The 101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments of All Time (2022) s01e08 Episode Script
The Top Ten
[heart pounding]
[tense music]
♪
[all screaming]
♪
With many films,
but particularly
with horror films,
there are images
that stay with you forever.
And I always find it fascinating
how long
they're actually on screen.
I always think about that
with the film "Black Narcissus,"
is there's a scene
towards the end of the film
where Sister Ruth reappears.
[dramatic musical flourish]
And in my head,
that was, like, a whole scene.
When I rewatched it, it was
on screen for 11/2 seconds.
But the image of it was
burned into my brain forever.
So that's a testament
to the power
[screaming]
Of images within a film.
[all shouting]
And from, like, movie to movie,
most of the things you would
talk about within this series,
there are different reasons
why you remember something.
They're here.
And obviously,
with the horror genre,
a lot of these moments
are trading
in sheer nightmare fuel,
all of the terrors of your
subconscious made flesh.
It doesn't seem to matter
whether it's a terribly good
movie or not.
[growling]
My friend Mike Finnell, who has
produced many of my movies,
used to tell me about this
scene that he saw in a movie
when he was a kid
that was so terrifying.
It's a guy in a cape,
and a light came down on him,
and he fell down in the cape
and it was--
he was a skeleton.
[dramatic musical sting]
And I said, "Mike, that's from
'Plan 9 from Outer Space.'"
When you're a kid,
you don't have
those kind of value judgments.
You just-- it's just
the imagery that gets you.
And it stays with you.
[ant squealing]
- [screaming]
I mean, those giant ants
from "Them,"
I still see them
in my bad dreams.
[ominous music]
♪
Pretty much you can't talk
about Japanese horror
without talking about "Ringu."
It is absolutely essential
and has
one of the scariest endings
ever put on film.
Tomoko!
[speaking Japanese]
"Ringu," or "The Ring,"
as it might be better known
in the United States,
it's a film
where there's this
cursed videotape,
that if you watch
this videotape,
seven days later, you will die.
[gasps]
The tape itself is terrifying.
The tape itself is another thing
where you don't really know
how to process.
It's essentially video art.
♪
And all these eerie images
coming at you
that feel cursed,
that feel wrong.
And so, you know, you can joke
that this is a film
that's about a fear
of experimental filmmaking.
But on another level,
it's tapping into a register
of images
even if you don't quite know
exactly what's happening.
But absolutely, it's sort
of just-- the very nature
of those images themselves are
partly what's so terrifying.
[suspenseful music]
♪
So the moment
that got everybody is,
you think the movie's over.
You know, our heroine
has solved the mystery.
She has found the bones
of this girl,
the remains of this girl
at the bottom of a well.
All is well. She's back home.
And the movie's still going.
And you're like,
"Well, it's not a slasher film,
"so what could
possibly happen here?
What's going on?"
♪
And it turns out
that her ex-husband,
who has seen the tape--
she's passed it on
He hears the static on his
television and looks up.
And, of course,
we finally see Sadako
in all of her vengeful glory
actually climbing
out of the television.
To me, the scariest stuff is
the stuff you can't explain.
[gasps]
When you see that,
you can't explain it.
If you could explain it,
you can quantify it,
you can measure it,
it loses its power.
The idea of this thing
that can actually come
out of the well on the TV,
it's kind of, like,
the ultimate nightmare.
[heart beating]
And it's actually
sort of a sequence of details
that make it really scary.
So the first thing is, is that
she's crawling out of the TV,
breaking that fourth wall
in a very good effect,
but also one that only happens
for one setup.
The next thing you see
is her, like, fingers
on the carpet with no nails.
Because she's, you know,
tried to get out of the well,
and, like, her nails have,
like, been wrenched out.
Then you've got
the backwards performance
where the performer
playing Sadako
is obviously filmed in reverse
and then is walking backwards,
and they reversed the film
so she's kind of moving forward
and a really unnatural way.
And that's really creepy.
And then that final image
of, like, just the one eye
in the hair.
That's what people see
before they die.
All intercut with the actors,
like, sort of
completely catatonic,
frozen in fear,
crawling back against the wall,
trying to get away.
Her pursuit is inexorable.
The worst-case scenario
for every horror film
is, the thing that you're
terrified on the screen
all of a sudden comes out
and is able
to, you know, grab you.
That image stays with people
because it's kind of tapping
into, you know,
fear of horror films
or fear of images
to a certain extent.
[screams]
[both speaking Korean]
"Train to Busan"
is interesting
because it is a film
that shows the legacy
of melodrama
in South Korean film
and television
Where it's mostly
about families,
and it's about
sort of, you know,
these connections and sometimes
over-the-top emotions.
[zombies growling]
In some ways, you can say
it's kind of like--
and I don't mean this
in a disparaging way--
but it's kind of like
a soap with zombies.
[screaming]
But it's all sort of in
this context of, you know,
these zombies who are
moving incredibly fast.
[screaming]
Appa!
[intense music]
♪
We've had fast zombies before,
but they were fast zombies
in a swarm.
And those two things together
are very, very scary.
♪
'Cause they're fast
and there's too many of 'em.
And so they just look
impossible to defeat.
[zombies screeching]
Granted, we had seen
a little bit of that
with "World War Z,"
but there was just something
highly effective
in seeing it in this movie.
The way they moved
just felt unique.
And that's what I liked
about "Train to Busan,"
is it just felt fresh.
When the Shaw Brothers
started making movies
in Hong Kong
[grunting]
It was just assumed
that if you hired stunt people
or if you hired
martial arts people,
they would do
whatever you asked them to do.
And they did not have
the rules that we have
for stuntmen in America.
[all yelling]
[tense music]
And so people
like Jackie Chan did
these incredible
physical stunts.
[both yelling]
And this carried over
into Korean films
and Thai films
And mainland China films.
[both grunting]
And obviously, it carried over
into "Train to Busan,"
because these guys do
death-defying things
all the time.
[intense music]
It showed us images
of zombie mayhem
that we had never seen before--
in particular, the train
dragging an anthill of zombies
with it.
♪
[somber music]
But that movie already had me,
you know,
just based on characters alone.
[sobbing]
Appa! Appa!
"Train to Busan" has
just got so much heart.
♪
It's one of the few films
that can actually make me cry.
The ending of that film,
it gets me every time.
[ominous music]
Listen, Mr. Oswald,
if you sleep in this house
it's just gonna do
terrible things to your head.
In "Sinister,"
Ethan Hawke plays an author
who uncovers these home movies
in his home.
And you come to realize
they're supernatural
in some way.
At first, Ethan Hawke doesn't
know what to make of them
but then is
investigating further,
so, of course,
you're watching them with him
and exposed
to these terrible acts.
This film is about
the act of watching a film.
And we're showing bits
of all these home movies
that are involved in killings
that have been committed
with these families,
and where one
family member has disappeared,
where a kid has been taken away.
♪
The twist of, you know,
where the scariest thing
that happens
is the guy sitting
and watching moving images,
it's interesting.
It continues
a tradition going back
to Michelangelo Antonioni's
"Blow-Up"
Coppola's "The Conversation"
Kill us if he got the chance.
Brian De Palma's "Blow Out."
[static crackling]
This idea of obsessing over
the granular of the image.
And oftentimes that obsession
and trying to blow things up
and figure out,
"What does this mean?"
is usually what brings about
your ruin.
It was a good scream.
I mean,
I think we can all agree
that the scariest part
of "Sinister"
is the lawn mower scene.
[laughs] Wouldn't we all
agree with that?
[intense music]
That scene is so disturbing,
is so disarming,
because we're all
Ethan Hawke in that moment.
We're not guarded in any way.
We just know he's gonna watch
something disturbing,
but how disturbing
is it gonna go?
So we look in at this family
just having fun in the house.
And then the next thing you see
is, like, this person, like,
getting the lawn mower.
And it's, like,
a little tiny spotlight,
and you can't really see
around it.
And it's silent at first.
It's so quiet.
What is up
with all these quiet things
that just work every time?
All you can hear is your breath.
And that scene
with the lawn mower,
it's just going and going.
All of a sudden, you see
a body laying on the lawn.
The sound makes--
cranks to a 12.
[inhuman shriek]
They don't show us
what happens,
but Ethan Hawke sees it.
[breathing heavily]
And the look of abject terror
on his face is just so--
[inhuman shriek]
Man, he can act.
It looks like he saw
the worst thing ever.
[projector whirring]
I don't know
that I could process
being laid down in the grass
and a lawn mower
running over my head.
That's truly upsetting.
[inhuman shriek]
But we don't actually see
sort of the messiness.
[ominous music]
[gasping]
- Party's over.
