Horror and Christianity in Film: Haunting or Holy?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Before we go.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
That came over so much as a joke, because I had
just pressed the button.
Seriously, yeah, sorry, allright, here we go.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Here we go, here's Johnny, here's.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Johnny, that's right.
That would be good for thisepisode, that's right.
So actually even something morescarier.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Your mother is in here with us.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Do you have your syllabi done?

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Horror, horror.
I have the ghost of a syllabi.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Steltem.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Well, welcome everyone to Church Potluck,
where we are serving up asmorgasbord of Christian
Curiosity.
I'm your host, dale McConkey,sociology professor and United
Methodist pastor, and you knowwhat we say every week.
There are two keys to a goodChurch Potluck Plenty of variety
and engaging conversation.

(01:06):
And this is exactly what we aretrying to do here on Church
Potluck Sitting down withfriends and sharing our ideas on
a variety of topics from avariety of economic disciplines
and a variety of Christiantraditions.
And we have made it official weare now calling this season two
of Church Potluck.
So welcome everyone to seasontwo.

(01:27):
They said it would not last.
I don't know who they is, butand I don't know if they said
that but- you showed them.
Good job, that's right.
I showed them, that's right.
But anyway, welcome to seasontwo.
I have really enjoyed doingthis podcast and I've enjoyed it
for a variety of reasons.
I have learned a lot fromeveryone, but just I have
actually learned a lot about allof you and all the guests, even

(01:49):
people I've known for manyyears, just sitting down and
talking to new insights and newunderstanding.
So that's been a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
We're all just sitting here nodding our heads
yeah, that's right, that's right.
As if that translates, itsupports it.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
That's good radio right there we need a hype man
say oh yes, absolutely safe,Maybe even an eight.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
And we know you now too what.
And we know you too, and youknow me now for better or?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
for worse.
Amen.

Speaker 5 (02:07):
We could do that.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Amen, that's right.
I was going to have ahallelujah button.
I downloaded a long time agobut it never made it.
Anyway, I think we're off to astrong start on our official
start last week of season two,our conversation about
artificial intelligence, andwhat are we going to be talking
about today?

Speaker 4 (02:23):
The power of Christ compels you.
Oh, that's the power of Christcompels you.
That the power of Christcompels you.
The power of Christ compels you, all right.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
That could go on for a little while longer.
Take me back.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
I'm giving Dale a high five off the side.
I mean that just, oh my gosh,that puts me in the movie, like
every time, because that's likethe scene and you can see the
sound design in the background.
I mean that movie won for sounddesign at the Oscars as well as
screenplay, and yeah, you canjust Was that Jurassic Park?
Yeah, that's actually was thelost world.
It was the sequel, yeah, theexorcist, which changed the

(03:01):
horror landscape really in termsof like how we understand
movies and especially, I think,with the Christian perspective.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, we'll definitely talk about those
things.
We'll get there.
When I was looking for thissound, the first thing I came
across was not the exorcist buta spoof, and I forgot the name
of what the spoof is.
When the priest was saying thepower of Christ compels you and
the person being held down, thezombie like creature, was saying
does he really?

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Is it when Jonah Hill is getting?
Is it Jonah Hill?
It's very well-created.
I think it's from what this isthe end, or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's areally funny scene.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
It was like a little bit, yeah, kind of sacrilegious,
but it was like maybe not somuch.
It's not so compelling, butanyway, we are talking about
horror today.
Is it a gruesome indulgence ofevil or is it a keen insight to
the human condition?
Is it loitering in the devil'splayground or is it proclaiming
good over evil?
Is it horrid or is it holy?

(03:52):
Let's find out, and let's findout from our guests.
We are going to introduce ourpoint person for today,
professor Clint Peter.
Yay, yeah, there we go.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
How's it going?
How are you doing?
I'm doing great actually.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
You sound like you're doing great.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
I am less panicked than usual, you know, by this
time before the semester starts,so I'm feeling pretty good, I
think six years will do that foryou.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, that's right, that's right.
And just wait till the 31styear.
And just how overly chill youare about the beginning of the
semester, when you should be alittle bit concerned about where
you're standing right now.
All right, well, clint, do alittle bit more of a formal
introduction to yourself.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
Oh yeah, Great.
Hey, yeah, Dr Clint Grogaviers,I teach creative nonfiction at
Barry and the creative writingprogram.
I love horror.
I love movies.
I will say by way ofintroduction that I didn't
always like horror.
I have a good conversionnarrative, which I think applies
to this podcast.
I used to not understand whypeople did horror.
For me it was like writing aroller coaster.
Why would you do a thing thatmade you like physically upset?

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Man, you're taking away my stuff.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Oh, I did.
Uh-oh, I'm sorry.
Well, I'll stop.
Tell me when to stop.
That's a good part of Clint'sconfessions.
And then we can talk about thislater.
I had a couple of movies that Iwatched back to back that just
really sort of I was going tosay open my eyes, but I should
say darkened my eyes and justlet me see what horror can do.
That I think other genres cando, but maybe not as viscerally.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well, I am definitely looking forward to getting into
that.
Thank you, it's great to haveyou and our next guest we have
Professor Kurt Hersey.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
Yay, kurt, thanks for calling me back.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah Well, thank you for coming back.
That's excellent, Kurt.
Let us know a little bit moreabout you.

Speaker 5 (05:24):
Yeah, I'm a professor of filmmaking and cinematic
arts and communication and, asof recently, chair of the
communication department.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Congrats, excellent and, more importantly, spouse to
one of my very first students.

Speaker 5 (05:37):
That is correct.
Yes, and Karen Barr at the timewas one of your students.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
I'm sure others have asked you this because it's not
original, but did you give anythought to when you, kurt Hersey
, married Karen Barr, tohyphenating your name?
So you would be Kurt HerseyBarr.

Speaker 5 (05:52):
I absolutely suggested it.
She said that is way too silly,wow, but I really was kind of
hoping for it.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
I think that would have put you all on the map
somewhere.

Speaker 5 (05:59):
Yeah, and so I'm a big horror fan.
I will say that I am more of ahorror than violent kind of more
recent horror movies like Saw.
That doesn't really give me buta lot of suspense, that kind of
thing.
70s, 80s, 90s spent a lot oftime watching horror Great.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Looking forward to hearing more from you.
And you know them, you lovethem.
Our third guest, dr MichaelBailey Yay, michael.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
So I made it back to season two.
Yes, you did.
I was as surprised as the nextperson.
We have doubled your salary forseason two as well, much
appreciated.
Yeah, I teach American politics, which is one kind of horror
show at this moment in life Ialso.
I'm just excited about thisshow.
I too like horror.
With Kurt, I think I like whatI would describe as spooky or
paranormal type of horror more.

(06:46):
The rest, I would, even I'd liketo have a conversation at some
point about what whether allscary films should be described
as horror.
I think horror is sort of likea sub genre of scary, and so I'm
curious we're going to go withthe extra stuff.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
We're good.
Well, thank you so much.
It's good to have all of youhere.
Thank you so much.
And before we actually jumpinto the material, I do have
just a one quick and a few quickannouncement for us.
We have two more countries.
Yes, we're now up to 27countries.
Welcome to Portugal.
Any commentary on their musichere?

Speaker 1 (07:20):
I thought it was.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Okinawa first, and this is Australia.
Yeah, oceania is going crazy.
Now we got two downloads, onein New Zealand and one in
Australia.
Yeah, so welcome to our newestcountries.
I haven't done it yet, but Ihave bought a world map that I'm
going to be putting up here.
Oh man, yeah, that's going tobe great visual material for a

(07:42):
podcast Right, but a global map.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
We can describe the pins.
You know, that's right.

Speaker 5 (07:49):
There can't be that many more countries left right.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
There's 28.
Right, that's it.
You got England right, so we'regood.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
I'm trying to make a joke about discipline.
You clearly are not teaching in, but anyway, geography, that's
right.
All right, clint.
Hey, your choice.
You're going to choose scholarmode or enthusiastic preacher
mode.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
Oh I enthusiastic preacher mode, All right.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
All right.
Psalm 101, clint oh versusthree and four.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
Amen.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
I will not look with approval on anything that is
vile.
I will have nothing to do withwhat is evil.
Ephesians 4.27.
Do not give the devil afoothold.
Philippians 4.8.
Finally, brothers and sisters,whatever is true, whatever is
noble, whatever is right,whatever is pure, whatever is
lovely, whatever is admirable,if anything is excellent or

(08:35):
praiseworthy, think about suchthings.
So why in the world should webe watching horror movies?

