June 27, 2025 • 59 mins
Once in a while a movie comes along that's so forward-thinking it changes the way that horror is done. A new subgenre is spawned, new tropes are established, and audiences are more terrified than ever.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, their friends. Welcome back to the playlist. This episode
is our list of horror movies that change the genre.
It's from back in twenty seventeen, and it's as timely
today as it was back then. Horror is probably my
favorite genre of all films, and I hope you guys
like it too, even if you're not into horror movies.
And even if you're not into horror movies, I hope
(00:22):
you guys will like this episode two. It's just that interesting.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to stuff you should know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Charles W.
Chuck Bryant Towdy, middle names Wayne, my middle names Malcolm.
There we have I always.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Forget about that. Malcolm.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, Wayne named after Wayne Cooin.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Right, Uh no, John, Wayne, and you were named after
Malcolm in the middle.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
That's right, right. Frankie Munis is my namesake. I hope
he's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Early, Brian Kranston too. I used to love that show.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Oh, it's a great show. I watched it like within
the last couple of months. I was cleaning the house
and put it on Netflix and still great. Yeah, yeah,
it's really it is. A good show.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
So you clean your house, you put on your VR
goggles and just cue up Malcolm in the Middle. No,
I just walk around and bump into things and right exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
But I put on like a huge feather duster suit.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, so you're just cleaning and bumping into things.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
That's right, That's how I do it. Wow, Yeah, it
works kind of.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, someone's gonna take that idea, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Like the Sharknado.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, but they should just they should sell that suit
with a purple drink.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I think you just get one spot on the floor,
really really clean.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
What are you going to title this one, by the way,
because this is your pick and we title our own
shows episodes.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Some horror films that change the genre, all right, and.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You should add this aka how could you guys forget blank?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah? Yeah, we should say like this. First of all,
this is a Grabster article, so it's Grabster's list. Sure,
and he knows what he's talking about. If you look
at some of the entries, some don't even have source tags. Whoa,
he's just like, I just know.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
He should just trust grabs her.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
But we even took his list and carved some out
and put some in. Sure, so this is how about this?
This is Josh and Chuck's idea of some horror films
that change the genre, featuring the mind of the Grabster.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yes, in other words, it is not a complete list
of every horror film that changed the genre. Yes, because
I would argue that well, and actually I see Grabster
put Texas Chainsaw Masacre in there.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
He said that if this were a top fifteen list,
that would be in there. So would Alien.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, he has that Alien ring Goo and the US
remake Ring and I would lobby for Well, Psycho didn't
make it onto his list, which but we're going to
put that in. And there was one more. Oh, even
though I didn't really think it was that great, the
movie Saw, I think kind of changed horror films. And
(03:29):
that's what this list is. Not best horror films, but
things that kind of changed the game. Yeah, it seems
like Saw kind of kicked off that.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
That torture porn, Yeah, didn't it. I can't remember if
it was that or Hostile, one of the two. It
was definitely one of the two.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
For a subgenre.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Well, it's pretty accurate, actually it is.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
But most of these are movies that either were the
first of its kind and maybe did start a subject
or movies that were so popular that they just, you know,
kind of rewrote how people view horror movies. Some of
them because of marketing, some because they were really good movies,
(04:12):
some because of box office, but all of these I
don't think anyone could argue did not change the genre.
How about that?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah? I think that's well put, dude. And before we
get started speaking of horror, I want to give a
plug too my friend Toby's movie that's coming out. He's
a producer on a movie coming out call The Ghost Story.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, Toby. When we met Toby, well you knew Toby
before me, of course, because he's your friend and I
know him through you me, so really yeah, but he
was he was small time, doing short films and stuff.
And since that time, and this has been within the
last like since we've been doing this podcast, he's now
big time.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah. They did Pete's Dragon, Yeah, and then yeah they
have this. They did an'th them. Body Saints was I
think the one that they kind of broke out.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
With, which I love that movie, and then.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
This one definitely kind of falls into that same look
and mood and feel, which it's called the Ghost Story,
and I think it comes out in July, and I
think it's labeled a drama rather than horror or even
supernatural or thriller. But the reason I tie it into
horror is because A twenty four is releasing it and
(05:28):
A twenty four is killing it with horror movies lately.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, that's a good that's a good outfit.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
They did The Witch, they did The Black Coat's Daughter.
Have you seen that? No, it's on Amazon Prime. It's
on Amazon Prime right now. No, it's not it, dude.
It's one of the best horror movies I've seen in
a while. I think The Witch is probably my favorite
right now. Yeah, Black Coat's Daughter is a close second.
And then last night I saw it Comes at Night
(05:57):
in the theater and it Comes at Night actually upset
my stomach the ending? Did it?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Was?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It was that rough?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah. I think we're we've we're at a place with
horror movies that we haven't been in a long time,
like a really genuine good spot. Yeah, like the whole
torture porn sort of era is over and the found
footage thing is so played.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
But I think we like with movies like The Witch.
I think we've really like, there are some really creative
uh it follows. Did you see that one? Yeah, like
some just really creative ways of bringing scares that I
haven't seen before.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Get Out.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That was amazing to get Man, I haven't seen it.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
You're gonna love it. I'm envious of you. It's really
it's great movie, Chuck, you love it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I don't get to the movies much anymore, and the
only time I could was a couple of weeks ago
and I elected to see Wonder Woman.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, not a good choice.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
So long way of saying congratulations to Toby and his new.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Film, well it's funny. We also need to congratulate Toby too,
because Toby just got married. Toby Nnell are now married,
so congratulations to them as well.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So this is this new movie with his directing partner
David Lowry, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, and Rooney Mara. Yeah, they definitely do. So it's
gonna be good. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Okay, So let's get started. Thanks for indulging that.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Thank you everybody.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So the first, the first movie on our list is
what's widely considered the first horror movie, and it's a
nineteen twenty movie, out of Germany that basically was the
first film that undertook what's the artistic movement known as
German expressionism. Yeah, it's called The Cabinet of Doctor Kalighari.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, I mean some say, like you said, it was
the first horror movie. Some say it was the first
cult film. It. Well, just you may not be able
to get to the whole thing if you're not into
silent movies, but you should queue up a little bit
of it and watch a little bit of it because
it's hugely impactful and still to this day like very
(08:13):
disconcerting to look at because of it how ominous and
weird it looked. Yeah, just physically looked.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah. Like the sets that they built are obviously constructive manufactured.
They were not in any way, shape or form going
for realism. They were going for surrealism for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And so like the staircases are at crazy weird curves
and angles, and like everything from the house, the house's
rooftops to the blades of grass are super pointy and sharp,
and the shadows that they employed were just perfect. You've
never seen a better use of shadows than this. They
didn't get in the way, they just created this mood,
(08:56):
and it was the first movie to really kind of
do that, to just take to use the camera for
something other than capturing realism. And for that reason it's
considered the first horror movie because that's such a standard
part of horror, whether large like in large part like
(09:16):
in a Tim Burton movie, or in small part you
know where you're using small spaces to create claustrophobia. The
idea of using the set to mess with the viewer's mind,
I think is born in doctor Caligary's cabinet.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, it's almost like they took a child and gave
them construction paper and said cut out scary things, right,
And then like that movie The Baba Duke, I think
the actual book within the Baba Duke was hugely inspired
by this. The actual movie itself. The plot is about
a side show operator, a hypnotist who has a patient
(09:54):
that he takes around to the side shows with a
sleep disorder. Supposedly he's been asleep his entire life, and
he uses this patient to commit murder.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Right, he's like a sleepwalker, yeah, somnambulist.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So that in itself is a pretty frightening plot, and
to think about that being cooked up in nineteen twenty
when there were really not such things that you think
of as horror movies. Is pretty impressive.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And then some of the deeper critiques I've seen of
it was like the explanation for why the filmmakers chose
like these weird odd angles to kind of depict insanity
or that kind of thing. Yeah, was rooted in World
War One. The horrors of World War One had just
been seen and revealed and recently taken place, and it
(10:43):
upended Europe in general and especially Germany as well. And
that the idea is that they might not have had
this idea, They might not have had this desire, this
drive to create this this weird set, and in fact
this weird movie had World War One not happened.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, there's this writer, Jeff Saparito who kind of put
it this way about German expressionism because I wasn't exactly
sure how to define it, but you're kind of right
on the money. He said. Germany was largely isolated from
the rest of the world following World War One, so
expressionism therefore became confined to the country. Refers to a
number of creative movements from World War One through the
(11:23):
nineteen twenties, expressionist works examined the current and future state
of the culture through bold and artistic creations of creativity,
and often explored topics of madness, betrayal, and other intellectual concepts.
And nothing encapsulates these ideas more than the Cabinet of
Doctor Caligi.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
That's basically what I said.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah you did you read that or were you just that?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
I don't know if I read that one or not.
It sounded kind of familiar.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, no, just say you came up with that.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So the idea of the set just creating like a
creepy tone in tech shoot everything that was Doctor Calgary.
That's how it changed the genre.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, yeah, Tim Burton say thank you.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah. Have you seen Coraline? No?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
But I know it.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
It's they did that to very good effect.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
You know, I think Hodgman does a voice in that,
doesn't he He does?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
He does the dad. He did a spectacular job because
you actually forget it's Hodgman while you're watching it. That's impossible,
all right, Chuck, Moving on, that was nineteen twenty. We're
going to fast forward all the way to what nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Nineteen sixty three. If you're talking about Blood.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Feast, Well, I wasn't bot lets.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Simon Abrams of Roger Ebert dot Com says, this Bloodfeast
is a terrible film, and a historically important one too. Yep,
And I think that's sort of the deal with Blood Feast.
It is not good by any accounts.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Did you watch any of it? Yeah, sure, it's not good.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
No, it's not good. It's terrible. It was written basis
on a fourteen page outline, didn't even have a script.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
It's got the same cloying technic color of like an
early Hawaii five zero episode.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah, for sure. Directed by Herschel, Gordon Lewis and producer
David F. Friedman. And basically the idea was this, these
guys did not see films as art. They saw them
as a business and thought you were foolish if you
thought it was anything else. So they sat around they
brainstormed movies that they thought no one else would make.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, because they started out making like Porky's esque type movies. Yeah,
and they were doing fine with that. But apparently they
were successful enough with it that there started to be
imitators and the market was crowded, so they said, where
can we go make movies that no one else is
gonna make.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah, because we want to shock people essentially. So a
couple of ideas they had that did not make the
list was con Man Evangelist and Nazi Torture, which.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Were later made.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, exactly. And they finally said, you know what no
one's really done yet is hardcore gore. Yep, Like everyone
always cuts away when the knife comes, and you're like,
what if we showed the grossest glorious stuff imaginable on screen?
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah, And even still they didn't show so like one
of the first murder a woman stabbed through the eye
and then the murderer hacked their legs off of the machete, right,
and they didn't show the knife penetrate the eye. They
didn't show the machete making contact with the skin. But
what they did in blood Feasts and what made blood
Feast the first of its kind, was they would show
(14:40):
the what came after that. They would show the brains
on the ground. Yeah, they would show the entrails like
on the knife. They would show the leg being you know,
that had been dismembered, being put into a bag, and
like the wound that was left by Yeah, like that
this was huge. No one had ever done anything like
that on film BEFO four No.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
And it paid off. They depending on who you ask,
the budget was anywhere from like twenty to thirty grand
and it made between seven and thirty million dollars, Like
I said, depending on where you get your info. But
by all accounts, it was a huge financial success, yeah,
compared to what they paid to make it.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah. And they shot it in I think six days
or something down in Miami. Yeah, based on a fourteen
page outline. There wasn't even a script. It as an outline.
