July 6, 2017 • 60 mins
Once in a while a movie comes along that's so forward-thinking it changes the way that horror is done. A new subgenre is spawned, new tropes are established, and audiences are more terrified than ever.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's us Josh and Chuck, and we want
you to know we are coming somewhere near you. We're
sure if you live in North America this year, that's right,
We're going on tour, and uh, why don't we just
rattle through these dates? Okay? Uh? Toronto August eight at
the Day and Fourth Music Hall, Chicago August nine, the
next day at Harris Theater. Then we are taking some
(00:22):
time off to recover after that two day grind. We're
eating Vancouver the Vogue Theater September twenty six, followed by Minneapolis.
We're gonna be at the Pantageous Theater again on September
that is correct, yep. And then Austin Chuck on October
tenth of the Paramount Theater. Yes, and very special show
in Lawrence, Kansas at Liberty Hall on October eleven, yep.
(00:45):
And then we're gonna do a three night stand October
two at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn, New York. And then Chuck,
take it home. Uh, well take it home literally, because
we are finishing up November four right here in Atlanta
at the Bucket Theater and this is a very special
benefit show, uh, and all the proceeds will be going
to Lifeline Animal Project of Atlanta in the National Down
(01:09):
Syndrome Society YEP and for more information in Dubai tickets,
just go to s y s K live dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
(01:30):
Charles W. Chuck Bryant Towdy. Middle names Wayne middle name's Malcolm.
There we have I always forget about that. Malcolm. Yeah,
Wayne named if you're Wayne Coin right, Uh no, John Wayne,
and then you were named after Malcolm in the Middle.
That's right, right. Frankie Munis is my namesake. I hope
(01:56):
he's okay. Early Brian Kranston too. I used to love
that show. Oh it's a great show. I watched it,
um like within the last couple of months. I was
cleaning the house and put it on Netflix and still great. Yeah, yeah,
it's really is a good show. So you clean your house,
you put on your VR goggles and just cue up
(02:17):
Malcolm in the Middle. No, I just walk around and
bump into things and it's right exactly. But I put
on like a huge feather duster suit. Yeah, so you're
just cleaning and bumping into things. That's right, That's how
I do it. Yeah, it works kind of Well, someone's
gonna take that idea. Yeah, they like the shark Nado. Yeah,
(02:38):
but they should just they should sell that suit with
purple drink. I think you just get one spot on
the floor, really really clean. Uh, what are you gonna
title this one? By the way, because this was your pick,
and we title our own shows some horror films that
(02:59):
change the genre, all right, and you should add this
a k A. How could you guys forget blank? Yeah, yeah,
we should say like this. First of all, this is
a Grabster article. So it's Grabster's list, and he knows
what he's talking about. If you look at some of
the entries, some don't even have source tags. He's just like,
(03:20):
I just know, he just Grabster. But we even took
his list and carved some out and put some in.
So this is how about this? This is Josh and
Chuck's idea of some horror films that change the genre,
featuring the mind of the Grabster. Yes, in other words,
(03:41):
it is not a complete list of every horror film
that changed the genre. Yes, because I would argue that
well and actually I see grabs Her put Texas Chainsaw
Masker in there. He said that if this were a
top fifteen list, that would be in there. So would Alien. Yeah,
he has that Alien ring you and the U S
remake ring, and I would lobby for Well, Psycho didn't
(04:06):
make it onto his list, which but we're going to
put that in. And there was one more. Oh, even
though I didn't really think it was that great, the
movie Saw I think kind of changed horror films, and
that's this list is not best horror films, but things
that kind of changed the game. It seems like Saw
kind of kicked off that that torture porn, Yeah, didn't it.
(04:32):
I can't remember if it was that or Hostile one
of the two. It was definitely one of the two.
For a sub genre, well it's pretty accurate, actually it is.
But most of these are movies that either uh, we're
the first of its kind and maybe did start a
sub genre, or movies that were so popular that they just,
(04:54):
you know, kind of rewrote how people view horror movies.
Some of them because of marketing, some because they were
really good movies, some because of box office. But all
of these I don't think anyone could argue did not
change the genre. How about that? Yeah, I think that's
well put dude. Uh. And before we get started speaking
of horror, I want to give a plug to WHOA
(05:18):
my friend Toby's movie that's coming out. He's a producer
on a movie coming out called The Ghost Story. Yeah Toby. Uh.
When we met Toby, well you knew Toby before me,
of course, because he's your friend and I know him
through you, so really, but he was he was small
time doing short films and stuff. And since that time,
(05:41):
and this has been within the last like since we've
been doing this podcast, he's now big time. Yeah. They
did Pete Dragon yeah. Um, and then yeah they have
this this they did Ain't Them Bodies Saints was I
think the one that they kind of broke out with,
which I love that movie, and then this one. Um,
it definitely kind of falls into that same look and
(06:01):
mood and feel. What It's called The Ghost Story, and
I think it comes out in July, and I think
it's labeled a drama rather than horror or even supernatural
or thriller. Um. But the reason I tie it into
horrors because A four is releasing it, and A four
is killing it with horror movies lately. Yeah, that's a
(06:23):
good Uh, that's good outfit. They did The Witch, they
did The Black Coat's Daughter. Have you seen that? Uh No,
it's on Amazon Prime. It's on Amazon Prime right now, dude.
It's one of the best four movies I've seen in
a while. I think The Witch is probably my favorite
right now. Black Coat Stater is a close second. And
(06:44):
then last night I saw it Comes at Night in
the theater and it Comes at Night actually upset my
stomach the ending? Did it was? It was that rough? Yeah,
I think we're we're we're at a place with horror
movies that we haven't been in a long time, like
(07:04):
a really genuine yeah, like the whole torture porn sort
of era is over and the found footage thing is
so played. But I think we like with movies like
the which I think we've really like, there's some really
creative uh it follows. Did you see that one? Yeah,
Like some just really creative ways of bringing scares that
(07:26):
I haven't seen before. Get Out. That was amazing, Man,
I still haven't seen it. You're gonna love it, and
I'm I'm envious of you. It's really it's great movie. Na. Well,
I don't get to the movies much anymore, and the
only time I could was a couple of weeks ago
and I elected to see Wonder Woman. Yeah. Not so
long way of saying congratulations to Toby and his new film, Well,
(07:49):
it's funny. We also need to congratulate Toby too, because
Toby just got married. Toby and Nell are now married.
Sols to them as well. So this is this new
movie with his uh directing partner David Lowry Yeah yeah,
and Rooney Mara. Yeah, they definitely do. So it's gonna
be good. I'm looking forward to it. Okay, so let's
(08:12):
get started. Thanks for indulging that. Thank you everybody. So
the first, the first movie on our list is what's
widely considered the first horror movie, and it's a nine
movie out of Germany that um basically was the first
film that undertook what's the artistic movement known as German
(08:33):
expressionism called the Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Yeah, I mean
some say, like you said, it was the first horror movie.
Some say it was the first cult film. Um it uh, well,
just you may not be able to get to the
whole thing if you're not into silent movies, but you
should queue up a little bit of it and watch
(08:55):
a little bit of it because it's hugely impactful. Um
and still to this day like very disconcerting to look
at because of it how um ominous and weird it looked,
just physically looked. Yeah. Like the sets that they built
are obviously um constructive manufactured. They were not in any
(09:19):
way shape or for him going for realism. They were
going for surrealism for sure. And so like the staircases
are at crazy weird curves and angles and um like
everything from the house, the houses rooftops to the blades
of grass are super pointy and sharp, and and the
shadows that they employed were just perfect. You've never seen
(09:41):
a better use of shadows than this. They didn't get
in the way, They just created this mood. And it
was the first movie to really kind of do that,
to just take to use the camera for something other
than capturing realism. Uh, and it it it for that reason,
it's considered the first horror movie because that that's such
a standard part of horror, whether large like in a
(10:05):
large part like in a Tim Burton movie, or in
small part you know where you're Um, you're using small
spaces to create claustrophobia. The idea of using the set
to mess with the viewers mind I think was born
in Dr Caligary's cabinet. Yeah, it's almost like they they
took a child and gave them construction paper and said
(10:26):
cut out scary things. Uh. And then like like that
movie The Baba Duke, I think the actual book within
The Baba Duke was hugely inspired by this. Uh, the
actual movie itself. Um. The plot is about a side
show operator, a hypnotist who um has a patient that
he takes around into the side shows with sleep disorders.
(10:48):
Supposedly he's been asleep his entire life, and he uses
this patient to commit murder. Right, he's like a sleepwalker, Yeah,
a somnambulist. So that in itself is a pretty frightening plot.
And to think about that being cooked up in nineteen
twenty when there weren't really not such things that you
think of as horror movies is pretty impressive. Um. And
(11:10):
then some of the deeper critiques I've seen of it
was like the the explanation for why the filmmakers chose
like these weird odd angles to kind of depict insanity
or that kind of thing. Um was rooted in World
War One. The horrors of World War One had just
been seen and revealed and recently taken place, and it
(11:33):
upended Europe in general, and especially Germany as well. Um,
And that the idea is that they might not have
had this idea, They might not have had this desire,
this drive to create this, this weird set and in fact,
this weird movie had World War One not happened. Yeah,
(11:53):
this there's this writer Jeff Saparrito, who um kind of
put it this way about German expressionism because I wasn't
exactly sure how to define it, but you're kind of
right on the money, he said. Germany was largely isolated
from the rest of the world following World War One,
so expressionism therefore became confined to the country. Refers to
a number of creative movements from World War One through
(12:13):
the nineteen twenties. Expressionist works examined the current in future
state of the culture through bold and artistic creations of creativity,
and often explore topics of madness, betrayal, and other intellectual concepts.
And nothing encapsulates these ideas more than the cabinet of
Dr Call. That's basically what I said. Yeah, you did
(12:35):
you read that or were you just uh that I
don't know that that one or not. It sounded kind
of familiar. Yeah, not to say you came up with it.
Um so the the the idea of the set just
creating like a creepy tone and texture to everything. Um
that was Dr Calgary. That's how it changed the genre. Yeah,
(12:57):
Tim Burton say thank you. Yeah, have you seen Coraline? No?
But I know it. It's ah. They did that to
a very good effect. You know. I think Hodgeman does
a voice in that, doesn't he does, He does the dad.
He did a spectacular job because you actually forget it's
Hodgment while you're watching it. That's impossible. Alright, Chuck, Moving on,
that was We're gonna fast forward all the way to
(13:20):
what nineteen sixty nineteen sixty three. If you're talking about
Blood Feast, Well I wasn't, but let's uh. Cybern Simon
Abraham's of Roger Ebert dot Com says, this Blood Feast
is a terrible film and a historically important one too.
And I think that's sort of the deal with blood Feast.
(13:41):
It is not good by any accounts. Did you watch
any of it? Yeah, sure it's not good. No, it's
not good. It's terrible. It was written on a basis
on a fourteen page outline, didn't even have a script.
It's got the same could cloying technicolor of like an
early Hawaii five episode directed by Herschel Gordon Lewis and
(14:04):
producer David F. Friedman, And basically the idea was the
ce S guys did not see films as art. They
saw them as a business and thought you were foolish
if you thought it was anything else. So they sat
around they brainstormed movies that they thought no one else
would make. Yeah, because they started out making like Porky's
esque type movies and they were they were doing fine
(14:26):
with that, but apparently they were successful enough with it
that they started to be imitators and the market was crowded,
so they said, where can we go make movies that
no one else is gonna make? Yeah, because we want
to shock people, essentially, So a couple of ideas they
had that did not make the list was Conman Evangelists
and Nazi torture, which which were later made exactly, and
(14:51):
they finally said, you know what no one's really done
yet is hardcore gore yea, like everyone always cuts away
when the knife come and you're like, what if we
showed the grossest glorious stuff imaginable on screen? Yeah, And
even still they didn't show so like one of the
first murder a woman stabbed through the eye and then
(15:14):
the murderer hacked their legs off of the machete, and
they didn't show the knife penetrate the eye. They didn't
show the machete making contact with the skin. But what
they did in blood Feasts and what made blood Feast
the first of its kind, was they would show the
what came after that. They would show the brains on
the ground, They would show the entrails like on the knife. Um.
