Wes Craven

WEBVTT
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What's in there?
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Is the purple stuff?
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Some OJ, Kansas City Nights.
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Oh, sunny day.
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Gentlemen, let's rotten our minds.
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Holding the puppet of root for today.
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Charge the lightning field.
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Craven the Hunter.
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Let's go.
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Wes Craven the Hunter.
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See, this is the mashup we've all been asking.
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Are you saying we've all been craven it?
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It's gonna be an Doritos bag soon enough.
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The funny thing is, I would have thought the possibility, at least, that Wes Craven's name was a stage name because he does a bunch of horror because Craven is such a great No, it's actually his family name.
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Sometimes you're just born into it, you know.
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It's like growing up in a lineage of being an MLB pitcher and your last name's Walker.
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It's like, what are the odds of that?
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Yeah, it's like when Prince's parents named him Prince and he was like, yeah, no, okay, done.
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That's how that worked, right?
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It's a proud moment in Minnesota history.
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They don't have many of them.
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No, of course not.
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Yeah, I'm sure they do.
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Minnesota's fine.
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Ask Carmen Electra.
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Just ask Carmen Electra how that went.
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I don't know the Carmen Electra Minnesota story.
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Oh, so she was a backup dancer for Prince, and then they started dating.
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When they started dating, he started demanding things, no matter what doing or what time of day it was, when she went to bed, she would have to go to bed in full makeup and outfit and heels in bed, so that just in case he showed up at four in the morning, she'd be ready to go to the club every single night.
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That reminds me of when Grace Jones was dating Dolph Lundgren, and Grace just kept bringing women back constantly to where it tired Dolph out where he couldn't handle it anymore.
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Yeah, I'm not gonna lose any sleep over that one.
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Talking about 98.
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Yeah, I know.
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I get it.
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I mean, you go to sleep with your makeup on.
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Go to sleep with your heels on.
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No, it was a demand.
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She was gonna get fired were she not to do that.
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If that's her job.
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Her job was backup dancer.
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Job was backup dancer until it became more encompassing.
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Also, girlfriend is not a job.
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I believe there's a certain girlfriend experience film that we'll say otherwise.
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Dispel that rumor.
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Well, anyway.
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Anyway, we're dispatching dispatch Ajax.
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Let's say it at the same time, shall we?
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In unison.
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I hope we keep it in unison.
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I like that.
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It wasn't.
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It was like so off, but that's okay.
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Oh, I heard it at the same time I was saying it.
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You have a delay.
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You have a Tom DeLay over there.
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As long as it's not Tom DeLong, we should be good.
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It's Candace DeLong, the Discovery N.
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I'm okay that fucking that is.
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I am not Candace DeLong.
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I am Jake.
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And we are deep in Spooktober.
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We are doing our Halloween stuff, and we would like to bring to you an episode today on one, if not the greatest horror director of all time, one Wes Craven.
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That is right.
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It's something that I think a lot of horror fans and other horror artists I don't know that they even necessarily agree with us, but if we break down the bulk of their work, the cultural cachet that they carry, the effectiveness of their film.
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Wes Craven has got to be on the Mount Rushmore, right?
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He's got to be up there.
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We could do a whole episode and people have on like the Mount Rushmore of horror directors.
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I would say, especially if you are a more modern sense of horror directors, because I think you can go back and look at people like a Val Lut or a James Whale from 1889 to 57 or FW Murnow or Terrence Fisher doing a lot of those Draculas and Frankenstein's.
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But I would say the Mount Rushmore should be.
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I think one and two are John Carpenter and Wes Craven.
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I think it's a push-pull.
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I would say Carpenter probably is a better director, but his style doesn't change.
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I think Craven is maybe more influential and has a little more range for what he tried to do.
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He knows how to adapt.
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Yeah.
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I think after that, whether it's George Romero or Alfred Hitchcock, Mario Baba, Toby Hooper, Argento.
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Argonus?
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Come on.
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You gotta remember the Italian war wave as well.
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Yeah, Baba, Fulci, Argento.
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Argento, I think, is probably probably on the Mount Rush More.
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I guess we are getting a little bit more into this.
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So your four would be Carpenter Craven.
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Those two, I think, probably.
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So you got two others.
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I think Argento.
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I know, but I know, but the debate is is it Romero or Argento?
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You have two other options.
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It could be Romero and Argento.
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Is there who else are you?
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I'm just saying if it came down to it and I had to eliminate one or the other between Argento and Romero.
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I'd probably get rid of Freeman No.
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Argento had a bigger body of work and it's probably influential worldwide, maybe not in America.
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There was huge gaps where Romero didn't do anything.
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I I'd also argue Romero is a bit one note.
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Yeah, well, 100%.
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He defined the modern zombie genre.
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The crazies.
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But the crazies, and he did Martin.
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And he has other things.
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Yeah, he has other things.
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But they're not as influential.
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His early work, obviously, which was also not well heralded at the time, but it's since been the definition of the genre.
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But his bulk of work isn't as big as Argento.
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Argento has a much more diverse body of work, I think, in a weird way.
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Like he did a lot more supernatural whore.
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He did a lot more like abstract pseudo arthouse horror types than Romero ever did.
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I think it's a really that I think that would be a debate, not one we're going to have here today.
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But no, I'm surprised he didn't bring Raimi onto that.
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I know you're a big Raimi fan.
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As are you.
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I Raimi Raimi is a lot like Romero in the fact that he had only a couple of really big movies early on in his career that helped define a genre, but the bulk of the rest of his work don't really reflect that.
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I can see that.
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It's more like Romero and Raimi belong on the memorial of instead of the Mount Rushmore.
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I don't know.
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It that's a whole different debate.
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That's not what we're talking about today.
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We're talking about one of the consummate, unequivocally brilliant horror directors of the modern era.
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That, of course, is Craven.
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Da Hunter.
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Westerminst Cravenworth, his legal god given.
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Don't fact check me.
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That's a fact.
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Do not look for to us for facts, even though that's the premise of our goddamn.
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I think we're more opinion than facts.
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We just we strongly based our opinions on facts.
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How about that?
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Okay, that's one way to look at it.
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Yeah.
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We could get into the history of Wes Craven.
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Yeah.
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I don't think we need to do a biography.
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Unfortunately, he did pass away in 2015.
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There's a lot of great memorials out there.
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There's a lot of great works discussing his life and his art.
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I think it is important to note that he was kind of born into a bit of a broken home.
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It was very religious, which I think definitely influenced his life.
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His parents divorced when he was four.
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His father died a year later after that.
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A very strict evangelical church growing up.
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He wasn't allowed really to read comic books or watch movies.
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He really got into a passion for literature and creative writing.
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And that would be what spurred him into academia.
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He would get a master's in philosophy.
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He would go on to teach for a bit, but there was always a niggling, underlying desire for something else.
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And he bought his first 16 millimeter camera, started making his own film stuff on the sides.