This is not
Peter Jackson's "Dead Alive"
or "Braindead"
[zombies groaning]
Where we do see what
a lawn mower can do to people.
Or to zombies, I guess.
What Derrickson is suggesting
is really graphic,
but it's usually just
the overall atmosphere
and how it stays with us
that is really effective.
Editing is everything
in "Sinister,"
from the reveal
of Ethan Hawke's son
coming out of the box
upside down--
you know, it's just like,
how much are you seeing that
before you cut to reactions?
[screaming]
I would ask every
aspiring horror filmmaker
to watch "Sinister."
I think it's one of the best
of that decade.
[ominous music]
What are you doing here?
My bed was shaking.
I can't get to sleep.
"The Exorcist,"
based on the novel
by William Peter Blatty,
it is such a '70s movie.
[subway rumbling]
So downbeat, so nihilistic.
She was living by herself,
and I guess she was dead
a couple of days
before they found her.
"The Exorcist" says that God
is not really there for you.
[yelling demonically]
Because the victim in
"The Exorcist" is an innocent.
Yes.
That was what was so scary
about "The Exorcist."
[growls]
- Ah!
It wasn't the pea soup vomit
or the head turning around.
Amen.
[growling]
It was the fact
that it was a little girl.
all: Some people think
it's the home of black eyes ♪
The pin that unhooks the wheel
that starts the axle breaking
of "The Exorcist"
would never have happened
without Linda Blair
standing there
and delivering the line
You're gonna die up there.
Every single person
that watched that film,
the first time
you watched that film,
when she said that line,
it stuck right in your heart,
and you were like,
"Oh, man, where are we going?
"This is not good.
This is really not good."
Still today,
I don't think a movie has yet
to make me feel
so uncomfortable--
where you see the actors
so uncomfortable.
Regan.
Oh, my God, honey.
And giving this little girl--
just her body being
taken advantage of,
it's very dark.
The scene with the crucifix,
you know, it's sort of like
"Blazing Saddles."
I don't know if you could
do that today.
[laughs]
Ellen Burstyn is downstairs,
hears screaming from upstairs,
goes up.
[screaming, crashing]
Number one, like, the whole,
like, room is being trashed.
Let Jesus fuck you!
Let Jesus fuck you!
And then Regan is
masturbating with a crucifix.
[both screaming]
And then grabs her mother's head
and puts her mother's head
into her crotch
Lick me!
And throws her
across the room
Ah!
- [screaming]
In, like,
a really gnarly-looking stunt
where I think Ellen Burstyn
actually hurt herself.
[screaming]
And then her head
spins around.
And then she says..
You know what she did,
your cunting daughter?
[screaming]
This is all in the space
of about 90 seconds.
And so, like,
that movie has suddenly,
like, just gone from cruising
at a creepy kind of, like, pace
to kind of just going
at 200 miles an hour.
♪
I think the thing for me
that was always perfect was,
the door was closed
to her bedroom.
And whatever happened
when you opened it
was worse than whatever
you could imagine would happen
when you got on the other side.
That's the genius
of "The Exorcist."
You have to go to the killer.
You have to go to the monster,
into the monster's lair.
Because in
"Texas Chain Saw Massacre,"
it's like,
"Don't go in that house."
Or with Jason Voorhees
it's like, "Be careful.
Like, Jason's gonna get you."
[nail gun cracks]
[gasps]
But in "The Exorcist,"
they're trying to solve
a problem.
[growling]
They want to save Regan.
And the only way to do that
is to go into the room.
And they know every time
they go into the room,
something terrible
is gonna happen.
[howling]
[eerie music]
It's just like pictures
in a book, Danny.
It isn't real.
"The Shining" --
what do you say
that hasn't been said?
♪
We watch a man
who's maybe had some history
of kind of
emotional instability,
who's now in
this isolated place,
you know, recently sober--
Here's to five miserable
months on the wagon.
With a kind of a fragile,
needy wife,
and a son who's just
an average kind of,
what, six- or seven-year-old.
[dramatic musical sting]
And we watch him unravel.
[screams]
[laughs]
♪
I feel like that is a film
that's full of iconic images
That endure.
Part of "The Shining"
has to do
with this sort of collapse
of time-space
both: Hello, Danny.
That Danny could look
at the hallway
and see the twins,
and then see their corpses,
and then see
the twins' ghosts again,
and then see
their corpses again.
It's time-space
collapsing on itself.
Both of these things are
happening simultaneously.
It's the same thing
with the woman in 237.
We are all our youngest,
most beautiful selves
And also rotting corpses
at the same time.
[cackling]
And Jack doesn't want
to be confronted with that.
Did you find anything?
No. Nothing at all.
Then we follow Wendy.
And she's in this,
like, very terrified moment
where she's going to tell him
that she is leaving.
[suspenseful music]
And then she walks up
to the typewriter
and sees the paper
and sees the--
the repetition of the line.
He has not, in fact,
been writing
his great American novel
this whole time.
And all of the venom
that she has absorbed
from listening to him
and kind of doting on him
and trying to give him
what it is that he wants
and what it is
that he's asking for--
that all of that was for naught.
How do you like it?
[screams]
We realize in this scene
how, like, completely unhinged
he is.
What do you want
to talk about?
It's not a matter
of speculation anymore.
Have you ever thought
for a single, solitary moment
about my responsibilities
to my employers?
One of the scariest scenes
to me in that whole movie
is him advancing on her
when she has that bat.
Get away from me!
'Cause there is something
about someone menacing you,
and you know
that you can't do anything.
He's, like, so slowly--
just taking his time,
not in a hurry--
this beautiful
cat and mouse dynamic.
I'm not gonna hurt you.
You didn't let me
finish my sentence.
You're grabbing your throat
the entire time.
Where is this going?
It just keeps you right here
I'm not gonna hurt you.
I'm just gonna bash
your brains in.
All the way up
until she hits him,
finally, with the bat.
[shrieks]
- Oh, God da--
♪
Oh, my God.
[screaming]
Certain horror scenes
just break through
memory and reality in a way
where you can just almost mimic,
and people instantly get
what you're talking about.
No!
You can even say lines,
like, "Here's Johnny."
Here's Johnny!
- [screams]
And, automatically,
somebody will be like,
"'The Shining.'
Have you seen 'The Shining'?"
"Oh, no, I haven't seen it,
but I know
that's from 'The Shining.'"
[screams]
The acting is what saves this
from going off the rails.
It could have easily been,
like, Jack Nicholson
being crazy.
But, you know,
you have Shelley Duvall,
broken as she was filming
this thing-- and she was aware.
I mean,
she was a very, very smart,
very erudite woman.
I mean, we had
the same end in mind.
It was just that sometimes
we differed in our means.
We're fucking killing
ourselves out here,
and you've gotta be present.
- I am too.
I'm standing right by the door.
- Should we play mood music?
And she knew exactly what
Stanley Kubrick was doing
and why he was doing it.
[screams]
She just allowed herself
to become
totally fucking exhausted.
I mean, 127 takes--
I don't know.
I don't know if I could do that.
And by the end, the means met.
♪
[tense music]
Do you know what I do
about unhappiness?
I buy it off.
Are-- are you unhappy?
The great thing
about "Psycho" is that
it doesn't matter how much
you know about it already
or how much you've--
how many times you've seen it.
[gasps]
It's such a movie
to be admired
that you can see it
any number of times
and it's almost like
the first time.
There are shots
in that film where they're--
they're not even
the 30th most famous shot,
and yet they're still better
than shots
in other directors'
whole careers.
I was watching it recently,
and there's a shot
in the latter half
where Vera Miles is
waiting for kind of some news,
and she's in Sam Loomis' shop.
And she runs towards
the camera in silhouette.
And I just remember looking
at that shot thinking,
"Oh, my god.
That shot is amazing."
And yet it isn't in the top 20
of most famous shots
from "Psycho."
Well, everybody knows
the iconic scene in "Psycho,"
which is the shower scene,
which is, you know--
it was designed by Saul Bass,
who did a lot of drawings
for it.
And it's pure cinema.
It's all about editing.
It's not about what you see,
it's what you think you see.
Nobody had really attacked--
literally and figuratively--
a murder scene in this sense,
in just a picture puzzle
of a multitude of shots
and put them together
in an order that just
throws you for a loop.
[suspenseful music]
It becomes frantic
as the murder is frantic.
You know, there's a bloodlust
and a frenzy
to the construction
of this scene
that is belied by the banality
of each of those shots.
There's nothing in there
that is all that
provocative or transgressive.
It's only when
it's been constructed
with that masterful
Bernard Herrmann score--
a black-and-white score
that is only strings.
[driving string music]
[screams]
It screams at you,
and it's unbelievably potent.
