Trivia for
Mysterious Skin (2004) More at IMDbPro »

• To prepare for his role, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt spent a week visiting cities and towns in Kansas where the book is set. Scott Heim, author of the original novel, guided him around the locations and had him meet the actual people on whom the characters are based.
  
  
• Each of the youths in the film is based in part on the life of Scott Heim, the book on which the film is based. Scott claims to have seen a UFO with his family, excelled in school and lived with his single mom after a divorce (like Brian), he announced baseball games (like Neil) and his infatuation with cosmetics and British goth pop made him the subject of death threats (like Eric).
  
  
• The logo for the fictional show "World of Mystery" is the same as the logo for real-life production company "World of Wonder".
  
  
• Gregg Araki cut the movie himself on his Macintosh computer, using Final Cut Pro 4.
  
  
• Cameo: [Mary Jane Skalski] the witch who says, "These are the eyes of the ax murderer's victims..." in the Halloween "haunted house" scene near the beginning of the film is played by film's producer.
  
  
• Cameo: [Beau J. Genot] the man whose "severed head" is on the table is played by the film's associate producer.
  
  
• Gregg Araki said in an NPR interview that he shot all of the scenes with the child actors in such a way that they did not know the sexual context of their abuse scenes, and only during editing did he make the movie appear to show children being abused or witnessing abuse.
  
  
• After Brian steals the picture of his baseball team from the archives, the film cuts to Neil announcing a baseball game. He says "That's two outs, Garfield the batter. Heim on deck." Scott Heim wrote the novel on which the film is based.
  
  
• The movie that Brian and Eric are watching in Eric's bedroom before Brian's mom enters and disrupts their "studying," is The Dead Next Door (1989).
  
  
• The "Halloween house" was the same house used for Vernita Green's (Vivica A. Fox) house in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003).
  
  
• In the scene where the boy is lying in bed, he is wearing a shirt that says, "Sex Wax and Six Packs." This is a t-shirt made for a party that is hosted annually by a notable Kansas State University Fraternity House. Kansas State University is in Manhattan, KS and the fact that the boy is wearing this shirt passed down to Hutchinson, KS shows the great deal of costume accuracy of the area.
  
  
• Original novelist Scott Heim wrote a draft screenplay which he then entered into the Sundance screenwriting lab. Gregg Araki was on the judging panel and the two became friends. Eventually it was mooted that Araki himself tackle the material.
  
  

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