Stu’s House from "Scream"

Stu's House from Scream (1 of 1)

At the risk of my October postings turning into a full-fledged Scream-fest (and there ain’t nothing wrong with that, honestly!), I’m coming at ya again with another locale from the 1996 horror flick – the Tomales-area farmhouse where Stuart Macher (Matthew Lillard) lived.  Situated up a long, winding driveway and barely visible from the road, the pad is typically off-limits to passersby.  But I had the amazing good fortune of seeing it up-close-and-personal during my 2016 visit to Sonoma County.  As fate would have it, I happened to drop by on a Saturday morning, at which time a wedding was being set up on the premises.  While I was posing for the above photo, one of the party planners pulled up, took pity on me and asked if I wanted to come onto the property for a better look.  I just about died right on the spot, stuttered out a “YES!” and promptly hopped in my car and followed her up the driveway, practically hyperventilating the entire way!  It was definitely a day for the record books!

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In real life, Stu’s house boasts 5,500 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 baths (3 with clawfoot tubs and marble counters procured from a hotel in San Francisco), a formal dining room, a library, 4 fireplaces (though one is covered over), 2 wood stoves, fir wood detailing throughout, a gourmet kitchen with a walk-in pantry, a grand staircase, rear and front foyers, a 3-car garage with a bonus room upstairs, 298 acres of land, creek frontage, 2 barns, 2 guest cottages, and a span of eucalyptus groves.

Stu's House from Scream (9 of 34)

I was a little uncertain about the home’s provenance when I originally published this post.  Thankfully, a fellow stalker named Mandy went on a deep dive into the nitty-gritty of the property’s history as well as that of its original owners and has filled in all the blanks!  Honestly can’t thank you enough, Mandy!  A real estate listing I came across early on in my research stated that the dwelling was built in 1991 by a Mr. and Mrs. McPhail, who were in their 70s, and was designed to match to the Victorian where Mr. McPhail’s grew up – a factoid that just about made me, ahem, scream!  A replica of Stu’s house existing somewhere in Marin County?  I couldn’t think of anything cooler!  As Mandy discovered, though, virtually none of the listing’s reporting was correct.  The property was actually commissioned by John (aka “Jack”) and Carolyn MacPhail, not McPhail, who were in their late 50s, not 70s.  A photo of a plaque displayed on the front of Stu’s house that was posted to Instagram by a guy named Ben who attended the Scream Comes Home event in 2018 further confirms Mandy’s information.  It also shows that the pad was completed in 1990, not 1991.

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But the erroneous reporting doesn’t end there.  Mandy further uncovered that John’s childhood home is located at 7 Marin Street in San Rafael.  That’s it below.  As you can see – and as I was sorely disappointed to discover – it looks absolutely nothing like Stu’s.  It’s not even a Victorian!

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Now, the house next door at 11 Marin Street, where John’s father was born and raised and where a cousin of the family lived during his childhood, does bear some resemblance to the Macher residence.  Some.  While it is Victorian and has bay windows and a porch overhang similar to the Scream home, that’s certainly not enough to claim it is a replica of it – or even that it was inspired by it.  So yeah, the whole story about the Tomales property being built to match John’s childhood home appears to be just that, a story – probably intended to make the history of the place more interesting and therefore more attractive to buyers.

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Per their obituaries, the MacPhails both passed away in their Tomales home in 1991 at the age of 59 – John from a “brief illness” on March 6th and Carolyn “after being in ill health for several years” on November 12.  Matthew Lillard discusses the deaths in an on-set interview that is included in the Behind the ‘Scream’ documentary featured in The Ultimate Scream Collection DVD box set.  He says, “It’s kind of, like, an eerie house.  Actually, two people have died in this house.  Literally – two people have died in the house.  So coming up the hill and you’re doing a Wes Craven film and somebody tells you, ‘Oh, by the way, two people have died in the house,’ it brings on an entirely new thing.”  Though both John and Carolyn passed away from natural causes, Matthew is right – it’s certainly eerie!

Stu's House from Scream (17 of 34)

Stu's House from Scream (4 of 34)

The MacPhails left the sprawling property to their children and it sat vacant in the years following, which I’m sure is a big part of how it came to be used in Scream.  A huge, deserted and unoccupied Victorian situated up a lonely dark road?  There’s no better spot to shoot the final sequence of a horror movie!  Of the find, Wes Craven said in a 1996 interview that my friend Ashley of The Drewseum was kind enough to email me a scan of, “We wanted Stu’s home to have elements of a dark and haunted Gothic house and it needed to be very isolated.  We looked a long time for some place that had all of those elements.  The house we found was actually brand new.  It had not quite been completed when both of the owners died, and the family of younger kids didn’t quite know what to do with it.  When we found it and offered to use it, they were very happy to let us.  The art department went in there and did an enormous number on the house.  We put in all sorts of beams, and stained-glass windows, darkened all the colors, and brought in all the set dressings.  It was done in a sort of farmhouse style, and we changed it into a Gothic farmhouse.”

