The Dumb Cool Weird Podcast
It is a podcast that covers old movies from the 20th century that are funny and ridiculous. We cover what is dumb, cool, and weird about each movie. We are raw and don't show mercy!!
🎙️ To Check Us Out and Support US Go Here: https://linktr.ee/retroradfilms
The Dumb Cool Weird Podcast
Scary Movies That Inspire Us: From Classic Horror to Modern-Day Gore - Episode 53
Ever wondered why classic horror still gives us chills? Join us as we sit down with Scott, a lifelong horror aficionado, to unravel the magic behind timeless black-and-white films and legendary icons like Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Vincent Price. Scott shares his childhood memories of devouring "Famous Monsters" magazine and recounts the thrill of having his very own Frankenstein drawing published. We also dive into the art of suspense that these old films mastered, comparing it to the more gore-centric approach of today's horror movies.
Get ready to rekindle your love for the genre with our October horror movie marathon lineup, featuring all-time classics like "Alien," "Night of the Living Dead," and "Dawn of the Dead." From the atmospheric terror of Hammer films to the groundbreaking storytelling of George A. Romero, we discuss how these movies have left an indelible mark on horror cinema. Don't miss our exploration of Mary Shelley's pioneering contributions and the shift from practical effects to CGI over the decades. This episode is a treasure trove for any horror enthusiast gearing up for a spooky season binge!
Support the show:
🎤 Go to listen to the audio podcast on your favorite platform: https://dumbcoolweirdpodcast.buzzsprout.com/share
🌐 To see more stuff, buy some merch, or support us go to https://www.retroradfilms.com/dumbcoolweirdpodcast
😀 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/retroradfilms/
📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/retroradfilms/
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/retroradfilms
🌴 Links: https://linktr.ee/retroradfilms
dumb cool, weird podcast. So, gentlemen, today we're talking about horror movies from our childhoods, like we're talking like uh. For me and nick it'd probably be like stuff from the 90s and 80s and 70s. And scott, what would that be for you? Uh?
Speaker 1:probably uh 50s, uh early 60s, try 50s, early 60s. Mine would be all black and white, the black and white classics.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nice, like anything from Bela Lugosi.
Speaker 1:Bela Lugosi, karloff and of course, vincent Price. Anything with Vincent Price.
Speaker 2:So Nick is a very big Vincent Price fan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love Vincent Price's movies. Good taste, the man is entertaining, absolutely. We still gotta finish watching the Girl Bob-ombs, the who Goldfoot and the Girl Bob-ombs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. It was like the one we's kind of like a. Yeah, dr Goldfoot and the bikini machine. It was like the, the one we watched.
Speaker 3:That was a great one. That's good stuff we want we actually. We watched a few of them like the tingler.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've seen the bat, the tingler. We've also seen the pit in the pendulum.
Speaker 3:We've also seen house of usher stuff like that. Oh yeah, the pit and the pendulum is great yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So folks, as you know, we're kind of coming up on october and october is when me and nick usually do a lot of, uh, horror movies for the month of halloween. So you know, we're kind of just doing like a preemptive, like kind of talk about stuff like that. And so you know, we wanted to bring Scott in because Scott's a baby boomer, he's 70. And you know he's from that time period of old school, classic golden age horror, from like the you know mid 20th century, and me and Nick are kind of coming from like a you know eighties and nineties kind of perspective. You know, because we usually do movies before the year 2000.
Speaker 1:So Well, back then you know my style of the old horror movies. That's where they left a lot more to your imagination, which can really be intense sometimes. Now, in my opinion, they rely too much on the special effects and all the graphic gore to make the movies and it doesn't feel the same.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Your imagination can really kick in and do a number on you. Yeah, Like what they did with the very first Alien movie. What really made that they didn't really show the alien very much?
Speaker 2:You had all that stuff, but you saw it stalking you.
Speaker 1:But you saw it stalking you, though you saw a little glimpse, but you didn't see the whole thing until toward the end. So you're like, is that it? Oh my God, so your imagination is really taking you through that movie and really getting you to feel it more.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does so much more for you than just all the open gore.
Speaker 2:I mean that's good. I mean, one of the things that's really important to me when watching a movie is it's the same thing that always goes with every movie. It's like you show but you don't tell. You know, yeah, that's important, yeah, that's important.
Speaker 3:Yep, and I think uh, I was going to say I think a good movie too that I've still wanted to see is night of the living dead.
Speaker 1:The original.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because, uh, from a little cut scenes that I've seen here and there, like a shorts that people put together, they do leave a lot more to the imagination on how the virus started, how people were handling it and yeah, yeah you know, it just kind of leaves it open-ended and obviously it goes 10 years later into dawn of the day and then 10 years later from that, you get day of the dead yeah well, it's like 10 late 10 years later, it's like five or six years later into day of the dead yeah
Speaker 3:that actually that's that's true. Was that like?
