This Week in Horror History | Jennifer's Body, Blair Witch, Hardware & The Addams Family - Sep 14-20

Mid-September is when Halloween stops playing around. Porch pumpkins start to appear. Spirit stores rise from the dead. And school hallways fill with rumors that sound harmless until somebody accepts. This week gives us prep school liars inventing a killer. New cameras entering the same old woods. Television's happiest monster family. and a cheerleader whose appetite turns friendship into a battlefield. Then, after the break, a post-apocalyptic apartment becomes a workshop for a machine, rebuilding itself from scraps. So, verify the message, watch the sculpture, and if your best friend comes home covered in blood, maybe don't lend her a shirt.

Welcome back to This Week in Horror History, your weekly time machine through the creepiest anniversaries in film, TV, books, comics, and games. Tonight, we're talking about September 14th through 20th. Coming up, boarding school students turn an online hoax into a real slasher's blueprint. New cameras, GPS trackers, and a drone enter the Black Hills. The Addams Family brings Morticia, Gomez, Wednesday, and that snapping theme into American homes. An angsty millennial film lets a botched sacrifice put teeth into an already complicated friendship. Then, for our deep-cut spotlight, industrial art meets a government killing machine that refuses to stay in pieces.

September 16th, 2005. Cry Wolf opens in U.S. theaters, and a lie typed for fun begins deciding who dies next. At an elite boarding school, students invent the wolf, design the costume, write the rules, and spread the story by email after a nearby murder. Then the messages become specific and victims match the inventions. Did the story attract a killer, or did one storyteller always know the ending? Cry Wolf is peak mid-2000s horror. Flip phones and campus gossip and teenagers learning that a digital rumor can easily outrun the truth. This one I think is underrated and definitely a great watch, especially for that post-Scream slasher era that It doesn't really deliver the way you'd expect, but I like it.

The film earned about $ 10 million domestically and $ 32. 6 million worldwide against a reported $ 1 million production budget. You can revisit or see it for the first time right now on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at home in Rent or Buy. September 16th, 2016 Blair Witch sends a new generation into Burkittsville, Maryland with better equipment and the same terrible instincts. James believes online footage may show his missing sister, Heather. He enters the woods with friends, GPS trackers, ear-mounted cameras, and a drone. The equipment should make them safer. Instead, the forest starts bending time, scrambling directions, and turns every device into...

Another way to document the panic. Director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett trade some of the original's uncertainty for a Woods that feels louder, faster, and, most importantly, physically impossible. At the box office, it earned around $ 40 million worldwide, making it a pretty decent success, although nothing compared to the original Blair Witch Project. And this is another one I think is extremely underrated. It actually delivers a lot of great scares, a lot of great lore in the Blair Witch oeuvre. And I think it should have spawned even more Blair Witch sequels. But here we are almost 10 years later, and I'm still waiting.

If you've never seen Blair Witch or you need to revisit it because who doesn't like a hike through the woods, it's streaming right now on HBO Max with your subscription or you can rent and buy it on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at home. September 18th, 1964. The Addams Family premieres on ABC and television meets a household where the monsters may just be the healthiest people on the block. Charles Adams had drawn the macabre clan for The New Yorker, but the series gives them names, voices, and a gloriously gloomy home. Carolyn Jones is Morticia.

John Astin's Gomez adores her with operatic intensity. Wednesday and Pugsley play with dangerous toys. Lurch answers the door, and Thing always lends a hand. The Adamses are affectionate, supportive, and delighted by one another's strangeness. It's really only the respective visitors who bring the panic and bad manners. The house is full of traps, but belonging is not one of them. This is why I love The Addams Family and always have, because it is about a family who spends time together and enjoys each other's company. As spooky and creepy and goofy as it can be, it really is a film about being yourself and being with the people who see you.

