All language subtitles for History of Horror S01E03 Slashers, Part 2.eng

With the slasher films,

the rock stars
are the killers.

You don't know what pain is!

Everybody has this dark side

that needs to be filled.

West used to call Freddy
the bastard stepfather

of us all.

This killer that can kill you
in your dreams.

Candyman.

It doesn't get much scarier
than that.

Be my victim.

You're never gonna
catch him.

Everybody's a suspect.

I think the fun of "Scream"

is the self-awareness...

Oh, you wanna play
psycho killer?

And the deconstruction
of the horror genre.

The entire audience

jumped out of their skin.

In a movie,
we have a chance to...

almost externalize
the fears that we have.

Could I saw off my leg
if I had to?

We invented a whole new term.

Torture porn became
the cathartic release.

You have to work
with the dark side.

Horror is the only genre

where it's flattering
if somebody says,

"Ah, I couldn't watch
your movie.

Had to leave."

Oh, my God!

We're not allowed to be
scared anywhere in life.

You can't be scared at work.
But for 90 minutes,

you can be afraid
and not be a coward.

After John Carpenter's
"Halloween"

made box office history
in 1978,

slasher films
ruled the screen.

But by 1984,

audience fatigue
and critical backlash

had taken hold.

Slashers looked dead
in the water.

But the genre
was only sleeping.

I'm certainly not the first
girl to play a woman character

who fights to the death
in a battle against a monster.

There will always be men
and there will always be women

who are, you know,
forced to be that person.

So "Nightmare on Elm Street"
is about a group of four kids,

teenagers, who realize

that they've all shared
the same nightmare.

- Eee.
- Nancy...

you dreamed about
the same creep I did.

That's impossible.

And they don't really think
anything about it

until each one of them,
one by one,

starts dying in their dreams.

No. No. No!

No!

No!

My character wants
to figure out,

like, why this is happening,

who it is that's killing them.

And so the movie's about
Nancy's quest

to discover Freddy Krueger

and why he did it.

He did it as an act
of vengeance against

some vigilante parents

who killed him
in a boiler room.

Who are you?

Freddy Krueger
was a child murderer,

and there isn't anything funny
about that.

They kind of gloss over
that later.

The creation
of Freddy Krueger,

this man who had knives
for fingers

who would come to children
in their dreams

and kill them,
was terrifying.

It was just a terrifying idea.

I mean,
"Nightmare on Elm Street"

is the next quantum leap
forward,

- I think, in horror.
- Yeah, definitely.

I mean, this killer
that can kill you

- in your dreams.
- Yeah.

So suddenly you have
a slasher whose arm...

It crosses
into the supernatural.

It crosses into
the supernatural, yeah.

It is a blend
of supernatural and slashers.

The rules of any sort
of world don't apply.

- Right.
- I think that's what made

Freddy Krueger
such a unique character.

It just took us
to a different place.

Yeah. Yeah.

Wes Craven was a visionary,
I think,

in terms of fear,

understanding what that...
what that could be

and maximizing that

in these broad strokes,

which "Nightmare
on Elm Street" has.

What is one
of the earliest things

I can think of as a weapon

that would have terrified
human beings?

The cave bear reaching around
the corner

with his massive mitt

with daggers on the end
of every finger.

That's primal.

Even the colors.

I read an article on
the two most difficult colors

for the iris... or the retina
to see next to each other

were those two colors.

And then finding an actor
who was brilliant

and who could bring it to life.

Wes used to call Freddy
the bastard stepfather

of us all.

But when I got the part,

I didn't know
what I was gonna do.

And the makeup sessions
informed

a lot of what I did.

They were dabbing at me
with a crusty brush

and basting me
like a turkey

with Vaseline so that I
picked up the light better.

And in comes Johnny Depp
and Heather Langenkamp,

arguably the two most
attractive young people

in the world at that moment,

and it got me angry and envious
of their youth and their beauty

and the fact
that these two kids

had their whole careers
ahead of them.

And I went, "Wait a minute.
I can use that."

This is just a dream!
He isn't real!

He isn't real!

Of course, all my fights
with Freddy

were fantastic,
and we would work on them

for a long time.

Once the camera was rolling,

you know, we got into
our characters,

and I bashed him over the head
with a coffeepot.

