1 00:00:13,230 --> 00:00:15,972 America in the '60s and '70s 2 00:00:16,103 --> 00:00:17,756 was defined by chaos. 3 00:00:17,887 --> 00:00:19,193 Senator John F. Kennedy 4 00:00:19,323 --> 00:00:22,370 is the 34th president of the United States. 5 00:00:22,500 --> 00:00:25,329 The flare-ups between whites and Negroes. 6 00:00:25,460 --> 00:00:27,418 The escalating war in Vietnam. 7 00:00:27,549 --> 00:00:28,593 Struggle with the communists. 8 00:00:28,724 --> 00:00:30,073 An oil crisis 9 00:00:30,204 --> 00:00:32,032 that resulted in the rationing of gasoline. 10 00:00:32,162 --> 00:00:33,337 The lines are lengthening, 11 00:00:33,468 --> 00:00:34,860 supplies are dropping, and reports-- 12 00:00:34,991 --> 00:00:37,950 Demands for women's liberation. 13 00:00:38,081 --> 00:00:39,169 Equal education and job opportunities, equal pay. 14 00:00:39,300 --> 00:00:42,520 A growing civil rights movement 15 00:00:42,651 --> 00:00:44,305 and a general distrust of institutions 16 00:00:44,435 --> 00:00:48,918 like organized religion and government with a capital "G," 17 00:00:49,049 --> 00:00:50,572 these defined the times. 18 00:00:50,702 --> 00:00:53,705 Rioting in a Negro section of Los Angeles. 19 00:00:53,836 --> 00:00:55,707 Profound changes to cultural norms 20 00:00:55,838 --> 00:00:58,362 created intense anxieties, 21 00:00:58,493 --> 00:01:00,451 leading many to fear that society, 22 00:01:00,582 --> 00:01:04,107 as we knew it, was falling apart. 23 00:01:04,238 --> 00:01:06,718 The largest generation in history, 24 00:01:06,849 --> 00:01:11,027 the Baby Boomers, were coming of age. 25 00:01:11,158 --> 00:01:13,464 And that youth quake shook the world 26 00:01:13,595 --> 00:01:15,727 as millions of teens and young adults 27 00:01:15,858 --> 00:01:18,513 took to the streets protesting the war, 28 00:01:18,643 --> 00:01:20,471 demanding equal rights for women... 29 00:01:20,602 --> 00:01:22,473 - Women! - ...and joining the fight 30 00:01:22,604 --> 00:01:24,171 for civil rights. 31 00:01:24,301 --> 00:01:26,390 Struggle together to go to jail together, 32 00:01:26,521 --> 00:01:27,957 to stand up for freedom... 33 00:01:28,088 --> 00:01:29,350 This episode 34 00:01:29,480 --> 00:01:32,092 of Blumhouse's Compendium of Horror 35 00:01:32,222 --> 00:01:34,485 looks at how films of the era 36 00:01:34,616 --> 00:01:36,531 reflected the real and tangible change 37 00:01:36,661 --> 00:01:39,490 the Baby Boomers demanded 38 00:01:39,621 --> 00:01:41,579 and how a new generation 39 00:01:41,710 --> 00:01:43,146 of auteur directors and their films... 40 00:01:43,277 --> 00:01:45,583 President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas. 41 00:01:45,714 --> 00:01:49,935 ...pushed the envelope of what was acceptable. 42 00:01:50,066 --> 00:01:53,461 It has been established that persons who have recently died 43 00:01:53,591 --> 00:01:54,592 have been returning to life. 44 00:01:59,945 --> 00:02:02,426 I think if I had to come up with my Mount Rushmore 45 00:02:02,557 --> 00:02:04,036 of horror directors, 46 00:02:04,167 --> 00:02:07,518 you'd be like John Carpenter, 47 00:02:07,649 --> 00:02:09,303 Wes Craven. 48 00:02:11,696 --> 00:02:13,089 Tobe Hoover definitely belongs. 49 00:02:15,918 --> 00:02:17,659 Definitely got to be Romero. 50 00:02:22,533 --> 00:02:23,839 Night of the Living Dead 51 00:02:23,969 --> 00:02:26,798 is in my DNA and in the genetics of my work, as well, 52 00:02:26,929 --> 00:02:30,498 because, you know, you've got George Romero going like, 53 00:02:30,628 --> 00:02:33,457 "You know, we got two bucks, and we got a field. 54 00:02:33,588 --> 00:02:35,155 Let's make a zombie movie." 55 00:03:23,290 --> 00:03:26,031 Boy, you used to really be scared here. 56 00:03:26,162 --> 00:03:27,598 Johnny! 57 00:03:27,729 --> 00:03:29,600 You're still afraid. 58 00:03:29,731 --> 00:03:31,515 Stop it now. I mean it. 59 00:03:35,258 --> 00:03:38,000 They're coming to get you, Barbara. 60 00:03:41,830 --> 00:03:42,657 I was scared in my mom's basement, 61 00:03:42,787 --> 00:03:44,963 this one back part of her basement. 62 00:03:45,094 --> 00:03:47,401 It was a damp and dark place, and that's where I used to go 63 00:03:47,531 --> 00:03:51,622 to fire up an old projector and watch old reels of film. 64 00:03:55,887 --> 00:03:58,673 One day, I found this old print of this movie 65 00:03:58,803 --> 00:04:00,196 that I'd never obviously heard of. 66 00:04:00,327 --> 00:04:01,502 I guess I was about seven. 67 00:04:01,632 --> 00:04:03,330 And it was Night of the Living Dead. 68 00:04:14,819 --> 00:04:15,907 My mom found me like, I don't know, 69 00:04:16,038 --> 00:04:17,648 end minutes before the end of the movie 70 00:04:17,779 --> 00:04:20,172 and tried to, you know, turn it off. 71 00:04:20,303 --> 00:04:22,610 But by that point, I was fucked. 72 00:04:23,872 --> 00:04:25,395 Good Lord. 73 00:04:30,835 --> 00:04:32,663 It took me a long time before I was cool 74 00:04:32,794 --> 00:04:33,795 to go back in the basement. 75 00:04:33,925 --> 00:04:37,625 And then I realized what my dad did. 76 00:04:37,755 --> 00:04:40,584 I realized the creativity of it all. 77 00:04:45,459 --> 00:04:47,939 To me, it was like it was the first time 78 00:04:48,070 --> 00:04:50,246 I ever really kind of had an understanding 79 00:04:50,377 --> 00:04:52,727 of what he did as an artist. 80 00:04:52,857 --> 00:04:56,513 And I think most good directors that really have a grasp 81 00:04:56,644 --> 00:04:57,732 of the medium can do horror. 82 00:04:57,862 --> 00:05:00,256 And now that they're becoming venerable 83 00:05:00,387 --> 00:05:02,302 in the eyes of the studio and so forth, 84 00:05:02,432 --> 00:05:04,652 a lot of those people are going into it. 85 00:05:04,782 --> 00:05:07,524 The idea that corpses could come back to life 86 00:05:07,655 --> 00:05:10,788 as bodies without souls 87 00:05:10,919 --> 00:05:14,270 originated in 19th century Haitian folklore. 88 00:05:14,401 --> 00:05:16,359 Stories of the dead being reanimated 89 00:05:16,490 --> 00:05:20,232 usually involves some form of religious ceremony, 90 00:05:20,363 --> 00:05:22,365 such as voodoo. 91 00:05:24,585 --> 00:05:27,675 These stories of the undead walking the earth, 92 00:05:27,805 --> 00:05:29,807 along with a book called I Am Legend, 93 00:05:29,938 --> 00:05:32,201 inspired director George A. Romero 94 00:05:32,332 --> 00:05:34,421 to turn those concepts 95 00:05:34,551 --> 00:05:38,816 into the flesh eating, slow-moving zombie 96 00:05:38,947 --> 00:05:42,298 that shocked audiences in Night of the Living Dead. 97 00:05:42,429 --> 00:05:43,865 I had met George Romero. 98 00:05:43,995 --> 00:05:47,434 We were on a family vacation, and we were in Italy. 99 00:05:52,090 --> 00:05:53,788 My Love for Night of the Living Dead 100 00:05:53,918 --> 00:05:55,790 had sort of reached its pinnacle. 101 00:05:55,920 --> 00:05:58,967 I'm happily typecast in a genre that I've always loved. 102 00:05:59,097 --> 00:06:02,666 And I have an opportunity to work on Day of the Dead. 103 00:06:03,450 --> 00:06:05,974 Day of the Dead was one of the greatest experiences 104 00:06:06,104 --> 00:06:07,584 that I had ever had. 105 00:06:07,715 --> 00:06:10,848 I mean, talk about just being plucked from a little kid 106 00:06:10,979 --> 00:06:13,764 in his basement, watching horror movies, to standing next 107 00:06:13,895 --> 00:06:17,115 to one of the greatest horror directors of our generation. 108 00:06:17,246 --> 00:06:20,945 And watching him film a zombie movie and being in it. 109 00:06:21,076 --> 00:06:22,338 I was actually in it, too. 110 00:06:22,469 --> 00:06:25,907 I got decapitated. My head came back to life. 111 00:06:26,037 --> 00:06:28,953 I mean, I could have retired at 19, for fuck's sake. 112 00:06:29,084 --> 00:06:31,391 Aah! 113 00:06:31,521 --> 00:06:34,872 I remember George Romero talking about movies 114 00:06:35,003 --> 00:06:37,527 and the roller coaster ride, the adrenaline. 115 00:06:37,658 --> 00:06:39,747 You know, you have people that may not want to ride 116 00:06:39,877 --> 00:06:42,837 a roller coaster for real, but they'll go see a movie 117 00:06:42,967 --> 00:06:43,577 and they'll go on the same journey. 118 00:06:49,104 --> 00:06:49,757 Night of the Living Dead 119 00:06:49,887 --> 00:06:50,888 is probably one of the few films 120 00:06:51,019 --> 00:06:52,760 that actually gave me nightmares. 121 00:06:52,890 --> 00:06:57,025 Saw it at a horror festival. 122 00:06:57,155 --> 00:06:58,287 It was a couple of years after it came out. 123 00:06:58,418 --> 00:07:00,811 So it already had a reputation. 124 00:07:05,337 --> 00:07:06,730 It was heavy. 125 00:07:06,861 --> 00:07:11,039 It was that really crude black-and-white photography 126 00:07:11,169 --> 00:07:14,956 which gave it an almost semi documentary feel 127 00:07:15,086 --> 00:07:18,438 and made it feel more realistic. 128 00:07:18,568 --> 00:07:22,006 That's what really got to me. 129 00:07:22,137 --> 00:07:23,965 The Night of the Living Dead made money 130 00:07:24,095 --> 00:07:26,750 and lots of it. 131 00:07:26,881 --> 00:07:29,927 Shot for just $114,000, 132 00:07:30,058 --> 00:07:31,929 the movie grossed more than 12 million 133 00:07:32,060 --> 00:07:34,932 during its initial release alone. 