Speaker 1: All right, listen up, Caves, I got your assignments riga
Speaker 1: six four three wheeler one four eight not eight oh four,
Speaker 1: and only you. You need to join host HP and
Speaker 1: Father Alone as they examine one of the greatest sitcoms
Speaker 1: in television history, Taxi in Night Mister Walters, a taxi
Speaker 1: podcast BANDA zero like your boxing.
Speaker 2: Record, Frank, mister Walters, We're in.
Speaker 1: Way, Welcome back to midnight Viewing. I'm your host, Father Alone.
Speaker 1: We discussed two particular authors a lot on this show,
Speaker 1: Harlan Ellison and Stephen King. They've appeared on two or
Speaker 1: three anthology series that we've covered. In one case, Ellison
Speaker 1: adapted King that was Grandma from the Twilight Zone eighty five,
Speaker 1: and both have made appearances on Tales from the Dark Side.
Speaker 1: In fact, later in the series, King will pen his
Speaker 1: first for the show. The following quote is by Stephen
Speaker 1: King from the forward to Harlan Ellison's short story collection
Speaker 1: Stalking the Nightmare. I'm paraphrasing a bit. King starts with
Speaker 1: one of his mother's favorite aphorisms, milk always takes the
Speaker 1: flavor of what's next to it in the ice box.
Speaker 1: Not a very useful saying. You might think. But I
Speaker 1: suspect it's not only the reason I'm writing this introduction,
Speaker 1: but the reason I'm writing it's the way I'm writing it.
Speaker 1: Does it sound like Harlan Ellison? It does. That's because
Speaker 1: I just finished the admirable book which follows. For the
Speaker 1: last four days I've been, so to speak, sitting next
Speaker 1: to Harlan in the ice box. I'm not copying his style,
Speaker 1: nothing as low as that. I have rather taken a
Speaker 1: brief impression of his style. If you start your period
Speaker 1: of hard writing as a teenager, you find yourself writing
Speaker 1: like whoever you're reading that week your milk, and you
Speaker 1: taste like whatever was next to you in the refrigerator
Speaker 1: that week. That bit of wisdom came to mind when
Speaker 1: thinking about tonight's show for two very good reasons. One,
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking wal to wall Stephen King tonight,
Speaker 1: and two, what's true about authors or any creative types
Speaker 1: might be true of podcasters as well. When this show started,
Speaker 1: it was released sporadically monthly and then maybe twice a month.
Speaker 1: It is now twice weekly. That's a newish development, but
Speaker 1: a monumental one for me. And now the blame the
Speaker 1: horrible shame can be laid at the feet of Tonight's guest.
Speaker 1: A Year in Horror is the best horror movie podcast
Speaker 1: out there. I do several horror podcasts. I listen to
Speaker 1: all the horror podcasts. A Year in Horror is the
Speaker 1: platonic ideal. The main show is exactly as promised, a
Speaker 1: thorough investigation into every piece of horror cinema released in
Speaker 1: a given year, but he also does standalone shows highlighting
Speaker 1: every horror project that piques an interest and pulls in
Speaker 1: guests from every field, though usually from the world of music,
Speaker 1: because he himself is a music man first. He gave
Speaker 1: his life to that industry before switching gears and careers
Speaker 1: and finding his way back to the one true path horror.
Speaker 1: For a podcast to work, it has to be either
Speaker 1: informative or entertaining. Is both. He is both. His enthusiasm
Speaker 1: and delight for the genre is so palpable, so infectious,
Speaker 1: I myself couldn't help but become refocused on the greatest
Speaker 1: fiction genre ever created. So if the analogy hasn't been
Speaker 1: made fucking transparent already, I'm the milk, sitting in the
Speaker 1: ice box and soaking up the flavor of mister Paul Waller.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Midnight Viewing.
Speaker 2: Paul.
Speaker 3: Holy Smokes. That was impressive. Wow, okay, you have the
Speaker 3: best podcasting voice. I'm so jezoused. I love it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, I appreciate that. But those sentiments are all
Speaker 1: true and all real, and I'm delighted that you've come
Speaker 1: to talk with us tonight. In fact, I'm delighted to
Speaker 1: be talking about what we're talking about, because I don't
Speaker 1: think I've done a podcast where we've discussed the greatest
Speaker 1: anthology film of all time. This podcast, in general, is
Speaker 1: dedicated to anthologies. The granddaddy of them all for me
Speaker 1: is Creepshow from nineteen eighty two, directed by George Andrew
Speaker 1: Romero and by mister Stephen King.
Speaker 4: Coming soon, joting tales of horror.
Speaker 5: Creep show from the author of Carrie the Shining and
Speaker 5: Coo Joe and the creator of Night of the Living
Speaker 5: Dead and Dawn of the Dead. You'll scream ghastly gholes, cringe.
Speaker 3: At weird kids, and shiver at the.
Speaker 4: Doings of evil doctors.
Speaker 5: This design to besxtremely painfulness surveial.
Speaker 3: Creep show.
Speaker 5: Will I grab you, grow on you and give you
Speaker 5: the creeps.
Speaker 1: No, this is going to be an entirely new experience.
Speaker 5: Creep Show the most fun you'll ever have being scared.
Speaker 1: Paul, what is your history with creep Show?
Speaker 3: It's so long, it's so like every vein in my
Speaker 3: body has some Creep Show blood flowing through it. It's
Speaker 3: just been with me since, Like my initial stack of
Speaker 3: vhs is that I bought and I would watch it
Speaker 3: again and again and again, as you do as a child.
Speaker 3: I can tell you that there was a Nightmare on
Speaker 3: Elm Street, there was hell Raiser there, it was creep Show.
Speaker 3: And these were ones that would just be like you're
Speaker 3: getting from school, what you're going to do, I'm too
Speaker 3: far away from my friends, my parents are working. I'm
Speaker 3: just going to stick one of these on and it
Speaker 3: would be like that for not weeks, not months, but years.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's just one of those films that I
Speaker 3: don't need to watch again. It's like that, you know,
Speaker 3: people say I Enter Sandman or something. It's like that,
Speaker 3: you don't need to watch it again. It's just always there.
Speaker 1: Always in the back of your mind. Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: I find it funny. I listened to a lot of
Speaker 1: podcast Poland, but what I find is people guess will
Speaker 1: come on and they'll say, this is my favorite movie
Speaker 1: of all time. I've seen it, like I don't know
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen times, and I'm like, you what that what?
Speaker 1: I watch movies on a little baby, I'm the interest
Speaker 1: what we used to comfort food. It becomes a soundtrack
Speaker 1: to my life, just the background like flurry.
Speaker 3: It's weird. I like, since I've started doing the podcast,
Speaker 3: there have been certain films that you have to rewatch
Speaker 3: because for whatever reason, they may not stick with you
Speaker 3: even if you watched it a few months back. You'll
Speaker 3: need to give it a cursory rewatch and then you
Speaker 3: look onto let a box and go, wow, I've watched
Speaker 3: that three times in one year, and things like that
Speaker 3: that happen. But when you purposefully sit down to watch
Speaker 3: something that's completely different, there's a few, and it tends
Speaker 3: to be ones that are on YouTube as well. So
Speaker 3: if it's late at night, it's like approaching midnight or something,
Speaker 3: and there is like this found footage thing. I think
Speaker 3: it was the very first found footage movie. It's called
Speaker 3: the McPherson Tape or something like that. And even though
Speaker 3: I've got the bells and whistles, blu ray. I also
Speaker 3: know that it's there on YouTube, and I can just
Speaker 3: click a button and fall asleep to my fifty minute, amazing,
Speaker 3: amazing film and it doesn't matter if I wake up
Speaker 3: or just fall asleep, and that's it. I've had the
Speaker 3: best time.
Speaker 1: Do you know two things about that are great? Like,
Speaker 1: that's the best use of the technology possible, that the
Speaker 1: utter convenience do to comfort yourself to sleep with the
Speaker 1: in the loving embrace of horror.
Speaker 3: But also.
Speaker 1: I find myself if I happen upon something I love
Speaker 1: on television or streaming somewhere or something, and I own
Speaker 1: the better version of it, the act of convenience. Considering
Speaker 1: how you and I are of similar vintage, I'm guessing
Speaker 1: I'm a seventy three kid, nineteen seventy three. So there
Speaker 1: was a time in our lives where like those videotapes
Speaker 1: were gold, they were a lifeline because entertainment for us
Speaker 1: was as I would say, it's curated, but it really
Speaker 1: wasn't curated. It was a bunch of programmers at whatever
Speaker 1: television stations you had available to you throwing on whatever
Speaker 1: they fucking could get on the air. Like at any
Speaker 1: given time, so the fact that you can, I could
Speaker 1: say into my television remote, now play the thing, John
Speaker 1: Carpenter's the thing, and it will come on. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: what a difference these kids today.
Speaker 3: Man. But the awesome thing about that is when you
Speaker 3: do that, like you'll know you'd be watching the thing,
Speaker 3: and you'll know that as soon as he's poured the
Speaker 3: whiskey over the computer, that's where it would cut to
Speaker 3: ad breaks, you know. So you like because we've just
Speaker 3: watched it so many times when I recorded VHS as
Speaker 3: a kid. It's weird, but that's us, like, and I
Speaker 3: don't I'm never ashamed of it. Like when I talk
Speaker 3: to people at work, you know, I'll go in like
Speaker 3: once a week and to make sure they know that
Speaker 3: I'm alive still, and I'll be like yeah, because it's
Speaker 3: very embarrassing if you're in a band that's had any
Speaker 3: success at all that your work colleagues we go, oh,
Speaker 3: it's the rock star. It's like, well, I can sell
Speaker 3: out a venue that holds one hundred and fifty people
Speaker 3: in London once a year. You know, I'm not a
Speaker 3: rock star.
Speaker 1: But you know what, like they would can't do a Paul,
Speaker 1: They can't do that, so you are a fucking rock star.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I'm sure I have. But anyway, it's so
Speaker 3: it's excruciating to be there. So what I've started to
Speaker 3: do is, because I'm doing this, I will show off.
Speaker 3: I'll be like, oh, yeah, I get to go to
Speaker 3: this film festival or I went to that premiere or
Speaker 3: something like that. And it's the same thing again, but
Speaker 3: with movies. But movies are a whole different thing. It's
Speaker 3: so important to so many people because it's the one
Speaker 3: bit of the rights of growing up that we've all
Speaker 3: found our favorite movies. You know, It's not something that
Speaker 3: you can avoid even if you like grow up and
Speaker 3: say I don't really like movies. I don't go to cinema,
Speaker 3: I don't watch films or anything, you know, Star Wars.
Speaker 3: You know, if you're of our age, you know you
Speaker 3: know these films, and it's such an essential part of
Speaker 3: our life. And I never feel ashamed of like presenting
Speaker 3: that at my job with my friends anyone that's not
Speaker 3: interested in it. I'm obsessed with horror movies. I am obsessed.
Speaker 3: I love it. I don't ever want it to end.
