All language subtitles for In Search Of Darkness (2019) 1

Well, the good thing about the '80s is that
there was such a cornucopia of great horror

films that I remember.

The Shining.

Pet Sematary.

The Halloween movies.

A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The Thing.

Child's Play.

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark.

XTRO.

The Company of Wolves.

Cub.

Jaws 3 in 3-D.

The Howling.

The Hunger.

Basket Case.

Maniac.

The Lost Boys.

Near Dark.

Friday the 13th.

Evil Dead.

Evil Dead 2.

The Return of the Living Dead.

Day of the Dead.

Poltergeist.

An American Werewolf in London.

Monster Squad.

The Fly.

Hellraiser.

The Changeling.

Re-Animator.

Sleepaway Camp.

Pumpkinhead and Friday 13th Part 4.

In the '60s and '70s, horror was looked down on.

The Hollywood community has always looked
at it as the redheaded stepchild.

There was a huge blossoming of creative energy.

The '80s had a lot of really good horror films
made.

It's a time of such artistic freedom that
you could make anything.

It was a free-for-all for concepts.

Visual effects got incredibly elaborate in
the '80s.

There was this strange sort of rebellious
nature.

It started to be normal to have really kick-ass
women in great parts.

We were getting creature movies, we were getting
vampire movies, we were getting more slasher movies.

Everybody realized that horror could be fun.

Like the lid was off man.

Like you could do and say and create whatever
you wanted.

We would just like completely nerd out about
all this stuff.

It might have been cheesy but it was also
like holy crap.

We have such sights to show you.

I think every single person on this Earth
has a little bit of darkness in them.

A horror film is a good avenue to really let
some of those feelings out.

Being confronted with your fears in a movie
is so safe.

Like the old clich� about the roller coaster.

You get on, you're terrified, you know you're
not going to die, you get off, you went through

something that you can share with your buddies
or your girlfriend or whomever and say

"Wow, we did that."

But there's also the confrontation of psychological
fears and most of us particularly as our hair

grays, the fear is more about mortality than
it is about anything else.

Why do we make up horror when we have so much
horror in the real world?

And I think it's because it's a coping mechanism
for a lot of people.

People love to watch horror because it's
a way of sublimating their own fears.

Even though as a kid I couldn't watch them,
I was too afraid but there's something of

I'm glad that's not me.

They can enjoy someone else doing it and get
a little bit of a release.

In everyone when they're watching a horror
movie likes to think of what they would do

in that situation.

That's why you always have the stereotype
of people yelling at the screen of like, "Don't

go in there, don't go up the stairs"and
it's so fun to watch that and think about

would I survive this horror movie?"

The greatest war between good and evil always
takes place within our own souls.

Horror tries to resolve that, tries to contend
with that.

That's what all those stories are about.

It's classic mythology.

One of the reasons I think horror movies appeal
to a younger audience, there's a sense of

immortality.

They don't think about life or death and so
the body being rent asunder is more entertaining

than it is personal.

I think the more painful and the more genuine
the fears are that are confronted in horror

movies the more therapeutic and more deeply
enriching the experience can be.

So much stuff going on in the '80s - mind blowing
when you think back of you know,

how much stuff there was.

Movies or music or radio or we started the MTV
generation which led to a million other things

that influenced movies and influenced
television and influenced more music.

MTV was the hottest thing on Earth.

You just had it on all the time.

You know Cyndi Lauper of course, Torn Petty
and Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen.

I knew the words to everything.

The top 4O stuff was off the chain.

I mean it was hit, after hit, after hit.

Great group after great group.

And there was a lot of good metal music in
the '80s.

You know Metallica and Ozzy.

Really saccharine Olivia Newton-John, romantic
ballads on the one hand and you had punk

on the other hand.

We had slicker action heroes.

A lot of '80s hair going on.

It was a lot like Mel Gibson's hair in Lethal
Weapon.

Not sure I liked it.

Mullet.

Yeah, it wasn't pretty.

We all had this big huge hair and Aqua Net.

The hair was beyond teased.

It was bullied.

I remember Jane Fonda Workout watching people
walk down the street in workout outfits

which to me was like completely bizarre.

Big hair, big shoulder pads and cocaine.

Lots of cocaine.

Maybe Ronald Reagan inspired all the horror.

You had the fuddy-duddy sort of older generation
saying no we let the kids play long enough

at the wheel and now we're going to take the wheel
back over.

And that was really the Reagan era.

And it was a very oppressive and dark time.

It was hard to be gay in that era, it was hard to state
certain political views in that period.

Because the '80s were an era of excess in every
conceivable way.

Drugs, disco, sex, the tragedy of the AIDS
epidemic.

There were a lot of very heightened things
going on in that decade and the horror movies

were an absolute reflection of that.

And they say there's a theory that horror
thrives when there's a repressive government.

What scares us says a lot about the society.

After Halloween I had a deal with AVCO Embassy to
make two films and

the first one turned out to be "The Fog".

It was a ghost story conceived on a trip to
England and Stonehenge.

I said to Debra Hill, man it's really amazing
here. And it's a fog bank at the time was off

in the distance.

"I wonder what's in there?", we said.

I was gonna get hired for horror films.

That's what was gonna happen because that's
where I had a hit.

So, off we went.

You know, it's kind of an old-fashioned ghost
story.

It's not big, gory, scary stuff.

The Fog was shot up in Point Reyes, California.

It was a beautiful area.

My dear friend Adrienne Barbeau.

She spent the entire time up in that tower
and so, we were never ever on-screen together.

Jamie Lee.

She's hitchhiking and the first thing she says
when she gets in the car is, "Are you weird?"

Are you weird?

And then I offer her a sip of beer and then they cut
and there we are in bed.

Just like that. It's that easy because I'm
smooth.

I don't think it bothered her to get on that
scream queen path as long as she thought she

might be able to get off of it.

And she did.

The Fog has Nick Castle as the lead.

That's the name of the character in it.

I also remember that very fondly because as
you pan across inside Adrienne's room, she's

holding a baby and that's my son.

The guys that come out of the fog at the end
into the church, take Hal Holbrook to heaven

or hell, somewhere.

The seaweed dudes, did not like.

I did not like the seaweed dudes at all.

They look great in their own
seaweedy oogy outfits.

Big box fans and fog machines at the end of
a street trying to make enough fog to look

eerie and creepy, threatening.

The slightest breeze took it all away and
then to start over again kind of build it

up and get it going.

That was re-vamped after we finished it as
it didn't work and the script was changed.

It didn't get going quick enough somehow.

I was (sighs)... that was a nightmare.

I don't ever want to do that again.

In the Changeling, George C. Scott discovers
something's rotten in Seattle while investigating

the death of a young child who used to live
at his creepy new mansion.

He plays John Russell who's a composer recovering
from the tragedy of losing his family and

he actually stars opposite his real-life wife
Trish van Devere as he comes to realize that

the underage ghost wants to do more than just
play.

It's a brooding melancholy tone poem and I just
really you know, I was hypnotized by that movie.

You think its sort of a haunted house movie
but it's about so much more.

It's so interesting and deep.

The acting in it is incredible. The house
that they shot that film in is gorgeous and

you think it's a real house but it's not.

That was a set.

And the exterior of that film was built over
another house that was existing.

It's very mood inducing and anxiety producing
the whole way through.

There's plenty of classic ghost story chills
in this one and The Changeling makes for a

nice companion piece to Peter Straub's Ghost Story
adaptation which came out the following year

I can remember seeing John Carpenter's Halloween
which unlike some sort of British horror

you know, ghosty movie, it was very real feeling.

I thought very well acted, extremely well shot.

The idea that you could create a really simple
story that had scary elements connected to it

opened the door to Friday the 13th.

A lot of people make their first horror movies
because they're cheap, they don't require

stars or anybody familiar and particularly
in the 1980s all you needed was a string of

creative kills to make a successful movie
thanks to Friday the 13th in its ilk.

We didn't have a clue that it was ever going
to be successful or going to be changing horror

or anything like that.

What we were trying to do is come up with
a credible movie that would run 9O minutes

and have sound and words coming out of people's
mouths at the right time and hope that it

worked out okay.

That was our entire ambition.

I think we were all flying by the seat of
our pants having a good time doing this.

My death scene was really, really fun.

Tom Savini made the mold of my neck and when
I lifted my head back like that,

you know it would open up perfectly.

There was the POV of the killer but you never
saw the killer.

All you knew was like wow, this person's upset.

When the music comes in then you're seeing
what the killer sees as opposed to just

a shot with the camera.

Everybody loves the Harry Manfredini signature
Friday the 13th, Ki-Ki-Ki, Ma-Ma-Ma.

He says it's �ki, ki, ki, ma, ma, ma...

Because it's "Kill" and �Mom" but I always
hear "ch, ch, ch, ah, ah, ah".

But maybe it's my hearing.

I thought it was "ha, ha, ha, ha"
but it's really"kill, kill, kill, kill."

Ch - Ch - Ch. Ha - ha - ha. That's how I do it anyway.

So many gory, scary moments but the one that
really comes to mind is Kevin Bacon's kill.

So sick.

Oh, it's horrible.

The brilliant Betsy Palmer.

I mean she was in Mister Roberts.

She was a very good actress.

How in the world does she become
the crazed killer?

She smiles when she says it, meanwhile they've
cut to the little Jason drowning and I'm going like

you're crazy.

You know you're crazy and you don't care.

That's one scary personality.

Shooting Friday the 13th was a piece of cake.

A bunch of us having a great time and you know
making this movie and it wasn't scary at all.

But the first time I saw it, I actually
had some nightmares.

The end scene I did not know was coming.

Alice is in the canoe so relieved and Jason
the kid he jumps out of a lake and looking

so weird and distorted.

Thank you Tom Savini for scaring the hell
out of me.

The fact that it became as successful as it
did was mostly luck.

Being at the right place at the right time.

It just all came together.

It was a scary film ya know for what it was
at the time but I don't think anybody thought

there was going to be uh,
I don't know what are we at?

Like 12 of these things?

The Shining is an incredibly powerful movie.

The reviews when it came out were absolutely
terrible across the board.

There may have been the occasional exception
but it was not a well-liked movie.

However, it connected with a young audience
in such a powerful way that it became iconic.

And I was so crashingly disappointed with
it because I loved the book and it's not the book.

It was something about Kubrick's take on that
that was just so arch.

