THIS WEEK - OUR HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR. ACTUALLY COMING TO YOU ON HALLOWEEN!
ALL HORROR MOVIES THIS WEEK! Tucker "FUNNY THING" Stone and Sean "FUNNY THANG" Witzke take you through a tour of terror.
00:00 - 6:39 - INTROS! Inclusdes some talk about the Simpsons creators Matt "Hell" Groening and Sam "Sayonara" Simon and Law and Order. Also some "behind the curtain" business of how we chose the movies we wanted to talk about, and some mention of Ruggero Deodato's grossout classic Cannibal Holocaust (1980).
06:40 - 19:29 - Starting off the only way we know how, focusing on John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), starring Kurt Russel, Keith David, Wilford Brimley and 9 other great character actors doing the best work of their careers, special effects by Rob Bottin. Originally based on the film The Thing From Another World (1951), directed by Chrisian Nyby (ghost-directed by Howard Hawks). Carpenter once said that "People still think of The Thing as a little bit above pornography". Also mentioned in this sectionIrreversible (2002), Alien (1979), and Psycho (1960).
19:30 - 35:00 - Next up we have An American Werewolf In London (1981), directed by John Landis and starring David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne. Special effects by Rick Baker. THEY MADE A NEW OSCAR CATEGORY FOR RICK BAKER'S WORK ON THIS MOVIE. John Landis tells the story of how he wrote the film, and some cool Bottin/Baker facts (Bottin ran away to live in Baker's garage when he was 15!) facts in this lengthy interview with Kevin Pollak.
35:01 - 46:17 - Up next we have Candyman (1992), directed and written by Bernard Rose, based on the short story The Forbidden by Clive Barker, starring Tony Todd, Virginia Madsen, Xander Berkley, and a score by Phillip Glass. We also talk about the treatment of race in Candyman, other Clive Barker movies, how Neil Gaiman sucks, and Tony Todd's stint on 24.
46:18 - 1:00:09 - Then we watched Exorcist III: Legion (1990), written and directed by William Peter Blatty, starring George C Scott, Jason Miller, and Brad Dourif. With cameos by Fabio, Patrick Ewing, and Samuel L Jackson. Also - Tucker talks about nightmares. There is a lot of discussion about Brad Dourif's stunning performance in this.
John Carpenter on working with Blatty on the screenplay, from the book John Carpenter The Prince of Darkness interviewed by Giles Boulenger - " I spoke to Blatty about the eerie implications of sub-atomic physics: His eyes flashed "Oh you mean Bell's Iniquity", then he smiled. "You know of course the word 'lucifer' means 'light'." And a chill went up my spine."
1:00:10 - 1:10:21 - To change the pace away from 80s/90s American horror, we watched Ugetsu (1953), directed by Kenji Mizoguchi and starring Masayuki Mori and Machiko Kyō. There is some discussion in this section of cultural translation of books and films to the US, including Javier Marrias and the Wallander series . And there is a mention of Adrienne Barbeau's (who was Carpenter's wife at the time, in keeping with the Carpenter obsession) performance in Creepshow (1982) and the stock character of the shrill housewife.
1:10:22 - 1:28:13 - Finally rounding up we close with Evil Dead 2 (1987), directed by Sam Raimi, written by Raimi and Scott Spiegel, produced by Rob Tapert, makeup effects by Greg Nicotero, and starring Bruce Campbell. There is a discussion/overview of Sam Raimi's career, Sean talks about weird fanboy bullshit in Darkman (1990) and Tucker tells a real life story about The Quick and the Dead (1995) as a way to bail out of his inability of backing up his own bullshit opinions. When that doesn't work, he just takes a straight up non-movie detour to talk about Sean Howe's great new book Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, Howe also edited the Deep Focus line of books, which included the absolutely essential Jonathan Lethem book about They Live (bringing it back to Carpenter, like the goddamn ticking of a clock we'll always come back to him. He must be our lucky star, shining on us wherever we go).
ALL HORROR MOVIES THIS WEEK! Tucker "FUNNY THING" Stone and Sean "FUNNY THANG" Witzke take you through a tour of terror.
00:00 - 6:39 - INTROS! Inclusdes some talk about the Simpsons creators Matt "Hell" Groening and Sam "Sayonara" Simon and Law and Order. Also some "behind the curtain" business of how we chose the movies we wanted to talk about, and some mention of Ruggero Deodato's grossout classic Cannibal Holocaust (1980).
06:40 - 19:29 - Starting off the only way we know how, focusing on John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), starring Kurt Russel, Keith David, Wilford Brimley and 9 other great character actors doing the best work of their careers, special effects by Rob Bottin. Originally based on the film The Thing From Another World (1951), directed by Chrisian Nyby (ghost-directed by Howard Hawks). Carpenter once said that "People still think of The Thing as a little bit above pornography". Also mentioned in this sectionIrreversible (2002), Alien (1979), and Psycho (1960).