Speaker 3: And I was when I started this podcast. I was
Speaker 3: worried about burnout because I did start by watching three
Speaker 3: or four a day, and I've sort of winged it
Speaker 3: down over the years to two. But still even at
Speaker 3: this rate, I'm not going to finish my podcast until
Speaker 3: I think it's twenty twenty seven, So you know, no,
Speaker 3: I've still got years to go with being this hard,
Speaker 3: isn't it? And I'm embracing it. I can't wait.
Speaker 1: I don't you know what. I think that's a modest estimate.
Speaker 1: I think you'll actually go beyond it because the level
Speaker 1: of horror movies or the number of horror movies of
Speaker 1: recent you know, it's streaming and all this shit, and
Speaker 1: people are making their own things and throwing them up
Speaker 1: on YouTube. You're going to be employed for quite a
Speaker 1: while with this year and herror. You'll just be up
Speaker 1: to date. That's all the year and heart. It'll be
Speaker 1: a once a year thing at the end, you know,
Speaker 1: like a wrap up.
Speaker 3: It'll be such a such a relief to do one
Speaker 3: of these things a year, Like I honestly, as soon
Speaker 3: as I finished this, I'm going down to edit for
Speaker 3: a couple of hours. And I'm sure you know, I
Speaker 3: mean you just said two, you do two a week.
Speaker 3: That's that's what that's hard work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lot like and I thought, you know
Speaker 1: what's funny is the father them alone weekly round Up,
Speaker 1: which is just me bullshitting with my dog for twenty
Speaker 1: or twenty or so minutes, seems to be the hardest
Speaker 1: of all of them. Like just picking material, like week
Speaker 1: after we anyway, we're not here talk about me. We're
Speaker 1: tiring to talk about you. And actually when is your
Speaker 1: first It was it on VHS? Your first viewing of
Speaker 1: Creep Show?
Speaker 3: It definitely was, Yeah, this is one that wasn't on TV,
Speaker 3: and if it was, I definitely missed it. My friends
Speaker 3: would talk about it at school in the sort of
Speaker 3: like have you seen creep Show two? And I was like, right, okay,
Speaker 3: so we know, we know now roughly when it was
Speaker 3: because I hadn't seen it before Creep Show two came out,
Speaker 3: because I remember all them posters and it made me
Speaker 3: get Creep Show one. But yeah, so with Creep Show
Speaker 3: it was a VHS. It was a I think it
Speaker 3: was a nice Price one which over here was like
Speaker 3: four pounds ninety nine, So yeah, it wasn't like yeah,
Speaker 3: so for my I would get ten pounds a week
Speaker 3: growing up when I was like sixteen seventeen, and that's
Speaker 3: what that's what I bought. Like, oh man, I just
Speaker 3: remember being so utterly impressed with Creep Show, and I
Speaker 3: don't I was never a comic book fan, so it
Speaker 3: wasn't that angle that I fell in love with. I
Speaker 3: was already an avid Stephen King reader, so I think
Speaker 3: it must have been that aspect of it and that
Speaker 3: hook that he's in one of these, So yeah, let's investigate.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I didn't stop.
Speaker 1: My experience with Creep Show was in nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: I was nine years old in an Elmy's department store
Speaker 1: with my mother and she deposited me at the little
Speaker 1: book section so she could go shopping, and sitting there
Speaker 1: was the Creepshow comic adaptation, which for some reason was
Speaker 1: released months before the film. And if I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: seen it every if you haven't read it, everyone go
Speaker 1: get it. Artwork by Bernie Wrights, and it is fucking gorgeous.
Speaker 1: So I sat and read it cover to cover, read
Speaker 1: it again, read it again, and on the back it
Speaker 1: said now a major motion picture. And I was distraught
Speaker 1: because I thought I had missed it somehow and but
Speaker 1: a cousin of mine, my older cousin, Susan, who I
Speaker 1: was nine, she was maybe seventeen or eighteen, maybe even older.
Speaker 1: She had gotten me into Stephen King and horror movies
Speaker 1: in general. And she assured me this movie has not
Speaker 1: come out yet, but when it does, she would take me.
Speaker 1: And she did. And so I was there opening weekend
Speaker 1: for Creep Show at the Revere Showcase Cinemas and they
Speaker 1: had in the lobby they had a standy built for it,
Speaker 1: and it was a cardboard version of the crate and
Speaker 1: the sign said what's inside of the Creepshow Crate? In fact,
Speaker 1: I got a drinking cup at the fucking concession stand
Speaker 1: that had the creep on it. I'd sad, yeah, man like.
Speaker 1: And I became so obsessed with this movie. I bought
Speaker 1: every poster you could get of this movie. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about the one sheet. We're talking about the Jack
Speaker 1: Cayman designed comic book cover. I'm talking the British Squad.
Speaker 1: You've seen that one with the with the creep like
Speaker 1: pointing at the at the tombstone, right, That's yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's Bernie Wrightson is drawing from the comic book just
Speaker 1: sort of superimposed on that which I love that one that.
Speaker 1: Have you seen the French subway poster. It's the size
Speaker 1: of a wall. It's it's the Joe King character of
Speaker 1: the little boy with the voodoo doll sitting on an
Speaker 1: open creepshow comic with the creep of his hands splayed
Speaker 1: out somewhere in the credits because it's the French poster,
Speaker 1: they advertise that there's going to be a creep show
Speaker 1: disco on a certain date. I always wondered what went
Speaker 1: on at the creepshow disco, so you can tell them.
Speaker 1: I've got some creep show bona fides. And it is
Speaker 1: one of those movies where, like you said, do I
Speaker 1: need to see Star Wars ever again?
Speaker 3: Not at all.
Speaker 1: It plays in my head. I can close my eyes
Speaker 1: and see it if I really want to. But more
Speaker 1: than any other movie, it's creep show for me, and
Speaker 1: I I'm seeing that it is for you too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so there's not many movies that will work
Speaker 3: that way with me or songs that I'm quite happy
Speaker 3: if I never see it again. And I've said before
Speaker 3: on my show that I'm not going to watch it again,
Speaker 3: although I did for this damn it. But I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna watch it again until I can get a really
Speaker 3: good bells and Whistles four K with all the extras
Speaker 3: because I've never gone in on any of the extras
Speaker 3: like that, so I don't know all the stuff about it,
Speaker 3: and it's one of those prized things that I'm just waiting.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna wait until it happens. I don't want
Speaker 3: to push it. I know there's loads of stuff on YouTube,
Speaker 3: and every time like that, something will pop up in
Speaker 3: my feed because it reads your mind and it's like,
Speaker 3: I don't click on it. Paul, wait, So I'm gonna wait.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's going to come one day.
Speaker 1: Well, once you get those bells and Whistles, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be very very happy. If you haven't seen Just Desserts,
Speaker 1: the documentary that they have about Creep Show, you no, no, no,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Paul Waller, Okay, yeah, that's that's something
Speaker 1: I'm gonna share my screen right now. We're gonna watch it.
Speaker 1: No no, no, but okay, look, so you're obviously obsessed with
Speaker 1: the movie as I am, so let's put that to
Speaker 1: a test.
Speaker 3: Shell.
Speaker 1: But you want to take a quiz, oh ship no,
Speaker 1: go for it, go for it. Here we go, baby,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you for the last I'm gonna the
Speaker 1: next line. Okay, for example, here we go.
Speaker 2: You call, so you fixed it up?
Speaker 3: Give me that again? Give me that again? Could you
Speaker 3: hear it? I could just hear it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, turn the volume up a bit.
Speaker 6: You call my urb bits, so you fixed it on?
Speaker 1: Nope, ash trade back sick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't do so bad.
Speaker 1: We've only got four you're doing well, You've got the chance. Ready.
Speaker 3: Okay, we kept.
Speaker 1: Right on going, and we didn't complain the cause we
Speaker 1: were doing what we wanted to do.
Speaker 3: And you understand that, well, I don't.
Speaker 1: Even know where that's from, Yes you do. I'll play
Speaker 1: it again for you. But we kept right on going,
Speaker 1: and we didn't complain the cause we were doing what
Speaker 1: we wanted to do.
Speaker 4: And you understand that.
Speaker 1: It's on the television while mister Jordi Verel is lingering outside.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, no, this is this is dep cuts.
Speaker 1: Well that's how we that's how we were all here. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're doing them in order of the of the story.
Speaker 1: So here we go. You know, on a friend Harry's
Speaker 1: wild about Harry Richard, get it out of here, just
Speaker 1: gonting revenge, Harry.
Speaker 3: Let me play this seat.
Speaker 1: No, God damn it, no, all the relatives of his
Speaker 1: you ate baked and stuffed at mom Maison, Richard Vickers.
Speaker 1: He's gonna wicked, wicked, wicked mind. Okay, finally I'm gonna Paul.
Speaker 1: I have total fucking faith in you, man, and this one,
Speaker 1: this one counts for triple the points, so you could
Speaker 1: possibly win you ready.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, over to Anderson Hall and help me out.
Speaker 6: But as you so often say, what would I do
Speaker 6: without you? No?
Speaker 1: Forget, forget, get out of here? What indeed, Henry, what indeed?
Speaker 3: Clearly I should have watched this more often in recent years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, you know this is one of those movies
Speaker 1: I can recite from the beginning to end, like every
Speaker 1: line of the movie, much much to the annoyance of
Speaker 1: my many partners over the years. Could you please let
Speaker 1: me watch the movie? No.
Speaker 3: Two minutes was the most stressful two minutes I've had.
Speaker 3: That was more stressful than playing in front of five
Speaker 3: thousand people at festival last November. I was like, that
Speaker 3: was nothing compared to that. I mean, Jez Louise, I
Speaker 3: hate myself.
Speaker 1: Oh stop, you did fine. I mean you did terrible,
Speaker 1: but you don't care. I don't like you any less.
Speaker 3: Well, no, I have got to gain something back. You
Speaker 3: now have the right to not like me at all.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that that's a possibility. All right, creep Show,
Speaker 1: creep Share. Let's talk about the actors of creep Share.
Speaker 1: Who stands out to you in this cast?
Speaker 3: I mean, I've done a I've done a top five
Speaker 3: because I didn't want to alienate my favorites and I
Speaker 3: really wanted to make sure someone got to mention that
Speaker 3: rarely does and if they do, it's just because of nepotism.
Speaker 3: So Joe Hill, my number five, is Billy in the
Speaker 3: wrap around, like so so very important to making this
Speaker 3: whole thing work and so believable. And as a kid,
Speaker 3: even though I saw it as a team, he was
Speaker 3: the one that I was like, yeah, I get that,
Speaker 3: I've been in that situation, and I really felt for him.
Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about. The wrap around sequence for
Speaker 1: the movie, which is the young child Joe Hill being
Speaker 1: scolded by his father to the point of slapping that
Speaker 1: wiseacre of a child and then throwing away his comic
Speaker 1: book which evidently was a common refrain in the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties with the ec comics. I think a king is
Speaker 1: playing into that there in the Centerville, USA, which if
Speaker 1: you read the screenplay, that town is named Centreville. You
Speaker 1: know it's funny, you know. You and I talked on
Speaker 1: your show about checking things out virtually via computer with
Speaker 1: Google Maps and such. But certain things require a pilgrimage.
