The classic, ultra violent action film turns 30 years old on July 17th.
With the 30th anniversary of RoboCop fast approaching, THR caught up with actor Kevin Page to talk about one of the film’s most brutal scenes. Page, 26-years-old at the time, played the unlucky character Mr. Kinney, an executive who is gruesomely gunned down by the ED-209 in a scene so graphic that it contributed to the film being slapped with an X-rating.
Reflecting on the filming of the scene, Page offered insight into Paul Verhoeven’s insatiable appetite for the over the top, almost comical bloodshed that helped RoboCop stand out from other action films of the time.
“Two months [after shooting the scene], they bring me back in for three days to shoot just getting blown up on the table some more,” Page recalled. “For three days, all they did was load me up with squibs. They literally rebuilt the whole boardroom set on stage No.1 at Las Colinas Studios [Texas], then reloaded the suit with a whole new round of what was I was told was 200 squibs (possibly a record at the time).”
Alas, even that wasn’t enough for Verhoeven, who demanded MORE.
“The effects guys were at lunch at the commissary at Las Colinas, and they had on the menu spaghetti squash,” Page told the site. “So they got quarter-pound baggies and filled them up with spaghetti squash, brought them back to the set and filled them with stage blood. They slipped that inside my shirt and then put 10 squibs behind that. The result, which looked like poor Mr. Kenney’s guts were coming out, appeared to satisfy Verhoeven.”
The end result? An action film with the gore of a horror film. Gotta love it.