All language subtitles for Blumhouses.Compendium.of.Horror.S01E01.American.Monsters.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+5.1.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

It's probably very
cathartic why horror works.

It takes you
to the edge of life.

It's one of the few genres
that can get an audience

to react viscerally.

That's all horror is.

These six kids are gonna die,
one by one.

Maybe one schmo
will make it to the end.

But it's all life and death.

For over a century,
horror films have been

an essential part
of American culture.

They have thrilled us.
They have entertained us.

And they have also exorcised
our collective demons.

The horror genre has always
reflected our shared fears

and anxieties.

People -- they want
to be scared.

They're coming to get you,
Barbara.

The world is always
throwing up new terrors

that we can
turn into horror movies.

Blumhouse's
Compendium of Horrorexamines

how those films have held
a mirror up to society

and allowed us to experience
and purge our national fears

in the shared experience
of cinema.

The scariest fucking thing.

We wanted Blair Witch
to come from a place

of that primal motivation.

Really get under your skin
and really scare you.

From the brutality of war

to national financial disasters,

foreign or alien threats,

uncomfortable challenges
to the social fabric,

to the struggle for progress,

all these cultural shifts
and movements

have manifested
in our collective fears.

They have inspired horror's
greatest filmmakers

and resulted in the creation
of some of the most

terrifying and unforgettable
films of all time.

Invasion of
the Body Snatchers --

one of the most
disturbing movies ever made.

I was not ready for it.

Of course,
Leatherface was terrifying.

He was just this awful,
faceless entity

that was in this house
killing teenagers.

We've got no money, but we scare
the hell out of you.

They don't make that movie,

I don't get inspired
to make mine.

I came up with the title
Friday the 13th,

and I took out
a big ad in Variety.

"The most terrifying film
ever made -- Friday the 13th."

And I didn't have anything.

Nightmare on Elm Street.
It's so simple.

Somebody that terrorizes you
in your dreams.

And if he gets to you, you die.

Sleep kills.

Horror fans --
they want to be scared.

Anybody with a video camera
can make a horror film.

There's a certain dedication
to it that no other genre has.

They wanted to
bump it up and like,

"Whoa, did you see that?"

The communal experience
of screaming together

in a dark theater

is an experience that
draws us back again and again.

Big old monster walks in
the room, we all jump.

Aah!

Fear and fun are co-mingled.

And the audience
gets to sit and scream and yell

and come out of the theater
unharmed at the end.

My folks are big movie buffs.

So we saw everything.

For me, as a kid,
I was fascinated with monsters.

I was just absolutely enthralled
with Frankenstein,

The Wolf Man,

Dracula,

all the Universal
monster movies.

I was kind of the weird kid
in high school.

I was into monsters

and I was into all this kind
of strange stuff

back before nerds
or geeky people

that loved this kind of stuff
were embraced.

There was one guy
that I hung out with,

and we saw every movie together.

But other than that, people were
just -- didn't get it.

I got it.

I am Dracula.

The most iconic
horror characters

come from the best imaginations,

but also, they come
from the culture.

Dracula.

the Creature
from the Black Lagoon...

...Leatherface,

Jason,

Michael Myers,

Freddy,

Candyman,

Pennywise,

and Red in Us...

Little girl,

run!

...are all uniquely
American monsters.

Sometimes, the divide between
the real world

and a horror movie
is a very, very thin line.

The birth of the
American horror experience

dates back nearly 100 years.

In the wake of World War I,

German artists created
seminal horror films

that echoed societal fears
overwhelming the population.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
and Nosferatu

were dark
and disturbing stories

that expressed audiences'
shared sense of dread.

The idea that audiences
would embrace unsettling films

which allowed them to experience
and purge those fears

quickly caught on in America.

The only thing we
have to fear is fear itself.

The '20s and '30s
were a really interesting time

for the United States
with post-World War I.

They needed escapist.

They needed something
to get away to.