Speaker 1: Every pilgrim has his. For me, it's Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So
Speaker 1: I went down because of Down of the Dead. Clearly,
Speaker 1: I made a beeline for the Monroeville Mall, but just
Speaker 1: on the outskirts, if you just go looking a little bit,
Speaker 1: you'll find Carnegie Mellon University, which is Horlick's university here
Speaker 1: in Creep Show. So I've been to Amberson Hall. But
Speaker 1: more importantly, I visited Billy's house on Creep Show. And
Speaker 1: get this, it was the middle of the night and
Speaker 1: it was trash day, so all of the barrels were
Speaker 1: out on the street. It was pretty spectacular. I got
Speaker 1: close enough that they could have and should have called
Speaker 1: the police this stranger lurking out there. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: the ramp around segment here, yes, and but to your
Speaker 1: point about young Joe Hill. Here Joe King at the time,
Speaker 1: Stephen King's son, Joe Hill, who is a fantastic author.
Speaker 1: If he is actually my favorite horror author working today,
Speaker 1: he's better than his dad. I'm sorry, sorry, Steve, but
Speaker 1: you raised him right. He's wonderful in this movie. You
Speaker 1: would not know that it was a non actor child.
Speaker 1: This is a child performance that I love, where he
Speaker 1: just seems with it and not precocious.
Speaker 3: I am every time I watch it. I'm stunned at
Speaker 3: how good he is. And of course when I initially
Speaker 3: watched it, I didn't know who he was. You know,
Speaker 3: for years upon years upon years, I did not know
Speaker 3: who he was. It's just someone I related to. Like
Speaker 3: I had my dad throw away Motley Crue albums. There
Speaker 3: was this band in the UK that got big called
Speaker 3: zigzigsput Nick but Nick. So they were on the front
Speaker 3: cover of a couple of magazines, and my dad, because
Speaker 3: one of them looked vaguely feminine, it was just lost
Speaker 3: his shit that that all went in the bin. So like,
Speaker 3: I've lived that and I know that, and that makes
Speaker 3: you clutch onto it even more. And just from that
Speaker 3: simple setup, like I'm totally on board before even any
Speaker 3: of the shorts of but we're.
Speaker 1: Also treated to this fucking horrible dad. But it's played
Speaker 1: by Tom Atkins, so he's imminently watchable and I can
Speaker 1: see his point of view, even though I don't agree
Speaker 1: with it, and I don't like the mom very much
Speaker 1: because she's really just a washrags, you know, he's just
Speaker 1: stepping all over and like, but I feel her frustration
Speaker 1: as well. I love particularly that not only do we
Speaker 1: get that like wonderful exterior where he's actually throwing the
Speaker 1: thing in the trash and we get to hear the
Speaker 1: creep making his way there, but when he describes to
Speaker 1: her why that piece of fiction needed to be tossed out,
Speaker 1: he names the stories, so it's you know, you want
Speaker 1: him reading that stuff, you know, things coming out of
Speaker 1: crates and eating people, dead people coming out, people turn
Speaker 1: into weeds, for christ'sake. Like, I love that there's throwing
Speaker 1: dialogue fucking ruining the movie for you right there, and
Speaker 1: you just don't even know.
Speaker 3: Right, this is so good. I can not quote this
Speaker 3: film like you can quote this film, and that is
Speaker 3: really bugging me, right, And I'm just thinking in my
Speaker 3: head now right, Star Wars. Yeah, I can quote line
Speaker 3: for line, so clearly I must start watching Creep Show
Speaker 3: on the regular again. Yeah, I'm not having this.
Speaker 1: You could do as I did and just tape the
Speaker 1: entire audio track of the movie onto a cassette tape
Speaker 1: and then wear that in your and then put that
Speaker 1: in your headphones for your fucking walkman, just walk around
Speaker 1: listening to Creep here. I'm not that obsessive, am I?
Speaker 3: When I was, we mentioned V in the show in
Speaker 3: my show earlier, and when that used to come on
Speaker 3: uk TV on a Friday night over the weekend, I
Speaker 3: would tape it and then I would tape it onto
Speaker 3: a cassette and I would take it to school when
Speaker 3: I would listen to it on my walkman V all
Speaker 3: the way there, all the way back, like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: what a memory you've just hit there, bosh.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I I if a movie, If I love
Speaker 1: that movie, then I wanted to keep experiencing the movie
Speaker 1: if I wasn't near a television set, like gotta keep
Speaker 1: I need the I need to fix the horror junkies.
Speaker 3: I've been doing this, okay. So so at number four
Speaker 3: and at number two, actors from the crate. So at
Speaker 3: number four I've got how Oolbrooks Henry, and at number
Speaker 3: two I've put a GM Barbo as Wilma. I just
Speaker 3: think they're so so expertly read that that like it's
Speaker 3: the one short where if all the others went. Even
Speaker 3: though it's not my favorite, I would like just happily
Speaker 3: watch that again and again again. I think the performances
Speaker 3: are outstanding.
Speaker 1: The create is the sort of standout of the movie. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it is the most character driven. I think it's the
Speaker 1: most plot driven, and it isn't based on usual anthology
Speaker 1: short story twists. There's no twist going on here. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a it's a thriller. Unfortunately, in most horror anthologies,
Speaker 1: when you get a thriller, it is there isn't a
Speaker 1: whiff of the supernatural, creep show is Wald or all
Speaker 1: fucking supernatural, even if it's just roaches, Like what are roaches?
Speaker 1: Why are they so mad at him? So so I
Speaker 1: always appreciated that aspect of it.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, of course. And I would also say, just
Speaker 3: quickly about Adrian Barbeou. I talked to her so yeah,
Speaker 3: so when I got to talk to her, I knew
Speaker 3: the whole interview. I was trying to think, how am
Speaker 3: I going to get a little bit of chat about
Speaker 3: creep showing? How am I going to do it? And
Speaker 3: because we weren't talking about that, I think we're talking
Speaker 3: about Scooby Doo or something because she was in one
Speaker 3: of those.
Speaker 1: Batman the animated series.
Speaker 3: She's doing so much amazing stuff. But yeah, I managed
Speaker 3: to get a bit in and I was so happy
Speaker 3: with what we ended up talking about. But what was
Speaker 3: really annoying was the before you record and after you record.
Speaker 3: She was just so courteous and courteous to me. She
Speaker 3: dropped her bacade thing that you would do when you're ready,
Speaker 3: like one, two, three, showtime sort of thing that dropped,
Speaker 3: and she just became like the mum, you know. She
Speaker 3: was so nice talking about her kids and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: and she wouldn't stop in it, Like I'm thinking, I've
Speaker 3: really got to move on to my next interview sort
Speaker 3: of thing, and yet here I am talking to her.
Speaker 3: No way am I going to stop it, So we're
Speaker 3: just chatting the shit like. It was such a lovely
Speaker 3: thing to do, completely suxtaposed with her character as Wilma
Speaker 3: as well mad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Wilma, she's Idrey Brother is the MVP of the movie.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of performances here where you can
Speaker 1: watch it and go, this is a comic book and
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel bad. Like if you were to say
Speaker 1: in most movies that, well, that's kind of a comic
Speaker 1: bookly performance, you'd be like, she sure, sorry about that.
Speaker 1: But Adrian Varnbaud read that character off that page, recognized
Speaker 1: Wilma as the the castrating bitch from hell and just went,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go all the way with this. I think
Speaker 1: you know, didn't she it's I believe she said something like,
Speaker 1: you know. Romero kept going, yeah, you can go bigger,
Speaker 1: you can go bigger, And I think that was Romero's
Speaker 1: refrain to most of the actors, like King in particular,
Speaker 1: we'll get to him, but but so like we'll get
Speaker 1: to Romero too. But like, one of the reasons these
Speaker 1: performances are so good is because it got somebody like
Speaker 1: Romero at the helm going, I know what this movie
Speaker 1: actually needs. It needs the outsized performances to to sort
Speaker 1: of to keep it going. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: hol Hoholbrook is so fucking natural as Henry so repressed
Speaker 1: and just so genial, like what a pair, and they
Speaker 1: play off each other so well, like this is a look,
Speaker 1: we know this couple. You know this couple. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: been around them.
Speaker 3: In the right. Number three, I have Leslie Nilsen as
Speaker 3: Richard something to toward you I about And my number
Speaker 3: one is people are confused by it and they will
Speaker 3: often say that this is the worst performance. But for me,
Speaker 3: Stephen King as Jordie Verel, I just think it's so
Speaker 3: spot on. And it's the one character in this thing
Speaker 3: that if I was going to get a tattoo, it
Speaker 3: will be that. If I was going to, you know,
Speaker 3: learn to quote someone perbatum, it will be him. But
Speaker 3: I just think it is a performance for the ages,
Speaker 3: like from when I was young, from teenager to now,
Speaker 3: as like I'm a year away from fifty. I would
Speaker 3: just so so impressed with what I'm watching. And you know,
Speaker 3: this was before I understand what film and cinema was
Speaker 3: and I was just watching, you know, a videotape. I
Speaker 3: wasn't into all the arts and crafts of it, like
Speaker 3: it just instantly. It is so transfixing. I love him
Speaker 3: in this, my God.
Speaker 1: I love him when I first saw the movie. I
Speaker 1: knew who Stephen King was. I had read what minimal
Speaker 1: Stephen King they would allow me to read on my own,
Speaker 1: but I knew he wrote the movie. And while we
Speaker 1: were watching the opening credits, his name came up in
Speaker 1: the actors list, and my cousin grabbed my arm and said,
Speaker 1: oh my god, he's in the movie. And then so
Speaker 1: we're watching and watching and watching, and it's a little
Speaker 1: while into it, so the metea is already struck, and
Speaker 1: he's already gotten the pucket of water and come and
Speaker 1: slightly when he realizes you've done it now, JORDI verel that.
Speaker 1: My cousin leaned in and just whispered, that's Stephen King.
Speaker 1: And it was like, I don't know, like like people
Speaker 1: talk about imprinting, you know, it was just like, holy God,
Speaker 1: that's the man, that's that's the shining guy, which I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen at the time, but I saw the trailer
Speaker 1: on television and it fucking kept me up for weeks.
Speaker 1: I had seen Carrie by then, like I knew all
Speaker 1: of the books, and I knew his reputation and whatever
Speaker 1: little bit I could get, and like, here, here he
Speaker 1: is being his life and to your point, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the best performance in the movie. It's a heartbreaking performance.
Speaker 1: This is the community. We can just jump right into
Speaker 1: Jordy Verrel if you want, because this segment of Creep
Speaker 1: Show gets the least amount of respect from the rest
Speaker 1: of them. It is never mentioned. When you and I
Speaker 1: first started talking and you mentioned that you wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about this segment, I was overjoyed because I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm the only other fucking human who adores this piece,
Speaker 1: and a huge part of that is Stephen King's performance.
Speaker 1: Side note, tom Atkins, dick of a Dad at the beginning,
Speaker 1: initially hired to play Jordi Verrol, and then George Romero went, oh,
Speaker 1: you know what, Eve, I think you should do it
Speaker 1: because you are a hic from Maine. So and then
Speaker 1: Tom Akins, you'll notice, is uncredited in the movie as
Speaker 1: the dad. But I mean he wanted to he the part,
Speaker 1: but he didn't. He didn't take credit because he really
Speaker 1: wanted to play Jordy Berrell. And he might have been fine.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a good actor. I might have enjoyed
Speaker 1: his performance in a different way, but I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: believed that Jordy was as dumb as he is and
Speaker 1: for so brilliant.
