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Episode 70: Terror in the Aisles featuring David Weiner
56 Plays10 days ago
David Weiner, director of the In Search of Darkness series of documentaries, is in the studio and they’ve brought something very unique: Terror in the Aisles (1984). Far ahead of its time, it’s a compilation of "terror films" from cinema’s past that has Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen narrating from the audience, watching the films we’re watching. Very meta, and full of so many great films! We’ll talk all about it with David AND we'll discuss his newest film, In Search of Darkness 1995-1999. It’s not one to miss, so tune in!
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Podcast Theme
00:00:16
Speaker
It's bad to be bad, it's bad to be bad And I guess it's understood That you would, if you could And you know that you should Yes, you know that you should
00:00:40
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie
Guest Introduction and 'In Search of Darkness'
00:00:44
Speaker
podcast. It's the only podcast that's brave enough to ask the question, if this movie's so bad, why do you like it so much? We're your hosts.
00:00:52
Speaker
My name is Chris Anderson, and with me as always, he's just so pleasant, he's got to be our own personal Donald Pleasance, it's Mr. Greg Bossing. Hello.
00:01:04
Speaker
how you holding up, Greg? I'm holding up. it's a it's It's life, and we're here, and it's great. Yeah, that's going to be the vibe today, I have a feeling. We also have with us my wonderful wife, the Nancy Allen to my audience members sitting next to her, Anna Anderson. How are you?
00:01:24
Speaker
Hey, I'm doing all right. Happy to be here. Hey, all right. It's all right. And with us, we have a very special guest. You might know him as the director of the In Search of Darkness series
Inspiration to Discuss 'Terror in the Isles'
00:01:37
Speaker
of films. You might know him as the director of the In Search of the Future series of films.
00:01:41
Speaker
He is, I'm going to say, A big deal for us. It's Mr. David Weiner. How are David? Hey, I'm great. I'm great. I'm great.
00:01:52
Speaker
Nice to be with you guys today. Nice to sit in the aisles and experience terror. It's something I do for my profession often. Yeah, and that's one of the reasons when we were talking about having you on the show and what we wanted to watch, and i had started watching ah In Search of Darkness, and I saw the segment in there on Terror in the Isles, and I thought this would be a perfect thing to talk to David about ah because you both work in sort of meta-horror milieu.
00:02:23
Speaker
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Now, ah listeners, if you haven't seen Terror in the Isles, here's just a brief summary to hold in your mind as we continue to go through the show.
Meditation on Horror Films with Notable Hosts
00:02:41
Speaker
Donald Pleasance and Nancy Allen enjoy a night out at the movies, where they lead us on a stream of consciousness meditation on the dark allure of terror movies.
00:02:56
Speaker
very Yeah. Terror movies. That was a long synopsis. Yeah. I feel like i'm I gave this one as generous a reading as I could when I watched it. And I feel like it really benefited from it.
00:03:12
Speaker
ah David, when you, how do you remember how you first encountered terror in the aisles? What's your background with terror in the aisles? Yeah, I was going to say, actually, I think a a short synopsis is good because then if you're intrigued enough, then you want to find out more because this movie is so much more.
00:03:26
Speaker
um It's, it's everything between a pretty much a, a Hollywood clip reel for horror movies and especially universal horror movies. ah They seem to have the lion's share conveniently because it's ah released by universal.
00:03:41
Speaker
That probably saved a couple bucks. But I have to say, it's it's a really great relic from a bygone era. My experience was, I remember seeing the the ads in the newspaper. I'm i'm goingnna just i'm going to tip my you know reveal Reveal my age off the bat because I'm all about context. I'm not ashamed. I'm graying around the temples and it's aiming towards the top and that's the way life goes, right?
00:04:08
Speaker
But yeah I was born in 68, so I was a 70s kid and an 80s teen. And so by the time I was a monster kid and I loved monster movies, Godzilla, you know Dracula and Universal Horror, all that stuff like that.
00:04:22
Speaker
But in the 80s, that's when I really dialed in because it was a plethora of eighty s horror movies coming my way. ah Really starting with Halloween, ah you know, The Exorcist and The Omen and Abadieville Horror, all coming me through the small screen, a little black and white TV that we had in our den.
00:04:42
Speaker
that's so That's the era that I was in. So all that is relative because when Terror in the Isles came out, I did not see it in the theater, but I do remember seeing ads for it. And I just thought, wow, what is this about? It's a it's a skull with lots of other movies in it. That's kind of interesting.
00:04:59
Speaker
but Yeah, the the key art for this is fantastic. It's amazing. It's amazing. and And I'll cut to the chase real quick, and I won't give a long diatribe because you asked me, and now I'm just you know giving a speech here. but No, please.
00:05:12
Speaker
The idea is um in in in in ah one of the In Search of Darkness movies, Heather Wixon, she said a great thing. She's like, I used to see this movie on the video store shelves and I would grab it and use it as my guide to find other horror
Audience's Initial Experience of 'Terror in the Isles'
00:05:28
Speaker
movies. Yeah.
00:05:29
Speaker
And so for me, it was kind of the same thing. it It took me a long time to get around to renting it. And I ultimately rented it on VHS and saw it and enjoyed it. But there was something about being able to use that as some source to say, gosh, what else is out there? What do these people think is important?
00:05:45
Speaker
Because I'll think it's important because they told me it was like early curation. So, ah yeah, I saw it early and I saw it on VHS, but I did not see it when it came out. And it did kind of linger there, sort of taunting me for quite some time.
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those ones that I don't think you heard people ever talk much about. And I think because it is sort of and very odd object. I had never seen it before.
00:06:12
Speaker
Anna, Greg, had either of you ever seen it before? No. No, I'd never even heard of it, actually. I was going to say, have you had you heard of it? I thought it was a chopping mall at first. I was like, oh, this is the one where they're like getting like stalked by robots in a mall or something. Right. And then I looked at Wikipedia. It's like, no, no, it's not that at all, actually. It's one of those titles that is so great yet so generic at the same time. Yeah.
00:06:35
Speaker
So you probably think, do I need to see this? I'm already experiencing terror at home on the VHS and I'm waiting for the terror on the VHS release. And it sort of also feels like um aisles aren't the first thing that I associate with going to the movies. do you know what I mean? Like it doesn't really hit home what it is you're going to see. I think it was released in some foreign markets as That's Shock to tie it into the That's Entertainment series.
00:07:04
Speaker
um Well, it's interesting that you bring up That's Entertainment. That used to be on television and that was, you know, the original clip show that I used to watch. And I always used to watch the opening of that's entertainment, regardless of what the topic was, because they always had that little piece of, of star Wars.
00:07:21
Speaker
ah You know, yeah you got to get it where you can. Yeah. That's high fighters attacking the millennium Falcon. I'm like, that's me. These people know me. They're talking to me. I got to watch this. And then it would be about a musical and I'd i'd switch the channel.
00:07:34
Speaker
But fair but but but I i feel like i before I even saw Tara in the Isles that I saw it on the equivalent of some type of that's entertainment type of show.
00:07:47
Speaker
And I think to me watching it, it also reminded me of some more ah later experiments in assembling found footage. I'm thinking of stuff that I haven't seen, but I've only heard of um ah Los Angeles plays itself.
00:08:01
Speaker
That's just largely a collection of like on location footage of Los Angeles. And the other one, ah the clock. That's 24 hours of footage of clocks assembled in real time.
00:08:16
Speaker
ah That there's only like six prints in the world and they travel from different museums. Its last screening was in June. Take that Peter Green away. yeah get his ass um yeah i would love to watch or see if i could watch that but boy i bet it's hard to track down a copy um well i've got a couple pages here of uh context research about uh the makers and making of terror in the isles you want to hear about it and yes
00:08:59
Speaker
I have some context about the background of the film. Script director, actors on set. What's going on on screen? I want to hear some details.
00:09:11
Speaker
Gossip stand to all that shit. Can't imagine all the time.
00:09:26
Speaker
Before you say a word, I have to interject and say your interstitials rock. They're amazing. Thank you. Thank you. It's always nice to get that seal of approval from a guest. ah So, Terror in the Isles was released August 31st, 1984.
00:09:41
Speaker
Why this wasn't an October release, I have no idea. Maybe it was a busy calendar this year, but that is wild to me. And it was directed by Andrew J. Kuhn.
00:09:53
Speaker
Now, it had four taglines. Three of them are very long and I apologize.
Taglines and Impact on Horror Genre
00:09:58
Speaker
Number one, if you can handle more than 100 jolts of 100% pure terror, then you might be ready for Terror in the Isles, a nonstop rollercoaster ride through the scariest moments of the greatest terror films of all time. It's a cut above the rest.
