Pod Insights Stuff You Should Know SYSK’s Summer Movie Playlist: Josh and Chuck's List of Horror Movies that Changed the Genre About this episode 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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Transcript 11,791 words · 6 speakers
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0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:04 Josh Clark? Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability and it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. Let's be real, eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us, it brings us together, and yes, it's one of life's great pleasures. But once a meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next unless something starts to feel off.
0:47 Josh Clark? Introducing Eating Interrupted, a new podcast from iHeart Ruby Studio, hosted by longtime journalist and Crohn's patient Cynthia McFadden. Listen in to unpack what it means when your body doesn't always respond to food the way you expect and what science is now revealing about why. Listen to Eating Interrupted on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi there, friends. Welcome back to the playlist. This episode is our list of horror movies that changed the genre. It's from back in 2017 and it's as timely today as it was back then. Horror is probably my favorite genre of all films and I hope you guys like it too, even if you're not into horror movies. And even if you're not into horror movies, I hope you guys will like this episode too.
1:32 Josh Clark? It's just that interesting.
1:35 Speaker 02 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com.
1:45 Josh Clark? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
1:51 Speaker 03 Howdy.
1:52 Josh Clark? Middle name's Wayne. My middle name's Malcolm. There we have it.
1:56 Speaker 03 I always forget about that Malcolm.
1:58 Josh Clark? Yeah, Wayne. Named after Wayne Coyne, right?
2:02 Speaker 03 Uh, no, John Wayne, and you were named after Malcolm in the Middle.
2:08 Josh Clark? That's right.
2:09 Speaker 03 Right?
2:09 Josh Clark? Frankie Muniz is my namesake.
2:15 Josh Clark? I hope he's okay.
2:16 Speaker 03 Early Bryan Cranston, too. I used to love that show.
2:20 Josh Clark? 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.
2:28 Speaker 03 Yeah?
2:29 Josh Clark? Yeah, it really is a good show.
2:31 Speaker 03 So, you clean your house, you put on your VR goggles and just queue up Malcolm in the Middle?
2:36 Josh Clark? Yeah. No, I just-
2:37 Speaker 03 You walk around and bump into things and-
2:39 Josh Clark? Right, exactly. But I, I put on like a huge feather duster suit.
2:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, so you're just cleaning and bumping into things?
2:47 Josh Clark? That's right. That's how I do it.
2:48 Speaker 03 Wow.
2:49 Josh Clark? Yeah. It works kinda well.
2:52 Speaker 03 Someone's gonna take that idea.
2:55 Josh Clark? Yeah, like the Sharknado?
2:56 Speaker 03 Yeah, but they should just, they should sell that suit with, uh, purple drink.
3:04 Josh Clark? I think you'd just get one spot on the floor really, really clean.
3:10 Speaker 03 Uh, what are you gonna title this one, by the way? Cause this was your pick and we title our own shows, episodes.
3:16 Josh Clark? Some horror films that change the genre.
3:19 Speaker 03 All right, and you should add this, AKA, "How could you guys forget, blank?"
3:25 Josh Clark? Yeah. Yeah, we should say like, this, first of all, this is a Grabster article, so it's Grabster's list.
3:32 Speaker 03 Sure.
3:33 Josh Clark? And he knows what he's talking about. If you look at some of the entries, some don't even have source tags.
3:38 Speaker 03 Whoa.
3:38 Josh Clark? He's just like, "I just know, I just know, just trust me."
3:42 Speaker 03 Grabster.
3:43 Josh Clark? But we even took his list and carved some out and put some in.
3:48 Speaker 03 Sure.
3:48 Josh Clark? So, this is, how about this? This is Josh and Chuck's idea of some horror films that changed the genre, featuring the mind of the Grabster.
3:59 Speaker 03 Yes. In other words, it is not a complete list of every horror film that changed the genre.
4:04 Josh Clark? Yes.
4:05 Speaker 03 Because I would argue that- Well, and actually I see Grabster put Texas Chainsaw Massacre in there.
4:12 Josh Clark? He said that if this were a top 15 list, that would be in there. So would Alien.
4:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, he has that, Alien, uh, Ringu, and the US remake Ring. And I would lobby for, uh, well Psycho didn't make it onto his list, which, but we're gonna put that in. And, uh, there was one more. Oh, even though I didn't really think it was that great, uh, the movie Saw, I think kind of changed horror films.
4:38 Speaker 03 And that's what this list is. Not best horror films, but things that kind of changed the game.
4:42 Josh Clark? Yeah.
4:43 Speaker 03 It seems like Saw kind of kicked off that, that, uh...
4:48 Josh Clark? Torture porn?
4:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, didn't it?
4:51 Josh Clark? I can't remember if it was that or Hostel, one of the two.
4:54 Speaker 03 What a terrible name for a subgenre.
4:57 Josh Clark? Well, it's pretty accurate, actually.
5:00 Speaker 03 It is, but most of these are, are movies that either, uh, were the first of its kind, and maybe did start a subgenre, or movies that were so popular that they just, you know, kind of rewrote how people view horror movies. Uh, 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?
5:28 Josh Clark? Yeah, I think that's well put, dude. Uh, and before we get started, speaking of horror, I want to give a plug to
5:36 Speaker 03 Whoa.
5:36 Josh Clark? my friend Toby's movie that's coming out. He's a producer
5:40 Speaker 03 Yeah.
5:41 Josh Clark? on a movie coming out called The Ghost Story.
5:44 Speaker 03 Yeah, Toby, uh, when we met Toby, well, you knew Toby before me, of course, because he's your friend.
5:50 Josh Clark? And I know him through Yumi, so really, he's Yumi's friend.
5:53 Speaker 03 But he was, he was small time, doing short films and stuff. And since that time, and this has been within the last, like, since we've been doing this podcast.
6:03 Josh Clark? Yeah.
6:03 Speaker 03 He's now big time.
6:05 Josh Clark? Yeah, they did Pete's Dragon.
6:06 Speaker 03 Yeah.
6:07 Josh Clark? 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.
6:12 Speaker 03 Which I love, that movie.
6:14 Josh Clark? And then this one, um, is definitely kind of falls into that same look and mood and feel. Uh, it's called The Ghost Story, and I think it comes out in July. And, uh, I think it's labeled a drama rather than horror, or even supernatural or thriller.
6:32 Josh Clark? But the reason I tie it into horror is because A24 is releasing it. And A24 is killing it with horror movies lately.
6:41 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's a good, uh, that's a good outfit.
6:44 Josh Clark? They did The Witch. They did The Black Coat's Daughter. Have you seen that?
6:49 Speaker 03 Uh, no.
6:50 Josh Clark? It's on Amazon Prime. It's on Amazon Prime right now.
6:53 Speaker 03 Noel nodded and gave a thumbs up.
6:55 Josh Clark? Dude, it's one of the best horror movies I've seen in a while. I think The Witch is probably my favorite right now.
7:00 Speaker 03 Yeah.
7:00 Josh Clark? Black Coat's Daughter is a close second. And then last night, I saw It Comes at Night in the theater.
7:06 Speaker 03 Uh huh.
7:07 Josh Clark? And It Comes at Night actually upset my stomach. The ending did. It was, it was that rough.
7:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think we're, we've, we're at a place with horror movies that we haven't been in a long time. Like a really genuine.
7:25 Josh Clark? Good spot.
7:25 Speaker 03 Yeah, like the whole torture porn sort of era is over. And the found footage thing is so played.
7:32 Josh Clark? Oh, man.
7:33 Speaker 03 But I think we'd like with movies like The Witch, I think we've really, like, there are some really creative. Uh, It Follows, did you see that one?
7:41 Josh Clark? Yeah.
7:41 Speaker 03 Like some just really creative ways of bringing scares that I haven't seen before.
7:46 Josh Clark? Get Out? That was amazing. Did you see Get Out?
7:48 Speaker 03 No, man, I still haven't seen it.
7:49 Josh Clark? You're gonna love it.
7:50 Speaker 03 I know.
7:51 Josh Clark? I'm, I'm envious of you. It's really, it's great movie, Chuck. You're gonna love it.
7:55 Speaker 03 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.
8:01 Josh Clark? Yeah, not a bad choice.
8:02 Speaker 03 So, a long way of saying congratulations to Toby and his new film.
8:07 Josh Clark? Well, it's funny, we also need to congratulate Toby too, because Toby just got married. Toby and Annel are now married. So congratulations to them as well.
8:16 Speaker 03 So is this, is this new movie with, uh, his, uh, directing partner, David Lowery?
8:21 Josh Clark? Yeah, yeah, and Rooney Mara.
8:23 Speaker 03 Man, they gotta get a thing going.
8:24 Josh Clark? Yeah, they, they definitely do, so it's gonna be good. I'm looking forward to it.
8:28 Speaker 03 Awesome.
8:29 Josh Clark? Okay, so, let's get started. Thanks for indulging that.
8:33 Speaker 03 Thank you, everybody.
8:34 Josh Clark? So the first, the first movie on our list is what's widely considered the first horror movie. And it's a 1920 movie out of Germany that, um, basically was the first film that undertook what's the artistic movement known as German Expressionism.
8:52 Speaker 03 Yeah.
8:53 Josh Clark? It's called The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
8:56 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, some say, like you said, it was the first horror movie. Some say it was the first cult film.
9:04 Speaker 03 It, uh, well, just, you may not be able to get through the whole thing if you're not into silent movies, but you should queue up a little bit of it and watch a little bit of it. Um, 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.
9:29 Josh Clark? Yeah.
9:30 Speaker 03 Just physically looked.
9:31 Josh Clark? Yeah, like the sets that they built are obviously, um, constructed, manufactured. They were not in any way, shape or form going for realism. They were going for surrealism for sure.
9:42 Speaker 03 Yeah.
9:42 Josh Clark? And so like the staircases are at crazy weird curves and angles and, um, like, everything from the house, the house's 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 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, for that reason, it's considered the first horror movie because that, that's such a standard part of horror, whether large, like in large part, like in a Tim Burton movie,
10:26 Josh Clark? 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 viewer's mind, I think, is, is born in Dr. Caligari's cabinet.
10:39 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's almost like they, they took a child and gave them construction paper and said, "Cut out scary things."
10:47 Josh Clark? Right.
10:47 Speaker 03 Uh, and then like, uh, like that movie, The Babadook, I think the actual book within The Babadook was hugely inspired by this. Uh, the actual movie itself, um, the plot is about a sideshow operator, a hypnotist who, um, has a patient that he takes around to these sideshows with, uh, sleep disorder. Supposedly he's been asleep his entire life and he uses this patient to commit murder.
11:12 Josh Clark? Right. He's like a sleepwalker.
11:14 Speaker 03 Yeah.
11:15 Josh Clark? Somnambulist.
11:16 Speaker 03 So that in itself is a pretty frightening plot and to think about that being cooked up in 1920, uh, when there weren't really not such things that you think of as horror movies is pretty impressive.
11:28 Josh Clark? Mm hmm. Um, and then some of like 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.
11:42 Speaker 03 Yeah.
11:42 Josh Clark? 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 upended Europe in general and especially Germany as well. Um, and that the idea is that they, 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.
12:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, this, uh, there's this writer, Jeff Saporito, who, um, kind of put it this way about German Expressionism, because I wasn't exactly sure how to define it. Uh, but you're kind of right on the money. He said, Germany was largely isolated from the rest of the world following, uh, World War One. So Expressionism therefore became confined to the country, refers to a number of creative movements from World War One through the 1920s. Uh, Expressionist works examine the, uh, current and 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. Caligari.
12:51 Josh Clark? That's basically what I said.
12:52 Speaker 03 Yeah. You, did you read that or were you just, uh, that?
12:56 Josh Clark? I don't know if I read that, that one or not. It sounded kind of familiar.
13:00 Speaker 03 Yeah. No, just say you came up with it.
13:02 Josh Clark? Um, so there, the, the idea of the, the set just creating like a creepy tone and texture to everything, um.
13:11 Josh Clark? That was Dr. Caligari. That's how it changed the genre.
13:14 Speaker 03 Yeah.
13:15 Josh Clark? Yeah.
13:16 Speaker 03 Tim Burton, say thank you.
13:17 Josh Clark? Yeah, have you seen Coraline?
13:21 Speaker 03 No, but I know it.
13:22 Josh Clark? It's a, they did that to very good effect.
13:25 Speaker 03 You know, I think Hodgman does a voice in that, doesn't he?
13:27 Josh Clark? He does. He does the dad. He did a spectacular job because you actually forget it's Hodgman while you're watching it.
13:32 Speaker 03 That's impossible.
13:34 Josh Clark? All right, Chuck, moving on. That was 1920. We're gonna fast forward all the way to, what, 1960?
13:40 Speaker 03 1963, if you're talking about Blood Feast.
13:44 Josh Clark? Well, I wasn't, but let's.
13:47 Speaker 03 Uh, Simon Abrams of RogerEbert.com says this, "Blood Feast is a terrible film and a historically important one, too."
13:56 Josh Clark? Yep.
13:57 Speaker 03 And I think that's sort of the deal with Blood Feast. It is not good by any accounts.
14:02 Josh Clark? Did you watch any of it?
14:04 Speaker 03 Yeah, sure.
14:05 Josh Clark? It's not good?
14:05 Speaker 03 No, it's not good. It's terrible. Uh, it was written on basis on a 14-page outline, didn't even have a script.
14:12 Josh Clark? It's got the same cloying technicolor of like an early Hawaii Five-0 episode.
14:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, for sure. Uh, directed by Herschel Gordon Lewis and producer David F. Friedman. And, uh, basically, the idea was this. These guys did not see films as art. They saw them as a business and thought you were foolish if you thought it was anything else. So they sat around, they brainstormed movies that they thought no one else would make.
14:39 Josh Clark? Yeah, because they started out making like Porky's-esque type movies.
14:43 Speaker 03 Yeah.
14:44 Josh Clark? And they were, they were doing fine with that, but apparently they were successful enough with it that there started to be imitators and the market was crowded. So they said, "Where can we go make movies that no one else is gonna make?"
