Halloween with Alex Ross Perry

[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name is a show Blank Check A podcast wouldn't do that This isn't a podcast This isn't a podcast

[00:00:29] I'm giving you alternate reads here Sure You just see mildly This isn't a podcast I'm trying to think of my pleasant I was going to do the This isn't a podcast

[00:00:40] The big Loomis speech, but then I realized a thing I should not say and I'm about to say it is The blackest podcast Right, we're not The devil's podcast That's misrepresenting this show That will disappoint two different audiences Yeah, yeah, yeah Good call

[00:01:03] This is not the devil's podcast, in fact Well Sometimes it feels that way And some people think Yes Yes And everyone's entitled to their opinion, but this is in fact a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David I'm Griffin I'm David Just turning off

[00:01:19] Yeah, let's just start it off Because I think we have a lot to get to today It's a podcast about filmographies Directors who have massive success Early on in their careers Are given a series of blank checks, make whatever case you passion projects they want

[00:01:33] And sometimes those checks clear And sometimes they bounce baby This is a main series on the films of John Carpenter Yep It's called They Podcast because I was overruled Yep Good call by us Yeah, I feel good about that choice still

[00:01:50] To this day I've read some of the comments when Marie put out the new miniseries artwork And I thought podcast from New York was maybe like a good alt that we didn't actually really think of I've never pitched that I pitched Podscape from Newcast Right, which was stupid

[00:02:09] No, that was dumb And we didn't like that I felt pretty vindicated by the comments saying why isn't this miniseries name sweaty enough Right, but here's the thing None of them actually said a title

[00:02:22] You know what, it wasn't like sometimes they're all lean on like it should have been called text title Do we know what was in the running? Yeah, we know From you, not from Podscape from Newcast Pod Trouble and Little Cast

[00:02:35] No, there's one that just already is on my mind that makes perfect sense What? In the Pod of Castness Yeah, I like that one Yeah, that's all on podcast 13 I feel like it was thrown out at one point Yep, that was another good option

[00:02:52] But come on, they podcast, that's fun, that's good Well, they do We do They podcast now Yeah I'm happy to be in person with you guys In person In person for the first time in two years now For us? Yeah Oh, easily Right

[00:03:10] When would the last time even be I think the last time would have just been something at David's apartment Right, you were last on the show a year ago I don't even have a memory of being in a studio

[00:03:17] And I think it was probably a year before that Well, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, a Spider-Man concert Yeah, at David's house Right It was 2019, yeah, two years ago Yeah Pretty much almost to the day Yeah Oh boy

[00:03:31] And I gotta say, you know, Cats Out of the Bag This is our Halloween episode Correct Grest is guest's director and filmmaker Alex Frost-Perry Everyone, and I feel triumphant about this Yes It's like, alright, so what's he doing? Memoirs, I'm gonna invisible man Everyone is filmmakers

[00:03:47] You're playing your usual game Everyone's right Everyone's right They're all right And I, it's a big surprise You decided to break your streak of trying to pick the most irrelevant film I should be doing one of those David, how Village of the Damned You know, one of those

[00:04:03] It would have been memoirs Memoirs It was the only one I've never seen Yeah At this point But David, how else are you like cold watching? Yeah, yeah Especially someone who means a lot

[00:04:12] But David, how many minutes after the end of March Madness that I call this episode? Uh, you didn't do it during? Honestly I think it was during the final day I said if Carpenter wins, I want Halloween You were very angry on one of the March Madness updates

[00:04:26] We casually said Carpenter essentially created a genre And you kind of blew up both of us Yes Over the phone He didn't blow me up I gotta say, this is something that happened to Grace Really? Yeah, I didn't get blown up Maybe I blew up privately

[00:04:40] Maybe I blew you up in person No, you blew me up over not knowing the movie Burnt Offerings Burnt Offerings That was the one that you were mad at me about Not knowing about that movie This came up in the book's all box office

[00:04:51] You guys were reading it And maybe he blew you up because you said he invented a genre He had separate blow ups at separate times He was a 70s horror He separated them Here are the facts, I think Two things

[00:05:03] One, I was very hurt by my pathetic and embarrassing loss in March Madness And I wanted to Just, okay I want to talk about that for exactly five minutes We can very briefly talk about that But I will say And as that pertains to my wanting this

[00:05:19] For wanting this episode Okay, well let's put time on the clock Just to be clear At March Madness We had some friends of the show pick directors Right, this is once a year We let people vote for what many series we're going to do

[00:05:32] And this year we mixed it up And we had one region where we picked eight of our favorite Recurring guests and let them each pick a director And I said to Alex, who do you want? I've been aiming for years that you guys really should consider

[00:05:44] Covering Oliver Stone I think we should put five minutes on the clock now I know you're saying you want to say something first But let's have this count for the five minutes I've put five minutes on the clock

[00:05:52] It's on the clock, no we don't need to go over it I just need to say something I told you when you said Oliver Stone I was like Alex, Oliver Stone is not going to win A single Twitter poll He's not cool He's the opposite of what

[00:06:05] You know, people on Twitter are interested in I'm just saying I warned you And I said You were like, what are you talking about? Bulletproof case Like you guys have to cover it I said Anybody who loves this show The way I do Will instantly be like

[00:06:22] That is five months of incredible episodes You are With wonderful insights on some of the most important films Of American cinema of the 1980s, 1990s And even a little bit in the 2000s If you love the show the way I do You will be like

[00:06:38] I have to hear that miniseries And it turns out Most people don't love the show Well, I was also just trying You're not on Twitter to your credit That's the other thing I was not able to mobilize any fan base Because I don't have one

[00:06:50] But beyond that, I was just like If you take the temperature of sort of Twitter Oliver Stone He's peanut butter and pickles No one's interested He's interviewing Putin long form He's just not in a place right now Where people are fired up I was really humiliated by this

[00:07:05] And I thought it was really sad Because we were denied Something that could be great It's not that I wanted him to win I didn't think that would happen I wanted him to build enough momentum That at some point he seemed undeniable

[00:07:16] He thought he might sneak by maybe Jackie Chan I wanted a couple victories However, I also was very clear That the only thing I actually wanted Was a winner from Ben's region And the only thing I really wanted Was for John Carpenter to win

[00:07:30] Because this is a no-brainer And then I was like Well, if I'm so low From this and I want to be on again But I also don't want to just be like Well, I tried with a candidate and I lost So here I am

[00:07:45] We're talking about one of his irrelevant films You don't want to just be given Secretary of Transportation Exactly I said if this is happening No one, you know If somebody wins their candidate They would probably pick the totemic episode And when we did a fair amount of this

[00:08:02] Of offering to the people Who had not been on in a little while And had other candidates in March Madness You get an early pick You can pick a big one And I wanted the biggest Because I knew Ben maybe he could have said

[00:08:13] Actually, I just want that episode to be Private, no guests Well, yeah For such a big one I mean we do that sometimes But no But I feel like this is just This director, I mean Johnny Boy is just so beloved Johnny Boy

[00:08:27] And I feel like we would We just we wanted to have as many people on For this series as we could Yeah I just want to say something To your credit You raised a good point Not a stink, but a good point after the fact

[00:08:41] That we should have considered Which is first round matchup You should have gone up against JD As the two people without Twitter It just seems like it was unfair To put the two of you up against people Were able to mobile A very brutal weapon

[00:08:53] Just to say to your followers Do me a favor Click on this thing You don't know what it is Well, this is why We're done with Twitter So next year you'll put Stone back in And he'll go the distance Because Sure, fine He'll be a man

[00:09:06] Is that an Oscar versus Razzie Brackett? No, you would never have a man If I looked at all 32 I would have said The only two of these That I really think would be Wall to wall grade Or Stone and Carpenter Like these are just the best

[00:09:18] Assortment of episodes Variety of films I'll say this When Jonathan Demi won I was wrong You're sending it in being Like this is a disaster for the show But now I know I was seeing I thought And I told you this And this is part of my argument

[00:09:33] Stone is the dark Sif to the Demi Jedi It's the same exact filmography The same highs and lows And I said he's the same as Zemeckis It's these kinds of guys These are great mini-series Anyway, we're done talking about it I don't disagree in theory

[00:09:47] I'm going to be so stringent In keeping this focused On the film Halloween Sure, that's why I want to say One final thing Which thanks to my structure I will not get to For 45 minutes But then when I do We're talking about Alex has come prepared with Notes

[00:10:02] He's got a notebook He's got several printout A piece of paper And things on his phone The notebook is what I wrote down While watching the film The several pages I have printed out here Is The syllabus It's my syllabus I came here to re-litigate March Madness

[00:10:15] I came here to School you guys On the history of American horror As a genre From 1968 to 1978 In order to understand The context For what Carpenter did With this film And his subsequent career And Chew Bubblegum And I'm all out of Bubblegum And I'm all out of re-litigation

[00:10:33] But anyway Fans have demanded John Carpenter and their right And John Carpenter is A hero And an absolute titan of cinema And one of the finest filmmakers Of the second half of the 20th century No question I think But in order to understand him

[00:10:51] I think there's a lot When I say a lot I need a lot Of context that you need to understand Leading up to the film Halloween Which we will be talking about As I told David last week Excruciating detail This is, I feel like truly

[00:11:06] In every way the least work I have done for an episode And as long as I can remember And that even re-watching this movie I was barely trying to formulate thoughts Because I was like Alex is going to do whatever Alex is going to do

[00:11:18] Our hands are off the wheel on this one You know? So basically I'm just care for you to guide us through that I love listening to your show And I love talking to you guys as friends But it has come up many times

[00:11:30] That horror is a humongous blind spot Self-admitted in some cases Sure But David Really still remembers how brutally I raked him over the coals For on the Oops All Box office episode You guys Chordling And saying there's Burnt offerings Like is this a real movie?

[00:11:50] Oliver Reed is in this And I just tell you I was like David this is A beloved film That you And we all share the same exact We all have the same DNA of Of Nurtury Right? We're all trivia veterans We could all sit at trivia

[00:12:06] And basically hit the same rounds But then within these subsections of Nurtury There are these other things that One person knows everything about And one person knows nothing about And that's kind of the beauty Of people that have essentially the same interest But the interest is diverge

[00:12:19] And it also comes up a lot Where I feel like Like David you were saying last year You spent a lot of time familiarizing yourself With a lot of the horror franchises That you That says you had not seen Fun projects Well I'd seen some

[00:12:32] But I'd never seen every entry You made it an effort to Go through the totemic franchises Because these were blind spots And you wanted them filled in And Ben you're obviously a big You're a big horror guy more so Yeah, absolutely Just because you're from

[00:12:47] From scum bag country like I am Pennsylvania, New Jersey People like to wear cut off Shorts and sleeveless shirts And wear horror and get weird And drink a ton of soda Which is what we were talking about Before we started this episode Be kind of raw

[00:13:01] And I just felt like Hellraiser's like a hero of mine Yeah, he's a close personal friend Absolutely We're pen pals But not in the way you think We send each other names I've seen Hellraiser many times But I've never seen a Hellraiser sequel

[00:13:17] Okay, see that's a big problem This is what I'm talking about Where it's like there's only Ben there's so many avenues Her third Hellraiser is Hellraiser is the cyberpunk Hellraiser I know, so this is actually Hell on Earth This is the one with CD

[00:13:30] Yes, the one with flying CDs This is like such a good reminder I have to see this I can't, a cyberpunk Hellraiser Is a real Ben phrase Man Ben's kind of like the Renfield To the Cenobites Where they're like kind of making you Pay your dues and then

[00:13:44] They'll potentially welcome you Into the Cenobite army I'm aware of the CD Hellraiser When we watched the Hellraiser franchise I talked to you about it Yeah, first Hellraiser The first Hellraiser is a masterpiece I love Hellraiser And then a couple of Halloween's ago At home

[00:14:01] And my wife on it I said let's watch Hellraiser 2 She said this is pretty good And we watched Hellraiser 3 And she said this is the last Hellraiser I'm watching When I'm finished with Hellraiser She was out, she didn't make it a bloodline And keeping

[00:14:11] We're gonna get to talking about horror sequels But we're not going to talk about Hellraiser Because it comes after Halloween Can I just ask, can I just ask Do they stop being theatrical after 3? No, I think 4 Bloodline is the last four But then isn't there

[00:14:23] There's like a guy who came on board For the direct to video ones That made a couple that are well liked There are, I haven't gotten into those And this is the whole thing about horror If we're talking about this It's so dense because

[00:14:37] These movies can be made so cheaply That there's so many And I get over it's like anime Well, not that I've seen a lot more horror than I've seen anime But where I'm like, oh god I'm just digging and digging And finding more things And I'm getting overwhelmed

[00:14:51] Yes, but the thing is Horror fans will see everything It is a monolithic genre Like you can if it's your thing You can see everything And if you look at horror fans Or you talk to them, it's like This bullshit Netflix horror movie I watched it

[00:15:09] Straight to Shudder horror movie I watched it New direct to video Amityville movie I watched it And that's the relationship That horror fans have with the genre And I feel like coming on Is the third carpenter film Before any of his other horror films

[00:15:24] And I feel like coming on to kind of talk about What the genre was When he changed it forever With this film And what he brought to it To contextualize his innovations As a filmmaker A director of the camera really And his use of music and writing

[00:15:40] Is just so essential Not just to Halloween But to the rest of the carpenter mini series Can I just say Just to sort of like frame My blind spots Yes, I'm gonna say We're starting in 1968 Okay, because this is just all I want to say Is that like

[00:15:57] Certainly is not my My genre of strength Right In terms of movie knowledge To begin with But also I feel like In high school I went through this period Where I was just like Homework's irrelevant I'm just gonna watch movies all the time Homework is irrelevant, yeah

[00:16:14] Homework sucks Homework is the worst It's for losers It's for losers and babies And so I was very much like Systematically going through blind spots In sort of what I perceived as a 15-year-old Of my film knowledge and stuff, right?

[00:16:29] So a lot of that was sort of what David was saying Of like, oh, I need to watch the first movie Of every franchise So I kind of like did that And then would move on Because I was trying to cover as many Of the icons as possible

[00:16:40] Without going deep into them Freddie and Chuck are the two guys That went deep on unsurprisingly They reflect the two sides of my person Bad boys and stinkers Right When also Freddie has so much Practical effects And sort of fantasy elements Very griffy stuff

[00:16:54] Well, it's essentially a comedian And a toy Yeah Right Beyond that My horror preference is just in terms of Aesthetics and vibe or whatever Not that I position myself as being Expert is like pre-1960 Like German expressions for stuff Universal monsters Even sort of like Vincent Price early

[00:17:15] Vincent Price, Roger Farmer or whatever Ben's giving you a... I'm not saying this in pretension No, but there's... I have a transition from that Which is very... That's all I just want to say Okay, now I'm glad you mentioned 1960 Because the first thing you have to mention

[00:17:27] Is Psycho Of course Which is the first movie of its kind Halloween is a movie of its kind There is nothing before Psycho That is like that That is like... The premise of this movie Is somebody picks up a knife And they use it to kill people

[00:17:41] The guy who killed people They use the knife repeatedly To stab people through their body And then the person is dead And then they go to another Wait, could even say German movie German expressionist movie M Yeah, that's a different kid name Okay Psycho is...

[00:17:55] What if there was a Psycho? Yeah I mean it is And M is less of a horror movie Is more framed around trying to catch this guy Yeah Okay He's like... We really jumped down Ben's throat To correct him about what M is about Listen up, man

[00:18:08] Listen up, man Well, let's go to some men's play Yeah But Psycho, 1960, yes That is obviously a huge thing Anna also when I was telling her about my thesis I was going to present said Make sure you mention Peeping Tom Which is 61 Great

[00:18:21] Is it later or maybe not Let me look it up No, it's 60 It's also 60 So those two movies, 1960 Are kind of two sides of the coin Opposite sides of the ocean And Psycho is beloved Gets Oscar nominations It's a huge hit Peeping Tom essentially ruins a career

[00:18:36] But it's a... Peeping Tom much like Psycho Is a very pathological movie But Psycho is a slasher at its heart Whereas I think Peeping Tom is like a very psychological That's not really a harm And it's very meta It has these kind of murderous elements

[00:18:49] It implicates the audience It disturbed people and it was like prurient Whereas like Psycho is like a roller coaster I've never seen Peeping Tom Oh, Ben You love it, Ben You're the paper I know Can we tell you what the basic premise of this movie is? Please

[00:19:01] It's a guy who's obsessed with the look On people's faces when they know they're about to die He's a cameraman And he builds a blade into one of the legs of his tripod And he like films women thinking that they're doing like screen tests

[00:19:12] And he stabs them like a camera Oh my god That movie could be remade about a podcaster now Absolutely Anyway You're gonna hear me say anyway a lot While we're going through this Anyway Here's one of the most important things about Halloween

[00:19:26] The people who come to it always talk about Always know Halloween's independent movie Very successful independent movie Horror then becomes For many years something that is largely Independent or very low budget studio movies But in order to understand how revolutionary it is That in 1978

[00:19:46] There was an independent horror movie That became such a mainstream hit I just want to very briefly talk about Studio horror movies From 1968 to 1978 Because everything you're saying Your Valued in movies Your universal monsters Horror was a studio thing Right And it was a classy studio

[00:20:06] And you're not gonna talk Why 68 Two things happened in 1968 Also it gives us a clean decade Sure Two things happened in 1968 There were two big bangs Studio big bang 1968 is Rosemary's baby Sure There had not been a studio horror movie Like Rosemary's baby For years

[00:20:23] Rosemary's baby is produced by William Castle Who was A purveyor Of schlocky horror Cheap thrills throughout the 60s Such as you're saying You might gravitate more towards The tingler A tingler So sardonicus Yes Prowler Thirteen ghosts So My kind of stuff A lot of The Names Oh yeah

[00:20:43] Watch out What if there was a tingler But then there was a blog There's like The Haunting Which is like a pretty Tony studio movie It's also ruthless There's lots of ghost movies Ghost stories Haunting house We'll get to the Divergent Why it's so revolutionary

[00:20:57] To have a movie about a guy With a knife Yes But Rosemary's baby Kind of progresses You're right I've written down here 1958 House on Haunted Hill And the tingler Those are William Castle movies Very gimmicky Another thing I just think Worth mentioning very briefly

[00:21:13] Is that in earlier decades You would go to the movies And you would see a bill of shit And B-movies were literally The backup movie And people would see horror films They were the lesser films That were like the added value Behind whatever the prestige movie Were

[00:21:28] And by the 60s and 70s People are going mostly to see One movie One movie So you no longer have 60-minute Boris Karloff movies About a guy who opens a sarcophagus But there's always a market To be making these movies for cheap

[00:21:40] Because they need something to play after But to me a crucial We're not going into this But a crucial 60s figure Is Herschel Gordon-Lewis Who made Master of Gore Yes, totally violent, cheap Low budget, independent movies Throughout the 60s It's not mainstream Therefore it doesn't really

[00:21:57] Fagger into this conversation But I'm not going to not mention Someone The godfather of Gore As the name of his documentary I believe I've only seen like 2000 maniacs Wizard of Gore is my favorite I've seen Wizard of Gore Blood Feast Which is an Egyptian themed thing

[00:22:10] I believe it was a sarcophagus in that Color me blood red The gruesome twosome The gorgor girls All of his movies are terrific But it's pure exploitation I'm not talking about exploitation Studio horror movies Because exploitation always exists Parallel, it exists Throughout the 60s But Rosemary's Baby

[00:22:27] Is such a huge hit You said that there hadn't been a film Like Rosemary's Baby for years Are you saying that essentially There's like a space between Psycho and Rosemary That's not filled in Essentially, yes In terms of the Psycho Universal Rosemary's Baby Paramount

[00:22:41] The studios are not saying What A-list top shelf directors Could make a horror movie That we are going to take very seriously And we'll end up with Oscar nominations That's not a thing Obviously based on a book It's this very bougie movie About being middle class

[00:22:58] In an apartment And having children Very specific milieu And we're going to I'll come back to that in a minute But I just want to quickly run down After that movie There is Up into Halloween Something of a boom Of studios making horror films

[00:23:11] Because it's a huge thing A huge hit And of course People try to copy this There's not a ton of them But there are a handful I'm going to run them down And these are in order I put these in order And weirdly the first one

[00:23:22] Of these is the only one That functions as basically An independent film But it is a paramount film Which is 1971 Let's scare Jessica to death Which is a film I love I feel like it's a film People who see it love it

