Matthew Lillard – IAMNOTASTALKER

October 29, 2019November 5, 2019

Healdsburg Town Plaza from “Scream”

I was saddened to wake up to the news of yet another fire tearing through Sonoma County last Thursday morning, this one threatening Healdsburg, one of my favorite places in the entire world. Not only is the city idyllic, pastoral and ridiculously charming, but it is a filming location to boot, the main square having stood in for downtown Woodsboro in Scream. Healdsburg Town Plaza was, in fact, the site of one of my very first stalking adventures back in late 1997. I have visited it often in the years since, most notably during my epic October 2016 Scream stalking trek in which I hit up every.single.location. featured in the 1996 flick, down to the warehouse where the production’s few sets were built to the hotel where the cast and crew stayed during the 55-day shoot (the latter was, sadly, lost to the Tubbs Fire in October 2017). Though Healdsburg remains safe from the Kincade Fire for the time being, the city was evacuated and per a Los Angeles Times article is currently a “ghost town,” a situation eerily reminiscent of Scream’s curfew scene which rendered downtown Woodsboro deserted. I pray that the blaze is controlled soon and my thoughts go out to everyone affected, including my aunt and uncle who were recently evacuated from their home in the area. For now, I thought a post on Healdsburg Town Plaza was in order.

[ad]

The city of Healdsburg was originally envisioned by businessman Harmon Heald. After failing to strike it rich mining gold, the native Ohioan built a small home in 1851 on what was then a portion of the Rancho Sotoyome land grant. Figuring the site was perfectly situated between San Francisco and the mining areas north of it and would, therefore, be passed through often, he constructed a general store with a post office soon after. A community surrounding the shop quickly developed and in 1857 Harmon commissioned a surveyor to layout a design for a town square and surrounding streets and, thus, Healdsburg and its central plaza were born. The city was incorporated ten years later.

Today, the bucolic one-acre Town Plaza boasts a gazebo, a central fountain, pathways, Canary Island date palms, and redwood trees, all surrounded by a sprinkling of charming shops, cafés, and restaurants. It is small town U.S.A. at its finest!

The fountain at its center, known as Sandborn Memorial Fountain, was donated by Elmer Sandborn in remembrance of his family in 1961. In the square’s early days, though, a bandstand stood as its focal point. The structure not only drew musical acts, but audiences with alcohol in hand, to the consternation of many locals. The Ladies’ Improvement Club got to work on curtailing the drinking and eventually won permission to raze the bandstand in the early 1900s, with a 13-foot marble fountain installed in its place. The revelers couldn’t be curtailed, though – according to The Healdsburg Tribune, a new bandstand was simply built next to the fountain the following day! Healdsburg Town Plaza also saw raucous times in the 1970s, when the Hells Angels made it their regular hangout. Today, the park is, thankfully, much more low-key.

On any given afternoon, you’ll find families picnicking, couples strolling, and visitors relaxing on the many benches that dot the site.

The space is so idyllic that Travel and Leisure deemed it one of “America’s Most Beautiful Town Squares” in 2013.

The surrounding town isn’t too shabby, either!

The last time I visited, in early December 2018, the city was really flaunting its fall colors.

We just don’t get this kind of Autumn vibrancy in Palm Springs.

Show off!

Healdsburg Town Plaza pops up a couple of times in Scream, most notably as the spot where Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and her friends eat lunch in an early scene. In the segment, during which Stuart Macher (Matthew Lillard) utters his famous “Liver alone!” line, the group is sitting on Sandborn Memorial Fountain’s north side with their backs to Matheson Street.

Sadly, the fountain has been renovated a bit in the years since filming took place, with its rock siding removed and built-in planters added to its corners.

Even sadder, the park’s quaint white wooden gazebo, visible in the scene, has since been completely replaced. According to a Press Democrat article, the original structure was a “casualty of dry rot and changing taste.” This photo of its demolition, which took place on March 14th, 2007, absolutely breaks my heart.

The gazebo is also where Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), wearing her infamous neon green suit, reports on the murders plaguing Woodsboro in a news clip that Sidney catches on TV in a later scene.

Fortunately, the original gazebo and fountain were both still in place during my early stalks of the square.

Healdsburg Town Plaza is also seen in an establishing segment in which the sun rises on Woodsboro the morning after Sidney is attacked. That bit was filmed on the corner of Center and Plaza Streets.

Per the sheriff I spoke with during my first Healdsburg stalk, the shot was actually lensed early evening as the sun was setting. Apparently, Wes Craven intended to capture it the morning of the last day of the Healdsburg portion of the shoot, but ran out of time, so he instead grabbed it later that day at dusk, knowing that audiences would be none the wiser.

