Latest / Beyond The Blood: A Horror Movie Commentary Podcast / Lowell Greenblatt Interview - Author of 'Nightmare Autopsis'

Transcript

Lowell Greenblatt Interview - Author of 'Nightmare Autopsis' · Beyond The Blood: A Horror Movie Commentary Podcast

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Speaker 1: You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.
1:14
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Beyond the Blood, the podcasts where we
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Speaker 2: go deeper than the gore and get into the heart,
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Speaker 2: history and psychology behind the horror we love. Tonight's episode
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Speaker 2: takes us straight into the dream world and the nightmares
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Speaker 2: that defined a generation. We're joined by author Lowell Greenblatt,
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Speaker 2: whose book Nightmare Autopsis, A Return to Elma Street dissects
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Speaker 2: the original run of the Nightmare and Elma Street franchise,
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Speaker 2: pulling back the curtain on all eight films and the
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Speaker 2: people who brought them to life, from the razor glove
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Speaker 2: terror of Freddy Krueger to the evolution of the series
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Speaker 2: across decades. We're diving into what made elm Street such
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Speaker 2: a lasting force in horror and how it transformed along
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Speaker 2: the way. This is more than just a retrospective. It's
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Speaker 2: a full on autopsy of one of the most iconic
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Speaker 2: franchises ever put on screen. So don't fall asleep, because
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Speaker 2: once you do, there's no telling what's waiting for you
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Speaker 2: on the other side.
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Speaker 3: All right, So low give me, give me your experience.
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Speaker 3: I'm working with Harker Press because we are massive massive
2:38
Speaker 3: fans of those guys over there, so to get a
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Speaker 3: chance to talk to someone who now has published work
2:44
Speaker 3: with them, we're kind of geeking out about it, if
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Speaker 3: I'm being honest.
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Speaker 4: Movie, Yeah, honestly it My brain immediately goes to the
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Speaker 4: phrase it was a dream completely forgetting that I wrote
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Speaker 4: a book about the Nightmare and elm Street Movies. Working
3:02
Speaker 4: with Dustin was like incredible in that he knew what
3:07
Speaker 4: I was going for and he knew how to bring
3:10
Speaker 4: me there if I wasn't quite there on something yet.
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Speaker 4: But it was just really symbiotic and like almost like
3:17
Speaker 4: finishing each other sentences and like, yeah, I mean I
3:22
Speaker 4: didn't this is my first book, so I didn't really
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Speaker 4: have I have no frame of reference for how an
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Speaker 4: editor is supposed to be beside Dustin, but I mean
3:31
Speaker 4: he set the bar like it's it's for everyone else
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Speaker 4: I work with in the future to reach. Really but
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Speaker 4: I mean, I mean, Harker was really the only publisher.
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Speaker 4: I did shop it around to a few places, and
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Speaker 4: I didn't start to look at self publishing. But like
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Speaker 4: in my mind as I was writing it, I'm like,
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Speaker 4: I want to write the Harker Press book on the Nightmare,
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Speaker 4: like the book on the Nightmare Old Street series, but
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Speaker 4: like the Harker Press book on the Nightmare and elm
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Speaker 4: Street series. And you know, some of his books even
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Speaker 4: inspired sections of the books, like how Taking Shape two.
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Speaker 4: You know, his two books on the Halloween franchise, Taking Shape,
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Speaker 4: Taking Shape two and Taking Shape two is just unused scripts.
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Speaker 4: I couldn't do a second volume of just unused scripts,
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Speaker 4: but I wanted to include unused scripts in the book,
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Speaker 4: like first drafts, avenues that were abandoned for whatever reason.
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Speaker 4: I thought it was important to talk about those two.
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Speaker 4: And yeah, it was just hand in glove man.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, he I mean Taking Shape was for anybody who
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Speaker 3: doesn't know. I think Taking Shape is kind of the
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Speaker 3: penultimate Harker Press book. Taking Shape one and two are incredible.
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Speaker 3: I personally started with them with a slash of the Titans,
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Speaker 3: which goes through all the unused scripts for Freddy versus Jason.
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Speaker 3: Of course, that was incredible. I mean just information overload.
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Speaker 3: And I read both Taking Shape one and two to
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Speaker 3: cover I think twice. Now every every kind of Halloween season,
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Speaker 3: I kind of get into the mood to keep learning,
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Speaker 3: and there's always more to learn, Like there there's no way,
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Speaker 3: even your book, there's no way that you can read
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Speaker 3: these in one sitting and absorb I feel like twenty
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Speaker 3: percent of the information because it's so in depth, so deep,
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Speaker 3: and there's just so much like little detail and like cool.
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Speaker 3: Like literally just now, I was sitting here before we
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Speaker 3: started recording, and I was just kind of like flipping
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Speaker 3: through your book and I'm like, I later on Nightmare
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Speaker 3: Elm Street two and I'm like looking at it and
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Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, wow, I didn't know that. Oh I
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Speaker 3: didn't know that. Just kind of doing that endlessly as
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Speaker 3: I'm going through, even though I've already read the book once.
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Speaker 3: You know, there were huge fans, huge fans of those,
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Speaker 3: huge fans of what they do.
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Speaker 4: And I also will say like, even before I knew
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Speaker 4: I was going to work with Harder Press, I was
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Speaker 4: referencing The Slash of the Titans and The Soul of
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Speaker 4: Wes Craven, which they put out fairly recently, because they
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Speaker 4: are very valuable, they're very great, they're a very good book.
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Speaker 4: So it's kind of funny that, like, you know, I say,
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Speaker 4: like in Joe Maddery's book, in you know, Harker Press's
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Speaker 4: Slash of the Titans that it's now my book, the
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Speaker 4: finished version is on the shelf next to them, which
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Speaker 4: is just kind of nuts like that. That was not
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Speaker 4: synergy and product placement. That was like, they were a
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Speaker 4: great resource and they're great reads.
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Speaker 3: Well, I think we were waiting for it because you know,
6:24
Speaker 3: you have Slash of the Titans, you have much more
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Speaker 3: broad with taking shape. And then they did Rain of Chucky,
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Speaker 3: which is no other book could really be written about
6:32
Speaker 3: Child's play after Rain of Chucky comes out. And then
6:34
Speaker 3: now they've done I believe Harker. Did they just put
6:38
Speaker 3: out the Maniac Cop.
6:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, Maniac Cop, the Icons of Freight book House of
6:44
Speaker 4: Rejects for the Firefly trilogy that Rob Zombie did. Yeah,
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Speaker 4: they're killing it, which we used.
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Speaker 3: We cited that book a lot in Our House episodes,
6:53
Speaker 3: in Our Devil's Rejects episodes. Again, we I think I
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Speaker 3: read both those sections during research six times, and I
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Speaker 3: feel like I could still go back and read them
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Speaker 3: again and learn even more. Again. It's just it's information
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Speaker 3: overload in the best way possible to kind of appease
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Speaker 3: our geek minds, you know what I mean.
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Speaker 2: There's a lot of rereadability with them, Oh yeah, hold lot.
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Speaker 3: How do you like? I don't even know how I've
7:18
Speaker 3: read Rain. I was actually reading Rain of Chucky while rewatching.
7:22
Speaker 3: I got the Arrow four K collection for Child's Play,
7:25
Speaker 3: and as I was watching those, I was kind of
7:28
Speaker 3: reading the Reign of Chucky book and then I'm like, oh,
7:32
Speaker 3: I should probably go back and listen to some of
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Speaker 3: these commentaries. And then it like you read it, you
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Speaker 3: read a chapter of a book, you do a comment
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Speaker 3: or you read listen to a commentary, and then two
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Speaker 3: months go by and I'm like, I'm like learning about
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Speaker 3: something else that I'm like, I don't even know why
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Speaker 3: I dive this deep. I feel like I'm not retaining
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Speaker 3: except for little little tiny splashes, Like every now and
7:52
Speaker 3: again there's an add moment where I pull out some
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Speaker 3: piece of some information I learned on it behind the
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Speaker 3: scenes feature at that I never thought of before, Like
8:02
Speaker 3: it's stored and like, uh, you know, Doctor Sleeper, the
8:05
Speaker 3: Shining I kind of open up a box and that
8:07
Speaker 3: kind of comes back out, so you never know when
8:09
Speaker 3: you might need it.
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Speaker 4: It's true. I mean, you know, it's like that paton
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Speaker 4: Oswall joke, like you you'll remember like a jingle from
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Speaker 4: a local commercial thirty years ago, and you'll forget the
8:23
Speaker 4: steps to do infant CPR. Like it's just all the
8:27
Speaker 4: dumb stuff I curse on here always pretty okay, all
8:31
Speaker 4: the dumb stuff that like, you know, you retain for
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Speaker 4: whatever reason and like you can't, for the life of
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Speaker 4: you just remember the important things in life in like
8:43
Speaker 4: certain aspects. It's just yeah, I mean I think that's
8:45
Speaker 4: kind of part of the.
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Speaker 5: Course for nerds like us, you know, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 5: well especially right, yeah, especially us where it's like in
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Speaker 5: a given week, Steve, I feel like you and I
8:55
Speaker 5: watch two commentary tracks, three documentaries, read half a book,
8:59
Speaker 5: and then Sunday comes around, we're sitting down to record
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Speaker 5: and we're.
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Speaker 3: Like, what was that big thing they told us to do?
9:04
Speaker 3: Or like I'm late for work because I forgot that
9:06
Speaker 3: I had to go to work.
9:07
Speaker 2: Like so, you know, I feel like my mind constantly
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Speaker 2: has like fifty different tabs open, like I'm like cycling
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Speaker 2: through all the stuff that we have coming up here.
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Speaker 2: And then you know, Chris and I keep each other
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Speaker 2: on point as far as you know, scheduling and just
9:20
Speaker 2: making sure we get these tasks done for the podcast.
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Speaker 2: But well, I gotta I gotta ask first and foremost, like,
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Speaker 2: how are you initially introduced to Nightmare and elm Street?
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Speaker 2: Obviously this has had such a big influence on not
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Speaker 2: only your work but your life in general. Where did
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Speaker 2: it all begin for you?
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Speaker 4: It started when I was six. I've always said Nightmare
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Speaker 4: is the film series that got me not just into horror,
9:48
Speaker 4: but into films in general, Like I watched these movies
9:51
Speaker 4: and I wanted to know more about movie making. It
9:54
Speaker 4: was specifically with part six Freddy's Dead, the Final Nightmare,
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Speaker 4: which some consider then ad the franchise, But I watched
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Speaker 4: it when I was six, and it was it wasn't scary,
10:05
Speaker 4: and I was worried it was gonna be scary because
10:07
Speaker 4: some friends brought it over for a sleepover and I'm like, oh, man,
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Speaker 4: Like it's like these social tests, like, oh, I've never
10:13
Speaker 4: seen a horror movie before, but they're supposed to be scary,
10:16
Speaker 4: Like what if I'm scared in front of my friends?
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Speaker 4: But it wasn't. But it was awesome. It was like
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Speaker 4: a visual phantasma goic, like I'd never seen anything like it.
10:27
Speaker 4: And you know, they have the montage of the other
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Speaker 4: five at the end and I just ran to get
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Speaker 4: a piece of paper and a pencil. I'm just like,
10:33
Speaker 4: I need to write down all other five of these titles,
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Speaker 4: and I need to see them as soon as possible.
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Speaker 4: And you know, like that got me into horror. When
10:44
Speaker 4: DVDs came out when I was in high school, Like
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Speaker 4: I just gobbled them up because I wanted to know
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Speaker 4: the behind the scenes. Like I wanted to know what
10:52
Speaker 4: went into making the things that I loved. And I
10:57
Speaker 4: always kind of thought The Nightmare got the short shrift
10:59
Speaker 4: in that department. I mean, you like, and I have
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Speaker 4: the box sets of Halloween Friday the Thirteenth too. I
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Speaker 4: love all the series, but you know, so many other
11:12
Speaker 4: series have like commentary track after commentary track, after retrospective
11:16
Speaker 4: after retrospective. There's so much merch, you know, cavity colors,
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Speaker 4: fright rags, we love them, but they there's like ten
11:24
Speaker 4: million shirts for Friday the thirteenth. Eight Jason takes Manhattan,
11:28
Speaker 4: and yeah, it is a very loaded and sellable visual,
11:31
Speaker 4: but like, where are all the commentary tracks that I
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Speaker 4: want for The Nightmare and Elm Street films? Where's the
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Speaker 4: behind the scenes, Where's where's the scholarship? And there really
11:42
Speaker 4: wasn't any I mean, there's a great book that's about
11:46
Speaker 4: just the first Nightmare in Elm Street film. Wayne Byrne
11:49
Speaker 4: has a book that's pretty good that like goes through
11:52
Speaker 4: the series, but not to the degree that like I
11:54
Speaker 4: want or that like really slaked my thirst. And I
11:58
Speaker 4: just kind of realized at the fortieth anniversary of the
12:02
Speaker 4: original when we just got one little four K with
12:06
Speaker 4: recycled art and no new commentaries, no new nothing, and
12:11
Speaker 4: it's like boom, forty years there you go. And I
12:14
Speaker 4: was like, no one, no one's going to write this book,
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Speaker 4: Like at this point forty years after the original, no
12:21
Speaker 4: one's going to do it. So I'm going to do it.
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Speaker 4: And I did. And it's with that, Hubris that you
12:29
Speaker 4: have the book that you you see before you today.
12:32
Speaker 4: That was a long walk to water by the way,
12:35
Speaker 4: I told you, I go off on tangents, but yeah,
12:38
Speaker 4: but it was. It's it's always been with me.
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Speaker 2: So did you did you start with Freddy's Dead or
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Speaker 2: did you start with the original?
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Speaker 4: Or what was? No, it was it was Freddy's Dead. Honestly,
12:48
Speaker 4: I think I could even I think I can even
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Speaker 4: recall the order for you now because I'm of a
12:52
Speaker 4: certain age where like there was no streaming. You're at
12:57
Speaker 4: the mercy of like whatever's at the video store. A
13:01
Speaker 4: video you know, video store is a brick and mortar
13:03
Speaker 4: store where you have to go, you have to rent
13:04
Speaker 4: a video. Whatever's playing on TV. Depending on the channel,
13:08
Speaker 4: the good, the good, gore and effects are usually cut out,
13:12
Speaker 4: you know, so you know, videotapes might be out. It's
13:16
Speaker 4: it's not. It wasn't all at your fingertips when I
13:19
Speaker 4: came up seeing these movies. So someone rented six and
13:22
Speaker 4: then it was three five for one two. That was
13:31
Speaker 4: the order. And I can't I can't tell you that
13:34
Speaker 4: like how I sort of process them in the moment,
13:36
Speaker 4: because I mean, to me, I don't think of like
13:39
Speaker 4: Freddy's Dead as the original and like, you know, like
13:42
Speaker 4: I sort of know the flow of them, but I
13:45
Speaker 4: do remember at certain points, like as an example, like
13:49
Speaker 4: so Dream Warriors was the second one that I saw
13:52
Speaker 4: the and like it's the second appearance of Nancy Thompson.
13:55
Speaker 4: But when she first appears in that movie, she's finishing
13:59
Speaker 4: the Freddy Krueger rhyme, like in the midst of like
14:02
Speaker 4: a chaotic situation that sort of calms the room down,
14:05
Speaker 4: and that was just mind blowing, like, oh my god,
14:08
Speaker 4: this is an adult that's come to like help these
14:10
Speaker 4: kids who understand like who is she? Where did she
14:13
Speaker 4: come from? Which I think was the intended effect for
14:19
Speaker 4: the director, Chuck Russell. It's a great moment if you
14:23
Speaker 4: have seen the first one, it's great if you haven't.
14:26
Speaker 4: It just works.
14:27
Speaker 3: So yeah, dude, she Heather Lanyingcamp. Her her just energy
14:35
Speaker 3: on screen is incredible and I hate it. She's she's
14:39
Speaker 3: become like this all, look who we have for a
14:42
Speaker 3: brief moment in our movie. Because we watched Hell Raise
14:45
Speaker 3: Your Judgment the other day. Uh yeah, completely forgot that
14:50
Speaker 3: she was in it, and she came up in the
14:52
Speaker 3: opening titles. I'm like, oh, she's in this, And she's
14:55
Speaker 3: like ten seconds as the lease owner for one of
14:57
Speaker 3: the or like the like the.
15:01
Speaker 4: Cranky land Lady or something. I haven't seen that one,
15:04
Speaker 4: but I've heard, but ten seconds. Yeah, I mean, well,
15:08
Speaker 4: she's actually pivoted to sort of a behind the behind
15:11
Speaker 4: the scenes role. Her and her husband, who's like a
15:13
Speaker 4: huge makeup effects guy do all these practical effects on
15:17
Speaker 4: all these movies. Like I'm watching like the Dawn of
15:19
Speaker 4: the Dead remake special Features, and she and her husband
15:22
Speaker 4: are like on it talking about making up the zombies,
15:25
Speaker 4: and I'm like, you know, I'm just doing the DiCaprio meme, Like,
15:28
Speaker 4: oh my god, Like that's her, but like, I think
15:30
Speaker 4: she is coming back now to acting, which I love
15:34
Speaker 4: to see. She was in the Midnight Club with Mike Flanagan.
