Transcript
Speaker: You are listening to Castles and Cryptids where the castles are haunted and the cryptids are cryptic as fuck.
Speaker: And the hosts are Canadian as fuck, and I'm Elena. I'm Kelsey. Always tries to do something different, never prepares beforehand. Nope. I'm just like, go for it. Yeah. Well, we're doing Hollywood curses this week. Yeah. Just to let you know. That's what we picked. Oh, and yeah, when this comes out, it is...
Speaker: like Kelsey's birthday episode yay just a couple days after yeah it comes out on the 20th yeah it will first yeah yeah happy Capricorn season happy birthday yeah by the time this comes out we'll have recorded just a little
Speaker: mini patreon video so where we're gonna make some cryptid cupcakes that we were just talking about yeah well we'll do some drawings first figure out how artistic any of us are oh and i have my little stickers here remember yeah cute
Speaker: Cartoony, Mothman, and Minnie Loch Ness. They all look like baby ones. Yeah. It's like the Jersey Devil's like a pony. Or like who's that mini horse on that Parks and Rec? Oh. Bye, bye, little Sebastian. Your 10 ,000 candles in the wind. God, that's a really good song. Yeah. It always gets stuck in my head when I watch that one. I love that show.
Speaker: So good. I've been rewatching that one. Perfect. It's a perfect rewatch show. Oh totally. Just a little chubby Chris Pratt for you today. He's so cute. What's his name? Andy. Yeah. Is it Andy? Yeah. Okay. Andy in April. Just so cute.
Speaker: Oh, God. Well, that's keeping with our theme. We actually are talking about Hollywood stuff this week. Yeah. Because, you know, we obviously love movies and TV a little too much. Yeah. That's okay. It's totally allowed. It's encouraged, especially in a pandemic, for your sanity and mental health. Oh, yeah. You've got to escape somehow.
Speaker: One thing I have noticed about the reboot genre that I don't know I was gonna say to you is that every reboot I've noticed lately has had a podcaster character. Oh really? Yes, I feel like they are like we have to have a podcaster so everybody knows that we're modern and woke and we're with the times in the reboot because yeah
Speaker: Sex and the City, they just had their a little reboot miniseries. It's, you know, it's like a mini season. It was called and just like that. Yeah. And of course, Carrie. No big spoiler.
Speaker: is doing podcasting because she was like a column a newspaper columnist before oh yeah so yeah she's gotta do something yeah now it's podcasting yes and then it also comes about in uh ghostbusters the the newest ghostbusters movie that we just watched oh my god i will not ruin it but there is a very funny scene with the
Speaker: One, I could just ruin the fact that they just call him Podcaster, because that's just me. So like, when I say Podcaster character, literally, they just call him Podcaster. So it is really cute. That's why it's, yeah, it's got a really funny scene. And okay, we'll see how to reboot. Sex and the City, Ghostbusters. Oh, Dexter. I told you there's a Podcaster in that one.
Speaker: Oh, okay. I haven't started watching it yet. But now that it's over, I can binge it. I finished it. Yeah. And that's all I'm going to say about that. Moving on. It's done now. I don't think there's going to be any more. Oh, okay.
Speaker: But that's okay. So, okay, I went first last time for topics. Okay, you want me to go first? Maybe we should start switching off again. Yeah, because you were like, you should go first because you haven't gone. And I was like, I sometimes
Speaker: It's like you almost always want to go first. It just seems more fun because then you get your shit out of the way. And I know I've heard other podcasters say that too. Especially on Night Classy because sometimes their thing was that they would do their breathalyzer and whoever blows more drunk, they go first. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. They're tipsy teachers. Yeah, I couldn't do that.
Speaker: Oh, I know it's funny. They'll say, oh yeah, people ask us if we're literally drinking wine because they're like, you don't sound like it. But I think if you're used to speaking in public, that gives you that background. Yeah, it's like you just sound like a normal person. Yeah, you're like, I have this confidence to bullshit in front of a crowd. Yeah. Well, being intoxicated. It's a skill, folks. And through the magic of editing,
Speaker: You can make pretty much anything sound good. You don't know how many takes it took. Oh, but they do put theirs on video now. Yeah, but they can edit that too. That is true. That is true. But some of my favorite parts is when they don't. Yeah. Because then they start arguing with their producers, also one of their host's boyfriends. So it's pretty funny when they devolve into arguments like today when they were arguing over whether oxen
Speaker: or oxes, or cows are not, and what's the difference between oxes and bulls? And it became, they were like, you're wrong. Oh my gosh. That was so fun. I love a good bickering. Okay. Yeah. What is your tale? Well, regale me. So for Hollywood Curses, I actually have a movie that kind of devolves into a possible family curse.
Speaker: And then I also, because mine wasn't quite long enough, I did decide to cover kind of a haunting about something specific in Hollywood.
Speaker: That sounds like a hat trick right there. Yeah, because it's like it's a Hollywood episode. I might as well talk about haunting. I don't know if we do haunted Hollywood ever again. And it's a supernatural episode. Haunting, crime, death. You got the whole trifecta. Yeah. Wow. Okay, I'm buckling up. So for my movie, I decided to stupidly enough cover a movie I've never watched.
Speaker: Are you going to watch it now? I feel like I will, but I don't really love the plot of the movie, but maybe I'll just do it for the kind of big cult following it has. I don't know.
Speaker: Okay. Well, because you never know until you watch a movie. Yeah. So the movie or the Hollywood curse, I guess I should say that I chose was the curse of the movie, The Crow. I have seen this movie. I was high on mushrooms, so it was a lot funnier than it would have been had I not. I feel like it's not funny at all.
