October 20, 2025 • 45 mins
Mike White sits down with journalist and author Clark Collis to talk about his latest deep dive into the world of fear and fascination, Screaming and Conjuring: The Rise of Modern Horror Franchises. Collis explores how films like The Conjuring, Insidious, and Paranormal Activity revived mainstream horror, spawned cinematic universes, and redefined the genre for a new generation. From haunted houses to found footage, Collis traces the eerie evolution of studio horror from the 2000s onward—where box office booms meet demonic possessions, and clever marketing becomes part of the scare.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh he is, folks, it show die.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
When they go out to a theater, they want clothed, sodas,
hot popcorn in no monsters.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
In the Projection Booth, everyone for tend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Got it off?
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of The Projection Booth.
I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, it is
the return of Clark Collis. He wrote You've got read
on You all about the making of Shawn of the Dead.
Now he's back with a incredibly ambitious book called Screaming
and Conjuring, The Resurrection and Unstoppable Rise of the Modern Horror.
(01:00):
It is a trip through the horror genre for the
last say twenty five years, that sweet spot between when
Scream came out and then the Conjuring movie started, and
a whole lot more. It is a just wild ride
that he takes you on. Goes before Scream, of course,
and goes after the Conjuring movies, and talks about a
(01:22):
whole lot of stuff that as you hear this interview,
your mind will just start racing with all of the
other titles that came out during that wonderful time. Thank
you so much for listening. Definitely pick up Screaming and
Conjuring and I hope you enjoy this interview. Clark Collis,
thank you so much for coming back on the show.
I always appreciate talking with you. I had such a
fun time talking about You've got read on you and
(01:45):
am super excited to talk about Screaming and Conjuring. So
when I saw the title of the book, wasn't exactly
share what it was about, but I kind of had
an inkling how did you approach this topic and what
inspired this book.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
So it is a book that is essentially a history
of the modern horror movie, which starts with Scream in
nineteen ninety six and ends with The Conjuring in twenty thirteen,
although there is an epilogue that sort of canters through
the last ten years, which proved to be a pretty
(02:21):
busy ten years. I just felt it was a period
of time in horror that hadn't really been covered before
in this particular way. I look at essentially the different
waves of horror that arrived during that time. So obviously
following Scream, you had a lot of horror teen slashes essentially,
(02:45):
and then that was followed by both the short lived
craze for j horror and the rather longer lived crazes
for remaking every horror movie ever made, and also what
became known as the torture porn sort of period. Plus
(03:06):
you had the French extreme, you had influences from abroad.
From abroad, essentially the book is very US and to
some degree UK focus, but primarily US. And then that
also led to this started the sort of supernatural, both
(03:28):
fan footage, the enthusiasm for fan footage movies and for
supernatural horror, which began with paranormal activity and then insidious
and then ultimately the conjuring. And I think there had
been books about the screen franchise, for example, and torture
porn and Jay horror, and I just thought it would
be interesting to me certainly, and hopefully the readers weave
(03:52):
together a tale. I could see the story in my mind,
the way that one wave or one batch of filmmakers
inspired the next sort of positive legal negatively, So you
have scream inspiring all the team slashers. But then you know,
(04:12):
after two or three years of that, you had the
onslaught of as I said, quote unquote, torture porn movies,
which to some degree was the reaction to that Rob Zombie,
and he was like, I was never going to make
a Screamer, I Know what you did last Summer, or
an Urban Legends. It was always going to be My
influences were always going to be from the seventies, essentially.
(04:36):
Then he went on to make House one Thousand Corpses
and The Devil's Reject, so that was in my mind. Originally.
I pitched my wonderful publisher, Matthew at nineteen eighty four Publishing,
doing a book that kind of described the creation of
ten or so franchises from the period, because studying it
was Scream in nineteen ninety six. You do have this
(04:57):
new wave of franchises because the previous franchises of the eighties,
Your Halloween's and your A Night We're in Elm Streets
had run out of gas a bit by the mid
nineties and then were replaced by Scream, I Know what
you did last Summer saw obviously hostel and then leading
(05:21):
into paranormal activity and insidious and the conjuring. So I
suggested picking ten franchises and looking at that, Matthew made
the student observation that's all well and good, but if
somebody doesn't, for example, the Saw movies, and that's the
whole chapter that just gonna skip. So maybe it would
be best to make it a little bit more palatable
(05:44):
to those people too, to weave the weave all the
stories together, which which I think he was one hundred
percent rider, and I'm happy with the way that it
turned out.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I'm surprised you survived writing a book like this because
it just seems to continue to go down the rabbit
hole every single page I turn or flip through virtually
these days. But it was just amazing to have you
talking about screaming. Then you kind of dip back into like, well,
here's more about Wes Craven, and here's more about John Carpenter.
(06:14):
Here's more about Slashers, and just build and build and build,
and just take me through this. And you are such
a good host to take me through this entire journey.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
The tension was I wanted it to be comprehensive, but
I also didn't want to basically just be a list
of movies. I do not tell the story of every
horror movie during this period, but I do have a
stab at telling the stories behind the most popular, the
most influential, and on occasion just stories that used me
(06:48):
to tell. Like I didn't intend to devote a section
to the film Dracula two thousand, of which I had
no memory whatsoever, to be honest with you, even though
it was quite a popular film. But then I interviewed
and interviewed the lovely and very talented Patrick Lacier, who
was Weds Craven's long time editor but also directed a
(07:08):
bunch of films, including it was the second film actually,
Dracula two thousand, and he related the story of how
in I guess February two thousand Bob Weinstein, and Bob
Weinstein said, Okay, I want you to make a punk
call Dracula the two thousand. This is Bob Weinstein, obviously
the brother of Harvey Weinstein and also the head of
(07:29):
Dimension Films. He said, I want you to would you
be interested in making punk call Dracula two thousands in February,
but it has to be out by December of that year,
so he had nine months to do it, and even films,
films are made within a nine month period, but it's
usually means that at the start of that nine month
(07:51):
period they at least have a script or some notion
of what this film is going to be about. And
even then it's a hell of a race. And Patrick
walked me through that experience, and then I was like,
I've got all this of material. It's a fascinating story.
And even though you know, I think it's not a film,
a lot of people remember, I kind of want to
stick that in. The funny ending to that story is
(08:11):
that Bob Weinstein was obsessed to the idea that it
had to come out in two thousand because it was
called Dracula two thousand. But it being two thousand is
not really essential to the film. It's not like all
that many people saying Dracula is alive in the year
two thousand and that doesn't really happen all that much.
And so in foreign territories it was actually released in
(08:33):
two thousand and one, and in those territories it was
retitled Dracula two thousand and one, which seemed like a
very easy fix. To be honest with you.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I was surprised at just how many people you talked
to for this. When do you have any account of
how many interviews you had to do for this?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I interviewed about fifty people specifically for this book. I
spent eighteen years as a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly magazine,
and during that period, because it was a period where
we really started going online, I had the opportunity to
interview all sorts of people about all sorts of horror
folks about their films, and so some of it was
(09:14):
old material. The strange thing was sometimes I'd be like, Ah,
I wish I'd spoken to such and such about this film,
and then I would just do a search of my
documents on my computer and realize that I had indeed
spoken to such and such about that film. Everyone in
Entertainment Weekly was speaking to a lot of people. During
the two thousands, I did about fifty reviews specifically for
(09:37):
the book, and then I have no idea, probably included
quotes from fifty more people that I'd interviewed before. And then, frankly,
I was in London and I went to the BFI,
the British Film Institute, and they've got a wonderful library
and they have two rows of band Fangoria magazines. So
(10:00):
I spent two months at the BFI London going through
every issue of Fangoria from that period. And it really
I've always loved fangoria, but I have to say, boy,
like they really covered horror. I mean they and continue
to do. But like I would like, there are so
(10:20):
many films that, like I say, people might not remember
that they would have devoted a story to the production,
then another article and a different issue maybe to the effects.
And yeah, that was a glory, that was a pretty
that was a pretty fun couple of months. But it
took a long time to crank through seventeen years worth
(10:42):
of what was then like it was like every single month.
