FH Mini 107 - A Talk with Tom Holland!

[0:00] Hey, this is a Flophouse mini episode.

[0:08] Now here at the Flophouse, we normally watch a bad movie, then we talk about it.

[0:11] But tonight, we are not doing that at all.

[0:13] We are going to be interviewing and talking with a very special guest.

[0:17] But to introduce ourselves, I'm Stuart Wellington, and joining me, as always, are-

[0:21] Dan McCoy.

[0:23] And I'm Elliot Kalin, the third person who will co-host this show.

[0:26] And we have a special guest today.

[0:28] We have writer, director, author, Tom Holland.

[0:32] You would know him from Fright Night, you would know him from Cloak & Dagger, you would

[0:37] know him from Child's Play, Thinner, so many.

[0:40] Psycho 2, yeah.

[0:41] Class of 1984, one of the all-time great punk movies.

[0:44] Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Elliot.

[0:47] Thank you, Tom.

[0:48] I love it.

[0:49] So yeah, Tom, thank you so much for joining us.

[0:50] How are you doing today?

[0:51] Oh, you don't want to know.

[0:57] I'm recovering from last night where I introduced a friend's movie.

[1:01] I did it from L.A. in Naples, Florida, as a hurricane barrels towards Florida, you know?

[1:12] Did that add urgency to your introduction?

[1:16] Well, I did.

[1:18] I was surprised they got that many people into the theater.

[1:22] You know, the theater was packed.

[1:24] But I mean, it's like 91 at night down there, I think, right now.

[1:28] Yeah.

[1:29] So maybe the theater's a good place to hide out.

[1:33] Or maybe it's a sign of how enthusiastic they are for your friend's movie.

[1:37] Do you want to drop a plug as to what the name of that movie is?

[1:40] Yeah, the name's Peter Oguchi, and the movie is called, God, I'll think of it in a minute.

[1:48] Perfect.

[1:49] I'm turning into Joe Biden.

[1:50] We all are.

[1:51] That's a first.

[1:53] I think we all are.

[1:54] Yeah.

[1:55] Okay.

[1:56] So one of the big things, I already mentioned it, but we're really excited to talk about

[2:03] Fright Night today.

[2:05] I'm sure I speak for all three of the Flophouse in that Fright Night has been a really important

[2:09] movie to us.

[2:11] It's a movie that has been a favorite of mine for a very long time.

[2:15] It's always fun to revisit.

[2:18] But some of our listeners might not be familiar with Fright Night.

[2:22] Tom, how would you describe Fright Night to somebody who's never seen it before?

[2:26] Fright Night is my love letter to horror fans everywhere.

[2:31] And it came out in 1985, and it was the second biggest horror movie that year from Columbia

[2:38] Pictures.

[2:40] And it's really amazing.

[2:43] I mean, it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

[2:47] It's done nothing but grow.

[2:50] I mean, you know, I mean, when I was doing all these movies, you never expected anybody.

[2:54] Well, you thought you did them.

[2:56] They came out in the theaters, if you were lucky.

[3:00] And you know, and then maybe they ended up on television and reruns for a year or two,

[3:05] and then they were gone, gone, gone.

[3:08] And what's happened with Fright Night is it's become multi-generational.

[3:13] It's the movie that grandparents show to their grandchildren to introduce them to horror

[3:20] now.

[3:21] I mean, it's just amazing, and it's become much-loved.

[3:26] I mean, it's got a really avid fan base, and I never expected it.

[3:34] And it's just, it's grown over the last, I guess I noticed it around the beginning of

[3:40] this millennial or whatever the hell it is.

[3:44] Sure, yeah.

[3:45] Yeah, 2000.

[3:46] It's just, it's just amazing.

[3:49] So, you know, it's just love.

[3:52] You know, I mean, I've got all of it's been amazing.

[3:57] I'm going to sound like I'm bragging, but I mean...

[4:00] You're allowed to brag here on the flop, that's...

[4:02] Yeah, well, I went to a Blacklist dinner with all the big horror directors maybe 15, 17

[4:09] years ago.

[4:11] And Psycho 2 was voted the best horror sequel ever.

[4:19] And you know, when Psycho 2 came out, it was an enormous hit.

[4:24] It was the biggest hit that year after the first sequel to Star Wars.

[4:30] That's how big it was.

[4:32] And then everybody forgot about it, I thought, you know, and then I don't know, about 15,

[4:38] 16 years ago, a guy named Rob Galuzzo showed up and all they could think about was the

[4:45] Psycho series.

[4:47] And that was the beginning of what was a critical discovery, rediscovery, reassessment, I don't

[4:56] know, of Psycho 2.

[4:59] And I plug for myself, I have a book that you can find on Amazon called Oh Mother, What

[5:04] Have You Done?, which is about the making of Psycho 2.

[5:08] Oh, that's great.

[5:09] Yeah, because the fans were asking me about it, and then an amazing thing happened.

[5:17] The Richard Franklin who directed it, who's an Australian who directed Road Games, and

[5:27] a scholar of Alfred Hitchcock.

[5:30] And Richard died of prostate cancer a long time ago, 2009.

[5:38] And then through a variety of different things, his widow, Jennifer Haddon, sent me his memoirs

[5:45] that he'd done just before he passed.

[5:49] And he went through all the movies that he'd made, and what the experiences have been like.

[5:55] But the one that was the most complete, and also had an uplifting story, was Psycho 2.

[6:03] And I read that, and it was like stepping back into 1982 or 3 when I wrote it for him.

[6:13] And I did, I put it together, and then I put in my comments and my memories, and then I

[6:21] got the editor, and he and I are the only two left of making them, well Vera Miles is.