14:56 Speaker 03 Yeah, because we want to shock people, essentially. So a couple of ideas they had that did not make the list was Con Man Evangelist and Nazi Torture.
15:07 Speaker 03 Which
15:07 Josh Clark? Which were later made.
15:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, exactly. And they finally said, you know what? No one's really done yet is hardcore gore.
15:15 Josh Clark? Yep.
15:16 Speaker 03 Like, everyone always cuts away when the knife comes. And you're like, what if we showed the grossest, goriest stuff imaginable on screen?
15:25 Josh Clark? Yeah, and even still, they didn't show, so like, one of the first murder, a woman stabbed through the eye, and then the murderer hacked her legs off with a machete.
15:35 Speaker 03 Right.
15:36 Josh Clark? 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 Feast, 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.
15:52 Speaker 03 Yeah.
15:52 Josh Clark? They would show the entrails, like, on the knife. They would show the leg being, you know, that had been dismembered, being put into a bag, and like, the wound that was left by it.
16:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
16:04 Josh Clark? Like, this was, no one had ever done anything like that on film before.
16:09 Speaker 03 No, and it paid off. They, depending on who you ask, the budget was anywhere from like 20 to 30 grand, and it made between 7 and 30 million dollars. Like I said, depending on where you get your info. But by all accounts, it was a huge financial success.
16:28 Josh Clark? Yeah.
16:28 Speaker 03 Compared to what they paid to make it.
16:30 Josh Clark? Yeah, and they shot it in, I think, six days or something down in Miami.
16:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
16:36 Josh Clark? Um, based on a 14-page outline. There wasn't even a script, it was an outline. Basically, it was like murderer goes and kills this girl.
16:45 Speaker 03 Yeah.
16:45 Josh Clark? Next girl. Murderer comes in, kills girl, cuts off leg, that kind of thing, right?
16:50 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, if it matters, the movie's about a serial killer caterer.
16:55 Josh Clark? Yeah, that's it. There's your plot right there.
16:57 Speaker 03 Yep.
16:58 Josh Clark? Um, but the, it was just such a revolutionary movie, that the censors at the time, there wasn't such a thing as the MPA. Hadn't been formed yet. And there was basically no one, except for local censors overseeing movies.
17:14 Speaker 03 Yeah.
17:14 Josh Clark? So, you know, you could be playing in one town to all audiences, and then the next town over, it could be banned. But the censors had never seen anything like it and they didn't know what to do with it. So it was hugely successful commercially, too.
17:30 Speaker 03 Yeah, and another big impact it had was it inspired a generation of special effects. But basically, let's be honest, young boys who were doing this on their own Super 8 films
17:41 Josh Clark? Right.
17:41 Speaker 03 And said, wait, I can get a job doing this?
17:45 Josh Clark? Yep.
17:46 Speaker 03 So.
17:47 Josh Clark? Including Tom Savini, I think, was inspired by it, wasn't he?
17:51 Speaker 03 Oh, really?
17:51 Josh Clark? Or was he inspired by... Yeah, I think he was inspired by Blood Feast.
17:55 Speaker 03 Oh, wow.
17:56 Josh Clark? And then we should also give a mention of the Grand Guignol. Is that how you think it's pronounced?
18:02 Speaker 03 Sure.
18:03 Josh Clark? Grand Guignol?
18:04 Speaker 03 Sure.
18:05 Josh Clark? It was a theater in Paris, I believe, from the late 19th century on to, I think, 1962. So the year before Blood Feast came out, it had closed up. But it used to do this stuff onstage. It was like a gore fest.
18:20 Josh Clark? And there was lots of like blood and sex and like depraved themes in the plays that were put on at this theater. People loved it. They were crazy for it. And this was kind of like the Grand Guignol tradition put onto film for the first time.
18:40 Speaker 03 And hooray for that.
18:41 Josh Clark? You want to take a break?
18:42 Speaker 03 Yeah, let's do it.
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21:12 Josh Clark? You know, eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us, it brings us together, and it's one of life's great pleasures. But once a meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next, unless something starts to feel off. Because what we eat and how our bodies respond to it is complicated.
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22:27 Josh Clark? All right, Charles, we're back. So 1960 or 1968?
22:33 Speaker 03 I've got 1968 in front of my face.
22:35 Josh Clark? Okay.
22:37 Speaker 03 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.
22:48 Josh Clark? He was also making short films for Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood at the time.
22:51 Speaker 03 Yeah. And he was, he was young.
22:54 Josh Clark? Yeah. I don't, I don't know how old he was, but he was a pretty young guy still.
22:58 Speaker 03 I think, I think when he made, shot Night of the Living Dead, he was like 26 or 27.
23:04 Josh Clark? Wow.
23:05 Speaker 03 So, uh, yeah, by any standard, that's still pretty young, unless you're 23.
23:10 Josh Clark? So he, 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 one with like an actual plot that explores like deep themes to, like a good movie. Let's, let's make the first good horror movie.
23:27 Speaker 03 Well, yeah. So, and we'll delve into that a little more, but that, that was definitely a different thing at the time. And the other different thing was that all of the horror movies up to that point, uh, they were called the Universal Monsters from Universal Studios. You know, all the, the kind of the classic Frankenstein and Dracula and Creature from the Black Lagoon and the werewolf. And, uh, that was where, that was mainstream horror. And George Romero comes along and says, um, how about zombies?
23:56 Speaker 03 And everyone said, what in the world's a zombie? And he said, well, let me define that for every future generation of movie and TV goers and lovers.
24:05 Josh Clark? Yeah, and there had 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. There was a hypnotist or this was like the first time what we think of as zombies were ever introduced, like flesh eating ghouls who were dead and then come back to life.
24:30 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:30 Josh Clark? Just what you think of as a zombie. This guy started that genre, like you said.
24:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, they shot it outside in Pittsburgh on about $115,000 budget.
24:43 Josh Clark? Not bad.
24:43 Speaker 03 Ended up grossing 12 million domestic.
24:46 Josh Clark? Not bad.
24:47 Speaker 03 And I think close to 20 worldwide and was eventually selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry.
24:55 Josh Clark? It's a good movie.
24:56 Speaker 03 It's a very good movie. They shot it in black and white to save on cost, even though color was the standard by that point. And black and white is also a little more forgiving for rudimentary special effects. And one of the revolutionary things he did was cast a black actor as the lead and for no other reason than, hey, this guy, Dwayne Jones, is really good.
25:20 Josh Clark? Exactly right. Like, he didn't go back and go, oh, well, you know, our hero's black, so we need to make the whole thing a meditation on race and have him confront racism. It was just, here's the script, and then the guy playing the lead just happens to be black.
25:36 Speaker 03 Right. And he was the best guy in the auditions. And, you know, in 1968, this didn't really happen. You didn't just cast a black guy as the lead actor for no, with no, like, ulterior motive, basically.
25:48 Josh Clark? Right. So I read this review from the, from the time, from 1969, the year after it came out. A young Roger Ebert went and watched it and wrote a review. And he wrote a, a pretty, pretty interesting review, which was basically, it was about the reaction of the audience. And he went to a Saturday matinee that was populated almost entirely by 10, 11 year olds.
26:12 Speaker 03 Oh, wow.
