Cursed Films

- I think the one film that really hit me hard,

that came out of those formative years

of me being a cinephile was The Crow.

I was in high school.

I was a big fan of the James O'Barr comic book.

I remember travelling to New York to meet the man

and have my graphic novel signed.

- I first came across the comic, The Crow,

when it was...

a very small printing of its first edition

and immediately was engrossed in the story

of this first issue.

- Its plot is about a guy who is killed too soon,

and he comes back and he exacts vengeance.

- It's just about a guy who was in love with a woman

and, you know, she gets killed

and you come back from the dead

and, you know, you avenge her death.

And as a high schooler, that uh...

it was just angsty enough to connect with me.

- The Crow is kind of a hand of God

that allows that person,

who's been taken to heaven, to return

to put something horrible right.

Within that lies a beautiful

underlying story of love and...

the conviction that if a... loved one is harmed,

there is an opportunity to extract justice

for those who have lost people dear to them

through tragic circumstances.

So that began my odyssey to option material,

develop it and turn it into a feature film.

We started filming

on February 1st, 1993

in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Everyone was invested a thousand percent

in trying to make, you know, a film

that would stand shoulder to shoulder

with any studio release

on a fraction of the budget.

- I think there's plenty of material

if you wanna find a curse

in the making of the movie "The Crow".

When they set up pre-production offices,

they had a voicemail message that said,

don't make this movie, bad things will happen.

- On the very first day of principal photography,

two of our electricians had a very un...

a... a terrible accident. - Everything's ready to go.

Remember, they only shot at night.

So night had fallen.

They were driving their...

uh, pickup truck with a cherry picker.

- He backed his cherry picker up into a live wire.

He caught on fire.

- He had ended up hitting the high-tension wire,

a high electric wire that, uh,

would, uh, carry the voltage

to run all the lights and the backlot set.

He was rushed to the hospital.

He had second and third degree burns all over his body.

He didn't die. He lost his ears.

But it was a terrible tragedy

and then they had to start shooting.

- We went through the storm of the century.

Reporter: The hurricane is now at its peak

with winds reaching speeds

of more than 115 miles an hour.

That was a terrible hurricane

that destroyed our backlot set.

Word had gotten back to people in Hollywood and...

there was an article from Entertainment Weekly

that called what was going on in our location

"the curse of The Crow."

One of the staff in the production office

decided to make an ill-timed comment

that things have happened, but...

she said, it's not like anyone has died.

- When I had learned that they were making "The Crow",

I followed that like crazy.

You know, I read Fangoria, I read Entertainment Weekly.

I was following everything that was going on with Brandon Lee.

- What we needed for the role was...

someone who was a true athlete

and a great actor.

We'd got an opportunity to see "Rapid Fire".

We were absolutely sold.

The only person we made an offer to was Brandon Lee.

- Brandon Lee was trying to make a name for himself,

was trying to kind of come out from the shadow of his father,

and was making films which,

in the realm of action films, weren't so bad.

"Rapid Fire", "Showdown in Little Tokyo".

He, like his father,

had so much potential.

You were seeing his star rise,

and then...

he got robbed,

just like his father did.

I'm Lance Anderson and I worked on "The Crow"

as a Special Make-Up Effects Artist.

My job was to take care of Brandon,

to do all of his make-up throughout the film.

This is the original script

that I've kept.

It has a lot of my original continuity shots.

This is establishing make-up.

As it progresses, the make-up starts to get...

more worn.

This is when he falls out the window.

- It's kind of strange looking at those photos.

Yeah.

- We hired the immensely talented actor Michael Berryman

to play the role of the skull cowboy,

which was a...

character that appears intermittently

in James O'Barr's comic, "The Crow".

- Well, I got a call from my agent

and went to a meeting,

and the next thing I knew I was flying to um...

North Carolina, to Wilmington.

I spent hours and hours and hours

getting a full body cast and head cast.

- We made this suit for Michael Berryman

and it had a complete bodysuit sculpture

for the whole ribs and the whole thing.

He basically wore a giant suit

and articulated fingers.

It was very difficult to wear.

And then on my head, I had a mandible jaw

that was acrylic

and it was bolted front to back

with a top piece that had...

these little servo transmitters.

And these little paddles would move the flesh

underneath the latex.

- It was pretty extensive make-up.

- I've been asked where did the skull cowboy originate from,

and it obviously came out of the...

creativity of James O'Barr.

James wrote because...

it was part of his therapy.

His fiancée was killed by a drunk driver.

And in order to remain here on this earth,

in this physical plane,

he had to come to grips with it,

and so he wrote.

Sometimes, in life,

you can take from what you have experienced

and bring a piece of that into the character

that you're developing

and it can help you heal.

It can help you...

have a cathartic experience

and it enhances the performance.

- There had been lots of press material

touching on the cursed nature of the film.

That perhaps it was a continuation

of the curse of Bruce Lee,

who died under mysterious circumstances

while shooting a film.

- Pretty much everyone's discovered Bruce Lee

after he passed away.

Then you start doing research on who he was...

Whaaaaaaa!

- ...and then, as you look into how he passed away,

that's when the theories start.

There's theories that there was a hit on him

from the Chinese Mafia

for betraying martial arts' secrets.

One of the interesting fantasy theories

is that Bruce Lee was struck

by a death blow.

And a death blow is a specific type of strike...

Ahhh!

Agh! Oh!

- ...which its impact doesn't take effect

until days, weeks, months,

years later.

There's one theory that Bruce Lee's passing

was part of the Lee family curse.

Bruce Lee's parents

lost their first male son.

This was attributed to a belief

that there was a curse or a demon

after the males in the Lee family.

- You had an older brother, you see.

He died in childbirth.

The demon took him away from us.

The first-born man child is very valuable.

- He was sometimes dressed in girl's clothing,

sometimes referred to by a female name,

again, in order to deflect

and break the curse on the males of the family.

We dressed you in dresses

so the demon wouldn't know I had another son.

But now he knows!

And he's coming for you.

- In "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story,"

Bruce Lee is portrayed as being haunted by a demon,