# The Horror! (with Phil Nobile of FANGORIA Magazine)

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 18 Oct 2024, 39 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/62360724/podcast_765_philnobile.mp3

Here's a bonus, off-topic (and fun) conversation for fans of horror and/or Halloween...with Phil Nobile, Editor-in-Chief of Fangoria. VIDEO of this conversation: https://youtu.be/p74l09ZZbGc The Mark Shostrom interview: https://youtu.be/SVXe13mdb0U?si=ZN8aJ-hKTVyH_yUi Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Through the rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred.
[0:18] Speaker 1: If I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
[0:22] Speaker 1: not because I put my hand on a book and
[0:24] Speaker 1: made a wish and working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
[0:32] Speaker 3: Truth Usian wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 2: On this bonus broadcast, we are not talking about religion, politics,
[1:02] Speaker 2: the culture unless you're talking about the culture of horror
[1:06] Speaker 2: films in relation to the premiere Horror magazine, and I'll
[1:12] Speaker 2: call it the world. So I'm not going to charge
[1:15] Speaker 2: patrons for this, right, it's a freebee. A lot of
[1:19] Speaker 2: work went into it. There is a video so you
[1:21] Speaker 2: can see what's going on, and I have a lot
[1:23] Speaker 2: of visuals for the references that are made. But this
[1:26] Speaker 2: is just an extra. So if you're into Halloween, if
[1:30] Speaker 2: you enjoyed the month of October, and if you are
[1:33] Speaker 2: interested in a lot of the craftsmanship behind the last
[1:37] Speaker 2: four decades of horror films. Crank it up. I think
[1:40] Speaker 2: you're going to enjoy. For some of us, Halloween is
[1:52] Speaker 2: not just October thirty, first of the month of October
[1:55] Speaker 2: or a season. It is a way of life. But
[1:59] Speaker 2: is this the case or my special guest, a halloweeny
[2:02] Speaker 2: kind of guest, it is Phil Nobile Junior. He is
[2:05] Speaker 2: the editor in chief of Fangoria magazine. Film Welcome good asks.
[2:11] Speaker 3: I'm not sure I enjoy the title HALLOWEENI but I'll
[2:14] Speaker 3: take it.
[2:15] Speaker 2: I mean, people will make this as some shit about you.
[2:18] Speaker 2: You know, a works for Fangoria, he loves horror and gore,
[2:22] Speaker 2: and so this must be a twenty four to seven thing. No,
[2:25] Speaker 2: that's not the case.
[2:25] Speaker 3: I mean, I think I enjoy Halloween as much as anyone.
[2:28] Speaker 3: But I did notice in the last couple of years
[2:30] Speaker 3: when it exploded that I was a little burnt out
[2:34] Speaker 3: on the orange and black of it all after maybe
[2:37] Speaker 3: twelve weeks of it. I think there was a push
[2:40] Speaker 3: to sort of celebrating a spooky season as they call
[2:43] Speaker 3: it in the summer, and as an aged horror fan,
[2:49] Speaker 3: I appreciate things having their seasons. I don't need it
[2:52] Speaker 3: all year round. But I mean, I'm watching horror all
[2:54] Speaker 3: year round. I just don't need to hang the cobwebs
[2:56] Speaker 3: up in.
[2:58] Speaker 2: July, you know what I mean? For those who you
[3:00] Speaker 2: are not familiar with fangoria, this is part of my youth.
[3:04] Speaker 2: This was formative for me, but not for a lot
[3:07] Speaker 2: of people. I mean, they're just now being introduced. Can
[3:10] Speaker 2: you give me the origins of fangoria and what it
[3:13] Speaker 2: is today?
[3:13] Speaker 3: In a nationale pre Internet, there were horror and genre magazine.
[3:17] Speaker 3: Star Log was a big one in nineteen seventy six,
[3:19] Speaker 3: started by Norm Jacobs and Carry O'Quinn, and it made
[3:22] Speaker 3: a bunch of money for them, and so they started
[3:25] Speaker 3: doing spinoff magazines, and in nineteen seventy nine they planned
[3:27] Speaker 3: to do a magazine called Fantastica which was going to
[3:30] Speaker 3: cover other elements of fantasy and horror, and a number
[3:35] Speaker 3: of weeks before it went to publication, a magazine called
[3:38] Speaker 3: Fantastic Film sent them a season desist, and over the
[3:41] Speaker 3: course of a weekend, someone batted around phantasmagoria and realized
[3:45] Speaker 3: that wasn't going to fit on a magazine, so they
[3:47] Speaker 3: cut out the tasm and it became Fangoria, and it
[3:50] Speaker 3: became it was. If you look at the first couple
[3:52] Speaker 3: issues of Fangoria, it's Star Trek and it's Doctor Who,
[3:56] Speaker 3: and it's Thunder the Barbarian alongside the horror stuff. But
[4:00] Speaker 3: in our very first issue, there was an article about
[4:02] Speaker 3: him makeup effects artist named Tom Savini, and that article
[4:06] Speaker 3: about his work on Dawn of the Dead is what
[4:08] Speaker 3: got the most male. So over the course of seven
[4:11] Speaker 3: or eight issues, the publishers learned that horror was in
[4:14] Speaker 3: need of a dedicated magazine, and so by issue I
[4:17] Speaker 3: want to say seven or eight, certainly by nine it
[4:20] Speaker 3: was an all horror magazine and stayed that way to
[4:24] Speaker 3: the present forty five years later.
[4:26] Speaker 2: Who the hell is Thunder the Barbarian?
[4:30] Speaker 3: Like where if I Barbarian was a terrible Hannoverbara cartoon.
[4:33] Speaker 3: There was a sort of a Conan knockoff, but he
[4:35] Speaker 3: had like kind of a lightsaber and he had a
[4:37] Speaker 3: lion's man's sidekick. But we're not here to talk about that.
[4:41] Speaker 3: I wasn't prepared to talk about Thunder the Roverian today,
[4:44] Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
[4:45] Speaker 2: Just a pop culture reference from that era that stimied me,
[4:48] Speaker 2: and I was like, Fangoria was like the Forbidden Fruit
[4:51] Speaker 2: for me, and now I was raised in a very
[4:53] Speaker 2: straight laced, uptight, you know, conservative evangelical religious home and
[4:57] Speaker 2: R rated movie certainly horror movies anything with Saxon blood
[5:02] Speaker 2: were off limits. But we could go down to you know,
[5:06] Speaker 2: B Dalton Bookstore and oh look there, there it is
[5:09] Speaker 2: on the on the shelf, and we spend our five
[5:12] Speaker 2: eight bucks or whatever it was at the time and
[5:14] Speaker 2: buy and everything that was in these gory movies. We
[5:17] Speaker 2: not only saw the scenes in print form, but we
[5:20] Speaker 2: saw how the scenes were made. Is this a commons?
[5:23] Speaker 2: Am I the only one who snuck into B Dalton
[5:26] Speaker 2: and other places to do this?
