This Week in Horror History | Silent Hill 2 at 25, Dead Ringers & The Munsters (Sep 21-27)

The final week of September is when Halloween feels less like a holiday and more like destiny. The decorations are out, the masks are within reach, and movie marathons become rituals. This week gives us twin doctors sharing identities, a loving television monster family, a grieving husband following a dead wife's letter, into the fog, and a campus killer using folklore as an instruction manual. And for our deep cut spotlight, two men wake aboard a failing starship with no memory and something hunting through the corridors. So check the fog, make sure the person beside you is the twin you think they are, and when somebody swears an urban legend actually happened to a friend of a friend, ask which friend they're referring to.

Welcome back to This Week in Horror History, your weekly time machine through the creepiest anniversaries in films, TV, books, comics, and games. I'm your host Henrique Couto. And tonight, we're talking about September 21st through 27th. Coming up, David Cronenberg gives Jeremy Irons two faces and one collapsing identity. Television audiences are welcomed to 1313 Mockingbird Lane. A sequel sends James Sunderland into the fog after a letter from his dead wife, and urban legends bring dorm room warnings to life on campus. Then, after the break, two men awaken aboard a silent starship with no memory and something moving through the ventilation system.

September 23rd, 1988. Dead Ringers opens in U.S. theaters, and David Cronenberg turns identical twins into... one identity splitting straight down the middle. Jeremy Irons plays Beverly and Elliot Mantle, brilliant gynecologists whose resemblance lets them share patience, credit, and women without informing anyone involved. Elliot is controlling. Beverly is increasingly dependent on him. Then Beverly falls for actor Claire Nouveau, played by Genevieve Bujall. Creating a private life, Elliot can't enter. Cronenberg finds horror in medical instruments, which is nothing new for him, addiction, and the fear that the person who understands you best may prevent you from becoming separate.

Irons makes the brothers distinct until the film dashes that certainty away. Dead Ringers earned about $ 8. 8 million domestically. with an estimated budget of around $ 10 or $ 11 million. So the theatrical run was modest, as has happened with a lot of Cronenberg's strange choices and fascinating films, but it's absolutely worth your time because, well, if you don't mind your films being a little squishy, Cronenberg is your guy. It's free with ads on the Roku channel, Plex, and Prime Video. Or you can, of course, rent or buy it on Apple TV, Amazon Video, and Fandango at home.

September 24th, 1964. The Munsters premieres on CBS, and a family assembled from classic horror imagery moves into American primetime. Fred Gwynn plays Herman Munster phenomenally, a towering father with Frankenstein's face and an enthusiastic suburban dad's heart. Yvonne DiCarlo plays Lily, Al Lewis's vampire grandpa, Butch Patrick is the werewolf's son Eddie, and Marilyn is the beautiful niece the family considers unfortunate-looking. The Munsters and the Addams Family premiered within one week of each other, but they're baseline their engines differ greatly the Adams's delight in strangeness the Munsters believe they are an ordinary working family surrounded by overly nervous neighbors Herman may knock down a wall by turning too quickly but the conflict is usually a misunderstanding or fear that he's embarrassed the people he loves And that's why both of these series truly stand the test of time.

And while I am more an Addams Family person than a Munster person personally... That doesn't say a lot negative about The Munsters. I've always loved that show, and if you haven't given The Munsters a watch in a while, well, Halloween season is right around the corner. Well, it's really just already here. It's readily available to watch free with ads on the Roku channel, and of course you can buy whole seasons on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at home. It's also streaming with your Prime Video subscription and on Peacock. September 25th, 2001, Silent Hill 2 reaches North America for PlayStation 2 and fog becomes a place where guilt seems to build its own streets.

James Sunderland receives a letter from his wife Mary asking him to meet her in their special place in Silent Hill. Mary has been dead for three years, but James goes anyway. The town is nearly empty beneath its heavy fog. James meets several damaged strangers and Maria, a woman who looks like Mary, but behaves like the version he may have invented rather than the one that actually lived. Pyramid Head became a horror gaming icon, but every creature really comes off very personal, as if the town translates buried thoughts into... flesh. Hallways repeat, radios crackle, and locked doors suggest James sealed something away from himself rather than being sealed away.

