All language subtitles for In.Search.of.Darkness.II.2020.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG.eng

Do you ever wonder about
the different ways of dying?

You know, violently.

Brains.

Nostalgia plays
such a heavy part

in, you know,
what you grow up with.

The thing about horror
that I really, really love...

It was this
kind of counterculture,

"Fuck you" attitude,

and it was something
that your parents hated.

Rusler: Sex, drugs, and rock
'n' roll in the '80s, right?

Well, it became a lot more
than that.

We were rock stars in the '80s.

We were busier
than we'd ever been.

The amount of horror movies
that came out in the '80s

was enormous.

The output was insane worldwide.

Horror films really did open
the floodgates.

Englund:
Horror, splatter, gore.

Great Grand Guignol.

That horror stew.

Savini: Why did it affect me
so strongly?

I mean, it really changed
everything.

No! Allen: A good
horror film can be scary,

but it can also make you laugh.

It just picked something
in my brain.

You're taken on this wild ride
emotionally.

You're being terrified,
you're laughing,

they relax you,
they make you laugh,

then they scare you again.

I'm a scaredy-cat.

Rusler:
When I see a good horror movie,

the first thing I want to do
when I get out of there

is I want to fight or fuck.

I look now at the '80s.

There's never gonna be
another time like it.

That's for damn sure.

Hey kids, welcome to prime time!

The key to understanding

what made the films of the '80s
so great

is to understand the influences

that all the filmmakers had
as kids.

It was clear that these
filmmakers were showing love

for the movies of the past.

There's a cycle.

People who grew up on something

relay that back
for a younger generation.

So it's always this wheel
turning of, like,

what's popular at one point
comes back around again.

Good ones became
all-time classics

while the bad ones became
cult favorites.

Peterson: When I was doing
"Movie Macabre,"

I saw myself
as kind of a librarian...

exposing a new generation
of new people

to these horror films
that I grew up with

and that I loved
when I was young.

I think it was important

to curate these movies from
the past for a new audience.

Unpleasant dreams.

I was 8 years old in 1954,

when "The Creature
From the Black Lagoon"

hit the movie theaters, okay?

Announcer:
A throwback to a creature

that had existed
100 million years ago.

In those days, I believed
that monsters were real.

Frankenstein, the Wolf Man...
They were real.

It's not until I saw
"Man of a Thousand Faces"

that that showed me, "Oh,
somebody creates this stuff."

Announcer: Yes, Lon Chaney was
all of these...

The Hunchback of Notre Dame,
The Miracle Man,

the Phantom of the Opera.

Somebody says
"Oh, that's an old movie."

Well, it's not old
if you haven't seen it.

I fell in love with horror
when I was a young kid.

"Bride of Frankenstein"
was my favorite.

She's alive!
Alive!

In the early '50s, I saw
"Thing From Another World."

Howard Hawks.

Oh, my God. That... Oh, geez.
I loved that.

It was kind of serendipitous,
my life in horror movies.

The very first horror movie
that I remember seeing

was actually
a science-fiction film

called "It Came
From Outer Space" in 3-D.

And that meant
a gigantic impression...

Because of the 3-D process.

A meteor in the beginning
came out of the screen

and blew up in my little face.

I ran screaming.

As a kid, I just couldn't get
enough of it.

"Horror of Dracula"

with Christopher Lee
and Peter Cushing.

The iconic first reveal
of Dracula,

with the bloodshot
contact lenses

and the blood around his mouth

when he snarls
at Jonathan Harker.

It's just...
I'll never forget that image.

Vampires, werewolves
were always...

They're staples.
They're the original movies

to show the manifestation
of our monsters.

The film that gave me nightmares
for several years...

And this is hard to admit...

Was "Abbott and Costello Meet
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

That movie scared the crap
out of me.

And, you know, it's funny
when I look back at it.

I see elements of "Re-Animator"
in that film.

You turn into Mr. Hyde
by getting an injection.

So these guys with syringes
are running around,

you know, in this movie,
very much like "Re-Animator."

One more dose!

"The Brain That Wouldn't Die."

I was 8.

It's really sort of
an early echo of "Re-Animator."

All she would say is...

Let me die.

Let me die.

But the idea was horrifying
to me.

The first R-rated horror movie
I ever saw was "The Omen."

It's all for you!

I was 13 years old.

My dad took me.

I was raised Catholic,

so that decapitation
of David Warner

made a huge impression on me.

And I've decapitated many people
in my movies over the years.

I think it's one of the finest
ways of murdering someone.

I was a big horror guy.

In the '60s,
we had "Chiller Theatre."

That was my Saturday night
go-to.

I loved that stuff.

My mother let me watch
"The Birds"

when it came on television.

I remember saying, "How could
you let me watch that?"

But my mom was super cool.

"Psycho."

I was 10 years old.
My parents took me.

I don't know if they had a clue
what we were going to see,

but it certainly impacted
my life.

We all go a little mad
sometimes.

We're all sitting there
with our Chico Bon Bons

and our hot buttered popcorn
and our Good & Plenty,

you know, waiting for the movie.

Announcer:
Now all the images of horror,

the demons of your mind...

That was, like,
this great fan-boy memory for me

of how important that was to us.

I'm a silly goose, ain't I?

I'm telling you.
I love that old scary stuff.

Dario Argento kicked off
the 1980s with "Inferno,"

which was a continuation
of his "Mother of Tears" trilogy

after "Suspiria."

Basically took us
into an apartment building

in New York City,

and I think shows how their
sort of desire to infiltrate

into American cinema was
very much there and prevalent.

It feels like an amalgamation
of a lot of Argento movies.

For me, probably the biggest

and most impressive set piece
in that film

is the underwater sequence
that we see early on,

where it feels impossibly long.

You're kind of holding
your breath with her.

And yet it's so beautiful
and so tranquil,

and it's such a fun
juxtaposition

against everything else
in that movie.

And with "Inferno,"

you don't really get
a full-on viewing of the witch.

You get sort of these glimpses
of her and her hands

and the cauldron.

Argento, as opposed to
just sort of showing his cards,

he still plays with viewers
and kind of still holds back.

There's definitely moments
of animal cruelty in "Inferno"

that I think makes it
uncomfortable

for a lot of folks.

Ultimately, "Inferno" wraps up
with the reveal of the witch...

and then, basically,
the building ends up in flames,

which is very similar
to how "Suspiria" ends.

But then "Inferno" kind of
takes it to another level

with sort of death incarnate
making an appearance.

"Inferno" is Argento, like,
really flexing his muscles.

He's got a couple hits
under his belt,

he's got some money, and he's
going for it in the early '80s.

"Inferno" is one of those films.

Announcer:
"Humanoids From the Deep."

"Humanoids From the Deep."

This is top-notch exploitation
from my buddy Roger Corman.

This one features fishy mutants
trying to accost women

so that they can be fruitful
and multiply.

Not very PC, is it?

Corman's mantra for the film
was literally the monsters

need to kill all the men
and rape all the women.

Oh! No!

It was actually directed
by a woman, Barbara Peeters.

Now, whether or not
Corman hired her

to deflect some of the criticism

from the movie's more exploitative
elements, I don't know.

I do know that he requested
that a bunch more violence

and nudity be added
in postproduction,

which she was not happy
with him about.

The humanoid costumes
are actually pretty cool.

Rather than just the typical,
you know,

"Creature From the
Black Lagoon"-style fish man...

"Humanoids From the Deep"
was done so quickly.

And it was a very low-budget
film on the producers' part.

I ended up playing a humanoid.

Every time...
Three hours to get into the suit

and three hours
to get out of it,

because of all the... you know,
putting the slimy seaweed

to hide the unfinished parts
on it.

Tenold:
The finale of the movie

just goes completely
balls to the wall.

It's fish men killing people.

They're ripping bikinis
off of women.

Corman was like, "You know what?
This movie's rated R.

We're gonna earn that rating."

Johnson: Barbara really liked
the way I took bullet hits.

And so every time you see a
humanoid get shot in that movie,

it's me.

Help!

"Humanoids From the Deep"
is a better creature feature

than you'd expect
from Roger Corman.

The end stinger

is pretty much an "Alien"
chestburster rip-off...

but it's still fun.

Announcer: No one can escape
on Mother's Day, because...

Mother's Day never ends.

Two depraved brothers
kidnap friends

who are on a camping trip
and then torture and rape them.

This movie is very deranged.

It's very depraved.

It's very much something
that you could never make

in this day and age.

Ike and Addley are just
two filthy redneck...

Just psycho monsters.

And, of course, all orchestrated
by the mom.

Darlings, you have
made your mother very proud.

Their house is just disgusting.
It's cluttered.

They eat like pigs.
They eat like slobs.

She thinks it's funny, 'cause
she's the fucked-up mother.

It's just... It's a real...

Ugh.
It's a dirty movie.

One of the best deaths
of all time

was when they finally do escape.

Pouring the Drano
down his throat.

Then he's just vomiting up,
like, red...

You would assume
it's his entrails.

There's another amazing scene

where they're trying to escape
down the side of the house

with a sleeping bag,

and the laces
of the sleeping bag

are just cutting into her palms.

It just looks real.
It looks gross.

Like, what would you do?
You know, it's your friend.

It does have some humor in it,

but once again,
it's very black, dark humor.

I swear sometimes you boys
are just like lil' savages.

It's more
of a social commentary.

Gore and comedy and...
But it's a masterpiece.

Charles Kaufman wrote it
and directed it.

In the 1980s, when it came out,

it had a full-page ad
in The New York Times.

Full page.

And was distributed as if
it was, you know, an MGM movie.

It was distributed
by an independent.

They put a lot of money
into when it came out.

It would never happen today.

"Mother's Day" had at least
100 theaters when it opened.

Jericho:
As horrific as it sounds, rape,

in the '70s and early '80s
in horror movies

was used as a plot device,

specifically
in "Last House on the Left."

I mean, that whole movie
is based around that.

You would never see that now...
Nor should you see that now,

but "Mother's Day" is the same
for that,

where it's just over-the-top,
horrific things happening

to these poor women, who then
have to go get their revenge

by murdering the people who did
these horrible things to them.

Aah!

It's hard to watch.

Because yeah, they get
their comeuppance in the end,

but was it worth it?

Like, these poor people.

You don't leave those movies
going, "Enh, whatever."

You go, like, "Wow.

That really made you feel
something

and made you leave a piece
of yourself with that movie."

Dante: Once a picture
like "Prom Night" came out

and made a lot of money,
the genre of the slasher film,

which had really kind of started
with "Halloween,"

but nobody
really called it that...

But once "Prom Night" came out
and was a big hit,

and the "Terror Trains"

and all the other following
pictures that were made,

it became a viable genre
unto itself.

Our next movie is an exercise
in gruesome stupidity.

Now, you might ask,
"What is gruesome stupidity?"

That's when everybody
in the movie is stupid

and they're also either dead
or covered in blood.

This next movie
is a horrible example of that.

Williams: It was like
"Murder on the Orient Express"

with teenagers.

And the movie itself,

it's almost structured
like an anthology.

Everybody has their own
little individual story line

until they all kind of start
to collide together

and you finally get where
the terror train was going.

No!
No, no!

That's when I started
recognizing Jamie Lee Curtis.

I was just like,
"She's in everything."

Those few years
after "Halloween," she was it.

You know, she was the final girl.

Jamie Lee Curtis...
She's a terrific every woman.

She was an action figure.

Aah!

And what I do remember
is how creepy the killer was.

There was this ambiguous,
androgynous sense to him

that, as a young kid
who was being picked on a lot,

I could see myself in that.

You didn't necessarily
see yourself in the survivors.

Man: Shut up.
Woman: Come on.

I said move off... sir.

You saw yourself in the people
who were being antagonized.

The mask on the killer,
just a see-through...

It was the same type of mask
from "Sweet Alice," actually.

It was that kind of vibe.

If you like early '80s
Jamie Lee Curtis...

And who doesn't?
It's worth a watch.

Announcer:
"Alligator."

The nature-run-amok movies
of the '80s.

Donna!

Oh, fuck!

Probably my favorite subgenre
of horror.

Taylor: As a kid,
I remember all of my friends

telling the urban legend
about this.

Nobody I knew wanted to go
to New York City,

because to them,

the sewer system was
just crawling with rogue pets.

I just love all the humor
in "Alligator."

I mean, there are
some outrageous moments,

like the alligator
in the swimming pool

with the kid
walking the plank...

the running joke about
Robert Forster's thinning hair.

You need to see a hairstylist.

They let your hair grow down
and whip the cross.

There are just so many
little moments

that humanize the characters

and also provide
a good counterpoint.

That's another movie that mixes
horror and comedy really well.

The thing that I remember
the most about this movie

was how realistic
the gator looked.

I mean, the goddamn thing's
mouth was enormous!

And then every time
it would eat somebody,

it just felt like
you could fee lit.

I mean, just this slamming down.

And you're like, "Aah!"

It always made my skin crawl.

Robert Forster is, like...

He's up, trying to get out
of the manhole cover,

and it's stuck, and he's just
giving it as much as he can.

And then you see the gator
coming up behind him.

Like, "Oh, okay. So they can
just climb ladders now?

This is horseshit."

I can just remember the panic
as a kid,

going, "Get out of there!
Get out of there!"

No!

Gary?

Mm. Very tense moment
for a 10-year-old.

Announcer:
The most terrifying experiment

in the history of science
is out of control.

Ken Russell just made
the weirdest, greatest movies

in that time.

I think he's totally underrated.

I remember, in "Altered States"
the big gag,

the really cool thing was with
the sensory-deprivation tank.

The story line was really,
I thought,

intellectually challenging.

And William Hurt will always be
my favorite actor

from that period of time.

And then he did drugs
in the sensory-deprivation tank.

Well, that sounded like
a lot of fun, right?

That sounded like something
you wanted to do.

He has these
horrible contortions

that either is really happening
to him

or he's imagining happening
to him.

"Altered States" was one
of the first movies I saw

that had, like,
that crazy makeup effect

where the arm bubbles.

This whole bladder technology,
I think it actually began

with "Altered States"
in the '80s, Dick Smith's work.

And it was still, you know,
a groundbreaking technique

to take skin and have that skin
change and be able to swell

and do things
that we hadn't seen before.

Emily:
Defy it, Eddie.

Eddie transforms into
some kind of a primal being

that only indulges
his own elemental appetites.

There are things that happen

when you're exploring
these altered states

that are unexplainable

and could be liberating,
could be terrifying.

At the end, when he's slamming
around the room,

changing from, you know,
one state to another,

is he imagining it?

Is he actually becoming
this creature?

It's a mind-blow
in the best kind of way

but also a cautionary tale,
right?

Which all great horror films
are cautionary tales.

I recommend it.

I'm gonna go make my son
sit through that,

'cause he's a senior
in high school

and I want to make sure
that he never does drugs.

If you, as I did in the '80s,
walked into a movie theater

and didn't know you're walking
into an Italian horror movie,

you were kind of caught
wondering

what the hell
you just walked into.

Because it's
just a little different.

I mean, they're truly
foreign films, right?

It's foreign to our experience.

Don't act like that. Come out.

Englund: The Italian culture,
they love horror.

They respect it much more
than Americans.

They respect it as a genre,
like the Western...

Get three coffins ready.

Or the gangster film
or the film noir or the mystery.

I think there is a reaction
to the inherent fascism

that was in or left over
in those cultures at that time.

Italy was also
sort of coming out

from under a conservative,
authoritarian regime.

When it comes to Italian
filmmakers during the 1980s,

I think the three titans
of Italian cinema

were Lamberto Bava, Lucio Fulci,
and, of course, Dario Argento.

Argento's is very operatic.
It's very colorful.

It's a sensory experience, with
sound and color and set pieces.

"Suspiria" is one
of my favorite movies,

not only because
of the story line,

but also because
Dario Argento's color palette

is so amazing.

And the kills are amazing in it.

"Opera" to me is a classic.
Dario Argento's "Opera."

He's a visual stylist, okay?

The shot through the peephole
in the door,

when the guy gets the bullet
and it takes out the phone...

That's incredible stuff, okay?

To me, Dario is a volcano
of the mind.

Lamberto Bava was the wild card

of the Italian maestros
of horror cinema in the 1980s.

He was the guy
who was gonna take you

on some really crazy journeys

that you possibly could not have
ever expected you would go on.

He would just take big swings

that would connect
in very unique ways.

And then you have somebody
like Lucio Fulci,

who was sort of the maestro

of these really
over-the-top effects...

Gooey, gory movies

where you could almost just feel
the residue on your skin.

Fulci is the weirdest to me,

because he doesn't give a shit
about reality.

He is creating a weird,
surreal hallucination for you.

And Fulci clearly has
some kind of eye fetish

where he needs to do eye trauma
every time.

And it's horrible.

What's more horrifying
than to be stabbed in the eye?

They're into eyeballs.

A lot of eyeballs.

The Italians just went there
immediately.

You know, they just went,
"Boom!"

Argento did a little bit
of that too,

especially with "Opera,"

where you have a character
who's completely defenseless

and is forced to watch
these horrific, macabre events.

They have needles taped
right underneath their eyes,

so if they close their eyes,
they will shred their eyelids,

which to me... I can't think of
a more terrifying scenario

to be put in.

Italian directors were sort of
challenging us as viewers

with the eye trauma,

being like, "Well,
if you're gonna watch this,

you know, this is what you get."

Reflective of our willingness
to sit there and bear witness

to a lot of this really crazy
and over-the-top gore

that they were willing to put
into their movies

for our entertainment.

Geretta: And the eyes
are the window to the soul.

Bingo.

And you know those smart
Italians had thought about that.

Englund:
My heart with the Italians

is in the style,
the stylized horror.

Not that I have anything
against Italian cannibal horror,

because I know how influential
it is

and I know how hard core it is,

and I know what it represents
in the world of horror,

splatter, gore.

I just was so taken

with the sort of stylistics
of the Italians.

I am totally in love
with Italian Giallo.

There's a different reality
in Italian Giallo films.

The reality doesn't have to be
so airtight.

One of the things
that fans say to me all the time

is they go,
"I love those Italian movies.

They're just crazy.
They don't make any sense."

Mm, sorry.
Yeah, they do.

But it's based on their culture,
not ours.

They make perfect sense
within their culture.

Wixson: Giallo really takes
your expectations

and then completely
obliterates them

and comes at you
in a totally different way.

There's definitely motifs
that we saw in giallo movies.

You'd have the mystery killer
who was stalking somebody.

Most of the time,
they were wearing gloves.

It was never usually a gun.

It was always something
like a switchblade or a knife,

which gave these movies
sort of a sense of intimacy.

Ultimately, like, having sort of
a collection of victims as well.

Like, there is always
a larger picture

in terms of
sort of the body count

that they wanted to amass
in giallo movies.

It's a celebration of horror,
of bodies, of bleeding,

of screaming women.

It's also the appreciation
of the kills...

The special-effects makeup,
the supernatural.

You'll always get a payoff,

even if it takes a while
to get there.

And it's gonna make you go,
"Ugh!"

And it doesn't stop, so you
can't just close your eyes.

No. It just goes
and it goes and it goes.

You know,
it's right down your throat.

"We are going to make you recoil
in terror no matter what."

Fear is universal.

You know, it's another reason
why horror does well

in distribution
around the world.

You don't have to know
the languages.

Everyone can recognize running.

Everyone can recognize fear.

When you went to see
these movies,

you didn't go because you knew
anything about them.

You went because of the poster,
the newspaper ad, the title.

You went because of the
titillation of the ad campaign.

All of the Italian horror films,
for example,

came out during this period, but
nobody knew they were Italian.

All the Italian names were
changed to Anglicized names,

and they were dubbed, of course.

I'll kill you, you son of a...

Are you trying to say
that those girls were killed

by someone you wouldn't define
as a school friend?

Dubbing in Italian horror,
I think,

takes a while to get used to.

Because if you're not
expecting it,

it can be very off-putting.

Best, best bad overdubs,
for sure.

The worst overdubs.

Worse than then, you know,
old Kung Fu movies.

Listen to me, young lady.
We're in this situation...

You listen, you gang
of bloodthirsty bastard!

"Hey, what's going on here?

What's in that closet?"

"Don't open it."

"Why not?
Oh, it's a zombie. Shoot it."

"Aah!"

That's the inherent charm of it.

Like, that's the rough edges
that I love about it.

Because it doesn't feel
super polished.

When we laugh at dubbing and
we go, "The lips don't match,"

and for the rest of the world,
that doesn't matter.

Smoking is not allowed in here.

Excuse us. Geretta: I've dubbed.

I've dubbed myself.
I've dubbed other people.

It is an art form, and it takes
a while to get good at it.

Huh. What I think
doesn't matter anymore.

Bitch.

I think Italian
horror filmmakers are fans

of American horror
and American dollars.

That heightened Italian flavor
gets into America,

gets into theaters,
gets into video stores.

That lurid box art starts
to show up on the shelves.

The Italians were churning out
splatter movies...

Must have been like 20 a week
or something.

So every week,
there was something new.

They all have a very special
place in my heart.

They're not all necessarily
great films.

They were just doing
what they wanted to do

and telling
these really crazy stories.

Honestly, when you would pick up
a movie at the video store,

you never knew what experience
you were in for.

And that was the fun of it.

Nobile:
I think what's interesting

about Italian exploitation
in general

is that it all starts
as a rip-off.

You'll get one hit,
and then you'll get 30 copies.

Going back to, like,
a Hercules movie in the '50s.

They've got a hit
Hercules movie,

and then there's all these
sword-and-sandal movies.

You've got "Fistful of Dollars"

and then the whole
spaghetti-Western genre.

And the horror genre
is no different.

They picked up on
what was happening in America

and copied it
and then perverted it...

I say that as a compliment...

And made it gaudy and loud
and funky...

and naked.

There's so much American DNA
in Italian horror,

but it's all just cranked up
to this insane level.

So a lot of times
what you may have seen

is people doing the best
they can

with the financial choices
they were given,

people still wanting to make
their movie.

And like anything else,
artistry is on a scale.