Basically it was like murderer goes and kills this girl. Yeah,
next girl, murderer comes in, kills girl, cuts off leg
that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Right, Yeah. I mean, if it matters the movies about
a serial killer caterer.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yeah, that's it. There's your plot right there.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
But the it was just such a revolutionary movie that
the censors at the time there wasn't such a thing
as the MPAA hadn't been formed yet, and there was
basically no one except for local censors overseeing movies.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
So you know, you could be playing in one town
to all audiences and then the next town over it
could be banned, but the sensors had never seen anything
like it and they didn't know what to do with it.
So yeah, it was hugely successful commercially too.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah. And another big impact it had was it inspired
a generation of special effects. But basically, let's be honest,
young boys who were doing this on their own Super
eight films right and said, wait, I can get a
job doing this.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yep. So, including Tom Savini, I think was inspired by it,
wasn't he? Or was he inspired by Yeah? I think
he was inspired by Blood Feast?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Oh wow?
Speaker 1 (16:48):
And then we should also give a mention to the
Grand gug y'all? Is that how you think it's pronounced? Sure,
Granguien y'all. It was a theater in Paris, I believe,
from the late nineteen century on to I think nineteen
sixty two, so the year before Blood Feast came out,
it had closed up, but it used to do this
stuff on stage. It was like a gore fest and
(17:11):
there was lots of like blood and sex and like
depraved themes in the plays that were put on at
this theater. People loved it, they were crazy for it,
and this was kind of like the Grand Guignol tradition
put onto film for the first time, and who ray
(17:31):
for that? You want to take a break, Yeah, let's
do it, all right, Charles, we're back. So nineteen sixty
(18:03):
or nineteen sixty, not eight.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
I've got nineteen sixty eight in front of my face, okay,
And that could be no other movie. The Night of
the Living Dead classic George Romero film. Romero was a
TV director, making TV commercials commercial director.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Rather, he was also making short films for Mister Rogers
neighborhood at the time.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah, and he was young.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, I don't know how old he was, but he
was pretty young guy still, I get.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I think when he made Shot and That Is the
Living Dead, he was like twenty six or twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
So yeah, by any standard, that's still pretty young, unless
you're twenty three.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
So he had He and his buddies were like, let's
make a horror movie, but let's not make a stupid
horror movie. Let's make one with like an actual plot
that explores like deep themes too, like a good movie.
Let's let's make the first good horror movie.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Well yeah, so, and we'll delve into that little more.
But that was definitely a different thing. At the time.
And the other different thing was that all the horror
movies up to that point they were called the Universal
monsters from Universal Studios, you know, all the kind of
the classic Frankenstein and Dracula and Creature from the Black
Lagoon and the Werewolf, and that was where that was
(19:22):
mainstream horror. And George Romero comes along and says, how
about zombies? And everyone said, what in the world's a zombie?
And he said, well, let me define that for every
future generation of movie and TV goers and lovers.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah. And there had been zombie movies before, but they
had been things like like doctor Kaligari's Cabinet, somebody who
was under the control of something someone else or something
like that, there was a hypnotist or this was like
the first time what we think of as zombies wherever
introduced like flesh eating ghouls who were dead and come
(20:03):
back to life. Yeah, just what you think of as
a zombie. This guy started that genre, like you said.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, they shot it outside in Pittsburgh on about one
hundred and fifteen thousand dollars budget, ended up grossing twelve
million domestic not bad, and I think close to twenty worldwide,
and was eventually selected by the Library of Congress for
preservation in the National Film Registry.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
It's a good movie.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
It's a very good movie. They shot it in black
and white to save on cost, even though color was
the standard by that point, and black and white is
also a little more forgiving for rudimentary special effects. And
one of the revolutionary things he did was cast a
black actor as the lead, and for no other reason
(20:51):
than hey, this guy Dwayne Jones is really.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Good, exactly right. Like he didn't go back and go, oh, well,
you know, our hero is black, so we need to
make the whole thing of meditation on race and have
them confront racism. It was just here's the script, and
then the guy playing the lead just happens to be black.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Right, And he was the best guy in the auditions.
And you know, in nineteen sixty eight, this didn't really happen.
You didn't just cast a black guy as a lead
actor for no with no like ulterior motive, basically right.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So I read this review from the time from nineteen
sixty nine, the year after it came out, Young Roger
Ebert went and watched it and wrote a review, and
he wrote a pretty pretty interesting review, which is basically
it was about the reaction of the audience. And he
went to a Saturday matinee that was populated almost entirely
(21:44):
by ten eleven year olds. Oh wow, and they were
used to seeing the Creature from the Black Lagoon or
Frankenstein or you know, just movies that any kid could
handle and could enjoy watching, and you know, fun, scary
kind of stuff. Yeah, and he said, that's how that
that was how the crowd reacted for the first half
(22:09):
of the movie. But then about the point where and
here's here comes spoilers. Everybody, if you haven't seen Nither
of Living Dead, to hit yourself in the knee with
a hammer. You the the the teenage couple go to
get gas and when their car blows up and is
engulfs and flames, they die. They're burned to death. He said,
(22:30):
Right about that time, the tone, the mood of the
theater changed and there was no like gleeful screaming anymore.
Kids were starting to like not move and we're afraid
to like move in their seats, and some were quietly
crying to themselves. And from that the whole, the whole
point on, it just got worse and worse for these
little kids watching this movie.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So it was a huge impact on horror movies a it.
Like you said earlier, it was kind of the first
one to really sort of delve into other issues like
if you look up, like significance of not of the
Living Dead or meaning of nighted living Dead or something
like that. There are scores of articles that have been
(23:11):
written over the years of how it was a metaphor
for the Vietnam War, or an allegory about distrust of
authority or the collapse of traditional family. And I think
Romero said, like I didn't necessarily mean all these things,
but you can certainly find it in the movie.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
That is art. Like one of the great revelations of
my adult life is that the artist, the writer, the songwriter,
the author rarely intends to imbue as much meaning into
their work as people take from it. That that's part
of art as interpretation. Isn't that neat? Like you don't
(23:51):
if you're a writer, if you're a young writer right
now who's just sitting there racking your brain for how
to insert metaphor and meaning into this, just write your
story and people are going to find it for themselves. Yeah, agreed,
I wish somebody had told me that.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
When I was younger, I had teachers that said stuff
like that, Oh I didn't like good college professors in
English that would when students would argue like, I think
he means this, he would say like, you know, he
may or she may not have meant anything.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Right I had.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
That's the revelation.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I had teachers that would just go wrong.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
The other thing about Night Living Dead is it spawned, obviously,
the zombie genre and sequels, Don of the Dead, Day
of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead, the Walking
Dead remakes.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Shout out Stephen Yune. Yeah right, why not?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I'm still into the Walking Dead.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
You Yeah, we talked about this, yes, yes, okte Une listens.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Anyway, Zombies are I think still hot and we can
so hot. We owe that all to mister Romero, master
of the genre.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yep, chuck. One more thing too that Naya Living Dead
did that they weren't the first, but very famously Romero
did was kill off his hero senselessly and shockingly.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah at the end, good point.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Thanks man. Okay, So let's move on. Like I said
nineteen seventy three, yes day after Christmas.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
If you've ever been in Washington, d C. At the
end of M Street. You might have noticed very during
the daytime, ordinary set of stairs. At nighttime, maybe they
look creepy to you because those are the Exorcist stairs.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah. I'm trying to conjure the music in my head,
but all I'm coming up with is the unsolved mysteries music.
It wasn't quite right, so close, but it's not. I'm
so unsatisfied right now.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
So The Exorcist was based on a book by William
Peter Bladdie who wrote this in nineteen seventy one, and
then in seventy three the movie was made. And there's
I think I referenced not too long ago a great
Mark Marin interview with William Friedkin where he talks about
the audition process for Linda Blair. So you should go
(26:15):
listen to that because it was pretty insightful. But The
Exorcists really kind of changed the game in that it
was a It spawned a bit of a subgenre of
demonic movies.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Sure I were like religious based.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, even though I guess Rosemary's Baby was before that.
But the Exorcist was such a mega hit and it
was nominated for Best Picture the first horror movie to
be nominated for that, so it was just like it
was a big deal.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
It was. It sold six million tickets in about two months.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
This is a horror movie, right, and it came out
in nowhere. Apparently the effect they had on audiences was
extremely pronounced. There was a woman in Boston who had
to be carried from the theater and she goes it
cost me four dollars, but I only lasted twenty minutes.
So we're like, that's the stories of that got around
(27:16):
and people wanted to see, you know, this movie can't
be that scary, and they went and they were like,
oh my god, that movie is that scary.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, and it holds up too. I mean, special effects
are they'd never quite hold up. But it's still a
very creepy movie. Very famously, Linda Blair played the little
girl who was possessed by a demon, and the the
heavy hitters were called in the two Exercises Demon, including
(27:46):
a Max van Seadao who was only forty four when
he was played. This guy in his easily in his seventies.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yeah, is he Benjamin Button?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Well no, they made him up.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Wow, they did a great job.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, which I don't see why they felt the need
to do that. I know they God, who else did
they almost cast? Oh? Brando? They almost cast Brando, but.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
That would have been a colossal mistake.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Well, Friedkin said, you know what, as soon as you
do that, it's a Marlon Brando movie. Yeah, and I
think he said, picture a Brando picture. Sure, that's what
they said. And he'd wanted to be a Brando picture.
He wanted to be the.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Exorcist, So you said. It was based on a book
from two years before by William Peter Bladdie. He apparently
was known as a comedy writer and he wanted to
do something different.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
He said, Hey, wouldn't it be funny if the little
girl's head spun around and she keeps green bile?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Wait? Wait'll you hear what I have he do with
a crucifix? So he actually wrote the book because he
wanted to scare America back to church. That was his
aim with the book.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
It may have worked.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
He believed that there was real evil going on in
the world and that part of it was because of
a loss of eight or a loss of religion, I guess,
And that's what he wanted to do with it. And
when the movie came out, there was a huge pushback
from religious authorities like Billy Graham said he believed the
movie itself was possessed by a demon. I'm not sure
(29:15):
how that would happen, but that was like a huge
thing at the time, and a lot of a lot
of other religious establishment types were like, don't go see
that movie. It's evil. But there were some who who
were part of part of religion, major organized religion, who
kind of saw through it and said, no, no, this
(29:37):
is it's good that we're talking about this. That there
were telling people, you know, or people are seeing that
there's such a thing as like good versus evil literally
combating on earth, you know, and people are talking about
this and thinking about it. And so in that sense,
the Exorcist like really kind of went to bat for
organized religion.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
I saw another criticism of it though, that said one
of the themes of the movie that the book hadn't
really intended, but the movie picked up on and expounded on,
was intergenerational conflict. That it was Reagan the child represented
the younger generation who was at war with the establishment,
(30:19):
and that it even goes so far as to where
her mother the actress. The movie that she's working on
is about campus takeover by young radicals. Huh. So that's
kind of a theme that was apparently part of the subtext,
but was a major part of it in the movie
at least interesting. Yeah, I thought so too, because apparently,
(30:40):
I mean, you think of intergenerational conflict now, Apparently in
the late sixties and early seventies it was sharper than
it probably ever has been before or since.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah. The only other thing I got is that the
green stuff that she projectiles was Anderson's pup and a
little bit of oatmeal text.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Anderson's piece of Well, bet you can't get that anymore, Chuck,
Let's do Jaws and then we'll take a break. I
love talking about Jaws.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah, I mean Jaws is on. You know. I did
my top favorite movies list at one point on our website,
and I listed Jaws is my favorite movie favorite of
all time. Yeah, I mean that list changes, but it's
Jaws is always in my top five. I can watch
it anytime it's on. It is one of the I've
often said it's a perfect movie, and what I mean
(31:34):
by that is there's just not a misstep, like the
casting was perfect. The acting was great, the script was great.