26:13 Josh Clark? And they were used to seeing The Creature from the Black Lagoon, or Frankenstein, or, you know, just, just movies that any kid could handle and could enjoy watching and, you know, fun, scary kind of stuff.
26:28 Speaker 03 Yeah.
26:29 Josh Clark? And he said that's how the, 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 Night of the Living Dead, just hit yourself in the knee with a hammer. You, the, the teenage couple go to get gas and when their car blows up and is engulfed 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 were afraid to like move in their seats and some were quietly crying to themselves. And from that, the whole, the whole point on, it just got worse and worse for these
27:14 Josh Clark? little kids watching this movie.
27:16 Speaker 03 So it was a huge impact on horror movies, A. It, like you said earlier, it was kind of the first one to really sort of delve into other issues. Like if you look up like significance of Night of the Living Dead, or meaning of Night of the Living Dead, or something like that, there are scores 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.
27:53 Josh Clark? That is art. Like one of the great revelations of my adult life is that the artist, the writer, the songwriter, the, the author rarely intends to imbue as much meaning into their work as people take from it, that that's part of art, is interpretation. Isn't that neat? Like you don't, if you're a writer, if you're a young writer right now, who's just sitting there racking your brain for how to insert metaphor and, and meaning into this, just write your story and people are gonna find it for themselves.
28:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, agreed.
28:30 Josh Clark? I wish somebody had told me that when I was younger.
28:33 Speaker 03 I had teachers that said stuff like that.
28:35 Josh Clark? Oh, I didn't.
28:37 Speaker 03 Like, good college professors in English that would, when students would argue, like, "I think he means this," he would say, like, you know, "He may," or "She may not have meant anything."
28:46 Josh Clark? Right.
28:47 Speaker 03 Like, that's the revelation.
28:48 Josh Clark? I had teachers that would just go, "Wrong."
28:51 Speaker 03 Uh, the other thing about Night of the Living Dead is it spawned, um, obviously, the zombie genre in, uh, sequels, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead, uh, The Walking Dead, remakes.
29:05 Josh Clark? Yeah, shout out, shout out Steven Yeun.
29:07 Speaker 03 Yeah, right?
29:10 Josh Clark? Why not?
29:11 Speaker 03 I'm still into The Walking Dead, you?
29:14 Josh Clark? Yeah, we talked about this, yes, yes.
29:16 Speaker 03 Okay, we did.
29:16 Josh Clark? Okay, Steven Yeun listens.
29:17 Speaker 03 Uh, anyway, zombies are, I think, still hot, and we can...
29:25 Josh Clark? So hot.
29:25 Speaker 03 We owe that all to Mr. Romero, master of the genre.
29:30 Josh Clark? Yep. Chuck, one more thing, too, that, that Night of the Living Dead did, that they weren't the first, but very famously Romero did, was kill off his hero senselessly and shockingly.
29:42 Speaker 03 Yeah.
29:42 Josh Clark? At the end.
29:43 Speaker 03 Good point.
29:44 Josh Clark? Thanks, man. Okay, so let's move on. Like I said, 1973.
29:49 Speaker 03 Yes.
29:50 Josh Clark? Day after Christmas.
29:51 Speaker 03 If you've ever been, uh, in Washington DC, at the end of M Street, you might have noticed a very, uh, during the daytime, ordinary set of stairs, at nighttime, maybe they look creepy to you, because those are the Exorcist stairs.
30:07 Josh Clark? Yeah. I'm trying to conjure the music in my head, but all I'm coming up with is the Unsolved Mysteries music.
30:13 Speaker 03 It was not.
30:13 Josh Clark? It's not quite right. So close, but it's not it. I'm so unsatisfied right now.
30:19 Speaker 03 So, The Exorcist was, uh, based on a book by William Peter Blatty, who, uh, wrote this, uh, in 1971, and then in 73, the movie was made. Uh, and there's, I think I referenced not too long ago, a great, uh, Marc Maron interview with, um... William Friedkin, where he talks about the audition process for Linda Blair. So you should go listen to that because it was pretty insightful. But The Exorcist really kind of changed the game in that it was, A, it spawned a bit of a subgenre of demonic movies.
30:57 Josh Clark? Sure, that were like religious based?
30:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, even though I guess Rosemary's Baby was before that, but The Exorcist was such a mega hit and it was nominated for Best Picture, the first horror movie to be nominated for that. And so it was just like, it was a big deal.
31:15 Josh Clark? It was. It sold 6 million tickets in about 2 months.
31:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's amazing.
31:20 Josh Clark? This is a horror movie, right? And it came out of nowhere. 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 $4, but I only lasted 20 minutes." So word, like, that's, the stories of that got around 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."
31:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, and it holds up too. I mean, special effects are, they'd never quite hold up, but it's still a very creepy movie. Very famously, Linda Blair played the little girl who was possessed by a demon and the heavy hitters were called in to exorcise this demon, including Max Van Seedall, who was only 44 when he played this guy in his, easily in his 70s.
32:20 Josh Clark? Yeah, was he Benjamin Button?
32:21 Speaker 03 Well, no, they made him up.
32:24 Josh Clark? Wow, they did a great job.
32:26 Speaker 03 Yeah, which I don't see why they felt the need to do that. I know they, God, who else did they almost cast? Oh, Brando. They almost cast Brando, but I think-
32:36 Josh Clark? That would have been a colossal mistake.
32:38 Speaker 03 Well, Friedkin said, "You know what? As soon as you do that, it's a Marlon Brando movie."
32:41 Josh Clark? Yeah.
32:42 Speaker 03 And I think he said picture, a Brando picture.
32:44 Josh Clark? Sure, that's what they said.
32:45 Speaker 03 And he did want it to be a Brando picture. He wanted to be the Exorcist.
32:49 Josh Clark? So you said it was based on a book from two years before by William Peter Blatty.
32:54 Speaker 03 Yeah.
32:55 Josh Clark? He apparently was known as a comedy writer and he wanted to do something different.
33:01 Speaker 03 He said, hey, wouldn't it be funny if the little girl's head spun around and she puked green bile?
33:05 Josh Clark? Wait, what do you hear what I have her do with a crucifix?
33:09 Speaker 03 Heyo.
33:10 Josh Clark? So he actually wrote the book because he wanted to scare America back to church. That was his aim with the book.
33:18 Speaker 03 It may have worked.
33:19 Josh Clark? He believed that there was real evil going on in the world and 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. And when the movie came out, there was a huge pushback from religious authorities. Like Billy Graham said, he believed the movie itself was possessed by a demon. I'm not sure how that would happen, but that was like a huge thing at the time. And a lot of, a lot of other religious establishment types were like, don't go see that movie. It's evil. But there were some who, who were part of, part of religion, major organized religion,
34:00 Josh Clark? who kind of saw through it and said, no, no, this is, it's good that we're talking about this, that 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 kind of went to bat for organized religion.
34:22 Speaker 03 Oh, interesting.
34:23 Josh Clark? I saw another 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 was at war with the establishment. And that it even goes so far as to where her mother, the actress, the movie that she's working on is about a 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.
35:03 Speaker 03 Interesting.
