All right, listen up, Cave's I got your assignments, riga six four
three wheeler one four eight not eight oh four and only you. You need
to join host HP and Father Malone as they examine one of the greatest sitcoms
in television history, Taxi in Night Mister Walters, a taxi podcast, Bantha
zero like your boxing record, Frank, mister Walters, weird way, Good
evening, Midnight Viewers. Father Malone Here tonight, we're talking to mister Jeffrey
Wolf. He started his career as an editor, working on films like Mikey
and Nicky, the Whiz and Network, and would eventually work with such diverse
filmmakers as Arthur Penn, Ted Demi, and The Sultan of Sleeves mister John
Waters. But he's here to discuss the eight episodes he edited and the one
he directed for Tales from the Dark Side. You'll find that interview at the
halfway point of the show. Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, the Horror anthology
podcast, where the season we're taking a look at George A. Romero's nineteen
eight the series Tales from the Dark Side. Sharing the Midnight view with me
are the Culture Cast Chris Stashue. I wanted to do something from the Warriors,
but I just forgot the goddamn quote. Also joining us as the Projection
Booths, Michael White. That's right, you said you'd kill me last even
better. Now tonight we're taking a look at two episodes from season one.
They are Slippage and Inside the Closet. Slippage season one, episode number six.
It originally aired on November the eleventh, nineteen eighty four. This was
written by Mark Durand from a story by Michael Cube McDowell. That's not our
Talilson the dark signs Michael McDowell, It's a whole other Michael McDowell. Michael
Cube McDowell. He's a novelist and a short story writer. And this one
was directed by Michael Gornick, who is absolutely George a Romero Royalty. He's
been his DP since Martin, and I believe is his directorial debut. This
one stars in David Patrick Kelly. I think he'd been at least two Luther's
by this point, if not three. I mostly know him as Jerry Horn
him and that frecking bree sandwich from I was just thinking that that's every time
I think of David Patrick Kelly. I can't help but think the man who
turned me on to bread and bree you know, big old bagette. Oh
anyway. It was also stars Philip Kasnoff, Kerry Armstrong and David Lippman,
who's a perpetual law and order judge. It is the story of a graphic
designer who slowly begins to slip out of existence. Anyway, what do you
think of this one, Mike? I remember when I believe it was Bruce
Willis was having a very similar problem to what Rich Hall not Rich Hall from
not Necessarily the News and SCTV no not SCTV SNL, famous for the invention
of sniglets. I remember when. Yeah, it felt very shatter day.
To me, this felt very familiar as far as somebody slipping out of their
existence. And unfortunately people didn't start talking nonsense before he slipped out of existence
or else that would have reminded me of another episode of Twilight Song. But
yeah, it was all right. I mean, I love David Patrick Kelly,
so seeing him was pretty good. I don't know, we're as buddy
and girlfriend. Were they having an affair or did he just think that they
were having an affair, like I was a little unsure about that, but
overall, yeah, it's all right. It doesn't benefit from the fact that
something like a shatter Day exists. And I don't get what's going on here
in a lot of ways, like I David Patrick Kelly's just monologuing a lot
about like Richard Hull, kid less and less to connect, and he started
to slip through the cracks of time, like best I can tell, all
these things were actually happening to him, not because of him, unless that
that was going on before the episode, which I can't get the sense of
that, because he seems when he starts finding out things aren't happening, he
seems rather proactive about it, or at least more pro well, maybe reactive,
maybe not proactive, but like, how do you also know something that
you don't know is happening? But it's weird, Like I don't I get
what the premise is getting at, And I get this idea of like someone
who's not connected with time any more effectively disappearing, but that in my read
of what was happening here isn't what was going on. And then there's like
a weird like coda to the episode that I understand even less because I guess
now he's literally invisible question mark there. Yeah, the performances were fine,
but I'm the narrative itself is a little all over the place, to say
the least. This has the same problem as Shatterday, which is we don't
get to know the guy enough before this begins to happen to him. In
the case of Shatter Day, it's pretty well laid out at least that he
has been doing nothing with his life and right passed over and he doesn't care.
He doesn't call his mother, and he doesn't give a shit about that
girlfriend that he abandoned. So we're given all of that here. This is
a different story. This story seems to want to be hey, guess what,
Sometimes you just fucking wink out of existence, But instead it tries to,
at the end, with David Patrick Kelly's final monologue, give us this
idea that he hadn't engaged in life at all, and so he slipped through
a crack in existence. And I don't know, it just didn't feel like
he deserved that. You're right, he did seem proactive about things. It
wasn't like he was letting life pass him By. It was just like,
as soon as he realizes there's a problem, he tries to fix it.
So I don't understand why he's being punished unless it's just, hey, it
is that random thing sometimes, motherfucker, because that I really understand. But
it doesn't seem like that. It all seems very like intentional in a way
that he can't control, but he's trying to correct and I just don't get
it, Like, oh, this other guy got the job and they couldn't
find his social Security or anything. I couldn't even find his portfolio. It's
like, did this guy even apl Like, oh, do you know what
it was? It was that little shit eating kid from the first episode that
oh, yeah, that's what this is again. I mean, in a
lot of ways, it did remind me of that episode in that like,
what is happening here is really not fully explained, at least not in a
satisfying way. Maybe it's kind of meant to be more ambiguous, which is
fine, but I just I don't understand what they were getting at. I
would like to mention because he showed up in the last episode and his name
shows up again. Original music by tom Noonan in this episode yeah, he
wrote music for his episode. And here's one of two things that is happening,
and I will ascertain this problem and follow up in a future episode.
But one of two things occurred. Either he laid down some beds and sold
them a couple of beds of tracks that they're continuing to use, or someone
has mislabeled the credits of the original sales from the Dark Side, because as
far as I know, he was not writing the incidental music for this episode,
right did for his own, and I believe that that's probable. But
you got to remember that these episodes were being produced on either coast, so
this one is a I believe a West Coast episode. No, this is
an East Coast episode, so I don't know. It would be a little
more likely that they would have used him, but I don't understand why they
would have anyway, I'll figure that out and get back to you guys on
that one. And the other thing I didn't understand about this episode. So
we have the David Patrick Kelly character going like I didn't get invited to my
reunion. They found they like, I applied for this job and they haven't
found my application. My wife is applying for a car in her maiden name,
not her married name, and all of those them things seem like they
could have happened accidentally. And then all of a sudden, like his friends
are like trying to figure out how to help him, and they're like,
we his mom doesn't recognize him, and it's like, why do you guys
recognize him at this moment? Like, I just I didn't understand what was
going on in terms of how the mechanism of him disappearing worked within the narrative
and how it was manifesting in the lives of the people, because like we
see his mom literally not recognize him, but his friends recognize him until they
don't, like literally he recognizes him in that scene, until he's like who's
rich and it's like wait, what, like literally on a dime, it
can happen. Yeah, And he seems to know what's going on because he's
got those three pictures. Here I am as a baby, here, I
am now here, I am in the future, but I'm never going to
get to this future. I'm like, okay, right, yeah, it's
unusual again that he just sort of worked it out and then decided to graphically
draw it just in case anyone drop by. Look, the fact is the
following year, in nineteen eighty five, Twilight Zone would do this so much
better with Shatter Day. Any little quibble you just heard me mentioned about Shatter
Days, wipe that away. That's a great version of the story that this
trying to tell. That story which was originally published in Gallery magazine in nineteen
seventy five by Harlan Ellison. This story slippage was originally published in nineteen eighty
two in twilight Zone magazine. Ironically enough, super ironically enough, because at
the same time Harlan Ellison had a column in that magazine he sign It's nineteen
eighty four aerobics. Dave Patrick Kelly has a couple of jaunty buttons on his
jacket. I didn't get a close up of them, but it's just they're
there, just to let us know he's artistic. I don't care if your
favorite movie is It's a Wonderful Life. The only time to watch that is
Christmas and this did not seem like a Christmas episode. That was a fucking
weird move, just to throw that in to let us know that they know
that, we know that, they know that. Yeah, I mean that
that's all it is, right, That's literally all it is. It's just
to be like wink wink, nod nod. We get that we're doing like
the it's a wonderful life thing like but like, you know what, the
worst thing you can do in mediocre media is remind us of something much better,
which is exactly what they did intentionally too. Like again, it's all
there's always an intent, but sometimes it's like, oh, we just had
it, you know, some cheeky production designer put it on the TV during
a scene like no, they say, hey, it's a wonderful life is
odd? Would you like to watch it? Like? Where? What?