The original game is most reliably played on a legacy PlayStation 2, Xbox, or PC with a physical copy. The 2024 remake is sold for PlayStation 5, Xbox, and Windows PC through Steam and Epic Game Store. So why not spook yourself out tonight? September 25th, 1998. Urban Legend opens in U.S. theaters and turns stories everybody swears are true into a slasher's operating manual. At Pendleton University, Natalie Simon connects a series of deaths to familiar urban legends. the killer in the backseat, the roommate who doesn't turn on the light, and other warnings traded as fact. The campus is built for rumor.

Students trade stories, a professor explains how legends mutate, and a journalist wants the headline before the facts. By the time anyone sees the pattern, the killer has a culture's worth of material to go on. This film, oh, I love it. Alicia Witt leads an extremely 1998 ensemble. The hook works because we recognize each setup and wait to see which details get changed, much like your favorite friend at a slumber party telling you the same story you heard before. from a cousin at Thanksgiving. Urban Legend grossed about $ 38. 1 million domestically and $ 72. 6 million worldwide against a $ 14 million budget.

So not a bad hit, especially when you consider how cable and VHS were booming in this era, and it caused two follow-up films to be released, and they are really fun and worth your time, but it's very rare that anything can beat the original, and and Urban Legend is no different. If you've never seen Urban Legend somehow, or it's been a long time, this is a slasher film you've got to have in your oeuvre. It manages to stay fresh while being post-Scream, but also manages to kind of pull on that meta thing that Scream was doing while being all about the urban legends we all held near and dear at every long, dark car ride we heard them at.

Obviously, I've founded an entire podcast world around my love of storytelling and urban legends, so I love seeing them get their due in a feature film. So if you want to give Urban Legend a watch tonight, it's available to rent or buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at home. Tomorrow on Weekly Spooky, children are disappearing. No ransom. No witnesses. No explanation. But FBI agent Francesca Carter has a theory, and it sounds like something out of a fairy tale. In the fairy tale, Folk by Tyler Belmont, a veteran investigator follows a string of impossible child abductions to one terrifying conclusion.

The kidnappers aren't human. Forget tiny wings. Forget sparkling magic. Forget everything you were taught about... fairies as a child. The Fair Folk are beautiful because beauty makes humans trust them. Their songs are hypnotic. Their promises are traps. And hidden inside the forest of our world are circles that open into theirs. Franny thinks she's finally found one. A ring of mushrooms, a doorway beneath the moonlight, and... On the other side, winter. Elves armed, children crying, and a queen holding a stolen baby in her arms. Franny crossed into Fairyland to bring those children home, but humans have no authority there, no backup, and no rules.

Join us tomorrow for the premiere of Tyler Belmont's The Fair Folk, right here on Weekly Spooky. Make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcast app to never miss a scare. All right, spookies, let's take a quick breather. But when we come back, we're headed to September 25th, 2009 for a highly underrated sci-fi horror film. Two crew members awake aboard a starship with no memory. The reactor is failing, the bridge is sealed, and the noises in the dark are getting closer. And we're back, so let's get into it. For our deep-cut spotlight... We're heading into September 25th, 2009, when Pandorium opens in U.S.

theaters and asks what remains of humanity after the lights go out for longer than anyone can remember. Ben Foster plays Corporal Bower, who wakes from hypersleep aboard the Elysium, with no idea how long he slept or why the crew is missing. Dennis Quaid is Lieutenant Payton, another survivor trapped behind a sealed bulkhead. Bauer crawls toward the failing reactor. That would be dangerous enough if the ship were abandoned, but it's not. The Elysium is an ark carrying thousands of colonists toward a new world, somewhere in transit. Order collapsed and human-shaped hunters began moving. through the corridors.

Christian Alvart builds a mechanical haunted house of sweating pipes and pulsing emergency lights. The title names a deep space psychosis, so every memory gap carries another threat. Can Bauer and Payton trust what they themselves perceive? Pandorum mixes creature feature, survival horror, and mystery, with entire histories possibly rising and falling while most passengers slept. Pandorum was not a huge hit at the box office, making about $ 10. 3 million domestically against roughly $ 33 to $ 40 million in budget, and it pulled in around $ 17 million worldwide. But home viewing later built this into kind of a durable cult favorite.