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Well, maybe you shouldn't, man, I mean, you know
that.
I guess one anecdote I'll giveis the origin story of director
West Craven, who did Nightmareon Elm Street and One of the
most horrible movies I've everseen, which is the Last House on
the left.
He also did the Hills have Eyesand then, of course, the scream

(09:05):
movies which I do love and kindof grew up on.
But his mom was veryfundamentalist Baptist.
His dad died when he was veryyoung, was a very angry person,
had a heart attack when he was50 and his father yes, his
father.
So West was raised by his momvery fundamentalist, I mean, he
couldn't watch movies like noteven horror movies, just movies,
and that just drove him to makeall of these other Scary ugly

(09:28):
things.
Actually, before he got intohorror movies he was in
pornography.
So he'd porn first and thenhorror.
So his mother was probably lessthan enthusiastic about that
term.
I mean, one of the things Iwould say just up front is you
know, the repressed alwaysreturns, right, like this goes
back to Freudian theory.
Robin Wood was one of theearliest film critics to really
sort of scholarly engage horror,right, and he repurposes

(09:53):
Freud's return of the press totalk about how many horror
movies are kind of about that.
Something gets repressed and itcomes back in very monstrous
ways and doesn't go away andthat could be sexuality, it
could be, you know, doubt, whichis, I think, kind of what the
exorcist is about, right, likeit's his father Keras, he's his
mom just died and he's reallystruggling with his beliefs.
Right, the first half of thatmovie someone pointed out that I

(10:15):
was reading isn't actuallyCosmic horror, it's not like
spiritual horror, it's actuallylike a medical odyssey, right,
you see the poor girl played byLinda Blair just going through
all of these awful medicalProcedures.
You know the lore is and Idon't I couldn't find out if
this is actually true that shehad to go through a real
Procedure that caused blood toshoot out of her neck.
It looks awful, if you've everseen it.

(10:36):
She gets like a spinal tap, andall of these horrendous things,
none of which have to do withthe devil right, all have to do
with, like you know, medicalscience, and in the novel, keras
is actually a lot more of adoubter than he has in the film
right, like he's, just like.
There's no way this is real,this doesn't exist.
I mean, it's gradually sort ofconverted through his experience
and then okay, by the way, wewere gonna say spoilers, right.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yes, I was just trying to bring that up myself,
that it's a good time to mentionthat throughout the entire
episode, I'm sure we will havespoilers.
Most of the films we'll betalking about are quite old, and
so it shouldn't be a problem,but there might be some
contemporary ones, so just beaware of that.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
So I mean any of the exercises in old film, but a lot
of people haven't seen it.
You know, especially, I think,of the younger generation, maybe
I don't know.
You know the thing rewatchingthe exorcist I realized how slow
of a movie it is especiallykind of true for all yeah yeah,
it's just, we had a lot morepatience.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Well, and they flow like novels rather than the
independent medium that they'vecome to be.
I think yeah absolutely yeahwell, let's go back to the
roller coaster imagery.
So yeah, there are two reasonsthat I don't like horror.
I'm not a big fan.
First of all is why scaremyself, right, yeah, why do that
to yourself?
You know that's not a pleasantexperience for me, but so I'm
always intrigued by people whodo find pleasure in being scared

(11:47):
and being Anyway.
So that's the first one.
And the second one, I do thinkeven though I did it in a
tongue-in-cheek kind of wayearly on, that there there is a
sense of, if you're focusing onEvil, if you are thinking about
these things, that you aresomehow allowing yourself to
engage in evil forces.
You know, I might I would saythat my, my wife was definitely

(12:07):
raised in this, and so I wasinfluenced by, by her
perspective that to be Watchingthese things is kind of opening
a door, glorifying evil ratherthan resisting it.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
So yeah, it's kind of like the Nietzsche quote right,
like if you're focusing huntingmonsters you might become one
kind of repurposing that.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, and I know that quote.
I like that.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah, I mean a lot of people.
A lot of people ride rollercoasters, right.
It's a very interesting thing,right.
I still don't kind of like them, like I get them.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
I get that kind of a thrill more than being scared
right right.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
So I mean, they've they Psychologists in a study I
don't have at the tips of myfingers right now.
I have, like, hooked people upto machines and have them watch
horror movies, right, and they,what they've noticed is that
there's like spikes inadrenaline as they watch horror,
and a lot of people areadrenaline junkies, right.
So I'm just getting that rightright up front, right, because I
think that's a lot of reasonpeople go on roller coasters.

(12:58):
That ring true to either of youtwo white water rafting or
things like that.

Speaker 5 (13:01):
Yeah well, and it also makes me think about why do
people watch sad movies?
Because it's gonna make you sad.
Why would you do that toyourself?
Yeah right, it's just kind of aflip on the emotions right, all
mark movies are.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Let's go back to happy, shiny people.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, I will say just for me personally, one of the
big things I get is, just withmy background and like
environmental studies, and youknow, being a natured dude, I
like looking at human animalityand I feel like what do you mean
by that human animal?
Like like Things that get us ona very sort of gut, primordial
level, right, emotional physicalreactions that my like

(13:40):
Conscious.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
You know, prefrontal cortex doesn't really have
control so nicks or example yeah, exactly no, for sure, for real
, like he's saying that for mybenefit, right, really, and I
avoid them as much as I possiblycan, and that reaction and
paying attention to that processand questioning my own sort of
body's reaction like, well, whyam I reacting that way when I

(14:03):
see the exorcist?

Speaker 3 (14:04):
Why am I reacting the way that I do?
Or the two films that reallyconverted me are very much
staples in the contemporaryHorror canon the Babadook and it
follows, which I stronglyrecommend anyone watch.
Their fairy, their masterpieces, go ahead and give some
background.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
You said you got a conversion story, so go ahead.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
And I mean I didn't like horror, like I was just.
I mean I well, okay, deep dive.
I was four years old and someknucklehead older cousins showed
me jaws when we were living onan island and I Kind of looked
like the kid that gets eaten andthat just like traumatized me,
a kid, and apparentlytraumatized a lot of people.
There's one psychologist thatstudy has studied what's called
the jaws effect.
There's people of a certaingeneration that have like higher

(14:40):
counts of hydrophobia and I wasjust like why would you do that
to somebody?
But then I watched these othermovies circa 2015 and I was like
, oh, I get it now.
Like these movies are gettingat something in a way that's
employing sort of the physical,emotional reactions and in such
a way that I don't know how elseyou would do that right.

(15:02):
I don't know how else you wouldget at that on such a God level
.
So I think it speaks.
I mean, horror can speak to themind, obviously, but I think it
also just really speaks to thebody.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Well, how about speaking to the soul?
So yeah and that's yeah.
Are there things about thehorror genre that speak to the
divine in the spiritual world?
Because I would say thatthere's probably a lot of
Christians and other people offaith who would say no to that.
Senses that there is anargument to made where horror
does really play into tospiritual.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
I mean there's a lot of horrormovies that actually legitimize
the church, right Like.
I would love to do a podcastlater just about vampires.
But you could see, the lore ofvampires is like Reaffirming the
church's power and youultimately see that in in the
exorcist films and in films likethat.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
I was gonna say you've never heard Jesus
mentioned more often than.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
The power of grace compels you.
The power of grace compels you.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
I could just let this go on.
This goes on for about a minuteand a half.
I think the power of gracecompels you.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
My favorite version.
So the exorcist was this hugesuccess.
I think it was the highestgrossing R rated movie at the
time.
It was the first horror movieever nominated for best picture
and there were a bunch of likeiterations.
But one of my favorites is, ofcourse, the masterpiece called
Constantine with Keanu Reeves,which is like an action version
of the and he's like this, likevery I don't I can't remember if

(16:23):
he's an alcoholic, but he kindof acts like it, like he's got a
chip on his shoulder and he'sjust, he's like a.
He's like a grumpy old Sergeantjust solving cases but, like
you know, ex-exercising people.
So that's really fun.
So, yeah, I think horror.
One of the other things I valueabout it is how much it shows
me what I value on like a verydeep Level, and that can be
again my body in the term interms of like body horror.

(16:45):
It can be my family, right, andI think it can be the soul,
right, and show us like howdeeply we value the soul on Not
just like an intellectual levelbut on a very like animal level.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
I'm curious whether, for me at least, it's difficult
to imagine what a genuinelyatheistic horror movie would be.
I, it seems like most horrormovies trade off or rely on a
sense of the unknown, thenuminal sense that there is
another world lurking, and Ithink part of that is Part of
what almost every horror moviehas is a sense of you can almost

(17:17):
kind of wish it away Because itcan't be real.
But then it really is real andso in terms of it's a, you know,
I don't know if I affect on thesoul, but I think that it
resonates with what Christiansbelieve, which there is a world
beyond the world we see, and itis very real and terrifying, and
in part because we can'tcontrol it very much.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
And I've always found it interesting and clean.
You've already alluded to this.
This is a horror genre is oneof the places where Christianity
gets to be the hero rather thanthe heel right that very often
it is the, the people of faith.
It is that they are the onesthat have the power over Demonic
forces.
Are there the ones that thatacknowledge its reality, like
you were saying, michaels?

Speaker 3 (17:55):
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I also, if you don't mind, kind of hits you back with the
Bible quote you can based kindof going to go in against the
one you were saying earlier.
So this is Job 41, 12 through15.
I will not fail to speak of thelot, the liethans limbs, its
strength and its graceful form.
Who can strip off its outercoat?
Who can penetrate its doublecoat of armor?
Who dares open the doors of itsmouth?

(18:17):
Ringed about with fearsometeeth, its back has rows of
shields tightly sealed together.
Each is so close to the nextthat no air can pass between.
Its snorting throws out flashesof light.
Its eyes are like the rays ofdawn.
Flames stream from its mouth.
Sparks of fire shoot out.
Smoke pours from its nostrilsas if from a boiling pot over

(18:39):
burning reeds.
That is horrifying Also.
Just good, I love that likethere's like a scrumptiousness,
yeah, and it goes on.
I'm not done.
Look, what I have here is likeit keeps going and going and so
I mean, yeah, this is horror,right.
So part of it might be thatthat that definition thing kind
of hinted at earlier is like,well, what is horror?
I'll share a movie goingexperience I had recently.