Sometimes it takes you a few watches before
you gain appreciation for something.

But it has that Kubrick quality of hypnotic
fascination that you can't get away from and

if I happen to click on it,
I'm gonna watch it.

I think The Shining is probably the best
performance in any horror film, maybe ever.

Boy, does he go off the rails in that one.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Terrifying.

Shelley Duvall looks honestly terrified and
Jack Nicholson honestly looks like

he can't stand her.

I mean to the point where I'm thinking, "Am I
seeing the characters or am I seeing the actors

on set like freaking out?"

And that's just how good they were.

That's always the hardest part to play is
the wife who has to like make the decision,

is my husband nuts or is it just me?

And I think every woman on the face of the
planet wants to give their husband the benefit

of the doubt until the very last minute when
it's like ah, I got to get out of here.

The two twins.

I mean I'll never forget that image.

And the woman in the bathtub.

That's something that was seared into my brain
forever and ever and ever.

The scene that always sticks out to me is
when he's at the bar.

He's talking and then we cut and there's actually
a bartender there.

Every line every like beat in that whole scene
he just chews it up.

It's just you can't take your eyes off him.

I think any movie where a parent is a villain
is really hard to watch.

It really hooks into for me this feeling of
trusting the men around you and how it would

feel to all of a sudden be scared of the person
that you love.

It's so scary.

The big ending is out there in the maze.

Now you look at that movie, what's missing
in that sequence? It's supposed to be out in the

freezing cold but they shot it on a soundstage.

They didn't get any oxidation of breath.

Kubrick is such a stickler for detail and
everything's got to be just right and how

much money does it cost doesn't matter. Let's
get it right and yet no oxidation of breath.

The Shining was promoted as a Stanley Kubrick
movie, not a Stephen King movie.

There was a long period of time when the name
Stephen King was avoided by marketers because

it identified the movie as a horror film and
a horror film was still considered disposable trash.

Stephen King himself said he hated it.

King had actually written a script for Kubrick
for The Shining which Kubrick just tossed aside.

I think it was painful to King to see this
because it was such a personal book to him.

When Kubrick turned his hand to The Shining,
I think it sort of was like well, you know

now anybody could make these pictures.

It became a very viable genre for all budget
levels which was not true before.

Dressed to Kill was pretty obviously even
though I think DePalma denies this.

I think DePalma says he had never seen an
Argento movie and that may in fact well be

the case sometimes these things just sort
of seep into the consciousness.

But it did seem like he was bringing certain
aesthetic concepts of the Giallo into American

horror films.

You know how he used the star filters first as like
reflections would show up and they'd go

"ping" and just like this sort of gliding
cinematography and everything felt sort of

dreamlike.

It has a sexual feel to it even more than
most horror films.

I was really interested in the contrast between
the depiction of violence and an incongruously

beautiful presentation.

Fade to Black starring Dennis Christopher
it's a reaction to the burgeoning slasher genre.

So, it's about a horror nerd who dresses
as different classic monsters to kind of enact

these sort of revenge murders.

People that have wronged him
throughout his life.

It's finale takes place on top of Grauman's
Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.

It's a very weird time capsule portrait of
people living on the fringes of Los Angeles

in 1980.

And it's a nice illustration of the horror
fan as outcast which is a pretty big shadow

hanging over the '80s, I think.

In one corner people are going to say Motel
Hell is complete garbage.

Violent, gruesome, sickening and perverse.

In the other corner people are going to defend
Motel Hell saying it's a comedy that achieves

a kind of demented satirical genius in the
way it criticizes such other sleazoid trash

as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Genius in how they got the title because it
was Motel Hello and the neon was burnt out.

It blew my mind, I thought it was so awesome.

Then you get into a movie that you're like
wow, this is creepy and scary.

You know, to be buried up to the neck and
you're just like that got me.

Two great villains.

One who wore a pig head and wielded a chainsaw.

That was really great.

This was one of the last pictures of cowboy
actor Rory Calhoun who was very skinny and

I think probably had cancer at the time.

That chainsaw fight at the end.

The chainsaw is the worst weapon you could
ever use for any kind of fight.

All you have to do is throw anything into
the web of a chainsaw and it stops.

So, it's about the worst weapon you could
ever use.

If you want to go to something that really
catches the spirit of the '80s don't look any further.

Also, quite a great title.

Oh, I love Maniac.

The thing that makes Maniac a true stand apart
film is the quality of the performances.

Top-notch casting, top-notch storytelling,
amazing editing.

That movie moves like fucking lightning.

When he slows the movie down, he does it for
a reason, to set you up for the next thing.

It's a little strong for my tastes.

It's a testament to its power.

You have Tom Savini doing the makeup effects
who had come from Vietnam and knew all about

what bodies rent asunder looked like.

You've got scalpings in that movie that are
incredibly effective because they're so real.

That's a very independent movie that could
not get on movie screens today.

But there was a small but hungry audience
for that and that's the precursor to torture

porn that you know, Hostel came along much
later and started a whole new sub-genre.

The VHS era is hard to convey to someone who
grew up in the post Napster digital era when

everything is available by some means.

You suddenly had access to a world of cinema
beyond just your hazy memories of the Hammer

films they played when you were a kid on Channel
11.

It was the age of the video store and there
was one on every street corner.

You could browse forever and watch things
that no normal person would ever normally

watch and this was a goldmine for young indie
directors who had no budget but had a good

imagination.

Everybody went to the video store.

That was the way you started your evening.

Running down to the local rental store to
see ooh what can I get away with renting without

my mom here.

And we had the Beta versus VHS battles.

It was like the Coke - Pepsi battle of the
video tech world at the time and obviously

VHS won out and that's what the stores had.

There was a certain magic to the VHS tape.

I remember the first one we rented was A
Nightmare on Elm Street and Critters

and something for my mom.

And then you had the personal curation aspect.

I could collect videos.

Now I could have the equivalent of albums
but in film form.

Suddenly I felt a kind of ownership of the
content in a way that I never had felt before.

Nobody cares about owning movies anymore now.

No one covets holding it.

It's all just like in the cloud.

Everything's through your digital device,
your phone, your iPad and there's definitely

a certain coldness to the process.

We were the first generation to really
discover all this stuff

through cable which meant we
got it earlier which meant it was even more

taboo than like the earlier generations that
had to kind of sneak into theaters and whatnot.

Now all of a sudden it's being beamed into
my house.

I'm by myself for three hours because my mom
works, ooh what's on Cinemax?

What's on HBO?

I had the benefits of cable and I had the
benefits of the rental system.

You had to make some decisions about what
you wanted to watch that night.

It would have everything from a Universal
Picture that you know, Tobe Hooper got tapped

to make to stuff that was shot on video.

Like the Ripper. Tom Savini starring in the Ripper.

We rented that and

I thought I was gonna get a real movie and
it was like shot on video.

I couldn't believe I was watching,

like I just paid the same $3 that I would have
paid for a studio release and it was Tom Savini

running around in a shot on video thing.

You suddenly had this great outpouring of
poorly written, poorly directed, poorly acted

films but then you would have the occasional gem.

Guys like Charlie Band, guys like Roger Corman
found a whole new life on home video after

the VHS explosion happened.

Charlie Band really invented direct-to-video.

Charlie was churning them out.

Empire Pictures and Charlie Band at the time
provided opportunity to up-and-coming talent

to make their mark.

They're chasing trends that the bigger guys
are doing and trying to get there more quickly

and more cheaply.

Charles Band provided this sort of unending
flow of product and some of it had real worth.

They're cheesy.

A lot of blood and gore bad effects and bad
acting and ridiculous storylines.

They were right up my alley and I loved them.

A lot of fans have said to me that saw Hellraiser
for the first time because they were browsing

through the shelves of Blockbuster and they
paused when they got to the image of Pinhead.

He's making very direct eye contact with you.

What the image says is, look what I did to
myself.

Now imagine what I could do to you.

Video cover art didn't seem that important
initially and until some of these key horror

films started appearing.

And on the base of their success then suddenly
those covers became quite important.

Obviously the brighter and the more shocking
it could possibly be than the better and

more chance of that video being picked up.

They had to have that art there to get you
to grab an unknown title as opposed to something

you might be familiar with from its theatrical
release.

Back then you really had to go looking for
stuff.

You had to be willing to take chances and
if it had a really cool poster on the front

or cover art I was hooked.

It's the staff pics that usually would pick
something that would be like, you want to rent this.

Don't rent that.

You'll always be able to rent that. You want this.

Those people knew.

They knew what the good films were because
they had access to them.

One of my sort of Bibles of '80s horror was
the poster for Terror in the Aisles because

the skull on the front of Terror in the
Aisles was made up of all the titles of the

names of the movies in it.

So, I would go pick up Terror in the Aisles
in the video store and I'd start to go through

and I'd walk through and I try to find different
movies.

But it really opened me up to a lot of movies
I would have never rented otherwise.

I worked for the company that did the Halloween
posters, that fabulous iconic knife going through

the pumpkin of the jack-0'-lantern.

That kind of said it all without saying anything.

I thought that was a brilliant, brilliant
ad campaign.

The Nightmare on Elm Street poster features
Nancy's face and she's lying in bed.

It's a great poster.

I mean it's art.

It's not a photo, like a lot of movie posters
are nowadays.

You just have like a photo of the stars and
they're like in a cute position

and that photo art is now kind of dominant but
back then they really commissioned someone

to create a painting.

Matthew Peak was able to do all of the posters
for A Nightmare on Elm Street which is rare.

There's a continuity and they're really beautiful
and unique.

That reflects to me the high level of artistry that
went into all parts of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Even though it was a really low budget movie.

I have a memory of driving on Sunset Boulevard
and there was a high-rise building and the

whole side of it was the painted poster of
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 like on a giant

building. I remember being very impressed with
that.

Kit Carson, it was his idea to make a Breakfast
Club parody.

I thought that was brilliant. I think that also

let people know that we were not as serious as they
maybe wanted Chainsaw 2 to be.

The original poster art that Tobe wanted to
go with was not going to be The Breakfast Club.

He ended up going with The Breakfast Club
to sort of trick a lot of exhibitors into

putting it up in their displays because it
looks very innocuous.

It doesn't look like a horror movie really.

It looks like a Halloween movie. It looks
like a costume movie.

You have to remember that advertising very
seldom actually represents the movie correctly.