More than 70 million
people in the United States

go to the movies each week.

Horror films function as, like,
a mirror of society.

They're gonna reflect
whatever is going on.

So whatever political,
whatever national trauma,

whatever wartime we are seeing,

we're gonna see horror
reflect what's going on.

Good day, Herr Baron.

Well, what do you want?

If it's trouble, go away.
I've trouble enough.

Oh, there's no
trouble, sir.

What do you mean, no trouble?

There's nothing but trouble.

America
and the rest of the world

were barely recovering from
the horrors of World War I

when a new threat
was unleashed --

the terror
of financial catastrophe

in the form
of the Great Depression.

It's interesting.
In tough times, horror thrives.

The monsters of the era
of right around the Depression

were relatable to all of us.

There's pathos
in these characters.

The 1930s saw the birth
of the American horror movie.

Carl Laemmle Jr.,
son of Carl Laemmle

who founded Universal,
made a big bet on horror,

and his instincts were right.

He put together adaptations
of Draculaand Frankenstein.

Before Draculaand Frankenstein

became iconic movie monsters,

Carl Laemmle Jr.
had to find a way

to make these large-scale,
ambitious films

in the midst
of financial hardship.

The stock-market crash of 1929
devastated the global economy

and decimated movie budgets.

But nothing -- nothingcould
kill the pictures.

Carl Laemmle Jr. found
a workaround by optioning plays

that were easily adapted
into film scripts.

With these ready-made
stories in hand,

Laemmle tapped directors
with dark sensibilities.

Laemmle recognized that
audiences wanted horror movies

to purge their fears
now more than ever,

and he tasked his directors
to fulfill that vision.

But they needed the perfect
leading men

to bring the monsters to life.

He hired James Whale
to direct Frankenstein

and Tod Browning
to direct Dracula.

Tod Browning,
the director,

as a kid, worked in carnivals,

and one of his shticks was
he was the living corpse.

He would get buried alive
for hours at a time

and then dug up,
sometimes overnight.

And so he was someone
who was very acquainted

with living death
and being in a coffin.

Director James Whale
was a World War I vet.

He spent a lot of his war in
a German prisoner-of-war camp.

He was a tremendously
troubled individual.

Carl Laemmle Jr. --

he also approved
casting Bela Lugosi

and Boris Karloff
in those films.

Frankenstein.

Dracula.

And those actors are still
synonymous with 1930s horror.

Dracula and Frankenstein,
which really do kind of become

an embodiment of society

where it is these very wealthy
people in these castles.

But the castles
are all crumbling.

And the townsfolk are all
down below, struggling.

Castle Dracula?

Yes.
That's where I'm going.

No, you mustn't go there.

And this is what we see
in Dracula.

In 1931,

the world was introduced
to the first Universal monster.

I bid you welcome.

The sinister Count Dracula.

Ouch!

Oh, it's nothing serious.

Just a small cut
from that paperclip.

It's just a scratch.

The notion of Dracula
as a character

is that he is an eternal evil.

To die, to be reallydead --
that must be glorious.

He's someone who takes great
pleasure in the victimization

of mostly female victims.

He has a sadistic love affair

with other people's pain
and humiliation.

Bela Lugosi's Dracula
is very revolutionary for me

in that he's the one
Universal monster

that's not tormented
at what he is.

He's actually enjoying himself
as best he can and go, "Well,

since whatever can't
be remedied must be endured.

And if I have to endure it,
I may as well enjoy it."

Excuse me. Count Dracula,
Professor Van Helsing.

A most distinguished scientist
whose name we know.

Even in the wild Transylvania.

Bela Lugosi --

he was kind of an evil
Rudolph Valentino.

He was originally written

as an aristocrat
back in the old days.

For one who has not lived
even a single lifetime,

you are a wise man.

Slicked-back hair, and he was
all -- got the girls.

You see, I am 30 years
here in America.

And eight months ago,
I was called to come to England

to revive the American
version of Dracula.

