Eli Roth's History of Horror (2018) s01e03 Episode Script
Slashers Part 2
[bell rings]
With the slasher films,
the rock stars
are the killers.
You don't know what pain is!
- [screams]
- Everybody has this dark side
that needs to be filled.
West used to call Freddy
the bastard stepfather
of us all.
This killer that can kill you
in your dreams.
Candyman.
It doesn't get much scarier
than that.
Be my victim.
You're never gonna
catch him.
- Everybody's a suspect.
- [screams]
I think the fun of "Scream"
is the self-awareness
Oh, you wanna play
psycho killer?
And the deconstruction
of the horror genre.
- [grunts]
- [screams]
- [gunshot]
- The entire audience
jumped out of their skin.
In a movie,
we have a chance to
almost externalize
the fears that we have.
[screams]
Could I saw off my leg
if I had to?
We invented a whole new term.
Torture porn became
the cathartic release.
You have to work
with the dark side.
Horror is the only genre
where it's flattering
if somebody says,
"Ah, I couldn't watch
your movie.
Had to leave."
[screams]
Oh, my God!
We're not allowed to be
scared anywhere in life.
You can't be scared at work.
But for 90 minutes,
you can be afraid
and not be a coward.
[screams]
[suspenseful music]
♪♪
[chain saw revs]
After John Carpenter's
"Halloween"
made box office history
in 1978,
slasher films
ruled the screen.
[yelps]
But by 1984,
audience fatigue
and critical backlash
had taken hold.
Slashers looked dead
in the water.
But the genre
was only sleeping.
I'm certainly not the first
girl to play a woman character
who fights to the death
in a battle against a monster.
There will always be men
and there will always be women
who are, you know,
forced to be that person.
So "Nightmare on Elm Street"
is about a group of four kids,
teenagers, who realize
that they've all shared
the same nightmare.
- Eee.
- Nancy
you dreamed about
the same creep I did.
That's impossible.
And they don't really think
anything about it
until each one of them,
one by one,
starts dying in their dreams.
No. No. No!
No!
No!
[screams]
My character wants
to figure out,
like, why this is happening,
who it is that's killing them.
And so the movie's about
Nancy's quest
to discover Freddy Krueger
and why he did it.
[growls]
He did it as an act
of vengeance against
some vigilante parents
who killed him
in a boiler room.
Who are you?
Freddy Krueger
was a child murderer,
and there isn't anything funny
about that.
They kind of gloss over
that later.
[laughing]
The creation
of Freddy Krueger,
this man who had knives
for fingers
who would come to children
in their dreams
and kill them,
was terrifying.
It was just a terrifying idea.
[eerie music]
[gasps]
I mean,
"Nightmare on Elm Street"
is the next quantum leap
forward,
- I think, in horror.
- Yeah, definitely.
I mean, this killer
that can kill you
- in your dreams.
- Yeah.
So suddenly you have
a slasher whose arm
It crosses
into the supernatural.
It crosses into
the supernatural, yeah.
It is a blend
of supernatural and slashers.
The rules of any sort
of world don't apply.
- Right.
- I think that's what made
Freddy Krueger
such a unique character.
[shrieks]
[screaming]
[growling]
It just took us
to a different place.
Yeah. Yeah.
[screams]
Wes Craven was a visionary,
I think,
in terms of fear,
understanding what that
what that could be
and maximizing that
in these broad strokes,
which "Nightmare
on Elm Street" has.
What is one
of the earliest things
I can think of as a weapon
that would have terrified
human beings?
The cave bear reaching around
the corner
with his massive mitt
with daggers on the end
of every finger.
That's primal.
[metal screeches]
Even the colors.
I read an article on
the two most difficult colors
for the iris or the retina
to see next to each other
were those two colors.
And then finding an actor
who was brilliant
and who could bring it to life.
[eerie ambient music]
Wes used to call Freddy
the bastard stepfather
of us all.
But when I got the part,
I didn't know
what I was gonna do.
And the makeup sessions
informed
a lot of what I did.
They were dabbing at me
with a crusty brush
and basting me
like a turkey
with Vaseline so that I
picked up the light better.
And in comes Johnny Depp
and Heather Langenkamp,
arguably the two most
attractive young people
in the world at that moment,
and it got me angry and envious
of their youth and their beauty
and the fact
that these two kids
had their whole careers
ahead of them.
And I went, "Wait a minute.
I can use that."
This is just a dream!
He isn't real!
- He isn't real!
- [roars]
- [screaming]
- [laughing]
Of course, all my fights
with Freddy
were fantastic,
and we would work on them
for a long time.
Once the camera was rolling,
you know, we got into
our characters,
and I bashed him over the head
with a coffeepot.
[chuckles]
- [glass shatters]
- [groans painfully]
I think the real reason
it had
such a massive audience
and still does
is, every single one
of the films
has a really strong,
well-written survivor girl.
Come out and show yourself,
you bastard!
So something
really interesting
about Nancy Thompson
in "A Nightmare on Elm Street"
is that it's sort of her
breaking free
from this chain of suburbia
being this ideal
because her family is broken.
Nancy.
I'm gonna go
and get the guy who did it.
And I want you to be there
to arrest him
when I bring him out, okay?
Just tell me who did it.
I'll go get him, baby.
Fred Krueger did it, Daddy.
Her father,
while, I think, very loving,
is very inept.
He refuses to believe her.
Her mother's an alcoholic.
She breaks free from it
by destroying the home,
thereby destroying
Freddy Krueger,
who came because her parents
had killed him.
[gasps]
[string thwacks]
[screams]
I guess I'd say my very first
fans were young gay men.
And they told me
that they were using Nancy
as they faced their folks
or their parents
or their families
in revealing their true selves.
I take back every bit
of energy I gave you.
You're nothing.
And they expressed to me
that it was just, like
it was their Freddy, you know,
just, like, that scary thing
that they have to face,
that they have to fight.
I would often listen
to all sorts of people
talk about what
their Freddy was.
And, I mean,
it can be anything,
I'm telling you.
It can be anything.
Kids who were bullied
would tell me
that they would use the images
of "Nightmare on Elm Street"
to help them face bullies
in their life.
You think you was gonna
get away from me?
I know you too well now,
Freddy.
You know, Wes Craven
probably never knew
how many he people
he was gonna help
by creating this Nancy-Freddy
dynamic.
[roaring]
[screams]
It seems to me
there were several
peak nightmares,
that the first one
was really terrifying,
but there was a couple others
way downstream
that were really satisfying
and did interesting things
intellectually.
[screams]
There's a lot of echoes
to Kafka,
you know, and that,
insects and other things.
[screaming]
Freddy Krueger's
pretty terrifying
in the first
"Nightmare on Elm Street."
Watch this.
But he became
a one-line reader.
How's this for a wet dream?
[laughs]
[groans]
Silly, funny, like, puns
and double entendres.
[laughs]
This is it, Jennifer.
- Your big break in TV.
- [screams]
Welcome to prime time, bitch.
[screams]
With a joke here,
a joke there,
a wisecrack here, there,
it makes it easier
to set them up
for another dark sequence
or another horrific thing
or just a cheap-thrill scare.
- [gasps]
- Got your nose!
Did we go too far sometimes?
Perhaps.
And did we load it up
too much?
Sometimes, perhaps, yeah.
I'll get you, my pretty,
and your little soul too.
[laughs]
You know, I've been,
you know,
listening to
what how crowds respond
to horror
for most of my life.
You know, talking about
sort of
with the Freddy movies,
with the Freddy sequels
- Mm-hmm.
- How a black theater could
You know, the relationship
to Freddy
is almost is closer
than it is to the victims
- of those movies.
- Of course.
- Right? Of course.
- You identify with Freddy.
He's funny.
You identify with him.
There's you know him.
You don't know
these new mother[bleep]
coming to get killed.
- Right.
- They're just sheep
for the slaughter.
No!
By the way,
we're identifying with Freddy,
the child murderer.
Yes, but black people
also love them some Jason
- Yes.
