03x05 - Holiday Horror

[bunniefuu]

- This is Halloween,
the night when all the creepy

things are supposed
to stalk the earth.

- Halloween and horror films,
to me, go hand in hand.

They are one,
they are married,

they are united and that's it.

- The last thing in the world
I thought I would do

is another "Halloween" movie.

- Happy Halloween, Michael.

- Every major holiday
that we celebrate...

Has some sort
of bloodshed underneath it.

[dramatic music]

- We love the holidays,
but we dread the holidays.

- Happy Thanksgiving, Grandma.

- Holidays are exhausting.

[tense music]

- It's Christmas I hate most.

- So there's something
very forbidden and cathartic

about watching
everybody get chopped up.

- Merry Christmas.

- All holidays tend to feel
like bull(bleep) after a while.

- Ah!

- To take it over
and to completely

desecrate it
with a horror movie...

- Happy Father's Day.

...is always kind of nice.

- Punish!
- No!

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

- [screams]

- Holidays are
usually the time we get

together with our families.

- Tra la la la la!

- For better...

- Bless you heart,
I was afraid you weren't coming.

- Or worse.

- Grandpa is nothing
but a crazy old fool.

- But even if you get
along with your relatives,

holidays can be stressful.

[loud bang]
- Ah!

- Passive aggressive behavior.

- Careful, kids,
remember that your Aunt Sarah

likes everything to be
clean and perfect and that's why

she makes so much food
that you can't pronounce.

- Forced cheerfulness.

♪ Season to be jolly ♪

- Heavy drinking.

- Where's the nog,
I need to get merry.

- They're typical parts
of the holiday experience.

All that tension
needs to be released.

Enter the holiday
horror film...

Bringing our wildest

homicidal holiday
fantasies to life.

- It's juxtaposing what
gives us great comfort

with something
that terrorizes us.

- Ah!

It's a very simple equation...

♪ Happy birthday ♪

- That is effectively
ex*cuted in many films.

♪ To me ♪

- Trick or treat!

- For horror fans,
Halloween is the happiest

holiday of the year,
but it wasn't until 1978 that

filmmakers combined
its inherent spookiness

with graphic murders.

John Carpenter's "Halloween"

set the standard
for slasher films.

It's been imitated many times,
but rarely equaled.

"Halloween's" success kicked
off a wave of the festive

fright films that
continues to this day.

Of course,
after "Halloween," people

started realizing that
it was a pretty good

gimmick to market a horror
movie around a holiday.

[eerie music]

- Like what's Valentine's Day?

Okay, let's
do "My Bloody Valentine."

There's New Year's Eve,
let's just do "New Year's Evil."

- Happy New Year!

- Ahhh!

- Holiday horror
never went away,

but it returned to center
stage with the revival

of the franchise
that started it all.

"Halloween," 2018,
was a massive hit that

brought Jamie Lee Curtis
back to the role that

made her a star.

What was it like playing
Laurie Strode 40 years later?

- Well, it was just... it
honored all of it, it honored

the trauma, it honored the thing
that I've always wondered about

about these movies, which
is what happens to these people.

There's a lot of stuff
that happens, but then what

happens to the people
that survived after wards?

- David Gordon Green's
reboot made the bold choice

of ignoring all nine

"Halloween" sequels
and remakes.

- What made the first
film scary, and what made

Michael Myers scary,
you didn't know who he was.

All you knew is he k*lled
his sister, you don't know why.

You know, let's go back
to that pure dread that came

with Halloween
and let's go back

to that singular strong
final girl

that took him on, and let's
see what she's like 40 years

later, and she's, you know,
she's... she's kinda messed up.

- From a clinical perspective,
Doctor, would you say

that Laurie strode has
lost her (bleep)ing marbles?

- There are many
ways for tragedy

and v*olence to change a victim.

- She's still very deeply
affected by what happened,

but she's also a survivor
and she's ready for anything.

- Laurie lives in the woods,
she is a sure sh*t,

she practices every day
on these dummies, and she's

an end of days prepper,
ready for Michael Myers

because she knows Michael's
gonna come back.

Sometime someplace,
she will be prepared.

