This Week in Horror History | Tremors, Split & The Blair Witch Project (Jan 19–Jan 25)

0:01 There's a special kind of dread that only shows up in late January. The holidays are gone, the sky is still gray, the nights feel longer than they should. So tonight we're going to haunt that in between space when the ground is frozen, the roads are empty, and horror history keeps dropping fresh footprints in the snow, from desert worms that shouldn't exist, to a polite little doll that absolutely does, to a space station that turns into a meat grinder, and one midnight premiere that convinced the world a witch might be real. This is your week in horror history for January nineteenth through January twenty fifth. I'm Enriquecuto, your host and guide through the creepy calendar. Coming up, a creature feature that opened and later burrowed its way into cult legend. A release that turned a low budget into a box office monster, a reminder if someone says

1:33 it's just a doll, do not go into that house. And a video game release that made space feel very, very small. And for our deep cut spotlight, a found footage midnight screening at Sundance that rewired horror marketing forever. On January nineteenth, nineteen ninety one of my all time favorite films, tremors hits US theaters, a dusty, funny, and genuinely tense monster movie where the ground itself becomes the threat.

2:14 You can trace a whole modern wave of small town creature horror with charming characters back to this one. In fact, by the early two thousands, it was pretty much the cliche when you were watching a monster movie, especially on Sci Fi Channel, it would be a small town in the middle of nowhere, and usually the sheriff was from the big city, so he was the outsider as strange things began to happen. But here's the part that I think is worth bringing up the most. Aside from the fact that Tremor's and Tremor's two or two of my personal favorite films of all time, Tremor's was not a big theatrical smash hit. It made about sixteen million dollars at the box office on roughly six million dollars in budget, so not a flop by any stretch, but not the kind of numbers that scream at the top of their lungs franchise. Yet, the movie's afterlife has been truly massive, with endless sequels and the rare status of being a comfort film for many many people while also being a giant, subterranean killer monster movie at the same time. I find myself quoting Tremors constantly, so for what it's worth, I mean,

3:45 I'm not the average person, but who is. Tremors really is a quotable and super fun ride. And if you haven't watched it in a while, or heaven forbid, you've never seen it at all, well you need to check it out or revisit it. It's absolutely worth your time. Currently it's only available to rent or buy digitally, or of course get yourself a four K or Blu ray, available at the usual suspects, Amazon Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, etc. Etc. Speaking of that little catchphrase, January twentieth, twenty seventeen brought Split to theaters. M Night Shamalan's tight, nasty little bottle movie thriller that plays like a kidnapping nightmare with a supernatural shadow creeping in from the edges, and in my opinion, it was the full return to form for M Night Shamalan, although I think a lot of people agreed because from there on he was having some pretty big box office hits. Especially with its follow up Glass Split was an incredible experience in the theater and something I was not expecting at all. I wasn't expecting to run out of the theater desperate to bring friends in to watch it again. Although his previous film, The Visit, I also thought was really good. I felt

5:16 like that was his initial return to form after a few flops in his past. Financially, it's one of the cleanest how to win Hollywood case stories. You can point to a nine million dollar budget that turned into about two hundred and seventy eight million worldwide. That is the horror playbook. Keep it lean, keep it intense, and let a central performance do the heavy lifting. And there's one thing that this film has in spades, it is phenomenal performances. So, whether you've seen the film before or you've never seen Split at all, it's time for a rewatch. And it's streaming right now on HBO Max and of course is available to rent or buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and you guessed it, Fandango at Home. Give it a watch, or you'll meet the Beast. On January twenty second, twoenty and sixteen, the Boy arrived with a premise horror fans can't resist a remote estate, an anxious caretaker, and a porcelain child named Brahms who may or may not be listening.