Speaker: It's not, but it's well done. Yeah, that's what the everything I saw says. You can just brace yourself with, you know, possibly a strong wine or a hot cup of cocoa, just something to clutch on to. Your cat. Yeah, I was gonna say I'll just hug Bailey throughout.
Speaker: yeah yeah we don't always have to turn to alcohol sorry that's just my go -to so Bailey for yeah Bailey and Bailey's would be my I do that sounds great that's what we're doing next time I come over Bailey and Bailey's
Speaker: Sounds good. So for people, anybody who like myself didn't know, I had seen like stuff about The Crow, I knew it was a movie, I knew it was like a very popular movie. I didn't know like the kind of bunch of stuff surrounding it or the plot of the movie.
Speaker: Um, so anybody else that doesn't know it's a 1994 American superhero film that was directed. Sorry. Okay. And it was directed by Alex Proyas and written by David J. Shao and John Shirley. And it's based on a comic of the same name written by James O 'Barr.
Speaker: and it stars Brandon Lee in his actual the final film he made in appearance and was plagued by multiple strange accidents during the only nine weeks of filming that happened in North Carolina. Yes, I think most people that will have heard of it would know that it's yeah that it had misfortune on the set and tragedy and
Speaker: There's a laugh. I only laugh because they're calling it a superhero phone call. I know. Very incongruous or whatever you want to call it. I know. That when I read the plot it still makes no sense to me. But then when they say it's a comic book, it's a comic book character. Yeah. That's why. I'm like, that's why they're... Yeah, that must be why they're classifying it as superhero because it's more of like a revenge movie. Yes, like a John Wick type of... Yeah.
Speaker: my wife is dead now i have to kill everybody or my daughter's taken my daughter's taken for the fifth time and i have to go neesoning as i heard it the other day oh god oh but yeah it's and then he's got like severe face makeup like
Speaker: Like Sting from WWE. No, not WWE. The other one. The wrestler guy. It's like white and then stark black. It's very like Alice Cooper and Kiss looking. That's true. Alice Cooper. That's a much better description if somebody doesn't know wrestling. Yeah, but they did say in my research actually that Sting did take the Crow character that he had on stage from this movie.
Speaker: Sting did take... What do you mean? Like the makeup and stuff that he wore on stage. With that, he took it from the movie. Oh, okay. Okay, it was his inspiration. Oh, okay. Yeah, that totally tracks. That's cool. I like it. So anybody else that didn't know like me that Brandon Lee, the star of the movie, is the son of Bruce Lee.
Speaker: It is kind of weird. I sometimes sort of forget. Oh yeah! So, Brandon Lee, he stars as Eric Draven, who in the movie is a murdered musician, who is then resurrected so that he can avenge his own death as well as the rape and murder of his fiancé.
Speaker: because of course it's always something horrible to the loved one yeah because it's the origin story of the revenge plot guy just once I want to see a movie where the woman comes back and she's gonna avenge the murder of her husband and he's getting laid on the regular and he's happy and then you're like well what does he have to be pissed about yeah so right off the bat like from the
Speaker: I guess from before day one they had a bunch of weird things start happening. Really? Yeah, this was like kind of crazy. I'm shocked that in nine weeks all of this managed to happen.
Speaker: Some sets just seem cursed, but for this one, I feel like I only ever hear about the major things. So that's interesting. Yeah, there was quite a bit. It kind of just spirals. So the pre -production offices, I don't think they were on set or anything at this location. I think, or at this time, I think it was just in the offices still.
Speaker: So in the pre -production phase, they received an anonymous, like cryptic voicemail message to their offices that stated that if they made the movie, bad things would happen. And sure enough, they did. Well, that's not very helpful. I know. And if it's a threat, it's also not very specific. I know, but I feel like none of these, these things would be very hard to like,
Speaker: Some of these would be very hard to purposely cause. Mm -hmm. So it probably wasn't sabotage then. No. It's so weird. Yeah. It's like, what the hell? Who would have the motive then to call and say that? Yeah, right. It's just, that just adds like, just a weirdness to the whole situation. There's always some weirdo or ex -boyfriend or something. Who knows?
Speaker: So starting with the very first day of shooting is the unfortunately the first tragic accident and one of the one of but not the only like crazy violence I guess or like injury wise that happened to somebody
Speaker: Um, so on the first day of shooting, there was a 26 year old electrician who was working on the set and he was driving like a cherry picker. I tried to know what that was. It's kind of similar to like a scissor lift kind of thing. Like the lift and they go up really high into the air. So he was trying to set up lights in the set.
Speaker: And they were outside, actually, and the machine, I guess, one part of it, the base of it, where the wheels are, kind of fell partway into a ditch. And yeah, so it was tipping, and people around actually rushed over, and somehow, because this thing has to weigh so much, they managed to lift the back of the cherry picker,
Speaker: to level it back off, but accidentally they ended up lifting the bucket that the electrician was standing in, and they forced him right into an electrical pole, and he was electrocuted and caught fire. Oh my god, no. Yeah. I knew it wasn't gonna be good, but they roasted him. So this is day one.
Speaker: I mean like they literally roasted him. I don't mean like that in a colloquial fashion. I will say he did survive. He lived. He was severely burned. Including one source I saw said that he had burn damage to his like internal organs. I don't know how that works. Yeah.
