Where Sleeping Dogs Lie

1991 film by Charles Finch

November 13, 1991 (1991-11-13) (Santa Barbara Film Festival)
June 18, 1993 (1993-06-18) (United States)

Running time

91 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglish

Where Sleeping Dogs Lie is a 1991 American neo noir thriller film directed by Charles Finch and starring Dylan McDermott. The primary location for the film was C.E. Toberman Estate in Hollywood, a large Mediterranean-style, 22-room house built at the top of Camino Palmero in 1928 by C. E. Toberman.^[1]

Plot

A murder mystery writer misreads the nervous man he bullies in a spooky Hollywood mansion. A psychological thriller with an aspiring writer who was recently evicted moves into a run down California mansion; an enigmatic tenant collaborates on his novel as the "real" killer of the family that the writer is writing about.^[2] The writer does not like writing about "blood and guts" to have a best-seller; yet, desperation finds him moving into a house where the inhabitants were murdered by a serial killer, still-at-large, the "real killer" moves into the house as a tenant, helps write the book, then reveals that he killed the family.^[3]

Cast

Dylan McDermott as Bruce Simmons
Charles Finch as Evan Best
Sharon Stone as Serena Black
Ron Karabatsos as Stan Reeb
Tom Sizemore as Eddie Hale
Mary Woronov as Woman Tourist
David Q Combs as man Tourist
Vanna Bonta as Serena's Secretary
Elizabeth Whitcraft as Serena's Secretary (as Liza Whitcraft)
Phoebe Stone as Little Girl
Shawne Rowe as Telegram Clown
Richard Zavaglia as Detective Clifton
Jillian McWhirter as Dol Whitney
Brett Cullen as JOhn Whitney

References

^ Wallace, David. (December 30, 1990) Los Angeles Times They Won't Let 'Sleeping Dogs' Lie. Section: CA-Calendar; Page 31.
^ Hart, John. The Sacramento Bee. Sacramento, California · Friday, February 26, 1993. Page 117
^ Zion, Lawrie. The Age. Melbourne, Victoria, Victoria, Australia · Thursday, November 02, 1995. Page 56