- And some Michael Myers.
[screams]
No!
[screaming]
There's something
about these
first of all, these characters
that don't give a [bleep]
- Mm-hmm.
- That are cold-blooded
[dramatic music]
That I think scratches
an itch,
a frustrated itch,
a societally frustrated itch.
[screams]
That itch
would be scratched
by a slasher with a hook,
a monster driven by love
and the need to kill.
Be my victim.
[eerie music]
Candyman.
Candyman.
Candyman.
"Candyman," in a nutshell,
is a dark love story.
Virginia Madsen and I
were deeply in love
in another life.
Candyman was an artist,
and unfortunately
her father was a racist.
Had him lynched,
cut off his arm,
and replaced it with a hook.
And he was trying
to reclaim his lost love
by getting her to honor,
you know,
him as a mystery man.
[groans]
[blow lands]
[gagging]
Oh! [bleep]!
[screaming]
What "Candyman" tried to do
was using slavery
and some of the violence
of slavery
to explain the emergence
of this monstrous character
who, if you say his name
into a mirror five times
Dare you.
both: Candyman.
Candyman.
Candyman.
Candyman.
He comes if you just say
his name.
Candyman.
It doesn't get much scarier
than that.
[screams]
Most slasher films
start with
a traumatic experience
that happens
as, like, a sort of a
precursor to where the film
is set in modern day.
The trauma itself serves
as a triggering effect
for the killer
in the present time.
What's so interesting
about that is that
a lot of it is based
in loss and grief.
- [gasping]
- [grunts]
It had a real impact
on a lot of audiences.
Black audiences because, hey,
even though
he's the monster
- [screams]
- Believe in me.
Be my victim.
We will turn out to see
blacks in a horror film.
It was based
on Clive Barker's book
"The Forbidden."
And I think what Bernard Rose,
the director and writer,
did brilliantly
was to transpose it
to Cabrini-Green,
which is now gone
but was one of the most
dangerous housing projects
in America.
I thought "Candyman"
was really cool
because, you know,
you're so used to seeing
these traditional
haunted house movies,
and it's, like, the opposite.
The setting is so gritty.
[eerie ambient music]
I think "Candyman"
is intended more
for a white audience.
It's looking at kind of
the fear of the urban setting,
and Cabrini-Green
and the sprawl
of poverty in Chicago
and what might
come out of that.
[camera shutter clicks]
♪♪
Damn it.
One of the brilliant things
about the film
is that he doesn't appear
until 45 minutes into
into the film.
He's spoken about.
They mytholize him.
Everybody's scared.
He he could come right through
these walls, you know.
I-I'm scared.
Scared for my child.
They ain't never gonna
catch him.
Who?
Candyman.
I think some audiences
were troubled
because so many of the people
he killed were black.
So if it was
a straight revenge story,
he would have been
killing nothing
but white people, right?
But the residents
of this project
were also his victims.
[screaming]
[flesh tearing]
[grunting]
If you were to explain,
"Well, it's about
this black dude who was
"murdered for having sex
with a white lady,
"and then he comes back
and hunts the white lady
and lots of other people too,"
you'd be like,
"Nah, I don't think
we're gonna make that movie."
You know what I mean?
But somehow,
through his level
of magnetism and charm,
he manages
to make Candyman someone
I don't know if they love him,
but who they love to fear.
♪♪
Be my victim.
♪♪
Be my victim.
He's got a passion.
He wants what he wants.
And this
is his unrequited love.
This is the woman
that got away,
the woman that he cherished,
you know?
And it happens to be
in a horrific environment,
but, you know,
he'd do anything for her.
Even kill her
if they can die together.
Your death would be a tale
to frighten children,
to make lovers cling closer
in their rapture.
Come with me
and be immortal.
[groans painfully]
I think that mixture
of terror and empathy
is very powerful.
Every great work
of horror fiction
is an exercise
in extreme empathy.
It's about falling in love
with characters
and then staying with them
as they endure the worst.
[screams]
- No!
- And he's an iconic monster.
He had bees
coming out of his mouth.
He had bees all over his face.
[screams]
We used over 100,000 bees
on that set.
It was all practicals,
which is you know,
totally makes a difference.
I think I got maybe 26 stings
altogether,
but they were
an essential part to
creating the terror
for the situation.
You know,
what happens to a ghost
if he's still living flesh?
Will he be inhabited
by maggots?
Well, then we chose bees
'cause
they're just that you know,
every kid is afraid
of a bee sting.
You know, there's nothing
ambiguous about horror.
Horror is an engine.
It's like
a great white shark.
It has a purpose,
something it wants to do.
It wants to scare you.
And in that way,
that lack of ambiguity
is really freeing
as a filmmaker
'cause you know
what you're trying to do.
[mob chanting angrily]
Help! Help me!
It's a beautiful thing
to play with,
and it's even more beautiful
thing when it works.
[screams]
Candyman is an icon,
one of the great
supernatural monsters.
But the masked serial killer
was ready to make a comeback
with a postmodern twist.
Slashers kind of go away
for a while.
Like, once we're sort of
out of weapons
[chain saw revs]
[groans painfully]
I think the public starts
to get bored of it.
Well, there were so
and there were so many sequels.
And they were always
diminishing returns.
Exactly, and they were never
about being scary.
And then "Scream" comes along.
[dramatic music]
♪♪
[grunts]
[eerie ambient music]
My whole goal
when writing "Scream" was,
I wanted a horror movie
to sort of
live and breathe
in a time
where the other horror movies
existed.
If you were the only suspect
in a senseless bloodbath
would you be standing
in the horror section?
Kevin was smart enough
to make it
not about the filmmakers
and the actors
but about the audience.
"Scream" is the story
of Sidney Prescott.
And it's one year after
the horrific murder
of her mother.
Just when she's about to have
some semblance
of her normal life,
just when she's starting
to trust again
and she's starting
to date again
and she's got her boyfriend,
on the anniversary
of her mother's death,
murders start occurring
as it looks like perhaps
someone takes their love
of scary movies too far.
[screaming]
And they start using
horror movie lingo
as a way to stalk
and kill victims.
You never told me your name.
Why do you want to know
my name?
'Cause I want to know
who I'm looking at.
What did you say?
The opening of "Scream"
is so iconic at this point.
And it's so masterfully done.
That is Wes Craven
at the height of his career.
It happens. Take it easy.
[telephone rings]
The thing about Wes Craven
is that the scary stuff
comes instinctive to him.
And I think he has
a really great eye
and a sensibility to stage it
and to craft it.
The tracking shots
behind Drew Barrymore
as she just sort of walks
through this very
this shadowed house and she
moves in and out of light,
it beautifully sets the pace.
You know,
when to dutch the angle,
when to you know,
when to pull back,
when to go wide,
when to go close.
The interesting thing
about that is,
you have
at that time, certainly
your most famous cast member
dying right away.
So it really sort of tells
an audience,
"You have no idea
what to expect."
When I auditioned for it,
there were two
very different scenes.
There was one of this loving,
caring boyfriend,
and then there was one
of this psychopath.
[eerie ambient music]
We all go a little mad
sometimes.
- No, Billy!
- Oh, [bleep].
- [gunshot]
- [screams]
Wes really wanted
to see
somebody who could
who could convincingly play
both sides of that.
[crying]
Billy's the killer.
And you got to believe fully
that he's the killer
so much so that you go,
"Oh, there's no way
he's the killer."
I wanted to sort of take
the genre, rip it apart,
open it up.
There's a formula to it,
a very simple formula.
Everybody's a suspect.
When you talk about
the tone of "Scream,"
I think what
he's so successful at
is balancing that horror comedy
that we don't see so often
pulled off very well.
Damn little [].
What'd you call me?
- Huh?
- Not you, Fred.
I was quite against it
at the time.
I thought, "Wow, I thought
I was in a documentary
"about a serial killer
"and they're playing this,
you know, for laughs."
[metal groans]
Wes found the right balance
and the tone
through the editorial process,
but I do remember
we were like,
"Should he be falling down
that much?"