Speaker: That sounds like a 17th degree burn. Yeah. What the fuck. So he was obviously rushed to the hospital. He was treated for second and third degree burns. And then it's also reported. Only? Yeah. Well, this is bad. It's reported on multiple things that apparently his ears had to be removed because they were pretty much nothing left. Yeah. They are just a lot of cartilage, aren't they? Yeah. So they pretty much worked fine.
Speaker: And that was like, but yeah, that's like a final destination movie type freak accident. It's just like the wheels just went boop boop. And then they, like you said, tried to rescue it. So that's only the first thing that happened. Some of these are really short. Okay. So for the kill count, that's not one though. Cause he did live, right?
Speaker: Yeah, so there's only one for the kill count, but there's multiple injury counts. Yeah, that doesn't seem to have the curse sets work a lot of times. You'll get a lot of injuries and stuff. Yeah. Although some movies seems like they have a high kill count. Yeah. Anyway, it's it's terrifying either way.
Speaker: Um, so the next thing that happened, this is short, it was pretty much just a quote I found from one of the actors, John Polito, who played a character called Gideon. Um, his quote just says, the third night when we were shooting, I remember the prop truck caught on fire and nobody knew what that was about, end quote. So just sprinkle in just another random fire on day three.
Speaker: It's only two days after this electro shooting got barbecued. Who didn't start the fire? No. Why? Why so many fires? Yeah. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Okay, two fires. Two fires for the fire count. Well, preparing for a scene, a stunt person fell through the rooftop set and broke multiple ribs when he landed.
Speaker: Yeah, that's not a good injury at all. No, that's a workers comp situation. Yeah.
Speaker: Four is a sculptor working on the film and sources like differed on whether this was a disgruntled sculptor. He was angry about somebody on the set or it was that they lost control of the vehicle but they drove their car through the set and ended up destroying the plaster shop. I think they were using for like the art department probably.
Speaker: He drove it through the set. Yeah. Um, either lost control or did it intentionally. I mean... Yeah. That's some serious revenge if it was intentional. Right? That's intense. Um, number - Yeah, he's having a hassy fit. Oh yeah. Too many hours on set, nobody has fed him. He's angry. Yeah.
Speaker: He needs a Snickers. You guys all know that's when I'm also at my worst. Same. I have like no patience. So number five, there was a member of the art department that ended up getting a screwdriver shoved through their hand somehow. I don't know. Through? Through their hand. I assume like the palm somewhere, which would be awful.
Speaker: I'm just going to mark that one down as screw you. Oh my God. I remember stepping on a big nail though when I was a kid and I don't know if perception, I think perception disordered it because now I've seen like much, it was like on a, on a peer war situation. And like, you know, sometimes you'll see,
Speaker: Um, I guess they're not even nails. They're probably just like really big metal things. And I'd look at it and be like, that could be the thing that I stepped on. It's like, no, that would have like severed your foot in two. My, my like five year old imagination thinks all these crazy things happened to me. Or like, yeah, it just blows things out of proportion. That's how it goes. That's how memory works, essentially.
Speaker: yeah it's like you're fine you don't have tetanus yeah a little tiny you would have known by now if you got oh yeah we all did the rough things and I would cry harder than anyone if something happened to somebody else like my sister my friend you know I remember my friend Randy got cut by a razor clam when we were ticking clams those things are sharp
Speaker: Yeah, but I digress. So next is something that was completely unavoidable. And now for something completely different. A man with three buttocks. Not quite. So this is the fact that there was a hurricane called Hurricane Emily that plowed through the
Speaker: uh sets back lot and then yeah um this is really when like rumors of the curse um really spread to the public and they were like released all the information about all the other injuries that had happened and we're kind of like even during like production of the movie were kind of like yeah like some weird stuff is going on
Speaker: But after the hurricane, unfortunately, and possibly jinxing everything, a member of the production office made a comment or possibly released a statement saying that things happened but it's not like anyone died. Yeah. That's not gonna age well. No.
Speaker: That's not gonna age well the minute it came out of his mouth. Yeah. Like, I don't know when Hurricane Emily hit versus like when this death occurred, but yeah, very poor comment. Poor choice of words. You know, if it feels like you might come off insensitive, it's because you are being insensitive. I'm sure in hindsight they deeply regret that comment. Whoever made it.
Speaker: I don't know it can be hard especially nowadays honestly with the clickbait and the whatever other terms there are for it it's like yeah things taken out of context and sound bites and stuff can be very not only damaging but just just like fodder for the trolls to like yeah get all mad about and I'm like
Speaker: I don't have time for this this isn't good high quality discourse that's gonna help civilization yeah a lot of people are afraid of that kind of discourse today I think they're like you don't think like me so we shouldn't talk yeah I don't know or I don't know I just think maybe we're all painting each other with a black brush yeah it's not all black and white
Speaker: Right? We're all human. We're all capable of bad things. We have to admit that. But anyway.
Speaker: I'm sorry, I'll get off my political soapbox. One of the last things is just in general, the film was almost constantly behind schedule and like over budget and they were also just in North Carolina just plagued with like freezing cold temperatures all the time and that was like one of the reasons I assume along with all these random things that happened that caused them to be behind.
Speaker: oh did it take them like they were filming in the winter too you said north carolina i don't think it was the winter i think it was just really cold when they were filming i mean it is on the coast so i could see that
Speaker: probably high humidity. So once it starts cooling off of it, it feels like extra cold. Cause everything's very wet. Yeah. I get that. I've lived on a coast. Yeah. Um, so that brings us to the last, uh, tragic thing that happened, which occurred on March 31st of 1993 during the last or the eighth last day in shooting. So they were almost done.
