01x02 - Atomic Nightmares

[bunniefuu]

[film reel clacking]

[Robert Englund]
The movies have always provided

a safe place to face our fears.

In that dark movie theater,

we deal with the monsters
terrorizing us in our real lives

by seeing them defeated up there
on the big screen.

Horror films like Dracula,
The Invisible Man,

and The Wolf Man
provided a useful catharsis

for a frightened populace.

Those movies
gave audiences a place

to share their collective fears,

or even national traumas
brought on

by financial instability,
World Wars,

and the global tensions
that followed.

The financial fears

and the wartime terrors
of the '30s and '40s

were soon followed
by new threats.

[screaming]

A nation horrified

at the thought
of nuclear destruction,

of scientists going too far
and wreaking havoc with nature,

and by a Cold w*r between
the Soviets and Americans

that threatened
global destruction.

National fears
of nuclear annihilation,

Communist infiltrations,

and an even more destructive
global conflict

than World w*r II
resulted in horror films

about science run amuck,
alien invasions from the skies,

and extraterrestrial
body snatchers

right here on Earth.

The public, more than ever,
were drawn to movies

that help them confront
those anxieties.

[♪]

[film reel clacking]

[click]

[♪]

[♪]

[♪]

[♪]

[film reel clacking]

[whirring]

[indistinct conversations]

[man] The drive-in movie
takes care of everything.

Courtship, babysitting, shelter,
Marilyn Monroe, food and drink.

There's hot, delicious popcorn,
lots of candy, and cold drinks.

Now...

[man #2] It's showtime.

[♪]

[Carpenter]
I grew up in the '50s,

so those were my formative years
as a moviegoer

and somebody who loved movies
at the time.

So I saw a lot of
science-fiction films

and all the giant
monster movies,

a lot of radiation-did-it
movies,

that type of thing.

[♪]

1951... went to a theater
in Rochester, New York.

I saw It Came from Outer Space
in 3-D.

In the opening of that movie,

this big ol' meteor
comes out of space,

comes right into the screen

and out of the screen
into the audience

and blows up in your face.

And it blew up in my face,
and I jumped up and ran.

[screams]

But then I stopped,
and I thought,

"That's the greatest thing
I've ever seen.

I've got to go back
and see more."

So that was the beginning
of it all.

[Oswalt] Well,
when I was growing up,

horror meant whatever
monster movies were on

on a Saturday
on the local station.

[♪]

I grew up in Northern Virginia,
so we had WDCA, channel 20,

and that was,
Saturday afternoons,

there was a monster movie on.

I've never seen venom
in such quantity before.

You know, there's more venom
in this test tube

than you'll find
in 100 tarantulas.

As a movie fan,
it offered me something

beyond watching
two adults talking.

It was, two adults would talk,

and then some kind of crazy,
engineered creature...

Somebody in makeup
or in a costume...

Would show up and bring mayhem.

And that, to me,
was hilarious.

[♪]

To me, monsters were scary.

A giant mutated ant,
a lizard man,

fish man coming out of a swamp
or lagoon to k*ll you.

[music swells]

[♪]

For me growing up,
you know, in my mind,

Godzilla or one of
the half-dozen monsters

that were on Monster Island
were going to, you know,

come tramping across
the Northern Virginia suburbs

and wipe everyone out
for some reason.

[♪]

[Romero]
Horror films in the '50s,

I believe their popularity
came from the fact

that there was
a changing perspective,

that it was a world
that was saying,

"It's time to look
at the entire world

differently than it's ever
been looked at before."

And that was heavy.

[♪]

And I think horror films,
just like movies in general,

provided a level of escapism
that was unparalleled.

I think in this country,
there were people,

especially with
the nuclear threat,

the nuclear scare,

there was this unparalleled fear
among everybody,

and so you've got
a heightened audience already.

A short time ago,

an American airplane
dropped one b*mb on Hiroshima

and destroyed its usefulness
to the enemy.

[Englund] As the world
was reeling from

the frightening destruction
caused by the hydrogen b*mb,

horror films
in the post-nuclear era

began to focus less

on the fantasy
of supernatural monsters

and more on the real-life terror
that man creates.

