They're on the screens! They're in your home! They SHOULD be on your mind! Extreme cinema, exploitation, video nasties, whatever you call them, they take theaters by storm once every generation, and tonight we're wringing this moral panic for all it's worth! With the help of returning guest Ariel Powers-Schaub, the BOP Crew charts how the films detailed in her new book Millennial Nasties took inspiration from the gross-out cinema of the eighties to define the torture porn of the 2000's, before a chat about how those boundary-pushing themes are alive in the current king of modern nasties, Terrifier 2. Tangents along the way include Film Theory: Art The Clown Edition, a brief meeting of the May Canady Appreciation Society, and the secret origin of The Sham Wow Guy.

Millennial Nasties can be pre-ordered directly from Encyclopocalypse in eBook and Print at www.encyclopocalypse.com (BuyHorrorBooks.com) On on September 17th, 2024 it will also be available from your favorite bookseller. The audiobook version will be available exclusively from Audible or Apple Books. 

Direct pre-order links: eBook: https://www.encyclopocalypse.com/product/millennial-nasties-ebook/398 Print: https://www.encyclopocalypse.com/product/millennial-nasties/397

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An old timey whistle should go off. Just children covered in

soot. Come out of a workhouse: we're burning a pod!

Why does the podcast work on child slave labor?

There's just a smokestack coming out of Cody's apartment.

There's just. At the bottom of every industry is just child

labor. Sorry. We're keeping that as the

intro, right, Mike? Oh, please don't.

Oh, yeah. Child labor should start every episode.

For goodness sake. There's context. Hey, unfortunately, no,

that all got deleted. We never got that part.

All right, I'll do a clean open in case we don't want

to mention child slave labor to begin things, which I think is

a popular option, but. I'm gonna get canceled before

my book comes out. Worse time. Normally it's better afterwards.

You can get initial sales, let people.

Buy the book first, and then cancel me.

I already have, you know, the money.

What a horrible thing to say. Jesus Christ.

Shut up, Ariel.

You're just building it up for that comeback tour in two years.

Yep. My Netflix special. I wrote the book

on it. Followed by the sequel. I'm sorry I wrote the book on

it.

Some things have come to my attention.

Addendum to the book on it. You could crank those

out forever. What a great system. Okay, I swear to God, we're

gonna do a clean open now. Gotta get the giggles out, though.

Welcome to Box office pulp, your one stop podcast for movies

madness, moxie. And tonight, the combo of murderous clowns and

millennial nasties. I'm your host, Cody.

Joining me tonight are my co host, Mike and Jamie.

But forget about us. We have with us our own special co

host, Ariel Power Shabb, who has her book, Millennial nasties.

Holy shit. It's really cool when you get to say, like, you have

an actual professional on the show instead of us, so what a

treat. Thank you so much for joining us.

Oh, my gosh. Thanks for having me. So I want to start discussing

the book. And then, so everyone at home understands, we're going

to do a bit of a shift halfway through ish and jump into the

terrifier series of movies. Uh, but book first, the

important stuff first. You gotta. Gotta get through that.

Uh, millennial nasties, basically. Uh, well, I don't know

if you can spoil academic work. Like, it's not like there's a

twist ending at the end here, but 911 happened.

Oh, no. I should have said, oh, no. With

more passion, actually. Oh, no. Plane stop.

Yeah, I sound like a plant. Uh, but the big gist behind

millennial nasties to me was that idea of trying to reclaim the

phrase torture porn. Yes. On our podcast, we just

finished rewatching and commenting on all the saw films.

I know you did. Oh, no, I've been perceived.

Yeah, I know you guys did, and you didn't even let

me know. So that was my fault? It was suggested

a bunch of times. My feelings are every single movie.

We saw your contest for other saws and were like, oh, no,

I don't want to be the mistress. I don't want to, like, get in

the way. But no, it was great. We'll bring you

in for an escape room commentary. There you go.

I do it. Escape rooms, are they. No, not

millennial nasties. Not quite. But there's just so much negative

stigma. I think we've said it a bunch of times now.

It's great to have an actual book saying, you dummies.

There's a better term for it. I can't think of a better name

than millennial nasties for the movies of the two thousands.

I've noticed on a couple interviews, too, people brought that

up, and it's like, damn, if only you could, like, pull J.

Jonah Jameson copyright and get, like, a nickel every time someone

says it. Oh, man, I would just say it a bunch.

Can I somehow make my own nickels multiply if I just repeat

it a bunch? It can't hurt. Yeah. I was pulling very

hard for the term american extremity during those saw

commentaries, and the second I heard the term millennial nasty,

I was like, well, that just sounds like a term that already exists.

Oh, thank you. That's really kind. That's when I thought

of it. That's kind of how it felt. It felt like discovering something

rather than coming up with something.

If I can just be so bold. Well, it's great because it's

got the obvious tie back, back to the video nasties.

But then all the stuff for the two thousands was

inspired, but in a very different direction.

Yeah, nice little bow on all that. It just works so well.

Plus, it sounds fun. Thank you. Slight sidebar here.

I had to explain to a friend what the video nasties were the

other day when I was talking to him about this book, and I was

just blown away that they're normal people that don't know about

british censors, like normies. Well, particularly in the

United States, they don't know at all about the video

nasties. And that's okay because then it's fun.

You can tell them. Yeah. My favorite part though was he thought

I was fucking with him because, like, wait, really?

They named it video nasties. That was.

It is a little bit like, yeah, you're like, not nasty

videos. Like, it sounds like you're making fun.

Of british people whenever you say it.

Yes, it does. And it's honestly like the best branding

video nasties could have asked for. Right.

The BBFC was essentially giving us a list.

That's the fun part about it too. Cause I love a list.

Just knowing there's like x number of movies out there that got

slapped with the title and banned makes me want to just check

them out one by one. Absolutely. Have you.

Have you gone through all the millennial nasties?

Sorry. Yeah. Thank God this isn't live.

Have you gone through all the video nasties?

No, I haven't. Mostly out of laziness.

I do remember, like, when I learned the term

video nasties, I had already seen a lot of them and

so I kind of felt like vindicated in that.

And then I started seeking some out, but then it started

to feel like homework. And when movies start to feel like homework,

I kind of get put off. So maybe one day I will, but

I haven't. I always. I always have to worry about that too.

Like, I haven't dived into letterbox too hard because then it

feels like it's like you said, homework.

Like it's a chore instead of just the fun of watching a movie.

Oh, yeah. I obsessively log on letterboxd.

If I forget, I will go back. Like, I'll wake up in,

like, a cold sweat and be like, I didn't log a movie three days

ago. That's why I had to delete it. Yeah, fair

enough. Small jump here, but I just wanted

to mention, too. So the book is coming out through encyclopocalypse

publications, right? Yes. How did you end up working through

them? Because they have so much cool shit coming out.

I have a stack of their stuff and someone needs to take my credit

card. I mean, I'll take that off your hands.

I don't think that's what you meant.

If it stops me from spending my money, then I don't feel guilty,

even. If I am poor. So it kind of works for everyone.

Win win win. Encyclopocalypse. Yes. They're incredible.

I'm so lucky to get to work with them, truly.

I first learned about them because my friend Jeanine pipe wrote

sausages. The making of dog soldiers.

Yep. And encyclopocalypse put that out.

And so I was talking to Janine about her experience and it was

positive. And so when I knew I wanted to

pitch my book to a publisher and go that route rather

than self publishing if I was able to, because I really wanted

the support. But there aren't a lot of publishers who

are willing to publish nonfiction about horror films.

Like, there are a lot of horror publishers, but they publish

fiction, or like, non fiction publishers, but they don't

give a crap about horror movies. So you really have to be

thoughtful about who you're pitching to.

And encyclopocalypse seemed perfect.

And I'm just like so grateful they said yes to

me. And everything has worked out so well.

It's like a dream. I would love it so much if they really

embraced this and we got more kind of academic writing or, you

know, non fiction writing. They have a great set of things

already. Like on my desk right now, I have the original

screenplay for Hellraiser Bloodline that they put out phantom

limbs, which. Came out phantoms not too long ago.

Awesome. God, I have a novelization for the movie

man Borg through them. It's wonderful, the things they've come

up with. And I love that. It's a little bit of everything.

I think their best selling book is a novelization of attack of

the killer tomatoes.

I think that's their best selling book.

But yeah, I think that's how they got their start was

novelizations, but they have branched out to embrace

other kinds of writing about horror films.

And it has. I've just been so lucky to work

with them because, like, I can write, sure, I can do that, but

I don't know anything about like, copyright or cover art or

editing or marketing. And so, like, thankfully they

know how to do all that stuff. So it's really been, I've been

so fortunate. I want to imagine there's a risk too.

If you go the self published route, does it ever get like a physical

release or is it just like an ebook somewhere?

This way you actually hold the real thing without, like, having

to know what you're doing. You just make sure they get the book

out. Yeah, you absolutely can do physical releases

with self publishing. But then I would have had to figure out

how to do all that and more power to all the self publishers

out there because that seems like a shitload of work, right?