It played out just perfectly throughout the film. He, like Spielberg,
was just a master storyteller with that movie.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
You were talking about how young George Romero was in
Night of the Living Dead. Spielberg was twenty six when
he made Jaws.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
He was thirteen years old.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
He and he was apparently scared to death when he
finished filming. The schedule had been for fifty five days.
It went to one hundred and fifty nine. Yeah, he
had I think been allotted four million dollars. He ended
up spending twelve million on it.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, largely because a shooting on water is notoriously difficult,
and b the shark mechanical shark they use was legendarily wonky,
and how it are not wonky but wanky wonky.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It didn't work.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
It rarely worked. So they spent a lot of time
and burnt a lot of hours trying to get this
shark to do its thing, and so much so that
it didn't even make that many appearances in the movie.
I think they even kind of scaled it back, and
that ended up being better for the movie because you
didn't get as much shark.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
I looked up the urban legend about the shark being
named after Spielberg's lawyer, Bruce, and apparently it's true. Really, Yeah,
Bruce Rayner was the name of Spielberg's lawyer, and that
was the nickname for the mechanical shark on the set
was Bruce.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
That's pretty funny.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
So with Jaws, right, we're talking about horror movies that
changed the genre. Jaws not only changed the horror genre,
it changed movie making to this day. Yeah, and in
multiple ways, multiple massive ways. It changed the entire film
industry almost single handedly.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, it was at the time there was no such thing.
You take it for granted now, but there was no
such thing as a quote unquote summer release.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
No, a lot of theaters close down because ac wasn't
in every theater, and people then want to sit around
in a hot movie theater for two hours.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Yeah, a summer release or a tent pole film or
a blockbuster feature like Jaws was the first one of
all those.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
What at the time, when Jaws came out, they used
to release a movie on maybe one two screens in
say New York or LA for a week and then
did make its way to you know, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Chicago
for a few weeks, and then eventually it'd make it
to your small town six eight weeks later. Yeah, that
(34:22):
was how movies were released, not Jaws. Jaws was released
on four hundred and thirty five screens across the country,
which is huge, which is part of the part of
the summer blockbuster release playbook now.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, and it was also the first movie to spend
lots and lots of money on marketing, and so I
think the studios were like, wait a minute, you spend
some dough on marketing, you release this thing wide. You
can make a ton of money in the first month
that a movie's out, and you're kind of set. Like
after that, it's anything else's gravy. Yeah, and that's after
(34:59):
the first like week or two probably.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, it was. Yeah, the whole point of blockbuster now
is to get that opening weekend, to make all your
money back in the opening weekend, and then everything else
is gravy on top of it. Right, Jaws was it
didn't make its I don't know, maybe it did make
its money back in the first weekend, because it hit
one hundred million dollars in like seventy eight days or something.
Incredible like that because it was the first movie to
(35:23):
hit one hundred million dollars and it did it in
just a couple months. Even.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah, it eventually went on to make to about two
hundred and sixty million dollars domestically, which is I mean,
that's a great take now, Yeah, you know, much less
the mid nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Sure for a twelve million dollars spend, for sure.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
My only beef here is that I would not consider
Jaws a horror movie.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
I think he's an adventure film. Yeah, I guess you're right,
with a scary antagonist. Yeah, but it's amazing how much
I quote that movie in my day to day life.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, just just just show that's a great that's a classic.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
All Right, let's take a break. I'm gonna meditate on
that line, and we'll talk about a few other scary movies,
including one that was originally titled scary movie.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Okay, moving on to Halloween. Halloween Chuck nineteen seventy eight.
I believe Halloween.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yes, John Carpenter, the youngish John Carpenter, who originally titled
this movie The Babysitter Murders. No, A little on the nose,
pretty terrifying title. I guess young Jamie Lee Curtis her
very first movie, was it really? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Well, she went on to become known as the scream
Queen for all the horror movies she was in.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Totally and this was shot in twenty days in South
Pasadena as the Midwest, and it's credited as being birthing
the slasher genre.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Yeah, it did, so there were slasher films before it.
The Town That Dreaded, Sundown, good movies like based on
a true crime story actually in Texas, one called Black Christmas,
The Grabster Sites from nineteen seventy four. I haven't heard
of that one. But the idea of a faceless almost
(37:47):
a like non entity entity coming at you and relentlessly
stalking you, being impervious to harm, as the Rabster puts it,
and just coming at you again and again trying to
kill you. That that was. That was all established by Halloween,
and it was done like to too great effect as well.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Yeah, and it holds up. It's still scary. Michael Myers,
of course, was The Killer. The music that John Carpenter scored,
Hi mean, he scores most of his movies himself, but
very iconic. Basic thing I think he only took a
couple of days to come up with it. But like
the Michael Myers character and the mask are so iconic,
(38:32):
the music is so iconic. You know about the mask,
right Chatner? Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I went and check that one out too to verify
that it was true. And it definitely is true that
Michael Myers mask is actually a Captain Kirk star Trek
mask painted white.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
That is history yep.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
In the in the script when it came to the mask,
it just said pale, neutral features of a man.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, which makes the whole thing even creepier because he's
an implacid or is that the right word.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
He's just almost like just an emotionless killer.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
It made the fact that he was merciless, ruthless, pitiless
and arbitrarily killing people almost all the more pronounced because
his expression never changes.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Well, to me, the two things that were creepiest about
Halloween was the expression never changed because of that mask,
and he did not run, like oh yeah, he would
just walk, and you still got the feeling like you
can't outrun this guy even though he's walking.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
That was another creepy part about it. It follows with
the walking aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Oh, yeah for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Yeah, in the same way that like twenty eight Days
Later was freaky in that it took zombies and made
him run.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Yeah. Or I remember when I saw Friday the thirteenth
I'm sorry Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time,
and Freddy Krueger was running around, like, that's not what
scary dudes do.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Yeah, scary dudes don't trot.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Now, they walk very creepily toward you and still somehow
gain speed on you even though you're running full speed.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Well, Freddy scared me to death the first time I
saw that movie.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Yeah. No, first one was a pretty good one, but.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Halloween established this, Like you said, it established the slasher genre,
and everything about slasher films still today all rooted in
Halloween John Carpenter's tropes.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah, and again, like you said, there were a couple
of other slasher films before, but none of them grossed
close to fifty million bucks.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Wow, is that how much Halloween made?
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yeah, forty seven million domestic at about a three hundred
thousand dollars budget, so it you know, it's sort of
like with the Exorcists, like there were other movies that
sort of did this thing before. But when you have
a huge hit that does it is when it sort
of redefines the genre because it it's money. Yeah, and
that's all they met.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Everyone starts paying attention after that.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
All right, what's next?
Speaker 1 (40:58):
What's next? My friend? Is a movie that came out
when I don't know, were you still in college? No,
you must have just been out then.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
I was out a few years.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Okay, Well, regardless around our college era, this movie came out.
Because up to this point, everything's come out either when
we were little or before we were born. This one
was right in our wheelhouse. It was the Blair Witch Project,
which came out in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Yeah. And one of the big things that Blair Witch
Project did well two things. Really, it established the found
footage genre or subgenre that is so overplayed now in
the viral marketing campaign. And that's how I came upon it.
I remember very specifically being in the apartment of Scott
at Pallito, who you know, Sure he shot our TV show,
(41:46):
one of my oldest friends, and I was sitting in
his apartment on Claremont Avenue Indicator and I happened upon
this and This was pre Facebook. I don't even know
how I found it, you know, before things were being
shared around, right, And it happened upon this website, the
very first Blair Witch Project website, and I was like, dude,
come over here and check this out. This is the
(42:07):
scariest thing I've ever seen. Yeah, and I remember the
website set it up as if it was real, and
that this found footage thing, it's so overdone now it's
hard to go back in time and remember when it
was fresh. But I remember looking at and being like,
did this happen? Did they really find this footage of
this murder in the woods? Like well, I got to
(42:28):
see this.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
That was the rumor that this was actually real, man.
And this is, like you said, I mean, this is
before the found footage genre. So people were being exposed
to this concept for the first time, and we're kind
of falling for it. I mean, first all, huge, you're
either in college or you're just recently out of college,
so you're maybe slightly more gullible than you are ten
years on.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
You're ready to believe it.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
You want to believe, right, So yeah, the idea that
this was actual found footage, it just made it all
the more enjoyable, and people were buying into it now.
I think the other part of it was that the filmmakers,
partly because they didn't have the budget for actual effects,
left a lot of the scariest parts to your imagination.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Yeah, Nor did they have the talent to make a
good narrative film.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
I guess. I mean they worked on a sixty four
page script, which I was surprised that it was that
that big. But they shot it for eight days, and
originally they were going to make it like a documentary
about the found footage, right, And then one of them
had a flash of perspective. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait,
let's just release it like it's found footage. And that
(43:36):
was that. The rest was history.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yeah, and I'm poking fun. That was not very nice
at all. Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrik or Merrick, the
co directors, they they should be credited with a truly
ingenious campaign and invention.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Well, they weren't the first to come up with found footage, right,
there were some films before. I've never known how to
pronounce it, Mondo Kane or Mondo Caine. I think Kanye
It's from nineteen sixty two. And it was supposedly a
documentary about like some like weird tribal rituals. I think
there's head shrinking maybe involved, and it purported to be
(44:17):
like real footage. Same with Cannibal Holocaust with Man. If
you've never seen Campbell Holocaust, go out and watch it
right now. It's very disturbing. And it's so disturbing that
the director of the movie was charged with murder because
they believed that the actual murders depicted they were so realistic.
(44:38):
They thought that it was a snuff film basically, but
it was supposed to be a documentary as well. So
there was an idea of like found footage or documentary
style horror movies that had come before, but nothing like
The Blair Witch, where it was just straight up these people.
We found their old camera and this is what was
on it.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Well, and they were smart enough to to dig up
an old thing that never went huge. You know. They're like, hey, man,
like these other movies, they never really hit it big,
and they it was a timing thing. They they I mean,
hats off for them to them, Yeah, good for them,
and to them.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Nice going all right, chuck scream.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Yeah scream, I teased that it was originally titled scary movie.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
I'm glad it wasn't because scary movie is awesome. I well,
it's scary movie. Ever would have been called maybe it
would have never been made.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Or maybe they would have called that Scream.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Oh yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
So Scream was a very big deal when it came out.
