Episode Transcript
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(00:31):
Welcome to the podcast Appetite for Horror, Episode fifteen, author of Exorcist Legacy
Fifty Years of Fear. I hateto maybe make a you know, to
date you, I guess, butI'm gonna be forty later this year,
so you got ten years of legacy, So I got some muckshot. I
have a little bit to catch upon. You're a kid. I appreciate
(00:57):
you saying that I just had one. And by the way, if he
starts crying in the background, Iapologize, but well, I'll okay,
I'll I'll actually if you're kid,and I'll raise you one dog who is
mine wandering around the background. We'llhave our second best in with us here.
Oh, I love it. AndI bring that up too, because
I was actually reading your book ratherfifty Years of Fear to him. So
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like one of his first books I'veever read to him is yours. So
I don't know if it's appropriate fora three month old, but I was
reading your book to my son.As long as the head didn't spin around,
you're okay. I think he's okay. It heads a little floppy,
but not spinning around. Still,well, you know it'll it'll give give
him something to work out of thetherapy in a couple of years. Yes
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it is, Yes, it willabsolutely. What I found most fascinating and
something that I grew up on with, you know, the Exorcist, already
being an established horror movie, wasthat it was not meant to be a
horror movie. It was not meantto be scary in that way. So
can you kind of explain because thatseemed to be one of the major points
of your book, is that thiswas not meant to be the quote scariest
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movie of all time. It turnedout to be that, but that wasn't
certainly the thing that director William freedto get and writer William Peter Bladdie wanted.
Bill Bladdie when he wrote his book, which was published in nineteen seventy
one, wanted to write a book. And this is reflective I think of
his Jesuit education and his strong beliefin Catholicism that he said, if he
could prove the existence of a personifieddevil, that perhaps it would also be
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proof of a real God and alife everlasting. And that is what fueled
him through not only The Excesses,but its sequel, Legion, and another
book that he had written called Thediet Configuration. It's Blattie's trilogy of faith
where he was trying to argue forthe existence of Satan as proof of the
existence of God. Now, tologicians like myself, this means if you
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establish apples, that doesn't necessarily provethere are oranges. But for Bladdie it
became a viable force. And that'sthe integrity of the film, which both
he and Billy freed to get arereferred to as not a horror film,
but as a supernatural detective story becausethere's four things going on and interrupt me.
If I'm taking up to please that'swhat I'm here for it here you
talk. There are four things goingon in The Exorcise. One, it's
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a detective story. Who killed BurkeDennings, the abdoptious director. Secondly,
it's a story about a priest,Father Cares, who's lost his faith and
gets his faith restored with the greatestthing a human can do. He sacrifices
his life to say the life ofsomeone else. It's also the story about
Father Marin Lancaster. Marin, thepriest who once encountered the demon and is
now encountering an old enemy. Butat its core, what I think makes
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it most relatable, it's the storyof a mother going to any length she
has to to save her daughter.That is, of course encouraged by the
incredible performance of Ellen Burston, whoI believe is the best actress of her
generation in America, if not everywhere. Who understood that it's a story about
survival and a mother's perseverance, andevery one of those stories is a personal
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contact that the audience could have.It's not about vomit, it's not about
a turning hit. It's about realpeople in crisis. Yeah, I agree,
And and somebody because I believe thatyou said that you were the same
way. Because I'm even though Iwas raised Jewish, I consider myself agnostic.
So when I leaned towards horror movies, I'm not the biggest fan of
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supernatural because I just don't believe init. It's hard for me to suspend
disbelief. But the Exorcist helps you, like it really does, just the
way that it was done back then, It helps you suspend that disbelief.
