Monsters Up North Podcast
Monsters up North - Man behind the movies Tobe Hooper!
It's a perfect night for Mr. Ian Hoddle. The air itself is filled with monsters. Children of the night, what music they need. It's a night! It's a night! Well, hello all you monster fiends, and thank you for joining us for another deep dive factoid-filled episode. Exploring Hollywood's most famous monsters. I am your mistress of Terrimony's Sam, and I am joined as always by Dan from Bleeder Marvelous. Say hello to him. Bonjour. Bonjour. What? All right. Hi Dan. Oh, thanks for joining us for another episode of the Monsters of North podcast. Hello, today is going to be interesting. Today is going to be a different vibe because we're not recording at night. Monsters in the morning. Do, do, do, we're a more awake than we are usually. Yeah, we're doing a day time recording. So vibes can be very different. But what I want to do is do the disclaimer, and then get into this week's episode. Sure. Everything discussed in today's episode is our opinions and our opinions alone. If you'd like to discuss anything from today's episode, how police come and join us on the Facebook page, the discord of comment section where we can have an open discussion. I bet what we want to have is anyone coming for us in town? As our opinions are wrong, we can all agree to disagree in fandom. So let's keep it fun, keep it kind and keep the toxic behavior, her out of nerdism. Don't be a dick. As she said, as she said, as she said. That's so funny. I watched the first episode the other day. And we have generally been seeing your bit of the Auckland since the very start. That's 55 episodes, I think. My beginning part, my beginning part changed a lot. But the whole Dan from Bleen Marvel say hi Dan. That is literally being from episode one. Yeah, I am. Yeah, 50. This will be episode 54. So we've been kind of a year now. Wow. Of episodes anyway. So yeah, yeah, that's true because we started one the mere. Me? Yeah, May 2023. Now far we've come. Look how many people we've covered. So I'm just going to let you be doing it. No, you're not. William Torby Hooper born January 25th, 1943 was an American film America best known for his work in the horror genre. The British film Institute cited Hooper as one of the most influential horror filmmakers of all time. His impact on horror cinema was ground brick and with films like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and his versatile storytelling in poltergeist and life force. He's here as monsters of north brings you a Torby Hooper. Well, that's all my facts you've just done. For a man who is so if you go, like if you look at any interviews or articles, he is so like healed up there as one of the bigons one of the big guns. Go try and find some information out on him. Yeah, I tried scandals. I tried arguments. I tried looking in newspapers like I tried everything just to find something that was of substance that was about him specifically not about the movies he's done, but about him specifically. Maybe a paragraph or two that's slightly different depending where I look, but had the same kind of vibe to it. God, this man was private. That is a hell of an achievement to receive in the limelight, so to speak. He managed to keep himself very away from that. It even was to the point where he was his first marriage was well known, but nobody knew he was divorced for nearly 13 years. Until he was like, oh no, I'm remarried, like I've been divorced from that person, like the general didn't know. That's how private he actually is. And up until I started doing the north for this, I'm going to be honest and say, I just thought he was known for Texas chainsaw and poltergeist. I knew he'd done a lot, but I didn't know that there was only very few well known things. I mean, if you are a huge stand for Toby Cooper, then you'll know all of his stuff. But if you're somebody who dips their toe in, you're only going to know certain things, certain films. So, you know, you'll know who he is because he created horror as we know it. This man is responsible for a movie that came out in 1974 that kick started, go to a degree, because people don't realize the hassle that man went through to try and get his certifications for Texas chainsaw massacre, and how he went about it was fantastic, all the hypotheticals. Yeah. Well, we'll start at the, to be honest, the start at the very beginning because Texas chainsaw is very close to the beginning. And his first seat, when we've done other people, we've had background on like where they came from, how they got into this. The only thing that is known is that he got into filmmaker and it's such a young age by recording on an eight millimeter. Yeah, that's as far as we know, he started when he goes to what college, what would be our university, he then goes into filmmaking, which is very similar to how Nina described his start was doing it that way. And he did a film called Exiles. Yes, and he called that the hippie film, the hippie film so that was in 1969, and it was made for 40, 40,000 dollars. Yeah, he said that if you go back and watch it now you just see it's a bunch of hippies basically so they were all like proper what you would call hippies of the time they didn't really wash much they were all very much of the like I live on the land. Oh, you know those guys love the trees, so it took a lot longer to film than he had anticipated because trying to wrangle bunch of hippies to do what you want when they're like no man I'll do what I want it's my man. Shortly after like literally the next thing he does after that, which is technically kind of a college slash university film, it does Texas chance. Well there is a documentary in between I think it came before. Yes, he did. Yeah 1971. He did a TV movie documentary for Peter Paul and Mary, who are if people don't know who they are they were quite big. Like trio in America in the 60s late 60s 70s and they some songs like pop the magic dragon and the most famous for doing a lot of covers but they did if I had a hammer, which we used to sing at school at some point I know we all did. Yeah, we are we sing that in like common praise it was like in our hymn books in like junior school, and then they did leaving on a jet plane which was John Denver but they covered that and then they also covered a load of Bob Dylan stuff and all that. So they became really famous for doing that. So he did like a TV documentary on them, and that sort of gave him a bit of awareness to be able to raise enough money to finance Texas Chainsaw. Yeah, so what a read book. Yeah. So, yeah, I remember reading about the documentary but it wasn't enough to put it in me North apparently. And so yeah, after the documentary is then the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the movie that is cited for revolutionizing the slasher genre. And also the Gore genre as well, and how it was actually what people would cut his tears fully done. And it was tastefully done for the sheer reason that if he'd have gone to where he wanted to go to he wouldn't have got a film classification for it to be able to have been released in cinema. So he had ideas. Yeah, from what I remember reading did he want to go for a PG on this one. He wanted to be able to get people bumps on seats. So for him, the best option would be to get as many people in the cinema as he could. So when they originally started the film, there was a loose script made but there wasn't a, we didn't know know the face was going to be the other face we know now that was down to them to play him and get him, you know, there was no hard and fast rule that leather face was going to be emotionally challenged. So to speak, I don't really know the right way because there's no official diagnosis on what No, there wasn't. I don't know if I remember rightly from our, from our leather face episode, we were very careful on how we diagnosed leather face. So as there was no official sort of diagnosis for him, he tried to go to Hanson decided he wanted to make him emotionally stunted in a way so he'd be a lot younger mentally than he should be for his age. But his comprehension was to do as he's told that was that was pretty much, he was a puppet in many ways. But that's that was Gunnar's choice. So Gunnar took it to Toby and sat him down and went right, this is what I think I would like to do to play him and Toby was like, you know what that that would be really cool. So we're going to have to bump it from a PG to out like the version of the 15. But there were so many scenes in it that caused issues with the cinema classification board. They certified it as an N, which is a no no certification, which means he wouldn't have been able to show it in the cinema. So he had to find out ways of reducing it but he didn't get it officially classified as an N, because he did that thing. We talked about it just before we came on up we both saw an interview with Mick Garris, who is the director of Critters to onwards. I mean, he's like a huge horror, his story, it is Mick Garris, he's always on all the, the, the darkness. If you, if you see all the darkness documentaries 123 mixed always on those very, very different to how we looked in the interview as so because I was like, Oh my God, yeah, usually Mick's got really long hair, but he was interviewing Toby and he was asking these questions and Toby was not very forthcoming. Sorry, that must have been like in blood out of a style and trying to interview