Doesn't Dracula
ever end for you?

No, no.
Dracula will never end.

I always
was scared of Dracula

because there was something
very sensuous about him.

He was the most sexual
of our sort of monsters.

It's, you know,
the power of seduction,

the power of the danger.

You know, he is there
to either kiss or kill you,

and you don't know which.

And in the moment,
you don't really care.

Come here.

Come...

here.

I think the reason sex
is so connected to Dracula

and to vampires

is that a lot of people's kink

is being completely dominated
and drained

and used up
as someone else's fuel.

There's something really
kind of beautiful about that.

There's something about
the notion of the vampire.

The thing that, in this case,
literally sucks your blood

but, in other ways,
can get in your head,

can change you
from the inside out.

Can make you a version
of the monster he is.

No, master, please.

Please don't ask me to do that.

That, to me, says a lot

about the corrupting power
of power.

In the wake
of the Great Depression,

Americans were angry

at the corrupt
and selfish wealthy class

that they blamed
for the economic crash

that left 12 million Americans
without work.

A staggering 12,000 jobs
were lost every day.

Over 20,000 Americans
committed suicide.

And Hollywood delivered them
a monster fit for the times.

The money-sucking upper class
was personified

by the handsome and wealthy,
bloodsucking nobleman

feeding on his
less fortunate victims.

Dracula resonated
with a lot of people

because here comes this man
who's just sucking the life

out of us, and I think

people living
in that time felt like

life was sucking the life
out of them.

Everyone was thirsty
and hungry for food,

so they understood
the need for blood.

Draculawas
an overnight success,

selling 50,000 tickets

within days of its opening
in New York.

Here is Bela Lugosi,
the screen's numbere vampire

who's decided to pay back
some of that blood

that he's borrowed.

I can't help thinking
what a perfect payoff

it would be if Dracula Lugosi,

after all the jugular veins
he's tapped,

should be found too anemic
to donate blood.

The success of Dracula
gave Universal confidence

to greenlight its next
monster movie, Frankenstein...

based on a play and inspired by
Mary Shelley's novel from 1818.

The brain you stole
fits the brain of a dead man,

waiting to live again in a body
I made with my own hands.

With my own hands.

It's alive! It's alive!
It's alive!

Imagine being in a movie
theater, seeing Boris Karloff

lumber out of the dark
for the first time.

You know, they do
that great cut

where it just goes boom, boom --
right into his face.

It's so scary.

There's something very taboo

about a mad scientist
screaming about playing God.

There was that moment, too,
that was always cut,

where Frankenstein meets
a little girl

who's picking flowers
and throwing them into the lake.

Would you like
one of my flowers?

See how mine floats?

No, you're hurting me!

No!

And then it all suddenly cut to

her dad carrying her corpse
through the village.

There is
something scary about

something that is
unstoppable and...

Maria -- she's drowned.

...and pursues you...

...and is relentless.

And that's what I kind of
love about it.

For audiences in 1931,

Dr. Frankenstein and the monster
he pieced together

were another potent symbol

of the relentless evil
that had ruined their lives

through war
and financial hardship.

Frankensteinreally created
the text for horror

for many decades.

Basically,
every era remakes Frankenstein.

Back into the closet.
Back, back.

Back, back, back,
back, back!

They were there to lay
the foundation for what works.

Dr. Frankenstein, I presume.

Frankensteinis a story
about a mad scientist

whose greatest dream
is to create life.

And he does so by cobbling
together a body,

galvanizing that body with
the use of a lightning storm.

Child's Play.

Hi. I'm Chucky. Wanna play?

The Chuckyfilms
are Frankensteinmovies...

about a doll that comes
to life after the warehouse

that the doll is stored in
is struck by lightning.

That's a Frankenstein myth.

I said talk to me, damn it,

or else I'm gonna throw you
in the fire.

I mean, look at Michael Myers.

Michael Myers is
the perfect example.

