WEBVTT
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This week, the calendar crosses the line. September becomes October,
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and pumpkins finally stop looking like they showed up early.
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For the record, ours weren't early. Everybody else's were late.
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This week, a killer hides inside a Halloween attraction. Michael
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Myers brings a curse home. The dead surround a farmhouse.
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And Rod Serling makes an empty town terrifying. Then after
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the break, a vampire family takes us on a very
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bad road trip. Keep your group together, check the backseat,
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and do not mistake the screaming for customer satisfaction. Welcome
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back to This Week in Horror History, your weekly time
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machine through the creepiest anniversaries in film, TV, books, comics,
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and games. I'm your host Enrique Couto, and tonight we're
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talking all about September 28th through October 4th. Coming up...
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Hellfest gives a murderer the perfect camouflage. Halloween the Curse
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of Michael Myers brings Tommy Doyle back to Haddonfield. Night
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of the Living Dead rewrites the zombie rulebook. And the
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Twilight Zone asks, where is everybody? Then for our deep
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cut spotlight, Near Dark trades Dracula's castle for an RV.
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The sleeping arrangements are the least of your problems. Trust
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me on that one. September 28th, 2018. Hellfest opens in theaters,
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and a masked killer finds the perfect place to murder
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somebody in public. Natalie visits a traveling horror attraction packed
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with fog, mazes, performers, and paying customers who expect to
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be chased. She even witnesses a real killing, and initially
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assumes it's all part of the show. That's the nasty
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little hook here. Scream for help, and someone, maybe everybody,
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might applaud. Director Gregory Plotkin turns the park into a
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playground and a steel trap, while Tony Todd supplies the
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booming voice of the Barker. The killer, called The Other,
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doesn't need to hide. He just needs to look like
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he works there, which being a serial killer would actually
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assist you in. And this film really was underrated. I
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thought it was a blast when I saw it in
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the theater. I enjoyed the hell out of it. And
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I think you would too, especially as Halloween is just
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about here. I mean, I don't know about you, but
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I consider Halloween proper October 1st through the 31st. And
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spooky season, well, whenever I'm awake and half the time
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when I'm asleep. But this one really does bring the vibes.
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And if you love going to haunts as much as
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I do and don't always have the time or the
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large group to take along, this film really does scratch
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that itch quite well. At the box office, it did
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about $ 11 million domestically and $ 18. 3 million worldwide on a
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reported $ 5. 5 million budget, which is not... too shabby so
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if you want to give it a spin or a
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revisit for the first time it's available to stream free
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with ads on pluto tv and of course you can
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rent or buy it on amazon video apple tv or
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fandango at home so buy your ticket and maybe wear
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some plastic ponchos September 29th, 1995. Halloween, The Curse of
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Michael Myers, opens in U.S. theaters. Michael comes home, and
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this time, the homework kind of tags along. Paul Rudd,
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credited as Paul Stephen Rudd here, plays the grown-up Tommy Doyle,
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the little boy Laurie babysat in 1978. Donald Pleasence returns
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for his final performance as the legendary Dr. Loomis. The
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sixth film piles cults, bloodlines, and the symbol of the
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thorn onto Haddonfield's familiar autumn menace. Apparently a white mask
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and a kitchen knife. It's just not enough. We need
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to get a whole family tree going. And why not?
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Troubled post-production left substantially different... theatrical and producer cuts whichever
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version you prefer those dead leaves dark porches and a
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lurking man in a white mask still do the heavy
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lifting and make it a fun time and if you've
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never seen the producer's cut of halloween the curse of
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michael myers or halloween 666 you need to it's it's
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totally different in so many ways it might kind of
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blow your mind I also think that this is a
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very underrated Halloween film. Yeah, it has its problems, but
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it has so much 90s charm and nostalgia, for me
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at least. I love it. It makes me feel like
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it is Halloween time. So, believe me, I put it
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on right away. At the box office, it did about $ 15. 1
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million domestically and $ 15. 8 million worldwide against a reported $ 5
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million budget. modest numbers but not nothing I mean it's
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more than I've got on me and the arguments about
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the two cuts have kept the film in the zeitgeist
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of horror longer than maybe anyone including the makers could
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have imagined So if you're ready to get in that
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Halloween October mindset, and I imagine you are if you're
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subscribed here at Weekly Spooky, you can watch it on
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HBO Max with your subscription, or you can purchase it
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through Amazon Video, Apple TV, or Fandango at home. October 2nd, 1968,
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following its Pittsburgh premiere the night before, Night of the
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Living Dead begins its local theatrical run. A farmhouse becomes
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ground zero for the modern zombie nightmare. Barbara escapes a
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cemetery attack and meets Ben, played by Dwayne Jones. Outside,
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the dead gather. Inside, the survivors argue about whether the
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basement is safer. The dead want dinner. The living want
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to win an argument. Guess which group has the clearer plan?