[6:29] She won't talk to anybody, she's in her 90s.

[6:35] And so I had, so you read the book and it's like a round table, like everybody's still

[6:40] here, you know, talking about what it was like making it.

[6:45] And it was a blockbuster, in the sense that the audience is lined up around the block

[6:52] to see it.

[6:53] And it ends with Richard talking about what it was like on Times Square to go to the first

[7:01] night's release of Psycho 2.

[7:04] What happened there was that nobody at Universal wanted to, this was before they did sequels,

[7:12] you know, and everybody thought that it was the kiss of death to remake Psycho 2, because

[7:19] Psycho at that point was realized as the seminal horror film that it was.

[7:24] I would call it the beginning of the slasher genre, big tip of the hat to Alfred Hitchcock.

[7:31] And but everybody told Richard and me that if we had the temerity to try to make a sequel

[7:38] to Psycho, that the reviews would be so savage we'd never work again.

[7:44] And the problem was that it had no, it didn't have any interest unless I could get Anthony

[7:59] Perkins to play Norman Bates again.

[8:03] And I had to write a script that was, that has such a terrific character arc and was

[8:09] such an acting piece that Tony would say yes.

[8:14] And Tony had, to put it mildly, an ambivalent relationship with Norman Bates.

[8:21] You know, Tony had been a young lead.

[8:26] And then he did Psycho, which was like an afterthought.

[8:30] I think he worked like five or six days on it, and he flew back and forth to New York

[8:35] in between.

[8:36] He had no idea of the effect it was going to have, or his role as Norman Bates.

[8:45] And so he felt that, you know, as the old song in Hollywood, be careful what you succeed

[8:51] at because you'll be doing it forever.

[8:56] That's sort of how Tony felt, but he really loved the role, what I'd written for him.

[9:05] And he came in and he knocked it out of the park.

[9:08] They all did.

[9:09] They were all great.

[9:10] Jennifer Tilly, Vera Miles, God bless her, Robert Loggia, you know, a hell of a cast.

[9:18] And Richard Franklin, the director, was spot on in his direction.

[9:22] That was probably the height of his power, coming off of Rogue Games and Patrick, I think

[9:29] was the name of it.

[9:30] And Anthony Perkins went on to direct Psycho 3.

[9:33] So in a way, you brought him back to that character and him loving Norman Bates again,

[9:40] I guess.

[9:41] Well, that gave him the power to direct.

[9:44] He had wanted to direct 2, you know, but Universal wouldn't allow it.

[9:52] And then Psycho 2 made something, I forget, something like 90 million worldwide back in

[9:58] the days when that was on.

[10:00] heard of and we did it for a smidge less than five million.

[10:08] Wow.

[10:09] Wow.

[10:10] Yeah.

[10:11] I am shocked.

[10:12] I'm amazed to hear that I like the thing is like I'm a little too young to like have been

[10:19] aware of like the box office at the time.

[10:22] So I didn't know that it had been that huge because I do remember like critics being like

[10:29] hard on it because they were like it's not psycho like they like it wasn't a time you

[10:34] know that that sequels were as accepted so they're like oh they're making a psycho 2

[10:40] and so I had no idea and then I saw it years later I that's a movie that I have recommended

[10:46] on this podcast I love I love psycho 2 I think it's I don't know it's so clever in the way

[10:55] it takes your knowledge of psycho and sort of uses it against you I think like you end

[11:01] up sympathizing with a serial murderer yeah yeah and I love Richard Franklin you know

[11:09] another one of your movies cloak and dagger I watched that so much as a kid like when

[11:13] Dabney Coleman just passed like I joked that like I'm one of the few people who probably

[11:18] thinks of Dabney Coleman primarily as an action star because I love Cloak and Dagger so much

[11:24] Jack Flack! Jack Flack! Dabney is Jack they're having a screening of it Madden is screening

[11:31] two Sundays in a row in a couple of weeks then at the new Beverly theater here in LA

[11:37] which is Tarantino's theater and my son and I are going to go see it again because I haven't

[11:42] seen it in a 35 mil print in gosh decades you know yeah I don't think I I don't think I've

[11:48] ever seen in the theater I've only like it was such a like an HBO staple yeah for me well what

[11:54] happened was that it was that they changed regimes at Universal and Frank Price's regime came in

[12:02] and they hadn't given the go-ahead and they dumped it yeah so it was it was it was a failure

[12:08] as a release theatrical release and then it came out on cable and guys like you who were at that

[12:16] age then I'm probably talking the 90s the 1890s the you know if you saw it when you're 14 15 or

[12:27] 16 it stayed with you forever yeah you know I mean because that they make so few they make no films

[12:35] now for for adolescent boys you know uh so it it had a it has a huge fan base there's a there was

[12:44] kind of an interesting like uh trope or connection I got from both cloak and dagger and fright night

[12:51] and also a little bit in child's play but like you have you have characters who you have fatherless

[12:57] heroes who are kind of like searching for a father figure a little bit and they're also

[13:02] I feel like they they came out to a these movies were released to a generation of young men who

[13:08] were also like raised on television like us yeah so like I feel like there's some kind of was that

[13:15] was that intentional that you were trying to reach that specific audience with these movies

[13:20] like an audience of men raised by tv basically I don't think so I think that I think that was me

[13:30] going into them yeah you know what I mean I mean I mean finally there is a truth

[13:37] uh in in in writers that you know that that a lot of themselves have to go into it

[13:45] I don't think I had any control over it oh yeah you know I mean I think that you know if you if