Whereas the person who did the COVID art for millennial nasties.

Dark poppy. Like, her work is just incredible.

And, like, they asked me, what do you want for

your cover art? And I was like, I don't know, because I'm not

a visual person at all. Like, negative visual ability.

And they came back with what ended up being the COVID art.

And I was just like, this is exactly what I wanted, but I didn't

know it. And I think that is a true artist.

So Grimm puppy designs on Instagram.

Like, she's incredible. That's so cool.

I've always wondered that, like, they bothered to ask the author,

like, hey, what are you feeling for the vibes on this cover?

Or if the marketing department just grabs it and they're like,

don't worry. We'll get you covered. Well, at Encyclopocalypse,

I have felt like every decision has been mine to make, but

they've been there to support me. It's honestly just been, like,

the best possible of both worlds. I feel like I'm going

to sound like a broken record just with all my positivity, but

really, I just have been so lucky. That's fantastic to hear.

I'm glad because I own so much of their stuff that they're not

assholes, because I've been like, oh, now I got to burn books.

I don't want to do that. No, no, they're legit.

You can like them. I was curious about the process

of selecting, like, which films you wanted to, like, specifically

cover. Yeah. And did you start with the diagram in

the back of, like, the six degrees of saw and then kind of reverse

engineer those into chapters? Or I'm just imagining, like, always

Charlie just in a room, just, like, tacking everything together.

Oh, my God. Okay, first of all, that Charlie, and it's

always sunny, literally, was me making this chart.

I have a folded up. It's folded up now, but I

had several pieces of paper on the wall in my basement

where I do my writing, where I was making the chart with, like,

pen and paper. And my mother in law came over one day

to, like, help us with a project, and she.

She was so sweet. She was just like, what is this?

And I was like, oh, this is my mental breakdown in real time.

So I really did look like that. But, no, I did not.

Okay. Also, sidebar. I loved both of those questions because

a lot of people who have read the book have not brought up

the chart. And I was, like, so proud of it that

I was like, oh, shit. Is this not as cool as I thought?

It was like, do people not like it? So thank you for bringing

it up. I can only hope the physical edition, it's like a big

fold out map, like you're looking at the Lord of the Rings, like

Tolkien. Easy. Show you all middle earth.

It's such a treat at the end of the.

But it does look good. It does look really good.

And, Mike, I appreciated the way you asked that question

by saying, how did I choose the books?

That is so much better to hear than, you forgot

this movie. That's actually what we brought you on

here just to berate you for a half hour like a bunch of jerks.

Okay, cool. I'm gonna go. Well, no, because anytime you

make a list or you make you curate a selection, someone in the

comments goes, you forgot this. And it's like, yes, I forgot.

Well, I spent a year of my life writing.

I forgot that this movie exists. So now that

I've, like, done this huge preamble, to answer your question,

when I started thinking about writing a book, originally it was

just going to be a book about the saw franchise.

But I realized as I was sort of, like, coming up

with what to write, that I had so much more to say.

And there were so many movies that connected to the saw franchise

that I also wanted to talk about. So I started to make a

list of what all those were and just kind of like, a

lot of the early stages of writing a book was just watching

these movies over and over again, which is not a bad thing.

But it was like, I'm writing, but I'm watching a movie.

And I did kind of start with a general list

of this is what I know for sure. And then there were some

movies that got added and some that got taken off, and I sort

of narrowed it down by, did I have enough movies for

each point I wanted to explore without filling the

book up with too much and repeating myself a lot.

So, like, there are definitely other movies I could have included

that helped me make the same points, but I didn't

just want to be like, and another thing.

And another thing. And another thing.

So if I felt that two movies were sufficient to make a

point or three, then I would just stick to that.

And I wanted it to just be, like a really tight representation

of millennial nasties. So I cover 40 movies in total.

See, the thing that impressed me was when I was going through

the list, I stumbled on the section with final destination.

And at first thought for me, I'm. Like, oh, why is this in here?

Why is this in here? Yeah, it really made me reconsider that

movie or that entire franchise because I've always kind of

thought of it as its own thing because you don't have too many

where there's the invisible hand of death, essentially, as you're

a bad guy. But, you know, when you get through all the points

and you kind of have to go back and go, well, yeah, visually,

I guess it's more slick than a lot of the other entries you would

refer to here, but it's not a wild thing to say

that it belongs lumped in with everything else.

Yeah. Thank you. And I know some people might disagree, and that's

cool, but one of the reasons I wanted to replace the

term torture porn is because I don't think torture porn is representative

enough of all of the movies in this decade that need

analysis and need attention and deserve attention.

And final destination does kind of get set.

People love it, but it gets set aside as its own thing.

People don't quite know how to categorize it, how to talk about

it, but it's really, you know, you think about teenagers

not being able to escape death and the deaths being really quite

gruesome, even if we don't see all of it on screen.

If you put a gritty yellow and green filter

over that, that is an obvious millennial nasty to me.

So I think what I'm hoping to do is give

more movies a home in the subgenre of millennial nasty.

I was really glad to see a lot of outliers that I

would never have thought of, of being a part of that

subgenre. Like May or Repo, the genetic opera movies I

really love, but have never been able to quite classify as

part of any movement whatsoever. Yeah, and particularly repo.

Like, that was a lightbulb moment of, oh, it's not just the

Bousman connection. Like, they're very much playing with the

same type of aesthetics, the same attitudes towards violence,

the same cynical tone as a lot of other horror movies

at the time. Absolutely. Yeah. I love Repo.

I think it's incredible. And that's in the fucked up

families chapter, along with May and some other movies.

And there are a lot of themes that came out through this

decade. Of course, there's always going to be when you get down

into it. But, you know, I think especially with Repo,

at the heart of that movie is of a father who doesn't

know how to protect his daughter and daughter trying to have

a coming of age story happens to be in a post apocalyptic

world that's addicted to plastic surgery.

But, you know, families, you can't really take that out

of it. So I was happy to give Repo a home as

well. As somebody who's read so many awful May takes

over the years, it was really a delight to see you do that

movie justice. Thank you so much. That's so kind.

Thank you so much. I love May. I wrote a

piece on it for moving pictures film club, kind of about how

women sometimes in, like, the patriarchal gaze

are viewed as parts, not the sum of the whole.

And that's kind of how may is viewing people in that movie.

And so I kind of broke it down to be like, well, May was taught

to look at bodies this way and to see people like buckets of

chicken rather than humans. So, yeah, I love may.

I love talking about May justice for May.

Good for you. You are the only person I have seen

acknowledge that Jeremy Sisto is being weirder on that

date than she is. Oh, absolutely true.

Yeah. That pissed me off for so long.

Whenever you read any review of, like, well, obviously, once

she started biting him, like, everything up until that

point was red flag after red flag. Yes.

He's trying to assert power over her by freaking her out.

And when she doesn't get freaked out, he doesn't know what to

do. Yeah, no, he. I mean, listen, maybe it's my

own personal experience with dudes that let me figure this

one out. But, like, he shows her, you know, a short film

about Hannibal is, like, couples eating each other on one

of their first dates, and he. He wants to gauge

her reaction, but he wants her to be afraid.

Yeah, he sucks. Spooky edge lord guy.

Intimidation is totally a thing. If it hasn't.

If it hasn't happened to you, it's happened to a woman in your

life, and it's something you most definitely have no concept

of until it happens, because you think, oh, well, the guy

in the evil dead shirt who wants to show me this weird movie,

he's all right. And you don't realize, oh, this is stage

one of something. Yes. And especially growing up as, like, a

spooky chick and being like, ooh, a spooky guy.

Like, let me see what he's up to. But then, like, spooky guy

doesn't really actually want to follow through on any of that.

He just wants that aesthetic to pull me in.

It's like, yeah, man, I'm weirder than you.

I like your knife collection. Let's go.

I can say with absolute pride that I still, to

this day, have a vhs that was loaned to me by

a spooky guy who would not take no for an answer

on me watching a random vhs he had. So fine, it's

mine forever. What is on that VHS, Jamie?

I cannot. It was some random ass eighties movie.

I'll have to dig it up sometimes. Yeah, well, good for you for

keeping that, because, yeah, teach that guy to try to

be weird and freak you out. A small sidebar.

Going back to repo. Can we have a new term instead

of scream queen for whatever Bill Moseley does whenever he's

in a movie with fucked up families? Um.

Gosh, he's just enchanting, isn't he?

It's always a treat when he pops up.

Yeah, he's just enchanting. But it's just, you know, it's

gonna be like the fucked up family special when that guy's in

there like, oh, baby, what do you got for me?

Yeah. My God. I didn't have anything to attach to

that. I just really wanted to mention Bill Moseley.

Cause now he's on the brain. Yeah, why not?

Now I'm thinking of Bill Moseley's cameo in the blob.

Oh, yeah. He totally spicy is in that.

Yeah, she's. I laugh every time. It's also in the blob.

And that's why she was in saw. So there you go, another

degree of saw. It all ties back. This is all you can

think. These are the only terms you can think in now.

It's just.

My brain is broken. Six months from now, we're gonna

see a picture tweeted from the Lionsgate office, and they're

gonna have that poster in the background.