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George A. Romero's stark black and white images feel frighteningly immediate.
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The flesh-eating ghouls changed horror forever, but fear and isolationism
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and a failed cooperation are what give the film its
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lasting sting. This is a classic. If you've never seen
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Night of the Living Dead, I don't know what to
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tell you. It is a true classic, a film that
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many of us have seen many, many times. My good
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buddy Jeff Turner actually wrote the book Night of the
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Living Tapes, which is the entire history of Night of
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the Living Dead on home video, which is very fascinating.
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That's available on Amazon. If you like to read about movies,
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that is the book for you. But this is a classic.
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And I love that the makers, when they did their
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own theatrical run, they premiered it on October 1st and
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then let everybody in the local Pittsburgh area see it
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on October 2nd with plenty of time. to catch it
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before halloween that just makes me smile because it means
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they were thinking about spooky season as they released what
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would become one of the most quintessential horror films of
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all time i mean if that's not kind of a
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beautiful not even irony i don't know beautiful poetry i
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don't know what is and if you've never seen the
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fully remastered version that criterion put out on blu-ray You
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really need to. And 4K, you need to check out
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that Night of the Living Dead version because it's like
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seeing the movie again for the first time, but not
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in a Titanic kind of way. AFI cites a roughly $ 125, 000
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production cost and an estimated $ 2. 5 million earned by late 1969. Later,
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that lifetime estimate would reach over $ 30 million and then way, way, way, way,
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way more. But there's really no way to track the
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amount of money Night of the Living Dead made because
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the copyright was in question for decades upon decades. So
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it was released by nearly everybody and their brother at
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some point or another, including the mafia and, you know,
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and really morally bankrupt people, which would be just normal
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film fans. distributors but so it's hard to know but
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it's probably the most profitable independent film of all time
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and it will probably never be defeated in that way
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if you're counting only sheer box office and sales and
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not the money paid to the filmmakers you can watch
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it if you've never seen it before but it's definitely
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a perfect way to start your October it's available free
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with ads on Tubi Pluto TV and the Roku channel
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it's pretty much free to watch anywhere free-to-watch movies are.
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Of course, that restored edition on 4K and Blu-ray, I
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really recommend that. And then, of course, you can buy
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or rent multiple types of it on any service where
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you buy or rent movies. There's no reason to really
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even list them, honestly. Night of the Living Dead is ubiquitous,
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and that's what's made it so powerful, but also what
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was the double-edged sword for its makers. Now let's talk
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about something that primed an entire nation for spooky season.
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On October 2nd, 1959, The Twilight Zone premieres on CBS
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and Rod Serling gives television a new address for the impossible.
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The first episode, called Where Is Everybody, stars Earl Holliman
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as a man who can't remember who he is or
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how he reached a completely deserted town. The diner is stocked,
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a jukebox plays, a telephone rings, everything suggests somebody was
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here a moment ago, but he can't find another person.
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It's the kind of peace and quiet that you want
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for about 30 seconds. Serling always was good at letting
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the ordinary become unbearable. The series would move between horror,
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science fiction, satire, and moral fable, often blending all of
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them together at once, and always ready to pull the
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rug out from under our assumptions. Start here without looking
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up the ending. Trust me, I mean, Twilight Zone is
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all about the endings. But talk about something that not
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only makes me feel a spooky season vibe, but also
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deeply nostalgic. Between The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents,
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nothing quite screams pure, unmitigated horror in the old school
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where it's mysterious and surprising. then the twilight zone. And
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if you've never, I don't know how you would never
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see it, but if you've never seen the twilight zone,
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it's not hard to find a it's available on paramount
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plus with your subscription or free with ads on to be.