(19:00):
I saw the.
It's a haunting film.
It's called come and see Kurt.
Have you heard of this?
It's from Belarus.
Well, it might actually be aSoviet film, but it takes place
in Belarus.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
You haven't seen a Belarusian?

Speaker 5 (19:12):
Probably not that boy .

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yes, it's, the boy was just wandering through,
trying to avoid the Nazis.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yep, pretty much.
Oh, can I say it is dreadful.
It is one of the mosthorrifying films I've ever.
Yeah, Would you call that ahorror movie?
I can't.
I experienced a lot of horrorand dread and gore, right Like
some real gory, nasty, terrific.
But because it's historical wecould slumped in with like
historical film.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Well, I don't yeah, I'm not even worried about how
it'd be classified by the oldblockbuster, but you know what
would make it a horror?
I mean, it is awful, yeah, andit is very scary.
But I'm curious what you would.
Are you prepared to say whatyou think a horror movie is?

Speaker 3 (19:48):
I I am not, because I actually think it's a very like
loosey-goosey genre.
I think that's probably right.
You can call a lot of thingshorror that normally don't get
classified in Horn.
We could probably think of someoff the top of our heads right
now.
So would you call Jaws horror,sure, why not?
I mean I.
So I'm gonna say I don't know,and I'm, you know, you know me,

(20:08):
I got long hair, I wear Hawaiianshirts and sandals every day,
like I don't like to be pinneddown right.
Yeah, I am very open todifferent definitions of horror.
I know that gets into problemsof like well, what are we even
talking about?
And blah, blah, blah.
So different people have to tryto define it in different ways.
So I'm gonna pull one of thebooks here I have over here.
Our former Dean, tom Kennedy,gave me this.
It's called the philosophy ofhorror or paradoxes of the heart

(20:31):
, by Noel Carroll.
Citation yeah, and for him, allhorror is essentially monster
stories.
Like, if you go back in timeit's always about, like, if you
go to the caveman days, whatwere they talking about?
Well, huge mastodons and direwolves, right?
I would push back a little biton that because, well, first, we
don't know what they weretalking about, right?
Second of all, like I'm not ahundred percent sure every

(20:52):
horror story is a monster story,but it's possible, like you can
see, come and see, as all theNazis, or just war, but then it
would be.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
I think it'd be interesting push this back
further is what is a monster?
and I'm not trying to beacademic here- I'm trying to
sort of yeah, hint at, I thinkthat I don't know that this
would cover all horror moviesand I don't know if it's the
essence of horror movies.
I think it's a characteristicof a lot of horror movies, as I
suggest, to suggest that there'sa lot beyond the rational world
that we Really cannot controland there's the things that we,

(21:24):
that we, can't see.
Yeah, this other world is themost terrifying one.
So I don't think of a slasherfilm as a horror movie
necessarily.
But Jaws is, because Jaws seemsvery personal and it doesn't
make any sense for a fish to bethat personal.
It does seem to have a monsterquality and by monster, even if
it's the same type of creaturethat we know in the natural
World, like a wolf or a lion, Ithink to be a monster it has to

(21:46):
have some other element mix intoit of Intentionality or
something beyond what is normal.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
For that I'll tell you what I want to get the.
I want to get the spiritualelement in this a little bit.
Oh, kurt, her see begins hisnotes that he sent to me about
the origin of horror andChristianity.
He dates it back to God's Belland Jesus Christ superstar,
which I actually like, thosemovies which I get criticized
for quite a bit.
But you didn't mean that thosewere horror movies themselves,

(22:14):
but you just kind of the originstory that you wanted to tell
yeah, just this idea of popChristianity that that came
about.

Speaker 5 (22:21):
I was born in 1970 so I wasn't necessarily cognizant
of this, you know earlier.
But the way that we startedhaving musicals and there seemed
to be kind of the hippiemovement that Champions Jesus
and takes Jesus not necessarilyas a biblical figure but as a
pop culture, figure.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
This is really, as far as I can tell, the first
time where Jesus is like, pulledaway from the institutional
church, and just pop culture isUsing Jesus as a character,
independent of you know thestrict biblical Interpretation
right and then how that kind ofswirls with this focus on
revelation and the publishing oflate great planet earth.

Speaker 5 (23:00):
And do you want to give a quick?
Citation that's very popculture.
But yeah, do you want to givejust a brief little description
of like Great Planet Earth?

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Actually, I don't know this very well because I
was never drawn to them, but Ido know that they're apocalyptic
and you know the left behindseries I grew up in a
charismatic church of God, MountPeron.

Speaker 5 (23:21):
This was very active.
This idea that we are living inthe end times.
You know you've got to readBook of Revelations, which I was
going to mention.
If you want to talk abouthorror.
Book of Revelations is a horrormovie, 100 percent yeah.
And so the way that this kindof apocalyptic vision from the
Book of Revelations and thatstarts circulating with books

(23:41):
like Lake, I was going tointerrupt you for a second.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Mount Peron didn't teach you well enough, because
it's revelation.
What did I say?
Revelations Plural, yeah, butit's okay.
I am not saying that it is.
I mean very pedantic right here, but there's going to be some
listeners out there saying he'snot even saying it right.

Speaker 5 (23:55):
I'm not saying it's better, I'm just saying I was
probably more so, thinking ofthe Iron Maiden song Revelations
, which is exquisite itself.
Okay, gotcha.
So yeah, book of Revelationonly one, yes, yes, singular.
So how that mixes with horrorand really, I think, informs
movies like the Exorcist.
There's a number of othermovies.

(24:16):
The Omen, of course, is reallyimportant in that kind of
post-apocalyptic revelation.
Everything's going to end, theAntichrist is coming, and again
that's kind of we don'tnecessarily see the Christianity
, but it's like the Omen seriesis so focused on not necessarily
biblical but pop cultureinterpretations of revelation

(24:39):
that people are writing about atthe time.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
There's also a difference right between a
Christian in a prescriptivesense saying this is trying to
promote a particular Christianvision, and Christian is
emerging from a Christianworldview or tradition or set of
tropes and I think in thosemovies all really just
absolutely depend upon thoseAbsolutely.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
Yes, May I read some more?
You may, Is that okay?
I'm going to be a trivia.
Let me ask you guys what doy'all think that?
Gunnar Hansen, you may knowthis what do you think Gunnar
Hansen, the guy who playedLeatherface in the original
Texas Chainsaw massacre, what doyou think his job was before he
played Texas Chainsaw?

Speaker 2 (25:16):
The fact that you're asking is, I'm guessing,
philosophy professor.
Oh, you're so close.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
You're so close.
I don't know.
It's a P word, it's a P wordPreacher, professor of poetry.
He was a poetry professor atthe University of Texas.
He had his masters in creativewriting from the UT and, yeah,
he studied and he wrote poetryand then Toby Hooper saw him and
in his words he filled the doorand he's like you got to be,

(25:41):
you got to be my movie.
I mean, you know, texasChainsaw was like this extremely
low budget film made by a bunchof really just film school
students and like small timeactors.
So he got paid very little, buthe's a good writer and so
another book I would stronglyrecommend is called Chainsaw
Confidential by Gunnar Hansen.
Citation and it's actually waymore well written than you would
think, because, again, he hasthis training in poetry and this

(26:03):
attention to language From UT,from UT, yeah, from Horns, yeah,
I will say this book is hard tofind.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
From Horns.
That sounds like horror.
That does.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah.
But you know, here's one of thethings he writes in the back
when he's trying to explain like, why horror?
Because you know he also getsthese questions a lot right, and
I think more so back in the dayin the 70s, when this would
come out right.
Fun fact about Texas Chainsawit was banned outright in the UK
and I think either the same dayor the same year that happened,
the Museum of Modern Art in NewYork selected it to preserve in

(26:33):
their archives, which is justcrazy.
So he writes horror is as oldas human consciousness, as old
as our ability to tell tales, ormaybe even older.
There was a time when the worldwas a dark mystery.
Demons lurked in every shadow.
Anything unexplained was thework of witchcraft and monsters.
These first tales tried toexplain the mysteries and expel

(26:54):
what was out there in the dark.
So by trying to understand them.
We can diffuse them I love that, that's his idea yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
Given what he just said, why do you think horror
has persisted in this age ofscience and even grown in some
ways?
That the horror theme, youwould think that science were
explaining more and more, and sowe don't have to create
monsters, we can explain thingsthrough the physical universe.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Getting back to the original question, one of the
original questions that youasked, I think the ongoing
presence of horror is prettydecent evidence, at least about
our moral anthropology, abouthow we are constituted and how
we're built and what we dorespond to.
Whether it's a physical level ofthings that we don't know.
But the fact that we stilltoday respond to spooky things

(27:35):
like ghosts and demons suggeststhat we're prone to being open
to those ideas at least, and ifnot ideas something below the
dignity of ideas that we'restill very responsive to.
I you know CS Lewis would talkabout how we have these kinds of
appetites and that they suggestsomething about real in the
world.
And so we have hunger, and sowe have food that satisfies that

(27:57):
, and we have sexual lust, andthat can be satisfied as well,
and then we might have theseother kinds of needs, such as
the need for completion, aspiritual completion which, he
would suggest, indicates theremight be something in the real
world that actually can meetthat.
Our response to thesubterranean and the spooky and
the numinal, I think, wouldsuggest that we're.