I think a lot of horror
borrows from its culture

and borrows from its time
and makes movies about it

and fashions points of view

that we didn't have
when I started.

[Romero] Got this heightened
kind of terror

already instilled
in these people,

and now you show them
a f*cked-up horror movie,

and it strikes a nerve.

But I think that the commentary,
especially back then,

allowed people
to kind of examine

what struck that nerve in them,

what nerve was struck,
how it made them feel.

And I think it allowed people
to kind of look at things

a little bit differently
and also have some fun

in a time when there wasn't fun.

Everybody was scared
all the time, every day,

and there was no fun.

And I think we need to have fun.

We're built for it.

- Aah!
- [laughter]

[Romero] As a people,
we need to have fun.

[Englund] In 1954, the horror
genre was forever changed

with a Japanese kaiju,

a giant monster film
called Godzilla.

The now iconic monster
was originally envisioned

as a larger-than-life octopus,

but was redesigned
as a mash-up of traits

from prehistoric dinosaurs.

You know, Godzilla,
just to me,

he just represents
something from my childhood

more than anything.

[♪]

I mean, like,
it's one of these characters

that I'll never be able
to remember

the first moment that I saw him,

because he was just
always around.

He always existed.

And being obsessed with
dinosaurs and things like that,

he just...
He fit perfectly in that

'cause he was a dinosaur with
a personality and with a name.

As a kid, when you watch movies,

you're not just watching
what's in front of you.

Your imagination is still going,

so the monsters in the suits
and the costumes and stuff,

they don't just look
like guys in suits.

You feel like they
are 100% real monsters.

[♪]

I think that whenever I was
making Godzilla vs. Kong,

I remember the debate out on
the schoolyard when I was a kid,

and I remember my best friend
at the time,

he came in there, and he was
talking about how, you know,

King Kong would win
in the fight and all this.

And I just thought he was crazy.

I just couldn't believe

that he would think
that King Kong would win.

I'm just like, "Godzilla
is Godzilla." You know?

"He's not gonna lose
to a big monkey."

I think as a filmmaker,
it's very important

to always be half in touch

with that sort of
half-formed part of your brain

when you're a kid,
because there's still like...

There's a magic there
that you can't replicate.

[screaming]

[Turek] Seeing Godzilla
come up over the mountain

for the first time
is terrifying.

He's one of my favorite monsters
of all time.

[♪]

I think what audiences love
about monster movies

is seeing how characters react
to this monstrous threat

and how they all have
to come together

to face this thing
and understand the rules.

There's always kind of a whole
process to a monster movie.

It's like, "What is it?

Oh, my God,
that thing can never exist.

Holy crap, it does exist.
What are the rules to k*ll it?"

[roars]

[Turek] You know, I think
the monster movie as we know it

owes a lot
to that original Godzilla.

[Englund] The original Godzilla
was an allegory

for post-w*r Japan.

Nine years earlier, during
the culmination of World w*r II,

the United States
had dropped atomic bombs

on the cities
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

k*lling more than 200,000.

It remains
the only time in history

nuclear weapons were used.

The original Godzilla
was all about

Japan post-World w*r II trying
to reclaim their identity,

trying to process
the aftermath of the atom b*mb.

And it really felt like
Godzilla was this response

to man's hubris
in creating the ultimate weapon.

[speaking Japanese]

I can only imagine that watching
the original Godzilla

in the '50s in Japan

would have been
a pretty intense experience.

I mean, there's images
in that film

that are, like, exactly taken

to emulate the aftermath
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

the expl*si*n
of the atomic b*mb there.

The atomic b*mb was dropped
on Japan in, what, 1945,

and the original Godzilla
came out in '54.

I mean,
that's not very long after.

[Englund] Godzilla embodied
the fear felt by the Japanese

in the wake of these attacks.

[♪]

A destructive beast that,
once unleashed,

could never really be
fully controlled again.

It's a cautionary tale

that has taken on new meanings
over the years.

What I think is really
interesting about Godzilla

is he kind of went from
representing the atom b*mb

to now kind of being
the defender of the earth.