[dramatic music]
Hitchcock creates a great
sympathy for Norman Bates,
because we are so in his shoes
when we're dealing
with the aftermath
of his mother
murdering Marion Crane
and him having
to clean up the evidence.
Do you mind if I look
at your book?
We are bothered and tense
when Martin Balsam is
questioning him.
Did you spend
the night with her?
And we fear that Norman Bates
is going to be caught.
We don't want him to be caught,
because Alfred Hitchcock is
playing on all
of the vulnerabilities
of Anthony Perkins' persona
and character at the time
for you to root
for the deadliest character
in the narrative.
[ominous music]
Your anticipation
of Martin Balsam dying
is already high.
You know something really bad
is gonna happen.
Bates?
You know, obviously,
there's a killer
and you assume
the mother is somewhere there.
But this is a private eye.
This is not a naked lady
in the shower,
like, completely helpless.
This is a private eye that is
kind of ready for it, right?
He's ready for the encounter.
He assumes something's wrong.
And as soon as he walks
into the house
and he's walking around,
there's nothing more terrifying
of that,
of like, walking
in someone else's house.
And then just that strange
shot of the stairs going up,
which you already anticipate
something strange might happen
because Hitchcock puts
the camera
in kind of a strange place,
with a strange depth of field.
The top of these stairs
that the second murder
took place.
The kind of genius move there
is, whilst you're waiting
for something terrible
to happen,
is, it's the cut
to the overhead angle.
Why do they cut
to that overhead angle?
Because they don't want to show
that the killer is
either Mrs. Bates or Norman.
They don't want
to show the face,
so it's a practical decision.
Oh, we'll cut to a high angle,
and then you won't
see the face of the killer.
She came out
of the door there,
met the victim at the top.
But what it does is, it takes
you into an unnatural angle
just at the point where you're
expecting something terrible
to happen,
it cuts to that angle,
and then the door opens
and the figure comes out.
And it's so brilliant,
because it's not a shock.
Usually, like, a shock moment
is revealing something in frame.
Like, in a "Halloween" film,
Michael Myers would
suddenly appear in frame.
[screaming]
But here you're cutting
to a wide shot,
and the wide shot is scary.
[driving string music]
Now, by being
at that top shot,
you get to see he's coming,
but he wouldn't see him,
so then he gets
completely blindsided.
♪
And then, obviously,
you know, the classic--
which I still don't understand.
What was supposed
to be happening?
I think he's just stepping
backwards or something.
But it's just-- you know,
it's a classic,
you know, cinematic moment.
The victim tumbled and fell
with a horrible crack.
I think the back
broke immediately
when it hit the floor.
And then she goes there
and stabs him again,
like, which makes it, like--
you know, you think
it's overkill, but no.
He falls down the stairs
on his back
and gets stabbed again.
It just-- for me, the most
scariest thing in that movie.
[light, tense music]
♪
One of my favorite films
of all time
is a little movie
called "Audition"
[groaning]
By Takashi Miike,
one of the great auteurs
of the last 25 years.
That movie just brands
your brain in a way
that, once you see it,
you're never going to
Not think about it.
One of the best things
about that film
is that the first act
really plays out
kind of like a good old
indie drama-comedy.
It's about a widower
who wants to find a new wife.
And with the help
of a film producer
[speaking Japanese]
Auditions young women--
and it's notable, I think,
that they're mostly
young women--
for the part of his new wife.
The title "Audition"
refers to the fact
that he's throwing
these audition processes
in front of a video camera
completely under
false pretenses.
He's looking for, you know,
his next soul mate.
You know, these girls think,
"Oh, no.
I'm going for an audition,"
you know,
which in itself is a lie.
And so there's
sort of these inklings
of, you know,
this romantic story.
You know,
is there sort of this--
this hope
of a happy ending here?
You know,
when he first meets Asami
It's almost too good
to be true.
And then it turns out
it was too good to be true.
[ominous music]
There's a really famous
scene in that film
where she is waiting
by the phone.
And we get our first real view
of her in her element.
And she's in this room,
and there is a bag on the floor.
And you don't know
what's in the bag,
but you know it's not good.
[phone ringing]
The phone is ringing,
and she's slowly,
like, raising her head
as if she's about to pick up
the phone.
[phone ringing]
And the genius of that shot is,
you're fully concentrating
on her reaction.
[phone ringing]
[growling]
And it's at that point that
the bag moves really violently,
that there's obviously somebody
still alive inside the bag.
[phone ringing]
You're already kind of,
like, feeling uneasy.
And then your worst fears
are confirmed
whilst you were concentrating
on something else.
[growling]
It's really,
really terrifying,
but not quite as terrifying
as the last 30 minutes.
[suspenseful music]
The first half of "Audition"
is like a Lifetime
Movie of the Week.
And then it turns
vicious and strange
and kind of wonderfully violent.
[yelling]
The scenes where Asami uses
the acupuncture needles
[groans]
Are among
the most disturbing images
ever put on film.
[groaning]
- But it's very effective.
"Audition" is sort of
a critique of rom-coms,
because if you look at them,
most romantic comedies
are pretty screwed up.
I mean,
they're about very sick people
who probably should not
be together,
when you really break it down.
Because they usually involve
people lying to each other.
I'm a writer
for "The Baltimore Sun"
and a friend
of Laurie Johnson's.
I'm doing a piece on how
people handle bereavement,
and I understand you had
a caller the other night,
some guy from Seattle.
But we've been
trained by movies
to think, "Oh, that's great.
That's what I should want
from a partner,"
which doesn't make any sense
at all,
because no, you don't want that.
No rational person wants that.
It was right.
It was real.
It was--
- A movie.
That's your problem.
You don't want to be in love.
You want to be in love
in a movie.
Romantic comedies
kind of destroyed
a lot of people of, like, how
they think things should work.
Oh, a girl doesn't want
to go out with you?
Keep on asking her.
A girl breaks up with me?
She just needs
to be convinced to.
Get a boom box, put it
over your head, you know,
which is, you know,
harassment and stalking.
And, you know, she says
she wants to break up with you,
tell her she's wrong.
And that's what's so great
about "Audition,"
is just that-- all right.
You want to try
and do that stuff?
You want to try
and, you know, have
this kind of romantic comedy
life?
Well, they're not
gonna to go as planned.
[screams]
[ominous music]
Why are you scared of me?
I never wanted
to be your mother.
[laughs]
"Hereditary."
Then why did you have me?
It wasn't my fault!
I tried to stop it!
Every time I think of that
movie, I laugh and laugh.
No, I'm kidding.
It's not funny.
I tried to have a miscarriage.
I laughed so hard
at that movie
because I was so terrified.
You tried to kill me.
I did not.
- You did!
I love you.
- You tried to kill me!
I feel joy
when they terrify me
because they got me.
Why did you try to kill me?
- I love you!
I didn't!
I was trying to save you!
Why did you try to kill me?
Every aspect of that movie,
to me, was joy.
[crying]
The first part of the movie,
you're kind of thinking,
"Oh, what is this about?
There's some little miniatures.
Like, there's something
going on with the mother."
It is scary. It's very creepy.
But you don't exactly know
where it's going.
But then you get to this part
where Peter, the older brother,
takes his younger sister,
Charlie, to a party.
Oh, shit, look.
They're giving
out chocolate cake.
Not to everyone.
Yes, to everyone.
It's a party.
And she is
kind of a strange girl.
And she has an allergy.
She has this allergic reaction.
Peter.
Charlie.
[coughs]
And she starts
not being able to breathe.
Are you okay?
I think my throat's
getting bigger.
[suspenseful music]
So he throws her in the car.
He's driving really fast.
And she's in the back
and she's--
you know, she's choking.
She's-- [gasps]
You're watching her head
out the window.
And you know the pole is coming
and you're going,
"They're not gonna do this.
They're not gonna do this."
[gasping]
And then they do.
[tires screeching]
Every time I've watched it,
whether it's been in the cinema
or with other people at home,
the gasp of that happening
is extraordinary.
But then what happens next
is where Ari Aster
sort of does
something unconventional
in terms of subverting
your expectations
of what you're going to see,
and then un-subverting them.
So the thing that happens
after that is,
he leaves the car in the drive,
with his sister's
decapitated body in it,
and goes to bed.
[unsettling music]
He's in shock.
And he just falls into the bed
and the camera stays on him.
I'm running out
for some balsa wood.
You want anything?
And then you hear the parents
start to go downstairs.
And now you're feeling
the same-- it's not even dread.
It's such a complex, horrific
feeling that he's feeling.
Because he hears them
going out to the car,
and he knows
what they're gonna see.
[screaming]
And it's all happening
kind of off-camera,
and it stays on him.
It stays on him
for the duration.
