The Big Picture - Let’s Rank the Horror Franchises. Plus: ‘Halloween Kills.’

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

Every year, Chris Ryan joins Sean to share his favorite horror flicks, break down the state of the genre, and spotlight a few under-the-radar gems. They also rank their favorite horror franchises and put Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, Chucky, and more in their proper place (1:00). Then, filmmaker David Gordon Green comes to the show to discuss 'Halloween Kills' and his 'Exorcist' reboot (58:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey  Guests: Chris Ryan and David Gordon Green Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dave Chang is an avid student and fan of sports, music, art, film, and of course, food. With a rotating cast of guests, they have conversations that cover everything from the creative process to his guests' guiltiest pleasures. Follow The Dave Chang Show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about horror. Every year, Chris Ryan and I gather over the charred remains of our ancestors, and we conjure the spirit of movie podcasters' past to bullshit about our favorite horror flicks and the state of the genre. CR, how are you?

I'm doing great, man. Live from Crystal Lake. Let's go. We'll be dredging up bodies in this episode. Later in this podcast, I'll have a conversation with director David Gordon Green, a man who can claim on his resume, all the real girls, eastbound and down, your highness, the righteous gemstones, and now two Halloween movies, including the new installment in the Michael Myers saga, Halloween Kills, which is out in theaters and on Peacock right now. I hope you'll stick around for that conversation.

Been wanting to chat with David for a long time. He was fun to chat with. But first, CR, let's go. Horror movies in 2021, what's the deal? How are they doing? How are you feeling about them? Here's the thing I wanted to start with. We did this podcast last year. If I remember correctly, we threw a lot of flowers on host. We were talking about the circumstances around kind of being isolated, being at home a lot, and whether or not that was contributing to or maybe creating a new

sub-genre of horror, and whether or not horror would reflect the times, as it so often has throughout movie history. Now, here we are a year later, and things are somewhat different. I see you. We go out. We sit in backyards and drink beers. We go to bars.

Are you surprised we haven't had like another host? Are you surprised that there hasn't been a mobilization to kind of respond to the moment with movies, horror movies about how everybody's feeling and doing? And even if there had been, now that it's a year later, do you still feel like this moment in our lives is ripe for horror at all?

It's an interesting question. I think that Host worked not because it was a COVID movie, but because it was a Zoom movie. And the innovation there was using this technology that so many of us were faced with every day and finding a way to tell a story with it i don't i don't want i don't want covet in my movies i don't want the pandemic i don't want the horror of that period of time i don't even really want kind of the political ramifications reflected from this moment in the horror movies it's not to say i think you and i

both agree that horror movies are great when they are using these kind of social constructs to teach us something while also scaring us but this period in particular has been so isolating and unpleasant that i'm kind of grateful that there hasn't been a huge breakthrough we've seen like michael bay produced a film yeah it was sort of a horror movie sort of an action movie about this moment i did not think that that was very successful i think it was called songbird um But I don't know. Why do you think that is? You think it's because people are just reacting the same way that I am? Well, I think that it's also entirely possible. For one thing, yes, I do. I think that there have been some TV shows, like the last season of Superstore and everybody's putting on and taking off their masks, the Grey's Anatomy season. Grey's Anatomy has been largely about COVID for the last two years.

And that makes sense. But I don't think necessarily when people turn on a screen, they want to be confronted with everything they see on their screens for the whole day. You know what I mean? They don't want to necessarily live in that. I also wonder though, and this is probably a very specific conversation to you and I, who I think are largely equally careful about certain things.

I wonder whether or not people's senses to horror or their nerve endings to horror have been dulled a little bit because we haven't been outside. Because I was thinking about this this weekend because I was up in Oregon and I was in the woods a little bit. And I was like, the place that we were staying, they were like, make sure you close this game gate because there were cougars and bears around in the woods. And I was like, oh, I'm scared of the world for the first time in a while. I've been scared of everything that's happening in the news and getting sick and everything. But when you're out there in the world and you're

having a little bit more of a diversity of experiences, that's when you find yourself in funny situations where you're like, this is kind of a horror movie setup. You know what I mean? My gas tank's running low or this guy at the gas station is eyeballing me or whatever. And I haven't had that a lot. I mean, I haven't had very many situations like that. And I wonder whether or not... I'm not meh on this year of horror, but I do think you can recognize that maybe some of the horror movies that we would like to have seen

have not been able to be produced for a variety of reasons. And I'm sure we can get into that. But I also wonder whether there's something psychological going on where it's like, yeah, I've just been kind of like sitting in front of a screen watching tons of TV and movies for the better part of two years. I think you definitely hit on something that resonates for me. One in particular is that horror obviously is often at its best when it's cheap and fast. And the truth is, is that producing a film in COVID is very expensive. And so we're probably not seeing as many of these kinds of films as

we might have otherwise, if not for this period in history. But I just want to go back for a second and interrogate a little bit about your time on the cougar farm. What were you doing? Was there some sort of like Bobcat Zoo that you visited? What was that about? But there was just like in the Airbnb welcome booklet. It was just like there's a gate beyond the house, like a wild block beyond the house. And they were just like insistent that we close the game gate. Because it makes it sound like I was on safari. What is the game gate?

It was a gate that stops like cougars from like walking up the driveway. I just want to say that's not a thing. Like you said game gate, like people know what that is. I thought it was like Stargate. I was like, is that a portal? For your house. Even though it's just like,

yeah, you know, you signed up Los Angeles. You can't be sure. So I got a game gate. I mean, game gate, maybe that's our horror movie.

I feel like we could really do something there, you know, like a grizzly three. It might be too close to gamer gate, you know, but maybe we could bring that in yeah okay we may be on to something there i think you're right though about the horror movies this is possible that people on house call us yes gamergate slash game gate yeah the

chris ryan story is about a bunch of cougars who do online harassment. You mean like older women who are pursuing partners? We're dying on the vine here. Well, maybe we should just wrap this pot up right here. Let's go back to horror movies. I think it's been an okay year as well. Sure. I think one of the reasons

why I wanted to rank the franchise is what we're going to be doing in the back half of this conversation is because there's not as much to dig into as I had hoped this year. Obviously, I mentioned Halloween Kills is out this weekend. There have been a couple big studio horror movies, but most of those movies have either been sequels that have been somewhat uninspired or movies that I think never totally took off for me. I just made a brief list of some of the movies, some of which we've talked about

here on the show. We talked about The Conjuring 3. I would say that was the least successful of The Conjuring films thus far. I would agree. Don't Breathe 2, which I thought was a little disappointing especially because Don't Breathe was one of my favorite horror movies of, I think, 18. And that was a movie in which the rapist

monster at the center of the film of the center of the original film was turned into the hero in the sequel, which is a move I've never seen pulled before. Ultimate zag. Truly. Escape Room Tournament of Champions, a film I still have not seen. Candidly, I really like the first Escape Room. I'm looking forward to the new Escape Room. Yeah, me too. I haven't

seen it either. Candyman, which I thought was pretty disappointing. I talked about it on the show. Spiral, The Book of Saw, which I thought was just okay. Fear Street, some of which I liked, not all of which I thought was successful. Army of the Dead, we talked about on on the show. Spiral, The Book of Saw, which I thought was just okay. Fear Street, some of which I liked, not all of which I thought was successful. Army of the Dead, we talked about on this podcast, which is not even really horror.

In many ways, it was much closer to an action movie. And I just saw Antlers, which is coming out in a couple of weeks, which was also okay. That's also long delayed. You know, a couple of these are like a year on the shelf. And, you know, I don't mean... Some movies have persevered beyond that year on the shelf. you know i don't mean some movies have persevered

beyond that year on the shelf some feel like they were put on a shelf for reasons beyond you know their their actual covet delays you know one thing that also made me think of is a show that i just started watching but i haven't finished yet but that is getting a lot of positive notices is midnight mass which is mike flanagan's new show. This is his third series on Netflix. You and I are obviously big Mike Flanagan fans. You finished Midnight Mass? Yeah. I talked to Mike when the show came out, right? On the watch. Yeah. So I did not listen to that because I had not watched the show yet. That's fine. It's full of spoilers. So don't do it until you finish.

Did you like that show? I take it. I think it's really challenging because it's so meditative and it's so precisely paced in a way that I think has become kind of a signature for Flanagan stuff. Really long takes, very dialectical kind of philosophical conversations between characters. All the trauma is right on the surface and is essentially the only thing people really talk about is their pain. But I thought that the plot conceit, which I don't necessarily want to give away right now, was amazing. And I

thought it was really, really well pulled off. And I love the elements of the show. Interesting. Okay. I look forward to finishing that. I was wondering... How far into it are you? Only three episodes. Okay. I was wondering if you feel like... I'm trying to balance Squid Game and Midnight Mass. It's not easy, Chris. There's like... I don't have you and Andy Greenwald time. I was wondering if you feel like... I'm trying to balance Squid Game and Midnight Mass. It's not easy, Chris.

I don't have you and Andy Greenwald time. I don't know how you guys do it. I'm watching a lot of movies. I had to watch Humanoids from the Deep last night because I wanted to. So I can't get through every episode of Midnight Mass as quickly as I'd like. That's okay.

Nevertheless, I wonder if horror is going to be more of a TV conceit. Yeah, you know, Lisey's Game, Lisey's Game, whatever the Stephen King adaptation, Julianne Moore. I'm trying to think of some of the other stuff that came out this year that was on the horror edge. Also, a lot of the movies that you could have a debate about whether it's a thriller or horror

have kind of started to move to TV. I don't know. There's a show coming out on Showtime soon called Yellow Jackets with Juliette Lewis and Melanie Linsky and Christina Ricci, which isn't horror, but there is a version of it that could just be like kind of a crazy thriller that borders on horror. And I wonder whether or not those are starting to become shows more often than not. Interesting. Okay, so let's talk about the movies this year that we really liked. I picked a few that are probably a little bit more well known. You like these two, but why don't you start us off? Oh, okay. Well, I mean, why don't we start with the couple that you had here that you really liked that I also liked because I think they might be the best

horror movies of the year. You want to do that instead sure yeah yeah um the first one i noted was wrong turn which is was kind of a modest vod sensation earlier this year which is not quite a remake but feels like a remake of a movie that was released like 15 years ago there have been subsequent many sequels this is like a retelling of a kind of an in the woods abduction movie and the reason that i cited it here is because i think it has like the best final five minutes of almost any movie i've seen this year but um i know you liked wrong turn too what did you like about it yeah i thought it was just um about as good as you could do on a limited budget like lost in the woods movie i mean it is really really. It has two or three twists

that we won't get into. Actually has like a movie star slumming it performance from Matthew Modine that I doubt he even would call it slumming it. I'm not trying to disparage it, but and I only say that

because Matthew Modine was extremely online about our Vision Quest podcast. So there's a chance he hears this but uh he he's incredible as a dad looking for his uh lost daughter in the west virginia woods if i remember correctly um yeah so this is a really neat one would encourage people to check that out another movie i've mentioned briefly on the show in the past uh is the night house the circumstances under which i saw it which are pretty intense uh the night that my daughter was born you're a maniac uh it's a weird it's a weird choice nevertheless really effective

movie yeah um rebecca hall starring film that is also very difficult to talk about without spoiling what did what did you like about the night house uh again it's hard to give away anything it's a great almost one-hander by rebecca hall she's pretty much alone in a house for most of it but besides like Bondi Curtis Hall and a couple other people with supporting performances. And I would say one of the great uses of one of my favorite songs, Richard and Linda Thompson's Calvary Cross in this movie.

And yeah, it's just a very, very effective ghost story, I guess is the best way to put it. Agreed. I think people should definitely check that out. Now available on VOD. I have Old on my list. You had a chance to check Old out? Yeah, that was the first movie I saw back in theaters.

And it was a great time at the movies. I have recently read a couple of like, this is why old is the way it is. Takes like kind of explanations for some of the behaviors is why old is the way it is takes like kind of explanations for some of the behaviors of the characters and the dialogue styles i don't really need a unifying theory of m night shamalan's movies like to explain why they are so like wooden and off like i kind of like them the way they are uh but i did find that old was a little distracting in like the way that the characters interacted with one another,

which is a sort of funny thing to kind of pick on a horror movie about. But you know what I mean, I think. Yeah, I think it's a movie that also feels a lot like a horror movie through the first hour and 25 minutes and then turns into more of an M. Night Shyamalan, Twilight Zone-esque science fiction story. But the body horror element of old is really, really good, really, really well done and upsetting. And there's a lot of that, like, let the camera linger on someone's body until the final moment

when it's about to go haywire and then move the camera away. There's something really effective about the way that Shyamalan is able to pull off some of that stuff. Whether or not you think that the twists or the, would say awkward phrasing in the dialogue is effective is probably up for debate. Ken Lung though, still on a heater from industry. Really good in the world. Crushing right now. He's absolutely crushing. Poor guy just

dove out into the ocean and never came back. Spoiler alert. VHS 94. I did not expect to like this. There have now been two VHS films before this. There have also been a number of kind of anthologies that were shortly inspired. We talked about Southbound on the show.

I think there are three VHS. There's VHS 1, VHS 2, VHS Viral. Oh, right. I forgot about Viral. And VHS 94. So this is the fourth film in the series. Interesting. Well, 94 is here.

I don't even totally understand why it had to be 1994. I guess just so that it looks... So that they could use the camcorder look, I think. Yeah, the camcorder. You know, I think anthology films, found footage, movies, all of this stuff feels really worked over. And yet, I thought VHS 94 was pretty good. Yeah, and it also had a kind of a comic feel to it

that I thought was really funny like the in the in jokes about 90s commercials and 90s news broadcasts were were pretty good and it had uh a kind of like fast cheap and out of control cronenberg gross out head exploding vibe to it that i found i found really fun what was your favorite of the installments? I liked the Ratman one, the first one. Oh, yeah. That was the scariest, I thought.

I also thought the funeral home was really, really well done. Yeah. I enjoyed that. I want to tell you that I'm in on Malignant. We talked about Malignant.

You and I watched it at 9 o'clock in the morning. because I think that there's a version of this podcast where it's like, A, we apologize for our takes on malignant and then also like address the fact that like film twitter is anointed malignant as like the fucking exorcist

i don't think it's the exorcist i think the case for malignant is it's utterly okay for the first hour and has an absolutely batshit final 30 minutes and the final 30 minutes are worth celebrating it does have a great twist it does have just like intense amazing James Wan style action inside of a horror movie in the final 30 minutes so the one thing I will say is my wife watched it Phoebe watched it after I

did and I'd like well like we said we watched it in the morning before we pot out about it and I think we were both just kind of like okay but she was like you you fucked up the jump scares in this movie with the lights off are terrifying yes which is something that obviously one is incredible at and has

been doing for many years I I watched it again and liked it more I don't know if it necessarily belongs in the you know the hallowed halls of greatest horror movie cult movies ever but it necessarily belongs in the hallowed halls of greatest horror movie cult movies ever, but it definitely improved in the dark. So I think it's leaving HBO Max this week, so that's kind of a tough one for anybody listening right now, but I'm sure it'll be back in a few months. And then I guess I'm not ready to have the to 10 conversation yet.

Yeah, I haven't got a chance to see it yet. It's, again, very difficult movie to talk about if you have not seen it. We're probably going to talk about it a lot on the pod in the future. It's this is Julia Ducarno's second film after Raw from 2017. Sort of a body horror

movie, sort of a trauma movie, sort of a car movie. Very complicated story to try to unpack. A little bit of a serial killer movie yeah it's not fast and the furious i can promise you that um it is really horror though i mean it it owes a huge debt to david cronenberg and it was just selected as the french um selection for the oscars so that i i don't shocked. Honestly, I was talking with our pal, Adam Naiman about that. This film won the Palme d'Or. So it's not as though it's

not been widely celebrated, but I mean, putting this movie in front of a 75 year old Academy member, I have no idea how they're going to respond. I mean, this is really pushing the envelope for the kind of thing that the Academy will celebrate. Now, maybe in a post-parasite world, um, a film like this will resonate more deeply with younger Academy members, new Academy members. Maybe they're opening their minds to the kind of transgressive material that Ducournau is so good at. I mean, she's a really, really, really talented filmmaker. Her sense of framing, of characterization, the way that she ramps tension in a story like this, the way that she kind of gets people unsure of how to react to the story that she's telling is really impressive.

I look forward to you seeing it because I want to talk to you about it, but it's unique. I'll say it's unique. I look forward to seeing it. Okay, what about you? What are some of the more under-the-radar things you've seen? So definitely agree with you about Nighthouse. Definitely agree with you about

VHS 94. Had fun watching old. Look forward to revisiting Malignant. I just want to shout out a couple of other ones that are a little bit under the radar. A couple of these are on Shudder. The first two especially. Seance, which is a kind of 90s style dorm horror movie by Simon Barrett, who wrote You're Next

and worked with Adam Wingard for a while and I think still does. dorm horror movie by Simon Barrett, who wrote your next and, uh, worked, worked with Adam Wingard for a while. And I think still does, but, uh, he actually has a,

a, a segment of VHS 94. This is stars Suki water house and is about, um, a group of girl, uh, girls living in a dorm in an all girls school who do some like conjuring of a, of a ghost urban legend stuff in the bathroom mirror, and everything goes wrong from there.

Really, really fun, kind of Wes Craven-y style horror movie. And then I also wanted to shout out Superhost, just to tip my hat to the, like you were saying, really quick, fast, cheap horror movie. Superhost is about two YouTube vloggers who basically stay in the Airbnb from hell.

And it's very fun, kind of found footage style, either through ring cameras around the house that are watching them or their own vlogs that they're making. So I really enjoyed that one. Those two are on Shudder. And then two way under the radar ones. One is called For the Sake of the Vicious, which I only just watched this week. And I was trying to explain to you. This is basically a home invasion horror movie, but is absolutely completely batshit. I really would say that unless you have a high tolerance

for pretty extreme fighting violence, you should skip this. But it is incredible and it's 80 minutes, but it's super grindhouse. And then Concrete Plans, which I just saw recently. This is actually probably more considered a 2020 movie, but really didn't kind of emerge until 21. I think it's on Amazon Prime. And I would recommend it for people. If you liked, and I've seen other people make this comparison, if you liked Shallow Grave, the first Danny Boyle thriller, this is a little bit more on the thriller side of things, but it is basically about a group of construction workers in,

I think, Wales who are working for a rich dipshit. And it turns out that the rich dipshit is not going to be able to pay them and everything goes wrong from there. Okay. That sounds exciting. Yeah. And it has a real good... It's really well written, really good characters. So that was probably one of the most pleasant surprises. So Concrete Plans and For the Sake of the Vicious are the two. I had never heard of these. How do you make the decision to fire one of these up? I just read the description of it on Shud. When you, I just basically go to the horror section of iTunes and see what like the movies are.

And if they aren't like 3% rated, like there's some that are like, this movie should not have been committed to cameras. But honestly, I will give almost anything a chance. And shutter is a really good service for that. Like you can just kind of let it rip for a few minutes. And I've found countless movies on Shudder

that I really liked. Shudder is an amazing service. I've also been appreciating the open sourced nature of 2B and the fact that it feels like every old horror movie is either on Shudder, on 2B, or on Amazon Prime

somehow. I've been watching a lot of the New World Pictures 80s horror movies of late. And so many things that I wanted to see as a kid, I either couldn't get my hands on or wasn't allowed to rent out of the video store or just kind of slipped into the ether is just available for free. I mean, Tubi is free.

It's really remarkable the accessibility that we have to a lot of this horror stuff right now. Shudder is, I think, easily one of the most worth it, uh, movie subscriptions that you can do because their original programming is really good, but especially the, the library stuff is excellent and it's always churning in new content.

So there's like, it's usually like a movie or two a week. And I, I honestly like there's probably two things a month that I'm like, I'm glad I saw that. That was cool. Um, as far as what's coming,

it's been an interesting week you know we got a trailer this week for the new scream this is the fifth scream movie which is I don't know if it's like hotly anticipated I think the first two screams are really great I think three and four are less great not bad though

I don't know if we needed another one but I will see every scream movie until I die I'm contractually obligated due to seeing it at a key stage of my life. Yeah. Are you anticipating this one? This one seems like they've recast the original cast as badass vigilantes,

which I think is an interesting move. The entire premise of Scream, I know that Sidney Prescott at various points becomes more able to kind of fight off Stab or whatever that guy's name is. But this seems to be sort of... Ghostface, I believe. Ghostface. But they...

This one seems to be sort of positing Gale, Sidney, and I can't remember the David Arquette character name as like... Dewey. Grizzled veterans of dealing with serial killers and helping a newer generation grapple with that, including Jack Quaid, who people probably have seen on The Boys.

And so I think it looks cool. Radio Silence directed this, right? They did, yeah. So I'm interested to see this kind of like new generation of horror talent take on Scream. I guess like at this point with the IP stuff, I'm a little dubious going into every one of them that they're going to just bend over

backwards to service the older cast and make references to older movies. But the trailer seems to give away the entire opening kill which famously happens in every Scream movie. And while I'm

disappointed that I've now seen it, it still is kind of cool the way this person is using an app to unlock and lock their doors and have that used against them. Yeah, it's a modernization of the story. Radio Silence are alums of the VHS movies and Southbound. And they made a movie a couple of years ago called Ready or Not, which I really liked.

Talked to those guys about it on the show. They're really talented. So hopefully they those guys about it on the show. They're really talented so hopefully they can do something fun with this movie. We also saw the trailer for your boy Scott Derrickson's new movie The Black Phone this morning.

My homie. Reteaming with your father Ethan Hawke who they worked together on Sinister about 10 years ago. You excited about this as well? Yeah.

I think that this is exactly what I want in my life is Scott Derrickson in a horror movie. Yeah, it's a little bit hard to know what this is about. It's clearly like a child abduction movie, which it's tough for me these days. The more time goes on, the more I realize virtually every film ever made is about the endangerment of a child.

And I'm really grappling with that. That's why we were like, leave this out of it James Bond. Why are we doing this? It's true. Derrickson is a very good horror filmmaker, so I'm excited about this. I think this had a Fantastic Fest premiere about a month ago

and people seemed really excited about it. So that is something to look forward to. You put down They Hear It here, which I had not heard of. What is They Hear It? Well, I'm just excited because this is co-written by david robert mitchell who uh did it follows which is one of our favorite horror movies uh shared shared favorite horror movies of the last like 10 years uh he's co-wrote this it's an expansion i think from a guy named julian terry um a director uh who who made a short of the same same name same same premise it's essentially like

a malevolent sound terrorizes anybody who hears it so i'm in it sounds good like let's check it out and david robert mitchell is just still a really interesting filmmaker to me um under the silver lake kind of uh i i kind of feel like we we need an under the silver lake pod soon i have been putting together a list of the most underrated movies of the 2010s. I've been thinking about this a lot. And I got 170 movies on it thus far. And I feel like the most prescient and urgent movie on that list right now, as we all spend all day long looking at the internet and thinking we have deciphered the

hidden conspiracies of the world, the most important movie on that list is Under the Silver Lake. That obviously isn't a horror movie per se, but it's kind of a horror movie. And David Robert Mitchell is super gifted. So yeah, maybe an Under the Silver Lake pod down the road. And then next year, we got a new Jordan Peele movie. Nope.

Yeah. Starring Daniel Kaluuya. I mean, that's pretty fucking sweet. And I mean, I don't think we'll get it next year, but your guest today is signed up to reboot the exorcist yes we talked about that a little bit david gordon green and i and i was kind of like why are you doing this now like you have now signed on for six consecutive legacy horror sequels yeah and i think he was a little bit like i don't know there obviously was

something very compelling to him about the spirituality and the religiosity of the exorcist and obviously he's had a lot of success working with jason blum as blum has been able to revive many a mid-tier star and mid-tier filmmaker with his um keen sense of production skill and and getting it knowing i think what audiences want that's really that's really jason blum's um master skill but i don't the exorcist movies are tricky because the first film simply one of the greatest films ever made we did it on the rewatchables a couple years ago you're a huge exorcist 3 guy yes but the lore is is not that deep and and that's interesting but like there's a big tent is not that deep. And that's interesting. But like,

there's a big Pazuzu tent. There's no ride. No one's dressing up like Pazuzu for Halloween. You know, that's the thing. There's no, there's Bobby Wagner. Should I do that this year? Pazuzu challenge.

It's going to be tough. You know, Ellen Burstyn is coming back for that, for David's reboot. And i guess leslie odom jr is going to be playing the the primary father figure in that story but it has me thinking about these horror franchises and where they sit and what's been revived and what has not halloween is in the midst of a big revival uh conversely i noticed recently that the friday the 13th films and the nightmare on elm street films we have not had one of those in many years well over a decade for both of those movies and it felt like when you and i were growing up that was wallpaper you you couldn't

go two years without one of those movies coming out and you know for there are various rights issues i think attached to um friday the 13th right now that are being battled uh in court and that's been a factor for why we haven't seen a reboot of that you know freddy they tried to reboot about 10 years ago i think michael bay produced a remake of that film that didn't really work starring your girl runy mara um and and so i'm thinking about like what is the franchise because there's honestly hundreds of horror films that have had at least three installments and that is the criteria that we're going to use as we talk through some of this stuff some of these movies you might have

ignored completely some of them you may see on a site like to be and think this is pure junk why do i have to watch wish master three i don't i don't have time in my life for this. Because we did when we were 11. I mean, yeah, if you want to know how good it was, I'll tell you. But it's probably not worth your time. But horror is one of those genres where people dig in. And the arcana is so profoundly important. We could do a Ringerverse-style show every week on horror movies if we really wanted to.