(15:37):
They would show the leg being you know, that had
been dismembered, being put into a bag, and like the
wound that was left by like that that. This was
no one had ever done anything like that on film before. No,
And it paid off. They depending on who you ask,
the budget was uh, anywhere from like twenty to thirty grand,
(16:00):
and it made between seven and thirty million dollars, Like
I said, depending on where you get your info. But
by all accounts it was a huge financial success compared
to what they paid to make it. Yeah, and they
shot it in six days or something done in Miami. Um,
based on a fourteen page outline. There wasn't even a script.
(16:22):
It as an alline, and basically it was like, murderer
goes and kills this girl, next girl, murderer comes in
and kills girl, cuts off leg, that kind of thing, right, Yeah,
I mean, if it matters the movies about serial killer caterer, Yeah,
that's it. There's your plot right there. Um. But the
the it was just such a revolutionary movie that the
(16:44):
sensors at the time there wasn't such a thing as
the m p a A hadn't been formed yet, um,
And there was basically no one except for local censors
overseeing movies. So you know, you you could be playing
in one town um all audiences, and then the next
town over it could be banned. But the sensors had
never seen anything like it, and they didn't know what
(17:06):
to do with it. So it was hugely successful commercially too. Yeah.
And another big impact it had was it inspired a
generation of special effects. But basically, UM, let's be honest,
young boys who were doing this on their own Super
eight films, right, and said, wait, uh, I can get
a job doing this. Yeah. So Tom Savini I think
(17:31):
was inspired by it, wasn't he? Or was he inspired by? Yeah?
I think he was inspired by Blood Feast um. And
then we should also give a mention of the Graham
Gun y'all. Is that how you think it's pronounced Grand
Guen y'all? It was a theater in Paris, I believe,
from the late nineteenth century onto I think nineteen sixty two,
(17:52):
so the year before Blood Feast came out had closed up.
But it used to do this stuff on stage. It
was like a gore fest um. And there was lots
of like blood and sex and and like depraved themes
in the plays that were put on at this theater.
People loved it. They were crazy for it, um. And
(18:15):
this was kind of like the Grand Gun y'all tradition
put onto film for the first time and who read
for that? You want to take a break, Yeah, let's
do it, all right, Charles, we're back, So n sixty
(18:53):
or nineteen sixty eight. I've got nineteen sixty eight in
front of my face. Uh, and that could be no
other movie the Night of the Living Dead classic George
Romero film. Romero was a TV director, making TV commercials.
Commercial director. Rather, he was also making sure films for Mr.
(19:14):
Rogers neighborhood at the time. Yeah, and he was he
was young. Yeah, I don't I don't know how old
he was, but he was pretty young guys still. I
think when he made Shot and that in the Living Dead,
he was like twenty six or twenty seven, so uh yeah,
but any standard, that's still pretty young unless you're three.
(19:34):
So he'm he had um. He and his buddies were like,
let's make a horror movie, but let's not make a
stupid horror movie. Let's make on with like an actual
plot that explores like deep themes too, like a good movie.
Let's let's make the first good horror movie. Well yeah, so,
and we'll delve into that a little more. But that
that was definitely a different thing at the time. And
(19:56):
the other different thing was that all the horror movies
up to that point, Uh, they were called the Universal
monsters from Universal Studios, you know, all the kind of
the classic Frankenstein and Dracula and Creature from the Black
Lagoon and the Werewolf, and that was where that was
mainstream horror. And George Romero comes along and says, um,
(20:18):
how about zombies? And everyone said, what in the world's
a zombie? And he said, well, let me define that
for every future generation of movie and TV goers. And yeah,
and there have been zombie movies before, but they had
been things like like Dr Caligari's Cabinet, somebody who was
under the control of something someone else or something like that,
(20:40):
there was a hypnotist or this was like the first
time what we think of as zombies, wherever introduced like
flesh eating ghoules who were dead and I come back
to life, just what you think of as a zombie.
This guy started that genre, like you said. Yeah. They
(21:01):
shot it outside and in Pittsburgh on about hundred and
fifteen thousand dollar budget, ended up grossing twelve million domestic,
not bad, and I think close to twenty worldwide. And
um was eventually selected by the Library of Congress for
preservation in the National Film Registry. It's a good movie.
It's a very good movie. He shot in black and
(21:23):
white to save on cost, even though color was the
standard by that point, and black and white is also
a little more forgiving for rudimentary special effects. And one
of the revolutionary things he did was, uh, cast a
black actor as the lead and for no other reason
than hey, this guy Dwayne Jones is really good, exactly right. Like,
(21:45):
he didn't go back and go, oh, well, you know
our our heroes black, so we need to make the
whole thing of meditation on race and have him confront racism.
It was just we're here's the script, and then the
guy playing the lead just happens to be right, and
he was the best guy in the auditions. And you know,
in eight this didn't really happen. You didn't just cast
(22:07):
a black guy as a lead actor for no with
no like ulterior motive, basically right. So I read this
review from the from the time from nineteen sixty nine,
the year after it came out. Young Roger Ebert went
and watched it and he wrote, um a pretty pretty
interesting review, which is basically it was about the reaction
(22:29):
of the audience. And he went to a Saturday matinee
that was populated almost entirely by ten eleven year old
and they were used to seeing the creature from the
Black Lagoon. For Frankenstein or um, you know, just just
movies that any kid could handle and could enjoy watching,
(22:50):
and you know, fun, scary kind of stuff. And he said,
that's how that that was how the crowd reacted for
the first half of the movie. But then about the
point where and here's here comes spoilers. Everybody, if you
haven't seen Nither Living Dead, just hit yourself in the
knee with a hammer. Um you the the teenage couple
(23:13):
go to get gas and when their car blows up
and his engulfs in flames, they die. They're burned to death.
He said. Right about that time, the tone, the mood
of the theater changed and there was no like gleeful
screaming anymore. Kids were starting to like not move and
we're afraid to like move in their seats, and some
works quietly crying to themselves. And from that the whole,
(23:36):
the whole point on, it just got worse and worse
for these little kids watching this movie. So it was
a huge impact on horror movies a it uh, Like
you said earlier, it was kind of the first one
to really sort of delve into other issues like if
if you look up, like significance of Neither the Living
dead or um meaning of neither living dead, or something
(23:58):
like that. There score of articles that have been written
over the years of how it was a metaphor for
the Vietnam War, or an allegory about distrust of authority
or the collapse of traditional family. And I think Romero said, like,
I didn't necessarily mean all these things, but you can
certainly find it in the movie. That is art. Like,
(24:18):
one of the great revelations of my adult life is
that the artist, the writer, the songwriter, the um, the
author rarely intends to imbue as much meaning into their
work as people take from it. That that's part of
art as interpretation in that neat like you don't if
(24:41):
you're a writer, if you're a young writer right now,
who's just sitting there racking your brain for how to
insert metaphor and meaning into this, just write your story
and people are going to find it for themselves. Agreed.
I wish somebody had told me that. When I was younger,
I had teachers that said stuff like that. Oh I did,
like good college professors in English that would when students
(25:04):
would argue like I think he means this, he would say, like,
you know, he may or she may not have meant anything, right,
that's the revelation I had teachers that would just go wrong. Uh.
The other thing about Night Living Dead as it spawned, um,
obviously the zombie genre and uh sequels Dawn of the Dead,
Day of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead, the
(25:26):
Walking Dead remakes shout out, shout out, Stephen Youne, Yeah right,
why not? I'm still into the Walking Dead. You Yeah,
we talked about this. Yes, yes, gay Steven Youne listens anyway,
Zombies are I think still hot and we can so hot.
(25:49):
We we owe that all to Mr Romero, master of
the genre. Yep. Took one more thing too, that that
Night a Living Dead did that they weren't the first,
but very famously Romero did was kill off his hero
senselessly and shockingly. Yeah at the end, good point, thanks man. Okay,
so let's move on. Like I said, yes, stay after Christmas.
(26:15):
If you've ever been uh in Washington, d C. At
the end of M Street, you might have noticed very
uh during the daytime, ordinary set of stairs. At nighttime,
maybe they look creepy to you because those are the
Exorcist stairs. Yeah. I'm trying to conjure the music in
my head but all I'm coming up with is the
(26:35):
Unsolved Mysteries music. It was quite right, so close, but
it's not it. I'm so unsatisfied right now. So the
Exorcist was based on a book by William Peter Bladdie
who wrote this uh in V one and then in
seventy three the movie was made. Uh. And there's I
think I referenced not too long ago a great Mark
(26:57):
Mayrin interview with UM William Friedkin. He talks about the
audition process for Linda Blair. So you should go listen
to that because it was pretty insightful. But, um, the
Exorcist really kind of changed the game, UM, and that
it was a it spawned a bit of a sub
genre of UM demonic movies. Sure I were like religious based, yeah,
(27:23):
even though I guess Rosemary's Baby was before that. But
the Exorcist was such a mega hit and it was
nominated for Best Picture, the first horror movie to be
nominated UM for for that, and so it was just
like it was a big deal. It was. It sold
six million tickets in about two months. Yeah, it's amazing.
(27:44):
This is a horror movie, right, and it came out
in nowhere. UM apparently The effect it had on audiences
was extremely pronounced. There was a woman in Boston who
had to be carried from the theater and she goes
it cost me four dollars, but I only lasted twenty minutes.
So we're like that's the stories of that got around
(28:06):
and and people wanted to see you know, this movie
can't be that scary, and they went and they were like,
oh my god, that movie is that scary. Yeah, and
it holds up too. I mean, um, special effects are
they'd never quite hold up. But it's still a very
creepy movie. Um. Very Famously, Linda Blair played the little
girl who was possessed by a demon, and uh, the
(28:30):
the heavy hitters were called in the two exercises Demon,
including um a Max van Seedl who was only forty
four when he played this guy in his easily in
his seventies. Yeah is he Benjamin Button? Well know they
made him up. Wow, they did a great job. Yeah,
which I don't see why they felt the need to
(28:53):
do that, I know they God, who else did they
almost cast? Oh? Brando? They almost cast Brando, but that
would have been a colossal mistake. Well, Freedkin said, you know,
as soon as you do that it's a Marlin Brando movie. Yeah,
and I think he'said picture a Brando picture. Sure, that's
what they said. Uh. And he wanted to be a
Brando picture. He wanted to be the Exorcist. Um. So
(29:14):
the you said it was based on a book from
two years before by William Peter Bladdie. He apparently was
known as a comedy writer and he wanted to do
something different. He said, Hey, wouldn't it be funny if
the little girl's head spun around and she keeped green bile?
And wait, what do you hear? What I ever do
with the crucifix? Hey? So? Um. He actually wrote the
(29:36):
book because he wanted to scare America back to church.
