‘The Good Son’ 30th Anniversary Retrospective – Crew Members Share Memories and Never-Seen Photos from the Set

By the early 1990s, it was still fairly rare to see a Hollywood production invade New England to shoot a film. Things had certainly been made here: Ever heard of JAWS? It was shot entirely on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. And I made a documentary about another one: Stephen King’s PET SEMATARY, which was shot entirely in Maine in 1988. In fact, much of my documentary film work has focused on stories native to New England. But, still, we didn’t see the kind of movie activity and buzz that we see nowadays. Despite its natural beauty of mountains, rocky coastlines, and beautiful beaches, New England can be difficult (and expensive) to navigate for a film crew. What’s more, during certain months of the year our weather can be unpredictable and harsh. We’re known for our Nor’easters and blizzards and even the occasional hurricane in the autumn months. This sort of stuff doesn’t exactly provide the controlled settings and ideal conditions to make a movie. Still, in the 1980s and 1990s more and more movies began coming here – not necessarily for the tax credits they would eventually enjoy in the 2000s, but to capture “that look” – a look not always easily replicable in other parts of the country or even a soundstage.

THE GOOD SON (1993) written by English novelist Ian McEwan, was one of those rare exceptions of a film production actively seeking out the natural beauty of New England and embracing all that comes with it – especially in winter. As a kid, I was familiar with the 1993 film for what I assume is a fairly universal reason for those of my vintage: Macaulay Culkin. I remember seeing him on the VHS cover and instantly recognizing him from such classics as UNCLE BUCK and HOME ALONE. As I recall, I (wrongfully) assumed this would be another John Hughes-style comedy with Culkin delivering those classic jabs and one-liners to the fuddy-duddy adults in the film who were hell bent on ruining his fun. 

Man, was I wrong.

For those who’ve seen the film, THE GOOD SON is hardly a comedy. It’s actually quite a dark and – at times – sinister character study of a troubled kid (Henry, played by Culkin) and his family’s slow reckoning of who and what their son is. Upon my initial viewing I was taken aback by the stark contrast of the Henry character and that of Kevin McCallister from the HOME ALONE films – I didn’t quite know what to make of it. I was equal parts disturbed and intrigued. It was hard to look away. By the end (no spoilers!) I was both relieved and yet even more disturbed. What had I just watched? I know for certain I hadn’t seen anything by that point that elicited such a raw reaction. Kids doing not just mischievous things but evil things. I was in awe over just how well Culkin played the bad boy. 

Of course, the seed for this type of story had been planted decades before Ian McEwan penned his screenplay or Linda Blair scared the world as Regan. In 1956, Warner Bros released what would become a critically successful shocker with THE BAD SEED, a film that scared audiences and amassed an impressive haul at the box office, especially for that era. The film centers on 8-year old Rhoda Penmark, whose family begins to suspect that she might be responsible for a string of nefarious occurrences, including the suspicious drowning death of Rhoda’s classmate, Claude Daigle. Over the years many have stated that THE BAD SEED directly influenced THE GOOD SON, which feels like a reasonable claim to make. There’s certainly a lot of connective tissue with respect to the theme of children – seemingly innocent and wholesome on the surface – actually harboring dangerous and dark thoughts, thoughts that would eventually manifest much to the distress and surprise of their families and friends. These are stories very much centered around sociopathy. THE BAD SEED would see two remakes and a sequel in the subsequent decades that followed the original – one in 1985 and again in 2018 starring Rob Lowe, followed by the 2022 film, THE BAD SEED RETURNS. All three were made-for-television. 

By the time THE GOOD SON appeared on my radar, I was loosely familiar with other “evil children” horror films. THE EXORCIST (1973), THE OMEN (1976) and CHILDREN OF THE CORN (1984) were all familiar titles in my movie-renting diet. As I entered middle school and then high school, I began actively seeking out lesser known titles – some of which were this type of fare. For example, the oddball Canadian cult film, THE PIT (1981) was on constant rotation for me and my best buddy, Andrew. Beware the Tra-la-logs (aka, the barely-explained creatures that the lead “evil kid” Jamie would feed his victims to.) But these aforementioned films all contained elements of the supernatural, unexplained, demonic forces driving these kids to do their evil bidding. Possession and the occult served as the narrative backbone of many of these stories and, so, it was only natural that a film like THE GOOD SON would feel somehow separate from what I had grown accustomed to seeing – even if I didn’t have the ability to verbalize it at the time. The character of Henry was not so much possessed or demonic as he was sick; a damaged kid who was dealing with some kind of deep psychosis or maybe even psychopathy. Mental illness. The story of THE GOOD SON wasn’t leaning on those supernatural tropes to explain Henry’s penchant for drama, destruction, and death. He was the victim of his own existence. His own mind. This stood out to me as a young viewer and – I think – is why the film left such an impression on me at the time.