You can't stop him.
You can't kill him.

Michael Myers
was written as a blank.

He had no defining
characteristics, really.

He had no face.

It was a thing without a face.

Almost a force of nature,
as opposed to a human being.

You can draw a direct line
from Frankenstein's monster

to Leatherface in
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Frankenstein's monster
is always terrified,

jumping at the light, at fire.

He's tormented
by the other characters.

And there's a scene
in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

where Leatherface is genuinely
frightened and agitated

that why are so many people
coming into his house.

You actually kind of feel bad
for him in a weird way

because he's frightened.

Because we're all rooting

for the Frankenstein monster

who's pulled into this world
and abandoned,

and we all feel bad for him.

Like Dracula,
Frankensteinalso told a tale

of elites unleashing a horror
on the masses.

In this case, a scientist
who wanted to play God.

It was the perfect allegory
for a traumatized America

still reeling from facing
its own monsters --

the First World War,
financial disaster,

and the prospect of another
global conflict on the horizon.

The movie struck a chord.

Frankensteinbecame
a huge, huge hit,

because I think it tapped
into a lot of these fears.

Frankenstein-- it's almost
like an autobiography

by director James Whale.

It is a cry for help.

James Whale.

He was a war veteran
who saw a lot of combat.

He had a hard time sleeping
without being drunk

or doped up on pills.

These things haunted him.

He talked a lot about suicide.

He didn't like water,
yet he had a swimming pool

and would ultimately kill
himself with that swimming pool,

almost like he had
the instrument

for his own self-destruction
there at his house,

waiting until
he was ready for it.

Universal saw the success

of Draculaand Frankenstein.

They hit, and they exploded.

And so in the 1930s,
that's what we see is Universal

owns the game
with these movie monsters.

And with that,
they keep just churning them out

as fast as they can.

Stop where you are.

Oh, no!

No!

Inspector Crow,
District Police.

Smoke.

What strange-looking country.

I saw The Mummy
on television.

I was pretty familiar with
all of the Universal monsters

because they did the best job
selling them.

I mean, they had the package.

If you wanted horror,
it was Universal.

They treated their genre
seriously.

I told you not to disturb me.

The Invisible Man,

adapted from H.G. Wells'
horror novel of the same name.

There must be a way back.

After Frankenstein,

audiences were hungry
for more monster movies.

Only, this time,

the monster literally
was the mad scientist himself.

A scientist playing dangerously
with nature.

An arrogant, elite doctor,
indulging his dark impulses

and, as a result,
unleashing horror

on an unsuspecting
and innocent public.

You're crazy to know who I am,
aren't you?

All right, I'll show you.

There's a souvenir for you,
and one for you.

I'll show you who I am
and what I am.

Look. He's all eaten away.

How do you like that, eh?

Ironically,
the most effective killer

of every Universal monster
is the Invisible Man.

Invisible Man,
like, derails a train.

And the entire train
goes off a cliff.

It kills a whole trainload
full of people.

And basically, he's the one
that's not a monster.

He's the one
that's a human being,

which I always find fascinating.

Thank God
for the fire. Sit down.

Unless you want me
to knock your brains out.

Sit down!

You're frightened
out of your wits, aren't you?

When I was growing up...

Oh,
it's no good talking like this.

...there was a show
that used to come on,

I think it was Friday nights
and Saturday nights,

called Shock Theater.

And that's when I first saw
the old Universal horror films.

Frankenstein, Dracula,

The Invisible Man,

The Wolf Man.

Yeah, I loved The Wolf Man.

Larry Talbot, man.

Talbot Castle, Mr. Larry.

You know, he was just so cool.

The Wolf Mangave us
yet another monster

who represented audiences' fear
of the unknown events

that continued
to upend their lives.

The Wolf Man was the monster

who could not control
his own actions.

It was in the Wolf Man's
nature to kill.

Go ahead and shoot
before he bites you.

