The 101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments of All Time (2022) s01e03 Episode Script
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[heartbeat pounding]
[tense music]
♪
[all screaming]
♪
There are so many elements
that make
the perfect horror moment.
I mean, you really have
to get drawn in
by the effectively
creepy atmosphere,
the camera setups, the lighting.
Even silence sometimes plays
its own character,
where you're straining to listen
and you're really getting
sucked into the moment.
And then,
whether it's a jump scare
[coughs]
Or something that's
almost inaudible and eerie
[wood groaning]
And creepy and suspenseful,
I mean, those are the moments
that really shake you
to your core and stay with you
after the film is finished
and you're left in awe
and terror
of what you just witnessed.
[screams]
♪
"Annihilation" is kind
of a Lovecraft-ian movie
about something called
the shimmer,
which is
this interdimensional force
that's taking over an area
on Earth, and it's spreading.
So they send in
a group of scientists,
who happen to be women,
led by Natalie Portman.
And the shimmer
does strange things.
Once you walk into it
The shimmer is a prism,
but it refracts everything.
So the DNA of every living
thing in the environment
is refracted
onto everything else.
So it's making a big DNA soup,
and everything
gets merged together.
This movie clearly
has a lot to say
about kind of self-reflection
and how we see ourselves
separate
from the world around us.
But everything
is forgotten about,
all that heady stuff,
as soon as
that damn mutant bear shows up.
[metal rattles]
What happened?
I heard a noise.
They see this thing,
this massive thing
come out of the darkness
and eat one of the characters.
[growling]
- Aah!
[distant screaming]
And after that,
one of the characters
completely gets paranoid
and goes kind of crazy.
Ties the other three women up,
determined that she's gonna
try to control the environment.
She needs to find her friend.
And then she starts hearing
cries of her friend.
[in the distance]
Help me! Help me!
And the woman who's got
the gun trained on them
goes off to see what's going on,
and you just hear the bear roar.
[roar in the distance]
And you're like, bear's back.
And as an audience member,
you can see
that they cannot turn around
to what is coming.
And all you hear is
[huffing]
Like, heavy breathing,
and you see the shadow,
the silhouette of a bear.
But what
you're not prepared for
is how fucked up that bear is.
And it makes
this weird kind of scream.
[humanlike scream]
And you realize that when
the mutant bear ate her friend,
it kind of got a version
of the friend's voice.
Hey!
Uh-uh. I'm done.
That's it. I'm going to bed.
I can't-- I can't. Mm-mm.
Take off my lashes,
and I'll see you tomorrow.
And it was actually shot
pretty dark,
because I've seen some pictures
of what the bear looks like
with a little more light on it,
and, actually, her face
is actually part of it.
Almost like her face
was growing out of it.
Immediately they're like
[whispering] Don't react.
'Cause they know
if they react at all,
they're gonna be dead
immediately.
[roaring]
- [exhales shakily]
That is
a perfect movie moment,
because you know
that they're helpless,
and how are they gonna get out
of this situation?
[humanlike scream]
The one girl comes in
and blows it away,
and then it winds up
tearing her apart.
[screaming]
And they don't cut
the camera, man.
Usually we would say
as filmmakers,
the best way to impact
an audience
is to cut away quick.
Just show a little bit
and cut away quick.
Let the audience imagine it.
Oh, hell, no.
You're gonna watch
this girl die.
[screaming]
[growling]
Not only that, you're gonna
see how her whole face
[grunts]
Gets just ripped from her face.
[growling]
- No.
That scene is not long,
and it's really good.
It's a perfect example
of an iconic moment.
It has stuck with me
ever since theaters.
Imagine dying frightened
and in pain
and having that as the only
part of you which survives.
I wouldn't like that at all.
[humanlike scream]
[dramatic music]
♪
Cujo. His name's Cujo.
- Cujo?
"Cujo" is, once again,
Stephen King
exploring what if something
that you see every day
in your life
suddenly turned evil?
"Cujo" really gets
under my skin.
You've got this beautiful,
sweet, loveable dog
that's just doing
what dogs are supposed to do--
chase a rabbit.
That's what a dog does.
It chases a rabbit.
[barking] [bats squealing]
To get bit by a bat
[dog whimpers]
And get rabies,
and then to turn like that,
it's heartbreaking.
Stephen King knows
what scares us,
and what scares us is the thing
that sits next to us every day
and we forget to look at it
as the threat
that it actually is.
Cujo!
Cujo!
Okay, strap in.
The second half of "Cujo"
revolves around this woman
and her son in this car
that doesn't work.
Oh, my goodness
Her son and her go up
to fix her car,
at the local mechanic,
Joe Camber,
who is already dead.
Cujo the rabid dog
has killed him.
No, no, no!
- [snarling]
So the Pinto pulls up.
There's, like, that POV shot
of, like, Cujo in the barn.
We know he's there.
And we see how far the car
is away from other structures
of safety--
the house and the barn.
Then they cut to this tracking
shot behind Dee Wallace,
and now we get this 360,
and we really see, like,
it's just in the middle
of this large space,
and it ends with, like, the barn
behind Dee Wallace, right?
And she's gotten out of the car.
She starts to unbuckle Tad.
The seat belt is jammed.
And we have this tracking shot
go up to her.
Damn this car.
[Tad whines]
- You pull while I push.
And we think, you know,
where Cujo's coming up.
Oh, I can't get it. Pull.
[barking]
- [screams, gasps]
They first look at Cujo
with shock.
She's rolling up the window.
[gasping]
- [growling]
♪
Cujo runs around.
She's in there.
[barking]
And then he goes away.
[growling]
And then there's, like,
the greatest line in the world.
"How did the monster get out
of my closet?"
How did the monster get out
of my closet?
Oh, you're like, "Ugh."
And then she just says,
"It's just a doggy."
And bam!
Cujo crashing the windshield,
and there's this amazing
reaction shot
of him just like, "Ah!"
[screaming]
And now it's set up.
This incredible scenario
is set up
where they're trapped
and the car doesn't work.
Damn you! Come on!
And her husband's away.
You're running out of water.
And Joe Camber is dead.
No, no!
- [snarling]
And the dog is not gonna stop.
[both screaming]
And you're in a Pinto.
What are you gonna do?
♪
The premise of "The Fly"
is scientist Jeff Goldblum
is experimenting in a telepod
to transport
from one telepod to another.
A fly gets inside,
and during the transition,
their DNA becomes mixed.
So Goldblum's character
gradually starts
to become more
and more part-fly.
You know, I just don't think
I've ever given me
a chance to be me.
Do you normally take coffee
with your sugar?
- What?
There's a lot to be said
about casting in "The Fly."
Jeff Goldblum
is a charismatic leading man
I've come here to say
one magic word to you.
Yeah?
Cheeseburger.
Who is, like, sweet and
maybe a little bit of a rake,
but it's happening to somebody
who we maybe like.
The arm wrestling scene
in "The Fly"
is completely unexpected.
That particular scene
is a revenge fantasy
for every science nerd
that's been beaned
with a dodgeball in PE,
where Jeff Goldblum goes
into this bar
and throws down a challenge.
I got 100 bucks says
I can beat either one of you.
And I get to take the lady home
for the night if I win.
Says who?
I don't think
it ages very well,
because Seth implies
that she's a prostitute.
Do I look like
a hooker to you?
It's hand-to-hand,
arm wrestling on the table.
Pushing, pushing, pushing.
[unsettling music]
The close-up
of him gripping the hand,
and that kind of insect,
milky goo
is coming out of his fingertips,
and you know he's just
sticking to that guy's arm.
You don't know how far
Cronenberg is going to take you,
but it's farther
than you expect.
[screams]
And it's just a quick moment,
and it's unexpected,
and it's almost a jump scare
in its own way.
And you just can't unsee it.
You just want to go back
and see, how was that done?
The great sound effect,
a fantastic prosthetic effect.
And even when
you know it's coming,
it's like the tick, tick,
tick, tick, tick, tick, tick
of a roller coaster.
And you're like, "Oh, God.
Oh, no. Oh, no.
Ah!"
