 Hello, and welcome to Release Date Rewind. My name is Marc J. Parker, and I am a film lover, filmmaker, film celebrator. And normally, this is an audio podcast, wherever you get your podcasts on your favorite apps. But thanks to Portland Media Center, you are about to watch the video component of this show where I celebrate movie anniversaries with my friends. Each month, I usually talk about two different movies that I love with different friends, and we talk about the making of the movies, trivia, any fun memories associated with them. So I hope you enjoy, because now it's time to rewind. He's a movie fanatic, horror movie, thriller movie fanatic like me. He's an author, and he loves podcasts because he's on this one. Thank you very much. Please welcome Patrick Maroney. Hello, my new friend. How are you? Hi, Marc. How are you? I'm so happy to have you here. I have your book. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I have the digital version of it. And one of these days, finally, one weekend, I am going to just sit down and read. It all began with a scream. Yes, so listeners know that I'm a big scream head. You and I have chatted many times about scream, about lots of movies. So I mean, it's a franchise very near and dear to my heart, and obviously it's near and dear to your heart. Can you tell us, Patrick, like, tell us about the book. I want to know all about it. I want to know lots of interviews. How long did it take you? I know you're writing something new now, so we'll get into that. But tell us about it all began with a scream, please. Yeah, so I have to say, it was crazy because I decided to write it. I had gotten the idea in October 2019 because I knew the 25th anniversary was coming up. But I kind of, like, shelved it, you know, because life was going on. And then the pandemic happened, and we all had so much time on our hands. I was like, I was that weird person during the pandemic, like I trained for a marathon. I took up drumming, and I decided to write a book. I was like, I was like, sure, why not? So I'm an overachiever to a fault. But yeah, so I, during the pandemic in the spring, I started sending out the proposal, the first publisher that I sent it to was like, let's do this. So it all came together really, really fast. That was June 2020, and the book was released in August 2021. So like, yeah, like eight months from the time I started doing interviews to the time I turned it in, which I thought, I thought every book would be that way. I'm finding that's not the case with my new one. Really? Because yeah, you're working on a new book. Is same publisher, or it sounds like a different publisher? Same publisher. It's about the final destination movies. I cannot wait. I cannot wait to get that one as well, because that's another franchise I love. Oh my gosh, how's that going? You're writing it currently, yeah? I have 81 words written. So I would say I'm pre-writing. I'm in the middle of interviews. I've interviewed about 40 cast and crew members. That's taking longer more on me, because the world is open back up. And so when I was contacting everyone for the screen book, we were all at home just hanging out. So people were like, yeah, I have a half hour to talk with you. But now it's like trying to coordinate schedules, and everyone's all over the place. Everyone's working. I'm working. But it's going well. It's going really well. But fun fact, connecting the two, Guy Busek, who's written the last two screen movies, is writing the new final destination also. Wow. Now remind me, is final destination, that's not Paramount. Is that New Line? New Line, yep. Yep, OK. Oh, cool. So he's jumping over to that's awesome. What a career. That's amazing. And in the screen book, actually, I go behind the scenes of three and four, which are kind of the controversial ones for a lot of people for different reasons. And the fourth movie, there were lawsuits about it. There were script issues. The third one, Kevin Left, they went with Aaron Krueger. And I love the title. It all began with a scream, which is obviously from Gail's closing line of the first movie, which that ending. I mean, I don't know if you've seen my films, Patrick, but one of my shorts called Twin, I have a female reporter who is this Gail Jr. at the end giving her news report. And I'm like, this is the end of Scream. I'm kind of doing it again with this little fun ghost story. And then I made a 25th anniversary Scream fan film called 25 Years After Woodsboro, which is my most popular film yet. So thank you, everybody. I mean, Scream fans, as you know, they are addicted. Wow. Like I was always a fan, and I had friends that were fans. I did not know how hardcore the Scream fans were until the book came out. Where can people buy it all began with the Scream? Where can people buy your book? It's available anywhere you buy books online. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target. The LA library has it for anyone that's in LA. That's great. Yeah, my publisher is Bear Manor Media. You can go to their website directly, but it's anywhere that you buy books. Independent bookstores, if you prefer to shop there, they can order it. Bear Manor Media is a smaller, independent publishing company, so support small businesses. Absolutely. Yeah, I bought it directly from Bear Manor. That's how I got my iPad version. So there you go. Shout out to them. Enough of the present, enough of all this cool new stuff we're doing. We're going to rewind, everybody. Patrick, we're going back to 1993, April 2nd, 1993, before Scream was maybe an idea in Kevin Williamson's head, but he didn't write it just yet, right? But April 2nd, 1993, The Crush, starring a brand new, fresh-faced, freaky girl, Alicia Silverstone. That is when the movie came out. So first up, Patrick, I'm just going to set the scene. I'm going to talk about what was going on in pop culture. And then I'm going to throw it over to you. We'll talk about the stars, and then we'll nerd out over some favorite memorable scenes in this movie. I have to say, rewatching it, I love it. It's so wild. It takes me on such a ride. Oh my god, I love it. Rewatching it for you, do you love it? How do you feel about it now in 2023? The funny thing is, rewatching it, I'm like, there are so many movies. It feels like a bridge between the 80s fatal attraction movies and then the Swing fan movies that we got when we were in high school and stuff. Absolutely. This was the little middle of the bow tie as they go out. So I feel it. I was surprised. I don't remember being R-rated. I thought it was PG-13 when I saw it before. I guess, yeah, you bring up a good point. There are some F-bombs, but I mean, it's really not that R-rated, but I think just the nature of the story and how we see some body parts, just butts. We see his butt, but more importantly, which is great, but we see her butt, which really isn't her butt, of course, because she was truly underage. It was a body double. I think just maybe the nature of this whole story, it's gotta be rated R, especially back then. Nick Elliott was looking for a nice, quiet place to write. He thought he found it with the Forrester family. Then he met Darian. This was what was going on in April, 1993, 30 years ago. On the news side, the movie Unforgiven, a movie I still have never seen, had just won the best picture Oscar just a few days before this came out. The Oscars were in late March. On the music side, I had to look this song up because I'm like, what? But it was number one for a while, like over a month in former's song, Snow. Does that ring a bell? Do you know that one? I remember that from fifth grade. Yes. Yes, and it's funny because I'm like, I'm like, what is that? I play it. I'm like, oh yeah, that song. I knew it immediately. I didn't know what it was called. I didn't know who sang it. So that just is so perfectly like how you said, this is a time when it's like the 80s were ending, the 90s were starting, and it was sort of a weird gray area where like songs like that were popular. And also I wanna quickly say, Patrick, I love that you brought up Swimfan because I've talked about that a few months ago for its 20th anniversary on this show. And I gotta just say, I love how Swimfan totally copied this movie where when our lead characters meet, the guy is driving the car and almost hits the girl coming right out in front of him. I'm like, whoa, Swimfan totally copied this. There just weren't really cool rollerblades involved in Swimfan. I love Alicia's rollerblades. There should have been. There should have been, right? That would have made it better. But so that was what was happening on the music side. On the TV side, I thought this was fun. Beavis and Butthead had just premiered the month prior. So that was a brand new show. Whereas Doogie Hauser with good old Neil Patrick Harris, that had just come to an end about a week or two before this movie came out. So that's kind of what was hot on TV. And then other movies, popular movies at this time. I thought this was fun. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3. Point of No Return with Bridget Fonda. She had just done Single White Female, which I've talked about. That was last the year before, but now she had Point of No Return. That was a big deal. Fire in the Sky, a really, I remember a really creepy alien movie. Do you remember that one? I remember everyone was so freaked out about that movie. And then a year, a couple of years later, I rented it on video. And I was like, wait, what was everyone scared about? Like, I was like, I don't get it. I think it was really just the abduction scene, right? I think from what I remember, that's the most memorable scene for me is like, he's like naked and they're like touching him and poking him. I feel like that's probably what everyone remembers, you know? Don't we all? Yeah, right? Some of us would enjoy that, I guess. But so those were probably movies. So was a movie I haven't seen, but it was with Chris Rock, a young Chris Rock CB4. That was a big deal at this time at the number one spot. So all those things were happening, but in comes Alicia on those rollerblades and now we have The Crush. So Patrick, in your own words, for anyone out there that wants to take a risk and didn't wanna re-watch the movie or watch it for the first time and they're just listening to us, in your own words, tell me what is The Crush about? The Crush is about a supposed journalist because let's be honest, who is trying to find an apartment and gets a guest house in a wealthy family's estate and they're, I'm gonna