The 101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments of All Time (2022) s01e04 Episode Script
62-50
[dramatic music]
♪
[screaming]
These days, to kind of be
an iconic scene
in a horror movie,
you kind of have
to think of it as,
what would the animated GIF be?
Jack Nicholson
axing through a door,
putting his face in,
and saying, "Here's Johnny."
Here's Johnny.
- [screams]
Even if they've
never seen the movie,
they could just go,
"That's 'The Shining.'"
And that's what makes it iconic.
It's something
that permeates culture
even for people that don't even
know where it's from.
That iconic line
of dialogue
What's your favorite
scary movie?
That iconic death
It's all for you.
[glass shattering]
[screaming]
That iconic special effect
- [screaming]
It's those movies
that really stick with you.
There is no other genre
that you feel that presence,
you feel
that memory of the movie
sticking with you.
[eerie music]
♪
[glass shatters, flames whoosh]
♪
[crashing]
"A Quiet Place" is
a very scary
postapocalyptic movie
in which aliens come to Earth
and they are attracted to sound.
And if you make a sound,
they're going to kill you.
It's a pretty simple premise,
but it's
a really horrifying premise.
And the first few seconds,
you know
you're watching something
you've never seen before.
It's fresh and new and strange.
You don't know
what the monsters are.
What-- why are they--
postapocalyptic, I get it.
They're in a supermarket.
Like, there's no humans.
I didn't know
going into that movie
what was the threat.
Whatever it was, it was clear
that you shouldn't be loud.
What's so great
about that movie
is that it plays with sound
in such a memorable way,
because you go from the world
the parents are experiencing--
they have to keep quiet--
but then you also keep going
into the world of their daughter
who can't hear anything,
so it's completely quiet.
You can't hear a noise at all.
There is a little boy,
and he finds this rocket ship.
And he wants
to take it with him,
but the parents are like,
"No, that's gonna make a noise.
You can't take that with you."
But then his sister lets him
keep the rocket ship.
At the end
of that first scene,
which sets everything up,
is when you see
that the little kids grab
the batteries,
and you know
it's not gonna be good.
But you never expect it's gonna
be executed the way it is.
So at some point,
she just looks and sees
that her brother has this rocket
and the rocket is lighting up.
And she knows that things
are going horribly wrong
and it's in part her fault.
So it's this horrifying moment
where John Krasinski is, like,
running and trying
to get to it-- to his son.
But having seen
a billion horror movies,
you probably assume
he's gonna save the kid.
You're convinced
he's gonna save the kid.
How is he not gonna save
the kid?
He's gonna save the kid.
He's running. He's fast.
He's gonna get him.
The whole family's freaking out,
but they seem like
they have a plan.
They have the sand on the floor.
They have shit figured out.
So how can the kid be taken?
So just like that,
years of horror tropes
make a sharp turn,
and bang,
the kid's actually taken.
And that's what's shocking
about it.
When a kid got killed
in a movie
in the '70s or even in the '80s,
it was a lot more taboo.
But now in terms
of a lot of the material
that's being created,
a lot of it's being told
through the perspective of kids.
Because the stories
are cashing in
on that vulnerability.
You gotta find the person
that's vulnerable.
And then that person
that's vulnerable
is the one that's
going to be terrorized.
[wood creaking]
♪
[wood bangs]
[alien growling]
[screams]
[suspenseful music]
♪
This is the autopsy
of an unidentified female
henceforth known as Jane Doe.
"The Autopsy of Jane Doe"
stars Brian Cox
and Emile Hirsch as
a father-son coroner team.
And a body is brought in.
Found her in the basement
of the Douglas' place.
No ID.
No fingerprints in the system.
No one has a clue who she is.
A young woman.
She's completely unscathed
from the outside.
And that's a bit of a mystery
because she's been found
at a horrific crime scene.
♪
It becomes
almost like a detective story
where they're finding out
all of these weird
inconsistencies about the body
and trying to paint
a bigger picture
about what's going on.
But at the same time,
these supernatural instances
are starting to occur
in the morgue around them.
A great idea.
And shot really well.
It looks like
a Japanese horror movie.
It looks like
Korean horror movie.
That's the saturated
color palette
and the claustrophobia
of the setting.
She never moves,
and even though
the corpse never moves,
it still seems
to kind of respond
in these really subtle ways.
[static crackles]
[indistinct radio chatter]
You know, it's a lot
like Japanese films
where the ghost is incarnate,
but it is working
through other means.
It's working psychologically
in particular.
[radio static, scream]
Come on and let
the sunshine in ♪
And it's always
with one tiny thing
marking that
something's off now.
The song coming on the radio.
A noise. The lights flashing.
The power going out.
And that always then sets off
a course of events
that are gonna get
downright terrifying.
As they start to cut her open
and look inside,
they see all of these signs
of extensive trauma
inside of her body.
Oh.
Her lungs are blackened
like she burned to death
and inhaled smoke and soot,
but at the same time,
there's no burn marks
on the exterior.
And it goes from there
until you get
into some really weird stuff,
like a swallowed tooth
wrapped in cloth in her stomach
as well as jimsonweed,
meaning she was paralyzed,
so all this stuff was
done to her
while she was still alive.
What we end up watching
a lot of the time
is not necessarily the autopsy.
It's their findings.
It's them interacting.
It's them
writing on a chalkboard
trying to make sense
of everything
that they're learning.
It was so mysterious.
But to me,
the most amazing thing is
when they peel the skin open
and there's hieroglyphics
inside her skin.
How did that get there?
And it's so weird
and beautiful and striking.
Holy shit.
That scene in "Jane Doe"
will stick with me forever.
And that's what leads up
to some
of the most harrowing scenes
in the film.
They try everything they can
to destroy her,
and you can try to burn her.
It doesn't work.
You know,
they're even cutting her up.
That doesn't work.
Terrible things
still keep happening.
Because that trauma is so large
that it keeps resonating
through the years
and across centuries.
Please. Don't hurt him.
Dad!
- Oh! [grunts]
[gasps] Dad!
I don't think anyone knows
the plot of "Phantasm,"
including Don Coscarelli
who made the movie.
"Phantasm" is like a fun house.
There's something
around every corner.
You don't know what it is.
You don't know
what the rules are.
At one point,
it goes to another dimension.
It's seriously a movie
that just makes up the rules
as it goes.
And for some people,
that's very annoying.
And for other people,
that's very exciting.
I couldn't explain to you
exactly what's going on or why,
but it all feels like it makes
absolute sense to me.
It was all in your mind.
I think what sells it--
what sells the strangeness
of the plotting
[glass shatters]
The Tall Man, Angus Scrimm,
is this menacing presence.
The funeral is
about to begin, sir.
And he's the mystery figure
as seen
through a little boy's eyes.
[door crashes open]
[chuckles] Boy.
There are so many people
that just--
"Boy" upsets them deeply, right?
"Boy."
All the sudden, even if you're
an adult watching this,
you are put into the position
of being a child and in trouble.
Boy.
Like, that's a villain,
you know?
It's a way he utters a word
which, you know, bothers people
for life.
Because it's not super clear
why he's here,
it's not super clear
what he's about to do to you.
It's just the kind of thing
that children's nightmares
are made of.
Movies are dreamlike anyway.
It's dream within a dream
within a dream.
[yelling]
You have a forbidden place
that the main characters go to
that's a mausoleum-type
environment,
so it's full of dead people.
It's also full
of a flying silver sphere
that attacks you and burrows
into your forehead
and causes blood
to spurt out of your body.
Why is the flying sphere there?
I don't know.
But it's part of the menace
of the forbidden mortuary.
The spheres are amazing.
I'm not exactly sure
how they got the effects
of them shooting
through the halls.
But they're really scary
and they're really imaginative
and they're like nothing
anybody would have seen in 1979.
My God.
That's one
of those great things
'cause you don't know
what it's gonna do.
What is this weird sphere?
What's it gonna do
when it catches up to you?
And then it just fucking drills
all the blood out of your body?
That's so cool.
[blood spurting]
- [groaning]
There was just something cool
about the way it was shot.
It just had a lot of cool stuff.
They had a cool car.
So it was two guys
in a graveyard,
a tall man, and a ball
that could suck blood
out of your head.
[shattering]
On the cool factor,
"Phantasm" is up there
pretty high.
[dramatic string music]
♪
"Ju-On" is almost kind of like
an urban legend put on film.
It's an anthology where you have
this ghostly presence
in a neighborhood
that's born from deep trauma.
Because in Japan, the way
that the dead are thought of
is very different
than it is here.
In Japan, it's sort of like
these are your ancestors.
They're all
sort of bound together
and they have to take care
of each other,
and so when something goes wrong
and that chain gets broken,
then that person
literally can't leave.
They're stuck with you.
- [speaking Japanese]
It's almost like
a disease following you.
Ghosts, oftentimes
in Japanese, Hong Kong,
South Korean horror,
they can take on
a physical form.
It makes it difficult
to determine
what is and what is not a ghost.
That can be
particularly alarming
as you go about
your everyday life.
