[Interview] Daisy McCrackin Reveals ‘Halloween: Resurrection’ Shower Scene
On July 12, 2002, the eighth and final installment in the original Halloween series opened in theaters, and while Halloween: Resurrection was far ahead of its time in terms of its internet streaming storyline, the movie is too often only remembered for a certain rapper’s “face to face” confrontation with Michael Myers, but the fact is that much of the finished product was originally supposed to be very different.
In celebration of today’s 12th (as of this writing in 2014) anniversary of Halloween: Resurrection, we wanted to share a portion of our recent interview with one of the film’s stars, Daisy McCrackin, who plays the brainy (and horny) Donna.
Read on for Part 1 of our interview with Halloween: Resurrection star Daisy McCrackin, as she discusses her first day on set filming a shower scene that would have introduced her character with a big nod to Psycho, but ultimately never made into the finished film!
“I remember it’d been a really busy pilot season, and I was auditioning a ton, working in L.A.,” Daisy recalls of getting the role of Donna. “They had already been casting for a while, and they were looking for all kinds of different people. They did have a redhead in mind, but they hadn’t found the right person. I think they were casting in Vancouver too, because that’s where we were going to shoot. I think they were looking for a Canadian person.
“When I went to the first audition, I had been up all night with a friend editing my (acting) reel to get it ready to give to a director for something else. I was trying to update my reel with an Angel episode I had shot, and this was back when it wasn’t as easy to do that. I didn’t know how to edit.
“So I hadn’t had much sleep or much time to prepare when I went to the audition, but it went really well, and then I got the call back. They had basically already decided.
“I was nervous, because I always get nervous unfortunately. I think I was going out of town for the summer to go visit my family when I found out I had booked it. My manager called on my cell phone as I was driving out of L.A., so that was exciting.”
Daisy says that despite it being her first major feature film, her experiences on set were nothing but positive, if scary at times.
“There were some cast members that were there in Vancouver a little bit earlier than me. They had shot a few days of scenes at the school before you first see my character. I was there for over a month.
“I remember we were all staying in the same hotel in downtown Vancouver. A lot of other people were staying there at the time too, a lot of celebrities shooting other things, so we would see them in the hotel gym and stuff.
“I can’t remember what was filming, but I met Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie. I think she was filming something and he was visiting her.”
The actress reveals that the introduction of her character was originally supposed to be sexy homage to the infamous shower scene in Psycho.
“My first day on set was with my shirt off,” Daisy recalls. “It was a shower scene that ended up getting cut out of the movie.
“It was supposed to be like somebody plays a prank on me while I’m taking a shower. I’m getting ready to get in the shower and I’m being watched through the window, so it seems ominous and scary, but it turns out to be just like a college kid and not Michael Myers, but that got cut out.
“Somebody was watching through the window as I was getting undressed and running the shower, with like steam. That was the first scene I shot, so I hadn’t met everybody yet, and I was supposed to take my shirt off and be in the mirror, and then I go in the shower.
“It was very nerve wracking to shoot that scene first, but everybody was very sweet and it was private. They made me feel very comfortable.”
McCrackin says she got through that first day of shooting thanks in large part to the support of her costars.
“Bianca (Kajlich) and Katee (Sackhoff) were really sweet to me. We all rode together in the van. We were excited about the movie, and we were talking about it and wondering when it would be released and how it would turn out. It was released in summer, but we were just young kids going, ‘Ah, they should release it on Halloween’, and having fun with it.”
Daisy says there were other scenes that were filmed but ultimately deleted, including an extended shopping sequence that would have featured the three female leads trying on various different Halloween costumes.
“There was some scene were us girls were shopping at the store,” she said. “I think that got cut down or cut out. It showed the three of us girls, Bianca, Katee, and I, shopping and trying on clothes in a store by the school.”
Donna’s inevitable death is one of the most brutal and effective in Resurrection, and we had to ask Daisy what it was like to be murdered by Michael Myers.
“As an actor,” she explained, “you just have to prepare and really try to make it real, that the light goes out of your eyes, that there’s a real appropriate level of struggle and panic and fright. Obviously we were all doing it, but we each had our different way of dying. Mine was kind of nice and slow, and gruesome, and you kind of think that she might get away.
“I remember my voice was already pretty hoarse from screaming and shooting things out of sequence. I’m a good screamer, but I felt like in the end I wish the vocal performance had maybe been better. I just remember thinking that sometimes.
“I actually didn’t re-watch it before this interview. I just thought it would be better to do the interview how it is 12 years later, but it was scary.
“It actually was dark, and nobody else was in there, because you would have seen them on camera. We had already been shooting all day, and there really were these rats squeaking and stuff.
“It’s pretty scary when it comes to your time to die.”
We will talk much more about the making of Halloween: Resurrection in Part 2 of our interview with Daisy McCrackin HERE!
Read Part 2 of our interview with Daisy McCrackin here.