say, oversexed virginal teenage daughter. Yeah, that's pretty good. Takes a liking to him and doesn't quite understand the boundaries that are being broken and will, to paraphrase what Paydall Attraction said, she will not be ignored. Oh, brilliant, absolutely. She will not be ignored. This girl, she might be even scarier than Glenn Close at times. I mean, she is not taking no for an answer, which is funny, because then later on, when she lies and beats herself up, very Jill from Scream 4, I have to say, when she's all bruised and battered and she said, he just wouldn't take no for an answer. I'm like, oh my God, that's you. You're talking about yourself. I was yelling at the screen. Yeah, brilliant, that's a great description. And you know, it's funny because rewatching it, like we said, he meets her for the first time. She's kind of giving him this sassy, through the sunglasses, very iconic, excuse me, she's not smitten with him from the get-go. It's not love at first sight. But I kind of feel like she just suddenly likes him. Like there's, we then see her with her friend Cheyenne, shout out Amber Benson from Buffy, love Buffy. She's just sort of writing about him in her journal, right? Like there's no kind of like a scene where he does something nice for her or whatever. It's just she goes from like excuse me to like, oh my God, I love him. You need to go find out everything about him. Which I guess just shows how immature, how young she is, you know? Well, I would be interested to know if there's a longer director's cut of this movie because things just happen and there's no development with like 90% of the character. Even the relationship between Nick and Amy, Jennifer Rubin and Kerry Elwes, that's a very awkward, clunky development of how they go from just being friends and coworkers to, you know? And so I, it feels almost like they were like, we need this to be 90 minutes. So cut things, that's how it felt to me. There was a, it felt like there was a lot of development that maybe got, like what does her dad do that he can import a carousel to their attic? Yeah, I love how the mom tells Kerry, tells Nick, well, my husband just lives at the airport. I'm like, okay, but we never really find out what he does. And she's a lawyer, we know the mom's a lawyer. She's always in the courtroom and my husband's always in the airport. But yeah, how he gets this creepy ass carousel. And I remember that so well, so vividly. It's funny because I was just waiting for Amber Benson to be tied up and duct tape on the carousel. It's just so perfectly 90s, I love it. But yeah, what does he say? He says like, I had it flown in from Kansas and this was gonna be Adrienne's playroom. Yeah, his restoration project. I'm like, huh? And not to mention, like they're talking like this is normal to just have a carousel imported to your house. And I don't care how small a piece is they put in, there's no way that you're going to get a carousel through that little door in the hallway. Right, it's like a little small door. Yeah, exactly. And how he even says, I brought it up piece by piece. I'm like, this is kind of crazy. It's almost as if the producers were like, ooh, this house is perfect, but ooh, the entrance to the attic, huh? Well, just adding that line that says, oh, I had to bring it up piece by piece to make the location seem legit. You know what I mean? I mean, it's a perfect house. I actually was pretty spooked out towards the end when Cheyenne shows up at Nick's apartment and she goes into the house, the big climax and how all the candles are lit. The house is pretty cool. It's pretty spooky. So much they're paying you to watch me. Just running the guest house. But yeah, that's basically it in a nutshell. So before we nerd out and I want to hear your favorite moments, favorite lines, you know, what is the crush to you in a few scenes? I'm going to just very quickly talk about just our creatives and our key cast. And it's funny. I also love that you're here with me for this and that we were talking about Scream because I don't know if you noticed, one of the executive producers of this film is Gary Barber who's now an EP on the Scream films from Paramount. I think he just, he did five, six and he just produced The New Hellraiser which was pretty good. So funny how, you know, things are cyclical. He's now back doing big, cool stuff. So fun to see his name. But let's talk about writer-director Alan Shapiro because this is very interesting. So this was his feature film debut but he had written and directed TV, a lot of TV you probably saw. He wrote the pilot for the Outsiders, the show based on the movie which also just had a big anniversary. And other TV things, a Christmas Disney thing, you know. But wow, what a departure from more family-friendly stuff to now the crush. But did you see that this is totally inspired by a real situation that he was in? Which is crazy. And the original version of the film, Alicia's character's name is Darian which was the name of the real girl. I'm like, oh my God, you didn't think to change the name? So there's a couple of things for that. One, why would, like unless you're trying to like give her the middle finger for what she did, when you were younger, like one, change the name, just how a lawyer let that go through? But