This Week in Horror History | Halloween Primer: Blade, Exorcist III & American Werewolf

The end of August is when the night starts, arriving just a little earlier. The heat remains, but the shadows are longer. Somewhere between the last light and the first street lamp, the world looks staged for something terrible. This week Horror History gives us a murder case with an impossible suspect, a grieving widow discovering the architecture of absence, a vampire hunter walking into a blood soaked rave, and a family reunion where the attackers in animal masks chose the wrong survivor. Then, after the break, our deep cut spotlight drops alien slugs onto a college campus and lets Tom Atkins investigate the mess with a flamethrower and exactly the right attitude.

So lock the windows, step away from the basement stairs, and if someone whispers your name from the hospital corridor, just keep walking. Trust me. Welcome back to This Week in Horror History, your weekly time machine through the creepiest anniversaries in film, TV, books, comics, and games. I'm your host, Henrique Couto, and tonight we're talking about August seventeenth through the twenty third. Coming up, William Peter Bladdie returns to the Exorcist for a detective story about faith, evil and a dead serial killer. Rebecca Hall wakes alone in a lakehouse whose empty spaces seem carefully designed. Wesley Snipes introduces Marvel's day Walker with swords, shades and a ceiling full of blood, and a brutal Indie film that entered theatres nationwide turns a wealthy family's dinner into a survival test.

Then, right after the break, for our deep cut spotlight, we have frozen parasites, exploding heads, and the nineteen eighty six creature feature that treats every horror subgenre like an open buffet. August seventeenth, nineteen ninety nine, The Exorcist three opens in US theaters and one of horror's most famous battles with evil becomes a rain soaked police investigation. William Peter Bladdie adopted his novel legion and was the film's principal director. George C. Scott plays Lieutenant Kinderman, who once investigated Reagan McNeil's case. Now new killings carry the signature of the Gemini killer, a man who should be dead.

The case leads to a locked psychiatric ward, a patient with a familiar face and Brad Duriff delivering volcanic monologues. Blad he places theology beside police procedure. If evil is real, what evidence could satisfy a detective then? And I would be upset if I didn't bring this up. There is the hospital corridor scene. The camera waits at a distance, making us scan a bright, ordinary frame until patience becomes our undoing. The scene earns its reputation every time the hallway goes quiet, and every time I've watched the film, that jump scare has gotten me consistently. I am definitely one of those believers in The Exorcist three as a solid film, even when compared to the timeless original.

It's a damn good time and there is something about a police procedural but with you know, Pazuzu involved that definitely gets me excited to give it a watch again. And if you want to give it a first time watch or a well earned revisit, all you have to do is check it out on apps like two B TV and Pluto TV free with ads, or streaming on Prime Video, Peacock and night Flight Plus with your subscription. You know, if the cost doesn't make your headspin August twentieth twoenty twenty one, The Nighthouse begins its US theatrical run more than a year after its Sun Dance premiere, and Grief starts drawing shapes in the dark.

Rebecca Hall plays Beth, a teacher left alone in the lake house her late husband designed. At night, music plays by itself. Footprints appear on empty ground across the water. Beth sees her house but reversed. Director David Bruckner and writers Ben Collins and Luke Pietrowski turn negative space into a presence. A chair, railing and gap between walls briefly form a human figure. Angles change, and nothing is there, or at least almost nothing. The Nighthouse is careful about grief, but not in the business of making it gentle. Beth is angry, funny, and unwilling to accept easy comfort.

Every hidden plan and backward room becomes part of an argument with the person she lost. This is one I feel was very underrated. It hit the theaters. I went to see it. I really enjoyed it. It is a bit of a downer film, but Rebecca Hall's performance really brings it all together because he is so likable in the most unlikable way possible. The Nighthouse deserves a lot more love than I feel like it got. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it did super well at the box office. We'll just give that a quick look. Yeah, it had a twelve million dollar budget and made fifteen million at the box office, so it probably underperformed what people were hoping.

But it's really worth a watch if you've never seen it. It's available to rent or buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home. August twenty first, nineteen ninety eight. Blade enters US theaters and Marvel's vampire Hunter walks through a blood shower without even removing his sunglasses. Wesley Snipes plays the day Walker, carrying vampire strength but without their weakness to sunlight. He hunts there hidden society with weapons expert Whistler, while Stephen Darf's Deacon Frost pursues an ancient blood god, because what other kind of god would vampires chase? Come on? Directed by Stephen Norrington from David S.

