02x01 - Houses of Hell

[bunniefuu]

[unsettling music]

A house can just be
a labyrinth of death,

and you would never know
from the outside.

One movie...

[thunder booming]

That's really, really scary...

♪♪

I would say
Rob Reiner's "Misery."

- God's sake.
- It's for the best.

Annie, please!

[wailing]

"Last House on the Left"
is kind of just, like,

the world's most, you know,

(bleep)-up after-school
special, you know?

♪♪

Just a bunch of, like,

horrible hillbilly,
evil people

doing their worst to you.

- Blow your brains out!
- [crying]

[g*nsh*t]

I mean,
"House of Corpses"

to me seems
exactly like if you took

"Texas Chain Saw m*ssacre"

And "Rocky Horror Picture Show"

and threw it in a blender

and spit out another movie.

♪♪

[screams]

[all gasp]

"Cabin in the Woods"
might be the most fun

that I've had watching a movie
in the last ten years.

[ghastly snarl]

♪♪

Most haunted house stories

are really glorified
family dramas.

[shouts]

There is no safer place
for you to be than your house.

- [shrieks]
- [screams]

When the place that you
live in rebels against you,

that's terrifying.

♪♪

[eerie music]

♪♪

[screams]

male narrator: Home
is where the heart is,

unless you happen to live
in a house of hell...

[g*nsh*t]

A house where love
sours into hate

and the echoes
of the violent past

return to haunt the present.

♪♪

Well, houses effectively are
great locations for horror

because a house is anything
you want it to be.

It can be a home,

or it can be a prison.

You never can tell
what's going on on the inside,

and that's sort of
that macabre curiosity

that I think we all have.

Whenever you hear about
some serial k*ller, like,

"They... their house looked
so normal from the outside."

narrator: When it cmes
to creating houses of hell,

Stephen King has few rivals.

[screams]

I know, like,
you don't wanna play favorites,

but is there is one adaptation
of yours

that you're like,
"That's the one

that nailed exactly
what was in my head"?

Well, it depends on whether
you're talking about

one of the balls-to-the-wall
horror movies,

but if I had to say
what's the one movie

that's really, really scary
and just is unrelenting,

I would say probably
Rob Reiner's "Misery."

narrator: Best-selling
romance novelist Paul Sheldon

has a terrible car accident.

[dramatic music]

He's rescued by a seemingly
kind and cheerful nurse

named Annie Wilkes.

I'm your number one fan.

Anybody who works
in the arts

has experienced people
that consider themselves

your number one fan,

and it just feels so real,

and Rob Reiner
really got it right.

He really understood it.

Look what I got.

narrator: Annie is obsessd
with Misery Chastain,

the heroine of Paul's books.

I slammed my money down.
I got the first copy.

♪♪

You dirty bird.

How could you?

narrator: When she finds out

he's k*lling
the character off,

she does not take
the news well.

You did it!
You did it!

You m*rder*d my Misery!

Annie!

narrator: Annie turns Paul
into a prisoner.

Her isolated country house
becomes a cage

he can't escape.

If someone is c*ptive
in a house in... in a movie,

that's part of
the psychological t*rture

is that someone might
be able to see freedom

or people walking by
on the outside

but just be trapped on...
you know, on the inside.

In "Misery," it's like,

there were so many other
claustrophobic elements.

There was a blizzard,

and she lives out
in the middle of nowhere.

[dark music]

narrator: Disabled
and trapped in his room,

Paul is forced to write
a new book

that brings Misery
back to life.

Think of me
as your inspiration.

One of the things
that made that film work

and made Rob Reiner
the perfect person to do it

is because humor and horror

are really two sides
of the same coin.

- Mm-hmm.
- You know, I always say, uh,

"It stops being funny
when it starts being you."

You know, so that a lot
of times in a horror movie,

something really terrible
will happen,

and the audience
will go, "Aah!"

And then they'll laugh,
you know,

because they're trying to play
it off a little bit, so...

Awesome.

And "Misery" has a lot
of funny things in it.