This is how we invented horror in the two thousands.

If Lionsgate acknowledges my existence, I will melt into

a puddle on the floor. They make everything I love.

Truly. It's so bad. They moved out saw from September,

else you could have, like, forced him to italian.

Yeah, I know, I listen. In the same week we

got the. The news that saw eleven was moved to

next year and that the Blair witch project was getting a remake.

And it was just an emotional roller coaster of a week for me,

at least. I'm glad they have more time to cook

because I was getting a little worried on how quickly they were

putting that together. But, you know.

And I'm sending all my positive energy.

Tobin Bell is not a young man. Oh, no.

So they're just doing, Carlos, take over.

Yeah, I'm here. He's a warrior. I say do

anything. That was my queue up for you, you guys.

I love saw X. Yeah, I went. In pretty nervous

and I came out thinking, wow. Wow. Okay.

I was excited. It's top tier. Top tier.

Who would have guessed that going in there should have been bets

going. So, you guys know I also love the

Fast and the Furious. And fast x came out the

same year as saw X, and fast X should have been

called fast ten your seatbelts. Obviously, they really missed

a trick with that. So they're already going with silly names.

They might as well really lean into it.

Come on. Fast ten your seatbelts. Are you kidding me?

Like, you're welcome. That should have been the log.

Like the tagline that should have been on the poster.

So to tease me, my husband calls saw X.

Saw ten your seatbelts. I mean, that works if we're

going back to seven with the car trap.

I mean. Yeah, rip Chester. So if we can jump

back a little bit, because you'd mentioned the Blair witch.

And that reminded me. Yes. Sorry, I thought I had.

Oh, no, no. This is my fault. I don't have a set pattern here.

Damn it, Cody. I know. But, you know, I've always heard, and

I do believe that nostalgia operates in, like, a 20 to 30

year loop. Yeah. So kind of with that in mind,

you get a timeline that decade ends next.

Maybe ten years are a hard pivot where you get a

cultural swing and kind of embrace the opposite side of the pendulum

and then ten to 15 years back, the other direction to kind

of get to that starting point and you kind of undulate back and

forth. So, with the end of the nineties, you mentioned a

few points in the book, the change in attitudes towards what

we got in the nineties. What do you think are the main hallmarks

that we were rebelling against in the nineties?

When we got to things like saw, when we got to the two thousands,

what were we trying to do different that we.

We'd done in the previous decade and people didn't want a part

of anymore? Yeah. So in the nineties, especially in the

western world, especially in the United States, we were really

feeling well set. We were kind of feeling like

we won the world economically, we were doing well.

We had good relationships with other countries, and for the

most part, and we were really feeling.

We were kidding ourselves that we had solved every type of

bigotry. You know, we were the melting pot.

We were talking about tolerance in schools, all the racism, sexism,

homophobia. Homophobia wasn't even acknowledged.

Right. Like, the types of bigotry that were acknowledged were

racism and sexism and we were like, we fixed those.

And going into the two thousands things that were

happening made us realize that not all of

that was true. Um, you know, 911 is a part of

that, but it's not the only thing that was going on.

There were lots of cultural forces all over the world that were

shaking things up, especially like new french extremities started

a little bit, a little bit earlier than millennial nasties from

the political unrest in France and, you know, leading into

a new president getting elected in the United States and then

the war on terror and everything that brought to a financial

crisis. Near the end of the two thousands, people in the west

were feeling pretty unstable. And so we went from this period

in the nineties where we were like, happy, glossy, solved everything,

living the dream, to suddenly we're at war.

We don't feel safe in our homes, we don't feel safe in our country,

other countries don't feel safe. They don't like us and our

money is in danger, our homes are in danger.

Suddenly became very scary and it didn't happen overnight.

But it is one of those things where if you look back at a ten

year cycle, you can see the difference from the nineties to the

two thousands. Well, it makes me. Because there's always been

the kind of prevailing theory, oh, well, things were good in

the nineties and it's hard in the core to exploit that when everyone's

feeling good. I don't know if I'm 100% on board with that because

I think there was a lot of things under the surface that weren't

great. But I can definitely see why mass audiences would not

be interested in horror in times of plenty.

And I feel like you maybe get that kind of swing around

with things too, because you go from the Clinton era to the Bush

era and then to the Obama era with the whole emphasis on

hope, you know, a new doll and all that kind of stuff happening.

And then the switch over to the onward and because it

does feel like in the last few years we have gotten some bangers

for horror movies. Oh, yeah. Which is the one small good

thing, I guess, about everything being on fire all the time.

There's your silver lining. Yeah. So I have this theory

that James Wan comes along about every ten to twelve years

and tells us what we're gonna do for a while.

So it starts with saw. I would love it if he actually came

down from the mountain with like, commandments and we just got

to go. Yes, I would love it if he would answer my voicemails

and acknowledge that he's my boyfriend, but we all want

things we can't. So it started with saw, and

then it was the conjuring, and then I'm hoping malignant is

a new signpost for us, because throughout the 2010s, we.

I mean, we have gotten a lot of bangers, but we've kind of

been in this era of, you know, a lot of, like, really thoughtful

horror. Some slower, some things showed less on

screen. Allegories for grief, allegories for mental illness.

And I feel like we're just starting to swing away from

that. And so, like, maybe in ten years, we'll be able

to look back and see, but it feels like audiences are wanting

to have a little bit more fun again with their horror.

I think maybe the pandemic did that.

Like, we were all too sad all the time anyway.

So, like, we had to swing away from that, I think.

So I think we're about to enter. I mean, I'm clocking it with

malignant being so fun and silly, and I love it.

I'm hoping that's the direction we're going for a while.

Just to go back to your idea of trying to date James Wan, did

you go outside of his house with, instead of a boombox, just

a big billy puppet? Like, hello, notice me, senpai?

Yeah. I mean, I sent him a cassette tape.

It said, play me. And I don't understand why his

security team thinks that's a problem.

I am communicating the way he taught me to.

What a jerk. I know, but he's still my boy.

But to go back to that point of moving away from, for

lack of a better term, elevated horror.

How dare you? I don't love the term either.

I don't like it. I said thoughtful horror.

I know you were very careful with your words, and I'm like, who's

gonna bulldoze into this? All right, but once you kind of

get made fun of in a scream movie, I think it's time to pack

it in. We gotta try something a little different, because that's

it. Like, cultural mainstream at that point.

Everyone's aware of it now. We talk about the Babadook.

Yeah. I mean, I think she might have even said something

like a 24. Horror. Elevated horror. She does say elevated horror.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's. It's such, like, a common, well known

thing now you got to swerve a little bit and give us something

different. Not that I hate those movies.

I just think, well worn in a way. Need some gnarly

horror now. Yes. Give me gorr. Well, I mean,

look at it historically. I mean, we all love the new Hollywood

horror of the seventies, but there was no world where that

could have stayed on forever. Every bubble is going to pop eventually.

Yes. And then, and like, that's good and that's okay.

And we can do different things. We don't need to do the same

thing forever. But, you know, I do think horror trends tend

to sort of swing wildly. So we'll see where we go.

There's more cycles than I always think.

I always think like, oh, man, the slasher craze lasted forever.

Well, the golden era for slashers, what, 78 really did?

Like 83 ish, 84 or somewhere, right?

And I mean, there's definitely some outliers and there are definitely

things that count as slashers outside of that.

But, yeah, it never really went away, but it lost its popularity.

Well, the post scream slasher boom was like, what, four

years? Exactly what I was going to get to next.

Yeah. So I think I mentioned it already a couple of times, but

the 1990s teen horror cycle gets into this idea.

Like, this went pretty fast. There were a lot of them

that came out really quick and they're all kind of similar and

I love them all so much. But it was not a long trend

that was maybe like scream was what, 90?

End of 96? And, boy, we already had scream three by

like 2000. It felt like things were kind of winding down.

It was only like maybe four or five years for that whole trend

to really exhaust itself. It was fast.

It was bright. Yeah. If you like Alex West's book,

the 1990s teen horror cycle, she also has

a book on new french extremity that I highly recommend.

Oh, nice. Yes. Especially because I don't talk about

new french extremity millennial nasties.

I focus on english language horror. I cannot recommend highly

enough. If you are craving new french extremity content, Alex

west is the expert. So I wanted to get into

kind of talking about changing trends.

I'm surprised you went with malignant because I was thinking

just recently that terrifier two was a surprise, kind of

box office smash. That was one of those films that doesn't seem

like the mainstream would know or talk about it.

Oh, yeah, people found out about that movie normies.

We're all over it. Right. And when that happens, you got

to think that everyone who's making low budget movies is going

to pivot hard towards something like that.

Yeah. Well, to stick with my James wan theory, I have

to. It has to be malignant. Come on.

I mean, I love malignant, too, so I wouldn't be opposed if

we got more dead silence in the world or anything.

Oh my God, I love dead silence. This is an audio medium, but

I have a dead silence poster behind me on the wall.

Anyway, sorry, I feel like I interrupted a question.

Oh no. I was very unsubtly trying to

direct us towards terrifyer talk, my new radio show

every Saturday morning. No, terrifyer talk.

Terrifyer talk in the morning with Ted.

Colin, what do you think? You could have like a

soundboard with like a oo and all the shock talk

style. Yeah. All the classic clown horn honking kind of noises.

Yeah. Hey, Ariel, you've been terrified lately.

A lady never tells uga, why are. We doing

this show? Why am I writing this? 6 hours of that every morning.

We have to arrive at the studio at 230 in the morning.

Yeah. You have to do so many promotional events outside your

normal hours. Yeah, but the idea I was trying

to broach was there's so much popularity in something like terrifyer

two. Yes, and it's not quite a return to

classic slashers because there's a level of kind

of cruelty in art that you would maybe only see in

Freddy. And he even got turned to more of a jokester as

the movies went on. The terrifyer series is one of

the few out there where if I'm like in the middle of a meal and

I see a scene from it, I'm like, I'm not actually going to finish

this bowl of lasagna. I'm going to wait.

Can't imagine why. But despite all that cruelty, it

would still kinda be classified as fun horror.

Like, it's not striking. The somber, you know, kind of tones

of a lot of the other really very, very serious, straight

faced horror. It's not like Babadook, if I can go back to that.

Right. Well, you know. Okay, so something I've been thinking

about a lot lately because I'm getting ready to write a piece.

So the reactions to terrifier and the reactions to

terrafire two, I saw really different reactions to them

online. And I do not see, I did not

see as many people talking about terrifier as fun as I do

the second one. And I do think they're two really different movies.

But I think the conversations around those two movies are

really fascinating by different, like, who's involved in those

conversations and what are they saying and who's listening?

Um, and it makes me super stoked for the third one

because I'm like, what is this going to end up being?

And if you just look at the first movie on its own,

it's a really different thing. You think the filmmakers were

thinking about them when you look at the two of them together.

Like, I think this is such a rich franchise already with only

two movies, and there's, God, I don't even know where

to begin. There's so much, I kind of think.

It almost is like the filming style because the first terrifier

was, is much kind of grittier feel to it visually.

And I think that cues people into thinking of it in those terms.

Like, you, you almost think of it more like a grindhouse kind

of movie or something. It's very grungy and kind of mean spirited.

And the interesting thing about terrifyer two is it still has

a lot of, like, that spirit, but it has the aesthetic of a

splatterpunk. But it doesn't have the, like.

It doesn't have the, like, cartoonish joy of a splatterpunk,

but it has the look and feel of it. Yes, there's a

very, and terrifier too, obviously, is the one

that perfects this to a style. But I felt like all of

Damian Leone's films, even all Hallows Eve, they

have this very intentional artifice to them that

gives them this very dreamlike quality.

Like, there's a very particularly. Terrifier too.

Feels like the dream of a movie you once

saw that your brain is making worse in retrospect.

I know exactly what you mean. The thing I kept thinking, rewatching

it for this episode was, this is the movie

that was in my head when I was a kid.

And other kids at school would tell me what goes

on in Friday the 13th movies but make everything up.

Hmm. Like all those stories of and then.

Jason, were you spreading Friday the 13th lies back in

the day on the playground? Oh, I was the victim of those.

Okay, okay. Kids would say, like, oh, and then Jason rips

this guy's skin off, and then he cuts off the guy's

hands and shoves them down as all this bonker stuff you

wouldn't put in a movie. Now, I, that's how so many

of those movies were talked about back in the day.

Like, terrifier as a franchise feels like Leon saying,

okay, what if I took that dream horror movie that's

never actually been made, that only exists half remembered in

your imagination? What if I made that real?

Yeah, I think so. Something I've been thinking about,

the first movie versus the second movie.

And, okay, full disclosure. When I first watched terrifier, when

it first came out, I didn't like it very much, and I couldn't

put my finger on why. And I didn't spend too much time

thinking about it. I just sort of was like, I didn't love that.

And I kind of moved on. I was like, great practical effects,

but. And then terrifier two, I started watching on loop.

Like, I can't count how many times I've just had this

movie on in the background. And I was like, why is my reaction

to these two movies so different? One of the things I think about

the first movie is you start out thinking it's going to

be a typical slasher formula because, you know, like,

you're focusing on. I mean, it starts out with the

interview, but, like, then you're introduced to dawn and Tara,

and you think, okay, like, Tara's obviously our final girl.

Dawn's obviously gonna die. But, like, I know this narrative.

This girl's gonna get away and she's gonna be a badass.

And then that doesn't happen. And you realize slowly that the

movie's about art, and it always has been.

And if you go in thinking you're going to watch a slasher about

a final girl and you come out of it realizing you watched a

movie about art, it can make you feel weird.

But the second movie absolutely is about Sienna, and

it's about art, too, but it's more about Sienna.

And it sticks more to that formula while still subverting some

things. And so I think that's one of the reasons why the reactions

were so. Different, particularly when in terrifyer one, art pulls

a gun out and just murphs somebody. Yes, that's the moment for

me. Yes. A, when I fell in love, but b, when I

went, okay, this is not what I thought it was when

I was going in. This is actually doing something different now.

And that's when I, like, start paying closer attention.

Terrifier one is almost a prank on the audience.

Like, oh, you thought you were going to a slasher movie, didn't

you? Yes, that is exactly right, Jamie.

I mean, I agree with you. I don't get to.

Sorry, that sounded weird, me saying it was right.

I just mean I agree with you. No, no, no.

I gotta go push the book. Raise your hand.

No, I don't. Listen, I don't know what I'm talking

about. Um, the guest never agrees mute with me.

This is awesome. Jamie finally gets her validation.

She ascends to heaven. It's a good ending.

Uh oh. I ended the podcast by accident.

Oh, it's like the Santa Claus. Unfortunately, you just have to

take the role now. I become Jamie, somehow live my

debt. No one really. Jamie's sitting at her house right now

wearing a Santa suit. So it's exactly like the Santa Claus.

Why is Jamie. Why. Second podcast in a row we've talked about

the Santa Claus. Cause it's such a weird concept.

I can't get on my head. Well, you see, Cody, if you access the

escape clause, a little bit awkward.

Because I'm also wearing a Santa suit and I, you know, now one

of us has. This is where the murder comes in.

Oh, shoot. I want to mention, I absolutely love how much of

a horror nerd thing that is to be like, I didn't like the first

one and then I put the second one on here.

Yes, yes. Because we've all been there.

We were just talking about the strangers and like, well, this

will probably be bad. I guess I'm only gonna have to watch all

three of them in theaters and then buy the dvd's.

Pumpkin head three is really where they pull the franchise together.

You know, it just, it's a part of the ritual, right?

It's just a part of the ritual. Hope springs eternal.

I'm always in the back of my head. Like Wishmaster nine is where

I'm really gonna find. All the questions are going to

be answered. Yeah. What point was I going to

make? It was a good one. I don't know.

Oh, no, we lost track. Art wears a Santa suit in

the third one, so it kind of relates to the Santa Claus.

It's true. And as long as you bring up the third one.

Did you see the news that Savini's gonna make a little appearance

in the third? I did see the news and I.

Saw it's like Christmas now. Yeah, I cannot wait.

So we were talking about art using guns, and I want

to go back to that because I think that's extremely important.

Never have we seen. So Art's an iconic slasher

villain, right? He's got the look, he's got the whole thing going

on. Never have we seen an iconic slasher villain use a

gun. I can't think of a single time, and certainly not

in the first movie. Like usually a slasher franchise, you end

up loving the iconic villain later. Like you go to

the later Friday the 13th movies for Jason.

Right. But that's not what you're doing in the first few movies.

Jason isn't even in the first one. But the first terrifying

movie tells you this is all about art and art isn't who you

think he is. And he's so comfortable using guns because

he just wants to achieve his goal. You know, he's not

walking after you while you run away and trip.

Like he's just gonna shoot you in the head.

And I'm just like, how bold. How bold

to make this movie, right? Could you imagine like a Halloween

where Michael Myers just pulls out a Glock?

Like, it would work. It wouldn't. And even in something like

scream, you know, when Ghostface inevitably pulls the gun out

at the end, they're out of costume. So it's almost like a divide

between the iconic slasher and the killer underneath.

Like they keep those in different pools.

Yes. It's like humans can use guns, but not our supernatural

slasher icons. And art is supernatural.

That's very clear from the first movie.

That's not a thing they added in the second movie.

That's clear from the first movie, everybody.

And we're not used to super, like, freddy would never pull a

gun. That would be wild. Well, and just to go off

the supernatural thing too, most of the slashers to prolong the

franchise end up becoming explicitly super supernatural.

Jason, you can maybe argue for the first few entries was human,

but they have to take their time to turn into that.

It's by the 7th one, you're like, he lives underwater now.

Like what? What? Like aquatic jason.

And then he's a little kid again. Jason is more machine than

man now. Yeah. And then he's an astronaut.

So it's almost like you're bringing the energy of like a

later slasher entry. You really. First one where all of

a sudden art's like, no, he's always been this way.

