Bryan! (00:01.892) You're listening to Bring Me the Axe. I'm Brian White in one half of this Morbid Equation, and I'm joined by my co-host and actual brother, Dave White. Dave, how you doing?

Dave! (00:10.946) I am doing all right. You know, I have been paying attention to the pop culture podcasts lately, and I have learned more about Britney Spears and Jada Pinkett Smith in the last two weeks than I thought I would ever know in my life.

Bryan! (00:27.52) Yeah, yeah, I don't know much about them, but I guess there's a book out about What's-Her-Face?

Dave! (00:32.502) There is. I mean, I can only assume this will come in handy at some point in the future. I must. But I am still neutral on both of them, surprisingly. So, you know, that's...

Bryan! (00:37.657) Yeah.

Bryan! (00:43.635) I saw Britney Spears dancing with some knives. It was a very, it was a little unsettling, quite frankly.

Dave! (00:48.858) Yeah, yeah, that was uh, I don't know if it was supposed to be sexy or alarming or both.

Bryan! (00:55.304) Yeah. Yeah, I gave her a pass because she's kind of she's kind of been through it. So you know what? Dance all you want with knives or without it. I don't care. Yeah. So we practically grew up in neighborhood video stores and the steady diet of utter garbage that those shops provided us with continues unabated to this day. There's no one else I enjoy chopping it up with more about trashy movies and Dave

Dave! (01:01.826) Yeah, and that's my take on Britney Spears.

Bryan! (01:17.516) Just before we get into it, here's a little housekeeping. You wanna keep up with us between episodes. You can also find us on Instagram at bring me the ax pod. You can also find David, that queer wolf. We're having a good time. Over there, we have a lot of fun. We've also got a sweet website at bring me the ax.com. You can listen to all our past episodes and read the transcripts.

You can also contact us directly at bringdetheaxpod.com with any questions, comments, or suggestions. Do let us know if there's a movie that you love and would like to hear us give it the business. Lastly, if you like what you hear, you can subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. You'll be doing us a favor by leaving us a five-star review on Apple podcasts, and you can also do that on Spotify as well. You know, it goes a long way. You know, it helps us sort of gain visibility, lets people know that we're worth listening to. So...

Dave! (02:02.122) Yeah, I wish you'd do it. I just, I wish you would do more.

Bryan! (02:04.96) Yeah, you know, I've seen the number go up a little bit. So people are doing it, we give them a hard time and you know, and they actually do so we'll continue to give you a hard time. Fucking do it. It takes

Dave! (02:13.378) You can just leave a review and just like, oh, that one guy is real hilarious. And you don't have to say which one. It's pretty obvious which one.

Bryan! (02:17.244) Yeah. We can we can just we can just quietly sort of assume that it's that it's me that it's you know, just make us feel good. That's what I'm saying. So I just want to get all that out of the way right at the top of the show. So tonight we have finally arrived. It has been a bit of a slog. It was actually a bigger slog than I kind of thought it was and I kind of boy.

Dave! (02:39.318) Yeah, I'm real glad to not be in the 2000s anymore. The fucking goatee of eras for horror movies. The ironic mustache of horror movie eras.

Bryan! (02:44.182) Yeah.

Hahaha

Bryan! (02:51.472) Yeah, yeah, we are back in. We're back in our comfort zone, like squarely, squarely in the comfort zone, and I'm so happy to be back in 1978. So you we've been talking about it all month. We've been exploring it all month. The Strode Myers struggle. And we have finally arrived at the one that we really, really wanted to talk about.

Dave! (03:12.622) I have seen this movie a billion fucking times, and every single time, and I feel this way about Black Christmas too. Trust me, Black Christmas will be more jubilant than this one is. But I have seen this so many fucking times, and every single time I find new things about it that I am incredibly impressed by.

Bryan! (03:28.776) I never get tired of it and I couldn't possibly tell you I could not possibly tell you how many times I've seen this movie. I just I have no idea but it's easily in the dozens especially since like I've made I've made it a point every year for like the last decade to like watch it on Halloween like as a thing. So like

Dave! (03:48.234) I watch it at least once a year, probably more than that though.

Bryan! (03:51.412) Yeah, yeah. So I mean, like this year alone, I think I've watched it like three times. I mean, with the with the recent, you know, viewings for this episode included. But yeah, man, like, I never get tired of it. I always find something new to appreciate about it. Like, it's just so fucking good. I can't imagine being John Carpenter 30 years old and just nailing it so significantly like this.

So yeah, here's a little taste. Here's a little taste.

Bryan! (07:07.352) Halloween, the night he came home. Man.

Dave! (07:11.586) Or, if you like, the trick was to stay alive. That was the other tagline. The trick was to stay alive. That is a piece of shit tagline. I'm glad they went with the other one.

Bryan! (07:16.536) What was it?

Oh no ** That's yeah. Yeah. I've never seen that. Is that on the the Ghana poster?

Dave! (07:29.194) No, it's on the, I saw it on IMDB and I was like, that can't be right, people are just making this shit up.

Bryan! (07:35.904) Yeah, yeah. I think IMDB is a little bit like Wikipedia where pretty much anybody can edit. Uh, to up to, you know, I... Oh, no shit.

Dave! (07:44.382) I did eventually see it on one of the posters, though. But IMDB also says the alternate title was He Came Home for Halloween, and I thought, well, that's just a terrible title.

Bryan! (07:55.748) that can't be right. Because like this movie, there's a lot of stories about the sort of the progression toward what we ultimately get. And like, there's the rumor that the movie was originally called The Babysitter Murders is like really only partially correct. I think it was The Babysitter Murders for approximately five minutes when Erwin Jablons

Dave! (08:16.054) And I believe that title comes from Bob Clark because there was a babysitter killer in Canada. It's partially what Black Christmas is based on. Yep.

Bryan! (08:20.993) Oh, okay.

Bryan! (08:24.376) Oh.

Bryan! (08:27.504) Oh, no ** Yeah, cuz cuz when to hear Erwin Yablons talk about it, it's he he conceived of it on on a flight and by the time he landed, he had the title Halloween.

Dave! (08:38.934) Yeah, I think everybody else is always like in everything I've seen and read everybody is like no it was gonna be called Halloween pretty much from the start. Like that was just what we were gonna call it. Because there had never been a movie called Halloween. He was like I looked up everything, I looked it up everywhere, it had never really been used in any titles.

Bryan! (08:45.88) Yeah. But yeah.

Bryan! (08:56.655) What luck? Like how is this even possible? I mean, it seems, it's so obvious.

Dave! (09:00.842) I mean, it's really hard. It's hard to watch this movie and watch it with the understanding that it had never existed before. Like nothing like this had really existed before. Not quite like this.

Bryan! (09:13.756) Right, because I've got a bunch of notes, particularly about the mask and the way that they kind of tease the shape throughout the entire movie. And I think a lot of it is probably just conjecture, because I've never seen anything and I've never actually read anything from anybody who's ever actually saw the movie when it first came out, but it is.

Given what comes after it, it is hard to imagine a time when a movie like this was brand new and nobody had ever really seen anything like it. Cause you know, it wasn't born in a vacuum. It comes from a couple of very obvious sources and everybody's constantly, you know, saying, well, it was Black Christmas played a role in it.

Dave! (09:50.658) But I mean, if you watch the progression, like you say modern horror, let's say it starts with Rosemary's Baby. And then you get Last House on the Left, and then Texas Chainsaw, and Black Christmas, and then this.

Bryan! (10:05.196) Yeah, like I kind of, I actually kind of lump Texas Chainsaw in with the last podcast, with the last House on the Left crowd, because I mean, tonally, thematically, they're very similar.

Dave! (10:15.614) Yeah, they're very much. And I think this one is much more like Rosemary's Baby in that it takes, and I actually think this movie kind of stands on its own, but I think of that group, it's more like that, in that it takes this sort of classic horror tropes and that slow build dread and injects it with like modern fear. But I think in the case of Halloween, the

the modern elements of it are so, they're so much more like relevant to the story and they're so much more obvious and they feel so much more modern. Cause like witches and Satan, it's not real. So it's not like, you know, it's hard to be like, well, like people were afraid of it. I know people were afraid of it at the time. I absolutely understand that. But like this is real terror because this reflects that fear, that sort of new modern fear of like anonymous violence. And there had never been a movie that had taken classic horror.

Bryan! (10:54.12) Oh, sure. Yeah.

Bryan! (11:05.774) Yeah.

Dave! (11:10.294) you know, like of the 50s and 40s and kind of blended it with like real world terror.

Bryan! (11:17.272) Yeah, there's also the factor of it taking place in the suburbs because you know whenever I mean even today horror typically takes place in a couple of like reliable locations right you're either in the remote backwoods you know or a dense city but like the suburbs.

Dave! (11:21.451) Yes.

Dave! (11:38.43) And each of them is loaded. Like each one has, each one reflects a particular kind of social phobia.

Bryan! (11:44.216) Yeah, yeah. But like this is this is one that actually takes it because I mean, though the entire fucking thrust for society to move to the suburbs was to get away from the wicked city. You know, like this is yes. Yeah, so it takes, you know, a faceless terror and it puts it in a place where everybody kind of thought that they were safe.

Dave! (11:55.838) And by that they mean black people. That is essentially what they were trying to get away from.

Dave! (12:08.706) What I think is really interesting in this, like maybe five or six months ago, maybe a little bit more, I was listening to a podcast, and I won't say which one, because I really like it. This, I think, was just a misstep on their part. And they're a little bit younger, not that much younger, but maybe not as well-versed in the genre, and they're younger women. And listening to them talk about this movie was as though they could not conceive of a movie that existed before all of the fucking tropes.

and all of the sort of the Carol Clover of it all, the intersections of feminism and horror, it was, they couldn't conceive of a movie that did not abide by 1980s tropes, that sort of predated it. And so their entire analysis of it and their entire perception of this movie was from that perspective. And I wouldn't dismiss that entirely, because I think as much as John Carpenter says, it's not about that, it's like, well,

there's lots of unconscious things that work their way into creative output that we might not notice at the time, but it's still there. I don't think this movie, because Carol Clover really goes into this one in Men, Women and Chainsaws. And I don't think that's really all that fair because I don't think this is, I don't think it's a misogynist movie at all. I think it's actually quite feminist in a lot of ways.

Bryan! (13:20.02) met women at Chainsaws.

Bryan! (13:32.02) Yeah. So, I, I think that I, I tend, I, I read that book, Jesus Christ, uh, twenty years ago and uh, that's kind of what I wanna, what I, what I wanna address about it is the critique.

Dave! (13:41.686) That's the other thing, it's a little bit dated at this point as a text.

Because to begin with, it's an academic discourse that doesn't have a lot of relevance in sort of pop culture.

Bryan! (13:53.792) No, and the thing that also is that I think is kind of important is that is that it's it is a bit of an antique in terms of feminism, I think that it's really kind of an it's an it's an item of like, the second wave, which is which is, it's just it's which is it's a vastly different perspective than the way that sort of feminist Chris critical.

Dave! (14:06.174) Yeah, which is a little bit, it's always hard.

Dave! (14:14.918) And for people who may not know, the second wave of feminism has a lot to do with, it's very 70s, sort of rooted in 70s, late 70s, early 80s-ish. It's very much about violence and the, that basically all male interaction with women is inherently violent and based on power dynamics. And to a certain extent that is true. However, it got really blown out of proportion and they really ended up undermining their own arguments.

Bryan! (14:44.78) Yeah, you know, things have just evolved in, you know, in new ways. A lot of a lot of what was set down in that book, I think, took root and holds it. And I think that it's definitely very legitimate. It's a very enjoyable read for something that's an academic work. But yeah, it's a little it's a little dated and I tend to sort of dismiss the kind of virgin survivor. trope is

Dave! (15:09.666) Well, because in this case, I don't think that holds at all. I don't think that's applicable in the...

Bryan! (15:14.652) No, also, I think we kind of have scream to thank for that, because it's, you know, a very big piece of the second act is all about, you know, it's Randy's big speech.

Dave! (15:26.43) And a lot of what is, and I think Men, Women, and Chainsaws, is it's still a fundamental, it's like a core text in film studies of sort of that subgenre, I guess, that particular domain. But it is a little bit older, and I think a lot of what it really is kind of taking aim at is the shit that comes Friday the 13th and after, which is like everybody in these movies is basically just cannon fodder, especially women. And those movies are misogynistic.

Bryan! (15:37.076) Hmm.

Bryan! (15:48.512) Y-

Bryan! (15:53.078) Yeah.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. This is not to say that it's off base like it's making a very valid point. Yeah.

Dave! (16:00.01) And that's why I don't want to dismiss that argument. Yeah, I don't want to like outright dismiss it because I think that, you know, as much as Carpenter says it's not that, and I don't think he intended it for it to be that way, I still think that a lot of, you know, sort of social norms have a way of working their way in. And I think had Deborah Hill not been so actively involved in this movie, it probably would have been that way.

Bryan! (16:18.872) this was my next point is I think I think that if it were not for her, it would have been a way different movie. Her contribution. Yeah, her contribution to this movie.

Dave! (16:25.794) I mean, he did the thing that everybody wants to do. Like, you want directors, if you don't know how a certain thing should be played, if you're a white person and you're writing a movie about black people, you shouldn't do that. You should go ask black people about black people stuff. In this case, he's writing about women. He needed to find someone who understood women because he clearly could not. And he did the thing that most people, I think, are probably, at least in films, maybe a little too arrogant.

Bryan! (16:46.701) Yeah.

Bryan! (16:55.792) Yeah, also. This we're going to find out this movie is a real ship in a bottle. In the stuff that came before it they never had they didn't have the time also, you know, it was all fucking men. So it's not top of mind, you know, the as I say, we're going to get to it in the notes. She is the secret sauce that makes this whole fucking thing work. So yeah, here's some facts.

The year was 1978 as we all know. So to kind of contrast this. This is our usual bit with other movies released that year. Let's put this up against some other movies that were released in 1978. Number one, I spit on your grave. Yeah. Yep. Number two, Martin. Which is and I don't know. I don't think we've ever actually talked about Martin. Martin is my favorite not zombie Romero movie.

Dave! (17:38.131) Mmm. Yikes.

Dave! (17:44.171) I dunno.

Dave! (17:53.187) No? Okay. I buy it. It's a thoughtful movie. It's an interesting movie. I don't think it was what he wanted it to be.

Bryan! (17:56.171) Yeah.

Bryan! (18:00.116) Yeah, yeah, it's but it's going back to the comment budget and it was always was always Romero's worst enemy. Number three, the fury. Yeah, that's the Palmas pre scanners movie. Also, number four, the grapes of death.

Dave! (18:11.256) Okay.

Dave! (18:23.234) What the fuck is that?

Bryan! (18:24.1) that's Jean Roland's zombie thing. Sexy zombies. And lastly. Oh, yeah, it's 100% when all you got is porn stars for your for your horror movies. They're going to be sexy one way or the other. And lastly, number five, Dawn of the Dead. Yep, little known movie. So yeah, this and this stands in stark contrast to all of them. Not the first masked

Dave! (18:26.277) Oh.

Sexy zombies. I just assume everything he made is sexy.

Bryan! (18:53.081) like mass murderer movie. I think the town that dreaded sunset.

Dave! (18:57.582) Tell them to throw out at sundown, I think it's a little bit later, isn't it? Uh, maybe not, maybe 76?

Bryan! (19:00.728) No, it's a few. It's a couple of years before. Yeah. But yeah, way different movie but

Dave! (19:06.87) But also that was like a super low by hell. It's the guy who made Boggy Creek. It's, I can't remember his name, but it is surprisingly good for what it is.

Bryan! (19:10.572) Yeah. It's pretty good, I think. Yeah. Cast and crew. The director is John Carpenter, my all-time favorite movie director. Yeah. He sums up everything that I love about low budgets and genre movies. He was hired to turn a profit on short money and his priority was always entertainment.

Dave! (19:23.03) same.

Dave! (19:33.278) And can you imagine, like, you see this movie, it's like the guy who made Assault on Precinct 13, which is a movie I very much like, made this afterwards. And they are, the quality of them is vastly different.

Bryan! (19:40.014) Yeah.

Yeah.

Bryan! (19:47.06) It is this is a humongous upgrade like I love Assault on Precinct 13, but it wears its limitations on its sleeve. You know, it doesn't suffer for him, but it's not Halloween is a humongous upgrade.

Dave! (19:59.85) And he is also someone who works, I think, oddly, he works very well with simplicity, but also with big, like if you look at something like Big Trouble in Middle China, that is a big story. And it's not a, it kind of gets close to going off the rails, but like he keeps that together as well, so he's capable of working on both sides. I think it's when it gets too big, it's when you start to get a little precarious.

Bryan! (20:12.015) Yeah.

Bryan! (20:23.576) Yeah. This. I don't I don't know if Halloween was the first Carpenter movie I saw or not. I can't remember when the first do you remember the first time you saw this?

Dave! (20:35.686) I don't, it had to be, I'm gonna guess late eighties, early nineties. I think Big Trouble and Little China is probably the first one I saw, cause it's the one that's most kid-friendly.

Bryan! (20:40.46) It had to be, I know I saw it on TV.

Bryan! (20:46.944) Yeah, I know I saw it on TV, but I can't remember if I saw this one first or if I saw Escape from New York first, because I saw Escape from New York when I was 10. And it immediately grabbed me and we're going to talk about all the fucking reasons why because those reasons translate directly to the appeal of Halloween to me. But yeah I saw Escape from New York and it immediately became my favorite movie from the moment I saw it and it's still it's still that.

Dave! (21:10.838) I mean, if you think you were 10 when you saw it, no, that would have been too young.

Bryan! (21:16.708) WLVI used to do, yeah, WLVI used to do a thing called Halloween Hell Week in the week leading up to Halloween. And I remember it was always the same program. I can't remember what the first one was, but they ran Omen and Omen 2 and then they ran Halloween and Halloween 2. And on one of the years that they ran them, I caught both of them. I think I saw Halloween 2 first.

Dave! (21:29.154) Yes, whatever they can get for cheap.

Dave! (21:42.338) I'll tell you what, I watched Halloween 2 about five hours ago. That movie fucking sucks. When you watch them back to back, it's like, Jesus Christ. This movie had a director?

Bryan! (21:47.256) Hahaha!

Bryan! (21:51.4) Oh, you know, well, yeah, I know. But it's also in some of the prep for this. I also watched the insert footage that they shot in 1980 for the TV bit and it is crazy. It is fucking nuts.

Dave! (22:00.504) Oh, for the TV one?

Dave! (22:04.35) Yeah, it's real shitty. I remember the first time I saw that and I was like, wow, this is wholly unnecessary.

Bryan! (22:11.008) Yeah, I mean, I get why they did it, but like it is. It's very, very wild because like it's a it's a couple. It's only two years later and it's all the same cast, including the kid who plays Kid Michael in this movie. But like it is. And it's very clearly a couple of years later for everybody because like they all look older, even little Michael.

Dave! (22:23.368) Is that him?

Dave! (22:31.958) Well, fucking, Jamie Lee Curtis has on that hideous wig that is like, is it a wig? Absolutely. It is 100% a wig.

Bryan! (22:35.276) Yeah. Yeah, cuz her hair was, I believe was, her hair was shorter at the, at the, by the time.

Dave! (22:42.55) Yeah, it was for... what the fuck was it called? I can't... we were just talking about it like 10 minutes ago. I can't remember what the movie was, but it was for a movie. It might have been... What's wrong with Eddie Murphy and...

Bryan! (22:54.784) It's not trading places. That was a few. Yeah, but it was a few years. Well, in 1980 was prom night, I believe. So yeah. But also, let's see, writer is Deborah Hill, who was born in Haddonfield, New Jersey. And she's the secret sauce in John's creative process. Yep. So the way that I've always sort of seen their partnership is John covers the big picture, you know.

Dave! (22:56.278) It's the same year.

Dave! (23:07.47) Hell yeah.

Dave! (23:11.958) And she's fucking awesome on her own too.

Bryan! (23:21.752) He's got the idea. She's the one who fills in the details. Like she's the reason that Laurie, Annie and Linda are more than just like knife bait in this movie. Like why their conversations feel natural and real. Like it's.

Dave! (23:38.986) And I mean, literally everybody who has worked with, not just on this movie, but with them in general, will freely admit, like, she is the reason why this and other movies work so well, because she was so good at the small shit.

Bryan! (23:49.613) Yeah.

Yep. And yeah, it's so yeah, like she's I mean, because she's also she's not just a writer on this. She's a producer and she was the one who when they took literally half of the half of their shooting budget and dedicated it to like brand new cameras and lighting equipment. She was the one who took the rest and just made the whole fucking thing work by just cracking the whip constantly. All of his all of his best movies.

feature significant creative input from her.

Dave! (24:23.026) And I like the shit she did on her own too. Clue and it was 48 hours I think was another one of hers.

Bryan! (24:39.025) the

Dave! (24:42.21) Yeah, for unfortunate reasons.

Bryan! (24:58.508) I know that they were breaking up during the production of this movie.

Dave! (25:02.383) I don't know if it's this one. I think it's a... Is it this one?

