The Horror of It All (1983) Full Documentary [Internet Archive]

My the end of the thirty's in the old monsters were beginning to lose their impact. We now found humor in the mass truth for him self. Baylor Lugo saying we knew the truth even if the Ritz Brothers did the gorilla had as a player down a back. Other film spa load. A really old of the old sinister characters and situations and been made a laughable by the real harm their even real war. Where will lose value by Amanda scientists continue to populate the movies in the forty's but increasingly they have become old hat. I was almost insane trying. To attract a national and more sophisticated audiences. Write a new kind of horror film began to appear it was a nine hundred forty four that Bluebeard was released. Searching every. Plastic Christer through the doctor called in far if you press. The and when the. Outside our door I heard last. Last. Recent release. The chain Miami and. The real. To. Low cost mold creature. Comfort me money I suppose it passes you can retain your money. You know the size of action at the time came for me to describe the in. There were stopped for defining the image I created. Strong pretty reading my work. Ruby airdrops hangs in my memory not only because I was the star of it because it got ahead in defense of characterization which should not period in Hollywood there's not love and seen on the stream of and then became her not like it because the jury on them what you're going to like your is of Hollywood pictures were in black and write like a white and more than one way not only in the in the character of the start of the film material but in the in the plot signs everything reside on black or white there were no grades the villains just depended on me and the heroes were just too good to be true. Hollywood grew and now we have very few men characters on the screen that have the shades of evil and shades of good and their own grades. It took awhile for holler to learn this the titles of the films produced by now loop in the early forty's seemed to promise a traditional form of horror. Instead of tales of man made Monsters vampires and werewolves. Lootings films explore the quantity of syrup so the unseen the doctor the superstitions of the ages the hidden recesses of the human psyche. Beans were his subjects the power of his films derived from what they implemented rather than what they showed a monster in a Luton film could otherwise be quite an engaging some of the scene from the body snatcher directed by Robert with Boris Karloff and barely knows what to do eighteen people they killed and so they deduct about ten pounds. Date for a small backpack owns business tells us how bad did it get the people that first day. Oh are you sure the savy about this thing when he saw us how to love bellowed able deep in drink how we cut and but the day to Madame top spot at Would you like a little glass of something before you take out right now with me to buy a house and usually buy gets to have to pick if you like. Cars and they can do that but try to get in that set of what the last days they hadn't done X. all nice to take go way that happen to live. No sooner done that in that case they cram validate they welcomed as. The standard saw me play and how date did I show you how they did it just. Showing you know how they. Put your hand out and I have only a matter. Of the of the Habs follow audience in this condition by years of movies knew the consequences of science. Least. Here was this Paul Mones Stu's wreaking havoc. From Japan he came hard films featuring Godzilla raging huge jump into moose not to be distracted by any favorite release from a deep freeze by atomic blast he was intent only on his deadly mission. From a menacing outer space came the implacable. The fifties were a time of suspicion. And one movie solemnly warned the skies. Emmy's out there there were enemies everywhere. Musiq resulting from nuclear radiation out to kill weird monsters from other planets out to destroy our are and the science fiction merged in films that reflect a little Bailey headlines warning of conspiracies within and imminent attack from without. The monsters were not always easily recognized in the one hundred fifty six invasion of the Body Snatchers they took on the familiar from that your next morning maybe. Same time the monsters and some of our affiliates were becoming more personally connected with an important New Orleans for live first and most successful of the sort I was a teenager where IT world starring Michael Landon and his first feature film. First I'm a horror film this because I made a film called crime of passion. Starring Barbara Stanwyck Sterling Hayden rang the birth we got great reviews and the picture of up and die and I want to know what happened so I tour the country I got out of Hollywood and I saw what happened and what was happening that was a that was the teenagers that were buying the records of the teenagers they were leaving the house getting away from the T.V. box in the living room the teenagers wanted to get away from the home they wanted to get away from their parents and they went to the cinema one of the things that are and they have fun with a hard picture because in my are a film was what it was I was a teenage world all the teenage friends timeslot of bracket the teenager was they were always against the culprit that was the adult and that's of the kids felt and