I like the writing process, so I like interviewing people
and writing. And I think some people, if they decided
to write this kind of history, would be like I'm
going to get all the DVDs and I'm going to
spend three months watching the DVDs. And I certainly did
spend a lot of time watching the DVDs, but like
(11:02):
to get on with it. Having said which, if people
who are active horror fans during the two thousands or
any kind of film fans will be aware that if
you get those DVDs, like often there's two or three
or four commentaries, like an Eli Ross film might have
seven different commentaries and that's another Again, I'm not suggesting
(11:24):
that's hard labor, but like the Hostile DVD are like
Happened Fever DVD, I'm you know, sitting down and listening
to all of that because even though I interviewed Eli, like,
you never know what kind of little factoid is going
to spring up during the commentary. And also those people's
memories now are a lot hazier than have gotten hazy
(11:47):
over time. So it's fantastic to get to listen to
commentaries that were made when the blood on the fake
corpses are still wet. Pretty much, this book is about
four uder and fifty pages long, and it literally couldn't
be any longer because you need to physically bind this thing,
although I did. After I finished it, I realized the
Barber Streuisen's autobiography was nine hundred pages, and I did
(12:08):
almost call up my publisher and be like, wait, why
did this thing have to be like and got only
four hundred and fifty pages because it's been longer. So
I'd interviewed like Greg Nicotero, who is this who I
interviewed before, but he's mostly known I guess as a
special makeup effects wizard. He co founded K and B
(12:28):
his craigs all the way back to Evil Dead two,
and then over time he's become like a second unit director.
He's one of the main creative forces behind The Walking Dead,
which is probably now what he is most famous for,
but he's worked on pretty much like he's worked on
dozens of horror movies. And so I interviewed him, and
I spoke to him about the ten most prominent horror
(12:51):
films from the era that he worked for worked on
from The Mess to Jennifer's Body to Drag Me to
Hell to and so I'd interview him and then I'd
get up the next morning and transcribe the interview, and
it's not the best, but I always think it's like
when a sailor puts a net into the sea and
then pulls it in and then you see what fish
(13:14):
you've got, And that's what I mean. People A lot
of people use transcribing services, but I like to transcribe
myself because you're like, this is what I got. Because
when you're interviewing somebody, especially if you're interviewing someone about
lots of different movies, you're not always really taking in
what they're saying. Necessarily, or you need to be a
better interviewer than I am to do that. You're thinking,
(13:35):
what's the next question going to be? What's the next
film going to be? Because there's always a time issue,
And so I would get all these great quotes safe
from Greg Nicaturio and they would then I would go
into the text and just add them with that really,
and then so this would happen day after day with
different interviewees, and I wasn't really that worried about how
big the book was getting until I woke up one
(13:57):
day and realized that it was like eighty thousand words
longer than it could be, really, that it physically could be,
and to those who don't know, like eighty thousand words
is like two hundred pages basically, So I had to
Then I was extricker because the time was grinding on,
the deadline was getting close, and this thing was now
(14:19):
like a book more than it should be, really, and
so then I had to go in. And I'm pretty
good at cutting my own work. I usually find that
if I leave something for a week and go back
to it, that I'm like, what is half of this
nonsense You've written like a week ago? So that was
fine in the end, but yeah, that was something. But
it's good when you've all it's good when you've got
(14:41):
too much material. And I always think that perhaps if
you boil something down, as I had to do, from
two hundred and fifty thousand words to one hundred and
fifty thousand words, then hopefully people, even though it's not there,
people can still sense that the half that was there,
the sort of that you still get on the like
a physical feeling of hopefully well made or at least
(15:04):
extremely sturdy antique desk or something.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Were there any movies that were new to you while
you were putting this together?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
There were some like I've never been a fan of
very extreme horror, or rather I don't really mind very
extreme horror. I guess what I don't really like is
films that I'm not even sure horror movies yet are
very extreme. And I had never seen Lars von Trier's Antichrist,
for instance, which I guess is technical horror. And I
(15:35):
should say that I like what a lot of Las
van von Trier's filmography did a wonderful I've saw a
wonderful two season show set in a hospital in like
the maddest hospital that ever existed called The Kingdom, and
I remember going to a cinema and watching all of
the second season in one day. But I've never seen
(15:56):
Anti Christ because I think I read reviews was aware
that it was a bit of a tough watch, and
I watched it, and it's artistic certainly, but I was like, Oh,
this is no fun and I'm glad that I hadn't
seen it before. There was stuff that I felt that
I probably wouldn't be writing about at length, but I
(16:17):
felt I needed to check out to sort of make
sure that I shouldn't be writing about like or to
understand its position in the context of horror. And I
mentioned I did mention Anti Christ and a couple of
other extreme horror movies, but then did a section on
The Human Centerpede, which in its own way is equally
grotesque as Antichrist, but it's very much more of a
(16:39):
traditional horror movie. And there was an odd period of
time and Entertainment Weekly when I was one of my
jobs was basically being the Human Centerpede correspondent because it
was something of a theatrical success, but what really became
popular was the idea of stitching people together and so
it was referenced on thirty Rock and The Colberg Show
(17:02):
and all of these TV shows. And I had like
lunch with Tom six, the director and the cast of
Human Center bed two at very nice steak restaurant in Midtown.
So I had all this stuff on the Human Centipede,
which I thought was of interest. And yeah, there's definitely
(17:22):
some sort of smaller movements of the era where I'm like,
these are the three or four films of importance, and
let's look particularly at this one movie.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Reading the book, it feels like you have seen everything,
so I was surprised that there were things that you
hadn't seen before.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah, there were one or two that I'd avoided, And
I think there's just stuff that I had seen and
then frankly could not remember anything about, which isn't necessarily
dis from that quality. But for example, Patrick Lucier, who
I was talking about earlier directing directly two thousand later
directed My Bloody Valentine's three D remake of My Bloody
(18:05):
Valentine that I definitely saw but didn't really have much
memory of, and so I rewatched that was this is
a lot of fun. This is a lot of fun.
It's interesting that. I think when you go to the cinema,
you always wanted to be the best film in the world,
and then when it's not, you're like, okay, that was
all right. But I think from a perspective of twenty years,
(18:27):
it's amazing how many films that I probably didn't regard
that highly at the time. I'm like, this is fun,
this is just flat out fun. If this turned up today,
then I would really enjoy it. What I thought what
happened is I would watch a lot of horror films
from the era and they just wouldn't have aged. And
(18:49):
certainly there's some if you go back, especially to the
early two thousands when it's that period of Maxim magazine
being very popular, the Manjdo and all of that stuff,
some language in some of the films which has an
aged necessarily well in terms of slurs and this and that.
But with regards apart from that, I was surprised how
(19:11):
many of those films still stand leve. I am afraid
to admit that I watched. I do not have a
big steps TV setup to you would think that I
have one of those theaters and big comfy armchair and
a in popcorn machine but not. I just watched everything
on the same old crappy computer that I'm speaking with
(19:33):
you on them. But I would put on like The Descent,
for instance, Neil Marshall's tale of sperlunkers who meet monsters
in an apple Eachian cave system. And I'm really hobbling
the film's chances of frightening me by watching it on
my tiny little computer. Another thing scary as hell in
(19:54):
any format, I have to say. And it's as scary
now really as it was twenty years ago. And again,
films were either as good as I remembered or had
improved in my mind through time.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Basically, it's always fascinating how the movies informed themselves versus
the outside factors of you know, world politics or policy
or you know, social movements, those kind of things. It's
always so interesting to see how that balance comes by,
and how sometimes films just completely miss when it comes
(20:27):
to where they should have been heading and where they
ended up going to. And just like this was not
very successful just because of times of change, but the
filmmakers didn't seem to realize that.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah. Again and again, it's like any sort of type
of industry, so many people would tell me that they
had trouble getting the film finance because it wasn't similar
to the film that two three days ago had just
opened at the box office. I interviewed Mike or Doherty,
(21:01):
who directed film Trick or Treat and then later went
on to direct one of the wildly successful Godzilla movies,
but Trick a Treat was his first. Who was his
directorial debut. Who's trying to get finance for it? And
for those han't seen it, it's got essentially a anthology
(21:21):
horror movie, but the stories are woven together. But you've
got were wolves and zombies and a serial killer, but
it's not like a teen serial killer thing. And he
was trying to sell this in two thousand and was
rapeatedly told no one gives a crap about like vampires
or were wolves or anything that you're talking about. All
(21:43):
people want teen slashers. And Michael was thinking to himself,
but they're not gonna want teen slashes by the time
we've made this film, because that'll be in two years time,
and by that point they'll have had six years of
teen slashes and people will no longer want to citizens,
which was absolutely proven correct. And again there are so
many stories. The book starts with a story told me
(22:08):
by Don Coscarelli, the writer director of Fantasm, created the
Phantasm franchise and later went on to direct Bubba Hotel
and John Dies at the end. But in the early
nineties was trying to get an adaptation of a Joe
Lansdale zombie Western off the ground, which you would actually think,
(22:30):
that's the fantastic mix of stuff. And he sent it
out the studios and all the he was like, even
New Line, which was like the sort of house of
horror at the time, send a note back saying, no
one will ever want to see a zombie movie basically.