134 00:07:35,063 --> 00:07:38,153 To hype the movie, a $50,000 insurance policy 135 00:07:38,283 --> 00:07:40,808 was offered to anyone who died of a heart attack 136 00:07:40,938 --> 00:07:42,810 watching the film. 137 00:07:42,940 --> 00:07:45,639 A marketing stunt that made seeing the movie 138 00:07:45,769 --> 00:07:50,339 an irresistible test of courage for true horror fans. 139 00:07:50,470 --> 00:07:53,037 Night of the Living Dead was groundbreaking for everything. 140 00:07:53,168 --> 00:07:54,909 They made a movie in a town where movies weren't made. 141 00:07:55,039 --> 00:08:00,915 They bucked the system, and they showed people images 142 00:08:01,045 --> 00:08:03,744 that made every single person in 1968 143 00:08:03,874 --> 00:08:06,790 who saw those images uncomfortable 144 00:08:06,921 --> 00:08:09,967 at a molecular level. 145 00:08:10,098 --> 00:08:12,883 Horror films to that point were cause and effect. 146 00:08:13,014 --> 00:08:14,494 Actions have consequences. 147 00:08:14,624 --> 00:08:17,584 Then here, these guys come with this film 148 00:08:17,714 --> 00:08:20,674 that you could just be in the wrong place at the wrong time, 149 00:08:20,804 --> 00:08:24,547 get bit, and the next thing you know, whoever you trusted 150 00:08:24,678 --> 00:08:27,028 with your life and your heart and your spirit was now 151 00:08:27,158 --> 00:08:30,422 turning on you and was a creature that was going to 152 00:08:30,553 --> 00:08:31,815 not only kill you and eat you... 153 00:08:33,164 --> 00:08:34,862 ...but turn you into another one. 154 00:08:36,994 --> 00:08:39,214 The notion of the dead not dying, 155 00:08:39,344 --> 00:08:41,956 coming back and turning you into a dead person, 156 00:08:42,086 --> 00:08:44,828 infecting you with more death. 157 00:08:49,137 --> 00:08:51,879 This zombie looks like your fucking girlfriend 158 00:08:52,009 --> 00:08:53,271 or your husband who just died. 159 00:08:53,402 --> 00:08:54,969 And then they're going to wake up, 160 00:08:55,099 --> 00:08:56,144 and they're going to try to eat you, 161 00:08:56,274 --> 00:08:57,928 and then you're going to fucking die, 162 00:08:58,059 --> 00:08:59,843 and then you're going to become one. 163 00:08:59,974 --> 00:09:01,541 Relatively new notion. 164 00:09:01,671 --> 00:09:05,849 There are a lot of choices that people have to make 165 00:09:05,980 --> 00:09:08,635 in the zombie apocalypse mythology. 166 00:09:14,902 --> 00:09:16,033 I'm sorry, Mum. 167 00:09:18,166 --> 00:09:20,995 Do it! 168 00:09:21,125 --> 00:09:24,520 And when you realize that surviving 169 00:09:24,651 --> 00:09:26,000 means having to do things 170 00:09:26,130 --> 00:09:29,003 that you couldn't imagine that you would have to do, 171 00:09:29,133 --> 00:09:32,049 and what this kind of thing does to a person, 172 00:09:32,180 --> 00:09:35,575 it just shows you the drastic change 173 00:09:35,705 --> 00:09:38,055 that people can undergo when dealing 174 00:09:38,186 --> 00:09:41,232 with these tremendous outside circumstances. 175 00:09:41,363 --> 00:09:46,498 And the distrust, man's distrust for other men. 176 00:09:46,629 --> 00:09:48,936 Obviously, Night of the Living Dead 177 00:09:49,066 --> 00:09:51,155 is a very, you know, low budget, 178 00:09:51,286 --> 00:09:54,376 but it's about the beginning of the breakdown of society. 179 00:09:58,728 --> 00:10:01,383 We have to look at the different iterations 180 00:10:01,513 --> 00:10:03,733 that have been put on screen of the, you know, 181 00:10:03,864 --> 00:10:05,605 post-apocalyptic living, whether it's, you know, 182 00:10:05,735 --> 00:10:08,956 Mad Max, or 28 Days Later. 183 00:10:11,262 --> 00:10:15,049 George Romero had a great handle on, 184 00:10:15,179 --> 00:10:17,355 you know, the decay of society. 185 00:10:17,486 --> 00:10:21,055 Ideas for the the zombie films that I've done anyway, 186 00:10:21,185 --> 00:10:22,534 the idea always comes first. 187 00:10:22,665 --> 00:10:25,276 I have to know what the movie's about 188 00:10:25,407 --> 00:10:27,801 because they're not really movies about zombies. 189 00:10:27,931 --> 00:10:31,543 I mean, the zombies are almost just minor annoyances, you know? 190 00:10:31,674 --> 00:10:33,720 It was an extremely turbulent time, 191 00:10:33,850 --> 00:10:36,374 and the civil rights movement was huge, and Vietnam was huge. 192 00:10:36,505 --> 00:10:38,986 And the film itself is just chock full of messaging 193 00:10:39,116 --> 00:10:40,596 about all of that. 194 00:10:40,727 --> 00:10:43,643 But the messaging about it that I personally took away 195 00:10:43,773 --> 00:10:45,166 was that times were changing. 196 00:10:45,296 --> 00:10:49,779 Night of the Living Dead was released in the fall of '68 197 00:10:49,910 --> 00:10:54,349 when America was experiencing profound tragedy and change 198 00:10:54,479 --> 00:10:57,352 in the area of civil rights. 199 00:10:57,482 --> 00:11:01,269 Just six months earlier, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 200 00:11:01,399 --> 00:11:04,315 had been assassinated in Memphis. 201 00:11:04,446 --> 00:11:07,318 The reaction in the streets was swift and furious 202 00:11:07,449 --> 00:11:12,106 because equality seemed more unattainable than ever. 203 00:11:12,236 --> 00:11:15,152 Horror films had always put social tensions 204 00:11:15,283 --> 00:11:18,242 front and center, and George Romero's choice 205 00:11:18,373 --> 00:11:20,244 to put a Black male lead in his movie 206 00:11:20,375 --> 00:11:22,464 sent a loud and clear message. 207 00:11:22,594 --> 00:11:25,119 To actually have a Black protagonist 208 00:11:25,249 --> 00:11:27,687 in Night of the Living Dead was pretty cool. 209 00:11:27,817 --> 00:11:31,473 It was pretty revolutionary. We had never seen it before. 210 00:11:31,603 --> 00:11:33,823 And a heroic Black character. I mean, he was the hero. 211 00:11:33,954 --> 00:11:35,956 He was the only one that knew what was going on. 212 00:11:36,086 --> 00:11:38,088 The cellar is the strongest place. 213 00:11:38,219 --> 00:11:39,524 You box yourself in the cellar 214 00:11:39,655 --> 00:11:41,483 and those things get in the house, you've had it. 215 00:11:41,613 --> 00:11:43,441 At least up here, you have a fighting chance. 216 00:11:43,572 --> 00:11:46,314 You know, usually in a horror film, 217 00:11:46,444 --> 00:11:48,708 the Black folks are the first to go. 218 00:11:48,838 --> 00:11:51,580 There were a lot of instances where George had said, 219 00:11:51,711 --> 00:11:53,974 "Look, I cast Duane Jones 220 00:11:54,104 --> 00:11:56,541 because he was the most talented actor 221 00:11:56,672 --> 00:11:58,761 that he had met at the time. 222 00:11:58,892 --> 00:12:01,242 You know, was George subliminally telling a story 223 00:12:01,372 --> 00:12:04,419 by putting a Black man in the lead? 224 00:12:04,549 --> 00:12:07,117 Subsequently, all of George's movies from that point on 225 00:12:07,248 --> 00:12:10,207 had an African-American lead and a female lead, you know. 226 00:12:10,338 --> 00:12:13,733 So whether it was by accident or subliminal, 227 00:12:13,863 --> 00:12:16,213 George definitely was making a statement. 228 00:12:16,344 --> 00:12:17,649 Night of the Living Dead definitely changed 229 00:12:17,780 --> 00:12:19,173 the horror genre 230 00:12:19,303 --> 00:12:22,393 because it kind of stretched what's permissible. 231 00:12:22,524 --> 00:12:26,006 You didn't see so much viscera in movies. 232 00:12:26,136 --> 00:12:28,312 You know, it definitely unleashed 233 00:12:28,443 --> 00:12:29,966 what was possible visually. 234 00:12:30,097 --> 00:12:32,969 You know, you could now see intestines being pulled out 235 00:12:33,100 --> 00:12:35,189 and being eaten up by a zombie. 236 00:12:35,319 --> 00:12:38,061 Now you could see the possession of a child. 237 00:12:38,192 --> 00:12:41,064 The idea of the evil child, the demon child, 238 00:12:41,195 --> 00:12:42,762 you know, that little girl, she comes back 239 00:12:42,892 --> 00:12:44,415 after she'd been killed, and she comes back 240 00:12:44,546 --> 00:12:47,331 and tries to eat her mother in the basement. 241 00:12:47,462 --> 00:12:49,159 Oh, baby. 242 00:12:49,290 --> 00:12:52,772 So that made a lot of things permissible. 243 00:13:08,613 --> 00:13:12,095 In the '60s, there was a huge trend in the occult. 244 00:13:16,360 --> 00:13:17,753 You had people leaving the church. 245 00:13:17,884 --> 00:13:19,015 Church membership was down. 246 00:13:19,146 --> 00:13:21,148 People were saying they were atheists. 247 00:13:21,278 --> 00:13:23,585 You had a godless Catholic in the White House. 248 00:13:23,715 --> 00:13:27,850 I mean, people hated that JFK had been Catholic. 249 00:13:27,981 --> 00:13:31,245 That was like viewed with such alarm across America 250 00:13:31,375 --> 00:13:33,116 that this invidious pope worshiper 251 00:13:33,247 --> 00:13:34,814 was in the White House. 252 00:13:34,944 --> 00:13:37,207 Suddenly it seemed like all religious faith 253 00:13:37,338 --> 00:13:39,340 was up for grabs in America. 254 00:13:39,470 --> 00:13:41,733 It wasn't the country we told ourselves we thought it was. 255 00:13:41,864 --> 00:13:44,127 Hail Satan! 256 00:13:44,258 --> 00:13:45,825 Hail Satan! 