[13:52] you're really if it's really good if I mean if you're really living the life of your characters

[13:58] you know you go into it and it isn't it isn't a cold commercial calculation

[14:06] I mean you know I mean I I certainly know when I'm when I'm spot on and I know when I'm I'm

[14:14] desperately trying to get into it you know and I've had both experiences but is it you say that

[14:20] about um people like brought up on television and you said uh sir about the the Fright Night being

[14:29] a love letter to horror fans like certainly in the case of you know having this horror host

[14:36] character which like I uh also didn't really experience the local horror host but something

[14:46] about that performance just works nonetheless like even if you don't understand the exact

[14:51] mechanics of it you understand Roddy McDowell as the character yeah and I don't know like

[14:57] even as a kid I found that character so compelling and charming like did you were you thinking of uh

[15:04] specific people when you were uh doing that character or uh sort of oh yeah I was I was

[15:10] thinking of Vincent Price I wrote it for Vincent Price and then I then then I got to go ahead in

[15:17] the movie and I reached out and his health wasn't wasn't strong enough to be able to cast him and

[15:26] I I was blessed that I got Roddy and then then Roddy McDowell had had me to dinner at his house

[15:35] with Vincent Price and his wife Carl Brown which was an amazing experience

[15:40] I should have taken an autograph book with me back in those years

[15:44] all I wanted to talk about were the were the were the the AIP and and uh and uh uh

[15:52] Roger Corman movies that Vincent had done and all he wanted to talk about was food and art

[15:58] I feel like that he really missed out he should have had the opportunity to do a movie about

[16:05] someone who murders people with painting or with with fine cooking then I think he really would

[16:09] have gotten into it yeah well he was Vincent Price was an incredibly sophisticated man

[16:16] I mean I'm from a small town I'm from a small town in mid-state New York called Highland

[16:21] and uh uh you know it didn't have very many gourmets in that town that's that's for sure

[16:32] but it's similar like you we all we I think we all like experience at least when we're younger

[16:38] experience the world through movies yeah definitely and that's how uh that's our

[16:42] touchstones yeah because there's there's a great lot like there's a great bit where Peter Vincent

[16:47] is uh you know he's expounding on the current state of the horror genre and how

[16:53] they all want you know ski mask killers with machetes and so it like young virgins exactly

[17:02] I was I was I was wondering was was that you speaking through that character from your own

[17:09] yeah oh yeah Friday night is my love letter the fan horror fans everywhere I came on the

[17:16] I came on the scene before before horror was was was was it was even a

[17:23] vaguely respectable genre certainly before it became self-referential I feel like oh god yeah

[17:30] but I mean it was it was my memory is was me and three other three or four of the guys in high

[17:36] school and everybody thought we were weird and we we read EC comics and this is when EC comics

[17:44] were banned they were banned like in 1955 or 56 and we'd hide them in in in notebooks or in our

[17:52] magazines and slip them slip them to new editions to each other in high school and everybody thought

[17:58] we were very weird and even even when I did Friday night which would be 1985 everybody that that was

[18:06] in Hollywood told me I immediately had to get out of horror because horror was considered the red

[18:13] head of stepchild in Hollywood you know so you know that there's been a prejudice against it and

[18:21] here we sit in 2024 and all it is is horror movies and remakes and sequels yeah but the only

[18:31] originality is horror and it feels like we've been we've seen such a sea change in the way

[18:38] critically that horror movies are talked about because the the fans of your generation and the

[18:43] generation after kind of have become the the critics and academics and so now it's almost

[18:49] horror is almost seen as like the uh in many places as the the purest of the film genres the

[18:54] one that's most worth talking about uh as opposed to back then when you look at the like I'll

[18:59] occasionally go back and read old like New York Times reviews of horror movies from the you know

[19:03] 50s 60s or 70s and they're just so they feel so insulted that they have to watch this movie

[19:08] talk about it like how how did anyone make this and make them sit through it

[19:13] and now it feels so different gladly yeah yeah if you look at it at Roger Ebert's uh

[19:19] uh review of Fright Night which is good but he said it's not a distinguished horror movie but it

[19:24] has a lot of fun being undistinguished sort of backhanded compliment you know yeah the one

[19:34] I'm sorry go ahead I said the the work you did with with Fright Night and with Psycho 2

[19:38] it's like with making movies that play with as as uh I think Dan was saying earlier plays with

[19:45] the preconceived notions that the audience has from knowing previous movies it feels like that's

[19:50] I think you did such a big part in making the genre more acceptable more respectable in helping

[19:57] it to become more kind of self-reflective

[20:00] in that way or showing that the previous horror movies have things about them that can be

[20:04] commented on and can be moved forward in a way. I think that the way you were using them

[20:08] in those movies, you really helped to push things forward in that way to make horror

[20:14] more than more than just kind of straightforward scares, which allows more and more academic

[20:19] people to take it more seriously, even if they should have been taken seriously the

[20:21] whole time, you know. Thank you, Elliot. I mean, thank you. All

[20:28] of this is only in the last 15, 17, 18 years. Yeah. Well, I remember when Scream came out

[20:36] and people were like, oh, this horror movie is really there. It's a horror movie that

[20:40] deals with the tropes of horror movies. And I was like, it's called Fright Night. Like,

[20:43] it exists. I was getting very frustrated with that. Yeah, well, that that that that stuff

[20:50] referential nature of the premise, I want to say. So I was rewatching Fright Night this

[20:55] morning and my wife, who is less of less versed in horror, like was like, OK, well, what's this

[21:03] about? You know, and I gave her the premise of like, OK, well, this vampire moves in next