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And he was, again, teaching at this time, but he was kind of given an ultimatum.
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And he's like, Do you want to have a career in academia?
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Or you want to go do this Hollywood?
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And he dropped out of his teaching position at Clarkson University.
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He went west, a young man.
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Unfortunately, he did bring his wife at the time, soon to be young children, along with him on this journey.
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He essentially bummed it the movie scene for a bit, small little bits.
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He was a boom mic operator, especially in a lot of pornography early in his career.
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Yeah.
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I've actually talked to a lot of people to work in LA in like the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and they were always like, look, everybody did you just didn't put it on your resume and you didn't talk about it.
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You did audio, you did boom mic stuff, you cinematography, just went home at the end of the day, and no one ever mentioned it ever again.
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So this is the DNA of a lot of people.
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Not weird.
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They just knew where the money was.
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Nope.
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And that's how you broke into the industry.
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At this time, pornography was a booming industry.
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They were showing it in theaters.
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It was pre because we're talking the late 60s into the early 70s.
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Uh post-haze code.
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Betamax and VHS hasn't taken over.
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It hasn't you watch Boogie Nights, you'll see where this comes.
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Uh it's post-hays code pre-MPAA.
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That's the window there.
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Where you could have a pornographic film actually be shown in theater.
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And he actually he did work.
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He had he is credited on Deep Throat.
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Wow.
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That same year he would produce Sean S.
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Cunningham's second movie together.
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Cunningham would eventually go on to direct Friday the 13th in 1980 and prove to be a key figure in West Craven's career as he produced his debut feature, The Last House on the Left.
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Now, I think Last House on the Left's pivotal as one of the three big films of Wes Craven's career that were genre-defining.
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If you guys haven't seen Last House on the Left, it's essentially a modern-day reinterpretation of one of West Craven's favorite films, which was Bergman's The Virgin Spring, which was about a young woman is raped and killed, and the family finds out about it, and they take their revenge on those who violated their daughter.
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This was a reinterpretation of that.
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It was very amateurish in a lot of ways.
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Obviously, this was his first film, really getting his footing, but it also added to the realistic nature of the film.
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That in and of itself spawned its own sub-genre.
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Right after that, you had Straw Dogs, I Spit on Your Grave, an entire subgenre of horror-based, which is funny because I feel like Last House on the Left is a lot like Halloween in the way that it helped define the genre, but doesn't really belong in it.
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Everything else that came after it solidified said genre, but does completely different things that aren't quite what that movie was trying to say or do.
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Yeah.
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You wouldn't have things like Saw or the Torture Porn genre or any of those heinous, really brutal films.
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A lot of stuff that a death wish or something kind of came out of.
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A lot of that was spawned by Last House on the Left.
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True, true.
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You're right, because it did split off in different directions.
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Revenge genre, the torture porn genre, and then you also had the female empowerment, female victim empowerment genre.
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You wouldn't get a gr a great movie like Revenge unless you had Last House on the Left.
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Yeah, completely Death Wit.
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No, but it's a domino that needed to be toppled over so that you'd get those things much more akin to it, or even things like uh a Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
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There's a certain way that the film was created and what it was trying to say that spoke at the time.
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Being his first film, it was the first time that he got to really speak about what themes would really be prevalent throughout his whole career.
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And definitely one of those is family and the links that family will go to and be pushed to.
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Most of his films are centered around a familial unit and either the the fracturing of that or the pushing to the brink of that.
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Did you get that?
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And then I would say his next big work would probably be Hills Have Eyes.
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Yeah.
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A little bit of a departure from a lot of his films because you make a great point that it's all about familial bonds, but also based on Last House on the Left, it's also about grievance and slight and revenge based on those slights.
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Hills Have Eyes, I guess, falls in that in the way that it's almost like a grievance against the US government for doing all the nuclear tests in the Southwest during that time, but it's not quite the same.
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Because Last House on the Left, even Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, those are all about someone being slighted and coming back for Hills Have Eyes.
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Maybe you could say that there is a an element there, but that's not really what that's about.
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But you know definitely helps define that genre.
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Yeah, definitely I think you get a couple other themes that are prevalent in his work.
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A distrust of authority, that's throughout the running of his entire filmography, and a dissolution of the family, that nuclear family kind of breaking apart, or like seeing the family as more of like a prison structure, something that needs to be torn asunder.
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And that is what happens in the Hills Have Eyes.
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No, that's interesting.
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That is interesting though, because the that is interesting.
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Because the breaking down of the familial unit is oftentimes and causes tension or the the motive or the villain.
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And yet he doesn't try to redeem that necessarily.
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He doesn't try to say that reuniting the family or bringing the family together solves the problem.
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He starts with that point, and there is no resolution to it.
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It's like you he just starts with the problem, the breakdown, then the problem, and then the ris the result of those behaviors, but never really gets to a a thing where he says that the recreation of the nuclear family fixes it.
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Because he never does that.
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He never goes there.
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No, it's like just this fixation on pointing out the dysfunctionality of the nuclear American family.
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In the same way that I think Spielberg, almost every film he does is somehow about his parents' marriage ending.
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Fablements.
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It's really every film that is happening in Spielberg's filmography.
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Where's Dad at?
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Yeah, I don't remember dad anything.
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Exactly.
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And the family does break apart during even though that's not because of a no, but it's at the core of think about just about every Spielberg fam film you can think of.
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Maybe Indiana Jones, the first one.
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I guess.
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You can't really I don't know if those countries, but like the evening.
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I'm talking about the totality.
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But look at what he looks down.
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It's like 80% of his filmography at the core is a breaking down of union between the mother and father and how that affects the lives of the children.
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Probably defend your argument about 19.
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That's the saddest part.
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Look at I gotta take a phone call real quick.
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I just hold on.
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Once you do that, okay?
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You do that.
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Hey, how's it going?
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I'm doing okay.
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I'm recording a podcast right now.
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Do you mind if I call you back after?
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Okay, pop.
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All right, bye-bye.
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Skip, you there?
00:15:54.159 --> 00:15:56.159
Skip, skip, yep.
00:15:56.559 --> 00:15:57.840
Have to get up and leave, bro.
00:15:58.000 --> 00:15:58.639
He's come back.
00:15:59.360 --> 00:16:00.240
Yes, sit back down.
00:16:00.399 --> 00:16:00.720
Yes.
00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:01.360
Yep.
00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:02.480
There we go.
00:16:02.720 --> 00:16:03.200
All right.
00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:04.080
Back to it.
00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:04.480
Yeah.
00:16:04.720 --> 00:16:05.919
Last house on the left.
00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:08.720
It definitely got bigger than he anticipated.
00:16:08.879 --> 00:16:18.000
He felt a little more freedom to be a little more extreme because he didn't think that it would get in that many theaters, but it got a lot more than he expected, which caused a bit of a backlash for him.
00:16:18.159 --> 00:16:20.240
It was banned in Britain at the time.
00:16:20.480 --> 00:16:25.519
But it that notoriety, I think, helped him when the Hills Have Eyes came out.
00:16:25.679 --> 00:16:28.480
It definitely let him a very American film.
00:16:29.440 --> 00:16:30.159
A very American.
00:16:30.639 --> 00:16:33.440
You don't have the Hills Have Eyes that rings true to that audience.
00:16:33.519 --> 00:16:34.159
You know what I mean?
00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:37.679
Irradiated mutant inbreds in the Southwest.
00:16:37.840 --> 00:16:39.679
That's a very American post-war.
00:16:40.799 --> 00:16:41.679
Really, really is.
00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:44.000
I don't I don't see Ridley Scott making that meeting.
00:16:44.240 --> 00:16:45.279
It's so very American.
00:16:45.440 --> 00:16:47.360
Although I think that's I do think it could work in Australia.
00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:51.279
Maybe yeah, they probably shouldn't do as many new the terrain is similar.
00:16:51.519 --> 00:16:52.799
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:57.759
I think in between Last House and Hills, he was still looking for work.
00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:10.319
He had he was working on a film for the unreleased unreleased work of Mustang, which is a Vietnam film, and potential adaptation of uh First Blood novel before Sylvester Stallone got it, made the Rambo.
00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:11.680
God, I would have loved to have seen.
00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:15.279
Yeah, although I'm a big fan of First Blood, so I love First Blood.
00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:17.359
I think it's one of Stallone's best movies.
00:17:17.440 --> 00:17:17.680
Yeah.
00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:22.559
But I really would have loved to have seen the same reason that that uh what's his name dropped out.
00:17:22.799 --> 00:17:25.200
Fuck, fuck the supposedly the general.
00:17:25.359 --> 00:17:25.519
Fuck.
00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:26.160
What was his name?
00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:27.039
Uh you know what I'm talking about.
00:17:27.279 --> 00:17:28.079
Using Spartacus.
00:17:28.160 --> 00:17:28.480
Come on now.
00:17:28.559 --> 00:17:30.000
Oh, uh he was Spartacus.
00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:30.720
Kirk Douglas.
00:17:31.119 --> 00:17:38.559
Kirk Douglas dropped out of First Blood because Stallone had changed the ending of the book to where Rambo lived.
00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:42.960
And so I really would have liked to have seen a a take where the book actually had.
00:17:43.519 --> 00:17:44.240
Well they filmed that.
00:17:44.799 --> 00:17:47.680
And they showed it to audiences and they hated it.
00:17:47.839 --> 00:17:52.559
Mostly because they they had created a character that didn't really deserve to die.
00:17:52.799 --> 00:17:56.960
No, and especially the way the foot doesn't work in that film, it doesn't work.
00:17:57.039 --> 00:17:58.319
But I would have you're right.
00:17:58.400 --> 00:18:03.279
I agree with you because uh First Blood works on every level, the way that it's presented to us.
00:18:03.440 --> 00:18:18.240
I would have been curious to see if he had adapted the book closer where you didn't empathize as much with John Rambo, though you still do, just not as to the level you have dirt Stallone where there are no winners.
00:18:18.400 --> 00:18:18.559
Yeah.
00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:24.000
I think that one reason that you do identify with him is they cut a lot of Stallone's dialogue.
00:18:24.640 --> 00:18:25.200
That's true.
00:18:25.359 --> 00:18:27.039
Yeah, they cut out a bunch of it.
00:18:27.119 --> 00:18:29.759
And so it's more what you read into the situation.
00:18:30.319 --> 00:18:37.920
It's allowed for the audience to identify with him more because you're not having him dictate and color the character as much.
00:18:38.160 --> 00:18:39.680
Stallone didn't direct that, did he?
00:18:39.920 --> 00:18:41.680
No, no, but that's why he was good.
00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:48.319
In the editorial process, supposedly Stallone went to the director and editor and is like, hey, just cut my dialogue better.
00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:49.599
You can cut it out.
00:18:49.839 --> 00:18:51.440
He used to have real cred, didn't he?
00:18:51.599 --> 00:18:55.359
Supposedly, but this is also Stallone telling the story decades later.
00:18:56.079 --> 00:18:57.039
Decades later, right.
00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:00.160
You never know what's real and what isn't real.
00:19:00.400 --> 00:19:01.759
They're professional liars.
00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:07.839
One story that Wes Craven doesn't talk about much is the film he did in between Last House and The Hills Have Eyes.
00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:10.000
Again, he was a working director at the time.
00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:18.240
He needed to make money, his marriage has fallen apart, he has kids to feed, though, so he makes the fireworks woman in 1975.
00:19:18.400 --> 00:19:21.759
A pornographic film with supernatural elements.
00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:24.079
Which I just watched earlier today.
00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:25.440
And okay.
00:19:25.759 --> 00:19:38.000
So it is a do not be don't go into it thinking that it's like, oh, a guy up and coming did a softcore for Showtime or Cinemax or whatever.
00:19:38.240 --> 00:19:41.759
No, this was a straight up hardcore porn.
00:19:42.079 --> 00:19:45.039
And it's, I hate to say it, boring.
00:19:45.200 --> 00:19:47.039
Not really, not much happens to it.
00:19:47.200 --> 00:19:54.640
I will say, at risk of sounding a little creepy, he knows how to frame blowjob shots and certain shots.
00:19:54.720 --> 00:19:56.960
Like you can tell he knows how to frame shots.
00:19:57.200 --> 00:19:59.440
He knows how to get the shot he's looking for.
00:19:59.759 --> 00:20:00.799
Back shots or not.
00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:02.880
It's but it it's boring.
00:20:03.039 --> 00:20:06.319
It's also extremely problematic because there's a huge rape scene in it.
00:20:06.480 --> 00:20:09.200
I would not recommend this movie.
00:20:09.519 --> 00:20:16.000
It's extremely unpleasant in places that they do not redeem in any way, shape, or form.
00:20:16.240 --> 00:20:21.200
But you can see where some of his influence comes in, right?
00:20:21.519 --> 00:20:25.200
Because there's a lot of uh angst after the rape scene.
00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:34.559
They don't just dismiss it, they actually uh go into it with the psyche of the woman who was raped, even though this is a porn in the 70s.
00:20:35.039 --> 00:20:41.519
So I I you can see where he's going to come out of this, uh, a different director.
00:20:41.759 --> 00:20:46.240
I don't think he wanted to direct, I don't really think he wanted to direct hardcore porn.
00:20:46.400 --> 00:20:51.359
And so when you watch it, you're like, I see, I kind of see what you're going for.
00:20:51.519 --> 00:20:56.880
Maybe he's gonna do something different because a lot of it is about the reaction to the rape.
00:20:56.960 --> 00:21:00.559
That kind of almost leads directly into something like Last House on the Left.
00:21:00.799 --> 00:21:01.119
See.
00:21:01.279 --> 00:21:01.839
It's not good.
00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:05.839
The porn scenes are fine until you get to the rape, and you're like, now I don't want to watch any of this.
00:21:06.079 --> 00:21:06.400
Really bad.
00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:10.559
Honestly, that's how a lot of people saw most of his career in a lot of ways.
00:21:10.880 --> 00:21:14.960
He would have big gaps in between really influential works.
00:21:15.039 --> 00:21:19.279
So Last House obviously put him on the map, at least in a small-ish way.
00:21:19.440 --> 00:21:20.799
And then it was work for hire.
00:21:21.039 --> 00:21:25.519
He was trying to do things, he had a lot of failures, a lot of stuff that didn't work.
00:21:25.680 --> 00:21:28.000
We're not gonna go through movie by movie his career.
00:21:28.480 --> 00:21:31.119
You want to check out Summer of Fear or Deadly Blessing.
00:21:31.279 --> 00:21:43.759
Swamp Thing, I think, is an interesting foray in his work, but I wouldn't put it as a quintessential film of his, and I don't think it's necessarily speaking what he was about.
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:46.319
But that is a quintessential U and I movie.
00:21:46.480 --> 00:21:50.319
Yeah, that that's maybe something to be discussed, you know, on its own.
00:21:50.640 --> 00:21:56.319
Well, I mean, honestly, that's uh how a lot of people saw most of his career in a lot of ways.
00:21:56.480 --> 00:21:59.759
Um, he would have big gaps uh in between.
00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:01.839
Really influential works.
00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:08.000
So I mean, Last House, you know, obviously put him on the map, uh, at least in a small-ish way.
00:22:08.240 --> 00:22:10.559
Um, and then it was kind of like work for hire.
00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:16.400
He was he was he was trying to do things, he had a lot of failures, a lot of stuff that that didn't work.
00:22:16.559 --> 00:22:19.920
Uh, we're not gonna go through movie by movie his career.
00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:37.119
Uh, you know, if you want to check out Summer of Fear or Deadly Blessing, Swamp Thing, I think, is is an interesting foray into you know his work, but uh I wouldn't put it as a quintessential film of his, and I don't think it's necessarily speaking to what he was about.
00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:39.759
But that is a quintessential U and I movie.
00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:43.599
Yeah, I mean that that's maybe something to be discussed, you know, on its own.
00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:49.599
Yeah, it's Ray Wise, Adrian Barbeau, and it's a DC comics character directed by Rhett Wes Craven.
00:22:49.680 --> 00:22:51.759
I mean, like that's right up our alley.
00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:53.680
And it's also not that good a movie.
00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:59.519
It's not it's not that great, and it's not exactly horror-filled, but that was in '82.
00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:05.119
Two years later, he would redefine the slasher genre with a nightmare in Elm Street.
00:23:05.440 --> 00:23:06.640
Everybody knows that film.
00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:07.440
It's a classic.
00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:13.200
Freddie Krueger, I think, stands out amongst his peers of your Jasons, your Michael Myers.
00:23:13.599 --> 00:23:16.160
As he wasn't somebody in a mask, right?
00:23:16.319 --> 00:23:22.559
He wasn't some guy with an axe or a knife stalking you through the night as you run away.
00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:31.200
Freddie was a person who was himself directly to his victims, and he got you in a place that you couldn't run away from, your dreams.
00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:33.440
He was an ethereal, yes.
00:23:33.599 --> 00:23:43.279
And as opposed to those others where they kind of invested supernatural elements into them as their mythos and lore grew and sequel after sequel came out.
00:23:43.440 --> 00:23:46.319
Freddie was a supernatural entity from the get-go.
00:23:46.400 --> 00:23:53.119
He was always that way, at least um, you know, up until a new nightmare, where things get a little uh even weirder.
00:23:53.279 --> 00:23:55.839
But I think this is uh another introduction.
00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:07.440
There were a few bits before then, but with Freddy, you really get what he called his rubber reality, and that's kind of this blending of the dream world and dream logic and the real world.
00:24:07.599 --> 00:24:14.160
And when you kind of blur the lines between the two, that is a liminal space that Wes was a master of.
00:24:14.400 --> 00:24:18.240
Almost at this exact same time, we're dealing with Clive Barker doing Hellraiser.
00:24:18.559 --> 00:24:21.920
This is prime time for this type of horror film.
00:24:22.079 --> 00:24:29.119
Yeah, or you've got Cronenberg working in his uh video drone-esque times, you've got altered states.
00:24:29.359 --> 00:24:36.480
You know, there's a lot of like, you know, playing with what is real in these supernatural entities that blend the two.
00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:46.559
I would say it's the post-psychedelic era where where society had done all the drugs, all the psychedelic drugs, they are now aware of the perils of those.
00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:51.119
And that's a obviously a very complicated sociological thing that we don't have to get into right now.
00:24:51.200 --> 00:24:55.279
But I do feel like this is a very post-cool-aid acid test era.
00:24:55.599 --> 00:25:00.400
We understand what psychedelics are, but they're still a mystery to the mainstream public.
00:25:00.799 --> 00:25:17.279
And because of things like Nixon and Reagan's war on drugs are terrifying to people, and so when you get into those limital spaces or those psychedelic spaces, or those otherwise not sober spaces, uh, terrible things can happen to you.
00:25:17.599 --> 00:25:24.240
He really honed in on that well, with yeah, and you know, the blending of that psychedelic and the dream logic.
00:25:24.400 --> 00:25:33.680
You don't necessarily have to drop acid, but everyone has a dream and can identify with that, and it's backwards logic, Dali-esque physics and whatnot.
00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:34.400
Mm-hmm.
00:25:34.799 --> 00:25:55.680
And with that, Freddie really helped redefine what a slasher was and in a lot of ways save the horror genre into the 90s with what Freddie did in the mid to late 80s, sequel after sequel, and then you know, with New Nightmare, which I think a lot of people they posit the movie after that as the real meta feature.
00:25:55.759 --> 00:26:11.039
But I think New Nightmare was a step ahead of Scream 100% blending those lines and blurring them of the layer upon layer reality and artifice, you know, playing with the tropes of the genre and redefining them.
00:26:11.200 --> 00:26:17.359
Unfortunately, New Nightmare, I don't think it's as successful as it intends to be, but the intent is there.
00:26:17.519 --> 00:26:21.599
Obviously, with Scream, it's a home run and all of those aspects.
00:26:21.680 --> 00:26:24.319
It's a film that still holds up to this day.
00:26:24.559 --> 00:26:26.480
Originally called Scary Movie.
00:26:26.880 --> 00:26:44.559
Yeah, originally called Scary Movie, a fantastic uh stripping away and then relayering of not only what a horror film can be, the satire and the tropes and the meta narrative, but also really injected life into a dying slasher genre.
00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:49.680
There's nobody who does it twice with two different franchises in the same career.
00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:50.400
True.
00:26:50.480 --> 00:26:51.440
It's amazing.
00:26:51.759 --> 00:26:52.559
It is amazing.
00:26:52.720 --> 00:26:59.279
Let's not sleep on New Nightmare 2 either, because it was an acknowledgement that the genre was dying, that it was weak.
00:26:59.359 --> 00:27:10.720
I mean, because like what it was like Halloween 4, the return of Michael Myers, it just happened, and like all of these movies were so fucking pathetic imitations of what they had been before.
00:27:10.880 --> 00:27:17.200
In fact, well, in fact, at that point, you might have even had um the genre itself was absolutely dead.
00:27:17.440 --> 00:27:28.799
And also, we were in a in a period in American society where we were pining for the optimism of the generation before, and that was about Gen X.
00:27:29.119 --> 00:27:38.559
So it was about trying to recapture nostalgia in any form that we could, and New Nightmare was a really pivotal thing.
00:27:38.720 --> 00:27:53.680
It not only was a legacy sequel, but a complete breakdown of the fourth wall, which I do think is a brilliant idea, and I think you and I both agree not a good movie, but super ambitious.
00:27:53.920 --> 00:27:59.359
A guy basically made a meta version of his own fucking movie.
00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:05.039
I don't think even Tarantino is it was a master stroke of an idea.
00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:08.400
And the fact that it happened, I think is brilliant.
00:28:09.039 --> 00:28:10.799
Unfortunately, it kind of sucks.
00:28:11.440 --> 00:28:21.039
But that did, you're right, lead him into Scream, which did the exact thing he was trying to do, I think, in New Nightmare.
00:28:21.119 --> 00:28:23.519
Even though he wasn't even originally attached to Scream.
00:28:23.759 --> 00:28:27.039
Sometimes it just works out, and uh and you fall upward.
00:28:27.359 --> 00:28:34.720
But you know, you know what he did with with Last House on the Left, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream, at least two of those franchises.
00:28:34.960 --> 00:28:44.559
Obviously, Last House on the Left has had multiple variations and remakes, none quite can get to the levels for good or bad that Last House does.
00:28:44.799 --> 00:28:46.319
But these are films you already know.
00:28:46.480 --> 00:28:54.799
I mean, we could go on and on about the production of a scream or the ideas where a nightmare on Elm Street came from.
00:28:55.039 --> 00:29:04.000
In fact, if you'd like to know the true story about where Nightmare on Elm Street came from, you can go back and listen to our previous Halloween episodes.
00:29:04.160 --> 00:29:04.400
Yes.
00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:06.160
The Origins of Horror Tropes.
00:29:06.559 --> 00:29:07.279
Horigens?
00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:10.799
Yeah, it must have been the Horigns episode.
00:29:11.119 --> 00:29:12.400
That was a pretty good one.
00:29:12.720 --> 00:29:14.880
Halloween 2021.
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:17.680
Oh, that's one of our first episodes.
00:29:18.240 --> 00:29:21.200
These are things that you already know or can check out.
00:29:21.359 --> 00:29:27.680
I think this Halloween season, it behooves us to look at the other things that Wes Craven was able to put out.
00:29:28.240 --> 00:29:31.920
He put out a lot of films, but not all were great.
00:29:32.240 --> 00:29:33.279
No, not really.
00:29:33.759 --> 00:29:35.519
Some better than others.
00:29:35.599 --> 00:29:39.599
You know, I think a film we won't really discuss, Deadly Blessing.
00:29:39.920 --> 00:29:40.799
Interesting.
00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:42.799
Ernest Borden performance.
00:29:42.960 --> 00:29:43.680
Oh, I like that.
00:29:43.839 --> 00:29:46.720
Sharon Stone makes her feature film debut in that.
00:29:47.039 --> 00:29:47.519
Really?
00:29:48.240 --> 00:29:48.720
Yeah.
00:29:48.880 --> 00:29:51.599
Uh it's it doesn't quite work.
00:29:52.240 --> 00:29:52.799
You know.
00:29:53.039 --> 00:29:54.240
Sometimes that's how it goes.
00:29:54.480 --> 00:29:57.039
Yeah, a TV film he did, Invitation to Hell.
00:29:57.279 --> 00:29:58.319
Kind of fun.
00:29:58.799 --> 00:30:03.200
Again, I don't think it's a hundred percent nail on the head.
00:30:03.519 --> 00:30:05.279
But he has a lot of those.
00:30:05.599 --> 00:30:07.200
A lot of made-for-tv stuff.
00:30:07.359 --> 00:30:09.039
And a lot of vignette stuff, too.
00:30:09.200 --> 00:30:10.559
Uh Jetem Paris.
00:30:10.880 --> 00:30:11.200
Yeah.
00:30:11.359 --> 00:30:16.000
I watched uh Jetem Parie when it came out, and I was like, oh, that's West Craven.
00:30:16.079 --> 00:30:16.960
Oh, okay.
00:30:17.119 --> 00:30:23.039
I think that was more in his expanding out past his horror trappings.
00:30:23.200 --> 00:30:25.200
Um, he was trying to do some other work.
00:30:25.359 --> 00:30:28.160
Uh, you know, it's fine.
00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:34.079
But the films I'd kind of want to discuss today were things like 1988's The Serpent and the Rainbow.
00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:37.039
If you haven't heard of this film or seen it, fantastic film.
00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:38.319
It's Wes Craven.
00:30:38.400 --> 00:30:40.559
It's one of his few adapted works.
00:30:40.799 --> 00:30:49.920
So there was a book by Ethobotanist that recounted his experiences in Haiti looking for uh supposed zombie dust.
00:30:50.160 --> 00:31:11.680
So he made a film loosely adapting that story, starring Bill Pullman as uh a scientist who goes to Haiti to try and find zombie dust, what it is, how it works, so he can bring it back for a pharmaceutical company to use as an anesthetic agent and make billions and billions of dollars uh with it.
00:31:11.839 --> 00:31:13.119
Things go awry.
00:31:13.599 --> 00:31:20.480
It's kind of like the movie Medicine Man with Sean Connery, except Bill Pullman gets a fucking spike driven through his dick.
00:31:21.039 --> 00:31:24.240
Yes, that is, I would say this is probably the scariest moment of the film.
00:31:24.319 --> 00:31:26.559
It totally messed me up as a child.
00:31:26.799 --> 00:31:27.359
Big time.
00:31:27.519 --> 00:31:29.279
I saw that too young.
00:31:29.440 --> 00:31:37.759
The villain has Bill Pullman strapped to a chair and drives a large spiked nail through his penis.
00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:42.160
Somehow, not to give things away, but it still works after that.
00:31:42.240 --> 00:31:43.519
I don't know how.
00:31:44.079 --> 00:31:46.240
A lot of blood flowing at that point.
00:31:47.200 --> 00:31:51.359
Oh man, maybe he was uncircumcised and it just went through the force again.
00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:51.759
I don't know.
00:31:51.920 --> 00:31:54.720
Yeah, being outcircumcised is like a magic trick.