[00:23:33] One of the all time great titles Yes, a great title It's also It's got that great tag But now I'm going to Right, something is after Jessica Something very cold Very wet And very damp And literally It's a great film Perked his head up But it is weird

[00:23:47] That's kind of In my Again There are gaps in my research But that is kind of the first Like it's a big studio movie It's a paramount movie But it's just like this It could also have just been a Halloween An embassy pictures release

[00:24:01] It was a paramount movie But it was like a rounding error For Paramount Right, cheap little movie 1971 There's a great movie that Fox makes called the Mephisto Waltz Which is Alan Alda Playing a pianist It is scene for scene The same as Rosemary's Baby

[00:24:15] I know nothing of this But it sounds like maybe An occult kind of movie again We watched this a couple years ago And it's like Oh, well this is three years After Rosemary's Baby And they were like So when Rosemary's Baby John Castavetti is an actor

[00:24:27] In this movie we should make Alan Alda a pianist It's the Mephisto Waltz Mephisto Waltz And he sells his soul to the devil To become a better pianist It's actually really good It's really fun Alan Alda Pretty good in a horror movie context Directed by Paul

[00:24:41] This thing devil coming from my soul Paul Wendkos That's his name I don't know Good movie You wanted to mention it The next big one 1973 It's a big movie It's the exorcist Big one One of the most successful films ever made A hit

[00:24:56] We're gonna come back to it But I just want to say At this point Worldwide $597 million adjusted Warner Brothers 10 Oscar nominations Right It's one of the five Highest person reasonable Beyond that though Also the book was one of those books I was not alive at the time

[00:25:10] But I feel like it was one Of those books that was on Every coffee table It was like a blockbuster Book too Like the book often helps here If you're adapting From a best selling novel Have you ever, you know The cover of the Exorcist

[00:25:22] Like every beach house Scaring young children Exactly I would stay at it I just decided this Halloween I'm going to re-read the exorcist And read Legion Read Legion Are you gonna watch Exorcist 3? I've seen Exorcist 3 I know I'm saying You like to do a rewatch marathon Sometimes themed

[00:25:38] I haven't watched the Exorcist in years Every July 4th You text me about whatever Like political thriller Made the cut this year Thrillers Thrill Here's the thing with the exorcist Not yet I'm gonna We can't get into it But there's a great movie on HBO Called the

[00:25:54] Or maybe it's on Amazon Now the package With Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones Sounds good Cold war thriller It's like it's just such a David movie Yeah Anyway, the exorcist 1973 Huge hit Weirdly this I was actually surprised by 1973 Don't look now Not a studio film

[00:26:09] I thought that this was It's like an art film Right It is But I thought MGM made it But I think that's just because I'm picturing the old DVD They had the home video rights for a while No, it's yeah It's whatever It's like a British

[00:26:20] It's like a rare mentioning But it kind of exists outside Now weirdly by this time Also classy Also based on So that's the thing A lot of these Are quite classy A-list stars A-list stars But also has fucking This genre It's got some fucking in it

[00:26:33] This genre now in my chronology Only five years away from Halloween Is very A-list You're bringing in a lot of big actors Tony And then there's just a few more But even at this point I found it interesting That the Palma has not really gone Horror yet

[00:26:48] No, he's still doing 1972 Right That's horror Yes But Kerry is 1976 But then those are the only Horror movies he's made Because Phantom of the Paradise Doesn't really count as horror I mean obviously it's sort of Horror Notting to it No, but he is not yet A horror filmmaker

[00:27:04] Kerry is United Artists So that's a studio movie And then as you mentioned Star-driven Now these ones Some of these aren't quite Horror horror And some of these are going To come up again in a minute But just the rest of this list Now from 74 to 78 Studio horror

[00:27:19] We're starting to ramp up a little bit A little bit It's alive 1974 Warner Brothers Larry Cohen's movie Evil Baby Stefford Wives 1975 Columbia Rosemary's Baby Connection Ira Levin Levin or Lewin Ira Levin Ira Levin So again, Stefford Wives Kind of horror Kind of satire But that's a Columbian movie

[00:27:40] Kind of a hit 1976 The Omen Fox Huge hit Coming back to that in a minute 1976 Burn Offerings United Artists Distributed Great movie Amityville Horror Before Amityville Horror David's avoiding eye contact He does not want to face the wrath People moving into a house that is evil

[00:27:58] Totally good movie But Amityville Horror So Burn Offerings is 76 The Amityville Horror book comes out 77 So the true story is maybe Yeah, the tree of course The true story book That definitely happened The movie is when? 79 79 I know that's just after Halloween

[00:28:17] But I have to mention it in a minute The rest of these 77 Audrey Rose Don't know if you've ever seen that It's a good little creepy girl movie I think there's a ghost I think it has a ghost element There's also been a shift though

[00:28:27] Even these are all U.A. That's Robert Wise But I feel like these Eight years you've covered, right? It's starting out with like Oh, it's proven directors International art house O'Tours This and that And often based on a best seller And often classic films

[00:28:46] As you said be sold as a single feature Demon Seed 1977 USA Julie Christie Sort of evil technology movie Ben Demon Seed Never seen it Evil technology What if the computer What if you gave your house to a computer Knocked you out

[00:29:01] And the computer tried to make you pregnant And what if a witch hacked that computer 77 is also the Sentinel Which is universal Which I feel like is a movie That people have come back around to But these are the kinds of movies

[00:29:12] That have tons of stars from the 40s The Sentinel is a Michael Wiener movie And if you grew up in Britain Which no one here did Which I did Relevant What? You know Michael Wiener Obviously he directed Death Wish as well And he You grew up Sorry

[00:29:28] Wait, is the new shock that I grew up with I thought you were just a big kid now I am a big kid now He's a very big boy Michael Wiener became A guy who would like He was like a pitch man It was weird

[00:29:42] Well, what was his director? What was his column called? Don't look it up I don't know what it was called Okay, Michael Wiener Don't look it up Winner takes it all No, Michael Wiener wrote a column For a thousand columns Winner circle About restaurant reviews Yes

[00:29:57] What was his column called? Griffin, where does your brain go? Winner's dinner Winner's dinner Right He became this guy who would like Wear a cravat and say Britain used to You know, Britain used to be better Before and he would tail off And you were supposed to

[00:30:09] You went up and you didn't do what he was talking about And you were like Aren't you the guy who made these like trashy ass movies In the 70s? He's a super star He's an odd figure Anyway, the Sentinel I think is a good

[00:30:19] Is that set in Brooklyn, right? That's like a Brooklyn Heights movie The Sentinel is indeed set in Brooklyn Heights It's a great movie 1978 Chris Sarandon, Martin Balsam The Sentinel has like a cast of I'm not mistaken There are like Ava Gardner's Right, there are like golden age actors

[00:30:35] Burgess Meredith Yeah, if they made a Brooklyn Heights horror movie today It'd be about the coffee shop running out of oat milk In Brooklyn Heights Horror movie? What's the terror? Oh, nobody Nobody knew how to respond to that He took a shot

[00:30:52] I have two more things running out of mention Two more things running out of mention That's what they say now We admire you for that Two more of these movies The Legacy, 1978, Universal Sam Elliott and And Catherine Ross Is that what they meet? Yes

[00:31:06] This is a very sexy movie And a good horror movie Oh, excuse me Also the poster is a cat Divided by And then there's smoke underneath the cat And then there's an evil hand Coming out of the bottom of the cat It's a great poster We have, yeah

[00:31:19] It's crazy, what is this? I don't know Could use a little more Sam Elliott on the poster It's a sort of like isolated Like they're in a little bit of an isolated And it's Richard Marcon director Yes Richard of the Genites Just before that

[00:31:30] It's a pretty solid movie And then 1978 The final one on this list Invasion of the Body Snatchers United Artists Oh, a great movie Yes So these are kind of I have seen most of these films Just to be It's also interesting

[00:31:41] A lot of these are repeating the same stars They give two Christy movies You have two Sutherland movies Like there are high class actors Who are dipping their toe into horror And staying there Yes Now that is kind of The extent of mainstream Studio horror filmmaking

[00:31:56] Between Rosemary's Baby And the release of Halloween So you understand with the list I just read And we describe most of those movies Just how different Halloween Nothing we just talked about Is any Halloween There is nothing even A lot of these are supernatural

[00:32:10] A lot of these are vaguely sci-fi adjacent And there's one other element That unites these That we're going to talk about in a minute And they tend to be a little more Psychological paranoia based They also largely take place In very, as David said Very moneyed

[00:32:25] Very high class situations None of these are about children No These are almost exclusively about adults Because you Because I imagine part of the calculation And partly it's that they're based on these books That are often about But like it's, yeah We're going to need a Gregory Peck

[00:32:41] Or who have right Like we're going to need a big serious star To ground this thing But a lot of them are also about Sort of like the threat to the family Yeah, sure Like someone who has made a proper life for them Absolutely

[00:32:54] I mean obviously the Exorcist is DC So here's four of them Yeah We're going to talk about the Mount Rushmore Because you're absolutely right Here's the Mount Rushmore of the four And again one of these is just after Halloween

[00:33:04] But the whole point of this is trying to contextualize When Halloween comes out How could this movie be such a big deal How could it go so far against the current Of the genre So the four movies, Mount Rushmore right Rosemary's Baby Sure, that's George Washington The Exorcist

[00:33:20] Okay, that's Abraham Lincoln The Omen Okay, that's Teddy Roosevelt Amityville Hart For some reason that's Jefferson 79, yeah sure Now the one thing What's the one thing all four of these movies have in common Okay, so sorry Just to go through it again It's Rosemary, Exorcist

[00:33:36] Amityville Hart and the Omen Yes These are the four most successful horror movies Of I know Amityville's One Year After Halloween But of this decade They're all about having children to some extent Yeah Well they are That's apart from Amityville But who is

[00:33:52] What is the main threat in these movies Ben, you know You know who I'm talking about You love this guy Wait what The main threat in those four movies Oh it's the devil Satan himself Yeah The Dark Prince Who's podcast, yeah this is Yeah, the darkest podcast

[00:34:07] The four biggest most successful movies of this decade They all are literally about Satan or the devil Rosemary's Baby What if Satan fucked your wife and made a baby And what happened What if you, Bove the Love Spunged your wife to Satan

[00:34:23] The Omen, what if your kid was The devil Yeah What if your kid got infected with the devil Right, Amityville What if you moved into the devil's piet de terre Is I guess the least demonic But it's more of a haunting

[00:34:33] But it's also for God's sake get out For God's sake get out Right And there's going There's a demon pig It deals with the sort of religious sense Of demonic horror I would say also the Undisputably the trashiest Well I know you don't like Amityville

[00:34:48] I don't hate it I just feel like it is the one And I'm going to explain to you Why you think that Okay In a minute He's getting right in my head There was some episode where you were like Amityville And I was pretty bad And Anna was

[00:35:01] We were like in the car listening to it And Anna was like And you hit break and there was like a 28 car pile up I think she I mean these are all films we love But she loves Amityville And she just went Oh come on Wow

[00:35:14] Because it is You should rewatch it It's quite strong I also recommend visiting the house I should rewatch it I should revisit what I also recommend visiting the Amityville house Amityville Right there in Amityville Yeah But anyway Okay so here's the success of these four movies

[00:35:28] Just to contextualize how much Satanic evil people were eating up For this ten years Rosemary's Baby Two Oscar nominations Two 49 adjusted gross It wins It won One is Ruth Martin It should have been nominated for more things As I already said Five 97 million Adjusted 10 Oscar nominations

[00:35:44] It gets a screenplay win right I think it's only Yeah let me look it up Because Birsten doesn't win Birsten doesn't win One at that point No she wins the next year for Alice Okay But it's Yeah one screenplay And sound Yes Which is fair

[00:36:01] Yeah I mean obviously It's a great year But The exorcist is just an insane outlier of success But it makes people comfortable With horror, the devil Satanism And religious horror Well that's what I was going to say That's what's weird about the exorcist

[00:36:17] Is that it's almost kind of Like popular with Christians Who wouldn't normally be into that kind of Especially because it's also so So scary to them And explicit That's the thing Like you're pushing boundaries with the exorcist The language Beyond the gore The language

[00:36:32] Like coming out of a girl's mouth Right at that point in time Great film It is the best It's so fucking good The Omen It's so scary It's great It's my favorite horror franchise And it's one of those things Like Friedkin just

[00:36:43] He's fucked it up so bad now Like Oh sure I feel like a couple years ago He screened like a Atmos mix DCP And I know people who saw it And they were like It's fucking trash Like what he has done to this He also did his

[00:36:58] His recoloration of French connection Where he made it look like inside Lou and Davis And he was like It was always supposed to look like A runny pastel Well I liked when he added The going down the stairs The version you've never seen Was solid

[00:37:13] Was solid although I still Don't prefer it No I wouldn't put it on now Anyway And also he made a Demented documentary where he talked to The real exorcist who's this Like this one million year old Italian guy Who's like Harry Potter is the devil And you're like

[00:37:27] What is this movie You just also want to constantly Scream at Friedkin Like you're Jewish You're allowed to be interested in this But just acknowledge it He has the vibe of like Anyway he doesn't want to You know I'm saying I just want to remind him

[00:37:41] And also Friedkin's The Keep is the Guardian Just pointing that out there Friedkin is the original Blank-check arc guy in my opinion You know he bankrupts the studio practically You'll do him I'll come on for The Guardian I'll go back to my usual lane for that

[00:37:57] Okay the Omen 277 million adjusted Two Oscar nominations And also like Jerry Goldsmith You know has a song that's like That was like a charter Like it was like on the billboard charts What's it called? Ave Santani right? Like but the Omen We watched the Omen last Halloween

[00:38:14] The Omen is so good But again like I haven't seen the Omen in a long time What you have now Is like a stately apartment building A Washington DC Like a very nice middle class house An ambassador's home And then Amityville Horror 311 million adjusted

[00:38:31] This is not a studio film It's AIP One Oscar nomination Layla Schifrin But again these are like That's a big family's house The Omen is a big family's house The Exorcist is like a modest family's house So again like Halloween is not like these four huge movies

[00:38:47] In any way Now I feel like the context for what American Horror is In 1978 I think it's pretty clear But then there's this other parallel thing Halloween Indisputably Probably the first massively influential slasher Mainstreams the slasher Yes, it mainstreams the slasher

[00:39:03] But here's a quick list of other slasher Again from this era Carnival of Blood 1970 Great film I've never seen I've heard of it Great title obviously Silent Night Bloody Night 1972 Which is really early And this is a very straight down the middle slasher

[00:39:20] It's also just so lured and sick And like not at all comfortable It's a Christmas horror movie Last house on the left 1972 Does that count as a slasher? No, it's in there It's so scary Obviously Well that movie is very disturbed Obviously if you're talking rape revenge

[00:39:36] Right, I think of that as a rape revenge And of course it's a remake of the Rick Markman movie But nevertheless you can't not mention that As the sort of West Crater Just in terms of a also a movie that is being presented

[00:39:46] To audiences is like do you dare To experience that Right, absolutely You're going to faint You're gonna vomit You know, 72 was early for that It is I mean that movie is so distressing Because it doesn't feel like Hollywood Has even touched it at all That's the other thing

[00:40:02] Is that what I'm trying to now establish Is that we talked about these four huge Oscar nominated mainstream hits And then there's throughout all of this This concurrent genre trajectory Of these other films that are so gross And violent and dirty and nasty And this is pre-video

[00:40:17] So it's like you have to go to a theater And have this sort of crazy experience And they always play for two years Right, right And like William Castle movies were like selling this Like people are gonna fucking faint You won't believe it

[00:40:27] And then you watch the movie There's a nurse in the lobby And they take a spider dangling at us Right, exactly They were all about the sort of like Carnival Barker theatrics of like People are losing their minds You have to sign a waiver

[00:40:40] To get into the theater We have a doctor conducting evaluations Did you see when Film Forum did the William Castle series like ten years ago And they did all the gimmicks With the skeleton flying over the audience And you signed it was a blast

[00:40:54] We are not exaggerating here This was part of his genius Was like he would hire actors To be nurses outside with stretchers And they'd be like this last screening Was a rough long People are signing waivers There's things floating in the theater We'll do Matt and Ney

[00:41:06] We'll do Joe Dante Matt and Ney, Matt and Ney, the big girl The Joe Dante, John DeMille movie Is just like one to one of William Castle But yes, that's the whole phenomenon And people are buying into it But in terms of what's actually being depicted

[00:41:19] On screen versus when you get to things Like the last house on the left Where it's like we're not fucking around You're gonna see shit that's gonna upset you Right, it's like this movie looks like It looks kind of like a documentary There's no production value

[00:41:32] It's ten minutes of someone being raped And 70 minutes of people avenging that rape But like quietly and the music is just Kind of like this weird occasional jangle And you're just, it's so creepy It's when these films start to feel a little like snuff films

[00:41:47] They're nasty, they're illicit They're dangerous and this is where Halloween This is where Halloween can land in a few years 74, Black Christmas, huge influential film Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Deranged Which is also based on Ed Gein As Texas Chainsaw Massacre is

[00:42:04] It's by far the most disgusting version of the Ed Gein story I loved Deranged, Texas Chainsaw Massacre Top ten film all time for me Obviously the best Yes, it is just the one for me But again like, and we'll talk about this

[00:42:17] In terms of The Slasher in Halloween But like, Texas Chainsaw Massacre Takes place nowhere You don't need to be afraid of that happening to you Unless you happen to be Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you are definitely like Why don't these kids maybe hang a left

[00:42:30] If your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere You're in danger This does not bring the threat into your home Which is kind of, which is one of the things I want to start mentioning Halloween does that None of these movies do that Black Christmas kind of

[00:42:45] But again like Black Christmas is a weird ass movie I mean it rules It's very solid But it's set obviously in a sorority house And you don't know who the killer is at all No, not even a death You never understand any iota of the killer's motivation

[00:42:59] It's not about a killer It's about people who are being picked off Right, and it I mean again it's very atmospheric But it almost feels like someone's just kind of telling you A creepy story Yes, it's much more of a fable

[00:43:11] In like the sort of, it's like an urban legend Is what I mean The final two I want to mention Shivers, Cronenberg You have to just acknowledge that He's starting to do things at this time That are incredibly valuable to the genre

[00:43:21] Shivers is the one that's set in the high rise Yes, as a sort of an infection breaks out Again, not a Slasher More of a zombie adjacent movie 76, this is a Slasher, Alice Sweet Alice Great film Iconic, Young Brook Shields The great yellow raincoat with the mask imagery

[00:43:37] A very very solid film that is a true True blue slasher And I don't want this We're not going to get into this But you can't not mention that throughout the 70s You also have Argento Just to mention what else is happening at this time

[00:43:51] Right, we mentioned that Brutal crystal comage 1970 Deep red 75, Suspiria 77 We mentioned that on the Gryffin, the Precinct 13 episode right? Yeah, obviously that's a cousin to the Slasher movie, the Shallow movie So like again, those movies would have been playing These are in the culture that then

[00:44:08] Makes room for Halloween But like these are all independent These are independent films These are made by people with whatever Resources they have And these four things I just want to quickly mention Are not Slashers at all But the other big bang

[00:44:20] The reason I start 1968 is Night of the Living Dead That and Rosemary's Baby begin A 10 year trajectory that by 1978 Allow Halloween to exist In terms of how they're being made Just how they're being made How they're being marketed Drive-in, double bills Grindhouse, exploitation

[00:44:38] And then they just like play forever And make tens of millions of dollars Bloodfreak1972 Is a movie about a guy who turns into a chicken Cool 1972 Children shouldn't play with dead things This is Bob Clark who made Black Christmas Another all time great title

[00:44:53] Kind of a zombie movie as well 1973 Messiah of Evil Which is a zombie movie Made by Willard Hyuk and Gloria Katz Who then did Howard the Duck And co-wrote American Graffiti Yes, they're Lucas people Ultimately later Messiah of Evil is just a totally low budget Narley zombie film

[00:45:12] That I have a huge amount of affinity for And this is like This is where Halloween This is what's important for Halloween Right? Like I've always said this I've said this since I was in film school He's always said this People

[00:45:23] You've heard me say this about your Hovind I said this about Christopher Nolan All the way back to when you were in film school The history of independent film Right? If you look at the canon They're like, here's independent film You have Casavetes You have these things