So thanks to the Italians

and thanks to "Suspiria"
and everything that came after,

suddenly '80s horror
is very colorful...

In a way that '70s horror
was not.

And I think you can tie that
directly to the Italians.

Announcer:
"The Funhouse"...

Coming soon
from Universal Pictures.

"The Funhouse" is a movie
that kind of gets lost

in Tobe Hooper's filmography

because it's between
"Texas Chain Saw Massacre"

and then those crazy movies
he made for Cannon Films

in the mid-'80s,

which is a shame,
because it's actually, like,

a solid little
haunted-house slasher movie.

Moseley:
Well, it was funny,

because I was actually dating
Elizabeth Berridge

for a while there,
so it was great to see her work.

Joey!

I think that's one
of my favorite Tobe movies.

I certainly loved the monster.
I thought that was fantastic.

I loved that whole movie.

The monster in "The Funhouse,"

a guy named Gunther,
wears this Frankenstein mask

because his actual face
is also really horrendous.

And the effects on his face
are really memorable.

You got, like,
red eyes and fangs

and this stringy white hair.

You tell me who got it!
Come on!

Just this kind of harelip,
fanged mouth

with drool coming out of it.

This sort of bastard son
of the carnival guy.

Just the way he's treated
and the way he's deformed and...

You almost feel for him,

but yet he's going around
killing people.

This has got to be
the only movie

where the inciting incident
is a guy in a Frankenstein mask

getting some happy service
by a psychic.

Nothing to be ashamed of.

It happens to the best of us.

What's interesting
about this movie

is that it's a lot more graphic
than "Texas Chain Saw Massacre,"

where all the gore is implied
and you don't really see it.

You get to see
all the backstage parts

of the funhouse in a carnival...
All the whirring mechanics

and the trap doors
and the track.

It's great to see that space
explored.

Jericho:
"Funhouse," to me, is a movie

that was completely made
by Fangoria

and talking about the influence
of the magazines at that time.

I remember when I saw that
on the cover,

I was like, "That's disgusting."

It's one of those things where
when you're in a funhouse

ever since then,
I always wonder,

"What if this guy
is an actual killer?"

All right.
Here we go!

Announcer: Prepare
for "The Final Conflict,"

the concluding chapter
of the "Omen" trilogy.

"Omen III" was 1981.

That picked up Damien
as an adult.

He's a thirty-ish politician
played by Sam Neill.

I think that was the first time
I had ever seen Sam Neill,

probably same for
American audiences in general.

Take him.

As the movie begins,
he has the post that his father,

Gregory Peck, had
a mere five years before him

in the, you know, twisted
chronology of the "Omen" series,

where they would, you know,
fast-forward

with soap-opera speed.

"Omen II," Damien was 13.

Suddenly, he's 30 years old.

Anyway, he is the ambassador
to Great Britain

at the beginning of the story,
as is the wont

of all of the devil worshipers
who surround Damien.

And they're grooming him
for his, you know,

ultimate world power.

Do you hear me?

Group:
We hear and obey.

We hear and obey.

One of the weird things
about that movie

is that it really
is all structured around

a series of murders of babies.

Because in the story,

the rebirth of Christ
has also happened.

And now Damien feels threatened
by this,

so he dispatches all
of his devil-worshiping minions

to kill all the babies.

Slay the Nazarene,

and you will know the violent
raptures of my father's kingdom.

Which is kind of hilarious,

because it's just, like,
something you could not do

in movies anymore.

Liquidate the Nazarene.

There's a woman who...

She just, like, somehow
has this weird hallucination

of her baby as a monster.

And so she takes a hot iron
to the baby and goes "Chh!"

It's... It's really
kind of unspeakable.

Scrivens:
"Friday the 13th Part II"...

I'd seen the end of that movie
so many times

because it was tacked on
to the beginning

of "Friday the 13th Part III,"
which I rented a lot as a kid.

There's something
really charming

about the characters
in that film.

Jeff, the women
are showing you up.

What's the matter with ya?

Hey.

The second one, to me,

is the only true definition
of a sequel.

Bigger story, bigger budget,
bigger scares.

Massive twist
because now you're going,

"This is the first appearance
of Jason as the killer."

It was the first one
that Steve Miner directed.

The way he paced it was that you
didn't know who was gonna die.

Manfredini:
Jason, he's the shark.

You're gonna do something
and Jason's gonna knock you off.

You know.

I loved Amy Steel
as the lead heroine.

You're such a suck-up, Mark.

She is just awesome and badass.

I love the way Jason and her
interact with each other

at the end.

The chase at the end, to me,

is one of my favorite
final moments...

The rat going under the bed
and peeing underneath it.

There's moments in there
that are almost a little quirky

that I don't feel happened
in other films like that.

She psychs out Jason.

I love that scene,

where they're in
what we call the Chez Jason,

with the head there
and all the candles and stuff,

and she puts on the sweater,

and Jason's, like,
got the sack thing

and freaking out and stuff.

I wish they had never abandoned
the burlap sack.

And that's what a lot of people
don't realize,

is that he doesn't get the
hockey mask until number three.

But it's just overall, to me,
so much scarier

than any of the other ones.

I think that's probably why
it's my favorite.

Announcer:
"Graduation Day."

"Graduation Day" is a movie

that has a killer
who is killing people

specifically who were on
the high school track team.

It stars Linnea Quigley,

but originally, it didn't have
Linnea Quigley.

They had another actress
in the place

who they filmed some scenes
with her,

but then she wouldn't do
the nudity

that was required with the role.

So they fired her
and brought in Linnea Quigley

to play the same part.

Now there's a blonde,
but she's different

but she's playing
the same character.

Your ass is mine.

Ooh! Tough guy! Oh, no!

Quigley:
It was just, like, a fun film.

It was light, and it's got
all these great kills in it.

Like, my boyfriend,

Billy Hufsey,
who teaches acting classes now

and I don't think wants
to talk about it

was like, going to... Of course,
"I'll be right back,"

and goes and pees in the woods
and gets his head chopped off.

I remember doing the running,

and I made a mistake...
Which I'll never do again...

And I ate lunch... a lot.

I remember having to throw up
because I was running so much.

I was just like...

I'm like, "Oh, my God.
My stomach."

So that was a fun fact too...
That I threw up after running.

When they were doing
the effects,

they had cast the head
of the original girl.

So you see Linnea Quigley
through most of the film,

and then in the end,
when she gets killed,

they're using the head
of the girl

from the beginning
of the movie...

It's not my head,
but it's supposed to be.

Which has confused a few people.

Vanna White also appears
in the movie,

but she doesn't turn letters.

Fuck.
It's blood.

It's another example of
how popular horror films were.

You had this movie that cost
around $250,000.

They put it out there.
It made almost $24 million.

Those old trailers
from the '80s,

they just had a certain magic
to them,

where you'd have the voice

of something as silly
as "The Boogens,"

but they deliver it in...
"The Boogens."

And that sets off something
in your head

where you need to see this movie
to see what are the boogens.

Announcer:
There is no escape.

"The Boogens."

And the people involved
with the production,

they didn't know what the
boogens was going to look like.

They hired a special-effects guy
and they said, "Okay.

Here's the ideas that we have."

And he came back with this idea
of a little monster

with, like, crab claws.

And they were like,
"Well, that's really cool,

but that's not
what a boogens looks like."

And they were like, "Well,
what does a boogens look like?"

They're like, "We don't know."

And he went and eventually
designed this monster.

It was like a turtle.

But the turtle shell

was supposed to look like
the brain of a sheep

that he saw
in a medical catalog.

It had tentacles, and its head
could come out and retract,

and it had teeth,

and it was just the most
ridiculous hodgepodge of ideas

that could all come together

and somehow be thrown
into a horror film.

Strangest damn thing I ever saw.

Announcer:
"Dead & Buried."

It will take your breath away.

Englund:
That's my second horror film.

There's some great sequences
and great images in it.

We were all up
in this great little town

in Northern California
called Mendocino.

And you don't have to dress it.
It's just there.

It looks like Stephen King's
gonna walk out of every door.

It looks exactly like what you
think Maine should look like.

And it's James Farentino,
the late, great Jack Albertson,

and Lisa Blount.

Wonderful, extraordinary
actress.

Most people know her
from "Officer and a Gentleman."

It's actually an effective
little movie.

That's it! No!
No! Don't do that!

What are you doing, Nurse...

It turns out that the mortician
has been behind

killing the townspeople
and reanimating them,

basically creating an army
of undead puppets.

Stan Winston did the makeup
on that film.

And there was a lot of us.

He had to make a lot of people
the undead.

Stan... not yet the legend
he would become, but a player.

Stan was beginning to push
more into puppetry

with some of the effects
he created for that film.

There are two
that stand out to me

as being the most
"Oh, that's cool."

One is the burn victim.

He created
this shoulders-up puppet

of this terribly burned
character,

where you're seeing the muscles
and the ligaments.

It was a hand puppet,
and it was highly effective.

And I remember seeing that
come together in his shop

and thinking that was the
grossest thing he'd ever made.

Another sequence
that really works

is when the evil mortician
is reconstructing

this hitchhiker,
played by Lisa Marie.

And she starts out
horribly injured and disfigured.

It's a dummy,
a re-creation of the actress.

I will make you beautiful
again...

even more beautiful than before.

Using a series of wipes
and dissolves,

you slowly see her being
reconstructed by the mortician

until she's finally back,
intact and pretty, and sits up.

And there she is.

And she's actually undead,
but she looks pretty hot.

I also remember being freaked
out by the burn-victim character

who's completely covered
in gauze...

All you see is one eye
and his mouth...

And this nurse just plunges
a needle right in his eyeball.

And that was just... aah!
A cringe moment.

For me, Lisa was the first
sort of nurse angel of death.

Embodies that cold, hard,
blond sexuality

that Hitchcock
was so intrigued by.

"We're dead,
but we're not buried!"

Smile.

Woman:
Oh! No!

Announcer: "Nightmare."

"Nightmare" is a movie told

from the point of view
of a serial killer

who goes up and down the
East Coast of the United States.

And when I say told
from his point of view,

I mean told
with a point-of-view camera...

"You are the killer!"...
As he wreaks mayhem

all up and down the East Coast
of the United States.

People hated the film.

People pelted the screen
in Times Square with objects.

People walked out.

People demanded
their money back.

The eternal principles
of a good cinematic story

still must be observed,

and there must be a sympathetic
protagonist in your story.

Otherwise, the audience
will turn against you.

There's a myth,
and we should destroy this myth,

because censors use it
to censor movies.

And the myth is that all we want
to see is blood and gore.

That's not true.

If you look at the movies
made in the '80s

made by clueless idiots
who thought

that that was the secret
to making a great horror movie,

you end up with films
like "Nightmare."

Man: No!

Oh, my God!

Announcer: Be sure to see it
before sunrise.

"Saturday the 14th"!

Every time I think of
"Saturday the 14th,"

I think of sitting at my mom's
old apartment and watching HBO.

There was, like, this handful
of fairly risqué movies

with weird content,

but they would just show them
during the day

for any 8-to 10-year-old
to kind of catch up on.

You've got Jeffrey Tambor
as Dracula-ish...

A Dracula-type person.

Well, if you don't trust me
after 311 years of marriage...

Three hundred and twelve.

You've got Richard Benjamin
running around,

basically tormenting his family.

Take this coffee.
I can't stand the sight of it.

But just remember how goofy
that movie was.

And then the guy who played
the Van Helsing-type character

was so sketch,

and he scared me
more than the monsters did.

If someone should open
that book,

his soul would be doomed to
eternal hellfire and damnation!

Damned.

So many weird things were okay
back then, man.

The bathtub moment, to me,

reminds me of the Freddy moment,
when the glove comes up.

But this, being before that,
was like the "Jaws" take.

So who influenced who?

But then you see the
teenage daughter running around

being chased by, you know,
the fish man, you know?

What the... Jesus Christ.

Hashtag MeToo Fish, you know?

I mean, this is a kids' movie.
What the hell's going on?

You're watching it as a kid.

You don't realize
the dark undertone of it.

Will I show that to my kids?
No, I will not be showing it.

Do you see a monster
in this room?

I can't believe
that I'm standing here

in the middle of the night
arguing with a 10-year-old kid

about the existence of monsters.

As an actor, I get to bring
a little joy into someone's life

every time I get...
No matter what the genre is...

Every time I have an opportunity
to work.

It's a great charge, you know,
to do the best I can

because, you know,
somebody's going to enjoy this.

They're killing
everybody. I got to find her.

Wait a minute, man.
Are you crazy?

I got to see
if she's all right. Just stand back!

There's nothing you can do
out there!

I didn't think I was going to be
an actress.

Actually, I wanted to be
an archaeologist.

I always thought that would be
an interesting thing to be.

So I went to Carnegie Mellon,

which is a really good theater
school here in Pittsburgh.

There's different techniques
that we were trained,

but one of them
was the whole Method movement

of bringing, you know,
your experiences to the moment.

And I remember using it

especially after Sarah
cuts off Miguel's arm.

She has a moment
where she just... has had it.

She actually breaks down,

which, to me, was like the arc
of the character.

She's actually very strong
in that moment

because she was able to be
very real in that moment.

Working that with myself and
my thoughts and my technique.

Acting is the art of not acting,
right?

Acting is being.

Acting class 101, right?

Before I made any movies,
I was a stage actor.

I was King Arthur.
I was Ben Franklin.

When I did effects on a film,

I always tried to play
a part of it...

You know, some little part.

And that just led to more
and more parts

and then, suddenly,
with George Romero, just parts.

Don't forget.
Some of us are wearing tinfoil.

That's your problem.

I really wanted to be,
you know, an actor.

Makeup effects was kind of
what got me in the door.

You get in the door
so you can prove yourself,

let people know who you are,
you know?

And who knows
where that could lead?

I used to want to be a minister.

Well, the acting is my ministry.

You know, that's how I get to...

you know, how my soul
gets to speak to your soul

about our commonality,

above the oneness that we share
as human beings.

You rarely thought about it
in the '80s.

There was no, really,
Asian representation.

We were all
kind of stereotypical,

and it was a difficult time.

It also made me feel like, "Hmm.

Maybe I should do
something else."

I kept at it
only because of the theater.

Something like Kelly Hu
in "Jason Takes Manhattan."

That was pretty extraordinary,
where she didn't have an accent.

Look.
I think I'll pass, okay?

What?
I'll see you later.

My first movie movie
was "Sixteen Candles."

What's happenin', hot stuff?

The controversy was good,

because I also think that it
started to change things

and make people aware.

If anything,
it made the Asian community

come out
and try to express themselves

about why they disagreed
with this character.

And what they failed to do,
I thought,

was we weren't coalesced
together

to try to figure out what to do
about it, unlike today.

It's much better today.

I've never been so happy
in my whole life

You maniac.

There was no ethnicity mentioned
in "Vamp."

So I thought
that was kind of cool.

I thought that was a good step.

What time do you get off? Two-thirty.

Can I watch?

The better your actors are,
the better shape you're in.

Hire people that bring
a certain kind of credibility

and naturalness
to the performance.

And then at least
you're a step ahead.

Give me a script,

let me break this character
down, make some choices,

and hopefully I buoy
what you're doing here.

Hopefully, I kind of put
some wind and some sails here.

He's dead?

Not anymore.

It's what I'm in control of.

If somebody offered me a job,
and I liked the script

and the story and the character,
I'm in.

I'm all in.

And that's how I started doing
horror movies.

John invited me to be
in "The Fog," and we were off.

I don't believe in luck,
good or bad.

Allen:
I hated acting class.

It just was torture for me.

But, you know,
you have to get some tools.

A director told me once,

"The best thing an actor can do
is give me choices."

Trusting my instincts
when I read something

and trusting my instincts
about a character

generally ends up being
the right way to go.

I've studied
a lot of different styles.

I've worked
with different coaches.

So I've used some stuff
from the Method.

I've used the old James Cagney

"Plant your feet in the ground
and tell the truth" method.

The funny thing about it is that
if something is written well,

you don't have to do
a lot of work with it.

That's what I always
want to know...

"Let me see the script.
Let's see how it is."

And if you have trouble
getting lines out, it's like,

it's not written well.

That's the problem.
And I used to think it was me.

Come on, you little bastard!

Maroney:
What we had back then

was people who were learning
their craft.

But now we have people that are,
yes, learning their craft,

but also passionate
about the genre

and purposefully going into it.

I mean, you'll talk to people
in the '80s,

and they'll say, "You know,
that's just what I got."

But now these people
are coming up

very focused on doing horror
because they love horror

and that's what they intend
to do.

You have to be as honest as you
can be with your character

and your story and your...
The truth of what you're saying.

It's up to them to make it scary
for the audience.

And my job is just to tell
the truth.

The shit is getting old
real fast.

You know, I was awakened
out of a real pleasant dream

to come down here.

Are you gonna straighten it out,
Raimi,

or am I gonna play poo patrol
with your nightstick?

I received a thoroughgoing

acting-for-the-camera education
from Dennis Hopper.

That was an experience
not to be missed.

And as time goes on,
I cherish it more,

I appreciate it more,
and I apply it more.

Dennis encouraged me
to look through the lens.

"This is what it looks like.

This is where your light is.

This is the side
that's best for you.

When you deliver that line,
do this.

Make that gesture.
It's a visual medium."

You said you were gonna do this
alone.

I need your help, Missy.

That was a takeaway

that continues to provide
extraordinary benefits for me.

When I hear "cut," I'm Doug.

I'm Doug in a skirt and a very
constricting leather jacket

with my face covered in leather
and pins,

but I'm Doug.

I don't carry the character
through the day,

and I don't take him home
with me.

Before I ever started thinking
about doing crazy stuff,

I was very interested
in map making.

I've been playing
the bad characters for so long

but always knew that I had
other things I could do.

So Charlie's Farm, huh?
Somebody's feelin' brave.

It's important as an actor
to show versatility, right?

I'm cuttin' over to Pinewood
to pick up Barnes.

Not only have I done
some emotional stuff...

but also recently,
in the past couple years,

done some comedy.

I never thought somebody
would be interested

in me trying to be funny.

As an actor, you have
your facial expressions

and your voice
to add to your performance.

It's, like, way easier.

When you have to look scary
and intimidating

without either one
of those two things,

with a hockey mask on...
Way harder.

And that's why everybody
overacts.

People, they think,
"Oh, I can do that.

You don't even have to show
your face or say anything."

You know what?
You can’t do it.

You think you can,

but you try too hard,
and then it looks phony.

I've worked pretty consistently
in the '80s.

I did a lot of soap-opera work
and a lot of horror movies.

And at the time that I did
"Castle Freak,"

which was in 1995,
I felt like for the first time

I really understood
what I was doing.

I got it.
I know how to act on film.

I know what I'm doing.

So I was about 35.

And then, all of a sudden,
people stopped calling me.

I wasn't working.

And at that time, I feel like
I had aged out a little bit.

I just wasn't getting any calls.

And I was mad.

At the time, I thought,
"Well, I'll go back to school.

I'll get a degree in gardening."
I loved gardening.

And then I met my husband, Bob.

And he said, "Well,

I have to move up
to San Francisco for my job.

Do you want to come with me?"

And I thought, "Yeah.
F Hollywood.

I'm just gonna go
and do something else!"

And then I became a mom,
and I was busy with that.

I took a break
because I aged out a little bit,

but now, thank God,
I'm playing these older women

and moms and mentors
and evil people and caretakers.

I'm glad that the producers
from "You're Next"

took a chance on me and said,
"Yeah.

We want to see Barbara Crampton
again.

We want to see her,"

because I'm having a lot of fun
working again.

Announcer: "The Beast Within."

Even you may not survive.

You have been warned.

"The Beast Within"
is another one

of these low-budget '80s movies

that is super rapey
at the crux of it.

You've got character actors
in there

who have been
in Oscar-nominated films.

You've got Ronny Cox in there.
You've got Bibi Besch in there.

It's a pretty trashy movie

for the caliber of actors
that are in it.

R.G. Armstrong... no slouch.

Really qualified
character actor.

Lord save us.

He's been embalmed...

alive.

Bladder effects
are front and center

in the '80s horror movies
in the transformation scenes.

You see them in "The Howling,"

and you see it in
"American Werewolf in London."

Anytime something's changing,
that's a bladder effect.

And "Beast Within"
is like a script

written around a bladder effect.

Holland: "Beast Within."

Philippe Mora,
whom I dearly love, directed it.

All they had at the time
were bladder effects,

so all you could do
was blow up...

You know, under the latex,
the skin.

"The Beast Within"
is a very comical version of it.

Tom Burman did the effects,
and I love Tom.

He's got an excuse
for that transformation scene.

"The Beast Within" is the nadir
of bladder effects

in which the lead monster's head
explodes to a point

where he looks like
Charlie Brown.

Johnson: And it just goes
and goes and goes

and goes and goes and goes and
goes, and it's so silly-looking.

Tom says, in his own defense,

they had already gotten the
scenes for the transformation

that he felt were good
and then they said,

"Let's just have fun
and let's just pop it.

Let's just film it
until it won't go anymore."

And the director used that.

A friend of mine who said,
"Testing something's limits

usually results
in finding them."

Bladder effects can be awesome,

and sometimes they can be
"The Beast Within."

Oh, my God.

Announcer:
"Evilspeak."

"Evilspeak" is a movie
that's starring

the outstanding Clint Howard,
Ron Howard's brother.

And he is a guy who's bullied
at school

and figures out the perfect way
to get revenge.

He uses his computer
to summon the devil.

I conjure and command thee,
prince of darkness!

This is one of those magical
movies from the early '80s

where they were
trying to capitalize

on the explosion of computers.

"Well, what can we do
to put computers into movies?"

And especially
into horror movies.

"I got it.

Let's have a kid who can summon
the devil with the computer."

Satan!

Even though there are kids
being killed,

you side with the killer

because he's a guy
who has been bullied

and he's really just out
getting revenge

for all the stuff
that people have done to him.

Makes you wish we all had
a Commodore 64 for revenge,

doesn't it?