Had I seen the artwork for Chopping Mall,
I also would not have rented it.

It has nothing to do with the movie.

The gimmick with The Howling was that we wanted
to position it as a normal slasher-ish kind

of movie and not give away the fact that it
had supernatural elements and werewolves.

Eventually, they came up with what I think
was a very clever poster of a clawed hand

ripping the poster and behind it is
a woman screaming.

And in Europe for whatever reason they decided
they didn't want to use the woman, they wanted

to use a snout for the werewolf.

So, in the British ads, it's the same ad but
instead of a woman's face, it's a snout.

You wanted to try to differentiate your product
from movies that were aimed at a somewhat

lower market and the idea was to try to vault
over the expectations and be able to appeal

to a wider audience.

You try to get them in, through whatever means
you can.

However you have to misrepresent
the movie and then by the time they've seen it

it's too late.

They can't get their money back.

Well, back in the '80s the slasher films
not withstanding,

they weren't really ruled by trends so much.

I mean there are a lot of people doing all
different kinds of horror.

You had a lot of directors who had kind of
started off in low budgets in the 70s getting

discovered by semi majors like AVCO Embassy and
being given a chance to do bigger films.

You had John Carpenter going from Halloween
to The Fog, Escape from New York and The Thing.

You had Joe Dante going from Piranha to The
Howling.

You had David Cronenberg who went from Rabid
and The Brood up to Scanners and then

The Dead Zone.

So, you really saw a lot of kind of star directors
coming up.

Scanners was one that I saw probably too young.

My friend and I rented it because of course,
the cover art alone.

Michael lronside like this on the cover.

I thought we need to see this movie.

Well, I didn't know what I was getting into.

You can't talk about '80s horror and not mention
the Scanners head blowing up.

When that happens, it is so gruesome and visceral
that even as a kid I was like this is the

coolest thing I've ever seen.
Obviously, this is before CGI.

And all of a sudden homeboy with the glasses just...

As a kid I just went...

What the...

Cronenberg, dude.

And just stuff is flying everywhere and I
know they took a shotgun and they used, they

filled it up with bunch of l think chicken
livers or something and just shot it out.

But oh, my goodness, did that look so real.

That explosion is probably the shot across
the bow of the old guard.

Just basically saying, �Okay, we'll take
it from here."

So much of those performances in Scanners
work because the actor's face has to sell it.

So, you have Michael lronside.

He's got to basically take all of these themes
from the movie and project it through his face.

It all hinges on whether or not we believe
him, right?

And he's so great at it.

My Bloody Valentine might be my favorite slasher
of 1981.

It's just this culmination of characters whodunit
and at the time especially it's unique.

It's just the minors and Valentine's Day.

The interesting thing about My Bloody Valentine

is that it was really graphic with awesome
practical effects but they cut 9 minutes of them

out of the film.

My favorite kill is definitely one that was
cut for the theatrical release.

It was this character named Happy, this old
drunk guy at a bar who went out to visit the

mine to inspect what was going on.

He gets a pickaxe swung up through his chin
and just the effect is so gnarly and it's

one of those kills where I watched it and I'm like,

"How did they even fake this?"

One of the things I love about this movie
is how authentic it feels and part of that

is because they shot in an actual mine
underground.

Apparently the mine owners when they found
out that the movie was going to film down there

spent a lot of time cleaning it up which
is the opposite of what the film crew wanted

so they had to re-dirty this actual mine to
get the look that they want for this movie.

Of course, it's cheesy.

It's a slasher.

All the tropes are there but there's something
about that one that just grabs me.

I mean, My Bloody Valentine's got a lot of heart
what can I say.

The early '80s had a shape-shifter trend.

Everybody's making transformation monster
movies -The Howling, The Beast Within.

All this other stuff.

In The Howling we were trying to get away
from the traditional villagers chasing the

werewolf template.

We wanted to actually position it as a slasher
movie because they were very popular at the

time and supernatural movies were kind of
not.

They were kind of considered a little old hat.

So, in the first half hour of the picture there don't
seem to be any supernatural elements at all.

And so when we finally did introduce
the werewolf angle I did it through watching

The Wolf man on television which is a pop culture
reference that audiences can immediately get.

That was really kind of the first time that
had been done and then it eventually became

very popular with the Scream movies to have
characters who were aware of the tropes of

the genre. It became a sort of a genre staple.

Joe Dante loves to put his friends in his films.

So you can find his mentor Roger Corman,
Famous Monsters icon Forrest J. Ackerman,

Howling screenwriter John Sayles, good pal
Mick Garris and his lucky charm Dick Miller.

I remember seeing the Howling and just thinking,
"Oh, finally" like somebody has created

a werewolf and done an on-screen transformation
that is just absolutely mind-blowingly great.

We had told the studio that we can do a
transformation all in one take. Which we learned for

various reasons was impractical and also it wasn't
particularly dramatic.

We ended up shooting it conventionally with
cutaways and stuff.

The character of Eddie Quist, we finally
see his full Rob Bottin assisted transformation.

Holy shit, look what is happening to this guy.

There's always going to be the great debate
between The Howling and An American Werewolf

in London and as amazing as the effects in
American Werewolf in London are, I think at

that scene, I mean it's all very brightly lit
with a lot of close-ups and

to me it's kind of a special-effects reel
and not really a dramatic scene.

And in The Howling, you have this great shadowy
lighting in that scene, you have Robert Picardo's

character who is not a victim, he wants to
transform, he wants to show Dee Wallace's

character what he really is and I think that
gives it a lot of power.

What we didn't want to do was what had been
done before but that iteration of a guy

who has a werewolf head and the werewolf hands
and a tucked in shirt

didn't seem to be modern to us.

I was always eager to do something new and
different and we tried it man and then it

ended up photographing like a bear.

So, we ended up using a combination of puppets
and separate legs and indeed a guy in a suit

but you had to shoot it in such a way that you
didn't see his waist.

We managed to pull off a pretty good illusion.

I love The Burning.

I didn't know about it for years and then
when I found out about it, I was like where

is this been all my life?

It's a slasher film at a camp like I need
to see this film.

Well, first of all it's got Jason Alexander
and Holly Hunter in it which is just mind-blowing

considering the careers they've had since then.

The writing, the way the kids interacted and
of course

Tom Savini's effects.

I mean that whole scene when they're
coming up on that raft and he just comes up

in front of the sun and it just plunges down in
the guy's neck.

It's one of my favorite slashers.

I love John Landis movies. In general, I just love
them.

But there's a particular movie like Animal House
and An American Werewolf in London

where he was so skilled at recreating a real
environment and a real snapshot in time.

It was totally engrossing to me.

A perfect comedy-horror hybrid because it
starts off light-hearted.

There's sheep shit on my pack.

It's a couple pals they're walking around and the
next thing you know the one friend is eviscerated

by a werewolf and the other one is slowly
transforming into a werewolf.

Jack is a zombie corpse that keeps reappearing
in front of David and it's continually becoming

more and more decrepit every time it shows up.

It's a hilarious performance.

The makeup is just absolutely gross.

I remember seeing his trachea and feeling like I was
looking at an anatomy book.

Jenny Agutter plays a nurse who takes in David
Naughton and their love story really gives

an added layer of heart and soul to the film.
Not to mention some added scares.

It's got certainly horrific moments in it.

The end where he's just in the streets of
London running around.

I mean that's scary.

And that was done so well.

And of course, Rick Baker's werewolf transformation...you
can't talk about the movie without talking about that

of course.

Rick Baker was originally going to do Joe
Dante's werewolf work in The Howling but

John Landis kept him to a promise and scooped
him up at the last minute.

If you're going to go see a werewolf movie
in the '80s, you're going to see a werewolf

become a werewolf out of a man.

I actually got queasy at the scene of his
foot extending into a paw.

It was all fleshy and was stretching and there
was. .. nothing like that had been done before.

It was startling to me to see that transformation.

In my mind it will always be a level that really
changed the look and the appeal of '80s movies.

It's a classic and they both came
out the same year along with Full Moon High

and Wolf en.

I mean it was it was a lupine year.

I thought I was making the only werewolf film.

Except for I Was a Teenage Werewolf which had
been done 2O years before in black and white

and AIP owned it so they weren't going to sue me.

I told them I wanted to make a comedy version of it.

I don't think it was what they really wanted.

I guess if you're going to make horror movies
you got to make scary horror movies.

Funny horror movies... I don't know.

Is the horror audience going to
like this? ls anybody going to like this?

I liked it. I had a good time.

I got to work with Adam Arkin and his father
Alan Arkin.

Wonderful actor.

I told him to make the werewolf look like
Henry Hull did in Werewolf of London.

And that's what they did. It was simple.

We had a wonderful cast of comedians and I
had a good time making the picture.

I can say it now.

Evil Dead scared the crap out of us.

Sitting down to watch it, it really unnerved us.

In the Evil Dead a very young Bruce Campbell
has his first starring role.

Campbell and Raimi were high school pals who
made short films together before going all

in on the 30-minute super 8 film Within the
Woods which is kind of like the first version

of Evil Dead and it was designed to attract
investors.

The effects, the practical effects, just
the nastiness and just her in the basement

it's like. .. with the trapdoor going up and down
and screaming and the way they tracked the

camera through the house. It was just so unnerving.

I love the claymation stuff that they did
with the melting bodies in there.

Seeing Ellen Sandweiss get like essentially raped
by tree branches.

That's a fairly clear analogy of that idea
of nature itself being a malevolent force.

The sincerity of it is impossible to fake
because this was just a bunch of kids going

out to a cabin in Tennessee and filming what
they could with no budget.

They were doing things that you didn't think
were possible on such a low budget.

I mean they were so creative.

The most interesting thing about Evil Dead
is it came out after the invention of the

Steadicam but they couldn't afford a Steadicam
and so all those shots running through the

woods they just strapped a camera to a couple
of two by fours and had guys on either end

of the two by fours running through the woods
with the camera.

And it works!

The shakey cam is actually scarier than the
Steadicam.

This cinema verit� effect and the grittiness
to it, makes it feel almost like a documentary.

The Evil Dead is a perfect example of cult
film creative genius born out of low-budget

necessity.

Halloween was conceived by not just John
Carpenter but by Debra Hill.

And you had a very strong woman and her voice in the
development of the characters and I think that has a lot

to do with why you like Jamie beyond her own
inherent skills which she is obviously very talented.