Finally, the plaza serves as a backdrop for the scene in which Woodsboro townspeople lock up and head home before the newly-imposed curfew. Several shops lining the square are featured in the segment including 104 Matheson Street;

312 Center Street, which was the site of Healdsburg Coffee Company at the time of the filming, but today houses The Nectary juice bar;

and the grassy section of the park directly across from 105 Plaza Street . . .

. . . and 111 Plaza Street.

Thanks to the Dear Old Hollywood blog, I learned that Healdsburg Town Plaza also appears a few times as Hartfield, Iowa in the 1943 drama Happy Land.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Healdsburg Town Plaza, aka downtown Woodsboro from Scream, is located at the intersection of Healdsburg Avenue & Matheson Street in Healdsburg.

October 9, 2019October 11, 2019

Stu’s House from "Scream"

At the risk of my October postings turning into a full-fledged Scream-fest (and there ain’t nothing wrong with that, honestly!), I’m coming at ya again with another locale from the 1996 horror flick – the Tomales-area farmhouse where Stuart Macher (Matthew Lillard) lived. Situated up a long, winding driveway and barely visible from the road, the pad is typically off-limits to passersby. But I had the amazing good fortune of seeing it up-close-and-personal during my 2016 visit to Sonoma County. As fate would have it, I happened to drop by on a Saturday morning, at which time a wedding was being set up on the premises. While I was posing for the above photo, one of the party planners pulled up, took pity on me and asked if I wanted to come onto the property for a better look. I just about died right on the spot, stuttered out a “YES!” and promptly hopped in my car and followed her up the driveway, practically hyperventilating the entire way! It was definitely a day for the record books!

[ad]

In real life, Stu’s house boasts 5,500 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 baths (3 with clawfoot tubs and marble counters procured from a hotel in San Francisco), a formal dining room, a library, 4 fireplaces (though one is covered over), 2 wood stoves, fir wood detailing throughout, a gourmet kitchen with a walk-in pantry, a grand staircase, rear and front foyers, a 3-car garage with a bonus room upstairs, 298 acres of land, creek frontage, 2 barns, 2 guest cottages, and a span of eucalyptus groves.

I was a little uncertain about the home’s provenance when I originally published this post. Thankfully, a fellow stalker named Mandy went on a deep dive into the nitty-gritty of the property’s history as well as that of its original owners and has filled in all the blanks! Honestly can’t thank you enough, Mandy! A real estate listing I came across early on in my research stated that the dwelling was built in 1991 by a Mr. and Mrs. McPhail, who were in their 70s, and was designed to match to the Victorian where Mr. McPhail’s grew up – a factoid that just about made me, ahem, scream! A replica of Stu’s house existing somewhere in Marin County? I couldn’t think of anything cooler! As Mandy discovered, though, virtually none of the listing’s reporting was correct. The property was actually commissioned by John (aka “Jack”) and Carolyn MacPhail, not McPhail, who were in their late 50s, not 70s. A photo of a plaque displayed on the front of Stu’s house that was posted to Instagram by a guy named Ben who attended the Scream Comes Home event in 2018 further confirms Mandy’s information. It also shows that the pad was completed in 1990, not 1991.

But the erroneous reporting doesn’t end there. Mandy further uncovered that John’s childhood home is located at 7 Marin Street in San Rafael. That’s it below. As you can see – and as I was sorely disappointed to discover – it looks absolutely nothing like Stu’s. It’s not even a Victorian!

Now, the house next door at 11 Marin Street, where John’s father was born and raised and where a cousin of the family lived during his childhood, does bear some resemblance to the Macher residence. Some. While it is Victorian and has bay windows and a porch overhang similar to the Scream home, that’s certainly not enough to claim it is a replica of it – or even that it was inspired by it. So yeah, the whole story about the Tomales property being built to match John’s childhood home appears to be just that, a story – probably intended to make the history of the place more interesting and therefore more attractive to buyers.

Per their obituaries, the MacPhails both passed away in their Tomales home in 1991 at the age of 59 – John from a “brief illness” on March 6th and Carolyn “after being in ill health for several years” on November 12. Matthew Lillard discusses the deaths in an on-set interview that is included in the Behind the ‘Scream’ documentary featured in The Ultimate Scream Collection DVD box set. He says, “It’s kind of, like, an eerie house. Actually, two people have died in this house. Literally – two people have died in the house. So coming up the hill and you’re doing a Wes Craven film and somebody tells you, ‘Oh, by the way, two people have died in the house,’ it brings on an entirely new thing.” Though both John and Carolyn passed away from natural causes, Matthew is right – it’s certainly eerie!

