This Week in Horror History | Christine, The Wolfman & Scream 2 (December 8–14)

0:02 December doesn't wait for Christmas. Slashers to get scary, my spookies. By the second week of the month, the trees are up, the malls are packed, and horror is already creeping into the calendar. Killer cars in holiday traffic, Doomed Wolfmen under winter moons, sequels that shouldn't work but absolutely do, and one undead cop who treats New York like his own personal haunted house. Welcome to This Week in Horror History for December eighth through December fourteenth, And this is the show where we flip through the dates, dig up the weird, and hand you a watch list pulled straight from the past.

1:02 Tonight we're talking Cursed Plymouths, Classic Universal Monsters Met, a slasher Mayhem, an undead cop with a stunt team from Hell and quite the rap tribute, and one giant Spider. To finish the week, coming up, a possessed Plymouth Fury that roared into theaters right in the middle of Christmas shopping season. The definitive movie Werewolf that made fur sprout under a full moon at Universal, a slasher sequel that proved you can follow up a phenomenon if you go bigger and nastier, then will dive into maniac cop too, roll through a few birthdays, connect past and present in then and now, and close it out with a weekly recommendation.

1:57 So let's see what crawled out between December eighth and December fourteenth. First up, we're warming up the engine for Christine. Released December ninth, nineteen eighty three, John Carpenter adapts Stephen King's novel about a haunted nineteen fifty eight Plymouth fury and the lonely kid who falls in love with it. Arnie Cunningham starts as a bullied, awkward teen, and he was pretty pale too. By the time Christine is done with him, He's got slick back hair, dead eyes, and a crush who happens to be a homicidal car. But that's just puberty for you, right. Carpenter shoots Winter Suburbia like a graveyard, steam rising from sewers, headlights, cutting through the dark, old rock and roll tracks, turning sinister every time that engine readvs. On a roughly ten million dollar budget, Christine earned about twenty one million dollars worldwide, a modest but solid hit for the era and for an R rated film. Released around the holidays, but of course it later became a cult favorite. And by the way, this is my personal opinion. I think of all of the so called masters of horror, John Carpenter has without a doubt,

3:29 the most hits, even though he has a lot of misses too. It's available to watch right now on Netflix in the United States, and you can rent it at the usual suspects like Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, et cetera, et cetera. But be careful when you start the film. If you scratch the paint, well that'll be it for you. Next we head to the foggy back lots of Universal Studios for The Wolfman, which opened December twelfth, nineteen forty one. Lon Cheney Junior's Larry Talbot comes home, tries to do one decent thing, and ends up cursed by a werewolf bite for his trouble, I feel like that's just kind of part of living in your twenties. But I don't know when it comes to this film. The Wolf's main rhyme, the silver cane, the gloomy forests, Jack Pierce's painstaking transformation makeup so much of this movie feels like it was stamped directly into horror's DNA. I feel like not only horror filmmakers owe a debt to the original Wolfman, but even novelists and video game makers as well. I always appreciated that you feel bad for the Wolfman. He's a guy who doesn't want to be a monster. He didn't choose to get bitten,

5:01 and he didn't choose to carry the curse. It's a great way to kind of mix things up because Dracula is just is just so distant from being human and the Invisible Man is just an absolute psychotic maniac. Rewatch that movie. He's way way far out. Really. The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Frankenstein they get some amount of sympathy, but the Wolfman, he's just a victim of hairy circumstance. Made on a budget of around one hundred and eighty thousand dollars, which may not sound like a lot, but that's about four point six million in today's money, still a relatively low budget for a studio film. The Wolfman doesn't have the neat box office records, but its legacy is enormous. Sequels, crossovers, rem and, like I said, Larry Talbot, as the blueprint for the sympathetic monster who hates what he's becoming. It's totally worth the rewatch. There's something about universal monster movies that just hits right, especially on a lazy Sunday. It's available to rent wherever you digitally rent your movies. Jumping ahead to the nineteen nineties, my kind of stomping grounds for growing up. December twelfth,

6:33 nineteen ninety seven gave us Scream two proof that lightning can strike twice if you go full meta. After surviving the Woodsboro murders, Sydney Prescott is in college trying to move on while a movie called Stab exploits her trauma. I always love that they went even more meta by having a movie be made about a killer who is inspired in part by movies. It's a lot of fun. A new ghost Face turns film theory and sequel rules into well into a blood sport. On a twenty four million dollar budget, Scream two hauled in roughly one hundred and seventy two million dollars worldwide, transforming a quick turnaround sequel into a bonafide hit and cementing Ghostface as a long term franchise. Slasher and Wes Craven deserves a lot more credit than sometimes he gets. He made a hit series with Scream, not just a hit first movie. But some people, I don't know, they don't love Scream two that much. But I'll tell you right now, if you haven't seen it in a while and you kind of have a negative opinion of Scream two, well you should really give it a rewatch, especially since hell Scream seven is coming out in what I think they're saying February twenty seventh, twenty twenty six, So time to bone up on your ghost face. That was a great excuse to