After Halloween was a success, partners that
I had in the movie wanted to make a sequel.

I just didn't think there was any story left.

I couldn't stop them from making it.

So, I figured well, might as well go along
with them. I wrote the screenplay.

It wasn't very good. I didn't do a great job.

And now you're repeating gags and you�re just
repeating what's happened in one.

This worked once, not this time.

I wasn't scared in Halloween 2. I was just
grossed out.

You know, it's ironic that the original Halloween
inspired so many countless dozens of imitations

and for two years we got nothing but movies
in which their only ambition was to litter

the screen with dead teenagers.

Now we get Halloween 2 and it's a pale imitation
of the imitations.

It's not worthy of the original film.

Not until the very last sequel recently, did
we have actually a new story to tell.

So, I was disappointed in it and disappointed at
what I did.

I didn't want to direct Halloween 2.

Rick Rosenthal is now directing instead of
John Carpenter and Dick Warlock replacing

Nick Castle wearing the Shatner mask.

Nick Castle was not asked to return as The Shape.

One of the big flaws.

I think by that time I had already directed
so yeah, I don't know, they had no even reason

to think I'd want to be the shape again so,

and nor would I have probably done it
at that point.

Debra came to me and said, "Nick, do you have
the mask from the first one?"

Because for whatever reason we've tried to
redo it again and we can't get it right.

So, I said, "Oh yeah, I got it here."

It's in my living room.

She took it and never gave it back unfortunately
but I'm sure it would be powder by now anyhow.

So, what the hell?

Jamie Lee Curtis was a real sport in this
film since she essentially had to go it alone

without the support structure she had in
her breakout hit in 1978.

Plus, since she cut her hair for another movie
she had to wear a wig that once you notice it,

you can't unsee it.

Contained mostly in the Haddonfield Hospital,
the film follows the standard slasher formula

much closer than the groundbreaking original
with more creative kills and much more gratuitous

nudity.

I think the most memorable kill from Halloween
2 is probably the nurse who gets her head

dunked in the boiling hot, hot tub.

But for me my personal favorite is actually
the other nurse who gets the scalpel in the back

and just raised off the ground.

My buddy from The Last Starfighter, Lance
Guest plays a prominent role in there.

I didn't realize until I saw it again how
big a role he had and he survived, I think.

I guess Michael Myers had to take a break
to recuperate after getting torched at

the end of Halloween 2.

But he'd come back after the collective what
the fuck of Halloween 3.

Ghost Story is based on the Peter Straub novel
and it stars Hollywood legends Fred Astaire,

Melvyn Douglas, John Houseman and Douglas
Fairbanks Jr. as the chowder society.

Basically, a bunch of old dudes sharing horror
stories.

Of course, John Houseman similarly tells ghost
stories by a campfire at the beginning of

John Carpenter's, The Fog.

Maybe that's why I grew up loving stories.
That movie is like such a great marriage

of old-time stories.

It brought that into the '80s.

At a time that we weren't really seeing that.

The transition of Alice Krige throughout that
movie is absolutely horrifying where she starts

off as this beautiful woman sort of fluttery
and flirty and full of life and very much

sort of just a carelessness to her carriage.

And by the end once things are revealed with
her functionality in this film, it's such

an interesting descent.

Ghosts in movies are so hard to pull off.

And I don't think anybody had pushed this
idea of ghosts the way that Dick Smith had

pushed them in Ghost Story.

Dick Smith who is a guy who's best known for
his work on The Exorcist or even The Godfather.

At this point in the '80s, like he was stepping back
a little bit while this new talent was coming

forward but yet still was out there making
memorable creations and though obviously,

we see that in Ghost Story. It was something
completely different than we had seen before.

Yeah, I love that movie a lot.

One of the really great things about 1980s
horror movies was that everything happened

in front of the camera.

There was no such thing as CGI yet.

An actor was interacting with either an actor
covered in latex or puppets or things that

were really in the frame with them.

There was an artistry of the special makeup effects
geniuses of the time, the Rick Baker's and

Tom Savini's and Steve Johnson's and all
of these people who really launched their

careers during that time.

You get your first Oscar for makeup and it
was An American Werewolf in London in 1981.

First of all, I'd like to thank the Academy
for creating this new category and I'm very

proud to be the first winner.

When I think of 1980s horror, that's to me
one of the best things about it.

Once they saw what you could do it was like
all bets were off and everybody wanted to

go out and make horror movies which is exciting.

Filmmakers realized that the tools that they
had at their disposal allowed them to create

bigger and bigger worlds, bigger and bigger
moments.

It's just such a vibrant, alive, new time because
we had materials and we had techniques and

we had all of these movies that were being
made that gave us an opportunity to push the

envelope.

I love the magic of the movies and the magic
of theater.

How we take a situation and make it look how
we want it to look.

To make you believe what I want you to believe.

What sticks in your mind the most is how did
they do that?

You become interested in the illusion and
the magic that's happening behind the scenes

and that gets you interested in film making.

And the reason that Torn Savini, the reason
that Stan Winston, the reason that Rick Baker

and Rob Bottin were the visionaries
that they were and still are, was because they

approached all of these effects as if they
were magic tricks.

And a lot of it is misdirection.

In-camera effects are always much more, more
impactful.

However, they're very expensive to do.

They're very, very time-consuming.

If you do them right, practical effects are
much more powerful.

How do you build a better werewolf?

How do you build a better decapitation?

I mean these are things that still obsess
me.

30-some years later this is still my work.

There's an almost sort of childlike aspect
to what we do that I feel very grateful for.

This is impressive art; This is impressive
stuff and it drives and propels the story

and those visceral reactions that you have
to horror.

I'm always trying to sort of push things beyond
the realm of good taste in it and sometimes

even beyond the realm of possibility.

You want to do the impossible things.

You shouldn't be limited to what's possible.

You should be able to make the audience believe
something that's impossible is happening

right in front of them.

Everything was on the table.

You could really do whatever you want.

The only thing that you would have to contend
with was the ratings board.

It was always a fight because the directors
felt they had creative freedom to tell the

story and do whatever they wanted to do.

And of course, there were people that found
some of the subject matter and some of what

we did offensive.

For a certain amount of blood, you get an X
and an X means the distributor can't release

in almost all the theaters that wants you.

You've got a very small release which means
it's a very small profit.

So, you have to be mindful of that.

I've helped several films get X ratings because
of the violence and the blood.

Often they'll resubmit it, they'll cut out
a few frames here and a few there.

Finally, you might get an R - rating.

It was often that this fear of getting an
X - rating so they would go with blood that

wasn't red right from the beginning like
in Phantasm or Evil Dead 2.

There's such a focus on blood and gore particularly
in movies in the '80s and to be honest with you

I never quite got it.

Once filmmakers got into that whole blood
thing and the bloodletting and it became bigger

and bigger and like who can outdo the
other person?

And yeah, that's fun but to me it wasn't quite
as realistic as what happens in real life.

The effects artists creating stuff usually
knows best how to shoot it.

Some things are going to be shot from a certain
angle, they work best not from this angle.

And a good director is going to trust their
effects people but if you shoot it from something

a little bit different it's going to reveal
itself to be the magic trick and you don't

want to ever show the rabbit in the hat.

There was so much work that everybody was
keeping busy and it never felt like competition.

It felt more like a coexistence.

We all had the same backgrounds, we all grew
up reading Famous Monsters of Filmland,

we all grew up making movies with our Super 8
cameras.

There was a sort of a shared heritage in
what got us to where we were at that point.

In the early '80s, Fangoria magazine came out
and now we had a group of people that were

celebrating the actual special effects makeup
of those movies.

Before it was like yeah, you're a guy, you
do special effects, that's cool.

But then Fangoria really made this like cool
personality around them because they really

focused on the work they were doing because
it was so innovative and so different and

also so graphic.

They printed the pictures that no one else
would print.

It wasn't the fangs that the kids wanted it
was the gore.

And they had pictures of bloody corpses and
people with slashed throats and tongues coming

hanging out and stuff.

I wouldn't exactly call it porn but it had
the same effect in a way because it was a

high for kids because it would seem so forbidden
and it was so transgressive.

Fangoria was the authority on what's about
to come out and what do you need to see.

Without an internet, without an endless resource
of images at your fingertips you would stare

at that fucking Fangoria until the pages fell apart.

Fangoria had a lot of trouble in the early
days getting taken off of news stands and things

like that because the imagery was too shocking
or bloody or whatever.

Fangoria, Cinefantastique, Cinefex

and American Cinematographer.

Yeah, those were my little Bibles every
month.

It was a wonderful way to see how other
effects were being done, what films are being

done.

A great teaching tool.

Everybody in special effects and special
makeup effects was reading all those magazines.

It actually generated more interest because
somebody would watch that movie, or they'd see

some behind the scenes story and they say,
�Wait, what?

You did what with yak hair?"

And they'd go see the movie and they'd suddenly
realize, "Wow, that's cool.

I understand how it all comes together and
look and I'm seeing it now and I'm believing it

and it's a monster and I'm buying it...

I think a lot of the special effects in the
'80s movies have aged well.

You're doing it live really, essentially in front of the
camera, ya know they're practical effects.

There's something about CG that I think makes
it seem distant and not really, it's not really

happening in front of you.

Actors would prefer to work with something
they can see and react to rather than a green

ball on a stick.

I would be hard-pressed to pick the all-time
great '80s practical effect but chances are

Rick Baker did it.

Cat People is an unusual moment in '80s horror
because it's this attempt at legitimacy.

You've got all the horror guys doing their stuff
but then you've got Paul Schrader who had

written Taxi Driver and American Gigolo and
Mishima.

And he's more or less a respectable filmmaker
and here he is getting in on the shapeshifter

trend that was started by An American Werewolf
in London.

So, that's very interesting to me.

He cast it with Nastassja Kinski and Malcolm
McDowell.

It's like raising the game a little bit.

That movie brought a sort of euro sensibility
into American horror that I found really,

really interesting.

Cat People takes the sort of barest lift from
the original's premise and makes it more about

these siblings who have this sort of borderline
incestuous relationship.

The transformation is actually almost like
watching a work of art.

It's very different in its purpose.

They'd seen what had happened in The Howling
and in An American Werewolf and so they're

taking it into this other space.

And what I like about the Cat People transformations
is that they're both kind of different.