The MacPhails left the sprawling property to their children and it sat vacant in the years following, which I’m sure is a big part of how it came to be used in Scream. A huge, deserted and unoccupied Victorian situated up a lonely dark road? There’s no better spot to shoot the final sequence of a horror movie! Of the find, Wes Craven said in a 1996 interview that my friend Ashley of The Drewseum was kind enough to email me a scan of, “We wanted Stu’s home to have elements of a dark and haunted Gothic house and it needed to be very isolated. We looked a long time for some place that had all of those elements. The house we found was actually brand new. It had not quite been completed when both of the owners died, and the family of younger kids didn’t quite know what to do with it. When we found it and offered to use it, they were very happy to let us. The art department went in there and did an enormous number on the house. We put in all sorts of beams, and stained-glass windows, darkened all the colors, and brought in all the set dressings. It was done in a sort of farmhouse style, and we changed it into a Gothic farmhouse.”

Production designer Bruce Miller furthers in the same article, “It just doesn’t make sense that in a normal American home, murders could be happening in the upstairs bedrooms, and people watching television downstairs wouldn’t know about it. So the house had to be big enough, and the rooms had to be separated by enough distance, to convince the audience that these things could really be happening, without the other people knowing about it. This particular house was perfect for that, because it was very convoluted, and kind of Victorian on the inside. It was actually a little scary to some extent, and then we added big paintings and a chandelier. Because the house was so Victorian on the inside, we didn’t want to fight that, but we didn’t want to over-stress it either. We even put a volleyball net in the front yard, because it had to be believable that a normal teenager lives there with his parents, who just happened to be away for the weekend.”

The production team must have really, ahem (again), screamed with excitement when they saw that the home’s garage is situated on the rear side of the property, not at all visible from the front, making Tatum Riley’s (Rose McGowan) death scene (which was a part of the original script) – as well as the fact that her body is never seen by any of the partygoers – all the more feasible.

Stu’s house was put up for sale in November 2011 for $2,795,000, but there were no takers. It was eventually removed from the market, then returned and finally sold in June 2014 for $2,820,000. Today, it is known as “Spring Hill Estate” and, as I mentioned, serves as a wedding venue. Despite being remote, isolated, situated on a lonely hill and the site of one of filmdom’s most famous horror movie sequences, it is nothing short of peaceful and pastoral, not to mention stunningly beautiful. I can think of no better place to host a wedding in Northern California. The nuptials we saw being set up, situated in one of the property’s barns, looked like something out of a magazine! Rustic, inviting and lit with hundreds upon hundreds of twinkle lights, it was all I could do not to try to secure myself an invite!

Scream’s epically bloody finale, which counts for a whopping 42 minutes of screen time, was comprised of one scene, Scene #118. Broken up into more than 20 different parts, the sequence, titled “People live, people die,” makes up the entire third act of the film. And all of it takes place at Stu’s house! Pretty much every single area of the residence is featured, including the front exterior.

The pad looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen, minus the large stained glass window situated over the front door which was a prop added for filming, I am guessing to give it even more of that Gothic Victorian farmhouse feel.

For the shoot, the home’s real life dining room was transformed into the Macher family’s TV room, where audiences were gifted with Randy Meeks’ (Jamie Kennedy) legendary break-down of “the rules” of horror movies. As you can see in the MLS image below from the property’s 2014 sale, even without Stu’s red floral curtains and rust-colored couch, the room is very recognizable from its cameo.

And the kitchen is even more so! Looking at MLS images of it makes my heart beat a little faster! The room is absolutely frozen in time from its big screen appearance!

The only thing missing is a set of ceiling-mounted cabinets that ran along the edge of the space in Scream. I am not sure if said cabinets were a real element of the house since removed or just set dressing, but I am guessing the former.

The 2014 listing mentions that the home boasts “a kitchen desk and planning center” which cracked me up as that is the spot where Stu sits while speaking on the phone with Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). It is there that he utters his famous line, “My mom and dad are gonna be so mad at me!”

The residence’s breakfast nook also makes an appearance in Scream;

as does the foyer;

one of the bedrooms;

the attic (of which, Wes Craven says, “The attic wasn’t very creepy, so we darkened it down, and filled it up with all sorts of strange stuff.”);

and, of course, the garage!

Had to do it!

As I mentioned earlier, the garage is situated on the back side of the house . . .

. . . completely hidden from view from the front.

It is in the middle garage door that Tatum meets her untimely end and from the dormer above it and to the left that Sidney jumps out of the attic and first sees her body.

The finale sequence, which took a whopping 21 nights to shoot, was so grueling that cast and crew started referring to it as “the scene from hell” and “the longest night in horror history.” It was not long before “I survived Scene 118” became a running joke and t-shirts bearing the phrase were made for everyone involved, as seen in the still from ’Scream’: The Inside Story below.

All I could think while making screen captures for this post was how in the heck did they ever get the house clean again following filming?

Fun fact – Dewey Riley (David Arquette) was originally set to die at the end of Scream, but Wes Craven had a last-minute change of heart and shot the bit with the deputy being taken out of Stu’s house on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance on the final night of filming, as he had a feeling audiences were going to fall in love with him. And he was right! I can’t imagine the sequels without Dewey!