him, but it was for poor small and sure that Mickey used to do and it was, Oh, was they drawn teeth. Oh, come on, give them a bit more like Mick knows more than you at this point. He was like he said to him, you know, how did you get around being able to show what you wanted to show with it being so unprecedented. I mean, no one had seen a woman hung on a meat hook before you know no one had seen any of these things because you've seen that, this is 1974 horror films were used to seeing in that, that sort of ran that era up until that era was like he said Christopher Lee rising out of a coffin or been surprised stuck it around the house or just spooky dooky stuff. There was no, Gore wasn't a thing like actual physical messy violent death wasn't a thing you saw in movies. It just wasn't. And unless you like went to, I don't even think they even existed. At that point, like B movie like how I don't even think that was a thing then I mean I could be completely wrong and someone will tell me I'm wrong and that's fine. I'm not claiming to know the answer to this. I'm just saying that from what I've seen, it seems like this was the first of its kind of this movie. Well, yes, just think we'll think back on where we were last week with prom night and not that fucking one that we that, whatever it was, but the original, but the original one. That's the 80 that's so this is just before I'm trying that. I'm trying to picture it. Where it is in. So in horror history, this is around the time of religious horror. This is, you rose me baby, you're the Ormans about. Yeah, this is an outfit. So this isn't having women impaled on to what was a meat, meat hook and having, you know, someone's brain spashed in with a hammer. And to see it, because usually it'd be a trick of the camera kind of thing in slashes to that point, like you wouldn't necessarily look at cycle, for example, you don't see that knife going into it, you know that it has, well, you don't see it. It's just all implied. Yeah, Toby didn't do that. You fuck showed you. Yeah, and that that scene that he was talking about was the way he got around showing that scene, and it's still getting the rating that it got a better rating was that there was no blood. When he lifted her up and put her on the hook. You saw the bathtub underneath. This is all according to that interview because you're not saying here, but you saw the bathtub underneath and you knew that that inferred that what he was going to do. There was blood on the wall, but there was no blood from her. So that's how they got around being able to do a lot of the more gruesome kills because if you remember these things, you remember them covered in blood. Everything's covered in blood. It's terrible. The whole movie's blood and it's not if you go back and watch that film. There's not as much as you think. It's dirty and it's gritty. And the only scene that I recall there being a lot of blood is the final scene where she's once Sally's running away and she's covered in blood, but other than that. But she was alive, trying to be in her. She was alive. Exactly. So other than that, I can't recall any of the kills being bloody. So we all think of it as like a gorefest and it is to the degree of the murders that they do commit. Oh, harsh. They are crazy. They are unlike anything you'd seen at the time. But there wasn't that much blood. So if any, this, he was very good with noise. I think that's the bonus part. And I always, every time I think of Texas Chainsaw, I think of that hammer. That hammer scene when he clunks him on the head and you hear the clunk and you hear his shoes. It's he shoes that I can hear when the rattling because he's obviously his body's in shock and he's whole, you know, nervous system is, is going crazy. And then he can hear the pigs as well going me upshade and it's like, it's the noise element. I'm not looking for blood or goods and go. It's the noise. That's, that gets me. He was very good at that. He wrote the soundtrack, didn't they? He scored the whole of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And he also scored the Eaten Alive, I think, as well, but like the movies he scored. He was very good at doing things on a budget. This is actually technically classed as a very low budget movie. Yeah, that was the word I was looking for, indie movie. It was co-written with Kim Hinkley. Hinkley? Didn't even say that at all. It says Hinkle. It was co-written with Kim Hinkle and they were very good at being able to do things on the budget to make it that Indian. I think this is why it's so renowned is because of the, not just the film itself, the film itself is absolutely brilliant. I love it. It's, it is one of my favorites. And it's because I can't believe that Gonna Hansen actually got me to sympathize with his character. I think that's like the shock of it for us and like, oh, this is why I keep going back to it is because of him. But I've totally lost between the thoughts. The thing about him was that he didn't care if the actors liked him or not. He wasn't part of a popularity contest, Tybee. He didn't give it whether you liked him or not. It was all about the end result. It was all about what they could put out, which in a way, that's got to be difficult working with someone like that. But then in the same vein, it's, it got the result that we have today. So it couldn't have been, it must have been worth it in one way because the Ed Neil was cited as saying, I think it was Ed Neil, you know, the guy who played the cousin. Yes. Yeah. He said the making of the movie was worse than his service in Vietnam. Wow. I mean, he said, basically, I mean, we talked about it in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre episodes about the heat level that was going on in that first movie. It was 110 degrees on the last day in Texas. And it was a 27 hour day, the last day shooting, which was 24 hours in a day. What I mean is they didn't stop for 27 hours. They went straight through to get everything that they needed. And maybe, maybe because he was to start with, he was doing things on a 16 hour day, which in the movie industry is quite a short day. And so hence why they probably ramped it up towards the end. Yeah, they just, he said, when he was making this film, every trope he'd seen in cinema up until that point, he wanted to break it, he wanted to make it something that wasn't seen before. Now, we look at that movie and we go, oh, yeah, that happens, this happens, man, because we've been spoiled. Yeah, at that point, these things haven't been done. Like, in that interview with me, he basically said that he didn't just have Sally jump out of one window. He had a jump out of two, or he would have a jump out of three just because one is the norm. So he wanted to make it different. And he'd have going to chase in some of the chainsaw four and five times rather than just for once for the big ending or, you know, there was these things that would be, he'd take it to that. Like, where you think, Oh God, is this done now? And it'd be like an ex player of, Oh, we've got to wait another minute or so of him doing that before he's done. Yeah, that uncomfortability, he wanted that. You wanted to watch it so. Oh, absolutely. But the movie is based on the murders of Ed Gein, and I knew obviously we know that. I didn't realize that the other one was Elmo Wayne Henley. I can't remember if we ever mentioned that in the Leatherface episode because that was last year, people. And a lot has happened since then, and I went down a bit of a rabbit hole where Elmo Wayne Henley today. Don't like it. He's not the big guy, is he? No, no, no. There is another one later on, which I went down another rabbit hole with and I'll get to when we get to it because you have a tendency. I don't know if you've ever noticed, or even thought about this, but it has a type does our Torby Hooper films based around Texas, films based around Texan serial killers. He was born and bred in Texas. To what you know, he managed to, obviously managed to, he did it for 140,000. Texas chainsaw, and it brought in 30 million. It was insane amount of money because people would like, we've got to see what this is all about. Why is there a guy with the chainsaw? What's he got a mask on for? All that sort of stuff. So it became like this huge. It was the most successful independent movie until Halloween came out in 1979. So it held the record from 1978, sorry, so it held the record for four years of the most successful financial independent movie for four years, and then John Carpenter bought out Halloween and shit all over it. So, I mean, John must have taken some sort of inspiration from Toby because Toby took that first step. John took his bits from Black Christmas as we well know, like the first person and stuff. So, John was watching other directors, John was watching other filmmakers do psychological horror, do gore horror, so that's how John got to where he got with Michael at that point, you know, yeah. Oh, absolutely isn't John just getting his star star star on the Hollywood Walk of Fear. Yeah, yes. Yeah, I know that you have to pay for those. Yeah, I am. Is it, um, Ralph Garmon, who if he's a, he's a Kevin Smith at a podcast called Hollywood Babylon and Ralph Garmon who was part of the Garmon Report and he did, um, he did a radio show in Los Angeles he's, he's a man Ted, he's the dad in Ted, he's in million, he works a lot with Seth MacFarlane, voice work, like, small bit roles, he paid a