The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it resolved: John Carpenter, not David Cronenberg is the true master of modern horror

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

Traditional religious holidays are losing ground in a rapidly secularizing world. Halloween, on the other hand, keeps gaining steam.  Decorative pumpkins, elaborate costumes, and a cornucopia of sweet confections all signal that Halloween is upon us.  But for the hardcore Halloween reveler, Halloween means one thing: horror movies.  Horror films allow us to experience our fears from the comfort of our couch, confront them, and work through them.  But all horror movies are not created equal. Since the earliest days of the genre, few directors have reached the heights of John Carpenter. Horror aficionados, fellow directors, and film scholars hold Carpenter in the highest esteem for his ability to create fear from the mundane and believable, and his use of music to create an unparalleled sense of tension and atmosphere of impending doom. They argue Carpenter is the true master of modern horror, and all others are swimming in his wake. But another camp of horror fans disagree, and point to another director as the true master of modern horror. David Cronenberg's intricate weave of psychological and physical horrors create dynamic, challenging and thought provoking films that have expanded the definition of the genre.  They argue that no other director has done more to push horror into the future, permanently redefining what we need fear. Arguing for the motion is Paul Tremblay, horror superfan and award-winning author of Survivor Song, The Cabin at the End of the World, Disappearance at Devil's Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts.  Arguing against the motion is Noel Carroll, professor of philosophy at the CUNY graduate Center, specializing in the contemporary philosophy of art and film and the author of The Philosophy of Horror. Paul Tremblay: “I like to think of a horror film as the reveal of a terrible truth”. Noel Carroll: “The genre has always been about violations of the familiar”. Sources: Halloween (1978) [Compass International Pictures], Shivers (1975) [Cinépix Film Properties (CFP)], The Thing (1982) [Universal], The Fog (1980) [AVCO Embassy Pictures], Videodrome (1983) [Filmplan International], The Fly (1986) [Twentieth Century Fox], eXistenZ (1999) [Dimension Films], The Dead Zone (1983) [Paramount] The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ The Munk Debates podcast is produced by Antica, Canada's largest private audio production company - https://www.anticaproductions.com/   Executive Producer: Stuart Coxe, CEO Antica Productions Senior Producer: Jacob Lewis Editor: Kieran Lynch Associate Producer: Abhi RahejaBecome a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are options, and that's why we need to take this opportunity seriously. No way you can prevent global warming unless China is part of the solution. This is not normal male behavior. This is predatory behavior. We don't know how bad this bug is. We don't know what this bug does. All of that was thrown away in those eight minutes and 46 seconds, and that's the moment that I became an abolitionist. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Welcome to the Monk Debates. Every episode we provide you with a civil and substantive debate on the big issue of the day to arm you, the listener, with enough information

to make up your own mind. Today's debate, be it resolved, John Carpenter, not David Cronenberg, is the true master of modern horror. On this island, in this building, through this door, down this hallway, lies the most frightening experience of your life. Prepare yourself for they came from within. What the hell's in there? It's weird and pissed off, whatever it is. Bennings, go get Childs. What is this?

What's the coming? What's it coming? What's it? Mac wants the flamethrower. Mac wants the what? That's what he said. Now move. Hello, I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffiths.

Halloween, shivers, The Thing, the Fly. These are some of the most iconic titles in the world of horror movies. You like me may have visceral memories of these films and remember the fear they inspired. I know I can't forget Michael Myers stalking Lori through quiet suburbia or Seth slowly transforming into a horrible human fly, losing his sanity in the process. The films of John Carpenter and David Cronenberg have

elevated the genre of the horror flick to the realm of high art, making us all think as well as feel. They continue to terrify audiences and inspire creators decades after their release, but only one can be crowned the true master of modern horror. Among officinados, fellow directors and film scholars, many hold Carpenter in the highest esteem for his ability to create fear from the mundane, ordinary, and believable. His use of music to create an unparalleled sense of tension, an atmosphere of impending doom is unmatched, For many, Carpenter is the true master of modern horror, and all others are swimming in his wake.