8:05 say bone up. But Scream two, if you want to revisit it, and I do recommend you do, is free to watch on Pluto TV, or you can rent it at the usual Suspects. This episode is brought to you in part by Cozyerth dot com. A lot of you Spookies have been heading to cozyearth dot com and finding yourself something soft and luxurious to help you enjoy the cold winter weather. Whether it's bedding or loungewear, Cozy Earth has just what you need to relax and if you use our promo code Spooky at checkout when you go to cozyearth dot com. You get forty one percent off your first order and support the program directly. So head tocozyearth dot com, find yourself or your spooky sweetie something cozy.

8:58 Use code spooky at check out, get forty one percent off and help the show. Thank you all for checking out Cozy Earth, and thank you to Cozy Earth for your support. After the break, we're leaving the classroom and chasing one very angry cop, one who refuses to stay dead. Welcome back to this week in horror history. You've stretched, you've grabbed a snack, so now let's flash the siren and head into our deep cut. Spotlight Our deep cut this week is Maniac Cop two, which hit United States screens on December thirteenth, nineteen ninety and somehow manages to be nastier, faster, and and more unhinged than the first, although Maniac Cop three was most certainly more unhinged than just about any film I can think of, But that one doesn't have a rap theme song at the end that explains who the maniac cop is. You better watch out when you hit it sound.

10:24 It means that the maniac cops around plus upon a tom. He wasn't Supper Cop, but the bad guys like to make him stop. Stays put to me in prison when he tried to kill him, but he book on. Now he's the villain. Pulls won't hurt him. I know it sounds like Giant who wins is dead or a lot. Oh that is some peak nineteen nineties energy. Go ahead, turn your baseball cap sideways. I won't tell if you won't. Directed by William Lustig, a man known for Maniac So it's really just one extra word on the title from a script by the Apps legend Larry Cohen, a man who's written so many great screenplays. I don't really feel comfortable trying to tell you just a handful. The sequel picks right up where Maniac Cop left off. Undead officer Matt Cordell survives his apparent death or a parent additional death, and goes on an all out revenge spree, this time teaming up with a gleefully psychotic serial killer. The result is part slasher, part cop movie, and part stunt real fever dream Yeah maybe more than just one part. Working with an estimated budget of four million dollars, Lustig pours money into set pieces that look legitimately dangerous, a stuntman fully engulfed in flame, handcuffed to a speeding car, a

11:57 subway chase that feels like it wandered in from a gritty nineteen seventies thriller, and a prison riot that turns into a one man supernatural massacre. You know, there are just some sentences you don't really think you'll ever say. The increasingly unhinged performance by Robert Dave also helps the film quite a bit. Because the movie was largely aimed at the home video and cable market, there isn't a box office gross to talk about, but it massively overperformed its station on VHS shelves and late night TV, becoming one of those if you know, you know sequels. It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video with subscription or free with ads, as well as on two B, Pluto TV, Fandango at Home for free, Filo Plex lots of places, or you can rent it if commercials aren't your thing, And if you're looking for a double feature this week, make sure to pop on the original Maniac Cop then rolls straight into this one, handcuffed and on fire. You'll see just how much the sequel cranks every dial it can reach. Speaking of, it's kind of like crank and crank two in that way. All right. A quick birthday roll for some horror heavy hitters born in this window.

13:27 Horror heavy hitters. You know, in this job you really learn that tongue twisters come in so many shapes and sizes, all right. First up. Born on December eighth, nineteen fifty. Rick Baker the legendary makeup effects artist behind an American Werewolf in London The Howling, although that one is kind of a misnomber. He was on The Howling briefly, but he ditched out to go for the much more lucrative, higher budget American Werewolf in London, and rob Bo teen would take over on The Howling and then become a massive, massive name and horror for doing the unforgettable special effects in John Carpenter's The Thing. Rick Baker's pedigree is hard to narrow down. He has such a massive ouvra of work in and outside of horror movies, films like Harry and the Henderson's Coming to America, Ed Wood, The Nutty Professor, Men in Black, all of those films except Coming to America.

