Cecil B. Demented is a 2000 American black comedy film written and directed by John Waters. The film stars Melanie Griffith as a snobby A-list Hollywood actress who is kidnapped by a band of terrorist filmmakers; they force her to star in their underground film. Stephen Dorff stars as the eponymous character and leader of the group, with Alicia Witt, Adrian Grenier, Michael Shannon and Maggie Gyllenhaal co-starring as the rest of his gang of filmmakers. Each of the filmmakers in the film bears tattoos of various independent directors' names, including Otto Preminger, Kenneth Anger, Sam Peckinpah, David Lynch, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Spike Lee, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pedro Almodóvar and Andy Warhol.