Trivia / Dust Devil

• Based on a Dream: The project had its genesis as a dream that Richard Stanley had when he was a student at the Cape Town Film School. He tried unsuccessfully to realize it at the time.
• Follow the Leader: Miramax constantly sent memos to the set asking Richard Stanley to make the film more like The Silence of the Lambs.
• Screwed by the Network: Richard Stanley's first cut of the film was 120 minutes long. Miramax hated it and produced its own 87-minute version without Stanley's permission or cooperation. This cut removed all references to the supernatural and almost completely disposed of the nominal hero's role. It was released in the European market, however Stanley has never seen this version. Stanley came to an agreement with the producers over a 95-minute compromise cut. At this point the film's British backers, Palace Pictures, went bust, making it increasingly unlikely that the film would ever see the light of day in a UK cinema. Then after about a year of frantic searching, Stanley discovered that the original negative was being held by Poly Gram. He went to the film's original investors, Channel 4 and British Screen Finances, which were naturally keen to see what had happened to their investment. Poly Gram was obliged to hand over the negative, which Stanley re-cut to his own specifications, and with his own money.
• Self-Adaptation: The film was made from a previous work of Richard Stanley's, an unfinished 16mm student short film about bizarre murders taking place around the town of Bethanie. The authorities never caught the serial killer, which led to locals believing the killings were caused by a supernatural force. The police eventually returned to town with the body of a man they believed was the killer; however, the body was without a head, which made identification with locals impossible. The man was later buried in a town with a grave marked "Nhadiep".

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