Hundred years ago, between midnight and one, something evil came out of the fog. Now it has returned. Who's there? Tony O'Bey has a curse on. Only Carpenter can make us afraid of something as universal as a weather, as in the case of the fog. But another camp of horror fans respectfully disagrees. David Kronenberg's intricate weave of psychological and physical horrors create dynamic, challenging, and thought-provoking films

that have expanded the definition of the genre. They argue that no other director has done more to push horror into the future, permanently redefining what we fear, the media, our bodies, our very sense of our own sanity. They'll be the ultimate family. Three joined together in one body. More human than I have alone. On this installment of the monk debates,

we aim to discover what it means to be afraid. By debating the motion, be it resolved, John Carpenter, not David Kronenberg, is the true master of modern horror. Arguing for the motion is Paul Tromblay, horror superfan and award-winning author of Survivor Song, The Cabin at the End of the World, disappearance at Devil's Rock,

and a head full of ghosts. Arguing against the motion is, Noel Carroll, Professor of Philosophy at the SUNY Graduate Center, specializing in the contemporary philosophy of art and film. He's the author of the bestseller, The Philosophy of Horror. Paul, Noel, welcome to the Monk Debates. Hi, thank you. Well, hello. I'm really looking forward to today's debate. I've got a level with you. Horror films scare the you know what out of me. And traditionally through the course of my life,

I've actually kind of avoided them for that very reason. Some early childhood memories, I will not relate to you both. But the opportunity to kind of think big about this important genre, this way of imagining our world, imagining our kind of interior fears, our interior depths with the two of you, given your extensive knowledge, interest, and insights is just a pleasure indeed. So I'm really looking forward over the next 45 minutes together to learn, to understand, to understand. our motion today because it's one I've thought of a lot. You know, who really is the modern master of horror? We're putting it forward today that it's John Carpenter, not David Cronenberg, who is that true master of modern horror. Paul, you're arguing in favor of the motion. So as per debate convention,

we're going to put a couple minutes on our proverbial show clock and turn the microphone over to you. All right. David Cronerberg, if you're listening. Love you mean it. But this is my side here. Anyway, so in Jason Ziniman's excellent book, Shock Value, highly recommended, he argues the birth of the modern horror film occurs in the 1970s. And one of the defining films of that era is, of course, John Carpenter's Halloween. Halloween is not the first slasher, but it is the definitive one, inspiring an entire subgenre of horror that only grows in popularity and relevance, you know, from yet another Halloween reboot that's out in theaters now, including to a couple of recent best-selling slasher novels of Grady Hendricks and

Stephen Graham Jones. You know, Halloween continues to be, you know, not only relevant, but one of the most relevant films from that period. Then the thing is, you know, I would argue Carpenter's masterpiece, you know, it's one of the greatest horror movies ever made, inspiring, you know, scores of filmmakers, including, you know, from Guillo D'Otoe to Quentin Tarantino. So with those two movies in particular in mind, you know, the look and feel and soundtrack of Carpenter films continue to resonate and to be imitated, you know, much like his alien in the thing. And films like Green Room, it follows and, you know, the nearly ubiquitous Stranger Things where the font, the title show font of Stranger Things is very much lifted directly from Carpenter's title cards from the 80s.

And I guess I would briefly end my opening with, you know, much like Stephen King's, enduring popularity. I think Carpenter's is similarly rooted, compared to King, rooted in his blue-collar protagonists and his versatility within the genre. You know, as well, I'm sure we'll discuss Carpenter tackled many types of horror stories and types of sub-genres within the horror story. Thank you, Paul. To the point focused right on time.

I love that as your moderator. So, Noel, we're going to turn the program over to you, a similar opportunity, two minutes on the clock to give your opening statement, arguing against our motion, be it resolved John Carpenter, not David Cronenberg, Canadian, I might add, is the true master of modern horror. I also want to say that Carpenter is a great, great horror film director. His version, I agree with Paul of the thing. It's a masterpiece.