And that, to me, is just--
that's like pure delicious,
like, truffles of horror--
those little nuggets
that you can go back to
again and again and again.
[haunting music]
♪
"The Wicker Man"
is a very unique film.
The premise of the movie
is that a police officer
is coming to this island
called Summerisle
to investigate a missing girl.
And he comes to find out
that the island is basically--
just pagans are living there,
and they live
by kind of a different code
than what he's used to
in the mainland.
Will you tell us
what it is, please,
that the maypole represents?
all: Phallic symbol.
The phallic symbol,
that is correct.
And he's
a very religious person.
Edward Woodward described
his character
as a religious zealot.
They are naked.
- Naturally.
It's much too dangerous
to jump through the fire
with your clothes on.
The final scene of the movie
is really just the zenith
of "Wicker Man."
It is where everything
comes together.
[quirky folksy music]
If at this point
in the documentary
you haven't seen
"The Wicker Man"
[whispers] Goodbye.
Go and watch the original
'cause I don't really want
to ruin the ending,
but I have to talk about it.
This year,
at the procession's end,
a holy sacrifice
will be offered up
to quicken the growth
of our crops.
As it becomes clear,
each year they do
a pagan virgin sacrifice.
A little child is not nearly
as effective
as the right kind of adult.
What do you mean
"right kind of adult"?
[intense music]
One of the twists
of "The Wicker Man"
is that Edward Woodward
is the virgin.
It's nothing personal,
just that I don't believe
in it
before marriage.
And he is gonna become
the sacrifice.
Oh, God!
Oh, Jesus Christ!
Our hero is gonna end
the film being burned alive
within the wicker man.
What's really memorable
about the ending to me
is the people of Summerisle
see the ending as a triumph.
[laughs]
[all singing]
Because they have succeeded,
they're having their ritual,
and a virgin is being
sacrificed to the gods.
So, as Edward Woodward
is being burned alive,
everybody else around him
is joyous
and happy and triumphant.
The movie brings up a lot
of interesting questions
about religious fervor--
if we think that we are
so righteous
in what we're doing
that nothing can touch us,
It's an extremely
emotional movie for people
because of the way it ends
and that you're asked
to take sides
with different groups of people
who you sometimes decide
that maybe that's not who you
want to be on that side at all.
The film feels like
it exists by some miracle,
that it probably
shouldn't have existed.
It's even something
about the end shot of the movie
that feels like one of those--
there was only one take of it.
It's when the head
finally crumbles
and the sun is right behind it
and the camera zooms
into the sun.
And you're thinking,
"There was only one take of
that shot, and they got it."
[haunting music]
♪
"Nosferatu" was made
by a group of mostly gay
and Jewish intellectuals
about the pandemic
that they had just been
through in Europe
and the mood
of the country at that time.
It's about many, many things.
It has many, many layers
of meaning.
But, of course,
it wouldn't be watched today
if it weren't for
the performance of Max Schreck
as Count Orlok.
He comes close to being
an insect.
He moves like an insect.
The way Orlok walks,
the way Orlok looks
at other people.
There's no world in which
the beautiful girl
is going to fall in love
with that particular Dracula.
This Dracula is a predator
and a stalker.
Just the most graphic
representation of evil
that had been created
up until that time.
"Nosferatu's" influence
on horror cinema
is undeniable.
There are scares
that are so iconic,
not to mention
that people at that time
were still scared
of actual moving pictures
in general.
Just the fact
that there was a movie
was terrifying.
[haunting music]
And so we'd get our very first
kind of tension scares
♪
Where you know
something's about to happen,
and you don't know what it is
and our very first jump scares.
But most iconic is the shadow
of the count
climbing up the wall.
Part of it is the starkness--
the perfect lines
between shadow and light
that draw the audience's eye
and get the audience to start
asking the question
about what is the relationship
between darkness and light
and humanity.
♪
There are images that just
shock you in that movie.
The way he hovers
over other people,
the way he looks at the camera--
all of these things
just chill you to the bone.
♪
I had this dream
the other night.
It was our house but not.
It was backwards.
[gasps]
So "The Night House"
is a ghost story.
Rebecca Hall plays a woman
whose husband has died.
So that is the husband.
He's committed suicide,
and she doesn't really
quite know why.
And she's very tormented by it.
She thinks her husband might
have been cheating on her
because he was meeting
these other women
who looked like her.
[suspenseful music]
Not only is there something
possibly supernatural here
going on
♪
But it's compounded
by what you're discovering
about a person
you thought you knew,
which is really
emotionally distressing.
"The Night House" will make
you think you're seeing
one thing happening.
Hey!
But nothing is as it appears.
I didn't sleep with him.
Honestly, I barely knew him.
But then she finds
across the lake,
there's another house
that's just like hers
under construction--
like a doppelganger house.
♪
There's something that feels
really occult about it,
about this other home
that is in reverse.
And dark things
are happening there.
♪
[gasps]
And she figures out
that under the floorboards
are all these bodies.
They're, like, not skeletons
in the closet anymore.
They are literal skeletons
in a house
that was built to resemble
the house that you lived in.
Like, this is, like, something
that could've been you
if any number of things
would've been different.
As it turns out,
her whole life she's
been hunted by this demon
that has sort of
locked on to her.
[gasps]
And her husband has been
trying to thwart it
by finding women
who look like her
and killing them
as sacrifice
to this demon thing.
I think there's something
really special
about actors like Rebecca Hall
who take on a film like this
where they know
they're gonna have to go
into the dark places.
She commits to a character,
delivers a performance
that breaks your heart,
scares the shit out of you
and rips your guts out.
♪
[gasps]
"Aliens" is
a fascinating follow-up
to 1979's "Alien."
Ripley becomes
an even greater hero
in this storyline
because we see her,
not only saving herself
once again,
but being willing to go back
and make sure
that nobody else has to go
through it again.
And particularly
when she finds Newt,
we get to see Ripley evolve
into mother mode.
Uh-oh.
I made a clean spot here.
Guess I'll have to do
the whole thing.
One of the best scene
of "Aliens"
is the infirmary scene.
Ripley and Newt
are in the infirmary,
and they're sleeping,
and they're trying
to get some rest,
and they think they're safe,
but all of a sudden,
Ripley hears something.
How scary something can be
usually depends
on who is under threat.
Usually the more helpless
and younger they are,
the scarier it gets,
and that's why horror movies
with kids
can be terrifying.
[whispering] Wake up.
What?
- Be quiet.
Then there's this amazing shot
where the whole camera booms up
to the top of the bunk bed
as Ripley's hand reaches up
in a very facehugger-like way.
And only after we see her hand
moving around a bit
does her head pop up.
[shouts]
And then immediately
this thing lunges at her.
It's a really cool shot and
a really beautiful jump scare.
[screaming]
Ripley and Newt immediately
go into smart mode
of, we are trapped
in the infirmary
with a facehugger--
what do we need to do?"
First thing that she tries
to do is bang on the glass.
But it's soundproof.
- Hey!
[no audio]
So then she turns
to the security cameras.
Hicks!
No one sees her
because some asshole
on the other side
turns them off.
Paul Reiser is the true
bad guy of the movie.
What's human and what's not
has always been
the driving theme of horror.
And that moment when Paul Reiser
turns that screen off,
that's the most inhuman thing
you can see in the whole movie,
like, because who would do
something like that?
Help us!
- Break the glass!
So then she's taking
a chair
trying to break the glass.
[grunts]
And then you see
her processing
the environment and the horror
in real time,
and making smart,
informed decisions
about how to best deal with it,
as she looks around
- Stay here.
Grabs a lighter, and sticks
it under the sprinkler system.
[alarm blaring]
Man, Ripley was it.
[screaming]
It was so freakish
because you'd never seen
those things moving.
The first movie,
you've seen it leap
from the egg, and that's it.
[screaming]
So it was quite a shocker
to see them walking
like this thing on the floor.
James Cameron
did all these tricks.
Like, they had one
that was just a puppet
that you can see rolling
really fast on the floor.
Then he had the puppets
that wouldn't do anything,
but with a bunch
of reverse photography,
he managed to make them jump
and grab the neck.