35:04 Josh Clark? Yeah, I thought so too, because apparently, I mean, you think of intergenerational conflict now. Apparently in the late 60s and early 70s, it was sharper than it probably ever has been before or since.
35:17 Speaker 03 Yeah.
35:19 Speaker 03 The only other thing I got is that the, uh, the green stuff that she projectiles was, uh, Anderson's pea soup and a little bit of oatmeal.
35:27 Josh Clark? Nice.
35:30 Josh Clark? Anderson's pea soup, well, but you can't get that anymore. Chuck, let's do Jaws and then we'll take a break. I love talking about Jaws.
35:37 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, Jaws is on, you know, I did my top favorite movies list, uh, at one point on our website and I listed Jaws as my favorite movie.
35:45 Josh Clark? Favorite of all time.
35:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, that list changes, but it's, Jaws is always in my top five. I can watch it anytime it's on. Uh, it is one of the, I've, 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 the film. Um, he, like Spielberg was just a master storyteller with that movie.
36:18 Josh Clark? You were talking about how young George Romero was in Night of the Living Dead. Spielberg was 26 when he made Jaws.
36:24 Speaker 03 He was 13 years old.
36:27 Josh Clark? He, uh, and he was apparently scared to death when he finished filming. Uh, the schedule had been for 55 days. It went to 159.
36:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
36:37 Josh Clark? He, he had, I think, been allotted $4 million. He ended up spending 12 million on it.
36:43 Speaker 03 Um, yeah, largely because A, shooting on water is notoriously difficult and B, uh, the shark, mechanical shark they used was, uh, legendarily, um, wonky.
36:56 Josh Clark? Yeah.
36:57 Speaker 03 And how it, or not wonky, but wanky.
36:59 Josh Clark? Wonky.
37:01 Speaker 03 It didn't work.
37:02 Josh Clark? No.
37:03 Speaker 03 It rarely worked. So they spent a lot of time and burnt a lot of, uh, 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 that ended up being better for the movie because you didn't get as much shark.
37:21 Josh Clark? I looked up the, um, the urban legend about the shark being named after Spielberg's lawyer, Bruce, and apparently it's true.
37:28 Speaker 03 Oh, really?
37:29 Josh Clark? Yeah, Bruce Rayner was the name of Spielberg's lawyer and that was the nickname for the mechanical shark on the set was Bruce.
37:36 Speaker 03 That's pretty funny.
37:37 Josh Clark? So with Jaws, right? We're, we're talking about horror movies that changed the genre. Jaws not only changed the horror genre, it changed movie making to this day.
37:50 Speaker 03 Yeah.
37:50 Josh Clark? In multiple ways, multiple massive ways. It, it changed the entire film industry, almost single-handedly.
38:00 Speaker 03 Yeah, it was, uh, at the time, there was a, uh, there was no such thing. You take it for granted now, but there was no such thing as a quote, unquote, summer release.
38:10 Josh Clark? No, a lot of theaters closed down because AC wasn't in every theater and people didn't want to sit around in a hot movie theater for two hours.
38:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, a summer release or a, a tent pole film or a blockbuster feature. Like Jaws was the first one of all those.
38:27 Josh Clark? What, at the time when Jaws came out, they used to, um, release a movie on maybe one, two screens and say New York or LA for a week. And then it'd make its way to, you know, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Chicago for a few weeks. And then eventually it'd make it to your small town six, eight weeks later.
38:48 Speaker 03 Yeah.
38:48 Josh Clark? That was how movies were released, not Jaws. Jaws was released on 435 screens across the country, which is huge, which is part of the, part of the, um, summer blockbuster release playbook now.
39:03 Speaker 03 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, wait a minute. If you spend some dough on marketing, you release this thing wide, you can make a ton of money in the first month that a movie's out. And you're kind of set. Like after that, it's, anything else is gravy.
39:24 Josh Clark? Yeah.
39:25 Speaker 03 And that's after the first like week or two, probably.
39:27 Josh Clark? Yeah, it was, yeah, the whole, the whole point of Blockbuster now is to get that opening weekend to make all your money back in the opening weekend and then everything else is gravy on top of it, right? Jaws was, it didn't make its, I don't know, maybe it did make its money back in the first weekend because it hit a hundred million dollars in like 78 days or something incredible like that because it was the first movie to hit a hundred million dollars and it did it in just a couple of months even.
39:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, it eventually went on to make to about 260 million dollars domestically, which is, I mean, that's a great take now.
40:02 Josh Clark? Yeah.
40:03 Speaker 03 You know, much less the mid 1970s.
40:05 Josh Clark? Sure, for a 12 million dollar spend, for sure.
40:08 Speaker 03 My only beef here is that I would not consider Jaws a horror movie.
40:13 Josh Clark? Yeah.
40:13 Speaker 03 I think it's an adventure film.
40:15 Josh Clark? Yeah, I guess you're right.
40:16 Speaker 03 With a scary antagonist.
40:19 Josh Clark? Yeah.
40:19 Speaker 03 But it's amazing how much I quote that movie in my day to day life.
40:24 Josh Clark? Yeah.
40:24 Speaker 03 A shush shush shark.
40:27 Josh Clark? That's a great, that's a classic.
40:30 Speaker 03 All right, let's take a break. I'm gonna meditate on that line and we'll talk about a few other scary movies, including one that was originally titled Scary Movie.
40:57 Josh Clark? Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability and it all starts with a great deal on a truck from your local Toyota dealer.
41:07 Speaker 03 That's right. Make a smart buy on the off-road ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest lasting trucks, built with the strength for the tough jobs, the tech to power your next big adventure, and the rugged style for everything in between.
41:20 Josh Clark? Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic forerunner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile. Drive for less along the way.
41:36 Speaker 03 That's right. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you could trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.
42:00 Josh Clark? You know, eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us, it brings us together, and it's one of life's great pleasures. But once a meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next, unless something starts to feel off. Because what we eat and how our bodies respond to it is complicated.
42:16 Speaker 03 That's right. From the very first bite, food kicks off a chain reaction, signals moving between the gut, the brain, and the immune system. The constant back and forth we can't see and often don't fully understand. So we want to introduce to you Eating Interrupted, a new podcast from iHeart Ruby Studio. It's hosted by longtime journalist and Crohn's patient Cynthia McFadden. Eating Interrupted explores everything from food allergies and intolerance and why they seem to be on the rise, to how digestion changes as we age and what it's really like to live with a chronic GI condition.
42:44 Josh Clark? Through personal stories and expert insight, listen in to unpack what it means when your body doesn't always respond to food the way you expect and what science is now revealing about why. Listen to Eating Interrupted on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
43:03 Speaker 04 First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?
43:06 Josh Clark? Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.
43:09 Speaker 03 That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T, and he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, redefining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.
43:25 Speaker 04 It was going to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.
43:32 Josh Clark? That includes Field Services Manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.
43:39 Speaker 05 Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.
43:44 Speaker 03 And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.
43:48 Speaker 05 To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.
43:52 Speaker 04 What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.
43:56 Josh Clark? AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.
43:59 Speaker 02 Connecting changes everything. AT&T.
44:14 Josh Clark? Okay, moving on to Halloween. Halloween, Chuck. 1978, I believe. Halloween.