How about we go to the cinema and see it? Yeah, let us
get some popcorn and drink please. My favorite snigglet snargling. That's when you
look through crooked fingers during a horror movie because you want to watch but can't
can't take it. Snargling anyway, Once again, I want to remark on
David Patrick Kelly, how fucking great he is here. This is David Patrick
Kelly around the time he did that Dreamscape movie. Oh yeah, I'm now
yeah, I'm now urging everyone within the sound of my voice to go watch
if you haven't seen it. He is so fucking good in that movie,
and it's a good movie in general. Okay, gentlemen, we all have
significant others, right, sure, I'm sure in the course of our relationships
we've all fought with those people at some point or another, right, sometimes
bitterly, sometimes to the point where you think, what the hell is going
on here? But I gotta tell you, never, once, ever,
in my life, have I ever thought it might be better if this person
hadn't been born. Our female lead says that could you imagine thinking that ever
about someone you loved? If I said it, I really hope that the
Tales from the Dark Side isn't listening to it. I mean really, like
you know what I mean, Like that's the thing. It's like, I
mean, I can imagine getting to that point, but like uttering it out
loud, Yeah, yeah, it's a lot, Like it's a lot,
and she like yeah. The moment she says that, you're like, well,
there goes him. He's fucked, Like yeah, Like they don't need
him to wink out of existence. Obviously you two weren't involved with Like maybe
they're the promption they be slipping out of it. I don't know the fact
that they frame it at the end that this is somehow his fault, like
just pisses me off of this episode. It robs the episode of any of
its emotional weight, like completely, I don't understand what we're supposed to take
away from the episode if it's his fault. And also, is he now
just invisible? Because how does one see the invisible man? Yeah? I
mean I was thinking of the incredible shrinking man, like maybe he would just
keep fading and fading and fading, like he reaches one dimension where we don't
see him anymore and it's just keeps getting, you know, less and less.
But yeah, that whole weird door opening closing, I'm like, oh,
so he's still with us. I thought he slipped into nothingness. But
yeah, that was that really was like a very false note to end on.
Yeah, because if they yes, because if they wanted us to know
that he saw them completely forget him and don't wink him out of existence until
the last moment. By the way, that the shot of him actually winking
out of existence was great. Michael Gornick is a fantastic DP and he's working
with I believe Ernest Dickerson here that the episode is shot wonderfully. It's just
that this story is so disappointing given everything we've been getting on Dark Side,
and with the comparison of another series that we covered where they fucking nailed it,
and because David Patrick Kelly is so good, like even though he's saddled
with this kind of thankless role of being like the guy who everybody else forgetting,
but the episode is trying to convince us that he's the one forgetting.
You can put yourself in that guy's shoes for two seconds, and like you,
you would be just as haired as he is by the end of it.
And I think he plays it rather well. I just don't think the
episode has any interest in actually mining any emotional weight here. It's just I
don't know what it's trying to do. Be cheeky, I whatever it's trying
to do, I don't think it succeeds on any front in terms of a
like lasting emotional impact at the end of the episode. Yeah, which is
a real shame, because, like you were saying, father, I'm alone.
There is a lot of talent behind this. There's a lot of talent
in front of the camera. I love David Patrick Kelly. But and again,
you know, we were talking in the last episode about why do you
have to be Hedrin in this and you don't give her anything to do well,
It's like you've got David Patrick Kelly, but you've got him with were
not lightweights, and I'm like, no, give me other people. Either
make him more or and I hate to say this, more present, or
get some better supporting actors so that you feel that there's some evenness to these
roles because I'm just looking at him and I don't care about the other two
at all because they're not capturing me. Yeah, this needn't have been a
story of ambiguity. We didn't need half the episode to wonder, hey,
what's going on here? It should have begun with you're no longer here and
then he goes to his girl who knocks on the girlfriend's door. You know,
it should have been an escalation. They have David Patrick Kelly here to
watch him for twenty minutes in misery would be a wonderful viewing experience. I
mean, I know that sounds terrible, but you know it is what you're
saying, Mike, like, he should have been more present in the episode.
Everyone else was a waste of time. They weren't engaging characters, they
were just there to I don't know the script is the problem here. Everyone
in front of and behind the camera are operating very very well. For that
one actor. It's a shame because it has the makings of a great episode,
but I think it just really stumbles seemingly at every opportunity it gets.
I actually learned. I learned a lot of that far from Tom Savini,
who was afraid of spiders until he went out and got a black widow and
let a crawl around him for a week or so so that, you know,
so that he could overcome us fear. But I believe that's called the
exposure method, Right, you're afraid of thunderstorm like g Gordon Lyddy was famous
for that. He tied himself to a tree during a lightning storm to get
over that fear. But it's so much better coming from Tom Sevini. It
was a way of if I could scare myself that I knew that something good
was happening. So that was always the intention on that show. I didn't
really come from that kind of the films I had worked on previously, had
a little but not scary. Email way, let's talk about that. Listen,
midnight viewers, we're talking with Jeffrey Wolf. He is Tales from the
Dark Side of Royalty, edited eight episodes, directed one but let's yeah yeah,
and direct or worked with on two of the best with you just mentioned
him. Tom Savigni, who I'm dying to talk about those episodes. But
you say you weren't in horror beforehand. What were you working on leading up
and how did you get to Tales from the Dark Side? Mostly I come
through the system in New York. I worked on a movie called Mikey and
Nikki with John Casabedes and Peter Follock. I worked on The Godfather for television.
I worked on Network and how is that experience? Please say anything you
can about that genius movie and kind of an apprentice roles and then assistant roles
and then sound roles. It's at the time. He kind of moved through
the system, but they were mostly kind of Hollywood or and or in New
York based Hollywood style movies. But I did have an independent bet in me
and at a festival, New York Independent Film Festival, I met a woman
named jan Saunders who was one of the producers early on on Dark Side,
and I think that's how I got on, But earlier today, I was
looking at some of the other people. I kind of remember there were one
or two people there before me. But at a certain point it was a
rotation, like you mentioned Rob Dreber. I mean I would do every other
one and he would shoot every other one. And you know, a few
other editors were in the same kind of boat, and we often we were
doing it because they weren't like I think at the time, there were a
hundred thousand dollars budgets for each one and at the you know, and they
were like shaving dollars off every two seconds, as you can imagine. And
I think that like all of us, if we got a bigger feature to
do or something else to do it, we'd bleed for a while. Then
if there's a show that they would come back and things like that. But
also, you know, it's interesting that you don't cut the monsters yet me
down, because I had a lot of fun with those too, and I
was sort of the same directing those and that was kind of in not saying
jeanre So you know, you get a little bit I ended up doing comedy.
Basically the kinds of films I would do is comedy and scary, you
know, kind of scary films. I did a Brad Anderson movie called Vanishing
on Seventh Street, came out a couple of years ago. I remember,
I love that movie. You also, you know, you were working at
a time in New York when there were a bunch of movies that were coming
out that I think are wildly underrated. You worked on Penn and Teller Get
Killed. I edit, did Penneller get Killed? Yes? What did that?