Oh, this whole house is gona
be filled with romance!

[gasps]

I'm gonna put on
my Liberace records.

That whole Liberace thing
wasn't in the book.

Really?

How crazy she is
about Liberace.

[jovial piano music]

♪♪

[typewriter dings]
[thunder booming]

narrator: As Paul recovers,

he sneaks out of his room,

finds out some disturbing
things about Annie,

and plots his escape,

but Annie is one step ahead
of him.

[tense music]

It all builds up
to that scene...

The penguin.

[suspenseful music]

[sighs]

When he puts the penguin
the wrong way,

the whole audience went, "No!

She's gonna know!
She's gonna know!"

[thunder booming]

[grunts]

In the book, Annie Wilks
cuts his foot off with an a*.

[eerie music]

Rob just felt that that
wasn't what was appropriate

for the character

and the movie.

So he said, "We're... we're gonna
do this thing

called hobbling."

Paul, do you know about

the early days at
the Kimberly diamond mines?

Do you know what they did
to the native workers

who stole diamonds?

[tense music]

"And so what
we're gonna do is,

"we're gonna put
a block of wood,

and then we're gonna use
a sledgehammer."

So the way that
we designed that scene,

we made these fake legs
out of gelatin

with a PVC pipe in them,
with hinges in the ankle,

and we had cable on 'em so
that we could pull the cable

when she swings
the sledgehammer.

You know, if you watch
the way that that scene

is edited together,

you see she hefts up
the sledgehammer,

so you know
it's a real sledgehammer.

We never used
a rubber sledgehammer.

It was always real.

So you can see it took
some effort.

And they cut back to the wide.

There's no insert close-up
of the ankle breaking.

- It's for the best.
- Annie please!

[screams]

Almost done.
Just one more.

You never even see
the second ankle breaking.

[screams]

You only see...

there's literally one sh*t
in the movie.

[whimpers]

God, I love you.

Kathy Bates is somebody you'd
never seen in a movie before.

She'd only been
on Broadway before.

[mockingly] "I can't write
on this paper, Annie."

Well, I'll get
your stupid paper...

And you buy her
as Annie Wilkes completely.

Mr. Man!

[yells]

[grunting]

And James Caan had never
done a horror film before,

and even though
it wasn't supernatural,

this was very much
a horror movie.

[both grunting]

[suspenseful music]

[grunts]

[grunts]

♪♪

[grunts]

A lot of my dad's stuff,
a lot of Stephen King's stuff,

his worldview and philosophy

has always been kind of a more
New Testament sort of thing.

Um, there is evil
in the world,

and the darkness
can be held back,

but the cost is usually
human sacrifice.

We can only force
the darkness back

at a great cost
of blood and tears.

narrator:
Secluded country houses

make ideal hideaways
for psychopaths.

[ominous music]

But ordinary houses
in the suburbs

have their secrets too,

particularly
if your family problems

awaken something sinister.

narrator: In horror fil,
houses are characters

with personalities
just as strong

as their occupants.

James Whale's classic
"The Old Dark House"

was one of the first to make
a crumbling Gothic mansion

reflect the insanity of
the family living inside it.

Wouldn't it be dramatic,

supposing the people inside
were dead,

all stretched out

with the lights
quietly burning about them?

narrator: And Gothic
houses of hell

later featured prominently

in classics like
Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho"...

[unsettling music]

Robert Wise's "The Haunting,"

and Lucio Fulci's
"The Beyond,"

which conjures up
a nightmarish vision

of a house built
over a gateway to hell

and the evil that's unleashed

when the gateway opens.

♪♪

But sometimes

a house from hell doesnt
look frightening at all,

like the suburban ranch house

in Scott Derrickson's
terrifying film...

[suspenseful musical sting]

"Sinister."

I think we really don't ge
"Sinister" enough credit

for how incredibly
friggin' scary that movie is.

[unsettling music]

It is so much more

hideously violent,

I think,
than what you would expect

from most, like,
studio-released horror movies.