And it's just-- it's grueling
and it's human and it's real
and it's just-- it's one
of the most affecting scenes
I've ever seen in a movie.
[screaming]
And then just when you think
you've got through the scene,
then he shows you
the decapitated head
[screaming]
On a desert road,
covered in ants.
Oh, my God!
Oh, my god!
Oh, my God.
- [screaming]
When you watch that
with an audience,
it takes them a long time
to recover from that sequence.
Then towards the end
of the film,
there's the sequence
where Toni Collette
is waiting in the darkness.
The scare of the scene is
that you're looking
at this shot,
and it's a wide shot of the kid,
like, waking up in his bed,
and, you know, he's mainly hit
by moonlight or something.
[ominous music]
Mom?
And sadly-- this is
what happened to me.
I was in the movie theater
Dad?
Not seeing anything
disturbing, apparently.
You know, it was--
it's a dark scene.
And suddenly I hear
this murmur in the audience.
[murmuring incoherently]
What the f--
oh, shit!
And then your eye sees what's
in the corner of the frame.
[suspenseful music]
It's a testament to that movie
that it creates these images
that are so powerfully shocking
that it then needs,
like, half an hour
to reset for the next one.
Because the audience are
all completely freaked out.
[clicks tongue]
How's it coming in there?
I said, how's it--
[roaring]
♪
John Carpenter's '82
"The Thing" is
the best monster movie
ever made.
[growling]
He says that it's not
as good as the original.
That's because he's
a self-effacing, modest guy.
[growling]
I believe it blows
the original out of the water.
And, to this day,
there is nothing like it.
[growling]
I won't say
it was a perfect movie,
but I can't think of another
movie that's more perfect.
It's like, everything
from the pacing of it,
storytelling,
performances, effects--
I just love that movie to death.
Isolation horror is one
of my favorite kinds of horror.
You're out in this wintry base,
just watching this group
of men working together.
And then, all of a sudden,
there's a creature.
But what is it? Where is it?
What does it look like?
Oh, it looks like us.
You see, what we're
talking about here
is an organism that imitates
other life forms.
And it imitates them perfectly.
[howling]
That is scary.
I just cannot believe
any of this voodoo bullshit.
If the Thing
were to imitate you,
you wouldn't even know
it wasn't you
until the Thing was threatened
and its sensibility
was threatened.
And then it would reveal itself.
[screeches]
[screaming]
But until then,
it would keep imitating you,
pretending to be you,
to the point where no one
around you wouldn't know
it wasn't you.
All these different sequences
with one of the most imaginative
makeup effects creators ever,
in Rob Bottin,
who was unbelievably young
and ambitious and brilliant,
and John gave him
full steam ahead
to come up with these ideas.
[ominous music]
One of the most
iconic moments--
I mean, it's endless of iconic
moments of "The Thing."
But how you think
one of the characters,
after he had a heart attack
Clear!
And it's not bringing him
back to life.
[mimics paddles]
It's not working.
- Clear!
And just before they try
to revive the guy
[growls]
- Clear.
[screaming]
And you just see how the
poor man's arms get just eaten.
[screaming]
Oh, wow.
That was incredible.
That was some
of the most incredible
movie magic I had ever seen.
They had a man
who was a double amputee.
I don't think he was
as tall as Dick Dysart.
But when they put that wig
on him to match Dick's hair,
and they put
prosthetic arms on him
[screaming]
In the moment of, "Pow!"
and those arms flew off,
and that blood was like-- wow.
It was-- it was
something to behold.
But it was as exciting
watching the end product
in the movie as it was
to see the setup in the studio.
It was beautiful.
It was just beautiful.
[suspenseful music]
And then just, like,
green goo explodes.
♪
Then the guy's neck
starts to rip off
and it becomes a spider.
You know,
I'll never forget it,
because it doesn't contain
just one shock.
It contains one enormous shock,
followed by mind-boggling
shock after shock
And actually ends
kind of in a laugh.
You gotta be fucking kidding.
It's really
virtuoso filmmaking.
[contemplative music]
It never stops fascinating me,
the magic of the movies.
[screaming]
Because it's all
about appearances.
It's illusion.
It's what it looks like,
not necessarily what it is.
♪
[laughs] I see things.
You laugh at an old man.
[laughs]
There's them that laughs
and knows better.
It's so hard to quantify
when people say to me,
"What's the best horror movie
of all time?"
If there's something
that kind of noses ahead
and is right in there,
it's always Tobe Hooper's
"The Texas Chain Saw Massacre."
[screaming]
That's the thing that checks
all the boxes for me.
My grandpa's the best killer
there ever was.
It has social commentary.
[screaming]
It has horror unlike
any unspeakable,
brutal, visceral horror we've
ever seen in a film before.
[ominous music]
It's got a monster
and a family of monsters
that will haunt you
for the rest of your life.
[screaming]
And it's funny in its weird,
wonderful, wacky way.
[screaming]
Get her!
The movie's as complex
as a Hitchcock movie
[maniacal laughter]
And yet, at one time,
just the name
"The Texas Chain Saw Massacre"
was considered shorthand
for the decay
of American society,
the decay of American morals.
But I think the most
violent thing in the film
is the title, "The Texas
Chain Saw Massacre,"
just the images
that it draws up.
Tobe, my old friend Tobe,
did such a masterful job
doing that.
♪
Five friends--
two women, three guys--
they're looking
to investigate the desecration
of a grave site of one
of the women's grandfather.
And they go into the wilds
of Texas, run out of gas,
and they stumble
upon this house.
Anybody home?
The buildup of him
walking into the house
and looking around and staying
in that wide shot--
it just built up so fantastic
and just--
when he open--
and he has that screech,
which sounds
like a pig squealing.
[squealing]
♪
It's such a quick,
brutal scene.
And also,
having grown up on a farm--
sorry, PETA--
but, you know, my family--
you know, we killed--
we had to kill animals to eat.
So I knew that thrash
from on a personal level,
but I'd never seen that
portrayed so realistically
in a film.
[door slams]
The door slam just sticks
in everyone's mind.
And without that sound cue,
I don't know if that scene
would be as iconic
as it's become.
That sound
is the sound of death.
[door slams]
You're stunned.
You thought something might be
creepy about the house,
but that's not
what you expected.
And, from then on,
it's like, "Oh, my God.
What's going on?"
[screaming]
Probably the most iconic
scene in the movie
is when Leatherface puts Pam
on the meat hook.
[screaming]
That was the number one
walker scene--
you know, the scene where people
would walk out of the theater.
They would actually leave
the theater when that happened.
[screaming]
The way Tobe shot it,
that hook's
perfectly in the foreground.
You see the hook,
he comes through the door,
and then he raises her up.
You never see the hook
penetrate her back.
[screaming]
Even when you have
the character
that's in the wheelchair
- Is somebody out here?
Stop. Stop.
- Leatherface shows up.
[mimics chain saw revving]
[both screaming]
You never see anything.
[screaming]
There's no, like, fake body
that you're cutting into pieces
or any of that kind of stuff.
[screaming]
But it's so terrifying,
because it's what you think
you see that is horrific.
It's such a classic element
of cinema
and filmmaking of that time.
Tobe Hooper was
a super sweet guy.
But if anybody's like,
"Who's captured madness
on screen?"
there you go.
That's
"Texas Chain Saw Massacre."
[screaming]
When Sally gets away
at the end--
which I think is, to me,
the scariest moment
in that movie--
there isn't the, like-- [sighs]
You look in the eyes of someone
who is fucked up for life.
[screaming]
Just devastated and altered
in ways that she will never
come back from.
And, like, yeah she got away,
but to what end?
You know? What happens now?
[laughing hysterically]
That's it.
That's all you get.
And I really appreciate
that horror can do that.
[chain saw buzzing]
One of the neat things
about the genre
is that, yes,
we love to be startled--
[screams]
And yes, we love
to be frightened
and sometimes we love
to root for the killers.
[hissing]
We can pour all of our
kind of base instincts
into sympathizing
with the slasher.
[cackles]
It lets us do
so many different things.
It's cathartic
in so many different ways.
But it also,
in all of its expressions,
is just an invitation
[crash]
For us to be a little bit braver
in processing what we go
through as people,
whether that's dealing with
No!
Loss, trauma,
violent fantasies,
universal fears,
fear of the unknown,
fear of death itself,
or just fear
of what we are capable
of doing to each other.
[screams]
All of those expressions
of the genre
all invite us to try
to be honest about that
and to try to be
a little bit courageous--
just brave enough to make it
through the scene,
just brave enough to make it
through the movie,
just brave enough to make it
through the episode.
[dramatic music]
And we collectively get
that little bit braver.
♪
I think that's why the genre
will always, always endure.