You can't stop art. But then you also give him a gun, which

also doesn't work. It's like I could have a lot.

Of directions for one guy. Yeah. Like a slasher move, a

slasher franchise where you're like, you're gonna love the killer

right away. Okay, cool. Got it. Hatch it did it.

Victor Crowley. Love him. But like art, then giving art a

gun subverts so much of what you think that iconic villain should

be. And it's like he'll just straight up kill people.

The other thing we don't know yet about art, there are lots of

theories. We don't yet know what his deal is, what his

motivation is. And usually we get some sort of,

at the end of a slasher movie, you get the exposition dump about,

you know, oh, his name was Jason and his birthday.

Right. And so we haven't gotten that yet.

About art, and maybe we never will. And, like, that would also

be interesting. But I'm just like, what is this slasher franchise?

And is it even legal to make a movie that's so

different? I love it. I always compare it to Lovecraft.

Like, Lovecraft with the mythology they've set up.

There's not just, like, normal slasher movie supernatural shit

going on. There's something grander.

There's a larger stage at play that we're seeing, and art is

at the center of it. And something almost, like, older than time,

like a form of evil, which the little girl represents that is

pushing art along. And then Sienna being set up as

the avatar of all that is good to defeat

art. It's a lot of thought that's going into a movie

about a killer clown, which I love so much.

Yeah. I think anybody watching the first terrifier was thinking,

man, the follow up is going to be filled with lots

of loaded mythological symbolism. No.

And that's what's so bold. And that's why some people who

love the first one were super mad about the second one.

And some people who didn't like the first one were sucked in

by the second one. Mike, you're the superfan, right?

With me on this? Yes. I would love to hear

your theories. Oh, God. I know. I'm sorry.

The iron bars come down to all of our houses, and we're just

trapped in here. No, no, no, listen, I'm Jigsaw in

this scenario, and you can't escape until you tell me your art

series. No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to try to

facilitate your podcast. No, no. I'm saying, don't get Mike started.

We'll be here forever. That's why I came on the show.

Please aim a mic like a gun. Let me open the poetic

Edda. That'd be the solid victim. That's way too into it.

I'm with you, buddy. I'd be like, hold on, let me figure this

out. Mike's already sawing off his fingers and, like, the deli

grinder, and Jigsaw's like, wait, I didn't explain.

You got. He's like, no, I figured it out.

Ten pints of blood. I can do this. Let's go.

Bird in daylight. Got places to be. I'm fascinated by

some of the stuff Leon has said about they kind of went against

what I was perceiving to be, like, some of the mythology.

Sienna's overall role, the sword, not starting out as

a supernatural item. Right. But when it gets that little

line of electricity or whatever it is through it becoming that.

Yeah. The idea that the sword is baptized in fire and becomes

the spear of Longinus or something, or even like, the.

The clown cafe fascinated me. Like, what?

And Leon's saying, it's. It acts as a way station, essentially.

Like, it's this. It is a place that exists somewhere, like,

in space and time. And Sienna goes there for the purpose

of a test. Yeah. She's being tested to see if she

can stand up to art. This whole thing.

I don't know if. If you all are Stephen King fans,

but this reminds me so much of the dark tower.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of like, are we accidentally.

Are we in King's dominion right now?

Like, are we all singing we do? One thing that

struck me, I was just listening to the commentary for two right

before we started to record. And Leone mentions a comparison

in his methodology to David lynch and Twin Peaks.

Now, he was saying, like, we shouldn't give the audience all

the answers. That's the allure. You want people to try and figure

things out themselves or make up their own mythology or leaps.

I think it's actually a lot closer to Twin Peaks, though, in

actual mythology, because the red room, the area of, like, you

have to have an area where you test your courage or it would

be totally annihilated. You could kind of view askew that to,

you know, if your courage is not good enough, you

will not be able to face art. You won't have this challenge.

Kind of an interdimensional room. That's proving grounds.

It's for me, if I squint enough, I can see a lot of

overlap between the cosmology of Twin Peaks and the

series. A thing I didn't think I would ever say until I watched

the commentary. Yeah. What really interests me is the way

in which art isn't this, like, central mythological evil

character, but has been created to be one and seems to

be in and out of not quite knowing why he's

supposed to be doing things. He wants to kill people, but

he's also, like, doesn't. It's like when he kills Sienna, he

kind of goes. He has that reaction of, well, I guess that

was it. Yeah. Oh, what now? Yeah. Like, he takes it

as, like he's been told in some way that this is

going to be a bigger deal than it actually was.

Who is pulling his strings? Like, and what's the deal

with the little girl? Also, she scares the shit out of me.

I'm wondering because so many slashers are like, Michael

Myers only comes out on Halloween, and you wonder, what does

he do for Thanksgiving? And we're kind of getting an answer here

for something like art because they set the first two movies

up where he only appears on Halloween, and now we've got a Christmas

entry coming up. Yeah. So that's interesting to me that they're

going to say, no, no, no, this guy can operate whenever, but

why is he just murdering 24/7 right.

That's what I mean by, like, we don't know what.

What his deal is this point. We don't even know if

the fact that he's so, he takes so much extra

pride in being gruesome towards his female victims means

anything or not. Right. Because going over the movie, it's one

thing. It's like, okay, well, that could just be incidental in

terrafire two, it feels like it's going somewhere with that.

Yes. I remember one of the criticisms.

I heard a lot of the first one and one that I kind of

felt was like, I came away feeling like that movie

was a little bit misogynistic. And truly, I couldn't put my

finger on why. Like, I don't think I could have defended that

point, and I didn't think that hard about it.

And when you look back on, like, most slashers, a

lot of them are about killing women and girls.

So I was kind of like, why do I feel differently about this one

than I do the other one? And he does kill men in the first movie,

but it's more like, because they're in his way, incidental.

Yeah. And then in the second movie, I think it's

about torturing Sienna. But, yeah. Does their

gender matter to art? And if it does or

doesn't, why. But also the Valkyrie imagery is so loaded.

Yes, because the movie seems to be taking a point

in showing, like, there's a balancing of scales going on.

So art is, and maybe it's not necessarily a point

for plot purposes or anything, and just like, overall allegory

stuff that's going on, but art being specifically vicious towards

women and then Sienna with the Valkyrie imagery and being the

other part of that scale, trying to balance it back out.

Yeah, that seems very purposeful. Yes.

I also think it matters. I want to know more

about Sienna's dad and what role he plays because he

created Sienna's character and they find that

sketchbook of his where he has art and all, you know, art's victims

from the first movie. And so I'm like, what is going on

with this dad? And what does he have to do with, like,

he obviously created this Valkyrie that Sienna's gonna be,

but, like, what did he know? That has to be savini,

right? I'm convinced, dad. Oh.

I didn't think of that makes too much sense.

I just did the biggest inhale of my.

Oh, it's gotta be, it's gotta be. It's gotta be.

Oh, my God. Let box office freaking way, right about a movie

for once. We'll just declare an exclusive.

We'll just pretend. Yeah. You heard it here first, folks.

Do we make it up? Maybe, yeah, but you don't know.

Not to your knowledge. Let's be on the trailers.

This shit. I also feel a real personal connection

to terrifier, too, because my dad passed away when I

was 16 and, like, my mom was also, like, a

hard working widow trying to take care of me and my brother,

and we were just little shits. And, like, at the time, when

you're a little shit, you don't realize it, but then as an adult,

you're like, oh, God, I could have made her life easier.

And I was always sneaking out, drinking and doing dumb things,

and she was always telling me to put clothes on.

And so, like, when I watch terrifier two, I think a lot

about, like, my mom and how hard I made her life.

And, I don't know, it just gives, like, another extra layer of

texture to that film of, like, the characters in the film

are so easy to connect with, personally, at least for me.

Well, there's that extra layer of tragedy, too, because we get

to see, you know, their last words to a lot of family members

as they all go separate ways. Yes. You know, put a little

more salt on the wound, I suppose. Yeah.

Especially for ally. Right?

What do we think the importance of the arts, cannibalism is in

all of this? Because it seems like his big finisher move is I'm

gonna start biting this person while they're alive.

Like he's saving that for something special.

Well, okay, if we're. If we're gonna go the Stephen

King route. Stephen King has often posited that the

worst thing, like, when a child imagines the monster, the worst

thing they can imagine is that monster eating you.

Like that is the logical conclusion to a monster, is

they eat you. And so it could be that art sees that

as his last, final move to torture you and make

you feel horrified. Maybe he's just a foodie and he

really likes long pig. I don't know.

I mean, he does bring out the mashed potatoes in the dinner scene

for two. So I love mashed potatoes. I tend to think

of movies using cannibalism as almost always just, like, all

consuming love. You know, it's that idea if you love something,

so people eat it. Yeah. Yes. Which doesn't seem to

be the fit here at all. No. It could be a life force

thing, but I don't think it is. I have a theory on, like,

the way art kills, and this is totally me overthinking the

thought that probably went into the design of any of these.

Kills, but I'm here for this. The thing that I

absolutely love about both films, but specifically, I think they

hone this in terrifyer two, is art's kills are

truly what would happen if a clown killed you.