00:31:55.039 --> 00:31:56.799
Now you see it, now you don't.
00:31:59.119 --> 00:32:00.960
Yep, that's exactly right.
00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:04.000
It's the kind of game, it's the kind of game I like to play.
00:32:05.519 --> 00:32:07.359
A little bit of the old in-out love.
00:32:08.799 --> 00:32:11.359
But again, this is uh it's a pretty it's a pretty cool film.
00:32:11.519 --> 00:32:17.839
This film also took a lot of the elements from what he was doing with the nightmare on Elm Street in his rubber reality.
00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:26.319
There's a lot of psychedelics involved, a lot of spiritualism, you know, Haitian Haitian voodoo and what is real, what isn't.
00:32:26.480 --> 00:32:28.799
Lots of dream states, lots of weirdness.
00:32:28.960 --> 00:32:30.960
It's kind of a trippy little film.
00:32:31.200 --> 00:32:41.599
Even though it is still kind of in the uh the white western colonialist perspective, it it is at least convincing enough on the Haitian side that you kind of buy it, I guess.
00:32:41.839 --> 00:32:42.559
Uh yeah.
00:32:42.799 --> 00:32:48.240
He doesn't turn his nose up at it, he doesn't look at it true from a western like this isn't real.
00:32:48.400 --> 00:33:05.440
He very much is uh, at least the the bullphone character is affected by it and gives deference to it, as Roger Ebert said, seemed to take Haitian voodoo more seriously as a religion and cultural force than most horror movies with similar themes, which merely use voodoo as a gimmick.
00:33:05.680 --> 00:33:08.079
That is not the case in Serpent the Rainbow.
00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:10.079
It is prevalent through the entire thing.
00:33:10.240 --> 00:33:20.880
It is the very lifeblood that pumps at the the center of this film and provides like the weird, surreal nature that the film is dealing with.
00:33:21.039 --> 00:33:29.440
And there's a lot of like, you know, cultural unrest that's happening both during the making of the film, when there was shooting in Haiti, and in the film itself.
00:33:29.680 --> 00:33:44.160
So there's a lot of things that still unfortunately ring true today that are going on with the pharmaceutical companies, you know, exploiting third world country and the and the unrest that seems to be utilized and profited by in the West.
00:33:44.559 --> 00:33:49.839
But uh, it is a very uh fun and interesting and spooky film, especially on your first viewing.
00:33:49.920 --> 00:33:57.440
You know, they're they're uh jump scares not as much, but like you know, really kind of like sucks you in into the dark voodoo undercurrents.
00:33:57.599 --> 00:34:02.880
Some of the special effects don't work quite as well as they did in the late 80s when it came out.
00:34:03.039 --> 00:34:06.880
Yeah, they may not hold up as well as Layer of the White Worm, but they're pretty great.
00:34:07.039 --> 00:34:09.119
One of the greatest VHS covers of all time.
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:09.599
True.
00:34:09.840 --> 00:34:19.119
Just hands down, you will always remember that ghost white picture of uh Bill Pullman in a grave with does he have a cross on his forehead?
00:34:19.360 --> 00:34:24.960
Yes, there's a bloody cross painted on his forehead as he is pleading not to be buried alive.
00:34:25.199 --> 00:34:25.519
Awesome.
00:34:25.679 --> 00:34:35.760
There's a lot of like intense scenarios and visual interpretations of things that happened in that film that you know if you have the right phobias, it's gonna fuck you up.
00:34:35.920 --> 00:34:36.800
That is true.
00:34:37.039 --> 00:34:44.079
Another film that I think messed up a lot of kids of my generation was a film called The People Under the Stairs.
00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:52.639
This is a film that Wes Craven did in 1991, kind of post a lot of the nightmare on Elm Street stuff, but before Scream.
00:34:53.199 --> 00:35:08.960
This one is less about the surrealism of reality and more the surreal state of the family at the time, of racial politics at the time, and of was this a Stephen King?
00:35:09.119 --> 00:35:10.880
Kind of the the the horrors?
00:35:11.119 --> 00:35:12.800
Was this a Stephen King short?
00:35:12.960 --> 00:35:14.159
Do you do that a lot?
00:35:14.480 --> 00:35:16.239
I'm not out of bounds with that.
00:35:16.559 --> 00:35:20.639
Do you realize how many things the Stephen King got adapted in that era?
00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:21.840
It's insane!
00:35:22.480 --> 00:35:23.760
Yes, a lot.
00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:26.639
No, he was not involved with this at all.
00:35:26.960 --> 00:35:30.880
Just sounded like a I believe that this was a Wes Craven himself.
00:35:31.360 --> 00:35:32.800
Wes Craven joint.
00:35:33.039 --> 00:35:33.519
Yeah.
00:35:33.840 --> 00:35:35.360
This is Wes Craven's idea.
00:35:35.599 --> 00:35:42.000
Essentially, the film is about a an underprivileged youth living in a ghetto.
00:35:42.159 --> 00:35:43.599
His mother is dying.
00:35:43.760 --> 00:35:44.800
She needs surgery.
00:35:44.960 --> 00:35:47.679
Of course, they have no money to pay for the surgery.
00:35:47.840 --> 00:35:51.519
The woman that he lives with is turning tricks to make money.
00:35:51.679 --> 00:35:57.280
There is a thief pimp played by Ving Rheims, who is maybe gonna help them.
00:35:57.519 --> 00:36:12.480
They decide that the owner of not only their tenement building, but of most of the things on that block, uh, along with the local liquor store, that he has gold in his house, so they're gonna go to his house and rob it.
00:36:12.639 --> 00:36:13.519
Now they do that.
00:36:13.679 --> 00:36:35.840
Things go poorly because this is not a normal man or normal family, because the the man played by Everett McGill, you'd know from Twin Peaks or Stilgar in Lynch's Dune, who plays father, the great Everett McGill, and Wendy Robey, also from Twin Peaks, plays mother, and they have a daughter.
00:36:35.920 --> 00:36:43.440
But it turns out that this family is twisted, that there's some weird bondage SM stuff in there.
00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:47.039
This is years before Pulp Fiction's gimp suit.
00:36:47.280 --> 00:37:01.039
You have this messed up twisting of Christian ideals and values with uh this undercurrent of sadomasochism and evangelical backlash.
00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:03.440
Backlash is a is a good good term for it.
00:37:03.519 --> 00:37:08.079
And they've done horrible things to people and kids over the years.
00:37:08.320 --> 00:37:10.239
I don't want to spoil anything.
00:37:10.400 --> 00:37:16.719
If you haven't seen it, one of the reasons we're putting out this pod is so that you can see these things for the first time.
00:37:17.039 --> 00:37:30.559
But there are people under the stairs that have been exiled in the house that they have to contend with as our young protagonist tries to, you know, take down the man who is lording over them.
