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TALES FROM THE BORDELLO OF BLOOD

HOLLYWEIRD...Frights! Camera! Hack-tion! Once again the Crypt Keeper has returned to the big scream - bringing you a feature-length tale of lust and terror. Just when you think your brains have been totally fried from his comic books and his award-winning TV show, America's favorite horror host, the Crypt Keeper, has emerged with another story guar anteed to chill you to the bone.
"After the success of my big-scream premiere, "Demon Knight" , I thought I might take a little time off," says the Crypt Keeper, who plays host to "Bordello Of Blood", the second "Tales From the Crypt" full-length feature film. "But when my
executive producer Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump) showed me this script, I just had to put my helliday on hold. Make no bones about it, it's going to be a winner."
"Bordello of Blood is a nasty nugget you can really sink your teeth into," says the Crypt Keeper. "It's got everything from bloodshed to blood donors, well...er...eh...they didn't exactly volunteer."

THE STORY
From the darkest corner of the earth, Lilith (Angie Everhart), the most bloodthirsty seductress ever, has been resurrected by 'rock and roll' televangelist Reverend Jimmy Current (Chris Sarandon) to become the grande dame vampire of the "Bordello of Blood".
Operating from a secret hideaway beneath a mortuary, Lilith, a ravishing, red-haired, fanged beauty, and her newly recruited army of insatiable vampires are open for business! A coded password and a fiery ride in a coffin bring you to the Bordello Of Blood, where pleasure awaits and unsuspecting clients experience the most frightful fun of their lives.
The seductive antics of the heartless hookers are suddenly threatened when Rafe Guttman (Dennis Miller) is hired by bible-toting Katherine Verdoux (Erika Eleniak) to go in search of her rebellious brother Caleb (Corey Feldman), who has fallen prey to the lecherous lot.
Bringing "Bordello of Blood" to the screen is Gilbert Adler, who directed, co-wrote the screenplay and produced with co-writer and producing partner AL Katz from an original story by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. Richard Donner, David Giler, Walter Hill, Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis, the creative team behind the original HBO Series "Tales From the Crypt", are the executive producers.

BLOOD STAINED COMIC
"Bordello of Blood" follows a time-honored tradition of irreverence, established by the original comic book Tales From the Crypt. The garish, four-color comic first reached impressionable minds courtesy of William M. Gaines. Many of the comic genre's most talented artists and writers - including Jack Davis, Al Feldstein and Wallace Wood -- joined Gaines in making "Tales From the Crypt" a truly original classic of American popular culture.
"For kids, comic books like "Tales From the Crypt" were forbidden fruit, the kind of thing you read with a flashlight under the covers after your parents turned the lights out," says Gilbert Adler.
"And yet, in spite of their reputation for naughtiness, the stories were really morality tales. They were always about people who'd done something wrong -- usually murdering someone -- and they'd wind up paying for their crime in a particularly ironic way. If the bad guy was a musician, he'd wind up getting killed by his electric guitar. That sort of thing."
"Tales From the Crypt" reached its peak in the 1950s, an era whose social climate had little tolerance for non-conformity. Gaines, whose publications were labeled as "abnormal," was forced to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Facing public criticism, his colleagues in the comic industry formulated the "Comics Code," a form of
self-censorship which ensured the demise of Tales From the Crypt and its ilk. Gaines' creative ethos survived -- in the form of Mad -- but the world had to wait another three decades for the resurrection of the Crypt Keeper.
That glorious night came in 1988, when Richard Donner, David Giler, Walter Hill, Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis -- Crypt die-hards from childhood -- came together to create the HBO series "Tales From the Crypt". Each of the creators brought to the show a reputation for success. Their individual accomplishments included "Die Hard", "Lethal
Weapon", "48 HRS"., "Back to the Future", "Predator" and "Alien" -- as well as an understanding of what made the original property so delightfully wicked. Soon, the entertainment industry's biggest stars and directors were lining up to meet their maker on the Cable ACE award-winning show, now in its seventh season.