00:10:18
Speaker
Yeah. It's a little wordy. Yeah. But it's an unusual concept and you want to explain it. So understand. ah At last, a terrifying movie where you don't have to wait for the good parts because it's nothing but good parts.
00:10:37
Speaker
All the very best parts from the greatest terror films of all time. kind of like that.
00:10:47
Speaker
It's got a certain charm. There's a carnival barker appeal to it. All right. Number three. If your idea of a good time is pure terror, we've got as much fun as you can handle.
00:11:00
Speaker
All your favorite moments from the movies that made you scream. Okay. I like tightening screws. like more than can handle or as much fun as I can handle. Sometimes I can't handle too much fun.
00:11:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They don't have too many of like the like folk horror where you're just sort of depressed in here. I feel like that wouldn't fit. All right. Last one. Hey. All Tagline number four.
00:11:24
Speaker
It's only a movie, but it's more than enough. Oh, wow. Okay. Someone got paid big bucks for that. Yeah. That's the home run. So Andrew J. Kuhn is not a household name, even among cinephiles, despite the fact that ah he has made some of the most widely seen work in movie history.
00:11:45
Speaker
He only directed three feature films, Terror in the Isles, Get Bruce, the documentary about Hollywood joke writer Bruce Valanche. Ah. Oh. A madcap comedy called Flush that was also marketed as It's a Mad Mad World Part 2, but was also under 90 minutes, which I think solves a big problem for It's a Mad Mad World.
00:12:08
Speaker
ah But Flush got its theatrical debut in Turkey. So I think that speaks to a certain quality of the film.
00:12:15
Speaker
Kuhn's contribution to cinema history didn't come from his own films, but from the work he did for others' films. ah He wasn't a cinematographer or a writer or anything like that. Andrew J. Kuhn's contribution to film is that he revolutionized the movie trailer.
Kuhn's Influence on Movie Trailers
00:12:30
Speaker
Oh. Hmm, I see a connective tissue coming. Yeah, yeah, it's almost like it makes a little bit of sense. Back in the old days, almost all film trailers were made by a company called the National Screen Service.
00:12:44
Speaker
ah National Screen Service had a monopoly on major film trailers and their house style was largely influenced by carnival markers. The kind of thing where a narrator would yell about a movie being stupendous, you know?
00:12:59
Speaker
ah So Kuhn worked at National Screen Service where he ended up cutting trailers for American releases of foreign films like Last Year at Marienbad or Shoot the Piano Player.
00:13:09
Speaker
And this obviously gave him a little bit more room to experiment. ah Now, when MGM wanted to start cutting their own trailers in-house, they hired Kuhn to run it.
00:13:20
Speaker
And in 1964, he produced the trailer for Night of the Iguana. And its fast-paced editing and provocative narration by a young James Earl Jones blew audiences' minds and revolutionized trailer editing.
00:13:36
Speaker
That's so great. Oh, that's so cool! Yeah, he's like the Orson Welles of trailers. Yeah. he's completely updated the visual language of the medium. you You need just one thing to disrupt the entire flow.
00:13:49
Speaker
Yeah, he he was really like the great leap forward in trailer creation. Now, from there, yeah he joined up with an editing boutique called Kaleidoscope Films, which he would eventually go on to run.
00:14:02
Speaker
and But he started off running their West Coast offices. Kaleidoscope would go on to dominate the trailer editing industry for the next 30 years, while also training the next generation of trailer editors, ah preparing them to open their own trailer editing studios.
00:14:18
Speaker
Now, I'm sure you're curious what movies Andrew J. Kuhn did trailers for. Oh, definitely. You've got to tell us. Don't leave us hanging. like ah Like a really good trailer will tease us, but not tell us.
00:14:30
Speaker
No, no, no, no. This is just to sell you on the man's talent. This is more sizzle on the steak. Here are some of his highlights. The Poseidon Adventure. The Sting.
00:14:43
Speaker
The Exorcist. Jaws. Taxi Driver. Superman. Holy cow. Saturday Night Fever. Alien. Cruising.
00:14:55
Speaker
E.T. Poltergeist, Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Top Gun, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Wall Street, The Abyss, JFK, Prince of Tides, Malcolm X, Reservoir Dogs, Jurassic Park, and many more. Hot damn.
00:15:19
Speaker
Holy cow. I mean, that's that's a resume, my God. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ironically, he did not cut the trailer for Terror in the Isles. Ah, well, that would be like nepotism.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah. You know, it's like the old saying. Insider trading. Insider trading. the The cobbler's son always has the worst shoes. Yeah. Now, ah unfortunately, I was not able to find out a lot about the production of Terror in the Isles, but I imagine part of that is because so little was actually produced.
00:15:53
Speaker
and The vast majority the film is composed of archival footage. There's only one paragraph about it on Kuhn's official website, and all it reveals is that horror was, quote, one of his favorite film genres.
00:16:07
Speaker
okay uh in the end yeah i mean as a trailer editor i'm sure you know editing is obviously a key part of any horror film and i'd say more than a lot of genres ah now uh in the end tear in the aisles appears to be a man who used his lifetime's worth of experience editing down other people's completed films and using that experience to create a love letter to the horror movies Sure. It could be better than that. Yeah. go yeah yeah i'm I'm like chomping at the bit into the why. I want to talk about the why. then Well, you tell. Yeah, I have no idea on why. So please, this is a perfect time to talk why. Well, this is conjecture on my part.
00:16:49
Speaker
But how like I said earlier, where it's heavy on the universal. If you look at a lot of his, he edited for all all studios. but So he had connections at all studios. He also knew what it was like to have the footage before the film came out.
00:17:03
Speaker
and And put together a stunning, amazing magnetic trailer. you know Magnetic meaning people were like, whoa, what's this? I want to check it out and see it. But um you know film studios are film studios. So there are a couple of clues here.
00:17:18
Speaker
One, August release.
'Terror in the Isles': A Strategic and Timely Release
00:17:20
Speaker
That's usually the dumping ground. It used to be. August was the dumping ground for summer. That was the dog days of summer. No one wanted to go to the movies. At least that was the ethos in the early you know eighty s But they wanted wanted to have some sort of programming.
00:17:34
Speaker
So Universal probably said, what can we do for the lowest amount of money – yeah budget and, and, and put it out there because you can't put a specific star there.
00:17:47
Speaker
Who's the star horror. Let's put a giant skeleton with a bunch of amazing movies that we all have heard about. Aren't that are great. And so that, and you know, it's a love letter ultimately to the genre, but it's really, what is it really? It's a love letter to amazing editing.
00:18:05
Speaker
Because we'll get into this. I'm not going to dominate you know the conversation about what this movie is about. But this this movie takes available footage and it takes all the tropes of horror and gives it a a a human face.
00:18:22
Speaker
The experience of watching it in a movie, the collective communal experience of watching it in a movie. ah Sorry, movie theater. Yeah. But also all the tropes, everything from the the the fear one experiences, the roller coaster of why you see horror movies from the safety of your seat to everything from meeting the the monster, the threat of the monster, the monster being either the attacker, the slasher or the or the supernatural villain.
00:18:49
Speaker
But it goes through all the tropes. It goes through all of the themes, but it edits and all these exciting moments together. ah for For something that works really, really, really, really well to demonstrate, especially in our post-self-referential post-meta times, it's like the ultimate assembly of all these amazing moments that we didn't identify until now.
00:19:15
Speaker
Yeah. And this is one thing that Anna and I really both felt when we finished watching it was that this movie is probably about 40 years ahead of
Ahead of Its Time: Comparisons to Modern Media
00:19:24
Speaker
its time. This is the kind of stuff that people are like doing on YouTube all over the place. But this is done like to the nth degree in by a master of the craft.
00:19:33
Speaker
And if you look at the reviews at the time, they didn't understand it. They they saw it for what it was, but they said it's all it's all flash and no substance. Well, of course.
00:19:44
Speaker
It's just it's yeah more of a description of, i think I think this is like a tutorial on why you should see movies in a theater with other people. If anything else, if you walk away from this movie experiencing anything else, yes, it's it's ah it's a great this hits of horror from the, you know, mostly from the 70s and some of the 80s.
00:20:08
Speaker
But ultimately, it it shows people why it's something that you should see together. And I think it was interesting just talking about those time periods and also that Universal was a big backer on this.
00:20:22
Speaker
It's interesting that the Universal classic monsters are conspicuous in their absence. Mm-hmm. That you don't have them. And I imagine... Maybe it would have made it seem too... Like, this is trying to make... That wouldn't have seemed scary to the audiences of the day. you I mean? It would have been a harder sell.
00:20:40
Speaker
is Sorry, again, sorry to interrupt, but I'm excited to interrupt this, you know? It's like, they they say in Terror of the Isles What used to be scary for audiences 50 years prior to that is no longer scary.