44:21 Speaker 03 Yes. John Carpenter.
44:25 Speaker 03 A youngish John Carpenter. Who originally titled this movie The Babysitter Murders.
44:32 Josh Clark? No.
44:32 Speaker 03 A little on the nose.
44:33 Josh Clark? Yeah.
44:34 Speaker 03 A pretty terrifying title.
44:36 Josh Clark? I guess.
44:37 Speaker 03 A young Jamie Lee Curtis. Her very first movie.
44:39 Josh Clark? Was it really?
44:40 Speaker 03 Yeah.
44:41 Josh Clark? Well, she went on to become known as the Scream Queen. For all the horror movies she was in.
44:46 Speaker 03 Totally. And this was, uh, shot in 20 days in, uh, South Pasadena as the Midwest. And, um, it was, it's credited as being birthing the slasher genre.
45:00 Josh Clark? Yeah, it did. So there were slasher films before it. The Town That Dreaded Sundown.
45:05 Speaker 03 Good movie.
45:05 Josh Clark? It's like based on a true crime story, actually, in Texas. Uh, one called Black Christmas, The Grabster Sites from 1974. Haven't heard of that one. But the idea of, um, of a faceless, almost a, like, non-entity entity coming at you and relentlessly stalking you, being impervious to harm, as The Grabster 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 to, to great effect as well.
45:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, and it holds up. It's still scary. Uh, Michael Myers, of course, was the killer. Um, the, the music that John Carpenter scored, I mean, he, he scores most of his movies himself. But, um, 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 are so iconic, the music is so iconic.
46:07 Josh Clark? You know about the mask, right?
46:09 Speaker 03 Shatner?
46:10 Josh Clark? Yeah.
46:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, go ahead.
46:11 Josh Clark? I went and checked that one out too, to verify that it was true, and it definitely is true, that the Michael Myers mask is actually a Captain Kirk Star Trek mask painted white.
46:22 Speaker 03 Yep.
46:23 Josh Clark? And that is history.
46:25 Speaker 03 Yep, in the, in the script, uh, when it came to the mask, it just said, uh, pale, neutral features of a man.
46:33 Josh Clark? Yeah, which makes the whole thing even creepier because he's a implacid, or a, uh, is that the right word?
46:40 Speaker 03 I don't know.
46:41 Josh Clark? He's just, it's just almost like a, just an emotionless killer.
46:45 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
46:45 Josh Clark? It, it made the fact that he was merciless, ruthless, pitiless, and, and arbitrarily killing people almost, um, all the more pronounced because his expression never changes.
46:58 Speaker 03 Well, to me, the two things that were creepiest about Halloween was the expression never changed because of that mask. And he did not run, like.
47:07 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah.
47:07 Speaker 03 He would just walk and you still got the feeling like, you can't outrun this guy even though he's walking.
47:13 Josh Clark? That was another creepy part about it, it follows was the walking aspect of it.
47:17 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah, for sure.
47:19 Josh Clark? Yeah, in, in the same way that like 28 days later was freaky and that it took zombies and made them run.
47:25 Speaker 03 Yeah, or I remember when I saw, uh, Friday the 13th, 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.
47:36 Josh Clark? Yeah, scary dudes don't trot.
47:38 Speaker 03 No, they, they walk very creepily toward you and still somehow gain speed on you even though you're running full speed.
47:44 Josh Clark? Well, Freddy scared me to death the first time I saw that movie.
47:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, the first one was a pretty good one.
47:49 Josh Clark? But Halloween established this, like you said, it established the slasher genre and everything about slasher films still today, all rooted in, in Halloween, John Carpenter's tropes.
48:01 Speaker 03 Yeah, and again, like you said, there were a couple of other slasher films before, but none of them grossed close to 50 million bucks.
48:08 Josh Clark? Wow, is that how much Halloween made?
48:09 Speaker 03 Yeah, 47 million domestic at about a $300,000 budget, so it, uh,
48:16 Speaker 03 You know, it's sort of like with The Exorcist, 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 makes money.
48:26 Josh Clark? Yeah.
48:27 Speaker 03 And that's all that matters.
48:28 Josh Clark? Everyone starts paying attention after that.
48:30 Speaker 03 All right, what's next?
48:32 Josh Clark? What's next, my friend, is a movie that came out when, I don't know, were you still in college?
48:37 Speaker 03 Uh, no.
48:39 Josh Clark? You must have just been out then.
48:41 Speaker 03 I was out a few years.
48:42 Josh Clark? Okay, well, regardless, around our college era, this movie came out, because up to this point, everything's come out either when we were little or before we were born. This one was right in our wheelhouse. It was The Blair Witch Project, which came out in 1998.
48:57 Speaker 03 Yeah, and one of the big things that Blair Witch Project did, well, two things really. It established the found footage genre or subgenre that is so overplayed now. And the viral marketing campaign, and that's how I came upon it. I remember very specifically being in the apartment of Scotti Polito, who you know.
49:18 Josh Clark? Sure.
49:18 Speaker 03 He shot our TV show, one of my oldest friends, and I was sitting in his apartment on Clermont Avenue in Decatur. And I happened upon this, and this was pre-Facebook, I don't even know how I found it, you know, before things were being shared around.
49:31 Josh Clark? Right.
49:32 Speaker 03 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.
49:43 Josh Clark? Yeah.
49:43 Speaker 03 And I remember the website set it up as if it was real. And that this found footage thing, it's so overdone now, it's hard to go back in time and remember when it was fresh. But I remember looking at it and being like, did this happen? Did they really find this footage of this murder in the woods? Like, I gotta see this.
50:03 Josh Clark? That was the rumor, that this was actually real, man. And this was, like you said, I mean, this is before the found footage genre. So people were being exposed to this concept for the first time and were kind of falling for it. I mean, first of all, you're either in college or you're just recently out of college. So you're maybe slightly more gullible than you are 10 years on.
50:22 Speaker 03 You're ready to believe it.
50:23 Josh Clark? 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. Then I think the other part 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 imagination.
50:44 Speaker 03 Yeah, nor did they have the talent to make a good narrative film.
50:48 Josh Clark? I guess, I mean, they worked on a 64 page script, which I was surprised that it was that, that big. But they shot it for eight days and originally they were going to make it like a documentary about the found footage.
51:02 Speaker 03 Right.
51:03 Josh Clark? And then one of them had a flash of perspective and was like, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's just release it like it's found footage and that was, the rest was history.
51:12 Speaker 03 Yeah, and I'm poking fun, that was not very nice at all. Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick or Merrick, the co-directors, they, they should be credited with a truly ingenious campaign and invention.
51:28 Josh Clark? Well, they weren't the first to come up with found footage, right? There were some films before, I've never known how to pronounce it, Mondo Kane, I think Kane. It's from 1962 and it was supposedly a documentary about like some, like weird tribal rituals. I think there's head shrinking maybe involved and it purported to be like real footage.
51:53 Speaker 03 Yeah.
51:53 Josh Clark? Same with Cannibal Holocaust, which if you've never seen Cannibal Holocaust, go out and watch it right now.
51:59 Speaker 03 Yeah.