It's a beautiful scene
to watch frame by frame
to see how they changed
from the puppet
to the reverse photography
for all the leaps at camera.
Because it's Newt and Ripley
versus their first threat
together,
it has a level of emotion
the movie didn't necessarily
need earlier
but needed to evolve into
at this point of the story.
And, of course, that sets up
the confrontation
with the alien queen,
where you have one mother queen
versus another mother queen
who are battling wits and savvy
over the lives
of their children,
adopted or biological.
Get away from her, you bitch.
[hisses]
[pounding on door]
- Mum!
I had the dream again.
"The Babadook"
Mummy!
Just the human part
of the story
is a single mother
with a horrific struggle
[screaming] Mummy! Mummy!
To try to raise
a very troubled child.
Why can't you just be normal?
[screaming]
You don't want to say
that ever to a child,
but that's what sometimes
parents are thinking.
And when you understand
that her husband died
the day her son was born
My dad's in the cemetery.
- Oh, that's--
He got killed driving Mum
to the hospital to have me.
- Samuel.
It makes perfect sense
that she can't celebrate
this child's birthday.
She's still locked in her grief.
He is locked in her grief
with her.
I can't stand
being around your son.
I can't believe
you just said that.
You can't stand
being around him yourself.
That by itself could be
enough of a horror story
just as a drama to keep you
on the edge of your seat.
But then you have this creature.
So you've got this book.
It's a children's picture
pop-up book
about the monster.
"A rumbling sound,
then three sharp knocks.
That's when you'll know
he's around."
And that's scary,
because as a viewer,
it takes you back
to when you were a kid
reading scary books.
And you can't get rid
of the book.
[knock at door]
♪
The style of the way
the movie is filmed
is like
a children's horror book.
[door creaking slowly]
The sound design--
that little chittering sound
this creature makes,
even before you can see it,
it's scary.
[distorted] Babadook.
[groaning]
The first time we see
that creature really animate,
it's beautiful,
but it's frickin' horrifying.
And the appearance,
it's kind of like that tall man
in "It Follows."
It's taller
than you expect it to be.
I mean, it is kind of stylish
wearing that top hat
and everything,
and it's not gonna leave
them alone.
I'll make sure nothing
gets in tonight.
All right, Samuel?
Nothing!
The Babadook is haunting her,
but it's also
kind of this extension
of her own mania
That she wants to protect
her kid from.
Unless the film is
about a deranged parent,
unless we're watching
"The Stepfather,"
unless we're watching
"Mommie Dearest,"
generally,
the parent is reliable.
Even if they don't believe
the kid,
even if they don't understand
the kid
Mum?
And when the mom
starts feeling
like she could be unreliable
or there's hints and glints
of something else
that could be going on
Police say
the woman used a kitchen knife
to stab her son.
Neighbors say the boy
was celebrating
his birthday today.
He had just turned seven.
And we start to crawl
into that weird, nuance-y
dark space where you're like,
"Who's really seeing reality
right now?"
[moans]
"Who's really experiencing
what right now?"
Mum!
Then you realize
that these two people
who love each other so much
are up against something
that is both outside
of themselves
and within themselves.
Come on in.
[groovy music]
Got ya.
- Oh, shit.
"The Last House on the Left,"
strangely enough,
has had a recent renaissance
of interest.
You guys let us
the hell out of here,
or I'm gonna start screaming.
When it first came out,
everyone pretty must agreed
that it was just too brutal.
We're gonna have a little fun.
Wes Craven,
when he made that movie,
was a novice,
but he was really angry
about the state of the world,
and this was
his commentary on it.
There's a point at which
horror just becomes grotesquery,
and I think that movie
came very close to that.
It's graphic rape
by the meanest,
most sadistic guys
you've ever met in your life.
Piss your pants.
It's the first movie
that I shut off halfway through
'cause I couldn't finish
in one sitting.
It really upset when
the character pees herself
because she's so scared.
That's what kind of
did it for me.
I was like, "I need to take
a break from this movie,
"because it's so upsetting
and so distressing
in the moment."
It was a hard watch for me,
but it evoked such a strong
visceral response in me
that I really appreciated
that a movie can do that.
[spits]
- I think what makes it work
is that a lot of the movie
is being told
through the young women's
point of view.
So, when we get to the deaths
of the two girls,
it's awful
because we feel for them.
When that character is gutted,
it's really awful
because she's become
a fully fleshed out person
to us.
And then it's compounded
on the second death,
which is even more tragic,
when she just knows,
"This is it.
There's no hope for me."
[singers vocalizing]
She goes out into the water,
and she just lets them
shoot her.
♪
She falls into the water,
and it actually re-creates
this famous painting of Ophelia.
And it's such a tragic moment
in the film.
♪
[snorts, spits]
"Terrified" is
a small Argentinian movie,
and it's a very clever,
spooky film
of an event that takes place
in a block of a neighborhood.
It actually lives up
to its title.
I don't think anyone
was prepared
for just how scary
that movie was gonna be.
Aah!
It also has an incredibly
iconic opening sequence
of the woman being thrown
around her bathroom
by a ghost.
It's so much bloodier
than you think it can be,
and it won't stop.
She's hitting the wall
hitting the wall
hitting the wall.
It hits a level of absurdity
but then goes back
to really upsetting you.
[screaming in Spanish]
"Terrified"
is kind of spectacular
in how varied it freaks you out.
The really big
creepy scene in it--
it's not a jump scare.
It's more of a scene
that makes you just go
[inhales shakily]
In the film,
we see a little boy
struck and killed by a truck.
His mother's distraught
as they bury this poor child,
but a few days later,
he comes back.
And it's just
absolutely terrifying,
because at first,
the police are called,
so you have the captain
go there.
And when you see the front
of the house,
it's covered with these bloody
and muddy handprints
and shoeprints on the wall,
on the door.
And as he opens the door,
you see these muddy footprints,
and you're thinking,
"What is this?"
And then you see
the little boy sitting there,
his rotting corpse sitting there
with a glass of milk
and some cookies and cereal.
And he's sitting there lifeless.
His hands
just completely wrecked
from what appeared to be
digging out of the grave.
And the entire scene
takes place
in front of this dead kid,
but it is framed
with this deep Z-axis,
so we're seeing them
in the foreground,
and we're looking back
to this dead kid
that they keep in the frame
the entire time.
It is a almost ten-minute scene,
and you spend
the entire ten minutes
waiting
for that dead kid to move,
just waiting.
And they get up in his face.
And then they have a spoon,
and they're seeing
if he's still alive.
And then they turn
to talk to each other,
and you as audience
are just sitting there
waiting for the dead kid
to move.
It's unnerving
to the heaviest degree.
It's just so unnerving.
They decide,
"Oh, well, I don't know.
"It's weird.
He's dead, clearly.
We'll get somebody in here
to take his body back."
So they turn out the lights,
and as soon as they turn out
the lights,
they hear something.
[object clatters]
And the milk has spilled.
And then they realize
that he did move,
and he spilt his milk,
but we don't get to see it.
They flip it back on,
and he's sitting in
the exact same position again,
very much dead,
now just with milk everywhere.
And he's posed almost.
There's a mannequin quality
to him.
Even recently I showed it
to some friends
who had never seen it.
And that young boy ruined
their week.
♪
I'm a messenger of God.
You're doomed if you stay here.
This place is cursed, cursed.
"Friday the 13th"
is, of course,
a groundbreaking film.
It kind of changed
the face of horror.
I know "Halloween"
gets a lot of credit for it,
and it certainly set
the blueprint,
but "Friday the 13th"
kind of put it
into a new sort of landscape.
Welcome to Camp Crystal Lake.
You gonna last all summer?
I don't know
if I'm gonna last all week.
Oh, shit.
But is also upped
the special effects.
And Tom Savini came in,
and he did
an absolutely incredible job
decimating the cast
of that film.
♪
The first one
was very much a mystery.
[screaming]
It has horrible kills in it,
but it's very much a mystery.
Who's that?
Oh, hi.
What are you doing out
in this mess?
'Cause I had no idea
when I was watching the movie
who was killing them.
Oh!
But the funny thing is,
the first one,
the iconic killer
is Mrs. Voorhees.