Speaker 3: Man. So I didn't know it was Stephen King. I
Speaker 3: did not know it was Stephen King when I first
Speaker 3: watched it. I just thought it was like an actor
Speaker 3: playing a hic sort of thing, you know, That's all
Speaker 3: I thought. So, yeah, I even though I'd read Stephen King,
Speaker 3: it was so you know, we didn't have the internet.
Speaker 3: I didn't know. I just can't believe you were nine
Speaker 3: watched in this stuff. That's absolutely madness to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, listening to your podcast a lot, like
Speaker 1: I noticed, guests will come on and we'll say things like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I saw on this Tiner's fourteen, and you'll
Speaker 1: be like that is too young, and I'm thinking, oh man,
Speaker 1: what wait till pul gets a low to me man
Speaker 1: like this is. I was unattended, and a worse than unattended.
Speaker 1: I had a large gaggle of all older, irresponsible cousins.
Speaker 1: They took me to the drive in to see the
Speaker 1: thing and cat people, you know, like they whatever they
Speaker 1: were into. I was the mascot that came along, none
Speaker 1: of them realizing how twisting it was from my brain.
Speaker 1: But at this point in my life, I want to
Speaker 1: thank every single one of them.
Speaker 3: Absolutely jealous, I wonder because I was alloud music, but
Speaker 3: I think it was because of that video nasty thing
Speaker 3: that happened. Like my parents were so tight on what
Speaker 3: I could watch, So when I would get away with
Speaker 3: watching a v which had those elements in it, and
Speaker 3: when I could watch the aides team and there would
Speaker 3: be like a gun battles and things like that, it
Speaker 3: was just like there's a little curtain into like another
Speaker 3: world sort of thing. And of course there was a
Speaker 3: certain age where I just they didn't care anymore and
Speaker 3: I went crazy. But I think my obsession, I'm like
Speaker 3: like being allowed that stuff and having it grow over time.
Speaker 3: It was just this need I needed to see all
Speaker 3: this stuff that I'd heard about. And of course I
Speaker 3: wasn't allowed to watch Stephen King films, but I could
Speaker 3: buy books my parents. But do you want me to
Speaker 3: get you misery? And I'm like, yes, yeah, people are weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's potentially so much worse when you're reading it.
Speaker 1: You know, like there's a scene in Penn Cemetery the
Speaker 1: book where most people, I don't think it bothered them,
Speaker 1: but the lead character that not Judd crandall the you know,
Speaker 1: the Dale Midkip character from the movie. He's going He's
Speaker 1: going to the Penn Cemetery on his own, and a
Speaker 1: windigo face appears before him, and King described it as
Speaker 1: this face gibbering at him a few feet away, and
Speaker 1: I threw the book across the room, man, like I
Speaker 1: all the lights came on, you know, So to think that, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: read this book this, this will be fine. Read misery.
Speaker 1: Nothing untoward will happen in that. Definitely, don't watch an
Speaker 1: episode of Tales from the Dark Side or fucking creep Show.
Speaker 1: For of all things, the lightest, the lightest horror entertainment
Speaker 1: is creep show and also kind of the most hardcore.
Speaker 1: We'll get to the Great Buffy eventually. Right now, we
Speaker 1: want to talk to Jordy Verrel because first of all, right,
Speaker 1: from the title, now, okay, here's the thing. Creep Show
Speaker 1: is listed as an original screenplay by by Stephen King.
Speaker 1: That is a lie the crate and a short story
Speaker 1: called Weeds had previously been published I think in Cavalier magazine.
Speaker 1: Weeds is the story we get here. It's Jordi Verrel.
Speaker 1: It was meant to be the opening chapter of a
Speaker 1: book where plants take over the world, and after writing
Speaker 1: the first chapter, he went, well, I don't know that
Speaker 1: I can do better than that, and he's right. So
Speaker 1: what we get here is Weeds adapted into my favorite
Speaker 1: title in Creep Show, one of my favorite titles of
Speaker 1: all time, The Lonesome Death of Jordi Verrel. It's a
Speaker 1: title that tells you exactly what you're going to get
Speaker 1: and then it delivers. And it's a little bit haunting
Speaker 1: to think because it re contextualizes your viewing experience. And
Speaker 1: at least for me, this is the comedy segment of
Speaker 1: this movie, and to me it's actually the most tragic
Speaker 1: of any of them.
Speaker 3: From the Get Girl, I think it's perfectly pitched. That's
Speaker 3: the key to this one. We've established already in the
Speaker 3: film that this is a comic book. So we're watching
Speaker 3: a comic book unfold on screen, and I think when
Speaker 3: by the time we get to the Lonesome Death Jeordi Ferrel,
Speaker 3: what we're seeing is that comic book like leap off
Speaker 3: the page. It is so ott and as I say,
Speaker 3: perfectly pitched in that way. Now, like Adrian Barabo said
Speaker 3: in that interview, like he was just saying, yeah, give
Speaker 3: me more, don't give me less, give me more, don't
Speaker 3: make it grounded. I don't know if Stephen King, because
Speaker 3: you know he wrote this, I don't know if it
Speaker 3: was something that he always envisions this way or he
Speaker 3: was pushed to go further this way. But whatever way
Speaker 3: it was, it nailed the performance, like so spot on,
Speaker 3: because we do need levity in this thing. It's not
Speaker 3: a serious like scary film. It's got aspects of things
Speaker 3: that will keep you up. But like I personally just
Speaker 3: think that everything else is fantastic, it's awesome, but this
Speaker 3: just goes the extra mile. There's got this something that
Speaker 3: you can't name, and as I say, the best I
Speaker 3: can get is it's just so perfectly pitched. Everything about
Speaker 3: it is right.
Speaker 1: Creep show, you know, on the whole is an ode
Speaker 1: to the old EC comics tell Us from the Crebt
Speaker 1: Vault of Horror or Hunt of Fear. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: just completely lost my train of thought. Part what was
Speaker 1: the last thing you just said about. I'm just going
Speaker 1: on about how it is so perfectly pitched, Oh perfectly pitched.
Speaker 1: The Lonesome Death of Jodany Vrown So so the whole
Speaker 1: thing is based on those, and we've gotten some film
Speaker 1: adaptations of them, and we had the tales from the
Speaker 1: CRYBT television series and stuff. And what most of those
Speaker 1: get wrong when they go to adapt any of the
Speaker 1: stories is they think what we're looking for as a
Speaker 1: horror audience is gore, true, guilty. But they also think
Speaker 1: we need the twist, we need the sort of comedic
Speaker 1: black black comic kind of through line to sort of
Speaker 1: rear its head at the end. But what they don't
Speaker 1: realize is that the stories that always stick out to
Speaker 1: us are the ones that do not follow that pattern
Speaker 1: at all, that seem completely out of left field. There's
Speaker 1: nothing ec about this story. I mean in the traditional
Speaker 1: sense of the dead person like Father's Day. Yes, that
Speaker 1: is the absolute perfect distillation of EC comics. You did
Speaker 1: a murder, You're gonna fucking pay for it. Here. There
Speaker 1: is no villain other than his own inability to act
Speaker 1: on what's happening around him. That's remarkable. It's a one
Speaker 1: character thing. It's actually it's a two hander because we
Speaker 1: get Bingo O'Malley playing all the other people he interacts
Speaker 1: with in his fantasies, which is a whole other thing.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. It is like it's so distinct from the
Speaker 1: others in every way. I think that puts people off
Speaker 1: about it. I think they can't really get a handle
Speaker 1: on it, which is why they don't appreciate this one
Speaker 1: as much as say something to tide you over, which
Speaker 1: is I'm doing something bad to you, now you do
Speaker 1: something bad to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think maybe there is a lot of that.
Speaker 3: It is so straight as well, it is so overacted
Speaker 3: like it pisses it actually pisces people off. But like
Speaker 3: when there's a couple of moments in it that sort
Speaker 3: of like give you this is why he's acting in
Speaker 3: that way. This is this person. And the first thing
Speaker 3: is that he had to take a bank loan out
Speaker 3: for two hundred dollars, Like that's like I worked it
Speaker 3: out today. That's only six hundred and fifty dollars in
Speaker 3: today's money. That's nothing. And yet he's had to take
Speaker 3: a loan out for that, and but looks for it.
Speaker 3: He's a farmer, you know, he's not got any money.
Speaker 3: He's totally poor. And then the expression nunk head, like
Speaker 3: what's a nunkhead?
Speaker 1: Like these well, like here's the thing that that word
Speaker 1: is lunkhead. But no, but I've got again and again
Speaker 1: and patois you're getting moo hired.
Speaker 3: Because I yeah, I with a capital N. Like and
Speaker 3: me and my brother used to quote that bit to
Speaker 3: each other like, oh, Paul, you nunkhead and like, and
Speaker 3: then I was like, right, there's no such word as nunkhead. So,
Speaker 3: like a few years ago, I would be watching it
Speaker 3: again and again and I was like, no, I'm satisfied
Speaker 3: with that nunkhead. It is so yeah, because lungerhead.
Speaker 1: He perverted the word into something that's going to lives
Speaker 1: forever in your mind now, well mine too, because I mean,
Speaker 1: even though I know he's saying lunkhead, I can hear
Speaker 1: him saying no kid, Yeah, I want.
Speaker 3: You to listen and try and remove the letter in
Speaker 3: It's impossible. Yeah. Well, there go vindicated, right, Okay. Also,
Speaker 3: we can't talk about this segment without the set dressing
Speaker 3: of his abode. It's fantastic, from before the Weeds to
Speaker 3: after the Weeds to the end, it's just incredibly set dressed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And this is one of the things where when I
Speaker 3: do get my bells and whistles box set, I'm going
Speaker 3: to be like, how did they do this? What did
Speaker 3: they do here?
Speaker 1: Can I hip you to some of the facts of
Speaker 1: this particular secm. I'm on go for it. Okay. This
Speaker 1: was filmed entirely in the gymnasium of a girl's high
Speaker 1: school that in Pennsyl Romero, you grew. You lived through
Speaker 1: the nineties, You lived through the independent film boom, when
Speaker 1: suddenly a bunch of filmmakers making movies about making movies
Speaker 1: figured that they had created independent cinema. There was this
Speaker 1: other guy who'd been doing it for some time named
Speaker 1: George Romerow, who somehow got major studios to back him
Speaker 1: to make this fucking comic book adaptation. And he said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to shoot it here in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: And while we need a studio for some sense, girls gymnasium.
Speaker 1: I love him, Okay, So all the interiors are set there.
