Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to coast am on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: So, Chris, what are some of the best devilish horror movies?
Speaker 2: How about the worst? And talk about the curse of
Speaker 2: the Devil? When you make a movie about the devil?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I guess you know it's funny because
Speaker 3: a lot of this, of course is this hyper bowl
Speaker 3: because I mean, I'm an agostic myself, so of course
Speaker 3: I don't believe unless I see and I'm not alone.
Speaker 3: But through share coincidence, a lot of especially American films
Speaker 3: dealing with Satan, dealing with the Devil, seemed to have
Speaker 3: a lot of bad juju going around during the making
Speaker 3: of these pictures. Are the ensuing release of them. And
Speaker 3: let's talk before we go to the ess. Let's talk
Speaker 3: a little bit about again about Rosemary's Maybe, which would
Speaker 3: keep riffing on maybe with good reason because it's a masterpiece.
Speaker 3: But again produced by William Cassell, who was a staunch Catholic,
Speaker 3: so he was apprehensive right from the get go about
Speaker 3: adapting n Eleven's book the screen, but he went along
Speaker 3: with it because Roman Polanski was this hot Polish director
Speaker 3: in Hollywood. This was his big breakthrough movie and everyone
Speaker 3: wanted a piece of him. So Castle helped this thing
Speaker 3: get into production, and the movie gets made and it
Speaker 3: is a great movie that it is, and almost immediately
Speaker 3: Castle has a massive heart attack and almost dies and
Speaker 3: it's hospitalized. I mean, of course, believe it's because he
Speaker 3: danced with the devil making this picture. Polansky laughed it off, said, Oh,
Speaker 3: that's just that's just Bill Castle being Bill Castle, superstitious
Speaker 3: to his core. Ha ha ha. Well we know what
Speaker 3: happened to Roman Polanski. Not even two years later, after
Speaker 3: the release of Rosemary's Baby, his beautiful wife Sharon Tate
Speaker 3: was home alone in their Hollywood Hills home, and of
Speaker 3: course Charles Manson's followers were dispatched by Manson to go
Speaker 3: to the house of what he thought was somebody that
Speaker 3: he knew that had flighted him, having no idea that
Speaker 3: Polansky and Suarantate were living in this home, they broke
Speaker 3: into the home and one of the guys who wouldn't
Speaker 3: be assassin in texts, he announced loudly, I'm the devil
Speaker 3: and I'm here to do the devil's work, and then
Speaker 3: to butchering the entire group of friends, including Tate, and
Speaker 3: we know that that was the end of the Innocence
Speaker 3: In the late nineteen sixties, almost immediately Lansky was accused
Speaker 3: of being in league with the devil because of Rosemary's Baby,
Speaker 3: and accused of actually having something to do with his
Speaker 3: wife's murder. Of course, that was completely debugged very soon after.
Speaker 3: But Rosemary's Baby always has that heavy kind of weight
Speaker 3: to it because.
Speaker 2: I wonder, that is, if that didn't happen, if there
Speaker 2: wasn't the Manson connection, would we still look at it
Speaker 2: as a masterpiece or with that?
Speaker 3: I think I think so, because you know, I have children,
Speaker 3: I've showed them. I showed my oldest son Rosemary's Baby.
Speaker 3: He just came out of and blown away. Having no
Speaker 3: idea about any the Landscare or any of the links.
Speaker 3: I think it stands alone perfectly, but having that little
Speaker 3: extra added mythough surround it just gives it a little
Speaker 3: more gravity. Thinking with the Exorcist, which again, as we know,
Speaker 3: changed a lot when it came to the genre in
Speaker 3: the seventies, not just how it was made, how it
Speaker 3: was structured, but the kind of visceral nature of it
Speaker 3: Wills Mare's Baby's verute. That's just just not so much.
Speaker 3: We see everything and the Exorcist heads rotating chrismal language,
Speaker 3: the language exactly. That was a big, big deal. Then, yeah, language,
Speaker 3: that's what got it. It's our rating more than anything.