Speaker: and Brandon Lee was filming a scene where his character dies and he his character walks into the room and discovers the wife being raped and beaten and then a character by the name of Funboy shoots him and that's what yeah they have some weird character names so sorry um so yeah Funboy is supposed to shoot him and that brings so they were kind of shooting the end of the movie
Speaker: or at the beginning of the movie, kind of towards the end, I guess. Right. Yeah. They don't always shoot the, I mean, they practically never shoot the scenes in sequence as they are in the movie.
Speaker: and so the in the previous scene with the same gun it was filmed using dummy cartridges which i didn't know what any of these things meant so i ended up looking them up right so dummy cartridges uh are ones that have a bullet but the like powder or primer or what causes it to like actually
Speaker: do like the force that shoots the bullet out that's normally removed but because it still has the bullet in it in the cartridge it's better for like close -up shots of loaded guns and films and it makes it more realistic so they don't have to like CGI one in there or like if they showed a close -up shot and you could you couldn't see the bullet in the cartridge you could just see the cartridge you'd be like well there's no bullet in there so yeah I wonder
Speaker: is that the same one do you know that they call shoot like you're shooting blanks uh that should pretend bullet yeah okay i've definitely heard of that um yeah there's kind of like different because yeah like you can remove the primer or they're separate ones where if you need to
Speaker: I guess shooting blanks is probably the opposite. So dummy cartridges, I think the primer is removed and then blanks are, um, they have the, they don't have a bullet in there, but they still have the primer. So it makes like the sound, but there's nothing that's actually being fired. So that's probably the blank because I think the blanks, they want the sound.
Speaker: right more like a where the dummy cartridges is more for like a still shot you won't be like wanting to have a sound at the same time as that shot i expect yeah they probably don't even use these too much anymore especially lately
Speaker: Yeah well it really reminded me of like everything going on with like Alec Baldwin and like the Rust film and it wasn't even until like partway through my research that I was like oh this sounds like like so much so many similarities and this was like 30 years ago. Yeah it shouldn't yeah that's kind of scary because you're like this shouldn't still be happening that we still have to be talking about proper gun safety because
Speaker: It's not the only time it's happened. And like, I remember here, you know, looking for other cases and you hear about times on set where like,
Speaker: There was one where they brought in like a real helicopter, but then three people actually died on set because they didn't have the proper safety procedures. So they're like, now we don't do that anymore. You know what I mean? At least they learned from it because the death toll was high enough. And it's so crappy that we always have to say things like that. They learned from it because enough people died. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, that's what it made me think of too, exactly. Alec Baldwin Rust said where the cinematographer died. I don't even remember the name right now, but it's so sad. Yeah, the thing with that is like, I guess a little different because it was like obvious, or I think he was supposed to be shooting like over her shoulder or something for the shot.
Speaker: and I don't know yeah but then they were saying like he shouldn't have even been shooting the gun or like something like that I don't know it feels like that should be obvious even if we have these trick bullets so to speak it's like yeah we still probably shouldn't point a loaded gun at someone even if it is trick bullets yeah and then maybe just set up the shot and then like leave the camera where it is and go to safety
Speaker: Yes and I'm sorry now I'm starting to giggle more because we just rewatched Pulp Fiction the other night and you know the scene where John Travolta's character just Vincent Vega just accidentally shoots the guy he's talking to in the face in the backseat because they go over like a bump. Oh yeah. And he's like what happened? Oh shit like he's such a shot buddy in the face. Yeah I mean
Speaker: gun safety guys yeah we love you our american listeners but just just be careful everybody yeah um yeah so everything kind of started so the last scene they were using dummy cartridges so just keep in mind there inside the gun was a bullet um so instead of using dummy rounds the film's prop crew had actually created their own
Speaker: Um, by actually taking like regular bullets, they pulled the bullets out of the cartridge and they dumped the powder charge and then reinserted the bullets back into the cartridges to use for this shot. Um, yeah. So that's the scene they had shot before and now enter Brandon Lee, who's about to shoot a scene.
Speaker: that required the gun to fire. So they then inside like where you add bullets to the, or rounds I guess, they loaded the gun with blanks, which contained a charge but no bullet and allowed the gun to fire without having any projectile like being shot. But they didn't realize that the bullet
Speaker: From the last shot, because there was no charge, it had kind of... It was still stuck in the gun. And now they just added a charge behind it. Yeah. Okay. So even though... The first round didn't properly discharge. Because it didn't have primer, and now they just added no bullet, but they added primer. So this primer is gonna fire, and it's gonna cause energy to be expelled out of the thing, and even... And there should be... And there's a bullet like an inch away from it.
Speaker: Literally if it had been a more like old -fashioned gun and it had been back in like the 1700s I know I read a lot of outlet or shut up But like at that time when you had to like physically tamp down primer Yeah as in gunshot and then like with the cloth and then like the whatever the bullet Yeah around it's like you know exactly what is going on in your gun at all times because you're physically doing each step of it
Speaker: and you would never be so careless as to let something like that happen and then have it point at someone it's not supposed to kill. Yeah. So not only had the production crew made their own dummy rounds, which normally they would buy them, but I guess to save money they decided to make their own and there's nothing wrong with that, I guess. It seems like
Speaker: in theory there's nothing wrong with it it was a different mistake really that caused this um the production company then in total error in my opinion um sent the firearm specialist on set home early that day even though they were about to shoot scenes involving the gun
Speaker: Ooh, I just cringed real hard. Yeah, so the responsibility of the guns was then handed over to the prop assistant, who was not aware of all of the rules and regulations involving the guns on the set, as well as the rule for - Oh! Sorry.
