Original subtitles

[Static crackles]

-Mm.

-Okay. We are going to pump it up now.

I did not put on the taco for just any occasion.

It is too sleepy around here.

-Heck yeah, it is.

-So we're going to by God do Halloween.

I'm instituting a costume mandate.

Nobody comes into this trailer park

without wardrobe, attire, livery.

We've got stuff -- if you show up without a costume,

we got plenty of choices here.

You're gonna put one.

Garments, regalia, suitable Halloween apparel.

-Ooh, a shark. -I don't care if you're

a zombie version of Mother Teresa,

that's your choice.

What you cannot do is say, "I'm not doing a costume,"

because if I can taco, you can taco.

-Yay. I'm so happy you said that because I have just not been

feeling the Halloween spirit yet.

-Well, we never feel the Halloween spirit.

We suck at Halloween.

-Aw! Don't be so hard on yourself.

We almost did okay one part of one year.

-Exactly. Yeah. All right. Well, you know.

-That's something. -We got pumpkins.

-We do. -We got costumes.

You know, we're not bobbing for apples this year

because that's just nasty, you know?

And our second movie is all about costumes.

Every member of the cast wears a costume.

It was written for some reason as a New Year's Eve movie,

but it was inspired by Halloween.

It was released at Halloween.

It's all about illusion and magic

and the deception that occurs when you mask up.

And of course, I'm talking about "Terror Train".

-Love "Terror Train."

-I know where you love "Terror Train", though.

-[Laughs] I had a huge crush on David Copperfield.

-And this is David Copperfield's the only acting role.

He's been in other movies, but he's always playing himself

in the other movies.

This is an actual acting role.

-Oh man, he's so dreamy.

[Laughter]

-Dreamy? Did you say dreamy?

-Yes, I did.

-You used a word not spoken since Sandra Dee used it

in "Gidget Goes to Rome" -- dreamy?

-It's appropriate for David.

-Well, you should definitely seek David out

because I think he's probably worth $97 billion.

He owns -- He doesn't just own an island.

He owns chains of islands in the Bahamas,

where he makes porpoises disappear and stuff.

-I know. I really want to do one of those cruises.

-Of course you do. Also, during the next break,

we're going to be talking to Jason Blum,

who's probably the number one horror producer

in the world today.

He's worth $97 billion more than David Copperfield,

and we're going to ask him some probing questions

about how he decides what gets made.

-Probing?

-Yeah, the questions have to be probing.

-You better be nice to Jason.

-You know what?

I'm sure he will like the probing questions.

He's a producer. -We'll see.

-All right.

You know, we should have called this "Serial Killer Night"

because we have two serial killer movies,

both of them came out during the slasher era.

The next one is more of a traditional slasher.

This is actually an early version

of what I call "the Jeffrey Dahmer slasher,"

where the killer dresses up in a fun costume.

You know, none of these movies pay much attention

to the real Jeffrey Dahmer story.

It's just that we all know Jeffrey dressed up like

Bozo the Clown and did clown shows.

And so screenwriters take that creep factor

and they just run with it.

The great thing about the Jeffrey Dahmer legend

is that he decided to plead guilty.

Remember that? So that there was really no trial.

The trial was really short.

And so we didn't get any specific details.

Bad for the TV movie version,

and maybe for the big screen, too,

because he was so disgusting.

You know, somebody might have attempted a feature film.

But, you know, another guy from Wisconsin.

Why is it that all these guys are from Wisconsin?

America's original cannibal monster, Ed Gein,

he was a handyman from Plainfield, Wisconsin.

They always made that distinction.

He was a handyman.

Therefore, he could use tools.

You know, he carved up the women

and dressed them like deer and wore their body parts

while he danced around in the moonlight.

Ed Gein was the inspiration for "Psycho",

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Deranged",

"Silence of the Lambs".

So just when we started to run out of

Ed Gein material, up pops this new guy,

and he's from Wisconsin!

You know, somebody checked the cheese, okay?

Actually, it was after Jeffrey Dahmer

that those articles started to pop up

about "serial killers, products of the 20th century."

And you could hear people, you know, shaking their heads,

especially really old people saying,

"What is this world coming to?

These people are out there multiplying.

They are everywhere.

They're hacking up bystanders left and right.

What is this world coming to?"

But I got an answer for the question everybody's

always asking about, why were there no serial killers

before the 20th century?

Because whenever anybody says that,

they're implying that something is wrong with "the modern mind"

or the American mental health program.

Bullshit!

These guys have always been around.

The only difference between now and 150 years ago

is that we used to catch him after the first gal-darn murder!

Now we just go bumbling around,

dum, de, dum, de, dum, de, dum, de.

Like Elmer Fudd.

You know, we're watching these guys walk

down the street saying, "Well, that's funny,

that's the 34th 18-year-old girl who's gone into that house

this month.

Must be some party they're having over there.

Or we're out mowing the yard,

we catch sight of this quiet,

mild mannered loner who lives next door, and we say,

"Hey, good job on those rose bushes."

And he says, "I shear from the bottom.

Most people shear from the top.

Do you share from the top or the bottom?"

And so what do you do?

You go back in the house and you say,

"Honey, you know that guy next door?

I think he's using his temporary spare tire."

But you don't really care, right?

You don't say something like,

"Hey, man, what you just said don't make a lick of sense.

And it's creepy the way you said it, you know?

Why are you talking about shearing from the bottom?

Shearing from the top?

I don't know from top shearing, bottom shearing

just what you're driving at, Buster."

In other words, you don't ever say anything

that's going to freak the guy out

or make him do something stupid or say something stupid

so he'll accidentally spill the beans about the old lady's body

that he stuffed like a taxidermist

and mounted over a tool rack in his basement.

You know what I mean?

I mean, if somebody says something crazy,

we go out of our way to act like he's not crazy.

You know, there aren't any more serial killers

than there ever were.

It's just that we used to say, "Hey, boy, hold on.

You're talking like you just dropped a transmission.

Come on over here, and let me take a look at those

3-inch bite marks on your forearms."

Now we just say, "I wish that guy would move

to Teaneck," you know, 'cause it's only after the 48th body

turns up in the Dumpster that somebody says,

"Uh, dear, would you call the sanitation department?

There's never enough room for our hefty bags.

You know, I think our neighbors

may be in violation of the littering code."

And then you get to be on Fox News the next day.

"He was always a little strange," you'll say.

-Well, if he was always a little strange,

why didn't you say something?

Well, he was just a garden variety murderer.

You know, besides everything else,

you let the guy go to the point where he gets the book contract.

You know, you ever notice they don't have any serial killers

in primitive places like the Amazon jungle?

That's because people are paying attention.

All right, speaking of underestimating the nerd

with a grudge, "Terror Train" is the morality lesson

about what happens when you promise sex with

Jamie Lee Curtis to a virgin freshman

and you put him in bed with a corpse instead.

Sure, we've all been there, but have we been there with him

when he returns three years later on an excursion train

run by John Wayne sidekick Ben Johnson

with a costume party in progress

and David Copperfield in a dramatic role?

I think not.

The original idea for this movie

was let's cross "Silver Streak" with "Halloween",

and that's pretty much what they did.

So actually, they crossed

"Bronze Streak" with "Halloween III",

but... -So it's amazing then.

-...we'll go into that later.

So for right now, let's take a look at those Drive-In totals

and get this locomotive pumping.

We have 11 dead bodies, 2 breasts,

sword through the gizzards, sword through the chest,

locomotive corpse mutilation, spiked to the eyeball,

mirror head bashing, creature aardvarking,

shovel to the face with death plunge,

throat slashing, the old fake hand trick,

random drunkenness,

the old disembodied finger in the box trick,

levitating magician's assistant,

head rolls, hand rolls, gratuitous skeleton,

gratuitous Groucho stand up routine,

gratuitous dope smoking, gratuitous bad card tricks,

ax fu, fire extinguisher fu,

stupid beanie fu, spiked alcohol fu.

Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Derek MacKinnon

as Kenny the Dork,

Hart Bochner as Doc, the cruel, perverse frat boy.

Ben Johnson as the train conductor

who loves recreational vehicles.

Wondering how he ended up in this movie.

David Copperfield as the illusionist

who bitches about the quality of the audience.

Jamie Lee Curtis as the final girl for wondering,

"How many more times can I do this?"

Roger Spottiswoode, the director,

for nailing his debut film.

Three and a half stars.

Joe Bob says check it out.

You know, they rented an antique train

to make this movie.

Because it would have been confusing to use the actual

Amtrak long distance trains.

Because there are already dead bodies

on those trains, you know?

Have you ever taken the train from New York to L.A.

or L.A. to New York or New York to Seattle

or Seattle to New York? -No.

You have to change in Chicago. But I have, you know.

Or that train that goes nonstop from Orlando to L.A.

and back, you know, the Sunset Limited.

People die of old age just from how long that takes, you know.

Plus the average age of the Amtrak patron

on those trains is already 94 to begin with.

So the odds are pretty good that somewhere in New Mexico,

when the Navajo lecture guide climbs aboard

to do the special presentation in the observation car,

somebody is just going to keel over

right before dinner, or keel over at dinner,

just face down in the Salisbury steak.

And nobody will notice until breakfast the next morning

because they need that seat, you know,

for the first guy wandering in asking for grits.

So I mean, I'm used to it,

but can be disconcerting for first time Amtrak travelers.

[Static crackles]

[Rock music playing]

[Chattering]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

-Happy New Year!

[Chanting] Sigma Phi Omega, hey! Sigma Phi Omega, hey!

Sigma Phi Omega, hey! Sigma Phi Omega, hey!

Sigma Phi Omega, hey!

[Cheering]

♪♪

♪♪

-Hey, there she is now.

Will you tell me what she sees in you, please?

Can you figure this one out, Ed?

I mean, now, this guy's got some luck, huh?

-[Mock German Accent] Women are strange, Doctor.

-Very strange. -Right, Ed.

Sensitive. He's probably very sensitive.

Chicks go for the sensitive fellows, you know.

-Yeah, well, I wouldn't mind going in your place.

-Yeah, you would, wouldn't you, you devil?

-You want him to fill in for you? Huh?

-Offensive.

This is true love, old man. -Touché, Jackson.

Look, Alana's nice. Confused, but nice.

Hey, there she goes.

Now, what do you say, huh?

Huh?

-You trust me? Okay.

-We're gonna take good care of you.

-Come on. -Let's go.

-Don't worry.

-What are you laughing at? Come on!

-You're gonna love it.

-Give me that. You're gonna need both your hands free.

-You're gonna be wearing that beanie all year

if you don't get laid tonight.

-Laid, sir? Me, sir?

-Okay. Bare tit. See what you can do.

Sorry. After you get laid.

-Still wearing your beanie I see, huh?

Well, happy New Year anyway, buddy.

-Hey, same to you, Doc.

[Groaning]

-[Chuckles] -Is that real?

-Is the Pope Catholic?

I don't know what you're gonna do when we get to med school.

-I'm losing my nerve. I don't even know this guy.

Mitchy! -You look adorable.

-I feel like an idiot. -You can't chicken out now.

-Why am I doing this?

-Because you're the best bait we got round here, honey.

-Come on. It'll be fun. -Fun?

[Door hinges creak]

-Oh, my God. Look at this place!

-I know.

-Who is that? -I don't know.

Some friend of Doc's. Anyway, you know what to do.

Okay? -Yeah, but I don't like it.

-Go get her, tiger. -Come on, Kenny. Go for it!

-Go on! -Mitchy.

Don't be afraid, Kenny.

-Hey, what are you doing? -Mitchy!

-Now, look, you really want her, right?

-Mm-hmm.

-Okay. Go ahead.

We'll be down here if you need us. All right?

-Alana? -Hello, Kenny.

[Hinges creaking]

[Door closes]

Don't be shy. This is my first time, too.

Kiss me, Kenny.

Kiss me.

Kiss me.

-[Groaning]

[Screaming]

[Laughing]

[Screaming]

[Train whistle blowing]

[Cheering, shouting]

-Yes, it's the opportunity of a lifetime, my boy!

[Hooting, chattering]

-One more. One more. Hold it. -Now!

-Ready? -Yes!

-There you go.

[Cheering]

-Well, you wouldn't let me buy you a graduation present,

so I got you this instead.

-I love you. -Here it comes!

[Cheering, Shouting]

[Train Whistle Blowing]

Has anybody seen my girlfriend?

She's the one with the big caboose!

-Ed. Hey, Pet.

You gonna let him get away with this?

-No way!

[Cheering, shouting]

-Hey! Now, this is what I call a party!

-Yay! -Brewskis!

-All right, I'd like to propose a toast.

-Ridiculous!

That's not toast, my good man.

-Shut up!

It's a real honor hosting with you guys.

I mean that. -Hey, same here.

-My last big college party. But it's gonna be the best!

[Cheering, shouting]

Hey! To four really great years.

-Oh, yeah! -Really.

-Yay, Jackson!

[Cheering]

-Let's get the goodies. Come on. I'll see you later on the train.

-All right, Doc.

-Come on. Get this show on the road.

-Oh, thanks. -Are you guys medical students?

-Well, pre-med. Here's your date, Ed.

-Listen, thank you very much. Would you like a joint?

-Yeah, I wouldn't mind one.

-Go ahead, help yourself. -Oh, my God.

[Laughter] -Thank you very much, boys.

You're really a lot of fun. -Hey, Doc, gimme.

-Lot of fun.

-Come on. Let's get this thing into gear.

-All right! -Let's go!

-[Chattering] -Let's go! Whoo-hoo!

-Get on the train!

-Hey, Donnelly. Take a look at this.

-[Chuckling] -My goodness gracious!

-Happy New Year! -[Laughs]

-Goodies for everybody!

Come and get 'em, people!

-Mr. Conductor! -Yeah?

-Did you say "all aboard"? That's ridiculous!

They can't be bored. I haven't even started.

-Hey, Fred, forget it.

She's not your type. Think of the children!

Come on, baby. Open your eyes.

Come on. Look at me. Just my luck. She's a lesbian.