[00:45:34] It's like, no The history of independent film is these movies The history of independent film Is some huckster being like I can raise a hundred thousand dollars From my community To make a movie at the carnival that we have

[00:45:46] And we can make a horror movie at the carnival And we'll make a million dollars That's the history of independent film And everything I've just listed is proof of that To a T as is ultimately Halloween Where it's like Genre cinema, horror, exploitation, pornography

[00:46:00] All of these things are independent film That they don't tell you are independent films Which is weird because everyone's like Halloween Independent film Right, but later They're like that But right, at the time But like, yeah, but it's more It's just like, guess what's playing this weekend

[00:46:15] That movie you've heard about That's so scary Like Do you think part of that, Alex, is a framing of like Well, Halloween was independent film But then Carpenter went on to do studio things And the sequels were studios and so it made good

[00:46:29] Whereas they want to keep like in film schools Right, the idea of American Independent film as being this sort of like Elite class thing Of course, of course So it either has to lead to mainstream Respectability or it has to lead to Like critical respectability

[00:46:46] It wouldn't behoove any film professor To be like, look, you're all going to make independent films So I'm going to show you a bunch of 70s New York pornography And a bunch of horror films Made by people who lived in Knoxville, Tennessee

[00:46:59] And I'm going to explain to you What $50,000 got you then And like you would be chased out of town Because that is not the official canon But if you want to like When I was starting to discover these films I was like The use of negative space

[00:47:14] And maximizing your limitations In these films is so much more useful to me Than watching Stranger Than Paradise Because these movies like They have nothing and they're good And they're just made on a shoestring Like you know, you have like What like Carnival of Souls which I love

[00:47:30] One of my favorite movies Just like a movie that some guy made There's also a viable career path Being presented versus like Or you can bet that you are the one In a million guy who becomes Jim Jarmusch Yeah Because everyone comes at a film school

[00:47:43] Being like, but I'm Jim Jarmusch, right? But I mean like Carnival of Souls is one of those special things Where you're like Well what else did this guy make? He didn't make anything else Oh, not industrial films, yes Yeah, exactly, he made instructional movies But as did Romero

[00:47:55] Right, but then Romero But like it's like Carnival of Souls Is so beautiful And it has like one of the most incredible Like edits I've ever seen You know what I mean You're like how did this guy know But then the other side of that

[00:48:05] Is a movie like Monos the Hands of Fate Sure Which like is a mystery science theater Staple where it's just like Not everybody who's like I begged my dentist for 10 grand I begged my lawyer for 10 grand And I'm gonna make a horror picture

[00:48:18] Not everybody can turn that into gold Sure But certainly a lot of people A lot more people try than anybody thinks But also like That movie has more of a life Even if it's only for being bad Than the indie drama equivalent of that Yes

[00:48:34] You know, even if it's only as an object Absolutely Fascination These shoestring movies do Have a more viable life Than any other genre produced on that Sort of positive level And because people who love the genre Can look at them and see value in them

[00:48:48] You can see some creativity Because of how little you have And there's so much of that in Halloween That we will soon be going over But like it's just this is So basically up until this point This is what the genre is right

[00:49:01] This is a mainstream and independent Sense of horror As a way of understanding When John Carpenter makes this movie About a guy who kills babysitters And now fucking revolutionary This thing can seem because what you have Is movies about rich people Who are families dealing with Satan

[00:49:18] Or movies about people in weird ass Rural locations being killed By zombies mutated chickens Leather face What have you Monsters It's terrible things happening to good Morally upstanding people Or it's dumb idiots make a series of Bad mistakes and that's what was coming

[00:49:35] Or like, you know, in the Dom, you know, Messiah of Evil shivers Some sort of disease Night of the living dead Like they're night of the living dead Obviously has so many so much influence In this way but okay So like now zeroing in getting closer

[00:49:48] To Michael Myers, okay, so you're forced Slasher Mountain You don't want to get too close to that guy The knife is long So we okay so there's another Mount Rushmore here which is the Slasher mascot Mount Rushmore Which I feel like is a Mount Rushmore

[00:50:02] Been probably visits right You've got your four guys on it Michael Myers, Jason Jason, Freddy Those are the four Those are the guys Yeah, I don't know if there's Anyone who can really challenge No, no, those are the four There's a little stone Chucky

[00:50:20] Who's running behind the mountain But Chucky, he's He's little Slashing I think Chucky works at the gift shop I don't think they put Chucky on the mountain I just want to act like he's not a knife guy

[00:50:34] I'm not sure it's just the half way into his series. He's then he's like, you know But you know who starts off doing bit Crew he's like although he's less bit heavy in the first night. Yes. He's he's mostly just a scare

[00:50:52] Looking at these four franchises which Halloween is Arguably one of the best. Yeah, and there's also the earliest franchise right because the second Texas chainsaw exactly For the four above-ground horror movies and then for these two a different

[00:51:07] How much your legacy of these things is connected to what becomes of these franchises, right? So like Rosemary's baby has a May for TV movie. That's fine But Rosemary's baby is almost seen and you can see this from the fact

[00:51:21] It's the only one of those that no one has just like straight up remade Right, it's almost seen as like it's just one of those things. You don't go back Did the fucking NBC version a couple years ago that also everyone's like so we can all

[00:51:31] know this right yeah, it's not talk about one of those things like Jaws where it's just like Hollywood's just It's not you're just not gonna do Rosemary's baby. Yeah, so Exorcist 2 comes out in 77. That's pretty soon Amityville 2 is 82 now. This is a 12 million dollar gross 32 adjusted down from 86

[00:51:50] So a huge dive no one yes wanted to go back and Omen 2 is 78 Right and so like David you're talking like Amityville that has like a dodgy reputation It's because that movie goes from like a B plus movie. I love Amityville 2 everyone who loves

[00:52:06] Amityville 2 is a prequel right? It's the one it's about the original And it is made by an Italian filmmaker whose name is escaping me. It's a Domiano Domiani. Yes, of course. Wow Sounds fake And it is a sick movie like it is a sick movie

[00:52:23] It's kind of nasty it is like it is a genuinely depraved movie But it's the one that like horror fans are like Amityville 2 is a masterpiece But nobody in the mainstream this is what I'm talking about where you're like, okay What about the Hellraiser's and everyone's like well

[00:52:35] We all know five and six were a huge rebound and I'm like we We all know that Amityville 2 is beloved right but like it takes the franchise from like respectability Straighten to the grind house like it is no longer a mainstream thing. It is now

[00:52:52] Right it is now filth. Well, then I'm aware that Amity I'm aware of Amityville 3 because it was 3d like many of 3 yeah, and it's pretty fine It has Meg Ryan, but it also has the poster where it looks like a dinosaur hand

[00:53:08] Don't you think also amityville has a problem in that like people keep moving into the same house and you're like The realtor should Yeah This fucking impossible to not just think of the Simpsons thing with the murder house. Yeah, I'm selling real estate

[00:53:26] But but anyway my question was so obviously the the the horror icon becomes crystallized later in sort of the Mount Rushmore That you established right but it does help that like Rosemary's baby

[00:53:38] Exorcist and the omen all have at least even if only in brief glimpses some kind of physicalization of Satan Where you can in theory Continue it and go like I understand what the central fear is whereas amityville is a little more abstract

[00:53:53] So you can make a sequel that pleases hard hardcore horror fans, but like passive viewers are just like I don't know what the thing is anymore Yes, you know for sure. Well, that's like so omen remains classy omen is like Damien

[00:54:06] Lives in in the circles of society of course We all know Damien is evil that helps them that they had like a physicalization The same is the one with Sam Neil

[00:54:19] Yeah, they mean okay and then exorcist similarly tries to remain pretty classy for two three is of course Gonzo and great, but amityville just immediately becomes something closer to the independent films, right?

[00:54:30] Like right. I'm gonna go does not try to like you say just goes right into the track. Yeah, so like that's why those originals Be like though that's why those are still like a level films and amityville is an a-level film

[00:54:41] But like with slashers they don't go from a to c-plus They go from like B to B minus or from B to B plus So that's why I like this these four slasher things like they become

[00:54:54] Franchises with seven or eight movies most of which are solid Texas chainsaw is the one that's not quite That's too Gonzo, yeah, right because those all the sequels to that are weird Well three is when new line is like we're gonna make Leatherface

[00:55:07] Like right one of our slasher guys like Freddy or Jason and three I always was like I love three I haven't seen it in years. I saw a print of it at Alamo a few years ago, and I was like, oh this movie's not that good

[00:55:17] I've all seen this one was great four is the one with Rhene Zellweger and Right next and and two feels a little like gremlins to where it's just like so It's also like 12 years. That's the thing

[00:55:30] It's like they waited too long the director sort of like I'm gonna do this again I'm not gonna do the same movie again, and they made something a lot weirder that people didn't really yeah

[00:55:38] So like basically this is what I'm trying to say about sequels and Halloween certainly pertains to this like you can make a great Slasher and you can make a so-so sequel and it's fine

[00:55:47] You can also make a so-so slasher and then make a good sequel and you can then make six more right And the other thing that has to be mentioned 1978 is dawn of the dead

[00:55:55] Which is the first sequel that people are like that's better like her that's just undeniably He had more money he improved on it I wanted to talk about 68 to 78 because it's sort of the night to dawn

[00:56:10] Right, but like okay, so there's two modes you can work in here and Like something and Halloween will talk about this like Friday the 13th part 2 is like the one people think they remember Right in the way that there's stuff in Halloween

[00:56:25] It's their stuff not in Halloween that people think is in Halloween because of the sequels Just because of the legacy of the franchise sure yeah, and also I mean, how many also they mess with the TV cut of it

[00:56:37] But like so this is like this is what's interesting about so all of those though It was Friday the 13th the first three movies are what people think of as the first movie

[00:56:45] But because they all are the same movie with improvements. Yes, and they're all doing the exact same format Yeah, but you see how those four Oscar nominated films do not become viable franchises

[00:56:56] And then all four of these slasher mascots spawn these never ending because Friday the 13th part 2 is quite solid Yeah, Texas chainsaw massacre 2 obviously has its fans But it does there aren't then there's no reason to make eight Texas chainsaw massacre sequels. Obviously it's been rebooted

[00:57:13] Texas chainsaw is a superior film to Friday the 13th But they nailed the sequel so hard that they could then go up to space I mean to talk I mean Friday the 13th as well is like that's a Paramount film

[00:57:25] Yeah, that's a studio film and that's the studio being like wait a second We could do one of these a year for nothing and make a ton of money And they just make a little farmhouse on the set

[00:57:36] They like on the studio lot and they tell like Sean Cunningham and what's his pants like you know? Yeah, just one a year. Yeah, and it's what it's either the fourth or the fifth

[00:57:45] I think it's the fifth where the producer is like we fucking made a porno in the woods like where he was like Really no one was paying attention to a certain point And they're sort of at that point like this who's like wait a second

[00:57:56] What is it shit like but for a while? It's just it becomes this well-oiled machine That becomes a viable franchise and like so this is all to say What does Halloween do differently than these films?

[00:58:09] Why is Halloween so different and special even though it comes before Friday the 13th and and like so we need to Talk about that but like it's okay the final girl black Christmas proto slasher There's a lot of people in that movie Olivia Hussie

[00:58:23] There's no final girl right obviously No being character obviously this is one of the innovations the Halloween is credited with even though it's in Texas Chainsaw Massacre Sure, there's Sally right You know her face riding away at the end

[00:58:37] But so you can't say the Halloween invented that but what you can say is that none of these movies take place like on the Suburban Street right that everybody lives on that everybody is like that's why this is the best movie

[00:58:50] That's the thing here as it is my point now that I've arrived at it Is that everything we've talked about for this entire decade either is ignored for Halloween to innovate its own things or? Halloween plays with the things that have been done, but does them better

[00:59:06] Now I'm basically ready to like talk about Carpenter I've been like idly working on this since April what I just went through Yeah, we know and you've been giving us updates You've been sort of warning because occasionally I'll watch something else that will change something at some point

[00:59:23] I need to make yes, but also recently. I've just been watching lots of Carpenter movies But it is like okay obviously this is incredibly detailed and specific and the kind of deep dive into context that only Certain people can wrap their heads around some real nerdy shit

[00:59:39] but the thing about Halloween is that it is it was just like a absurdly simple movie and If you haven't seen it before which somebody might be coming to it for the first time for this series Or if you haven't seen it in a while

[00:59:52] It is almost impossible to watch it and be like oh, I understand why this movie is the most But I understand why this is still the slasher movie against which all others are measured because you look at it And you're like this is just like a good movie

[01:00:05] That's the way I saw it when I was 15 is I watched it and I was like that's good That's the whole thing like I had no complaints about it But I also was like that like sent like seismic shockwaves across the industry the metaphor

[01:00:18] I'm gonna make it's like it's kind of like when like I feel like you would get into like like punk and people like you Gotta check out Hawkwind like proto-punk, and then you listen to you're like, I don't know. It's okay

[01:00:27] I had maybe I had to be there. Yeah, like I don't know this is fine Yeah, but it's right It's like showing someone Casablanca and they're like well, this is corny They're saying all this like horny stuff to each other

[01:00:36] I'm like no no no they like no one was saying corny stuff yet, right? Or whatever like but anyway, but it is like the whole thing I was trying to wrap my head around for months culminating watching Halloween last night is like how can you possibly understand?

[01:00:49] What a big deal this movie was sure this movie that cost nothing this movie that has no Production value beyond its Steadycam and its music right big star is Donald Pleasant

[01:01:01] Yes, and like how can you and how can you explain to somebody even someone who loves the movie and loves carpenter? This is the ten-year runway that this movie landed on and now 40 years later

[01:01:14] You can just copy Halloween and still make a pretty good movie. Why is that right? There was a very small selection of movies where you could do a direct sequel 40 years later and have it feel that big

[01:01:25] Yes, you know like not only is everyone still ripping off Halloween, but the idea of like fuck We're doing Halloween again, but I think Alex's point is Interesting and true which is like if I tomorrow was like I'm gonna make a movie called

[01:01:40] You know Arbor Day, what's the plot a guy kills some people right he gets out of prison and he kills some people Yeah, people will be like I'm excited to see that

[01:01:53] It's just it's called it's called fucking Tuesday. It's like well this guy got out of prison and he's gonna stab eight people I mean look I like Tuesday. I think that's there's a potential there To do it. Oh, Arbor Day. It's like you know

[01:02:08] What's good about Tuesday though you have six sequels ready to go Tuesday Wednesday Tuesday three Monday is the prequel yeah Tuesday zero Tuesday origins I Like the Arbor Day idea we're like you got like some garden shears or whatever no

[01:02:35] He's got like that. You know in Gordon greens Joe They have that axe that's like filled with the acid that they use to like kill trees and he's like an environmental

[01:02:45] Activist who got like thrown in jail for chaining himself to a tree that was gonna get bulldozed and he comes out Chopping people down but that's what I'm trying to say is you guys are putting gimmicks on it

[01:02:55] Which is fine and people have done that you're saying you could do I could just pitch Halloween to someone and they'd be like yeah That's the kind of movie that still gets made right and people still pay money to see and it's still viable

[01:03:06] Well, that's the thing like the thing about this that I love Right like there are I would say Many people hundreds of thousands mil and I don't know who every single Halloween will put on Halloween

[01:03:16] Right and you have to which was of course the idea behind calling it Halloween Obviously, and this has paid off for 40 years with now a 200 million dollar sequel But this is a genre where all of the films I listed except for the Oscar winning ones right like these

[01:03:33] The canon of horror is shaped entirely by fans Right some of these movies had positive critical appraisal at the time Certainly, there's your Pauline kale to Palma But by and large if a movie like Halloween becomes a classic or Friday 13th

[01:03:48] It is because the fans are like we're this is a classic Yes, we are going to claim ownership of this from the people who made it And we have decided canonically that this is one of the great films

[01:03:59] and we as a community of people who love the genre are in control of Film history for this genre in a way that like Foreign film fans are not and horror house conventions and graphic teas and all these things like

[01:04:13] Angoria and you know these are things that now kind of all at fandom at large Resembles and it's like the modern comic is so much more indebted to Horror cons than it is to what comic con used to be which was a place to buy comic books

[01:04:28] It's hand-in-hand with sci-fi in that way, right? Which is a subculture that consumes and owns its thing the difference is it's cheaper and easier to make And I think it's more accessible

[01:04:37] I think there's a horror thing to that is unique within the genre of just like people getting elevated to being legendary Status, yes, you know where it's like you are a megastar within this bubble and then that but also right

[01:04:50] That's totally weird things like who's that six eight guy who looks like he had a stroke And right that guy's leather face in the third leather face Don't you know who that guy is he played the cop in four disparate horror movies Doesn't catch the guy in time

[01:05:05] But this is the thing like people who love that and will line up for an autograph Yes, these are the people of which I am one like no one who loves the movies the horror movies has not seen Halloween They could watch it every 12 months

[01:05:19] Yeah, so then it becomes this question of why watch something that you know forwards and backwards Sure, why do I why have I watched Star Wars every day? I've been six since I was 13 years old sure why like that's my first thing

[01:05:32] I do when I'm so why watch something but it's not a mythology It's just designed to titillate teenagers for one night of sex and violence Why watch these movies? 50 times and that's the sort of like consumer swallowing the product that horror is and

[01:05:50] They just it's not about it as I was saying earlier. It is I need to see everything I need to watch it all but it's also like I just also need to on a loop be

[01:06:00] rewatching everything else so like there is you know, you could screen Halloween or the thing or These Carpenter movies it'll be sold out. Yeah people will always line up. I mean just re

[01:06:12] Experience these perfectly made film you and I went to see guns and roses in concert, New Jersey the other night first concert in 17 months, I mean I was doing the math on it's it's my first concert gone to at least

[01:06:27] Four years I think oh wow that's a long time. I believe well, it's set the bar very high Yeah, I don't go to concerts very often. I don't like standing Thank God. Thank God but

[01:06:40] We had a long conversation in the car right back and you were sort of Comparing the horror community to kiss heavy to metal and rock surely you were using kisses sort of like a

[01:06:52] Perfect distillation of the thing. Yes, where it's just like this bizarre feedback loop between the fans and The band that have always been successful, but have never been respected as high art They've never been canonized as one of like the cool groups

[01:07:10] There's like a rabid sort of hunger for consuming the stuff over again repackaging it Revisiting it merchandising it out the wazoo much like horror right something like Halloween a band like that could say to their fans What do you want to buy?

[01:07:25] Right they would say what do you have anything right if it can say It's as Gene Simmons says if it can say kiss on it It's a kiss on it if it can say Halloween on it it can it will say Halloween on it

[01:07:36] I just think it's interesting and they can be in the Library of Congress or the Rocknroll Hall of Fame But it doesn't mean that John Carpenter is going to get an honorary Oscar or that people are going to be like

[01:07:47] Legitimately as cinema as we like to protect it. We're letting this one in they can be like yeah, that's a great slasher Which is a genre of horror I feel like he will he could Now that they do like six a year

[01:08:04] And also it's just like they're starting to branch into stuff He's on a long list right right right right, but that would be insane as someone who was Well, he would represent the grand art of these things certainly would

[01:08:17] Peel getting a screenplay Oscar kind of comes from it feels like some full circle moment We should go back having a seal of legitimacy to whatever. Yeah, so movie that just Quotes Halloween right comes from saying like it feels like them being like fuck

[01:08:31] We should have we should pay some respect to John Oh, it's just one of those things where you can look back at 1978 and be like Like the the score this like Halloween should want an Oscar for score

[01:08:41] I don't know what one in 70 or should have been nominated at least I think you see the thing is I checked my best score 1979 I hope you checked it to put Halloween on it. No, Halloween was on. I was checking my ballot

[01:08:52] And I and I saw it's not the winner. I have days of heaven Any of Marconi's famous score for any of the listeners who don't know David has a um, how far back does it go?