- Girl is as hard as can be.

The trauma
of what she went through,

you see it in her life down
to the way she built her house.

Everything is wrapped up.

This safety and the way
that she interacts with

her daughter,
and her daughter's daughter.

- If the way I raised
your mother means that she

hates me,
but that she's prepared

for the horrors
of this world, then...

I can live with that.

- We didn't see that
journey fully, but we know it.

- The opening sequences

with Michael Myers
in the insane asylum.

- There he is.

- Go right there
with some of the most

chilling stuff in any
Halloween picture ever.

- It is so beautiful,
the checkerboard floor,

those other people
out on the yard,

that strange man having a fit,
the dog barking.

- I love the fact they
brought back Nick Castle,

the original actor to play
The Shape in the asylum

scenes at the start,
I thought that was really great.

- He's being transferred and,
of course, he commandeers

the bus through acts
of incredible v*olence, and...

- He gets out.

- So now you've set up
a woman who's been

waiting and he comes back.

[eerie music swells]

[boot thuds]

- This movie finally
gave us that moment

of Michael Myers going
around on Halloween,

walking around
the neighborhood,

children bumping into h.

Just walking
through the house.

[eerie music]

[woman gasps]

- Spectacular... it's spectacular.

- After considerable mayhem,
Laurie, her daughter,

and her granddaughter
have a final showdown

with the unstoppable fiend.

- Michael's here,
get downstairs.

Go, baby, go!

- Michael seems certain
to win, but this is a film

about a woman who turns
the tables on her abuser.

[g*nsh*t blasts]

- She successfully traps him...

[gate slams]

- And, actually, has trained her

daughter to do so as well,
which I thought was really cool

because she plays
the damsel in distress

to the last moment.

- I can't do it!

Gotcha.

[g*nsh*t blasts]

[thud]

- Happy Halloween, Michael.

- Were you surprised that
it resonated the way it did,

that it was
such a cultural milestone?

- As we were
launching the 2018 movie,

it was right in the center
of the Me Too movement,

and so women taking power
and speaking truth to power,

voicing their experiences as
trauma victims, was echoing all

over the world when we released
that movie, a movie about

a woman taking power from her
trauma against her oppressor.

- Goodbye, Michael.

- So I think there
was this spectacular

confluence of life
and evolution of women,

and Laurie Strode coming
to grips with Michael Myers.

- Today, horror
and holidays go hand in hand,

but it wasn't always that way.

In 1974,
one movie started it all.

- Hello?

[man screaming]

- Hello?

[man screaming]

♪ ♪

- Christmas, it's the most
wonderful time of the year.

- Good morning, Merry Christmas.

[laughter]

- A time of joy, unmarred
by the dark side of life.

[dramatic musical sting]

- So they say.

- People forget that
Christmas used to be

a very spooky holiday,
that people used to get

together and tell ghost
stories on Christmas.

Only recently, over the last
few decades, has it been turned

into this very glossy,
shiny, family oriented event.

- So, it should not have
come as a surprise when

Bob Clark Combined Christmas
with graphic murders

and launched
a new style of horror.

[glass shattering]

- I think
Bob Clark's "Black Christmas"

is ground zero
for holiday horror.

I mean,
Bob Clark was a genius,

the guy created,
of course, "Deathdream,"

"Children Shouldn't Play
with Dead Things."

He takes the POV from
Mario Bava's "Bay of Blood,"

he applies the holiday
to it, basically

starts a slasher film
with "Black Christmas."

- On a snowy Christmas Eve,
a serial k*ller breaks

into the attic
of a sorority house.

He terrorizes
the women downstairs

with disturbing phone calls.

[creepy laughter on phone]

- They're so raw, those
phone calls are so intense.

- Let me lick your pretty,
pink, (bleep).

- That's so insane,
I don't even feel like

anyone would
put that in a movie now.

- Pretty, pink, (bleep).

- Even though I feel like,
as a society,

we've gotten more vulgar, those
phone calls just still shock.

- I'm going to k*ll you.

- Then he murders them
one by one.

- Ahhh!