He's kind of, like,
the clumsiest killer alive.
And we were always
worried about
that skirt he was wearing,
you know,
how silly that would look.
But it all seemed to work out.
Yeah, at the beginning,
they wanted me to come meet
for Skeet's role, Billy.
I didn't do anything.
Do you wish to give up
your right
to speak to an attorney
and have him present
But the role of Dewey,
I thought it was so funny.
He was written as, like,
this big, buff, like,
meathead.
And I was like,
"I think I could bring
a different meathead
quality to it."
People treat me like
I'm the antichrist
of television journalism.
I don't think
you're that bad.
No?
My favorite part
about working
on the "Scream" movies
was working with Wes Craven.
You meet few people
in this world that are
turn out to be your heroes,
like, living heroes.
And he held himself
like a professor.
He was a really
intelligent guy.
But he'd say things like,
"Well, that was horrible.
You wanna try it again?"
You really have to respect
your audience.
You have to know these kids
are damn smart, you know?
The wonderful thing
about the "Scream" series
was that Kevin Williamson
said, "Yeah, I've seen
all the movies too,
"and let's talk about them,
but this is not
like that," you know?
Help me, please.
I'm at Stu Macher's house
on Turner Lane.
It's 261 Turner Lane.
Please, he's gonna try
and kill me.
[yells]
These movies get a bad rap
for sort of being antifeminist
and misogynistic
because they are, you know?
And and and
or they have been.
You know, what's great
about genre today is,
we can change all of that.
We don't have to sort of
adhere to,
you know, the rules.
In the '70s and '80s,
if a girl had sex, she
the rule was,
she had to die.
There are certain rules
that one must abide by
in order to successfully
survive a horror movie.
For instance, number one,
you can never have sex.
[all booing]
We allowed her to have sex.
So you're almost ensuring
she's gonna die.
But not in this movie.
[screams painfully]
Right up to
the very, very end
where she's like,
this is the moment
where the killer
Comes back to life
for one last scare.
And she just ain't
gonna have it.
[gasps]
[gunshot]
It was just another way
to dismiss those old notions
of the final girl
and so that we can move
our heroine
into sort of a new place.
Not in my movie.
Horror gets a visceral
reaction out of people.
And it's always
looked down upon by critics
to this day.
It astounds me.
Horror starts from kind of
a minus 25 position
and has to claw its way
upwards.
It's fun to turn that
on its head.
I think where
that anarchistic sense
of wanting people
to burn the theater down
comes from wanting
to show people,
like,
what horror can really do.
Good evening, Clarice.
If you hate us
and you think we're bad,
then I'm really
gonna go for it.
- [screams]
- [groaning painfully]
A census taker
once tried to test me.
I ate his liver
with some fava beans
and a nice Chianti.
[slurping]
"Silence of the Lambs"
is a perfect film.
It kind of shirked
the in-your-face
occasionally vulgarities
of the horror genre
and painted them
with a much finer brush
that made it a story
that was about being human
as opposed to a story
that was
about the horrors
of the world.
What is your worst memory
of childhood?
Death of my father.
Horror is a ghetto
as far as
the film industry is concerned,
but "Silence of the Lambs"
changed everything.
It suddenly was not only
big box office
and not only horrific
but respected.
You have
Sir Anthony Hopkins
I'll help you catch him,
Clarice.
You had Jonathan Demme,
a great, admired director,
dipping their toes
into really unsavory material
but done in such
a highly polished
and Hollywood style
that you could not
deny the power of it
and the intelligence of it.
There's things we need
to do for her.
I know that y'all
brought her this far
and that her folks would
thank you if they could
for your for your kindness
and your sensitivity.
Now, please, go on now.
Let us take care of her.
Go on now.
I think,
with "Silence of the Lambs,"
having a fantastic
female protagonist
that is brought to life
by Jodie Foster
gave it a life
that allowed people
who do not appreciate
the horror genre
to appreciate
that performance.
And that performance
was the introduction
for a lot of people who are
uncomfortable with horror
to actually step back
and enjoy it.
[mysterious music]
Jonathan mentioned to me
that perhaps
the Clarice Starling character,
the Jodie Foster character,
was in a way so central
to the nature of the film
that the music could reflect
her character
and be a point of view
through her eyes.
[suspenseful music]
♪♪
Generally, that type of film
might have focused more
on the monster,
the Lecter character,
and I think,
by switching that up
in that film,
it humanized the story in a way
that, I think, broadened
the appeal of it.
♪♪
Senator Martin.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
♪♪
I mean, Anthony Hopkins,
my God,
what an iconic performance.
[screams]
[blows thudding]
[soaring classical music]
♪♪
Hannibal Lecter
is the most terrifying villain
ever put on-screen,
and he is in that film
for about 14 minutes.
He's barely in it at all.
[gasping painfully]
[classical piano music
playing]
We only see slightly more
of him than we see
of the shark in "Jaws."
[suspenseful music]
And both pictures sort of
bring home the idea
that what we can't see
is scarier
than what we can.
And that's tremendously
effective.
[panicked breathing]
There are
these moments where
something plays different
for white people
than it does for black people.
Hannibal Lecter,
he's a psychopath.
He's a white psychopath,
but for some reason it's, like,
"Yo, that mother[bleep] cold."
[screams]
"This mother[bleep]
eating a face?
"Oh.
"That's [bleep] right there.
"That [bleep]
is Hannibal Lecter.
"That's my [bleep]
right there.
"That's if I'm anybody
in this movie, I'm him.
"I'm not the [bleep]
who got his face eaten.
I'm Hannibal Lecter."
What became of your lamb,
Clarice?
It came out in February,
and it played right through
the year.
It was one of those films
that just
gathered momentum
week by week.
And it won five Oscars.
When "Silence of the Lambs"
was nominated
for Best Picture,
nobody wanted
to call it a horror film.
You know, all the press
stayed away from the fact
that "Silence of the Lambs"
is really a horror film.
It's a slasher film.
Uh, get in the truck.
And I want to push it
all the way up.
I really appreciate this.
But a slasher film
as Best Picture?
No, can't do that.
It was an example
of what can be done
with the genre
when it's done just right.
Hey hey, are you
about a size 14?
Sorry?
[blow lands]
[gasps painfully]
What is that people love
about going
to see horror movies?
I think what
we love about it
and what the average person
loves about it,
I think, is different.
We'd see a
"Texas Chainsaw Massacre,"
"Dawn of the Dead,"
I go, "I wanna live there.
I wanna live
inside this movie."
"I want to re-create this
in my house."
And essentially we did
do that, right?
Right. Yeah.
But I think,
for the average person,
it's like, you can
safely experience
something demented.
It's also coming to grips
with our own mortality.
Maybe there's
some weird catharsis
of, like, "Okay, well,
thank God my death
"could never nearly be as bad
as what I just saw,
"so maybe it's not so bad.
Maybe I'm just gonna
fall asleep"
I think it's all dealing
with the fear of death.
After 9/11,
fear escalated to nearly
unbearable levels.
[gasping]
And that fear
was reflected in movies
that dared us
not to turn away.
I want to play a game.
People always ask me,
"How do you make
a horror film scary?"
And I think that
the only common thread
that I've found is when
the filmmaker, the director,
is truly terrified
by the subject matter.
[gasping, coughing]
You can tell when other
people are phoning in
and trying to imitate a genre.
And you can tell
when someone loves it.
I met James Wan
at film school.
We both loved horror movies.
We were both obsessed
with "The Evil Dead"
and Dario Argento
and "The Shining"
and all the rest of it.
We realized we should team up
and try to make a movie
with our own money.
And so we figured out
that the cheapest thing
we could do would be
two actors in one room.
Finally, we hit upon
the idea for "Saw."
- [electricity surging]
- Ahh.
"Saw" is about two men
who wake up
chained to the wall
in this dilapidated,
dirty bathroom, basically.
They don't know
how they got there.
But lying between them
is a dead body.