The writer Kevin Williamson, and this is still the highest
growing slasher film of all time. Basically Scream one is.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
It was huge. I got Nev Campbell's haircut as a
result of it. Like it was a big, big pop
culture watermark.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
It was. And one of the big things about it,
aside from the boatloads of money that it made, was
it spawned a subgenre called horror, which is even though
it had been done by no less than its own
director of Wes Craven with Wes Craven's New Nightmare two
years before Scream, it wasn't nearly as popular. But meta
(46:15):
horror is this idea, and if you've ever seen Scream,
you know they're constantly just referencing horror movies like this
is where you know, you don't go out and make
out in the car because that's where.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
You get killed. And then they would do that and
get killed, right.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Although I don't think that specific thing happened.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Like don't go back into the house.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Yeah, Like all the tropes of horror movies are addressed
in the movie, and.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
They're talking about them as the horror movie tropes.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Yes, yeah, exactly, meta horror.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Yeah, and there are plenty of other things that came
along meta horror examples like have you seen Tucker and
Dale Versus Evil?
Speaker 2 (46:52):
No, it's good.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Oh check it out man, All right, that's a good movie.
Zombie Land. Yeah, I did see that where he's rattling
off all of the things that you need to notice
survive a zombie apocalypse that he learned from zombie movies. Right.
And then Cabin in the Woods. Did you see that? One?
Speaker 2 (47:08):
Great movie?
Speaker 1 (47:08):
It was a great movie. I thought it was really good.
I mean from beginning to end, it was a great movie.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Did you like Scream?
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Yeah? I love Scream. I liked all the Screams.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
I only saw the first two. The second one I
think might have been even better than the first to me,
and that the second was shot Emily worked on that
it was shut here at Agnascott College party.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Oh is that right? Yeah? You have to go back
and watch it knowing that now I'll be like, oh,
I've driven past that place.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
So I got a few tidbits. Like I said, initial
title was Scary Movie Number two. The Weinstein brothers initially
offered it to George Romero and Sam Raimi. What else
do I have here? Drew Barrymore was originally supposed to
play Sydney, the lead character, and then she said, no,
how about if I just played that girl the which
(48:01):
kind of was a big thing because you see Drew
Barrymore and it was a big shock when she died
in the first scene, right, you know.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
You can't kill off your heroin right away.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, I like, I remember, I remember that first scene
really really scaring me when I saw it the first
time in the theater.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Yeah, it is. It's a scary, gruesome, gory heart.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Yeah, very well played. And then before he went to
Nev Campbell, he went out to Alicia wit, Britney Murphy
and Reese Witherspoon.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
And then Campbell was your first choice.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
And then the mask, the iconic screen mask apparently wasn't
off the shelf mask.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Wow, that made that company's money.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah, and the Weinstein didn't like it. They were like,
I hate that mask. Everything else is fine, huh, But
Wes Craven said, no, it's got to be the mask.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Don't be stupid, Bob.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
All right, we're going to finish up with our own edition.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Here finally, nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yes, Psycho, I can't believe this wasn't in the list.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
I think ed kept this off the list to toy
with somebody he doesn't like specifically. That's the only explanation.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Yeah, because Psycho changed everything.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Yeah, it really did. I mean it was the you
could say that it was one of the first slasher flicks.
It was an early psychological thriller.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
It was based on the real life story of ed Gean. Yeah,
I mean it doesn't exactly mirror ed Dean's life, but
the idea of being obsessed with your mother so much
that you will commit murder was definitely rooted in Agen's story.
If you're not familiar with ed Gean, he not only
(49:52):
he was a I don't even know if he was
a serial killer. I think he only I think he
murdered one, maybe two people. But more than anything, he
was a grave robber. But he likes to dress up
in people's skin women's skin and pretend he was his
own mother. Which, man, that's a lot of years on
the couchworking that one out. Yeah, or you can just
(50:14):
die at the hands of cops one of the two.
And he also inspired leather Face from Texas Chainsaw.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Massacre Yeah, and Buffalo Bill of course. Oh yeah, yeah,
Sounds of the Lambs.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Yeah. One guy inspired all those guys.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
So I found this article Psycho colon the horror Movie
that Changed the Genre by Owen Glieberman or is it
Gliberman Glieber Gleiberan. I think he wrote for a legendary critic,
wrote for aw for years and years, and now writes
for a variety.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
Oh he does.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, but he put it best. He said, well, you know,
the iconic shower scene, first of all, is hugely important
because it was Hitchcock really kind of ripped up the script,
not literally, but the horror movie script when he kills
off Janet Lee halfway through the movie. You just didn't
(51:06):
do that at the time.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
No, we came out of nowhere, and we've seen that
come up later on, like at the end of Night
of Living Dead or Drew Barrymore in Scream. Hitchcock was
the first one to do that.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yeah, And Glieberman puts it this way. He said he
was also slicing through years, decades, centuries even of audience
expectation that the hero or heroine of a fictional work
would be shielded and protected or would at least die
usually the end in a way that made some sort
of moral dramatic sense. And Psycho the murder made no
sense at all, right, And he really kind of hits
(51:40):
it on the head there. It was like, if you've
never seen Psycho or heard of it, the movie's just
going along about this woman who steals some money from
her work and she's kind of on the lamb and
checks into this hotel, and you don't even know it's
a horror movie. You're thinking it's a movie about a
lady who steals money and is trying to get away
from getting caught, right, and then just out of nowhere,
(52:04):
she's hacked up in a shower and at the time,
audiences and still, if you haven't seen it, it's shocking.
The audiences were just like they didn't know what they'd seen.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Right exactly, So you're not not only is is the
hero no longer safe? That means maybe you're not either. Yeah,
so it has a It had a really huge unsettling effect.
And then Owen Glieberman points out that Hitchcock was so
smart that he even he even made a nod to
(52:35):
the the type of pat expected horror that the audience
was used to in the house that he used for
Psycho The Bates House. Yeah, there was this huge, rambling
Victorian mansion on a hill. There's lots of taxidermy, and
it was like over over decorated and just creepy. But
(52:55):
up to that point, like that was horror. That was
what a horror movie looked like and felt like. And
this was kind of Hitchcock's homage to that. But at
the same time he was also putting the heel of
his shoe on it as well.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
Yeah, and that house was, I mean almost a character
in itself. Like if you've ever seen the recreation of
it in Los Angeles, I think it's a universal.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
Did you see it? Oh yeah, I never did. The
closest I came was, I think when different strokes went there.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
That's as closest you got to it.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Yeah, Man, if you've ever seen this thing in person
likes it sends a chill up your back just seeing
the thing in like a sunny Los Angeles day. Still,
that's awesome. It's such an iconic house. It's like, oh, man,
there it is. That's where Norman Bates lives. He's the
most disturbed human of all time.
Speaker 1 (53:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
So in the movie, of course, it was the mother
character who is sort of referenced throughout the movie, and
it is not until the end that you realize that
there is no mother. Mother's dead, right, there's just Norman
Bates and all his rage and hang ups.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Yeah, So all the monster movies about giant ants and
or the creature from the Black lagooner monsters, things that
were an other that a normal person had to do
battle with, that was gone.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (54:14):
Now the monster had been on screen the whole time,
and you had noticed it. And now what do you
think about your neighbor who has seemed a little weird
from time to time before? Could he be a murderer
who thinks he is his mother? Who knows? Yeah, this
is what Hitchcock did to everybody back in nineteen sixty
And you almost get like, I think Owen Gliberman points
(54:35):
it out. Yeah, he does. At the beginning, he basically
says like, we probably didn't see Psycho. If you're reading this,
you're probably too young to have seen Psycho in nineteen
sixty and we should all feel sad that we didn't
because it's so changed everything. We can't do anything but
take it for granted now, and everything that's come since
(54:56):
then has been trying to regain that and horror that
it instilled in audiences, and thus far, no one's actually
been able to do it.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Yeah, and the other thing, I remember when I saw
it when I was younger. I think I saw this
when I was like fourteenish, and I think it had
this impact on just about everyone. I don't think I
took a shower for a month. I was straight up
bathtub curtain open, doors, open, windows open.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
Making your mom watch she's keeping watch.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
No, that would have been full circle back to Sue.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Oh yeah, I guess so. Yeah, you didn't even want
to have anything to do with your mom.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
No. Man, Like it changed the shower curtain industry for
a while after that. Yeah, but very good movie. And
there were a couple of Hitchcock movies in the last
few years, two different ones, one with Anthony Hopkins and
one with Toby Jones that were both really good, and
one was about the years that he was making Psycho.
(55:57):
The other was about the years when he was making
The Birds, and they were both really really good movies,
and you should check those out too. You should repeat that.
We just got a rich interjection from Nol, So go
ahead and say it again, Josh, in case it didn't
come through.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
So Noel just said that the director of the Black
Coat's Daughter is Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates in
Psycho's Son. Wow. He also did another movie now that
Noel says that, thanks Nol. It's called The Pretty Little
Thing that Lives in the House, which was another horror movie,
a ghost story. It sounds that was his first one,
(56:32):
and I think that might be on Netflix. It's great.
It's a really great movie too.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
Man. This has got me fired up to see some
horror movies.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
It's a renaissance of horror.
Speaker 2 (56:41):
Yeah. It's tough though, because Emily doesn't really dig it,
so I have to just find alone time to do that.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
Good to watch it in the bathroom. All right, Well,
if you want to know more about horror movies, go
watch horror movies.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Go forth and let us know what we missed, for
God's sake.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
Yeah, if you want to check out grabs list, type
in horror movies on the search bar at Houseofworks dot
com and it'll bring up this fine, fine list that
you'll disagree with. And since I said disagree, it's time
for listener mail.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
This from Eric, and I'm gonna call it what he
called it, Schoolhouse Rock nostalgia theory. All right, I think
it's pretty right on. This just came in. Actually, there's
a hot take, hey, guys, in school House Rock. So
Josh made the statement that gen xers are most nostalgic
generation and attribute it to the success of Schoolhouse Rock.
I'm going to offer my own theory. I propose that
gen x is nostalgic mostly for pop culture because of
(57:35):
the prolifera that word of child targeted advertisements and marketing
in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1 (57:43):
Hummy, certainly something.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
We've talked about.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
His theories got legs.
Speaker 2 (57:46):
While our little impressionable brains were developing, were being taught
by those who were steering pop culture to long for
and find fulfillment in the toys and other products our
cartoons were pushing on us. Now, as adults those messages
are still deep in our psyche. We can't shake the
idea that we still really need those Star Wars action
figures to be happy, not because the toys and the
shows were so great, because we had been tricked into
(58:07):
believing we need them. I have nothing scientific to back
this up, just a hunch yet. What you mean there
hasn't been a study from MIT right on Star Wars toys.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
I'm kind of surprised by that as well. I thought
you were being facetious at first turn.
Speaker 2 (58:25):
Yeah. I don't know which way is up at this point. Yeah,
nothing scientific to back this up, but I'd love to
hear what you all think. See if anyone out there
is any respectable and informed input, do you. Eric? That
is from Eric Lewin and Eric. I think that's super valid.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
Yeah I do too, Eric. I think you've really hit
upon something here.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
And that's all I have to say about it.
Speaker 1 (58:46):
If you have a great theory, fan theory, real life theory, whatever,
we want to hear them there, especially if it's interesting.
You can tweet to us at SYSK podcast or josh
am Clark. You can post it on Facebook, okay, at
Charles W. Chuck Bryant or Stuff you Should Know. You
can send us an email The Stuff podcast at HowStuffWorks
dot com. As always joined us at our home on
(59:07):
the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
Speaker 2 (59:14):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com
Hi, their friends. Welcome back to the playlist. This episode
is our list of horror movies that change the genre.