Stu's House from Scream (20 of 34)

Production designer Bruce Miller furthers in the same article, “It just doesn’t make sense that in a normal American home, murders could be happening in the upstairs bedrooms, and people watching television downstairs wouldn’t know about it.  So the house had to be big enough, and the rooms had to be separated by enough distance, to convince the audience that these things could really be happening, without the other people knowing about it.  This particular house was perfect for that, because it was very convoluted, and kind of Victorian on the inside.  It was actually a little scary to some extent, and then we added big paintings and a chandelier.  Because the house was so Victorian on the inside, we didn’t want to fight that, but we didn’t want to over-stress it either.  We even put a volleyball net in the front yard, because it had to be believable that a normal teenager lives there with his parents, who just happened to be away for the weekend.”

Stu's House from Scream (14 of 34)

The production team must have really, ahem (again), screamed with excitement when they saw that the home’s garage is situated on the rear side of the property, not at all visible from the front, making Tatum Riley’s (Rose McGowan) death scene (which was a part of the original script) – as well as the fact that her body is never seen by any of the partygoers – all the more feasible.

Stu's House from Scream (5 of 34)

Stu’s house was put up for sale in November 2011 for $2,795,000, but there were no takers.  It was eventually removed from the market, then returned and finally sold in June 2014 for $2,820,000.  Today, it is known as “Spring Hill Estate” and, as I mentioned, serves as a wedding venue.  Despite being remote, isolated, situated on a lonely hill and the site of one of filmdom’s most famous horror movie sequences, it is nothing short of peaceful and pastoral, not to mention stunningly beautiful.  I can think of no better place to host a wedding in Northern California.  The nuptials we saw being set up, situated in one of the property’s barns, looked like something out of a magazine!  Rustic, inviting and lit with hundreds upon hundreds of twinkle lights, it was all I could do not to try to secure myself an invite!

Stu's House from Scream (8 of 34)

Scream’s epically bloody finale, which counts for a whopping 42 minutes of screen time, was comprised of one scene, Scene #118.  Broken up into more than 20 different parts, the sequence, titled “People live, people die,” makes up the entire third act of the film.  And all of it takes place at Stu’s house!  Pretty much every single area of the residence is featured, including the front exterior.

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Stu's House from Scream (1 of 1)

The pad looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen, minus the large stained glass window situated over the front door which was a prop added for filming, I am guessing to give it even more of that Gothic Victorian farmhouse feel.

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Stu's House from Scream (15 of 34)

For the shoot, the home’s real life dining room was transformed into the Macher family’s TV room, where audiences were gifted with Randy Meeks’ (Jamie Kennedy) legendary break-down of “the rules” of horror movies.  As you can see in the MLS image below from the property’s 2014 sale, even without Stu’s red floral curtains and rust-colored couch, the room is very recognizable from its cameo.

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diningroom

And the kitchen is even more so!  Looking at MLS images of it makes my heart beat a little faster!  The room is absolutely frozen in time from its big screen appearance!

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kitchen

The only thing missing is a set of ceiling-mounted cabinets that ran along the edge of the space in Scream.  I am not sure if said cabinets were a real element of the house since removed or just set dressing, but I am guessing the former.

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kitchen2

The 2014 listing mentions that the home boasts “a kitchen desk and planning center” which cracked me up as that is the spot where Stu sits while speaking on the phone with Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell).  It is there that he utters his famous line, “My mom and dad are gonna be so mad at me!”

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kitchendeskandplanningcenter

The residence’s breakfast nook also makes an appearance in Scream;

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breakfast nook

as does the foyer;

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foyer

one of the bedrooms;

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bedroom

the attic (of which, Wes Craven says, “The attic wasn’t very creepy, so we darkened it down, and filled it up with all sorts of strange stuff.”);

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attic room

and, of course, the garage!

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Had to do it!

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Stu's House from Scream (33 of 34)

As I mentioned earlier, the garage is situated on the back side of the house . . .

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. . . completely hidden from view from the front.

Stu's House from Scream (7 of 34)

It is in the middle garage door that Tatum meets her untimely end and from the dormer above it and to the left that Sidney jumps out of the attic and first sees her body.

Stu's House from Scream (25 of 34)

The finale sequence, which took a whopping 21 nights to shoot, was so grueling that cast and crew started referring to it as “the scene from hell” and “the longest night in horror history.”  It was not long before “I survived Scene 118” became a running joke and t-shirts bearing the phrase were made for everyone involved, as seen in the still from ’Scream’: The Inside Story below.

