Original subtitles

There are so many elements

that make the perfect horror moment.

I mean, you really have to get drawn in

by the effectively creepy atmosphere,

the camera setups, the lighting.

Even silence sometimes plays its own character,

where you're straining to listen

and you're really getting sucked into the moment.

And then, whether it's a jump scare...

Or something that's almost inaudible and eerie...

And creepy and suspenseful,

I mean, those are the moments that really shake you

to your core and stay with you

after the film is finished and you're left in awe

and terror of what you just witnessed.

"Annihilation" is kind of a Lovecraft-ian movie

about something called the shimmer,

which is this interdimensional force

that's taking over an area on Earth, and it's spreading.

So they send in a group of scientists,

who happen to be women, led by Natalie Portman.

And the shimmer does strange things.

Once you walk into it...

The shimmer is a prism, but it refracts everything.

So the DNA of every living thing in the environment

is refracted onto everything else.

So it's making a big DNA soup,

and everything gets merged together.

This movie clearly has a lot to say

about kind of self-reflection

and how we see ourselves separate

from the world around us.

But everything is forgotten about,

all that heady stuff,

as soon as that damn mutant bear shows up.

What happened? I heard a noise.

They see this thing, this massive thing

come out of the darkness and eat one of the characters.

Aah!

And after that, one of the characters

completely gets paranoid and goes kind of crazy.

Ties the other three women up,

determined that she's gonna

try to control the environment.

She needs to find her friend.

And then she starts hearing cries of her friend.

Help me! Help me!

And the woman who's got the gun trained on them

goes off to see what's going on,

and you just hear the bear roar.

And you're like, bear's back.

And as an audience member,

you can see that they cannot turn around

to what is coming.

And all you hear is...

Like, heavy breathing, and you see the shadow,

the silhouette of a bear.

But what you're not prepared for

is how fucked up that bear is.

And it makes this weird kind of scream.

And you realize that when the mutant bear ate her friend,

it kind of got a version of the friend's voice.

Hey!

Uh-uh. I'm done. That's it. I'm going to bed.

I can't... I can't. Mm-mm.

Take off my lashes, and I'll see you tomorrow.

And it was actually shot pretty dark,

because I've seen some pictures of what the bear looks like

with a little more light on it,

and, actually, her face is actually part of it.

Almost like her face was growing out of it.

Immediately they're like...

Don't react.

'Cause they know if they react at all,

they're gonna be dead immediately.

That is a perfect movie moment,

because you know that they're helpless,

and how are they gonna get out of this situation?

The one girl comes in and blows it away,

and then it winds up tearing her apart.

And they don't cut the camera, man.

Usually we would say as filmmakers,

the best way to impact an audience

is to cut away quick.

Just show a little bit and cut away quick.

Let the audience imagine it.

Oh, hell, no.

You're gonna watch this girl die.

Not only that, you're gonna see how her whole face...

Gets just ripped from her face.

No.

That scene is not long,

and it's really good.

It's a perfect example of an iconic moment.

It has stuck with me ever since theaters.

Imagine dying frightened and in pain

and having that as the only part of you which survives.

I wouldn't like that at all.

- Cujo. His name's Cujo. - Cujo?

"Cujo" is, once again, Stephen King

exploring what if something that you see every day

in your life suddenly turned evil?

"Cujo" really gets under my skin.

You've got this beautiful, sweet, loveable dog

that's just doing what dogs are supposed to do...

chase a rabbit.

That's what a dog does. It chases a rabbit.

To get bit by a bat...

And get rabies,

and then to turn like that, it's heartbreaking.

Stephen King knows what scares us,

and what scares us is the thing

that sits next to us every day

and we forget to look at it

as the threat that it actually is.

Cujo!

Cujo!

Okay, strap in.

The second half of "Cujo" revolves around this woman

and her son in this car that doesn't work.

Oh, my goodness...

Her son and her go up to fix her car,

at the local mechanic, Joe Camber,

who is already dead.

Cujo the rabid dog has killed him.

No, no, no!

So the Pinto pulls up.

There's, like, that POV shot of, like, Cujo in the barn.

We know he's there.

And we see how far the car is away from other structures

of safety... The house and the barn.