6:39 It's a great example of how the creepy doll subgenre keeps reinventing itself. The Boy was made for about ten million dollars, which, by the way, blows my mind that a year earlier that movie cost about a million dollars more than Split because Split became kind of synonymous. But that doesn't mean The Boy was not a success. It just wasn't a monster success. It pulled in roughly sixty four million dollars worldwide, a reminder that if you can build dread with a strong setting and a single unnerving object, the audience will show up for the fear. And honestly, I think The Boy is pretty underrated. It wasn't the biggest horror hit of the decade, but it was absolutely creepy and fun. I saw it in the theater and if you haven't checked it out yet, you can rent it on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fendego at home.

7:37 Ding in Space No One Can Hear You game on January twenty fifth, twenty eleven, Dead Space two landed in North America and proved something horror fans already knew games can do claustrophobia better than almost any dead Space two takes the trapped somewhere that you can't escape formula and makes it interactive. Every hallway becomes a choice, every vent becomes a quandary, Every quiet moment is a setup for the worst possible sound to be behind you. If you're a gamer out there and you want to play Dead Space and dead Space two, well, you can play them on PC via Steam, also listed as included with EA play as far as I could tell, and on Xbox.

8:35 It's available digitally. Tonight's episode of This Week in Horror History is brought to you by our good friends at save Arista Coffee. If you had to save Aresta dot com and peruse their massive selection of bold, flavorful blends of Dcalf and half Calf coffee and side you found something that would bring you a lot of spooky joy, you can use our promo code spooky at checkout and get twenty five percent off your order that Saveorista dot com promo code spooky to get twenty five percent off your bold, beautiful and not so jittery Coffee, and every time you use our code at save Arista, it supports the program directly. So thanks for checking out save Arista, and thank you to save Arista for supporting the show.

9:36 When we come back. The midnight premiere that made found footage feel like a police report and sold terror like it was a rumor your friend swore was true. All right, spookies, lights back down, Let's go to the woods. January twenty third, nineteen ninety nine. It's midnight at the Sundance Film Festival, the Blair Witch Project premieres, and horror marketing changes shape in real time. If you were there, you didn't just watch a movie, you watched an idea. In fact, a room three student filmmakers disappear in the Maryland Woods. A camcorder survives, some film reels are unearthed, and the footage is all that's left. But the real spell was outside the frame. The campaign that blurred the border between fiction and maybe this really happened. That whisper level uncertainty turned curiosity into compulsion. People didn't just buy tickets, They argued

11:09 about whether they were seeing evidence. And as far as financials go, this is the stuff producers taped to their fridge. Depending on how you measure the final cost after post and marketing, the budget is often cited in a range, yet the box office headline is clear about two hundred and forty eight point six million dollars worldwide on a film that reportedly could not have cost more than a half a million dollars, but often is reported as substantially less. That's the kind of return that doesn't just make money, it creates a template. It's a trendsetter. And here's what it unlocked. Found footage stops being a niche trick and become a mainstream engine. Viral marketing stops being a buzzword and becomes a sharp and deadly weapon in the hands of a mysterious monster. And the audience becomes part of the mythology because they're the ones who carry the rumor.

12:19 And if you ever wondered why modern horror loves arg's fake documentaries, analog horror tiktoks, and of course lost media storytelling, you can trace the footprints through the dark woods to that midnight in January in Park City, Utah. I've spoken about the Blair Witch Project a lot because I am a very big fan and I believe sincerely the film is as good as the hype, but that is a tall order because the hype was incredible. The hype was thick. I remember being a teenager watching Curse of the Blair Witch on television and really wondering if it was all real or not. That is magic, movie magic, the kind of horror, joy and fun fear that causes someone to launch a podcast and update it every week for seven years straight. As far as where to watch it is the usual suspects. You can rent or buy it on Apple TV, Fandango at Home, and of course Amazon Prime, among others. So grab your camera and head into the woods.

13:38 We're going witching. I think that's a term, all right. Let's light four candles on the cake and keep them far away from anything flammable. On January nineteenth, eighteen oh nine, Edgar Allan Poe is born, the godfather of American macabre, guilt, obsession and buried secrets. He really created the rhythm of doom. I'm a huge fan of Poe. I think that's obvious, and during October I released a compilation of all the Poe readings I've done for Weekly Spooky Expecting It to be maybe three hours long. It was seven and a half hours of Poe readings, and I'm excited to dive into Poe readings on weekly. Spooky even more as the year progresses. So Happy Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe quote The Raven Never More on January twentieth, nineteen forty six. David Lynch was born. Not a horror director in a tidy label sense, but few artists have made the familiar feel so so wrong. And I think after David Lynch's pass last year, we've truly realized he was very important to very many people, and so many appreciated his brave individual genius.

15:12 Happy Birthday, David Lynch, you are sorely missed. Born on January twenty second, nineteen oh six. Robert E. Howard. While he was known for popularizing sword and sorcery stories, he also had a foundational voice for weird menace and pulp dread, often featuring ancient evils and cosmic horror. Some of his classics would be Pigeons from Hell, The Black Stone, and Worms of the Earth. He was all about primal physical horror, focused on survival and facing the inhuman. Happy Birthday, Robert E.

15:57 Howard and born on January twenty fifth, nineteen forty three. Toby Hooper, the filmmaker who helped drag horror into the daylight and make it feel like it could happen on the next road over as long as you lived in Texas. Toby Hooper obviously brought us the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but some of his other films really did influence American culture deeply, one of which would be Salem's Lot. So many people have told me stories about seeing that made for TV two night mini series and the nightmares it brought them.

16:38 I think Toby Hooper is extremely underrated and very very missed. Happy Birthday, Toby Hooper, for are then and Now Then. The Blair Witch Project sells fear like folklore, half movie, half rumor and all vibes. But when we look to now, we're right back there, just faster. A scary story drops online. It's clipped into a found fragment, posted without context, and the comments they do the rest. People don't ask is it good? First? They ask is it real? That is the modern horror loop. The audience becomes the campfire, the algorithm becomes the woods. So gather around the uncomfortably blue light and here something scary because maybe it'll happen to you.

17:51 And for our weekly recommendation, a found footage kind of then and now that I think works really well. On January twenty fourth, twenty twenty, Spree premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, a found footage horror film that I think is absolutely worth your time and a lot of people seem to have slept on. I caught it on Hulu during the pandemic and it was a hell of a lot of fun. It's found footage, but for the modern age, with dash cams, live streams, screens within screens turning the classic Is this real? Am I actually witnessing a crime unfold unease into something uglier and more immediate. If you liked how this Week's History shows horror evolving with the tech of its moment, well this is a great then and now kind of watch. And it stars John Keary.

18:56 Most of you probably know him as Steve from Stranger Things. Well, this is Steve like you've never seen him before. His performance is absolutely kinetic. He is pure energy in the chaotic evil direction. And I really do recommend you check out Spree from twenty twenty. It's available to stream totally free with ads on tub It's also available on Shutter and AMC Plus with a subscription, and of course you can rent it at the usual suspects like Amazon Prime, Fandango at Home and Apple TV. All right, that's your run through of January nineteenth through twenty fifth, a week where the ground moves, the walls well, they listen, space closes in, and the woods keep their secrets. Tomorrow Wednesday, mean it's a new episode of Weekly Spooky drops in the feed as we head into part three of our January mini series band It's a horror Who Done It?

20:11 That takes place at a horror convention in a snowy lodge during a blizzard. You don't want to miss it, so come back here tomorrow, and of course on Friday, we'll have another sampling of the best twenty twenty five had to offer in Fear. So make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcasting app, and if you want to support us in a very direct way, head to Weeklyspooky dot com slash join and for as little as one dollar a month, you can help us keep going and going until next time. Keep your doors locked keep your flashlights with fresh battery or charge them. And if someone hands you a tape that says play me, maybe, don't U