[All groaning]

Wait a sec. I've got an idea.

Let's play charades, and my word will be "orgy."

[All groaning]

Wait, wait, wait! I think she sprung a leak.

Either that, or she's hissing me.

-Excuse me. Excuse me.

Here, let me give you a hand with that.

-Thanks a lot.

-You the slicker of this outfit? -I try to be.

-Extraordinaire! -Hey, fella!

Did you make my date disappear?

-Come on. Let's check this train out.

-No, I've gotta find Pet

before I forget what she looks like.

[Soft rock playing]

-You may have some weather, but the fella who came through

at 6:00 said the track was clear.

Try and see they don't tear it apart.

With a party like that, I'm always afraid

some kid's going to hurt himself.

-Maggie, I wish to hell they'd put a radio on that train.

What if one of those kids got drunk and fell off?

I've been talkin' on that for two years.

[Waltz plays]

Belknap always puts the kibosh on it.

[Volume increases] -He says, "We ain't Amtrak.

We're just a little old excursion train."

He oughta be here tonight.

Be like ridin' herd on a flea circus.

[Waltz continues]

[Train whistle blowing]

[Chuckles]

Are you sure you won't go with us, Maggie?

-With a bunch like that? Not on your life.

-All right. I'll see you tomorrow.

-So long. -So long.

[Cheering]

-You folks ready for the time of your life?

[Cheering]

You won't be disappointed, I promise.

-All aboard!

[Cheering]

-Hey, look at Ed!

[Laughter]

Fantastic!

-Fabulous blood! Hey, did you see Ed?

Pretty good, eh?

Way to go, Eduardo!

[Train whistle blowing]

[Whistle blowing]

-I don't know. I think the bar car's up this way.

-Anybody home?

-Hi. -Is this the sink?

-Yeah. -Looks like a bedpan.

-I think it is. -Congratulations, by the way.

-Thank you. -And lots of luck, for sure.

-Hiya, Mitchy. -Hi. How's it goin'?

My roommate's graduating early. too.

Maybe then Mitchy and I can room together.

-You're gonna stick me with that?

-What's wrong? Bunnies are cute. -Oh, thanks.

-Hey, come on.

You know I have to work before school starts.

It's gonna be real expensive.

-Shit. You'll get a scholarship. You always do.

-Well, I don't have one yet.

-Marry Mo and you won't need one.

-Have you been talkin' to him again?

-Come on. I am gonna miss you. -Yeah?

-Yeah.

-Aw, shoot. You're my only girlfriend.

You know that?

-You're my best friend. You know that?

-I am gonna miss you like crazy.

Oh! Oh, no.

I'm just an easy cry, that's all.

I can't let Doc see me like this.

Where's the girls' room on this boat anyway?

-Hey, you. -Hmm?

-We're always gonna be friends.

-Yeah?

-Yeah. -Yeah.

[Static crackles]

-So, Jason, before I introduce you,

you got to do a costume.

I hate these costumes, too.

I can't stand these costumes, but it's the Halloween show.

We have a costume mandate. Go through the costume bin.

You know. -Fair enough. Fair enough.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough.

-We got stuff here. We don't take Halloween lightly here.

-I get it. I get it.

-You're the last person -- -My people are really there.

They're falling down on the job.

-Okay.

-Okay. I'm very sorry about that.

Very sorry about that.

-Okay, the particular train that they're using in "Terror Train",

it was in an antique train museum in Connecticut,

and they rented it to the movie,

and they hauled it up the Amtrak Adirondack route to Montreal.

Because by filming in Montreal,

they got these cool Canadian tax credits.

And that's also one of the main reasons

you may have noticed that

Roger Spottiswoode is the director.

He's Canadian, even though he grew up in the U.K.

And if you use Canadians in your movie,

you got even more tax credits and rebates.

So this was 1979 when the movie was filmed,

and at the time, Roger Spottiswoode was known

as Sam Peckinpah's editor.

He was one of the few people who got along with

Sam Peckinpah, and he understood Sam Peckinpah even when he was

experiencing one of Sam Peckinpah's

alcoholic binges.

And so he edited three Peckinpah films,

"The Getaway", "Straw Dogs",

and "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid."

And that connection is also how Ben Johnson

ends up in the movie as the conductor.

Because Ben Johnson was a rodeo champion from Oklahoma

who went to Hollywood in 1940

to be a horse wrangler for Howard Hughes.

And then he stayed there working with animals on movies

until one day John Ford asked him if he wanted to act.

He was mostly known for being the sidekick

of John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart

and other Western stars until 1968,

when he won an Academy Award as Sam The Lion

and Peter Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show."

And after that, he was one of the most

in-demand character actors in Hollywood.

Spielberg used him in "Sugarland Express."

And Roger Spottiswoode was really surprised

when he accepted this role,

but Ben Johnson said he accepted the role

because he admired the way Spottiswoode

had worked with Sam Peckinpah.

So, in fact, Ben Johnson claimed he saved Sam Peckinpah's life

a dozen times in bar fights and other confrontations

that could have got him killed.

So they both had this inexplicable love

for the dysfunctional Sam Peckinpah,

and I think Peckinpah fired Spottiswoode four times.

But anyway, Spottiswoode was not really

a horror guy.

Horror films made him queasy,

and that's why there's very little gore in this movie,

because he specifically hated Gore.

But it was his chance to direct, and he took that chance.

And the way it started, though, is Dan Grodnik,

who was a fairly well-known Hollywood producer,

watched the movies "Halloween" and "Silver Streak"

on the same weekend, and he had this dream one night

that woke him up, and he turned to his wife, and he said,

"What do you think about putting 'Halloween' on a train?"

And his wife said, "That is a terrible idea."

And so he had a notepad.

He had a notepad on the nightstand,

and he jotted down the words "Terrible Train."

And so in the morning,

he changed the title to "Terror Train."

He wrote out a 22-page treatment.

And he went over to Sandy Howard's office

in the Tiffany Theater,

and he had a movie deal by 3:00 that afternoon.

So with that story,

I want to introduce our very special guest,

Jason Blum, founder and CEO of Blumhouse Productions.

[Cheers and applause]

Which is, you know, I was going to say you're

the Roger Corman of your generation.

But, Jason, you're more like the Darryl Zanuck.

-Wow, I appreciate that. -Of horror.

In that you're all about matching stories

with the right directors at all different budget levels.

But you tell me, have you ever had an experience

like the story I just told about "Terror Train"

where Dan Grodnik comes up with the idea at

9:00 a.m. and you make a deal by 3:00 in the afternoon.

Have you ever done that?

-I wish I could say I have. I haven't.

But I will tell you that, you don't know this,

but my first boss in Hollywood was Roger Spottiswoode.

-Oh, really? -Yes.

Of "Turner and Hooch" fame.

Although I worked for Roger Spottiswoode

when he was doing "Air America",

and I was a P.A. on "Air America" in 1987,

and I actually worked for a guy named John Gaffney,

who was the associate producer of "Air America."

And my favorite story of "Air America"

was either Mel Gibson or Robert Downey

had asked for gym equipment to be delivered to Thailand.

And I remember Roger Spottiswoode

running around the office the little production office

we had on Sunset Boulevard saying,

"It's like delivering sand to Hawaii."

-[Laughs] -And that was that was my memory

of Roger Spottiswoode.

-Okay. Well, you know,

a lot of these horror guys in the '70s and '80s,

they seemed kind of seat of your pants kind of guys

in the way they make decisions.

Sandy Howard, Roger Corman, those guys.

I mean, they would say, "That sounds great.

We'll figure out the details later."

Now, is there any version of that wild

and wooly indie film world that still exists today?

-Well, I think there is. I'm going to take this off

because it's hurting my lip.

I think there is.

I think that low budgets

take a lot of pressure off of filmmakers,

and they can have more fun

because there's not this weight of all this money

they have to make back.

And so it's a different spirit.

But I still think there's a sense of experimentation,

which we do on our movies, which I think is unusual

for Hollywood.

Usually because the budgets are so high,

people are scared to take risks.

And if you just are spending a little bit of money,

you can take risks on all different things.

You can kill the lead character at the end of the first act.

You can cast people who aren't such big stars.

And you can do things that you can't do

when you're spending a lot of money on a movie.

-Okay. Did you ever meet Sandy Howard?

-Never met Sandy Howard, no.

-Okay. Probably 90% of our audience

already knows you, Jason, and knows your work.

But for the uninitiated, you're a New Yorker.

You were part of that pretty exciting indie film world

of the '90s.

-I was. I was. I was.

-That was that had very little to do with horror.

The '90s was sort of not a horror decade.

-No, it wasn't good for horror.

-But you you worked with Ethan Hawke a lot,

and you you worked with his theater company in

New York City, and you worked with Arrow Films.

-Arrow Films, my first employer.

No, my first employer was a real estate --

Well, my first employer was Prime Cable.

I sold cable TV door to door in Chicago.

And I graduated from cable TV to real estate.

So I got my real estate -- I moved back to New York.

I got my real estate license in the Bronx.

And I worked for a company called Cronin Real Estate.

That was my first job in New York.

I rented people apartments around...

-You rented apartments? -Yes, I did.

-Okay. How much was an apartment in the Bronx in the early '90s?

-Well, no, that was where I got my license.

I rented people downtown. It was, a one bedroom --

a studio, one bedroom was $1,000,

two bedroom was $2,000, and a three bedroom was $3,000.

-Oh, my God. -That was the range.

-Our entire crew is fainting. They're fainting.

-That was in Manhattan. That was in Manhattan.

It was amazing.

-All right. Arrow Films we know around here

as one of the last companies that does physical media,

and they go and they sort of resuscitate old lost films.

But when you worked for them -- -That was a different era.

-No. Yeah. When you worked for them,

they were big.

They would go to the Cannes film market

and buy a bunch of stuff, right?

-Well, yeah, I mean, you're making it sound very romantic.

We did go to Cannes, but we would buy

what everyone else didn't buy.

So it was -- we did about 20 movies a year.

It was run -- Arrow was run by a man named Dennis Friedland,

who was one of my mentors, early mentors.

Kind of taught me the movie business.

And he had started Cannon Films. Remember Cannon?

-Oh, yeah. Cannon Films.

-He sold it to Menahem.

He worked on Wall Street during the '80s,

and then he missed the movie business.

So in the late '80s, he started Arrow.

And the first movie I ever produced

was a movie called "Kicking and Screaming."

Written by Noah Baumbach.

Noah Baumbach was my roommate at college.

And I pitched this movie, "Kicking and Screaming",

to Dennis, and I pitched to him all summer long.

And at the end of the summer, he said,

"I have good news and bad news."

He said, "The bad news is

I'm not going to make 'Kicking and Screaming.'

But the good news is you seem to be a good salesman,

and I'm going to offer you a job."

And funnily enough, Dennis also had one foot

in real estate and one foot in movies.

So down this hall was a commercial real estate company

that he ran, and down this hall was the movie company.

And so we had a kindred spirit of real estate and movies,

and I accepted, took the job.

-Jason, be honest, be honest with me.

If you'd made a million dollars the first year in real estate,

would you never have made a film?

-I never would have made -- I would have been --

I would have been the good version of Jared Kushner.

-[Laughter] -Okay, so we're lucky that

your real estate career didn't go --

-Happily, it didn't pan out. Yes, exactly.

-There was a whole raft of films during this era

when you were doing you know,

Arrow Films and the theater company with Ethan Hawke.

There was a whole raft of films about 20-somethings

living together in groups and talking a lot.

-"Kicking and Screaming." -You know, the '90s

was the beginning of what would later be called mumblecore.

-Oh, God.

-And you were part of that world.

You were making those movies.

-I apologize for that. I was.

We thought we thought we were so important

that we thought everyone wanted to hear what we had to say.

But it's kind of embarrassing now that I was.

And it's funny.

I didn't really get into horror until "Paranormal Activity",

till I was 35 years old.

But I always say that when I discovered horror,

like, I finally, I knew I wanted to be in the movie business,

but I never was comfortable.

I was, should I be a producer, should I be an executive?

Should I do this, should I do that?

When I found horror, I finally found my home,

and I never left.

Mostly because it's fun and people in horror, like,

we don't take ourselves so seriously

and we have a good time, and people making those movies

take themselves way too seriously.

-So when was a switch go off in your brain

and you said, horror is the answer?

-Well, it went off because obviously

I thought "Paranormal Activity" was a great movie,

and it was a big success.

But then it wasn't necessarily that.

Then it was -- like it happened, like I said, when I was 35,

and I'd seen a lot of people have success early on

in their life and make a big mistake,

which is you get a 25-year-old director,

they do a comedy, it's a big hit,

and then they want to do a drama or an action movie.

And 9 times out of 10, that's a big mistake.

So I was old enough that when I had a success,

I was like, "Okay, I made this low budget horror movie,

'Paranormal Activity.'

I'm going to do more movies like that."

So I started looking for other horror movies.

And that's when I really met the horror community,

the community of writers and directors.

And there really is, as you know, a community of people,

and we all love these movies.

That doesn't exist.

There's not a community of like romantic comedy filmmakers.

Like, it doesn't exist, you know?

-That's true. -And I really --

So the more I did it, the more I fell in love with it.

-Well, you came into horror at about the time

that it was becoming respectable because, you know,

there was a whole -- -I made it respectable.

-You did make it respectable! -That's right!

-There was a long period where

you would do your first movie as a horror film.

-Yeah, and then you graduated to other things.

But I'm never going to leave horror.

You know, as people say,

I'll never stop doing horror movies.

But sorry. I interrupted.

-Well, in fact, you and Oren Peli made --

how many "Paranormal Activity"s have you made?

-Seven. -You've made seven?

-We've made seven. -Has seven come out yet?

-No, it hasn't yet, but it's finished, it's completed.

-You finished seven.

Plus you did the "Insidious" series.

-We did four -- yeah, five of those.

-Okay.

-Five "Purge"s.

-And five "Purge"s. Okay.

And so you tend to stick with the same guys.