That was his aim with the book. He he believed
that there was real evil going on the world, that
part of it was because of a a loss of
faith or a loss of religion, I guess. And that's
what he wanted to do with it. Um. And when
the movie came out there was a huge pushback from
(29:59):
religious a thor He's like Billy Graham said, he believed
the movie itself was possessed by a demon. I'm not
sure how that would happen. But that was like a
huge thing at the time. UM and a lot of
a lot of other um religious establishment types were like,
don't go see that movie. It's evil. But there were
some who who were part of part of religion, major
(30:23):
organized religion, who kind of saw through it and said, no, no,
this is it's good that we're talking about this, that
there we're telling people, you know, or people are seeing
that there there's such a thing as like good versus
evil literally combating on earth, you know, and people are
talking about this and thinking about it. And so in
that sense, the Exorcist like really kinda went to bat
(30:44):
for organized religion. I saw another um criticism of it though,
that that said, one of the themes of the movie
that the book hadn't really intended, but the movie picked
up on and expounded on was intergenerational conflict. That that
it was Reagan the child represented the younger generation who
(31:06):
was at war with the establishment, and that it even
goes um so far as to where her mother, the
actress the movie that she's working on is about campus
takeover by young radicals, So that that's kind of a
theme that was apparently part of the subtext, but was
a major part of it in the movie at least interesting. Yeah.
(31:28):
I thought so too, because apparently, I mean you think
of intergenerational conflict now, Apparently in the late sixties and
early seventies it was sharper than it probably ever has
been before or since. Yeah. Mm hmm. The only other
thing I got is that the uh, the green stuff
that she projectiles was Anderson's p soup and a little
(31:50):
bit of oatmeal texture Anderson's PC of Well, bet you
can't give that anymore, Chuck, Let's do Jaws and then
we'll take a break. I love talk about Jaws. Yeah,
I mean Jaws is on. You know, I did my
top favorite movies list at one point on our website,
and I listed Jaws is my favorite movie favorite of
all time. Yeah, I mean that list changes, but it's
(32:13):
Jaws is always in my top five. I can watch
it anytime it's on. Uh. It is one of the
i've a I've often said it's a perfect movie. Um,
And what I mean by that is there's just not
a misstep. Like, the casting was perfect, the acting was great,
the script was great. It played out just perfectly throughout
(32:35):
the film. Um. He like Spielberg was just a master
storyteller with that movie. You were talking about how young
George Romero was in Night of Living Dead. Spielberg was
twenty six when he made Jaws. He was thirteen years old.
He uh, and he was apparently scared to death when
he finished filming. The schedule had been for fifty five days,
(32:58):
It went to a hundred and fift nine. Yeah, he
had I think been allotted four million dollars. He ended
up spending twelve million on it. Um. Yeah, largely because
a shooting on water is notoriously difficult and be the
shark mechanical shark they used was legendarily um wonky and
(33:21):
how it are not wonky but wonky wonky. It didn't work.
It rarely worked. So they spent a lot of time
and burnt a lot of hours trying to get this
shark to do its thing, and uh so much so
that it didn't even make that many appearances in the movie.
I think they even kind of scaled it back and
then ended up being better for the movie because you
(33:43):
didn't get as much shark. I looked up the um
the urban legend about the shark being named after Spielberg's
lawyer Bruce and apparently it's true. Really, Yeah, Bruce Rener
was the name of Spielberg's lawyer, and the that was
the nickname for the mechanical shark on the set was Bru.
That's pretty funny. So with Jaws, right, we're talking about
(34:05):
horror movies that changed the genre. Jaws not only changed
the horror genre, it changed movie making to this day
and in multiple ways, multiple massive ways. It changed the
entire film industry almost single handedly. Yeah, it was at
the time, there was a there was no such thing.
(34:28):
You take it for granted now, but there was no
such thing as a quote unquote summer release. No, a
lot of theaters closed down because a C wasn't in
every theater and people didn't want to sit around in
a hot movie theater for two hours. Yeah, a summer
release or a tent pole film or a blockbuster feature
like Jaws was the first one of all those. At
(34:52):
the time, when Jaws came out, they used to um
release a movie on maybe one two screens and say
New York or l A for a week, and they
didn't make its way to you know, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Chicago
for a few weeks and then eventually make it to
your small Town six eight weeks later. That was how
(35:13):
movies were released, not Jaws. Jaws was released on four
hundred and thirty five screens across the country, which is huge,
which is part of the part of the UM Summer
blockbuster release playbook now. Yeah, and it was also the
first movie to to spend lots and lots of money
on marketing UM. And so I think the studios were like,
(35:34):
wait a minute, if you spend some dough on marketing,
you released this sing wide. You can make a ton
of money in the first month that a movie's out,
and you're kind of set, like after that, it's anything
else's gravy. Yeah, and that's after the first week or
two probably, Yeah, it was. Yeah, the whole the whole
point of blockbuster now is to get that opening weekend,
(35:56):
to make all your money back in the opening weekend,
and then everything else is gravy on top of it. Right,
Jaws was it didn't make it. I don't know. Maybe
it did make its money back in the first weekend
because it hit a hundred million dollars in like seventy
eight days or something incredible like that. Because it was
the first movie too had a hundred million dollars, and
it did it in just a couple of months even. Yeah,
(36:18):
it eventually went on to make about two hundred and
sixty million dollars domestically, which is I mean, that's a
great take now, yeah, you know, much less the mid
nineteen seventies for a twelve million dollars spend, for sure.
My only beef here is that I would not consider
Jaws a horror movie. Yeah. I think it's an adventure film. Yeah,
(36:39):
I guess you're right, with a scary antagonist. Yeah, but um,
it's amazing how much I quote that movie in my
day today life. Yeah, just just just Shark. That's a
great that's a classic. All right, let's take a break.
I'm gonna meditate on that line, and we'll talk about
(36:59):
a few other scary movies, including one that was originally
titled scary movie. Okay, moving on to Halloween. Halloween Chuck eight,
(37:35):
I believe Halloween. Yes, John Carpenter, uh, the youngish John
Carpenter who originally titled this movie The Babysitter Murders No
Little on the Nose. Yeah, pretty terrifying title, I guess.
Young Jamie Lee Curtis, her very first movie was it really. Yeah. Well,
(37:57):
she went on to become known as the scream Queen
for all the horror movies she was in total and
this was shot in twenty days and uh South Pasadena
as the Midwest and um it's credited as being birthing
the slasher genre. Yeah it did. So there were slasher
(38:18):
films before the Town that Dreaded Sundown. It was like
based on a true crime story actually in Transas, one
called Black Christmas the Grabster sites from enour haven't heard
of that one. But the idea of um of a
faceless almost a like nonentity entity coming at you, uh
(38:42):
and relentlessly stalking you, being impervious to harm, as the
Webster puts it, um, and just coming at you again
and again trying to kill you. That that was. That
was all established by Halloween and it was done like
too too great effect as well. Yeah, and it holds up.
It's still scary. Uh. Michael Myers of course was the killer. Um.
(39:06):
The music that John Carpenter score, I mean he he
scores most of his movies himself, but very iconic, uh,
basic thing. I think he only took a couple of
days to come up with it. But like the Michael
Myers character and the mask or so iconic the music
is so iconic. Do you know about the mask, right, Schattner, Yeah, yeah,
(39:27):
go ahead. I went and check that one out too
to verify that it was true. And it definitely is
true that Michael Myers mask is actually a Captain Kirk
star Trek mask painted white. That is history. Yep. The
in the in the script when it came to the mask,
it just said pale, neutral features of a man. Yeah,
(39:50):
which makes the whole thing even creepier because he's implacid
or is that the right word. I don't know, He's
just it's just almost like a just an emotionless killer.
It made the fact that he was merciless, ruthless, pitiless,
and and all arbitrarily killing people almost all the more
(40:11):
pronounced because his expression never changes. Well, to me, the
two things that were creepies about Halloween was the expression
never changed because of that mask. And he did not run,
like oh yeah, he would just walk, and you still
got the feeling like you can't outrun this guy even
though he's walking. That was another creepy part about it.
It follows with the walking aspect of it, sure. Yeah.
(40:36):
In the same way that like twenty eight days Later
was freaky and that it took zombies and made him run. Yeah.
Or I remember when I saw Friday I'm sorry, uh
Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time, and Freddy
Krueger was running around. I was like, that's not what
scary dudes do. Yes, scary dudes don't try. No, they
walk very creepily towards you and still somehow gained speed
(40:58):
on you even though you're running for speed. Freddy scared
me to death the first time I saw that movie. Yeah,
the first one was pretty good one, but Halloween established this,
like you said, it established the slasher genre, and everything
about slasher films still today all rooted in Halloween John
Carpenter's tropes. Yeah, and again, like you said, there were
a couple of other slasher films before, but none of
(41:21):
them gross close to fifty million bucks. Wow, is that
how much Halloween made? Yeah, forty seven million domestic at
about a three hundred thousand dollar budget. So it uh,
you know this sort of like with the Exorcists, Like
there were other movies that sort of did this thing before,
but when you have a huge hit that does it
is when it sort of redefines the genre because it's money. Yeah,
(41:43):
that's all. Everyone starts paying attention after that. All right,
what's next? What's next? My friend? Is a movie that
came out when I don't know, were you still in college? Uh? No,
you must have just been out then I was out
a few years. Okay, well we're are. Let's around our
college era. This movie came out, because up to this point,
(42:03):
everything's come out either when we were little or before
we were born. This one was right in our wheelhouse.
It was The Blair Witch Project, which came out. Yeah,
and uh. One of the big things that um Blair
Witch Project did well two things. Really, it established the
found footage genre or subgenre that is so overplayed now,
(42:25):
uh in the viral marketing campaign. And that's how I
came upon it. I remember very specifically being in the
apartment of Scotta Polito, who you know, he shot our
TV show, one of my oldest friends, and I was
sitting in his apartment on Claremont Avenue Indicator and I
happened upon this. And this was pre Facebook. I don't
even know how I found it, you know, before things
(42:46):
were being shared around and I happened upon this website,
the very first Blair Witch Project website, and I was like, dude,
come over here and check this out. This is the
scariest thing I've ever seen. And I remember the website
set it up as if it was real, and that
this found footage thing, it's so overdone now it's hard
(43:07):
to go back in time and remember when it was fresh.
But I remember looking at and being like, did this happen?
Did they really find this footage of this murder in
the woods? To see this? That was the rumor that
this was actually real, man. And this is, like you said,
I mean, this is before the found footage genres. So
people were being exposed to this concept for the first time,
(43:29):
and we're kind of falling for it. I mean, you're
either in college or you're just recently out of college,
so you're maybe slightly more guldbal than you are ten
years ready to believe it. You want to believe, right,
So yeah, the idea that this was actual found footage
it just made it all the more enjoyable and people
were buying into it. And I think the other part
(43:49):
of it too, was that the filmmakers, partly because they
didn't have the budget for actual effects left a lot
of the scariest parts to your iagination. Yeah, nor did
they have the talent to make a good narrative film,
because I mean they worked on a sixty four page script,
which I was surprised that it was that that big.
(44:11):
But they shot it for eight days and originally they
were going to make it like a documentary about the
found footage, and then one of them had a flash
of of perspective. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait,
let's just release it like it's found footage. And that
was that. The rest was history. Yeah, and I'm poking fun.
That was not very nice at all. Um Eduardo Sanchez
(44:33):
and Daniel Myrick or Merrick, the co directors, they they
should be credited with the truly ingenious uh campaign and
invention that Well, they weren't the first to come up
with found footage, right, there were some films before. Um.
I've never known how to pronounce it. Mondo Kane, Ormando Kane.
I think, Connie. It's from nineteen sixty two and it
(44:56):
was supposedly a documentary about um like some like weird
tribal rituals. I think there's head shrinking maybe involved, and
it purported to be like real footage. Same with Cannibal Holocaust. Man,
if you've never seen Campbell Holocaust, go out and watch
it right now. It's very disturbing. Um. And it's so
(45:18):
disturbing that the director of the movie was charged with
murder because they believed that the actual murders depicted they
were so realistic. They thought that it was a snuff
film basically, but it was supposed to be a documentary
as well, so there was an idea of like found
footage or documentary style horror movies that had come before,
(45:40):
but nothing like The Blair Witch where it was just
straight up these people. We found their their old camera
and this is what was on it. Well, and they
were smart enough to kind of dig up an old
thing that never went huge, you know, and they're like, hey, man,
like these other movies, they never really hit it big,
and they it was a timing thing. They they I mean,
(46:01):
hats off for them to them, Yeah, good for them,
and to them nice going alright to scream, yeah scream.