THERAPHY FROM THE CRYPT
To the fans of the once-banned early EC comic books, the "Tales From the Crypt" series, as well as the films "Demon Knight" and "Bordello of Blood", are atonement for those days of censorship.
"If at first you don't succeed, die, die again," says the Crypt Keeper.
Adler and Katz, who honed their horror instincts on A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Hitchhiker, joined Tales From the Crypt after its first season. "What we loved most about doing Tales is that it's cheaper than therapy," says Katz. "Killing a few people a day, even if it's on paper, has a very calming effect."
"Actually writing this stuff makes your parents wonder what they did to you as a kid to make you think these things up," comments Gilbert Adler.
In undertaking the Crypt Keeper's second feature-length tale, the film makers sought to embalm -- that is, preserve -- the qualities that made the comic book and TV s how so successful. "Tales From the Crypt started out as the stories your parents didn't want you to read, because they were afraid your brain would melt," says Adler. "As it turns out, they were right! "Bordello of Blood" will have pretty much the same effect."
Gilbert Adler employs his visual trademark by vividly introducing the unexpected.
"We always try to take the obvious, twist it, and then go in a different direction altogether," says Adler. "And I think that's what we've done successfully in the past and this particular style helped make the series and the last movie "Demon Knight" work."
"However, in many ways, "Bordello of Blood" is different from anything you've seen with vampires to date," says Al Katz. "What we've done is really play with the vampire idea, making it humorous and taking it in directions that perhaps you haven't seen before . Beyond that, "Bordello of Blood" has a heroic theme and a great sense of action that we
were able to integrate with a lot of tongue-in-cheek dialogue."

THE BORDELLO SCRIPT
Gilbert Adler and Al Katz found the original screenplay for "Bordello of Blood" deep within the crypt.
"We were all set to go with another project, but this one kept rattling around and wouldn't leave us alone," says Katz. "It was one of the first stories that Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale had ever written together, and the Crypt Keeper was hell bent on seeing it made."
"What made me want to do this project was that it was so different from the first Tales movie -- it had so much more sex and humor that I thought it would be fun," comments Adler.
"We were also challenged every day by jamming a multitude of special effects and prosthetic effects into each scene."
Finding an actor who would make light-hearted work of chasing down beautiful, bloodthirsty vampires running a clandestine operation beneath a mortuary proved to be somewhat of a challenge, but finally the filmmakers chose Dennis Miller to play Rafe Guttman because of his acting and comedic skills.
"It's nice to give an actor a role where he starts off as a bungling idiot and then really gets involved with his job and rises
to the occasion to become a hero," says Adler and continues:
"I'm sure Rafe Guttman never once thought of himself as a hero, but it's a great arc for a character. Audiences can really identify with Rafe and would like to see him succeed."

RAFE GUTTMAN
Over the years, Miller has become both a public and critical favorite. As host of his own Emmy Award-winning half-hour talk-show Dennis Miller Live, Miller balances his unusual commentary with humor. Special preparation for the role of Rafe Guttman was, in Miller's own words, "15 years of comedy. The biggest selling point for the movie is the marriage of comedy and horror. The buttressing of the two against each other should provide an interesting dichotomy.
What these guys want to do is scare the pants off you and then make you laugh."
As Rafe Guttman, Miller's job is to crack the bordello operation even if it means coming face to face with a few vampires.
"Until they open their mouths and smile, they're just like us. You never know who the enemy is until they bear their fangs," says Dennis Miller.
"Frankenstein, on the other hand, you know he's coming. If you're not an idiot you should be able to get out of the way. These vampires are a little trickier to deal with. You could be rubbing up next to one of them in a crowded subway and you wouldn't know it until she's ripped your carotid artery out."
"For some reason unknown to me, Lilith wants us to spend eternity together," adds Miller.
"After I see what she's done to Caleb, who has been bitten and literally sucked in, I avoid her because the price she extracts from her lovers is of a black widow-like nature. Rafe would probably be interested in Katherine, but she doesn't have time for him. She's busy trying to save her brother and isn't looking for amour."
"It was a joy to work with Dennis and develop his character," says Adler. "We embellished the script based on his specific style which makes the character much more real and alive. This process gave us much more than we had on the page originally."
"Dennis Miller is an incredibly inspired in-the-moment observer of human behavior," says Katz. "He comes to the set and you are never sure what he's going to do next, but we're all laughing, take after take."
"And it's also very much in character," adds Adler. "So it works very well for the storytelling."