real fund raised Adam West's star, and holy shit the numbers to actually get a star is ridiculous. And the key is the upkeep you have to pay for the rental of the space, basically pay for your pitch. Pay your first amount for that wherever you want to have it. So the more expensive would be the more into man's theater area, the, you know, the main part of Hollywood Boulevard itself. The further out you go, the cheaper it gets so obviously, you know, it is what your budget is however, it's insane for the initial, and then every year you have to pay for it to be up kept. So, and why not kept all it means is you just have to pay for your rental so that is never yours, even though you're there it's never specific for your star. So you're millions and millions to get your initial pitch and then at least a million or so a year to keep it there depending on where you are on the walk. So, you know, for people to say I've got a star it's like, it's quite, but you've paid for that. Yeah, I know Robert England's just getting his as well. So, it's nice. I love the idea of it. But when you look at like the money side of it, you're like, it's, it's worth it. Yeah, there's some really random places for some of them because obviously time to change things. Whereas Carlos on a crossing is on a crosswalk. Yeah, go down to walk across. It's an entirely strange place. Like, Muhammad Ali has one, and it's on the wall. As you walk into the you've got like a shopping center, like Hollywood and Highland to be inside of that just as you go to walk in. He's got a huge one like three times bigger than any other store, but it's on the wall. And it's all these random like people you wouldn't expect to be out the front or out the front of their like people don't necessarily is like you got the handprints and talk about those and talk about the extra physical stars because some really random ones and it's odd. So this has been your Hollywood catch up with seven Dan. Where are we it's 1974. So is next film is eaten alive, 76. Yes, this is the one with. And this is written by his writing partner Henkel, he's done he's been in while he was making Texas chainsaw he actually put together here is production company name vortex. Which is obviously what uses for eating life. I think this is the one with the other, which is, this is this alligator one right now there is a crocodile maybe called crocodile. Yeah, right that's that one then. So that's not this one. I don't know what this one is. To be honest with you, there's a lot where he bangs through like B movie after B movie in a very short spirit like period of time. Oh, no, this is this one. This is the one they eat in because this is the alligator one yes so this is the one as in as the same massacre it's a film based on a serial killer and the serial killer is called Joe ball. Yes, yeah, so this serial killer is called Joe ball now. I'm going to use the airport serial killer because we don't actually know. So what happened was in Texas in the 1930s, 20s, 30s, two women went missing in this small town and it was very unheard of. And it all came to, it all came about the Joe ball might have been, am I saying that right? Yeah, Joe ball might have been involved in it. So when the police want to go and question him, he shot himself. So nobody actually knows if he did it apparently one of his friends said yeah he did it and he fed them to the alligators that guy that but it was all the weren't sure nobody was actually sure his wife was like, he may have killed them. She didn't come up until years later and go she may have killed them, but definitely didn't feed them to the alligators I can 100% confirm that. So nobody actually has definite proof that this man. I mean, his actions kind of potentially speak for what he may have, may not have done, but yeah, it's a, it was a weird one that I was reading about it. I was like, what the fuck, why would you just, you just shot him, he shot himself in the heart. And even though people said he shot himself in the head he didn't he shot himself in the heart he's autopsy proof that. And so that's where this story comes about. And when I looked at the poster I went, oh my god, what the hell. I know I feel like I've seen it, but I don't think I have. It's one of those movies that the synopsis sounds really familiar, the little out, you know, like in some of the videos on YouTube I've been watching you see little clips and I think that looks familiar. I don't think I've watched it like I feel like I have, but I don't think I have something out there a bit similar so. Who would you all for the rest of his life I say if you were joy you potentially could have murdered two women, but you would forever be known as the alligator man, or the butcher of Elmadorf. Oh dear, that's unfortunate. Yeah, that's his name's just I said just for killing two women that is not what I meant at all. But there's no proof his by all accounts his friend could have done it. But again, his actions kind of speak for themselves in a way. So I want to use the word allegedly. So yeah, eating alive was done in a sound stage in California to save on costs again he was very good at saving on costs. He wrote the music himself, produced it himself. Something he did on Texas Chainsaw Massacre as well to save money was he'd be, he'd be a director, the DP, the first DP, he'd then go and do, edit it. He'd also do lighting he'd do have say on costumes he'd have say because he controlled the budget. He needed to make sure that everybody understood that this was all that they had. So he would play every part. And I'll be honest that would be really hard to work for someone that would be that controlling and I understand why he is like that because that's how my brain works you know, if I know what's going on everywhere I can plan for a bigger picture. So it's probably very innocent in that respect, but to work for somebody who's that organised would be an absolute fucking nightmare. Yeah, yeah, a lot of people walk away from him at certain points and the guy who was writing the music with him or eating alive William Bell walked away from him. Yeah, so you can kind of. Yeah, if I'm saying William Bell's done quite a lot though he's his name sounds incredibly familiar. I feel like he's done a lot of soundtracks and scores over the years for something that name sounds familiar unless it's just very familiar to like similar. This is how bad my this is how dirty my glasses are. It doesn't say William Bell at all. It says we in Bell. Okay, well then. Hold on. I really can't say that. But he walked off the he walked up and left him, which to be honest, in his interviews, I can understand why is it sounds like he doesn't have a personality. It doesn't seem to be able to put across what it is he needs quite he's not very relevant. Does that make sense like he can't he can't express it he can't say right this is what I mean because it's all up here so he needs to do it to get it out which is. Yeah, he's incredibly creative and we will get to how creative he actually is when we move on to another one of his big hitters, because that was a mind. A mind field that I went through today. Looking through that and people's interpretation on it and what actually happened. And, but his next thing is the first time he gets some real dollar dollar. Which is what he does Salem's lot and TV television TV television. And the TV. I'm going to say it again. The television mini series of Salem's lot in 1979. This is where he gets his first bit of money. Yeah, this was a three part, wasn't it? A lot of people know saying himself for that one scene where the kids outside the window banging on the window, you know, the let me in scene thing. I've never seen Salem's lot. I don't actually know the story of it. I, Carolyn, my best friend kicks off with me because it's one of her favorites. Never been, never seen it. Salem's lot is the Stephen King novel, as most people should know, because if you don't, come on now. It has done, it's had numerous sequels. I don't know if they were all Stephen King approved sequels or they were just sequels that people made off of their own back, but it had a remake done in the 90s with Rob Lowe as well. Rob Lowe in it. Yeah, Rob Lowe was also in the stand, the original stand movie that they, the TV mini series that they did before the remake with Amber Turd and what's his name, Skarsgard, Alex. Yeah, he was in the original TV made for TV movie off the back of doing the Salem's lot remake, but Salem's lot is about a bunch of vampires that come to town. And they just try and convert the village basically, but it's, it's a bit more than that when you get into it. Yeah. They have like a Nosferatu style vampire. It's like, it's not vampires, you know, like the romantic and rice vampires. These are like, these are like the Nosferatu, like, pointy teeth, pointy ears. Like, we're going to come and eat you in your sleep kind of guys. And the guy who played the vampire Reggie, he had to have his makeup applied every time he was on screen because it cracked constantly, because they'd skimped on the budget with his makeup. Oh, no. From from other stuff. So when you see the big gray, like Salem's lot vampire, he, every time he had to do an expression, they had to then stop reply, stop replicas. It cracked because the amount of layers of this effect, whatever, whatever they could have happened with that. It just didn't go down well. And it turned out that he'd only got after