I tease that it was originally titled scary movie. I'm
glad it wasn't, because scary movie is awesome. Scary movie
ever would have been called maybe it would have never
(46:22):
been made, or maybe they would have called that Scream.
Oh yeah, I guess so. So Scream was a very
big deal when it came out. The writer Kevin Williamson um,
and this is still the highest growing slasher film of
all time, basically scream Way. It was huge. I got
Nev Campbell's haircut as a result of it. Like it
was a big, big pop culture water mark. It was.
(46:42):
And one of the big things about it, aside from
the boatloads of money that it made, was it spawned
a sub genre called meta horror, which is um even
though it had been done by no less than its
own director Wes Craven with Wes Craven's New Mare Uh
two years before Scream, it wasn't nearly as popular. But
(47:04):
met a horror is this idea. And if you've ever
seen Scream, you know they're constantly just referencing horror movies
like this is where you know, you don't go out
and make out in the car because that's where you
get killed. And then they would do that and get killed,
although I don't think that specific thing happened, like don't
go back into the house. Yeah, like all the tropes
of horror movies are addressed in the movie, and they're
(47:25):
talking about them as the horror movie tropes. Yes, yeah, exactly, horror. Yeah.
And there are plenty of other things that came along
met he met a horror UM examples like have you
seen Tucker and Dale Versus Evil? Uh No, check it out, man,
that's a good movie. Um. Zombie Land to see that
(47:48):
where he's rattling off all of the things that you
need to notice survive a zombie apocalypse that he learned
from zombie movies, right. And then Cabin in the Woods.
Did you see that? One? Great movie? It was a
great movie. It was really good. I mean from beginning
to end, it was a great movie. Did you like Scream? Yeah?
I love Scream. I like all the Screams. I only
(48:08):
saw the first two. The second one I think might
have been even better than the first. And that the
second was shot Emily worked on that it was shot
here in at Agnes Scott College. Part if we go
back and watch it knowing that now, I'll be like, oh,
I've driven past that place. Uh So I got a
(48:30):
few tidbits, like I said. Initial title of scary movie
UM number two, The Weinstein Brothers initially offered it to
George Romero and Sam Ramy, um, what else do I
have here? Drew Barrymore was originally supposed to play Sydney,
the lead character, and then she said, no, how about
if I just play that girl at the beginning, which
(48:51):
kind of was a big thing because you see Drew
Marry Barrymore, And it was a big shock when she
died in the first scene, right, you know you can't
kill off your heroine right away. Yeah, I mean, like
I remember, I remember that first scene really really scaring
me when I saw it the first time in the theater. Yeah,
it is. It's a scary, gruesome gory. Yeah, very well played. Uh.
(49:15):
And then before he went to um Nev Campbell, he
went out to Alicia Witz, Brittney Murphy and Reese Witherspoon
and then Campbell your christ choice. Uh. And then the mask,
the iconic screen mask apparently wasn't off the shelf mask. Wow,
that made that company's money. Yeah, And the wine scenes
(49:36):
didn't like it. They were like, I hate that mask.
Everything else is fine, huh. But west Craven said, no,
it's got to be that mask would be stupid. Bob,
all Right, we're gonna finish up with our own addition
here finally X yes it Psycho. I can't believe this
wasn't in the list. I think Ed kept this off
(50:01):
the list to toy with somebody he doesn't like specifically.
That's the only explanation. Yeah, because Psycho changed everything. Yeah,
it really did. I mean it was the you could
say that it was one of the first slasher flicks.
It was a early psychological thriller. Um. It was based
(50:23):
on the real life story of Ed Geen. I mean
it doesn't exactly mirror a Gaen's life, but the idea
of um being obsessed with your mother so much that
you will commit murder uh is definitely rooted in a
Gaen story. Um. If you're not familiar with ed Geen,
he not only he was I don't even know if
(50:44):
he was a serial killer. I think he only I
think he murdered one, maybe two people, But more than anything,
he was a grave robber. But he likes to um
dress up in people's skin, women's skin and pretend he
was his own mother. Which may that's a lot of
years on the couch working that one out. Yeah, or
you can just die at the hands of Cops one
(51:05):
of the two. Um. And he also inspired leather Face
from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Yeah, and and Buffalo Bill of course.
Oh yeah, yeah, Sounds of the Lambs. Yeah, one guy
inspired all those, all those guys. So I found this
article Psycho colon the horror Movie that Changed the Genre
by Owen Glieberman or is it Gliberman think he wrote
(51:30):
for a legendary critic, wrote for e W for years
and years and now rights for a variety. Oh he does, yeah,
but he uh he put it best. He said, Um, well,
you know, the iconic shower scene, first of all, is
hugely important because it was Hitchcock really kind of ripped
up the script, not literally, but the horror movie's script
(51:52):
when he kills off Janet Lee halfway through the movie.
It was you just didn't do that at the time.
We can out of nowhere, and we've seen come up
later on like at the end of Nither Living Dead
or Drew Barrymore and scream. His Cock was the first
one to do that. Yeah, And uh, Glieberman puts it
this way. He said he was also slicing through years, decades, centuries,
(52:14):
even of audience expectation that the hero or heroine of
a fictional work would be shielded and protected or would
at least die, usually the end in a way that
made some sort of moral dramatic sense. Uh. In Psycho,
the murder made no sense at all, right, And he
really kind of hits it on the head there. It
was like, if you've never seen Psycho or heard of it,
(52:35):
the movie is just going along about this woman who
likes steals some money from a work and she's kind
of on the lamb and checks into this hotel, and
you don't even know it's a horror movie. You're thinking
it's a a movie about a lady who steals money
and is trying to get away from getting caught, right,
and then just out of nowhere, she's hacked up in
a shower and at the time, audiences and still if
(52:59):
you haven't seen it, it's shocking. The audiences were just
like they didn't know what they'd seen, right exactly, So
you're not not only is is the hero no longer safe?
That means maybe you're not either. So it has it
had a really huge unsettling effect. And then Owen Glieberman
points out that Hitchcock was so smart that he even
(53:22):
he he even made a nod to the the type
of pat expected horror that the audience was used to.
In the house that he used for Psycho, the Bates House.
It was this huge, rambling Victorian mansion on a hill.
There's lots of taxidermy, and it was like over over
(53:43):
decorated and just creepy. But up to that point, like
that was horror. That was what a horror movie looked
like and felt like. And this was this was kind
of Hitchcock's homage to that. But at the same time
he was also putting the heel of his shoe on
it as well. Yeah, in that house was I mean
almost a character in itself. Like if you've ever seen
(54:03):
the recreation of it at in in Los Angeles, I
think it's a universal Did you see it? Oh yeah,
I never did. The closest I came was I think
when different Strokes went there. That's the closest you got
to it. Yeah. Uh yeah. Man, if you've ever seen
the thing in person, like it's it sends a chill
up your back just seeing this thing in like a
(54:24):
sunny Los Angeles day. Still, it's such an iconic house,
It's like, oh man, uh there it is. That's where
Norman Bates lives. He's the most disturbed human of all time. Right.
So in the movie, of course, there was the mother
character who is sort of reference throughout the movie. And
it is not until the end that you realize that
(54:46):
there is no mother. Mother is dead. There's just Norman
Bates and all his rage and hang ups. So all
the monster movies about giant ants and or the creatures
from a black lagoon, monsters things they were and other
that a normal person had to do battle with that
was gone. Now the monster had been on screen the
(55:06):
whole time, and you had noticed it. And now what
do you think about your neighbor who has seemed a
little weird from time to time before? Could he be
a murderer who thinks he's his mother? Who knows? This
is what Hitchcock did everybody back in nineteen sixty and
you almost get like, I think, Owen Gliberman points it out. Yeah,
he does. At the beginning, he basically says like, um,
(55:30):
we probably didn't see Psycho. If you're reading this, you're
probably too young to have seen Psycho in nineteen sixty
and we should all feel sad that we didn't because
it's so changed everything. We can't do anything but take
it for granted now. And everything that's come since then
has been trying to regain that shock and horror that
(55:51):
it instilled in audiences, and and thus far no one's
actually been able to do it. Yeah, and the other thing,
I remember when I saw it when I was younger.
I think I saw this when I was like fourteen ish, um,
And I think it had this impact on just about everyone.
I don't think I took a shower for a month.
I was straight up bathtub curtain open, doors, open, windows open,
(56:15):
making your mom watch, she's keeping watch. You know that
would have been full circle back to Yeah, you didn't
even want to have anything to do with your mom. No. Man,
Like it changed the shower curtain industry for a while
after that. Yeah, very good movie. And um, there were
a couple of Hitchcock movies in the last few years, uh,
(56:37):
two different ones, one with Anthony Hopkins and one with
Toby Jones that were both really good, and one was
about the years that he was making Psycho. The other
was about the years when he was making The Birds.
And they were both really really good movies, and you
should check those out two. You should repeat that. We
just got a interjection from Nol, So go ahead and
(56:58):
say it again, Josh, in case it didn't come through.
So Nol just said that. Um. The director of The
Black Coats Daughter is Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates
in Psycho's Son. Wow. He also did another movie now
that Noel says that. Thanks Noel. Um. It's called The
Pretty Little Thing That Lives in the House, which is
another horror movie, a ghost story that was his first one,
(57:22):
and I think that might be on Netflix. It's great.
It's a really great movie too. Man. This has got
me fired up to see some horror movies. It's a
renaissance of horror. Yeah. It's tough though, because Emily doesn't
really dig it, so I have to just find a
loane time to do that to watch in the bathroom.
All right. Well, if you want to know more about
horror movies, go watch horror movies. Go forth. Uh, and
(57:46):
I don't know what we missed, for God's sake. Yeah,
if you want to check out the Grabsters list, type
in horror movies on the search bar at House of
Works dot com and will bring up this fine, fine
list that you will disagree with and um, since I
said disagree, time for listener mail. Uh. This from Eric,
and I'm gonna call it what he called it, a
Schoolhouse Rock nostalgia theory. Alright, I think he's pretty right
(58:09):
on this just came in. Actually, there's a hot take,
hey guys in Schoolhouse Rock. So Josh made the statement
that gen xers are most nostalgic generation and attributed to
this success of Schoolhouse Rock. I'm going to offer my
own theory. I propose that gen X is nostalgic mostly
for pop culture because of the prolifer that word of
child targeted advertisements and marketing in the seventies and eighties.
(58:33):
Certainly something we talked about. Theories got like while our
little impressionable brains were developing, we're being taught by those
who are steering pop culture to long for and find
fulfillment and the toys and other products our cartoons were
pushing on us. Now, as adults, those messages are still
deep in our psyche. We can't shake the idea that
we still really need those Star Wars action figures to
be happy, not because the toys and the shows were
(58:54):
so great, because we had been tricked into believing we
need them. I have nothing scientific about this up, just
a hunch yet. What you mean there hasn't been a
study from m I t alright on Star Wars toys.
I'm kind of surprised by that as well. I thought
you were being facetious at first, and yeah, I don't
(59:15):
know which ways up at this point. Yeah, nothing scientific
to back this up, but I'd love to hear what
you all think. See if anyone out there is any
respectable and informed input. Eric, that is from Eric Lewin
and Erica. I think that's super valid. Yeah, I do too, Eric.
I think you've really hit upon something here, and that's
all I have to say about it. If you have
(59:37):
a great theory, fan theory, real life theory, whatever, we
want to hear them there, especially if it's interesting. You
can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast
or Josh M Clark. You can post it on Facebook
at Charles W. Chuck Bryant or Stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email. The Stuff podcast to
how Stuff Works dot com and has always joined us
at home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com.