ROCK'N' ROLL & VAMPIRES
"If we've said hunting vampires is tricky business," notes Adler, "try casting the perfect Queen of all Vampires."
Luckily, Angie Everhart surfaced to play the part and Lilith was born again. Everhart, a supermodel who quickly established herself as an actress in the films "Jade" and "Bullet", was destined to become a living legend, even if she is a 400-year-old vampire.
"When I wake up out of this dead sleep I'm not very pretty at all," says Everhart. "In fact, I am down right ugly, but I'm glad to be alive again so I can get back to work ripping out men's hearts and eating them."
Angie Everhart had a full range of prosthetic appliances to deal with on a daily basis, as well as a nasty 20-inch ax wound.
"Model training is good experience to handle the tedious hours in special make-up effects. On any given day I could be in hair and make-up from two to six hours depending on what latex prosthetic was needed for the scene," comments Everhart.
"As far as preparing myself to be Lilith, the Queen of all Vampires, drinking Bloody Marys helped get me into character."
Special make-up and prosthetics effects coordinator Chris Nelson - who made over 25 sets of fangs, two creature suits, a gory animatronic puppet and over 45 latex appliances - says that working with Angie was the most fun he's ever had on a project.
After spending over 40 intense hours during the shooting schedule installing Lilith's ax wound, Chris Nelson explains,
"It was a great challenge and a lot of fun trying to make a beautiful super model like Angie incredibly ugly. No matter how grueling it was, Angie was always good-natured; and let's face it when you're working with someone who makes you laugh, you really do love your job."
The ensemble cast adding their talents to the creative mix included Erika Eleniak, who took on the part of Katherine Verdoux, a Bible-toting woman destined to confront her lustful tendancies. Corey Feldman plays her wayward brother, Caleb, whose lack of good judgment and morals gets him a one-way ticket to the dark side. Chris Sarandon plays the
rock and roll televangelist, Reverend Current, whose mission is to wipe out lust from the world.
"Reverend Jimmy Current is a rather cynical character," says Sarandon. "He believes that in order to eradicate sin from the world it is sometimes necessary to commit sin. So he brings the nastiest vampire of all time back to life for the purpose of setting up a bordello through which he can funnel lust-driven sinners who will in turn be killed by her vampires. Whew! Obviously his plan doesn't work and things get a little out of control."
Detective Guttman and Reverend Current conclude that having Lilith out there on a rampage recruiting vampires is not the way to handle the Reverend's moral dilemma. So in an attempt to save mankind from being overrun by beautiful bloodsuckers they both join forces and go on a vampire hunt armed with Super Soakers water pistols filled with holy water. "It's one of t he few ways left to kill the enemy that hasn't already been used in filmmaking," says Miller. In any event, the Reverend and I end up having a great time melting down these vampires at the bordello."

THE PRODUCTION
"Bordello of Blood" was filmed entirely on location in Vancouver, Canada with filmmakers utilizing sound stages on the North Shore and East Vancouver. For the films church sequences, a 28-foot motorized cross and a 12-foot
devil were installed at the B.C. Pavilion, situated in the EXPO 86 site in Vancouver's downtown area. The North Shore mountains were also used for various outdoor shots.
Greg Melton's meticulously crafted production is purposefully over-the-top.
"After I read through the script, I thought the whole premise was totally outrageous, so I suggested to Gil Adler that we not take the set design theme very seriously," says Melton.
"Gil agreed with my concept and together we decided to create a sense of hyper-reality.
"The two most important sets were the mansion-like mortuary and the bordello itself. Because the film is set somewhere in the deep south, the mansion had to have a very antebellum feel, not unlike the haunted houses you see while watching cartoons or rea ding comic books. The mortuary also needed to be ridiculously foreboding with heavy green moss dripping off the eaves. Additionally, we made it look incredibly run down, which gave it a very spooky atmosphere.
"The bordello, on the other hand, was designed to be really tacky, complete with the classic red flocked wall paper and red velvet couches. We were definitely not trying to be subtle and, instead, made an over-the-top attempt at being gaudy and tasteless ," says Melton. "The other sets were a lot more reality-based. That way the characters would appear to be coming from a realm of normalcy and diving into something totally surreal."
Some of the sets are best described by Dennis Miller. "They all have this grand feel to them, but then you look around you and see you're just in a warehouse in Vancouver. Everyday felt like I was on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. It also reminded me of the Spruce Goose."
There is no truth to the rumor, say the filmmakers, that the Crypt Keeper is actually an animated puppet, and that the combined talents of voice actor John Kassir and six puppe teers are required to keep him moving and speaking at all times.
"You must be thinking of one of our former presidents," sniffs the renowned horror host. "I'm dead, but I'm not that
dead."
Nor, they say, is there any basis for reports that the Crypt Keeper was in danger of stalking off the set of "Bordello of Blood" over creative differences. The producers maintain there was never any friction. "He asked for final cut, and he got it - believe me," says Adler.

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