It's from back in twenty seventeen, and it's as timely
today as it was back then. Horror is probably my
favorite genre of all films, and I hope you guys
like it too, even if you're not into horror movies.
And even if you're not into horror movies, I hope
(00:22):
you guys will like this episode two. It's just that interesting.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to stuff you should know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Charles W.
Chuck Bryant Towdy, middle names Wayne, my middle names Malcolm.
There we have I always.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Forget about that. Malcolm.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, Wayne named after Wayne Cooin.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Right, Uh no, John, Wayne, and you were named after
Malcolm in the middle.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
That's right, right. Frankie Munis is my namesake. I hope
he's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Early, Brian Kranston too. I used to love that show.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Oh, it's a great show. I watched it like within
the last couple of months. I was cleaning the house
and put it on Netflix and still great. Yeah, yeah,
it's really it is. A good show.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
So you clean your house, you put on your VR
goggles and just cue up Malcolm in the Middle. No,
I just walk around and bump into things and right exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
But I put on like a huge feather duster suit.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, so you're just cleaning and bumping into things.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
That's right, That's how I do it. Wow, Yeah, it
works kind of.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, someone's gonna take that idea, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Like the Sharknado.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, but they should just they should sell that suit
with a purple drink.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I think you just get one spot on the floor,
really really clean.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
What are you going to title this one, by the way,
because this is your pick and we title our own
shows episodes.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Some horror films that change the genre, all right, and.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You should add this aka how could you guys forget blank?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah? Yeah, we should say like this. First of all,
this is a Grabster article, so it's Grabster's list. Sure,
and he knows what he's talking about. If you look
at some of the entries, some don't even have source tags. Whoa,
he's just like, I just know.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
He should just trust grabs her.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
But we even took his list and carved some out
and put some in. Sure, so this is how about this?
This is Josh and Chuck's idea of some horror films
that change the genre, featuring the mind of the Grabster.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yes, in other words, it is not a complete list
of every horror film that changed the genre. Yes, because
I would argue that well, and actually I see Grabster
put Texas Chainsaw Masacre in there.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
He said that if this were a top fifteen list,
that would be in there. So would Alien.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, he has that Alien ring Goo and the US
remake Ring and I would lobby for Well, Psycho didn't
make it onto his list, which but we're going to
put that in. And there was one more. Oh, even
though I didn't really think it was that great, the
movie Saw, I think kind of changed horror films. And
(03:29):
that's what this list is. Not best horror films, but
things that kind of changed the game. Yeah, it seems
like Saw kind of kicked off that.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
That torture porn, Yeah, didn't it. I can't remember if
it was that or Hostile, one of the two. It
was definitely one of the two.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
For a subgenre.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Well, it's pretty accurate, actually it is.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
But most of these are movies that either were the
first of its kind and maybe did start a subject
or movies that were so popular that they just, you know,
kind of rewrote how people view horror movies. Some of
them because of marketing, some because they were really good movies,
(04:12):
some because of box office, but all of these I
don't think anyone could argue did not change the genre.
How about that?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah? I think that's well put, dude. And before we
get started speaking of horror, I want to give a
plug too my friend Toby's movie that's coming out. He's
a producer on a movie coming out call The Ghost Story.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, Toby. When we met Toby, well you knew Toby
before me, of course, because he's your friend and I
know him through you me, so really yeah, but he
was he was small time, doing short films and stuff.
And since that time, and this has been within the
last like since we've been doing this podcast, he's now
big time.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah. They did Pete's Dragon, Yeah, and then yeah they
have this. They did an'th them. Body Saints was I
think the one that they kind of broke out.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
With, which I love that movie, and then.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
This one definitely kind of falls into that same look
and mood and feel, which it's called the Ghost Story,
and I think it comes out in July, and I
think it's labeled a drama rather than horror or even
supernatural or thriller. But the reason I tie it into
horror is because A twenty four is releasing it and
(05:28):
A twenty four is killing it with horror movies lately.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, that's a good that's a good outfit.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
They did The Witch, they did The Black Coat's Daughter.
Have you seen that? No, it's on Amazon Prime. It's
on Amazon Prime right now. No, it's not it, dude.
It's one of the best horror movies I've seen in
a while. I think The Witch is probably my favorite
right now. Yeah, Black Coat's Daughter is a close second.
And then last night I saw it Comes at Night
(05:57):
in the theater and it Comes at Night actually upset
my stomach the ending? Did it?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Was?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It was that rough?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah. I think we're we've we're at a place with
horror movies that we haven't been in a long time,
like a really genuine good spot. Yeah, like the whole
torture porn sort of era is over and the found
footage thing is so played.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
But I think we like with movies like The Witch.
I think we've really like, there are some really creative
uh it follows. Did you see that one? Yeah, like
some just really creative ways of bringing scares that I
haven't seen before.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Get Out.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That was amazing to get Man, I haven't seen it.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
You're gonna love it. I'm envious of you. It's really
it's great movie, Chuck, you love it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I don't get to the movies much anymore, and the
only time I could was a couple of weeks ago
and I elected to see Wonder Woman.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, not a good choice.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
So long way of saying congratulations to Toby and his new.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Film, well it's funny. We also need to congratulate Toby too,
because Toby just got married. Toby Nnell are now married,
so congratulations to them as well.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So this is this new movie with his directing partner
David Lowry, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, and Rooney Mara. Yeah, they definitely do. So it's
gonna be good. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Okay, So let's get started. Thanks for indulging that.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Thank you everybody.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So the first, the first movie on our list is
what's widely considered the first horror movie, and it's a
nineteen twenty movie, out of Germany that basically was the
first film that undertook what's the artistic movement known as
German expressionism. Yeah, it's called The Cabinet of Doctor Kalighari.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, I mean some say, like you said, it was
the first horror movie. Some say it was the first
cult film. It. Well, just you may not be able
to get to the whole thing if you're not into
silent movies, but you should queue up a little bit
of it and watch a little bit of it because
it's hugely impactful and still to this day like very
(08:13):
disconcerting to look at because of it how ominous and
weird it looked. Yeah, just physically looked.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah. Like the sets that they built are obviously constructive manufactured.
They were not in any way, shape or form going
for realism. They were going for surrealism for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And so like the staircases are at crazy weird curves
and angles, and like everything from the house, the house's
rooftops to the blades of grass are super pointy and sharp,
and the shadows that they employed were just perfect. You've
never seen a better use of shadows than this. They
didn't get in the way, they just created this mood,
(08:56):
and it was the first movie to really kind of
do that, to just take to use the camera for
something other than capturing realism. And for that reason it's
considered the first horror movie because that's such a standard
part of horror, whether large like in large part like
(09:16):
in a Tim Burton movie, or in small part you
know where you're using small spaces to create claustrophobia. The
idea of using the set to mess with the viewer's mind,
I think is born in doctor Caligary's cabinet.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, it's almost like they took a child and gave
them construction paper and said cut out scary things, right,
And then like that movie The Baba Duke, I think
the actual book within the Baba Duke was hugely inspired
by this. The actual movie itself. The plot is about
a side show operator, a hypnotist who has a patient
(09:54):
that he takes around to the side shows with a
sleep disorder. Supposedly he's been asleep his entire life, and
he uses this patient to commit murder.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Right, he's like a sleepwalker, yeah, somnambulist.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So that in itself is a pretty frightening plot, and
to think about that being cooked up in nineteen twenty
when there were really not such things that you think
of as horror movies. Is pretty impressive.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And then some of the deeper critiques I've seen of
it was like the explanation for why the filmmakers chose
like these weird odd angles to kind of depict insanity
or that kind of thing. Yeah, was rooted in World
War One. The horrors of World War One had just
been seen and revealed and recently taken place, and it
(10:43):
upended Europe in general and especially Germany as well. And
that the idea is that they might not have had
this idea, They might not have had this desire, this
drive to create this this weird set, and in fact
this weird movie had World War One not happened.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, there's this writer, Jeff Saparito who kind of put
it this way about German expressionism because I wasn't exactly
sure how to define it, but you're kind of right
on the money. He said. Germany was largely isolated from
the rest of the world following World War One, so
expressionism therefore became confined to the country. Refers to a
number of creative movements from World War One through the
(11:23):
nineteen twenties, expressionist works examined the current and future state
of the culture through bold and artistic creations of creativity,
and often explored topics of madness, betrayal, and other intellectual concepts.
And nothing encapsulates these ideas more than the Cabinet of
Doctor Caligi.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
That's basically what I said.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah you did you read that or were you just that?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
I don't know if I read that one or not.
It sounded kind of familiar.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, no, just say you came up with that.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So the idea of the set just creating like a
creepy tone in tech shoot everything that was Doctor Calgary.
That's how it changed the genre.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, yeah, Tim Burton say thank you.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah. Have you seen Coraline? No?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
But I know it.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
It's they did that to very good effect.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
You know, I think Hodgman does a voice in that,
doesn't he He does?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
He does the dad. He did a spectacular job because
you actually forget it's Hodgman while you're watching it. That's impossible,
all right, Chuck, Moving on, that was nineteen twenty. We're
going to fast forward all the way to what nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Nineteen sixty three. If you're talking about Blood.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Feast, Well, I wasn't bot lets.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Simon Abrams of Roger Ebert dot Com says, this Bloodfeast
is a terrible film, and a historically important one too. Yep,
And I think that's sort of the deal with Blood Feast.
It is not good by any accounts.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Did you watch any of it? Yeah, sure, it's not good.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
No, it's not good. It's terrible. It was written basis
on a fourteen page outline, didn't even have a script.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
It's got the same cloying technic color of like an
early Hawaii five zero episode.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah, for sure. Directed by Herschel, Gordon Lewis and producer
David F. Friedman. And basically the idea was this, these
guys did not see films as art. They saw them
as a business and thought you were foolish if you
thought it was anything else. So they sat around they
brainstormed movies that they thought no one else would make.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, because they started out making like Porky's esque type movies. Yeah,
and they were doing fine with that. But apparently they
were successful enough with it that there started to be
imitators and the market was crowded, so they said, where
can we go make movies that no one else is
gonna make.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah, because we want to shock people essentially. So a
couple of ideas they had that did not make the
list was con Man Evangelist and Nazi Torture, which.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Were later made.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, exactly. And they finally said, you know what no
one's really done yet is hardcore gore. Yep, Like everyone
always cuts away when the knife comes, and you're like,
what if we showed the grossest glorious stuff imaginable on screen?
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah, And even still they didn't show so like one
of the first murder a woman stabbed through the eye
and then the murderer hacked their legs off of the machete, right,
and they didn't show the knife penetrate the eye. They
didn't show the machete making contact with the skin. But
what they did in blood Feasts and what made blood
Feast the first of its kind, was they would show
(14:40):
the what came after that. They would show the brains
on the ground. Yeah, they would show the entrails like
on the knife. They would show the leg being you know,
that had been dismembered, being put into a bag, and
like the wound that was left by Yeah, like that
this was huge. No one had ever done anything like
that on film BEFO four No.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
And it paid off. They depending on who you ask,
the budget was anywhere from like twenty to thirty grand
and it made between seven and thirty million dollars, Like
I said, depending on where you get your info. But
by all accounts, it was a huge financial success, yeah,
compared to what they paid to make it.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah. And they shot it in I think six days
or something down in Miami. Yeah, based on a fourteen
page outline. There wasn't even a script. It as an outline.
