Last Podcast On The Left - Best Of: Horror Interviews

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

In this week’s Best Of compilation, the boys bring you a heaping pile of prime-cut selections from some of our favorite horror interviews of the past few years. From icons in the making and slasher legends to the creative minds who bring these nightmares to life, featuring Robert Englund, Stephen King and Joe Hill, Ryan Coogler, Zach Cregger, Kane Parsons, the Philippou brothers, David Howard Thornton, GWAR, and one extremely good boy.  For Live Shows, Merch, and More Visit: www.LastPodcastOnTheLeft.comKevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Last Podcast on the Left ad-free, plus get Friday episodes a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There's no place to escape to this. This is the last podcast. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started. You guys are going to love this one. You're going to lie. I don't fucking care what you think, okay? This is a big deal for us.

We talked to a lot of fucking people this year. A lot of people this year. Last couple of years. We've been doing it more. Yeah. Well, officially, we're finally actual horror interviews. Yeah. Welcome to the last podcast and the left.

Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Park. I'm here with the interview boys, Henry Zabrowski and Ed Lawson. How you doing? When I look at this, I can't even believe who we got to talk to this year. We got to talk to the Philippo brothers, Ryan Cougler, Zach Kragger, Cain Parsons, Stephen King, Joe Hill, Robert England, and you're about to hear selections from all of them. Yeah, that's right.

Thank you very much, everybody for supporting us over the last guy. Like, we're on break right now, and, you know, we're taking, like, a little bit of a, you know, snows. We get a little bit of a siesta going on, but we're going to be back talking about horrible things for the rest of your fucking long. No worry. Next week, it's going to come back big and it's come back hard. Hard. Are we going to put back in the Robert England interview that he actually changed his name from Robert France? I don't know. He said the lawyers were still kind of fighting with the lawyers and the publicist people. So I don't know. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. Well, it's a fact. You know, hopefully he doesn't sue us for defamation. But here and listen to some of these incredible clips, make sure you tell Robert France, last podcast and last podcast.

Love loves him. That's right. Fly from your grade. This is the kind of juice we need. Welcome to last podcast and Love, we have a very special episode here. We have two of one of my newest, truly favorite movie creators. What you guys are doing is fucking out of this world. The new movie, Bring Her Back, is coming out. It's out now, right?

Yes. By the time you hear this. It's out right now. It's out now. Bring her back. The directors of Talk to Me as well. Danny Philippo and Michael Philippo, welcome. Hello.

Thank you. Thank you for this. Live studio audience here. We have two people in the back here. Three. We, oh yeah, the Rob is a producer. We got the gals. Making sure that you don't say anything too horrible.

Our goal is to make you say horrible things. We're at a constant battle. So before we get started, I just want to say, I love horror movies. Horror movies are probably my favorite genre of movies. I have been, terrified to watch, talk to me, and I haven't watched it.

I specifically did not watch this movie because I'm like, this scares the shit out of me. I want nothing to do with this. I watched it last night with my wife, and fuck you. My wife had to sit there and see that. What is wrong with you?

I'm sorry to your way. What are you doing here? I don't know what's wrong with me. You're, yeah, I don't know. You've got to get the doctor's out somehow. Yeah. And then this morning I woke up 7 a.m. Bright and early to see bring her back. Perfect breakfast

film. I've been trying to sell people honestly, see the matinee. Yeah, yeah. Like, get in at 3 o'clock in the goddamn afternoon and just experience it sober. I was watching this movie. I had to pause it halfway through. I'm losing my fucking mind, all right? I'm going nuts. I can't

deal with this goddamn fucking movie. It's too early in the morning. All right? I got a beautiful dog. I'm like, I love you. Please kiss me. All right. And so I'm like all right, I pause. He's the mouth kiss her to the dogs. I go make, oh yes, you guys know. Yeah, you guys love it. And so I get, so I go and I go make my

breakfast and I start like cutting my strawberries and I got scared of the knife in my hand. Yes. Because of the movie that you made. Yes. It was like, I was scared of myself because of what you guys did. I thought I would have been breakfast. I'm actually just jealous and why haven't you bought your dog

in? I miss my dog and I haven't had it. I haven't patted a dog in quite a while. So you've got to bring your dog next time. What's your dog's name? My dog I got a new dog named Harley. I'm going to kill it. She had a 20. Yeah. Yeah. She's 13. You don't have to wait long. We actually got already got the funeral plans. Can I ask, how do you guys? Because you guys made like stunt vids, right? Like you guys were doing

how does it get like, was it just a natural progression of filmmaking from there? Well, it was always, that was always the YouTube stuff was just practicing but to become filmmakers. That was always the goal, always the aim. And you know, speaking of stunt, Michael couldn't be listed as one of the directors at the start of insurance for Bring her Back

because he was in Detroit having death matches. What does that mean? It's like an extreme form of professional wrestling where they use light tubes and barbed wire and real weapons and they cut each other up for real. It's like an extreme performance art blood sport. We're doing a documentary on it. I was like, I want to be in it.

You look okay. They're Australian. So they're like naturally immune to certain types of damage. Yeah, luckily we brought a barbed wire back. Listen, before we plug any more in these films, I need you to eat a light bulb. You've got to see it. It's visceral.

It's bloody. It's good. It's nice. What was the, like, so just like, you do that just for the thrill of it, or is it one of those you just love physical action? Both. I think we've been obsessed with death match wrestling since little kids. Yeah.

So we used to do it with our friends, unfortunately. But there were parents that would literally not let their kids hang out of us. No way. Yeah, because we were so, we were delinquents. We were actual delinquents. You just threatened to kill my dog. Oh, yeah. I was jealous.

It was out of envy. No, dude. It was out of envy. You guys had fun charges, though. I looked at your Wikipedia pages. Your charges are fun. Yeah, yeah. We've had a few fun charges.

Yeah, yeah. They're not, nothing bad. Like, really, like nothing. Just the stuff that honestly just excited me about you. Yeah. Yeah, underwater cars we got, Michael got arrested for, so did I. Which wasn't even my idea. That was a video.

Danny had an underwater car made and he didn't want to drive it. Well, because I was filming and Michael's terrible. That sounds his excuse for everything. Michael was so bad at recording. Michael, you're so bad at recording. He were like, we were like, do a scene and I tried to be in the videos. I tried to be in something. And his footage is like out of focus.

There's like, punched it in a weird way. It's like, dude, just pointed out me and film it. Yes, but you were correct to be scared to get in an underwater car. Well, no, I got in the underwater car. I was filming in there. Okay. Yes, I was in there. No, you weren't.

I don't know why this lies been thrown around. And then the cops came and found you while you were in the middle of shooting, right? Is that the idea? No, no. It was like, so the video came out and then suddenly, like a year later, I would, Danny got arrested. It wasn't a year later. It was like a couple of months.

Anything, getting arrested over making art is one of my favorite things in the face of the planet. It was so good. But I actually got arrested for pretending to be Michael. Yeah, sure. But then they arrested him. And then Michael got arrested for the art. Yeah. They said I was like a wanted felon.

Like, I had fled the country. I was like, I haven't been hiding or anything. I put the evidence on YouTube. Yeah, it's on the video. Come on. But it's like a year-long lawsuit. What was the charge? Driving recklessly, driving dangerously,

driving without a license, driving without a seatbelt, driving a car that's not hit to the road. Are you not American? Yeah. Yeah, that's what I said. What happened was... How about littering?

We were not... No, no, not littering. No, I don't know. I think that would have been a bad one. They're pretty easy on littering, actually. No, but it was a big thing in the end that I got off Scott Free because I wasn't actually driving dangerously or recklessly. No, we actually, it was a stunt performed a practice car.

It was a stunt. The police said that they were going to have to recreate the underwater car to prove it was dangerous. You're like, yeah, we're going to do your awesome shit to make sure. Why don't we go for a race, boys? Why from Northland? Let me do this. These guys don't know. Who everybody knows?