Speaker: um so they weren't aware that there was a rule for inspecting all firearms before and after anyone has handled them um i don't know like other than them if that's what that means or what but they're supposed to be inspecting them like basically anytime anybody has touched them or picked it up for any reason it's supposed to be looked at that
Speaker: is reasonable to me. Yeah. Check your weapon. That's what they teach you in the military, I believe. Like, that's your responsibility. And the firearms. And even if it's not yours, yeah. Yeah. Like, someone's gotta be responsible for it. It shouldn't be just, like, passed around so that somebody could be like, oh, well, I don't know. That wasn't part of my job. You know what I mean? Yeah. Ugh. And the firearms specialist would have known that and probably would have, I assumed, like,
Speaker: looked over the gun but this prop assistant not knowing this and that's not really their fault because they're a prop assistant they're not a firearm specialist. Nobody realized that this live round from the previous scene was stuck in the barrel of the .44 caliber handgun and when the blanks were loaded and fired for the scene involving Brandon Lee getting his character getting shot
Speaker: It caused the live cartridge in the barrel to exit at nearly the same speed as a regular bullet. So yeah, he got shot. Yeah. Brandon Lee was struck at close range and the bullet hit the stem of his aorta or the valve of his heart. And he was rushed to the hospital where he died after six hours of surgery at 1 0 4 PM after receiving several blood transfusions.
Speaker: Do you think that's why nowadays you'll see people take a lot of other shots that aren't to vital organs in movies and stuff? Maybe. Cause like right to the aorta you couldn't pick a worse artery. Yeah. It's just like shot to the heart and you're too late. You can for God's sake be a bad name. Yeah. I'm so sorry.
Speaker: It's been a long... It's been a long week, guys. It's been a long January. It's only halfway.
Speaker: It's been 84 years. Mike, I told you before the podcast, but my literal car door wouldn't shut this morning because of ice. It wouldn't just not open. After that it wouldn't shut. And I was like, well, my car door has been broken where I couldn't open it from the outside on the driver's side. So maybe it's just shit the bed. You can't open it from the outside or close it from the inside.
Speaker: Pat said he got it shut today during the day. Thank God. He was still doing it when he walked the dog because I was like, if I have to tie this fucking door shut, that's it for poor Sylvia, as we call my little silver Ford Focus. My mom named her. Very cute.
Speaker: I digress, I'm so sorry. So yeah, since all of, basically all of Brandon's scenes had pretty much been shot already. So the film was obviously completed for an additional budget of $8 million they added.
Speaker: They used script rewrites, his stunt double, which they ended up CGI -ing Brandon's face onto, and they also used some other digital effects in the movie.
Speaker: and a character called Skull Cowboy that's included in the comics and kind of plays like a fairly important role was actually ended up being written out of the movie as most of his scenes involved Brandon's character because he was kind of like a mentor to him and basically none of these scenes had been shot yet so they just decided to rewrite his character like out of the movie. That makes sense I was gonna say I didn't remember Skull
Speaker: But then again, I didn't remember fun boy either. Yeah, they don't say their names. I don't think a lot. Okay. I'm like they sound one of those movies very much like comic book character names.
Speaker: right but and it's just like a movie like john wick or another like we're finch movie where you're like it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what your name is you're just getting your ass kicked yeah you're man number one and sometimes you might get your ass kicked by the rock so the film the crow was released in 2000 or 2000 1994
Speaker: You know, I was gonna say it's early for them to have all that CGI technology too. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. 1994, wow. So, yeah, the movie was released in 1994 and was dedicated to Brandon Lee and his fiance, Eliza Hutton. Aww. Yeah. Upon release, the film did receive kind of mixed reviews initially.
Speaker: I mean, it's a comic book movie. People always seem to kind of crap on those. Yeah, it's not going to be for everybody and it is rough to watch and stuff. So yeah, it's action movie with a side of sad. Yeah. However, like a cult following kind of later was achieved and it left it with overall positive reviews for the tone, visual effects,
Speaker: and cinematography, as well as people noting that the movie most likely would have been Brandon's, like, breakout performance, and even critics say that this movie, his performance, was better than anything his father, Bruce Lee, had ever released. Ooh! That's a burn?
