The Big Picture - The Top 5 Streaming Horror Films Right Now with Bill Simmons | Discussion (Ep. 90)

Episode Date: October 26, 2018

The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey and Bill Simmons each run down their lists of five great horror films they love that are streaming right now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I just think if the title is Salem, I'm in. I'm Sean Fennessey, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show with my boss, Bill Simmons. It's great to be here. Bill, thanks for coming on. Congrats on the new feed. Thank you, thank you. We're going to be doing a lot more Big Picture shows.

You're like, let's do an episode this week going into the weekend. And so we're going to talk about something that you and I both love, which is horror movies. Yeah, one of the reasons we wanted to do this feed was because we talk about movies all the time. And yet we didn't totally have a podcast that did that. We had pieces of different people's podcasts. Yeah. But not a podcast like this. So now we're here. That's right. So what we're going to do today is a little recommendation engine.

Top fives. You and I have talked about top fives a lot. Chris and I did this with Steven Spielberg a few months ago. Then you jumped on that show. That was a good one. So we're just going to do top five horror movies that are on a streaming service right now. So what is, I think we had different criteria for the top five. What was your criteria for selecting the top five?

This isn't the best horror movie streaming right now, but it's just kind of horror movies you should watch right now. We're going a little loose with this. Yeah, mine was, this is not my top five. These are just five horror movies that are streaming that you might not have seen. Okay. That was my list.

Mine might be a little bit more obvious than that. Yeah, that's good. That's why I went my direction. This will be good. Because I figured we would be yin and yang. Okay, why don't you go first and then you can show me the kind of the vibes that you're bringing to the table.

Because you and I are both obsessed with horror movies, but I will say when we did Horror Week a few weeks ago and we launched the Halloween Unmasked podcast. I was supposed to write for that. You were supposed to write for that and you didn't. And something that I wrote, I think probably had a lot of movies that you like and a lot of movies that you don't care about.

So there's different inside of horror. There's different kinds of fans. There's different kinds of taste. So ours is sometimes very aligned and sometimes not at all. True. But we both like good filmmaking. We do.

My number five choice is a movie that came out when I was six or seven years old. And the ads freaked me out. And I remember being freaked out by one specific character. And then they made a sequel with that character. And I was also freaked out by that. And then they made a third movie with that character and he was a grownup, but I didn't like him either.

And then they did a remake of the movie. And usually the remake, this movie should have, the remake should have been better because this first movie is dated. But the first movie is better. It's The Omen. Was it an accident? Was it murder?

Was it a coincidence? Or was it an omen? Look at me, Damien. And I always wondered, like, we have a lot of young people that work at The Ringer, and their memory goes back to 2005. There's movies that I just assume people have seen they haven't. The Omen, I know people haven't seen. I would say out of, what do we have, 86 people working for us?

I would say probably 75 of them have no idea that this 1976 version existed. It's really good. It has a couple, I watched it recently and I was fascinated by how good it was because the mid seventies can go in a lot of bad directions. It's really well done. The little kid is about as, you know, basically the premise is this kid might be the devil's child. And the kid that they picked for the movie really does seem like he might be the devil's child. But there's this one scene near the top with the nanny that I don't want to give away if you haven't seen it, that is just great and petrifying. It's a movie that was really well

respected when it came out. It got some Oscar nominations. It was a sensation. It was a really good movie year in general. The 1976 had a lot of good stuff going on. And. It was a sensation. It was a really good movie year in general. The 1976 had a lot of good stuff going on. And it's just a cool movie and it's creepy and there's famous people in it. Like, who's the lead guy? I'm blanking now. Gregory Peck is the star.

Gregory Peck's the lead guy. So it was like his last big Gregory Peck role. Yeah. It's just good. And I think it's kind of freaky. And I watched it with my son, Ben. I probably shouldn't have. And it was just good.

We were into it. It's funny. I mean, it's directed by Richard Donner, who at the time was not a big Hollywood director. But from this movie, he goes on a pretty crazy run. Yeah. Right after this, he does Superman. Right after that, he does Superman 2,

but gets fired off of Superman 2. Oh, yeah. Right after this, he does Superman. Right after that, he does Superman 2, but gets fired off of Superman 2. Oh, yeah. After that, he goes the toy, Goonies, Lady Hawk, Lethal Weapon. Right. That's like an all-time Hollywood success run from the late 70s into the 80s. And all of his movies are different. And he was also- Well, the toy was not a success.

The toy was pretty bad. It wasn't. When I was a kid, actually, people used to tell me that I looked like the kid from the toy. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, which was always really creepy. They would always be like, where's Richard Pryor, man? But the cool thing about Donner, too, is that he basically invented modern Hollywood. He made an awesome respected horror movie.

He made an awesome respected superhero movie. He made an awesome respected buddy action comedy. These are things that all still work right now. Why do you think The Omen doesn't have like a legacy, even though it's already had a remake and all these sequels that you're talking about? Why do you think it didn't live on in the way that like, I don't know,

Rosemary's baby did. Cause the remake didn't work. And the other one that remake didn't work with was the Amityville horror and it should have worked and it didn't. And in general, horror remakes don't work. If you go through the list, the,

the people who have nostalgia for it are mad that you did them because they just wish, they would just rather watch the one that already happened. And then the newer people, they don't care. Like when nostalgia usually works is when you reinvent it and you turn it into something else.

In The Omen, they basically ran all the same beats back. Yeah, we had a piece about this on the site a few weeks ago about this like whole run of sequels that we had in the 2000s where they did a new Nightmare on Elm Street. They did a new Friday the 13th, a new Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And kind of none of them worked. The one that I think is pretty good is The Last House on the Left. Yeah.

And The Hills Have Eyes is not bad too. You know, I almost picked The Last House on the Left as one of my five. Yeah. The original or the remake? The remake. The remake's pretty good. The remake with Tony Goldwyn. The original, for those of you who have not seen it, is fucked up.

Yeah. The original is Wes Craven's first movie, and it is dark. And it is very gory, and it feels real. It's meant to feel like a documentary. The remake is much more slick, but it's pretty scary. It's scary. The reason I left it off was there's a really bad sexual assault scene in it that they could have toned it back

and they just chose not to for reasons that remain unclear. And that's why I didn't recommend it. It's really gruesome. Yeah, it's bad. All right, I'll go in my number five. Okay. It's The Invitation.

We don't see you for two years and then all of a sudden we get invited to this lavish dinner. Don't tell me that this is normal. The Invitation is a movie directed by Karin Kusama who made Girl Fight and Jennifer's Body. And she has a movie coming out this year called Destroyer with Nicole Kidman that looks pretty cool. But The Invitation is essentially my favorite LA horror movie. It's a story about a woman who gets an invite to, or excuse me, a man who gets an invite to a dinner party by his ex-girlfriend who has met someone new and bought a house in the hills and is having a party of kind of creative spiritual types

to just kind of sit around and talk and think about life. The lead actor is played by Logan Marshall Green, who's kind of the B-rate Tom Hardy. Was he on the OC? Yeah, yeah. Oh, no kidding. He was also in a really good horror movie this year called Upgrade. But Logan Marshall Green plays this guy who is,

I don't know what we're supposed to think he is. He's kind of like one of these wastrel, hippie LA types, you know, where you don't really know what his job is. Don't really know what he does. He lives in Highland park. He lives in, definitely lives in Highland park. You know, he goes and gets bagels at Friedman's and you know, he's one of those guys and he finds himself essentially for lack of a better word, entering a cult. And there's this cool idea in the movie that everybody who lives in LA is basically in a weird cult of their own design because LA is so isolating

and so weird and there are all these houses in the hills. The social life that you build for yourself is this really tightly knit community. Have you seen The Invitation? What do you think of that movie? It's all about the different bubbles within the giant city of LA.

Yeah. I thought it was all right. I don't feel like it's a horror movie as much as like a thriller, I guess, would be my nitpick. It's mostly thriller, although it has like one of the all-time great horror movie endings. Yeah. Like that final shot, which is just, if you spend enough time in the Hollywood Hills, then you know like what you're looking at and then what that means.

But yeah, Kusama is pretty, she's a really cool director and has a good sense of basically how to make you uneasy. Even if all of her movies aren't good, she kind of throws you off base. Netflix has made a lot of those unsettling. They're not quite thrillers. They're not quite horror movies.

What is a horror movie for you? Does it have to be like a slasher movie? Does it have to be gory? Remember we argued about this with Get Out, whether Get Out was a horror movie or not. I feel like Silence of the Lambs and Get Out and those type of movies, it's almost like they're better than a horror movie,

but they're not quite a thriller either. There's some other new genre that hasn't been. But The Invitation, what was that one with The Gift? Was it The Gift? The Gift, yeah. Joel Edgerton's movie. Yeah. With Jason Bateman.

So that wasn't a horror movie either, but it was that same kind of super unsettling, where's this going? I don't like this. I'm uncomfortable. I think the thing is, is that all of these movies that we're talking about feel like they could

turn into horror movies at any time you're watching them. Like at any moment, a slasher could show up or a monster could show up or there could be something supernatural. And usually they don't. It just gets like creepy. The Gift is very much like that. I remember sitting through the first hour of The Gift and being like, this is just

going to turn into Zodiac. Like this is just going to be a serial killer movie and it doesn't happen. But yeah, I actually like that subgenre and I do basically file in. We should just name it. Yeah, I guess it's like, it's like a horror light or something. Yeah. But I think The Shining is the best example of it, right? Yeah.

The Shining goes for an hour and 45 minutes and nothing's happening, but you're scared the whole time. And then poor Scatman Crothers just takes it right in the chest. Yeah, there are some other stuff that happens. You know, Jack starts having some visions. A nude woman gets out of the bathtub, you know. Yeah, but nobody's dying. No, that's true.

Halloween, same thing. Somebody dies in the beginning. But I think the Halloween, I guess, remake. It's not a remake because it was kind of a continuation relaunch maybe relaunch that to me is is how you do how you kind of rebuild a franchise going back to like what we talked about with the omen let me ask you this now that you've seen it and i know you talked about it with shay a little bit this week. Yeah. Are you totally comfortable with ignoring two through seven and all the other movies that came before it? No. You're not happy about that. I'm not unhappy. It's just, it's a choice. Okay. Were

you on board lifetime with Laurie Strode and Michael Myers or siblings? No, I mean, not really. Yeah. It was this thing that they added for the TV version of the Halloween movie. They added, they needed to add like 10 minutes. So I think they snuck the genesis of it in there to set up the Halloween 2. Yeah, I don't like that at all. I never liked that part of it. The reality is

Halloween 1 should have ended and we shouldn't have seen them for 10 years. If they were really doing this correctly and I know they couldn't resist. The podcast we did, they talk about Halloween 2 And we shouldn't have seen him for 10 years. If they were really doing this correctly, and I know they couldn't resist. And the podcast we did, they talk about Halloween 2, none of them wanted to do it, and they just threw money at them and they ended up doing it. And Jamie Lee's got the freaking wig on the whole time.

I support Halloween 2. I think the hot tub scene's a little indefensible. It's pretty gross. Scalding this poor naked woman to death in the hot tub with her face first. But it's super memorable though. It's memorable, but it's disturbing. There's also, it's unclear why so few people were working at the hospital.

Also just like what's going on in that hospital. The two people are having sex in the hot tub. Like that's just, what's going on? What hospital is this? That's not sanitary. That's a big movie trope where the hospital is always a place because Cobra has that too.

Brigitte Nielsen. There's just nobody ever working in the hospital. I've never been in a hospital and thought like, I should have sex here. Like that's never happened. Right. Or I'm in danger. There's people everywhere. It's true.

Oh my God. My number four is, this is kind of a cliched pick. I don't care. Veronica on Netflix. Did you have this cliched pick. I don't care. Veronica on Netflix. Did you have this one? No, I don't. And I am not as into this movie as you are. So explain what you think about it.

So I watched it with my kids and it really freaked them out. And in general, my kids get freaked out by movies where somebody ends up with something that they shouldn't have either touched or taken or interacted with somebody that it goes badly and then they can't shake it this is the same reason i love uh drag me now drag me hell that's one of the best yeah that's great that's not even worth putting on this list because everyone should have already seen that, but it's a classic. But it was just creepy.

I like the fact that it was a different culture and language. Kind of mixed it up for me. It's a Spanish movie. It's very not American. And I like the kid, the Whisper kid. Yeah. We were doing that. My son was doing that for like 10 days after.

I think that was the movie when you saw it, you first realized, you first said to, I think Chris and I in the office, you were like, Netflix is all in on horror.

Like this is obviously a thing that they're doing where they've identified something in the algorithm. The algorithm has targeted this. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I like that movie. I don't love it.

I don't know why. Are you into foreign language horror movies? No, not really. Yeah. I think most horror movies are basically around the same quality. And a lot of it depends on who you watched it with, when you watched it, what you were doing as you watched it. Okay.

So that one, like, it was our whole family. We turned the lights out and we were just ready to get scared by a movie. And it was perfect. I thought it was good, though. I did enjoy it. And I thought the lead actress was good. She is very good. I'm curious to see what that guy, what that filmmaker does next. My number four

is a movie that a lot of people are aware of. I don't know if as many people have seen it as would say they've seen it. It's The Witch. Yeah. I met a few years ago. It's an A24 movie made by a guy named Robert Eggers. It's getting a lot of like critical momentum after the fact.

Yes. Like lists come out about best movie streaming on whatever and it's always like in the top four. It's always there. And it was pretty successful. It was only made for like 4 million bucks and I think it made over $30 million. So it was one of A24's first real hits,

which is kind of weird because it's a very strange movie. It's very slow. It's beautifully made, but it's basically about a puritanical family in England who are kicked out of their community and have to go live in the woods. And when they go live in the woods, terrible things start happening because they essentially enter the domain of a witch. This is why I don't go to the woods. This is why? Remember I told you I wouldn't watch Game of Thrones for years. I was like, I don't like the forest. I think the forest. like, I don't like the forest. I think the forest.

Yeah. I don't like the forest. I don't like woods. Yeah. And it's a weird movie because it's not a movie where like 40 minutes in, you get a really good look at the witch and then the witch starts casting spells on people. It's not that kind of movie. It's, um, there's something unnerving and quiet and weird.

And we don't actually know if this woman living in the woods is a witch. We don't really know. And it kind of, kind of reaches a fever pitch in the final like 10 minutes when the main it becomes clear really what's going on the main character is um maybe uh been controlled by another character in the movie someone we're not expecting and everything starts to kind of shift on its axis but it's like beautifully shot beautifully written it's if you have spent a lot of time in church it it's very upsetting because there's like a conversational quality to the Christianity that's going on.

But I really love this movie and I'm very eager to see what the guy Robert Eggers who made it does next. It was too slow for my kids. Yeah. I thought it was pretty good. It's really well made. It definitely had a vibe to it, and it felt distinct. Yes, for sure.

Like, it's almost hard to compare that movie to another movie, which I thought, which I respected. I was surprised. As you said, like, the setup of it is ludicrous. It's like, how did somebody even think of this? Yeah, it is really strange. I mean, it must be based on some sort of like pagan ritual that he read about. But I'm surprised he's even making another horror movie, this guy, because I thought

he would have just made like a costume drama or something. You could see that there was something a little more classical in terms of what he's interested in. But what's your number three? You know, the biggest untapped horror resource right now that nobody's done, I'm just giving this idea away. Maybe we should just take it for ourselves. Maybe we should.

You sure you want to give it away? Salem. Okay. My kids are obsessed with Salem. And Salem is one of those things that every kid learns about at some point in elementary school. And I've actually been to Salem. It's probably, I don't know, 35, 40 minutes outside of Boston. And you go there in October

and you can kind of feel it. It's a little effed up in Salem. Like, you know, because all that stuff happened. It's not like one of those Amityville horror things where somebody definitely died in the house, but then the next people probably made up the story about what had happened

and sold a book out of it. In Salem, it's like there were witch trials and then they burned the witches. Maybe I should give my number three then because this is a great connecting point. Do it. My number three is a cheat and it's the extended universe of Mike Flanagan.

Mike Flanagan is a director who you put me onto because you really loved Hush. And he's now made a series of movies, all of which are available on Netflix, I believe, that include Hush, Oculus, Gerald's Game. And now a week and a half ago, he put out The House on Holland Hill, which is this long anthology series. People like that.

I haven't watched that one yet. I've only seen two episodes. I really like it. Chris Ryan swears by it. He says it's great. Alison Herman likes it too. Mike Flanagan is from Salem, Massachusetts. Yeah.

And I wonder if that is part of why he has such a knack for creating these really upsetting, weird, tense movies. Well, they do stuff, especially in October. Like they kind of embrace. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. It's like witch trial season. It's like you would go there and be like,

let's go to Salem for Halloween and go on a Saturday. And they have this going and that going. Like it's part of Salem. Would you like get involved? Would you march in the parade and like dress up like an evil witch? No, my wife remembers this stuff more than me. She was really into it.

No, but people would go and they'd like dress up in costume, all kinds of stuff. So what's your idea? Like Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, right? So we got that. So what's your horror movie about Salem? I just think if the title is Salem, I'm in. Did you see The Lords of Salem?

If it's on Netflix and it's like new today on Netflix, Salem. Did you ever watch- And it's just like a wide shot of a house in the dark. I'm in. I don't need to know anything else. Modern day or period piece? I think it would have to be somebody bought a house and didn't realize it was a house like that one of the witches.

You're combining all your favorite shit. Massachusetts, a haunted house. There's something wrong with the house. People talking to the evil spirits. You think you're better than me? Alright, my number three. This is a controversial pick. I'd like to apologize in advance. Oh my gosh.

It's a legitimately exploitative movie. Okay. How exciting. Even offensive in some ways. This is going to be thrilling. It's called Girlhouse. Porn is not what it used to be. I mean, it's totally different now. It's mainstream and accepted.

There's no stigma. Nobody cares. Welcome to Girlhouse, sweetie. I have not seen it. I don't know this movie. It is basically an homage to 80s horror movies. 80s horror movies had this stretch that Amy covered in Halloween Unmasked a little bit. Just super exploitative. They were always throwing in nudity.

And there was always that one female character who wanted to get it on. And you knew they were going to die as soon as you saw them. Like Slumber Party Massacre, stuff like that. So this is almost a parody of those movies, but it's also actually scary. And what it is is people are running this house, and I think it's called Girl House. I've only seen this movie once, and I didn't even know what it was. And I started watching. I'm like, what is this?

This movie's good. They're running this house, and it's like one of those internet porn things where you can interact with the girls. I remember this now. And they're in all these different bedrooms. Yes. And one customer becomes offended somehow. I can't remember.

I was half asleep when I started watching and then got into his way and decides to basically kill everyone in the girl house. And that's the movie. But it's both exploitative, but wink wink to the 80s and very well done. And it's actually scary.

Like I was scared. When the movie ended, I was like, I'm not ready to go to bed yet. I'm still kind of scared. What service is that on right now? So that one's on, Oh,

I forgot to tell my, my, so the omen is on HBO. Now Veronica is on Netflix and girl houses on Hulu. Oh, Hulu. That's a good one. So this movie is Canadian,

which may be why we don't know as much about it. It kind of came. I didn't even know it came out. Yeah. And then it was just randomly making the rounds on cable. Hard to explain but uh for somebody in my age range that grew up with the exploitative 80s movies it was interesting to watch somebody do that like a modern spin on it i thought it was good my number three is no you're number two now excuse Excuse me, my number two is not really something people haven't heard of,

but it is an opportunity to talk about a set of movies with you. And it's on Netflix. It's called The Conjuring. It's one of the most important horror movies of the last 20 years. It's great. Do you know that The Conjuring is one of the most successful movie franchises of all time at this point? Well, they've only had two, and I think both of them did Gangbusters.

But they also have Annabelle, Annabelle 2, and The Nun. I liked Annabelle. And they're all part of this greater constellation. So like,

those guys who made the original Conjuring movies, James Wan and Lee Wannell and all those people who worked on those movies, basically invented like a new modern mythology. And I feel like we don't, we don't talk about that enough.

In fact, you know, the Annabelle movies are okay. The Nun was really successful. It was okay. The two Conjuring movies I think are like real good. What year was the first Conjuring movie? I think it's about 2013. Yeah, it's pretty recently. So in five years, they've made five movies.

They're all hits. I thought the Conjuring was excellent. I actually thought you could have talked me into like Oscar nomination kind of excellent for it. I just thought it was so original and so well done and so well acted. Yeah, it was classic, but also felt new, which is hard to pull off. It was also a fucked up movie to see in the theater. Definitely. It was one of those things like you left the theater and you're kind of eyeballing everybody.

It was like, I just want to get away from people for a while. It was a great reminder of how incredibly creepy Lily Taylor is. You know, like her performance in that movie, everything that's happening to her in the basement is some high level. Like I never close my eyes in horror movies anymore.

I never get scared. I've seen, I don't know, 5,000 of them. But in that, that was a rare time where I was like, I have to close my eyes. She was good.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, two actors that I really like, who weren't always in the right things. And this was a good use of both of them. Yeah, Paranormal Investigator is one of those things where it could go either way. That could be a really stupid part and you don't buy it, but somehow they make these movies feel really credible and authentic.

I really liked Vera Farmiga in the Clooney movie that Jason Reitman did. Up in the Air. Which I stand by. Yeah, that's good. What's also the... Unfortunately, in The Departed, she tried a Boston accent. Nobody kind of sat her down right before filming and told her, don't do this.

What's the movie with Paul Walker where he also plays like a tough guy gangster? Oh, I like that movie. I know what you're talking about. And his wife in that movie is played by Vera Farmiga. It has a title that other movies have. It's a title from an 80s movie. It's like Breakdown or something like that. Yeah, I like that movie.

That's a really good movie too. And Patrick Wilson was in probably the best girls episode of all time. You like that one where they play ping pong? It was just so weird.

It was like, it was a total heat check. Lena was taking shit for being naked all the time. So it was just like, I'm going to play naked ping pong for five minutes.

I thought, I really liked that episode. Yeah, the Paul Walker movie is called Running Scared. Running Scared. Right. That's also obviously the Billy Crystal, Gregory Hines movie. That's the greatest lost 80s buddy cop movie.

Yes. Never gets mentioned. People always jump from 48 hours to Lethal Weapon. They skip Running Scared. It's okay. Oh, stop. I'm not crazy about Running Scared. It's okay.

You're not a child of the 80s. What does that mean? I was born in the 80s. The early 80s. Crystal coming out of SNL. Mm's okay. You're not a child of the 80s. What does that mean? I was born in the 80s. The early 80s. Crystal coming out of SNL. We just wanted him to be in a movie. He was like a phenomenon on that show. And then he made

this 48 hours ripoff basically, but they were friends. It's like his ninth best movie. And it had Michael McDonald. No. And Gregory Hines is funny in that movie. You need to give that one another chance. Okay. It's okay. It's good. Alright. Jimmy Smith's. Yeah that one another chance. Okay. It's okay. It's good. All right. Jimmy Smits.

Yeah. Joey Pants. Yeah. It's in the category of like movies that you and Chris like that no one cares about anymore. That's fair. You know? I'll take that. Which is not an insult necessarily. No, no, no.

I got you through the necessarily. Well, it's just like, it's like a third rate Midnight Run. No, it's just like a third-rate midnight run. No, it's like a second-rate midnight run. All right. What's your next one? Great Michael McDonald in that movie. My number two is Summer of 84, which is now on Shudder. There's a serial killer on the loose.

What else could possibly be this exciting? Incoming titties. 12 o'clock. Guys, Nicky. Which I pay-per-viewed or on-demanded or something with the whole fam, and it freaked all of us out. It stars the guy from Mad Men who had the glasses, Rich Sommer. That's right, yeah.

Yeah. It's basically like Stranger Things crossed with a Serico movie. And these kids on a block, a couple kids have disappeared. And these kids on the block start to become convinced that it's this neighbor who's a cop who's doing it. And I don't want to spoil it because it's a good movie. But it's creepy

and the last half hour goes in a couple directions I wasn't prepared for. My whole family liked it. My son got freaked out. He slept with us that night. This movie just hit shutter this week. Yeah. I still haven't seen it. I'm probably going to watch it tonight.

It's good. I'm excited about that. I don't even know who made that movie. I don't know very much about it at all. I judge all horror movies by whether one or both of my kids try to sleep with us the same night we watched it. When's the first- And Ben never climbs into bed.