So you saw a mate like abig difference in whether it was a religious
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moviegoer versus just the average moviegoer wantingto see the shock and the awe of
it. Is that how you whatyou took away from it? I guess
it dependent upon the views of theaudience, religious views or now I think
so. Of course, I gaveher religion for lent, you know,
so it's it's hard to be thebybe that. But I think the more
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devout people were, the more theybelieved in the tenets of the film,
perhaps the more effective they were.You know, the Catholic Church didn't have
a problem with the film because itwas essentially a commercial for them. I
think other faiths may have had aproblem because they couldn't relate to it as
dogmatically as the Catholics did. Butit is to me it's a very religious
film, certainly more than has sentwill be the Mills, you know,
orgies, and it works in verypersonal ways, which is what true religion
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should do. It doesn't have todemonstrate anything, as somebody said, you
know, you don't have to havedemons flying out it from mouth to say
that it's a religious film. It'sa movie that is about the mystery of
faith. How contract I mean,obviously it's still controversial now, but at
that time to get it and made, because it's still when you look at
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now twenty twenty three, there's controversialfilms all the time. The only movie
in mind, and this was arecent one that I can even think of
that had the same visceral effect thatyou read about in you know, whether
it's newspaper and now online magazines,was terrifier too. There were reports of
people throwing up in theaters, butI think that was from the over the
top gore. But back then,to have a movie to create that viscule
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reaction, I guess I'm kind ofsurprised that it was so popular and received
those accolades, because you usually don'teven though it's not technically a horror,
as we've discussed, usually don't seethose kind of movies appreciated by the masses
or by the academy, because it'snot a drama, it's not a maybe
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even the comedy. It's it's somethinga little bit more evil or disgusting.
So it was it hard to getthat movie made, I guess to begin
with, it was hard in thesense that Bill Bladdie said his script was
turned down by seventy different studios,and in fact it was producer Paul Monash,
who was best known for Which Cassidyand the Sundance Kid and the Friends
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of Bady Coyle and for creating televisionSpeaking Place, who was able to option
the book and then in some finaglingthat involved Warner Brothers and Bladdie, eventually
he lost control of it for thegood. In fact, I have I
think his only interview about it inthe book because I used to know Paul.
Everybody turned it down because they didn'twant to make it not not about
the religion. They just didn't understandwhat it was. And it wasn't until
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the book became a bestseller, almostby accident, that Warner Brothers got interested,
and the last person they wanted todirect it was William Friedkin. And
that's the first person that William PeterBlattie wanted to direct it, because he
and Friedkin had known each other froman encounter several years before. But then
Wild was in development, the FrenchConnection opened, and immediately Warner Brothers wanted
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to be in the William Friedkin businessbecause Billy directed the French Connection, which
remains one of the greatest police lier'sever made. So the Extorscist had a
very rough go and I talked aboutit throughout the Extorscist legacy about how everybody
had their hands in it, andit was only because the Bladdie and producer
NOELH. Marshall and William Freakin thatthe film kept any purity at all,
that they actually kept their eyes onwhat they wanted to do, and this
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was doing it, you know,out of town where Wander Brothers had no
control. And there's a story whichI won't good into it now because it's
far too advanced and it's also dirtywhen Wonder Brothers first saw the film,
how they reacted to it and whatthey said to Freakin after that, So
nobody knew they had a hit untilthey had a hit, right basically?
Is it? What about too?Was it hard to hard? I think
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you wrote about it's hard to cast? It was hard to cast like they
wanted in addition to getting the directorthat they wanted until the French French connection,
but Linda Blair was an unknown atthat time. Was the studio wanted
bigger names? What were some ofthose bigger names? William Freakin understood that
if you see movie stars in afilm like this, they're going to see
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them as movie stars, not asactors, no matter how good actors they
are. And so if he andBladdie saw Jason Miller in a play,
they saw Lee J. Cobb ina play. Also, supposedly, Stacy
Keach was supposed to play the fatherCares's role, they decided not to go
with him. Linda Blair and hermother walked into a casting session when they
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had given up hope of ever findinga young actress, and she turned out
to be so together and so smartthat it was almost a slam dunk.
She took Billy's direction in the castingsession with her mother and everybody else there.
And then she of course was agift in the film because her intelligence
made her performance work, even thoughduring the possession scene her voice was replaced
by Mercedes Cambridge and a lot ofanimal noises. It's because she's so likable
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in the first part of the filmthat she began to care for her.