Announcer:
"The Slumber Party Massacre."

Close your eyes for a second
and sleep... forever.

The story revolves around
a slumber party

and a driller killer...

coming to kill
said slumber party,

hence the "massacre"
in the title.

The thing that people forget
about this movie

is how funny it is.

[]

It was originally written
as a spoof lampooning the genre,

but I don't think the people
who bought the script

really had any sense of irony,
'cause they mainlined it

and basically made it
this fairly ingenious movie.

No!

I love the dynamic
between the girls.

Oh.

Even in the beginning,

when, like, they don't realize
anything's going on,

but people around them
are just dying.

He's just kind of this weird,
standard, J-11 killer,

you know, just running around

with this incredibly
impressive drill.

Chock full of
really benign monotony...

What do you say
we order a pizza? Girl: No anchovies.

Punctuated by savage,
masculine kills.

It's really a dissertation
on the fact

that any male serial killer
is just basically using his...

you know.

How pretty.

The symbolism in the movie

when they basically chop
that off and go after him...

I mean, it makes "Death Ride"
look like a cakewalk.

It's pretty funny.

Announcer: "Alone in the Dark,"
from New Line Cinema.

Nobile:
I love "Alone in the Dark."

It's a weird little
"What if" movie.

If we didn't fall into

the slasher-summer-camp thing
in the '80s,

and something like "Alone in
the Dark" had a chance to shine,

where you're using A-list actors

in, like, a weird
home-invasion plot...

Jack Palance is amazing in it.
Martin Landau is amazing in it.

Here's Donald Pleasence.

"Alone in the Dark" 's poster

makes you think you're going
to see another slasher movie

and not a bananas
home-invasion movie

by a group
of escaped mental patients

that are all middle-
to late-aged white men

played by some of the best
actors of their generation.

What are you,
some kind of asshole?

That opening has no reason
to be in the film.

It's just a crazy,

grab-you-by-the-lapels
dream sequence

that goes berserk
right out of the gate.

I think it's interesting
that "Alone in the Dark"

is made by New Line and it's got
a very "Elm Street" opening

two years before "Elm Street"
happened.

And then Jack Sholder,

who directed it,
ended up doing "Elm Street 2."

I really wish that there was
more of that flavor

in the '80s horror.

"Alone in the Dark"
is a weird little movie

that's kind of its own thing.

"'Vengeance is mine, '
sayeth the Lord."

Announcer:
"Nightbeast."

Terror from beyond.

"Nightbeast."
Oh, boy.

"Nightbeast" is a gem
right here.

I mean, it's a low-budget film,

but it did an incredible job
on the effects.

This alien is here
for the body count.

I mean, it just kills people
in all kinds of gory ways.

The alien has this very funny
facial expression.

I don't know what it is,

but there's something very funny
about that alien's face.

You don't really understand
what the alien's motive is.

It kind of seems like a child
that just got a new toy.

Like,
"Oh, what's this button do?

Oh, wow!"

And he's just killing people
for fun the whole movie.

Guess who did the music.

J.J. Abrams.

J.J. Abrams, who was credited
as Jeffrey Abrams,

did the music in "Nightbeast."

If you want a body count,
I mean, this movie has it.

They got to bring back
the nightbeast in some way.

I do enjoy horror,
but only if it's really good.

I've tended to like
darker films, even as a child...

Film noir, you know,
for instance.

I like that genre.

It just is my favorite form
of escape.

It's like, just take me away.

I'm a willing participant,
you know?

I really want you
to change my world right now.

Today, I think of '80s movies

and I think of really big hair,
to start with.

That's pretty scary now.

I love movies.

I would always look
at who directed it,

who wrote it, who's in it,
what's it about.

All of the above, really.

You know, I started out
to be a dancer.

That was my first love.

And film really found me,
oddly enough.

It wasn't like
I was in search of.

Even the first time
I walked on the sound stage,

I felt like, "Oh.
It's like home."

You know, it felt like
I was in the right place.

Before I did film in New York,
I did a number of commercials.

Pants!

Wow!
A car with pants!

And I was very shy,

so it was at that point
that I got into acting classes.

And then when I started
making movies in the '70s,

and I found myself in a crowd
of people like Brian De Palma,

Steven Spielberg,
Marty Scorsese,

Francis Ford Coppola,
George Lucas, and Bob Zemeckis,

who I met as well,

you're sitting there, and you're
hearing this conversation.

They're deconstructing
these films

and talking about filmmakers.

And now all of a sudden,
I'm looking at it

from a different perspective.

I really like good directors.

They know what they're gonna
do, they have a plan,

and they will collaborate.

You know, they're interested
in your perspective as well.

Honestly, I spend much more time

on enriching the character's
inner life and life

and making it
as real as possible.

I really throw caution
to the wind

and leave it to the director
to get the tone

and the balance correct
between all the performers,

and, you know, delivering a film
that makes sense tonally.

But I've worked
with great directors.

Now you have a problem,
which I've experienced,

where you work with a director
who you can't really trust.

And that's very difficult.

Unfortunately, with women,
a lot of the roles that I played

and a lot of the films
that I was in,

there wasn't a lot of background
about who this character is,

so I had to fill
in those blanks.

Starting with "Carrie," I just
literally I wrote a biography.

What do they eat in the morning?
What do they dress?

What do they like to do?

It just informs me.

It makes it fuller and richer
for me,

because there's often not
a lot on the page.

You'll get canned
for this, you bitch!

One more word from you
and I'm gonna knock you down,

do you understand me?!

I did not see Chris Hargenson
as a bitch.

Let's start with that.

I thought that Chris Hargenson
was a pretty cool girl.

And this gal Carrie, that
I wouldn't even hang out with,

has just screwed
things up for me.

So there.

Look at her.

You eat shit.

You have to find why you
like a character

and teenagers
are so black and white.

That's what's interesting
about having people

in their 20s play that role.

You have a little distance
on it, a little perspective.

What I had to wrap myself around

was the, you know,
what's driving her?

Why is she doing this?
Why is she so hurt?

What's going on at home?

And, you know, why does she feel
so entitled to behave this way?

And I would have to say that
the crew really helped me

because whenever John
and I, Travolta,

were on the set,
everybody laughed,

so I just thought
we were really funny.

I thought we were comic relief.

I didn't realize
everyone was gonna despise me.

I think "Dressed to Kill"
is, first of all,

it's visually stunning.

It's an emotional dance,
it's a visual dance.

The film worked on paper,
it just did.

It was... You could see it.

I personally wasn't a fan
of the slasher aspect of it,

and I always felt
that the elevator scene,

you didn't even
have to see anything.

My preference would have been
to just see this character

being backed into the co...
That was enough for me.

I didn't need the blood,
but I guess people like that.

The psychological aspects of it

rather than the thriller aspects
of it are what I prefer.

This character that I play,
the Liz Blake character,

is a very strong woman.

You can say whatever
you want about her.

She knows what she wants.

And that's what she gets.

Well... what do you think?

Shooting the last scene
in "Dressed to Kill,"

first of all,
you're in a sound stage,

tiny, little corner of a space.

The water's running.

They're trying to get it
a little warmer

so that I don't freeze to death.

It's the dead of winter.

I remember the cold,
I remember the wet,

I remember the naked.

That's what I remember.

There was a mirror.
It opened up.

That's when the razor comes out.

Even though someone's
lying on the floor,

they're pumping the blood,

is it coming through
with the razor on my throat...

there is something...

Even though
it's all make believe...

That's traumatizing when you
see blood gushing out of you.

It does end in a nightmare
for her,

so you wonder how much more
she's gonna be going on

in her life with all of that.

The big hullabaloo
when the film came out

had nothing to do
with transgender at all.

It was all about the misogyny.
That's what I remember.

Let's face it,
you're a whore, eh?

You're a Park Avenue whore,
but you're still a whore.

Fuck you.

No, fuck you.

That bothered me
because I-I felt like

Liz Blake
was a pretty tough cookie.

She was nobody's fool.

And unlike Angie Dickinson
character who had to be punished

for her sexuality,
she had real sexual energy.

She was real comfortable
with her sexuality.

In fact, it was a business
for her.

Do you want to fuck me?

Oh, yes.

I think it would be very hard
to get that film made today

with that script,
with that transgender character

being the killer,
maybe impossible.

What's important about that film
is what we didn't know

and how unconscious
we were at that time.

For better or for worse,
we're more conscious now,

or self-conscious in a way now.

Everybody seems
very self-conscious

to me about everything.

We're still understanding
and still trying to understand

some of the complications
of a character

like
the Michael Caine character.

I do not gravitate
to scary films,

but I'm not afraid of them
either.

I like suspense.

I like jeopardy in films, I do.

So I guess I like feeling
a little bit out of control

or whatever,
but I don't like slasher films.

Don't like just blood and guts.

I'd like to be a little bit
smarter than that.

Announcer: "The Entity."

Barbara Hershey in "The Entity"
is attacked

by a sexual being of some sort,

and it's very realistic
and very disturbing.

It was apparently based
on a true story

that had happened seven,
eight years previous

to the making of the film,

about this woman
who was terrorized,

and, you know, raped sexually
by this... this ghost.

Barbara Hershey gives
an excellent performance

in the lead role.

Ron Silver's in it.

It's a small film.

It's actually quite effective.

You think I'm insane.

Insane?

That means different things
to different people, Carla.

It was so realistic,

because of all the things
she was doing and the bruises.

That would have been
a hard role.

You'll wait till I'm alone,
won't you?

Then you'll come forth
to hurt me, to hurt my children!

Stan Winston was responsible
for this moment

where you see Barbara Hershey's
character nude in bed,

and you see
the entity fondling her.

It's an excellent effect,

he and his team
created a fake body for Barbara

and she was underneath the bed
on a slant board.

Stan was underneath her
reaching up past her

to manipulate the...
The breasts.

So he had cups
on the interior of the breast

and when he pulled his fingers
in, from the outside,

it would look as if invisible
fingers were pressing.

And his other crew were gently
manipulating the fake arms

and legs of this body.

Barbara Hershey was exhausted
by doing "The Entity"

because first of all,
she had to be naked.

She had to act like somebody
was having sex with her.

She's got all these people
on set.

With me, when I'm acting,
like, possessed or something,

I feel ridiculous.

I'm sure all that was running

through her head
when she was doing it.

But when you see the final
movie, it's very realistic.

And she did a great job.

That had to have been
so hard to do.

It's All Saints' Day.

Woman: A demanding,
implacable enemy

whose search for blood
is never satiated.

The goriest, nastiest thing that
kind of stuck with me growing up

wasn't anything that Jason did

or Freddy Krueger did
or Michael Myers did.

It was Lucio Fulci's
"City of the Living Dead."

The living dead part
kind of throws you off.

It's a more supernatural movie.

Almost like it was tacked on to
kind of ride the Romero train.

The original title was
"City of the Living Dead."

But when they brought it
over to America,

they changed it
to "The Gates of Hell."

Nobile Jr.:
"The Gates of Hell" ad

seemed like it was just warning
you to not watch this movie.

It had, like, a long explanation
about why it wasn't rated,

but you can't
come see this movie.

I remember the image
of "The Gates of Hell" thing,

thinking it was gonna be
the most terrifying thing

I've ever seen.

Just a really effective
marketing campaign...

to a 12-year-old.

I saw a priest
who, by hanging himself,

opened the gates of Hell.

It was almost like
this Gothic-zombie tale

surrounding this priest trying
to bring about the apocalypse

in this small town,
the protagonists

basically trying to shut
the portal to Hell.

A dude is sitting in his pickup
truck with his lady.

And she turns and looks at him

after seeing this priest flash
before her eyes,

and she just starts
puking her own guts out.

And it goes on a lot longer
than you would expect.

It's super gnarly.

And that always stuck with me.

Jericho: And there's some kind
of a kidney-looking thing,

and then here comes
some sausage intestines,

and then there's
a heart-like thing,

and it's just like...
It just doesn't stop.

It has, to me, the best kill.

The father holding homeboy's
head down

and the drill coming in,

and just giving him the full-on
Black & Decker lobotomy.

It's so sick.

To this day, it's one of
my favorite Fulci movies.

"Pieces" is,
as the tagline says,

"exactly what you think it is."

This is a movie they were
trying to capitalize

on the "Texas Chainsaw
Massacre."

A maniac killer
going around a college,

chopping up a bevy
of beautiful women

to basically create
one perfect, beautiful woman.

And the fact that this is still
such an underground movie

is criminal.

The gore is insane.

There's so much blood
everywhere,

it's almost like you
can just smell the guts.

George: Help!

I would have to turn
in my horror card

if I didn't say
that the greatest scene

in almost any '80s horror film

was not Linda George shouting,
"Bastard!"

Bastard!

Bastard!

There was a major red herring
in the film.

There's a guy
who's the groundskeeper,

walking around with a chainsaw,
played by Paul Smith,

who was Bluto
in the "Popeye" movie,

and also in "Dune."

You think that he is gonna
be the killer.

It's one of the most blatantly
obvious not red herrings ever.

He's walking around,
he's got the chainsaw,

he loves his chainsaw,

and people are dying
by chainsaw.

If anything, you have to see it
for the ending.

You will not see
this one coming.

Lucio Fulci's "The Beyond"
is a fantastic movie

that I think, one,
not only captures the essence

of who he was as a filmmaker,

but I also think,
in a really great way,

it's really a fantastic sort of
celebration of the weirdness

that is New Orleans,
specifically in the early 1980s.

The movie is centered
on a young woman

who inherits
mysteriously a hotel,

and then ultimately finds out
that the hotel is centered

over one of the gates
of Hell, darn.

This hotel is one of the
seven gateways of Hell.

And I think in the first
30 seconds,

we've already got flesh ripping,

really ghastly,
gruesome effects,

which were the work
of Giannetto De Rossi,

who is one of the greatest
sort of Italian

special effects
artists over there,

and it just
never stops from there.

It's just a constant barrage
of horribleness.

He also taps into my fear
of big spiders as well.

In Fulci's world, tarantulas
are gonna come for you

and they're going
to eat your face.

You have, like, these little
munching spiders coming through,

eating the guy's flesh
and tearing it away.

Basically, it sounds,
you know, like,

there's like a bunch of people
at a buffet.

There's a great set piece
at the hospital.

It's just like a constant
barrage of reanimated corpses.

They're trying to fight
their way out,

and it just, like,
it doesn't stop.

Eyes were definitely a motif
in "The Beyond"

that we saw sort of utilized
again and again.

We have Joe the handyman
who basically finds himself

being blinded in both eyes
after being attacked.

And then you have a housekeeper

who ends up getting
sort of pushed

onto a large spike,
and her eye pops out as well.

And then you have characters
in the movie who also go blind.

It's a really weird
and wild movie,

but you wouldn't expect
anything less from Fulci.

I wanted to make
a monster movie.

I wrote "The Being"
when I was 23.

I was fascinated by
the idea of horror,

because I love eliciting
a reaction.

A nuclear waste dump
produces a monster

that wreaks havoc
on a small town

while he's looking for his mom.

Okay?
Alright?

There's always a human
element there.

My sort of weird sense of humor.

I think that is the thread
you see in all my films.

I went over to Martin Landau's
acting studio

because I wanted
Martin Landau in my film.

And I said,
"You know, Mr. Landau,

I really don't want to be in
your acting class, no offense.

I'm a director,

and I want you
to be in my film."

And he was so wonderful.

I pulled the script
out of my bag

and gave it to him,
and he goes, "I'll read it."

And he read it that night
and he said he'd do it.

And he was instrumental
in getting José Ferrer,

who was a friend of his,
and Dorothy Malone.

I had two Academy Award-winning
actors in my first horror film.

I even spent so much time
trying to design the monster,

and finally everyone said,
"Stop designing the monster.

Start making the movie."

I may have been heavy-handed
with it, but it still works,

of this denial about
environmental disasters.

I mean, Martin Landau says
with dead seriousness

that dumping nuclear waste
into the aquifer

will not affect
the drinking water.

He even does
the demonstration...

Pouring the water,
drinking the water,

"Mmmmmm, delicious."

This goes on today.

It was chilling, unpredictable,

and a slice of Americana.

I learned a lot
making that movie.

It wasn't a perfect film,
but I have to say, you know,

I have certain fans
that come to me

and tell me it's their
favorite film that I've made.

Announcer: "The Keep."

Coming soon
from Paramount Pictures.

Michael Mann directs "The Keep,"

which I think is
one of his best movies.

That's a Pandora's Box movie.
It's like "The Mummy."

We don't want to let whatever's
in the keep out.

The reason it's in the keep,
it's supposed to stay in there.

Never touch the crosses.

Never!

And the Nazis have to control
this keep.

And, of course, they can't not
open up the keep

and find out what is in it.

What we find out is inside
is Scott Glenn.

You don't want to let
Scott Glenn out on the world.

Don't... touch that.

The reason why "The Keep"
has a cult following

is that it is both
very '80s and very unique.

The sound design,
the look of it, the music.

It's all very unlike
what you would see

in a World War II movie
where a monster kills people.

Michael Mann, just like
on his previous movie "Thief,"

he used Tangerine Dream
for the soundtrack,

and it's these moody,
synthesized soundscapes,

which is again something
you don't normally hear

in a World War II movie.

The villain of the movie,
Molasar,

has a really interesting look.

When he first appears,
he's this giant mass of muscle

and sinew with a skull
for a head.

It almost looks like somebody's
skinned the Incredible Hulk.

The soldiers are back.

I will destroy them!

And then later,
he gets more complete,

and he takes on almost
this Golem-like appearance,

which is pretty appropriate
considering the Golem

is a creature
from Jewish mythology

and he's killing Nazis.

The movie had
a very troubled production.

Michael Mann's original cut
was supposed to be

three and a half hours long,
but they forced him

to cut it down to a little
over an hour and a half.

So as a result,
in the final movie,

there's a lot of elements
that aren't really explained.

For example,
Scott Glenn's character,

you're not exactly sure what
his connection to the villain is

or why he's got these...
These supernatural powers.

Michael Mann was very
disappointed in the movie

and has basically tried to bury
it ever since it was released.

Aah!

Michael, if you're
watching this,

I know you don't like
this movie,

but there are people
out there who do.

So, you know, maybe consider
giving it a high-def release.

Gower: In the '80s, having
the kids be part of the story

and an integral part
of the story,

instead of just someone's
offspring, became more popular.

And it became more part
of the story engine

than just on the side.

We progressed out of that
as just a cutesy little kind of,

"I'm the kid with the freckles,"
on an episode of "The Love Boat"

into being chased
by guys with axes

and monsters with dynamite,
and cars that come alive.

Stuff that can really get you.

Anytime you put a young kid
in a... in a scary story,

it really brings it home.

You put them in groups,
you put kids in peril,

you put them in adventures,
it becomes this whole thing,

and you're just wrapped up
in emotion

because these are kids,
you want them to succeed.

So you go all the way back
to the original kid

in a horror story,

is when Frankenstein's monster
kills a little girl by the pond.

That had to have been
absolutely astonishing

to people at that time,

that really punches you
right in the chest,

where it's like, "Wow, some harm
came to this kid."

There was a rule for a while
that you cannot kill off a kid.

And I don't think I do
except for in "The Being."

I think I cross
the line on that one.

But I love working with kids.

They love that role playing.

They know how to react
to what's happening

and get totally immersed
in the scene...

There she is.

Without being self-conscious.

I have always loved watching
young performers anyway.

Because it's amazing to me

that someone can have
that kind of ability.

Sometimes they grow up
to be tremendous actors

because of that, and other
times, they're fuck-ups.

Gower: But working with kids
is a whole other thing

that a lot of people
don't understand

if they've never been in
production with younger actors,

because there's
restraints on time.

They can, you know,
depending on how old you are,

there's different levels of how
long you can actually be on set.

There's even minimums
or maximums

of how long you can be
in front of the camera,

which adds into how long
you can be on set.

You have to go to school
every day.

There's a reason why they say
don't work with kids.

It really is a pain in the ass
for a production.

"Halloween III"
and on Halloween night,

all these masks are gonna eat
the kids' faces

and brains and kill them.

It gives me chills
thinking about it.

I want everybody
to be reassured,

when I'm standing there
on the phone screaming,

"Please stop it,
stop it, turn it off,

stop it, turn off
the final channel.

Stop it, stop it,"
all the children were saved.

You can take that to the bank.

Dante: When you're a kid,

other kids getting killed
on screen

is much more affecting
than if you see their, you know,

somebody's grandfather
getting killed.

It became very trendy to have
at least one or two kids

or a group of kids
going against the antagonist.

They would assemble
this group of...

Of plucky kids to try
and take down,

you know, this
incredibly disturbing force.

As a kid growing up in the '80s,

it was cool to kind of be able
to see myself reflected in that.

It was empowering to see that,
especially as a poor kid.

Burn rubber!

Aaaaahh!

Christ!

I think a lot of it

came from the writings
of Stephen King.

I mean, "Cujo" has the kid.
"It" has a group of kids.

I mean, he was kind of
the inventor of that subgenre,

if you want to call it that.

Stephen King certainly
has exploited Children as...

Children as victims,
children as evil, you know,

and... and done it
really quite well.

I think it's an interesting tool

because I think we become,
as the audience,

very conflicted, because right
away, it's a child.

So you have all of these
mixed... mixed emotions

about how you're supposed
to feel about it.

One of Stephen's tricks
is to put kids in jeopardy.

It's a little bit too effective,
I think,

because it gets mimicked
all the time.

And it's one of those things
that I resent.

It becomes a trope.

Now the kid is being victimized,

so our heroes are justified
in doing anything they want.

They're morally excused,
ethically excused from anything

because there's
a child involved.

Gage in "Pet Cemetery"
is interesting,

because in the beginning,

he is just
an innocent little kid... Bye-bye.

And he gets killed
devastatingly.

After I became a father,

that scene had so much
more weight than it did

when I was younger.

But it's interesting because
he is the poster child

for innocence in the beginning.

Hi, Daddy, I love you.

And then after he gets buried
in the pet cemetery,

he comes back as the villain.