Speaker: Right? What do you call that? That's a backhanded compliment to his dad's son? What? Okay, he's a good actor, but like, so is Bruce Lee. Yeah, I don't know if I've ever really seen anything with either of them in it, so... Well, and he was big and like,
Speaker: Japan right? Oh my god. I'll have to ask my brother. He's a real big fan. He Watched like all of Bruce Lee's movies seem to have the dragon theme like enter the dragon and return of the dragon and oh my gosh He would know better than I do. But yeah, he was like just that iconic kind of martial arts actor that broke through from I
Speaker: Asia to the west and like now you get like Jackie Chan and shit. Yeah. Oh Totally during the beginning of like covid and stuff I did go through on Netflix and watch all the like if man movies that they had and he's the one that Wasn't he like the instructor for Bruce Lee? And he was like what man movies what people call them the IP man movies, but it's it man. I
Speaker: they're like suit they're like three hour long there's like four of them they're martial arts movies it's about the guy that like trained Bruce Lee oh cool no I have heard of those yeah they're all like based on basically on like true stories and stuff they're really cool that'd be cool yeah I do like a good like kind of documentary they're really well done just they like aren't in only what the fourth one out of
Speaker: them is you can watch with like english dubbing
Speaker: Oh yes. Yeah, but they're good. They're really good maybes Anyway, so Yeah, they thought this would have been Brandon's breakout performance The film did end up grossing I guess in the box office about 94 million dollars like overall and they did have the budget of 23 million dollars, which I assume included the 8 million dollars extra and
Speaker: and the success of the film did lead to three sequels as well as a television series however none of these ever included any of the returning cast from the original movie and most people agree that they failed to match the first film in like reviews or like plot or anything really it doesn't really have a cult following
Speaker: Which is something that John Wick has managed to do is have a successful sequel. And now we're getting a fourth one. I'm so excited. Right? Yeah. Like they've they've definitely broken out of that. It's Keanu Reeves. I love him. I've loved him since I was a kid. I recorded a late night talk show that I still have to watch because it had Keanu Reeves as a guest and also
Speaker: Katrina Bao from Outlander. So it's gonna be a jam -packed episode. Sounds great. Oh, Keanu. It's cuz he's got some Canadian in him. Yeah. He's just saying that. And Canadian of Noaian? No wonder he's so fucking laid back and cool. Yeah. Um, so people claim, er...
Speaker: Yeah, sorry. There's like weird things about the movie that people claim. I don't really like this kind of stuff, but people claim that the scene in the movie where Brandon Lee's character Eric is shot is somehow actually the take where Brandon got shot in real life. I don't know why people kind of spread this myth online.
Speaker: This is like false and everyone involved in the film is pretty offended by it. They don't like it and they say that they made sure that that footage that was taken during that take was never leaked. They took to great lengths to make sure nobody else ever saw it. I guess other than assumed needed to see it. I see. So yeah, I could see why they would be upset.
Speaker: Yeah, people still claim that the shot in the movie is the one where Brandon actually gets shot in the heart. And that is false. OK. Yeah, it's fine if it's some other kind of thing, like an action sequence. Yeah. Someone's getting punched. But like, yeah, that would be different. I can see why they'd be like, no, we wouldn't do that. But some people would.
Speaker: That'd be pretty like uncaring, I think, to do. Like disrespectful. Oh, I know. No, totally. I mean, I probably get canceled, but like the WWE and the Vince, I keep wanting to say Vince Vaughn. That's not correct. Vince McMahon, you know, he's the owner, whatever. Oh my God.
Speaker: It's when a wrestler died. He was being lowered down to the stage in a stunt. One of the Hart brothers from Calgary. I think I heard about that. Owen Hart? I don't know. I'm an idiot. But they let he died. Something happened with the thing and it fucking like dropped him or whatever. And like basically like that happened in front of the crowd, but they still
Speaker: like let the rest of the performance go on and like didn't stop the filming and stuff and I'm not lying this happened it's a fact so like I don't know why I'm like oh they're gonna cancel me cuz like yeah you're like that is that is very very fucking sensitive and yeah egregious as some of the commentators like to say yeah it's gross yeah yeah
Speaker: Um, so obviously just like, um, I am sure Alec Baldwin is feeling, um, but the gentleman who was playing fun boy, the one that pulled the trigger for this scene, um, his name is Michael, I think Massey.
Speaker: He wasn't charged or anything, no criminal charges were filed. However, Massey still carried the guilt over Brandon's death until he himself died in 2016.
Speaker: In 2005 he told the Telegraph quote, and this quote I guess doesn't really make sense to me, the back half of it. It says, it absolutely wasn't supposed to happen. I wasn't even supposed to be handling the gun until we started shooting the scene and the director changed it. So I don't really remember, understand what it means by the director changed it.
Speaker: director changed yeah the scene oh I don't know I wasn't supposed to be handling the gun until until we started shooting the scene and the director changed it well the director does
Speaker: direct things on set. Yeah. No, but like I can see that they can overrule, you know, something where it's like, Oh yeah, we tried it. We discussed it this way before in the table read or in the rehearsal, but now we decided to go a different direction. Yeah. Uh, so you wouldn't question them really. No, I mean, they're the ones that are literally like, you're there to listen to them. They're the director.
Speaker: Unless you're Bruce Willis or someone, and you're like, fuck off, who else are you gonna get to play John McClain? Or if you're John McClain. That's what he says when he doesn't get his leeway. Oh geez. Yeah. That sucks. I like Bruce Willis. What was that? Yeah, so did I. And then I read Kevin Smith's book where he was like, I'm at my hero and I was disappointed because he had to direct him and cop out.
Speaker: and he was apparently way whinier than Tracy Morgan was and Tracy Morgan was dealing with severe complications from his diabetes and like his foot and stuff yeah it's disappointing to say the least but oh that sucks
Speaker: Yeah, he was like, you know what, I kind of maybe idolized him and he's like, in the end, he's a movie star. He's a person. Like he's not an asshole. He's just a person. And I was like, yeah. And my friends are famous and they're used to like snapping their fingers and getting what they want all day long. Yeah. When they deal with normal people problems, things tend to get stupid. Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah. He's a little out of touch maybe. Yeah. Um, so, uh, just carrying on Massey ended up taking several years off of acting. Um, like following the incident. So we took a break. He wasn't in any more movies for several years. Um, I don't have any more about him, but, and I did find in, I got rid of some of the like Crow references in pop culture.
Speaker: because I just, none of them really meant much to me. But the one I thought was kind of funny was that apparently Dwight Schrute in The Office says that his all -time favorite movie is The Crow.
