[eerie music playing]
[screaming]
[evil laughter]
[woman screaming]
[laughing maniacally]
[growling]
[screaming]
Human skeletons have played a key role
in rituals for thousands of years,
and it's easy to see why.
The human skeleton is a powerful reminder of
our own mortality and proof that our time
in this world is often all too short.
Now, since acquiring these skeletons in 2016,
I have seen with my own eyes the powerful effect
that they have had on my visitors.
Now, while the organizations who own these skeletons
before me may have used it for harmless initiations,
I've learned that in the past, some other much darker
societies have used them for far more
sinister purposes.
Some believe they have played a key role
in blood sacrifices or attempts to contact demons,
or the Devil himself.
Now, during my investigations into these matters,
I've also learned that sometimes,
in an attempt to conceal their actions,
members of these secret societies have
hidden these skeletons behind walls,
they've hidden them in attics, basements.
In here, they've remained, sometimes for decades,
until being accidentally discovered.
Now, I began to wonder, what horror might such
an object inflict on an unsuspecting homeowner
who had no idea that such a presence was in their house?
And it was this question
that inspired the film you are about to watch.
[eerie music playing]
[whirring]
[ethereal music playing]
[boy] Hey, Mom!
Can I get some juice?
[door closes]
You really put a dent in this.
Hey.
Yeah.
Can I be done for the day?
Maybe once you help me with this side?
Thank you.
[boy] Mmm.
Back to it.
Yes, ma'am.
[thuds]
-[boy] Mom? -[Georgia] Yeah?
I think there's something here.
What is it?
[boy] I don't know.
[eerie music playing]
[Georgia grunts]
What do you think is inside of it?
Who knows?
Could be a time capsule.
Let's go open it.
Lock on it or something.
How are we gonna get this loose?
Move.
[clanking]
I don't think that's gonna work at all.
Okay.
[eerie music playing]
[boy] Whoa.
What is it?
It's an old film can.
Might be a movie in here.
Can you see anything on it?
I'm not sure.
[eerie music playing]
[bells dinging]
Anything I can help you with?
Hi.
Yes.
I was wondering if you had any film projectors.
-Uh, what kind? -16 millimeter.
Ah.
Follow me.
[whirring]
[eerie music playing]
[gasps]
[click]
[exhales deeply]
So, you and your son found a time capsule?
That's what I thought it was.
It had an old film reel inside,
but I think it might be evidence of a real murder.
A murder?
Just this way.
Mind the mess.
[door closes]
[sighs]
[click]
[whirring]
Sorry.
This isn't it.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Georgia] I don't know what's happening.
Thank you for coming out anyway.
I know you're new to town, ma'am,
but we're only a small team out here.
Of course.
Sorry again.
[eerie music playing]
[whirring]
[suspenseful music playing]
[whirring intensifies]
[dramatic music playing]
[inaudible]
[screaming]
[click]
[breathing heavily]
[suspenseful music playing]
[boy] Morning.
[Georgia] Hey.
Did you get up late last night?
[boy] What? No.
-Why? -Nothing.
-How's your new room? -[boy] It's all right.
Just didn't get much sleep last night.
How come?
Just kept on hearing weird noises.
What kind of noises?
I don't know. Like chanting or something.
Chanting?
[boy] Yeah, it's probably nothing though.
I think my phone was playing something.
[suspenseful music playing]
[door closes]
[eerie music playing]
[click]
[whirring]
Help me, Georgia!
[gasps]
[bells dinging]
Ah, back so soon.
What can I do for you today?
Do you know how to determine the date of a film like this?
Ah, let's see.
Usually, you can tell the date
by the symbols printed
on the film itself.
Here we go.
Ah.
It looks like late 1930s.
1930s?
[man] That's correct.
Are you certain about the date?
Yes, 100%.
Could it have been developed any later than that?
It would've been developed within a few years
of its being manufactured,
or there would be no images.
Film of this era was quite unstable.
Hope that helps.
[whirring]
[eerie music playing]
[click]
Hey.
Watch anything interesting?
Nope.
Well, there's this thing called a TV.
Good idea.
[door creaks]
[door closes]
Hey, anything you wanna watch?
You choose. [exhales]
[whirring]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Georgia screaming]
-[boy] Mom! -[Georgia] No!
[boy] Mom, what's wrong?
-[boy] Mom! -Did you see that?
-See what? -The old film reel.