It was quite quite an alchemy ofgetting all these people into one place at
one time, how much at thetime, because yeah, everyone talks about
the spinning head and the peace soupand throwing up, because then practical effects
weren't what they were today. Sothat was pretty special and still pretty cool
all these years later. But whatabout the language, the vulgarity of it.
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What was the audience I guess reactionto that in getting a movie where
you know, it's not just fbombs, it's there, there's some language
I'm not going to repeat in frontof my little baby. I don't want
to observe, you know, himto absorb that right now. So it
was language. Ever, was evera pushback from this toe Well, it
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was an R rated film, nomatter what. Of course, the uh,
the television version had to be loopeda certain amount. In fact,
Billy Friedkin himself did some of thelooping because Mercedes becamege wasn't available for it.
So some of the stuff you hear, like your mother darned socks that
smell or no, actually it's no, that was that was snl. Your
mother still rots in hell? Yeahit was. I think I think that's
Billy's voice. Uh. The languagewas not a concern because they were just
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liberalizing it. You know. Innineteen sixty eight, Jack Valenti had liberalized
the Hollywood Production Code into the letterrating system, and so the existence of
an R rating was keeping kids underseventeen without parent or adult supervision out of
the theater, and so it wasperfectly all right. In the nineteen seventy
film Mash they used the F wordfor the first time a major film.
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So Hollywood had been maturing, andcertainly with The Exorcist they were able to
do that. Although it had somecities the Exorcist was treated as an extorted
film because the exhibitors didn't want torun a file of local censorship people.
Okay, but that's just what thething was. It became a phenomenon for
you. What were the biggest Iguess changes from the book to the movie,
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Like what did you find I guessmore intriguing or more again, I
hate to say scary and horror,but that's just what the terminology with surrounding
it because there's a lot of movies, you know, adaptations from books to
movies, and people compare anywhere fromJurassic Park Harry Potter, and so what
about you from from book to film, what were some of the I guess
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the good and what was left out? Perhaps? Well, I have an
asterisk next to my experience because Ididn't see the film the first time I
saw it, right, let meexplain that I was a publicist for the
theater Chain and Boston that was showingit, and it was supposed to open
on December twenty sixth, nineteen seventythree, but we prevailed upon William Freakin
to allow a day before screeting sothat the newspaper critics could make their deadlines.
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And so obviously it's going to bean important film. Well, if
you think about your calendar, theday before December twenty sixth is Christmas morning.
And if you can imagine hauling theBoston critics, Boston mind you into
a theater to see The Exorcist,tearing them away from the bosom of their
family. Yeah, right on aChristmas morning. So it was an experience,
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and I had to guard the doorto make sure people who weren't invited
didn't get in. So I heardall these sounds going on in the auditorium,
but I didn't get to see themovie for a couple of days.
And when I finally did see it, having read the book, it didn't
scare me as much, although Ifelt the tension. But the moment that
I turned away is also the momentthat William Peter Blattie turned away, and
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the moment where most people who ranout of the theater puking turned away.
And can you guess what that momentwas. I'm assuming it's the pea soup
or the head turn the head turningwrong on both counts. And the point
at which most people ran screaming fromthe theater was the arteriogram scene when Reagan's
in the hospital and she has aneedle at her knack at the blood spurts
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out. Okay, and you'll besurprised. And we did an informal poll,
but the Warner Brothers, folks,the people who ran screaming from the
theater were men. Very few womenran out. And again this goes to
the film is about a mother protectingyour child. The women in the audience
understood the pain of watching a childand they were able to accommodate it.
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But they're the men, weren't.That reminds me of I guess speaking of
my kid for whatever reason, likewhen she was in labor and the nurses
said, if I wanted to leavethe room when she got the epidural needle,
because a lot of husbands faint,you can leave. I'm like,
no, I'm fine. I lovehorror movies. This is I know,
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this is real life, and I'mfine. So it was I guess I
had never heard that. I thoughtduring labor would try to escort me out
of the room, but during inthe epidural, they like warned me.