Then they cut to this tracking shot behind Dee Wallace,

and now we get this 360,

and we really see, like, it's just in the middle

of this large space,

and it ends with, like, the barn

behind Dee Wallace, right?

And she's gotten out of the car.

She starts to unbuckle Tad.

The seat belt is jammed.

And we have this tracking shot go up to her.

Damn this car.

You pull while I push.

And we think, you know, where Cujo's coming up.

Oh, I can't get it. Pull.

They first look at Cujo with shock.

She's rolling up the window.

Cujo runs around. She's in there.

And then he goes away.

And then there's, like, the greatest line in the world.

"How did the monster get out of my closet?"

How did the monster get out of my closet?

Oh, you're like, "Ugh."

And then she just says, "It's just a doggy."

And bam!

Cujo crashing the windshield,

and there's this amazing reaction shot

of him just like, "Ah!"

And now it's set up.

This incredible scenario is set up

where they're trapped and the car doesn't work.

Damn you! Come on!

And her husband's away.

You're running out of water. And Joe Camber is dead.

No, no!

And the dog is not gonna stop.

And you're in a Pinto.

What are you gonna do?

The premise of "The Fly" is scientist Jeff Goldblum

is experimenting in a telepod

to transport from one telepod to another.

A fly gets inside,

and during the transition,

their DNA becomes mixed.

So Goldblum's character gradually starts

to become more and more part-fly.

You know, I just don't think I've ever given me

a chance to be me.

Do you normally take coffee

with your sugar? - What?

There's a lot to be said about casting in "The Fly."

Jeff Goldblum is a charismatic leading man...

I've come here to say one magic word to you.

Yeah?

Cheeseburger.

Who is, like, sweet and maybe a little bit of a rake,

but it's happening to somebody who we maybe like.

The arm wrestling scene in "The Fly"

is completely unexpected.

That particular scene is a revenge fantasy

for every science nerd

that's been beaned with a dodgeball in PE,

where Jeff Goldblum goes into this bar

and throws down a challenge.

I got 100 bucks says I can beat either one of you.

And I get to take the lady home for the night if I win.

Says who?

I don't think it ages very well,

because Seth implies that she's a prostitute.

Do I look like a hooker to you?

It's hand-to-hand, arm wrestling on the table.

Pushing, pushing, pushing.

The close-up of him gripping the hand,

and that kind of insect, milky goo

is coming out of his fingertips,

and you know he's just sticking to that guy's arm.

You don't know how far

Cronenberg is going to take you,

but it's farther than you expect.

And it's just a quick moment, and it's unexpected,

and it's almost a jump scare in its own way.

And you just can't unsee it.

You just want to go back and see, how was that done?

The great sound effect, a fantastic prosthetic effect.

And even when you know it's coming,

it's like the tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick

of a roller coaster.

And you're like, "Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Ah!"

And that, to me, is just...

that's like pure delicious, like, truffles of horror...

those little nuggets that you can go back to

again and again and again.

"The Wicker Man" is a very unique film.

The premise of the movie

is that a police officer is coming to this island

called Summerisle to investigate a missing girl.

And he comes to find out that the island is basically...

just pagans are living there,

and they live by kind of a different code

than what he's used to in the mainland.

Will you tell us what it is, please,

- that the maypole represents? - Phallic symbol.

The phallic symbol, that is correct.

And he's a very religious person.

Edward Woodward described his character

as a religious zealot.

- They are naked. - Naturally.

It's much too dangerous to jump through the fire

with your clothes on.

The final scene of the movie

is really just the zenith of "Wicker Man."

It is where everything comes together.

If at this point in the documentary

you haven't seen "The Wicker Man"...

Goodbye.

Go and watch the original

'cause I don't really want to ruin the ending,

but I have to talk about it.

This year, at the procession's end,

a holy sacrifice will be offered up

to quicken the growth of our crops.

As it becomes clear,

each year they do a pagan virgin sacrifice.

A little child is not nearly as effective

as the right kind of adult.

What do you mean...

"right kind of adult"?

One of the twists of "The Wicker Man"

is that Edward Woodward is the virgin.

It's nothing personal,

just that I don't believe in it...

before marriage.

And he is gonna become the sacrifice.

Oh, God!

