Editorials
Horror’s Hallowed Grounds: ‘American Psycho’!
This weekend we posted the brand new edition of Sean Clark’s Horror’s Hallowed Grounds, where Sean heads to check out the filming locations of Mary Harron’s classic American Psycho! If you click here you can check out pictures from the infamous 2000 film, alongside the locations as they stand now in New York! You’ll find links to all of Clark’s previously articles by clicking here. Read on for American Psycho!
American Psycho
DiCaprio passed after pressure about possibly ruining his teen star status after the mega hit Titanic. Re-enter Mary Harron and her choice for the part of Patrick Bateman, Christian Bale.
The film was shot in 1999 for a budget of 7 million dollars. The film is supposed to take place in New York City in 1987 but was for the most part filming in downtown Toronto Canada.
Our first location is Patrick Bateman’s apartment located on the 11th floor of the fictitious American Gardens Building on West 81st Street in Manhattan.
The immaculate cold white apartment with the stainless steal kitchen was a set built in Toronto Canada. The same goes for Paul Allen’s apartment.
The locations in this film are mostly bars and restaurants, so lets start there.
When Patrick fails to score a reservation at the legendary Dorsia, (the fictitious location we actually never see in the film) he takes his doped-up date to Barcadia instead.
Barcadia is actually the Pacific Rim restaurant Monsoon located at 100 Simcoe Street in downtown Toronto. Sadly the day I visited this location there was a notice of eviction posted on the door stating it had closed down just two days before.
Later, Bateman picks up a model at a hip dance club which is actually the Phoenix Concert Theatre located at 410 Sherbourne Street in Toronto. Upstairs at the Phoenix is the balcony lounge where Bateman and friends talk to the models.
Texarkana the Mexican style restaurant where Bateman meets Paul Allen for diner is actually Montana located at 145 John Street in downtown Toronto.
The restaurant in which Patrick dumps his fiancée, played by Reese Witherspoon at the time of filming was called Shark City until it closed down in 2004. Shark City was located at 117 Eglinton Avenue East in Toronto.
Later, Mr. Bateman takes a not-quite-casual lunch with detective Donald Kimball played by Willem Dafoe. Kimball has some further questions about Bateman’s whereabouts on the night of Paul Allen’s disappearance. They dine at the French restaurant the Savoy located at 253 Victoria Street in downtown Toronto. When I visited this location it was closed for remodeling.
Bateman and the boys lounge around drinking expensive cognac having a good ol’ time until Luis Carruthers played by Matt Ross breaks up the fun by presenting them with his brand new near perfect business card. This was filmed at Le Méridien King Edward Hotel’s Consort Bar located at 37 King Street West in downtown Toronto.
There are a few scenes shot in New York besides some of the basic stock coverage you see in the film from time to time. The corner where Bateman picks up the prostitute he calls Christy was shot in New York’s Meat Packing District.
Another important iconic New York shot is one of Bateman crossing the street in front of the Twin Towers in Manhattan.
After Bateman shoots the woman for disagreeing with his trying to feed the ATM machine a kitten he is first running through the streets on New York City near the Rector Street Station located at the corner of Rector Street and Trinity Place in lower Manhattan.
He then runs around the corner and is in downtown Toronto. This is where the police shoot out took place on Pearl Street between Simcoe and Duncan just around the corner from the previously mentioned Monsoon.
Next Batman heads into to what he thinks is his office building. Once he enters he realizes that he has run into an almost identical building next door to his. This upsets him so he shoots the front desk security guard.
The buildings in reality are the Toronto-Dominion Centre located in the heart of the Central Business District of Toronto, at the southwest corner of King and Bay Streets. The area occupies an entire city block, from King to Bay to Wellington to York Streets, as well as a section to the south of King Street between Wellington and Piper Streets (between Bay and York Streets). Another unique thing about this location is that its architect Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe also built the nearly-identical Seagram Building in Manhattan which makes this Toronto location the perfect stand-in for New York City.
These two buildings are by far my favorite locations from the film because they rare exactly as they appear in the film both physically and geographically. Once he shoots the janitor he exits the first building and runs across the courtyard into the correct building.
Bateman heads up the elevator and to his office that we see several times in the film. The office was a set built in a studio in Toronto.
Lastly we end where the film ends, Harry’s Bar. This is where Patrick confesses to his lawyer. In reality this upper crust bar is called Biff’s located at 4 Front Street East in downtown Toronto. Sadly it was closed when I got there but as you can see from the pictures below the front door is right behind Bateman with it’s very recognizable window above it.
Well I hope you enjoyed this look inside the decadent world of Patrick Bateman. I’m off to return some videotapes. – Sean Clark
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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