Especially if you live alone
in, like, an apartment building
or if you're working
in an office building,
you have to watch out
because the ghosts
could pop up anywhere.
They can show up in windows
- [screams]
When you're out
doing your business
Oh.
[screams, pants]
- [speaking Japanese]
"Ju-On" exploits that
really well
because there is
a very creepy ghost boy
who turns up when you really
don't want him to.
[cat yowling]
So there's a young woman,
of course,
who winds up falling
under the hex of this grudge,
and in the scene
that really traumatized
all of us
when we saw this movie,
she keeps being followed by it.
[footsteps shuffling]
She first encounters it
in the bathroom.
[clicking]
Then she asks
the security guard for help.
And I think it's notable,
one of the times
that she sees the ghost
is on a security camera screen.
One of the sort of
interesting features
about so many
of the Japanese horror films
is this persistent anxiety
about technology
or technology as this conduit
to which we can see spirits
and spirits can get to us.
[screams]
As she is moving
on the elevator
and you see Toshio's face
coming out from the window.
It's that idea of repetition.
You know, these characters
who are stuck,
and then this character
who is now
gonna be stuck with them.
And then the movie really
hits on a primal fear,
and that's
something invading your bed.
That's when she crawls into bed
and she thinks that she's
actually evaded this thing,
and she sees something moving
under the sheets.
[suspenseful music]
♪
And of course,
she pulls it back,
and just the face
sort of staring at her
from under the sheets,
it scares her to death
and the audience too
at the same time.
[screams]
The very idea that you can be
in your own bed
and something can
come up at you,
that's horrifying.
We think about things
coming out of our closets.
We think about things
under our bed.
[yelps]
But it's not as often we think
about the scary things
under our sheets.
So to have that image,
that face coming out at you,
is part of what makes
this film so chilling.
Some of these scares
are always best supported
by the larger points
of the movie,
and "The Grudge" is one
of lingering trauma.
You can't escape her
because you can't escape
these terrible things
that happened in life
that will always have a hold
on the people they affected
and even, like, go out
into the world and affect others
because these acts were
so terrible
and they were such examples
of humans being so terrible
to each other
[screams]
That it has, like, ripples
through the supernatural,
which is pretty heavy.
[eerie music]
[phone rings]
Hello?
Have you checked the children?
Who is this?
[line clicks, dial tone blares]
"When a Stranger Calls"
is on every horror fan's list.
And it's because
of that opening--
opening 20 minutes
with Carol Kane.
The movie starts
with this babysitter,
and she's in this big,
giant house alone,
and the kids are asleep
upstairs,
and the phone rings.
[phone rings]
Hello?
And it's this
sort of creepy voice,
and he keeps calling her,
asking her
Have you checked the children?
What?
- That's weird.
And I feel weird
listening to him say that.
But lots of people got
crank phone calls in the '70s.
I was actually ten and I got
an obscene phone call.
At first she's like,
"Oh, it's a crank caller.
Oh, it's some guy
from school."
Like, she doesn't know
who it is.
But obviously,
it's a little creepy.
[phone ringing]
And then the more she's there
and the more this guy calls,
the creepier it gets.
What this scene does
that is so smart is,
the way that it is filmed,
it is letting you feel
like danger is
behind every corner
without ever indicating it.
It's using
these incredibly deep shots
as we go through these hallways,
as we go through this foyer
of this house.
So she might be in the middle
of the foyer,
looking up the stairs
or looking out a window,
but what we're feeling
behind her is
a really dark living room
with really heavy drapes
and a bajillion different places
a killer could hide.
Eventually,
she gets so freaked out,
she calls the police.
I've been getting phone calls
about every 15 minutes.
And the police
don't totally take her
seriously at first.
At some point they're like,
"You know what?
"We'll trace the call for you.
So the next time he calls,
just keep him on the line."
It's me.
- Can you see me?
Yes.
That voyeurism is
a huge part of horror.
It's the idea that we don't know
when we're being watched.
She's like,
"Fine. You know what?
"You scared me.
You did it. You scared me.
Uh, is that what-- was that
what you wanted to do?"
And he says no, and she's like,
"What do you want?"
And he says
Your blood
all over me.
And it is said so plain as day
but just so terrifying.
It sends chills
when you hear it in the film.
The way the sound is done
is so brilliant,
watching it
now that I make movies.
His voice is very present,
so you feel
like he's right there.
Your blood
all over me.
Come to find out,
he is right there.
He's upstairs with the children.
Because the next thing
that happens is,
she hangs up the phone,
the police call her back,
and they say
- We've traced the call,
and it's coming
from inside the house.
So this whole time,
she's actually been
in the house with this person
who's terrorizing her.
She's even more unsafe
than we thought she was.
And it's a chilling,
chilling moment.
She runs to the door
and the door upstairs
starts to creak open,
and she can't get
the door unlocked,
and it's just this great
horror movie scene
where she's trying to escape
now that she knows
that she's been in danger
for 20-some odd minutes
of this movie.
It gets this
kind of crescendo of fear,
that every time I watch it--
and I've seen this film
several times now--
I never stop feeling tense
even though I know exactly
what's happening in that scene.
To be honest,
the rest of the movie
is kind of a slog
to get through.
But that first 20 minutes--
that cold open is
next-level tension.
Why haven't you checked
the children?
♪
[slurping, moaning]
You can suck it. Suck it.
- Listen, you pervert.
Why don't you go
over to Lambda Chi?
They could use a little of this.
Oh, you big cunt.
You fucking creep.
I'm going to kill you.
[dial tone blares]
Bob Clark is fascinating to me
He made
the two best Christmas movies
of all time, I'd argue.
"A Christmas Story,"
which you can watch
with your family and get
all warm and fuzzy about.
And then after everyone else
has gone to bed,
you and your more sort of
depraved relatives or friends
can watch "Black Christmas,"
which is
the scariest Christmas movie
ever made.
I was a kid when I saw it,
and it's just fantastic.
But the thing
that I will always remember
was the amazing
killer's POV stuff,
which boggled my mind.
It was a handheld fish-eye lens,
and you're watching him
or her-- I assume it's a him,
'cause you never find out
for sure--
kind of wandering around
watching people.
And he climbs a ladder
at some point.
And the thing
that really cements it
is the terrifying breathing.
[breathing heavily]
[indistinct chatter]
He's got
this horrible phlegmy
[mimicking congested breathing]
[breathing heavily]
I don't know if it's
a residual from my childhood,
but I watch it today
and it still freaks me out.
One of the first
on-camera kills that we see
is sorority girl Clare.
She's packing up, getting ready
to go home for Christmas.
Her dad's gonna pick her up
the next day.
And the sorority house
is thinning out slowly
as everybody's leaving
for the holidays.
[suspenseful music]
♪
[plastic crinkles]
Who is that? Who is it?
♪
And she is killed
in her closet
[gasping]
With a piece of that plastic
that you put over, like,
your dry-cleaning.
And you see her face, like
[mimics suffocating]
Like, you can feel
the suffocation happening.
And she dies with wide eyes
and her mouth
in the position.
And that's how she stays
for the whole movie.
And the next time you see
her corpse,
she's in a rocking chair
in the attic,
right by the window,
with her face like that
and the plastic still on it.
[chair creaks]
It's just a shocking image.
Plus, I'm claustrophobic.
And the idea
of not being able to breathe
is incredibly powerful.
♪
And then we get introduced
to the victim's father
just two or three scenes later.
You see,
I was supposed to meet
my daughter here at 1:00.
It's half past now,
and she's still not here.
Her name's Clare Harrison.
Do you know her?
And he's a very tragic,
very likeable character
I feel I should be
doing something,
but I don't know what.
That you feel a lot for
while you're watching it
because you know she's dead.
But he doesn't know it
and he wants to find her.
And even at the very end
of the film,
they still haven't found
her body.
It's still upstairs.
It's haunting 'cause
she's watching everything
almost as it's happening.
She's kind of, like,
this sort of specter.
I love when they show
things like that
because a lot of times
when you watch slasher movies,
somebody dies and they're
almost like an afterthought.
They're forgotten about.
But she stays
throughout the film.
And I think
that's really important
that we're constantly reminded
of this horrible thing
that happened at the beginning
to trigger all of these events.
[screams]
♪
Creatures?
Jake, New York is filled
with creatures.
They're like demons.
They're trying to kill me.
[train rumbling]
[grunts]
The absolute best scene
in "Jacob's Ladder,"
and there are a bunch,
but that dance scene
is just terrifying.
One of the most horrific,
enticingly, beautifully
constructed horror things,
I think, in the history
of horror, right?
And it's all about setup.
It's all about setup.
[wings flapping]
[gasps]
Jacob is a Vietnam vet.
[groans]
And he had a rough time.
He's trying to get
his life back together.
He's trying to get through
all of the things
that he's seen.
He can't quite get
himself together.
Medic!
[explosion booms]
It's Elizabeth Peña
and Tim Robbins,
and they're at this gathering,
this party.
And there's a woman
on the steps,
this Black woman
who's kind of, like,
presenting herself
as kind of a fortune teller
to a certain degree.