(28:19):
I mean millions of people haveclaimed to have seen ghosts,
millions of people.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
And smart people.
Smart people, Not just crazypeople.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
People on this hall, I know, have made this
particular, you know, claims.
I think that we may be rational, more rational in some sense,
but I don't think you changeovernight at least our
physicality.
You know how we're constituted.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
And yeah, I totally agree.
And new technologies bring newhorrors right.
So when we invented the atombomb, all of a sudden there is
this explosion of horror moviesLiterally, yeah, exactly, and
figuratively, yeah nice, Aboutlike what would happen in the
nuclear apocalypse, right, Allof these movies.
We started traveling in space,Boom.
Now we got all of these alienmovies, right what happens when
we encounter the other.

(29:00):
And now it's AI, right Now it'sMegan, it's you know what's
going to happen when you knowtechnology takes over us or
vice-a-versa.
So I think, like it justthere's just more, it just keeps
getting made, you know.

Speaker 5 (29:12):
Yeah, this idea of horror is symptomatic, I think
is really interesting in howwhat scares us in the kinds of
flow of different movies sayssomething about society at the
time that they're being produced.
Right, and you know there were.
You talk about us beingrational but, like in the 90s,
there was this turn towardsfaith, or at least the unknown,

(29:35):
not necessarily Christian, right?
I think X-Files is a greatexample of this.
And then post 9-11, there'sbeen a lot written about horror
changes after post 9-11.
Oh, which have.
And we had a kind of turn backtowards people as the
perpetrators of violence, not asmuch the supernatural.
Yeah, 100% yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
I like that.
Yeah, isn't that when thesatanic panic just like ended?

Speaker 5 (29:56):
Yeah, Well, it's more .
Yeah, it was kind of like 90s,you know.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
Yeah, and going back even farther, I mean so
Frankenstein, written by adisgustingly young 21-year-old,
Mary Shelley, famously, you know, on a weekend with her hubby
Percy, and you know Lord Byronthat was at the time Hanging out
writing books.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yeah, you know just as you did.
It's a scheme.
It's Switzerland Creating a newgenre.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
Hey, Michael, we got smartphones.
Now Look at all the, look whatwe do with smartphones.
You know, yes, created two newgenres.
I mean, that was, in a sense, ahorror reaction to the
Enlightenment.
Our horror is actually thatwe're losing spirituality, that
we're losing touch with anothersense of self, with spirituality
.
We're becoming computers.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
We're becoming computers.

Speaker 5 (30:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
You know as we understood computers in the
1900s or 1800s.

Speaker 5 (30:38):
sorry, I wasn't going to mention because we talked
about genre and just to kind ofrevisit that for a minute.
More contemporary we talk lessabout genres, categories and
more about discursive genresthat genres are largely formed
based around how we talk aboutculture, and so the act of
talking about a film as being ahorror film is what makes it a

(31:01):
horror film.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
That's so interesting .

Speaker 5 (31:03):
There's a lot of different categories that we are
scientific about.
There's marketing, and that'sthe other way that genres use,
because you have to be able tomarket a film and if you can't
tell what genre it is, who'sgoing to be your audience?

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, but there's a science in Blockbuster.
Oh wait, never mind, there was.
There are tags in Netflix.
There are tags in Netflix,that's right.
Yeah, there are tags in Netflixthat tell me what it is.

Speaker 5 (31:22):
But one of the interesting categories that I
talked about is like thesurprise ending genre, because
people talk about movies likeSixth Sense.
Citizen Kane and what was theone with Kaiser says that oh,
usual suspects yeah.
There are a group, otherwisethey really have nothing in
common with those films, butthey're all surprise ending and
so they kind of create thisdiscursive genre.

(31:44):
That's interesting.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah, that is interesting.
Well, I don't have a game showfor today, but instead of a game
show, we do have Hooray forHollywood.
We've got movie reviews.
Yeah, we have movie reviews, sothis was like a
three-minute-long song.
I could have just played it thewhole time.

(32:08):
Let's not.
You should have gone withShrewsbury.

Speaker 5 (32:11):
Clanning.
All right, so Can we give eachother thumbs up and thumbs down?

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Hooray for Hollywood.
Well, we shall see.
Maybe I have something loadedup that might serve that same
purpose, but you are welcome togive thumbs up and thumbs down
to the reviews as well.
I tell you what.
Let's start with Kurt.
Oh yeah, surprise, surpriseOkay.

Speaker 5 (32:31):
Twist there.
We're gonna hand you over tothe rest of the panel, all right
.
So when we first startedtalking about doing this show, I
plucked this film out ofobscurity in my brain because it
brought together so many topicsthat I was thinking about when
I thought about Christianity,horror and especially film.
It's a 1986 film called Trickor Treat that I guess the rest

(32:52):
of the panel could not evendownload.
Is this correct, right?

Speaker 3 (32:55):
I could not find it.
I could not.
Yeah, I didn't look super hard,I looked medium hard, okay
there was a.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
I looked hard enough until I found a website that
says it's not streaming anywhere.
I found a couple of those, yeah.

Speaker 5 (33:05):
Yeah, there was a DVD release at one time.
It's been a while ago, but thereason I wanted to bring it up
is because it is kind of theconfluence of so many things
happening in culture andChristianity and horror.
So it's 1986.
It's coming out of the late 70s, early 80s.
When I was a young person inchurch I remember being taken to
a symposium about the dark sideof music, that rock and roll,

(33:30):
the beat, and they would talkabout the horrors of bands like
Black Sabbath, ozzy Osbourne,electric Light Orchestra, earth,
wind and Fire.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Right.
So let me interrupt you, foryou here for a second, so very
quickly.
I was a youth director.
It would have been a little bitlater than that, but I was a
youth director at a church for asummer and the pastor did not
screen this person that he said,yeah, come do a Sunday movie.
And it was about the evils ofmusic, right.
And so it starts off with theheavy metal, but then it got
into narrow and narrow, right.
So even secular music is bad.

(34:02):
Even Amy Grant is bad.
His funnel kept going down anddown until.
But this music I'm selling herefor my music featuring a beloved
pirate.
That is wonderful, wholesomeChristian music, and so
everything else on the planet,it seemed, was evil, except for
his music that he was peddlingthat night.
Was it Captain Hook?

Speaker 5 (34:22):
Was that the band?

Speaker 2 (34:22):
No, is it Love and Pirate?
I have long since forgotten.
But anyway, that was anyway, soI've taken over your review.
Yeah, that's fine.

Speaker 5 (34:29):
So yeah, so you had all of this panic about rock
music and how it's going to makeyou.
You're not going to be saved,you're somehow going to be
converted into an evil juveniledelinquent.
So that's going on, along withthe whole Book of Revelation,
apocalyptic Vision.
Go ahead, enerjak.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
I was going to say, to be fair, this is the time
when I would say some of thebands of the day did seem to be
leaning into the dark forces andthe evil.
I hear Black Sabbath and JudasPriest and there were some that
that here to four.
I don't remember bands thatwere like that, but really kind
of entertaining Right.

Speaker 5 (35:01):
Yeah, definitely as a marketing kind, and I guess
this was this possibly wouldhave been about the time shout
at the devil came out, motleycrew, which they were definitely
traffic and imagery and decidedto make that a marketing tool
for themselves.
Oh, and this was also the airof the satanic panic which we
don't even have time to get into, but hopefully that's like
another podcast.
Yeah, it might be.
Yeah.
So this movie brings all ofthat together, along with some

(35:24):
pop culture figures of the time.
The premise is that Sammy Kerr,a heavy metal superstar, dies
in a fire and his biggest fanplayed by Skippy from Family
Ties, with not very long hairbut long enough to look like a
heavy metal person at the timehe's very distraught and he

(35:44):
starts listening to the lyricsand he listens to the album
backwards which that was anotherbig thing at the time play them
backwards and discovers thatthere is some sort of ceremony
and he's got to get them to playit live on the radio.
So he goes to his local DJ,played by Gene Simmons of KISS,
and convinces him to play thesong, and a local preacher,
played by Ozzy Osbourne, talksabout the evil of the music, and

(36:07):
so he gets Gene Simmons to playthe record backwards on air and
it summons Sammy Kerr from thegrave.
And then lots of things happenand it's actually a really
horrible movie, but it isdelightfully horrible.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
And is it written to kind of as a parody of the
Christian perspective of heavymetal is bad or does it
reinforce it?

Speaker 5 (36:27):
I think calling it a parody would be too kind,
because I think it's playingwith those ideas, but it's not
like self-conscious enough Iwould say to call it a parody.
I mean, it's doing some parody,of course, because Gene Simmons
and Ozzy Osbourne are in it,right, right, but now I think
it's somewhat of a money grabwith some of that going on

(36:50):
behind it.
Okay, thank you.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
That's genuinely terrifying.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yes, that's exactly I found this.
I said this is perfect for theepisode I will have nightmares
now because of that.
All right, Mr Clint, or DrClint.
I apologize, Dr Clint.
What are you reviewing for us?

Speaker 3 (37:09):
I wanted to bring everyone's attention to the
Exorcist 3.
Part 3.
Not I don't think casual moviegoers will have watched this as
much.
I think horror fans aredefinitely aware of it.
It's kind of famous in horrorcircles as having one of the
quintessentially good jumpscares, and if you watch it,
you'll know Is this with thebaby.