19:30 - 35:00 - Next up we have An American Werewolf In London (1981), directed by John Landis and starring David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne. Special effects by Rick Baker. THEY MADE A NEW OSCAR CATEGORY FOR RICK BAKER'S WORK ON THIS MOVIE. John Landis tells the story of how he wrote the film, and some cool Bottin/Baker facts (Bottin ran away to live in Baker's garage when he was 15!) facts in this lengthy interview with Kevin Pollak.
35:01 - 46:17 - Up next we have Candyman (1992), directed and written by Bernard Rose, based on the short story The Forbidden by Clive Barker, starring Tony Todd, Virginia Madsen, Xander Berkley, and a score by Phillip Glass. We also talk about the treatment of race in Candyman, other Clive Barker movies, how Neil Gaiman sucks, and Tony Todd's stint on 24.
46:18 - 1:00:09 - Then we watched Exorcist III: Legion (1990), written and directed by William Peter Blatty, starring George C Scott, Jason Miller, and Brad Dourif. With cameos by Fabio, Patrick Ewing, and Samuel L Jackson. Also - Tucker talks about nightmares. There is a lot of discussion about Brad Dourif's stunning performance in this.
John Carpenter on working with Blatty on the screenplay, from the book John Carpenter The Prince of Darkness interviewed by Giles Boulenger - " I spoke to Blatty about the eerie implications of sub-atomic physics: His eyes flashed "Oh you mean Bell's Iniquity", then he smiled. "You know of course the word 'lucifer' means 'light'." And a chill went up my spine."
1:00:10 - 1:10:21 - To change the pace away from 80s/90s American horror, we watched Ugetsu (1953), directed by Kenji Mizoguchi and starring Masayuki Mori and Machiko Kyō. There is some discussion in this section of cultural translation of books and films to the US, including Javier Marrias and the Wallander series . And there is a mention of Adrienne Barbeau's (who was Carpenter's wife at the time, in keeping with the Carpenter obsession) performance in Creepshow (1982) and the stock character of the shrill housewife.
1:10:22 - 1:28:13 - Finally rounding up we close with Evil Dead 2 (1987), directed by Sam Raimi, written by Raimi and Scott Spiegel, produced by Rob Tapert, makeup effects by Greg Nicotero, and starring Bruce Campbell. There is a discussion/overview of Sam Raimi's career, Sean talks about weird fanboy bullshit in Darkman (1990) and Tucker tells a real life story about The Quick and the Dead (1995) as a way to bail out of his inability of backing up his own bullshit opinions. When that doesn't work, he just takes a straight up non-movie detour to talk about Sean Howe's great new book Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, Howe also edited the Deep Focus line of books, which included the absolutely essential Jonathan Lethem book about They Live (bringing it back to Carpenter, like the goddamn ticking of a clock we'll always come back to him. He must be our lucky star, shining on us wherever we go).
Next week's homework assignments: 13 Assassins and The Tenant. Apologies for this episodes lateness, that's pure hurricane action for you.
That EXORCIST III scene with the nurse may well be the best scare scene I've ever seen, one of those that actually causes you to look behind you at times to make sure a person in all-white with a head shearing device isn't following.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH8ynu0jRvY
Interesting also that of all the films you decided to discuss you went with EXORCIST III and CANDYMAN, as they were two of the few above average horror films that came out in the 90's, a decade that was pretty much the nadir for the genre.
Looking forward to the homework assignments for next week -- seems like now is as good a time as ever to catch up on 13 ASSASSINS.
Posted by: Troy Olson | 2012.11.01 at 12:48
I really like a lot of horror stuff from the 90s -Jacob's Ladder, In the Mouth of Madness, Cronos, Tremors, Body Parts, Audition, the good parts of the Coppola Dracula, New Nightmare, Species, Event Horizon. The Nadir for the genre is the 00s. All cg and half-ass torture and Wolf Creek.
Posted by: Sean Witzke | 2012.11.01 at 13:29
You forgot to include "shitty found footage" films on your list of crap from the 2000's.
While I certainly would be foolish to try to mount any passionate argument that the 00's are any better than the 90's, I probably like several films from the 2000's as much as the list you provide there (The Descent, Inside, Let The Right One In, 28 Days/Weeks Later, The Strangers, The Devils Rejects...and I guess that's really about it). I can see what you are getting at, though. Plus, your list reminds me that I really need to watch Event Horizon one of these days.
As for the nadir, I was thinking more of the bottoming out of the genre right around when SCREAM came out, and then the flurry of copycat stuff that followed in its wake.
Posted by: Troy Olson | 2012.11.01 at 16:53
Deodato was accused of murdering people in Cannibal Holocaust, although for maximum exploitation you'll need to hit up Jacopetti's & Prosperi's Africa Addio -- not a cannibal movie but kind of a enabling force -- which *actually did* include footage of real murders (it's a mondo movie), one of which the directors were later accused of orchestrating for the film. Next to that, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals plays like charming escapism...
Posted by: Jog | 2012.11.01 at 19:01
Enjoyed this. I got into horror pretty late in my development, so I'm still very much in the phase of being addicted to digging through the genre in film. Candyman sounds really interesting. I will have to check that out.
The exorcist III discussion was probably the highlight of the episode.
Posted by: sarah horrocks | 2012.11.02 at 01:23