But something else stood out to me.

That backdrop. I recognized those trees. I was familiar with that coastline. It was obvious to me that at least part of the film (I would later find out that almost all except the final cliff scenes) was shot in my neck of the woods here in New England – in neighboring Massachusetts to be exact. As with other films (JAWS, PET SEMATARY, etc.) I would eventually develop a fascination with visiting filming locations and establishing a real, tangible connection to the films that made an impression on me at some point in my life. Over the years I would visit the places where THE GOOD SON was filmed and would meet a fellow location enthusiast of the film, Steve Van Geyte, along the way. More recently, and with 2023 marking the 30th anniversary of the release of THE GOOD SON, I spent some time tracking down both local, Hollywood, and Canadian crew who helped bring that film to life. In our conversations we talked about some of the more iconic and memorable scenes from the film, how certain locations were discovered, what Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood were up to when the cameras weren’t rolling, and more. Below is a condensed version of those conversations along with never-before-seen photographs from the set. Also below are contemporary filming location shots side-by-side with the corresponding shots from the film. Massive thanks to Steve Van Geyte for helping to source these location shots!

SYNOPSIS (From the original VHS release):

Henry Evans (Macaulay Culkin) is a rambunctious, playful youngster whose angelic smile hides dark secrets and a love of deadly games. His loving parents and adoring sister would never imagine the thoughts, or deeds Henry is capable of. Only a young cousin, Mark (Elijah Wood) who comes to visit the family, can see the evil behind Henry’s smile. An evil that may put all their lives in danger. Mark tries to warn the family about Henry, but they refuse to believe him, and soon it is Mark that the family comes to fear. Unless he can show them the true nature of their good son, Mark will have to battle Henry by himself in a contest pitting good against ultimate evil.

IT’S A LOCAL THING

The Filming Locations: Then and Now – Photo by John Campopiano

The script for THE GOOD SON had several starts and stops with loads of changes by writer Ian McEwan. Due to issues around funding and casting, the film would live a dubious existence from 1988 until principal photography finally began in November 1992. The various changes would culminate in Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood being cast and the production moving from Oregon and then Maine to, finally, coastal Massachusetts.

David Trifunovich – Special Effects Supervisor

This film started in Oregon originally. I had the trucks, set up a shop, and shipped everything to Oregon. The office was set up and all of a sudden everything was frozen and within a couple of days everyone was told to go home. The show was over and everyone was like, what? So, apparently they shut it all down and we never did find out what the reason was. We all packed up and went home. And then I guess it was a couple of years later, I got a phone call to ask if I’d be interested to come and do this show again but on the East Coast this time. And I said sure!

Robert Schleinig – Set Dresser

It was filmed across the winter, which is another unusual thing because over that decade and into 2000s, it was notorious that we didn’t do many movies in the wintertime because the weather was so unpredictable. One time, and I can’t remember specifically what month – probably December – a Nor’easter blew in. Oh God. And we were all like, “Yeah, okay, work’s got to get canceled. I mean, what are they going to do?”

THE GOOD SON was a significant job because it solidified a lot of people in the New England area who were straddling Boston theater work with filmmaking. It’s not that there wasn’t a film crew before THE GOOD SON, but there weren’t really people who could manage crews. After the film, I became a Lead Man in Set Dressing. The Lead Man runs the set dressing crew for the decorator. Back then and before THE GOOD SON, you had to really travel around a lot to work full-time in movies in this region. There wasn’t always enough to sustain you until around 2004 – 2005 when they began introducing the tax incentives. After that, films started coming in more frequently. THE GOOD SON was very beneficial to the New England crew and to me, in particular. It was a pivotal film for the local crew.