This is the man who made Black Panther. This is the man. that made creed that made me audibly weep in a theater. I cried masculine, big fat masculine tears. You got Sylvester Stallone nominated for a second Oscar? I mean, I mean, I think he got, he got himself nominated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, we know how it is. We know how it goes.

You're nice, we know. But the reason why you're here, those movies are too important and good for us to talk about. This is something that we're talking about that is extremely. amazing. This film, Sinners, that you have made, it's coming on April 18th, you have come down to the horror world. You're making an extremely big, thick-ass

horror movie that are people going to love and say, thank you so much for talking to us. People, like, sinners ruled. I appreciate that, you guys, man. That means the world. I love the genre. You guys saying, I'm coming down to it. I feel like I was coming

up to it, you know what I'm saying? Like, like, um, because when I was in, you know, before I even went to film school, my first short films I would make, we have, we have horror elements to him. But I didn't feel like I was,

I didn't feel like I was good enough to make that, to make that step yet, man. And, um, I kind of got away from it. What do you mean by, like, not, what do you mean by not good enough? We actually watched your movie, Locke.

It's beautiful film. Like, I'm talking before Locks, bro. Like, I was making stuff before that. You know, like, locks I think was like my second year of graduate. No,

second semester of graduate school. But I was making shorts when I was in undergrad, when I first learned that I wanted to make movies in. And then I made a couple of things at SC. You know, that, you know, one of them actually was the thing that

got me recommended for for Fruitville. But nobody will ever see those movies. It wasn't legal for us to submit those movies to festivals or anything like that. And they weren't good enough. But I've been in love with the genre, man. and wanting to make something, you know, in that zone, since I learned I wanted to make movies.

You know, that was my first, that was my first, my first instinct. But then, you know, you know, I made locks. Locks was the first thing I could submit to festivals, you know, based on the rules of the school and ended up making things more than that, you know, more in that tonality. You know, but this was kind of a homecoming for me. That folks who really know me who were around, you know, no, I have this type of, this type of passion for horror cinema. Man, what are your favorite horror movies?

Yeah. We need to, not just what inspired sinners, but what inspires you in general, kind of? Yeah, man, my favorite horror movies, man. I would say number one is the thing.

Yes. Now, you consider that horror over sci-fi? Yeah, for sure, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I consider the thing, cosmic horror. You know,

it definitely has has science fiction elements as well. I must tell you, bro, even though I love genre cinema, I don't like the concept of genre. Sure. It annoys me. Like having to have to classify things, especially like after making this movie, you know,

because I can research and, you know, the movie deals with a lot of things. It's drama, action, horror, it's everything. But you're unlocking and something. It's like hereditary was the first,

I remember seeing as an adult seeing a movie and I was like horror is drama set on fire right like 100%. Hereditary is a big one for me. I love that movie. Yeah. And so when I watch sinners, the first thing I thought of was truly refreshing about it is because yes, what you're saying, I see what you're saying. Yeah, it's a horror movie because of the elements that are within it. But all of the stuff feeds what the movie's about. Yes. Yes. No, 100%. Like the thing is, is I always, I always. worked from the standpoint of knowing what my worst fear is as an artist. And I'm always kind of dealing with that in my movie. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. And in this movie, I dealt with all of them. Like all of my, all of my worst fears are in this. I just dumped them all in there, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. But what I was saying about genre was like, you know, and studying for this movie, I was studying Delta Blues music.

And I discovered, like, I discovered that for a long time when the, when the, the music business was like first commodified in this country, you know, genre itself was a, was a tool of racism, you know, like if a black person sang a song and then a white person sang the same song, you know, they would put those two songs into two different genres. You know what I'm saying? Like the black song would be called a race record. And in the, and in the white person singing a song, that might be called bluegrass. Or like pop, pop, or like it changed to a thing. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, the music industry, you know, came before the film industry. You know what I'm saying? Like it's an older industry. So a lot of the film business, it follows the whims of music because it's an older industry. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And that tradition is what causes, like, certain genres to be kind of like ghettoized. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Like this genre is beneath this genre. The horror movie is beneath the costume drama.

You know what I'm saying? Like this thing. So whenever I hear it with this one and I'm trying to define it or when I'm trying to classify a movie like Rosemary's Baby, you know what I was thinking about that? What exactly would you call it? Yes, it is horror elements, but it's like it's mostly a drama. Yeah, exactly.

Like, right? So is it, so you realize you realize it becomes, you know, They had this ridiculous rule that the movie in Terigais, like called the one-drop rule, like for human beings, right? And in its country at a time when they were trying to put the, you know, when they're trying to stick a part-tide on top of humanity. They said, if you got one drop of black blood, now that makes you black. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Yeah.

Which is so absurd when you hear this. But it's also, you know, you think about that with movies. It's like, you got one, you got a couple of horror scenes. Now that's a horror film. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's like, well,

it's Rosemary's baby. Like, like, how are we going to talk about this movie? Because, because the vast majority of it, you know, as a husband and wife,

talking to their neighbors, you know, you know, you know what I mean? Yeah. You know, and, and,

and so, so, so for me, you know, my favorite horror movies, that they all are going to have a, uh, a element of,

like, like, is that a horror movie? Because, because, because, because, Because look, I'll tell you straight up, like, I think Stephen Spielberg has created some of the most horrific images known to man.

Like, you know, with jaws. Raiders at a Lost Ark, whenever one else. That ending, bro. Like what happens to the door when he pops the thing. But also, man, a movie like Jurassic Park. Like some of those velociraptor sequences, the opening is a Velociraptor sequence. When a guy gets eaten and buy something in a box that you can't see. you know, or the T-Rex sequence

when he's raining in the night and the cup is rippling and you know, he's coming, fucking eyes coming by that, coming by the car and it's breathing on the glass the velociraptor allowing in the door and the claws on the kitchen,

on the kitchen tile, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know. That movie is so scary. It literally scares dogs. Like, there's so much footage of it, like, scaring dogs. So, like, that's how scary.

Dogs know it's scary. Your dog's not fucking with it. You're like, man, get that thing off. Yeah. Live from your play. I am more impressed with you. The more I look at your stuff. Now, I'm not talking about your body.

I'm talking about your work. Because I've looked at this and this stuff is very interesting. And it's also, you know, the kids like it. Yeah. But also I like it. I dived in pretty hard last night. It's wild. This is very interesting.

I'm so excited. excited to have you here. The filmmaker Paul Axelos for the internet and soon to be for the silver screen. We have Kane pixels of the back rooms. A.k.a. Kane Parsons. Yes.

Hey guys. Thank you so much for having me. Or just Kane. Or just Kane. Yeah, Kane. I'm just a guy. I don't have a name. Hell yeah. I like this. I look at you. You're in fluorescent light. You look like you're in the back rooms. Yes. Right now.

And you're frightening me. Oh, thank you. This is all. That's what I try to do. I'm really afraid it's going to be one of those where I'm going to blink. I'm going to be in front of one of those weird grates. Very frightening. It's really, honestly, extremely frightening.

But you created, well, you worked with the idea, which I guess was sort of a collective idea, right? What they say in internet urban legend, but more so it was kind of like a series of kind of spooky images. Yeah, I can break it down. Yeah, I can break it down if you like. I don't know. Okay, so just like the, and stop me if you've heard this before, or maybe this is good for the audience. It originated in a very unconventional way,

this idea of the backrooms where it initially started as basically somebody took a photo of really just what looked like. I mean, many of you have probably seen the original backroom's photo. It's just kind of an off-y, dingy, unrenovated backspace with like 50 different wallpapers all clashing against each other, like horrible, ugly fluorescence with like stained ceiling tiles. And someone took that. It ended up on 4chan.