Malcolm McDowell likes being the cat and so
it's kind of a different thing but in Nastassja

Kinski's transformation is painful and she's
not into this.

Tom Berman and his crew thought about that
and sort of worked the characters feelings

into the transformation and made it a very
painful and uncomfortable thing.

And it was just an interesting pivot from
where we had been just a year before

with Baker's stuff and Bottin's transformations.

Basket Case is an amazing super low budget
movie.

I Love New York at that period as well and
that's one of the last movies that captured

Time Square as it was.

That really grimy place that you would not
go to unless you're looking for drugs.

There's a lot of weird, seedy New York stuff
that you don't get to see any more on screen.

When Belial throws his tantrum in the hotel
room and suddenly we're in stop motion and

we're smashing TVs and stuff. That's when like
we kind of all went...

That's when you learned that you're in this
unsafe space.

They're like oh, this guy is not playing by
anybody's rules and he needed stop motion

for this scene and he's going to do it.

That's where Basket Case crosses over into
greatness for me.

Frank Henenlotter, the director of Basket
Case once said to me, "I'm a strange little man."

And he is.

There are things that he would put in a movie
that most people would recoil from.

And in fact, there are scenes in Basket Case
that are so sexual and violent and gross that

the crew of the film actually walked off and
left the film.

There's one shot at the end of Basket Case
where Belial the monster is actually on top

of the female lead. She's completely naked
and he's obviously doing something that you

don't want to think about a little scrawny
monster doing to a beautiful woman.

But I think the shot has to be in the movie.

By that time, you have to see that.

Thank God that Henenlotter got to make those
movies when he got to make them, where he got

to make them, because they were maybe the last
gasp of that grindhouse thing.

There's a certain kind of horror film that
says big studio production, big studio budget.

That means it's safe for people in the suburbs
to go see it and Poltergeist was one of those

movies.

No matter how scary it gets, it was okay to
take the family to see that particular movie.

Another movie that kind of just highlighted
that horror could be just as much fun as

any kind of other rollercoaster tentpole movie
you were seeing at the time

like Indiana Jones or something.

What is this little girl in the front of the
TV with nothing on it?

Because when we used to actually snap our
channels and you hit the snowy UHF channel

or the Channel 4 or whatever didn't come in
your region, you're like get off of that.

This girl is sitting in front of it intrigued
by it.

What is this about?

Anything that dealt with kind of suburbia
dealing with like aliens or the old ghosts'

spirits, I don't know those really appeal
to me.

I just felt like all of us live in some form
of suburbia now and who knows what Indian

graveyards we're all like living on top of.

Poltergeist takes an old staple of the horror
movie which is the seance, the communication

with the other side and amps it up about a
hundred times.

That's the genius of that movie, I think.

Let me set the record straight.

Tobe Hooper directed Poltergeist.

There was a horrible scurrilous myth that
it was ghost directed by Steven Spielberg

because it was executive produced by Steven
Spielberg because it has that Spielberg glow

about it.

But every Robert Zemeckis film was executive
produced by Steven Spielberg and had that

Spielberg glow about it.

Tobe was a really good friend and I miss him
every day.

I got to watch him work on Poltergeist.

I was on the set.

His mark on the movie is indelible.

Steven Spielberg is a very powerful producer.

He hired Tobe because he loved Texas Chainsaw
Massacre.

When the storm is happening and all of the
coffins are coming up and spilling out all

the corpses and the like, it's very surreal and very
Tobe.

That I think is probably the most Tobe Hooper
scene in the movie.

And yet it's a collaboration of two incredibly
powerful and unique filmmaking minds who come

to the same destination from opposite directions.

I never wanted to remake The Thing From Another
World.

That was one of my favorite movies.

I was a big fan of Howard Hawks.

I just never wanted to touch it and
along it came and it would be my first studio film.

I couldn't say no.

I thought well, what am I gonna do that's different?

And then decided well, one of the things is I can
go against the clich� and actually bring

the monster out into the light and show it.

I can do the imitation part of this story
which was not done in the first movie.

Childs was like your strong silent type.

He didn't have a whole lot of words.

To have Roger Mosley to thank because I believe
he was the first consideration for the Thing

and then he got Magnum, P.l. and that changed
his world and mine.

Rob Bottin's work in The Thing was amazing
but it came at a huge cost to us.

Rob Bottin did an extraordinary job creating
the Thing that was morphing into this and

morphing into that.

It could look like anything that they wanted.

So, when they started designing the effect
sequences, they thought about it in terms

of this thing's been to a thousand different
planets.

The DNA contains stuff that looks like tentacles
and crab legs and spider legs.

That was just miles beyond its time and just
throwing all the rules out.

The most fun was Norris's head hitting the
floor and out come these little legs and eyeballs.

The best part of that scene isn't even the
spider.

It's everyone's fucking reaction as they just
go...

They all turn and they're just like, "Are you seeing
this shit?"

And then they light it up but it's that moment
of like a real human reaction that sells that

whole scene.

The first time I saw the movie I went whoa...

The special effects and them being so out
front and explicit were the reasons that I

got criticized for The Thing.

The barf bag movie of July.

I have some problems with it.

The story is totally implausible and the movie
just basically is an excuse for this very

gruesome and repellent creature to gross us
out.

It is the most nauseating thing I've ever
seen on a movie screen.

They wanted me to be more like the original
or classier.

The blood test scene is my favorite scene
in the movie.

It's just a great suspense scene.

The strength of one person or one group's paranoia
can spread.

It makes everybody look at everyone else
differently.

In fact, even the way you look at yourself.

It was a great Donald Moffat moment.

The first time that we heard, "Gentlemen, I know
you've been through quite an ordeal.

But when you find the time, I'd rather not spend
the rest of this winter tied to this fucking couch!"

We cracked up but we were also like Oh, like
freaked out.

That's my favorite moment in the movie.

I thought I don't think there's any more story
in the Halloween movies.

Why don't we veer off and do something
brand-new?

And that's what we did.

It shows you how wrong I can be.

There were a whole lot of people who
were deeply disappointed to put it kindly

that Michael Myers was not in it.

Everybody wanted more of the same.

And what do you get?

You get this kind of like company that's creating
Halloween masks that melt children's heads off

and turn them into like worms, snakes
and spiders.

I mean it is incredibly dark, man.

It's that whole plot to take over the world
through a holiday that everyone loves.

Torn Atkins in Halloween 3 is very interesting
to me because he's like a '70s anti-hero in

an '80s post-Spielberg plot which is an interesting
juxtaposition.

We find this den of iniquity and evil in the far north
reaches of California with (Zonal Cochran.

When we were driving through that town, we
felt like we were being watched.

It was really spooky creepy kind of town.

Garn Stephens, my first wife is in that movie
and she is Marge who's face is eaten in the

motel room while she's sitting there reading
and Stacy and I were in the next bedroom and

she was in this bedroom.

I always thought that was kind of awkwardy.

Three more days till Halloween, Halloween,
Halloween.

Three more days till Halloween Silver Shamrock.

Boy, did we hate it by the time
we were finished shooting it.

After Halloween 3 came out that sunk any idea of
doing Halloween as anthology stories.

That was the end of it.

But Halloween 3 was not a very big hit with
people.

They wanted to see the guy with a mask and
the knife. So...

We'd already been conditioned to think
that Halloween equals Michael Myers.

If Halloween 3 was Halloween 2 it would have
been a hit and we would have a whole different

Halloween franchise today.

It should have never been called Halloween 3.

It should have just been called Season of
the Witch and it might have done better.

If John was able to mount a yearly or every
other year Halloween anthology, let's just

call it John Carpenter's Halloween. The expectation
was that John was going to give you yet another

iconic character.
That could have worked out just fine.

It just didn't work out that way.

Well, Tommy Lee Wallace I thought he did a
wonderful job directing and putting together

Halloween 3.

Nobody sets out to make a bad movie.

People have very much rallied to it and embrace
it, it's a good standalone movie by itself.

It doesn't need Michael Myers and never did,
and if they're disappointed tough.

Q is perfection to me.

I love seeing Q the winged serpent flying
over New York in all his stop-motion glory.

There's just some great Larry Cohen-isms where
there's like somebody on the rooftop doing

push-ups and there's a guy just going okay,
he's counting them off and then Q comes in

and steals one of them. It's so good.

It's such a weird campy movie. I love it.

We went to New York, I had one day's prep.

We got the helicopter the next day, we shot
all the helicopter stuff and when I brought

the picture to the special effects people,
they said to me oh, you did this all wrong,

you're supposed to come to us first.

And we outline it and we draw everything for
you storyboards and tell you where to put

the monster and where to put the actors and
everything is all planned in advance and you've

come in and shot the whole picture, all the
footage and now you expect us to put the monster

into it? And I say yes.

He shot with Dave Allen doing his stop-motion...
So poor David.

He had all these helicopter backgrounds bouncing
like this.

And he's got to try to figure out it how to put his
monster in it. But it works out great.

These guys who do these effects they're meticulous
guys but they have a very narrow focus

and not much of a sense of humor.

Creepshow is the reaction of the sort of the
Spielbergification of horror from two guys

in the cheap seats in Bangor, Maine and Pittsburgh.

So Stephen King and Romero get together and
they're going to make their funhouse horror movie.

It's unlike anything Romero had ever done
and it's unlike anything King had ever done

and I think that informs the energy of that movie.

It's five short stories, there's not a dud
in the bunch.

They are all moral fables.
Every single one of them.

The one with Leslie Nielsen deals with greed.

He wants to get revenge on the man who's
seducing his wife and stealing her away from him.

E.G. Marshall who wants to remain closeted
in his little insular cocoon.

Viveca Lindfors whose father treated her badly
but she still shows up for Father's Day and

she still goes to his grave.

Nathan crawling out of his grave is amazing.

The musical sting when the hand comes out.

It's magic.

Beyond the fact that has great effects in
"I want my cake."

You can't not talk about that segment and
not talk about Ed Harris's dancing.

It's the greatest thing ever.

I think that's one of the fun things about
'80s horror is you see a lot of actors who

now have gone onto do like prestige movies,
these big things but they're all in these

like weird quirky little roles in '80s horror
and you're like "Wow, that's kind of cool".

And just getting to watch like somebody like
Adrienne Barbeau who I knew from The Fog

playing like this crazy, ditzy, drunk lady yelling at
her husband all the time.