I'm like, yeah, I'll beokay. I think you didn't take videos,
did you? No? I didnot. I don't understand people would
do that. Well. Yeah.Dennis Wolfberg, who was a wonderful comedian,
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talked about being with his wife whileshe was giving birth when she called
him the Antichrist for putting her throughthis, and then he said, yeah,
I don't take videos because who areyou going to show them too?
Right, I'm never gonna want towatch that again, but this is obviously
a film fifty years later we wantto watch again. So what do you
think it is about the Exorcist's legacythat it's been able to survive so much
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so that there's a new films.It's something that's gonna be passed down.
It's taught. I mean I knowyou have. It's taught in colleges because
there have been so many films sincethen they have tried to recreate that phenomena
and has not happened. So whatis it about the Exorcist specifically that lives
on today. I think it's becausesomething we talked about at the beginning,
and that is the Exorcist is nota horror film. It's a film with
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some horror in it. It's aboutreal people going through extraordinary circumstances. And
that's something that the people who havemade the sequels and the prequels, with
the exception of extors Is three,don't really understand. And it's something that
I think David Gordon Green, who'smaking the new films, understands. The
trick is have audiences become jaded?Are they saying if they see something on
the screen, oh, it's it'sjust computer generated? You know, the
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original Exorcist has a voracity because therewas no CGI. Everything that happens on
the screen actually happened in front ofthe camera, albeit for mechanical reasons and
not because anybody was possessed. Butaudiences know that there's something ineffable about the
veracity of what's going on in theExorcist, something that the other films simply
can't have because they didn't have thebudget or the wherewithal or whatever thematically,
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it should work, but when youbring it to the screen, everything has
to be perfect, and that's veryhard to achieve. That's why I love
The Excess, an older classic thriller, harm wherever you want, because I'm
a practical effects guy. It's tangible. It's something tangible, and it goes
also like this with The Supernatural.Just with me. I'm a tangible kind
of person. But I can't suspenddisbelief for the sake of a plot.
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But it could be a great movieand if there's bad cgi it could just
take me right out of it.And the exist never does that. I
mean, look at it, Lookat the howling, look at an American
werewolf in London. It happened,the transformations happened in front of your eyes.
Yeah, and they work, yeah, yeah, And there's so many
werewolf movies, but that one isspecial. Same thing with The Exorcist.
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It's it's just it's special. Obviously, there's been a lot of books written
about it. What do you thinkwe'll learn from this? Your book that
we won't We haven't learned before.Mine is the only book that takes all
of the films and puts them inone place and shows how the themes are
developed film by film. It alsoas the advantage I think of having stories
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that we're told years ago. Yousee, I wrote the biography of William
Friedkin. It's called Hurricane Billy,and it came out in nineteen ninety and
so I got the stories about theExorcist before people had embellished them when the
film was just a hit, butbefore it became a classic. And a
lot of people have changed their stories, and I don't blame them. I
mean, we are in show business, but I think I go back to
the source on many of these things. I also have comments from Tim Lucas,
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who you know, was the creatorwith his wife of Video Watchdog,
probably the premier chronicle of horror filmsin this country. And also Mark Kermode,
who has called The Exorcist the bestfilm ever made. He's Brittain's leading
critic and he is written extensively aboutit. He was also one of my
advisors at Participants. So I believewe have a certain believability in the Exorcist
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legacy that puts it above anything elsethat's been written about it at this time.
Maybe more will come out in thefuture, I don't know, but
right now I'm hoping it does well, and I'm hoping people respect the work
that we put into it. Well, you definitely put a lot of work
into it, and it is agreat book. I had to finish again
reading it because it's a long book. He fell asleep when I was reading.
No fans. He wasn't bored,he's just he's three months. Well,
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there's also an audiobook. You canleave it running while you're in the
bathroom. Something's play the audiobook.Yeah right. Let me ask them last
question. What do you think isthe appropriate age for me to show him
the exercise? When you think,I mean, I'm not gonna be for
a few years, but when youhow old you think he should be to
see it? Well, I've beenEric Sonyan when it comes to childhood development.