But that was the you know, that's their shiit, you know there
It was a movie about two magicians who shoot themselves in the foot all the
time. And then body kind of did that as well. But I heard
right, so you know I was. I just did a panel on Saturday
Night for DEDI al and related to Bonnie and Clyde and so Arthur Penn,
who directed Penn and Teller Get Killed, which is kind of a bizarre concept
that it's own right truly. But Arthur told me in that famous scene at
the end of the movie where they get red old with machine guns that the
Warrens paps didn't go off only face did, and so she's like exploding all
over the place and he's just stating with the stumb look on his face.
And that's that was one of the ways we wanted to end. Christ had
tell her to stand there, have Penn exploded, and that being I take
a truck on a highway or something like that. Anyway, Yes, well,
since we're you know what, since we've stepped sort of outside, we're
talking about your feature work. I spoke to you a little bit in the
email. Can you tell me about your work with mister Ted Demi. I
think I think he's a fucking hero, not only for creating you know,
MTV wrap absolutely revolutionary, like about time somebody did that on that goddamn channel.
But that goes off and makes like an irreverent feature in sort of a
dark comedic feature. He made the rep if it doesn't play in people's houses
on Christmas, what's wrong with you? It is one of the best Christmas
movies ever. It's actually rated pretty high in terms of Christmas movies. But
it's dark, you know, So I think in this day and age,
it may get more attention because people are willing to go that way. But
so, you know, Ted is the nephew of ped Jonathan Denny. He
went to high school with a lover. That's how he knew him from P
Tod and so, you know, it was unusual. It has heard that
black white combination at the time, so it kind of made this It made
that show smooth in some way. And then so from that he got he
got a gate I don't know if you ever saw it, but called Who's
the Man? Oh yeah, and so it's soundtrack on rotation and my CD
player at that time. So Doctor Dre and Ed Lubber were kind of like
the Black Avenue castello, and in fact, Doctor Dre got his name before
the payments Doctor Dre. But but you know, that movie was very It
was very interesting because Bob Shit knew I actually saw it as a potential cressover
movie, not just a black audience movie, and so they kind of released
it that way. And then we developed this relationship and we did some pretty
interesting movies, not only The ref but Beautiful Girls and a movie called Monument
Avenue with Dennis Leary. Just about to mention Monument Avenue. I grew up
in Revere, just a stones throw from Charles Town, so I love that
flake and let's see what other Oh, it'd been late, which was supposed
to be supposed to be kind of a swinging grazer. He thought it was
going to be a swinging piic movie and it turned into kind of, you
know, funny, but also a little Yeah, there was a little bit
of remorse. And in fact, there's an amazing scene that the studio made
us take out. It's a two minute scene. I just want to mention
it quickly, but a two minute scene was Cecily Tyson coming playing his mother,
Eddie Murphy's mother, and she comes to the prison camp and he explains
to her that he didn't want to be like his father. He really wanted
to be legit. And the guy kind of got caught in this thing and
the rest of his life was spent there. So yeah, so Ted was
like a guy. I don't know, he was not the first person to
do this, but the comedy came out of action in real life and narrative,
and it was he was a great coach, you know, like he's
like he was really great with the crew and kind of keep it gither,
keeping everybody involved. This isn't in so much who's the man, but every
feature afterwards. There's a strain of melancholy in all of his movies that I
at least really responded to. But I can see where most people don't want
that in their entertainment. Yeah, and I think Dave Stewart did the score
for two of films, and he he's sort of Willy Wonka at one point,
but also in the serious in in other ways. Ted's White Amanda was
very good with her music connection, so there was always kind of an interesting
twist with that as well. So Ever, Greg Dooley and the Afghan Wiggs
did all the the songs and Beautiful Girls. Yeah, I know of them,
and I saw the movie a long time ago. I'm sorry, I'm
not as familiar with with that soundtrack as I was Who's the Man, But
then I was, you know that that movie and Billy Madison, which he
didn't direct. But for people in their thirties and forties right now, those
are sort of, oh yeah, important films for them. Absolutely. Speaking
of important films, important filmmakers, perhaps the most important filmmaker, I would
argue it mister John Waters. How did you fall into his sphere? Well,
that's actually a he Tales from the Dark side Story or is it?
Yeah, I think it's the one movie I directed her Tales from the Dark
Side was the moth right and Debbie Harry's was just kind of starting her film
career, and leather Finger, who was the casting director on many of those
early shows, set me up with a meeting with her, and I remember
going in to see She was in the recording studio and I went in to
see her to meet her, and we sat and we talked, and I
said, Yeah, you're gonna do most of the acting in this movie on
your back, and she said, that's what I've done most of my life.
So yeah, so Debbie did. So Debbie. Through Debbie, I
met John basically, and I mean talk about like getting out of your comfort
zone. John was. You know, he did a lot of things to
try to make my sister and uncomfortable as he could in the beginning to kind
of tell us that it's all. You know, he was funny before his
before that kind of humor became right rigur you know he was this year.
He's gotten so many awards. He's on did a whole show at the Academy
Museum about him and his movies. He's been in the business sixty years or
some ridiculous number, and then he got a star in the Walk of Shame
and the editing people Ace just gave him the Filmmaker of the Year award.
So stick around long enough, they will shower you with I know. And
here we are talking about Hills from the dark Side, which I worked on
forty years ago. There had it it cuts across, Yes, he does.
Okay, we should probably talk a little bit about it. You want
to talk about you did want to talk about the Wiz And guess you mentioned
Network by City Lament, So that's part of I had a good relationship with
him. And the Network was a really unique room to be in with Paddy
Chowski and Sydney and Alan him who edited all about jazz and early melt Brooks
movies and so it was a very that was the follow up to working with
Ewayne may I, Mikey and Nikki. So I was really like I was
in this rule of these rooms with people who were brewing it. You know,
it's an embarrassment of riches there. And so the Whiz, you know,
it was Michael Jackson and against Sydney and d d Allen, who you
know edited Dog Day afternoon and Bonnie and Clyde and you know, Surperco and
Rags and it was a very nice period of time. A lot of hard
work but right for hours. But anyway, so yeah, and The Whiz
was released and you were working in the music department for that one, right.
I actually started as a picture apprentice and I worked all the way.
I think I was on the film for us a year and so I ended
up in the music department of working with Quincy Jones as the music editor.
So it was really it was another education in its own rate. That's amazing.
And these are the days where you would you know, the music wasn't
done in somebody's studio with computers. It was a ninety eight piece orchestras,
getting everybody in the house and you know, in the studio getting them caught
two or the good part of the anyway, No, that's amazing than you
for that. But let's talk talesm Dark said, okay, please tell me,
all right, let you get an assignment. How does it work?
Somebody calls you, they say, hey, here's a script. It arrives
by messenger. You're getting a bagel. What is your day like for you
know, my first show on Tales from the Dark Side was inside the closet.
And remember I had worked on a lot of features beforehand and fellow vision,
and so I really knew my way around the block. And Tom Sabini
had never directed a movie before, and or or a TV show for that
matter. And I remember getting the script and he was going to build.
I was told that he was going to build the creature and that it was
written by Michael McDowell, who wrote Beetlegeese, and yeah, so it has
a skilly thing, but it felt short, and I just had an instinct
that we were going to run short, and so I told Tom on the
phone. I don't think I met him in person. I think he called
it because, again, to save money, the editor would start unday wand
up shooting, so he never really got to speak to the director that much.
Oh wow. I remember telling Tom that he should get some extra shots,
some b roll and he said, I'm absolutely not going to do that.
And he said, it is what it is, and I'm very,
you know, very psyched to do it, and you're gonna put it together
exactly where it is. I said, but I think it's gonna be short.
And he said I'm not gonna shoot it. So I think I ended
up going to a producer and saying, you know, why don't you go,
like after they finished shooting Heaven, you know, assistant cameraman, just
shoot the house with lights on, lights off, one light on, two
lights off, you know whatever shots as you can't found that out about it,
said if you use any of those shots, I'm going to kill your
firstborn. And and this is Tom Savini, who's not the least weird person
you ever met. It would be extravagant at least. And so again I
had enough confidence to believe that you know that we're going to need the shot,
and sure enough, the first cut ended up liking around thirty nine minutes
or something like that. It needed to be forty two or something. I
don't remember the exact amounts, but slowly he would say, well, why
do you put one of those shots? Oh hey, so firstborn business exactly.
And then I think by the end we used it four or five times,
and it had the great effect because it added to like what's going on
in this place? And then I took I mean, he's a master of
what he does, but he didn't have the tricks in and ed you know
that somebody would experience WITHOU have, And so I couldn't figure out what kind
of score to put on it as a top scorer, and I ended up
taking two classical music tracks and laying them up next to each other to kind
of get a weird sound out of it, and they'd like they almost matched
up perfectly, like they would hit at the right places, and then like
with a little bit of moving around, the vibe of the score just kept
changing, which went along with what was happening in the film. And it's
so typical right that it's one of the most popular shows of all the shows.
But I think what it showed me is that if you have like the
right combination of things, you just need to like figure out how to put
it together in such a way that it's presentable, but the story itself will
cover. And that's kind of I guess why that show works a little.
But yeah, you know, when I spoke to Robert Draper, and I'm
going to keep saying this in every interview I do. You never want to
say that there's a seminal episode a perfect exemplar of a TV series, particularly
when it comes to anthology series. But I'm saying it now. Inside the
Closet is that episode of Damns from the Dark Side, everybody, It works
spectacularly well, I think. And also this young woman with Fritz Weaver,
you know, it's the is a perfect innkeeper, right, the perfect head
of a of a place that rents out rooms. And then all those crazy
animal heads on the wall, and I mean it's just it's just so creepy
all the way around. And Paul brought in this creature that they never could
have afforded by to put in the show, and because it was his episode,
he was able to do that, so I think that also added to
the production value quite a bit. I mean, Lizzie is the she's the
image you seem. I think if you were to google Tail from the Dark
Side right now, you you would get a picture of a colla. And
it's funny because the b roll stuff that you're talking about that you had them
run out and do some of the best parts of the episodes. Not to
not to stroke your ego there, but like it is a slow burn episode,
we do need to see that house and how creepy it is. Yeah,
it's a very it's it's funny, just funny. I get it's I've
directed some of I'd sell Sense and I directed some episodes there, and you
just learn that you need something to back as a backup. You just need
You never know when you're gonna need it. You don't know what shotted is
specifically that you're going to need a bigger production. You'd be able to go
back and shoot a bunch of stuff after the fact, but on the show,
like maybe on the next episode they could grab something that you needed.
But that house was so specific in everything. So it was very lucky.
I don't feel you don't have to stroke it, but it's uh, it
was like one of those lucky coincidences. Now, was that typical for an
episode? Would you get a script and just because you said you've had feature
experience and most of scripts were like you wrote down in the cards. Yes.
Yeah. That was directed by take Gershni, who was a very experienced
written medicals, written produce screenplays. He was married to Mary Waring out for
a while. But you know the thing is you didn't have many days.
That's the other thing. Had four or five days to edit these things.
And so yeah, I remember he also had a little bit of a pension
to drinking alcohol, and the night we had to lock in the cards,
we had a disagreement. I can't remember if it was the ending or it
was a specific shot, but we decided that we were going to drink and
whoever was still standing, but again we get their way because we have to
turn the thing in and the next morning so it was like we just kept
drinking. He passed out. I put the shot in that I wanted and
we turned it nice. So but it wasn't always like that. I'm thinking
of, like, well, you know, in some ways I had a
you know, the other there having effect. At least I had in effect
that I'm always seemed I had gosh. So see how I could tell the
story as sickly as possible. I'll go long. So in college I was
very into an English road actually Rhodesian foreign player named Michael Gibbs, and he
was only like most of the kind of stuff I was listening to were black
musicians, by Michael was white but from Mardiesia and Yeah. I played that
album until it was until the grooves broke, and many many years later,
I was looking to buy a car and I went to Brooklyn and I asked
the car was what I wanted to see? How auld go on a test
drive together. And we go on this test drive and I come halfway through
the drive and I said, you're Michael Gibbs, aren't you. He said,
yeah, I am, And I said, I've been listening to you,
you know, since I was a kid. And so up this friendship
and I got them a job doing the score for Halloween Candy. Oh,
and so that was the beginning of a relationship, a work relationship we had.
I did this SPERMNTLS movie called Heat that he did the score for,
and a couple other things, I think a couple of the dark Side of
the Monster episodes. But so it was always kind of trying to throw the
work your way, getting favors from people, and work your way into certain
situations. I remember how the creepiest thing in the Halloween Candy was to make
a scary nursery rhyme kind of vibe to it, which is I thought was
really effective for that show and the Moth. Now, as an editor,
the pacing in the style of the cutting is dependent on the story always,
right, I mean, that's what it is. And then on top of
that you have the director who has their own vision of what it is.
So in a case of like in the Cards, he has a more definite
vision than say like Tom Savini, no offense, mister Sevini, you know,
I love you, but it was his first time, so he's not
going to know as much or he thinks maybe he's got the picture in his
head. I'm in the Cards head directed and rooted. So I'm wondering how
much of your style gets in there per episode? Do you think virtually none?
Right, Like you don't need you mentioned you have like a four day
thing, four day time period, so I assume you're just cutting the cut.
You cut the way. The director is not in there the whole time
on those kinds of shows, so you might see him for a day or
two, sometimes just a gay I think Sabini because there was an early episode,
he may have been there longer and then you know, but by the
way, in the end we got along graded and he's a follow them on
Facebook. He's always doing something wild and crazy and having a good time doing
what he does. So style that's an interesting question because I don't think.
I don't think I have a I I think I have a lot of tricks
of my sleeve. I mean, I know how to get in and out
of a situation, you know, out of the corner. But I think
you know, the the idea is to kind of see I would say this
is across the board, is to try to see the movie or the scene
in your head before you actually edit it, so that you kind of and
on a TV show like dark Side, it's a little harder, but out
a feature you kind of work the first couple of weeks to figure out what
the rhythm of the show is, and then you hope you get it right
and you try to kind of follow that all the way through, you know,
and then when the director finally comes and you know, they either say,
well I wanted to go a little faster, I wanted it. Yeah,
we'll call our way through certain sections. I think dark Side we kind
of knew, you know. I think the structure that's that was pretty similar
from episode to episodes. So I wouldn't say I would tell you you're looking
for the best performance. You're looking for, you know, interesting mind readings.
You know, you're you're playing around with music to see what you could
help, you know with, But I don't think you're imposing a style.
Right. No, No, like you mentioned, you mentioned the vanishing on
Seventh Street at the end, it wasn't scary enough. And we made a
list of five possible scary moments, and we went back and and tried to,
you know, shoot those scary moments, insert them in the film.
So I think with Darkseide, you know, there was creepy and there were
scaries. It's like right inside the closet, it's kind of a scary show.
With some of the other ones aren't quite as scary as that. No,
the moth is create. The moth is creepy. And the woman who
I can't remember now, but the woman who played the mother was really you
know, she was wholesome but so creepy in her own ways. No,
she's she's fantastic because she built. It's Jane Manning, by the way,
it's the name of the the mom and that one she pulls it up when
she becomes Debbie Harry in the end. I believed it. So the funny
I'll tell you a funny story about about the Math is that for two weeks
before they didn't have a solution of how we were going to do the law
coming out of her about okay. For two weeks, I was going to
my sister's house at night, who lived in the suburbs of Jersey, with
a jar and tried to collects, like turn all the lights on and try
to click, and it was like it was truly going nowhere. And then
they found a place in California that sold butterflies, and and like I think
the day before the shoot, this box of butterflies show up. They're like
they come and in like a little cellophane bags, like like you would put
a negative in, you know, And they were dormant until you took them
out of the bag and then they were flupped their waist. But much of
my you know, I wasn't happy about it. But there wasn't much of
a solution as they they crazy glued filling it to the to the butterfly so
that they could control a kind of like like a tight you know, the
good old days. And so while it was called the moth, it was
really a butterfly that flew out of her bath. And I think we may
have done it in reverse. Also, I'm not mistaken that we tried a
couple of different ways to kind of have it come out, but you know.
I still after this day, I waked up hearing W's whys, going,
well, okay, you know what, since we're jumping forward like the
moth. Now you'd edited a bunch of episodes, did you ask to direct
an episode where you offered the chance? Yeah, I think I think that
was sort of rigur you know, like once you to go back to your
other question, I think once you knew the system, it was to their
advantage to have you do it. And I'm pretty sure that's how that happened.
I can't remember see where was it in the I think it was one
of the last shows of well season four. I probably went away and came
back and I said maybe I to be honest, I don't really remember,
but I may have. No, it's so because of Halloween. Candy was
season two. So unless I've down the way to do something else than they
called, yeah, I didn't. I don't think you were present for season
three necessarily. Uh okay, so you get to work with Debbie Harry and
Jane Manning in this episode. Can I just say congratulations on the episode because
Roberts I've said it to Robert Draper as well. We've watched a lot of
anthology series on this show and tales. Some of Dark Side consistently, in
my mind, looks the best. Every one of them looks like a little
a short film and not an episode of television. And I'm consistently blown away
by the fact that these are sets somewhere in Queens, I understand. And
your episode, which looks like a country home, including the exterior, good
god, fantastic work. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you. I wanted
the curtain because it was a small space. I wanted a curtain to separate
where the mother was and where the beds were. And I couldn't figure that
I wanted it. I wanted us to be able to see shadows and reflection.
That's someone's reflections with shadows. And I was driving home or maybe it
was my again, my sister, and there was this hill on off the
New Jersey Turnpike that burlap kind of like these burlap walls sort of lighting the
thing, and it was sort of like, oh, that's it, burlo
And so I think that again, I haven't seen the mocklay. I think
there's a really cool shot of Jane like behind behind the burlop and you kind
of see her shout and oh yeah, and that was the other thing.
Rob and I worked all this stuff together. In fact, we also worked
on a future together, and so yeah, we knew each other pretty well
and we could kind of like, you know, try and he's he's a
great experimenter. Even to today when I see work that he's doing, he's
always very experimental and what he does. Yeah, that's I think that's true,
and I think that was one of the hallmarks of the show. Is
And if you go through the list of dps, there are some pretty good
ones in there. Yeah, Ernie Dickerson is a big one. On the
New Artist, Larrid Banks, a couple other really good ones. So your
editor on on that episode was Christina Bowden. Right, the Bowden went on
to do Carlito's Way, Yes, I got. She worked on several De
Palma movies. Yeah, she she has you know, look at her IMDb
pay She has some interesting credits as well. What you know, what's so
funny to me is I think I've heard every story to come out of Hollywood,
but there was such a vibrant scene going on in New York and it
never really gets examined, particularly the technical side of things, like you know,
I'm pretty sure Paul Hirsch was there, like you know, film a
schoon maker was there. Yeah, my god. It was just like a
cavalcade of talent, and and it's unexamined or not examined enough. Well,
you know, I'll tell you what this again. This came up with the
study al and event the other night, is that Danie brought in, you
know, starting with Bonnie and Clyde, she brought in some major Hollywood players,
George roy Hill, Arthur Penn, Warren Beatty, you know, and
many more, and Sydney in the bed and it became she became sort of
the she probably single handedly you know, started not so much with Paul Hirst,
but Steve Roger, Jerry Greenberg, Craig Mca. They were all assistants
or apprentices with d at one point or the other. So you know,
she she developed the community here and that was still a pretty small world.
But you got movies like The French Connection and you know, Doug Banfter and
what other making Appellam one two three, Paul Hirsh had done all those early
Pelloma two three, Ghosts, ghost Park and that the Palmer was doing.
I mean, Paul Hurst was during the Palm movie. So you know that
Kerry, I don't know if he did Kerry, but he did the one
with Michael Kine. Oh but not body double, Dressed to kill, Dressed
to Kill. You also did Fantoms of Paradise. Yes, he did that.
Perhaps the greatest swim of all time, certainly for your audience. It
might just teasing. Yeah, So I don't know the answer to that.
You know, we are what we always say is that and it happened to
me. I mean I got pulled out to California to work on a lot
of movies. But they wanted they wanted people with an edge, and then
they would do everything they could to take the edge off like that. That
was kind of how it worked. So for the edge, if to retain
that edge, you just needed to stay in New York. I think that's
there's some truth to that. And that's also changed. I mean with the
streamers and all that. It's it's a very different industry than that was.
And you know, because again it was a small group and it was a
small group of directors, and when those directors start to die off, like
you know, doctor Rowe and Talevsky or the right Robert Benton. You know,
those were those guys were serious players. So, but it came out
of like a cafe society. They they you know, they had a literary
you know, medals in their hands as well. So yeah, New York
New York folk not only had the intellectual but the gritty as well. How
dare you I know how longer people lived in Las Vegas. I did the
movie in Las Vegas. Also, oh, I've been here for twenty three
years. Well, yeah, I did this movie at this when when the
Sands Hotel still existed. It was called Heat with Burt Renevels. Oh,
yes, and that was a little fun. Actually living in Vegas was quite
a trip. Do you go? Do you go to Scent or you know,
as near to cent as possible, like as much as possible, not
as much now because of the way you know you can, Oh you can
do it from home transmitted to you. Not only can you do it from
home, but you can shoot this morning and have the daiways tonight in your
in your apartment in New York City, like from anywhere in the world.
So, mister Wolf, do you miss the bins? Do you miss thea
in the I do miss the travel? I did try. I traveled a
lot for film. You mentioned Mabyline. I traveled for that. I went
to the Philippines on the movie I'm sure you've heard of because you're you've got
that kind of taste called McBain that theater, Susan. I saw that in
the theater. Wow, you're the one. It was me. Yeah.
So I lived in the Philippines for almost two months, almost a little more
than two months. That was a crazy place to be. Yeah, so
if you sort of missed out side of it, good worked in London the
bun now, you know, even getting to set for a day is unusual.
Do you find editors to be extraordinarily patient people? Yeah, and then
your average grip well, definitely. But yeah, patience is a funny word,
you know, like you're always sort of you're always sort of hedging because
if you have an idea for something, and this is what I think you
mean by patient, If you have an idea for something and the director isn't
receptive to it, you have plenty of time to wait them out or out,
you know, because you can wait a couple of weeks and then try
it again, and then try it again. But I would say We're patient,
but also persistent, you know, like if we think that, you
know, if we think something should be, well, keep pushing to try
or figure out other ways of getting And a big point of the editing is
when one person has one point of view and another person has another point of
view, is to find not necessarily in the middle, but the other point
of view that works for both of you. And oftentimes that's a better you
know, it's a better choice. So yeah, yeah, so we're patient,
don't show you know, try not to show too much emotion and that
kind of thing. But again, I know, very passionate. I thought,
very passionate. O there is and I know editor that you can barely
get the talk. So I've heard that getting a job as an editor,
being interviewed for to get an editor's gig, it's more about finding finding out
whether or not you can stand to be with each other in the room.