So then he went back at I think I got
to him across there all references to zombies and just
(22:50):
put monster instead. But who's the same, Because, as you said,
it has to be the right time. Maybe if Don
had made a Zombie West in the nearly nineties, that
wouldn't have worked. But what I can tell you is
that ten years later, suddenly everybody's making zombie movies and
zombie zombie genre is not just the most popular horror
(23:13):
genre in the world, but it's one of the most
popular genres in the world. For ten or fifteen yearsn't
even up to today.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
It's amazing too to think of just how many of
these franchises that you talk about are still going. You know,
as we're talking, it's like, what two weeks after the
latest Conjuring film.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
I think it is.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
It's like they just they have had legs for decades now,
which is wild. I mean, even what Final Destination just
got a remake I think, or maybe it's a oh.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
That's I mean not see in Final Destination blood Lines.
That's one of the honest to god, that is my
favorite theatrical experience of the whole year. It is it
is absolutely what you want. If you haven't liked Final
Destination films, that's fine. Wouldn't advise you go to see it. No,
they absolutely do what you would want to do with
(24:06):
that with that franchise, bearing in mind it has been
away for a long time, and no, it's terrific. It's
absolutely terrific. I would say I saw it off for
a couple of drinks at a free press screening, but
people loved it. It was a general audience press screen
but it was a preview. I started writing this book
about two years ago, and pretty soon it was always
(24:27):
called Screaming and Conjuring, and then I came up with
the sort of subtitle which I still have to look
at the cover of the book to remind myself what
it is, but it's Screaming, Conjuring, the Resurrection and Unstoppable
Rise of the modern horror movie. But I did think,
like in the back of my head, was like, what
if it stops by the time this book comes out.
And there was a period about eighteen months ago, I
(24:49):
don't know if you were a call when there was
a clutch of movies, including like an Omen prequel and
the vampire movie Abigail that came out, and it was
a Sydney Sweeney supernatural movie, and they all underperformed. Now
because they're low budget, relatively low budget horror movies. None
of them were disasters, and I'm not saying they're bad.
(25:11):
Within about six weeks or so, three horror movies came out.
None of them was big hits, and people were like,
maybe this is the end of horror, and I'm like,
but sir, I'm writing a book about the unstoppable rise
of horror. Am I going to have to change the thing.
But then of course it comes to this year, and
it's Sinners, it's weapons, it's the Conjuring, Last Rite, Spinal
(25:35):
Destination Bloodlines twenty eight years later, which I mean was
me only a medium size hit, but people were very
much all for it, and yeah, I couldn't. As it
turns out, fortuitously, it couldn't have worked out better for me.
I will say, people still either underrate or take for
(25:56):
granted the box office success of a right. It is
interesting to me that the last Conjuring movie came out
and made four hundred and fifty million dollars pretty much
around the world, and just went and mentioned people were like, oh, yeah,
what do you expect. I'm like, what do you expect?
(26:17):
That's the eleventh Conjuring movie and relatively quick succession. Many
people would expect it not to make almost half a
billion dollars, And now people I loved one battle after another,
and I understand why people are wringing their hands over
the whether it's going to be a box office head
or not, of what that means for original material and
(26:38):
so on and so forth. And I'm like, could we
just spend another sentence talking about how this Conjuring movie
made half a billion dollars? But I'm not saying. I'm
not saying we should just make horror sequels all the time.
Far from it, although that's what people are doing, but
it's still taken for granted. I think one of the
(26:58):
reasons now that people can make one battle after another
is because of the money that horror makes. The two
things people go and see a horror and then rejigged
versions of hids IP from fifteen years ago. Essentially it
seems to be the oh, what's like car of the
name they keep on making, like How to Train Your
Dragon and so on.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah, the Disney Live Action remakes and that whole movement
that's been going on.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Who did your cover art? The cover art was done
by the lovely and hugely talented Gary pull In aka
Gaulish Gary. If you google him you can see a
fantastic amount of fantastic artwork. He specializes in horror related
sort of posters and whatnot. He's recently done the covers
(27:47):
of a lot of Stephen King paperback reissues and it
was difficult to come up with a suitable image. It
wasn't difficult for me because I didn't have to do it,
but I know that my publisher Matthew and Gary myself
set around and had a meeting, and the problem is
that it's you want something that says horror, but we
(28:07):
didn't really want to say what kind of horror, necessarily
because it's a book that covers slashes and zombies and
vampires and virus movies and everything. So if you've ever
been to a marketing meeting or any kind of meeting
of this sort, then you know that comes a point
where someone's, yeah, but we want it to be cool.
(28:27):
Whatever it is, this soapbox, all people to know that
it's got detergent in it, but cool. And if you've
ever been one of those meetings, you're like, what are
you talking about? What does that possibly mean? But when
we were having the meeting, was Gary I heard myself say, yeah,
it's horror but cool, and inwardly I shrank in shame.
(28:48):
But I think he managed to fulfill this stupid and
extremely brief wonderfully. Yeah. Yeah, what are you working on
these days? I'm working on another book about a single film,
but it's not It hasn't been announced and hasn't been
announced to the people who made the film yet, so
(29:08):
I'm not really sure. I'm at liberty to say too
much about it, really, but I'm really enjoying I'm really
enjoying researching it. It is fun writing these books where
we were also embedding screaming the films within the context
of what was going on like at the time as well,
(29:29):
and how that impacted the way that the films were
made and then released, And going back to Screaming and conjuring,
there is a lot of stuff about nine to eleven
and then just some degree the financial collapse, and then
ultimately in the apologue Covid. I should know I've made
it sound like a terrible book to read. These are
(29:51):
quite lightly a touched upon, but there's no doubt that
the movies at the time a specifically horror movies reflective
of the times which they made because they can reference
things that are going on in the current day without
being necessarily a huge plot point. If people have seen Grindhouse,
for instance, in the Planet Terror section, there's these soldiers
(30:14):
come back from war and they bring a disease with
them and they just mentioned that they've just killed the
Samba bin Laden in a cave or whatever. I'm not
making I'm not been tried about the subject matter as
Robert Rodriguez said, the great thing about exploitation movies is
you can rewrite the script as you go along to
incorporate what's happening in the in the present day.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
And was very glad that you had that context around
these films and saw that influence. I mean, I'm just thinking, now,
you know the Megan films and Companion and these types
of films, and how they're really kind of tapping into
the fears over AI, and it's much easier to have
a personification of AI rather than that Johnny Depp movie
with the what was that called man?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I couldn't remember the name of the time, but it's
the directory. It's the first time, I believe the last
film directed by Christopher Nolan's longtime cinematographer, Transcendence. Transcendence. There
you go. I always think you shouldn't name a film.
I just don't think you should name a film more
anything a word that people can't spell and don't know
what it means. I just think it makes people properly
(31:22):
else people like, hey, do you want to go to movies?
What's on? And they look and be like, I'm not
going to say transcendence out loud. You know what I mean,
We'll go and see something else that's stead my theory. Yeah,
there was one theory that I read that I wanted
to include in the book and then didn't. But I
was reading a book about I think there's a whole
(31:43):
book abou essays about Blumhouse, and there is a theory
that I don't necessarily subscribe to, but that the wave
of movies about ghosts in houses so your insidious is
and your parent normal activity were partly inspired by the
financial crash because they made houses and homes such a
(32:08):
stress point and sort of the struggle to keep your
house and to by extensions cinematically defeat the ghost which
is hanging around in your house. It made that sort
of even more of a worry for people than it
was before. You can overconnect these things, and I wasn't
entirely sure about that. Well, I will say when people
(32:29):
may remember the drag Me, when draged me the house,
so those of these things happen accidentally, and when Dragged
Me the hell came out, which is a film which
was kicked off is kicked off by the lead character
not giving a loan to the antagonist essentially, who is
a Ramani an older Romani lady, and so the older
(32:52):
Romani lady loses her house and then curses the lead actress.