Jason was my son,
and today is his birthday.
Which I thought was brilliant.
Aah!
[shouts]
The last thing you know
is you've seen Mrs. Voorhees
reveal herself as the killer.
Jason's actually dead.
It never was Jason.
It was Mrs. Voorhees
the whole time,
and she's psychotic.
[high-pitched voice]
Don't let her live.
[normal voice]
I won't, Jason.
I won't.
And Alice,
who's our final girl,
beheads her
in this extremely fun way.
♪
And then the next thing
you know,
Alice is floating in a canoe
on the lake.
And you're like, "Oh, I guess
she got in the canoe.
She's waiting for help maybe,
or she seems really"--
You're like,
"I guess she's really relaxed
now that she killed
the killer."
[serious piano music]
♪
It's a nice, calm little scene.
And then
[growling]
This deformed monster
of a person
jumps out of the water,
and it's Jason.
♪
That was not in the script.
That was my idea.
The script ended
when Adrienne King
cuts off Betsy Palmer's head.
But I had just seen "Carrie."
When you're watching the movie,
the music is swelling
like the credits
are gonna roll any second.
That hand comes
out of the ground
[screaming]
And scares the shit
out of you, you know.
I said, "We need a chair jumper
"at the end of this movie.
"Why can't Jason jump out
of the water
and grab her
and pull her down?"
And he said,
"Well, he's dead."
I said, "Make it a dream,"
'cause for some reason,
people accept anything
if you tell them it was a dream.
No! No!
It's all right now.
- Miss, it's all over.
Or was it a dream?
I don't know, right?
The boy, is he dead, too?
Ma'am, we didn't find any boy.
Then he's still there.
Like, maybe there'll be
another movie.
I told the others.
They didn't believe me.
You're all doomed.
And you'll find out
that Jason really is alive
Jason!
- [screaming]
♪
Aah!
And killing people.
[all screaming]
♪
[all speaking at once]
[zombies moaning]
"Dawn of the Dead"
holds a very, very
near and dear place in my heart
because that's the movie
that kind of got me
on my makeup-effects journey.
The bodies of the dead
will be delivered over
to specially equipped squads
of the National Guard.
What's brilliant
about what George did
in the opening 20 minutes
of that movie
is he throws you
into this chaos.
You know we've got
this building surrounded!
There's a police SWAT team
that are trying to infiltrate
this low-income housing
where the predominantly
families of color
didn't want to surrender
their dead
as they were supposed to
according to the law.
People in this project
are your responsibility.
This sounds very familiar,
but this idea
of low-income families
and communities of color,
they have a lot of reason
to be suspicious
about the government.
And why are they gonna listen
to them?
And it speaks
to just the brokenness
of our institutions.
Do you believe the dead
are returning to life
and attacking the living?
I'm not so sure
what to believe, Doctor.
Come on, let's go!
And then the door
gets kicked open,
and then
there's a big shoot-out.
So you're like, "If there
are zombies attacking,
why is this happening?"
Look out!
♪
We should be able
to work together
for the greater good
in the face of zombies,
but, of course,
that's not the case.
It just exacerbates the issues
that we already have.
[screams]
Come on, you little bastards.
[laughs]
And then you have Wooley,
who's going apeshit.
Wooley!
Hey, hey, hey!
He's just shooting people.
And then he kicks the door in,
head explodes.
Greatest head explosion ever.
[screams]
Once they deal
with that moment,
then you're like,
"Okay, well, the threat's over.
This crazy guy is done."
And then they kick a door in
Not that room!
[person screams]
And zombies come out.
♪
And you see the first
zombie bite in the neck.
[screaming]
I almost blech.
♪
I don't remember
if the bite at the beginning
was in the screenplay.
But I really wanted
to see a zombie
take a chunk out of somebody,
And that was the first effect
we did in the film.
And it scared the crew.
It scared the cast.
It was like, "Oh, is that
what this is gonna be?
Is that is what
this is gonna be like?"
At that point
in cinematic history,
we had never seen
teeth sinking into skin
krrr, pulling a chunk
of skin away-- blech--
even though, if you look at it,
it's all white, unpainted foam.
Sorry, Tom.
♪
If somebody were to do
that bite today,
you wouldn't just bit
a clean chunk out of somebody.
There would be pieces of flesh
that would stretch and snap.
And we call it
"chunks of flesh."
[screaming]
- [shouts]
And then it's not that
that's enough.
But then the arm.
Stand clear!
- [screaming]
It changed who I was.
Like, I felt my DNA
being unwound
and then rewound
into something different
at that exact moment.
The thing that
I'm really sorry about
is the way the blood looks
in "Dawn of the Dead."
It looked great in the bottle,
but it photographed, like,
you know, melted crayons,
like red paint--
it was horrible.
I wish they would go back
and correct that blood.
[screaming]
But from that
zombie bite onward,
you're watching
the movie like this.
And then the rest of the movie,
you're like
"Please, don't do it.
No more."
It's like being tortured.
This is the first
21st birthday present
I'll ever have given.
And it's the first
I've ever asked for.
So "Peeping Tom" is maybe
the most notorious
classic British horror film.
[unsettling music]
It's a movie about this guy
who was basically abused
by his father,
who filmed everything he did
and tried to traumatize him
and just scare
the crap out of him
when he was trying to sleep.
♪
So he's basically
been guinea-pigged
into becoming a serial killer.
♪
And so he winds up,
as we find out,
cornering women and filming
their horrified reactions
with something.
No!
[screaming]
Well, it's interesting.
In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock
makes "Psycho,"
one of his biggest hits,
and probably becomes
even more famous
as a director and a personality
than he even had been before.
♪
Meanwhile, Michael Powell
makes "Peeping Tom"
in 1960,
and it's the end
of his career in a way.
Like,
it got such vicious reviews.
People called it pornographic
and, you know,
a crime against cinema.
And it had exactly the opposite
effect of "Psycho."
♪
At the time,
people were wondering why
Michael Powell,
venerated British director
of classics like
"A Matter of Life and Death"
and "The Red Shoes" --
they're thinking,
"Why is he making this trash?
Why does he want to show us
these appalling things?"
♪
I mean, imagine, like,
if today, you know,
I don't know, I guess
if, like, Spielberg
made, you know,
an NC-17 sex movie.
I mean, it's just
[chuckles]
You would not see that coming.
♪
The final scene
of "Peeping Tom"
is one of the most twisted
moments of cinema
you will ever see,
and it's something
I will never forget.
♪
The shot that I always
really remember, actually,
is when Anna Massey realizes
what Mark Lewis is up to
and tries to sort of retreat
out of his projection room,
and there's
that amazing shot of her
kind of, like,
behind the shelves,
trying to escape
before she runs
into Carl Boehm again.
Aah!
Do you know
what the most frightening thing
in the world is?
You get to see
in that amazing moment
what the victims have seen.
[screaming]
And they felt the spike
touching their throat
and knew I was going
to kill them.
So they're seeing
their own face
at the point of death,
and he's also recording that.
So it's pretty fiendish.
I remember thinking
that that ending
was more twisted than most
of the serial killer movies
we were seeing in the mid-2000s.
[gasps]
- "Saw" is cool.
But he built a camera
with a mirror with a knife
so that he could
literally watch people
watching themselves die.
How fucked up is that?
♪
It's a pretty fucked-up film.
[chuckles]
But it's amazing, you know?
It is about cinema.
♪
I think
there's a lot of filmmakers
that, like Mark Lewis does
in the film,
they're turning the mirror
on the audience.
Come on, sonny,
make us famous.
So, obviously, it's kind of
explicitly drawing a line
between the idea
of a director as voyeur
and the audience member
as voyeur.
♪
Why do we watch horror films?
'Cause we want to see things
that we shouldn't really
be seeing.
It's illicit,
and there are thrills
in the illicit
of something
you shouldn't be watching.
And so I think that sort of,
you know, continues
a grand tradition of directors
who sort of like forcing you
to question why you enjoy
horror movies.
[singers vocalizing hauntingly]
♪
That was a little too much
for people to deal with
when the film came out,
'cause it's like, you're not
supposed to take cinema
and kind of shove it back
in people's faces like that.