And they find out
that they've been put there
by a sadistic serial killer
who forces people to play games
for their lives.
John Kramer is
a mechanical engineer.
He's an architect.
He is somewhat
of a philosopher.
He is a master at prosthetics,
a bit of a magician of sorts,
And with John, what you see
is often not what you get.
Whoever brought us here
could have killed us by now.
But they didn't.
They must want something
from us.
You got Leigh over here,
and you got Carry Elwes
over here,
and you got this guy
in the middle
and this strength
and this silence.
But I always felt
his centralness to this story.
[muffled gasp]
The way that I see Jigsaw
is kind of the Zen master
of sadism.
Hello, Amanda.
You don't know me,
but I know you.
I want to play a game.
His mission, of course,
is to
help people to see
the value of life.
And whether we think
his methods are appropriate
or not, that's a different
story altogether.
My family!
[screams]
[gunshot]
There was something
about watching human behavior
in extreme circumstances
in "Saw,"
and I think
and I thought to myself,
"Well, could I saw off my leg
if I had to?
"Would I do it?
How would I do it?
Could I do it?"
[grunting painfully]
[screaming]
When you don't have
a big star
in the lead role
and you don't have the money
for special effects,
the only thing you have
going for you
is that question,
"What's gonna happen next?"
What are you doing?
Both James and I always loved
really great
twist endings
that made you go back
and reexamine the movie.
We really thought
we had something good.
I think I was there
about 12 or 13 days,
Lying in this pool of blood
on the bathroom floor.
You're quite convinced
that he's where he is,
and you forget about it
in some way.
The biggest reaction
that I think
I've had in my career
was the ending of "Saw,"
that ending when he stands up
off the floor.
Which is one of the reasons
why I did the film,
'cause I thought it would be
a remarkable moment.
It was worth doing
just for that moment.
And to actually physically
see people lose their mind
and yell at the screen
I mean, people would just be
shouting, like, "No way!
No way!"
So that was the best feeling,
you know, we could have
ever had.
[tense music]
The last thing he says
before he closes the door
to leave, he says,
"Some people"
Are so ungrateful
to be alive.
But not you.
Not anymore.
[screams]
- Game over.
- [screams]
[screams]
To me, "Saw"
is that original film,
and then all the other movies,
they sit over here,
and then the original film,
to me, sits on its own.
The later "Saws," yeah,
they became more
more about the torture,
but really they were
torture about people
who deserved it.
The "Saw" movies,
it's the bad guys
who are being tortured.
According to your policy,
your secretary
is older and weaker
and therefore less worthy
to survive.
By, I think it was "Saw 6,"
where they're going
after insurance companies
that have denied people
their claims, and
I don't know
maybe they kind of deserve it
in the world of that movie.
[screams]
I've had skateboarders,
12-year-olds,
come up to me,
groups of them, and say,
"Yeah, we love those movies."
You have one minute
to pull the fishhook
from her stomach
and unlock her device.
And I say, "Yeah, really?
Why? Why do you love 'em?"
And they say, "Because
they teach you stuff."
I said, "Like what?"
They say, "Well, like, to
that you need
to appreciate your life."
- [screaming]
- No!
And they're not talking
about the traps.
They're not talking
about the blood.
They're talking about concepts
that resonate in the film.
[all gasping]
So when you get
this little germ
of an idea, of a thought,
when it's surrounded
by that kind of intensity,
it makes the germ resonate
in a certain way.
- [bone cracking]
- [screaming]
One of the issues with
the "Saw" movies
and you can take it
however you want
is the fact that we invented
a whole new term,
"torture porn."
[gears grinding]
[gasping]
But we invented it
at the very same time
America, as a nation,
was under world indictment
for actually torturing people.
[dramatic music]
♪♪
The torture porn cycle
of horror films
is strongly linked
to the height of what
George W. Bush termed
the War on Terror.
This crusade.
Use any means
at our disposal.
This war on terrorism.
♪♪
The torture porn cycle
is kind of
the cycle of the extreme
horror movie,
the "can you not look away?"
[screaming]
"Can you believe how far
they're taking this?
Can you handle it?"
[screaming]
And I think it really kind of
was crystallized with "Hostel."
A lot of people say
it started with "Saw."
I think the original "Saw"
plays more as
a thriller horror movie
than a torture porn movie.
[chain saw revs]
Hostel becomes
a little bit more
of the "how much can you stand
to watch?"
When we started making
our movies,
the term "torture porn"
came out.
I'll credit
I'll give you that one.
[laughter]
All right,
I'll take that one.
[chain saw revs]
[screaming]
One of the things
about torture porn
is that we are no longer afraid
of bogeymen.
Michael and Jason
and those characters
lost a certain currency.
And what really strikes fear,
particularly in
the United States
in a post-9/11 moment,
is other people.
Other people are frightening.
You're not going?
I've seen this show.
The "Hostel" franchise
speaks truth to power
and presents Americans
in the way
that the world perceives us.
The whole first section
of the film
it's kind of done like
a teen sex comedy, right?
Like, before it gets
into the horrific scenes,
we see Paxton, Josh,
and their friend Oli
in Amsterdam.
And they're just there
to party and smoke pot
and especially,
in a very extended sequence,
have sex with prostitutes.
It invokes this whole
kind of privilege
of paying to do something
to somebody else.
But it's just like
everyone's out for themselves.
You're not meeting friends.
You're meeting someone
who could be the person
that's gonna kill
and rape and murder you.
You're very patient.
I don't I don't remember
- It was 45 minutes.
- Yeah, you go 45 minutes.
Then we kill
our first character.
In that time, you are
allowing us to identify
with the soon-to-be victims,
but you're also
subtlety allowing us
- to hate them in a weird way.
- Mm-hmm.
'Cause they're being
kind of rude
they're being so American.
So by the time
you get to the killing,
we're half identifying
with the killer,
half identifying with
the victim, and I think
that part of it is the
weirdest thing about horror.
Like, we need to be able
to identify
with that dark side of us
that maybe wants
to kill somebody sometimes.
I am an American.
I got rights.
Get the [bleep] out!
What I think is important
and interesting
about "Hostel" is that
it doesn't allow the viewer
to feel that sense
that the American
is exempt from implication
in the War on Terror
and in the use of torture.
Who are you?
What the
where the [bleep] am I?
I guess it's kind of like
a pushback kind of?
- Mm-hmm.
- Like, oh, you think
you rule the world?
You don't.
The first extended scene
of torture that we have
is of this kind of privileged,
young, white American male.
And we see his body
kind of taken away
secretively to this
foreign torture center
and tortured in an act
that reminds us
of the extraordinary
rendition program.
- [drill whirs]
- No!
[screams]
And the viewer identifying
with Josh,
you know,
is forced in a position
of having to imagine themselves
as being subject to torture.
- [flesh tearing]
- [screaming]
There are people that,
you know,
watch torture videos.
And you pay a certain amount,
and you can become
Mr. Director.
And the fact that that exists
internationally
in much poorer countries
where, you know,
maybe the parents have died
and the kids are easier
to get,
it's a really
disgusting quality
that exists in humanity
that we don't even want
to talk about.
And I think that's why
we just got a little peek
of a window into it
in "Hostel."
And it was too much
for most people to accept.
The real world
is much scarier than anything
that Eli Roth or Stephen King
could come up with.
It's a really disturbing,
sick, violent world
we live in.
Horror films reflect that.
And horror films
are a way of people
coming to terms with
the violence in society,
trying to deal with it
and trying to,
you know,
escape it a lot of ways.
We're not allowed to be
scared anywhere in life.
I hear from soldiers
on military bases
that were watching "Hostel"
and watching my films
and screaming.
And, like,
they're dealing with death,
but they're not allowed
to be afraid.
But for 90 minutes, you can
be afraid and not be a coward.
More than any other monster
in horror,
the slasher taps
into our primal fear
of the predator.
And when that predator
comes in human form,
you have to wonder
[suspenseful music]
"Will I be
the resourceful survivor"
♪♪
"Or just another kill?"