Speaker: I mean, I'm not really surprised. He said, apparently says this in season two episode four entitled The Fire, which I thought maybe was the one where he intentionally sets the wastebasket on fire and is trying to get everybody to evacuate. It's not. The plot of it was kind of boring when I read the synopsis, but it's not that one. It's not the one where he's like,
Speaker: but heating up like the door handles being like now they're gonna know about fire safety and they're gonna follow my procedures it wasn't that one oh okay yeah that whole that whole shit happens in the cold open before the start of the show yeah that's a crazy one yeah as far as I could tell it wasn't this episode yeah so carrying through because then with everything that happened with Brandon
Speaker: And the film, there's people that say that the Lee family in general is cursed. So I have a tiny bit about that. I hadn't heard about that part. Yeah. So apparently it's like mentioned in the documentary about Bruce Lee that was released around the time Brandon was killed.
Speaker: Um, so people believe that the Lee family are cursed and that the curse that killed Brandon is linked to his father, Bruce Lee. I didn't know how he died either. Oh shit. I feel like I should, but I don't. It's weird.
Speaker: So and this just adds the whole thing to this being just a weirdness going on. Bruce Lee died in 1973 at the age of 32. Brandon died at 26.
Speaker: Ugh! Yeah. God, so young! Yeah, both of them. I forgot. Um, so Bruce Lee died while making a film called The Game of Death, and the plot of The Game of Death is Bruce Lee plays a character, um, who, the character in the movie is an actor who is shot after gangsters replace a fake bullet with a live one.
Speaker: Oh my god. It's not not just like the creepiest thing ever. Yeah. And it was like 20 years before his son, like 20 years to the year. From his son. Yeah, I do think that's too fucking creepy. Yeah. To discount. I don't like it when art imitates life like that or whatever. Life imitates art. It's like, how the fuck?
Speaker: so or like did you manifest that in a way oh it's weird um bruce he died kind of strangely people have like weird theories um so his official cause of death is that he died in his sleep after experiencing swelling of the brain that was caused by an allergic reaction to headache medication he took that's his cause of death wait
Speaker: but he yeah Bruce Lee he took headache medication and had an allergic reaction which caused swelling in his brain and he died in his sleep yeah okay even though his on -screen death was the
Speaker: Yeah, that was in the movie. So he died like during the filming of the movie, but he died like during his sleep. Like, I guess while the film was being shot, but he was in the off time. Yeah. The parallels between that and his son's death are just too weird. Yeah. Um, so in the 1993 Bruce Lee biopic entitled Dragon, the Bruce Lee story,
Speaker: Yes, have heard of it. This documentary says that the Lee curse is said to plague the first born male in the Lee family and that they're bound to die at the hands of a demon.
Speaker: Well that sucks. Yeah. What the hell are they supposed to do with that knowledge? Right. There's no like, here's how you get out of it. No. Um, so both Bruce and Brandon's deaths were also linked to Bruce's older brother, who was the first born male.
Speaker: um at least between him and Bruce um so he was the first born male child in that generation of the family but he actually died during childbirth so people believe that he was the first born for basically like a minute and then it was Bruce so yeah Bruce's older brother was killed by the curse and then Bruce was killed by the curse and then Brandon was killed by the curse
Speaker: The older brother didn't survive the child brother. Okay. Okay. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That is, that is bizarre. That's a little gnarly. Yeah. So that's what I have about the Crow and the Lee family. Um, woof. Yeah. But I do have a little bit about a separate, and this one I said is a haunting. It's not really a curse. Um, but I thought it was a fitting episode to mention it.
Speaker: I'm intrigued. I was actually looking up little like thumbnails for the episode and I was like oh we're talking about Hollywood so I was like I should do picture of the Hollywood sign and then I was like I wonder if the Hollywood sign is haunted. We're cursed.
Speaker: And I found out the Hollywood sign is haunted. I think I have heard that, but I like it. It's creepy enough being gigantic. So the Hollywood sign was originally a sign that read Hollywood Land.
Speaker: And yeah, it was built sometime in 1923. Nobody like knows exactly when, but it was originally an advertisement for the nearby Hollywoodland real estate development. Exciting.
Speaker: and Hollywoodland come on down so yeah it was a real estate development like a neighborhood and the sign cost developer Harry Chandler $21 ,000 in 1923 so that would have been like quite a bit of money
Speaker: Yeah, no doubt. And it was intended to be temporary and then be taken down about a year and a half later. But after even just a few months, like up on the hill, it became kind of an essential part of LA and Hollywood. And in 1949, the land part from the Hollywood land sign was removed so that it just read Hollywood.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. It's not land anymore. No. So the sign has been a constant on the hillside ever since, except for a brief three month period in 1978 when it was being rebuilt. And in 1973, it was officially deemed a historic cultural monument. And that was according to the Los Angeles magazine.
Speaker: Okay. Um, so getting to the haunting of it, uh, uh, Peg and Twistle was a film star in the mid 1920s and 30s who actually leapt 45 feet to her death from the Hollywood sign in 1932 at just the age of 24. Oh my God. Yeah. It said that she's haunted the sign ever since.
Speaker: Entwistle was a moderately successful New York Broadway actress, starting in the mid -1920s, and she moved to LA hoping to make it as a movie star, but she was struggling to stand out. And her first big role was in David O. Selznick's 13 Women, but her role was later cut from the final film, like completely. Aww, that's a bummer.
Speaker: So on September 16th 1932 she was upset about her career as well as having trouble in her marriage and she was intoxicated and Entwistle decided to hike from her uncle's house up to the Hollywoodland sign because at this time it read Hollywoodland and she climbed up the like maintenance ladder to the top of the H and she jumped off.