Per the Spring Hill Estate website, Stu’s house is quite a hotbed for filming, with more than 15 productions lensed on the premises. I was only able to identify 2, though.

The interior is utilized briefly as the home where Sara Gold (Allison Paige) lives with her parents in the 2016 drama The Dog Lover.

And Stu’s house also serves as the residence of Stella Davis (Dorian Brown Pham) in 2017’s Running Wild.

Coincidentally, shortly after I began penning this article, the Grim Cheaper texted me a link about a Halloween party taking place at Stu’s house on October 31st, hosted by the same guys who put on Scream Comes Home. Apparently, the homeowners have recently decided to move onto the premises and though the place will still be available periodically as a special event venue, this will be the last time it is opened up to Scream fans. You can get your tickets here! And if you are interested in checking out more interior shots of Stu’s house, the Real to Reel website has some fabulous ones from the Scream Comes Home event.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Mandy for unearthing so much of this home’s history and to my friend Ashley, of The Drewseum, for sharing several articles about the property with me!

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Spring Hill Estate, aka Stu’s house from Scream, is located at 3871 Tomales Petaluma Road in Tomales. The home currently serves as a special event venue. You can visit its official website here. The residence is situated up a long private drive and only the back of it (which did not appear in the movie) is visible from the street. (Pictured below is the view of it from the road.) You can catch an up-close glimpse of it, though, by attending the Halloween party being held there on October 31st. More information can be found here.

October 4, 2019October 8, 2019

The “Scream” Video Store

Extremely nostalgic by nature, I was recently thinking about the demise of video stores and how many movies would suffer if made today because of it – movies like The Holiday, Clerks and, of course, Scream. Without the scene set at Woodsboro’s local VHS rental spot in the latter, in which Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) schools buddy Stuart Macher (Matthew Lillard) on the “very specific formula” followed by slasher flicks, much of the tongue-in-cheek nature of the storyline would have been tragically lost. I blogged about Santa Rosa’s Bradley Video, where the segment was shot, back in 2008, though I had never actually stalked it myself, instead sending my aunt Lea, who lives in the area, to do so on my behalf. By the time I next made it up to Sonoma County in 2016, the shop had long since shut down, but I still included it in my Scream stalking itinerary, which encompassed every.single.location featured in the 1996 horror classic down to the hotel where the cast and crew stayed during the 55-day shoot, as well as the warehouse that served as the production’s soundstage. The vast majority of those sites remain on my To-Blog List and I figured today was the perfect time to get to posting about them, starting with Bradley Video.

[ad]

When Lea stalked Bradley Video for me in 2008, the store was still in operation. In fact, it was her local rental place and she and her husband would visit it regularly. Sadly, it went the way of most VHS leasing establishments, initially closing its doors in 2005 after its owner, William Bradley, filed for bankruptcy. There were 11 shops in the chain at the time, all of which shuttered that same year. In a fitting twist, the majority of the company’s outposts, including the one from Scream (located on Marlow Road) were curtained on October 31st! As The Press Democrat reported a few days later, calls to the Sebastopol outlet were met with a message stating, “Bradley Video is closing its stores for good, and this store is closed. Happy Halloween.” Though I am sad it is no longer open, if a horror movie location has to shutter, I can think of no better day to do it than Halloween!

That wasn’t the end of the Marlow Road store, though. In January 2006, the shop was was re-opened by West Coast Video, along with 6 others in the Bradley chain.

The rebirth was short-lived, however, and the Marlow Road BV closed once again in early 2009, shortly after my aunt’s stalk of it.

Amazingly, the space has remained vacant ever since, which is great news for us Scream aficionados as it has resulted in very few changes to the exterior.

The same goes for the interior, which I was thrilled to discover as I peeked through the windows! Despite the passage of 23 years, two separate closures, an ownership change, and an almost-decade long vacancy, the Bradley Video site still looks exactly as it did onscreen!

I cannot express how thrilled I was to see the very same muted fuchsia carpeting that Stu and Randy walked upon still lining the floor of the space! Also visible? Faded markings surrounding the areas where the shelving used to stand!

The rectangular pillar stationed behind Randy throughout the scene also remains intact, though today it is mirrored.

Per Scream’s production notes, Sonoma County was chosen as a backdrop for the lurid tale thanks to its “innocent, familiar” locales which provided the perfect setting for the movie’s more macabre sequences. And no site is more innocent or familiar than a local video store! It is at Bradley Video that Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), Stu, and several other Woodsboro High students head to rent movies after classes are cancelled due to the murder spree taking place in town. While there, we get these choice words from video store employee/resident slasher flick expert Randy, “See, the police are always off track with this sh*t. If they watched Prom Night, they’d save time. There’s a formula to it – a very simple formula! EVERYBODY’S A SUSPECT!” As I was not able to venture inside the former Bradley Video space, my photographs were, obviously, not taken from an angle matching that of the movie, but I believe the image below shows basically the same vantage point, minus the anteroom visible in the foreground.