I think the real reason
it had

such a massive audience
and still does

is, every single one
of the films

has a really strong,
well-written survivor girl.

Come out and show yourself,
you bastard!

So something
really interesting

about Nancy Thompson
in "A Nightmare on Elm Street"

is that it's sort of her
breaking free

from this chain of suburbia

being this ideal
because her family is broken.

Nancy.

I'm gonna go
and get the guy who did it.

And I want you to be there
to arrest him

when I bring him out, okay?

Just tell me who did it.
I'll go get him, baby.

Fred Krueger did it, Daddy.

Her father,
while, I think, very loving,

is very inept.

He refuses to believe her.

Her mother's an alcoholic.

She breaks free from it
by destroying the home,

thereby destroying
Freddy Krueger,

who came because her parents
had killed him.

I guess I'd say my very first
fans were young gay men.

And they told me
that they were using Nancy

as they faced their folks
or their parents

or their families
in revealing their true selves.

I take back every bit
of energy I gave you.

You're nothing.

And they expressed to me
that it was just, like...

it was their Freddy, you know,

just, like, that scary thing
that they have to face,

that they have to fight.

I would often listen
to all sorts of people

talk about what
their Freddy was.

And, I mean,
it can be anything,

I'm telling you.
It can be anything.

Kids who were bullied
would tell me

that they would use the images

of "Nightmare on Elm Street"

to help them face bullies
in their life.

You think you was gonna
get away from me?

I know you too well now,
Freddy.

You know, Wes Craven
probably never knew

how many he people
he was gonna help

by creating this Nancy-Freddy
dynamic.

It seems to me
there were several

peak nightmares,

that the first one
was really terrifying,

but there was a couple others
way downstream

that were really satisfying

and did interesting things
intellectually.

There's a lot of echoes
to Kafka,

you know, and that,
insects and other things.

Freddy Krueger's
pretty terrifying

in the first
"Nightmare on Elm Street."

Watch this.

But he became
a one-line reader.

How's this for a wet dream?

Silly, funny, like, puns

and double entendres.

This is it, Jennifer.

Your big break in TV.

Welcome to prime time, bitch.

With a joke here,
a joke there,

a wisecrack here, there,

it makes it easier
to set them up

for another dark sequence

or another horrific thing
or just a cheap-thrill scare.

Got your nose!

Did we go too far sometimes?
Perhaps.

And did we load it up
too much?

Sometimes, perhaps, yeah.

I'll get you, my pretty,
and your little soul too.

You know, I've been,
you know,

listening to

what... how crowds respond
to horror

for most of my life.

You know, talking about
sort of...

with the Freddy movies,
with the Freddy sequels...

- Mm-hmm.
- How a black theater could...

You know, the relationship
to Freddy

is almost... is closer
than it is to the victims

- of those movies.
- Of course.

- Right? Of course.
- You identify with Freddy.

He's funny.
You identify with him.

There's... you know him.
You don't know

these new mother
coming to get killed.

- Right.
- They're just sheep

for the slaughter.

No!

By the way,
we're identifying with Freddy,

the child murderer.

Yes, but black people
also love them some Jason...

- Yes.
- And some Michael Myers.

No!

There's something
about these...

first of all, these characters
that don't give a...

- Mm-hmm.
- That are cold-blooded...

That I think scratches
an itch,

a frustrated itch,
a societally frustrated itch.

That itch
would be scratched

by a slasher with a hook,

a monster driven by love

and the need to kill.

Be my victim.

Candyman.

Candyman.

Candyman.

"Candyman," in a nutshell,

is a dark love story.

Virginia Madsen and I
were deeply in love

in another life.

Candyman was an artist,

and unfortunately
her father was a racist.

Had him lynched,
cut off his arm,

and replaced it with a hook.

And he was trying
to reclaim his lost love

by getting her to honor,
you know,

him as a mystery man.

Oh!!

What "Candyman" tried to do

was using slavery

and some of the violence
of slavery

to explain the emergence
of this monstrous character

who, if you say his name

into a mirror five times...

Dare you.

both: Candyman.

Candyman.
Candyman.

Candyman.

He comes if you just say
his name.

Candyman.

It doesn't get much scarier
than that.

Most slasher films
start with

a traumatic experience
that happens

as, like, a... sort of a

precursor to where the film
is set in modern day.

