Art is subjective. One person may see a garbage bag floating in the wind. Another? The most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen. But when producers with an all-star cast and millions on the line expect Basic Instinct and you show up with a gonzo indie art film? Art just might get thrown out of a high rise window along with your career. In today’s video we explore the story of a director taking his last shot at redemption after a recent flop; Deciding to do so by tricking his studio into funding a sexy thriller while he secretly makes an odd art film. One that he fully understands a mainstream audience may not enjoy. It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Lets see if it pays off. This is what happened to Eye of the Beholder.
The story of Eye of the Beholder actually began in 1980 with the book of the same name by Marc Behm (who coincidentally wrote the screenplay for gnarly horror slasher film X-Ray or Hospital Massacre if you’re nasty). After almost being made into a feature film to star Charlton Heston, it was eventually adapted into a 1984 French film directed by Claude Miller titled Deadly Circuit. Fast forward to 1997 and director Stephan Miller had rewritten his own adaptation of the film. The director at this point in his career had made two notable films with extremely varying degrees of success. The first, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert was met with adoration and accolades. The film, which he called a silly movie about (his words, not mine) “Drag Queens and fart jokes” had opened up a world of opportunity. His follow up, Welcome to Woop Woop, tore all of that down and left him nearly untouchable in Hollywood. When we catch up with him at the start of Eye of the Beholder production he’s washing the clothes off his back by pouring detergent on them in a bath tub.
Stephan tells a story about how, after the success of Priscilla, known bully and Hollywood Producer Scott Rudin spent a considerable amount of time trying to be his best friend. However, after Rudin watched a private copy of Welcome to Woop Woop, he wouldn’t even return his calls. Finally, after weeks of attempting to reach him, Elliot told his secretary that if he doesn’t answer him now… they should never speak again. To which the secretary replied, “I think that would be fine with Mr. Rubin.” As Stephan puts it, he was in “film jail”.
According to Stephan, at the time they were filming Eye of the Beholder, the budget was to be $12-13 million. However, they were only spending $4 million on actually making the film. With the rest allegedly going to stars and lining producers pockets (Box Office Mojo has the film’s budget listed at $35 million). Still, they had to accept anyone willing to back the film they’d been unsuccessfully shopping for years. No one had apparently been willing to accept an extremely dark and serious script from the drag queens and fart jokes guy.
In Stephan’s take on the book, a character who goes only by “Eye” is a British Intelligence agent whose spy work has him come across an intoxicating woman named Joanna. He’s a workaholic whose only social interaction comes from his overzealous colleague at work, played by musician K.D. Lang. He quickly realizes Joanna is as dangerous as she is beautiful when he witnesses her brutally murder several men. Usually in sexual situations. Ever the good decision maker he falls in love with her anyway and decides to become her guardian angel despite never having spoken to her. He watches her from afar while talking to his imaginary daughter (who in non-crazy-pants world has been taken from him by her mother) and protects her at every turn. Whether it be from the police or 90210’s Jason Priestley playing an absolute psychopath who looks like he just walked right off the set of Fight Club from sexually assaulting her. All this while the weirdo gathers up the strength to meet her in person himself. As you can tell, it’s not exactly the world’s most marketable script.
Enter frequent Roger Corman collaborator and producer Mark Damon, who would cautiously finance Beholder. Red flags were immediately raised when Damon told Stephan that he wanted random and irreverent things added to the script. He wanted the female character to have a scene where she shopped at a Versace in Alaska where there was no Versace location. He demanded the film have what he called an “underpants dance” which was basically the female lead dancing sexually in her underwear. The producers were extremely candid and almost shameless when they told him if he didn’t come through under budget and on time? They would cut the film up in ways he probably wouldn’t like in order to recoup their losses. It was at that point he joked with them that he had some footage of Ashley Judd’s body double naked that he’d be willing to show them if interested. This apparently put everyone at ease as they all laughed and moved on. He had bought himself some space to maneuver freely.
Stephan is a character all in himself. When it came to casting the lead actress for the film, Susan Sarandon had been a big name they were hoping to snag. They managed to get a dinner with her and she seemed genuinely interested in starring in the film. However, Stephan became so excited whilst stuffing his face with a chicken Caesar salad, that he ended up spitting bits and pieces of it all over her. He had Susan Sarandon literally picking chunks of salad out of her hair.