that's why they really have a good time and they have fun with my pictures. The line of demarcation were gradually being drawn between those who want to there are straight and those who are perverted to be suggest the film with brought the issue of all good morning to fifty eight production in the money directed by Josh I'm storing and routes either is true for you want to have incurred during my code so yes it is a forget me think of him. To promise. To do in my pocket. To military. We had completed the picture over in England and had returned quite satisfied with the work we had done and much to usher grand when we saw the picture the. Producer had. Put into the picture and mechanical and lies which had been concocted by the special effects English people and made a real team and which you could see walking through the farce. Your sources as a tremendous shock to all of us because it's the out on NS story had ended with the remark maybe it would be better not to know. Or not to know. In the nineteen sixty Italian production distributed in the United States under the title Black Sunday the director left no doubt. Was to be no it was to be seen very graphic and. A lot of the horror films from the earliest days the dead are never totally dead. The out. But horror also came from the living and in Francis Ford Coppola's first feature film dimensional thirteen which we both wrote and directed it came in a particularly grisly way. An important change had come to a hard shell. Not all beautiful women were to be saved from love smitten monsters. Instead the baby came to cooperate the hunted victims of a fate that was old too true to life. Abandonment of a psychotic killer. Fantasy and the supernatural old ways flourish with the added excitement of colors. It came first from the Hammer Films are doing harder I'm drunk you're getting those great stars of horror. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. The in. To. Hammer films couldn't tell you heard right. And Christopher Lee would always find you. For me was the beginning of a cut the beginning of a new era and new era new beginning of her a picture. Hand I think came out of the fact that perhaps on television they couldn't show a lot of blood they weren't allowed to show that they weren't allowed to show a lot of sexuality there was no nudity on television so perhaps Hamill came out of that taboo and so I think and new. Color came blood came and new sexuality and you sensuality. Of course because there was nudity but there was also a sensuality connected to the dark side. And that's something I think that connected with people. The down side. We'll have it. Never be known and really. I think it has to do with the fact that perhaps they saw the doubt. And I do feel the traditional picture of the down people maybe think that's why Muvico is going to be days. They want to get in touch with that. In the United States. Film with gold with the dark side. Received a significant move from the work of producer director Roger Corman. Despite limited budgets e made a series of compelling horror films based on a story by and your album Full they frequently start surge well known masters of the macabre as Boris Karloff about Iraq. Peter Lawrie. The pole film called reaffirmed in surprise as the reigning prince of films of the dark. The most liberation struggle you know these films was a mask of the Red Death. I have tasted so few kids on tap. To be here. I beg you do not model for Judy and. We should celebrate. She's just married a friend. And then the previous. Night a little bit longer on the shot it is going on at the table and then trim a little bit. Like. Our stories have been popular throughout all of history I think there's a reason for that. Be experiencing out our through a motion picture or story is a cathartic experience. It's a way in which the person can work out an express certain problems within his unconscious mind we all have had feelings of heart as a child. These hopefully most have generally been very day later the repressed are suppressed in the back of the mind and when you go to see a hard film and you scream and you scream with the audience you are easing some of the pressure. Now the same time when you do scream you will very often smile afterwards smile or laugh because you know to a certain extent you've been had by the filmmakers you know that he is manipulated the tools of his craft in order to get the right a motion from you. These are some of the new techniques were working with here in a new world. In our ascetics depart capable of doing almost anything. This guy's got a close up tomorrow so John be clear is one of the best man in the business I think is the head of our department and he's created this is actual effects the proceedings for a number of our films. Push it over. Back back to the left a little bit and each one of these things but he's trying to do is to give the audience something to build upon from within themselves. Bracelets. Try to morrow night and. Snow. On. The work. But it's essential to remember that special effects are never in and unto themselves. Special effects are a means to lead the audience into a fuller understanding and appreciation of the film The goal is not to dazzle the audience with the special effects although it's nice you can do that the goal is to reach the end conscious of the audience and to let them experience through special effects emotions and visual sensations on film that cannot be achieved in any other way when I was doing the pope films years ago we had to leave much to the audience's imagination and I don't think that was necessarily bad the audience should participate in the film going process. The language or has been extend. Our most blood curdling nightmares rendered a thousand times I. Touch you know new ways of instilling terror. Graphic realism is not new. But the stores. The tradition of the ground getting you all to it or which goes back to the turn of the century and before in France was always one of presenting Gore on stage I mean showing it happened people having their throats ripped open and and having a hot burning iron placed on the side of their face or something like that with done with tremendous technical expertise. And this this tradition of course has been carried over into the hard sell. I'm enjoying a horror film in the fact that you as a spectator top of the safe you are secure. What's happening on the screen is not going to happen to you. Some years ago I wrote a novel called cycle about a mass murder and Alfred Hitchcock made a to do a film very effectively without using overt violence merely suggesting it on the screen. But times have certainly changed in the last twenty years we have nothing but explicit Beilenson the so-called spatters films today the real hard today it's not hard to tell which are a lot of fun. Teenagers and adults love it because we never get rid of our fears of the dark and fares of the night the real hard on the streets today in every city in every town it's on our television news if you see a body lying in the street and you've seen it on film. As a child and as a young person and as a young adult and as a mature person it's not a great shock and it should be in recent times that I think that it has become so excessive and then it becomes a kind of pornography of blood for its own sake and of course that does become distasteful it's necessary to call a halt somewhere along the line I feel under terms of the prime virtues of the horror film the wonder in the fantasy and terror that evokes you can hand somebody a glass of milk and if the music is right in the setting is right the audience would jump up and scream a plaintiff that there in fact that you don't know is what makes it bearable and makes it mystifying and shocking and can scare and they've done a lot of the. Already enjoyment of terror and there I was mainly for movies about like children that Halloween we are forever attempted to get up close to be surrounded by what we most fear. Fear why do people come in here to get scared going to bring out that fear in the person which you want to do is you want to put yourself in the position of what he knew doing you are an easy boy you killed your mother. You know all these women whether you're in the way your jacket when the euro but you're too scared to me. Scarab we are able to say to you the road we go all it one time or another had to deal with our own dark. I was or from remembers three years old my father died and I was sent to an Episcopal or from aging pixel New York run by the fiscal Sisters of St Mary you're very sensible room lights went out and time to go to sleep and they stayed out until the morning. So I never learned to be afraid of the duck my mother told me that I used to have a how low in the skeleton made out of paper in my room and she was very and use because I loved that skeleton that represented my Sears but she said that every night before I went to sleep I would take that and put it outside my room. And close the door so that I didn't have to have it with me in the dark I Remember Mama saying every night good night killed when my brother and I shared the same that didn't die children I'll leave the light on in the hall and I must of the created that with. Dark not being good for me. And light they exist together they coexist and they must must be delved into the dark side must certainly where they're scratching noises I'm buying the glass my grandmother went and opened the curtain and them pressed against the glass was just frightening face of this young woman with her nose like millions the glass her teeth. Scowling and her nails going live events on the glass blower absolutely petrified wood down to get that Friday and I was so my grandmother said Don't be afraid and she opened the door and I could see how different the happened yesterday she stood there and she made just gesture to the go up in an embrace and the insane go came right up to her and she embraced the go put her hand against by grandmother show that you see if you said you must learn one thing and that is that if you feel your heart we love they'll be nor only left in it for fear. True years we added to the fans of the old classic horror films has been one. Where you see now. An approximation of my devotion to the heart. Thirty these particular brain always remind me of the old theaters where people could go in and lose themselves into another world where people can live for five hundred years. Where Fantasy reign supreme. Days ghoulies and Ghost creatures that go bump in the night the things that make us a child with a grave face flickering images of cinema. Thanks Jeff. Karloff Lugosi Cheney fayre A in the clutches of King Kong. All the memories of our child the hard sell. These things are never going to die because in the heart sounds they are truly deathless and so are we all. We have all passed this way before. Shivers and these gargoyles on fandoms own dogs of our Commons today. And yet we go on in approve or still life to come from maybe lie ahead in the dark. In every horror film there is a door and behind the door lurks that which we fear the most. That will treat fear in real life something that works behind a closed door in our own mind it's often the fear of death the fear of pain and enter the door must be opened. We must face we must confront our own mortality our own feeling of inadequacy and in the best horror films that door is open for us. We glimpse or are able to confront it and walk away with the feeling that from then on we could live with the fear of death for the fear of suffering. We can understand a little better and so doing understand their own so. We are all learned the language of horror. We have shared it. Just as we share the nightmares of the child that remains within us all. Eight. Eight eight eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight to the. With. Darkness the breeding ground of Harvard Square feeds not of this earth. Appeal. Moments of terror. Oh you relish them. A Haunted Mansion where actors puppy and I shave and paint speak a language we know well. Wrangling of HARO to eat from superstitions tales comment. But most of all we learned in those are the hall the darkness. The you fielders of yesteryear. Desperate heroes beautiful heroines villains monsters always they were there to provide us with our loving moments of. Grotesque images torn out of our own dark our own earliest nightmares cry as we may we are never quite able to leave them behind. The harder a little. The eight. It seems we are forever drawn toward what we fear young or old we are trying to do you go inside the shop. To come out on the other side of a temptation for which we have always been that Will. To pay. We grow up with a certain hunger are not on the front of the bright things in life but for it seems that C.F.L. an and terrifying the filmmaker put something on the screen and each individual member of the audience add something unto themselves to complete the process. No If you wonder why the continuing to track a patient with horror in motion pictures. There's a reason people love to be scared. The great horror movies of bygone days are like extensions of nightmares. Past and present a secret word in the nineteen twenty fellow the golem gives magic power to a sage. So taken was Paul Baylor with the legend of an inanimate figure who becomes a champion against oppression that he's three times. Turn them to sell. Their unit is own impressive sizes and they build him to play the giant clay statue brought to life. The Goal on set a pattern. Defying the laws of God and even with good intentions. Inevitably lead to disaster. We learned to the mute of all women would never be safe with monsters. Also in Hard films leading men are invariably ineffectual against must. In the Cabinet of Dr Caligari also produced in Germany and nineteen twenty. Harrer took on a uniquely subjective cast a sinister for your colleague Gary reveals his strange powers over a sleep walker. Seeking to project the world of the psychotic this film uses paid to fly it's to create a threatening and so real and Vironment as she is at the some them your list goes forth to commit the murders. Commanded by his master. This seems so unsettling that it helped make my Cabinet of Dr cowering Ari one of the most discussed films of the twenty's. Biting trail that would be around a great piece of Leonora films of the future being attacked and we are most vulnerable while we sleep. The cabinet I'm Dr Kelly Arias had a bald and condom rise to world attention and in more home the axiom HARO films with the speech. Our monsters were invariably very human bone or a motive due to. One of horrors most reliable Staples guaranteed to produce grade in any audience. Story of a man. In nineteen twenty two. Moviegoers were mesmerized by the German or the story. Early working of the Bram Stoker novel Dracula. This was no simple creature made from clay. No sleeping figure locked in a trance. This was the UN's the Amongst or who repeated by days is Conference Room by night to feed on the human blood. In director. Fritz Lang's Metropolis a fantasy and horror film also from Germany. The heroine is trapped in the very world of the dead the dark catacombs of the city in the far distant future. As always the heroine's cries bring no rescue her villainous pursuer the arch heavy of the horrific. Are seeing the echo and Rhea growing horror films to come. Laboratory where a scientist dares imitate God as he transfers the very soul of a human being to give life to his robot creation. European Hard films emphasised the supernatural. But in the United States Hari had a more realistic base in nineteen twenty a prohibition conscious audience readily accepted that enough to inject Mr Hyde even a single grey could lead to terrible consequences. John Barrymore is performance made the possibility. Shelly believe the you. Yesterday Stevenson's played cues and mentioned. He was a personification of evil but it was the evil of his expression and it was not she by dime or with make up no the Lehman aren't not remember my publishing Just ahead is the remembered because they are the characters in plays and in motion pictures are the active arms needy men are acted upon but the head is the villains. Other ones or do things. That's why the great actors of over ever since spectrum have preferred to play the head is Lou tell again was a leading man drew aside a burnt out for many years you came to the states and I got to know I mean because we're both sculptors was extremely handsome man or the magnificent physique walk like a panther had a cold gray eyes you could see a mile away. And he once said to me I love my man or stand long chain one of the great actors of Saddam film gave his man of sin of thousands face each more fear inspiring them the next. Cheney's private he not only performs his own stuff he also created and applied it is often speak touch your make up. One of his greatest films made in one hundred twenty five the fandom the opera. The important element of this and much of it takes place in the semi-darkness Catacomb. In a way this Paris apparatus is a symbol of the unconscious mind in which dwells monsters desire and this struck a resident cord in many a masculine members of the audience. Pain is performance because he simply much of the time wearing a mask was a matter of the valley he was a master of consummate Mr Vandeman. Phantom Of The Opera didn't have any overt supernatural implications but we had a man was lifted him up and who lived in the catacombs five levels below the Paris Opera House and who masked himself to disguise a hideous space in a way he pressed the buttons of an audience at that time was very unaware of the sexual symbolism imbecile but it register nonetheless because in effect the character. Cheney's Bertrade in The Phantom of the opera was asked of a man who is the shamed or afraid of his own sexuality to conceal monstrous desire it was turned in those days under a mask of the yield their own read boils in bright little kindly gentle man is now revealed as a hideous. Any quantity of the silent film in America. Puts a did not deal with supernatural topics per se. Actually evil was personified by the ugly and the deformed as in the case of Lon Chaney and other actors and it took place usually in an atmosphere of darkness we knew of course that handsome people were almost invariably good and that to do formed elderly unfortunates people were bad. This we endure in our fairy tales as children we were seamless fairy tales in darkness up there on the screen the benefit of Friday in psychology without benefit of special effects. Important thing is we believe what we saw and it frightened believing places out of us. The pain nineteen twenty seven American family did frighten them lasers out of audiences and the kind of dark hole and to mention terror alerts in every corner. Became harder language All right. It was where anything can happen. Often dead. Again the leading man proved undependable. But at least on this fellow the provided comic relief. A classic moment of horror and the source of countless nightmare. In line thing to anyone. Son golly you start and John Barrymore was released. Sound had arrived. Increasing immeasurably ways films could influence the emotions of water. Son Gollies true impact came from the unsettling demonstration of mind control from a fall. Here. Was no mad scientist intent on creating life. This fellow is able to take a life over. Gentlemen. It might be as willing to remember. That I'm more seeing this in heaven and earth. That now you've dreamt up. In New York field office. These mysteries became a challenge for a new generation of filmmakers. Mr Zucker the end of town called me on the last day if I would like to do a film of the famous Stevenson story job to check on Mr Hyde I saw the story. As a conflict between not between good and evil. It's yours to be done before. Chico become a very evil person or a monster that I saw the story more as a conflict between the high are spray sion of every human being and he's lower baser instincts and that the whole idea was to have a young man very handsome whose whole intention is to free himself from all these evil impulses all the animal in process really know any of animals and the idea with transmitted via trust in the Divine the pounds hide he does not pick out a monster but she becomes common than just a Neanderthal Man and Frank via chair with beautiful before much and wind up winning the the Academy Award. Come. Free. The same here minding thirty one. One of the film to design to meet a probably gotten died from movies that scared was the best the speakers there was a reliable old mansion a blight this time the menace casting shadows a bat in the human form. Shades of terror to come. Outside of the reliable under star. Inside a heroine who naturally insists on going where no one in her right mind would even dream of going through the ever present secret door. One essential sound of the harvest so the scream of the terrorized Cherilyn was yet to be heard. In the tradition of the mystery horror film The villain is intentionally unmask the crime. You think you've got man. Let me tell you this. And I was a jail built strong enough to hold the band. After I've paid my respects to your cheap black up. I shall return I. Always fly at night. And always in a straight line with a map and acted by Chester Mars never did manage to return not in the same year another kind of back. Descended on the moving or in public with the release of Dracula. Bad wolves and vampires big shame on her remember and Haro domes Hall of Fame as did Dracula star Taylor Lucy. After