You have a very strange line.
[both chuckle]
No, it's not funny.
See, according to this,
you're already dead.
[both laugh]
Get out of here, baby.
- And he's laughing it out.
And she's still, like, really,
really flirting with him
Hey, Jake.
Come on, baby.
Come on and dance with me.
Just one. Huh?
Just give me your blue eyes
before you go.
Which is really off-putting,
actually.
It's like,
she's flirting with him,
but the thought of it's like,
"I want your eyes."
You know, the eyes are
the window to the soul.
It's a very strange thing
to say.
And then he goes off
to do white boy dancing.
And he's terrible at it,
you know,
so he kind of backs off
as most of us do.
And then he just becomes
an observer.
But when he becomes
the observer,
that's when he starts seeing
gnarly stuff.
And that's
when "Jacob's Ladder" starts
kind of breaking down the walls
of what you've seen
in horror movies.
And he just doesn't know
what to do.
He's trying to be okay.
And the James Brown music
is getting louder.
It's getting louder.
His woman is just dancing,
you know, deeper and deeper.
[James Brown's "My Thang"]
And so you have
this really great song,
"My Thang," playing--
of course, the thing is, like,
this phallic creature
demon man.
You know, and she's enjoying it.
And then she's taking off
her garter belt.
And you can't look away.
It's actually very sensual.
The filmmaker, Adrian Lyne,
was really smart
in that you never get
a complete picture.
It's always you're watching
all this fast cutting
and, "Wait, did that thing
have a tentacle?"
But it's gone before you ever
even really know what you saw.
And then, of course,
she's penetrated
all the way up to her mouth
by this phallic thing
[screaming]
And Tim Robbins,
he just freaks out.
Of course-- of course you would.
There is just so much
at work in this scene.
And it's so fast, but it's one
that you carry with you.
Every time something happens,
he just gets more and more
back to this thing,
whatever happened to him
in 'Nam.
Jesus, look at that.
His guts are hanging out.
That blew me away.
'Cause you really don't know
what's going on
until the end.
And I related to him
'cause he was a Vietnam vet,
you know, and all that was
happening to him.
When I got back from Vietnam,
I was a zombie.
I was an emotionless person
for two years after I got back.
'Cause, you know,
when you're in Vietnam,
you gotta turn
your emotions off,
or you'll--
a lot of guys did go nuts.
I think PTSD,
that's the whole idea.
Guys who couldn't turn
their emotions off.
I don't know who they are
or what they are.
But they're gonna get me,
and I'm scared, Jake.
I've seen them too.
♪
This time, they are playing
with the destruction
of life as we know it
and, at worst,
total annihilation.
You cannot win a nuclear war.
[explosions booming]
"Threads" was a British
television production
written by Barry Hines,
directed by Mick Jackson
in 1984.
And it's been called
the most devastating
piece of television
ever produced.
All the people here will be
dead already.
It's completely flattened.
The premise of "Threads" is,
what would happen if there was
a nuclear attack on Britain?
In 1984, the U.S. and the USSR
between them had
60,000 nuclear weapons,
which is about 59,500
more nuclear weapons
than you'd need
to wipe out the planet.
The most widespread danger
is fallout.
It was at a time
when kind of, like,
the threat of nuclear war
was very much in the air.
Not like it is-- isn't now.
[laughs]
"Threads" is shot just like
a British documentary
of the time
[dramatic music]
Where you're just following
two working-class families
in Sheffield, England,
which is a industrial town
in the north.
[all screaming]
And the bit
that really struck me
is when Jimmy,
played by Reece Dinsdale,
in the outbreak
of the missile attack
is running from the pub
And then he is dead
and you never see him again.
[screaming]
And so Reece Dinsdale,
who is a famous actor,
or certainly, like,
a notable actor--
it's almost like the
Janet Leigh thing in "Psycho."
It's like, "Here's your lead,
Reece Dinsdale.
Oh, no, he's dead."
He's not in the second hour
at all.
And with Jimmy dead--
But you don't know--
- He is. He is.
I know he is.
[explosion booms]
And the idea that he,
like, is gone in a cut
is such a perfect dramatization
of the idea
that in a nuclear attack,
like, all of your loved ones
are gonna be gone in an instant.
♪
And that is, like,
brutally effective in that.
The one person
who kind of manages
to survive is the mother.
And by the end of it,
it's 13 years later,
and civilization is
basically almost barbaric.
There still is a government,
but essentially all it does
is just have people working
as kind of indentured servants
making grain.
♪
Near the end
when they start flashing
forward in time a lot faster,
interspersed by what seem
like real shots
of holocaust survivors
Is really disturbing.
[moaning]
And then climaxing
in the daughter having a baby,
seemingly through a rape,
and seeing her reaction
to her baby's face.
♪
The final shot in "Threads"
is, uh, whoa.
When the baby's born
and it just ends
on her looking at it
and the look of horror
on her face
and then cut to black,
that is, you know,
one of the most unsettling
endings of anything
I've ever seen.
♪
You're left with no closure.
There's no happy ending.
And it's brutal.
So I'm not surprised
that it gave people nightmares.
[suspenseful music]
♪
Hello, Karen.
- Eddie, I saw you die.
Well, here I am, Karen.
Look at me.
[breathes unsteadily]
[growling]
I was making a movie
called "Jaws 3, People 0"
at Universal that got cancelled.
And I had a chance to jump
onto this werewolf movie
that was being made
at Avco Embassy.
The studio was worried
that werewolves were
kind of old hat,
and so we decided to make
the beginning of the movie
look like a slasher movie
because they had been having
a lot of success
with slasher movies
around that time.
And that worked
because the audience--
once we sucked the audience
into the story
with the characters,
then when we introduced
the werewolf angle,
it went down smoothly.
"The Howling"
[sighs]
You know, it's such a--
it's such a great film.
And there are so many
wonderful scares in it too,
from that opening scene
when Dee Wallace is
in the porn booth
and you see the guy is
lit from behind
and absolutely terrifying,
and you get
why it traumatizes her,
to Robert Picardo's
transformation on camera,
which was, I still think,
the greatest werewolf
transformation I've ever seen.
It's beautifully shot
and edited.
The effects are incredible.
The performance is great.
For me, the biggest jump
in the movie, for all that,
is this tiny, tiny shot.
And it's that scene when Terry
is running through the woods.
She's being chased.
And Joe Dante shoots it--
at first, it almost feels
like a fairy tale.
Joe, in particular,
will set up fear
by throwing you off guard
much in the way
Hitchcock would do,
by doing something funny
to distract you.
[bleats]
And then slap you in the face
with a shock--
with something scary.
One of the greatest scares
I've ever seen.
She finds a file cabinet
and she starts going
through these files,
and she's like, "Ah,"
and she finds one she wants
and she keeps going,
and she's holding the one here.
It's 81st
[growling]
And it just snarls
and smacks her,
and she goes flying
out of frame.
[snarls]
- [whimpers]
To me, that moment,
it took my breath away.
The werewolves
we had always seen was
Lon Cheney or Oliver Reed
or Henry Hull.
It was-- that was a werewolf.
We had never really,
really seen anything like that.
And the design was so unique.
And the fact
that the face was sculpted
in such an extreme expression,
and in the way
the hair was styled
and the ears were big and--
it just felt feral.
And it was just
absolutely terrifying.
That was a big scare.
And when I went
to the Loew's Theater
in New York for the premiere,
they had-- it was running
upstairs and downstairs.
And when I saw
what a big reaction that was
downstairs,
I ran upstairs 'cause it was
a little further behind,
and exactly the same reaction.
It was like,
"Well, okay this is--
"this is something
that I can do.
"This is something
I know how to do.
And it's something I enjoy."
So it obviously led
to more horror movies.
[chuckles]
[growling]
[gasping]
[snarls]
[screams]
[growling]
[rhythmic music]
♪
"Gerald's Game" is a film
by Mike Flanagan.
This was
from a Stephen King book
that a lot of people thought
would be unfilmable.
And if you read it,
you probably know why.
So if you think you've seen
everything as a horror fan,
I guarantee you
"Gerald's Game" gives you
something you haven't
seen before.
This couple goes away
for the weekend.
And they've been married
for a long time
and they have some problems
and they're middle-aged
and their kids are grown
and they're trying
to revitalize their marriage.
Things start getting
a little kinky
and he handcuffs her to the bed.
[handcuffs click]
And then proceeds to have
a heart attack and die
Leaving her handcuffed
to the bed.
And the movie is about
her next three days
of slowly losing her mind
tied to this bed.
The whole book is about,
how is she gonna escape
from these handcuffs?
How is she gonna get
out of there?
And the book begins to describe
her last desperate effort
to free her hand from the cuffs.
We're dealing with her past
and abuse
and all this tapestry
of toxic masculinity
and victimization
and strength and triumph
and healing
and all of it comes down
into what is going to be
a really disgusting scene
visually
that functions metaphorically,
that works for her character,
that shows the price of healing,
but also just shows a hand
being just absolutely
shredded apart.