I don't know that I want to, but I do like talking about them here in full. So I put together five tiers. You don't want to be approaching your 40s and being like sickest kill in wishmaster three i mean i'm kind of already doing it you know like i'm just not necessarily like this is more or less what that is i'm praising malignant for its batshit final 30 minutes still there is um there are limits to our love and i want to i want to like mention some of the films that exist outside of the the core tier one but i want to spend most of our time on tier one before we get to that i have a really important question for you so i've got north of 50 franchises here but i was stuck on four of them because i don't know if they are

horror or not here are the four franchises these are all four of these film series have more than three films in them and that's really all that we need to qualify the first is jaws of course the original jaws me and you perhaps our favorite movie i mean we've talked about it more than probably any other movie on podcasts the alien Alien films, maybe our second favorite. The original and then now there have been eight Alien movies, which is just wild. We have not actually talked too much about on the podcasts. No, notably absent from some of the pods that we appear on. Predator, a favorite of mine, but like a mega favorite of yours.

There have been six Predator movies now. And then Hannibal Lecter. There have been five Hannibal Lecter movies. Now, I don't have any of these franchises slotted in this exercise. Are those movies horror movies? And if some of them are, which ones? I hate to be a dork about this, but I think you all in some ways have to go down to the granular movie by movie level, which we're not going to do.

My simplest answer is Alien, yes. Jaws, no. Predator, no. Alien, yes. Jaws, no. Predator, no. level which we're not going to do my simplest answer is alien yes jaws no predator no alien yes jaws no predator no and what about hannibal lecter i feel like hannibal lecter is a thriller i i feel like that that ultimately is a psychological thriller but that being said we will now then get into these tiers of movies and talk about movies that are thrillers and are action movies so you say predator is an action movie jaws is an action movie or a thriller jaws is an action movie okay but alien is horror alien one and three are certainly horror alien two is going to accept this well i mean this is like you can get into the different what is it that makes alien one

horror and aliens not horror okay so i think that aliens is more about doing combat with a lot of aliens right like it's more about like taking a planet and it's basically just like it's just like a battle movie it It's like, can we survive? And then in the end, it turns into a mano a mano fight, you know? And that is ultimately what happens in most alien movies. But the first alien is about something that horror does very well,

which is, you know, essentially your surroundings collapsing on you, your surroundings attacking you. And that's the whole thing about the alien is that it just emerges out of the wall. It emerges out of us. It kind of just is hiding in plain sight. And I really think that the mechanics of that

and what Ridley Scott did with it essentially created a lot of the vibe for the horror movies that would come after it, even if it was kind of contemporaneous with Carpenter and a couple of other people. I just think that the look and feel of Alien and the way in which the scares happen in Alien are essentially a mold that's never been broken. Okay.

So, Chris, you're saying officially we need to put Alien in tier one. Yeah. What do you think? Am I off here? I don't know. It's tough because I feel like the original jaws is not a horror movie in its way but then the subsequent jaws films feel like horror movies in their schlockiness um yeah predator predator i don't think is pure horror i think it's it's

action and thriller and science fiction hannibal predator 2 has elements of horror though when the predator is in the the city that's true that's true what about The Predator the Shane Black film that's its own special like beyond rewatchable I see

okay I'm just gonna go with Alien and we'll leave the others out okay here's what I'm gonna do very quickly I'm gonna go through all of the movies

that I identified that are part of franchises but in each tier as I go through them I just want you to tell me what's your favorite out of all of these okay so that we can say for the record we have identified that are part of franchises, but in each tier, as I go through them, I just want you to tell me what's your favorite out of all of these, okay? So that we can say for the record, we have identified that these films matter, but maybe they don't matter to tier one. Okay,

here we go. Tier five, Lake Placid, Piranha, Anaconda, Species, The Prophecy, Wreck, VHS, which now has four films, Wishmaster, Ghoulies, Critters, and Night of the Demons. From tier five, what's CR's fave? I think that my favorite movie of all of these movies is probably the first Wreck, but I'm going to say VHS as a series.

I agree. I think that taken in full, those are actually the most successful of those. Shout out to Night of the Demons, though. First Night of the Demons is incredible. It was amazing to learn that there are four Night of the Demons movies. Horror never stopped being horror. We're very proud of you. Okay, tier four, some much more modern films here in tier four. Here's the list.

Cloverfield, The Purge, Silent Night, Deadly Night, of which there are six films. Carnosaur, never seen a Carnosaur movie, my apologies. Puppet Master, of which there are 13 movies. There are 13 Puppet Master movies. Resident Evil, Underworld, Pumpkinhead, Sleepaway Camp, and Wrong Turn, of which there are now seven movies. What's your favorite of these? It's going to be a little bit... I'm shocked that I'm going to say this, but it's The Purge. Wow. Yeah. Did you see The Purge 5? I have not seen Purge 5 yet, but I have seen the previous Purges. And while I do think that they are declining somewhat,

I would say that the first two Purges are really, really good, I think. I think the Purge is the rare horror movie that turned into an action movie.

Yeah, I think you're right. And I, well, they've started playing around with like each one is like almost a different genre play. If I was going to pick a backup here,

I would probably go, I really can't claim to have seen the many wrong turns between two and the and the most recent one but you really like the first one and the other one yeah um i'm gonna go sleepaway camp just because the first sleepaway camp is just an all-time personal classic i love the first sleepaway camp has one of the most amazing final reveals of any horror movie ever made. If you haven't seen it, please check that out. Not a big Resident Evil or Underworld guy. Remember when those were like the token

of the realm in franchise filmmaking 10 years ago? Should we have the quick, they fuck Cloverfield up so bad with Cloverfield Paradox that they can't go back, but they had the rare second film that stood up to the first one.

Huge, huge mistake. I think veering into sci-fi away from thriller horror was a huge error. I know that there was a monster element to Paradox, but sheesh. Attend Cloverfield Lane, one of the great side sequel, not sequels ever made. Okay, tier three.

Here are the films. Tremors, Leprechaun, Children of the Corn, I learned. There are 10 Children of the Corn movies. What are we doing if you're sitting at home alone on a Saturday night and you're watching

the eighth Children of the Corn film? That requires effort. The Hills Have Eyes, Saw, Final Destination, Insidious, Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch, and The Howling. What's your favorite of these? Okay. So I think that the real answer should probably be Insidious or Paranormal. But I'm going to go Blair Witch here. You love the Blair Witch movies. I love the Blair Witch movies.

I just watched the original again over the weekend in the woods, which was awesome. Like, it's truly scary. And I need to just say that the Adam Wingard Blair Witch, the third one, while mostly bad, has the scariest scene, one of the scariest scenes I've ever seen in a horror movie, which is like the sort of strobe light, 20 minutes strobe light run through the forest.

Where are you at on Book of Shadows? You know what? It's not as bad as people say it is. The Joe Berlinger movie. Yes. Yeah. Jeffrey Donovan's in that. I always... Is he? Yeah. It's really cool. It's so funny when you watch these movies and then it's like Depp, Feldman, like when you see like Paul Rudd or somebody is in these movies who actually goes on to have a career and you're'd like to do is really deep serious inside the actor studio conversations but with guys that we love who would never get to go on inside the

actor studio like jeffrey donovan like i want to do two hours with donovan about just like every movie yeah just every burn notice give me like 40 minutes on burn notice i need to know everything that's inside of his soul um i think james badgedale would also be a candidate for a conversation like that okay so i would say for this one yeah tricky right because i think the original the howling is probably my favorite of all the movies on this list tremors is a very good movie yeah tremors is great leprechaun is not great the original hills have eyes is a is a kind of a kind of a core text of horror movie and really the birth of Wes Craven. And Alexandra Aja remade this?

Did he do Hills Have Eyes? I believe so. Yeah, he did the remake. There was a second film. The sequel was a Wes Craven movie and then 25 years later they did the remake. Paranormal Activity? Do you know there's a new Paranormal Activity movie coming out in like two weeks on paramount plus oh no i know that yeah they param paramount moved their paranormal

activity sequel out of 2022 into paramount plus and like on like october 25th okay so i still remember really loving the first paranormal activity um gosh this is a tough one to pick i'll'll go Hills Have Eyes. Okay. Because the first one is so meaningful and Kazaja is a great horror film maker too. All right, tier two. Child's Play.

Now there's a new Chucky TV series. I saw that, yeah. On USA. You're not a big Chucky guy? Here's the thing. Everybody's got blind spots for a genre, right? Even if you're a huge fan, it's just like there's going to be something that doesn't speak your language and there's there's

three totemic like huge uh horror franchises that i'm like this doesn't be does nothing for me and child's play is probably the biggest one interesting okay i would say i like those movies but do not love it's interesting that they're back in the culture don mancini now that you're a dad though do you feel like you have more empathy for chucky or like uh yeah he's misunderstood he was told no too often yeah we he needed to be raised in a yes culture you know uh no chucky's an evil doll and he needs to be destroyed also in tier 2 the conjuring which we like quite a bit the fly phantasm

the amityville horror hellraiser and the evil dead yeah so phantasm and hellraiser are the other ones that I'm just kind of like I've seen them they were probably movies that I watched way too young didn't get and never returned to.

So I'm going to probably go Conjuring in this one. The first Hellraiser is Spirit Lifter. I mean, that is an unbelievable movie. I would encourage you to check it out again. It's extremely gory. You know, it is deeply Clive Barker, and there's flesh literally crawling on the ground. It's so gross but

it is an amazing act of you know like revulsive but beautiful filmmaking okay phantasm I think is an amazing is an impressive effort of independent filmmaking like you can tell that it was made for cheap

by somebody with a very singular vision and they just kind of it's reminds me a lot of like a Romero movie in terms of its like vision of the world. And it's a sense of how to pull off effects with not a lot of money. I haven't seen all of the Phantasm movies, but they have that's a they have a huge cult following. My favorite of these movies is the Evil Dead. I think the first three Evil Dead movies, the Raimi movies are unassailable. I can't say the same for Child unassailable. I can't say the same for Child's Play 5. I haven't seen it.

I can't say the same for a lot of these movies. It's like hard to do three in a row that are good. Okay, so what is your favorite of these? I'm going to go Conjuring. Conjuring, okay. I would actually just say the entire Conjuring extended universe. I usually enjoy some of any

Conjuring movie. That leaves us with 11 franchises in tier one. Now, let's rank these. We added, I had a nice 10 and then we added Alien. So we've got 11 in full. Here are the franchises. Psycho, The Granddaddy, Halloween, perhaps the most hallowed, the 13th a nightmare on Elm Street the exorcist the omen alien night of the living dead scream the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and poltergeist do you think poltergeist should be in tier two I think the first two poltergeists are pretty

amazing the third one too the third one with the mirrors it's funny that you bring that up because I just talked to Edgar Wright about this and he was like, I looked at Poltergeist 3 when I was making Last Night in Soho. Oh, no way, really? Yeah, so there is some cool stuff in the third one as well. I don't know if I, the fourth one I think was the remake with Sam Rockwell.

This is the, there are the fewest number of films in the Poltergeist film franchise relative to all these other tier one movies. It's kind of, to me, it would be 11 out of the big list we have. Okay. Fair to say? Yeah, sure. Yeah.

What of the rest of these now doesn't speak to you? What do you think should be... Start to feel out the order for me a little bit. I'm not a huge Omen guy. I like Omen 1. I don't know that I've actually seen anything beyond Omen 2, though. Okay, so I'm going to recommend the Omen 1. I don't know that I've actually seen anything beyond Omen 2, though. Okay, so I'm going to recommend the Omen 3 to you.

The Omen 3 is... Damien is grown up. He's played by Sam Neill. And he is running for political office. And it's really good. It's, like, not good, you know? But it's really good. And some of the kills are really fun.

Here I am talking about silly things like what's happening in the Omen 3. I don't think that the Omen remake from the 2000s is terribly good. The first one, I think, is No Disrespect to the Late Great Richard Donner is a little bit overrated, personally. Okay.

So I would go... I'm comfortable with that at 10. Okay. Now at 9. Scream? I comfortable with that at 10. Okay. Now at nine. Scream? I have Scream way higher. Wow. Because I think...

So here's where we get into the discussion of over-weighting originals versus consistency through the franchise. Okay. So Freddy and Jason and Michael Myers and all that, I think obviously you and I are going to have a longer conversation about those movies. But I do actually give Scream quite a bit of credit for, at least in my opinion, being pretty consistently well-made throughout the series. And even if it bends over backwards to connect Sydney

and all these different like sort of like histories of the characters I still like I think I've seen every one of these movies more than once and really enjoyed them and think they're I think they're pretty good so I give Scream a lot of credit for being able to like sustain itself whereas some have like some of these series have like three four movie runs of real, real dog shit. So of those now that's true, but you could never put scream ahead of Friday the 13th, even though there are like six Friday the 13th movies that are not great.

So what, like, what do we do with this? What, what, what should be number nine? It should night of the living dead be number nine. The first,

the first film and the second film are really important movies. I mean, arguably two of the 20 most important horror movies ever made. I think Texas, so this is a great question. Is Texas arguably

greatest horror movie ever made? Is Texas Chainsaw Massacre? It's in the conversation. Talk to me about another Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. Well, the sequel,

the proper sequel that Tobey Hooper directed in the 1980s is really more of a comedy. It's a really funny gore comedy, but it's a ridiculous, over-the-top movie when Hooper seemed to be experimenting with tone and is way far away from where he was with the original.

I mean, the original is bang on incredible. The films that come after that are pretty bad. I think all the remakes are really bad. All the like Leatherface reimagining stuff doesn't work. The third and fourth films, you know, one of those films is the Matthew McConaughey. Oh, right. Renee Zellweger movie.

Right. Which is okay. Not great. Everybody's got to start somewhere. Sure. I really, I'm very fond of the second film. I think the first film carries a lot of weight yeah I mean the first movie I think is up there

with Halloween as the two great like honestly my two favorite horror movies so I just think that the sequels look that's fine let's do Scream there and then you can do Texas after that I think Night of the Living dead actually has like pretty, some pretty great sequels. Uh,

I agree with you. I think specifically dawn of the dead and, um, and day of the dead too, or all are all very, what's the one in Pittsburgh where it's Dennis Hopper and it's like kind of John Carpenter. Is that a,

is that a dead movie? Yeah. I don't know if it's Romero, but it's like, there was like one, there was some crazy movie? Yeah, I don't know if it's Romero, but it's like there was like one, there was some crazy movie really like, like just completely

out of control dead sequel that's like, that's, Dennis Hopper is the bad guy. That's funny that you say that

because Dennis Hopper is the good guy in Texas Chainsaw 2. Land of the Dead. A Land of the, this is a more recent one. This is from the 2000s. With Aja Argento and John Leguizamo, yeah. Yes, and this is a more recent one this is from the 2000s and john

yeah yes and this is a romero movie this is like the fifth romero movie um okay i'm gonna go scream nine texas chainsaw eight i think what do you think about psycho seven yeah i mean i i honestly don't i've not really seen a lot of like the psychos in between Hitchcock and Van Sant. They're okay. Our pal Alex Ross Perry is a fan. The one I think Anthony Perkins directed three. And that one is pretty neat and really transgressive. Nothing obviously lives up to the original, which is one of the more important films ever made.

But it's not a great horror franchise. And Van Zandt's movie, whether you like it or not, the franchise kind of ended there. There was no attempt to bring Psycho back. So it's been a good 22 years since there was a Psycho movie. Okay. Now we're down to,

I guess Night of the Living Dead goes six. Would you agree with that? Sure. Are we overrating The Exorcist right now? Yeah, but the two, I think it's tough that they made five of these because two of them, I think, are masterpieces. You mean Dominion?

That's right. The Schrader cut. Both Dominions, yeah. Rennie Harlan's Dominion and Paul Schrader's Dominion. Those are the two. One and three are incredible. Like legitimately terrifying and masterpieces. Just to give some context, here's what we're left with.

Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Exorcist, and Alien. I think it goes Exorcist, bottom. Number five, Exorcist. Okay. People are going to be really mad at us for putting Alien in this. Well, sometimes you got to make hard choices.