Once you discover guys who love horror, you stick with them.

-Yeah, I like that at the company.

We have a good -- if we find a director

that we like to work with, we stick with them.

And same thing with actors.

We've work with actors a bunch of times.

I think it's the best PR a movie company

can have or a television company can have is if you work

with people again and again.

If you work with artists again and again,

it shows that they at least kind of like what you're doing

or you treat them fairly and you pay them.

So we try and do all those things.

-All right, well, we're going to talk about "Halloween Kills",

which comes out next week, and I'm going to bring you

some questions from your fans a little later.

But right now, we're going to go back to "Terror Train".

-Oh, boy. -Which was, Jamie Lee Curtis,

I think this was her fourth "final girl" film

at this point in her career.

She had already made "Halloween" and "Prom Night" and "The Fog",

and then half of her films in that period

were these Canadian tax shelter things.

She was up in Canada a lot. Okay, roll the film.

Do people still go up to Canada to get the rebate money?

-They do. They do. -Do you go up there?

-Yeah, we shoot a lot of movies up there?

-Okay.

-You know what was scary for filmmakers, though?

Back in 2008, a Canadian dollar was worth a dollar!

[Laughter]

-That was terrible. -And the film industry was,

"What?! Why are you Canucks ripping us off?"

[Laughter]

[Static crackles]

[Rock music playing]

-Hi, Pres. -Hey, Pet. How you doin'?

-Have you guys seen Eddie around?

-Ed?

Check the car back there. It's open.

-Okay. -Mm-hmm.

-She still runnin' hot on you? -Nope.

Cooled down the grade.

She's really beautiful, that old engine.

They don't make 'em like that anymore.

-Thank God for little favors.

You're gonna see a train on the cover of Timemagazine

one of these days, and I'm gonna be in that cab in the picture.

-And I'll be up in the concorde, and you'll be on welfare.

You're diggin' your own grave with that shovel career-wise.

-What's the price of gas right now?

Pretty soon, the only way you'll get that beer can someplace

is you load it on a flat car.

Guess who'll be driving the train?

-You can cook, you can take a shower, you can watch TV,

and, by God, you can hang a left if you feel like it.

That poor, deluded boy.

[Rock music playing]

♪ You can spot him in the crowd, he's always talkin' loud ♪

♪ And you never know what he's sayin' ♪

♪ He's the one with the power, the man of the hour ♪

♪ And everyone's callin' his name ♪

-It's a rotten crowd. Listen to 'em.

-Well, it beats a 6-year-old's birthday party.

-I have to have it quiet when I do my illusions.

-You know, it pays better, too.

Hey, I thought you said you'd played frat parties before.

-They're not gonna watch. -Oh, they'll watch.

Go out and do some close-up magic.

Warm 'em up.

-I'm not ready.

-Okay, here we go! Stimulation for the nation.

-Yahoo!

-Hey, host lounge for seniors only!

-Get out! -What do you think this is?

Come on. Seniors only.

We are gonna be remembered forever for this one.

-Happy Hog Night, children. -Hog Night?

-Hog Night! That's right.

-That's what they used to call it.

Big bonfire, and all the pledges had to get laid.

-It's true. They had to abolish it.

Something happened one year,

and they had to kick a whole bunch of guys out of school.

-Well, almost kicked out.

-Christ, did we do that?

-You're the guys? -Oh, no, it wasn't us.

It must've been somebody else.

-Look, it was supposed to be a simple joke,

and it sort of got out of control one year.

Just forget about it.

-You want to know what really happened?

-Yeah! -Doc, will you please drop it?

-We were freshmen. Alright. It's Christmas vacation.

And I got a job at the medical center, practically a janitor.

So I go into this lab one night.

It's unlocked, and there's this lady there,

poor soul, who'd just fallen apart.

-Yeah, literally.

-Now, I promised these dorks I was gonna come up

with something truly special.

-Yeah, really special.

Put a kid in the hospital.

Oh, I'm sorry. Did I ruin your punch line?

-You tell them. You were there, remember?

-Hey, Alana.

[Squeaks]

-Sucks to you.

Hey, come on. It's New Year's! Let's be happy!

Why don't you let these poor children go?

-Okay, children, run along. Another time.

Leave the women here. Thank you very much.

-Thanks for the booze, sir. -Yeah, thanks.

-Booze?

Well, that was actually nice of you.

Now, what are we gonna drink? -What are we gonna drink?

♪ What are we gonna drink? ♪

-♪ What are we gonna drink? ♪

-♪ What are we gonna drink? ♪ -Champagne!

[Laughing, chattering]

-Absolutely there's a future in it.

People got to come back to rail.

-I'll bet you read a lot of science fiction.

-Hey, Shovels, you know what we call him?

Winnebago. -[Laughs]

-How is the R.V. business these days?

-How the hell do you think it is?

I wouldn't be here if I wasn't up to my hind end in inventory.

But I'll move 'em sooner or later.

Should've got out 10 years ago, not 5.

Now, think on this.

When's the last time somebody built a shopping mall

next to a train station?

Think about that.

-[Humming]

-[Gasps] Jesus!

Oh. It's you.

You about scared the pants right off me.

You are bad, Eduardo.

What's this? Oh, that thing.

Not only is that gross, but I know who gave it to you.

Mm-hmm. Somebody else is looking for you.

Mm-hmm.

[Chuckles] You want to know who she is?

Uh-huh.

-Well...

...a cute little thing.

Now, tell me, what's her name? Pet. That's it.

Are you stoned?

Surprise!

[Woman Squeals]

-[Laughs] -Get lost!

-[Gasps] Ow! That hurts!

-How you doin', Eduardo?

-[Sighs] Jesus.

-Hey, Ed, that number at the station...

[Laughing]

With the sword?

Better than Doc could have done.

Super fantastic, man. [Laughing]

Hey, Ed, want a drink?

Shh!

I've got the good stuff, Ed.

Hey, where do they keep the glasses?

Ah, here they are. Now we're talkin'. Whoops!

Easy, Jackson.

Here we go, Eduardo. How's this?

Hey, hey, hey! Take it easy, man.

What are you doin'?

Oh, my God!

No! No, no!

[Whistle blowing]

-Very classy.

-You like this, huh?

-You know, I've always wanted my own toy train,

but this is ridiculous.

You know, you're very imaginative, buster.

-I have my moments.

-I know.

Hey, Mitch, I may have to marry him after all.

-Marry me. -[Chuckles]

-It was my idea.

-Aw, Doc.

-I cannot tell a lie. I'm sorry, buddy.

It got stuck in my throat.

-I thought you said it was your idea.

-Look, I know I suggested letting her think otherwise.

-That's real generous of you. -Thank you.

-So you're the one who's paying for all this.

-Oh, no. Mo's the one with the bread.

I've got all the ideas.

For instance, guess what I put in the stuff I gave those dorks?

-You asshole!

You can't have a good time

without hurting somebody, can you?

Is that why you told me it was your idea?

'Cause I said I'd never go to

another one of his fucking parties?

-Alana, you're always walking out on my parties.

But this time, you can't.

[Squawks] I'll get you for this one, Doc.

-I mean it this time.

Now, look. This was a good idea, right?

Right? -Yeah.

-So what the hell does it matter who --

-It matters a lot!

-I'm sorry.

-I know.

I just can't wait for the other surprises he's got planned.

Whoopee cushions, exploding cigars.

[Sniffing] Oh, Jesus.

-What?

-Somebody broke a bottle in there already.

I told you it was gonna be

another one of these stupid parties.

-Aw, come on! Give it a chance, will ya?

[Static crackles]

-Okay, so everybody was making slashers or trying

to make slashers at the time of "Terror Train",

and each slasher had a little different twist.

The twist in this case is that the killer assumes

the costume of whoever he kills so that you never see his face

and so that the party goers never suspect

that he's among them.

Even more surprising than Ben Johnson being in this movie

is the cinematographer, John Alcott.

He was very, very famous.

He was Stanley Kubrick's camera guy,

and he was generally given credit for shooting

the most beautiful film ever made, "Barry Lyndon", in 1975.

But he was a legendary guy

because he never used a light meter.

He would look at the back of his hand to judge the light,

and he was a big believer in natural light.

Even at night, he specifically used a camera

that could supposedly film one candle power,

which was the darkest image you can put on film.

So a great guy for horror.

Anyway, Alcott was a London Eastender

who worked his way up in the camera department

at Gainsborough Studios, where his father was an executive,

started as a clapper boy.

And then when Kubrick was shooting

"2001: A Space Odyssey", his director of photography

had to leave half way through the shoot

because the shoot took two years,

and so Alcott was promoted straight from focus puller

to head cinematographer.

And then Kubrick used him again

for "A Clockwork Orange" and "Barry Lyndon"

and the film this audience will know best, "The Shining."

Now, why was he working on "Terror Train"?

Because he wanted to move to the U.S.,

so he would take any American job,

and he also shot "My Bloody Valentine",

"Fort Apache the Bronx", "The Beastmaster", "Vice Squad",

which we mentioned earlier,

and another Roger Spottiswoode film,

the one that was really his breakthrough film,

"Under Fire" with Nick Nolte and Gene Hackman.

And he was just starting to get prestige assignments

in America when he died suddenly of a heart attack

at the age of just 55.

So, Jason, now, you're an expert

at getting A-list people, like John Alcott

and like David Gordon Green, to work in your movies.

-And Jamie Lee Curtis.

-And Jamie Lee Curtis. For low wages.

-That's right. -What is the secret to that?

-Our magic sauce is we actually pay them

when they're owed money for back end.

You know, it's a crazy idea.

-You mean they have a percentage of a movie.

-Well, yeah, but that's common in Hollywood.

A lot of people get a percentage,

but rarely do people pay it.

So we do this wild thing where we make an agreement

and we actually stick to the agreement.

And I actually came up with this a long time ago.

When I first started producing movies,

the reason that so few people get paid

is because you have a piece of the profits,

and the definitions of a movie's profits,

in 2000, and it was 10 pages.

Now it's 150 pages of contract,

which basically make the profits down to no matter

how much the movie makes, there are no profits.

So I did this thing at the very beginning of the company,

right after "Paranormal Activity",

the next movie we made was "Insidious."

And I said to the lawyers, who were very upset by this,

because if the contracts aren't long,

as you know, they don't get paid.

So I said, "We're going to take out

the 25-page profit definition.

We're going to do something very simple.

If the movie hits $50 million,

the person gets $50,000 or $100,000 or whatever it is."

If it's $55,000, they get another $50,000.

If it's $60,000, they get another $50,000.

Or whatever it is, so that when they open Variety,

they, in the old days when they opened it,

they would see if the movie, what it would gross,

and they would know they would get a check.

And what I used to do and I still do,

I haven't done since COVID, but what I still do,

because we haven't had a movie released.

The minute the movie hit that box office level,

I'd take a check for 50 grand,

I'd film myself outside of FedEx.

I'd film myself going to the FedEx,

putting the check in the mail, which I did.

And then I would e-mail the film, the little video of me

to the actor or the director or the writer or the producer

and say, "This is coming tomorrow,"

and they'd get their check.

And guess what?

People work with you again when you pay them!

It's amazing!

-Oh, wow. [Cheering]

-See, I would love that.

You know, I have a whole career

of working with nightclub managers.

And so, you know, if I ever had a nightclub manager

who like went to the FedEx and took a picture

of himself mailing a check, I would just have a heart attack.

[Laughter]

-I have a theory that if -- it's not really a theory --

but it's like people complaining about

paying third party participants in your movies

or paying a lot of taxes.

If you're doing either one of those things,

that means things are probably going very well for you.

So I feel like if I'm paying other people,

we're all winning together, so I don't begrudge it.

-Well, you know, there have been many famous lawsuits

involving the big studios,

you know, Paramount, Universal, all those studios,

because they put studio overhead in the deal.

And so, as you say, there's never any profits.

Do you think we're entering a period

where the big studios don't matter so much anymore?

You don't necessarily need them?

-No, we're entering the opposite period.

They're just not the big studios anymore.

They're big tech companies.

But Apple, Amazon, Netflix. -Okay.

They matter more -- they're, unfortunately,

even more powerful, much, much, much more powerful

than the studios even used to be.

-So we have a different array of overlords.

-A different array of overlords, and they're much more --

the profit sharing has become much cloudier

as opposed to the other way around.

-Really? -Yes, because you're not paid

anymore by -- they don't even pretend to give you a piece

of the profit anymore.

They just say, "Here's your big check.

You're working for this much upfront,"

which, granted, is oftentimes very generous, but that's it.

If 10 billion people see your show

or one person sees your show, that's all we're giving you.

They don't even -- there's no contract definition.

There's no profit definition anymore because it's gone.

When you work for a streamer, you get paid up front,

and that's all you get.

-Okay, well, I mean, you're talking about Netflix,

Amazon, all these companies.

These are guys from Silicon Valley.

They're from Northern California.

-Yes. -They came down to

Southern California.

-Like they did every other business.

-And they -- -They ruined it.

-They sort of invaded old Hollywood,

and they took over the distribution system.

-Just like taxis.

-So let me ask you, these guys who came from

San Jose or wherever they live. -Yeah, wherever they live.

-Do they love movies? Do they care about movies?

-No. -You've met all these guys.

-No, no, movies are widgets to them?

No, they don't. -Really?

-So it's just the same as selling groceries?

-But it's the exactly the same thing as selling groceries

or selling toys.

It's the same thing.

They're widgets, but they do...

they have come to appreciate people who do love movies.

So when they first came to Hollywood,

they just said, like they did in every other industry,

the truth -- "We do this better than everybody else.

We don't need anyone else.

We're going to take -- we're going to do this."

That didn't work that well in Hollywood.

So then what they did is they hired people

from Southern California to go work for them.

They hired Hollywood insiders to work for them.

And that worked a lot better.

-But don't a lot of those Hollywood insiders

work for him for four years and get vested in

their profits and then quit?

-Well, some do, but there are a lot still in there.

Just there's a lot still working for those guys.