15:37
Speaker 4: Mike Flanagan, who you know, I I bow to him
15:41
Speaker 4: for most of the stuff that he's made. He knows
15:44
Speaker 4: how to use her and is utilizing her, and I
15:47
Speaker 4: wish more people would because I love her and I mean,
15:51
Speaker 4: Nancy is, in my mind, the greatest final girl of
15:54
Speaker 4: all time.
15:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, dude, can we can we go on to Mike
15:58
Speaker 3: Flanagan Tangent real quick because.
15:59
Speaker 4: I will go on every mic flagg in Tangent. That
16:02
Speaker 4: man is a fucking miracle worker. Yeah.
16:05
Speaker 3: Yeah. And our friend Jordan, who I do the other
16:07
Speaker 3: podcast with, uh, he just texted me. He was like,
16:10
Speaker 3: I'm watching your favorite movie and he was watching Doctor
16:12
Speaker 3: Sleep for the first time, and I was like, or
16:15
Speaker 3: the directors. I was like, are you watching the director's cut?
16:17
Speaker 3: And he's like yeah. Finally, I'm like, dude, thank fucking god,
16:21
Speaker 3: like you're finally, dude. What that guy has done for
16:25
Speaker 3: not just King adaptations before the genre unbelievable. I feel
16:30
Speaker 3: like he can do no wrong, and I don't understand
16:33
Speaker 3: this constant need for people to feel like like he
16:38
Speaker 3: jumps on board the Duty Exorcists right everyone after Believer,
16:41
Speaker 3: I get it. Nobody has any hope in it. They
16:44
Speaker 3: got fucking Mike Flanagan to direct it. Obviously there's something there, right,
16:48
Speaker 3: if he's gonna jump on it, And then people were
16:50
Speaker 3: bashing that he's gonna do a Carry adaptation on Amazon.
16:53
Speaker 3: I'm like, first of all King materials, always open to
16:56
Speaker 3: any amount of adaptations. Anybody can redo this anyway they want.
17:00
Speaker 3: Flannagan's the guy you want to do it. I just
17:02
Speaker 3: don't understand the distrust that people have in him. I
17:07
Speaker 3: don't like, like, at what point do you prove like
17:10
Speaker 3: I got this, Guys, I'm good.
17:12
Speaker 4: I don't know, man like, and I'll watch whatever he does.
17:17
Speaker 4: I'm just in his pocket, But like, I do want
17:20
Speaker 4: to see him do more original things and less adaptations. Yet, Like,
17:25
Speaker 4: to me, Midnight mass is a perfect season of television. Yeah,
17:28
Speaker 4: just front to back, just like a just it's it's perfect,
17:33
Speaker 4: it's great, it's it starts middles and ends well middles
17:39
Speaker 4: maybe not the word I'm looking for, but it's like
17:41
Speaker 4: and it is very Stephen King inspired but like and
17:45
Speaker 4: obviously I like some of his stuff more than others.
17:48
Speaker 4: I don't know what his exorcist looks like, but I'm
17:50
Speaker 4: really curious. But man like, like he just keeps doing
17:55
Speaker 4: the impossible, Like Gerald's Game isn't a movie. It's someone
17:59
Speaker 4: lying in a bed and hallucinating for like however many pages,
18:03
Speaker 4: but he made it a compelling movie Doctor Sleep, like,
18:08
Speaker 4: like I still remember watching that and I knew that
18:11
Speaker 4: in the trailers they go back to the overlook, but
18:14
Speaker 4: like when they pull up to the overlook in the
18:16
Speaker 4: movie and like then you see you and McGregor walking
18:19
Speaker 4: down the hallway, I'm like, oh, we're doing this. Oh man,
18:23
Speaker 4: We're really doing this. And and he does it. He
18:28
Speaker 4: marries the intent of King's book with the visuals of
18:33
Speaker 4: Stanley Kubrick's movies, which no one ever thought to ever
18:37
Speaker 4: bring them together, like he he basically parent traps Stephen
18:41
Speaker 4: King and Stanley Kubrick back together again and makes something
18:45
Speaker 4: incredible and like when it was over. I turned to
18:48
Speaker 4: my wife in the theater, I'm like, like he did it,
18:52
Speaker 4: like he he absolutely did it, like deep deep, and like,
18:57
Speaker 4: I don't know, I mean, maybe it make a good
19:01
Speaker 4: movie first, which he did, But I feel like hard
19:04
Speaker 4: nerds in particular are acutely aware of what an achievement
19:09
Speaker 4: that film is. Just it just incredible.
19:14
Speaker 3: Yeah that that? Are you a big Doctor Sleep fan, Steve.
19:19
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, a lot of his works. That's kind
19:21
Speaker 2: of why I'm like taking a step back. I haven't
19:24
Speaker 2: dove into a lot of his films. I honestly, it's
19:27
Speaker 2: like a blind spot in my movie watching experience. But
19:32
Speaker 2: you guys definitely speak very highly of it, so I
19:35
Speaker 2: promise I will. I will definitely get around to it.
19:38
Speaker 4: I worry that I've guilded the Little guilded the Lily
19:41
Speaker 4: a little bit too much because I'm I'm a fan again,
19:44
Speaker 4: what could I say? And speaking of Nightmare and Elm Street,
19:47
Speaker 4: he's been vocal about that he has a pitch for
19:51
Speaker 4: Nightmare and Elm Street to like reboot it, And I
19:54
Speaker 4: don't know if I could handle that, to be perfectly honest, Like,
19:58
Speaker 4: I feel like, if that's officially announced, the anticipation that
20:03
Speaker 4: I have for that would just short out my brain
20:05
Speaker 4: and it just it couldn't really match the finished product.
20:09
Speaker 4: Like I like, that's just that's gonna lead me into
20:11
Speaker 4: a land of disappointment no matter what, because I hold
20:14
Speaker 4: him in such high esteem.
20:17
Speaker 3: But yeah, well I just gotta say for for an
20:22
Speaker 3: end of this topic, Life of Chuck changed my life steep.
20:25
Speaker 3: So you might want to start just dive into Life
20:28
Speaker 3: of Chuck and be ready for an emotional experience. Go
20:35
Speaker 3: go do. Okay, look, let's that I would say.
20:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, give me, give me three to start with.
20:43
Speaker 3: You have to watch Midnight Mass Okay, Okay, I know,
20:46
Speaker 3: mini series, you can do it, uh doctor sleep for sure,
20:50
Speaker 3: Director's cut. The extra thirty minutes really finishes out the
20:53
Speaker 3: rest of the story. Very nice. Life of Chuck is great,
20:58
Speaker 3: But honestly, I feel like I feel like, if you
21:02
Speaker 3: only had to watch three, I have to tell you
21:04
Speaker 3: to watch Gerald's Game because it's so good, you know
21:07
Speaker 3: what I mean. But you can really go anywhere. Even
21:10
Speaker 3: I even enjoyed Fall all the House of Usher, I
21:12
Speaker 3: haven't thought that was great.
21:14
Speaker 4: I would say hush, even like hush is uh.
21:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one I have seen I did like that movie.
21:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, very smart, very very very smart thriller.
21:23
Speaker 4: Yep, yeah, what is it? Haunting of Hill House and
21:26
Speaker 4: Midnight Mass absolutely if for a many series, Absolutely those
21:30
Speaker 4: two are are muss.
21:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, this is our episode on Mike Flanagan.
21:35
Speaker 4: This is our Yeah right, I love a tangent and
21:38
Speaker 4: you get started.
21:39
Speaker 3: On that man like, oh, let's Steve get back tonight
21:43
Speaker 3: right now?
21:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's all good. So obviously we know with
21:48
Speaker 2: your book you cover all eight original films. How did
21:51
Speaker 2: you approach balance in them, especially when the tone shifts
21:54
Speaker 2: so much throughout the series.
21:57
Speaker 4: Well, I thought I was thought of another title of
22:00
Speaker 4: this book would be what we talk about when we
22:02
Speaker 4: talk about Nightmare and Elm Street. So I kind of
22:04
Speaker 4: let the films lead the way. I mean, I've been
22:07
Speaker 4: such a fan. I know that, like they're so different
22:10
Speaker 4: from each other, that each movie was sort of going
22:14
Speaker 4: in a different direction and talking about a new thing
22:18
Speaker 4: while still being a Nightmare and Elm Street film. So
22:21
Speaker 4: you know, I have the chapters where I synopsize them
22:23
Speaker 4: and then I like go into them and the analysis
22:27
Speaker 4: and appreciation I call it. And I mean I'm not
22:31
Speaker 4: really worried about anyone getting whiplash, because there's so much
22:35
Speaker 4: stuff to enjoy and talk about and think about with
22:39
Speaker 4: all of these movies, even the ones some would say
22:42
Speaker 4: are the lesser ones, like their visual feasts and you're
22:47
Speaker 4: dealing with the subconscious and dreams and rubber reality is
22:51
Speaker 4: what Craven used to say. So, you know, but another
22:55
Speaker 4: but speaking of the changing nature of them, one of
23:00
Speaker 4: the things that I always like to talk about was like, yes,
23:05
Speaker 4: Freddy does get quote unquote funnier, Like they get lighter,
23:10
Speaker 4: they get more MTV, they get more of this or
23:12
Speaker 4: more that. But like what usually I find when you
23:16
Speaker 4: bring up these movies to people and you reference like
23:19
Speaker 4: be on the original like a sequel, They're like, oh,
23:21
Speaker 4: is that the one where you wear sunglasses? Oh? Is
23:24
Speaker 4: that the one where the guy turns into a car.
23:26
Speaker 4: And I'm like, how are those your takeaways? You know,
23:31
Speaker 4: like like people can be so specific about like oh, yeah,
23:34
Speaker 4: it's you know, that's the one where like you know,
23:37
Speaker 4: Jason's an evil dead demon, or the one where he
23:39
Speaker 4: goes to Manhattan, which is called Jason Takes Manhattan. But
23:42
Speaker 4: still you know, oh, like the one with the Corey
23:45
Speaker 4: Feldman and all that, like like, I just feel like,
23:49
Speaker 4: even though Freddy Krueger is iconic and ever present, like
23:54
Speaker 4: people only sort of know these films at least like
23:58
Speaker 4: the general populace on like a souper official level, and
24:02
Speaker 4: the horror movies of today take from them so much.
24:06
Speaker 4: And I'm not, like, you know, I'm not accusing filmmakers
24:09
Speaker 4: of stealing. I mean, obviously the makers of Black Phone too,
24:13
Speaker 4: like show their love of Nightmare and Elmstreet all the time,
24:16
Speaker 4: but like Wes Craven created something so original that has
24:21
Speaker 4: been explored and when it ended, I just feel like
24:26
Speaker 4: people picked at the corpse and the feeling that these
24:32
Speaker 4: these movies bring forth, like the ideas the reality warping
24:36
Speaker 4: that's still being utilized today. And I just want people
24:39
Speaker 4: to like know their horror history beyond like you know
24:43
Speaker 4: what's available at Spirit Halloween.
24:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I think too. You know, we all know
24:50
Speaker 3: that night Mari and Olmstreet hasn't been treated the best
24:53
Speaker 3: when it comes to physical media, right we had oh yeah,
24:56
Speaker 3: we had the great VHS box at you know because
24:59
Speaker 3: of the on the side, and then we had the
25:01
Speaker 3: DVD box set and then.
25:03
Speaker 2: Those are iconic.
25:05
Speaker 3: You got the shittiest Blu Ray collection imaginable and then
25:09
Speaker 3: nothing for what when did that Blu Ray box set
25:13
Speaker 3: come out? It was it was a long time.
25:16
Speaker 4: Ago, ten fifteen years now more than ten, but just
25:21
Speaker 4: like yeah, it's just yeah, especially on physical media, they've
25:25
Speaker 4: never really gotten love. I mean, there is the original
25:28
Speaker 4: DVD box set had the uh like to choose your
25:32
Speaker 4: own adventure kind of way of going through the special features.
25:35
Speaker 4: They had them listed regularly if you didn't want to
25:37
Speaker 4: do that stuff, but like you know, you'd get brief
25:40
Speaker 4: interviews here and there. Only one A New Nightmare really
25:43
Speaker 4: had commentaries, and they're just there. Never seemed to be
25:48
Speaker 4: a lot of like love or like you know, like, well,
25:53
Speaker 4: we know you're curious about how these were made, so
25:55
Speaker 4: we're going to show you, you know, and like these
25:59
Speaker 4: I I know that like the effects guys that worked
26:01
Speaker 4: on all these horror movies in the eighties were particularly
26:04
Speaker 4: excited to work on the Nightmare and Elms Street films,
26:06
Speaker 4: and it showed. And you know, I've always felt like
26:11
Speaker 4: I sort of grew up watching them in a vacuum
26:13
Speaker 4: because I never you never really heard people talk about
26:17
Speaker 4: them beyond the first one. And you know, like I said,
26:21
Speaker 4: I just wanted to like shine a light on that.
26:23
Speaker 4: But I'll be honest, I'm not too happy about the
26:28
Speaker 4: four K situation with them. I think the steel books
26:32
Speaker 4: look really nice, but like, what have they added like
26:36
Speaker 4: fifteen minutes of people talking about them? And yes, some
26:40
Speaker 4: of the directors that I talked to, Chuck Russell, Jack Shoulder,
26:44
Speaker 4: it's always great to hear from them, but where are
26:46
Speaker 4: the feature length commentaries? Where are more behind the scenes featurettes.
26:50
Speaker 4: It's like it's like they're like, Okay, we don't have
26:52
Speaker 4: any of that stuff, but here's a pretty little steel book.
26:55
Speaker 4: Go have fun. Like I didn't even buy the steel Book.
26:57
Speaker 4: I just got like the seventh film set because I
27:00
Speaker 4: need to own them in four K. But it's just
27:02
Speaker 4: like it's just like another example of you know, the
27:07
Speaker 4: the negligent at least negligence at most outright disrespect that
27:14
Speaker 4: these films kind of get.
27:16
Speaker 2: Well. I know we were talking about this earlier was
27:19
Speaker 2: the probably the thirteenth box set from a screen factory,
27:22
Speaker 2: and that's like one of the biggest what ifs in
27:24
Speaker 2: my mind if they have been able to secure the
27:27
Speaker 2: rights to you know, whether it's a Blu Ray or
27:29
Speaker 2: four K set, Like, I just feel like the amount
27:32
Speaker 2: of love and effort at that time would have blown
27:36
Speaker 2: away anything that we got, you know, as a result.
27:38
Speaker 2: But I mean, you know, you guys could both agree.
27:40
Speaker 2: It's been quite the journey just getting the four K
27:43
Speaker 2: set to begin with. There was a lot of unknown
27:47
Speaker 2: to it.
27:48
Speaker 3: But you know, Steve, you know I actually didn't want
27:52
Speaker 3: this set. I didn't buy the set. I won this
27:55
Speaker 3: set after it came out, and yeah, pure luck, like
27:58
Speaker 3: I put in for a content, want a copy of it.
28:02
Speaker 3: But I'm not a four K purist, and I will
28:05
Speaker 3: admit they look fucking fantastic on four K. The restorations
28:08
Speaker 3: are beautiful for these but I'm not a four K purist,
28:13
Speaker 3: and I didn't feel the need at the time to
28:16
Speaker 3: put out the money because there was nothing else to it.
28:20
Speaker 3: Like I I the first thing I look at are
28:22
Speaker 3: new commentaries and new documentaries anything they couldn't even get
28:26
Speaker 3: Never Sleep Again in this set, which would have been
28:29
Speaker 3: a like even if you broke up, never Sleep Again
28:33
Speaker 3: and you put you know, hey, this this section on
28:36
Speaker 3: on on part one is in the Night is on
28:39
Speaker 3: the nightmay nuntray disc The section for part two is
28:41
Speaker 3: even if you did anything, no effort from that, and
28:44
Speaker 3: I get like everyone was stoked about the extra footage for.
28:48
Speaker 4: Was It Fred, which I have to say, like it's
28:53
Speaker 4: like the the it's only ninety seconds of footage, but
28:56
Speaker 4: it's doing like a lot of work. Like yeah, I
29:00
Speaker 4: am kind of looking at part five a little bit
29:03
Speaker 4: differently now, like.
29:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, but it just I don't
29:08
Speaker 3: in this day and age, like we could record a
29:10
Speaker 3: commentary track just like this and it would sound fantastic.