You know he has to be scared. At what point did you and your wife say, it's time to start showing our son really fucked up movies? Was there, did you have a conversation about this? Yeah, we don't let them watch the really fucked up movies. You've showed them a lot though. Well, Halloween is a part of our family. I mean, we went to the Myers house when my son was four

and put the mask on him. I remember the photo. I remember. You guys never discussed this though. You never said, like, you're not showing him last house on the left. Oh God, no. No, anything with like sex stuff is not on the list. Okay. Okay. But, um, which is funny cause that, that it's funny that we, Oh no, you can't do that. But if this person's neck gets cut, that's fine. You know? Yeah, you know, it's funny. I'm at work on a story right now about the 50th anniversary of the MPAA and ratings.

And it's weird to think about what movies are rated R and Y and how so many horror movies get away with PG-13, even though the things that happen in them like if there's sex, if it's Slumber Party Massacre or Girl House and there's nude women in it it's an automatic R. But if you're just like slashing the throat of somebody, you can get away with

PG-13. It's just, there's always such a distance between those two things. We did this with the Jaws rewatchables, Robert. We found out Jaws was PG. Quint gets eaten to death. Blood pouring out of him. Alright, you're number one. My number one's boring, man,

because you and I misunderstood each other, but I just want to talk to you about The Shining. We didn't misunderstand anything. Well, I didn't want to blow anybody's mind. I'll recommend a movie that I think is cool on Netflix that I don't want to talk too much. I'll just say, for one, watch Backcountry. Have you seen Backcountry?

The camping horror movie? Oh my God. You got to watch it. Missy Peregrine, I think, is the star of it. Oh, I like her. And it's a movie about a couple that go camping. And bad things start to happen. Oh.

And once again, you'd have to go into the forest. So it might be tough for you. Wait a second. I think I might've seen this one. Have you seen it? Is that? Yes. I did see this one.

Okay. This one's good. It's really good. It has a guy starts following them. Yes, exactly. Okay. I saw them and you don't trust it.

He like sits down with them and over the campfire. Yeah. That movie is good. Really good. So that would be my, like, you haven't heard of this, but let's just talk about the shining really quickly.

You brought it up a second ago. Here's Johnny. would be my like you haven't heard of this but let's just talk about the shining really quickly you brought it up a second ago here's johnny i re-watched it when i wrote the horror oscars earlier this month and i was like this is like one of my 10 favorite movies ever yeah it is amazing it is there's so much going on perfect yeah and we were talking about mike flanagan and i just learned this morning or or maybe I relearned, that he's making Doctor Sleep, which is the sequel that Stephen King wrote to The Shining. Oh, wow. So there is a Shining movie coming out in 2020. I had no idea.

I know. So Shining was 1980? Yes. Which means that if you're like 28 and under, you might not have seen it. Yeah. Do you think it doesn't have a big presence in people's, in like young people's memories? It's long. If you start watching it from the beginning, you'll be like, what the fuck is this?

I don't think Jack Nicholson means as much to people under 30. That's a whole other podcast. Yeah. I just remember my parents got divorced that year. My mom moved to Connecticut that year. And I was going back and forth between Boston and Connecticut. And I was spending time in Connecticut that summer. And I was sleeping in this new room that I didn't really have a feel for yet.

And they started showing that ad for The Shining. And it was just like Jack. You didn't know what it was. It seemed like he was almost walking through the streets. Oh, when he's dragging his body. When he's carrying the axe, but he's got the limp. And he's just like, hey. But whatever he was doing.

And I would be so scared to turn on the TV, because I would be afraid that that. I had a TV in my room. I would be like, if they show that ad, I'm going to like have a heart attack. And then the movie itself was just,

you know, it's so disturbing and it's so good. One of the things, I kind of wish, I don't think I should have seen it when I was 10. It was almost like

too messed up. I saw it when I was really young too. Were you, was the Here's Johnny thing like an instantaneous, was that like a meme for its time? No. That took, that the Here's Johnny thing like an instantaneous, was that like a meme for its time?

No. That took, that took a while I feel like. That was just scary. At the time, that's what I was going to ask you.

Was it, because I think by the time I got to it, the Here's Johnny thing was the thing I was waiting for the whole movie. So the rest of the movie was enjoyable,

but I was kind of waiting for that to come because it had become like a bit on the Simpsons and you'd see it in sitcoms. I don't know how that movie had kind of shelf life it did because we didn't really have DVDs and stuff in the early 80s. I remember I went to a bachelor party, not a bachelor party, birthday party when I was

like fourth or fifth grade. It was like four or five months after Victory had come out with Sly Stallone. One of your favorites. And the big hook of the birthday party was that four or five months after Victory had come out with Sly Stallone. One of your favorites. And the big hook of the birthday party was that they had a copy of Victory and they were going to show it. And we were all like, what? We just couldn't believe it. We're going to watch a movie at this kid's house? What?

This is amazing. It was like the most incredible thing. And so I don't know how The Shining had a shelf life. Cable really kicked in like, you know, like 83, 84. But I don't think it was one of those movies that was on like HBO. I think it was almost like word of mouth. It was so memorable. It's ironic that you pointed out that The Omen got Oscar nominations

because The Shining famously is one of the only late period Kubrick movies to get like no Oscars. It got very mixed reviews when it came out. It was considered to be kind of disappointing. I thought it was amazing and I was haunted by it. I was haunted by the girls. I was haunted by the hotel

room. My dad and I, we went somewhere that summer after we saw that movie and we had the same room as the room where the dead lady was in. I was like, I had a heart attack. Wait, the same number room? It was like, what was it, 237? Yeah, we had 237 within three weeks of seeing that movie. And I was like, it was so disturbing.