00:20:56
Speaker
And the new scary ah for audiences is the contemporary scary, whether it's the supernatural of the exorcist and the omen the terror of a slasher or just an intruder.
00:21:07
Speaker
you know or a maniac. So there's there's there's unpredictable people in our environments. There was a lot of terrorism in the 70s. And so the fight squad and Nighthawks feature prominently. there's There's no monsters, just human monsters there.
00:21:23
Speaker
But ultimately, you know, you got Halloween and You know, when a stranger calls, you know, these are the movies that they really lean heavily on. And of course, Dressed to Kill. And of course, who do they get? You know, Donald Pleasance and Nancy Allen to host it, who are the contemporary icons of the era.
00:21:40
Speaker
it's true but But ultimately, the Universal Monsters, even according to that film, are just like something from the the past. And yeah is the new the new scary is the thriller and is the suspense and the and the in the the Alfred Hitchcock anticipation of knowing it's going to come, but not knowing when.
00:22:00
Speaker
Yeah, I thought it was very interesting that um this is, you know, 10 years before Men, and Women, and Chainsaws, but, you know, it it hits all the same modern genres that Carol Clover is so interested in, the slasher and the supernatural possession film, and then the You know, the rape revenge film um with Miss 45 and even, yeah you know, ah referencing Clute, which I had, I just saw a couple of months ago, which is a great movie.
00:22:34
Speaker
Well, for such an odd formalist experiment, it did surprisingly well at the box office, pulling down $10 million in 1984 money. And also, you know, got it some decent distribution in home video.
00:22:49
Speaker
The critics didn't particularly get it, but they don't ever get horror. So I don't expect them to get like a formalist experiment in horror either. Yeah.
00:23:00
Speaker
Now, if you are a horror fan, other horror films that were in theaters in 1984.
00:23:07
Speaker
Obviously, you've got A Nightmare on Elm Street. A true classic. You also got Gremlins. My God, another classic. What a year.
00:23:19
Speaker
You got Chud.
00:23:22
Speaker
I'll give it i give it a beat. You got Night of the Comet. Tons of fun. you got Toxic Avenger. The House of Troma is being built before your eyes.
00:23:34
Speaker
You've got Razorback. And to just reference last week's episode with Trevor Henderson when we were talking about Creepshow 2, you've got the premiere horror anthology of 1984, Dungeon Master.
00:23:50
Speaker
Very strange movie. Well, listeners, you might have picked up at this point that there is no plot to this movie. But don't worry, we've still got something that's going to pass for a plot segment. Wish me luck.
00:24:03
Speaker
Good luck.
00:24:20
Speaker
Plot bumper, listen to me. I'm gonna give you the plot summary. Come on, baby. Here's the synopsis.
00:24:32
Speaker
Plot bumper, plot bumper.
00:24:45
Speaker
So yes, as I say, there is no plot. This movie does, I feel, largely follow sort of a stream of consciousness. I feel it does illustrate a lot of very important horror technique and theory, but it does it in much more of a show and not tell sort of way.
00:24:59
Speaker
Like you'll just have Donald Pleasance just sort of say something like that. Fear is the most scary emotion we can feel. and then you'll get, you know, five different horror movies chopped and screwed together. And this incredible fashion.
00:25:14
Speaker
So ah we open on a film projector running in a smoke filled room. It's projecting the classic Carol Kane chiller when a stranger calls, or it might be projecting Halloween. It's tough to say,
00:25:27
Speaker
But what movie it's projecting is the wrong question. It's projecting every horror movie ever made. And the people in the theater below are every horror audience ever assembled. And Donald Pleasance begins to narrate about the nature of scary
Opening Montage and Narrative Style
00:25:41
Speaker
movies.
00:25:41
Speaker
And the opening credits roll over footage from Halloween. And I found it really bizarre to be seeing different credits over Halloween. It's a really jarring experience. Did you guys have that? Yeah. And the music is the same but different at the same time.
00:25:56
Speaker
So I've not seen Halloween. So this bit was difficult. So there are a number of horror movies that I have not seen that I now have seen huge chunks of, at least for their most sensational and surprising moments.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sorry. It is what it is. i think I think it's curation then ultimately for you to be like, wow, that looks cool. That looks good. But you know what the problem is, I must say, um if it is a problem, is that when they show the smattering of clips, ah ah you don't know which film it's from. Yeah.
00:26:30
Speaker
Yeah. yeah You really have to know your movies because there is no lower third or lower left corner that tells you what movie it is. But I would argue there's a little more plot to it than you than you so than you fairly gave it, Chris.
00:26:46
Speaker
Because I have to say that there is structure to this. Because this is going through the experience of what it's like to watch a thriller slash horror movie or slash experience experience terror.
00:27:02
Speaker
in the aisles of a movie theater So Donald and Nancy Allen talk about, first of all, the the emotional body reaction to what the filmmakers are trying to create for you.
00:27:15
Speaker
And then it goes through, as I mentioned earlier, the various tropes. and And they do go, every time they move on to another trope, they go back to our hosts in the theater as experimental lab rats themselves, talking about the other element that they're about to go into. And then they show the... the montage of those clips.
00:27:38
Speaker
You also have to mention that that there's some threat within the audience. You never know who you're going to be sitting next to. They try and create some some terror wind within those aisles as well.
00:27:49
Speaker
And let's not forget that this is a this is a a well-cast audience, which seems to have some rejects from the Warriors sitting in there as well. Yeah. um look
00:28:03
Speaker
So we get footage of horror protagonists being menaced by unseen villains running down hallways barricading doors ah before assorted villains like Jack Torrance from The Shining or Leatherface from Chainsaw Massacre start breaking down those doors.
00:28:17
Speaker
Back in the theater, Pleasance tells us that sometimes terror films go too far, but so do audiences. And this introduces us to our pot-smoking, French-kissing audience members, and also the term terror films. Yeah. How do you guys feel about the term terror films?
00:28:38
Speaker
It was a little silly, i felt. like I think they're doing it so that they can incorporate suspense and stuff, and I understand how these things come together. ah But it's very weird to...
00:28:48
Speaker
The way that they're just like, people love terror films. It's like, wow, that's an interesting term for the genre. Well, I think you you're 100% correct.
00:28:59
Speaker
But I have to double down on their choice because, listen, they want to straddle genres because they these are the available clips that they used to to prove their point and to demonstrate what...
00:29:11
Speaker
It takes doesn't have to be a horror movie. you know If you look at that VHS, we're making the assumption that it's horror. But if they have Clute, if they have Ms. 45, if they have Vice Squad in there, and so on and so forth, this is not about horror movies. This is indeed about terror experienced in movies. And lastly, I'll say about it is that it always comes down to marketing a movie, doesn't it?
00:29:40
Speaker
You know, yeah a studio and they did this big in the nineties and I cover this, you know, a little reference to in search of darkness, but I talk about this a lot in the first half of in search of darkness in 1994, where studios wanted to capitalize on horror, but they did not. It was still the redheaded stepchild. It was still sort of bad word in terms of box office.
00:30:01
Speaker
So what do they do? They call it a thriller or a psychological thriller. yep or a um you know anything with anything related to thriller. Exactly. you know and yeah If they had marketed Silence of the Lambs as a horror movie, it never would have won an Oscar. you know if you so If you were experiencing that in in in your life, ah you'd be that would be a horror film for you. I gotta tell you.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah. So that they're just hedging their bets by being able to do it. But, you know, call it what do you will. A monster movie, a horror movie, a terror movie, a thriller. What scares you is what scares you, even if it's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and that insane boat ride down into the tunnel. and Yeah.
00:30:42
Speaker
And there there are certain like a subset of thrillers that I think definitely would say have more income. It's like a horror movie, but the protagonist has a gun. You know what I mean? Yeah. As opposed to something like ah like a spy thriller.
00:30:56
Speaker
You know, they're much closer aligned to horror than they are to to that type of thriller, I would say. ah Okay, okay, okay, here we go.
Sound Design and Visuals Enhance Immersion
00:31:04
Speaker
ah Now, we then meet our other host, Nancy Allen, who offers a lighter take on the proceedings, ah telling us that terror films are a lot like a roller coaster ride, before we get into a montage that includes the famous Dolly Zoom from Jaws, and Donald Pleasant spooking some neighborhood kids in Halloween, things of that nature.
00:31:23
Speaker
The film largely progresses in this fashion, with Nancy and Donald offering up vague statements about horror movies, followed by a montage that ah cross-cuts between sequences from between two to five different films that share some sort of thematic, structural, or textural similarity.