Goyer's screenplay, Blade speaks fluent action, martial arts, comic book, and horror. The vampires have boardrooms and nightclubs, old enough for rituals, modern enough to own the building because only a fool pays another man's rent. Am I right? The result is sleek, hard edged, and pretty damn direct. Blade knows exactly what he is, exactly what he hunts, and exactly how much black leather the job requires. I keep chuckling because when Blade came out, I didn't get to see it in theaters. I was a little too young, but it was a phenomenon on home video and I rented it from Blockbuster or Hollywood Video almost immediately after it came out.

And it still holds up. It's aged pretty well. It's kind of a pre two thousands kind of peek into what goth culture was going to kind of get, like at the height of hot topic and all that. But it is a lot of fun. Wesley Snipes owns the character. The storytelling is solid. There's no reason not to give Blade a revisit. If it's been a while, or if somehow you've never met our favorite vampire killer, well aside from Peter Vincent and Fright Night, but that's for another time. If you want to give it a watch tonight, it's very easy.

It's available to rent or buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at home August twenty third, two thy and thirteen. Your Next finally reaches US theaters after it's twenty and eleven festival debut, and a crossbow bolt destroys one very tense anniversary dinner. Director Adam Wingard, who would go on to direct so many films You've enjoyed, but especially Godzilla Versus Kong, and writer Simon Barrett gather the Davison family at an isolated house where old resentments already circle the table. Then attackers in animal masks surround the property and remove every route to safety. So kind of a typical Thanksgiving.

Really. The intruders expect panic, but they don't expect Erin, played by Sharnie Vinson. Her survival skills flip the setup without making danger into a joke. Every room holds a threat, but Erin sees tools not just for escape, but for bloody revenge. Your Next balances brutality with a vicious sense of family common. The masks are creepy, the traps painful, and the people inside the house remain remarkably committed to making their personal problems everyone else's emergency. So very much a family drama in that way, When Your Next came out. I was amped. It was being promoted all over the place because in twenty thirteen there were still a lot of horror movie remakes.

Although it's not like they've kind of cut back now, but remakes were in kind of a lull, and everybody was saying, for those of you who want original horror, you're next. That was the tagline. I caught it in the theater, I loved it, and I revisited it last year. It still holds up. It is a blast, a total action horror, gory blast. If you've never seen your next before and you want some wacky slasher antics, it's a film you need. And if you've seen it before, trust me, the revisit will do you some good. It's available to watch free with ads on the Roku channel and Pluto TV, and available to rent or buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home tomorrow on Weekly Spooky.

It's the end of summer. The tents are up, the drinks are cold, the lake is perfectly still, and something underneath has been waiting a very long time. In Darkness under Clear Lake by Bruce Haney, Michelle and Brian head out for five quiet days of camping, swimming, reading, and finally escaping the stress of everyday life. Then they discover some old friends are camping right next door. So much for peace and quiet, but awkward reunions and too many drinks quickly become the least their problems. When Brian goes snorkeling alone and never comes back, hours of searching go by until almost midnight.

That's when the bubbles begin. Brian walks out of clear Lake after spending hours beneath the surface. His skin is water logged, his eyes almost white. He won't speak, and he refuses to let go of the strange carved object clutched in his hand. Then he grabs his wife and starts dragging her back into the water. What follows tears open something far bigger than one haunted lake, where things with human shapes and razor teeth are already waiting below the surface. Because Clear Lake isn't hiding a body, It's hiding a door. So enjoy the last days of summer with us tomorrow on Weekly Spooky, and make sure you subscribe so you never miss something scary.

To keep your Halloween vibe going, All right, spookies, let's take a quick breather. But when we come back, we're headed to August twenty second, nineteen eighty six for one of my favorite all time eighties films from one of my favorite all time eighties directors. The good news is your dates are waiting. The bad news is so are the alien parasites that reanimated them. And we're back, my spookies. Let's get into it. On August twenty second, nineteen eighty six, Night of the Creeps begins a limit us theatrical run and turns a college formal into the last place anyone should worry about getting a date.

This is the feature directing debut of Fred Decker, who would go on to direct Monster Squad shortly after, which, if you listen last week, one of my all time favorites. He opens this film in black and white, where an alien experiment crashes into Earth in nineteen fifty nine. Then the movie jumps to the eighties, a fraternity prank and two nervous friends who accidentally thaw out a very big problem. That problem is a nest of slug like parasites. They enter through the mouth, take over the brain, and reanimate the dead. Soon the campus has walking corpses.