They're all. Yes, they're all the wind up

and telling of a joke, but through murder, where they just

kind of, like, keep going and are told in threes, and there's

always, like, an extra punchline, and then there's a punchline

after that. It's all designed as if a clown act,

I think. Absolutely right. I was thrown for a second, Mike,

because I'm like, if a clown kills you, we've already seen this.

It's killer clowns from outer space.

They would kill you with a giant pie that melts your face.

This is your point. Those were technically aliens, but, yeah.

Um, I don't know if you've seen the movie blood

fest. Not blood feast. Blood fest, I have to

say. Wait, wait. Blood feast? Which one have I seen?

So blood fe. So, okay, I prefer hellfest, but blood fest

is a similar movie that I think came out, like, a year before

about, like, oh, some kids go to a haunted attraction, and they're

really killing people. Like, you could put that with, like, haunt.

And the house is Oktober belt, right?

It's, like, a similar thing, but in blood fest, there's a line

because they're trying to figure out the rules of each zone.

Like, oh, zombies do these things and vampires do these things.

They end up in, like, the clown zone.

And the horror buff says somebody. Somebody asks him, like,

oh, what are the rules for clowns? And he's like, clowns don't

have any rules. They will cut off your head and shit down

your throat and laugh about it. And, like, I don't think

bloodfest is that good of a movie. I think hellfest is way better,

but that line has always stuck with me because it's so true.

Killer clowns do not have any rules, and I don't

know why I said that like Christopher Walken.

I don't know what happened to my voice just because I was.

It was a very dramatic movie moment.

My ass, for ten years. Then the power comes out.

Turned into Christopher Walken. No, but I think you're absolutely

right, Mike. They're making a joke out of the.

Whole thing that gets to why art the clown is

maybe the only movie slasher in, I don't

know, maybe 20 years that I think actually qualifies as

being scary. Like, viscerally terrifying.

Yeah. Is the added detail of not only will

art kill you, art will humiliate you in

the most torturous manner possible that no human being

deserves. And that's the threat of that hanging in

every scene that art is in. Makes the entire movie

so tense. It's been so long since we've had a

character that inspired that in people.

And sometimes art is acting for an audience that's not

there. It's like he's imagining an audience or it's just us,

and we're implicated. Like, in the first movie, when he.

There's the woman who lives in the abandoned

building, and he cuts off her breasts and wears them for

a while. He's just dancing around with her breasts on for himself.

But it looks like he's putting on a little show for someone,

and that someone is just us. And so I also love thinking

about. Because I do love some more extreme cinema, I like to

think about how is the audience implicated?

And where are our lines? And why are.

Why are we seeking the entertainment that we're seeking?

And so I love thinking about, if art is doing that for us,

what does that say about us? And it makes that horrible feedback

loop where. Okay, well, if this movie where art does an awful

thing is a huge financial success and it gets a sequel, they

have to one up that thing. So we are really encouraging him to

just do more and more heinous shit every day.

And I will be there on opening night with my commemorative popcorn

bucket or whatever they do. Oh, God, an art popcorn bucket.

They weren't even want to reach into that.

They filled with, like, severed, you know, broken glass and razor

blades. It's just flesh and a hole. I just wanted it to

be the trash bag. Just give you a trash bag full

of popcorn. You know, at the gas station by my

house growing up, you could get a trash bag full of popcorn for,

like, a dollar. Those were the days.

My sister worked better town. My sister worked at a movie

theater, so she would always get, like, the leftover popcorn.

So at the end of the night, they would just come home with, you

know, a huge garbage bag stuffed with popcorn and drove her mad.

She couldn't stand the smell of popcorn.

After a while, she bring it home because we'd asked for it, and

she hated it so much. Oh, man, I can't imagine hating popcorn.

Although when I worked at an amusement park, I was right

next to a pizza stand forever, and it made me hate the smell

of pizza for, like, a summer. So I get it.

Yep. One year, my parents hid her Easter basket inside of

the popcorn bag, and, oh, God, she was, she was so

distraught. She finally found her Easter present.

She's like, all my candy smells like popcorn.

That's pretty cool. All day was ruined.

It was. It was a rough one. Cruel. But to, to go to

the idea of Mike, you mentioned, of arts kills, kind of forming

to the. The methodology of a clown, maybe that gives some light

on why I think of terrifyer II as a more

fun slasher, even though I also view it as a very

kind of grim and cruel, mean spirited one.

Because if he's basically playing along to a joke that's solely

for the benefit of a meta narrative, like, the audience gets

it, but the characters wouldn't, you would kind of apply that

as, oh, we're having fun here. We're kind of joking around in

the most, you know, brutal way possible.

I'm spitballing here because I think of terrifying two as kind

of like a fun movie. It is fun. It is very fun.

I can't quite say why, because it's not like dead alive or

something that's clearly like, we're having a fun time.

This is a horror comedy kind of fun.

I think there's an interesting feedback loop where the absurdity

adds to the horror, which adds to the absurdity, which adds

to the horror. Yes. And I think it works in its favor

that it's not trying to be a horror comedy.

So that allows it to be pretty scary and horrifying at

times. And I think so some people complained

about the length of terrifier, too, and I get it.

But the thing that the length of terrifier two gives you is it

gives you some room to breathe. So it's not just 90 minutes

of art sawing people in half. Like, you get some

family time, you get some friends at the bar, you get some dick

jokes. Like, you get some room to breathe in between, so that

when you get to the next kill, you're, like, ready to absorb

that again. And art is having so much fun, it's

a little bit hard not to have fun with him, even if we're

rooting against him then for just to.

Totally derail the conversation. Uh, you'd mentioned Dick jokes

and it made me think, oh, yeah, two goes out of its way to kind

of, uh, do some payback for the first film.

Having a woman sawn from the crotch up by having another man's

dick basically torn off and used as, like a gag for.

For that. Yes. We truly have fixed sexism now, guys.

They. Art did it, buddy. Damien Leone is bringing cock

and ball torture to cinema one movie at a time.

No, but it was fun, though. It was a good one.

Especially you don't get as much dick torture in movies.

I don't think. I don't think it's quite balanced.

Not as much. Yeah, I could make you this.

I know it's out there. Ghoul's magazine had a really good

list about the best severed dicks in horror, so you can look

that up if you want to. That sounds like it would have been fantastic

for, like, a Valentine's Day article.

It might have been nice. It might have been.

But especially since his shirt said just the tip, it was

very wonderful that he got it straight in the crotch.

Oh, one of those things that always makes you wince.

I still know how I feel about the deleted scene of art then getting

in the car and snorting cocaine. Yeah, that was a legit

deleted scene. Oh, yeah. That means that art can feel

the effects of cocaine. That's kind of amazing.

Yeah, I think that's why it needed to be deleted.

The most humanizing scene we get of art is him washing

his costume. And I really. I mean, I really

like the scene at the Laundromat for a lot of reasons, but the

idea that art has the sort of presence of mind

to go, okay, I'm done with tonight's killing spree.

I gotta wash up so I can do tomorrow's killing spree.

I don't know. That's also something we don't see.

Iconic horror villains. Do. You never see Michael wash his

jumpsuit? Right? Yeah, there's the cleanup, the aftercare.

And like you mentioned before, it does feel like he's performing

for us too. Like, you know, reading the newspaper and laughing

along theatrically to the tragedies listed in it while sitting

nude in a laundromat. He's just as shocked by the little

girl as we are. And can I say, when she pees like black

liquid, it scares the hell out of me.

It's one of the first no explanation just happens.

Yeah. Just. It's one of those things that makes

me very glad that we have not perfected, like, scratch and sniff

television. Like, we don't need spell o vision for these kind

of moments. Four d. Oh, no, he's coming right at you.

Going back to, like, what could bring in the next

wave, like, terrify or two or malignant.

And speaking of deleted scenes, the original ending, it wasn't

shot was instead of giving birth to art's

head, they pull open the back of her head and art's

face would be there. Oh, they couldn't have done that after malignant.

And then malignant came out, so they had to quickly change it.

I do remember hearing that. Yeah. I don't know.

I like giving birth. The birthing I like.

But it's interesting because one's, like a weird body horror,

the other is just there's something so pointlessly gory

about. He was already a severed head.

And then she gives birth to the severed head that he already

was. Yeah. It's like the dream sequence

in the fly or something. Like, it's just weird for the sake of

it. I'm a clown who dreamed about being a man.

Honk, honk. You know, giving birth to his head

adds to the idea that the sex of his

victims matters. Yes. And I'm interested to

see where that goes. Like, why is it a little girl who's with

him, somebody gave birth to his head?

He surrounds himself with women constantly.

Like, what's up with that? And why did somebody need to

give birth to him again, I don't necessarily

need answers to every question to enjoy this franchise.

The thing about it is I feel like Damian Leone has these

answers, and that is a satisfying feeling.

Yes. Like, this is all purposeful. Yeah.

The fact he had, like, Sienna design before he ever made the

first film, like, endlessly fascinates me.