He's gone.
[screams]
[yells]
With the slasher films,
the rock stars
are the killers.
You don't know what pain is!
- [screams]
- Everybody has this dark side
that needs to be filled.
West used to call Freddy
the bastard stepfather
of us all.
This killer that can kill you
in your dreams.
Candyman.
It doesn't get much scarier
than that.
Be my victim.
You're never gonna
catch him.
- Everybody's a suspect.
- [screams]
I think the fun of "Scream"
is the self-awareness
Oh, you wanna play
psycho killer?
And the deconstruction
of the horror genre.
- [grunts]
- [screams]
- [gunshot]
- The entire audience
jumped out of their skin.
In a movie,
we have a chance to
almost externalize
the fears that we have.
[screams]
Could I saw off my leg
if I had to?
We invented a whole new term.
Torture porn became
the cathartic release.
You have to work
with the dark side.
Horror is the only genre
where it's flattering
if somebody says,
"Ah, I couldn't watch
your movie.
Had to leave."
[screams]
Oh, my God!
We're not allowed to be
scared anywhere in life.
You can't be scared at work.
But for 90 minutes,
you can be afraid
and not be a coward.
[screams]
[suspenseful music]
♪♪
[chain saw revs]
After John Carpenter's
"Halloween"
made box office history
in 1978,
slasher films
ruled the screen.
[yelps]
But by 1984,
audience fatigue
and critical backlash
had taken hold.
Slashers looked dead
in the water.
But the genre
was only sleeping.
I'm certainly not the first
girl to play a woman character
who fights to the death
in a battle against a monster.
There will always be men
and there will always be women
who are, you know,
forced to be that person.
So "Nightmare on Elm Street"
is about a group of four kids,
teenagers, who realize
that they've all shared
the same nightmare.
- Eee.
- Nancy
you dreamed about
the same creep I did.
That's impossible.
And they don't really think
anything about it
until each one of them,
one by one,
starts dying in their dreams.
No. No. No!
No!
No!
[screams]
My character wants
to figure out,
like, why this is happening,
who it is that's killing them.
And so the movie's about
Nancy's quest
to discover Freddy Krueger
and why he did it.
[growls]
He did it as an act
of vengeance against
some vigilante parents
who killed him
in a boiler room.
Who are you?
Freddy Krueger
was a child murderer,
and there isn't anything funny
about that.
They kind of gloss over
that later.
[laughing]
The creation
of Freddy Krueger,
this man who had knives
for fingers
who would come to children
in their dreams
and kill them,
was terrifying.
It was just a terrifying idea.
[eerie music]
[gasps]
I mean,
"Nightmare on Elm Street"
is the next quantum leap
forward,
- I think, in horror.
- Yeah, definitely.
I mean, this killer
that can kill you
- in your dreams.
- Yeah.
So suddenly you have
a slasher whose arm
It crosses
into the supernatural.
It crosses into
the supernatural, yeah.
It is a blend
of supernatural and slashers.
The rules of any sort
of world don't apply.
- Right.
- I think that's what made
Freddy Krueger
such a unique character.
[shrieks]
[screaming]
[growling]
It just took us
to a different place.
Yeah. Yeah.
[screams]
Wes Craven was a visionary,
I think,
in terms of fear,
understanding what that
what that could be
and maximizing that
in these broad strokes,
which "Nightmare
on Elm Street" has.
What is one
of the earliest things
I can think of as a weapon
that would have terrified
human beings?
The cave bear reaching around
the corner
with his massive mitt
with daggers on the end
of every finger.
That's primal.
[metal screeches]
Even the colors.
I read an article on
the two most difficult colors
for the iris or the retina
to see next to each other
were those two colors.
And then finding an actor
who was brilliant
and who could bring it to life.
[eerie ambient music]
Wes used to call Freddy
the bastard stepfather
of us all.
But when I got the part,
I didn't know
what I was gonna do.
And the makeup sessions
informed
a lot of what I did.
They were dabbing at me
with a crusty brush
and basting me
like a turkey
with Vaseline so that I
picked up the light better.
And in comes Johnny Depp
and Heather Langenkamp,
arguably the two most
attractive young people
in the world at that moment,
and it got me angry and envious
of their youth and their beauty
and the fact
that these two kids
had their whole careers
ahead of them.
And I went, "Wait a minute.
I can use that."
This is just a dream!
He isn't real!
- He isn't real!
- [roars]
- [screaming]
- [laughing]
Of course, all my fights
with Freddy
were fantastic,
and we would work on them
for a long time.
Once the camera was rolling,
you know, we got into
our characters,
and I bashed him over the head
with a coffeepot.
[chuckles]
- [glass shatters]
- [groans painfully]
I think the real reason
it had
such a massive audience
and still does
is, every single one
of the films
has a really strong,
well-written survivor girl.
Come out and show yourself,
you bastard!
So something
really interesting
about Nancy Thompson
in "A Nightmare on Elm Street"
is that it's sort of her
breaking free
from this chain of suburbia
being this ideal
because her family is broken.
Nancy.
I'm gonna go
and get the guy who did it.
And I want you to be there
to arrest him
when I bring him out, okay?
Just tell me who did it.
I'll go get him, baby.
Fred Krueger did it, Daddy.
Her father,
while, I think, very loving,
is very inept.
He refuses to believe her.
Her mother's an alcoholic.
She breaks free from it
by destroying the home,
thereby destroying
Freddy Krueger,
who came because her parents
had killed him.
[gasps]
[string thwacks]
[screams]
I guess I'd say my very first
fans were young gay men.
And they told me
that they were using Nancy
as they faced their folks
or their parents
or their families
in revealing their true selves.
I take back every bit
of energy I gave you.
You're nothing.
And they expressed to me
that it was just, like
it was their Freddy, you know,
just, like, that scary thing
that they have to face,
that they have to fight.
I would often listen
to all sorts of people
talk about what
their Freddy was.
And, I mean,
it can be anything,
I'm telling you.
It can be anything.
Kids who were bullied
would tell me
that they would use the images
of "Nightmare on Elm Street"
to help them face bullies
in their life.
You think you was gonna
get away from me?
I know you too well now,
Freddy.
You know, Wes Craven
probably never knew
how many he people
he was gonna help
by creating this Nancy-Freddy
dynamic.
[roaring]
[screams]
It seems to me
there were several
peak nightmares,
that the first one
was really terrifying,
but there was a couple others
way downstream
that were really satisfying
and did interesting things
intellectually.
[screams]
There's a lot of echoes
to Kafka,
you know, and that,
insects and other things.
[screaming]
Freddy Krueger's
pretty terrifying
in the first
"Nightmare on Elm Street."
Watch this.
But he became
a one-line reader.
How's this for a wet dream?
[laughs]
[groans]
Silly, funny, like, puns
and double entendres.
[laughs]
This is it, Jennifer.
- Your big break in TV.
- [screams]
Welcome to prime time, bitch.
[screams]
With a joke here,
a joke there,
a wisecrack here, there,
it makes it easier
to set them up
for another dark sequence
or another horrific thing
or just a cheap-thrill scare.
- [gasps]
- Got your nose!
Did we go too far sometimes?
Perhaps.
And did we load it up
too much?
Sometimes, perhaps, yeah.
I'll get you, my pretty,
and your little soul too.
[laughs]
You know, I've been,
you know,
listening to
what how crowds respond
to horror
for most of my life.
You know, talking about
sort of
with the Freddy movies,
with the Freddy sequels
- Mm-hmm.
- How a black theater could
You know, the relationship
to Freddy
is almost is closer
than it is to the victims
- of those movies.
- Of course.
- Right? Of course.
- You identify with Freddy.
He's funny.
You identify with him.
There's you know him.
You don't know
these new mother[bleep]
coming to get killed.
- Right.
- They're just sheep
for the slaughter.
No!
By the way,
we're identifying with Freddy,
the child murderer.
Yes, but black people
also love them some Jason
- Yes.
- And some Michael Myers.
[screams]
No!