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All I could think while making screen captures for this post was how in the heck did they ever get the house clean again following filming?

Stu's House from Scream (31 of 34)

Stu's House from Scream (32 of 34)

Fun fact – Dewey Riley (David Arquette) was originally set to die at the end of Scream, but Wes Craven had a last-minute change of heart and shot the bit with the deputy being taken out of Stu’s house on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance on the final night of filming, as he had a feeling audiences were going to fall in love with him.  And he was right!  I can’t imagine the sequels without Dewey!

Stu's House from Scream (13 of 34)

Per the Spring Hill Estate website, Stu’s house is quite a hotbed for filming, with more than 15 productions lensed on the premises.  I was only able to identify 2, though.

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The interior is utilized briefly as the home where Sara Gold (Allison Paige) lives with her parents in the 2016 drama The Dog Lover.

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And Stu’s house also serves as the residence of Stella Davis (Dorian Brown Pham) in 2017’s Running Wild.

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Coincidentally, shortly after I began penning this article, the Grim Cheaper texted me a link about a Halloween party taking place at Stu’s house on October 31st, hosted by the same guys who put on Scream Comes Home.  Apparently, the homeowners have recently decided to move onto the premises and though the place will still be available periodically as a special event venue, this will be the last time it is opened up to Scream fans.  You can get your tickets here!  And if you are interested in checking out more interior shots of Stu’s house, the Real to Reel website has some fabulous ones from the Scream Comes Home event.

Stu's House from Scream (16 of 34)

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Mandy for unearthing so much of this home’s history and to my friend Ashley, of The Drewseum, for sharing several articles about the property with me!  Smile

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Stu's House from Scream (30 of 34)-2

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Spring Hill Estate, aka Stu’s house from Scream, is located at 3871 Tomales Petaluma Road in Tomales.  The home currently serves as a special event venue.  You can visit its official website here.  The residence is situated up a long private drive and only the back of it (which did not appear in the movie) is visible from the street.  (Pictured below is the view of it from the road.)  You can catch an up-close glimpse of it, though, by attending the Halloween party being held there on October 31st.  More information can be found here.

Stu's House from Scream (1 of 34)

The “Scream” Video Store

Bradley Video from Scream (22 of 24)

Extremely nostalgic by nature, I was recently thinking about the demise of video stores and how many movies would suffer if made today because of it – movies like The Holiday, Clerks and, of course, Scream.  Without the scene set at Woodsboro’s local VHS rental spot in the latter, in which Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) schools buddy Stuart Macher (Matthew Lillard) on the “very specific formula” followed by slasher flicks, much of the tongue-in-cheek nature of the storyline would have been tragically lost.  I blogged about Santa Rosa’s Bradley Video, where the segment was shot, back in 2008, though I had never actually stalked it myself, instead sending my aunt Lea, who lives in the area, to do so on my behalf.  By the time I next made it up to Sonoma County in 2016, the shop had long since shut down, but I still included it in my Scream stalking itinerary, which encompassed every.single.location featured in the 1996 horror classic down to the hotel where the cast and crew stayed during the 55-day shoot, as well as the warehouse that served as the production’s soundstage.  The vast majority of those sites remain on my To-Blog List and I figured today was the perfect time to get to posting about them, starting with Bradley Video.

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When Lea stalked Bradley Video for me in 2008, the store was still in operation.  In fact, it was her local rental place and she and her husband would visit it regularly.  Sadly, it went the way of most VHS leasing establishments, initially closing its doors in 2005 after its owner, William Bradley, filed for bankruptcy.  There were 11 shops in the chain at the time, all of which shuttered that same year.  In a fitting twist, the majority of the company’s outposts, including the one from Scream (located on Marlow Road) were curtained on October 31st!  As The Press Democrat reported a few days later, calls to the Sebastopol outlet were met with a message stating, “Bradley Video is closing its stores for good, and this store is closed.  Happy Halloween.”  Though I am sad it is no longer open, if a horror movie location has to shutter, I can think of no better day to do it than Halloween!

Bradley Video Collage 1

That wasn’t the end of the Marlow Road store, though.  In January 2006, the shop was was re-opened by West Coast Video, along with 6 others in the Bradley chain.

Bradley Video Collage 2

The rebirth was short-lived, however, and the Marlow Road BV closed once again in early 2009, shortly after my aunt’s stalk of it.

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Amazingly, the space has remained vacant ever since, which is great news for us Scream aficionados as it has resulted in very few changes to the exterior.