Carolyn Pickman – Location Casting

I love THE GOOD SON and remember it proudly for the work we contributed on the local casting. Casting Director, Deb Aquilla, hired me & Patty Collinge. Deb was our advocate and kindly supported our work. Patty & I were just starting up in the casting business here and were doing tons of local commercials and had a few films under our belt including MYSTIC PIZZA (1988). With great joy, we were able to book a handful of our top local dramatic actors of that time. I remember proudly telling actors Guy Strauss (who played a doctor), Jerem Goodwin (who played a factory worker) & Keith Brava (who also played a doctor): “YOU GOT THE JOB! Woo, woo!”

THAT BIG HOUSE BY THE SEA

Photo Credit: Charles Pyle

Maybe it’s because the house is on the cover of the film (and is what I always first associate with the film) but the house from THE GOOD SON is a gorgeous, haunting structure. It’s hard to forget it once you’ve physically been there – as I have – and taken in the natural beauty that surrounds it. For my money, the marketing folks at Fox nailed the image that would ultimately be used on all releases of the film – including the eventual novelization tie-in book. Macaulay Culkin’s face dominates the cover and the house he would slowly terrorize throughout the film sits just over his shoulder. As we’ve seen throughout horror and thriller movie history, the house in this film becomes its own character in the film.

Ben Dewey – Location Scout

One of the things I had to scout was the house – I found the house in Manchester-by-the-Sea (a village in Cape Ann, MA), because I knew them [the owners]. It was their summer home. And I didn’t know that I knew those people until I knocked on the door. I had gone to school with the son of the woman who owned it: Margot Pyle. Her son, Charlie Pyle, was my contemporary at that time. Things like that happen all the time in the film business. You have a web of contacts and sometimes that allows for a door to open. In those days it wasn’t about tax incentives. They committed to it because of the location and look and how it fit the story. It was an old school, Hollywood decision: we’re going here and doing this but with New York producers. I was on the road for that film for 3 months straight.

Charles Pyle – Owner of the House used in THE GOOD SON

My family has owned the house since 1948. The film company replicated the interior of our house in Lynch Park in Beverly, MA. One of my brothers reminded me that an interior wall was removed between two 3rd floor rooms to accommodate filming – they probably needed more space for cameras. Of course, the crew also did some interior painting for the movie. After filming they put the front stairs back and repainted and wallpapered various rooms. One major change had to do with the floors. My grandmother had them painted blue back in the 40’s. That was the color I grew up with and gave the house a summer feel. The movie company removed that paint and underneath found a dark stain. We assume this was probably closer to the original finish. We have kept the floors like that. My sister remembers furniture from her bedroom was used for Quinn Culkin’s character’s room. That same yellow furniture is still used today.

Robert Schleinig – Set Dresser

The other side of it was the interiors of the house they built in Beverly at this park, the town of Beverly, MA allowed them to go there and build it. So, there was no house there. I mean there was nothing there. They built a steel superstructure and built the interior of a house inside of it that sort of matched the architecture of the real house and then built the steel shed over it. So, they built this structure right on the rocks at the edge of this park and they called it a studio. But the cool thing about it was when you walked in, you were walking into the house. Normally that kind of interior would be built on a stage somewhere or an equivalent, like a warehouse. But here they wanted to have the views of the ocean. In particular there’s a bedroom that has multiple windows that look out over the ocean. Well, they couldn’t leave it out of the building exposed to the elements, so that structure was on tracks and it rolled out of the building, in and out, and then every evening they would pull it back in.

Jack Gill – Stunt Coordinator

Since this story was built to be in a certain area, Joe always wanted to shoot it there. And Joe’s from New York and he said, I don’t want this to look like something that it’s not. So, I want to find the places that are realistic. And he fought very hard because a lot of the places that we thought worked, Joe always put his foot down and said, no, this is my vision that I want this to be exactly what I want. So, he always thought that Gloucester and that house was the perfect location for his movie. That house is just absolutely gorgeous. And he felt like that was kind of the mainframe of our movie and everything else we could kind of find. But we did find a lot of local crew members there that were very, very helpful, and they became grips and gaffers electricians.

HERE COMES “MR. HIGHWAY”

One of the more memorable and shocking scenes from THE GOOD SON involves Henry (Culkin) and Mark (Wood) tossing a mannequin, nicknamed, “Mr. Highway”, over a bridge into oncoming highway traffic. A major car wreck occurs, resulting in a Winnebago flipping over in the road. The boys then flee the scene. This moment epitomizes Henry’s dark and sadistic tendencies and marks a turning point in the relationship between the two boys.