[screaming]
There's something
about these
first of all, these characters
that don't give a [bleep]
- Mm-hmm.
- That are cold-blooded
[dramatic music]
That I think scratches
an itch,
a frustrated itch,
a societally frustrated itch.
[screams]
That itch
would be scratched
by a slasher with a hook,
a monster driven by love
and the need to kill.
Be my victim.
[eerie music]
Candyman.
Candyman.
Candyman.
"Candyman," in a nutshell,
is a dark love story.
Virginia Madsen and I
were deeply in love
in another life.
Candyman was an artist,
and unfortunately
her father was a racist.
Had him lynched,
cut off his arm,
and replaced it with a hook.
And he was trying
to reclaim his lost love
by getting her to honor,
you know,
him as a mystery man.
[groans]
[blow lands]
[gagging]
Oh! [bleep]!
[screaming]
What "Candyman" tried to do
was using slavery
and some of the violence
of slavery
to explain the emergence
of this monstrous character
who, if you say his name
into a mirror five times
Dare you.
both: Candyman.
Candyman.
Candyman.
Candyman.
He comes if you just say
his name.
Candyman.
It doesn't get much scarier
than that.
[screams]
Most slasher films
start with
a traumatic experience
that happens
as, like, a sort of a
precursor to where the film
is set in modern day.
The trauma itself serves
as a triggering effect
for the killer
in the present time.
What's so interesting
about that is that
a lot of it is based
in loss and grief.
- [gasping]
- [grunts]
It had a real impact
on a lot of audiences.
Black audiences because, hey,
even though
he's the monster
- [screams]
- Believe in me.
Be my victim.
We will turn out to see
blacks in a horror film.
It was based
on Clive Barker's book
"The Forbidden."
And I think what Bernard Rose,
the director and writer,
did brilliantly
was to transpose it
to Cabrini-Green,
which is now gone
but was one of the most
dangerous housing projects
in America.
I thought "Candyman"
was really cool
because, you know,
you're so used to seeing
these traditional
haunted house movies,
and it's, like, the opposite.
The setting is so gritty.
[eerie ambient music]
I think "Candyman"
is intended more
for a white audience.
It's looking at kind of
the fear of the urban setting,
and Cabrini-Green
and the sprawl
of poverty in Chicago
and what might
come out of that.
[camera shutter clicks]
♪♪
Damn it.
One of the brilliant things
about the film
is that he doesn't appear
until 45 minutes into
into the film.
He's spoken about.
They mytholize him.
Everybody's scared.
He he could come right through
these walls, you know.
I-I'm scared.
Scared for my child.
They ain't never gonna
catch him.
Who?
Candyman.
I think some audiences
were troubled
because so many of the people
he killed were black.
So if it was
a straight revenge story,
he would have been
killing nothing
but white people, right?
But the residents
of this project
were also his victims.
[screaming]
[flesh tearing]
[grunting]
If you were to explain,
"Well, it's about
this black dude who was
"murdered for having sex
with a white lady,
"and then he comes back
and hunts the white lady
and lots of other people too,"
you'd be like,
"Nah, I don't think
we're gonna make that movie."
You know what I mean?
But somehow,
through his level
of magnetism and charm,
he manages
to make Candyman someone
I don't know if they love him,
but who they love to fear.
♪♪
Be my victim.
♪♪
Be my victim.
He's got a passion.
He wants what he wants.
And this
is his unrequited love.
This is the woman
that got away,
the woman that he cherished,
you know?
And it happens to be
in a horrific environment,
but, you know,
he'd do anything for her.
Even kill her
if they can die together.
Your death would be a tale
to frighten children,
to make lovers cling closer
in their rapture.
Come with me
and be immortal.
[groans painfully]
I think that mixture
of terror and empathy
is very powerful.
Every great work
of horror fiction
is an exercise
in extreme empathy.
It's about falling in love
with characters
and then staying with them
as they endure the worst.
[screams]
- No!
- And he's an iconic monster.
He had bees
coming out of his mouth.
He had bees all over his face.
[screams]
We used over 100,000 bees
on that set.
It was all practicals,
which is you know,
totally makes a difference.
I think I got maybe 26 stings
altogether,
but they were
an essential part to
creating the terror
for the situation.
You know,
what happens to a ghost
if he's still living flesh?
Will he be inhabited
by maggots?
Well, then we chose bees
'cause
they're just that you know,
every kid is afraid
of a bee sting.
You know, there's nothing
ambiguous about horror.
Horror is an engine.
It's like
a great white shark.
It has a purpose,
something it wants to do.
It wants to scare you.
And in that way,
that lack of ambiguity
is really freeing
as a filmmaker
'cause you know
what you're trying to do.
[mob chanting angrily]
Help! Help me!
It's a beautiful thing
to play with,
and it's even more beautiful
thing when it works.
[screams]
Candyman is an icon,
one of the great
supernatural monsters.
But the masked serial killer
was ready to make a comeback
with a postmodern twist.
Slashers kind of go away
for a while.
Like, once we're sort of
out of weapons
[chain saw revs]
[groans painfully]
I think the public starts
to get bored of it.
Well, there were so
and there were so many sequels.
And they were always
diminishing returns.
Exactly, and they were never
about being scary.
And then "Scream" comes along.
[dramatic music]
♪♪
[grunts]
[eerie ambient music]
My whole goal
when writing "Scream" was,
I wanted a horror movie
to sort of
live and breathe
in a time
where the other horror movies
existed.
If you were the only suspect
in a senseless bloodbath
would you be standing
in the horror section?
Kevin was smart enough
to make it
not about the filmmakers
and the actors
but about the audience.
"Scream" is the story
of Sidney Prescott.
And it's one year after
the horrific murder
of her mother.
Just when she's about to have
some semblance
of her normal life,
just when she's starting
to trust again
and she's starting
to date again
and she's got her boyfriend,
on the anniversary
of her mother's death,
murders start occurring
as it looks like perhaps
someone takes their love
of scary movies too far.
[screaming]
And they start using
horror movie lingo
as a way to stalk
and kill victims.
You never told me your name.
Why do you want to know
my name?
'Cause I want to know
who I'm looking at.
What did you say?
The opening of "Scream"
is so iconic at this point.
And it's so masterfully done.
That is Wes Craven
at the height of his career.
It happens. Take it easy.
[telephone rings]
The thing about Wes Craven
is that the scary stuff
comes instinctive to him.
And I think he has
a really great eye
and a sensibility to stage it
and to craft it.
The tracking shots
behind Drew Barrymore
as she just sort of walks
through this very
this shadowed house and she
moves in and out of light,
it beautifully sets the pace.
You know,
when to dutch the angle,
when to you know,
when to pull back,
when to go wide,
when to go close.
The interesting thing
about that is,
you have
at that time, certainly
your most famous cast member
dying right away.
So it really sort of tells
an audience,
"You have no idea
what to expect."
When I auditioned for it,
there were two
very different scenes.
There was one of this loving,
caring boyfriend,
and then there was one
of this psychopath.
[eerie ambient music]
We all go a little mad
sometimes.
- No, Billy!
- Oh, [bleep].
- [gunshot]
- [screams]
Wes really wanted
to see
somebody who could
who could convincingly play
both sides of that.
[crying]
Billy's the killer.
And you got to believe fully
that he's the killer
so much so that you go,
"Oh, there's no way
he's the killer."
I wanted to sort of take
the genre, rip it apart,
open it up.
There's a formula to it,
a very simple formula.
Everybody's a suspect.
When you talk about
the tone of "Scream,"
I think what
he's so successful at
is balancing that horror comedy
that we don't see so often
pulled off very well.
Damn little [].
What'd you call me?
- Huh?
- Not you, Fred.
I was quite against it
at the time.
I thought, "Wow, I thought
I was in a documentary
"about a serial killer
"and they're playing this,
you know, for laughs."
[metal groans]
Wes found the right balance
and the tone
through the editorial process,
but I do remember
we were like,
"Should he be falling down
that much?"