The only way she can get
out of the handcuff
is to deglove her own hand.
So for those of you
that don't know,
degloving is when the skin
comes off of your hand
completely
and you're just, like,
bones and muscle.
And this poor woman
has to reach up
and slice the skin
around her hand
[screams]
And then as she pulls it
through the handcuff,
the skin just kind of--
you just see
the skin coming right off
like a glove.
And she can finally pull
her hand out.
[screaming]
Very difficult to watch.
And it really looks painful.
I mean, the FX makeup
on that is fantastic
and super gross.
Bob Kurtzman designed
the prosthetic effect.
Bob's prosthetic looked so good,
it did the work for us.
And then Carla sold it.
And that's no small feat.
The hand is horrible to look at.
But if you look at the edit,
I spend way more time on Carla
than I do on the hand.
[groans]
I went to Austin
for the film's premiere.
I had never
in my career experienced
what I experienced
in that theater
when that scene played.
The noises people were making.
People were diving
out of chairs,
twisting around.
There was a journalist
who was sitting
in the row in front of me
who fainted during it.
And it remains to this day
the most visceral reaction
I've ever-- ever seen
in an audience
from anything
that I've worked on.
[gasps]
You're gonna be just fine.
I'll take good care of you.
I'm your number one fan.
[ominous music]
"Misery", I'm still convinced
today that it's
one of Stephen King's best
adaptations to screen.
It's literally the example
of minimal concept,
maximum tension.
It's exactly that.
I think the majority
of the film is
just two actors, one location.
That's all you needed.
With really good story,
really good acting,
you're in for a wild ride.
I just have to talk
about Kathy Bates for a second
'cause I think she's
so brilliant in that movie.
Bad women are my favorite.
I love a woman behaving badly.
She's complicated.
On one side, you know,
giddy fangirl who actually is
a fan of his work.
But then on the other side,
she's keeping this guy
in jail, basically,
in her house.
I call her
an evil prison warden.
But that scene
when she breaks his ankles--
ooh, honey, please!
I think the editing
and just shots that the DP
and the director put together
to me is what makes
that scene specifically
really special
and really memorable.
Everything that is shot
on Kathy Bates' face
is a close-up.
Every single time, a close-up
for her to show you,
the audience,
what she knows more than you do.
I know you've been out.
No, I haven't.
Next close-up.
Is this
what you're looking for?
And the next close-up.
- I found your key.
I'm like, "Okay, Kathy Bates,
what else are you gonna
prove me wrong now?"
It's like she is so ahead
every single time
and just so controlling.
That's really scary
when you got nowhere to go.
Tied up. Drugged.
What else can she do to you?
He doesn't know
exactly what's gonna happen
until she takes
this block of wood
and puts it between his ankles.
And he doesn't know
what's going on.
And she can't wait to do this.
And she doesn't just tap it.
She's just like, you know,
getting ready to hit a home run.
[bone cracks]
- [screams]
When Annie swings that hammer
and you feel it connect
to the board and the bone
and you hear the sound--
and the combination
of editing and sound design
and script and performance,
your ankles feel it
before your brain catches up.
It is perfectly executed
physical horror.
It stays with you
because everything was
close-up, close-up,
close-up, close-up
until it goes to a wide
just to see the foot do this.
[pops lips]
[screams]
- That was it. Just a bang.
[chuckles]
[mimics scream]
I can't handle it.
[groaning]
God, I love you.
We cast his legs
from the knee down
and made gelatin legs
with punched hair.
And then we put holes
in the bed,
and his real legs went
through the holes in the bed.
We could have made
a rubber sledgehammer
that was lightweight,
and you could have left
his real legs up there
and swung the rubber
sledgehammer down.
But when we talked
with Rob Reiner about it,
we wanted the audience to see
[grunts]
That it took her
a little bit of effort
to raise that sledgehammer up.
So the audience in their head
doesn't realize
that from one shot to the next,
we changed the real legs
for fake legs
because they're watching it
as a continuous story.
There's so much technique
involved in storytelling.
It's not just about the effect.
But it's about how
the director and the writer
craft that moment to manipulate
and control the audience.
To misery.
To misery.
[glasses clink]
[foreboding music]
You really believe
that you can bring life
to the dead?
You're crazy!
[thunder rumbles]
Crazy, am I?
We'll see
whether I'm crazy or not.
"Frankenstein" isn't given
enough credit
for how it really paved the way
for the horror films to follow.
The idea of playing God--
of piecing together a creature
out of the parts of human bodies
and animating it
through electricity,
so many of the great
horror films to follow
were influenced by this.
It's alive.
Oh, it's alive.
It's alive, it's alive!
The cinematography,
the direction under James Whale,
it's incredibly sophisticated
pictorially and otherwise.
Would you like
one of my flowers?
There's a lot going on
in that movie,
and the movie benefits
from the fact
that this was
before films had soundtracks.
This was in the early days
when they were still
figuring out sound and music
where they didn't have
wall-to-wall music cues
telling you how to feel
and dictating the action.
[machinery rumbling]
The first time you see
Boris Karloff
as the monster
in "Frankenstein" --
a pretty major moment
in motion picture history
because you've been led up
to believe
that this terrible creature
is coming through the door.
But when you turn
the lights out,
the door opens
and the creature
is not facing you.
He's facing the other way.
♪
He does a slow reveal.
There's no sound at all.
The shot holds, like,
a lot longer
than you're expecting it
to hold.
Like, you think
something's gonna happen.
Like, it's really
a unique device
for building some anticipation.
And then you see it
and then you hold on it
and hold on it and hold on it.
But it's absolute brilliant
introduction to that character.
Even today,
it's a great makeup design
and it looks so real.
And the bolts and the scars.
Everyone who has
a horror character
in their movie,
you try to create
something iconic,
something original,
something new.
But it's very rare that you get
a Frankenstein's monster,
that you get a Freddy Krueger,
that you get a Jason Voorhees
behind a hockey mask,
that you get Michael Myers
behind a William Shatner mask.
It's really hard to strike gold
with something like that,
and the first one to do it
was the Frankenstein monster.
In the name of God,
now I know what it feels like
to be God.
[screams]
[dramatic music]
♪
[chuckles] [nails scraping]
Please, God.
This is God.
[laughing]
- [screaming]
"Nightmare on Elm Street"
just has
so many iconic moments.
It's just like, take your pick.
And everybody's got
their favorite.
My favorite in particular is
the body bag moment
'cause it's just
such a haunting image.
Nancy.
Horror contends
with a lot of things,
but there are these, like,
very grand
overarching preoccupations,
and one of them has to do
with the gulf
between what is imagined
and what is real.
And that's really
what "Nightmare on Elm Street"
is dealing with.
What is the terror that exists
when you're not really certain
where those lines are drawn?
And so leading up to the scene,
we see Nancy pushing herself
to pretend
that everything is normal
in the aftermath
of this brutal murder.
I've gotta go to school,
Mother.
Otherwise, I'll go crazy.
Nancy is at school,
and as we all know,
high school is very boring.
She hasn't slept and her
friend has been murdered
and she doesn't
really understand
what's going on yet.
She's starting to fall asleep
and the class is going on
around her.
What is seen is not always
what is real.
This line becomes
super significant
as she's about to have
her first encounter
with Freddy Krueger.
As she falls asleep,
she sees this vision
of her friend in the body bag,
and she's reaching out.
She's kind of pawing at her
through the body bag.
She goes outside
in the hallway,
and I remember you see that body
and the legs go up
and dragged off,
and I thought that was so cool.
It was like, "Wow, this is
really, really creepy."
And there's this mood
that all of a sudden,
you know it's a dream,
but it feels so real.
Tina?
She bumps
into the hall monitor,
and we have
this great visual clue
of the red and green sweater.
Where's your pass?
Screw your pass.
Wait a minute, I know
that red and green sweater.
That's Freddy, but it's a girl.
Wait, how
[as Freddy] Hey, Nancy.
No running in the hallway.
[chuckles]
I just remember, like,
as a freshman in high school
thinking that was so freaky
because that moment is mixing
this fear of getting permission
and fear of authority
with this fear
of getting shredded
by a child murderer.
And so it's mixing these
anxieties really, really well.
This trail of blood
from this body bag
leads her to Freddy Krueger,
to direct confrontation with him
kind of for the first time
in the film,
in the sense that she realizes
that this is what's going on
in the dreamscape,
and she's able to save herself
by recognizing that what is
playing out in front of her
is not real.
It's only a dream!
Come to Freddy.
[screaming]
[Freddy groans]
[screaming] [class gasps]
[tense music]
Wes Craven of course was
an English teacher,
and he's also very much into,
like, philosophy and literature,
so he loved these ideas
about how to deal
with, you know,
the evil in your life,
and if it's seeping
into your dreams
or, you know,
into your consciousness,
how do you deal with it?
Which is what's so brilliant
about it,
and he finds ways
to sort of visualize it.
I think that's why
it's so popular,
because it goes so much deeper
than your average slasher movie.
This is just a dream.
He isn't real.
He isn't real.