Like, there's a lot of allegory
for climate change

in the monster verse right now.

[♪]

And you can really see that
evolve from the '50s.

- [women screaming]
- [thrilling music playing]

[Turek] I think
the monster movie as we know it

has changed significantly
over the decades.

[Englund] Throughout the years,
monster movies have followed

the evolution of Godzilla,

reflecting what people are most
afraid of at any given time.

Mutations are prevalent,

and because of our dabbling
in science and playing God,

giant monsters
are going to eat us.

And those giant monsters
ranged from tarantulas

to giant ants

to giant vulture-looking
creature things.

I mean, like, there was just
so much out there

that wanted to eat us
because of our atomic testing.

[♪]

[♪]

One of my favorites
from special-effects movies

in the 1950s is 1954's Them!...

[♪]

...in which we have
a group of ants

that get hit
with atomic radiation,

and all of a sudden,
they go to extreme proportions.

[♪]

The movie
is incredibly effective,

with these giant ants coming
after tiny, little people.

Get the other antenna!

Get the other antenna!

He's helpless
without them.

It stood out because, suddenly,
it was this idea

of the tiniest thing
that you can possibly imagine,

an ant, is what is going to
stomp on your house.

Like, we did not have

a lot of giant-creature films
at this time period,

and so the idea of taking
something really small

and blowing it up on screen
was awesome.

[Englund] 1954's Them!

Was one of the first
nuclear monster movies

to be produced in America,

paving the way
for countless others to follow.

Released at almost the same time
as Godzilla,

the American kaijus
were inspired

by newsreels of atomic testing

as countries fortified
their nuclear arsenals.

[Turek] Well,
I think a movie like Them!

Is just kind of like

that archetypal
Atomic Age monster movie.

You know, it's our meddling
with atomic testing

out in the middle
of some desert.

It's like, Mother Nature, man.
Don't mess with it.

Let Mother Nature do its thing.

Horror films tend to revolve
around emotional storytelling,

and the emotion that
they focus most on is fear,

and fear is a response.

[♪]

You know, as far back
as the 1950s,

there was a fear expressed
in horror movies

of the horrors of what
atomic radiation might do

and how that might
corrupt nature.

[man] Here, gentlemen,
is your villain.

They almost never come up
unless they're disturbed.

Disturbed? By what?

Hydrogen bombs.

H bombs have been blamed
for every freak accident

that's happened since, up to,
and including...

Fire!

...great monsters
being disturbed.

[Wilson] Some of that
was quite laughable.

Like, we watch those movies now

about giant spiders or ants
or whatever.

But what we're dealing with now
is, around us, we see

what happens when
you slowly poison the earth.

Like, what happens

when you just pump
toxic effluents into the water.

Like, things die, things mutate,
they stop breeding.

[man] Let us face without panic
the reality of our times...

The fact that atom bombs

may someday
be dropped on our cities.

And let us prepare for survival

by understanding the weapon
that threatens us.

[Man #2] Here is
the motion-picture spectacle

of all time.

[♪]

A million tons of water
alive with deadly rays.

Awe-inspiring
in its significance for man,

who learned
how to control the atom,

but must now learn
to control himself.

[Turek] There was a lot to be
afraid of after World w*r II.

You know, the Atomic Age
wasn't just relegated

to giant monsters.

There was also stories
about atomic experimentation.

You were dealing with mutations.

And that fear,

that fear of radiation
because of power plants,

because of atomic testing,
all of that,

that wasn't just exclusive
to the '50s, I feel.

Like, even growing up
in the '80s,

there were two things
I was afraid of...

Quicksand and radiation.

You know?

'Cause you just never knew,

like, when there might be
an accident

or if you were gonna get bombed.

[Wilson] Horror films have
always stood as a warning,

like, "This is what happens
if you transgress."

And it's one thing
when it's like,

"Don't go into the woods,
young teenagers,

because the ax man
will chop off your heads."

But, really, ecological horror

has been telling us
for years now

that we are going
into the woods,

and we are going to get
our species' head chopped off

if we don't take notice

and behave in a more kind

and responsible manner.