Gage 2.0 comes in

and cuts Fred Gwynne's
Achilles tendon.

It's such a simple move,
but it's so cruel

and it's so effective
and it's so horrifying.

I don't scare easily.

The moment that is iconic for me
out of the 1980s,

is the twins from "The Shining."

They bothered me.

And they stayed with me.

Featherston: The twins
at the end of the hallway,

every time I'm in a hotel,
and I'm in a hallway alone,

that comes back for me
and I have this moment of like,

"Please don't let the hallway
feel longer than it is."

That is just a spooky-ass thing.

And the kid is wonderful in it.

There's just such a sadness
about that.

It's a lot of responsibility
to have that awareness,

to have that knowing,
to have that power.

It's a lot of responsibility
for a child.

That was the slow kill
for me, too, was the kid

'cause he would sit there
and you knew he knew.

There's nothing worse
for a child to know.

Adults, it's okay.

But when a child embraces,

"I know something
that they don't know,"

then it becomes
really terrifying.

Redrum.

Redrum.

And as a child, of course,
you tend to feel powerless.

And the fantasy of being able
to telekinetically punish

one's enemies
was really intoxicating.

It just appealed to my,

you know,
frustrated powerlessness

that I felt as a child,
that I think most children feel.

Just for a moment in our lives
when we felt that powerless,

the, you know, the bully

or the cruelty
that we've experienced,

I'm wishing I had a little
of that power myself

right now in the world.

"The Black Cat" by Lucio Fulci.

Many times the Edgar Allan Poe
story was adapted into film.

There was a 1934 film
with Karloff and Lugosi.

There was the 1940s film
with Lugosi also.

And then there was the '60s,

which had Vincent Price
and Peter Lorre.

All of them were very loose
adaptations, and so is this one.

This one is nothing subtle
at all.

This is about a killer cat.

Aah! Aah!

It doesn't just murder people,
it murders the shit out of them.

This cat could take
on Michael Myers.

It's a beast.

There's horror movies
where people burn to death.

And then there's horror movies

where people get thrown
out of windows.

Well, in "Black Cat,"
you get both at the same time.

Holy shit.

Some of the other movies
kind of use the black cat

as a symbol, like a metaphor
for evil or something,

but this one is just
going right for the jugular.

The cat is gonna leap out

and tear your fucking face off.

"Suspiria" gets all the love,

but "Tenebrae"
is my favorite Argento.

There's something about the way
Argento paces a scene

where you know
something's coming,

because you're watching
a horror movie

and you've seen horror movies.

So you know that's...
That's the deal,

but he waits just
a little too long,

so that when he finally
delivers it,

it's a different
kind of catharsis

than your average slasher movie.

I love stories about writers.

For me, that's just one of
my sort of cinematic catnips.

Tony Franciosa, in this movie,
he's playing an author

who basically
there's a killer out there

who's mimicking things
from his book,

and then he's sort of dealing
with the ramifications of that,

in Italy,
while he's on a book tour.

And his manager in the movie
is John Saxon, who is a delight.

It's such a complete
departure for him

from being Lieutenant Thompson

in the "Nightmare
on Elm Street" movies.

Doesn't it drop off?
Drop off?

Yeah, I mean, if you make
a quick movement,

won't it slip off?

Look...

I really love Daria Nicolodi
in it,

who was a frequent collaborator
with Dario Argento,

and I don't think
she gets enough credit

for the writing
that she did with him.

Some of the camerawork
in that movie is absolutely,

like, just astonishingly great.

The way that that camera moves
is so fluid and so wonderful.

There is this huge switch
that happens in the movie.

You think you know the game
that's being played,

and then ultimately,
halfway through the movie,

it takes a completely
different direction.

A woman is sitting in her house,

and she's sitting there
with a gun in her hand,

and the killer, out of nowhere,
just kind of comes to the window

and chops her hand off
with the gun in it.

And then she gets up,

and there's just this crimson
spray of blood everywhere,

and, of course,
everything has white walls.

So it looks amazing.

It's beautiful.

Like it shouldn't be beautiful,
this should be horrifying.

But yet there's something
so stunning about the way

that that blood would hit,
and especially Italian blood

was always notoriously much more
red and much more vibrant

than the blood we were
using here in the States.

It really captures
everything that you love about

Giallo movies, but does it
in a different way

that we really hadn't seen
from him before.

It's one of the standouts
amongst Argento's filmography,

specifically during the 1980s.

Announcer: "C.H.U.D."...

Cannibalistic humanoid
underground dwellers.

Janisse: "C.H.U.D." stars
John Hurt and Daniel Stern.

It's got early appearances
by Coen brothers mainstays

like Jon Polito as a newscaster,

and John Goodman, who alongside
Jay Thomas, are cops in a diner.

Ah.

The concept of going underground
and mutant homeless people

that are mutated
through the nuclear waste

that was
being stored underground

in New York, and it was great.

So it certainly had that
"Death Wish,"

dirty New York setting

with the isolation
of the underground tunnels,

and then the mutant monsters.

Shit!

So it had a great mixture
of elements.

The idea of cannibalistic
humanoid underground dwellers

is a brilliant one, really.

And then obviously the bit
at the start,

where the puppy and the woman
get pulled out

from the underground manhole.

Announcer:
It's only a movie,

but it's more than enough.

"Terror in the Aisles"
is a great compilation film

and it really does explore
the thoughts,

the feelings,
the how and the why of it all.

Say, how'd they do that?

That's the trick, isn't it?

Once the lights go down.

You're only watching clips
of these movies,

but somehow, all put
together like that,

it was absolutely terrifying.

And unfortunately,
in these movies,

the victim is almost
always a woman.

And I watched it on a VHS,
and I remember having to stop it

because I was getting
so rattled by it.

Get him!

It certainly packs
a very different punch.

It's... it's pretty frightening.

Why make up horrible things

when there is so much...
real terror?

We can enjoy the jeopardy,
we can have a good scream,

a good laugh,
and laugh at ourselves

for having been tricked
the way we have.

It's just fun.
You know, it's just a fun thing.

And you're sitting in a theater,
which is... relatively safe.

There are two reasons
that I wanted to do

"Terror in the Aisles."

I love the idea of it,
I love those movies, you know,

and I think those genres
are really great and...

but I also wanted to meet
Donald Pleasence,

who I was a great fan of,

and I didn't get to meet him,
so I was devastated.

That was shocking...

wasn't it?

Announcer: You've made it
through Halloween.

Now try and survive Christmas.

"Silent Night, Deadly Night"
is about Catholic guilt,

I think.

I didn't really even know the
controversy until years later,

when it came to pass that, like,
this was the harsh, black mark

on Christmas of '84.

There was a big hue and cry
about turning Santa Claus

into a serial killer.

This scared people
and made it want to be banned.

Punishment is necessary, Pamela.

It is... No!

Good!

"Silent Night, Deadly Night"
tells the story of Billy,

who, as a child,

witnesses his family
get murdered

by someone dressed
as Santa Claus.

Flash-forward to when Billy
becomes 18,

and he is now
a strapping young lad.

Merry Christmas, everyone,
ho ho ho!

Merry Christmas.

One thing leads to another,

and Billy is completely
triggered

and goes on a massive
killing spree dressed as Santa.

The trigger, when that happens,

you can totally understand it.

There's a death
involving antlers on a wall,

which is... which is great.

Punish!
No!

Quigley:
He impales me on antlers,

so never answer the door
to strangers.

Punish!
Aah!

I had a talk with the director.

I said,
"She wouldn't be topless.

A woman would, you know,
put on a top,

maybe not her bottoms
to go upstairs.

That's just what
a woman would do."

And he's like, "Well, we have
to have you topless,

because the antlers
are gonna come out."

I think there was
another reason behind it.

I had to be lifted up
a billion times

to get on the antlers
by a stunt man.

I don't know how he did it,
but he's like

again and again
and having blood capsules

come out my mouth
and doing it at the right time.

It was... it was an ordeal.

It's crazy how two-dimensional
most of these movies are,

and yet you have a movie

like "Silent Night,
Deadly Night,"

that gives character
development and depth

and reasons why this guy
is wreaking havoc on people.

And yet people wanted
to shut this down.

I was like, "Are you kidding?"

Quigley: I'm so glad that
the mothers wanted it banned,

because it made a lot of money

and it got a lot of attention
because of that.

Announcer:
Dangerous or dead.

"Razorback."

"Razorback" is a beautiful film,

and I don't throw
that term around lightly.

I mean, it is an absolutely
gorgeous film.

It's directed
by Russell Mulcahy,

who is an Australian director

who shortly after this, would go
off to direct "Highlander."

It's one of the best

of the "nature run amok"
subgenre horror.

It's a movie about a giant boar,

a boar that is
three times larger

than any of the boars
that anyone there has ever seen.

As you know, everything in
Australia wants to kill you.

So this is the perfect
setting for that.

It starts off with
this giant boar

that rips through a house
and kills a child,

while his grandfather's
watching it.

Oh, God, Scotty!

Everyone in the town

thinks that the grandfather
has killed this kid.

So he's spending the rest of
his life hunting this razorback.

Aaah!

The movie shifts because
you initially think

it's gonna be
about the grandfather,

then you think it's gonna
be about the woman

who is the reporter
who's going to Australia

to investigate this.

But then she ends up
getting killed by the razorback.

And then her husband flies
out to Australia

to find out
what happened to his wife.

So the movie then shifts again,
to be about the husband.

The giant razorback
is incredible.

You don't see it very much,
but you see it enough,

and it's terrifying.

It is still legitimately scary.

The color palette that they use
is just gorgeous.

It is not something you would
expect to see

in a movie called "Razorback."

You're expecting blood and guts
and violence.

You wouldn't really expect
to see

this stunningly beautiful film.

It's okay, it's okay.

Well, the big rock star in terms
of makeup effects

in the '80s
was undeniably Tom Savini.

He kind of cornered the market
in gore for the early '80s

and did it better
than anybody else.

The '80s was
the splatter decade.

That was my decade, you know.

I was called the Sultan
of Splatter, the Wizard of Gore.

And it was the one-two punch
of "Dawn of the Dead"

and then "Friday the 13th"
that catapulted my career.

In fact, "Friday the 13th"
wouldn't exist

if George hadn't done
and hired me

for "Dawn of the Dead."

One movie after another
got me work with other directors

who saw those movies.

So Sean Cunningham saw "Dawn"
and said,

"We got to get this guy."

Tom Savini came to us and said,
"You know what I want to do?"

I said,
"What do you want to do?"

He said, "I want to cut
somebody's head off...

on screen.
It's never been done."

I said, "Really?"

He said, "No, it's never been
done, and it could be great."

I said,
"How are we gonna do it?"

He said, "Well, we have
to figure it out."

Aah!

I always feel that Tom Savini
is the godfather of all of this,

and in a lot of ways,
of sheer invention.

You know, the script says
this happens.

How the fuck does that happen?

When I was growing up trying
to learn makeup,

there was no place to learn.

Nobody wanted to share
their secrets.

Limitations make you
more creative.

Limitations... not enough time,
not enough people,

not enough materials,
not enough money.

Now, Robo Chimp could, um...

you know,
he could open his mouth

and make his head move
left and right.

And then "Martin,"
there was a stake

that goes through
a guy's neck, you know?

So George said, "We're gonna go
to a slaughterhouse

and maybe get a lamb neck and
stick a stick in a lamb neck."

I said, "No, no,

you need to see the guy's face
when that happens."

"Well, how are you gonna
do that?"

"I don't know.
I'll figure it out, okay?"

And it wound up being exactly
how I killed Kevin Bacon

in "Friday the 13th."

In "Martin," the stake
went in the front.

In "Friday the 13th,"
I brought the arrow

from behind
the fake neck appliance.

But it's the same kind
of an appliance

that Kevin Bacon
stuck his head into,

that the guy in "Martin"
stuck his head into,

that Ned Eisenberg,
in "The Burning,"

stuck his head into.

I did that effect
over and over again.

Usually if there's
a rubber weapon involved,

we try to establish
the real weapon,

taking a chunk out of the wall
or in "Friday the 13th,"

the hatchet
taking out the light bulb

before the rubber axe
goes into the girl's head.

So in your mind,
there's no separation.

My books are called
"Grand Illusions."

My books about special
makeup effects,

because that's how I think
of them, as magic tricks.

Because it may surprise
you to hear from me

that I believe
the less you show,

the more effective stuff is,
you know.

I'm the guy
that showed everything.

But on "Creepshow,"
I had never done anything

like Fluffy before,
an animatronic creature/monster.

So I called Rob Bottin,
and he taught me

how to do it over the phone.

"Creepshow" was five movies,
you know,

with monsters and Nate's corpse,
which to me was...

Was an exciting thing to do.

I want my cake.

The first thing you see is
Raul's corpse,

the thing in the window,
you know,

so it was a real skeleton
that I animated with all these,

you know, he could smile,
his fingers could do this.

He did a bunch of stuff.

I did not turn Stephen King
into the plant,

but I did blow the top
of his head off.

I was up in the ceiling
pulling stuff out of him

while hitting blood explosions.

It was pretty complicated stuff.

And the cockroaches...
Oh, my God, the cockroaches.

I was never in the same room
with those cockroaches.

I would be outside
a sealed room,

looking through glass.

"Okay, cue the blood," you know?

Alright, pump the roaches."

Because there were
two entomologists

with huge syringes
full with roaches.

We pumped blood on them

so they would leave
little bloody footprints.

Man: Mr. Pratt!

"Creepshow" was my opportunity

to create monsters
and characters,

you know, not just cutting
throats and blowing heads off.

"Texas Chainsaw Massacre
2" was another...

An opportunity like that,

you know, creating
the old-age makeup.

"Xiao Sheng Pa Pa" is a horror
movie I did in Hong Kong,

a horror-comedy movie
I did in Hong Kong.

And all I did was use stuff
from,

well, some stuff
from "Creepshow."

Raul, he's in the movie.

He's just a ghost apparition
at the window.

But I had to build lots
of monsters and things.

And the two leads,
they were like

the Abbott and Costello
of Hong Kong.

I didn't understand a word
of what was going on.

But, you know, but I built
some elaborate effects

for that movie.

Listen, don't talk to me
about interpreters.

We sent him out for Super Glue,

and he came back with a case
of condoms, you know.

And he's the interpreter, okay?

Williams: I met Tom.

He opened up the dictionary
of forensic pathology.

And I saw genuine photos
of murder victims,

drowning victims,
accident victims, you name it,

every variety of death
that the human body can endure

was in those pages.

And then I went through his lab,

and I looked at
what people were creating.

The reality of it
was extraordinary.

I'm the only makeup artist
that has seen the real stuff.

I was a combat photographer
in Vietnam.

I saw horrible stuff, okay?

You know, if you see a movie,
a guy's wearing a white shirt,

and there's blood on it,

and the blood looks like
strawberry Kool-Aid,

the makeup artist
didn't add green to the blood

because it's going
on something white.

You have to do that.

In fact, here's the formula...

A gallon of blood,
32 drops of green,

and that blood can go
on something light

and still look
deep red like blood.

A little helpful hint
for you here.

Everything that we do today,

as special makeup effect
artists,

was invented by Dick Smith.

We enhance it, elaborate,
make it better, you know,

but he invented all the stuff
that we... that we do today.

If you've seen
"Dawn of the Dead,"

the blood is atrocious.

The blood looks like
melted crayons.

So on the way
to "Friday the 13th,"

driving to Connecticut,
we went to Dick Smith's house.

And he gave us the blood
formula, his blood formula,

which is the blood formula.

The blood in "Friday the 13th"
is the first time

the blood looked real to me.

I wish I had my school
growing up,

where you could go and learn
all this stuff, you know.

It's important
for film students, let's say,

to study films from the past.

If you're surrounded by people,

like I am with students
coming into my school,

and they don't know
who Boris Karloff is,

you're deprived.

I mean, if you're gonna be
a makeup artist, you know,

do some research on some of the
greatest monsters or creatures

or makeups that were
ever created, you know.

The first sentence in my book
on makeup effects is,

"The more you do,
the more you get to do."

That's the thrill of creativity,

that idea of taking a blob
of clay or taking a blank page,

you're giving life to something
that never existed

and that... that's thrilling.

Announcer: "Ghoulies"

They'll get you in the end!

"Ghoulies."

Well, first there was
"Gremlins,"

then there was "Ghoulies."

And then there was "Munchies,"
and then there was "Hobgoblins."

When you have a picture
that's successful,

people might want to immediately
rush out an imitation.

The fact that the ad has the
ghoulie coming out of a toilet,

I think probably expresses my
feelings about the whole series.

I did enjoy the "Ghoulies"
movies.

In fact, I did one of them,
"Ghoulies Go to College."

I'm hungry again.

I was stunt coordinator on it

and played the character falling
in a mop bucket, ass first.

Get out of the way!

Whoa!

Ohhh!

The greatest thing about
"Ghoulies" is something

that almost didn't make it
into the movie.

They watched it and said,
"Where's the scene

with the Ghoulie
coming out of the toilet?"

They said, "Well, we just did
that for the poster."

"No, you need to put this scene
in the movie."

So they went back
and re-shot the scene,

the Ghoulie coming out
of the toilet.

And whenever somebody says
Ghoulies, they always love that.

And, of course, that ties in
with the tagline.

Ghoulies.
They'll get you in the end!

Literally.

So if I had to give my blessing
to any of the rip-offs,

I would definitely choose
the "Critters" series.

However, I feel remiss in
criticizing anybody's rip-offs

when my first picture
was "Piranha,"

which is a rip-off of "Jaws."

You know so I'm not -

just, you know,
walk around and tinkle a bell

and yell "unclean"
and all of that.

Go back home!

During the heyday of
the video boom, early '80s,

there were so many videos
on the shelves

that you had to do something
to grab people's attention.

I used to love all those painted
covers, you know,

like "Cannibal Holocaust,"
"Cannibal Ferox."

As the years went on,
they became more and more lurid

because they had to compete
and threw was so much in there.

"Cannibal Holocaust"
is interesting

because it is the first

in a whole kind of wave
of found-footage movies,

where you didn't know
if it was real or not.

Of course, by the time I saw it,
you knew that it wasn't real.

Much like
"The Blair Witch Project"

when it first came out,
people weren't sure.

Deodato even was brought up
in criminal charges

of filming actual murders.

There's phases that take
place in... in horror movies,

the found footage,
Amazon jungle, torture porn,

"Cannibal Holocaust"
and "Cannibal Ferox."

For a time, I thought
they were the same movie

with different titles.

One would kind of look
like the other,

which would look like the other.

"Cannibal Holocaust" has
a couple scenes in it

that you just don't forget,

the guy getting his cock
chopped off.

Don't ever go to
the Amazon jungle

and that way you won't get
your cock chopped off

by a bunch
of Cannibal Holocaust feroxes.

The real issue that everybody
talks about, though,

with "Cannibal Holocaust"

is not the apparent
deaths of the people.

It's the deaths of the animals
on screen,

and that's hard to watch
because that's real.

Big sea turtle getting
cut up for dinner.

Fuck, really?!

So that, I think, is why
some people

thought that it could be real
because the animal deaths are.

You're watching literal
animal-snuff films.

The most popular nasty
of them all

is a piece of trash
called "Faces of Death,"

which purports to be
a professor's investigation

of death worldwide.

And his effort, he says,
is to gain knowledge

about the fragility of man.

Sure, and I'm the Easter Bunny.

"Faces of Death."

Somebody's brother's
sister's brother

had it on some kind of
fifth-, sixth-edition VHS,

and what it was, was apparent
real-life snuff films

put together
on this documentary.

And there was like
"Faces of Death 1"

through, you know, 27,
or something along those lines,

and you could never
really find it,

which made the legend of it
so much more mysterious.

Man: I find this to be

a particularly unusual
face of death.

And that's why you thought,
"Maybe this is real."

Until you actually saw one
and then you realize,

"This might not be
as real as you think."

The Satanic cult, you know,
sacrificing somebody.

Who's taping this?
Where's this from?

What's... What is this?

Why is no one
getting arrested from this?

But what a strange phase
to go through,

a fake snuff-film phase.

Man:
His mutilated body represented

a violent retaliation
from a creature

which has suffered
continual abuse from mankind.

We were fucking weird
as teenagers, man.

Who would ever want
to watch that?

Announcer: "The Bride."

It was a love story
about two people

that were literally made
for each other,

but that were separated.

You fool!

Imbecile!

It was a lyrical,
beautiful script.

You're safe now.

Safe?

Frankenstein says that he wants
to create a woman

who is his equal,

and, of course,
doing exactly the opposite.

He's trying to make her
into the image

of a woman that he wants.

And Jennifer Beals,
she was the big get

because she had just come off
of "Flashdance."

Jennifer, I think,
is sublimely good.

I don't think anybody gives her
enough credit for the work

that she did in that movie.

She's looks magnificent
in the costumes and on the sets.

I thought she was terrific.

I thought Sting
was terrific, too.

There was me
and Rappaport, David.

We got to be quite good friends.

Friend?

Yes.

Good health.

Good health.

Boy, playing the creature,

it's so rich.

Of course, the creature
in Shelley's book

is articulate and sophisticated

and is the truth seeker and
the truth teller in the movie.

The popular iteration of it
of Karloff

and the subsequent
Karloff-esque versions

of that Universal creature
just make him a brute.

This was clearly
a romantic version of it.

He gets more and more handsome

as the movie goes on,

which just meant that
the prosthetics got more

and more handsome.
They did, you know...

If the script had a flaw,
it's that the two main stars

had to carry the portion
of the film

that was the darkest
and the coldest.

Where have you been all day?

Riding.

The job that Sting and Jennifer
had to do

was to show
how things fall apart.

They weren't supposed to have
any chemistry.

Off screen, they actually
did have chemistry.

I mean, we're all kind of
liked each other.

On screen, they had to miss.

I made you out of ashes.

I can always reduce you
to ashes again.

You can do what you like!

I think people miss the point
of that, yeah.

It's a hopeful message
of how we can, you know,

we can all get better
from our...