-All right, now, you call yourself, Jason,

a micro-budget guy.

You use that term in your bio.

Now, what do you call micro-budget?

Because we have a thing called Mutant Fest in the summer.

We had two excellent films this year that were both made for

under $50,000.

-That's a whole other something else.

-Something tells me, that's not what you mean

by micro-budget, even though you have the original

micro-budget horror film.

-That's $15,000.

-Which was $15,000. -Yeah.

-So what do you mean by micro-budget.

-Micro-budget to me is if you take a stand --

I get we are coming from.

But how we look at it

is if you look at the Cineplex on your corner or in your mall,

the average price of a studio movie release

there is $70 million.

-Okay. -And for me,

anything under $10 million compared to that

in a movie theater is much less,

so that, to me, is micro-budget.

But maybe we should move to the term

"low budget", "small budget."

-Well, I don't know. We like the term micro-budget.

-Okay, good. All right.

But "Halloween Kills", now, that's --

-No, that's more expensive. -That's not micro-budget.

-For sequels, you go up, right?

-Exactly. If we have a piece of --

If we have a title that's working,

all the "Purge" sequels,

all the "Paranormal Activity" sequels,

all the "Insidious" sequels, those are much more expensive.

If we have a piece of known IP, known intellectual property,

that already exists, those are more expensive.

But our originals...

-All right. What about "Get Out"?

That's a very successful original.

-4.5.

-Okay, so under -- -That was micro.

-That was under five. -So under 5 million

is your micro-budget?

-Yeah, exactly.

So, Jason,

you've become the go-to guy for indie projects,

especially in horror.

What does it take to get your attention?

What does a filmmaker need to do?

We have many filmmakers who watch the show.

-Watching this show. -Yeah.

What does a filmmaker need to do to get your attention,

get a meeting with you? -All they got to do

is make a great movie.

-One great movie. -One great movie.

Make it 5 grand. -So you don't want to make

their first movie?

Rather not make their first movie, no.

If I see it and love it, I'll distribute it.

I'll help it get distributed,

and then I'll make their second movie.

-Well, you should come to Mutant Fest

because that's where the first movies are.

-Well, clearly I should. Clearly I should.

-Would you make any genre of movie?

Or you seem to be sticking to horror pretty religiously.

-Well, our TV business is 50% of our business.

And TV, we make only about 20% horror, 80% other genres.

Our movie companies is the reverse.

Movies 80% or 90% horror, 10%, 20% other.

So we occasionally stray from horror,

"BlacKkKlansman", "Whiplash",

but I don't like to stray too far or too often from horror.

And I also think that even the projects

that we make that aren't horror movies,

they have dark themes in them.

You know, obviously,

"BlacKkKlansman", obviously "Whiplash",

there's a darkness in those movies,

even though they're not horror movies.

-Okay. All right. Well, I want to bring back

David Gordon Green at the next break

and get you guys talking about your creative process.

But right now, we're going to go back

to the best tax credit movie in Montreal for the year 1980.

You know what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about "Terror Train",

and I hope everybody enjoyed the extended scenes

of Ben Johnson discussing the future of train travel

with the engineer and his assistant.

Ben Johnson, what's surprising about that is Ben Johnson

does not like extra words in a script.

Ben Johnson's philosophy was, John Ford didn't need words

and most of the words in movies are unnecessary.

Which actually Ben Johnson never took an acting class.

But most acting teachers would actually agree with him.

So having him hold forth at great length

on the virtues of recreational vehicles

or whatever he was talking about

probably did not sit well with Ben.

Because he was a genuine cowboy from what is now a ghost town

Foraker, Oklahoma.

But Ben actually left Hollywood at one point in his career

because he wanted to go back to his rodeo career.

This was 1953.

And he became the world steer roping champion that year.

But by 1954, he was back in Hollywood,

asking John Ford if he had any work for him,

because he discovered that steer roping champions

don't make as much money as character actors,

which would be something you do have to discover for yourself

if you grow up in Foraker, Oklahoma.

[Laughter]

[Static crackles]

-Hey, Carne, what about those smart alecks in the back?

Shouldn't we take a look-see?

-Nah. I'd be a wet blanket if I walked through there now.

They can cool down by themselves.

-[Chattering] -Good evening.

-Admit it. You're impressed.

-Okay, I'm impressed. -[Chuckles] Mwah.

-Mo. -Good evening, ladies.

Welcome aboard.

-Hello. -How are you?

So where are the guys?

-Weren't they with you? -No, I didn't see 'em.

Jackson was there for a while, but he must have --

-[Scattered Applause] -Look, he's doing magic.

-A magician. -What a great idea. Come on.

-I want to get some peanuts. -Thank you.

-There's a ton of peanuts. -They're not hot.

-"They're not hot." Excuse me?

Uh, could I borrow that coin you have there?

Yeah.

Watch this.

If I take your cigarette and hold it up to your quarter,

it'll seem to be sticking to it,

just like that.

And if we keep turning it, it'll look like

the cigarette's penetrating the quarter, just like that.

Could you, um, take this lighter here and, uh, light it up?

-It'll give you cancer. -It's for effect. It's okay.

-Okay.

-[Mock German accent] You may have relatives

in ze old country.

-[Giggles]

-[Normal voice] This is the best part of all.

If we take the cigarette and start to remove it,

the quarter will seem to, um, seal itself up.

-Whoo! -That's great!

That's great. That's fantastic.

-Thank you. Have you ever seen a quarter

that, um, allows a cigarette to go through it?

-No. -Well, there's no such thing.

[Applause]

-Now what about my peanuts?

-I've got that taken care of.

Come over here.

-[People gasping]

-Smart aleck!

-Uh, pick a card. Any card. It don't matter.

Come on now. I-I gotta go. Show's about to start.

-Uh-huh. You gonna be part of it, Carne?

-Ain't you gonna pick one?

Free Will Baptist. We never touch 'em.

-[Chuckles] I use 'em all the time in my work.

Helps break the ice for my customers.

-This always happens to me. Always.

-Aw, come on, Pet.

You're always looking for that kind of guy, right?

I mean, what you have to say is, "Fuck 'em."

Listen, if Jackson shows up, tell him I went home.

-Me too. Ed was on the platform. I bet the shit missed the train.

-Hey, remember me?

[Sighs] Alana, come on.

I said I was sorry, and I meant it.

It was stupid to let you think it was my --

-It's not that.

-[Chuckles] Well, would you mind telling me why you're so upset?

-You let him set you up again. Mo, you're worth 10 of him.

Just because you belong to the same stupid fraternity --

-Hey, hey, I happen to like this fraternity, okay?

You don't get it.

You have no idea what I'm trying to tell you.

-Oh, yes, I do.

I understand, Alana.

You have just never forgiven him for setting you up with Kenny

in the frat house.

You've always gotta be Little Miss Perfect.

Just because he gets you in trouble --

-Look, I'm not gonna listen to you cover for him all night,

all right? -Alana, please!

I know Doc can be a jerk sometimes.

I'm not stupid.

Doc's my friend. -You don't need an enemy then.

-Very funny. Did you think of that one all by yourself?

-Excuse me.

-[Groans] -You pulled what?

-I didn't know there was a muscle there.

-Oh, excuse me, sir. -Okay.

-Uh, just a minute there. -Yeah?

-Got a little trick I'd like to show you.

-Oh, great. -Okay.

-Now, think on a card.

Oh, now, don't tell me.

-You got it?

-You got to concentrate on the deck.

-Okay. -Because it's the power

of the thought that makes it rise to the top.

-[Laughs] -Let me show you how to do that.

Five.

Four.

Three. There it is. [Chuckling]

Now, what was your card?

-[Laughs] Jack of hearts.

-Not only has it risen to the top of the deck,

but now, it has become the jack of spades.

-[Laughs] Nice one, sir.

-[Laughs]

Just a gag. But kinda clever, wasn't it?

-I'm gonna wet my pants if I don't stop laughing.

Emergency! -Emergency room, right here.

Locked. -Oh!

-There's another one down at the end of the car here.

-Thanks. We'll just sit this one out.

-I can't wait.

-Now, you tell the good doctor just what's troubling you.

Come here.

[Disco music playing]

[Applause]

[Song ends]

[Cheers and applause]

[Jazz music playing]

-My, that was pretty.

Very well done.

-You know how he does it?

-Yeah. -How?

-We're sworn to secrecy.

-Hey!

Where is everybody?

-Watching the magician.

-Where the hell are Jackson and Ed?

-I don't know.

-Hey, wait a minute. We didn't hire a magician.

-Well, maybe somebody else

had a good idea for a change, hmm?

-I want to see what he does.

-Mwah! Isn't she adorable?

-[Laughs]

-Is she still mad?

-Yeah, she's still mad.

-She'll get over it.

-You know, Doc,

I'm not so sure this time.

-Well, if she dumps you, you've always got me, you know.

-[Chuckles]

-I mean it.

[Applause]

[Applause]

Whoo!

-Let's get out of here.

Excuse me.

Watch your toes, Mitchy.

-Uh, what's with the snit sisters?

-Wait a minute. Excuse me.

One of my girlfriends thinks her boyfriend was left back

at the platform before we left.

-Oh, I don't think so. Not if he came with you all.

The platform was clear.

You know, they might've --

they might've switched disguises.

You know, it'd be hard to tell.

-You talking about Ed? -Yeah.

-He's here. I saw him.

He's in the Groucho costume.

-He's here? -Yeah.

-I'm sorry. False alarm. -It's all right.

-[Humming] -Hey, guys.

You should've seen that magician. He was fantastic.

Poof! Just like that, the woman was gone.

-Think he knows how to make one come?

-I hate magic. It's just tricks. -Come on. You love tricks.

-I love jokes.

-You're just pissed off 'cause you can't figure it out.

-These girls look faint.

Can we do anything to revive them?

-I don't know. Maybe some kind of injection?

-You girls better come back to the consulting room with us.

We may have to do an exploratory.

-Yeah. You sure you guys have had any experience?

-Experience? Us?

Oh, come on. Tell 'em, Doc. We got experience.

-Mo and I worked in an emergency gynecological ward last summer.

-Really? -Yeah, that's right.

Doc won an award.

-Best Pap smear in a supporting role. Come on.

-[Groans]

-♪ Now, baby, you're wrong ♪

♪ It's on my mind ♪

♪ Well, there ain't no need to push and shove ♪

♪ I just want your funky love ♪

-Let's go get some champagne.

-Uh, I want to stay here. Okay?

-Enjoy yourselves. -Thank you.

-Let's dance. -What about the men?

-The men can obviously take care of themselves.

♪ And only you can feel it ♪

♪ You know, it's up to you ♪

♪ Baby, say you will ♪

♪ 'Cause you're the one I'm thinkin' of ♪

♪ I just want your funky love ♪

♪ Funky love, I just want your funky love ♪

-I feel sick.

-This little lady cannot hold her liquor.

-No, but there's something else I can hold.

-Anyway, when in doubt, cut it out, right?

-Or cut it off. -Hey, hey, come on.

-Not in there. -Not again!

-So, anyway, we look in the jar,

and there's the tattoo around the nipple.

-Oh, stop!

-Uh-oh. This one looks serious, Doc.

-I agree. Get her in here. Aw, shit, it's still locked.

-Uh-oh. Look who's here. -Oh, hi. Hi.

Medical problem. You think it's serious?

-Smells like an alcohol problem to me.

[Laughter]

-We know you can handle it, Captain. [Squawks]

-Come on. Get out of here.

-Anybody in there?

Speak up if you're in there.

Otherwise, I'm gonna use the pass key.

All right, I'm coming in.

My God.

[Slow ballad playing]

-If you want to talk, we can go back to my compartment.

It's quiet there.

-Probably very private, too,

with red lights and satin sheets.

Mood music.

-Yeah, I had the pledges install a hot tub.

-It's very nice. -Mmm!

-Seriously. If you want to talk, I'm around, okay?

-You really have a hot tub? -Oh, geez.

-♪ Will we win ♪

♪ Will we lose ♪

-You all right?

-You got somethin' to put in this?

-Are you sick?

-There's a boy dead back there. He's in the sleeper toilet.

He must have -- I don't know what happened.

I-I just don't know.

-No doubt in your mind?

-Oh, he's dead, all right.

I never saw anybody so dead as that.

I got to sit down, Charlie, for a minute.

Will you watch that car while I call Walter?

-Of course.

-Uh, nobody knows, so...

...don't say nothin'.

-Sure.

[Rock music playing]

-Hi, guys.

Hey, where have you been all my life?

Just this once.

[Laughing]

-Well, I can say we crossed the line.

Oh, we can back into town, sure we can.

But that'll green that switch and that freight,

and we'll be backing up a hell of a lot slower

than he'll be coming towards us.

-I guess the closest way out is straight ahead.

-Is all hell breaking loose back there or what?

-Just an accident.

-Let's put on a little speed.

-Can you believe that guy?

Yeah, but do you know what he asked me to do? Oh, hi.

Could I get in there? -I'm sorry. It's out of order.

Would you try the other side, please? Thank you very much.

[Chattering]

-Did you look? -No, sir.

-Sorry to put this on you, Charlie.

-What?

-What the hell? There was blood there before.

I could've sworn it.

Something's happened.

Some kind of practical joke.

Dead drunk. That's what he is.

-Whoops-a-daisy!

-Damn kids.

-All right, up. Come on. Up we go.

-Whoops! Bad choo-choo.

[Humming]

Oh, wow. D-Jack!

Do you know how gross that looks when you're stoned?

Were you in here all this time?

Were you sick? He gets, you know, sick.

-I guess so.

-Well, look, folks, he's a-walkin' and a-talkin'.

Weighs a ton. At least that's what his girlfriend says.

I mean, you know what I mean.

Oh, he'll be all right. I'll take care of him.

Easy does it, right, Jack?

That's a boy.

-Damn medical students.

-Oh, no. No, no.

-So, are you breaking up with Alana?

-Only for the weekend.

-But I thought you two were getting married.

-Well, we are, but -- -Hey. Whoa.

