The Big Picture - The 10 Best Horror Movies of 2025 and ‘Black Phone 2’

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

On today’s show Chris Ryan joins Sean to unpack the year 2025 in horror movies. But first, they hit a handful of movie news headlines, including rumors of a new trailer coming out in December for Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey,’ Michael Mann’s recent comments about the production of ‘Heat II,’ and Eva Victor being cast in Tony Gilroy’s ‘Behemoth!’ (2:02). They then cover Scott Derrickson’s sequel, ‘The Black Phone 2’ (starring Ethan Hawke and Mason Thames), which they both found quite disappointing (10:32). Next, they reflect on the current state of horror as a genre and explore why they feel it's in a weird place right now (26:07). Later, Chris and Sean share their favorites of the year (36:16) before Alex Ross Perry joins the show to discuss his contribution to V/H/S/Halloween. Perry talks us through his thought process and points out why finding what he personally finds scary is the most important part (1:02:50). Finally, they have an extensive conversation surrounding horror anthologies, where they identify what defines a good horror anthology and share their personal favorites (1:22:58). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Chris Ryan and Alex Ross Perry Producer: Jack Sanders Unlock an extra $250 at linkedin.com/thebigpicture Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennacy. This is the Big Picture and Conversation Show about horror. It's October, and you know what that means. CR is here to talk about the scariest, most depraved, and most delightful horror movies of 2025. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Friend of the Pod and filmmaker Alex Ross Perry. Alex, of course, a staple of our Halloween movie. programming here on the show. Many people have been asking me, when will you have Alex back to talk about awful shit? Many people be like, who needs Chris? If you've got Alex, if you've got Tracy

Letts, like what's the problem here? No, no. The grabber is still at the top of the mountain here on this show. Thank you for grabbing Chris. But Alex, I will say this year, unlike previous years, he has actually contributed to horror filmmaking. He has a segment in the new VHS Halloween film. It's called Kid Print. We'll talk about his contribution. We'll talk about anthology horror movies, which is something that Chris and I also really enjoy. I think Alex has the record for the most appearances of a guest on the pod ever.

I think he's in the realm of 12 or 13 at this point, which is pretty extraordinary. So Martin Scorsese, challenges yours. You have a lot of work to do, sir. Okay, that'll all come up very shortly on the show. This episode is presented by LinkedIn ads.

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Okay, CR, before we talk about horror, was there any news that you wanted to break down? I don't never get to do news banter with you. I listen to you and Andy, and I'm like, God, just for a day, I could sit in that chair, the Greenwald seat. And watch this guy look at off-brand internet sites and scream. Look, do we pull up Variety.com and you ran my pod today. You wish I was looking at trades.

Come on, man. What are you looking at? I'm looking at all sorts of places, message boards. I'm looking at dark web movie news sites turns out that we're going to get an Odyssey trailer in December I don't know what

You learned this on a dark website No, I'm just saying World of Real, I'm looking all around there You know, and it's, that's the rumor Is Odyssey trailer incoming? Full trailer. Christopher Nolan's next film, you famously have a fraught relationship

with trailers now. You don't want to watch them, you don't want things spoiled for you. I feel like with the Odyssey, it's okay. Well, but why? Because you're going to go, right? Why do you need to see anything? Okay, well, then I won't watch it.

I didn't want to do. I'm challenging what you've suggested on the show. I think with something like this, with Nolan specifically, he is so good at cutting trailers, just like PTA is so good at cutting trailers, that they are an art unto themselves. What I don't like is three and a half minute comedy trailers that give away every joke or action movie trailers

that give away every set piece. But with no one, it's going to have a rhythm, it's going to have a kind of vibe to it, that I really want to, and I hope to see a lot more of the cast, too. So just gut check. The film is now about nine months away, ten months away. You didn't buy one of those tickets, did you? I didn't.

No, I already did a rant about how I don't really love the, like, 10 months in advance thing. I'm with you. I, do you think that this movie is going to live up to our expectations in a variety of ways? Nolan is coming off of arguably the most impressive achievement of his career in Oppenheimer, not just as a film, but it made nearly a big. billion dollars. He won Best Picture and Best Director at the Academy Awards, and he confirmed himself as a legendary all-time filmmaker. The world leaders took important lessons from it.

Well, I mean, perhaps that is the case, unfortunately. This is a tough act to follow. It is. Any trepidation? Is your excitement through the roof? I think it's cool that he is arguably taking the only biggest, bigger swing that he could have taken in a sort of huge myth like this. because it would have been, I would have been fine if he was like,

I have a little like tennity kind of thriller idea or like we had talked about should you do like a horror movie or something, palate cleansing like that. But this is about as big of a shot

as you can take after something like, well, I want to depict the making of a nuclear bomb. I listened to him on the Directors Guild of America podcast because he interviewed Benny Safty

about the smashing machine because of course Benny Star was one of the stars of Oppenheimer and he loved the smashing Machine Nolan. And he said, I don't think you'll see a better performance than the Rock and the smashing machine. I don't know if I completely agree with that, but I really like the Rock's performance in that movie as well. And it was a really cool conversation because you can't imagine two filmmaking styles more different than what Safty does and Nolan does. And Nolan, you can see,

is literally asking him questions to acquire information. Really? And he's not saying I'm going to use any of what you're sharing with me, but his curiosity, I think, makes it a really cool conversation. And I don't suspect that the Rock is going to show up in The Odyssey. But you never know. No, I mean, it would be weird if they had like all these actors and then they were like, and then there's a special appearance by The Rock. That would be a bit strange. Other news, you mentioned Michael Mann said that he's pro-AI. No, Michael Mann, he got tired as this. He received an award at a French Film Festival over the weekend. I believe it was in Leon, but I can't remember. You weren't there. I was not there. I was saying out with you. But he gave some updates, but he

talked about needing to move it from Warner Brothers to Amazon in order to make it the way he wants to make it. He will have a theatrical release. He's going to shoot it next year. He says, and he talked about de-aging. Now, I think if it's okay for your beloved Marty, it should be okay from my beloved Mikey. The act of de-aging?

Yes. Yeah, I mean, in theory, have done well. The Irishman, it's not done all that well. So that's one of the big criticisms of the film. It may have been a little earlier. you know, if the Irishman had been done now, would it have looked better? I don't know. I'm not sure.

But we were talking about the tools that were being used, and there was a suggestion that he would use, that someone would use artificial intelligence to do it. Somewhere along the line, it was like Michael Mann's going to use AI to DH people. And I think that might be, like, adding something to something that he didn't say. I see. That being said, it does sound like he is shooting the whole boat, like, of heat too. Can we just pull back? Yeah. Because we've been talking about this for three years.

The will heat to happen? Yeah. And every time it comes up, it's the only time I've ever seen you get tight on Mike. Yeah. Like you... I don't know. Like, what would be the heat too for you?

What would be your thing that's so precious and it excites you so much the idea of getting more of it, but the possibility of it being at all like, I don't know, like that your original enjoyment of something would be like... Probably like the continuing adventures of Daniel Plainview. Yeah, exactly. was like, yeah, we're going to go back to the well and see what Daniel's 70s are like.

Or like he does prison time and Leavenworth for killing Eli or something. No, that is a movie I would watch. Daniel Payneview, prison play. That's maybe a movie Michael Mann should make. PTA's prison movie, wow, that sounds fabulous. There's not a lot of, there aren't a lot of things like that in the world for me.

I think, he is a pure genre movie, so it makes sense for it to have a follow-up, you know? Yeah. And, you know, we both read the book. The book's pretty cool. It's got some flaws. It does. it seems like it's happening

it seems like this movie is going to happen and I'm just fascinated to make that podcast with you that's how I feel I'm looking forward to seeing it but me too you know it'll be cool I'll tell you what I'm going to get hyped up is when we start getting like weird telephoto lens set shots

of Leonardo Caprio or Adam Driver or whoever the person is going to be appearing in this do you feel that you need to be emotionally supported throughout this process or do you feel like you're going to headlong John Snow single sword into battle? I think that he is not like

Star Wars for me. It's like I'm okay with whatever winds up I don't think I'm going to be neat kick gloves. And if it comes out and it's got flaws like Ferrari had flaws which a movie I really liked but is obviously not on the same level as thief and Manhunter and heat.

I'm going to be open to criticism. Okay. Tim's new Cravable Raps are made for the times your boss said the what now or your teacher mentions that thingumabob need to pick me up snack back to reality with tim's new craveable wraps available in chipotle or ranch plus tax at participating restaurants in canada for a limited time i wanted to mention one other thing to you uh tony gilroy one of my favorite writers one of my favorite filmmakers did and or did michael clayton did the born legacy uh has a new film he's read readdying um which i'm very excited

about. It's called Behemoth. And Pedro Pascal is going to be, and it was originally going to be Oscar Isaac, but now it's going to be Pedro Pascal. And now it's another cast member, Ava Victor, who I know is a favorite of yours. Yeah, they were on the show earlier this year to talk about their great movie, Sorry Baby, and I just love the idea of Ava going into the Hollywood system. Actually, when we talked, they mentioned a bunch of movies that they had recently seen, and they were not of the Sorry Baby variety. It was like sinners 28 years later. And it was like, I just want to be inside of movies like this. And now they might be.

That's very cool. Tony Gilroy hasn't made a movie since Duplicity. That's a really long time ago. Was Duplicity the movie that he was profiled in The New Yorker 4? I believe he was. Yes, I think it was. And that's one of the great, you know, semi-recent history. That's a long-ass time ago now.

Duplicity, one of those movies that Amanda and I have always said, if you made it 99 more times out of 100, it would be improved, I think. Exactly. That it was like, there was just kind of some, it didn't quite totally come together as you would like. That's put you on the spot. What's a recent film that you feel like

falls under that rule? Like after the hunt? Well, the script is just not there for that movie. I think you should see that film. It's because somebody who has a lot of problems with the woke mob. I think there might be a lot in there that you would be interested in hearing about. I mean, maybe Black Phone 2 is an interesting example.

So we use that as a segue? It's a great segue, man. So Black Phone 2 is the new horror hit of the season. And it's really one of the only major horror releases this month, which is I find curious. So it's directed by Scott Derrickson. He directed the Black Phone as well, which was adapted from a story by Joe Hill. This new one is written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargo.

They wrote the previous film as well. It stars Ethan Hawke, our boy, Mason Tens, Madeline McGraw, Jeremy Davies, and Damien Bashir. The setup for the movie is Bad Dreams haunt 15-year-old Gwen, who we saw in the previous film as she receives calls from the Black Phone and sees disturbing visions of three boys being stalked at a winter camp

accompanied by her brother Finn. They head to the camp to solve the mystery only to confront the grabber. Yep. A killer who's grown even more powerful in death. Played by Ethan Hawke. Yes, Ethan Hawk behind a mask, or is he? We may have a Mandalorian situation on our hands.

We'll talk about that a little bit. CR. What did you think of Blackphone 2? This is a tough one, man. First of all, this is one of those, you know, it's so over, we're so back. I guess this is we're so back. This movie did really well. I always love seeing horror movies do well. I'm happy Blumhouse has some numbers on the board.

So like just as like on a point of pride thing, I'm really excited about it. The first 45 minutes to or so of this film, I was like, it's pretty interesting. This is pretty cool. I think it has a really good. good set-up scene with, well, are we spoiling? Sure, we can get into the details of them. Gwen's mother calling from the past on a Frozen Lake camp in Colorado, and kind of has a neat little setup.

Derrickson does some really fun stuff with switching from an almost, like, abusively high-definition shooting style with the present tense stuff to a really, like, scrappy 16 or 8mm dream scape kind of style when Gwen is having dream sequences, but there are just too many dream sequences, and they're really repetitive. They don't go anywhere psychologically too fascinating. Their symbolism of them is not particularly interesting.

And then what happens is the film is relying so much in the first act on mood and creep that when it gets to the second act, it makes the choice to explain this, really, really elaborate new connective tissue between the first film and the second film and everybody's newly acquired sort of purpose in this second film. And it's a really tough example of, I think, something that's plaguing horror movies right now, which is this over-reliance on expository dialogue to connect possible franchises rather than just telling

a scary story. It's really hard because it seems like Derrickson just wants to make a very different movie from the first movie that he made, but he needs the first movie. one, because he's got what he hopes will be an iconic villain, we'll talk about that, and also wants to create the opportunity to continue to tell the story the grabber died at the end of the original Blackphone film, and so he

has to come back from the dead in some way, which then makes this a supernatural story. In the first film, there is this sense of psychic powers and a relationship to the dead, but not really from the grabber's perspective. It's more from the kids' perspective, these two his brother and sister who are at the center of the story.

So they come back, And the movie makes a couple of, I think, really bad choices. One, there's a huge retcon from the first film, which is that we're meant to believe that Gwen and Finney, these two kids, that their mother has committed suicide, and so that they have this native trauma. And that's what's, like, destroyed Jeremy Davies' character. He's, like, drinking all the time now.

And so they're just a broken family. And there's not too much time spent on explaining that, but this movie goes back and shows us that because their mother has actually witnessed the grabber in the act of committing crimes that he then identifies that she has seen him and his brother at work and so he goes out and he kills her

and then stages a suicide attempt in their garage which then the family believes that's what happened to their mother he's not really staged the suicide attempt of the many other children that he's killed this is just kind of a convenience of storytelling to then motivate Gwen and Finney

to become more invested in the story and to create this long arc. It's also an opportunity for the grabber to go into this dream world where he can do his killing, a la Freddy Kruger. And his ability to basically be only visible to Gwen, but physically manipulate her to other people.

So there's a cool scene in a camp. A lot of this movie is set in like basically a Rocky Mountain youth camp. So you have your mess hall. and your cabins and everything. And Derrickson gets a lot of cool imagery and a lot of cool vibe coming out of that. It's a really good idea to do summer camp, but at winter.

But there's one like cool set piece where Gwen is being thrown around and attacked by the grabber, but only, you know, the audience can see it. But when the other people come in, all they see is Gwen like flying around and about to get thrown into industrial ovens

at a youth camp. Sure, absolutely. And so that was a cool moment, but there is really, I think we'll probably both identify the same moment where this movie turns over to Damien Bashir and he is given the really unfortunate task of having to explain all the crimes of the grabber

committed while he was a counselor at the camp. The nature of like these three missing boys, they come up with this idea that they need to disson. discover the boys' bodies to release them from the darkness purgatory that they are in. Sure. And that they will also then, by doing that, take away the grabber's power. And then there is another long conversation with Finney and Damien Bashir that is also about the mom and is also about like the responsible. And you, I honestly, like, there should be a statistic for like how long did these two scenes feel versus what their run time?

And it honestly felt like 35 minutes. I mean this is really one of the major problems with the movie is it's one hour and 55 minutes and it feels longer than that and horror movies should not be boring if a nightmare on Elm Street is the framework for this the inspiration for this there's not a single nightmare on Elm Street movie

that is over 97 minutes with the exception of a new nightmare which is this like seventh film in the franchise riff on the existence of monsters and filmmaking and the movies is too long And it's too worried about having to make everything make sense because I think the filmmakers and the writers know that it doesn't make sense that you actually can't make this story

and you can't make the grabber supernatural in this way and make it comfortably coherent when you're testing a movie like this. I wonder what it would have been like if they would have stripped out a lot of the exposition, if we would have just been like, it's a crazy ride. And somehow the grabber has grabbed more powers. And we were just comfortable with that. And they didn't worry too much about making sure

that we know that they know that this is kind of incoherent. Right. But it really slows the movie down really dramatically. It seems like maybe the Ethan Hawk grabber character needed to be supernatural

in the first one. Or then the second one, the grabber needs to be a mantle that killers take on. And that he has become infamous in serial killer, you know, war. And, you know, like Ghostface,

people take on the mask and take on the behavior and haunt you know, different areas. Are you volunteering as tribute to be the next grabber? No, I'm just saying like, this is where you kind of like, you get to a crossroads in a franchise and you need to make a decision. Are we going to like break all rules and then spend a lot of time

trying to explain the new rules of supernatural grabbing? Yes. Or can we just have a grabber in every movie who's like a new guy? Yeah. And it's like, if you're a really, if you're a big fan of horror or big fan of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, the obvious inspiration for this movie is Dream Warriors, which I just happened to watch

like a month ago and Dream Warriors is the third Nightmare and Elm Street movie directed by Chuck Russell really underrated to some people maybe even me the best Nightmare and Elm Street movie

and it's about a collection of teenagers who come together to Battle Freddy and they have something in common and they're bonded by these haunting experiences that they're having but the movie is really fun and has a sense of humor

and has a real sense of play with the gore this movie is deathly serious aside from Hawk kind of hamming it up in the vocal performance there's not really much to laugh with I didn't think the first one was much of a laugh right but it did have James Ransome

briefly featured in Blackphone too and had that weird like oh you're trying to make like Rivers Edge or yes well I felt the Goonies was like a part of what they were going for in this one or sort of like the kids go on an adventure

but it's not fun. It's got to have a lot more fun I know. I know. It's rough. I mean, it's ultimately not successful. And yet it did succeed at the box office. And we've talked about it before. Blumhouse had been on this pretty strong cold streak. Jason Blum went on the town podcast after Megan 2.0. Didn't do well at the box office. Just this year, if you look at the performance, Blackphone in one weekend has already outpaced every single film. They've released Wolfman, made $34 million worldwide. The woman in the yard made $23 million. Drop made $29 million. Megan 2.0 made $39 million. All those films to me are subpar, and Black Phone 2 is subpar. They do still have five nights at Freddy's two coming, which most people assume is going to be huge.

The first film I just didn't get it at all. I didn't play the video game. I didn't think it was interesting. I didn't think it was scary. I didn't think it was fun. It felt like a kind of, you know, Leo and once upon a time in Hollywood meme for kids who are now

who played the game when they were 11. Actually, keeping Hollywood alive is creating that sensation. I know, I know, and that's unfortunate. But the grabber is not, he's not Freddie and he's not Jason. And he's not, you know, he's not, is he going to, it seems like there will be a Black Phone 3 because of the success of this film. And part because this has been an apocalypse at the box office in October.

It's been a very bad month for movies. This is usually a pretty cool month. Which is sad because there's actually a couple of really good things in the theater. Good films, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tron Aries, I mean. What did you think of that? You should show up. to a screening of Tron Ares and announce yourself as Jared Letto.

I was just going to make that joke, but I'm not dressing, but not changing my look at all. Yeah, yeah, and going with a bad brother hat. Yeah, that'll be great. Just be like, what's up, guys? It's me, Jordan Catalano. Some controversial things about me. What's your favorite letto? Panic room. Yeah, that's a good one. He's really good in Panic Room. Sorry, I don't know why. I just was like, look at me, Jared Letto. You could still do it.

Get a single on Chris, Jack, right now. He's going to look down the barrel and tell you about panic room. I love Jared Leto and Dave Dombrowski. So let me sidetrack here since we're thinking about Leto. I love Letto and Fight Club as well because it seems like Fincher is really like, I'm going to fuck this pretty boy up, which is one of the funniest things about that movie. For Halloween, Alice has decided she's going as Elsa. But Elsa from Frozen, too.

Okay. So she wants her mother to go as Anna, her sister. and she wants me to go as Christoph. The prince, right? Or is he their lumberjack? Okay. Is there a lumberjack in Frozen? Not exactly.

No, that's not how it works. But she said, if you do, you have to dye your hair blonde. You can still do it. And, you know, Leto famously bleach blonde in that. If I just walked in one day, bleach blonde. You know who's really making that work right now? Who? Hitmaker.

And I think... Well, he's gone bleach gray. Yeah, but I think it was Shock White for a minute. Okay. Was it? I thought it was Bleach gray, like on purpose, like a stylistic choice.

And I agree. It looks, Tim looks amazing right now. I think you could do it. I think it would be like intervention time, though. Like, it would be like, is Sean okay? Could you guys, if I do it,

could you guys just not address it? I think that, I mean, yeah. I think that would be amazing. Maybe we should cut this out and then I'll do it And then we'll play this in the future. So everybody can know why. Okay, I'm going to consider that.

So Graham, how many days did Ethan Hawks shoot on this movie? He has been promoting it. He has talked about his hopes for the franchise. I just spoke with Ethan Hawk for the lowdown a couple weeks ago. Wow. Must be nice. It was a delightful hang. He's the man.

And he's like one of the great interview subjects. He's such a raconteur. I really do feel like somewhere he and Pedro Pascal are fist bumping and drinking peanut coladas and just being like, who would have thunk it? Like, this is the fucking best gig in the world. Somebody is in that basque. If Ethan Hawke spent all this time trudging around the snow,

then he's the realest real one there is. If you were a child murderer, would you want to come back and seek revenge on He Who Killed You? I guess. I mean, what else were you going to do? like, I don't know. Just get in the mind of a child murderer. Like, I mean, like,

burning an eternal hell. I think that would be the other option, right? You can't just like, there's no Malcolm Gladwell books in the eternal hell? You're talking about it. Blink, huh? This is really, really provocative. If only I'd known when I was child murdering, I could have used some of these tools. I wanted to ask you, though, with the grabber.

So, like, your mileage may vary on him. But do you think a health. horror ecosystem is powered by its villains. Like a healthy horror moment is powered more by villains or is it more by form? Like when we have a found footage run, when we

have a tongue-in-cheek comic kind of run. Like what do you think? Or do you think like, man, we always need to know that in two years the grabbers coming back? Each new era is not defined by a great villain but it features a great villain.

So if you look at, leather face and Michael Myers if you look but you know Night of the Living Dead is a is a horde sure it's not a single character the zombie is the idea

and then it becomes this portal for social point of view but you know Freddie and Jason and then I guess you could say ghost face but to me the script of scream is what makes it so special

the ideas the way that they're executed by Craven and then in the 2000s you know you could probably point to hereditary get out maybe earlier in the century you could point to saw and hostile.

I was going to say jigsaw probably. Yeah. So, I mean, those characters are there, but I feel like there's a very select few. Freddie and Jason are probably the ones that you cite the most. Though, you know, Bill is a huge Michael Myers fan, for example. Yes. Those are the ones that you point to and you say, like,

these are the definitional guys of the 80s. But to me, it's more like, is the movie strong, is the movie's ideas and execution strong enough? And that's the thing that sets us on a new course. It might be time for a new course in horror. That's kind of how I want to pivot into this conversation with you about the year because this year I think is a paradox. It really is because I think there's a question we have to answer. Is horror too good now? This is what I've been thinking as well. We have an insane

imbalance between greatness and everything else. And if you just, three of my five or six favorite movies of the year are horror movies. I love horror just as much as you do. I can't remember the last time this was true, but sinners, weapons, 28 years later. All tour-driven,

not quite original, but close to original projects. Backed by big studios with huge swings. Tons of ideas. Wild performances. An incredible layering

of music and thematic ideas. and formal attempts at big, you know, emotional moments. And these movies are great. And the first two are massive hits. Yeah. Like exactly what we're always talking about. Yes. You know, we're just empower somebody with an idea who's a great filmmaker and let them run.

So, hooray, right? That's what we all. We did it. We did it. And we've been banging the drum for years, not that this has anything to do with us, about how directors should be diving into this genre because it's a place you get to do so much different stuff.

And if you just provide even less than half a dozen scares, audiences will go wherever you want. And Weapons is a great example of that where, what are there like three jump scares? Three scares. In that movie? Yep.

And people are mesmerized by it. Sinners, you pretty much see what's coming. I mean, that's also a reliable horror thing is like, yeah, I know what I want. And I know you're going to give it to me and I know there's going to be a vampire siege in about two hours, play some music. I'm fucking here.

28 years later, completely amazing ideas about grief and loss and parenthood and childhood. And as long as you get an iPhone halo running around a naked zombie alpha, we're down. We're down for whatever. So I think we've been advocating

for really interesting filmmakers to get involved. And it's still a reliable place for me, at least, to discover new voices and new filmmakers. But there's something strange about when that upper tier, that top end of the genre is getting almost sucked up by like some of the best filmmakers we have alive.

And then that middle part that I think is the reason why you and I became fans of it in the first place is so that we can watch Sleepaway Camp or we can watch, you know, shocker or whatever. It's just not reliably as entertaining. It's like I'll still go see it and I still get cheap thrills out of some of it. And I find that like now I'm almost like exclusively being entertained by like the lower rung, independent, low, low budget stuff that I am the like the drops or the Megan's or the night swim or what was the pool movie? That was that was this year, wasn't it?

No, that was a couple years ago. Yeah. Was it? Yeah. Anyway, that should be a fun movie. Yeah, this year it was like until dawn came out. That was just not very good. It was a video game adaptation from Sony.

Did you really? I thought it was okay. I thought it was really bad. I think studio horror is in this weird place where you don't just need a solid filmmaker. You need a great filmmaker at times, with some exceptions. One of the key exceptions for me is Final Destination Bloodlines.

That was IP. That's exactly what we're asking for, though. Yes, but that is something that had sat on the shelf for a while. People had forgotten about. I told this story a few times, but when we saw it to Cinema Con, I was like, oh shit, yes.

they actually are letting them do crazy stuff with this movie and take chances. And it was a relatively modestly budgeted movie that went on to be a pretty massive hit this year. You know, you've still got the Conjuring Last Rights, which I didn't think was very strong ultimately, but I think may turn out to be the biggest movie in the Conjuring franchise.

I'm sure it is, but it suffered from a lot of the same stuff that I thought Black Phone 2 did, which was just like endless, endless amounts of exposition. Yeah, and baggy and long. Osgood Perkins is an interesting character in this discussion. The Monkey is one of the most successful horror movies of the year coming off of the success of Long Legs. I like Long Legs more than The Monkey.

He has another movie coming in a month called Keeper. I do not know why Keeper is coming out on November 14th and not October 24th. I wish we could, we need to have an intervention with the studios. Why are we putting horror movies in November? I know you're competing against each other, But please, please, in October, when I'm obsessed with seeing as many horror movies as I can, let's try to put them there. Yeah, it's like avoiding Shark Week if you're a shark. You know what I mean?

Like, we gave you a whole month. It's very strange. Oz fits into the Coogler-Kreger mold. You know, he is an otore. He's a writer-director. He's on like his, he's sticking with horror. He's on like his eighth horror movie at this point. And wasn't he also in the Texas chainsaw sweepstakes?

He was, yes. And he was not ultimately selected, right? It was J.C. Mulner. Yeah. I really like Oz as a filmmaker. I think it's basically like story dependent for his movies. And those are kind of the big fish this year. The smaller stuff has been a bit more of a disappointment to me. I've tried to watch a lot.

I think it's been... I haven't been as adventurous, I would say. in terms of what I'm finding I can remember a couple years ago a number of films I saw that were just posted to YouTube and I haven't gotten that deep this year with new stuff

but I don't have as much huge passion projects and the other thing that I think is that Shudder has kind of continued this dominance of acquisition where most of what you'll want to see if you're a big fan ends up on that service

eventually in any given year and there's this interesting thing happening where I think in the aftermath of in a violent nature and late night with the devil and those movies doing pretty well theatrically they have started pushing more of their films into theaters which I think is great

Hellhouse lineage I think is in having a theatrical run now which is kind of unheard of for Hellhouse I mean I'm sure it had brief appearances but not like this movie is out for like three weeks before it gets to shutter after Halloween or like October 30th yeah yeah good boy is currently in theaters right now

right now, the dog horror movie. Dangerous Animals had a stretch in theaters earlier this year. So there have been a few. I have another point that I'd like to just throw out there. I don't know if you've noticed this. I did a little bit of more cramming this year. But my wife and I have kind of kept up the usual rhythm of like one or two times a month. I just go to, I go to like some reliable review sites.

There's a really good columnist, Eric Piperg, in the New York Times, who does four. five horror movies to stream right now every month. And that's a really useful tool. But she and I and my wife and I still watch like two horror movies a month. It has been a bad year. And one of the reasons is there's two. One I think is production based where you're still seeing the after effects of COVID and strikes and stuff like that where a lot of the setups,

but a lot of the executions just feel very barren. So it's really, really relying on. isolation one or two handers creep over actually being able to show anything scary so a lot of like something went bump in the night but you don't really see the bump unless it's like in a shadow somewhere and furthermore I think the long tale of hereditary has really started to affect a lot of the movies that I usually would enjoy where it's just way way way too much about the trauma of the characters instead of the scares of the movie. I'm really down for the balance. But I think we've really over-indexed for like 90 minutes of somebody mourning their dead mother and five minutes of

finding out that their mother is a ghost. I always point to The Strangers as the best example of this, of the complete mystery of the terror of that movie. And that's part of the reason why it's so effective. And now we find ourselves in 2025 with The Strangers Chapter 2, which features a huge origin story about how the strangers came together to begin killing people. And it's like, I don't want that. Right. Let those strangers kill people and be strangers. Be a stranger to me.

Don't be a friend to me, a stranger who kills. And there is like, there's just a little bit too much explanation. And I'm trying to figure out what it is. I understand certainly the huge impact that Hereditary made and a handful of other movies. And like the elevated horror idea. That whole run, we've talked about that before. Every year we talk about this, that comes up because you can feel it kind of baked into the premise

where you can almost feel the filmmaker in the room with the executive and saying like, so this happened because of this. And I reflected on this in my personal journey, and I thought it would be important. And all of those feelings are valid, but... Respectfully keep it out of my horror films. And this is what happens.

This is like part of the allure of the genre is that you can fit so many different things, you can Trojan horse them in because you're like, I have scares every 15 minutes. Yes. These movies don't actually have scares every 15 minutes anymore.

Like, I think we've really gotten away from some of the reliable rewards of this genre. So I remain obviously steadfast a fan. I've probably watched more horror films than any other kind of movie this year. But I just found it a little bit more difficult to find some hidden gems for you.

Let's get into the things that you did like. We can do some obvious. stuff to start. You know, VHS Halloween is out. One of the best of the series. This is one of the only reliable things in my life that every year

Shudder gives us a new VHS movie and has a new sub-theme every time. They're hit or miss. You know, I wasn't as crazy about VHS beyond as I was VHS-94. VHS Halloween's pretty good. Did you have any favorite segments? I kid print.

Yeah. Alex's is is very fucked up. I know we're going to talk to Alex, but I wanted to ask you, I was listening to you and Amanda talk about Roof Man. Does Kid Print go into Girl Dad movie of the ear? Contention? How do you fucking feel watching that?

For whatever, well, it helps to know Alex. Sure. It helps to know what he, what lights him up. It makes it a little easier to disassociate from some of the horror of that film. And that is a very horrifying film. And it exists inside of what is otherwise, I would say, a fairly antic and at times colorful and playful VHS installment.

Some of the earlier films I found to be really dark and fun. Like more like faces of death. Yeah, yeah. They're really, really intense. The franchise, like, attracts a lot of different kinds of filmmakers. International filmmakers, men, women. And this one in particular because you've got Halloween parties and trick-or-treating and candy and Halloween music. Like, those are all components of this movie.

movie. And so it feels a little lighter and brighter. And we both love Halloween. There's nothing better than just like wandering around Los Angeles in October and just taking in the vibe. It's just so it's really great out here. But Kidprin is fucked up. And Alex went for it. And I salute him for that. What else? Within VHS or just in general from this year? Sure. If you have any of the others you want to cite. I liked the Kuchiku one. That was a really good setup. Yeah. There's some girl dad stuff in that one too. Yeah, but this was a really great effort on this series. I have a couple that I bet you and I.

I think these, I think dangerous animals and bring her back are probably what aside from like the big box office ones that we talked about are probably the ones most people have seen or enjoyed. So dangerous animals, a Sean Burns really sadistic shark movie. Now shark films don't always have to be horror films. They can be thrillers. They can be survival movies. I felt like this one was much more of a serial killer horror film that happened to feature sharks. 100%. And was diabolical.

And really, you know, if you think you like shark movies, I dare you. Well, it's one of the first, I couldn't think of another example. I'm sure this exists somewhere in the history of shark movies. But I'd never quite seen a movie where a killer utilized a shark. as a shark as the weapon as his machete or his axe or his, you know, knife glove.

Yeah. And Jai Courtney is just on one in this movie. I think I'm a little more mixed on this movie than you are, but I think Jai Courtney is incredible and is a great villain. It's a really great idea.

There's also like a... I thought effective, but probably maybe this is what you're talking about is the main character is this... This girl, the American girl wandering Australia surfing kind of like finding herself and it's like 30 minutes of her like kind of

hanging out. I don't know if that may be bothered you or was it just all the stuff on the boat. It's a little slow going. I mean, if I had seen the trailer for this movie, I too love all shark films. And this set up the open, the cold open of the film of the couple, the tourist couple that gets on the boat and encounters Jai Courtney, that sequence is in the trailer. Oh. And when I saw that, I was like, this is going to be fucking sick. This is going to be a movie where a guy keeps inviting people on to boats and feeding them to sharks. And it's not really, it's more of a survival. It is more of a serial killer survival final girl kind of film.

And it just is a little bit, I found it to be a little bit baggy. But I thought Jai Courtney was amazing and the general conception of it was really cool. Now, speaking of shark films, have you seen Beast of War? No. Okay. That's apparently like Australian soldiers stranded in the water. Sharks come from them. Wow.

I've heard good things about that. Wow. That's like my uncle's Portuguese man of war story. Yeah. Yeah, you don't want that. What you don't want to be is on a boat and stuck in a place where there's creatures in the sea and they're interested in you. I just rewatch Creep Show 2.

Do you remember? Have you seen Creep Show 2? Not in a long time. You remember the raft where the four kids swim out to the raft and there's like a something looks like an oil slick? I do remember that. Yeah, it's a good one. Bring her back?

Has it grown shrunk in your memory since you've seen it? I'd like to rewatch it. I think I went in with not the best headspace after talk to me. I really like with the Philiposer or a back. out as filmmakers, I just thought they took an incredibly dire energy into the movie.

And I think some people like that and sometimes I like it. So maybe I'm being a hypocrite. I think this is representative of what I was talking about with like the sort of long tale of hereditary where I thought talked to me

had some of the, what a great fucking time this movie is. Like plenty of just absolute misery in that film too. Yes. had a lot of like kids at a party fucking around going too far

and just a lot of like cool shit until it gets really really really dark bring her back almost instantaneously is an absolute slog now it's it's got really a really good Sally Hawkins performance it's very well made incredibly disturbing scenes but had the promise of being like

a woman finds like a resurrection method on the dark web and is trying to bring back her dead child by basically fucking around with foster children and I was like this is twisted. It's the rare movie

where I wanted to see the prequel more than the movie. The prequel about the development of the rituals. You know, what we see on those VHS tapes in the beginning, which that stuff is so effective

and so unsettling. And the movie itself is, you know, it's a character study about grief with kids in peril. Yeah. And it just isn't

what I was hoping it would be, but I, I should return to it, because I do think those guys are really talented. You've got Strange Harvest on the list. Yeah. I thought this was a cool movie. I don't know if it was a scary movie,

even though it is very clearly horror. Explain what Strange Harvest is. So it's pretty much a note-for-note, true crime doc. Like, if you put it up against Netflix's, um, uh, Nightstalker, uh,

Doc, you wouldn't really notice that many differences. This comes from one of the guys who worked on Grave Encounters, which is kind of a legendary, not legendary, but a very well-regarded found footage franchise from like 2011, 2012. Stuart Ortiz, and he made this film where essentially it's straight to camera to the detectives who worked on a case of a serial killer over the course of several decades in the Inland Empire in California.

a lot of the like inland empire stuff is really good a lot of the language of the visual language of the movie is essentially taken straight from true crime docs so a lot of drone shots a lot of body cam footage a lot of you know interview style talking head exposition and the thing that makes a difference is like the uh suggestion of like a supernatural occult kind of power of the serial killer that is beyond the comprehension of the detectives. But if you, it never breaks, it never breaks its character as a, as a film. It's always this true crime doc.

So, like, I enjoyed it. I think I thought it was going to go up to a crazier level than it did. Yeah. It kind of holds, it holds the tension, but never releases it. Yes.

And that's an interesting choice for a horror movie that ultimately feels more like an exercise than a movie. Yeah. but is really pretty well executed considering its budget. Savvy. You know what I mean?

Like I think that you can pitch this as two different things. You can make it probably effectively, like on a low budget. And I thought that the casting of the detectives especially was like, I can't really tell if these are actors playing detectives or detectives. Yeah, and they have to do so much work because they're essentially explaining the movie all the way through. and that's a tough gig. I was pretty impressed at this. I would really want to see what Ortiz does next

because I think it's not easy to do something I haven't seen before in the genre and I just have not quite seen this in that way. I wanted to talk about this in conjunction with Shelby Oaks,

which is coming out this week, which is a new horror movie from Chris Stuckman. Chris Duckman is a very well-known YouTube movie reviewer and beloved. has been doing it for a really long time and he has long had aspirations of making a movie and he raised, he crowdfunded financing

for his original horror movie which is also about the disappearance of a series of people in this case a series of sort of ghost hunter supernatural investigator YouTubers. Okay. And I ultimately didn't think the movie was all that successful but one of the reasons

why I feel like I need to see it again in part because it uses a somewhat similar convention to Strange Harvest in that in its opening segment it presents as the making of a true crime documentary about the disappearance of these YouTubers

and it's really clever because they're YouTubers. So there's a lot of footage of them and a lot of footage of their investigations which the true crime documentarians can utilize to help tell the story. And then, and where the movie kind of breaks very unfortunately for me, is that it transitions away

from being a true crime documentary there's a late in the film title sequence and you get like 28 minutes in and it's like Shelby Oaks. Yeah. And then it just becomes a traditional narrative horror film where you're following the sister of the girl who has disappeared but is believed to be alive.

Okay. And that stuff just doesn't work as well. Also like so he made a micro budget version of this and then I think was it a studio came in and was like we're going to give you more money to like kind of it seems like there was some reshooting. So neon acquired the film. Mike Flanagan came on.

as an EP. You can see, I mean, Stuckman, if you watch his videos, like, he really understands movies, he loves movies. He really has a huge affinity for horror. He's talked about horror all the time. He'll talk about the smallest horror movie in the world on his show. I have a lot of respect for what he does. It's actually

kind of a fascinating testament to how hard it is to make a movie, especially an independent movie. Because even if you have a good idea, following through on it, making sure you have the right cast, and then trying to do something different is not, that's why I think Strange Harvest is a fascinating achievement, because it is trying to do something different, and it holds it. It accomplishes what it wants to do. Shelby Oaks is worth

checking out, but I don't know what happened, because the movie was recut since it played, I want to say a premiere of Fantastic Fest last year and was picked up out of there and was re-edited and maybe there were some things added to it as well. Interesting experiment. I can't wait to check it out. Yeah, it's a cool movie. The next two on your list I have not seen. Okay, so there's two I want to recommend that I can't really talk about because if people have any interest in seeing part of, I would say without giving anything away is like the plot twists so one is night of the reaper which is um a movie from brandon christiansen which is kind of a riff on house of the devil and scream i would say uh and babysitters serial killers really awesome opening segment has that i think shutter has been

making a lot of or acquiring a lot of stuff that is 80s retro okay and has that kind of beginning of Halloween Suburban Streets synth score the John Carpenter font Night of the Reaper

Is it self-conscious about all of those things? I think it's self-conscious about the aesthetic

but the story itself is a different beast and I enjoyed this quite a bit and then another one

that is somewhat plot dependent so I can't really talk too much about is marshmallow

which is from Daniel de Purgatorio and it's a comedy horror set at a summer camp where something is wrong with the, and I will just let the ellipse go there.

Something is wrong with something at this park. Can you watch that? That is also on Shudder, I believe. Yeah, so both of those are available on Shudder. The one I'm most excited to talk to you about, though, is Invader. So this is Mickey Keating's new movie. I haven't seen this. This film is produced by it and features heavily

as a performer Joe Swamberg and was made with the Swanberg ethos of run and gun. We're just going to like go out there into the like Chicago, outer rim Chicago and make a movie. Mickey Keating has made a bunch of really interesting horror thrillers, Carnage Park, Psychopaths. Offseason was his most recent one, which is a much more comparatively stately film

about a woman who gets trapped on an island off of like the coast New England, I think. Yes. Starring Jocelyn Donahue from House of the Devil. Right. This one, Invader, here's the premise.

A Mexican woman is arriving in Chicago on a bus. She is supposed to be visiting her cousin. She keeps calling her cousin. Cousin's not picking up. She goes to her cousin's house. Cousin's not home. Goes to her cousin's job.

They're like, she didn't show up for work. She's fired. And then everything goes from there. It is 70 minutes. And Mickey Keating has talked about this film in relationship to, like, the Dardin brothers and Michael Hanakeh and Harmony Corrine way more than John Carpenter or West Craven or anything else. I will say that if you turn this on and you get about five minutes in and you feel like you need to throw up because the camera work, stop the movie because it doesn't get any better. It is a punishing, like, experience. It's like green grass with the steady cam turned off.

And I'd say that knowing green grass is not used toady cam. You know, it is like swinging the camera around. There's one scene where Joe Swamberg plays a character who you're supposed to take as Invader. He is the invader. And he is swinging a hammer at like the floor of a house. And the camera follows the hammer. So it's basically going in a giant circle. Yeah.

And it's pretty like disorienting. That's out of the Jack Torrance swinging the act. What Kubrick does with that, yeah. And they apparently had like a 90-minute cut, and they were like, we kind of can't do this to people. You know, so it is, I think it's 70 minutes, but it is incredibly punishing, but really, really, really cool. I'm very excited. Is that VOD?

Yeah. Okay, yeah. I didn't see it streaming anywhere. I'm going to check that out. That's very exciting. You always have a couple. Even in a down year. If you want to challenge yourself and see like a really cool movie, I would recommend this. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime.

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all the same. The form of standard and mini regrouped, what's the aband? And the embellage, too beau, who is practically

to give to them. And I know I'd like the Summer Fridays and Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez. I'm, I'm sure.

The more ensemble the Cado of the Fettos is rare beauty way, Cifora Collection and other part of

VIT. Procurry you these formats standard and mini regrouped for a better quality of free. A couple movies we haven't mentioned Presence,

Stephen Soderberg's ghost story, which we talked about earlier this year on the show. Stephen was on the show, actually, for that film, which I think is quite good. I don't know if it's scary. I think it's the inversion of a ghost story, yeah. What do you mean by that? Because it's about the ghost.

It's a ghost's POV, and it's just about, like, watching people scare themselves with their emotions. I've been talking to my daughter about just kind of various monsters, because when it's Halloween time you're getting a lot of the iconography and we were putting some decals up on the windows. Ghosts must be hard. Ghost is a tricky one to explain.

Right. Because it's like, ooh, cool, boo. But like, what are they? I think Casper is a pretty good gateway to ghost culture because he's friendly. He is a dead boy. Yeah. You kind of have to think about the fact that Casper is a dead boy. He got grabbed. Cassper got grabbed.

But ghosts are not. It's not easy to make that work. Yeah. Storytelling-wise. I like Presence a lot. Companion, I feel like Companion should have made like $80 million. Yeah.

And it did. 99 out of 100 and like if you want to do over. And if Companion was coming out in a week, would people be like, what is this? It definitely was a weird release date. It was like January 10th. Yes. And we could have used Companion this month.

And had a lot of the movie in the trailer. That is very true. Yeah, that wasn't ideal. But I like Companion quite a bit. Good Boy is pretty nifty I thought better as an experiment than as a movie This is a movie about About a killer

Through the eyes of his dog And the dog Incredible dog performance Like one of the great dog performances You'll ever see in a movie It's a little inconsistent with his rules About the killer and is the killer Like a supernatural being or not

Should we get the dog from Good Boy And the cat from caught stealing To have sex What do you want them to do? Make a lethal weapon for You know I thought you were trying to match them. Just like put them out in the world.

Good Boy is cool. Good Boy is also only 73 minutes, and I believe we'll be on Shutter very soon. It's in theaters right now. You haven't seen Descendant. No. So Descendant is the new movie from Peter Sellella, and it's kind of in the Benson and Moorhead family.

Okay. I believe they produced this movie. It's kind of sci-fi. It's more sci-fi. Phi. It is also in the Girl Dad Hall of Fame for all the wrong reasons. It's about a guy who plays a security guard in L.A. And he has had some sort of trauma in his childhood. We don't know what it is. And one night he wakes up and he goes outside and a beam of life from the sky hits him. And it seems as though he's being called to by aliens of some kind. And that extraterrestrials are drawing him in and in, and in, invading his world. His wife is pregnant, and that is a component of what is distracting him. Okay.

It is a big allegorical stew about that. The filmmaking, though, is really, really good, and it stars Ross Marquand and Sarah Bolger, who I believe has both been in other Benson and Moorhead movies. And I think that's also streaming on Shudder right now. Pretty solid. Descendant. All right, I'm going to check that out. The other thing I just saw on a plane seated beside my child was Jimmy and

Stiggs. Jimmy and Stiggs is the new Joe Begos movie and it is fucking crazy. It is actually kind of similar to Descendant in that it's about a guy who's a filmmaker kind of a thinly veil

Joe Begos played by Joe Begos who returns home to his apartment one night, has a few Jack Daniels, smokes a blunt, gets super high, watches a movie,

goes to bed, wakes up and discovers that aliens are in his And he has to murder the aliens. And it is an 84-minute splatter-core neon head fuck. I think I saw the trailer for this. I wish I'd seen it in a movie theater. Because I think with a crowd, it would have been a lot of fun.

It's very zany and joky. Did Alice, like, check it out every once in a while? She would turn her head. She was pretty locked in on Vampirina, which is a big, big hit this Halloween season. Disney Plus streaming show about a little girl vampir. um that is utterly fine uh i wouldn't say she's ready for jimmy and stiggs which is also a movie about like this friendship between these two guys and getting to a certain stage of your life and not quite being who you want to be but the alien kills are like very funny and very gross and then

the final 20 minutes is an incredible descent into craziness uh i thought it was pretty cool what else what else is from this year i thought i'd shout out bleeding which is i haven't seen It's a really unique kind of It's a vampire movie But it's really just an allegory For opioid addiction And the vibe of it Really reminded me of Jeff Nichols's shotgun stories

And early Jeff Nichols stuff And it's like way, way better than And the performances are way better than I like You would need to make But it's basically like What if vampirism and blood was like a drug addiction And there were addicts out there were addicts out there there who would like rob each other's stashes and od and stuff like that and it's a pretty my guy able

ferr already did this he did that's the addiction that's one of the greats yeah uh but this is pretty cool um what else there's a couple that i think are really like especially as we roll into the home stretch of halloween and maybe you can't go full cannibal holocaust with your with your partner and you want to watch like something kind of fun for example right yeah there's a few that i think are pretty entertaining. I thought Fear Street prom queen was like serviceable. Yeah. Pretty pretty decent. I mentioned marshmallow. Clown and a cornfield

is like a fun enough kind of like who done it slash slasher movie with a good clown killer. It's an interesting companion with the I know what you did last summer reboot. Yeah. Because they're both movies about Gen Z

in Slashertown. Yeah. And I actually think Cloud and a Cornfield is much more successful. maybe because it's lower stakes and it's having... Much more tongue-in-cheek, too. I think I know what you did last summer thinks it's really clever

and it's not that clever. Clown and Cornfield, it's a little clever. It's got some good kills. It's got clowns. Kind of good example. Killer clowns just works. I know what you did last summer might have been 10 times more entertaining

if they didn't have to do all the work to connect previous iterations of the movies to the film that they were made. They had just done like a straight remake and Jessica Love Hewitt and Freddie Prince had nothing. thing to do with it. I think it would have been pretty entertaining.