all of this, bearing in mind, it's a three part mini series, 90 seconds of airtime. After all the everything he only got as the, as the main vampire, he only got 90 seconds of airtime. And it turned out he actually wasn't all that bothered. He found it quite amazing. He's quite flat by the fact he got 90 seconds because he said it made people fear him more, being on less than it would have if they've ever used him as a character. That he's looking at the overall story as not just opposed to, I missed out. Yeah, I like that. But I don't, there's one thing I'd never agree on when it comes to trying to save money, you should never script and skip on makeup. You are touching someone's face or you should be very careful what you're applying to people. And the amount of time that they have to sit with that makeup on as well. And if you have to constantly reply, I don't think that's something you should be having to budget on. Yeah, I mean if you see any pictures of the Salem's lot and vampires. The original, the ones that they've just turned have all got like really bright contacts in like orangey yellow contacts, and they've all got white pale faces and that's as far as they went with those ones but the older ones obviously this guy. And you can see it when they take when you when you Google the picture he will be one of the first ones that come up and you can see it is just Kate, you know when you go out on a night. And there's a woman who just keeps banging it on the face. You know, they just keep patting it on and patting it on and over the night it gets worse and worse and like their chin lines and cracks and that's where they were. Yeah, we have a scene in the Northeast is putting it on with a travel. Probably the same throughout the UK to be honest. No, it's just something I've never actually went to go and watch. And I know the new Nosferatu trailers just come out and all. Yeah, I haven't watched it yet. I keep meaning to go and watch it. I've got a still got a catch up on my house dragons from this week but. Oh, yeah. Oh, catch up on that so that's my job. Oh, oh, you're going to enjoy it. I like this. Such a such a strong episode on the back of what you got from the first episode. Which was a bit weak. I have to say I felt the first episode was a little bit weak. I was waiting for something. But not the end. The end was great of the episode, but leading up to that moment, it was just like, oh, I'm bored. I kind of get what you mean. I was set. But when that ending happened, it kind of overshadowed the rest of it. And this episode is fucking. It is so good. There's so many good bits in it and strong series. But this series, I have never actually seen Salem's lot or, um, I was assuming I was going to see about makeup and it's just totally fucking slipped me mind. Sorry. I'm not with it here, even though we're shooting early. Like, I should be, I should be bored with it. Um, so after Salem's lot. Uh, we're going into the 80s with Funhouse. Yes. Now apparently this was a huge movie and I feel like it passed me by. I know they did a remake of it. Not so long ago. I have seen it. Oh, no, I have seen it. I think should have had it on. Yeah, it would have been. If it was on ship, it's the one I'm thinking of. Oh, my God, that is so unwatchable. Yes. And the sad thing was, I'm sorry, Robert, but Robert Kurzmann was responsible for all the effects on the remake. Um, his son even played one of the characters in it. Um, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking at the, the, the, the prosthetics and work and stuff. Oh, I would never, never mock the craftsmanship. It's just the, the, the film itself. The story was actually tied to. Yeah. Yeah. Um, there's a, there's something that I've noticed with the movies, like the ones that I'm not unfamiliar with. So he's got these like huge blockbusters, but in the midst of it, he's got other work. Now, they're all kind of like. So if you look at Texas Chainsaw 2, and I'm probably I'm jumping ahead a bit, but Texas Chainsaw 2 is. It's funny. Yeah. All the other movies, apart from these blockbusters are funny, like, Toby Huber has a sense of humor. That's what he was saying in that interview with Mick Garrosh, wasn't it? He said, no one got a sense of humor in the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He said, they were saying it was like, it's past black, it's red humor. And he was like, I, I, I just, people weren't getting the comedy in it. And I was like, I think they weren't getting the comedy because they were blindsided by the amount of violence they were actually witnessing. So there wasn't the balance that he intended it to have when he put it out. I don't, that's just a personal opinion. You know, I feel like for a good reason that that didn't come off as comedy. It came off, we wouldn't have what we have now if we didn't have this movie. So people interpreted it as a highly violent, serious kind of documentary style. There's, yeah, because there's no room to breathe in it. There's no room to actually sit there and try and figure out if there is a joke in it because you're too busy concentrating on what you've just seen and then what you're about to see. Even when you're with the family and they're all sitting there laughing, you can't laugh with them, because poo Sally is sitting at the end of the table screaming ahead of. So there's no, there's no room for laughing. There is in Texas T&S or two. Yeah, because of Bill. I would say it's Bill's responsibility that I'm good. Yeah, absolutely. And so after the, it's actually the fun house, sorry, not fun house, the fun house in 1981, we then go into his second second blockbuster, which is Pologast in 1982. And this is the weird thing about this film, right? He came, Steven Spielberg just decided he liked what he'd done, which is random because Steven Spielberg, as we all know, is this massive entity. And especially in the late '70s and '80s, Steven Spielberg was pretty much the god of all cinema. You got in a Steven Spielberg film, you made it, or you got a Spielberg scene of approval, you made it, your movie was, you know, but I found right in saying this, there was something where he wasn't actually offered this movie first. No, he was offered another big blockbuster, which God, could you have imagined if he goes hand on that, what the hell was it like? He was originally, so Steven Spielberg from the movie interview, Toby mentioned it on there that he is a huge fan of Texas Chainsaw, and he originally approached him to direct ET. What on earth would that film have been? And he said no, I don't blame him because of the picture of world in which Toby Hooper was responsible for ET, because my brain cannot fathom. What kind of script that must have been in its infancy for Steven Spielberg to have gone to Toby Hooper, who we only know for Texas Chainsaw and documentary style shooting. And a movie called Eating Alive, that's about crocodile eating, so. Exactly, and all these little shorts that you did in college, you know, to go to him for a family friendly alien invasion bloody movie, you know, it's like choices. It sounds like Steven Spielberg after having been doing a bit of deep diving on. Poltergeist is all about the space. It's all about, because you've got cause and cancer the third kind, and you've got ET, and if Spielberg, if Toby Hooper wasn't involved in Poltergeist, you guys would have a very, very different movie than what you got. You would not have the classic that we have today. You would have close encounters of the third kind part too. That's the movie that you would have had. It was Toby Hooper who came in and completely changed and revolutionised what Spielberg had on paper originally. This is why Poltergeist is one of Spielberg's far removed movies. Like when you look at Spielberg's history of movies that he's directly involved in, not just his companies, but like him himself. This movie was so far away in genre from anything that he'd ever, up until that point that you'd seen him do. I mean, you're looking at, you've got ET, you've got Raiders, you've got all the, you know, you've got the Indiana Jones at that point. He was also involved in Star Wars. People don't realise what Spielberg had to do with Star Wars with George Lucas. So, you know, there's a lot of things that he dipped his fingers into, but none of it was supernatural. It was all spacey, fantasy, adventure, action, that sort of stuff. So, this, like, this is, I think it's one of his very, like, even George was a horror for Spielberg, don't get me wrong, George was classed as a horror, but it's not a horror in the respect of the, it's supernatural horror. This is a thing. People always find, I think it's a monster movie. For me, George is a monster movie, but it's a real-life monster movie. It's not like a Frankenstein where it's fantasy. Like, monster, this is like, this could happen if you went to the sea, you could get eaten by a blizzard shark, you know? And hence the reason I won't go in the sea. And it had nothing to do with George, but I just warned. But that's as far as he dipped his toe in that kind of, like, genre, I mean, this is supernatural horror. This is a, to me, this is a whole different ballgame for Spielberg. So, for him to have green-lighted this, he must have, he must have known it. He must have known Toby had something that he could bring to the table that he was not able to bring himself, even though Spielberg had such an input on this film and people really don't like the fact that he didn't get writing credits for it. Yeah, so there's a lot of, I want to use the word conspiracy. When it comes down to the creation of this, I read, no, I watched something earlier that said that Toby didn't actually direct any of it. And he was there for one scene and one scene alone, because Spielberg took over the whole entire thing. But going off the interview that he had, very clearly wasn't the case after he described how they did. And this, this blows my mind that it's done in one shot, the kitchen scene with the table and chairs. Right. Yeah, that is one shot. That is literally, there is no edit. There is no cut. There is, you look at the table, you move over with Mary Bear. Is it Mary Bear? Yeah, kind of. Yeah. You move over with her to wear her and head. The kids. You've got to have a surname. A rock. A rock. Oh my gosh. God. I believe I forgot that. And you move over with Heather or rock and then you move back to see it. That is all done in one shot. That is all the crew pulling chairs out and moving away out the screen. Yeah, I mean, that's got to be a head of a noise like as well. So the fact that they were able to remove the noise in that section as well. I mean, I never realized I thought that they were able to remove the noise in that section as well. I mean, I never realized I thought that that would have been a cut and edit, but it makes sense that it was one shot with the way it pans to them. And then it literally stops and pans back. And it's not moving forward and backwards. It is literally just sweeping and then sweeping back again. So it doesn't change position, but it's enough to let you know that they've seen something. Yeah. And what are we looking at? Oh, hang on a minute. That wasn't there. You know, it's stuff like that that. That movie gives you the heebie jeebies, but not in a horror, like not in our traditional horror way. I think. This is a whole nother level because Spielberg wanted it to be a PG, a 15 or whatever the equivalent is in America. I think it ended up being the version of a PG in America, but it was a 15 here. That would make sense. Yeah. So they were even going to unrate, not unrate it, but they weren't sure what kind of rating to give it in the UK, polo guys, because it was such a ambiguous film. It was about children. And that was the issue. It wasn't so much. There was no real blood and gore in this film. There's nothing like that. But it was the fact that it was about kids and technically a kid abduction is what it's about in a weird way, you know, in a supernatural way. But then there was the strangulation of the other child with the clown. Wow. Wish he succeeded. That kid did my head in. You know what? You agree. You have to agree. That kid was annoying as shit. That kid's up there on the list next to the Baba Duke kid. Is it on the top? For sure. Fucking right. It just seems like when it comes to this movie, everyone loves to have a conspiracy or, you know, the fact that it has to curse movie. It is on curse movies. If you go and watch the Amazon series of curse movies, the polo guys movie is on there. I think it curses on that only worth the credence you give them. If you believe something is cursed, then it will be because you're giving it the power to be. If you don't believe in it, then it isn't because you're not giving it the energy it needs to be a thing. Totally agree with you. It's just unfortunate timings. The thing is, Heather O'Rourke didn't die after, you know, the third, it took a bit. It was a few years after the polo guys movies had been out and she was misdiagnosed. It was really and simply it was misdiagnosed, Dominic, because her boyfriend strangled her to death in a front garden. That's a totally different thing, you know, Dominic which is Griffin Dan's sister from Griffin Dan Moore's Jack in America, My Wolf in London. Dominic Dan was his sister. Dominic Dan was her father. Yeah, Dominic, sorry, Dominic, Dominic, Dominic, I know, I always thought it was a bit weird when I was trying to read, because I, did you read the about, you read the Vanity Fair? When we talked about it on the other part, then years ago, yeah. All them years ago, yeah, the Vanity Fair article. That was hard read. That is such, that is, listen, when someone talks about grief, you can kind of like get on a level with them. When you're reading it, I feel like you give a bit more, because the paper is, there's no one there. There's no one there to judge you when you write and stuff on paper. So you are just open and freely talking about how you need to, and oh, it's more painful to read than it is to ever hear the effect that death had on that family. Yeah, I mean, I've done those deadly departed tours. I've been to Heather's grave a couple of times. I've been to Dominique's. I've been to the house where it happened with Dominique or one of those. So you get a different perspective when you actually physically see things, you know, the whole thing with Dominique was it was, I don't even know, I can't remember whether she made it to the premiere, or it was just after the premiere. It was somewhere in that weird gap, either they had just released it and it was coming out or they were about to release it. She died on Halloween, didn't she? Yeah, he wasn't, well, that man, he was not well, and he went undiagnosed and I think it turned out he was a schizophrenic. Roughly, I think it was something like that, her partner. And he was undiagnosed with some sort of mental health disorder in the end, but yeah, so that you had those two, you know, she was Heather was misdiagnosed. They said she had IBS or something, it turned out to be some sort of stomach. So she had Crohn's disease. Yeah, so she had Crohn's disease, but she actually had her near and also something. It was so treatable. Yeah, it was very treatable. They misdiagnosed it, they put her on steroids, hence the reason why she's very, very puffy. Yeah, she didn't look, was it three or two? It was three, three, she looked, she looked ill. He's got the number three, Tom Skarett. Oh yeah, who's Tom Skarett? Tom Skarett is, he was at the old man. Yeah, he was in Top Gun, Big Tash, normally, his famous fur. I think he's Manchester Comic Con coming up. He was an A. No, yes, yes, yes, yes, I don't know, I think that's three. Yeah, yeah. He was like their uncle or something, he was staying here. Yeah, because the family's still in two, right? Mary Beth at least, Crete Nelson in two. Do you know what? I can't remember two. I literally have at that point, I'm at that point where I remember one and three, because three's in the high-rise flats, which is where they're staying. And one, obviously, is in the house, but two, I don't. It just does not stay in my brain. I know Mary Beth can't think of what Mary Beth's surname is, but I know that she is definitely in two, but I don't think Crete Nelson is. Because in one, we got to the point where there is the biggest controversy, isn't there, about the whole swimming pool scene? Yeah, it's maybe he was sat there and he went, "Yeah, yeah, I did. "I used to have skeletons in that scene, but we didn't tell her." No, they didn't tell her. But as we learned from House on Haunted Hill, it's cheaper. It's actually standard practice within MovieMacon to use real-life skeletons. So now that I know that, it's not so much of a shock that that actually took place because it's cheaper. It's cheaper to do it. But also, I mean, if you have donated your body to science and they have done what they needed to do, and then they just articulate you into a skeleton for medical purposes to show kids, at some point, that's going to need to go somewhere and not be useful anymore because it will get too old. So they need to replace it with a newer one or a female one or a male one. No, I mean, they'll need to show a child's short-sized one, that they want to do different things with it. So what happens to those skeletons? Because there will be no record of the person that that is. You will not know the name of them. Oh, no, no. You can't go and bury them when you're done. So what do you use them for? You sell them to film companies as props and they become part of civil history. Imagine that. Imagine just, I mean, you obviously will, you'll never know. Yeah. But your pawns then just get used and pull the guys, you know, they're in a swimming pool being darted up. Oh, they're like that. Goonies probably used. The likelihood is if you see a real-life skeleton head borns, that doesn't need to be manipulated. Yeah. The likelihood is it's probably real born that you are looking at. And the shock factor now, after learning from House Unhaunted Hill, how... It's just the known thing. That's what they did. It takes it out of it for this one, but still one of the greatest. Actually, the greatest scene in Poltergeist is Craig T. Nelson with the hall. And I know it's one of the most famous lines out of it is you left the headstones, but you... No, you took the headstones, but you didn't be left the bodies. Yeah. Fucking butchered that line, didn't I? It's the scream afterwards that gets me. It's the why. Why? Listen to Craig T. Nelson's screaming why. Oh, he's in name. He's in young Sheldon. He plays there. Connie took a MIMA. He plays her boyfriend. And you always remember Craig T. Nelson's voice. And the boom and voice. Because he was Mr. Incredible. And the Incredibles. It's with his age, it's starting to get a lot lower. And slower. And it's still