Bryan! (25:04.46) No, no, no. It was it was it was this one because he had just done a TV thing with Adrian Barbeau and like a fucking asshole was like, hey, I'm in love with you. What do you think? And she's like, you're like practically fucking married to this woman. But then they you know, you know, they get into it anyways. Yeah. No. Yeah. But yeah, like, I mean, even after their breakup, they continue to work together amicably. And then, you know, eventually she

Dave! (25:10.606) That's...

Dave! (25:18.018) Mm-hmm, but hey it kind of it kind of worked out for them. I guess I don't know I guess Life's hard what the fuck do I know?

Dave! (25:31.158) Yeah? Because she's more or less responsible for all of his best movies.

Bryan! (25:37.804) Yeah, I agree with that. I think that

Dave! (25:39.734) And then once she goes, that's kind of when his career starts to take a nosedive a little bit.

Bryan! (25:43.424) It starts to wobble for sure. And then it just yeah. And then like then and then we're talking about fucking memoirs of an invisible man. So cast Oscar winner, Jamie Lee Curtis, obviously, she was originally hired as a marketing stunt due to her parents Hollywood Legacy. She's the daughter of Janet Lee and Tony Curtis, you know.

Dave! (25:49.161) Oh.

Dave! (25:54.562) Hell yes.

Dave! (26:06.19) Because he wanted, what's her face? June Lockhart's daughter. I can't remember her name.

Bryan! (26:11.594) Uh, I am drawing a blank also.

Dave! (26:14.958) but she was already committed to a bunch of shit.

Bryan! (26:17.976) Yeah. But yeah, most particularly, like the big obvious draw here is her mother is in Psycho. So like and Psycho. Yeah. And Psycho was like a like a, you know, obviously a major influence on this. As it turns out, it turns out she's a fucking hell of an actress. The role establishes a couple of the best known horror movie tropes, The Final Girl and The Scream Queen, and it's all thanks to Jamie.

Dave! (26:25.814) They knew they could use it.

Dave! (26:43.766) Yep, and I'm gonna shoot a shitload of holes through that when we get there.

Bryan! (26:47.172) hehehehe. Um, uh, coming up, uh, Nick Castle as the shape and, uh, Nick, this, which this is a quality I love. He gets the best people to wear the fucking mask. He gets a guy named Nick Castle and a guy named Dick Warlock. Dick Warlock. Dick Warlock.

Dave! (27:02.062) Dick Warlock. Oh, my favorite Michael Myers? Dick Warlock. Well, I mean, Deborah Hill and then Dick Warlock. That's how I rank.

Bryan! (27:13.762) So yeah, Nick's not really an actor, but he's definitely a major factor in why Michael Myers is such a memorable character.

Dave! (27:22.23) He says his whole reason for why. See, he knew him, I think from film school. They went to USC together. And...

Bryan! (27:27.692) Yeah, that's uh cuz yeah cuz I guess the story goes John and Tommy Lee Wallace go to California together from Kentucky and it's there that they meet Nick at USC um and

Dave! (27:34.283) Yes.

Dave! (27:37.982) And he, I guess he was just like, hey, cause he was trying to do his own shit too. And he's like, hey, you mind if I just like come and hang out and watch? And he was like, well, you can come and hang out, but if you're going to be here, you got to do something. Cause like everybody had like 8 million jobs. And so he was like, here, put this on and you're going to walk around on camera. And he was like, all right, should I do anything else? What's my motivation? He was like, just walk around. I don't, I don't have motivation.

Bryan! (27:51.18) Yeah.

Bryan! (28:01.898) kill. That's your motivation.

Dave! (28:03.822) He really, he gave him like almost, no, there is one scene where he does actually direct him. And one, only one scene, everything else, he was like, just walk. Yep.

Bryan! (28:10.24) It's the head tilt, yeah. So yeah, so there's an actor named Tony Moran who plays Michael in the scene where the mask comes off, but Nick is the guy doing all the heavy lifting in this. And it's just, it's that. It's.

God, this I'm going to talk about it in the in terms of like a Swiss watch. Like every little piece of this movie is working perfectly in concert with the others. And there's just, you know, even though like his fucking direction was like, just stand there like, I don't know what it is about it. It's it's menacing in a way that like other roles are not. Rounding it all out is Donald Pleasance.

Dave! (28:51.753) Oh, man.

Bryan! (28:52.461) Who's a prolific English actor? You likely know him from one of two movies. This one, or as Blofeld, the Bond villain in You Only Live Twice.

Dave! (29:00.779) Not the wheelchair-bound monkey scientist? Or the Italian detective?

Bryan! (29:22.242) the

Dave! (29:22.306) Because Peter Cushing looked at it and was like, uh, no, absolutely not. I think Christopher Lee was like, I'm sorry you don't have enough money. But I guess Christopher Lee like years later was like, you know what, I have always regretted saying no to-

Bryan! (29:34.068) Yeah, yeah, but I'll tell you, I can't see anybody else in this role. Like I just, if I try to kind of recontextualize it with Christopher Lee, like he's just got too much gravitas.

Dave! (29:44.628) Yeah, you needed someone who was not as recognizable to American audiences.

Bryan! (29:49.164) Yeah, yeah. And Donald Pleasence is like perfectly anxious in the role of Sam Loomis.

Dave! (29:55.13) I honestly, I find him to be sort of like, he's kind of inconsequential until the end of the movie.

Bryan! (29:58.488) That's the thing. I and I we talked about it in the Rob Zombie one. Rob Zombie obviously feels the same way. I kind of feel like I don't he's not terribly compelling and in the end he's kind of a deus ex. Yeah, I don't I don't particularly like the character but

Dave! (30:08.482) No, he's a little bit obnoxious.

Every time they cut to him, I find myself being like, no, go back to the girls, I want that story. I don't give a shit about this guy.

Bryan! (30:16.716) Well, well, this is the first time. This is the first time I'm being really analytical about this movie, like because, you know, we got to talk about it to a sort of, you know, an audience. And so I'm like really kind of thinking about it. And it sort of occurred to me that 90% of the movie, he's just hanging out in the bushes next to the Meyers house.

Dave! (30:33.582) And it all feels a little bit to me like, well, he flew all the way here. We paid him a lot of money. We may as well get our money's worth? Question mark.

Bryan! (30:42.772) I think they yeah, I think they had him for something like 10 days and they were and he was the one who you know, obviously, Nate, you know, established actor, he had some, you know, things they wanted they wanted. They wanted a name that they could put on the poster, and so they had to they paid him the most but like they really just did not flex him I don't I mean and who knows it's the one he's one of the like the one character that I feel is just the weakest of the bunch. So here's some notes.

Dave! (31:07.855) Yeah. Yeah, I mean, can you imagine if like, at the time they would have been like, hey, guess what? 30 years from now, you're going to be the least recognized person associated with this movie.

Bryan! (31:17.992) And that's in spite of the fact that he's in like six of them and that they fake his voice in the David Gordon Green ones. Like, I mean, he's an important element for these movies for some fucking reason. I don't know. We'll get there. This movie premiered of all places in Kansas City on October 25th, 1978.

Dave! (31:38.926) Do you think they expected this to be like a regional thing? Like just sort of a regional hit?

Bryan! (31:42.528) No, no. So the original plan for Compass was they were going to produce it and then they were just going to sell it to one of the majors for like a flat fee. And that was that was the plan. Like they get, you know, they say like, you know, $3 million or whatever. And then, you know, MGM buys it for $3 million and then they do what they will with it. But when the major saw it, they were like, fuck this. Like, this is bullshit. Like a bunch of idiots.

Dave! (32:10.37) Well, do you know the story though? You know how that, why that happened? Because he originally showed it to them without music. And they were like, no, this isn't scary. It's kind of boring actually. And he was like, shit, do I just spend all of this time and all this money making a terrible movie? And then he went back and showed it. I guess eventually he showed people the one with the soundtrack and they were like, that's the most terrifying thing I've ever seen.

Bryan! (32:16.982) Oh no!

Bryan! (32:31.496) Yeah, I think I well, that was the thing was is this movie when they couldn't sell it, they were like, okay, so we'll just do a regional rollout which is pretty standard for independent stuff at the time. Uh but I believe it was in 1980 when they when you know, it's had a few years to go. It's got a reputation and this is when like the TV studios were like, we want to run this on thing.

Dave! (32:56.202) Oh yeah, right. We should say everybody, this movie did not do well when it came out. Not at first. It was critically, critically assailed.

Bryan! (33:02.797) It was a modest success at first and then it blew up. But yeah, it's often told that John took the project on for a salary of $10,000 from the film's budget of $300,000, but that's not exactly right. So what John did was he negotiated a rather low salary, but what it did was it bought him complete creative control.

so this basically you know when they produce a movie if you don't have that sort of clause in your contract you're going to get a thousand fucking producer notes throughout it and you're going to have to address them in it like you you've heard nightmare stories about producer notes like particularly what it has to do with the fucking Weinsteins

Rob Zombie tells a story about how Bob Weinstein in the middle of production sent him this like note that was like Michael Myers should wear a necklace of earrings. And he's like, we've shot like 75% of this movie. Like, you do you know? Yeah. But yeah, so he basically gets final cut on this. Obviously. That's an important thing. And this is especially important for me because

Dave! (33:56.846) Well, you shouldn't sexually assault actors. I guess neither one of us is getting what we want.

Dave! (34:07.938) He also gets his name above the title.

Bryan! (34:15.576) John Carpenter is probably the first director who I became like a fan of. Cause like when I was a kid, I didn't pay attention to that sort of thing. I didn't give a shit about it. It was, it was who the people making the movies were not important to me. But because his name was on it, it became a thing. Like I like Escape from New York a lot. And so here's another movie by the same guy who made that I'm probably gonna like. Yeah, yeah.

Dave! (34:38.038) that he is a brand. And part of that, I think has something to do with the multiple roles that he plays. Like there's a, I don't know if it's a director's guild thing or it's one of the guilds, I think. It has something to do with how many things you're doing. It's why it's like, this is Stephen King's maximum overdrive. It has to do with the multiple roles that you have.

Bryan! (34:54.924) right. Yeah, I think what was it Julia told us that if Stephen King wrote the script for the movie, it was Stephen King's blah blah. In this case, it was just it was just a contract thing. And then eventually it becomes kind of part of his brand. They put his they put his name on everything. Yeah, so like before I really kind of came to sort of be like a film.

fan like if I if I saw something that said John Carpenter like I was like oh shit I gotta see that but yeah but also he got to do the music he wanted to do the music on it and thank fucking god he did the music on it but also a part of a part of this salary negotiation was he bought he bought he negotiated points in the movie's back end meaning that he got a piece of the profits

Dave! (35:45.91) which smart move.

Bryan! (35:47.34) I know, probably the best business deal he ever made in his entire life. So once the movie started to roll out and become very popular, he started making a shitload of fucking money. Like he's probably made more money off of this movie than anything else that he's ever done in his career. I mean, he probably could have just made Halloween and then fucking coasted for the rest of his life. And then he made a bunch of fucking great movies, yeah.

Dave! (36:09.094) Oh, and then he made a bunch of other awesome movies.

Bryan! (36:15.348) Until the Blair Witch project broke the record, Halloween was the most profitable independent movie ever made. It held the record. I don't hate it, but I don't like it. Don't we that movie was they did all the post production for Blair Witch in Florida at UCF when I was living down there and they premiered it at a at a at a sort of local art house called the Enzion and a friend of mine was like, hey, there's a free movie over at the Enzion tonight.

Dave! (36:20.162) Yeah, you know who hates that movie? Me.

Bryan! (36:44.64) something about a witch. And so I was like, Hey, nice, you want to go see this? And she was like, we had nothing going on. We were fucking kids at the time. So we went and we watched it. And then the movie was over. We were like, so that's it, huh? And they did a big like, they opened up, they brought out a mic to do like a q&a thing. And like, literally, it was it was a packed theater. It was a fucking free movie in Orlando, Florida. And like, everybody just got up and left. It's so

Dave! (36:57.375) nothing happens.

Dave! (37:07.394) Yeah, Mike, I was like, sir, I have a question. What the fuck was that?

Bryan! (37:13.374) What the hell was that? Yeah. So imagine my surprise with like a year later, it's the like there's people going down to fucking Maryland to look for the missing cast members. I'm like, I was like, what's that? That fucking I know it was like, what that fucking movie we just saw? Like what the hell? Yeah, so.

Dave! (37:14.23) Look at how horseshit is this. I want my money back.

Dave! (37:23.822) Yeah, that is a lesson in viral marketing.

Dave! (37:32.47) I mean, interestingly enough, this Halloween was supposed to be a ghosty, haunted house, spooky kind of movie too. Thankfully it was not. He made better choices and put characters in it.

Bryan! (37:40.216) Yeah.

Bryan! (37:44.084) Yeah, yeah. So the name Michael Myers was taken from the head of Miracle Films, which is a British film distributor that handled the release of assault on precinct 13. Because he Yep.

Dave! (37:56.182) Yeah, John Carpenter has openly admitted many times that he is terrible at coming up with names, so he's just like, uh, you, you're Alfred Hitchcock. That's your character's name. I mean, that's why the character... his name, the doctor is Sam Loomis. I mean...

Bryan! (38:05.676) You're Guy Incognito.

Bryan! (38:10.752) Yep. Yeah. Sam Loomis obviously is Marion Crane's boyfriend. Played by John Gavin and Psycho. Yeah.

Dave! (38:17.878) I mean, it's throughout the whole thing. Like eventually you get to a point where like characters are actually named Tommy Wallace.

Bryan! (38:23.888) Yeah, yeah, Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace. Yeah, I think I what is it? Is it Halloween three where there's actually a character named Nick Castle? Yeah. But yeah, my god. Yeah, I mean, I fucking love him. I mean, is it a tremendously creative character just cannot fucking come up with names. But

Dave! (38:32.351) I think so.

Dave! (38:44.226) I just, you get to filly lays just like, I don't know, that doesn't matter. Call him Susan, it doesn't fucking matter. Exactly.

Bryan! (38:47.648) Yeah. George Glass. So there were two mask concepts made for this movie. One of them is obviously the iconic shape mask, which was originated from a rubber Captain Kirk mask made by Don Post Studios. But the original plan for the shape was to have him wear like a sort of adult version of the child Michael's costume. And so when.

Dave! (39:13.703) Oof, man.

Bryan! (39:14.54) when Tommy Lee Wallace went out looking for masks, because I don't think that until they had like, until they had the mask, the script was never terribly specific about what Michael looks like. And so.

Dave! (39:26.654) No, and he says he said, Tyler Llewellyn says that he gave him like, you know, like a bunch of money and he was like, here, we need a costume for this thing. I don't know what it's gonna be, but go to a costume store and get something. So he came back with two masks.

Bryan! (39:39.088) mask. Yeah. He comes back. So, obviously, the Don Post Kirk mask. Uh the other is a Weary Willie mask. So,

Dave! (39:49.306) Uh, no no. Uh, it's not that. Is it that? The guy... The clown. Yeah.

Bryan! (39:54.816) Yeah, because it's the yeah, the hobo clown and which man that weary Willie story is fucking crazy on its own. No, that's the one where the character was passed down through three generations of the same of the family who played it and each. Yes, Emma Kelly.

Dave! (40:02.922) That's the training one, the leg story, right?

Dave! (40:16.146) Emmett Kelly. The Emmett Kelly mask, yeah, yeah.

Bryan! (40:19.208) and each one of them became obsessed with the character to a point where they either referred to themselves as if they were this character or they referred to Weary Willie as if he were a real person, kind of in the same way that like Alice Cooper got really confused towards... yeah.

Dave! (40:22.731) Yeah.

Dave! (40:35.442) or Edgar Bergen. Edgar Bergen would be like, this is my son. It's like, no, that's a ventriloquist dummy. You have actual children, sir. You terrible, terrible man.

Bryan! (40:41.416) Yes. Yeah. It's a yeah. Yeah. Put that in the bank for morbid.

Dave! (40:49.206) That's right, everybody. Go look up Edgar Bergen and find out why Candice Bergen hated her father. It is hilarious and tragic.

Bryan! (40:52.049) Hahaha

Bryan! (40:58.648) Oh man. But yeah, so it was so the mask that I'm trying to describe is it's a clown but he's also like a hobo. And so

Dave! (41:08.222) Yeah, he's like an adult version of the littlest hobo. Like he's a traditional hobo.

Bryan! (41:11.168) Yeah. Yeah, I think and so I think I'm not positive but I think that the mask that gets pulled off of Michael at the beginning of the movie is the unused mask.

Dave! (41:22.69) So he said what they did was he came back with these two masks and they were like, all right, let's try them out and figure out which one is which. And he comes out with the one, that one, and they're like, yeah, it's pretty creepy, I guess. And then he didn't do much to the first one. But the second one, he cuts the eye holes bigger. And really just so he could see out of it and move around in it. And he kind of fluffs up the hair a little bit and he paints it white.

Bryan! (41:29.128) right? Because they because they modified both of them. So, obviously, like,

Bryan! (41:39.746) Yeah.

Yeah, right. Because if you can we'll put it we'll put it on the we'll put it on Instagram, but you can see you could find the original Kirk mask fairly easily. And it's a fucked up looking mask. Look, it's it was taken from a mold that they did for the Devil's reign. So it's not really Captain Kirk. It's just William Shatner, but it's it was patterned and sold.

Dave! (41:53.482) Yeah, it is real on Candy Valley.

Dave! (42:00.55) Oh, classic.

Which is like, what's worse than a William... What's worse than a Captain Kirk mask? A William Shatner mask?

Bryan! (42:09.356) Yeah. So it's done after that but it was branded. It was sold next to like a Spock mask also and the Spock one looks like Leonard Nimoy. The Kirk one looks like looks like yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but the weary Willie mask, I guess what Tommy Lee Wallace did with it was he just kind of like glued red hair to it and they were like

Dave! (42:19.998) Looks like William Shatner in Devil's Reign. So, you know, a little bit bloated, terrible.

Bryan! (42:37.268) Okay, yeah, all right. And but then they put the other mask on and we're like, Holy shit, that's the one because like he treated

Dave! (42:41.918) And the reason why is because of the eye holes. Because they're so big. And you can see this in the movie too. Why some of the closeups look really creepy is because they just look black. Yeah.

Bryan! (42:45.658) Really.

Bryan! (42:49.256) Oh, I've got a I have a ton of notes about that because my favorite that's my favorite quality of it is like in future sequels. I mean like even as early as Halloween two like you can see Michael's eyes through the mask and it just takes all the fucking menace out of it for me. I don't know how other people feel about it, but like.

Dave! (43:05.866) Yep. No, it was the first thing I noticed when I watched it today, I was like, oh, that is a distinct difference.

Bryan! (43:13.376) Yeah, because like there's a couple of times where like, you can you can kind of see Nick's eyes through the mask, but really, they're just two black fucking pools throughout the whole thing. And the whole point is, there's nothing behind the mask, you know, it's just, you know, yeah, so it's a it's a hell of a fucking it's a hell of a mask, man.

Dave! (43:25.172) Yeah, devil's eyes.

Dave! (43:32.834) So as soon as they see that, they're like, that's your mask right there. And what do you pair it with? Something equally banal.

Bryan! (43:36.161) Right, right. Because I mean, like

Yeah. Because also like we're gonna we're gonna hear a lot about it as I talk about it but like in it's it we go a very long time before we actually see the shape up close like we see him.

Dave! (43:54.006) that half of this movie is just about teenage girls. And it's awesome.

Bryan! (43:57.528) Yeah, you know, we see him in the we see him in the distance, but like the detail is hard to make out. And it's that just a featureless face. Eventually, once they settle on the mask, John kind of does a does a rewrite and starts to really sort of describe it. And like the original, you could find the script fairly easily online. But the original opening, like the title sequence, which, you know, we now see with the kind of the zooming shot on the pumpkin. Originally, it was a zoom in on the mask.

That's just how much they like it.

Dave! (44:28.23) I would say, I'll point this out because before we actually get into the movie, movie of it, the fact that you just see him in sort of vague distance a lot, I think is kind of key to this idea of like the whole, the whole concept of the final girl and how it gets applied to this movie. And I don't want to harp on this too much. I could easily get caught up in this argument and fucking derail us completely. But I think it's the, what's most interesting is that you have these three characters.

And obviously people are like, well, these are the two that are doing drugs and they're having sex, and she's this sort of chaste girl. And I don't think that's true at all to begin with. But yeah, and the only reason she's not having sex is because she doesn't have a boyfriend, though she expresses interest in both of those things. But the only reason that she lives and they don't is because she has a vague awareness that something's going on. She kind of knows she's in a horror movie where the other two don't. So.

Bryan! (45:03.754) She's fucking smokes weed with Annie.

Bryan! (45:11.705) Yeah, yeah.

Bryan! (45:23.232) Yeah, and there's actually there is a moment in the movie that I can put a pin in it when she realizes that something is very wrong at her awareness, her consciousness shifts in a very significant part. And that's what she finds. That's what she finds Annie's keys in the wrong house.

Dave! (45:33.622) Yeah, people.

Dave! (45:37.014) The only reason she doesn't die is because Lumis runs up the stairs and shoots him. If Lumis didn't run up the stairs, she would also have been killed. So the argument falls apart. But I hate that argument because I love all three of these characters so fucking much. I love them more than I think I've loved any trio of characters in movies. They're just incredible.

Bryan! (45:58.924) Yeah. It's it is watching them and sort of like listening to them talk is like it's almost as though you're kind of a part of their little circle, you know, but yeah, it's God, it's so fucking good.