Well, now it's like, but it's like, I actually... What if we were like, Alien is the number two horror franchise of all time? You and I love the Alien movies. Yeah, it's...

This has nothing to do with whether they're better movies than that. You know what I mean? What's a better franchise? Yeah, I'm talking about what's a great horror franchise. So Alien, I think,

gets knocked because, well, you know what? Honestly, Sean, though, fucking Alien Covenant is a horror movie. Truly. Probably the scariest Alien movie

since the original Alien. Yeah. You know, Prometheus is wonderful and Alien Resurrection is interesting and Alien 3 is a fascinating document of movie history. Alien Covenant is gross.T.S. is wonderful, and Alien Resurrection is interesting, and Alien 3 is a fascinating document of movie history.

Alien Covenant is gross and violent and intense. So it's still, and that was Ridley Scott, freaking 80 years old, making Covenant. What a lord. Still hanging on to that franchise. You see him sort of neg the Noah Hawley TV show? I did. It's very important for him to be daddy in that franchise

and I respect it. Okay, so we basically have to decide between Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Alien. I'm going to say, let's go from top to bottom

because I think it's easier than going from bottom to top and then we can fight about Jason and Freddy. Halloween is number one. No question. Simply the greatest horror movie franchise

of all time. If you've not listened to our podcast that Amy Nicholson did about the whole franchise, I time if you've not listened to our podcast that amy nicholson did about the whole franchise i would encourage you check that out it's really really good um halloween is amazing to me you know whether you like the new david gordon green movies or not the fact that i'm still fired up i'm still so excited to see a new halloween movie is a testament to its franchise power. That is the thing that it does.

The Friday the 13th and a nightmare on Elm Street movie is them slipping away from the culture. Nobody is like I desperately need Freddie back in my life but

Michael Myers he lingers. You know he really lingers in our consciousness. He's just always coming back from being on fire or being at the bottom

of a pit or being in a mental institution. Wait till you see Halloween kills man. It's fucking great what they do to him. Really great. Okay.

So Friday the 13th, Nightmare and Alien. You think Alien is four or you want to try to put it in place? I really had not anticipated this. I think Alien is... It's really tough to say like a xenomorph goes ahead of Freddy and Jason. Yeah, I know.

I mean, how many how many friday the 13th movies do you like name one that isn't the original that you like yeah so i like um four three and six not two oh i love two yeah yeah three i think is okay that's the 3d one and it doesn't really work as well but two with michael myers oh you don't have a 3d screen sorry i get like you haven't really i'md screen sorry i get like you haven't really that i'm working on it chris you know i've got a baby in the house you know i got it by my my resources i've been reallocated mellow vision i got it all okay so you so where are you at on jason takes manhattan i like it i like jason goes to space jason goes to hell all of it yeah

friday the 13th is good, man. Damn. They got to bring these movies back. Nightmare on Elm Street. I'm Dream Warriors all the way. Okay. Dream Warriors is sick. I am Freddy over Jason as a personal preference because I don't really fuck with dreams.

I find dreams to be confusing and also mildly boring. And I just think everybody in Nightmare on Elm Street should have just done stimulants so they just didn't fall asleep. So you're out on Freddy because you're not into dreams. That's what you said? All right, all right. That's noted.

That's super weird. Well, you don't like Jason because you're not a big hockey guy. Well, I was going to say, so does that mean you're really into axe murder? I don't know. What's the converse there? So would you go Friday the 13th, number two i think alien is number two i think we should yeah

okay we should just make some noise so halloween alien and then i think i honestly though so i was going back through the the nightmare movies uh the original dream warriors i like freddy and jason freddy versus jason yeah it's okay the what's the one what's the nightmare on elm street where it's basically like a dry run for scream uh new nightmare yeah we're like yeah heather lang camp is like an actress and yes and stuff that's pretty cool um gosh it's tough because new nightmare and dream warriors and the original are great. Friday the 13th, I think one, two, four, and six are great. Six is cool.

Yeah. And the platinum dunes remake of Friday the 13th. I didn't think it was awful. Didn't love it. Okay. Didn't love it. None of those movies really worked for me. I'm going to, I'm going to let you have this. You, Chris, I, I'm not into dreams. didn't love it okay didn't love it none of those movies really worked for me i'm gonna i'm gonna

let you have this you chris i i'm not into dreams ryan has decreed that friday 13th is better than nightmare on elm street yes okay um i i forced you to bump scream so you can you can take the day on friday the 13th uh all right here's our here's our final ranking tell me if you feel good about it poltergeist the omen scream te Scream, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Alien, and Halloween. How'd we do? I think we did really well. I think that people just need to understand that in certain cases, the board chose to

emphasize the achievement of the original over the consistency of the franchise and in some cases chose to reward the consistency of the franchise over the achievement of the original are you sure you don't want a late breaking push for critters into the top 10 no Chris thank you so much

I would actually throw Hell House LLC in here which I meant to ask you if you think that that is worthy because you know that I'm sure we missed some I'm sure I missed some in putting my list together but you you shined a light on Hell House LLC last year on this show on the Halloween episode and people were

really appreciative of that recommendation I got a lot of feedback we're like thank you so much for showing me these movies so that would that be tier six I mean the third one is not as good as the first two, but I think the first two are pretty incredible. I was also going to ask you before we go, just so you know, the criteria for this was it has to be more than two movies to count as a franchise. Are there any two movie horror series that you love?

Oh, I'm not prepared for that question. Yeah, because I was going to say one recent series that I think is quite good that's only two is Creep. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the Patrick Bryce films. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if I've seen

the second one. The first one's terrific. Yeah. The first one's really, really scary. Gosh, I haven't thought about it. I will think about it, though. Yeah, if anybody actually, if you guys have two movie horror franchises that you love,

hit the big picture. Love that. Chris, thank you so much. My pleasure, man. Have a wonderful Halloween. We won't be spending it together this year, unfortunately. And be safe, okay? Be safe in those dreams. Yeah. Close your game gate. Okay. Thanks, Chris Ryan. Now let's go to my conversation with David Gordon Green. I'm delighted to be joined by the great David Gordon Green.

David, thank you for doing the show today. Yeah, good to be here. David, I have to say I'm a huge be joined by the great David Gordon Green. David, thank you for doing the show today. Yeah, good to be here. David, I have to say I'm a huge admirer of yours, and I've always wanted to have you on this show. I never expected that it would be for the second in a trilogy of Halloween movies. I am still kind of stunned that you're making these movies. It's fascinating. Did you ever expect that you would be working in horror franchise entertainment?

I always wanted to do a horror film. Uh, and, uh, I, I can't say no to that. Like I, I do feel like that was always something that was a calling to me. And, um, the more I actually was thinking about it and I, and I'd flirted over the years with several, uh, several remakes and several and several uh original concepts and things but the more i i saw it as an opportunity to take a genre that could let me be you can i feel like you can you can justify a low budget you can be as wild as you want creatively and have a lot of freedom with that you know you don't need uh huge movie stars and a huge concept you just need to execute something that scares people and and that could be a lot of fun so i've always looked forward to it and it's it's amazing to

have jumped into it and now i'm looking around thinking wow i got a lot going on in the horror horror realm uh how do i diversify yeah i'd like to ask you a little bit about that since you have many many films to make in the future as well but um halloween kills is a sequel what is what is it what is a good sequel need in your mind um well it's a specific sequel in that it's the second in a second chapter in a trilogy so for me it was a chance to further open up characters that had previously been established but and you want to be satisfying in its own its own right but it can't make everything so conclusive that you don't need that third and and you don't you don't need that grand finale so so it was an opportunity to to go deeper to expand haddonfield to bring back legacy characters to to to follow through with some characters that we got little

glimpses of in the 2018 version and and honestly it just it it uh it opens up a lot that we then we face those conflicts and then we use the third chapter to resolve them. Did you have a favorite Halloween sequel prior to making one yourself? I love Halloween 2, which is not a film that we acknowledge in our franchise for narrative reasons, but it's a movie that I grew up loving and I probably actually had seen that before I got involved in this. I'd probably seen that more than I'd seen the first Halloween. Before you started a film like this, or I should say, after you made the first film and then the second film, was there something that you weren't quite sure of how to do in a horror film or something that was different than your expectations?