Basically it was like murderer goes and kills this girl. Yeah,
next girl, murderer comes in, kills girl, cuts off leg
that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Right, Yeah. I mean, if it matters the movies about
a serial killer caterer.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yeah, that's it. There's your plot right there.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
But the it was just such a revolutionary movie that
the censors at the time there wasn't such a thing
as the MPAA hadn't been formed yet, and there was
basically no one except for local censors overseeing movies.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
So you know, you could be playing in one town
to all audiences and then the next town over it
could be banned, but the sensors had never seen anything
like it and they didn't know what to do with it.
So yeah, it was hugely successful commercially too.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah. And another big impact it had was it inspired
a generation of special effects. But basically, let's be honest,
young boys who were doing this on their own Super
eight films right and said, wait, I can get a
job doing this.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yep. So, including Tom Savini, I think was inspired by it,
wasn't he? Or was he inspired by Yeah? I think
he was inspired by Blood Feast?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Oh wow?
Speaker 1 (16:48):
And then we should also give a mention to the
Grand gug y'all? Is that how you think it's pronounced? Sure,
Granguien y'all. It was a theater in Paris, I believe,
from the late nineteen century on to I think nineteen
sixty two, so the year before Blood Feast came out,
it had closed up, but it used to do this
stuff on stage. It was like a gore fest and
(17:11):
there was lots of like blood and sex and like
depraved themes in the plays that were put on at
this theater. People loved it, they were crazy for it,
and this was kind of like the Grand Guignol tradition
put onto film for the first time, and who ray
(17:31):
for that? You want to take a break, Yeah, let's
do it, all right, Charles, we're back. So nineteen sixty
(18:03):
or nineteen sixty, not eight.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
I've got nineteen sixty eight in front of my face, okay,
And that could be no other movie. The Night of
the Living Dead classic George Romero film. Romero was a
TV director, making TV commercials commercial director.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Rather, he was also making short films for Mister Rogers
neighborhood at the time.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah, and he was young.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, I don't know how old he was, but he
was pretty young guy still, I get.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I think when he made Shot and That Is the
Living Dead, he was like twenty six or twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
So yeah, by any standard, that's still pretty young, unless
you're twenty three.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
So he had He and his buddies were like, let's
make a horror movie, but let's not make a stupid
horror movie. Let's make one with like an actual plot
that explores like deep themes too, like a good movie.
Let's let's make the first good horror movie.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Well yeah, so, and we'll delve into that little more.
But that was definitely a different thing. At the time.
And the other different thing was that all the horror
movies up to that point they were called the Universal
monsters from Universal Studios, you know, all the kind of
the classic Frankenstein and Dracula and Creature from the Black
Lagoon and the Werewolf, and that was where that was
(19:22):
mainstream horror. And George Romero comes along and says, how
about zombies? And everyone said, what in the world's a zombie?
And he said, well, let me define that for every
future generation of movie and TV goers and lovers.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah. And there had been zombie movies before, but they
had been things like like doctor Kaligari's Cabinet, somebody who
was under the control of something someone else or something
like that, there was a hypnotist or this was like
the first time what we think of as zombies wherever
introduced like flesh eating ghouls who were dead and come
(20:03):
back to life. Yeah, just what you think of as
a zombie. This guy started that genre, like you said.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, they shot it outside in Pittsburgh on about one
hundred and fifteen thousand dollars budget, ended up grossing twelve
million domestic not bad, and I think close to twenty worldwide,
and was eventually selected by the Library of Congress for
preservation in the National Film Registry.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
It's a good movie.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
It's a very good movie. They shot it in black
and white to save on cost, even though color was
the standard by that point, and black and white is
also a little more forgiving for rudimentary special effects. And
one of the revolutionary things he did was cast a
black actor as the lead, and for no other reason
(20:51):
than hey, this guy Dwayne Jones is really.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Good, exactly right. Like he didn't go back and go, oh, well,
you know, our hero is black, so we need to
make the whole thing of meditation on race and have
them confront racism. It was just here's the script, and
then the guy playing the lead just happens to be black.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Right, And he was the best guy in the auditions.
And you know, in nineteen sixty eight, this didn't really happen.
You didn't just cast a black guy as a lead
actor for no with no like ulterior motive, basically right.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So I read this review from the time from nineteen
sixty nine, the year after it came out, Young Roger
Ebert went and watched it and wrote a review, and
he wrote a pretty pretty interesting review, which is basically
it was about the reaction of the audience. And he
went to a Saturday matinee that was populated almost entirely
(21:44):
by ten eleven year olds. Oh wow, and they were
used to seeing the Creature from the Black Lagoon or
Frankenstein or you know, just movies that any kid could
handle and could enjoy watching, and you know, fun, scary
kind of stuff. Yeah, and he said, that's how that
that was how the crowd reacted for the first half
(22:09):
of the movie. But then about the point where and
here's here comes spoilers. Everybody, if you haven't seen Nither
of Living Dead, to hit yourself in the knee with
a hammer. You the the the teenage couple go to
get gas and when their car blows up and is
engulfs and flames, they die. They're burned to death. He said,
(22:30):
Right about that time, the tone, the mood of the
theater changed and there was no like gleeful screaming anymore.
Kids were starting to like not move and we're afraid
to like move in their seats, and some were quietly
crying to themselves. And from that the whole, the whole
point on, it just got worse and worse for these
little kids watching this movie.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So it was a huge impact on horror movies a it.
Like you said earlier, it was kind of the first
one to really sort of delve into other issues like
if you look up, like significance of not of the
Living Dead or meaning of nighted living Dead or something
like that. There are scores of articles that have been
(23:11):
written over the years of how it was a metaphor
for the Vietnam War, or an allegory about distrust of
authority or the collapse of traditional family. And I think
Romero said, like I didn't necessarily mean all these things,
but you can certainly find it in the movie.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
That is art. Like one of the great revelations of
my adult life is that the artist, the writer, the songwriter,
the author rarely intends to imbue as much meaning into
their work as people take from it. That that's part
of art as interpretation. Isn't that neat? Like you don't
(23:51):
if you're a writer, if you're a young writer right
now who's just sitting there racking your brain for how
to insert metaphor and meaning into this, just write your
story and people are going to find it for themselves. Yeah, agreed,
I wish somebody had told me that.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
When I was younger, I had teachers that said stuff
like that, Oh I didn't like good college professors in
English that would when students would argue like, I think
he means this, he would say like, you know, he
may or she may not have meant anything.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Right I had.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
That's the revelation.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I had teachers that would just go wrong.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
The other thing about Night Living Dead is it spawned, obviously,
the zombie genre and sequels, Don of the Dead, Day
of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead, the Walking
Dead remakes.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Shout out Stephen Yune. Yeah right, why not?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I'm still into the Walking Dead.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
You Yeah, we talked about this, yes, yes, okte Une listens.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Anyway, Zombies are I think still hot and we can
so hot. We owe that all to mister Romero, master
of the genre.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yep, chuck. One more thing too that Naya Living Dead
did that they weren't the first, but very famously Romero
did was kill off his hero senselessly and shockingly.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah at the end, good point.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Thanks man. Okay, So let's move on. Like I said
nineteen seventy three, yes day after Christmas.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
If you've ever been in Washington, d C. At the
end of M Street. You might have noticed very during
the daytime, ordinary set of stairs. At nighttime, maybe they
look creepy to you because those are the Exorcist stairs.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah. I'm trying to conjure the music in my head,
but all I'm coming up with is the unsolved mysteries music.
It wasn't quite right, so close, but it's not. I'm
so unsatisfied right now.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
So The Exorcist was based on a book by William
Peter Bladdie who wrote this in nineteen seventy one, and
then in seventy three the movie was made. And there's
I think I referenced not too long ago a great
Mark Marin interview with William Friedkin where he talks about
the audition process for Linda Blair. So you should go
(26:15):
listen to that because it was pretty insightful. But The
Exorcists really kind of changed the game in that it
was a It spawned a bit of a subgenre of
demonic movies.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Sure I were like religious based.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, even though I guess Rosemary's Baby was before that.
But the Exorcist was such a mega hit and it
was nominated for Best Picture the first horror movie to
be nominated for that, so it was just like it
was a big deal.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
It was. It sold six million tickets in about two months.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
This is a horror movie, right, and it came out
in nowhere. Apparently the effect they had on audiences was
extremely pronounced. There was a woman in Boston who had
to be carried from the theater and she goes it
cost me four dollars, but I only lasted twenty minutes.
So we're like, that's the stories of that got around
(27:16):
and people wanted to see, you know, this movie can't
be that scary, and they went and they were like,
oh my god, that movie is that scary.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, and it holds up too. I mean, special effects
are they'd never quite hold up. But it's still a
very creepy movie. Very famously, Linda Blair played the little
girl who was possessed by a demon, and the the
heavy hitters were called in the two Exercises Demon, including
(27:46):
a Max van Seadao who was only forty four when
he was played. This guy in his easily in his seventies.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yeah, is he Benjamin Button?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Well no, they made him up.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Wow, they did a great job.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, which I don't see why they felt the need
to do that. I know they God, who else did
they almost cast? Oh? Brando? They almost cast Brando, but.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
That would have been a colossal mistake.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Well, Friedkin said, you know what, as soon as you
do that, it's a Marlon Brando movie. Yeah, and I
think he said, picture a Brando picture. Sure, that's what
they said. And he'd wanted to be a Brando picture.
He wanted to be the.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Exorcist, So you said. It was based on a book
from two years before by William Peter Bladdie. He apparently
was known as a comedy writer and he wanted to
do something different.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
He said, Hey, wouldn't it be funny if the little
girl's head spun around and she keeps green bile?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Wait? Wait'll you hear what I have he do with
a crucifix? So he actually wrote the book because he
wanted to scare America back to church. That was his
aim with the book.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
It may have worked.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
He believed that there was real evil going on in
the world and that part of it was because of
a loss of eight or a loss of religion, I guess,
And that's what he wanted to do with it. And
when the movie came out, there was a huge pushback
from religious authorities like Billy Graham said he believed the
movie itself was possessed by a demon. I'm not sure
(29:15):
how that would happen, but that was like a huge
thing at the time, and a lot of a lot
of other religious establishment types were like, don't go see
that movie. It's evil. But there were some who who
were part of part of religion, major organized religion, who
kind of saw through it and said, no, no, this
(29:37):
is it's good that we're talking about this. That there
were telling people, you know, or people are seeing that
there's such a thing as like good versus evil literally
combating on earth, you know, and people are talking about
this and thinking about it. And so in that sense,
the Exorcist like really kind of went to bat for
organized religion.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
I saw another criticism of it though, that said one
of the themes of the movie that the book hadn't
really intended, but the movie picked up on and expounded on,
was intergenerational conflict. That it was Reagan the child represented
the younger generation who was at war with the establishment,
(30:19):
and that it even goes so far as to where
her mother the actress. The movie that she's working on
is about campus takeover by young radicals. Huh. So that's
kind of a theme that was apparently part of the subtext,
but was a major part of it in the movie
at least interesting. Yeah, I thought so too, because apparently,
(30:40):
I mean, you think of intergenerational conflict now, Apparently in
the late sixties and early seventies it was sharper than
it probably ever has been before or since.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah. The only other thing I got is that the
green stuff that she projectiles was Anderson's pup and a
little bit of oatmeal text.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Anderson's piece of Well, bet you can't get that anymore, Chuck,
Let's do Jaws and then we'll take a break. I
love talking about Jaws.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah, I mean Jaws is on. You know. I did
my top favorite movies list at one point on our website,
and I listed Jaws is my favorite movie favorite of
all time. Yeah, I mean that list changes, but it's
Jaws is always in my top five. I can watch
it anytime it's on. It is one of the I've
often said it's a perfect movie, and what I mean
(31:34):
by that is there's just not a misstep, like the
casting was perfect. The acting was great, the script was great.