Oh, Jesus Christ!

Our hero is gonna end the film being burned alive

within the wicker man.

What's really memorable about the ending to me

is the people of Summerisle see the ending as a triumph.

Because they have succeeded,

they're having their ritual,

and a virgin is being sacrificed to the gods.

So, as Edward Woodward is being burned alive,

everybody else around him is joyous

and happy and triumphant.

The movie brings up a lot of interesting questions

about religious fervor...

if we think that we are so righteous

in what we're doing that nothing can touch us,

It's an extremely emotional movie for people

because of the way it ends

and that you're asked to take sides

with different groups of people who you sometimes decide

that maybe that's not who you want to be on that side at all.

The film feels like it exists by some miracle,

that it probably shouldn't have existed.

It's even something about the end shot of the movie

that feels like one of those...

there was only one take of it.

It's when the head finally crumbles

and the sun is right behind it

and the camera zooms into the sun.

And you're thinking,

"There was only one take of that shot, and they got it."

"Nosferatu" was made

by a group of mostly gay and Jewish intellectuals

about the pandemic

that they had just been through in Europe

and the mood of the country at that time.

It's about many, many things.

It has many, many layers of meaning.

But, of course, it wouldn't be watched today

if it weren't for the performance of Max Schreck

as Count Orlok.

He comes close to being an insect.

He moves like an insect.

The way Orlok walks,

the way Orlok looks at other people.

There's no world in which the beautiful girl

is going to fall in love with that particular Dracula.

This Dracula is a predator and a stalker.

Just the most graphic representation of evil

that had been created up until that time.

"Nosferatu's" influence on horror cinema

is undeniable.

There are scares that are so iconic,

not to mention that people at that time

were still scared

of actual moving pictures in general.

Just the fact that there was a movie

was terrifying.

And so we'd get our very first kind of tension scares...

Where you know something's about to happen,

and you don't know what it is...

and our very first jump scares.

But most iconic is the shadow of the count

climbing up the wall.

Part of it is the starkness...

the perfect lines between shadow and light

that draw the audience's eye

and get the audience to start asking the question

about what is the relationship between darkness and light

and humanity.

There are images that just shock you in that movie.

The way he hovers over other people,

the way he looks at the camera...

all of these things just chill you to the bone.

I had this dream the other night.

It was our house but not.

It was backwards.

So "The Night House" is a ghost story.

Rebecca Hall plays a woman whose husband has died.

So that is the husband.

He's committed suicide,

and she doesn't really quite know why.

And she's very tormented by it.

She thinks her husband might have been cheating on her

because he was meeting these other women

who looked like her.

Not only is there something

possibly supernatural here going on...

But it's compounded by what you're discovering

about a person you thought you knew,

which is really emotionally distressing.

"The Night House" will make you think you're seeing

one thing happening.

Hey!

But nothing is as it appears.

I didn't sleep with him.

Honestly, I barely knew him.

But then she finds across the lake,

there's another house that's just like hers

under construction... Like a doppelganger house.

There's something that feels really occult about it,

about this other home that is in reverse.

And dark things are happening there.

And she figures out that under the floorboards...

are all these bodies.

They're, like, not skeletons in the closet anymore.

They are literal skeletons in a house

that was built to resemble the house that you lived in.

Like, this is, like, something that could've been you

if any number of things would've been different.

As it turns out,

her whole life she's been hunted by this demon

that has sort of locked on to her.

And her husband has been trying to thwart it

by finding women who look like her

and killing them

as sacrifice to this demon thing.

I think there's something really special

about actors like Rebecca Hall

who take on a film like this

where they know they're gonna have to go

into the dark places.

She commits to a character,

delivers a performance that breaks your heart,

scares the shit out of you...

and rips your guts out.

"Aliens" is a fascinating follow-up

to 1979's "Alien."

Ripley becomes an even greater hero

in this storyline because we see her,

not only saving herself once again,

but being willing to go back and make sure

that nobody else has to go through it again.

And particularly when she finds Newt,

we get to see Ripley evolve into mother mode.

Uh-oh.

I made a clean spot here.

Guess I'll have to do the whole thing.

One of the best scene of "Aliens"

is the infirmary scene.