Because you've obviously made a lot of different kinds of films and TV shows over the years, but there's a tonality to horror that I'm wondering if it felt different or surprising to you. I don't know about surprising. I mean, I guess what I was surprised at, and this may sound weird, but how similar to comedy horror is. Like it's one thing for a drama to unfold and you meet this character and you face their conflicts and the story unfolds but with with comedy and horror so much attention goes to the setup and payoff and and whether it's surprise and suspense of horror or you're looking for a belly laugh having something that is um that is familiar or is a callback or these these type of things that a lot of a lot of devices i'll say that you kind of

you kind of roll your eyes out when you're reading a film school textbook. But then you see them at play, you're like, oh, that does make for a much more satisfying experience in a movie like this to actually have rules and set up a trap that you're going to get a character into and then pay it off at the end. And so I think whether it's comedy or horror, I think I was very surprised to find the parallels. And I'm currently jumping between The Righteous Gemstones, which is a comedy HBO series, and then this Halloween franchise with the exact same crew. For the most part, it's a very similar crew. So we do get that comic relief in chapters our our episodes of horror do you ever find yourself accidentally using your halloween mode while you're making gemstones or vice versa definitely yeah yeah yeah there's a lot of overlap in that and even some strange tones you know i don't i don't think i i uh i don't think i can ever fully commit to a very to a to a to a specific tone

without breaking my own rules that I established a little bit. And whether it's a comedy looking for a little drama or a horror movie looking for some comic relief or attention breaker, those are all things that are important to me and, and blur the line, um, within the genres, which I think my favorite movies, I think my favorite movie of all time is something like Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, which is a beautifully shot, hilarious action movie drama. What is it? Western? Not quite.

But it's just all of the things that I like can fit into one story. And then I want to see it again and again. Were there other kinds of genres that it was important for you to wend into Halloween kills? There were several references, but one that was applicable that actually showed the crew was medium cool um the the haskell wexler film um just in terms of of community and turmoil and and that kind of political uprising of that that film was a reference and um what's the chant at the end of that movie they have you know there's um uh the whole world is watching was the chant at the end of that film, which I think was was reused in another movie recently.

But but so so as an inspiration and influence, that movie is something that's a that's a poster framed on my office wall. And so when I'm writing this, inevitably, I'm like looking up at old Haskell's brilliant masterpiece of the late 60s and thinking about it. So it did weave its way into a horror film, which in a lot of ways, it makes sense. And in other ways, it's not quite so obvious. Yeah, I really like that aspect of the movie. I was curious about the writing of this one. I think we know that your co-writer is Danny McBride. You've collaborated with many times in our mind. I might visualize Kenny Powers in the writer's room with you. But I'm wondering, what is your relationship like as writers? Are you guys, are you in a room together? Are you back to back? I know you had another co-writer on this film as well. How do you craft a script

with multiple people? Everything imaginable. Our first film, we worked with our film school buddy, who was a huge Halloween film fan, Jeff Fradley. And then for each of the chapters subsequently, we've brought in new fans. So it's Danny and I. And then on Halloween Kills, we brought in Scott Teams, who's a great filmmaker that made That Evening Sun and The Quarry and A Beautiful World. And for the third chapter, we brought in Chris Bernier and Paul Logan. So trying to bring a fresh voice and a new perspective to every chapter of this film.

And sometimes it's, let me take a stab at this. I'll see you in a week. Sometimes it's like, let's get in a room together. We all would, we have a writer's room and we have an office in Charleston where we live.

And so we'll just recruit everyone from our writers to our DP, to our sound mixer friends and production designer. We'll bring our crew in and do reads of scenes and talk amongst ourselves. So it's a very, it's a very collaborative effort. And then other times it's, um, it's, Hey, Hey, Danny, I'm struggling with the scene. Take a stab at it. Let me see what you got. And I go to bed early bed early and uh and most writers stay up late late and right so when by the time i wait when i wake up at 4 30 i've got pages and then i get i get to work so it's kind of fun when you can leapfrog each other's work in that way what's your favorite aspect of writing a movie like this is a character development is it just

crafting a kill like what what is what gets you going um i mean i think all of it gets you going? I mean, I think all of it gets me going. I think it is, for horror in particular, it's how do you find new creative ways to bring tension and anxiety to a scene. Sometimes it's about the cleverness of a kill, although I personally am not the, I can't take credit for a lot of those. I'll get my

my makeup artist and friends of mine and say so what what have we seen what what haven't we seen and then occasionally i'll say well has anybody ever been stabbed in the armpit in a movie and then you know like so those kind of conversations come up but those are uh more oftentimes they're problematic because i'll get so excited about an idea and then someone will say, didn't you see this movie? It's already been done. And so that can be a little deflating. But so for me, it honestly is about the community of creativity. fans and then having John Carpenter and Nick Castle read the scripts and throw ideas or give me some of their concerns and excitements when they read as well.

I just heard the story about you and Jason Blum having a fairly brief email exchange to get this franchise relaunch going. I'd never heard that before. I have to assume that that's uncommon in your line of work, but have you had a lot of films come together with that simple of a pitch and green light? It's so interesting because for 20 years, you have movies and you struggle and you try to make them. Getting anything made is next to impossible. I mean, half the time I'll watch a movie, I'll be on an airplane thinking, why would anybody make this? And I'll think, well, they did and somebody had a vision and it was very difficult to get here and I should appreciate every movie for what it is. And so I have to talk myself into that because I do know

the difficult road it is not only to have a great idea, but to write the first draft of your script or to get a script greenlit or to get the right budget or get the right actors. I mean, there's so many millions of things that can go wrong along the way that I just have a great appreciation for any creative endeavor that takes collaboration and a variety of psychology. So when someone like Jason has a title like Halloween, I think a sigh of relief. I think now I've got a playground that can actually fucking happen. It's like these two guys and a modest amount of money will,

will let me go play and make a movie. And I don't necessarily have to have the anxieties of, um, reality that, that happened on 99% of the projects I work on where the, or the derailment of so many projects, you know, this is like between,

uh, Malika Codd, um, whose father produced the original film and Jason and Miramax and Universal. These guys, they know what the machine and the business means. And so I have great respect for what that is. And then they say, you respect where we come from. Now go play.

And so I have a creative playground that's unmatched and um and so i think the simplicity of it is kind of what works for me for them for an industry that i think can very often look at my work as peculiar or fringe or to this or to that i think it's a fun place where i i know i can be let loose get a little wild get a little weird with my friends and make something that people want to see was there any part of you that felt like i don't want to be as fringe as I might be perceived to that motivate making these films at all? Always. I mean, I think Prince Avalanche should be a blockbuster hit and should have made a hundred million dollars, but, um, nobody went, uh, I like that movie, but then you meet the special people that did see it. And then, and it feels that much more intimate and you feel that

much more connected to, to someone that, um, uh someone that went out of their way to see a movie that wasn't in their face. But they found it. And those little treasures are equally as important to my strange career. But I always walk away from an editing room 100% of the time thinking, damn, I did my best within the circumstances of what I had. And sometimes you're in more control of what that is. And sometimes it rains on a day that you wrote as a beautiful sunset. So it's always hard. It's always tricky to navigate.

But I do feel like being able to play a little jazz and dance with the curveballs and enjoy that part of the frequent frustration or uncertainty is part of the job. And if you get too uptight, you should probably find a different kind of job, I guess. You know, you mentioned the medium cool influence, and there's obviously, the film has something to say about the mob mentality and kind of pursuing people who we believe may or may not have done wrong i'm kind of curious if that is uh

part of the reason why you want to take on horror obviously it's well known as a a vehicle for social ideas um is that something you wanted in this because i'm not sure that i saw as much of that in the first film and it feels like the second one you've keyed it up a little bit yeah i mean it's it's it's important to remember that this was filmed two years ago and so even watching it now it has a little bit of a different context than it would have had if it was released even last year when it was scheduled to come out um but that is something that it i think my entire life the the biggest fear i have is not the monster under the bed, although that concerns me as well, but is misunderstanding and confusion and the kind of chaos of situations like this. And so that was something that I felt like was a fun thread to unravel that I hadn't seen in a Halloween movie. Part of what appealed to me about this particular narrative is it wasn't just about the obvious anxiety, but it was about the stimulus and the excitement around that and how fear evolves from something so intimate to something so epic.