[5:28] Speaker 3: Well, the proper announced change for me, it was the
[5:30] Speaker 3: Sweet Shop, which was a sort of a mom and
[5:33] Speaker 3: pop place that was about a mile past the Krausers
[5:36] Speaker 3: because Krausers didn't have fingoria, but the Sweet Shop had fangoria,
[5:39] Speaker 3: so I had to ride my bike to the extra
[5:40] Speaker 3: long place. But yeah, once once the mall started like
[5:43] Speaker 3: really proliferating B Dalton or Walden Books, I think in
[5:47] Speaker 3: the eighties, it was another place you could get your fangoria.
[5:51] Speaker 3: And yeah, that part that you said about learning about
[5:54] Speaker 3: how the films were made. I think is the secret
[5:57] Speaker 3: sauce to why Fanguria meant so much to so many people,
[5:59] Speaker 3: because who was speaking only for myself? I was terrified
[6:02] Speaker 3: of horror movies. I would be afraid to watch them.
[6:05] Speaker 3: I would cover my eyes, I would have nightmares. And
[6:08] Speaker 3: my older brother gave me a fango and suddenly I
[6:12] Speaker 3: understood that it was craft, and that it was people
[6:14] Speaker 3: making the things. And it was a guy who looked
[6:17] Speaker 3: like a rock star mixing up the foam, rubber and
[6:19] Speaker 3: a garage and making it look like an exploding head.
[6:22] Speaker 3: And it cured me of my fear, but it created
[6:26] Speaker 3: an addiction to learning about movie making and learning about
[6:29] Speaker 3: the craft of movie making.
[6:30] Speaker 2: So related story, it's funny. I have a grandkid and
[6:34] Speaker 2: we had this big, seven foot tall, I don't know,
[6:37] Speaker 2: it's like a grim reaper thing that we would put
[6:39] Speaker 2: in the entryway, and he was just a young kid
[6:41] Speaker 2: and he was terrified of it. So we'd always either
[6:43] Speaker 2: put it away or stick it in the office, or
[6:45] Speaker 2: walk him through the garage, because you know, we don't
[6:48] Speaker 2: want to traumatize a child. But one year, in the
[6:52] Speaker 2: month of October, he happened to be over and I
[6:55] Speaker 2: was putting it together. And so I brought him in
[6:57] Speaker 2: and there's this box full of pieces, and I'm like, well,
[7:00] Speaker 2: here's the stand, and here's a metal bar that supports him.
[7:03] Speaker 2: And look, this is his shoulders and it's a wire grid,
[7:06] Speaker 2: and look look at the cloth draping over. And here's
[7:08] Speaker 2: a speaker and this plays music and it plays a voice.
[7:11] Speaker 2: And you know, being able to see behind the curtain
[7:15] Speaker 2: totally destigmatized it, so that the next time he came over,
[7:18] Speaker 2: he proudly walked by the thing and he said, I'm
[7:21] Speaker 2: no longer scared of the scary man anymore because he
[7:23] Speaker 2: understood how it worked. Now. I don't know if that'll
[7:25] Speaker 2: translate into a fascination, but deconstructing the mystique of some
[7:30] Speaker 2: of this stuff really does help a lot of people
[7:32] Speaker 2: get over the hump.
[7:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, and on top of that, you're learning about a
[7:35] Speaker 3: whole world you didn't know about. It's not just about
[7:37] Speaker 3: debunking something, but your eyes are being open to this
[7:40] Speaker 3: whole other space that you may be previously weren't aware of.
[7:43] Speaker 3: And I think that that's really why Fenger he eclipped
[7:47] Speaker 3: with such a like an entire generation of people at
[7:50] Speaker 3: the time before there was an Internet where you could
[7:52] Speaker 3: just look this stuff up or look at a YouTube video.
[7:54] Speaker 3: I joke that now the Monday after a movie comes out,
[7:57] Speaker 3: the FX guys have all of the behind the scenes
[7:59] Speaker 3: stuff on their Instagram and you can sort of demystify
[8:01] Speaker 3: the movie within forty eight hours. But Fengo was kind
[8:04] Speaker 3: of a special and, as you said, forbidden thing at
[8:07] Speaker 3: the time, so it was aspirational. You had to go
[8:11] Speaker 3: find it, and you maybe weren't supposed to be reading it,
[8:13] Speaker 3: and I think that added to the mystique and to
[8:15] Speaker 3: the allure a little bit. But the fact that you
[8:17] Speaker 3: were learning something, and in my memory, by writers that
[8:21] Speaker 3: weren't talking down to you because you were a kid,
[8:23] Speaker 3: like the writers were in the eighties of Fenger were
[8:25] Speaker 3: like two clicks over from National Lampoon for me. They
[8:27] Speaker 3: were snarky, they cracked jokes, they were easy to read
[8:31] Speaker 3: and entertaining, and I think that was a big part
[8:33] Speaker 3: of it as well.
[8:34] Speaker 2: I have you done here is of course writer, but
[8:36] Speaker 2: also a reviewer, producer, director. You want to flash that out,
[8:40] Speaker 2: I mean your residence.
[8:40] Speaker 3: I mean I've reviewed movies. I used to write for
[8:42] Speaker 3: a site called Birth Movies, Death and I would review movies.
[8:45] Speaker 3: Then I kind of don't now. Someone asked me why
[8:47] Speaker 3: I don't put star ratings on my letterbox, and I said,
[8:51] Speaker 3: the third time a filmmaker asked me why I gave
[8:53] Speaker 3: it three instead of four, I decided I wasn't putting
[8:55] Speaker 3: stars on them anymore because as an editor of this magazine,
[9:00] Speaker 3: I'm more of a hype man. I have to hype
[9:01] Speaker 3: these movies up. I'm not here to tear them down.
[9:03] Speaker 3: I'm not here to get into pissing contests with the
[9:05] Speaker 3: filmmakers about how good their film was or wasn't. I
[9:09] Speaker 3: want to celebrate stuff. So I've retired my reviewing for now.
[9:13] Speaker 3: But as far as producing, I produced a few different
[9:16] Speaker 3: things in the horror space, and the one that I'm
[9:19] Speaker 3: most proud of is a documentary called Horror and Noir,
[9:21] Speaker 3: A History of Black Horror, which we produced in twenty
[9:24] Speaker 3: nineteen for Shutter, which is a horror streaming service that
[9:27] Speaker 3: your viewers should know about. And it was basically the
[9:31] Speaker 3: history of black Americans in the horror film, from Birth
[9:33] Speaker 3: of a Nation to Get Out basically, and it was
[9:36] Speaker 3: an untold story at the time, and people have gone
[9:40] Speaker 3: on to do great things that maybe I don't want
[9:43] Speaker 3: to say they started in the documentary, but the larger
[9:45] Speaker 3: public awareness some of those people started in that documentary,
[9:48] Speaker 3: and I'm really proud of what that film is done
[9:51] Speaker 3: for folks.
[9:52] Speaker 2: I'm interested too in there was another documentary that talked
[9:55] Speaker 2: about the LGBT community and horror. I think it was
[9:58] Speaker 2: it called I Know There was Queen about Nightmare two,
[10:02] Speaker 2: which was called the Gayest Movie in Horror.
[10:04] Speaker 3: Yeah, those are friends of mine, but I wasn't involved
[10:07] Speaker 3: with that. But now there's another one that I was
[10:09] Speaker 3: nominally involved with, called Queer for Fear. We basically sold
[10:12] Speaker 3: it to Shutter through on the success of Horror and Horror,
[10:15] Speaker 3: and it evolved into something quite different than what I pitched.
[10:19] Speaker 3: And at some point the writer, director Brian Fuller, got involved,
[10:25] Speaker 3: and once he was driving the bus, I understood that
[10:28] Speaker 3: I had done my job and it was time to
[10:30] Speaker 3: sort of, you know, hand the reins. Yeah, and he
[10:34] Speaker 3: made it into a four part series that was pretty
[10:36] Speaker 3: well received. Yeah, and it's also on Shutter.
[10:40] Speaker 2: So Halloween comes out John Carpenter's Halloween nineteen seventy eight,
[10:46] Speaker 2: I think, and then Friday the thirteenth, nineteen eighty and
[10:51] Speaker 2: then we kick off the glorious era of nineteen eighties
[10:56] Speaker 2: horror and practical effects. Was it lightning in a bottle
[11:00] Speaker 2: horor fangoria right place, right time?
[11:02] Speaker 3: I would say so. I think if you look at
[11:04] Speaker 3: the the milestone movies of the seventies, they didn't have
[11:10] Speaker 3: the kind of technological advancements in practical effects that you
[11:13] Speaker 3: saw come to fruition in the eighties. And it's a
[11:18] Speaker 3: generation of guys not to boggy down in the history
[11:20] Speaker 3: of practical effects, but there's a gentleman named Dick Smith
[11:23] Speaker 3: who is basically the father of modern day makeup effects,
[11:26] Speaker 3: and he had behind him a a almost like a
[11:32] Speaker 3: new Hollywood. The way the ways Scorsese and Coppola and
[11:35] Speaker 3: Lucas came up together, there were a group of effects
[11:38] Speaker 3: guys around the same age that kind of came into
[11:40] Speaker 3: their own around the same time, and they pushed things
[11:46] Speaker 3: past what anyone could have imagined at the time. And
[11:48] Speaker 3: the fact that that Fangoria could run photos of them
[11:50] Speaker 3: working in their shops and showing the incredible achievements that
[11:54] Speaker 3: they've done, and the fact that these guys all kind
[11:56] Speaker 3: of like rock stars, a lot of long hair, a
[11:58] Speaker 3: lot of beards, and they were our big brothers that
[12:01] Speaker 3: we wished we'd had when we were reading Fango in
[12:03] Speaker 3: the eighties. These guys were just doing the coolest stuff,
[12:05] Speaker 3: and they weren't that much older than us. Rob Boteen
[12:08] Speaker 3: was twenty three when he did the thing, So you
[12:11] Speaker 3: saw what they did and it felt attainable. Oh. If
[12:13] Speaker 3: I applied myself and I had all that stuff and
[12:15] Speaker 3: I had the skills like that guy grew up in Pittsburgh,
[12:18] Speaker 3: I can do that. So that was part of it.
[12:20] Speaker 3: I think for the Fango thing. Fango created a lot
[12:22] Speaker 3: of backyard filmmakers who felt a kinship to those effects
[12:26] Speaker 3: guys who were just rolling up their sleeves and doing
[12:27] Speaker 3: it with their hands, which I think is something a
[12:29] Speaker 3: little lost today in some of the more digital stuff.
[12:32] Speaker 3: Not that digital artists aren't artists, but seeing that handmade
[12:36] Speaker 3: there was a blue collar quality to the makeup effects
[12:39] Speaker 3: of the eighties that I think really resonated with Fengo's audience.
[12:42] Speaker 2: I like the fact that anybody with a desire and
[12:45] Speaker 2: some talent had a shot. When I talked to FX
[12:49] Speaker 2: guru Mark Shostrom on the show several months ago, I
[12:52] Speaker 2: forgot who he called or he sent a letter to somebody,
[12:54] Speaker 2: whether it was Dick Smith or one of those guys,
[12:56] Speaker 2: and he's like, hey, I'm interested, and the guy actually
[13:00] Speaker 2: he picked up the phone or responded to a letter.
[13:02] Speaker 2: I mean, that's unheard of, right, And he got his
[13:06] Speaker 2: toe in the door. And that was the eighties.
[13:09] Speaker 3: Yeah, I would bet money that that was Dick Smith
[13:11] Speaker 3: that he was talking about. And Mark Mark is such
[13:13] Speaker 3: an interesting character. He's like the Zelig of special makeup effects.
[13:16] Speaker 3: He was everywhere, but he wasn't often given the spotlight
[13:20] Speaker 3: that the other guys were. He would get hired to
[13:22] Speaker 3: work on a crew and he's he would have you know,
[13:24] Speaker 3: this is my task on this film. And so you'd
[13:26] Speaker 3: see him on Elm Street three and Elm Street two
[13:29] Speaker 3: and Evil Dead as you mentioned, and so many other movies.
[13:33] Speaker 3: Like I'm still learning what movies Mark was on because
[13:35] Speaker 3: he was uncredited on a lot of them. So that
[13:37] Speaker 3: dude worked through the eighties and he was everywhere.
[13:40] Speaker 2: Yeah. I will link to that interview in the description box.
[13:42] Speaker 2: It's fascinating even if you're not a horror genre fan.
[13:45] Speaker 2: I mean, just to watch his work is amazing. Dick Smith,
[13:48] Speaker 2: of course, probably best known for the Exorcist, But how
[13:51] Speaker 2: do you distill this guy down to one film. I
[13:53] Speaker 2: don't think you can. Rick Baker, of course, American to
[13:57] Speaker 2: Wear Wolf in London was just ad. It remained a masterpiece.
[14:01] Speaker 2: Tom Savigni, he's a freaking legend. I had a chance
[14:04] Speaker 2: to meet him in Texas and I was just like
[14:06] Speaker 2: fan boying like an idiot. Phil Tippett of Dragon Slayer
[14:11] Speaker 2: and Star Wars, that type of thing. You mentioned Rob Botein,
[14:14] Speaker 2: who had done the thing, the Howling Piranha. Did you
[14:16] Speaker 2: see the Piranha remake, the three D Piranha in twenty ten.
[14:20] Speaker 2: You have any thoughts on that, because, as I recalled,
[14:22] Speaker 2: the three D was mostly used for boobs.
[14:27] Speaker 3: Well, you know what happened is what I remember about
[14:29] Speaker 3: Piranha is that it came out a year after Avatar
[14:31] Speaker 3: and after James Cameron tried to like legitimize three D
[14:34] Speaker 3: and make it respectable, and it's like, oh, it's not
[14:36] Speaker 3: about things coming at the screen, it's about immersing you
[14:39] Speaker 3: in the world. I was really ready for Piranha three
[14:42] Speaker 3: D to shove Paranhas and boobs in my face. I
[14:44] Speaker 3: want things like the three D that I went to
[14:47] Speaker 3: as a kid, Friday thirty part three in Parasite and
[14:50] Speaker 3: Space Hunter like that was the whole point, the stuff's
[14:52] Speaker 3: coming at you James Cameron. So I was really excited
[14:56] Speaker 3: to see three D used in a very kind of
[14:58] Speaker 3: like showmanship hucksterry kind of way with that movie.
[15:01] Speaker 2: It kind of wings at you. It knows what it is,
[15:04] Speaker 2: it knows what it's doing, it knows the genre, it
[15:07] Speaker 2: knows its audience. Of course, i'd go back to Jaws
[15:10] Speaker 2: three D right where they were really on the nose
[15:15] Speaker 2: with three D to stuff shooting, and Friday the thirteenth
[15:18] Speaker 2: Part three, which was I mean they had the pitchfork
[15:21] Speaker 2: in the face. I'm trying to remember what all the
[15:23] Speaker 2: effects were, but they were I mean just essentially looking
[15:26] Speaker 2: the audience in the face, going hey, check out this.
[15:28] Speaker 3: They didn't leave anything on the table. They were popping
[15:30] Speaker 3: popcorn without a lid so that the popcorn would come
[15:33] Speaker 3: at you. There was an eyeball that flew at you
[15:35] Speaker 3: at the screen. I appreciate that kind of three D
[15:40] Speaker 3: where it's very you know, circus free carnival barker, we
[15:44] Speaker 3: know why we're here kind of thing.
[15:46] Speaker 2: Do you have a I mean, I don't want to
[15:49] Speaker 2: put you in a box where you have to defend
[15:51] Speaker 2: this to Fangoria people. But do you have like a
[15:54] Speaker 2: favorite Jason mask? Everybody talks about the hockey mask, but
[15:57] Speaker 2: I'm one of those guys that were like the sack
[15:59] Speaker 2: with the eyeholes still freaks me out even more in
[16:02] Speaker 2: the hockey mask. Do you have like a cherished Jason mask?
[16:05] Speaker 3: Maybe? Maybe I do. It's possible. It's possible. I'm a
[16:11] Speaker 3: Part three guy because Part three was the first Hockey
[16:14] Speaker 3: mask and Part three was, in my opinion, physically the
[16:17] Speaker 3: best Jason. It was a circus performing named Richard Brooker.
[16:19] Speaker 3: He was just big and strapping, and then the makeup
[16:21] Speaker 3: kind of gave him like this giant neck. And I
[16:25] Speaker 3: was twelve. The thing is when whatever you see when
[16:27] Speaker 3: you're twelve is going to going into your canon. Right.
[16:33] Speaker 3: I know that it's not the best movie. I know
[16:34] Speaker 3: that there were better Friday the Thirteenth movies, but three
[16:36] Speaker 3: it was mine, right because it's just the one I
[16:38] Speaker 3: saw in theaters and it freaked me out and I
[16:41] Speaker 3: was just, you know, my brain melted.
[16:45] Speaker 2: Short break more with Phil Nobil, editor in chief of
[16:48] Speaker 2: Fangoria Magazine. Next again, you tell I'm a fan of
[16:59] Speaker 2: this time a year. I just love it. And I'm
[17:03] Speaker 2: privileged to spend a few minutes talking with Phil Nobi,
[17:06] Speaker 2: an editor in chief of Fangoria magazine. So we talk
[17:12] Speaker 2: a lot about the classics, and I'm going to stick
[17:14] Speaker 2: with the eighties because I can, and because I'm You're right.
[17:18] Speaker 2: I mean, these were formative for me. They were at
[17:21] Speaker 2: a landmark time in my life. It's almost like the
[17:23] Speaker 2: music you listen to in high school and you hear
[17:25] Speaker 2: it when you're in your fifties and it takes you
[17:28] Speaker 2: back to that time. You have an affection for it. Poltergeist,
[17:31] Speaker 2: the fog, the changeling. But what are some hidden gems?
[17:35] Speaker 2: I was watching the documentary that you were featured in.
[17:38] Speaker 2: It's a three part docuseries in Search of Darkness that
[17:41] Speaker 2: I think almost I think two of them are on
[17:43] Speaker 2: Shutter and the other one's on Prime or whenever you
[17:45] Speaker 2: can rent it. But some of the hidden gems, the
[17:48] Speaker 2: stuff that only the local mom and pop video stores
[17:52] Speaker 2: would stick on a shelf for you to discover. Come on,
[17:54] Speaker 2: I know you've got.
[17:55] Speaker 3: Some fans my go to which it took three of
[17:58] Speaker 3: those In Search of Darkness movies for them to use it,
[18:01] Speaker 3: but they finally put it in the third one. It's
[18:03] Speaker 3: a movie called The Unseen and it's by a director
[18:05] Speaker 3: named Darys Danny Steinman who made Porn and he made
[18:08] Speaker 3: Friday Thirteenth Part five. I'm not sure what else he did,
[18:12] Speaker 3: but it's a slasher in theory. It's an all woman
[18:17] Speaker 3: news crew that go to Solving, California to film this
[18:21] Speaker 3: festival that's happening, and they forgot to book a hotel room.
[18:24] Speaker 3: So the creepy old man who runs the local museum says,
[18:26] Speaker 3: you can stay at my house, and they go to
[18:28] Speaker 3: stay at his house and they are killed off one
[18:30] Speaker 3: by one by The Unseen, and it's very polished for
[18:37] Speaker 3: considering who made it. The old man is played by
[18:41] Speaker 3: a man named Sidney Lassick, who's an incredible character actor.
[18:44] Speaker 3: You'd recognize his face from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
[18:46] Speaker 3: He's the guy one of his cigarettes fro Nurse Ratchet
[18:49] Speaker 3: and his wife is played by Leila Goldoni, who was
[18:52] Speaker 3: in John Cassavetti's first film, Shadows. So these are two
[18:54] Speaker 3: very very skilled actors absolutely going for broke in the
[18:58] Speaker 3: most disreputable piece of inner you're likely to see. And
[19:02] Speaker 3: it starred Barbara Bach a bond girl from the Spy
[19:04] Speaker 3: Who Loved Me so and missus Ringo Starrs. So it's
[19:08] Speaker 3: there's a weirdly discordant thing happening with this film where
[19:10] Speaker 3: it's disgusting and skeezy and gross, but like really high
[19:14] Speaker 3: level talent doing their best in it. And I'll spoil
[19:19] Speaker 3: it for your audience if you want me to. But
[19:21] Speaker 3: basically the unseen So the husband and wife are really
[19:25] Speaker 3: brother and sister, and they've had a special needs child
[19:30] Speaker 3: who they've decided to put in the basement, and he
[19:32] Speaker 3: has grown up to the size of Flounder from Animal
[19:34] Speaker 3: House because that's who's playing him. And he is accidentally
[19:37] Speaker 3: killing these women while trying to play with them one
[19:39] Speaker 3: at a time. So it's really really problematic, and it's
[19:44] Speaker 3: and he's got makeup on to turn him into someone
[19:47] Speaker 3: with down syndrome. It's the movies. Yes, yes, now I
[19:52] Speaker 3: take all that that I said, And now imagine me
[19:54] Speaker 3: eleven years old watching it on HBO. It left a
[19:58] Speaker 3: mark on me, and it was in the local pop
[20:00] Speaker 3: video stores and when I got old enough to try
[20:01] Speaker 3: to chase this movie, down. I found it in a
[20:03] Speaker 3: video store, like in the ass end of the VHS era,
[20:05] Speaker 3: and these folks wouldn't sell it to me, And to
[20:08] Speaker 3: my shame, I stole.
[20:09] Speaker 2: That to you.
[20:11] Speaker 3: I still have it. It's upstairs.
[20:13] Speaker 2: Do you reallocated resources?
[20:15] Speaker 3: I needed it, they didn't.
[20:17] Speaker 2: I missed the mom and pop stores. You know, I
[20:20] Speaker 2: know everybody likes to throw shade at Blockbuster. Yeah, they
[20:22] Speaker 2: filled the nanch. Yeah, they provided ten thousand titles. Yeah yeah, yeah.
[20:26] Speaker 2: But I remember right across the street we had a
[20:28] Speaker 2: little place called Color Tracks, and they had the good stuff,
[20:32] Speaker 2: and then they'd have staff recommendations where they would just
[20:36] Speaker 2: find the wild, wacky fun stuff that nobody else carried,
[20:40] Speaker 2: and they would we didn't even know what did you
[20:42] Speaker 2: choose movies? Just buy the box because we were all
[20:44] Speaker 2: about the box.
[20:45] Speaker 3: Sure, there's some boxes that haunt me. I mean, my
[20:47] Speaker 3: first video store was not a video store. It was
[20:49] Speaker 3: a camera store. Like back in the early early VHS era.
[20:53] Speaker 3: You'd go to a camera store and there's a little
[20:55] Speaker 3: end cap with about twenty movies on there, and those
[20:57] Speaker 3: twenty movies are probably just burned in my head forever.
[21:01] Speaker 3: A Phantom of the Paradise bad Lands, the Appatuno film,
[21:04] Speaker 3: Scarecrow Martin Georgia, Merrow, Vampire Movie. They were that's what
[21:10] Speaker 3: was there. So that's what I watched, and I watched
[21:12] Speaker 3: it over and over again. But the video stores later,
[21:14] Speaker 3: when you got to a decent one that had a
[21:16] Speaker 3: decent horror collection, Yeah, it was all about the box.
[21:18] Speaker 3: I remember thorn Emi being the label that had sort
[21:22] Speaker 3: of some of the best horror offerings on the box.
[21:27] Speaker 3: There was one called The Prey, and I like, all
[21:31] Speaker 3: we needed to know, all we needed to know. Who
[21:33] Speaker 3: was the tagline? It's not human dot dot dot and
[21:36] Speaker 3: it's got an ax.
[21:39] Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember. Was it Fulci who did Zombie
[21:43] Speaker 2: and the box was an actual zombie with decaying flesh
[21:48] Speaker 2: and it was just the best box art ever. Let's
[21:52] Speaker 2: talk about the remakes, the reinventions, the reimagining. So I
[21:56] Speaker 2: don't big rudge if you want to bring something back
[21:58] Speaker 2: reintroduce it to a new audience. Some people get kind
[22:01] Speaker 2: of snobbish about that, but Phil, I mean Nightmare on
[22:06] Speaker 2: Elm Street twenty ten, right, I mean.
[22:08] Speaker 3: Well that's the famous that's the famous misfire of the
[22:11] Speaker 3: of the Platinum Dunes era, right, and they just did not.
[22:15] Speaker 3: I think it was a I think it was a
[22:18] Speaker 3: poor pairing of filmmaker and content. And it was a
[22:25] Speaker 3: little before we started to get into the space where
[22:28] Speaker 3: name filmmakers were aspiring to do this stuff. You know,
[22:32] Speaker 3: it's eight years before David Gordon Green said I want
[22:34] Speaker 3: to do Halloween and that sort of thing. And I
[22:37] Speaker 3: barely remember the damn thing, but I just remember it
[22:39] Speaker 3: didn't It didn't establish a placid enough reality to break from.
[22:45] Speaker 3: Every frame in that movie looked like it had tetanus.
[22:49] Speaker 3: It was just sort of you know, like everything was
[22:52] Speaker 3: wet and dark, and I just like it didn't understand
[22:56] Speaker 3: that you needed that some of that soft filter stuff
[22:59] Speaker 3: that Wes Craven did in the original to sort of
[23:01] Speaker 3: present you know, any street, any town, USA kind of
[23:04] Speaker 3: thing that got disrupted by Freddy. Freddie was such a
[23:08] Speaker 3: disruptive element into that canvas, right, and the remake didn't
[23:13] Speaker 3: understand that at all.
[23:14] Speaker 2: In my opinion, Well, do you feel like that Freddie
[23:17] Speaker 2: is I mean, I know, never say never, but Robert
[23:21] Speaker 2: England is ready like, how do you do Freddie without Freddy?
[23:24] Speaker 2: Do you have thoughts on that?
[23:25] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a shame because I think Jackie Earl Haley,
[23:28] Speaker 3: who they hired for the remake, is a fine actor.
[23:30] Speaker 3: I just think it was not we weren't ready.
[23:32] Speaker 2: You know.
[23:32] Speaker 3: I'm also a big Bond fan, and I often say
[23:35] Speaker 3: that somebody had to be the first one through the
[23:37] Speaker 3: door after Connery and had to take that book, that shrapnel,
[23:41] Speaker 3: and that was George Lazenby. And then after that the
[23:43] Speaker 3: seal was broken and anybody could kind of come in
[23:45] Speaker 3: and make it their own. And I think that Freddy's
[23:47] Speaker 3: in a place where that can happen now because Jackie
[23:50] Speaker 3: Earl Haley took the bloom off the row, so to speak,
[23:52] Speaker 3: you know what I mean. He took the hit for everybody.
[23:55] Speaker 3: But yeah, I think of all of the modern era
[23:58] Speaker 3: modern not that much anymore. I should change my freezing.
[24:02] Speaker 3: But you know, there's there's no other pairing of like
[24:09] Speaker 3: horror icon an actor except for maybe Brad dorifin Chucky,
[24:15] Speaker 3: who's still doing it, by the way, that is more
[24:18] Speaker 3: embedded in people's minds than England and Freddy. He's he
[24:22] Speaker 3: owns it.