Dave! (46:15.438) I think that's why I get so up and even do it like, oh, well it's just another slasher. I'm just like, why don't you shut your fucking mouth? Cause I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you why these fucking queens are the greatest trio of friends in any film ever made.

Bryan! (46:21.21) I'll punch you in the fucking face.

Bryan! (46:28.396) Yeah. So, half of the movie's $300,000 budget went to Dean Kundy's very specific camera and lighting needs and that was a

Dave! (46:36.01) which surprisingly this is the first time that the Panaglide camera, which is the camera they're using, if you don't know what a Panaglide camera is, it's essentially a camera that attaches to your whole body and you move with it, yeah.

Bryan! (46:45.344) It's a Steadicam. It's the very first Steadicam. This was not the first movie to use it, but it was... Yeah, it was...

Dave! (46:49.962) It was the first movie to use it extensively. It was one of the first movies to use it at all, but it was the first one to use it. This is not the first movie to use killer POV. That was a peeping tom, which is also an awesome movie that everyone should go watch.

Bryan! (47:02.476) Yeah. But yeah, but I mean also technically speaking, this movie, the photography is as much a part of the storytelling as the fucking script is like.

Dave! (47:15.158) because Dean Kandi is like one of the greatest camera operators ever.

Bryan! (47:20.756) It's amazing. Okay, so. Yeah, so to kind of finish it, finish it out like the importance of this decision is they sunk half of a fucking tiny little movie, but $300,000 even in 1978, not a lot of money. And to spend half of it.

Dave! (47:39.466) No. And like, I think like maybe a quarter of it, like so half it goes to the panaglut, and then like a little less than a quarter of it goes to tomoplasts.

Bryan! (47:50.508) Yeah. So, yeah, they're paying their cast peanuts. They're modifying $2 Halloween masks. Uh they're literally recycling leaves to fake an autumn in California and they're doing all these little belt tightening considerations.

Dave! (48:04.738) Jamie Lee Curtis is back there making fucking peanut butter sandwiches for everybody and she is not on camera

Bryan! (48:10.64) the

Dave! (48:17.106) And I recommend if anybody has the commentary track with Dean Condie, it's worth listening to. It's funny because Tommy Lee Wallace is eating through the whole thing. But to listen to them talk, so it's Dean Condie, Tommy Lee Wallace, and Nick Castle. Nick Castle is just sort of there. Like he doesn't have much to contribute, but Tommy Lee Wallace and Dean Condie are obviously sort of integral parts of the movie and to listen to them talk is really interesting, but they also, and you get this from the movie in general, but

they all really like each other and they still really like each other. Like they had, John Carpenter said, this was the last time we all just had a ton of fun making a movie together. Because the stakes obviously get exponentially raised after he makes this, but he was like, we were just a scrappy ragtag team of like kids making a movie and we had a blast making this movie. And you can tell the way they talk about it is like, they still look back on it so fondly and you just don't get that.

Bryan! (48:50.22) Yeah, that's the-

Bryan! (49:13.112) Yeah, the comment. I will say this of I've listened to a bunch of the like commentary tracks on John Carpenter DVDs and Blu-rays, and they're probably some of my favorites, even the ones that don't involve him. Obviously, the ones of him and Kurt Russell are the absolute best of any commentary track I've ever heard. But like, yeah, they're always

Dave! (49:30.954) because it's basically just Kurt Russell laughing while John Carpenter is like cracking him up with jokes. Because in every one of them, I guarantee John Carpenter high as hell.

Bryan! (49:36.46) Yeah. Uh, but

Oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah. So, yeah, getting back to it. Dean Cundy, one of Deborah Hills hires. They, yep, they worked together on cheap drive in trash before this. He was, Dean Cundy worked, actually, both of them worked for Graydon Clark on titles like Satan's Cheerleaders, but it's fucking terrible. They also worked

Dave! (49:46.399) an awesome move.

Dave! (49:58.614) Yep, which is an awful movie.

Bryan! (50:03.248) to get Deborah Hill did not but Dean Cundy worked on Graydon Clark in Without Warning, which I recently did on the saucer cinema podcast. And that movie is bananas, but the cinematography fucking amazing.

Dave! (50:17.398) And I mean, Dean Cotty, for those who don't know, would go on to shoot, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Jurassic Park, like every fucking movie that is awesome to look at probably has him in it.

Bryan! (50:22.125) Yeah.

Bryan! (50:28.237) He has an innate understanding of the way the cameras and lenses and lighting all work together.

Dave! (50:33.502) except for when they just buy a Panaglide camera, because he has a lot to say about that.

Bryan! (50:38.024) Yeah, yeah, but like he has a he's a very distinct look. It really comes to life in Escape from New York. Basically any movie that he works on that involves a lot of nighttime shots. He it's when he does his best fucking work, he's absolutely amazing. And the way that he composes shots in this movie, like I said, the darkness becomes a character as much as like Michael Myers is a character, you know.

Dave! (51:02.006) Yeah, he is a visual storyteller in a way that you don't see a lot. And he actually gets into that quite a lot. Like there are particular shots and he every time he'll be like, whoa, hold on, this, I love this. Like he says the over the shoulder shots, like the hedge as she's walking away. Like he's like, that is one of my proudest moments.

Bryan! (51:19.309) Yeah.

Bryan! (51:23.408) Oh my god. Yeah. Uh so, we cannot possibly talk about this movie without talking about the soundtrack.

Dave! (51:29.75) Holy crap!

Bryan! (51:32.361) Oh my god, I've got so many. So let's just do it.

Dave! (51:36.502) So this is listed as AFI's, it's in their top 100. I don't know where it sits. I think it's kind of higher, but I think it should be, I'm gonna say top 20 film scores of all time. This is as recognizable as Psycho.

Bryan! (51:48.121) I'm surprised that it's not. I think that it is, yeah, it's, that melody is so recognizable. It's up there with the fucking shower scene. You know, it's, I can't, I can think of, there's not too many movie like themes like fucking Star Wars or Superman. Jaws.

Dave! (52:05.75) like that or like Bernard Herman's look, the shit he did for Psycho in Vertigo, Jaws, absolutely. But I think it is right up there with Jaws. Like it is a character in this film. And it is an essential character in this film.

Bryan! (52:10.636) Yeah, yeah. Right up there.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So part of his deal with Compass, he insisted on composing the entire thing and he did it in three fucking days with a piano and a Prophet five synthesizer.

Dave! (52:29.374) And he's always like, well, I'm not much of a musician, to which I say, shut up.

Bryan! (52:33.008) Shut the fuck up, John. Yeah, so just our theme for this show was composed on a software version of a.

Dave! (52:39.882) Yeah, he has inspired like an entire genre of music. Like there were, he was inspired by a lot of what was going on in Italy at the time. You know, people like Piero Ummalani, who was starting to experiment with electronics. And a lot of like the older Italian guys are starting to experiment with electronics. He kind of is inspired a little bit by them, a little bit by his father and a little bit by the fact that he is just a very creative person who wants to try stuff.

Bryan! (53:06.496) Yeah, yeah, and that's the thing is the Prophet 5 was brand new when this movie came out and it was not a cheap synthesizer. It's the whole its whole deal was so with synthesizers when you used to use an analog synth, you would turn it on and it was just a clean slate. So if you wanted, if you had a certain sound that you were working with, you had to program it every time you turn the synth on.

Dave! (53:14.07) No, you should fucking look at pictures of it.

Dave! (53:32.866) Now you basically had to be Tom Waits if you wanted to know how to use this.

Bryan! (53:36.32) Yeah, so the problem with the Prophet 5 did was it added a bunch of microprocessors. And so this was one of the first synthesizers that remembered your patches. I personally also it has a it has a really sort of distinct character to itself is a sound that I love. It's the synthesizer that built the fucking 80s. You have heard a million singles from the 80s that use it like that main sort of melody from like a virgin. That's Prophet five, I think.

Billie Jean was done on a profit five.

Dave! (54:04.394) Mm-hmm. Again, Italian. Because this is, I think like a virgin is shorty o'moroder.

Bryan! (54:09.588) Yeah, yeah, Marauder used it very extensively. Like I said...

Dave! (54:12.35) Yeah, and Georgina Moroder was heavily influenced by Piero O'Melany.

Bryan! (54:16.204) Yeah, I chose it very specifically for the composition of our theme song just because I fucking love it. John Carpenter loves it and it's just the shit. I totally understand why he doesn't love it. It has an amazing sound to it. It was made memorable for having an odd time signature, meaning that the number of beats in a measure is an odd number. It's, yeah. It's five fourths. So that means that there are five beats in a measure.

Dave! (54:35.434) And he said, so it's four or five. And he says his father taught him this or five, four, five, four.

Bryan! (54:44.421) and a beat is measured by a quarter note.

Dave! (54:46.914) So he said his father bought him bongos when he was very young, and he never learned how to play them really, but he was like, but I remembered that. I remembered that it's a very unsettling time signature because it doesn't do what you think it's gonna do.

Bryan! (54:49.657) Yep.

Bryan! (55:00.236) No, it's wobbly. It's, and that's the thing is, is the reason, and music theory is fascinating. I'm not really a musician. I took a semester of music theory when I first went to college. The reason, like we have an innate sense of rhythm, just, it's just a piece of our consciousness. And four-four is symmetrical. It's even, it's very pleasing. That's why, you know, you can dance to it. You can tap your feet to it. It does what you expect it to do. Yeah. And so,

Dave! (55:26.154) Yes, it is why a box step is a box.

Bryan! (55:30.176) It sounds right for the lack, for lack of a better term. Even fast songs performed in this time signature have like a kind of innately pleasing quality about them. But odd time signatures, they add or they remove a beat and that puts you off balance. It keeps you.

Dave! (55:47.966) It's like adding or removing a stair. If you're going up or downstairs, you think it's gonna be there, it's not, and you stumble each time.

Bryan! (55:50.72) Yeah. Right, right, right. If you're, yeah, yeah. And that's exactly what it is. And in this one, with five, four, it has a tendency to sound like it's moving. Like it's, it's always a little, like a little bit of a head of you.

Dave! (56:01.622) Yes.

So the best way I have heard this particular song described, there was a ethnomusicologist on NPR years ago, and they were talking about this song specifically, it was around Halloween, believe it or not, and he said, what it is about this song? So there's that, the fact that there is that extra note where you're like, you don't know what to do with it, your brain doesn't expect it, so you're thrown already, and he said, this is building and building and building, and it's unrelenting.

It never, you never think it's going to stop and that makes your whole body tense.

Bryan! (56:29.997) Yes.

Bryan! (56:34.42) Yeah, and that's and this is this is a thing that like now, like bearing this in mind, go and listen to other John Carpenter compositions, because this is sort of like his signature is it starts very simple. And then he adds a sort of level of rhythm under it. And then he adds a kind of dominating bassy texture under it while there's this kind of frantic high register melody playing. He does it for everything even on his new stuff and fire starter does he does it a lot. It's it's just it's

Dave! (57:00.234) Yeah. That new collection that came out like two weeks ago, they fucking, they're still killing these old songs, like making them feel fresh and new, because they just feel like nothing you've ever heard before because they are designed to be like something you don't expect.

Bryan! (57:08.57) Yeah.

Yeah.

Bryan! (57:14.636) Yeah, a big like and also a big influence on this soundtrack was just I mean Bernard Herman inspires fucking everybody. But

Dave! (57:23.682) We would not have horror soundtracks were it not for Bernard Herrmann. It's like Bernard Herrmann, Bruno Niccolai, and Ennio Morricone. Without those, there would be no music and horror movies.

Bryan! (57:27.148) Yeah. So the psycho theme.

Bryan! (57:35.498) No, no, but the psycho theme is in three, four to give you an idea, like a sort of an idea. So like, obviously, he was like, okay, I can't do this in four, it'll just it won't work. It has to have that fucking either one less or one extra.

Dave! (57:48.422) Yeah, and Hitchcock didn't want that in his movie either. You know what that means? Alfred Hitchcock was an asshole. That guy was an idiot. He's also all over this movie as well.

Bryan! (57:52.228) He's a fucking asshole. Yeah. Fucking idiot. No vision whatsoever. Yep. Yeah.

Dave! (58:01.546) Yeah, the score in this film is there are so many moments while I'm watching it this time, the last time around, there's one moment in particular that I had totally ignored, it is so innocuous in the movie, that I am so taken by this time around, and it has to do with the music, and like, Kandi's camera work, that I'm just like, this is the moment in the movie that is one of the most brilliant things I've ever seen.

Bryan! (58:23.852) Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. And this is like I said, Swiss Watch, everything is just working in perfect concert. This movie would not be the movie it is without, you know, if you if you removed one of these details, if it didn't have Dean Cundy, if it didn't have the soundtrack that it did, but it had everything else, like it just it would not have it would not work the way that it does it wouldn't have the staying power.

Dave! (58:45.11) I think a lot of that too is because John Carpenter was willing to, people, he was willing to listen when people said, hey, I have an idea. And he would say, great, hit me with it. Let's do your thing.

Bryan! (58:51.918) Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I love him for it. So once this movie was an undeniable hit, TV networks wanted it, and NBC ended up with it, with the rights for it for $3 million. But they had to cut a lot of it for broadcast, which I think cut it down, because the movie's like just a touch over 90 minutes. And so they had to cut about 10 minutes of violence.

Dave! (59:06.838) And they said, I have an idea, let's make it stupid.

Bryan! (59:20.04) And so they're like, well, we can fill about 30 minutes of this with advertisements because they were going to do that anyways, but it left a gap of about 10 minutes. And so Carpenter in 1980 gets everybody together. Well, not everybody gets Donald Pleasants. He gets the kid who plays child Michael, he gets PJ souls, Annie and Laurie, and they do a bunch of insert shots. And so these scenes include

Dave! (59:45.846) You get them all together and he goes, hey guys, you guys know anything about quantum theory? Hey, you guys like weed?

Bryan! (59:51.481) I got this idea. So, there's a scene where Loomis attends a hearing where a judge is ruling his red, remanding Michael to Smith's Grove and we find out that his middle name is Audrey.

Yep. It's a little detail there. Michael, Michael Audrey Myers. The same. Yeah, the same scene explains why he was being moved in the first place stating that he would face a jury trial as an adult on his 21st birthday, meaning I believe Michael's birthday is on Halloween kind of like how Jason's birthday is on Friday the 13th.

Dave! (01:00:07.366) It's just like Richard Gere's middle name is Tiffany.

Michael Audrey Myers.

Dave! (01:00:26.614) How convenient.

Bryan! (01:00:31.86) Loomis looks in on child Michael, same actor, clearly a few years, few years on. There's also a scene where my modern day Loomis checks in on a hospital following Michael's escape, finding his room trashed. And we find out that Michael orchestrated this escape in a brutally efficient manner, typical of his character. And then to coincide with Halloween for some Halloween, too, for some stupid fucking reason, he has the word sister scratched on the inside of his room's door.

Dave! (01:00:56.822) Yeah, they really tanked this shit. Like...

Bryan! (01:01:00.164) That is the dumbest fucking detail and to hear it told later on, John was like, I don't know. She's his sister and they were like fine.

Dave! (01:01:07.914) It's like he was just eating lunch and he was like, how about sister? And they were like, okay, cool. That'll work too, I guess. And it derails the entire fucking series forever.

Bryan! (01:01:17.108) Oh yeah, that's the thing. The legacy of these sequels is a legacy of basically writers constantly writing the next sequels writer into a corner with some dumb fucking detail. Halloween 6 takes years to come out because everybody wants to write around that whole man in black angle and

Dave! (01:01:36.958) And as much as everybody right now is like, oh no, it's totally a misunderstood classic. No, it's not. That movie is fucking terrible. It is badly written. It is badly shot. It is badly acted. Not even Paul Rudd can save that. Not even Paul Rudd's handsome face can save this film.

Bryan! (01:01:44.169) I don't, yeah.

Bryan! (01:01:47.888) I don't I don't I don't ** with those sequels at all.

Bryan! (01:01:56.464) damn it. Yeah, I also a detail about horror movies that I fucking love is that like major stars eventually, you know, who eventually kind of come into like a name brand always start off in this I found out that Adam Scott, one of his first roles is in one of the hell about the hellraiser sequels. I was like, Fuck it seriously like back in the 90s. There's also. Yeah, oh yeah, this was I think it was the one in space. Yeah.

Dave! (01:02:16.578) That's the bottom of the barrel.

Dave! (01:02:21.984) Oh.

Bryan! (01:02:23.844) And there's also a scene where Linda bursts into Laurie's house fretting about being followed by some guy. It's a fucking terrible scene. It has none of the sort of like subtle energy of the original Halloween.

Dave! (01:02:33.398) Like, way to undermine this entirely awesome thing you all did.

Bryan! (01:02:37.896) There's a reason why none of the like, none of the like official releases come with this footage, or they include them as like...

Dave! (01:02:43.562) Now it should be said he agreed to do all of this so we could get other awesome movies from him. I mean, we get the fog because of this.

Bryan! (01:02:49.133) Yeah.

Yeah, it seems like a lot of the stuff that John does that's not terribly good up to a point is usually he's trying to work his way out of like really undesirable contract clauses.

Dave! (01:03:02.494) Yeah, it's the Keanu Del Toro, one for me, one for them thing.

Bryan! (01:03:06.316) Yeah. So, uh let's uh let's do it. Let's get into it. Yeah, we open on those rad titles with the pumpkin and the anxious theme from Halloween and then we get a card Haddonfield, Illinois Halloween night, 1963. Yeah, and this is beautiful. It is a long tracking shot toward a

Dave! (01:03:11.344) Oh, okay.

Dave! (01:03:22.606) super awesome.

Bryan! (01:03:31.256) We see a teenage girl and boy making out while someone, a surrogate for us viewers, watches them from the window.

Dave! (01:03:37.762) So this apparently, this whole scene, this opening scene takes an entire day to film. And it is because they didn't, they weren't super familiar with the Panaglyph, but also because the way that they had set everything up, this is in a house, the whole movie is shot on location. And so the way it's set up, like I said, the Panaglyph is attached, the sighting camera is attached to a person. So.

Bryan! (01:04:00.076) Yeah, there's basically what it is it's a camera balanced on a on a counterweight attached to this like armature that is attached to a vest that you wear.

Dave! (01:04:09.962) Yeah. And so it moves when you move. Like, and people move, we don't think about the ways that we move. And so

Bryan! (01:04:18.04) Yeah, but the thing is, is it sort of dampens. Like if you try to do handheld without it, it's jerky and it's completely unwatchable. This sort of smooths, it's smooths things out. Yep.

Dave! (01:04:23.69) Yeah, it feels more natural.

Hence the glide part of it. And so it feels like you are walking, you are the killer essentially. But he said, so Dean Conde is saying, if you move at all, he moved to the left or the right, you are gonna see a shitload of people just scrambling all the time. Because every time, so he goes, he walks around the side of the house, looks in the window and he sees his sister making out with her boyfriend. And he was like, as soon as he turns the camera away and starts to move again,

that an entire room lights up with people, they're resetting everything, they're relighting, they're redoing everything, because they have to, because he's eventually gonna go into the house.

Bryan! (01:05:00.366) Yes.

right? Cuz this is this is a it does it does we don't Michael is down on the street.

Dave! (01:05:11.806) Right. No, you get three cuts upstairs. But if he had moved in either direction, you would see everything. And so he's like, you have to be so careful moving with this thing, because if you move a little bit to the right or left, because they only dressed the scene that they needed to shoot, not the rest of the house. He was like, so going up the stairs, if you look to your right, or to your right, yeah, your right, he's like, you're gonna see things that don't, like it just looks like someone's house.

Bryan! (01:05:29.642) Yeah.

Dave! (01:05:38.678) but it looks like someone's house that is not connected to the room you just saw. Like, it was like any slight movement, you're gonna fuck up your shots. He's like, you know, everyone has to be so careful the way that they're moving because they're constantly scrambling around the whole time, relighting, resetting, redoing everything. And I had never really thought about it. I was like, guys, that's kind of wild. Because they don't have much money. I mean, they've got like enough money to make this movie and shoot these shots maybe, maybe twice if you're lucky.

Bryan! (01:05:59.undefined) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:06:06.917) Yeah.

Dave! (01:06:07.219) and then like just fucking keep going.

Bryan! (01:06:09.584) the house. Yeah. So, they go upstairs to fool around and we go around to the back of the house and into the house and then a costume are a costumed arm enters the frame and picks up a knife from the kitchen and holds it in a stabby fashion and then as the boy leaves, we sneak up. Yeah, that was a pretty quick. That was a pretty quick quickie because like he comes racing down the steps, putting his shirt on. She's like, you're going to call me, right? Yeah.

Dave! (01:06:16.322) 45 seconds later, they're done.

Dave! (01:06:27.506) Literally 45 seconds later.

Dave! (01:06:34.602) Yep. So thanks, gotta go. Bye.

Bryan! (01:06:37.816) You're gonna call me, right? He's like, yeah, sure, babe.

Dave! (01:06:40.366) Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe

Bryan! (01:06:43.164) Yep. Yeah. So as we sneak up the steps behind him, having picked up a clown mask from the living room. So now the view. Yep. Debra Hill's hands. And so now the viewpoint switches to a view through the eyes of the clown mask, which is beautiful. And up the stairs we go to find teenage Judith Myers naked in her bedroom brushing her hair.