As for the detritus strewn about, per a commenter named Rich Brasil on the Bloody Disgusting website, the location is currently used to house supplies for a neighboring Chinese restaurant.

Filming of the Bradley Video scene took place on Monday, May 6th, 1996 (the 16th day of production) according to the Scream call sheets, which my friend Ashley of The Drewseum was kind enough to give me copies of. Actors were required to report to the locale at 9:15 a.m. and the weather was “sunny and cloudy, dry, breezy at times” with highs in the mid-60s. There were a total of 40 extras on set (including “2 babes for Billy”) and the shoot was scheduled to wrap at 6 p.m.

And while I am thrilled the Bradley Video space remains so unchanged from that 1996 cameo, at the same time it is a bit disheartening that the site of such a famous cinematic moment exists in such a sad state. I would love to see the place re-open, but with the interior left intact, of course. Scream video store pop-up, anyone?

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to my aunt Lea for initially stalking Bradley Video for me and taking the images dated 2008 that appear in this post.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Bradley Video, from Scream, was formerly located in the Rosewood Village shopping center at 3080 Marlow Road in Santa Rosa. Its former storefront, Unit A19, is denoted with an orange arrow below and its onetime frontage marked by orange lines.

October 23, 2017October 23, 2017

Hilton Sonoma Wine Country – Where the Cast of “Scream” Stayed During Filming

I typically begin compiling notes on a location and roughly outlining a post weeks before I hit publish. Today’s article, about the Hilton Sonoma Wine Country, where the cast and crew of Scream stayed during the 1996 film’s 55-day shoot, is no different. Sadly though, devastation struck shortly after I penned that preliminary edit. I am extremely sorry to report that the Santa Rosa-area hotel was destroyed by the Tubbs Fire in the early morning hours of October 9th. When I learned the news last Friday morning, just as I was sitting down to write this post, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I could not – and still cannot – believe the Scream hotel is gone. I am heartbroken. And yes, I do realize it is a bit silly to be heartbroken over the loss considering the fact that the property didn’t even appear in the movie, but, at the same time, it was such an important part of the production and has been talked about by the cast in so many interviews that it honestly feels as if a piece of history has been lost. I am so thankful that I was able to stalk the Hilton last October during a trip up north and, even though it is no longer, figured I should still continue on with the post and share the many images I took of it for posterity.

[ad]

I learned about the Hilton and its role in the production of Scream from my friend Ashley, of The Drewseum website, who (as I’ve mentioned previously) was kind enough to share with me some call sheets from the flick that she has managed to get her hands on over the years. Besides detailing scene, wardrobe, and prop information for a particular date, each sheet also notes both the pickup time and location of the various actors scheduled to work that day. As indicated in the sheets, Neve Campbell, Drew Barrymore, Matthew Lillard, and the rest of the cast were picked up in the lobby of the DoubleTree Hotel located at 3555 Round Barn Boulevard in Santa Rosa prior to each shoot.

At some point after Scream was filmed in 1996, the property was transitioned to a Hilton, though, according to my aunt who lives in the area, not much of it was altered during the changeover and, up until the fire, it still looked much the same as it did in the ‘90s.

Typically, a hotel where a cast and crew stayed during the filming of a movie wouldn’t have that much meaning to me, but, in this case, because of Santa Rosa’s small-town vibe, the Scream team spent much of their free time together on the property. Unlike New York or L.A. or any other metropolis, where actors can step outside of their lodging and find a wide array of nightlife and activities at their fingertips, Sonoma County is a rather sleepy area. So the group hung out together, entertaining themselves on the hotel grounds, which created a tight-knit family atmosphere that I doubt would have occurred (at least not to the same degree) had Scream been shot elsewhere.

The Hilton was actually the location I was most excited about seeing during my NorCal trip, mainly because of an interview with Matthew Lillard that I watched years prior. Unfortunately, I can’t find a clip of the interview anywhere online, but, in it, the actor talked about holing up with the rest of the cast in Neve Campbell’s hotel room after filming wrapped each day or night and watching horror flicks. I love any and all behind-the-scenes tidbits like that and the thought of the cast huddled up watching scary movies together, while in the midst of shooting what turned out to be one of the most influential scary movies of all time, is pretty incredible.

Matthew is hardly the only Scream cast member to have mentioned the hotel in interviews over the years. In fact, I’ve found that, more than any other location associated with the movie, the Hilton is the one talked about the most. In the 2011 documentary Still Screaming: The Ultimate Scary Movie Retrospective, Neve Campbell reminisces, “We were all staying in the hotel – in like a little motel – the whole crew and cast. And we were just having a great time. I think we kind of couldn’t believe we were getting paid to have fun like that.” (Though the Hilton was actually quite large, because of the way it was laid out, with outcroppings of two- and three-story buildings dotted around the premises, it did have the feel of a small motel.)