Speaker 5 (37:30):
No, no, it's with the scissors.
Sorry, I'm thinking of Omen 3.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
So people who are totally clueless about
filmmaking and everything.
Tell us what a jump scare is.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
So jump scare is when you go ahh, it's surprise, I
have a book I could, yeah,whatever.
Yeah, it's just you getsurprised.
Yeah, I mean you get it.
Is it a pop-up book?
It's so scary.
No, it's this, okay, fine, it'sthe book of horror, the anatomy
of fear in film.
Citation Matt Glasby.
It makes a great coffee tablebook, guys.
I don't know if you can tellBig ol' skull and crossbones, so

(37:58):
anyway he tells, like, how fearworks and he talks about
because you know, horror.
I mean, one of the things thatgets annoyed to me is when
people say film isn't scary,it's because they don't have
jump scares.
Right, they define scary asjump scares and horror is like
wait, it's got a lot ofdifferent elements right, and
they talk about, for instance,dead space, of course, the
subliminal which we've beentalking about.
So for the author here, it'sjust what's called the

(38:18):
unexpected, anything thatsurprised us, from jump scares
to plot twists, Kurt, as youwere mentioning earlier.
Used by everyone from Val Lutonto James Wan, jump scares are
good way to shock the audienceand when done well, the increase
our overall anxiety levelswhich horror uses to, as I think
Gunnar Hansen talks about inhis book, is it brings people
into the present tense, right,it like increases their blood

(38:40):
flow and we pay attention, oreyes grow wide, things like that
.
But there's also, like lots ofother types of fear right, the
uncanny, the unstoppable, whichI think creeps up in a lot of
especially cosmic and spiritualhorror and no country fold men
is a little bit about theunstoppable.
I think that's really kind of ahorror movie.
What a great example yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
I've never thought of that as a horror.
Yeah, that movie is all Michael.

Speaker 5 (39:01):
Yeah, me neither, because he's essentially like
Jason, where he just keepscoming.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
And he's like, quasi like mystical.
Yeah, he is.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, I think he's clearly death.
You know, just because, evenwith the twang, yeah, point toss
, so yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Michael Bailey's on the board for the most
interesting insight.
There you go.

Speaker 5 (39:17):
I do think the jump scare, though there's the
cognitive aspect to it right andcognitive film theory, you know
, has done some experimentationwhere it's this kind of yeah,
it's a physiological responsewhich I think is different than
a plot twist.
Right, and that way, yeahespecially the viewing
experience.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
That's a different point.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Yeah, and I definitely didn'tmean to like slam dunk on jump
scares Like I like a good jumpsand like like anybody.
Okay, just a just a little bitof backstory to Exorcist three.
So we're, it's directed andwritten by William Peter Badi,
who wrote the original Exorcistnovel.
So Exorcist novel sells likehotcakes.
I think it's in bestseller listfor like 40 weeks or something

(39:53):
or four months.
It's incredible.
Obviously the movie does reallywell.
He has no interest in doing asequel, but I think the quote I
think I wrote it down is for thesequel, exorcist two.
They offered me a dizzyingamount of money but I don't know
if that money compensates forhow bad it is.
The Exorcist two is annotoriously crappy movie with a
very unfortunately in the midstof alcoholism Richard Burton.

(40:16):
It's an incredibly hokey movie.
If you've all seen it it's along time.
It's bizarre.
I saw.
Psycho two.
Yeah, I actually like likePsycho two yeah that poor guy?

Speaker 1 (40:24):
Yeah, I mean, it was Anthony Perkins.
That movie ruined his career, Iknow.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Yeah, his son, osgood Perkins, is a fantastic
director of horror films.
I was going to recommend theBlack Coat's Daughter, which is
it's disturbing.
It's not for the faint of heart, but it's a really and it
actually deals with spiritual.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Where's the rabbit hole button?

Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah, okay, so going back, it's really.
Thank you.
Thank you, Dale.
Okay, so he has such a badexperience in Exorcist two,
bladdy's like okay, I am goingto direct Exorcist three.
It goes into development hellfor a while.
He writes the book.
Instead novel, which is calledLegion, comes out in 1983.
Also a big success.
So he finally gets it togetherand it comes out in 1990.

(41:04):
But there's actuallyunfortunately, a bunch of well,
actually I would say fortunately.
Let me correct myself.
I think the Exorcist three isone of the few examples of where
studio meddling has made thefilm better.
Against spoiler alerts.
But Bladdy's original intentionwas to not even have an
exorcist in the film, thatinstead the protagonist would
basically just shoot theantagonist in the head at the

(41:24):
end.
And that was the end and it's,and I've seen it.
You can actually, if you havethe Scream Factory Blu-ray, as I
do, you can watch thedirector's cut which they had to
put together with like old VHSfootage.
So it looks kind of crappybecause it's VHS, but also it's
just such a it just ends on likeI don't know, it doesn't stick
the landing.
So actually I like the studiomeddling on that one.
But George C Scott is in.

(41:44):
It is amazing.
The first I was telling Dalethis right.
The first 30 minutes are, Ithink, really funny.
Like, and you don't expect that, if you don't mind, I'm going
to read some of the dialoguefrom the film.
You know he, george C Scott,plays the cop Ketterman from the
original movie played by LeeJacob, who died so they had to
recast him, wait and the firstexercise.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, you remember Ketterman, played by Lee Jacob.

Speaker 3 (42:06):
Yes, yeah, he.
So Lee Jacob dies and theycan't cast.
They're great actors I know,and George C Scott is a great
second stream.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Great method actors.
How did they get into this rolewith the, the like possessive?
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
You know George C Scott dida.
Bunch of horror.
He was in Firestarter.
He was in the changeling, whichI think is an excellent movie.
You know he's an interestingguy but he's like he's not as a
director too, by the way.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
Is he Campbell Scott, no Campbell Scott yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
I did not know that.
I'm just going to turn themicrophone, my microphone, off
here.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
Okay.
So he has a friend who is aCatholic priest and they every
year, in the anniversary of thedeath of their friend, father
Charis, who of course wassacrificed the very first movie
it's been 15 years they alwaysgo out and see it's a wonderful
life to like cheer themselves up, and then they have some like
funny debates about religion,and here's one of them.
This is George C Scott.

(42:52):
Would a God who is good inventsomething like death?
It's not a very popular idea,father.
Father comes back.
Well, you wouldn't want to liveforever?
Yes, I would, you'd be bored.
I have hobbies.
So there's some good stuff.
And then, of course, it turnsvery dark and very bleak.

(43:12):
And the character actor, bradDorf, probably most famous for
being the voice of Chucky fromthe Child's Play films.
He was also the doc in Deadwood.
He got nominated for an Emmy ifyou ever saw Deadwood, the
Western.
He plays a reincarnated spiritof a serial killer who was put
back in the body of FatherCharis by the demon who is being
exercised in the first film asrevenge against Father Charis.

(43:36):
Who, again, george, he's gothis friends.
That seems to be mixing allsorts of religions going on
there and genres, so actually.
I've spoiled it, but you don'tknow what's happening for the
first half, two thirds of thefilm.
Unlike the Exorcist, it is waymore of a who done it and it's
way more of a mystery, which Iactually think pulls the film
along.
It's way shorter than theExorcist as well.
It's probably about 98 minutesor so, and so it goes along at a

(43:59):
pretty decent clip.
I would just recommend it.
I really like it against GeorgeE Scott Fantastic.
One of my pet peeves in filmsare dream sequences.
I feel like they just getthrown out Word and.
But this one is a very awesomedream sequence that you just
have to go watch it.
It has cameos by Fabio, a veryyoung Patrick.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Very dreamy.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
Yeah, very dreamy, Fabio, a young Patrick Ewing,
Larry King has an angel and ayoung Samuel L Jackson, who are
only in this dream sequence thatGeorge E Scott is in.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
What was the lure, apart from money?
You know for that, Do you think?

Speaker 3 (44:34):
For William Peter Blady.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
I just mean to get these actors on board.
You're gonna be in a dream, Ithink they like the scr-.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
Oh for the cameos Samuel.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
L Jackson was.
Yeah, he wasn't known but.
Fabio was George E Scott, youknow.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
I don't know.
It's like hey, Patrick Ewing,you want to be in a movie.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
Was it George E Scott's dream?

Speaker 3 (44:51):
It is George E Scott's dream.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
It doesn't seem.
It seems like a young man'sdream, it doesn't seem like an
old.
I'm gonna be quiet.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
Yeah, no, it's okay, and it's in like a giant
cathedral and there's this boythat's been that you know has
been murdered, and he comes andhe talks to George E Scott and
they're surrounded by these likeangelic creatures, and it's
very bizarre and I quite love itas someone who just I do not
like a lot of dream sequences.
So, yeah, I strongly recommendExtrasys 3.
Thumbs up Thumbs up.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
We're just gonna do this for the rest of the day.

Speaker 5 (45:18):
Thumbs up, it's your lord.
I'm outta here.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Well, let's say it is my turn.
I'll do my movie review, andthis is one where I think this
is an example of contrary toeverything I said at the
beginning of the episode wherethis is a movie that I went and
watched and I had greatspiritual insight from it.
That's something that I'veended up being very.
I learned something aboutmyself in it.