Undeterred, the script went out to Hollywood superstars like Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, and Sharon Stone. Stephan had previously met talented actor Ewan McGregor socially and the two had gotten along. No chicken salad issues. And so, after enjoying the script, McGregor accepted the lead role and would take a hands on approach with helping craft the rest of the film. Ewan and Stephan hung out and perused possible actors for other roles in the film including the blind man; A wealthy character who falls in love with and even impregnates Joanna. Prompting the jealous and obsessive McGregor to run out of the bushes and punch a blind man in the face while screaming “Don’t you see you fool?!? She’ll kill you!” before running off into the night. Ewan joked that Al Pacino or Richard Gere could play the part of the blind man, having done so before. Some on the production were holding out hope for a Dustin Hoffman or Jack Nicholson to sign on. Eventually, they snagged Patrick Bergin for the role who gave it a very “world’s most interesting man” essence. All this before Eye, in a jealous rage, shoots at his car with a sniper rifle from a gigantic Bell tower, causing his death. It’s a strange movie, man.
The production shoot seemed to be what one would call a “shit show” as well. Whether they had their leading man riding around on motorcycles on sheets of ice in Canada in twenty below zero temps; Or their lead actress getting noticeably obliterated on bourbon while filming a bar scene. A scene where Judd had become more and more intense during each take, at one point even falling to the floor. Another scene involved an artsy idea for a stunt where Ewan was driving around with his imaginary daughter when the car filled to the brim with water. They crafted an intricate set for a difficult shot that included them having to disperse oxygen to the young actress and Ewan while submerged. On set, Stephan joked that this is why he likes to hire twins. Because if something happened to the little girl, there was another right there. Again, the shot never even made it into the final film.
Stephan joked multiple times throughout the production about having to lie to the financiers of the film to keep them at bay until he finished his weird little movie. He knew that Damon wanted a more straightforward sexy and violent thriller. He just didn’t care. This backfired when he had to sit in a room with his backers, showing them the first cut of Eye of the Beholder. The screening led to Stephan standing in a hotel hallway, beaten down emotionally, admitting “I didn’t think it’d be this bad”. One Executive complained that he didn’t feel aroused by Joanna. That she’s supposed to turn him on. And she didn’t.
Stephan was allegedly forced to spend his own money to shoot reshoots with a drastically reduced crew. He claimed to the camera that at this point Ewan McGregor had been treated so badly by critics, he was checking out, unwilling to make going to make any more compromises. That not only did McGregor not show up to film the second unit shots. But had stopped returning anyone’s phone calls. For reshoots involving Jason Priestley’s character, Stephan had to dress up as Priestley’s character himself and play the role. Once the reshoots were completed, the embattled director flew home to ponder his future in filmmaking and to visit a doctor for the panic disorder he’d developed in the process. Finally, he returned to find out an American Distributor had bought Eye of the Beholder sight unseen, with plans to release it in a wide release format. Something both Stephan and his boss thought was a mistake. That distributor was Barry London and a test screening was set up in LA that evening.
At the test screening, audiences howled in laughter during the film’s most emotional moments, prompting Stephan to walk out. The reactions were brutal. When audience goers were polled on their favorite scenes, they responded “none”. When asked their least favorite moments, one survey read, “all of them”. The next day, whether a coincidence or not, Producer Mark Damon had been ousted from the company. In another meeting with the suits, Stephan was again berated. They said this is the first time they’d ever had a test screening where the audience couldn’t even explain what kind of movie it was.
Eye of the Beholder was finally released in January of 2000. Thanks to a fascinating cast and some cool posters, the film still pulled in a total of $17.5 million worldwide. As expected, it was widely panned by both audiences and critics. Even the usually merciful CinemaScore was a brutal F rating. Though the film is strange and features way more snow glow zoom-ins than has ever been necessary; You have to hand it to the punk rock attitude off Stephan Elliot. The man had a vision and he risked it all to keep it true to his art. And like we said. Art is subjective. And that, my friends, is what happened to Eye of the Beholder.
A couple of the previous episodes of the show can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
