Wes Craven’s Vampire in Brooklyn: How a Stunt Went Fatally Wrong on Set – Screen Rant

Wes Craven's 1995 horror/comedy Vampire in Brooklyn isn't one of his best works, but sadly, making it accidentally cost a stuntwoman her life.

Wes Craven's 1995 horror/comedy Vampire in Brooklyn isn't one of his best works, but sadly, making it accidentally cost a stuntwoman her life. It's no secret that filmmaking can be a dangerous process, and sometimes even a deadly one. One need only think of Brandon Lee's tragic accidental death on the set of his 1994 classic The Crow, or more recently, the tragic death of a stuntman on the set of AMC's mega-hit series The Walking Dead in 2017. For obvious reasons, that latter profession does tend to carry the most danger in Hollywood.

After all, the entire reason the job of stuntperson exists is to protect the stars of a film or TV show from performing feats too dangerous to ever be attempted without the proper training. With the millions that the average Hollywood production costs, it's also important to stay on schedule, so risking any kind of injury to a cast member is definitely not advisable in the least. Of course, that doesn't stop people like Tom Cruise from doing crazy stunts anyway.

Related: The Classic Terminator 2 Scene That Permanently Injured Linda Hamilton

Unfortunately, no matter how much training one has, and no matter how many safety precautions are taken on set, accidents still sometimes happen. Such an accident occurred during the filming of Vampire in Brooklyn, which saw comedy icon Eddie Murphy make a rare journey into the horror genre, with the legendary Wes Craven at the helm.

Sonja Davis, who counted among her previous credits Strange Days and Timecop, was working on Vampire in Broolyn as a stunt double for female lead Angela Bassett. Davis had doubled for Bassett previously. One day, while filming a stunt involving a 42-foot backwards fall, Davis bounced off of the huge airbag that was meant to cushion her landing, subsequently slamming into the building and then into the ground. While not killed immediately, Davis sustained critical injuries, and passed away after spending two agonizing weeks clinging to life in the hospital. To make matters worse, her mother and brother were on set and saw the event happen.

Davis' mother Wanda Sapp and Davis' siblings then filed a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit against distributor Paramount Pictures, Eddie Murphy's production company, director Wes Craven, and stunt coordinator Alan Oliney. Sapp alleged that her daughter had been pressured into doing the stunt in an unsafe manner, and that she had expressed hesitation about the stunt's safety beforehand. Unfortunately, it's unknown what became of the case, as the Davis family's lawyer Melvin Belli unexpectedly passed away while things were still proceeding.

More: The Shallows Behind The Scenes: How Filming Injured Blake Lively

Visit link:
Wes Craven's Vampire in Brooklyn: How a Stunt Went Fatally Wrong on Set - Screen Rant

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero