Pop Culture Retro's Favorite Horror Movies by Decade: Part Two: 1980s - 2010s

welcome to pop culture retro which was

recently voted the 15th best podcast by

the residents of the golden years

retirement community in boca raton

florida each show will revisit some of

your favorite pop culture memories with

insider and outsider perspectives

now please help me welcome your hosts

ike eisenmann and jonathan rosen

[Music]

hello and welcome to another edition of

pop culture retro

i'm one of your hosts jonathan rosen

along with ike eisenman and we're going

to do

the our second part of our favorite

horror movies by decade

and we're going to go this week with the

1980s and this is going to be a fun one

1980s to 2010s but before we do

today is

october 27th wednesday october 27th and

this weekend you have something coming

up in orlando you have a film festival

yes and we've got to plug it

so

october 29th and october 30th october

29th at four o'clock october 30th at 8

p.m

tell us a little bit about that so our

viewers whoever's in orlando can go see

it

well there's a

truly lovely um documentary that has

been made um

i want to say about me but featuring

featuring me in in in most of the story

um

it is called deer ike lost letters to a

teen idol and it's made by um an

incredible filmmaker dion labriola

who um

i'll try to it

it's it's it it's such an interesting

film and i and by the way i just want to

say that i've seen it and it's fantastic

no

well thank you i'm really i say thank

you i i was just involved in it i

i didn't have anything to do with making

it but dion is

really did make a beautiful film and it

was about his experience as um as a

teenager uh trying to write to me

um and get letters to me and i which i

never received and he embarked on this

epic journey to try to contact me

because he had high hopes as a young

person to be a filmmaker and an animator

and and learn through various sources

about how i had similar interests and

just knew that we should be working

together on his on his

huge big epic animation project

and but yet uh he never never got into

contact with me and through a series of

you know as life

uh bears out coins incredible

coincidences um

ended up meeting somebody was a good

friend of mine and then we ended up

coming

coming together and he had this idea to

make this film about this this whole

experience and it's it's it's really

lovely and it's it's uh screening at the

orlando film festival as as you said on

october 20th 29th um at 4pm and saturday

the 30th

at um 8 p.m i'm going to be attending

both screenings so

um hopefully we won't have too big of a

mad rush but uh would love to see

anybody would like to come to see the

film

um

yeah i'm not sure if we're doing a q a

or not but i will

i will be there the filmmaker will be

there the producer and my dear friend

andy steinlin will be there so it's

going to be uh a really uh really great

event so um would love to see love to

see people well

check it out you can start putting your

questions in the comments here maybe we

could address them on the show and we're

going to try to

we're going to try to have uh dion on

the show one week yes we are absolutely

definitely definitely in the near future

i i've got to say i i saw this film and

it was it was funny it was heartwarming

uh there was some really sweet you know

even like bittersweet a little bit

moments in uh this film and uh really

touching parts in this

well thank you i'm i'm glad to hear that

it's it's it's been getting a great

reception and i'm really super happy for

for dion he did a an amazing job with

something that's that's a little even

hard to comprehend as

when i worked on it i didn't quite

understand what it was going to be as he

worked on he interviewed me and then and

then built this film around the

interview and other interviews that he

has in it and it's it's it's it's

amazing it's very different and it's

really yes it's all a true it's a true

story it's a it's a true story which is

um

which also just makes it that much more

rich

for me so there it is i hope people come

out to see it i hope uh i hope you know

a lot of people whoever's in the orlando

area please make sure you go check that

out

and uh now i guess let's go on to uh our

horrors

all right

uh we're going to go 19 we're going to

start with 1980s and

now

it's we're starting with me this week i

know

here's where we go

everyone get all the comments every

single one

along the rest of the way is going to be

my my hybrid humor horror hybrid from

every decade

and

uh there were so many fun ones in the

80s and i don't want to

well i'm not going to mention one

because i know that you are picked for

the 80s so i won't mention that one

but there was there was also the lost

boys there was poltergeist

fright night

all these fun halloween i mean

a nightmare on armstrong i love freddy

krueger too uh all these really fun ones

in the 80s but

i went with

here we go i went with gremlins gremlins

is my favorite one because you still had

the scary moment and you still had it

i've watched it we talked about

re-watchability last week

i've watched that i don't know how many

hundreds of times gremlins and it's i

still love that movie i it still cracks

me up there are still some scary parts

some really disturbing scary parts in

there too but uh

i just love that movie that's a great

that's a great pick because i i i

it's funny it was taught the documentary

filmmaker that i did an interview for

regarding um 80s sci-fi movies he had

done uh

the 80s

horror films also and when he was giving

me the list of all the sci-fi films i

didn't see gremlins on it and so i asked

him about it he said no i covered that

in the horror

horror side and i thought yeah i guess

of course absolutely it would be i i

kind of think it's a little bit more

science more science fiction than horror

but but

not not at all and i think that's a

great pick i i loved

i loved the movie um

and i've watched it many times too i

haven't seen it in a very long time

and i have a um

i think a fascinating insider story

about yeah about that where that comes

up

yeah i i um i i had had an actual

interesting kind of impromptu meeting

with steven spielberg on the set of um

the twilight zone and um

wait how how we've been doing this for

how many months and this is the first

time you you bring up we'll see yeah

i love it i love to save these things

for for the show to share with everybody

um but uh yeah i had to i had to meet

with him very briefly on the set

and um

and as i'm standing there chatting with

him this guy comes up

with this little doll in his hands

and he's waiting patiently as he and as

stephen and i are talking

and suddenly stephen says okay wait a

minute just give me a second here and he

says he says what have you got

i remember the guy's name but he says

here here's the final here's the final

for you and he holds up gizmo i mean oh

wow like and i i had no idea what it

what it was

and and steve looked at me says i love

it it's perfect let's go with that

and then we went back and had our chat

and that was that was the like the end

of my interaction with with spielberg

but i didn't know until i saw gremlins

that i was one of the first people

to see

gizmo

like the final version of the little

doll and it was just he was just there

with his big eyes and i thought i

thought it was the coolest little

creature i'd ever seen and i thought my

god it's spielberg what could this be

about and i had no idea and of course i

wasn't going to ask him because what was

he going to tell me

you know so

so yeah i have that little claim to fame

when it comes to gizmo spielberg and i

were both standing there when he when he

uh when he yeah when he um decided that

that was the perfect uh character for

the film so there it is

ike eisenmann

gizmo before anyone else oh yeah before

anybody else so yeah yeah that's how

cool i am

that is awesome

yeah

yeah it was a blast but no i love that

film i love that film it's just uh it

cracks me up there's it's so to me it's

so funny a lot of it too but they're

definitely like i said there are some

and i i know that they were supposed to

be even sicker but i mean we have

gremlins getting

exploding in the microwave originally i

think they were supposed to kill the dog

they changed it because they didn't want

to harm the animal

you know so too oh thank goodness yeah

yeah so

no the microwave moment i think is my

favorite in the whole film yeah just

like

i mean they do kill people i mean they

really they kill you

yeah but each one is like kind of a

funny way that they do it

but it's yeah it's really gruesome a lot

of the scenes in there

i need to watch it again it's been a

long time and i think it'd be fun

especially during this season so maybe

by the time he shows on this this show

posts i will have uh i will check it out

again well it's one of the things that i

watch every around every christmas time

every you know every december time i

it's one of the movies that i throw on

there

[Laughter]

well since you already know my pick

everyone probably can guess my pick it's

the shining

um

i um i i

of course it's a stanley kubrick film of

course it's controversial in so many

ways because

um because stephen king hated it so much

um

and i can completely understand why

but

um i had not read the book the shining

before seeing the movie for the first

time

and this often happens for me with

stephen with some stanley kubrick films

which is interesting

um for me anyway

they don't always impact me as much

on the first my first viewing as they do

subsequent view views as i watch the

films over and over and over again

the shining kind of caught me off guard

when i saw it in the theater for the

first time and i

i

i was so excited because it was another

stanley kubrick film because i've been a

kubrick fan since i was very young as

i've said many times

and

and and

it

it fit the horror genre

perfectly but it was such a different

kind of horror movie that i didn't quite

know how to take it at first

and um

and also this is just a

historically interesting fact about the

film as a film

um

this is talked about in if anyone has

the dvd or the bonus features for the

shining in any online um version of it

there's a documentary

that was made about the making of the

shining by um by kubrick's daughter

which is an incredible um documentary to

see um you know just gives a little bit

of insight into you know the filmmaking

of course and kubrick's style of

filmmaking

but she also does a commentary track

over the documentary and talks about

making the documentary and some some

details about the shining

and she brought up this particular

glitch that happened the worst thing

that can happen

during the making of a film

happened

on the shining

during the shooting of the very last

shot and i'm getting to this i'm getting

this anecdote before i sort of talk

about why i like it so much now but but

it was one of the things that

unfortunately pulled me out of the film

at the very end and made it very

difficult to to focus

was the the the end of this film which

is the big reveal that um

you know the jack nicholson's character

has really been haunting this you know

establishment all along

by the camera pushing in through the

space and ending on a close-up of this

photograph showing him in the front back

in the 30s or 20s or something like that

so that's the big reveal at the end it's

like okay it's always been him all the

time and now we know but this was a very

long

complicated

essentially complicated shot

that once they had when i saw it in the

theater as the shot's moving along

all of a sudden out of the blue this

black

scratch mark in the film is just there

this big

black

line

and and it's wavering a little bit and

i'm looking at it going

oh my god

this is a this is a scratch negative

there was a scratch negative

why did they use this why wouldn't he

re-shot this shot

and fixed this

and of course this is back in the film

days and then we have digital and we

have all kinds of ways to fix things

like that but but

but i learned through this documentary

and i didn't underst i didn't know

anything about it at the time because it

was never talked about in the trades or

anywhere else but apparently

they had completed that shot

they got the take they wanted and yes

there was

inside of a 35 millimeter camera there's

what they call the gate which is this

little this piece of metal that film is

pulled through

and

throughout my entire career every time

every time we finished a shot or a scene

um

the assistant cameraman would say okay

before we before we move on let me check

the gate and he opens up the camera

looks at the gate to see if there's any

dirt or any

burrs or anything that might have

scratched the film

positive

um

and there have been times when when

they've said yeah i think we've got some

dirt in here let me clean the gate and

let's shoot one more take for safety so

we've done this before and that's it's a

common practice and somehow

the most technically savvy

insanely detail-oriented filmmaker of

all time ended up with a shot in his

film where there was a scratch on the on

on the film

they didn't see it

at the time when they shot they wrapped

the film it was the last thing they did

at the end of the film

and by the time the film was processed

they had already started tearing down

the set

and so they could not go back rebuild it

and reshoot this scene again they like

he literally had to use a scratched

negative

to um to

to

for the final shot and of course all

versions of the shining now has the

digitally restored

um shot so you you don't see that but i

just remember watching this watching the

film and thinking

okay

i i i i like this and i want to like

this i don't know if i do like this and

then oh my gosh the last scene

you there's a scratch there's a scratch

print and i thought

what on earth is going on here so all

that being said

by the time it you know i ended up going

back to the theater and watching it

again and thinking oh my god this is a

really freaking freaky film and then it

coming out on dvd i started watching it

over and over and over again and i got

drawn into it more and more and more and

every time i see the film now i get more

out of it

but it's like the score the

the music score which is the thing that

i mean if you watched it in silence it

wouldn't it wouldn't make you

uncomfortable at all it wouldn't be

really that terrifying but the way he

used the film score it's much like it

reminds me of psycho it reminds me of

psycho because the music

as simple as psycho was the music and

the shining is very complex very

complicated very atmospheric and

ethereal and he used the same composer

that he used on 2001 and i never

pronounced his name right jor george

georgie legetti

um

who does these incredibly abstract and

strange

pieces of music and they're so

like almost cartoonish in their in their

in their horror it in in in in the

horror support of the movie and

and there are moments where i still jump

because the music builds to a pitch and

then cuts cuts to silence

in a way that's almost like that flash

that horror films will do flash the

creature at you flash the blood at you

flash the knife at you it's these it's

the exact opposite in this film where

all of a sudden taking it away

is as terrifying as having it come out

at you

and i still think i still think you can

you can match me for horror movies

slasher movie period

the most terrifying moment in any horror

film

because the tension was built so

flawlessly is when

scat man crothers is coming is finally

gets to the hotel and he's finally

walking through and you spend so much

time with him that you think okay

what's he going to find

where is he going to go how far is he

going to go and all of a sudden jack

nicholson comes out and and kills him

with an axe and it's like that's it he's

dead their only hope of surviv of

escaping and it just it comes out of

nowhere it comes for me and i still love

that moment to this day and i just think

the re like

yeah okay i'm gonna contain myself so

don't go on too much

but what what i like about it is that

there are no there are no tricks there

are no special effects on this movie

it's pure cinema

pure cinema

the use of brilliant editing

to

you know especially when you go into the

bar with jack nicholson and he's in

there by himself it's completely empty

and he looks up and just starts talking

to a guy and you cut and then there's

the bartender and there's the bar full

of full of booze behind him it's on an

edit it's on a moment it's not like it

fades in you know like the ghost is

fading in it's just

it's all handled through pure

pure cinematic artistry and i think

that's that's what i admire the most

about it and um and yeah and i watch it

every halloween now i only watch it

every halloween because i've seen it so

many times i don't want to oversee it

but i i i

it's it's just yet another one of those

movies that i can watch oh i can watch

endlessly and and

absolutely get lost in and thoroughly

enjoy

a great great movie no i i agree with

you it's a great movie it is one of my

favorites too uh i

like you i understand why stephen king

did not like it based on his book

and i you and i have said this before

and i know this is blasphemous to a lot

of people

i like it more than the book i like the

movie more than the book and you know

i know we'll get killed for that oh i

know no i mean i think we have talked

about it before i i only read the the

shining um as a novel in the last uh

year year and a half because i thought i

thought i need to you know i said this

is what i do it's part of it's part of

what i enjoy is

is you know

um experiencing the sources of these

of these great movies um if i haven't

read them first and i did not read the

shining like i said the movie was my my

experience of it and

and i think i've said this before and i

think this quote is out there somewhere

so it's not something that only i've

heard about but

what

what

kubrick his comment about was and i

don't like the book i do not enjoy the

book i thought the book was was like it

was not scary to me

um it had entirely it was too thick it

had too much backstory about too many

things that just didn't add up to enough

to create the kind of terror that i

would expect i think from stephen king

um and yes it is blasphemy i know i i'm

i'm i'm going to get um lambasted for

this but

kubrick said he wrote

he wrote half

he wrote a really good ghost story and

then destroyed it

it was like he was writing this great

ghost story and then he destroyed it

himself

so

kubrick simply took out everything that

he thought was what made it a really

great ghost story and then and then made

his own version of it but you know the

man was powerful enough how do you how

do you not give stanley kubrick the

rights to your novel but he's also

clever where he's going to take the

rights and he's not going to give you

any say whatsoever in what he does with

them uh

he had that he had that clout also yeah

yeah yeah oh yeah that's what i mean

yeah he did this he did the same thing

with um with uh with full metal jacket

uh

that was also based on a short brilliant

short novel and we just need to save

this

yeah we'll have to save it for no it's

one of the best novels you will ever

read and it's the only one

gustav hosford as the author and it was

called the short timers it's a it is it

it's it's it's not a very dense book at

all but it's the prose is incredible you

know to have a true artist who who you

know just

um a true artist who was actually a

soldier in vietnam

and and was able to take his actual

personal experiences and and

and transcend it

in a piece of art it's incredible it's

like it is one of the best novels i've

i've ever read but it's also an example

of how kubrick would take something and

take what he thought were the best parts

of it and

and turn it into his his own his own

movie

well my my horror loving daughter uh

maya loves that movie too she loves the

shining and uh

that's what she she watches several

times have you have you seen ready

player one have i seen ready player one

yeah i couldn't get through it i really

yeah i read that this was the one where

i read the book first

and i really enjoyed the book i thought

i thought it was fascinating i thought

it was

very entertaining and drew me through it

well

and then i go i went to watch the movie

and i got 20 minutes in i said i can't

sleep like this oh i i enjoyed the movie

but there's a big shining scene in there

that's why i had no idea i had no idea

um

yeah no i have some friends who who felt

the same way about the movie they just

said oh god it was just terrible but

they watched the whole thing i just

couldn't do it and i oh i i enjoyed it i

did enjoy it

that's why i'm actually maybe you want

to be first fast forward to that part

because okay well i'll have to i have to

give it a shot you know it's like i i i

also cut things off because as i've

talked about my movie going partner my

wife you know her patience runs out

after 20 minutes and if the second i see

her pick up her phone and go to facebook

while we're watching a movie i say okay

are we done with this and she says i'm

done with it

and that that happened with ready player

one for sure

it's an integral part to the

to the movie is the shining scene

oh that's fascinating okay good there we

go so you're gonna have to watch that

part that's why i reminded me of that

because uh that is part of it because

they visit a lot of different 80s movies

in there and that's one of them

cool awesome awesome awesome okay well i

will definitely do that all right here

we go so okay so we're gonna go on to

the 90s now yeah and

you did spoil it last episode for me but

i'm going to say it here it is it

there were some really good ones here

too but my favorite is from dusk till

dawn

and

and it's one of the movies and we

mentioned it last last week

it's i loved it because

it like we said it starts off as one

type of movie

and halfway through it becomes something

else is it this is not the movie you

think you're watching yeah you know it's

uh you know you have all these criminals

on the run and uh psychotic and then all

of a sudden we're vampires and there's

no clue of vampires anywhere in the

first part of the movie that this is

what it's going to be about i mean you

know from going in from the trailers but

it starts off as something else entirely

and that's what makes it so much fun and

the scary you know that you're now

you're now rooting

these bad guys are despicable and now

you're rooting for these bad guys to get

out because we're facing off with these

vampires

so it was it was just so much fun

another another tarantino

uh movie

uh

he didn't direct it but he wrote it but

it was just

everything was in it the the vampires

were fun we have uh we have like old

stars of horror movies from the past

in it too

and it was it was just i enjoy it i've

watched it so many times there too

because it is funny as well there's a

lot of humor in this movie and so and

that's what i love i love those horror

humor hybrids

and uh when i did my book i mean from uh

you know from sunset till sunrise a lot

that's what i had in mind this movie

yeah of course writing it you know

putting in all the trying to

come up with new ways to to address the

vampire tropes

and so uh it's just it's something that

i will watch every now and then and i'll

even fast forward until we get to the

vampire

because i love from that point on it's

just so much fun

i haven't seen it in so long um

and and we're talking about this in our

part one of this which i want to bring

up back up now because of the image you

have behind you psycho we were talking

about how that's such a pivotal film and

storytelling period let alone movies

where the heroine is killed off halfway

through and it becomes a completely

different movie and i brought up from

dustil dawn because i recalled that

that's what it

what it was it was one of the few

examples

in contemporary film history where you

know

where a storyteller has has tried

to uh

try to do that would shift the entire

story halfway halfway through where you

don't know what you're watching

anymore your actual film is something

completely different i think david lynch

did it in um it might have been lost

highway

um

where

he he did something of course

not bizarre for him but bizarre in

general and i think that's the film it

could be a different one where the lead

um

i don't know if he's not necessarily the

protagonist he might be essentially kind

of the villain in the story

it changes completely

it's a completely different person it

starts out one guy who ends up getting

caught going to jail and overnight in

jail he turns into a completely

different character he's just a

different person

and and and they have to let him out of

jail because they think what happened to

the guy we caught or something like this

it's been a long time since i've seen it

so

he tried to tell us a david lynchian

kind of

horror story where the where the the

main character shifts halfway through

but for no reason he just becomes

something no explanation no reason he's

just a different person and that's all

there is to it so um it's an interesting

i think storytelling challenge and i

need to watch from dustil dawn again

because it's been a long time and i

think i would really enjoy it um even

even more now because it's like i said

it's it's been a long time

fun fun movie all right

this one i could not tell which one you

like i mean i don't even want to mention

it until you mention your movie because

there were some fun ones there so but

let me hear yours first oh okay well i'd

show i chose the blair witch project um

and i'm gonna start

going forward i'm gonna start qualifying

my my horror choices

because

after the not after the shining it's not

so much that but

as my um

as my

film or my movie tastes

have further evolved

i just the horror genre was just not

something that drew me

really drew me in and um i saw from

dustil dawn on the list i thought i

should pick that one and i thought well

you know what i don't remember it well

enough to talk about it

and i'm glad you did but that would have

been one of my other picks and then of

course i come across the blair witch

project and i thought you know what i've

really got to give this this film it's

due

because it was so groundbreaking in so

many ways

and i've i found it to be a really

really really truly unnerving

um

scary ass story uh because it's a

mockumentary it was like mockumentaries

had been done before but in different

ways some of them i i i think there was

some other example like even that the

filmmakers probably

um

were influenced by that was that was a

horror

kind of mockumentary but

but just as

just as someone again in the industry

that that truly admired innovation of

any kind it was it was just

it was it was just way too smart i mean

they purposely

hired unknown actors so that they could

potentially get away with the mythology

of this actually somehow being real the

marketing for it was beyond amazing and

and and had been going on for so many

months before the film came out even

though it got a lot of buzz it was a big

deal at sundance that's where it was

screened and picked up by artisan i

think it was artisan pictures

um but but

um

but but you're following these

filmmakers going out on a journey to

find you know the blair witch

to see if it's true or real or not and

then getting caught up in the actual

the actual

potential exposure to all this it was

unresolved nothing was ever really

resolved and yet all these creepy things

were happening throughout it and all you

do is you see it and the handheld camera

um

as they're going along and

and

i i just i i i

i it it's not a particularly good film

that's that's what's so interesting

about it

um

[Music]

i i i hesitate to say that it's almost

like

they they edited it they they made it a

film

intentionally not

following

it does follow certain conventions of

storytelling but then it drops off and

it just drops off at the end in such an

interesting way that leaves you sitting

there going

what the heck is going on and you walk

out with more questions and answers and

i think that's what i kind of liked

about it they drew me through it they

really really made me uncomfortable and

real i thought it was some just

fascinating new

ideas for the horror genre that that

that hadn't been explored before but the

whole mockumentary concept of it

i thought was was just incredibly clever

i agree i thought it was scary i do

think it was a scary movie uh

at the end really i thought it was

really scary the end the ending but i i

have talked to you this before

i can't watch it again

i i hated it the first time just because

that the movie got me sick and i mean

not just sick

to the movie just literally sick because

i got so dizzy and nauseous watching

that shaky hand-held cam

with it and i read so many things that

the the actors were just given a basic

synopsis kind of of what has to be done

today and they just let them go a lot of

it was just improvisation you know just

actors on the spur of the moment uh i

read something even yet last night

preparing for this that

uh that they even gave them less food

further into the days to get the actors

crankier to have them like you know

build detention and attack each other as

what they're going along but i i could

not watch it i got so dizzy halfway

through this movie that i couldn't wait

for it to end

yeah that was a huge complaint for a lot

of people um and and i saw it in the

theater of course and it was very hard

when you're watching on even a

you know flat screen tv today it's not

it still might be for you because it is

for a lot of people but the camera shake

does not um is not as

is not as

i don't i don't think jarring as it was

seeing it in a movie theater because

they

they

either overdid it or even increased the

the shakiness of the camera at times

when they thought that the filmmakers

had were holding it too steady

um and and yeah a lot of people

complained about getting nauseous or

dizzy or sick and just

and

couldn't stand it from from that

standpoint so it was a big complaint

mention it to you you i mean you did the

the homage i guess the the blair witch

mountain project which i thought was i

thought was brilliant to do

and to to revisit it but

and yours was fun and yours was like

what would maybe like 15 minutes the

whole movie i don't know maybe 12 yeah

12 minutes yes 12 something like that

and

even that the 15 minutes 12 minutes

was starting to get to me because there

were a lot of parts just the the

handheld thing and i thought yours was

fun because visibly visiting which

mountain if you haven't seen it go see

it you know you can you can find it you

can find it plenty of places there but

it it really

it got to me but

well that was one of the that was one of

the things because after the blair witch

project came out

um

people started doing spoofs they were

doing like it was like the blair

there were there were so many spoofs of

the film comedians were doing it

filmmakers were doing it you know just

amateur

filmmakers were doing it and and

the the requirements to qualify it

became a

like a sub genre to qualify for it you

had you had all the set pieces that you

had to you had to have you had to i

didn't really have it in in mine

necessarily but you had to have the

close-up of the snotty nose character

crying into the camera you had to show

the teeth you know the bloody teeth you

had that and it had to be shaky handheld

if it wasn't then it wasn't you weren't

spoofing it at all

and and

it actually actually the idea to do it

just hit me out of the blue because

there were all these spoofs they were

coming out there were hundreds of them

literally hundreds of them and i was

walking through my house and mtv i don't

know some entertainment show was talking

about the latest

blair witch spoof and i just i just said

the blair witch and literally

rolled off my tongue the blair witch

mountain project and i went oh my gosh

that's way too funny i've got to do this

i've got to do this

and so it turned into be it it ended up

being such an incredibly fun um project

to do and

and i i got kim richards you know

helped me out with it

he's in it brad savage is in it

christian shutner and dick mccallion and

so i i had i i everybody that was around

that was willing to work with me on it i

had i had in it it was just it was so

much fun to do and it ended up being

voted one of the top 10 blair witch

spoofs

yeah there was a

short film district distribution company

called ifilm and actually if you look at

imdb it's still listed as one of the top

10 blair ridge spoofs wow um yeah so it

it it got some traction as far as as far

as that goes but i had so much fun

making it but anyway digressing

digressing

well let's i would recommend people see

it okay now we're going to move on to

the 2000s where

okay

you're going to probably guess it

because i've told you to watch it anyway

but it's not even it's not only in my

top horror film of that decade it's in

my probably my top 10 movies of

my favorites period so

we have shawn of the dead is my 2000s

pick

again the horror comedy i thought

this was brilliantly done getting all

the

zombie

tropes into the movie uh just so much

fun it's another one that i'll probably

rewatch once a year as well

and i just love the simon pegg you know

just edgar wright

great great film if you haven't to me

it's still my favorite zombie movie

uh period and there's some really good

ones a zombieland also came out that

decade but sean of the dead to me it

trumps them all uh you know i just love

this movie i can't even express enough

about this movie and there's some other

good ones in here and i don't know about

what yours is i really don't i looked at

that decade besides zombieland there was

panzer labyrinth which was great uh

coraline which was so much fun too

to me but sean of the dead is it

well i i picked it too and i i uh

yeah oh yeah i did absolutely wow and

and yeah

as you were just sharing you

recommended that i that i watch it for

and i'm outing us a project that we're

working on together and and i i it was

it was a movie i'll be honest with you i

had zero interest in seeing i'd never

cared

when it came out i thought sean of the

dead oh god a zombie movie oh jeez i

don't know

and i you know i wasn't necessarily

familiar with uh with simon pegg

excuse me simon pegg

um

and

i couldn't figure out how you could make

a zombie movie funny i mean i just i

judged it harshly uh from from a

distance so i

in and again like i said before my taste

is was moving away from horror films so

it's like not something that i really i

really

you know was was interested it just

wasn't on my radar so when you suggested

that i watch it you talk so highly

spoke so highly of it i thought okay i'm

going to sit down and watch it i

flipping loved it i absolutely

loved it

and and yeah no no no i mean it's it's

it's

it is it's it's beyond

you know it did it it did something

extraordinarily difficult it it

it's a horrific film and it doesn't get

horrific until very deep into the movie

i mean and i say that because they use

the zombie i mean the comedy elements

are

there off the bat from the first frame

of the film you start get you start

smirking and giggling because simon

pegg's character is just so pathetic and

he's just so awkward and he's you know

when you when you think about

i mean this has always been kind of even

adam sandler's go-to

um

you know

yeah i'll play a character that does

dumb things but only to get my

girlfriend back

if you know if i can get my girlfriend

back i'll do the dumbest things you you

anyone any filmmaker wants to wants me

to do and that's that's he's he's

reshaped screenplays based upon that

simple

um that simple the simple direct so

that's what this film is he's just

trying to get his girlfriend back that's

that's that he screwed up his entire

relationship and yet he's in the midst

of a zombie apocalypse and all these

characters are and yeah i'm going on

about it because i just want to i want

to fill in my you know my thoughts

you really like the friendships this

small group of people that end up being

stuck in a place to try to figure out

how to survive zombies that are

everywhere and they just keep coming

more and more and more of them come out

there are some really

you know just chilling moments where

they have to kill a zombie here or there

and it's done again with that in that

way that i enjoy and appreciate so much

it's done cinematically you see them

beating the brains out of of some zombie

but you don't see it because it's off

camera you just see them smashing it

with whatever

instrument they've got to

affect the end of this creature you

could just imagine how ugly it is and

most movies would show you that right

off the bat just for the shock value of

it but they hold off a long time until

you've got this tight group of people

that are trying to survive and then all

of a sudden

four of them just get wiped out in the

in in in three or four minutes and the

first one that does is torn apart on

camera by this whole group of zombies

his guts are ripped out his arms are

pulled up he's dismem oh and i just sat

there going oh my god this is horrifying

this is so horrifying

and and

and oh god it's well crafted it's

incredibly well crafted especially the

way the the filmmaker

and and i did read the script first

which was quite fun for me to do because

i enjoyed doing that every once in a

while getting a chance to read it and

then see how it's interpreted on film

the way the director would

drop in

the

the the hints about about the zombies

early on i mean very very early on where

you might see a piece of one or maybe

not or maybe it started you're starting

to see something you're thinking what

the heck is that i mean you know what it

is because it's a zombie movie but

but the way that was pieced out i just

thought was incredibly clever and um

you know the use just you know this is a

this is a trope or you know it's a

convention but using you know news

flashes to fill in the backstory to

explain what's going on was so cleverly

done

i i i yeah i i absolutely i absolutely

uh i absolutely loved it i really did

and oh and i'm pleased yeah yeah there

you go so we do had we did have one in

common one one we made it all you have

little faith

but that's primarily because you made me

watch it because if i hadn't watched it

i wouldn't know what to pick from that

decade i've never been able to watch

pan's labyrinth because i don't want to

read subtitles and i know that's

horrible um i i totally respect i is it

is that guillermo del toro yes another

one of my daughter's favorite

spanish filmmaker i've actually worked

on a couple of his films um and i

totally respect him wanting to keep it

in the spanish language i think that was

absolutely um

a wonderful thing to do and never and

never dub it but i just don't want i i

don't enjoy reading subtitles um

yeah the only one i ever did the only

one i ever did enjoy was uh dust boat

and i did see it in the theater with

subtitles that's easier on the big

screen for me than even glancing up and

down

at home so yeah that's my uh that's my

favorite is a good movie

i i have no doubt i mean it's like on a

bunch of lists and it's been hailed and

praised and i would i'm going to have to

force myself to watch it uh one day you

know so they're

well one of the one of them i didn't

pick this in

time i didn't pick it as my favorite but

there's one of the dead

actually which is i think i've heard of

that that sounds hilarious really funny

movie there

it's it's you know said in cuba and they

think that uh they think that the the

zombies are like you know americans

trying to invade them

it's very

very funny film it also and i i do love

it and i did did not pick it

i'm going to get absolutely killed and i

was going between two