[24:23] Speaker 2: Jackie Earl Haley was amazing in The Watchman. I mean,
[24:26] Speaker 2: you're right, the guy's just a tremendous talent, and he
[24:29] Speaker 2: just you can't take your eyes off of him, and
[24:32] Speaker 2: some of the others have hit with more success. I
[24:34] Speaker 2: think the Carry remaked it all right. The Thing prequel
[24:38] Speaker 2: was interesting. I had a hard time. I had a
[24:41] Speaker 2: hard time with the effects. I didn't feel the weight
[24:45] Speaker 2: of the Rob Boteen effects in the twenty eleven film.
[24:49] Speaker 2: And I'm trying not to be a total ludite about this,
[24:52] Speaker 2: right and back in the day, back when they use
[24:55] Speaker 2: Latex and Robert, you know, I'm trying not to be
[24:57] Speaker 2: that guy. But I mean they've had saying success, go ahead, Well.
[25:01] Speaker 3: I'm the effects tip. I have to say that I'm
[25:04] Speaker 3: good friends with a guy who's word done a lot
[25:06] Speaker 3: of work for ILM. His name is Todd Vaziri, and
[25:09] Speaker 3: he constantly feels questions and complaints about digital effects in
[25:14] Speaker 3: say the Marvel movies, and why do they look so bad?
[25:17] Speaker 3: Why they look like that? And they're like, you know,
[25:19] Speaker 3: the dismissive, reductive internet will say, well, the artists aren't
[25:22] Speaker 3: as good now, and he's like, I literally want an
[25:24] Speaker 3: Oscar for this movie. And then I did this one
[25:27] Speaker 3: you're complaining about. I can tell you personally The only
[25:29] Speaker 3: difference between the two is the amount of time we
[25:31] Speaker 3: had to do it. And I think that that's something
[25:35] Speaker 3: that's really hurting visual effects is that the industry thinks
[25:38] Speaker 3: that it's you push a button and you have it,
[25:39] Speaker 3: and now AI is helping them think that unfortunately. But
[25:42] Speaker 3: you know, the digital effects of Jurassic Park really hold up.
[25:46] Speaker 3: But why does everything in a Marvel movie where they
[25:48] Speaker 3: make five of them a year and have to crank
[25:49] Speaker 3: them out the door is covered in like gray pixely
[25:52] Speaker 3: cloudy dust to kind of obscure rushed work, and why
[25:55] Speaker 3: why does it look like that? The The advent of
[25:59] Speaker 3: digital effects has screwed over a lot of artists because
[26:02] Speaker 3: everyone thinks it can be done at the push of
[26:05] Speaker 3: a button, that it doesn't take time to make it
[26:07] Speaker 3: look right. The thing, especially in twenty eleven, I'm sure
[26:12] Speaker 3: that movie didn't have the budget that would have allowed
[26:13] Speaker 3: for them to do those digital effects properly, but nevertheless
[26:17] Speaker 3: they decided to do them on top of practical effects.
[26:20] Speaker 3: That movie was done practically with Rob Boteen esque practical effects.
[26:24] Speaker 3: You can google and look online and see all the
[26:26] Speaker 3: stuff that they threw away and replaced with digital stuff
[26:29] Speaker 3: because they thought it looked old fashioned, which is a tragedy.
[26:34] Speaker 2: I was talking with my wife about some of the creators,
[26:38] Speaker 2: the writers, the producers, the conjurors of these horror concepts
[26:41] Speaker 2: and some of the most famous directors. I mean, whether
[26:44] Speaker 2: it's Stuart Gordon of Reanimator fame, Wes Craven, you mentioned
[26:48] Speaker 2: George Romero right Night to the Laving Dead in that series,
[26:53] Speaker 2: David Cronenberg and his son Brandon, And I'll say what
[26:56] Speaker 2: strikes me is these seem like just the most benign, kind, sweet, calm, peaceful,
[27:03] Speaker 2: nicest guys, right. And She's like, what kind of a
[27:05] Speaker 2: twist in person would come up with this concept? And
[27:08] Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't think what they make is who
[27:11] Speaker 2: they are. I don't know. Do you want to feel
[27:13] Speaker 2: this one film?
[27:14] Speaker 3: It's an interesting question. I think I've written about this before.
[27:16] Speaker 3: I think that, yeah, the guys who created a lot
[27:19] Speaker 3: of what we consider classic horror all look like anywhere
[27:23] Speaker 3: from like your local bartender to a college professor. I
[27:26] Speaker 3: think Scorsese said when he met Cronenberg, he was like,
[27:29] Speaker 3: this guy looks like a Beverly Hills gynecologist. I don't understand,
[27:32] Speaker 3: And it's true. And you know, we did have a
[27:35] Speaker 3: minute in horror, and I think maybe we're still half
[27:37] Speaker 3: in the minute where horror got a little eating its
[27:41] Speaker 3: own tail, and the guys making horror were the guys
[27:43] Speaker 3: that watched nothing but horror. And I think that the
[27:46] Speaker 3: end result bears out that you don't get the best
[27:48] Speaker 3: horror that way. You get horror from effective horror, from
[27:52] Speaker 3: people who understand human beings and people who understand how
[27:56] Speaker 3: to tell a story, and people who understand the human experience.
[28:00] Speaker 3: That isn't always somebody who's just wearing all of their
[28:03] Speaker 3: influences on their tattoos and will only use these three
[28:08] Speaker 3: colors from the crayon box. I think great horror comes
[28:11] Speaker 3: from unexpected places. And I'm lucky to be running the
[28:14] Speaker 3: magazine when we are kind of coming back around to
[28:17] Speaker 3: that spot and we've got filmmakers with really interesting things
[28:22] Speaker 3: to say and aren't interested in mimicry or just sort
[28:25] Speaker 3: of like doing playing the hits.
[28:28] Speaker 2: Interesting that you guys are a paper magazine in twenty
[28:30] Speaker 2: twenty four, like actual tangible shaper in this, I mean,
[28:35] Speaker 2: what's that about? I mean that seems hard to pull off.
[28:37] Speaker 3: It is I should stop now that I'm thinking about it.
[28:43] Speaker 2: Thanks for coming, Phil, I love it.
[28:46] Speaker 3: You know, when I first pitched my take on the magazine,
[28:49] Speaker 3: I said, what if it's what if it's a thing
[28:52] Speaker 3: that replicates in a forty five year old's brain what
[28:55] Speaker 3: he felt when he went down to be Dalton as
[28:58] Speaker 3: a twelve year old to get the magazine, Like, how
[29:00] Speaker 3: do we make it exciting for that person the way
[29:02] Speaker 3: it was exciting for that person thirty five years ago.
[29:05] Speaker 3: And so part of it was make it an event
[29:07] Speaker 3: four times a year. Part of it was make it
[29:09] Speaker 3: one hundred pages. Make it a collectible because you did
[29:13] Speaker 3: protect your fan gos mine kind of fell apart. I
[29:15] Speaker 3: would stick pages on the walls and stuff because there
[29:17] Speaker 3: was a poster you could rip out. But make it
[29:19] Speaker 3: a thing you want to collect and own, versus something
[29:24] Speaker 3: you click on and click off of. And it's ether.