[boy] Mom.
Are you okay?
I'm fine.
Don't worry. I, um...
I think I just need to sleep.
Maybe watch something tomorrow, okay?
[suspenseful music playing]
[screaming]
[breathing heavily]
[exhaling deeply]
[click]
[whirring]
[camera shutter clicks]
[grunting]
[suspenseful music playing]
[whirring]
[man] The film is cursed.
Once you watch it, they come for you.
Like they did for me.
[chanting]
[eerie music playing]
[Georgia screaming]
[whirring]
[man] Georgia!
Help me!
[Georgia screaming]
[boy] Mom?
Mom?
Mom, what are you doing?
Mom.
How did you hurt yourself?
[Georgia whimpering] I...
[boy] What's going on?
Nothing, just don't worry!
Just tell me the truth, please!
Mom.
I am worried about you.
Mom, look at me.
I'm worried about you.
Okay?
Please, just...
Just tell me what's going on.
[Georgia whimpering]
Uh... [crying]
I'm so sorry.
I don't know what's happening to me.
What was on that film?
I can't.
Look, whatever it was, you need to get rid of it now.
Please.
Okay.
[flame hissing]
Hey.
Are you feeling better?
Much.
Um,
Bill's going out of town tomorrow
and I was wondering if I could chill with him tonight.
Yeah. Yeah, of course.
If you want me to stay, I can.
No, I'll be fine.
Go have fun.
All right, Mom.
[suspenseful music playing]
Secret society?
[keys clacking]
[suspenseful music playing]
[knocking]
[doorknob creaks]
Hi.
Um,
I moved in a couple weeks ago.
Next door.
-I'm Georgia. -Hi.
Nice to meet you.
This is for you. [chuckles]
Uh,
thank you. That's...
That's so sweet.
Um,
I've received a load of letters for the previous owners
and I'd love to forward them on.
Do you know them?
-What? For James? -Yes.
That sounds right.
James, uh, James, uh...
Daniels?
Yes, that's it.
James Daniels.
Do you know where he moved to?
I think you should throw them away.
He hasn't lived there for a long time.
[James] Help me, Georgia!
[Georgia gasps]
[sighs]
[whirring]
It's happened many times before.
The skeleton is the key.
It's in the attic.
[stuttering] Destroy the bones.
Maybe you'll set us free.
Destroy the bones!
But hurry!
They're coming for you!
[Georgia grunting]
[suspenseful music playing]
[click]
[whirring]
[chanting]
Who are you?
What do you want?
[chanting]
[Georgia gasping]
[Georgia screams]
[whirring]
**
Hey everyone, welcome to
Filmmaker to Filmmaker, The Haunted Museum.
I'm Eli Roth, here with the director Roxy Shih,
and we are talking about skeletons
and secret societies and old lost films.
Uh, this is your fourth episode, I guess.
Yes.
Uh, incredible, so lucky to have you back.
I'm such a fan of your work, going back to crypt TV.
Mm-hm.
So, let's talk about the skeleton,
the secret societies,
and diving into this project.
I'm curious, what information you had,
what was based in reality, and what excited you about
shooting this episode?
Um, so the skeleton wasn't just one skeleton,
it's basically a skeleton society.
So amazing writers, Justin Parlet and Ethan Evans,
love them.
Came to me with this amazing script that they
developed based off of that lore, and I'm such
a huge fan of the way that they write,
because it is so clear.
So clean.
It's so clean
Such good writers.
ROXY: And immediately you can visualize,
what it is that is on the page.
It's very elegantly written
through the perspective of one person.
And I was so lucky to work with the actress Diana Pelotso,
who basically gave me everything.
I was so lucky to find her
and we were able to explore this character,
very much together and go through the difficulties
of being a single Mom, and having to separate
what's happening with you and your son and also,
the theme of "Home".
And I feel like that's very apparent,
is this space that you're in, and you're looking for a home,
you're looking for a new start, you're looking for safety,
and at the same time, it turns against you,
and what do you do to protect what you love?
Georgia! Help me!
**
[Georgia yelps in fear]
[music intensifies]
[knife slicing sound]
[Georgia screaming]
Mom?
ROXY: Shooting this episode was such a journey,
like, everything felt like a lyric,
if you know what I'm saying.
Interesting.
Yeah, it just felt like every shot was designed
like poetry.