fantastic. Oh, I love that man. I must say, Poltergeist, it's almost like a Sunday, like, chill outy. It's almost like a feel good movie for me. Well, there was a conspiracy. And again, this is hearsay because it is on the internet. And there's nothing to say. It's true or not. I read Tanjina. This house is clean. That's what I do every time I clean my house. I walk around in my Tanjina impression. And you think I'm lying? Honest to God, that's the first thing I do when I sit down. I go, this house is clean. I see you do it in that tone. I do it. This house is clean. I do it with a lower register. I do it with a manic noise. But yeah, there was a, I think it's on the IMDB as well, which doesn't mean it's fact. It just means someone's put it there. It was on a Wikipedia page. And it was on another thing I read that she had fallen out with Toby during the making of this film because she said she thought he was on heavy drugs during the making of it. And she didn't agree with it. Therefore, she would only take direction from Stephen and what, you know, Stephen gave up. So again, I don't know how true that is. It was something I read a few times. And she said that that was sad because she didn't feel like she could go to the director and get the best of the part. And I'm like, dude, you did a good job. Yeah. So whoever directed Tanjina. Regardless of how, yeah, regardless of how you may look at it, your performance was fucking stellar. Like that woman is incredible. But if there was any major problem between Spielberg and Torby in who directed this movie, neither one has ever come out and said or confirmed or denied. And according to everything I've read, this still had a very good work on relationship. Exactly. And I find that people like to make something out of nothing. And I do think maybe this might have been the case because he's, unfortunately, obviously Toby's gone. Now he died in 2017 spoilers. Sorry. Yeah. You know, so you've had seven years of where people can start running the meal, can start making things up without them being shut down or verified or exactly. And Toby being the private person of the years, you don't, you don't know. And I think he would be happy to let people guess anyway. I don't think you. Yeah. I don't think it's actually talking about me. I think that's the best part about which all we do. But I don't think he would give a shit. Like the life, the Hollywood glam life, that is, that's not his. And that's very evident from trying to find out information on him. Yeah. He was just there to do his job, turn up and go home from what I can gather. You know, he did what he loved and that's make movies. And when he was approached to do, which I think is the next film, I might be jumping the gun. I don't know whether the music video came between this or it came after. But he directed Billy Idles dance in with myself. He did. It's got to be around about this time because the next movie. Oh, hang on. Oh, saw. This is where he gets his picture deal, his three movie picture deal. And who give him that picture deal? It was William Friedrich. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. Billy Friedrich as they called him. But yeah, it was him who give him the picture deal. If Spielberg, it might have been Spielberg who had something to do with it as well. But it was definitely Billy and Friedrich who they said on the interview that I watched on the post modern one. And this is where he did life force. Right. Now life force for me. I went to a horror movie festival back. I mean, we're talking many years ago about 10, 12 years ago in Leeds, which if any of the listeners know which I'm talking about, it was run by Patty and Marlon Dingle. It's a Dominic Brunt and Marlon. Wow. That's very, that's from any of our American listeners. Yeah. It's a very English pair right there. Yeah, they are famous for being in a soap called Emma Dale and Dominic Brunt who plays Patty Dingle. Every year, obviously on and off now since COVID. But prior to that, every year they ran a horror. They're both absolutely horror obsessed. Did not know this. And they run a film festival at heading me quickly, you know, in heading me in this cinema. And life force was playing and it's a 12 hour consistent 12 hour movie after movie after movie film festival. So you're there from 12 midday till 12 at night. Wow. They showed so many films. And I remember they showed Poultry Geist. It was the first time I ever got dip in the toe with that film. And I will say, oh, something that's going to be really hard for me to ever watch again because adult babies. But that was, you know, Lloyd Kaufman. And it was trauma at its best and a worst. We saw a Dominic's movie that came out at the time. There was a couple more, because he direct horror movies. A lot of people right now have done quite a few horror movies, Dominic. Lovely man. Because I stopped by and I had to chat with them because I've been talking to them on the internet prior about sponsoring it moving forward. And put my head in and spoke to the pair of them in the green room before I went up. And really, really nice people. And they generally have a love for horror. And you can tell it's not, oh, we're these people and we're putting this on. We love it. Yeah. And they had life force show in. I've never heard of this movie until I'd sat down and watched it. And what the hell was that? Spacious. Yeah. I've heard it. But it's on the level. It's meant to be satire. And it's on the level of. It's a sore soul. Again, it's subtle. You've got to know that it's funny to appreciate the humor. Because if you're watching that, you don't. I personally wouldn't have gone to find a straight away from me. It was like, it seemed like it was taking itself really seriously. And no one I know now, if I went back and watched it, I'd probably see those things. But at the time, I didn't. I was just like, wow, this is, this is something. This is, it happened. Yeah. Definitely took place. But I feel like life force is probably the most, apart from Texas chainsaw is probably the most true to form. To a behoob of film. Right. That's, that's the impression I'm getting from a lot of the things that I was, like the articles that I was reading is that. Cause there's this one, there's life force in 85 invaders from Mars in 86 and then Texas chainsaw two in, again, in 86. And there's a level of humor that I feel like can be missed for. That's just really stupid. Like, that's just, that's just, that's just a stupid film. And I feel like Texas chainsaw from the look of it. The aesthetic of it and the look of leather face at the time can be portrayed as that is just really bad choice. Really stupid. But I feel like that's his level of humor. I think it peaked when it was on for the first time out of all of his films. Tito was where it actually was there. You could see it. It was there. It wasn't subtle. It was in your face, whereas with life force, I saw an interview with a couple of the actors and they were saying, you know, it was six months shooting in London. I think they were at Pinewood or one of the studios in London. And it was continuous wire work for six months. And he said it was just the most grueling, you know, for one shot, it would take a day. And he was like, he was like, I'd never wish that on anybody. But would I go back and do it again? Yes. He said, I loved every second of it, which was really weird compared to what other people were saying about how hard it is to work with him. He was agreeing. It was hard to work with him. But the outcome was worth the six months for life force. But life force is very much a cult movie now. It has been explained that it's humorous now, more so than before. I mean, I just didn't get it because I didn't know anything about the film at the time when I saw it. So if I went back and watched it with fresh eyes today, it'd probably be a different thing. But I've already seen it. I didn't really want to go back and watch it again for this. I remember when my sister said you need to watch Texas Chainsaw 2. And I was like, I looked at the cover art of it and I was like, do I really need to try it? No, you need to watch it. You need to watch it because obviously she went, in her words, it was almost like it's that bad. It's good. I was like, no, that's good. It's good. That was a good movie. There's nothing wrong. That is such a movie of its time. It had a lot of humor in it. Bill fucking Moseley is in it. Yeah. I came off the back, didn't it? Bill Moseley did a short movie called the Texas Chainsaw Manicure. Yes. And it was only a short. It was something he did just off the back of like a whim, I think. I don't think it was a college thing or anything like that. I can't really remember the story behind it. But he did this short and it turned out that he had a friend that had a office like two doors down from Toby Hooper. He said his friend marched the video in and showed it to Toby and gave it to Toby to watch. And basically his friend then said, right, call Toby. Here's Toby's number. Whenever you're ready. So Bill rang the house and it turns out Toby never answered the phone anyway to anyone. But that one time when Bill called Toby picked up and they had a massive conversation. And he was like, oh, you know, I made the Texas Chainsaw Manicure. And he was like, man, that was so funny. I loved every second of it. Do you know who the guy was who played like the Ed Neil character, the cousin inside the van? And Bill was