The trauma itself serves
as a triggering effect

for the killer
in the present time.

What's so interesting
about that is that

a lot of it is based
in loss and grief.

It had a real impact
on a lot of audiences.

Black audiences because, hey,
even though

he's the monster...

Believe in me.

Be my victim.

We will turn out to see
blacks in a horror film.

It was based
on Clive Barker's book

"The Forbidden."

And I think what Bernard Rose,
the director and writer,

did brilliantly
was to transpose it

to Cabrini-Green,

which is now gone
but was one of the most

dangerous housing projects
in America.

I thought "Candyman"
was really cool

because, you know,
you're so used to seeing

these traditional
haunted house movies,

and it's, like, the opposite.

The setting is so gritty.

I think "Candyman"
is intended more

for a white audience.

It's looking at kind of
the fear of the urban setting,

and Cabrini-Green
and the sprawl

of poverty in Chicago

and what might
come out of that.

Damn it.

One of the brilliant things
about the film

is that he doesn't appear
until 45 minutes into...

into the film.

He's spoken about.
They mytholize him.

Everybody's scared.

He... he could come right through
these walls, you know.

I-I'm scared.

Scared for my child.

They ain't never gonna
catch him.

Who?

Candyman.

I think some audiences
were troubled

because so many of the people
he killed were black.

So if it was
a straight revenge story,

he would have been
killing nothing

but white people, right?

But the residents
of this project

were also his victims.

If you were to explain,

"Well, it's about
this black dude who was

"murdered for having sex
with a white lady,

"and then he comes back
and hunts the white lady

and lots of other people too,"
you'd be like,

"Nah, I don't think
we're gonna make that movie."

You know what I mean?
But somehow,

through his level
of magnetism and charm,

he manages
to make Candyman someone...

I don't know if they love him,
but who they love to fear.

Be my victim.

Be my victim.

He's got a passion.
He wants what he wants.

And this
is his unrequited love.

This is the woman
that got away,

the woman that he cherished,
you know?

And it happens to be
in a horrific environment,

but, you know,
he'd do anything for her.

Even kill her
if they can die together.

Your death would be a tale
to frighten children,

to make lovers cling closer
in their rapture.

Come with me

and be immortal.

I think that mixture
of terror and empathy

is very powerful.

Every great work
of horror fiction

is an exercise
in extreme empathy.

It's about falling in love
with characters

and then staying with them
as they endure the worst.

- No!
- And he's an iconic monster.

He had bees
coming out of his mouth.

He had bees all over his face.

We used over 100,000 bees
on that set.

It was all practicals,
which is... you know,

totally makes a difference.

I think I got maybe 26 stings

altogether,
but they were

an essential part to...

creating the terror
for the situation.

You know,
what happens to a ghost

if he's still living flesh?

Will he be inhabited
by maggots?

Well, then we chose bees
'cause...

they're just that... you know,

every kid is afraid
of a bee sting.

You know, there's nothing
ambiguous about horror.

Horror is an engine.

It's like
a great white shark.

It has a purpose,
something it wants to do.

It wants to scare you.

And in that way,
that lack of ambiguity

is really freeing
as a filmmaker

'cause you know
what you're trying to do.

Help! Help me!

It's a beautiful thing
to play with,

and it's even more beautiful
thing when it works.

Candyman is an icon,

one of the great
supernatural monsters.

But the masked serial killer
was ready to make a comeback

with a postmodern twist.

Slashers kind of go away
for a while.

Like, once we're sort of
out of weapons...

I think the public starts
to get bored of it.

Well, there were so...
and there were so many sequels.

And they were always
diminishing returns.

Exactly, and they were never
about being scary.

And then "Scream" comes along.

My whole goal
when writing "Scream" was,

I wanted a horror movie
to sort of

live and breathe
in a time

where the other horror movies
existed.

If you were the only suspect
in a senseless bloodbath...

would you be standing
in the horror section?

Kevin was smart enough
to make it

not about the filmmakers
and the actors

but about the audience.

"Scream" is the story
of Sidney Prescott.

And it's one year after

the horrific murder
of her mother.

Just when she's about to have

some semblance
of her normal life,

just when she's starting
to trust again

and she's starting
to date again

and she's got her boyfriend,

on the anniversary
of her mother's death,

murders start occurring

as it looks like perhaps
someone takes their love

of scary movies too far.

