Has that criticism been brought on because the films prologue was so forceful and direct?
Gregory: The idea of the prologue was to provide a sense that there would be shocking violence to come. If that prologue weren’t there, the first act would be a lot longer for the audience to sit through. The prologue is over-the-top enough that it suggests the film will go back into dark territory. Originally, the prologue was even more extreme. Inbetween the priest getting hit in the head and getting an axe in his face, we poured Drano down his throat because he was praying and they were trying to shut him up. That was something we hadn’t seen done before, which was also something we wanted to do: to make the killings original and something audiences hadn’t seen before. We found out later that it had been used in a movie called Mother’s Day. The other problem was that the production designer’s only mistake on the film was that he made the Drano bottle a light blue, and everyone kept calling it Maalox. I got four comments from early screenings asking why they were pouring Maalox down