(45:42):
So, like I said, I don'tnormally go to horror movies.
My wife and I had a lot ofextra time on our hands way
across town and so we couldn'treally go back home.
So I said, well, let's stop inand watch a movie, and about the
only thing that was beingoffered this time of the day was
I am a legend.
So we go and we sit down notknowing anything about it, and
Will Smith is there as Dr RobertNeville, who kind of helped

(46:05):
create this massive disease thathas essentially killed the
entire human race Not quite, butessentially killed the entire
human race.
And I said killed.
They haven't been killed, theyhave been transformed and you
jump in with my language hereevery time I get it wrong but
these people have been infectedand they've turned into like
these, vampire, like mutants.
I actually think of them aszombies, although they didn't

(46:26):
die and come back, but there's akind of zombie like
characteristic to them thatthey're kind of cannibalistic.
Their vampires are called darkseekers because they can't, and
there's religious imagery rightthere.
Right, they're dark seekers,they can't be in the light, they
have to stay in the dark, andthe religious themes are quite
evident early on.
There's posters everywhere thatsays God still loves you, and

(46:47):
there's a butterfly theme right,the symbol of regeneration,
rebirth, and so on.
Mothman, that would not be thisshow.
But while I'm watching this andI don't think the religious
imagery had really come out in afull way while I'm watching
these vampire, zombie likecreatures, it just dawned on me
oh, my goodness, these creaturesare to humanity, kind of

(47:12):
similar to what humanityprobably is, to what our
intended humanity was from aChristian perspective, before
original sin.
Right that these creatures werenot fully human in the sense of
what we think of as humanity.
Right that their communicationskills were poor, their
emotional responses they're veryaggressive, that their humanity
had been tainted and distortedin ways that they were difficult

(47:34):
to recognize as being human.
And then so I just had thisinsight wow, I wonder if that's
how God sees us.
Right that because of our sinwe are not the full reflection
of God.
We are not the full image ofGod that we are created.
We still are that image, butit's a very tainted image, and
so I had that insight and itjust made me think of my human
condition in a particular wayand I was really enjoying it.
But then the movie just reallyhits you over the head with

(47:55):
Christian imagery, will Smith.
It becomes a very clear Christfigure and he is trying to save
the human race with his scienceand then all of a sudden he
comes up with the solution andhe cries out the cure is in the
blood, right, just as the powerof the blood of Jesus Christ.
That is the salvation.
And so ultimately Will Smithsacrifices his life in order to

(48:19):
provide the blood.
It's not his own blood, buthe's to provide the blood for
the curing of the zombies.
And you don't see that curehappening.
But you do get this veryhopeful ending which, from what
I hear from you all, is a verybad ending compared to the
original book.
But first I'm giving myself,before you get, to trash the
movie that I found so inspiring,but it really did give me

(48:40):
spiritual insight into who weare as humans in a way that I
really appreciated, do you think?

Speaker 1 (48:44):
the filmmakers were attempting to promote a
particular Christian view, orwere they just drawing on what
they thought would be evocativewith their audience?

Speaker 2 (48:51):
That's a great question and I am curious,
especially since so many peoplepanned the ending, which was
where the overt Christianimagery of the cure is in the
blood and the sacrifice.
You know Will Smith, robertNeville, is clearly a hero and
supposedly I guess I gather thatthe book he's not so much the
hero.
Well, it's a shift in focus.

Speaker 5 (49:11):
It's been a while since I've read it.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
Do you want to?
Well, I mean just, I mean,we're spoiling everything.
We put that out there.
But you know, so it's vampires,straight up, that he's killing,
and they've they, I believethey've killed his family or his
family's died, and that isvampire apocalypse.
And so he's trying to kill allas many vampires as he can, and
eventually the vampires catchhim and at the end he has this

(49:33):
moment where he realizes, oh myGod, to them I'm a serial killer
, like I've been going aroundbutchering their friends and
their families and I am themonster, I am legend, which is
where the vampire families.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
Is that right?

Speaker 3 (49:45):
Yeah, so that's where the book ends.
Yeah, it's on that note.

Speaker 5 (49:48):
Yeah, because even in the movie they're trying to get
that vampire back right.
He's taken one of them hostageand they're trying to get her
back.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
I just stuck up on vampire families.
How does that work?

Speaker 2 (49:59):
Yes and then.
But they look, but he does seethe empathy, he does have
sympathy for them near the end.

Speaker 5 (50:05):
Yeah, yeah, so to me it felt very Hollywood, to no
moral complexity.
Just these are bad villains andhe's the savior and we're all
happy now, yes, right.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Daniel, I think it sounds great.
I haven't seen it, but I wantto see it now.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
So Is it cool seeing where Will Smith is?
What hunting caribou in TimesSquare or something?
That's a pretty cool scene,yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
Is it because Times Square has moved or is it
because the caribou moved?

Speaker 3 (50:32):
It's because there's no one there anymore, so the
nature has come, yeah, yeah,that's pretty even maybe, maybe
Elk, maybe Elk.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Yeah, caribou are gonna really.
Caribou or reindeer, you're notgonna get south of You're right
?

Speaker 3 (50:44):
No, it was probably just deer, I can't see this
You're not the boss of thecaribou?

Speaker 1 (50:47):
No, listen, I can't see it.
If it's caribou, that is rightout, there's no way I will see
elk.
No reindeer, no caribou.
I would see moose.
There's lots of moose thatcould live in New York or
further south, but caribou,they're really a northern
creature, gotcha.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
I don't think it was caribou.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
I regret this part of the conversation.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
Right on point, Obviously this part should have
been edited Please please writein to correct me Clint Peters
here, of.
Dale McConkey at Bear Naked.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
I'm going to see the movie just to see this animal.
It's gonna be like a cow orsomething, you know.
If it's a caribou, though, Iwill come back on the show if
you'll let me, and I will just.
I'll eat my hat right here.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
There you go, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
All right, I have so many hats I don't know which one
to choose.
The smallest one, I think.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Dr Bailey, can you make a transition from our
caribou conversation to yourmovie series?

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Yes, I'm going to make my super brief, not because
I'm not prepared Trust me, Ihave pages of notes here but
because I have so many otherkinds of questions about the
horror genre that I'd like totalk about.
Seriously, I don't know whatkind of time we have, but I
recently saw so much for brief.
I recently saw.
Well, the preface is notincluded in the actual
exposition.
It's totally different, Justkeeps going and going.

Speaker 3 (51:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
So the exposition is going to be very short, which is
I'll start it now right, I'mrecommending a Netflix series is
seven, I think, episodes andit's called Midnight Mass and
it's you know, ultimately it's avampire flick and I really
don't like the vampire genre atall.
Is this one of my?
It's not my least favorite, Ican't rank my least favorite,

(52:20):
but it's not in the top quarter.
I don't like vampire movies.
But what's so interesting aboutthis is really this is a film
series about how all human valuerelates to the fact that we're
mortal and we're going to die,and so there is a kind of
priceless value of the life thatwe have, and if you take away
for undead or immortal, thenthat goes away, and so it trades

(52:41):
on all sorts of very obviouslyexplicit biblical themes that
the priest is magnificentbecause he really believes in
what he's talking about, butit's really a study of value and
death.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
And did you buy into that argument?

Speaker 1 (52:54):
100%.
You know, that's sort of likeone of my, one of my stock deals
that I have here is it is Idon't think we have enough
hobbies to live forever.
Well, yeah, I'm right there.
Yeah, I think we need to die.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
I was astounded by Midnight Mass.
I thought it was.
It's one of my favorite thingsthat I've seen on Netflix, Like
I just was so invested yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
And I don't want to.
We could talk a lot more aboutit, but I have other things I'd
like to talk about.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Yeah, I missed my moment when you said I think we
need to die.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
Yeah, we do.
Thank you so much.
Oh, my god.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Well, thank you all for your movie reviews.
All right, that was fun.
The listeners can't see butwe're all bouncing around,
that's right, that's right.
So that might become the newtheme music for the Church.
Potluck movie review editions.
Michael, you said you had somemore questions.
What do we need to put down onthe table before we wrap up?

Speaker 1 (53:49):
Well, this is.
I guess this was about horrorand Christianity, right?
Isn't this what we were talkingabout?
Wait, this podcast.
Yeah, this podcast.
I thought so.
And yet Kurt was talking abouthow, even when we label,
something comes out of ourculture.
So is it the case, from whatyou all know, that you know
something akin to horror ormonster movies or these kinds of
scary enchanted worlds are partof every culture?
Does every culture have thesekinds of stories of terrifying

(54:13):
creatures, agents, you know,spirits?

Speaker 5 (54:16):
I mean as far as I know.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
Yeah, I wouldn't speak for every single culture,
but certainly many.
Yeah, yeah, certainly there's alot of Japanese horror movies.
Oh, absolutely, you know.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
I'm wondering whether , if there's a common thread in
horror stories or what we mightdescribe as horror stories
across cultures of somethinglike an enchanted world.
You know, you talked about theunstoppable.
There's a whole bunch of thesedifferent kinds of things of
fright in us, but I thinkspecifically the element of what
makes something horror is theuncanny right and the idea that
there is enchantment that we aretrying to control but we

(54:49):
struggle with it, which is notpart of our ordinary, normal
material worlds discourse, andI'm wondering whether other
cultures they have, you know,similar types of stories.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
And what counts as horror in different cultures and
the resolution to that horror.
That would be a greatcomparative study to see what
the themes are and how theydiffer.

Speaker 5 (55:08):
I know Clint's really looked at Belarus and their
horror conventions.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
One movie.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
One movie, that's quite the movie, though.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
Did we talk about this on podcast?