And they start using
horror movie lingo

as a way to stalk
and kill victims.

You never told me your name.

Why do you want to know
my name?

'Cause I want to know
who I'm looking at.

What did you say?

The opening of "Scream"
is so iconic at this point.

And it's so masterfully done.

That is Wes Craven
at the height of his career.

It happens. Take it easy.

The thing about Wes Craven
is that the scary stuff

comes instinctive to him.

And I think he has
a really great eye

and a sensibility to stage it
and to craft it.

The tracking shots
behind Drew Barrymore

as she just sort of walks
through this very...

this shadowed house and she
moves in and out of light,

it beautifully sets the pace.

You know,
when to dutch the angle,

when to... you know,
when to pull back,

when to go wide,
when to go close.

The interesting thing
about that is,

you have...
at that time, certainly...

your most famous cast member

dying right away.

So it really sort of tells
an audience,

"You have no idea
what to expect."

When I auditioned for it,

there were two
very different scenes.

There was one of this loving,
caring boyfriend,

and then there was one
of this psychopath.

We all go a little mad
sometimes.

- No, Billy!
- Oh,.

Wes really wanted
to see

somebody who could...
who could convincingly play

both sides of that.

Billy's the killer.

And you got to believe fully
that he's the killer

so much so that you go,
"Oh, there's no way

he's the killer."

I wanted to sort of take
the genre, rip it apart,

open it up.

There's a formula to it,

a very simple formula.

Everybody's a suspect.

When you talk about
the tone of "Scream,"

I think what
he's so successful at

is balancing that horror comedy
that we don't see so often

pulled off very well.

Damn little.

What'd you call me?

- Huh?
- Not you, Fred.

I was quite against it
at the time.

I thought, "Wow, I thought
I was in a documentary

"about a serial killer

"and they're playing this,

you know, for laughs."

Wes found the right balance
and the tone

through the editorial process,

but I do remember
we were like,

"Should he be falling down
that much?"

He's kind of, like,
the clumsiest killer alive.

And we were always
worried about

that skirt he was wearing,
you know,

how silly that would look.

But it all seemed to work out.

Yeah, at the beginning,
they wanted me to come meet

for Skeet's role, Billy.

I didn't do anything.

Do you wish to give up
your right

to speak to an attorney
and have him present...

But the role of Dewey,
I thought it was so funny.

He was written as, like,

this big, buff, like,
meathead.

And I was like,
"I think I could bring

a different meathead
quality to it."

People treat me like

I'm the antichrist
of television journalism.

I don't think
you're that bad.

No?

My favorite part
about working

on the "Scream" movies

was working with Wes Craven.

You meet few people
in this world that are...

turn out to be your heroes,
like, living heroes.

And he held himself
like a professor.

He was a really
intelligent guy.

But he'd say things like,
"Well, that was horrible.

You wanna try it again?"

You really have to respect
your audience.

You have to know these kids
are damn smart, you know?

The wonderful thing
about the "Scream" series

was that Kevin Williamson

said, "Yeah, I've seen
all the movies too,

"and let's talk about them,
but this is not

like that," you know?

Help me, please.
I'm at Stu Macher's house

on Turner Lane.
It's 261 Turner Lane.

Please, he's gonna try
and kill me.

These movies get a bad rap

for sort of being antifeminist
and misogynistic

because they are, you know?

And... and... and...
or they have been.

You know, what's great
about genre today is,

we can change all of that.

We don't have to sort of
adhere to,

you know, the rules.

In the '70s and '80s,

if a girl had sex, she...

the rule was,
she had to die.

There are certain rules

that one must abide by

in order to successfully
survive a horror movie.

For instance, number one,
you can never have sex.

We allowed her to have sex.

So you're almost ensuring
she's gonna die.

But not in this movie.

Right up to
the very, very end

where she's like,
this is the moment

where the killer...

Comes back to life

for one last scare.

And she just ain't
gonna have it.

It was just another way

to dismiss those old notions
of the final girl

and so that we can move
our heroine

into sort of a new place.

Not in my movie.

Horror gets a visceral
reaction out of people.

And it's always...

looked down upon by critics
to this day.

It astounds me.

Horror starts from kind of
a minus 25 position

and has to claw its way
upwards.