A monster
too many could relate to.

It shows the wolf
in the pentagram.

- The sign of the werewolf.
- Werewolf? What's that?

Oh, that's a human being who,
at certain times of the year,

changes into a wolf.

Sir John!

- Master Larry, what happened?
- He was bitten by a wolf.

- A wolf?
- Yes.

Nonsense. Haven't been wolves
around here for years.

Where did all this happen?

By the marsh.
That woman came to help.

The main thing that
the Lon Chaney Jr. Wolf Man

did was, if you're gonna do
a werewolf movie,

you'd better have
the transformation scene,

and it better be
something amazing.

That is the sizzle.

So that became the standard
for a long time.

The Wolf Man is
a really interesting monster.

He's completely innocent
of anything.

Richardson was killed
last night. The gravedigger.

The tracks
lead up to this house.

Footprints?

No. Animal tracks. A wolf.

He got bitten by a werewolf.

What the hell, man?

You killed the wolf.

Well, there's no crime
in that, is there?

Bela became a wolf.

- And you killed him.
- You're insane.

I tell you, I killed a wolf.
A plain, ordinary wolf.

It's unbelievably depressing.

It's like what was going on
in the culture at the time.

Hell, I'm out of a job. Why?

Why am I a werewolf?

And it's -- you know,
it's tragic.

Your suffering is over.

Now you will find peace
for eternity.

And then there was
kind of, like, another wave.

There was another boom,
and you saw movies like

the Universal classic
movie-monster sequels.

Bride of Frankenstein
is considered by many

to be a perfect sequel.

It picks up
where Frankensteinleft off,

scaring audiences with its tale
of unnatural monsters

threatening the world
around them...

and ups the ante
with spectacular

and unnerving effects

unlike any that were seen
at the time.

I think Bride of Frankenstein
is one of the best films,

period.

Baron Frankenstein.

- What do you want?
- We must work together.

Bride of Frankenstein
is super interesting

because it's modeled on a piece
from the Mary Shelley story.

I give you the monster.

Frankenstein, the scientist,

decides he should
make a mate for his monster.

Oh, I thought I was alone.

You make man like me?

No.

Woman. Friend for you.

Woman. Friend.

Why?

James Whale takes up
Mary Shelley's lost plot

and brings it to life.

Isn't it amazing, Henry?

Bride of Frankenstein
is genuinely frightening

when you realize
what a scientist wants to do

is to make a world
of gods and monsters.

To a new world
of gods and monsters.

Universal Horror really nailed
the idea of the monster

is never really
the evil perpetrator.

Keep still!

If anything, they're the biggest

and most frightened victim
in the film.

Oh!

I'd hate to find him
under my bed at night.

Bride of Frankenstein
is amazing.

It is a feminist film
without ever even realizing

that it is a feminist film.

We see this woman who has been
created for the sole purpose

of being a mate
for this monster.

She's alive. Alive!

The bride of Frankenstein.

But once she's born to light,
she looks at him and she's like,

"Nah, I'm not into that."

"This is not what I want.
I don't want to do this."

So we're seeing this beautiful
feminist reaction in a movie

that no one really
kind of perceived it being in.

She hate me.

Get away from that lever.
You'll blow us all to atoms.

Henry! Undo the door!

But I can't leave them.

Yes, go. You live.

You stay.

We belong dead.

It's the most nihilistic ending.

Universal
making those movies

gave all the other studios
permission to go,

"Horror movies are lucrative."

It gave, like, you know,

Paramount the right to go make
a slate of horror movies.

Give MGM the right to go make
some films.

It's like the landscape
just opened up.

After he
directed Dracula,

Tod Browning went on
to make Freaks.

An incredibly important,
unique early horror movie.

Freakswas based on
the short story Spurs,

written by American horror
author Tod Robbins.

Director Tod Browning, regarded
as the Edgar Allan Poe of film,

had worked for
a traveling carnival

and urged MGM
to secure the rights

to a story
some considered grotesque,

thus putting his reputation
on the line.