[21:09] door to this boy. No one believes that there's a vampire over there, of course, because it's

[21:14] a vampire. And so he has to employ like the closest thing to a vampire expert he has near

[21:22] him, which is this horror host character. And she immediately was like, oh, that's a

[21:27] great premise. Like she was hooked by the premise. And I think anyone who hears it is

[21:32] like, oh, great. But I'm wondering, like, was the seed for you were you like vampire

[21:37] moves in next door? Was the seed like what I call horror or something like go up against

[21:43] the actual threat? You know, do you remember? Yes, I'm very well. It came off of Cloak and

[21:51] Dagger. Cloak and Dagger is is supposedly a remake of The Window, which was Cornell

[21:59] Woolrich's juvenile version of Rear Window. It's sort of the classic Boy Who Cried Wolf

[22:07] story. And I said, if you really want to do this in an interesting way, have it be a mad

[22:15] teenage horror fan who becomes convinced that the guy next door is a vampire. And we

[22:22] went it was Richard Franklin and I went into Universal and pitched it there and they threw

[22:27] us out because because that was a moment in time when vampires were dead, dead, dead.

[22:36] You know, of all the places to throw you out, Universal should be most excited to do a vampire

[22:43] get that studio alive for so long. Oh, that's frustrating to hear that.

[22:47] You can never underestimate how blind major corporations are to their catalogs.

[22:56] You know, I mean, it always amazes me. But anyway, I had the idea in my head and I was in love with

[23:03] it because that was my teenage years. I mean, when I when I was a teenager, you know, the only

[23:13] place you watch horror movies were on Friday night and the Friday night frights at 11 o'clock

[23:18] on some independent TV channel. And they were uniformly god awful.

[23:26] There were a few early ones who were brilliant. I mean, the original thing was was 1951 or two.

[23:34] Them is a terrific movie. Yeah. You know, I mean, anyway, there's some really good movies,

[23:40] but a lot of them were really god awful. But. They had. He's horror hosts like Elvira and

[23:49] Stagger Lee and Count Skully or whatever, you know, and and they they were all horrible ham

[23:58] actors, but great fun. And they would step out of a crypt of paper and you could see it shake,

[24:06] you know, and they'd walk in a graveyard and you'd see the the prop man coming in with a

[24:13] with a fogger and with a with a thing to blow the fog. Yeah, it was really just god awful.

[24:20] But it was huge fun. And I grew up with that because it was the only place you could watch

[24:26] horror movies, you know, otherwise you were you were back in the day when you had to

[24:31] find them in a theater and nothing replayed after it first came out. I remember driving

[24:39] hours to watch a re-release of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the James Mason Disney movie.

[24:49] I mean, now you have a plethora and now there's so much out there. Who the hell knows even what

[24:54] it is. But, you know, I mean, back and back when I was growing up, it was it was hell to find the

[25:00] movies you love. But anyway, so Fright Night, I couldn't sell it. I wrote Cloak and Dagger instead,

[25:09] which I'm also in love with and very proud of. But it never got it never has grown

[25:17] to be as enormous. I think my most loved movie is Fright Night. But, you know,

[25:23] the other almost everything has Phantom. Thinner is coming back now, you know,

[25:31] and that was a failure when it came out. So, you know, I mean, I think one of the lessons is if you

[25:39] hang around long enough, there are some pleasant surprises in store for you, maybe, you know.

[25:46] But here I am and I'm thrilled to be talking about these movies and I love Cloak and Dagger and

[25:52] I love I love all of them, even the terrible ones, but I especially love Fright Night.

[25:58] Yeah, let's not forget Child. Let's not forget Child's Play.

[26:03] Child's Play is big. Yeah. I want to ask actually about that because there's like a coziness to

[26:08] like Fright Night and a coziness to a lot of your other horror movies that like I enjoy because it's

[26:15] I don't know. There's like this sort of warmth, but like Child's Play, I'm not saying it doesn't

[26:19] warm, but it's like meaner. It's a it's a meaner movie.

[26:23] That doll is very mean, Dan. Yeah.

[26:28] He's not a good guy. Yeah.

[26:32] Well, I was I deliberately set out to make the scariest movie I could,

[26:37] but at the same time, I put some huge laughs in there. Yeah. You know, you know, to break it.

[26:43] But no, the the it was it was the quintessential killer doll movie.

[26:48] I don't think there have been a killer doll movie before that.

[26:52] So it was, you know, it was it was kicking, kicking down.

[26:56] Do you think it was, Stuart? I'm like, was there a Twilight Zone episode?

[27:00] I'm trying to remember, but not a movie. Talking, talking, Tina.

[27:04] Yeah. And there's there's an old movie called Dead of Night.

[27:09] Dead of Night had it had it was it a doll or is it a ventriloquist dummy?

[27:13] And I can't remember. It was a ventriloquist in Dead of Night.

[27:16] Yeah, yeah. And don't and don't forget Magic.

[27:19] Yes, Magic. Yeah. But they in Magic, I was Magic. It frustrates me because

[27:25] they played ambiguous, whether it's him or whether it's the whether it's the dummy or.

[27:29] And I did. Magic was a failure.

[27:32] Yeah, I was I this is something this is something I think about

[27:35] frequently now is I heard somewhere, I forget where,

[27:39] that they wanted Gene Wilder to play that role originally instead of Anthony Hopkins.

[27:42] And I just thought about what a different movie that would have been with Gene Wilder,

[27:45] how much more believable the ventriloquist would be as someone that a woman would want

[27:49] to fall in love with than Anthony Hopkins version of the character who's is.