I think it surpasses the original, which, of course, many people think was actually directed by Howard Hawks. Cronenberg, I want to say, is as strong as carpenter as a cinematic craftsman, but in addition, and this is the crux of my argument, I would say that Cronenberg is deeper. His themes are more ambitious. One of his earliest themes, which he pursued throughout his career, focuses on our paradoxical anxiety, our paradoxical horror about our own embodiment, our revulsion, or disgust that having bodies at having fleshy hardwit of being vulnerable. Plague and infection, of course, the themes of his early films,

Shivers and Rabbit, the correlation of birth and abomination in the brood, of biological change in the fly. And Kodomberg further explores this horror of the body in terms of our being embodied across various modalities. Maybe the most interesting is his explorations of the examination of the body and media in films like Videodrome and Extends, where he explores have the media,

video games and TVs, get control of us through our bodies and its desires, and from there take control of our minds and make us captives. The mind, of course, especially in terms of its darker dimensions, is also a recurring theme in Cronenberg, and another source of the horror we take in our own very nature.

So the theme that Cronenberg explores in various dimensions is this paradox, that what most horrifies us are the features that make us human, not aliens from outer space, not insects as big as garages, but our own creature nature, our own creaturehood. our bodies and the dark resources of our minds. So I think in virtue of this profound theme, that gives Cronenberg an edge in this competition, albeit a competition between two giants. Thank you, Noel. You know, a terrific debate is when your moderator is thoroughly undecided at this point. You both have made really convincing and interesting arguments. I'm looking forward to drilling deeper into some of your key points.

but before we do that, let's have some rebuttal. So, Paul, your opportunity to react to Noel here. Let's put a couple minutes on our show clock and have you spark off Noel's opening statement. Yeah, so I'm in total agreement with Noel in terms of, I mean, my love of Kronenberg, for one thing. And the idea of how Kronenberg is obsessed with, I guess, the shorter sort of parlance would be body horror.

And in a way, like, I would never say that to weakness of Kronenberg, but, you know, for the purposes of this debate, you know, Kronenberg sort of leans into that obsession. And speaking as a writer, who leans into his own obsession? I admired that. But the thing, you know, that I continue to be impressed by with Carpenter is sort of, is more of the depth or breadth of of the different genres within horror. Horror is this expansive thing. You know, as I mentioned, you know, Carpenter really sort of created the slasher film. You know, we can talk about how the thing is really almost, not almost, it very much is a body horror film, very Cronenbergian, at least in terms of the effects that happen to the body within that story. But it also goes, I would say,

even deeper into the themes of identity and who are you really? With the fog, Carpenter did the classic ghost story. He's done a King adaptation. His Prince of Darkness sort of harkens back to Hammer Horror and homage to Quatermasse in the pit. Salt on Precinct 13 is a siege horror film and in the mouth of madness is clearly a lovecraftian, but also a very metafictional story. I think all of those movies, it took at least a decade or two for some people to catch up with them. And the thing I continually am impressed by with Carpenter is sort of that versatility,

whereas I think there's no doubt that Cronenberg probably on a film-by-film basis makes better films, but he continually mines sort of that same obsession of his. We're going to talk like the greater impact within the larger society, make, you know, so many people, one, don't like horror. And then body horror is like an even further edge out into that. Oh, there's no way I could do that. I don't know if Kronenberg's had the same impact as Carpenter. Thank you, Paul.

Now, Noel, similar opportunity for you to react to Paul's opening statement or what you've just heard now. I would agree that Paul is right, that within the area or the domain of horror, Carpenters explored more widely. Of course, in terms of a general palette, I think the argument is actually that Cronenberg has gone much further in terms of films like Cosmopoulos crash. I mean, he's tackled literary classics or neo-classics. So in one sense, I think we both have to agree that both of these directors have reached not only within horror, but in general. I mean, think of Carpenter's escape films to escape from New York, etc.