[heart beating]
[ominous music]
♪
[tense music]
♪
[all screaming]
♪
With many films,
but particularly
with horror films,
there are images
that stay with you forever.
And I always find it fascinating
how long
they're actually on screen.
I always think about that
with the film "Black Narcissus,"
is there's a scene
towards the end of the film
where Sister Ruth reappears.
[dramatic musical flourish]
And in my head,
that was, like, a whole scene.
When I rewatched it, it was
on screen for 11/2 seconds.
But the image of it was
burned into my brain forever.
So that's a testament
to the power
[screaming]
Of images within a film.
[all shouting]
And from, like, movie to movie,
most of the things you would
talk about within this series,
there are different reasons
why you remember something.
They're here.
And obviously,
with the horror genre,
a lot of these moments
are trading
in sheer nightmare fuel,
all of the terrors of your
subconscious made flesh.
It doesn't seem to matter
whether it's a terribly good
movie or not.
[growling]
My friend Mike Finnell, who has
produced many of my movies,
used to tell me about this
scene that he saw in a movie
when he was a kid
that was so terrifying.
It's a guy in a cape,
and a light came down on him,
and he fell down in the cape
and it was--
he was a skeleton.
[dramatic musical sting]
And I said, "Mike, that's from
'Plan 9 from Outer Space.'"
When you're a kid,
you don't have
those kind of value judgments.
You just-- it's just
the imagery that gets you.
And it stays with you.
[ant squealing]
- [screaming]
I mean, those giant ants
from "Them,"
I still see them
in my bad dreams.
[ominous music]
♪
Pretty much you can't talk
about Japanese horror
without talking about "Ringu."
It is absolutely essential
and has
one of the scariest endings
ever put on film.
Tomoko!
[speaking Japanese]
"Ringu," or "The Ring,"
as it might be better known
in the United States,
it's a film
where there's this
cursed videotape,
that if you watch
this videotape,
seven days later, you will die.
[gasps]
The tape itself is terrifying.
The tape itself is another thing
where you don't really know
how to process.
It's essentially video art.
♪
And all these eerie images
coming at you
that feel cursed,
that feel wrong.
And so, you know, you can joke
that this is a film
that's about a fear
of experimental filmmaking.
But on another level,
it's tapping into a register
of images
even if you don't quite know
exactly what's happening.
But absolutely, it's sort
of just-- the very nature
of those images themselves are
partly what's so terrifying.
[suspenseful music]
♪
So the moment
that got everybody is,
you think the movie's over.
You know, our heroine
has solved the mystery.
She has found the bones
of this girl,
the remains of this girl
at the bottom of a well.
All is well. She's back home.
And the movie's still going.
And you're like,
"Well, it's not a slasher film,
"so what could
possibly happen here?
What's going on?"
♪
And it turns out
that her ex-husband,
who has seen the tape--
she's passed it on
He hears the static on his
television and looks up.
And, of course,
we finally see Sadako
in all of her vengeful glory
actually climbing
out of the television.
To me, the scariest stuff is
the stuff you can't explain.
[gasps]
When you see that,
you can't explain it.
If you could explain it,
you can quantify it,
you can measure it,
it loses its power.
The idea of this thing
that can actually come
out of the well on the TV,
it's kind of, like,
the ultimate nightmare.
[heart beating]
And it's actually
sort of a sequence of details
that make it really scary.
So the first thing is, is that
she's crawling out of the TV,
breaking that fourth wall
in a very good effect,
but also one that only happens
for one setup.
The next thing you see
is her, like, fingers
on the carpet with no nails.
Because she's, you know,
tried to get out of the well,
and, like, her nails have,
like, been wrenched out.
Then you've got
the backwards performance
where the performer
playing Sadako
is obviously filmed in reverse
and then is walking backwards,
and they reversed the film
so she's kind of moving forward
and a really unnatural way.
And that's really creepy.
And then that final image
of, like, just the one eye
in the hair.
That's what people see
before they die.
All intercut with the actors,
like, sort of
completely catatonic,
frozen in fear,
crawling back against the wall,
trying to get away.
Her pursuit is inexorable.
The worst-case scenario
for every horror film
is, the thing that you're
terrified on the screen
all of a sudden comes out
and is able
to, you know, grab you.
That image stays with people
because it's kind of tapping
into, you know,
fear of horror films
or fear of images
to a certain extent.
[screams]
[both speaking Korean]
"Train to Busan"
is interesting
because it is a film
that shows the legacy
of melodrama
in South Korean film
and television
Where it's mostly
about families,
and it's about
sort of, you know,
these connections and sometimes
over-the-top emotions.
[zombies growling]
In some ways, you can say
it's kind of like--
and I don't mean this
in a disparaging way--
but it's kind of like
a soap with zombies.
[screaming]
But it's all sort of in
this context of, you know,
these zombies who are
moving incredibly fast.
[screaming]
Appa!
[intense music]
♪
We've had fast zombies before,
but they were fast zombies
in a swarm.
And those two things together
are very, very scary.
♪
'Cause they're fast
and there's too many of 'em.
And so they just look
impossible to defeat.
[zombies screeching]
Granted, we had seen
a little bit of that
with "World War Z,"
but there was just something
highly effective
in seeing it in this movie.
The way they moved
just felt unique.
And that's what I liked
about "Train to Busan,"
is it just felt fresh.
When the Shaw Brothers
started making movies
in Hong Kong
[grunting]
It was just assumed
that if you hired stunt people
or if you hired
martial arts people,
they would do
whatever you asked them to do.
And they did not have
the rules that we have
for stuntmen in America.
[all yelling]
[tense music]
And so people
like Jackie Chan did
these incredible
physical stunts.
[both yelling]
And this carried over
into Korean films
and Thai films
And mainland China films.
[both grunting]
And obviously, it carried over
into "Train to Busan,"
because these guys do
death-defying things
all the time.
[intense music]
It showed us images
of zombie mayhem
that we had never seen before--
in particular, the train
dragging an anthill of zombies
with it.
♪
[somber music]
But that movie already had me,
you know,
just based on characters alone.
[sobbing]
Appa! Appa!
"Train to Busan" has
just got so much heart.
♪
It's one of the few films
that can actually make me cry.
The ending of that film,
it gets me every time.
[ominous music]
Listen, Mr. Oswald,
if you sleep in this house
it's just gonna do
terrible things to your head.
In "Sinister,"
Ethan Hawke plays an author
who uncovers these home movies
in his home.
And you come to realize
they're supernatural
in some way.
At first, Ethan Hawke doesn't
know what to make of them
but then is
investigating further,
so, of course,
you're watching them with him
and exposed
to these terrible acts.
This film is about
the act of watching a film.
And we're showing bits
of all these home movies
that are involved in killings
that have been committed
with these families,
and where one
family member has disappeared,
where a kid has been taken away.
♪
The twist of, you know,
where the scariest thing
that happens
is the guy sitting
and watching moving images,
it's interesting.
It continues
a tradition going back
to Michelangelo Antonioni's
"Blow-Up"
Coppola's "The Conversation"
Kill us if he got the chance.
Brian De Palma's "Blow Out."
[static crackling]
This idea of obsessing over
the granular of the image.
And oftentimes that obsession
and trying to blow things up
and figure out,
"What does this mean?"
is usually what brings about
your ruin.
It was a good scream.
I mean,
I think we can all agree
that the scariest part
of "Sinister"
is the lawn mower scene.
[laughs] Wouldn't we all
agree with that?
[intense music]
That scene is so disturbing,
is so disarming,
because we're all
Ethan Hawke in that moment.
We're not guarded in any way.
We just know he's gonna watch
something disturbing,
but how disturbing
is it gonna go?
So we look in at this family
just having fun in the house.
And then the next thing you see
is, like, this person, like,
getting the lawn mower.
And it's, like,
a little tiny spotlight,
and you can't really see
around it.
And it's silent at first.
It's so quiet.
What is up
with all these quiet things
that just work every time?
All you can hear is your breath.
And that scene
with the lawn mower,
it's just going and going.
All of a sudden, you see
a body laying on the lawn.
The sound makes--
cranks to a 12.
[inhuman shriek]
They don't show us
what happens,
but Ethan Hawke sees it.
[breathing heavily]
And the look of abject terror
on his face is just so--
[inhuman shriek]
Man, he can act.
It looks like he saw
the worst thing ever.
[projector whirring]
I don't know
that I could process
being laid down in the grass
and a lawn mower
running over my head.
That's truly upsetting.
[inhuman shriek]
But we don't actually see
sort of the messiness.
[ominous music]
[gasping]
- Party's over.
This is not
Peter Jackson's "Dead Alive"
or "Braindead"
[zombies groaning]
Where we do see what
a lawn mower can do to people.
