could do to make sure this film gets

whatever I can do, I'll do it.

Because if this film wasn't seen, wasn't
finished, it'd be a shame.

But they called me up and they said, I
want to use a double.

Stunt double looked a lot like him, and
they wanted me to make a mask

on the stunt double of Brandon's face so
they could use it in the film.

That was really tough.

That was really tough.

To be honest, when the stunt double wore
that thing, it freaked everybody out.

I mean, it literally freaked them out.

When the feeling that you get when
you're finishing a film with an actor

passed on, it's not a good feeling.

It's a very morbid feeling.

And it's something you deal with
personally.

You know, you don't feel good about it,
but it just needed to be done.

That's all. It just needed to be done.

There were changes that they had to
make.

Instead of doing a lot of one -on -one
dialogue scenes between Eric Draven, for

example, and his girlfriend, they had to
do a lot in montage.

A lot was done in shadow.

They had to take out one character, the
Skull Cowboy.

They had shot just one set -up shot of
him with Brandon Lee, and that was in

beginning of production. They were going
to fly him back at the end.

They never ended up doing that. They had
to write around the convention of that

character.

When I got the word of what had
happened, I had so many mixed emotions.

The number one sense of loss was being
cheated because Brandon was engaged,

number one, for him and Eliza. Number
two, this wonderful young man that I'd

been introduced to just snatched away
like that.

And then people are going, the curse of
the crow, you know, Carloco Studios,

there was an electrician, somebody got
electrocuted. This happened, that

happened, this happened, that happened.
Don't you think? Is it possible?

Is it?

Really?

Really?

No.

The crow was not cursed.

The crow was created out of love and
loss.

In my opinion, Brandon died because a
studio cut corners.

They sent home the weapons expert that
we had. It's a right -to -work state in

union -busting environment.

And after so many weeks, it is my
understanding that contractually they

hire a local person to do all of the
armaments and weapons.

That is my personal opinion.

Someone was overworked and you miss one
little oops and something happens.

Makes you appreciate every day and then
you should appreciate

every hour and pretty soon every moment.

I'm at most calm when I can appreciate
each breath and especially

appreciative when I hear that beautiful
note of a heartbeat.

Life is very precious.

It's hard with The Crow to separate
fiction and reality.

I think that people will continue to
find curses with The Crow. They're going

continue to find some new element to
relate back to something that maybe

happened to Bruce Lee or some of the
other actors on the film, like if

tragic happens to one of them.

And I think people want to cling to
those sort of curse legends.

They want to have a story that kind of
justifies something so tragic.

From that is born just a fascination
with trying to look at this through the

lens of possible conspiracy that could
have netted this tremendous loss and

horrible accident.

Truly, I sympathize.

But the sideshow of looking for
conspiracies within that loss, I think,

away from what he did.

I do believe that there's a great film
there, and it stands on its own merits.

And I'm proud of the film.

One can look to a number of films that
followed in its wake in terms of look

feel and design.

It really did launch a different
approach to futuristic films and comic

adaptations because it really is a very
unique piece of art and filmmaking with

a central performance by Brandon Lee
that is really, truly incredible.

It was bittersweet for me, personally.

The vengeful spirit of Eric Draven, the
vengeful spirit of the Skull Cowboy.

My dear friend Brandon, you can't be
prepared

for these moments, but you can carry on
in honor of

those that have left us.