- [yells]
[suspenseful music]
♪
♪
[screaming]
These days, to kind of be
an iconic scene
in a horror movie,
you kind of have
to think of it as,
what would the animated GIF be?
Jack Nicholson
axing through a door,
putting his face in,
and saying, "Here's Johnny."
Here's Johnny.
- [screams]
Even if they've
never seen the movie,
they could just go,
"That's 'The Shining.'"
And that's what makes it iconic.
It's something
that permeates culture
even for people that don't even
know where it's from.
That iconic line
of dialogue
What's your favorite
scary movie?
That iconic death
It's all for you.
[glass shattering]
[screaming]
That iconic special effect
- [screaming]
It's those movies
that really stick with you.
There is no other genre
that you feel that presence,
you feel
that memory of the movie
sticking with you.
[eerie music]
♪
[glass shatters, flames whoosh]
♪
[crashing]
"A Quiet Place" is
a very scary
postapocalyptic movie
in which aliens come to Earth
and they are attracted to sound.
And if you make a sound,
they're going to kill you.
It's a pretty simple premise,
but it's
a really horrifying premise.
And the first few seconds,
you know
you're watching something
you've never seen before.
It's fresh and new and strange.
You don't know
what the monsters are.
What-- why are they--
postapocalyptic, I get it.
They're in a supermarket.
Like, there's no humans.
I didn't know
going into that movie
what was the threat.
Whatever it was, it was clear
that you shouldn't be loud.
What's so great
about that movie
is that it plays with sound
in such a memorable way,
because you go from the world
the parents are experiencing--
they have to keep quiet--
but then you also keep going
into the world of their daughter
who can't hear anything,
so it's completely quiet.
You can't hear a noise at all.
There is a little boy,
and he finds this rocket ship.
And he wants
to take it with him,
but the parents are like,
"No, that's gonna make a noise.
You can't take that with you."
But then his sister lets him
keep the rocket ship.
At the end
of that first scene,
which sets everything up,
is when you see
that the little kids grab
the batteries,
and you know
it's not gonna be good.
But you never expect it's gonna
be executed the way it is.
So at some point,
she just looks and sees
that her brother has this rocket
and the rocket is lighting up.
And she knows that things
are going horribly wrong
and it's in part her fault.
So it's this horrifying moment
where John Krasinski is, like,
running and trying
to get to it-- to his son.
But having seen
a billion horror movies,
you probably assume
he's gonna save the kid.
You're convinced
he's gonna save the kid.
How is he not gonna save
the kid?
He's gonna save the kid.
He's running. He's fast.
He's gonna get him.
The whole family's freaking out,
but they seem like
they have a plan.
They have the sand on the floor.
They have shit figured out.
So how can the kid be taken?
So just like that,
years of horror tropes
make a sharp turn,
and bang,
the kid's actually taken.
And that's what's shocking
about it.
When a kid got killed
in a movie
in the '70s or even in the '80s,
it was a lot more taboo.
But now in terms
of a lot of the material
that's being created,
a lot of it's being told
through the perspective of kids.
Because the stories
are cashing in
on that vulnerability.
You gotta find the person
that's vulnerable.
And then that person
that's vulnerable
is the one that's
going to be terrorized.
[wood creaking]
♪
[wood bangs]
[alien growling]
[screams]
[suspenseful music]
♪
This is the autopsy
of an unidentified female
henceforth known as Jane Doe.
"The Autopsy of Jane Doe"
stars Brian Cox
and Emile Hirsch as
a father-son coroner team.
And a body is brought in.
Found her in the basement
of the Douglas' place.
No ID.
No fingerprints in the system.
No one has a clue who she is.
A young woman.
She's completely unscathed
from the outside.
And that's a bit of a mystery
because she's been found
at a horrific crime scene.
♪
It becomes
almost like a detective story
where they're finding out
all of these weird
inconsistencies about the body
and trying to paint
a bigger picture
about what's going on.
But at the same time,
these supernatural instances
are starting to occur
in the morgue around them.
A great idea.
And shot really well.
It looks like
a Japanese horror movie.
It looks like
Korean horror movie.
That's the saturated
color palette
and the claustrophobia
of the setting.
She never moves,
and even though
the corpse never moves,
it still seems
to kind of respond
in these really subtle ways.
[static crackles]
[indistinct radio chatter]
You know, it's a lot
like Japanese films
where the ghost is incarnate,
but it is working
through other means.
It's working psychologically
in particular.
[radio static, scream]
Come on and let
the sunshine in ♪
And it's always
with one tiny thing
marking that
something's off now.
The song coming on the radio.
A noise. The lights flashing.
The power going out.
And that always then sets off
a course of events
that are gonna get
downright terrifying.
As they start to cut her open
and look inside,
they see all of these signs
of extensive trauma
inside of her body.
Oh.
Her lungs are blackened
like she burned to death
and inhaled smoke and soot,
but at the same time,
there's no burn marks
on the exterior.
And it goes from there
until you get
into some really weird stuff,
like a swallowed tooth
wrapped in cloth in her stomach
as well as jimsonweed,
meaning she was paralyzed,
so all this stuff was
done to her
while she was still alive.
What we end up watching
a lot of the time
is not necessarily the autopsy.
It's their findings.
It's them interacting.
It's them
writing on a chalkboard
trying to make sense
of everything
that they're learning.
It was so mysterious.
But to me,
the most amazing thing is
when they peel the skin open
and there's hieroglyphics
inside her skin.
How did that get there?
And it's so weird
and beautiful and striking.
Holy shit.
That scene in "Jane Doe"
will stick with me forever.
And that's what leads up
to some
of the most harrowing scenes
in the film.
They try everything they can
to destroy her,
and you can try to burn her.
It doesn't work.
You know,
they're even cutting her up.
That doesn't work.
Terrible things
still keep happening.
Because that trauma is so large
that it keeps resonating
through the years
and across centuries.
Please. Don't hurt him.
Dad!
- Oh! [grunts]
[gasps] Dad!
I don't think anyone knows
the plot of "Phantasm,"
including Don Coscarelli
who made the movie.
"Phantasm" is like a fun house.
There's something
around every corner.
You don't know what it is.
You don't know
what the rules are.
At one point,
it goes to another dimension.
It's seriously a movie
that just makes up the rules
as it goes.
And for some people,
that's very annoying.
And for other people,
that's very exciting.
I couldn't explain to you
exactly what's going on or why,
but it all feels like it makes
absolute sense to me.
It was all in your mind.
I think what sells it--
what sells the strangeness
of the plotting
[glass shatters]
The Tall Man, Angus Scrimm,
is this menacing presence.
The funeral is
about to begin, sir.
And he's the mystery figure
as seen
through a little boy's eyes.
[door crashes open]
[chuckles] Boy.
There are so many people
that just--
"Boy" upsets them deeply, right?
"Boy."
All the sudden, even if you're
an adult watching this,
you are put into the position
of being a child and in trouble.
Boy.
Like, that's a villain,
you know?
It's a way he utters a word
which, you know, bothers people
for life.
Because it's not super clear
why he's here,
it's not super clear
what he's about to do to you.
It's just the kind of thing
that children's nightmares
are made of.
Movies are dreamlike anyway.
It's dream within a dream
within a dream.
[yelling]
You have a forbidden place
that the main characters go to
that's a mausoleum-type
environment,
so it's full of dead people.
It's also full
of a flying silver sphere
that attacks you and burrows
into your forehead
and causes blood
to spurt out of your body.
Why is the flying sphere there?
I don't know.
But it's part of the menace
of the forbidden mortuary.
The spheres are amazing.
I'm not exactly sure
how they got the effects
of them shooting
through the halls.
But they're really scary
and they're really imaginative
and they're like nothing
anybody would have seen in 1979.
My God.
That's one
of those great things
'cause you don't know
what it's gonna do.
What is this weird sphere?
What's it gonna do
when it catches up to you?
And then it just fucking drills
all the blood out of your body?
That's so cool.
[blood spurting]
- [groaning]
There was just something cool
about the way it was shot.
It just had a lot of cool stuff.
They had a cool car.
So it was two guys
in a graveyard,
a tall man, and a ball
that could suck blood
out of your head.
[shattering]
On the cool factor,
"Phantasm" is up there
pretty high.
[dramatic string music]
♪
"Ju-On" is almost kind of like
an urban legend put on film.
It's an anthology where you have
this ghostly presence
in a neighborhood
that's born from deep trauma.
Because in Japan, the way
that the dead are thought of
is very different
than it is here.
In Japan, it's sort of like
these are your ancestors.
They're all
sort of bound together
and they have to take care
of each other,
and so when something goes wrong
and that chain gets broken,
then that person
literally can't leave.
They're stuck with you.
- [speaking Japanese]
It's almost like
a disease following you.
Ghosts, oftentimes
in Japanese, Hong Kong,
South Korean horror,
they can take on
a physical form.
It makes it difficult
to determine
what is and what is not a ghost.
That can be
particularly alarming
as you go about
your everyday life.