Speaker 1 (55:19):
or was that off, I can't remember.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
Anyway, go see Cummins.
Well, okay, if you have astrong stomach, go see Cummins
and you're like emotionallystable.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Go watch Cummins C-201 films I've ever seen.
I don't think the name of themovie came out.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
Cummins C, I think it was 1985.
I actually think it was aSoviet director.
It was.
I'm blanking, but it takesplace in Belarus.
It's a young boy basically seena slice of life and death
during that time.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
You didn't bring a game, but I have a game.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
All right, if it's okay, and are the following I
don't have the game show musicon because I had to replace it
with this.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
Okay, okay.
So this is just.
Are these I'm going to namesome movies Are the horror
movies or not?
I'd like to hear what peoplehave.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Oh wait, we got to come up with the name with this
Horror or Horror or Horror.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
This is great, that's very good.
All right, let's see.
We said Jaws, they can't hearyou nod, kurt.

Speaker 5 (56:16):
I'm thinking I'm going to say, nohrer, yeah, I
don't think it's horror either.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
I'm going to give a thumbs up so all the listeners
can say Me too.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Silence of the lambs Thumbs up.
Horror, horror.
Okay, king Kong, thumbs up.

Speaker 3 (56:31):
Not more.
I'm going to say no, yeah.
I'm going to say no Thumbs down, thumbs up, thumbs down.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
Yeah Me too.
All right, fatal attraction?
Definitely not Nohrer Can.

Speaker 5 (56:41):
I just say I don't like that If the bunny came back
and attacked them yes, okay.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Why are you so confident in this?

Speaker 5 (56:47):
I just no, I don't think it's horror whatsoever.
It's never occurred to me thatit would ever be horror.
And there's a great.
There's a great story too.
Sorry, I'm about to get off.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
That's a great academic argument.
I've never thought about thatbefore and no, it can't be the
king.

Speaker 5 (56:59):
So you know that the original.
Let's see in the originalversion she just gets arrested.
In the original cut, yeah, andthey showed it to audiences and
they wanted her to pay, wow,they wanted her dead, wow, and
so they reshot the whole ending,yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:16):
Cosmosogyny, yep, jurassic Park Ooh, that's Too
cute.
I might have to say, yeah, I'mgonna you know what I'm gonna do
it.
I'm gonna say, yes, I'm gonnathrow that in horror Thumbs up.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
For you.
Oh, I would say I could see whysomeone would think of it as
horror, but I think it does it.
There's a lightness to it thatdoesn't make it horror For sure.
It's like half horror, I'd saynohrer.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
Blue Velvet oh, that's a good one.
No, certainly a monster in thatfilm.
I'm gonna say no to yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
Yeah, I think it's borderline.
Yeah, it's borderline.
You know, it certainly isspooky and there's a sense of
the uncanny you do not knowwhat's really happening there,
for sure that's true.
At all.
Yeah, and there's this kind ofsense of evil that lurks as well
.

Speaker 5 (57:59):
It's very atmospheric , like a horror movie, I think,
but I don't think there's notthe same level of suspense.
There's not.
Yeah, the stakes don't seemhigh enough.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Yeah, possibly, yeah, yeah, so I think, in the true
spirit of academia, we need tospend the next 45 minutes
looking at our answers andtrying to decide what the exact
parameters and the boundariesare apocalypse now.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
No, no, no, no, no, no, no See, I think.
Oh okay, I think Kirch is allabout horror film.
I mean, even at the very end,that's his thing, the horror
right, yup, yup, and he becomesa god at the end and it is this
kind of strange and mysticalother world that he has created
and it's kind of movement downthe river into darkness.
And I think that Kilgore isjust like a Colonel guy who

(58:43):
likes war, you know, and he'skind of just your ordinary kind
of crazy.
But I think that Brando'scharacter represents a kind of
horror movie, a monster in a way.
That's what I had.

Speaker 5 (58:53):
That's cool, that is very cool, although it is, I
think, a lot.
Yeah, kilgore, he wrote it.
I forget who's the guy who,robert DeVall?
No, no, but who wrote thescreenplay?
Anyway, he talks about Coppola.
No, well Coppola was credited.
I can't remember the primarywriter now, but he discussed the
fact that Kilgore was supposedto be like the Cyclops,

(59:14):
something that must be, you know, evaded or open.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Oh, interesting yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 5 (59:20):
That was the one down the river.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
We have much more we could say for sure, but I think
we need to wrap it up here.
I want to thank our audiencetoday for sitting around the
table with us.
I hope that we have providedyou with some food for thought
and something to chew on.
At least one of those terms wassomething that Kurt Hersey
introduced to the episode hisfirst time out.
So yes, you're looking at melike you don't believe that, but
you did so.
I suspect that after thisepisode, we'll have a little

(59:46):
more conversation.
So if you want to listen afterthe music is over, we're going
to have some leftovers,additional thoughts that we
share with one another after wewrap up, so feel free to
continue listening.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
I just want to say you know, it makes a great
addition to any potluck.
What does P-soup, P-soup?

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
Watch how I do this right here Boom yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
All right now for all of you out there and listening
to land.
We appreciate your support andas part of that support, please
consider subscribing and ratingand reviewing.
If nothing else for my ego,just go ahead and rate and
review it for me Until we gatheraround the table next time.
This has been church potluck.
Thanks for listening.
See y'all.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
I'm still prefacing, by the way.

Speaker 5 (01:00:30):
I wasn't listening too closely, so when you gave me
a shout out, I really had noidea what was going on.
Oh, is that right?

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
But now you know what I'm talking about.
Yes, yes, I forget whether itwas something to chew on or food
for thought or both, but youwere the one who introduced
those I said.
I find it hard to believe thatI gave you a pun.

Speaker 5 (01:00:44):
That was.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
So no, no, it has nothing to do with Christianity.
But I'm just curious whateveryone's most frightening
movie is.
And you see it has reallyaffected you, either in the
moment, like a jump scare right,or afterwards, lingered.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Feel free to take your headphones off if you want.
You can leave them on if you'dlike, but for me it was Friday,
the 13th, the very first one.
I was a little bit underage and, like I said, I've never been a
fan of this genre and I wentwith a bunch of friends and I
was.
It was because it was happeningto normal people, right, yeah,

(01:01:19):
oh, and so I could imaginemyself in that situation.
I've never seen it, thank you.
Yeah, and I was seeing imagerythat I had in tropes that I had
never seen before, so it was allnew to me and I was very
shocked.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Was this all like the slasher film with the kids at
the beach?
Yeah, very much.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
It's a slasher film and cabins of teenagers and you
know, the sexually promiscuousones are the ones who get killed
first.
You know it just plays in allthe tropes, but none that I
would have been so safe.
But also I deliver newspapersat six in the morning and so
having to get up and drive inthe dark, all by my not drive.
Ride my bike all by myself inthe dark.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Did you see it in the theater?
Yes, how old were you then?

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Oh, clint, this was a revival, that's all.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
I was like 13 when it was first released.
No, no, no, that's not.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
my wow, my wow was imagining being in the theater
and seeing that for the firsttime.
Yeah, right, yeah.
That would have been freaky.
I can only at that age.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
Yeah, and as far as I know, I'm probably wrong about
this, but it feels like it wasone of the first in that genre.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
Oh, yeah, it was pretty good it was after
Halloween.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
Was it after Halloween?

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
It was writing in Halloween's coattails, but it
actually made more money thanHalloween.

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
No, it did.
Wow, yeah, it did.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
But anyway, that was one that has lingered with me
for a very long time.
That checks out.

Speaker 5 (01:02:42):
Mine was Nightmare on Elm Street.
It just freaked me out.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Is that pretty good Graf.

Speaker 5 (01:02:48):
Yeah, the whole idea of you can't go to sleep and the
girl in the body bag in theclassroom.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Yeah, but it had the dream.
It's freaky.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
Oh, that's a good dream, by the way.
I meant to say that is a reallygood dream.

Speaker 5 (01:03:01):
Although I will say like the so far he's two for two
on liking dream sequences.
Well, and that's also Nightmareon Elm Street's bag.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
Oklahoma though.

Speaker 5 (01:03:11):
But the most horrifying scene in any movie I
can think of is American HistoryX.
Oh, I know what you're talkingabout.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Yeah, that is what's the noise.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Oh God, yeah, the curb check.
Yeah, it's just a noise.
Good Lord, yeah, which is againnot horror, but horrifying.
Horrific yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Yeah, how about you?

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
For me the worst thing I've ever seen.
That just affected me likecurrent I mean.
So I mentioned when I saw Jawsfor the first time.
That definitely affected mylife and in some ways this is
like my origin story is.
I kept coming back to itbecause I was so curious about
why it affected me and I keptcoming back and back until I

(01:03:52):
sort of embraced it in some waysbut like oh, you talk about
this in one of your essays.
I do, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, wasit the Bruce essay, the one
that's about Jaws?
Yeah, or maybe it was in mybook.
Oh, uncle Shark, was it UncleShark?
I think so yes, yeah, thanks.
Mike.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Jaws didn't affect me , even though I was in that
right.
I also probably saw that in themovie theater the original Jaws
2, I saw in the theater.
I saw it deeply seen.
We'll talk about H here in asecond.

Speaker 5 (01:04:21):
I saw Jaws 3D in the theater.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
It went in the glasses.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
Oh man, that movie is so fun, but for me Jaws.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Okay, I can avoid that.
I can just stay out of thewater and I'm okay with that,
but that didn't overly worry me.
But it was anything.
Whenever normal people, forapparently random reasons, were
very selfish, this could happento me.
I get that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
The thing that has bothered me the most, though,
since I was a kid, would have tobe Cannibal Holocaust, which is
not a movie I recommend.
It is a rough, rough watch.
Oh my God, dude.
It's disgusting when was thismade Kurt Dino 70s I have to
look it up.
I was thinking late mid-70s.
It's an Italian movie.