And when that premiered, it can in I'm going to say,
to thousand and eight or nine. They got a lot
of questions about it was written up as like the
first film of the sort of financial crash era, but
in fact, Sammaraimi, who directed and co wrote the film
(33:12):
with his brother, it was actually like a twenty year
old script that they dug up. They had started working
on Her twenty years previously. But then sometimes the film
just meets the moment. Saul was written long before the
start of the Iraq War, and yet that is a
film that very very much again seemed reflective of the
(33:39):
state of politics and diplomacy, geopolitics, and then I think
was partly embraced by people because they were becoming familiar
with things awfulness on the news. That's a cherry thought
for you.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Your enthusiasm for the material comes through in the writing,
and it just makes me so excited to read about
these films, even though we frankly, yeah, there are certain
of these franchises where I'm just like e not really
for me, like The Saw movies, But I really enjoyed
reading your writing about them and going back to the
housing crisis. I mean, I actually really agree with that,
(34:13):
and especially films like I mean even you know, Viberium,
or even that Poultergeist remake, where it just feels like
we have a home. We have to do what we
can to protect the home, not just as the family unit,
but as a financial investment. We don't want this investment
to be screwed up.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
No, I think you're right now. I've been navigating to
which I put it in the book. Of course, with Bavarian,
what they want to do is get out of the
damn house rather than staying there. But I understand that
it's still a source of stress. I'm a big fan
of the Stare franchise. I think it's a miracle what
they pulled off with that. But if you're making eight
movies or whatever it was, seven movies in seven years,
(34:54):
they're not every decision you're going to make is going
to be correct. I tell you, the thing that I'm
most fascinated about with these franchises is they got locked
into this idea that there was a big hit that
was franchisable, then they should make the second one the
following year, like they should only allow year to pass
(35:15):
because they wanted to they wanted to cash in. And
this was particularly true with the Saw franchise. But often
the people that made the first film are like, yeah,
good luck with that, and we're going to go off
and do something else that James One, who directed the
first Saw movie, did not make a Saw two, and
the director of the first Paranormal Activity movie did not
make the second one. So again, going back to our
(35:36):
story of Dracular two thousand, once again, they've got less
than a year to make this movie. I find that
race to do that and just incredibly interesting to research
and write about it. It's almost like the second movie
those franchises is almost more of a story than the first.
Right now, there's so much riding on it. Yeah, so
(35:57):
many people have so much riding on it. It was
an idea with Paranormal Activity too. Jason Blummer had an
idea that they should give ten different filmmakers a very
small amount of money. I comeber those ten. I think
they should spend a million dollars, giving ten different filmmakers
one hundred grand each and just released the best one,
(36:19):
which I would have loved that to have happened, but
cool I had prevailed and wise I had or maybe
less less wise heads prevailed and they did it in
a more traditional fashion.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
It sounds like that Van Trier film, what was it
The Nine Challenges or oh.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
That's a great movie, that is an a. I think
about that film quite a lot. The horror movies that
I mean, there was that sort of meme or whatever
a couple of years ago that men spend I don't
know what it is thirty seven points in the day
think about the Roman Empire, but like, horror films are
definitely my Roman Empire. I think about the Alien movies
quite a lot, especially now we've had the TV show
(36:57):
and that's what I wanted to in the bars.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
It's amazing. The Alien franchise has been with me for
almost my entire life. You know, that came out when
I was pretty young, and still with me today as
a relatively old man. I'm just like, wow, I can't
believe that this thing still has legs after all these years.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
The first Alien movie is definitely one of the reasons
I'm interested in horror as it is, as was the
case for so many people that I interviewed in my book.
But I remember when I was about I don't know, nine,
and we had a very eccentric music teacher who went
to see Alien and then decided to spend the next
music lesson telling us the entire plot of Alien from
(37:38):
beginning to end, and we're like, and I'm like ten
years old, and I'm like a GoGet this And then
I bought the novelization and eventually somehow got they must
have screened it on TV and got it on the
video and would freeze frame the alien coming out of
the egg and the chest burst the scene, And then
(38:00):
was old enough to go and see Aliens in the cinema,
which is one of my favorite cinematic experiences of all time.
I'm just now telling what I think some of the
best stories of my book. But I interviewed Thomas Jane
for my book, who is just a great guy and
has certainly an interview like he's eccentric, but like also
(38:21):
a great storyteller, so that's super And he was just
one of those guys. When I was choosing people to
interview for the book, it was often people who'd worked
on several horror films, because you fine, you do get that,
because it's just easier and then it's fun and they
can become a recurring character. And he had been in
(38:41):
he was in Deeply See, which I mentioned somewhat briefly,
and then DreamCatcher, which I talk about some lengths, and
then The Myths, which I also talk about some lengths.
But he was he just described as a kid being
taken to see Alien like. I think he grew up
in Chicago in one of the the big no Washington
(39:02):
I think it was Washington, DC, in one of these
sort of huge picture houses, and he went with his family.
He was like, we couldn't afford a babysitters, so my
parents would just drag their kids to wildly what would
now be regarded as wildly unsuitable films at a young age.
And he said, what do you remembers? Was this woman
sitting next close to them at the cinema when the
(39:23):
chest burst the scene happened. She was holding like like
a huge carton of coke, like a vat of coke,
and it just he just jumped in her seat and
the coke went all over her. And he said, I
just he said that he remembered her sitting there shouldn't
leave to clean herself up. She just sat there covered
(39:45):
in sticky coke for the remainder of the film because
she was so transfixed by what was going on screen
and a lot of those stories. As much as I
love talking to people about working on War of the
World or something Tom Cruise movie.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Oh you don't mean the ice Cube movie.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
I was partly responsible. I think it's fair to say
for promoting the Room with the Tommy Wizou movie. Tim
and Eric, the comedians, are friends of mine, and I
once spent a delightful day rafting in La with is
it rafting in big rubber tires with Tim and Eric
(40:24):
and my friends. And so the first time ever met
Tim and Eric, they were sitting on these massive tires
blowing them up at a gas station, which just seemed
like such a Tim and Eric image, really, although they
were just delightful and normal people. And then Eric was
going to see the Room that night, and he invited
me and my friends along, and he wouldn't tell us
(40:45):
anything about it, and we went to the Sunset five.
I think we're a bit late. When Sunset five Olliwood
Boulevard wherever it is, that's a strap and went in
I've never even heard of this film, but I'm knowing
a hacked theater was two hundred people throwing plastic spoons screen.
I like, what the hell is this? So then I
convinced Entertainment Weekly, against possibly their best judgment, that they
(41:09):
should devote like six pages to this film that was
terrible and no one had ever heard of. Because of
my experience Human Centipede correspondent, I then became Entertainment Weekly's
The Room correspondent, and that proved to have even longer
legs than the even longer legs and the Human Centerpede
because ultimately they made The Disaster Artist. So that was
(41:31):
like a full decade of talking about so bad it's
good movies and in particularly The Room. So it's got
a bit burned out on it, really. So I haven't
gotten around to see The ice Cube starring War of
the World as yet.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
I doubt that they're going to have a full theatrical
presentation where people I don't know throw computer monitors. I
don't know what they would do.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, maybe no, I don't know. I also think there
is a bit of me. Maybe I'm just getting soft
to my old age, but I just keep on thinking
I did make this drink, oh Ben.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Like though now in twenty twenty five, it feels like
a whole different era. Well, Clark, thank you so much
for your time it. I was so nice talking with you.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Mike. It's an absent. I'm going to write another book
just so that we can get to talk again. That's
my promise slash threat to you.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
We can talk when you're not writing a book. It's
really okay.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Thank you so much for having me on. I'm a
huge fan of the projection booth and you're doing God's
work with it, and it's such an honor to come
on and talk about my own sort of humble movie.