Especially if you live alone
in, like, an apartment building
or if you're working
in an office building,
you have to watch out
because the ghosts
could pop up anywhere.
They can show up in windows
- [screams]
When you're out
doing your business
Oh.
[screams, pants]
- [speaking Japanese]
"Ju-On" exploits that
really well
because there is
a very creepy ghost boy
who turns up when you really
don't want him to.
[cat yowling]
So there's a young woman,
of course,
who winds up falling
under the hex of this grudge,
and in the scene
that really traumatized
all of us
when we saw this movie,
she keeps being followed by it.
[footsteps shuffling]
She first encounters it
in the bathroom.
[clicking]
Then she asks
the security guard for help.
And I think it's notable,
one of the times
that she sees the ghost
is on a security camera screen.
One of the sort of
interesting features
about so many
of the Japanese horror films
is this persistent anxiety
about technology
or technology as this conduit
to which we can see spirits
and spirits can get to us.
[screams]
As she is moving
on the elevator
and you see Toshio's face
coming out from the window.
It's that idea of repetition.
You know, these characters
who are stuck,
and then this character
who is now
gonna be stuck with them.
And then the movie really
hits on a primal fear,
and that's
something invading your bed.
That's when she crawls into bed
and she thinks that she's
actually evaded this thing,
and she sees something moving
under the sheets.
[suspenseful music]
♪
And of course,
she pulls it back,
and just the face
sort of staring at her
from under the sheets,
it scares her to death
and the audience too
at the same time.
[screams]
The very idea that you can be
in your own bed
and something can
come up at you,
that's horrifying.
We think about things
coming out of our closets.
We think about things
under our bed.
[yelps]
But it's not as often we think
about the scary things
under our sheets.
So to have that image,
that face coming out at you,
is part of what makes
this film so chilling.
Some of these scares
are always best supported
by the larger points
of the movie,
and "The Grudge" is one
of lingering trauma.
You can't escape her
because you can't escape
these terrible things
that happened in life
that will always have a hold
on the people they affected
and even, like, go out
into the world and affect others
because these acts were
so terrible
and they were such examples
of humans being so terrible
to each other
[screams]
That it has, like, ripples
through the supernatural,
which is pretty heavy.
[eerie music]
[phone rings]
Hello?
Have you checked the children?
Who is this?
[line clicks, dial tone blares]
"When a Stranger Calls"
is on every horror fan's list.
And it's because
of that opening--
opening 20 minutes
with Carol Kane.
The movie starts
with this babysitter,
and she's in this big,
giant house alone,
and the kids are asleep
upstairs,
and the phone rings.
[phone rings]
Hello?
And it's this
sort of creepy voice,
and he keeps calling her,
asking her
Have you checked the children?
What?
- That's weird.
And I feel weird
listening to him say that.
But lots of people got
crank phone calls in the '70s.
I was actually ten and I got
an obscene phone call.
At first she's like,
"Oh, it's a crank caller.
Oh, it's some guy
from school."
Like, she doesn't know
who it is.
But obviously,
it's a little creepy.
[phone ringing]
And then the more she's there
and the more this guy calls,
the creepier it gets.
What this scene does
that is so smart is,
the way that it is filmed,
it is letting you feel
like danger is
behind every corner
without ever indicating it.
It's using
these incredibly deep shots
as we go through these hallways,
as we go through this foyer
of this house.
So she might be in the middle
of the foyer,
looking up the stairs
or looking out a window,
but what we're feeling
behind her is
a really dark living room
with really heavy drapes
and a bajillion different places
a killer could hide.
Eventually,
she gets so freaked out,
she calls the police.
I've been getting phone calls
about every 15 minutes.
And the police
don't totally take her
seriously at first.
At some point they're like,
"You know what?
"We'll trace the call for you.
So the next time he calls,
just keep him on the line."
It's me.
- Can you see me?
Yes.
That voyeurism is
a huge part of horror.
It's the idea that we don't know
when we're being watched.
She's like,
"Fine. You know what?
"You scared me.
You did it. You scared me.
Uh, is that what-- was that
what you wanted to do?"
And he says no, and she's like,
"What do you want?"
And he says
Your blood
all over me.
And it is said so plain as day
but just so terrifying.
It sends chills
when you hear it in the film.
The way the sound is done
is so brilliant,
watching it
now that I make movies.
His voice is very present,
so you feel
like he's right there.
Your blood
all over me.
Come to find out,
he is right there.
He's upstairs with the children.
Because the next thing
that happens is,
she hangs up the phone,
the police call her back,
and they say
- We've traced the call,
and it's coming
from inside the house.
So this whole time,
she's actually been
in the house with this person
who's terrorizing her.
She's even more unsafe
than we thought she was.
And it's a chilling,
chilling moment.
She runs to the door
and the door upstairs
starts to creak open,
and she can't get
the door unlocked,
and it's just this great
horror movie scene
where she's trying to escape
now that she knows
that she's been in danger
for 20-some odd minutes
of this movie.
It gets this
kind of crescendo of fear,
that every time I watch it--
and I've seen this film
several times now--
I never stop feeling tense
even though I know exactly
what's happening in that scene.
To be honest,
the rest of the movie
is kind of a slog
to get through.
But that first 20 minutes--
that cold open is
next-level tension.
Why haven't you checked
the children?
♪
[slurping, moaning]
You can suck it. Suck it.
- Listen, you pervert.
Why don't you go
over to Lambda Chi?
They could use a little of this.
Oh, you big cunt.
You fucking creep.
I'm going to kill you.
[dial tone blares]
Bob Clark is fascinating to me
He made
the two best Christmas movies
of all time, I'd argue.
"A Christmas Story,"
which you can watch
with your family and get
all warm and fuzzy about.
And then after everyone else
has gone to bed,
you and your more sort of
depraved relatives or friends
can watch "Black Christmas,"
which is
the scariest Christmas movie
ever made.
I was a kid when I saw it,
and it's just fantastic.
But the thing
that I will always remember
was the amazing
killer's POV stuff,
which boggled my mind.
It was a handheld fish-eye lens,
and you're watching him
or her-- I assume it's a him,
'cause you never find out
for sure--
kind of wandering around
watching people.
And he climbs a ladder
at some point.
And the thing
that really cements it
is the terrifying breathing.
[breathing heavily]
[indistinct chatter]
He's got
this horrible phlegmy
[mimicking congested breathing]
[breathing heavily]
I don't know if it's
a residual from my childhood,
but I watch it today
and it still freaks me out.
One of the first
on-camera kills that we see
is sorority girl Clare.
She's packing up, getting ready
to go home for Christmas.
Her dad's gonna pick her up
the next day.
And the sorority house
is thinning out slowly
as everybody's leaving
for the holidays.
[suspenseful music]
♪
[plastic crinkles]
Who is that? Who is it?
♪
And she is killed
in her closet
[gasping]
With a piece of that plastic
that you put over, like,
your dry-cleaning.
And you see her face, like
[mimics suffocating]
Like, you can feel
the suffocation happening.
And she dies with wide eyes
and her mouth
in the position.
And that's how she stays
for the whole movie.
And the next time you see
her corpse,
she's in a rocking chair
in the attic,
right by the window,
with her face like that
and the plastic still on it.
[chair creaks]
It's just a shocking image.
Plus, I'm claustrophobic.
And the idea
of not being able to breathe
is incredibly powerful.
♪
And then we get introduced
to the victim's father
just two or three scenes later.
You see,
I was supposed to meet
my daughter here at 1:00.
It's half past now,
and she's still not here.
Her name's Clare Harrison.
Do you know her?
And he's a very tragic,
very likeable character
I feel I should be
doing something,
but I don't know what.
That you feel a lot for
while you're watching it
because you know she's dead.
But he doesn't know it
and he wants to find her.
And even at the very end
of the film,
they still haven't found
her body.
It's still upstairs.
It's haunting 'cause
she's watching everything
almost as it's happening.
She's kind of, like,
this sort of specter.
I love when they show
things like that
because a lot of times
when you watch slasher movies,
somebody dies and they're
almost like an afterthought.
They're forgotten about.
But she stays
throughout the film.
And I think
that's really important
that we're constantly reminded
of this horrible thing
that happened at the beginning
to trigger all of these events.
[screams]
♪
Creatures?
Jake, New York is filled
with creatures.
They're like demons.
They're trying to kill me.
[train rumbling]
[grunts]
The absolute best scene
in "Jacob's Ladder,"
and there are a bunch,
but that dance scene
is just terrifying.
One of the most horrific,
enticingly, beautifully
constructed horror things,
I think, in the history
of horror, right?
And it's all about setup.
It's all about setup.
[wings flapping]
[gasps]
Jacob is a Vietnam vet.
[groans]
And he had a rough time.
He's trying to get
his life back together.
He's trying to get through
all of the things
that he's seen.
He can't quite get
himself together.
Medic!
[explosion booms]
It's Elizabeth Peña
and Tim Robbins,
and they're at this gathering,
this party.
And there's a woman
on the steps,
this Black woman
who's kind of, like,
presenting herself
as kind of a fortune teller
to a certain degree.