ELI: Which is not easy to do when you're shooting
practically on a low budget and you've got to
get your shots and you've got to move fast,
Yes.
sometimes you've just got to point two cameras and
get the information, rather than something
elegant and poetic.
Do you shot list?
Do you storyboard?
Do you walk through it with your D.P?
How do you prep, so that you can get the poetry
that you get in your photography?
I'm a little crazy, so I used to be a dancer, right?
-Really? -Yeah.
What kind of dance?
Yes, um, I was a modern dancer and hip-hop dancer.
I used to perform at the Clippers half-time shows.
-Really? -Yes.
ELI: I had no idea.
So then, I get really turned on by Tech-scouts.
-Wait, what? -Yes.
ELI: Tech scouts are my-
ROXY: Really? Why?
Because I got and I feel like I have to do the
song and dance and it's just a bunch of people
talking about where they're going to park the trucks.
ROXY: Really?
ELI: Yeah.
I do my, literally, song and dance, when I do
my tech scout, I block through everything,
I already have my blocking done.
I look for a place that inspires me visually
and then I could see it, and then I could see,
what is the physical relationship
between these characters.
Anybody can do Master-Coverage Coverage,
anyone can do that.
You can-filmmaker can do that.
ELI: Of course.
But how do you tell it in a way, masterfully, right?
So for me, what is the intentional decision
behind movement, what is the intentional--
what is the intention behind-like, you say
so much with so little, and as I'm getting older,
like the spectacle, I'm like stripping away
more and more fat.
So, the simplicity, you know-
Yeah, it's interesting it felt like-you know,
what I would describe as muscular, macho,
Camera-diploma, and carry the bomb
or Gentoo going over the house in tane-brick
I'm a big fan.
I was always trying to do-like this way Boogie Nights shot.
And then I was like, just put the camera here, just
leave their face.
The face is doing the work, the dialogue's doing
the work, sometimes you can do it and sometimes
you stay out of the way and let camera-
let the actor tell the story.
Are you a planner or are you an in the moment person?
It depends.
For a kill, I genuinely need to plan things
technically, um, but as-I sort of went through being
an actor for Tarantino, watching his process.
I was like, oh no, the best thing that I like to
do is go in there with the actress and rehearse it,
rehearse it, rehearse it, until you have it down
like you do in a one act, and then bring in the
camera work and start to do it.
Sometimes the location and time doesn't allow that,
but I love-if I'm doing practically,
that's my favorite way to shoot now.
I used to be planning out everything,
but then you know-
What is your favorite way to do it?
Do you walk in and run it with the actors,
or do you have all the shots in your head,
and you make them go?
ROXY: Same as you.
I'm aligning a lot with what you're saying,
I think back when I was a lot younger
and a lot more insecure, I plan out everything,
I was a lot less-I was more ridged about things.
But now I trust myself to point where, I'm like,
what is the core element of this scene, what is it
that I'm trying to get, I can do it in a very
simple way, that is so much better than all
the superfluous, like extra seasoning
on the dish, you know?
ELI: But the truth is, as you get older and more
experienced, you gain mastery, and that mastery
only comes from sitting in the edit room and going,
you know what? [deep sigh]
-and you cut that shot, that beautiful entrance
into the club, and this one crosses here,
you're doing your Good Fella's corpus shot.
Yeah, you spent 10 hours doing that.
[laughter]
You spent 10 hours, you look at the producers,
you just go, sorry guys.
ROXY: You just need a little bit of salt.
I could have just started on a close-up, it could've worked.
Just cut right to that.
But that's, you know, you start to know that about yourself,
of going, okay, why don't I just focus on
what I want.
So talk about the film within the film.
ROXY: Oh my gosh, so something that I really
freakin' loved about this story was time travel,
and how a space has so much history and so many things
have taken place within' these walls,
and they're still here, you know, that magnetic energy
of what was here, that's why we have ghosts,
and that's why we have entities,
and that's why we have history,
and that's why we have stories.
So to come into the perspective of this Mom
whose starting this new life with her son,
it's not in the episode,
but we talked about it, that like,
the husband recently passed, so she got like
this really great opportunity, never buy
something that's too good to be true, right?
There's always something attached to its history,
and through this discovery process.
Oh yeah, like she found a film in the backyard,
oh it shows like, a murder.
Like in real-time at the time,
and then putting the clues together.
