Editorials
Two Bizarre ‘Demon Knight’ Scenes That Didn’t Make It into the Film
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.
Comics
‘Spider-Noir’ Comic Changes Explained: How the TV Series Reinvents Marvel’s Darkest Spider-Man
A little while back, I wrote an article chronicling the Hellraiser franchise’s affinity for Film Noir and touched on how that genre has, historically, always been connected to horror.
This connection can be observed in everything from the cannibalistic serial killers of Frank Miller’s Sin City to the disturbing criminal plots fueling neo-noir thrillers like Stuart Gordon’s underrated King of the Ants. That’s why it came as no surprise when I finally sat down to watch all eight episodes of Prime Video’s recently released Spider-Noir series and was confronted with plenty of classic horror tropes.
What did come as a surprise, however, was how showrunners Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot approached these horror elements when compared to the 2009 comic book that the show is based on. From the heavily altered rogue’s gallery to an equally terrifying yet completely different origin story for Nicolas Cage’s take on the webslinger, there are plenty of changes here that I feel might be of interest to genre fans.
With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers to take a closer look at all the adjustments that Spider-Noir made to the story in order to bring this incarnation of Spider-Man to life in all of its monochromatic glory (unless you watched the True-Hue color version of the show, in which case you’ll be treated to a surprisingly comic-booky palette that you don’t usually see on television).
The Dark Origins of Marvel’s Spider-Man Noir
Our first order of business should be to examine the origins of the Noir comics themselves. Originally published as part of the Marvel Noir alternate universe that reimagined several characters as hard-boiled crime-fighters, Spider-Man Noir became the most successful book in the entire run. This highly politicized story about Peter Parker coming to terms with the capitalist evils of the Great Depression seemed to have struck a nerve with audiences looking for a darker take on the wall-crawler, which is likely why we’d soon see several sequel stories as well as a video game adaptation of the character in 2010’s underrated Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
Of course, it wasn’t just Spider-Man’s darker disposition that made this version of the character a hit, as 1930s New York City was depicted as being much more hostile than what we generally see in the standard Marvel Universe. From Peter’s powers coming from an Eldritch Spider God that spawns man-eating arachnids to Vulture being an ex-Freak-Show Gimp with a taste for human flesh, you can definitely understand why this Web-Head isn’t pulling his punches.
Unfortunately, this alternate universe was a little too popular for its own good, with each subsequent sequel/adaptation further diluting the political anger and classic horror influences that fueled the original comic-book run in order to appeal to a wider audience. Spider-Man Noir was nearly unrecognizable once we got to the Spider-Verse crossover that turned the character into a household name, though this would at least lead to an interesting adaptation in 2018.
The Classic Horror Influences Hidden Throughout Spider-Noir
Jack Huston as Sandman in ‘Spider-Noir’
When Phil Lord and Chris Miller finally translated Spider-Man Noir to the big screen, with Nicolas Cage bringing the character to life in an unexpected case of pitch-perfect casting, he was still mostly relegated to comic relief as his nazi-punching antics and over-the-top edginess were played for laughs. However, while this version of the character had little to do with the comics that spawned him, Spider-Noir’s newfound popularity eventually resulted in the announcement of a darker live-action spin-off – a spin-off that I was cautiously optimistic about.
While the showrunners ultimately decided to go in a completely different direction than the 2009 comic, the new team of writers appeared to understand Noir as a genre in ways that even the folks at Marvel Noir couldn’t quite grasp. That’s likely why 2026’s Spider-Noir boasts plenty of horror elements, just not in ways we’ve seen them before.
The series is obviously borrowing tropes and aesthetics from period-accurate monster movies, with Universal’s 1930s output being a particularly big influence. From the re-imagining of Sandman and Tombstone as tragic figures to The Spider even being operated on by a mad scientist with hilariously antiquated techniques, this bizarre collection of super-powered freaks could have easily shown up in a classic creature feature.
The scares aren’t all retro, however, as the showrunners also injected plenty of body-horror into the mix during their attempt at unifying the origin stories for all these larger-than-life characters. Hell, the Spider himself is now revealed to have gained his powers after being bitten by a half-mutated Man-Spider during World War I, and the aforementioned mad scientist keeps a disturbing collection of failed experiments in her basement, proving that not all of her patients were lucky enough to simply gain superpowers after being experimented on.
Nicolas Cage Reinvents Spider-Man Noir for Television
Ben Reilly/Spiderman (Nicolas Cage) in SPIDER-NOIR
Photo: Aaron Epstein/Prime
© Amazon Content Services LLC
I also really appreciate how Cage insists on depicting Ben Reilly as an arachnid trapped inside of a human body, with his uncanny physical performance and classic Hollywood impressions keeping your eyes glued to the screen while also providing some of the show’s funniest moments.
I still think it’s a shame that the character is no longer politically motivated, and I miss the detail about Uncle Ben having been cannibalized by Vulture after his social activism ruffled too many feathers, but at least this time our protagonist actually feels like someone who could have been written by Raymond Chandler if he were a fan of Superheroes.
In fact, the writers nailed the snappy back-and-forth that Noir authors like Dashiel Hammett used to refer to as the “riposte”, and it’s fun to see supervillains being depicted as horrific movie monsters instead of specialized henchmen – with The Spider feeling like just as much of a Freak Show attraction as the rest of them. Purists might be put off by the lack of reverence for the source material, but I think that’s a small price to pay when even the show’s most clichéd moments intentionally harken back to the golden age of Hollywood.
That’s why I’d argue that Amazon’s Spider-Noir isn’t really an adaptation, but rather an equally valid take on the same premise that inspired Marvel back in 2009. And in a world filled with recycled storylines that only serve to advertise future releases, I’d rather have two completely different visions of the same character than a straight-up retelling of the same handful of ideas.
At the end of the day, there’s enough space inside this comic fan’s heart for both man-eating Vultures and a Cronenberg-inspired Man-Spider. And if you’re also a fan of nostalgic creature features with comic book flair, I’d highly recommend this street-level superhero story with a spooky twist.
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