You have a very strange line.
[both chuckle]
No, it's not funny.
See, according to this,
you're already dead.
[both laugh]
Get out of here, baby.
- And he's laughing it out.
And she's still, like, really,
really flirting with him
Hey, Jake.
Come on, baby.
Come on and dance with me.
Just one. Huh?
Just give me your blue eyes
before you go.
Which is really off-putting,
actually.
It's like,
she's flirting with him,
but the thought of it's like,
"I want your eyes."
You know, the eyes are
the window to the soul.
It's a very strange thing
to say.
And then he goes off
to do white boy dancing.
And he's terrible at it,
you know,
so he kind of backs off
as most of us do.
And then he just becomes
an observer.
But when he becomes
the observer,
that's when he starts seeing
gnarly stuff.
And that's
when "Jacob's Ladder" starts
kind of breaking down the walls
of what you've seen
in horror movies.
And he just doesn't know
what to do.
He's trying to be okay.
And the James Brown music
is getting louder.
It's getting louder.
His woman is just dancing,
you know, deeper and deeper.
[James Brown's "My Thang"]
And so you have
this really great song,
"My Thang," playing--
of course, the thing is, like,
this phallic creature
demon man.
You know, and she's enjoying it.
And then she's taking off
her garter belt.
And you can't look away.
It's actually very sensual.
The filmmaker, Adrian Lyne,
was really smart
in that you never get
a complete picture.
It's always you're watching
all this fast cutting
and, "Wait, did that thing
have a tentacle?"
But it's gone before you ever
even really know what you saw.
And then, of course,
she's penetrated
all the way up to her mouth
by this phallic thing
[screaming]
And Tim Robbins,
he just freaks out.
Of course-- of course you would.
There is just so much
at work in this scene.
And it's so fast, but it's one
that you carry with you.
Every time something happens,
he just gets more and more
back to this thing,
whatever happened to him
in 'Nam.
Jesus, look at that.
His guts are hanging out.
That blew me away.
'Cause you really don't know
what's going on
until the end.
And I related to him
'cause he was a Vietnam vet,
you know, and all that was
happening to him.
When I got back from Vietnam,
I was a zombie.
I was an emotionless person
for two years after I got back.
'Cause, you know,
when you're in Vietnam,
you gotta turn
your emotions off,
or you'll--
a lot of guys did go nuts.
I think PTSD,
that's the whole idea.
Guys who couldn't turn
their emotions off.
I don't know who they are
or what they are.
But they're gonna get me,
and I'm scared, Jake.
I've seen them too.
♪
This time, they are playing
with the destruction
of life as we know it
and, at worst,
total annihilation.
You cannot win a nuclear war.
[explosions booming]
"Threads" was a British
television production
written by Barry Hines,
directed by Mick Jackson
in 1984.
And it's been called
the most devastating
piece of television
ever produced.
All the people here will be
dead already.
It's completely flattened.
The premise of "Threads" is,
what would happen if there was
a nuclear attack on Britain?
In 1984, the U.S. and the USSR
between them had
60,000 nuclear weapons,
which is about 59,500
more nuclear weapons
than you'd need
to wipe out the planet.
The most widespread danger
is fallout.
It was at a time
when kind of, like,
the threat of nuclear war
was very much in the air.
Not like it is-- isn't now.
[laughs]
"Threads" is shot just like
a British documentary
of the time
[dramatic music]
Where you're just following
two working-class families
in Sheffield, England,
which is a industrial town
in the north.
[all screaming]
And the bit
that really struck me
is when Jimmy,
played by Reece Dinsdale,
in the outbreak
of the missile attack
is running from the pub
And then he is dead
and you never see him again.
[screaming]
And so Reece Dinsdale,
who is a famous actor,
or certainly, like,
a notable actor--
it's almost like the
Janet Leigh thing in "Psycho."
It's like, "Here's your lead,
Reece Dinsdale.
Oh, no, he's dead."
He's not in the second hour
at all.
And with Jimmy dead--
But you don't know--
- He is. He is.
I know he is.
[explosion booms]
And the idea that he,
like, is gone in a cut
is such a perfect dramatization
of the idea
that in a nuclear attack,
like, all of your loved ones
are gonna be gone in an instant.
♪
And that is, like,
brutally effective in that.
The one person
who kind of manages
to survive is the mother.
And by the end of it,
it's 13 years later,
and civilization is
basically almost barbaric.
There still is a government,
but essentially all it does
is just have people working
as kind of indentured servants
making grain.
♪
Near the end
when they start flashing
forward in time a lot faster,
interspersed by what seem
like real shots
of holocaust survivors
Is really disturbing.
[moaning]
And then climaxing
in the daughter having a baby,
seemingly through a rape,
and seeing her reaction
to her baby's face.
♪
The final shot in "Threads"
is, uh, whoa.
When the baby's born
and it just ends
on her looking at it
and the look of horror
on her face
and then cut to black,
that is, you know,
one of the most unsettling
endings of anything
I've ever seen.
♪
You're left with no closure.
There's no happy ending.
And it's brutal.
So I'm not surprised
that it gave people nightmares.
[suspenseful music]
♪
Hello, Karen.
- Eddie, I saw you die.
Well, here I am, Karen.
Look at me.
[breathes unsteadily]
[growling]
I was making a movie
called "Jaws 3, People 0"
at Universal that got cancelled.
And I had a chance to jump
onto this werewolf movie
that was being made
at Avco Embassy.
The studio was worried
that werewolves were
kind of old hat,
and so we decided to make
the beginning of the movie
look like a slasher movie
because they had been having
a lot of success
with slasher movies
around that time.
And that worked
because the audience--
once we sucked the audience
into the story
with the characters,
then when we introduced
the werewolf angle,
it went down smoothly.
"The Howling"
[sighs]
You know, it's such a--
it's such a great film.
And there are so many
wonderful scares in it too,
from that opening scene
when Dee Wallace is
in the porn booth
and you see the guy is
lit from behind
and absolutely terrifying,
and you get
why it traumatizes her,
to Robert Picardo's
transformation on camera,
which was, I still think,
the greatest werewolf
transformation I've ever seen.
It's beautifully shot
and edited.
The effects are incredible.
The performance is great.
For me, the biggest jump
in the movie, for all that,
is this tiny, tiny shot.
And it's that scene when Terry
is running through the woods.
She's being chased.
And Joe Dante shoots it--
at first, it almost feels
like a fairy tale.
Joe, in particular,
will set up fear
by throwing you off guard
much in the way
Hitchcock would do,
by doing something funny
to distract you.
[bleats]
And then slap you in the face
with a shock--
with something scary.
One of the greatest scares
I've ever seen.
She finds a file cabinet
and she starts going
through these files,
and she's like, "Ah,"
and she finds one she wants
and she keeps going,
and she's holding the one here.
It's 81st
[growling]
And it just snarls
and smacks her,
and she goes flying
out of frame.
[snarls]
- [whimpers]
To me, that moment,
it took my breath away.
The werewolves
we had always seen was
Lon Cheney or Oliver Reed
or Henry Hull.
It was-- that was a werewolf.
We had never really,
really seen anything like that.
And the design was so unique.
And the fact
that the face was sculpted
in such an extreme expression,
and in the way
the hair was styled
and the ears were big and--
it just felt feral.
And it was just
absolutely terrifying.
That was a big scare.
And when I went
to the Loew's Theater
in New York for the premiere,
they had-- it was running
upstairs and downstairs.
And when I saw
what a big reaction that was
downstairs,
I ran upstairs 'cause it was
a little further behind,
and exactly the same reaction.
It was like,
"Well, okay this is--
"this is something
that I can do.
"This is something
I know how to do.
And it's something I enjoy."
So it obviously led
to more horror movies.
[chuckles]
[growling]
[gasping]
[snarls]
[screams]
[growling]
[rhythmic music]
♪
"Gerald's Game" is a film
by Mike Flanagan.
This was
from a Stephen King book
that a lot of people thought
would be unfilmable.
And if you read it,
you probably know why.
So if you think you've seen
everything as a horror fan,
I guarantee you
"Gerald's Game" gives you
something you haven't
seen before.
This couple goes away
for the weekend.
And they've been married
for a long time
and they have some problems
and they're middle-aged
and their kids are grown
and they're trying
to revitalize their marriage.
Things start getting
a little kinky
and he handcuffs her to the bed.
[handcuffs click]
And then proceeds to have
a heart attack and die
Leaving her handcuffed
to the bed.
And the movie is about
her next three days
of slowly losing her mind
tied to this bed.
The whole book is about,
how is she gonna escape
from these handcuffs?
How is she gonna get
out of there?
And the book begins to describe
her last desperate effort
to free her hand from the cuffs.
We're dealing with her past
and abuse
and all this tapestry
of toxic masculinity
and victimization
and strength and triumph
and healing
and all of it comes down
into what is going to be
a really disgusting scene
visually
that functions metaphorically,
that works for her character,
that shows the price of healing,
but also just shows a hand
being just absolutely
shredded apart.
The only way she can get
out of the handcuff
is to deglove her own hand.