257 00:13:45,955 --> 00:13:48,740 We weren't just a country of white Protestant men. 258 00:13:48,871 --> 00:13:50,525 There were women who wanted rights. 259 00:13:50,655 --> 00:13:52,396 There were Black people who wanted rights. 260 00:13:52,527 --> 00:13:54,834 There were Catholics, there were Jews, there were Hindus. 261 00:13:54,964 --> 00:13:56,574 There were all these other people out there. 262 00:13:56,705 --> 00:13:58,925 It was terrifying to white people. 263 00:13:59,055 --> 00:14:03,233 And so Rosemary's Baby really jumps in with all four feet 264 00:14:03,364 --> 00:14:06,323 right on that pressure point. 265 00:14:07,324 --> 00:14:10,893 Oh, that's nice. What is that? That's the TV room? 266 00:14:11,024 --> 00:14:14,114 Well, only temporarily. It's going to be a nursery. 267 00:14:14,244 --> 00:14:16,420 - Oh, you're pregnant? - No, not yet. 268 00:14:16,551 --> 00:14:18,335 I hope to be as soon as we're settled. 269 00:14:18,466 --> 00:14:20,207 Wonderful! Well, you're young and healthy. 270 00:14:20,337 --> 00:14:21,686 You'll have lots of children. 271 00:14:21,817 --> 00:14:23,079 At their most basic, 272 00:14:23,210 --> 00:14:25,821 horror movies have been allegories 273 00:14:25,952 --> 00:14:28,476 for the fight between good and evil. 274 00:14:28,606 --> 00:14:32,262 Rosemary's Baby was no exception, 275 00:14:32,393 --> 00:14:35,265 opening in theaters in the summer of what turned out 276 00:14:35,396 --> 00:14:40,488 to be a pivotal year in history and in the movies, 1968. 277 00:14:40,618 --> 00:14:44,318 Women were on the march, rejecting marginalization 278 00:14:44,448 --> 00:14:47,364 and demanding that their voices be heard. 279 00:14:47,495 --> 00:14:50,541 They were moving into corporate offices, boardrooms, 280 00:14:50,672 --> 00:14:53,414 and into the political center of power. 281 00:14:53,544 --> 00:14:56,286 Against that backdrop of societal change, 282 00:14:56,417 --> 00:14:59,899 Rosemary's Baby was a sophisticated horror film 283 00:15:00,029 --> 00:15:03,032 that reflected the paranoia of the era 284 00:15:03,163 --> 00:15:06,993 and asked complex questions about female autonomy, 285 00:15:07,123 --> 00:15:09,473 marital abuse, and the role of women 286 00:15:09,604 --> 00:15:12,520 in a rapidly changing world. 287 00:15:12,650 --> 00:15:14,914 I've spoken pretty openly about the fact 288 00:15:15,044 --> 00:15:18,352 that I am somebody who can speak back to the screen 289 00:15:18,482 --> 00:15:19,962 when Rosemary's Baby is playing. 290 00:15:24,575 --> 00:15:30,886 It's a cornerstone film for me for so many reasons, 291 00:15:31,017 --> 00:15:33,541 but I just find it that deeply entertaining. 292 00:15:33,671 --> 00:15:36,239 This is for you from Roman and me. 293 00:15:36,370 --> 00:15:38,067 For me? 294 00:15:38,198 --> 00:15:40,765 It's just a little present is all, for moving in. 295 00:15:40,896 --> 00:15:41,810 There's no reason-- 296 00:15:41,941 --> 00:15:44,378 Real old. It's over 300 years. 297 00:15:44,508 --> 00:15:48,425 And scary for a lot of different reasons. 298 00:15:48,556 --> 00:15:50,427 It's lovely. 299 00:15:50,558 --> 00:15:54,605 You know, not just about sort of the literal story, 300 00:15:54,736 --> 00:15:57,869 but for all of the subtext I think underneath it. 301 00:15:59,697 --> 00:16:03,005 In Rosemary's Baby, director Roman Polanski 302 00:16:03,136 --> 00:16:07,270 used themes of religion and the occult as a backdrop 303 00:16:07,401 --> 00:16:10,491 for questioning the role of women in society. 304 00:16:10,621 --> 00:16:14,321 Rosemary's Baby kind of came out of nowhere in '67. 305 00:16:14,451 --> 00:16:17,324 Before, movies were gothic stuff from Hammer, 306 00:16:17,454 --> 00:16:19,500 vampires in Ancient Europe, Victorian Times, 307 00:16:19,630 --> 00:16:21,458 old timey places. 308 00:16:21,589 --> 00:16:22,764 Universal Monsters. 309 00:16:24,418 --> 00:16:27,334 On TV was The Addams Family, The Munsters, 310 00:16:27,464 --> 00:16:29,118 laugh track horror. 311 00:16:29,249 --> 00:16:31,425 We don't want any child of ours going to school 312 00:16:31,555 --> 00:16:33,166 and being stared at. 313 00:16:33,296 --> 00:16:35,081 With Rosemary's Baby, 314 00:16:35,211 --> 00:16:36,647 you suddenly had this contemporary horror story 315 00:16:36,778 --> 00:16:38,301 set in modern-day New York. 316 00:16:38,432 --> 00:16:40,434 He's an actor. She's a homemaker. 317 00:16:40,564 --> 00:16:42,653 They're young kids in love, 318 00:16:42,784 --> 00:16:44,568 living in an identifiable, recognizable, 319 00:16:44,699 --> 00:16:47,441 modern-day setting. 320 00:16:47,571 --> 00:16:49,573 With Satan. 321 00:16:49,704 --> 00:16:52,707 This is no dream. This is really happening! 322 00:16:52,837 --> 00:16:57,712 I have a memory of just feeling like this movie is unreal. 323 00:16:57,842 --> 00:17:00,584 You know, I mean, Ruth Gordon. 324 00:17:00,715 --> 00:17:02,586 Are you kidding me? This performance. 325 00:17:02,717 --> 00:17:05,198 Listen, I won't let you go to no Dr. Hill, 326 00:17:05,328 --> 00:17:06,721 nobody ever heard of. 327 00:17:06,851 --> 00:17:08,549 The best is what you're going to have, young lady. 328 00:17:08,679 --> 00:17:10,072 Where's your telephone, huh? 329 00:17:10,203 --> 00:17:12,988 Just the vividness of the filmmaking. 330 00:17:13,119 --> 00:17:18,341 The assuredness of every passage, every shot. 331 00:17:18,994 --> 00:17:21,997 I still watch it with a sense of awe. I really do. 332 00:17:22,128 --> 00:17:24,652 Dr. Hill prescribed vitamin pills. 333 00:17:24,782 --> 00:17:29,178 No pills. Minnie Castevet has a herbarium. 334 00:17:29,309 --> 00:17:30,527 I'm gonna have her make a daily drink for you 335 00:17:30,658 --> 00:17:33,400 that will be fresher, safer, and more vitamin-rich 336 00:17:33,530 --> 00:17:35,750 than any pills on the market. 337 00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:38,666 Rosemary's Baby is about the complete lack of autonomy 338 00:17:38,796 --> 00:17:40,929 and control that a woman and or women societally 339 00:17:41,060 --> 00:17:43,192 have over their bodies. 340 00:17:47,849 --> 00:17:50,504 I think just the general feeling of powerlessness 341 00:17:50,634 --> 00:17:53,681 in Rosemary's Baby, how no one would listen to her, 342 00:17:53,811 --> 00:17:55,987 how she was constantly being gaslit, 343 00:17:56,118 --> 00:17:58,077 how she was listening to these men, 344 00:17:58,207 --> 00:18:01,036 and as a result, literally gave birth to the devil. 345 00:18:01,167 --> 00:18:03,386 I just remember that pervasive feeling of like, 346 00:18:03,517 --> 00:18:05,084 "No one will listen to me," 347 00:18:05,214 --> 00:18:06,389 being something that really shook me emotionally. 348 00:18:10,437 --> 00:18:13,614 Has an under taste. 349 00:18:13,744 --> 00:18:15,833 A chalky under taste. 350 00:18:17,748 --> 00:18:19,533 I don't get it. 351 00:18:20,403 --> 00:18:23,406 That's silly, honey. There is no under taste. 352 00:18:23,537 --> 00:18:25,626 I think Rosemary's Baby is haunting 353 00:18:25,756 --> 00:18:27,410 because, one, this is her husband, 354 00:18:27,541 --> 00:18:29,020 the person she's supposed to trust 355 00:18:29,151 --> 00:18:31,022 more than anyone in the world, who's supposed to love her. 356 00:18:31,153 --> 00:18:33,808 The dismissive pat on the head 357 00:18:33,938 --> 00:18:37,507 and extreme gaslighting behavior on stark display 358 00:18:37,638 --> 00:18:40,510 in Rosemary's Baby were all too familiar to women 359 00:18:40,641 --> 00:18:44,819 ignored by their bosses, and even by their own husbands. 360 00:18:44,949 --> 00:18:49,693 Like all the best horror films, Rosemary's Baby was 361 00:18:49,824 --> 00:18:54,655 a resonant, riveting echo of its time and its portrayal 362 00:18:54,785 --> 00:18:58,746 of a vulnerable woman exploited and betrayed by the men 363 00:18:58,876 --> 00:19:02,706 she trusted made an indelible impression. 364 00:19:02,837 --> 00:19:06,667 A scene that I love in which late in the game, 365 00:19:06,797 --> 00:19:08,625 Rosemary realizes, "Oh, my God, something terrible 366 00:19:08,756 --> 00:19:10,453 is happening to me." 367 00:19:10,584 --> 00:19:12,890 And she goes to her original gynecologist, 368 00:19:13,021 --> 00:19:15,415 played by Charles Grodin, and begs for help. 369 00:19:15,545 --> 00:19:17,765 And maybe all of this is coincidence. 370 00:19:17,895 --> 00:19:19,070 But one thing is for sure. 371 00:19:19,201 --> 00:19:20,942 They have a coven, and they want my baby. 372 00:19:24,859 --> 00:19:26,817 Certainly seems that way. 373 00:19:26,948 --> 00:19:30,125 And he listens to her, and he's really patient, 374 00:19:30,256 --> 00:19:31,561 and he says, "Why don't you lie down? 375 00:19:31,692 --> 00:19:34,434 You must be exhausted. I'm going to get you some help." 376 00:19:34,564 --> 00:19:36,566 And he leaves, and you see her say, 377 00:19:36,697 --> 00:19:39,874 "Okay, little Andy or Jenny, we're going to be okay. 378 00:19:40,004 --> 00:19:42,659 This nice man is going to help us." 379 00:19:42,790 --> 00:19:44,748 God bless Dr. Hill. 380 00:19:44,879 --> 00:19:47,577 And then she wakes up from her nap. 381 00:19:47,708 --> 00:19:50,624 And similar to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 382 00:19:50,754 --> 00:19:54,323 scene I love so much, she is returned to her captors. 