Speaker 2:83? 78, 79 is when Dawn of the Dead came out. Yeah, so 78, I think, is when it came out and 68 is when Night of the Living Dead came out.
Speaker 3:Yep, okay.
Speaker 2:And we didn't get Land of the Dead until 2005,. So that's a big gap between Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead. Oh yeah, so Land of the Dead is technically after everything has gone down and the world's gone to shit and humans have basically built like a settlement that's from Land of the Dead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, land of the Dead felt like the weakest of all the films.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, land of the Dead's not really a very good flick, but me and my buddies really liked it back in the day so we kind of went with it. One of my favorite movies of all time is obviously Day of the Dead. So, me and Nick, what we're trying to do is we're trying to find what we're going to do this month, and maybe a good idea is maybe we should do a dead marathon, maybe we should do Night of the Living Dead, dawn of the Dead, day of the Dead.
Speaker 3:There you go yeah.
Speaker 2:And then maybe we should finish it off with I hate to say it maybe Land of the Dead, even though it's outside of the wheelhouse of what we usually do, but maybe that'll be like a good four movie progression, you know, for this type of thing.
Speaker 2:I mean maybe, or maybe we could do. Maybe we could do, uh, night of living dead, um, you know, dawn of the dead and then day of the dead, and maybe we could do return of the living dead, even though it's not a part of it. But there was a, there was a time back then where they said that was great. Return of the living dead was like a part of the series, at least they talked about it. So maybe we should just do that, maybe we should do those four movies.
Speaker 3:So so when and um what was it? No, you said uh, what was the what?
Speaker 2:No, that's Return of the Living Dead. Yeah, Return of the.
Speaker 3:Living Dead yeah, they mentioned the Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead movies at the beginning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as movies that are canon within their universe. But George A Romero had nothing to do with Return of the Living. Dead that was a totally different production company and a totally different production staff. Dead that was a totally different production company and a totally different production staff.
Speaker 3:I thought it was funny when that zombie came back at the beginning and they're like what should we do? In the movies they always destroy the brain or remove the head. Then they tried it and all it did was just start screaming. Worse. I think that was a great film.
Speaker 2:Maybe we'll do that for this month. What do you think, Scott? Do you think that'd be a good series to do for this month?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be. That would be. Yeah, I think it's a little too new, but I think probably the best movie to finish off something like that, even though it doesn't fit time-wise, is the latest one with Brad Pitt. What was that World War Z?
Speaker 3:Yeah, World War Z.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean those zombies and that they were just taking off like a mound of fire ants after everything. But that was pretty intense.
Speaker 2:You know there was a movie series called 28 Days Later, and it's kind of like that too.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they kind of move like that too. So Scott what would you say is your favorite old school horror movie of all time, like from back in the day, like before, before the sixties, let's say like, uh, anywhere from 1930, all the way up to like 1960. What would you say is your favorite in that time period?
Speaker 1:Oh, just the uh, my very favorite you know, frankenstein. Yeah, yeah, boris karloff and then yeah, lon chaney jr for wolfman. Lon chaney jr is pretty good. Yeah, and uh uh, shoot uh the uh. I can't think of the actor's name now, but the uh. It was one actor that played the frankenstein.
Speaker 2:Boris, Boris Karloff.
Speaker 1:No, not Boris Karloff. This guy had an even more classic look than Boris Karloff.
Speaker 2:Was it from the Hammer films with Christopher Lee played Dracula and then I don't know who I mean. So in the Hammer films that did those movies. That was the 60s to the 70s, so that was those movies. That was the 60s to the 70s. So that was Christopher Lee. That was the guy that played in the first Star Wars movie. He played Marv Tarkin. I'm trying to remember the name of that actor, nick. Help me out here. What was it?
Speaker 3:Peter.
Speaker 2:Cushing, peter Cushing.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, Peter Cushing.
Speaker 2:So Peter Cushing, christopher Lee and I don't know who else was in those monster movies from the hammer films. Those are all like British films. So the British people did remakes of the classic monster movies from the thirties and forties and they did it during the sixties and seventies and I couldn't really tell you who played Frankenstein offhand Cause, first of all I don't have my phone in front of me so I can't really tell you. But I think I know what Scott's talking about. I believe.
Speaker 1:The actor who played the Frankenstein monster in movies like Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein. Okay, that's a fun movie, but that Frankenstein to me had the really coolest look.