From even
the most miserable beginnings.

And we can all find true love.

That's not really the story.

It's not Mary Shelley's story,
but that's okay.

Announcer:
"Nightmare on Elm Street:

Part 2."

"Nightmare 1" was a huge,
huge, off-the-charts hit.

They couldn't believe it.

"Nightmare 2"... it has some
of the most classic moments

of the franchise.

"Nightmare on Elm Street 2"
is about relationships,

perspectives, and stereotypes
that all get smashed

once Freddy Krueger
gets his claws in them.

What we did is utilize the truth
between Mark Patton,

Jesse Walsh,
and I, Robert Rusler,

Ron Grady,
and we utilized our own truths.

And we put it in
the circumstances of the film.

I didn't have a judgment
about sexuality.

And that's what I loved
about Grady and Jesse,

there was no ulterior
motive there.

There was a sexual tension
between them.

I don't know why you're wasting
your time with this guy,

he's a basket case. Shut up, Grady.

But it depends who's looking.

See you around, buddy.

We were playing with this idea

that Freddy was exploiting
the subconscious

of Mark's character, Jesse,

and was maybe opening
the closet door.

And we had beaucoup hints
of Freddy

manipulating
the boy's sexuality,

prompted both
by the original screenplay,

the staging, the casting,
and by sets, whole sequences.

No one said, "We're making
a gay horror film,"

but we were toying with that.

Not nailing it down rigidly

but certainly exploring it.

And I loved what was going on
with Freddy

being in the middle of it.

Divisive, calculating,
darker than any of the other

"Nightmare on Elm Street"
movies.

That scene comes up.

Krueger comes out
of Jesse's body...

Dad!

And I'm yelling for my dad.

Dad!

When I saw the movie
with my dad at the screening,

my dad was crying, you know.

And I looked back
in the audience,

and people were affected.

-Ron!

They did break one rule.

They took Freddy
out of the dream.

He's dead, he's burned alive.

He doesn't even show up
at the pool party.

Yet, there's some great stuff
at the pool party,

"You're all my children now."

You are all my children now.

You know,
"Help yourself, fucker."

Help yourself, fucker!

Aah!

And I love the idea
that it's the rich girl's party,

and Freddy ruins it
for all the rich kids.

Aah!

All they had to do...
Just get a pickup shot

of Jesse or Jesse and Kim asleep
in the pool house taking a nap,

and then that whole party
crash by Freddy works.

Daddy can't help you now!

I mean, I remember asking Mark

in a sequence with Freddy
and Jesse,

if I could touch him
like I was gonna kiss him,

"Can I put a blade
in your mouth?

Or could I just
circle your mouth?

Can I caress your eyes?"

That's a real scary,
strange moment.

I said, "Mark, do you think
it should be sexual

or maybe the kiss of death?"

So I thought there
might be a great

male-on-male kiss there.

That could be erotic and
then... and then death kiss.

Aaaahh!

There is a lot of people
that watch that movie,

and it made them uncomfortable.

There were a lot of people
that watched that movie

and it empowered them.

There were a lot of people
that watched that movie,

and they made fun of
or judged or poked.

Most of the people
that judge and poke,

eh, what are you hiding,
you know what I mean?

People were talking about this
from the get-go,

and there was an increased
and an enhanced fan base

within the gay community,
because of this, immediately.

A lot of young gay men
were heavily, heavily influenced

by that movie, to be truthful
and honest with themselves

and... and really flourish

into who they wanted
to be from the inside.

I-I think that's fantastic.

As far as Freddy goes,

and as far as the depth of truth
between characters,

nobody else touches
"Nightmare 2."

I'm very proud of that movie.

And when people go,
"Hey, what's it like to be

in the gayest horror movie
ever made?"

I go, "It was fucking awesome."

It's okay, it's all over.

Man: Spooky.

I was a big Wes Craven fan.

I was also a huge fan
of "The Hills Have Eyes."

That movie was freaky, man.

I'll come back
for you later, girlie.

Another example of a situation
that you could relate to

as, "This can really
happen to me."

It was sort of like,
"I take the wrong turn,

and I wind up in,
you know, Hell."

"Hills Have Eyes II"
is a weird one

because it comes
on the heels of Craven

having maybe the biggest
hit of his career

with "Nightmare on Elm Street."

And suddenly, he's kind of going
back to the bottom of the barrel

and delivering a sequel
to a movie

some eight years earlier.

There's a lot of flashbacks.

If you ever want to see a dog
have a flashback in a movie,

I can name one and it's
"Hills Have Eyes II."

In the first film,

this civilized, soft,
suburban family

finds itself in the wilderness,

facing off against
the sort of feral mutants,

I guess you would say.

Ohh!

And in the second one,
it's kind of the mutants

bringing the fight
to civilization a little bit

because one of their own
has dared to try to cross over.

Rusler: I love Michael Berryman,
you know,

working with him
in "Weird Science,"

he was such the antithesis of
what he comes off as on screen,

you know,
because he's always playing

these really freaky, creepy,
like super sadistic,

like, scary roles.

And in person,
he's a super pleasant,

super educated, sweet man.

Can we keep this between us?

I'd hate to lose
my teaching job.

What resonates with me
about "Hills Have Eyes II"

compared to "Hills Have Eyes I"

was more the clarity

on what the fear was.

I want you to stay together
and stay alert.

This place might look deserted,

but it's been used for something

right up to the time
that we got here.

They got to expound upon
the characters, the situation.

What's at stake you know?
My life.

And what are the odds of me
making out of here?

You know, slim and none.

I think Wes Craven was very good
about capturing a perspective,

really taking you
to that world in the desert.

That's one of those movies,
like "Dawn of the Dead,"

where you come out hitting each
other, being super mischievous.

For some reason,
that's how some of those

horror movies affect me.

I want to get into trouble
after I see 'em.

Horror movies are
essentially absurd,

and the comedy just
it's already in there.

And if you don't find it,
someone else is gonna find it

because sometimes
some of the things

that are happening
are just preposterous.

Many of the pictures
in the '80s,

like "Return of the Living Dead"
and "The Stuff," are not afraid

to embrace the fact
that they're silly.

I mean, in fact,
I would almost think

that silly is kind of the...
The byword for horror comedies,

beginning with "Abbott and
Costello Meet Frankenstein,"

which is everybody's favorite,
because of the fact

that the horror-movie stuff
is played straight.

It just all meshes together
so perfectly,

and it looks terrific.

And it's, you know,
I think, the best movie

that Abbott and Costello
ever made.

And it's also the best

of the later
Universal horror pictures.

Open sesame!

In black and white,
the comedy was funnier.

In black and white,
the horror was scarier.

It's almost like horror
of the absurd.

Like, this is not even
in the realm of probable.

And so there's a great sort
of communal delight.

There's something
endearing about that.

Dante: "Re-Animator" is...
Is a very funny movie.

It's also pretty gruesome.

It's in the mind
of the filmmaker.

You can't all be Takashi Miike

and have it be
unrelentingly grim.

There's got to be some moments
where the graph goes up and down

instead of just
all the way across.

In my movies, I've always
approached the horror aspects

along
with a sense of the absurd.

My mechanism of dealing with
fear is... is... is laughter,

especially in the movies,
you know,

because then you realize
that you're not in the movie.

Maroney:
They call it comic relief,

a little space to stand
still for a second

and catch your breath
before you kick...

Before you get
chased around again,

or whatever it is.

You have to have that.

Otherwise, it's just relentless,

and it becomes
unintentionally funny,

which you really don't want.

I couldn't think of a more
horrible job if I wanted to.

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"
has many comic elements in it,

but people don't think of it
as a comedy until much later.

And then they have to invent
fancy terms

like Gran Guignol

to describe what's going on
in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

Garris: "The Howling" is a
really powerful horror movie,

but it's funny as hell,

and "An American Werewolf
in London."

Both of them
take their horror seriously,

and they take the comedy
seriously.

And both of them are made by
filmmakers who've embraced both

and have made comedies
and have made horror movies.

They have such glee and relish.

A good horror movie
makes you feel really excited

and like you're having
a good time,

and certainly a good comedy,
you ride that wave of laughter.

And when you can melt them
together like John Landis

and Joe Dante can do...

Excuse me.

When it works,
it's really great,

and that's what I was hoping
for doing "Critters 2"

was that the comedy
would be funny

and the horror would be scary.

I love that... when you have
a humorous movie

that also has scares,

because what it does for me
is takes the edge off.

It's even more of
a roller-coaster ride

than just scary,
scary, scary, scary,

aah, scary, scary, aah, scary.

It's more like, "I'm totally
relaxed because I was laughing.

Oh, my God!"

Now this big thing happens.
You know?

Holy shit!
I don't believe it.

Some of the things I kind
of gravitate towards in horror

are the comedy horror.

Garbage day!

No!

I do love the wink of the eye.

Maybe because I hate
to be scared, actually.

I like to get a little bit
of a step backwards.

Can I have a piece of toast?

There are a lot of really
successful horror films

with comedic elements
in the '80s.

But there are a lot of movies
that didn't get it right.

There was a short trend
of movies

that were overall comedies
but dealt with horror subjects.

You had "Teen Wolf"
and "Transylvania 6-5000"

and "Once Bitten."

Oh, shit!

It's a tough balance
to pull off,

but you really have to get
the tone just right

so that the comedy
doesn't really infringe

on the horror and vice versa.

Horror and comedy
can go hand in hand

or they can be
each other's worst enemy.

Most horror comedies
are neither scary nor funny.

But when it works together,

they both aim
for the same thing.

Horror and comedy both go
for a physical reaction,

a scream, a jump, tension

gripping the arms
of your seat for horror,

and comedy, the laughter.

If you go into a horror movie,
or a comedy,

and it's quiet
all the way through,

it ain't working.

Kong: A laugh is very difficult
to get.

How do you get the laugh?

You get the laugh
by surprising people.

If they can see the punch line
coming, you're sunk.

The key to making a great
horror comedy

is it's got to be 80% horror
and 20% comedy.

If you try to do 80% comedy
and 20% horror,

then what you're doing
is you're attempting

to make a cult film in advance
and that never works.

It always falls on its face.

Winter: Horror obviously
crosses genres anyway,

but I would argue that '80s
horror does that more than most.

It's like, you've got
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

It's gonna work great.

Hey!
Oh!

Hey, you got your chocolate
in my peanut butter.

You've got peanut butter
on my chocolate.

What?
What?

So the '80s, I would argue,
actually defined the...

And created this idea
of kind of multi-genre horror

that absolutely gets away
with high art and low art...

make you laugh and...
And have visceral drama

and gross you out.

I said,
"Shut up, butthole!"

That is really, I'd say,

the definition of '80s horror
in a way, is...

Is the people
who grew out of those eras

and are slamming
all of these genres together.

I never thought in
a million years

when I was growing up
in Davenport, Iowa,

that I would be acting,

because I was probably
the shyest person

on the face of the Earth.

I remember my first role that
I got that was a speaking role,

even though it wasn't a lot
of speaking, was "Fairy Tales."

And that was with Charlie Band.

I was so proud, I remember
writing in my diary,

"I'm a big star."

I think I found my niche
in doing the ones

that were more independent,
I hate to say low budget.

What is this, midnight
wimp bowling league?

What are you,
the bride of Dracula?

I think there was a lot more
freedom in doing things then,

and I just liked it.

It was a lot more fun.

The first time I had to take off
my clothes,

which was in "Fairy Tales,"
I was terrified.

I was so scared.

I actually did push-ups
to get my adrenaline going

so I wouldn't think about it.

It was a formula.

Shower scene,
getting killed topless.

It became redundant.

I knew the formula.

I know they needed it
to sell the film.

I think if you feel comfortable
doing nudity, it's no big deal.

I made up in my mind,
"If I have to show my breasts,

I'm gonna get more money."

So I was the go-to girl.

The more you draw attention
to being naked, the worse it is.

If you just take it very
casually, people don't notice.

It's like when... It's the
person that's like going,

"Oh, don't look.
Oh, you can't see me.

Oh, I'm so embarrassed"
that you want to look at.

So I would just be, like,
very casual about it

and people didn't make
a big deal.

You know, so it's like,
it's not a big thing.

"Savage Streets" is about
this badass Linda Blair going

and getting these guys
who raped me,

which was a hard scene to do.

The director wanted mucus
coming out my nose

and blood running down my leg.

I said, "I don't think
that's necessary.

I think it's pretty creepy the
way it is gonna be depicted."

I was so happy at that point
to be playing opposite

Linda Blair
and playing her sister.

And it was a different role
for me

because I was just so innocent.

You're real pretty.
You know that?

From "Savage Streets,"
I got both negative

and positive comments.

Like, the negative ones were,

"Oh, you didn't have
to remember any lines.

You didn't have any lines
in the movie."

But then I got the others

that are more into film
that would say,

"Wow, that must have been hard
not to say things and do things

and pretend
that you can't understand."

I remember on "Return
of the Living Dead,"

I don't usually say no,

but there were things
like shave my eyebrows off.

Well, everybody was like,

"Don't do it because
they might not grow back."

And I thought, "I don't want
to go without eyebrows."

And then they wanted me
to cut my hair.

I didn't do that,
so they had to get a wig.

But I did agree to dance nude
on a tombstone.

And talk about nude,
it was really nude.

Getting away from zombies,
I was terrified

because the zombies were extras.

And extras get very zealous

and they want to be seen
in the camera

and I'm like, "Oh, my God,
they're gonna really attack me."

I was...
I was actually very, like,

"Oh, no, what's gonna happen
when they yell 'action'?"

And I'm, like, surrounded
by the zombies,

and that's the end of me.

Being buried in mud, there is
an art to holding your breath.

They dug a hole, then they're
covering me up and I'm like,

"Oh, my God.
I can't tell...

I can't hear
when they call 'action.'

I can't tell when
the rain machine's going."

So I had to
kind of, like, time it,

and it was, like, kind of creepy
to be under there.

So I did it on the first take,
thank goodness.

I was so happy.

That's kind of dangerous
because you can inhale the mud.

So I didn't know if anybody
really knew what they were doing

or if I was just, like,
a guinea pig on it.

When I turned into a zombie,
I'm nude...

Cold and nude.

It was horrible to have
the special effects makeup done.

I didn't know
what I was getting into,

but it was, like,
all glued on me,

and they had the mouth
at one point down here.

And I couldn't drink anything
or really eat anything

because it was, like, so low.

It was pretty miserable.

I decided to do this workout,

"The Linnea Quigley
Horror Workout."

Everybody was doing it.

So we decided to do a campy
version with zombies

and with girls
at a slumber party

and, you know,
just throwing everything,

throw it into the mix.

I know what you're doing when
you're watching my movies.

Just how many calories
do you think that burns?

We had a really fun time
doing it

because it was
so tongue in cheek.

It's supposed to be taking place
on the mountain with gravestones

and this whole dramatic thing.

Well, the fire marshals
decided to do,

like, a fire test up there.

So we got kicked out of there
and went to my parents' house

and decided to film by the pool,

and then have the zombies
jump in the pool.

Okay!
Everybody into the pool!

Cynthia Garris,
Mick Garris's wife,

choreographed the whole thing,
so she was across the pool,

because I'm not a great,
you know, dancer.

I wasn't aerobically trained.

So she was helping me out
with that.

And she was actually one
of the slumber party girls, too.

I think when they label you,
like, scream queen, to me,

it's an honor.

It's taken like a flip-flop.

So I don't think it's limiting
now, but it was limiting then.

I would say advice
for screaming on camera

would be just go
all out and do it.

Also, know that you're gonna
get a headache

after doing it a lot.

So bring some aspirin.

I think horror changed a lot

when we were
in people's living rooms.

I think that people
got to know you better.

They could go seek you out
in a video store and say,

"Oh, you know,
I really liked that person.

Do you have another movie
by her or him?"

Or, you know, "Is there
another part two or part three?"

It's a way to really
get into someone's heart.

Announcer: "House."

Enter at your own risk.

After "Friday the 13th" and then
a couple of more sequels

and then
"Nightmare on Elm Street,"

we knew the genre was changing.

And one of the pitfalls
in horror films in general,

is that you think it's
a compounding of grim scenes

and suspense and desperation.

No!

But it isn't that way.

It has to have hills
and valleys,

and lots of times,
some kind of comic relief

really, really helps.

Sandy. Aah!

You have a man who's writing and
who's isolated from his family,

dealing with sort
of these Vietnam flashbacks.

You're dealing with, like,
the death of a kid

at certain points.

And there's definitely
some trauma issues

that they're exploring
in that movie.

Cunningham: Bill Katt
was just terrific casting.

And then Steve Miner is the one
who really believed in that

and really thought
that he could bring it off

and he did a great job.

You've been in Vietnam,

lost your only child,
your wife divorced you.

I mean, you've got a few marbles
running around,

but right now, you seem fine.

You have crazy characters
popping in.

You have Richard Moll
as Big Ben.

Big Ben?

No, it's your fairy godmother.

Our hope initially was that Big
Ben was gonna become iconic,

but he didn't.

Oh!

You're pissing me off, Roger.

This notion of... of a zombie
G.I. rotting off the bone,

that he would come back
and really raise hell.

Roger, you hit like
a little girl!

For some magical reason,

people didn't buy into him
as being a super villain

the way they bought into
other characters at the time.

You can't get rid of me, Roger.

You can't and you never will!

A good poster will tell
the audience

what it's going to see.

"House" had that great line

and an image of, like,
a zombie finger

that goes,
"Ding Dong. You're dead."

It's like...

I just thought that was
delightful because it suggested

that we weren't taking it
completely seriously,

but that it was a haunted house
and that people were at risk.

That was kind of inspired.

Our original twist love affair

started with the unmasking
of who a killer was

or who the bad guy was.

And that goes all the way
back to "Scooby-Doo."

"Scooby-Doo"
is just a horror movie

in animated segments
of a killer or a bad guy,

and that sort of that gateway
into watching the real movies

where you wanted the unmasking
of who the killer is

or who the bad guy is.

Everybody always references,
"Ooh, Freddy" or "Jason."

And they go, "What's
your favorite movie?"

and I go, "April Fool's Day."

Announcer: "April Fool's Day."

Get ready to party...
till you drop.

And it blows their mind.
They're like, "Why?"

And I was like,
"Well, if you actually watch

'April Fool's Day, '
it's a great slasher movie

with a fantastic performance,"

because if you actually
watch her in that movie,

Foreman is... she's creepy.

Criminally under-looked.

It tells the story
of a bunch of friends

who were invited to their
friend's house for a weekend.

They all just start
dropping like flies.

Come on!

My favorite kill is
probably the first one

where the guy has his face
chopped up with the boat motor.

You talk about roast beef,
it is just a shredder.

Oh! Geez!

The kills are great.

The comedy is off the charts.

It's smart, it's funny.

I think it's probably my
all-time favorite horror movie

just because of the twist.

Blew my mind
at the end of the movie.

It's not just about, "I thought
the killer was somebody else,"

because you always try
to figure out the mystery.

Yeah, having twists in...

Especially in '80s
horror movies,

whether they're the big movies
or the obscure ones,

those always get you
a little bit.

April fool.

Announcer:
Will you survive it?

Ahhh!

"Demons."

The construct of the story
for "Demons"

is a group of people
are watching a movie.

We're watching the people
watch the movie,

as they're watching a movie.

So I am a working girl

on a day off with my best friend

and the fellow who, let's say,
collects the money for us.

And we get a free ticket.

I pick up the mask and something
inside the mask

scratches my face.

Ow!
What was that?

There's three levels of demons.

And by the way it's demone.

That's how we say "demons"
in Italy. It's demone.

So there's three
different levels,

and the first level
is infection.

That's when hell will open

because the demons
are gonna come onto Earth

and try to take over
the dominion of Earth.

Dario Argento and Sacchetti
and Ferrini and Lamberto Bava,

the four authors of the script,
they knew the story.

"Yeah, we're gonna do this.

It's gonna be a film and a film
of some kids in a film."

But it took them two years
to make the rules.

What were the rules of hell?

What were the rules of demons?

And what is a demon?

It can come through the screen,
it can come around you,

and it can get into
your blood system.

My face exploding was
my first day on the set.

In the ladies' room,
I look in the mirror,

and the audience sees the pulse
get bigger and bigger

and bigger and explode.

No!

And from that moment on,
we're running.

The movie
never slows down again.

Then you can't get out.

Isn't that everyone's fear?

You're in a box,
you're in a group,

you're with a gang,
you don't know anybody,

and now you can't get out.

There's not any, "You're bad,
you had sex so you must die."

It really is the larger concept
of how much can you stay human,

your humanity

within a bad situation
that you can't get out of?

That's the real message.

And it's a movie
with this amazing soundtrack.

I mean, Billy Idol, Go West,

and then you have
Claudio Simonetti.

There's something about metal,
that to them,

it's the standout loner
against society.

There's so many great effects
and demone... demons.

-Help!

The eyeball gauge,
it's a real man.

And they put padding on there.

So they had a system that
when I put my hands in the pad,

there was gel,
and I knew don't go past the gel

because his real eyes
are in there.

The birth of the demon
that comes out of Paola's back,

that was a mechanical thing

that Sergio Stivaletti created.

Just look at that doll.

Look at that creature
that comes out.

Excellently done.

They love that!

They love the... the guts of it.

The helicopter.

It was a technical way

of how the helicopter
got through the roof.

It's not magic.

It's the mechanics
of movie making.

So as everyone's running
toward the camera, I'm hiding.

I'm hiding.
I'm hiding behind pillars.

I'm hiding behind things
because I want to be sure

I don't get killed on scene.

I want to be sure my head

doesn't go flying
with that helicopter blade.

The humanity of it
is the secret of the movie.

Watch all these people
doing the best they can

in the worst circumstances.

And not everyone's going to win.

Announcer:
"Vamp"... a comedy with bite,

and, of course, Grace Jones.

"Vamp" is the story
of three kids

who go downtown to a strip club

to procure
some unparalleled refreshment,

I guess, is what you want
to call it,

and end up running
into a nest of vampires.