[01:09:03] Goes back to 1928. Oh my god, David has a spreadsheet 1928 what he would give the Oscar to in every category And what the five nominees would and some people think like oh, it's just the main No, no, I got original score there

[01:09:13] But so but is that wrong? I have to now and I was sort of shaken because I was like obviously I must have Carpenter winning score here and I don't days of heaven obviously

[01:09:23] I can't picture it right now. It's trying to score. Oh, I could sing all of it I mean, but like I could say I could sing I could book A venue I could go to Carnegie Hall and sing all of the days of heaven score

[01:09:35] I mean the halloween theme obviously is once once once all COVID problems are gone. That can be a patreon bonus tier There'll be a patreon Griffin Newman one night at Carnegie Hall singing the days score live to the film Sleepless music orchestra presents Griffin Newman

[01:09:52] But I mean this is also the year of of john williams's superman score. That's a good score great score Also his score for the fury, which is a great score. Yeah, there's a lot of good scores

[01:10:03] But this is but you're exactly this this is what we were saying in the car when we were trying to find a tunnel back from New Jersey to New York Fruitlessly is like the sort of disrepute that disreputability right. That's not a word

[01:10:17] What's the word I'm looking for? I don't know this going the disreputable nature of things like rock and roll or heavy metal or horror Right and then the sort of 50 year arc of these are 40 or 30 year arc of bands that are regarded like been like punk metal bands

[01:10:31] Loud vulgar trash as these movies all could have been and then 40 years later. It's like Well iron maiden sell out two shows at barclays center every two years That's 70 000 people buying a ticket to a band that has never had a mainstream crossover

[01:10:47] And it's like and halloween you can read the reboot it and it makes 200 million dollars Or you can repackage and people will buy the new blu-ray the new box set like these fans They belong to the things they love and the things they love belong to them

[01:11:02] But also this 90 minutes. Yes is just like this perfect object but also that they create industries in a certain way where you're like You know, I maybe i'm speaking out of my ass here, but like

[01:11:15] Uh graphic teas of things from pop culture are things that children wear to bed, right? Sure I I do feel like adults wearing tv shows of the T-shirts of the media they like is a thing that really gets pushed through by for him is wearing a orco t-shirt

[01:11:34] and i'm wearing Halloween horror thon and i'm wearing Hello fennel sure, but but do we recognize this guy talking about sequels? Let me see turn to me

[01:11:45] Is the creature from the oh, no no no no no no no no this is one of the halloween costumes from halloween three seasons Oh, of course. Yeah, that's right. Wow. Wow to be fair. It looks a little like the creature from the black

[01:11:55] No, it doesn't david stupid. I get the point. No you do black lagoon. He's green. Well, he's green Yeah, green guy red red eyes. Well, so is oscar the grouch He does never die. So I started saying before you said the red

[01:12:08] He doesn't have a hood on but okay convention-based around appearances Right is a thing that really formulates from the horror community and the demand of we want to meet these people

[01:12:16] Who otherwise would never be recognized in their grocery store will now line up for hours to to meet them for $50 autographs, right? um the the cane hotter of The fangoria existed but that modern fan journalism if we can call it that is closer in tone to fangoria

[01:12:35] Then things like variety and hollywood report. Absolutely, right and even the tone of of shit like deadline or whatever is closer to fangoria I feel like try and large Then you're also looking at shit like the endless rereleases repackageings of home video releases

[01:12:51] Well, there's a very important part that's going to be my transition into carpenter. Yes Carpenter's career. Obviously, this is his third film. This is 1978. Yeah Ghost of mars his penultimate film is 2001 Right. Mm-hmm. Sure. These are the this is too

[01:13:06] With no quotation marks. This is the era of vhs The first vhs is are made and marketed from hollywood movies in 1978 from fox and paramount 2001 I think is the first year that dvd sales overtake vhs. It's pretty right. That's when that's when your

[01:13:21] mainstream people are everyone's starting to buy a dvd. Carpenter's career lines up In a vend diagram, it's just inside the circle of the vhs era and he as you say his legacy is really formalized by vhs. Yes every one of his films whether you have

[01:13:39] Halloween clamshell like if you're a horror fan having the carpenter Collection on your shelf. These are just beautiful tapes of great films that the aesthetics well obviously made for theatrical distribution Are intrinsically linked to home video

[01:13:54] You made a point of rewatching this on vhs for this episode and then the halloween vhs I've had for over 20 years and then today you took or posted a photo of your

[01:14:03] Uh, a baby daughter holding the vhs. She grabbed it off the table when I was feeding the cats And I came back and she just had my halloween tape in her hands or grab your little hands

[01:14:14] But but was that the moment you truly became a father for the first time that you felt the pride? It could have been it'd be too bad if I waited eight months for that

[01:14:22] But but no, I was very proud. I just yeah, I she was close enough to the coffee table In a chair. She was restrained and uh came back from feeding the cats and she had my halloween tape in her hands

[01:14:31] It was very exciting. But like this is what you're saying carpenter became emblematic of Owning your filmmaker because he came out right when you could do that sure and then made movies there are lean Mean 90 minute films you want to rewatch all the time

[01:14:49] And you would like to own them because they have beautiful artwork beautiful posters beautiful iconography And you want to have these films in your collection But not in the way you want to have the star wars trilogy. It's much more

[01:15:01] Of a of a personal thing. It's not like everybody owns superman on vhs Everybody owns mash on vhs. It's like, oh not everybody owns the thing on vhs David and I are obsessed with uh physical media, but I abandon vhs

[01:15:17] Well, that's a problem. I've been trying to get you back to it for years There's no space for these fucking things go on griff go on do what I do

[01:15:24] For years I've been telling that it's just stacks of things on the floor that I don't know how to organize I've been telling David for years. He needs to get a vcr I told him I would get him one as a wedding present

[01:15:32] I told him I'd get him one as a baby shower present. Yeah, he won't let me buy him a vcr I do think I I've started circling back around not that I need a fucking excuse for another collection

[01:15:41] But there's certainly vhs as I held on to for a very long time, right? Certain key movies, but then also things that for a long time weren't released on dvd and even when they finally came out I stopped like

[01:15:50] Ponning off my old vhs is and sort of circling back to certain things because there are movies that They're movies where you have an nostalgic association to them on that format because that's how you saw it

[01:16:01] And even though it's not the proper presentation of that movie it hits some spot, right? That's why I'm watching a a widescreen movie like halloween on vhs for the 10th time But then there are genres that sometimes are actually weirdly if not

[01:16:17] Benefited from that format gain some sort of adjacent parallel power in that That it almost works as like a different cut of the film. It's smoothing over edges It's abstracting things in a way that certainly helps with horror movies being produced on a budget

[01:16:33] Sure, also things where you're dealing with like patches of darkness, you know and there are plenty of those in this movie. Yeah It's a dark movie. It's a dark movie Um, their joke is that they couldn't afford lights, but they also couldn't afford extras

[01:16:48] Which right is one of these many things that makes many of the scenes in this movie Just staggeringly weird, right and very very off-putting in an entirely unnatural way in it purely mundane environment Absolutely there are

[01:17:03] I counted this when I wrote this down because when david and I went for a dad walk recently You were I was like, I have all this stuff. I want to talk about

[01:17:11] Contacts background and you were like, well, that's fine because you know what was there to say about halloween We'd like the movie itself and I was like no we're talking about we didn't know You're your character rise. I did not say that

[01:17:21] This is also like one of my favorite movies ever and I haven't even talked about my experience with halloween I want to hear and about carpenter, but I want to say one thing first. There are five sequences in this movie

[01:17:32] Okay, um four of which are short and then one of which is 45 minutes long Right. That's the construction the back half is yes That's the construction this movie is prologue lumus at the hospital Right a bit of context in haddonfield at school

[01:17:45] Lumis coming into haddonfield and the girls going after school Then it's nighttime 40 minutes in and then that's the the rest of the movie is all connected together Five sequences. Okay. I will say this. I was terrified of this movie before I saw it

[01:18:00] This was the scariest thing in the world to me I knew what it was about I knew it was about a guy called michael miers who went around and stabbed people When I learned this when I was like 10 or whatever

[01:18:11] I would I had never heard anything so scary in my entire life Because I was such a big scaredy cat and I was such a video store kid

[01:18:17] And I would look at these vhx boxes that would like terrify me and the concepts would terrify me if I come on tv They'd terrify me. I don't remember ever being scared of michael miers in that way But you lived downtown you did that's true

[01:18:30] I lived in a house in a cul-de-sac. I didn't live in the sun. I was I was similarly terrified But I just remember being like jason is scary freddy's scary. Well, jason takes man. Where you live right?

[01:18:42] That was the scariest he did take it. Yeah, well, jason and freddy are more superficially scary looking I suppose looking at things like basket case and creep show and whatever i'm just like these really grow tests

[01:18:52] They're horrifying right, but those came to life. I would get that they were scary. Yeah, okay so good Um, but then I was like right around the corner from where you grew up. Yeah, it's such a good right on sixth avenue

[01:19:04] Too scary takes place. Um, but I'm not scared of freddy in the same way because I don't think anyone's invading my dreams I'm not going to any oh that's my ultimate fear because I love sleeping and if someone fucking dares mess with that

[01:19:17] Around my shit list. Uh, I'm not uh scared of jason. I'm not going to a summer camp anytime soon when I'm 10 years I do go to lake where you refuse to throw bench jeans off the dock. That's true

[01:19:28] Okay, for one, that's the you're not scared. I wasn't anyway, but no just scared shucky because of toys could murder people I'm fucking I had second. I had genuine problems. Yeah Like not genuine, but like I would get scared

[01:19:41] But once I learned of the concept of yeah, there's like a serial killer. What's that? It's like a person who goes around killing people for no real reason tapping into that for you It's probably the first time i'm hearing about it in a significant way

[01:19:54] Okay, what when was this? I think i'm like nine or 10 years old something like that So is this before after you would have seen scream which is a first horror movie for a lot of people I had not seen scream

[01:20:04] I think I was aware of scream this is before scream But then I became aware of but I thought scream was like a comedy You know and scream is such an mtv movie. It's very meta and it's very I'm just saying

[01:20:19] It's like there hadn't been a horror movie released in theaters like that for It's true. It was right. Yeah So a lot of people that was the first time they sat in a theater and watched a slasher movie but this is interesting like the There's a crystallization of

[01:20:32] Your understanding of serial killers exist It could just be a guy And also the name that you could make a movie with that structure Right both are tied to michael meyers like he becomes the face of that entire concept for you across reality and art

[01:20:48] And then I see the movie. I don't know as a teenager I don't know when I saw it for the first time, but it was on television But by that point i'm a cinephile a budding cinephile. Well, wow Sitting there with your beret And your cigarette holder

[01:21:03] I'm the boards. I'm already appreciate and then there's a yes, I don't know if I should tell this Say it do it. There's a there's a moment sometime in my teenage where I'm uh Extolling halloween to somebody a couple friends english people

[01:21:17] While you were on vacation, yeah, right? Unfortunately, we're used to a holiday Just show up in a foreign city Describing the scene like I'm describing. I think the scene where lumis and the sheriff are like in the um the meyers home

[01:21:35] And they're you know poking around and then like the windows and something falls through the window gutter or something It's a god. I think it is a gutter. Yeah, uh, and you know, it's a good jump and it's it's

[01:21:46] You know, obviously there's nothing to it, right great moment And I think I described the scene loudly I think I just described it as a pipe coming through the window And for years my friends would repeat me

[01:22:00] Saying like crash a pipe goes through the window, which I don't think I ever said I think they It became a plate against sam Exactly. You like when you really like me there's if my if the two people who know what i'm talking about are listening

[01:22:15] They know they know what they know they would tease you by screaming crash a bite all the time If I ever got excited about anything ever again in any context where I would become more animated

[01:22:26] Because I feel you get animated a lot. That's that's why I was afraid to say it on Part of the glossary now it's in the lexicon Exactly. And so I don't know why i'm bringing this back into my life, but

[01:22:39] The and I want ben to offer some of his ben's holding a carpenter book But I want to just quickly say I also I cannot remember for the life of me Exactly when this was but there was two consecutive weekends when I was like 12

[01:22:54] Where I so it must have been the sci-fi channel One friday showed all the halloween movies and I was at like Maybe I was 11 and at like Seven or eight o'clock. I was like, oh watch this and the next thing I know

[01:23:06] It's seven in the morning and I can't sleep and i'm terrified and the next week they did friday the 13th And I just remember these marathons and then but halloween similarly. I was like, well, I'm not at a lake

[01:23:17] And I don't have any reason for jason to come after me friday the 13th. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, however I do have this fear that some guy might just walk into this house and stab me with a knife

[01:23:28] Because really the street looks not unlike my own right. I didn't live in the suburbs But I still right I did you know, I lived on a quiet street in london in new york city And but

[01:23:42] Put down that knife I do think that's the brilliance of this movie is right It's like the the and I've said this I think I've said this on this podcast before but right like that

[01:23:49] The suburbs feel so safe. Obviously. That's how they're designed. See, you know, it's funny I think the suburbs is being very terrifying, but I wonder if it's only because of Because they're quiet as well, but like, you know, the suburbs are supposed to feel safe, right?

[01:24:00] It's supposed to be the place Sure, you know where you're like, well, of course I can my kids can run around here But then it's of course like well if a guy with a knife wanted to kill you all he has to do is like open one door

[01:24:09] Right, no one walks there. No, this is why I find them scary Whereas like I look at slash movies like as a kid and I'm like well, I live on the 11th floor I'm golden like to me

[01:24:20] But like and like I mean one of the most brilliant moments in this movie is when she's hammering on the guy on the door And the light comes on and then nothing else happens and then she has to go to the next house

[01:24:29] I mean it's so good and it's so unspoken No one's fucking helping you out. No, I am Because if this is why I really gripped me watching this movie for the first time and many other times

[01:24:38] Like that's what's so magical about it and then like yeah, like you look out your window And you're just like as they look out the window in this movie 15 times. Sure. And it's just like there's nobody out there

[01:24:50] I am realizing this is why I think I'm so much more scared by supernatural shit Another scary thing that's in this movie is just getting stuck into like boring conversations with people that live in the town with you

[01:25:02] God, I that is another part of the suburbs. That is the worst He's shown to many a horror film, of course is right that that early scene or it's like bad dialogue. Right? Yeah

[01:25:19] Creek just kidding. It's not an ad read. Sorry. It's me alex coming in to my own Contextful episode with one crucial thing that I forgot I had it written down I can't believe that I forgot to talk about this I lost sleep later that night

[01:25:41] Because I knew that the explanation of this movie and this time period was not complete without something incredibly crucial Okay, going to be very fast As I've been saying 1968 to 1978 is the period I am discussing here as a way of understanding

[01:26:00] How and why John Carpenter's Halloween landed with the impact that it did when it came out in 1978 The biggest thing I forgot to mention is that 1968 to 1969 Zodiac killer starts murdering 1969 Charles Manson 1972 to 1978 John Wayne Gacy 1973 the beginning of the golden state killer

[01:26:28] 1976 and 77 David Berkowitz the son of Sam and starting in 1978 Jeffrey Dahmer these 10 years that I'm trying to explain as being the Period of American history into which Halloween is born cannot be properly understood in terms of people's hunger or appetite for slasher films horror

[01:26:50] Whatever you want to call it without first understanding the overwhelming rise in serial killers serial murders Random killings and other associated fear that crept into the country at this time. This is where slashers come from

[01:27:07] This is why movies like Halloween are separate from all the other horror movies I have been talking about that it came out prior to 1978. Okay back to the episode Ben, what do you have in that book there? Do you have some carpenter?

[01:27:20] Well, I mean I just have it as we're going to go through i'll throw out some facts We can talk about all five. I think we should talk about maybe Deborah Hill's involvement She's come up a little bit here and there very interesting and very important

[01:27:30] I think to she goes hand in hand with Dean Cundey. I think for this film She I think big influence looking at both of their film Is undeniable that she brings Cundey to carpenter

[01:27:41] Because she works with him before she works with Dean Cundey on earlier films that she's involved with So his career is in progress. Her career is in progress and then she kind of brings him over he uh,

[01:27:52] Yeah, right. I have it. Yeah, she she worked on it was 1977 Satan's cheerleaders, which is a good movie And also 1977 charge of the Model T's which stars Troy McClure, of course And and and Dean Cundey shot both of those movies

[01:28:06] He didn't shoot assault on precinct 13 and then suddenly he's carpenter's guy clearly once she's I you have to assume like this guy's magic like there's something he's doing here that we need to bring over

[01:28:16] And she also clearly is like in the scripting the Laurie Strode is obviously as has been historically noted The character she was very connected to and gave her hometown the name of Laurie Strode's hometown

[01:28:29] She's obviously very instrumental in shaping both the story and the craft of this movie some some things from our dossier I'm just looking at this it's a spice in right, you know, like They also just came up with scares

[01:28:41] Before they even had you obviously know they're making every 10 minutes We want this to be structured like a radio serial But like Deborah Hill has the idea of like what if your boyfriend went downstairs came up with the sheet over him

[01:28:51] But then it's not your boyfriend anymore and they're like great. That's gotta be in the yeah, right Like things like that like they're coming up with the ideas first and they're like don't worry world We'll build a plot around that is michael's one bit. It's a good

[01:29:07] And then he cuts the eye holes in the sheet, which you don't see him doing But he loves eye holes we know from the first shot this guy's fucking obsessed with eye holes

[01:29:15] But he's got a mask like you don't see him do it. I would like to see him you'd like to see him just delicately It's not easy No, and they're very symmetrical and they're the same size

[01:29:26] They always do line up because like sometimes it's like uneven or either too far apart one is big and one is small The way hill puts it is she wrote the first draft and it was

[01:29:36] Mostly the teenagers and carpenter comes in and lay layers in the loomis stuff Which makes a lot of sense. Yep, because carpenter's the one with the truly deathly outlook on things like he and they say this about

[01:29:48] Uh escape from new york right where he's like again like he writes this really bleak script and nick castle comes in It is like it should be funnier. This is the best thing about him rewatching now as i've done and he's fine to collaborate

[01:29:59] Like a dozen of his movies leading up to this and just wanting to be refreshed for the series is like I just he just has the most horrible outlook on humanity There should be a character walking around being like pure evil

[01:30:13] And it's like is that character depicted as crazy. It's like actually at the end we prove him right He's always correct. He's spot-on and then it's in those other movies. It's like so what happens at the end

[01:30:22] It's like oh all hell breaks loose and then the credits roll. I just love his nihilism. It is totally Refreshing and so not and it's just not comforting and yet these movies are comfort movies for people who love horror I know we're still in the early days

[01:30:37] But I know of much of what's to come It is just kind of incredible how Committed he is to these abrupt endings where it's just like end of story end of movie because he's a he's a set He's like a he's like a 40s and 50s

[01:30:51] He's the Howard hawks thing. It's like what more is there to do? We don't need a button Right. Yeah like the story's over and I guess what's next with the credits like do we want to have the characters wrap it up?

[01:30:59] No, no, like there's like nothing cute that ever happens at the end of a carpenter movie It's always some note of like lingering bleakness or anger Or like a final spit in the face. Yeah, or kind of shrug of like, I don't know. We're all fucked

[01:31:13] I mean that's the thing that's they live a little bit right you see it in a lot of his movies It's just so great. Yeah Movies that don't have sequels right that it's just yeah, he's just so

[01:31:24] So miserable in his outlook and but even like not to jump ahead But the fact that he did not intend for this movie to have a sequel ever and that the ending is

[01:31:33] The body disappearing and the guy being like well, yeah, I mean of course can't kill the boogeyman Well, yeah, hey kids the boogeyman. He's still out there. Maybe he's coming to you. Maybe he's coming for you next Yeah, also because this movie has no justification for what

[01:31:46] Michael Myers is doing. It's huge. This does not have the sibling This is one of those things I was saying like Friday the 13th people put that in their memory of this movie But it is not in this movie that him and Laurie stroller related

[01:32:00] But it's something that you put there and at the end of the movie. It's like no, no There's just a boogeyman out there There's a quote from carpenter here that I really love about the what we're talking about that I want to read

[01:32:09] Which is that when they were shooting the final shot? Which I love and the shot of pleasant's his face. Yes. Yes pleasant's was like I can give you I knew this was gonna happen and I can give you I can't believe this happened right and carpenter was like

[01:32:24] Well, I definitely knew that it was probably gonna be I knew this was gonna happen But he gave me both And he left the decision in my hands, which is the mark of a great actor

[01:32:32] That's carpenter's opinion where he's like pleasant's is just like a guy who's like I'll do any I'm an actor I can give you any face you need you'll figure it out later, right? Like he's not like no lumis would would definitely only do this

[01:32:44] Like he's he's a swiss army. That's a good pleasant's. Yeah I love donald pleasant's he's donald pleasant's is the fucking best now I feel that my impression at the beginning he's one of them the the most prominent people for me that it's like

[01:32:58] For 15 years. I was like it's the guy from halloween And then I was like, oh, he was massively famous But yeah, for me just forever and ever Well, he's in so he's also in so many halloween as well And I did just watch them all And he's in

[01:33:17] What conservatively six of them. Well, he's not in three. He's not in three So I guess he's in five one two four five and six and then you've got mcdowell You know given his spin in the zombies, but he's not in he's up through sex

[01:33:29] He's not in six is the one Where he's he's really on his last legs But there's something I mean, I think you said the summer if you said it on mic or you said before your recording

[01:33:38] But that like his first choice was peter crushing and his second choice was chris furley. Both obvious obvious He wanted a horror margins, right? Yep, but aside from the baggage the associations of them They're also guys who look like they belong in horror movies, right? Like certainly by 78

[01:33:54] They've been in horror movies for 25 years, but you're also just a face It's like the bone structure on both of those guys the Cushing looks like a skeleton man Right who's like wearing a little bit of skin just to convince you he's not a skeleton, right?