- And that is where
a lot of the slashers

take their root,
and the idea that we can do

it at Christmas time just brings
this whole 'nother level to it.

[carollers singing]

- It makes it all shiny,
and beautiful, and pretty,

and then the blood feels
that much more bloody.

[dramatic music]

- [giggles]

- Bob Clark knows that to make
us fear for the characters,

we have
to care about them first.

- I thought the characters
felt so real, and that was my

favorite thing about it,
just, it felt like a real group

of friends, enemies, you know,
just a real group of women.

- Oh, come on, this is
a sorority house, not a convent.

- Margot Kidder,
and Keir Dullea,

and Olivia Hussey
and Andrea Martin,

the cast really made that
movie something really special.

- Oh, why don't you
go find a wall socket

and stick your tongue in it,
that'll give you a charge.

- As her friends disappear,
the film's heroine, Jess,

grapples with her decision
to have an abortion.

- You don't want it.

- No.

- It's a bold plotline for
a film made the year after

Roe v. Wade,
the Supreme Court ruling

protecting a
woman's right to choose.

By making her disapproving
boyfriend a suspect...

- Peter, Jesus,
you scared the hell out of me.

- The abortion debate becomes
part of the m*rder mystery.

- You selfish bitch.

You're talking about
k*lling our baby as though

you were having a wart removed.

- Now can you see why
I didn't want to tell you?

- And you're like, "Oh my god,
her boyfriend is now

stalking and k*lling
her because she wouldn't

have his baby..."

[glass shatters]

...because she
feels like she's too

young and she wants
to finish college.

- Retrospectively, we
look at "Black Christmas"

and it's very progressive.

- You can't ask me to drop
everything I've been working

for and give up all my ambitions
because your plans have changed.

- There's a lot going
on with these characters that is

reflective
of what was happening

in the early '70s for women.

- Clark's direction was
just as forward thinking.

- Hey!

- Introducing many
of the stylistic

tropes that
define the slasher genre,

baiting the audience
with a whodunit mystery.

- You think it's my fault,
don't you?

- Staging a series
of brutal murders,

each more
outlandish than the last.

[chainsaw rumbling]
- Ahhhh!

- And having
the k*ller hide inside

the house with his victims.

[phone ringing]

- Taunting them by telephone.

- The caller is in the house,

the calls
are coming from the house.

[dramatic music]

- And this is kind of one
of the first great examples

of the subjective camera
in a slasher movie.

But it's something that critics
jumped on later on, in "Friday

the 13th," they really att*cked
it because they were saying,

"Oh, it's putting you
in the k*ller's point of view,

it's attacking women,
and it's misogynist."

No, at least in the beginning,
that's not the point.

The point is,
you never see the face,

that's what's so scary.

You have no idea what this guy

looks like,
all you see is his eye.

[dramatic musical sting]

- Jess is the only survivor
of the m*ssacre,

making her one of the first
final girls in horror.

She confronts her
boyfriend and kills him.

But unlike "Halloween"
and other slashers to come,

there's no cathartic victory.

The police,
assuming the murders are over,

leave her asleep in the house,
then the phone rings.

[phone ringing]

- Because her boyfriend
was not the k*ller,

and the cops are wrong,
and they didn't get him, and now

she's probably going to die
because of their incompetence.

[phone ringing]

[eerie music]

- And it's written that way
deliberately to infuriate us.

We're supposed to see
how society leaves

this woman vulnerable.

[phone ringing]

- As those credits are
rolling and you just hear

that phone ringing,
and ringing, and ringing,

it's supposed to leave
you uneasy,

like even after the credits
stop, you know, you're like,

"Okay, am I safe now?"

You know,
and you don't know.

- And we weren't safe
because "Black Christmas"

led to "Halloween" and the
slasher glut of the 80s.

- Ahhh!

- Agghh!

- Ahh!

- Perhaps in penance,
the next holiday film

Bob Clark directed was
"A Christmas Story,"

a film as warm and fuzzy
as "Black Christmas" is cold

and creepy, but even that
film featured a bad Santa.

- Ho, ho, ho.

- Ahhh!