Do you find that to be true? I would say there is a school
of thought about that. I always say, you know, I don't.
I never intended to work with direct pears who were like in the room all
the time, who were like pushing me on that, you know, like
just wanted me to be kind of a pair of hands in some way,
you know, and that would often come out in the air view you kind
of and as I got more experienced, there was an interview for me to
them as much as it was right. You know, I don't want to
be in the room with the crazy person either, So but you're right,
I mean that is a big part of Yeah, you're going to spend a
lot of time together, there's no doubt about that. But again, today
people are either shooting their movie or developing their next movie. So you're lucky
to get the other, to get the director into the room. Wow,
because they're you know, they're you know, they're moving along. So is
that is that a trend these days? More and more more of the trend?
I mean, there were always going to be the Michael Mann's and and
Oliver Stone types that you know, like are there all the time. But
but I don't think, yeah, you know, the abbot has created a
lot of freedom all the way around. Yeah, they speaking of that frame,
does it does that feel a bit more freeing like that that you're trusted
to like put it together and they you know, because the way they can
blame me, it's a very different you know, like when Netflix got into
the business, they were very trusting other people who work with them. Now
they're more like a studio where they're very involved and you know, sometimes they
notes so good, sometimes they're not so good. What the abbot is allowed
is to bring in a lot of voices. You know. I think Netflix
has several editors on staff that they work on their own films, but they
can you know, they pay them so that they can send them a cut
at notes for themselves with the cut. So you know, it's it doesn't
have that. The business doesn't have that kind of a personal connection the way
it used to. It was fun, like you turn out of Tales from
the Dark Side, it was like, yeah, in a very short amount
of time, you were making something that was kind of a fun treat.
And since, like your show, for instance, I have gotten jobs because
of working on Tales from the dark Side. You know. Somebody said,
oh, when I was seventeen, I saw the ball or whatever there.
Yeah, so there's speaking of Tails from the dark Side and in style now.
When I spoke to Robert Draper, he said there was a definite house
style that was sort of dictated to him from the beginning. That it was
going to be all hard light like noir. Was there a house style for
the editors? Were you given a thing or you kind of talked about that
before, But I think there was a style to the scripts that they chose
and that kind of dictated the editing style as well. Yeah, if you
know this, there's not a lot of like montage work. It's a pretty
straight forward, you know, And there wasn't a lot of room for dolly
shots. It's not it wasn't. It was really a master tree shot,
you know, close up kind of show right from sort of the sublime which
I consider The Moth and Inside the Closet to be sublime episodes of the series.
To answer me, Michael McDowell is a hero of mine and he wrote
a lot of the episodes, including the one you directed. He wrote the
weeks two of the ones. Oh yeah, Inside the Closet. Yeah.
I just think he's a genius. Apparently lived no fewer than like a few
blocks from me growing up. He lived in Medford, Massachusetts, next to
Road, Massachusetts. Yeah, but answer me, how do you make how
do you make tension from the phone? It was it works for a little
while. Well, I would say one of the things that she's a very
good actress, you know, start and yeah, telephones, I used telethon.
It's a scary Yeah, there's nothing like a quiet scene where a telephion
goes up. So yeah, yeah, to be honest with you, I
don't I remember Vagally, Yeah, that show, but I don't. It's
not like deep into my brain. Oh yeah, I mean I bring it
up as a lark. It's just it's it's the trifle of an episode.
I just thought it was really funny that if the episode is hamstrung at all,
it's because Michael McDonald chose to have her effectively just narrate the episode out
loud, which, by the way, something avoided in your episode The Moth
because there's some inner monologue stuff, some voiceover stuff thought was great and so
appropriate. It gets tiresome and anthology shows where characters are constantly spilling the you
know. And also it's interesting. I would say that was another show that
felt like it was, you know, it was going on too long.
Yeah, that there wasn't enough to kind of keep it going for the entire
length of the show. But you just send the director of that note,
this is too long. But something needs to happen. I don't think I
I don't think I went there. I mean, see it now, I
said the rectory bism though I was written by Michael I'm not even I didn't
even write down of the directors, but as well, yeah he did,
which yeah, I mean it looks great, Like I said it, the
episode. Even even your worst episodes look better than some of the best Night
Gallery. It's insanity. There's one called The False Prophet, directed by a
DP. I think that always helps a little bit too in that regard for
those kinds of shows. What else, well, I mean, if you
want to talk about Tear Collector for a second, I mentioned but the Paradise
being the greatest movie on earth. You balked at that, Sarah, But
nevertheless, here's miss Jessica Harper, the luminous Jessica. And also, you
know, I still see who is the star of the Victor Garber. Yeah,
Victor Garber. I still see him around here as a shock of white
hair still. I mean it's shot the hair, but it's pure white.
He's on Broadway a lot. That was one of my favorite episodes of all
with your Click, It's fantastic, such a great concept, the Dark Side
was never, never shy of just doing two hand or character pieces and making
them interesting. By the way, speaking of pace, that's another thing we're
constantly marveling at on this show. On Dark Side, overall, you've got
like basically twenty two minutes. It always flies along, it never feels dragging.
Quality of the writing is the barometer of whether or not an episode is
going to work here, and a good actor can kind of pull you through
some of that. And his victor is a very he's a very strong actor.
I'm trying to remember who was there. Who is his co star in
that one, Jessica Harper, Sir, you mentioned that here. Yeah,
I just thought it was a great it was a great, great concept.
I've been meeting, like to go up to him because I see him at
the events and where I saw it. I have to go up to him
sometime and talk about that episod so with them, because again, he was
a you know, he was probably in his late twenties or early thirties show
as well, so episode. Yeah, Yeah, that's another thing we marvel
at. The New York episodes in particular, because you had just a wealth
to draw from from New York stage actors who And I made this point the
other night that on Night Gallery, when you would get you know, one
of somebody who had had some fame beforehand, they it always felt like they
felt they were slumming, whereas the New York actors are always this there to
do the job and like, all right, it's true. And I did
a show it was called The Gift, and I think it was dark sided
monsters. But was it monsters? Think it's monsters. Anyway, it was
you know who was at the time looked super old, right, but it
was Yeah, it was hilarious whenever you work with somebody who has a kind
of like the god tadle behind them. But when I did Beautiful Girls,
Richard Bright, you know what that is. He played the cop who shoots
that's one of the assassinations on the steps of the courthouse. Oh yeah,
yeah, and he played Timothy Hutton's father, and so you know they we
would we would do like scenes from The Godfather because by that time with that
was around the Settle lot. In fact, I directed a lot of the
be the b camera and on Beautiful Girls, but we would do we were
do oscar day with the night with every day, every day, one of
the crew would act the scene with Tibut. Yeah, and we're gonna call
it Oskar Day. And then you know, sons like a while to talk
with her Chip right about the Godfather. So that was always fun. Oscar
Day is hilarious. Yeah. Yeah, so Abra Goodo was in that one.
It was called The Gift. I guess that was monsters. I mean,
yeah, that was monsters. And then I did one called Stress and
Stressed Environment, and I went to meet I don't know if you know who
this historically, probably know who she is, A Lindley. Oh yeah,
in the old Oh yeah, no, no, I know Carol Linley.
Absolutely. I always kind of had the huts from her when I was king,
and so they they said, you had a you know, we're gonna
we can hire her. I said, great, you know that would be
wonderful. And then I went to meet her and that turned out she had
like a little bit of a stroke. Oh but it kind of at first
it was sort of like maybe the threat, but they kind of had the
weirdness to a bit. I think kind of booked at the show. If
you remember, I took that show over if somebody got sick. I think
one of the big one of the showrunners was going to direct it. So
it's the first episode of season read. It's called Stressed Environment, and it
was about these rots taking over the loved But you know, also Richard Rubinstein.