383 00:20:00,286 --> 00:20:01,852 And you realize that 384 00:20:01,983 --> 00:20:05,204 whether Charles Grodin was in on a scheme 385 00:20:05,334 --> 00:20:08,642 or just simply thinks any woman with this story 386 00:20:08,772 --> 00:20:12,863 must be utterly insane, he has done the absolute wrong thing. 387 00:20:12,994 --> 00:20:16,127 And that moment is like the fulcrum of the whole movie. 388 00:20:16,258 --> 00:20:19,174 Somebody help me! 389 00:20:19,305 --> 00:20:21,655 I think it's a great allegory for sort of 390 00:20:21,785 --> 00:20:25,354 the "my body, my choice" fight that has been happening forever. 391 00:20:25,485 --> 00:20:27,791 I think the most brilliant thing about Rosemary's Baby 392 00:20:27,922 --> 00:20:29,489 and why it stood the test of time 393 00:20:29,619 --> 00:20:31,882 is because we're still fighting for control over our own bodies. 394 00:20:32,013 --> 00:20:34,972 That is a fight that is sadly still going on to this day. 395 00:20:35,103 --> 00:20:37,584 The early '60s were when back-alley abortions 396 00:20:37,714 --> 00:20:39,890 were sort of the unmentioned elephant in the room. 397 00:20:40,021 --> 00:20:44,286 Reproduction was huge in the '60s and in the '70s, 398 00:20:44,417 --> 00:20:47,811 and, in fact, you had a ton of childbirth horror coming out, 399 00:20:47,942 --> 00:20:50,684 and a lot of that finds its roots with Rosemary's Baby. 400 00:20:50,814 --> 00:20:52,686 I won't have an abortion. 401 00:20:52,816 --> 00:20:54,905 Nobody's telling you to have an abortion. 402 00:20:55,036 --> 00:20:57,256 Just go to see another doctor, that's all. 403 00:20:57,386 --> 00:20:59,954 Films like Carrie or Rosemary's Baby 404 00:21:00,084 --> 00:21:06,874 are films often made by men that are struggling with 405 00:21:07,004 --> 00:21:11,574 the notion of femininity and femaleness, 406 00:21:11,705 --> 00:21:14,403 as both societally and then, 407 00:21:14,534 --> 00:21:17,406 for some of the filmmakers, personally monstrous. 408 00:21:17,537 --> 00:21:20,757 Rosemary's Baby was not only a reflection of 409 00:21:20,888 --> 00:21:23,412 America's reaction to the women's movement, 410 00:21:23,543 --> 00:21:26,285 but a reflection on director Roman Polanski himself. 411 00:21:28,548 --> 00:21:31,899 Polanski's subsequent statutory rape charge 412 00:21:32,029 --> 00:21:34,728 and flight from America sent many women back 413 00:21:34,858 --> 00:21:37,252 for a second look at the film 414 00:21:37,383 --> 00:21:40,299 about the takeover of women's bodies. 415 00:21:40,429 --> 00:21:42,953 So there's something really interesting to me 416 00:21:43,084 --> 00:21:47,306 about seeing those filmmakers forcing themselves 417 00:21:47,436 --> 00:21:51,310 to be empathetic with female characters 418 00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:53,921 and a female point of view and female experience. 419 00:21:54,051 --> 00:21:57,011 With women demanding power in society 420 00:21:57,141 --> 00:22:01,015 and in their homes, horror films continue to grapple with that 421 00:22:01,145 --> 00:22:04,801 shift by taking it into the spiritual realm. 422 00:22:04,932 --> 00:22:08,457 The graphic depiction of demonic possession 423 00:22:08,588 --> 00:22:11,982 unnerved a country steeped in religious belief. 424 00:22:12,113 --> 00:22:16,465 The Exorcist was ahead of the cultural curve 425 00:22:16,596 --> 00:22:19,642 with its depiction of God versus the devil 426 00:22:19,773 --> 00:22:23,516 in a spiritual fistfight for the soul of a child. 427 00:22:23,646 --> 00:22:26,997 And audiences, already questioning the role of religion 428 00:22:27,128 --> 00:22:31,437 in modern society, well, they were ready. 429 00:22:31,567 --> 00:22:34,353 For me, 'cause I was an old Catholic kid, 430 00:22:34,483 --> 00:22:38,269 the devil will still always be the absolute worst 431 00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:40,924 because the devil could be anybody, 432 00:22:41,055 --> 00:22:42,665 and the devil is a supernatural force. 433 00:22:42,796 --> 00:22:45,015 Well, then let's introduce ourselves. 434 00:22:45,146 --> 00:22:47,278 - I'm Damien Karras. - And I'm the devil! 435 00:22:47,409 --> 00:22:49,716 Now kindly undo these straps. 436 00:22:49,846 --> 00:22:51,195 If you're the devil, why not make 437 00:22:51,326 --> 00:22:52,632 the straps disappear? 438 00:22:52,762 --> 00:22:56,418 That's a much too vulgar display of power, Karras. 439 00:22:56,549 --> 00:22:59,943 I think I saw the original Exorcist in a theater, 440 00:23:00,074 --> 00:23:03,033 which is still, to this day, one of my favorite horror movies 441 00:23:03,164 --> 00:23:05,775 ever because of the approach that they took. 442 00:23:09,997 --> 00:23:13,522 They were like, "This is real. I'm Friedkin, 443 00:23:13,653 --> 00:23:16,873 very intense filmmaker, and I'm going to hire 444 00:23:17,004 --> 00:23:19,746 like Ellen Burstyn as the mother, who is a completely 445 00:23:19,876 --> 00:23:21,400 believable actress, 446 00:23:21,530 --> 00:23:23,837 like Academy Award-winning type actress. 447 00:23:23,967 --> 00:23:25,534 I'm gonna put her in this horror film." 448 00:23:25,665 --> 00:23:27,928 As a Catholic, I wasn't allowed to watch The Exorcist 449 00:23:28,058 --> 00:23:30,452 because it would possess me. 450 00:23:30,583 --> 00:23:34,935 So by the time I recovered from Catholicism, I watched it, 451 00:23:35,065 --> 00:23:38,547 and I go, "Oh, yeah. I can see how this messed up some people." 452 00:23:42,899 --> 00:23:44,074 The first time I saw it, 453 00:23:44,205 --> 00:23:45,293 I actually went to see it in the theater. 454 00:23:45,424 --> 00:23:48,905 It's a super scary movie to see in a theater. 455 00:23:49,036 --> 00:23:50,864 And one of the most shocking moments in my life 456 00:23:50,994 --> 00:23:53,214 in a horror movie is when she does the spider walk 457 00:23:53,344 --> 00:23:55,042 down the stairs. 458 00:23:55,172 --> 00:23:56,652 And I remember starting to see it. 459 00:23:56,783 --> 00:23:59,829 And then the next thing I know, I'm standing on my seat 460 00:23:59,960 --> 00:24:01,875 in the theater, like, crouched. 461 00:24:02,005 --> 00:24:04,573 Like, I don't know how I got there or how fast it happened. 462 00:24:04,704 --> 00:24:07,881 But I remember my friend, he's like, "Get down." 463 00:24:08,011 --> 00:24:09,665 And I was like, "Where-- Where am I? What happened? 464 00:24:09,796 --> 00:24:10,971 How long have I been out?" 465 00:24:11,101 --> 00:24:14,278 Which is like, I don't know if that's flight-- 466 00:24:14,409 --> 00:24:16,019 it's flight, I think. 467 00:24:16,150 --> 00:24:19,022 It's freeze. I would have-- 468 00:24:19,153 --> 00:24:20,937 The tiger would have eaten me. 469 00:24:21,068 --> 00:24:24,637 I was 10, eleven years old when The Exorcist came out. 470 00:24:24,767 --> 00:24:28,554 Everything about The Exorcist felt like it was happening 471 00:24:28,684 --> 00:24:31,165 in the house next door to me, and that was terrifying. 472 00:24:31,295 --> 00:24:33,428 And that was what was terrifying for most people. 473 00:24:33,559 --> 00:24:36,126 I mean, there were lines around the block. 474 00:24:36,257 --> 00:24:39,869 Despite being banned by most organized religions, 475 00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:41,610 including the Catholic Church, 476 00:24:41,741 --> 00:24:45,527 The Exorcist was a commercial and critical success, 477 00:24:45,658 --> 00:24:48,356 partly because it was so subversive at a time 478 00:24:48,487 --> 00:24:52,186 when Americans were questioning their own spiritual beliefs. 479 00:24:52,316 --> 00:24:55,929 The Exorcist won two Oscars and placed horror films 480 00:24:56,059 --> 00:24:58,148 and horror fans into the mainstream. 481 00:24:58,279 --> 00:25:00,542 You know, walking backwards down the stairs, 482 00:25:00,673 --> 00:25:02,718 making a kid's head turn around and stuff like that. 483 00:25:07,070 --> 00:25:07,897 Vomiting pea soup. 484 00:25:08,855 --> 00:25:10,813 Ah! 485 00:25:10,944 --> 00:25:13,033 All of that shit is pretty horrifying. 486 00:25:13,163 --> 00:25:15,209 But, you know, I don't even think 487 00:25:15,339 --> 00:25:17,994 you have to be Catholic to truly be unnerved. 488 00:25:18,125 --> 00:25:23,870 The taboos that were explored in the early '70s, 489 00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:26,220 no one ever would have imagined a movie like 490 00:25:26,350 --> 00:25:29,963 The Exorcist, that explored the violation 491 00:25:30,093 --> 00:25:32,661 of a 12-year-old girl by this demon 492 00:25:32,792 --> 00:25:35,534 and everything that it did for the Catholic Church. 493 00:25:35,664 --> 00:25:37,318 Well, we as Catholics, we were told every week, 494 00:25:37,448 --> 00:25:38,798 "You're not allowed to go see that movie." 495 00:25:38,928 --> 00:25:40,539 And I don't know a single Catholic 496 00:25:40,669 --> 00:25:42,018 that didn't fucking eventually go see that movie. 497 00:25:46,675 --> 00:25:48,982 The Exorcist is considered the scariest 498 00:25:49,112 --> 00:25:51,767 horror film ever made because it strikes into the heart 499 00:25:51,898 --> 00:25:54,944 of a very religious country. 