I know I got real deep on The Addams Family, but that is how I feel, and you should revisit that original series. Yes, the 90s films are also incredible, but that original 1964 series, so damn good, and it's available to watch free with ads on the Roku channel, Tubi, and Pluto TV, and of course you can buy or rent episodes and seasons through Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at home. Da-da-da-da. September 18th, 2009. Jennifer's body opens in U.S. theaters, and possession makes every old resentment in one friendship get pretty sharp teeth. Megan Fox plays Jennifer Check, Amanda Seyfried plays Needy Lesnicki.

Her lifelong best friend and the first to realize Jennifer returned from a disastrous night looking a bit different. An aspiring band botches a ritual sacrifice, a demon moves in, and Jennifer begins feeding on boys while Needy tries to stop her. Director Karen Kusama and writer Diablo Cody make a horror comedy revenge story with a messy portrait of female friendships. The marketing sold Megan Fox as a fantasy, but the movie is far more interested in the girl beside her. There's a reason this film became kind of a major awakening film for millennials like myself. It had all the angst and all the technology and all the uncertainty and all of the, I don't know, all the elements of being a modern teenager depicted very accurately, but also fun and sexy, of course.

Jennifer's body made about $ 16. 2 million domestically and $ 31. 6 million worldwide against a reported budget of $ 16 million. Not a terrible hit, but not something that would set the world on fire. But its later cult reputation became one of the clearest reversals of that era. If you've never seen Jennifer's Body, if you felt like you were too old to enjoy it when it came out, now's a really good time to check it out. It's streaming on Netflix with your membership, or you can rent and or buy it through, you guessed it, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at home.

Tomorrow on Weekly Spooky, it's September 1944. America is at war. A Nazi prisoner has escaped nearby. Families are dying from mysterious gas leaks. And 14-year-old Candace Cardona is about to learn that something far more terrifying than rumor is stalking the homes of Kudo Basin. An Intruder in the Night by David O'Hanlon. Candace expects an ordinary evening babysitting two young boys while their mother works the night shift. Then things start moving. A window she knows she closed is suddenly open. Heavy footprints appear inside the house. A strange, sickly, sweet odor drifts through the night. And outside the kitchen window, someone is watching.

Candace tries to convince herself it's just nerves. War stories, a trick of the light, maybe even the escaped prisoner everyone in town is whispering about. Until she discovers that someone has already entered the house. Someone carrying chemicals, wearing a mask, and they've done this before. Somewhere in Kuto Basin, entire families have already died. And this is the story the authorities buried. The story of an old woman who spent 80 years waiting to tell it. Tomorrow, right here on Weekly Spooky, we premiere Intruder in the Night. You won't want to miss it. It's got a lot of thrills, chills, and of course, spills.

So make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcast app. And maybe also lock the windows and keep the children close. All right, my spookies. Time for a quick breather. But when we come back, we're headed to September 14th, 1990, as a scavenged robot head becomes an art project. And that project starts rebuilding its body, and the apartment door is already locked behind you. We're back, Spooky, so let's dive into it. September 14th, 1990. Hardware opens theatrically in Los Angeles, and industrial art becomes an assembly instruction for murder. Richard Stanley's feature debut takes place in a scorched future where radiation and government control have made survival feel temporary.

Dylan McDermott plays Moe, a scavenger who gives his artist girlfriend Jill, played by Stacey Travis... a robot head found in the wasteland. She builds it into a sculpture inside her apartment. It belongs to a Mark 13, a military machine designed to kill and repair itself. Once powered, it collects parts from Jill's studio and rebuilds piece by piece. Doors seal, ventilation fails, and metal claws scrape through the walls while the machine learns the room is faster than Jill could ever hope to escape it. Red dust, blue television light, welding sparks, and pirate radio noise fill the film.