It played out just perfectly throughout the film. He, like Spielberg,
was just a master storyteller with that movie.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
You were talking about how young George Romero was in
Night of the Living Dead. Spielberg was twenty six when
he made Jaws.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
He was thirteen years old.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
He and he was apparently scared to death when he
finished filming. The schedule had been for fifty five days.
It went to one hundred and fifty nine. Yeah, he
had I think been allotted four million dollars. He ended
up spending twelve million on it.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, largely because a shooting on water is notoriously difficult,
and b the shark mechanical shark they use was legendarily wonky,
and how it are not wonky but wanky wonky.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It didn't work.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
It rarely worked. So they spent a lot of time
and burnt a lot of hours trying to get this
shark to do its thing, and so much so that
it didn't even make that many appearances in the movie.
I think they even kind of scaled it back, and
that ended up being better for the movie because you
didn't get as much shark.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
I looked up the urban legend about the shark being
named after Spielberg's lawyer, Bruce, and apparently it's true. Really, Yeah,
Bruce Rayner was the name of Spielberg's lawyer, and that
was the nickname for the mechanical shark on the set
was Bruce.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
That's pretty funny.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
So with Jaws, right, we're talking about horror movies that
changed the genre. Jaws not only changed the horror genre,
it changed movie making to this day. Yeah, and in
multiple ways, multiple massive ways. It changed the entire film
industry almost single handedly.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, it was at the time there was no such thing.
You take it for granted now, but there was no
such thing as a quote unquote summer release.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
No, a lot of theaters close down because ac wasn't
in every theater, and people then want to sit around
in a hot movie theater for two hours.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Yeah, a summer release or a tent pole film or
a blockbuster feature like Jaws was the first one of
all those.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
What at the time, when Jaws came out, they used
to release a movie on maybe one two screens in
say New York or LA for a week and then
did make its way to you know, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Chicago
for a few weeks, and then eventually it'd make it
to your small town six eight weeks later. Yeah, that
(34:22):
was how movies were released, not Jaws. Jaws was released
on four hundred and thirty five screens across the country,
which is huge, which is part of the part of
the summer blockbuster release playbook now.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, and it was also the first movie to spend
lots and lots of money on marketing, and so I
think the studios were like, wait a minute, you spend
some dough on marketing, you release this thing wide. You
can make a ton of money in the first month
that a movie's out, and you're kind of set. Like
after that, it's anything else's gravy. Yeah, and that's after
(34:59):
the first like week or two probably.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, it was. Yeah, the whole point of blockbuster now
is to get that opening weekend, to make all your
money back in the opening weekend, and then everything else
is gravy on top of it. Right, Jaws was it
didn't make its I don't know, maybe it did make
its money back in the first weekend, because it hit
one hundred million dollars in like seventy eight days or something.
Incredible like that because it was the first movie to
(35:23):
hit one hundred million dollars and it did it in
just a couple months. Even.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah, it eventually went on to make to about two
hundred and sixty million dollars domestically, which is I mean,
that's a great take now, Yeah, you know, much less
the mid nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Sure for a twelve million dollars spend, for sure.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
My only beef here is that I would not consider
Jaws a horror movie.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
I think he's an adventure film. Yeah, I guess you're right,
with a scary antagonist. Yeah, but it's amazing how much
I quote that movie in my day to day life.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, just just just show that's a great that's a classic.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
All Right, let's take a break. I'm gonna meditate on
that line, and we'll talk about a few other scary movies,
including one that was originally titled scary movie.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Okay, moving on to Halloween. Halloween Chuck nineteen seventy eight.
I believe Halloween.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yes, John Carpenter, the youngish John Carpenter, who originally titled
this movie The Babysitter Murders. No, A little on the nose,
pretty terrifying title. I guess young Jamie Lee Curtis her
very first movie, was it really? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Well, she went on to become known as the scream
Queen for all the horror movies she was in.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Totally and this was shot in twenty days in South
Pasadena as the Midwest, and it's credited as being birthing
the slasher genre.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Yeah, it did, so there were slasher films before it.
The Town That Dreaded, Sundown, good movies like based on
a true crime story actually in Texas, one called Black Christmas,
The Grabster Sites from nineteen seventy four. I haven't heard
of that one. But the idea of a faceless almost
(37:47):
a like non entity entity coming at you and relentlessly
stalking you, being impervious to harm, as the Rabster puts it,
and just coming at you again and again trying to
kill you. That that was. That was all established by Halloween,
and it was done like to too great effect as well.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Yeah, and it holds up. It's still scary. Michael Myers,
of course, was The Killer. The music that John Carpenter scored,
Hi mean, he scores most of his movies himself, but
very iconic. Basic thing I think he only took a
couple of days to come up with it. But like
the Michael Myers character and the mask are so iconic,
(38:32):
the music is so iconic. You know about the mask,
right Chatner? Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I went and check that one out too to verify
that it was true. And it definitely is true that
Michael Myers mask is actually a Captain Kirk star Trek
mask painted white.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
That is history yep.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
In the in the script when it came to the mask,
it just said pale, neutral features of a man.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, which makes the whole thing even creepier because he's
an implacid or is that the right word.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
He's just almost like just an emotionless killer.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
It made the fact that he was merciless, ruthless, pitiless
and arbitrarily killing people almost all the more pronounced because
his expression never changes.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Well, to me, the two things that were creepiest about
Halloween was the expression never changed because of that mask,
and he did not run, like oh yeah, he would
just walk, and you still got the feeling like you
can't outrun this guy even though he's walking.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
That was another creepy part about it. It follows with
the walking aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Oh, yeah for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Yeah, in the same way that like twenty eight Days
Later was freaky in that it took zombies and made
him run.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Yeah. Or I remember when I saw Friday the thirteenth
I'm sorry Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time,
and Freddy Krueger was running around, like, that's not what
scary dudes do.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Yeah, scary dudes don't trot.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Now, they walk very creepily toward you and still somehow
gain speed on you even though you're running full speed.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Well, Freddy scared me to death the first time I
saw that movie.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Yeah. No, first one was a pretty good one, but.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Halloween established this, Like you said, it established the slasher genre,
and everything about slasher films still today all rooted in
Halloween John Carpenter's tropes.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah, and again, like you said, there were a couple
of other slasher films before, but none of them grossed
close to fifty million bucks.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Wow, is that how much Halloween made?
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yeah, forty seven million domestic at about a three hundred
thousand dollars budget, so it you know, it's sort of
like with the Exorcists, like there were other movies that
sort of did this thing before. But when you have
a huge hit that does it is when it sort
of redefines the genre because it it's money. Yeah, and
that's all they met.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Everyone starts paying attention after that.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
All right, what's next?
Speaker 1 (40:58):
What's next? My friend? Is a movie that came out
when I don't know, were you still in college? No,
you must have just been out then.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
I was out a few years.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Okay, Well, regardless around our college era, this movie came out.
Because up to this point, everything's come out either when
we were little or before we were born. This one
was right in our wheelhouse. It was the Blair Witch Project,
which came out in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Yeah. And one of the big things that Blair Witch
Project did well two things. Really, it established the found
footage genre or subgenre that is so overplayed now in
the viral marketing campaign. And that's how I came upon it.
I remember very specifically being in the apartment of Scott
at Pallito, who you know, Sure he shot our TV show,
(41:46):
one of my oldest friends, and I was sitting in
his apartment on Claremont Avenue Indicator and I happened upon
this and This was pre Facebook. I don't even know
how I found it, you know, before things were being
shared around, right, And it happened upon this website, the
very first Blair Witch Project website, and I was like, dude,
come over here and check this out. This is the
(42:07):
scariest thing I've ever seen. Yeah, and I remember the
website set it up as if it was real, and
that this found footage thing, it's so overdone now it's
hard to go back in time and remember when it
was fresh. But I remember looking at and being like,
did this happen? Did they really find this footage of
this murder in the woods? Like well, I got to
(42:28):
see this.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
That was the rumor that this was actually real, man.
And this is, like you said, I mean, this is
before the found footage genre. So people were being exposed
to this concept for the first time, and we're kind
of falling for it. I mean, first all, huge, you're
either in college or you're just recently out of college,
so you're maybe slightly more gullible than you are ten
years on.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
You're ready to believe it.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
You want to believe, right, So yeah, the idea that
this was actual found footage, it just made it all
the more enjoyable, and people were buying into it now.
I think the other part of it was that the filmmakers,
partly because they didn't have the budget for actual effects,
left a lot of the scariest parts to your imagination.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Yeah, Nor did they have the talent to make a
good narrative film.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
I guess. I mean they worked on a sixty four
page script, which I was surprised that it was that
that big. But they shot it for eight days, and
originally they were going to make it like a documentary
about the found footage, right, And then one of them
had a flash of perspective. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait,
let's just release it like it's found footage. And that
(43:36):
was that. The rest was history.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yeah, and I'm poking fun. That was not very nice
at all. Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrik or Merrick, the
co directors, they they should be credited with a truly
ingenious campaign and invention.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Well, they weren't the first to come up with found footage, right,
there were some films before. I've never known how to
pronounce it, Mondo Kane or Mondo Caine. I think Kanye
It's from nineteen sixty two. And it was supposedly a
documentary about like some like weird tribal rituals. I think
there's head shrinking maybe involved, and it purported to be
(44:17):
like real footage. Same with Cannibal Holocaust with Man. If
you've never seen Campbell Holocaust, go out and watch it
right now. It's very disturbing. And it's so disturbing that
the director of the movie was charged with murder because
they believed that the actual murders depicted they were so realistic.
(44:38):
They thought that it was a snuff film basically, but
it was supposed to be a documentary as well. So
there was an idea of like found footage or documentary
style horror movies that had come before, but nothing like
The Blair Witch, where it was just straight up these people.
We found their old camera and this is what was
on it.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Well, and they were smart enough to to dig up
an old thing that never went huge. You know. They're like, hey, man,
like these other movies, they never really hit it big,
and they it was a timing thing. They they I mean,
hats off for them to them, Yeah, good for them,
and to them.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Nice going all right, chuck scream.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Yeah scream, I teased that it was originally titled scary movie.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
I'm glad it wasn't because scary movie is awesome. I well,
it's scary movie. Ever would have been called maybe it
would have never been made.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Or maybe they would have called that Scream.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Oh yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
So Scream was a very big deal when it came out.