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The same goes for the interior, which I was thrilled to discover as I peeked through the windows!  Despite the passage of 23 years, two separate closures, an ownership change, and an almost-decade long vacancy, the Bradley Video site still looks exactly as it did onscreen!

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I cannot express how thrilled I was to see the very same muted fuchsia carpeting that Stu and Randy walked upon still lining the floor of the space!  Also visible?  Faded markings surrounding the areas where the shelving used to stand!

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Bradley Video from Scream (9 of 24)

The rectangular pillar stationed behind Randy throughout the scene also remains intact, though today it is mirrored.

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Bradley Video from Scream (10 of 24)

Per Scream’s production notes, Sonoma County was chosen as a backdrop for the lurid tale thanks to its “innocent, familiar” locales which provided the perfect setting for the movie’s more macabre sequences.  And no site is more innocent or familiar than a local video store!  It is at Bradley Video that Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), Stu, and several other Woodsboro High students head to rent movies after classes are cancelled due to the murder spree taking place in town.  While there, we get these choice words from video store employee/resident slasher flick expert Randy, “See, the police are always off track with this sh*t.  If they watched Prom Night, they’d save time.  There’s a formula to it – a very simple formula!  EVERYBODY’S A SUSPECT!”  As I was not able to venture inside the former Bradley Video space, my photographs were, obviously, not taken from an angle matching that of the movie, but I believe the image below shows basically the same vantage point, minus the anteroom visible in the foreground.

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Bradley Video from Scream (19 of 24)

As for the detritus strewn about, per a commenter named Rich Brasil on the Bloody Disgusting website, the location is currently used to house supplies for a neighboring Chinese restaurant.

Bradley Video from Scream (12 of 24)

Bradley Video from Scream (15 of 24)

Filming of the Bradley Video scene took place on Monday, May 6th, 1996 (the 16th day of production) according to the Scream call sheets, which my friend Ashley of The Drewseum was kind enough to give me copies of.  Actors were required to report to the locale at 9:15 a.m. and the weather was “sunny and cloudy, dry, breezy at times” with highs in the mid-60s.  There were a total of 40 extras on set (including “2 babes for Billy”) and the shoot was scheduled to wrap at 6 p.m.

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Bradley Video from Scream (11 of 24)

And while I am thrilled the Bradley Video space remains so unchanged from that 1996 cameo, at the same time it is a bit disheartening that the site of such a famous cinematic moment exists in such a sad state.  I would love to see the place re-open, but with the interior left intact, of course.  Scream video store pop-up, anyone?

Bradley Video from Scream (7 of 24)

Bradley Video from Scream (1 of 24)

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to my aunt Lea for initially stalking Bradley Video for me and taking the images dated 2008 that appear in this post.  Smile

Bradley Video from Scream (23 of 24)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Bradley Video, from Scream, was formerly located in the Rosewood Village shopping center at 3080 Marlow Road in Santa Rosa.  Its former storefront, Unit A19, is denoted with an orange arrow below and its onetime frontage marked by orange lines.

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The Video Store from “Scream”

On a recommendation from E.J. over at The Movieland Directory, I recently purchased a GREAT book called “The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations“. I was completely floored to discover an entire section in the book dedicated to one of my favorite movies of all time – a little horror flick called Scream. Now, while I have admitted before that I was always too much of a scaredy cat to watch horror movies, Scream came out when I was in college, so I was pretty much past my scaredy cat stage by then. Scream was actually the very first scary movie I ever watched and I have to admit that I became a bit obsessed with it. The majority of Scream was filmed on location in Northern California and I actually stalked a few of the filming sites many, many years ago. But my new book listed some locations that I previously hadn’t known about. I usually don’t like to blog about locations that I haven’t visited myself, but since I don’t live in Northern California anymore, I enlisted my Aunt Lea to do some Scream stalking for me. Her first assignment – to stalk the video store where the movie-obsessed character of Randy works.

In real life the video store is called Bradley Video and it was was featured in only one scene in Scream as the location where all the high school kids rent scary movies after school is shut down for the day. In Scream, only the interior of Randy’s video store is shown and I actually had to send my aunt back to Bradley’s to stalk it a second time as the first time she didn’t get any interior shots. LOL Ah, the thing’s we’ll do for family! It was at Bradley’s Video that Randy, while talking about Sidney’s dad, tells Stu about the formula of scary movies. He says, “His body will come popping up in the last reel somewhere. Eyes gouged out, fingers cut off, teeth knocked out! See, the police are always off track with this shit! If they’d watch Prom Night, they’d save time! There’s a formula to it. A very simple formula! Everybody’s a suspect!” This conversation is shown in the above screen captures.

A BIG THANK YOU to my Aunt Lea for stalking this location for me.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Bradley Video is located at 3080 Marlow Road in Santa Rosa, California.