Ripley and Newt are in the infirmary,

and they're sleeping,

and they're trying to get some rest,

and they think they're safe, but all of a sudden,

Ripley hears something.

How scary something can be

usually depends on who is under threat.

Usually the more helpless and younger they are,

the scarier it gets,

and that's why horror movies with kids

can be terrifying.

Wake up.

- What? - Be quiet.

Then there's this amazing shot

where the whole camera booms up

to the top of the bunk bed

as Ripley's hand reaches up

in a very facehugger-like way.

And only after we see her hand moving around a bit

does her head pop up.

And then immediately this thing lunges at her.

It's a really cool shot and a really beautiful jump scare.

Ripley and Newt immediately go into smart mode

of, we are trapped in the infirmary

with a facehugger... what do we need to do?"

First thing that she tries to do is bang on the glass.

But it's soundproof. - Hey!

So then she turns to the security cameras.

Hicks!

No one sees her because some asshole

on the other side turns them off.

Paul Reiser is the true bad guy of the movie.

What's human and what's not

has always been the driving theme of horror.

And that moment when Paul Reiser

turns that screen off, that's the most inhuman thing

you can see in the whole movie,

like, because who would do something like that?

- Help us! - Break the glass!

So then she's taking a chair...

trying to break the glass.

And then you see her processing

the environment and the horror in real time,

and making smart, informed decisions

about how to best deal with it,

as she looks around... - Stay here.

Grabs a lighter, and sticks it under the sprinkler system.

Man, Ripley was it.

It was so freakish because you'd never seen

those things moving.

The first movie, you've seen it leap

from the egg, and that's it.

So it was quite a shocker to see them walking

like this thing on the floor.

James Cameron did all these tricks.

Like, they had one that was just a puppet

that you can see rolling really fast on the floor.

Then he had the puppets that wouldn't do anything,

but with a bunch of reverse photography,

he managed to make them jump and grab the neck.

It's a beautiful scene to watch frame by frame...

to see how they changed from the puppet

to the reverse photography

for all the leaps at camera.

Because it's Newt and Ripley

versus their first threat together,

it has a level of emotion

the movie didn't necessarily need earlier

but needed to evolve into at this point of the story.

And, of course, that sets up the confrontation

with the alien queen,

where you have one mother queen versus another mother queen

who are battling wits and savvy

over the lives of their children,

adopted or biological.

Get away from her, you bitch.

Mum!

I had the dream again.

"The Babadook"...

Mummy!

Just the human part of the story

is a single mother with a horrific struggle...

Mummy! Mummy!

To try to raise a very troubled child.

Why can't you just be normal?

You don't want to say that ever to a child,

but that's what sometimes parents are thinking.

And when you understand that her husband died

the day her son was born...

- My dad's in the cemetery. - Oh, that's...

He got killed driving Mum

to the hospital to have me. - Samuel.

It makes perfect sense

that she can't celebrate this child's birthday.

She's still locked in her grief.

He is locked in her grief with her.

I can't stand being around your son.

I can't believe you just said that.

You can't stand being around him yourself.

That by itself could be enough of a horror story

just as a drama to keep you on the edge of your seat.

But then you have this creature.

So you've got this book.

It's a children's picture pop-up book

about the monster.

"A rumbling sound, then three sharp knocks.

That's when you'll know he's around."

And that's scary, because as a viewer,

it takes you back to when you were a kid

reading scary books.

And you can't get rid of the book.

The style of the way the movie is filmed

is like a children's horror book.

The sound design...

that little chittering sound this creature makes,

even before you can see it, it's scary.

Babadook.

The first time we see that creature really animate,

it's beautiful, but it's frickin' horrifying.

And the appearance,

it's kind of like that tall man

in "It Follows."

It's taller than you expect it to be.

I mean, it is kind of stylish

wearing that top hat and everything,

and it's not gonna leave them alone.

I'll make sure nothing gets in tonight.

All right, Samuel?

Nothing!

The Babadook is haunting her,

but it's also kind of this extension

of her own mania...

That she wants to protect her kid from.

Unless the film is about a deranged parent,

unless we're watching "The Stepfather,"

unless we're watching "Mommie Dearest,"

generally, the parent is reliable.

Even if they don't believe the kid,

even if they don't understand the kid...