500 00:25:55,075 --> 00:25:57,251 You know, that's the last thing we want to do is mess with 501 00:25:57,381 --> 00:25:59,383 the devil and have it show up in our homes. 502 00:25:59,514 --> 00:26:01,864 That's why we put, you know, the crucifix on the wall. 503 00:26:01,995 --> 00:26:04,084 That's why we go to church. 504 00:26:04,214 --> 00:26:07,000 And then when it just shows up because a demon wants to have 505 00:26:07,130 --> 00:26:10,133 a good time, it's super scary. 506 00:26:10,264 --> 00:26:12,962 I feel The Exorcist hit the nerve that it did 507 00:26:13,093 --> 00:26:16,749 because at that time, nobody had seen anything like it. 508 00:26:16,879 --> 00:26:20,666 At that point, people found a lot of comfort in religion. 509 00:26:22,058 --> 00:26:24,321 And now all of a sudden, this movie comes out 510 00:26:24,452 --> 00:26:30,937 that's like-- people's beliefs were being stirred in terms of, 511 00:26:31,067 --> 00:26:34,680 oh, why would a God let something like that happen? 512 00:26:34,810 --> 00:26:37,813 And in such a dramatic and horrific fashion. 513 00:26:42,296 --> 00:26:44,603 The 1960s introduced America to 514 00:26:44,733 --> 00:26:48,650 the counterculture movement and the hippies. 515 00:26:48,781 --> 00:26:51,827 America's youth wanted change, and the hippie movement, 516 00:26:51,958 --> 00:26:54,613 well, they wanted it yesterday. 517 00:26:54,743 --> 00:26:57,703 Young people protested against the Vietnam War. 518 00:26:57,833 --> 00:27:00,053 They rebelled against commercialism. 519 00:27:00,183 --> 00:27:02,359 And they fought sexism and racism. 520 00:27:02,490 --> 00:27:05,145 They pushed the needle of progress so far 521 00:27:05,275 --> 00:27:08,104 that it made their parents' generation squirm. 522 00:27:08,235 --> 00:27:10,063 And what the hell's the matter with you kids? 523 00:27:10,193 --> 00:27:12,500 But if the hippies saw love and peace 524 00:27:12,631 --> 00:27:14,937 as the goals of their movement, 525 00:27:15,068 --> 00:27:19,159 older, more traditional Americans saw chaos. 526 00:27:19,289 --> 00:27:22,945 And after Charles Manson and his murderous family, 527 00:27:23,076 --> 00:27:25,600 even evil in the movement. 528 00:27:25,731 --> 00:27:28,342 The 1960s were incredibly idealistic. 529 00:27:28,472 --> 00:27:31,258 There was the idea that the world really could change 530 00:27:31,388 --> 00:27:32,825 because this new generation of young people 531 00:27:32,955 --> 00:27:36,089 who thought so differently, they were going to be in charge. 532 00:27:36,219 --> 00:27:38,352 And by the time we get into the '70s, 533 00:27:38,482 --> 00:27:42,269 the system is fritzing wildly. 534 00:27:42,399 --> 00:27:44,053 They were rebelling against the government. 535 00:27:44,184 --> 00:27:45,664 They were rebelling against war. 536 00:27:45,794 --> 00:27:47,317 They were rebelling against racism. 537 00:27:47,448 --> 00:27:48,928 They were rebelling against everything 538 00:27:49,058 --> 00:27:51,060 that we continue to rebel against. 539 00:27:51,191 --> 00:27:53,410 There was an insanity in the air. 540 00:27:57,545 --> 00:28:02,724 There were always serial killers throughout time, 541 00:28:02,855 --> 00:28:05,988 from Jack the Ripper and centuries before, I'm sure. 542 00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:08,034 But it was somehow, I don't know, 543 00:28:08,164 --> 00:28:10,123 it was in the air in the '70s, 544 00:28:10,253 --> 00:28:15,563 whether it was Son of Sam or a chainsaw massacre 545 00:28:15,694 --> 00:28:17,260 or the Hillside Strangler. 546 00:28:17,391 --> 00:28:19,045 Like, it was out there. 547 00:28:19,175 --> 00:28:20,742 There were people out there. 548 00:28:20,873 --> 00:28:24,746 And The Hills Have Eyes and I Spit on Your Grave 549 00:28:24,877 --> 00:28:28,228 perfectly bring the horror of war and the chaos of war 550 00:28:28,358 --> 00:28:30,186 to your front door. 551 00:28:30,317 --> 00:28:33,102 And they show you that there is no escaping 552 00:28:33,233 --> 00:28:36,976 from the unseen evil in your neighbor. 553 00:28:37,106 --> 00:28:39,326 You know, in the mid to late '70s, 554 00:28:39,456 --> 00:28:41,545 horror movies were very punk rock. 555 00:28:41,676 --> 00:28:43,156 There was an edge to them. 556 00:28:43,286 --> 00:28:46,986 Most of them are made with no money in that era whatsoever. 557 00:28:47,116 --> 00:28:48,552 You know, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 558 00:28:48,683 --> 00:28:51,947 is like, it puts Clerks to shame in terms of, 559 00:28:52,078 --> 00:28:53,949 like, use of minimal budget. 560 00:28:59,085 --> 00:29:01,435 Like Psycho before it, 561 00:29:01,565 --> 00:29:05,178 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is believed to be based 562 00:29:05,308 --> 00:29:07,833 on the true crimes of a serial killer. 563 00:29:07,963 --> 00:29:11,358 And the origin of Leatherface could also be traced back 564 00:29:11,488 --> 00:29:16,276 to the violence inflicted by the Butcher of Plainfield, Ed Gein. 565 00:29:16,406 --> 00:29:18,844 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was cheap to make 566 00:29:18,974 --> 00:29:21,237 and grossed millions in its first run. 567 00:29:21,368 --> 00:29:23,500 Low-budget indie films took note. 568 00:29:23,631 --> 00:29:25,154 I love Texas Chainsaw Massacre 569 00:29:25,285 --> 00:29:27,069 because it is like, we've got no money, 570 00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:28,331 but we'll scare the hell out of you. 571 00:29:28,462 --> 00:29:30,377 It is very proto Clerks for me. 572 00:29:30,507 --> 00:29:32,248 If they don't make that movie, 573 00:29:32,379 --> 00:29:34,294 I don't get inspired to make mine, even though 574 00:29:34,424 --> 00:29:35,861 they're two completely different subject matters. 575 00:29:35,991 --> 00:29:39,734 Oh, my God. The scariest movie I've ever seen, hands down, 576 00:29:39,865 --> 00:29:41,954 is Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 577 00:29:44,870 --> 00:29:50,049 I remember being shaken to my core by that film. 578 00:29:52,312 --> 00:29:53,922 And it's definitely one of those movies 579 00:29:54,053 --> 00:29:59,885 you don't feel the artifice or the seams of filmmaking, 580 00:30:00,015 --> 00:30:02,801 though it's an extremely sophisticated movie. 581 00:30:02,931 --> 00:30:08,110 You feel sort of just like plopped in real life 582 00:30:08,241 --> 00:30:11,157 in some horrible way. 583 00:30:11,287 --> 00:30:14,856 That movie really stuck with me and stays with me, 584 00:30:14,987 --> 00:30:17,032 and I consider it one of the greatest horror films ever made. 585 00:30:19,905 --> 00:30:22,516 Generated by sensational coverage 586 00:30:22,646 --> 00:30:25,475 of anonymous serial killers that seem to be lurking 587 00:30:25,606 --> 00:30:29,479 in every suburban neighborhood, a polarized America was becoming 588 00:30:29,610 --> 00:30:32,526 increasingly frightened. 589 00:30:32,656 --> 00:30:37,270 That sense of dread had movie fans primed for films 590 00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:41,970 that brought the faceless, senseless, evil killer to life. 591 00:30:45,017 --> 00:30:49,064 Tobe Hooper elevates the art form in this incredible way 592 00:30:49,195 --> 00:30:51,327 and makes a movie so terrifying 593 00:30:51,458 --> 00:30:54,591 that any time I try to make a horror movie, 594 00:30:54,722 --> 00:30:56,376 that's the movie I was trying to make. 595 00:30:56,506 --> 00:30:58,987 When I tried to do Red State, 596 00:30:59,118 --> 00:31:02,077 that's me trying to do Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 597 00:31:02,208 --> 00:31:03,905 When I tried to make Tusk, 598 00:31:04,036 --> 00:31:06,342 I was trying to do Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 599 00:31:06,473 --> 00:31:08,301 That movie still lives in my heart and soul. 600 00:31:08,431 --> 00:31:09,737 It's a movie I still watch once a year. 601 00:31:09,868 --> 00:31:11,391 It still fucking works. 602 00:31:11,521 --> 00:31:16,135 The mastery of what Tobe did was that he made it completely 603 00:31:16,265 --> 00:31:19,660 on what you thought was happening. 604 00:31:19,790 --> 00:31:21,314 It was considered the most violent film ever made. 605 00:31:21,444 --> 00:31:22,489 But there's no blood in it. 606 00:31:22,619 --> 00:31:25,535 woman screams ] 607 00:31:25,666 --> 00:31:28,930 And then just the title alone, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 608 00:31:29,061 --> 00:31:31,715 You know, you're expecting to see massacre by chainsaw, 609 00:31:31,846 --> 00:31:32,978 but you don't see it. 610 00:31:33,108 --> 00:31:35,371 You know, so it's a pretty subtle film. 611 00:31:35,502 --> 00:31:37,373 When I think of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 612 00:31:37,504 --> 00:31:41,421 I definitely identify with the kids in the van. 613 00:31:41,551 --> 00:31:43,814 And I look at the world out there 614 00:31:43,945 --> 00:31:45,991 that you're just driving cross-country, 615 00:31:46,121 --> 00:31:49,298 minding your business, and there is fear of everyone else. 616 00:31:49,429 --> 00:31:53,433 A genuine xenophobia that I have experienced 617 00:31:53,563 --> 00:31:55,914 when I'm driving in any town where I don't know people, 618 00:31:56,044 --> 00:31:57,916 but I don't know what evil lurks there. 