Speaker 3: But it was plagued by by by misfortune. Jack McGowan,
Speaker 3: one of the actress in the films, died in the
Speaker 3: middle of production. Melan Burston's back was broken when she
Speaker 3: was thrown against the wall during one of the satanic scenes.
Speaker 3: Little Linda Blair's grandfather died in the middle of it.
Speaker 3: The entire set burned down while they were making it,
Speaker 3: and they had to install production for another six months
Speaker 3: while they rebuilt it, and the carpenter on set it
Speaker 3: was building a set chopped off his finger. I mean,
Speaker 3: the list is long.
Speaker 4: A lot of.
Speaker 3: Misfortune played the Exorcist. Now there's this. I think if
Speaker 3: he really did a tally on any Hollywood movie being
Speaker 3: made up that scope, you'd see a lot of misfortune
Speaker 3: as well. But all these things when maybe you know,
Speaker 3: maybe there's something to it. I mean, you know again
Speaker 3: an agnostic, so maybe there is something.
Speaker 2: I mean, when you look around, point Chris at some point,
Speaker 2: Chris the Agnostic, and you have to go like, okay,
Speaker 2: that's not all coincidental. I want to take a couple
Speaker 2: of phone calls because people can't wait to talk to
Speaker 2: you too, so I know you don't mind talking to
Speaker 2: your people on the wildcart Line. Let's talk to Randy
Speaker 2: in Ridgeway, Virginia, who says that the scariest movie of
Speaker 2: all time Barnunn is The Exorcist. Welcome to Coast to Coast, Randy,
Speaker 2: and you're talking to Chris Alexander.
Speaker 4: Yes, good morning, gentlemen. I was driving a truck back
Speaker 4: out of New York, out of Queens, New York. I
Speaker 4: was eighteen years old, and I was in New Hampshire
Speaker 4: and I had to deliver with the load. That was
Speaker 4: dark at night, you know, around this time of the year,
Speaker 4: and I've seen The Exorcist was playing in the movie theater,
Speaker 4: so I could park there and whatnot, and I went
Speaker 4: in and I saw it with the huge screen in
Speaker 4: the sound in the movie theater. When I went back
Speaker 4: out to that truck and got in it, you know,
Speaker 4: always got coffee and whatnot, and I had some coffee
Speaker 4: and I was sitting and going down the road and
Speaker 4: I was so freaked out by it that I had
Speaker 4: to go all the way down to they used to
Speaker 4: be toldos on the Connecticut pip. You had to stop
Speaker 4: pay tolls, probably the last one down by Greenwich before
Speaker 4: I was game enough, you miles, We'll say to get
Speaker 4: out and relieve myself. That's there. It was.
Speaker 3: You know, you bring up, you bring up, you bring
Speaker 3: up a good point. I just have to just interject there,
Speaker 3: because you know, there's a whole way for people that
Speaker 3: only saw the exor System. We're raised on seeing it
Speaker 3: on television.
Speaker 2: One of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but a lot of people, younger people especially, that
Speaker 3: it's not that scary. But to Randy's point, if you
Speaker 3: have never seen The Exorcist in the theater, you haven't
Speaker 3: really seen the Exorcist. I just actually went and saw
Speaker 3: it theatrically about two years ago. I was a thirty
Speaker 3: five millimeter France. I was introdu I had never seen
Speaker 3: it theatrically, and it was like seeing it for the
Speaker 3: first time. When you're trapped in that dark theater with
Speaker 3: those images and that sound design, it's like you're in
Speaker 3: a nightmare that you cannot escape from, and it does.
Speaker 3: It sinks into your bones and it sticks with you
Speaker 3: and me too. I left the building, Eric walk out
Speaker 3: into the night a grown ass man, and I was really,
Speaker 3: really deeply unnerved. It still has that power.