Speaker 1: They built a house. They found like a patch of
Speaker 1: land to build the farm so they could shoot the exteriors,
Speaker 1: in which evidently threw off local pilots, who suddenly found
Speaker 1: that there was a farm where there had not been
Speaker 1: farm before, and an aged one at that. So apparently
Speaker 1: there was some concern there and the cent interesting you
Speaker 1: mentioned is done by a fellow by the name of
Speaker 1: Cletus and who did most of Rameiro's movies, and he
Speaker 1: can be seen here as the host of the party
Speaker 1: in the crate who introduces Wilma to to Tabby and
Speaker 1: and her husband. That's okay, and his work is spectacular,
Speaker 1: like the cent dressing. Inside it does not look like
Speaker 1: a set, and that's a lot of that is Romero,
Speaker 1: who's a fucking phenomenal filmmaker obviously, and is lighting people.
Speaker 1: But it is so particular, it is so lived in.
Speaker 1: It does not feel like a movie like ordinarily you
Speaker 1: can tell when there's a costume that just got sown
Speaker 1: or the paint is peel still drying on the walls.
Speaker 1: But here it's fucking fantastic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I, as I say, I've got an old DVD
Speaker 3: of this that I've had many years, and I rewatched
Speaker 3: it like very late one evening a few days ago,
Speaker 3: so I was sort of in and out. But as
Speaker 3: I say, I know it very well, not as well
Speaker 3: as I apparently, but we'll get you know, very I
Speaker 3: can't believe I failed that so miserably anyway, So I
Speaker 3: watched it and I didn't I noticed when I watched
Speaker 3: it that the I could see now I'm so used
Speaker 3: to four K, that I could see some of like
Speaker 3: the grass when it stuck to his face before it
Speaker 3: goes really bad, like when he's pouring himself the bath,
Speaker 3: And I just thought, oh, that's going to look really
Speaker 3: bad in four K when I get that four that's
Speaker 3: going to look bad. But right now it's okay. But
Speaker 3: like I remember on VHS, like this thing was just
Speaker 3: everything to me, like the world look lived in, Like
Speaker 3: I didn't know like about sets or anything like that
Speaker 3: when I was like even when I was like seventeen,
Speaker 3: watching this thing, like it wouldn't have occurred to me
Speaker 3: it would have been a set. I would imagine that
Speaker 3: would have been his actual house that Stephen King lived in,
Speaker 3: you know. But my word it was it's just so gorgeous.
Speaker 3: It's so right, and yeah, it doesn't look real in
Speaker 3: any way. It looks comic book, but it's so well presented.
Speaker 3: I'm so what do you say?
Speaker 1: His name was Cletus Peters Anderson.
Speaker 3: Absolute genius, Like honestly hes on my neck when I
Speaker 3: think about like the things that have stood with me
Speaker 3: through through my horror loving life, which is most of
Speaker 3: my life. That's set dress. Thing in that room is like,
Speaker 3: why are you thinking about that? It's so perfect, so crazy,
Speaker 3: it's great. Well, do you ever get to the state. Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you've been here, have you partaken in any
Speaker 1: of our haunted attractions? To say Universal Studios.
Speaker 3: I stayed on International Drive and because we didn't want
Speaker 3: to stay in Disney or anything like that, so it
Speaker 3: was only Florida, and we used International Drive as a
Speaker 3: base so we could do the theme parks, but we
Speaker 3: could also explore Florida itself and go to more sketchy
Speaker 3: areas and things because we just wanted to do that.
Speaker 3: So we decided to follow a roller girl team about
Speaker 3: because they were playing a few areas around in a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks that we were there, so that was great.
Speaker 3: We did that and on one of these treks we
Speaker 3: went past this thing on International Drive which was like
Speaker 3: a big castle that was just in the middle of
Speaker 3: it just looked like it'd just been put there, and
Speaker 3: it was a scary attraction and I've never been as
Speaker 3: scared before or since. Them walking through this castle one
Speaker 3: into the other with the guy in a leather face
Speaker 3: mask with a chainsaw that I could smell fuel. Obviously
Speaker 3: it was blunt. I didn't care. I was running through that.
Speaker 3: I did not get my money's worth. I was so scared.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I've got an experience of it. Wherever you're going,
Speaker 3: I want to know, because these are the best story
Speaker 3: These things are freaky scary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'll get to the I'm talking scifically about
Speaker 1: Halloween Horror Nights, which is the universal yearly attraction. Starts
Speaker 1: in September, runs all September, all through Halloween, sometimes after Halloween,
Speaker 1: which is always a delight when everyone is already over
Speaker 1: it and I get I jump in there. But before
Speaker 1: I sort of became dedicated to to haunted attractions, I
Speaker 1: was actually worked in a haunted attraction here in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: We Eli Roth's Goratorium was a year round haunted attraction
Speaker 1: here on the Las Vegas Strip, and the inside was
Speaker 1: a decrepit casino, many many rooms, and there were many
Speaker 1: actors in those rooms who were chasing you around. I
Speaker 1: was one of those. So I've seen scare attractions from
Speaker 1: both sides. And what's funny is you're absolutely right, because
Speaker 1: you ran through, you did not get the full experience.
Speaker 1: I can't speak to. I know the actual attraction you're
Speaker 1: talking about, because I've been to it on eyedrive. I
Speaker 1: can't remember the name of it, but because I've also
Speaker 1: been to Halloween Horror Knights at a Universal in Orlando,
Speaker 1: but I primarily go to the primarily go to the
Speaker 1: one in Hollywood. Well, in twenty nineteen, when the Creep
Speaker 1: Show television series premiered, they had a Creep Show House
Speaker 1: at Universal Studios and you walked in like the facade
Speaker 1: was the giant open comic book with all the back
Speaker 1: issues from the back of this comic book, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh so, so you step into it and then you're
Speaker 1: basically walking through the panels of the comic book and
Speaker 1: it's all it's all the panels from the actual Bernie
Speaker 1: Wrights and things, but a lot of them from the movie,
Speaker 1: you know, the little transition animations that would that slowly
Speaker 1: dissolve from the Yeah, so all of that, and then
Speaker 1: you get you get three three rooms that are themed
Speaker 1: from the movie Creep Show, and then I think two
Speaker 1: that are themed from the television series. So I hate
Speaker 1: to say it, but a waste of time, but the
Speaker 1: three the three Cream Show rooms you get to go
Speaker 1: through are the Father's Day one. So you go through
Speaker 1: the cemetery, past the that iconic Nathan Grantham graves down
Speaker 1: inside where he jumps out and twists off the head
Speaker 1: of on Sylvia and then he of course emerges scaring
Speaker 1: the shit out of you with on Sylvia's head on
Speaker 1: a tray. So that's you got that. Next you got
Speaker 1: the crate, which was disappointing because not because of the
Speaker 1: set decoration. The Universal Studios is bar none the best.
Speaker 1: It's a fucking movie studio. They should not look like
Speaker 1: a set when you want, you should feel like you're there, right,
Speaker 1: So you walk into the basement in Horlic's University where
Speaker 1: the crate is up on top of the the sort
Speaker 1: of island, the you know, the examination island, and they
Speaker 1: had perched the crate so far up so they could
Speaker 1: have an actor stand into it that it was so
Speaker 1: off putting that you were looking up it didn't match
Speaker 1: the movie in any way, shape or form. That it
Speaker 1: was kind of a total loss of a room. But
Speaker 1: then you get into ups and Pratt's apartment with lightning
Speaker 1: going off and projections of roaches everywhere, and there's the
Speaker 1: computer and that sound, that trilling sound that his fucking
Speaker 1: stupid phone makes and you get to walk past his
Speaker 1: her medically sealed room with the body and all the
Speaker 1: roaches being disgorged. I would say I've never had a
Speaker 1: better time in a haunted attraction. But I also went
Speaker 1: through the An American Werewolf in London House, which is
Speaker 1: the best thing I've ever been through. And I'll take
Speaker 1: it was so movie accurate because you go through the
Speaker 1: slaughtered lamb and then you're like, you go into the
Speaker 1: apartment where he transforms, You go through the tube station
Speaker 1: with the fucking escalator, you end up in the porn
Speaker 1: theater walking from the screens point of view, Hector's shooting
Speaker 1: in your eyes with a fucking giant the a full
Speaker 1: sized wolf like fucking jumping.
Speaker 3: Out of you.
Speaker 1: I've never been so scared in a haunted attraction. Did it?
Speaker 1: Walked out? Did? I was there early enough that I
Speaker 1: walked out? Did it again? And I got scared in
Speaker 1: all the same places. I feel like I'm ranting now
Speaker 1: we're no longer talking about creep show, but we're creepshow
Speaker 1: with you don't care.
Speaker 3: It sounds bazy, it sounds absolutely nicy. Yeah, see, I
Speaker 3: hear all this positive stuff, and my one experience was
Speaker 3: too scary for me. Didn't like it. It was too much.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing. When you go to like one
Speaker 1: of the attractions that have multiple houses and multiple scare
Speaker 1: zones and such, you can kind of ease your way
Speaker 1: into it and you have greater and lesser degrees of Fright.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of times where I've gone into a
Speaker 1: house knowing I'm not getting scared at all, but I
Speaker 1: just walk staring at all of the scent decoration because
Speaker 1: it's one of those immersive things where I don't mind
Speaker 1: that it's an immersive thing, you know, my immersive theaters,
Speaker 1: like all the thing, Like I don't want to go
Speaker 1: to your living room and pretend we're fucking into your
Speaker 1: life or what you know what I mean, Like all
Speaker 1: this new immersive shit, it's just more and more and
Speaker 1: more of it, and I don't want any of it.
Speaker 1: If they're not jumping out with a knife, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be part of your immersive experience. But it
Speaker 1: also has to be perfectly sent decorated, and they do
Speaker 1: it really well. And the Creepshow one looked spectacular except
Speaker 1: for that create.
Speaker 3: This is the difference to say you get into horror
Speaker 3: at nine, start exploring it in my late teens that
Speaker 3: that's the difference. You can handle these things. I just
Speaker 3: run through and say, yeah, take my twenty bucks, I'm off,
Speaker 3: see ya.
Speaker 1: Such a shame. And yes, that chainsaw was live and
Speaker 1: they just took the chain.
Speaker 3: Off of it. Okay, Yeah, I could definitely because we
Speaker 3: were saying to each other, we can smell the petrol
Speaker 3: and we just helted it out there. Yeah. There such a.
Speaker 1: Weird we had a we had at the Goro term.
Speaker 1: We had an electric chain saw, so it was like
Speaker 1: a foam prop basically, but it made the sound enough
Speaker 1: and it blew out smoke, I believe, so that was
Speaker 1: good enough. I accidentally brained somebody with it one time, though,
Speaker 1: still feel bad about it.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you don't. I deserved it, all right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: nunk head.
Speaker 1: No, here's something I noticed because I rewatched the movie again.
Speaker 1: Needn't have but you know, any excuse honestly, the scene
Speaker 1: where Jeordi makes himself the most makeshift of screwdrivers by
Speaker 1: using the entire bottle as a swizzle stick. After he
Speaker 1: sits down and has the realization that he's growing, the
Speaker 1: camera lingers on him for a while. And Stephen King
Speaker 1: usually is wearing rather thick coke bottle glasses, but here
Speaker 1: I noticed how goddamn dreamy his eyes were. Did you
Speaker 1: get that impression?