It's fun to turn that
on its head.

I think where
that anarchistic sense

of wanting people
to burn the theater down

comes from wanting
to show people,

like,
what horror can really do.

Good evening, Clarice.

If you hate us
and you think we're bad,

then I'm really
gonna go for it.

A census taker
once tried to test me.

I ate his liver
with some fava beans

and a nice Chianti.

"Silence of the Lambs"
is a perfect film.

It kind of shirked
the in-your-face

occasionally vulgarities
of the horror genre

and painted them
with a much finer brush

that made it a story
that was about being human

as opposed to a story
that was

about the horrors
of the world.

What is your worst memory
of childhood?

Death of my father.

Horror is a ghetto
as far as

the film industry is concerned,

but "Silence of the Lambs"
changed everything.

It suddenly was not only
big box office

and not only horrific
but respected.

You have
Sir Anthony Hopkins...

I'll help you catch him,
Clarice.

You had Jonathan Demme,
a great, admired director,

dipping their toes
into really unsavory material

but done in such
a highly polished

and Hollywood style
that you could not

deny the power of it
and the intelligence of it.

There's things we need
to do for her.

I know that y'all
brought her this far

and that her folks would
thank you if they could

for your... for your kindness
and your sensitivity.

Now, please, go on now.
Let us take care of her.

Go on now.

I think,
with "Silence of the Lambs,"

having a fantastic
female protagonist

that is brought to life
by Jodie Foster

gave it a life
that allowed people

who do not appreciate
the horror genre

to appreciate
that performance.

And that performance
was the introduction

for a lot of people who are
uncomfortable with horror

to actually step back
and enjoy it.

Jonathan mentioned to me

that perhaps

the Clarice Starling character,

the Jodie Foster character,

was in a way so central
to the nature of the film

that the music could reflect
her character

and be a point of view
through her eyes.

Generally, that type of film

might have focused more
on the monster,

the Lecter character,
and I think,

by switching that up
in that film,

it humanized the story in a way

that, I think, broadened
the appeal of it.

Senator Martin.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

I mean, Anthony Hopkins,
my God,

what an iconic performance.

Hannibal Lecter
is the most terrifying villain

ever put on-screen,

and he is in that film
for about 14 minutes.

He's barely in it at all.

We only see slightly more
of him than we see

of the shark in "Jaws."

And both pictures sort of
bring home the idea

that what we can't see
is scarier

than what we can.

And that's tremendously
effective.

There are
these moments where

something plays different
for white people

than it does for black people.

Hannibal Lecter,
he's a psychopath.

He's a white psychopath,

but for some reason it's, like,
"Yo, that mother cold."

"This mother
eating a face?

"Oh.

"That's right there.

"That
is Hannibal Lecter.

"That's my
right there.

"That's... if I'm anybody
in this movie, I'm him.

"I'm not the
who got his face eaten.

I'm Hannibal Lecter."

What became of your lamb,
Clarice?

It came out in February,

and it played right through
the year.

It was one of those films
that just

gathered momentum
week by week.

And it won five Oscars.

When "Silence of the Lambs"

was nominated
for Best Picture,

nobody wanted
to call it a horror film.

You know, all the press
stayed away from the fact

that "Silence of the Lambs"
is really a horror film.

It's a slasher film.

Uh, get in the truck.

And I want to push it
all the way up.

I really appreciate this.

But a slasher film
as Best Picture?

No, can't do that.

It was an example
of what can be done

with the genre
when it's done just right.

Hey... hey, are you
about a size 14?

Sorry?

What is that people love
about going

to see horror movies?

I think what
we love about it

and what the average person
loves about it,

I think, is different.

We'd see a
"Texas Chainsaw Massacre,"

"Dawn of the Dead,"
I go, "I wanna live there.

I wanna live
inside this movie."

"I want to re-create this
in my house."

And essentially we did
do that, right?

Right. Yeah.

But I think,
for the average person,

it's like, you can

safely experience
something demented.

It's also coming to grips
with our own mortality.

Maybe there's
some weird catharsis

of, like, "Okay, well,
thank God my death

"could never nearly be as bad
as what I just saw,

"so maybe it's not so bad.

Maybe I'm just gonna
fall asleep..."

I think it's all dealing
with the fear of death.