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So you can give yourself a little trip to the
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zone and not auto zone. This time. Tomorrow on weekly spooky.
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After a fire burns itself out, almost everything left behind
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tells you how it died. Charred wood, melted plastic, blackened walls,
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but after one recent blaze, a firefighter found something in
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the ashes that shouldn't have survived. A notebook, and inside,
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a lifetime of horror. In I'm a Firefighter and What
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I Found Creeped Me Out by Michael Kelso, we meet Joe,
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a boy raised far from town by a mother who
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keeps him isolated, uneducated, and terrified of the world beyond
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their shack. There's one place she warns him especially never
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to go. The railroad tunnel. She says it took his father.
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She also says something evil lives there. Then, Joe discovers Halloween. Candy, costumes,
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porch lights, an entire world he was never meant to see.
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So one October night, he walks through that forbidden tunnel
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and experiences so much. And he never turns back. But
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no matter how far Joe runs... Mama keeps asking him
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to come home. So, follow the porch lights, stay off
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the railroad tracks, and if you hear Mother calling from
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inside a dark tunnel, keep moving. Don't miss it, right
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here tomorrow on Weekly Spooky. Make sure you're subscribed. All right,
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quick breather. But when we come back, October 2nd, 1987
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brings us near dark. One bite, one very unfriendly family,
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and a sunrise nobody can afford to sleep through. Well,
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we're back, and it's time for our deep-cut spotlight. October 2nd,
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1987 brings us Near Dark, as it begins its limited U.S.
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release and drags the vampire movie out of the castle
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and onto the highway. Adrian Pasdar plays Caleb, a farm
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boy whose flirtation with May, played by Jenny Wright, ends
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with a bite. By sunrise, he's burning, and not the
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way you might expect if you spent a wild night
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in Maryland. Baltimore, to be specific. Her traveling family hauls
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him into their RV. Lance Henriksen plays the patriarch Jesse,
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Jeanette Goldstein is Diamondback, Joshua John Miller is Homer, and
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Bill Paxton is Severin, who legendarily turns a roadside bar
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into the Worst last call you could ever imagine. And
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one of the most memorable sequences in the whole film. Henriksen, Goldstein,
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and Paxton had just appeared together in Aliens. This reunion
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is not improving anybody's chances of getting home safely, though.
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Catherine Bigelow never even uses the word vampire in the film,
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which makes it have a lot in common with Night
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of the Living Dead, which never used the term zombie
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in the film. No capes, no castle, just an outlaw
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family that treats daylight as a death sentence and expects
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Caleb to earn his place by killing. Bigelow had the
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actors practice timed blackout drills together, learning to seal a
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room against sunlight. That practical teamwork helps to sell the
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idea that these people have survived together for years. Released
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the same year as The Lost Boys, Near Dark offers
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a dustier and meaner kind of vampire cool that I
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think was overshadowed by The Lost Boys, which is, rightfully so,
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a massive hit film. But Near Dark deserves all the
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love it's gotten after its release. It's a fun film.
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It's a grotesque film. It's a loving film. It's a
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lot of things, and at the box office it did
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about $ 3. 4 million domestically against a reported $ 5 million or
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$ 6 million budget. It did not perform well in the theaters,
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but it became an absolute cult essential on home video
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and cable, and you need to give it a watch
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if you never have before, especially if you love vampire
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films and vampire lore, but unfortunately... It's not available to
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stream anywhere currently, so you'll have to look for a
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DVD or Blu-ray, and they are out there, but they
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can be kind of hard to chase down. It's one
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of the big insults that came about once people realized
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how great this film is. It's hard to get a
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hold of. I have a Blu-ray copy that I bought
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years and years ago that is so out of print now.
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So if you do find a DVD or Blu-ray, do
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make sure that the region is compatible with with where
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you live, or that you have a region-free player if
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you're a super nerd like me. Now let's light a
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candle for some horror birthdays that we're celebrating. Starting on
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September 28th, 1968, when Naomi Watts was born. The Ring,
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The Ring 2, Funny Games, and Mulholland Drive. Come on,
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she spent a remarkable amount of screen time realizing that
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things are Much worse than she initially thought, and that
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look of horror helps add weight to the entire film