[01:34:07] And chris furley. Yeah, I mean he's got this long elegant face and these very sort of intense eyes and whatever Like you put them in a horror movie. They feel like they belong

[01:34:15] There's something about pleasant who feels like despite the fact that this character becomes so big for him And he does other horror movies and other carpenter movies and whatever that he doesn't totally feel like he belongs in this world

[01:34:26] Without also feeling like oh shit. This is weird that alex genesis in star wars You know where it's a clear like i'm gifting you the prestige It's instead just like this is like a real guy. This is just like an adult man

[01:34:39] Who is now caught up in this horrible thing? Well also because If Peter cushing had been in it when I saw it I would have been like that guys in star wars when I saw this

[01:34:49] A year after star when I saw this all I thought was that's dr. Loomis, right? And and the development of this is so you know, that's a whole other thing you could talk about

[01:34:57] Pleasants decides to be in the movie because his daughter liked the score for escape from new york, which is From salt on precinct. I'm sorry salt and precinct 13 not right now The budget for his time traveling daughter. Yeah, the budget for this movie was 300 000. He got paid 25 000 dollars

[01:35:12] Pretty good It's like right and 50 of the budget is the cameras and the lenses right and a lot of my reading I feel like in this like independent phase of his career

[01:35:22] It's just been really wild to just like kind of get like more a glimpse into just like how random weird rich people would just pay for these things It is just like some weird guy

[01:35:35] This guy read this like what does he know? But he's like, all right. I don't know here's 300 000 dollars Well also it was the the anecdote I read somewhere was that he was pitching the movie to akkad and akkad was filming

[01:35:46] Mustafa akkad one of the all-time names. We'll get back. We'll get back to him Yeah, the message akkad right was doing this big epic And carpenter was like I think I could do this for 300 000 dollars and akkad like took a moment and went the movie

[01:35:59] I'm making right now cost 300 000 dollars a day and it is driving me crazy If this guy thinks he can actually get the whole thing done in that amount of time I'm willing to take a flyer on that It's like fine. Can teenagers die in it?

[01:36:13] Yeah, okay, then you can have right fine and carpenter's not even like I have to make this movie He's just like I run it want to keep making movies. This is the level someone's going to let me work at right now

[01:36:23] Carpenter's like also pitching to him as a business proposition where he's sort of I don't think giving the full Alec Ross Perry manifesto, but sort of saying like here's what's been going here's what's been working

[01:36:33] I could work off of this. This is why I don't need many locations Why I don't need many actors like all this sort of stuff and he goes like fine Yeah, why not who knows who cares like and I think by his own admission

[01:36:44] Was just sort of like this is a flyer who gives a shit and then once this movie hit big He was like I am keeping my fingers around the franchise forever Glad I didn't let this guy own any of this stuff

[01:36:54] I just gave him no money to create and like a cod son is still like I know there's still weird shit with like It's a lot easier to make merchandise of the halloween sequels than of the original film

[01:37:04] But via cod, you know cod dies in a terrorist attack But um, his son is now in charge of the movies and he was the one who greenlit the zombies Right and then now the

[01:37:15] The Gordon greens right because the sequels had studio participation. I think he has less complete Control whereas anything that's rooted in the first movie It's like cannot happen without a cod son given the thumbs up, but also these people love money

[01:37:32] Yes, they've been minting money off of this for people to make movies Right because they're all I fucking like neck of toys which the action figure comic that makes a lot of Horror movie stuff has been producing like a ton of like halloween 3 halloween 2 and everyone's like

[01:37:46] Why can't you make halloween 1 and they're like halloween 1 costs like 8 times as much as halloween 2 I had the mcfarland toys michael miers merchandise spotlight. I'll get back to that later I had that

[01:37:56] But uh everything from the I mean david, you know, I love when you narrate a poster Did you narrate the halloween poster for me? Please wait and not the heller wean poster for tyler parry's

[01:38:07] We'll do that later. Yeah, we'll do that after we do the box office game for that as well Patreon series, why would you give that up? Just just narrate this poster for me?

[01:38:14] Yeah, I almost did a bit though where I was like where we're not here to talk heller we Uh, the halloween didn't save that for patreon halloween poster very simple A great poster and is there a tagline on this poster narrated david top of the poster

[01:38:28] halloween already i'm interested It's a great holiday. We all love and of course part of the pitch of course for this movie also was like Wait, no one's ever called a movie halloween

[01:38:39] I know i've called out several horror films in this episode already is having some of the best tiles of all time halloween might have the smartest title of all time that in psycho

[01:38:48] I mean it's hard to halloween's just so fucking good though. It's just like and it's in the font the font Like you can still market a movie on yes Yeah, um the image here below the title and I also have the titles that big h big n

[01:39:02] You know, I like this sort of yeah, that's fun great Um a man's hand is drag what colors the font? It's white and orange Like a jack o'lantons sure um Man's hand dragging the knife across Right, you got this sort of four

[01:39:18] One two five knife kind of like image there, right? But of course that also looks like a pumpkin And then the pumpkins got scary eyes As they do like a jack o'lantons right and then the tagline the knight

[01:39:32] He now in italics now wait a minute wait a second came home And now wait a minute. I have I have 10 questions. There's no further answers who Why is this in italics?

[01:39:44] Where was he and how long has he been gone and why was he away and what is his home right away? You're just like the mind reels. Yeah with how important this sounds. Yeah, it's It's

[01:39:58] Unbelievable how crucial these posters are to these 70s horror movies. It's not the tagline is so crucial It's not the knight death came to had sure or it's like watch out if you're a babysitter Which you know, it's not the knight The killings happened right he in italics

[01:40:17] Who who are we talking about already this guy is the guy with the knife? I mean who already this is already I cannot even yes begin to conceal my excitement for what this story might be to the point of like

[01:40:29] Meyers becoming the first real modern horror icon. It's like this movie's telling you like this guy is important He's the boogie man, right? You know the but you know the boogie man. It turns out he has a first and last name

[01:40:41] Right. He's actually uh has like a social security number It's funny Friday the 13th, I would say bad tagline. They were warmed they are doomed and on friday the 13th

[01:40:50] Nothing will save them but that was saved by the fact that it was called friday the 13th. That was enough I guess another great title um to carry the nightmare on um street doesn't Is it not just one two freddy's coming? Yeah, isn't something like that

[01:41:02] If nancy doesn't wake up screaming she won't wake up at all. Which is a great actually that's a great tagline Um, no just change on masker has the superior one to all of these Well, well who will survive and what will be left out of them?

[01:41:14] Yes, we're great Well, that's the thing like the last house on the left has you know to avoid fainting keep repeating It's only a movie. It's only which is like what notice taglines where you're like, what? But to your point alexa none of these other taglines

[01:41:28] Invite the same questions as I have so many questions right and let's start talking about those questions as it pertains to the stunning prologue of this movie I can't even say how many times watching this movie. I thought I have seen this ripped off 50 times

[01:41:41] It's never been done better. I think this movie is great I think the entire movie is great my only complain about it is like the prologue is like the best thing

[01:41:49] I've ever it is it is the movie for me is never kind of as good as the prologue Even though the rest of the movie is arguably the best of its kind different It's another one of those things like lorry being his sister that you're like

[01:42:00] This one thing looms so large in my mind. You watch the prologue and you're like here. We go This is one of the greatest homes ever made and then nothing is as stylish as that

[01:42:07] No, I mean a carpenter basically says like cops to the fact like i'm this formalist I like hawks like it's so unlike that because it's this insanely showy sequence right but It's him doing fucking touch of evil when like orson welch was the exact kind of guy

[01:42:22] He didn't like who was sort of like putting too much mustard on it Is like at that point it's like what david sort of said with like crocodile dundee too at that point You're like well, this is 10 stars right this can only go down to four from here

[01:42:35] Right the beginning of this movie is so good right right. Yes. It's unbelievable And as you said, there's just like there's no Keep in mind we've jumped past something extremely important which is the opening crept which is already it's already 10 stars So good. Yeah a million stars

[01:42:51] Just that the the the music but also the music and the zoom on the pumpkin and the fonts already It's just like yeah i'm in this mood

[01:42:59] That is so unusual for everything else i've just listed of what you would have seen in this genre for the previous 10 years It's just one of those things where it's like i know if i were a time traveler. I should probably go

[01:43:09] Stop 9 11 or whatever, but it's like wouldn't it be cool? David you were alive then you could have done that thing i could Mark wallberg would have done it you're saying you wouldn't even have tried

[01:43:20] But like imagine sitting with an audience and those titles come up and they are unprepared for the movie and they're But just like the weird atmosphere that must have been generated

[01:43:29] So just that the score is so fucking aggressive right where even you compare it to like draws which is draws Jaws this way is that a southern movie about killer underwear? Draws I think that's going on the slate as well

[01:43:45] You compare it to jaws if you just sold another great horror film right but jaws It's so much more thought out has wonderful music. Yeah, it has a wonderful opening sequence. This is so much like jaws

[01:43:54] The music so much in the way that it's like the killer has a signature The killer every time the killer appears you hear the killer's little song Well, it's I mean the fucking genius of this movie

[01:44:05] There's the story that like he screened this to someone some distributor and they were like no, thank you Not scary. They said like you have to well, i'll find nothing scary about this movie Um, it's a young film exec said he hadn't made her scared at all

[01:44:18] And you need to save this film with music now carpenter says that person did later come to me and say like I was totally off by right like did apologize right but but all but he appreciated the note

[01:44:27] Right, but also that she was like it's an amazing case study and how important music The correct score is to the emotionality of a film whatever emotion you're going for Yes, I mean it's why the gordon green movie. I would say almost is a

[01:44:42] Is successful just because it uses the score I mean, I know he's like doing some new stuff But like because that's still fairly simple right and the thing I don't like about the gordon green movie

[01:44:50] Is when it goes a little too much where i'm like the whole point is carpenter never goes overboard I think that movie gets a little overly complicated carpenter is a master of like understatement and economy

[01:45:00] And just keeping things as like primal and elemental as possible at the same time this opening sequence is so Lurid and just like it must have been so gross And it's so showy the line

[01:45:12] The line in 1963 halloween the first thing you see on screen and you're like i'm so far so good sure Another year and a day and it's all pov It is or seems like one shot It is one shot, but there's a couple no, there's three cuts

[01:45:25] The masks being taken on and off but cuts hidden in it. It is an unbroken illusion of time Um, it's either it's three shots two cuts. I think for when the mask goes on and off

[01:45:34] Um, there's this uh, you know, it was the last thing they filmed which is which is great And I think partly because they were just like Um, we we don't know we got to work on this before we know

[01:45:45] And there's moments where electricians would one run from one room to the other with a light Cool because they didn't have enough With the light that they exactly and like gammie lee curtis talks who's not a part of the like watch the whole thing happen

[01:45:58] It said like it was super exciting to watch it's not steady cam. It's something called panaglide Which was like a steady cam knockoff which is why it is less distressingly Motionless than like the uh, like the shining or what? It does have a little

[01:46:13] Ish right because yeah, because there's so much steady later It was less good at like a horizon, you know being having a steady horizon like the steady cam is the king But it's like a knockout steady cam

[01:46:25] But it's like it's just unbelievable and like when he reaches for the knife and it kind of loses focus on the hand Concealing the surprise that is coming It's like because you could see it at the hand of a seven year old or whatever he's supposed to be

[01:46:37] But even just the first moment reveal of his face, but it means well that but also I was gonna say the first moment When you realize oh, you were watching the pov of someone right?

[01:46:47] It goes from being like and I it's easy to say this from modern perspective But it's like this is the kind of camerawork we associate with a horror movie at this point right totally new We are distant slow creep slightly shaky unnatural

[01:47:00] Holding on the shots for too long kind of energy and the moment they like address him And you realize like oh, this is now going to be a language for the rest of the movie that I no longer know

[01:47:12] When I am watching an impartial view of something it's about to happen or I'm seeing through his eyes And that always remains scary for the entire running time Um that first shot I love of them kissing through the door

[01:47:25] Yeah, but just like sums up everything this movie is going to be about even the future like even the present day stuff love that There's nothing 60s about what these people look like. No, that's true They look hyper

[01:47:37] Contemporary to late 70s, but it is just like it's so sexual It's like titillating and it's violent right and it's ultimately like kind of weird and depressing To be that's like the pop rocks and soda thing where it's like people like you can't do that

[01:47:50] Right, you have like a woman's boobs like covered in blood like this is so shocking And then it's like and the boobs were being seen by like a boy Right who's then stabbing the boobs. He is he's murdering his sister. Yeah, no good very bad

[01:48:05] You're gonna get thrown in fucking heaven and the messaging too is really disturbing and like a lot of different ways Of just like you're trying to figure out. Why would he do this? Why is he watching her like like what are they trying to say about her?

[01:48:22] Her relationship to sex. Yeah, like exactly Michael. They're not like assholes to the kid There's no moment. Yeah, you know what's great is that none of those things been just said or ever addressed

[01:48:32] Right, but that's like but it's carpenter knowing that the scarier things are in your fucking mind I mean it's the thing I thought was so interesting that like The way he directed Nick castle on set Was castle be like so what's my motivation? What do you want here?

[01:48:44] It's like your motivation is you start at this point you end at this point. Don't play anything The entire point is I want to make the least relatable character in the history of cinema It is impossible to figure him out

[01:48:56] So you're only projecting your own shit onto him because i'm not giving you anything Right. It's the funniest thing because castle is like I did the movie because I wanted to see how movies were made Like I was more I lived in the neighborhood

[01:49:07] Well, and he paid me $10 a day Shot in Pasadena despite being sat in Illinois and there's many hilarious incongruities Of what Illinois would look like versus what california looks like they painted a bunch of leaves brown

[01:49:20] And would cart them from location to location and spread them around because they couldn't paint that many leaves Obviously Seeds over get the leaves later when they're like at the school. It's one of those weird california outdoor schools

[01:49:33] And you're like well this were in illinois for three months of the year it would be 20 degrees He would look like a john hughes school in Illinois, but it is but it just doesn't matter I didn't I never I never for a second until I learned

[01:49:45] Oh, the halloween houses in pasadena ever thought you can go see it I bet this movie is not shot in it's what it's one of those things were like I fall prey to this sort of movie logic too where I just go like

[01:49:56] Oh, I guess I didn't know that's what houses look like in this town. Yeah, well It's also like you mentioned like deborah. Like she's from head and field, new jersey I don't know why they say illinois there seems to be no logical connection

[01:50:05] It's the same way that nightmare in illusory just for for some reason eventually clarified to be also in the midwest It's sort of like something spooky in the midwest is creepier. I guess very far away from things right

[01:50:16] But it's great the prologue is great and then it says Yeah, and as you said that shot the reveal where you go around his little face He's a little chair like you're talking about the lack of merchandise from the first movie

[01:50:26] And there's so many things like him with the sheet or the boy like in the clown costume Like there's so many little morsels of iconography in only this movie There were there were like five years before akkad senior died where they were licensing it out

[01:50:40] All that shit got made and now people want it again and he's rare stuff's really rare and they can't reproduce it There you go That's the thing but there was a zone where you could buy like little michael michael with the sheet all that shit

[01:50:52] I had a 20 inch plush michael that when you press this chest the theme played pretty cool I don't know what happened to it. He wasn't like hey, it's me michael. Hey, elixir my friend My spidey sense is taking like the mental institution

[01:51:06] All right speaking of the mental institution Sequence number two lumis at the hospital this features I think one of the greatest shots in the history of the genre

[01:51:13] Which is all the inmates wandering around in the field so spooky in their white robes in the headlights in the pouring rain And you see the look on his face and they're like are they usually allowed out? He's like no Something is very

[01:51:26] Very wrong here and right away. It's just like you've gone from this completely subjective wonderful Flexing of technique to this just like classic rainy night and it says this october 30th

[01:51:37] So you know it's gonna happen the net nothing's happening now right and then they pull up in this rainy night at the insane asylum And it's just like Now what's happening?

[01:51:47] Is this where he came home from another thing I like is that like lumis and this is kind of like Well gram and manhunter where it's like this thing just permanently ruined him right Like he's got some of the carpet or cynicism

[01:51:59] But it's also just like this kid just kind of broke his brain And he has spent the rest of his life being like partially a husk Yeah, you see that in is he plays that so well when they play it so well

[01:52:11] And the other movies and the remakes and the reboots all try and contextualize that more and I don't Really need it. No, you know what I mean? It's so much more interesting to just be like he hasn't spoken a word in 15 years

[01:52:23] And you're thinking wow this this is a long doctor patient relationship But I mean that's why it's it's so funny because right. He's a doctor that has a psychiatrist

[01:52:30] What does he do stalks around the suburbs in a raincoat with a gun being like I gotta shoot this fucking page But he sets that up here when they're like, why are we transferring him and he goes because it's the Yeah, I have to and you're already like

[01:52:44] He wants to lock this guy. He's not like Michael could be saved. He's like It's all that stuff is true and you're forgetting He does also do funny voices when kids approach the house, which is part of his psychiatrist Thing is that like this movie? I mean

[01:53:00] It comes out of like four or five different places that all coalesce Beautifully into making this perfect You're saying the production or the narrative I'm talking production but narrative as well, right

[01:53:09] But like production it's like there are four or five different thoughts that all come together for this movie To be this like perfect drill

[01:53:15] But one of the key ones is carpenter is at a psychiatric hospital and he sees a child with like the blackest eyes the devil's eyes, right? And he just like that sticks with him the idea of just seeing some words like there's just fucking

[01:53:29] Nothing there like I just felt like I was looking evil in the face How does a child that young contain that? You know, how does he was doing there on this planet? He was volunteering there? I was trying to get an answer on this

[01:53:45] Who was I was carpenter. Oh carpenter was I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah I was trying to get an answer on this But the this asylum stuff is so Tense right and then they crawls over the roof of the car

[01:53:58] That's the thing is like everyone else is sort of saying like not getting the severity of lumis And he's like you don't understand. I looked at him right it's over You look at this this is not anything like what anyone else has dealt with before

[01:54:13] And he's not a crackpot. He's a psychiatrist. He's a doctor. Yes, it's right. It's in the sequels. He gets crack potter. No here. He's a measure of authority. Yes Who literally says There's no soul inside that body. He's evil. He's gone. The evil is gone

[01:54:30] We showed up too late the transfer And this movie is about Michael Myers Said evil golem. He gets some coveralls. He gets a mask. He goes around standing here. He came home He does come home, but of course

[01:54:45] It's all it's all in the sequels that he he's chasing um Lori for a reason No reason here. There's no reason here. I think it's just because she drops the key off Yet there's no other reason right and he just sees her and then has like

[01:55:00] Imprinted woman like I have to get her now it makes sense. Obviously you watch this movie And you're like what should we do for a sequel? You're like well We have to explain why he was so fixated on her sure

[01:55:11] But it's better that we but he's not right He's not fixated enough like he kills a bunch of other people. He does but then he he is after her people He doesn't even see interact with her

[01:55:21] Yes, like people who as far as he knows don't know her at all. They're just in the same They're just in his path or whatever That's his type. Yeah, but then he does kind of you know by the end, you know

[01:55:31] She's moving from house to house and sure but the weird thing this movie kind of Starts to crystallize as a trope is the like virginal final girl thing which carpenter has always argued Was totally like right?