Brilliant films. I think that one thing that I especially admire about Carpenter is he's very efficient. You know, he is Hawksian. I guess I would say in the same way that I respect Hitchcock as being deeper than Hawks, although both of the masters I would still want to rate Cornburg higher. One interesting thing, I think, and maybe we want to focus a little on this is that Cronenberg and Carpenter both made Stephen King adaptations in the same year, 1983. And in fact, Cronenberg had Carpenter's usual producer, Debbie Hill, on his.

And I would argue that, though they're both very good adaptations, superior adaptations of Stephen King, Cronenberg's dead zone is better than Carpenter's Christine. Who? That is not possible, John. She survived. John, my mother is dead. She's alive. I know a name.

I know where she lives. There's a kind of sadness, a kind of sense of loss. That's not really that evident in the king and gives it just an emotional depth. Christine doesn't have. I mean, the characters have all the right emotions to make the plot work. It's very efficient. And I'll come back to this theme. I think that Konenberg is deeper emotionally.

Also, going back to what Paul said, there's no body horror in Dead Zone. Well, great. Now I get to join the conversation. I want to just pull back the camera lens a little bit. And have both of you talk to us, you know, an audience who is listening to you and understanding, you know, the sophistication, the nuance of your analysis of these films, of these directors. So I want to learn a bit more about how you define modern horror. What is the genre that we're talking about? Because that's at the heart of our resolution.

One of these two men, Carpenter or Cronenberg, is the master of modern horror. That's what we're asserting. So I want to understand a little more about what this genre is and why you think it's so kind of culturally important to interpreting and understanding our society and who we are. So, Paul, maybe I could start with you. the working definition of horror that I use, the horror films and books that I enjoy, and the ones that I try to write, I like to think of a horror film or a horror story as there's a reveal of a terrible truth. I mean, that's any work of art. There's going to be a reveal or a communication of a truth. And obviously, typically in a horror story, that reveal is horrific. It's a reveal of a terrible truth. And it could be personal, societal, universal, or as Noel was talking about, in particular, to Cronenberg, that that reveal is usually, you know, dealing with the revulsion of the body. And I think Carpenter tends to bounce around in those different reveals.

Like, and they live, which we could argue as a horror movie or not, is more sort of societal, whereas a thing is very much a personal reveal of a terrible truth. And I would end by just, I'm just talking in general for a horror story. For me, my favorite kind of horror stories have that reveal of this terrible truth about two-thirds of the way through or certainly not at the end. And I'm always most interested in. And then what are these characters do now? And now that they know this terrible thing or this terrible thing has been exposed,

what are the decisions they're going to make, you know, how do they live through this? How does anybody live through this? And to me, that's what really excites me about horror is getting at those most difficult questions in really interesting ways. You know, and obviously I think Carpenter and Cronomber both do a very good job at getting at those questions. Thanks, Paul. So, Noel, I mean, this is an interesting question for you.

I mean, you're the author of a book, the philosophy of horror. So you've thought long and deeply about this. I mean, what is modern horror? How Paul's saying it's the revelation of a terrible truth. I can see that. I can see how certainly a lot of horror films work that way. Help us understand this genre so we can understand your contesting views as to which one of these two directors, these two artures, is the preeminent master of horror in our time.

Rather than try and give a conceptual or a thematic account, of modern horror the way Paul just did, I would like to suggest a historical approach. I think that modern horror starts when those, let's call them baby boomers, when those baby boomers had the opportunity to return to these great stories and this great genre of their childhood. And I can tell you, because I'm the same age they are, that we had it really tough We had it really tough. Kids nowadays have it easy.

They have horror films on every channel. They've got monsters in everything, you know, from Harry Potter to high school witches and vampire killers. We had to really work. We had to convince our parents to stay up, let us stay up late at night to watch the universal horror films. We had to be on a lookout when famous monsters from films. homeland arrived in the drugstore and we had to grab it right away before anyone else did. In any case, I think that when we came of age and came into our ascendancy, we used it to create, in the case of King, me, I wrote the philosophy of horror.