Speaker 2:So you say it was like the best. So you say it was even better than the Boris Karloff look.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he had more of the classic. When you see pictures of Frankenstein, it was more of that look.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. Okay, that makes sense, so yeah. So you were a big fan of Frankenstein then, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, back when I was a kid, when I was 10 years old, you know my favorite magazine then was Famous Monsters magazine. I used to get that all the time, Loved that and I drew a picture of Frankenstein that I sent into the magazine. They published it.
Speaker 2:Oh nice.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Yeah, that was cool. My first published works. How about that? Yeah, I would say yeah.
Speaker 2:Frankenstein is a pretty. I mean I never was a big fan of the Frankenstein movies, like the Frankenstein's monster movies. I mean you know it's pretty cool. So like Frankenstein was written although some people don't know this, but Frankenstein was like. The whole Frankenstein book was written by Mary Shelley, who was actually a woman and she was actually one of the credited as one of the very first science fiction horror writers of all time, you know.
Speaker 1:Yep and Edgar Allen Poe even.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and it's a woman that did it. So you know the Wokies that are watching this. There you go. There's something y'all can run with, yeah.
Speaker 1:You should look up the story of how she did manage to get that published with her as having credit. That was quite a battle and she did really good to get credit for that. She almost didn't Cool.
Speaker 2:Like that, I like that, I dig that. Uh, you know, nick, what is your favorite horror movie of all time? Like from? Like this, the 80s or?
Speaker 3:70s, so from the 70s, I really like the donald dead film. Donald dead, donald dead was one of those things that you know really kick-started. I really think the dead series really kicked off the whole zombie genre, obviously, and what I liked about it was that that that collapse of society. Not only are you worried about the dead, but now you're also worried about the living who are trying to take all your resources, and you're kind of going in between this different kind of battle of dealing with the remaining survivors from the old world and trying to live in this new world where the dead walk and devour your flesh gotcha, yeah, and my favorite horror movie of all time is, uh, the day of the dead movie from 1985.
Speaker 2:And that kind of continues the series. And what I really like about that movie is it kind of shows the aftermath of the outbreak and how everybody's dead. And really that was the first zombie movie that really showed more about the humans and how human beings are kind of coping with everything that's going on. I mean, how human beings are kind of coping with everything that's going on. I mean, dawn of the Dead kind of touched on it a little bit when they were in the shopping mall, but I feel like Day of the Dead really explored how everybody was starting to lose their minds and people were kind of grasping for more power in that movie. Oh yeah, and I mean they had wiggling resources too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, the thing is is you is in an age now where we have, like Donna, not Donna the Walking Dead, right, the Walking Dead kind of touches on those subjects and the thing is, is a lot of people who you know, if you're watching this and you're Gen Z and younger, you have no idea that what you're watching in Walking Dead has been covered in Day of the Dead in detail. You know this whole concept of yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this whole concept of oh well, we're trying to fight for power, that's been done already. Go watch the walking, go watch the Romero movies and you'll see the progression of that, you know.
Speaker 1:Romero started it all. He deserves a lot of credit.
Speaker 3:No, he really does. I like how he kind of described how he got that cameo in the Nazi zombie game when they had those zombie campaigns, and he was talking about the fact that he liked his creation of the zombie genre because it was kind of like the blue collar horror film Kind of had to work a little harder, had to open up different avenues. And I was like, yeah, you know, that is very true. You know there's not just one big bad that you have to face in those movies. You got to face like so much more. You have so many other things coming to get you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Mentally it's kind of like one of those things that really kind of scares you Because like yeah, if there's like an undead horde, you know you're like crap. I got to deal with that and then you got to worry about a group of bikers breaking into the shopping mall. You confiscated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, to ask you guys. So the guy asked you guys this what you know kind of wrap up the podcastback to old school horror movies that you would like to see that kind of I don't know kind of, you know that kind of made like old school horror movies really good, what is a callback that you guys would like to see, that kind of like trigger people and make them think, like kind of make them, I don't know, kind of appreciate horror movies again?
Speaker 1:I think, going back to leaving more to the imagination.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so show basically show, don't tell Basically like show. Yeah, okay, for sure. What do you think, nick?
Speaker 3:Shoot. Uh, you know, I definitely want more imagination. I also want some more originality. I want them to stop revamping old horror movies and bringing them back with a slightly different story. You want new stories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, new stories, new stories.
Speaker 3:I want some new original ideas.
Speaker 2:What I want is I want less CGI and more practical effects because it looks more realistic.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that would be great yeah and more practical effects because it looked more realistic. Oh yeah, that would be great.
Speaker 2:Because, I feel like in the modern age, one of the things that's kind of annoying is we kind of rely too heavily on those CGI effects and we need to rely a little bit more on practical effects, because there's so many great makeup effects artists out there, oh yeah, so that would be very.