two also, if you're that, I'm guessing she was now a woman when the movie came out that she had grown up. Why would you come forward and be like, Alicia Silverstone, the crush, that's me. I'm the basis for that. Oh my God, I didn't think of that. You are so smart, oh my God. Like why would you be like, yes, I was the basis for this, please, everyone. Please know that I'm crazy. Wow, Patrick, you just blew my mind. I didn't even think of that. Yeah, you see a movie that's about how crazy you are, you don't raise your hand and say, excuse me, change the character's name, because that's me, you're so right. Are you just put your head down? And if anything, you change your name and you just stay away, right? You say Daryon? That's a very common name, it's like me. If I go to Ireland, my name is pronounced Park, I'm like, that's common, I don't know what you're talking about. It's not a unique spelling at all. I did not do anything. Yeah, oh my God, the normal person would be like, huh, I don't know anything about that. Well, that's a really freaky movie, that's, I can't see that. So, I mean, but Alan, come on, like it's just so funny, you really wrote the script with the real, also just, I would think like, ooh, like that's just not good for your mental health. Like just give her a new name so that you can sort of separate her from the real Daryon, right? But yeah, I guess in the 80s, he was in the LA and I was reading online that he was, you know, renting a guest house from this family and their 14 year old daughter was obsessed with him and really did key his car. I guess in the movie, you know, Adrian will call her, even though it's obviously Daryon and they dubbed with other voices, Adrian, oh, it's just, oh, it made me cringe. I'm like, oh, they couldn't even get the actors back to say the lines. It's like, have you been in my room? Adrian, it's just a totally different like voice and volume, oh, cringe. But so in the movie, she writes cocksucker, you know, as she keys that into his car, which fun fact, that was the first time I had ever, because I watched this when I was pretty young. I didn't see it in theaters, of course, but I must have rented it or watched it on HBO or something. That was the first time I had like heard of that word or saw that word. And I was like, whoa, I guess that's a really bad word, right? But the real girl, I guess, had written Nick Sucks Cock on the car. So at least he changed that a little bit. You know, he's not doing exact things. Still pretty close though. Yeah. This is not your therapy, Alan, like go to therapy, work through your stuff, and then write a script. Right, I totally agree with you. I'm like, I feel like you got to work on some stuff and then write your fun little thriller. Like you're really letting it all out. And yeah, it just kind of made me sad. But apparently his wife is the person who said to him, you should turn it into a movie. I don't know if you saw that online, but I guess a few years long after it happened and once he was starting to find success, it was her that came up. I questioned that though, too. What wife is like? You remember that minor that tried to hit you up and do the sex with you? That's going to be your ticket to fame, honey. Go for it. I've got some questions here about their marriage. Yeah, the judgment, the decision making. Maybe another story or tweak it a little. But you know what's also really crazy and very jarring? So he makes this movie. And then I think it was three years later, a movie I did see in theaters. He wrote and directed the Flipper movie with Elijah Wood. I'm like, whoa, that is a complete 180. Like, whoa. So this is really his only sort of like thriller from what I could tell from his filmography. And Flipper I think was his last movie. So I don't know what's going on with Alan Shapiro, but quite an interesting little early 90s career for him. Did you look to see if he had issues with dolphins before he made the Flipper movie? Probably. I'm sure something bad happened and he's like, now I got to do the Flipper movie, guys. Now I need to get my therapy out in writing via the script. So yeah, pretty wild. But so that's Alan Shapiro dealing with all that stuff. Let's talk about the stars. We'll just talk about our main trio before we really get into it. I know the dad, Kurt Woodsmith, we know him from that 70s show and now he's in that 90s show. Funny how he's having a renaissance. But we're going to focus on our love triangle. And that is, let's start with Kerry Elwes, who looks so good. 30 years old, 29, 30. I looked up at this time looking great, looking so young. This was right before he did Robin Hood, Men in Tights, another movie I love. So that's about to hit 30. Where he was in his career, he had just done Bram Stoker's Dracula, which I've talked about on the show. Have such a sweet spot for that movie. I know that one's also a little kooky, a little crazy, but I love it. He also did Hot Shots and Days of Thunder. Of course, he in the 80s did The Princess Bride. Jennifer Rubin, who looks so good. She is, I forgot how so, she's so hot. She's just so beautiful, you know, back then. I'm still nowadays, I'm sure. But man, she's just so good and so cool. She had previously done some TV movies called Drop Dead Gorgeous, not the more