[♪]

Them! is regarded as kind of
maybe like a step up

from the other stuff because

there is a little bit of
horror film making

that really works,

like that whole opening scene

where there's this little girl
left behind,

and all we hear is
that high-pitched sound

of the ant making its noise,

and you don't know
what's attacking

this little girl's family
and whatnot.

Really scary stuff.

It ended up getting nominated
for an Academy Award

and lost to
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,

but still one of the landmark
special-effects films

of the 1950s.

[♪]

Everything that we see
in the 1950s is about paranoia.

It is about our sweet,
little, bucolic society

somehow being infiltrated,

whether it be via
atomic radiation,

monsters from space,
monsters from the deep,

the neighbor that
you didn't know was evil

who's been living
next to you for years.

It was all about
paranoia and fear,

and it came out in
many different ways on screen,

but it all links back to us
just being scared of everything,

scared that everything
that we believe in,

that we hold true
as American values,

it's all nothing.

[♪]

[man]
There's a great deal more

to this American way of life,
of course,

and it's all familiar enough.

The Main Street of any town
is almost a symbol of America.

That's where the stores are.
That's where we go shopping.

Candy and ice cream,
buy all you want.

[distorted speech]

Movies... come early
and get the best seat.

[distorted speech]

The raw, harsh,
unpleasant fact

is that communism is an issue.

Don't let the communists
use you.

Please, don't be a dupe.

[Englund] With the onset
of the Cold w*r,

tensions between the U.S.
and Russia began to rise.

Americans were petrified
by the notion

that communism was everywhere,
hiding in plain sight,

threatening to destroy
their way of life.

Many feared that

a Soviet nuclear attack
on U.S. soil was imminent

and that
their... their neighbors

could be communist spies.

The mass panic opened the door
to horror films

that reflected this
escalating national paranoia.

As we move into the 1950s,
we see film itself

trying to push into new areas.

We've all been sitting
in theaters

for decades at this point,

so the filmmakers and the
exhibitors are really looking

for ways
to get more people in the seats.

And especially with
the advent of television,

they have to find a way
to get you off your couch now.

So what we see them doing

is really bringing in all
of these new innovations.

Tony, this is important.

[Englund] And the audience
that embraced the innovations

and the gimmicks
were America's teenagers.

Shh!

[McKendry] "Let's make
the screen wider.

Let's make it bigger.
Let's make 3-D.

Let's let you sit in your car
so you can watch stuff."

And so we see all of these
different new kind of gimmicks

coming into play
to bring in theatergoers.

[Englund] In 1953,
Vincent Price's House of Wax

became the first color 3-D film
released by a major studio.

3-D movies reached out
and grabbed moviegoers,

attracting the growing
teenage audience

and making them
jump from their seats.

In the America of the 1950s,

everything was consumable,
from fast food to fast cars.

But the one thing that teenagers
couldn't get enough of

were horror movies.

They were going to
the pictures in droves.

Horror producers were happy
to accommodate with a series

of in-theater experiences,

hoping to find
the next 3-D-like craze.

And one of the more, uh, bizarre
gimmicks of the '50s

was Smell-O-Vision,

which began and ended with the
film The Scent of Mystery.

In short, it stunk.

Oh.

Then there was The Tingler

which used a device embedded
in a seat called Percepto!

This would immerse you
in the film

by tingling your seat
during an on-screen fright.

It turned out that there were
only two senses people

wanted at the pictures...
Sight and sound,

and the only gimmick that stuck
was the drive-in movie,

a place where families could
eat popcorn and drink malts

while watching a movie in their
comfortable bucket seats,

and where a guy could hug
his girl

during the ultimate camp
drive-in horror film The Blob.

[♪]

[♪]

[gasps]

[♪]

[grunts]

So The Blob is a really
good example of the Red Scare

being exemplified on-screen.

[whistling]

This thing drops
in the middle of our town...

Boy, that was close.

...and just starts consuming us,

just starts eating us up,
and there is no way to stop it.

Steve McQueen's The Blob
comes out,

and it's a whole different thing
that's scaring you right now.