- Sinister Santas were
soon to become fixtures

in the landscape
of holiday horror.

- Naughty!

[dramatic music]

- Chris Kringle,
Father Christmas, Saint Nick,

Santa Claus,
we know him by many names.

He's a jolly old elf.

- Merry Christmas!

- But in horror,
even Santa has a dark side.

- If you
think about Santa Claus,

the whole thing is creepy.

There's a man coming into
your house, down your chimney

to bring you gifts, and you
feed him, it's low-key grooming.

- I want you to remember
to stay good boys and girls.

Now if you do this,
I'll make sure you get

good presents from me
every year.

- It's weird.

- Sinister Santas have

popped up in movies
for decades.

- Ahh!

- The most notorious remains
"Silent Night, Deadly Night"

from 1984.

- If you've
seen all the slashers,

you're a little taken aback
by "Silent Night, Deadly Night."

- Ahh!

- The idea of putting on
a Santa Claus suit and going

out and k*lling, taking horror
to that level, it's brutal.

- The movie begins as
young Billy watches a man

dressed as Santa Claus
m*rder his parents.

- No! No!

[tires squealing]

[g*nshots]

- No!

- Billy grows up and gets
a job at a toy store.

When he's forced to dress
as Santa Claus for Christmas,

he has a psychotic break.

- You remember what Santa Claus
does on Christmas Eve, don't ya?

- Where are ya,
you little bastard?!

- Yeah, I know what he does.

- He starts k*lling
everyone he deems naughty.

- Punish.

[glass shatters]

Punish!

Punish.
- Ahhh!

- People who don't understand
the concept of slasher movies,

to them, it's all violent p*rn,
as far as they're concerned,

because they just don't get it,
and most of the films that they

made a big deal about,
I wish they were closer to what

they think they were,
I wish they were that strong.

- Mm-hmm.
- "Silent Night, Deadly Night"

is (bleep)ed up
for a horror film fan.

[eerie piano music]

- The film's desecration
of Christmas caused a scandal.

Protests by angry parents
and religious groups led

to the film being pulled

from theaters
after only a week.

But the figure
of a sinister Santa

has been around for centuries.

Europeans grow up haunted
by stories of Krampus,

St. Nick's
sinister doppelganger.

The film "Krampus"
brought him to suburban

America and satirized

the commercialization
of Christmas.

- I was getting a little bit
more cynical

about the holidays,

and I think it was an effort
to sort of try and turn the tide

inside of myself and rediscover
the magic of Christmas,

even if it
was through a horror story.

- "Krampus" begins like
a family relationship comedy.

- Merry Christmas!

- Move it, we don't have to keep
the traffic jam going now.

- Oh, let me help you.

[thud]

- Two families are getting
together for Christmas.

They're very different
types of families.

- Well, I just thought
you guys might like a break

from macaroni
and cheese with hotdogs.

- Yeah, okay.

- They don't necessarily
get along and they don't

share a lot
of the same worldviews.

- Honey, we said no g*n
talk at the dinner table.

- This family needs
a little g*n talk whether

it's at the dinner
table or anywhere else.

- I think it was really
fun that the family was

kind of dysfunctional
'cause it kind of reminded

me of every Christmas
dinner out there where

you invite the cousins
you don't like...

- [belches]

- The uncle you never see.

- Ha ha,
that's my boy!

- It sure is.

- Adam Scott,
Toni Collette, David Koechner,

the late great Conchata Ferrell.

- Looks like Martha Stewart
threw up in here.

- Allison Tolman, these are
all actors that you almost

would expect to see in "National
Lampoon's Christmas Vacation"

or something like that.

- The center of the story
is young Max, played by

Emjay Anthony,
who is struggling

not to lose faith
in Christmas.

- He's trying to desperately
hold on to the family.

He misses his big sister,
you know,

he wants to actually have good
things happen for his family.

- Wait, mom, aren't we
gonna watch Charlie Brown?

- And the second
he gives up...

- I just wanted to Christmas
to be like it used to be,

but forget it, I hate Christmas,
I hate all of you.

- The Krampus is like,
"Yep, you messed up now."

- Krampus is
a shadow of St. Nicholas.