(01:00:03):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff works dot com,
Hey, everybody, it's us Josh and Chuck, and we want
you to know we are coming somewhere near you. We're
sure if you live in North America this year, that's right,
We're going on tour, and uh, why don't we just
rattle through these dates? Okay? Uh? Toronto August eight at
the Day and Fourth Music Hall, Chicago August nine, the
next day at Harris Theater. Then we are taking some
(00:22):
time off to recover after that two day grind. We're
eating Vancouver the Vogue Theater September twenty six, followed by Minneapolis.
We're gonna be at the Pantageous Theater again on September
that is correct, yep. And then Austin Chuck on October
tenth of the Paramount Theater. Yes, and very special show
in Lawrence, Kansas at Liberty Hall on October eleven, yep.
(00:45):
And then we're gonna do a three night stand October
two at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn, New York. And then Chuck,
take it home. Uh, well take it home literally, because
we are finishing up November four right here in Atlanta
at the Bucket Theater and this is a very special
benefit show, uh, and all the proceeds will be going
to Lifeline Animal Project of Atlanta in the National Down
(01:09):
Syndrome Society YEP and for more information in Dubai tickets,
just go to s y s K live dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
(01:30):
Charles W. Chuck Bryant Towdy. Middle names Wayne middle name's Malcolm.
There we have I always forget about that. Malcolm. Yeah,
Wayne named if you're Wayne Coin right, Uh no, John Wayne,
and then you were named after Malcolm in the Middle.
That's right, right. Frankie Munis is my namesake. I hope
(01:56):
he's okay. Early Brian Kranston too. I used to love
that show. Oh it's a great show. I watched it,
um like within the last couple of months. I was
cleaning the house and put it on Netflix and still great. Yeah, yeah,
it's really is a good show. So you clean your house,
you put on your VR goggles and just cue up
(02:17):
Malcolm in the Middle. No, I just walk around and
bump into things and it's right exactly. But I put
on like a huge feather duster suit. Yeah, so you're
just cleaning and bumping into things. That's right, That's how
I do it. Yeah, it works kind of Well, someone's
gonna take that idea. Yeah, they like the shark Nado. Yeah,
(02:38):
but they should just they should sell that suit with
purple drink. I think you just get one spot on
the floor, really really clean. Uh, what are you gonna
title this one? By the way, because this was your pick,
and we title our own shows some horror films that
(02:59):
change the genre, all right, and you should add this
a k A. How could you guys forget blank? Yeah, yeah,
we should say like this. First of all, this is
a Grabster article. So it's Grabster's list, and he knows
what he's talking about. If you look at some of
the entries, some don't even have source tags. He's just like,
(03:20):
I just know, he just Grabster. But we even took
his list and carved some out and put some in.
So this is how about this? This is Josh and
Chuck's idea of some horror films that change the genre,
featuring the mind of the Grabster. Yes, in other words,
(03:41):
it is not a complete list of every horror film
that changed the genre. Yes, because I would argue that
well and actually I see grabs Her put Texas Chainsaw
Masker in there. He said that if this were a
top fifteen list, that would be in there. So would Alien. Yeah,
he has that Alien ring you and the U S
remake ring, and I would lobby for Well, Psycho didn't
(04:06):
make it onto his list, which but we're going to
put that in. And there was one more. Oh, even
though I didn't really think it was that great, the
movie Saw I think kind of changed horror films, and
that's this list is not best horror films, but things
that kind of changed the game. It seems like Saw
kind of kicked off that that torture porn, Yeah, didn't it.
(04:32):
I can't remember if it was that or Hostile one
of the two. It was definitely one of the two.
For a sub genre, well it's pretty accurate, actually it is.
But most of these are movies that either uh, we're
the first of its kind and maybe did start a
sub genre, or movies that were so popular that they just,
(04:54):
you know, kind of rewrote how people view horror movies.
Some of them because of marketing, some because they were
really good movies, some because of box office. But all
of these I don't think anyone could argue did not
change the genre. How about that? Yeah, I think that's
well put dude. Uh. And before we get started speaking
of horror, I want to give a plug to WHOA
(05:18):
my friend Toby's movie that's coming out. He's a producer
on a movie coming out called The Ghost Story. Yeah Toby. Uh.
When we met Toby, well you knew Toby before me,
of course, because he's your friend and I know him
through you, so really, but he was he was small
time doing short films and stuff. And since that time,
(05:41):
and this has been within the last like since we've
been doing this podcast, he's now big time. Yeah. They
did Pete Dragon yeah. Um, and then yeah they have
this this they did Ain't Them Bodies Saints was I
think the one that they kind of broke out with,
which I love that movie, and then this one. Um,
it definitely kind of falls into that same look and
(06:01):
mood and feel. What It's called The Ghost Story, and
I think it comes out in July, and I think
it's labeled a drama rather than horror or even supernatural
or thriller. Um. But the reason I tie it into
horrors because A four is releasing it, and A four
is killing it with horror movies lately. Yeah, that's a
(06:23):
good Uh, that's good outfit. They did The Witch, they
did The Black Coat's Daughter. Have you seen that? Uh No,
it's on Amazon Prime. It's on Amazon Prime right now, dude.
It's one of the best four movies I've seen in
a while. I think The Witch is probably my favorite
right now. Black Coat Stater is a close second. And
(06:44):
then last night I saw it Comes at Night in
the theater and it Comes at Night actually upset my
stomach the ending? Did it was? It was that rough? Yeah,
I think we're we're we're at a place with horror
movies that we haven't been in a long time, like
(07:04):
a really genuine yeah, like the whole torture porn sort
of era is over and the found footage thing is
so played. But I think we like with movies like
the which I think we've really like, there's some really
creative uh it follows. Did you see that one? Yeah,
Like some just really creative ways of bringing scares that
(07:26):
I haven't seen before. Get Out. That was amazing, Man,
I still haven't seen it. You're gonna love it, and
I'm I'm envious of you. It's really it's great movie. Na. Well,
I don't get to the movies much anymore, and the
only time I could was a couple of weeks ago
and I elected to see Wonder Woman. Yeah. Not so
long way of saying congratulations to Toby and his new film, Well,
(07:49):
it's funny. We also need to congratulate Toby too, because
Toby just got married. Toby and Nell are now married.
Sols to them as well. So this is this new
movie with his uh directing partner David Lowry Yeah yeah,
and Rooney Mara. Yeah, they definitely do. So it's gonna
be good. I'm looking forward to it. Okay, so let's
(08:12):
get started. Thanks for indulging that. Thank you everybody. So
the first, the first movie on our list is what's
widely considered the first horror movie, and it's a nine
movie out of Germany that um basically was the first
film that undertook what's the artistic movement known as German
(08:33):
expressionism called the Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Yeah, I mean
some say, like you said, it was the first horror movie.
Some say it was the first cult film. Um it uh, well,
just you may not be able to get to the
whole thing if you're not into silent movies, but you
should queue up a little bit of it and watch
(08:55):
a little bit of it because it's hugely impactful. Um
and still to this day like very disconcerting to look
at because of it how um ominous and weird it looked,
just physically looked. Yeah. Like the sets that they built
are obviously um constructive manufactured. They were not in any
(09:19):
way shape or for him going for realism. They were
going for surrealism for sure. And so like the staircases
are at crazy weird curves and angles and um like
everything from the house, the houses rooftops to the blades
of grass are super pointy and sharp, and and the
shadows that they employed were just perfect. You've never seen
(09:41):
a better use of shadows than this. They didn't get
in the way, They just created this mood. And it
was the first movie to really kind of do that,
to just take to use the camera for something other
than capturing realism. Uh, and it it it for that reason,
it's considered the first horror movie because that that's such
a standard part of horror, whether large like in a
(10:05):
large part like in a Tim Burton movie, or in
small part you know where you're Um, you're using small
spaces to create claustrophobia. The idea of using the set
to mess with the viewers mind I think was born
in Dr Caligary's cabinet. Yeah, it's almost like they they
took a child and gave them construction paper and said
(10:26):
cut out scary things. Uh. And then like like that
movie The Baba Duke, I think the actual book within
The Baba Duke was hugely inspired by this. Uh, the
actual movie itself. Um. The plot is about a side
show operator, a hypnotist who um has a patient that
he takes around into the side shows with sleep disorders.
(10:48):
Supposedly he's been asleep his entire life, and he uses
this patient to commit murder. Right, he's like a sleepwalker, Yeah,
a somnambulist. So that in itself is a pretty frightening plot.
And to think about that being cooked up in nineteen
twenty when there weren't really not such things that you
think of as horror movies is pretty impressive. Um. And
(11:10):
then some of the deeper critiques I've seen of it
was like the the explanation for why the filmmakers chose
like these weird odd angles to kind of depict insanity
or that kind of thing. Um was rooted in World
War One. The horrors of World War One had just
been seen and revealed and recently taken place, and it
(11:33):
upended Europe in general, and especially Germany as well. Um,
And that the idea is that they might not have
had this idea, They might not have had this desire,
this drive to create this, this weird set and in fact,
this weird movie had World War One not happened. Yeah,
(11:53):
this there's this writer Jeff Saparrito, who um kind of
put it this way about German expressionism because I wasn't
exactly sure how to define it, but you're kind of
right on the money, he said. Germany was largely isolated
from the rest of the world following World War One,
so expressionism therefore became confined to the country. Refers to
a number of creative movements from World War One through
(12:13):
the nineteen twenties. Expressionist works examined the current in future
state of the culture through bold and artistic creations of creativity,
and often explore topics of madness, betrayal, and other intellectual concepts.
And nothing encapsulates these ideas more than the cabinet of
Dr Call. That's basically what I said. Yeah, you did
(12:35):
you read that or were you just uh that I
don't know that that one or not. It sounded kind
of familiar. Yeah, not to say you came up with it.
Um so the the the idea of the set just
creating like a creepy tone and texture to everything. Um
that was Dr Calgary. That's how it changed the genre. Yeah,
(12:57):
Tim Burton say thank you. Yeah, have you seen Coraline? No?
But I know it. It's ah. They did that to
a very good effect. You know. I think Hodgeman does
a voice in that, doesn't he does, He does the dad.
He did a spectacular job because you actually forget it's
Hodgment while you're watching it. That's impossible. Alright, Chuck, Moving on,
that was We're gonna fast forward all the way to
(13:20):
what nineteen sixty nineteen sixty three. If you're talking about
Blood Feast, Well I wasn't, but let's uh. Cybern Simon
Abraham's of Roger Ebert dot Com says, this Blood Feast
is a terrible film and a historically important one too.
And I think that's sort of the deal with blood Feast.
(13:41):
It is not good by any accounts. Did you watch
any of it? Yeah, sure it's not good. No, it's
not good. It's terrible. It was written on a basis
on a fourteen page outline, didn't even have a script.
It's got the same could cloying technicolor of like an
early Hawaii five episode directed by Herschel Gordon Lewis and
(14:04):
producer David F. Friedman, And basically the idea was the
ce S guys did not see films as art. They
saw them as a business and thought you were foolish
if you thought it was anything else. So they sat
around they brainstormed movies that they thought no one else
would make. Yeah, because they started out making like Porky's
esque type movies and they were they were doing fine
(14:26):
with that, but apparently they were successful enough with it
that they started to be imitators and the market was crowded,
so they said, where can we go make movies that
no one else is gonna make? Yeah, because we want
to shock people, essentially, So a couple of ideas they
had that did not make the list was Conman Evangelists
and Nazi torture, which which were later made exactly, and
(14:51):
they finally said, you know what no one's really done
yet is hardcore gore yea, like everyone always cuts away
when the knife come and you're like, what if we
showed the grossest glorious stuff imaginable on screen? Yeah, And
even still they didn't show so like one of the
first murder a woman stabbed through the eye and then
(15:14):
the murderer hacked their legs off of the machete, and
they didn't show the knife penetrate the eye. They didn't
show the machete making contact with the skin. But what
they did in blood Feasts and what made blood Feast
the first of its kind, was they would show the
what came after that. They would show the brains on
the ground, They would show the entrails like on the knife. Um.