like, yeah, that's actually, that was me. And he was like, right, I've got a part for you come and speak to me. And so that's how Chopped Top was born off of the back of Bill doing a basically like a skip version of the movie. And lo and behold, we have Bill Mosley today because for me, that was Bill's breakout role. It was, it was the movie that you saw crazy, but funny, crazy, like it exaggerated insanity, but with comedy. And I love to, too, too to me. Oh, it's so good. It's the first one where Toby could actually go, do you know what? We've got all this money, so I don't care. We're going to do this underground cave where the family live and we're going to do this and we're going to have the big scenes. And, you know, it was grandpa. And the music is going to be fucking banging and we're going to have a radio DJ who's going to be even more banging. And like, how it just, it just fits its time so perfectly. And there is such a level of humor in it that I know, I like probably more understanding of it now than I was because now I'm starting to look at the rest of his movies after this. It's nothing. Well, there's spontaneous combustion in the '90s, which was a television movie. I'm dangerous tonight. You did a nice horror episode, didn't you? Yeah, Nate Terres, he directed installment made for television of body bags. He's the mandala, the apartment complex crocodile, toolbox murders and the mortuary now. The toolbox murders, I'm going to just skip quickly forward to that. That is actually a real life, real life, absolutely horrific case. And I do not suggest anybody goes and researches that. And this is not me just saying that so you'll go and do it. No, please don't. Absolutely. If you're into true crime, you'll already know what I'm talking about. Just leave that one alone. You don't need to go there. I listened to a last podcast on the left episode of this, and this is the one time I had to turn it off. Never to disturb being able to finish it. It's horrific, but I think this is the one. Yeah, this is the one that has Sherry Moon in it. Yeah. So see people can actually do something without her husband's involvement. And Julia Lando as well, because when it's also a remake. I just, yeah, this is a remake of. Oh, gosh, the 1978 toolbox murders. So this is, but yeah, the actual. True crime itself, it can just stay where it is. Yeah. It's absolutely horrifying. The, the, the index, the gist of it is it's just some guys who have talked to some women, talked to them, and then through their bodies down canyons is the, that's the. Cliff notes, the summary of what happens, but it's the in between bits that it just. Any podcast you listen to, I listen to the true, final cocktails one, and I'll say listen to more bids version and I'll say listen to another one. Just purely because they just were falling into that, that period of where you listen to one after another and after another. Yeah. Someone comes in and you're just like, Oh, and then you listen to another version and they bring you another level of who didn't know that. And then there's another level when you listen to another one because they find other information out about it. And it's. I was the one was he the one who without going into great detail was he the one who did the voice recordings of what the women were expected to happen to them. Yes, he did make, they got released not long ago. Yeah, they got released not long ago. So you would have an instruction tip on what these women were expected to happen to them. They were told exactly what was going to happen to them. And it is fucking horrific to listen to. So I beg you, do not go and look for them. They are there. Yeah, but do not go and look for them. Do not listen to them. Save your ears, because it's not something that you want to go to sleep with on a night time. Honestly, it's one thing that is I am interested in true crime. I am not interested in that. Yeah, some some stick with you. And that one for me, I, I saw that I don't forget them. It's just that when someone brings it up, I'll be like, Oh, yeah, that one, like we were talking about the the garage, the six agent that was in the bag recently. I knew that story straight away. And I was like, Oh, yeah, we'll talk about that. But this one, when I saw he didn't a version of this. I don't know if it was made for TV. I don't know if it was a movie released or any of that. But like, yeah, when I saw that, I was like, why? No, no, that needs to stay aware it was. And, Oh, no. So, yeah, mortuary's 2000. Two box matters, 2004 mortuary's 2005. He contributed to the series, Masters of Horror. He also did Dance of the Dead in 2005, which I'm guessing is a series. And it's got Robert, Robert England in it. But after that, it starts to go be quiet. He did do an interview on one of my favourite horror documentaries, which is done by Marketus. Market has been a League of gentlemen, Pam and Sherlock, because he is a huge, huge horror fan. If there is a three part series. I think I've mentioned this a fair few times because it is one of my go tos. It's called the History of Horror. It was on the BBC originally. You can actually find it on YouTube, all three parts of it. And it's all done in time. Like all in order. So he starts off with the oldies and then the middle and then where we are now. And he did do an interview with Mark for that as well. Again, as dry as sticks as. I mean, it's sad because this man is responsible for the invention of horror movies as we know them today. He is responsible for the level of violence you see in films, the level of the whole gritty documentary style of film in those. He spawned so many opportunities for filmmakers just through this one film. That it's so hard to watch someone who has so much knowledge, so much creativity, so much that must be going on inside of his brain. I know that he either can't articulate it because he's obviously that hard to interview, or he just doesn't give a fuck. It's very hard. Yeah, it's so hard to read between the lines. If you go and listen to any of these interviews, the tone doesn't change. The level doesn't change. And it didn't remarket us either. When we wrote a book. I saw something about that, but I didn't, I didn't look into it too much because it's all passed me by. You wrote too. Midnight movie. No, no, you only wrote the one. Sorry, it was Midnight movie. He wrote that in 2011. And the last thing that he is known to have done is supernatural thriller named Jin, which was in 2013. I think I've actually seen that film, and I tell you for why. I went through a phase of just buying any horror movies I found. Like any horror movies I found that I've done that. Like it was like I was working, just not long, I finished buttons, and I was started the job that I'm in now, so a very long time ago. And I used to have this didn't go out much. I went out, but not much much. I used to go and spend like set myself like 20 quid, and I'd go to Woolworths, and I'd go to the Pound Bin, and you'd just buy as many as you could for that. And like, you did that how bad they were, you were just horror movies. Yeah. And like I'd sit down and I'd watch them all, and I feel like I have seen the one called Jin. I, I, I, I, I, without going back and watching it, it looked familiar in the clips that I'd seen, and I, I feel like I had it on DVD. But yeah, I remember it being atrocious. So sorry for me. Well, that is the last movie to his credit. Um, if I'd just slide down. So he, that may be the last movie. No. Yeah, that is. That's the last movie. The last movie was 2013, and then sadly on August 26, 2017, the age of 74 passes away of natural causes, which is surprising because it looked like he was drinking alcohol all the way through that interview with Mark Gass. Yeah. If you, if you have a look, he's got three or four cups lined straight up in front of it. And I was like, either he's really nervous and that's water. Yeah, there's something a bit more funky. I think we get natural causes because of how the likelihood is because of how private he actually was. And to know what he really died off. He's no list of, he's, he's, he died in Los Angeles, and there's no list of where he is. I have watched hundreds and hundreds of videos of people who go to cemeteries and not once does Toby Cooper's name come up. So the likelihood is he probably cremated, given to his family. Yeah, that's it. That's a very, very private man by this by just the lack of information that's there about him. I really thought when we decided to do this, because of Texas because of poltergeist, we would have like a plethora of style, like I even wrote in, because to look at his credits, you really do have the two that stand out. So I actually googled, what makes Toby Hooper a great director. I don't know, I mean, there is like, like I say, there is that whole thing where people who have worked with him and worked his grueling schedules have one thing to say about him when they're shooting the films or just after they shot the films. And then years and years later, they have a totally different opinion of him from that point, because obviously maturity comes along hindsight, success of the films that he made that they were in. And that the opinions now they have compared to the opinions they have them like Ed Neil. If anybody asked Ed Neil about what he thinks of this now compared to what he said at the time about it being worse than his experience in Vietnam, which I'm not being funny that's