Wes Craven Presents: The Bloodgrinder (1998)Directed by:
Rick Mustaine
Rick Mustaine
Writing credits:
Rick Mustaine
Pierre Doitot (credited as Steel Widowhammer)
Genre: Horror / Suspense / Inaccurate History / Puppets (more)
Tagline: They wanted to have FUN. He wanted to have BLOOD. To GRIND. In his GRINDER.
Plot Outline: Six college students visiting Europe on spring break decide to spend the weekend in an abandoned World War II puppet factory, but all is not as it seems as the puppets begin to (more) (view trailer)
User Comments: A stain on the reputations of European puppeteers during World War II! As a puppeteer myself I find this movie dusgusting and full of libel and slander and (more)
User Rating: 
9.7 / 10 (10 votes)
9.7 / 10 (10 votes)| Credited cast: | ||
| Johnny Lee Miller | .... | Ronald R. America |
| Alyssa Milano | .... | Vivvean Sessuál |
| Gwendolyn Catass | .... | Brittany Stilleto |
| Taye Diggs | .... | Stegosaurus Bronson |
| Stanley Hitler | .... | Jason Hitler/The Puppeteer |
| D'Artagnan Redoak | .... | Bucephalus Hitler |
| Aaran Aaansaaaan | .... | Nazi Sheriff |
| Esther Geld-Liebenstein | .... | Gypsy Witch |
| Kevin Nash | .... | Super Bloodgrinder |
| (more) | ||
Also Known As:
Ultimaten Erotisches Marionette Erscheinen mit "Samantha" von "Wer ist der Arbeitenführer?" (Germany)Larry Bird's Wildest Slam Dunks (Canada)
Runtime: USA/Canada: 78 min / Germany: 21 min
Country: USA
Language: English/German
Color: Economobarato
Sound Mix: Doolby
AMDB Trivia:
- Director Rick Mustaine trusted cinematographer and sadist Pierre Doitot's "cruel sensibilities" so much that he asked Doitot to help him revise the script. On the set, Doitot pulled triple duty as cinematographer, script supervisor and property master.
- The college footage was shot at a university for the deaf in Canada. Director Rick Mustaine reasoned that the deaf students would not be able to hear the cameras running and would therefore offer a more natural performance. Once there, however, Mustaine was so terrified by the voices of the deaf students that he barricaded himself inside an enormous clock.
- The Fat Mama puppet costume was personally designed by Pierre Doitot out of cast iron. The dwarf inside was nearly incapable of moving and was almost scalded to death when Doitot made the costume smoke by filling a drawer in its back with burning coals.
- The Puppetwerks Factory scenes were shot inside a real abandoned Nazi puppet factory in Mississippi.
- Cameo: During the fortune teller scene there is a framed oil painting of Big Bird hanging in the background.
- Director trademark: Opening doors accompanied by wailing metal guitar licks.
- Before shooting began, director Rick Mustaine declared actress Alyssa Milano's navel to be too distracting and insisted she stuff it with a cork. The cork fell out with almost any movement, causing dozens of retakes. In a fit of pique on day five of filming, Mustaine ordered all footage reshot and sealed Milano's navel with permanganate horsewax.
- To save money, Pierre Doitot constructed all of the toilets for the use of the cast and crew. These heated up to unbearable temperatures randomly, emitted a piercing scream if the seat was lifted and featured a removable bowl and a padded compartment large enough for an infant, but usually teeming with daddy long legs.
- The film's titular monstrosity was inspired by Rick Mustaine's poor understanding of the origins of blood sausage.
- Though it was not in the script, Alyssa Milano's contract included a stipulation that she might be asked to slam her breasts in a door.
- Actor Johnny Lee Miller was hoodwinked into starring as Ronald R. America by Rick Mustaine, who used an elaborate ruse involving a fake fatal car accident, fake DUI arrest, fake courtroom, fake judge and a fake sentence to perform six weeks of community service on the set of The Bloodgrinder. Miller later sued Mustaine, who was ordered by the State of California to direct a movie of Johnny Lee Miller's choosing.
- The character of the Lilliputian caretaker of the puppet factory, Bucephalus Hitler, was based on Pierre Doitot's own late son, Corduroy Fenris Doitot. The nine year old was no larger than a lima bean and possessed the intelligence of a gumdrop. Doitot brought him to the set each day inside a cricket cage, setting him loose during shooting in the hopes that he would "at long last find his end beneath a heel." Corduroy was instead killed by undiagnosed Type-1 diabetes when he found his way into a teacup full of sugar.