(15:37):
They would show the leg being you know, that had
been dismembered, being put into a bag, and like the
wound that was left by like that that. This was
no one had ever done anything like that on film before. No,
And it paid off. They depending on who you ask,
the budget was uh, anywhere from like twenty to thirty grand,
(16:00):
and it made between seven and thirty million dollars, Like
I said, depending on where you get your info. But
by all accounts it was a huge financial success compared
to what they paid to make it. Yeah, and they
shot it in six days or something done in Miami. Um,
based on a fourteen page outline. There wasn't even a script.
(16:22):
It as an alline, and basically it was like, murderer
goes and kills this girl, next girl, murderer comes in
and kills girl, cuts off leg, that kind of thing, right, Yeah,
I mean, if it matters the movies about serial killer caterer, Yeah,
that's it. There's your plot right there. Um. But the
the it was just such a revolutionary movie that the
(16:44):
sensors at the time there wasn't such a thing as
the m p a A hadn't been formed yet, um,
And there was basically no one except for local censors
overseeing movies. So you know, you you could be playing
in one town um all audiences, and then the next
town over it could be banned. But the sensors had
never seen anything like it, and they didn't know what
(17:06):
to do with it. So it was hugely successful commercially too. Yeah.
And another big impact it had was it inspired a
generation of special effects. But basically, UM, let's be honest,
young boys who were doing this on their own Super
eight films, right, and said, wait, uh, I can get
a job doing this. Yeah. So Tom Savini I think
(17:31):
was inspired by it, wasn't he? Or was he inspired by? Yeah?
I think he was inspired by Blood Feast um. And
then we should also give a mention of the Graham
Gun y'all. Is that how you think it's pronounced Grand
Guen y'all? It was a theater in Paris, I believe,
from the late nineteenth century onto I think nineteen sixty two,
(17:52):
so the year before Blood Feast came out had closed up.
But it used to do this stuff on stage. It
was like a gore fest um. And there was lots
of like blood and sex and and like depraved themes
in the plays that were put on at this theater.
People loved it. They were crazy for it, um. And
(18:15):
this was kind of like the Grand Gun y'all tradition
put onto film for the first time and who read
for that? You want to take a break, Yeah, let's
do it, all right, Charles, we're back, So n sixty
(18:53):
or nineteen sixty eight. I've got nineteen sixty eight in
front of my face. Uh, and that could be no
other movie the Night of the Living Dead classic George
Romero film. Romero was a TV director, making TV commercials.
Commercial director. Rather, he was also making sure films for Mr.
(19:14):
Rogers neighborhood at the time. Yeah, and he was he
was young. Yeah, I don't I don't know how old
he was, but he was pretty young guys still. I
think when he made Shot and that in the Living Dead,
he was like twenty six or twenty seven, so uh yeah,
but any standard, that's still pretty young unless you're three.
(19:34):
So he'm he had um. He and his buddies were like,
let's make a horror movie, but let's not make a
stupid horror movie. Let's make on with like an actual
plot that explores like deep themes too, like a good movie.
Let's let's make the first good horror movie. Well yeah, so,
and we'll delve into that a little more. But that
that was definitely a different thing at the time. And
(19:56):
the other different thing was that all the horror movies
up to that point, Uh, they were called the Universal
monsters from Universal Studios, you know, all the kind of
the classic Frankenstein and Dracula and Creature from the Black
Lagoon and the Werewolf, and that was where that was
mainstream horror. And George Romero comes along and says, um,
(20:18):
how about zombies? And everyone said, what in the world's
a zombie? And he said, well, let me define that
for every future generation of movie and TV goers. And yeah,
and there have been zombie movies before, but they had
been things like like Dr Caligari's Cabinet, somebody who was
under the control of something someone else or something like that,
(20:40):
there was a hypnotist or this was like the first
time what we think of as zombies, wherever introduced like
flesh eating ghoules who were dead and I come back
to life, just what you think of as a zombie.
This guy started that genre, like you said. Yeah. They
(21:01):
shot it outside and in Pittsburgh on about hundred and
fifteen thousand dollar budget, ended up grossing twelve million domestic,
not bad, and I think close to twenty worldwide. And
um was eventually selected by the Library of Congress for
preservation in the National Film Registry. It's a good movie.
It's a very good movie. He shot in black and
(21:23):
white to save on cost, even though color was the
standard by that point, and black and white is also
a little more forgiving for rudimentary special effects. And one
of the revolutionary things he did was, uh, cast a
black actor as the lead and for no other reason
than hey, this guy Dwayne Jones is really good, exactly right. Like,
(21:45):
he didn't go back and go, oh, well, you know
our our heroes black, so we need to make the
whole thing of meditation on race and have him confront racism.
It was just we're here's the script, and then the
guy playing the lead just happens to be right, and
he was the best guy in the auditions. And you know,
in eight this didn't really happen. You didn't just cast
(22:07):
a black guy as a lead actor for no with
no like ulterior motive, basically right. So I read this
review from the from the time from nineteen sixty nine,
the year after it came out. Young Roger Ebert went
and watched it and he wrote, um a pretty pretty
interesting review, which is basically it was about the reaction
(22:29):
of the audience. And he went to a Saturday matinee
that was populated almost entirely by ten eleven year old
and they were used to seeing the creature from the
Black Lagoon. For Frankenstein or um, you know, just just
movies that any kid could handle and could enjoy watching,
(22:50):
and you know, fun, scary kind of stuff. And he said,
that's how that that was how the crowd reacted for
the first half of the movie. But then about the
point where and here's here comes spoilers. Everybody, if you
haven't seen Nither Living Dead, just hit yourself in the
knee with a hammer. Um you the the teenage couple
(23:13):
go to get gas and when their car blows up
and his engulfs in flames, they die. They're burned to death.
He said. Right about that time, the tone, the mood
of the theater changed and there was no like gleeful
screaming anymore. Kids were starting to like not move and
we're afraid to like move in their seats, and some
works quietly crying to themselves. And from that the whole,
(23:36):
the whole point on, it just got worse and worse
for these little kids watching this movie. So it was
a huge impact on horror movies a it uh, Like
you said earlier, it was kind of the first one
to really sort of delve into other issues like if
if you look up, like significance of Neither the Living
dead or um meaning of neither living dead, or something
(23:58):
like that. There score of articles that have been written
over the years of how it was a metaphor for
the Vietnam War, or an allegory about distrust of authority
or the collapse of traditional family. And I think Romero said, like,
I didn't necessarily mean all these things, but you can
certainly find it in the movie. That is art. Like,
(24:18):
one of the great revelations of my adult life is
that the artist, the writer, the songwriter, the um, the
author rarely intends to imbue as much meaning into their
work as people take from it. That that's part of
art as interpretation in that neat like you don't if
(24:41):
you're a writer, if you're a young writer right now,
who's just sitting there racking your brain for how to
insert metaphor and meaning into this, just write your story
and people are going to find it for themselves. Agreed.
I wish somebody had told me that. When I was younger,
I had teachers that said stuff like that. Oh I did,
like good college professors in English that would when students
(25:04):
would argue like I think he means this, he would say, like,
you know, he may or she may not have meant anything, right,
that's the revelation I had teachers that would just go wrong. Uh.
The other thing about Night Living Dead as it spawned, um,
obviously the zombie genre and uh sequels Dawn of the Dead,
Day of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead, the
(25:26):
Walking Dead remakes shout out, shout out, Stephen Youne, Yeah right,
why not? I'm still into the Walking Dead. You Yeah,
we talked about this. Yes, yes, gay Steven Youne listens anyway,
Zombies are I think still hot and we can so hot.
(25:49):
We we owe that all to Mr Romero, master of
the genre. Yep. Took one more thing too, that that
Night a Living Dead did that they weren't the first,
but very famously Romero did was kill off his hero
senselessly and shockingly. Yeah at the end, good point, thanks man. Okay,
so let's move on. Like I said, yes, stay after Christmas.
(26:15):
If you've ever been uh in Washington, d C. At
the end of M Street, you might have noticed very
uh during the daytime, ordinary set of stairs. At nighttime,
maybe they look creepy to you because those are the
Exorcist stairs. Yeah. I'm trying to conjure the music in
my head but all I'm coming up with is the
(26:35):
Unsolved Mysteries music. It was quite right, so close, but
it's not it. I'm so unsatisfied right now. So the
Exorcist was based on a book by William Peter Bladdie
who wrote this uh in V one and then in
seventy three the movie was made. Uh. And there's I
think I referenced not too long ago a great Mark
(26:57):
Mayrin interview with UM William Friedkin. He talks about the
audition process for Linda Blair. So you should go listen
to that because it was pretty insightful. But, um, the
Exorcist really kind of changed the game, UM, and that
it was a it spawned a bit of a sub
genre of UM demonic movies. Sure I were like religious based, yeah,
(27:23):
even though I guess Rosemary's Baby was before that. But
the Exorcist was such a mega hit and it was
nominated for Best Picture, the first horror movie to be
nominated UM for for that, and so it was just
like it was a big deal. It was. It sold
six million tickets in about two months. Yeah, it's amazing.
(27:44):
This is a horror movie, right, and it came out
in nowhere. UM apparently The effect it had on audiences
was extremely pronounced. There was a woman in Boston who
had to be carried from the theater and she goes
it cost me four dollars, but I only lasted twenty minutes.
So we're like that's the stories of that got around
(28:06):
and and people wanted to see you know, this movie
can't be that scary, and they went and they were like,
oh my god, that movie is that scary. Yeah, and
it holds up too. I mean, um, special effects are
they'd never quite hold up. But it's still a very
creepy movie. Um. Very Famously, Linda Blair played the little
girl who was possessed by a demon, and uh, the
(28:30):
the heavy hitters were called in the two exercises Demon,
including um a Max van Seedl who was only forty
four when he played this guy in his easily in
his seventies. Yeah is he Benjamin Button? Well know they
made him up. Wow, they did a great job. Yeah,
which I don't see why they felt the need to
(28:53):
do that, I know they God, who else did they
almost cast? Oh? Brando? They almost cast Brando, but that
would have been a colossal mistake. Well, Freedkin said, you know,
as soon as you do that it's a Marlin Brando movie. Yeah,
and I think he'said picture a Brando picture. Sure, that's
what they said. Uh. And he wanted to be a
Brando picture. He wanted to be the Exorcist. Um. So
(29:14):
the you said it was based on a book from
two years before by William Peter Bladdie. He apparently was
known as a comedy writer and he wanted to do
something different. He said, Hey, wouldn't it be funny if
the little girl's head spun around and she keeped green bile?
And wait, what do you hear? What I ever do
with the crucifix? Hey? So? Um. He actually wrote the
(29:36):
book because he wanted to scare America back to church.
That was his aim with the book. He he believed
that there was real evil going on the world, that
part of it was because of a a loss of
faith or a loss of religion, I guess. And that's
what he wanted to do with it. Um. And when
the movie came out there was a huge pushback from
(29:59):
religious a thor He's like Billy Graham said, he believed
the movie itself was possessed by a demon. I'm not
sure how that would happen. But that was like a
huge thing at the time. UM and a lot of
a lot of other um religious establishment types were like,
don't go see that movie. It's evil. But there were
some who who were part of part of religion, major
(30:23):
organized religion, who kind of saw through it and said, no, no,
this is it's good that we're talking about this, that
there we're telling people, you know, or people are seeing
that there there's such a thing as like good versus
evil literally combating on earth, you know, and people are
talking about this and thinking about it. And so in
that sense, the Exorcist like really kinda went to bat
(30:44):
for organized religion. I saw another um criticism of it though,
that that said, one of the themes of the movie
that the book hadn't really intended, but the movie picked
up on and expounded on was intergenerational conflict. That that
it was Reagan the child represented the younger generation who
(31:06):
was at war with the establishment, and that it even
goes um so far as to where her mother, the
actress the movie that she's working on is about campus
takeover by young radicals, So that that's kind of a
theme that was apparently part of the subtext, but was
a major part of it in the movie at least interesting. Yeah.