29:13
Speaker 3: There's no effort here, right, it's a microphone a program.
29:17
Speaker 4: I would do that, honestly. I'll like I've even thought
29:20
Speaker 4: of recording my own commentaries for all of the sequels.
29:24
Speaker 4: I just you know, if people want to hear that,
29:26
Speaker 4: I'll absolutely do it, because like you know, I'd rather
29:30
Speaker 4: hear someone do it. But like, you know, we we
29:33
Speaker 4: need commentaries on them because they're yeah credit.
29:36
Speaker 3: Well that's something that we've talked about doing possibly on
29:40
Speaker 3: and obviously, like listeners will hear this, Like we've gotten
29:42
Speaker 3: to the point where we have enough listeners to wear
29:44
Speaker 3: We actually thought about starting a Patreon or something and
29:48
Speaker 3: for like almost nothing, just recording commentary tracks for movies
29:51
Speaker 3: that we love that don't have them and getting experts
29:54
Speaker 3: on to do it with us, just to give people something,
29:58
Speaker 3: because yeah, it's it's more content for us to put out.
30:02
Speaker 3: It's us showing our like I want to be able
30:05
Speaker 3: to say, hey, we discuss commentaries, we can record commentaries
30:09
Speaker 3: and put that out there. But also it's like it's
30:12
Speaker 3: just cool as shit, and people will who want that
30:16
Speaker 3: will seek that out and find it, and we'll we'll
30:18
Speaker 3: do that because we want this stuff. The problem is
30:23
Speaker 3: studios aren't looking at things like that. They don't they
30:26
Speaker 3: don't give a shit, you know, and it's it's unfortunate.
30:30
Speaker 3: And now every time I go on Google News, I
30:32
Speaker 3: see all these articles about how physical media is back
30:35
Speaker 3: and people are buying this, and people were buying that.
30:38
Speaker 3: But every single time I talk to people, or not
30:41
Speaker 3: every single time, but other times I talk to people
30:43
Speaker 3: and they're like, yeah, I don't listen to your show
30:45
Speaker 3: because I've never listened to an audio commentary before, but
30:47
Speaker 3: I love that movie, and I'm like, why not try it?
30:50
Speaker 3: Just put it on, like just just see what's up.
30:53
Speaker 3: You still watch the movie, you're still watching the movie,
30:55
Speaker 3: but just put so. I don't know, we need to
30:58
Speaker 3: find some way to keep like letting people know that
31:02
Speaker 3: that we want that stuff, and maybe I don't know,
31:05
Speaker 3: maybe you can get somebody loud enough to start including
31:08
Speaker 3: of a little bit more.
31:09
Speaker 4: Who knows, I hope. So I mean about labels like
31:13
Speaker 4: Arrow and Second Side, and I don't know what's going
31:16
Speaker 4: on with Screen Factory. They are putting out a new
31:18
Speaker 4: Day of the Dead four K. I'm excited about. But
31:20
Speaker 4: it's those boutique label that are really doing the Lord's work.
31:24
Speaker 4: So yeah, as long as they keep going, I think
31:27
Speaker 4: we'll be in good shape.
31:29
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of which, I wanted to ask you, what
31:33
Speaker 2: was your process for securing interviews for your own book
31:37
Speaker 2: and was there anyone you were especially excited or surprised
31:40
Speaker 2: to talk to in the process.
31:43
Speaker 4: My process was dumb luck and it worked out most
31:47
Speaker 4: of the time. I started small because I write for
31:51
Speaker 4: a website called maccob Daily. I am a horror journalist.
31:54
Speaker 4: I do news reviews, interviews, which is one of the
31:57
Speaker 4: things that made me think that I could do a
31:59
Speaker 4: book because I do talk to people, and when I
32:02
Speaker 4: talk to them a second time, sometimes they're happy to
32:05
Speaker 4: talk to me. So I'm like, okay, Like there's something
32:08
Speaker 4: there to what I'm doing. But it started small. I
32:13
Speaker 4: would just go up to cast members at conventions, let
32:17
Speaker 4: them know I write for a website, and like, hey,
32:19
Speaker 4: I'm writing this book. Let me know if you're interested,
32:22
Speaker 4: perhaps naively like thinking like well, if I'm at your
32:27
Speaker 4: table and I say I want to talk to you,
32:29
Speaker 4: maybe you're not gonna say no because maybe I look
32:33
Speaker 4: scary and you're afraid of saying no to me. I
32:35
Speaker 4: don't know. I would have taken no for an answer,
32:39
Speaker 4: but no, it was just going up and talking to people,
32:42
Speaker 4: and because they had a good time talking to me.
32:46
Speaker 4: I would reach out to other people on Instagram and
32:50
Speaker 4: I would say, well I talked to so and so,
32:52
Speaker 4: and then they would probably reach out to so and
32:53
Speaker 4: so and be like, oh, yeah, he's on the level,
32:55
Speaker 4: and then I would get an interview with them and
32:57
Speaker 4: it would be like that old commercial like they tell
32:59
Speaker 4: too friends, and they tell two friends, and they tell
33:02
Speaker 4: two friends, and like you know, before you know it,
33:06
Speaker 4: I have a reputation of being you know well. Chuck
33:10
Speaker 4: Russell called me like a sophisticated fan of the genre,
33:14
Speaker 4: just like casually, like he was just like that, Yeah,
33:17
Speaker 4: I love that. It blew my hair back. But yeah,
33:21
Speaker 4: but it was because I was able to say I
33:24
Speaker 4: talked to so and so that's sort of how it led.
33:29
Speaker 4: And like, you know, I don't want to say I
33:32
Speaker 4: started small because there are no small role. There are
33:36
Speaker 4: no small roles in any of these. But I talked
33:38
Speaker 4: to Mick Strawn, who was the production designer on three
33:40
Speaker 4: and four, and like, like, his work is vital, him
33:46
Speaker 4: and his sister, the late C. J. Strawn, the work
33:48
Speaker 4: they did on these films, like the visuals, so much
33:52
Speaker 4: of it was them, and they had a great relationship
33:54
Speaker 4: with a lot of the cast and crew and the directors.
33:57
Speaker 4: So I talked to Mick and that was a great
33:59
Speaker 4: conversation and he was kind of like patient zero and
34:02
Speaker 4: then it was like, oh, you talked to Mick, Okay, yeah,
34:05
Speaker 4: and then I just get more and more and more people.
34:09
Speaker 4: So like.
34:11
Speaker 2: What I was saying, it just gets your foot in
34:14
Speaker 2: the door that way.
34:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
34:16
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
34:16
Speaker 3: Well that's what Clark call it. When we talked to
34:18
Speaker 3: Clark Collis, he said the same thing when he when
34:21
Speaker 3: we did we did an interview with him, and he
34:23
Speaker 3: was talking about when he was writing You've got read
34:25
Speaker 3: on you he's like, I reached out to somebody he's like,
34:28
Speaker 3: And then they had to reach out to Edgar Wright
34:30
Speaker 3: and be like, hey is this guy? Is this guy good?
34:33
Speaker 3: And Edgar be like, yeah, he's good, he's writing a book.
34:35
Speaker 3: Like let him, he's like. And then flood gates open
34:37
Speaker 3: and he was able to kind of talk to anybody
34:38
Speaker 3: who who we can get in contact with. That's what
34:41
Speaker 3: we gotta start do. We gotta start name dropping Steve.
34:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're trying to build up that reputation. You know,
34:47
Speaker 2: that's how you know I'm over here. Kind of on
34:49
Speaker 2: the back end, you were talking about that with the
34:52
Speaker 2: power of Instagram and just reaching out to you know,
34:56
Speaker 2: certain behind the scenes, you know, whether it's like, uh,
35:00
Speaker 2: whether it's in regards to like books or movies or
35:02
Speaker 2: any of that, or like certain four K or bluery releases,
35:04
Speaker 2: but you'd be surprised, like, you know, it's just kind
35:07
Speaker 2: of a numbers game that way.
35:10
Speaker 4: But it works. But I'm sorry. The second part of
35:12
Speaker 4: that question was it asking, like did you ask who
35:16
Speaker 4: was surprising or who I enjoyed the most? Or am
35:19
Speaker 4: I just projecting.
35:21
Speaker 2: Right whether you were excited or surprised to talk to Yeah.
35:26
Speaker 4: I was really surprised. I mean I was surprised to
35:29
Speaker 4: talk to a lot of people because I just kept
35:31
Speaker 4: getting people kind of thrown at me. Because I was
35:36
Speaker 4: going to talk to a Nett Benson, the casting director
35:39
Speaker 4: for the first five films, who people basically discovered Johnny Depp,
35:43
Speaker 4: Heatherling in Camp, and Robert England. Casting is so important
35:47
Speaker 4: for these movies, for all of them. And she said yes,
35:50
Speaker 4: but then she changed her mind just because she's shy,
35:53
Speaker 4: and I'm like, oh, that's okay. But then she'd still
35:56
Speaker 4: reach out and be like, have you talked to so
35:57
Speaker 4: and so? Have you talked to so and so?
35:59
Speaker 2: Here?
35:59
Speaker 4: Let me I'm like, have you talked to Mimi Craven,
36:02
Speaker 4: who was Wes Craven's ex wife who played the nurse
36:06
Speaker 4: in the original film with the Sleep Clinic and was
36:08
Speaker 4: on set every day. I'm like, well, no, I don't
36:10
Speaker 4: have her contact info. And Annette, even though she was
36:13
Speaker 4: an interviewed for the book, would like be like, okay, well,
36:16
Speaker 4: if it's okay, like she'll text you in like five minutes,
36:19
Speaker 4: and I'm like, yes, yes, please, And I mean so
36:23
Speaker 4: Annette was like a guardian angel in that way. Also
36:26
Speaker 4: because a lot of people loved working with her. She
36:29
Speaker 4: knew I knew that like they that Annette had given
36:33
Speaker 4: them my skill of approval, which was absolutely incredible. But
36:38
Speaker 4: I talked to Mimi Craven and like it was just
36:42
Speaker 4: really it was really like hilarious and beautiful and emotional.
36:47
Speaker 4: I mean because she was married to Wes Craven and
36:50
Speaker 4: like was with him for this part of his life
36:53
Speaker 4: and like just some of the stuff I learned, like
36:55
Speaker 4: I never like, I'm so glad that just literally fell
36:59
Speaker 4: into my lab because it was a great and riching
37:01
Speaker 4: conversation that's in the book. But I was really pleasantly
37:06
Speaker 4: surprised that I got to talk to Chuck Russell, the
37:08
Speaker 4: director of Part three, who is and there's I've told
37:14
Speaker 4: that story before, but it's nuts because everyone is everyone
37:17
Speaker 4: was like really friendly and open and and Chuck was too,
37:21
Speaker 4: But Chuck was the only one who was like Okay, yes,
37:25
Speaker 4: and but but who are you again? And what is
37:27
Speaker 4: this for? And like not in a bad way, but
37:30
Speaker 4: like he's just trying to like he wants to know
37:32
Speaker 4: like my professional bonafides, so he knows I'm not gonna
37:35
Speaker 4: waste his time. And he was like I would just
37:39
Speaker 4: ask that that. Well. No, he asked me like, so
37:42
Speaker 4: are you gonna record this? And I'm like I was
37:45
Speaker 4: planning to, and he's like, uh, let's not basically, and
37:49
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh damn, but okay. My plan was I'm
37:52
Speaker 4: gonna take furious notes and hopefully, like i'll, you know,
37:55
Speaker 4: I get something. If I don't, like, I can invite
37:58
Speaker 4: him back. But we're talking him. He's having a good time.
38:02
Speaker 4: I'm talking to him, he's having a good time, and
38:04
Speaker 4: he's like, are you recording this? And I'm like, uh no.
38:07
Speaker 4: He's like, oh, I think you should. I think that
38:09
Speaker 4: would be like I'm like, okay, so I like I've
38:12
Speaker 4: been doing zoom with these but I was just talking
38:14
Speaker 4: to him on the phone and I like, hit my bat.
38:17
Speaker 4: I don't like, didn't have time to bring up zoom
38:20
Speaker 4: with the fourthought to bring up zoom because I you know,
38:22
Speaker 4: so I have my backup app on my computer and
38:25
Speaker 4: I press record. It records the whole rest of the interview.
38:29
Speaker 4: And that's when he was like, oh, I can tell
38:32
Speaker 4: like you're not just a fan like you're you're not
38:34
Speaker 4: You're not a fanboy, You're a sophisticated fan in the
38:36
Speaker 4: genre and then like he said bye, and I'm just like,
38:40
Speaker 4: oh my god, I stop recording. I go to export
38:46
Speaker 4: and it's all gone. It's it's it's totally gone. And
38:51
Speaker 4: I'm just like I had like a mini spiral. I'm like, Okay,
38:55
Speaker 4: work on other interviews and then come back to him,
38:59
Speaker 4: which is what I did. And I was like kind
39:01
Speaker 4: of I emailed him like kind of hat in hand,
39:03
Speaker 4: like hey, you know, I'm sorry this never happens to
39:05
Speaker 4: me because this does never happen to me. And I'm
39:07
Speaker 4: just like, you know, if you wouldn't mind, it wouldn't
39:10
Speaker 4: be as long as time, if you just go over
39:13
Speaker 4: some things. And he's like sure, I'm like and he's like,
39:15
Speaker 4: remind me, where were we with this? And I'm like,
39:18
Speaker 4: because he's busied, like prepping like the reboot of Witchboard.
39:22
Speaker 4: So he's like, you know, he's working, and like, who
39:25
Speaker 4: am I But like, yeah, we had another conversation, and
39:30
Speaker 4: I had notes from the first one, so I was
39:32
Speaker 4: able to get him to elaborate on things that he
39:35
Speaker 4: was talking about, and it was just an amazing conversation
39:39
Speaker 4: about you know, inheriting the project. He was like an
39:45
Speaker 4: exec and this was his first directorial debut and he'd
39:48
Speaker 4: been a screenwriter before that, so he has like an
39:51
Speaker 4: amazing journey. The film had an amazing journey, and it
39:54
Speaker 4: was just like Man from Heaven the whole time. I'm
39:57
Speaker 4: just like, and you know, I sort of have my
40:00
Speaker 4: professional demeanor on, but inside I'm like, oh my god.
40:04
Speaker 2: That's gonna be pretty surreal. Yeah.
40:07
Speaker 3: Well, Niber three had the hardest I mean, you have
40:11
Speaker 3: Wes Craven coming back and writing the darkest script imaginable
40:16
Speaker 3: for a.
40:16
Speaker 4: Follow up three, one of the craziest scripts imaginable.
40:19
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and then Chuck Russo comes on board and
40:22
Speaker 3: got to find a way to kind of marry what
40:25
Speaker 3: West wants, but not because there's some kickback at what
40:28
Speaker 3: he wanted. And that was a crazy That was a
40:31
Speaker 3: crazy journey at Nightmare three made, and I don't think
40:33
Speaker 3: anybody expected that to become, arguably to the public, one
40:37
Speaker 3: of the most beloved of the franchise, typically considerably best
40:43
Speaker 3: or second best, if not to some people, better than
40:45
Speaker 3: Nightmare and Lmstreet.
40:47
Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean and really, and I talked about
40:50
Speaker 4: this on the Best Movies Never Made podcast because I
40:52
Speaker 4: go over Wes's original script in the book. But it's
40:56
Speaker 4: really a success story. Because you hear all the time
40:58
Speaker 4: about Hollywood ruining script but this was a case where, like,
41:02
Speaker 4: you know, you had this first draft which is really messy,
41:05
Speaker 4: and who knows how and it's very much a first draft.
41:08
Speaker 4: I mean, who knows what would have happened if Wes
41:09
Speaker 4: came on to direct it. But in the shape it
41:12
Speaker 4: was in, Chuck Russell and Frank Darabant went, Okay, let's
41:16
Speaker 4: make this better while keeping the core of what of
41:19
Speaker 4: how this works. And that's exactly what they did. They
41:23
Speaker 4: they took the genius of what Wes had brought to
41:28
Speaker 4: the series and they just built on it and it
41:31
Speaker 4: coalesced to something incredible. Like it's one of the best
41:36
Speaker 4: stories in horror screenwriting.
41:38
Speaker 3: For me, I would encourage anybody listening to take the
41:43
Speaker 3: educational deep dive into anything Wes Craven that you can,
41:46
Speaker 3: whether it's through your book, whether it's through Harker's Soul
41:50
Speaker 3: Wes Craven books. But also, I had read your book
41:54
Speaker 3: right before I read Ashley Colin's Your Favorite Scary Movie.
41:58
Speaker 4: Oh I love that book.