-Hey, guys, more booze. More booze.

-Thank you.

-A toast to us.

-Hey, there's Jackson. -The old yearbook.

-Let me see. -Hey, look at Mo.

-I look like an idiot. -Well, you still do.

-Thanks a lot, old buddy. -That's the pres.

-Hey, who's that?

-Oh, that's just Kenny Hampson.

He couldn't handle it.

Say, sweetheart, let's take a walk.

-Hey, Doc, where are you goin'? Doc, don't leave me alone --

Hi. Hey, Ed, is that you down there?

-Boo!

D-Jack, you can make it.

Up! I mean, if you've never tried an upper berth before --

[Gasps] Scoot!

You old faker.

-Jackson's with another girl. I know it.

You and Mitchy, you know, you have an understanding.

But this is a first for us.

-Could be a first for us, too.

Right?

Like, uh,

you and I have never really

gotten to know each other and, uh,

could be our last chance.

Right, D-Jack?

[Giggles]

Think, uh, you could manage without the flipper?

Ooh. [Chuckles]

Well, uh, you know what they say.

Cold hands, warm heart.

[Muffled screaming]

[Whistle blowing]

[Static crackles]

-Okay. Having sex with

the Creature from the Black Lagoon

doesn't bother her at all,

but a few strokes with the disembodied hand,

and she's a basket case.

Meanwhile, we have David Copperfield

doing a whole lot of magic tricks

that would probably be impressive in person.

But any time you're watching magic on film,

you're kind of thinking, "So what?"

You know, if he disappears, I'll just assume,

you know, it's the same way they did it in

"The Three Stooges", you know, so.

Right? I mean.

And speaking of movie magic,

we have the two men responsible

for the $255 million.

Is that the right number?

$255 million box office hit, "Halloween."

-Sounds good. -In 2018.

But, David, it's Halloween.

-Oh, yeah. -You got to choose something

out of the -- -Oh, okay.

-Out of the costume box.

-Oh, see, he's got the "Terror Train" glasses.

-Where did you get that shirt?

-When I was about 14 years old,

when I was a subscriber to the

"We Are the Weird" newsletter...

-My newsletter?

-And a frequent reader of your column.

And I just remember there was a --

"Frankenhooker" was playing on midnights at the Inwood Theater.

And there was an opportunity, you sent free junk in the mail.

I've got "Frankenhooker" T-shirts and posters

for anybody who wants one, if you can justify why

you'd be the recipient of this treasure.

-You wrote in for the "Frankenhooker" T-shirt?

-What did you say?

-I can't remember my essay. -Buddy, come on.

-I head my English teacher proofread it,

and I sent it to Joe Bob. -[Laughs]

-So I sent you that shirt?

-You sent me this very shirt. -In the '90s?

And you still have the shirt. -I do.

-How often have you worn it since the '90s?

-Honestly, it was too large when I got it.

I put it away in a nice box,

in storage with some of my movie memorabilia.

I worked at a movie theater in Dallas,

and so I was always collecting shit.

-All right. -And this is

one of my treasures.

-Well, that counts as a costume.

That counts as a costume.

-All right. -All right, Jason,

why did you want to take a chance on "Halloween"

with this guy when it had sort of been ruined

by a bunch of lame ass sequels.

-I think there were 12, right? Plus "Halloween."

-"Halloween Kills" is technically Halloween 11

or "Halloween 12." -"Halloween 12", right?

So there were -- "Halloween 12" --

so there were 10 bad ones.

The first one was good, obviously.

Some people would say the second one...

-I think "Halloween II" was good.

-Some people say the second one.

So there were 10 bad movies, and then came David's.

And I love the challenge of that.

I love the idea of like,

and everyone thought we were going to fall on our face.

But I knew we were more than halfway there.

When I reached out to David,

I sent him an e-mail, and it said,

"Halloween, question mark."

And he said, "Yeah." He said, "Yeah."

-It was your idea?

-No, no, no, no, no.

-You met the guy who owns the rights?

-No, after I got the rights,

I wanted David to write and direct it.

So I sent him an e-mail, and just one word.

It just said "Halloween."

-And I remember vividly where I was reading an e-mail

because I get up very early in the mornings,

and I just remember it was that early morning hour

and my legs felt weird.

Like, you know, you develop a hundred things,

and, you know ideas, barroom napkins of ideas

that are discarded and disposed of.

But for some reason, my legs knew that

that was going to happen, and my legs were like,

"Here we go." -Really?

-And it was just a one word,

-And your only answer was "Hell, yes"?

[Laughter]

All right.

What makes the "Halloween" story different?

Because it's a generic title.

I mean, you could you could call 100 movies "Halloween",

you know? -For sure.

-It's a generic killer.

You know, he's just a killer.

That's, you know...

So what makes the "Halloween" story attractive?

-What do you think? And the movie?

Why is the movie, the original movie still such a big deal?

-I honestly think it's because it's so relatable,

whoever you are, wherever you live,

it's not so spectacularly supernatural

that it couldn't happen to you.

And so that's what really triggers something primal in me

is because every time you come home and the lights are off

and it's late at night, you know, those moments,

or you go reach into a closet or you go into your bed,

those very elemental,

terrifying moments of life

that you have from the day you're born.

-Right.

Do you think it's an American story?

I mean, it's set in Haddonfield, Illinois,

you know, the typical Midwestern town.

Or does it play just as well in Pakistan and Korea?

-Everywhere. -It plays everywhere.

-Yeah, I just think if you're afraid of the dark

ever in your life for the movie,

if you're afraid of the guy with a knife in your house,

it speaks to you in a way that, you know, Freddy does,

but maybe not.

You know, like, if once you're talking about things

that are so spectacular that they are very unlikely,

you lose some people,

and I think "Halloween" can keep that intimacy of...

-Okay. -I mean, there's a high concept

idea buried in the notion of the night that everyone

dresses up as a monster, there's a real monster

lurking within everybody else.

-So that's the high concept.

But that's actually the concept used in a lot of...

-In "Terror Train." -Yeah.

-And even in a lot of non-horror.

-But that was post.

But who did that before "Halloween"?

-Who did that idea of a monster lurking in a place

where you don't expect a monster?

-No, no, no, no, no.

A monster lurking on on Halloween night,

when you're all dressed, you're dressed up.

Everyone's a monster, but one of them is real on Halloween.

Did that happen before "Halloween" in a movie?

I'm sure it did, probably.

-I don't think so. I don't think so.

And you know why? Because Halloween was

not considered a sinister thing

until the "candyman."

In the early '70s, you know, a real guy in suburban Houston

put poison in the candy. -Right.

-He was killing his own son for the insurance money.

So it really wasn't a, you know,

poisoning the whole, you know -- it wasn't the myth.

It wasn't the legend that the poison is everywhere.

The guy went to death row in Texas for the crime.

-And then there were razor blades in apples, too.

-Razor blades in apples, that was part of the legend

and the myth, and then it became real

because there was that real situation

where at first they thought, "Oh, all the candy is poisoned."

But then they found out, no, the guy was just,

you know, the guy was just doing it to a specific child.

But it was so horrifying that I think now Halloween

becomes really dark.

It's not like -- they're celebrating Halloween

in "The Spirit of St. Louis", you know?

But in "The Spirit of St. Louis",

you know, it's like, you know, all the kids

are running around playing pranks,

and there is absolutely nothing scary about it, you know?

-I mean, you can see the roots of what Carpenter was doing

in Bob Clark's "Black Christmas."

-That's true. That's true.

Yeah, that was another -- Yeah, but it was --

But that's Christmas. That's still not Halloween.

So you wrote the first one,

and the first one, you guys did together.

And I assume you also wrote

the next one, and you're writing the third one

that you're going to do, right?

-Right, yeah, so had a collaborator,

Danny McBride and I collaborated on all three,

and then we have different co-writers

for each of the three to kind of bring a new perspective

to each one. -Okay.

So first meeting where you're meeting with your collaborators,

I mean, the question's got to be,

what are we do with Michael Myers?

-Right. -Right?

Who is he, and how do we portray him?

So what was the answer to that question?

-Our first conversation was, let's honor everything that

Carpenter did in the first movie.

Now, what movie do we want to make?

Let's have some fun.

If you're going to play in that world, where do you go?

And, you know, you could do a period piece,

you could do an origin story, you could do anything.

But for me, it was the idea of inviting people

that weren't necessarily familiar with the 1978 film.

So trying to create something that's its own unique story

that related to that mythology.

So that if you've seen it, it's it's twice the fun.

But if you haven't seen it,

you're still invited to the party.

-But for the idea you came up with,

the next thing you would have to do is call up Jamie Lee Curtis

and ask if she was game for it, right?

-We had written a draft that we were very proud of

before we went to her.

We sculpted that to think, that's the way to go.

Because she was publicly and vocally not interested

in contributing anymore to the franchise.

So we thought we had to go in there

with an arsenal of creative work to be able to show why we

were the story to bring

Laurie Strode back into the action.

-So that's a lot of work if she says no, right?

-Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

-If she said no, would you go to another actress?

-Or you reinvent how it's not about Laurie Strode.

It's about, you know, her cousin Betty.

-Oh. -But John Carpenter

came before Jamie Lee Curtis.

-Yeah, yeah, right.

-Oh, yeah, we pitched the idea to John before we even wrote it.

-Yeah, we didn't want to do it without John.

-Okay, so he was a consultant.

-Now, it's a good story. I went to go see John Carpenter.

And the meeting was 21 minutes.

I went to his house. Actually, I went to his office.

This is before David, and I said...

I said, "We, Blumhouse, we're doing a 'Halloween' movie."

He said, "Get out," you know, "Get out of my office."

And I said, "Well," I said, "We'd like you to be involved."

And he said...[Grunts]

And I tried all my charm on him,

and he grunted at me and he grunted and he grunted,

and he grunted.

So like after 12 minutes or maybe 14 minutes,

I said, "John, let me put it a different way.

You have hated all these 'Halloween' movies

that have come out.

They're definitely -- I don't know if we are,

but they're definitely going to make this movie.

They're going to make another Halloween movie.

They're either going to make it with us or without us.

And I don't think I'm going to do it without you.

So you could decide now to, like, be a part of this

or not be a part of it.

But whatever you decide, it's happening."

And he said, "All right, let me think about it."

And then he called. We left.

He called half an hour later, and he said,

"All right, I'll do it," which was great.

That was a big piece.

When I talked to the original rights holders,

Miramax owned a big piece of the rights.

I said I really didn't want to make a "Halloween" movie

unless John Carpenter was going to kind of

executive produce and grandfather it.

So that was a big step. That was a big --

And the first thing David asked was what's John Carpenter --

you know, and I think if John Carpenter

had not supportive of what we were doing,

I don't think, you know, you might have been less interested.

But then David had a tricky job of getting --

He didn't have script approval, but also, we weren't --

David wasn't going to do a movie that John didn't like.

So, David, these guys wrote the script and sent it to John,

and John was really, really excited.

-Did John Carpenter contribute any story ideas

or anything or shape the story at all?

-He gives notes on the script.

Yeah, sure.

Questions certain things.

Like we had some elements that he was pondering why

we wanted to take that kind of detour,

some of which we'd justify, others which we'd change.

And then on the edit, too.

So, you know, he's an amazing collaborator.

And the honor of having that accessible creative tool

is just incredible, so I use it as much as possible.

-How did you two meet?

-"George Washington"?

-It's been that long, huh? -It's been a long --

-Yeah. Was that your first movie?

-That was the first movie.

-Yes, so David made this great movie,

"George Washington." -Yeah.

-And I remember I saw the movie at Searchlight,

on the lot at Fox, which I still remember

and we had a general meeting after that.

-Okay, so you've been together since you're very --

since the very beginning of your career?

You've known each other. -Yeah.

-Okay. And you both have a background in comedy.

Is there a possibility that either of you would collaborate

on comedies?

You've both made comedies.

-Yeah, why not?

There's no rules here.

-Because they say comedy is the most dangerous

form of filmmaking.

-The difference between me and Jason,

Jason is a brand that you have to be somewhat conscience of

a Blumhouse model and the perception that that brings.

But then I feel confident that I could say,

"We've got a comedic take on something

that fits into your brand, and we're going to --"

-I agree. David's version of a comedy would work.

-Okay. Well, because I've heard producers say

comedy is the most dangerous gamble

that you can have in movie making.

So, but you're both daring. You've gone there.

-Yeah, we're very daring, right? -Yes.

-So, David, you had final cut on "Halloween kills",

because you're famous for giving your director's final cut.

-For sure. We do. Yeah.

-And are you 100% happy with what's up there on the screen?

-Well, so that's -- yeah, it was funny.

So I haven't seen the movie in a year now at this point,

and I haven't -- you know, a lot of directors would say,

"Let me edit, let me tinker with it."

But once we locked it and did the color correction

and the sound mix and everything,

I was just waiting for someone to say,

"But we want to do this," or, "How about this idea,"

or the world wanting to tinker with it.

So I was very protective of it, and I put it on a shelf.

And I haven't touched it, and no one's bothered me about it.

-And you haven't even looked at it?

You haven't been tempted to say,

"I want to go back and look at scene 3.

-No, I was just -- It's the first time

I haven't had a panic attack watching a first cut of a movie,

working with the lovely Tim Alverson, who's our editor,

and I always -- I just understand

that I'm going to get ill when I watch a first cut of

any movie because of the -- it's not what I was thinking

and, you know, whatever. It's too this, too that.

-Jason, do you give notes? Do you give creative notes?

-Very few.

-You ever have any squabbles?

-Squabbles? Have we ever had a squabble?

-I don't think so. -Really?

-Yeah. -I don't believe you.

[Laughter]

How much do you monitor?

-I have a lot -- Believe me,

I have a lot of squabbles.

But we don't --

-I don't really squabble too much.

-Incredibly, incredibly pragmatic.

-Because of the nature of this particular franchise,

I would think you almost have to monitor fan reaction

on social media.

Do you? Do you pay any attention?

Do you know what people are saying?

Do you know what comments are trending?