famous one. And a movie called The Fear Inside, so early 90s. And had also previously done a theatrical film called, probably one of the best titles I've heard. A Woman, Her Men, and Her Futon. Whoa. And you've got to mention her most famous one, Nightmare on the Street 3. Yes, absolutely. Another person who made an iconic 80s movie. And that was her, you know, that great role in Nightmare on the Street 3, which I know is many fans' favorite sequel. That was her debut as well, which is so impressive. So fun that like, Alicia's got this crazy movie, she's got that crazy movie, you know, good casting here. The first horror movie that I ever saw though was Nightmare on the Street 2. And it scared the crap out of me. Oh yeah. But like to this day, like ever since then, I'm just like, what was going on in this movie? And also, why did my brother show me and my younger brother this movie? Have you seen the documentary about it? Screen thing? Yes, I love it. I've interviewed them on my old podcast. And how funny, Patrick, when I watched that for the first time, I just let the credits roll as my husband and I were talking about it and just kind of letting it wash over us. And I saw my name in the credits. I totally forgot, like a year or two prior, I had donated to their Kickstarter. Completely forgot. I was like, wait, did they put me in there? Because like I did the interview? That's so nice. I'm like, oh my God, I sent them like 30 bucks. But yeah, great doc. Great doc. Mark Patton's a very interesting guy. Did you see Swallowed yet? The new queer horror movie that he's in? No, I don't think I've heard of it even. Oh, yeah, Swallowed. It's by the writer-director Carter Smith who did The Ruins, which I really liked as well. Oh, yeah. A while ago. Yeah, yeah, check out Swallowed. I'm curious to hear what you think. But Mark Patton's in it. And it's really wacky and kind of gross. But yeah, you know, talking real quickly about Nightmare on Street 2, Jesse, the lead character, I named the lead of my new, I know what you did last summer film, your last summer, Jesse, in honor of him because there's a queer angle to this, the secret, you know, the gay secret is a big thing in my movie. So shout out to Mark Patton as Jesse. From the moment she met Nick. You know how harsh it is for me to make friends. Just like everything's of some kind of freak or something. I'll be your friend. She was crazy about him. Introducing, ladies and gentlemen, Alicia Silverstone and wow, what a debut. Cause many people forget, you know, you hear about the Aerosmith videos. Those came a little bit later. She started doing them later in 93, right? But this was her screen debut she had done. I looked up her IMDb. She had done one episode of The Wonder Years, a little guest spot the year prior, but she was fairly new and a lot of people kind of forget that like Clueless is not her debut. It's this and actually she was doing a lot of kind of weird movies. There was like true crime. There was the babysitter, like some dark stuff before really making it big in Clueless, you know? So pretty cool. And let's be honest, this movie with anyone else in that role would have been so forgettable. And like we wouldn't be talking about it right now, but she at 14 years old had to get emancipated to do it because of the long hours. Like she understood the assignment so well that like when she's on the swing and he's talking to her and she's just like, like those are just like innate like acting skills. Like you can't necessarily teach that. And like you see it in Clueless too, like some of her facial expressions, like those are just natural to her. Yeah, absolutely. She just gets it. She's just there listening and reacting. Yes, I thought of that scene too when we were talking about her. The way she's sort of mocking him with the like, you know, she's vicious in this movie and her stairs, her death stairs from the second we meet her. And then when she is just burning a hole into Jennifer Rubin's character, Amy. Oh my God, like so good. Also when she says, when she's trying to make Amy jealous and just at the end, just very nonchalantly says, oh, well, you know, maybe he like small breasted women. Like- And I love how Jennifer gives her that look and it's like, like there's some really great like turns, some head turns in this movie, you know? And I forgot, you know, I remembered the iconic B scene which I love how you left the B emojis on my Instagram post because that is one of the most memorable scenes of the whole movie. That's like memorable of like just early 90s cinema in my mind, but I had forgotten that they have that great little scene before then introducing the wasp nest, you know? And how Adrian's just standing there. The good thing with Alicia and Jennifer is they are able to go toe to toe with their virtual sparring, like the scene on the road when she's like, oh, did you stay over? What'd you do? And Jennifer and Amy's like, Adrian, go play. I love that line, Adrian, go play. Did you notice that there is one solo B that is like let into the frame and flies around? I thought that was a pretty awesome artistic move right there. Thanks so much for watching. Next week, we'll be part two of this discussion. And in the meantime, please follow Release Date Rewind on Instagram.