Richard Wenk,
the writer/director,

had a terrific vision
of what he wanted.

He wanted to make a horror movie
that utilized humor.

"Vamp," for me,
was trying to fit in.

Take me with you
and just pretend

to be my friends for a week.

Hey, guys, I'm psyched.

Let's party.

At what cost?

I was so stoked
to meet Grace Jones.

She was perfectly cast
to play Katrina.

We were all worried if
Grace Jones was gonna show up

on the set or not.

She surprised us in a lot,
a lot of ways, I have to say.

I think all of us were
kind of, like, vamping

so you know, in some way.

When Grace Jones came on
the set, the air would change.

I do remember one incident
where I had opened the door,

and there was Grace Jones
and she was stark naked.

And underneath her this man
was painting her,

turned out to be Keith Haring.

Keith was just slowly drawing
white lines

on her beautiful ebony body.

It was just unbelievable
to watch.

I give you... Katrina.

Watanabe: The dance...
That was pretty cool.

None of us knew what to expect.

The red wig that she had on,
at first,

I kept thinking it looked like
Ronald McDonald.

I said, "How in the hell
is this gonna work?"

But it worked!

I sat there and went,
"Oh, my God. She looks great."

Grace Jones is so charismatic
and her character was so strong

that she didn't need to talk.

She was all action.

You like to play rough, huh?

When we were filming
the death scene,

Grace was just so wild.

You know, she came onto
set nine hours late one night,

howling, saying,
"Where's my man?"

And the whole crew just went...

She had attacked my neck
like a Pit Bull,

like a shark on a fish

and didn't realize that
the teeth actually penetrated

the latex
and went into my jugular.

And I was writhing in pain,
screaming in agony,

and she didn't realize
how badly I was hurt.

And it could have been a lot
worse than how it turned out.

How you're doing
back there, Duncan?

I'm hungry.

He's okay.

It was the first time I ever
was transformed into a vampire,

so it was pretty exciting
for me.

They started to proceed to put
on the prosthetics on my face.

I watched myself turn
into my grandfather.

It was a little scary.

There's a certain kind
of empowerment

that you feel
when you're put into a costume,

and this one was
kind of like, "Okay,

I got the teeth, I got power,"
which really surprised me,

because I think my character
was... was empowered.

Now all of a sudden,
he had this power even though

he eventually was gonna die,
but still, you know,

why not go out in a flame
if you have to?

Literally.

"The Seventh Curse"
came out in 1986.

It's a hidden gem, I would say.

Hong Kong cinema was very much
like two-fold...

You had action and comedy.

Then the other side, we were
incorporating a lot of fantasy

and horror as well.

Directed by Simon Nam.

He went on to direct
"The Story of Ricky,"

which is kind of a very
over-the-top action movie

with lots of blood and gore.

The plot revolves around
Dr. Yuan, played by Chin Siu-ho,

who's
a fantastic martial artist.

Dr. Yuan is warned of a curse

after being attacked
in his apartment.

The film flashes back,

where we see him
saving a girl called Betsy

from an evil tribe
called the Worm Tribe.

Aah!

After saving her from
being sacrificed, he is cursed.

Aah!

He decides to head back
to Thailand

to get rid of this tribe,

so he can live forever without
having to look over his shoulder

thinking he's gonna die
in a year's time.

He gets the advice by Wisely
played by Chow Yun-Fat,

who is barely in the movie,
he's...

He pops up in the beginning.

He's in a little bit near
the sort of middle act.

And he pops up at the end
with a rocket launcher,

which is a great sequence.

When it comes to the action,
the film completely delivers.

They try and push the gore
as much as possible.

They actually quite...
It's quite sprinkled throughout.

You see someone's stomach
get ripped apart,

all these worms fall out of it.

A guy's head gets ripped off,
blood gets drained from him.

They give it a go, and it
does work to a certain degree,

but it does provide
some unintentional laughs.

Watching this movie,
I had a huge smile on my face.

If you love
your Hong Kong action,

if you love your fantasy
and you love horror

thrown into that
with elements of Indiana Jones,

it's a movie you've got to watch

because
it's so bonkers and silly.

Uh!

There. Now, isn't that the best
song?

What kind of a weird plant
is that, Seymour?

Announcer:
"Little Shop of Horrors."

Rolfe: The original
"Little Shop of Horrors"

by Roger Corman
is about a florist,

Seymour,
whose shop is struggling,

until he grows this amazing
Venus fly trap,

but the problem is,
it only eats human flesh.

The 1982 musical
stage production

was adapted into the 1986 film

directed by Frank Oz
and starring Rick Moranis.

It seems like
the whole world's gone crazy.

At least we got
each other, right?

Audrey II is incredible.

These practical effects
were outstanding.

They look so good.

Does it have to be human?

Does it have to be mine?!

In order to get
the lip sync perfect,

they had to slow down
the frame rate of the plant.

But it works fantastic.

You sure do drive
a hard bargain.

Ellen Greene is great.

I mean, she has this funny,
squeaky voice.

I call it an Audrey II.

After me?

I hope you don't mind.

But then when she sings,
it's... it's gorgeous.

The songs are wonderful.

Also, you have this great cameo
by Steve Martin,

who plays this deranged dentist

who likes to inflict pain
on people.

But then he meets his match
with Bill Murray,

who's this patient who doesn't
want any Novocaine or anything.

Say "Ah."
Ahhhhh!

And Bill Murray is actually
filling in the role

that Jack Nicholson played
in the original.

No Novocaine.
It dulls the senses.

The original ending
was not a happy one.

In fact, it's relentlessly
dark and morbid.

Seymour's girlfriend, Audrey,
is fatally wounded by the plant,

and then he sacrifices
her corpse to the plant.

He slowly carries her up,

like it's some kind of ceremony.

It's tragic, yet somehow
beautiful at the same time.

He confronts the original plant,
only to be eaten himself.

The plants attack the city.

And it's a full-on
destruction sequence,

where the plants
destroy everything.

And it's some of the best
miniature-model work

I've ever seen.

Everybody in the whole
world dies.

It's so insanely depressing
that it's no wonder they cut it.

I mean, that was pretty crazy.

The allure of horror isn't just
watching other people in terror,

it's identifying with the people
who are in terror.

Crampton: People in life
naturally walk away from fear.

But in watching a horror movie,
it allows you to confront that

while someone else
is going through it.

It doesn't have to be you.

And usually there's somebody
in the film that is victorious,

and, by osmosis, it makes
you feel more confident.

The whole idea behind
living our lives

is having enough ordinary care

to see whatever threats may
materialize over the horizon.

That's what's basic to horror.

If I am that person, how do
I get out of that situation?

How do I live
through this moment?

We can experience that horror
and that terror

through somebody else's eyes.

And there's also a giant sense
of catharsis

and kind of a projection of,
"What if that was me?

Are they making the right
decisions that I would make?"

Dennis! Dennis!

Sometimes you end up
rooting more for the monster

than for the kids.

Now, in the traditional
horror movie,

we often saw things
from the victim's point of view,

but that's no longer.

Now we look through
the killer's eyes.

It's almost as if the audience
is being asked

to identify with the attackers
in these movies,

and that really bothers me.

Cunningham: Jason was meant
to be kind of a shark.

And he made this transition
from being a shark

to being, somehow or other,
a hero.

There's this tiny little
backstory about Jason

being picked on as a kid,

tormented,
and then finally drowned.

And ever since he came back,
he's been kicking ass.

And it's sort of like "Revenge
of the Nerds" on steroids.

There's a certain kind
of identification

with Jason being the super ego
of the depressed kid.

You get to have your fantasy
that you're the killer.

You're ripping out hearts,
you're ripping out throats,

"You know what, boss? I'll tell
you what I'd like to do."

Rrrr-rrrr-rrr.

You could be the little person

that finally got
to beat up the meanies.

You could be the girl
that nobody liked,

and you're gonna get them
in the end.

I think it's more
like vicariousness.

I don't think it's catharsis.

I think people maybe are curious
about how it would feel to be

in a power position,
or curious about the rush

that you would get out
of executing somebody.

You watch people, how much
they love video games, too.

Like, it's not catharsis.

I think it's...
It's more than that.

It depends on what world
you want to escape into.

And I think if you watch the...
"Hey, I'm watching the kids

run through the woods
to get their heads cut off,"

you feel good
because you're not in the woods.

You... You live in a world
that, you know, doesn't...

That doesn't actually
hopefully happen to you.

And then in that fantasy world,

or that spy-adventure-movie
world,

you want to be
one of those characters.

So they're two completely
different things.

The categorical difference
between a horror movie

and a... a...
A violent action movie

has to do with the experience.

On "Death Wish," you are Paul.

You get the gun, you go out

and you shoot these
sort of faceless victims.

In a horror movie,
you're the victim.

The whole experience
is completely flipped.

That is a significant difference
on a cinematic level,

on a political level,

on what it has to say
about society,

but it's also a difference
critically in terms

of how it's getting
at your subconscious.

An action movie of that type,

it has a kind of
wish-fulfillment aspect to it.

Every time he goes out
and shoots one of these,

like, hoodlums,
you get a dopamine hit.

It's like a video game.
Like, "Oh, I got another one."

In a horror movie,
you know, it's...

It's more like a nightmare.

You're put in this position
of kind of existential dread

or threat that is pursuing you
in some way,

which gets into much, much
deeper aspects of human nature.

Horror movies have
a much more complicated

and I would say deeper level
that they're getting at.

I was never really
a video-game guy.

I was more of a pinball guy.

Nowadays there's
an Elvira pinball machine.

There's a Rob Zombie
pinball machine.

I'm pinball, man.

Today you have a lot
of great horror games,

especially with the... the VR.

I mean, there's all kinds
of things they can do now.

Even now, you have some that are
based on '80s horror films

like the recent
"Friday the 13th video" game,

which is connected
with Tom Savini and Kane Hodder,

but we didn't always have that.

Back then, video-game technology
wasn't as advanced.

Wizard Video was releasing
these games like

"Texas Chainsaw Massacre"
and "Halloween."

In "Texas Chainsaw Massacre,"
you're the bad guy.

You are Leatherface,
and you're killing people.

Like, there's no morals
in this game.

It's sort of like one
of the first real sadistic games

where you control the killer.

You basically get points for
chopping people up.

One thing that's funny
about the chainsaw

is that it's the same color
as the body.

It's sort of like
an extension of his body,

and you get stuck on everything.

Then there was "Halloween,"
also on Atari.

You're running
from Michael Myers.

You have to get the kids

and move them
to a corner of the house.

And every time you do that,
you get 675 points.

Very specific.

It also has what might be
the first head decapitation

in a video game.

I mean, I can't think
of any games before that

where a head gets cut off,
and you see blood spurting out.

And it also has the "Halloween"
theme song in it.

They were super, super cheesy,
just little pixels,

So bad.

So the Atari version of "Alien"
basically took Pac-Man

and then just turned it
into "Alien."

"Frankenstein's Monster"
on Atari,

it had this great moment

where the Frankenstein monster
would approach the screen.

If you played in the dark
at night,

the whole room
would just flash green.

I did a few games.

One was "Elvira:
Mistress of the Dark."

One was "The Jaws of Cerberus."

I don't know what I had
to do with that.

And one was "Elvira:
The Arcade Game."

They kind of got better
as time went on.

Everybody was grabbing
their joystick

and having a really good time.

There was this one game called
"Monster Party" for the NES.

And I can remember renting it
as a kid

and being really excited because
the box art was great on it.

It had all these
different monsters on it,

and I popped the game in
and was kind of disappointed

because it wasn't as good
as the box art.

It was an important lesson
I learned about

never judge a game by its cover.

The interesting thing
about horror video games

is that I've watched
the graphics progress

to a point where they are able
to get more graphic,

and as a result, the games
became more controversial.

I remember hearing
controversies about "Doom,"

about "Resident Evil,"

even something like
"Mortal Kombat"

was a big deal when I was a kid.

And it was all because the
graphics had progressed

to a point where you could show
all these sort of graphic things

that you previously would have
only been able to see in movies,

that you could now see
in these games.

And a lot of parents groups
and politicians

did not like that.

You're engaged now
as the aggressor.

You're engaged as the person
who commits the violence

and not just someone
who watches the violence.

Trachenburg: "The Ghostbusters"
game for the Commodore 64,

you are the Ghostbusters and you
start off a lot like the movie.

You have to go and buy
all your different equipment.

You put it together,
and then you go out

and you hunt ghosts
in order to get enough money

to be able to get
to the finale of the game.

You would get in the Ecto-1,
you would drive to the location.

And there would be a ghost

that looked like Slimer
that's flying around.

And you have to position
your two Ghostbusters together

to trap the ghosts
in between the streams.

And then you can suck them up
in the trap.

Not really challenging, but fun.

Ghostbusters!

"Nightmare on Elm Street"
was one of the few NES games

where you could play
four players

using the NES Four Score.

You're running around
Elm Street,

which happens to be
the longest street

in the world in this game,

but the idea is to collect
all of Freddy's bones.

You have all these stock
villains like lollipop ghosts

with stick arms, bats,

skeletons,
Frankenstein monsters.

It's so generic.

Every once in a while,
Freddy would appear,

and it would say
"Freddy's coming,"

but it would be a "Freddy's...
Trademark... "coming."

"Friday the 13th" on NES

might have been one of the first
horror games I've ever played.

And there's a bunch of items
you have to collect

but you'll never have time
because this Jason alarm

keeps going off
and you have to keep on top

of he's out there killing
the camp counselors.

Then you go inside the house
and it switches to 3D,

which was kind of cool
at that time.

It was one of the first
horror games

that really made
an impression on me.

"You and your friends are dead.
Game over."

"That's kind of rough, you know?

A lot of these games
don't really hold up,

but back then you used
your imagination.

And you made the best of it,
because that's all we had.

But we would have never imagined
that, you know,

all these decades later,
you get a real

"Friday the 13th" game that
definitely feels more official

than, you know,
the type of games

they would
usually put out in the '80s.

The "Friday the 13th" game,

as a player, you can play
as Jason, which is fun,

or as any of the victims,

trying to get away from Jason
or defeat Jason.

So I thought that was
an ingenious way

of building a video game.

In this video game,
you can play as

several different versions
of Jason.

I was honored that they
wanted me to be a part of it,

because this is animation,
basically,

so they could have used anyone.

But it was in their minds
I was the person to do it,

because they liked how I moved
as the character.

Savini:
"Friday the 13th" video game,

I essentially did what I did
on the movie,

except not physically, right.

My job was to sit down
and create kills.

On paper, they didn't seem
so horrible and grisly,

but then seeing him in a game
I was like

"Oh, God, you know,
I wrote that."

I created them on paper,

and then
Kane Hodder donned the suit

and did the motion capture
for all the kills.

You're wearing spandex,
which is scary to think of me

in spandex anyway,
with sensors everywhere.

So I'll look at the monitor,
I see Jason.

Whenever I would move I would
see exactly what the character

is gonna look like in the game.

By the way, Kane Hodder
plays the game,

but he plays it
as a camp counselor

trying to outwit himself.

Is it's not as easy
as you would think.

And I played as a counselor,
trying to defeat Jason,

and I just got my ass whooped.

Eh, it's more fun
to be the bad guy.

Announcer: Harry Angel has been
hired to search for the truth.

Pray he doesn't find it.

"Angel Heart" was another one
of those "Exorcist,"

"Rosemary's Baby"
kind of movies.

I think it's completely
underrated.

I think it's one
of Alan Parker's,

who directed, I think
it's one of his best ever.

A guy making a deal

with the devil not really
knowing it's the devil.

It's funny I have a feeling
I've met you before.

I don't know, I don't think so.

Mickey Rourke is terrific in it,
De Niro is terrific in it,

and it's great to see them
operating together.

How terrible is wisdom

when it brings
no profit to the wise, Johnny.

That was one of the attractions
of it, was we get to see

Lisa Bonet, the Cosby kid
as a little sexpot.

So, the gods got you pregnant?

- Yeah.
- I understand that.

-Sorry.

I'm not, it was the best fuck
I ever had.

Very much about the '80s,

very much
about behaving yourself

and not being as decadent
and horrible and cruel

and awful to people as...

As the '80s allowed you to be,
seemed to be in fashion then.

De Niro has this
spectacular moment.

He's talking about the an egg as
sort of a metaphor for the soul.

You know, some religions think
that the egg

is the symbol of the soul.
Did you know that?

And at the end of
this beautiful speech,

takes a big honkin' bite
out of the egg,

just big teeth
and everything right into it.

It's De Niro as
you've never seen him,

or seen him before since.

He's going down
the elevator at the end

and descending into hell

and not having
any choice about it.

It's a great horrible
cautionary tale as well.

But boy, oh boy.

Only the soul is immortal.

Yours belongs to me.

Announcer: The scares comes
twice as quickly in...

I... beat... you.

Announcer: "Creepshow 2."

"Creepshow 1" was such a success

that they of course
had to put out a sequel,

"Creepshow 2" was not
as memorable as the first

but it did have some
very memorable segments.

So here we were, you know,
in Arizona, you know,

doing another "Creepshow."

Mike Gornick directed it.

I love being with Mike Gornick.

I might have been
a little miffed

that I wasn't asked to do
the effects on it,

and I think their intention
was to save money or something,

then they offered me
the role of the creep.

Okay, great, you know, so.

And I, you know, I just mimed
that whole thing,

the dialogue was recorded.

I never seen anyone
so impatient, Billy.

In fact,
when I played the creep,

I insisted that
when my scene was over,

I must immediately have
the makeup removed

and walk into a shower.

Hey, kids.

My nightmares involve
being sticky.

I can't be sticky.

So wearing that makeup
is the stickiest feel.

I hate wearing it, but it's good
that I have worn it

because I know
what I'm doing to people

when I put it on them, okay.

I never seen anyone
so impatient, Billy.

Anthologies are hard.
They're a hard sell.

Because if you had a story that
was good enough for a movie,

you'd make a whole movie
about it.

Starts off with of course,
the wooden Indian,

the old trope
of the kind store owners

that are elderly get,
you know, beat up

and killed by these creeps
that are robbing the store.

And then of course,
the wooden Indian outside turns

real and murders
these three kids.

Then we get to "The Raft,"
which is great.

They did a great job of it.

It's a creepy story about four
friends who swim out to a raft

and then this giant oil slick
that's living

and has magical powers that can
mesmerize you, kills them all.

It's one of my wife's
favorite movies

but when I say to her, "you know
that was just a big garbage"

but no, no, no, no,
she doesn't want to hear

about the effects, okay.

The creature in the lake, using
ultra slime and tinted Metacil

and all this kind of stuff.

This sequence where
Page Hannah is...

Is attacked by the creature,

we had a bunch
of different gags.

We had an arm prosthetic
that I sculpted

with bladders underneath it,

and then we built
these different versions of her

sort of melted as the blob
is kind of enveloping her.

One of the funniest moments
of that

was we were prepping
for Chief Wooden Head,

and Howard Berger had called and
said, "We need slime.

We were shooting another shot
and we're out of slime."

I was like driving
like 50 miles an hour,

60 miles an hour
on these side streets.

And I turned a corner and one of
the buckets in the back seat

spilled.

And I looked at down at my feet

and this black sludge
went up underneath the seat,

my foot's now stuck
to the gas pedal and the brake.

So we were literally
scooping it out

and running to dress the set.

I beat you!

It's always tough to do a sequel

I think, and particularly
an anthological sequel

because the expectations
are already high,

because of how well
the first "Creepshow" did

and how much
it connected with fans.

It was missing that spark.

It tries, but I don't think
it nearly reaches the heights

that "Creepshow 1" did.

No.

Announcer: The "Blood Diner."

First they greet you...

then they eat you.

No one under 17 admitted.

And what's great about horror is
you can make social commentary

while entertaining people
on this roller coaster ride.

You're not gonna
sit there passively

in a Jackie Kong movie,
for sure.

What's the story
of "Blood Diner"?

Blood Diner is family loyalty
gone wrong.

They love their uncle.

The problem is the uncle
is a psychopath serial killer.

The script was serious
as a heart attack.

From what I understood,
it was a scene by scene rip-off

of "Blood Feast."

Herschel Gordon Lewis's
execution

is a completely different
execution of what I did.

"Blood Diner"
transcends the genre.

Ah.

I had the killers being
extremely likable guys.

It was not scripted that way.

It was scripted they were
supposed to be

these ghoulish
brothers that go around,

you could see them
a mile away coming,

and they kill people and stitch
together this female

Frankenstein in the back
of their popular

restaurant

The idea of reanimating family
members brain and having

that brain tell you to commit
mass homicide, was so out there.

You, my nephews, must construct
Sheetar from the body parts

of many immoral girls.

It's really misguided family
loyalty at its extreme.

I wanted to shock people.

Am I doing this right,
Uncle Anwar?

I was just having fun.

It doesn't bother me
to have a naked woman

doing nude aerobics
because I'm a woman.

A nude Kung Fu scene?

No one had ever done that.

I had to do that.

And why did I do that?

She's completely nude,
full bush.

I wanted her to be naked because
I wanted her to look vulnerable.

You think it's an easy kill
for sure, and that's when the...

Where the surprise comes in.

And my job as the director
is to throw them off

in the head another direction.

The people that I work with,
my actors

and my crew don't have a problem
at all working with a woman.

Where you run into the problems
are with the executives,

there was a disconnect.

How could this little
Asian young woman

direct this outrageous
off the hook,

violent movie, right?

Funny, ridiculous
absurdist piece.

Hey, hey!

Things haven't
changed that much.

It's not a contest.

It's really isn't, it just is
who's qualified to do it,

and I bring attention to that.

Bastards!
You goddamn fickle bastards!

You'll pay for this!

My sets look like
the United Nations

Okay.

You've got every possible
nationality working,

and you've got half of the crew,
if not more, women.

And that's why you see
a big representation

of different ethnicities,

because that's the way
I saw the world.

Jesus fucking Christ,
what am I paying you two for?

The way I saw that finale
was like a war scene.