That same year, in an Entertainment Weekly article, Jamie Kennedy also reminisced about the property, saying “We’d go home at night to the DoubleTree Hotel, and it was the first hotel I ever went to that gave you a cookie at night.”

Neve spoke of the Hilton again in a 2016 Entertainment Tonight exclusive, stating, “The cast would hang out in the mornings because we would shoot all night. We would get in cars and go back to our hotel and we would be covered in blood and there would be people going to work at 6 or 7 a.m. and they’d see me covered in corn syrup. The look on those peoples’ faces was always humorous. We would close all the curtains and hang out and have a drink. We were sitting in one of our bedrooms and we were like, ‘Could you imagine if this was good enough that there might be a Halloween costume?’ And we were like, ‘No, that couldn’t possibly happen!’ And now it’s 20 years later and I still see the Halloween costume every year in all the shops. It’s pretty amazing.”

Just this past July, Skeet Ulrich, who played killer Billy Loomis, gave an interview to The AV Club in which he mentioned the Hilton. He said, “I was fortunate in that the hotel suite they gave me had two rooms, so I used one just to sleep, and the other one . . . I was 26, I think, when I made it, and I was playing a 17- or 18-year-old, so I went straight to the mall and bought every hard-rock poster and black lights and everything, and I turned the other room into Billy’s room. And I’d sit in there and just read about John Wayne Gacy and play the most satanic music I could find and just try and find him rather quickly in that environment.”

All the anecdotes and tidbits I had heard about the hotel over the years enveloped me as I walked around the property. I couldn’t help but wonder which room each cast member stayed in;

if they were all grouped in the same area or spread apart;

if they checked in themselves;

did they walk down this hall;

or that one;

if they swam in the pool during their off-time;

if they sat by the fire;

hung out in the lobby;

ate at the on-site restaurant – etc., etc., etc.

Needless to say, my mind was buzzing. And yes, I am fully aware that I have an unnatural obsession with anything and everything related to Scream.

You can see some photographs of what the property looks like post-fire here, here, and here. And you can read an interview with a man who was staying at the Hilton when the inferno struck here. The hotel was actually one of the first places hit by the Tubbs blaze and, because it broke out so quickly, guests had virtually no warning. Most were awakened by a knock on the door from security guards at around 3 a.m. on October 9th and told to evacuate immediately. The man in the interview did not even have time to put on shoes. I can’t imagine how scary that must have been.

In watching this drone footage of the Hilton site, it seems that the three buildings surrounding the pool, on the western edge of the property, remain intact. So at least a part of the location still stands. A word of warning – watching the video clip is extremely disheartening. The devastation that citizens of Sonoma County are facing is unfathomable. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

Big THANK YOU to my friends Ashley, from the Drewseum, for telling me about this location and Katie, from Matthew Lillard Online, for trying to help me pinpoint the interview in which Matthew talked about the hotel !

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Hilton Sonoma Wine Country, where the cast of Scream stayed during filming, was formerly located at 3555 Round Barn Boulevard in Santa Rosa. Sadly, the property was destroyed by the Tubbs Fire and no longer stands.

December 23, 2011December 22, 2011

The Brass Monkey Bar from “Bad Santa”

Another Christmas-themed location that I stalked recently was the Brass Elephant bar – the Monrovia-area watering hole that stood in for the similarly-named “Brass Monkey” bar where Sue (aka Lauren Graham) worked in my least-favorite holiday movie of all time, 2003’s Bad Santa. Fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, had tracked down the establishment a while back and once I learned that it was located inside of the Aztec Hotel, an extremely unique structure that had intrigued me ever since I first moved to the San Gabriel Valley over eleven years ago, I decided that I just had to stalk the place. And this past Tuesday morning, I finally did just that.

The Aztec Hotel was originally built in 1925, on what was then the historic Route 66, by Robert Stacy-Judd, the English-born architect who also designed the Masonic Temple in North Hollywood, the First Baptist Church in Ventura, and the incredible Atwater Bungalows in Echo Park. The hotel was Stacy-Judd’s first commercial design job in the United States and he credited his inspiration for the project to John L. Stephen’s 1841 tome Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan. Although technically Mayan in design, the architect named the property the “Aztec Hotel” because, as he is quoted as saying in the 1993 book Robert Stacy-Judd: Maya Architecture and the Creation of a New Style, “When the hotel project was first announced, the word Maya was unknown to the layman. The subject of Maya culture was only of archaeological importance, and, at that, concerned but a few exponents. As the word Aztec was fairly well-known, I baptized the hotel with that name, although all the decorative motifs are Maya.”