Dave! (01:06:51.694) Debra Hills, Debra Hills hands.

Dave! (01:07:05.038) Yep, just tits out combing her hair like Marsha Brady, just like 99, 100. Just... what is this moment?

Bryan! (01:07:09.685) Hahaha.

Bryan! (01:07:13.652) Yeah. And she turns, she turns suddenly shouting Michael, which we heard the name before, where she's like, he's like, hey, like, are we alone? And she's like, Michael's around here somewhere. We don't know. We don't know. Imagine we don't know who Michael is. And then and then he begins to stab her repeatedly to death. Breathing it.

Dave! (01:07:32.546) But the awesome part is you can hear the...

Bryan! (01:07:35.392) Yes. So the breathing again, this is a detail that I never really noticed is when they really want to hit you with something, they do the breathing like the breathing sort of.

Dave! (01:07:44.15) And I believe they do that in Peeping Tom.

Bryan! (01:07:47.584) Ah, okay. It makes sense because also we're supposed to be in the shot. We're supposed to be the killer. And so we're like inside the mask and you know, you've put a fucking Halloween mask on, you know what it's like, what it sounds like. It runs.

Dave! (01:07:59.914) And so that stabbing scene, that's edited three shots. And what Dean Conde actually shows, he says where each cut is, you can see it. Because it's essentially every time it turns into a dark corner, that's where the cut is made.

Bryan! (01:08:07.568) Oh, no shit. So, uh.

Right. So that's it's like in Rope where it's supposed to be like a single continuous shot, but they're constantly faking you out because like a fucking film magazine holds like nine minutes of footage. So he runs down the steps out into the streets, a car pulls up and then to a dead to adults ask Michael before the mask is pulled off and the perspective shifts to third person to reveal that Michael is a six year old boy in a clown costume where the blank expression holding a bloody knife that killed his sister.

and the camera floats away from the scene slowly on a long crane shot.

Dave! (01:08:45.203) Yeah, this awesome crane shot. And the crane shot, I think at the time he was like, I just wanted to do a really cool crane shot, but it really gives you that feeling of like, this is suburbia.

Bryan! (01:08:55.916) Yeah, yeah, because, you know, it sort of shows you the sort of the broader neighborhood and it but also the way that it happens is kind of dreamy. So, you know, there's a very it's a little it's a little surreal. But yeah, they this in terms of like the chronology of how they shot this movie they shot this scene last because the house that they should that the actual Myers house that they shot in like the condition of that of that house is very much as you see it in the sort of like 1978

times where it's just it's all fucked up and you know it's just it's a wreck and so after they did all the main movie Tommy Lee Wallace and I think his girlfriend went in and just like painted and patched it up and they stuck oh okay and then they patched uh they patched it up and they put all of their like apartment furniture in the place to like make it look like it's a house that people live in oh no kidding all right well

Dave! (01:09:36.342) I'll be his wife. Thank you very much.

Dave! (01:09:44.074) Now the apartment furniture is in Lori's house. Yeah, so this house, but that's the reason why they were so worried about the way that the shots look as they're going through the house, because if you turn in any direction, it looks like a rundown house. Doesn't look like a lived in home. So they had to be really careful about those tight shots.

Bryan! (01:09:59.788) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:10:04.768) Yeah. The current location of the Myers house in South Pasadena is not the original location.

Dave! (01:10:13.078) No, it looks like it's on a corner now.

Bryan! (01:10:15.688) It is so it's yeah basically it's sort of like a convergence of a number of streets and this like. Like a rail line.

Dave! (01:10:26.166) And they all lived in this neighborhood. Like that's part of the reason why they shot it there is they were, most of them were living.

Bryan! (01:10:31.468) Yeah. So nine years after the movie premiered, it was on a plot of land that was set to be bulldozed into a hospital. And I saw this guy named David Margrave bought it at the last minute, as it was about to be like knocked over and he paid a dollar for it. But he was promising to have it moved, which he did. And so it currently rests about a block away from the actual Strode house location.

near some train tracks. The city marked it off as historically significant. Because like the city, like South Pasadena is like where people go to shoot like nameless suburban American town. Because like it does not, yeah, it's a little north, northeast of Los Angeles, but it does not look like California, like the rest of like Burbank does. And even like Pasadena proper looks very Californian. This looks like a wicked.

Dave! (01:11:07.278) because it's right next to Los Angeles.

Bryan! (01:11:21.772) neighborhood. Like it's the same reason why like a bunch of Nightmare on Elm Street was shot there and Pee Wee Herman's house. It's a it's a wicked nice place. It's super expensive, but like I

Dave! (01:11:28.326) I would move there. I think it looks like a fine neighborhood.

Dave! (01:11:34.658) But I live in Boston and most things look nicer.

Bryan! (01:11:39.309) Yeah, so yeah, they landmarked it, you can go there you visit it if you're ever in South Pasadena, I recognize I recommend it. It's a lot of fun, like the whole like Halloween tour that you can just kind of walk around just like look up the locations like you can go there. I'll repost the photos to our stories about it. But like I did that I did the thing. Like I even brought my mask out for it.

the house looks way nicer today than it did in the movie and the neighbors have all sorts of like Halloween related decorations up to it like one of the people in the back has like there's like a fence up but like there's a tree that's high enough with some branches over and they've got like Michael Myers like sitting in the tree it's pretty cool so now we cut to the title Smith Grove Illinois 15 years later and it is a stormy night the day before Halloween

And Dr. Loomis and a nurse drive up to the sanitarium to transfer Michael to a legal hearing of some sort. Dr. Loomis refers to Michael is it which disturbs the nurse when they get to the hospital, they find the patients all kind of like wandering around in the

Dave! (01:12:38.382) And she says, since when do they let them wander around like that? It's like, bitch, you just yelled at him about this.

Bryan! (01:12:46.148) But yeah, they're just like, it's storming out, and they're just wandering around like it's fucking Bedlam.

Dave! (01:12:50.498) Like it's the SPCA, they're all just kind of out there in their hospital gowns.

Bryan! (01:12:55.652) It's the way that it's lit is a little is a little eerie because you don't you only see him from like the shoulders down. It's it's pretty cool. It's like these people just

Dave! (01:13:03.594) Yeah, it has a real Meanwhile and Bedlam feel to it.

Bryan! (01:13:06.844) Yeah, yeah. So, Loomis gets out to open the gate and a patient climbs over the car and attacks the nurse causing her to

Dave! (01:13:13.842) in that fantastic sting. If you would now, if you're watching, if you're paying close attention, so he climbs upon the roof there, the car, and he reached down to grab her, and she kind of clambers back to the other side of the car, and then his hand comes down and smashes the window. If you're paying close attention, you can see he has a wrench in his hand.

Bryan! (01:13:36.848) Oh, no shit, because I always wonder, because it looks like he just smacks the window and it breaks.

Dave! (01:13:40.618) Well, and that's what he's supposed to do, but you can't break a car window like that with your hand. And so they have like a wrench, you can see it sort of in his hand, and that's what smashes the...

Bryan! (01:13:46.233) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:13:52.228) Gotcha. Because yeah, this I'll say like we've done. We've done. We've done movies in the series where the 4K treatment like the UHD treatment does no favors of these movies. Not in this case like the scream Factory Halloween releases the one that I did and it is beautiful.

Dave! (01:14:09.81) It diminishes certain scenes, but for the most part, I think it really does enhance them.

Bryan! (01:14:14.528) Yeah, it's mostly well also Dean Cundy played a very cool. He was he was very close to the restorations and the sort of the scanning and so like the way that they treat the darkness and like the blue hues and the nighttime shots in it like.

Dave! (01:14:29.07) There's one scene they couldn't get right and we'll get there eventually because it is a key scene in the film. But other than that, yeah, they do a really good job.

Bryan! (01:14:34.458) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:14:37.804) Yeah, but eventually she flees the car and then Michael takes off with it to which this is the part where everybody's like, he's been in this hospital his whole life. How did you know how to drive a car? There's a scene like right after this where the doctor is like, he doesn't even know how to drive a car and Loomis is like, well, he did great the other night.

Dave! (01:14:51.726) He's... Yeah, he was doing a very good job the other night. Yeah, that... I think it's kind of great that they're just like, look, you gotta just go with it. Because it's gonna happen a bunch more times. Just shut up and watch the movie.

Bryan! (01:15:05.688) Yeah. The next day in Haddonfield, teenage Laurie Strode is on the way to school and she has to stop.

Dave! (01:15:08.302) You'll be better off if you don't ask questions.

Dave! (01:15:17.538) So when she jumps out of the house there, bounding down from the house, you know what I always hated about this house is that the boards, like the siding on the garage are the exact same as the siding on the house. And I was just like, that is the tackiest looking shit I've ever seen. But that is John Carpenter's car in the drive.

Bryan! (01:15:26.767) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:15:30.05) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:15:36.704) Yeah, yeah, it does not look like that today. It's a much more tasteful presentation on the setting.

Dave! (01:15:41.974) So one of the things that Gene Conde says about all this, pretty much this, all the neighborhood shit that happens from here on out, he was like, we were constantly fighting to keep palm trees out of the shop.

Bryan! (01:15:51.52) Yeah, they just cannot help it. The sort of the foliage, the trees and all that stuff around South Pasadena. They they are they're enough to sort of pass as regular trees, but there are a couple of shots of just like long streets where just off in the distance are tall ass palm trees.

Dave! (01:16:12.703) Yeah, he's like, actually there were certain things we just couldn't keep it out of.

Bryan! (01:16:15.66) Yeah, but I mean, they do a good job. And it wasn't until it was actually pointed out to me that I started to notice it. Like it's one of those things that I just didn't give a shit and like it's not prominent. So I, unless you're paying attention, you're probably not gonna notice it.

Dave! (01:16:29.778) I'm gonna guess that this was probably shot earlier on in their schedule because the way that Lori is styled from in these early moments is like, this is real. Like, I don't know how to describe it. It's got like a real kind of Girl Scout goodie vibe to it that like, they kind of lose a little bit as she goes on, which is good because I don't like the fact that they're like, here's the Girl Scout. And it's like, oh, Jesus Christ, come on. It's a little on the nose.

Bryan! (01:16:48.366) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:16:55.316) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the pleated skirt and the kind of like the thick, the like thick tights. Yeah, yeah. But um yeah. So, she has to drop off some keys for her father to the Meyers house. Uh he's the realtor selling it and then yeah. So, on the way, she meets up with Tommy Doyle who is an eight-year-old, eight-year-old with a he's an

Dave! (01:16:58.566) Yeah, and the fucking stockings, like, oh god.

Dave! (01:17:12.226) Nah, you can't go in there, it's a boogieman lesson.

Dave! (01:17:17.41) Who, I'm gonna say, is the weakest egg in this movie.

Dave! (01:17:24.31) Yeah, this, he's like, remember those, what are they called, the Boglins? Like the, you get them all, you get them. I'm being unkind right now, but this kid just, he really brings nothing to the movie.

Bryan! (01:17:31.055) Yes!

Bryan! (01:17:40.466) I like his I like their chemistry but I'll to Rob Zombie's credit and also the David Gordon Green the babysitter kids got way better energy in those.

Dave! (01:17:50.898) Oh yeah, I told you, the Rob Zombie one. I think that kid's fucking best part of that movie.

Bryan! (01:17:54.86) Yeah. But uh yeah, I do. I do like Tommy. I love it. We'll get to it. I love Lindsay.

Bryan! (01:18:06.233) the door. Yeah. Uh so, Laurie they get there, we find that inside and they watch her walk leaves and this is that scene earlier where it's just Michael right and it's just his waist. You don't see his camera moves is you get a

Bryan! (01:18:32.94) like they go out of their way to really hide or not hide but obscure the fact that he's wearing a mask.

Dave! (01:18:39.566) Well, and that's one of the things that's really great about this is that they're constantly on top of each other in this movie. Like it's a lot of wide open space and yet you were tight shots on everybody. Like when he's doing those over the shoulder shots he's like literally up against him.

Bryan! (01:18:55.896) like, yeah, yeah. And like, yeah, and we'll see it in others. Like, there's a lot of like shots from the back seat of a car and yeah, that had to be tight because the camera is not small and so it was like it was always Deborah Hill. So, at school, Lori looks out the window to see a man behind

Dave! (01:19:11.114) I just put a tiny awesome lady in the back and it's cool. Get your shot.

Dave! (01:19:20.502) while the worst, most boring teacher in the world drones on at the front of the fucking class. You ever heard that podcast, Sleep With Me? It's like a, it's this guy, I can't remember his name, it's very, it's kind of funny, but it's, it's to help people go to sleep. And he just, he has a real droney voice, and he does shit where he's just like, I'm gonna read to you, you know, like the HBO guide from 1987, and just reads it, and that is what the teacher sounds like, where she's just like, and then this thing.

Bryan! (01:19:24.692) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:19:28.673) No.

Bryan! (01:19:36.278) Ah!

Dave! (01:19:51.022) What does he say about fate? And like, Jesus, I'm surprised they're not all fucking staring out the window at him.

Bryan! (01:19:57.212) Oh, I know. Yeah. So this marks the beginning of Carpenter teasing us with the mask because we don't get a good look at the shape for some time. And for most of the movie up to the point where Annie is killed, Michael's appearance is always obscured in some way. So in this particular shot, he appears like a regular person but he's far enough away that you can't really tell what he looks like but there's something about him that's not quite right. And that's that mask, doing all the work because

Dave! (01:20:23.99) And this is what I said to you last night, where I had to keep reminding myself that this, there wasn't a, that Halloween wasn't a series yet. There was no Halloween yet. So every time they, like even when they bump into him, like directly into him, it's just a guy wearing a mask on Halloween. So even though he may look a little, I don't know, off, it's just someone wearing a costume on Halloween, which is not inappropriate.

Bryan! (01:20:33.517) Yeah!

Bryan! (01:20:47.886) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:20:52.397) Yeah.

Dave! (01:20:52.714) So he's vaguely menacing just because he's there and you can't really make out what he is. But that's why he's menacing. Otherwise it's just a dude in a costume.

Bryan! (01:21:02.052) That's the thing and it's also because of what comes after this movie. It is hard to imagine what it must have been like for people who went to see this movie for the first time. Not really knowing what to expect and then

You know, like you don't like because by the time that we caught up to it, there had been like fucking three sequels and he was as much as like a recognizable killer is like Jason or Freddie. So like the mystique was gone for us. It was just a foregone conclusion that it's a guy wearing a mask. But like I wonder how much of the effect of this movie. And its popularity was based on the fact that like.

If you had never seen this before, if you would, if you did not know going in that it's a guy wearing a mask, like what was your perception of a shot like this where he's just a figure in the distance. And he's

Dave! (01:21:56.83) He's not scary because he's Michael Myers. He's scary because he's always in these shots, somewhere in there. He's like fucking creepy Waldo. Like either the car is in there or he's in there. Like he's just constantly there. That's what makes him menacing and you don't know why.

Bryan! (01:22:05.44) I'm not sure. Right. Yeah, only just recently noticed in like there are parts where just Yeah, like he's like that's the which is kind of why like the not as slow as it could have

Like this is still a pretty snappy movie, in spite of the fact that it's just like a day in the life of some teenagers. And you know, it's just.

Dave! (01:22:36.758) But that's what makes it feel so menacing. I can't think of a movie that I think is actually scary. I just don't find films scary. But I find this type of thing, this building tension and this building dread, and this is that old kind of Hitchcockian approach to film where it's like, there's nothing confrontational about it. I mean, eventually the movie does get confrontational, but there's really not much confrontational about it. It's this building feeling that something is wrong.

Bryan! (01:22:45.316) Right.

Dave! (01:23:05.058) but you don't know what it is. I mean, at one point he is a little bit sort of like, she looks down and there he is, and that's a little bit weird. But otherwise it's just the fact that there's this guy who just seems to be there all the time and you don't really know why.

Bryan! (01:23:19.864) Yeah, his presence evolves over the course of the movie, because right now he's across a field on the other side of a street. But every time that they tease him, he's a little closer, and he's a little closer until he's right there in the back seat of Annie's car. So it's god, it's so fucking great. And I know that it.

Dave! (01:23:42.014) And these are those things that make this movie so fucking brilliant. It's like, it's not the big set pieces. It's these little, this building dread, these little tiny moments where you're just a little bit thrown every single time. And it's like, oh, that's weird. But like how many times, like I live in a neighborhood, I see the same fucking people everywhere I go and I don't think much about it, but if one of them was wearing a mask and be like, Oh, is that weird guy again? Okay. Keep on keeping on, I guess.

Bryan! (01:23:56.524) Yeah, at least...

Bryan! (01:24:00.377) Hmm.

Bryan! (01:24:06.481) Yeah. The thing about it also that like really, you know, is so impressive to me is that it's not accidental. This was all these were all deliberate production design, like production decisions like we're going to do it this way, because it's going to have the effect that we intend it to and in the end it fucking works out that way like you know that's your taking kind of a leap here.

Dave! (01:24:30.422) And this is also, I think, the benefit of not shooting chronologically, too, because you can go back and you can make those changes without sacrificing, you know, lots of film.

Bryan! (01:24:39.undefined) Yeah. The editing also works pretty heavily in its favor. Yeah, with it with somebody else, but I believe Tommy Lee Wallace did the bulk of the editing. So yeah.

Dave! (01:24:43.786) And I think Taddeley Wallace did the editing too.

Dave! (01:24:52.798) Oh yeah, he definitely did because he said he and the guy, they spent so much time doing the editing that the whole time they both ended up perfecting their Donald Pleasant's impressions.

Bryan! (01:25:00.784) Yeah, so Lori's attention is briefly drawn away when she looks back to the car there. The car and the stalker are gone.

Dave! (01:25:09.71) And she comes and then she's like, Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am, what? You asked a question about Molière? Sure. And then she bangs out some fucking snappy answer.

Bryan! (01:25:13.724) Yeah. Yep. Later on, she's gonna say she can't get it. She can't get a date because uh boys think she's too smart.

Dave! (01:25:23.746) That's because boys are stupid.

Bryan! (01:25:25.52) that. So, yeah, it's so like that's it. The way that Michael lurks is just awesome to me. Uh there's nothing overtly threatening about him. He's just there but he's motionless. Yeah.

Dave! (01:25:36.158) And he's not giant, he's just a fucking dude. Like he's not, what's his face from the Rob Zombie one who's like eight feet tall or wearing some torn up mask? He's just a guy in a mask. And he's just a fairly standard sized dude.

Bryan! (01:25:42.612) Yeah, yeah.

Bryan! (01:25:48.748) I'm gonna say this, people in this movie could stand to be a little bit more on the defense about this guy lurking around fucking Haddonfield. I guess, I guess.

Dave! (01:25:56.726) But that's the thing, that's what I was saying before, is that she notices it. That's why she's kind of ready when shit does hit the fan. The rest of them are sort of like, Yeah, you're crazy. He probably just wants to fuck you. On with the show!

Bryan! (01:26:06.521) Yeah.

Yep, that's the 70s.

Dave! (01:26:11.755) Well, it's true. Throw in a waterbed. And that's definitely the 70s.

Bryan! (01:26:14.576) the waterbeds. Yeah, no waterbeds in this movie, unfortunately. A little later on, bullies fuck with Tommy at school, giving him shit about the boogeyman. Yep. And they as they run, one of them runs straight up into the shape who is now talking.

Dave! (01:26:22.406) Ugh, this dud again.

Dave! (01:26:30.29) in the loudest, sharpest sting you've ever heard.

Bryan! (01:26:33.94) Oh yeah, it hurts but now the shape is stalking Tommy and again, we

Dave! (01:26:38.59) And Tommy doesn't seem to notice that this is just this fucking creepy dude like rolling pie next to him. Also, you might notice that the window on the car is no longer broken.

Bryan! (01:26:44.333) Right, cause...

Bryan! (01:26:48.625) that's right. Yeah. But like this is another one of those awesome things where Tommy just like runs down the fucking field and the shape like follows him on the sidewalk up to

Dave! (01:26:59.618) I mean, this is why every parent in the 80s was obsessed with kidnapping. Except for, I guess, ours. They didn't seem all that interested. They were like, eh, we've got three. Who cares if they take one? Take the youngest one! He's loud and obnoxious!

Bryan! (01:27:06.272) Nope. I was told not to. We lose one.

Dave! (01:27:15.598) That's just for everyone's benefit. That's me. I'm the Uncussed One.

Bryan! (01:27:22.672) Uh, yeah. So again, we catch a little glimpse of the mask, but not enough to know that it's even a mask. Just enough to tell you that something is very wrong.

Dave! (01:27:29.058) Yeah, and we're gonna come back to this mask thing in a little bit, because I have got a big ol' point to make about something.

Bryan! (01:27:34.08) Yeah, but also as if the threatening piano melody wasn't enough to clue you in. Meanwhile out in Illinois wine country. Discoveres a clue at the scene of what appears to be an abandoned truck, but it's

Dave! (01:27:48.766) My question is, what are the odds that he stops at the exact service station?

Bryan! (01:27:52.368) the best. No, the confluence of events here is the best because here's what happens. He he sees the truck and it's like for like a mechanic and it's all open. The door is left open and what Loomis does is he looks down on the ground and he finds a little match book for a place called the Rabbit in Red Lounge and he's yeah and this is yes.

Dave! (01:28:11.266) which is a great bit of continuity, because that is which the nurse lights her cigarette with that in the car.

Bryan! (01:28:17.832) So that's how he knows that he's on the right track. But what he doesn't notice is the body of the dead fucking.

Dave! (01:28:24.994) But he does grab the hospital gown that is in the bushes, which I like to think that Michael Myers got out of that car and he just took this hospital gown off with a flourish. It is just, it's strewn about. Yeah.

Bryan! (01:28:38.232) Oh, yeah, one handed just whipped it off. He kills Big Joe Grizzly and then he takes his he takes his coveralls and he gets back into the station wagon. But if Loomis had just taken five more steps.

Dave! (01:28:48.818) Just step one foot in the front of you. And there he is, laid out in the bushes. Nude.

Bryan! (01:28:53.864) Yeah. Yeah, but that but he's yeah because Michael was bare ass naked for a few minutes there. But yeah, the match the matchbook is all he needs. So off to Haddonfield he goes. Lori is now walking home from school with her friends, Annie and Linda. Yep. Oh god, I love she's definitely my favorite. Definitely.

Dave! (01:29:11.266) That's my girl, Annie.

Dave! (01:29:15.078) Okay, so we're gonna take a break here for a minute because I wanna talk about these ladies. Queens upon Queens, love all three of them. Now, I think there's something really interesting about a horror movie that at this point is iconic, that is built around three young women. And that's why I think there's that obvious gravitation towards the notion of misogyny that is sort of inherent in these movies, because this whole movie, they are the anchor of this film.

And, but there's nothing about, like, they're so fucking natural in this movie. So Annie is played by Nancy Kyes, who for some reason is called Nancy Loomis. I don't really understand why, but she does it in subsequent movies. She plays the same character in five different movies. And she's only really in about five movies. She is Tommy Lee Wallace's wife at the time. And I think that might be why she's in these movies. Because she stopped acting.

Bryan! (01:29:55.112) Yeah. Don't-

Bryan! (01:30:11.861) Uh... Huh.

Dave! (01:30:13.358) So she is in Assault on Precinct 13, then this, then she is in The Fog, then she is in Halloween 3. She's in a couple other things. She's Janet Leigh's assistant. Yes, ma'am. And she's fucking incredible in that. She's the sassy one. She's the sort of snotty one. Now, I think there's something really interesting because I don't know how you feel about them, but I think a lot of people, this whole franchise gets built around my-

Bryan! (01:30:21.824) Who is she in the... who is she in the fog?

Bryan! (01:30:27.936) Oh shit. Yeah. All right. Yeah.

Dave! (01:30:44.442) And it's fine, Michael Myers, the whole point of Michael Myers is that there's nothing there. Like he's just basically just a shape.

Bryan! (01:30:49.358) Yeah.

Well, that is I believe that vacancy is what is ultimately his appeal because he seems to have a very specific goal but his motivations are unclear and it just it makes it just makes people want to answer questions, you know, cuz I do. I do the same thing. I've gamed out Michael Myers in my head a whole bunch of times and nothing ever satisfactory comes.

along but it is very easy to forget that there's a whole bunch of other compelling characters in these movies.

Dave! (01:31:24.994) But I think that is a very important difference for what I'm about to say. Because I don't remember seeing this much while I was growing up. I mean, I know I did, I've seen it a million fucking times. I can tell you what I see when I watch it now. And I don't give a fuck about Michael Myers. I don't think it's an interesting character at all. I do think these characters are fascinating. And I think there's something to the idea of gay men being drawn to characters like these.

Because if you watch, you know, if you read anything about this, it's like, well, Annie's sort of the snotty shitty one. Like she's kind of mean. And PJ Soul's character, Linda, she's sort of like, she's peppy and a little obnoxious, but it's like, I love all of them, especially Annie. And I feel like gay men are drawn to these characters. I do. Because I think, and I'm just gonna make a big generalization here, and I don't know how true this is for younger people, but.

Bryan! (01:32:05.197) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:32:09.184) You also you also love Judy in Sleepaway Camp. Yep.

Dave! (01:32:20.914) for a lot of gay men, specifically in the 70s and 80s and 90s, you didn't get to be who you were. Even if you were openly gay, you still had to not be who you really were. You had to really tamp it down. Characters like this, they were exactly who they wanted to be. So Annie is brash and aggressive. Is she a little bit mean? Yeah, she's kind of shitty. But you know what? So are most teenagers. Teenagers are awful people. And so I think that...

Bryan! (01:32:43.02) Yeah. Sure.

Dave! (01:32:46.242) to be, that's why so like, gay men are drawn to characters like Judy, like Annie. And that's why it's really interesting to hear you say, you know, I've thought a lot about Michael Myers. I have not, I don't give a fuck about Michael Myers. I think he's boring, I don't give a shit. Every time they cut to him or Loomis, I'm like, get back to them. I don't give a fuck about these characters. And that's why it really upsets me when it's like, oh, well they're disposable. They are absolutely not disposable. Annie's death is the worst part of this fucking movie.

Bryan! (01:32:58.626) Eh.

Bryan! (01:33:07.332) They are not disposable. They are vital. They are vital pieces of this of this puzzle. Again, they're why they're a very big piece of why this movie works the way that it does.

Dave! (01:33:20.246) When they cut to Donald Pleasence, I don't give a shit about Donald Pleasence's character.

Bryan! (01:33:24.56) I there were a couple of times where like, oh shit, we're back at the Meyers house. Like, I'm like, fuck this. At least at least, you know, at least here comes Sheriff Brackett. Yeah, for sure. They are the brightest moments of the movie. And when they die, it. Yep, when they die, it sucks. Like it really does, because it's the deaths in this movie are not like the deaths in other slasher movies for me, like at certain points.

Dave! (01:33:38.146) The way they're written is so good, it's insane.

Bryan! (01:33:51.168) it's like, okay, well, I know all these people are gonna get fucking killed but like when they do, none of them are developed in any sort of way that makes me go, oh, that sucks but in this one, yeah, when Annie gets killed, dude, that blows when fucking Linda gets killed. It's like, ah, fuck, man. Even though you know they're gonna die. Yeah.

Dave! (01:34:07.102) Yeah, because they're awesome characters. But you're supposed to feel bad when they die because you really like them. But there's nothing about them versus Laurie that I think is any different. They're basically the same. They're just different variations of people. That's how friend groups evolve. People have different roles, just like they do in families. People have different roles. And that is what's happening in this friend group. Annie is sort of the brash one who's a little bit needly and prickly.

Bryan! (01:34:19.917) Yeah.

Dave! (01:34:34.062) And Linda is sort of peppy and cute and like you like her, but they're both a little spunky. And Lori's sort of like the, a little bit reserved and quiet and nerdy, but they're basically all the same. They're on a level playing field. They're not, it's not like, oh, she's virtuous. There's nothing more virtuous about any of that. And if anything, I think it's pretty misogynistic to say that, to be like, oh, she's slutty. That's why she has to die. That's a shitty thing to say.

Bryan! (01:34:59.213) Yeah, yeah. Um and you know

Dave! (01:35:01.558) Because none of them are slutty. None of this reads like Friday the 13th and its various sequels. They read like teenagers who are interested in sex, like most teenagers are.

Bryan! (01:35:07.852) Right.

Bryan! (01:35:11.98) Yeah. I mean, it's consistent with my experience, you know, in high school but yeah, it's yeah, it's

Dave! (01:35:16.694) I'm gonna fight everybody about this.

Dave! (01:35:21.802) Wait till we get to black res, because I'm gonna do this times five.

Bryan! (01:35:25.016) the um again, the secret sauce. Everybody knows this though. I'm not saying anything fucking new here but all of the Laurie Annie Linda dialogue was written by Deborah. So, there was just, I mean, like, she was, I think, I can't remember how old Jamie Lee Curtis was on this.

Dave! (01:35:41.73) They're not that much older. So they're, I think Jamie Lee Curtis, most of them, like they're about 18, 19, I think maybe 20.

Bryan! (01:35:46.988) Yeah, and I think I think I think Deborah was 25 or 20. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it's it she's a little older.

Dave! (01:35:51.182) She's like 25, so they're not much older.

Dave! (01:35:56.578) They don't really read teenage exactly, but for the most part, you get the vibe, they're Teenage of Jason.

Bryan! (01:36:00.944) teenage enough, you know. Yeah. So she turns quick, having forgotten her chemistry book, and then she sees the car from before.

Dave! (01:36:13.346) Well, she says, because one of them was, I think it's Annie, she's just kind of going on about something. And she's like, and a place to, and then Lori goes, oh, shit. She turns to her and goes, I have a place for that.

Bryan! (01:36:26.undefined) the car. Yes. Yeah. Oh yeah. They see the car from before and again we can't see inside of the car because of the shadows but we catch a glimpse of the driver and this is when Linda calls out to him. Or is it?

Dave! (01:36:40.758) Well, she says first, Lori says, she says, oh, is that, or I think Linda says, oh, is it Devon Graham or something? And they cut to Lori's face and she looks a little bit troubled and she's like, no, I don't think so. And she has, it's that again, it's that sort of like disquieting moment where you're like, something about this is enough to upset her, but her friends clearly don't notice that.

Bryan! (01:36:44.98) Oh, the... Yeah.

Bryan! (01:36:51.961) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:37:01.94) Right, because they just keep fucking with them.

Dave! (01:37:04.242) And cause she shouts, Hey jerk, speed kills. And she says it despite the fact that he is going 15 miles an hour.

Bryan! (01:37:06.72) Speed Kills.

Dave! (01:37:27.837) That's the plan.

Bryan! (01:37:29.799) the

Bryan! (01:37:41.14) So as she leaves, Lori looks ahead to see the shape again in the famous hedge scene.

Dave! (01:37:46.67) Because first he stomps on the brake and the car comes to like an abrupt stop when she yells. And then it just keeps going again.

Bryan! (01:37:53.432) Yeah, and then he tape, and then he takes off. Uh the head again.

Dave! (01:37:57.262) Because he's like, I just want you to know that I know that you know I'm here. And I'm a little upset with you right now for yelling, for yelling rude things at me and for entering my home.

Bryan! (01:38:01.376) Yeah. Cause you came to my house.

Bryan! (01:38:08.832) Yeah, he's partially obscured by the bushes.

Dave! (01:38:12.726) which is probably one of the greatest, most iconic moments in horror history.

Bryan! (01:38:17.656) This movie has a couple of shots that are fucking iconic. This is one of them and it's just I don't know what it is. But again, it's that thing. I was talking about earlier where he's a little closer now and you can tell he's wearing something on his head, but it looks like a fucking regular human face like it's.

Dave! (01:38:35.422) It's also his position too, with the way he's standing. He's standing very like sort of, his shoulders are square and he's very upright, but he's in a very weird place because he's half obscured by a, like a hedge. And it's like, well, why are you standing in someone's lawn, but also kind of on the sidewalk, and you're clearly looking at us in a very, like he's very menacing the way he's positioned. But again, she's the only one who sees it.

Bryan! (01:38:41.196) It's an aggressive, it's.

Bryan! (01:38:54.744) he strikes a very aggressive pose.

Yeah, by the time by the time Annie looks up, he's gone and this is the part where like Annie goes up and she's like, oh, he'd like to talk to you. He wants to he wants to ask you out.

Dave! (01:39:05.602) She says, Lori dear, he wants to take you out tonight. God, I love her.

Bryan! (01:39:10.8) the bush. Yep. Yep. But uh yeah, shape in the distance, that ** face, eerie as hell. Uh Annie's got balls of steel to approach the dude behind the bush even after look. Yep. But yeah. She's uh she's uh she's a crazy lady. So still distracted. Lori bumps right into Annie's dad Haddonfield's sheriff bracket who informs her.

Dave! (01:39:21.462) Because she goes, she just goes right in for it.

Dave! (01:39:34.434) Now I'm gonna say, is Charles Cyphers, Charles Cyphers is a sharp bracket, is he supposed to be like a red herring? Because he reads real creepy in this moment. He's a very close talker and-

Bryan! (01:39:44.032) I don't know.

Well, okay, she runs into him right after the scene with the hedge. So maybe because Hitchcock also did that where there was always a. He does. Yep. He's a little he's definitely a little bit more butch.

Dave! (01:39:56.726) He also has a real Paul Wind vibe to it.

Dave! (01:40:03.114) Yeah, it's a little, it's a lot like a, Hey Laurie, what are you doing here?

Bryan! (01:40:05.76) Yeah. Everybody's entitled to one good scare. So yeah, back in her room, she looks out the window. Lori, that is. It's a key. She catches.

Dave! (01:40:14.158) She has the nipple hat on the wall.

Which I want to, to David Gordon Green's credit. They do bring the nipple hat back in the.

Bryan! (01:40:23.892) Yeah, a thing about these like doing the sort of revival movies before we did this one, I was able to really sort of appreciate their eye for detail because I would probably do the same shit too if I was like remake and Halloween, I would throw in all the shit, the nerdy little detail bullshit that like only I me and like everybody who actually

Dave! (01:40:50.39) And that's as generous as I'm gonna be with David.

Bryan! (01:40:55.067) Yeah.

Dave! (01:40:55.574) And all the furniture in this room, this is Tiley Wells'.

Bryan! (01:40:58.688) Oh, okay. So yeah, I thought that it was, it was that they, Tommy had dressed up the Myers house.

Dave! (01:41:05.258) And I wonder to myself, this is the furniture from the bedroom you share with your wife. Why do you and your wife sleep in a twin bed?

Bryan! (01:41:14.1) Ah, hey, they're young, they're hungry!

Dave! (01:41:16.098) They are. They got a nipple hat on the wall. They got a twin bed. That's all they have for their name. We could fucking that and, you know, eight bucks from Assault on Prairie Six 13.

Bryan! (01:41:20.833) Yep.

Bryan! (01:41:25.1) Yeah, but that's all about to out the window, catch a glimpse her from the backyard.

Dave! (01:41:32.726) And that is an awesome moment in history.

Bryan! (01:41:35.424) Yep, that's another one of those fuckin' iconic shots. Fuckin' great.

Dave! (01:41:38.006) Because now you know it's not just random, that he's following her.

Bryan! (01:41:43.812) He is zero. Yeah, he zeroed in on her seemingly just because she went to his house. That's probably it. That's like the reason is

Dave! (01:41:51.61) Yeah, that's the whole point of this. What makes this film frightening is that this movie is essentially about anonymous violence.

Bryan! (01:41:59.892) Yeah. So, this is this is the thing is this is why I asked you this earlier because this movie falls in a spot where a shitload of serial killers are starting to get caught but I asked you if you had a sense of like how the public what the public knowledge of serial killers was at the time because the media wasn't quite as

consolidated as it is now. So like you probably only like did you only know about the son of Sam killer if you were a New Yorker or did you only know

Dave! (01:42:31.418) No, not necessarily. No, you would know. So it depends on the story, but a lot of them were, if they were big enough, Son of Sam would have been big enough to show up in papers. It would have been on the wires. It would have been syndicated. It's not that they didn't know about them. It's that they didn't really, the answer to the question is complicated and people don't like complicated answers.

Bryan! (01:42:44.856) Yeah, because...

Bryan! (01:42:54.668) Yeah. Because that's the thing is.

Dave! (01:42:55.306) And so it's like, well, this person's killing seven people. And they're like, well, obviously he's a degenerate sicko, move on.

Bryan! (01:43:01.632) Yeah. Well, also, yeah, because this is the same time as like, the behavioral analysis unit is starting to come up. John Douglas is starting to sort of like build. I don't know. I don't know how people feel about forensic psychology. I don't know where to stand on it. But his book, Mindhunter is fascinating as fuck.

Dave! (01:43:19.946) I mean, they were probably right a little bit more often than they were wrong. I mean, there's a lot to it, but it's that kind of thing where it's like, well, we don't want complicated answers to things.

Bryan! (01:43:22.52) they were yeah but

Bryan! (01:43:31.284) Right, and this, like, they're really, it doesn't get much more complicated than a fucking, a person who murders another person because they like to do it or they do. Yeah.

Dave! (01:43:38.946) So I think what I told you was this was the first time that people are starting to really understand that there are people out there who are killing for reasons that are not like personal gain. Like it's not a rage killing, it's not robbery, it's not for an inheritance. They're doing it for a particular reason that is psychological. That's about as far as most people could go with it. I mean, that's about as far as people can go with it now. It's just not something people wanna think about.

Bryan! (01:43:50.147) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:44:00.353) Yeah, cause I, I.

Bryan! (01:44:04.756) Right, because I can't remember. I don't I don't I don't pay that close attention to the whole serial killer thing, but Edmund Kemper's story is very close to this in the sense that like he murdered his grandparents when he was a kid for the fuck of it. And then he did a little time in a mental hospital and then he got out and then he fucking.

Dave! (01:44:23.562) And so this is where the babysitter killer thing actually comes from. This is the story he gets from Bob Clark that he kind of uses a little bit because the basis of the Black Christmas story, when we get there, I'll tell you the actual story. But it's basically a kid who murders his parents one night in Canada and just out of nowhere with a baseball bat, he just kills them. And that's it. And everyone was like, wait, I don't understand what happened. And the answer was, we don't know.

Bryan! (01:44:42.414) Yeah.

Dave! (01:44:51.95) So they stick him in an institution, and then eventually they have to let him out because, you know, it's not only as a Canada, but also as an institution, so you can't keep him locked up forever. And he gets out, and that's it. He just lives the rest of his life, and it's fine. And I'm sure there's a lot more, there's a reason why he killed his parents in the baseball bat, but they never really reported on any of that.

Bryan! (01:45:11.341) It's very specific to him.

Dave! (01:45:13.214) Yes. And so it's this idea of, it's the late 70s, it's this idea of anonymous violence, it's what they called stranger killings, that these, and these things are exceedingly rare. Like it's just, this type of violence doesn't happen, but the thought of it is absolutely terrifying. It's like a plane crash. Plane crashes are very rare. They don't happen very often, but when they do, they're absolutely terrifying because there's no particular reason to them. There's no, you know, you can say, well, if I do this, and this, I won't be killed by

die in a plane crash. You cannot control someone who might just come marauding into your town one day and decide you're the one he's gonna kill for no particular reason. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, there's nothing you can do to stop it. And because it was so prominent at the time, just seemed to pop up a lot. The fact that they're now taking it out of the cities and out like office, like college campuses, they're putting it in these kind of anonymous suburbs. It's that.

you know, everything's fine, everything's supposed to be safe here, and all of a sudden it's not anymore. And it's just like there's, and I think Carpenter takes it a little bit further. And, you know, you listen to the, that podcast series that Amy, Amy Nicholson did. Yeah.

Bryan! (01:46:27.154) Halloween Unmasked by the way. I used that as a significant source of information on the making of this movie.

Dave! (01:46:32.886) So Carpenter grows up, he didn't, at first they didn't live in Kentucky, they get relocated there for his, because of his father's job. And he was being transplanted to the South was very shocking for him because he didn't, he had never seen such sort of virulent open racism. And he didn't quite get it. Like the fact that people would make jokes about like hurting black people or killing black people and he was shocked by that. Like,

He didn't understand. I think his girlfriend at the time, her grandfather or her father was involved in something like that. He was like, I don't understand. Why are they doing this?

Bryan! (01:47:07.141) The story is extremely dark in that a black man passed in front of her grandfather's car. He walked, like he was walking across the street and her grandfather sped up, ran him over and then stopped at a payphone to tell the cops to come and get his body and no consequences were ever leveled against him. And he was just like, what the fuck was that?

Dave! (01:47:27.614) And that's what we get into later, like when she's trying to get people to help her. And it was this idea that...

Bryan! (01:47:32.9) Oh yeah, because there is a scene where she goes up to a house and slamming on the door and they turn the light on and they look out the window and they're like, Nope, not dealing with that right now. And they shut the light out.

Dave! (01:47:42.366) And this is very much like the way people at the time sort of understood the sort of kidney Genovese story about like, well, you know, all these people that was happening. And now we know that that's not actually true. It's not really what happened. The people, they knew it was happening. They just didn't really quite know where it was happening. But it's that idea that like, you know, nobody will help you and that violence will just strike and there's no reason for it. It is this blind hatred and like kind of E it's like this concept of the evil.

Bryan! (01:47:48.333) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:47:52.346) Yeah.

Dave! (01:48:11.586) that it just breezes into town. And that's why this movie ends the way that it ends, because it blows into town, it causes all this mayhem, and then it just sort of blows out of town. Yep. And so that's sort of like, it's all, and that's why I was saying earlier, we can't discount Clover's argument that like, well, these aspects of culture, this misogynist, that sort of like the misogyny that's inherent in culture, we can't just dismiss it, because it's like all of these things are feeding this story, especially,

Bryan! (01:48:19.832) and then it goes away, yeah. Yeah.

Dave! (01:48:41.378) the kind of contemporary fears of the time, that like you are a white person in suburbia, you moved there to get away from all this. And even then it can still follow you here and there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. And there's nobody that can help you.

Bryan! (01:48:54.86) Oh yeah. Certainly, it's in a form that you could never have foreseen. Yeah. So later, Annie picks up Laurie for their respective babysitting gigs and Annie is listening to the Coop DeVilles, which is Carpenter's band formed with Tommy Lee Wallace and Nick and Nick Castle.