And then you find out more information about it over the years. And Kubrick's just doing take after take. She's in the bathroom screaming for the 98th time over the course of 12 hours. And it really does seem like she's having a nervous breakdown. Yes. He really put her through the wringer, so to speak. I mean, he really, it was some manipulation going on there. I don't think she was ever the same, yeah.

It sounds like it was a very difficult shoot. And then, the other great thing about that movie is there's so many distinct scenes. Almost every scene you can like kind of remember in your head you know even like him throwing this the the tennis ball against the wall and just catching it and him leaning over the model of the uh maze and just scene after scene it's like indelible i think that's why it has i it just had this long shelf life is because it has

this iconic feeling. Every moment feels like it's important and you have to understand it and unpack it and examine it. But also it's like very alive and kinetic. And he's flat out amazing in that movie. It's incredible. It actually makes me sad to hear you say that he doesn't mean as much to people.

I hadn't thought about that, but I mean, he hasn't made a movie in six, seven, eight years. I mean, As Good As It Gets was kind of like almost his comeback movie. Yeah. That was 97. I wasn't even dating my wife yet. And that was like Nicholson's back. That was 21 years ago.

I know. It was really, I think to a lot of people, he's just the guy from the Laker games. And the other thing is some of his most famous movies haven't really aged as well. Like Cuckoo's Nest is not, is a hard movie to even explain to somebody who's like 18. Yeah, those movies explain what Hollywood was though at the time. You know, King of Marvin Gardens,

Five Easy Pieces, Easy Rider, that whole generation of movies. I know, but like my kids don't care about that. Yeah. Well, maybe if they get as into movies as we are, they'll watch them one day. Terms of Endearment, I think, is something you can watch. Still a crowd pleaser. Still care about that. Yeah. Well, maybe if they get as into movies as we are, they'll watch them one day. Terms of Endearment, I think, is something you can watch. Still a crowd pleaser.

Still a good one. Yeah. I mean, The Departed is on TV all the time. People will still watch The Departed. The Departed. His performance is ridiculous in it. But he's terrible in that. I know.

I know. The thing is, though, like, you know, like trying to think of A Few Good Men. That was another one. It's like, Nicholson's in that? It was a huge deal to have Nicholson in any movie. Yes. You know, Nicholson, he's with Cruise and he only has, he's only in four scenes.

Like, you know, I just think that that was 30 years ago. My favorite story from that, I feel like you guys might have talked about this in the rewatchables, but how he did every take at the highest possible level in A Few Good Men. You know, even if they were just shooting coverage on Tom Cruise, he was still doing like, you want answers? Yeah, yeah. He was still bringing it to the table. So what's your number one?

My number one, 40th anniversary of this movie. Oh. This is a movie that is somehow not dated. Okay. I just watched it two weeks ago. I watch it every couple years. It is on Hulu right now. Invasion of

the Body Snatchers. Love it. Can't you see? Everyone are here already. You're next! They have remade this movie and fucked it up two times since they made this, and the 78 version is still way better. You could watch this tonight and be freaked out.

This movie's awesome. This movie is awesome. It's so good. Leonard Nimoy is so fucking creepy in this movie. It's my favorite Donald Sutherland ever. Yep. It's got, what's her face? It's the lead actress, I'm blanking.

There's Veronica Cartwright, who is an alien. Right, she's good in it. And there's also Stacy. Brooke Adams? Brooke Adams, yes. Gold Bloom's in it? It's like Gold Bloom's first thing, but basically the premise is it's in San Francisco,

which I also like. It's like kind of a San Francisco feel. I like movies set in San Francisco that use San Francisco as like a character. Yep. The premise is weird shit's going on. And Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams and Gold Bloom, and they're like, people are acting differently. There's a weird vibe and they start to realize that

when you fall asleep a pod grows up out of the ground and you get replaced and basically you can't fall asleep so there's two separate things going on one is like first of all I saw this movie in the theater

and probably shouldn't have I was the only child. My parents just brought me everywhere. The actual alien pod of Donald Sutherland, that scene, is scary now. I was watching this movie two weeks ago. It was like 1 o'clock at night. My wife was asleep, but then kind of woke up.

And the Sutherland pod, the pod growing out of the ground scene was on. And she was like, you got to turn this off. I'm not going to be able to sleep. Like she was like freaked out. It's, it's a flat out freak out. I think it has one of the best and surprise endings of any movie. It's amazing. Don't spoil it. It's such a great, I won't spoil it, but I'll tell you that, um, it's, I'll tell you after we finish part. Maybe two weeks from now, I'll tell the story in the pod of how this has entered my relationship, one part of this movie. It's just the best idea for a movie.