619 00:32:00,222 --> 00:32:04,357 The film was so successful because it went to dark places 620 00:32:04,487 --> 00:32:07,229 that other films just weren't gritty in capturing. 621 00:32:09,449 --> 00:32:11,320 There was a conspiracy of evil 622 00:32:11,451 --> 00:32:13,888 so that you could walk into a spider's web 623 00:32:14,019 --> 00:32:16,499 where everyone agreed that this was okay. 624 00:32:16,630 --> 00:32:17,805 You know, not just Leatherface, 625 00:32:17,936 --> 00:32:20,547 but ma and pa and everybody and the sheriff 626 00:32:20,677 --> 00:32:22,941 and whoever you run into were part of it. 627 00:32:23,071 --> 00:32:24,464 What could be more terrifying than that? 628 00:32:27,597 --> 00:32:31,079 I think Leatherface is scary because he's made of flesh. 629 00:32:35,431 --> 00:32:38,173 That's dried skin that he's sewn a face together to wear. 630 00:32:38,304 --> 00:32:39,696 It's really terrifying. 631 00:32:39,827 --> 00:32:42,699 It sort of predates Hannibal Lecter in that regard, 632 00:32:42,830 --> 00:32:45,485 and we'd just never seen that before. 633 00:32:45,615 --> 00:32:47,574 Leatherface is scary because he's dumb and he just-- 634 00:32:47,704 --> 00:32:49,619 he's told what to do and he does it. 635 00:32:49,750 --> 00:32:52,361 So it's really-- he's a tool for this family that 636 00:32:52,492 --> 00:32:53,710 makes him do terrible things. 637 00:32:56,452 --> 00:32:59,412 Clearly Leatherface is kind of a tragic character. 638 00:32:59,542 --> 00:33:01,849 I mean, he's obviously mentally disabled 639 00:33:01,980 --> 00:33:04,112 in some sort of capacity. 640 00:33:07,724 --> 00:33:09,596 You know, he's not having fun either, you know. 641 00:33:09,726 --> 00:33:11,772 Like, he's being abused just as much. 642 00:33:11,902 --> 00:33:14,557 You know, like his family are the real evil ones 643 00:33:14,688 --> 00:33:15,994 because they're abusing Leatherface. 644 00:33:16,124 --> 00:33:18,474 And, you know, I don't think Leatherface on his own 645 00:33:18,605 --> 00:33:20,868 would have necessarily been a murderer. 646 00:33:20,999 --> 00:33:22,304 He's also pretty funny. 647 00:33:22,435 --> 00:33:23,740 I mean, like, there's that sequence where they're 648 00:33:23,871 --> 00:33:28,223 getting ready for dinner, and he changes his skin mask 649 00:33:28,354 --> 00:33:30,312 to be like the mother figure. 650 00:33:30,443 --> 00:33:31,444 You know, when he's putting out dinner, 651 00:33:31,574 --> 00:33:33,228 he's got lipstick on and everything. 652 00:33:33,359 --> 00:33:34,925 It's like there's a real sick, 653 00:33:35,056 --> 00:33:38,016 hilarious sense of humor to that movie. 654 00:33:38,146 --> 00:33:41,149 Internationally, the film was a success 655 00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:44,457 despite being banned in more than a dozen countries, 656 00:33:44,587 --> 00:33:48,591 including France, Brazil, and Australia. 657 00:33:48,722 --> 00:33:53,422 Its success was a combination of fear of the killer next door 658 00:33:53,553 --> 00:33:57,992 and the humor of an inside joke. 659 00:33:58,123 --> 00:34:00,473 Horror films were like a relief valve 660 00:34:00,603 --> 00:34:03,432 for the tensions Americans were feeling in 1974, 661 00:34:03,563 --> 00:34:06,044 when the film was released as the U.S. 662 00:34:06,174 --> 00:34:09,656 was winding down yet another war. 663 00:34:09,786 --> 00:34:11,397 I think that wave of horror movies 664 00:34:11,527 --> 00:34:14,095 with Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I Spit On Your Grave, 665 00:34:14,226 --> 00:34:16,576 and The Hills Have Eyes all did follow the Vietnam War. 666 00:34:16,706 --> 00:34:19,579 I don't think you could separate one from the other. 667 00:34:19,709 --> 00:34:25,759 Vietnam was such an ugly, bloody, nonsensical, chaotic war 668 00:34:25,889 --> 00:34:27,369 that I think all of those films 669 00:34:27,500 --> 00:34:29,458 sort of lived in the undertow of it. 670 00:34:29,589 --> 00:34:31,634 I mean, I think Texas Chainsaw Massacre 671 00:34:31,765 --> 00:34:35,334 depicts a world where we are witnessing 672 00:34:35,464 --> 00:34:38,554 what it means to lose our humanity 673 00:34:38,685 --> 00:34:42,123 and to no longer see other people's humanity. 674 00:34:42,254 --> 00:34:44,647 And to know that Tobe Hooper was making that movie 675 00:34:44,778 --> 00:34:49,130 and probably metabolizing a lot of feelings about Vietnam, 676 00:34:49,261 --> 00:34:51,654 about what it means to be an American, 677 00:34:51,785 --> 00:34:56,094 a patriot, an artist, a weirdo, 678 00:34:56,224 --> 00:34:57,878 all of those things end up in that movie. 679 00:35:11,805 --> 00:35:13,589 The first time I watched Carrie, 680 00:35:13,720 --> 00:35:17,115 my worst fears ever were displayed on screen. 681 00:35:17,245 --> 00:35:19,769 You know, I think growing up as a teenage girl, 682 00:35:19,900 --> 00:35:22,642 the absolute horror of trying to fit in, 683 00:35:22,772 --> 00:35:25,819 of trying to belong amongst your peers is already hard enough. 684 00:35:25,949 --> 00:35:28,474 But to then be sort of like an outcast or a loser 685 00:35:28,604 --> 00:35:30,693 who's then horrifically tricked into feeling 686 00:35:30,824 --> 00:35:32,434 like she finally belongs, 687 00:35:32,565 --> 00:35:35,133 only to be cruelly pranked with pig's blood, 688 00:35:35,263 --> 00:35:38,832 that was not only horrifying, like on a, you know, 689 00:35:38,962 --> 00:35:41,835 horror-genre level, but also horrifying as a human being. 690 00:35:41,965 --> 00:35:46,840 Carrie is just a perfect manifestation of how high school 691 00:35:46,970 --> 00:35:49,234 is a horror movie in and of itself. 692 00:35:54,674 --> 00:35:57,198 It taps into this very, very primal thing 693 00:35:57,329 --> 00:35:59,809 of being in high school and how horrifying 694 00:35:59,940 --> 00:36:02,682 that can be, how terrifying kids can be 695 00:36:02,812 --> 00:36:04,945 to other kids in high school. 696 00:36:09,950 --> 00:36:11,604 I was a child when I saw Carrie, 697 00:36:11,734 --> 00:36:14,128 probably not when it came out, 698 00:36:14,259 --> 00:36:16,609 but when I was old enough to be allowed to see it, 699 00:36:16,739 --> 00:36:18,219 and I was afraid to go to high school, 700 00:36:18,350 --> 00:36:22,528 and it definitely didn't calm my fears at all. 701 00:36:27,315 --> 00:36:29,535 Carrie is cool 'cause that was the first book 702 00:36:29,665 --> 00:36:32,233 that Stephen King ever wrote. 703 00:36:32,364 --> 00:36:35,497 And I think, like, he threw it in the garbage, and his wife 704 00:36:35,628 --> 00:36:36,716 took it out of the garbage. 705 00:36:36,846 --> 00:36:38,631 Did you know that? 706 00:36:38,761 --> 00:36:40,633 Maybe not the whole book, but like a chunk of it, 707 00:36:40,763 --> 00:36:42,678 and thought it was so bad, he threw it in the garbage, 708 00:36:42,809 --> 00:36:45,464 and his wife, like, took it out of the garbage 709 00:36:45,594 --> 00:36:46,813 and was like, "No, no, no, dude." 710 00:36:46,943 --> 00:36:49,816 Carrie was rejected by 30 publishers 711 00:36:49,946 --> 00:36:55,082 before it was released in 1974, becoming a runaway bestseller 712 00:36:55,213 --> 00:36:59,260 and catching the attention of director Brian De Palma. 713 00:36:59,391 --> 00:37:02,698 This story has resonated with generations of women 714 00:37:02,829 --> 00:37:04,874 looking for ways to harness their power 715 00:37:05,005 --> 00:37:07,703 when they felt they were at their most powerless. 716 00:37:07,834 --> 00:37:09,966 Carrie was quintessential to my generation, 717 00:37:10,097 --> 00:37:12,752 and I loved it because, as opposed to Rosemary's Baby, 718 00:37:12,882 --> 00:37:15,276 where it's about a woman who has no agency over her body, 719 00:37:15,407 --> 00:37:18,714 Carrie is all about this girl who is 720 00:37:18,845 --> 00:37:20,934 coming into her own power while she's getting 721 00:37:21,064 --> 00:37:22,588 supernatural powers and how she's going to 722 00:37:22,718 --> 00:37:26,548 take agency off her identity and take control over her body. 723 00:37:26,679 --> 00:37:29,203 But in the most precarious time there is, 724 00:37:29,334 --> 00:37:30,639 which is when you're going through puberty 725 00:37:30,770 --> 00:37:33,642 as a teenage girl. 726 00:37:33,773 --> 00:37:35,601 My favorite scene of that that I feel like encapsulates 727 00:37:35,731 --> 00:37:37,994 the movie is when-- you know, she's 16, she's 17, 728 00:37:38,125 --> 00:37:40,649 she's in the shower, she gets her period for the first time. 729 00:37:40,780 --> 00:37:43,173 Isn't she a bit old for her, uh... 730 00:37:43,304 --> 00:37:45,175 Her first period. 731 00:37:45,306 --> 00:37:47,352 And then she's mocked mercilessly. 