It was an insane undertaking,

but Sheetar bites that head off
of a virgin

with her giant vagina

with teeth in a ritual that
brings her to life, how absurd.

Censors were shutting it down.

They said it had no socially
redeeming values whatsoever.

It just was misunderstood,
the film,

and it was way
ahead of its time.

Yet I found my followers.

Right before I stick
my big sausage in you,

what do they call 'ya?

They call me Sheetar.

Announcer: "Hello Mary Lou:
Prom Night II."

"Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II"

is about this really
awesome chick living in the '50s

who is ahead of her time.

She loves to party and have sex
with many, many boys

and finds herself murdered

as she's supposed
to be coronated

by one of those boys
that she had scorned.

And she comes back
to wreak havoc

and take her revenge
and get her crown back.

Nobile: She's presented as this
sort of slutty character.

In the '80s,
we would say slutty,

but really what that means

is that she sort of owns
her sexuality.

It's not who you come with,
it's who takes you home.

Scram.

Mary Lou Maloney is my favorite,

I literally have the poster
hanging over my bed.

She just was definitely somebody
I looked up to

when I was little,
like she's just sexually open

and not apologizing for it.

And I don't know, and then
her kills were really cool.

It was a Canadian film
that has nothing to do

with the original "Prom Night."

The queer audience
has gotten really,

really excited about
"Hello Mary Lou."

It resonates for them in a way

that a lot of other
'80s Films don't.

It's got a sort of a coding
that they have

embraced and mapped to.

We've come a very long way

in how we think
about that kind of agency

and about how we judge
that kind of behavior.

I think her whole situation
is absorbed

by a contemporary audience
in a way

that '80s audiences
weren't ready to do, or willing.

See you later, alligator.

"Prince of Darkness" is a movie
that shows what happens

when John Carpenter
gets experimental.

Jesus Christ!

It goes straight
for the cerebral

but then it goes for a lot of
the traditional blood and guts

that you would expect
in a Carpenter film.

I decided I wanted to make some
low budget movies again

after
"Big Trouble Little China."

"Prince of Darkness"
was the first one.

It was inspired
by Dario Argento's "Inferno,"

because he just did things
crazy...

These crazy batshit things,
and I thought, "Let's go.

Let's try it."

The cast in this is one of the
most diverse casts of the '80s,

but Carpenter has said he didn't
cast them to be diverse.

He cast them because they were
the best choices for the roles.

Is there some reason
why you're not telling us

what we're going to be doing?

In time.

I wanted to work
with Victor Wong

and Dennis Dun again,

and I cast Donald Pleasance.

I thought what a really
interesting cast in this.

What is it?

A secret that can
no longer be kept.

"Prince of Darkness"
features Alice Cooper

as one of the controlled
homeless people,

and Alice was a nice guy.

He brought along the gag
where he stabs the guy.

It was from his stage show.

He just kind of wanders
up on him, very unassuming.

And then all of a sudden.

He is a member
of the homeless community.

He has been possessed
by the devil's particle,

whatever you want to call it,
the evil.

And he is now the goalie.

He's keeping people in

or killing them
as they come out.

Carpenter, as he does,
masterfully balanced two things.

In this, it was the war
of science and religion.

You have science where
they're talking about

black holes and particles,

and you have religion
where the son of the anti-God

is being held in a chamber
in a church.

Every particle
has an anti-particle,

its mirror image.

Maybe he's anti-God.

The fact that they never
really come out

and say it's the devil
is genius.

They found the God Particle.

Where's the devil's particle?

And that I think is where
Prince of Darkness comes in.

That tells you how relevant
that movie is today.

No person can hold him now.

I am...

eternal.

Freddie's personality was
being quoted by Johnny Carson.

It was in Mad Magazine,
it was in the funny papers,

it was being merchandised.

When you become that part
of the culture,

you follow it a little bit.

So the franchise exploited
Freddie's sense of humor,

This-isn't helping.

And a kind of almost surreal,
subconscious,

dreamlike sense of fun
and revenge

that Freddy was going through
with the culture

at the same time.

The Freddy merchandising
now it...

There's something
new every week.

Literally.

It's just amazing,
the amount of stuff,

from pencil sharpeners
to squirt guns.

There's silly stuff,
there's corny stuff.

I love finding old, like,
board games from Europe,

you know, and things like that
are fun for me to see them.

I love the foreign posters,

like the one over my shoulder
here, that's from Thailand.

Because they're more lurid.

I didn't suffer the curse
of typecasting or and... and...

And when I did,
I was prepared for it.

I wasn't going
to be surprised by it,

and I'd already proved myself.

Let me go!

Hey, hands on the counter,
asshole!

It was a big deal to decide
to be an actor

or a musician back
when I was a kid.

It was like a big deal.

My generation, God, you know,
you can be an engineer,

or you can be a doctor
or a lawyer,

but that was it.

That's what you're
supposed to be.

I did Shakespeare, was paid
for it professionally, union.

Moliere.

I did George Bernard Shaw.

I did Arthur Miller.

I just love doing it.

I was trained to do that,

and I was getting good parts,

and I was predominantly
doing comedy.

So most of my memory of theaters
about getting that laugh.

1973 till 1983 I was not only
an established

Hollywood character actor,
sidekick, co-star,

I side kicked
all of the big stars,

and then I moved
into television.

And I played bad guys,
and I played...

I've been playing
a lot of Southerners.

I don't know why.

I guess I'd learned something
doing "Tennessee Williams,"

but that's how Hollywood saw me.

Hey, quit stalling, will 'ya!

Just because you know
you've got a great hand.

I was on "Manimal."

I do know that for the fan boys

it did become, like, a kind of
suspension bridge of obsession.

You know, with werewolf effects.

A show like "Manimal"
is a link in that genre,

and it deserves
its asterisk, you know,

and I deserve my residual check.

And then "V."

I am just...

Just what?
Yes.

Oh, get out of the way,
damn stupid alien.

I do "V," and I've tapped into
the great science fiction

Zeitgeist of the world,
not just America.

Then our movie became a big hit,

and I was off.

This is God.

Our budgets are getting a little
bit bigger for each movie,

but time got precious.

Not shooting.

We never were rush shooting,
but post.

We would be shooting a movie,

and they would rely too much
on the Freddy jokes.

I could... I would have an
option sometimes.

A scene would end with me
doing a joke

or a wisecrack
or a kind of Dirty Harry

make my day line.

Sorry, kid.

I don't believe in fairy tales.

And sometimes I would
just do it without the line.

And sometimes I do it
and just do it a little darker.

But when you're editing,

that line becomes
your punctuation point,

it becomes your button that can,
you know, button up the scene

and give it a little
percussive rimshot.

So they erred
in that direction a bit.

Krueger!

Well, it ain't Dr. Seuss.

"Wes Craven's New Nightmare"
is a great film,

and the most popular of all
the nightmare films

in the franchise
is "Nightmare 3."

There's room for more.

Gaston Leroux,
"Phantom of the Opera""

was the Stephen King
cheap thrill story of its time.

A Penny Dreadful.

"Give me a penny mate.

I'll give you
something dreadful."

Still hungry
for an introduction?

We delivered the goods
on our "Phantom of the Opera."

The director Dwight Little and I

were kind of simultaneously
inspiring each other

to be on the same page,
with this sort of homage,

to the Hammer film,

which is why we transported
our "Phantom of the Opera""

from the Paris Opera
of the 1890s

to the 1890s of London
of "Jack the Ripper,"

and the sets are scrumptious
and romantic,

and Stephanie Lawrence,

from Evita on the West End
playing our diva.

Bill Nighy.

"A bit of blood
and guts here."

But we're also doing
the romantics

sumptuous on location richness.

So it was great fun.

But the other real
selling point for me

on "Phantom of the Opera"
was there was two scripts.

There was this
second script called

"The Phantom of Manhattan,"

and it's ultra romantic.

And of course that attracted me
to play the romance of it.

The fans of not only
"Phantom of Opera,"

but my fans from Freddy,

there's a huge kind of strange
goth, romantic contingent.

There are girls that have
a kind of "Beauty and the Beast"

attraction with Freddy.

I mean, to this day,
I'm so disappointed

that we never got to do
that second film,

you know,
"Phantom of Manhattan."

Well, here's the thing
with "976-Evil."

Nobody held a gun to my head.

They made me a nice offer.

I was allowed to direct,

but I love the idea
of "976-Evil."

It seems gimmicky now,
in hindsight,

but the body of it I liked,

and I had this great
cast assembled.

I got Stephen Geoffreys
fresh off "Fright Night."

Steven, his look and his haircut
and his sense...

Fashion sense,
he embodied the '80s.

Kevin Yagher, you know,
did me a big favor

and designed this strange,
wonderful makeup.

It's a great makeup.

As he transforms into evil
as the devil

gets his hooks into him.

Bye-bye.

I had great scenes with
Robert Picardo as the devil.

The devil who runs
the 976-Evil phone call site

because that's how he recruits
people to the dark side.

I used to live in Radio Shack
when I was in high school.

But it didn't work out.

And he had some great comedy.

They cut that stuff out.

A guy can't make a buck anymore.

And one over my...
My female producer,

Lisa Hansen, she was seeing
the movie through my eyes.

She saw where I was going.

She got ill in post production,

and the other producer came in.

He was just...
He had read some how to make

a horror movie book, you know,

sold at
Larry Edmunds for $1.99

remaindered in a paperback
with a cigarette burn on it.

And he thought all horror movies

have to be 90 minutes,
and I was going,

"No, no, no action movies
have to be 90 minutes.

Not horror movies."

There's still sequences that are
all mine in the boys bathroom.

You know, with the skateboards,
all the stuff with the mirror

and him getting sliced by hoax.

That's pure, unadulterated
Robert Englund, you know.

It would have been
a third again, better movie,

had they left it
and trusted me with what it was.

I mean, I should get over it,
but it's your baby.

The reason I don't direct film
as much is not

because I'm intimidated by film,
but I am desired

because of my name
and because of the seats I fill

and because of my baggage
that I bring.

I am desired to always
do effects-laden movies.

And it's rough enough
directing film

because once you say "action,"

you're against the clock.

That's all you hear.

Pre-production is fun.
Post production is ecstatic.

But the actual shooting
of a movie is not pleasant.

You're not sleeping at night,

you're worried about getting
your day, it's not fun,

even when your actors
and your cameraman

are bringing you great stuff.

The reason Robert Englund
doesn't direct more film

is because
people aren't asking me

to direct the films
that I'm right for.

Left to my own devices,

I'm the guy that should
be directing "Tender Mercies."

That's the kind of film
I would do the best.

Announcer: Michael Keaton
is "Beetlejuice."

I'm the ghost with the most,
babe.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,
Beetlejuice. Oops.

It's show time.

Beetlejuice is for me
one of the movies where it shows

Tim Burton firing
on all cylinders.

He was just absolutely
in his element.

It made him one of the premiere
directors of the '80s.

It's hilarious, it's weird,
it's funny.

The cast is terrific.

The practical effects are great.

Geena Davis
and Alec Baldwin die.

They go to the afterlife
and they find out

that they don't want to die.

The couple go back
to their house,

but unfortunately, the worst
family ever moves in

and wants to change everything
that they love about the house.

So they enlist the help
of Beetlejuice,

who is the human Exorcist.

He's there to scare them
out of the house.

Problem is Beetlejuice
is a little eccentric.

What do we got here
tonight, kids?

Ooh.

Michael Keaton surprises you
all the time.

To see him play Beetlejuice.

It was such a great character

and really outrageous and wild

and all over the place.

Scram!

That was neat to see that.

The "Day-O" scene
was glorious to me.

I reenact that almost,
you know, once a month.

I think Beetlejuice is the film

that really put Winona Ryder
on the map.

I mean, she had such
a great character.

It's kind of the updated
Wednesday Addams,

just this creepy little girl who
had to live in this creepy house

with her sort of creepy parents.

I am utterly alone.

I think that's really one
of the first times

that you saw what...
What goth was all about

in comedy like that,
so that was exciting to see her

and to realize that
she was such an outcast,

and you really felt for her,

which made me really happy.
I liked that.

Trachenburg: The waiting room
is a prime example

of Tim Burton's creativity
in the '80s,

because you had all these people

who were waiting to go
to the afterlife

and each one of them died
in a different way.

So you had the circus performer

who had been sawed
in half for real.

You had the witch doctor
with the shrunken head.

It's just brimming with that
wonderful Tim Burton stuff

that we all miss.

You want a cigarette?

No, thank you.

Trying to cut down myself.

Well, Tim Burton,
he's gonna surprise you

and do some beautiful, wonderful
artwork and set designs.

He brings you into another
world, which I really adore.

And his stories are fun.

They just engage you.

You look great.

I wish I could have done
one of his movies.

Can you be scary?
Oh!

Don't ask me if I can be scary.

What do you think of this?

Announcer: It's
"Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers."

These girls charge an arm
and a leg.

You may not have heard
of the term video nasties

or gross out films.

These terms refer to a whole
group of pictures

from a blood and guts,
sometimes real, sometimes fake.

In the U.K., we had the video
nasties, which was

a reaction by
the Conservative government

to sort of clamp
down on horror movies,

because a lot of them
were getting through

without being rated by the BBFC,

so kids could rent these movies
and watch them at home.

So they wrote up a list
of movies that had...

That were essentially
had to be banned.

The funny thing was,
was that there's a lot of people

criticizing these movies
without actually seeing them.

It's often the case
with... with government.

They also had these local
MPs as well who like to comment

and get sort of political points
with their...

With their constituency
by saying,

"Oh, this movie is really bad,
it should be banned."

And someone goes "Oh,
have you seen this movie?"

"Oh, no, no,
I don't need to see it."

You think, well,
you need to see something

before you criticize it.

If anyone can stand up
and defend

the sort of horrific scenes
that I have had to see

and other members of parliament
have had to see,

I believe they're living
in a different world

to that world that I live in.

The video nasties didn't stick
around for that long,

but there were a number
of movies that were

on the BBFC kind of hit list

for a number of years
that remained banned.

And it was kind of years later
that these movies

did eventually come out,

and people got to see them
properly for the first time

and not some kind of wonky VHS

bootleg from 1982
or something like that.

Video nasties, they don't like
violence or blood

and all that stuff.

You can have all the sex
you want,

but if you use the word

chainsaw in your title,
that's too violent.

And "Hollywood Hooker"
sounds worse than

"Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers."

That was a great line...
They charge an arm and a leg...

Because the movies
about this prostitution ring

that my sister has fallen into
and having to investigate it

and go under cover
with this chainsaw cult.

I'm gonna burn that temple
over those fuckers heads.

You know, you've got a lot
of guts for a little girl.

It's a very silly romp.

A film noir, but it's in color.

Jack: I'll check the photo
to make sure.

It was her alright.

I got involved with
"Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers"

when Fred Olen Ray
gave me a call.

It was Memorial Day weekend,

and he said, "I'm gonna do
a movie in three days now."

And it was just so tongue
in cheek and so fun.

And I got to meet Leatherface
from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

That was like a big deal to me,

because I loved that film.

-Please, Mr. Chandler,

think of the neighbors.
They're trying to sleep.

Gunnar Hansen was like
the nicest guy

who had no clue that
he was admired by thousands.

I think it's time somebody
cut you down to size, Jack.

Fred Olen Ray is very,

like, he's got
that dry sense of humor.

He said, "Okay, dance sexy
with these chainsaws."

And I'm like, "They're heavy."

And like, I'm trying my best to
dance sexy with the chainsaws.

And I'm like struggling,
and I am being asphyxiated

when I'm in the sarcophagus
with the chainsaws running

and all the smokes going.

If you watch, I, like, kind of
like stumble when I get out

because I'm like high
from the smoke in there.

Then I was like dancing
with them

and I felt something on my leg
and I thought,

"Oh, my God, hot oil is burning
my skin," but I didn't stop.

I kept going.

It was like, "Action.

Here's your chainsaw. Go."

They just said,
"Well, this a great idea,

let's use real chainsaws.
They're cheaper."

I think they probably got them
at Kmart,

and then returned them
the next day.

Announcer: Treat Williams...

Sit down.

Announcer:
and Joe Piscopo are..

"Dead Heat."

"Dead Heat" is a buddy cop film
with zombies.

You got Joe Piscopo
and Treat Williams,

who discovered
that there's this company

that has found a way to bring
people back from the dead.

The only problem is you don't
come back for very long.

You start to fall apart,

and they've been using it
bringing people back

from the dead
to go do things like heists.

Come on.
You wanna be dead?

Part of the humor of it is
that they called it "Dead Heat."

It's such a generic title,

but I think they were kind
of aping off of the fact

that it was a goof
on action films.

Johnson: I loved
working on "Dead Heat."

Mark Goldblatt was really cool.

I mean, I had Carte Blanche...

and I got to work
with Vincent Price.

Death doesn't discriminate.

At least not till now.

We really did a lot of close up
quality zombie makeups on that.

They cut out a lot
of our effects

because they were
just too over the top.

I was cut out of "Dead Heat"

because they didn't use
that footage,

But I practiced at Steve's shop
with this heavy skeleton

doing puppeteering, you know,
dancing and dancing and dancing.

I danced to "Burning Up"

with this heavy skeleton
for so long

so I would get it right.

She was the sexy dancer
puppeteer

for the sexy skeleton,
but they cut that scene.

Again, why they cut
all our work out?

It would only make
that movie better.

The shitty movie could have
only been better

with a bunch of over
the top effects, right?

Joe Piscopo when he was
on "Saturday Night Live"

was kind of this skinny kind
of Wiener-ish comedian.

He had started lifting weights,

and this was one of the first
times where it really came out,

"Oh, look at this dude,
he's jacked."

And I think that going forward,

more people will remember him
as the big muscle dude.

I think my favorite part
of the work that we did in

"Dead Heat" is the butcher shop
that comes alive,

because I have always thought
in zombie movies,

why is it just people?

And so this whole butcher shop
when it comes to life,

I mean, there's even a liver,
that was a really cool effect.

We built an inverted table
and inverted the background

and inverted the camera
the same way

and just let the liver roll.

But then it looks like
it's moving

until it leaps on Treat's face.

Ducks, chickens, fish,
you name it,

they all came to life.

Part of the way
through the film,

Treat Williams dies.

They bring him back
from the dead

so that he can solve
the crime of who murdered him.

Hi, guys.

The longer he's been dead,
the more alive he comes,

and that's reflected
in the makeup.

When he's handcuffed
to the back of the van,

car rolls down explodes,

he comes out
and he's suddenly cool

because his hair is all
punked out and it's black.

He's got a piece of shrapnel
for a long earring,

and his blue ridiculous
Hawaiian shirt is all black,

and he looks hip
and he looks cool.

Detective Mortis, homicide.

At the end of the film,
Treat Williams

and Joe Piscopo
are both back from the dead.

Sinew is flying everywhere.

It's a spectacle
that you need to see.

Announcer: This one maniac
you'll have to face alone

or die.

"Maniac Cop."

Next to maniac, "Maniac Cop"
is Bill Lustig's magnum opus.

How can you not love a movie
about a killer cop

written by Larry Cohen
and directed by Bill Lustig?

Bill Lustig went out and found
the money for "Maniac Cop,"

and was the understanding that
he would direct the picture.

I didn't want
to direct it anyway,

so it all worked out okay.

There's a killer on the streets

and he's killing
indiscriminately.

And a lot of people believe
that it is Matt Cordell,

a good police officer
that was killed in prison

but is now back for revenge.

Tom Atkins plays the cop,

who's on the trail
of Matt Cordell, trying to undo

If it's really this killer cop
back from the dead.

It's called "Maniac Cop" because
it's got a maniac cop in it.

And it was my job to find him
and to kill him.

But I didn't, he killed me,

threw me out of window
on top of a cab.

Died, ignominiously.

The maniac cop Matt Cordell
is played by Robert Z'Dar,

who is quite possibly
the only actor in history,

who has a more impressive chin

than Bruce Campbell,
who is also in the movie.

He has a rare medical condition
called cherubism,

and they use that to
great effect in this movie,

and it actually ended up
benefiting him

in his movie career.

The climax of the film starts
with a car chase

and culminates in one of the
best villain deaths in the '80s.

It ends with a cliffhanger that
leads into "Maniac Cop 2,"

which is in my humble opinion,
the best of the series.

My one question is,

what the hell is the matter
with William Lustig?

Bruce Campbell and I,

we run into each other
every once in a while,

and he said the same thing...

"What the hell is up
with Bill Lustig?"

"You're the star the first one,"
he says to me,

and 25 minutes into the movie,
you're dead and out the window

on top of a cab
at the hands of the maniac cop.

In the second one, I'm the star

and I go to a news stand
to buy a magazine,

somebody stabs me to death.

It has nothing to do
with anything, and I'm dead

Oh!
Talk to me, talk to me.

Talk...

Police! Police! Police!

There you are.
William Lustig, nuts.

I had thought, well,
it's "Poltergeist,"

you know,
it's this, it is a sequel.

It's a popular franchise,

I thought this could be
a lot of fun to do this.

Gary Sherman had this thick book
and he had everything.

He was like a scientist,
he had everything laid out

and how this was gonna be done.

And the special effects
were gonna be

real and challenging.

And I thought, well, that's
sort of right up my alley.

With my dance background,

I can... I can do this,
you know?

But it was brutal to shoot.

It really was difficult.

We're back.

The use of the double
and the mirrors and all of that.

And when you had
the long hallway of mirrors

and you had
different characters.

I think at one point, there were
maybe five different characters

that were involved.

It was extremely difficult
and frustrating,

and it all had to be
timed and perfect.

And even with the queues,
one thing could go off

and you had to start
all over again.

Because everything took two,
three times as long as

it would have
the way we shot it.

The payoff, of course is
it's like,

oh, that was worth it.
You see it.

And I think the hallway scene
is a great case of,

oh, look, that really worked.
It was great.

And there's something magical
in the moment, you know.

Hello?

- Hello?
- Hello?

Zelda Rubinstein.

Oh, my God, she was so much fun.

We really had a blast.

She had a lot of boyfriends,
I know that.