She was nervous about playing such a bitchy
character.

Then you get to watch her get eaten by this
beast in the crate.

It's a movie that offers a lot for everybody.

I love Fluffy, I love the creature in the
box, I love Bedelia and her birthday cake.

And I loved seeing Ted Danson buried in sand
and all of that.

But the most memorable part of that is Stephen
King covered in meteor shit.

Yeah, meteor shit.

George Romero said is there anything in there
you would love to do?

I said yeah, I would love to play Jordy.

He said well, Stephen King's going to play
that role.

Would you do me a big favor and play the dad
in the wrap around, the beginning and the end?

Stephen King's son Joe King, he played my
son and I threw that comic book into the garbage

can out front and then he voodoos me to death
at the end over my cornflakes but I had to

smack him early on and Stephen was never out
of the room.

Tom, you're not going to hurt him, are you Tom?

You're not going to really hit him, are you
Tom?

He is my boy, you're not going to, he's only
9 years old Tom.

And I said Stephen come on, I'm a professional
actor.

How do you wrangle the hundreds of cockroaches?

Some exotic cockroaches were allowed to escape
into the wilds of Pennsylvania.

Don't tell anybody.

It's such a pivotal movie that didn't get
them the credit they deserve I don't think.

Because in the years following that Twilight
Zone: The Movie comes out the next year and

then Tales from the Crypt comes out as
a series but I think it all stems from Creepshow.

With the success of John Carpenter's Halloween,
we did see a lot of films sort of come out

in response to that idea of well, if we have
this holiday and we can turn it into this moment

in the genre why not capitalize on that?

And we did see the onslaught of My Bloody
Valentine, April Fool's Day, Leprechaun basically

cashing in on St. Patrick's Day.

We saw a ton of Christmas horror come out especially
in the '80s with Silent Night, Deadly Night.

The recurring theme with having a holiday become
a horrific experience.

It's an obvious grab whether it's Carrie or
Night of the Creeps, these are prom night movies

but they go horribly different than
what you're expecting because it's supposed

to be your coming-of-age and celebration and
like prom night movies are transitioned into

adulthood almost.

Valentine's is supposed to be all about your
significant other and that smashing together

of that juxtaposition of what's supposed to
be good and light-hearted and celebratory

into holy crap, this is bloody and evil and
people are dying.

That idealism and that adolescence that comes
to a screeching halt when it slams into something

horrific.

There's a universality to these moments in
the year and I think that's a good way to

sort of bring the genre into that fold.

The relationship of body to mind is a potent
one in Cronenberg's world and I think particularly

in the '80s he attacked it with quite a bit
of relish.

Cronenberg had a history of really getting
at the psychic horror around physical afflictions.

Videodrome was a step further.

Sort of saying we are entering a period of
humanity of human existence, cultural existence

that is going to fuse technology and the body
in organic ways.

One of the most potent sequences to me is
when James Wood's character sticks his hand

in the vagina-like slit in his stomach that
has developed.

His hand becomes a flesh gun.

You have a very Gigeresque image of machinery
and flesh and metal becoming one and shooting

out cancer bullets basically that cause a
decay of the flesh of the victim which you

shoot with these bullets.

And it's unbelievably imaginative and potent
and allegorical and repellant all at the same

time but devilishly entertaining.

It's all about videocassettes and you look
at it now and you just think gosh, it is so

like arcane but it's really genius because
it really was predicting in many ways where

culture was going and how much more involved
the average consumer was going to become

pre-sort of where things went in the
information age.

And Oblivion is this kind of cross between
a cult leader, a political figure and a complete

low-grade huckster.

It's predictive of the darkest side of the
Reagan era of like where those types of people

would lead us as a culture.

The movie really encapsulates the beginning
of the transition of global culture from analog

into digital, from how the consumer took in
their media and what impact that had on you.

No matter how often you see it, it will get
under your skin.

Well, horror films of the '80s even the ones
made on slightly higher budgets still had

that kind of down and dirty feel about them.

They didn't feel like commercial movies even
if they were being made by the studios.

And you had a lot of directors like Tony Scott
for example doing The Hunger and bringing

a very different kind of European aesthetic
to a big-budget studio assignment.

The Hunger was such a sensual, sexy movie.

It was just melding this scary, creepy vibe
with you know vampires.

And it was all so kind of sexual and creepy
at the same time.

A lot of people dismiss The Hunger for being
nothing more than style.

I disagree because I think the movie is specifically
about style and about emptiness.

What's scary about it is the disposability
of relationships and how Catherine Deneuve

as soon as her lover becomes too old, she
can't even bear to touch him or kiss him.

Just puts him in a box stows him in the attic
moves on to the next one.

That's extremely horrifying and a universal
horror that all of us have experienced if

you live long enough.

You don't think of Psycho as a slasher movie
but that was what kicked it all off.

That's what inspired Halloween which inspired
everything afterwards.

Psycho was the beginning of my love of movies.

It was psychological, it was visual in ways
that you'd never seen before.

Before Norman Bates, Anthony Perkins, there
wasn't a serial murderer.

There wasn't a killer that had psychological
dimension.

That's all Hitchcock and Joe Stefano.

It was inevitable that he would return in
the '80s because that was an era of cinematic

horror that celebrated the serial killer,
the slasher and he was the original, he was

the granddaddy of them all.

Richard Franklin came to me, an Aussie director
who'd done Road Games and said let's do Psycho 2

and I said you are crazy.

This is prior to sequels being a way of life
in the movie business.

Nobody wanted to do it because you knew you
were going to get ripped apart by the critics.

In Psycho 2 Norman Bates was afforded a great
deal of humanity and sympathy.

He's been released from prison.

He served his time, gone through his therapy
and he sincerely kind of apologetic for having

snapped and killed all of those women and
his mother.

And he's just trying to make a go of it, trying
sincerely to be the best version of himself

but society won't let him be.

And so, they turn him into a monster again
so by the end of that movie he is sort of

returned back to square one.

Everybody's dying around him but he doesn't
kill anybody but we don't know that to the end.

He finally does kill somebody, this little
old lady who had missed that she's his mother

and she's been doing some of the killings
and he serves her poisoned tea.

And as she starts to gag and die in the poisoned
tea, he picks up a shovel and brings it smashing

down on the back of her head.

And it's the first time that he's killed
in the entire movie and you realize that

he's totally now totally insane.

I remember having to audition and screen test
for a movie off this giant book that intimidated

the crap out of me.

I was supposed to read before I auditioned
and was like this is a movie about a mom

and a kid are stuck in a car with this dog?

It's like oh, yeah, that's actually pretty
scary.

For 2/3 of the movie it's two people in a
car, right?

If you get out,you're dead and if you stay in like no
one's going to find you and you're dead.

And it's sort of like the original Escape Room.

Anytime we put a young kid in a scary story
it really brings it home because you never

want harm to come to a child and I think that
resonates on a biological level with every

human being.

I was more terrified of Cujo than I was of
werewolves.

The terror felt real, the panic felt real.

You could feel the heat, the stifling stagnancy
of being inside that car with them and the

desperation of well, how do you get out of this?

And as an adult it's interesting because now
I watch it and I feel kind of bad now for

Cujo where as a kid I was like you know,
screw that dog and like now, I'm like oh,

but he got bit and I feel bad for him now.

So, it's interesting but as a kid Cujo was
terrifying.

And I think that's what makes Stephen King's
stuff so great is that he knew how to prey

on your fears and it wasn't always the same
fears.

Sleepaway Camp is such a great little film
because you're not expecting a lot from it,

you're thinking oh, it's another campground
killer film.

It's mostly like younger kids that are getting
killed and that's such a big no-no today.

It's really scary. It's really done well.
It's got some amazing effects for such a small

little film and it's just really entertaining.

Sleepaway Camp breaks all the rules.

It's an upside-down slasher and I think that's
part of its appeal.

All the males are sex objects.

Look at those camp counselors in those booty
shorts that cut off all the circulation in

their you know genitalia.

The females in the movie are all monsters.

And of course, it has that final shot that's
one of the most memorable moments in all of

horror history.

I remember watching it with a bunch of friends
for the first time.

We knew nothing about it.

Before the internet was spoiling everything
and back then we had no idea.

We are like hey, this Sleepaway Camp a horror
movie in the woods and we're watching it

and enjoying it and then the end came.

Me and all my friends were just, �What?"

Christine came along after The Thing and it
was a Stephen King novel haunted car movie.

It just seemed right to do.

Do we live on? Do we have a spirit?

Can it live on in a 1958 Plymouth Fury?

That was taken on by Carpenter and he made
it his own.

It's so lean, it's mean, it really gets to the
nitty-gritty of what you would want out of

a movie about a killer car.

And I think Keith Gordon actually gives one
of the best performances that we've ever seen

in a horror movie of the '80s.

There's a scene in Christine where the bullies
had just destroyed the car and the kid is

standing in front of the car and he says, "Show
me" and just the music kicks in and it's like...

Show me.

Christine put itself back together again.

We had to figure out how that worked and was
convincing so we pull the car in and shoot

it in reverse.

We've got hooks on the car and you just crush
it and then in reverse, it opens -

it becomes.

It worked out pretty well for us.

It's an amazing effect for something so simple
but it's done so well and matching that up

with his score.

It just works perfectly.

I'm getting like goosebumps thinking about it.

It's so good.

I never wanted to work in 3D.

It's just a gimmick deal, it always has been.

I was always intrigued about what 3D could
be and I'm still waiting for it.

The first 3D horror movie I saw was actually
one of the 1950's classics, Creature from

the Black Lagoon.

The Gill Man had a huge impact on me as a kid.

3D lasted only a very short time in the 1950s.

There was this revival of 3D that began with
the movie Comin' At Ya!

That kind of kicked off this whole wave of
new 3D movies that were done in the 1980s.

Producers saw this as one more way to make
a little more money.

You had a number of franchises that happened
to be up to their third sequel.

So, it just seemed to make sense that hey,
we'll do version 3D.

I like where things come at you, popcorn
comes at you, harpoon comes at you,

and it was spectacular.

Really notable first off because this was
the first time that Jason Voorhees actually

put on the hockey mask.

Every few minutes something pokes you in the eye.

There are so many 3D moments in this movie
they find reasons for characters to have yo-yos

and baseball bats and all kinds of fun stuff
that they can stick into the camera and then

there are some really great 3D deaths.