Ethan and Jus we're so good about planting clues
throughout the structure of this script,
these are connecting the dots,
and nothing was a coincidence,
and then, oh you're living in this space
that has committed these ritualistic crimes,
and how time and space are starting to sort of cross-over.
ELI: And then shooting in a different period.
ROXY: Yes, and that was amazing too.
Talk about, different colours, different camera
language, right?
At what point does everything become locked off
and still, that you have no ability to make
decisions over your movement right?
Or anytime there's a projector,
that's when we transcend time.
Help me, Georgia!
It's fun shooting something
that's being shown on a projector,
because it feels like you can kind of do anything.
It's like, I was in Bastards,
like getting back to the Nation's Pride,
the Nazi's propaganda.
Quinton had me shoot that and it was just so freeing,
it's almost like there's no rules.
It's just got to be this black and white movie,
so talk about shooting, what's in the projector?
ROXY: Oh my god, it felt like we were doing two
different movies, and that was so great because,
you really get to challenge yourself, it's a ritual, right?
So then as a choreographer,
I'm thinking, you know, like, not Busby Berkeley entirely,
but you're just thinking about
the movement of these rituals,
you know, these cultists when they go down.
What do they want, what are they doing,
what is it for, and how the movement informs that?
And also working with Oliver, who was the sacrifice.
Like, he had to be so physical.
I push these actors like crazy, I'm just like,
you got to let me know when to stop, you need to let me
know what your boundary.
Because I'm going to make you go there
-Yeah. -You know what I'm saying?
ROXY: And so it's like, the brutality of it, like,
what I love about horror is that it just gives you
a shortcut and maybe it's because I'm afraid of a
lot of things, so I get to make horror films
as a way to control.
Yeah, of course, that's why we all do it.
It's hard dealing with fear of the world
and things that are beyond our control.
So how did your brain work, you're like,
today we're shooting this time period,
or was it like a break?
Was it like, oh this is fun, I get to go--
was it stressful, was it freeing,
or was it inspiring to you to sort of bounce between?
ROXY: It's-I'm always excited Eli, like nothing
scares me.
Like, I come from micro-budget, so I think
limitations are freeing.
And so, doing the 1930's stuff,
we did, you know, 4:3, right, so we made sure
everything was blocked within' the 4:3 aspect ratio,
everything was shot from that static perspective.
ELI: Isn't it fun shooting that way?
ROXY: It's so great, it's so great.
I just-I just love how your mind expands even
with a choice like that, you know?
And I'm always learning something new.
I feel very humbled because, like, as
a filmmaker you get to be a student for life.
Sure.
You know, so it's like, oh, what would they shoot?
Would it be more home-cammy?
It wouldn't be so elegantly cut together,
like that's not how it would be, and like
honoring the authentic way of how-
ELI: Yeah, it would be like bad filmmaking.
ELI: It wouldn't be what we consider good filmmaking,
but it has to be authentic.
Because why would they- if suddenly,
then it's you are showing off, and not being true to
the material.
Let me ask you, for people that are learning
about you from The Haunted Museum, uh,
is horror your passion, is that your mainly?
Because you also did a Hallmark movie,
you also done other things,
uh, what do you like to do, do you have one
particular thing you want to do?
Or do you enjoy doing everything?
ROXY: Um, it's so interesting.
I never got to grow up watching horror movies,
I always been a really big scaredy cat and then I did
my first feature, a micro-budget feature
called "The Tribe".
I made for $100,000 a few years ago.
And ever since then, the industry has branded me as
a genre-filmmaker, and I felt like
I was just afraid of myself.
Because the more, filmmaking has been such
a healing journey for me, and genre specifically
is a space that I feel very safe in, and it just
allows me to go even deeper into the subject
matter that I want to explore.
Right now I'm very interested in
female-perspectives and experiences
in the 40's and 50's.
Older women and their stories.
I'm also interested in fetishizations in
Asian-female bodies, I want to bring back
neurotic thrillers.
ELI: Hey, knock-knock.
I was trying to do the same thing.
Yeah!
ROXY: It was amazing though. Come on.
I wasn't fishing, but I'll take it.
I love those movies.
The Verhoeven.
I'll take it.
Um...Well I just want to say thank you so much for
doing the episodes, I'm so such a fan of you
as a director, as a writer, as a filmmaker,
and as a human-being, and I cannot wait
to see what you do next, whatever it is.
Thank you Eli. Same here