[film projector clicking]
[tense music]
♪
[all screaming]
♪
There are so many elements
that make
the perfect horror moment.
I mean, you really have
to get drawn in
by the effectively
creepy atmosphere,
the camera setups, the lighting.
Even silence sometimes plays
its own character,
where you're straining to listen
and you're really getting
sucked into the moment.
And then,
whether it's a jump scare
[coughs]
Or something that's
almost inaudible and eerie
[wood groaning]
And creepy and suspenseful,
I mean, those are the moments
that really shake you
to your core and stay with you
after the film is finished
and you're left in awe
and terror
of what you just witnessed.
[screams]
♪
"Annihilation" is kind
of a Lovecraft-ian movie
about something called
the shimmer,
which is
this interdimensional force
that's taking over an area
on Earth, and it's spreading.
So they send in
a group of scientists,
who happen to be women,
led by Natalie Portman.
And the shimmer
does strange things.
Once you walk into it
The shimmer is a prism,
but it refracts everything.
So the DNA of every living
thing in the environment
is refracted
onto everything else.
So it's making a big DNA soup,
and everything
gets merged together.
This movie clearly
has a lot to say
about kind of self-reflection
and how we see ourselves
separate
from the world around us.
But everything
is forgotten about,
all that heady stuff,
as soon as
that damn mutant bear shows up.
[metal rattles]
What happened?
I heard a noise.
They see this thing,
this massive thing
come out of the darkness
and eat one of the characters.
[growling]
- Aah!
[distant screaming]
And after that,
one of the characters
completely gets paranoid
and goes kind of crazy.
Ties the other three women up,
determined that she's gonna
try to control the environment.
She needs to find her friend.
And then she starts hearing
cries of her friend.
[in the distance]
Help me! Help me!
And the woman who's got
the gun trained on them
goes off to see what's going on,
and you just hear the bear roar.
[roar in the distance]
And you're like, bear's back.
And as an audience member,
you can see
that they cannot turn around
to what is coming.
And all you hear is
[huffing]
Like, heavy breathing,
and you see the shadow,
the silhouette of a bear.
But what
you're not prepared for
is how fucked up that bear is.
And it makes
this weird kind of scream.
[humanlike scream]
And you realize that when
the mutant bear ate her friend,
it kind of got a version
of the friend's voice.
Hey!
Uh-uh. I'm done.
That's it. I'm going to bed.
I can't-- I can't. Mm-mm.
Take off my lashes,
and I'll see you tomorrow.
And it was actually shot
pretty dark,
because I've seen some pictures
of what the bear looks like
with a little more light on it,
and, actually, her face
is actually part of it.
Almost like her face
was growing out of it.
Immediately they're like
[whispering] Don't react.
'Cause they know
if they react at all,
they're gonna be dead
immediately.
[roaring]
- [exhales shakily]
That is
a perfect movie moment,
because you know
that they're helpless,
and how are they gonna get out
of this situation?
[humanlike scream]
The one girl comes in
and blows it away,
and then it winds up
tearing her apart.
[screaming]
And they don't cut
the camera, man.
Usually we would say
as filmmakers,
the best way to impact
an audience
is to cut away quick.
Just show a little bit
and cut away quick.
Let the audience imagine it.
Oh, hell, no.
You're gonna watch
this girl die.
[screaming]
[growling]
Not only that, you're gonna
see how her whole face
[grunts]
Gets just ripped from her face.
[growling]
- No.
That scene is not long,
and it's really good.
It's a perfect example
of an iconic moment.
It has stuck with me
ever since theaters.
Imagine dying frightened
and in pain
and having that as the only
part of you which survives.
I wouldn't like that at all.
[humanlike scream]
[dramatic music]
♪
Cujo. His name's Cujo.
- Cujo?
"Cujo" is, once again,
Stephen King
exploring what if something
that you see every day
in your life
suddenly turned evil?
"Cujo" really gets
under my skin.
You've got this beautiful,
sweet, loveable dog
that's just doing
what dogs are supposed to do--
chase a rabbit.
That's what a dog does.
It chases a rabbit.
[barking] [bats squealing]
To get bit by a bat
[dog whimpers]
And get rabies,
and then to turn like that,
it's heartbreaking.
Stephen King knows
what scares us,
and what scares us is the thing
that sits next to us every day
and we forget to look at it
as the threat
that it actually is.
Cujo!
Cujo!
Okay, strap in.
The second half of "Cujo"
revolves around this woman
and her son in this car
that doesn't work.
Oh, my goodness
Her son and her go up
to fix her car,
at the local mechanic,
Joe Camber,
who is already dead.
Cujo the rabid dog
has killed him.
No, no, no!
- [snarling]
So the Pinto pulls up.
There's, like, that POV shot
of, like, Cujo in the barn.
We know he's there.
And we see how far the car
is away from other structures
of safety--
the house and the barn.
Then they cut to this tracking
shot behind Dee Wallace,
and now we get this 360,
and we really see, like,
it's just in the middle
of this large space,
and it ends with, like, the barn
behind Dee Wallace, right?
And she's gotten out of the car.
She starts to unbuckle Tad.
The seat belt is jammed.
And we have this tracking shot
go up to her.
Damn this car.
[Tad whines]
- You pull while I push.
And we think, you know,
where Cujo's coming up.
Oh, I can't get it. Pull.
[barking]
- [screams, gasps]
They first look at Cujo
with shock.
She's rolling up the window.
[gasping]
- [growling]
♪
Cujo runs around.
She's in there.
[barking]
And then he goes away.
[growling]
And then there's, like,
the greatest line in the world.
"How did the monster get out
of my closet?"
How did the monster get out
of my closet?
Oh, you're like, "Ugh."
And then she just says,
"It's just a doggy."
And bam!
Cujo crashing the windshield,
and there's this amazing
reaction shot
of him just like, "Ah!"
[screaming]
And now it's set up.
This incredible scenario
is set up
where they're trapped
and the car doesn't work.
Damn you! Come on!
And her husband's away.
You're running out of water.
And Joe Camber is dead.
No, no!
- [snarling]
And the dog is not gonna stop.
[both screaming]
And you're in a Pinto.
What are you gonna do?
♪
The premise of "The Fly"
is scientist Jeff Goldblum
is experimenting in a telepod
to transport
from one telepod to another.
A fly gets inside,
and during the transition,
their DNA becomes mixed.
So Goldblum's character
gradually starts
to become more
and more part-fly.
You know, I just don't think
I've ever given me
a chance to be me.
Do you normally take coffee
with your sugar?
- What?
There's a lot to be said
about casting in "The Fly."
Jeff Goldblum
is a charismatic leading man
I've come here to say
one magic word to you.
Yeah?
Cheeseburger.
Who is, like, sweet and
maybe a little bit of a rake,
but it's happening to somebody
who we maybe like.
The arm wrestling scene
in "The Fly"
is completely unexpected.
That particular scene
is a revenge fantasy
for every science nerd
that's been beaned
with a dodgeball in PE,
where Jeff Goldblum goes
into this bar
and throws down a challenge.
I got 100 bucks says
I can beat either one of you.
And I get to take the lady home
for the night if I win.
Says who?
I don't think
it ages very well,
because Seth implies
that she's a prostitute.
Do I look like
a hooker to you?
It's hand-to-hand,
arm wrestling on the table.
Pushing, pushing, pushing.
[unsettling music]
The close-up
of him gripping the hand,
and that kind of insect,
milky goo
is coming out of his fingertips,
and you know he's just
sticking to that guy's arm.
You don't know how far
Cronenberg is going to take you,
but it's farther
than you expect.
[screams]
And it's just a quick moment,
and it's unexpected,
and it's almost a jump scare
in its own way.
And you just can't unsee it.
You just want to go back
and see, how was that done?
The great sound effect,
a fantastic prosthetic effect.
And even when
you know it's coming,
it's like the tick, tick,
tick, tick, tick, tick, tick
of a roller coaster.
And you're like, "Oh, God.
Oh, no. Oh, no.
Ah!"
And that, to me, is just--
that's like pure delicious,
like, truffles of horror--
those little nuggets
that you can go back to
again and again and again.