Like, oh, this was all building up towards, like, a superhero

origin story because. You would never think it to just watch

the first one on its own. No. Yeah. There's not, like, a mid

credit tease of villain, you know, a foe for the

villain. One thing that obviously, I haven't seen the third movie

yet, so I can't judge, but it almost seems like it'd be a missed

opportunity if you're saying the movie on Christmas and you have

a virgin villain birth to not make the Christ

allegory kind of thing roll into a Christmas movie.

Yeah. That is a good point that I. Hadn'T considered because

there's a decent amount of kind of religious allegory into the

film. Nothing is. I would say, super direct is like a character

being crucified, which there is a lot if you're gonna crucify

someone. This would be kind of the movie you could get away with

it in, but it's there. Yeah. The clown cafe scene, the

choice to have a nun yelling at Sienna about feeding

a man. And that actor is the same actor who plays

art the clown. That's David Howard Thornton, who plays the

man who. The nun is like, feed this man.

She's okay. I knew, like, I thought he's the voice over.

I didn't know he was actually, like, cameoing in there as well.

Yes, I believe that's right. Right, Mike?

Yeah, I believe so. Okay. Because the director was

like, I always have him in makeup. It was kind of nice for

him to just, you know, do a thing without makeup on for Mike

from the. Future here to say that, yes, Ariel and I are

both wrong. Please stop yelling at your phone or

computer or getting into a car accident.

I don't know where you're listening to this from.

I'm not gonna pretend that I know that.

Uh, yeah, that is not Thornton in the

role of the homeless man in the clown cafe.

That is an actor by the name of Roberto Hamm, which is an

incredible name. Honestly, I do think I know

where Ariel and I both got the information from,

and we're kind of, like, half remembering.

And it's someone who got confused by the fact that

Thornton did the voiceover for the Archseriel commercial.

That's where that came from. So you can stop writing your angry

letters. I'm admitting it here. They're fact checking better

than conservative news. Vote blue. I don't know.

I'm just here. I'm just here. Back to the episode.

So you've got a nun yelling at Sienna to feed

this other embodiment of art, the clown.

Like, feed him how and why is it a nun?

And, yeah, again, I feel like Charlie with

the Pepe Silvia meme. And art is also.

They seem to have taken great pains to establish that in

addition to being this supernatural being, art is also very

explicitly some guy. Yeah, that's something.

That's shocking in the laundry. Yeah.

Just seeing him strip naked and be a skinny,

unimpressive dude who looks cold. Yeah.

Like, it feels like even if art was just created to

be art, he is still a person and not just

some kind of spirit and idea. And that lends to him

a terrifying, tangible quality to him.

Yeah. But also, if it bleeds, we can kill it.

That's from predator.

So.

Third film, Jesse Ventura takes on art.

I feel bad because we have a lot of really great, like, in depth

analysis. And one thing I always just say in the back of my head

when we have supernatural killers is, oh, this bothers me because

there's no way to kill the guy. It like, it ruins the tension,

which is just like me being a wet blanket.

But I feel that way whenever, like, a Halloween film goes out

of its way to be like, no, Michael is super immortal.

He is evil. Yeah, all those. I can see why

it would frighten a lot of people because it's unstoppable evil.

But to me, it almost needs to be like, if I don't see a

clear way to kill this guy, what's the point?

This is just like nihilism on film. Well, Freddy, you just have

to ignore, and you're all set. Ignore.

You got to make sure no dogs accidentally desecrate his cargrave

by pissing on it. There's, like, a weird sect of things that'll

keep Freddy away. Freddy Pennywise and the djinn from

Wishmaster are the three horror villains you can defeat by

just not talking to them. The classic Simpsons bit.

Just don't look. It's always very sad whenever the Djinn gets

defeated, though. Yes. You just want to be small again.

I really just never expect people to wax poetic about the

Wishmaster series. Well, maybe you should change your expectations.

I clearly, I could be wrong. You just don't hear people

bring it up that much. Mike and I talk about Wishmaster constantly.

This is where I confess that I've never seen a single

Wishmaster movie, and you guys kick me off the show.

I hadn't seen them until fairly recently.

Only because Jamie and Mike talked about them so much.

Okay, man, I wish he would go fuck

himself. And then the guy's pelvis twists around, goes

up, and he fucks himself. That's a movie that was put

on film. That is beautiful. That's art right there.

Cinema. That's true art. Yeah.

Actually, he runs the russian mob in the second movie.

Yeah. Do you mind if we take, like, a 1 minute break real fast?

Yeah, of course. Okay, I'll be right back in 1 second.

Still holding out hope that someday scream puts out darkness

falls. And they include, like, all of the original footage, but

that's. That's pipe dream. Okay, I'm back.

You miss it? We were just devolving into a conversation about

darkness falls. So it's a good thing you came back now.

Don't let me stop that. I would love to talk about the.

Tooth fairy, mostly bemoaning. Like, I would love to see the

original version that never really played somewhere out there.

Like, they. My understanding of it, they basically filmed the

movie and then decided to replace the tooth fairy or

change up the tooth fairy. Yeah, pretty much completely from

the original design and intention. So I think there's, like,

a different cut of the movie out there.

Almost. Almost an escape room two kind of situation.

I guess. I am not aware of this. This is exciting news.

Yeah, they totally remaked it. Yeah.

I think you can find some of the pictures of the makeup online.

Okay. Yeah, you can. It was. It was gonna be Doug Jones, wasn't

it? Yep. And it has, like, bit of an animatronic thing going

on as well. It's a cool design. Yeah.

What a butterfly effect. Different world that would have been.

Exactly. So I'm always praying that someday screen will be like,

hey, we have found all the missing elements, and we're releasing,

like, both cuts of darkness falls. It'll never happen.

Yeah, but I'll tell that's good. Wishing for the

deleted scenes from Avenger Horizon.

Yeah, that too. Oh, that is out there.

They just will never get it. Yeah, the.

The editors basically said, hey, I still have, like, the reels

that have all the original footage. Um, I legally can't do anything

with them, but I have that cut of the movie.

We can never release it because we'd have to, like, pay Skeet

Ulrich for a film he never starred in.

I like Skeet being the one who's holding it all down.

Not that it's his fault. It's just there's a lot of actors that

got cut out of the film. So all of a sudden, you'd have to pay

residuals to a bunch of new people. Oops.

I accidentally uploaded it to archive.org dot.

Oops. What do you. So I will never see that

scene of Marlon Wayans as Robin. Yeah, always have the comic

book. I'm trying to think of a way back in because we stopped

on Wishmaster. No, I like that I'm including

this conversation somewhere. Oh, this whole thing's going in.

Okay. Oh, pretty. Oh, no. You should have told

me for me. I would have thought of interesting things to

say. Rhode island. Neither Rhode nor an island.

Discuss. Oh, now we're on it. Well, we

have been going for a decent chunk of time here, so it's probably

not a bad point to wrap up. But again, I just want to

stress on folks one more time here. You can get a copy

of Ariel's book through encyclopocalypse publications.

Encyclopocalypse is just like a tongue twister for me.

I'm always terrified I'm going to say it totally wrong.

I've said it wrong a lot of times on a lot of recordings.

Anyways, you guys can go to their website and pre order.

That'll be coming out September 17. Highly recommended.

And while you're in there, just splurge.

There's so many cool books they have on their web store, you're

going to want them all. Oh, man. They have a pre order right

now for plan nine from outer space, the novelization.

Treat yourself and get both these books.

You're going to have a good time. And if I can just say physical

copies are available outside the US, you just have to

scroll down on the pre order page to the other retailers link

and then there are international shipping options.

Oh, that's super cool. Yeah. And it's not immediately obvious

when you look at the page, so I've gotten a few questions about

it. So I've started just saying that up front.

Hell yeah. I always assume like, the poor folks over the UK just

have to deal with like digital copies.

Heck no. I love my UK friends and I want them

to have this on their shelves if they want it.

Nice. So besides the book, what would be a

good way for people to find more of your writing?

Yeah, so you can find me on all the socials at Ari

Hellraiser. At the time of recording, I just this

week joined the sinister scoop. So you can go to thesinisterscoop.com.

it is a site that lifts up independent horror, especially books.

And I'll be their sinistrative assistant so you can check them

out. But all my writing, all my podcasting links to pre

order my book, if you follow me at Ari Hellraiser, you'll.

Find all that very cool. Like, I was so impressed.

I saw, like, you actually have like, the link me, like, with

everything listed out and I'm like, oh, that's so smooth and

professional. Thank you. I know. I don't know.

There it is. Yeah, you can look at my link tree and see all

my stuff. Well, thank you so much for joining

us. Oh my gosh. We're going to have to continue this when we

figure out what the hell is happening in terrifyer three with

savini, please. Let's have a savini watch like he's a

tornado coming through town. Is he a dad?

What? Is he? Yes. We can all go to the basement

and wait for Sabini to the passover.

Yes. Sabini watch 2024. Look, the joke is in

the midwest when the fire, the tornado sirens go off, all

the midwest dads just go in the front yard with a beer and watch.

Yeah, that's the siren to go out and look.