00:37:30.719 --> 00:37:55.599
This this one percenter who's into uh deviant lifestyles, pedophilia, incestuous relationships, harming kids constantly, professing their religion over everything else, even though it's all a lie, and ruling over these black people that they use the N-word, unfortunately, fairly liberally, but I think to affect who and what they are.
00:37:55.679 --> 00:37:58.000
Um, so we see them for who and what they are.
00:37:58.239 --> 00:38:04.079
Unfortunately, it's pretty relevant in 2026 as much as it was in 1991 when it came out.
00:38:04.239 --> 00:38:05.119
I wish it wasn't.
00:38:05.280 --> 00:38:07.119
Yeah, it'd be a better world if it wasn't.
00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:08.000
Prescient.
00:38:08.079 --> 00:38:32.159
Unfortunately, prescient or eternal film about the oppressive nature of the family unit, the prison-like nature of it, and the the breaking down when those connections no longer hold true and forging a new family unit when the injection of violence against that what is an inherently a violent natured couple in this film.
00:38:32.320 --> 00:38:33.599
I don't love this film.
00:38:33.840 --> 00:38:34.559
It's not great.
00:38:34.719 --> 00:38:38.079
It felt a little more bizarre at the time.
00:38:38.320 --> 00:38:48.000
I think the horror elements of the people, quote, under the stairs is kind of what tripped a lot of people out, especially as young kids when it came out.
00:38:48.159 --> 00:38:55.119
But I do think he's saying something more with this film socially than a lot of the other films he does.
00:38:55.280 --> 00:39:02.960
This one's a little more relevant, and I think you know, it you have a good enough time if you were to check it out during this holiday season.
00:39:03.199 --> 00:39:06.079
The high holidays, the getting high holidays.
00:39:06.320 --> 00:39:06.639
All right.
00:39:06.800 --> 00:39:13.760
I think the other film that maybe you could discuss was a film that I saw for the first time preparing for this.
00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:20.800
It is the 2005 psychological thriller, Red Eye, starring Killian Murphy, Rachel McAben's, Brian Cox.
00:39:21.119 --> 00:39:22.559
Pretty stripped-down plot.
00:39:22.639 --> 00:39:25.840
It's it's you know, kind of a He's doing a Hitchcock thing.
00:39:26.079 --> 00:39:29.679
Die Hard on a plane with some Hitchcock elements.
00:39:29.840 --> 00:39:44.559
You see a lot of this type of film done nowadays, you know, whether it's what was that drop recently, or there was that Terran Edgerton holiday film where he has a similar situation, but he works in an airport.
00:39:44.800 --> 00:39:45.679
He's like TSA.
00:39:46.159 --> 00:39:48.480
Yeah, he's like TSA and he's got to try and stop.
00:39:48.559 --> 00:39:52.719
Because the basic again, the basic plot of this Mick Adams works at a hotel.
00:39:52.800 --> 00:39:58.079
Uh, someone of prominence, um, who the bad guys don't like is going to be staying at the hotel.
00:39:58.239 --> 00:40:16.719
Killian Murphy blackmails her, uh, saying that he's gonna have Brian Cox, her father, murdered if she doesn't orchestrate the switching of rooms for this prominent figure so that he and his family will be murdered by Killian Murphy's group.
00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:21.199
And then they're stuck on a plane, so it has to happen during their flight.
00:40:21.360 --> 00:40:26.320
How is Rachel McAdams gonna figure out how to stop this so that it doesn't happen?
00:40:26.480 --> 00:40:27.519
Pretty Burr Bones.
00:40:27.920 --> 00:40:32.800
I could see how it might be some fun.
00:40:32.960 --> 00:40:40.880
Keelan Murphy is a diabolical villain, he has that natural sexiness that Kaylin Murphy has, but it's twisted.
00:40:41.039 --> 00:40:42.559
He's got that kill Ian Murphy.
00:40:42.719 --> 00:40:45.599
He's got it's got that kill Ian Murphy.
00:40:45.840 --> 00:40:49.440
Okay, and Mick Adams plays a decent protagonist here.
00:40:49.760 --> 00:40:51.119
It did fairly well.
00:40:51.360 --> 00:40:56.000
People liked it, has an 80% Rotten Tomatoes approval score.
00:40:56.079 --> 00:40:58.719
I think it functions well, it goes down smooth.
00:40:58.960 --> 00:41:01.519
Rank second in the box office at the time.
00:41:01.760 --> 00:41:05.039
6.7 out of 10 based on reviews.
00:41:05.280 --> 00:41:08.079
Rolling Stone gave it the best thriller of the summer.
00:41:08.239 --> 00:41:12.800
Ebert commended the film as a good thriller, competently and relentlessly.
00:41:12.960 --> 00:41:15.599
I think maybe we didn't like it at the time.
00:41:15.760 --> 00:41:16.719
Yeah, that's possible.
00:41:16.880 --> 00:41:18.239
I think other people did.
00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:20.559
I never saw it, I didn't really care.
00:41:20.719 --> 00:41:30.639
I gave it a second chance to experience more West Craven, something I hadn't seen of his, you know, something that's slightly different than a lot of other Wes Craven stuff that he worked on.
00:41:30.800 --> 00:41:32.719
I think he directed it well.
00:41:32.960 --> 00:41:38.559
I think that the way they structured it, it is moves along quite nicely, rarely any hiccups.
00:41:38.719 --> 00:41:41.119
I think it's completely functional, if not fun.
00:41:41.280 --> 00:41:59.679
It's certainly not one of my favorites of his, but I think if you're looking for something of his oeuvre that maybe you haven't seen, that's you know, uh, I think slightly above a B schlock and something that isn't, you know, someone works at a spa from hell or something, his red eye, it does do what it says on the box.
00:41:59.840 --> 00:42:02.480
If I remember right, it is close to a tight 90.
00:42:02.639 --> 00:42:04.239
So you're in and out pretty quick.
00:42:04.320 --> 00:42:18.719
And it's just something maybe a little different for a West Craven fan that has seen what he can do, you know, with the dream like qualities or the very gritty, uh hands-on, grotesque nature of a Hells Have Eyes and A Last House on the Left.
00:42:18.800 --> 00:42:31.119
It's not leaning into the meta stuff of New Nightmare or Scream, and this doesn't have any of the slasher elements, but it is more of a Hitchcockian thriller, but with that, you know, die hard excitement.
00:42:31.280 --> 00:42:35.360
I think that might be hyping it up a little more than it deserves, but you might enjoy it.
00:42:35.440 --> 00:42:39.199
And I just wanted to, you know, I did see it, so I wanted to speak about it.
00:42:39.360 --> 00:42:39.760
Sure.
00:42:39.920 --> 00:42:41.679
I can't necessarily like go hell.
00:42:41.760 --> 00:42:43.599
I'm not promoting Wes Craven.
00:42:43.679 --> 00:42:52.079
We decided to do an episode about him because I I think he has a whole lot more films that deserve watching, other than like his big two or three.