(31:28):
I thought so too, because apparently, I mean you think
of intergenerational conflict now, Apparently in the late sixties and
early seventies it was sharper than it probably ever has
been before or since. Yeah. Mm hmm. The only other
thing I got is that the uh, the green stuff
that she projectiles was Anderson's p soup and a little
(31:50):
bit of oatmeal texture Anderson's PC of Well, bet you
can't give that anymore, Chuck, Let's do Jaws and then
we'll take a break. I love talk about Jaws. Yeah,
I mean Jaws is on. You know, I did my
top favorite movies list at one point on our website,
and I listed Jaws is my favorite movie favorite of
all time. Yeah, I mean that list changes, but it's
(32:13):
Jaws is always in my top five. I can watch
it anytime it's on. Uh. It is one of the
i've a I've often said it's a perfect movie. Um,
And what I mean by that is there's just not
a misstep. Like, the casting was perfect, the acting was great,
the script was great. It played out just perfectly throughout
(32:35):
the film. Um. He like Spielberg was just a master
storyteller with that movie. You were talking about how young
George Romero was in Night of Living Dead. Spielberg was
twenty six when he made Jaws. He was thirteen years old.
He uh, and he was apparently scared to death when
he finished filming. The schedule had been for fifty five days,
(32:58):
It went to a hundred and fift nine. Yeah, he
had I think been allotted four million dollars. He ended
up spending twelve million on it. Um. Yeah, largely because
a shooting on water is notoriously difficult and be the
shark mechanical shark they used was legendarily um wonky and
(33:21):
how it are not wonky but wonky wonky. It didn't work.
It rarely worked. So they spent a lot of time
and burnt a lot of hours trying to get this
shark to do its thing, and uh so much so
that it didn't even make that many appearances in the movie.
I think they even kind of scaled it back and
then ended up being better for the movie because you
(33:43):
didn't get as much shark. I looked up the um
the urban legend about the shark being named after Spielberg's
lawyer Bruce and apparently it's true. Really, Yeah, Bruce Rener
was the name of Spielberg's lawyer, and the that was
the nickname for the mechanical shark on the set was Bru.
That's pretty funny. So with Jaws, right, we're talking about
(34:05):
horror movies that changed the genre. Jaws not only changed
the horror genre, it changed movie making to this day
and in multiple ways, multiple massive ways. It changed the
entire film industry almost single handedly. Yeah, it was at
the time, there was a there was no such thing.
(34:28):
You take it for granted now, but there was no
such thing as a quote unquote summer release. No, a
lot of theaters closed down because a C wasn't in
every theater and people didn't want to sit around in
a hot movie theater for two hours. Yeah, a summer
release or a tent pole film or a blockbuster feature
like Jaws was the first one of all those. At
(34:52):
the time, when Jaws came out, they used to um
release a movie on maybe one two screens and say
New York or l A for a week, and they
didn't make its way to you know, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Chicago
for a few weeks and then eventually make it to
your small Town six eight weeks later. That was how
(35:13):
movies were released, not Jaws. Jaws was released on four
hundred and thirty five screens across the country, which is huge,
which is part of the part of the UM Summer
blockbuster release playbook now. Yeah, and it was also the
first movie to to spend lots and lots of money
on marketing UM. And so I think the studios were like,
(35:34):
wait a minute, if you spend some dough on marketing,
you released this sing wide. You can make a ton
of money in the first month that a movie's out,
and you're kind of set, like after that, it's anything
else's gravy. Yeah, and that's after the first week or
two probably, Yeah, it was. Yeah, the whole the whole
point of blockbuster now is to get that opening weekend,
(35:56):
to make all your money back in the opening weekend,
and then everything else is gravy on top of it. Right,
Jaws was it didn't make it. I don't know. Maybe
it did make its money back in the first weekend
because it hit a hundred million dollars in like seventy
eight days or something incredible like that. Because it was
the first movie too had a hundred million dollars, and
it did it in just a couple of months even. Yeah,
(36:18):
it eventually went on to make about two hundred and
sixty million dollars domestically, which is I mean, that's a
great take now, yeah, you know, much less the mid
nineteen seventies for a twelve million dollars spend, for sure.
My only beef here is that I would not consider
Jaws a horror movie. Yeah. I think it's an adventure film. Yeah,
(36:39):
I guess you're right, with a scary antagonist. Yeah, but um,
it's amazing how much I quote that movie in my
day today life. Yeah, just just just Shark. That's a
great that's a classic. All right, let's take a break.
I'm gonna meditate on that line, and we'll talk about
(36:59):
a few other scary movies, including one that was originally
titled scary movie. Okay, moving on to Halloween. Halloween Chuck eight,
(37:35):
I believe Halloween. Yes, John Carpenter, uh, the youngish John
Carpenter who originally titled this movie The Babysitter Murders No
Little on the Nose. Yeah, pretty terrifying title, I guess.
Young Jamie Lee Curtis, her very first movie was it really. Yeah. Well,
(37:57):
she went on to become known as the scream Queen
for all the horror movies she was in total and
this was shot in twenty days and uh South Pasadena
as the Midwest and um it's credited as being birthing
the slasher genre. Yeah it did. So there were slasher
(38:18):
films before the Town that Dreaded Sundown. It was like
based on a true crime story actually in Transas, one
called Black Christmas the Grabster sites from enour haven't heard
of that one. But the idea of um of a
faceless almost a like nonentity entity coming at you, uh
(38:42):
and relentlessly stalking you, being impervious to harm, as the
Webster puts it, um, and just coming at you again
and again trying to kill you. That that was. That
was all established by Halloween and it was done like
too too great effect as well. Yeah, and it holds up.
It's still scary. Uh. Michael Myers of course was the killer. Um.
(39:06):
The music that John Carpenter score, I mean he he
scores most of his movies himself, but very iconic, uh,
basic thing. I think he only took a couple of
days to come up with it. But like the Michael
Myers character and the mask or so iconic the music
is so iconic. Do you know about the mask, right, Schattner, Yeah, yeah,
(39:27):
go ahead. I went and check that one out too
to verify that it was true. And it definitely is
true that Michael Myers mask is actually a Captain Kirk
star Trek mask painted white. That is history. Yep. The
in the in the script when it came to the mask,
it just said pale, neutral features of a man. Yeah,
(39:50):
which makes the whole thing even creepier because he's implacid
or is that the right word. I don't know, He's
just it's just almost like a just an emotionless killer.
It made the fact that he was merciless, ruthless, pitiless,
and and all arbitrarily killing people almost all the more
(40:11):
pronounced because his expression never changes. Well, to me, the
two things that were creepies about Halloween was the expression
never changed because of that mask. And he did not run,
like oh yeah, he would just walk, and you still
got the feeling like you can't outrun this guy even
though he's walking. That was another creepy part about it.
It follows with the walking aspect of it, sure. Yeah.
(40:36):
In the same way that like twenty eight days Later
was freaky and that it took zombies and made him run. Yeah.
Or I remember when I saw Friday I'm sorry, uh
Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time, and Freddy
Krueger was running around. I was like, that's not what
scary dudes do. Yes, scary dudes don't try. No, they
walk very creepily towards you and still somehow gained speed
(40:58):
on you even though you're running for speed. Freddy scared
me to death the first time I saw that movie. Yeah,
the first one was pretty good one, but Halloween established this,
like you said, it established the slasher genre, and everything
about slasher films still today all rooted in Halloween John
Carpenter's tropes. Yeah, and again, like you said, there were
a couple of other slasher films before, but none of
(41:21):
them gross close to fifty million bucks. Wow, is that
how much Halloween made? Yeah, forty seven million domestic at
about a three hundred thousand dollar budget. So it uh,
you know this sort of like with the Exorcists, Like
there were other movies that sort of did this thing before,
but when you have a huge hit that does it
is when it sort of redefines the genre because it's money. Yeah,
(41:43):
that's all. Everyone starts paying attention after that. All right,
what's next? What's next? My friend? Is a movie that
came out when I don't know, were you still in college? Uh? No,
you must have just been out then I was out
a few years. Okay, well we're are. Let's around our
college era. This movie came out, because up to this point,
(42:03):
everything's come out either when we were little or before
we were born. This one was right in our wheelhouse.
It was The Blair Witch Project, which came out. Yeah,
and uh. One of the big things that um Blair
Witch Project did well two things. Really, it established the
found footage genre or subgenre that is so overplayed now,
(42:25):
uh in the viral marketing campaign. And that's how I
came upon it. I remember very specifically being in the
apartment of Scotta Polito, who you know, he shot our
TV show, one of my oldest friends, and I was
sitting in his apartment on Claremont Avenue Indicator and I
happened upon this. And this was pre Facebook. I don't
even know how I found it, you know, before things
(42:46):
were being shared around and I happened upon this website,
the very first Blair Witch Project website, and I was like, dude,
come over here and check this out. This is the
scariest thing I've ever seen. And I remember the website
set it up as if it was real, and that
this found footage thing, it's so overdone now it's hard
(43:07):
to go back in time and remember when it was fresh.
But I remember looking at and being like, did this happen?
Did they really find this footage of this murder in
the woods? To see this? That was the rumor that
this was actually real, man. And this is, like you said,
I mean, this is before the found footage genres. So
people were being exposed to this concept for the first time,
(43:29):
and we're kind of falling for it. I mean, you're
either in college or you're just recently out of college,
so you're maybe slightly more guldbal than you are ten
years ready to believe it. You want to believe, right,
So yeah, the idea that this was actual found footage
it just made it all the more enjoyable and people
were buying into it. And I think the other part
(43:49):
of it too, was that the filmmakers, partly because they
didn't have the budget for actual effects left a lot
of the scariest parts to your iagination. Yeah, nor did
they have the talent to make a good narrative film,
because I mean they worked on a sixty four page script,
which I was surprised that it was that that big.
(44:11):
But they shot it for eight days and originally they
were going to make it like a documentary about the
found footage, and then one of them had a flash
of of perspective. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait,
let's just release it like it's found footage. And that
was that. The rest was history. Yeah, and I'm poking fun.
That was not very nice at all. Um Eduardo Sanchez
(44:33):
and Daniel Myrick or Merrick, the co directors, they they
should be credited with the truly ingenious uh campaign and
invention that Well, they weren't the first to come up
with found footage, right, there were some films before. Um.
I've never known how to pronounce it. Mondo Kane, Ormando Kane.
I think, Connie. It's from nineteen sixty two and it
(44:56):
was supposedly a documentary about um like some like weird
tribal rituals. I think there's head shrinking maybe involved, and
it purported to be like real footage. Same with Cannibal Holocaust. Man,
if you've never seen Campbell Holocaust, go out and watch
it right now. It's very disturbing. Um. And it's so
(45:18):
disturbing that the director of the movie was charged with
murder because they believed that the actual murders depicted they
were so realistic. They thought that it was a snuff
film basically, but it was supposed to be a documentary
as well, so there was an idea of like found
footage or documentary style horror movies that had come before,
(45:40):
but nothing like The Blair Witch where it was just
straight up these people. We found their their old camera
and this is what was on it. Well, and they
were smart enough to kind of dig up an old
thing that never went huge, you know, and they're like, hey, man,
like these other movies, they never really hit it big,
and they it was a timing thing. They they I mean,
(46:01):
hats off for them to them, Yeah, good for them,
and to them nice going alright to scream, yeah scream.