He represents everything
that Santa Claus isn't and he's

dispatched to punish
non-believers on the holiday.

- And so, power goes out,
then their daughter goes

to see her boyfriend,
now she's missing.

Something is happening,

something monstrous
is out there.

- I've hunted a lot of game
in my day, those are hooves.

- The house starts
getting att*cked by all

manner of Krampus minions.

- Ahhh!

- Oh sh...

- From these trollish,
dwarfish, horrors,

gingerbread men...

...beautifully, creepy,
sinister clown snake.

- Come on.

[roars]

- sh**t it,
Tom, sh**t it!

- So this whole family
that normally doesn't like

each other, is forced
to come together, put aside

their differences, and overcome
Krampus and his minions.

- Shepherd's gotta protect
his flock.

[monster roaring]

- Like many Christmas tales,

everyone learns
a valuable lesson...

- I'm sorry.

- The hard way.

- Noooo!

[dramatic music]

- Ahh, ahhh!

- It's a very personal
statement for myself,

just how hard it is
to maintain optimism

and a belief in the goodness
of human beings when

you're confronted
with the opposite every time you

wake up in the morning
and turn on the news.

- Merry Christmas, Max.

- I do think it's kind
of a good family horror movie.

I was so happy to be in it.

I felt like, "(bleep) yes, this
is awesome, this is awesome,"

and I thought this is
going to just blow people away.

[monsters shriek]

- Holiday partyers
are literally blown away

in two famous slashers
from the Great White North.

[eerie music]

- Two of the most memorable
holiday slashers came

out of Canada
in the early 1980s.

The first was "Terror Train"
starring Jamie Lee Curtis,

two years after "Halloween."

Can you tell me the plot
of "Terror Train?"

- "Terror Train" is
a bunch of college kids,

New Year's Eve,
taking a train for a party

on the train,
and a bad guy shows up.

- On New Year's Eve
of their senior year,

a group of pre-meds gather

for an ill-fated
costume party.

- Happy New Year!

- Three years earlier,
they played a cruel

prank on virginal young Kenny.

- Elena?

- Hello, Kenny.

- Baiting him
with the promise of sex.

- Don't be shy,
this is my first time, too.

- Then surprising him
with a corpse.

[dramatic music]

- The shock drove him insane.

- Ahh, ahh, ahhh!

- Now he's back for revenge.

- All aboard.

- Early on in the film,
a character is literally k*lled

in front of other people
and nobody notices because

everybody's in costume,
everybody's drunk,

everybody's having a good time,
and he's the joker so

they're like, "Ha ha,
funny joke, dying."

And the k*ller assumes
this person's identity

by wearing their costume.

Nobody notices that
all of a sudden he's

taller or doesn't speak.

- We're at
the station with a sword.

- And that's the key
essence of the film.

It's... it's a revenge slasher
about someone that you never

used to pay attention
to except to make fun of,

and now you're still
not paying attention

to them,
and they're gonna k*ll you.

- In "Terror Train,"
appearances

aren't just deceiving,
they're deadly.

Beneath their surface beauty,

the students
are callous brats,

reeking of unearned privilege.

- Mo and I worked
in an emergency

gynecological ward.

- Doc won
an award.

- Best pap smear in a
supporting role, come on.

- The k*ller mocks
their superficiality

by disguising himself
with the masks of his victims.

- It adds
to the paranoia because

your sweetheart might be
in the gorilla suit one minute,

and then the next
minute you think you're

getting a midnight kiss
and it's the k*ller.

- Ahhh!

- "Terror Train" was
sh*t entirely at night

aboard an actual steam
train by John Alcott,

the man who
photographed "The Shining"

and "Barry Lyndon"
for director Stanley Kubrick.

- John Alcott figured
out how to sh**t in very

low natural light.

In "Barry Lyndon,"
he would sh**t scenes

with natural candle light,
for example,

which was something
that people

hadn't really seen before.

And that got him an
Academy Award.

Now, "Terror Train,"
in its own way,

it's also a bit of a ground
breaker because

they were sh**ting it,
you know, with this real train,

and they had to figure out
how to light the darn thing.