00:31:42
Speaker
For example, there's a segment about transformation and body horror that cuts between American Werewolf in London and The Exorcist and Scanners. There's a segment on villains that cross cuts between Nighthawks, Marathon Man, Vice Squad, and Wait Until dark There are a couple of sequences that focus more clearly on single films.
00:32:04
Speaker
The only film mentioned by name is Texas Chainsaw Massacre in a segment devoted to using terror films to process real world horrors. Mm-hmm.
00:32:15
Speaker
There's also a prolonged sequence pulled from the documentary, The Man Who Made Movies, which was an eight part documentary TV series. ah This part from the episode on Alfred Hitchcock, where old Hitch explains the old bomb under the table line of thought on suspense.
00:32:32
Speaker
You know, if anybody, I've been talking a lot. Anybody want to give the old bomb under the table summary? Oh, well that it's, You can have a scene where two protagonists are talking about baseball for five minutes and then a bomb blows up.
00:32:47
Speaker
And he says, your audience will be shocked and surprised by that bomb blowing up for about like 10 seconds. However, if you at the beginning show be, you know, let the audience know that there is a bomb under this table.
00:33:01
Speaker
um And then the protagonists are talking about something completely different. Like the audience is going to be not going to be focused on the conversation. They'll be focused on that bomb. And you prolong the the audience sensation of shock by giving them information rather than concealing information, which is which is very smart.
00:33:22
Speaker
Pitch really liked to get mileage out of the the suffering and torment of the audience for his own satisfaction. Yeah. I feel like the only question that I wish I could ask him as a follow-up question is, you know, what if the movie is just called The Mad Bomber?
00:33:38
Speaker
then I don't need to show the bomb. The audience is already gonna be like, why are they talking about what's going on? You know? And like, you can just do it with technique, you know, sweating hands, a guy sitting across the room, tapping his finger, you know, something like that.
00:33:52
Speaker
But anyway, that's what I would want to talk to. Case in point, the happening, you know, and you watch that movie and you know, something is happening at any point, but there is no terror whatsoever.
00:34:03
Speaker
In fact, a laugh track should be inserted. god Yeah, we still got to cover the happening. That's on my list. ah Now, ah other than these few notable exceptions, the majority of the film is concerned with the aforementioned montages.
00:34:19
Speaker
Kuhn demonstrates how the toolbox of techniques and tricks available to horror filmmakers can get the old blood pumping even without the benefit of a story. ah ah without a story, they're giving us what we're watching meaning or weight.
00:34:34
Speaker
It can still be impactful. uh, Allen and Pleasance repeatedly remind us that we're watching a movie when in fact we're watching an audience within a movie, watching several movies.
00:34:45
Speaker
And even still, you can't help but become at least somewhat engaged in what's happening. Even like you don't know any of these characters names, you might not even know what movie they're from. And honestly, you mentioned before the idea of having a little bug or a Chiron in the corner or something to tell you what movie that is.
00:35:01
Speaker
And I think that would take you out of the experience. Uh, I think you need to be more immersed. I think you make a great point. you know I'm looking at it from a ah standpoint of years later where we want to mine this movie for for a curation experience. yeah they're They're using that as an experience just to, in real time, experience what's what it's about. And you have to, I think we would be remiss if we do not mention the sound design.
00:35:32
Speaker
You know, this is all about using sound to to set up and and pay off scares and thrills and moments. The music is is often liberally borrowed from Halloween and other films, but ultimately it has its own score, which is really kind of interesting.
00:35:53
Speaker
And I also want to say that the prints that they use for this were all like very clean, very pristine. This is a very nice looking movie. It's got really great footage on it. Well, at the time it was, it was all new.
00:36:05
Speaker
Yeah. That, that probably helped. ah Now it's hard to clock at any given moment, how far along you are in the movie. and I'll be honest, even without the chyrons, I was checking Wikipedia where I have a list of all the movies I've written. It's like, Oh, okay. That's that one.
00:36:22
Speaker
Oh, okay. That's what that one is. That's probably the best way to watch it. Uh, but you can tell you've ah rounded the horn in the movie. Once you get to the sex and terror portion of the film, you get to see some nudity for movies, uh, like dress to kill and clute, which I was very surprised to see because this seemed like it would,
00:36:42
Speaker
but I guess it's also trying to show that like horror films are adult. This is marketed towards adults. Yeah. Lots of profanity as well. I was, I felt little prudish when that sort of came around. i'm like, Ooh, okay. I guess. you can this Yeah.
00:36:55
Speaker
yeah This movie doesn't pull any punches. um ah Unfortunately you do get ah a complete rape scene from the movie Ms. 45. I feel like of all the footage in the movie, that scene suffers the most from being removed from the larger context of it. Yeah.
00:37:13
Speaker
Yeah. That kind of pulled me out of the fun time I was having at that moment. That was a pretty upsetting when they were just like often in film. Women are the victims. Unfortunately, I was like, I'm really terrified for what they're about to show me. And then I was like, yeah, yeah, that was not great.
00:37:29
Speaker
That was not a good time. But once again, shows how it can be impactful even when removed from ah you know a larger story. Just unfortunately, that impact was largely unpleasant.
00:37:40
Speaker
Well, there's there's even a moment within that they filmed within the theater where you know there's there's a guy sort of putting the moves on you know on the ladies. And I think from the point of view of a woman watching these films, it's a different experience because especially at those times, the women's were the women were the victims. Women were not necessarily the final girls at that point. I mean, there are a couple of great final girls that they show, especially Ms. 45 and Jamie Lee Curtis, of course. Yeah.
00:38:11
Speaker
It kind of shows you that it's very much the sign of the times where you can't even go to a movie theater without being harassed. It's true. So from there, we get a few horror comedies, a quick bit from Phantom of the Paradise, some Abin Costello stuff.
00:38:26
Speaker
And then we two minute long song called They're Not Very Nice. Yeah. They're not very nice will be our closing theme this week. And then ah Donald Pleasance tells us that the movie is over and it's time to go home.
00:38:41
Speaker
What happened to Nancy Allen? Who can say? Maybe Donald Pleasance killed her. What did he say when he said it's time to go home? Ah, remind me. Well, he's talking about now that you're leaving, the perhaps that you're leaving the safety of the theater for the the real world, which is pretty scary, especially if you have to go home alone in the dark.
00:39:00
Speaker
yeah That's true. yeah A lot about the real world terrors. And then we get another tension building montage of people running away that ends with the classic shot of Leatherface slamming the door shut and then our credits roll.
00:39:16
Speaker
So, final thoughts. anything Anything that I missed out? Because obviously there was a lot going on here. Was there anything that you feel like, God, he left that off the table? No, but I want to mention...
00:39:29
Speaker
Personally, that that, you know, we mentioned, you know, Clute and Ms.
Exploration of Horror Themes and Communal Experience
00:39:33
Speaker
45 and Vice Squad, you know, Marathon Man, especially, you know, and like Nighthawks and things like that. There's there's a lot of sort of, ah you know, the seduction. There's a lot of stalkers. There's lots of personal horror, you know, Jaws. ah there's ah there's ah There's a sort of a a creature montage as well. You know, frogs. I could have sworn I saw Food of the Gods there for two seconds. Oh, yeah, I think so.
00:39:59
Speaker
That's up in the mix. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever happened to baby Jane. Yeah. um suddenlyly in their film A couple noir films as well. So I think it's um ah it's a broad strokes film, tell you know, using using these these clips as an example of the overall point of what it's like to experience.
00:40:22
Speaker
the manipulation of films to excite you and frighten you at the same time in a communal theater experience. Yeah. And I do think that having the theater there or the audience within the movie there does speak a lot to how this is part of the magic of the movies.
00:40:41
Speaker
And this is and also in 1984, it speaks to people were experiencing movies at home as much back then. This is, you know, VCR would be a much more aspirational thing.
00:40:53
Speaker
Don't forget, you know, Cisco and Ebert would always say, save the aisle seats for us, you know, because they didn't send it home and and do their home from their VCR or their lease. Yeah, they weren't getting screeners mailed to their P.O. box.
00:41:07
Speaker
Well, ah out of five stars, David, out of watchability and weirdness, where do you think you would land? Well, I think this is a bit of an anomaly ah when it comes to rating a movie.
00:41:18
Speaker
Yes. Because I think that's the challenge we have a lot on here. Yeah. You know, ah so I and, you know, my blanket statement is I don't like to rate things, you know. But I mean, I'll say if I liked it or not.
00:41:30
Speaker
I got to say, in retrospect, I really really, really, really, really liked it. But then again, I'm kind of a biased. Yeah. I'm a human being because, a I talked to Nancy Allen about it and included a piece on Terror in the Isles in my movie.