[01:55:41] He's like I was trying to make a movie where people have sex get punished and the final girls of virgin I just made a movie you didn't have to rip it off. But also what's interesting is the two kind of like

[01:55:52] Logic problems he's solving are why does lori survive? Why is she the final girl because she's the only one who's not distracted, right? It's not that she's rewarded for being virginal It's that all the other girls have active social lives

[01:56:07] She's also having fun how letting other people in the house can be duped. They're a little more right But she's also not virginal in a high and mighty way. She's no kind of a little shy and introverted

[01:56:17] That's the whole point the other it's it's an extrapolation of the fact that she's just kind of a loner She's sort of weird. She's sort of like off in her own world

[01:56:25] She's the weird one in her friend group exactly and the other thing he said is that like It's not about her being rewarded for the fact that she hasn't had sex The whole like end point of the movie is her thrusting this giant phallic thing into his

[01:56:41] Chest like it's as much about her like sexual tension Inside of her building up to a boiling point But you're right as well that I mean, of course the sex and murder is all mixed up in this movie

[01:56:53] And right there's the opening scene but also later. There's right, you know The girl getting strangled while she's topless and easy. That's all in there, but you're right that it's more like

[01:57:02] Kind of that spooky especially if you're a parent in the audience thing of like, oh my god We're putting teenagers in charge of our children in our houses adding another elicit element

[01:57:10] Yeah, but it's also like everything just feels so everyone's opening doors and just being like, you know Like just wait there for a minute. I'll be back right. It's all too loose

[01:57:19] Well, and this inherently kind of creepy concept of like I've hired a teenager to watch after my child Are they responsible enough and then when you leave they let some fucking doofus guide through the door

[01:57:33] Like it's that thing of like, you know my mom off on this dude My mom who lived she grew up in yutaka, which is a city, but you know like kind of like Jesus Kind of like this and it's like obviously like no one had

[01:57:45] Like ever locked the door or anything like latchkey kids set like these kids as the movie so Totally embraces and also doesn't address like this is a generation of kids that don't have parents around This is the late 70s. Yeah, these kids are on their own

[01:58:01] But like I was saying I just want to continue to compartmentalize sequence three hadn't field halloween Loomis hospital over evil is gone and then all like the introduction to Laurie strode and jamey lee curtis who's dressed so like school mermi

[01:58:16] Very conservative compared to her friends like I don't know she could fucking be killing it right now in these clothes Don't you think like the long pants and there's anything the highways? Lee about the way she's dressed. I'm saying compared to any she's less. Yeah, yeah

[01:58:30] Annie and uh and linda but like this is where I think as we've all researched like the the deborahill influence comes in the sort of like Laurie's sense of her character and her responsibility or forgetting her school book and

[01:58:43] Throughout all of this like the music is doing so much heavy lifting because it's daytime It's mundane. It's kids going to school and then you're just hearing this pulsating Flexing music with these super wide shots from across the street

[01:58:58] Just watching these people walk around and you're like after the prologue like you're saying griffin It's like is this someone's pov? Why are we across the street watching them walk around? You're just on that night said of attention all the time right?

[01:59:11] It's that thing where I just think it remains the most effective thing that horror movies can do with their camera Which is personalize the camera? At least even in spurts, of course right it connects it to the psychology of in this case

[01:59:26] The villain right and then ultimately kind of Uses your identification with the villain to watch the heroine right from afar in a way that's incredibly tense and uncomfortable And then it just becomes like a series of opportunities for him to compose these immaculate frames of

[01:59:44] Michael's sorry. We have need to talk about the shape of the shape's shoulder Right just standing there with this heavy breathing on the soundtrack heavy breathing that is so iconic It was the end credits stinger of the last halloween movie

[01:59:58] Like yeah, you can just put that at the end of the credits with no footage And people are sitting there at the theater going That breathing that's the good breathing like it's good breathing and the every shot of holding off on the reveal of him

[02:00:11] With his shoulder in the frame from across the street watching these just like Well, like you're and you're talking about the shot of her in the class

[02:00:19] Yeah, and she looks out the window god so iconic and scary because there's also something about being in the classroom like in school And knowing that that thing is just lurking outside all the lurking like him by the hedge

[02:00:31] Him among the laundry right then the classic horror movie thing now That I feel like horror movies now try and amp up a little with a sting or a noise Of the you see someone you look away. The someone is gone

[02:00:44] Right, you know like right that's the kind of thing as we as I'm saying from my the long context all new right all now But now all things that every movie I listed prior to this you don't have any of that There's just something it's so exciting

[02:00:56] There's something about that classroom shot that that just holds for a weird amount of time Yes, the reveal of him there and then you're he's just lingering and nothing further is happening And it just your blood is that thing where it's like if you see something aberrant once

[02:01:09] You don't think there's anything wrong with it. You're just like, okay, right? I guess the weird thing I saw right that's weird. It's halloween There's some guy outside in a mask and then the third and fourth and fifth time

[02:01:18] You just see her performance, which is really subtle and well modulated being like Am I seeing things what is going like it's but in the classroom when they're having this kind of Very silly but very fun conversation where they're like fate never changes

[02:01:30] You're all subject to your own fate The kind of thing that honestly you could just echo that in the new ones Like you could bring all of that back because now that's become lori's 40 years I mean this is a boring point

[02:01:40] But like what you're saying is like this movie has sort of flashiness to it that is not in earlier horror And now feels like so Artful and quiet and not splashy at all even to pay homage to this now

[02:01:54] You couldn't be this subtle. This is the whole thing with the green movie Yeah, where you're like he's trying his best to pay homage, but it's still a Blumhouse movie in 2018 that needs to be more elaborate and the kills

[02:02:07] We were talking about this last night like you have to look at now all circling back full circle to pre-holoin You have to look at independent like house of the devil. Yeah

[02:02:17] That's the closest yes, it gets to where it's just like it has very little money and it's just like this creepy thing That movie is great, but it's also going for Like, you know, this is like a 70s vibe right? It's trying to summon that

[02:02:30] for efficiency his lean Howard hawks. Yeah be western brain See of like let's just get in good guys bad guys confrontation get out Yeah, also like I mean the the Gordon Green Halloween has like 15 different perspective points. That's the yeah

[02:02:47] It's got too many right. It's like it's got the podcasters. It's got the crazy doctor It's got her Not that this doesn't have her grandmother like this film has an ensemble It has supporting characters like you know linda and annie and like you know

[02:03:00] Like it has these three girls in the doctor and yeah, and then like The nurse has a scene the cop has a couple scenes right? Those people are sharing scenes with yes They are 100% and obviously tommy eventually we played by paul rudd in in halloween six

[02:03:14] Of course, um, you know her her baby city Um and things like that like the sequels are always trying to go back to this movie and be like who haven't we Like and now the kyle richards the girl is in the new one the

[02:03:28] Yeah, kyle richards is in the she's in halloween kills playing lindsay again Who is the one who is now the real house still babysitting her in this movie?

[02:03:38] She is now one of the real housewives right and is the girl who gets shot in assault on precinct 13 correct. Yeah, um lindsay Wallace is she I thought it was the other richards sister who gets oh, and i've wrong about that

[02:03:49] I think it's kim richards in assault on precinct 13. Yeah, are they kyle housewives? They were yeah, they're both in the universe Yes, okay, and uh, but I hope she's still I hope the the plot of the new one is just like laury's babysitting her again

[02:04:03] Even though she's a 50 year old woman now But laury and things you know baby sit you she's got like a shotgun or whatever because anyway Can we just can we zoom out for a second talk about two two fundamental things?

[02:04:16] I don't know how much new we have to say about them, but I do feel like we have to stop We just have to say the shape as much as possible

[02:04:23] He's called the shape right anthony michael hall is going to play tommy in the new okay green movie Paul rudd plays him in could they couldn't get rudd? Well, it's complicated You also couldn't tell is ignoring alice

[02:04:35] But the thing is you couldn't tell rudd has aged at all that would be that's the problem I think the real is where's your mom Brian andrew's like just stopped acting like i forgot i forgot that well, I knew that it ignored four five and six

[02:04:48] I forgot that the it ignores too. I forgot that it ignores that's that's the that's the thing it does That's wild that there's a halloween sequel about jamie lee curtis many years later

[02:04:58] That is very indebted to two and then they did another one that ignores two and they both are what if we check in with laury strode later Well choose your own adventure right and one of them is 20 and one of them's four

[02:05:08] One's 20 and one's 40 and they both are about trauma Like but but she has different traumas and one is just like I have to get my brother and the other one is like that fucking guy came after me that one time Do you like the 20 or the 40 better?

[02:05:21] I think I think the 40 is probably better I have a soft spot for the 20 the 20 is so close to being a good movie I always had a soft spot for it. I even had a poster for it my basement great poster and then onna had never seen it

[02:05:33] We watched it before it's like the new one came out two minutes long It's like one of these things where I'm like, how is this over? The credits come up at like 77 It's also I was I was like, oh this movie is good. It's fun. We love 90s

[02:05:48] Whatever faculty very dimension and we watched it and I was like this movie's kind of bad It's not that good and you really want it to be good because she's good And like adam arkund isn't and he's really good like there are people in it who are

[02:06:00] Did she really like she wasn't she the one that got it made Jamie Lee like she was the one because I feel like carpenter and debra weren't involved For two. Oh, you're saying yeah It's also he why all they called it h2o

[02:06:19] Carpenter has no real involvement between until the three and kills right? It's three is the last one No until halloween 2018 I'm sorry. That's what I mean. Yes. Uh, but three is the last of the original run that he

[02:06:32] Right after that. Yeah, we just can't get over that. He's called the shape. I know well, okay So here are three things I want to say Oh, I thought it was two you've added another thing because of the shape thing. Okay, the shape thing is big

[02:06:45] I think it ties to carpenter's whole thing about just like no, there's this isn't a character Right? This is like a thing. This is a force and edit his script He does not use the words michael miers between the opening prologue

[02:07:00] And when lumis names him at the end of the film, okay that he's always Described as the shape because he's like at that point. He's not michael miers anymore He's the shape the shape is some other fucking thing Whatever existed in that kid before is gone

[02:07:14] It's just so awesome that everyone's like the boogie man the boogie man and then on the page He's like the shape the shape right doesn't doesn't call the boogie. It's just what a what a decision

[02:07:23] It's not even like them calling like the alien the kid once said the shape right like he wrote is the shape The whole thing was the shape. He's credit is the shape. It's the shape, right?

[02:07:33] Nick castle as you said is like I live close by i'm friends with this guy I've never been able to spend every day on a movie set. I want to watch the whole process They'll pay me ten dollars. I can do this

[02:07:44] There are like four or five shots where it's not him Which speaks to the fact that carpenter was like it doesn't matter just have someone do a thing

[02:07:52] Like put the hands in and touch it like whatever, you know, there's no like continuity of character that's necessary here because I'm telling everyone to do enough Right, yeah, they're they're blazing through this right just get it done

[02:08:03] The two things I think we need to talk about a little bit are a mask Now that I got the shape thing out of the way. I'm saying the mask and Jamie lee And sort of the process of getting to those two things

[02:08:17] Alex, do you know because I feel like I hear contrasting things all the time And I don't know if it's just like she is janet lee's daughter She is okay. Yes can confirm

[02:08:26] Yes, I do know and that's pretty much why john carpenter castor and then later he was like this is a good actress But wait is her father Tony curtis. Oh, yeah, right. Okay. Yeah, I think I can confirm all of it

[02:08:36] It's lee and curtis but lee is spelled differently than her mother's late Uh, got it and she's also technically lady hayden guest because she's married to christopher guest who is a lord People always forget. He was a four. He's a former lord

[02:08:48] People always forget that she's just been married to christopher guest this whole time the whole time. It's wild That the the parliament said be our guest and she said yes Uh, yes And there's gonna be a third okay, all right

[02:09:05] I'm sorry, so griff do you want to talk about the mask or what was the actual? Let's say curtis first because right like there there was the actress he wanted to hire first who was the daughter of the woman from lassy

[02:09:17] Who was a young? I'll find her name Actress at that point. I want to say lockhart and lockhart. Yeah, uh, he wanted her she was busy He learns about how jayny. Jamie lee is

[02:09:27] Janet lee's daughter. That's the whole thing. Would that be so fucking cool to get the daughter of the woman from psycho? she You know her mother had kept her from being in I want to look this up because it's had had stopped her from being in um

[02:09:43] Fuck what is it some other movie where she would have played the kid the exorcist jesus, obviously right? Wow. Yeah Um because her mother was very protective of her blah blah blah blah This is her first movie obviously right after the first day tv at this point

[02:09:59] She had done some tv pilot that didn't go and whatever After the first day carpenter calls her on the phone. I think she thinks she's about to get fired that she's blowing Exactly and says

[02:10:11] Darling, I just want to tell you how great today was she says it's never happened to me again. It was so nice Like I loved making this movie. She's always so positive about him and this movie

[02:10:20] But also is like I don't like horror movies. They're not what I like as an audience member I've never had a finney for the genre But I also once I got famous did not distance myself from it and disown it right

[02:10:30] She's obviously had a protectiveness of warrior strobe but she does other horror movies after this There's that scream queen sort of thing that kind of follows her and some of the other actresses working in horror And there's no one arguably who comes

[02:10:46] From horror elevates to her level and where's it as comfortable? Yeah, especially recently like she really is out there with the new ones being like Yeah, this is just my thing. I've done other things everyone loves me from people come up to me

[02:10:59] They say lori strode or they say freaky friday or they say true lies like whatever But I also love that like, you know nepotism everyone's favorite subject on twitter in the film industry

[02:11:08] They like to realize that people are related to other people right? She has always been like Yeah, I absolutely only got cast because my mother was the one from psycho I understood that that was an opportunity that was in advance

[02:11:18] The most people did not get and my job listed then be as good as I could possibly be Well, she was good. Yeah started good and she became I watched the um the like the bonus scenes filmed for the tv edit

[02:11:30] That they shot during halloween too which hint at the By then they knew what they were doing but even in those scenes For obviously by halloween too. I was watching them and I was like wow she just leveled up as talent so quickly even

[02:11:43] Like in those scenes she's such a different performance. It's very interesting She just immediately just became in like a much more instead. She's very good in this movie I mean it's also watching the scenes of the same character two years later

[02:11:55] And I'll rewatch too closer to halloween. I suspect sure but she just got so I was just like wow This is like it cuts from the scene in the movie to the scene they filmed two years later and she's just They're doing so much more

[02:12:06] I think not exclusively but oftentimes the defining trait of a movie star versus like an actor a screen actor Is like how compelling they are To watch in stillness. Well, she spends A third of this movie either alone or talking to children right which is incredible

[02:12:24] She's so good with the kids too like that scene where he's like well, can you make popcorn? Can we ice cream and she's like yes

[02:12:29] It was it was killing me how many times they say the word popcorn in this movie and there I was watching it with none She's good with people. That's they the kids want some they she says you already ate popcorn and they say how about some more

[02:12:40] It makes so much but she's she does spend like probably for a minute 50 to minute 80 Without any other adults present and she is compelling to look at looking at things Which is a thing that you kind of can't like teach or develop

[02:12:54] Uh, she also just has a fascinating face I do think it's interesting that she's the only one who is actually a teenager in this and in certain ways She genuinely does read as the most mature

[02:13:07] Even though she's like 19 playing off of pj souls who's like 27 and married to denis quaid and like living a fucking life And it's just like she has a certain mature intelligence just on her fucking face

[02:13:19] Yeah, she's great that makes her a really strong central kind of grounding force for this whole thing Do you want to talk about the mask? Yeah, what about the mask? Yeah, so this is the question I was going to ask you

[02:13:29] Well, that's I like when he says smoking. I think that's really cool What about when he says somebody stopped me? Yeah, that's another if you've a standout line The thing about that line is nobody can't know

[02:13:42] That's what's so great about it. It's a real flex. What about when he when he dances and his eyes pop out of his head

[02:13:47] Wolf right. That's fine. What about when he turns to a cartoon wolf and his draw drops and his tongue rolls out like a red carpet? His steam come out of his ears. Yeah, the eyes pop out um

[02:13:57] My question about the mask is what if there was a son of the mask my My question about the mask is because I feel like I've heard both things. I don't know if it's just the people like Whichever version of the story

[02:14:10] Did chattener ever make any money off of this? Oh, I have no idea I don't think so. I feel like if he did he would say so Right the the story that this was sort of in the lowest point of his career

[02:14:21] Yeah, the story that jg found here that's really funny from carpenter Is I mean obviously the story first is uh, tomi lee wallis who worked on this movie To mention makes homie threans and rules

[02:14:32] Had a clown mask and then he's like and I got a captain kirk mask And I painted it white and kind of cut the eye holes bigger and they were like That thing is Yeah, um

[02:14:42] But that carpenter walked up to shatner at a convention once it was like hi I'm john carpenter and he says he was on his cell phone and didn't look up Wow Wow but um It is fascinating

[02:14:54] I just remember as a kid for the first time learning that fact and then once you know it Even though like michael meyers exists as his own distinct entity Once you know, you can't stop seeing the shatter face in it

[02:15:06] I want to ask your opinion on this alex. They've never gotten the mask right again It's weird and sometimes the mask is so bad that you're like

[02:15:15] This is like like halloween five or whatever. I'm like, this is how we five the mask is the only thing you have to nail Wild in it's like ill-fitting and like four and five. It has no texture And like the hair gets really wonky

[02:15:28] Yes, and the other controversial thing is the ebb and flow of the eyes Especially in h2o where it's all eyes where you can see the actual eyeballs inside the mask

[02:15:37] But then h2o also has a couple scenes where it's like a cgi mask right doesn't the design change Well, no you're thinking you're thinking a son of a mask But it's just so strange because obviously jason

[02:15:51] It's a hockey mask sure it does change it change sometimes there's different like colors on it and stuff But you know Sometimes blue sometimes red but some you know, it's pretty easy the basic silhouette of the thing remains vaguely the same

[02:16:02] Weatherface's math they they keep that consistent through the freddy basically looks the same Except in two when he looks really different and it's weird Yeah, it evolves and devolves sometimes this mask looks so Smooth and just like it just looks dumb right and kind of weak

[02:16:19] It's just where it has looks This looks so good and with more money. They never get this right. Yeah, they got it right in the green movie I didn't love how he got it. They do a little too much

[02:16:29] That's an example of like in this movie they go to the the five and dime and they paint a halloween mask In the david groin green move they probably spend $10,000 on molds and fabrications And you you you in the cheaper sequels you underthink it in the 20 million dollar

[02:16:46] Blumhouse movie you overthink it. Yeah, and this one is just like like I said many things in this movie All oft-imitated never improved upon. I also think you also don't get that close to it in this movie

[02:16:56] I believe I will say I believe for the you know, there's always stories with the like we found the original mask And we made a mold of it right it's a classic maltease falcon right exactly

[02:17:04] But it's like it's the magic of movies is best summarized by that right where it's like these fuckers Just spray painted a mask and it's the most iconic image ever and no one can figure out

[02:17:15] Right, and just they cut the holes too big. Yeah, they cut a little bigger Yeah, you know, it's like I'm looking at this. I'm looking at pictures here of him in Halloween 4 and in h2o where you can see his eyes and it's just so pitiful

[02:17:28] I don't like it. I also think there's something too like God it's so fucking bad and he looks like there's something he's got like a sad expression Oh Right you have the weird poutiness of shatter to begin with right once, you know a shatter

[02:17:49] You can never unsee the shatter lips in particular the lips right the mouth but then there's also this thing of like They don't really make masks like this today for Halloween costumes where it's like if you're a kid and you're dressing up as a captain

[02:18:04] Kirk you get the fucking uniform and a wig You don't wear a mask that's replicating this adult man's face, right? They mostly sell masks for characters who have faces that cannot be replicated with like, you know grease paint or whatever

[02:18:18] And I do find that when you do see masks like rubber overhead masks like this that are replicating human faces They usually caricatured You know, you're seeing like you're like absurd Donald Trump masks Yeah, right

[02:18:31] Where there's something weird about like this being like the don post company trying to as realistically as possible Captured the flesh of william shatner. It's such a weird There's like an image I found here of all nine different designs across

[02:18:45] All the whole business is so wild. They're so bad. Some of them look so feeble But there's some of them have really intense eyebrows Like eyebrows painted onto the mask. Yep There's just a weird amount of detail in trying to capture a very neutral expression