[haunting music]
♪
"The Wicker Man"
is a very unique film.
The premise of the movie
is that a police officer
is coming to this island
called Summerisle
to investigate a missing girl.
And he comes to find out
that the island is basically--
just pagans are living there,
and they live
by kind of a different code
than what he's used to
in the mainland.
Will you tell us
what it is, please,
that the maypole represents?
all: Phallic symbol.
The phallic symbol,
that is correct.
And he's
a very religious person.
Edward Woodward described
his character
as a religious zealot.
They are naked.
- Naturally.
It's much too dangerous
to jump through the fire
with your clothes on.
The final scene of the movie
is really just the zenith
of "Wicker Man."
It is where everything
comes together.
[quirky folksy music]
If at this point
in the documentary
you haven't seen
"The Wicker Man"
[whispers] Goodbye.
Go and watch the original
'cause I don't really want
to ruin the ending,
but I have to talk about it.
This year,
at the procession's end,
a holy sacrifice
will be offered up
to quicken the growth
of our crops.
As it becomes clear,
each year they do
a pagan virgin sacrifice.
A little child is not nearly
as effective
as the right kind of adult.
What do you mean
"right kind of adult"?
[intense music]
One of the twists
of "The Wicker Man"
is that Edward Woodward
is the virgin.
It's nothing personal,
just that I don't believe
in it
before marriage.
And he is gonna become
the sacrifice.
Oh, God!
Oh, Jesus Christ!
Our hero is gonna end
the film being burned alive
within the wicker man.
What's really memorable
about the ending to me
is the people of Summerisle
see the ending as a triumph.
[laughs]
[all singing]
Because they have succeeded,
they're having their ritual,
and a virgin is being
sacrificed to the gods.
So, as Edward Woodward
is being burned alive,
everybody else around him
is joyous
and happy and triumphant.
The movie brings up a lot
of interesting questions
about religious fervor--
if we think that we are
so righteous
in what we're doing
that nothing can touch us,
It's an extremely
emotional movie for people
because of the way it ends
and that you're asked
to take sides
with different groups of people
who you sometimes decide
that maybe that's not who you
want to be on that side at all.
The film feels like
it exists by some miracle,
that it probably
shouldn't have existed.
It's even something
about the end shot of the movie
that feels like one of those--
there was only one take of it.
It's when the head
finally crumbles
and the sun is right behind it
and the camera zooms
into the sun.
And you're thinking,
"There was only one take of
that shot, and they got it."
[haunting music]
♪
"Nosferatu" was made
by a group of mostly gay
and Jewish intellectuals
about the pandemic
that they had just been
through in Europe
and the mood
of the country at that time.
It's about many, many things.
It has many, many layers
of meaning.
But, of course,
it wouldn't be watched today
if it weren't for
the performance of Max Schreck
as Count Orlok.
He comes close to being
an insect.
He moves like an insect.
The way Orlok walks,
the way Orlok looks
at other people.
There's no world in which
the beautiful girl
is going to fall in love
with that particular Dracula.
This Dracula is a predator
and a stalker.
Just the most graphic
representation of evil
that had been created
up until that time.
"Nosferatu's" influence
on horror cinema
is undeniable.
There are scares
that are so iconic,
not to mention
that people at that time
were still scared
of actual moving pictures
in general.
Just the fact
that there was a movie
was terrifying.
[haunting music]
And so we'd get our very first
kind of tension scares
♪
Where you know
something's about to happen,
and you don't know what it is
and our very first jump scares.
But most iconic is the shadow
of the count
climbing up the wall.
Part of it is the starkness--
the perfect lines
between shadow and light
that draw the audience's eye
and get the audience to start
asking the question
about what is the relationship
between darkness and light
and humanity.
♪
There are images that just
shock you in that movie.
The way he hovers
over other people,
the way he looks at the camera--
all of these things
just chill you to the bone.
♪
I had this dream
the other night.
It was our house but not.
It was backwards.
[gasps]
So "The Night House"
is a ghost story.
Rebecca Hall plays a woman
whose husband has died.
So that is the husband.
He's committed suicide,
and she doesn't really
quite know why.
And she's very tormented by it.
She thinks her husband might
have been cheating on her
because he was meeting
these other women
who looked like her.
[suspenseful music]
Not only is there something
possibly supernatural here
going on
♪
But it's compounded
by what you're discovering
about a person
you thought you knew,
which is really
emotionally distressing.
"The Night House" will make
you think you're seeing
one thing happening.
Hey!
But nothing is as it appears.
I didn't sleep with him.
Honestly, I barely knew him.
But then she finds
across the lake,
there's another house
that's just like hers
under construction--
like a doppelganger house.
♪
There's something that feels
really occult about it,
about this other home
that is in reverse.
And dark things
are happening there.
♪
[gasps]
And she figures out
that under the floorboards
are all these bodies.
They're, like, not skeletons
in the closet anymore.
They are literal skeletons
in a house
that was built to resemble
the house that you lived in.
Like, this is, like, something
that could've been you
if any number of things
would've been different.
As it turns out,
her whole life she's
been hunted by this demon
that has sort of
locked on to her.
[gasps]
And her husband has been
trying to thwart it
by finding women
who look like her
and killing them
as sacrifice
to this demon thing.
I think there's something
really special
about actors like Rebecca Hall
who take on a film like this
where they know
they're gonna have to go
into the dark places.
She commits to a character,
delivers a performance
that breaks your heart,
scares the shit out of you
and rips your guts out.
♪
[gasps]
"Aliens" is
a fascinating follow-up
to 1979's "Alien."
Ripley becomes
an even greater hero
in this storyline
because we see her,
not only saving herself
once again,
but being willing to go back
and make sure
that nobody else has to go
through it again.
And particularly
when she finds Newt,
we get to see Ripley evolve
into mother mode.
Uh-oh.
I made a clean spot here.
Guess I'll have to do
the whole thing.
One of the best scene
of "Aliens"
is the infirmary scene.
Ripley and Newt
are in the infirmary,
and they're sleeping,
and they're trying
to get some rest,
and they think they're safe,
but all of a sudden,
Ripley hears something.
How scary something can be
usually depends
on who is under threat.
Usually the more helpless
and younger they are,
the scarier it gets,
and that's why horror movies
with kids
can be terrifying.
[whispering] Wake up.
What?
- Be quiet.
Then there's this amazing shot
where the whole camera booms up
to the top of the bunk bed
as Ripley's hand reaches up
in a very facehugger-like way.
And only after we see her hand
moving around a bit
does her head pop up.
[shouts]
And then immediately
this thing lunges at her.
It's a really cool shot and
a really beautiful jump scare.
[screaming]
Ripley and Newt immediately
go into smart mode
of, we are trapped
in the infirmary
with a facehugger--
what do we need to do?"
First thing that she tries
to do is bang on the glass.
But it's soundproof.
- Hey!
[no audio]
So then she turns
to the security cameras.
Hicks!
No one sees her
because some asshole
on the other side
turns them off.
Paul Reiser is the true
bad guy of the movie.
What's human and what's not
has always been
the driving theme of horror.
And that moment when Paul Reiser
turns that screen off,
that's the most inhuman thing
you can see in the whole movie,
like, because who would do
something like that?
Help us!
- Break the glass!
So then she's taking
a chair
trying to break the glass.
[grunts]
And then you see
her processing
the environment and the horror
in real time,
and making smart,
informed decisions
about how to best deal with it,
as she looks around
- Stay here.
Grabs a lighter, and sticks
it under the sprinkler system.
[alarm blaring]
Man, Ripley was it.
[screaming]
It was so freakish
because you'd never seen
those things moving.
The first movie,
you've seen it leap
from the egg, and that's it.
[screaming]
So it was quite a shocker
to see them walking
like this thing on the floor.
James Cameron
did all these tricks.
Like, they had one
that was just a puppet
that you can see rolling
really fast on the floor.
Then he had the puppets
that wouldn't do anything,
but with a bunch
of reverse photography,
he managed to make them jump
and grab the neck.
It's a beautiful scene
to watch frame by frame
to see how they changed
from the puppet
to the reverse photography
for all the leaps at camera.