The writer Kevin Williamson, and this is still the highest
growing slasher film of all time. Basically Scream one is.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
It was huge. I got Nev Campbell's haircut as a
result of it. Like it was a big, big pop
culture watermark.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
It was. And one of the big things about it,
aside from the boatloads of money that it made, was
it spawned a subgenre called horror, which is even though
it had been done by no less than its own
director of Wes Craven with Wes Craven's New Nightmare two
years before Scream, it wasn't nearly as popular. But meta
(46:15):
horror is this idea, and if you've ever seen Scream,
you know they're constantly just referencing horror movies like this
is where you know, you don't go out and make
out in the car because that's where.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
You get killed. And then they would do that and
get killed, right.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Although I don't think that specific thing happened.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Like don't go back into the house.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Yeah, Like all the tropes of horror movies are addressed
in the movie, and.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
They're talking about them as the horror movie tropes.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Yes, yeah, exactly, meta horror.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Yeah, and there are plenty of other things that came
along meta horror examples like have you seen Tucker and
Dale Versus Evil?
Speaker 2 (46:52):
No, it's good.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Oh check it out man, All right, that's a good movie.
Zombie Land. Yeah, I did see that where he's rattling
off all of the things that you need to notice
survive a zombie apocalypse that he learned from zombie movies. Right.
And then Cabin in the Woods. Did you see that? One?
Speaker 2 (47:08):
Great movie?
Speaker 1 (47:08):
It was a great movie. I thought it was really good.
I mean from beginning to end, it was a great movie.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Did you like Scream?
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Yeah? I love Scream. I liked all the Screams.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
I only saw the first two. The second one I
think might have been even better than the first to me,
and that the second was shot Emily worked on that
it was shut here at Agnascott College party.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Oh is that right? Yeah? You have to go back
and watch it knowing that now I'll be like, oh,
I've driven past that place.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
So I got a few tidbits. Like I said, initial
title was Scary Movie Number two. The Weinstein brothers initially
offered it to George Romero and Sam Raimi. What else
do I have here? Drew Barrymore was originally supposed to
play Sydney, the lead character, and then she said, no,
how about if I just played that girl the which
(48:01):
kind of was a big thing because you see Drew
Barrymore and it was a big shock when she died
in the first scene, right, you know.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
You can't kill off your heroin right away.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, I like, I remember, I remember that first scene
really really scaring me when I saw it the first
time in the theater.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Yeah, it is. It's a scary, gruesome, gory heart.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Yeah, very well played. And then before he went to
Nev Campbell, he went out to Alicia wit, Britney Murphy
and Reese Witherspoon.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
And then Campbell was your first choice.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
And then the mask, the iconic screen mask apparently wasn't
off the shelf mask.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Wow, that made that company's money.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah, and the Weinstein didn't like it. They were like,
I hate that mask. Everything else is fine, huh, But
Wes Craven said, no, it's got to be the mask.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Don't be stupid, Bob.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
All right, we're going to finish up with our own edition.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Here finally, nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yes, Psycho, I can't believe this wasn't in the list.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
I think ed kept this off the list to toy
with somebody he doesn't like specifically. That's the only explanation.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Yeah, because Psycho changed everything.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Yeah, it really did. I mean it was the you
could say that it was one of the first slasher flicks.
It was an early psychological thriller.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
It was based on the real life story of ed Gean. Yeah,
I mean it doesn't exactly mirror ed Dean's life, but
the idea of being obsessed with your mother so much
that you will commit murder was definitely rooted in Agen's story.
If you're not familiar with ed Gean, he not only
(49:52):
he was a I don't even know if he was
a serial killer. I think he only I think he
murdered one, maybe two people. But more than anything, he
was a grave robber. But he likes to dress up
in people's skin women's skin and pretend he was his
own mother. Which, man, that's a lot of years on
the couchworking that one out. Yeah, or you can just
(50:14):
die at the hands of cops one of the two.
And he also inspired leather Face from Texas Chainsaw.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Massacre Yeah, and Buffalo Bill of course. Oh yeah, yeah,
Sounds of the Lambs.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Yeah. One guy inspired all those guys.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
So I found this article Psycho colon the horror Movie
that Changed the Genre by Owen Glieberman or is it
Gliberman Glieber Gleiberan. I think he wrote for a legendary critic,
wrote for aw for years and years, and now writes
for a variety.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
Oh he does.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, but he put it best. He said, well, you know,
the iconic shower scene, first of all, is hugely important
because it was Hitchcock really kind of ripped up the script,
not literally, but the horror movie script when he kills
off Janet Lee halfway through the movie. You just didn't
(51:06):
do that at the time.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
No, we came out of nowhere, and we've seen that
come up later on, like at the end of Night
of Living Dead or Drew Barrymore in Scream. Hitchcock was
the first one to do that.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yeah, And Glieberman puts it this way. He said he
was also slicing through years, decades, centuries even of audience
expectation that the hero or heroine of a fictional work
would be shielded and protected or would at least die
usually the end in a way that made some sort
of moral dramatic sense. And Psycho the murder made no
sense at all, right, And he really kind of hits
(51:40):
it on the head there. It was like, if you've
never seen Psycho or heard of it, the movie's just
going along about this woman who steals some money from
her work and she's kind of on the lamb and
checks into this hotel, and you don't even know it's
a horror movie. You're thinking it's a movie about a
lady who steals money and is trying to get away
from getting caught, right, and then just out of nowhere,
(52:04):
she's hacked up in a shower and at the time,
audiences and still, if you haven't seen it, it's shocking.
The audiences were just like they didn't know what they'd seen.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Right exactly, So you're not not only is is the
hero no longer safe? That means maybe you're not either. Yeah,
so it has a It had a really huge unsettling effect.
And then Owen Glieberman points out that Hitchcock was so
smart that he even he even made a nod to
(52:35):
the the type of pat expected horror that the audience
was used to in the house that he used for
Psycho The Bates House. Yeah, there was this huge, rambling
Victorian mansion on a hill. There's lots of taxidermy, and
it was like over over decorated and just creepy. But
(52:55):
up to that point, like that was horror. That was
what a horror movie looked like and felt like. And
this was kind of Hitchcock's homage to that. But at
the same time he was also putting the heel of
his shoe on it as well.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
Yeah, and that house was, I mean almost a character
in itself. Like if you've ever seen the recreation of
it in Los Angeles, I think it's a universal.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
Did you see it? Oh yeah, I never did. The
closest I came was, I think when different strokes went there.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
That's as closest you got to it.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Yeah, Man, if you've ever seen this thing in person
likes it sends a chill up your back just seeing
the thing in like a sunny Los Angeles day. Still,
that's awesome. It's such an iconic house. It's like, oh, man,
there it is. That's where Norman Bates lives. He's the
most disturbed human of all time.
Speaker 1 (53:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
So in the movie, of course, it was the mother
character who is sort of referenced throughout the movie, and
it is not until the end that you realize that
there is no mother. Mother's dead, right, there's just Norman
Bates and all his rage and hang ups.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Yeah, So all the monster movies about giant ants and
or the creature from the Black lagooner monsters, things that
were an other that a normal person had to do
battle with, that was gone.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (54:14):
Now the monster had been on screen the whole time,
and you had noticed it. And now what do you
think about your neighbor who has seemed a little weird
from time to time before? Could he be a murderer
who thinks he is his mother? Who knows? Yeah, this
is what Hitchcock did to everybody back in nineteen sixty
And you almost get like, I think Owen Gliberman points
(54:35):
it out. Yeah, he does. At the beginning, he basically
says like, we probably didn't see Psycho. If you're reading this,
you're probably too young to have seen Psycho in nineteen
sixty and we should all feel sad that we didn't
because it's so changed everything. We can't do anything but
take it for granted now, and everything that's come since
(54:56):
then has been trying to regain that and horror that
it instilled in audiences, and thus far, no one's actually
been able to do it.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Yeah, and the other thing, I remember when I saw
it when I was younger. I think I saw this
when I was like fourteenish, and I think it had
this impact on just about everyone. I don't think I
took a shower for a month. I was straight up
bathtub curtain open, doors, open, windows open.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
Making your mom watch she's keeping watch.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
No, that would have been full circle back to Sue.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Oh yeah, I guess so. Yeah, you didn't even want
to have anything to do with your mom.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
No. Man, Like it changed the shower curtain industry for
a while after that. Yeah, but very good movie. And
there were a couple of Hitchcock movies in the last
few years, two different ones, one with Anthony Hopkins and
one with Toby Jones that were both really good, and
one was about the years that he was making Psycho.
(55:57):
The other was about the years when he was making
The Birds, and they were both really really good movies,
and you should check those out too. You should repeat that.
We just got a rich interjection from Nol, So go
ahead and say it again, Josh, in case it didn't
come through.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
So Noel just said that the director of the Black
Coat's Daughter is Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates in
Psycho's Son. Wow. He also did another movie now that
Noel says that, thanks Nol. It's called The Pretty Little
Thing that Lives in the House, which was another horror movie,
a ghost story. It sounds that was his first one,
(56:32):
and I think that might be on Netflix. It's great.
It's a really great movie too.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
Man. This has got me fired up to see some
horror movies.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
It's a renaissance of horror.
Speaker 2 (56:41):
Yeah. It's tough though, because Emily doesn't really dig it,
so I have to just find alone time to do that.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
Good to watch it in the bathroom. All right, Well,
if you want to know more about horror movies, go
watch horror movies.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Go forth and let us know what we missed, for
God's sake.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
Yeah, if you want to check out grabs list, type
in horror movies on the search bar at Houseofworks dot
com and it'll bring up this fine, fine list that
you'll disagree with. And since I said disagree, it's time
for listener mail.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
This from Eric, and I'm gonna call it what he
called it, Schoolhouse Rock nostalgia theory. All right, I think
it's pretty right on. This just came in. Actually, there's
a hot take, hey, guys, in school House Rock. So
Josh made the statement that gen xers are most nostalgic
generation and attribute it to the success of Schoolhouse Rock.
I'm going to offer my own theory. I propose that
gen x is nostalgic mostly for pop culture because of
(57:35):
the prolifera that word of child targeted advertisements and marketing
in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1 (57:43):
Hummy, certainly something.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
We've talked about.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
His theories got legs.
Speaker 2 (57:46):
While our little impressionable brains were developing, were being taught
by those who were steering pop culture to long for
and find fulfillment in the toys and other products our
cartoons were pushing on us. Now, as adults those messages
are still deep in our psyche. We can't shake the
idea that we still really need those Star Wars action
figures to be happy, not because the toys and the
shows were so great, because we had been tricked into
(58:07):
believing we need them. I have nothing scientific to back
this up, just a hunch yet. What you mean there
hasn't been a study from MIT right on Star Wars toys.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
I'm kind of surprised by that as well. I thought
you were being facetious at first turn.
Speaker 2 (58:25):
Yeah. I don't know which way is up at this point. Yeah,
nothing scientific to back this up, but I'd love to
hear what you all think. See if anyone out there
is any respectable and informed input, do you. Eric? That
is from Eric Lewin and Eric. I think that's super valid.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
Yeah I do too, Eric. I think you've really hit
upon something here.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
And that's all I have to say about it.
Speaker 1 (58:46):
If you have a great theory, fan theory, real life theory, whatever,
we want to hear them there, especially if it's interesting.
You can tweet to us at SYSK podcast or josh
am Clark. You can post it on Facebook, okay, at
Charles W. Chuck Bryant or Stuff you Should Know. You
can send us an email The Stuff podcast at HowStuffWorks
dot com. As always joined us at our home on
(59:07):
the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
Speaker 2 (59:14):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.