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, it's so unusual. I totally do. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: very strange to see him without respects on, and it
Speaker 3: gives like you can see why he was chosen for
Speaker 3: this role. Like he gives like when I take my
Speaker 3: glass off, it's much the same. You look, your face
Speaker 3: looks confused because it's not used to it. Do you
Speaker 3: know what I mean? It's just like your face has
Speaker 3: to get used to to being different. And I think
Speaker 3: what's happened there is Yeah, like his face is just
Speaker 3: doesn't look quite right. Everything is just off with him.
Speaker 3: And yeah, his eyes are sort of wasn't he like
Speaker 3: a drunk at this time as well? So we had
Speaker 3: sort of like glassy eyes at that point. I think
Speaker 3: it was before the cocaine period or was it jeering it.
Speaker 1: I think they're on the precipice of the cocaine period.
Speaker 1: This might in fact be the start of the cocaine period,
Speaker 1: because you know movie sets round eighty two. It's not addictive, right,
Speaker 1: it's just happy Death. Yeah, he definitely was one on
Speaker 1: one substance or another. I think I don't know how
Speaker 1: alcoholic he was at this point, just because of all
Speaker 1: the rah rah the shining as an anti alcoholic screen
Speaker 1: that he keeps sort of banging on about. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's not well here, doesn't affect the performance
Speaker 1: or any I'm not saying that.
Speaker 3: Well. I think I watched I did an episode on
Speaker 3: maximum overdriving for it. I did do the do I
Speaker 3: haven't got the affinity with that film that I do
Speaker 3: for this one, So I did go and look at
Speaker 3: all the extras, and I went and looked at the
Speaker 3: interviews that he was doing around the time, and yeah,
Speaker 3: he would do that drunk thing of like you would
Speaker 3: say something you sort of remember you're saying it, but
Speaker 3: you you then start going off into a different direction
Speaker 3: while he's trying to keep focus on what you were saying.
Speaker 3: It's like you're sort of too hazy to even know
Speaker 3: where you were. And he was doing that in interviews regularly.
Speaker 3: And whilst it's funny to sort of watched him keep
Speaker 3: up with himself, it's so really sad to see him
Speaker 3: try and keep up with himself and like we talk
Speaker 3: about this this segment of the Creep Show being really sad,
Speaker 3: and yeah, like when you think about Stephen King and
Speaker 3: his face, his manner, his whole life, it has been
Speaker 3: such so successful and yet so sad that elements that
Speaker 3: have happened to him in this time, and like how
Speaker 3: he's dealt with it through entertaining us, like what a
Speaker 3: hero like when he does go like it's gonna be,
Speaker 3: there's gonna I just I have nothing to compare him
Speaker 3: to in a modern day texture. I think it's going
Speaker 3: to be like a legendary great and it's nothing to
Speaker 3: do with these performances. Obviously, is to do with what
Speaker 3: he has written. But I would say, always look at
Speaker 3: this performance, Always focus on what he's done here, because
Speaker 3: it's that important. And like we said at the very
Speaker 3: beginning of this, like it just gets overlooked and poo pooed,
Speaker 3: maybe because it is so ott I can't tell you
Speaker 3: the reason, but shocking.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why. It's because of the way he
Speaker 1: says be a d I think that part of it
Speaker 1: is so over the top that most people won't they
Speaker 1: won't cotton to the rest. And that's Romero's fault because
Speaker 1: as you know you said with Adrian Barbo, he was
Speaker 1: telling her to go bigger and bigger. I know from
Speaker 1: here for this performance. He told King, you know the
Speaker 1: look that Wiley Coyote has right before he realizes he's
Speaker 1: going to fall, I'd like you to play the part
Speaker 1: entirely like that that expression, which makes sense in a way.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, the pathos of this character
Speaker 1: is really undeniable. Like the jokey parts of it are his.
Speaker 1: The fact that Jordie Verel imagines that there's a Department
Speaker 1: of meteors who will give you two hundred dollars for
Speaker 1: a whole meteor and nothing if it's broken is so ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And the fact that a doctor has a well sanitized
Speaker 1: but still a cleaver for which he's going to take
Speaker 1: off your finger without any anesthetic. I'm guessing like those
Speaker 1: are funny bits, except when you factor in that every
Speaker 1: authoritarian figure who's coming down on Jordi is in the
Speaker 1: visage of his dead father who's been dead what christ
Speaker 1: three years? Almost?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, but on like I tell you, it's makes
Speaker 3: me feel sad like talking about it in this way,
Speaker 3: and don't no other episodes do in this is that
Speaker 3: I mentioned that there's a weight to Jordi verel that
Speaker 3: there isn't any other episodes and it's still fun. Like
Speaker 3: I I get the ott stuff like and some of
Speaker 3: the lines, and also the slap on the face. There's
Speaker 3: like a tiny sound effect. I think that like it's
Speaker 3: too clunky. You didn't need it, Like just have him
Speaker 3: in his face like that will sound good enough. It's
Speaker 3: not quite a like buying ey eyeing, but it's like
Speaker 3: still a it didn't need to be there. It's so forgivable,
Speaker 3: Like everything about it to me is it is just
Speaker 3: perfect perfect.
Speaker 1: This segment was all of the segments of Creep Show
Speaker 1: had different editors, which I think was which is a
Speaker 1: great idea because if you're trying to not necessarily mix
Speaker 1: up styles, there was a there was a unified this
Speaker 1: is a comic book style, but somehow the pacing of
Speaker 1: each having a different hand sort of holding the the
Speaker 1: splicer like adds a layer to it. And this one
Speaker 1: was edited by Pasqually Booba, if I hadn't already said it,
Speaker 1: who is a longtime collaborator of Romero, part of the
Speaker 1: Romero family. He went on to edit movies like Heat
Speaker 1: and a veritable a cavalcade of like every popular taman
Speaker 1: you can think of here. And what I love about
Speaker 1: his editing here is not only is it the exact
Speaker 1: right amount of pacing for like every shot and every
Speaker 1: sort of moment or rather character beat, but Pasqually Buba
Speaker 1: is effectively the sound editor and the music editor on
Speaker 1: this one too, and more than any of the other segments.
Speaker 1: It's almost wall to wall library music, which is his
Speaker 1: way his tipping of the hat to Romero himself, because
Speaker 1: if you watch any Romero movies, that man loves library music.
Speaker 1: He watched Dawn of the Dead. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: they've got the goblin stuff in there, but there's just
Speaker 1: as much library tracks a Knight of the Living Dead
Speaker 1: one hundred percent. If left to his own devices, and
Speaker 1: I know Romero would have copped to this as well,
Speaker 1: it would be nothing but library music, and I can't
Speaker 1: blame him. So Pasqually Buba is sort of like saying,
Speaker 1: you know it's your thing, George, but so here, let
Speaker 1: me do it your way. I mean, there's there's some
Speaker 1: John Harrison's score in here, but I just love hearing
Speaker 1: the same tracks we've heard in a million anthology shows
Speaker 1: and horror things and whatever completely recontextualize here with this
Speaker 1: poor man who can't afford more than ripple red to drink,
Speaker 1: it's like he's.
Speaker 3: A hot take. Like with this one. I think that
Speaker 3: the score dips for shorty Errel. I think the score
Speaker 3: for Creep Show, but as a whole is just phenomenal.
Speaker 3: But with this one in particular, it goes to fifty
Speaker 3: sci fi and too many places. Obviously you can see why,
Speaker 3: but when I listened to it taken away from from
Speaker 3: the film, it just feels out of place. It's really odd.
Speaker 3: And coming back to it because I've listened to the
Speaker 3: score a lot more than I have in recent years
Speaker 3: than watching the film, yeah it's really nos But whereas
Speaker 3: before i'd started listening to schools completely separated from the films,
Speaker 3: I'd never really noticed, but yeah I did, so I
Speaker 3: thought it was a bit of a step down. I'm
Speaker 3: not saying it's rubbish, It's nowhere near rubbish, but I'm
Speaker 3: just saying, like, for me, the rest of it is
Speaker 3: so good.
Speaker 1: Oh, musically this is the least of it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is effectively library tracks, which you know, if you're
Speaker 1: a fanatic like I am, for it. You already have
Speaker 1: all of these albums and you can just go listen
Speaker 1: to them. Hearing it out of hearing those tracks out
Speaker 1: of context from the movie is more rewarding than here
Speaker 1: than hearing them included on a soundtrack, because it's the
Speaker 1: sudden like whoa hey, I'm in Creepshow all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: And yes, I do sometimes just listen to library tracks
Speaker 1: like albums full of them. But the other thing is
Speaker 1: John Harrison, the composer overall for the movie. What he
Speaker 1: does here is what he added to the movie is
Speaker 1: just the sort of synthy kind of counterpoint stuff, and that,
Speaker 1: to me is worse than the library music, which is
Speaker 1: that Oh man, John, Johnny the Day of the Dead score, Baby,
Speaker 1: what do you what are you doing to us here?
Speaker 1: Because uh now you said what a phenomenal soundtrack it is, This,
Speaker 1: without hyperbole, is my favorite movie soundtrack of all time,
Speaker 1: the score for Creep Show, which was initially all he
Speaker 1: was supposed to to record. By the way, initially, Romero
Speaker 1: being Romero, wanted nothing but library tracks for the entire thing,
Speaker 1: thinking it's a comic book movie from the fifties, that'll
Speaker 1: that'll be perfect for it, and then started noticing like, well,
Speaker 1: we kind of need a theme here and there, like
Speaker 1: maybe maybe we can john something to tide you over
Speaker 1: the music in that contains to me one of the
Speaker 1: most clever things I've ever heard in music, where he
Speaker 1: has taken a theme that the one of the characters
Speaker 1: is singing at one point, which is Camptown Races, and
Speaker 1: then he plays that song brew a synthesizer in such
Speaker 1: a mournful way. This is when ted Danson has now
Speaker 1: realized that she's definitely drowning and he's next. There's no
Speaker 1: hope at all. It's this mournful thing. It's Camptown Races,
Speaker 1: and it fucking makes me want to cry.
Speaker 3: It's like in that there is these also I can't
Speaker 3: say any other way than gentle slams, so like they're
Speaker 3: slamming on the keyboard but gently, and it's like a
Speaker 3: throbby thing that happens during it. And I'm just like, God,
Speaker 3: how did you do that? Because I can I can
Speaker 3: feel you slamming those keys, and yet it's not come
Speaker 3: from it's not doing that at all. It's so impressive.
Speaker 1: I've synthesizer at work. Was that it's particular to that
Speaker 1: like if you bang the fuck out of it and
Speaker 1: still come out gentle, maybe.
Speaker 3: It's just so impressive. And I think it was a
Speaker 3: Waxworks record release that I like pre ordered, and I
Speaker 3: loved it so much that I said to them. I
Speaker 3: reached out to him and said, look, you haven't got
Speaker 3: very good distribution in the UK. I'll just buy a
Speaker 3: stack and sell them. And I did. I just bought
Speaker 3: a stack. I don't know. I haven't got any infrastructure
Speaker 3: to do this, so I just went on eBay and
Speaker 3: sold them at a normal price so I could break
Speaker 3: even on them. I just wanted to get these out
Speaker 3: people over here. Oh god, I love it.