♪♪

I always say that the best
horror movies feel dangerous,

and this felt dangerous.

♪♪

And you have Ethan Hawke
in the lead,

obviously
a tremendous actor

giving a great performance,

and the dread that it
manages to build...

Last night,

I thought something
was in the house.

[breathing heavily]

And I woke up on the couch
holding a baseball bat.

[ominous music]

"Sinister" is about, uh,
a writer, Ellison Oswalt,

played by Ethan Hawke,

who had really
come into his own

by writing a hit,
best-selling book

called "Kentucky Blood,"
true crime book.

Start by askingy
do you spend so much time

investigating
such grisly content?

Fame and money.
[laughter]

No, I'm...

And, uh, he obtained fae
and fortune, notoriety

and since then had written
two follow-ups

that were not so good.

And he was looking
to recapture that,

and the way he thinks
he can recapture that

is by moving into this house
which was a m*rder house.

What he doesn't do
is tell his family,

"Hey, I'm moving you guys
into a m*rder house."

[laughs]
Oh. Oh, man.

Oh, that is a conversation

that I would not
wanna be around for.

No, me neither.

And that's the biggest sin
he could commit.

♪♪

I wanted the house to feel

like its general appearance
on the outside

isn't scary at all,

that wh... that when
they're moving in,

there's just no sense of, like,
"Oh, this is a haunted house."

Doesn't feel like that
at all,

but it's... you turn
all the lights out...

[suspenseful musical sting]

It's a long walk from
the office to thebedroom.

♪♪

As he's investigating
what happened in the house,

he finds a box of... of film,

and each film
is in these little cans,

these little home movies,

and they just say
really ambiguous things

like "Lawn mower"
or "Carpool."

[unsettling music]

And grabs a glass
of whiskey

and strings up
the projector

and settles in for a night
to watch these home movies

after his family
goes to bed,

and they are basically
snuff movies.

[projector crackling]

♪♪

And once Ethan watches
that first movie,

you're like,
"Dude, get out of the house."

Where was it
you think we met?

[tense music]

At your house.
Don't you remember?

"Lost Highway" was the movie

that made me figure out

how to make
the Super films scary.

I remember the effectiveness

of them putting
those videotapes in

and watching the footage,

uh, that was moving deeper
and deeper into their home.

♪♪

[horrific musical sting]

[distorted music]

In "Sinister,"
once it started,

you had... the audience
has the experience

of their own as the character.

You never cut back to them

until you're...
till you're done watching.

♪♪

[dramatic musical sting]

He's a good true crime
investigator,

so he just kind of
follows the bread crumbs

until he discovers
that there's this entity

named Bughuul

which is using children
to k*ll adults,

k*ll the parents.

[horrific musical sting]

[tense music]

And he kind of pays

the ultimate sins
for what he's done,

because he opens up the door,

this Pandora's box

of this supernatural horror,

this horrible entity
that, um, you know,

leads to the downfall
of his family.

♪♪

But it's a horror film about
a guy watching horror films.

Watching horror can be
a dangerous business.

Anybody who watches
real true crime

and anybody who watches
horror cinema

knows of those moments
in their life

when they overreached.

[shrieks]

[shouts]

And they were really punished

for watching
that particular film.

We've all had
that experience.

[screaming]

narrator: Some houses of hell

conceal their evil
behind bland façades,

and some are exactly
what they appear to be:

houses you can enter

but you'll never leave.

narrator: What kind of people
would live in a house of hell?

[scary music]

♪♪

In "The Texas
Chain Saw m*ssacre,"

Tobe Hooper showed us

a house of hell
is a home, sweet home

to a family from hell.

[screams]

narrator: The image
of that house

and that family

b*rned into the brains
of many future filmmakers.

[screaming]

narrator:
It's influence looms large

in Rob Zombie's twisted,

violent,
weirdly comic debut film,

"House of Corpses."

Hope you like what you see!

[ominous music]

"House of Corpses"
to me

seems exactly like if you took

"Texas Chain Saw m*ssacre"
and "Rocky Horror Picture Show"

and threw it in a blender
and spit out another movie.

