As many have learned over the past few years, Hollywood is a cesspool of vile and disgusting people. It’s hard to navigate around because a bike is often times forced to push forward even with a broken spoke in a wheel. These bad seeds are often the cause of many productions issues, especially when it comes to creative, and because of the hierarchy, filmmakers and actors are often times forced to comply or compromise with said individual(s).
Coming off his first hit, Juice, director Ernest R. Dickerson was a young filmmaker forced to deal with the likes of Joel Silver on Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight, the first film based on the HBO television series. Dickerson, who appeared at the ongoing Cinepocalypse in Chicago to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, told the audience all sorts of crazy anecdotes, including the story about how he ended up casting Jada Pinkett Smith (over Cameron Diaz). He also shared this frustrating story about a scene late in the film when Jeryline is being seduced by The Collector (Billy Zane).
The story picks up near the end of the film after Jeryline spits blood into the Collector’s face. Dickerson recounts the challenge of the special effects, which leads into him digressing about the sequence that leads up to the grand finale.
“We were ahead of our time,” Dickerson told everyone. “The demonic form of the Collector wasn’t supposed to be such a classic demon, it was more of a fire monster, and we were trying to do it with different overlays of flames. Nowadays you can do it with CGI and this was pre-CGI days. We tried to get personality in the flames and it just wasn’t connecting with the audience.”
Before Jeryline spits blood in the Collector’s face, she finds herself in a room covered in sheets with the demon trying to lure her to the dark side. While Jeryline is in her underwear, it’s motivated by the scenes prior, and the Collector, well, his motivation is to get the key. No matter, Dickerson says one executive vigorously wanted them to consummate.
“It’s crazy when you get into these meetings with executives,” Dickerson exclaimed. “I remember Tom Pollock (possibly EVP of MCA and Chairman Universal Pictures?), he kept saying, ‘I don’t know why the Devil doesn’t just fuck her? Why doesn’t the devil just fuck her?’ I said, ‘He’s not the Devil, he is a collector, he is one of the Devil’s minions. He’s not human and sex has anything to do with it.'”
Dickerson says Pollock continued: “But I still don’t understand, why doesn’t he fuck her?”
“It’s not a sexual thing!,” Dickerson countered with an exclamation.
Pollock: “I think we should have a scene where the Devil fucks her.”
“I swear to god these are the kind of things you have to deal with sometimes with executives,” Dickerson continued, before explaining how, with the support of the cast and management, he forced a compromise. “I went to Billy [Zane] and I said, ‘They want this to be a sexual thing and it can’t be a sexual thing,’ and he said, ‘Ernest, I’ll back you up on this.’ It was actually Billy, Jada’s manager, and my manager, and they all backed me up on it.”
The compromise? “To make them happy, we came out with the flaming dick. You know, ‘Maybe that’ll make ’em happy?’ It’s a crazy business.”
Ironically, Dickerson had plans to create a sort of vagina monster that echoed the profession of Brenda Bakke‘s character, Cordelia, which was eventually rejected by the producers.
“Some stuff they just would not let me do,” Dickerson explained later in the Q+A. “The idea of the demon being that he’s able to find whatever that weakness is inside of you and use it against you. Brenda Bakke’s character, who plays the prostitute – my idea was that her demonic self actually has a gigantic mouth that opens up like a vagina dentata – open up and the tongue comes out and wraps around his neck and pulls him in. I had been looking at a lot of Japanese anime – ‘tits and tentacles,'” he joked. “When I showed it to the producers, they gave me the weirdest look and they loved it. We did models and everything. Dick Donner took the concept art back home and showed it to Mrs. Donner, and she said, ‘There is no way you are putting this in our movie.'” And that was that.
Hollywood is a wild place filled with absolutely insane stories. The “what ifs” often times leave us wondering if our favorite films could have been even better…or way worse.