732 00:37:47,482 --> 00:37:48,396 But I don't know why that should surprise us. 733 00:37:48,527 --> 00:37:51,965 I mean, knowing that mother of hers. 734 00:37:52,095 --> 00:37:54,620 And I thought the sort of thematic structure 735 00:37:54,750 --> 00:37:57,275 of showcasing this is the moment she becomes a woman, 736 00:37:57,405 --> 00:37:59,886 only to be completely rejected by her peers 737 00:38:00,016 --> 00:38:02,454 and then have them pretend to love her. 738 00:38:04,978 --> 00:38:07,328 And then dump blood on her. 739 00:38:11,941 --> 00:38:13,595 I was like, "Wow, this is every 740 00:38:13,726 --> 00:38:15,989 teenage nightmare brought to life." 741 00:38:16,119 --> 00:38:19,384 And the fact that she has powers and then can take control 742 00:38:19,514 --> 00:38:21,777 and give those motherfuckers what they had coming to them, 743 00:38:21,908 --> 00:38:24,040 I was like, "This is a villain I'm rooting for now. 744 00:38:24,171 --> 00:38:26,173 I want her to murder all of them." 745 00:38:31,047 --> 00:38:32,919 Carrie was sort of the first time you had a movie 746 00:38:33,049 --> 00:38:37,140 where your protagonist was also your antagonist, so to speak, 747 00:38:37,271 --> 00:38:40,318 and you sympathized with Carrie as a young teenage girl 748 00:38:40,448 --> 00:38:41,580 trying to find her way through the world. 749 00:38:41,710 --> 00:38:44,234 We're all sorry about this incident, Cassie. 750 00:38:44,365 --> 00:38:46,672 It's Carrie! 751 00:38:49,762 --> 00:38:52,025 But then you are also terrified of her ability. 752 00:38:52,155 --> 00:38:53,679 Please sit and talk to me! 753 00:39:00,468 --> 00:39:04,254 And that movie is so special because it's like a female 754 00:39:04,385 --> 00:39:06,692 lead character who has super powers. 755 00:39:10,609 --> 00:39:11,523 Ah! 756 00:39:18,530 --> 00:39:21,097 I guess someone who maybe got bullied in high school 757 00:39:21,228 --> 00:39:22,969 like plays into our fantasies of like, 758 00:39:23,099 --> 00:39:24,840 what if I could do that? 759 00:39:24,971 --> 00:39:27,365 Carrie came along at a time when 760 00:39:27,495 --> 00:39:31,673 internalized misogyny was ingrained in our culture. 761 00:39:31,804 --> 00:39:33,936 The scene where Carrie's protector blames her 762 00:39:34,067 --> 00:39:35,982 for not fitting in reflects 763 00:39:36,112 --> 00:39:38,419 a brutal reality for too many women, 764 00:39:38,550 --> 00:39:42,336 a world in which they're not just preyed upon by men, 765 00:39:42,467 --> 00:39:44,991 but are pitted against each other. 766 00:39:45,121 --> 00:39:49,822 The coach wants to help Carrie, and you see her say, you know, 767 00:39:49,952 --> 00:39:51,998 "If you put on a little mascara 768 00:39:52,128 --> 00:39:54,000 and we get you a beautiful dress, 769 00:39:54,130 --> 00:39:55,871 you know, you're just going to be so beautiful." 770 00:39:56,002 --> 00:40:00,702 And that's a pretty girl. Look at your eyes. 771 00:40:00,833 --> 00:40:03,966 Little mascara to bring it out. Little. 772 00:40:04,097 --> 00:40:06,273 Your lips. Try some lipstick. 773 00:40:06,404 --> 00:40:07,709 You have nice, pretty lips. 774 00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,016 And in some respects, a lot of what she's saying 775 00:40:10,146 --> 00:40:13,367 is uncomfortably mirroring the world 776 00:40:13,498 --> 00:40:15,108 that Carrie's in in the first place, 777 00:40:15,238 --> 00:40:16,631 where it's kind of all about, 778 00:40:16,762 --> 00:40:20,418 well, if you were just pretty, it would all get simpler. 779 00:40:20,548 --> 00:40:23,943 And that is then met by the fact that she, too, 780 00:40:24,073 --> 00:40:28,730 is, consciously or not, brutally killed in that gym. 781 00:40:28,861 --> 00:40:30,689 Carrie! 782 00:40:35,607 --> 00:40:38,392 Oddly enough, the film says that being a teenage girl 783 00:40:38,523 --> 00:40:40,742 is really fucking hard 784 00:40:40,873 --> 00:40:44,529 and that anyone who has the sort of callousness 785 00:40:44,659 --> 00:40:48,010 to reject people or bully people who otherwise don't deserve it 786 00:40:48,141 --> 00:40:49,838 should probably be killed. 787 00:40:49,969 --> 00:40:52,928 Carrie, for instance, is a story 788 00:40:53,059 --> 00:40:54,887 about a young girl with a secret, 789 00:40:55,017 --> 00:40:56,845 and it's a great source of shame and guilt for her. 790 00:40:56,976 --> 00:40:59,021 And she can't let anybody know. 791 00:40:59,152 --> 00:41:01,502 And she lives in terror of her classmates finding out about it. 792 00:41:01,633 --> 00:41:04,462 And, I mean, Stephen King even gave us a religious mother 793 00:41:04,592 --> 00:41:06,899 who's trying to pray it out of her. 794 00:41:07,029 --> 00:41:09,902 I mean, what better allegory for being gay? 795 00:41:10,032 --> 00:41:13,514 You know, and also, I think for me as a gay man, 796 00:41:13,645 --> 00:41:16,343 I always bonded with the final girl 797 00:41:16,474 --> 00:41:18,606 because she's such a survivor. 798 00:41:18,737 --> 00:41:22,741 But she's also the one who has to fight for her life. 799 00:41:22,871 --> 00:41:23,916 And what gay man doesn't understand 800 00:41:24,046 --> 00:41:26,092 the daily struggle of survival? 801 00:41:26,222 --> 00:41:27,441 Certainly for me, growing up a small town, 802 00:41:27,572 --> 00:41:29,095 it was all about survival. 803 00:41:29,225 --> 00:41:31,837 So I truly bonded with the final girl 804 00:41:31,967 --> 00:41:33,621 of all these horror movies. 805 00:41:33,752 --> 00:41:36,624 That's why I think I fell in love with Jamie Lee Curtis. 806 00:41:44,589 --> 00:41:47,156 I did a TV series for a year called 807 00:41:47,287 --> 00:41:49,855 Operation Petticoat, and then I was fired. 808 00:41:54,642 --> 00:41:57,036 I thought my life was over. It was a disaster. 809 00:41:57,166 --> 00:41:58,428 I was devastated. 810 00:41:58,559 --> 00:42:02,520 My manager said, 811 00:42:02,650 --> 00:42:05,827 "There's this low-budget horror film being made. 812 00:42:05,958 --> 00:42:07,960 I've put you up for it." 813 00:42:08,090 --> 00:42:10,049 They wanted to meet me for Laurie, 814 00:42:10,179 --> 00:42:16,403 the quiet, intellectual, virgin, brainiac babysitter. 815 00:42:16,534 --> 00:42:19,319 I auditioned three times. 816 00:42:19,449 --> 00:42:22,278 The auditions took place in John's office. 817 00:42:22,409 --> 00:42:23,541 The third audition, I did the scene 818 00:42:23,671 --> 00:42:25,499 where Laurie's on the phone with her friends. 819 00:42:25,630 --> 00:42:27,980 Annie, was that you? 820 00:42:28,110 --> 00:42:29,590 Of course. 821 00:42:29,721 --> 00:42:31,157 Why didn't you say anything? You scared me to death. 822 00:42:31,287 --> 00:42:32,680 And then she hangs up, 823 00:42:32,811 --> 00:42:33,768 and then she looks out the window and sees Michael. 824 00:42:33,899 --> 00:42:35,465 And then she talks to herself and says, 825 00:42:35,596 --> 00:42:39,121 you know, "Don't be ridiculous, this is ridiculous" whatever. 826 00:42:39,252 --> 00:42:42,734 And then somehow I got it. 827 00:42:42,864 --> 00:42:45,911 Jamie Lee Curtis, she was perfect for the role. 828 00:42:46,041 --> 00:42:47,739 She was absolutely ready to go. 829 00:42:53,179 --> 00:42:56,182 She's really a fine actress. And I'm really proud of her. 830 00:42:56,312 --> 00:42:59,054 All I knew was that it was a part that my name was on 831 00:42:59,185 --> 00:43:02,144 every page and that I got to actually not be me. 832 00:43:02,275 --> 00:43:03,493 So I got to actually create a character. 833 00:43:03,624 --> 00:43:04,538 So I was thrilled about that. 834 00:43:04,669 --> 00:43:06,758 What about the boogeyman? 835 00:43:06,888 --> 00:43:07,846 There's no such thing. 836 00:43:07,976 --> 00:43:11,632 Halloween is an iconic film, 837 00:43:11,763 --> 00:43:13,721 hugely successful, both at the box office 838 00:43:13,852 --> 00:43:18,378 and as an influence on horror films to follow. 839 00:43:18,508 --> 00:43:23,818 The slasher movie often depicted sexualized teenagers 840 00:43:23,949 --> 00:43:25,603 on the run from a faceless, 841 00:43:25,733 --> 00:43:31,565 deranged killer brandishing a knife, chainsaw, or ax. 842 00:43:31,696 --> 00:43:35,047 But Halloween deepened the mythology 843 00:43:35,177 --> 00:43:41,401 and planted its psychosexual horrors directly in suburbia, 844 00:43:41,531 --> 00:43:44,578 exactly where much of America was living. 845 00:43:44,709 --> 00:43:47,059 And as with all things Hollywood, 846 00:43:47,189 --> 00:43:49,191 a wave of slasher movies hoping to be 847 00:43:49,322 --> 00:43:52,455 the next Halloween soon followed. 848 00:43:52,586 --> 00:43:57,286 But Halloween represented something new at that point. 849 00:43:57,417 --> 00:43:59,288 Think about your average horror movie, right? 850 00:43:59,419 --> 00:44:02,248 Not the high concept ones were the devil's involved 851 00:44:02,378 --> 00:44:04,163 or special effects and stuff like that. 852 00:44:04,293 --> 00:44:06,644 Something as simple as like, 853 00:44:06,774 --> 00:44:10,125 hey, this lady's babysitting and her friends are 854 00:44:10,256 --> 00:44:13,346 babysitting, and a psycho has come to town. 855 00:44:13,476 --> 00:44:15,348 And he's gonna peer in their windows 856 00:44:15,478 --> 00:44:17,567 and then maybe go in and kill them in interesting ways. 857 00:44:22,747 --> 00:44:25,271 That don't fucking cost anything. 858 00:44:25,401 --> 00:44:27,055 We didn't have any money for Halloween. 