I was trying to make,
you know,

this sort of gritty,
back roads redneck movie,

which I always loved,

and just the so over-the-top
"Rocky Horror" vibe.

What do they call you,
sweetie?

I'm Qualsnarg
of the Crab Nebula.

[laughs]

Rob said, "I'm writing
a character for, like,

a really obnoxious ass(bleep)
that's perfect for you."

[laughing]
It's literally what he said.

And so he asked me to be in it,
and I was in it,

and I got to be
in "House of Corpses."

♪♪

Four -somethings

are driving across country

taking note of, like, these
kind of, you know, like,

roadside America,

all these, you know, weird
attractions that you see

when you drive across
the country

in a pre-internet era,

'cause this took place
in the ' s,

and then, eh, you know,

(bleep) goes sideways,

maybe because of my character

when they stumble across

Captain Spaulding's Chicken
Shack and m*rder Museum.

There was actually
a m*rder ride.

- A m*rder ride?
- [laughs] Yeah.

I don't wanna go
on a m*rder ride.

[baby talk] Yes, you do
wanna go on a m*rder ride.

- No, I don't.
- Hey.

How 'bout if we skip
the m*rder ide?

[baby talk]
Hey, how 'bout if we go?

[screaming]

That film is largely
about claustrophobia

because from the second
they leave the m*rder ride

and... when the film unfolds
and you realize, like,

it's all been planned,

you know the trap is set,

and... and it's really
just the trap

getting tighter and tighter
and tighter and tighter

until it snaps.
[claps]

[dark music]

♪♪

[all scream]

[screaming]

narrator: The -somethings
become prisoners

in the nightmarish home
of the Firefly Clan...

Sadistic serial K*llers

with larger-than-life
personalities.

[screams]

I like the villains.
I always like the villains.

So even when I'm creating

horrible homicidal maniacs,

I'm... they're the people
I like.

♪♪

As long as they're cool,

the audience will let them
get away with... well,

you can let them get away
with m*rder,

'cause when you're cool,
you can get away with anything.

- Right.
- [laughs]

Well, I'd bet you'd stik
your head in fire

if I told you
you could see hell.

♪♪

When, you know,
I got together with Rob

and we started going over
the character,

uh, it turns out
that he wanted,

like, a... like, a badass.

You know, thumb in your,
you know, belt buckle

kind of, you know, badass,

and I was thinking,
"Man, I'm not that guy."

It's all true.

The bogeyman is real,
and you found him.

And when we did
the "run, rabbit, run" scene,

that's when I really
deeply connected

to the spirit about us.

After that,
I was off and running.

[rock music]

Run, rabbit, run.

Run, rabbit!

The best way to play
a crazy guy

is to firmly believe

that you're the only sane one
in the room,

and if you do that,
then you're not playing crazy.

Run, rabbit!

[yelps]

There's no way to get around

how influenced that movie was
from "Chain Saw m*ssacre"

and the house in that:

the wall
with the skulls on it,

the chicken bones
on the floor,

and the feathers.

But, you know,
everything surrounding it,

the grounds,
the... the cemetery with, like,

the hundreds of crosses,
and the subterranean lair,

even thought that was
kind of a wacky idea

that was never in the original
script; I kind of, like,

came up with that
after the fact.

♪♪

narrator: The hostages
find out the hard way

that the Firefly house is just
the tip of an acid iceberg.

[horrific musical sting]

Beneath the house,

the sinister Dr. Satan
conducts ghoulish experiments

in his labyrinthine
laboratory.

No!

narrator: It's a basement
portal to hell

that lets Zombie's flair
for art direction run wild.

It goes from being
this very, like, homespun

DIY-looking kind of movie

to, like, you know,

this foyer of skulls

and this laboratory

and Dr. Satan, and I had
all this makeup and stuff.

There was a certain point
where I thought, like,

"Oh, so I'm, like,
turning the whole movie

into 'Alice in Wonderland. ""

They go underground,
and then it just goes insane,

and you don't know,
are they dead?