I wrote it to show my parents that I had was actually gainfully employed during a whole period when they kept saying to me, do your math homework. So I think it was historical, first of all. One thing about King as a writer is that he has been able to take all of these old genres and old stories like the monkeys poor and turn them into 350-page novels. He's taken all of that material and certainly given it his own cast with his own obsession with childhood. But he's actually revived the old forms. Now, I wouldn't want to deny that there are certain new genres, paranormal activity, etc. Now, but modern genre is just, I think, a replay and imaginative expansion of the older genre, which has always been about violations of the familiar.

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I hope you'll consider joining and becoming part of our community. Now, back to our program. So, Noel, that's where I wanted to go next, which is to have both of you kind of argue for your respective champion in this debate. Noel, you're arguing for David Kronenberg as the true master of horror versus as Paul is arguing for John Carpenter. So if we throw another definition out there that part of art's function, its value, its role,

is to reflect ourselves back upon ourselves, to illuminate our interior depths, to reveal ourselves to ourselves. Talk to us a little bit more about what you think Cronenberg shows us in the mirror of his creativity. What do we see? And why do you think that that is something

of enduring value, and importance. I suppose that we want to think about this on two levels. What the horror film reveals about us as individuals and also what it reveals us about ourselves as societies. I mean, a lot of discussion of horror film, which is not something I particularly admire, is the idea that at certain times of crisis, certainly the horror. genre explodes. I think that's just empirically false. We've had a straight run of horror as a kind

of leading genre since Polensky's Rosemary, Baby, and the Exorcist. I mean, it's been unrelenting through bad years. And I mean, some people thought the Reagan years were great. Horror flourished through that. Through recession and inflation, through good times and there, it just doesn't seem to go away. So I'm very suspicious of the social interpretations of horror. I think, as Paul was saying, that it's much more important to focus on what horror reveals about us.

And I think that one thing that Kronenberg wants to confront us with is the kind of horror we may have, or have toward our own bodies, towards our own human conditions. Now, again, I don't think that's a modern theme. I think if you go back to H.P. Lovecraft, that you find this horror of being human and is a perennial theme in horror. But I think that it's one that is dealt with a certain level

of sophistication in Cronenberg. Again, let me cite two major cases, two of his great films, videodrome and extends. Those both seem to me to be asking us to think about our relationship to the media, but not in terms of the way we usually think about it, in terms of short attention spans, but rather in terms of how what the media addresses directly is our body.

It takes control of our body. We tend to think of it as a matter of engaging our mind. But of course, our body is the sight of desire, and that's what the media actually uses as its leverage in terms of entering our souls. Thank you, Noel. So, Paul, I mean, I'm sympathetic to what Nola is saying here, that if you want to look at a 21st century kind of visionary creating films in the final decades of the previous century. You really turn, don't you, to David Kronenberg, to kind of reveal our future selves

to us in the past? I mean, there's something quite remarkable about the themes that he touches on in his horror, genetic engineering, what videodrome and the influences of media and technology on ourselves. Isn't this just at a level of sophistication and kind of cultural persipacity that outstrips John Carpenter and kind of leaves him more as an entertainer than a true uteur of horror. Wow, that's a hard question. I mean, there's no denying that, you know, so many of Cronenberg's movies are certainly speaking to our technological age, if not our technological us.