14:34 He won an Oscar for if I'm remembering correctly, our hats go off to you and a happy birthday, mister Rick Baker born on December eleventh, nineteen twenty two. Mela Nurmi, known by many as Vampira, often cited as the original TV horror hostess whose silhouette eyebrows and deadpan humor helped invent horror host culture and as a this feels so weird to say as an inducted member of the horror host Hall of Fame, I just want to say, happy birthday, Vampire, and thanks for everything. On December twelfth, nineteen forty nine, Bill Naii was born, famous for portraying vampire Elder Victor in the Underworld series and a reliably spooky presence in everything from Sean of the Dead to I Frankenstein and a lot in between, and keeping with the werewolfy theme, we kind of have going tonight. Born on December fourteenth, nineteen forty nine is d Wallace, horror mom Royalty from the Hills Have Eyes, The Howling Kujo, and so many films beyond de Wallace. We hope you're having an awesome birthday and maybe even a cruel Yule too. Let's raise

16:06 a glass or a lit cigar or a cheap VHS clamshell in their honor Forarur. Then and now we're giving Scream two a quick nod and looking at how meta slashers grew up. Back in nineteen ninety seven, Scream two dropped the original's rules obsessed snark onto a college campus. Film students argue about sequels, A movie within the movie exploits real tragedy, and Ghostface uses all of it as a backdrop for fresh murders. I mean, it's a slasher movie, after all, it was horror that talked about horror while still delivering the goods. Jump forward and you can see its fingerprints all over the I hate this time, but I kind of like this term the requel era. It's a remake and it's a sequel. It's a remake, but it's a sequel. I prefer the term legacy sequel. I think that one kind of works too, kind of like what they've done with Halloween, where they made a sequel, but it also kind of restarts the entire franchise. These sequels juggle old and new casts and poke fun at the fandom, but they still try to carve up something surprising as long as we're arguing online about what horror should be. And believe me, there's no shortage of argument there.

17:40 Ghostface and slashers like him have plenty of material. And I do want to mention. Earlier in the nineties, Wes Craven planted the seeds for meta horror in a big way when he put out a new Nightmare, the Meta Freddie Krueger Movie. But me, personally, I credit Sleepway Camp two unhappy campers, because well, I'm just that classy. If you're adding one more title from this week to your watch list, and you should be, you should be, I'm going to steer you towards something big and hairy but eight legged Tarantula released December fourteenth, nineteen fifty five. This Jack Arnold creature feature follows a desert scientist experimenting with a growth serum that gets out of hand when his test tarantula escapes. It doesn't just get loose, it gets huge, stomping across miniatures and rear projection plates in a classic nineteen fifty style. Ough movies like Tarantula, there's something so damn cozy about them. I love to watch a silly nineteen fifties monster movie. I think the first time I saw Tarantula, it was hosted by Svengooli, and I just

19:13 had a great time with it. Love giant spiders, Love giant monsters, Love nineteen fifties esthetics. Oh. On a modest nineteen fifties budget, Tarantula pulled in around one point one million dollars in the United States. In Canada, it's a lot of money back then, making it a solid performer in the Atomic Age Monster Boom. It's a perfect snapshot of Cold War anxieties channeled through well a giant tarantula, and it could pair perfectly with so many sci fi monster movies about giant spiders or just killer spiders in general.

19:54 If you want to go if you want to go high class, you team it up with a rachnephobia. If you want to go even lower class, which I would, you team it up with the Giant Spider Invasion. Or if you want to go for just out and out fun, well, I suppose ice spiders would be a good combo. Sorry, I love a good giant spider movie. You can check out Tarantula just about anywhere you rent movies online. Man, that should be on two be. Damn it, that is such a two be kind of movie. All right, I'm gonna get Richard Tubey on the phone after the show. Well, my spookys, that's gonna do it for this week in horror history for December eighth through fourteenth, From cursed cars and classic wolfmen to undead cops and giant spiders. I hope you've enjoyed this, and I'd love to hear from you if you did. Send me an email at Weeklyspooky at gmail dot com. I've really enjoyed this additional pro here on the Weekly Spooky Feed, and I'm hoping you guys are too. And speaking of don't forget. Tomorrow, Weekly Spooky drops a brand new story, one that involves milk, cookies and crampus and on Fridays cutting deep into horror.

21:18 Rachel and I'll be digging really deep into one of my favorite Christmas wintry horror films, wind Chill. So make sure you're subscribed and listen to all the great bizarre and spooky content we've got ready to rock and roll just for you. Until next time. Remember our days are numbered, because that's how we tell them apart. I'll see you all in the past.