So I think you should answer everyquestion that child asks, but only
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that question, so treated like adeposition. If he says, Daddy,
what is this film about, thenyou can tell him it's about a little
girl who gets sick and somebody triesto help her. If he gets older
and he says, what the hellis this film about, then perhaps you
can be bar honest with him.Okay, I appreciate nad segel Off.
Thank you so much, and Iwill just say a reading your bio now
I have Lamb Chops play sing alongand play along stuck in my head.
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Thank you Brando. Thanks for yourthoughts because you've written money books. And
then just just for people who don'tknow, so check out NAT's sake I
love his website and then of coursethe new Exorcist book like I see fifty
years later. Thank you so muchfor your time. Thanks. That was
a fun interview NAT's I heard itonce I clicked off. He said,
oh that was fun. So that'swhat I thought too. It's always nice
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when an interviewer it feels the sameas the interviewee. Doesn't nobody go that
way. But NAT's Sake Off,the Exorcist Legacy, fifty Years of Fear
is the book, and I don'tthink I'm going to continue to read that
to horrorson and more on him ina second. But I just want to
mention why I mentioned Lamb Chop andso you got to his website, right,
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NAT's Sake Off, And of courseit has the Exorcist book up there,
and there's a book about scarface andmobsters and fire and then there's like
a book about Sharry Lewis and LambChop and so yeah, as soon as
I saw that, just the songis pops right back in my head.
You remember those things from childhood.So that being said, speaking of my
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three month old son, Harrison,Rex horrorson a couple of things there.
Interesting. So if you're depending uponwhere you're from or how into true crime
you are, I know many ofyou are if you're finding a horror podcast
there, it has been such somethingknown as the Gilgo Beach Killers here,
(20:26):
well, I should say here onLong Island. Yeah, I'm in Queens,
sorry, because I'm so used tobeing like, I grew up in
the heart of Long Island, inBaldwood and Dick's Hills, and I it's
a whole other story now I'm gettingoff on a tangent. But so you
just grew up with this, thesegrizzly murders that have never been solved,
and so there is a suspect allthese years later. There was a film
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about it in twenty thirteen. SoI mean, that's like how many years
ago we're just talking about just they'rebeing a movie about it and the guy's
name is Rex. So that's myson's mental name, and I named him
that because we wanted something. Inshort, I love dinosaurs, not always
dinosaur horror movies. Have you everseen the Veloca Pastor? You heard right,
(21:15):
the Veloca Pastor or past Year?Sorry I'm Jewish? Am I saying
that properly? So yeah, Idigress it again. And Harrison has a
George Harrison. But what I thoughtand what I always liked is how because
I'm a big fan of Dexter andI finally saw I guess you can call
it the last season or whatever,Dexter new Blood, and I liked it
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a lot, not realizing how prominenta character his son, Harrison would be.
Harrison in the first and the originalseries was just a young kid,
a baby even But I love justthe narration of Michael Shall is just one
of the many reasons why I'm sucha huge fan of that show. But
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Harrison, I don't want to giveany spoilers, but you know he being
this on a deckster, he meor me not a kill nor wants to
kill whatever. So it's like Igave given like my son two murderous names.
But I've spoken about and if youdo follow on social media appetite the
number four horror. I posted somepictures of me watching a horror movie while
(22:22):
my son's sleeping on my chest.Haha, k cute, But now as
he's getting older, more aware ofsounds, because I would have him on
my chest listening and watching doing theWalking Dead binge. And if you missed
the previous episode that we did,if you're just catching onto this one.
Spoke to David Brody about it fora good long while, the whole series
(22:45):
and the Spin office and everything,and he's the one. Thank you for
giving me the good name of horror. Soon I was like, oh,
horror, Harrison had it? Harrisonnot come to mind. I should be
created enough to have thought of that, but I didn't, So kudos to
you, David Brodie. I knowyou're not listening, so I he's always
(23:07):
heard munching of brains, just likehorrible things and gunshots going on, and
if anything, I just don't wantit to be too loud. But just
the other day, just I wasfeeding of his bottle and I guess,
I don't even remember. I guessfound this super low budget B movie just
to watch. I'm like, thislooks like schlocky enough. It wasn't exactly
(23:30):
a trauma film, but it hadthat kind of feel to it. And
just at the beginning, one ofthose dumb jump scares happened, like you
know, a dum jump scare whereyou know, it's not just the killer
coming out of nowhere, it's acat, it's a person, it's a
friend. So that's what it was. It was like a friend saying scaring
another friend. Hey. But thewhole they made it really dramatic, you
(23:56):
know, dude, it was likea sound just like really it was loud
and it's even made me jump alittle bit. I wasn't expecting it.