Yeah. If it were Tom Savini, I would have no problems with this.

I would crack a beer and I'd go out and wait for Savini to fly

over in the sky. I mean, I do that every day anyway.

It just doesn't usually work out. It's our version of the

great Pumpkin. Yeah. Oh, man. Why didn't Savini show up tonight?

Yeah, it's weird. He doesn't know this episode is going.

To be called Savini in the sky with diamond.

Fuck. That's really good too. That's really good.

That's good. Oh, no. I know. We're wrapping up with Jamie.

What was the thing you said before that I told you not to forget

and then we forgot? Oh. Oh. Oh, God.

We were talking about the violence in terrafire and how.

And how it kind of unintentionally connects with the millennial

nasty theme. I was saying it does in a way.

I was thinking about this while re watching it.

Art, in many ways, is a marriage of the

slasher era and the millennial nasty era because he's

basically just a walking saw trap. He delivers the exact same

level of torture and humiliation that you would see in

a saw movie or a hostel movie, but it's being performed

by an actual character. I completely agree.

I think especially the first terrifier would have been really

at home in, like, 2008. Can't you see that movie coming

out in 2008 with, like, Elijah Cuthbert and, like, I don't

know, it's other person. Lele Sobieski is in

a deleted scene. Yes, exactly. Yes. I completely agree

with you, Jamie. I just really love that phrase walking jigsaw

trap, which you could only maybe say about,

like, the collector if you're picking out villains.

Oh, God, I love the collector. So good.

Both of them. I love both the collector movies, and I'm so mad

we'll never get to. No, don't you say that.

Don't you say that, Cody. He's already got my

heart. Exactly. He's collected my, my love.

We need to keep hope alive. I thought so.

Hey. Yeah, listen, I know all the reasons I'm

supposed to give out Pope on the collected, and I refuse to,

because if that movie ever happens, I want Marcus Dunstan

to know I've been there. I was there.

I've tweeted at him a lot and he's probably blocked me.

If there's a college fan, I am one of them.

Folks, if you want to. We're going back to the ending now just

to confuse people.

This is a post credits stinger. Yeah, we normally have those

worked in too. Somehow they'll be really confusing because it'll

be a prequel to the sequel to the prequel.

It's about like part four and a half.

Anyways, folks, if you want a box office pulp, you can

find us at Boxofficepulp on most of your major socials.

We're at boxofficepulpmail.com. if you need to send us

a letter or possibly a digital severed finger.

And if you want to find our actual podcast instead of just yelling

at us, you can find those wherever you listen to podcasts, just

look up box office pulp. We're all over the place.

We're on Spotify, which blows my mind.

I didn't know that was allowed. I forget if Stitcher's still

around. Actually, I have a hard time keeping these things current.

But you can find some iTunes. Oh no, I shouldn't have

mentioned them. Or Tumblr. Google podcast is down now.

They're dropping like flies just to shout.

Box office pulp three times into the sky and we'll drop a podcast

from a bird. Oh man, that'd be cool.

It's not bad. That's how we get most of our foot traffic through

the box office pulp office. Anyway, saying it three times in

a mirror, just showing up. Mike shows up and he

starts talking to you about terrifying.

Just grabs your phone and makes you subscribe.

James there holding up a copy of repo.

Honestly, what is it, my birthday?

Anyways, folks, thank you so much for listening.

Go buy those books. Yeah, cheapskates.

I find that's the best way to get people to do things.

If you insult them enough, they'll do it on spite.

Yeah, good. If that's a good method or not.

Hopefully this doesn't actually hurt sales.

Just have the Jay Sherman buy my book clip Luke for

like a minute straight.

And like that, he's gone.

Going back to the book for a second.

I laughed my ass off going through your saw write ups

and seeing you finding a lot of constructive things to say about

each of the sequels. Until saw seven, which is my favorite

running joke in horror. Literally no one likes the saw seven.

Listen, listen. Have you. You know those infomercials

where people can't do anything. You know, they're like a

paper towel off the thing, and they blow their kitchen up.

That's Bobby Dagan trying to do anything in saw seven.

Such a fuck up. There's got to be a better way

to cherish your life, right? Right. He fucked it

up. Okay, we need money to make this as an ad for a saw movie.

And there's just a guy who is holding too many things in his

arms, and he's just going everywhere.

Crusty knives falling down. Yeah, that don't match the containers

or whatnot. Oh, no. Jigsaw really would put you through the

wringer if you just live with that situation.

I recently threw out all my Tupperware, and I'm like, I've learned

a lesson, John Kramer, you've really helped me.

It's true. Like, sometimes you throw away, like, the

shampoo bottle too early, and it's like, now you have a

chance to cleanse yourself. And I throw Jigsaw in my head, like,

telling me to recycle the bottles better or something.

Is that the mid credits scene, Mike?

Yes. Yes, it is. Cody's here with his clipboard.

Okay, we're free. Now I just want to hear jigsaw

do, like, the entire shamwow commercial.

Oh, what about the shamwow? Yeah, the slap job.

That's it. 100%. I'm going to my nuts.

Oh, no, no, John, no. You'll be slapping your

troubles.

I call it my favorite creation, the magic bullet.

If the Billy puppet just wheeled itself out into the

middle of an industrial warehouse and said, you're gonna love

my nuts, I it wouldn't matter what the trap

would be. I would be too busy laughing to understand that I need

to remove all of my secret code to unlock my head

trap. I would just be dead. Okay, where I thought you were going

with that was Billy rolling into a studio audience, which

all clapped.

Save money, save or die. Make your choice.

Remember how the shamwow, the shamwow guy also did the

slap chop? But, like, if you ordered the slap chop, you also

got, like, this cheese grater thing.

Oh, he was, like, grating cheese. Like, he was having

a full on mental breakdown in this because he was grating cheese

on pasta, and he was like, fettuccine linguini, martini baccini.

And I was like, what are we talking about?

It was like an early meme. Like, people just started repeating

that martini. Bikini became, like, a whole thing, and it.

Yeah, that is some deep Internet load.

I'm amazed they never made a movie out of, like, the infomercial

wars with, like, Billy Mays versus the slap shop guy show.

That shit was intense. The slap chop guy, eventually, like, he

was arrested, right? Because, like, he assaulted a sex worker.

And so he became less fun to meme about what wasn't that kind

of. Situation where, like, she. I remember it, like, being this

weird thing where, like, it was some kind of entrapment scheme

or something. What? I don't remember that, but I'd say.

This is getting crazier. I just remember it being a whole

thing. Billy Mays set it all up. I think his

son still posts on Twitter time to time about his dad.

So maybe found through him. Oh, God help me.

I'm actually looking this up. Okay, give us the deep lore.

Mike Den's offer. That's incredible.

This is our clown secret origin. His name is offer.

Oh, my God. What if it is art the clown?

Offer and a 26 year old sex worker were both arrested in Miami

Beach, Florida, after a physical altercation.

The police reports say the woman had bitten onto offer's ticket

tongue and refused to let go. Punched her in the face

and left her with lacerations and fractures.

What you need to do in those situations, like getting bit by

a turtle, you just put it in a bucket of water and eventually

they let go because they have to breathe.

The offer later spoke of the arrest.

He said, it probably saved my life. Think of that.

What you will. Listen, I just feel like that cannot possibly

be the whole story. I know. That's why I want.

There's so much happening. Oh, no. There's.

He has also a lawsuit section I was not aware of.

Oh, no. In 2011, he was sued by his former personal

assistant, Jennifer Kosinski, who alleged that he stalked and

emotionally abused her, forced her to be with him at all times,

groped her, and offered her $20,000 for her to

vacation with her family in exchange for her eggs.

Oh, my God. That is not enough money.

I'm going to tell you that right now.

Hard pass. Yeah. Oh. In 2000, he sued Anna Nicole Smith for

$4 million in 2000, claiming that Smith had agreed

to be in his movie, but backed out in 1996 over fears

that appearing in the movie would be detrimental to her career.

He was a director. This is a fucking rabbit hole.

I didn't expect to go down tonight. I feel like he should have

maybe just stuck to shamwow. Do you remember that the.

There's something about Mary lawsuit.

No, that there was, like, a lawsuit claiming that something

about Mary, like, ripped off scenes from, like, this particular

movie. I vaguely remember this and it's, it's this

dude. The underground comedy movie was a sub.

He did the underground comedy movie?

Yes, that was him. I'm. My mind is like melting right now.

I don't know what's happening but I'm excited.

Fucking toll free number royalty. He went from the underground

comedy movie to being the slap chop guy.

That movie had Michael Clark Duncan in it.

Well, offering up having to pay $66,000 in attorney's fees.

Huh. What a weird rabbit hole to fall down.

This is Martini Bikini. Tell you what makes it even

weirder that he referenced the, the arrest in the later

slap chop commercial. Did he? Yeah, I think it was madam.

It might not have been like one the slap chopper sham.

Wow. It might have been like an, like a lesser item.

But I do know there's footage of him doing the ads and being

like, oh, I could have used this back when I had those legal

troubles or something like just Charlie sheening.

Yikes. Just lean into it. This here show

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