I only saw this film for the first time once about five weeks ago because it came up in some you've never seen this but should list and Pandorum was friggin awesome. I really enjoyed it. I thought it had a lot of tension. It had a lot of early 2000s charm while being at the end of the early 2000s. I enjoyed it a lot, and I think you will too. It's streaming free on Prime Video with your subscription or free with ads on the Roku channel, Pluto TV, Plex, and Prime Video free with ads. And of course, you could always rent or buy it on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, or Fandango at home.

Now let's bake ourselves a creepy cake for some horror-related birthdays. And we have a couple of doozies this week, starting with September 21st, 1947, when Stephen King was born. The author whose towns, hotels, cars, dogs, clowns, and ordinary rooms gave modern horror a shared language for fear. I don't think I really need to wax poetic about Stephen King. He is considered a master of horror in every way, and rightfully so. So a very happy birthday, Stephen King. Born on September 25th, 1985, is Tatiana Maslany, the Emmy-winning actress who made multiple identities fully distinct in Orphan Black, with earlier genre work where I first saw her in Ginger Snaps 2, which is highly underrated as a sequel, and her role is very good.

So a very happy birthday, Tatiana Maslany. Born on September 26th, 1956, is Linda Hamilton. Sarah Connor in the Terminator films with additional stops in horror history with Children of the Corn, which every time I watch Children of the Corn, I forget Linda Hamilton is the lead actress in it. And then I'm always happy to see her. She was one of my first heroes ever in Terminator and Terminator 2. I've always loved her work, and I wish her nothing but the best. A very happy birthday, Linda Hamilton. And born on September 27th, 1947, is Meatloaf, the enormous voice and presence behind Eddie in the Rocky Horror Picture Show among many, many massive career highlights.

A very happy birthday to Meatloaf and to all of our horror birthdays. For our then and now, this week, horror treats identity like a role somebody else can enter. 1964 gives us the monsters, monster faces, and the emotional life of a loving suburban family. 1975 gives midnight audiences characters they dress as, answer, and perform beside. 1988 gives one actor two brothers whose shared identity becomes impossible to divide. 1998 lets a killer step inside stories that already belong to everybody. 2001 sends James into a town shaped around the truth he can't face. And 2009 wakes two men without memories and asks whether a name or uniform proves...

who they were. And finally, for our weekly recommendation, this one unfortunately comes as a farewell to Tim Curry, who passed away on August 25th, 2026, at the age of 80. Few performances explain what gave him horror culture icon status more than Dr. Frankenfurter. So for the week when Halloween becomes a social event, queue up the Rocky Horror Picture Show, or find a theater where the audience already knows when to shout back. Because on September 26, 1975, the film opened in Los Angeles and seven other United States cities, beginning one of the strangest theatrical lives in movie history.

Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon play Brad and Janet, newly engaged sweethearts whose car breaks down in a storm. They walk to a castle hoping to use a telephone and enter a convention hosted by Curry's frankenfurter. Inside, a laboratory unveiling turns Frankenstein into glittering rock-and-roll provocation. The first release failed outside Los Angeles, but repeat viewers revealed its real form here. Midnight's screenings added callbacks, props, costumes, shadow casts, and traditions passed from one audience to the next, let alone when it had its big premiere on Fox on broadcast television. It was such an event, I remember it even as a very young kid.

It was produced for roughly $ 1. 5 million and did begin as a failure, but after continuous theatrical play transformed it, AFI estimated the worldwide grosses had surpassed $ 160 million. So if you want to brush up on the Rocky Horror Picture Show to celebrate not only Tim Curry but Meatloaf's birthday... you can rent or buy it through Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at home. Well, my spookies, that's it for this week in horror history. I appreciate you joining me as always, and of course I'll be back next Tuesday with more of the creepy calendar for us to dive into but make sure you're subscribed because tomorrow is a wicked little fairy tale premiering just for you to enjoy as spooky season is really kicking into high gear we have so much we're going to be releasing so many bonus stories throughout october really make sure you're subscribed because you will not want to miss it and we publish something scary and fun every single day of the week so until next time my spookies remember our days are numbered Because that's how we tell them apart.

See you next week.