[♪]

It's not the goofy Mummy.

It's not Frankenstein anymore.

That no longer
touched the same nerve.

But the Blob...

[♪]

[Jane screams]

What's the matter?

Something that you can't
even wrap your head around.

Something from space. Something
like... I don't know...

Maybe a m*ssile from Russia,
is also from space.

And that Blob is very red,
just like our enemies.

[screaming]

And suddenly
they're in our hometowns,

in our movie theaters,

in our homes coming after us.

Don't go in, Jim.
This won't do any good.

It's the most horrible thing
I've ever seen in my life.

[Turek] The Blob is
super-campy, but, you know,

through all of its kind of
drive-in,

pure drive-in spectacle...

[♪]

...at its core, and what people

kind of latch onto
about its silliness,

is that it is literally
a red blob attacking Americans.

[gasps] Aah!

Kate, stand still. Don't move.

It must have absorbed
the old man completely.

So you couldn't be
any more obvious

about the Red Scare than that.

The personification of the
Red Scare is an amorphous blob

that will just roll around
and absorb you.

- What happened?
- It's all over us.

What do you mean,
it's all over us?!

- Take it easy.
- What's the matter?

I think it put a face
or a blob face on the thing

that scared us most

and gave us an enemy
we could fight against.

What are they gonna do
with that thing, Dave?

Well, the Air Force
is sending a Globe master in.

They're flying it
to the Arctic.

It's not dead, is it?

No, it's not.

Just frozen.

I don't think
it can be k*lled,

but at least
we've got it stopped.

Yeah, as long
as the Arctic stays cold, huh?

[♪]

[♪]

The Cold w*r and the Red Scare,
well, they seeped into horror

through movies like The Blob

and Invasion
of the Body Snatchers.

[♪]

During that time, Invasion
of the Body Snatchers,

the original, was sort of a take
on McCarthyism of the time,

you know, the conformity
of the family unit.

You know, it was a good thing
to conform, it was a good thing

to live in suburbia
with your two-car garage

and your station wagon
and have your two kids

and the perfect American family.

I think Invasion of the Body
Snatchers sort of sent that up

and sort of played with it
and the idea

that, no, it's not a good thing.
It's a really, really bad thing.

I am not insane!

You tell these fools
I'm not crazy!

Make them listen to me
before it's too late!

The Invasion of
the Body Snatchers was the film

that scared me the most
when I was a kid.

It was a fascinating concept.

I had never seen something
where something is buried

in this thing
and it percolates in there,

you know, until it's ready.

And it decides when it's ready,
you know, not you.

So that's pretty scary.

It's like kids being afraid

something's in their closet,
you know?

There's nothing in the closet,

but it's just as real
as if there was.

Stay here and pray they're
as human as they sound.

Communism in reality is not
a political party.

It is a way of life.

An evil and malignant way
of life.

It reveals a condition
akin to disease.

Their goal is the overthrow
of our government.

The Communists are red fascists.

Joseph McCarthy was a senator
from Wisconsin

who definitely became, like,
the face of the Cold w*r.

[♪]

And he became the face of this
brigade to rid out Communism,

that Communism
is everywhere in the U.S.

and they are trying to take over

our more capitalistic
way of life,

and we have to rid it out
at its roots,

and it is everywhere.

Today, the free world
and the Communist world

are locked in a peculiar
struggle for the minds of men.

[McCarthy] We should remember
that practically every issue

which we face today,

from high taxes
to the shameful mess in Korea,

is inextricably interwoven
with the Communist issue.

Frightening, isn't it?

We see McCarthyism
and the Red Scare

really coming into horror films
in the 1950s

in the form of paranoia,

that we are scared
of everything,

from aliens
coming down from above,

things coming up from beneath,
to our next-door neighbors.

The Red Scare was us
being scared to death

that Russia was somehow
infiltrating American society,

that Communists were here,
that they were a part of us,

that they could be
the government officials,

that it could be, you know,

this person
that you know from work.

It could even be
your next-door neighbor.

