River Phoenix’s last movie, in the works when he collapsed and died on Halloween night twenty years ago, was screened Thursday at the Berlin film festival. “Dark Blood” was finally completed last year, by director George Sluizer, reports the Inquisitr on Thursday, Feb. 14, in spite of mysteriously missing footage.
An American cinematographer Edward Lachman reports that the particular stretch of film, recorded on the “Dark Blood” set, with River Phoenix walking, as if he knew it was his last movie, “like a ghost” into the camera, has disappeared. People involved with the filming remember it clearly, but no one can locate the piece. “There were many things around this film that were very extraordinary,” Lachman said.
The actor was only 23 when he died, and he already had a cult following of fans, who bought into his clean image of vegetarianism and eco-friendly activism. They were shocked and horrified to learn their hero, star of “My Own Private Idaho” and “Stand By Me” died of heart failure due to a combined overdose of cocaine and heroin.
How could that be? How could someone who refused to wear leather, due to animal rights’ concerns, do drugs? Was he simply too young to grasp the enormity of the chance he was taking? Or was there more? The mystery goes on.
The scene of the actor’s untimely death was Johnny Depp’s club, the Viper Room, on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Even his friends and co-workers were shocked. Dying of a drug overdose just did not fit the image River Phoenix gave off. Sometimes it happens that way.
Current owners of the film are pushing for a general release.
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