51:59 Josh Clark? Very disturbing. And it's so disturbing that the director of the movie was charged with murder because they believed that the, 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, 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.
52:32 Speaker 03 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, hats off for them, to them. Good for them and to them.
52:51 Josh Clark? Nice going, dudes. All right, Chuck. Scream.
52:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, Scream. I teased that it was originally titled Scary Movie.
52:59 Josh Clark? I'm glad it wasn't because Scary Movie is awesome. I don't know what Scary Movie ever would have been called. Maybe it would have never been made.
53:06 Speaker 03 Or maybe they would have called it Scream.
53:08 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah, I guess so.
53:09 Speaker 03 So Scream was a very big deal when it came out. The writer, Kevin Williamson, and this is still the highest growing slasher film of all time, basically. Scream one is.
53:19 Josh Clark? It was huge. I got Neve Campbell's haircut as a result of it. Like, it was a big, big pop culture watermark.
53:26 Speaker 03 It was, and one of the big things about it, aside from the boatloads of money that it made, was it spawned a subgenre called meta horror, which is, even though it had been done by no less than its own director, Wes Craven, with Wes Craven's new nightmare, two years before Scream, it wasn't nearly as popular. But meta horror is this idea, 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.
54:01 Josh Clark? Right.
54:01 Speaker 03 Although I don't think that specific thing happened.
54:03 Josh Clark? Like, don't go back in the house.
54:06 Speaker 03 Yeah, like, all the tropes of horror movies are addressed in the movie.
54:09 Josh Clark? And they're talking about them as the horror movie tropes.
54:12 Speaker 03 Yes.
54:13 Josh Clark? Yeah.
54:13 Speaker 03 Exactly. Meta horror.
54:16 Josh Clark? Yeah, and there were plenty of other things that came along meta horror examples. Like, have you seen Tucker and Dale vs. Evil?
54:25 Speaker 03 Uh, no. It's a good.
54:26 Josh Clark? Oh, check it out, man.
54:28 Speaker 03 All right.
54:28 Josh Clark? That's a good movie. Zombie Land?
54:31 Speaker 03 Yeah, I did see that.
54:32 Josh Clark? Where he's rattling off all of the things that you need to know to survive a zombie apocalypse that he learned from zombie movies, right? And then Cabin in the Woods. Did you see that one?
54:41 Speaker 03 Uh, great movie.
54:42 Josh Clark? It was a great movie. I thought it was really good. I mean, from beginning to end, it was a great movie.
54:48 Speaker 03 Did you like Scream?
54:49 Josh Clark? Yeah, love Scream. I liked all the Screams.
54:52 Speaker 03 I only saw the first two. The second one, I think, might have been even better than the first.
54:59 Speaker 03 To me. And that, the second was shot, Emily worked on that. It was shot here in, at Agnes Scott College, partially.
55:05 Josh Clark? Oh, is that right?
55:06 Speaker 03 Yeah.
55:07 Josh Clark? Huh. I'll have to go back and watch it, knowing that now. I'll be like, oh, I've driven past that place.
55:13 Speaker 03 So, I got a few tidbits. Like I said, initial title was scary movie. Number two, the Weinstein brothers initially offered it to George Romero and Sam Raimi. What else do I have here? Drew Barrymore was originally supposed to play Sidney, the lead character. And then she said, "No, how about if I just played that girl at the beginning?" Which kinda was a big thing, because you see Drew Barrymore, and it was a big shock when she died in the first scene.
55:43 Josh Clark? Right.
55:44 Speaker 03 You know?
55:44 Josh Clark? You can't kill off your heroin right away.
55:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, and I'm like, I remember, I remember that first scene really, really scaring me when I saw it the first time in the theater.
55:53 Josh Clark? Yeah, it is. It's a scary, gruesome, gory part.
55:57 Speaker 03 Yeah, very well played. And then before he went to Neve Campbell, he went out to Alicia Witt, Brittany Murphy, and Reese Witherspoon.
56:05 Josh Clark? And then Neve Campbell was like, "I don't know, that was your first choice, right?"
56:10 Speaker 03 And then the mask, the iconic scream mask, apparently was an off-the-shelf mask.
56:15 Josh Clark? Wow, that made that company's money?
56:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, and the Weinsteins didn't like it. They were like, "I hate that mask. Everything else is fine."
56:25 Speaker 03 But Wes Craven said, "No, it's gotta be that mask."
56:28 Josh Clark? "Don't be stupid, Bob."
56:31 Speaker 03 All right, we gonna finish up with our own addition here?
56:35 Josh Clark? Finally, 1960.
56:36 Speaker 03 Yes.
56:38 Josh Clark? Psycho.
56:39 Speaker 03 I can't believe this wasn't in the list.
56:42 Josh Clark? I think Ed kept this off the list to toy with somebody he doesn't like specifically. That's the only explanation.
56:51 Speaker 03 Yeah, because Psycho changed everything.
56:54 Josh Clark? 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.
57:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
57:04 Josh Clark? It was based on the real-life story of Ed Gein.
57:10 Speaker 03 Yeah.
57:10 Josh Clark? I mean, it doesn't exactly mirror Ed Gein's life, but the idea of being obsessed with your mother so much that you will commit murder, is definitely rooted in Ed Gein's story.
57:22 Speaker 03 Yeah.
57:22 Josh Clark? If you're not familiar with Ed Gein, he not only- He was a, I don't even know if he was a serial killer. I think he only, I think he murdered one, maybe two people. But more than anything, he was a grave robber. But he likes to dress up in people's skin, women's skin, and pretend he was his own mother. Which, man, that's a lot of years on the couch working that one out.
57:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
57:47 Josh Clark? Or you can just die at the hands of cops. One of the two. And he also inspired Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
57:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, and Buffalo Bill, of course.
57:58 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah, yeah.
57:58 Speaker 03 From Silence of the Lambs.
57:59 Josh Clark? Yeah, one guy inspired all those, all those guys.
58:02 Speaker 03 So I found this article, Psycho, colon, "The Horror Movie That Changed The Genre", by Owen Gleiberman, or is it Gleiberman?
58:12 Josh Clark? Gleber, I think.
58:13 Speaker 03 Gleiberman, he wrote for, legendary critic, wrote for EW for years and years, and now writes for Variety.
58:18 Josh Clark? Oh, he does?
58:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, but he, he put it best. He said,
58:24 Speaker 03 well, you know, the iconic shower scene, first of all, is hugely important because it was, Hitchcock really kind of ripped up the script, not literally, but the horror movie script, when he kills off Janet Leigh halfway through the movie. It was, you just didn't do that at the time.
58:41 Josh Clark? No.
58:41 Speaker 03 And it came out of nowhere.
58:43 Josh Clark? And we've seen that come up later on, like at the end of Night of the Living Dead, or Drew Barrymore in Scream. Hitchcock was the first one to do that.
58:52 Speaker 03 Yeah, and Gleiberman puts it this way. He said, "He was also slicing through years, decades, centuries even, of audience expectation that the hero or heroine of a fictional work would be shielded and protected, or would at least die, usually at the end, in a way that made some sort of moral dramatic sense."
59:09 Josh Clark? Right.