You know, "Michael Myers would never do that!"

You know, "That's not the Michael Myers I know."

Do you ever -- do you look at that stuff at all?

-I don't look at it. I don't seek it out.

But I think occasionally

people that are close to me that say, "This is something

you should read or this is something you should know,"

or, "This is something that's going to make you feel good."

So if there's a bad review,

I don't want to read a bad review, unless somebody says,

"Here's something --"

You know, my mom sends me something and says,

"You might want to think about this, David."

You know, then that's great. -[Laughter]

-But just someone reacting to the movie,

I'm into the cultural experience of a theatrical --

Like, I use the test screening process very --

I take that very personally because when --

-You sit in the back and watch people react?

-I love it. And you learn so much,

you know, where you thought

you're a genius, you're an idiot,

and where you thought they'd never go,

they take you there.

And so I love that type of experience.

I don't know that I've learned too much

from reading negative reviews of my work.

It just makes you feel crappy, so I don't really do that.

-Well, the thing is, we live in an era

where there's -- you know, there used to be,

you know, 10 major reviews when a movie came out.

Now there's a thousand reviews

from all kinds of different sources,

and a lot of those are going to be negative on any movie.

It doesn't matter what it is.

-My ego doesn't need that wormhole.

-Okay, well, in relation to "Terror Train",

they seem to have done some stunt casting in "Terror Train"

because they hired Ben Johnson as the conductor.

Do you guys ever put a person who's not quite right

for the role in the movie,

but is really, really great for promotional purposes?

Have you ever done that?

-I'm sure we -- I'm sure I have.

-Yeah, I'm sure youhave. Have you ever done that?

-David, no.

I mean, you know, clearly, I'm the sellout of the two.

I mean...

[Laughter]

-Have you ever said, "David, you know who would be really,

really good for this part?"

You do that? -Never.

You never call him up and suggest casting?

-No, he's a great director. Why would I do that?

You got a lot of producers who want to be directors.

-I don't believe you. -I don't want to be a director.

No, the reason I think I'm a good producer

is because I don't have any -- I don't want to be,

I'm not interested in directing.

You know, that's his job.

-I mean, usually when you're doing that,

you're asking an actor to reproduce

something you've already seen,

which, you know, is probably not always the best thing to do.

-Yeah, boring. -But, all right,

one more question about "Halloween kills"

before we go back to the movie.

You have this long term deal with Universal.

You have a 10-year first look deal with Universal.

Now, do you have meetings with Universal

where you decide what constitutes success

and what constitutes failure?

Like, is there some box office number that --

I mean, they have all these numbers --

-Always. Every movie, we have that.

-So Universal is looking at it, and they're saying,

"You should make this much money."

-No, I do it myself. -Oh, you do it?

-Yeah, I look at it, and I say,

"This would be a single. This would be a double.

This would be a home run." -Okay.

-Yeah, we know that before every movie opens.

-Are you disappointed if you get a single?

-Always.

But I mean, if we strike out, I'm really disappointed.

I mean, that single is better than striking out.

Single means you make a little bit of money.

There's not a lot,

but there's a few movies where we've lost money.

Those are really -- I'm very disappointed by those.

-Oh, okay. -Yeah, that's

a terrible feeling.

-All right. Well, we know who the killer is

in the movie that we're watching,

but we don't know where he is in "Terror Train".

So roll the movie.

You know who never got enough credit

for her movie career?

Vanity.

Who plays the belly dancer in "Terror Train."

You know, they always just call her "the protege of Prince"

because she was in that all girl group that Prince created,

but she was probably in this movie

because she was Canadian,

because she was from Niagara Falls

on the Canadian side.

But she would go on to make two other movies,

"The Last Dragon" and "Action Jackson",

that really showed a lot of range.

So the strangest thing I've ever heard about her, though,

is that she became an evangelist in her later life

and she disavowed everything that she'd ever done in media.

Prince had given her advice on her stage name,

and he actually said her stage name should be Vagina.

She did not agree.

-That would have gotten a lot of attention.

-Well, it probably would have been a draw

at the revival tent, for sure. -Sure.

-Definitely there.

[Laughter]

[Static crackles]

-I don't want to get involved in any controversy

on the situation in the Middle East,

but as senior senator from my state, I think I can speak for

my constituents, indeed all Americans,

when I say, "Fuck 'em!"

[Laughter]

You know, there are certain phrases in American history,

that have caught the fancy of the American people.

The phrase that's always caught my fancy or aroused me,

as it were, is,

"Let's bomb them suckers into the Stone Age."

You know, it wouldn't be like Vietnam.

They don't have no jungle to hide under, just sand and rock.

To my way of thinkin', if the United States Cavalry,

can take care of Paiutes and Comanches,

a B-52 ought to do just fine with those camel jockeys.

Of course, this is strictly off the record, you understand.

-Yeah, sure.

-Of course, you're all aware of my campaign platform,

which is a return to the gold standard, euthanasia for

all welfare recipients, and six N.F.L. Franchises,

each with its own stadium, for the state of Louisiana.

And our campaign slogan which is, "Let them eat brownies."

What's that, ma'am? Course I can kiss a baby.

Here, baby.

Whoops. No problem.

-I liked your show. -I remember you.

Do you believe in magic?

I'll have to convince you.

-Do you do this for all your fans?

-No. This is my first time, Alana.

After the next show.

-Alana?

[Bell dinging]

Mo's waiting for you.

He said to tell you he's sorry, and so am I.

You seen Mitchy?

-I thought she was with you.

-I must've missed her.

Anyway, go talk to the guy.

He doesn't want to argue.

-Thanks.

-Mo. [Giggles] -What?

-Here, Mo. -[Chuckles]

-[Disco music playing] -Thank you.

Hey, do you know they drink out of these things?

-Why don't you come join me, Mo?

-No. I'll stay here.

-Come on. Does that mean I have to come to you?

-Mmm.

-Hey, you want to dance? -No, I'll just watch.

-Come on. -No, no, no. That's okay.

-You want to watch, eh? What do you want to see?

Come on. Let's dance.

-[Coughs] No, I don't want to dance.

-Come on. -No. That's okay.

-Does that mean you want to do something else?

-No, no, no! I'll dance. I'll dance. Just don't do that.

-Oh, you're so cute.

-Hey, hey. No. Come on. Stop. Let go of my pants.

-Uh-oh.

-[Chuckles]

-What happened to that blood?

And how the hell did he bust that mirror?

With a hammer?

-Shuffled. Laid on the floor. There.

Not only will I find the card

that was selected and signed by our skeptical friend here,

but I'm gonna do it

without looking.

-That's third-grade stuff.

-Oh, Doc, shut up. -Really?

[Gasping, exclaiming]

-He's getting violent. That's pretty sharp.

-I wonder what's gonna happen. -What's he got? What's he got?

-Oh, my God! -Whoa! Great!

[Applause]

-Take that, Doc.

[Applause continues]

[Shoe thuds]

-My God.

-Are you okay?

-Do you know whose this is?

-Yeah, it's Mitchy's. Michelle, my girlfriend.

I'll take it. Thank you.

-Don't.

-What's going on?

-Will you go with me, please? -Where did you find this?

-Let's go, miss. Please.

Come on.

-[Singsong] Not letting you out!

-Will you at least put your clothes on, please?

-No. -We're missing the magic show!

-[Singsong] Boring!

-No, no, no. Not boring. Fun.

-Boring. -Fun, fun, fun!

-[Knocking] -Shh!

-Mitchy! Mo?

-Oh, my God. It's Alana.

-I know he's in there. Doc told me so.

-[Knocking] -Doc?

-Mitchy! -That fucking bastard.

-I have an office. It's in the car up ahead.

-Now, come on. -Mo!

-Come on. That's it.

-[Whispers] Sit down and stay put.

[Lock clicks]

-Mitchy? Mitchy!

-Let's sit down. -Now just wait a minute.

Did something happen to her?

She didn't fall off the train, did she?

-No, ma'am.

Now, listen to me, honey.

She's dead.

-I don't believe you.

I don't believe you!

-Hey, anyone can do that!

[Laughter]

-Well, rather than argue with you,

I'm going to prove that you're right.

-Have you seen Alana? -I'm going to turn someone

in this audience into a magician.

-No. -Bullshit, you haven't.

-I want to talk to you. -Hey, relax. Watch the show.

[Cheering, applause]

-[Chuckles] -I didn't get caught, okay?

-You've made a mistake.

It can't be Mitchy.

She's my goddamn best friend.

-Please.

-N...

Oh, God! Mitchy!

[Sobbing]

Oh, no!

[Whimpering]

-We're gonna try a little mental telepathy.

-[Chuckles]

-First, you're gonna cover me with a cloth so I can't see you.

-Mm-hmm. -Then, hold up as many fingers

as you want behind my head.

On my command, pull away the cloth.

-Hey, you seen Mitchy?

-And I'll be holding up the exact same number of fingers.

-I don't know. She's around somewhere.

-Okay. Cover me up. -[Cheering]

-Hey, why don't you stay under there?!

[People groaning, laughing]

-Can anybody make him disappear?

[Laughter]

Shall we begin?

Good. Now, hold your fingers up.

Are you sure that's the number you want?

Then take hold of the cloth. Ready?

-Wake me when it's over!

-One, two, three. Go.

-Whoa. -[Cheering, Applause]

-Seven!

[Cheers and applause]

-[Snoring]

-Who did that to her?

-Probably some kid, messed up on dope, alcohol.

-I know these people. They wouldn't do that.

-No, of course not.

Probably some nut just climbed on the train.

I saw her half an hour ago with a fella.

Fallin' down.

Drunk.

Sweet Jesus.

-At the end of my last show,

I, uh, dematerialized my assistant.

-[Snoring]

-Well, for my next show, I'm gonna need to have her back.

So watch.

[Cheering]

[Cheering, applause]

-Wake up, buddy. It's over. -Thank you.

-Hey. -Thank you!

-Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one.

-You're great. Thank you.

-Get up.

Come on, Mo. Come on.

What are you doin'? What are you doin'?

Mo?

[Cheering continues]

Mo? Mo?

Mo, get up. Mo, wake up.

Help!

[Cheering continues]

Wake up. Help!

Somebody help me, please! Wake up!

Help me!

Wake up!

Help! Please!

-[Laughs] -Help! Help me! Help!

-[Laughs] -Help me!

Somebody! Help me! He's bleeding, you bastards!

Help!

-Doc?

-Help! -Put him down, man.

-Mo? -Put him down.

-Mo? What's wrong with him?

-Get back. -Mo?

-Come on, now. I need this from you now.

Come on, Mo.

Alana, come look at his chest.

-He's bleeding. -It could be his heart.

-It's not his fuckin' heart. -Come on!

Come on, Mo. Come on.

-Get back. Give him some air.

-I'm a doctor, goddamn it.

Mo! Oh, no! No!

Oh, come on, Mo!

Come on, buddy.

-What's going on? -Get 'em outta here.

-Mo!

-Move!

[Chattering]

-Get 'em all down there together and close that bar.

[Whistle blows]

-Where's Mitchy? Where is she?

-She's dead.

She's dead.

-What are you talking about?

-She's dead. -Mitchy!

Mitchy! Mitchy!

I'm getting out of here.

-Brace yourselves! We're gonna lock up!

Walter.

My God, what's the matter with Walter?

He should've hit the brakes.

-♪ Another hour ♪

♪ Without ya, babe ♪

-Emergency!

♪♪

[Brakes screeching]

[Screaming]

-We're gonna derail! Ease off on the brakes!

[Murmuring, chattering]

[Whistle blows]

-Brakes now.

[Clamoring]

Stop, damn you. Stop.

[Groaning, chattering]

[Woman Sobbing]

[Engine slows]

[Woman sobbing]

[Static crackles]

-And so the murders accelerate,

and this is the third time that Doc keeps undermining Mo

with his girlfriend and telling him,

"You'll always have me," indicating Doc is more

interested in Mo than he is in his own girlfriend

or any other woman.

These are very loose relationship situations

in this movie because apparently Alana

also feels comfortable making eyes at David Copperfield,

even while she's searching for her man.

So meanwhile, we have here with us two experts

on horror, Jason Blum and David Gordon Green.

And what do you think of the "Terror Train" script, David?

-What do you think about it? -Yeah.

-Um, I think it's fun just to put an ensemble together

in these -- I mean, it's like to me, it's like "Under Siege 2."

Like, how do you take a concept that's kind of

a preexisting slasher movie

and then put it in a new environment and, you know,

it's "Die Hard" on a train or whatever the pitch

going into it was. -Right.

-And I think that -- It's actually "Halloween"

on a train is exactly what they're doing.

All right, we're going to do the lightning round

with you guys, so we have asked our fans,

and Darcy has been talking to our fans on social media,

and they're sending in their questions

about the "Halloween" franchise.

And you know, some of our fans can be smart asses.

So, you know, just keep that in mind.

Although, usually when it sounds like they're being a smart ass,

they're just so far into the weeds on, you know,

"Halloween" lore that they sound like smart asses,

but they're just very, very convinced that

they've discovered something that no other fanboy knows.

Okay? So, all right. Okay.

So, here we go, from Michael Roche.

Why are the masks from "Halloween III" in the film?

I assume he means the new film.

In the trailer, we seem to be seeing the masks

from the very controversial

third Halloween movie, "Halloween III."

-Right.

Well, Danny McBride and I are big fans of

"Season of the Witch" -You are?

-Yeah, I love it. -Whoo!

[Laughter]

-And so it's just our Easter egg nod.

We did it in the original film.

Some kids run by in their Silver Shamrock outfits,

and then here, we take it to the next level,

and they're a little bit more featured

for some of Michael's art projects.

-Okay, now, "Halloween III" was the one

that sort of broke up the partnership

between Moustapha Akkad and John Carpenter.

Isn't that right?

'Cause like John Carpenter wanted to go towards more

in the "Halloween III" direction.

-Right, make it more of an anthology type of --

-And Moustapha Akkad said, "No, you got to have

Michael Myers in the movie,

you got to have Dr. Loomis in the movie."

and they kind of like parted ways.