(01:05:06):
There is this Cannibal craze.
Cannibal movies are not my bag.
I'm just not into.
Cannibal films.
I can get on vampire films, butCannibal movies just kind of
it's not our potluck.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
Yeah, it's like the reverse of a potluck.
It's a very bad potluck, maybethe Eucharist or something.

Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
Soup, yes, humans flesh no, so famously they kill
animals on screen and it's veryhard to watch.
But I think what's harder towatch is there are several
scenes of sexual assault thatjust go on forever and ever.
It's just very disquieting.
It's a rough watch.

(01:05:43):
I do not recommend it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
Would you throw in the ones that you're not the
human cannibal stuff?
Do you enjoy movies that aregross to the body?
I'm thinking.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
I actually do like body horror.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
Or body horror like human centipede type.
Okay, not that one.

Speaker 5 (01:06:02):
I don't know anything about this other than the basic
, but I think the thing to me isnot as much body horror,
because it's so alien.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
You're not actual body horror.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
I remember seeing that and being terrified.
I don't remember much.
Is that the one in Antarctica?
Yeah Right.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
Yeah, definitely one of my favorites.
It might be my favorite.
It's really good.
It's clockwork.
It's John Carpenter.
Yeah, it's good, yeah.
I mean one of the things I loveabout horror.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
Clockwork, everything clockwork.
Or is that just a Were youtalking about clockwork or oh,
no, clockwork it works like aclock.
Oh, I thought you were sayinganother movie, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:06:39):
It's just like the editing.
The pacing's really good whendialogue happens.
It's there for the rightreasons.
Oh, you're messing with me.
No, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
I really thought you were talking about another movie
called clockwork and I thoughtmaybe that was clockwork or oh,
got it Because I saw that.
I want to say I saw it on theTV.
That's just whiting as well.
Yeah, At a very young In mymind I'm imagining me being way
too young to have seen some ofthe imagery.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
Yeah, If you saw it on TV, like it was seven minutes
long, I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out where I
saw the imagery, but I rememberbeing very disturbed.

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
That's why I don't like Beethoven.
I'm just kidding.
I've seen that ranked actually,so that's an interesting film
that I would not have thought ofas horror.
But recently I was looking atsome ranking and they put
clockwork while I was there.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
I was thinking about putting that on my little list.
Yeah, so I'd have to thinkabout that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:25):
Is that one horror?
Yeah Well, I didn't get intosome of the other reasons I love
horror, but the thing actuallymakes me think of it as how
horror can give voice to certainthings.
So in the 80s there was a lotof body horror.
And what else did we have inthe 80s?
We had the AIDS epidemic, right, and so a lot of movies, a lot

(01:07:46):
of body horror was reflectingthat back onto a culture,
especially American culture,that was for a long time trying
to ignore it.
I mean our president, ronaldReagan.
When did he finally like 1987?
It was pretty late into theAIDS epidemic before he even
acknowledged that it washappening.

Speaker 5 (01:08:01):
The vampire movie, the Hunger, the hunger.
You don't like vampire movies.
There's a fast.
I love to look at changes invampire movies because of what
it says about.
So you like Nasferatu?

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
it was about disease in Europe post-World War I and
trench warfare.
We really never got into thevampire movie definitely.
That's why we need to do awhole episode and then in the
80s, you've got the Hunger,which is where it's sex is part
of.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
You become a vampire and you've got AIDS going on and
David Bowie.

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
Well, kurt, I know you need to go.

Speaker 5 (01:08:34):
Thank you, good to see you man, I do that was fun
Great to see you all.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
Good to see you too.
I shouldn't say this on anofficial part of the podcast
here, but we need more moviereview stuff.
Got to tap into your culturalknowledge there.
So start religiously themedmovies or movies that let me
know let's do some movie reviewsSounds good, especially when
something comes out that's rightthere for us.

Speaker 3 (01:08:59):
Cool, all right, cool , bye, see you, man, that's fun.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
Now the conversation is going to get yeah, that's it,
we're done.
This might not be a podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
I had another idea that just popped in my head have
you done an Oppenheimer?

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
Oppenheimer, no, so, yeah, you know what?
Sorry, what the times when wehave done relevant things that
are like in pop culture at themoment, people have seemed to
like those, and so I would loveto do those.
And Oppenheimer was one I sowanted to do, but between
vacation and some other things Iwasn't able to pull it together

(01:09:35):
.

Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
If you would, I'd love to pop on.
I'd like to talk.
Yeah, and Michael, I could justtalk.
And obviously Todd, I thinkwould need to come back.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
No, let's not have Todd.
Okay, why would we want Todd?
Why?

Speaker 3 (01:09:43):
Todd.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
Let's think about Todd.

Speaker 3 (01:09:45):
Yeah, I'm going to say thumbs up.
I like Todd.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Yeah, todd's up, it's going to be like Trader and
just Kat Half up, half, I don'tknow.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
People might not know your relationship with Todd,
but oh yeah.
Todd is that you're beinginsincere here.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
Yeah, Todd is a good one.
I love Todd.
I love Todd in ways that thepeople in the podcast will never
know.
Oh my God, yeah, I do.
Don't look at me that way.

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
No, I'm just saying, given that you traveled with him
for several days, I'm surethere's all kinds of things that
we don't know?

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
Yeah, he's a good guy .
Yeah, he's a fundamentalist.
He never pushed my prefacealong, is what he noticed.
He was infinitely patient withme.
That's awesome, you know.
Which is to say he made it toabout day four, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:30):
Wait, was this when you?

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
guys went down to the Everglades.
That's another buddy of mine.
That's right, that was.
We went to Kansas.
City yeah, joe Cook, yeah, joeCook, yeah.
So this is he and I went toKansas City because he wanted to
see some soccer.

Speaker 3 (01:10:42):
Oh cool, I'm about to go to Kansas City next year for
the conference.
Yeah, awp Kansas City.
Woohoo, gonna take somestudents along Nice, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
That's important.
Nassaratu, that's a I saw.
That's a good one.
Man I saw parts of, I didn'tknow, for I saw parts of
Nassaratu, probably around agefour or five.
Oh wow, I do not understand howthis worked out, but my sister
was attending.

(01:11:10):
She's a couple of years olderthan me but she used to re-grade
.
I'm not gonna go into why she'sre-grades only two years ahead
of me.
Yeah, we're not gonna talkabout that.
But she had some sort ofactivity in the summer at the
school that she was going intoprobably first grade with, and
it was kind of a movie day sopeople could bring in, like

(01:11:32):
parents could bring their kidsand watch a movie, and the movie
they showed at this for likekindergarteners, the first grade
Nassaratu Wow, I do not Someone, just probably Wow.
So it was the 70s weredifferent.
Yeah, I mean they reallySeriously 70s.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
We didn't quite get a lot of things figured out that
time.
Yeah, I'm not familiar withthis movie.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
It was like a 1910s German movie yeah, german 6th.
German expression, germanexpression oh, for real, yeah,
yeah, yeah.
One of the original vampiremovies, absolutely.
There's images from it that Ibet you have seen.

Speaker 3 (01:12:02):
Oh.
I bet you know exactly whatyou're talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:12:03):
Like the sunlight, like that was invented by I
didn't know so, but there wasone scene in there that is
actually Nassaratu rising out ofhis coffin and I just scrammed.
I mean, I literally.
It was one of the few timesthis happened many times since.
No, it's actually one of thefew times where my body just

(01:12:24):
made a decision that my mind hadnothing to do with.
I was out the door and I wasn'ta matter of saying I got to go.
Now, this is too scary.
This is like my body.
It was fight or flight at itsinstinctive level.
But there's a scene that You'retalking about, scenes that
affected you.
There's just a scene therewhere I think the guy's name is
like Jonathan Hutter or someThomas Hutter, I don't remember.

(01:12:46):
He's a doctor or something.
He's visiting Nassaratu in hisRomanian castle or whatever, but
it's at night and he must hearsomething.
And so he just cracks open hisdoor, which is very creepy and
it's very narrow and it's sortof shaped like an upside down V,
and he looks out the and at thebottom of the stairs there's

(01:13:07):
Nassaratu just with his arms onthe side of his body, like he
doesn't know how to use his armsright, and with his long, long
nails and fingernails, and he'sjust standing looking up and
it's frightening.
And then he just sort of slowlyalmost glides up the stairs.
And then there's this one scenewhere he's just in the doorway,

(01:13:28):
so it's perfectly framed, and hefills the doorway because he's
very skinny and tall, and it'sjust this horrible, monstrous
image.
And then what the guy does ishe hides under his sheets, and
to me that is like the essenceof horror, where there is no
real escaping.
So you just try to block it outwith your mind.
And you were what grade I was,like four or six or something.

(01:13:51):
It explains perhaps a fair bitright how I've used.

Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
It's fascinating that I got through any teacher or
whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
I don't know how.
I really have no idea.
It was just a different era.
In any event, that was aterrifying moment and I can't
even tell you much about thebook, but that scene it's on
YouTube.
It's incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:14:16):
Yeah, it's in the public comments now, so you can
get Nassaratu Well.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
I think I'm going to go ahead and turn this part off
now.

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