He's kind of, like,
the clumsiest killer alive.
And we were always
worried about
that skirt he was wearing,
you know,
how silly that would look.
But it all seemed to work out.
Yeah, at the beginning,
they wanted me to come meet
for Skeet's role, Billy.
I didn't do anything.
Do you wish to give up
your right
to speak to an attorney
and have him present
But the role of Dewey,
I thought it was so funny.
He was written as, like,
this big, buff, like,
meathead.
And I was like,
"I think I could bring
a different meathead
quality to it."
People treat me like
I'm the antichrist
of television journalism.
I don't think
you're that bad.
No?
My favorite part
about working
on the "Scream" movies
was working with Wes Craven.
You meet few people
in this world that are
turn out to be your heroes,
like, living heroes.
And he held himself
like a professor.
He was a really
intelligent guy.
But he'd say things like,
"Well, that was horrible.
You wanna try it again?"
You really have to respect
your audience.
You have to know these kids
are damn smart, you know?
The wonderful thing
about the "Scream" series
was that Kevin Williamson
said, "Yeah, I've seen
all the movies too,
"and let's talk about them,
but this is not
like that," you know?
Help me, please.
I'm at Stu Macher's house
on Turner Lane.
It's 261 Turner Lane.
Please, he's gonna try
and kill me.
[yells]
These movies get a bad rap
for sort of being antifeminist
and misogynistic
because they are, you know?
And and and
or they have been.
You know, what's great
about genre today is,
we can change all of that.
We don't have to sort of
adhere to,
you know, the rules.
In the '70s and '80s,
if a girl had sex, she
the rule was,
she had to die.
There are certain rules
that one must abide by
in order to successfully
survive a horror movie.
For instance, number one,
you can never have sex.
[all booing]
We allowed her to have sex.
So you're almost ensuring
she's gonna die.
But not in this movie.
[screams painfully]
Right up to
the very, very end
where she's like,
this is the moment
where the killer
Comes back to life
for one last scare.
And she just ain't
gonna have it.
[gasps]
[gunshot]
It was just another way
to dismiss those old notions
of the final girl
and so that we can move
our heroine
into sort of a new place.
Not in my movie.
Horror gets a visceral
reaction out of people.
And it's always
looked down upon by critics
to this day.
It astounds me.
Horror starts from kind of
a minus 25 position
and has to claw its way
upwards.
It's fun to turn that
on its head.
I think where
that anarchistic sense
of wanting people
to burn the theater down
comes from wanting
to show people,
like,
what horror can really do.
Good evening, Clarice.
If you hate us
and you think we're bad,
then I'm really
gonna go for it.
- [screams]
- [groaning painfully]
A census taker
once tried to test me.
I ate his liver
with some fava beans
and a nice Chianti.
[slurping]
"Silence of the Lambs"
is a perfect film.
It kind of shirked
the in-your-face
occasionally vulgarities
of the horror genre
and painted them
with a much finer brush
that made it a story
that was about being human
as opposed to a story
that was
about the horrors
of the world.
What is your worst memory
of childhood?
Death of my father.
Horror is a ghetto
as far as
the film industry is concerned,
but "Silence of the Lambs"
changed everything.
It suddenly was not only
big box office
and not only horrific
but respected.
You have
Sir Anthony Hopkins
I'll help you catch him,
Clarice.
You had Jonathan Demme,
a great, admired director,
dipping their toes
into really unsavory material
but done in such
a highly polished
and Hollywood style
that you could not
deny the power of it
and the intelligence of it.
There's things we need
to do for her.
I know that y'all
brought her this far
and that her folks would
thank you if they could
for your for your kindness
and your sensitivity.
Now, please, go on now.
Let us take care of her.
Go on now.
I think,
with "Silence of the Lambs,"
having a fantastic
female protagonist
that is brought to life
by Jodie Foster
gave it a life
that allowed people
who do not appreciate
the horror genre
to appreciate
that performance.
And that performance
was the introduction
for a lot of people who are
uncomfortable with horror
to actually step back
and enjoy it.
[mysterious music]
Jonathan mentioned to me
that perhaps
the Clarice Starling character,
the Jodie Foster character,
was in a way so central
to the nature of the film
that the music could reflect
her character
and be a point of view
through her eyes.
[suspenseful music]
♪♪
Generally, that type of film
might have focused more
on the monster,
the Lecter character,
and I think,
by switching that up
in that film,
it humanized the story in a way
that, I think, broadened
the appeal of it.
♪♪
Senator Martin.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
♪♪
I mean, Anthony Hopkins,
my God,
what an iconic performance.
[screams]
[blows thudding]
[soaring classical music]
♪♪
Hannibal Lecter
is the most terrifying villain
ever put on-screen,
and he is in that film
for about 14 minutes.
He's barely in it at all.
[gasping painfully]
[classical piano music
playing]
We only see slightly more
of him than we see
of the shark in "Jaws."
[suspenseful music]
And both pictures sort of
bring home the idea
that what we can't see
is scarier
than what we can.
And that's tremendously
effective.
[panicked breathing]
There are
these moments where
something plays different
for white people
than it does for black people.
Hannibal Lecter,
he's a psychopath.
He's a white psychopath,
but for some reason it's, like,
"Yo, that mother[bleep] cold."
[screams]
"This mother[bleep]
eating a face?
"Oh.
"That's [bleep] right there.
"That [bleep]
is Hannibal Lecter.
"That's my [bleep]
right there.
"That's if I'm anybody
in this movie, I'm him.
"I'm not the [bleep]
who got his face eaten.
I'm Hannibal Lecter."
What became of your lamb,
Clarice?
It came out in February,
and it played right through
the year.
It was one of those films
that just
gathered momentum
week by week.
And it won five Oscars.
When "Silence of the Lambs"
was nominated
for Best Picture,
nobody wanted
to call it a horror film.
You know, all the press
stayed away from the fact
that "Silence of the Lambs"
is really a horror film.
It's a slasher film.
Uh, get in the truck.
And I want to push it
all the way up.
I really appreciate this.
But a slasher film
as Best Picture?
No, can't do that.
It was an example
of what can be done
with the genre
when it's done just right.
Hey hey, are you
about a size 14?
Sorry?
[blow lands]
[gasps painfully]
What is that people love
about going
to see horror movies?
I think what
we love about it
and what the average person
loves about it,
I think, is different.
We'd see a
"Texas Chainsaw Massacre,"
"Dawn of the Dead,"
I go, "I wanna live there.
I wanna live
inside this movie."
"I want to re-create this
in my house."
And essentially we did
do that, right?
Right. Yeah.
But I think,
for the average person,
it's like, you can
safely experience
something demented.
It's also coming to grips
with our own mortality.
Maybe there's
some weird catharsis
of, like, "Okay, well,
thank God my death
"could never nearly be as bad
as what I just saw,
"so maybe it's not so bad.
Maybe I'm just gonna
fall asleep"
I think it's all dealing
with the fear of death.
After 9/11,
fear escalated to nearly
unbearable levels.
[gasping]
And that fear
was reflected in movies
that dared us
not to turn away.
I want to play a game.
People always ask me,
"How do you make
a horror film scary?"
And I think that
the only common thread
that I've found is when
the filmmaker, the director,
is truly terrified
by the subject matter.
[gasping, coughing]
You can tell when other
people are phoning in
and trying to imitate a genre.
And you can tell
when someone loves it.
I met James Wan
at film school.
We both loved horror movies.
We were both obsessed
with "The Evil Dead"
and Dario Argento
and "The Shining"
and all the rest of it.
We realized we should team up
and try to make a movie
with our own money.
And so we figured out
that the cheapest thing
we could do would be
two actors in one room.
Finally, we hit upon
the idea for "Saw."
- [electricity surging]
- Ahh.
"Saw" is about two men
who wake up
chained to the wall
in this dilapidated,
dirty bathroom, basically.
They don't know
how they got there.
But lying between them
is a dead body.
And they find out
that they've been put there
by a sadistic serial killer
who forces people to play games
for their lives.