Are the crazy?
Is any of this hapening?

I don't even know if I know
at this point.

[laughs]

[suspenseful music]

♪♪

What do you mean,
"It was all right"?

I mean, it was cool,
but it wasn't that great.

You know, people didn't seem
to love the movie

when it came out,

but then because of home video
or whatever,

like, something happened,

and within a handful of years,

it was just, like,
this cult classic, you know?

Like, people still,
when they come to me,

they still, like,
"Hey, can you do Dr. Satan?"

So I'm like, "Dr. Satan!"

Dr. Satan!
Aah, Dr. Satan!

[dramatic musical sting]

narrator: The cult populariy
of the Firefly Clan

led Zombie to bring them back

in the films
"The Devil's Rejects"

and " From Hell."

[grunts]

narrator: The dark fanty
of Dr. Satan's lair

was traded out
for nihilistic crime

in the sun-bleached desert.

[screams]

narrator: Zombie may have left
the Firefly house behind him,

but it's earned a place
in the horror hall of fame.

A nice plac to live,

if you're a psychotic k*ller.

[horrific musical sting]

But can a house itself
be psychotic?

Can a house thirst
for your blood?

[scary music]

♪♪

narrator: In horror films,

houses are twisted reflectis
of their owners.

The house tried to k*ll me.

It almost succeeded.

[screams]

narrator: Every fear, anxie,
and character flaw

is brought to the surface

in the pressure cooker
of the family home.

[yelps]

narrator: And those problems
get a hundred times worse

when you make the mistake

of moving
into a haunted house.

[roars]

You heard it.
I know you heard it!

♪♪

narrator: This is the premise
of the film

"The Amityville Horror"...

[chandelier chiming]

Based on the supposedly
true story

of a family beset
by a demonic house.

[thunderclap]

I just wish that, uh,

all those people
hadn't d*ed here.

I mean, ugh, a guy kills
his whole family?

Doesn't that bother you?

Oh, yeah, sure, but...

houses don't have memories.

"The Amityville Horror"
begins, uh, actually,

uh, before the family
even moves into the house.

[thunder booming]

In ,

a disturbed young man
took a shotgun

and m*rder*d his family.

He went to jail, and, uh,

a new family, the Lutzes,
moved into the house

in Amityville, Long Island,

and over the course
of days, um,

the family
supposedly experienced

a whole wealth
of supernatural phenomena.

[shrieks]

Swarms of flies...

[flies buzzing]

Mysterious ooze and slime,

loud noises.

[high-pitched bang]

You know, it ran
the whole gamut, you know?

[ominous music]

People say,
"Amityville Horror, oh, I mean,

what was it like
to film that?"

I...

It was like any other film
I did.

♪♪

The prep that you do
and what you do

to enter your character

and try to have
something happen

and try to put a... a line
you don't cross

where you're...
you're overdoing everything.

(Bleep) damn it,
this is my house!

In the beginning
of the movie,

George had a lot of hair

'cause I'd had a lot of hair
from a previous movie,

and so I'm quite coiffed
and everything.

Hmm.
Your hair's getting long.

So when we got
to that place,

it was really fun

to start taking, uh,
goop and crap

and starting to make your hair
look a little unkempt

and dirty and crazy.

Honey.

Oh, mother of God,
I'm coming apart!

George, you look terrible.

So she keeps telling me.

The most fun for me was...

was the transformation.

Okay.

Being in that tux with
everybody having a good time

and me in the bathroom, like,

turning into some kind
of monster weirdo.

I'm gonna write you a check,

and either that's good enough
for you,

or you're gonna eat
your own g*dd*mn food.

[dramatic musical sting]

It's their first house.
It's a fixer-upper.

They're underwater quite
quickly with... with the money,

with the cost of it,

and the house starts
to exert an influence

on the husband, on the father.

Just drop it, Jeff.

You marry a dame
with three kids,

you buy a big houe
with mortgages up to your ass,

you change your religion,
and you forget about business.