Or to zombies, I guess.
What Derrickson is suggesting
is really graphic,
but it's usually just
the overall atmosphere
and how it stays with us
that is really effective.
Editing is everything
in "Sinister,"
from the reveal
of Ethan Hawke's son
coming out of the box
upside down--
you know, it's just like,
how much are you seeing that
before you cut to reactions?
[screaming]
I would ask every
aspiring horror filmmaker
to watch "Sinister."
I think it's one of the best
of that decade.
[ominous music]
What are you doing here?
My bed was shaking.
I can't get to sleep.
"The Exorcist,"
based on the novel
by William Peter Blatty,
it is such a '70s movie.
[subway rumbling]
So downbeat, so nihilistic.
She was living by herself,
and I guess she was dead
a couple of days
before they found her.
"The Exorcist" says that God
is not really there for you.
[yelling demonically]
Because the victim in
"The Exorcist" is an innocent.
Yes.
That was what was so scary
about "The Exorcist."
[growls]
- Ah!
It wasn't the pea soup vomit
or the head turning around.
Amen.
[growling]
It was the fact
that it was a little girl.
all: Some people think
it's the home of black eyes ♪
The pin that unhooks the wheel
that starts the axle breaking
of "The Exorcist"
would never have happened
without Linda Blair
standing there
and delivering the line
You're gonna die up there.
Every single person
that watched that film,
the first time
you watched that film,
when she said that line,
it stuck right in your heart,
and you were like,
"Oh, man, where are we going?
"This is not good.
This is really not good."
Still today,
I don't think a movie has yet
to make me feel
so uncomfortable--
where you see the actors
so uncomfortable.
Regan.
Oh, my God, honey.
And giving this little girl--
just her body being
taken advantage of,
it's very dark.
The scene with the crucifix,
you know, it's sort of like
"Blazing Saddles."
I don't know if you could
do that today.
[laughs]
Ellen Burstyn is downstairs,
hears screaming from upstairs,
goes up.
[screaming, crashing]
Number one, like, the whole,
like, room is being trashed.
Let Jesus fuck you!
Let Jesus fuck you!
And then Regan is
masturbating with a crucifix.
[both screaming]
And then grabs her mother's head
and puts her mother's head
into her crotch
Lick me!
And throws her
across the room
Ah!
- [screaming]
In, like,
a really gnarly-looking stunt
where I think Ellen Burstyn
actually hurt herself.
[screaming]
And then her head
spins around.
And then she says..
You know what she did,
your cunting daughter?
[screaming]
This is all in the space
of about 90 seconds.
And so, like,
that movie has suddenly,
like, just gone from cruising
at a creepy kind of, like, pace
to kind of just going
at 200 miles an hour.
♪
I think the thing for me
that was always perfect was,
the door was closed
to her bedroom.
And whatever happened
when you opened it
was worse than whatever
you could imagine would happen
when you got on the other side.
That's the genius
of "The Exorcist."
You have to go to the killer.
You have to go to the monster,
into the monster's lair.
Because in
"Texas Chain Saw Massacre,"
it's like,
"Don't go in that house."
Or with Jason Voorhees
it's like, "Be careful.
Like, Jason's gonna get you."
[nail gun cracks]
[gasps]
But in "The Exorcist,"
they're trying to solve
a problem.
[growling]
They want to save Regan.
And the only way to do that
is to go into the room.
And they know every time
they go into the room,
something terrible
is gonna happen.
[howling]
[eerie music]
It's just like pictures
in a book, Danny.
It isn't real.
"The Shining" --
what do you say
that hasn't been said?
♪
We watch a man
who's maybe had some history
of kind of
emotional instability,
who's now in
this isolated place,
you know, recently sober--
Here's to five miserable
months on the wagon.
With a kind of a fragile,
needy wife,
and a son who's just
an average kind of,
what, six- or seven-year-old.
[dramatic musical sting]
And we watch him unravel.
[screams]
[laughs]
♪
I feel like that is a film
that's full of iconic images
That endure.
Part of "The Shining"
has to do
with this sort of collapse
of time-space
both: Hello, Danny.
That Danny could look
at the hallway
and see the twins,
and then see their corpses,
and then see
the twins' ghosts again,
and then see
their corpses again.
It's time-space
collapsing on itself.
Both of these things are
happening simultaneously.
It's the same thing
with the woman in 237.
We are all our youngest,
most beautiful selves
And also rotting corpses
at the same time.
[cackling]
And Jack doesn't want
to be confronted with that.
Did you find anything?
No. Nothing at all.
Then we follow Wendy.
And she's in this,
like, very terrified moment
where she's going to tell him
that she is leaving.
[suspenseful music]
And then she walks up
to the typewriter
and sees the paper
and sees the--
the repetition of the line.
He has not, in fact,
been writing
his great American novel
this whole time.
And all of the venom
that she has absorbed
from listening to him
and kind of doting on him
and trying to give him
what it is that he wants
and what it is
that he's asking for--
that all of that was for naught.
How do you like it?
[screams]
We realize in this scene
how, like, completely unhinged
he is.
What do you want
to talk about?
It's not a matter
of speculation anymore.
Have you ever thought
for a single, solitary moment
about my responsibilities
to my employers?
One of the scariest scenes
to me in that whole movie
is him advancing on her
when she has that bat.
Get away from me!
'Cause there is something
about someone menacing you,
and you know
that you can't do anything.
He's, like, so slowly--
just taking his time,
not in a hurry--
this beautiful
cat and mouse dynamic.
I'm not gonna hurt you.
You didn't let me
finish my sentence.
You're grabbing your throat
the entire time.
Where is this going?
It just keeps you right here
I'm not gonna hurt you.
I'm just gonna bash
your brains in.
All the way up
until she hits him,
finally, with the bat.
[shrieks]
- Oh, God da--
♪
Oh, my God.
[screaming]
Certain horror scenes
just break through
memory and reality in a way
where you can just almost mimic,
and people instantly get
what you're talking about.
No!
You can even say lines,
like, "Here's Johnny."
Here's Johnny!
- [screams]
And, automatically,
somebody will be like,
"'The Shining.'
Have you seen 'The Shining'?"
"Oh, no, I haven't seen it,
but I know
that's from 'The Shining.'"
[screams]
The acting is what saves this
from going off the rails.
It could have easily been,
like, Jack Nicholson
being crazy.
But, you know,
you have Shelley Duvall,
broken as she was filming
this thing-- and she was aware.
I mean,
she was a very, very smart,
very erudite woman.
I mean, we had
the same end in mind.
It was just that sometimes
we differed in our means.
We're fucking killing
ourselves out here,
and you've gotta be present.
- I am too.
I'm standing right by the door.
- Should we play mood music?
And she knew exactly what
Stanley Kubrick was doing
and why he was doing it.
[screams]
She just allowed herself
to become
totally fucking exhausted.
I mean, 127 takes--
I don't know.
I don't know if I could do that.
And by the end, the means met.
♪
[tense music]
Do you know what I do
about unhappiness?
I buy it off.
Are-- are you unhappy?
The great thing
about "Psycho" is that
it doesn't matter how much
you know about it already
or how much you've--
how many times you've seen it.
[gasps]
It's such a movie
to be admired
that you can see it
any number of times
and it's almost like
the first time.
There are shots
in that film where they're--
they're not even
the 30th most famous shot,
and yet they're still better
than shots
in other directors'
whole careers.
I was watching it recently,
and there's a shot
in the latter half
where Vera Miles is
waiting for kind of some news,
and she's in Sam Loomis' shop.
And she runs towards
the camera in silhouette.
And I just remember looking
at that shot thinking,
"Oh, my god.
That shot is amazing."
And yet it isn't in the top 20
of most famous shots
from "Psycho."
Well, everybody knows
the iconic scene in "Psycho,"
which is the shower scene,
which is, you know--
it was designed by Saul Bass,
who did a lot of drawings
for it.
And it's pure cinema.
It's all about editing.
It's not about what you see,
it's what you think you see.
Nobody had really attacked--
literally and figuratively--
a murder scene in this sense,
in just a picture puzzle
of a multitude of shots
and put them together
in an order that just
throws you for a loop.
[suspenseful music]
It becomes frantic
as the murder is frantic.
You know, there's a bloodlust
and a frenzy
to the construction
of this scene
that is belied by the banality
of each of those shots.
There's nothing in there
that is all that
provocative or transgressive.
It's only when
it's been constructed
with that masterful
Bernard Herrmann score--
a black-and-white score
that is only strings.
[driving string music]
[screams]
It screams at you,
and it's unbelievably potent.