No one knows where it came from, just given the nature of the site. It's all anonymous. And that ended up getting reposted to another board along with a caption that, again, another anonymous user added, which basically outlined this premise, which is like the one that most people know, like the one that you typically were, originally accompanied that image, which is, I somehow don't have it memorized verbatim, but it's essentially saying, like, if you no clip out of reality in the wrong areas, which for those who don't know is like a gaming slash 3D design term, where if you just

move through like a phase through a physical object, if you no clip out of reality in the wrong areas, you will end up in the backrooms where it's just this infinite, never ending, basically just what you see in that image. It's like you're stuck in the backrooms of an empty seers forever. Yeah, it reminds me. I was on a show you called Your Pretty Face is going to hell, and it is sort of similar in the aspect of the almost commercial hellscape that you go to, where it's a series of almost cubicles looks almost the liminal spaces.

Yeah, liminal spaces. That's the term that's popped up, yep. Yes. It looks like society at one point was thriving, and now it's dying, and we're stuck fending through what's left is what I kind of felt. this thing. Yes. Yeah. It's all fucked up and super scary. Lots of dark imagery. I fucking love what you're doing.

I think it's great. The original short film blew my mind. Yeah. Just in terms of realizing how it was all... Found footage horror. Well, I do, but I also was really impressed with the digital build. Yeah. I appreciate that. That's really where a lot of my background is. I've been picking away at, and initially started with just after effects.

I would use some like Element 3D for those who dabble, you know what that is. But around the time during the pandemic is when I had a bunch of free time. I was still in high school. I mean, the pandemic hit when I was in my freshman year of high school. God. In that time, which I mean, for me, just given my age, that feels so long ago now because just time goes so slowly right now. It's starting to pick up. It's definitely going very fast right now, the past two years.

So much of life, it's just like, oh, that was like six high schools, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been alive for like eight presidents. That's what I realize. That's something I'm seeing more and more, and it's something I've had like a fixation on for a long time to the, this accelerating passage of time. But with that, I initially got my start on YouTube, like, I don't want to say my start because I'd been around for a while. I started my channel in 2015 doing like Minecraft let's plays and like whatever like eight-year-old kids do on the, the internet. But this is like, you were already being like, I'm going to make stuff. I'm going to

make things. Yeah, yeah, I've had that instinct for a while. It just kind of, um, it wasn't as defined until I would say around middle school and high school when I started really pushing out CGI driven, um, like science fiction horror films. Uh, and that led to, I did this little mini web series. I guess I would call it a series. It's more like a, I don't know, an extended art piece of little vignettes from the Attack on Titan series. If you, yes, yes. Very cool stuff. I watched those last night. I loved them, dude.

You fucking rock that shit. And he never, he has no idea what the hell Attack of Titan is, but I was very captivated by what you created. I appreciate it. Yeah, that was like the,

that was like the first. Dude, you were talking about, I just wished you could even understand what a breakthrough it is for this ham hawk of a man. Yes. To embrace attack on Titan fan-made content.

Well, that's how good. That's what you did. You broke, you made this man on think about anime. Yeah, man. It's usually just ham and, you know, dogs.

Yeah, she's like tits and dogs. That's all he watches. Well, that's an honor, truly. Yeah, with that, it's, it was really my attempt to, like, take, I was more of a reader than a watcher of the anime. I read the manga, and, like, I tried to take the feeling that I got from that body of work that I felt like was kind of lost in the anime and lost in, like, the broader community where it,

when reading it, it feels a lot more gloomy and really quite... The anime injects sort of like an epicness to it almost, which I never really personally connected with. So I just tried to come back from that and just make my own little thing that had that feeling to it. And it really took off. That's what took my channel from. I think it was like 20,000, which is not an insignificant... No, no, it's great.

It took it from 20,000 to 200,000. So that's what really made me realize, like, YouTube could. be a viable way forward. And that was the beginning of 2021. And then later that year on Thanksgiving, I decided to, because I had been, I was familiar with the backrooms as a meme, like, since 2019, since it first surfaced. And it wasn't huge back then, but it definitely over the years into the pandemic sort of permeated, made its way around. Everyone, the liminal space thing took over in 2020. Yeah. Yeah, it did. And it sort of, although reviewing trends, not as much as it did in 2022. But it sort of bled around everywhere.

Everyone was kind of vaguely aware of it. They probably saw some things on, I'm not on TikTok, but TikTok is where a lot of this stuff kind of melded together. Were you just interested or did, what was it about it that struck a chord with you? I think I would, okay. So on a few fronts, I was never the biggest, like, diehard, liminal space fan, in quotes, whatever that means. I would definitely. funny, that it's such a funny concept of like, I'm a huge liminal space fan. I just like empty room.

Oh, you're a liminal space fan? Name four liminal spaces. It's your favorite. Believe me, that's a thing. That's a thing. I have been very online for the past couple years and I've seen a lot of people in this space and believe me, some people know like the exact hex codes of every pixel of every image of, uh, have you ever been to a train station?

Wait until you find about the, uh, about, uh, about, uh, uh, you'll ever be in to be in a train station. about the ball. Yeah. I mean, yeah, but continue. I'm sorry. So those videos, like videos of like liminal spaces with eerie music or like Minecraft music playing over them like nostalgic slash creepy slash whatever. I would get those on my YouTube page every now and night, now and again over the course

of like 2020, 2021, that period, which is really not a ton of time. But those soaked into my psyche. They were alluring for reasons that were hard to explain. and I think that's what most people felt. Like, the whole idea is that it kind of connects with you on a very unconscious, or at least, like, it resonates, but you can't quite explain why, and that's why people find it so interesting. Dude, that's my shit.

I fucking hate one horror movie over explains. Like, don't explain it. It's better a mystery. And that's why your shit freaks me out. Because I'm watching it, and I'm like, there's no rhyme or reason to any of this. It's just like, I mean, maybe there is, and I'm an idiot, which is happens to me all this. There is, but it's intended. to be buried.

Yeah, it's buried. When you do that, because we were remarking upon your ability to create dread in a very, because that's what liminal spaces do, right?

That's the whole thing, is that it's unfinished, it's the valley, it's uncanny, it's some weird place, it's where things drift in between. Obviously, we're all kind of,

but what you did, like, can you actually talk to me about the filmmaking process of working in a fully digital world like that? Because I'll tell you,

Skinnamarink, as it was the background. Oh, my God. The whole time I was watching it. I mean, this is our opinion, not yours. I wish I could commentate.

I haven't seen Skinnamarink. Don't. Don't. Don't. Keep working. Keep doing what you're doing. Don't watch it. You don't even be inspired by it.

Why are you even talking to us? Get back to work. It's horseshit. I kind of want to watch it now. Yeah, yeah, that's good. I mean, that reaction is pretty intense.

That's why people like it. But what do you think is, what's your little trick? What's a trick? So, Blender. I use Blender. It's a free software. I use that for all my 3D visuals.

I work on just this one laptop. I mean, if you see my workspace, it's a standing desk with this one laptop. That's it. I mean, I have some cameras as well, but only in recent years have I sort of picked those up from like the money that YouTube stuff is made. Average budget for the stuff I make is like maybe $10 to $0 beyond like the starting cost of the laptop itself. And more recently, I've been using, like, overseas render farms because it's been getting pretty intense, turning stuff out in a timely manner. But if let me think, like, what the, I would say creatively, like, the way I did that first backroom short, it was more funny enough considering how it's like the thing I'm most known for now. It was originally just kind of like a pallet cleanser exercise I did for myself.

That's where all that shit is. It's always it always seems to happen that way. yeah. I was tired from doing the attack and Titan videos. I felt like I had exhausted that. I was looking at some luminal space images. Just thought to myself,

because I've always had a very strong personal relationship with just like locations and buildings. I mean, it's not like a hugely stated thing, but, you know, like I guess maybe it's being sentimental or maybe it's just having an appreciation for the way design can affect emotion and like the flow of human traffic and things like that. But those things have always just been like underlying

themes in my life. And so I think that's probably why liminal spaces and whatever you want to call that connect with me so much. It's sort of like you appreciate a living room. You appreciate a kitchen. You appreciate a bedroom. But you don't usually appreciate like the hallway going there. It feels like it's almost like if you're thinking of these as people, they're like the people who don't get any credit for upholding the whole infrastructure of human civilization in a way, which is like such a weird way to humanize it. But that's kind of the feeling that I got. And I mean, you can take that for like abandoned places too, like places. that it feels like that place wants to be maintained and remembered,

but instead of just rotting. So it's kind of the same feeling. But I looked at that original backroom's image, thought, can I evoke the same emotion in a video form? Because I haven't seen any videos really of, like all these are all stationary images. What if I tried to remake, capture this feeling in Blender? Did that, posted a little teaser to Instagram,

because it was just going to be like a 15 second shot initially. People liked it. And then from there, I decided to just make a whole short around that one shot. It's the shot of, if you remember it, the chair flying and hitting the wall. That was the first ever one I did, and I never redid it or anything. I just left that in and built the rest of the short and both ends around it. So cool.

And then it did very well. I did not expect it at all. I expected it to majorly underperform. And from there, I can get more into the technical stuff. Like, sorry, I have a tendency to go a little off rails with this. No, please. That's the purpose of this. Please treat us like total morons.

We're morons. And I want to learn everything about what you're doing because not only is it incredibly successful, but it fucking shook me to my core last night. Yeah, he got really deep. And so I think it's amazing. I love, I kind of, if I'm catching what you're saying here is you like the liminal thing and you saw it and you're like, I can fucking do that. And then you did and you nailed it.

And it were kind of like, you know, it reminds me of like it's not necessarily what you are want to do with the rest of your life I'm guessing here I'm guessing here you know but you fucking you're better at it than anyone else and it reminds me a lot and this is a crazy comparison but how

fucking Bob Dylan started he wasn't a protester but he's like he was listening to the protest music he's like I can write better protest music than that and then became one you know and then became the best at it you know and it's like and so that's what I'm kind of sensing from you

and what you're doing right now is terrifying but I'm curious does it scare you your art or do you just find it cool you know it's kind of like what makes what I kept thinking of the whole time I'm watching like are you just sitting behind a computer like freaking out or are you just enjoying it?

That's happened before it's more the and also that Bob Dylan comparison is quite high praise but but the making of it has kind of recently become more technical I would say as it becomes more of a job. That's something I've been thinking about.

And every now and then there will be a project where it does feel more fluid and more alive in a way where it's kind of like an interacting with a thing outside myself. That can be said very heavily for the series I did after Backroom. Well, I'm still doing Backrooms, but it's kind of the movie deal has caused the YouTube end of it to kind of pause. But all of that started to pick up right now in my own life. I don't know when this podcast will go out, but like this is, It's coming back to my life now and hopefully back to YouTube in the nearest future. But the series I did after that was called The Oldest View.

I would consider that my best work to date, probably more than backrooms. But it's the mall one that I made a tiny hint at earlier, which I can talk about in a moment because it's the one of the production of that is probably the most interesting to talk about. We just talked about it. Yeah, we just watched it. It's fucking awesome. They don't need any introduction. They are the scum dogs of the universe Squar. They are here.

We don't need any, but we want a better one than that. Yeah. Yes. Squar, international rock and roll sensation from the other galaxies of the universe. That's right.

We're cum dogs for the scum dogs, baby. Fucking dick. Fill us up, man. Yeah. Keep us dirty, dude. Fuck in. Yeah.

I want to see. Yeah. Have a guy's thought about it? Botox. Like, if you guys thought about... They look great. What are you talking about? They're going to...

They're in L.A. for five minutes. You're selling a Botox? You're thinking about, like, do you ever want to keep up with the Joneses? Does Instagram make you jealous? No, I just need a dentist. This shit really hurts. I'm looking for a dentist.

Have you ever thought about a Zimpic? Yeah. They keep saying it. They keep saying it. But honestly, you won't take... You like like you've got type three. I still have your feet I still got my feet

I just didn't know whether or not there's any pressure for the unrealistic beauty standards for you guys now because you guys are I'm happy with myself I'm content in my own skin but there's a lot of pressure you're absolutely right though there's an unfair standard of beauty

that as a woman in the business I have to ask nobody asks as Jizmak how old he is no but that's the first question They ask to me. How old are you? Well, you're the lead singer.

Look at me. He moisturizes. You're the Gwen Stefani. Yeah, and then pigs like you asking me if I've had Botox. Yeah. I just want our audience to understand that not everything that says appears it does on social media. And then when they see you and they look up to you and they think that that, like, that's what I want to strive for and be. I want them to understand.

There's a whole process to that. That's right. It's not just a filter. You can't get this. It's not an Instagram filter. No. There's a lot of, I use a lot of. filler.

So welcome to last podcast and left, and we have a very special person on this guy. Honestly, what's funny about this man is that not only is he on his way to becoming an extremely powerful man in Hollywood, and is he becoming a legitimate and crazy director. This man started from the humble, humble beginnings of sketch comedy. Oh, don't say it. Just like us. Just like our shit. filled lives. He pulled

himself up from the swamp and he made it to the big time. Well, you think you better than me? He thought you fucking tough. He fucking done. You think you know nice with your fancy clear glasses? This is the director of the new hit weapons and the former hit, current hit, Barbarian. And one of the Lord Creatorses of Writers Kids you know

and Zach Cricker. Thank you for being here. I'm so thrilled to be here. I love the show and it's what it's a treat. Thank you so much. Henry, have you talked about how you came in to help me with Barbarian? Is that been discussed? Only little little pieces is that I

came in and I, because I didn't even know the full extent of my voice was used. Well, sadly, it wasn't used. God, it's fine. Oh, okay, okay. It's fine, though. But I was very kind of you to help though because what was going on was I was trying to get the scream down for the mother and I just could not

get the screen. And I was listening to your podcast and you were doing some fucking character and you just like very casually went like and then then go like and you did this like amazing blood-curdling shriek and I was like that's that's what I want I was like in the car and I was like he did it and so I got a hold of you and you were so kind to come in and and I made you scream for 20 minutes it was awesome and it was my pleasure yes it was my pleasure no it was so much fun uh I actually it's a good bring up so like we know we know each other from way back in the day. Why this kids was always held

as like this wonderful esteem because we... The goal. The goal. I'm sure you hated us just like every other sketch group hated us. You know what, dude? What's nice is that you guys were awesome. Each one of you was extremely sweet to us. You never made us feel stupid.

We were told because we were the only other independent sketch comedy group. When we arrived, we were like a part of a pastiche of independent sketch comedy groups. And like, you were like, kind of the bastion. You guys were the light on the hill that, like, oh, if you just, if you're just funny and your right place, right time, they give you a television show.

And then you sealed up the door behind you. You really did. Well, that was part of our deal. We're like, close the door. Yeah. But the part of sketch comedy, I feel like now we're seeing. We even had Biederman trying to help us for a hot second. He couldn't do shit.

Yeah, he couldn't do shit with us. He was a great. We were a fucking disaster. We were hammered. We were disgusted. That was the problem. You think we weren't hammered? You kidding?

God damn it. So it's going to work. But a lot of people now, like, you know, Jordan Peel, a lot of people are seeing this connection between horror and comedy. And I think it's getting kind of like, everybody's saying sort of the same thing, right? Where that comedy hinges on timing and visceral response, which is very similar to humor. But I think it's deeper than that. Oh, tell me.

Tell me. Well, no, I wanted to ask you if you felt that exercising. dark ideas through sketch comedy actually creates a darker vision for like the world in general. What an amazing question that I have never really considered. And I think you could be right. And here's why I'm going to go with you on this journey here is because all the brainstorming that we would do to sit down and just start like, okay, sketch ideas, sketch ideas, you know, because we've all been there like, what would be crazy? You just start pushing your brain to think of like what's an extreme situation.

And I did that all day, every day for, I don't know how many fucking years. I committed all of myself to why just kids, basically a decade, honestly, you know? Same. So I think like if there's a gym, you know, like a mental gym, I was working out the muscle group that was like, how far can I go? You know, how can I, how can I go left when I should go right? You know, so maybe that's, maybe that's in there. Maybe so. I feel like movies are almost like a series of sketches,

like getting you from scene to scene in a weird way. Do you think that horror movies like comedies hinge on pivotal scenes or versus entire arcs? Well, that's a great question, too. I think, look, a horror movie must have scenes that scare you, right? If you watch a horror movie and you're never actually scared, but it's telling a great story, it doesn't mean it's a bad movie. It just means it's probably not really a horror movie. It's a drama.

So, yeah, or it's a mystery. It's a thrill. Whatever it is, you know. I don't know. But I mean, the best horror movies will have those, but they'll still, like, you could take the scares out and it would still tell a compelling story. Like, The Shining is still a fascinating story, even if it wasn't, you know, as viscerally terrifying as it is. Because I want to know, I want to track this guy's decline, and I want to watch how his family has to react. I think that's a really engaging story.

So I'm trying to think of, like, a terrifying horror movie where if you took all the scares out, it would be, like, let's examine terrifier, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Terrifier 2, which is like, for me, I view that even closer to like a comedy in terms of you have set pieces. Like, Terrifier 2 has set pieces that the movie is sort of moving towards that allow these things to collide

where, like, you did that so well in weapons with the kind of way you told the story where you set four lines out at each other and then they all collide together. Yeah. But Terrifier 2 is a much more.

more deeply simplified version of what you did. You know, like it's a much more simplified. It's much more direct. It obviously is like, we got to kill a bunch of people. Like, you know, like Terrifier 2, you know, the idea is to get just piles of guts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, you know. By the way, I really like Terrifier 2.

They're unbelievable. I am a big fit. When I went to Fright Fest in 2022, the only movie I was like, Like, I got to clear my schedule to go see Terrifier 2. Because I had been, I loved Terrifier 1. And I was like, I can't believe I had to wait like this many years to see this fucking thing. I am, I am ready.

So I'm really happy. I'm into it. I lined all of them at once just because I was literally scared to see him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I just like, I'm like, I don't know if I can handle all this core. And then so I was just like, then we interviewed David Howard Thornton. So I just watched all three like right in a row. And that was fucking, that's the way to do it.

And he's the simplest little cow poke. Southern boy. Have you ever talked to him? Art the clown? He's all like, well, gee golly, I don't even know how all this happened. I'm just a theater boy and I

just, I love musicals and I and it's amazing, honestly. Last night I had the pleasure of seeing weapons in a packed theater. Wednesday night, packed theater. Tuesday night I saw it in a packed theater. And not just that. It was playing in multiple

theaters at once and it was like everyone was going to see weapons. It was fucking awesome. That's wild. But the reaction, there was a part in this that I wondered, people were talking in the lobby.

Oh, yes. Everybody was hanging out of the lobby. You have such a great. Like, when you were making, when you were making this movie, you ever see Exorcist 3? Did you put Exorcist 3? Of course I've seen Exorcist 3.

I think it's amazing. Did you, were you inspired it all by Exorcist 3? Because I think you have one of the best jump scares that I've seen in a fucking minute, dead in the right? I'm guessing you're talking about the ceiling. Yes.

Yes. I mean, that's got to come from Exorcist 3, but that's kind of a combination of three jump scares. Obviously, the Exorcist 3 ceiling gag is not a jump scare. It's just deeply off-putting. Yes. You know, and it's great.

It's mesmerizing, and I love it. The Exorcist 3 jump scare, which is for my money in the top five of all time, is the hallway crash zoom on that fucking lady with the scissors. That, to me, I get it, the hair on my neck is standing up right now. Just thinking about that scare, it's so good. I don't know how it. It freaked me out so much the first time I saw it. And it's one of those scares where I could still put it on right now

and it would still kind of get me. You know, I love it so much. The other one, and this is a little less like hip cred here, but the conjuring, dude, the Bathsheba on top of the armoire. When it tilted up and she jumps, I was not ready for that, dude. That annihilated me in the theater. Dude, the first conjuring fucked me up. It was the best.

Dude, the clapping sequence, it's ruthless. I always think of insidious, too, though, which is my other big commercial. one where I almost killed my mother because I knew it was coming. I knew the, we saw it with my mom and I knew the devil, the fire devil scene was coming and so I crawled

over the shoulder. Yes, I crawled behind the chair that she was sitting in. I pretended to go to the bathroom and I crawled behind the chair and as it popped up. I almost fucking killed her straight. Man, it was so worth it. But I do believe that's an insidious one if I'm not mistaken. Yes, insidious. That's my other favorite

jump scare. But like, when you're thinking about the movie, when you're writing it, like, do you think about it in that way? Like, for those jump scares, for stuff like that, like, because in weapons, it came at a very specific moment, obviously, it felt like, you were like, it almost felt like

the movie kicks in. Like, you were watching it and all of a sudden it was like, the movie changed. Is that on purpose? To a degree, yeah. So my writing process is usually very stream of consciousness. I don't outline. I don't know where I'm going to go.

So, like, I remember the first pass I did at that point in Justine's chapter, I actually didn't really know where the kids went. I didn't know what was behind them running away. So I was kind of like, just like improvising. And so I don't think I put that ceiling scene nightmare in because I didn't know that Gladys existed. Yes. And so. When did Gladys show up for you? I think in the cop stuff when I was getting into Paul and the cop and the junkies is when I kind of figured it out.

Like I think by the time I wrote James is, chapter, I had that idea. I was like, the kids were in the basement. Why, though? Like, why would the kids be in Alex's basement? It's just, just felt like that's where they had to be. And then I, and then I, I just kind of had this idea of like, it's, this is going to sound really woo-woo. And I really don't like to talk about the meaning of the movie. But I have said this before. So I guess I can, I can let this much out of the bag because it's already out. But like, the Gladys and Alex chapter to me is a, is just about living with an alcoholic parent. I grew up in an alcoholic household. My dad died of cirrhosis, you know, and it's a terrible thing that comes into a family dynamic, and it

changes everything. And so, you know, I had a happy house, and then something came into my house, and it turned my dad into a scary person, and I'd go to school, and everything's cool, and I'd go home, and I'd have a scary house with a scary dad, you know, and so, like, that to me felt so interesting. And this is such a personal movie, so it's like, it, there's no overarching, like, lesson in this movie. This is not like, I have not like, I have nothing to say with this movie. I'm not, I have no pretense of like this is a treatise or anything like that. It's just a diary entry for me. And it just felt good to kind of have this dynamic at the core of it. That is something that I feel really a personal connection to that had a ripple effect out

into this town. And so that's all that is. Now, many people would say, many people. My manager, my family, 30 people. A lot of people might say that when a broadcaster has found himself interviewing a dog, that that would be the low point of their career. Absolutely. But why is it my high point? I got to say, I'm thrilled today to be joined with the wonderful, absolutely good boy, Dr. Henry, Indiana Jones. It's so good to have you here. Have you been?

How are you enjoying L.A.? Have you gone out to, have you tried the vegan food yet? Have you been to the chateau? Ooh, you would do great at the chateau. Have you gone to the chateau? Because honestly, I feel like that's like one of those things where the scene at the chateau would suit you. Yeah, it would really, you would look good there. You would be good there.

And if you wanted to, you can go to the bathroom and call it the chateau. Nothing, huh? Wow. Nothing on that. I do puns. Your father, Ben Leoneberger, directed this film. Do you feel that he in many way sort of, I don't know, because your dog might have skirted around some of the child labor laws?

Yeah. Do you know that Ben is actually, I hate to do this. What? Not your father? Don't do this. No, I mean, but he's not. I mean, obviously you're a dog, and he's a man. man and you're not his son.

Ben is the father that stepped up. Yeah. So how do you feel about your stepfather? So tell me, when you first got this script, how did you choose it? Was it one of those where, like, you know, you've been auditioning for years and you're like, finally, like, this is me, I'm in this film, right? Or is it just because you needed the money? Yeah. And were you not willing to put on the wait for Beethoven?

Fucking nothing. Jesus Christ. Nothing, huh? You know, I don't know whether or not you're being paid by big government to be silenced. Yeah. But you got to understand that part of your job as an actor is to do promo. Okay? Yeah, you got to hit the road.

You got to get out there and talk to people about your movie. Or no one's going to go fucking see it. Nobody's going to see it unless you press it. You know, this is like when we try to have Billy Bob Thornton. Yeah. We had Billy Bob Thornton in one time and he literally showed. up dressed as a French mime and he didn't speak on and you wouldn't even know it was Billy Bob Thornton. He also ate his own shit. Yes. Which was like to me he said something I was about like

he said human composting. Yeah. He said that was his new diet or whatever. Have you ever met Billy Bob? Hmm. I'm just. Wow. I just wonder if this silence has anything to do with some of those recent Are you in the Pupstein files? Are you in the Pupstein files? Are you in the Pupstein files? Answer us. Where is it? Did you take Pupstein's plane? were you on dog Lolita one because it's legal for you there is no age of consent

dogs get pregnant before they're one yeah so it's not even that big of a deal now now that you're like you're an actor do you still believe in money over bitches yeah now that you can get anything you want any kind of treat that you want

any kind of you know you can get heart guard sent to the house house. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, what was your first expenditure? Yeah, I get being shy.

Yeah. He wants to appear. Like, you know what it is I get in a way that he wants to appear like he's still one of us? I'm sure. I'm sure. Now, are you in SAG or WAG? Well, non-union.

Wow. We're going to talk about that with Ben. Non-union. That's a, ooh, that is not a good look. That is a big no-known this town, dude. That is a big no-known-this-down. X. I don't watch you for that.

Post. Oh, actually, no, they shot in Montana. Oh, so they don't care. Interesting. Montana doesn't care. They just hoard water there. They do hoard water. Well, if you're not going to answer our hardcore questions, I don't know what you're going to do when you go on access Hollywood after us.

Yeah. I can't believe that good boy is a bad dog. You're a bad dog. Bad dog. Bad boy. Bad boy. I don't like being around you. You're ugly.

Don't do that. No, it's not true. You know it's not true. He's very attractive. He's the handsomest person in this room. Yeah. God, I bet you get all the bitches. All right, let's try to talk to his fucking father.

It's not his father. He's not your father. Right from your play. Now, your lead actor was a bit difficult at the top of the interview. Yeah, what up with that? Yeah, I mean, he refused to read a script for the entire duration of the shoot. He really doesn't understand that he's in a movie. I cannot say that enough.

It's like him, Gary Busey, when did the second chances start? Yeah. And like, when did, like, how often are we going to do this? These guys that don't understand. You can't pee in front of everybody. The trick is figuring out how to make a movie around them. Genuinely, that's what it takes is that, you know, Indy doesn't understand he's in a movie. So you have to.

I thought we're still talking about Gary Buse. Yeah, but, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, that might be how it works. Yeah. You're like, here, Gary. I will say it. Here, Gary, here's the tennis ball, Gary. Over here.

Aim the choppers over here. Live from North Bay. Oh, man. I love just how it's spooky even talking to you over Zoom. We can't even really, just to even bring the audience in. We had a little bit of a technical or fluffle, but it's still frightening. Because we're watching, it's like, it seems like, I don't know why, I don't know what it is, but your energy that the tubes are afraid of.

But we have one of our new horror icons. Yes. We're very excited to have the actor who portrays Art the Clown, nay, is Art the Clown, David Howard Thornton. Thank you for being here. Yeah. Are there any clowns that you would like study to get mannerisms or is this all just like you? Oh yeah, definitely so. I mean, I grew up watching a lot of the great silent comedians and clowns.

I mean, I was watching like, you know, Marks Brothers and Charlie Chapman. and all even like emmichelli junior and emmette kelly and um gosh mr bean was a huge influence on me as well uh marcelle marceau peter sellers you know don nuts i can just go on and on list all these jim carey just on and on and on actually stephen who i understood for grinch he was professionally trained in clowning in mine work so i took a lot of what i learned from stephen and put it into art you can actually watch videos of Robbie Rotten and compare them to Art the Clown and you'll see probably a lot of similarities with mannerisms. That's interesting.

Now, is there any music that like you would listen to kind of like get in the mood, you know, just like, do you like play circus music or something before you get out there? No, not really. I mean, not for myself, but like I, a lot of the times in the chair when Damien, especially in parts one and two when Damien was doing my makeup, he was listening to a lot of yachts. rock. Yeah. That's what I think is so funny.

People probably think Damie's like this hardcore badass listening to heavy metal all the time. No, man, he grooves to yacht rock. He loves yacht rock and 80s music. We will drive like when we're going to set something like two hour, three hour drive sometimes upstate. We would just be sitting there listening to like yacht rock and 80s music the whole entire time just grooving out. That's just how we are. But like for myself, though, I will sometimes just for shits and giggles put on. something. I sometimes would like to put on

the song, Danny Elfman's song from the first Batman movie with the Joker's like Waltz to the death. Oh yeah. I think that's just always, that always just puts me that little wacky little mischievous evil clown type of mode. So sometimes I would just think that in my head if I have to go a little bit nuts, I guess you could say.

Yeah. Do you feel like now that the movie got like Terror Fier 3 probably got the biggest like budget? the most legit budget. How is it going from being driven by the director to set who would do the makeup and then

you'd shoot obviously probably like five the most shoe string crew possible to like an actual movie set? Like how, is there anything you miss or is there anything what's better? We still had a lot of the old school feel to it all

because we weren't a full on like traditional movie set where we didn't have the honey wagons or anything like that. So it wasn't a big hugely, but it was, we did have, you know, a makeup team that came in this time. And so that was definitely a nice thing to have there because it allowed Damien more freedom too, because he wasn't having to stop my making, and go on to set and do stuff and come back and do my makeup more. And so that was nicer in that way.

But, yeah, we're still not like what you traditionally see here in Hollywood on a set. So we still had that, that, you know, independent feel to a lot of things. Because they changed the makeup, too, right? Didn't they do a thing? Because it used to be sort of disparate, different separate pieces. And then they just made it a whole mask for you, essentially? No, it was always one whole mask. But the original mask wasn't even molded to my face.

It was Mike Gianelli's original mold. Yeah. And so it didn't fully fit my face. Damien always had to manipulate it so it would fit my face. But this time, Christian Tensley, who had. his team that did our makeup for this one on part three, they actually did a new sculpt and mold of my face. So it's a little bit more gaunt than the last one was

because Damien wanted art to be more gaunt in this one. It looked good. Oh, I love the look. And they also gave me a scrawl lenses for my eyes this time. So my eyes were different. And like part two, I had my natural green eyes. And part one, I had context for a little bit. And then like we had one night where I had a rip in my.

lenses and so I couldn't wear him for that night and we had to film so we decided from that point on I would just be wearing my my regular eyes and if anybody knows what the hell you know yeah why you're not paying attention to the right thing yeah exactly and I kind of just say in my head like the eye color changed after he got knocked out by the exterminator so I was like oh yeah the contact popped out and so now that's yeah sure yeah definitely yeah but in this one he's you know he's rebirthed so now he's he's become more demonic in part three so he has different eyes going forward this is a question that we were talking about before is he a human in the first one yes okay and when does he like when does it become supernatural um at the very end of part one where he's

brought back from the dead yes and then like so he was just a man yes and so the face underneath the makeup you would assume would have just been like art the clown so what's earth the clown What was his day like? Yeah, what did he do during the day? What did he? Did he have a job? Did he what? What was that?

Oh, you can't say yet? Can't say yet. Wow. All right. I'm glad there is an answer. Yes. That's one of those things too. We're, God, that'll be great.