Speaker 5 (42:31):
History screez.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
About the long starting school invent scree screaming soon that
(43:29):
I'll go the ship to looked up a little time.
(43:50):
See sech a cow you work outday a ste so
(44:47):
so st
Oh he is, folks, it show die.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
When they go out to a theater, they want clothed, sodas,
hot popcorn in no monsters.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
In the Projection Booth, everyone for tend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Got it off?
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of The Projection Booth.
I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, it is
the return of Clark Collis. He wrote You've got read
on You all about the making of Shawn of the Dead.
Now he's back with a incredibly ambitious book called Screaming
and Conjuring, The Resurrection and Unstoppable Rise of the Modern Horror.
(01:00):
It is a trip through the horror genre for the
last say twenty five years, that sweet spot between when
Scream came out and then the Conjuring movie started, and
a whole lot more. It is a just wild ride
that he takes you on. Goes before Scream, of course,
and goes after the Conjuring movies, and talks about a
(01:22):
whole lot of stuff that as you hear this interview,
your mind will just start racing with all of the
other titles that came out during that wonderful time. Thank
you so much for listening. Definitely pick up Screaming and
Conjuring and I hope you enjoy this interview. Clark Collis,
thank you so much for coming back on the show.
I always appreciate talking with you. I had such a
fun time talking about You've got read on you and
(01:45):
am super excited to talk about Screaming and Conjuring. So
when I saw the title of the book, wasn't exactly
share what it was about, but I kind of had
an inkling how did you approach this topic and what
inspired this book.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
So it is a book that is essentially a history
of the modern horror movie, which starts with Scream in
nineteen ninety six and ends with The Conjuring in twenty thirteen,
although there is an epilogue that sort of canters through
the last ten years, which proved to be a pretty
(02:21):
busy ten years. I just felt it was a period
of time in horror that hadn't really been covered before
in this particular way. I look at essentially the different
waves of horror that arrived during that time. So obviously
following Scream, you had a lot of horror teen slashes essentially,
(02:45):
and then that was followed by both the short lived
craze for j horror and the rather longer lived crazes
for remaking every horror movie ever made, and also what
became known as the torture porn sort of period. Plus
(03:06):
you had the French extreme, you had influences from abroad.
From abroad, essentially the book is very US and to
some degree UK focus, but primarily US. And then that
also led to this started the sort of supernatural, both
(03:28):
fan footage, the enthusiasm for fan footage movies and for
supernatural horror, which began with paranormal activity and then insidious
and then ultimately the conjuring. And I think there had
been books about the screen franchise, for example, and torture
porn and Jay horror, and I just thought it would
be interesting to me certainly, and hopefully the readers weave
(03:52):
together a tale. I could see the story in my mind,
the way that one wave or one batch of filmmakers
inspired the next sort of positive legal negatively, So you
have scream inspiring all the team slashers. But then you know,
(04:12):
after two or three years of that, you had the
onslaught of as I said, quote unquote, torture porn movies,
which to some degree was the reaction to that Rob Zombie,
and he was like, I was never going to make
a Screamer, I Know what you did last Summer, or
an Urban Legends. It was always going to be My
influences were always going to be from the seventies, essentially.
(04:36):
Then he went on to make House one Thousand Corpses
and The Devil's Reject, so that was in my mind. Originally.
I pitched my wonderful publisher, Matthew at nineteen eighty four Publishing,
doing a book that kind of described the creation of
ten or so franchises from the period, because studying it
was Scream in nineteen ninety six. You do have this
(04:57):
new wave of franchises because the previous franchises of the eighties,
Your Halloween's and your A Night We're in Elm Streets
had run out of gas a bit by the mid
nineties and then were replaced by Scream, I Know what
you did last Summer saw obviously hostel and then leading
(05:21):
into paranormal activity and insidious and the conjuring. So I
suggested picking ten franchises and looking at that, Matthew made
the student observation that's all well and good, but if
somebody doesn't, for example, the Saw movies, and that's the
whole chapter that just gonna skip. So maybe it would
be best to make it a little bit more palatable
(05:44):
to those people too, to weave the weave all the
stories together, which which I think he was one hundred
percent rider, and I'm happy with the way that it
turned out.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I'm surprised you survived writing a book like this because
it just seems to continue to go down the rabbit
hole every single page I turn or flip through virtually
these days. But it was just amazing to have you
talking about screaming. Then you kind of dip back into like, well,
here's more about Wes Craven, and here's more about John Carpenter.
(06:14):
Here's more about Slashers, and just build and build and build,
and just take me through this. And you are such
a good host to take me through this entire journey.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
The tension was I wanted it to be comprehensive, but
I also didn't want to basically just be a list
of movies. I do not tell the story of every
horror movie during this period, but I do have a
stab at telling the stories behind the most popular, the
most influential, and on occasion just stories that used me
(06:48):
to tell. Like I didn't intend to devote a section
to the film Dracula two thousand, of which I had
no memory whatsoever, to be honest with you, even though
it was quite a popular film. But then I interviewed
and interviewed the lovely and very talented Patrick Lacier, who
was Weds Craven's long time editor but also directed a
(07:08):
bunch of films, including it was the second film actually,
Dracula two thousand, and he related the story of how
in I guess February two thousand Bob Weinstein, and Bob
Weinstein said, Okay, I want you to make a punk
call Dracula the two thousand. This is Bob Weinstein, obviously
the brother of Harvey Weinstein and also the head of
(07:29):
Dimension Films. He said, I want you to would you
be interested in making punk call Dracula two thousands in February,
but it has to be out by December of that year,
so he had nine months to do it, and even films,
films are made within a nine month period, but it's
usually means that at the start of that nine month
(07:51):
period they at least have a script or some notion
of what this film is going to be about. And
even then it's a hell of a race. And Patrick
walked me through that experience, and then I was like,
I've got all this of material. It's a fascinating story.
And even though you know, I think it's not a film,
a lot of people remember, I kind of want to
stick that in. The funny ending to that story is
(08:11):
that Bob Weinstein was obsessed to the idea that it
had to come out in two thousand because it was
called Dracula two thousand. But it being two thousand is
not really essential to the film. It's not like all
that many people saying Dracula is alive in the year
two thousand and that doesn't really happen all that much.
And so in foreign territories it was actually released in
(08:33):
two thousand and one, and in those territories it was
retitled Dracula two thousand and one, which seemed like a
very easy fix. To be honest with you.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I was surprised at just how many people you talked
to for this. When do you have any account of
how many interviews you had to do for this?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I interviewed about fifty people specifically for this book. I
spent eighteen years as a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly magazine,
and during that period, because it was a period where
we really started going online, I had the opportunity to
interview all sorts of people about all sorts of horror
folks about their films, and so some of it was
(09:14):
old material. The strange thing was sometimes I'd be like, Ah,
I wish I'd spoken to such and such about this film,
and then I would just do a search of my
documents on my computer and realize that I had indeed
spoken to such and such about that film. Everyone in
Entertainment Weekly was speaking to a lot of people. During
the two thousands, I did about fifty reviews specifically for
(09:37):
the book, and then I have no idea, probably included
quotes from fifty more people that I'd interviewed before. And then, frankly,
I was in London and I went to the BFI,
the British Film Institute, and they've got a wonderful library
and they have two rows of band Fangoria magazines. So
(10:00):
I spent two months at the BFI London going through
every issue of Fangoria from that period. And it really
I've always loved fangoria, but I have to say, boy,
like they really covered horror. I mean they and continue
to do. But like I would like, there are so
(10:20):
many films that, like I say, people might not remember
that they would have devoted a story to the production,
then another article and a different issue maybe to the effects.
And yeah, that was a glory, that was a pretty
that was a pretty fun couple of months. But it
took a long time to crank through seventeen years worth
(10:42):
of what was then like it was like every single month.