[dramatic music]
Hitchcock creates a great
sympathy for Norman Bates,
because we are so in his shoes
when we're dealing
with the aftermath
of his mother
murdering Marion Crane
and him having
to clean up the evidence.
Do you mind if I look
at your book?
We are bothered and tense
when Martin Balsam is
questioning him.
Did you spend
the night with her?
And we fear that Norman Bates
is going to be caught.
We don't want him to be caught,
because Alfred Hitchcock is
playing on all
of the vulnerabilities
of Anthony Perkins' persona
and character at the time
for you to root
for the deadliest character
in the narrative.
[ominous music]
Your anticipation
of Martin Balsam dying
is already high.
You know something really bad
is gonna happen.
Bates?
You know, obviously,
there's a killer
and you assume
the mother is somewhere there.
But this is a private eye.
This is not a naked lady
in the shower,
like, completely helpless.
This is a private eye that is
kind of ready for it, right?
He's ready for the encounter.
He assumes something's wrong.
And as soon as he walks
into the house
and he's walking around,
there's nothing more terrifying
of that,
of like, walking
in someone else's house.
And then just that strange
shot of the stairs going up,
which you already anticipate
something strange might happen
because Hitchcock puts
the camera
in kind of a strange place,
with a strange depth of field.
The top of these stairs
that the second murder
took place.
The kind of genius move there
is, whilst you're waiting
for something terrible
to happen,
is, it's the cut
to the overhead angle.
Why do they cut
to that overhead angle?
Because they don't want to show
that the killer is
either Mrs. Bates or Norman.
They don't want
to show the face,
so it's a practical decision.
Oh, we'll cut to a high angle,
and then you won't
see the face of the killer.
She came out
of the door there,
met the victim at the top.
But what it does is, it takes
you into an unnatural angle
just at the point where you're
expecting something terrible
to happen,
it cuts to that angle,
and then the door opens
and the figure comes out.
And it's so brilliant,
because it's not a shock.
Usually, like, a shock moment
is revealing something in frame.
Like, in a "Halloween" film,
Michael Myers would
suddenly appear in frame.
[screaming]
But here you're cutting
to a wide shot,
and the wide shot is scary.
[driving string music]
Now, by being
at that top shot,
you get to see he's coming,
but he wouldn't see him,
so then he gets
completely blindsided.
♪
And then, obviously,
you know, the classic--
which I still don't understand.
What was supposed
to be happening?
I think he's just stepping
backwards or something.
But it's just-- you know,
it's a classic,
you know, cinematic moment.
The victim tumbled and fell
with a horrible crack.
I think the back
broke immediately
when it hit the floor.
And then she goes there
and stabs him again,
like, which makes it, like--
you know, you think
it's overkill, but no.
He falls down the stairs
on his back
and gets stabbed again.
It just-- for me, the most
scariest thing in that movie.
[light, tense music]
♪
One of my favorite films
of all time
is a little movie
called "Audition"
[groaning]
By Takashi Miike,
one of the great auteurs
of the last 25 years.
That movie just brands
your brain in a way
that, once you see it,
you're never going to
Not think about it.
One of the best things
about that film
is that the first act
really plays out
kind of like a good old
indie drama-comedy.
It's about a widower
who wants to find a new wife.
And with the help
of a film producer
[speaking Japanese]
Auditions young women--
and it's notable, I think,
that they're mostly
young women--
for the part of his new wife.
The title "Audition"
refers to the fact
that he's throwing
these audition processes
in front of a video camera
completely under
false pretenses.
He's looking for, you know,
his next soul mate.
You know, these girls think,
"Oh, no.
I'm going for an audition,"
you know,
which in itself is a lie.
And so there's
sort of these inklings
of, you know,
this romantic story.
You know,
is there sort of this--
this hope
of a happy ending here?
You know,
when he first meets Asami
It's almost too good
to be true.
And then it turns out
it was too good to be true.
[ominous music]
There's a really famous
scene in that film
where she is waiting
by the phone.
And we get our first real view
of her in her element.
And she's in this room,
and there is a bag on the floor.
And you don't know
what's in the bag,
but you know it's not good.
[phone ringing]
The phone is ringing,
and she's slowly,
like, raising her head
as if she's about to pick up
the phone.
[phone ringing]
And the genius of that shot is,
you're fully concentrating
on her reaction.
[phone ringing]
[growling]
And it's at that point that
the bag moves really violently,
that there's obviously somebody
still alive inside the bag.
[phone ringing]
You're already kind of,
like, feeling uneasy.
And then your worst fears
are confirmed
whilst you were concentrating
on something else.
[growling]
It's really,
really terrifying,
but not quite as terrifying
as the last 30 minutes.
[suspenseful music]
The first half of "Audition"
is like a Lifetime
Movie of the Week.
And then it turns
vicious and strange
and kind of wonderfully violent.
[yelling]
The scenes where Asami uses
the acupuncture needles
[groans]
Are among
the most disturbing images
ever put on film.
[groaning]
- But it's very effective.
"Audition" is sort of
a critique of rom-coms,
because if you look at them,
most romantic comedies
are pretty screwed up.
I mean,
they're about very sick people
who probably should not
be together,
when you really break it down.
Because they usually involve
people lying to each other.
I'm a writer
for "The Baltimore Sun"
and a friend
of Laurie Johnson's.
I'm doing a piece on how
people handle bereavement,
and I understand you had
a caller the other night,
some guy from Seattle.
But we've been
trained by movies
to think, "Oh, that's great.
That's what I should want
from a partner,"
which doesn't make any sense
at all,
because no, you don't want that.
No rational person wants that.
It was right.
It was real.
It was--
- A movie.
That's your problem.
You don't want to be in love.
You want to be in love
in a movie.
Romantic comedies
kind of destroyed
a lot of people of, like, how
they think things should work.
Oh, a girl doesn't want
to go out with you?
Keep on asking her.
A girl breaks up with me?
She just needs
to be convinced to.
Get a boom box, put it
over your head, you know,
which is, you know,
harassment and stalking.
And, you know, she says
she wants to break up with you,
tell her she's wrong.
And that's what's so great
about "Audition,"
is just that-- all right.
You want to try
and do that stuff?
You want to try
and, you know, have
this kind of romantic comedy
life?
Well, they're not
gonna to go as planned.
[screams]
[ominous music]
Why are you scared of me?
I never wanted
to be your mother.
[laughs]
"Hereditary."
Then why did you have me?
It wasn't my fault!
I tried to stop it!
Every time I think of that
movie, I laugh and laugh.
No, I'm kidding.
It's not funny.
I tried to have a miscarriage.
I laughed so hard
at that movie
because I was so terrified.
You tried to kill me.
I did not.
- You did!
I love you.
- You tried to kill me!
I feel joy
when they terrify me
because they got me.
Why did you try to kill me?
- I love you!
I didn't!
I was trying to save you!
Why did you try to kill me?
Every aspect of that movie,
to me, was joy.
[crying]
The first part of the movie,
you're kind of thinking,
"Oh, what is this about?
There's some little miniatures.
Like, there's something
going on with the mother."
It is scary. It's very creepy.
But you don't exactly know
where it's going.
But then you get to this part
where Peter, the older brother,
takes his younger sister,
Charlie, to a party.
Oh, shit, look.
They're giving
out chocolate cake.
Not to everyone.
Yes, to everyone.
It's a party.
And she is
kind of a strange girl.
And she has an allergy.
She has this allergic reaction.
Peter.
Charlie.
[coughs]
And she starts
not being able to breathe.
Are you okay?
I think my throat's
getting bigger.
[suspenseful music]
So he throws her in the car.
He's driving really fast.
And she's in the back
and she's--
you know, she's choking.
She's-- [gasps]
You're watching her head
out the window.
And you know the pole is coming
and you're going,
"They're not gonna do this.
They're not gonna do this."
[gasping]
And then they do.
[tires screeching]
Every time I've watched it,
whether it's been in the cinema
or with other people at home,
the gasp of that happening
is extraordinary.
But then what happens next
is where Ari Aster
sort of does
something unconventional
in terms of subverting
your expectations
of what you're going to see,
and then un-subverting them.
So the thing that happens
after that is,
he leaves the car in the drive,
with his sister's
decapitated body in it,
and goes to bed.
[unsettling music]
He's in shock.
And he just falls into the bed
and the camera stays on him.
I'm running out
for some balsa wood.
You want anything?
And then you hear the parents
start to go downstairs.
And now you're feeling
the same-- it's not even dread.
It's such a complex, horrific
feeling that he's feeling.
Because he hears them
going out to the car,
and he knows
what they're gonna see.
[screaming]
And it's all happening
kind of off-camera,
and it stays on him.
It stays on him
for the duration.