Because it's Newt and Ripley
versus their first threat
together,
it has a level of emotion
the movie didn't necessarily
need earlier
but needed to evolve into
at this point of the story.
And, of course, that sets up
the confrontation
with the alien queen,
where you have one mother queen
versus another mother queen
who are battling wits and savvy
over the lives
of their children,
adopted or biological.
Get away from her, you bitch.
[hisses]
[pounding on door]
- Mum!
I had the dream again.
"The Babadook"
Mummy!
Just the human part
of the story
is a single mother
with a horrific struggle
[screaming] Mummy! Mummy!
To try to raise
a very troubled child.
Why can't you just be normal?
[screaming]
You don't want to say
that ever to a child,
but that's what sometimes
parents are thinking.
And when you understand
that her husband died
the day her son was born
My dad's in the cemetery.
- Oh, that's--
He got killed driving Mum
to the hospital to have me.
- Samuel.
It makes perfect sense
that she can't celebrate
this child's birthday.
She's still locked in her grief.
He is locked in her grief
with her.
I can't stand
being around your son.
I can't believe
you just said that.
You can't stand
being around him yourself.
That by itself could be
enough of a horror story
just as a drama to keep you
on the edge of your seat.
But then you have this creature.
So you've got this book.
It's a children's picture
pop-up book
about the monster.
"A rumbling sound,
then three sharp knocks.
That's when you'll know
he's around."
And that's scary,
because as a viewer,
it takes you back
to when you were a kid
reading scary books.
And you can't get rid
of the book.
[knock at door]
♪
The style of the way
the movie is filmed
is like
a children's horror book.
[door creaking slowly]
The sound design--
that little chittering sound
this creature makes,
even before you can see it,
it's scary.
[distorted] Babadook.
[groaning]
The first time we see
that creature really animate,
it's beautiful,
but it's frickin' horrifying.
And the appearance,
it's kind of like that tall man
in "It Follows."
It's taller
than you expect it to be.
I mean, it is kind of stylish
wearing that top hat
and everything,
and it's not gonna leave
them alone.
I'll make sure nothing
gets in tonight.
All right, Samuel?
Nothing!
The Babadook is haunting her,
but it's also
kind of this extension
of her own mania
That she wants to protect
her kid from.
Unless the film is
about a deranged parent,
unless we're watching
"The Stepfather,"
unless we're watching
"Mommie Dearest,"
generally,
the parent is reliable.
Even if they don't believe
the kid,
even if they don't understand
the kid
Mum?
And when the mom
starts feeling
like she could be unreliable
or there's hints and glints
of something else
that could be going on
Police say
the woman used a kitchen knife
to stab her son.
Neighbors say the boy
was celebrating
his birthday today.
He had just turned seven.
And we start to crawl
into that weird, nuance-y
dark space where you're like,
"Who's really seeing reality
right now?"
[moans]
"Who's really experiencing
what right now?"
Mum!
Then you realize
that these two people
who love each other so much
are up against something
that is both outside
of themselves
and within themselves.
Come on in.
[groovy music]
Got ya.
- Oh, shit.
"The Last House on the Left,"
strangely enough,
has had a recent renaissance
of interest.
You guys let us
the hell out of here,
or I'm gonna start screaming.
When it first came out,
everyone pretty must agreed
that it was just too brutal.
We're gonna have a little fun.
Wes Craven,
when he made that movie,
was a novice,
but he was really angry
about the state of the world,
and this was
his commentary on it.
There's a point at which
horror just becomes grotesquery,
and I think that movie
came very close to that.
It's graphic rape
by the meanest,
most sadistic guys
you've ever met in your life.
Piss your pants.
It's the first movie
that I shut off halfway through
'cause I couldn't finish
in one sitting.
It really upset when
the character pees herself
because she's so scared.
That's what kind of
did it for me.
I was like, "I need to take
a break from this movie,
"because it's so upsetting
and so distressing
in the moment."
It was a hard watch for me,
but it evoked such a strong
visceral response in me
that I really appreciated
that a movie can do that.
[spits]
- I think what makes it work
is that a lot of the movie
is being told
through the young women's
point of view.
So, when we get to the deaths
of the two girls,
it's awful
because we feel for them.
When that character is gutted,
it's really awful
because she's become
a fully fleshed out person
to us.
And then it's compounded
on the second death,
which is even more tragic,
when she just knows,
"This is it.
There's no hope for me."
[singers vocalizing]
She goes out into the water,
and she just lets them
shoot her.
♪
She falls into the water,
and it actually re-creates
this famous painting of Ophelia.
And it's such a tragic moment
in the film.
♪
[snorts, spits]
"Terrified" is
a small Argentinian movie,
and it's a very clever,
spooky film
of an event that takes place
in a block of a neighborhood.
It actually lives up
to its title.
I don't think anyone
was prepared
for just how scary
that movie was gonna be.
Aah!
It also has an incredibly
iconic opening sequence
of the woman being thrown
around her bathroom
by a ghost.
It's so much bloodier
than you think it can be,
and it won't stop.
She's hitting the wall
hitting the wall
hitting the wall.
It hits a level of absurdity
but then goes back
to really upsetting you.
[screaming in Spanish]
"Terrified"
is kind of spectacular
in how varied it freaks you out.
The really big
creepy scene in it--
it's not a jump scare.
It's more of a scene
that makes you just go
[inhales shakily]
In the film,
we see a little boy
struck and killed by a truck.
His mother's distraught
as they bury this poor child,
but a few days later,
he comes back.
And it's just
absolutely terrifying,
because at first,
the police are called,
so you have the captain
go there.
And when you see the front
of the house,
it's covered with these bloody
and muddy handprints
and shoeprints on the wall,
on the door.
And as he opens the door,
you see these muddy footprints,
and you're thinking,
"What is this?"
And then you see
the little boy sitting there,
his rotting corpse sitting there
with a glass of milk
and some cookies and cereal.
And he's sitting there lifeless.
His hands
just completely wrecked
from what appeared to be
digging out of the grave.
And the entire scene
takes place
in front of this dead kid,
but it is framed
with this deep Z-axis,
so we're seeing them
in the foreground,
and we're looking back
to this dead kid
that they keep in the frame
the entire time.
It is a almost ten-minute scene,
and you spend
the entire ten minutes
waiting
for that dead kid to move,
just waiting.
And they get up in his face.
And then they have a spoon,
and they're seeing
if he's still alive.
And then they turn
to talk to each other,
and you as audience
are just sitting there
waiting for the dead kid
to move.
It's unnerving
to the heaviest degree.
It's just so unnerving.
They decide,
"Oh, well, I don't know.
"It's weird.
He's dead, clearly.
We'll get somebody in here
to take his body back."
So they turn out the lights,
and as soon as they turn out
the lights,
they hear something.
[object clatters]
And the milk has spilled.
And then they realize
that he did move,
and he spilt his milk,
but we don't get to see it.
They flip it back on,
and he's sitting in
the exact same position again,
very much dead,
now just with milk everywhere.
And he's posed almost.
There's a mannequin quality
to him.
Even recently I showed it
to some friends
who had never seen it.
And that young boy ruined
their week.
♪
I'm a messenger of God.
You're doomed if you stay here.
This place is cursed, cursed.
"Friday the 13th"
is, of course,
a groundbreaking film.
It kind of changed
the face of horror.
I know "Halloween"
gets a lot of credit for it,
and it certainly set
the blueprint,
but "Friday the 13th"
kind of put it
into a new sort of landscape.
Welcome to Camp Crystal Lake.
You gonna last all summer?
I don't know
if I'm gonna last all week.
Oh, shit.
But is also upped
the special effects.
And Tom Savini came in,
and he did
an absolutely incredible job
decimating the cast
of that film.
♪
The first one
was very much a mystery.
[screaming]
It has horrible kills in it,
but it's very much a mystery.
Who's that?
Oh, hi.
What are you doing out
in this mess?
'Cause I had no idea
when I was watching the movie
who was killing them.
Oh!
But the funny thing is,
the first one,
the iconic killer
is Mrs. Voorhees.
Jason was my son,
and today is his birthday.
