“The Seventh Sign” House

NOTE – This blog was supposed to post yesterday, but somehow did not, so it looks like I am a day late and a dollar short.  Sorry about that!  I would like to start off by wishing my fellow stalkers a very HAPPY HALLOWEEN!  I hope all of you have a fabulously spook-filled day.    And now, on with the post!  Way back in July 2012, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I embarked upon a stalking adventure in and around the Venice Beach area.  While there, he took me by an adorable little dwelling that was the main location used in the 1988 horror film The Seventh Sign.  I had never actually heard of the flick at the time, but Mike figured that the residence would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme.  And, as luck would have it, we happened to meet the longtime homeowner while we were stalking the place and he not only told us all sorts of behind-the-scenes information about the shoot, but invited us into the backyard where quite a bit of the filming took place!

The Grim Cheaper and I ended up watching The Seventh Sign shortly after I returned home and I can’t say that I was a big fan.  As I mentioned in my post about the residence belonging to Heather Langenkamp (who played herself) in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, I am not especially fond of sci-fi-style horror flicks.  It was very cool to see the house that I had just stalked a few days prior featured so prominently onscreen, though.  In The Seventh Sign, the two-story bungalow is where Abby Quinn (Demi Moore) lives with her husband, Russell Quinn (Michael Biehn), and their demonic unborn child.

According to the homeowner, whose parents owned the pad back in 1988 when The Seventh Sign was filmed, the property was chosen for the shoot because producers liked the fact that it was located on a corner, that it had an apartment above the garage, and that the main house and garage could both be captured onscreen in a single shot.  Due to a massive amount of foliage that has since grown, that is no longer the case, though, as you can see below.  Otherwise, the abode looks very much the same as it did onscreen, despite the passage of over 25 years.

In The Seventh Sign, Abby and Russell rent out that garage apartment to a rather mysterious individual named David Bannon (Jürgen Prochnow) in order to make some extra income before their baby arrives.  Things don’t quite go as planned, though.

Amazingly enough, while the landing is now different, the stairs leading up to the garage apartment look very much the same today as they did back in 1988.

I was floored when the owner allowed me to pose for a photograph on the stairs, which Mike had told me played a significant role in the filming.

The homeowner also informed us that an incredibly difficult-to-shoot scene was filmed in which Abby walked across a beam of light (in actuality it was a wooden bridge) from the main house to the garage apartment.  The scene was very labor-intensive, expensive, required countless retakes, took several nights to complete, and in the end wound up on the cutting room floor!  Ya gotta love Hollywood!

Several areas of the residence’s real life interior were also used in the filming, including the living room;

the kitchen;

and the front room.  You can check out some more interior photographs of the property on an old rental listing here.

In real life, the charming little cottage, which was originally built in 1916, is not a single-family dwelling.  It actually consists of three units – the main home, which features two separate apartments, one on each floor, and a third apartment located above the property’s detached garage, as was depicted in the movie.

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Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Seventh Sign house is located at 902 Palms Boulevard in Venice.