It messed with the storytelling because you
had to wait for the 3D gag so people go oh, look

there at the machete.

There's a character who gets speared on a
pitchfork.

Probably the greatest moment in the film is
when Jason squeezes a character's head so

hard that the guy's eye pops out right into
the camera.

The first horror 3D movie in the '80s wave
was Parasite.

It marked one of the first screen appearances
by a very young Demi Moore.

I have a pair of Parasite glasses here.

It was shown in polarized 3D.

Directed by Charlie Band released by Embassy
Pictures.

This is a promotional kit that they put out
for the movie, a pop-up promo that shows you

the Parasite.

Also released in 1982 was a picture called
Rottweiler also known as Dogs of Hell or Rottweiler

The Dogs of Hell.

Genetically modified dogs that have been trained
to be military weapons that end up in this

small North Carolina town where they go on
a killing spree.

These are Rottweiler glasses.

3D can enhance a good movie but if you're
already starting with a dog the 3D isn't gonna

really do much for it.

Amityville 3-D came out in 1983 directed by Richard
Fleischer.

An early screen role for Meg Ryan.

There's a pit in the basement that apparently
leads to hell.

There are some really good 3D moments in the
movie.

And the pipe comes right through the windshield
and ends up sticking right into your face.

There's a swarm of flies that's sort of composited in
and meant to look like it's coming off the screen.

The moment that everyone remembers, this demon
pops up through the hole in the basement floor and

grabs one of the characters.

The big three of the '80s 3D horror films were
the ones that were all the third sequels.

So, the studios found interesting ways to promote
these 3D movies and Jaws 3-D was no exception.

Another pop-up where the shark comes right
at you.

The third dimension is terror.

Which I think this would have been a better
movie if it wasn't called Jaws and they just

called it like Sharks in 3D or a Shark Attack -
Coming at You.

Young Lea Thompson made one of her first screen
appearances as one of the water skiers

who gets attacked by the shark.

The plot takes place at this aquarium sort
of Sea World kind of place.

Probably the best 3D moment in the movie the
shark has already eaten Simon MacCorkindale

and he was holding a hand grenade.

The arm with the hand grenade is still in
the shark's mouth so they reach in and pull

the pin and the grenade goes off, blows up
the shark and all these shark bits come flying

right at the camera including the shark's
jaws.

Having a giant, bloody underwater explosion
in 3D that may be why I give that 3D movie a pass.

I don't think that the 3D really helped any
of these movies improve their box office.

For the most part the studios were using it
just as a gimmick.

I should note that in 1991 the sixth movie
in The Nightmare on Elm Street franchise

Freddy's Dead, the big climax of the movie was a 3D
sequence.

It's kind of a shame that they waited until
the sixth movie to do it rather than having a

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3D back when they
could have.

Children of the Corn has taken from the Nightshift
Stephen King short story and stars a pre-30

something Peter Horton and pre-Terminator
Linda Hamilton as they find themselves in

the wrong the Nebraska town at the wrong time
with the wrong kids.

If you're a kid who grew up in the '80s and
somebody says to you Malachi or Malachi you

knew exactly what they meant.

Malachi.

The idea that kids would band together to
kill an entire community of adults at the

behest of this other entity, that's horrific.

I never saw people my age as a threat and
that was a movie where I realized like oh,

people my age can do horrible things.

In the whole movie they're talking about he
who walks behind the rows and when you finally

see him it's just a big mound of Earth that's
moving around and its actually kind of impressive

for 80's effects. How'd they do that?

The effects in the climax are kind of cheesy
but if you're a King completist there's enough

in here to make it worthwhile.

It goes back to Lord of the Flies kind of the same
type of story - kids unsupervised are evil.

It's automatically scary.

In the fourth installment of Friday the 13th
we get Joseph Zito directing a new cast of

fresh meat ready for slaughter by Jason who's
now in his full hockey mask mode after picking

up his new look in the last installment.

It's a great cast that features Kimberly Beck,
Peter Barton and Corey Feldman as Tommy Jarvis

who's a recurring character that we will see
two more times.

It's also got a pre-Back to the Future Crispin
Glover who's got the best dance moves I've

ever seen this side of Footloose.

Crispin's dance is just one of the greatest
moments ever.

He gives it his all and I appreciate that.

Amazing, like one of the greatest scenes in
all of cinema history.

I don't know if anyone could do that dance
but it's something like...

It's something like that. I don't know man.

Ask him.

I love that little Corey who was obsessed with
like monster masks and he has his little computer

like whoo, he's like a monster nerd like me.
That's pretty cool.

Ted White takes on the Jason Voorhees chopping
chores and I know everyone loves Kane Hodder

and so do I but Ted White might be my favorite
Jason.

Little monster man found courage and took
Jason out in a big way.

I mean who knew shaving your head would have
that effect?

Corey did.

The effects work of that machete going into
the side of Jason's head and then he falls

on it and his head like slides down the machete.

That has got to be some of my favorite special
effects in any horror movie.

I love that machete face slide man.

So, there was a kid in the candy store kind of thing
happening in the early '80s with Stephen King adaptations.

Everybody's got to do a Stephen King adaptation.

We're going to do The Shining, we're going
to do Christine, we're going to do Cujo

and Firestarter was part of that wave.

John Carpenter decides he wants to make Firestarter
because it's got an anti-authoritarian streak in it,

it's a road movie and he's a westerns
guy so he loves that.

It's got a father-daughter dynamic - an emotional
core.

He's super excited about that.

But The Thing was received poorly.

The Thing bombed and John Carpenter got
Firestarter taken away from him as a result.

Universal fired me from Firestarter because
by the time The Thing came out the horror movie

market at that time had shrunk.

Teenage boys who couldn't get in, they were
too young.

That was the market for horror films.

You couldn't do a big budget horror movie,
you had to do a little tiny one.

And I couldn't do Firestarter that way.

Dino De Laurentiis comes in, puts in I think
Mark Lester as the director.

Firestarter has its moments and all of the
behind the scenes stuff can't take away from

those exchanges between Drew Barrymore and
David Keith.

George C. Scott is in there doing his
whole crazy ponytail blind eye thing and it's

a lot of fun to watch.

Art Carney and Louise Fletcher as the kindly
couple.

It's really well cast, it's a nice-looking
film and the pyro effects are pretty good too.

It's just, I will always lament what could have been.

Gremlins made a huge impression on me.

It took place at Christmas and the father
gets the gremlin for his son as a gift.

That influenced me with Child's Play.

The obvious takeaway for me personally was
the animatronics and just how sophisticated

they were.

Those puppets Gizmo, Stripe etc...

They all had distinct personalities.

It became obvious to me with that film, there's
nothing that a writer could write that a good

animatronics team and team of puppeteers
couldn't actually put on camera.

Gremlins is a kind of an anarchic movie.

It started out as a low-budget horror film
because Spielberg wanted to create his first movie

for Amblin and he wanted to do it in a genre
that he knew would be successful.

But as the picture went on and he got studio
backing for it, it became apparent that it

was going to have a smaller audience the more
gruesome it was.

We shot material we didn't use.

There are shots missing in the kitchen where
morn stabs the gremlin with a knife,

There was a shot of the gremlin writhing with a
knife in him. They took that out.

When Glynn Turman, the science teacher gets
killed by the gremlin in the movie you just

see his rear end with one needle in it but
in what we shot was his entire face covered

with needles like Hellraiser.

Once you look at what you've got, you say
well, okay, what kind of movie is this becoming?

And it was obvious that this was a much more
whimsical movie than a slasher horror movie and

so we toned all that stuff down and even then,
got lots of criticism for like you're making

a horror film for children, it's horrible.
But kids like it.

And it's remained remarkably popular.

The problem with the Gremlins was that we were
inventing the technology as we went and so

many things that were called for in the
script were impossible to do.

Gizmo, the little fuzzy character who originally was
supposed to turn into Stripe the bad gremlin and

then at the last moment Steven Spielberg got
the brilliant idea which I am convinced is

one of the reasons the picture still is popular
that Gizmo should be in the whole picture

and he should be a hero's pal and we had no
way of making him work.

He was made to run for one reel and then all of a
sudden it was like now he's the star of the movie.

So we had to do a lot of quick R&D to try
to figure out how to make him a character.

The one scene that was really complicated
was the scene in the bar with Phoebe Cates.

We had to have her there and so we waited
and shot it at the end of the picture after

everybody had gone home and we just spent
one week in this bar with these puppets soaked

with beer and popcorn, making up gags basically.

Well, what would happen if there was a flasher
gremlin?

What would happen if there was a Frank Sinatra
gremlin?

And it took forever.

I mean it was really a long time and the smell...

I can't tell you how awful it smelled.

Of the three great slasher villains of the '80s,
Michael, Jason and Freddy people argue who's better.

There's no question that the best character
was Freddy Krueger.

Wes Craven created a well-rounded villain
that comes out of the nightmares of children.

He's a child molester who can also kill.

There's nothing scarier than that.

Wes was a visionary.

A Nightmare on Elm Street was so brilliant.

It came at the right time when the slasher
film was really starting to get a little tired.

All of a sudden it just wasn't a guy running
around with a knife killing people.

That really changed the direction of horror films.

The reason I think that it has such a powerful
effect on people it's because there's not

one person that doesn't have a dream but doesn't
have a nightmare.

So, it was a reality there.

Wes Craven was a very well-read and intellectual
person.

I would say every scene has a much greater
significance philosophically and a worldview

that talks about the loss of innocence,
how you approach fear,

the subconscious and the power it has over
everything that we do.

I don't know of any other character that has
the wits and the intelligence that Freddy has.

When I read the script, it didn't occur to
me that he was that evil.

Like oh my God, this is hideous.

I think Tina's death scene might be the one
scene that makes Nightmare on Elm Street not

only really scary but really great.

It was so sad and heartbreaking that when I saw it, I
realized like wow, we're in a totally different league.

And there were shots that were shot that Wes
didn't include that just went over the top

and I think Wes realized they can't go between
the young girl's legs more than once in a movie.

He does that in my bathtub scene which was
completely like crazy at the time to think of that

shot. The camera just where it's located was
extremely provocative and menacing but also it was

definitely raising the bar for kind of the sexuality
and brazenness of that young girl situation.