[27:53] And also I was like, oh, he might have been funny if Gene Wilder did it.

[27:56] That's one of the things the movie is missing is he's not very funny.

[27:59] But anyway, you know, Magic is not a movie we need to we need to talk about.

[28:04] Child's play.

[28:07] Oh, that's right. Right. Well, I mean, I mean, I mean, I, I,

[28:12] well, I came up with a premise. It was original script by Dan Mancini. But

[28:19] what it did, it didn't present the opportunities that I wanted for visual set pieces.

[28:25] Visual set pieces are defined by Alfred Hitchcock is where the story moves forward

[28:30] with the minimal amount of dialogue. And I think I learned so much by making Psycho 2 because

[28:38] Richard Franklin had me study. We ran every Hitchcock movie, starting with the silence,

[28:45] Richard and I. And we pulled out those those those moments, the shots in those movies

[28:51] were Hitchcock scared to live in hell out of Europe or or raised the suspense.

[28:57] And what I did in Child's play, if you think about it, the opening scene, you see Brad Dourif

[29:06] and you see him die and put his evil soul into a doll and then you never see Brad again.

[29:13] OK, but that then you, the audience knows that that doll is murderous.

[29:21] Yeah, but the characters in the movie, the mother and the little boy, they don't know.

[29:30] And that's the that's the Hitchcockian definition of suspense for the audience.

[29:37] You wanted the audience to know that Chucky was was a killer. You didn't want to play that game

[29:42] of is it the doll or is it not the doll? You want it to be the suspense of knowing that

[29:47] Chucky is dangerous and seeing the family dealing with it. I think that that's such a

[29:51] such a better way to do it. If you want to see if you watch an evil doll movie,

[29:55] you want to know the doll's evil. It's it it reminds me, you know, you talk about.

[30:00] Hitchcock it reminds me of that Hitchcock story about how he said

[30:03] Like a bomb blowing up is surprised, but if you know, there's a bomb

[30:10] Yeah, that's exactly it

[30:13] That's what that's the premise that I use. Yeah, the kid knows there's a bomb but no one else does

[30:19] And the audience knows it's a bomb. Yeah

[30:22] like you said if you buy a ticket to a

[30:24] Killer doll movie. You don't want the movie to be like, but is it a killer?

[30:32] Yeah, you want to see a doll pick up a knife and stab people with it, you know

[30:35] You don't want to have it be a question. Yeah

[30:38] Well, you did you did after child's play before child's play?

[30:42] I can't think I can't think of an example that ever did it. Yeah, you know

[30:47] So I've been really trying like Chuckie may be the last horror icon that was created

[30:53] In all of our generation, you know

[30:56] He didn't scream ghost face. Maybe a little bit

[31:00] But ghost face is kind of like a mask in search of a character to wear it. Whereas

[31:05] Chuckie fits so well with like Jason and Freddie and Norman Bates of like these characters where you really are interested in the character

[31:13] and you want to see you want to see what they're gonna do and what's gonna happen to them as opposed to

[31:18] Be as opposed to wondering who's behind the mask this time you're like what's Chuckie gonna do now like what where's he what's he up to

[31:24] And Dorf is still doing the voice and Don Manseve is still doing so there's a consistency of

[31:30] Character to there that doesn't exist. We're still doing it

[31:34] Yeah, he's up for the show. I think because is I think in large part because his daughter is on

[31:40] Okay. Yeah, that is large party lives up in Woodstock, New York

[31:48] I

[31:49] He's a brilliant actor and

[31:53] I'm thrilled that I've given him a career and it's carried him into his dotage

[31:59] I mean, that's a great great way to retire. I mean, it's still an amazing voice performance, too

[32:04] This is great. Also credit the dam is cities taken in places that I never would have thought of

[32:10] Yeah, but he's kept it going for 40 years. Yeah, or 38 years or whatever. Yeah

[32:18] I

[32:21] Think up to me is is like a feeling city pop is beautiful music

[32:25] It's music that makes me emotional. There's so many different sounds that fall into the city pop category

[32:31] It just feels very home to me

[32:34] We're just about wrapped on our inaugural season of primer

[32:37] if you didn't know primer is a new podcast that explores music from outside the English-speaking world and

[32:42] Vulture called us one of the best podcasts of the year

[32:45] Our first season covered Japanese city pop and you just heard a few of our past guests share what the genre means to them

[32:51] learn more about the world of city pop and listen to some cool tunes and if you like what we're doing you can make a

[32:56] One-time contribution and help us reach our goal to produce a second season about a new genre

[33:01] support primer over at maximum fun org slash primer

[33:05] Throughout history sirens have captured men's attention enticed men with their feminine wiles and fulfilled men's primal needs

[33:12] The sirens allure they have not unless the primal need is I need to be smashed on the rocks. Yeah

[33:19] Smash me smash me

[33:29] Why do we do this to ourselves

[33:35] So, yeah, this is my brother my brother me for maximum fun on Mondays, it's just like

[33:40] That just like that. But it's just like that but more of it. There's there's more of that

[33:50] Hey, it's Dan here to tell you that yesterday tickets went on sale for three men and a Hallie

[33:57] Which is our next streaming show

[34:00] It's a once again beautifully shot and edited by the good folks at stage pilot and this is our first

[34:07] regular format streaming show

[34:09] Featuring Hallie Haglund your favorite and ours your first chance to see her her in one of these live show

[34:17] Tapings the show debuts on Sunday August 4th

[34:21] And you can get tickets for that show by heading to flop house podcast comm slash events

[34:28] Now I'm kind of dying to ask but with in Fright Night, especially near the end, there's a couple of special effects sequences

[34:37] both the like the werewolf like evils wolf transformation sequence and then when

[34:44] When the what the familiar character melts

[34:47] There are these really long kind of lingering sequences that are both like kind of ridiculous and over-the-top

[34:53] But they really take their time and they're both like beautiful and sad

[34:57] How did those come about was that a thing that was planned or were was that something that like came out of working with?