[29:28] Speaker 3: And I do think that we connected with a certain
[29:31] Speaker 3: audience that way, you know, the way Vinyls kind of
[29:34] Speaker 3: come back. And you know, we said it in all
[29:37] Speaker 3: of our marketing language, We're inviting you to get off
[29:39] Speaker 3: the Internet for a few hours every couple of months.
[29:43] Speaker 3: At the time, seemed like a good idea. It seems
[29:47] Speaker 3: like a better idea now than.
[29:49] Speaker 2: No, No, it's magical. It is magical. Look, I've got
[29:51] Speaker 2: my own collection back here on the bookshelf. As soon
[29:54] Speaker 2: as you guys started republishing, right, I think you took
[29:57] Speaker 2: a few years off twenty fifteen. I think you guys
[30:00] Speaker 2: hit hiatus and then came back when twenty.
[30:02] Speaker 3: Eight Yeah, that was the previous owner, and they kind
[30:05] Speaker 3: of you know, I want to give full credit to
[30:09] Speaker 3: that editorial team because they were trying to make the
[30:12] Speaker 3: magazine happen against the tide of the Internet. I think
[30:16] Speaker 3: in a way, and that break kind of let the
[30:18] Speaker 3: new owners and myself come back in twenty eighteen say hey,
[30:22] Speaker 3: remember when you weren't on the internet all day? Do
[30:24] Speaker 3: you maybe want to do that again sometime? And I
[30:27] Speaker 3: think that it resonated. That particular bit of messaging resonated
[30:32] Speaker 3: with the horror fans in some way where they want
[30:34] Speaker 3: to like take a minute, take a book book sized
[30:38] Speaker 3: fango and spend some time offline looking at it, resting
[30:41] Speaker 3: their eyes from the screen for a minute. The I
[30:46] Speaker 3: can't speak to the exact experience of the previous owners,
[30:48] Speaker 3: but I know they had throw out trouble getting their
[30:51] Speaker 3: printed edition out after a while, and they were offering
[30:54] Speaker 3: PDFs and digital copies, and it just didn't seem like
[30:57] Speaker 3: the audience was ready to kind of embrace print analog
[31:02] Speaker 3: as an alternative to the Internet right at that moment.
[31:05] Speaker 3: And I think we got lucky in that we convinced
[31:07] Speaker 3: them that it was time.
[31:08] Speaker 2: To do that. Well, please tell the our direction or
[31:12] Speaker 2: whoever is putting it together. I don't know what the
[31:13] Speaker 2: title is, but whoever lays the magazine out, it's I
[31:17] Speaker 2: mean it's not just oh, let's take you know, photographs
[31:21] Speaker 2: from horror movies and paste them in with some text.
[31:23] Speaker 2: I mean it is fun, it's compelling.
[31:25] Speaker 3: That's allow named Jason causele original make sure he finds out.
[31:29] Speaker 2: Please tell Jason we are impressed. Last couple of minutes
[31:33] Speaker 2: and I'll let you go. I know you're busy. Horror
[31:35] Speaker 2: as commentary on the time. This is a little bit
[31:38] Speaker 2: of a cliche question. I'm not trying to like play
[31:40] Speaker 2: AMC film historian, but it has to be said that
[31:44] Speaker 2: horror reflects where we are as a culture, whether it's
[31:48] Speaker 2: from the Hammer films or the xenophobia of the Red
[31:50] Speaker 2: Scare and the you know, with all the space monsters
[31:55] Speaker 2: of the nineteen fifties and sixties, and then post Vietnam
[31:58] Speaker 2: War we got into the occult and the setdays, all
[32:00] Speaker 2: that stuff. You want to talk about the utility of
[32:04] Speaker 2: horror in film or wherever as a reflection of and
[32:08] Speaker 2: a commentary about where we are as a culture.
[32:10] Speaker 3: Well, as you say, that's exactly right, it's always reflected
[32:13] Speaker 3: the time that it's been in, and we are certainly
[32:16] Speaker 3: living in interesting times right now. But I don't think
[32:20] Speaker 3: you can plan a flag and say what it is
[32:23] Speaker 3: or what it isn't until you're on the other side
[32:25] Speaker 3: of it. And I've also recently written about this, like
[32:28] Speaker 3: when will we be on the other side of what
[32:30] Speaker 3: just happened? Like the ten year period of horror that
[32:34] Speaker 3: we just went through, which was pretty seismic in terms
[32:37] Speaker 3: of the level of quality that's been happening. You know,
[32:41] Speaker 3: there's certain things that happened in the last ten years.
[32:45] Speaker 3: One of them is a film called The Baba Duck.
[32:47] Speaker 3: One of them is a film called Get Out. And
[32:49] Speaker 3: then basically the rise of a twenty four in making
[32:52] Speaker 3: quote unquote elevated horror in getting folks to take horror seriously.
[32:56] Speaker 3: We're in this era now where folks are taking it
[32:58] Speaker 3: more seriously than probably probably they ever did. Ebert was
[33:01] Speaker 3: always a champion back in the day, and there have
[33:04] Speaker 3: been critics that wrote thoughtfully about horror throughout history. But
[33:09] Speaker 3: right now is the maybe the first time in history
[33:13] Speaker 3: that everybody in the pipeline, let's say, is on the
[33:16] Speaker 3: same page about horror. And I think that's exciting and
[33:18] Speaker 3: interesting and probably finite. So it can't last forever, this
[33:24] Speaker 3: particular error we're in, but I'm excited to see, like
[33:29] Speaker 3: what it coalesces as, like when it all gels like,
[33:32] Speaker 3: what will this period be defined as? I'm not quite sure.
[33:35] Speaker 3: I do feel like we are more. The horror is
[33:38] Speaker 3: wearing its themes on its sleeve a little more. It's
[33:40] Speaker 3: gotten a little unsubtle. It's not so much subtext anymore
[33:42] Speaker 3: as it is text in a lot of movies, which
[33:45] Speaker 3: can go either way depending on whose hands you're in.
[33:47] Speaker 3: But it's been an incredibly rich and rewarding time for
[33:51] Speaker 3: horror because of all those things.
[33:53] Speaker 2: All right, We'll finished with a personal note here. I
[33:56] Speaker 2: was on prego how old when I watched Halloween on
[33:59] Speaker 2: a Buddi's VHS tape and then had to walk I
[34:02] Speaker 2: don't know how many blocks back home at night. It's
[34:05] Speaker 2: a cliche, but it was. I was terrified. I was running,
[34:08] Speaker 2: I just in my own head. It's one of those
[34:10] Speaker 2: Landmark movies that really rattled me. And then The Exorcist.