Yeah, I tend to agree with you. Because they cast that movie really well. They kind of nailed all the young stars. Right, because the dude from him is in it. Tyreek Withers is in it. Yeah, you've got your girl from Outer Banks. What's her name? Come on. That's your favorite show. I know exactly you're talking about. You got Chase Suey Wonders. Yeah, that's right. Is it Madeline Klein? Madeline Klein. Thank you, Jack. Yeah. She's not, she's not in your power rankings. She's not. Doesn't, doesn't rate? Okay. I haven't seen a couple of these movies.

I haven't seen Bone Lake yet, which I think is another in a long line of, like, whoops we double book the Airbnb. Oh, yeah. Right. And there's really like a really like, a couple who's at the Airbnb.

A couple arrives at the Airbnb, and there's a couple that were like to like do a lot of PTA. PDA? They do a lot of PTA, meaning parent teacher association or Paul Thomas Anderson. Public displays of affection. Yeah, I think there's a suggestion. in the trailer of some

partner swapping maybe potentially which obviously we know you're a big fan of Witchboard? You've seen the remake of Witchboard? I haven't. Have you ever seen the original Witchboard? I haven't. I watched it for the first time. I'd like to tell you about which board. The original film is from 1986 it's directed by Kevin S. Tenney

who made Night of the Demon. Tani Kattain is the star of this movie? Yeah. Can you explain to Connie Katina is. She was a big supermodel who appeared in the White Snake music video. Here I Go Again. The video is largely a performance piece by her, a dance performance. Riving on a car.

Yes. And then she was also the romantic interest of the actual David Coverdale of the frontman. I believe they were married. David Coverdell, also one of your guys. So this movie, it's about a college student who becomes obsessed with a Ouija board. And it starts to possess her. and she's eventually possessed by the spirit of a serial killer

and her boyfriend and her boyfriend's frenemie go on a journey to discover the actual history of this serial killer. I love boyfriend and a boyfriend's friend of me is like a set up. Yeah, and they're like riding around

in a 1980s convertible being like, I loved her first! Genuinely terrible movie, but also a great film. There's a remake, and I bring the remake up, even though I haven't seen it, Because it is directed by Chuck Russell, who directed Dream Warriors.

Oh. He directed The Mask starring Jim Carrey. He's a super talented. He directed the blob remake, which is also great with Kevin Dillon. Yeah. He's an awesome horror movie director, and he hasn't made a horror movie in a while. And so I'm eager to see this movie, but I was wondering if you had seen it. I had not.

No, I didn't even know about it. The only other ones, I'll say, along the same lines of, like, fun for the whole family, hell of summer, which is Finn Wolfhard. he co-directed this movie that's basically like Meatballs meets a horror movie Fred Hackinger is in this quite a your friend yeah really I found to be a completely

entertaining way to spend a night is watching this and then on the far other end of absolutely depraved is Looky Lou which is a really fucked up found footage first person horror film where is that stalking I believe that is on

you gotta do VOD for that one I believe Okay. Wow. You're just, you never cease to amaze. I scout. You really are the man. The number one person that I usually hear from when you go through this run of movies is our next guest, Alex Ross Perry. He always text me and said CR came through again with three or four wrecks that I had not heard of. So let's go to our conversation now with Alex Ross Perry. Alex Ross Perry is here. Alex, we're going to talk to you about horror anthology. The streets have been clamoring for your appearance on a horror episode. But unlike in previous years, you actually have horror content in the world. You have a horror installment in VHS Halloween, which is called Kidprint, which many people are saying is the most depraved film of the year.

Can you tell us about where it came from? His facial expression didn't change at all. You know, you have to adjust now. The facial expressions can't just be. But you were just like blanked in when he was like, it's depraved. you were like, yes? Yeah. It'd be better if I was, like, reacting.

Like, I mean, I like people responding positively to it. And I think you might even, as you like to say, to use the Sean phrase, listeners of this show might remember in years past, I feel like I often speak very highly of the VHS franchise. And I know last year when we did the episode at the offices in Manhattan, I had just watched Beyond. And I was like, man, these things are good. like what a what a what a what a thing they've got set up here we watch these every year and is that is that how you came to be a part of it sort of i had a meeting with shutter about something else that was going nowhere and is still going nowhere really and i just said it's straight to sam zimmerman programmer of shutter and VP how do you guys put those VHS things together i've always when i finish those movies i always think i should try to be involved with this then i forget about it and then the next

thing I know. There's a new one that I'm not involved in. And I always think, like, I should, I should throw my hat in the ring. And he was like, oh, we're putting this year's together right now. Why would you like to be involved? And it was really one of those things where it's just kind of as simple as that. And he said, well, here's our theme. It's Halloween this year. Last year of science fiction, we'd like things to be very back to basics, no spaceships this time around. I said, this sounds right up my alley. And it's the thing I'd most want to do. anyway, and I had this idea. Sean, you've seen my essay film Video Heaven.

I have. In Video Heaven, we unearth this commercial featuring John Walsh from America's Most Wanted advertising a service at Blockbuster where you bring your kid in to have a videotape made of them being interviewed called KidPrints. And I've always found this fascinating. And when we found this commercial, it went right in the dock. You can look these up on YouTube. If you just go on YouTube and you search 90s kid print,

You'll see hundreds of people have uploaded wavy, liminal videos of themselves really being interviewed in, I think, a very creepy way. Yeah. Even though the questions are, what's your favorite color? What's your favorite food? What do you like to do after school? It's just that weird level of quiet combined with analog video hiss and tracking that plus 30 years makes something feel creepy. And I said, I've always wanted to do something like that, like 90s kidnapping scare. He was like, sounds great, right up a treatment.

That was January. We shot it in May and delivered in July and it came out September. Sometimes it just works out. Let me ask you a pointed question because I had some friends over over the weekend. Chris was among them. And I would say half of these people are interested in horror films and the other half are definitively not. And we started talking about kid print. And some of them know you and some of them know you have a family.

you have a young child. And, you know, this is a, this is a, this is a child kidnapping and a brutal film in some ways. And the dissonance between being a parent, you know, here are some parents say, like, I can't watch anything now about kids in peril because of the feelings that you have. It appears that you have really just gone the other way on that one. It depends. I thought you were going to say, I mean, have you revealed in other parts of the show the other thing you and Chris did at this party that you've revealed?

What was the other thing? I could just read your text message Tell me I believe you said I had a birthday party from my wife over the weekend Chris and I did a tight 10 Your phrase, not mine

On a grabber Vance 2028 ticket That's right We didn't even bring us up on the Black phone two part Not because we were afraid of the political ramifications

No no I think I think if Vance really wants a chance In 28 he needs a strong second And I think graber The grabber Yeah you know the black phone three will probably be out by then you could immediately put the grabber

in charge of child trafficking because it would be like who would know this business better than the grabber himself is this what the tight 10 consisted of we're expanding on the material now but thank you for prompting that I totally forgot a comic relief style banter of yeah you know who's going to be better

at getting kids out of the country than the grabber that's literally what he does I do really think of this show as like we are the Billy Crystal Robin Williams will be Goldberg so I appreciate the comic relief everybody says that about the three of you it's very much what people say I'm curious what the rest of the conversation

you would have had was but essentially the answer to your question is somebody says to me you want to make a 20 minute horror piece you love horror you watch hundreds of horror films we wanted to be grounded and my first question to myself is well what scares me

what do I think is upsetting because that's what I want to make I don't I'm not saying what I'm about to say isn't a movie I would want to watch or like. And of course, some of the other segments in the film are this, but like, I don't find demons upsetting because I view the risk of encountering one as being very low. I enjoy a film with demons in it. I don't view the risk of like encountering some sort of mutation. I enjoy that as a narrative conceit. It doesn't really upset me because it has yet to

happen in my life or in anybody else's. My thought was just like, as a parent, this is upsetting to me. And if I'm going to make something that is designed to get under your skin, my starting point is what upsets me? And this goes back to being like 13 years old and watching Halloween. And it's like, you know what I'm saying to me is the idea that a guy could just like walk into my house and kill me right now. Like that's very upsetting. It's very upsetting that a guy could just like enter my home with a knife and murder me and my family. Yeah. That's much more upsetting to me than a great many other things that I also enjoy.

but my own fears are grounded. And I think this shows in the VHS franchise, obviously multifaceted, everybody gets their own voice. There are six segments in this film, including mine, the only one that takes place in our world. Every other one takes place in a world where humans have manifested into other beings. Giant babies. Magic exists in some form or supernatural.

And this is all great. I watch these movies every day. But that's not, I couldn't come. If I came up with, they said pitch 20 ideas, I wouldn't get there. When you push through to the other side and you're like, okay, what's upsetting to me? That's what I want to make a movie about. When you're actually in the process of writing and making the film, do you almost then like fully dive into, like, do you push past like any like, oh, this is creeping me out to even be writing this or making a film about this and then go fully into like, how could I upset Alex the viewer as much as possible? I think it's just kind of shooting from the hip

Your script is 25 pages long You don't have real estate And it's not like I want every moment to be Calibrated for maximum It's just like My whole criteria on this is I've seen every one of these films And this is now the fifth in five years Produced by the same team of producers

Shepherded by a guy named Josh Goldblum And my criteria is just You watch these films I watch them every year a segment ends, I turned to my wife and I say, that one was really good. Or I turned to her and go, I really couldn't wait for that one to be over. And my only criteria was like, I just need to make the thing that when it ends, I'm turning and I'm saying that one was great.

And that was all I was really thinking of is like when this ends, whether it's the first or the last or somewhere in the middle of the whole piece, I just want to be able to say, like, if I hadn't have made that, I would think, wow, that one, that was it. That was what I wanted. And I don't, I mean, I really just didn't think that much about it. It's a very boring answer, but it's like, this is what was great is, as conversations kind of took place in February and March, and I was finished the script by April.

Like, you're not fine-tuning. Yeah. You're just kind of like, yeah, it'd be fun. You know, this location is appealing to me. Oh, we get to do practical gore effects. Well, let's, like, remove some faces that feels within reach. Sure. You know, I'm wearing a Hellraiser hoodie, or not hoodie, just a crewneck, they're called.

today and you know just like just have some fun it's a very it's unfortunate now that the the kid print is considered so grotesque and repellent by people because it reflects poorly on me when i say like my intention is just to make something fun and gross i thought it was fun my wife turned to me midway through kid print and went oh holy shit you know like in a really impressed way so i i definitely enjoyed it but it is it is definitely like we're putting you a uh of of opening a file on you. Yeah. You know?

I think so. And I think that that's... By the way, there is a place for you in the Vance Graber administration. If you're maybe treasury of Homeland Security or health and human services, perhaps. I mean, you're just a stone throw away from like, you know, like the meme or, you know, whatever pre-meam of like it be, you know, a scarface and Corleone sitting and playing poker. You know, like, you're just a stone throw away from like the guy in the movie.

The character is called Bruce, you know, with the kid's mask on, sitting there with the grabber in advance and whoever knows who else. Horror needs great villains, Alex. Yeah, but it was just really to me, like, as a fan, just an opportunity to have fun and just mess around with something. And again, and we'll talk about like the, you know, very restrictive format of an anthology, the time allotment. And all the rest is like, okay, you could say if Kidprint, like, there's seven characters in the first five minutes, it's not a surprise where this is going. My answer is like, no, I shouldn't be a surprise where it's going. It should be a surprise how awful it is.

Like, it's obvious where this is going because this is a 20-minute segment in an anthology where four out of five of these, every single character is dead by the end of the segment. But what you should be surprised by is like, oh, that went, that went exactly where I was going, but it also went further than I would have thought because these things don't tend to go that far. Yeah, the mixed company on Saturday night felt just because, based on my description that you went too far. I don't. I think you can go further in kid print too.

I mean, keeping in mind, I'm having these conversations with people at playgrounds who I barely know. And they're like striking up a conversation. Kids teacher, I was wearing my shutter sweatpants that they gave me the other day. And I dropped her off. And she was like, oh, I love shutter.

And I was like, I wonder if she'll just like watch this and not know. I was it the doctor recently had a shutter hat on and she said the same thing. She's like, I just watched this great movie on Shudder, and it's like, you know, these people are out there. Yeah. But, every day, like, you just, well, you might pass them in the grocery store, and that person is like, you know, actually. They could grab you at any moment.

Alex, did you know how much insight are you given when you're making these about what the other segments are about, like, what the batting order is going to be necessarily? Yeah, I was fascinated by this, and I'm happy to talk about it because as fans, you probably watched all of these. And the answer is, like, nothing. Okay. It's all kind of done in a vacuum, and kind of for the producers' sake, I worry for them. It's all done concurrently, essentially. Just the limited window of like when the movie is operational into when everything has to be wrapped is like six weeks. Wow.

We shot here, we shot partially upstate and partially in Brooklyn. And then the others were shot in California and Paco Plaza's was shot in Spain, obviously. And the wraparound Diet Fantasma was shot in Scotland. But the three California ones were kind of blocked together. And at some point, Sam Zimmerman, again, who lives near me and we're at the playground. Again, like, picture me and Sam Zimmerman from Shutter at the playground while our kids are doing whatever. And we're just like talking about kid print, you know, for like the last seven months. This is a great country.

Yeah. Yeah, that's just what we're just, you know, no one knows that's what we're talking about. This is what Grabber and Vance are trying to save for us. Just like a safe space for all people is, I think, what the Grabber administration was. Yeah, for creative souls. But, yeah, at some point he listed the names of everybody, and other than Paco, none of them connected for me. I think other than Anna Zakovich, who made one feat,

I think maybe, you know, I don't think the others have made features unless I'm forgetting something. So, you know, but he's like, oh, Casper Kelly, who did too many cooks. I'm like, okay, well, I know what that is. Yeah. I have no idea what he's doing in this space, but I'm sure it will be strange. It sounds like you did not see his eulog films. No, I never did, no.

Yeah. I mean, they're pretty cool experiments. They're very, very similar to the segment that he directed for the film. Yeah, but, you know, that's a name that I was like, oh, okay, I know who that is. But they don't know the sequencing until they get the edits. I learned. There is no master plan. And even throughout talking to the producers or seeing Sam at the playground, it was like,

yeah, we're kind of figuring out where yours might go. But then I learned, and you guys might not even notice this, it's kind of subconscious when you're watching the film, leave the wraparound aside, because that's obviously the rapper was made as the wraparound, is that segments one, three, and five all involve trick-or-treating. And then Paco's and mine don't. So they were like, we kind of immediately realized

that Coochicoochee-Coo and Fun Size and Home Haunt could not be next to each other. And in that all three of the LA movies, coincidentally, we give filmmakers the prompt of a Halloween horror short, all three of them went to like, so we're on the street and they're trick or treating. And then this thing happens and yours and Pacos don't. So it was very easy to just think like, so is Kid Prince second or is it fourth? And I thought this was fascinating and also ultimately quite correct.

And yeah, it's like, I don't know, like what accounts for the fact that you give people the prompt of make a 20 minute Halloween thing? And in my mind it was like, so we're not going to do trick or treating because we don't have the money to do it and I don't want to do a bad version of it. Because what you want, I mean, I could go shoot this right now and it would look like half a million dollars worth of production design. But you do it in May and it would look terrible. And I was just like, I don't want to bother with that. So there has to be some narrative justification why there is no trigger treating, which is great because that's consistent with the story I'm telling, which is just a micro version of overthinking. How do you calibrate a story in 20 minutes that has its own prehistory?

The story's been going on since before the movie began. The story also then justifies why we're not going to have 90 extras. We're not going to have five houses lined up trick-or-treating. And I sort of lightly joked with the other filmmakers who do show exterior trick-or-treating scenes. I was like, I'm glad that you guys did it, but I'm glad you didn't do it that well because it would have made me really jealous if you'd figured out how to make this look great in May for no money. Yeah. like in HomeHont, R.H. and Michelin, they, you know, put it all into one house. And I'm like,

well, we could do one house, but one house doesn't look like trick or treating. And, you know, we all love Halloween, the classic, like, it looks like nothing. It was shot in like the middle of some other season. And there's like six people out. And that's great. But I just was like, we just need a reason that that doesn't happen. Fortunately, if child killings have been happening for a month in this town anyway we'll just like yeah we don't have the money to do it but also the story shouldn't have it happening and it was fascinating to kind of get

the insight of how these things are made because I think these guys are great at what they do like I think that the producers have created an annual event in the streaming space and I'm just seeing like in three weeks the amount of logs VHS Halloween has on letterboxed

you know it's like already way more than pavements and that movie is like a year and a half old. And it's just like, you know, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people are just clicking on this every single day for the rest of the month. And it's a really reassuring business model to be making something knowing like, well, I'm not going to be subjected to any notes or scrutiny of this. They're just going to make this as good as it can be and then release it and hope it doesn't cause people to turn off the movie before it's over, which I'm sure has happened or maybe you just skip ahead. But it's It's pretty casual process.

And again, just shooting with a release date because they were like October 3rd is when this comes out. I mean, I have such an uncomplicated relationship to this series, this franchise. It's exactly what Alex is describing. There is no, like, I wonder if this one's going to be up to snuff this year. It's like, I hit play. I get excited when the theme clicks. I was curious, Alex, whether or not, did you get any inside info or would this ever appeal to you

to do the wrap-round, because that, the idea of making a coherent story that also gets interrupted five times is, like, really fascinating to me. Yeah, I mean, it didn't come up. I think I would probably be bad at it. It's hard enough to make, for my brain, like, 20 minutes is, uh, I mean, Brian Ferguson, like, all credit to him, like, what he did with it, I think is super fun. But that, that was the one creative thing I asked at some point, because we had this whole opening sequence that we cut entirely out. And I, it was a news, report, which is now just shown on the TV, like five minutes later, and it had a lot of table setting and this and that. And we were like, how do we start? Did we start with this or that? And they

said, oh, so the wrap around, every segment of it ends with a super gory kill. And we were like, oh, okay, so like we should not start with like a lot of violent information. We should start with the kid print montage rather than starting with like, ever since his head was found, you know, 10 feet from his bottom. I was like, just give people 60 seconds to reset. And that was all the, the only question I ever asked was what happens in the wraparound. Because some of them just build slowly to one big conclusion,

whereas Brian's notion of doing a repetitive series of failed experiments was, I thought very funny. But no, that never came up. I guess they just assigned him. Again, that's a mystery of the VHS world that we'll never know. This is the kind of logical problem solving that we can expect from Van, grabber. I feel like the way that you explained how you arrived at your decisions is... That's why he's the Secretary of Transportation. It's really exciting. It was very linear in a

really refreshing way, but also just like fixating on my obvious core obsessions of like media infrastructure and distribution during my lifetime. But grounding it in again, like this is just me in my head is like, again, I say Anna has made one other feature, which I think is on Hulu. This is just me in my head as like a producer where I'm like, we're getting this amount of money and I want to build this electronic store. As many pages as possible should take place in this store

because we're not going to build it for four pages. We only have four or five days to shoot this thing. And that's the best we're going to get. So we should make this our key location and as much as possible should take place here. Let's talk about horror anthologies. I have always been really fascinated by these structures, and I also echo your feelings about VHS.

It is just genuinely comforting to have this coming every year. And, you know, they're born out of the original film and the sequel, which then also spawned, you know, Southbound came out around this time. XX came out in the aftermath of this. There was this kind of like rebirth of the horror anthology, but it has become a streaming gambit for the most part. but there's a long history of theatrically released horror anthologies going back to really the 1940s and some are good some are not so good

Alex from your perspective like what do you think are the things that define a good horror anthology well it's interesting like I was looking at your at your list you know which combined with a little bit of help from my old colleague Michael Ferrari from Kim's video has grown up well over a hundred a hundred films like I will share that list after this episode publishes. It's quite long and thorough. And what you mentioned, the initial two VHS films,

and then that sort of mini boom of Southbound and XX and others. Like, I think those were all released by Magnet or Magnolia. Back in the earliest days of kind of what was then just called day and date, where it would maybe play in a few theaters. And, obviously, we love this franchise and gave me this opportunity to tell a pretty grotesque story for, you know, lots of people, but like I think that the theatrical version of this, much like many theatrical things, just seems gone.

Like, they just can't, and why would you, why would you not make it a streaming thing when you can just drop it on the first weekend of October and have your entire audience watch it for a month, right? Like, what's the benefit of trying to get people into theaters? It's not going to be an event. I wonder, you know, Chris and I were just talking about how The Odyssey is going to have a trailer in December, I think. And Chris has been saying for years that he wants no one to make a horror movie.

It would be interesting to try to make a theatrical event out of three real heavyweight filmmakers take their crack at a 30-minute horror movie. But that's the rare instance where you might catch an anthology in theaters now. It makes the most sense of anything, right? Like, wouldn't it just make sense to kind of have these things getting made? The risk is low. I think most people like to work. I just feel like TV and other factors have kind of teamed up to decimate that as even a realistic possibility. For whatever reason, like, historically, a lot of them were always European anyway.

I don't want to get into it here, but there are union questions. Which is a great thing about VHS, really, is that the whole franchise, you may be interested, all non-sag. So you watch these films, you've seen, you see performers you've certainly never seen before. Because it's a lot of fresh faces or people who have not worked in a high-profile way, which I think is cool. itself to the films, obviously, because then it feels like you are watching found footage. Absolutely, which is always what I liked about them. I didn't realize. Like, oh, they're just non-sac. You just cast them non-sag. Because, yeah, I don't know. I guess it's just hard to say, like, yeah, we're releasing a movie. It has 75 characters in it, nine writers, nine director. Like, who knows. That's really, yeah. Yeah, I don't, I don't envy the people who untangled that.

But, yeah, the horror omnibus thing, like, I think, like, we were watching, I forget what we watched recently, kind of embarrassing. I should probably at least vaguely remember which one of these we fired up in the last couple of weeks. But I think it was a night where we were kind of tired. And I was like, well, the thing about this is like, your brain doesn't really lean away from the film because every 15, 20, 30 minutes, you're kind of pulled back into a different visual narrative. Like, this keeps your brain awake. Very much so. Do you have a preference if it's one filmmaker or multiple filmmakers for these? Well, this is something I brought up after consulting your list.

I think this really is the biggest, I think this is the biggest dividing line. And I can't tell you, as we sit here promoting a new omnibus listing. I can't. What is the last one that was one filmmaker? Is, I mean. Of the DHS ones? It was trick or treat. I think trick or treat is maybe the Mike Dardy one, right?

It's like the last big one I can think of. Is that not an easy answer for the greatest? like at least post-creep you know obviously you have your creep shows yeah it's definitely one of the best and anybody would say that I mean that movie is now iconic and I think it gets re-released

to like once a season like once every Halloween I pretty much watch that put that on yeah this is a great Halloween vibe movie yeah yeah it is and it looks great and it's cohesive because it's one person making it and it has what I think and I hope

VHS Halloween does and certainly the producer and other filmmakers can imagine is like, you can just rewatch it because it has the vibes and you know you can count on it, but, and maybe trick or treat, which I guess is an easy answer for, if not the number one for most people,

certainly top five AHA or Omnibuses. Yeah, there's a few, I mean, there's a few that are single filmmaker, Tales from the Hood is one that I think is really beloved and, you know, has a consistency. The tales from the dark side is not, right? I think that's omnibus, yeah.

Tells from the Dark Side is multiple. I'm a creep show, obviously, in Creep Show 2 were both single filmmakers. Corey Deerless. Tells from the Darkshide is just directed by John Harrison. Oh, okay. That's, well, there you go. Could that be true?

I think it's possible. You know, like Katzai, Lewis Teague did all of Katzai, the Stephen King films. There are definitely plenty of examples, but for whatever reason in the last 20 years, it has shifted entirely to this multi-filmmaker style. And I don't know. I mean, I like Creep Show more than most movies.

ever released. I don't know if it's like one of the best movies ever, but it's just the movie. Actually, I feel like you and I and I, and I mean watched it like five or six years ago together, just hanging out one October. It's just, it allows you to kind of have, to Alex's point, like, you can tap out, but kind of keep an eye

on a segment if you're not interested in it. You know something new is coming. It's a great generally all of these share and the VHS movies really do. I think like a pretty decent job sticking to a thematic vibe for each one of the of the films and yeah I think that these are like great kind of like if

you're even throwing a Halloween party you can have one of these on in the background and somebody could be like oh I love this one hold on you know yeah I was I was confused there was some either review or something of VHS Halloween that was like kid print destroys this movie's party vibes I wanted to have this on with my friends and this I was like is that what these are for Like, to me, like, I didn't, like, I thought, like, we're not 13 years old, and it's not 1997. Sean and I were to throw a party where we only show kid put on a loop. You guys, like, maybe you guys, it sounds like, have, like, parties where your friends

come over and you watch a Halloween movie, but that, apparently we ruined someone's party. And I guess that's cool. It's more, it's like, but that is, you know, I guess I just don't relate to that way of viewing. But the, I didn't think until I looked at your huge list, what is the difference between, the multiple filmmakers or one filmmaker. And it does seem to be kind of an interesting division. Well, if you, if you sort it by highest average ranking on Letterbox, the top five is as follows.

Quaidon, the Masaki Kobayashi movie, Dead of Night, the original British film, which is Omnibus, has five different filmmakers. Did Tracy, let's say you could watch Quidon in multiple settings, or did he? He said multiple sittings, yeah. Okay, good. That's confirmed. Yeah, but Berlin-Alexander plots you need to watch in full. Confirmed multiple sitting.

Tales from the hood. Mario Baba's Black Sabbath, which is one filmmaker, and creep show. And then after that, it's three extremes and trick or treat and tails from the crypt

and a handful of others. So quite a few individual filmmakers up front. Yes. And I would welcome, I mean, I would certainly welcome Alex Ross Perry's

full-fledged anthology movie. I do think that could still be theatrical to me. I don't know. If you said from the mind of Jordan Peel, three short films collected together

so he can get out of the doldrums of whatever script he's writing and just get something out into the world. I would dig that. Can I just give away a billion dollar idea?

I'm sure that they've thought of... Maybe, but I mean, to Alex's point, like, this is getting routinely like thousands of logs on letterbox. Just like casual

physicians and teachers who are wearing shudder sweatpants pants and are just like, I'm out here. Yeah. Hang on, those are my sweatpants. Those are sweatpants,

but it's your community. They were complimented. by my daughter's teacher. A couple of weeks ago, my wife was up in Portland, Oregon and went to go see the nun at a drive-in. And the aspect of this is unique is that they had, you know,

people dressed up as characters from the movie, but also just other monsters, like run up to your car and scare you at various points in the... So it's kind of like haunted hayride meets a driving. Did you enjoy that? Would I enjoy that?

I'm just like, why is Shudder not making their own drive-ins? and having, like, VHS mates. They did. I think clown in a cornfield was widely distributed at drive-in throughout the summer. Okay. Were there clowns approaching the cars during those screens? I think there might have been some, I didn't go to one, but I think there was some maybe interactive outdoor element.

But, like, I mean, I can say, like, from a production standpoint, it's not efficient to say, like, we're making four movies worth of sets, four casts, four, you know, like, that is not. not an efficient way to make anything. Yeah, they're usually single-setting pieces every time. Like, I just watched Creep Show 2, and all three of the segments, we're all single-setting stories because of what you're describing, where it's like, we need a house, we need a raft,

you know, we need, like, one place to go to shoot for 20 minutes of... Is Creep Show 2 only three? Because I feel like Creep Show 1 is six segments. I think Creep Show 2 is only three with... And the rapper is honestly not even very good, because it's animated. Okay. Which is the one you... Dancing is which one?

That's one. That's one. Dance isn't the first one where his head ends up in the... That's a great one. The tanker head ends up underwater. And Leslie Nielsen, yeah, that's an incredible. Yeah, it's an interesting thing that I'm glad you're giving an opportunity to kind of shine a light on. But like, the weird thing is, I love these movies and I would watch, I'd watch them all the time.

Nobody would be like, I'm going to a marathon of three omnibuses. That's true. Like, that would be too much information for the brain to handle in six hours. unless it was maybe creep show and creep show too, but I feel like it would just get exhausting. And I will say, I did the same thing here. I ranked your list. I've weirdly seen quite a few from the bottom of this list.

And beyond the ones you listed, there's like a big range in the top of your list of movies I've not seen, like, you know, beyond the top like 10. Yeah, I mean, part of it is because of the help that your friend provided. I mean, I think there are some, kind of 80 standbys that are outside of creep show that like waxwork and nightmares and movies

that will crop up when you're pillaging, you know, trying to get into the depths. And then there's also a bunch of like Corman made one of these. Nightmares is all one director. It is. It is. It is a fine film, but even within that is like wildly uneven in its attempt to sort of swallow up various 80s tones. Yes. I mean, you've also got a handful of movies that it felt like the filmmakers didn't have an idea strong enough for one movie so they teamed up with a close friend like body bags which is Carpenter and Toby Hooper

from 93. I also didn't know that two counted as an omnibus until I looked at your list. Well, I guess you could debate whether or not that's true. Two evil eyes is like that too. I think it's correct. I just never thought about what the limit was because there's not very many movies that are like this is two movies.

I mean both body bags and two evil eyes are made by four of the greatest horrors. filmmakers ever. Carpenter, Hooper, Argento, and Romero. And none of them are even close to the best work of any of those directors. I know. It's strange. Those do just kind of feel like somebody was offered a chance to, like, work and make a few bucks.

Yeah. And they were like, yeah, sure. Yeah. It's interesting. Looking at your, again, this is imperfect science of letterbox user ratings. A couple of things to jump out here. I'm incredibly surprised that trick-or-treat is number 10. I really would think that would be top five. Especially since it tends to overweight, I think, more recent stuff.

I'm incredibly surprised that Trilogy of Terror, this isn't numerically ranked, but it's right in the middle. I feel like that is most people's answer for like easily top tier of all time. That famously, though, was a TV movie and not a theatrically released film. I just feel like in the last 20 years, that reputation has just, I don't know, again, maybe that's just me. And then I'm quite surprised, I've not seen All Hallows Eve, the origin of Art the Clown, who really, could be on the Vance Grabber ticket. It's true. Like he's kind of assuant, but I've not seen that.

But in the bottom three, VHS viral, which is openly despised, and I have seen it. I don't remember it being like that bad. I don't remember it being that bad either, actually. I was really surprised to see it so far down the list. I guess there's a segment or two in it. People like, Creep Show 3, which I've never seen. I haven't seen it either. And Glenn Danzig's Verotica, which I have seen.

How is that? I haven't seen that. I don't know if I would say it's the bottom of all of these. It's, it's, uh, you know, I think your mileage might vary. I really respect and admire the work of Glenn Danzig and all mediums. I was just going to say, you're Danzig guy. Has Glenn Danz had gotten to direct multiple films? Yeah, he has, right?

He has two or three. Okay. One of them is like, one of them is, so Verotica is an omnibus of stories I think adapted from his comic. One of them is a Western that is called here, Death Rider in the House of Vampires. That could also be worth of watch. It does. Yeah. Has a 2.3 on Letterbox.

Is that good or not good? That is not good. Okay. I'm not familiar with this film, which it takes a lot to get a movie like this past me. In the Wild West, the mysterious death rider enters a dangerous vampire sanctuary where the price of admission is one female virgin.

This film stars Devonsawa, Julian Sands, Danny Trejo. Really? And Eli Roth. No shit. I'm not familiar with this film, Alex. You haven't seen it? I haven't, no. But, I mean, for no reason.

I watched Verodica and, again, consistent with the Glenn. Danzig project. It's probably not at the level of a Rob Zombie making his movies, but I wouldn't look at 100 films and say Veratica is the bottom,

but I don't know, maybe these other ones are all great. It feels like Rob Zombie would have made one of these. It really does. It feels like he could have at some point just thrown together, but sorry, go ahead. Oh, no, I was just going to ask,

like, do you find that most of your at home watching, especially around this time of year, is dedicated to this stuff? and if so how long does it take you to like decelerate and be ready to like watch Caught by the Tides or whatever

This is a great question I don't know what that film you referenced is but um It's a Jean-Cas new film Yeah that one's probably Probably not gonna get around to that one That is also kind of an omnibus movie Because it's about its footage

Lots of footage captured over the years From various Jajonka films anyway I digress Well that sounds a little highfalut for a guy like me I will say good this is very specific Chris and a very, you know, regimented, is basically by September 15th, we're watching a horror movie.

Me too. Every one a night. I don't know about you guys. Sean seems to have more time than most people. I watch one movie a day. We watch it when our daughter goes to bed. Starts around the 15th. It ramps up to,

and up through Halloween, but we have, I think, what's called in the horror community, a horror hangover, which starts after Halloween. Yes. So the ramp down is actually, actually a very important part of the programming.

But horror hangover, for us anyway, we tend to put off a lot of things that we want to watch, but we know now that we're like in October 20th. Like we're not going to watch a supernatural thriller now. But on November 3rd, a supernatural thriller that's not really a horror movie might be just the ticket. It's a great step.

We always watch a lot of universal monster movies in that time, like things that are in the spooky mood, but like they might not satisfy you on the 26th, and we watch a lot of like, that's when we watched Kenneth Branos Frankenstein a few years ago. Okay. That's when we watch things that are like, yeah, I mean, that's like a spooky movie,

but you get to the point in October where you're not going to watch it. You know, Chris and I were talking about this earlier. There's something very weird happening. It feels like a post-nosponial. Ratu success thing, but this year, after Halloween, we're getting Keeper, Guillermo del Toros Frankenstein, and Five Nights at Freddy's Two after Halloween. That doesn't seem, well, that's not very, not very helpful for Halloween hangover, first of all.

I don't know what you're going to do about that. Yeah, I'll look and see it other years in years past. We've definitely really planned out. I feel like this has been happening, and it's always confusing to me, but there's nothing more confusing than the like November horror release. Well, I get it because for studios, these are very reliable movies, right? They know they can continue to get people

to show up to these movies. So I understand it from that programming perspective, but just from a vibes perspective, Keeper is one of the most October 7th movies I've ever seen. They were just clearing out for Blackphone too. I guess so. Anyhow. That's need to go there. I don't have a theory on this. This is much more your wheelhouse. It just is another

I guess, is there too much good product to release? Like, this doesn't exist and it's not like um well we'll release these these christmas movies in january but i guess the i guess like last year was it heretic that came out like november 5th it was yes and you were like not you but one was like that's weird and then you watch it and you're like well this isn't really like this isn't a horror movie this wouldn't have this wouldn't have played any differently a month ago than it plays now this is fine it's kind of perfect for what you were describing right the hang over the hang of the come down this is great for that

I feel like that's allowable, albeit slightly confusing, but these are the vulgarities of the industry that you can nitpick better than most. I'm much more suited towards scrolling through this insane list of omnibuses and just wondering, like, I wonder what this is. Well, there's a couple of other things that I think contribute to this. When I was a kid, one, I was obsessed with books that did this, scary stories to tell in the dark was a huge book for me when I was like nine and was a major glide path. to getting obsessed with horror. But at the same time, the Goosepumps books and then... Those are all Aral Stein. That's the R.R.L. Stein book.

Scary stories Telling the Dark was a different author. But then... What was the name of that show? Are you afraid of the dark? Yeah, yeah. Which was a television show on Nickelodeon. That gliding into Tales from the Crypt, the TV show on HBO,

and then getting comfortable with... And then getting interested in the Twilight Zone and the Twilight Zone movie, also Omnibus. being like comfortable with 28 minute installments of horror storytelling at that age and I don't know and maybe that's we're not as comfortable with that as we are now like what's the best horror TV show channel zero but what that's on right now oh no but like channel zero is probably like the best one I don't know what that is it's um it was on I think it was on

sci-fi and it was an anthology series so each season would be a story and they were definitely the first two are really good. Whatever, no end house, whatever season that was. But they were like, those are pretty, pretty effective.

The third season, Butcher's Block is directed entirely by Arcasia Stevenson who made the first one. It's not interesting. I don't know about this at all. It feels like this is again, like a production thing where

what you're describing in this boom that we grew up with, this was almost like the easiest thing to do. Yes. Because you didn't need to have standing sets or a cast who you paid for 15 episodes. And now it's like the hardest thing to do. Yeah. Because you'd have to renegotiate the actor deals for 15 different cat.