I like the writing process, so I like interviewing people
and writing. And I think some people, if they decided
to write this kind of history, would be like I'm
going to get all the DVDs and I'm going to
spend three months watching the DVDs. And I certainly did
spend a lot of time watching the DVDs, but like
(11:02):
to get on with it. Having said which, if people
who are active horror fans during the two thousands or
any kind of film fans will be aware that if
you get those DVDs, like often there's two or three
or four commentaries, like an Eli Ross film might have
seven different commentaries and that's another Again, I'm not suggesting
(11:24):
that's hard labor, but like the Hostile DVD are like
Happened Fever DVD, I'm you know, sitting down and listening
to all of that because even though I interviewed Eli, like,
you never know what kind of little factoid is going
to spring up during the commentary. And also those people's
memories now are a lot hazier than have gotten hazy
(11:47):
over time. So it's fantastic to get to listen to
commentaries that were made when the blood on the fake
corpses are still wet. Pretty much, this book is about
four uder and fifty pages long, and it literally couldn't
be any longer because you need to physically bind this thing,
although I did. After I finished it, I realized the
Barber Streuisen's autobiography was nine hundred pages, and I did
(12:08):
almost call up my publisher and be like, wait, why
did this thing have to be like and got only
four hundred and fifty pages because it's been longer. So
I'd interviewed like Greg Nicotero, who is this who I
interviewed before, but he's mostly known I guess as a
special makeup effects wizard. He co founded K and B
(12:28):
his craigs all the way back to Evil Dead two,
and then over time he's become like a second unit director.
He's one of the main creative forces behind The Walking Dead,
which is probably now what he is most famous for,
but he's worked on pretty much like he's worked on
dozens of horror movies. And so I interviewed him, and
I spoke to him about the ten most prominent horror
(12:51):
films from the era that he worked for worked on
from The Mess to Jennifer's Body to Drag Me to
Hell to and so I'd interview him and then I'd
get up the next morning and transcribe the interview, and
it's not the best, but I always think it's like
when a sailor puts a net into the sea and
then pulls it in and then you see what fish
(13:14):
you've got, And that's what I mean. People A lot
of people use transcribing services, but I like to transcribe
myself because you're like, this is what I got. Because
when you're interviewing somebody, especially if you're interviewing someone about
lots of different movies, you're not always really taking in
what they're saying. Necessarily, or you need to be a
better interviewer than I am to do that. You're thinking,
(13:35):
what's the next question going to be? What's the next
film going to be? Because there's always a time issue,
And so I would get all these great quotes safe
from Greg Nicaturio and they would then I would go
into the text and just add them with that really,
and then so this would happen day after day with
different interviewees, and I wasn't really that worried about how
big the book was getting until I woke up one
(13:57):
day and realized that it was like eighty thousand words
longer than it could be, really, that it physically could be,
and to those who don't know, like eighty thousand words
is like two hundred pages basically, So I had to
Then I was extricker because the time was grinding on,
the deadline was getting close, and this thing was now
(14:19):
like a book more than it should be, really, and
so then I had to go in. And I'm pretty
good at cutting my own work. I usually find that
if I leave something for a week and go back
to it, that I'm like, what is half of this
nonsense You've written like a week ago? So that was
fine in the end, but yeah, that was something. But
it's good when you've all it's good when you've got
(14:41):
too much material. And I always think that perhaps if
you boil something down, as I had to do, from
two hundred and fifty thousand words to one hundred and
fifty thousand words, then hopefully people, even though it's not there,
people can still sense that the half that was there,
the sort of that you still get on the like
a physical feeling of hopefully well made or at least
(15:04):
extremely sturdy antique desk or something.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Were there any movies that were new to you while
you were putting this together?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
There were some like I've never been a fan of
very extreme horror, or rather I don't really mind very
extreme horror. I guess what I don't really like is
films that I'm not even sure horror movies yet are
very extreme. And I had never seen Lars von Trier's Antichrist,
for instance, which I guess is technical horror. And I
(15:35):
should say that I like what a lot of Las
van von Trier's filmography did a wonderful I've saw a
wonderful two season show set in a hospital in like
the maddest hospital that ever existed called The Kingdom, and
I remember going to a cinema and watching all of
the second season in one day. But I've never seen
(15:56):
Anti Christ because I think I read reviews was aware
that it was a bit of a tough watch, and
I watched it, and it's artistic certainly, but I was like, Oh,
this is no fun and I'm glad that I hadn't
seen it before. There was stuff that I felt that
I probably wouldn't be writing about at length, but I
(16:17):
felt I needed to check out to sort of make
sure that I shouldn't be writing about like or to
understand its position in the context of horror. And I
mentioned I did mention Anti Christ and a couple of
other extreme horror movies, but then did a section on
The Human Centerpede, which in its own way is equally
grotesque as Antichrist, but it's very much more of a
(16:39):
traditional horror movie. And there was an odd period of
time and Entertainment Weekly when I was one of my
jobs was basically being the Human Centerpede correspondent because it
was something of a theatrical success, but what really became
popular was the idea of stitching people together and so
it was referenced on thirty Rock and The Colberg Show
(17:02):
and all of these TV shows. And I had like
lunch with Tom six, the director and the cast of
Human Center bed two at very nice steak restaurant in Midtown.
So I had all this stuff on the Human Centipede,
which I thought was of interest. And yeah, there's definitely
(17:22):
some sort of smaller movements of the era where I'm like,
these are the three or four films of importance, and
let's look particularly at this one movie.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Reading the book, it feels like you have seen everything,
so I was surprised that there were things that you
hadn't seen before.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah, there were one or two that I'd avoided, And
I think there's just stuff that I had seen and
then frankly could not remember anything about, which isn't necessarily
dis from that quality. But for example, Patrick Lucier, who
I was talking about earlier directing directly two thousand later
directed My Bloody Valentine's three D remake of My Bloody
(18:05):
Valentine that I definitely saw but didn't really have much
memory of, and so I rewatched that was this is
a lot of fun. This is a lot of fun.
It's interesting that. I think when you go to the cinema,
you always wanted to be the best film in the world,
and then when it's not, you're like, okay, that was
all right. But I think from a perspective of twenty years,
(18:27):
it's amazing how many films that I probably didn't regard
that highly at the time. I'm like, this is fun,
this is just flat out fun. If this turned up today,
then I would really enjoy it. What I thought what
happened is I would watch a lot of horror films
from the era and they just wouldn't have aged. And
(18:49):
certainly there's some if you go back, especially to the
early two thousands when it's that period of Maxim magazine
being very popular, the Manjdo and all of that stuff,
some language in some of the films which has an
aged necessarily well in terms of slurs and this and that.
But with regards apart from that, I was surprised how
(19:11):
many of those films still stand leve. I am afraid
to admit that I watched. I do not have a
big steps TV setup to you would think that I
have one of those theaters and big comfy armchair and
a in popcorn machine but not. I just watched everything
on the same old crappy computer that I'm speaking with
(19:33):
you on them. But I would put on like The Descent,
for instance, Neil Marshall's tale of sperlunkers who meet monsters
in an apple Eachian cave system. And I'm really hobbling
the film's chances of frightening me by watching it on
my tiny little computer. Another thing scary as hell in
(19:54):
any format, I have to say. And it's as scary
now really as it was twenty years ago. And again,
films were either as good as I remembered or had
improved in my mind through time.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Basically, it's always fascinating how the movies informed themselves versus
the outside factors of you know, world politics or policy
or you know, social movements, those kind of things. It's
always so interesting to see how that balance comes by,
and how sometimes films just completely miss when it comes
(20:27):
to where they should have been heading and where they
ended up going to. And just like this was not
very successful just because of times of change, but the
filmmakers didn't seem to realize that.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah. Again and again, it's like any sort of type
of industry, so many people would tell me that they
had trouble getting the film finance because it wasn't similar
to the film that two three days ago had just
opened at the box office. I interviewed Mike or Doherty,
(21:01):
who directed film Trick or Treat and then later went
on to direct one of the wildly successful Godzilla movies,
but Trick a Treat was his first. Who was his
directorial debut. Who's trying to get finance for it? And
for those han't seen it, it's got essentially a anthology
(21:21):
horror movie, but the stories are woven together. But you've
got were wolves and zombies and a serial killer, but
it's not like a teen serial killer thing. And he
was trying to sell this in two thousand and was
rapeatedly told no one gives a crap about like vampires
or were wolves or anything that you're talking about. All
(21:43):
people want teen slashers. And Michael was thinking to himself,
but they're not gonna want teen slashes by the time
we've made this film, because that'll be in two years time,
and by that point they'll have had six years of
teen slashes and people will no longer want to citizens,
which was absolutely proven correct. And again there are so
many stories. The book starts with a story told me
(22:08):
by Don Coscarelli, the writer director of Fantasm, created the
Phantasm franchise and later went on to direct Bubba Hotel
and John Dies at the end. But in the early
nineties was trying to get an adaptation of a Joe
Lansdale zombie Western off the ground, which you would actually think,
(22:30):
that's the fantastic mix of stuff. And he sent it
out the studios and all the he was like, even
New Line, which was like the sort of house of
horror at the time, send a note back saying, no
one will ever want to see a zombie movie basically.