I tease that it was originally titled scary movie. I'm
glad it wasn't, because scary movie is awesome. Scary movie
ever would have been called maybe it would have never
(46:22):
been made, or maybe they would have called that Scream.
Oh yeah, I guess so. So Scream was a very
big deal when it came out. The writer Kevin Williamson um,
and this is still the highest growing slasher film of
all time, basically scream Way. It was huge. I got
Nev Campbell's haircut as a result of it. Like it
was a big, big pop culture water mark. It was.
(46:42):
And one of the big things about it, aside from
the boatloads of money that it made, was it spawned
a sub genre called meta horror, which is um even
though it had been done by no less than its
own director Wes Craven with Wes Craven's New Mare Uh
two years before Scream, it wasn't nearly as popular. But
(47:04):
met a horror is this idea. And if you've ever
seen Scream, you know they're constantly just referencing horror movies
like this is where you know, you don't go out
and make out in the car because that's where you
get killed. And then they would do that and get killed,
although I don't think that specific thing happened, like don't
go back into the house. Yeah, like all the tropes
of horror movies are addressed in the movie, and they're
(47:25):
talking about them as the horror movie tropes. Yes, yeah, exactly, horror. Yeah.
And there are plenty of other things that came along
met he met a horror UM examples like have you
seen Tucker and Dale Versus Evil? Uh No, check it out, man,
that's a good movie. Um. Zombie Land to see that
(47:48):
where he's rattling off all of the things that you
need to notice survive a zombie apocalypse that he learned
from zombie movies, right. And then Cabin in the Woods.
Did you see that? One? Great movie? It was a
great movie. It was really good. I mean from beginning
to end, it was a great movie. Did you like Scream? Yeah?
I love Scream. I like all the Screams. I only
(48:08):
saw the first two. The second one I think might
have been even better than the first. And that the
second was shot Emily worked on that it was shot
here in at Agnes Scott College. Part if we go
back and watch it knowing that now, I'll be like, oh,
I've driven past that place. Uh So I got a
(48:30):
few tidbits, like I said. Initial title of scary movie
UM number two, The Weinstein Brothers initially offered it to
George Romero and Sam Ramy, um, what else do I
have here? Drew Barrymore was originally supposed to play Sydney,
the lead character, and then she said, no, how about
if I just play that girl at the beginning, which
(48:51):
kind of was a big thing because you see Drew
Marry Barrymore, And it was a big shock when she
died in the first scene, right, you know you can't
kill off your heroine right away. Yeah, I mean, like
I remember, I remember that first scene really really scaring
me when I saw it the first time in the theater. Yeah,
it is. It's a scary, gruesome gory. Yeah, very well played. Uh.
(49:15):
And then before he went to um Nev Campbell, he
went out to Alicia Witz, Brittney Murphy and Reese Witherspoon
and then Campbell your christ choice. Uh. And then the mask,
the iconic screen mask apparently wasn't off the shelf mask. Wow,
that made that company's money. Yeah, And the wine scenes
(49:36):
didn't like it. They were like, I hate that mask.
Everything else is fine, huh. But west Craven said, no,
it's got to be that mask would be stupid. Bob,
all Right, we're gonna finish up with our own addition
here finally X yes it Psycho. I can't believe this
wasn't in the list. I think Ed kept this off
(50:01):
the list to toy with somebody he doesn't like specifically.
That's the only explanation. Yeah, because Psycho changed everything. Yeah,
it really did. I mean it was the you could
say that it was one of the first slasher flicks.
It was a early psychological thriller. Um. It was based
(50:23):
on the real life story of Ed Geen. I mean
it doesn't exactly mirror a Gaen's life, but the idea
of um being obsessed with your mother so much that
you will commit murder uh is definitely rooted in a
Gaen story. Um. If you're not familiar with ed Geen,
he not only he was I don't even know if
(50:44):
he was a serial killer. I think he only I
think he murdered one, maybe two people, But more than anything,
he was a grave robber. But he likes to um
dress up in people's skin, women's skin and pretend he
was his own mother. Which may that's a lot of
years on the couch working that one out. Yeah, or
you can just die at the hands of Cops one
(51:05):
of the two. Um. And he also inspired leather Face
from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Yeah, and and Buffalo Bill of course.
Oh yeah, yeah, Sounds of the Lambs. Yeah, one guy
inspired all those, all those guys. So I found this
article Psycho colon the horror Movie that Changed the Genre
by Owen Glieberman or is it Gliberman think he wrote
(51:30):
for a legendary critic, wrote for e W for years
and years and now rights for a variety. Oh he does, yeah,
but he uh he put it best. He said, Um, well,
you know, the iconic shower scene, first of all, is
hugely important because it was Hitchcock really kind of ripped
up the script, not literally, but the horror movie's script
(51:52):
when he kills off Janet Lee halfway through the movie.
It was you just didn't do that at the time.
We can out of nowhere, and we've seen come up
later on like at the end of Nither Living Dead
or Drew Barrymore and scream. His Cock was the first
one to do that. Yeah, And uh, Glieberman puts it
this way. He said he was also slicing through years, decades, centuries,
(52:14):
even of audience expectation that the hero or heroine of
a fictional work would be shielded and protected or would
at least die, usually the end in a way that
made some sort of moral dramatic sense. Uh. In Psycho,
the murder made no sense at all, right, And he
really kind of hits it on the head there. It
was like, if you've never seen Psycho or heard of it,
(52:35):
the movie is just going along about this woman who
likes steals some money from a work and she's kind
of on the lamb and checks into this hotel, and
you don't even know it's a horror movie. You're thinking
it's a a movie about a lady who steals money
and is trying to get away from getting caught, right,
and then just out of nowhere, she's hacked up in
a shower and at the time, audiences and still if
(52:59):
you haven't seen it, it's shocking. The audiences were just
like they didn't know what they'd seen, right exactly, So
you're not not only is is the hero no longer safe?
That means maybe you're not either. So it has it
had a really huge unsettling effect. And then Owen Glieberman
points out that Hitchcock was so smart that he even
(53:22):
he he even made a nod to the the type
of pat expected horror that the audience was used to.
In the house that he used for Psycho, the Bates House.
It was this huge, rambling Victorian mansion on a hill.
There's lots of taxidermy, and it was like over over
(53:43):
decorated and just creepy. But up to that point, like
that was horror. That was what a horror movie looked
like and felt like. And this was this was kind
of Hitchcock's homage to that. But at the same time
he was also putting the heel of his shoe on
it as well. Yeah, in that house was I mean
almost a character in itself. Like if you've ever seen
(54:03):
the recreation of it at in in Los Angeles, I
think it's a universal Did you see it? Oh yeah,
I never did. The closest I came was I think
when different Strokes went there. That's the closest you got
to it. Yeah. Uh yeah. Man, if you've ever seen
the thing in person, like it's it sends a chill
up your back just seeing this thing in like a
(54:24):
sunny Los Angeles day. Still, it's such an iconic house,
It's like, oh man, uh there it is. That's where
Norman Bates lives. He's the most disturbed human of all time. Right.
So in the movie, of course, there was the mother
character who is sort of reference throughout the movie. And
it is not until the end that you realize that
(54:46):
there is no mother. Mother is dead. There's just Norman
Bates and all his rage and hang ups. So all
the monster movies about giant ants and or the creatures
from a black lagoon, monsters things they were and other
that a normal person had to do battle with that
was gone. Now the monster had been on screen the
(55:06):
whole time, and you had noticed it. And now what
do you think about your neighbor who has seemed a
little weird from time to time before? Could he be
a murderer who thinks he's his mother? Who knows? This
is what Hitchcock did everybody back in nineteen sixty and
you almost get like, I think, Owen Gliberman points it out. Yeah,
he does. At the beginning, he basically says like, um,
(55:30):
we probably didn't see Psycho. If you're reading this, you're
probably too young to have seen Psycho in nineteen sixty
and we should all feel sad that we didn't because
it's so changed everything. We can't do anything but take
it for granted now. And everything that's come since then
has been trying to regain that shock and horror that
(55:51):
it instilled in audiences, and and thus far no one's
actually been able to do it. Yeah, and the other thing,
I remember when I saw it when I was younger.
I think I saw this when I was like fourteen ish, um,
And I think it had this impact on just about everyone.
I don't think I took a shower for a month.
I was straight up bathtub curtain open, doors, open, windows open,
(56:15):
making your mom watch, she's keeping watch. You know that
would have been full circle back to Yeah, you didn't
even want to have anything to do with your mom. No. Man,
Like it changed the shower curtain industry for a while
after that. Yeah, very good movie. And um, there were
a couple of Hitchcock movies in the last few years, uh,
(56:37):
two different ones, one with Anthony Hopkins and one with
Toby Jones that were both really good, and one was
about the years that he was making Psycho. The other
was about the years when he was making The Birds.
And they were both really really good movies, and you
should check those out two. You should repeat that. We
just got a interjection from Nol, So go ahead and
(56:58):
say it again, Josh, in case it didn't come through.
So Nol just said that. Um. The director of The
Black Coats Daughter is Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates
in Psycho's Son. Wow. He also did another movie now
that Noel says that. Thanks Noel. Um. It's called The
Pretty Little Thing That Lives in the House, which is
another horror movie, a ghost story that was his first one,
(57:22):
and I think that might be on Netflix. It's great.
It's a really great movie too. Man. This has got
me fired up to see some horror movies. It's a
renaissance of horror. Yeah. It's tough though, because Emily doesn't
really dig it, so I have to just find a
loane time to do that to watch in the bathroom.
All right. Well, if you want to know more about
horror movies, go watch horror movies. Go forth. Uh, and
(57:46):
I don't know what we missed, for God's sake. Yeah,
if you want to check out the Grabsters list, type
in horror movies on the search bar at House of
Works dot com and will bring up this fine, fine
list that you will disagree with and um, since I
said disagree, time for listener mail. Uh. This from Eric,
and I'm gonna call it what he called it, a
Schoolhouse Rock nostalgia theory. Alright, I think he's pretty right
(58:09):
on this just came in. Actually, there's a hot take,
hey guys in Schoolhouse Rock. So Josh made the statement
that gen xers are most nostalgic generation and attributed to
this success of Schoolhouse Rock. I'm going to offer my
own theory. I propose that gen X is nostalgic mostly
for pop culture because of the prolifer that word of
child targeted advertisements and marketing in the seventies and eighties.
(58:33):
Certainly something we talked about. Theories got like while our
little impressionable brains were developing, we're being taught by those
who are steering pop culture to long for and find
fulfillment and the toys and other products our cartoons were
pushing on us. Now, as adults, those messages are still
deep in our psyche. We can't shake the idea that
we still really need those Star Wars action figures to
be happy, not because the toys and the shows were
(58:54):
so great, because we had been tricked into believing we
need them. I have nothing scientific about this up, just
a hunch yet. What you mean there hasn't been a
study from m I t alright on Star Wars toys.
I'm kind of surprised by that as well. I thought
you were being facetious at first, and yeah, I don't
(59:15):
know which ways up at this point. Yeah, nothing scientific
to back this up, but I'd love to hear what
you all think. See if anyone out there is any
respectable and informed input. Eric, that is from Eric Lewin
and Erica. I think that's super valid. Yeah, I do too, Eric.
I think you've really hit upon something here, and that's
all I have to say about it. If you have
(59:37):
a great theory, fan theory, real life theory, whatever, we
want to hear them there, especially if it's interesting. You
can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast
or Josh M Clark. You can post it on Facebook
at Charles W. Chuck Bryant or Stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email. The Stuff podcast to
how Stuff Works dot com and has always joined us
at home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com.
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