[35:03] The special effects team. No, that was that was written. I mean, but I did make discoveries along the way

[35:11] Amy shark mouth

[35:12] I came up with while we were shooting because I saw an opportunity to really scare the hell out of the audience

[35:19] But Billy Cole's melting like I had written

[35:23] I had written but I didn't know how to do any of that. The credit goes to

[35:28] Richard Edlin and

[35:32] Randy Cook and Steve Johnson

[35:34] The effects people I had a brilliant effects crew on on Friday night

[35:39] The Friday night was the throwaway movie that year for for for for Columbia

[35:45] they had I was so hot as a writer because of the success of

[35:50] Of

[35:52] Psycho 2 that they thought they'd take a chance than an original script that I wrote and they had this slot and

[35:59] They didn't give me any money. I think if you did it for seven or eight million and

[36:04] They wanted to keep the Ghostbusters crew on

[36:08] Employed because they thought they were going to do an immediate sequel to Ghostbusters

[36:14] So I got the best I got the best effects crew in Hollywood

[36:18] They're Richard Edlin Steve Johnson and Randy Cook and they did brilliantly

[36:23] I wrote those things, but I didn't have a clue how to do them. I mean, I had no idea how to throw

[36:30] Jerry Gingrich off the balcony and haven't turned into a bat on the way down

[36:35] That was Richard Edlin. That's amazing that that Ghostbusters twos loss was your game

[36:43] Yeah

[36:45] So do you have any other like are there any other particular stories from the Fright Night production that?

[36:52] You haven't shared or you think fans would love to hear about?

[36:56] Well, I don't know

[36:57] I had it at one that that that we were I was blocking the scene in the basement on a Friday night

[37:04] Amy comes down the stairway of Charlie and and

[37:07] Ronnie you're looking for for Jerry's coffin and

[37:11] He pulled out the cross and she turns away and says, oh Charlie

[37:17] You promised you wouldn't let this happen. And then we called it a night because we'd run out of time

[37:23] Wait a minute. Wait a minute

[37:25] When she does the turn in the reveal if she comes around with a horrible face like a mouth full of tear-to-teeth

[37:33] We just scare the hell out of the audience

[37:35] And I told Steve Johnson and he and Randy put together the shark's mouth over the weekend, oh wow

[37:43] Yeah, and and then because he thought that it was he thought it wasn't up to the standard Steve Johnson promised me that

[37:51] But except for a brief cut. We'll never see it again. I said that this for that. Okay, it's over after that

[37:57] Yeah, I agree

[37:59] And he got it to me on Monday and we shot the scene and I put it in the movie

[38:03] And it was it was the universal scream

[38:07] Yes, the audience would play it and then it ended up on the one sheet

[38:12] So it's probably the most famous. It's probably the most famous visual from Friday night. I've seen Johnson still rips me about it

[38:22] It's so funny

[38:23] Yeah, I feel like between that and the shot of like evil with the cross burned on his forehead

[38:28] Those are the two that really like pop come to mind immediately

[38:33] Now is a it was a fairly small budget, but it had a pretty pretty big return

[38:39] It was a it was a big success for its budget, right?

[38:42] It was the business. It was the second biggest horror movie that year

[38:46] after

[38:48] the first sequel to

[38:50] Nightmare on Elm Street

[38:51] Wow, that's a big fright night was and they were gonna do a secret. We're gonna do a sequel to and

[38:58] Ah

[39:00] They fired

[39:02] Guy McIlwain who've given the go-ahead have been head of Columbia and brought in an Englishman called David

[39:09] Putnam and David Putnam was only did prestige movies like chariots of fire

[39:16] He threw me out

[39:19] Columbia

[39:20] Yeah, yeah, he didn't mean what he looked down on horror

[39:24] He didn't want to be associated with horror and he threw me out of that's how I ended up doing fatal beauty and you know

[39:31] and

[39:32] So much of my career there was so there was such a an anti horror attitude in Hollywood in those years

[39:41] They didn't they didn't affected me and influenced me and I was an idiot

[39:45] I should have stayed I should have stayed just done as many

[39:50] Great horror scripts as I could I was offered one of the sequels to Nightmare on Elm Street

[39:55] And like an idiot I turned it down

[39:58] You know, there's so

[40:00] Were there any other like horror passion projects you wish you'd gotten to do during that time but just weren't able to get off the ground due to the climate?

[40:09] Boy, that's a good question.

[40:12] Yeah, I have one called The God Game, which I'm working on right now.

[40:17] Oh, awesome.

[40:18] Yeah, it goes to show you that projects never die.

[40:23] You may, but the projects never do.

[40:26] I wrote a 100-page treatment in 1977 with Stuart Stern.

[40:35] Who was Stuart Stern?

[40:37] Stuart was one of the three or four biggest scriptwriters in Hollywood.

[40:42] He wrote a little movie called Rebel Without a Cause.

[40:46] Okay.

[40:47] Okay?

[40:48] And he mentored me and was very, very kind to me.

[40:53] He passed, I think, back around 2012.

[40:56] So I'm going back and I'm looking at those scripts that for one reason or another I couldn't get done or I had development deals on that fell by the wayside.

[41:11] And that's sort of how I'm spending my time right now.