Yeah. It's funny- Aliens are taking over and they're coming after you next, but you have to stay awake. Here's what the best horror movies do. They, on the surface, are fun and scary and entertaining. And even if you don't examine them at all,

they're great. But if you just take five minutes to think about what a movie like that is about, which is like alienation, fear of immigration, all of these, there are so many bigger themes going on inside that movie.

If you want to do that, push the glasses up on your nose way of these, like, there are so many bigger themes going on inside that movie. If you want to do that, you know, push the glasses up on your nose way of looking at it, there's so much to understand and enjoy. Also, you know, it's funny, you started with The Omen, which they couldn't really revive. And this is, I mean, this is a movie that was made in the 50s originally and was well considered a hit and considered a pretty good movie.

But the 70s version is so much more sophisticated and it doesn't, it uses the premise, but it doesn't really repeat itself in such a great way. It also, it doesn't hurt that it's got a couple of movie stars in the prime of their career and a couple of people right at the beginning of their career that are, that are awesome in it. Yeah. The big takeaway from, uh, I hadn't seen in a while, it was just like Sutherland is kind of one of a kind. Yeah. I think there's just certain actors that we haven't replicated yet. I think Gene Hackman's another one. Yeah.

I think he had a better career than Sutherland did, but like, who's the next Gene Hackman? The 70s was very kind to a uncommonly handsome kind of leading man. And you just can't really be Dustin Hoffman or Gene Hackman or Donald Sutherland anymore in the same exact way. You know, like our movie stars now that are men in their early to mid-30s. Yeah, that would be like Chris Evans. It's Chris Evans.

It's Chris Pine. Sutherland, he has like a perm? Yes. Like a Gabe Kaplan, Korshak perm? Yeah, he's the professor from Animal House, you know? It's just great. Yeah, it's good stuff. What a great run for him.

What do you think of the 2000s Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig version of this movie? I just get mad when something is as good as a movie like this and then people remake it. I take it personally. And thank God they never remade The Godfather because I really feel like I might have murdered somebody. They just announced today that they're remaking Clueless. So anything's on the table right now.

Yeah. Really? It's all happening. Are they remaking it or are they updating it? I believe it's a remake. No Alicia Silverstone. That's awful. What's the one horror movie you would want to remake? Do you have one that you'd be like,

we should do this again. We should run this back. Silent Rage. Okay. Which was one of the ones I almost listed but I don't even think you can find it on any streaming service is Silent Rage Chuck Norris?

Chuck Norris what's the premise of that? that's the best premise for a horror movie anyone's ever had break it down really quickly I can't even remember it

it starts out the guy who ends up in Shawshank Brian Libby yep he calls his doctor he's in this house. There's all this chaos going on.

And his mom's yelling at their two kids, people running around. And he calls his doctor. He's like, Doc, I'm losing it. And he goes outside. And there's an ax. And he just starts chopping wood. And then something in his head snaps. And he goes into the house and just starts killing everybody.

Chuck Norris, the sheriff, shows up. They have some awesome kung fu battle. It ends with this guy. Chuck Norris subdues him, throws him in the car, gets handcuffed. Guy kicks the window out, breaks out of the car. They shoot him. They kill him. Ron Silver, the doctor.

Love Ron Silver. And his partner, some evil guy, they'd been messing around with this technology that could bring people back to life. For some reason, they decided to try it with the serial killer who's been shot nine times. So they shoot him with all this stuff. Not only do they bring him back to life, he escapes and really starts killing, only now he can't die because he has this medicine in him. And it is fantastic. I never thought of this movie as a horror movie.

Oh, it has a couple of the scariest scenes. There's one scene when he goes back to somebody's house and she goes to hide in the attic. And it's like about as good of a three minute horror scene as there's been. Great ending. Came and went. It was kind of thrown into the Halloween slasher ripoff era. Who's,

who's our, is it the rock? It's Chuck Norris' best movie. No, I almost feel like you need, it's like John Cena. John Cena. It's something like that.

Okay. It's not even like... The Rock's too good for this movie. The gimmick is the star of the movie. Okay. Okay. I'm not mad at it. Or you do it as like an eight-episode Netflix show

where it's just like they brought this guy back to life and now he's escaped. That's pretty good. I'm trying to think of what would I did this Ali junket once in 2001 ESPN sent me to the Ali thing. Ron Silver of course in that movie. Ron Silver was in it and I had 10 minutes with each person

so my 10 minutes with Ron Silver starts and I was like I loved you in Silent Rage remember that movie? And he's like the guy who wouldn't die! He got so excited. He's like I can't believe you in Silent Rage. Remember that movie? And he's like, the guy who wouldn't die. He got so excited. He's like, I can't believe you saw that movie. I love that movie. But yeah, it was a good one.

I recommend Silent Rage too. Maybe we should call some studios and chat about Silent Rage. Silent Rage is just, I wrote this, my ESPN column like 15 years ago. It was my number one choice for a remade movie, Silent Rage. We got to talk Blumhouse into it. I think I tried to talk him into it when I had him on the podcast. I think we have a phone call to make. Bill, thanks for doing this.

This has been a fun one. The big picture, baby. It's back. It's back and better than ever. Thank you.