But I think, you know, as much as I love Cronenberg, what I would argue is that he is often missing out on character depth, you know, that said, you know, Noel rightly brought up that the Dead Zone in particular, there was a depth of character and emotion. It's kind of interesting to me that Cronenberg's two films in which you actually felt for the characters, and I say that with a little bit of humor, were both adaptations, the Dead Zone and the Fly, or a remake in that case. In both those times, you know, Cronenberg did, you know, imbue with an emotional power that was lasting, but which is really sort of missing for most of his other movies, you know, not to say that I don't like those films. It'd be like the same thing with J.G. Ballad,

who's often purposely cold. I think Cronenberg. is purposely cold. And I think that while Carpenter is not necessarily going after our sort of technological present and technological future, I do think that his theme still resonate today for viewers who go back to it today. So for example, you know, I could mention it in my intro that I think one thing that people continually go back to Carpenter for are sort of the blue collar quote-unquote everyday representations of his protagonist. Like the babysitter and we'll go all the way back to Halloween. The babysitter in Halloween. You know, she has to work and make money, whereas, you know, her friends don't, and they're out partying. You know, the heroes of

the thing are sort of the grunts, you know, the helicopter, you know, pilot, the kitchen workers, not the doctors and the scientists. And, you know, they live, which I know was sort of skirting the line of, is this horror or is this not horror? You know, they live features, you know, not a homeless drifter, sort of caught in a consumerist Reagan. And if you watch it now, very Trumpian nightmare. You know, so I do think we see, we can see the themes of today. in the works of Carpenter's past, even though he's not as obsessed with, you know,

where technology is taking not only our bodies, but ourselves. But, you know, I would even argue, and maybe this is a little bit of, you know, viewing them, the movie in our time now.

You know, in the mouth of madness is all about, like, alternate reality, not only shaping who we are, but changing who we are. I mean,

it's hard not to watch in the mouth of madness now and think of, you know, social media and how that's really rewriting our own novels, you know, as we live through them.

So, Noel, a different question for you, which is, you know, to build on Paul's argument here, you know, the Carpenter is the everyman's horatician. I don't know if that's a word or an illegitism that I've just made up, but of course you like David Cronenberg. You're an intellectual. He's an intellectual. We can, you know, find our favorite rabbit hole together and go down it. And what's really powerful about Carpenter's work is its ability to do the thing that sets out a true master of modern horse. which is to scare your living pants off. And Carpenter is just better at that than David Kroner. Now, in terms of who scares the bejesus out of us more, I'd say, look, horror is composed of at least two components. One is fear and the other is disgust. That's what makes horror different than a thriller about, say, just a serial killer.

Horror has a disgust component. And if carpenter scares the bejesus out of you, Kornenberg disgusts the bejesus out of you. He is the master of disgust. Now, I do think that he scares you, but also I think that he gets your skin to crawl and the chills to go up and down your spine in terms of revulsion more.

So, Paul, come back on that because that's, you know, a really interesting way to look at look at Kronenberg. You just think of Jeff Goldblum when he's coming out of the transporter machine and the fly and the pieces of his body are beginning to shed

and the DNA of the fly is asserting itself. I mean, it's, there is a lot of disgust there that draws you along. It's interesting, you know, it's funny because when I write, like I don't think of horror in terms of disgust, that's not to say, you know, Noel is incorrect.

I mean, obviously people talk about that frequently. You know, and weirdly, I might be, I don't know if I'm arguing anybody's point here, but I don't define, I mean, my own sort of working definition of horror doesn't really rely on the scare to me. Like, it really sort of annoys me, like, you know, if it's online or social, just, you know, noise where it's like, oh, that movie wasn't scary, it's not horror. Like, well, I mean, I don't know, that's not the definition of horror to me. I mean, for one, the scare is so subjective. What's going to scare you or Noel might be different than what scares me, just like, you know, humor is so subjective. I think we can intellectually,

sort of recognize, oh, this is supposed to be scary. So I don't know, for me, like as a writer, I tend to focus on, you know, what is disturbing, you know, or what is sort of dread-inducing. I think those are things that are a little bit more of my control. You know, insofar as Carpenter and Cronenberg, I do think, you know, I think at Cronenberg's best and at Carpenter's best, it's so hard to distinguish the two because then they have both. They have the disgust in the emotional depth to it, you know, like in The Fly, as Noel brought up. And if I'm going to go back to maybe the tiebreaker of the thing to me, yes, the thing is disgusting in the practical effects by Rob Boutin, which, you know, are not only ground baking, but continue to be lauded.