[41:16] And also, you know, I'm giving myself a plug, but we have the Fright Night podcast.

[41:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[41:26] The second act just dropped today.

[41:30] Oh, so how did that come about?

[41:33] Can you talk a little bit about how the Fright Night podcast came to be?

[41:38] Yeah, the guys at Manifest Media who do table reads asked me to come in as a voice actor on a horror segment.

[41:49] And, you know, and I mean, you know, I mean, I thought, well, yeah, I'll do that.

[41:56] But I was curious about podcasts.

[42:00] OK, movies right now, as you guys know, are in a very difficult transition period and transitioning to what?

[42:07] I don't know what the hell.

[42:09] You know, I don't watch 70 millimeter movies.

[42:12] And I saw Dune 2 and I saw Furioso.

[42:16] And every every one of them had 25, 30 minutes of previews.

[42:20] And every preview was a sequel.

[42:24] There wasn't one original story there on every every time.

[42:30] So that that's where we are in Hollywood right now.

[42:33] And yet the the area that seems to be growing and is is interesting was is this dramatic podcast,

[42:42] which I guess is a way of saying it's radio coming on, but with much better sound and fully and sound effects.

[42:50] And so I was curious about the genre.

[42:52] So I went and I did this thing for your table read, Jack Levy and Martineau Martineau.

[42:58] And. I thought it was it was it was an interesting experience.

[43:04] The studio where it took place was top grade.

[43:10] And I said, well, if you really want to do something,

[43:14] I happen to own the literary, dramatic and and and dramatic and audio rights to an original script I wrote called Fright Night.

[43:25] Let's do Fright Night as as as as a as a as a podcast.

[43:31] And they went for it and we brought the original cast out.

[43:36] We flew them in from all over America.

[43:39] You know, there are two of them were here, but five of them weren't.

[43:43] And then I went and I got I got some really terrific voice stars.

[43:51] I got Rosario Dawson to come in and play a number of different female parts.

[43:57] And I got Mark Hamill to come in to replace Roddy McDowell as Peter Vincent.

[44:05] Yeah, he's he's great. He's.

[44:08] So you have Chris Sarandon and they're playing Jerry Dandridge.

[44:12] So you have. Yeah, that yeah, that's that's Nightmare Before Christmas.

[44:17] Yeah. So you have a hell of a cast on this damn thing.

[44:22] And we came out with the first act last week.

[44:27] And we we we we were in Spotify's top 100 podcast.

[44:34] We were ninety one. Oh, awesome.

[44:37] Yeah. Then on Monday we are going to be number one on on Apple podcast and Apple.

[44:44] And act two of Fright Night, the the original cast reading from today.

[44:54] Oh, that's great. You got the third act a week from today.

[44:58] And the reception has been mind blowing.

[45:01] And also the the the here's the here's the the power of of using established IP,

[45:13] which I'm usually very critical of because it's chilled, you know, originality.

[45:19] Yeah. And it's also killed the star system.

[45:23] But the one piece of original IP that I happen to own is mine.

[45:29] Yeah. And so we came out with a press release on on on Fright Night,

[45:35] original cast reading and Mark Hamill and everything.

[45:39] The media. How deep the media picked it up was just amazing.

[45:47] And I mean, I don't know, fellas,

[45:49] this isn't how many people read the press releases or listen to the podcast about it.

[45:55] But I saw figures it had the possibility of reaching over 400 million people.

[46:03] Wow. Because so many outlets picked it up because of the of the brand names

[46:09] and because of the stars involved. And my mouth fell open.

[46:14] But that's got to be satisfying that to see something that you put so much love

[46:19] into all those years ago is get is still getting that kind of a reception.

[46:24] I am pinching myself, Stuart. I don't know.

[46:28] I mean, it's totally unexpected. Yeah.

[46:30] And it is the best feeling I've ever had, you know,

[46:34] in terms of I feel like I've really accomplished something, you know,

[46:39] and for years I was totally unaware of all this and it was just growing.

[46:44] You know, it was growing out there like you talked about.

[46:47] Class of 84, you know, the class of 84.

[46:53] I think it's just terrific. You know, exploitation movie.

[46:59] And that was a success when it came out. But it was, you know,

[47:04] if you don't have the critics commenting, it doesn't get in the popular culture,

[47:09] you know, the, you know, the.

[47:14] And then, I mean, it was not a success,

[47:17] but thinner now seems to be growing in terms of at least audience awareness.

[47:22] And I am in love with Cloak and Dagger. Yeah.

[47:25] And I hope that Tarantino keeps running it. Yeah.

[47:31] So, I mean, I mean, you know, yes. So, yeah.

[47:33] So in my in my semi-retirement here, it's been amazingly, amazingly gratifying.

[47:41] And I want to thank the audience out there and you guys, too, for talking to me.

[47:45] Of course, you had that. I'm going to say that it was all foresight and all planning,

[47:49] that you had foresight and planning, too, that you you made these movies that spoke so,

[47:55] so strongly and so viscerally to young people watching them.

[47:59] And as those people grew up, they couldn't forget them.

[48:01] You know, I remember seeing Class of 1984 and it was already a movie that had been out for a little while.

[48:06] And I seen it on TV when I was a teenager.

[48:08] And it just kind of like it was like being punched in the face by a movie.

[48:12] And I just couldn't forget it after that.

[48:14] And so that you made these movies that just hit young people so, so hard.

[48:18] And so in such exciting ways that it stuck with us, you know,

[48:22] until we became old men that can force younger people than us to watch the movies we liked when we were young.

[48:29] Well, a big thanks to Mark Lester who produced and directed it.