but and one of them

we talked about this week you and i was

tucker and dale versus evil i didn't

pick that either but that was it was

that was my toss-up one

but here we go all right please and as

like i said before i welcome your

comments but

i picked just because it's so much fun

and i've watched this dozens and dozens

of time was goosebumps i do love the

series i love the series of books

i thought the first movie was just

incredibly fun i love jack black and

anything he does also

and

this was such a fun movie and they had

they did have legitimate scares in here

with the dummy

but i could watch that again and again

and again and it's funny and scary and

like i said i do love the books too so

i went with goosebumps

as my 2010s

well i had i have not seen goosebumps

i'm a big jack black fan as well

and i i have not seen it so i'm going to

have to watch it now that you've

qualified it that way

um

but but here i go i just don't watch

horror movies and yet i have watched two

from the 2010s and i'm gonna get

beat up for this also i didn't really

like either one of these but because

i've seen them and i have to make a pick

of the two that i didn't really care for

i'm going to pick a quiet place

and the other one is get out

i i thought it had so much about it that

was absolutely fantastic but overall

first i i and i don't know how to

qualify this or explain this but i think

the same thing happened for me with a

quiet place

as well as get out that there's there's

there's something that's being diluted

in movies these days

that

that

either the writers of the

filmmakers i i don't know what it is but

it's like they don't quite seem to reach

that pitch that i need to get excited

about them despite how well-made they

are and how much they draw me along

um because

we all know you know the the climax of

the film is everything if you if if you

don't give a real payoff

to what you've set up then

then you lose me and of course you're

going to lose a lot of other people and

these are wildly popular films they're

they're um they're they're they're

highly regarded and um

um but in picking the quite a quiet

place i was disappointed probably

because i read the original screenplay

again before i watched the movie and

um

the you know the

the director rewrote the script he he

kind of gutted some of what i thought

were the more interesting things

that gave the story some depth

and um

and

one one of the aspects of the script

that really caught me

um and i felt like the moment in the

actual film was lost um he's the father

character

and they're they're trying to obviously

survive in this in this environment

where these alien uh these alien

creatures hunt by sound they're blind

they hunt by sound so being stuck out on

a farm away from civilization with

limited ways in which to protect

themselves they have to live this what

this life of almost complete silence and

um

and

in in order to help

in order to help save his family or save

uh

i believe it's his daughter at a certain

point in the story the father sacrifices

himself screams out loud to draw the

monster away and ends up getting eaten

and torn apart so his his child can

survive and get back to the the mother

and the new more baby and all of this

and um

and

it's a very pivotal moment in the story

in the original script it was like god

it was just heart-wrenching the way it

happened and the the manner in which it

happened and all of a sudden in the

movie i felt like oh god he kind of like

just sort of

glossed over that it just didn't it

didn't impact me so

maybe i'm being unfair to the film if

you often when we see these things you

know like the shining you see the

shining first as a movie and then the

book perhaps disappoints if it goes the

other way around the movie might

disappoint you know so this this happens

all the time but anyway so i had to pick

something because i've seen no horror

movies from the 2010s except those two

and i had to pick one so i'll say the

quiet place i thought was the better one

because i do like i do like the sci-fi

aspects of it um

and um so

there it is go ahead go ahead roast me

roast me

well yeah i i'm gonna make you watch

tucker and dale versus evil at one point

oh 100 because you're the second person

um in the last two weeks that brought it

up and i've never heard of this movie so

there you go i'm going to have to watch

it so much fun

yeah like i said i i

i know this one's gonna get killed here

because there are really real horror

movies there but like like we said at

the beginning this is all subjective and

oh yeah our personal tastes

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but please but but i am anticipating the

hate comments

oh i look forward to them i wanna

but again let us know your thoughts

below

you know good or bad if you agreed

disagree what some of your favorites

were and uh this was fun this was i had

a fun time with this

and uh oh me too this was a blast

yeah i don't know if you're doing

anything good for halloween you know

that night

oh we always hang out and um where we

live uh we be we get inundated with

thousands upon thousands of people i'm

not kidding um who come into our our

little community and um and hit the

streets so we get we get a big kick

about just sitting on our front porch

and watching everything you know yeah

watching everyone and all the kids in

their costumes it's a it's a real blast

so yeah that's what we we do every year

i'm looking forward to fun time

yesterday oh absolutely absolutely you

know it's fun to write about these

things too but anyway let us know your

thoughts

happy halloween to everyone and uh again

this weekend go see dear ike at the

orlando film festival

and

and we hope you enjoy it and as always

thank you for watching uh i'm jonathan

rosen along with ike eisenmann this has

been pop culture retro and please

subscribe

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thank you for listening to pop culture

retro where no one was hurt during the

making of this podcast

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