Speaker 1:Thank Rick Baker for his outstanding makeup work to elevate. You know what they did with some of those creatures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so, like you know. As a final conclusion for this, you know, I feel like you know, we talk about different types of movies from different time periods. What would y'all say is the timeline for? So we talk about the Golden Age, silver Age and Bronze Age for, like you know, horror movies, and let's kind of wrap this up, but what would you say was the Golden Age for horror Scott?
Speaker 1:Golden Age for horror? Yeah, probably the 60s. Yeah, probably the 60s.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Again because of the way they really got your imagination working. It's like, oh, what's coming? So Hitchcock.
Speaker 2:Hitchcock was a good example. Right Hitchcock was awesome.
Speaker 1:Yes, hitchcock was awesome and then it went into people like Spielberg did a good job with some of his Jaws. Yeah, Jaws. So would you say that. Was it Spielberg that did that Creepshow series? That movie Was that Spielberg.
Speaker 2:No, that well, that was part Stephen King, but I think one of the greats kinds directed or produced it. I think it might have either been John Carpenter or Wes Craven, I don't remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was really good in the 80s. That had some really good stories.
Speaker 2:So would you say that the 60s through the 70s were probably a golden age for horror? Would you say that the 80s were a silver age for horror?
Speaker 1:I'd say so, yeah, what would you say? That the 80s were a silver age?
Speaker 2:for horror, I'd say so, yeah, what would you consider the bronze age, like the 90s?
Speaker 1:uh, yeah, probably okay.
Speaker 2:So then now, leading through the 2000s up to now, um, you know, I feel like this is my opinion, but I feel like horror has been kind of stale. I mean, there's been a few cool movies that I liked, like, for instance, I like the jeepers creepers movie series. Um, they were, oh yeah, that's good, that was pretty good. I kind of like scream. I feel like scream was a really good and that was west craven, the guy, the same guy that created nightmare on elm street, uh, you know, and the night and you know friday the 13th and all that. But the thing is, I feel like Wes Craven kind of brought modern slasher flicks with that one, so a lot of modern movies. When it comes to that, they've kind of tapped into the old school adage. So, basically, like Eli Roth and the guys that created, so, like you had Hostel and you had movies, like you know, saw.
Speaker 3:Green Inferno.
Speaker 2:Yeah, green Inferno, like Saw. So they were kind of tapping into the old school 60s and 70s. You know, like torture, porn, exploitation, flicks from that time period where you saw people getting tortured to death. But now I feel like horror movies now have become very stale and I wonder where it's going to go in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, I agree. Too much of the same old door, it seems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we need something different, something new to kind of scare people. And you're right, we live in an age where it's kind of all stale and it's kind of been the same type of thing going forward. Just to kind of wrap things up, is there any final comments you guys have about kind of how things are now?
Speaker 1:Again, too much of the special effects and gore to keep me interested anymore.
Speaker 3:They need better writing for a lot of their films, not just the horror genre. But there's been a lot of films that. Exactly.
Speaker 1:Something that gets you jumping up out of your seat.
Speaker 3:Something that makes you also want to go to the theater. I don't think there's enough original ideas, ideas. I don't think there's enough good storytelling anymore. It's just very much like kind of uh, they're running it by the numbers each.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, it's kind of predictable now I think a really good example would be uh, the original house on haunted hill with vincent prize versus the one they made in 1999. So the original House on Haunted Hill with Vincent Price versus the one they made in 1999. So the original House on Haunted Hill. The movie ends with it being very ambiguous whether or not it was haunted or not, but the remake made it very clear from the beginning that it was haunted and honestly, I like the original because it was left up for you to decide. That makes sense.
Speaker 1:The haunting was also very good yeah.
Speaker 2:It was ambiguous. It was haunting. It was ambiguous.
Speaker 1:Even the remake.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, it was ambiguous. It was very ambiguous. What was cool aspect of the old school horror films from the 60s is that you just had no idea whether this was actually happening to this character or if it was all in their head Right, kind of like.
Speaker 3:American Psycho.
Speaker 2:Yeah, american Psycho. Yeah, american Psycho is a good example of that, example of that. But yeah, so that is this segment we were just talking about. You know, horror movies that kind of inspired us kind of. You know the past, the present, future, you know, and it's a dumb, cool, weird podcast and I appreciate everybody being here today.
Speaker 1:All right man.
Speaker 2:All right. You want to sign up, take care, yeah, yeah, yeah, sign us out. All right, thanks for having me stay sexy atlanta. Thanks for checking out the dumb, cool, weird podcast. We're a movie podcast now, so movie monday is every monday about crappy movies from the 20th century. It's gonna be great, folks. I can't wait to show y'all.