John Kramer is
a mechanical engineer.
He's an architect.
He is somewhat
of a philosopher.
He is a master at prosthetics,
a bit of a magician of sorts,
And with John, what you see
is often not what you get.
Whoever brought us here
could have killed us by now.
But they didn't.
They must want something
from us.
You got Leigh over here,
and you got Carry Elwes
over here,
and you got this guy
in the middle
and this strength
and this silence.
But I always felt
his centralness to this story.
[muffled gasp]
The way that I see Jigsaw
is kind of the Zen master
of sadism.
Hello, Amanda.
You don't know me,
but I know you.
I want to play a game.
His mission, of course,
is to
help people to see
the value of life.
And whether we think
his methods are appropriate
or not, that's a different
story altogether.
My family!
[screams]
[gunshot]
There was something
about watching human behavior
in extreme circumstances
in "Saw,"
and I think
and I thought to myself,
"Well, could I saw off my leg
if I had to?
"Would I do it?
How would I do it?
Could I do it?"
[grunting painfully]
[screaming]
When you don't have
a big star
in the lead role
and you don't have the money
for special effects,
the only thing you have
going for you
is that question,
"What's gonna happen next?"
What are you doing?
Both James and I always loved
really great
twist endings
that made you go back
and reexamine the movie.
We really thought
we had something good.
I think I was there
about 12 or 13 days,
Lying in this pool of blood
on the bathroom floor.
You're quite convinced
that he's where he is,
and you forget about it
in some way.
The biggest reaction
that I think
I've had in my career
was the ending of "Saw,"
that ending when he stands up
off the floor.
Which is one of the reasons
why I did the film,
'cause I thought it would be
a remarkable moment.
It was worth doing
just for that moment.
And to actually physically
see people lose their mind
and yell at the screen
I mean, people would just be
shouting, like, "No way!
No way!"
So that was the best feeling,
you know, we could have
ever had.
[tense music]
The last thing he says
before he closes the door
to leave, he says,
"Some people"
Are so ungrateful
to be alive.
But not you.
Not anymore.
[screams]
- Game over.
- [screams]
[screams]
To me, "Saw"
is that original film,
and then all the other movies,
they sit over here,
and then the original film,
to me, sits on its own.
The later "Saws," yeah,
they became more
more about the torture,
but really they were
torture about people
who deserved it.
The "Saw" movies,
it's the bad guys
who are being tortured.
According to your policy,
your secretary
is older and weaker
and therefore less worthy
to survive.
By, I think it was "Saw 6,"
where they're going
after insurance companies
that have denied people
their claims, and
I don't know
maybe they kind of deserve it
in the world of that movie.
[screams]
I've had skateboarders,
12-year-olds,
come up to me,
groups of them, and say,
"Yeah, we love those movies."
You have one minute
to pull the fishhook
from her stomach
and unlock her device.
And I say, "Yeah, really?
Why? Why do you love 'em?"
And they say, "Because
they teach you stuff."
I said, "Like what?"
They say, "Well, like, to
that you need
to appreciate your life."
- [screaming]
- No!
And they're not talking
about the traps.
They're not talking
about the blood.
They're talking about concepts
that resonate in the film.
[all gasping]
So when you get
this little germ
of an idea, of a thought,
when it's surrounded
by that kind of intensity,
it makes the germ resonate
in a certain way.
- [bone cracking]
- [screaming]
One of the issues with
the "Saw" movies
and you can take it
however you want
is the fact that we invented
a whole new term,
"torture porn."
[gears grinding]
[gasping]
But we invented it
at the very same time
America, as a nation,
was under world indictment
for actually torturing people.
[dramatic music]
♪♪
The torture porn cycle
of horror films
is strongly linked
to the height of what
George W. Bush termed
the War on Terror.
This crusade.
Use any means
at our disposal.
This war on terrorism.
♪♪
The torture porn cycle
is kind of
the cycle of the extreme
horror movie,
the "can you not look away?"
[screaming]
"Can you believe how far
they're taking this?
Can you handle it?"
[screaming]
And I think it really kind of
was crystallized with "Hostel."
A lot of people say
it started with "Saw."
I think the original "Saw"
plays more as
a thriller horror movie
than a torture porn movie.
[chain saw revs]
Hostel becomes
a little bit more
of the "how much can you stand
to watch?"
When we started making
our movies,
the term "torture porn"
came out.
I'll credit
I'll give you that one.
[laughter]
All right,
I'll take that one.
[chain saw revs]
[screaming]
One of the things
about torture porn
is that we are no longer afraid
of bogeymen.
Michael and Jason
and those characters
lost a certain currency.
And what really strikes fear,
particularly in
the United States
in a post-9/11 moment,
is other people.
Other people are frightening.
You're not going?
I've seen this show.
The "Hostel" franchise
speaks truth to power
and presents Americans
in the way
that the world perceives us.
The whole first section
of the film
it's kind of done like
a teen sex comedy, right?
Like, before it gets
into the horrific scenes,
we see Paxton, Josh,
and their friend Oli
in Amsterdam.
And they're just there
to party and smoke pot
and especially,
in a very extended sequence,
have sex with prostitutes.
It invokes this whole
kind of privilege
of paying to do something
to somebody else.
But it's just like
everyone's out for themselves.
You're not meeting friends.
You're meeting someone
who could be the person
that's gonna kill
and rape and murder you.
You're very patient.
I don't I don't remember
- It was 45 minutes.
- Yeah, you go 45 minutes.
Then we kill
our first character.
In that time, you are
allowing us to identify
with the soon-to-be victims,
but you're also
subtlety allowing us
- to hate them in a weird way.
- Mm-hmm.
'Cause they're being
kind of rude
they're being so American.
So by the time
you get to the killing,
we're half identifying
with the killer,
half identifying with
the victim, and I think
that part of it is the
weirdest thing about horror.
Like, we need to be able
to identify
with that dark side of us
that maybe wants
to kill somebody sometimes.
I am an American.
I got rights.
Get the [bleep] out!
What I think is important
and interesting
about "Hostel" is that
it doesn't allow the viewer
to feel that sense
that the American
is exempt from implication
in the War on Terror
and in the use of torture.
Who are you?
What the
where the [bleep] am I?
I guess it's kind of like
a pushback kind of?
- Mm-hmm.
- Like, oh, you think
you rule the world?
You don't.
The first extended scene
of torture that we have
is of this kind of privileged,
young, white American male.
And we see his body
kind of taken away
secretively to this
foreign torture center
and tortured in an act
that reminds us
of the extraordinary
rendition program.
- [drill whirs]
- No!
[screams]
And the viewer identifying
with Josh,
you know,
is forced in a position
of having to imagine themselves
as being subject to torture.
- [flesh tearing]
- [screaming]
There are people that,
you know,
watch torture videos.
And you pay a certain amount,
and you can become
Mr. Director.
And the fact that that exists
internationally
in much poorer countries
where, you know,
maybe the parents have died
and the kids are easier
to get,
it's a really
disgusting quality
that exists in humanity
that we don't even want
to talk about.
And I think that's why
we just got a little peek
of a window into it
in "Hostel."
And it was too much
for most people to accept.
The real world
is much scarier than anything
that Eli Roth or Stephen King
could come up with.
It's a really disturbing,
sick, violent world
we live in.
Horror films reflect that.
And horror films
are a way of people
coming to terms with
the violence in society,
trying to deal with it
and trying to,
you know,
escape it a lot of ways.
We're not allowed to be
scared anywhere in life.
I hear from soldiers
on military bases
that were watching "Hostel"
and watching my films
and screaming.
And, like,
they're dealing with death,
but they're not allowed
to be afraid.
But for 90 minutes, you can
be afraid and not be a coward.
More than any other monster
in horror,
the slasher taps
into our primal fear
of the predator.
And when that predator
comes in human form,
you have to wonder
[suspenseful music]
"Will I be
the resourceful survivor"
♪♪
"Or just another kill?"
He's gone.
[screams]
[yells]