Ben Dewey – Location Scout

It took me forever to find that location (Mr. Highway). It was perfect because we could control it. I think it took me a month to find it. I must have looked at 80 or 90 bridges, but that was the right bridge: Pease Air Force Base. The thought was, “Why are we going to New Hampshire?” And I had to tell them that I’d checked so many roads, but it would have been a huge ordeal to shut them down. And they didn’t look totally correct. By virtue of just driving around I found that bridge. Pease was still a very active Air Force base and anybody who knows that area will tell you what a huge role it played in National Defense. But they were open to it because it did not in any way impact them significantly because there were a number of access roads they could reroute and we could control it. And so after so much searching, I drew all these roads all throughout New England trying to find something that had two lanes over two lanes and that was the key.

Jack Gill – Stunt Coordinator

Now with the motor sequence, I shot that as an action director. I shot that whole sequence on a military base because they wouldn’t let us do it on a highway because they said too many people are going to get the idea. And so you need a place that’s not accessible to the public. I had my brother Andy driving the Winnebago, and I tried something that I had done before on KNIGHT RIDER back in the 80s. We used 55 gallon water drums to flip the Winnebago. And so it’s just weight shifting, really. All Andy had to do was just pitch it sideways. And these 55 gallon drums are in the back and they’re all encased in steel, so they can only roll one direction. And once you pitch it sideways, they roll from one side all the way to the other side, and all that weight transfers to that side and turns it over. And so you don’t need a ramp and you don’t need a cannon and you don’t need anything else. It’s all very realistic.

The water barrel sequence gives you a more realistic turnover. It doesn’t make the vehicle hop up in the air, it just lays over on its side which is more realistic.. It has to look like he just swerved out of the way to miss what he thought was a person. And it just turned over and then we crashed a whole bunch of cars into the back of it and made a big pile up. But that was a one-time thing. We only had one motor home and it had to work, and if it didn’t work, I told Joe, what are we going to do if this thing doesn’t work? And he goes, I don’t know. There’s no way to rehearse it. I said, no, we don’t have the money in the budget to buy a motorhome to practice with, so I’ve just got to hope that this works. And luckily it did.

David Trifunovich – Special Effects Supervisor

Jack’s brother was really great. I liked him a lot. We got along really well. What we did was put a big water tank on the left side behind the driver in the middle of the motorhome and it was on big rollers and it had an explosive trip on it. So, when the driver started to turn the wheel to do the turn, he hit the button and the explosive charges went off, which popped the releases and the tank rolled and hit the other side of the motor home, which then tipped it right over because of the weight, and that made it go right on its side and that much momentum, it slid. And I remember they put the camera there and they said, is it safe here? We said, well, we think so. Literally, if you see the film, it slides right up to that camera and stops just before the camera.

MAC AND ELIJAH

Photo Credit: David Trifunovich

When Elijah Wood was cast in THE GOOD SON it was years before he’d skyrocket to mega stardom as “Frodo” in THE LORD OF THE RINGS films. He had done some television work and had just starred as Huck in the Mark Twain adaptation of, THE ADVENTURES OF HUCK FINN (1993). Macaulay Culkin, on the other hand, was already a household name by the time production on THE GOOD SON was underway. In 1989 he appeared alongside John Candy in UNCLE BUCK, followed by MY GIRL in 1991. But it would be the smash comedy hit, HOME ALONE, in 1990 that would mark Culkin’s meteoric rise. As the story goes, Kit Culkin, Mac’s father, had a desire to showcase Mac’s versatility as an actor and prove he could stick the landing with a darker role, so he made Mac’s role in THE GOOD SON a condition for him appearing in the soon-to-be sequel, HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YORK. THE GOOD SON was originally slated to begin principal photography around the same time as HOME ALONE 2, so production on THE GOOD SON was delayed once again in what must have felt like deja vu for the filmmakers and studio.

Jack Gill – Stunt Coordinator

Macaulay had never really done any type of acting like this before, so it was a big step for him.

David Trifunovich – Special Effects Supervisor

We had all read the script very carefully and we understood the characters. The first thing I thought when I read this was: this can’t be Macaulay. It’s like, really? Because this was so dark. All of a sudden he’s killing dogs and he’s throwing bodies off of bridges and trying to kill his sister…it was like, whoa! And then you start wondering: is this a bit of a reach? Because do you really believe that this is who this is after knowing all the characters he’s played before that? so sometimes that doesn’t work. You just can’t unsee somebody like that. Many of us talked about that as well during the shoot. It was something completely different. He was the bad boy, he got to be the bad boy.