Iggy Pop is heard as Angry Bob, while Lemmy, yeah that Lemmy, appears as a taxi driver. The machine is a government program carrying out its one survival command. Jill understands tools, circuitry, and the space she built. The apartment, well that becomes the the trap but it's also her workshop hardware earned about 5.7 million dollars domestically and the budget was around 1.6 million dollars so while not a monster hit it has certainly left an impression on the horror genre i have always really enjoyed hardware it is the kind of 90s post-apocalyptic sci-fi but also still very horror kind of vibe that really hits hard Unfortunately, there are no major U.S.

subscription, ad-supported, or digital rental options for hardware right now. You'd pretty much have to seek it out on physical media, although there are some great additions out there, so sorry to give you a tease like that. It happens, but I try not to do it too often. Now let's bust out the candles for a couple of horror-related birthdays, including one that's very timely. Born on September 14, 1947, is Sam Neill. On what would have been his 79th birthday, we remember the genre actor of Possession, The Omen Part 3, Event Horizon, In the Mouth of Madness, and of course, Jurassic Park.

We're all very sad that we lost Mr. Neill this year, and we wish him and his family all the best. And happy birthday, Sam Neill. Born on September 16th, 1958, is Jennifer Tilly. Unmistakable voice and wicked comic timing behind Tiffany Valentine, the love interest of Chucky in the Child's Play universe. Jennifer Tilly is highly memorable, great in everything she does, and really owned that Tiffany character. So happy birthday, Jennifer Tilly. Born on September 17th, 1951, Cassandra Peterson, performer, writer, and creator of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, who turned a local television character into an absolute Halloween institution.

A very happy birthday, Cassandra Peterson. And born on September 20th, 1948, is George R.R. Martin, an author whose dark horror and fantasy pieces include Fever Dream, Night Flyers, and a saga where the dead... rarely stay buried. Happy birthday, George R.R. Martin, and well wishes to all of our horror birthdays this week. For our then and now this week, horror asks, who controls the story? 1964 let the Addams Family define normal inside their own home. 1990 gives a killing machine one surviving command and an apartment full of materials. 2005 lets students invent a murderer, then watches the fiction choose victims.

2009 lets a sacrifice rewrite one girl while her best friend fights over their history. And 2016 gives filmmakers more cameras than ever, without control over what the woods will show them. And for our weekly recommendation, if you want a pre-Halloween blast of blue-black streets, ancient grudges, and enough leather to upholster a whole crypt, head to September 19th, 2003, when Underworld opens in U.S. theaters and reveals a secret war between... Vampires and Lycans Beneath the Modern City. Kate Beckinsale plays Selene, a vampire death dealer whose certainty fractures when the Lycans pursue human Michael Corvin, and she discovers her coven's history may have been written by its victors.

Len Wiseman directs like a gunmetal gothic comic book. Mansions hide laboratories, subway stations become battlefields, and every rainstorm and betrayal belongs to the same heightened world. Underworld grossed about $ 52 million domestically and $ 95. 7 million worldwide against a $ 22 million budget, launching a five-film franchise and establishing Selene as a genre-defining action-horror heroine. of the 2000s and while there's a lot to joke about and make fun of in underworld because it comes off so cliche for the era it invented many of those cliches the color palette the action over suspense mentality it was a lot of fun and there's a reason that the whole world took notice If you haven't seen Underworld in a long time or somehow missed it entirely, it is streaming on YouTube TV and free with ads on Fandango at Home.

You can also rent or buy it on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and, yes, Fandango at Home. So pick a side, wolves or vamps. Well, my spookies, that was your week in horror history. Don't forget tomorrow, Wednesday, there's a fresh horror story waiting just for you right here on Weekly Spooky. So make sure you're subscribed. We have something scary and fun to listen to every single day of the week. So subscribe on your favorite podcast app. And while you're at it, leave us a five-star rating. If you could be so generous, it really makes a very big difference.

But now it's time for me to get back to work. We'll be back here next Tuesday. with another week of horror history. So until then, remember, our days are numbered. Because that's how we tell them apart. See you next week.