And while the Aztec Hotel enjoyed immense success and was one of the most exclusive lodgings in the area for a brief period, it fell upon hard times due to both the Great Depression and the realignment of Route 66 and was forced to shutter its doors in 1935, less than a decade after opening. It was sold, by auction, shortly thereafter for $50,000. The new owners renovated the place and it once again became a popular retreat thanks to the proximity of the newly-opened Santa Anita Park race track. Such luminaries as Bing Crosby, Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, and my girl Marilyn Monroe were all reportedly counted as guests at one time or another. Sadly though, the property fell, once again, into disrepair in the years following and served as everything from a drug den to a brothel. The 44-room, two-story hotel, which was named a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was just recently purchased by new owners who have set about restoring the historic site to its former glory. Amazingly, numerous elements of Stacy-Judd’s original design remain in place to this day, including the tile floor in the lobby, ceiling light fixtures, stained glass windows, several murals, and a fireplace.

Sadly, the Brass Elephant bar, which is located just off of the Aztec Hotel’s lobby, was closed when I showed up to stalk it, but I did manage to snap the above pictures through an open window.

[ad]

In Bad Santa, the Brass Elephant stood in for the Brass Monkey – the supposed-Phoenix, Arizona-area mall bar where disgruntled Santa Willie (aka Billy Bob Thornton) first met bartender Sue. It popped up in two scenes in the movie – first in the scene in which Willie successfully hits on Sue before getting into a fist-fight with a fellow patron.

And later in the scene in which Gin (aka Bernie Mac) tries to blackmail Willie and his partner-in-crime, Marcus (aka Tony Cox). As you can see in the screen captures above, the Brass Elephant was dressed heavily for the filming, with special booths brought in, walls retouched, and bright lighting installed, and is virtually unrecognizable from its appearance onscreen.

Because the Brass Monkey was supposed to be located adjacent to a mall in Bad Santa, the real life exterior of the Aztec Hotel did not appear in the flick. A fake exterior for the bar was instead created at the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, where the vast majority of the movie was lensed.

The Aztec Hotel was also featured extensively in the 2009 movie Spooner, as the place where Rose Conlin (aka the adorable Nora Zehetner), the object of Herman Spooner’s (aka the even more adorable Matthew Lillard’s) affection, stays for a few days after her car breaks down.

Quite a bit of the hotel appeared in the movie, including the front entrance;

the lobby;

several hallways;

the Aztec Barber Shop, which is an actual place;

one of (what I believe is) the hotel’s real life rooms;

and the Brass Elephant bar. And while I only scanned through Spooner in order to make screen captures for this post, I have to say that it looks like an incredibly cute movie that I definitely need to watch in its entirety in the very near future.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location. Smile You can check out Chas’ extensive Bad Santa filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Brass Elephant, aka the Brass Monkey from Bad Santa, is located at 311 West Foothill Boulevard, inside of the Aztec Hotel, in Monrovia. You can visit the hotel’s official website here and you can visit the bar’s official Facebook page here.

November 2, 2011September 29, 2017

Halloween 2011 with Matthew Lillard

Well, the stalking gods have definitely been smiling down upon me as of late because this year I experienced what was quite simply the Best. Halloween. Ever. It was an absolute whirlwind and I honestly do not know how any future Halloween can ever compare! It all started a couple of weeks ago when the fabulous Katie, from the Matthew Lillard Online website, announced that she would be giving away two tickets to the October 28th performance of Harbor, the new play in which the Scooby-Doo-actor stars, along with a meet-and-greet/photo-op. I, of course, immediately entered my name in the contest and, as fate would have it, I won! Because this stalker absolutely LOVES herself some Matthew Lillard, I was literally screaming at the top of my lungs when I found out. What better way could there have possibly been to begin my Halloween weekend than by meeting one of the stars of Scream, my very favorite scary movie of all time?!?! And while the Grim Cheaper was not nearly as excited about my big win as I was – he is not at all a fan of the theatre, especially Los Angeles theatre which tends to be a bit pretentious – the two of us found ourselves heading out to The Victory Theatre Center in Burbank this past Friday night. And, let me tell you, I was literally bouncing out of my seat during the entire drive there!

Amazingly enough, the excitement of the evening got started before the lights in the theatre even went down! While the GC and I were standing in line waiting to pick up our tickets, I just happened to spot Mekia Cox – who not only played Sasha during Season 3 of fave show 90210, but was also one of Michael Jackson’s dancers on the ill-fated This Is It tour – standing in line behind us. I, of course, just had to go up to her to ask for a photo and I am very happy to report that she could NOT have been sweeter. Mekia said that she could not believe that I had recognized her as she usually does not get spotted when her hair is pulled back. She obviously didn’t realize that she was talking to a stalker. Winking smile I was like, “Are you kidding? I noticed you the second you walked through the door!” Smile

