Clive Barker Podcast’s Scene of the Week
For this edition of Clive Barker Podcast’s Scene of the Week, I’ve chosen ‘The Homecoming’ scene from Lord of Illusions, a film that gets under my skin the more I watch it.
While the film’s antagonist Nix is a powerful, intimidating character (brilliantly portrayed by the late Daniel von Bargen) I find myself being more afraid of his rabid followers. Cults in general have always bothered me because of the insanity they tend to create. The Jonestown massacre comes to mind. Also, most of these people could be your next door neighbor and you wouldn’t even know it. That’s a lot more frightening than any prophet that can return from beyond the grave.
What’s most disturbing about the sequence is how these people snap out of their normal lives and immediately start killing their loved ones once they learn their master is coming back. I get chills when the lead female cultist casually walks past her dead family and picks up the car keys so she can return back to her former life. Blues legend Josh White’s song, While The Blood Runs Warm In Your Veins, does a wonderful job of making the scene feel even creepier as it plays over all of these distressing images.
One funny note, MGM chairman Frank Mancuso Sr. found this particular moment to be so reprehensible that he told Clive not to include it in his director’s cut, but of course he put it back in anyway!
Way to fight for your vision Clive!
In an interview Clive said this scene was self-contained and bait for the MPAA to take it out so they might leave something else in that he couldn’t afford to lose. It’s good it was put back in for the Director’s Cut.
I hate how filmmakers have to wheel and deal with the MPAA sometimes in order to make sure more important material has to stay in the film.
And here’s the quote about Frank Mancuso Sr. about not only not liking the moment, but hating the movie as well.
“In Lord of Illusions, I got to do all kinds of shit that I wanted to do. The bondage stuff in there, the girl and the ape, all kinds of shit. It’s very funny because Frank Mancuso was head of MGM/UA at that time, and he didn’t like the movie at all. There was one shot of a dead child on the floor, and he said, ‘This shot will never appear in an MGM/UA movie.’ As it turns out, it did, because I took it out, and then when he wasn’t looking, I put it back in. I knew he’d never bother to see the film again.”
Good schene, btw, could B included to that movie.
I only did not really like where Angelique from Hellraiser was with the chains – I am glad when they cut it out. Saved the elegance of stylistics.
So Katy Perry made last time 4 her Cherry Pie last time more innocently 😉