Dave! (01:49:11.754) It's the only song that doesn't get credited in the final credits.

Bryan! (01:49:15.516) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eventually, they show up in The Boy Who Could Fly and then they also, they Big Trouble Little China and you can look up the video for Big Trouble Little China and it is one of the most embarrassing things. Yeah, yeah, it's a fucking cringy little video.

Dave! (01:49:22.902) They're in that, then they're in big trouble and they'll shine.

Dave! (01:49:30.082) Cause that got some MTV play.

Dave! (01:49:37.218) Now I'm gonna tell you this whole scene, this whole car scene, this is my favorite part of the movie. Yep.

Bryan! (01:49:41.736) Really? You know what? I do. Is this is this where she talked? No, no, cuz she talks about Ben Tramer later, right? Or is this the

Dave! (01:49:47.718) It is, so it gets, this whole, the car part gets interrupted in the middle where they cut away and they go to a different part of the story, but then they come back.

Bryan! (01:49:56.436) Right, because the Ben Tramer thing is really, really funny, because it's just this throwaway little detail that comes back several years later in Halloween II. And it's just in the best way. But yeah, so they're listening to, you know, the Coop DeVilles. And then later they listen to Don't Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult, the movie's only licensed piece of music, which as yep, while the smoke and weed. As you found out, this is a detail that I just recently realized.

Dave! (01:50:04.81) Yep. In the best way.

Dave! (01:50:18.446) Wow, they're smokin' weed.

Dave! (01:50:23.726) I don't know how you missed it, it's like, it's pretty obvious in the scene. It's just a great song, too.

Bryan! (01:50:26.98) So this is the thing after you were like, what the fuck? You're just noticing this. It occurred to me like. I have never really had an eye for details. Usually I be when I'm watching a movie, I become kind of fixated on a particular thing, and it's usually the dialogue. And in that capacity, I tend to let things that are happening in the margins just drift away because I'm just not paying attention to them. The fact that like I listening to film music is

it's not recent for me because I've been doing it for fucking decades, but I did I went without noticing film music as a piece of a movie for way longer than I did, you know, actively listening to it. Like it's just that sort of thing is just not something I paid attention to. And so like when I was like, Oh, shit, it's Don't Fear the Reaper. I fucking love that song. No wonder Rob Zombie, you know, brings it back so much so prominently in his movies. But yeah.

Also, I believe that record was brand new at the time. So like, yeah.

Dave! (01:51:28.194) Might have been. I mean, the fucking Blue Oyster Cult, they could have like packed it up after that one song. The number of times that's been used in movies. It's a great song. It is dark as hell.

Bryan! (01:51:35.956) It's a hell of a song. They got better song. Yeah, it's all about dying willingly. They got better songs, but yeah, it's a hell of a track. So yeah, John Carpenter had the prescience to recognize a hit for it. But yeah, as you said, smoke a little weed on the way to work.

Dave! (01:51:55.082) And this is, again, I like this because she's still, Annie is still sort of needling Laurie. She's still kind of fucking with her. But it's in that way that like, you know, if you have a group of friends, which most teenagers do, you've got that one that's just kind of fucking with everybody all the time. It's like being shitty. But it's essential to a moment that comes a little bit later that I think this is the moment I watched, the last time I watched, I was like, holy shit, this is the most incredible part of this movie. But we will get there in a moment.

Bryan! (01:52:09.928) Yeah, it's a bastard chaps.

Dave! (01:52:26.998) This is where it gets interrupted.

Dave! (01:52:31.658) where I'm like, I don't care about this. What are you, is the movie not long enough?

Bryan! (01:52:36.898) the

Dave! (01:52:45.455) Because they spent a quarter of their budget on him. That's why he's there.

Bryan! (01:52:48.416) Yeah. But also, this is a thing that like later, a thing that just plays into my head, Cannon, about Haddonfield is as he's they're going there, this kind of groundskeeper is also telling Loomis a story about another Haddonfield dude who just randomly murdered his family one night.

Dave! (01:53:05.354) Yep. And that's again, it's that idea of, of like, uh, suburbia, the kind of perfect bubble of suburbia is punctured every once in a while by violence. And that story is incidentally not real. If you Google it, it just comes up as being associated. Cause he says the guy's name, I can't remember what it is.

Bryan! (01:53:17.657) Yeah, yeah.

Bryan! (01:53:26.928) Oh, right. Yeah. But I mean, I figured it was just a fucking, you know, it's just dialogue, you know,

Dave! (01:53:31.886) Like he kills his wife with a hammer one night or whatever. But he does say his name and I looked it up.

Bryan! (01:53:37.688) So Annie and Lori are now being followed by the shape in the station wagon, and they run into Annie's dad outside of a hardware store that had been broken into that hardware store is like across the street from where the Myers house like now resides.

Dave! (01:53:44.118) This is my actual favorite part.

Dave! (01:53:52.17) Now here's my point about this. We have seen him in this mask for the last 45 minutes of this movie, which takes probably hours. Why is the alarm still going off? That means the alarm in this store has been going off for several hours.

Bryan! (01:53:59.064) Yep. Oh, so has that has that alarm.

Bryan! (01:54:09.528) Yeah, so what we learned is that the hardware stores are broken into from Annie's dad. We learned that a Halloween mask, some rope and a couplet

Dave! (01:54:17.026) Yeah, all he took was some Halloween mask, rope, and a couple of knives. Nope, nothing weird about that.

Bryan! (01:54:21.991) nothing weird about that. Loomis enters the frame.

Dave! (01:54:24.382) Now, you're gonna skip over my favorite line in this entire movie, and because it is just sort of an innocuous line, where he's trying to say something to them, but the alarm is going off, and then she goes, and he shouts too. And her line delivery is so fucking brilliant.

Bryan! (01:54:33.94) Oh, and then the alarm stops.

Hahaha

Bryan! (01:54:41.908) Yep. So yeah. So yeah, Loomis enters the frame, demands a little time from the sheriff as the shape drives past in the station wagon. And so now we cut back to Annie and Laurie in the car and

Dave! (01:54:53.186) This is the part that I think is absolutely brilliant. So they're kind of pulling down the road and there's this moment and they're just kind of, it's just Bantran, they're just kind of talking. This is the Bantran report where she's talking about that. And there's a part where they both stop talking and they just kind of look at each other. It's this prolonged look where they're kind of like, it's a little bit uncomfortable, I think, because it's so intimate. And you get the sense that like, as much as Annie has been needling her this whole time,

Bryan! (01:55:03.098) Yeah.

Dave! (01:55:21.322) she kind of realizes like, oh, this is something that actually is like, it's easy for Annie or for Linda to, you know, talk to guys or whatever. And it's that point where she's sort of like, I recognize that it's not as easy for you. And it's this moment of like incredible empathy and compassion that is shared just in this really brief moment, this like prolonged look. And it's got the kind of, it's that, you know, magic hour lighting.

And then the car, they kind of pull away from the car and you watch the car pull down the street and it kind of takes a turn and then it turns out of view. And then the theme music kicks in really hard. And this is the moment where everything in that scene signals to you, everything is about to be different now.

Bryan! (01:56:04.864) Yes. So, this is like, this is middle of the second act, like firmly, we're about to take the turn.

Dave! (01:56:12.422) I don't know why I found this scene so, it's so incredibly effective and it's so incredibly affecting. And I was just like, wow, that is absolutely brilliant. Just this like long stare as they kind of look at each other and it's like, oh right, they actually are really good friends. She does really care about her. That's just who she is. And they just kind of have this really beautiful moment. And then it's kind of like, now that's the last you're gonna get of that because the shit is about to hit the fan. And that's why the music kicks in. Yeah.

Bryan! (01:56:33.28) Oh yeah. This is this is this is child's. This is childhood's end for sure. Also, we keep we keep saying it in the event that you don't know what we're talking about. Ben Tramer is this is the name of this boy that Laurie has a has a crush on. Ben Tramer is the guy in part two who gets plowed over by the van.

Dave! (01:56:53.826) Yeah, not only does he get shot, he also gets hit and slammed into by an ambulance and then bursts into flames.

Bryan! (01:57:05.232) it's such a fucked up detail but I don't know. I love it. So, yeah. So, now, they split up. They go their separate ways. So, the Wallace House and the Doyle House are on the same road. They're basically up across the street and these are the like basically the two locations that we're going to stick to for the rest of the movie and so as they go their separate ways, Michael watches Annie, I think.

the wallace house as the wallaces are leaving and he's just kind of like hidden behind a tree. So now Loomis and Bracket visit the old Myers house and they find that a dog has been butchered there recently. Yeah. Could have been a skunk. What? This? Yeah. And Michael's got a thing for dogs because this is not the last dog that's going to get killed in this movie.

Dave! (01:57:48.618) And the sheriff says, could have been a skunk. Bitch, skunks do not eat dogs.

Dave! (01:58:01.678) Uh, uh, Debra Hill says they did that in order to convey how evil he was. It's like, I don't know if you needed to do that. The fact that he murders about seven people in this movie, that tells me he's evil.

Bryan! (01:58:13.924) Yeah. So, this is the this is the part where Loomis delivers his like blackest eyes, the devil's eyes speech and uh

Dave! (01:58:23.142) I felt the whole time, I'm like, I can just fucking do without all these scenes. They all, every time he's in the movie, it just feels superfluous. Like, I don't need this. It's fine, I guess, but...

Bryan! (01:58:26.476) Yeah, so here's the thing. Loomis get.

Bryan! (01:58:32.156) I know, I know, he's there because they needed a name on the poster, but Loomis gets a lot of shit for being a bad psychiatrist, and while I've never found the character to be terribly compelling, I think he's a bit of a deus ex for the ending of the movie, I think that his conclusion about Michael is on point, and that the sequels are going to eventually bear this out.

Dave! (01:58:53.058) Yeah, he is only there to deliver this monologue. And then he just gets increasingly hysterical as the series goes on.

Bryan! (01:58:56.096) Yeah, this is

Yeah, you know what this is. This is Quint in the, you know, the 1600 men went into the water, you know, that this is this is the Halloween's version of that doll's eyes. But yeah, but Michael is simply, he's not simply mentally ill and I don't think a better doctor probably wouldn't have gotten through to him either. And so as we come to realize, Michael is just a killing machine.

Dave! (01:59:03.309) Yes.

Dave! (01:59:09.398) Black eyes, dolls eyes.

Dave! (01:59:23.41) This is what you are getting at is like, it's this idea that there is nothing there, that this thing is just a monster. It lives to kill, that's all it wants to do. And if it acts as though it cares, it is only doing so in order to get close to kill you. Like that is all, like that was a, and that's a very basic understanding of that type of personality. But like the idea that existed, that there were people like that, that's what is just entering sort of.

Bryan! (01:59:29.952) That's all there is to him.

Dave! (01:59:52.132) cultural consciousness at the time.

Bryan! (01:59:53.516) Yeah, one of the things I found out about, I think in that Halloween on Mask podcast is in the process of writing this, Carpenter read a book called The Mask of Sanity, which is I think where he took the metaphorical concept of the mask of sanity and sort of applied it to, you know, Michael in a sense that he was wearing a mask, but I've heard that story too when he was a kid.

Dave! (02:00:10.998) He also said that he had gone to either in college or in high school. And I was like, this sounds, this is a little questionable. I don't know that they would take students that did not have a justifiable reason to be there. I don't think they would just take them to a psychiatric hospital.

Bryan! (02:00:27.892) Let me tell you something, I worked in a psychiatric hospital for a little while. We were very careful about who was admitted into the place.

Dave! (02:00:34.378) No, in order to get in, because I had to go there on a regular basis, again, not as a patient, but just to get into places. It's like having to go into a prison, which is also, I used to have to go into prisons a lot. You do not walk into these places. It is very difficult to get inside of them. And so the idea that they would just be like, sure, come on kids, let me take you in. And the way he sort of describes it is like, you know...

Bryan! (02:00:52.045) Yeah.

Dave! (02:00:59.546) It's like going into bed when they're all drooling and it's a, it's Chitty-Cuffollies. And it's like, it's not quite like that.

Bryan! (02:01:05.632) Yeah, yeah. Now, I certainly had experiences with clients who were a little Michael like. But yeah, like he his description of like somebody that he saw there was like he looked evil. He wanted to kill me and I'm like, John.

Dave! (02:01:19.97) Yeah, he is describing the shark in Jaws. And it's like, that's not what people are like when they're like this. But that's sort of the base understanding that people have was like, oh, they're these just sort of marauding beasts that like, they're incapable of talking or they're just there to savagely rip you apart.

Bryan! (02:01:40.352) Yeah. Like in the sense that in the future, the way that Michael is portrayed is like he just waits. Even in those insert scenes that Loomis that carpenter shot with Loomis is he keeps insisting that he's been waiting for 15 years to do this just biding his time since he was six years old.

Dave! (02:01:59.498) I fucking hate that monologue. Looking to tonight, looking past the wall, not seeing the wall. It's like, are you making this up? Are you ad-living this?

Bryan! (02:02:07.336) Yeah. And uh yeah. So

Dave! (02:02:11.158) It's just the most clunky fucking dog. These are the moments that I think keep this movie from being as close to perfect as you can get.

Bryan! (02:02:17.604) Yeah. But uh yeah. So at Tommy's house, Lori reads King Arthur to an unimpressed Tommy who shows her his comic books. Tarantula man and neutron man. Yep. And then and then he asks her about the boogeyman. Meanwhile, the shape watches Annie from the outside while she calls Lori to tell her that Ben Tramer wants to take her to the dance. Too bad. That'll never happen. While they're on the phone.

Dave! (02:02:26.23) Now he wants laser man, he wants torrential man.

Dave! (02:02:46.028) He is going to explode into flames in a few hours.

Bryan! (02:02:50.874) Yep, Tommy looks outside and he sees the shape standing in the darkness at the Wallace house. Meanwhile Annie gets some shit on her clothes. I think it's butter.

Dave! (02:02:59.078) Annie spills an entire pan of butter on her shirt, so she has to get completely naked.

Bryan! (02:03:03.44) the has to change out of them. Put them in the wash. Yeah. So, this is where I become a humongous Lindsay Wallace fan because she just wants to watch her horror. She just wants to watch her horror movies and most of her shots are just a picture of her in the dark

Dave! (02:03:06.274) She's very thorough.

Dave! (02:03:13.669) She's pretty great.

Dave! (02:03:20.522) Now, we should say, when it comes to the two children, Kim Richards had been in a bunch of movies already. Like she was an experienced actor. She is now an experienced housewife, a real housewife. I think she, I don't know if she still is, but like she's the one who's like the most legitimate of them all, I guess. I know nothing about that show.

Bryan! (02:03:32.032) Oh yeah, she's one of the real housewives of Beverly Hills.

Bryan! (02:03:40.36) she's like she's like uh what is it she's like Paris Hilton's aunt or something like that

Dave! (02:03:45.426) I think so. She seems like a decent person. She's always been kind of a, I always thought she was a good child actor. She is in the car, what evil drives. She is in Devil Dog, Hound of Hell. She's also in the Watcher, or yeah, she's in the Watcher of the Woods. Or that might be her sister. Her sister's in Watcher of the Woods.

Bryan! (02:03:53.968) the No, no, she's in. No, uh no, no. In watch uh Jesus. I know we're getting off track. The Watcher in the Woods. She was the Olympic skater. Uh I can't remember what her name. She's also in um yeah, no but she was in, she's in Witch Mountain. She's in the Witch Mountain movies. It's the girl who's in for your eyes only I think. Um I can't. Yeah.

Dave! (02:04:09.806) Because her sister is in movies too. She's in the Witch Mountain movies.

Dave! (02:04:19.874) Not for British shots only.

Uh, so that's why I think like Tommy's a real fucking dud in this movie. Lindsay is not, but Lindsay is also an actual actor. A child actor at the time. Oh, she also gets killed at the beginning of uh, Assault on Bracie 13. That's what starts the whole thing off. Yeah.

Bryan! (02:04:25.814) So

Bryan! (02:04:38.476) She's the yeah, she's the girl with the ice cream. So Tommy, yeah. So now no, I get it. I'm getting ahead of myself. The Wallace dog finds the shape outside. Unfortunately.

Dave! (02:04:47.938) So my question though is he, before this happens, he pulls down like, they have like macrame, you know, as the 70s, you got a lot of macrame planters around. And so he pulls one down, and every time I hear a macrame, I think of polyester.

Bryan! (02:04:55.264) Oh yeah, a lot of macrame everywhere.

Bryan! (02:05:02.862) Well, that's a big part of polyester. Macrame, macrame.

Dave! (02:05:04.406) Yeah, so I don't know if he pulls it down on purpose, like it's a hanging planter. I don't know if he pulls it down on purpose or if it's like he's excited in the moment and just sort of yanks it down.

Bryan! (02:05:17.097) Oh, I always thought that he just bumped into it.

Dave! (02:05:19.55) No, because it's like a... that was always my assumption as well, but he's holding on to like a planter and he kind of pulls too hard on it.

Bryan! (02:05:26.864) maybe, yeah, like maybe that's the thing. It's like the yeah but that's what that what's alerts the dog and the dog goes because apparently Annie hates the dog.

Dave! (02:05:28.586) And that's why it crashes to the ground.

Dave! (02:05:36.866) cuz there's that great line where she's on the phone and she's like i'm about to get ripped apart by the family dog every fucking line she delivers is so snarky and awesome

Bryan! (02:05:41.871) Yeah.

Bryan! (02:05:45.744) it's very funny. Meanwhile, uh Tommy and Lori watched the thing. Very prescient but also just cuz you know, Carpenter loves that movie. It's a great, it's a great movie. Then then Lori tells Tommy that the Boogeyman can only come out on Hollywood uh Halloween night to

Dave! (02:06:05.494) What I love about that moment though is that they don't even make it past the title card of the thing and they both look so wrapped. They are just like on the edge of the couch. It's like this movie has been on for two minutes, if that.

Bryan! (02:06:14.532) Ha ha ha!

movie is it's a hell of a title and I'm and you know you can tell that he likes it so much because it's all in the fucking movie and then he does it again when he makes his own version of it.

Dave! (02:06:28.386) So these scenes though, apparently there's a, one of the more interesting things that Dean Cundy says on the commentary is that Carpenter, when he agreed to do the movie, when they agreed on a budget, he said, okay, fine. But there are three things we absolutely have to have. One of them was they wanted to use the best lab in town for processing, which was MGM. They said, fine. They wanted the best sound studio, which was Sam Golden Studio. And he said that they,

wanted, it was absolutely key that they use Panavision widescreen for the whole movie. Well, obviously the whole movie. But, and he was like, and Cundy says, these are the three things, this is what makes this movie work so well, because the widescreen, you see it in these shots where they're in the kitchen and she's on the phone, it's what allows her to move back and forth and you still have enough space on the screen to have him just sort of just off the side.

Bryan! (02:07:22.612) Yes, cuz that is that is the thing cuz while she's on the phone, the shape is in the background and you just see him in the gloom.

Dave! (02:07:30.73) And then he won't, he'll be there and then he's not there. And then he is again. And he said, this is that, like this is that idea of visual storytelling. He was like, this is what makes this movie so great. And if we hadn't done it, if they hadn't agreed to these three things that he had, then it would not have worked because so much of this movie is about open space. You start the film with all this open space and as the movie goes along, these spaces get tighter and tighter until she's in the closet at the end. So,

everything's closing in on you. And he's like, we have all this space. If we hadn't had that space to do these shots, this wouldn't have felt menacing. It just would have been somebody on the phone spilling butter on their shirt.

Bryan! (02:08:10.064) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But also, this is the moment when we finally see the the the shape. Uh it's the best look. Yeah. And this is when we see it's a mask. Like if you did not, if you did not already know that it's a mask, now you're like, oh, he's wearing a ** mask like

Dave! (02:08:16.802) Because now he's basically in the house with-

Dave! (02:08:28.155) He's not just some pasty motherfucker across the street.

Bryan! (02:08:31.616) So now Annie talks to her boyfriend Paul on the phone about coming over for some good times while the shape looms in the background. That's John Carpenter on the phone as Paul. Good thing Paul never comes over because he would be dead as fuck.

Dave! (02:08:43.934) we would also get murdered. Hopefully in a similarly whimsical way to Bob.

Bryan! (02:08:50.728) So, yeah, she drops Lindsay off over at the Doyle Place while she goes to pick up Paul. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. Her foot gets stuck. Laurie is carving a pumpkin in the kitchen and the thing is none of the none of the pumpkins in this movie are actually pumpkins because this movie was made in California in April. You can't even get a fucking

Dave! (02:08:55.621) Well, I mean, first she gets stuck in the laundry room for... reasons.

Dave! (02:09:16.871) That's what they say. They're like, if we had tried to do this with pumpkins, I'd be dead the next day.

Bryan! (02:09:21.644) Yeah. So yeah.

Dave! (02:09:25.014) This, by the way, is my second favorite scene.

Bryan! (02:09:28.348) the pumpkin. Oh, when she goes, yeah, when she goes over because now, Lori's like real nice, looking good and they have a whole thing and then Annie gets goes basically, she goes back, she gets into her car and she finds

Dave! (02:09:29.65) and he go into the car.