So, Nancy Thompson as a character is incredibly
virtuous but she's by no means perfect but

I think the virtue she embodies the most is
her ability to face fear which everyone is

struggling to do that every day of their lives,
right?

Robert Englund, everything he did was studied
and measured and he did it for a reason.

He used the glove really carefully and it
was always choreographed exactly when he would

open up his fingers when he would clank
them together.

He was just so generous as an actor.

He never wanted to be in the spotlight ironically.

It backfired obviously on him because everyone's
watching Freddy.

You want to think if everybody was gone that
you would figure out a way to survive.

Tom Everhart when he was writing this, he
took some of his daughter's friends out and

he said okay, it's the end of the world what
would you do?

And this is a lot of stuff that they told
him that they would do.

He swears to God that this is not a social
commentary.

Of course it's a social commentary.

It was a low-budget movie.

I thought this script was very funny.

I had no idea we were going to end up
encapsulating the '80s.

It put me in bright colors because I was the
last thing alive that was pretending like

everything was okay.

It was red and fuchsia and turquoise and they
had Catherine Mary Stewart who played my sister

in drab outfits because she knew what had
happened.

All those fashions, I mean that's just what
we wore.

They built that cheerleading outfit for me
so that it fit like a glove first of all because

cheerleading outfits...

The one I wore in Fast Times at Ridgemont High did
not fit me that way.

Cheerleader with an Uzi.

I don't know that I can explain that.

When I did it, it made perfect sense to me.

In that scene where I start to cry. We're gonna cut
that scene.

That's her arc.

That is the point when she admits that she
knows, because at one point they were just

going to kill her.

She's just going to be annoying and
she was going to die.

They went no, because she's like one of the
most relatable characters.

There's a magic on a movie where everything
could be right but it just lays there flat

and then you can have unknowns and $5 to make
something with and just the chemistry or whatever

weird thing that is... boom! And that's why I
think we all love it.

One of the most scary things about horror
movies is having this villain who you can't

reason with and you're sure that you're going
to die.

They're going to kill you.

Oh, there were so many villains in the '80s
cannon that you were really into.

I gravitated to a little bit of the silly
so I thought the Critters were really cool.

Gremlins were cool.

I always loved monsters.

The Tall Man kind of came into his own in
the '80s, didn't he?

Phantasm always had that kind of cult status
but when Phantasm 2 came around

that was rock and roll.

'80s horror was a good time for villains because
it started to get a little heightened.

It started to get a little cartoonish and
maybe little campy, a little colorful.

Greg Stillson in the Dead Zone.

He's very much on my mind these days.

I love the one-two punch of Dr. Hill from
Re-Animator and Dr. Pretorius from Beyond.

Real old-school almost Karloff-like in the
way that they come across.

Norman Bates is a guy who lives next door.

Leatherface, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees,
they were all exaggerations and they were

mythologized Slashers.

In the case of Freddy Krueger, he was burned
in a fire and is scarred.

And Jason Voorhees also horribly scarred but
hidden behind a hockey mask.

And Leatherface is literally wearing the faces
of victims that he killed. But in Norman Bates

he's the boy next door but capable of the
most horrendous murders to protect himself

and his family.

He was a little mad and we all go a little
mad sometimes

was his motto and it should be his T-shirt.

Mentally unstable people with childhood traumas
who then manifest those traumas into real

life horror shows.

For me Norman Bates was kind of a real reflection
of things that could happen and that is scary.

My favorite '80s villain is Edward Herrmann
from Lost Boys.

It was M. Night Shyamalan before M. Night
Shyamalan.

It was that twist where you're like, �Nooo...

Out of nowhere, he is the main vampire.
What the fuck?!"

You watch that movie now with that knowledge
and it changes everything.

Everybody else is just so overt in their evil
whereas he... he's the cunning guy.

If the killer wasn't over the top then the
kills were.

The Friday the 13th films are the backbone
of horror in the '80s.

The fact that there were so many of them in
the '80s, that's pretty impressive.

Audiences wanted that character back so many
times.

Throughout the series of the films the makeup
is completely different but you know what?

The fans don't give a shit.

They just want to see Jason again and that's
why there has been twelve Friday the 13th films

basically and they got to do one more.

Michael Myers has spanned over several films
now.

It's evil personified.

Yes, you could go off all day about how the
sequels are and whether you like Part 5

or 6 or whatever or the Rob Zombie films
or anything but still that character just remains.

It's an iconic image that just is part of
the Horror Hall of Fame.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

There's me and Freddy and whatever and whatever
that come out and that people just loved to

revisit the characters and stuff like that.

This is what made them happy.

Pinhead's like an incredible character in those
movies because he's genuinely terrifying.

I mean here is a guy that has like a hundred
nails stuck in his head, comes from hell,

dressed in like BDSM leather outfit and just
wants to play with you until you've been ripped

to pieces.

He's not hiding around a corner waiting to
jump out on you with the stiletto blade.

There's a whole process that goes on here.

You have to be interested in the idea of exploring
pain and pleasure.

You have to have the right motivation behind
the thumbs to make Pinhead ultimately interested

in you even then he wants to stop and discuss
the weather and the price offish with you.

It's the dark dirty corners of your mind and
your heart and your soul that he's really

interested in.

Then we might get down to the hooks and the
chains.

The '80s spawned a lot of franchises.

I mean Chucky was kind of a badass bad dude
and super funny and fun to hate.

Chucky hides in plain sight.

He just sits in the scene with all of the
other characters and they have no idea that

there is a ticking bomb in the room with them.

Who was the better antagonist?

Jason, Michael Myers or Freddy?

In my opinion there's no question the most
complex and the most well-written of the three

is definitely Freddy Krueger.

How do you not love Freddy Krueger too?

I mean come on, he started out as something
different in the first movie then they moved

away from that.

He killed children and yet we held him up
on this pedestal and there were dolls and like

all these things that were for kids,
marketed for kids.

A talking Freddy doll.

This is a child killer people.

Obviously, he runs the gamut from being really
scary to being really corny across all the

different films.

But Robert Englund really brought a sense
of style and charisma and just this attitude

to this character.

I respect how hard it is to create an iconic
figure and marketing it to kids is the best

way to do that and certainly with Freddy that
is a giant piece of his successes.

The marketing, the records, the gloves, the
shirts, the hats, the costumes the...

Gosh, you can buy a onesie that has Freddy
on it.

You can buy so much with Freddy on it and
that really was the key to his success.

And then everybody else were like oh, there's
the formula for that.

And the hockey masks, the chainsaws, it all
becomes this big marketing extravaganza and

it works to make iconic characters, it really
does work.

Company of Wolves is magical.

It takes little red riding-hood and turns
it into something really provocative and Freudian.

It has to do with red dresses and menstrual
bleeding and werewolves.

In this one the wolf head emerges out of the
human mouth and that transformation takes

place in a totally different manner than you've
seen before.

It's still makeup effects and it's still puppetry
and change-o head type technology but in a

totally different way.

It's a really special movie that not enough
people have seen.

Company of Wolves was I thought a really
interesting movie.

I was a little miffed when Neil Jordan said he didn't
want to make a piece of shit like The Howling.

So, it kind of prejudiced me a little bit
but it's a good movie.

The Stuff which is a blob movie basically

is about killer yogurt and it eats you.

It manages to be hilarious and scary at the
same time.

It's a comment on consumer society except
you're not consuming the stuff out of the can

the stuff out of the can is consuming you.

It's terrific.

If you want to make a movie about American
industry producing products that poison

the public that would be a wonderful movie but
nobody would go to see it.

Then you take the same idea and you may get
ice cream that they're putting out in the

marketplace that consumes you from within
and now it's an entertainment movie.

Sell your message at the same time as you
entertain.

The whole idea of our picture was that people
go out and buy this product and eat it and

become addicted to it and love it.

So, it was about everything else that's addictive.

Michael Moriarty was remarkable in the first
picture we did together which was Q and

nobody could have been better.

So, naturally I would want to work with him
again.

We did the same thing as Fred Astaire and
that famous dance routine where he danced

on the ceiling.

They turned the room; we turned the room 360
degrees upside down.

The only difference is that in this one it
was on fire.

I beat this stuff with a stick.

When it didn't want to do what I told it to
do, I didn't care.

When no one was looking, I'd give it a couple
of whacks and that got it's attention and

it pretty well did what it was told after that.

With actors it's one thing because they have
feelings and they have agents and they have

lawyers but the stuff was totally mine.

I could beat the shit out of it.

My father was one of the first horror hosts in the
country in Pittsburgh, his name was Chilly Billy and

he had a show called Chiller Theater. And Night of
the Living Dead, my father was in it.

George was a master and he was always ahead
of his time.

As everybody says a giant of a man, a tall
teddy bear.

He was approachable, he loved the actors,
he gave us freedoms.

Sarah was holding it tight, trying to hold
it together.

She had to hold it together.

She was a scientist trying to figure this out how to
deal with all these jerk guys in the military.

She had warmth and compassion but mostly you
don't get to see that.

You see her harder exterior.

At the time people were trying to compare
Day of the Dead to Dawn of the Dead.

It was a completely different movie.

They were very disappointed and it was too
talky

they would say or not enough gore although
at the end

Tom Savini and his crew did a beautiful job.

The practical special effects on Day of the
Dead are remarkable.

Greg Nicotero was a young guy on the show
and he was like 19 years old but obviously

very talented.

Dawn of the Dead changed my life forever just in terms
of never knowing where George was going to take us.

I was basically Tom's assistant so I ran
the department for him and ordered all the

supplies, hired the crew, all that kind of stuff.

He always wanted to use real intestines as
often as we could.

You can't get better than the real thing so
we would use pig intestines.

The big showstopper in Day of the Dead is
when Rhodes is torn apart.

The culmination of everything that we did
in that movie led to that moment.

Then they just have a feast on his guts and
his body and his fingers and his mostly the

guts inside.

When we shot that scene, we used rancid rotted
intestines.

And I remember a couple of the zombies actually
took earplugs and stuffed them up their noses

because the smell was so bad.

When George yells cut everybody's doing this
to wave the smell of the rotting intestines

away from Joe Pilato's face.

We didn't know any better to just go out and
buy new guts.

We didn't want to spend the 8O bucks I guess
I don't know.

I think that the gore in Day of the Dead is
actually very appropriate.

It's over-the-top at the end of course it
is, that's George's humor.

That's what was so remarkable about George's
films.