[48:33] I think it's his best movie. He probably doesn't.

[48:36] But dramatically, that works.

[48:42] And there's a stunning performance in Class of 1984 by Rodney McDowell.

[48:46] Yes, yeah.

[48:47] As the teacher.

[48:48] And that was one of the big reasons that I knew he could move you as well as dramatically involve you.

[48:55] But I knew he could. I knew he could play that scene with Charlie Brewster where Charlie's begging him to come and save Amy.

[49:04] And Peter saying, I just can't. I'm too terrified.

[49:08] And Rodney moves you to tears.

[49:11] Yeah.

[49:12] And Mark Hamill does the same thing in the cast reading.

[49:17] Wonderful. Wonderful.

[49:20] So for the for the Fright Night cast, original cast reading that's available on all podcast platforms.

[49:29] Right. Oh, yeah.

[49:31] The second one just dropped today, which will be, you know, a while, a while ago from the time this episode comes out.

[49:39] I think all the parts will be out by then or part three will be about to come out.

[49:44] Well, that'd be great if you can watch one, one, two and three at the same time.

[49:49] That's because the script is as a reading just involves you more and more as it goes along because the stakes keep rising.

[49:58] And did you have to do.

[50:00] Did you have to do much,

[50:01] did you tweak the script at all before the reading

[50:03] or is it just straight from the page

[50:05] from when you wrote it years ago?

[50:07] No, what I did was I took out a lot of the narration.

[50:12] Okay, that makes sense.

[50:12] So I kept the drama moving along.

[50:15] That makes sense.

[50:16] Yeah, and I wrote a very long piece

[50:20] called Fright Night Resurrection

[50:22] about all of them getting together 30 years later.

[50:25] And I'm hoping that I can get sponsorship for that

[50:29] so we can do that as a podcast off of this.

[50:31] Oh, cool.

[50:32] That'd be so cool.

[50:33] For the original cast reading.

[50:34] Oh, I'd love to do that.

[50:36] I'd love to do that, yeah.

[50:38] Well, it sounds like you have a good start.

[50:40] You have a good foot in the door

[50:41] for this kind of thing.

[50:44] Yeah.

[50:44] Well, I may have found a different way to get out there.

[50:47] Yeah.

[50:48] You know, other than,

[50:49] I shouldn't be saying this, but I am saying it.

[50:53] I'm not doing 12 to 14 hour days anymore.

[50:59] I don't recommend it, no.

[51:01] Yeah, no, and turnarounds,

[51:03] because so much of horror is night.

[51:05] So you're always going from,

[51:07] you're always ending up finishing work

[51:09] on Saturday morning at dawn,

[51:11] and then starting out on dawn on Monday morning again

[51:14] doing days.

[51:16] And if you do that for 40 or 50 days,

[51:19] you're gonna need a stretcher to carry out, you know?

[51:23] So podcasts, you know, are just wonderful

[51:27] if I can get it going at this time of my life.

[51:30] Yeah.

[51:31] And still be creative and get my voice out there.

[51:34] I'm in love with this stuff, you know?

[51:37] Yeah, yeah.

[51:38] Yeah, yeah.

[51:39] Like, I think that's one of the things

[51:40] that I think hits,

[51:42] so, like, it's so true with your work

[51:44] is that you're clearly a fan,

[51:47] and I feel like that comes through.

[51:49] I think it really comes through,

[51:50] and I think that's what people connect with.

[51:52] Well, that's what Fright Night is.

[51:54] It's the ultimate fan letter to horror.

[51:57] Classical horror.

[52:00] So, Tom, do you have anything else

[52:03] you would like to plug before we wrap up?

[52:07] Let's see.

[52:08] Yeah, I have books up on Amazon.

[52:12] I think they're, because of the other Tom Holland,

[52:16] Tom Holland's become like Dick Smith, you know?

[52:20] Yeah.

[52:20] You've got two other Tom Hollands, at least,

[52:22] that you're competing with in the public square, yeah.

[52:24] Yeah, now I'm under Tom L. Holland.

[52:28] Congratulations on your relationship

[52:30] with Zendaya, by the way.

[52:31] Dan, oh, Dan, I hate to break it to you.

[52:35] Very funny, very funny.

[52:39] Oh, that's great.

[52:40] Anyway, you can find my books.

[52:42] You know, I mean, you can find,

[52:44] I've written a novel called The Notch.

[52:47] I have a collection of short stories

[52:49] called Odd's Old Tales or Twisted Tales.

[52:52] You can find them all on Amazon.

[52:55] Please look.

[52:57] I have a website called tarottime.shop.

[53:01] If you'd like items, look at like items.

[53:04] And this has been great fun.

[53:08] Great fun, fellas.

[53:09] We'll put a link in the show notes to that site.

[53:12] Yeah, please, please.

[53:13] Yeah, this was so much fun.

[53:14] It's so great that you were able to join us

[53:17] and talk about one of our, you know,

[53:18] some of our favorite movies.

[53:20] Yeah.

[53:21] And give us some insight into the making of them.

[53:24] For The Flophouse, I've been Stuart Wellington.

[53:26] I've been Dan McCoy.

[53:28] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[53:29] And joining us was.

[53:31] I'm Tom Holland.

[53:32] God bless you and thank you all.

[53:34] Go ahead.

[53:36] Okay, bye.

[53:38] Thank you.

[53:43] Maximum fun.

[53:45] A worker-owned network.

[53:46] Of artists-owned shows.

[53:48] Supported.

[53:49] Directly.

[53:50] By you.

FH Mini 107 - A Talk with Tom Holland!

Transcript

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