♪ We accept her,
we accept her ♪

♪ Gooble, gobble,
gooble, gobble ♪

♪ One of us, one of us

When looked at through the lens
of the Great Depression,

Freaksis about
the class struggle.

The supposedly
normal characters,

Cleopatra and Hercules,

have disdain for the people that
make their carnival possible.

The so-called freaks
are the working man.

♪ Gooble, gobble,
gooble, gobble ♪

No!

Dirty!

Slimy!

Freaks!

Freaks! Freaks!

Get out of here!

Freaksdisturbed me.

Get out.
You heard her! Get out!

And I think it did it in a way
that was probably

really advanced for its time.

And a lot of that, I'm sure,
had to do with the casting.

The cast of Freaks
was groundbreaking --

putting people on screen
who'd never been seen

in movies before.

I mean, it really
felt like, "Oh, wow,

we're hearkening back to
a time where creepiness

and exploitation was acceptable

and thrived upon."

Watching it, I found myself
kind of like,

"This is a little bit more
than exploitation.

There's actual story going on
with a lot of layers to it."

Freaksfollows a
trapeze artist who joins a group

of carnival sideshow performers

with a plan
to murder a little person

in the troupe
for his inheritance.

Any horror filmmaker
wants to set out

to give you
a level of discomfort.

Make you confront feelings that
you don't normally confront.

Sometimes when you're
a horror fan,

you have to listen
a little deeper

than what people
automatically lead with,

which is,
"This movie's exploitive."

In the end, it becomes this
kind of, like, revenge movie,

almost in a way
like I Spit on Your Grave.

It's a rape revenge film.

These movies are that window
into the darkness of the world.

At the same time,

Freakscame out
in a time period

where we're having people
return from war.

Terrible was
the price to be paid.

A million men laid dead.

Hospitals coped with
the unending flow of wounded.

Plenty of soldiers came back
with whatever had happened

to them -- their injuries --
and felt less than.

They felt marginalized.
They felt they didn't fit in.

They weren't worthy anymore.

They weren't the high school
quarterback they were

when they left.

They're not just
externally injured.

They're internally injured.

And nobody knows about it,
and nobody ever talked about it.

And then along comes a movie
like Freaks,where...

they can identify
with these people

that are being marginalized
and looked down on

and just don't make
the cut anymore.

And they're the heroes.

We are actually seeing

these body horrors firsthand

of people coming over,
missing limbs,

and so seeing it up on screen
in an almost exploitive manner,

no one really knew
what to do with it.

Freakswas also a film

that when MGM initially
test screened it,

there are anecdotes
that people got up and ran out.

They didn't just leave.

They literally ran out
of the theater.

There was a backlash to that.

After the test screening,

MGM removed more than 30 minutes
of footage

from Tod Browning's
original cut.

Despite the changes,

Freakswas not
a commercial success

and was outright banned
in some places.

With its failure
at the box office

and the controversy
surrounding it,

the film essentially ended
Tod Browning's career.

Although it is now
in the National Film Registry,

at the time of its release,

Freakswas a prime example
of why the Hays Code

was enacted
just a few years earlier.

At the time,

people did not know
what kind of impact

the cinema might have
on the mass audiences

who were all going to see
the same material.

So the question is,
would people be so mesmerized

by what they saw in the cinema

that they would immediately
go out and mimic what they saw?

And if so,
was there a responsibility

within the community
of filmmaking

to regulate what was shown?

Hollywood, the
glamour capital of the world.

Hollywood reaches far,
carrying its cargo of dreams

to almost every city
and village in America.

♪ Clean as a whistle,
fresh as a daisy ♪

♪ Brand-new, clean through

♪ On my way just wearing
that smile of mine ♪

The Hays Code
was this reaction

by the film industry
to police themselves

before the government
started policing them.