Speaker: That's rough. Mm -hmm. Hollywood ate her alive. Yeah. The next day, a hiker found her body along with a single shoe, a jacket, purse, and a suicide note that read, I am afraid I am a coward. I'm sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain, P .E. Which is heartbreaking, and I don't want anybody to ever think like that.
Speaker: No, it's unfortunate that she wasn't able to seek the help that she needed. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That's really sad. Um, so ghost stories first started in the 1940s. Um, so almost 10 years later when the H from the Hollywood sign fell over and yeah. And that's when she jumped from.
Speaker: Yeah. And in the 1990s, I couldn't find anything between the 1940s and the 1990s. It had a dry spell. Yeah, it had a 50 year dry spell. In the 1990s, a couple witnessed the ghost of a woman wearing 1930s clothing, and she appeared and then vanished in front of them. And the couple at that time was unaware of Entwistle suicide or anything.
Speaker: Okay. And according to Griffith Park Rangers, I don't know if that's like the hill it's on, her ghost is often witnessed on foggy nights and is usually accompanied by the smell of gardenias, which was the scent of Entwistle's favorite perfume. And they note that there's no gardenias that grow near the sign. So it would be unusual to smell it.
Speaker: right yeah you know it's her yeah um and then just in popular culture the haunting of the hollywood sign kind of is not like outwardly mentioned in a lot of stuff but kind of has like subtle messages
Speaker: a few things. So in pop culture there's a book in the one article I was reading that apparently had a, it was written by the author that said that they had a book called Hollywood Witch Hunter coming out. I don't know.
Speaker: Um, and they wrote a book about witch hunters and a book about the Hollywood sign. I don't know. Um, and the Hollywood sign is also mentioned in Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the lightning thief in which the letter H in the Hollywood sign is used as the gate to Hades. Nice.
Speaker: I've heard of that one. Wasn't that a movie? Yeah, they did a movie adaptation a couple years ago. In the 1998 movie, City of Angels, there was angels standing over the sign. City of Angels. The best thing to come out of that was that Googoo Dolls song.
Speaker: Isn't that the one with the don't want the world to see me? Because I have no idea. I have no idea. What? What? I was only three when that movie came out. Leave me alone. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm like, I don't know. I've never even heard of this movie. I remember the music video and they kept showing clips of Meg Ryan. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was that.
Speaker: It's a good song. I love the song. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, so the last Just part I have here just says that now the Hollywood sign is fenced off just to keep people from touching it or trying to like damage or
Speaker: do anything to it. I did find some pictures, I don't know if it's fake or not, but I did see a sign that said Hollyboob, so I think people have vandalized it by putting a B there. So it says Hollyboob, so maybe that's why they fenced it off.
Speaker: Well, if they'll spell a boob on a calculator or boobless. Yeah, it's always boobless. Yeah. There was always a little story to go with it so that you can remember how to get there too.
Speaker: and she had three boobs and it was too too too many so she went to the doctor and they took off one less oh yes something like that forgot about that yeah oh yeah what was I listening today and they're talking about how you know it's weird how some of the games we used to play are kind of gross I mean everybody knows like
Speaker: ring around the rosy is kind of like, ooh, it's about the plague and it's kind of gross and we all fall down. Well, we die. But then somebody else was like, isn't it weird how like, you know, we had to learn that hangman game and it's like, guess the letters before this guy gets lynched in the background. Yeah, that's not great. The things Yeah, we reconsider everything nowadays. But
Speaker: we learn from everything doesn't mean we have to erase it yeah as long as you learned from something then yeah because if you erase it i don't know if you erase it you're still keep learning you're doomed to repeat it if you forget things you're doomed to repeat it yeah that's a good way to put it that's that's what i think too i think that's the danger there i don't know yeah anyway we're waxing philosophical i think
Speaker: that we should do the next half next week.
Speaker: because yours was really good and I really enjoyed it and it was enough on its own and mine is really ended up being quite a like not a lot but I'll tell you you know what I'm doing if it's doing the the there's a Hollywood curse that's kind of like around the centerfolds of the Playboy magazines oh yeah there's a lot of them
Speaker: Yes. Yeah. So it's sometimes referred to as the curse, the center folds or like the playmakers, you know, so that I ended up with quite a list. So I don't know. I think we might have to actually will split it up to do it justice. But you guys can get part two next week. Next week would be the rest of Hollywood curses. And then we would have unsolved disappearances. Yeah. After that.
Speaker: And then as we already spoiled for you guys after that, it's crimes of passion and time for Valentine's Day. Yeah. Yeah. No, it'll be good. All right. Join us next week. Thank you. Bye.
Speaker: This has been Castles Encrypteds. You can listen to our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Anchor, Breaker, Pocket Cast, and our YouTube channel. Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit. On our website, you can listen to all of our episodes as well as view pictures for each of our segments.
Speaker: Check out our Patreon page to view all of our tiers and become a Patreon supporter today to unlock monthly bonus episodes and behind the scenes content. We are working on an Ask Us Anything. You can submit questions by social media or by email at castlesandcryptids at gmail .com.
Speaker: Do you have a spooky ghost story, a creepy cryptid sighting, or a thrilling true crime tale you would like to share and have us include in a future episode? Send us your listener story by social media or by email. Please include the name that you would like mentioned. Our music is by Cobia Fair. Our logo and artwork is by Antonio Garcia. Thanks for listening!