And, you know, I wish more people would mimic them instead of relying on CGI. But to me, you know, the scariest parts of the thing are the paranoia that ensues in that film. Are you saying to me the dog wasn't put in the kennel until last night? Right. How long were you alone with that dog? I don't know. hour, hour and a half maybe. What the hell are you looking at me like that for? That is the part that sticks and lingers with me, you know, more than the disgust. And, you know,

there is, you know, that's not to say that the fly doesn't have any sort of lingering depth there too. But, you know, in terms of the scare, I don't know, it's sort of all wrapped up with me. And typically, for me, it's the characters. And I do think that's sort of the broader, the broader reach. You know, I don't know if the broader reach certainly doesn't necessarily equate into what's better, right? We're not going to go with the 10 million Elvis fans. Can't be wrong argument. Before we go to closing statements, Noel, I just want to come back to you on the thing because that was a movie that had left a big impression on me.

And to any of our listeners who've not spent some time with the thing, you know, Halloween is coming up. There's nothing, frankly, maybe better you could do than find it somewhere on Netflix, Apple TV or wherever it is. Because isn't there something remarkable about that film, Noel, that, you know, he took on this earlier iconic horror film. In fact, the classic is a fabulous piece of kind of paranoia to watch unto itself, and he improved on it. And just the starkness of the film that finds, you know,

the sketching of these characters in relief against this Arctic landscape. I mean, surely that film marks Carpenter out as the master of horror for his time. Well, first of all, he didn't improve it in a literal sense. He went back to the original story who goes there, where the creature does this shape-shifting that was dropped out of the late 40s edition. A brilliant move. He deserves, and his scriptwriter deserves all the credit in the world for that. And they imagined it, as Paul pointed out, with just brilliant ideas.

One place that Paul and I really agree on is it's not the scare that counts. ultimately, and it's not the disgust that counts all by itself, it's the fascination that these imagined creatures in situations hold on us, the way they absorb us. It's this, I mean, and if you think of that image of the thing, towards the end where the creature has multiple dogs and everything else, how dazzling. I certainly just, you know, my mouth falls open every time I watched it.

And I did watch it just about two months ago. But the great horror films are the ones that the imagination grabs the fascination. We can't take our eyes off of it, even though that's what we want to do. It's not scare and it's not just disgust. The disgust also often rivets our attention to things. It's the fascination. I would say that Cronenberg, some of Cronenberg's images, rivals, and maybe even exceeds the work and the thing.

The thing I agree is Carpenter's great achievement. But think of videodrome, the video is being put into James Wood's body. I've got something I want to play for you. Think of extends discovering a gun in a Chinese dinner. I found this in my soup, and I'm very upset. Cronenberg's imagery, the visual work is just gripping. Another word for fascination. Thank you, Noel.

Paul, I wonder if you could help me out as moderator here. We're doing this alternating thing. I promised you the last word in this debate, but could I ask you to go first with your closing statement on our resolution today, be it resolved John Carpenter, who you've been arguing for, not David Cronenberg, is the true master of horror? And man, I just had to, it never worked in, but I wanted to work in my quoting of Nelson months after he, of the Simpsons, after walking out of naked lunch, saying I could think of two

things wrong with that title. Anyway, neither here or there, but one of my favorite Cronerick moments. Very good. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, I mean, hopefully the winner of this debate is horror because both of these filmmakers are both, you know, genius filmmakers, I think. But, you know, so if I am here to argue for for carpenter, excuse me, I want to go back to something Noel talked about earlier, the idea of like, which I totally agree with. We talked about like the lie that we're fed in real life about living in an uncertain, you know, now these are uncertain times.