Harbor, which was written by Jon Cellini, Matthew Lillard’s college roommate, is the story of a single mother who, upon the death of her father and the subsequent reading of his will, is forced to make contact with her ex-husband and his new wife. And while it sounds as if that would be some rather depressing subject matter, the play is actually laugh-out-loud hilarious! And Matthew Lillard absolutely SHINES in it. His onstage persona is magnetic and he is nothing short of fascinating to watch. The guy has got some major presence – one look at him onstage and it is entirely obvious how he became a movie star. Truth be told, though, the entire cast was FABULOUS, the script superb, and the theatre warm and intimate. I honestly could not have enjoyed the production more. And I was not the only one! Let me tell you, I almost fell out of my chair when the lights went up at the end of the show and the GC turned to me and said, “That was the best play I’ve ever seen in my life!” I mean, I knew Harbor was good, but the fact that the GC said that speaks volumes! If you live in the L.A. area or are planning to visit in the near future, you really need to go see this show!! I honestly cannot recommend it more!

After the play was over, we headed to the lobby to wait for Matthew to come out, whereupon the GC met the producer of the show and promptly told her that Harbor was the best play he had ever seen. He was so giddy over finally enjoying a live performance, I honestly would not have been surprised if he had started shouting about it from the rooftops! Anyway, when Matthew came out, I walked up to him to introduce myself as the Matthew Lillard Online contest winner and he immediately said, “Oh! I’m supposed to take a picture with you!” Um, LOVE IT! After posing for the above picture, which turned out ADORABLE (can you tell how excited I was to meet him??), Matthew hung around and chatted with us for quite a long time. The guy truly could NOT have been nicer and when I told him that the two of us used to frequent the same Starbucks and that I had always tried to (accidentally Smile ) run into him there, he jokingly started calling me a stalker! Oh, if he only knew. Winking smile Matthew was truly honored that I was such a fan and gave me a huge hug before going off to meet the many other fans of his that were in attendance. Sigh! What a complete and total sweetheart! As I said – the evening could not have been a more magical start to my Halloween weekend.

The following night, the GC and I headed out to Palm Desert, where his boss was hosting a prom-themed Halloween party. And while I had originally wanted to dress up as Ali (aka Christina Aguilera) and Jack (aka Cam Gigandet) from Burlesque this year, as soon I heard the words “prom-themed”, my plans immediately changed and we instead went as Brenda Walsh (aka my girl Shannen Doherty) and Dylan McKay (aka Luke Perry) in their outfits from the Season 1 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Spring Dance”. As you can imagine, I could NOT have been more excited for this particular costume!

And I, of course, just had to make the GC a vegetable boutonniere like the one Brandon Walsh (aka Jason Priestley) wore in the episode. Smile

I also just had to re-create the above photograph of Brenda and Dylan. Oh, the crap I put the Grim Cheaper through! It is honestly amazing that he ever proposed! Winking smile And my Halloween excitement did not end there because I spent this past Monday night at a place that I am still pinching myself over, but more on that tomorrow.

A big, huge THANK YOU to Katie, from the Matthew Lillard Online website, for the tickets to Harbor!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Matthew Lillard will be starring in Harbor each Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night now through December 3rd at The Victory Theatre Center, which is located at 3326 West Victory Boulevard in Burbank. You can purchase tickets to the show here.

October 14, 2008September 29, 2017

The Video Store from “Scream”

On a recommendation from E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, I recently purchased a GREAT book called “The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations“. I was completely floored to discover an entire section in the book dedicated to one of my favorite movies of all time – a little horror flick called Scream. Now, while I have admitted before that I was always too much of a scaredy cat to watch horror movies, Scream came out when I was in college, so I was pretty much past my scaredy cat stage by then. Scream was actually the very first scary movie I ever watched and I have to admit that I became a bit obsessed with it. The majority of Scream was filmed on location in Northern California and I actually stalked a few of the filming sites many, many years ago. But my new book listed some locations that I previously hadn’t known about. I usually don’t like to blog about locations that I haven’t visited myself, but since I don’t live in Northern California anymore, I enlisted my Aunt Lea to do some Scream stalking for me. Her first assignment – to stalk the video store where the movie-obsessed character of Randy works.

In real life the video store is called Bradley Video and it was was featured in only one scene in Scream as the location where all the high school kids rent scary movies after school is shut down for the day. In Scream, only the interior of Randy’s video store is shown and I actually had to send my aunt back to Bradley’s to stalk it a second time as the first time she didn’t get any interior shots. LOL Ah, the thing’s we’ll do for family! It was at Bradley’s Video that Randy, while talking about Sidney’s dad, tells Stu about the formula of scary movies. He says, “His body will come popping up in the last reel somewhere. Eyes gouged out, fingers cut off, teeth knocked out! See, the police are always off track with this shit! If they’d watch Prom Night, they’d save time! There’s a formula to it. A very simple formula! Everybody’s a suspect!” This conversation is shown in the above screen captures.

A BIG THANK YOU to my Aunt Lea for stalking this location for me.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Bradley Video is located at 3080 Marlow Road in Santa Rosa, California.