And so not only do
we see horror films

about a fear of each other,
but it's very much

like that we ourselves
could be accused for this.

We see these fears come out
in a lot of our alien movies,

and it's very much
this belief system of,

we're running our normal,
everyday lives.

Oh, look how serene it is.

But at any time, boom,
aliens are here,

and we're all destroyed.

[man, amplified]
Listen carefully.

The Martians
are coming this way.

We must evacuate the city.

[♪]

[Englund] As Americans became
increasingly paranoid,

a new otherworldly terror
emerged.

[man]
After years of investigation,

I believe that
the flying saucers

seen by veteran airline
and Air Force pilots

are objects from another planet.

[Englund] A wave
of UFO sightings

throughout the country,

which began with the infamous

Roswell, New Mexico
flying saucer crash,

invaded America's collective
psyche during the 1950s.

[man] The Air Force itself
has officially admitted

that flying saucers exist.

I'm here to discuss
the so-called flying saucers.

There have been
a certain percentage

of this volume of reports

that have been made
by credible observers

of relatively incredible things.

[man] With all due respect
to the Air Force,

I believe that some of them
will prove to be

of interplanetary origin.

[Englund] And soon the Cold w*r
reached new heights,

literally,
when the Soviet Union

launched the world's first
artificial satellite, Sputnik.

Sputnik marked the beginning
of mankind's space race

and paved the way for a new
spate of sci-fi horror films

that played directly upon
Red Scare-era fears.

[Blum] The 1950s were
a spectacular era for sci-fi.

Ray Bradbury had published
The Martian Chronicles

in the '50s, and magazines
were publishing sci-fi work

from different writers
in the genre.

The decade saw a wave
of horror films set in space

or films
that had aliens attacking Earth.

[♪]

[♪]

[screaming]

[Turek] Between the atomic b*mb
and Roswell,

where we're talking about
the first UFO sighting,

people started kind
of freaking out, going,

"Oh, my God, we're not alone.

Not only do we have to worry
about World Wars,

but there is another threat...
Again, the other.

But the other is coming
from outer space. Holy sh*t."

During a three-year
investigation,

I found that many pilots
have described objects

of substance and high speed.

One case, pilots reported
their plane was buffeted

by an object which passed them
at 500 miles an hour.

Obviously,
this was a solid object,

and I believe it was
from outer space.

There's nothing more
intimidating than another person

to a certain degree,
and horror is,

by and large, I think,
a reflection of that.

You know, like UFO invasion
movies from the '50s.

- Where did they come from?
- I don't know.

Those films have
a very consistent, you know,

sort of Cold w*r
kind of vibe to them.

You can tell, like,
the version of people

being scared of each other
was very much

based on that sort of like,
"Are you a Communist,

are you not a Communist"
kind of thing.

[screams]

[♪]

[Turek] I think people in
general are just afraid of UFOs

because they're afraid of things
they can't understand.

So naturally
Hollywood tapped into that,

and we started seeing
horror evolve

from kind of
classic Gothic romps

to sci-fi-infused stories.

Look at it, will you?

Beings from another world.

[Englund] w*r of the Worlds
was already a well-known story

before the film
was released in 1953.

The H.G. Wells 1898 novel

is considered
to be one of the earliest

to envision
an alien race invading Earth.

And the 1938 Orson Welles
radio play was so realistic

it created a widespread panic
throughout the nation.

I'm, of course, surprised that
the H.G. Wells classic,

which is the original
for many fantasies

about invasions
by mythical monsters

from the planet Mars,

a story which has become
familiar to children

through the medium
of comic strips, novels,

and adventure stories, should
have had such an immediate

and profound effect
upon radio listeners.

[Englund] The film version
took the story and updated it

to reflect the fears that
gripped America in the 1950s,

winning an Academy Award

for its use of special effects
in the process.

It is incredibly terrifying.

After the pods crashed
into the countryside,

you've got three guys,
including, like, a priest,

and they're waving the white
flag, and they're like,

"See? We're waving
the white flag. We're friendly."

And you just see this giant eye
on a tentacle

come up out of the ground.

- We welcome you.
- We're friends.