Everyone will be very excited to see that jump in. Yeah. I will say this that I know for one thing for his origin, we don't want to make him a sympathetic character. No. We don't want him to have one of those tragic backstories where he was a, used and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Basically,

how I view him in my head is he came out of his mother's womb and strangled her with his own umbilical cord. He's just evil incarnate. He is just, that's why hell lash onto this guy. He's like, this is our avatar on earth. We love this guy. Yeah, yeah,

we love this guy. Yeah, yeah, we love this guy. Yeah, it's like it's the same variant of he's from the seed of a thousand maniacs. Yeah, exactly. He was just born evil. And I, that's the thing. It's like, I do generally believe there are some people that are that way. They just came out of the womb and they are just fucked up in the head. I knew a kid like that when growing up where I, he was this kid that lived across the street from one of my best friends and I saw him flat out just take glee and killing,

you know, squirrels. Yes. Right. He would like shoot him with his BB gum and watch them bleed out or he would just strangle them himself. And I was like, this kid's just evil. My mom was like, do not play with that kid ever again. He's evil. So that's how I view art. He was just born that way. He just had that tendency from the very get-go where he just loved to kill things.

It brought him joy. I also find that people that have the happiest existence play unrepentant maniacs really well. And I can tell from the Lego on the shelf behind you that you seem like a very happy, go-lucky man. that comes from you know years of struggling yeah i'm happy with yeah that's you know i i i was bullied relentlessly growing up but it's like i i always how i escaped all that was finding the things that

brought me joy and brought me happiness and so it's like i i am a child of heart in a lot of ways i guess some people would say i i am like a um have a what is that um arrested development people have said that about me too and it's like whatever you idiot whatever you fucking butthead fuck you you're a stupid face

shut up shut out oh I'm a child well you're fucking you got big ass stupid feet I hate you so save that in your pocket

if you ever need oh yeah I think it's just all that bullying I went through it's like I think I've been able to channel a lot of that on

I mean, there are even times on set where, like, you know, I'm just not fully giving them what they need for an attack or something like that. And they'll just go, hey, Dave, just pretend it's this certain person and go. And I'm like, yeah. Like, oh, shit, Dave. Where'd that come? I was like repressed rage. Yeah. Okay, we interviewed Joe Hill, author, Joe Hill a few months ago.

Yeah. Fantastic man. It went so well. And we never, we didn't really even say anything about us. dad. Yeah, we said nothing about his dad. We were so cool during that interview. But it went so well that he came back and he

brought his father, Stephen King, with him. That's right. He was like, I got my dad. You guys are talking about me and I got my dad here now. But then he did a whole thing. You'll see in the interview where he's like, my dad will beat you all up. And Stephen King stood up and he was like, come here, you little F words.

And he yelled at five or six times. You'll see. You'll say. You'll say. You'll say it's all there. You know, one thing, speaking of grotesque gifts, you know, disturbing gifts, John Wayne Gacy sent my dad some art back in the day from prison. And actually, I found that so disturbing. That's in the first paragraph of Heart-shaped Box. Yes.

You know, that kind of hung in my mind. Because the other thing is, is Gacy wasn't terrible. I mean, he was obviously terrible. I can't underline enough how terrible he was. he was a funny guy. Yeah, he was a funny guy. We've already singled it out. You're screwed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's got to be the clip to sell this episode. John Wayne Gasey was pretty good. You know, but he did. A real mushroom. He was a fun guy. Yeah. He could do a passable. He could do passable like Disney characters and stuff.

Well, he used to do paint by numbers. He used to go and get the, like, he would have a whole system of other serial killers, including one of the guys from the Chicago Rippers, and he also had the guy that killed everybody to avoid the earthquake in Southern California. Yeah, the Herbert

Mullen. Herbert Mullen. He had other serial killers working for him on an assembly line, painting these paintings for him. That's not true. Yes. It is. Is that true? Yes, because he literally was a job creator. He was an executive manager. He was a

project runner. That's what he did. He was a project. manager. They had an art club in prison? It was kind of like a chain gang. Like literally, you kind of forced them to do stuff and then they would bring in. There's a whole story about how John Wayne Gacy was sort of gamed by this young man

that called him and pretended to be really into him. And so this young man sort of arriving to visit with John Wayne Gacy and then the two of them would talk to the other serial killers like they were his little like crew. Like it was like his little brothers. So don't feel that honored about the art. Is it like that?

It was like hair club for men, but with art. Yes. Yes. Do you find that, in speaking of terms of collaboration, because you guys worked together, because John Wayne Gacy can really run that type of collaboration. I'm sure you guys really put some really good stuff together. Like, because in the tall grass was a great thing. Like, how do you guys feel like when you're together working?

We've only done it twice. We've only done it twice. We wrote In the Tall Grass and we wrote Throttle. and, you know, I mean, I feel like when I, the times I've written with that, you ever see in like the Warner Brothers cartoons when Waii Coyotes climbs on an Acme rocket and lights the fuse and then suddenly it takes off under him? Yeah. That's what it's like writing with my dad.

I feel like I'm just kind of hanging on for dear life, you know. I'd sort of like sweat and pull my hair out over like three pages or something. And then I'd email it to it. him and like 45 minutes later he'd be like it was great here's five more pages i wrote five i wrote five and keep it up well you know there was there was a time when i was chemically assisted by some of those things and the the books with peter straub in the early days but uh those days are behind me now yeah now it's just what seallis a lot of a lot of snaple that's what I crush up my salis right into the right into and I just do it.

I do it line by line each day just to get me going to do podcasts. Yeah, and under the lid of those snaples, they got funny little things. You can just slide right into the book. You know, if you want it to. You say so, man. If you say so, I'm good.

Fly from Northland. How do you write books? How write books? One of the things that, you know, You talk about characters that died. A little boy died at the end of Kujo, you know, in the novel. In the movie, he... Jesus, spoilers.

I mean, Joe, the book is fucking 50 years old almost. Go read Kudjo. Anyway, the little boy dies at the end of the book, but in the movie, he lives, but he goes. but he got lit by the rabid dog, so I think he died horribly of rabies after the fade out. But, you know, the thing is, when children die or adults die in books, that's one thing. Don't let a dog die.

You know, I have heard more about that. I mean, Greg Stillson kicks a dog to death at the beginning of the dead zone. I've never heard the end of it. That's an automatic one-star off your good re-trading. You kill, I killed a cat in a story called Jackknife, and I have eaten so much shit about it online, you know? My mother's dog, who I took in Tootsie, she actually passed away yesterday out of complete, you know, randomness.

She was only 19 years old. So, you know, why did they? Yeah, she could almost buy a beer. Why do they go so young? But so we did a wonderful thing with her. We took her up and we put her up. We brought a body up a hill and then, you know, we put her in the ground and there was a beautiful rock structure on the ground. It was like some kind of, it was just gorgeous.

And then we were putting her in the ground and it was thin soil. It was sour. And so I'm hoping when I get home, she'll be there waiting for me. Pet Cemetery, yes Go and go down that role Now, Lance Owl. See, I don't think that's better. Is that your Judd Crandal?

Sometimes. That's better. I hope that your routine doesn't depend on the quality of your impersonation. He was good at him. He was great. He was the best. But I have to ask about Penn. Pets Cemetery because like you, I am a massive Ramones fan, massive, Mawain's fan.

And the story goes that it's been told that you invited them over to your house when, you know, before Pet Cemetery was being made and D.D. Ramon took a copy of Pet Cemetery, disappeared for an hour, and came back with the song fully written. Did that, did it actually happen that way? No. Okay. How did it actually happen? Yeah, I love getting past a musician's stories. I said, would they write, you know, my idea was that they would do the soundtrack for Pet Cemetery, and that didn't fly, but they did do that song. I don't want to be buried in a Pet Cemetery. And that was, what, you talk about a great line, buried in a cemetery.