a hell of a statement to me. And he will say that it was worth every second, because of the value of that film now. Yeah, but at the time it was worth nothing, you know, and you can think of that coming off the back of a 110 degree running around and make up running around in that kind of weather. You don't get much time down and when you did you were you couldn't really do the costume much because you didn't have the ability to constantly have it reapplied taken off put back on you know it's like, it wasn't just a mask there was more to it than that. A lot of people don't realize they think oh he just you just stuck a little mask on and that was it there's more to it all of that. Imagine this is the other thing right about movies that people don't realize. Due to continuity, they don't wash their clothes. So this is the thing they could be shooting a scene for a month, one scene for an entire month, where these people have probably two or three versions of that one outfit. I'm aware for that entire maybe minute and a half, two minutes, they've been wearing those clothes for a month, they don't get washed. They don't get that they're stinky, they are vile, they're covered in whatever they need to be covered in. You imagine doing 110 degree shoot in clothes that you've been wearing for an entire thing up to that point. These clothes could get up and walk off of you. Yeah, no thank you. And especially on an indie budget you'll only have one costume. You're not betting three or four or five versions of the costume, you're getting one. You have to get into this freaking filthy outfit every time. And for the fact that they weren't paid, people don't realize how little they were paid for Texas Chainsaw because there was no money. It was such a low budget film. The money wasn't there, Gunna made his name doing any sequels that he was participating in and any other movies he did it. You know, he made his money through merchandise in fields or appearances or things like that. And it's the same with like a lot of the guys will say that when they were doing the smaller budget films with him, there was no money to be made, you were there for the love of the film, you were there for the love of the movie. Yeah, of course, with the experience for the storytelling, the reason you wanted to do this in the first place. And that's where I feel Toby, that's where I feel Toby sits. Toby is a storyteller, Toby is a fantastic ideas man, he can execute what he, his vision so well. But it's a shame that either he didn't allow himself to go further into the almost commercial like as in, yeah, yeah. I feel like he maybe stunted himself because he couldn't have the control in the bigger movies that he, as a person, may have needed to make a decent successful film. Like, he would never recreate the success of Texas Chainsaw, purely because he was in a headspace of a 20 something year old, coming out the back of Vietnam, it was supposed to be an incredibly political yet funny movie. I didn't get any of that. I did not get political. I did not get that didn't. Oh, what did I read? It was more the kids. It was the kids in the adult. I don't know. Yeah, I don't get political. I'm not even going to try and pretend to work that out. I don't know if it was lost during the editing or it was just never really the storyline. It was never inferred. It was never put in. It's like the thing as well that he did say one thing. He said, I don't know if it's him or making that interview that said they were a bunch of cannibals, but you never hear the word cannibal in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. No, you don't. You never hear the word. I can't watch it, but that's it. But I know that's what they do because it's evident around them. I can't work out what that's got to do with the Vietnam more because, hey, I wasn't in the Vietnam. I don't know the atrocities that took place during Vietnam. I don't even want to know because I'm not in a place where I can't empathize. I can't sympathize. I can't. I will never be in that situation. I just won't. It's as simple as that. Things that people have to do to survive in more situations are things that I cut my brain will never come. So if you're trying to put undertones of that into a movie that people are not coming to watch as a Vietnam protest slash political stance movie, I just can't get my head around where he was where that was supposed to be. I didn't have that experience. I didn't have the norm sickness that these poor people had. So I mean, they might go and watch it and see every single thing. Yeah, they could see a complete and different movie to what we do, but I take away from Texas Chainsaw a lot more than what I expected and it wasn't of the whole, you know, I could kind of overlook the cannibalism side of it and look at it more of a human kind of level as well. And I don't want to go too much into poltergeist because I really want to get deep into poltergeist one day. And even though a lot's already been covered, there's still so much to that movie than just the conspiracies, the deaths. There's much more to it, but I am all out of time. I'm all out to talk to you for some time. I mean, I will say out of all of his characters. There are probably three, for me, that are the, well, four classes iconic characters obviously leather face himself. Yeah. Chopped up is probably Bill Mosley is doing a Chopped up costume photo shoot for the love of horror this year. So, yes, I would highly advise. I mean, obviously he's had this accident. He's not cancelled yet. But George, I don't think I don't think that's him. I think if he can, he will. Yeah, he's a hard worker is Bill for conventions and things but he's doing a Chopped up photo shoot for the love of horror. Heather Rock, Carolyn, because everybody says it, Carolyn, it's one of those things you just standard every kid of, I was the same age. My mom's near. And she, she has the, my hair was exactly like that. Oh, no, I never had that fringe. My forehead can't carry that fringe. Yeah, she, when I was the same age, it was all a thing. And then, obviously, Tanjina, obviously she isn't that iconic, but she's up there for like, you know, just the lines alone. Toby Hooper is responsible for at least four iconic horror figures in my back catalogue at least. I'm going to have to agree with every single one of them. Every single one of them. But yeah, that's, that's where I am. So thank you, Toby Hooper. Very much. Jesus Christ man, you made this one hard. You made it very difficult. Because when we, when you think about it, it's like, Oh God, yeah, there would be so much, but that's just, that's a, there'd be so much of the movie. There's not so much of the person. And that's why it's made this one really difficult. But I feel like we, we did it. So, yeah, I mean, I, I hope it wasn't as, um, yeah, I hope we did a good job. I hope so. I think it's been interesting. It's been some interesting talks in it. Um, but next week's going to be all different kettle of fish. I think we'll be in the batshit territory with this next one. Yeah. Yeah, the next one is, is it a cold classic? I'd definitely say it is. Yeah, because it's got such a following. It has its own merchandise. You can even get your own Christmas decoration for this one. I'm sure Piora has it. Yeah, she does. I hate the fact that I know that, but she has her videos on YouTube about Christmas tree. I know she does. Um, yeah, we do in basket here. We are. Back in town. Prickets or something. But no, I'm, I'm really looking forward to what we were talking about this before we came on. It's one of those, it's a movie I can dare say I'm not seeing, but my friends will disagree with that because they will always bring up the fact we used to watch it all the time. I can't remember it. So this is going to be interesting. There's a lot of practical effects in here. There's a lot of makeup in here. So it's going to be a very different conversation from today. There's going to be something to talk about. It lives in the land of pumpkin head for me. Like if I was to do a list of eighties movies that are on the fringe of what I remember and slightly monster movie. They're not. No, I mean, they live in that safe and land. This is where this one lives in the pumpkin head land. But for me, basket casing has that kind of. Ridiculous pumpkin head. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't believe what I was watching, but I love this. Yeah, something as with all movies. There's something. Well, we are on YouTube every Monday at eight o'clock. The audio for this episode and every other episode that is associated with Nerdie of North is available on a Tuesday. The links for the leading marvellous Nerdie of North and monsters of North are we're done. You're very eager. Be very trying to show your new nails off. No, but I am not. Yeah, I'm there somewhere. Very pretty. Um, yes, they are down there. Um, um, oh yeah, please remember, like, share, subscribe, hit the notification bell so you don't miss any episodes from the Nerdie of North guys. That is, I always stumble at this point. Yeah, that's it. I mean, I get the oven and done, like, really well now to the point where I don't even have to read it, but like, but the ending I'm like, eh, what have I covered that. Well, if there's nothing else to say, then say goodbye, Dan. Bye, Dan. Stay spooky, everyone. Bye. [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] [Screaming] (whooshing) [ Silence ]