-Who directed the third movie?

Who directed the third movie?

-But you're a "Halloween III" supporter?

-Was Tommy Wallace, right? Who directed the third one?

-Who directed it?

-I think it was the production designer.

-Yeah. -And then the fourth one was

Dwight Little came in. -Got it.

-And then that's when they brought back Loomis,

or Donald Pleasance.

-But you're a fan of "Halloween III"?

-I love "Halloween III", but I mean,

it's a different thing. I mean, it's not --

-Yeah, yeah, no, it's completely different.

-Okay. So it's an Easter egg for the fans, is the answer.

-Um, it's an Easter egg for the fans, yeah.

-Okay. -[Laughter]

-But it's also, you know, I get to relive my childhood fancy

and recreate these masks and put them on,

and I get to geek out a little bit.

-Okay. -That's fine, too.

-It's an Easter egg for me.

-What is Michael Myers? Is he human?

That's from Austin.

-Is he human?

He is human.

-He is human? -Yeah.

-It's not a supernatural story.

Like Jason tends to become supernatural in

the "Friday the 13th."

As the as the story progresses.

-Is there a difference between impossible and supernatural?

-Um...

Are you saying that he does impossible things?

-I think he does spectacular things,

but I don't think Michael does supernatural things.

I think he does spectacular human behavior.

-Okay, I'll accept that.

Well, I mean, there's a certain amount

of suspension of disbelief

when he when to appear in a place

that geographically he could not have gotten to that fast.

-Or his art projects that he assembles very quickly.

-Right. Okay. -[Laughter]

The Misfit Movie Maniac asked this question.

Why did you change the brother/sister dynamic

in the "Halloween" 2018?

If they're no longer blood related,

why is he still after Laurie and her family?

-If you if you watch our 2018 "Halloween" closely,

he's not necessarily after her.

I use the analogy of "Jaws" because I think he is,

he's out slashing.

So if you're in his path or if you are...

Yeah, in the way, you're going to get killed,

and to me, that's what's scary.

I think the second he has a psychological motivation

for a specific victim that is more than momentary,

I'm not as afraid of him.

And so if he's after her and she's a sister,

then all of a sudden, I'm not scared

because I just have to stay clear of her and him,

and I'm all good.

-Okay, so he has no goal. -He has no goal.

-In your world, except he must go back to Haddonfield.

He does have some kind of inner GPS

that sends him back to Haddonfield.

-He does have a little radar, just so he's got that,

yeah, that shark sense.

And in "Halloween Kills", we'll explore some of his,

uh, not motivation, but how the radar informs him.

-Okay, Jonathan Wilson asks,

with a year passing from the original release date,

did you go back and do reshoots or make other changes?

I think we already answered this.

Dredd universe says, how much of a pain in the bum

was working around Michael's half a hand?

Did you fudge the scenes to avoid showing the hand,

or was his new disability embraced?

-So, yeah, so Michael gets shot in his left hand

and loses a couple of digits.

Uh, and, you know, we just taped his fingers down,

and, you know...

-He can do everything with that hand

that he could do with his good hand?

-Some very strong fingers remaining.

-Okay.

[Laughter]

-Horror Puppy says,

what's your vision for the source of Michael's dark power?

And then he quotes me, saying,

"Is he the face of evil or just crazy?"

-I would just augment that a little bit.

He's the essence of evil.

And the sources is maybe you know, is either nothing

or it's spiritual or it's something

in the essence. -Okay.

-But I will say, back to his hand,

it does get infected,

-Okay, it's infected in the second one.

-It gets, yeah, it gets infected.

-Okay. That just makes him mad, though?

-Yeah, it pisses me off.

[Laughter]

-All right. Where is Ben Traymor?

He was mentioned in the original film,

and since "Halloween II" does not happen in this

new universe -- I think he's referring to --

Ben Traymor is the boy in high school that Laurie Strode

had a crush on.

So I guess he's asking is Ben Traymor still alive,

and did she get involved with Ben Traymor?

-Ben Traymor is alive.

Um, and so, Will Patton plays,

Officer Hawkins in our movie,

and Officer Hawkins, we'll come to learn,

was a little jealous of Ben Traymor.

-Oh. -Because he was the object

of Laurie's affections, and their flirtation

that was unfulfilled kind of feeds

Officer Hawkins a little bit.

-Okay. -So there's romantic

underpinnings to this trilogy of terror that we've created.

-Will we ever see Ben Traymor?

-You'll just have to watch two more movies and figure it out.

-[Laughter] -Okay.

And one more.

Do you feel like you're doing the Lord's work?

[Laughter]

-Definitely not.

-All right, David, Jason, thanks for being here.

Well, bring us some movies here.

We don't have enough Blumhouse titles around this show.

You know?

And, you know, we got to go through Universal.

-Oh, no. So...

-No, don't go through them anymore

-And bring us some -- -Come right to me now.

-Bring us some Rough House Pictures

because we want we want all of them.

So...

All right. So thank you, guys. Thank you for being here.

And right now, we're going to go back to the screen debut of

David Copperfield and the final film of David Copperfield,

the pride of Metuchen, New Jersey.

The man who made the Statue of Liberty disappear,

the man who walked through the Great Wall of China,

the man who floated over the Grand Canyon,

the man who levitated an Orient Express dining car.

No doubt he got the idea while working on "Terror Train".

And the man who not only has a star on Hollywood Boulevard,

but he has his own category.

David Copperfield is the only star that's not

film, television, or radio.

He's "live events."

They created that category just for David Copperfield.

So okay, roll the film.

David decided he didn't really like movies.

He wasn't in total control of his environment.

Who's in total control between between you guys?

Who's in total control?

-We're both out of control. -We're both out of control.

No, David's in control. David's in creative control.

-Have you ever gotten irritated, and have you ever gotten

irritated, David, and called him "the suit?"

You ever said he's the suit?

-Do I look like a suit? I mean, come on.

-He was wearing a sombrero earlier.

-You got to be afraid somebody is going to call you

the suit, though, right?

-Only when I'm wearing these.

[Laughter]

-Alright, let's do the reverse.

Have you ever called David "the talent"?

I'm sorry. I'm talking to the talent.

-Talking to the talent.

No, you're really hoping for --

Maybe we'll have a fight here on your show.

-No, when I first heard that,

I used to think that was a compliment

when they would call you "the talent", you know,

meaning I am the talented guy.

When actually it means, you know, that annoying

actor/writer.

-The little talent, the talent.

[Laughter]

[Static crackles]

-What the hell happened here?

-I don't know.

He must have got 'em both.

Don't go back through that train without this.

-Watch your step there. Stay together.

Don't go too far.

Come on. Keep on moving, everybody.

Come on. Get along.

-Get yourselves a couple of fire axes and search

every damn inch of these cars.

He could be anywhere.

And he's lethal, so stick together.

And don't try to be heroes.

If you just think you hear somethin',

you come hollerin' for help.

-Okay, chief.

-Keep moving.

Watch the step, please. -Stand close to the car, buddy.

-Hey, careful there. -Stay together.

-Christ, the lights are gone.

-[Thud] -[Gasps]

-Everybody, take off your masks. I want to know who's who.

-Tell us what's goin' on. -I will.

Right now, I'm tellin' you to stay with your dates.

Stick by your friends. -Elaine.

-Look out.

-That's one of them little mothers.

-Hey, asshole. -Jackson!

-Jackson? Jackson!

-If this turns out to be another one of your stunts.

-Hey, you there. Let go of him.

-Toomey! -Here.

-Herbie Green. -Okay?

-Dan Irwin.

-I want the rest of those masks off now.

-Gayley. -Hurry along there.

-How come it's just all my best friends in the fucking world?

-Doc, what do we all have in common?

-Jackson.

-You and me and Mitchy and the guys?

Doc, we hurt him!

-What are you talking about? -Kenny Hampson.

Your stunt with the corpse?

-Nobody would do that for a goddamn prank.

-It wasn't just a prank. Doc, he was sick.

I went to the hospital just afterwards.

They wouldn't let me see him.

They said he'd killed somebody before.

They said it might have been an accident,

but he killed somebody.

-Johnson!

-Shit.

And we're next, aren't we?

-Come on! -No.

-Come on! Come on! -I am!

-I'm trying to save your life, for Christ's sake.

Get going.

Here goes nothing.

-Now listen to me.

I don't want to get back on that train.

-[Shouting] -I'm staying here! Right here!

-Nobody does! -No way!

-But we have no choice! -No way!

-Nobody can make it if we stay up here.

[Shouting continues]

-Couldn't find a thing.

-No! -On a train with a killer?

-I'm not gettin' on that train.

-There are no roads up here.

Now, we'll put you all in one car.

-With a killer! -[All exclaiming]

-We can walk!

-You'll die.

At this temperature, you'll die.

-What the hell do you think you're doing?

He could be in here!

-Lock, damn you.

Creep. Fuckin' animal.

Can't do this to me.

Lose your head while all around you are losing theirs

and blaming it on you.

-We are gonna die unless we get some help!

But I don't know who to trust anymore.

I don't even trust you.

-You're so slow.

-Presto chango. The same little shit.

Good old Kenny Hampson.

[Chuckles] I knew I never liked magic.

-The magician?

-We'll sit tight.

When the train stops, we'll play a trick on old Kenny.

-The train is stopped.

-Well, then they'd better start it up again.

'Cause he's gonna drive me crazy.

-He's back there with all of our friends!

-Let's hope so, huh?

-I don't believe you.

He's gonna kill everybody! We've got to tell them!

-I'm not movin'.

Every man for himself.

Alana, don't.

Don't! -Let go of me!

Doc! Doc!

Doc! Doc! Doc!

-Hey! You there!

Go back outside, miss.

Please.

-[Breathing heavily]

Oh, shit.

[Breathing heavily]

[Gasps]

[Screams]

[Grunting, whimpering]

[Chuckles]

No! No!

Help!

[Whimpering]

[Gasps]

Mitchy.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

It's a joke.

A goddamn practical joke.

-[Knife clicks] -[Screams]

-Come on. We're the brothers of Sigma Phi Omega, right?

Brothers, remember?

That means we're gonna stick together.

We're gonna look out for each other.

We're gonna protect each other.

Now get on the train!

-Have you seen the conductor?

Has anybody seen the conductor?

I know who it is. -What?

-Where's the conductor? -Back there. Come on.

-God, it was cold out there. My feet are numb.

-I told you to stay in the car.

-Well, they made me get off. I mean, they had to search here.

[Clinking]

Oh, I'm sorry. Is something missing?

Geez, I was scared out there.

I couldn't find you, and I'm thinking

this wacko's gonna jump out at me any minute.

Hey, I should have used one of these.

[Chuckles]

Yeah, this would have done. What do you think?

[Whistle blows]

-Let's get back, Alana. They'll be coming back.

-Doc? It's okay. I'm with the pres.

-Damn it. -[Train engine chugging]

-Yeah. Yeah, I know.

Well, whatever.

-Have you ever shoveled any coal?

-No. -He's on the train.

-Why isn't she lying down somewhere?

-The magician! -Magician?

-I'll show you. Come on.

Doc's got the picture.

[Knocking]

-Doc, open up.

[Knocking]

-Open up in there, please!

-Doc?

[Knocking]

Doc?

I just left him in there.

-Keep her outside.

-Don't go in there, miss.

[Thumping]

[Whistle blows]

-[Screams]

[Whistle blowing]

[Static crackles]

-And so the head of the frat boy you love to hate,

Doc, the guy responsible for the stupid prank to begin with,

rolls out on to the floor.

That's Hart Bochner as Doc.

He had made his film debut just three years earlier

in "Islands in the Stream",

and then he got noticed in "Breaking Away."

So he was on his way to becoming an A-list actor,

although his big breakthrough was still eight years away.

That's when he played the sleazeball Ellis in "Die Hard."

He was also in this movie mainly because he was Canadian.

Did you notice how they told us the engineer and the coal guy

are dead?

They just have Ben Johnson find the engineer's cap.

And they say, "Must have killed both of them."

[Laughter]

You hardly ever see a kill in this movie.

You occasionally see the aftermath of the kill.

But when you do see the aftermath,

it's likely to be corny, like that head of Doc.

I hope they didn't pay more than 50 bucks for that head.

Roger Spottiswoode was just not a horror guy.

He would go on to direct 30 more movies,

including several that were critically acclaimed,

like "The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper",

"Shoot to Kill", "Turner and Hooch",

that Tom Hanks dog movie, "Air America", which Jason Blum

mentioned he was working for Roger Spottiswoode

at the time, a Mel Gibson movie.

Roger Spottiswoode released a movie just this year,

"Either Side of Midnight."

His James Bond film was "Tomorrow Never Dies" in 1997.

One of the Pierce Brosnan Bond films.

The thriller, that was his strong point.

Horror? Not so much.

He also made two acclaimed docudramas,

"And the Band Played On" in 1993,

and "The Matthew Shepard Story" in 2002.

I'm afraid he was one of those guys who

looked down on the genre.

He just didn't take it seriously enough

to make anything truly meaningful.

All right. Is David Copperfield Kenny?

And if not, who is Kenny?

Because most of the obvious suspects are dead by now,

so we're heading down the home stretch of what was called

"Halloween on a train," the 1980 slasher film

"Terror Train."

So roll it.

You know, they only took the train out of the barn one day.

[Chuckles]

They did that scene where everybody is standing

in the snow outside of the train.

All the rest of the time, they just had some way

to shake the cars and make it seem like the train was moving.

But the day they did move the train outdoors,

it was 25 degrees below zero because some genius decided

to shoot the movie in Quebec in December.

So that observation car that they used in the film,

by the way, is now in the Arizona Railway Museum

in Chandler, Arizona.

So you can go see it if you want to go see it.

But if you go there to check out the --

You know how there's a lot of location tourism these days,

especially in horror, so you can go to the location

where Jamie Lee Curtis was chased by a killer

and engaged the killer in a fight to the death.