The idea of like, oh, when things are bad horror, you know, does really well. You know, I don't know about you all, but like during at the beginning of the pandemic, we would have car commercials and bread commercials or whatever commercials talking about in these uncertain times. you need that loaf of bread that you can rely on. And I found myself just getting angry. Now, clearly, we were experiencing something a little bit extraordinary, but the idea that we've ever lived in something called Certain Times is the lie. And that is horror to me. And I think that is Carpenter Horror.

You know, with Halloween, he really sort of the first biggest film, when I say biggest in terms of popularity, that really played on the idea that you are not safe in the suburbs. I mean, really, that's what in a lot of ways of sloth. Lashor idea is about, like, you know, these, you know, mostly well affluent people, you know, feel like they're safe in the suburbs and know them as maskless killer comes to town. And then obviously the paranoia, the 80s paranoia within the thing, you know, could certainly be, you know, would play as well in 2021.

You know, the same with the paranoia within in the mouth of madness. You know, to me as a stand in for the age of misinformation that we, that we live in. So between that and the aesthetic that continues, you know, not only to inform the films, today, but some of the best horror films made in the last five to ten years have been clearly influenced by Carpenter, including, I think I mentioned It Follows, but also Ty West's House of the Devil. I mentioned Stranger Things. Even Entertainment Weekly in 2014, Hailed Carpenter is that your's most influential

filmmaker, despite not having made a film, because there were three or four films that had come out from Adam Wingard and Jeremy Solingier, who made and continue to make Carpenter-esque movies. So it's very close to me, but I guess I have to go, Carpenter. Thank you, Paul. And Noel, you've been arguing against our motion, be it resolved John Carpenter, not David Cronenberg, is the true master of horror. Wrap this debate up for us. Well, let me say by starting with something unfair, which is simply that I don't think we should count things in terms of influence. You can be historically important and not be aesthetically great. Now, Carpenter is aesthetically great. That's not what I'm claiming.

I'm being a philosopher, I'm being argumentative. I'm saying the premise of influence should not be decisive in this case. And I again will go back to the point that I've tried to make before. Both Kronenberg and Carpenter are in their different ways, excellent cinematic crafts people. I would actually say, well, it would be very difficult, to make a decision there. So ultimately, I think we have to look at content.

And my argument has been since the beginning that Cronenberg is the deeper cinematic thinker. Well, Paul, Noel, thank you so much for a terrific debate. You know, we've debated on this program, ancient Rome versus ancient Greeks, which is the more important contributor to Western civilization. We've debated Beethoven versus Mozart. who is the greatest composer? And now we debated John Carpenter versus David Cronenberg.

And as with all those previous debates, I've learned so much about your areas of expertise here, your fascination with the genre of horror. And I think the really significant, important things that come from our reflection on these two directors on this genre, about ourselves and about our society as a whole. So on behalf of the Mug Debates community, I just want to thank you both for your time, your consideration, and the thought and effort that you've respectively and individually put into your own work to understand these two great directors and more importantly just understand the value of horror as not just a form of entertainment, but a form of art that we could all do more to understand and appreciate. So thank you both for your time today.

Thank you. Thank you, Roger. Well, that wraps up today's debate. I want to thank our participants, Paul Trombly and Noel Carroll. If you have feedback or reflections on what you've just heard, please send us email to podcast at monkdebates.com. That's MUNK DebateswithanS.com. Also, a reminder that if you enjoy this podcast, check out our regular weekly monk members-only podcast where we delve into the big issues and ideas. shaping the news. You can get that podcast free as part of our basic membership, which is available

at triple-w monkdebates.com. And to listen to more debates on everything from climate change to religion to geopolitics to the future of human progress, you can do that all on our website, mugdebates.com also. And finally, thank you for lending your time and attention to our mission as an organization to bring back the art of public debate, one conversation at a time. I'm your host and moderator, Rudyard Griffith. The Monk Debates are produced by Antica Productions and supported by the Monk Foundation. Jacob Lewis is the producer. Abbe Rojasia is the associate producer.

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