Dave! (02:09:43.122) Oh, not yet. She goes to open the door to her car and it is locked. So she has to go into the house because she's my Paul, oh Paul, no keys. Goes into the house to get the keys. And this is what, this is again, these really small moments where she comes out and she doesn't really think, cause this is what you do if you were just, you know, on autopilot, she goes out, grabs the car, opens the door, and it doesn't occur to her. The whole reason she went into the house was to get the keys because the car is locked.

Bryan! (02:09:51.956) Oh, that's right.

Bryan! (02:10:11.552) Yes, because the-

Dave! (02:10:11.834) she comes out to get in the car, the car isn't locked anymore. Now, this brings up lots of questions. How did he get into the car if the car is locked?

Bryan! (02:10:15.068) Oh, yes, I know. I know. Because what we're going to find out.

Bryan! (02:10:22.424) Or why did he lock the door?

Dave! (02:10:24.742) And I asked you that one time and you said, shut up, just watch the movie.

Bryan! (02:10:27.952) the door. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I whole thing with the keys is pivotal role and it's a really carpenter does later on but for the window is fogged on the hell and that's when the **

Dave! (02:10:50.134) and you get that loud, chaotic, sharp, staccato sting.

Bryan! (02:10:54.316) Yeah. And and you know, he starts out by strangling her and she you know, she goes up on the horn and then he stabs her but it's terrible because you're so close and this is one of those parts where the soundtrack gets overtaken by the breathing even overtakes the music a little bit. So yeah, it's this is the very first time. This is the first. This is the first kill since Judith.

Dave! (02:11:01.63) It's terrible. It is terrible, it's the worst part of them.

Bryan! (02:11:23.061) And god damn it.

Dave! (02:11:24.267) No, you forget that where he whips off his hospital gown with a flourish and kills that guy too. See, that guy, we always forget that there are two people who are dead before he gets to town.

Bryan! (02:11:29.137) Oh yeah, but fuck that.

Bryan! (02:11:34.992) the mask. Oh yeah. Poor Joe Yeah, but this is So, um yeah and and so it's obscuring the mask. Most of the cut it in half. Most of like as car. We're ** right there

Dave! (02:11:37.657) white jokersly

Joe Weasley. I love a portmanteau.

Bryan! (02:12:03.272) as it's happening and then it cuts to the outside and we see like the mask but it's all again fogged up windows and Annie is like dead at this point. It's just it's a very tight claustrophobic mean shot, you know. Just a dead eyed face of Captain Kirk murdering a poor teenage girl. So back inside, Lindsay and Tommy watch Forbidden Planet, a movie that rules and Tommy moves to scare Lindsay hiding

by the window but when he looks out he sees the shape carrying Annie's dead body into the house. And so meanwhile we come back to the fucking Myers house and Loomis yeah Loomis like a creep posted up outside the Myers house where Lonnie Elam and his asshole friends play chicken at the Myers house.

Dave! (02:12:42.57) Again, what is this? What is this part? Is this to show his whimsical side?

Dave! (02:12:54.454) And he says, hey, hey Lonnie, get your ass away from there. That was pretty good. Thanks.

Bryan! (02:12:58.624) pretty good. That's a pretty good. That's a pretty good Loomis. Pretty good Loomis. Yep. And then Bracket finds him there and argues that nothing is happening. Boy, how wrong he is.

Dave! (02:13:07.754) Yeah, this whole scene could be cut. It is... it is purely unimportant.

Bryan! (02:13:10.612) I know. Most I got, you are so right. If you cut the fucking Loomis scenes except for the very end, the movie is fundamentally the same.

Dave! (02:13:20.51) And I wonder if they're just sort of like, well, if we don't put him in the movie, his being there at the end feels weird.

Bryan! (02:13:27.116) Yeah, it doesn't. You can't. You can't narratively have him just at the beginning and the end. He's gotta get to Haddonfield. Yeah, he's gotta get to Haddonfield. He has to sort of contextualize Michael a little bit. He but then there's so much of him just.

Dave! (02:13:38.274) Because then it really is just a Deus Ex character.

Bryan! (02:13:51.324) hanging out next to the Myers house or in the Myers house doing nothing. If you cut those scenes out, the movie doesn't really change much.

Dave! (02:14:01.834) Well, and this is why, again, and I'm drawing a lot of comparisons to Black Christmas. And that is for an obvious reason, is that these movies are very similar.

Bryan! (02:14:09.9) It's also totally fair. It plays a black Christmas. There would be no Halloween without black Christmas.

Dave! (02:14:15.882) Right. And the thing about Black Christmas, the thing that I think makes Black Christmas a better movie is that you don't have a Loomis character. You have a house full of women and they're all awesome. And that's the whole fucking movie.

Bryan! (02:14:27.236) There is, okay, I will, you can call me on this. John Saxon is a little.

Dave! (02:14:32.45) John Saxon, but there's a reason for John Saxon to be there because it's like, obviously they're gonna call the cops, but like, and that's the extent of John Saxon's, there's no hysterical, you know, Ahab character here. And that is what Loomis is.

Bryan! (02:14:37.568) Yeah.

Bryan! (02:14:45.584) Um, I think the hysterical character really starts in part two here. I think he's a little bit more reserved, almost like he's just like, well, I'm here, I may as well act, I guess. What is my.

Dave! (02:14:57.138) He is the human embodiment of a klaxon. He's here to warn the town.

Bryan! (02:15:00.6) He doesn't. Yeah, like he really turns into that character at the end of part four, really.

Dave! (02:15:07.318) But like you don't have that in Black Christmas, which is why it's like, it is even more chilling. That's like, here's a dude who creeps into town, kills a bunch of people. The end.

Bryan! (02:15:14.348) Oh, man. I cannot wait to talk about that one. But yeah. So, now, Linda and Bob pull up to the Wallace place and Bob makes a really, really gross joke about Lindsay ripping Linda's clothes off, then his own, and then Lindsay's clothes. It's like, Bob, don't. Just don't.

Dave! (02:15:20.043) Ah, the good time gals are here.

Dave! (02:15:31.786) And then he opens the door for Linda, and all the beer cans spill out like a goddamn Cheech and Chong movie.

Bryan! (02:15:39.776) Yep. They find the place empty and they get to work doing it.

Dave! (02:15:44.182) There is a great moment where they're in the living room for a little bit and they get up to go upstairs. And I think this is meant to like kind of mirror the part at the beginning where Judith Meyer is in her boyfriend. But when, so there's obviously a dolly track in the living room and she trips over it. You can see her like kind of clomping through the living room like she's wearing giant boots.

Bryan! (02:15:53.621) Oh yeah. Yeah.

Bryan! (02:16:03.085) Cause she's got those fucking, she's got those eight inch sandal platforms on.

Dave! (02:16:06.71) But he just left it in, because I guess he was just like, I don't know, it's fine, you just look like you're clomping through the house. You know what they remind me of? They remind me of the moment where, what's his face, in the old dark house when, I can't remember his name, it's the guy who made Night of the Hunter.

Bryan! (02:16:10.684) Yeah. Yep. I mean, yeah, she's gonna trip.

Bryan! (02:16:28.153) Oh yeah, uh Lotton.

Dave! (02:16:30.935) Yeah, when Charles Lawton and his girlfriend blow into the house, they're just like, woo, here we go. That's what Bob and Linda are. They are.

Bryan! (02:16:38.672) Yeah. Oh my god. You're right. Yep. They are 100. She's a show girl. She's a show girl and he's just a dude who loves her company. Yeah. So, uh

Dave! (02:16:41.858) They're here to have fun.

Dave! (02:16:46.262) Yep. Except in that movie, quite curiously, they never go upstairs to have sex, and there's a reason for that.

Bryan! (02:16:54.679) little do Bob and Bob and Linda know that the shape is already there and the shadow passes in the darkness.

Dave! (02:16:59.114) And this is the first time that he's actually in the house with him.

Bryan! (02:17:02.872) Yeah. Yeah, because he's been outside the whole time. So, yeah. Yeah. So, he's

Dave! (02:17:05.086) Yep. And these are the most great, and I think this is the part of in Rob Zombie's movie that actually works pretty well too, is this all this lurking around the house where he's just sort of there watching them, but he doesn't do it.

Bryan! (02:17:17.144) Yeah, yep. He's biding his time, waiting for his moment. So yeah, Bob and Linda, they're getting busy. When they're finished, Bob gets up to get beers for the two of them, setting up one of the movie's iconic kills.

Dave! (02:17:29.562) I got a question. Why is there a Jack Lintner next to the bed? Did the family leave that there or did Bob and Linda bring that? Why? They were like, well we used it at the beginning and we shot that this morning, why don't you just put it in the house? No one will ever ask questions except for two assholes 45 years from now.

Bryan! (02:17:32.976) ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Bryan! (02:17:46.459) Yep

Bryan! (02:17:50.06) It's almost like somebody was on the set and they're like, hey, what if what if the audience forgets that it's Halloween? We'll just step. Yeah. So, yeah, he's rummaging around through the kitchen, goes to close.

Dave! (02:17:55.958) Yep, they're gonna.

Dave! (02:18:02.099) And he goes, Linda, you asshole. I love that line.

Bryan! (02:18:07.203) Yeah, I, the way that everybody talks to one another in this movie is great. Oh yeah.

Dave! (02:18:12.042) It's because it feels very natural. It's just like, this is how people talk to each other. When you have intimate relationships with people and you can be goofy and joke around, you say shit like.

Bryan! (02:18:21.888) Right, because like in a minute, he's Michael's gonna do something that Linda very earnestly mistakes for some Bob just fucking around. So obviously, that's something

Dave! (02:18:30.606) I mean, how many times, how many times do I wake up in the morning and I'm like, Michael, you fucking jerk. Zero, actually zero. I have never spoken to him that way.

Bryan! (02:18:39.908) whom amongst us hasn't thrown a sheet over us and pretended to be a ghost silently for I love us.

Dave! (02:18:47.874) But this part is, this is the part of the movie that I actually do find very jarring. When he is opening the, you know, Bob's opening all the closets, Linda, you asshole.

Bryan! (02:18:55.512) right? Cuz he opens, he opens the closet and Michael charges out and

Dave! (02:18:59.558) and he charges at him. It's like the only time in the movie, there's one other time where he moves a little bit quickly. This is the only time where he moves aggressively.

Bryan! (02:19:12.725) the knife. Yeah. He pins, he easily and then stakes him to this is the part that everybody

Dave! (02:19:18.006) because it has been replicated to death.

Bryan! (02:19:22.38) Yeah, where Michael tilts his head side to side, like considering his work sort of.

Dave! (02:19:27.602) And all Carpenter said was, I want you to look at him as though you're admiring your work. And so this is the way that he decided to interpret that direction. And it is really brilliant because it's creepy as hell.

Bryan! (02:19:38.008) Nick. Nick Castle, you fucking genius. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. But the soundtrack, when this happens, the soundtrack again drowned out by Carpenter's music and that breathing again like they're inseparable. They gotta have them. It's awesome. So, upstairs, the shape sneaks up on Linda pretending to be Bob wearing a sheet like a ghost and Bob's glasses and Linda

Dave! (02:19:43.626) Nick Castle, you goofy bastard.

Bryan! (02:20:06.912) eventually, you know, not feeling what she thinks is a joke. At first, she thinks he's hilarious, you know, pulls the sheets down, shows him her boobs.

Dave! (02:20:14.466) This is the only part that feels a little gratuitous. Which I mean, it's fine, I think.

Bryan! (02:20:18.588) you know what? I'll tell you like the only some of the only and it probably came from cheap movie. You gotta have it

Dave! (02:20:26.89) Yeah, probably.

Dave! (02:20:33.45) I mean, but it doesn't feel, it feels gratuitous, but it doesn't feel like it's, it doesn't feel wrong or out of place. It's like, okay, if one of those is gonna do it, it's gonna be her, and it's done in good fun.

Bryan! (02:20:41.343) it, you know, right and you know the thing, that's the thing, here's the thing, he doesn't linger and it's not like the

Dave! (02:20:47.05) And this was my problem with the Rob Zombie scene because when he does it in that movie, I found that scene to be completely tasteless. I thought it was horrible, it was completely unnecessary and awful because it is a shirtless woman being torn apart by somebody. This, she does do this, but it's sort of like, it just feels like it's a little playful, it's a little fun. You know, is it a little crude? Sure, but you get that sense that is this character.

Bryan! (02:21:00.097) Yeah.

Bryan! (02:21:11.276) Yeah, but also not out of place for a fucking movie, like a low budget horror movie in the 70s. Like mainstream motion pictures were just like chock full of boobs at the time. So it just, it is what it is. But again, he doesn't linger. He doesn't fucking zoom in on him. Most of the time there, you know, everything's out of frame. They just kind of pop in. It's just, you know, it's just, it's the way he does it that makes it feel, I don't know, like you said, it's kind of natural, you know.

Dave! (02:21:39.606) because he's so heavily influenced by these guys that were 20, 30 years older than him and had been making movies for, you know, in the 40s and 50s and 60s. That is what this movie essentially is. It's just, you know, it's a Hitchcock movie for 1978, whereas the movie Hitchcock made in, what, 1976 or whatever, Family Plot is like, oh God.

Bryan! (02:21:59.788) family, family plot? Yeah. Yep.

Dave! (02:22:04.514) So I think it's fair to say, John Carpenter, successor to Alfred Hitchcock.

Bryan! (02:22:08.248) Oh yeah, picking it, picking up where, where the, where the dude left off. But yeah. So now Linda is just like, all right, whatever, Bob, fuck this. She picks up the phone to call Lori. And as Lori picks up the shape attacks, she thinks that it's Annie fucking around again, because of a prank call of Annie before when Annie called her and just like chewed food.

Dave! (02:22:26.554) was eating something. So she says, now I first I get your famous chewing, now I get your famous breathing. You're like, no, you get her famous not breathing. That's the problem. All right, call the police.

Bryan! (02:22:34.784) Yeah. So, so now now, so now Linda is dead. The shape picks up the phone and this is the first time that we see the mask like full on and it's all.

Dave! (02:22:43.742) And there's something about this scene that's so awesome, even though it just feels kind of obvious and, eh.

Bryan! (02:22:49.984) he's just well, you know what it is it's a combination of the fact that he's just Michael is never in a hurry except for when he's like struggling to fucking murder somebody but like he just he slowly picks up the phone and puts it up to his like rubber ear but at the same time it's just they do you know blue for nighttime lighting and it's him lit by the blue surrounded by just darkness and so he's this face

on the phone with Laurie in the darkness. It's just it's you know it's more of just the way that Castle is portraying this character.

uh... it's a hell of a payoff you know so meanwhile

Dave! (02:23:32.654) I think it's also helped by the fact that all of the houses in this, and this sort of aids to the whole aesthetic, every house feels so empty. And it's that feeling of suburbia again, where it's like, it all feels so vacant. Like these are places that are supposed to be alive, cities are alive. These are places that just, you don't feel like anyone is there. The houses are empty, they're all dark, and that's what makes this mask work so well.

Bryan! (02:23:53.101) Yeah!

the yeah, this neighborhood is dead. Like it's not clear how late it is. It's probably not very late actually. Yeah. So like but like when every time we look out, there's not a ** light on. There's not there's no cars driving by. It's just it's just uh Orange Grove Ave. You know, it's a quiet night.

Dave! (02:24:03.534) Can't be that late, the kids are still awake.

Bryan! (02:24:20.372) Meanwhile, back at the Myers house, Loomis turns and for the first time all night, he notices that the Smith's Grove station wagon is parked like right next to him.

Dave! (02:24:30.89) Which is amazing because this car is in every fucking frame of this movie.

Bryan! (02:24:35.621) Yeah. So now he's.

Dave! (02:24:36.534) For someone who's so obsessed, he's not very perceptive.

Bryan! (02:24:39.98) No, no, he starts to sort of like patrol the neighborhood. And so Laurie finds Annie's keys in the Doyle living room. And this is like, again, this is a fucking it's an important detail that I only just recently noticed like

Dave! (02:24:56.154) This is when Jimmy Stewart picks up the champagne cork off the floor in front of the trunk and rope.

Bryan! (02:25:05.818) Yeah, it's yeah. So, this is it's

Dave! (02:25:09.118) It's when someone starts to realize something's wrong.

Bryan! (02:25:12.208) Yeah, this and it's a it's a neat cuz they gotta get Lori over to the Wallace House and it's you know, it's a very small detail. It's very neat. If you're not paying attention, it's still fucking works but like to to have this moment where you're like, oh Now, she realizes that there's a problem because she's gonna go across the street to the Wallace House and all hell is gonna break loose cuz we're turning the corner into the final act.

And so.

She gets over there.

Bryan! (02:25:49.076) and she sort of walks up she

Dave! (02:25:51.574) This is another great use of the darkness again, where she walks up the stairs and there's only one crack of light that she can see and it's in the bedroom and it's so alluring.

Bryan! (02:25:59.416) Yes. Oh my god. I love it because it's not because it's it because everything else is black and blue but the door crack is orange because you know.

Dave! (02:26:08.434) And it's not like a light coming from underneath the door. The door is cracked open, so it's got this sort of L shape and it's like very compelling to look at. You're drawn to it.

Bryan! (02:26:18.32) the house. Yep. Yep. So, she's she's in the house but before she gets there, she's in the house. She keeps hearing like sounds and she thinks everybody's with her because everybody's with her for the whole movie. Uh but but from here on out, it is all shadows and high contrast blacks and blues and it is a great setup. Yeah, so this is it. So, she

Dave! (02:26:39.318) It's not your friends, Lori. Your friends are dead. Even Bob, who you probably didn't like.

Bryan! (02:26:47.128) Bob seems okay. Except for that fuckin' except for that Lindsay comment. Ah.

Dave! (02:26:48.658) Linda, you asshole!

Bryan! (02:26:54.52) But yes, so. The 70s were.

Dave! (02:26:54.842) It's the 70s, he's being sexy!

It's like, we'll just put her in the water bed and off we go.

Bryan! (02:27:04.048) the door. Yeah. But now she does. She goes, she sees that crack of light. She goes in, she opens the door. She finds Annie's body spread out on the bed beneath the headstone of Judith Myers and this is where we get the scream that made Jamie Lee Curtis. It's the it's a very distinct sound. It almost sounds like two screams like played as a composite. It's such a weird sound and now like, yeah, she opens up a

Dave! (02:27:32.426) Now here's a thing that I've never understood about the Bob party. Why does he fall down from the ceiling as though he's hanging there? What is he hanging from? And why is he placed in such a way that it's like, okay, here's what's gonna happen. She's gonna come up, she's gonna see the thing, right? She's gonna get real freaked out, gonna turn around, she's gonna grab the closet, right? This is how it's gonna go. She's gonna open it up and bam, he swings down. Like this takes an awful lot of

Bryan! (02:27:39.316) What is he suspended? What is he suspended from? Yeah.

Bryan! (02:27:53.903) Yep.

Bryan! (02:28:00.232) It's freaking dry.

Dave! (02:28:02.85) But I think this is also the one insight you have into what's happening in this movie is he is essentially killing his sister over and over again. They're just women, they're just his sister to him. It doesn't matter who they are. And again, that goes back to that anonymity. He's not there to kill them. He's just there to kill women. And one specific woman, he's just killing her again and again.

Bryan! (02:28:10.861) Yes.

Bryan! (02:28:20.992) Yeah. And I mean, that was it.

Bryan! (02:28:25.696) And that's like, I mean, that's kind of a quality. One of the theories of Ted Bundy, right, is every murder was him murdering the same woman over again. Yeah. But yeah, but then she finds Linda, Linda's like mouth is like hanging open and her eyes are crossed.

Dave! (02:28:33.614) Yeah, it was his wife. Must've felt real nice when she heard that. How do you live with that for the rest of your life?

Dave! (02:28:47.094) Yeah, Linda is in a very, like, I don't know, it's a very like Herschel Gordon Lewis, you're piled up in the closet kind of thing. She's in like the linen closet, squished in there.

Bryan! (02:28:58.208) Yeah. Yep. So now, Laurie slumps against a doorjam, grief-stricken, and what the way that the shot is framed and

Dave! (02:29:06.646) This is the scene that he wanted to do. And this is the one where 4K does not do it much service because there's a dimmer switch on the light and he emerges from the shadow.

Bryan! (02:29:15.244) Yeah. Oh, right. And again, this is one of the iconic scenes where Laurie is like leaning against the door and there's an open door to one of the like the hallway. And it's just blackness. It's just darkness. And you know, Michael emerges sort of slowly from the from the gloom. But

Dave! (02:29:34.486) The way it was supposed to work, and the way it did work in the, if you saw the original print, was they bring the light up slowly, as he's walking forward, and they're bringing the light up so you see just the sort of like sliver of light, and then the closer he gets, they're slowly turning, so he just, his face emerges. Sort of like when the Pazuzu thing, like you see Pazuzu, you just see the face, it's sort of a little bit like that, where it just emerges out of the shadow, and it's just his face.

Bryan! (02:29:57.619) Yeah.

Bryan! (02:30:04.024) Yeah.

Dave! (02:30:04.258) but it doesn't work that way because it's so high contrast.

Bryan! (02:30:07.101) Yeah, it still works. I.

Dave! (02:30:09.066) Oh, it's incredible. It's an incredible shot, but like, Conde is sort of like, it's not as effective as it was original.