Infected pets and an approaching formal as well as a body count moving faster than anyone can explain away. While this is already a super fun eighties horror concept, what puts it way over the top, aside from the very very strong, sardonic and witty dialogue, is Tom Atkins. He owns the Shadows as Detective Ray Cameron, carrying old trauma, dry contempt, and the sense that he survived three detective movies worth of hell wandering into this one. That mixture is kind of a pleasure to the film. Neither of the Creeps has alien invasion, zombie siege, slasher history, teen comedy, and that gooey creature features slime Decker lets the pieces crash together until sparks start to fly.

It's a movie made by somebody who clearly loves horror enough to play with the entire toolbox. It's fast, funny, and gross, but also far more tender toward its awkward heroes then you might guess from the title. It really is a film that holds up incredibly well. I got the recent release on four k of it and it blew my mind. Night of the Creeps is like the perfect film to watch after you graduate from Monster Squad, because you go from kids and monsters to young adults and monsters, and there's a lot to love about it.

Also, keep an eye out if you give it a rewatch, because there's a little hint of Monster Squad in Night of the Creeps when somebody writes Monster Squad rules on a bathroom stall. Yeah, I'm a nerd. I'm a nerd, But if you've never seen Night of the Creeps, you got to fix that. It's available to rent or buy digitally from Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home. Let's scrape the creepy calendar once again for some horror birthdays starting on August seven, sventeenth, nineteen ninety four, when Tysa Farmija is born a modern scream queen across American horror story The Final Girls, The Nun and the Nun Too.

She's brought a lot of humanity and there's something else. I don't know. It's hard to describe. I don't want to say like girl next door because that's so cliche. But she brings a believability to unbelievable circumstances that I think makes her fit very well in horror history. So Happy Birthday. Taysa born on August twenty first, nineteen forty four is Peter Weir, the director who's Picnic at Hanging Rock makes daylight, missing girls, and an ancient landscape feel uncanny in a way I couldn't have envisioned on my own, that's for sure. And I've always personally been a big fan of his made for TV horror film The Plumber, But that's just me.

Happy Birthday, Peter Weir. On August twenty second, nineteen twenty. Ray Bradberry is born the author who filled the October Country and something Wicked this Way comes with carnivals and autumn shadows. A man who's made an incredible indent into horror history, science fiction history, just really literature history. Happy Birthday, Ray Bradbery And born on August twenty third, nineteen sixty three is Park chan Wook, the filmmaker behind Thirst, where vampirism, guilt, desire, and black comedy are bound together with impressive control. And don't even get me started on Old Boy who. A very happy birthday to Park chan Wook and all of our horror history birthdays for our then and now this week, horror keeps redesigning the place where danger enters.

Nineteen eighty six sends a parasite through the mouth and turns the whole campus into a host. Nineteen ninety puts impossible evil inside a hospital patient who's locked away and asks a detective to prove it. Nineteen ninety eight reveals a vampire nation operating behind the doors of the modern city. Twenty thirteen turns the family home into a battlefield, then gives one guest the skills to redraw the map, and twenty twenty one uses the shape of a house its walls, gaps and mirrored plans to make the absence feel occupied. And finally, for our week recommendation, if you want your full moon horror but funny, painful, and still capable of breaking your heart, let's head back to August twenty first, nineteen eighty one, when John Landis's film An American Werewolf in London opens in Los Angeles and New York.

David Naughton and Griffin Dunn play American backpackers David and Jack, who crossed the Yorkshire Moors, ignores some extremely urgent local advice, and meet a creature under the moonlight. The film moves between comedy and horror without either having to behave Jack returns with advice from beyond the grave, while David faces a transformation that feels less like magic and more like a body forced through a machine. Rick Baker's work won the first Competitive Academy Award for Makeup. The Transformation remains a showcase bright room, no merciful cutaway, every bone insisting on making a change itself, but the effects serve a tragedy because David is likable, making the curse very cruel.

Forty five years later, the movie can still make you laugh, flinch, and feel lonely before the moon finishes with you. What can I say about American Werewolf in London that hasn't been said before. It's an absolute classic, highly quotable, funny and scary, some jump scares, and it still get me to this day. So if you've somehow never seen it, you need to fix that. And if you need a little midweek pick me up, it's always a good one to put on. And it's available to rent or buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at home.

Well my Spookyes, that's your trip through August seventeenth to twenty third in horror history Tomorrow Wednesday, there's a fresh horror story waiting for you right here on the Weekly Spooky Feed, so make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcast app. And on Friday, I'll be back with cutting deep into horror as we talk about a film many of you may have missed out on that is so cuckoo bananas you may not believe our description of it. It's called Tonight She Comes and my goodness that film is something I just finished rewatching it for the episode and wow.

And of course we'll be back here next Tuesday bringing you more horror history. Until then, remember our days are numbered, because that's how we tell them apart. See you next week. Fi