42:00
Speaker 3: Oh my god, dude, I'm not the biggest scream franchise fan,
42:04
Speaker 3: but I think she kind of reignited my fire for
42:06
Speaker 3: that franchise with that book. Between the three of those,
42:11
Speaker 3: and there might be some others out there that I'm
42:13
Speaker 3: that I'm missing or forgetting, but all three give this
42:16
Speaker 3: just wonderful picture of Craven and his work. And if
42:20
Speaker 3: nobody's ever taken that dive, I would absolutely encourage you
42:23
Speaker 3: to because it's it's it's well worth.
42:26
Speaker 4: Yeah.
42:27
Speaker 2: Was there an interview during this whole process that you
42:30
Speaker 2: felt like completely changed how you viewed either a specific
42:33
Speaker 2: film or character that you covered.
42:38
Speaker 4: Not white a specific film. I mean there there was
42:46
Speaker 4: some light shined on a lot of the subjects that
42:49
Speaker 4: I was talking about. My opinions were more of the
42:52
Speaker 4: films were more or less intact by the end of it.
42:56
Speaker 4: But I was surprised, like, like I said, I know
42:59
Speaker 4: like these on a certain level, these films are like
43:02
Speaker 4: a lot deeper than a lot of the other eighties
43:04
Speaker 4: horror movies. But I was surprised how much I was
43:07
Speaker 4: able to write about Part five because Part five is
43:12
Speaker 4: like freddie Mania has happened already, Like He's there are toys,
43:16
Speaker 4: there are commercials. That's after Part four, New line Cinema
43:21
Speaker 4: is going to make another Freddy movie, but there's an
43:24
Speaker 4: attempt to make him scarier again, which I feel like
43:27
Speaker 4: you don't really get with many studios at this point
43:33
Speaker 4: in like the brand's incubation. I guess, you know, they're
43:36
Speaker 4: trying to put it's weird, like they're trying to put
43:38
Speaker 4: the genie back in the bottle. They're trying to make
43:40
Speaker 4: Freddy scary again, but he's got to have wisecracks. And
43:43
Speaker 4: I think the way they tried to circle that square
43:47
Speaker 4: was to like make the dark, edgy, splatterpunk nightmare and
43:52
Speaker 4: Elm Street movie. Like the original draft, which I also
43:54
Speaker 4: talk about is by Specter and Skip, who are a
43:57
Speaker 4: splatterpunk writing duo, and they're but it's almost like, I
44:02
Speaker 4: don't want to say it's like the Edge Lord Nightmare
44:04
Speaker 4: on Elm Street, but it's the one where it's like
44:06
Speaker 4: it's you know, that's the one where like ninety seconds
44:09
Speaker 4: of footage had to be xcized because it was just
44:11
Speaker 4: like too much for nineteen eighties crowds. But like I mean,
44:16
Speaker 4: it's a it's Freddy going after a baby, and it's
44:21
Speaker 4: like it's it's so insidious and messed up and like
44:27
Speaker 4: they take it seriously while still like having wise cracks
44:31
Speaker 4: and like and also even though five isn't one of
44:35
Speaker 4: my favorites, but it's a technical achievement like all the
44:38
Speaker 4: way through, Like every sequence is just so ingenious, so watchable,
44:46
Speaker 4: so like you know, I mean, Stephen Hopkins talks about
44:51
Speaker 4: getting the movie. He gets the job to make the
44:53
Speaker 4: movie in February, and it's out in August, you know,
44:56
Speaker 4: like they're working around the clock to make it, like
44:59
Speaker 4: and it's it's new line is still an India at
45:01
Speaker 4: this point, and it's like a big, big project and
45:04
Speaker 4: they're just like putting it together with like scotch tape
45:07
Speaker 4: and glue and like it still comes out and like
45:10
Speaker 4: looks like that. So I had a much much deeper
45:14
Speaker 4: respect for Part five and especially the cast. Like I
45:19
Speaker 4: love all these casts, but I have a particular affinity
45:22
Speaker 4: for parts four and five because like five, they do
45:26
Speaker 4: really all feel like friends and like, you know, as
45:29
Speaker 4: the kids say, it doesn't have to go that hard,
45:32
Speaker 4: but like it does go to lengths to make you
45:35
Speaker 4: like really care about these characters before they die.
45:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, four is my wife's favorite of the bunch. I
45:44
Speaker 3: think actually four might know, I think New Nightmares four
45:47
Speaker 3: for me. M h, I think I think New Nightmare
45:50
Speaker 3: is my I also do love I've been coming around
45:54
Speaker 3: a lot more over the years to Freddy's Revenge. I do,
45:57
Speaker 3: I do.
45:58
Speaker 2: Oh, I adore that movie.
46:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do. I was gonna say, visually all across
46:04
Speaker 3: the board, I think every Nightmare movie looks fantastic. Like,
46:08
Speaker 3: I think they're shot very well, They're creative, that's all.
46:11
Speaker 4: I think.
46:11
Speaker 3: They just look great.
46:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I love them all for different reasons, because,
46:16
Speaker 4: like I said, they are all different. Like you watch
46:19
Speaker 4: one in five back to back, you'll get whiplash, and
46:22
Speaker 4: even five and six, like six is so much different
46:25
Speaker 4: than five, which is different than three, which is different
46:28
Speaker 4: than one. You know, like the Newline really gave all
46:31
Speaker 4: these different directors just like not quite carte blanche, but
46:35
Speaker 4: they were just like, okay, go, you know, we hired you, like,
46:39
Speaker 4: give us something crazy, and that's what they did.
46:43
Speaker 3: Yeah.
46:43
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of which with you know Freddy Krueger, you know,
46:47
Speaker 2: over the course of this franchise, obviously he evolves quite
46:50
Speaker 2: a bit as a character from you know, we get
46:53
Speaker 2: in the original. He's more terrifying than you know, as
46:56
Speaker 2: the series progresses gets a little bit more comedic in tone.
46:59
Speaker 2: Where do you personally think that character works best.
47:04
Speaker 4: You mean on the humor spectrum.
47:07
Speaker 2: I guess maybe striking a balance, or maybe maybe like
47:09
Speaker 2: the the type. I guess, like the version that you
47:13
Speaker 2: prefer most.
47:15
Speaker 4: Here's the thing I have always taken umbrage. I believe
47:20
Speaker 4: that's the right word. I'm a writer. I should know
47:22
Speaker 4: with people saying, oh, he gets jokey. Oh it's soap corny.
47:27
Speaker 4: Oh his jokes, Like fuck the jokes. The jokes don't
47:31
Speaker 4: have to be funny. He's gonna kill you, and the
47:35
Speaker 4: jokes are an indication that he's enjoying it. No one
47:39
Speaker 4: in these films who's being killed by Freddy Krueger while
47:42
Speaker 4: he's making his puns or whatever stops to be like, oh,
47:46
Speaker 4: that's dumb. Like no, they're all fighting for their lives.
47:50
Speaker 4: Like it might not be scary to you in the moment,
47:54
Speaker 4: but it absolutely fits with the character that he's sadistic
47:58
Speaker 4: and he's enjoying it. But and I know that in
48:02
Speaker 4: the original he's like more to the shadows, and but
48:06
Speaker 4: he's still cracking wise, he's still like cutting off his
48:09
Speaker 4: fingers just to mess with people. He's still doing the
48:11
Speaker 4: gallows humor. I mean, he's not a guy in a mask,
48:17
Speaker 4: so you gotta let him act, you know, Like Robert
48:20
Speaker 4: England understood the assignment all the time. And I think
48:24
Speaker 4: part of the reason why he came out more in
48:27
Speaker 4: the light and there were more wise cracks was because
48:30
Speaker 4: he knew how to sell that what he's doing, like
48:36
Speaker 4: is that he's a sadist and that he's enjoying it,
48:39
Speaker 4: and that always disturbed me more than whatever the intended
48:43
Speaker 4: joke was. But that said, I think if I'm gonna
48:47
Speaker 4: go on the humor spectrum with him, three is kind
48:50
Speaker 4: of the perfect balance of like the jokes and he's terrifying,
48:56
Speaker 4: Like they kind of make him a little more of
48:58
Speaker 4: a rock star in four, but he's a rock star
49:01
Speaker 4: who's gonna kill you, and he's still scary in four.
49:04
Speaker 4: The only one where he's not scary is six. But
49:08
Speaker 4: six is just like it's an out and out comedy.
49:10
Speaker 4: It's like almost Looney Tunes, and I think that tone
49:16
Speaker 4: really fits for the story that they're trying to tell.
49:19
Speaker 4: Like looking back on it, and I was like, I'm
49:22
Speaker 4: gonna examine Freddy's dead critically and almost to some degree.
49:27
Speaker 4: I can't really look at it objectively because it gives
49:29
Speaker 4: me such joy, like but I have to and not
49:34
Speaker 4: a perfect film, but like, considering the story that Rachel
49:38
Speaker 4: Talalay is telling, it absolutely makes sense that like Freddy
49:43
Speaker 4: Krueger is trapped in this town. He's killed all the
49:47
Speaker 4: kids except for one. He's trying to get out, and
49:51
Speaker 4: it makes sense that he would be at his jokeiest
49:53
Speaker 4: because he is going insane. He has just he has
49:57
Speaker 4: sniffing his own farts, he's making jokes, he's good that
50:00
Speaker 4: no one can laugh at. He's he's just going insane.
50:04
Speaker 4: But when like the kids wander back to the town
50:07
Speaker 4: and he starts killing them, it is still horrific. I
50:10
Speaker 4: can't even watch like the Q tip thing in Freddie's Dead.
50:14
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, like that, and that's the thing, like
50:18
Speaker 4: he's still a psychopathic ghoul with supernatural powers, like no
50:23
Speaker 4: matter what, he is still a threat, no matter what.
50:26
Speaker 4: So you don't have to like the jokes, but that's
50:29
Speaker 4: the character to me.
50:31
Speaker 2: Now, did you appreciate the tonal shift you know, between
50:36
Speaker 2: you know, say the earlier films and something like a
50:38
Speaker 2: Nightmare and Elma Street three Dream Warriors or the later entries,
50:41
Speaker 2: Like I know you mentioned that three Fella kind of
50:44
Speaker 2: that sweet spot for you, But did you appreciate kind
50:47
Speaker 2: of the direction that the series took as time went on.
50:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely. I talk about it in the book. I
50:53
Speaker 4: call The dream Master the apotheosis of the Nightmare series
50:58
Speaker 4: because it's the far this that you could take Wes
51:01
Speaker 4: Craven's idea at that time with special effects, the thematics
51:07
Speaker 4: of the dream Master. It's like they're really like, Okay,
51:11
Speaker 4: we could really like make things phantasmic, oracle and fantastic
51:17
Speaker 4: and really push effects. I mean, god knows what they
51:20
Speaker 4: would have done if they had CGI in nineteen eighty eight,
51:23
Speaker 4: but I think it's better that they didn't. But it's
51:26
Speaker 4: like like four is almost like a kung Fu movie.
51:30
Speaker 4: It is a kung Fu movie in parts, like the
51:33
Speaker 4: style has evolved with the times with filmmaking, Like like
51:38
Speaker 4: Reddy Harlan couldn't make Dream Warriors, maybe Chuck Russell could
51:42
Speaker 4: have made dream Master. But like it's clear that they
51:46
Speaker 4: looked at what came before and just built on it,
51:49
Speaker 4: like all the way up to four. I think, you know, five,
51:54
Speaker 4: Like like I said, they tried to make it scary again.
51:57
Speaker 4: And six, I mean, I really think even though everyone
52:00
Speaker 4: jokes about it, it was supposed to be the final Nightmare,
52:04
Speaker 4: it really was. And there's just a sense of, like,
52:06
Speaker 4: you know, I think someone said this before, but smoke
52:08
Speaker 4: him if you got him, Like everything you've ever wanted
52:11
Speaker 4: to do with Freddie, let's just do it and make
52:14
Speaker 4: this like maximalist horror comedy with a three D finale.
52:19
Speaker 4: And I kind of love that because, like, you know,
52:22
Speaker 4: you can disagree with what New Line has decided to
52:24
Speaker 4: do at any given point, with any given movie, but
52:27
Speaker 4: they were always trying something new.
52:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think I think people who are upset
52:33
Speaker 3: with the jokey Freddie I try to encourage them to
52:35
Speaker 3: watch the remake. And that's what happens when you take
52:37
Speaker 3: it too serious.
52:39
Speaker 4: Not only that, but can I like too serious thinking
52:44
Speaker 4: you're taking it as serious as the original, but also
52:47
Speaker 4: like in promos and all that, it's like, oh, Freddy's
52:50
Speaker 4: dark again, Freddy's scary again. We're taking it back, And
52:53
Speaker 4: then you watch the movie and it's like, how's this
52:55
Speaker 4: for a wet dream? And welcome to my world, bitch,
52:58
Speaker 4: which is wasn't that just in the last movie where
53:01
Speaker 4: he fights Jason, Like, you're just like throwing soundbites from
53:04
Speaker 4: like earlier films, and clearly whatever intent you had went
53:07
Speaker 4: out the window.
53:08
Speaker 3: So yeah, my favorite two was the let's let's make
53:13
Speaker 3: him a child predator, and people really love this if
53:16
Speaker 3: we really go this far, and then you're like, eh,
53:20
Speaker 3: what are we doing here?
53:21
Speaker 4: What do you know? What? Though? And I feel like
53:24
Speaker 4: I should have been more vocal about this. In every
53:27
Speaker 4: other interview, people are like, oh, he was originally a
53:29
Speaker 4: child molester, then they turned them into a child killer.
53:32
Speaker 4: He was both, Let's be real, he was both the
53:35
Speaker 4: guy that you had dolls of that who made those
53:38
Speaker 4: cackling jokes with the who had the silhouette. He molested kids,
53:43
Speaker 4: and he murdered them. And you can tell of the
53:46
Speaker 4: movies he's getting off on killing these kids. I mean,
53:50
Speaker 4: for Fox's sake, Nightmare two is about a dead child
53:55
Speaker 4: molester murderer manipulating a teenage boy to do his bidding.
54:00
Speaker 4: Like this psychosexual stuff was always always there, whether or
54:05
Speaker 4: not you wanted to think about it.
54:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well I think how people looked at it
54:10
Speaker 3: was it's like whether or not you explicitly say it
54:14
Speaker 3: and then seeing people critique the remake for explicitly coming
54:18
Speaker 3: out and making it, you know, because people do this
54:22
Speaker 3: thing where like and I get it, people, you know,
54:26
Speaker 3: you kind of root for the bad guy, right you
54:28
Speaker 3: watch Nightmer and I'm sure you love watching Freddy Krueger Dispatch,
54:32
Speaker 3: you know, everybody in the most creative way possible. And
54:34
Speaker 3: then it came in a remake and you bring that up.
54:38
Speaker 3: You now, you bring that into reality. Okay, look, he
54:41
Speaker 3: is a child predator. And then the moment you say that,
54:45
Speaker 3: and it doesn't just exist in the context. I think
54:47
Speaker 3: for people, they really just I don't know, they associate
54:51
Speaker 3: it differently. It's like it can live in the weird
54:53
Speaker 3: kind of gray area if you pick up on it
54:55
Speaker 3: and people don't really mind. And then you come out
54:57
Speaker 3: and you say it's real, and people kind of perceive
55:00
Speaker 3: that differently, you know.
55:02
Speaker 4: I guess. I mean, there's a lot to critique about
55:05
Speaker 4: the remake, don't get me wrong, but like that wasn't
55:08
Speaker 4: ill that wasn't even really it for me. But like
55:10
Speaker 4: also look at the black Phone movies, like, yeah, what
55:14
Speaker 4: he's called the grabber for fuck's sake, you know what
55:17
Speaker 4: I mean? And people love those So yeah, I don't know.
55:21
Speaker 4: I will say Jackie o'haly gets a lot of shit.
55:25
Speaker 4: I just feel like he showed up to play, he
55:28
Speaker 4: was game. He's a great actor, and no one did
55:32
Speaker 4: anything with him. They just let him flounder. And you
55:36
Speaker 4: kind of tell.
55:37
Speaker 3: I don't have like an extreme hate for the remake.
55:42
Speaker 3: I mean don't. I don't like it, but I think
55:46
Speaker 3: there's a lot of great stuff and I think they
55:48
Speaker 3: tried again visually. I think the movie looks fantastic. There's
55:52
Speaker 3: some really great, you know, imagery in that that I
55:55
Speaker 3: think fits well for Night brand elm Street. The cinematography's beautiful,
55:58
Speaker 3: it's well shot. It just like how I don't even
56:04
Speaker 3: I would I would die at the at the expectation
56:08
Speaker 3: that I could somehow find a way to bring Freddy
56:12
Speaker 3: Krueger back in the modern world. Like my brain would
56:15
Speaker 3: instantly be like, Okay, we got to go back and
56:17
Speaker 3: set it in the eighties and take away technology and
56:19
Speaker 3: take away this stuff and bring everything bare boone. So
56:22
Speaker 3: I appreciate the effort, but I feel like they just
56:25
Speaker 3: missed morey more than they hit. You know.
56:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, I actually read the original script before it came out,
56:31
Speaker 4: Like the first draft and it wasn't bad, like I
56:34
Speaker 4: can see something that would come of it. But like
56:37
Speaker 4: you watch the finished movie and it's just like I
56:39
Speaker 4: don't know what happened, Like they got to set and
56:42
Speaker 4: it was just The joke I tell about the remake
56:45
Speaker 4: is that if you watch it, you can imagine guns
56:47
Speaker 4: pointing to everyone's head on the side of the camera
56:50
Speaker 4: because nobody wants to be there. There's no love, there's
56:54
Speaker 4: no like nothing, you know, and it's just it's just sad.
56:59
Speaker 4: That's why I don't write about it in the book.
57:01
Speaker 4: It's just it's empty calories. And I mean you can
57:04
Speaker 4: tell me that, like, oh, like you're not gonna write
57:06
Speaker 4: about the remake, but you wrote about Freddy's dead, like
57:08
Speaker 4: there's a there there and Freddy's dead not not so
57:12
Speaker 4: much in the remake. Everyone's asleep? Are you?
57:17
Speaker 3: Are you a Friday the Thirteenth remake? Fan?
57:19
Speaker 4: I love the Friday the Thirteenth remake?
57:21
Speaker 3: Okay, cool? Alright?
57:22
Speaker 4: I like, to me, that's the best platinum dude. I
57:25
Speaker 4: mean to be fair, the bar I love those movies,
57:28
Speaker 4: but I'm gonna say the bar is low. But the
57:32
Speaker 4: Friday the Thirteenth Remake is the greatest hits mashup. It's
57:38
Speaker 4: just it's it's fantastic. It's not as fun as some
57:42
Speaker 4: of the original films, but like it's a great slasher
57:45
Speaker 4: movie and it's awesome.
57:47
Speaker 2: It's held up surprisingly well.
57:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, oh my god.
57:52
Speaker 3: Oh dude, Marcus the Spell, I mean he's been I've
57:56
Speaker 3: always I've always loved it ever since Sex is Shane
57:58
Speaker 3: sa Masker, I loved him. But to see come back
58:00
Speaker 3: for Friday the Thirteenth.
58:01
Speaker 2: Was it was great.
58:03
Speaker 3: You know, he both of those movies. I think the
58:05
Speaker 3: text changeaw Masker remake is great. I think the return
58:07
Speaker 3: of Daniel Pearl to shoot it is great. Like I
58:10
Speaker 3: think I think there was a lot of love there.
58:12
Speaker 3: But there was something about Friday the Thirteenth, and I
58:14
Speaker 3: remember seeing it in theaters and it's the moment at
58:17
Speaker 3: the campfire when he does that little run.
58:20
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
58:21
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, we're fucking in it. This is
58:23
Speaker 3: oh yeah, We're back, Like this is this is that shit?
58:27
Speaker 4: Good? Yeah, it's It's one of the best horror remakes.
58:32
Speaker 4: I'm not a fan of the original Friday the Thirteenth
58:35
Speaker 4: film for various reasons. I think the remake blows it
58:39
Speaker 4: out of the water, out of the lake if you will. Yeah. No,
58:43
Speaker 4: Like I hear people who are kind of down on
58:45
Speaker 4: the remake, and I'm like, what do you watch it?
58:49
Speaker 4: What movie do you think you're watching? This is awesome.
58:51
Speaker 4: Derek Mirris is a fucking.
58:53
Speaker 3: G to be fair, I do think Friday Thirteenth Part
58:56
Speaker 3: two blows away the original Friday the thirteenth, but that's
58:59
Speaker 3: just oh yeah, that's my favorite.
59:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh too, I mean another tangent two, four, and
59:04
Speaker 4: six are my favorites. And the order switches any any
59:07
Speaker 4: given day of the week, but like, yeah, that's the
59:09
Speaker 4: that's a sweet spot of Friday for me.
59:11
Speaker 3: Yeah. Tom McLaughlin making a rock and roll Friday the
59:14
Speaker 3: Thirteenth movie and Jason h Yeah.
59:17
Speaker 4: It's like and it's like when people ask me which
59:19
Speaker 4: Friday to start with, like like I've never really seen
59:21
Speaker 4: Friday the thirteenth, I'm like, start with six because it's
59:23
Speaker 4: a real movie. Like it's like he treats it like
59:27
Speaker 4: a universal monster movie with like he makes the music bigger,
59:31
Speaker 4: there's like a car chase, there's actual characters and funny dialogue.
59:35
Speaker 4: It's I feel like, if even if someone doesn't like
59:39
Speaker 4: slasher movies. You can convince them to watch six and
59:42
Speaker 4: have a good time.
59:43
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, one d percent agree. Yeah. This is our
59:46
Speaker 3: Friday thirteenth episode on.
59:52
Speaker 2: Well pivoting a little bit, I kind of wanted to
59:56
Speaker 2: get a little bit more insight on where you stand
59:58
Speaker 2: on Wes Craven's New Nightmare in its meta approach. Do
1:00:02
Speaker 2: you feel like the film was ahead of its time?
1:00:04
Speaker 4: Oh, miles ahead of its time? Miles and miles. I
1:00:08
Speaker 4: mean there's no New Nightmare without screen. There's no screen
1:00:11
Speaker 4: without New Nightmare. Yeah, that's for sure. But like New
1:00:14
Speaker 4: Nightmare was the first horror film I ever saw in
1:00:16
Speaker 4: the theaters too, and I was so primed for it, Like
1:00:19
Speaker 4: I mean, I was in elementary school and I could
1:00:22
Speaker 4: not believe, Like how are they doing another nightmare movie?
1:00:25
Speaker 4: Like He's dead? It was called Freddy's Dead. He died
1:00:28
Speaker 4: at the end, Like I don't get it, But like
1:00:31
Speaker 4: I don't. I don't know why my like nine year
1:00:34
Speaker 4: old brain was smart enough to be like, Okay, so
1:00:38
Speaker 4: it's not like the other movies. It's like in the
1:00:41
Speaker 4: real world, and it's like what if it came after
1:00:44
Speaker 4: the actors? And I actually, I actually really it grabbed
1:00:49
Speaker 4: me and I love it. I think it's one of
1:00:51
Speaker 4: the best endings of any horror movie ever. Definitely the
1:00:54
Speaker 4: best ending of any Wes Craven film, Like the epilogue,
1:00:59
Speaker 4: the little scene like where she's rating it. Just it's
1:01:01
Speaker 4: just a perfect treatise on storytelling. I don't watch it
1:01:06
Speaker 4: as much as the others when I'm in the mood
1:01:09
Speaker 4: for a nightmare on Elm Street film, Like I think
1:01:11
Speaker 4: if it's sort of as like almost like prestige horror,
1:01:14
Speaker 4: like like The Ring, because it has more in common
1:01:17
Speaker 4: than that than a film about teenagers' fears being exploited.
1:01:22
Speaker 4: But I love the resurgent that the resurgence that it's
1:01:25
Speaker 4: getting in recent years. I really think there's no other
1:01:28
Speaker 4: film like it, like I guess Last Action Hero, Purple
1:01:30
Speaker 4: Rose of Cairo. You have characters literally coming off the screen,
1:01:34
Speaker 4: but like it's it's about like basically filmmakers have like
1:01:40
Speaker 4: created a demon that's like coming into the real world
1:01:44
Speaker 4: and like killing the people who made it. It's like
1:01:47
Speaker 4: it's so meta, and I'm I think I'm kind of
1:01:51
Speaker 4: glad that nobody's really tried to ape it, you know,
1:01:56
Speaker 4: like people try to ape scream all the time, but
1:01:58
Speaker 4: no one comes for New Nightmare. I think because like
1:02:01
Speaker 4: they know better because it's such a Wes Craven movie.
1:02:05
Speaker 4: But man, and it's funny. In talking to people for
1:02:10
Speaker 4: the book, I talked to a lot of authors, best
1:02:13
Speaker 4: selling horror authors, Grady Hendrix, Claiming Cloud Chapman, Stephen ram Jones,
1:02:17
Speaker 4: and a lot of the authors were really excited to
1:02:20
Speaker 4: talk about New Nightmare because it's about storytelling and their storytellers.
1:02:24
Speaker 4: And I learned a lot of insights from them that
1:02:28
Speaker 4: like I as I don't write prose fiction, but they do,
1:02:32
Speaker 4: and as someone who writes fiction, talking to them about
1:02:35
Speaker 4: New Nightmare, which is about fiction coming to life, was fascinating,
1:02:40
Speaker 4: Like they said things that I never would have like
1:02:42
Speaker 4: come to those conclusions on my own. And I also
1:02:45
Speaker 4: talked to Patrick Lassier, who was a Wes Craved's editor
1:02:49
Speaker 4: on New Nightmare and his editor until Wes Craven's death,
1:02:53
Speaker 4: and that was that was nuts, Like I could have
1:02:56
Speaker 4: talked to him for hours. He's great. But yeah, no,
1:03:00
Speaker 4: I love New Nightmare. You know, when I think of
1:03:04
Speaker 4: like my ranking, it's like one, three, seven, but like
1:03:07
Speaker 4: seven and three can like kind of switch at any
1:03:10
Speaker 4: given time. But like seven is just amazing, like New
1:03:14
Speaker 4: Nightmare all the way.
1:03:16
Speaker 3: I love your interview with Adam Caesar. Huge fan of Big,
1:03:20
Speaker 3: big fan of him.
1:03:21
Speaker 4: Uh.
1:03:22
Speaker 3: It was funny because I was born in ninety one,
1:03:26
Speaker 3: so growing up and growing up kind of getting into
1:03:28
Speaker 3: horror with my mom, we watched New Nightmare the most
1:03:32
Speaker 3: and when I when I finally like I saw the original,
1:03:34
Speaker 3: I saw a New Nightmare. But when I started watching
1:03:36
Speaker 3: the sequels, New Nightmare always held a high point for me,
1:03:39
Speaker 3: and I still think New Nightmare is the scariest nightmare
1:03:44
Speaker 3: in elm Street movie because it scared the shit out
1:03:47
Speaker 3: of me. Man, and I remember going through first of
1:03:50
Speaker 3: all made me scared of earthquakes. If honest, it terrified
1:03:54
Speaker 3: me of earthquake.
1:03:55
Speaker 2: Do you have them in Jersey?
1:03:56
Speaker 3: We had one a couple of years ago and I
1:03:58
Speaker 3: was I was on the couch watching, Uh, I forget
1:04:01
Speaker 3: what I was watching, and I was like, are we dying?
1:04:04
Speaker 3: What's what's going on here?
1:04:07
Speaker 4: All right? Yeah?
1:04:08
Speaker 3: Yeah? But I remember seeing like you know, the the
1:04:11
Speaker 3: nurse being dragged up on the wall and New Nightmare
1:04:14
Speaker 3: long before seeing it happened to Tina and Street. And
1:04:19
Speaker 3: I love when people you know Scream is Scream is
1:04:24
Speaker 3: like the you know, the Terrifier entry level franchise for
1:04:27
Speaker 3: horror people. They take over Spirit Halloween. It's you know,
1:04:30
Speaker 3: that whole thing. My sister saw Scream and I was like, oh, well,
1:04:34
Speaker 3: now you got to watch a New Nightmare and she's like,
1:04:36
Speaker 3: what's that. I'm like, say, it's the Scream before Scream,
1:04:39
Speaker 3: and quite frankly, it's better than Scream. We got to
1:04:42
Speaker 3: go back and watch this. So I showed it to
1:04:44
Speaker 3: her and she wasn't as into it, but I fucking
1:04:48
Speaker 3: love that movie.
1:04:49
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, I will just say real quick. I
1:04:53
Speaker 4: was at a reading in Q and A at a
1:04:56
Speaker 4: tiny Raccoon Books on Long Island last night, and there
1:05:00
Speaker 4: was this couple that came up to me and like
1:05:02
Speaker 4: I signed their book and they're like, you know, like
1:05:04
Speaker 4: we like the movies, but we we realized we hadn't
1:05:08
Speaker 4: seen New Nightmare, and like it's like, and you know,
1:05:11
Speaker 4: I don't know, I don't know how they missed it,
1:05:13
Speaker 4: because it seemed like they're my age, but like maybe
1:05:15
Speaker 4: it was like this other thing to them. And They're like,
1:05:17
Speaker 4: we watched New Nightmare for the first time yesterday and
1:05:20
Speaker 4: I'm like stop everything. I need to know exactly what
1:05:23
Speaker 4: that did to you. And they were like, it was amazing.
1:05:27
Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, like I'm like, even like thirty
1:05:29
Speaker 4: years later, they're like, yeah, no, that was that was
1:05:31
Speaker 4: really cool. I'm like, and I think, you know, like
1:05:35
Speaker 4: a lot of things from the nineties, everything good holds up,
1:05:39
Speaker 4: everything holds up, and everything that doesn't doesn't. But like
1:05:44
Speaker 4: the good, say, the good stays through, you know, it
1:05:47
Speaker 4: shines through.
1:05:48
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:05:49
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of shining through, we obviously know that the
1:05:52
Speaker 2: original Nightmare in Elm Street is a milestone in horror.
1:05:56
Speaker 2: What do you think Wes Craven understood about fear that
1:05:59
Speaker 2: made that original film so effective in your opinion?
1:06:05
Speaker 4: Good question, man, that is a really good question. I think.
1:06:10
Speaker 4: I mean, he was such a smart guy, like he
1:06:15
Speaker 4: he was a professor, he's a poet, he's a murder.
1:06:19
Speaker 4: I think it's not even fear. He understood human nature.
1:06:23
Speaker 4: I think to such a degree that like he knew.
1:06:28
Speaker 4: I mean, Freddy Krueger is kind of like a perfect
1:06:32
Speaker 4: suburban Frankenstein in a way, like a child murderer who
1:06:38
Speaker 4: is freed because justice messed up, Like you know, he
1:06:43
Speaker 4: because someone didn't sign something and there was a technicality,
1:06:46
Speaker 4: so vigilante justice has to come and punish him for
1:06:50
Speaker 4: what he's done, and in an attempt to because parents
1:06:55
Speaker 4: were so scared for their children, they messed up in
1:06:58
Speaker 4: the worst way and it led to the elongated, to
1:07:03
Speaker 4: the prolonged, deferred deaths of their children. Like this whole
1:07:09
Speaker 4: thing is like the worst case scenario of what could
1:07:12
Speaker 4: happen when a child murderer is arrested. It's every parent's nightmare,
1:07:17
Speaker 4: and it's every teenager's fear, you know that, Like because
1:07:22
Speaker 4: teenagers are kids who still live with their parents and
1:07:25
Speaker 4: depend on their parents for so much, and it's like
1:07:28
Speaker 4: the ultimate ultimate failure, like short of short of actual
1:07:32
Speaker 4: child abuse, it's like the worst thing the parents could
1:07:36
Speaker 4: have done to their kids. And when their kids know
1:07:38
Speaker 4: what is happening to them, they try to tell their
1:07:40
Speaker 4: parents and they're not listening. It's like it's it's just
1:07:45
Speaker 4: it's just boom boom boom, worst case scenarios all around.
1:07:49
Speaker 4: And I feel like Wes knew how to make it,
1:07:53
Speaker 4: how to make everything land, and how to make everything hurt,
1:07:55
Speaker 4: and how to make how to make it so that
1:07:59
Speaker 4: you realize the circumstances that Nancy is in and to
1:08:03
Speaker 4: root for her and to love to see her succeed
1:08:07
Speaker 4: because she is succeeding against unbelievable odds. Because I mean,
1:08:12
Speaker 4: he Wes Craven also grew up in a religious, fundamental household.
1:08:15
Speaker 4: And you know, I don't know how religious you guys are,
1:08:20
Speaker 4: but there's a lot of sort of I think he saw,
1:08:22
Speaker 4: like blind allegiance to an idea could be one of
1:08:27
Speaker 4: the most dangerous things there is. And granted, I mean
1:08:32
Speaker 4: there is like a supernatural murderer like running around, but
1:08:35
Speaker 4: like I think he knew that, Like how do I
1:08:39
Speaker 4: say this? Like it's it's easy to imagine a world
1:08:44
Speaker 4: in which Freddy Krueger succeeds and succeeds thoroughly. And he
1:08:50
Speaker 4: came up with Nancy Thompson, who is the counterpoint, the
1:08:53
Speaker 4: one who says, no, I'm not gonna take this. In fact,
1:08:58
Speaker 4: like all that fear that I've given you, I just
1:09:01
Speaker 4: I take it back. I take back everything. It's like
1:09:05
Speaker 4: it's like she is her parents sins can't be atoned for,
1:09:09
Speaker 4: but she's the one who chooses to end the cycle
1:09:11
Speaker 4: and be like, no, this is it. I'm done, Which
1:09:14
Speaker 4: is I think really really progressive. I mean, talk about
1:09:19
Speaker 4: being ahead of your time. But like Wes, he never
1:09:24
Speaker 4: even wanted to be a horror movie director all his life,
1:09:28
Speaker 4: Like he always wanted to go into other genres. But
1:09:30
Speaker 4: I think like he knew, he knew the darkness and
1:09:35
Speaker 4: all of our hearts. To maybe sound a little trite,
1:09:37
Speaker 4: but like he knew what humans are capable of at
1:09:41
Speaker 4: their best and at their worst. And I think that's
1:09:43
Speaker 4: what shines throughout all of his work, even screen At
1:09:46
Speaker 4: which Kevin Williamson wrote, but like there's still an understanding of, like,
1:09:51
Speaker 4: you know, just how awful people can be directly and indirectly.