- John Alcott wired
all of the practical

lights on the train
to a lightboard, and he would

light the scene by dials,
that's it.

- It's very painterly,
if you look at that film,

almost every sh*t.

I think it's one of the most
beautiful slasher films of the era.

- What are your memories of it?

- I remember that it was nights,
I remember it was cold AF,

and I wore big hoop earrings,
and I said to them,

"In the fight,
it would be great if he pulls

through the hoop earring,
and like splits her ear open."

- Ahh!

- But it was all one take and so
how was I going to get bloody?

So, I go under, like,
a bed or something and there

was a pool of blood
that we had left there.

So, when I went under there...

- You'd do your own makeup
and come out.

- I did my own makeup and then
come out and now it's all bloody

and you really think like, "Wow,
he really ripped her ear apart."

- That's third grade stuff.

- Really?
[switchblade clicks]

- For much of the movie,
we're led to believe that

a magician, played
by real life illusionist

David Copperfield,
is the k*ller.

- A magician.
- Magician?

- But in keeping
with the film's theme,

all is not what it seems.

- The big reveal was that
it was his female assistant,

who was trans...
- Yeah.

- Was ultimately the k*ller.

- It brings you back
to that illusion idea,

that he's
creating this magic trick.

When you see the movie again,
you're kind of like,

"It's totally Kenny,"
but because your brain is

making assumptions,
it's not seeing that.

It's saying, "Oh, well,
that's the magician,

that's his assistant."

So, you label him
or her as an assistant,

it couldn't
possibly be the k*ller.

And so, I really think
that the magic theme,

sort of, underscored what they

were trying to achieve
with the reveal of the k*ller.

- It was you.

- Still, seen 40 years later,
it's a controversial choice.

- It's a version of the q*eer
panic subgenre that

you (bleep)ed
with my sexuality

in some way that made me

question my gender identity
and k*ll people.

[dramatic music]

[train rumbling]

[wind howling]

[thud]

- A year
after "Terror Train" made

us leery of New Year's
and costume parties,

"My Bloody Valentine" did
the same for the day of love.

- Ahhhh!

[dramatic music]

- The night
of the Valentine's Day dance,

everybody was there except
for seven miners who

were out at the Hanniger Mine.

- An accident
on Valentine's Day

in a small mining town

kills a score of men
and turns a traumatized

survivor into
a cannibalistic serial k*ller.

The town bans
Valentine's Day celebrations.

20 years later,
a new generation decides

it's time
to get the party started.

- Roses are red,
violets are blue,

one is dead and so are you?

- Then the murders begin.

- Mabel!

[dramatic music]

- To me,
it's the best of the Canadian

slasher films,
partly because it commits

to being
a Canadian slasher film.

- Yeah, it's not like
well-to-do kids in a sorority

house being picked off.

- No, no,
it's in a steel mining town

in Canada where they
have thick Canadian accents.

- There ain't
nothing to do about it.

- You can't have 'em both, you know?
- I don't want them both.

- You'll be sorry you didn't
listen to me, you'll be sorry.

- As the party rages,
a mysterious k*ller

picks off the miners
and their girlfriends

one by one
in creatively macabre ways.

[heavy breathing]

- Sylvia?

[eerie music]

- Like "Terror Train,"

"My Bloody Valentine" makes
the most out of its location.

The last half hour
of the film takes place

deep inside an actual mine.

- There's one way out
and that way is probably blocked

by your
pursuing maniac in a mask.

It's tight, it's dark,
there are no places of light

except those that are
strung by the mining company.

So you're completely removed
from civilization,

and you are thrust

into the most claustrophobic
environment possible.

- [gasps]

- Nowadays,
"My Bloody Valentine"

is one of the most significant and
beloved of the Golden Age slasher films.

[maniacal laughter]

- Sarah, be my bloody Valentine.

[laughing continues]

- It's really just
a textbook example of how

you pull off
one of these things.

[maniacal laughter]

- Some people like to head
out for the holidays,

to get in touch with
old friends,

or spend quality time
with dear old mom.

- Ain't we havin' fun?