Bryan! (02:30:15.252) Yeah, yeah, it's great. But yeah, iconic scene. But he attacks kind of scratches her. And this is where she goes over the railing and sort of onto the steps below. So apparently, the one sort of producer note, the one thing that Erwin Yablon's required for this movie was a staircase because a couple of like high profile horror movies at the time involved staircases. Now the Exorcist.

and um oh psycho uh has a staircase that's prominently featured yeah

Dave! (02:30:49.414) Yes, because Arbogast falls down the stairs in a very similar way. Like, I think the camera trick is the same.

Bryan! (02:30:56.504) That's one of those dolly zooms where like the background moves, but he doesn't.

Dave! (02:30:59.998) It's not quite that, it's I think, I don't really know how they do it. I think they lower the camera and then speed up the film eventually because it looks like you're falling, but it's really just a slow shot down the, straight down.

Bryan! (02:31:10.996) Yeah, yeah, I recently watched Psycho and

Dave! (02:31:13.75) but it's not the Jaws shot, the pulling back and zooming in.

Bryan! (02:31:18.004) Right, right. Yeah, I recently watched Psycho and that fall is notable for a reason. It's a wicked weird shot. Yeah.

Dave! (02:31:26.396) Yep. But it's like basically the same shot here.

Bryan! (02:31:29.26) Yeah. So, uh, this is also, this is how, cause again, this is like the hits keep on coming. This is how we get that sort of iconic shot of Michael at the top of the steps where he's just a f*g shadow.

Dave! (02:31:40.726) And this is the other moment where he moves quickly because she's getting away.

Bryan! (02:31:46.025) Yeah, yeah, he comes down the steps real fast. Laurie is desperate to escape, so she locks the shape out of the kitchen, but he punches his way through the door and approaches and she breaks a window in the back door to get out into the street and run.

Dave! (02:31:57.614) And that is Tommy Lee Wallace's hand going through the window.

Bryan! (02:32:00.668) Oh, no shit. She runs out screaming while he calmly pursues her. And then this is what we were talking about before. She runs up to the first this one house where they hear her screaming, they turn on the light and somebody like looks out the window, and then just fucking nopes out and they shut the light off.

Dave! (02:32:15.774) And this is suburbia, this is the Kitty Genovese thing. This, oh not that, Kitty Genovese didn't happen in suburbia, but it's that idea of you used to know all your neighbors, you could rely on them and now you can't. This is that fear of changing society. Yeah, look at this bitch. Fuck she thinks she is.

Bryan! (02:32:27.104) Yep. Not my chair, not my problem.

Bryan! (02:32:34.733) the door. Mr. Balloon Hands. Uh Tommy Doyle to open up the Doyle house. He's like, she's keys, the keys, and looks out the window and he's It like, I'll just like, bothering him. Now, Lindsay

Dave! (02:32:41.234) after chucking a planter at the window.

Dave! (02:32:47.286) That's because this is the part where she's like, keys, keys!

Dave! (02:32:58.806) Yeah, Lindsey wouldn't have done that. She would have been all right there.

Bryan! (02:33:03.404) So, yeah. So, once inside, she tries to call the cops, but the phone is dead and the back door is wide open in the shape. He's sneaky. He's got legs. He's all over the place. Yep. So, he attacks again. This is where she's at the sofa.

Dave! (02:33:10.454) He's sneaky. He's getting sneaky. Because he's about to be real sneaky in a minute. In a moment that I don't quite understand.

Dave! (02:33:21.654) He pops up, like, was he waiting, crouched down behind the sofa? Is that what he's doing? Where he's like, okay, like before, when she saw the thing, then bumped in and then opened all the doors, here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna be crouched down behind the thing. She's gonna come in, she's gonna be real scared, she's gonna get down on the couch, and I'm gonna pop up real slow behind the couch, scare the crap out of me.

Bryan! (02:33:27.98) He must have been. Because he.

Bryan! (02:33:36.888) Ha ha ha!

Bryan! (02:33:44.64) Yeah, yeah, he's thinking. He's thinking. That's the thing. And so this is what she jams a fucking knitting needle into his neck, which he pulls out very suddenly and then falls over for like the first time. And then she's she

Dave! (02:33:57.514) He takes a pretty hard beating at the end of this movie.

Bryan! (02:34:00.668) Yes, he does. He, uh, she, he basically he attacks with a knife and then he drops it when she, when she stabs him. And so she takes the knife and she throws it aside, which drives people nuts.

Dave! (02:34:11.63) Yeah, because it's the first time that she's going to do it and then she's gonna do it again.

Bryan! (02:34:16.504) just gonna do it again. The second time I can definitely be like, God damn it, Laurie, just fucking stab him in the face or something. But the first time

Dave! (02:34:23.484) You either go Friday the 13th part four or you don't and you die.

Bryan! (02:34:26.624) Yeah. So, the thing is what she has since explained was when she looked at the knife, the prop is actually bloody and like nasty and in the past, in past versions, you couldn't tell. It just looks like a knife but in the UHD version of it, you can actually see it a little bit and so, she's like disgusted by it and

Dave! (02:34:47.886) Because he has used this to kill three of her friends. And maybe one guy at a truck stop.

Bryan! (02:34:50.732) Yeah, and so she discards it very suddenly.

Bryan! (02:34:56.492) Yeah. Yeah, Joe Grizzly. And so now again, Loomis is stalking the neighborhood. And Lori goes to check on the kids telling them that she killed the boogeyman to which Tommy tells her you can't kill the boogeyman.

Dave! (02:35:08.335) Mm-hmm. You can't kill the boogeyman. And that is the thesis of the entire movie.

Bryan! (02:35:13.896) Yep, shadows move behind Lori and we find that the shape is still alive. So Lori secures the kids and she hides in the closet in my favorite scene in the entire fucking movie.

Dave! (02:35:24.206) Because this is the culmination of all this openness and these sort of like slowly tightening shots. The culmination of all of that is the two of them crammed into this tiny space.

Bryan! (02:35:34.256) she she she does what I it's a ** reasonable thing to do. She's terrified.

Dave! (02:35:40.19) Yeah, except she's doing it the whole time she's making these loud, whimpering sounds. Bitch, if you're gonna lock yourself in a closet, shut the fuck up!

Bryan! (02:35:48.228) silence. You gotta be quiet or he's gonna know because he does, you know, but she's but yet but she is now like surrounded on all sides in a way that's sort of like it's I don't know. I don't know. I can't speak for everybody but like it is comforting when you're nervous. You're anxious to you have to back yourself into a corner so nobody can attack you from behind but yeah like

Dave! (02:35:52.79) Yeah, he sneaks and he creeps.

Dave! (02:36:08.831) It works if you're playing Call of Duty.

Dave! (02:36:14.862) If you're hiding from a giant with a knife, probably not the best place to be.

Bryan! (02:36:18.388) Yeah, but like, but yeah, she does this and so this is where he's like, you know, yanking on the doors and he punches his way in and I fucking love this. He just he like his fist gets hung up on the like the drawstring for the light. So suddenly.

Dave! (02:36:31.638) Because this is again, this is that light and shadow. You have a hanging bulb getting knocked around in an otherwise pitch black space.

Bryan! (02:36:39.664) Yeah. And suddenly it's light in a movie that for the last ** half an hour has taken place in the dark and we see Michael in the light for the first time briefly because he shuts it off again. But yeah, to do to D to defend herself, she does the only thing she can think of. She grabs a wire hanger and unfurls and she stabs him in the eye and he yeah and she and he I know he drops the knife. She grabs it.

Dave! (02:37:00.206) pretty resourceful, I will say. I don't know that I would think to do that.

Bryan! (02:37:09.548) Presumably dead again.

Dave! (02:37:10.934) because she does stab him in the chest. That's where all the important stuff is.

Bryan! (02:37:15.72) you're like, oh, yes. Oh yeah. like important business right operate without but it's again, discards the knife right walks over and now she checks to run downstairs and you know, They run out screaming

Dave! (02:37:35.231) Run to the Mackenzies!

Bryan! (02:37:41.74) Michael Myers is there.

Dave! (02:37:43.727) Mm-hmm, this is why he has seen this movie. This is why he has been creeping around town being a fucking weirdo for the last hour and a half.

Bryan! (02:37:46.488) Yep, no wire hangers by the way.

Bryan! (02:37:52.536) Yeah. But so she wants the kids are safe. She sort of collapses in the doorway and god damn it. I fucking love this. It's corny. If you look

Dave! (02:38:01.193) The app control here is impressive.

Bryan! (02:38:04.836) He sits up from a laying position.

Dave! (02:38:07.58) It is a little bit cheesy because it's like this is so robotic and weird.

Bryan! (02:38:11.64) because he does it, he sits up, he does like that flat set up, and then he sort of, then, kind of like how Robocop moves, where like he turns.

Dave! (02:38:18.062) I was gonna say, it's a little bit like Harpo Marx, where he's gonna lean something and he's like, You! There you are!

Bryan! (02:38:26.163) like, I'm going to do this. turns his head and then we cut coming into the house and then almost like he's doing like yeah, you like rolls upward and attacks her again.

Dave! (02:38:34.944) This is the Robocop part.

Dave! (02:38:41.399) one vertebrae at a time.

Dave! (02:38:49.162) This is Tony Morett.

Bryan! (02:38:52.621) the mask. Yeah. So, uh now, um struggle in the hallway. She not Nick Castle. Nick Castle was supposed to be like 21 years

Dave! (02:38:58.614) Well, was he too old or was he too ugly? Because the reason that Tony Moran isn't here is because John Carpenter wanted someone who looked beautiful and angelic. Now I'm gonna push back on that a little bit because what I consider beautiful and angelic is clearly a lot different than what John Carpenter thinks is because Tony Moran looks kinda fucked up. Now granted, he hasn't stabbed in the eye.

Bryan! (02:39:20.164) Well, he's got that, yeah, he's got that jacked up eye appliance on.

Dave! (02:39:25.09) But yeah, he wanted someone who looked, he's sort of the antithesis of what you'd expect of a monster. He wanted something beautiful looking, I guess. I mean, you don't really see him head on, so it doesn't matter. Like you see his face.

Bryan! (02:39:33.864) I guess. I, that, well, that's the thing is, is it's a very important moment because you, up to this point, you don't really know what to expect. And you probably don't even really expect the mask is going to come off because like it's kind of like the, I lose sight of that. It's, it's sort of goes to sort of the genius of the movie is you lose sight of the fact on purpose that there is a person under this mask.

Dave! (02:39:58.474) Right, who is the killer? It doesn't matter. That's the whole point of the movie. It doesn't matter who this is.

Bryan! (02:40:03.856) when the mask comes off and you see it's just a fucking kid, it's a guy, it there's an impact to it, you know.

Dave! (02:40:14.034) I also like that he moves, he's very hastily pulls it back on.

Bryan! (02:40:18.404) the mask. Yes, and it's important to him that he gets the mask back on. Yeah. And so now, Loomis is there. He shoots him. He falls back. Loomis chases. Six times. Yeah, it's. and so he shoots him and he goes over the railing into the garden and Laurie is like, it was the boogeyman to which

Dave! (02:40:22.07) that she does not see him.

Dave! (02:40:28.615) How many times does he shoot? I think it's six goddamn times. Shoot some six goddamn times.

Dave! (02:40:43.091) And he says, as a matter of fact, it was.

and see.

Bryan! (02:40:48.364) and he's gone and he's gone and then what we get is a montage. Yeah, we get it's just it's a montage of all of the scenes where the mayhem was taking place while

Dave! (02:40:51.414) These are all insert shots at the end.

Dave! (02:40:57.71) because they got to the end of the production and I guess someone was like, is that how it ends? And he was like, oh shit, I can't end it like that. And so he decides to go around and show the neighborhood and with the idea being that like, he could be anywhere, he could be everywhere. And you get that, they really kind of prop that up with the breathing.

Bryan! (02:41:05.966) Yeah.

Bryan! (02:41:22.348) Yes, because the breathing gets louder and louder and louder until the shot ends on the Myers house. Cut the black. Halloween. Roll credits. God damn it. Yeah, and it's just like, you said it, and I think I said it almost at the same time. I could have just started the fucking movie over right again and just been happy to watch it again.

Dave! (02:41:32.182) Fucking banger.

Dave! (02:41:43.902) And because it is all of these really small touches, it's Debra Hill's writing, it's Dean Cundy's camera work, it's John Carpenter's sort of creativity and willingness to be the leader of an actual group of creative people and not just try to lord over the production.

Bryan! (02:42:02.008) Yes, you know, it's a fucking, it's a clinic and how to make a good movie. Like if you set out with good intentions, where your intention is not, leave the fucking money to the executive producers. That's their intention.

Dave! (02:42:13.706) And I don't think we see this again until like Desperado or the one right before it.

Bryan! (02:42:21.064) I would say, yeah, so El Mariachi, that's the thing. I am, I always, I, that's a, that's a very good point because Robert Rodriguez, he dominates Hollywood in such a way that he gets to call his own shots at a time when like even Quentin, yeah. And also he is extremely heavily influenced by John Carpenter. There are scenes from Escape from New York that are in machete, like beat for beat. So like,

Dave! (02:42:22.91) Yeah, I don't think you'll see it again until then.

Dave! (02:42:37.322) and he's making genre films.

Bryan! (02:42:50.68) Carpenter's influence on everybody is, on people, or at least people who really understand him, it's profound, you know? This is how you make a fucking entertaining movie that was also commercially successful. This might be, well, no, like Escape from New York is very successful. He makes a bunch of movies that make a lot of money, but the box, not at this level, from this moment on, like Box Office for John Carpenter is kind of like a series of just diminishing returns.

Dave! (02:43:12.202) Not at this level.

Bryan! (02:43:20.568) but he remains consistently good. Ah.

Dave! (02:43:24.574) And creatively, I mean, I think he rides out, I'm gonna say up to...

Bryan! (02:43:30.488) Prince of Darkness?

Dave! (02:43:33.35) Darkness is pretty good. I would say a little bit before that. They are solid through and through, and so you get to they live, I guess. Yeah, up to that.

Bryan! (02:43:39.5) Yeah, I love, I mean, I mean, and that's, I love, I fucking love They Live to Death. Uh, I think that, yeah, like once you get into the 90s.

Dave! (02:43:46.366) He runs out of juice a little bit after that, and it all feels kinda half-hearted. It's not bad stuff, but...

Bryan! (02:43:50.22) he gets he gets one great blast in the 90s with in the mouth of madness but that's

Dave! (02:43:55.99) But even that doesn't have the same feel that these movies have. He had this moment of like just sheer creativity in all ways. And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that he's willing to listen to other people and he's willing to let them do their thing that he hired them to do, that he knew they could do because they've been working together since 78.

Bryan! (02:44:14.616) Yeah. Yeah, it's I think I've said it in both of the previous Halloween movies. When we talk about John Carpenter, I feel like his best work happens when he has a collaborator and up until like, you know, like eventually things start to fall off when Deborah goes off to do her own thing. Eventually the music starts. I mean, this soundtrack is all him but like he really picks up steam when he starts working with Alan Howarth.

So like, you know, as long as he's got somebody to like kind of bounce ideas off of.

Dave! (02:44:44.926) And these are really stripped down stories. I mean, he doesn't overthink this movie and because he doesn't overthink it, you don't really overthink it. The same with The Fog. The Fog is barely a story. And it's my favorite of his movies. Yep.

Bryan! (02:44:51.992) No, I.

Bryan! (02:44:56.08) Yeah. Yeah. No Yeah. Yeah. The this movie and I don't like this word gets overused a lot. I do not use it lightly. This movie is elegant as It. It's just it's a every single piece that a good movie needs is there and they're all working together in a way that sort of like influences the rest. The you know, the the

God, it is more than the sum of its parts. It's just, it's such a fucking great movie. It's

Dave! (02:45:26.602) And I think the part where it does, where there are missteps along the way, and I think that they're unavoidable in a certain way. Like the stuff with Loomis, you know he kind of had to put it in there for one reason or another. You couldn't get by without it, and it feels a little bit sort of shoehorned in. It doesn't...

Bryan! (02:45:42.688) Yeah, the fact that everybody who comes after Carpenter who makes a Halloween movie feels like they have to have Loomis in there. Such a strange detail because if some if I if they were like if they were like, okay, Brian pitches some pitches a movie with Halloween my script would not have Loomis in it.

Dave! (02:45:52.566) Well, but I think that says a lot.

Dave! (02:45:58.978) But it's what we were saying before. What does this movie mean to me? It's the story about these three female friends. What do the all-male, I think all-white male filmmakers do? It's a story about Michael Myers and his Ahab. Who fucking cares about that? That's the most boring part of the story. That's the direction they take it.

Bryan! (02:46:18.188) Yeah. Well, also I think that it happened out of necessity because they could still get Donald Pleasence, but they could not get Jamie Lee Curtis.

Dave! (02:46:27.498) Right, you killed off everybody else and then Jamie Likardis was too big at that point. I mean, she didn't even really want to do the second one.

Bryan! (02:46:32.117) Yeah, yeah.

Bryan! (02:46:36.921) that's how he ends up just writing it. But yeah, this movie is a singularity. The effect that it has on horror movies going forward. It is a paradigm shift in the same way that last house on the left was. In the way, the same way that fucking Blair Witch Project is going to be, you know, in 20 years, it's

It's one of those singular moments that changes literally everything on a fucking shoestring budget.

Dave! (02:47:03.49) And so then this leads to my question that I have for you. We have seen this movie over the last 30 plus years. We have each seen this movie countless times. How does this hold up today as a horror movie?

Bryan! (02:47:17.596) It ages like fucking wine. Like I, it's a movie that I, when I first saw it, I liked it quite a bit. It was probably, it's ostensibly the first slasher movie I ever saw, but I didn't really start to appreciate it until I saw it more and more. And I certainly didn't appreciate it until, like, I was really like an adult. When I was a kid, I just wanted to see everything. And I liked the cheesiest, trashiest shit best.

So like I gravitated to Friday the 13th and then like once I had something to sort of compare Against Halloween. I was like, oh fucking Jason is way better than Michael Myers. But as I got older I was like, uh, I think I like Halloween the best and so, you know I really came around to it and now like I said the more I watch it the more I like it I see more details to it every time I see it. There's something fucking new I appreciate it on a different way. Every time I watch it. It's a

It's a fucking great movie. I...

Dave! (02:48:14.002) I would agree. I would say with all these other movies, I think Blair Witch is a good example because it is, as much as I don't like it, it is a significant film in the sort of history of American horror. And it's significant when I know the backstory. I don't have to know the backstory to this movie to enjoy it and to see all the brilliance. I don't need to know all the shit that we just spouted for the last three hours. I don't have to know any of that to watch this and say, this is a...

This is a movie made by skilled people who know exactly what they're doing and they effectively convey absolutely everything that they're trying to convey. And it's beautiful and incredible by the time it's over.

Bryan! (02:48:49.228) Yeah, this is it's crazy because Carpenter made this movie when he was 30 years old. He fucking nailed it. This is and I think personally of all of his movies, Escape from New York is my favorite. This, however, is his fucking magnum opus. Like this is his. Yeah. Yep. So so. Yeah, so beautiful, in fact, that it is.

Dave! (02:49:03.402) Yes, this is a beautiful film. And yeah, I think it holds up perfectly.

Bryan! (02:49:15.212) I think it was it was it's in the Library of Congress is like a significant movie. I'm so glad that we slogged our way through lesser movies to get to this point because. That I know man when I got to Rob Zombie's Halloween, I was like, man, am I regretting this fucking idea?

Dave! (02:49:26.508) I don't ever want to do that again.

Dave! (02:49:32.822) Look, I'll talk about 90s movies. I'll talk about movies that came out 20 minutes ago. Ugh. Not the early 2000s. Jesus.

Bryan! (02:49:38.231) Yep.

Bryan! (02:49:41.564) Yep. All right. What are we doing next?

Dave! (02:49:45.358) That's a good question. Are we doing, all right, okay. That was my question then.

Bryan! (02:49:49.14) Let's let's not mention the bonus. I'll edit this part out. But yeah, we are doing we're getting back into some real serious garbage territory.

Dave! (02:49:59.826) Oh yeah, we're going off the rails. We're going back to being off the rails.

Bryan! (02:50:02.972) Yep, we are going to do a movie called Elves, which I discovered just this year. And I cannot wait to talk about it because it is fucked up wall to wall.

Dave! (02:50:13.766) Yeah, we planned out most of our months way in advance and then got to November and we're like, well, I guess here's where all the crap goes.

Bryan! (02:50:22.572) We've got a good November, a good November planned, but we are starting off with a fucked up one. This is a movie that I cannot wait to get to it to tell everybody about it, but this is a movie where twice in the process of watching it, I audibly said out loud to nobody in particular, gross.

Dave! (02:50:44.491) Well, I look forward to it. I have actually not seen this movie. I have only ever heard the soundtrack.

Bryan! (02:50:45.839) Ha ha ha!

It's a deep cut too, and I was surprised that Terrorvision put the soundtrack out because the soundtrack's not very good, I don't think.

Dave! (02:50:53.95) I'd say it actually holds up on its own. It's part of my, I will be soon pulling out my Christmas records, of which there are only about 10, so.

Bryan! (02:51:04.22) Alright, well, Jesus Christ, thanks for sticking with us for three hours of us. Worshiping John Carpenter at Halloween. We'll see you in two weeks with elves.