1:09:57
Speaker 3: And very smart for him to, you know, in the
1:10:00
Speaker 3: third act of Nightmare and elm Street, Nancy brings him
1:10:02
Speaker 3: into the real world and you have like this home
1:10:05
Speaker 3: alone like situation. You know what I mean, Well, you know,
1:10:10
Speaker 3: but yeah, very smarter, yeah, but very very smart way
1:10:15
Speaker 3: to get the audience to attach to supernatural in a
1:10:19
Speaker 3: very real sense, because you could have easily kept it
1:10:22
Speaker 3: in you know, a very mystical world and kept that
1:10:25
Speaker 3: kind of difference, that distance between the audience in reality.
1:10:28
Speaker 3: But then to now bring it into a more understood reality,
1:10:33
Speaker 3: I think helped a lot as well.
1:10:35
Speaker 4: But do you know, can I just say because I
1:10:37
Speaker 4: talked about this in the book and this is one
1:10:38
Speaker 4: of the other reasons, one of the many reasons I
1:10:41
Speaker 4: wrote the book was because she doesn't take him into
1:10:45
Speaker 4: the real world. No one understands that about the movie
1:10:48
Speaker 4: because they just remember, like the scene of chasing through
1:10:51
Speaker 4: the house, like, oh, he's in the real world. You
1:10:53
Speaker 4: think he's in the real world. But she failed in
1:10:57
Speaker 4: bringing him through, because the whole point of that is
1:11:01
Speaker 4: that the whole chase through the house ends when she
1:11:04
Speaker 4: realizes that she's still in a dream. And how does
1:11:07
Speaker 4: she realize she's still in a dream when her father
1:11:09
Speaker 4: comes to help her and is like, it's okay, baby,
1:11:12
Speaker 4: I'm here. And that's when she realizes that's not my dad.
1:11:18
Speaker 4: The man who just said that to me is not
1:11:21
Speaker 4: my dad. I am still in the dream. I was
1:11:24
Speaker 4: waiting for him to come and save me. Even after
1:11:27
Speaker 4: all this, I'm waiting for my parents, who did this
1:11:29
Speaker 4: awful thing, to come and save me. And she's like,
1:11:34
Speaker 4: the only way is for me to turn my back
1:11:38
Speaker 4: on him, and that's literally what she does. And by
1:11:41
Speaker 4: the way, I'd seen a ton of slasher films before
1:11:45
Speaker 4: Nightmare on Elm Street, and I had never ever seen
1:11:48
Speaker 4: a movie where the final girl defeats the killer by
1:11:53
Speaker 4: just going no, no, like we're done, I'm done, and
1:11:59
Speaker 4: then just and he fades away, and then you get
1:12:02
Speaker 4: to the coda, which is a bit of a compromise.
1:12:04
Speaker 4: I was never a fan of it, to be honest,
1:12:05
Speaker 4: but just but I love so much of that and
1:12:10
Speaker 4: what came before that last scene that all all forgive it.
1:12:14
Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, yeah, Well then Stephen King goes all
1:12:18
Speaker 3: out with that idea and it where it's just completely
1:12:21
Speaker 3: you know, completely well, I love it it twenty seventeen.
1:12:26
Speaker 3: I love that the Andy Mushietti adaptation of it. But
1:12:30
Speaker 3: knowing the ending of the book and then kind of
1:12:32
Speaker 3: seeing that ending, it felt so just anti climactic what
1:12:37
Speaker 3: you're building up too, which was just like, all right,
1:12:39
Speaker 3: we're not afraid of you anymore. You know, you're a
1:12:41
Speaker 3: big bully. And then he becomes balloonhead and dies another
1:12:43
Speaker 3: side danger.
1:12:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, no, I know everything. No, that's another thing.
1:12:51
Speaker 4: I love it too. I love Penny Wise, and as
1:12:53
Speaker 4: someone who loved the nineteen ninety mini series, I can't
1:12:56
Speaker 4: believe that, like seventeen years later, it's like one of
1:13:00
Speaker 4: the biggest properties in horror, Like I just didn't see
1:13:02
Speaker 4: that coming and that's great. But also it's a murderous
1:13:06
Speaker 4: demon killing kids in a small town and adults are
1:13:11
Speaker 4: turning away from it, and it's got the new Line logo,
1:13:13
Speaker 4: and it's like, we we could be getting another Nightmare remake.
1:13:18
Speaker 4: We could Like it's I don't want to take anything
1:13:21
Speaker 4: away from Stephen King and Pennywise, but like, look at
1:13:25
Speaker 4: what you're doing, and look at what you could do
1:13:27
Speaker 4: with the property you already have.
1:13:28
Speaker 3: But anyway, and with the prestige treatment that Andy Muschietti
1:13:32
Speaker 3: gave it, with a very big, very grandiose you know
1:13:37
Speaker 3: this five well, what's gonna be five and a half
1:13:40
Speaker 3: hours now with the super cut that now has expanded
1:13:42
Speaker 3: into television, well.
1:13:44
Speaker 4: TV show and you don't even need and I know
1:13:47
Speaker 4: that IT movies had huge budgets for horror movies. You
1:13:50
Speaker 4: can do a great nightmare movie on half even a
1:13:53
Speaker 4: third of the budget, agreed.
1:13:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but he really treatd and it's I remember
1:13:58
Speaker 3: seeing it twenty seventeen and I thought in my life
1:14:02
Speaker 3: at that point, I was like, I've never seen an
1:14:04
Speaker 3: event horror movie. This felt the score is incredible. Benjamin
1:14:10
Speaker 3: Walfish's score is fantastic. It looked great, it felt great.
1:14:15
Speaker 3: And then talk about casting. The casting of it Chapter
1:14:18
Speaker 3: two is remarkable. Oh yeah, transition from kid to adults,
1:14:23
Speaker 3: like absolutely incredible and you could tell there was real
1:14:26
Speaker 3: effort there and it paid off big time. It became
1:14:28
Speaker 3: one of the highest grossing R rated movies ever, you
1:14:31
Speaker 3: know what I mean?
1:14:32
Speaker 4: So I love Chapter two. Chapter two gets a lot
1:14:35
Speaker 4: of shit especially I mean, but like, yeah, like you said,
1:14:40
Speaker 4: those are the kids growing up, you know, like you
1:14:43
Speaker 4: can say you're done at part one. But like it's
1:14:46
Speaker 4: very it's a very similar movie, and it's the same,
1:14:50
Speaker 4: it's the same thing. They're two parts of a whole
1:14:52
Speaker 4: and they compliment each other.
1:14:53
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, takes the podcast now, the Chapter two podcasts
1:14:59
Speaker 3: it presented Beyond.
1:15:00
Speaker 4: The Love.
1:15:04
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of which I know, we were talking a
1:15:08
Speaker 2: little bit about Wes Craven and the other question I
1:15:10
Speaker 2: had for you was how important did you feel like
1:15:13
Speaker 2: Wes Craven's voice to the identity was for the franchise overall?
1:15:18
Speaker 4: Oh crucial, I mean, it doesn't exist without him. But
1:15:22
Speaker 4: also like he introduced the concept of Dream Warriors with three,
1:15:26
Speaker 4: like he just came back to be like, you know, oh,
1:15:30
Speaker 4: you guys still here. Here's some ideas by like like, oh,
1:15:33
Speaker 4: here's some more genius stuff Deuce is, you know, like
1:15:38
Speaker 4: it's and yeah, and he has reported he was reported
1:15:42
Speaker 4: as saying he loved Part four. And I think, you know,
1:15:48
Speaker 4: I don't think there's really a film in the franchise
1:15:50
Speaker 4: except for the remake that doesn't have Wes's DNA in
1:15:55
Speaker 4: it at least a little bit. Like you know, and
1:15:58
Speaker 4: the thing with her franchises, everyone always wants to go
1:16:02
Speaker 4: back to the original and you know, especially Scream. Oh
1:16:07
Speaker 4: my god, it's I mean, the original Scream is a
1:16:10
Speaker 4: near perfect film. That's another podcast. But like Nightmare wasn't
1:16:15
Speaker 4: afraid to evolve and advance, and they never even in
1:16:20
Speaker 4: two when they sort of they flirted with the idea
1:16:23
Speaker 4: of getting rid of like the he kills you in
1:16:26
Speaker 4: your dreams, you die for real. Even when they were
1:16:28
Speaker 4: flirting with that, they never went all the way. You know,
1:16:31
Speaker 4: they rounded some bases, they never went all the way.
1:16:33
Speaker 4: But it was always trying to retain what worked, and
1:16:37
Speaker 4: what worked mostly came from West Graven.
1:16:41
Speaker 2: Now do you think that Freddy Krueger works best under
1:16:44
Speaker 2: a singular creative vision or is something that evolves with
1:16:48
Speaker 2: different filmmakers, Like obviously we got a number of different
1:16:52
Speaker 2: I guess takes on his character as the franchise went on.
1:16:58
Speaker 4: I mean, well, it was always Robert England except for
1:17:00
Speaker 4: the remake, and I felt he always had a really
1:17:03
Speaker 4: strong command of the character. I mean, I'm sure different director,
1:17:08
Speaker 4: like the different directors instilled some of themselves onto Freddy,
1:17:12
Speaker 4: but I mean I can't imagine Steven Hopkins did a
1:17:16
Speaker 4: lot of like you know, character work with Robert England
1:17:22
Speaker 4: at that point, because he's he's a classically trained actor,
1:17:25
Speaker 4: like he's not. He knows his onions, so to speak.
1:17:29
Speaker 4: So even though you're even though Robert England's working with
1:17:32
Speaker 4: all these different directors and voices and writers, Freddie always
1:17:38
Speaker 4: comes through, even in the unused scripts, like I never
1:17:41
Speaker 4: thought that's not Freddy Krueger, you know, like that he's
1:17:45
Speaker 4: like the one constant throughout them, And I think it's
1:17:50
Speaker 4: a tribute to everyone involved that, like the films have
1:17:53
Speaker 4: a distinct feel and you know you're getting Freddy Krueger that.
1:18:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, I love Freddy versus Jason. But that's that's
1:18:04
Speaker 3: Freddy through and through.
1:18:06
Speaker 4: You know. Oh yeah, I didn't talk about it.
1:18:08
Speaker 3: Oh sorry, go ahead, No, I was just saying he
1:18:11
Speaker 3: even that look that many years later it's still that's
1:18:15
Speaker 3: that's full on Freddy.
1:18:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like he never missed a mister beat. And
1:18:20
Speaker 4: you know, I always say, like, Freddy versus Jason is
1:18:24
Speaker 4: really a nightmare and ELM Street film first and foremost,
1:18:27
Speaker 4: it's got Jason in it, and Jason's doing Jason stuff,
1:18:29
Speaker 4: and if you want Friday the thirteenth Jason stuff, you're
1:18:32
Speaker 4: gonna see it. But like, structurally, thematically, it is a
1:18:36
Speaker 4: nightmare and ELM Street film through and through, and it proves.
1:18:41
Speaker 4: I mean it was like nineteen years after the original
1:18:44
Speaker 4: and it's just you know, no no pun intended. But
1:18:46
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say it's like Freddy still fits like a
1:18:48
Speaker 4: glove m M yeah yeah.
1:18:53
Speaker 2: Why do you think the ELM Street Film's connected so
1:18:56
Speaker 2: strongly with audiences compared to other slashers?
1:19:00
Speaker 4: Honestly the casts, which is something like to me, this
1:19:05
Speaker 4: is like one of those things. Why does no one
1:19:07
Speaker 4: like talk about it? Everyone loves Robert England, everyone like
1:19:13
Speaker 4: his his performance his abilities aren't they're unquestionable. We know
1:19:20
Speaker 4: that he's like the main attraction. But like when you
1:19:22
Speaker 4: get into it, these aren't like kids who are partying
1:19:27
Speaker 4: in the woods and then they go off to smoke
1:19:29
Speaker 4: and have sex and then they die and then the
1:19:31
Speaker 4: main character stumbles over their bodies and screams in the
1:19:34
Speaker 4: third act. That doesn't happen. These kids watch each these
1:19:37
Speaker 4: kids are friends in the first place at the beginning
1:19:41
Speaker 4: of the movie, and they watch each other get murdered,
1:19:44
Speaker 4: and they know that something is happening. And sometimes it
1:19:48
Speaker 4: takes a character. Sometimes it takes Nancy to come in
1:19:51
Speaker 4: and explain what's happening, or sometimes it takes dream magic
1:19:55
Speaker 4: of some kind to get there. But it's these kids
1:19:59
Speaker 4: are always on their own. You always care about them.
1:20:02
Speaker 4: You are always aware of what they're afraid of, which
1:20:06
Speaker 4: is also a function of their death scenes that come
1:20:08
Speaker 4: later on. But you know, you a function of enjoying
1:20:16
Speaker 4: these movies is relating to the cast. I mean, in
1:20:20
Speaker 4: any horror movie, in any movie, you should love the characters,
1:20:23
Speaker 4: you should care when they die. But these, I think
1:20:26
Speaker 4: it's much more acute because you know they some of
1:20:32
Speaker 4: them are really I mean they're all in vulnerable positions,
1:20:35
Speaker 4: but some of them are in really vulnerable positions, you know,
1:20:38
Speaker 4: like you had like in the original Nightmare. Everyone comes
1:20:41
Speaker 4: from like a good home, you know, pretty much like
1:20:44
Speaker 4: they're all like, you know, unassuming like kids. You know,
1:20:47
Speaker 4: Mom's gonna go away to Vegas for a weekend. Whatever,
1:20:49
Speaker 4: we have the house. It's fine. You get to three
1:20:52
Speaker 4: and you have kids who shoot speed to stay awake
1:20:54
Speaker 4: so they don't have to fight Freddy, which they're still doing.
1:20:58
Speaker 4: People also forget the dream worry. They're in a mental hospital,
1:21:02
Speaker 4: not because they're crazy, but because they have intense PTSD,
1:21:06
Speaker 4: because they have been fighting Freddy in their dreams the
1:21:08
Speaker 4: whole time. But it never occurred to them that these
1:21:12
Speaker 4: were anything other than dreams until Nancy showed up. Their
1:21:15
Speaker 4: kids on the brink, and they're kids that you care about,
1:21:18
Speaker 4: and watching them fight back is just even when they die,
1:21:23
Speaker 4: just seeing them have last stands is so cathartic. And
1:21:26
Speaker 4: you don't get that in a lot of other horror films.
1:21:29
Speaker 2: No, I was gonna say, I mean in these films,
1:21:33
Speaker 2: you know, do you feel like that there's certain themes
1:21:35
Speaker 2: that a lot of moviegoers often overlook when talking about
1:21:40
Speaker 2: these these films.
1:21:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh, absolutely neglect, I mean neglect wholesale, but abuse,
1:21:49
Speaker 4: sexual abuse, drug abuse. It's like all of these kids
1:21:55
Speaker 4: are like left to their own devices because their parents.