After 9/11,

fear escalated to nearly
unbearable levels.

And that fear
was reflected in movies

that dared us
not to turn away.

I want to play a game.

People always ask me,

"How do you make
a horror film scary?"

And I think that
the only common thread

that I've found is when

the filmmaker, the director,

is truly terrified
by the subject matter.

You can tell when other
people are phoning in

and trying to imitate a genre.

And you can tell
when someone loves it.

I met James Wan
at film school.

We both loved horror movies.

We were both obsessed
with "The Evil Dead"

and Dario Argento

and "The Shining"
and all the rest of it.

We realized we should team up

and try to make a movie
with our own money.

And so we figured out
that the cheapest thing

we could do would be
two actors in one room.

Finally, we hit upon
the idea for "Saw."

Ahh.

"Saw" is about two men
who wake up

chained to the wall
in this dilapidated,

dirty bathroom, basically.

They don't know
how they got there.

But lying between them
is a dead body.

And they find out
that they've been put there

by a sadistic serial killer

who forces people to play games
for their lives.

John Kramer is
a mechanical engineer.

He's an architect.

He is somewhat
of a philosopher.

He is a master at prosthetics,

a bit of a magician of sorts,

And with John, what you see
is often not what you get.

Whoever brought us here
could have killed us by now.

But they didn't.

They must want something
from us.

You got Leigh over here,

and you got Carry Elwes
over here,

and you got this guy
in the middle

and this strength
and this silence.

But I always felt
his centralness to this story.

The way that I see Jigsaw

is kind of the Zen master
of sadism.

Hello, Amanda.

You don't know me,

but I know you.

I want to play a game.

His mission, of course,
is to

help people to see
the value of life.

And whether we think
his methods are appropriate

or not, that's a different
story altogether.

My family!

There was something
about watching human behavior

in extreme circumstances
in "Saw,"

and I think...
and I thought to myself,

"Well, could I saw off my leg
if I had to?

"Would I do it?
How would I do it?

Could I do it?"

When you don't have
a big star

in the lead role
and you don't have the money

for special effects,

the only thing you have
going for you

is that question,
"What's gonna happen next?"

What are you doing?

Both James and I always loved
really great...

twist endings
that made you go back

and reexamine the movie.

We really thought
we had something good.

I think I was there
about 12 or 13 days,

Lying in this pool of blood
on the bathroom floor.

You're quite convinced
that he's where he is,

and you forget about it
in some way.

The biggest reaction
that I think

I've had in my career
was the ending of "Saw,"

that ending when he stands up
off the floor.

Which is one of the reasons
why I did the film,

'cause I thought it would be
a remarkable moment.

It was worth doing
just for that moment.

And to actually physically
see people lose their mind

and yell at the screen...

I mean, people would just be
shouting, like, "No way!

No way!"

So that was the best feeling,

you know, we could have
ever had.

The last thing he says
before he closes the door

to leave, he says,
"Some people..."

Are so ungrateful
to be alive.

But not you.

Not anymore.

Game over.

To me, "Saw"
is that original film,

and then all the other movies,
they sit over here,

and then the original film,
to me, sits on its own.

The later "Saws," yeah,
they became more...

more about the torture,
but really they were

torture about people
who deserved it.

The "Saw" movies,
it's the bad guys

who are being tortured.

According to your policy,

your secretary
is older and weaker

and therefore less worthy
to survive.

By, I think it was "Saw 6,"

where they're going
after insurance companies

that have denied people
their claims, and...

I don't know...
maybe they kind of deserve it

in the world of that movie.

I've had skateboarders,
12-year-olds,

come up to me,
groups of them, and say,

"Yeah, we love those movies."

You have one minute
to pull the fishhook

from her stomach
and unlock her device.

And I say, "Yeah, really?
Why? Why do you love 'em?"

And they say, "Because...

they teach you stuff."

I said, "Like what?"

They say, "Well, like, to...
that you need

to appreciate your life."

No!

And they're not talking
about the traps.

They're not talking
about the blood.

They're talking about concepts

that resonate in the film.

So when you get
this little germ

of an idea, of a thought,

when it's surrounded
by that kind of intensity,

it makes the germ resonate
in a certain way.

One of the issues with
the "Saw" movies...

and you can take it
however you want...

is the fact that we invented
a whole new term,

"torture porn."