- Budget overruns on props forced Rick Mustaine to outsource the movie's climactic battle flashback to India, where Happyshines Cinematopics of Hyderabad transformed the grueling close-quarters battle between SS soldiers and Jewish slave laborers into a nine-minute silk-drenched dance sequence.
- Director Trademark: A puppet bursting out of a man's forehead.
- Actor Stanley Hitler is an actual blood relative of Scott Abbott, one of the two inventors of Trivial Pursuit.
- Wes Craven attached his name to the film after seeing a rough cut of the deam sequence in which Alyssa Milano's character gives birth to a puppet version of Adolf Hitler, believing it to be "bone-chilling" and "visceral." This same scene was later cited by critic Leonard Maltin as "one of the most unintentionally hilarious concepts since the invention of film." (More)
Memorable Quotes:
Ronald R. America: Here it is guys. The perfect place for a spring break.
Stegosaurus Bronson: Yo, you tellin' me we came all the way to Germany for this broke ass factory?
Vivvean Sessuál: It's...like my dream...
Brittany Stilleto: W-what does the message say?
Vivvean Sessuál: "I will grind your blood."
Brittany Stilleto: I don't get it.
Super Bloodgrinder (bursting through the wall): Oh, you will get it, my dear!
Stegosaurus Bronson: You sayin' she got strangled by a puppet?! That's ridiculous!
Vivvean Sessuál: I'm afraid it's ridiculously true.
Evil Voice: We're coming to get you...
Stegosaurus Bronson: Who said that?! Is that you Ronnie? All I see is all these creepy puppets.
Jason Hitler: Noooo! You were supposed to become my perfect puppet wife!
Vivvean Sessuál: Marry THIS! (More)
Goofs:
- Continuity: During the "spring break starts" scene near the beginning a woman shouts "woooooo!" and tears her bikini top off as she runs past Ronald and Stegosaurus. Seconds later the same woman appears in the background being loaded into an ambulance with her top back on.
- Incorrectly Regarded as Goofs: A man is visible in the background at Hitler's mansion wearing a t-shirt that reads "Ocean Pacific - Class of 1968". You could print whatever you wanted on a t-shirt as early as 1925.
- Anachronisms: When we see Jason Hitler's wife killed in a flashback she is run down by a man on a Segway.
- Incorrectly Regarded as Goofs: When Jason Hitler is talking to Doctor Falkankopf about the plans for the Super Bloodgrinder over coffee he clearly places a miniature man into his coffee along with a pinch of sugar. In a later shot the tiny man is not visible in the coffee. The man could have sunk or dissolved into the coffee.
- Revealing mistakes: When Herr General Scheissstab turns to leave there is no back to his uniform. This happens again when the Super Bloodgrinder goes berserk. As the soldiers turn to run they are completely naked from behind and even their helmets are open-backed.
- Factual errors: No amount of electricity can cause a dead body to combine with a puppet and then animate. One or the other, but not both.
- Revealing mistakes: When Johnny Lee Miller and Alyssa Milano are fleeing the collapsing factory they run no more than 50 feet before entering a Mailboxes, Etc. store. The clerk can be heard asking in a thick southern drawl "what the heck are y'all doin'?"
- Factual errors: It is physically impossible for a puppet to throw a donut through someone's chest.
- Anachronisms: Crazy Frog was not available as a ringtone until well after 1945.
- Errors made by characters: Gwendolyn Catass never once correctly pronounces the name of a character. This includes Stegosaurus, her supposed long-time boyfriend, who she refers to as "Stogopopolis."
- Continuity: When cutting between characters in the gas station scene, Johnny Lee Miller frequently appears as a cardboard refrigerator box with the words "ACTOR'S FRONT" written on the side facing the camera.
- Plot holes: If Jason Hitler is a ghost then having sex with Vivvean Sessuál will not produce "a legion of puppets", but rather an army of half-dead babies.
- Crew or equipment visible: During the scene in which Stegosaurus is being stabbed by Fat Mama a team from pest control can be seen fumigating for cockroaches.
- Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Adolf Hitler could have had a retarded miniature brother and a puppet-obsessed son and just never mentioned them.
- Factual errors: Israel was not founded so that "the blood-curdling Jews of Old Europe could make their puppets in peace."
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