1:22:00
Speaker 4: It's couldn't do the right thing, still can't do the
1:22:02
Speaker 4: right thing after all this time, you know, like everyone else,
1:22:08
Speaker 4: you know, I love Halloween, and you know the I
1:22:12
Speaker 4: mean the original Halloween is also near perfect. But like
1:22:14
Speaker 4: that franchise, the Friday the Thirteenth franchise, these are kids
1:22:17
Speaker 4: who are like, yeah, they're gonna you're gonna see him party, Like, oh,
1:22:21
Speaker 4: you're gonna see some boobs, not a lot of not
1:22:24
Speaker 4: a lot of nakedness in the Nightmare films, not a
1:22:28
Speaker 4: lot of female nudity. It was never really about that,
1:22:31
Speaker 4: Like it's a function of making it so that like
1:22:34
Speaker 4: the death scenes are to some degree devastating, if not
1:22:38
Speaker 4: to you the audience, then to the other characters. And
1:22:41
Speaker 4: it's all about fueling the desire to beat freddie back
1:22:46
Speaker 4: and survive. And I mean, you know you don't even
1:22:50
Speaker 4: like God five is about teen pregnancy. Like she she
1:22:54
Speaker 4: graduates high school, she's still a teenager. They're all still teenager,
1:23:00
Speaker 4: like on the brink of adulthood but still teenagers. And
1:23:03
Speaker 4: you know, I mean, I'm sure it's a rush Act
1:23:07
Speaker 4: test for your politics, But to me, it is a
1:23:09
Speaker 4: very pro choice film because she does Alice makes the
1:23:14
Speaker 4: choice to keep her baby. I mean, they're right, she
1:23:17
Speaker 4: could like abort it and then you know, no, no Freddie,
1:23:22
Speaker 4: no movie. But the thing is that Freddie knows that
1:23:26
Speaker 4: she wants to like even if she even it's a
1:23:29
Speaker 4: surprise that she's pregnant, she knows she wants to have
1:23:33
Speaker 4: the baby that wants to her and the man that
1:23:35
Speaker 4: she loves. And it's just these incredible, insane obstacles that
1:23:42
Speaker 4: keep building on these people, these young people that have
1:23:46
Speaker 4: to go through all of this. You just you don't.
1:23:48
Speaker 4: You don't get that in a lot of other horror
1:23:50
Speaker 4: movies at the time. You do kind of get more
1:23:52
Speaker 4: of it today, especially because of the Final Destination films
1:23:56
Speaker 4: and a lot of other films that have been inspired
1:23:59
Speaker 4: by Nightmare elm Street. But to me, these are like
1:24:02
Speaker 4: the er text for a lot of plot lines and
1:24:06
Speaker 4: characters and character types.
1:24:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna say it's funny you brought a
1:24:10
Speaker 3: Final Destination because I was gonna say, uh, knight, right,
1:24:12
Speaker 3: elm Street has you know, the hanging death in the
1:24:15
Speaker 3: prison cell, which you know to the public was just
1:24:18
Speaker 3: he killed himself. Frank committed suicide. And then Final Destination
1:24:22
Speaker 3: reflects that with Alex's best friend who dies and there's
1:24:26
Speaker 3: that great sequence when he comes across and they're pulling
1:24:29
Speaker 3: out his body and the father approaches him and he says,
1:24:31
Speaker 3: like he wasn't gonna kill himself, like we made trips,
1:24:34
Speaker 3: we made plans to go on trips, like he wouldn't
1:24:36
Speaker 3: have done this. It's the same same idea and it's
1:24:39
Speaker 3: devastating in both and both films.
1:24:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, also a new Line film. Yeah.
1:24:47
Speaker 2: Now, I gotta ask you, what do you feel is
1:24:50
Speaker 2: the most underrated kill in the entire franchise?
1:24:54
Speaker 4: Underrated kill? Mm hm oh. I'm like circling through the rolodex.
1:25:03
Speaker 4: I mean amongst the fans, a lot of them do
1:25:06
Speaker 4: get a lot of love. I wish I could put
1:25:09
Speaker 4: like Part five as a whole, because all those kills
1:25:12
Speaker 4: are crazy and involved and gross and intense. But I'm
1:25:22
Speaker 4: gonna say the waterbed in four still messes me up,
1:25:29
Speaker 4: Like I thank god people don't have waterbeds anymore. But
1:25:32
Speaker 4: like I will not sit on a waterbed because of that,
1:25:35
Speaker 4: that just and it is kind of like an extension
1:25:38
Speaker 4: on Johnny Depp's death in the original, but like you
1:25:41
Speaker 4: know that that one just like.
1:25:45
Speaker 3: God taking one step further with the discovery of his body.
1:25:48
Speaker 4: In the bed, Like yeah, God.
1:25:52
Speaker 3: Bru four is also the only movie in history to
1:25:56
Speaker 3: ever convince me that my tape was broken, you know,
1:25:59
Speaker 3: in the time.
1:26:00
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I was like, what the.
1:26:02
Speaker 3: Fuck is happening? Why? And it sold it so well,
1:26:06
Speaker 3: like so well, there was no it did nothing to
1:26:10
Speaker 3: break the gimmick and it just kept going, and I
1:26:12
Speaker 3: remember being like, what the fuck is happening? And then
1:26:14
Speaker 3: if they realized, I'm like, oh shit, God. You know.
1:26:18
Speaker 4: I talked to the editor Michael Knew in the book
1:26:21
Speaker 4: and I had to ask him about that sequence because
1:26:24
Speaker 4: it's crazy and like was I'm like, you know, was
1:26:26
Speaker 4: it always like that? And He's like, I think we
1:26:28
Speaker 4: had like one more rotation and we took it out.
1:26:31
Speaker 4: And I just wonder like what if they kept it in,
1:26:34
Speaker 4: Like would it have gone a little bit too far
1:26:36
Speaker 4: because it feels like just the right amount in the movie,
1:26:38
Speaker 4: but like.
1:26:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gotta think it's like twice around you probably
1:26:43
Speaker 3: start wondering and then the third time you're like, oh,
1:26:45
Speaker 3: wait what and then it breaks and you're like, oh okay.
1:26:48
Speaker 3: It was like just enough to get you to But
1:26:50
Speaker 3: as a kid watching it, I remember being like, oh,
1:26:52
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know how how this DVD
1:26:55
Speaker 3: is broken. I don't know what we did.
1:26:57
Speaker 4: Oh man, the store's gonna make me pay, Like ahh, it's.
1:27:01
Speaker 2: Not looking good.
1:27:02
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:27:04
Speaker 2: So before we start kind of wrapping up with a
1:27:07
Speaker 2: few final questions, so I got to ask you. I
1:27:10
Speaker 2: meant to ask you about this earlier. Are you a
1:27:12
Speaker 2: fan of the Freddy's Nightmares TV series at all? No?
1:27:17
Speaker 4: And it has its fans and good for them, but
1:27:20
Speaker 4: like I never really saw it as like part of
1:27:24
Speaker 4: the family, you know, like it did just kind of
1:27:27
Speaker 4: seem like, well, Freddy's popular. I mean, the soul to
1:27:30
Speaker 4: Robert England is like the Twilight Zone and Freddie is
1:27:33
Speaker 4: rod Sterling, but it kind of became more like Tales
1:27:35
Speaker 4: from the Cryp where Freddy's the crypt keeper, which is
1:27:37
Speaker 4: funny because like the whole crew was like poured over
1:27:40
Speaker 4: to Tails from the Crypt when it started. But it's
1:27:44
Speaker 4: not really It's like not canon. I know, like the pilots,
1:27:48
Speaker 4: directed by Toby Hooper, and is kind of about like
1:27:51
Speaker 4: the cop who arrests him allegedly like I maybe you
1:27:58
Speaker 4: can make it our argument that that's ken and I
1:28:01
Speaker 4: don't know, but it's it was never it's like, oh,
1:28:06
Speaker 4: something crazy is happening in the town of Springwood, and
1:28:09
Speaker 4: oh maybe there's something supernatural happening and you don't know
1:28:12
Speaker 4: what it is. And then at the end, surprise, it's
1:28:14
Speaker 4: Freddy and then it ends, and it was just kind
1:28:15
Speaker 4: of it just kind of seemed like it was thrown
1:28:18
Speaker 4: together to capitalize on the popularity. So but I know
1:28:22
Speaker 4: people really like it, and you know, I hope they
1:28:26
Speaker 4: enjoy it. I just didn't really see it as something
1:28:29
Speaker 4: to include in the book.
1:28:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fair. So after writing this wonderful book, has
1:28:36
Speaker 2: your relationship with the Nightmare and Elma Street series change
1:28:39
Speaker 2: at all?
1:28:42
Speaker 4: You know, not so much to the movies, but hearing
1:28:46
Speaker 4: people's responses to it has just been crazy, like really yeah,
1:28:53
Speaker 4: Like I mean, I have voicemails from some of the
1:28:56
Speaker 4: actors that I just still have on my phone that
1:28:58
Speaker 4: I just can't delete, and it's it's just like, hey,
1:29:01
Speaker 4: this is so and so you know, I hear you're
1:29:03
Speaker 4: writing a book, call me back. It's just something as
1:29:04
Speaker 4: simple as that, and I'm like, oh my god, this
1:29:06
Speaker 4: person said my name, which is crazy, but it's it's
1:29:11
Speaker 4: just been really fulfilling. I mean, I hope that, like
1:29:18
Speaker 4: I mean, I still watch the movies like all the time,
1:29:20
Speaker 4: but like I hope, you know, I could convince people
1:29:24
Speaker 4: to look at them the way that I see them,
1:29:26
Speaker 4: or at least to consider them more than they've already
1:29:30
Speaker 4: you know, they already are. Like you know, it's funny.
1:29:34
Speaker 4: I was waiting for them Never Sleep Again documentary like
1:29:38
Speaker 4: for so long, because that, to me was like the
1:29:41
Speaker 4: scholarship that we never got, since we never got commentaries.
1:29:44
Speaker 4: I remember hearing like some of the talking heads, like
1:29:46
Speaker 4: some of the people who made these films talk about
1:29:48
Speaker 4: them about certain parts and they're like, well that was
1:29:51
Speaker 4: kind of dumb, and I'm like, I never thought that
1:29:53
Speaker 4: was dumb. Like I don't. I'm not against you, like,
1:29:56
Speaker 4: you know, shitting on your own movie, but like I
1:29:58
Speaker 4: to me that I still captured my I captured my
1:30:01
Speaker 4: imagination still does to this day. So I don't know,
1:30:05
Speaker 4: it's not like I watched them now as like a
1:30:07
Speaker 4: proud Papa because I didn't have anything to do with
1:30:09
Speaker 4: the making of these movies, but like, you know, like
1:30:12
Speaker 4: I watch them and I consider them, and like I
1:30:15
Speaker 4: just hope that, like other people are thinking of them
1:30:19
Speaker 4: more than they were before, or at least like differently,
1:30:25
Speaker 4: because you know, like I love, like I said, I
1:30:30
Speaker 4: love Halloween and Friday the thirteenth. I feel like you
1:30:32
Speaker 4: can turn it into a drinking game. How many times
1:30:34
Speaker 4: I've said this so far, But like, please please consider
1:30:38
Speaker 4: Nightmare and Elm Street. It's they're all so much better
1:30:41
Speaker 4: than you remember.
1:30:43
Speaker 2: I was gonna say that, that's gotta be kind of
1:30:45
Speaker 2: surreal seeing Lisa Wilcox holding up her book.
1:30:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh my god, that was. Yeah. She she's going
1:30:53
Speaker 4: to cons and she's selling a few books at her table.
1:30:55
Speaker 4: Oh no way, yeah, But it was just like she
1:31:00
Speaker 4: it's it's like she's whole talk about meta. It's like
1:31:04
Speaker 4: holding a book that I wrote with my name on
1:31:08
Speaker 4: it that talks about her character and how her characters
1:31:12
Speaker 4: I talk about. Nancy Alice is like the second best
1:31:16
Speaker 4: Final Girl of all time for me. She has an arc.
1:31:19
Speaker 4: She's incredible. Lisa Wilcox does Lisa Wilcox does a great
1:31:22
Speaker 4: job portraying her. It's just absolutely surreal. Like, you know,
1:31:27
Speaker 4: high school me, six year old me, college me even
1:31:31
Speaker 4: could not even believe that this was remotely a possibility.
1:31:34
Speaker 2: So it's like your own new nightmare moment.
1:31:38
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly.
1:31:39
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well beyond you know what we're always trying to
1:31:44
Speaker 3: do here, which is to hopefully, you know, get more
1:31:47
Speaker 3: people to seek out your book. I always try to
1:31:50
Speaker 3: take a moment to kind of like fanboy myself and
1:31:53
Speaker 3: let you know that books like this are important to us,
1:32:00
Speaker 3: you know, I mean as as fans, as people who
1:32:02
Speaker 3: want to learn more. And I know it's probably overwhelming
1:32:08
Speaker 3: to see so much great feedback from it, because I've
1:32:11
Speaker 3: seen you share so much great feedback from and I've
1:32:13
Speaker 3: seen how many signings you've done, and I've seen all
1:32:15
Speaker 3: that stuff directly from you know, the voice of somebody
1:32:20
Speaker 3: who who absolutely loves this type of material. Man, Books
1:32:25
Speaker 3: like yours are are on the like the just top
1:32:31
Speaker 3: recommendations for me as somebody who not only wants people
1:32:35
Speaker 3: to learn more, but somebody who always wants to learn more.
1:32:37
Speaker 3: I treat material like this very very like I don't
1:32:41
Speaker 3: take it for granted, because this is what this is
1:32:45
Speaker 3: what I want. And you know, even when I read
1:32:47
Speaker 3: Taking Shape or read and Slash the Titans, in the
1:32:50
Speaker 3: back of my head, I was always like, there has
1:32:52
Speaker 3: to be one of these for night where and I'm straight,
1:32:53
Speaker 3: eventually somebody's got to do this right, Like yeah, and
1:32:59
Speaker 3: you absolutely fulfilled every single wish I could have had
1:33:03
Speaker 3: for this material. But even beyond to the point where
1:33:07
Speaker 3: with these four k's coming out and your book coming out,
1:33:10
Speaker 3: I've taken the time to go back and it's been
1:33:13
Speaker 3: a companion piece man, and just from from from myself
1:33:16
Speaker 3: and Steve to you, you know, thank you for your work,
1:33:21
Speaker 3: and thank you for putting this out man, because you've
1:33:24
Speaker 3: you know, it's appreciated beyond more than than than words
1:33:28
Speaker 3: could ever could really let you know.
1:33:31
Speaker 4: That's amazing. Thank you. I'm I'm like still figuring out
1:33:36
Speaker 4: how to receive all this, To be honest with you,
1:33:40
Speaker 4: it's still every single bit of it has been unreal.
1:33:45
Speaker 4: I like to say, like I wrote it in like
1:33:47
Speaker 4: a vacuum, almost like I was just the two things
1:33:51
Speaker 4: that fueled me were spite and hope. Spe spite that
1:33:55
Speaker 4: no one had ever written this before, and I couldn't
1:33:58
Speaker 4: believe I was the one who was going to do it,
1:34:01
Speaker 4: you know, like Rudy and the Monster Squad, like I'm
1:34:03
Speaker 4: in the goddamn club r and I like that. That's
1:34:06
Speaker 4: the moment I kept going back to. But also hope
1:34:09
Speaker 4: that like people would get something from it and wanted
1:34:13
Speaker 4: to read it, and that I wouldn't sound like, you know,
1:34:16
Speaker 4: a raving maniac or like Charlie and it's always sunny
1:34:19
Speaker 4: with his like pincushion board going off about Pepe silvia,
1:34:23
Speaker 4: which I definitely felt at points while I was like
1:34:25
Speaker 4: writing it. So yeah, I'm I'm honestly touched to hear
1:34:30
Speaker 4: you guys say that, and I'm really glad you got
1:34:33
Speaker 4: something out of it.
1:34:34
Speaker 2: This was like the perfect companion piece when I was
1:34:37
Speaker 2: going through the four K box that I was like
1:34:39
Speaker 2: kind of referring back to your book during the whole process.
1:34:41
Speaker 2: So it was definitely really special and memorable. I was
1:34:45
Speaker 2: going to ask you, what do you hope longtime fans
1:34:48
Speaker 2: and newer horror fans take away.
1:34:50
Speaker 4: From your book. I hope they see the DNA of
1:34:53
Speaker 4: Nightmare and Elm Street and the nightmaron Elm Street sequels
1:34:56
Speaker 4: in the horror films of today, not in a way
1:35:00
Speaker 4: that takes away anything from like current horror films where
1:35:04
Speaker 4: they go, oh, that's just Nightmare and Elm Street. But
1:35:06
Speaker 4: just know that, like, like Wes Craven was one of
1:35:10
Speaker 4: the greats, not that that's something that's debatable, but his
1:35:14
Speaker 4: ideas and his themes have like continued almost like fractally
1:35:21
Speaker 4: through the series, right, like you have the original film
1:35:25
Speaker 4: and then the others expanded on it and like blew
1:35:27
Speaker 4: it up in different ways, and even in those expansions,
1:35:30
Speaker 4: in the ways that they did things with it that
1:35:34
Speaker 4: may have been departures like those are still looked at
1:35:38
Speaker 4: and influential, and I just hope, like just people kind
1:35:43
Speaker 4: of realize that, and people like know their history with horror.
