Roger Avary’s 2002 dark comedy The Rules of Attraction stars James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, and Ian Somerhalder as three troubled college students entangled in a strange love triangle. Van Der Beek plays Sean Bateman, a sex-obsessed womanizer who describes himself as an “emotional vampire.” When we first meet Sean, he’s at a party looking for a girl to prey upon for the evening (by his own admission):
If the last name and personality traits aren’t conjuring up images of any other mentally unstable movie characters, we’ll help you out: Sean is the younger brother of notorious serial killer Patrick Bateman, as played by Christian Bale in 2000’s American Psycho. Both films were based on novels by Bret Easton Ellis, and Patrick actually narrates a chapter in the book version of The Rules of Attraction. He was supposed to be included in the movie adaptation as well, but the scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. In fact, one of them was so wild that it still hasn’t seen the light of day all these years later.
In the one scene that’s publicly available, Sean calls up Patrick to ask him for money. Patrick, who’s portrayed by Casper Van Dien of Starship Troopers fame, is in the middle of recording a creepy voice memo when he’s interrupted by the call. “I’m giving him hell,” Van Dien said of the deleted phone exchange with Van Der Beek. Patrick ultimately refuses to wire Sean the money, causing him to have a violent outburst:
Patrick’s other scene was removed in order to avoid an NC-17 rating. As Van Dien told People in 2024, his character was on the phone with Van Der Beek’s once again, but this time he was seen holding a woman’s severed head. “And then, I get up and I dance with it in a leopard Speedo G-string with blood everywhere,” the actor said, adding that it “was really disturbing and it was a very lifelike head that they had.” Director Roger Avary apparently told him that it was his favorite scene in the movie, though he had no choice but to remove it to secure an R rating.
As for his thoughts on his predecessor, Van Dien called Bale a “phenomenal actor” who “left big shoes to fill.” He went on to say that if Bale had reprised his role for The Rules of Attraction, “they probably wouldn’t have cut it out.”
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