- Well, I don't know
about the two of you,

but I'm getting out of here.
- Wait for me.

- Holidays are a great
time for a getaway

with your friends...

except in horror movies.

Exhibit A,
1980's "Mother's Day."

Three college friends
on a camping trip are

kidnapped
by psychotic brothers.

- Why don't you get the Kodak?

- Yeah, I'll get the Kodak.

- They subject the women

to a night
of abuse and t*rture,

all for the entertainment
of their sadistic mother.

- My boys.

- One woman dies,
the others escape,

but then they turn back.

- We'll get those bastards.

- These women actively said,
"We're gonna go back,

and we're gonna hunt these
people down, and we're gonna

k*ll them and get revenge for
what they did to our friend."

That was badass,
there was a certain

feminist element to it
that I really appreciate,

that was unusual
for a film of that time.

- Jackie, every way you
turned in life you got sh*t.

Well, now we'll do
the fighting back for you.

♪ ♪

- When I was a kid, I was
obsessed with Mother's Day.

I even screened it at
my bar mitzvah party

with my mom in attendance.

I had very tolerant parents.

It's not for everyone.

- Now take
care of the big one, Ike.

- But look
past the sensationalism

and you'll find a wicked
satire of pop culture.

- Wake up, it's me, Big Bird,
and it's time to get up.

- The mother has these
psychopathic sons who have been

weaned on television
and so they have no way

of distinguishing between
fantasy and reality.

- All right, now,
it's beautiful day, see?

You're readin' somethin'
real good.

- Yeah, like a muscle magazine.

- All three villains are
punished with ironic deaths.

One brother is literally
k*lled by television,

the other
gets an axe to the groin,

and the mother meets
a uniquely maternal end.

- No, let me be, let me be,
I'm a sick woman!

- I wanted something
more from the mother's death.

- Yeah.

- Then I thought,
"Oh, my God, it's perfect,

mother's been
suffocated by the breasts."

- Yeah.

- It's really what made
me see what you could

do with a slasher film.

I started
watching Mother's Day over,

and over,
and over, and thinking,

"Oh my god, you can actually
say a lot with a slasher movie."

- "April Fool's Day"
from 1986 is another film

about a gory getaway and,
unlike some holiday

slashers, it takes its
title seriously.

- We've talked about before that
I like "April Fool's Day."

- I love
"April" for Fred Walton,

man, I mean, what a great film.

- College student,
Muffy, invites her smug,

overprivileged friends to her
family's secluded island

for an April Fool's Day party.

- We're gonna
spend a weekend there?

- The pranks begin
almost immediately.

- Well, what... what
are you scared?

- Hey, I said give it a rest.

- You have a fake
death at the beginning.

You have
a guy pretending to get k*lled.

- We got 'em.

- Ha, ha, April Fools.

- It's like you're never quite
sure what's real and what's not.

- The childish prank
is followed

by a horrific accident.

- Buck, look out!

- Ahhhh!

[crunching]

- Ahhhh!

- Soon it seems we're
watching a whodunnit

slasher where the students
are picked off one by

one with not entirely
convincing special effects.

- There's that one scene where,
you know,

the risky couple's in bed.

- What is this, show and tell?

- And she, like,
gives him a nudge and his hands

fall over and we know
that he has been dismembered.

- And, of course,
they don't bother to think about

all your buddies
are getting k*lled off

on April Fool's Day,

maybe there's something
else going on here?

[dramatic music]

- But they're not really
the brightest bulbs

so you let it slide.

- The final survivors learn
that Muffy's homicidal twin,

Buffy, is the k*ller.

- No, nooo!

- Then, in one of the most
divisive horror endings

of all time, they discover
everybody is still alive.

Muffy has pulled
a massive prank

on her friends
and the audience.

- April Fools!

- I don't condone pranks like
that in real life because you

really never know how someone's
gonna react to a situation.

- I love you.

- I love you
too, babe.

- Ahh, aggh!

- Watching it in a film
and having it all play out

on screen,
I think, is fantastic.

[laughing]

- For me,
the ending was what kept it

from being
a classic horror film.