But we invented it
at the very same time

America, as a nation,

was under world indictment

for actually torturing people.

The torture porn cycle
of horror films

is strongly linked
to the height of what

George W. Bush termed
the War on Terror.

This crusade.

Use any means
at our disposal.

This war on terrorism.

The torture porn cycle
is kind of

the cycle of the extreme
horror movie,

the "can you not look away?"

"Can you believe how far
they're taking this?

Can you handle it?"

And I think it really kind of

was crystallized with "Hostel."

A lot of people say
it started with "Saw."

I think the original "Saw"

plays more as
a thriller horror movie

than a torture porn movie.

Hostel becomes
a little bit more

of the "how much can you stand
to watch?"

When we started making
our movies,

the term "torture porn"
came out.

I'll credit...
I'll give you that one.

All right,
I'll take that one.

One of the things
about torture porn

is that we are no longer afraid
of bogeymen.

Michael and Jason
and those characters

lost a certain currency.

And what really strikes fear,

particularly in
the United States

in a post-9/11 moment,
is other people.

Other people are frightening.

You're not going?

I've seen this show.

The "Hostel" franchise
speaks truth to power

and presents Americans
in the way

that the world perceives us.

The whole first section
of the film...

it's kind of done like
a teen sex comedy, right?

Like, before it gets
into the horrific scenes,

we see Paxton, Josh,
and their friend Oli

in Amsterdam.

And they're just there
to party and smoke pot

and especially,
in a very extended sequence,

have sex with prostitutes.

It invokes this whole
kind of privilege

of paying to do something
to somebody else.

But it's just like
everyone's out for themselves.

You're not meeting friends.

You're meeting someone
who could be the person

that's gonna kill
and rape and murder you.

You're very patient.

I don't... I don't remember...

- It was 45 minutes.
- Yeah, you go 45 minutes.

Then we kill
our first character.

In that time, you are

allowing us to identify
with the soon-to-be victims,

but you're also
subtlety allowing us

- to hate them in a weird way.
- Mm-hmm.

'Cause they're being
kind of rude...

they're being so American.

So by the time
you get to the killing,

we're half identifying
with the killer,

half identifying with
the victim, and I think

that part of it is the
weirdest thing about horror.

Like, we need to be able
to identify

with that dark side of us
that maybe wants

to kill somebody sometimes.

I am an American.
I got rights.

Get the out!

What I think is important
and interesting

about "Hostel" is that
it doesn't allow the viewer

to feel that sense
that the American

is exempt from implication
in the War on Terror

and in the use of torture.

Who are you?

- What the...
- where the am I?

I guess it's kind of like
a pushback kind of?

- Mm-hmm.
- Like, oh, you think

you rule the world?
You don't.

The first extended scene
of torture that we have

is of this kind of privileged,

young, white American male.

And we see his body
kind of taken away

secretively to this
foreign torture center

and tortured in an act
that reminds us

of the extraordinary
rendition program.

No!

And the viewer identifying
with Josh,

you know,
is forced in a position

of having to imagine themselves

as being subject to torture.

There are people that,
you know,

watch torture videos.

And you pay a certain amount,

and you can become
Mr. Director.

And the fact that that exists

internationally
in much poorer countries

where, you know,
maybe the parents have died

and the kids are easier
to get,

it's a really
disgusting quality

that exists in humanity

that we don't even want
to talk about.

And I think that's why
we just got a little peek

of a window into it
in "Hostel."

And it was too much
for most people to accept.

The real world
is much scarier than anything

that Eli Roth or Stephen King
could come up with.

It's a really disturbing,
sick, violent world

we live in.
Horror films reflect that.

And horror films
are a way of people

coming to terms with
the violence in society,

trying to deal with it
and trying to,

you know,
escape it a lot of ways.

We're not allowed to be
scared anywhere in life.

I hear from soldiers
on military bases

that were watching "Hostel"

and watching my films
and screaming.

And, like,
they're dealing with death,

but they're not allowed
to be afraid.

But for 90 minutes, you can
be afraid and not be a coward.

More than any other monster
in horror,

the slasher taps
into our primal fear

of the predator.

And when that predator
comes in human form,

you have to wonder...

"Will I be
the resourceful survivor..."

"Or just another kill?"

He's gone.