So then he went back at I think I got
to him across there all references to zombies and just
(22:50):
put monster instead. But who's the same, Because, as you said,
it has to be the right time. Maybe if Don
had made a Zombie West in the nearly nineties, that
wouldn't have worked. But what I can tell you is
that ten years later, suddenly everybody's making zombie movies and
zombie zombie genre is not just the most popular horror
(23:13):
genre in the world, but it's one of the most
popular genres in the world. For ten or fifteen yearsn't
even up to today.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
It's amazing too to think of just how many of
these franchises that you talk about are still going. You know,
as we're talking, it's like, what two weeks after the
latest Conjuring film.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
I think it is.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
It's like they just they have had legs for decades now,
which is wild. I mean, even what Final Destination just
got a remake I think, or maybe it's a oh.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
That's I mean not see in Final Destination blood Lines.
That's one of the honest to god, that is my
favorite theatrical experience of the whole year. It is it
is absolutely what you want. If you haven't liked Final
Destination films, that's fine. Wouldn't advise you go to see it. No,
they absolutely do what you would want to do with
(24:06):
that with that franchise, bearing in mind it has been
away for a long time, and no, it's terrific. It's
absolutely terrific. I would say I saw it off for
a couple of drinks at a free press screening, but
people loved it. It was a general audience press screen
but it was a preview. I started writing this book
about two years ago, and pretty soon it was always
(24:27):
called Screaming and Conjuring, and then I came up with
the sort of subtitle which I still have to look
at the cover of the book to remind myself what
it is, but it's Screaming, Conjuring, the Resurrection and Unstoppable
Rise of the modern horror movie. But I did think,
like in the back of my head, was like, what
if it stops by the time this book comes out.
And there was a period about eighteen months ago, I
(24:49):
don't know if you were a call when there was
a clutch of movies, including like an Omen prequel and
the vampire movie Abigail that came out, and it was
a Sydney Sweeney supernatural movie, and they all underperformed. Now
because they're low budget, relatively low budget horror movies. None
of them were disasters, and I'm not saying they're bad.
(25:11):
Within about six weeks or so, three horror movies came out.
None of them was big hits, and people were like,
maybe this is the end of horror, and I'm like,
but sir, I'm writing a book about the unstoppable rise
of horror. Am I going to have to change the thing.
But then of course it comes to this year, and
it's Sinners, it's weapons, it's the Conjuring, Last Rite, Spinal
(25:35):
Destination Bloodlines twenty eight years later, which I mean was
me only a medium size hit, but people were very
much all for it, and yeah, I couldn't. As it
turns out, fortuitously, it couldn't have worked out better for me.
I will say, people still either underrate or take for
(25:56):
granted the box office success of a right. It is
interesting to me that the last Conjuring movie came out
and made four hundred and fifty million dollars pretty much
around the world, and just went and mentioned people were like, oh, yeah,
what do you expect. I'm like, what do you expect?
(26:17):
That's the eleventh Conjuring movie and relatively quick succession. Many
people would expect it not to make almost half a
billion dollars, And now people I loved one battle after another,
and I understand why people are wringing their hands over
the whether it's going to be a box office head
or not, of what that means for original material and
(26:38):
so on and so forth. And I'm like, could we
just spend another sentence talking about how this Conjuring movie
made half a billion dollars? But I'm not saying. I'm
not saying we should just make horror sequels all the time.
Far from it, although that's what people are doing, but
it's still taken for granted. I think one of the
(26:58):
reasons now that people can make one battle after another
is because of the money that horror makes. The two
things people go and see a horror and then rejigged
versions of hids IP from fifteen years ago. Essentially it
seems to be the oh, what's like car of the
name they keep on making, like How to Train Your
Dragon and so on.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah, the Disney Live Action remakes and that whole movement
that's been going on.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Who did your cover art? The cover art was done
by the lovely and hugely talented Gary pull In aka
Gaulish Gary. If you google him you can see a
fantastic amount of fantastic artwork. He specializes in horror related
sort of posters and whatnot. He's recently done the covers
(27:47):
of a lot of Stephen King paperback reissues and it
was difficult to come up with a suitable image. It
wasn't difficult for me because I didn't have to do it,
but I know that my publisher Matthew and Gary myself
set around and had a meeting, and the problem is
that it's you want something that says horror, but we
(28:07):
didn't really want to say what kind of horror, necessarily
because it's a book that covers slashes and zombies and
vampires and virus movies and everything. So if you've ever
been to a marketing meeting or any kind of meeting
of this sort, then you know that comes a point
where someone's, yeah, but we want it to be cool.
(28:27):
Whatever it is, this soapbox, all people to know that
it's got detergent in it, but cool. And if you've
ever been one of those meetings, you're like, what are
you talking about? What does that possibly mean? But when
we were having the meeting, was Gary I heard myself say, yeah,
it's horror but cool, and inwardly I shrank in shame.
(28:48):
But I think he managed to fulfill this stupid and
extremely brief wonderfully. Yeah. Yeah, what are you working on
these days? I'm working on another book about a single film,
but it's not It hasn't been announced and hasn't been
announced to the people who made the film yet, so
(29:08):
I'm not really sure. I'm at liberty to say too
much about it, really, but I'm really enjoying I'm really
enjoying researching it. It is fun writing these books where
we were also embedding screaming the films within the context
of what was going on like at the time as well,
(29:29):
and how that impacted the way that the films were
made and then released, And going back to Screaming and conjuring,
there is a lot of stuff about nine to eleven
and then just some degree the financial collapse, and then
ultimately in the apologue Covid. I should know I've made
it sound like a terrible book to read. These are
(29:51):
quite lightly a touched upon, but there's no doubt that
the movies at the time a specifically horror movies reflective
of the times which they made because they can reference
things that are going on in the current day without
being necessarily a huge plot point. If people have seen Grindhouse,
for instance, in the Planet Terror section, there's these soldiers
(30:14):
come back from war and they bring a disease with
them and they just mentioned that they've just killed the
Samba bin Laden in a cave or whatever. I'm not
making I'm not been tried about the subject matter as
Robert Rodriguez said, the great thing about exploitation movies is
you can rewrite the script as you go along to
incorporate what's happening in the in the present day.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
And was very glad that you had that context around
these films and saw that influence. I mean, I'm just thinking, now,
you know the Megan films and Companion and these types
of films, and how they're really kind of tapping into
the fears over AI, and it's much easier to have
a personification of AI rather than that Johnny Depp movie
with the what was that called man?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I couldn't remember the name of the time, but it's
the directory. It's the first time, I believe the last
film directed by Christopher Nolan's longtime cinematographer, Transcendence. Transcendence. There
you go. I always think you shouldn't name a film.
I just don't think you should name a film more
anything a word that people can't spell and don't know
what it means. I just think it makes people properly
(31:22):
else people like, hey, do you want to go to movies?
What's on? And they look and be like, I'm not
going to say transcendence out loud. You know what I mean,
We'll go and see something else that's stead my theory. Yeah,
there was one theory that I read that I wanted
to include in the book and then didn't. But I
was reading a book about I think there's a whole
(31:43):
book abou essays about Blumhouse, and there is a theory
that I don't necessarily subscribe to, but that the wave
of movies about ghosts in houses so your insidious is
and your parent normal activity were partly inspired by the
financial crash because they made houses and homes such a
(32:08):
stress point and sort of the struggle to keep your
house and to by extensions cinematically defeat the ghost which
is hanging around in your house. It made that sort
of even more of a worry for people than it
was before. You can overconnect these things, and I wasn't
entirely sure about that. Well, I will say when people
(32:29):
may remember the drag Me, when draged me the house,
so those of these things happen accidentally, and when Dragged
Me the hell came out, which is a film which
was kicked off is kicked off by the lead character
not giving a loan to the antagonist essentially, who is
a Ramani an older Romani lady, and so the older
(32:52):
Romani lady loses her house and then curses the lead actress.