[Turek]
And it just blasts.

Footage looks like sparklers.
I was freaked out.

I was, like, gripping my seat,
like, "What is that thing?"

When you saw the Martian w*r
machine come up out of its shell

and start flying
across the city,

I was just, like, in awe.

But that's what
they were selling.

They were selling, like,
the other

is no longer, you know,
in some remote castle.

It's gonna come from the stars,
and it's gonna mess you up.

[man] It's dead.

I think audiences
were scared of UFOs

because it was the totally
unexpected plot twist

of their lives
after World w*r II.

[man] There would be
no more peace in our time.

[Turek]
Imagine surviving World w*r II

and going through
the devastation

and emotional journey
of all of that.

And then all of a sudden,

you get word
that there are flying saucers.

[laughs]

We have come to visit you
in peace

and with goodwill.

[Bress] People have always
needed an outlet for their fear.

I think every generation

has their own sort
of external terrors.

[air-raid siren blaring]

[♪]

Well, I think in the '50s,

you're talking
about a generation of people

that are around
right after World w*r II.

So there's been a break from
real terror and real tragedy

and people coming home
in body bags,

and then they're surrounded
by this suburbia,

this new thing,
this Baby Boomer generation.

And yet they're
hardwired for fear.

[Turek] You know, movies
like w*r of the Worlds

and Earth vs. The Flying Saucers

are two examples of movies

that I think did well
with the fear of UFOs

because w*r of the Worlds,
the Martians showed up

and they just started
eliminating stuff,

which is, at the time,
I'm sure what was prevalent

in everybody's mind, was,
"If aliens come to Earth,

they're just gonna,
like, go to w*r with us."

Bilderbeck has calculated
how long we have got

until Martians
take over the entire world.

[Turek] You know,
The Day the Earth Stood Still

is an alien coming to Earth
and basically saying,

"Get your sh*t together,
human race.

If you don't,
it's not looking good."

It is no concern of ours
how you run your own planet.

But if you threaten
to extend your violence,

this earth of yours will be
reduced to a burned-out cinder.

[murmuring]

You know, a lot of these movies
that we saw during that era,

it was not just aliens
coming to us.

It was us heading
out into space.

So you saw films like
Forbidden Planet, you know,

where it was, in an effort
to advance the space race,

we went exploring and came upon
something unknown.

You know, an unknown threat.

So it was kind of like the movie

was a direct result
of our greed

and need to beat the Russians
at their own game

and get to space first resulted
in something catastrophic

or discovering something alien.

[♪]

[Hendrix] In the '60s,

you start getting to
the serial k*ller fear.

It's someone who looks
just like us,

who seems nice and polite
and does horrible,

horrible things
when we're not looking.

And it's that idea
of a human predator,

someone who lives amongst us.

[♪]

[Englund] After the sci-fi wave
of the 1950s started to wane,

horror films began
to look closer to home,

at the terror
in our own backyard.

In the early 1960s,
stories about serial K*llers

began to creep their way
into the news,

pushing an already tense nation
closer to the edge.

Ghosts are scary, yeah,

but what's really scary
is that guy next door

or that guy
you're hitchhiking with.

[Hendrix] There was Melvin Rees,
the Clutter family killings

that became In Cold Blood,

the Boston Strangler
in the early '60s.

And these were all crimes

where people were like,
"What is going on?"

These people weren't k*lling
for a reason.

They weren't doing it for money.

They weren't doing it
for profit.

They were doing it
because they seemed to enjoy it.

These were crimes of passion,
not profit.

That coincided with Ed Gein
getting arrested.

He was a k*ller who was arrested
for a m*rder in '57

in a small Wisconsin town.

Police searched his house,

found all these body parts
and trophies

and things he made out
of his victims

and bodies he'd exhumed
from a local cemetery.

He became sort of this...
This bogeyman.

Ed Gein would be the inspiration
for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

And that really threw everyone
for a loop.

Psycho is the beginning
of modern horror.

[♪]

I mean, Psycho is
absolutely brilliant.

All of this comes
from Hitchcock's Psycho.

That was arguably
the first slasher film.