Speaker 1: That's fucking noble man. Getting this music out there is
Speaker 1: what we need to be doing. You know, I bought
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. You mentioned you had like
Speaker 1: tape trading in England during the video Nasty Phans for
Speaker 1: for me. Nowadays you can get anything you want just
Speaker 1: by going on Amazon or eBay or whatever. To find
Speaker 1: a movie memorabilia. When I was a kid required a
Speaker 1: certain amount of effort, including like if you would looked
Speaker 1: in the back of Fangoria magazine, there'd be these classifieds
Speaker 1: and you could say people would be selling movie posters,
Speaker 1: books and whatever. So you would send to them and
Speaker 1: get back, you know, the xerox thing, this is what's
Speaker 1: in stock. And there was a there was a trader
Speaker 1: in Florida, Rix Rix was it was the name of it,
Speaker 1: and he sold posters and I bought most of my
Speaker 1: Creep Show posters from this guy. And he was always
Speaker 1: really solid. And he had the Creepshow soundtrack for sale,
Speaker 1: which I could not find on vinyl, that original Verie
Speaker 1: Saraband release. I don't know if I'm saying that right,
Speaker 1: but yeah, the standard kind of release at the time.
Speaker 1: Could not find it anywhere. He had a copy of it,
Speaker 1: sold it to me, and when it arrived it was
Speaker 1: warped from the from the mail and so I could
Speaker 1: listen to three quarters of something and then oh, like that.
Speaker 1: And I wrote back to him and he said, no,
Speaker 1: just send it back. I'll send you a new one.
Speaker 1: And then I met him at a convention like two
Speaker 1: years after that, and I said, hey, I'm the guy
Speaker 1: who bought that Creep Show thing from you was warped.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh my god, I'm so sorry about that,
Speaker 1: you know, like, there's the new one, okay, And I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, of course, and then he said, he
Speaker 1: said that which we're talking I'm talking at least about
Speaker 1: the campdown racist thing. He said, did you hear the
Speaker 1: joke in something to Tide you over? And I said, no,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? And he said, it's Camptown Races.
Speaker 1: Listen to it, and like in my head it suddenly clicked,
Speaker 1: like standing on this convention floor, like, oh, that's that's true.
Speaker 1: So but anyway, the soundtrack itself, that's my experience at
Speaker 1: the soundtrack. Of course, I have it on CD and
Speaker 1: every track sort of I have the I have the
Speaker 1: completely bonkers like completists out there found the disco song
Speaker 1: playing during the that Don't let Go during Father's Day
Speaker 1: when Ed Harris is dancing around, and the footage I'm
Speaker 1: sure he wishes burned. I love all of.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: I mean we talk about iconic scenes. That scene from
Speaker 3: that was one that I could remember. The rest of it,
Speaker 3: I wasn't really into too. So here's the very strangest
Speaker 3: thing with it. Father's Day was one of the ones
Speaker 3: I just wanted to get through before it would kick off.
Speaker 3: As a youngster. No idea why Ed Harris dancing like
Speaker 3: yet burned into my soul. But at the same time
Speaker 3: it was just a so so. And now when I
Speaker 3: watch it, or think about it or read about it,
Speaker 3: I want to know the most about that that set,
Speaker 3: those characters, those actors. I get the way the comic
Speaker 3: book frames the whole thing that is really really present
Speaker 3: in that one. It feels like the most important of
Speaker 3: the whole lot like to set this film up correctly.
Speaker 3: As I say, my initial starts with it was not
Speaker 3: so not big at all. I wasn't bothered about it,
Speaker 3: but like, I wonder how other people felt about it
Speaker 3: when they were growing up. Was that one as important
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid? When I was first a
Speaker 1: fan of the movie, it was actually my favorite segment
Speaker 1: in the film.
Speaker 3: It's so simple, it's too adult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the setup is so evocative of the comics
Speaker 1: of ec comics. It's it's the simplest story. You horrible
Speaker 1: person gets killed for no good reason, comes back because
Speaker 1: the or for good reason, because the people who killed
Speaker 1: him are even worse than him in some way, And
Speaker 1: like I can get behind that. I can also I
Speaker 1: grew up in New England. I grew up in the
Speaker 1: Boston area, just north of Boston, and so I've the
Speaker 1: kind of people that Stephen King are skewering there, sort
Speaker 1: of the old money New Englanders, Like, yeah, man, I
Speaker 1: want to watch them get their heads twisted off and
Speaker 1: turned into cake, you know, like that that was I
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine a more enjoyable time than watching a bunch
Speaker 1: of richer people get theirs when I was nine, you know,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I love this one. And particularly because most
Speaker 1: resurrection scenes for the undead, when they come crawling out
Speaker 1: of the grave. Look, you know, there's only a few
Speaker 1: instances where I can point to and go like, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: And the way that Nate comes out of that ground man,
Speaker 1: where he's tearing the tearing the sod apart and emerging,
Speaker 1: it's so fucking scary that yeah, I just loved him.
Speaker 1: And you know, look, I'm nine years old. The fact
Speaker 1: that he took the head and decorated it and got
Speaker 1: his cake was to me like the greatest bit of
Speaker 1: comedy and horror combined. Like that. I couldn't do better
Speaker 1: than that. And I like the rest of the streets
Speaker 1: you're talking about adult like for me, like a story
Speaker 1: like The Crate while I could you know, appreciate the
Speaker 1: horror of it, like a nine year old me didn't
Speaker 1: give a shit about psycho sexual politics or like you know,
Speaker 1: power dynamics in marriage or like you know, in inter
Speaker 1: art mental politics at colleges, like none of that. That's madness.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, I do appreciate like a maggot Field corpse.
Speaker 3: Like I recently rewatched on the big screen Zombie and
Speaker 3: I just think, oh God, those corpses are so dusty
Speaker 3: and like so well presented. I so believe it. And
Speaker 3: yet like as a comic book Zombie, like this is perfect,
Speaker 3: you would want it like this. Also, I need to
Speaker 3: know is it all Sevini doing that stuff? Because I
Speaker 3: know he's involved in this. Was it ill his work?
Speaker 1: Every bit of horror special effects on cert it's Tom
Speaker 1: Savin here, So yeah, he did the sculpt on Nate.
Speaker 1: I mean he has a team obviously, but yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's him doing that. He what took five months to
Speaker 1: do Fluffy the creature from the Crate. That's all of
Speaker 1: his work.
Speaker 3: Oh my word, all of.
Speaker 1: The something to tide you over the water logged corpses
Speaker 1: was him. You know, even that fantastic bust of E. G.
Speaker 1: Marshall that they have at the end where the roaches
Speaker 1: come pouring out of the chest like that. You know,
Speaker 1: all all all Savini, all the time. Now here's the thing, Paul,
Speaker 1: because not only will you get the bell and whistle
Speaker 1: of that fantastic documentary about it, but if the package
Speaker 1: that you get is worth its weight in anything, it'll
Speaker 1: include Tom Savini's home movies from the set of creeb Show.
Speaker 1: Because Tom Savini always had a VHS camera in his hand,
Speaker 1: that new technology back in eighty two, eighty three or
Speaker 1: eighty one rather, and so he filmed a lot of
Speaker 1: the process of putting all of those things together. In fact,
Speaker 1: I know that you're going to lose your mind because
Speaker 1: he just walks around the SETHS sometimes. So you're in
Speaker 1: that gymnasium and you are walking from ups and Pratt's
Speaker 1: apartment over to Jordi Verel's house. It's fucking Boker's.
Speaker 3: But the second time in this conversation, I've got chills. Now.
Speaker 3: So I know there's like a screen Factory four K
Speaker 3: that came out last year, but I think it was
Speaker 3: a limited edition, and before I knew about it, it
Speaker 3: was so but that what tends to happen. Is if
Speaker 3: something like that happens in America, we'll get it a
Speaker 3: year after and tends to be vice versa as well.
Speaker 3: We get something, you'll get it a little bit later
Speaker 3: on from some different company, So I know it will
Speaker 3: be coming. But yeah, like I'm proper excited about it.
Speaker 3: I've waited years to watch this stuff. But I want
Speaker 3: to have this film presented in such a way that
Speaker 3: just like it can't be better because we don't get
Speaker 3: the chance to watch these things I know in America,
Speaker 3: And god, I wish I could remember what town it was.
Speaker 3: I should take notes. There was a drive a drive
Speaker 3: through so you could just drive your car and watch
Speaker 3: Creep Show, like during the pandemic. That's mental that you
Speaker 3: could see Creep Show and you could drive your car
Speaker 3: and oh god, it's so lucky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we have a drive in here in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, which was one of the worst drive ins
Speaker 1: to go to because it was situated beside a casino
Speaker 1: with a huge, huge blinking sign that was talk about
Speaker 1: light pollution like this town is killer for light pollution.
Speaker 1: And now this is going to sound horrible, but they
Speaker 1: recently demolished like casino, and I got to tell you
Speaker 1: the experience of the drive in is up one thousand percent.
Speaker 1: Now you can actually see the movies. You know what
Speaker 1: movie I saw there? Quarantine? You've seen Quarantine, the remake
Speaker 1: of Wreck.
Speaker 3: Right, I don't mind it. It's okay, not.
Speaker 1: As good as Wreck, but it was passable, except if
Speaker 1: you're trying to watch this dimly lit, basically night vision
Speaker 1: movie with a giant fucking casino light blaring behind it.
Speaker 1: I was like, I squinted the entire time. At the end,
Speaker 1: I was asked if I liked it, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's that cinema baby like, but good to know they're there.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you corrected me on driving. I'm not driving
Speaker 1: through through what to do with McDonald's. Yeah, sorry, that's
Speaker 1: my American top. It's about as it as my memory.
Speaker 1: Of of course, next time we'll pick another segment and then, well,
Speaker 1: you know, i'll test you again. It'll be fine.
Speaker 3: Oh man, you when when we get the four K,
Speaker 3: then I want the test. We'll just do a test show.
Speaker 3: It'll be great. Let's do a.
Speaker 1: Fucking commentary when you get that four.
Speaker 3: Ok don't, don't, oh don't, Okay, I'm gonna I want
Speaker 3: to ask you. I want to wrap this up, but
Speaker 3: we'll ask you a few things. I know we've missed
Speaker 3: a few out and I'm really sorry. I'm running out
Speaker 3: of time, but I want to know with because your
Speaker 3: show is about anthologies, like with regards to not forget
Speaker 3: the TV ones for now, but with film anthologies, is
Speaker 3: this top for you?
Speaker 1: This is the actual perfect anthology for me. I don't
Speaker 1: find any fat in this movie. I don't find any
Speaker 1: misdirection in the movie. I think all the performances are solid,
Speaker 1: the music song. There's nothing I don't like about this movie.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you pushed me, I could probably point
Speaker 1: to one or two things that trouble me a little bit,
Speaker 1: but nothing on the on the order of I didn't
Speaker 1: like that story, or I didn't like the wrap around segment,
Speaker 1: or I didn't like those performances in those segments. Which
Speaker 1: is the joy of anthologies for me, and obviously I
Speaker 1: cover them a lot. Is the variety and the economy.
