9 Fun Facts About ‘Once Bitten‘

The horror comedy Once Bitten (1985), starring Jim Carrey and Lauren Hutton, tells the story of a 400-year-old vampire who feeds on virgins to keep her youthful appearance. Though the film had a decent showing at the box office, it wasn’t a hit with most critics. Let’s take a look back at the cult classic.

Art served as inspiration.

According to writer Jeffrey Hause, “We decided that the look of our teen sex film was to be inspired by the dark, brooding artwork of Edvard Munch,” the artist behind works like The Scream. Hause, writing on his blog, added, “I wish I was joking about this, but I’m not. ... There is still a portrait of Lauren Hutton in the finished film based on the Munch painting ... variously titled Madonna or Vampire, painted in 1895.”

The Hollywood seen on screen was completely different than the one in the script.

The writers intended for the film to show a much darker side of Hollywood. The head script reader for Goldwyn wrote in his notes that the project was hilarious, and that “the writers create a Fellini-esque vision of Hollywood that reeks not only of comic atmosphere but somehow captures and hyperbolizes our worst fears about the sleazy parts of town. It is a vision that balances precariously and triumphantly on a razor blade.”

In an email interview with Mental Floss in 2015, Hause shared the original title and direction of the film, and shared his thoughts on how the film turned out: “We had originally called it Nightlife, but Goldwyn didn’t think it sounded like a comedy ... our draft really was about L.A. nightlife and trying to be a little creepier in tone.”

“I hope I don’t come off as too mean-spirited or bitter on the website,” Hause said. “I’m grateful and proud that the film was made and feel lucky to have worked with a true comedic genius like Jim Carrey ... I just have an idea of what it could have been (teens invading a vampire movie) instead of what it became (vampires invading a teen movie), but other people disagree and their opinions are just as valid as mine—thank God it was made at all!”

The title is a reference to an old idiom.

Blood-sucking films without either Dracula or Vampire in the title often find other ways to reference their mythic subject matter (see 1983’s The Hunger, 1987’s Near Dark, or 2009’s Thirst), but the filmmakers decided to go one step further with Once Bitten. An early version of the expression once bitten, twice shy is found in a 1484 translation of Aesop’s Fables by William Caxton. The translation reads “He that hath ben ones begyled by somme other ought to kepe hym wel fro(m) the same.” Hause told Mental Floss in 2015 that at one point the title had an ellipsis: “At first it was Once Bitten ...—dot, dot, dot—which was probably a setup for a sequel, but I guess it didn’t work with the logo they created.”

Once Bitten was Jim Carrey’s first major film role.

Jim Carrey had appeared in a couple movies as a young comedian, but nothing that would have made him a famous actor. In 1984, he landed a job on a sitcom about a cartoonist at an animation company called The Duck Factory; unfortunately, the series was canceled after one season. That bit of bad news turned out to be a good thing for Carrey, though: It freed him up to audition for the lead role of Mark Kendall in Once Bitten. He had his first on-screen kiss—with model Karen Kopins, who played Robin Pierce—in the movie.

Writer Jeffrey Hause really wanted Michael J. Fox for the lead.

Hause campaigned for Family Ties star Michael J. Fox to be the lead in the film. Sam Goldwyn Jr. of The Samuel Goldwyn Company was not convinced that Fox could carry the movie. Carrey was cast instead, and Hause said that it only took one scene to convince him that the young comedian was right for the part: “We had written a dozen sleazy L.A. bar sight gags into this scene—all cut—but Carrey just had to walk across the bar and look scared: Somehow he made that funny! Every line delivery was fresh and original, and he knew how things looked on camera without having to look through a lens.”

Michael J. Fox didn’t make out so badly; a few months before Once Bitten was released, Fox became a major box office force with both Back to the Future and Teen Wolf.

Lauren Hutton wasn’t the first choice for the Countess.

Before the rewrites (and The Samuel Goldwyn Company’s involvement), Hause and his writing partner David Hines wanted Elvira to play the Countess; director Howard Storm, meanwhile, wanted actress Morgan Fairchild for the part. Hutton was eventually cast, and she reportedly took the role against the advice of her agent. Reflecting after the film came out, Hutton said, “What I did wrong with [Once Bitten] was I didn’t stick to my guns. I should have played a vampire of my own invention ... I wanted to make a punk vampire. ... I wanted her to be in rubber. I wanted her to be every teenage boy’s dirty, horrible, frightening sex dream.”

Megan Mullally had a small role.

After a couple of small TV roles early in her career and a bit part as a call girl in Risky Business (1983), the future Will & Grace star played Suzette in Once Bitten, the girl taking tickets at the school before the infamous dance-off between Mark’s girlfriend, Robin, and the Countess.

The woman walking a lion in Hollywood at night was not in the script.

Hause wrote on his blog that in making the film more commercial and keeping with the times, the studio hired someone to create a montage. “It was a big deal in the 1980s to have video montages in every film. And this film has a terrible one ... one thing they added—and don’t ask me why—was the image of a supermodel walking a lion down Rodeo Drive. We had nothing to do with it.”

They used cold water in the shower scene.

In a 1985 interview on The Afternoon Show, Carrey explained that he had no idea that Once Bitten had a shower scene until just before the scene was shot. “This is the fear of I guess every actor, is having to do something in the nude,” Carrey said. “I was totally freaked, the night before, I’m calling up my manager ... they told me that they were going to treat it very classy.” Carrey described the scene was “so shocking” due to the fact that they needed to use cold water: “Hot water would steam up the camera lens.”

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A version of this story ran in 2015; it has been updated for 2024.