Whenever there was like a little sense of you know, nudity in any
of those shows, it was because Richard really liked to see a little bit
of niity in the daily So even even if you knew you're never gonna use
thet they always wanted there to be something kind of sexy that they would go
to get them into the show. Weird Advised. Could you please talk about
mister Richard Rubinstein, your interactions with him. He is one of my favorite
producers of all time. I know that's not people didn't usually say that sort
of thing, but like his relationship with Romero through the nineteen seventies was really
felt like it like the old patron kind of relationship, you know, like
they here's story about He wasn't much of a film guy. That's the thing
is that I think his relationship with Romero was such that, you know,
George could do what he wanted and Richard would buy the money of the paperwork,
you know, and that was kind of his relationship all the way through.
I think that he never he never got the sense he knew very much
of the film, but he kind of knew how to put these deals together.
And look, you know, on Dark Side after that Monsters, and
then he made Dark Side the movie, and and excuse me, he did
all those Ramero movies, so he must have had something going on, but
he never he wasn't sort of like it wasn't like walking in a room with
Robert Donness or something like that, Jerry Bruckheimer or Don Simpson or whatever.
He kind of WASH's I would call him a I mean this sort of affectionately,
like a B producer as opposed to a but And a lot of John
Weather's producers were kind of in that realm too. They weren't particularly in mainstream,
but they were adequate end up being able to get a deal together independent
producers being independent producers like you know, it's more fascinating that it's not their
first love. They just they like putting deals together. They like they like
being part of something artistic person out of the garment industry too, which was
a very kind of appeal. You know, a dealer oriented profession, you
know, selling shit with they like the Yiddish word for the schmatas selling schmats.
So yeah, so look, you know, like because actually I did
a movie with Gordon Willis called Windows with Tally Schier, and that was produced
by a guy who came out of the government industry as well. So that
was a that was a typical money source in New York for a long time.
It's the garment industry is everything to carpet these days, mister Wolf.
Yes, I can I equivocally say that. Yes, well, it's not
as you know, the the kind of camaraderie that exists in a group in
a community. It's a lot harder to make that happen because especially since COVID,
I mean COVID sent everybody home now, producers are liking people to be
home because they don't have to rent edit anywhere else. They can ship an
abbit to somebody's house and you know, save a lot of money because the
real estate it was hot than the value at the rental. So right at
the plus side is you get to edit in your pajamas if you want to.
That's a challenge just to get out of your pajamas, yes, because
if you start in your pajamas at five o'clock, A is still going to
be here. Yeah, where do you go from there? Honestly, there's
nowhere to go. I'm looking at what other episodes you might find interesting.
Let's see, Oh, you know another one that was kind of odd,
but I enjoyed it because it was Eddie Bracken and it was also a shot
by Rob called The Aids of the Stubborns. Spectacular episode with with tiny Christian
Slater. Yeah, and like all you know, I was looking at pictures
today all these as he's decomposing, the makeup artists really had a lot of
work to do to kind of, you know, make that work. And
what's that movie where they're carrying dead guy rattle? Oh, weekended Bernie's Weekend
of Bernie's always kind of reminded it's so much better because he's he's he's animate
and you get to watch him eat. It's the most vile thing on television.
Yeah, so you know, I'm glad, you know, it's it's
interesting being as I was going through YouTube, you know, there are a
couple other people out there that do tail some of the dark side ships,
So I mean type amateurs yeah, amateurs. But the point is is that
it has this light that keeps keeps on going. So it's kind of but
never know, you don't know if you're going to make something that's like when
you go, when you start the film, it's either going to be a
ball a cult classic or or something i'd call it, you know, like
you just don't go. And you know, even The Whiz the other day,
which wasn't a terribly successful movie, I was moderating this panel and this
woman comes up to me and said, The Wiz is my favorite. You
know, every movie is someone's favorite movie. I think. So, you
know, I did a movie called out Cold. It was it was a
castle, Black Got a ski Slope. It starred Zaca Sack for Lights Gallafanakis.
I've seen it. You should check it out pretty Thank you so much
for taking some time and speaking with her. It was enjoyable. And now
I'm going to have to go back and look at some of these episodes together.
Inside the Closet. This is season one, episode seven. It aired
originally on November eighteenth, nineteen eighty four. This is written by Michael McDowell
Michael McDowell and directed by Tom Savini. Stars Fritz Weaver and a ROBERTA.
Weiss. It is the tale of a grand student who rents a room from
a professor that contains a tiny closet door that cannot be opened from the outside.
What did you think of this one, Chris? Oh boy, I'm
glad I got asked first, because sometimes the litmus tests. I wonder where
you guys are with something like this. This was maybe you guys liked it
more than me. I enjoyed like the last five minutes. I mean,
it's it was spitting its wheels for a while, but then once you kind
of figure out, like once it gives up the ghost and shows you what's
going on, it is wild. I mean just the puppet is something like
I've never seen before. But I feel like the like eighteen minutes that precede
it are so just kind of It reminded me a lot Father Malone of all
through the house from Tales from the Crypt. It was just like a thing
and something stalking this person, and this person's walking around a house and that's
supposed to be enough, and then you get the reveal at the end that
oh, there is a monster and the monster's horrifying, and like it has
that same idea of just like is this real, isn't it? And in
this once we get the reveal, I think it kind of saves the episode
as it were. But man, that puppet at the end, it's like
a harlequin baby. Like, don't go looking that up if you don't want
to. But it's the closest I've ever seen on screen to what is a
harlequin baby at least like white skin like red o. It's awful. It's
awful and intriguing, and I want to know what you guys think. Yeah,
you know, last episode I was talking about how tight that Danny Eye
yellow one was. What was that the bat or whatever? The odds?
Yeah? This one? Yeah, I was just like, is something gonna
freaking happen? And it doesn't help that like when you put this on either
on Plex or if you look at the IMDb, you can get the little
monster picture. So I'm just like, Okay, cool, a monster is
going to be in this when and then having Fritz Weaver there and I always
script with Fritz Weaver. Was he in Creep Show? Right? Oh zy?
All right? I just want to make sure because there are times where
there's another actor who I always think that that's Fritz Weaver. So I just
kept thinking of the crate and I was just like, you know, oh
yeah, to tell it to call you Billy, And I'm just like,
okay, you know something has to happen. When is that going to happen?
And I was really like, I kept thinking a coral line with the
little closet door and all this kind of stuff, and again thinking of things
that I'd rather be watching, and I'm just like, when's it gonna have
what's going to happen? When's it going to happen? And then when it
finally does, I mean that laughed out loud at the creature. I like
the design. I like the you know, the kind of electronics that it
has to make it move and all those kind of things. Though of course
it's a cheap have having it like around his legs so you can just see
the puppeteers behind it kind of thing. But yeah, I wanted to like
this more than I did. I think her name is Lizzie. That's the
daughter, right, Yeah, gentlemen, I fucking love this episode. I've
would since Night four. I figured if there's an episode I've seen, I've
seen this one. Won a billion times. There are images in this When
I spoke to if if you've listened to our our first episode about Tailsmith Dark
Sid, you heard our interview with Robert Draper, who was the director of
photography on this episode, and I said to him that there aren't many times
during an anthology series where I could point to an episode and in my mind
that's the definitive episode of that series. But this episode is the definitive episode
of Talesmith Dark sign for me. Wow. Yeah, but but but you
have to remember that at the time there were two gods ruling my existence,
George Romero and to Tom Savigni, Tom Savini, the Wizard of Gore,
the splatter King for young Child Malone. There was no bigger personality in horror
and I like that. By the way, child Malone. Now we've got
a new version Child Malone. No, not childish Gambino, but child Malone.