- It's unfair that
people write the movie

off because of the ending.

- Does that negate
the whole movie, yeah.

- That it
negates the whole film.

Now, I really like the ending,
now I know what to expect,

I really like the ending.

- But is that about it
breaking its own rules?

- Yeah, but in the case
of "April Fool's Day,"

I think that's our failure
because, no, it's April Fools,

it didn't happen,
that's the point.

- They played a joke.

- It's the point of the holiday,
"April Fool's!"

It's clearly
marked on the label,

it's our misunderstanding of it,
they did a perfect job.

- Yeah, you're right,
I never even thought

of it that way,
that's really funny.

[laughter]

- April Fool.

[eerie music]

- Happy birthday.

- What's worse than being
m*rder*d on your birthday?

Endlessly reliving that day
and dying over and over again.

- Hey!

[tense music]

See you soon
(bleep)hole.

Ahhh!

[dramatic music]

- Holiday horror films
are often about the terror

of facing our families.

Christopher Landon's slasher
comedy, "Happy Death Day..."

is about the terror
of facing ourselves.

- "Happy Death Day" is
about a very stereotypical

mean girl sorority member
named Tree Gelbman,

who I play, who

kind of only cares about herself
until one day she is m*rder*d.

- Ahhhh!

- But then immediately
wakes up again on the day

of her birthday.

And then she's thrown into,
kind of, this ongoing cycle,

Groundhog's Day loop
of being k*lled again,

and again, and again,
no matter what she does.

[dramatic music]

- This has gotta be,
like, the strangest

birthday you've
ever had, huh?

- You have no idea.

- This being a slasher,

the movie is filled
with spectacular kills

committed by a silent
m*rder in a baby mask.

- Ahhhh!

[glass shatters]

- I hate to say it, but I really
love k*lling people on camera.

There's definitely a challenge
to coming up with

unusual kills,

but, like, it's also,
like, it's really fun

and I've always kind
of had a funny knack for it.

- Oh, (bleep).

[expl*si*n thunders,
glass shatters]

- As Tree
is tested by the ordeal,

her layers of defensive
snark break down...

- Mmm, have a little,
a few calories won't k*ll you.

- Revealing her
complex inner core.

- In Hollywood,
and especially in genre

and horror movies, so often,
women get kind of pigeonholed.

You're either the good girl,
or you're the bad one who

gets k*lled right away,
or you're the bitch,

or you're the angel, and Tree
gets to be all of those things.

[tense music]

- Who are you?!

Show your face you p*ssy!

- She has this great trauma,
she lost her mom, the person she

was closer to than anyone
else in the world,

and she's never really
been able to process it.

- I bet you miss her.

- Yeah.

You know what's funny,
you relive

the same day
over and over again...

you kind of start to see
who you really are.

- If I have a jam,
or a gimmick, or whatever,

it is bringing that grounded
emotional stuff and then jamming

it into horror movies where they
don't belong, typically.

Because as a horror fan,
like, I know all the tricks.

[dramatic music]

- Like, I've
grown up watching all

the tricks and so it's really
fun to have this grab bag.

- Ahhh!

- But then know that,
like, all of that is

going to be infused
with something that's

really foreign to...
to these types of movies.

- Happy birthday, baby.

- I love the message
that the film has when it

comes to grief and loss,
and how you have to, kind of,

confront it and really
go through it, and spend some

real time with that loss and
not run away from it because

I think Tree's been running
for a really, really long time.

[wind whistling]

- Holiday horror films
can be cathartic releases

of bottled up emotions...

- Come on!

- Or deliberate stabs
in the eye of polite society.

Some find them offensive.

- Merry Christmas, Frank.

- But that's kind of
the point.

- Good horror is all about
uncomfortable juxtapositions.

It's about taking something
like Christmas,

something we love

and find comforting, and then
ruining it for everyone forever.

[g*nsh*t blasts]
- Ahhhh!

- It is in the nature
of horror fiction,

horror cinema, to be a little
bit like punk rock.

[g*nshots]

- If you
fail to piss anyone off...

- Die!
- Ahhhh!

- You're
probably doing it wrong.

- Oh, God!