859 00:44:27,186 --> 00:44:29,144 We didn't have anything. 860 00:44:29,275 --> 00:44:31,625 So we had to decide what to do about this mask. 861 00:44:31,756 --> 00:44:33,627 It was written as a Halloween mask, 862 00:44:33,758 --> 00:44:36,108 but it was written as a blank face. 863 00:44:36,238 --> 00:44:38,980 So Tommy Lee Wallace, the art director, 864 00:44:39,111 --> 00:44:41,156 went up to Bert Wheeler's Magic Shop 865 00:44:41,287 --> 00:44:43,985 on Hollywood Boulevard and bought a mask. 866 00:44:44,116 --> 00:44:46,422 It was a Captain Kirk mask. 867 00:44:46,553 --> 00:44:48,860 Looked nothing like Captain Kirk, okay? 868 00:44:48,990 --> 00:44:53,038 But spray painted it white and fooled around with the hair, 869 00:44:53,168 --> 00:44:55,170 and that's the mask. 870 00:44:55,301 --> 00:44:58,173 Let's put him in a white mask, 871 00:44:58,304 --> 00:45:03,526 which is human, but it has zero human features 872 00:45:03,657 --> 00:45:08,314 so that it becomes the thing you project your own fear on to. 873 00:45:08,444 --> 00:45:10,708 You've been told about him. 874 00:45:10,838 --> 00:45:14,276 He is the essence of evil. He's pure evil. 875 00:45:14,407 --> 00:45:17,323 And now we know that, and let's collide 876 00:45:17,453 --> 00:45:20,674 Laurie Strode and Michael Myers. 877 00:45:20,805 --> 00:45:26,158 And I think that's why it was so good. 878 00:45:26,288 --> 00:45:29,074 It's an absence of humanity in a human. 879 00:45:29,204 --> 00:45:32,730 That's the whole essence of evil. 880 00:45:32,860 --> 00:45:35,167 You strip the humanity away in the human being, 881 00:45:35,297 --> 00:45:37,212 and that's what you get, is evil. 882 00:45:37,909 --> 00:45:42,087 John and Debra sat there together and went, 883 00:45:42,217 --> 00:45:47,788 Okay, what's the most ubiquitous image of Americana 884 00:45:47,919 --> 00:45:53,272 of a smalltown life but a high school girl 885 00:45:53,402 --> 00:45:58,407 who's a virgin, who's smart, who's a babysitter, 886 00:45:58,538 --> 00:46:07,242 and let's collide her with the most evil creature 887 00:46:07,373 --> 00:46:09,505 we can come up with. 888 00:46:09,636 --> 00:46:11,159 Michael! 889 00:46:11,290 --> 00:46:14,554 A child who murdered his sister. 890 00:46:14,684 --> 00:46:17,339 Michael? 891 00:46:17,470 --> 00:46:19,994 It's even more terrifying if the movie you're shooting 892 00:46:20,125 --> 00:46:21,474 looks like the real world. 893 00:46:21,604 --> 00:46:23,563 You know, when you looked at the movies of the '50s, 894 00:46:23,693 --> 00:46:25,608 they were shot on back lots and stuff. 895 00:46:25,739 --> 00:46:28,568 So there's a separation from the material for the audience. 896 00:46:28,698 --> 00:46:29,699 When you're looking at Halloween, you're like, 897 00:46:29,830 --> 00:46:31,266 "That looks like my neighborhood. 898 00:46:31,397 --> 00:46:33,878 That looks like a house that's down the street from me." 899 00:46:34,008 --> 00:46:36,271 So the more you can reflect the real world, 900 00:46:36,402 --> 00:46:39,231 the more terrifying I think you can make it for people. 901 00:46:39,361 --> 00:46:41,102 And I think that's what Carpenter 902 00:46:41,233 --> 00:46:42,625 did best with Halloween. 903 00:46:42,756 --> 00:46:44,802 - Bye. - Bye. 904 00:46:44,932 --> 00:46:48,240 There's a very simple effect on Halloween 905 00:46:48,370 --> 00:46:51,591 where the camera will linger in the distance and watch somebody. 906 00:46:54,202 --> 00:46:55,508 Fucking scary. 907 00:46:55,638 --> 00:46:57,336 And it's also like, well, what's going to happen? 908 00:46:57,466 --> 00:46:59,294 Like, well, who is that? What are they doing? 909 00:46:59,425 --> 00:47:01,166 Are they going to move in there soon? 910 00:47:01,296 --> 00:47:02,384 You know? 911 00:47:02,515 --> 00:47:05,170 All of it is unnerving. 912 00:47:05,300 --> 00:47:07,825 Silence is very important in horror. 913 00:47:10,262 --> 00:47:12,699 Be quiet before the horror strikes you, 914 00:47:12,830 --> 00:47:14,222 and it will be frightening. 915 00:47:16,703 --> 00:47:20,315 The music-- well, the theme came from something my father 916 00:47:20,446 --> 00:47:22,578 taught me when I was younger, when I was 13, 917 00:47:22,709 --> 00:47:25,668 this 5/4 time on a pair of bongos. 918 00:47:25,799 --> 00:47:30,717 And I just picked up the time and played around the piano. 919 00:47:34,721 --> 00:47:36,549 When you hear "a low-budget film," 920 00:47:36,679 --> 00:47:39,987 you don't have any money for an orchestra or a composer. 921 00:47:40,118 --> 00:47:43,338 I had three days, so I did the score for Halloween. 922 00:47:45,558 --> 00:47:47,995 John was very clear what he wanted. 923 00:47:48,126 --> 00:47:51,477 He kept saying, "I want her to be really vulnerable." 924 00:47:51,607 --> 00:47:54,567 Now, I was 19 and uneducated, 925 00:47:54,697 --> 00:47:57,526 so I actually thought the word "vulnerable" meant "weak." 926 00:47:57,657 --> 00:48:00,399 I just like associated the word "vulnerable" with "weak." 927 00:48:00,529 --> 00:48:04,229 And I was kind of like, "I don't really want to be weak, John." 928 00:48:04,359 --> 00:48:08,102 When I saw the movie for the first time in a theater 929 00:48:08,233 --> 00:48:09,625 after the movie had come out... 930 00:48:09,756 --> 00:48:11,889 Hello? 931 00:48:12,019 --> 00:48:15,022 ...when Laurie gets the call from her friend, 932 00:48:15,153 --> 00:48:16,937 she's being strangled, she thinks she's playing a joke, 933 00:48:17,068 --> 00:48:20,245 she goes up and checks on the kids, 934 00:48:20,375 --> 00:48:22,464 and then she leaves the house. 935 00:48:22,595 --> 00:48:25,380 And it's that wonderful Steadicam shot going 936 00:48:25,511 --> 00:48:27,992 back and forth, either the P.O.V. of Laurie 937 00:48:28,122 --> 00:48:32,387 or the shot on her as she's walking across the windy street 938 00:48:32,518 --> 00:48:35,825 with the prop guy throwing the only dry leaves 939 00:48:35,956 --> 00:48:38,350 we had kind of next to the camera, 940 00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:42,180 you know, that beautiful sequence. 941 00:48:42,310 --> 00:48:44,399 It really builds the tension because you, 942 00:48:44,530 --> 00:48:47,707 the audience knows what's happened in the house. 943 00:48:47,837 --> 00:48:48,708 Laurie doesn't. 944 00:48:48,838 --> 00:48:50,710 And in the middle of that walk, 945 00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:53,060 a woman in a crowded theater in Hollywood 946 00:48:53,191 --> 00:48:58,326 stood up and screamed, "Girl, don't go in there! 947 00:48:58,457 --> 00:49:00,807 There's a killer in there!" 948 00:49:00,938 --> 00:49:04,071 And the audience was screaming. 949 00:49:04,202 --> 00:49:08,467 And I realized in that moment that's what John meant, 950 00:49:08,597 --> 00:49:12,036 that you cared about her and you didn't want her to go in there. 951 00:49:12,166 --> 00:49:13,863 And that's all that he wanted to create. 952 00:49:18,999 --> 00:49:20,958 Jamie Lee Curtis is the ultimate final girl 953 00:49:21,088 --> 00:49:23,221 'cause she was the final girl in a handful of 954 00:49:23,351 --> 00:49:25,223 Halloween movies and Prom Night 955 00:49:25,353 --> 00:49:26,398 and fucking Terror Train. 956 00:49:26,528 --> 00:49:28,661 You know, that was her genre. 957 00:49:28,791 --> 00:49:32,578 She was our first horror movie star of our generation. 958 00:49:32,708 --> 00:49:34,972 You know, I guess if you consider 959 00:49:35,102 --> 00:49:37,844 the black-and-white era, Fay Wray in King Kong 960 00:49:37,975 --> 00:49:40,934 to be the genre's star. 961 00:49:41,065 --> 00:49:43,632 And then later on, Jamie Lee Curtis' mother, 962 00:49:43,763 --> 00:49:47,071 Janet Leigh, in Psycho, as the lady in the shower. 963 00:49:49,116 --> 00:49:52,598 I think final girls are unwitting heroines. 964 00:49:52,728 --> 00:49:56,341 They started out that day being something else, 965 00:49:56,471 --> 00:49:59,039 and they end up a final girl. 966 00:49:59,170 --> 00:50:02,347 All I know is that Laurie Strode woke up that morning 967 00:50:02,477 --> 00:50:04,697 worrying about her chem final, 968 00:50:04,827 --> 00:50:08,309 worrying about the fact that a boy didn't ask her to prom, 969 00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:11,617 worrying about, like, teenage girl stuff. 970 00:50:11,747 --> 00:50:16,448 And by the end of that night, she became a warrior. 971 00:50:28,808 --> 00:50:30,462 She didn't intend to be a warrior. 972 00:50:30,592 --> 00:50:32,420 She didn't want to be a warrior. 973 00:50:32,551 --> 00:50:34,640 She ended up a warrior. 974 00:50:35,684 --> 00:50:39,775 They personified evil with this omniscient force 975 00:50:39,906 --> 00:50:41,995 that could not be fucking stopped. 976 00:50:42,126 --> 00:50:43,562 You can throw bullets at these fuckers, 977 00:50:43,692 --> 00:50:46,782 man, throw off roofs and shit, like, they can't be stopped. 978 00:50:46,913 --> 00:50:48,958 Like death. They're relentless. 979 00:50:49,089 --> 00:50:50,656 Once you get into shit like that, 980 00:50:50,786 --> 00:50:52,223 you can start doing slasher movies. 981 00:50:54,051 --> 00:50:55,574 Was that the boogeyman? 982 00:50:57,576 --> 00:51:00,057 As a matter of fact, it was.