00:42:52.159 --> 00:42:59.360
And that's kind of what I wanted to put out here so that you guys can see some of the things that you might not have seen or know a whole lot about.
00:42:59.440 --> 00:43:00.960
But I don't, I'm not gonna lie to you.
00:43:01.119 --> 00:43:02.159
I didn't love the film.
00:43:02.320 --> 00:43:04.639
I don't, I wouldn't ever go back and see it again.
00:43:04.719 --> 00:43:17.199
But if it's something you haven't seen and you do like Wes Craven, and you want to see you know him stretch his wings a little bit and do something slightly different, red eye is not the worst option on a slow Thursday night.
00:43:17.360 --> 00:43:18.400
Only on Thursdays, though.
00:43:18.559 --> 00:43:19.360
Only on Thursdays.
00:43:19.519 --> 00:43:22.719
If you watch on Friday, bad things will happen.
00:43:22.960 --> 00:43:24.079
Beastman Thursdays.
00:43:24.320 --> 00:43:25.199
This is canon.
00:43:25.280 --> 00:43:25.519
Wow.
00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:28.320
You talk about going back to the beginning of the show.
00:43:28.559 --> 00:43:30.079
Yes, four and a half years ago.
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:38.639
But yeah, Wes Craven is one of those, uh especially especially after watching his porno, he's a guy that came a long way.
00:43:38.960 --> 00:43:42.000
Maybe a longer way than even somebody like Sam Raimi.
00:43:42.480 --> 00:43:51.280
In fact, I don't really think Wes Craven really had enough mainstream appeal until Scream.
00:43:51.440 --> 00:43:56.960
Because I just rewatched Scream last night and I had just rewatched a few of his other movies earlier.
00:43:57.199 --> 00:43:59.760
I think he always said Chops, some of the great stuff.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:05.840
Off in the Nightmare Elm Street movies, but Scream felt professional.
00:44:06.079 --> 00:44:07.599
He really leveled up.
00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:09.760
He was always going to be a legend.
00:44:09.840 --> 00:44:13.920
He was always going to be at least a Toby Hooper or a Clive Barker.
00:44:14.320 --> 00:44:21.679
I feel like his impact on modern society, especially in these genres, can't be overstated.
00:44:21.920 --> 00:44:23.679
That's why he's on the Mount Rushmore.
00:44:23.760 --> 00:44:24.960
That's why he's one of the greatest.
00:44:25.119 --> 00:44:27.920
He reinvented the slasher genre twice.
00:44:28.079 --> 00:44:28.400
Yeah.
00:44:28.639 --> 00:44:29.920
Two fantastic films.
00:44:30.320 --> 00:44:31.039
Three times.
00:44:31.199 --> 00:44:35.920
He did Freddy, then Meta reinvented Freddy, and then did Scream.
00:44:36.079 --> 00:44:37.519
That's three times.
00:44:37.840 --> 00:44:42.960
Well, yes, but that's I mean You're right, but it is funny that the Yeah.
00:44:43.199 --> 00:44:47.280
Scream helped because New Nightmare didn't uh didn't work the way you wanted.
00:44:47.519 --> 00:44:49.440
And again, a lot of his career didn't really work.
00:44:49.599 --> 00:44:49.760
Yeah.
00:44:49.840 --> 00:44:50.559
It's a lot of people.
00:44:51.039 --> 00:45:08.079
He is like one of the greats, and I think there's a lot out there to see that isn't those you know huge temp poles that completely defined and then redefined what horror was, could be how it was approached by the studios and how it was interpreted and accepted to larger audiences.
00:45:08.239 --> 00:45:09.920
West Craven was a one of a kind.
00:45:10.079 --> 00:45:11.519
How many directors get a shot at that?
00:45:11.679 --> 00:45:13.840
Defining a genre and then redefining it.
00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:14.400
Nobody.
00:45:14.639 --> 00:45:16.000
Scorsese, maybe?
00:45:16.239 --> 00:45:17.440
Uh maybe.
00:45:17.519 --> 00:45:20.800
I but I think he's just kind of doing more of the same.
00:45:20.960 --> 00:45:23.039
I watched Goodfellas and Casino back to back.
00:45:23.199 --> 00:45:24.400
I'm like, this is the same movie.
00:45:24.639 --> 00:45:26.320
You can do good things again and again.
00:45:26.480 --> 00:45:38.639
I mean, Tarantino, it's kind of his whole bag, but I mean, honestly, of the horror directors, Romero, as good as he is up there, you know, it's kind of like just doing slight variations of the same thing.
00:45:38.800 --> 00:45:41.760
Hey, but there's a reason Wes Craven's Wes Craven, you know.
00:45:42.079 --> 00:45:43.280
He is what he is.
00:45:43.519 --> 00:45:46.239
And by all accounts, he was a super nice guy.
00:45:46.400 --> 00:45:49.519
He was an extremely literate, thoughtful individual.
00:45:49.679 --> 00:45:51.280
Everybody seemed to love him.
00:45:51.519 --> 00:46:07.199
He he deserves to be remembered, and I think you should all go check out some of his lesser known, less profiled, less lauded work because there are gems in there that will spook your pants off this Halloween season.
00:46:07.440 --> 00:46:09.119
And every Halloween season.
00:46:09.360 --> 00:46:10.960
And every Halloween season.
00:46:11.039 --> 00:46:17.840
Just like this podcast will be here every Halloween season until, like, I don't know, we stop doing this or we die or something.
00:46:18.079 --> 00:46:19.519
Yeah, probably till we die.
00:46:20.559 --> 00:46:26.239
Uh, but until that happens, remember horror films don't create fear, they release it.
00:46:26.400 --> 00:46:30.400
And this podcast doesn't create awesomeness, it just is it.
00:46:30.480 --> 00:46:33.039
And if you feel that way, please like, share, subscribe.
00:46:33.119 --> 00:46:41.199
If you wouldn't mind rating us five Freddy-fingered blades on the Podcast app of your choice, ideally Apple Podcasts.
00:46:41.280 --> 00:46:53.199
It's the best way for us to get heard and thus seen so we can proliferate our holiday Spooktober madness uh around the globe and to as many delicate ears as possible.
00:46:53.360 --> 00:46:54.800
Again, thank you for listening.
00:46:54.960 --> 00:47:02.880
But until you get trapped in dream reality where a burnt up crusty dude wants to get revenge for your family by murdering you, skip.
00:47:03.119 --> 00:47:03.679
What should they do?
00:47:03.840 --> 00:47:22.000
They should probably not confuse that with the film Freddy Gets Fingered, but they should probably clean up after themselves to some sort of reasonable degree, make sure they have to have their bar staff, their weight staff, their KJs, their DJs, anybody who works for a living, make sure that they have support of the local comic shops and retailers.
00:47:22.079 --> 00:47:27.679
And from Dispat Jjax, Jake and I would both like to say no matter where you go, there you are.
00:47:27.920 --> 00:47:29.679
Please go away.