Has anything surprised you about the Halloween mythology or anything that you maybe didn't totally understand before you started really digging into these films? Because obviously the fans are very attentive to the decisions that you make. Yeah, sure. And I think that's part of the fun. Part of the fun is to, we're all movie critics. I mean, I was just recently finished the podcast on Siskel and Ebert and it was just, I mean, it was just such a beautiful thing to realize the effect that that had that just two people with different ideas and opinions had on conversation and entertainment and how that evolved. And, and so I've always been critical of movies I see. And the first, also the first enthusiast that tells everyone in the schoolyard, you gotta, you gotta sneak this movie when your parents aren't looking, you know? So, uh, part of, part of that is part of the fun of what these movies mean to people. And so you can talk to a fan that has a movie or an element of this franchise that's very important to them that I either, and we want nothing more than to respect the franchise,

the origins of the franchise in particular, with our telling of this tale. And we want to have fun, and we want to take the audience on a ride that's both familiar in its appreciation of the characters that have been established, but also is a unique spin and takes us to some unexpected places

so that we have a reason to exist. I must say, I'm heartened to hear you say you listen to the Cisco and Ebert podcast because myself and my producer produced that show. So that's amazing that you listen to it. I love it, dude. For eight days in a row, that was my bike ride. That's really cool. Well, let me ask you this. You were a little ahead of the curve in terms of the division between films and television. You always toggled very elegantly, even in the 2000s. How are you feeling at this point in your career? Are there rhythms that you prefer more?

Do you like the finality of being on a film set? Does it not matter to you? I love production. I'm okay in the editing room, but I get itchy after about three hours in an editing room. I like writing. I get itchy after about three hours in an editing room. I like writing. I get itchy after about two and a half hours of writing. So for me, writing is a, you need to create the architecture that you can responsibly budget and schedule.

But what I want to be doing is filming every day. I just love the energy of the balance of art and technicians and technique and homage versus innovation. All these things that kind of add up to from my childhood then to my insight now. This is just the pleasure of working with actors, some that are discoveries that didn't even know they were going to be acting 24 hours before I'm working with them, to legacy actors like Jamie Lee Curtis. Had you been tempted in the past to take on a bigger kind of franchise entertainment? Obviously, Halloween is very well known,

but you mentioned these films have smaller budgets. I assume they came knocking at your door at some point to make a superhero movie or something um i've never nobody's ever asked me to do a big fancy movie uh i did one i did one that i made up called or me and mcbride made up in college called your highness and i think it cost a lot of money and lost a lot of money so i i stand by that movie and encourage everyone to see it again or give it another shot with time. But that is a cult classic, David. I'll take that. But I think that probably sent a sign to an industry that is pretty specific about responsibility and how and what to deliver and things like that

where that's why I think this was an appropriate match for me because it was low budget we could all take some risk knowing that it was going to be responsible based on these franchise characters in this title but now you've ably shepherded at least two of three

big franchise entertainments so maybe someone will ask me to do a big fancy movie someday but right now You've ably shepherded at least two of three big franchise entertainments now. So maybe someone will ask me to do a big fancy movie someday. But right now, it's looking pretty Michael Myers. It's looking pretty Exorcist. The forecast is wonderful, but it is in horror for the next couple of years. So why the decision to do The Exorcist? Obviously, you've had success with Jason,

but I'm curious, like jumping directly into that after these films. It's kind of in a similar way. You know, I have such a great time working with Blumhouse and we're always talking about what's next and including a lot of things that aren't horror, but we're putting stuff together all the time. Me and executives there and jason are always brainstorming what's what's weird and what's next and how do we use success to leverage our own ideas and innovation and things

um exorcist immediately when that title came up became an opportunity to to jump on that me and my co-writer pete sattlerattler got an idea that just lit up for us and became a huge passion project. Something to write and create and again unite with some of our legacy characters. What attracted you

to The Exorcist in particular? Was there something about those characters or that world that were you a deeply religious man? I'm not sure. I'm curious what drew you in. Well, I think The Exodus to me is a brilliant drama. Many people will say it's the scariest movie ever made, but it's not the obvious horror film.

Not only is it a different subgenre of horror and demonic possession, but there's no cheap jump scares. There's none of the things that I actually have fun with in the Halloween franchise, but this is a little bit more academic or a lot more academic, significantly more researched. And so it's a different intimidating title,

but having a voice like Ellen Burstyn, who I speak with and design the return of her character with and and by by taking both of both my fascination, confusion, concerns and inspiration of religion that I've had my entire life. It takes takes me into different chapters of things I can explore within the dialogue of this franchise. And so that's very exciting. And any movie that gives me an excuse to ring doorbells, show up places, interview, as you well know, like when you get to interview a subject of something that you're fascinated by, it's literally a calling card to call anyone. I mean, the Pope might not take my call, but a lot of people that work with him will. And so that becomes an access to a side of the world, a side of my own curiosity and spirituality. These things that I get to explore through

my craft, through my profession, is just an incredible opportunity. I do like the idea of you and the Pope having a one-on-one just ahead of The Exorcist. That sounds fun. Okay. You know, part of the around... Maybe The Exorcist 3. Well, part of The Exorcist news,

it seemed to be like maybe this would be a world where this is a film that made sense on Peacock as opposed to theatrical. And I'm curious where you stand now in terms of the great streaming war debate. Obviously, Halloween Kills is going into theaters, which I'm sure you're excited about. But long-term, things are evolving there.

How do you feel about that right now? I think entertainment has my attention when I'm in a theater with an audience. TV, there's so many distractions, and streaming is very similar to that but um but i i it's great because the the vast archive that i can't cap i can't keep up with in the in the theater uh to have that and i go back to movies and re-watch a lot of movies over and over um uh that i like or that i don't like something something that I feel strongly about, I do feel the obligation in myself to revisit.

And so I think it's great for that. But I'm just a purist. I grew up working at movie theaters. I can remember the telephone numbers. I can remember the voicemail messages at movie theaters. I could tell you if you grew up in Dallas, Texas in the 80s and 90s, I could tell you within three guesses what movie theater you saw what movie at. That was just such a part of my obsession.

You know, when the Galaxy Drive-In closed, I was fortunate I got to talk to Joe Bob Riggs about that recently and how much that meant to me seeing that go away. And the evolution of movies is important. You know, I used to go to movies at the mall and my dad would roll his eyes and say, when I was a kid, we'd watch these great movie palaces, thousands seats and huge screens and i'd be like dad come on we're going to presswood mall and catch it you know we're gonna watch a little fugitive or you know or no three fugitives little fugitives classic but um um so so his evolution and then my kids that uh will just as easily happily watch something on an ipad as uh as go to the movie, um, I think my biggest criticism of movies right now in the theatrical experience is

these big comfy chairs because they distance you from the heads, the active animated physicality of your surrounding audience. Not, not only do half the people fall asleep because the chairs are so comfy and kicked back, but like if you go to a non-stadium seated theater where I try to always test screen my movies for the first time in a non-stadium old school, uncomfortable seat theater for a comedy or horror movie, the experience is monumentally better when you don't have a big, cozy, comfy seat. And you can see heads jump and faces laugh and people look at each other and share that experience. The more isolated we are, the less I'm interested in it. And so

that's just me personally as a purist. But at the same time, I watch a lot of Peacock. So what am I going to say? Are you in or out on being served a full meal or a cocktail in your movie? I'm pretty focused. I'm pretty, I mean, I'll have popcorn and a soda and I'm good to go. Yeah. Okay. David, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen. You're a cinephile. What have you seen lately? I would say two things. The last time I really enjoyed myself

in a theater was last week when I finally saw Free Guy. I had a blast watching that. Yeah, what did you like about it? You know, I don't even know that world, but I watched that with my 10-year-old twin sons, and we just laughed our asses off through the movie. And so it was kind of that intergenerational enjoyment of something. They were laughing at different things than I was

laughing at. And I think Ryan Reynolds is strangely good at bridging that gap of juvenile and grown-up sense of humor, and I don't know where I fall on that spectrum. So I like that one. But then the movie I keep watching is Another Round. That movie has really, you know, it withstood the last eight months of my life pretty thoroughly. And I went from, you know, kind of being blown away on first viewing to repeatedly watching that film and appreciating it more and more. That's a wonderful recommendation.

David, thank you so much for your time and congrats on Halloween Kills. Good talking to you. Thanks. Congrats on Siskel and Ebert. Thanks, man you so much for your time and congrats on Halloween Kills. Good talking to you. Thanks. Congrats on Siskel and Neighbor. Thanks, man. That's awesome. Thanks to Chris, of course. Thanks to David Gordon Green. Thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode. Next week, Amanda and I are talking about one of my favorite movies of the year so far,

The Last Duel from Ridley Scott, co-written by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Nicole Holofcenter. And we're going to be talking about our favorite movie duos in part with The Last Duel. We'll see you then.