59:10 Speaker 03 In Psycho, the murder made no sense at all.
59:13 Josh Clark? Right.
59:13 Speaker 03 And he really kind of hits it on the head there. It was like, if you've never seen Psycho or heard of it, The movie's just going along about this woman who like steals some money from her work and she's kind of on the lam. 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.
59:35 Josh Clark? Right.
59:35 Speaker 03 And then just out of nowhere, she's hacked up in a shower. And at the time, audiences, and still if you haven't seen it, it's shocking, but audiences were just like, they didn't know what they'd seen.
59:47 Josh Clark? Right, exactly. So you're not, not only is, is the hero no longer safe, that means maybe you're not either.
59:55 Speaker 03 Yeah.
59:55 Josh Clark? So it has, it had a really huge unsettling effect. And then Owen Gliberman points out that Hitchcock was so smart that he even, 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.
1:00:19 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:00:19 Josh Clark? It was this huge rambling Victorian mansion on a hill. There was lots of taxidermy and uh, it was like over, over 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.
1:00:43 Speaker 03 Yeah. And that house was, I mean, almost a character in itself. Like if you've ever seen the recreation of it at uh, in, in Los Angeles, I think it's at Universal.
1:00:52 Josh Clark? Did you see it?
1:00:53 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
1:00:54 Josh Clark? I never did. The closest I came was um, I think uh, when Different Strokes went there.
1:01:00 Speaker 03 That's the closest you got to it?
1:01:01 Josh Clark? Yeah.
1:01:02 Speaker 03 Uh, yeah, man. If you've ever seen this thing in person, like it's, it sends a chill up your back just seeing this thing in like a sunny Los Angeles day. Still.
1:01:11 Josh Clark? That's awesome.
1:01:12 Speaker 03 It's such an iconic house. It's like, oh, man. There it is. That's where Norman Bates lives. He's the most disturbed human of all time.
1:01:19 Josh Clark? Right.
1:01:20 Speaker 03 So in the movie, of course, there was the the mother character who is sort of referenced throughout the movie. And it is not until the end that you realize that there is no mother. Mother's dead.
1:01:32 Josh Clark? Right.
1:01:32 Speaker 03 There's just Norman Bates and all his rage and hangups.
1:01:36 Josh Clark? Yeah. So all the monster movies about giant ants and or the creature from the Black Lagoon, monsters, things that were an other that a normal person had to do battle with, that was gone.
1:01:48 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:01:48 Josh Clark? Now, the monster had been on screen the whole time and you hadn't 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?
1:02:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:02:04 Josh Clark? This is what Hitchcock did to everybody back in 1960. And you almost get like, I think Owen Glibberman points it out. Yeah, he does. At the beginning, he basically says like,
1:02:14 Josh Clark? we probably didn't see Psycho. If you're reading this, you're probably too young to have seen Psycho in 1960. And we should all feel sad that we didn't. Because it's so changed everything that 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 it instilled in audiences. And thus far, no one's actually been able to do it.
1:02:41 Speaker 03 Yeah. And the other thing, I remember when I saw it when I was younger, I think I saw this when I was like 14 ish. 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.
1:02:59 Josh Clark? Making your mom watch? She's keeping watch?
1:03:02 Speaker 03 No, that would have been full circle back to Psycho.
1:03:04 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah, I guess so. Yeah. You didn't even want to have anything to do with your mom.
1:03:08 Speaker 03 No, man. Like, it changed the shower curtain industry for a while after that.
1:03:13 Josh Clark? Yeah, I'll bet.
1:03:14 Speaker 03 Very good movie. And there were a couple of Hitchcock movies in the last few years. Two different ones, one with Anthony Hopkins and one with Toby Jones.
1:03:27 Speaker 03 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, too. You should repeat that. We just got a rare interjection from Noel. So go ahead and say it again, Josh, in case it didn't come through.
1:03:44 Josh Clark? So Noel just said that the director of The Black Coat's daughter is Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates in Psycho's son.
1:03:52 Speaker 03 Wow.
1:03:53 Josh Clark? He also did another movie, now that Noel says that. Thanks, Noel. It's called The Pretty Little Thing That Lives in the House, which is another horror movie, a ghost story. I think that was his first one, and I think that might be on Netflix. It's great. It's a really great movie, too.
1:04:10 Speaker 03 Man, this has got me fired up to see some horror movies.
1:04:13 Josh Clark? It's a renaissance of horror.
1:04:15 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's tough, though, because Emily doesn't really dig it. So I have to just find alone time to do this.
1:04:20 Josh Clark? Go to watch it in the bathroom.
1:04:23 Josh Clark? All right. Well, if you want to know more about horror movies, go watch horror movies. Go forth.
1:04:30 Speaker 03 Let us know what we missed, for God's sake.
1:04:32 Josh Clark? Yeah, if you want to check out Grabster's list, type in horror movies on the search bar at houseofworks.com, and it'll bring up this fine, fine list that you'll disagree with. And since I said disagree, it's time for listener mail.
1:04:47 Speaker 03 This is from Eric, and I'm going to call it what he called it, a Schoolhouse Rock nostalgia theory.
1:04:52 Josh Clark? All right.
1:04:52 Speaker 03 I think it's pretty right on. This just came in, actually. This is 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 70s and 80s.
1:05:17 Josh Clark? Huh, maybe.
1:05:17 Speaker 03 Certainly something we've talked about.
1:05:19 Josh Clark? This theory's got legs.
1:05:20 Speaker 03 While our little impressionable brains were developing, we were being taught by those who were steering pop culture to long for and find fulfillment in the toys and other products our cartoons were pushing on us. Now, as adults, those messages are still deep in our psyche, and we can't shake the idea that we still really need those Star Wars action figures to be happy. Not because the toys and the shows were so great, but because we had been tricked into believing we need them. I have nothing scientific to back this up.
1:05:45 Josh Clark? Just a hunch.
1:05:46 Speaker 03 Yeah. What, you mean there hasn't been a study from MIT? On Star Wars toys?
1:05:53 Josh Clark? I'm kind of surprised by that as well. I thought you were being facetious at first.
1:05:57 Speaker 03 I was.
1:05:58 Josh Clark? And then it just took a turn.
1:05:58 Speaker 03 Yeah. I don't know which way is up at this point.
1:06:01 Josh Clark? Yeah.
1:06:01 Speaker 03 Nothing scientific to back this up, but I'd love to hear what you all think. See if anyone out there has any respectable and informed input. Love what you guys do.
1:06:10 Josh Clark? I love you, Eric.
1:06:11 Speaker 03 That is from Eric Lewin. And Eric, I think that's super valid.
1:06:15 Josh Clark? Yeah, I do too, Eric. I think you've really hit upon something here.
1:06:19 Speaker 03 And that's all I have to say about it.
1:06:20 Josh Clark? If you have a great theory, fan theory, real life theory, whatever, we want to hear them. Especially if it's interesting.
1:06:28 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:06:28 Josh Clark? You can tweet to us at SYSK Podcast or Josh Umlark. You can post it on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant or Stuff You Should Know. You can send us an email to [email protected] . And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.
1:06:47 Josh Clark? For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.
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