Robert Schleinig – Set Dresser

Macaulay was tremendously professional – so was Elijah. They knew what they were supposed to do, but they were kids, too, and so you didn’t want to force them. There were good people on set and they made it fun for them such that it wasn’t too hard and dreary. The kids lived and stayed on a bus all day, like a tour bus, and they would come out and let them out and sometimes they would be playing around outside. Occasionally someone from wardrobe would dress Macaulay incognito and take him into town to do stuff like go to the movies. He was the biggest child actor then. He loved it. It made him feel so great. It was just such a respite from his world, just like any celebrity. When you’re an adult, that’s what you signed up for. When you’re a kid, how do you deal with it? You can’t go to the store, you can’t go to the movie theater. People are going to mob you. Right? So, they would take him out. 

For the amount of budget that it was, that was a big deal for us. In New England, a lot of times they just came and did portions of movies for location purposes, that kind of thing. And so to do the whole thing to justify the huge budget, obviously they needed a big star, but it was awkward that it was all hinged upon a 12-year-old kid. And so when we’re doing it, there’s no sense of what the product is when you do, it’s just work. And so when so much revolves around him, and there’s so much pressure, I mean… it goes to show how much of a professional he was. He’s got to have a temperament and the talent to be an actor to do what he was doing. And he did have it. So did Elijah.

Elijah Wood – “Mark” *excerpts pulled from a 2020 interview with Yahoo Entertainment

It was a big deal because Home Alone was huge, so I was excited to meet [Macaulay Culkin]. He was a “celebrity” so I was excited to meet him and work opposite him. We spent a lot of our time off set running into the woods and playing war with sticks and using pine cones as grenades. We would play all the time. It was fun, too, to work on something that was as dark as that. I was very cognizant of that and excited about it, ya know? This idea that we were making a genre movie before I knew how to classify it. It was essentially like THE BAD SEED. And it was fun for me to work on material that was darker. I knew that certain films I was doing were for adults and that there were other kids that were making films that were specifically for families and kids. And it was exciting to me to be working on things that weren’t necessarily for kids. I have an older brother who is 7 years older than me so I was exposed to horror films pretty young. Because my brother would rent films at the video store with his friends and he would invite me to watch these movies, like “Don’t tell mom!” kind-of style which is awesome as a kid. I think the first horror movie that I saw, I was probably 5.

Cynthia Flynt – Costume Designer

Both were around 10 at the time and they already had their acting chops in place. I remember Elijah talking about his backstory while we were doing his first fitting. I kept his character in blues and greens and as Henry became more and more evil reds began to dominate his color palette. Honestly, my memory, however, is dominated by the fact that I was pregnant with my first child during the filming, so many of my memories are a bit sidetracked by that. I loved living and working in Gloucester, MA. I rented an adorable house in Annisquam. I grew up in Massachusetts so I felt at home.

David Trifunovich – Special Effects Supervisor

I do remember one funny story. This happened a couple of times where I would be really busy prepping and getting stuff ready, and my walkie, they would call me and say, you need to come right away. You got to come right now. And I said, what’s going on? And they said, McCauley won’t go to the set unless you come and pick him up on your ATV. I said, “Are you kidding me?” They said, “No, he won’t come out of the trailer.” So, I’d have to drive over to, “Hey, Macaulay, good morning.” And he’d get on the back with me and I’d drive him to set. This happened a couple of times, so it sort of became a bit of a joke after a while.

FINALE AT THE CLIFF

Photo Credit: David Trifunovich

Unlike most of the film, the harrowing finale of THE GOOD SON did not take place in New England. Instead, the crew packed up and trekked to Palisade Head, Minnesota, in Tettegouche State Park. The final showdown between Henry, Mark, and Susan (played by Wendy Crewson) was shot – for real – on the north shore of Lake Superior. To this day this particular scene is one that sits most vividly in my mind from first seeing it as a kid.