I don't want to live in a cemetery. There you know. I don't want to live my life again. That's such a sad little, sad little, you know. But every lanky nerd boy knows that feeling. They're all just like, I don't want to go through junior high again. That's what it's about. You did get a whole album out of ACDC. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. You know, they did the whole soundtrack to Maxim Overdrive. I just saw that movie to prep for this. Do you remember directing any of that, Mr. King? Yeah. I remember too much of it. Yeah. You know, the thing is I didn't know.

Dino said, Hey, Steven, this is Dino Dio Lorenz. He said, Hey, Stephen, I think what we want to do is make a movie, and you're going to direct it. Well, I'd never done anything before.

I hadn't been in film school or anything. I learned as I went along. I could actually do a pretty good job the next time. It was a blast. I have to say. I also feel a lot of it's because you have such a deep understanding of movies because you guys were both big media. You guys watch a lot of movies.

When you guys are writing novels versus, like, are screenplays, like, easier than a novel? Or is it like, because sometimes you're retrofitting from one of your other previous works? Like, what's the hardest thing that you do? What's the thing besides getting up in the goddamn morning? I mean going to the dentist, I think. Yeah. or probably having a proctological exam. Those are, I mean, is it easier to write scripts or books?

Which one is? I mean, books, I'd want to write books any day of the week over writing screenplays, but I do write screenplays because that's how I get my health care. So I try to write at least one script every year. You know, but you've had a lot, you've done a lot more in that space. You've written whole TV shows, you know, like not just like the pilot or something, but like every, literally every episode. I think you wrote every episode of Golden Years.

You wrote every episode of Lecy's story. You wrote every episode of Storm of the Century. But does it suck to go from being able to be lord and creator in your own world of writing a novel to like having to go talk to a bunch of suits at a building and trying to tell them what your ideas are? Do you just, you just not care? Are they just like, oh, whatever you want, Mr. King? No, I mean, it isn't that way, really. but what I do, because I have this wonderful cushion that I don't have to write for the rent every month.

And that's a big fucking deal, as you guys probably know. The thing is, I can write a script on spec. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I did a series of scripts for a show called Storm of the Century. Yeah. And that's my favorite one, really, you know, that really turned out well. And because I had a good relationship with director, you know. Well, it's also really glad, I'm glad to hear that the only fans is really working out for you guys.

And that that is really paying the bills. And I just really, I think that that's really great for you guys. I've noticed that you have the same director do your stories, you know, like multiple movies. Is there a certain director you think that understands your stories better than anyone else? Mike Flanagan. Yeah. Life of Chuck was awesome. He's good.

But who's the other guy? I want to say he's got like a name like Jack Holden or something or like maybe he directed the hitter. You're talking about. Jack Jack Bender Jack Bender with Jack Bender Thank you

you just saved us He's great He's done a lot of your stuff bad Jack Bender is terrific and he's somebody who can do things that are just wonderful on a low budget

and short time and he's fantastic at both of those things and it doesn't look phoned in. You know, that's great. Well, speaking of, you know, things that you've written for the screen, like, I, a massive influence on, on me was the, the, the TV miniseries for the stand that, you know,

came back in 1994, like that. It blew my mind when I saw that when I was a kid. But, you know, with, you know, writing that and also, you know, writing the novel, which is also, of course, incredible, when COVID came around in 2020, 20, were you surprised by how people acted or were you pretty much like, okay, this is what I expected to happen when a plague hits. Well, one thing that did happen is this is horrible to say, but the book went through the roof again. Right. And we have truly, this is obviously a pillar of the, of the, of the world.

our world, the ultimate man of nightmares, the star of arguably the peak of his career, Pinocchio Unstrung, is Robert England. Thank you so much for joining us today. Do you think that your persona as like the master of horror also sort of like paints how people react to you? Like, do you think that like you, do you feel you disappoint people by not being a child murderer. Well, here's the thing. I had a fat 10 years in Hollywood before I ever did Freddie. Yeah. And in that 10 years, I did a dozen movies and starred in half of them. You know,

again, you know, I starred with Jeff Ritches and Sally Field and Henry Fonda, Jeff Ritches. I do want to ask quickly, what was Charles Bronson like? Charles had a guy, an assistant, who had a little miniature ticker tape with him. And he would be checking his stock market. And he also would tear out dialogue, you know, and keep it real simple. Of course. And parse his lines down to smaller, clean lines of dialogue. And also, I watched him.

him and he would reach, he would practice reaching for a prop. So he didn't have to look at it when he went to get it. And he'd measure it off. And in a way, he moved and rehearsed his physical stuff like a dancer. He wasn't big. He was compact. But he moved beautifully, like Lee Marvin moves beautifully. Or Kevin Bacon moves really well and interesting. Or old John Wayne had that great, strange grace in the way he moved. And I watched him do that like he would measure his grip for a coffee cup so that he could just keep talking to you and reach out a frame and bring that coffee cup in. You know, or screw that bottle, you know, and switch hands.

And, you know, he just, he was great that way. He really moved. If you see some of his movies, Cato's Land and things like that and watch him move. He's just beautiful to watch. We forget, you know, how big Charles Bronson was. every culture in the world, thought he was one of theirs. They all thought.

The Russians thought he was Russians. The Polish thought he was Polish. Well, it kind of was. You know, Czechoslovakians thought he was Czechoslovakins. Spaniards thought he was Spanish. Yeah. Well, he's also, he had that idiosyncratic way about him that kind of cut through everything.

Like, I feel like that's a thing about actors we're missing a little bit now. It's like, anybody can impersonate Charles Bronson. Anybody can impersonate Marlon Brando. You know the voice so indecatively. Well, this is one of the things we've lost. If you think about Jimmy Stewart's hesitant delivery, or Henry Fonda's Midwestern accent, or Brando, or John Wayne,

you recognize them when you heard them, let alone when you saw them. It was a signature voice. And I think that that's something that actors have to realize is part of the component. you know, of an actor. You never once it's like, there's certain actresses

that have such beautiful, deep, husky voices. You just love hearing them speak. And it makes them just that much more fascinating or sexy or, you know, you just, you like that. Yeah, it's, they, it's, they come with a full toolbox, you know, so to speak. And we've lost that a little bit, you know, you know,

you know, and I think that people probably thought they could compensate by going to the gym, you know, or something. But you can, as long as you're taking your shirt off, but then you also have to sound right when you speak. Well, that's what makes you so important. It's clearly you and Pinocchio Unstrung. And it was great to hear your curse again, by the way. I mean, all I tried to do was to avoid the Freddie laugh as much as I could,

because the Freddie laugh is an old class exercise from voice class, you know, that I had. And that was my go-to thing because it's about the breathing on the diaphragm. Yeah. Yeah. And so my muscle memory, I fall into the Freddie laugh pretty automatically. Now I have to consciously pitch it higher and breathe less, you know, to, you know, get, you know, if I want to, if I'm doing an evil laugh when I'm doing a voiceover, you know, for animation or something now, I, I consciously have to pitch it high and bite off the air and turn it more into kind of like a demonic giggle or something. So I don't remind everybody that they're listening to Freddie Kruger. And wasn't that great?

That was truly one of the best things I've done. Just being here. I'm talking with the intro. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, the intro was actually right on the money. That was better. That was great. That was great.

In a lot of the interviews, from my perspective, you guys are really good at interviews. Oh, thank you. You're better than you. I'm fine. You're doing great, buddy. Sometimes I just get nervous. I want to meet. Stephen King was like one of those guys.

I worked really hard on that interview. It's so funny because I actually cared way less about Stephen King than Robert England. Because, like, Robert England's like my fucking childhood hero. Yes. Like, and I know it's weird for Freddie Kruger to be your childhood hero. It's actually kind of appropriate. But it is funny how he was so good at not answering the dumb questions. Oh, my God.

No one has deflected my questions better than Robert France. He's a real pro. He's a real fucking pro. Well, we'll see you all next week. Thanks, everybody. Go check out all our socials. Go check out our Patreon. and go check us out on Netflix.

Have a good night, have a good time. Have a good week. Have a good life. We'll talk to y'all soon. Hells it. Again. Hill, Robert, France. France.

France. France. France.