Zelda attracted
very handsome young boys.

I can lead you into the light.

I have the knowledge
and the power.

What I honestly remember
most about that film,

other than being wet
for a very long time,

when Tom and I were running
around, was Heather O'Rourke.

She was just a real little girl.

She liked Barbies,
and she loved her mother.

She wasn't a child actress.

I mean, she had none
of that going on.

There was so much chaos
on that set,

because it was so challenging.

But whenever Heather was
on the set, it was like,

she was like a grounding force.

A woman's entitled
to change her mind.

And I always feel like
I can relax.

Heather is here.

It's kind of funny
when you think about it.

And I always think about,
you know,

the tragedy of her loss and all
and how unnecessary it was.

But the fact that she had
this old soul, you know,

and that's the only way
that I can look at it

that I don't feel
so desperately sad.

Announcer: A new dimension
in terror.

"Waxwork."

"Waxwork" is somewhat inspired
by other wax movies,

like the 1924 silent film
"Waxworks,"

and the 1933 and 1953 versions
of "House of Wax."

This one is more about
the wax figures coming to life.

You have a familiar face,
Zach Galligan

from "Gremlins."

Welcome to the Waxwork!

He and his fellow students
go to a wax museum

that's full
of classic car scenes.

And when they wander into the
display, they become part of it.

One of the girls goes into
this area, and it's a vampire.

Or you have one person goes into
a an area, and it's a werewolf.

A lot of them are based
on the old horror tropes.

It's very clever because the way
that they do it

is after the person dies,

then they become part
of the exhibit.

They become wax models
like in "House of Wax."

They had the marquee de Sade,
they had zombies,

they had a wide variety
of different exhibits.

The effects are better than you
probably would be expecting

with a movie like this.

Sadly, the original
cut of the film got rated X

and they had to cut out
some of the gore

in order to get it down
to an R rating.

The ending is crazy,
because everything

in the museum attacks.

I mean, this is '80s excess

and it reminds you
what you love about the decade.

Take me!
Take this.

Announcer: Her life
becomes a nightmare

when she won't stay out
of the basement

and snared by evil
cellar dweller.

"Cellar Dweller," really?

Well, this is what I remember
about "Cellar Dweller."

Stuart was shooting "Robot Jox"
in Italy, And he said,

"You know, I want you
to do a cameo in this."

You think Achilles has a chance?

Damn right he's got a chance.
He's got to kill that convict!

And then Charlie, I believe,
called me and said,

"Listen, while
you're over there,

do you think that you could also
do a day on this other movie,

kind of a half day of reacting
and carrying a hatchet?"

We had Jeffrey Combs appears
as the comic book artist

from the past in this sort
of pre-title sequence

to "Cellar Dweller,"
just to set up the whole story.

And he's drawing on the
inspiration of the dark arts

as embodied in this book,

clearly ripped off
from "The Evil Dead."

And he pays the price,
and he dies.

I certainly felt like
I'm going to write

the best version of a movie
called "Cellar Dweller"

starring this
John Buechler-designed monster

that all takes place
in one building

that is humanly possible.

Are you trying to say to me
that a monster

you drew
just stepped of the page

and devoured Amanda and Norman?

That's how I got into
the "Cellar Dweller.

It's like, "Here's the monster,
write a movie called

"Cellar Dweller'
with this monster."

That was Charles Band's way.

But there's a lot to be said
for having set parameters,

and, you know?

I mean, my God,
Michelangelo just...

He only had that ceiling.

I still think the monster
is really cool.

More and more as time goes on,
I do meet "Cellar Dweller" fans,

which at first
kind of surprised me,

but now we kind of, you know,
is heartwarming.

You know, it's... it's nice
that like you write something

and then you might just
sort of shrug it off

and not think about it
for a few decades

and you find out
that actually had

a positive effect on somebody.

No!

Announcer:
"Night of the Demons."

We're you going?

The party's just begun.

People love that movie,

and I find it to be so campy.

Hey, grandpa,
look at the mirror!

You stupid bastards!

I really wanted to prove
myself on that,

even though it was
a very low budget movie,

we did the best we could.

No!

No! Holy shit!

"Night of the Demons" is about

these girls that have a party,
and everybody's excited to go

and they're all dressed up
in different costumes,

and they call out a demon.

Concentrate.

I get possessed,
and I just go crazy.

[Squelching, growling]

I am writing on my face
with lipstick,

I'm making lipstick disappear
in my breasts,

which nobody expects.

It's like it's supposed
to be kind of titillating.

Hahaha, but it becomes weird.

When they do the effect
on camera, they show my breasts,

then they cut away
and then there's a mold of me

from here to there.

They had cut out a little slit,

so when I'm doing
my lipstick trick,

that lipstick just goes
right through there.

When I first met Steve Johnson,
who did the effects,

I went to his shop and they had
to do a lifecast of my breast.

I had a crush on him right away,

and then I guess he kind of
had a crush on me, too.

So it was very awkward because
he's putting alginate,

which is like a plaster
type thing that hardens on me.

And then they're wrapping me
like a mummy with bandages

and having to touch my breasts,
and it was just very awkward.

So it was interesting
how we met.

I enjoyed that effect, because
it wasn't on my face

and I didn't feel like
I was like covered

in all this horrible stuff.

But I'm like a very vain girl
in this movie,

and I have to ask
if my makeup's okay.

Is my makeup okay?

I put my head back, you know,
they cut away

and then I'm possessed.

Ah!

Stop looking at me!
Ah!

I had contacts and teeth
and all this makeup

that was glued to me,

and then I surprised him
by poking his eyes out.

And in fact, it's not my hands
that are doing it

because I didn't do it right.

They had to like put my bracelet
on this guy's hands

and have him poke my eyes
out professionally.

I could look at it and see how
it would scare the shit

at certain scenes.

You see Angela gliding
down the hall

and going through the shadows
and light with that face.

It's pretty... pretty creepy.

Most of the cast thought
the house was haunted.

They thought there was
really hauntings.

I think it scared them.

As a horror fan, you were kind
of learning that the business,

the movie business
was very fickle.

So any number of your horror
icon directors

can be jumping to
any project at any given minute.

Every month in Fangoria,
there's a section called

Monster Invasion, and that's
news of upcoming releases.

And there would always be
a paragraph at the bottom

called The Terror Teletype.

"Director X is making
film Y with actor Z"

and you'd be like,
"Wow, I want to see that."

And then that movie
would never happen.

And that happened a lot.

"The Fly" is one of my favorite
films of all time,

and given the opportunity
to write the sequel

was incredibly exciting to me.

And what I came up

with bears very
little resemblance

to the movie
that was eventually made.

The original "Fly 2"
that I came up with

had a lot to do with something
that was going on at the time.

There was a couple named
Tony and Susan Alamo,

and they would try to find
mothers talk them

out of the abortions
and talk them into

raising good Christian,
God fearing children.

So I took it a step further
and said, well,

let's find an organization

that not only wants them
not to abort,

they are also training them,
as the Soviet Union

did decades ago,
creating super children.

If Veronica Quaife
and Seth Brundle

had had that baby
and Veronica wanted

to abort because of the monster

she knew it would become
but was talked into giving up

her baby for adoption
by this group,

they suddenly are in possession
of this super powerful creature

that looked human
but was much more than that.

It would become
the first line of defense

in a new Christian army.

Then along came a new studio
head, Leonard Goldberg.

He had a very short life

as a feature studio
at 20th Century Fox.

He wanted
a teenage monster movie.

That's what was popular
in the '80s,

so suddenly, what I thought
could be a good companion piece

to the Cronenberg movie became
something much more mundane.

I did write a version of that,

but I left to direct my first
movie "Critters 2" at that time,

and Frank Darabont came on board
as the second writer on "Fly 2"

and then Jim and Ken Wheat.

So in the resulting movie...

I was sitting in my seat,

and I was watching it unspool,

and I'm sinking lower
and lower in my seat.

It's so far removed
from what the intent was,

and I thought Chris Wallace
did a great job as a director,

good cast and everything but...

But it was so far afield
from what I had intended

that it... I haven't
watched it since.

Woodruff: "Pumpkinhead,"
it's a morality tale,

which always make
for the best movies.

I have been trying to get back
into the world of "Pumpkinhead"

and get the rights back
to do a prequel that...

That sort of sets up the story

and tells it
in a linear fashion,

so that it leads and ends up

with the Stan Winston movie
from the '80s.

But... but while
that could be a long,

long, long process with...

With yielding very little..

After "Chainsaw 2," I wrote
a treatment for "Chainsaw 3"

and that Sawyers have now moved
to New York City.

Leatherface and Stretch
are married.

They have a little baby
in a bone crib

with like a little
leather mask on.

Chop Top is a DJ
in a disco club.

Leatherface by day works
for Parks and Recreation,

sewing off limbs
in Central Park.

And Jim Siedow, the cook,
has a famous chili restaurant

down in Soho, and at night

Leatherface goes into the steam
tunnels under Grand Central

and chops up
some of the homeless,

and that's the meat
for Jim Siedow's

award-winning chili.

Tobe didn't really want to go
to that place.

So that was you know that...
That was kind of stillborn.

We thought that the follow up
to "Re-animator"

wouldn't be "Re-animator 2."

Gordon: The idea of doing a
series of movies based on Lovecraft

was something that
really appealed to us.

And so the next project

was gonna be
"Shadow over Innsmouth,"

which is a story about people
turning into fish.

Lovecraft is taking evolution
and turning it upside down.

Instead of, you know... you know
the idea of us

coming out of the sea,
we're going back into the sea.

People are changing into
underwater creatures.

Yuzna: And Dennis actually wrote
the script of that

while we were in post production
for "Re-animator."

That to me seemed like the
sequel, just like the sequel

to the "House of Usher"
was "The Pit and the Pendulum."

We'd get Jeffrey and Barbara
do it more like a William Castle

series of movies
or a Corman Poe series.

Gordon: Everybody, including
Charlie Band,

who owned the studio
that were making the films

thought this concept
was ridiculous

and no one's gonna want to see
a movie like this.

Brian Yuzna and I took
that concept and pitched it

to just about
every studio in town.

The closest we ever got
to getting it made

was one guy who said,

"Well, if you make them
werewolves, we'll do it.

Turning into fish is not scary."

And I wanted to say to that guy,
you know, how about

if I just bring a big fish in
and put it on your desk

right now, you know,
or shark or something?

I think you might find that
a little disturbing.

Winston: Shadow had a ton of
really cool production concepts

that were developed by
the masterful illustrator

Bernie Wrightson.

Stuart Gordon never got
to make "Shadow over Innsmouth,"

but he did get to use some of
those elements in "Dagon."

We will live for eternity.

The thing about
"Shadow over Innsmouth"

is it's one
of the most action packed

Lovecraft stories
ever that he ever wrote.

"Shadow Over Innsmouth"
is a novella.

It really is like the closest
he ever got to a novel.

You know, I read somewhere
that Fritz Lang wanted

to make it way back in the day,
which would have been wonderful.

"Bad Taste" was my personal
introduction to Peter Jackson,

and I've been in love
with his work ever since.

He was a New Zealand filmmaker
who wanted to move on to bigger

and better things,
and he certainly did.

He was getting a lot of
attention for "Meet the Feebles"

but that one still
didn't go over quite as well.

This was the movie that kind of
broke him to American audiences,

and then of course,
this led into "Dead Alive,"

which made people stand up
and take notice.

"Bad Taste," it's about aliens
that come down

and find the new taste sensation
on Earth is human flesh.

Tomorrow we're having you
for lunch.

It is a film
that only could have come

from the mind of Peter Jackson.

The aliens are these big,
dumb monsters

that have asses that
stick out really far.

They're not scary at all.

They're completely
meant to be dumb.

Peter Jackson is starring
in the film as well.

He plays a guy named Derek.

And as we know,
Dereks don't run.

I'm a Derek.

Dereks don't run.

He falls off a cliff
and his skull breaks open

so part of his brain falls out.

Throughout the film, his back
of his head keeps falling open,

and his brain
keeps getting exposed.

He starts picking up brains
along the way

and shoving them
back into his head,

and he takes his belt off
and puts it around his head

to keep his skull
closed to stop his brain

from falling out all the time.

The effects in the movie
are outstanding.

You can actually look at this,

and if you look
at Peter Jackson's work

with "Lord of the Rings,"

you had the foundations of Weta,
who goes on to be this in-demand

Oscar award
winning effects company

that was making this
really goofy weird stuff

back in the '80s.

Announcer: This time,
he's back with a vengeance.

Halloween 5: The Revenge
of Michael Myers.

"Halloween 5" is the revenge
of Michael Myers,

And it's when the series
starts to introduce

some of the weirder aspects.

There's apparently
now a psychic connection

between Michael and Jamie Lloyd
and he's sporting a tattoo

that would come to be part
of the curse of the Thorne cult,

but you don't get
that weird green blood

that Michael Myers
has in the next one.

I rewatched 5, and it's actually
really, really good,

maybe even better than 2.

And it really is the return
of this horrific

mad man to his hometown.

Fundamentally, what is scary
about Michael Myers

is that mask, that rubber mask,
that white face,

that unknowable entity

that is consistent
throughout the franchise,

even though the mask changed,

I think not usually
for the better over the sequels,

people saw that original mask,
and went, "That is scary."

Every horror movie works

if it's got a well
written script,

it's not about budget,
it's about the story.

There has to be some
different elements

where you care
about the characters.

Can you kill him?

I think so.

-Wait a minute, Loomis
-There isn't a minute to wait.

And that's kind of the whole
crux of that movie,

and why we care, because we know
the showdown is coming

between characters
that we care about,

And that's why the movie
resonates because you care

about what happens
at the finish of this movie.

Oh, God.

Announcer: "Shocker."

Horace Pinker
is a serial killer,

he goes on death row...

death by electric chair.

He gets shocked, but then,
like feels the power.

And survives it, and comes back
from the dead

as an electric murderer.

The reason why "Shocker"
really works

is because the character
of Horace Pinker,

the murderer,
is played by Mitch Pileggi

who was Skinner
in "The X Files."

He plays it really evil
and mean and straight.

Finger looking good.

He's got that look
and so it works.

Horace Pinker's makeup
was really interesting

in that everything in that movie
is practical, everything.

Shit!

I went to visit my boyfriend,
David Anderson, on the set.

They were rolling gurneys
out of the house,

And I'm like, "Wes, I'm gonna
get on one of the gurneys

and play a dead body."
He was like, "Great."

And then I just got on it
one of the gurneys

and they rolled me out
under a blanket.

That's me.

It was pretty ridiculous.

Somebody put me in the credits.
That was probably Wes.

He has a sense of humor.

Watching horror movies
being filmed by Wes Craven,

there's never a dull moment.

I've heard of audience
participation shows,

but this is ridiculous.

Jericho: When you talk about
the connection

between heavy metal
and horror movies,

"Shocker" is probably
the epitome of it

because they had some heavy
hitters on that soundtrack.

The theme song
is called "Shocker."

And it's by a band called
The Dudes of Wrath.

Who are The Dudes of Wrath?

Paul Stanley on vocals,
Desmond Child on vocals,

Rudy Sarzo on bass
from the Ozzy's band,

Tommy Lee on drums
and Guy Mann Dude on guitar.

There's no way
that can be a real name.

Announcer: "Silent Night,
Deadly Night 3:

Better Watch Out!"

Supported by full trade
and consumer advertising.

I'm playing Ricky
the Santa Claus killer.

Horror.

I've escaped from
the prison hospital,

I've come to after being
in some kind of a coma.

I'm wearing my brain cap,

which is basically
a clear salad bowl

with a bunch of blinking lights
with a rubber brain

with a bunch of orange liquid
swirling around in it.

I liked gutting Tony
from "West Side Story"

Richard Beymer, the therapist
going "Ricky, Ricky."

Come on, Ricky.

I don't like to hurt anybody
on the set.

I did a couple takes
and he complained

that I wasn't
doing it hard enough.

He challenged my manhood.

I remember, basically,
so it felt,

and so I did really...

That got the Richard Beymer's
seal of approval.

Carlos Palomino picks me up

for a middleweight boxing
champion of the world.

Merry Christmas, buddy.

Hop in.

Working his way up the ladder

in the acting business.

What happened to you, man?

You get a head transplant?

That's the last we see
of Carlos.

The next thing we see of me is
I'm wearing Carlos's clothes

and I'm knocking on the door
of a... of a house.

Yes?

An old, kindly old woman
opens up and she goes,

"Oh, you look like
you're a homeless man.

Why don't you come in,
I'll give you something to eat."

I had a fear, a secret actors
fear and that was...

That I would
never be able to cry.

Some actors really just were
in touch with their emotions.

They could turn the, you know,
the water on and off

and I just thought,

"Geez, I'll never be able
to do that."

And I remember looking up
at this kind... this lady,

they beautifully cast.

She's beaming down at me,
and I started to cry.

This moment was so loving,

the tears started
falling out of my eyes,

and then all of a sudden
Monte goes, "And cut.

"Sotto voce."

And all of a sudden the crew
starts spontaneously clapping.

As these tears are coming down

Ricky the Santa Claus
killer's cheeks,

and I just remember thinking,
"This is fucking weird."

Woman: Did you really
kill your mama?

What?

Did you really kill your mama?

The power of that movie
is the truth of that movie.

"Henry: Portrait
of a Serial Killer"

was based on a true story.

It's something
that goes for the gut.

I personally love to hate
serial killer movies.

They scare me a lot because
they're representative

of something
that really happens.

"Henry: Portrait
of a Serial Killer,"

that one feels
very raw and gritty.

Don't do that, Otis,
she's your sister.

Okay, I was only kidding
around, Henry.

- Tell her you're sorry.
- Okay.

They did that on a very,
very low budget.

That was one of the first movies
that Michael Rooker did.

His performance in that film
is so scary.

Henry: You strangle one
and stab another and

one when you cut up,
one you don't,

then police don't know
what to do.

Seemingly having a normal life

with kind of an almost
girlfriend and a friend,

and he was living with somebody

but all the while committing
these crazy murders is chilling.

I'm really fascinated by this
sort of psychological reasons

why we become who we are,

And that is an obvious
clear case of some sort

of deep childhood trauma
that hasn't been addressed,

and some sort of unhealthy
relationship with his mom.

Mentally unstable people
with childhood traumas

who then manifest those traumas

into real life horror shows,
it happens.

And that is scary.

Sometimes you beat me,
make me wear a dress,

watch you doing it.

This is less of a, you know,
exploitation movie

and more of a character study,

and that's the kind of stuff
I dial into.

Maybe there is a line
that you can cross.

"Henry: Portrait of a Serial
Killer" came close to that...

but that just makes
a great horror movie

that gets under your skin
and becomes super memorable.

There's so many things that
a horror film can do for you,

and I think a lot of the fans
find it very healing

that have gone through things
or going through things.

They find hope in that,
and they think...

They live through you
vicariously going,

"I'm gonna kick ass,

I'm gonna get rid of all
these bad things in my life."

And I've had fans come
and say that to me,

I didn't have friends
or I was teased

or gender issues.

And this was one world where
the monster gets payback

when you're a kid.

I've been bullied,
I've been an outcast.

And I think that is kind of
what resonates with fans,

because a lot of my fans
will tell me

they've had similar issues

when they were a kid
or a teenager.

People are watching horror
because it's,

"Oh, I see myself in it.

Oh, this got me
through a tough time.

Oh, this final girl reminded me
of this trauma

that I experienced."

And they're turning it
into a kind of therapy.

People are even kind
of dissecting

what the movies meant to them.

It's refreshing because all
I've been hearing about,

"Oh, it's such a great movie."

But now "it's a great movie,

because this is what it meant
to me and this is why."

Horror is personal.

I think it represents not only
our personal styles

and our personal feelings,
you know, about the genre

and what we love about it.

But I think for a lot of us,
it becomes part of our journey.

For as scary as it can be
and as fun as it can be,

regardless of the quote
unquote quality of it,

It still means something to us.

We're talking about this,
like, incredibly respected,

well done horror film, or this
sort of campy horror film

that's actually terrible
but everyone loves it,

and everything in between.

It's kind of inspiring to see
people so deeply excited

and invested in entertainment.

You know, it feeds them.

They stand the test of time,
because they're...

They're super fun.

When you look at a lot of films,
specifically horror movies

during the '80s,
they were taking a beating

left and right from critics.

But I think that
kind of goes to show

that you really
shouldn't judge movies

based on sort of that time
that they released,

because ultimately,
I think they're gonna live on

and in very different ways
and come to mean a lot to fans.

I think we're all missing
our youth, basically.

The '80s to me was a great time.

I was vibrant more.

So the nostalgia
is breaking down meaning.

The good, the bad,
the in between.

It all means something to all
of us, in one way or another.

Emotions and memories
and nostalgia

that it's tied to these films

for a lot of us who grew up
during that time.

Film is an art unto itself.

You need to look back
at its history

because it's not
only the technology,

it's the storytelling,
the narrative.

There's only so many stories
to tell around the campfire.

Never neglect that stuff,
even if your appreciation for it

is as something primitive,
and... and... and old and naive.

You still need to see it.

I think there's so much access

to just everything now
that a lot of stuff gets lost.

So if you curate the ones

that you feel
are important to be seen,

then you bring attention

that they might
not have gotten otherwise.

Curation is key.

Nobile: I think it's important
to keep digging up films

and putting them
in front of new eyeballs,

because the pool is just
getting more and more narrow.

I don't know, I just want people
to be excited

about the discovery
of these older films.

Word of mouth keeps
'80s horror alive.

I have a list at home,

things I have not seen
that I need to watch.

Because of the horror community,
every time something comes up

that I haven't seen,
I write it down,

because how could you...

How could I have missed that,
you know?

The horror family is a family.

The knowledge base
there is incredible.

I think revisiting the films
is really interesting

if you revisit them
at later points in your life,

so you can revisit a film,
a well made film,

and it will yield
new things for you.

That's incredibly
influential to me.

People can talk about
'80s horror

till the sun comes up.

I sure do.