Jack Gill – Stunt Coordinator

When we first got contacted about doing the film, I was called into the director Joe Ruben. He said, “At the end of this movie we want both the kids to hang off a cliff – for real.” And I said, “Okay, so, what kind of clip are we talking about and can we put pads underneath it?” And he said, “No, it’s going to be 185 feet tall and over water.” So, we had to figure out how to do it. And back then you had stunt kids, you had stunt people, husbands and wives who worked in the stunt industry (and usually their kids) so, you could use them because they had trained under their parents. At the end of the movie they said they needed Mac in a closeup to drop at least 30 feet away from the camera  and off the cliff and that I needed to start training Mac. So, I started training Macaulay and Elijah in a firehouse in Gloucester, MA. Every single minute they got off of set, they would come over to the firehouse and we’d start working. It was like a 15-ft. platform to get them used to cables and moving around. I was training the kid to do what’s called a descender fall on a cable. They were very eager to do it – it became playtime for us. We’d put all the pads underneath and let ’em goof around on the cables. I wanted them to know that there was no way they could drop because we had two cables on ’em, one as a safety cable, one as a backup. And so I would drop them over the side 15 feet with pads underneath them in the firehouse and say, “Alright, you can turn upside down, push away, kick on it. You could do whatever you want. You’re never coming off the cable.” That creates confidence in the kids. And then they could work and act when they needed to. In today’s world, the studios would never let us hang two 10, 11-year-old kids off a 185-ft. cliff.

The funny thing about it was that, in the end, for that 30-ft. fall backwards that Macaulay had to do, they had to call Kit Culkin (Macaulay’s father) and ask if it was okay to do. Kit and I were on the phone and I said, “Look, we rehearsed it at the firehouse in Gloucester and he’s good with it, but you have to sign off on it and so does your wife. He said, “Well, I guess it’s okay. I’ve seen the videos and I think it’s okay.” So, I talked to Mac and he said, “You’ve got to give me something.” And I went, “What do you mean I have to give you something?” He goes, “Well, I have to get something for doing it…”

I said, “What do you want?” And he goes, “I want a BB gun.” 

So, we got the studio together and we talked to Kit, and Kit said, “Yeah, if he’ll do it, give him a BB gun.”

And then the rock part of the cliff was so sharp and had edges that you can’t really fight on. I had Bill Groom, who was the Production Designer, build a face on the top of it that had about a 3 to 4-ft. gap between the face of it and the top of the area so that I could put my riggers inside the cliff and they could hold onto Macaulay and Elijah. And then we brought in cameras and we brought in helicopters and we brought in the most integral pieces of equipment. We had a thing called an “air chair” and we brought a crane out there and hung the crane out over the cliff and then put John Lindley the Director of Photography in this air chair. It had gyros on it so we could hang him out there with the actors on the cliff. He used his feet to push the gyros to pan left and right. Nobody had ever done that before. So, that was how we got a lot of the shots in and around the kids on a real cliff face. None of it is ever on stage. It was all real. And it was cold. It was a very tense situation. 

Photo Credit: Jack Gill

Elijah Wood – “Mark” *excerpts pulled from a 2020 interview with Yahoo Entertainment

We were really hanging from that cliff. We shot that just outside of Duluth, MN. We were in harnesses. On the day we were rigged up to a whole system for safety but we were actually hanging off the side of the cliff. It’s funny, too, because my mom was like, “Is there a net or anything below them?” They said, “Yeah there are boats…” But the reality is there were rocks just below us and the boats were probably 15-20 feet out. So, if we had fallen we would have fallen on rocks. …But it was very safe! But it was scary, despite the fact that you know you’re not gonna be let go and that you’re being handled by the stunt team. So, not a whole lot of acting for that sequence.

Fun Factoids!

THE GOOD SON was released theatrically in the US on September 24, 1993. The US and Canadian lifetime box office gross was $44,789,789. The worldwide lifetime box office gross was $60,613,008.

The child characters of “Richard” and “Connie” are played by Macaulay Culkin’s real-life brother, Rory Culkin, and sister, Quinn Culkin.

The 1995 UK video version was cut by 33 secs by the BBFC to edit shots of Henry and Mark dropping a lifelike human dummy into a stream of traffic to cause a motorway pile-up, as this was considered a dangerous imitable technique. The cuts were waived for the 2002 version.

In addition to Manchester-by-the-Sea and Beverly, MA, the Massachusetts towns of Rockport, Essex, Annisquam, Danvers, and Marblehead were also featured in the film.

Photo Credit: Van Revin