It made Harrison jump and he startedcrying, and I felt like a bad
father. I'm so sorry. I'mso sorry. I will never do this
again. So I may actually putoff watch having a watch Horror with me
(24:18):
for a while and putting things onlike Lamb Chop. I've been putting on
Nature Turtles for him, and thecartoons that I grew up with, Denver
the Last Dinosaur or Rocco's Modern Life, the whole gamut of my childhood.
So it might be a bit,maybe a bit, But what I do
want to mention if you're jumping ontothis appetite for horror podcast early on because
(24:42):
I think this is going to bea long haul podcast. I'm very transparent.
If you know anything else that I'vedone the Mothership podcast, appetite with
distortion, whatever reason it hurt meon the radio throughout my career. I'm
a very honest person, very transparent. So this is gonna be I
(25:02):
would love to do this weekly orsomething like that, but it's just a
very difficult when I have a mainpodcast, I have two actual jobs.
I'm now taking care of a threemonth old and I'm just trying to screw
up. If I haven't screwed himup already, Jesus, oh man,
I felt so bad. Amah.Let's just keep watching horror movies with you.
My young son who's still forming,and I hope it just didn't go
(25:26):
deep into a subconscious and like maybehe will grew up to be a zero
killer. We'll see what happens.See heads the long haul, but I
would I would love to fact becauseI'm always going to have some sort of
set up and do recordings and watchhorrors. So as he grows up quickly,
then yeah, there'll be time.So I'm like, Okay, here's
the first time we're gonna watch Idon't know, teen Wolf, something Baby,
(25:49):
the original teen Wolf, Michael J. Fox, not like the MTV
version, but something the Munsters,Adams Family, some version of that,
any version of that. I thinkit would be safe enough for him.
So I might have to take steps. But it's not going to be all
just baby stuff. Just whatever moviesI watch, want to give a review.
(26:10):
Four and more interviews coming up,So again, if you well,
I should say this. Also,if you have an idea for a guest
you would like for me to interview, or perhaps you want to get involved,
I could do radio with literally anybody. I've done this also throughout my
career, just have random co hosts. I love being able to provide an
(26:30):
outlet for those who rarely get todo radio or podcasting. I think it's
fun and meet new people to doit this way. So if you have
a movie maybe you want to reviewwith me, or a suggestion you want
to give me an interview suggestion,as I mentioned, just let me know.
Find me on social media. Appetitefor horror the number four horror.
(26:52):
But I'm sure if you type inappetite fo R horror. You'll find things
pop up also if you type thatinto your search engine. iHeartRadio Speaker,
Spotify however you're listening, and ofcourse you can watch these episodes on the
Appetite for Distortion YouTube page. ButI'm going to continue to want to do
(27:15):
this as well as hard as apart of my life. And I will
mention the next episode. It's goingto be a short one, but it's
going to be a good one.I just know it. Sarah Wayne Callous
from The Walking Dead Lorie so moreWalking Dead talk, So that's gonna be
a lot of fun. I likeher work. She has a podcast out
that's kind of like a almost likea horror podcast back in the days of
(27:38):
radio, Theater of the Mind.I think that's super cool to where everyone
of their mother has a podcast todo something kind of old school radio with
sound effects. I'm sure they're notusing things of tin paper to create lightning.
You have computers for that now.But after Shock is the name of
(27:59):
a podcast and Nigan Jeffrey Deed Morganis also on that as well, different
aspect of acting. Can't wait totalk to her about that, so stay
tuned for that one. Okay,but when will you see that episode?
Well, stick around, subscribe tous wherever you are listening, and until
then, don't die.