And it's just-- it's grueling
and it's human and it's real
and it's just-- it's one
of the most affecting scenes
I've ever seen in a movie.
[screaming]
And then just when you think
you've got through the scene,
then he shows you
the decapitated head
[screaming]
On a desert road,
covered in ants.
Oh, my God!
Oh, my god!
Oh, my God.
- [screaming]
When you watch that
with an audience,
it takes them a long time
to recover from that sequence.
Then towards the end
of the film,
there's the sequence
where Toni Collette
is waiting in the darkness.
The scare of the scene is
that you're looking
at this shot,
and it's a wide shot of the kid,
like, waking up in his bed,
and, you know, he's mainly hit
by moonlight or something.
[ominous music]
Mom?
And sadly-- this is
what happened to me.
I was in the movie theater
Dad?
Not seeing anything
disturbing, apparently.
You know, it was--
it's a dark scene.
And suddenly I hear
this murmur in the audience.
[murmuring incoherently]
What the f--
oh, shit!
And then your eye sees what's
in the corner of the frame.
[suspenseful music]
It's a testament to that movie
that it creates these images
that are so powerfully shocking
that it then needs,
like, half an hour
to reset for the next one.
Because the audience are
all completely freaked out.
[clicks tongue]
How's it coming in there?
I said, how's it--
[roaring]
♪
John Carpenter's '82
"The Thing" is
the best monster movie
ever made.
[growling]
He says that it's not
as good as the original.
That's because he's
a self-effacing, modest guy.
[growling]
I believe it blows
the original out of the water.
And, to this day,
there is nothing like it.
[growling]
I won't say
it was a perfect movie,
but I can't think of another
movie that's more perfect.
It's like, everything
from the pacing of it,
storytelling,
performances, effects--
I just love that movie to death.
Isolation horror is one
of my favorite kinds of horror.
You're out in this wintry base,
just watching this group
of men working together.
And then, all of a sudden,
there's a creature.
But what is it? Where is it?
What does it look like?
Oh, it looks like us.
You see, what we're
talking about here
is an organism that imitates
other life forms.
And it imitates them perfectly.
[howling]
That is scary.
I just cannot believe
any of this voodoo bullshit.
If the Thing
were to imitate you,
you wouldn't even know
it wasn't you
until the Thing was threatened
and its sensibility
was threatened.
And then it would reveal itself.
[screeches]
[screaming]
But until then,
it would keep imitating you,
pretending to be you,
to the point where no one
around you wouldn't know
it wasn't you.
All these different sequences
with one of the most imaginative
makeup effects creators ever,
in Rob Bottin,
who was unbelievably young
and ambitious and brilliant,
and John gave him
full steam ahead
to come up with these ideas.
[ominous music]
One of the most
iconic moments--
I mean, it's endless of iconic
moments of "The Thing."
But how you think
one of the characters,
after he had a heart attack
Clear!
And it's not bringing him
back to life.
[mimics paddles]
It's not working.
- Clear!
And just before they try
to revive the guy
[growls]
- Clear.
[screaming]
And you just see how the
poor man's arms get just eaten.
[screaming]
Oh, wow.
That was incredible.
That was some
of the most incredible
movie magic I had ever seen.
They had a man
who was a double amputee.
I don't think he was
as tall as Dick Dysart.
But when they put that wig
on him to match Dick's hair,
and they put
prosthetic arms on him
[screaming]
In the moment of, "Pow!"
and those arms flew off,
and that blood was like-- wow.
It was-- it was
something to behold.
But it was as exciting
watching the end product
in the movie as it was
to see the setup in the studio.
It was beautiful.
It was just beautiful.
[suspenseful music]
And then just, like,
green goo explodes.
♪
Then the guy's neck
starts to rip off
and it becomes a spider.
You know,
I'll never forget it,
because it doesn't contain
just one shock.
It contains one enormous shock,
followed by mind-boggling
shock after shock
And actually ends
kind of in a laugh.
You gotta be fucking kidding.
It's really
virtuoso filmmaking.
[contemplative music]
It never stops fascinating me,
the magic of the movies.
[screaming]
Because it's all
about appearances.
It's illusion.
It's what it looks like,
not necessarily what it is.
♪
[laughs] I see things.
You laugh at an old man.
[laughs]
There's them that laughs
and knows better.
It's so hard to quantify
when people say to me,
"What's the best horror movie
of all time?"
If there's something
that kind of noses ahead
and is right in there,
it's always Tobe Hooper's
"The Texas Chain Saw Massacre."
[screaming]
That's the thing that checks
all the boxes for me.
My grandpa's the best killer
there ever was.
It has social commentary.
[screaming]
It has horror unlike
any unspeakable,
brutal, visceral horror we've
ever seen in a film before.
[ominous music]
It's got a monster
and a family of monsters
that will haunt you
for the rest of your life.
[screaming]
And it's funny in its weird,
wonderful, wacky way.
[screaming]
Get her!
The movie's as complex
as a Hitchcock movie
[maniacal laughter]
And yet, at one time,
just the name
"The Texas Chain Saw Massacre"
was considered shorthand
for the decay
of American society,
the decay of American morals.
But I think the most
violent thing in the film
is the title, "The Texas
Chain Saw Massacre,"
just the images
that it draws up.
Tobe, my old friend Tobe,
did such a masterful job
doing that.
♪
Five friends--
two women, three guys--
they're looking
to investigate the desecration
of a grave site of one
of the women's grandfather.
And they go into the wilds
of Texas, run out of gas,
and they stumble
upon this house.
Anybody home?
The buildup of him
walking into the house
and looking around and staying
in that wide shot--
it just built up so fantastic
and just--
when he open--
and he has that screech,
which sounds
like a pig squealing.
[squealing]
♪
It's such a quick,
brutal scene.
And also,
having grown up on a farm--
sorry, PETA--
but, you know, my family--
you know, we killed--
we had to kill animals to eat.
So I knew that thrash
from on a personal level,
but I'd never seen that
portrayed so realistically
in a film.
[door slams]
The door slam just sticks
in everyone's mind.
And without that sound cue,
I don't know if that scene
would be as iconic
as it's become.
That sound
is the sound of death.
[door slams]
You're stunned.
You thought something might be
creepy about the house,
but that's not
what you expected.
And, from then on,
it's like, "Oh, my God.
What's going on?"
[screaming]
Probably the most iconic
scene in the movie
is when Leatherface puts Pam
on the meat hook.
[screaming]
That was the number one
walker scene--
you know, the scene where people
would walk out of the theater.
They would actually leave
the theater when that happened.
[screaming]
The way Tobe shot it,
that hook's
perfectly in the foreground.
You see the hook,
he comes through the door,
and then he raises her up.
You never see the hook
penetrate her back.
[screaming]
Even when you have
the character
that's in the wheelchair
- Is somebody out here?
Stop. Stop.
- Leatherface shows up.
[mimics chain saw revving]
[both screaming]
You never see anything.
[screaming]
There's no, like, fake body
that you're cutting into pieces
or any of that kind of stuff.
[screaming]
But it's so terrifying,
because it's what you think
you see that is horrific.
It's such a classic element
of cinema
and filmmaking of that time.
Tobe Hooper was
a super sweet guy.
But if anybody's like,
"Who's captured madness
on screen?"
there you go.
That's
"Texas Chain Saw Massacre."
[screaming]
When Sally gets away
at the end--
which I think is, to me,
the scariest moment
in that movie--
there isn't the, like-- [sighs]
You look in the eyes of someone
who is fucked up for life.
[screaming]
Just devastated and altered
in ways that she will never
come back from.
And, like, yeah she got away,
but to what end?
You know? What happens now?
[laughing hysterically]
That's it.
That's all you get.
And I really appreciate
that horror can do that.
[chain saw buzzing]
One of the neat things
about the genre
is that, yes,
we love to be startled--
[screams]
And yes, we love
to be frightened
and sometimes we love
to root for the killers.
[hissing]
We can pour all of our
kind of base instincts
into sympathizing
with the slasher.
[cackles]
It lets us do
so many different things.
It's cathartic
in so many different ways.
But it also,
in all of its expressions,
is just an invitation
[crash]
For us to be a little bit braver
in processing what we go
through as people,
whether that's dealing with
No!
Loss, trauma,
violent fantasies,
universal fears,
fear of the unknown,
fear of death itself,
or just fear
of what we are capable
of doing to each other.
[screams]
All of those expressions
of the genre
all invite us to try
to be honest about that
and to try to be
a little bit courageous--
just brave enough to make it
through the scene,
just brave enough to make it
through the movie,
just brave enough to make it
through the episode.
[dramatic music]
And we collectively get
that little bit braver.
♪
I think that's why the genre
will always, always endure.
[heart beating]
[ominous music]
♪