[34:14] Speaker 2: You know, I've rented it and it freaked me out
[34:16] Speaker 2: because I believed in literal demons and oh my god,
[34:19] Speaker 2: is there is there a demon in the VHS tape
[34:21] Speaker 2: kind of a thing. I was that kid, and there
[34:23] Speaker 2: were movies that kept me up at night. I would
[34:26] Speaker 2: see the shadows in the window and I would be
[34:28] Speaker 2: looking in the closet and I would have the night
[34:29] Speaker 2: light and whatnot. But after you've watched decades of them,
[34:33] Speaker 2: you begin to develop some scar tissue, you know, you
[34:37] Speaker 2: see the tropes, you begin looking at them maybe more technically.
[34:41] Speaker 2: There were some films that have chilled me. But I mean,
[34:44] Speaker 2: does anything scare you anymore? I mean, does anything just
[34:47] Speaker 2: like do you sit on the edge of your chair
[34:49] Speaker 2: and clench your knuckles until they're whites? Does that ever happen? Sure?
[34:53] Speaker 3: I think as I've gotten older, home invasion films our
[34:57] Speaker 3: particular kryptonite to me. I do not love watching someone's
[35:01] Speaker 3: autonomy being taken away in their own home, and the
[35:05] Speaker 3: way that a lot of those home invasion things happen
[35:07] Speaker 3: are kind of like breadcrumbed, where you're seeing someone try
[35:12] Speaker 3: to maintain a mask of civility and it's costing them.
[35:16] Speaker 3: You know, someone's at your door and you're trying to
[35:18] Speaker 3: be a good neighbor and trying to be friendly, but
[35:21] Speaker 3: a line is being crossed, and you, as the audience member,
[35:23] Speaker 3: knows it. But our rules of politeness maybe keep that protagonist.
[35:26] Speaker 3: I'm realizing it until it's too late. That stuff freaks
[35:29] Speaker 3: me out. I hate that stuff. But you also mentioned
[35:31] Speaker 3: The Exorcist, and I think The Exorcist is a good
[35:34] Speaker 3: example of a well made film will keep freaking you out,
[35:37] Speaker 3: but maybe in different ways. It is coincidentally the first
[35:41] Speaker 3: movie I remember seeing at the drive in nineteen seventy four,
[35:45] Speaker 3: and as a kid, you identify with the child and
[35:48] Speaker 3: their plight and the loss of control that that child
[35:50] Speaker 3: is feeling. As an older person, you might relate to
[35:54] Speaker 3: Ellen Burston and her plight as not being able to
[35:56] Speaker 3: help her mom. And then I watched it after my
[35:59] Speaker 3: parents died, and suddenly father Carris was the protagonist and
[36:04] Speaker 3: of course he's always been the protagonist, but it was
[36:06] Speaker 3: the first time I saw him as the protagonist and
[36:08] Speaker 3: related to him and his loss of faith after his
[36:11] Speaker 3: mom died, and his mom died, you know, in a
[36:14] Speaker 3: mental hospital because he wasn't able to help her, because
[36:17] Speaker 3: he decided to become a priest rather than a doctor
[36:20] Speaker 3: or a lawyer, and he couldn't take care of her appropriately.
[36:22] Speaker 3: And that guilt that he felt like Exorcist as a
[36:25] Speaker 3: fifty year old messed me up. But not because it
[36:28] Speaker 3: was about a possessed little girl. It was all the
[36:30] Speaker 3: other stuff happening in the movie.
[36:31] Speaker 2: I think it's the innovative stuff. I remember back was
[36:34] Speaker 2: a Yon Debond who directed the remake of The Haunting
[36:37] Speaker 2: with Liam Neeson and Catherine z To Jones, and it
[36:40] Speaker 2: was like one hundred million dollar production, and I left
[36:44] Speaker 2: totally unmoved. It was back sort of in the beginning
[36:47] Speaker 2: of the digital age. But you know, Robert Wise is
[36:50] Speaker 2: The Haunting back from the sixties was just a landmark film.
[36:54] Speaker 2: But I mean then I rent or stream a little
[36:59] Speaker 2: film shot I think mostly on cell phones called Host
[37:03] Speaker 2: on Shutter. Host was made for like a buck and
[37:06] Speaker 2: a half. Scared thing. I mean like it just took
[37:10] Speaker 2: me to a place I'd never been. It was in
[37:12] Speaker 2: my head, it was in my bones, and I thought,
[37:16] Speaker 2: you know, it's I think it speaks to this power
[37:19] Speaker 2: of the storyteller, right, take me to a place I've
[37:21] Speaker 2: never been, take me to a place I can relate to,
[37:24] Speaker 2: and then turn that place on it's ear. I don't
[37:27] Speaker 2: know I did.
[37:27] Speaker 3: Oh, sure, Rob Savage made it, and it's I think
[37:30] Speaker 3: it's under an hour. But I think the secret sauce
[37:33] Speaker 3: of the Host is that it was a zoom call
[37:35] Speaker 3: that took place during the pandemic, that they shot, edited
[37:39] Speaker 3: and released during the pandemic, so we all were still
[37:42] Speaker 3: living that life of like being in our homes and disconnected.
[37:46] Speaker 3: It added to it, right, the fact that we were
[37:48] Speaker 3: all still kind of in lockdown when Host happened, and
[37:52] Speaker 3: it was so throwing our scenario back in our face,
[37:54] Speaker 3: and so of the moment, I almost want to I
[37:56] Speaker 3: haven't revisited it, but I want to rewatch it now
[37:58] Speaker 3: that we're kind of on the other side of all
[37:59] Speaker 3: that stuff, to see how it lands. But I remember
[38:02] Speaker 3: at the time it really being such a canny, smart
[38:05] Speaker 3: piece of filmmaking to capitalize on the moment the way
[38:07] Speaker 3: it did.
[38:08] Speaker 2: I find myself watching it every few months. It sounds
[38:11] Speaker 2: so dumb, but it's just so good and it's a,
[38:13] Speaker 2: you know, fifty five minute movie. We actually had friends over.
[38:17] Speaker 2: They were like, do you know any good scary movies?
[38:19] Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh, yes, I've got one for you,
[38:21] Speaker 2: and we went and had a little party. How do
[38:23] Speaker 2: people find fangoriam? How do people subscribe?
[38:28] Speaker 3: You can do all of that over at fangoria dot com.
[38:30] Speaker 3: There's we're on the other side of a subscription drive now,
[38:34] Speaker 3: but you can buy single issues. At fangoria dot com.
[38:36] Speaker 3: You can buy back issues, you can subscribe and get
[38:39] Speaker 3: the next issue, which is coming out in January. But
[38:42] Speaker 3: our fall issue will be on shelves soon. So go
[38:45] Speaker 3: to fingory dot com and just sort of poke around
[38:47] Speaker 3: there and see what you see, what moves you.
[38:50] Speaker 2: You're so kind to give me half an hour of
[38:52] Speaker 2: your day to talk about all of this stuff, and
[38:55] Speaker 2: I hope the Halloween season's good to you. Please thank
[38:58] Speaker 2: everybody at fangoria for us all their great work, and
[39:00] Speaker 2: I will keep reading and hopefully get you a few extras. Appreciated.
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