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There were 3 versions filmed. The two that you mentioned and the last one involved Regan biting Sharon on the leg.
“and the last one involved Regan biting Sharon on the leg.”
Ooo, were there any stills of this, or any rough footage? That would be amazing to see!
I never could find a place which discussed the spiderwalk scenes and what was shot. Where did you learn that there were three?
As far as I know there aren’t any stills. I believe this was discussed in an issue of Fangoria that came out a bunch of years back. I’d have to double check on that.
Footage of Regan attacking Sharon’s leg appears in THE FEAR OF GOD documentary, if memory serves.
Yes, but it the same scene of the tongue, just at the end. Unfortunately it is not so effective like in the book. Infact in the novel, Regan walks like a spider till the end, she doesn’t turn her body walking like a baby after going down the stairs .
This does appear in The FoG as the Cap points outs. In addition, in The FoG there is never a mention of the blood pouring from Regan’s mouth from either the actors or crew. Neither the script (I have an original final copy) nor the book reference blood pouring from Regan’s mouth as she descends the staircase.
While not mentioning this does not prove anything, I think someone in one of the interviews would have spoke of the blood in the spider-walk scene. Marcel Vercoutere and Dick Smith always shared the various aspects of special effects, and blood just was not a part of the discussions. Vercoutere did explain how a massive fishing pole and heavy fishing line came into play to support the contortionist’s bodyweight. He also mentions the building of a new staircase that would allow the rig to be parallel with the staircase. It is my firm belief, after capturing the scenes from both The FoG and the TVYNS, that the blood scene is a CGI add-on. The scene was never filmed with blood.
Take a look at my posting here. You be the judge. 🙂
I think the close up of the blood was created specifically for TVYNS as a new surprise ending to the scene since so many people had already seen the original footage with the tongue and Reagan chasing Sharon across the floor.
A little more shock and gore.
After the scene had been remastered (color corrected timed etc) it would have been a piece of cake to digitally scab a live action plate of a new face with the blood over the original.
Not sure if this has been mentioned but here is my two cents. The footage was incredibly old when doing the documentary Fear Of God. The cast and crew had gone on to doing many other projects and films. Friedkin is notorious for inaccurate and false information. He also stated in the Fear of God documentary that he didn’t film a correct reaction shot from Ellen Burstyn so he couldn’t end the scene properly. This however is untrue as you see in TVYNS.
Also Friedkin refuses to acknowledge or even talk about the Eileen Dietz footage.
When the 25th Anniversary was released it obviously had some extra footage in it that no doubt had to be salvaged from the WB vaults. Probably some time during the findings they found this footage and kept it a secret because two years later the movie was rereleased in theaters with a couple of different scenes that weren’t mentioned in the FoG documentary. The blood looks real to me and I’d be impressed if it was CGId 27 years later.
So hypothetically if the blood was used on set we have a scene where Reagan comes down the stairs and screams. I guess thats a little bit scary but doesn’t nearly have the same effect as the blood. Also it has been acknowledged that CGI was used during part of that scene, i.e the hands and feet touching the stairs properly and the removal of the wires.
I dunno that’s just me though.
Ghetto, I agree about Friedkin’s “car salesman” approach (I’ve hit on him for being a Bible salesman on here, too).
Personally I hate what they did with TVYNS.All the technical effects (especially the blood in the Spider-walk)just reduced it to another movie and I will only ever watch the original.
I agree that there is a temptation to overdo and under-do when they retouch films, which seems to be getting more and more common. Has anyone seen the remastered original Star Trek episodes? Some of them are tasteful. Some of them are less tastefully done.
Like I said, TVYNS is like adding neon paint to the Mona Lisa. It was unnecessary to add all the CGI crap because it was crap! I mean, why did some idiot at WB put Pazuzu’s face on the exhaust vent over the stove in the kitchen when the lights kept going out on Chris while she was calling Sharon’s name. BIG FUCKIN’ DUH! That really scared the shit out of me, NOT!
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