Like it just seems like this could not have been easier at the time. It was like, I don't know, just put on a different goosebumps every week for children. And then the parents can watch Tales from the Crypt or the Outer Limits reboot or something that just kind of scratches that itch. And every time they try to do this now, it fails. And it doesn't just fail. It fails spectacularly. Yeah, Jordanfield did reboot Twilight Zone, and it didn't take off. Yeah, and there's like, Black Mirror, obviously, is basically this,

but seems to have, like, some nebulous source of BBC Netflix money that allows it to exist in this way. And, you know, really talking about Omnibus, it's, like, runs the gamut from, like, one of the best things you've ever seen to something that is so unwatchable, you have to turn it off. They're also, those are basically all bordering into feature-length films at this point. Yeah, the other problem.

Every Black Mirror is, like, 78 minutes now. Yes. Yeah, absolutely catastrophe of decision-making. But truly, some of them are things I've rewatched, and some of them I cannot get through. And that's, I guess, I guess what you want from an Omnibus. But a lot of the horror books behind me that you're upset aren't 4Ks. I read a lot of short stories, especially this time of year. And on your list here is Clive Barker's Books of Blood film, which I've never seen.

Also inspired by his work. She had nothing to do with. And I love those books. But it's funny, like, I don't remember short stories. except for, you know, if I read a collection that has 10 to 20 stories, I might remember two of them. But I remember, like, the sum total of what that book felt like. And I think a film omnibus is kind of similar, except there's obviously fewer of them. There's very few that have more than five or six.

I remember reading the King collections and feeling like skeleton crew, like, made a real impression on me. Which one's the body in? I think that's in, I can't remember. I think that's in four seasons. That's in the seasons one, because that's like, is not like the summer of different seasons? But you're right that usually you're finding these like longer collections of stories. I mean, you know, there's some of these are Poe, right? Like Corman did a Poe movie. There's a handful of Poe adaptations here.

Hammer, I think, did a Poe adaptation. It's right there. And I will say on pretty far down this list, although I saw it recently screened a print of it basically by myself at the Eastman Museum in Rochester. where, as I said, you have a standing invitation to go and select some films and as soon as I get to Rochester, I'll be there. Present yourself, but a Night Train to Terror, quite fun,

a series of different shorts that I guess maybe debatably were abandoned features that were then retrofitted into an omnibus. You know, I've never seen this. It's great. Highly, highly enjoyable. But again, I think if you believe what I read online that this is like

three or four movies that got abandoned or that financing ran out, And then, like, I think some of these segments are 15 minutes and one of them is like 45 minutes. Like, it really feels very uneven. Sporting a 2.6 on Letterbox, just so you know. I would debate that. If I was ranking on a scale of one to five, I'd give it a four. Okay.

It largely, you know, it's God and the Devil playing chess on a train that's being sort of, like, energized by a disco punk band and a bunch of dancing people in leotards. And then every once in a while, God and the devil will be like, so what about this girl? And then it just goes to this story It tells the story Yeah, it's pretty insane But I think very good And you know, it's just kind of right down the middle But it gives you a lot to enjoy

I just don't really know what happened to these I mean, I feel like the success of VHS should imply That there's more of these And I see so many things on your list here Of these like recent-ish Christmas ones Seems to be a lot of those Like

I don't really know why there's not You know, you were mentioning the TV stuff, and I, you know, I was talking, I think, I mentioned Channel Zero, but there have been two Stephen King adaptations or explorations. One was Castle Rock from a couple of years ago that was on like Hulu. And now they're doing it colon, welcome to Derry on HBO Max. I think the first episode is this weekend. And I definitely think like, I was just goodbye to Delco, welcome to Dairy. I know, exactly. but I was thinking like he's got so many collections of short stories that would make great and thought like you could just do night shift I mean lawnmower man and children in the corner in night shift

but I always wanted a little bit more of a choppier kind of like short story version of rather than like the let's get to the bottom of what's wrong with yeah that's what's great about creep show is that it's like I mean creep show is definitely the closest yeah yeah that's why it's so special because it's King and King is so good at those like

funny fucked up little mini stories, yeah. It's a really weird thing that this is so obvious. And when these are good, even, you know, good on the level of a black mirror, good on the level of VHS franchise, like, this is people want this. They just enjoy it.

And yet, as we've seen with these multiple failed Twilight Zone reboot, like, why can't this just be gotten right? This isn't rocket science. And again, I give great credit to the VHS producers for just finding filmmakers who they like, who they say, we're going to give you this much money, no more, do whatever you want with it. here's your delivery date. We're going to give you a handful of notes, but really not that many.

And, you know, is my opinion as a fan and now a partner in these, like, people like these. Like that model results in many people saying, well, that's one night of October that I will watch. And I, yeah, real, real quick, X, X here, maybe fifth to last on this list in terms of ranking. I saw, so I was at Sundance for the premiere of Golden Exit. which was at like 5 p.m. It was over at, I don't know, let's say, 7.30. Party was at 8. At 11.30, I was back in the theater

watching the world premiere of X-X. So I left the party. Sounded really great to me. I wanted to see it. I was excited. And the programmer was like, I've never seen ever a filmmaker attending a movie

the night of their own movie. And that's my relationship to XX. One thing that's wonderful about that is that Golden Exits, I think augured your first appearance on this show. Yeah, so as I recall. And it's been...

Full circle moment. Many, many sense, and hopefully many more. I wanted to give a very quick shout out to Freddie Francis, who I think holds the title of the most horror omnibus movies. Freddie Francis, actually in one of our text chains, Alex, I've cited many times as maybe the most fascinating career of all time in the movies, because he was the cinematographer. I was saying, like, the Lawrence of Arabia guy?

Well, he shot The Innocence. He shot Saturday night and Sunday morning. He became David Lynch's preferred DP who shot Dune, Elephant Man, Straight Story. He shot Glory for Ed Zwick. He shot school ties. You know, he was one of the core Kitchen Sink British cinematographers.

But he was a director in his own right and almost exclusively horror and hammer horror movies. And he directed in a very short period of time, the original Tales from the Crypt, Dr. Terror's House of Horrors. He directed Torture Garden. directed Tales of Witness Madness, many other movies. I think he's directed at least five, maybe more omnibus horror movies when not shooting

masterpieces for other filmmakers. Yeah, it's interesting. I got, after a viewing of Crepe show a few years ago, I got very into like the weird history of Tales from the Cript. And his 70s one, which has just an amazing poster art image, is really good. It is really good. Really solid stuff. And yeah, he is an intro.

I have a tape of it over there. quite an interesting filmmaker I did remember the omnibus we watched recently that I said this will keep us awake was cake of blood which I didn't text you which I don't see on this list

which is in the Severin if I can you know high counsel it for 30 seconds please do in the Severin gothic horror Spanish set not the Gothic horror Italian Danzo Maccabra

I think volumes 1 through 3 are Italian and volume 4 is Spanish and in my mind the basement of Italian gothic horror is rock bottom and the basement of Spanish gothic horror is like mid-tier so I bought the Spanish box set because I could imagine how unwatchable some of those Italian films might be and cake of blood has nothing to do with cakes

or blood omnibus in this box set which was quite sufficient one truly unwatchable segment one that was like awesome and then two that were like that was fine that's all you that's all you need this is like one home run like that yeah You'll take a strike out in two singles. Yeah. The second segment in Cake of Blood is a just super literal retelling of Frankenstein in 20 minutes. And it's like, I wish Del Toro had done the same.

It's just like completely, you're like, why are not like, why is this the choice? Why is this what we're watching? Are you, are you seeking an invitation to the next High Council session? I'm always a little jealous. Are you a little worried about how big can the High Council get? Well, I mean, we know that he's gearing up for his work in the federal government. So maybe this is a good way to start working. Much like the VHS series when one of these passes me by, I think, what do you have to do to get involved with that?

And yeah, I don't know. I'm not flying to L.A. with a suitcase full of stuff, but... Well, then you're not invited. I think that's the number one prerequisite is to come with doubles to give to Chris Ryan. The funny thing about that is that, like, obviously that's a legendary flex on the part of Mr. Lutz to fly across the country with a briefcase full of, 4Ks, like Prubs is presumably handcuffed to him in like a very

classic noir sort of way. But then like I guess somehow I like figured out or like the timing realized that I was like oh so he was like in L.A. for the Emmys. Yes. Where his wife is like multiple nominated. It was up for White Lotus but I think

might as well have been up for Gilded Age too. Yeah. So I'm like okay so like I guess if HBO was flying me like first class I would bring a bunch of suitcases full of toys also. Okay, so our next act is to get you nominated for an Emmy this year so you can come participate in the High Council. I just want to be the plus one of someone who's being flown first class. You can be Mark Ruffalo's plus one for his task Emmy. Yeah, and I'll bring some stuff.

Were you a Delco advisor on that show? I wish, I wish. You know, Chris, my problem with this, and maybe you've covered this is like, this is now the second one of these Delco crime shows where about every 16 to 25 minutes, someone shows up with a cup of Wawa coffee. Yeah. Wawa is all over this on social media. they've never set foot in a Wawa in a single frame of filming.

We don't even get an establishing shot of someone leaving the parking lot carrying the coffee. They reference it all the time, but they don't go. It's really weird. I don't understand why this is. They're obviously signing off on the logo. But they gave Ritas has like a beautiful, like they could use the Rita's stuff in task for like commercials for the next 20 years. Yeah, they got into Rita. I don't understand why they're not filming in Wawa's.

I haven't seen the show. Can't say anything. This is like one of the only, yeah. I mean, I'll watch a Delco crime show. But yeah, they got to get into a Wawa at some point. It's not enough to show up with the takeout. Alex, thank you for your time on this. Thank you for Kidprint.

Thanks for hitting up your friend to expand this list. I want to see it. The list. Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting collection of movies that have been devastatingly rated by mean letterbox users, but that I think are valuable and worth everyone's time. It sounds like Alex agrees. What do you got?

When are you coming back? What's coming up next for you? I don't know. I mean, it's really not productive as a parent to just waste all of your time making passion projects that pay you nothing. Okay. Yeah. What are you going to do about that?

I, you know, chain myself to my desk and do some actual WGA insurance qualifying screenwriting for the indefinite future. Do you, I heard that the Fast and the Furious might need a polish the next installment. I think they're doing great. I think they're in great shape. Yeah, I think the script is, I think the script's probably diamond cut. Ethan Hawk has already said that he wants to do Blackphone 3 and he wants to grab her to go to hell. I think this is, this is tailor-made for Alex.

I mean, I have my, Sean knows this is a favorite of his as well. I have my Jason Goes to Hell button here. Jason Goes to Hell is atrocious. I don't know when I'll get around to Black Phone 2, but I would skip straight to Grabber Goes to Hell. Grabber Goes to Hell, I feel like makes more sense than Black Phone 2. phone, too? It does. No offense, but leave the kids in the terrestrial land and go to hell with Ethan Hawk. I agree with you.

Or just, you know, go, as long as Hawk is involved, go, like, the grabber election year. The grabber, the grabber, the grabber anarchy. That's right. Purge, perj, grabber crossover. Anything's possible. Wow. Now we're talking. You know, I think the black phone was a short story,

like Stephen Care, maybe his son's short story. Yeah, Joe Hill. Yeah. I would have watched that in an omnibus. Oh, that might have actually improved the black phone, the original film. If they should, they should have combined black phone to with Frankenstein. I just had like Guillermo D'Otero's 20 minute Frankenstein.

I would welcome Guillermo del Toro's Stephen King adaptation. That would be exciting. All right, Alex, thank you so much. Thanks, guys. We'll see you next time you get nominated for an Emmy and you're out in Los Angeles. I'll bring a suitcase full of discs and thanks for watching VHS Halloween. Thanks, buddy.

Thank you to Alex Ross Perry. Thank you, of course, to CR for his contributions on this episode later this week on the show. We have another 25 for 25 candidate. It's number eight. I am quite certain that you've seen this movie. Thanks to Jack Sanders, our producer on this episode, and we will see you later this week.