But they don't even mention "Terror Train" in the museum.

I mean, it's just "antique observation car."

And that's what's wrong with railroad museums,

to tell you the truth, they're all the same.

You know, here's a car, you know, here's another car,

You know, here's a caboose.

[Chuckles]

Here's a locomotive.

You know, here's 17 more locomotives.

And you got to be a railroad nerd to get into those museums.

And somebody like me, I love trains, but, you know,

I don't really care whether the train is being pulled

by an E8 locomotive or a Model BLW locomotive,

or whether the Union Pacific dining car had

Sterling silverware and a convection oven in it.

You know, railcars sitting on a siding are in

the final analysis,

rail cars sitting on a siding, you know.

So it's one of those museums where you're constantly going,

"Wow, let's see what's inside this next car."

And then you climb up inside it, and you go,

"Oh, okay."

You know, it's -- I call that an "oh, okay museum."

Okay, I'm done.

[Static crackles]

-Jesus. -[Murmuring]

-You move out real quiet, darlin'.

-Hey, what's going on?

-[Chuckles] Well, we got the coffee maker workin', miss.

[Whispers] Come on.

[Whispers] Where is he?

-He's right back there.

-Come on.

-Ken.

They made coffee out here. I'll bring you in a cup, okay?

What's going on, for Christ's sake?

What's happening, huh?

-This is only for your own safety.

[Chain rattles]

-I guess nobody's been in this one for a couple of years.

You'll be able to get some rest. Yes, sir.

It's a little dusty in here, but it's clean.

Come on in.

I hope you don't mind no sheets and no pillowcases.

I'll get you some.

-No, please.

-Okay, okay, don't worry. I won't leave this car.

I'm gonna be right outside that door.

[Tapping]

-Come on, now! -Stop pushing!

-Let us go, you guys. Get out of my fucking way.

-[All Shouting]

-Come on, asshole. We can take this guy now!

-What did you say, boy? -Let me through.

-Say that again.

-Let us through, or we'll break the door down.

-Shut up, all of you! -[Shouting quiets]

-I said move off, sir.

He killed a couple of ours.

-You aim to kill him.

Give me the ax.

Before you go,

you take a look at the bodies of some of your friends.

Is it worth that, son?

Well, is it worth it?

I'll check it out myself.

-Hey, Ken.

Come on out here. I want to talk to you.

Gotta turn the heat off back there.

You want to come up to the lounge?

I'm gonna turn the lights off, too.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[Squeaks]

-[Groans]

-[Panting]

♪♪

♪♪

[Screaming]

[Gasps]

[Glass shattering]

[Grunting]

[Grunts]

[Grunts]

[Grunting]

♪♪

Ah!

♪♪

No.

No. No.

[Screams, gasps]

♪♪

[Gasping]

[Screams]

♪♪

♪♪

-[Groaning]

-[Whimpering, screaming]

♪♪

[Screaming, gasping]

[Gagging]

♪♪

-[Groaning]

♪♪

♪♪

-[Grunting]

♪♪

♪♪

Stop!

♪♪

-[Breathing heavily]

-[Screams]

♪♪

♪♪

Kenny.

♪♪

Kenny!

♪♪

Kenny, please!

♪♪

♪♪

-[Screaming, groaning]

-[Grunting]

♪♪

♪♪

-[Groans]

-[Grunts]

♪♪

♪♪

[Grunting]

-[Screams]

-What happened?

-He killed Mo.

-Clear out! -Get out of the way, you guys.

-Back up!

-Come on. Back up, damn it.

Get out of the way. Come on!

-Clear the way back there.

[Whistle blows]

-We'll be there in about 15 minutes.

Would you like a cup of coffee?

-No, thanks.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

-Hi. Listen. Why don't you come on back now?

It's mellowed out and, well, this place gives me the creeps.

-Okay.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[Gasps]

[Rattling]

♪♪

-Why don't you come back and join the --

Join us. Come on.

♪♪

♪♪

-There's the light.

Lord, that's beautiful. [Chuckles]

Go back and start the report, Charlie.

I'll bring her on in.

-Okay.

Got it? -I got her.

-Okay.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

-[Screaming]

-What the hell?

♪♪

[Indistinct conversations]

-Hey, Alana!

♪♪

-Carne!

Oh, thank God. Charlie.

[Panting]

Magician's dead.

Jesus, I don't know who it is anymore.

♪♪

♪♪

No.

♪♪

♪♪

It was you.

♪♪

Kenny, I'm sorry.

♪♪

I never told you. I'm so sorry.

-You haven't changed.

♪♪

-I saw your picture in the yearbook.

I never knew you liked magic.

-I watched you tonight.

You liked him.

-No.

Kenny, you're better than he is.

I'm sure you're better than he is.

-I am.

He didn't know how to cut a woman into pieces.

-You don't have to do this.

You don't have to do this, Kenny.

[Grunts]

-Kiss me, Alana.

-Kiss me, Kenny. -Kiss me.

-Kiss me.

[Grunts]

-Kiss me.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[Whimpering]

[Sobbing]

[Screaming]

[Screaming continues]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[Whistle blowing]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[Static crackles]

-You know, you got to give them credit

for that final spectacular kill of Kenny,

when he plunges into the icy river.

That was an actor named Derek McKinnon.

He was a drag queen from Nova Scotia

who had been performing in Montreal clubs for a while.

In fact, he was part of a female impersonator troupe

that traveled around Canada, and he did a pretty decent job,

given the number of different masks and costumes

that he wore without ever identifying him.

In the scene where Jamie Lee Curtis

rams the spike into his eyeball,

they were using a stunt man, but she really did puncture

the stunt man's face with the spike,

and she was so upset that she left the set

for a couple of days.

Movie was made for $2.5 million.

It was released at Halloween in 1980

and it earned back its money, plus a little bit more,

but it was generally considered a disappointment

because Sandy Howard was expecting a monster hit

like "Halloween."

Darcy, come on over here. I don't --

Darcy, what is this outfit that you're wearing?

What is it? I don't get it.

-I'm cauliflower pizza.

I had to counter your meaty taco.

[Laughter]

-It's a pizza with cauliflower on it?

-It's made of cauliflower.

-It's a pizza made of -- -Plant-based.

-It's a pizza made out of cauliflower.

-Right, like the crust is cauliflower.

-Like an art project? [Laughter]

Like a -- Like a -- Like third graders do it or...?

-[Sighs]

-Okay.

What does it say "plant-based" on your head?

-Because I'm plant-based. -Okay. Alright.

-Vegan. -Darcy, I know

you're violently opposed to watching

season-themed movies in the wrong season...

-Yeah, actually.

-...but I'm gonna make an argument for this

really being a Halloween movie.

-It's a New Year's movie.

-No, it -- I mean, you told me yourself,

you think the year starts and ends with Halloween.

-Well, that's true.

The calendar I'm planning starts in October and ends in October.

-So we should just say this is our New Year's movie

and we're showing it on the true New Year's holiday.

You know, I don't understand why they chose New Year's anyway.

Since when do college students

celebrate graduation on January 1st?

Aren't they going back to school three days later?

I mean, "Here's our last big party," really?

Are you that dumb? You know, are you waiting --

Are you doing it five months early?

They're not gonna be no parties in January through May?

The -- The facts don't add up on it,

unless they consider Halloween their New Year's.

So give me the mail, and then we'll do the countdown.

Alright? -Wait, the countdown?

-Yeah, we're gonna do a countdown.

We're gonna countdown to the new year.

-That's silly. -No, it's not silly.

Nothing is silly if you believe in it.

-[Sighs] Okay, well, first we have a letter

from Travis Daniel of Hummelstown, Pennsylvania.

-Okay. Travis.

Oh, and he enclosed some...

-A present. -...some stuff.

But you forgot to put the letter in here.

Oh, here it is.

It's in the CD --

It's in with the CD.

Okay.

Oh, "Dear Job Bob Briggs, I wanted to thank you and Darcy

so much for coming to The Mahoning Drive-In

this past weekend for the Jamboree."

He wrote this in July.

"But it was pretty hot, humid, and rainy,

but it was really a great weekend

to meet a lot of nice new people and geek out over movies.

I had an amazing time,

especially during 'The Last Drive-In' taping.

It was kind of a religious experience

and it has made me contemplate

about starting to mess around with short films.

We'll see what happens from there.

On another note,

since it interrupted you and Darcy a little,

I wanted to apologize for clapping just a little too much

when you mentioned Edwige Fenech

during the Jamboree taping."

Edwige Fenech being being an actress

who was working in Rome during the Giallo Era.

"Since I'm rather big fan of hers,

I wanted to mention two of her films

in case you've not already seen them.

The first of which is 'Top Sensation' from 1969,

also stars Rosalba Neri, who is, in my opinion,

the hottest Italian actress that ever lived.

That's not super hard to find

since Shameless released it in the past few years."

You know Shameless? I guess that's a distributor.

"Edwige is, I think, 17 in this film.

This next film, however --" -[Chuckles]

-What? -Just sayin'.

-Oh, alright. You think that's bad?

-No. -Alright.

-It's appropriate for tonight.

-Alright. "This next film, however,

I don't think has had a proper U.S. release.

It's 'Cattivi Pensieri,"

also known as "Evil Thoughts," from 1976,

a sex comedy that, in my humble opinion,

a pretty damn good film portraying

just how crazy our inner thoughts can make us.

I've included a burned copy of the English-dubbed bootleg."

And indeed he did.

"In case you wanted to watch it and have not seen it already.

This film really deserves a legit release.

Thank you so much for mentioning films

during 'The Last Drive-In' that are outside the cult

and horror genres.

I consider myself a student of all film

and was excited when you mentioned

'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane' on one of the recent episodes.

That movie is ridiculously good

and almost uncomfortably suspenseful.

I've gone and bought some of Michelangelo's --

Michelangelo Antonioni's films based on your mention of him."

I wasn't really saying I like Michelangelo Antonioni.

I was just -- -He just said you mentioned him.

-You know. Alright.

"Since I was not familiar with his work.

Also, I am a ginormous fan of the Giallo genre

and look forward to you playing more of Sergio Martino's films.

If you can somehow sneak in a poliziotteschi film --"

that's a police crime thriller,

police gangster crime thriller in Italy --

"I will throw my hat in the ring

for a favorite, 'Brothers Till We Die.'

Hail Erman Eza. I hope you and Darcy --"

I don't always understand everything in the letters.

I wish I did. "I hope you and Darcy are well

and I hope to see you at the next Jamboree.

Sincerely, Travis Daniel.

P.S. 'Halloween III' is awesome. Haha."

-That's why I picked it. -Okay.

[Laughter]

Okay, Travis, really appreciate the DVD of the unreleased

Edwige Fenech movie.

I don't know where you got it, but I won't tell anybody,

and I appreciate these letters

where people are burrowing into movie history,

trying to find the last undiscovered gems

that haven't yet been released by Vinegar Syndrome

or one of the other retro companies.

So that's about it.

-Alright.

We're done?

-Guy from North Dakota.

[Laughter]

-Yeah, okay.

-Moves to Florida.

And don't look at me like that, this will be worth it.

-Mm-hmm. -Young guy from North Dakota

moves to Florida, goes to --

goes to one of those big everything-under-one-roof stores

looking for a job, and the manager says,

"You have any sales experience?" And the guy says,

"Yeah, I was a vacuum cleaner salesman back in North Dakota,"

and the boss is really skeptical,

but he kind of likes the kid, so he decides to give him a shot.

He says, "Okay, start tomorrow

and I'll come down after we close and see how you did."

So the kid's first day on the job is really rough,

but he gets through it and the boss comes down

to the sales floor and the boss says,

"How many customers bought something from you today?

And the kid kind of frowns and he looks down at the floor

and he says, "One."

And the boss says, "One?

Our salespeople average 25 to 30 customers a day.

One sale a day, that might be acceptable in North Dakota,

but you are not on the farm anymore, son."

So the kid is, you know, is taking a tongue lashing.

He's staring at his shoes,

and the boss feels kind of sorry for him.

So he says, "Okay, so how much was your one sale for?"

The kids says, "$124,548.88."

And the boss says, "124,000?

Is that what you said?"

He said, "Yeah." He says, "What the heck did you sell?"

And the kids says, "Well, first I sold him some new fish hooks.

And then I sold him a fishing rod to go with his fish hooks.

And then I ask him where he was going fishing

and he said down the coast,

so I told him he was gonna need a boat for that.

So we went down to the boat department

and I sold him a twin engine Chris-Craft.

And then he said he didn't think his Honda Civic

could pull that boat, so I took him over to automotive

and I sold him a Chevy Suburban 4x4."

And the boss says, "A guy came in here to buy a fish hook,

and you sold him a boat and an SUV?"

So the kid says, "No, the guy came in here

to buy tampons for his wife,

and I said, 'Man, your weekend is fucked.

You should go fishing.'" [Laughter]

Alright. Well...

-[Sighs]

-Why are you looking at me like that?

I guess we -- we ruined another Halloween.

And we weren't scary enough,

but I still want to do the countdown to the new year.

-Shouldn't we do that on October 31st?

-This is Halloween hoedown,

we can pretend it's October 31st.

So here, take this pumpkin.

And when we get to zero, throw it up in the air,

and it will fall like the ball in Times Square.

-Why?

-Because it's like the ball in Times Square,

only it's a pumpkin.

-Alright.

-Let's have everybody do it.

-Alright.

-I literally throw this pumpkin? -Everybody grab pumpkins.

I'll grab one.

Alright? -Okay.

-Austin, grab a pumpkin. -Throw it again.

-Alright. Okay, everybody ready?

-Yeah.

-10, 9, 8, 7, 6,

5, cuatro,3, 2, 1.

Happy New Year!

["Auld Lang Syne" playing]

♪♪

-Why did that happen?

♪♪

-Darcy.

If Tim Capello from "The Lost Boys"

were here right now,

what would he be saying?

-"I still believe"?

-Exactly.

[Fireworks popping]

The drive-in will never die.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[Fireworks popping]