Which I thought was brilliant.
Aah!
[shouts]
The last thing you know
is you've seen Mrs. Voorhees
reveal herself as the killer.
Jason's actually dead.
It never was Jason.
It was Mrs. Voorhees
the whole time,
and she's psychotic.
[high-pitched voice]
Don't let her live.
[normal voice]
I won't, Jason.
I won't.
And Alice,
who's our final girl,
beheads her
in this extremely fun way.
♪
And then the next thing
you know,
Alice is floating in a canoe
on the lake.
And you're like, "Oh, I guess
she got in the canoe.
She's waiting for help maybe,
or she seems really"--
You're like,
"I guess she's really relaxed
now that she killed
the killer."
[serious piano music]
♪
It's a nice, calm little scene.
And then
[growling]
This deformed monster
of a person
jumps out of the water,
and it's Jason.
♪
That was not in the script.
That was my idea.
The script ended
when Adrienne King
cuts off Betsy Palmer's head.
But I had just seen "Carrie."
When you're watching the movie,
the music is swelling
like the credits
are gonna roll any second.
That hand comes
out of the ground
[screaming]
And scares the shit
out of you, you know.
I said, "We need a chair jumper
"at the end of this movie.
"Why can't Jason jump out
of the water
and grab her
and pull her down?"
And he said,
"Well, he's dead."
I said, "Make it a dream,"
'cause for some reason,
people accept anything
if you tell them it was a dream.
No! No!
It's all right now.
- Miss, it's all over.
Or was it a dream?
I don't know, right?
The boy, is he dead, too?
Ma'am, we didn't find any boy.
Then he's still there.
Like, maybe there'll be
another movie.
I told the others.
They didn't believe me.
You're all doomed.
And you'll find out
that Jason really is alive
Jason!
- [screaming]
♪
Aah!
And killing people.
[all screaming]
♪
[all speaking at once]
[zombies moaning]
"Dawn of the Dead"
holds a very, very
near and dear place in my heart
because that's the movie
that kind of got me
on my makeup-effects journey.
The bodies of the dead
will be delivered over
to specially equipped squads
of the National Guard.
What's brilliant
about what George did
in the opening 20 minutes
of that movie
is he throws you
into this chaos.
You know we've got
this building surrounded!
There's a police SWAT team
that are trying to infiltrate
this low-income housing
where the predominantly
families of color
didn't want to surrender
their dead
as they were supposed to
according to the law.
People in this project
are your responsibility.
This sounds very familiar,
but this idea
of low-income families
and communities of color,
they have a lot of reason
to be suspicious
about the government.
And why are they gonna listen
to them?
And it speaks
to just the brokenness
of our institutions.
Do you believe the dead
are returning to life
and attacking the living?
I'm not so sure
what to believe, Doctor.
Come on, let's go!
And then the door
gets kicked open,
and then
there's a big shoot-out.
So you're like, "If there
are zombies attacking,
why is this happening?"
Look out!
♪
We should be able
to work together
for the greater good
in the face of zombies,
but, of course,
that's not the case.
It just exacerbates the issues
that we already have.
[screams]
Come on, you little bastards.
[laughs]
And then you have Wooley,
who's going apeshit.
Wooley!
Hey, hey, hey!
He's just shooting people.
And then he kicks the door in,
head explodes.
Greatest head explosion ever.
[screams]
Once they deal
with that moment,
then you're like,
"Okay, well, the threat's over.
This crazy guy is done."
And then they kick a door in
Not that room!
[person screams]
And zombies come out.
♪
And you see the first
zombie bite in the neck.
[screaming]
I almost blech.
♪
I don't remember
if the bite at the beginning
was in the screenplay.
But I really wanted
to see a zombie
take a chunk out of somebody,
And that was the first effect
we did in the film.
And it scared the crew.
It scared the cast.
It was like, "Oh, is that
what this is gonna be?
Is that is what
this is gonna be like?"
At that point
in cinematic history,
we had never seen
teeth sinking into skin
krrr, pulling a chunk
of skin away-- blech--
even though, if you look at it,
it's all white, unpainted foam.
Sorry, Tom.
♪
If somebody were to do
that bite today,
you wouldn't just bit
a clean chunk out of somebody.
There would be pieces of flesh
that would stretch and snap.
And we call it
"chunks of flesh."
[screaming]
- [shouts]
And then it's not that
that's enough.
But then the arm.
Stand clear!
- [screaming]
It changed who I was.
Like, I felt my DNA
being unwound
and then rewound
into something different
at that exact moment.
The thing that
I'm really sorry about
is the way the blood looks
in "Dawn of the Dead."
It looked great in the bottle,
but it photographed, like,
you know, melted crayons,
like red paint--
it was horrible.
I wish they would go back
and correct that blood.
[screaming]
But from that
zombie bite onward,
you're watching
the movie like this.
And then the rest of the movie,
you're like
"Please, don't do it.
No more."
It's like being tortured.
This is the first
21st birthday present
I'll ever have given.
And it's the first
I've ever asked for.
So "Peeping Tom" is maybe
the most notorious
classic British horror film.
[unsettling music]
It's a movie about this guy
who was basically abused
by his father,
who filmed everything he did
and tried to traumatize him
and just scare
the crap out of him
when he was trying to sleep.
♪
So he's basically
been guinea-pigged
into becoming a serial killer.
♪
And so he winds up,
as we find out,
cornering women and filming
their horrified reactions
with something.
No!
[screaming]
Well, it's interesting.
In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock
makes "Psycho,"
one of his biggest hits,
and probably becomes
even more famous
as a director and a personality
than he even had been before.
♪
Meanwhile, Michael Powell
makes "Peeping Tom"
in 1960,
and it's the end
of his career in a way.
Like,
it got such vicious reviews.
People called it pornographic
and, you know,
a crime against cinema.
And it had exactly the opposite
effect of "Psycho."
♪
At the time,
people were wondering why
Michael Powell,
venerated British director
of classics like
"A Matter of Life and Death"
and "The Red Shoes" --
they're thinking,
"Why is he making this trash?
Why does he want to show us
these appalling things?"
♪
I mean, imagine, like,
if today, you know,
I don't know, I guess
if, like, Spielberg
made, you know,
an NC-17 sex movie.
I mean, it's just
[chuckles]
You would not see that coming.
♪
The final scene
of "Peeping Tom"
is one of the most twisted
moments of cinema
you will ever see,
and it's something
I will never forget.
♪
The shot that I always
really remember, actually,
is when Anna Massey realizes
what Mark Lewis is up to
and tries to sort of retreat
out of his projection room,
and there's
that amazing shot of her
kind of, like,
behind the shelves,
trying to escape
before she runs
into Carl Boehm again.
Aah!
Do you know
what the most frightening thing
in the world is?
You get to see
in that amazing moment
what the victims have seen.
[screaming]
And they felt the spike
touching their throat
and knew I was going
to kill them.
So they're seeing
their own face
at the point of death,
and he's also recording that.
So it's pretty fiendish.
I remember thinking
that that ending
was more twisted than most
of the serial killer movies
we were seeing in the mid-2000s.
[gasps]
- "Saw" is cool.
But he built a camera
with a mirror with a knife
so that he could
literally watch people
watching themselves die.
How fucked up is that?
♪
It's a pretty fucked-up film.
[chuckles]
But it's amazing, you know?
It is about cinema.
♪
I think
there's a lot of filmmakers
that, like Mark Lewis does
in the film,
they're turning the mirror
on the audience.
Come on, sonny,
make us famous.
So, obviously, it's kind of
explicitly drawing a line
between the idea
of a director as voyeur
and the audience member
as voyeur.
♪
Why do we watch horror films?
'Cause we want to see things
that we shouldn't really
be seeing.
It's illicit,
and there are thrills
in the illicit
of something
you shouldn't be watching.
And so I think that sort of,
you know, continues
a grand tradition of directors
who sort of like forcing you
to question why you enjoy
horror movies.
[singers vocalizing hauntingly]
♪
That was a little too much
for people to deal with
when the film came out,
'cause it's like, you're not
supposed to take cinema
and kind of shove it back
in people's faces like that.
[film projector clicking]