[02:19:01] Which in and of itself is odd and there's like the one cheek that is more defined than the other that sort of line In there like all this shit that's just odd where it's like that's an odd product

[02:19:11] When you look at the unpainted mask as it existed, it's odd. It's weird that it has real hair Like everything about it is strange Um, it's great. It's great. We've talked about it. Right. It's incredible. Yeah much like the the sort of eerily empty streets

[02:19:28] And the overabundance of music but perfect music It's just this exercise in in minimalism and cost efficiency that inexplicably in this movie Hit the bullseye. Yeah I want to just briefly talk about the what I wrote down as a sequence where luma says he's on his way

[02:19:45] Um, I love when he kind he's just him commandeering the truck and killing the person I love the clothesline the the speed at which he disappears from the clothesline is the point where it's like You almost start to wonder is this literal or is this now

[02:20:00] Is she seeing him to such an extent that it's starting to affect her mind? She's she's imagining It's like right clothesline One two seconds looks back Not a trace and he doesn't move that it's just you start to wonder how much of this is affecting her psychologically

[02:20:17] Okay, so this is exciting. I want to just really quickly I just want to ask because I feel like you've you've seen this a ton david you've seen this a ton Gryff as well Do any of you this many times? Okay. Yeah Do any of you

[02:20:32] Have you ever noticed the poster in her room? I noticed it yesterday and I What it's um, it's a cat right? It is not so it's a man. It's a man in the room. She's babysitting

[02:20:45] Uh, oh and one of what of course she watches the original thing with her Yeah, well they they've watched the thing they do. Yeah, they do and we check back in on how that movie is playing out

[02:20:55] Um, it's a man with like a hat. It's like a painting but a poster and it says James enser I never like knew this before I looked it up. It's like my favorite fucking painter of all time he is um

[02:21:09] He's a belgian painter. He apparently had a lot of influence on expressionism and surrealism like kind of like an early practitioner And he is just a fucking dang ass freak A lot of skulls a lot of fucking skulls

[02:21:23] Yeah, but like people like kind of dressed up in fancy clothes, but they're wearing skulls just like this really completely outsider art almost but In but at the same time he has training and like comes from money

[02:21:36] But like seems like was a fucking crazy person. So he gets the official d af qualification Absolutely, okay So I just feel like that was a fun little easter egg that I noticed for the first time and was very excited by

[02:21:49] Um, so I recommend people check out answer ENS or um, Ben, what do you think of? When they reveal that he's dug up the grave. Are you a fan of grave robbing? Absolutely. Yeah

[02:22:02] Knocking over headstones or stealing them. Well, I would say uh, I don't it's not cool to knock over a tombstone You know, what if it's your family like like it is here? What do you mean? Well, he steals his sisters right right. He steals Judas headstone

[02:22:16] Then I sign off on it. Okay, you know, yeah Yeah, it is one of those in the family It is one of those like lingering things of ickiness in this movie that that is never the headstone is seen

[02:22:25] But the dug up grave is never yeah, but you don't you don't see the body or anything like that Nor do you know what has happened the headstone is his most elaborate Whatever, I was going to say bit, but it's beyond a bit really

[02:22:38] It's also kind of like what's the person that she's like, huh? Like or not not a who is it who sees The babysitter with the Judith headstone. Is it lorry?

[02:22:47] Everyone else has been killed and put like but like she's like is she like who the fuck is Judith right like Judith Because everyone's like that's the house. That's the murder. Yeah And as the carburetor has said like every town has one of those houses, especially small towns

[02:23:02] Yeah, to imagine it's only been 15 years. They know we had a hole in our town, but continue. Yes That's the hole where that's where the mayor was where the where the world opened up and people were sucked into it You got a problem come with the hole

[02:23:16] But yeah, I do love him coming to town Killing the mechanic along the way not that you need to explain where he gets and this is now like something

[02:23:25] That in a new movie they'd be like really got to explain where he gets the jump. Yeah, we need we need a jumpsuit set piece But like it's just nice that they find the dead body, but the new one literally does do that, right?

[02:23:33] It's like it kills a guy to gas station And it was at my screening it certainly was it's very yes now It's all become like terminator two where you have to explain where they get the cool clothes

[02:23:46] But I just like this sort of sequence where lumas is on the trail and he finds the dead body And he finds the dug up grave and then he's just like I know he's going home That's that's it. I know I love my six year

[02:23:57] I just love that lumas like his pulse never quickens. It's just kind of like I knew this day was coming From the moment I saw that this existed on this plane I knew my life would be committed to trying to mitigate the damage of this soul

[02:24:15] At this point, this is where I was just blown away because now there's the the music right now is just going wild And then it just basically cuts to darkness

[02:24:23] And it just goes from daytime to nighttime when the babysit when everyone has sort of made their plans for the babysitting With all the business of well come here. You'll come there. You'll let me in and then it's just suddenly like you see

[02:24:33] Tail lights and the music gets a little bit more menacing And now it's just nighttime and the breathing starts again We should also mention right michael does spend a lot of this movie driving around in a station wagon

[02:24:43] Which is like a big point of contention amongst fans of how he learned how to drive in a plan Of course it is yeah, right They mentioned that in the movie right they say he can't drive and lumas goes he was doing a good job of it

[02:24:54] But hasn't like a different sequels Offered different explanations to try to like like they let him out for driving lessons Right Some rabbit hole of like the driving he already knew how to drive when he was seven because his dad was an alcoholic

[02:25:10] That's right or that like there was uh, maybe it's in like a novelization or something It's almost saying that like they like explained that in the Van when they drove him to the institution the first place there was a Plexiglass partition so he could watch

[02:25:25] That sounds the driving and study it You know what? The real argument is right if you put something behind the wheel of the car They might know how the basic mechanism is supposed to work, but yes, the novelization Explains what you're talking about

[02:25:44] They watch dr. Loomis drive right which is like once again more info that i cares Are you like i think you should leave guys season two? I have never related to anything tables I never saw the curse

[02:25:58] As a young person it was like how can michael drive right no it was just like i don't i can drive he's scary Yes, he's supernatural. He's scary powers. You can drive a car as the hematical powers either from heaven or hell

[02:26:09] But you know what else he does that really blew on his mind last night Is he eats a dog What you none of you catch this well and look this up this is there's a halloween wikipedia about the dog He kills the dog right he has eaten him

[02:26:23] I do think this comes up in in they arrive at the meyers house and loomis is there with sheriff lee bracket And they're like what's up with that dog and he goes he must have gotten hungry

[02:26:33] Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. And you look at how on halloween wiki. It's called like vows dog or something Kills the mechanic kills his dog when he gets to town he goes to his old house kills a dog eats the dog and ono was like wait

[02:26:46] What and it's just that kind of detail like can you imagine that being in the new movie? In like a three thousand screen halloween 20 million dollar release where they're like what's up with that dog and they say Oh, well michael meyers ate him. He's hungry

[02:27:01] Basically what happens here to me is like a breathlessly efficient series of parallel action Where the kids are split up in a geography that basically makes no sense

[02:27:09] Where it's like she's doing laundry, but the laundry is like in another house. Well, I was trying to figure that out Right, it's like she definitely locks herself in the lawn. I guess it maybe is like a shed or a garage or something

[02:27:20] It's like a guest house where the laundry which makes absolutely no sense But regardless the parallel action of annie and lori split up while baby sitting And the only thing you're ever using to bridge the two houses is this Vast empty desert in between them It's halloween night

[02:27:35] It can't be that late because they say early on we're going to make these plans to meet up at 6 30 And then it gets dark and then within five minutes of the movie there. It is abandoned

[02:27:44] There's not a single trick or treater. There's not a single. They don't right They don't have it is very eerie how few people there now. This is obviously a budgetary thing it's also Incredibly unsettling and odd how often they look across the street at these houses

[02:27:56] And it seems like it is three in the morning Whereas it must probably be like a night or whatever and they're watching the parents aren't even home from whatever they're out doing They're watching the thing which is 80 minutes long sure and

[02:28:08] Time passes and then the world is just empty except for these six people And the amount of parallel action of going between annie who's then killed in the car

[02:28:16] And lori who doesn't know that the kid she's you know, she's watching the kid for annie while annie does whatever cleans the butter off of her shirt It is you're all just going from place to place and for this whole period. It's so quotidian what's happening

[02:28:28] It's so quotidian and then occasionally there's just a shot of essentially a tumbleweed blowing down the street with piercing synth music And every time that happens, you're just like it's a pov shot and you're like, oh, this is bad

[02:28:40] He's out there. He's just going from house to house. He's looming and then there's the those the really wide shot of him carrying the body into the house There's all these great tableaus in this these very eerie

[02:28:52] And the way he walks is so effective. We sort of talked about it This is when lume is outside the house flapping his arms and doing the voice and saying kids keep away I do. I do enjoy lume's is theatricality. Yes

[02:29:02] Uh with the carrying of the body that always freaked me out Especially because the shot just feels so like you would look outside your own house and look across the street and just Witness some horrific thing that just is happening like and what do you do?

[02:29:15] Right, what are you going to do exactly? But then like right around here, which is when bob and linda are fooling around before bob gets killed and his glasses get taken

[02:29:23] They sure do. There's like easily 10 minutes where there's no music, which after the prominence of the music is so Equally unsettling. It's like damned if you do damned if you don't and at this point it's just like it's just great They're just going about their business

[02:29:37] But this is where I made a note that I thought was kind of amazing I never thought this about this movie before but now i'm thinking it about a lot of carpenter movies

[02:29:44] Which is you know the hitchcock principle that establishing shots are inherently unsinematic and therefore you shouldn't use them How hitchcock would say he hates establishing shots, right? Yeah If you're setting a scene inside ben's apartment

[02:29:56] You can't start the scene with just a shot of the outside of the building that scene has no cinema to it What does that shot tell you this movie flips this movie solves that every establishing shot of the house

[02:30:07] Because you're really just in these two houses every establishing shot Is a cinematic moment that moves the story forward Increases the tension plays the music and it completely fixes Hitchcock's problem with establishing shots by making each one the same shot over and over but like super foreboding

[02:30:25] Uniquely horrible and foreboding and it is in the fabric of the movie It's not just like we're in this house and now we're in that house and now just to remind you we're back in this house

[02:30:35] It's like this is not an establishing shot. This is michael watching the shot You know how you know is michael because you're hearing his his horrible little Jaws theme and I was very taken with how well those establishing shots are deployed this time

[02:30:49] I never really locked in on it before I love that Then bob and linda have some sex they sure do fast Yeah, I mean bob. I don't want to shame anyone but I don't think bob's doing a great job

[02:31:01] Yeah, and he's kind of like oh, yeah, and she's sort of trying to be like yeah It kind of feels like Good job, bob Well, unfortunately for bobby doesn't come back and it's a

[02:31:14] The perp my to me the perfect jump scare where it's not that complicated. It's kind of like the I mean obviously the greatest jump scare ever which is leather face pulling the guy

[02:31:24] You know whacking the guy in the head and pulling it out girl. No, no the guy No, it's a girl Wait, no, no the guy coming in leather face hitting him in the head and then pulling the door shut That's that's that's a guy

[02:31:35] Wait now i'm gonna look up the scene I'm trying to picture it. I thought you were gonna say the greatest jump scare is boom a pipe flies through the window God damn I mean look, I don't know why I don't know why I did

[02:31:49] This to myself. I didn't have to say it. You will rule there's no See yeah, the girl comes in. Yeah, it's the guy the guy comes in Oh, okay

[02:32:00] And then leather face just walks out. Okay. Okay, and you're like what and he's wax him close to the door And you're like whoa, and this is the same when michael comes out. I stand correct. Yeah, um just comes out of the door

[02:32:11] You know and then simply stabs him and that's but then it's not that's that because then he stands there for like 10 seconds And looks at him. Oh, it's so good. That's the kind of moment that a movie can't really pull off anymore

[02:32:21] The tilting of the head. Yeah, that's the kind of thing that every sequel and reboot and everything has tried to make a shot that Just completely disturbing that has no

[02:32:32] It's just a simple far away shot and it is so creepy just to see him standing there looking at what he has done But there's also thinking how can I get those glasses over a sheet? When other movies replicate this right other halloween movies

[02:32:48] It feels like they're making him more menacing Where as for this it's like is he an innocent? Yeah, does he understand anything? It's the problem with Sequelizing right as they turn in them into these legends and then it's like right. What is michael thinking?

[02:33:05] Yeah, right once you're doing that you're in trouble because then he's He's on animal instinct here. That's why he kills and eats an animal right from the time that from the time that bob and linda are dead after this This is this is what i was saying

[02:33:18] This is a huge period where there's no dialogue And and lori jamie lee is completely isolated from everyone else the kids are asleep And this begins like a 20 minute sequence where she's interacting with nobody

[02:33:29] And the movie that hasn't had that much dialogue anyway, but now it has none and she's completely isolated everyone's dead she doesn't know this and she's just like looking out the window and goes to the other house and Then there was a cue here

[02:33:44] That's the first time in a long time that there's a different piece of music Which is very interesting at this point in the movie Okay, I mean she finds a slightly different key then then then she finds the gravestone everyone dead

[02:33:54] Crammed into the room because she hears the murder on the phone, but she thinks it's just a joke or whatever or more Maybe some some hanky-panky some hot hanky-pank But it's it's strange enough to pique her interest and right

[02:34:08] And then we're then i'm also at to griffin's point again I just want to keep pointing these things out like him as we talked about with the sheet and the glasses That's another like that's a piece of iconography of this movie

[02:34:17] You could put it on a figure or on a shirt and everyone would be like I love that moment as much as I love the little boy in the clowns right that like

[02:34:25] The bob ghost disguise is iconic in its own way separate from the iconography of michael miers In the same way that little boy clown michael miers is also separately iconic not as a variation of but once she

[02:34:39] Goes into the other house and finds everybody as we were talking about it's now just basically Just a chase. It's just right. It's just him chasing her from house to house

[02:34:46] I mean the moment I love the most is I mentioned is her banging on the door the lights coming on but no help coming I love that so much Totally because it's so unspoken. This is like to griffin's point of like his preference of horror

[02:34:58] This is where the movie is playing by silent film horror rules Because from the time that the kids are asleep and all the other teenagers are dead There's nobody for her to talk to and everything that happens here Could just be a silent

[02:35:11] Horror blocking. It's just somebody being pursued by someone else Right, it's no screw up. It's faces reacting and it's wonderful music Right, it's a disturbing figure slowly coming out of the shadows and the person not for 20 minutes

[02:35:22] It's not until tommy wakes up and luma shows back up that we snap out of what is basically just pure Cinema and tommy waking up It's she just has that brief moment where she thinks she got him and tommy knows We can't kill the boogie man. Uh-uh

[02:35:36] She stabs him in the neck with a knitting needle. She hides in the closet I remember seeing this as a teenager and going why can't he get through those like plywood closet doors tommy wallis

[02:35:45] Plays michael meyers in that scene right because he had designed the closet and knew how to take it apart Literally they've been that one scene. It's also just why I'm very hard to get through what looks like a wicker door It's true. It takes him a while

[02:35:57] There's like seven minutes left in the movie at this point Is one of those things just speaking about carpenter knowing to like get out while the get-ins good, right? Yeah, where you're just like any other movie even if you are to believe that this is the final stretch

[02:36:11] Of of our hero fighting our our villain You're still like what 20 minutes a wrap up and then 10 minutes of credit and you're like seven minutes all in until the disc stops

[02:36:21] Right until right until mpaa logo, right? Like kind of just remarkable. Yep. Yeah, it is but it is great like it's just It's escalated. It's become kind of the silent sequence and now she's doing this kind of thematically nice thing of protecting the children

[02:36:40] Loomish fires off the shots This is when the mask gets lifted up which on things is a very interesting potentially controversial moment. I love that moment It's so personal. It's not that she didn't like it It's just it's very curious if you know the sequels

[02:36:52] How much that would even in the new one where you never you frame him from behind or in the rob zombie one Which I well rob zombie has a lot of that's where it became controversial I feel like people were very very dissatisfied with his treatment of

[02:37:05] Michael Myers overall really I really like those movies, but they're just completely different You just have to think of them as like really, you know the first one is a little more trying to be a remake. I guess

[02:37:15] Yeah, I never saw the second one the second one is people like it up your alley I don't know. I don't know why I never did. I mean, it's just it's just an incredibly

[02:37:24] It's one of the most depressing movies. I've ever I've always wanted to you know where it's like What would the psychology of Michael Myers be like rather than John carpenter who's like this is an unknowable evil

[02:37:33] He's like no, no, no, no. No these are circumstances Americans grow up in let's delve in He's going in the entire other direction this October. I'll watch both Halloween twos This is a question for you guys Okay, so the mask off moment

[02:37:49] I'm not as deep in the weeds in the Halloween franchise obviously What's it? It's like Tony marin plays him in that moment plays his face essentially Uh, and of course you see his eye has been wounded Well, that was uh, that was my question. Okay, I guess

[02:38:05] Is a question I read something with carpenter where he was saying like it's it's sort of this interesting Case in like the power of suggestion cinema that I'll talk to people about how like disturbing it is

[02:38:17] When you see Michael's face in the first movie and how disfigured he is I think to some degree it's people combining it with like Jason Voorhees and whatever always Mandela effect with these things

[02:38:26] Right, but he's like when you look at him his face is actually totally normal except you see the damage of the stab Exactly. It's supposed to be the the hanger her second attack

[02:38:37] Has messed with his eye right, but there's something to a I think the weird expression he has on at the moment It's such a good expression that's sort of again kind of contemplative sort of thing where he's like what?

[02:38:49] His his expression is weird and then also I think the limitations of the budget It's sure the makeup on the damage of the eye from the hanger Gives him this vaguely like for this split second you're seeing him quasi-modo-ish of hot a little bit

[02:39:02] But this is another as I was saying this is another vhs thing right where for 20 years people watching this movie if they tried to pause it You just can't figure it out couldn't get a clear look at it

[02:39:13] And much like as I mentioned earlier as we should just mention like when this movie was broadcast on tv He shot 10 more minutes of scenes while they were filming halloween too Which features a scene where lumas is in the asylum with boy michael

[02:39:26] And I must have seen that because I always thought that was in the movie Right, I must have maybe that was on this sci-fi marathon I saw or somewhere because I always was like and of course that happens and you see the boy

[02:39:37] And and you don't of course in the actual movie and this is one of those things where it's like Yeah, and of course his face is all deformed and it's not and of course their brother and sister

[02:39:46] Which they're not and then I just love he lumas shoots him. Tommy says was that the boogie man? As a matter of fact it was Cue the theme 89 minutes Yeah Revisit locations meyers house the re I love the revisiting the staircase the house like I love all that

[02:40:05] That's such a perfect capper. Yeah, that stuff is great. Um, I love that lorry sobbing obviously. Yeah, she's upset Yeah, he's gone. He's gone He's gone and it's 89 minutes and the theme is just wailing and then the credit should start

[02:40:18] But it's also like he could be anywhere like I feel right, but it but it's like he could be right behind you Right, it's incredible You look at the reviews of this movie when it came out and people were like really dismissive of it in a way

[02:40:29] That's kind of astonishing where they're like, well He's just using all the old tricks in the book Like especially for all the context you're setting up

[02:40:36] But how much this movie is like a manifestation of all these things that a piecemeal been building up in horror and everyone's like Yep, it's another one of the it's not to speak ill of critics

[02:40:45] But right the sort of thing like this doesn't scare me. I know I know from tropes You won't get me No, this is like has not been synthesized before in this way and

[02:40:54] And syscloneeber to their credit were two of the only people of prominence at the time who were just like raved Right, they were like this thing's so fucking scary What are you talking about?