00:41:44
Speaker
But, you know, independent of that experience that I got, i also just curate movies kind of for a living these days with my long-term. memories's about 80s horror and then now 90s horror so i when i when these clips are put together i kind of see you know it's sort of you know game recognizes game you know when it comes to how they assemble these and and the the poles that they use to uh uh you know represent a film so that being said
00:42:16
Speaker
i give it I give it a five-star rating because, to me, and I've only realized this in in many, many, many years later, that it's it champions the communal theater experience.
00:42:32
Speaker
And I think this is a a goofy and slightly awkward way of showing that movies like this and this genre and subgenres of movies – are are important and effective and emotionally connective.
00:42:49
Speaker
ah And, and so it's, and full of tropes that, you know, but this is a movie that was meta way before we ever use that word. So that being said, I think it's really interesting, you know, and I'm, when I say meta, I'm talking about I'm saving this for a baddie award, but you know, Donald Pleasant's really like watching himself, you know,
00:43:09
Speaker
You know, Nancy Ellison watching herself in the movie theater and then commenting on just the the concept of it. So I think it has a lot to offer beyond what is just sort of apparent on the surface. So I think there's a lot to offer in Terror in the Isles.
00:43:28
Speaker
Fair enough. Greg, what about you? Where did you land in terms of watchability and weirdness? this was a pretty strange one for me. ah It sort of felt like going to a food festival because you had mentioned to someone that you liked, like, yeah, I like beats. And then suddenly you're like at a beat festival and someone just keeps handing you different types of borscht.
00:43:50
Speaker
And you're just like, what? What am I doing exactly? and it did unfortunately spoil a number of movies for me, but I'm not so certain what all of them were, which was a really odd experience as well.
00:44:04
Speaker
ah Like I would have liked the Chyrons down there, so I could have been a little more like, oh, what was that one? um so this is a really weird experience for me as far as like watchability goes for me i think this is like a one but i think for a lot of other people it's going to be a lot higher because again it's like if you like beats and you're super into beats you'd love all the borscht but i was just a bit i was just like oh another one great uh and then as far as weirdness goes
00:44:36
Speaker
I mean, it's kind of weird, but it's also not weird because it's a documentary about other things. So I don't know how to rate it on weirdness.
00:44:49
Speaker
ah So I will say, i will say three. Oh, was I supposed to do weirdness as well? i thought it did sort of an overall rating. so Oh, it's all right. Yeah. How weird do you think this movie is if you had to say out of five stars?
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah. you know, it's like asking an Adams family member what weird is. exactly Yeah. my My weird has to be super weird. So I don't think it's that weird.
00:45:12
Speaker
um ah I actually wanted to say to Greg that the, the good thing is that it's spoiled a tremendous amount of things, but because you can't source them, you don't necessarily know. So arguably when you see Rosemary's baby or clute or something in between,
00:45:30
Speaker
or Marathon Man, you won't realize until you get to that scene, you're like, oh yeah, I saw this in Tear in the Isles and it ruined it for me, but I'm seeing it in real time, so it's not that much of a surprise. yeah Spoiler.
00:45:43
Speaker
So, weird unreadable. Weird unreadable, yes. Fair enough. Anna, watchability and weirdness. I would give watchability a four. That's bumping it up. I've been convinced that the Chyrons would have messed with the vibe. and You know, we'll just look it up later.
00:46:01
Speaker
um i do think it's not that weird, though. I'd give it a one or a two. Fair enough. I gave it a four in watchability. I thought it was just sort of pure vibes by a guy who clearly had a lifetime worth of experience mastering creating vibes.
00:46:21
Speaker
I did knock it down a bit for that Ms. 45 clip because I feel like it was just kind of a bummer. But that's just me and my personal experience. Your mileage may vary. For weirdness, I gave it a four. I thought this was actually very weird that it is an experimental stream of consciousness found footage collage that got theatrical distribution and has full frontal nudity.
00:46:40
Speaker
I can't think of another film that's like that. um go This is a very unique experience. Yeah, you know, that's right. ah Joe Dante, joe dante i'm goingnna I'm forgetting the name. I want to say Hollywood Boulevard, but I have to check that.
00:46:54
Speaker
Joe Dante, when he worked for joe for Roger Corman, they they had wanted to make a they had sort of a bet. I'll bet we could make a movie in 10 days. using footage from other movies. And so they used, and he was, he would edit trailers and things like that. So Joe Dante put together a film that was pretty much from other films and they assembled a narrative and put it together.
00:47:20
Speaker
And this is kind of, you know, there, there, there are trailer movies that are movies that are from trailers, essentially kind of the same inverse effect here. So they they're out there if you look for them.
00:47:32
Speaker
All right. Well, this is this arguably the most successful. I know there was also, there was a guy in Hong Kong called Godfrey Ho who would buy the rights to like three movies and then just splice them all together and make 10 movies out of them.
00:47:46
Speaker
And that was his fortune. Yeah, that Roger special. and And Charlie Band would do that kind of stuff in the early days as well. They'd buy footage that no one had seen. And because VHS wasn't huge at the time, they knew they can get away with using...
00:47:58
Speaker
the production value that was better of someone's footage that they didn't have any need for anymore. yeah very smart linda Charlie Ben put it team together a Linda Blair movie where she just showed, ah worked for like a day. He paid a lot of money for her like one day experience, but he, he, he made more money because he bought footage from other stuff and put her in like ah you know, a hostage jeopardy situation.
00:48:23
Speaker
Okay. Interesting. Respect. Well, Let's head on to the next act of the show. Finally, we get to talk a little bit more about David. To David.
00:48:34
Speaker
And it's we've got it's a brand new segment, listeners, so you know that means we've got a brand new bumper.
00:48:47
Speaker
Log into the recording room and I put on headphones. Sit down opposite our podcast guest.
00:48:58
Speaker
Though I'm sitting here all alone because we're asking you questions. We've got some questions for you, our podcast guest.
00:49:09
Speaker
And now we'll ask you the questions. Because that's what we're doing next.
00:49:22
Speaker
Very nice. Very nice. Thank you. Very special. We hope that you feel special while you're here. And so one of the reasons that you're on right now is you're ah you've got pre-sales for In Search of Darkness 95 through 99. This episode should be coming out early September.
00:49:37
Speaker
So we want to talk to you about that.
David's 'In Search of Darkness' Series
00:49:40
Speaker
So in your mind, what are some of the defining characteristics of this pre-millennial horror era? What makes it special to you? ah The 90s and the second half of the 90s? Well, I just want to preface that I make these, for those who don't know, I make these long form documentaries that are kind of like Terror in the Isles.
00:49:59
Speaker
And they cover individual decades. So rather than sort of a history of horror, it it isolates a decade. So I did the first In Search of Darkness, which was about the 80s, and I'd go from 1980 89, and Where I'd cover, curate a bunch of movies segments and talk to a lot of the people from these movies who were in front of the camera behind the camera.
00:50:19
Speaker
And I do the entire decade. And then in between each decade, we talk about like special effects and music and sound design and the final girl and things like that. And it did very well.
00:50:31
Speaker
I'm very happy that the horror community responded to it. So I went into the 90s. And what we did this time that was different was I divided the 90s into two parts. So I already did 90 to 94, as I mentioned earlier.
00:50:45
Speaker
And now i am putting the final touches on 95 to 99. And so like you said, you know, I think this is going to come out a little before we have our pre-order and I'll do all the plugs later, but you know, in October, likely from October 7th, all the way through Halloween, you go to horror doc.com and you can pre-order the film and find out all about it What was special about the 90s and especially the second half of the 90s? Well, I mentioned the word meta probably too many times already, but it really was sort of the definitive time because I think in the 90s coming out of the 80s, 80s was really like a golden era for horror. Yeah, for sure. We were now sort of in a very colorful explosion of, you know, the Michael Myers and the Freddy Krueger and, you know, Leatherface still continued.
00:51:35
Speaker
You get the tall man, you know, Jason, Freddy, Chucky. They're all there. Pinhead. um And a lot of other creative movies, but of course a slasher boom as well. But you get to the 90s and...
00:51:47
Speaker
and As I said earlier, horror was kind of the redheaded stepchild. It did well in the theater and it did well at the box office for a very particular group that was very loyal to these movies and not so discerning.
00:52:01
Speaker
They just wanted their thrills and their chills. They didn't care what Siskel and Ebert or viscon Vincent did. can be would say but uh in the 90s horror was really trying to find its footing uh so probably for the first half it was actually a lot more confused because they were trying to sort of draft on the the uh after party of the 80s by doing more sequels and follow-ups with some of these villainous icons that i mentioned and But also the the thriller really was sort of coming to the forefront as horror, but not at least because the studios could say, well, I could call Silence of the Lambs, like you mentioned. I could i could call Seven.