this one Productions the supernatural will become an enduring element of the American. Also in nineteen thirty one I know the movie was destined to become a classic creating a new horror star Boris Karloff the film was Frankenstein based on the early nineteenth century novel by Mary Shelley. Yet again. Scientists dares attempt to create a life the result. Amongst or who would eventually turn on his creator. Ever before and perhaps never again would the elements for producing terror in an audience seems so perfectly fused. It very interesting to compare these two films that were made almost at the same time in the early thirty's. In that they both dealt with the theme of death. Dracula with an undead creature brought back to life living off of the blood of the living. And the Frankenstein monster a creature made from parts of dead bodies and perhaps doubly terrifying for that reason when I was much younger I knew the late James Whale and he told me a fascinating anecdote about the first sneak preview of Frankenstein which was held in Santa Barbara while he was sleeping in the middle of the night he was awakened with a phone call and a voice came on the line saying. Are you the director of that film that was previewed tonight and he said yes and the voice said well I can't sleep and I'll be damned if I'll let you sleep and James found this story to be very amusing and it was a characteristic of his car films particularly that they were always very much leave and with humor. Because he felt and I think rightly so from a dramatic point of view and from the audience point of view that it was very important to relieve the tension that was built in a hard sell with humor along the way. There was you maroon Why does or I'm very blend of horror and graphic romance made in nineteen thirty two you know. However in this film. Another man for new used to milled tension was an especially effective music track. Used one year after the regular fly zone clearly show B.M. feeling superior to once again maybe those three played the arch villain. Harbinger. Or you know my friends they are the best. Not surprisingly in the living room. Emirates. Airlines killed. It was nine hundred thirty two and James Whale had just finished Frankenstein which was an enormous success with Boris Karloff older sister are of the old our cows too. We had trials Larsen and his first American film we had Raymond Massey we had Melvin Douglas and I was very impressed. Boris was as charming and gentle a person off screen as he was here and it's interesting on screen. There was a great deal of anger going on lightning and rain coming in and cobwebs indoors creaking as a leading lady it was my job to be very very frightened. So Mr Whale put me into a tailspin. Elvis by. Cut evening dress very decorative and I ask him why he said because when Bohr's is chasing you through the corridors I want you to be like a flame going to the house and be very friendly and that was my world to be very threatened very frightened. Screamo. You know actually I think that putting me in pale pink silk velvet. Added to the ceiling. Fragility and. And help. Helplessness that actresses needed in in heart fails because if the did a full young actress or lady is not threatened there is there's no hard the horror film playing at the neighborhood movie became like your visit. Those are learned. Only on their special enemy lives while most free will make them. A nineteen thirty three film The vampire bat you know the one I'm watching that thing you doing man. But her philosophy could have like the biggest that mad right. Created in the laboratory you know me across to the road. But thank you living growing life that moves are great and a man's food for its continued growth. You haven't already started out in the first I know an express to illuminate the logic of the map scientists better than line a lab will have this debate I have created like Christ at the foot of light on the right now to stand for the lives of those were problems are I have created quite a hotel probably Ray was every firms idea little unusual threatened heroin and I called name will be added to your and. All of the. Awful. Night now they're. Like him when we were leaving then the stopped being selling. Out all right don't worry I'm going to stay right here with you. Surely you favor a never had a better reason to other famous scream with them in the classic horror film of nine hundred thirty three came to. The audiences everywhere understood. What the monster really really felt for the Mircea scary. Makeup alone doesn't make best monster the best monster is one whom we as members of the audience can recognize through the makeup as having some of the qualities that are buried within ourselves all of us got some kind of the carious pleasure I'm sure out of watching King Kong go on a rampage and tear down the very symbols of New York City the represented wealth and power and prestige which most of them were denied because most of us were very poor during the Depression we paid a dime or fifteen cents or twenty five cents tops to see King Kong and the other monsters. Those of us who are adolescents got the same kind of satisfaction and gratification out of watching Frankenstein's monster because he in a way he was a very symbol of adolescence. Lumbering inarticulate ugly unwanted society were age was deemed superior to youth it's hard to believe it is turned around but it has.