[02:41:02] And the anecdote he told I thought was so good was he was like we walked out of the screening And gene was so scared that he took a cab home and the theater was two blocks from his That's the review of the movie

[02:41:16] The review of the movie is it worked that well And then I got home and I got in the shower and I was so scared shitless I kept on checking the fucking curtain every other minute Two thumbs up go see it if you like scary movies

[02:41:29] You need to write a review like that you can look I should write more reviews about how I felt in the shower after I am I'm writing this review from a secluded location that I have moved to because I am too frightened to continue living my life

[02:41:41] What if I just became right the most over-the-top? Yes, but that's what I'm saying like Yes, they loved it and this is a wonderful response But the canonization of these kinds of movies does not happen in the mainstream. Correct. It takes

[02:41:56] Thousands and millions of fans owning that tape and loving this film for decades for everybody to be like you can't Argue with it. It's a odd as honest it a very weird dreamlike movie That kind of has these strange periods of people doing laundry

[02:42:12] That don't have anything to do with anything and are inherently not scary except it has this great music And it's like it's not tight as a drum. It's 89 minutes So it's tight movie, but it's not that the script

[02:42:23] It's not like the thing where every single scene is perfectly functioning to move the plot forward It's tight as a drum in its Shape pun intended, but it's not like oh, there's not a wasted minute in that movie

[02:42:35] There's tons of stuff in this movie, but it's all character It's character of lorry being alone And it's the sense of this town with this creepy murder house on the block and a town that has no one else in it

[02:42:45] And all of the sort of faults such as they are ultimately become strengths over time Well, yeah, and all the happy accidents of this movie. What's the producer's name? Yablannas Uh wait the producer of this movie. Yes, no one who's not a cod right

[02:43:01] Um, who sort of comes to carpenter is like Yes, yeah, right who comes to carpenter with like he's like baby cinema Right, and like that's supposed to be the title

[02:43:11] Right another great name carpenter had years earlier reached out to bob clark and was like you should do a black christmas sequel and he's like I don't want to do horror movies anymore

[02:43:19] I'd like to make baby geniuses to which I go sounds like you're still in the horror business, but um He goes about clark and he's like would you let me write one and he's like no

[02:43:30] You sort of pitch what he thought it would be right, which was like he returns a year later So that's like part of it. There's the yablans part of it, right? There's compass international pictures. He co finances, right?

[02:43:42] There's him experiencing the kid at the psychiatric hospital, right? Like all these pieces come together He's able to pitch this to a cod and go like this is simple. This is cheap and then they realize At some point in the timeline Oh

[02:43:54] We like this originally been planned as a movie or at least vaguely conceptualized as a movie that would take place over multiple nights We don't have the budget for that So now it has to be one night because that saves us the night he came home

[02:44:08] That's right. It is the night, but the idea that used to be the nights he came home Howler we the fact that the movie is halloween is reverse engineered from we can't afford three nights Let's make it one night if it's one night

[02:44:19] It should be the scariest night the scariest night is halloween if it takes place on halloween We should call the movie halloween and then we can release it around halloween And then we can release it every halloween

[02:44:29] But like all the weird stuff and then we can make a franchise that's just called halloween with other stuff that happened Wait, wait, where are you guys? You guys aren't into this All the weird like backpedaling into this, you know

[02:44:41] Well, we should find a very scary clown mask But what if as a weird backup option just as an alt we spray paint It's just all these things worked out. Yeah Of what i'm talking about of like the the improbable backwards canonization of things like

[02:44:59] You could never have convinced people in the 90s that there would be In a new halloween a shot in the trailer of silver shamrock masks from halloween three season of the witch And horror people are like, oh my god, they're bringing in the silver shamrock mask

[02:45:14] This is amazing. Yeah at a time where people were like, oh everyone knows halloween three sucks Doesn't have michael meyers in it. You don't need to watch it and now everyone's like that movie's canonical masterpiece people love it

[02:45:25] It's about druid chips and halloween masks. It's fucking insane. It's very anti irish Everybody everybody loves it and we're going to drop an easter egg into the marketing and people are going to lose their minds because

[02:45:35] This thing has gone from an irrelevant failure that the franchise had to rewrite to now the second Legacy sequel which is rewriting the franchise again, but we want silver shamrock I mean i've talked about it before though, but the general thing of

[02:45:49] They do a sequel to this movie and they do another movie that's done connected and then they're like, okay forget it We'll do a sequel to two and then a sequel to four and a sequel to five And they're like, okay. No, let's do another sequel to two

[02:46:02] Forget forget all that. Yeah, right and then they're like, okay, we'll do a sequel to seven We'll kill off lorri strode. That's a good idea, right? Kill her off in like 10 minutes. Most of the movies about buster rimes like halloween three two It's halloween resurrection is halloween

[02:46:15] Three two sure that's a good way to put it and then they're like, uh, forget all that. We'll do a reboot Halloween one again Then we'll do a sequel to the we'll do a sequel to the reboot and then they're like no, let's make a sequel to one

[02:46:26] We never did that before But then in the sequel to one so it's now how it's halloween two two is what it is Two we're going to tip our hats on halloween three season of the witch because fans love it

[02:46:38] And it's gone from something that the franchise had to immediately be like no no no no Forget about that to like well you have to acknowledge so what kills is halloween two two two right in a way So i'm just realizing halloween. It's the second movie that was

[02:46:52] That was the second try at a second halloween movie. So halloween resurrection is halloween three two two halloween resurrection is halloween Three two two Surely kind of yeah, so halloween h2o is halloween. It's halloween three my girlfriend and the other room right now

[02:47:09] It's literally like what the fuck are these guys talking about it like halloween halloween h2o is halloween three She probably just can't hear us well right well where like halloween four is halloween three

[02:47:19] I hope right that makes sense. How this is the sequel. I don't even know how we talk about the actual halloween three Halloween resurrection is the sequel to the second iteration Of the third halloween and then david gordon green comes in and is like no no no

[02:47:32] I'm doing a sequel to halloween. Well, we already did that not this way right that's two two Yeah, um, I want to just say one final thing about john carpenter Yeah, because I thought it's long white hair. He's just a cool looking guy He's cool

[02:47:45] Is that I talked about him so much in this big theory that I came up with that he is kind of one of the most definitive filmmakers of the VHS era And I don't know if you guys I unfortunately saw your icon yesterday of your schedule

[02:47:56] So I know you're covering some somebody's watching me But you're not which is before this and it's important, but you're not covering cigarette burns We look look

[02:48:05] Okay, let me just let me just say this. Let me just say that you don't know what we're doing about those things We plan the patreon More short term than main feeds and so body bags cigarette burns those sorts of things

[02:48:17] We just haven't decided. Let me just say the other one. Let me just say I was working at kim's video when masters of power started coming out on dvd I cannot overstate the cultural impact in the cult and dvd collecting community The carpenter is back

[02:48:33] These things are pretty fucking good. Mm-hmm his masters of horror episodes There were I remember I tried to find footage of this I couldn't find it people came into the store and they were like you guys have cigarette burns

[02:48:44] Sold out everywhere and we were like, yes, we have 500 copies and they were like people were lining up at best buy before they opened It was on the news the news was there covered like thing I was like what and they're like, yeah

[02:48:56] People had because no one had showtime and there was no tv didn't work in the same way So if you missed masters of horror It's like well seven months from now will release the episodes two at a time on individual dvds

[02:49:08] And his kind of reemergence of people being like he's crapped out Vampires ghost of mars and then it's like he's a master of horror. He made these two short films They're pretty fucking classic and everybody lost their mind for those things

[02:49:23] And it's just one of the craziest things where he went from being the vhs era And now it's like by this dvd. It has a one hour john carpenter moving on it It's 20 dollars and there's one other one hour episode on it

[02:49:35] We'll find a way to do I just want to meant if it doesn't come up again I don't know if anybody else would say hey Do you guys remember what a huge deal cigarette burns? No, I remember being a big deal

[02:49:45] But I also I remember being big deal because I was such a dare I say it avid ain't a cool reader that that also felt Like this weird-sized thing of like oh, yeah, totally This site is now like impacting actual pop culture. Yeah

[02:49:58] It just was it was just a huge deal to people who shopped at kim's bought a lot of dvds Collected home video to have john carpenter make this thing you couldn't have DVR it there was no on demand

[02:50:09] Yeah, you had to buy the dvd of his new thing that was a return to form and it's fine It's it's pretty good. Sure. We watched it a couple years ago. It's fine But I had to mention it in case it never comes up again

[02:50:21] But I hope it does because it'll there there's gonna be a lot of ways in which is gonna come up that and but and pro life

[02:50:27] Sure. Yes, uh body bags is another thing. We also have to figure out how to tech. There's a lot. He's done a lot of Shit, okay. We're figuring out the point is we've only announced someone's watching me and Elvis those feel just kind of crucial soon

[02:50:39] Sure. All right. Yeah, and we're we're figuring out the rest of it Let's play the box office game Now is this in your book of old timey box office? It sure is and halloween open number nine On 25th october 1978

[02:50:53] Did it open in like one theater somewhere? No, it opened In many places, but then they took it out of circulation quickly And turned it into a thing, you know where it's like it's coming back

[02:51:05] You know what I mean like they want to turn it into a word of that part of its box office success weird. Yeah Vision for that is impressive number nine with what? No, I don't have totals. Okay only the 80s book has totals got it

[02:51:18] But of course the movie I should say obviously it's one of the most profitable movies Of its ilk it cost 300 grand. It made like 70 million dollars like all told or whatever considered the most profitable independent film of all time at that point in time

[02:51:34] I think so but they they you know, whenever you see there's always qualifiers loaded into these things and it's like What's yeah, obviously Blair witch and paranormal activity and all that you know eventually swing in carpenter

[02:51:45] Only took $10,000 for all his duties on this movie. Yes. He did get a percentage right? So he did make money off of like mash where he made nothing But he never made as much off of how big this franchise got as he probably should have yes

[02:52:00] And uh, and I'm like kind of a nice check to do the score for the new one Well, that's the whole thing with the wind with the remakes and sequels He's always like, are you paying me then I support the remake or whatever

[02:52:10] Hold out my hands. Give me the money. Give me money. Um, there's also the weird circular circular thing where he was like I know we need a mask. Let's go to the don post company. They're the best at making masks

[02:52:21] We can't pay you any money to design anything but we'll give you like Points in the movie and they were like hardpass and they were like fuck what are we gonna do?

[02:52:29] Let's buy a ton post mask spray paint at white and then they're able to produce that mask and make so much fucking money off of it But then I think the mask rights have also gotten weird. Anyway, I'm sure they have yeah, it seems like just

[02:52:40] I'm excited to participate in the 70s box office number one of the box office this week New this week is a film for which Oliver stone won an academy award midnight express It's midnight the winner of best score. I guess georgia marruder did too

[02:52:53] That's a movie it is weird How like much of a sensation that movie was in the 70s versus where it stands in the canon now Where people are like, oh right midnight express like that movie was so successful that

[02:53:05] Turkish prison just sort of became a bylaw like place. You don't want to be As someone who spent much of the lockdown watching 70s and 80s sitcoms It's like that's still a fucking reference in 86. You don't want to be in the Turkish prison

[02:53:18] I look I saw midnight express like they keep on making it as if like fucking midnight express is yoda or something And as a kid I always got midnight express and midnight run can sing

[02:53:27] Yes, right. I was like, I know one of these is fun and one of them is harrowing And one but but I don't but now I'm confused. Yeah Number two at the box office has been number one. I think for a long ass time

[02:53:40] I'm not just I'm sorry. I'm imagining the thought experiment of what if you swapped the scores on midnight run and midnight express And you had midnight express with the danielfland score Yeah, like saxophone

[02:53:50] I'm sure midnight run would work with the marruder score. It would probably a nice score This is the third most successful film of 1978. It's a comedy third most successful in 1978 a comedy. Is it stir crazy? It's not stir. It's not a wilder prior

[02:54:04] No, they're not involved. Sure. I'm trying to think of very high grossing comedies of the 70s huge huge huge movie massive hit massively Uh, uh, is it up in smoke? No, but up in smoke is number four my friend. Okay. Good job Is it there are no sequels

[02:54:22] There's other movies under the branding of this movie Whoa, there's okay. It's a 1978 hugely in the animal house national impunes animal house. Oh, oh Was that okay? I don't know how else to describe But I mean obviously it's a brand they revive over and over again

[02:54:41] It is animal house massively successful in its 14th week And I like I was looking at the box office game and I'm like, oh it looks like animal house

[02:54:47] It's gonna be number one because it's number one for week after week after week and then fun to midnight spreads Max it off. Yeah To get serious for one weekend number three at the box office griffin

[02:54:57] Is I think one of your favorite movies of all time and it's new this week Number three at the box office is one of my favorite movies of all time and it's new this week Is it by one of my favorite directors? Yes

[02:55:09] It's seen as a bad movie and a flop is it brister mcleod. No, that's 70 70 Yeah, or 71 71. It's the same year is another great. All right. I forgot it was that early. It's very early. Yeah

[02:55:23] Okay, wait a second. It's one of my favorite director. It's seen as a flop at the time. I believe it certainly poorly received David sitting back with his smug look on his face because he's astonished that I wouldn't immediately

[02:55:34] Recall I just of course the most important american film of 1978 is sydney lometz the wiz correct It's the wiz a movie I study maybe as obsessively as you study Halloween Jesus and a movie in which I think the powers are similar I like the fact that every

[02:55:48] Musical number in that movie is shot like it's from the perspective of michael meyers five blocks away Observing these pitiful people and their miserable life as they dance their way to doom What a while what a while it's a movie about the

[02:56:01] existential loneliness of the human condition and this is a pretty good top five how Oppressed people using music to be very bonkers to convince themselves that there's any joy in life. It's a masterpiece I gotta see the wiz we'll do

[02:56:13] Here's the thing it's a masterpiece that I find uh, I find half of its runtime on watch I find me all of us on a growing time. I think half of it's as good as anything anyone's capital is all

[02:56:22] The unwatchable stuff zero watchable man. That's compelling in that movie in my opinion It's so good. So just to recap our top four midnight express animal house the wiz and up in smoke

[02:56:30] I'm just saying I mean you have a good time at the american movie theaters right now. Yeah number five is A comedy from one of griffin's favorite directors. He's already been invoked in this box office game

[02:56:42] Uh, he's already been invoked in look it's this year's altman's movie. Oh, right. So 78 would be Fuck Um, okay because wait Nashville 75 right or 76 Nashville is 1975 um So then 78 would be it's this year's altman movie. It's not a very big hat. No Is it

[02:57:08] Is a comedy of his is called not a very big hat. Sorry. Is it is it a wedding? It's a wedding. Okay Uh, which I've never seen. Uh, I never have either. It's a weird blind spot. Have you seen a wedding? Yeah, does he arenas right? Sure

[02:57:21] I believe he's the star Carol Burnett Carol Burnett At the altman series of pharma like seven or eight years ago. Yeah, it's the wedding right? I don't know Yeah, what if there was a wedding? What is the wedding? It's it's nashville at a wedding

[02:57:34] Yeah, it's just you know, it's the beginning of because it's not margo at the wedding It's nashville at the wedding 76 was buffalo bill 77 is three women, which is obviously great 78 is a wedding 79 is quaint

[02:57:44] Oh quaint and perfect couple same year. Okay, and then 80 is health and papa, you know, he's he's four years in the basement He's swimming against the current at this. Yeah, that's rough Um number six is a movie called the big fix with richard driffus. I don't know it

[02:58:01] I got a fixer did one of those. You know, I'm sure that's what it's like one of those driffus vehicles I'm gonna say no one has watched that is pretty much the vibe I'm getting from this poster

[02:58:11] I like this poster. I've seen this poster. He's peaking. That's a real poster Look, are you in or you not like we're giving you all we've got here Uh the boys from brazil greater tech. You got death on the Nile with peter ustanov

[02:58:25] Are there seeing any of the ustanov? We just watched that last year. It's pretty solid really that movie There's halloween, which I think we talked about in this episode and then yeah, and then comes a horseman Uh a great title. Is that the alan pecula movie?

[02:58:41] I'm looking it up because I do have the title. It's uh that or like that. It's yeah, it's pa cool. Yeah James fonda james con. Yeah, I was gonna say 70s horse movies. You have electric horsemen. You have comes a horseman

[02:58:53] You have they shoot horses, don't they? I was like that's 68 though, right? If they shot what if they shot horses, didn't they? I don't know The pitch what if and hear me out

[02:59:04] They shot horses. They shot horses, didn't they so what's it about? That's about people like roller skating for five days straight I just love roller skating in a circle where maybe the studio

[02:59:13] He was like the movie's called they shoot horses and she was like no that's too gross Let's add a don't pay just to kind of maybe I think a lot of other movies could be improved by That at the end. You know it expresses

[02:59:26] All these movie titles they're so arrogant. They're so assured of what they're saying what you have no question All right, um, David, uh, how many weekends has the whiz been in release at this point?

[02:59:37] Um, this is it's for I told you that's new this week. Jesus. Okay, and it's it's opening at number three Yeah, this is and express the whiz and halloween are the new and comes a horseman are the new movies this

[02:59:47] I just want to say for perspective. I believe Yes, 1978 the same year the halloween was made for $325,000. I believe the whiz cost 40 million dollars It cost more than star wars the year before I'm seeing here 24 million which is still uh triple the budget of star wars

[03:00:05] Sure, okay fair enough. But but you know a lot. Yes, um, but yes I have never seen the whiz of course We all love the tagline to the whiz griff. What if there was a whiz the whiz the stars the music wow yeah, um

[03:00:19] A gutter comes through the window. All right, we're done. We're done. We're done We're done. We're done. Yeah, I have nothing else in my notes then read that time code to me there Um, so we've probably definitely gone over three

[03:00:31] Uh, probably like three 15. I'm guessing three 15 before ads Before ads short out this might be number one, right? I think it might be and I gotta say I have to say they know some boys Not at all my intention. I didn't want to bullshit

[03:00:47] I call she's on that for weeks You were like the manifesto just got another page Five months my intention was pure density. I had no I thought I didn't know if I could Alex I agree with that you were not being tangentee you came in with a manifesto

[03:01:02] You had a lot you wanted to talk about and we talked about all of it I agree with that. It's not like you came in and you're like we got to do 10 minutes on guns and roses

[03:01:09] It will be very funny if well, he came in and I talked about the worst movie by this great director for the longest amount of time It's more like

[03:01:16] I would it would have hurt so much to be like playing jacks doing Halloween Sunday morning loaded up and I see and I'm like 150 Yeah 150 and I'm like what the hell went wrong and you loaded up and it's just like so the thing about star wars

[03:01:29] And I was like guys come on. What are we doing here? We need to be on does anyone listen to this show? This is a big one You have to be on topic and I have to break my pattern to come on

[03:01:39] So thank you for letting me sit on this episode for four months. I think it's our best ever Really? I don't know. I thought this is a pretty good episode to be honest

[03:01:46] I don't know. I just I had a lot of fun and it was great to be in person It was nice to be in person It wouldn't have been that long if we had not been in person Correct You say this

[03:01:55] I don't know but you remember the level We were at levels of like space madness by the end of that like we were I was I would say genuinely insane You were serious? I felt like I was hallucinating

[03:02:08] You can no longer be like my battery's dying. Goodbye everybody My battery I believe I'm sure was dying. I have no doubt No, but also I'll say I've seen David's red indicator light flickering several times in this episode I don't even know one of the side is temple

[03:02:23] Okay. Yes. Oh, David's personal red Yes, yes. No, his devices are fine His druid chip that's in the mask on his head Yes, well said Um, Alex, thank you Thank you so much David has moved his microwave This is the thing that used to do

[03:02:37] How conclusively done he is with this episode Done He swings it away like a shock jock who's just made his final big joke I'm putting my chips in. I'm like enough. I'm not gambling anymore Pasta

[03:02:49] Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate review and subscribe. Thank you too Halloween rules Halloween rules John Carpenter rules I'm so happy to be at the beginning of what's going to just be a wonderful series Of episodes with great films

[03:03:03] 12 of which I've rewatched in the last month Oh, yeah Uh, thank you to Marine Barretti for our social media. Thank you to Pat Rounds and Joe Bone for our work Thank you to JJ Birch, Nick Larellano and Alex Ross Perry for our research this week

[03:03:15] I think you deserve that credit even though you are not on payroll No, a labor of love A labor of love, uh, labor of love Jesus I need to stop talking Thank you to AJ McKeehan and Alex Barron for editing

[03:03:29] Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit And you can go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features where we are Belunking in the dark with a man they call Richard B Riddick

[03:03:44] Right, no, what better way to describe it and as we said, uh, someone's watching me and uh Elvis coming on The patreon in uh Coming weeks Uh, so timeline is a little wonky on that

[03:03:56] But if you want to film those necessary gaps of those two big tv movies from early on In his career, uh, tune in next week for the fog With Nia D'Costa returning to the show just in time for Candyman And as always

[03:04:12] He could have seen us through this window She's only on the loan he could have seen inside A pike goes through the window