1:35:46
Speaker 4: I'm a big as you know, I'm a big special
1:35:48
Speaker 4: features guy. I like to know where the stuff I
1:35:50
Speaker 4: love came from. And to me, a lot of what
1:35:53
Speaker 4: I love even today came from Nightmare and Elm Street,
1:35:58
Speaker 4: and I just I want people to see that too,
1:36:03
Speaker 4: you know, Like the Smile movies aren't exactly my cup
1:36:07
Speaker 4: of tea, but like I appreciate the craft in them,
1:36:09
Speaker 4: and I know a lot of people do. And I
1:36:10
Speaker 4: see a lot of Nightmare and Elmstreet in those like it,
1:36:14
Speaker 4: like what we were talking about before, the Black Phone films,
1:36:18
Speaker 4: Like there's there's so much even in and like this,
1:36:24
Speaker 4: I did not like this movie. But Star Wars episode nine,
1:36:27
Speaker 4: the Rise of Skywalker, you know at the end when
1:36:30
Speaker 4: like all the Jedi are coming into her and it's
1:36:33
Speaker 4: like she's she's becoming one with all of them. I'm like,
1:36:37
Speaker 4: that's the dream Master. Like that's Nightmare four. Like we
1:36:41
Speaker 4: did this already, you know, like it's not it's not
1:36:45
Speaker 4: you know, it's not bad or derivative even, but it's
1:36:48
Speaker 4: just kind of like no one, like people wouldn't necessarily
1:36:53
Speaker 4: make that connection. And I just hope people and I
1:36:55
Speaker 4: don't know, maybe it's great minds think alike, but I
1:36:57
Speaker 4: don't know how many great minds came up with the
1:36:59
Speaker 4: Rise of sky Walker. But that's a whole other thing. Like,
1:37:02
Speaker 4: but I just these films are just so influential in
1:37:09
Speaker 4: so many ways, and I think for the most part,
1:37:12
Speaker 4: they hold up really well. These special effects, which are
1:37:15
Speaker 4: like ninety nine percent practical, hold up really well. And
1:37:19
Speaker 4: I just want people to keep the Nightmare alive and like,
1:37:23
Speaker 4: you know, make connections.
1:37:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, Chris, did you have any closing thoughts at all,
1:37:29
Speaker 2: anything you want to add.
1:37:31
Speaker 3: I mean, well, hey, I guess first question would be like,
1:37:38
Speaker 3: are you possibly writing any more of these on anything else?
1:37:41
Speaker 3: Like are you going to continue your book journey here?
1:37:44
Speaker 4: Or I am, but not not as of yet on
1:37:48
Speaker 4: a franchise. I'm early in the process with my next book,
1:37:54
Speaker 4: which isn't it's about a band. It's also nonfiction but
1:38:01
Speaker 4: still horror adjacent. But yeah, that's that's sort of what
1:38:05
Speaker 4: I'm working on now. But people have asked me, like,
1:38:07
Speaker 4: what other franchises could you write about? Like, I don't
1:38:10
Speaker 4: know if I could do the same amount of justice
1:38:14
Speaker 4: to another franchise like Nightmare, because like you said, I
1:38:19
Speaker 4: could not just be like it wasn't like there wasn't
1:38:21
Speaker 4: a book on Nightmare and Elm Street. Maybe I could
1:38:23
Speaker 4: write a book on Nightmare and Elm Street. It's like, literally,
1:38:26
Speaker 4: I have had this book and these opinions, most of
1:38:29
Speaker 4: them in me all my movie going life. So that's
1:38:34
Speaker 4: not really true of any other franchise, maybe one or two,
1:38:37
Speaker 4: but there are books on them already. So if I
1:38:41
Speaker 4: do something that tackles another horror franchise, it's got to
1:38:44
Speaker 4: be special. It's got to speak to me.
1:38:47
Speaker 3: I think I think more people should write books on
1:38:49
Speaker 3: individual movies. I just read Nick Cato's book on Nightmare,
1:38:54
Speaker 3: which is like who the book was going to write
1:38:55
Speaker 3: a whole book on Nightmare? You know what I mean?
1:38:57
Speaker 4: And yeah, it's funny. I saw it. We were both
1:39:01
Speaker 4: vendors at the New York City Indie Book Fair back
1:39:03
Speaker 4: in November, and I bought his Suburban Grindhouse. But I
1:39:06
Speaker 4: haven't read it yet. It's just staring on me. It's
1:39:08
Speaker 4: staring at me from my pile of shame. I took
1:39:11
Speaker 4: our pile. But like, no, I heard he wrote about Nightmare,
1:39:13
Speaker 4: and I'm like, like, who could? Yeah, who could write
1:39:16
Speaker 4: a full book about that movie? That movie is insane?
1:39:20
Speaker 4: But like, you know, if he can, if someone can,
1:39:23
Speaker 4: I want to read it because there's there's, it's it's
1:39:26
Speaker 4: you know, it's not just like a think piece for
1:39:27
Speaker 4: a magazine. It's a full book. So I'm really curious
1:39:30
Speaker 4: about that.
1:39:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm just very I'm in on
1:39:35
Speaker 3: anything that you're gonna do from here on now. I'd
1:39:36
Speaker 3: love to hear that that you're a bonus features guy.
1:39:40
Speaker 3: I mean, that's that's what you live off of. That's
1:39:43
Speaker 3: I love to hear that when when when when this started? Uh,
1:39:47
Speaker 3: before Steve, before you were even apart. When I kicked
1:39:49
Speaker 3: this off with my original host, I remember I had
1:39:51
Speaker 3: a bunch of people come up and they're like, who
1:39:53
Speaker 3: the fuck's gonna listen to a podcast about audio commentaries?
1:39:55
Speaker 3: People don't even listen to audio commentaries, and I was like.
1:39:58
Speaker 4: The fuck out of here.
1:40:01
Speaker 3: But but you know, you do have that moment where
1:40:02
Speaker 3: you're like, oh shit, is this going to work? And
1:40:04
Speaker 3: then now every single episode we drop, I see the numbers,
1:40:08
Speaker 3: and podcasting is very hard to look at accurate numbers,
1:40:12
Speaker 3: like they're always understated. But I look at numbers and
1:40:14
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, clearly people are into this. Clearly there's
1:40:17
Speaker 3: a a thing there, and you know it was it's
1:40:22
Speaker 3: kind of cool. And now, you know, we hear from
1:40:24
Speaker 3: people who were like, yo, I've never listened to a
1:40:26
Speaker 3: commentary track before I checked out you know, the podcast,
1:40:29
Speaker 3: and it's cool to see attention on it. So you
1:40:31
Speaker 3: never know who's out there who's going to try to
1:40:33
Speaker 3: find it and people people joke all the time on
1:40:35
Speaker 3: Instagram that I'm bearded booklet guy because I'm always like,
1:40:38
Speaker 3: you'll read your booklets. I'm like, listen to the interviews, meet.
1:40:41
Speaker 4: Your booklets, Watch your supplements. You take your supplements every morning,
1:40:44
Speaker 4: Watch your supplements.
1:40:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I listen to an audio commentary. On top of that, I.
1:40:50
Speaker 3: Self supplements during the day at my job, and then
1:40:52
Speaker 3: I watched the moments at night when I get home.
1:40:54
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
1:40:54
Speaker 4: That's where you go. I will say I did have
1:40:57
Speaker 4: moments like what you're talking about, where like I'm writing
1:41:01
Speaker 4: it and I'm just like, is this just for me?
1:41:04
Speaker 4: Like is anyone going to actually want to read this
1:41:07
Speaker 4: or like this? Or will people just think I'm crazy?
1:41:11
Speaker 4: Am I Adam Scott in Parks and Recreation working on
1:41:15
Speaker 4: that stop motion claymation video and it turns out I've
1:41:18
Speaker 4: just made like two seconds of it? Will that be me?
1:41:22
Speaker 4: And I just like pushed on through because I'm like,
1:41:25
Speaker 4: I need to finish this and it's on everyone else
1:41:29
Speaker 4: to tell me to go to hell, but I gotta
1:41:31
Speaker 4: do it. So Yeah.
1:41:33
Speaker 3: I mean, I love looking at like I talked about
1:41:36
Speaker 3: Adam Caesar with your interview earlier. I love looking at
1:41:39
Speaker 3: him and being like, man, I remember when my wife
1:41:41
Speaker 3: bought clown to Cornfield and I loved it, and then
1:41:44
Speaker 3: I remember Clown to Cornfield too, and I remember multiple
1:41:46
Speaker 3: and I'm like, now he's got you know the movie,
1:41:49
Speaker 3: and you know, it's like now he's climbing. I'm like,
1:41:52
Speaker 3: it's sure. I'm sure. At some point in every anybody
1:41:55
Speaker 3: who chases some sort of creative pursuit, you wonder if
1:41:59
Speaker 3: it's gonna work and when it's gonna work, because sometimes
1:42:01
Speaker 3: it's a grind and you have nobody looking at anything
1:42:05
Speaker 3: you're doing until one day somebody looks at it. And
1:42:08
Speaker 3: we had that moment when we were on a Zoom
1:42:13
Speaker 3: call with Mark Allen Miller, who first of all was
1:42:15
Speaker 3: fanboying about talking to Anyway, and he was like yeah,
1:42:19
Speaker 3: He's like, I've actually been listening to the show for
1:42:22
Speaker 3: the past year that you started it. And me and
1:42:24
Speaker 3: Steve are like what, and he's like yeah, He's like
1:42:27
Speaker 3: my friend who's a makeup effects artist on Dexter, like
1:42:30
Speaker 3: listen to your show and send it to me. And
1:42:33
Speaker 3: I think both of us are. Both of us were
1:42:36
Speaker 3: like what the fuck, and that kind of it kind
1:42:39
Speaker 3: of like put this thought in my head of like
1:42:42
Speaker 3: you never know who, especially when it's public, you never
1:42:46
Speaker 3: know who's listening. And now at this point in the show,
1:42:50
Speaker 3: like we've been doing this for what are we in
1:42:52
Speaker 3: We've been doing this for a year and a half.
1:42:55
Speaker 3: This is this is it. The show is still in
1:42:56
Speaker 3: its infancy and I'm so happy we took the plunge
1:43:01
Speaker 3: to do it. And I encourage anybody who's pursuing anything artistic,
1:43:04
Speaker 3: whether it's a book or a podcast or whatever they do,
1:43:08
Speaker 3: like just just start it. And you're going to have
1:43:12
Speaker 3: those doubts and you're going to deal with that. But
1:43:16
Speaker 3: it's all about the perseverance because I'm sure many people
1:43:18
Speaker 3: have started a book on the Knight hin Um Street
1:43:19
Speaker 3: franchise and they doubted themselves and they stopped writing it.
1:43:23
Speaker 3: And now here you are with an incredibly successful book
1:43:28
Speaker 3: out in the world. Many people love it because you
1:43:30
Speaker 3: made the decision to keep pushing and keep going, keep going. Yeah, Steve,
1:43:40
Speaker 3: any last questions or anything before we get to the
1:43:42
Speaker 3: wrap up.
1:43:44
Speaker 2: No, I think I got on my Nightmare and elm
1:43:47
Speaker 2: Street questions fulfilled and answered.
1:43:52
Speaker 3: Well, they'll let people know. Obviously, I'm going to have
1:43:54
Speaker 3: the book linked below. I'm going to have harder press
1:43:57
Speaker 3: link below. I'm gonna have everything linked below, But anything
1:43:58
Speaker 3: that you kind of want to give people on the
1:44:01
Speaker 3: way out.
1:44:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can check out my writing at maccob Daily.
1:44:07
Speaker 4: I do the mccob daily podcast with my co host
1:44:10
Speaker 4: and editor Matta Rosco, and just check us out for news, reviews, interviews,
1:44:17
Speaker 4: festival coverage, which is cool. I went to Fantastic Best
1:44:20
Speaker 4: last year. It was like life changing in the Brooklyn
1:44:23
Speaker 4: Horror Film Festival as well. And yeah, you can buy
1:44:29
Speaker 4: my book on Amazon. But if you don't want to
1:44:32
Speaker 4: give Jeff Bezos money, I totally get it. It's available,
1:44:37
Speaker 4: should be available at your local indie bookstore. Please support
1:44:40
Speaker 4: indie bookstores like Twisted Spy and Tiny Raccoon Books Thrilleradelphia
1:44:44
Speaker 4: if you're in Philly, but like they should be able
1:44:47
Speaker 4: to order it for you. Don't give the big guys
1:44:49
Speaker 4: money if you can help it. And yeah, just keep
1:44:54
Speaker 4: watching movies, keep thinking about movies, and be I guess,
1:45:00
Speaker 4: I guess be Good People is trademarked by Dead Meat
1:45:03
Speaker 4: by now, but like if there's like an America's Choice
1:45:07
Speaker 4: version of be good People, just uh just don't be
1:45:10
Speaker 4: a dick. Yeah yeah, yeah.
1:45:13
Speaker 3: You go, and big, big support, big recommendation for Thrilleradelphia.
1:45:17
Speaker 3: My wife and I live right outside of the city
1:45:19
Speaker 3: in New Jersey. Oh right, I see Philly from my window.
1:45:23
Speaker 4: Oh that's I was there last weekend.
1:45:27
Speaker 3: I saw it and yeah, I couldn't make it. I
1:45:31
Speaker 3: was like, I was the great, how do I get
1:45:32
Speaker 3: there today? I think I was at work.
1:45:33
Speaker 4: I was like, god, oh right, well yeah, retail. But
1:45:36
Speaker 4: it's funny. My family grew up in like they're from
1:45:40
Speaker 4: Cherry Hill, New Jersey, which is like right across the water,
1:45:44
Speaker 4: so there. I'm not a sports fan, but they're like
1:45:46
Speaker 4: Philly everything. But it was just kind of funny, like
1:45:50
Speaker 4: oh yeah, they're like, oh yeah, we know where that is.
1:45:52
Speaker 3: Like yeah, yeah, yeah, we're in yeah, yeah, we're in
1:45:56
Speaker 3: colleins withoo we live in right outside I will yeah yeah,
1:46:00
Speaker 3: oh yeah. So if Philadelphia is like a I don't know,
1:46:03
Speaker 3: ten minute ride for us or something like that. My wife,
1:46:06
Speaker 3: my wife, she wants to do the She wants to
1:46:08
Speaker 3: get lunch of Monster Vegan one day and then go
1:46:11
Speaker 3: over to Philadelphia and spend some money.
1:46:13
Speaker 4: So nice as you should. They're they're great, and they
1:46:16
Speaker 4: have my book, so they.
1:46:18
Speaker 3: Do yeah yeah yeah, uh, Steve, let people know where
1:46:21
Speaker 3: they're going to find you.
1:46:22
Speaker 2: Man, You guys can find me after hours video on
1:46:25
Speaker 2: social media all over the place, and more importantly here
1:46:29
Speaker 2: Beyond the Blood co hosting my good friend Chris.
1:46:33
Speaker 4: Oh and at Lowell School on Instagram. I'm I'm working
1:46:38
Speaker 4: on the self promotion part, but yeah, at Lowell School
1:46:41
Speaker 4: on Instagram, at macob Daily on Instagram and just you know,
1:46:44
Speaker 4: google my name you'll find it because not many people
1:46:47
Speaker 4: have my name.
1:46:47
Speaker 3: But yeah, well I'll make sure it's all tagged below,
1:46:50
Speaker 3: so you just drop down description you'll be able to
1:46:51
Speaker 3: get all that. Yeah, I'm bearded film guy. I'm just
1:46:56
Speaker 3: on Instagram always here Beyond the Blood, also on the
1:46:59
Speaker 3: Fires collection for another podcast, and uh, I think that's it.
1:47:05
Speaker 3: I'll make sure everything's linked below, and uh, please make
1:47:07
Speaker 3: sure to pick up.
1:47:08
Speaker 2: The book, and yeah, absolutely to.
1:47:11
Speaker 3: Yourself a favorite dive even further into Harker Press stuff
1:47:14
Speaker 3: if you've never before, tons of incredible like just the
1:47:18
Speaker 3: the best dives into franchises you're ever gonna find. I
1:47:21
Speaker 3: actually completely forgot about the Maniac Cop Book. I still
1:47:24
Speaker 3: need to pick that up, so I'm gonna buy that tonight.
1:47:27
Speaker 3: But yeah, just just incredible work. Thank you low for
1:47:29
Speaker 3: your time, Thank you for all so much.
1:47:32
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me and.
1:47:33
Speaker 3: Maybe one day we can, uh we can get back
1:47:35
Speaker 3: together and do a Nightmare Now Street commentary.
1:47:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, bring me back for whatever. I'm happy to be
1:47:40
Speaker 4: the Lorax of the Nightmare and elm Street series. But like, yeah,
1:47:44
Speaker 4: I'm I contain multitudes as it were.
1:47:47
Speaker 3: But yeah, let's fucking go.
1:47:49
Speaker 4: Well.
1:47:49
Speaker 3: Thank you for everything, man, and uh, we'll see you
1:47:51
Speaker 3: guys on the next one.
1:47:53
Speaker 2: See on the next one.
1:47:59
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to hear more shows from the
1:48:02
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