Mum?

And when the mom

starts feeling like she could be unreliable

or there's hints and glints of something else

that could be going on...

Police say the woman used a kitchen knife

to stab her son.

Neighbors say the boy

was celebrating his birthday today.

He had just turned seven.

And we start to crawl into that weird, nuance-y

dark space where you're like,

"Who's really seeing reality right now?"

"Who's really experiencing what right now?"

Mum!

Then you realize that these two people

who love each other so much are up against something

that is both outside of themselves

and within themselves.

Come on in.

- Got ya. - Oh, shit.

"The Last House on the Left," strangely enough,

has had a recent renaissance of interest.

You guys let us the hell out of here,

or I'm gonna start screaming.

When it first came out, everyone pretty must agreed

that it was just too brutal.

We're gonna have a little fun.

Wes Craven, when he made that movie,

was a novice,

but he was really angry about the state of the world,

and this was his commentary on it.

There's a point at which

horror just becomes grotesquery,

and I think that movie came very close to that.

It's graphic rape

by the meanest, most sadistic guys

you've ever met in your life.

Piss your pants.

It's the first movie that I shut off halfway through

'cause I couldn't finish in one sitting.

It really upset when the character pees herself

because she's so scared.

That's what kind of did it for me.

I was like, "I need to take a break from this movie,

"because it's so upsetting and so distressing

in the moment."

It was a hard watch for me,

but it evoked such a strong visceral response in me

that I really appreciated that a movie can do that.

I think what makes it work

is that a lot of the movie is being told

through the young women's point of view.

So, when we get to the deaths of the two girls,

it's awful because we feel for them.

When that character is gutted,

it's really awful because she's become

a fully fleshed out person to us.

And then it's compounded on the second death,

which is even more tragic, when she just knows,

"This is it. There's no hope for me."

She goes out into the water,

and she just lets them shoot her.

She falls into the water, and it actually re-creates

this famous painting of Ophelia.

And it's such a tragic moment in the film.

"Terrified" is a small Argentinian movie,

and it's a very clever, spooky film

of an event that takes place

in a block of a neighborhood.

It actually lives up to its title.

I don't think anyone was prepared

for just how scary that movie was gonna be.

Aah!

It also has an incredibly iconic opening sequence

of the woman being thrown around her bathroom

by a ghost.

It's so much bloodier than you think it can be,

and it won't stop.

She's hitting the wall...

hitting the wall...

hitting the wall.

It hits a level of absurdity

but then goes back to really upsetting you.

"Terrified" is kind of spectacular

in how varied it freaks you out.

The really big creepy scene in it...

it's not a jump scare.

It's more of a scene that makes you just go...

In the film, we see a little boy

struck and killed by a truck.

His mother's distraught as they bury this poor child,

but a few days later,

he comes back.

And it's just absolutely terrifying,

because at first, the police are called,

so you have the captain go there.

And when you see the front of the house,

it's covered with these bloody and muddy handprints

and shoeprints on the wall, on the door.

And as he opens the door, you see these muddy footprints,

and you're thinking, "What is this?"

And then you see the little boy sitting there,

his rotting corpse sitting there

with a glass of milk and some cookies and cereal.

And he's sitting there lifeless.

His hands just completely wrecked

from what appeared to be digging out of the grave.

And the entire scene takes place

in front of this dead kid,

but it is framed with this deep Z-axis,

so we're seeing them in the foreground,

and we're looking back to this dead kid

that they keep in the frame the entire time.

It is a almost ten-minute scene,

and you spend the entire ten minutes

waiting for that dead kid to move,

just waiting.

And they get up in his face.

And then they have a spoon,

and they're seeing if he's still alive.

And then they turn to talk to each other,

and you as audience are just sitting there

waiting for the dead kid to move.

It's unnerving to the heaviest degree.

It's just so unnerving.

They decide, "Oh, well, I don't know.

"It's weird. He's dead, clearly.

We'll get somebody in here to take his body back."

So they turn out the lights,

and as soon as they turn out the lights,

they hear something.

And the milk has spilled.

And then they realize that he did move,

and he spilt his milk, but we don't get to see it.

They flip it back on,

and he's sitting in the exact same position again,

very much dead, now just with milk everywhere.