Yeah. You know Tom Savigni. Look, if you don't know,
Tom Savigni was a combat photographer in Vietnam, which came in handy in his
future career as a special effects makeup I started his film career with Martin with
George Ramiro. He did all of Martin's. He did all of George Ramiro's
films up until two Evil Eyed, did all the effects on all of them,
in addition to doing Friday the thirteenth and Friday Thirteenth Part four, the
better of the two. As far as what Jason looks like, you know,
and on and on and on and on. Tom Savini is a fucking
god. So not only did I watch you this episode obsessively, I owned
the videotape that had this episode on it. There was a videotape that came
out by put out by Fangoria magazine called Scream Grates, and the first first
volume was about Tom Savini and they had many many clips of this episode in
it, and they had him like with the creature. I love the creature.
The shot that when she's finally come out of the closet, by the
way, her furtive little running moves through the thing with the camera work there,
it's great, it's great. It works so well because it's exactly the
pause is enough, and then the sprinting is just great. Anyway, when
she's under her bed and we pan from her lying awake and trying to sleep
and down to those eyes opening, Holy God, that is definitely the stuff
of my nightmares, those eyes in the darkness and thinking about that under my
bed. Anyway, I'm not going to convince you guys of anything. I
mean, look, but I also want to say that this is not just
strictly nostalgia because rewatching this now, there's so many people here who sort of
graduated under like Romero university who became directors on this show, and I gotta
say, virtually none of them have copied Romero's style. I mean, they
may have learned how to make the movies from him, but they there isn't
really a whiff of Romero's style because his style is all in editing. What
I noticed about Savini's style here is he's actually more leaning towards Shallo and sort
of the Italian directors, just even in the color scheme, like in that
little hallway, the almost suspiria like stained glass that's on either side of the
door, stuff like that. I really I thought it was a it's a
pretty good I mean, this is his directorial debut as well, and I
think it's pretty solid and surefooted and kind of said he didn't get more directing
gigs. I always liked that Night O Living Dead remake. I think the
episode's well directed. I just think that I honestly think it would have benefited
from showing the creature earlier, you know, seeing more of the creature.
And I mean, I understand and appreciate, as I'm sure we all do,
like why they didn't for a whole host of reasons, namely one of
them the fact that it's easier to not show it and until and hold that
back until you absolutely need to. But it waits a little long, and
then we don't really get to see much of them trying to convince us of
something that's not happening, that you know, Fritz Weaver is in trouble.
We you know, they don't really you know, he just it just ends
essentially like she dies and then it ends, And I wish there had just
been I wish they had just cut a little bit of her running around the
house out and fleshed out the ending a little bit more, because to your
point, Father Malone, like I would have liked to have seen more of
Fritz Weaver in that puppet like really like because that was the part of this
that was like the most interesting, because he's clearly been doing this for a
while, and this is something that he's been up to for quite some time,
and like, I kind of want to know what the fuck's been going
on. It's intriguing, and then the creature itself is so interesting to look
at. You're like, what am I looking at here? I could see
a Tails from the dark Side two point oh series remaking this episode more to
what you guys are saying, which would be ten minutes of setup and then
twenty minutes of her being chased around the house by not only this googlish creature,
but the professor who's renting her the room is you know, attempting to
capture her as well. That'd be really fucking cool. But this is just
a slow burn. What's under your bed? What is that little door in
the room that you can't find a key for? Sort of situation? And
I don't know, I love it for that, you know, it's a
really good Halloween night kind of thing to watch. Yes, it has that
set up in spades of like the thing that feels rather again like approachable for
most people. Like you're in a room and there's a door in that room
that you can't open. That's you know, that's pretty relatable, especially if
you visited family or relatives, like and I'm with you, Like if it
were remade now, it would be a much more effects driven thing. Oh
yeah, yeah, but I love Lizzie and I think they've shot her well.
One thing I did talk with the Robert Draper about was the fact that
Lizzie goes from very horrifying looking when she's attacking the young grad student to when
she cooing with Fritz Weaver, she's really adorable. I just thought that's such
a trick that they pulled, that they were able to do that, which
I've always admired, going from horrible to kind of cute. Yeah. Yeah,
the cooing definitely helps quite a bit. And then when you realize,
you know, because at first you're like, oh, she's gonna attack him
on then okay, no, it's his daughter, It's okay. I thought
that was it was nice. I found it to be heartwarming in a very
weird way, and like the puppet is up until it isn't like strange and
off putting, and then it's not like and again, like I think credit
goes to those eyes on the design. It's really about the eyes which are
like again like strange to look at, but oddly like sad and like get
a lot of empathy through those the creature's eyes for sure. And I think
it being like stark white, which would imply like it's been living in that
closet the whole time, which is like pretty gnarly sort thing. Yeah,
I mean, she just needs to eat it every once in a while.
You can't really blame her. Brad students be damned. I mean he maybe
should not be renting to grad students and killing them, Like there's got to
be some other situation if he's if he needs to do this every once in
a while. But you know, yeah, like why not just feed why
not just feed her rum meat? Like I don't under I don't get it.
Maybe a lot of trouble. I don't know. I don't know Lizzie's
life, But I want to just go watch Cobweb essentially the same thing.
No, don't even sully this thing with him similar idea though similar setup.
Sure, Absolutely this is this is better. This is better, like yeah,
because it's only twenty minutes as well, it's not an hour and a
half movie. That's the other thing, Like that is probably the benefit here
is that it is twenty two minutes, Like if it were longer, I
would not want to watch a forty five minute version of this episode, not
if it was situated the way. Not if it was situated the way.
This is right, if the last twenty minutes were this fucking hunting, chasing,
scary statement thing that it was gonna be cool, I don't know.
I mean, we saw that night Gallery with that gorilla exactly. I'll just
take any opportunity to bring that up again. I loved that episode. Tell
them to call you Billy, yeah, you know, like and Fritz Weavers
here, like, I don't know, I love this one. I enjoyed
the puppet tree, that's for sure, like that from I enjoyed that like
aspect of it, for sure. It's a puppey I've never seen before.
Yeah, it's a great design. And you know, obviously look that if
anything works, it's because the puppet is as it is at the end,
and that's because Savini like gave it us all. Like, you know,
they didn't pay him for his work for Little Lizzie here right. Also,
I was I this was the one episode where I actually believed they went on
location and shot in a house and they did not. They shot this in
a fucking warehouse in Queens. It seems it doesn't seem set bound at all,
not a whiff of it. Like on some they cheat it and on
occasion it'll look a little off and you go ah, but then they correct.
But like here, I believe that was a fucking house. It's certainly
that the foyer right for you? Yeah, yeah, but nope, No,
it looked really good. That stairway felt very real. I'm sure it
was only you know, seven feet tall, but yeah, exactly, movie
magic. Gotta love it all right. On the next episode of Midnight Viewing
will be taking a look at two episodes from season one. Those are The
word Processor of the Gods and A Case of the Stubborns. One of them
is the first appearance of a adaptation of Stephen King on television. Midnight Viewing
the Horror Anthology Podcast is a proud member of Weirdingway Media Group. Our theme
song was composed by HP Until next time? What are you working on?
Where can people find it? Chris Dash you Weirdingwaymedia dot com. You just
mentioned it. I'll say it again. Yeah, that's where you can find
things that I work on. Things that so many other people work on as
well, more people than just myself. Yeah, Weirdingwaymedia dot com. What
about you, Mike White. I'm glad you said Mike White, because there
might have been another Mic here. As for me, Yeah, same place,
Weirdowaymedia dot com where pretty much everything that we work on is there,
stuff that I work on by myself, with you guys, one of you,
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