Speaker 2: I wondered about that. I was thinking about most of
Speaker 2: these scary classics that I've seen. I saw on my parents'
Speaker 2: television in their kitchen, and you know, the lights are on,
Speaker 2: but that theater experience of something like that would completely
Speaker 2: froy my brain. Now. I know we talked about the
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone. I want to kind of bring it forward
Speaker 2: a little bit to modern times. Twilight Zone. Now we
Speaker 2: move forward to the modern times and we have Netflix
Speaker 2: in Black Mirror, which I think is a nice homage
Speaker 2: to the Twilight Zone in a certain way. I'm wondering
Speaker 2: what you think of that series on Netflix.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad to hear you say that, man, I honestly,
Speaker 3: I really really am, because I I'm over the mind.
Speaker 3: Because in the Twilight Zone, Purist and the Twilights won't
Speaker 3: come back. Many times came that in the eighties. There
Speaker 3: was also Twilights on the movie, which was a bit
Speaker 3: of a failure. The eighties show had some moments, but
Speaker 3: it wasn't the Twilight So it came back in the
Speaker 3: early two thousands with Forrest Whitaker, Complete Bomb, and then
Speaker 3: recently Jordan Peele the Directed get Out, which you've mentioned earlier,
Speaker 3: tried it again called The Twilight Zone, him dressing up
Speaker 3: as Rod Sterling. It's like, you can't go back, No,
Speaker 3: you can't.
Speaker 2: I watched it. I didn't love it.
Speaker 3: No, I couldn't get through it. But maybe it was
Speaker 3: called something else, but I don't know about that. But
Speaker 3: to me, the air apparent of Rod Serling, the air
Speaker 3: apparent of the Twilight Zone is absolutely Black Mirror. It's
Speaker 3: the only show of that kind that I feel is
Speaker 3: evolving everything that Sirling was saying in those first you know,
Speaker 3: that first wave of the Zone. So I'm a huge
Speaker 3: Black Mirror fan, and.
Speaker 2: It's got sort of these themes that kind of run
Speaker 2: through some of the shows. But if I wouldn't tell
Speaker 2: anybody to watch something that is terrifying, it's the one
Speaker 2: with John Hamm I think called Christmas Eve, and it's terrified.
Speaker 2: It's terrifying for a completely different reason than you think.
Speaker 2: It's not jump scare. It's just if you imagine yourself
Speaker 2: and the hell that they put the people in, like
Speaker 2: the literal hell that they put them in, it is
Speaker 2: it'll mess with your head for months. I really recommend that.
Speaker 2: And the scene it completely changes gears right in the
Speaker 2: middle too, doesn't it absolutely?
Speaker 3: And it's I mean, that's that's testament to the entire
Speaker 3: show though. There's a level of sophistication going on there
Speaker 3: that's you know, it's not it's not just showing you
Speaker 3: the obvious. It's gonna it's making it's a more immersive.
Speaker 3: It makes you think, it makes you do a little
Speaker 3: bit of work. I think that's why it's so successful.
Speaker 2: There's another series that I wanted to bring up to
Speaker 2: that I thought was one of the best scary movie
Speaker 2: or series I've ever seen, And actually I was able
Speaker 2: to watch it and with a surround sound at my house,
Speaker 2: you know, with the TV on, And that's The Haunting
Speaker 2: of Hillhouse. Did you watch that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Mike flanagain to me, you know, he's one of
Speaker 3: the great modern masters of horror. Haunting of Hillhouse masterpiece
Speaker 3: based on the Shirley Jackson novel, a remake of the
Speaker 3: Robert Wise nineteen sixty three movie The Haunting, absolutely nerve shredding.
Speaker 3: I watched that. Here I am a man of now fifty.
Speaker 3: A couple of years ago, sitting in my living room
Speaker 3: by myself watching that show and I forget what episode
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: We're halfway into the show and it breaks me out
Speaker 3: so much I was afraid to walk into my bedroom.