So for those of you
that don't know,
degloving is when the skin
comes off of your hand
completely
and you're just, like,
bones and muscle.
And this poor woman
has to reach up
and slice the skin
around her hand
[screams]
And then as she pulls it
through the handcuff,
the skin just kind of--
you just see
the skin coming right off
like a glove.
And she can finally pull
her hand out.
[screaming]
Very difficult to watch.
And it really looks painful.
I mean, the FX makeup
on that is fantastic
and super gross.
Bob Kurtzman designed
the prosthetic effect.
Bob's prosthetic looked so good,
it did the work for us.
And then Carla sold it.
And that's no small feat.
The hand is horrible to look at.
But if you look at the edit,
I spend way more time on Carla
than I do on the hand.
[groans]
I went to Austin
for the film's premiere.
I had never
in my career experienced
what I experienced
in that theater
when that scene played.
The noises people were making.
People were diving
out of chairs,
twisting around.
There was a journalist
who was sitting
in the row in front of me
who fainted during it.
And it remains to this day
the most visceral reaction
I've ever-- ever seen
in an audience
from anything
that I've worked on.
[gasps]
You're gonna be just fine.
I'll take good care of you.
I'm your number one fan.
[ominous music]
"Misery", I'm still convinced
today that it's
one of Stephen King's best
adaptations to screen.
It's literally the example
of minimal concept,
maximum tension.
It's exactly that.
I think the majority
of the film is
just two actors, one location.
That's all you needed.
With really good story,
really good acting,
you're in for a wild ride.
I just have to talk
about Kathy Bates for a second
'cause I think she's
so brilliant in that movie.
Bad women are my favorite.
I love a woman behaving badly.
She's complicated.
On one side, you know,
giddy fangirl who actually is
a fan of his work.
But then on the other side,
she's keeping this guy
in jail, basically,
in her house.
I call her
an evil prison warden.
But that scene
when she breaks his ankles--
ooh, honey, please!
I think the editing
and just shots that the DP
and the director put together
to me is what makes
that scene specifically
really special
and really memorable.
Everything that is shot
on Kathy Bates' face
is a close-up.
Every single time, a close-up
for her to show you,
the audience,
what she knows more than you do.
I know you've been out.
No, I haven't.
Next close-up.
Is this
what you're looking for?
And the next close-up.
- I found your key.
I'm like, "Okay, Kathy Bates,
what else are you gonna
prove me wrong now?"
It's like she is so ahead
every single time
and just so controlling.
That's really scary
when you got nowhere to go.
Tied up. Drugged.
What else can she do to you?
He doesn't know
exactly what's gonna happen
until she takes
this block of wood
and puts it between his ankles.
And he doesn't know
what's going on.
And she can't wait to do this.
And she doesn't just tap it.
She's just like, you know,
getting ready to hit a home run.
[bone cracks]
- [screams]
When Annie swings that hammer
and you feel it connect
to the board and the bone
and you hear the sound--
and the combination
of editing and sound design
and script and performance,
your ankles feel it
before your brain catches up.
It is perfectly executed
physical horror.
It stays with you
because everything was
close-up, close-up,
close-up, close-up
until it goes to a wide
just to see the foot do this.
[pops lips]
[screams]
- That was it. Just a bang.
[chuckles]
[mimics scream]
I can't handle it.
[groaning]
God, I love you.
We cast his legs
from the knee down
and made gelatin legs
with punched hair.
And then we put holes
in the bed,
and his real legs went
through the holes in the bed.
We could have made
a rubber sledgehammer
that was lightweight,
and you could have left
his real legs up there
and swung the rubber
sledgehammer down.
But when we talked
with Rob Reiner about it,
we wanted the audience to see
[grunts]
That it took her
a little bit of effort
to raise that sledgehammer up.
So the audience in their head
doesn't realize
that from one shot to the next,
we changed the real legs
for fake legs
because they're watching it
as a continuous story.
There's so much technique
involved in storytelling.
It's not just about the effect.
But it's about how
the director and the writer
craft that moment to manipulate
and control the audience.
To misery.
To misery.
[glasses clink]
[foreboding music]
You really believe
that you can bring life
to the dead?
You're crazy!
[thunder rumbles]
Crazy, am I?
We'll see
whether I'm crazy or not.
"Frankenstein" isn't given
enough credit
for how it really paved the way
for the horror films to follow.
The idea of playing God--
of piecing together a creature
out of the parts of human bodies
and animating it
through electricity,
so many of the great
horror films to follow
were influenced by this.
It's alive.
Oh, it's alive.
It's alive, it's alive!
The cinematography,
the direction under James Whale,
it's incredibly sophisticated
pictorially and otherwise.
Would you like
one of my flowers?
There's a lot going on
in that movie,
and the movie benefits
from the fact
that this was
before films had soundtracks.
This was in the early days
when they were still
figuring out sound and music
where they didn't have
wall-to-wall music cues
telling you how to feel
and dictating the action.
[machinery rumbling]
The first time you see
Boris Karloff
as the monster
in "Frankenstein" --
a pretty major moment
in motion picture history
because you've been led up
to believe
that this terrible creature
is coming through the door.
But when you turn
the lights out,
the door opens
and the creature
is not facing you.
He's facing the other way.
♪
He does a slow reveal.
There's no sound at all.
The shot holds, like,
a lot longer
than you're expecting it
to hold.
Like, you think
something's gonna happen.
Like, it's really
a unique device
for building some anticipation.
And then you see it
and then you hold on it
and hold on it and hold on it.
But it's absolute brilliant
introduction to that character.
Even today,
it's a great makeup design
and it looks so real.
And the bolts and the scars.
Everyone who has
a horror character
in their movie,
you try to create
something iconic,
something original,
something new.
But it's very rare that you get
a Frankenstein's monster,
that you get a Freddy Krueger,
that you get a Jason Voorhees
behind a hockey mask,
that you get Michael Myers
behind a William Shatner mask.
It's really hard to strike gold
with something like that,
and the first one to do it
was the Frankenstein monster.
In the name of God,
now I know what it feels like
to be God.
[screams]
[dramatic music]
♪
[chuckles] [nails scraping]
Please, God.
This is God.
[laughing]
- [screaming]
"Nightmare on Elm Street"
just has
so many iconic moments.
It's just like, take your pick.
And everybody's got
their favorite.
My favorite in particular is
the body bag moment
'cause it's just
such a haunting image.
Nancy.
Horror contends
with a lot of things,
but there are these, like,
very grand
overarching preoccupations,
and one of them has to do
with the gulf
between what is imagined
and what is real.
And that's really
what "Nightmare on Elm Street"
is dealing with.
What is the terror that exists
when you're not really certain
where those lines are drawn?
And so leading up to the scene,
we see Nancy pushing herself
to pretend
that everything is normal
in the aftermath
of this brutal murder.
I've gotta go to school,
Mother.
Otherwise, I'll go crazy.
Nancy is at school,
and as we all know,
high school is very boring.
She hasn't slept and her
friend has been murdered
and she doesn't
really understand
what's going on yet.
She's starting to fall asleep
and the class is going on
around her.
What is seen is not always
what is real.
This line becomes
super significant
as she's about to have
her first encounter
with Freddy Krueger.
As she falls asleep,
she sees this vision
of her friend in the body bag,
and she's reaching out.
She's kind of pawing at her
through the body bag.
She goes outside
in the hallway,
and I remember you see that body
and the legs go up
and dragged off,
and I thought that was so cool.
It was like, "Wow, this is
really, really creepy."
And there's this mood
that all of a sudden,
you know it's a dream,
but it feels so real.
Tina?
She bumps
into the hall monitor,
and we have
this great visual clue
of the red and green sweater.
Where's your pass?
Screw your pass.
Wait a minute, I know
that red and green sweater.
That's Freddy, but it's a girl.
Wait, how
[as Freddy] Hey, Nancy.
No running in the hallway.
[chuckles]
I just remember, like,
as a freshman in high school
thinking that was so freaky
because that moment is mixing
this fear of getting permission
and fear of authority
with this fear
of getting shredded
by a child murderer.
And so it's mixing these
anxieties really, really well.
This trail of blood
from this body bag
leads her to Freddy Krueger,
to direct confrontation with him
kind of for the first time
in the film,
in the sense that she realizes
that this is what's going on
in the dreamscape,
and she's able to save herself
by recognizing that what is
playing out in front of her
is not real.
It's only a dream!
Come to Freddy.
[screaming]
[Freddy groans]
[screaming] [class gasps]
[tense music]
Wes Craven of course was
an English teacher,
and he's also very much into,
like, philosophy and literature,
so he loved these ideas
about how to deal
with, you know,
the evil in your life,
and if it's seeping
into your dreams
or, you know,
into your consciousness,
how do you deal with it?
Which is what's so brilliant
about it,
and he finds ways
to sort of visualize it.
I think that's why
it's so popular,
because it goes so much deeper
than your average slasher movie.
This is just a dream.
He isn't real.
He isn't real.
- [yells]
[suspenseful music]
♪