00:52:42
Speaker
You know, any serial killer ah movie can now be, it's a horror movie, arguably, but we could at least sell it as a thriller and people will go to it under the excuse of, well, I'm not seeing a horror movie. This has got Brad Pitt, you know, this has got Morgan Freeman, you know, that kind of stuff.
00:53:02
Speaker
and So ah the second half of the nineties ultimately was really kind of defined by lots of serial killer films that because Silence of Lambs won the Oscar,
00:53:12
Speaker
You know, Hollywood follows the trends. I wanted, i want something like that. So they, all of a sudden everyone made their essentially silence of the lambs clone, but you also had some unique things because Wes Craven was always trying to tweak the genre.
00:53:28
Speaker
And so he would do a
Recognition of Horror Tropes in 'Scream'
00:53:30
Speaker
movie like, ah you know, Les Craven's New Nightmare, where he basically starts playing with meta self-referential themes before Scream comes out.
00:53:43
Speaker
And, you know, to to whatever effect that came out, it was definitely a brave choice. retread and renewed recycling of the Freddy Krueger mythos and Hollywood and how horror horror movies affect the people who make them to scream.
00:54:03
Speaker
He teams up with Kevin Williamson. And now all of a sudden what's happening is, uh, filmmakers are starting and Joe Dante used to do this before John Carpenter was doing this. Even David Cronenberg,
00:54:16
Speaker
but now and And definitely John Landis. But now definitely in spades, these filmmakers are are recognizing that the audience has matured, evolved, and and is smarter about all the tropes of horror.
00:54:32
Speaker
And yeah to recognize that the audience knows all this stuff already. So you have to say, we know you know. Wink at that. and then change up the roles. And that's why Scream is so spectacular.
00:54:44
Speaker
Yeah. And then I'll just mention two other things, but I will stop talking about all this stuff. but i think No, no, no. We brought you on to to talk about the stuff. no You know, it's there's so much to ground. It's a podcast.
00:54:56
Speaker
but You're not going to talk about it here. indie Indie filmmaking became, you know, you can thank Quentin Tarantino. You can thank Robert Rodriguez.
The Rise of 90s Indie Filmmaking
00:55:08
Speaker
Yep. And so many others, Kevin Smith, so many other filmmakers were, and Sundance were, where all of a sudden everyone wanted the indie darlings to make their movies. ah So that someone would come out with a film that would hit really big and everyone said, do my movie the way I want it.
00:55:24
Speaker
It's like the Weinsteins would do that. We all know about the Weinsteins, but that was the... they were they were what They were movers and shakers in that era because they, in addition to having Miramax, they started the Dimension Films brand where they bought up Halloween. They bought up Hellraiser and they were putting out, you know, you know, from Dusk Till Dawn, Halloween H20, you name it. They were they were making horror movies. they They gave Guillermo del Toro an opportunity. They put him through the ringer and they put him through hell.
00:55:56
Speaker
But, you know, he got to make Mimic. So you got lot's going on. And of course they were, you know, the ones who did scream as well. So love them and hate them.
00:56:07
Speaker
Definitely not love them. The Weinsteins still are an important part of this story. I don't clarify. You don't love them, but no, no one no, no, don't worry. They won't make that very clear.
00:56:18
Speaker
The official stance of the show is we do not like the one. We're not into myself included, but but the yeah made they are very important part of the story regardless. Yes, for sure. Well, ah now, the In Search of series always has lots of fantastic
Teasers for Upcoming Documentary Volume
00:56:33
Speaker
guests. John Carpenter, Joe Dante, Stuart Gordon, Jeffrey Combs, and always fresh faces in every volume. And Nancy Allen.
00:56:41
Speaker
And Nancy Allen. Who should we be getting excited about for 95 through 99? Well, 95 through 99. So um I'm always ah reluctant to reveal too many names, but I'll give you a couple, which I think are really, really cool. I think by the time this comes out, it's the cat's going to be out of the bag and stuff like that.
00:56:59
Speaker
But I like to have, you know, the people who are, like I said, in front of the camera and behind the camera. I think some of the really cool names are... Andrew Devoff, the Wishmaster himself. Oh, yeah. He's a very fun interview.
00:57:15
Speaker
um ah Urban legend, the the the Rebecca Gayheart. and Okay. go reveal her i think I think for those who don't know that movie that well, I don't cheese i have a soft spot for her legend. She's the best get of all the people you can get for urban legend.
00:57:36
Speaker
even though it seems like she could be one of the victims. I don't know. Let's see. But she plays Brenda Bates in that film. Brenda Bates. you Suspicious. um And gosh, you know, um ah from Scream, Jamie Kennedy.
00:57:54
Speaker
that Classic. How cool is that? So, i you know, I could go into a laundry list, but, you know, a lot of the folks who made these movies, but also who were experts on these movies. I'll mention a couple more.
00:58:07
Speaker
You know, ah John Carpenter is back talking. Oh, fantastic. You think about his ninety s work. you know, he did in the mouth of madness that didn't come out. five If you look at my movie, it says 94, but it's actually an early 95 release.
00:58:22
Speaker
He also did village of the damned. He also did that remake. He also did, you know, John Carpenter's vampires. Yeah. um Yeah. Just lots of cool stuff. And I have some cool screenwriters this time around. Oh, Kayla Cooper who wrote the, uh, uh,
00:58:38
Speaker
She wrote Malignant. She wrote The Nun 2. She's a horror queen and and and she loves talking. Like one of her all time favorite movies is, you know, Tales from the Crypt, Demon Knight.
00:58:52
Speaker
and And see Robert Cargill, who writes ah The Black Phone.com. movies and he did uh uh doc the doctor strange movie um and uh anyway so these guys are film fans through and through ah mike flanagan uh these guys are fans through and through so it's real fun to get their perspectives so i'm going to stop now because i become i i at times i feel like i'm ah a human listicle you know I've really enjoyed interviews with um ah makeup and special effects guys.
00:59:29
Speaker
Yeah. Love seeing Screaming Mad George. much Yeah. Yeah. Just. Really, they just seem like very interesting people. it's kind of Well, it's kind of fun having, you know, from Dusty O'Don segment where have Robert Kurtzman, makeup artist of KNB and then solo after that.
00:59:51
Speaker
ah You know, he wrote that was his movie that he came up with the idea to do. it Oh, wow. Thing before Quentin Tarantino came on. And of course, who do they get in that movie but Tom Savini? So I have both of them talking about it from that perspective. Oh, fantastic. Nice.
01:00:07
Speaker
Tom Savini, a.k.a. Sex Machine. Yes. And yeah, if we haven't said it as of yet, but Anna and I have both been watching the In Search of Darkness films for the last couple months.
01:00:20
Speaker
And I got to tell you, listeners, they're just sort of fantastic coffee table books of of movies that you can sort of luxuriously eight over nice and you don't feel like you need to watch five and a half hours all at once what's nice is because it is broken up into some sort of digestible chunks you can be like oh we'll hear about two more movies and we'll pick it back up tomorrow it's it's just a beautiful uh way to see things that you haven't heard about things you're like oh i haven't thought about in the ages oh i always meant to watch that And now we're up to volume three.
01:00:51
Speaker
ohbergke by your third time through, you start pulling from more and more obscure stuff. And like that's now we're getting into the weird stuff. Listeners of this show, if you want to start with three, you wouldn't be remiss.
01:01:03
Speaker
I want to interject. If if you, if you love, three where you get to the sort of the dusty gems and straight to video and even shot on video stuff.
01:01:14
Speaker
Nineties, we go really dialed into that. We get a little crazy. Yes. One of the folks who talks about this stuff is Annie Choi and she's the co-author of a of ah of a site and a book called Bleeding Skull, which champions essentially the the backyard shot in a weekend, lowest of the low budget,
01:01:35
Speaker
and all the virtues of low budget films. And she talks a lot about that in the first half of the 90s. And she's back for more for the second half of the 90s. And if you appreciate that stuff, you you will discover some real amazing gems this time around. But I want to say appreciate that you guys are enjoying this because this is ultimately a celebration and people can be intimidated by the fact that these have these insane, long running times.
01:02:01
Speaker
The first one was four hours and change and I'm up to six hours when it comes to, end credits. But the thing is, like I said, you divide it movie by movie, year by year, chapter by chapter.
01:02:14
Speaker
You can start and stop all the time. You can only watch it through if you want to. And you have a adult diaper available. Yeah. Well, uh, I've just got, uh, two more questions for you. I want to say, we'll just, we'll skip to the end here.
01:02:30
Speaker
First up, uh, If you ever end up doing an in search of garbage and you need talking heads, will you reach out? um Yes. Yes. You know, that title is a little you know unsettling. our It's our working title. It's confrontational.