Speaker 1: I'm of a mind where Edgar Allen Poe thought that
Speaker 1: any piece of fiction should be no longer. It should
Speaker 1: not take you longer to read than a poem. It
Speaker 1: should be in one sitting. As soon as you break
Speaker 1: that spell and put the book down or turn the
Speaker 1: movie off for a moment so you can go to
Speaker 1: the bathroom or whatever, that whatever magic is occurring is gone.
Speaker 1: So anthologies are perfect because each of the stories can
Speaker 1: can be that, and and and it it. I'm saying
Speaker 1: it's I'm saying Creep Shows the best because it doesn't
Speaker 1: have any of the problems. But I don't care if
Speaker 1: one of the segments falls down, because the next one's
Speaker 1: got a chance to be great. And you know, in
Speaker 1: the case with Creep Show, it it came from these. Look,
Speaker 1: it's from fucking Stephen King and George Romero. If if
Speaker 1: you're looking for the best of the best, well it's
Speaker 1: Stephen King writing it, George Romero directing it, Stephen King
Speaker 1: on set for the entire thing to do rewrites. It's
Speaker 1: this team of people like these are I can't overestimate
Speaker 1: my estimation of George Romero and his company of players
Speaker 1: down in Pittsburgh. Look, there are varying degrees. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to argue for Jack's wife. You know, there's always vanilla,
Speaker 1: not necessarily when I'm popping in every once in a while,
Speaker 1: but I am going to watch Night a Living Dead.
Speaker 1: I am going to watch Dawn of the Dead and
Speaker 1: Creep Show and Night Riders and Monkey Shines for fuck's sake,
Speaker 1: you know, I like that movie too. But his best movie,
Speaker 1: I'll get back to why Creep Show's the best anthology.
Speaker 1: His best movie, Paul, not my favorite, But his best movie,
Speaker 1: unqualified is Martin is his vampire film seventy seven.
Speaker 3: Have you seen that, right? Okay, yeah, yeah, I love mine.
Speaker 1: It's grateful love Martin. It's so personal and wonderful and
Speaker 1: just rife with urban decay. Anyway, So you had George Ramira,
Speaker 1: who's got that pedigree going, and Stephen King, like I don't,
Speaker 1: I can't advertise the movie better than that, right, You
Speaker 1: think people would just be falling all over themselves to
Speaker 1: watch it. These days, they've got the Creep Show television series,
Speaker 1: which is a bit of a dilution of the original
Speaker 1: formula as far as I'm concerned, although I love it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just love having the creep around in
Speaker 1: any form. But here's a question for you, Paul. Do
Speaker 1: you think the creep in the wrap around segment was
Speaker 1: he there to help Billy or was he there just
Speaker 1: to kill that dad. Was he there to come with
Speaker 1: Billy in his moment? Murder? That creepy is always murder
Speaker 1: on the moment. What's your favorite anthology film? It's got
Speaker 1: to be creep Show, Baby, one hundred.
Speaker 3: Percent creep Show. I think within creep Show there are
Speaker 3: three ten out of ten stories, the other and nine
Speaker 3: out of Ten's very panantic to rate them, but that's
Speaker 3: what I do on my show. Oh and I don't think.
Speaker 3: I don't think any other anthology has got that high
Speaker 3: a hit rate. It's got my very favorite one ever
Speaker 3: in it with Jordi Verel. I also want to mention,
Speaker 3: if you haven't seen it, have a House of Horror
Speaker 3: episode called The Silent Scream, which I give a ten
Speaker 3: out of ten. Two. It's the one with Peter Cushion
Speaker 3: and Brian Cox. I just think that is as good
Speaker 3: as the Jordi Verel story. But I was trying to think.
Speaker 3: I was going through everything. I love Amicus's Asylum, and
Speaker 3: I think, oh, actually, that's the best wrap around that
Speaker 3: you've ever had in an anthology. I think, I think
Speaker 3: that's amazing, and then I compare it to this one,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, well, technically and yeah, probably for the
Speaker 3: story it's better, but I still prefer creep Show. You know,
Speaker 3: there's something magical about this thing, and yeah, it's got
Speaker 3: a lot to do with my youth. But also when
Speaker 3: you try and pull it away from that, Creepshow has
Speaker 3: these targets that is trying to hit and what is
Speaker 3: trying to be and I think it executes it perfectly,
Speaker 3: and no other film executes it perfectly. Whether it's an
Speaker 3: accident or whether they just lucked out, or whether they
Speaker 3: had this thing meticulously planned from the start, I don't care.
Speaker 3: I'll find out when I get that box set, But
Speaker 3: for me right now, I just there's nothing wrong with it.
Speaker 3: It set out to do a job, and it did
Speaker 3: it perfectly. I can't want anything more as a horror fan.
Speaker 1: Let me just echo what you're saying here about that
Speaker 1: wrap around segment. The reason or the greatest innovation here
Speaker 1: is that they decided early on that they're going to
Speaker 1: have this ode to comic books, and then decided we're
Speaker 1: going to let the comic book tell the stories. So
Speaker 1: we do get a wrap around in how the comic
Speaker 1: comes into our view and where it goes from there,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't interrupt at all. The problem with most
Speaker 1: anthology movies and the reason that Asylum is so good
Speaker 1: it is its own story and now we're hearing the
Speaker 1: stories from the story, and those are characters that we're following,
Speaker 1: and there's an eventual payoff here. It's the lightest of setups,
Speaker 1: which can be death for an anthology movie, but it's
Speaker 1: so definitely handled. Seeing panels of comic books just come
Speaker 1: to life. What more do you need? And not to
Speaker 1: mention that the splash pages that we get to trapes
Speaker 1: past the you know, the muscleman, the joy buzzers and
Speaker 1: exploding cigarettes, you know, like all that wonderful business. Don't
Speaker 1: need a word from anybody. I just need a skeletal
Speaker 1: hand come in every once in a while and magically
Speaker 1: turn the page.
Speaker 3: Man, what else can you say? Well, actually you could
Speaker 3: say a lot more. I think we could probably do
Speaker 3: another couple of hours, like just going through each bit individually.
Speaker 3: But the thing is, here's the thing. There was a
Speaker 3: magic to it, and I worry that I'm going to
Speaker 3: spoil it, which is why I haven't bought any of
Speaker 3: the Blu rays or whatever that have come since there
Speaker 3: are certain films I don't want to Ruin. I remember
Speaker 3: ruining Star Wars for myself with all the behind the
Speaker 3: same things, and just I would satiate myself with it,
Speaker 3: and at the end it spoiled that magic. And I
Speaker 3: really don't want to do that with this one film.
Speaker 3: It's not that one film that I just want to cape.
Speaker 3: Does that sound weird? You know?
Speaker 1: No, it doesn't, because I get that I myself am
Speaker 1: a fiend and can't not spoil everything for myself. I
Speaker 1: need to know exactly what was going on when in
Speaker 1: the greatest and most detailed minutia possible. But I do
Speaker 1: understand having something as sacred as this look if I could.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if there's a movie that I would rather
Speaker 1: not know anything about the making of. No, No, I'm
Speaker 1: I but just flat. But I can appreciate your your
Speaker 1: reverence for the film. But I will also say that
Speaker 1: when that day comes, oh my god, what heaven is
Speaker 1: in storm for you? Mister Paul Waller. Now, Paul, when
Speaker 1: you're not here, you're clearly over there a year in horror,
Speaker 1: But how can people find you when they want to
Speaker 1: find you? And I'm encouraging everyone to find him.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that. Yeah, Well, First of all, thank you
Speaker 3: for the opportunity to come on and chat with you.
Speaker 3: I've loved it, and I do like getting those snippets
Speaker 3: of information as much as I've avoided them my whole life.
Speaker 3: You blow me away that it was in a gymnasium
Speaker 3: for a start, like that might be something that you
Speaker 3: learned twenty years ago, just nonchalantly. But I'm like, what
Speaker 3: so yeah, but if you want to look for me,
Speaker 3: I've actually very much try and not sell a year
Speaker 3: in horror with the band that I was in, It's
Speaker 3: constantly how can we sell ourselves? How can we market it?
Speaker 3: And I just wanted to get away from that. I
Speaker 3: started managing bands like just before COVID happened, and it
Speaker 3: was all about that, and again it lost the magic.
Speaker 3: Music lost its magic for me because it was just businesses.
Speaker 3: So with the podcast, I've just decided let it grow organically.
Speaker 3: Not that like people were ripping my arms off to
Speaker 3: be paid ads or whatever. But whenever it has happened,
Speaker 3: I've just shut it down. I'm not interested. So I
Speaker 3: haven't got social media. I think I started a Facebook
Speaker 3: and then never updated it. I feel really bad about that,
Speaker 3: and a weird thing about Facebook. If I delete one thing,
Speaker 3: I think I've got to delete it all. And that's
Speaker 3: not the case. I can't be bothered to work it out,
Speaker 3: so don't go there that. I have a personal Instagram,
Speaker 3: which is woll And not Weller, So if you are interested,
Speaker 3: come along there. But wherever you listen to podcasts, just
Speaker 3: type in a year in horror and you'll get me.
Speaker 3: And if you enjoy it, keep listening. That's all I
Speaker 3: want to say about it. I've done it as a
Speaker 3: personal thing. I knew I would have a small audience
Speaker 3: because my music stuff meant that people would listen and
Speaker 3: decide whether they liked it or not. And love lovely
Speaker 3: stuff has happened because I've discovered a horror community where
Speaker 3: I just knew there was one, cos fangoria exists, you know,
Speaker 3: and these people like you, like many of my regular guests,
Speaker 3: they're the best, and like, this is the best thing
Speaker 3: that honestly has ever happened to me apart from my marriage.
Speaker 3: You know. It's just so incredible to me all these
Speaker 3: people that feel the same way about movies as I do.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's why I'm doing it. What else can
Speaker 3: I say about it? It's just like if you want
Speaker 3: to find me, the best place to do is just
Speaker 3: type it into wherever you listen to your podcasts. And
Speaker 3: if you don't like fair, you know whatever, it's good.
Speaker 1: And if you are looking the links here in the
Speaker 1: comments or whatever the fuck it is the description I'm
Speaker 1: going to link to your podcast, you're not selling it.
Speaker 1: I am, ladies and gentlemen. Once again, midnight viewers, thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us here. Oh I gotta I gotta
Speaker 1: plug my own self shit. Okay at midnight viewing you're
Speaker 1: listening to it here. But all of the other shows
Speaker 1: I do. I do a half hour radio drama called
Speaker 1: Dark Destinations. I co host a podcast about the television
Speaker 1: series Taxi called Night Mister Walters. That is HP's show.
Speaker 1: I'm his co host on that, and frequent appearance is
Speaker 1: over on the Projection Booth and the Culture Cast. Both
Speaker 1: those shows are definitely worth checking out. Everything is that
Speaker 1: weirding Way Media. If you want to support this show
Speaker 1: in any way, and we'd really appreciate it if you did,
Speaker 1: that is Patreon dot com slash father Malone. Until next time,
Speaker 1: try to enjoy the daylight. Actually no, that's the usual
Speaker 1: sign off, but that's because we're entails from the dark
Speaker 1: side Land. What's the what's the creep show version? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's the most fun you'll ever have being scared
Speaker 2: Ulong the hallw