And he's posed almost.

There's a mannequin quality to him.

Even recently I showed it to some friends

who had never seen it.

And that young boy ruined their week.

I'm a messenger of God.

You're doomed if you stay here.

This place is cursed, cursed.

"Friday the 13th" is, of course,

a groundbreaking film.

It kind of changed the face of horror.

I know "Halloween" gets a lot of credit for it,

and it certainly set the blueprint,

but "Friday the 13th" kind of put it

into a new sort of landscape.

Welcome to Camp Crystal Lake.

You gonna last all summer?

I don't know if I'm gonna last all week.

Oh, shit.

But is also upped the special effects.

And Tom Savini came in,

and he did an absolutely incredible job

decimating the cast of that film.

The first one was very much a mystery.

It has horrible kills in it, but it's very much a mystery.

Who's that?

Oh, hi.

What are you doing out in this mess?

'Cause I had no idea when I was watching the movie

who was killing them.

Oh!

But the funny thing is, the first one,

the iconic killer is Mrs. Voorhees.

Jason was my son, and today is his birthday.

Which I thought was brilliant.

Aah!

The last thing you know is you've seen Mrs. Voorhees

reveal herself as the killer.

Jason's actually dead.

It never was Jason.

It was Mrs. Voorhees the whole time,

and she's psychotic.

Don't let her live.

I won't, Jason.

I won't.

And Alice, who's our final girl,

beheads her in this extremely fun way.

And then the next thing you know,

Alice is floating in a canoe on the lake.

And you're like, "Oh, I guess she got in the canoe.

She's waiting for help maybe, or she seems really"...

You're like, "I guess she's really relaxed

now that she killed the killer."

It's a nice, calm little scene.

And then...

This deformed monster of a person

jumps out of the water, and it's Jason.

That was not in the script. That was my idea.

The script ended when Adrienne King

cuts off Betsy Palmer's head.

But I had just seen "Carrie."

When you're watching the movie,

the music is swelling

like the credits are gonna roll any second.

That hand comes out of the ground...

And scares the shit out of you, you know.

I said, "We need a chair jumper

"at the end of this movie.

"Why can't Jason jump out of the water

and grab her and pull her down?"

And he said, "Well, he's dead."

I said, "Make it a dream,"

'cause for some reason, people accept anything

if you tell them it was a dream.

No! No!

- It's all right now. - Miss, it's all over.

Or was it a dream?

I don't know, right?

The boy, is he dead, too?

Ma'am, we didn't find any boy.

Then he's still there.

Like, maybe there'll be another movie.

I told the others. They didn't believe me.

You're all doomed.

And you'll find out that Jason really is alive...

Jason!

Aah!

And killing people.

"Dawn of the Dead" holds a very, very

near and dear place in my heart

because that's the movie that kind of got me

on my makeup-effects journey.

The bodies of the dead

will be delivered over to specially equipped squads

of the National Guard.

What's brilliant about what George did

in the opening 20 minutes of that movie

is he throws you into this chaos.

You know we've got this building surrounded!

There's a police SWAT team

that are trying to infiltrate this low-income housing

where the predominantly families of color

didn't want to surrender their dead

as they were supposed to according to the law.

People in this project are your responsibility.

This sounds very familiar,

but this idea of low-income families

and communities of color,

they have a lot of reason to be suspicious

about the government.

And why are they gonna listen to them?

And it speaks to just the brokenness

of our institutions.

Do you believe the dead are returning to life

and attacking the living?

I'm not so sure what to believe, Doctor.

Come on, let's go!

And then the door gets kicked open,

and then there's a big shoot-out.

So you're like, "If there are zombies attacking,

why is this happening?"

Look out!

We should be able to work together

for the greater good in the face of zombies,

but, of course, that's not the case.

It just exacerbates the issues that we already have.

Come on, you little bastards.

And then you have Wooley, who's going apeshit.

Wooley!

Hey, hey, hey!

He's just shooting people.

And then he kicks the door in,

head explodes.

Greatest head explosion ever.

Once they deal with that moment,

then you're like, "Okay, well, the threat's over.

This crazy guy is done."

And then they kick a door in...

Not that room!

And zombies come out.