01:02:48
Speaker
In search of dumpsters is our is our working title. oh Absolutely. Absolutely. if If this is like your domain, listen, you know, you guys spent quality time doing Livewire.
01:02:59
Speaker
I've never heard that anywhere. And i ah I worked on Livewire and I enjoyed listening to you guys. And my favorite line was, you know, for a film shot in D.C., they sure don't show much of D.C. Well, that's because they shot mostly in Pasadena, California. All right. Yes. Another mystery solved.
01:03:19
Speaker
All right. And my last question before you need to cut out fans of The In Search of Darkness, if they want to head out there and preorder it, where should
Preordering Perks for Documentary Series
01:03:29
Speaker
they be going? Good question. So it's a pre-order. We're an indie company called Creator VC, and we make, manufacture, and distribute this entirely ourselves. And we create amazing physical media. Everyone gets a Blu-ray. They get cool original posters. Very nice. get other elements as well, you know, that come with it. You basically get this amazing swag box of stuff and and add-ons if you want to do that as well. And all you have to do is go to 90shorrordoc.com. 90s, 90shorrordoc.com.
01:03:58
Speaker
nine zero s ninety s horror doc dot com It's ah running as as we're recording this, it's going to be running a preorder sale from October 7th to the 31st.
01:04:14
Speaker
The reason why we cut it off is because if you if you preorder, then you get your name in the credits. You get your name in the end credits ah alongside the likes of John Carpenter.
01:04:26
Speaker
And, you know, ah Rebecca Gayhart and Corbin Bernson and all sorts of cool names. I just dropped another name, Andrew Duvall, Jamie Kennedy and stuff like that. It's very, very cool because you're helping support indie film and you're supporting ah project that goes ah getting it across the line, essentially.
01:04:46
Speaker
But also you should check our socials at ah our socials are at 80s horror doc, not 90s, simply because we established three documentaries over that. And that's what we built our audience. So you go to 80s horror doc on Instagram, Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it, Facebook, but go there. And that's going to tell you all the ways that you can get this documentary at 90s horror doc.com.
01:05:11
Speaker
But what I'm saying is you go to the socials, youll you'll get to see all sorts of clips when the time is right during our pre-order campaign to get a taste of what the movie looks like. And some of these interviews, you'll be able to see the entire cast.
01:05:24
Speaker
ah But on top of that, if you like these, the nineties, if you love horror movies and you want to potentially see yourself in those end credits, in addition to having your end credit,
01:05:36
Speaker
written, ah you know, seeing your end credit there in your name and in the credits, you could record a video and submit it to us. And during the end credits, what we do is we have as many people as I can fit. I can't fit everybody, but I try to get as many people as possible where you get to say, i love 90s horror because...
01:05:58
Speaker
this stuff means to me something to me because my favorite movie of the nineties is this. And, uh, you get to see yourself in there and kind of be part of horror history.
01:06:10
Speaker
That's really cool. I could do that. you wouldn Listeners. You've got your marching orders. Get out there. Support David Weiner, support nineties horror. Go to nineties horror doc.com.
01:06:24
Speaker
get yourself just one degree of separation from John Carpenter. How cool would that be to be walking around with that in your back pocket? ah We'll let you go, David. Thank you again so much. Listeners, stick around. We're going to wrap up the show with us.
01:06:37
Speaker
ah But our door is always open. Reach out anytime you want to stop by, brother. I really appreciate you guys having me on. It was a pleasure being able to revisit Terror in the Isles with you. um I'll say one thing about sitting with Nancy, Nancy Allen. She is the coolest ever.
01:06:54
Speaker
She is really, really, really nice. She's really, really sweet. She really cares about the genre. And the one thing she had to say, she had a bunch of things to say about Terror in the Isles. So watch In Search of Darkness Part 2, where there's a segment on Terror in the Isles, but there's also an interview, Nancy Allen on Nancy Allen, talking about Carrie and Dressed to Kill and her Hollywood experience as an actor, being in old ah commercials, like for for various ads. We show some of those as well.
01:07:24
Speaker
like talking about a a car with pants, a Pinto, a Levi's brand Pinto. yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm exaggerating, but you just got to look it up, but it's very cool.
01:07:36
Speaker
ah But she she lamented the fact that she the reason why she did Terror in the Isles was because she wanted to meet and work with Donald Pleasance. And she never got to work with him because they shot their stuff independently at different times.
01:07:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You can barely tell. ah But thanks a lot, guys. It's been an absolute pleasure. And I really appreciate you guys ah helping support in search of darkness, ah but also doing what you do. I really enjoy your podcast. My favorite line that you guys say over and over and over is we report you decide.
01:08:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's true. It's true. listeners And we hope you decide to come back, David, but we're going to play our game. Guess what? Listeners, we're going to play. Guess the title.
01:08:30
Speaker
Let me tell you about this brand new game. Where you guess the movie's name. You just tell me what the title is prove you know about showbiz.
01:08:45
Speaker
Guess the title. Whippa, whippa, whippa, whippa. Guess the title. Gooby, gooby, gooby, gooby. Guess the title. Guess the title.
01:08:55
Speaker
Come on, honey. Guess the title. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ooh,
01:09:03
Speaker
whoa, whoa. Wow.
01:09:07
Speaker
That's right. We're playing Guess the Title with the films of Nancy Allen. Listeners, you might know her from Carrie, RoboCop, Dressed to Kill, Blowout. You might even know her from In Search of Darkness Part 2.
01:09:19
Speaker
Uh, but none of those are going to be the answers for any of these questions. What I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a plot description of a film Nancy Allen was in, and I'm going to give you three possible titles. I want you to tell me what the real title is. This is a buzz in game.
01:09:33
Speaker
You'll buzz in by saying your own name. And, ah if you get it wrong, your opponents will have the chance to steal everybody ready. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Question number one.
01:09:44
Speaker
A former secret agent's daughter is kidnapped and the ransom is the location of a long buried nuclear weapon. Is that dusting cliff seven beyond justice or code name mama?
01:10:01
Speaker
Anna. Greg. Anna. Beyond justice.
01:10:08
Speaker
Oh, No, I'm sorry, Greg or David, can you steal? Codename Mama.
01:10:17
Speaker
No, I'm sorry, Greg gets a point. It was Dusting Cliff 7. Terrible title. It is. yeah Question number two. A mystery writer bases his books on a single criminal.
01:10:29
Speaker
But when that criminal breaks out of prison and starts committing crimes based on the books, only one person can stop him. One of the writer's fans, who also happens to be a psychic, played by Nancy Allen.
01:10:42
Speaker
Is this I Know How This Ends? The Toledo Murders? Or The Man Who Wouldn't Die? Greg. Greg? The Toledo Murders.
01:10:56
Speaker
No, I knew you wouldn't be able to resist The Toledo Murders. It's tough. Anna? The Man Who Wouldn't Die?
01:11:06
Speaker
Correct. You're on the board, my heart. She did a ah kiss delete kiss Toledo goodbye. Yes, I think that's why I put Toledo in there. that's misleading and that's cruel, but I think it's good. I think it's fair game. All right. Question number three.
01:11:23
Speaker
A burnt out actress goes on vacation in the middle of production, unaware that the producer was murdered in her dressing room and now she's the prime suspect. Is that acting on impulse?
01:11:37
Speaker
Lights, camera, murder, or cut?
01:11:45
Speaker
and Greg. Greg? Cut!
01:11:50
Speaker
No, I'm sorry, it wasn't cut. Anna. Anna? Lights, camera, murder.
01:11:58
Speaker
No, boy, this is a tough round. David gets a point. It was acting on impulse. I gotta say, i I'm so strong on my early Nancy Allen, but I am extremely weak on my late Nancy Allen. That's very understandable.
01:12:14
Speaker
ah All right. This one might be more up your alley. In an apocalyptic future, a serial killer holds his family and another family hostage in order to change his life.
01:12:28
Speaker
Is that quality time? My apocalypse or family man? Wow. Wow. Anna. ah Anna.
01:12:41
Speaker
Family man?
01:12:45
Speaker
No. No.
01:12:47
Speaker
Greg or David? were the first two? were the other two? Quality time or My Apocalypse? Greg. Greg. Quality time. Nope, David gets the point. Discretion is the better part of valor. Playing silence, and I think that my best strategy in this particular game.
01:13:07
Speaker
It's a good one, and that was called My Apocalypse, right? Because I'm writing that down. Yes, please do. Yeah, that's that's the betting one dollar on prices right of guess the title. ah Question number five.
01:13:19
Speaker
Are we sure this is Nancy Allen? We're talking about this. chair This was all pulled. this All right. This one. This one's going to be up your alley. As a teenage girl comes to Gatlin to find her biological mother, the town's infamous cult plots a comeback as their leader, Isaac, awakens from a coma.