And when that premiered, it can in I'm going to say,
to thousand and eight or nine. They got a lot
of questions about it was written up as like the
first film of the sort of financial crash era, but
in fact, Sammaraimi, who directed and co wrote the film
(33:12):
with his brother, it was actually like a twenty year
old script that they dug up. They had started working
on Her twenty years previously. But then sometimes the film
just meets the moment. Saul was written long before the
start of the Iraq War, and yet that is a
film that very very much again seemed reflective of the
(33:39):
state of politics and diplomacy, geopolitics, and then I think
was partly embraced by people because they were becoming familiar
with things awfulness on the news. That's a cherry thought
for you.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Your enthusiasm for the material comes through in the writing,
and it just makes me so excited to read about
these films, even though we frankly, yeah, there are certain
of these franchises where I'm just like e not really
for me, like The Saw movies, But I really enjoyed
reading your writing about them and going back to the
housing crisis. I mean, I actually really agree with that,
(34:13):
and especially films like I mean even you know, Viberium,
or even that Poultergeist remake, where it just feels like
we have a home. We have to do what we
can to protect the home, not just as the family unit,
but as a financial investment. We don't want this investment
to be screwed up.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
No, I think you're right now. I've been navigating to
which I put it in the book. Of course, with Bavarian,
what they want to do is get out of the
damn house rather than staying there. But I understand that
it's still a source of stress. I'm a big fan
of the Stare franchise. I think it's a miracle what
they pulled off with that. But if you're making eight
movies or whatever it was, seven movies in seven years,
(34:54):
they're not every decision you're going to make is going
to be correct. I tell you, the thing that I'm
most fascinated about with these franchises is they got locked
into this idea that there was a big hit that
was franchisable, then they should make the second one the
following year, like they should only allow year to pass
(35:15):
because they wanted to they wanted to cash in. And
this was particularly true with the Saw franchise. But often
the people that made the first film are like, yeah,
good luck with that, and we're going to go off
and do something else that James One, who directed the
first Saw movie, did not make a Saw two, and
the director of the first Paranormal Activity movie did not
make the second one. So again, going back to our
(35:36):
story of Dracular two thousand, once again, they've got less
than a year to make this movie. I find that
race to do that and just incredibly interesting to research
and write about it. It's almost like the second movie
those franchises is almost more of a story than the first.
Right now, there's so much riding on it. Yeah, so
(35:57):
many people have so much riding on it. It was
an idea with Paranormal Activity too. Jason Blummer had an
idea that they should give ten different filmmakers a very
small amount of money. I comeber those ten. I think
they should spend a million dollars, giving ten different filmmakers
one hundred grand each and just released the best one,
(36:19):
which I would have loved that to have happened, but
cool I had prevailed and wise I had or maybe
less less wise heads prevailed and they did it in
a more traditional fashion.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
It sounds like that Van Trier film, what was it
The Nine Challenges or oh.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
That's a great movie, that is an a. I think
about that film quite a lot. The horror movies that
I mean, there was that sort of meme or whatever
a couple of years ago that men spend I don't
know what it is thirty seven points in the day
think about the Roman Empire, but like, horror films are
definitely my Roman Empire. I think about the Alien movies
quite a lot, especially now we've had the TV show
(36:57):
and that's what I wanted to in the bars.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
It's amazing. The Alien franchise has been with me for
almost my entire life. You know, that came out when
I was pretty young, and still with me today as
a relatively old man. I'm just like, wow, I can't
believe that this thing still has legs after all these years.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
The first Alien movie is definitely one of the reasons
I'm interested in horror as it is, as was the
case for so many people that I interviewed in my book.
But I remember when I was about I don't know, nine,
and we had a very eccentric music teacher who went
to see Alien and then decided to spend the next
music lesson telling us the entire plot of Alien from
(37:38):
beginning to end, and we're like, and I'm like ten
years old, and I'm like a GoGet this And then
I bought the novelization and eventually somehow got they must
have screened it on TV and got it on the
video and would freeze frame the alien coming out of
the egg and the chest burst the scene, And then
(38:00):
was old enough to go and see Aliens in the cinema,
which is one of my favorite cinematic experiences of all time.
I'm just now telling what I think some of the
best stories of my book. But I interviewed Thomas Jane
for my book, who is just a great guy and
has certainly an interview like he's eccentric, but like also
(38:21):
a great storyteller, so that's super And he was just
one of those guys. When I was choosing people to
interview for the book, it was often people who'd worked
on several horror films, because you fine, you do get that,
because it's just easier and then it's fun and they
can become a recurring character. And he had been in
(38:41):
he was in Deeply See, which I mentioned somewhat briefly,
and then DreamCatcher, which I talk about some lengths, and
then The Myths, which I also talk about some lengths.
But he was he just described as a kid being
taken to see Alien like. I think he grew up
in Chicago in one of the the big no Washington
(39:02):
I think it was Washington, DC, in one of these
sort of huge picture houses, and he went with his family.
He was like, we couldn't afford a babysitters, so my
parents would just drag their kids to wildly what would
now be regarded as wildly unsuitable films at a young age.
And he said, what do you remembers? Was this woman
sitting next close to them at the cinema when the
(39:23):
chest burst the scene happened. She was holding like like
a huge carton of coke, like a vat of coke,
and it just he just jumped in her seat and
the coke went all over her. And he said, I
just he said that he remembered her sitting there shouldn't
leave to clean herself up. She just sat there covered
(39:45):
in sticky coke for the remainder of the film because
she was so transfixed by what was going on screen
and a lot of those stories. As much as I
love talking to people about working on War of the
World or something Tom Cruise movie.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Oh you don't mean the ice Cube movie.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
I was partly responsible. I think it's fair to say
for promoting the Room with the Tommy Wizou movie. Tim
and Eric, the comedians, are friends of mine, and I
once spent a delightful day rafting in La with is
it rafting in big rubber tires with Tim and Eric
(40:24):
and my friends. And so the first time ever met
Tim and Eric, they were sitting on these massive tires
blowing them up at a gas station, which just seemed
like such a Tim and Eric image, really, although they
were just delightful and normal people. And then Eric was
going to see the Room that night, and he invited
me and my friends along, and he wouldn't tell us
(40:45):
anything about it, and we went to the Sunset five.
I think we're a bit late. When Sunset five Olliwood
Boulevard wherever it is, that's a strap and went in
I've never even heard of this film, but I'm knowing
a hacked theater was two hundred people throwing plastic spoons screen.
I like, what the hell is this? So then I
convinced Entertainment Weekly, against possibly their best judgment, that they
(41:09):
should devote like six pages to this film that was
terrible and no one had ever heard of. Because of
my experience Human Centipede correspondent, I then became Entertainment Weekly's
The Room correspondent, and that proved to have even longer
legs than the even longer legs and the Human Centerpede
because ultimately they made The Disaster Artist. So that was
(41:31):
like a full decade of talking about so bad it's
good movies and in particularly The Room. So it's got
a bit burned out on it, really. So I haven't
gotten around to see The ice Cube starring War of
the World as yet.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
I doubt that they're going to have a full theatrical
presentation where people I don't know throw computer monitors. I
don't know what they would do.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, maybe no, I don't know. I also think there
is a bit of me. Maybe I'm just getting soft
to my old age, but I just keep on thinking
I did make this drink, oh Ben.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Like though now in twenty twenty five, it feels like
a whole different era. Well, Clark, thank you so much
for your time it. I was so nice talking with you.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Mike. It's an absent. I'm going to write another book
just so that we can get to talk again. That's
my promise slash threat to you.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
We can talk when you're not writing a book. It's
really okay.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Thank you so much for having me on. I'm a
huge fan of the projection booth and you're doing God's
work with it, and it's such an honor to come
on and talk about my own sort of humble movie.
Speaker 5 (42:31):
History screez.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
About the long starting school invent scree screaming soon that
(43:29):
I'll go the ship to looked up a little time.
(43:50):
See sech a cow you work outday a ste so
(44:47):
so st
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