Things got so hot
in the movies

that the reputable producers
signed up Will Hays

at 100 grand a year
to clean up the picture business

and yet keep the busybodies
off the industry's neck.

Pre-Code movies had cocaine use,
drinking, wild partying.

Pretty racy stuff
that maybe wasn't quite nudity

but was getting awful close.

I'm ready now.

They looked
at Hollywood and said,

"All of the questionable stuff
that you've been

doing for years,
we're done with that."

And they really started
to regulate

not just things like violence
or murder or nudity on screen,

but also morality.

Crime must not pay.

You cannot show
sexual intercourse.

You can't show drug use.

I mean, really specific stuff
that you could not do.

And that steamrolled all the joy
out of movies for a while.

There were many ways in which
filmmakers figured out

how to circumvent the rules

and the regulations
of the Hays Code,

and that was to eschew realism
for the supernatural

or the extraordinary,
the fantastical.

A lot of the studios pulled back

from doing overt horror

because they felt that people
had enough death

and destruction in their lives.

You know, you can't
depict violence,

and it puts a damper on horror.

What you do get
is very psychological horror.

You get Val Lewton
and his whole stable

of psychological thrillers
like Cat People.

He kind of reinvents horror
to be this more subtle genre.

Cat Peopleis
incredibly groundbreaking

and has a lot to say about
what it means to be a female.

It explores a lot
of kind of marriage basis,

like, our ground rock
of society,

like what does marriage mean?

What does it mean
to be in love with someone?

The studio RKO

gave director Val Lewton
the title Cat People

and told him,
"Develop a film around it."

Cat Peopleis about
a fashion illustrator

obsessed with the idea
that she is descended

from an ancient tribe
of cat people

who turn into panthers
when they're aroused.

While it didn't claw
its way to success at the time,

Cat Peopledid fulfill
the Hays Code edict

to ensure the audience
is always aware that

in the battle of good
versus evil,

evil is always wrong.

The film did this, in part,
by illustrating one of society's

most notoriously dangerous
temptations --

female sexuality.

Cat Peopleis also
one of the pioneers

of what we know in horror
as the jump scare.

But like all things,
you know,

there's times that horror boom
started to wane a little bit.

You weren't getting
really beautiful works of art

that, like, Val Lewton
was creating.

With Hitler on the rise

and the threat
of another World War

creating tremendous stress
in people's lives,

the great release
that horror provided

was on the decline.

We started getting more tepid
scary movies.

Some were just incredibly awful.

How can you defile
this sacred house

with the body of that evil man,
that servant of the devil?

This house is full of it --
something evil.

Evil? Yes, it's you.

At that particular time,

Universal had sort of been
cycling through their monsters.

Frankenstein Meets
the Wolf Man.

And then it was
House of Frankenstein.

Don't go this way.
Quicksand. Quicksand.

They shouldn't have come here.

And then House of Dracula.

They were getting
a little fatigued.

They didn't know what to do with
those monsters after a while.

Yesterday,
the United States of America

was suddenly
deliberately attacked.

With America's entry
into World War II,

vampires, werewolves,
and man-made monsters

like Frankenstein
and Invisible Man --

well, they had run their course.

The audiences were engrossed
in a new kind of horror.

Realities of war.

People are seeing
stories unfold on a big screen

with sound in black and white

and seeing things
they had never seen before.

People were
genuinely afraid.

They were afraid because
now there was nowhere safe.

They couldn't just go into their
bedroom and slam the door shut

and be safe from the monster.

Because the monster
could get through the wall.

It's hard to know
where the true monsters are.

It's sort of like
they're everywhere you look.

A short time ago,

an American airplane
dropped one bomb on Hiroshima.

The atomic bomb
kind of changed everything.

Changed people's world view,
perspectives.

I think people were just like,
"Okay, you know what?

There is clearly
a greater force at work here

and bigger things
to be afraid of."

"Not only do we have to worry
about World Wars,

but there is another threat."

Holy shit.