01:13:38
Speaker
Is that Children of the Corn 666, the devil's crop? Children of the Corn 666, Isaac's return? Or Children of the Corn 666, bitter harvest?
01:13:52
Speaker
David. That one. David. Isaac's return, I believe. You are correct.
01:14:00
Speaker
Question number six. An up-and-coming commodities trader makes a deal with a demon for super commodities trading abilities, but it may cost her her soul.
01:14:14
Speaker
Interesting. Is that buy low, soul high, o a price above soybeans, or limit up?
01:14:28
Speaker
David. David. Limit up. Correct. God, it should have been a price above soybeans. I like that. Ruby's unavailable. Let's do soybeans.
01:14:41
Speaker
Question number seven. Diana and her mother, Brenda, travel from their home in New York City to Argentina, hoping to find Diana's father, who came searching for lost gold.
01:14:54
Speaker
Is that a father's gold? Right way round? Or secret of the Andes? David. Anna. David. Oh, I'll let Anna go.
01:15:07
Speaker
You buzzed in first. That's the game. It's the secret of the Andes. Correct. Yes. There are some notable straight to video titles that, yes.
01:15:19
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Hey, as long as it pays. Question number eight. A reporter and her daughter are kidnapped by a white slaver named Cicero. Once she escapes, she seeks revenge.
01:15:32
Speaker
Is that two graves, sweet revenge, or double back? Greg. Greg.
01:15:43
Speaker
Double back. Wow. Really felt good about that one. No, that would have worked. Anna? graves? Two graves?
01:15:56
Speaker
know David? Sweet revenge. it's It's generic enough to be the right answer. yeah Okay. Last one.
01:16:09
Speaker
A young boy tries to hook up his single mother with his truancy officer.
01:16:17
Speaker
This one stars Susan Sarandon as the mom, ah Richard Dreyfuss as the truancy officer, and Nancy Allen as the truancy officer's on-again, off-again girlfriend. Wow. Is this the buddy system, tardy, or skipping school?
01:16:38
Speaker
Greg. Greg. Greg? The buddy system. Okay. You're correct, Greg, but too little too late. David takes home the w Congratulations. Wow. I feel like that last one should have been after school special, but but it's it's got an epic cast, but she's playing yeah but she's playing the quote unquote girlfriend. So yeah it feels early in her career.
01:17:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. This was still, I think ah Richard Dreyfuss hadn't even gone gray yet. So wow it's gotta be early. Wow.
01:17:11
Speaker
Well, you got time for a baddie award, David? Yeah, let's do the baddies. Yes, let's do the baddie awards.
01:17:27
Speaker
Now you're messing with a... Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:17:37
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:17:43
Speaker
Congratulations to all the nominees.
01:17:52
Speaker
That's right. Congratulations to all our nominees. Congressionally. good I'm going to kill myself. Congratulations, listeners. You made it to the end of the show. Greg, do you have a batty award?
01:18:03
Speaker
I do. ah It's for the one phrase. There's something that Donald Pleasant said that just kind of made me laugh. I think I understand where he's coming from, but it was just very weird.
01:18:13
Speaker
He was like, sometimes we go to these movies to live out our fantasies. It's like, I, it's a, it's an interesting, i don't know. I think I know what you meant, but I don't know if that's how I would have said that. Fair enough. Yeah. they He maybe reveals a little bit about himself. yeah Listen, he's, he's, he's, he's goes to the weirdos and he's saying, I see you.
01:18:36
Speaker
That's fair. It's true. i don't think we can entirely discount the theory of vicarious pleasure as part of the appeal of going to yeah any of these movies, especially with the the sex and the torture and the violence and the mayhem and the kills and the disserations. And anyway, yeah, yeah. We're not all identifying with the final girl or the victims.
01:18:57
Speaker
Anna, do you have a batty award? ah Yeah, I am.
Audience's Familiarity with Featured Movies
01:19:02
Speaker
An interesting thing about this, you know, 40 years on, is that you can you can presume that the original audience...
01:19:11
Speaker
would have known a lot of these movies, you know, probably not all of them for every individual audience members, but, you know, but most, most of people would know most of them.
01:19:23
Speaker
um So it's interesting to see there are the few of them that have like disappeared
Lesser-Known Films and Humorous Anecdotes
01:19:29
Speaker
entirely. And the one in particular that, was that there's a movie i didn't even look up the title but it's got uh fly stallone and billy d williams as cops yeah night hawks yeah okay and rucker hour is a villain there is a ah scene with rucker hour menacing people on the roosevelt island like sky tram whatever it's called yeah
01:19:58
Speaker
ah Yeah, and i was just fascinating because I was like, what And and then then there's a clip where Rutger Hauer is sneaking up on a what ah redhead with long hair.
01:20:14
Speaker
And then that red hair turns around and it's sly in a wig. And Chris and I both burst out laughing. And it was like, okay, well, maybe that's why, like, this movie isn't isn't one that you hear about so much. Yeah.
01:20:31
Speaker
It's also slide with a full beard. It's a big deal back in the day. And that's in the pre Roy Batty days. Like I remember when I saw Blade Runner, I was like, oh, that's the guy from Nighthawks.
01:20:45
Speaker
Yeah. It looks like he's going really hard in it. i Oh, I mean, he made me want to watch Nighthawks. Yeah. No, definitely. That was the one that intrigued me the most out of all them I saw. In fact, Nighthawks was also my Batty Award.
01:20:59
Speaker
ah The only thing ah that I wanted to give note was that and there's one scene where Rutger Hauer is in disguise. He's wearing a fake beard and goes to a perfume counter and the perfume gal. Did either you guys clock the perfume gal? Oh, yeah. The apple. That is BB from the apple.
01:21:18
Speaker
wonder if that was BB from the apple.
01:21:23
Speaker
Check out our episode on the Apple. David, do you have a bad year word?
Donald Pleasance's Commentary on Horror
01:21:27
Speaker
ah Yeah, I do. i sort of referenced it earlier, but it really is my favorite moment. And it's when Donald Pleasance talks about how there's an element of being, you know, you get to the point where you're you're talking to the screen and you're to...
01:21:40
Speaker
you're trying to cheer on the heroes or the final girl and and, or, or at least warn them that something terrible is going to happen. um But you get this incredible empowerment, being able to see the comeuppance moment. And so what's his comeuppance moment? It's, it's, he's watching Halloween.
01:22:00
Speaker
He's watching Jamie Lee Curtis take her knitting needles and stab Michael Myers. And and what he goes, get them, get them. And yeah, the most it's so fun watching Donald Pleasance get.
01:22:13
Speaker
It's so good. It's a great acting. He's acting, but it's really fun to see him get all excited about his own movie. It's a very meta experience. Yes. Well, David, once again, thank you so much.
Promotion and Release of Documentary Series
01:22:27
Speaker
Once again, hit him up with that last plug before we let you go. Where can they go? ah Thanks for having me. Thanks. You know, it was a real pleasure being here and 90s horror doc.com check out our socials at 80s horror doc. So you know exactly when it starts up because this is coming out, I believe in September, but look for the first week around this around the seventh, but definitely through Halloween.
01:22:52
Speaker
at 90shorrordoc.com to pre-order In Search of Darkness 1995 to 1999. Also, if you want to get In Search of Darkness 1990 to 1994, you'll be able to get a copy as well with your order.
01:23:07
Speaker
Also, if you missed the 80s trilogy and you want to get a copy of the trilogy, you can get that as well. Also, if you have no room on your shelf and you're a physical media collector, but your wife says no more,
01:23:19
Speaker
You can't spend your money on that and you want to have it digitally. You can get the digital versions as well. All sorts of options, but check it out at 90s horror doc.com, but support indie film and the curation of horror history.
01:23:33
Speaker
Nice. Yes,
Upcoming Episode Tease and Sign-off
01:23:35
Speaker
do it. And don't forget, come back next week when we're going to be having special guest, Sarah Lautman, and we'll be talking about Quigley.
01:23:46
Speaker
Probably the opposite of this movie. um and Quickly Down Under? No. Common misunderstanding. This is a movie where Gary Busey dies and he comes back as a small dog.
01:23:57
Speaker
Oh, yes. Yes. So you don't want to miss that. ah And don't forget to like and subscribe. You can find us on Blue Sky. You can find us on Instagram. It's all there in the link tree.
01:24:09
Speaker
And until next week, listeners, be good and goodbye. Goodbye.
01:24:23
Speaker
Fear is scary and murder's vile. I don't know what's making me smile. The world is sick. I'm used to it. Wouldn't you agree? You wouldn't be able to do these awful things to me if I weren't still in this chair.
01:24:38
Speaker
But you are, Blanche. You are in that chair. No place to hide.