And you see the first zombie bite in the neck.

I almost... blech.

I don't remember if the bite at the beginning

was in the screenplay.

But I really wanted to see a zombie

take a chunk out of somebody,

And that was the first effect we did in the film.

And it scared the crew. It scared the cast.

It was like, "Oh, is that what this is gonna be?

Is that is what this is gonna be like?"

At that point in cinematic history,

we had never seen teeth sinking into skin...

krrr, pulling a chunk of skin away... blech...

even though, if you look at it, it's all white, unpainted foam.

Sorry, Tom.

If somebody were to do that bite today,

you wouldn't just bit a clean chunk out of somebody.

There would be pieces of flesh that would stretch and snap.

And we call it "chunks of flesh."

And then it's not that that's enough.

But then the arm.

Stand clear!

It changed who I was.

Like, I felt my DNA being unwound

and then rewound into something different

at that exact moment.

The thing that I'm really sorry about...

is the way the blood looks in "Dawn of the Dead."

It looked great in the bottle,

but it photographed, like, you know, melted crayons,

like red paint... it was horrible.

I wish they would go back and correct that blood.

But from that zombie bite onward,

you're watching the movie like this.

And then the rest of the movie,

you're like...

"Please, don't do it. No more."

It's like being tortured.

This is the first 21st birthday present

I'll ever have given.

And it's the first I've ever asked for.

So "Peeping Tom" is maybe the most notorious

classic British horror film.

It's a movie about this guy who was basically abused

by his father,

who filmed everything he did and tried to traumatize him

and just scare the crap out of him

when he was trying to sleep.

So he's basically been guinea-pigged

into becoming a serial killer.

And so he winds up, as we find out,

cornering women and filming their horrified reactions

with something.

No!

Well, it's interesting.

In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock makes "Psycho,"

one of his biggest hits,

and probably becomes even more famous

as a director and a personality

than he even had been before.

Meanwhile, Michael Powell makes "Peeping Tom"

in 1960,

and it's the end of his career in a way.

Like, it got such vicious reviews.

People called it pornographic

and, you know, a crime against cinema.

And it had exactly the opposite effect of "Psycho."

At the time, people were wondering why

Michael Powell, venerated British director

of classics like "A Matter of Life and Death"

and "The Red Shoes"...

they're thinking, "Why is he making this trash?

Why does he want to show us these appalling things?"

I mean, imagine, like, if today, you know,

I don't know, I guess if, like, Spielberg

made, you know, an NC-17 sex movie.

I mean, it's just...

You would not see that coming.

The final scene of "Peeping Tom"

is one of the most twisted moments of cinema

you will ever see,

and it's something I will never forget.

The shot that I always really remember, actually,

is when Anna Massey realizes

what Mark Lewis is up to

and tries to sort of retreat out of his projection room,

and there's that amazing shot of her

kind of, like, behind the shelves,

trying to escape

before she runs into Carl Boehm again.

Aah!

Do you know what the most frightening thing

in the world is?

You get to see in that amazing moment

what the victims have seen.

And they felt the spike...

touching their throat...

and knew I was going to kill them.

So they're seeing their own face

at the point of death, and he's also recording that.

So it's pretty fiendish.

I remember thinking that that ending

was more twisted than most of the serial killer movies

we were seeing in the mid-2000s.

"Saw" is cool.

But he built a camera with a mirror with a knife

so that he could literally watch people

watching themselves die.

How fucked up is that?

It's a pretty fucked-up film.

But it's amazing, you know?

It is about cinema.

I think there's a lot of filmmakers

that, like Mark Lewis does in the film,

they're turning the mirror on the audience.

Come on, sonny, make us famous.

So, obviously, it's kind of explicitly drawing a line

between the idea of a director as voyeur

and the audience member as voyeur.

Why do we watch horror films?

'Cause we want to see things

that we shouldn't really be seeing.

It's illicit,

and there are thrills in the illicit

of something you shouldn't be watching.

And so I think that sort of, you know, continues

a grand tradition of directors who sort of like forcing you

to question why you enjoy horror movies.

That was a little too much for people to deal with

when the film came out,

'cause it's like, you're not supposed to take cinema

and kind of shove it back in people's faces like that.