Speaker 3: And when you're a horror fan like me and you're
Speaker 3: that jaded, cynical, you're always trying to chase the dragon
Speaker 3: and try to find those movies or entertainments that make
Speaker 3: you feel like you're a six year old kid again
Speaker 3: seeing weird stuff on the TV late at night and
Speaker 3: not understanding what you're seeing. And it's very rare that
Speaker 3: you experience that, and I experienced it with the hoting
Speaker 3: of Hillhouse and Mike findinggainst other movies, those TV shows
Speaker 3: like Haunting a Black manor has its great moment and
Speaker 3: a money mate called Midnight Mass which is sort of
Speaker 3: his riff on Stephen King. Salem's Lot hugely recommended as
Speaker 3: well and very very scary.
Speaker 2: Who did you watch the new Salem's Lot that's on us?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And actually I liked it more than most people.
Speaker 3: It's my favorite Stephen King book first of all, and
Speaker 3: the first version of it, which was a Mad for
Speaker 3: GV mini series directed by the Texas Chancellor Maskers Kobe Hooper,
Speaker 3: starring James Mason and Reggieinaldo, is one of my favorite
Speaker 3: vampire films of all times. So far was high and
Speaker 3: I didn't hate the new one. I didn't didn't think
Speaker 3: it was spectacular, but it was close enough to the
Speaker 3: book and had a lot of really interesting King King
Speaker 3: esque elements in it that I found that better than
Speaker 3: I thought i'd find it. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 2: I think it started off good for me, but then
Speaker 2: it's almost like they raced through the plot to get
Speaker 2: to the end scene.
Speaker 3: Well, here's what happened. Because you like the mini series,
Speaker 3: which was, you know, a four hour picture, a three
Speaker 3: and a half hour picture. This director shot a three
Speaker 3: hour movie and the studio hacked it down thinking they
Speaker 3: were going to put a two hour picture, and so
Speaker 3: what we get is the cliff Notes version of the
Speaker 3: movie that he shot. So that feels like rush because
Speaker 3: it is rushed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like it. It's because it's not rushed
Speaker 2: at the very beginning, because you're seeing all the nice
Speaker 2: foliage of Maine and all that, and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, boom plot goes into like it's almost like
Speaker 2: I hit the one one and a half time speed
Speaker 2: on my I exactly.
Speaker 3: Suddenly it's like Vampire's Vampire Dead and that different end. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it goes really racist to the finish line, for sure.
Speaker 2: Do you know that the one they haven't gotten right yet?
Speaker 2: And it is my favorite Stephen King book is The
Speaker 2: Stand And I've seen them do that twice now on
Speaker 2: TV and it's fallen. It's almost seemed kitchy to me.
Speaker 2: With such a incredible, incredibly deep story.
Speaker 3: What a what a daunting book to adapt? I mean,
Speaker 3: you need the thing is you need that space. That's
Speaker 3: why I keep sending up on television, is that you
Speaker 3: need that that room to adapt it. And it's so
Speaker 3: many moving parts to the Stand. I don't know how
Speaker 3: it could ever be successfully, truly successfully adapted. But I
Speaker 3: am a fan of the first version of it, even
Speaker 3: though he has had its kitch especially with the dated
Speaker 3: special effects directed by Nick Garris. I think there's some
Speaker 3: great moments in there, and it captures the vibe of
Speaker 3: the book. It's not every specific.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess that's true. I guess I can agree
Speaker 2: with you on that one. What about Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: what Steph King. I'm just gonna ask you about I
Speaker 2: have to come back to that where I was. I
Speaker 2: was going somewhere with the stand darn it, that was
Speaker 2: so good.
Speaker 3: Well, there's so many hey, there's so many Stephen King books,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, and so many adaptations good and not
Speaker 3: so good, that it's hard to you know, your brain
Speaker 3: can get the scrambled next them.
Speaker 2: Well, you were talking about the depth of the stand
Speaker 2: in how it's like such it's got so many moving
Speaker 2: parts that it would be hard to get that right.
Speaker 2: But yet I feel like the made for TV version
Speaker 2: of it did kind of get it right.
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