Psycho brought a level
of terror to film

that I'd never seen before.

It was the first time that
I realized there was editing.

It was because of the montage.

That was the whole
change of film.

I'd never seen anything

that was as violent as Psycho
was, or as terrifying.

And it was because of the
brilliance of Alfred Hitchcock.

[Holden-Jones] The first horror
film I saw ever was Psycho,

which I saw on television
at a slumber party of girls.

And I remember being terrified.

It began the serial k*ller,
the lone m*rder*r,

the senseless k*ller genre

with at least one scene
with extreme gore.

It's a pretty great film, actually.

It's one of the best
horror movies ever made.

The thing I like
about Psycho is that...

I mean, obviously Hitchcock
is a master of storytelling,

but he was also
a master of marketing.

And so you had Janet Leigh,

who was this huge movie star
at the time.

She's all over the posters.

She was top billing
of the movie,

and then she's m*rder*d
at the end of the first act

in that very famous
shower scene.

"Aah! Aah! Aah! Aah!"

And really,
that hadn't been done before,

and audiences were fully,
completely taken by surprise.

And after that moment,
you're like,

"Anything can happen
in this movie.

All bets are off."

Psycho has a totally
brilliant opening.

It spends a great deal of time
with Janet Leigh.

And you're worried
because she's stealing money.

She steals some money
in the office and then she runs.

So it's like you're already
worried for her.

She's on the run.

What's she doing?
This is very strange.

And then, you know,
the Bates Motel

is not the most reassuring place
with all those stuffed animals.

You know it's not
going to go well,

but you don't know how.

The idea of getting m*rder*d
in the shower, like,

when you're at your most
vulnerable is very terrifying.

It's tied, of course, to nudity,
to vulnerability,

to being naked in the shower,
but interestingly, not to sex.

It's more to the fact of the
moment you're most vulnerable,

alone in a shower,
you're naked, you know,

have nothing to defend
yourself with.

After that,
I think that it's waiting

for the next b*mb to explode.

Psycho broke out as being
incredibly violent

in the one shower scene,
but if you watch the film again,

it's really
a psychological portrait.

There isn't that much
constant violence in it.

And in fact, it is possibly
the beginning of the fascination

with the psychology
of the k*ller.

It was voyeuristic,

and so it violated
all kinds of social codes

because you were in the position
of being the voyeur.

And there was
something else he did...

He made you sympathize
with Norman Bates.

He made you sympathize
with a psycho k*ller,

because you knew his mother
had driven him to it.

The reviews were so negative,
so outraged at Psycho,

that Hitchcock almost pulled it.

He almost thought about
pulling and recutting it

and using it as an episode
on Alfred Hitchcock Presents,

he was so crushed
by the initial reviews.

And then they opened it, and
the lines were around the block.

That changed everything.

It also changed film making.

Nobody ever thought about doing
what Hitchcock did...

Moving from the point of view
of the k*ller

and making you feel sorry
for the k*ller.

It was just shocking
on every level.

And the acting was just great.

The reveal that he's actually
his own mother

is pretty frickin' great,
let's face it.

I also loved the twist ending,
as everyone did in Psycho.

It's now so overdone,
but at the time,

obviously, revolutionary.

[Holland] We have that shot
from outside where he's saying,

"Mother, Mother,
you shouldn't have done it."

So you think it's his mother
that's doing it.

Then it's not until the very end
that you realize

he's stark raving mad
and he's mummified his mother.

And, you know,
and the chair swings around

and there's Mother!

[screams]

I mean, every code
that he could have violated,

Hitchcock violated.

And he did it
with his television crew

in black and white for no money.

[McKendry] It felt like after
Psycho horror films shifted

much more into kind of
the naivety of society.

This is an ax.

[McKendry] The naivety
that we all believe

that we live in this perfect
little suburban bubble

or that our little
upper-middle-class lives

are so sweet.

But they're not.

[man] ...that a ghoul can be
k*lled by a shot in the head.

They're coming to get you, Barbara.

[thunder rumbles]

Terror and violence
are just knocking at our door

at any time.

[♪]

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