Great.
Really great.

Most horror stories,

most haunted house stories,
when you...

when you boil them down,

are really glorified
family dramas.

You know, they're about
some kind of...

they're about alcohol abuse
at some level

or... or parental abuse
at some level or...

Aah!

In the case of
the original "Amityville,"

they're about kind of
economic distress.

You're the one
that wanted a house.

This is it,
so just shut up.

You bastard.

[shouts]

[shrieks]

Stephen King in
his book "Danse Macabre"

makes a good case

that the central horrific
moment in that film

is the disappearance
of some money.

What money?

The money for the caterer,
$ , .

I put it in...
I put it in this pocket.

And it's hinted
that the haunted house

has stolen the money
because it knows

that that's a good way
to get at them.

So, you know, the... the moment

of greatest suffering
in the film

is when James Brolin finds
an empty money clip.

[tragic music]

This is really what this film
is about.

It's about this moment when
a man is financially undercut

by forces beyond his control.

♪♪

Where the hell is it?

[suspenseful music]

narrator: The film's strangest
moments come at the end,

all drawn from
the since discredited book

about the Amityville haunting.

- [screams]
- [grunts]

I had a little trouble with,

you know,
the pig in the window.

[rain pattering]

[thunder booming]

Um, I don't go there.

But I didn't have any problem

with the stuff leaking
out of the walls

or even the possibility
of George being bit in the leg

by a... a ceramic thing,

you know, that's shaped
like a lion.

Looks like teeth marks.

Will you stop nagging at me?

[expl*si*n]

♪♪

The process of a movie

is going
from a lovely marriage

and two people in love

to the point of them
having to leave in fear

in their car.

Good and delightful
to bad and horrible, you know?

George!
No!

No!
[thunder booming]

[unsettling music]

narrator:
"The Amityville Horror"

gave us supernatural mayhem

in upscale Long Island,

but for full-on
blood-soaked craziness,

take a vacation
in a cabin in the woods.

narrator:
introduced the world

to one of the most iconic
houses in horror...

Shut it off!

narrator: The haunted cabin
from "The Evil Dead."

[chaotic music]

In , director Sam Raimi
returned to the cabin

for "Evil Dead ,"

a horror comedy update
of the original film.

[horrific musical sting]

People go crazy
for "Evil Dead ."

Like, "Oh, my God,
you worked on that movie?

I love that movie."

There's something
about horror films

that have that aspect
of being a bit outrageous

that takes them
to a different place.

Who's laughing now?

[screams]

narrator: Raimi's wildly
inventive directing

inspired a generation
of filmmakers.

I paid tribute
to the "Evil Dead" cabin

in my first film,
"Cabin Fever,"

and so did Joss Whedon
and Drew Goddard

in their film
"The Cabin in the Woods."

[eerie music]

One spider, and I'm
sleeping in the Rambler.

narrator:
"The Cabin in the Woods"

begins with
a familiar premise:

five college students go off
for a weekend retreat.

None of them will survive

[wood creaking]

But though it looks familiar,

this is not your ordinary
haunted m*rder cabin.

[all gasp]
- What the hell was that?

[ominous music]

What do you think's
down there?

Not having an original take
on the cabin

proves so much more valuable
later on

when... when the whole
big picture comes into play.

When you finally see what
this whole movie's all about,

having this sort of cabin
that's literally plucked from,

like, you know, an ' s classic
or whatever is perfect.

Uh, guys?

I'm not sure it's awesome
to be down here.

"The Cabin in the Woods"
says to the viewer,

"We get each other.
We both know horror.

Sure, okay."

♪♪

So it does a great job
of, at the very beginning,

hitting all the tropes
that, uh, you wanna see...

♪♪

But... and then starts
turning things on its head.

"Then we will be restored,

and the Great Pain
will return."

And then... then
there's something in Latin.

Okay, I'm drawing a line
in the (bleep) sand here.

Do not read the Latin.
- [whispering] Read it.

narrator: As you might expect,

in the basement,

the students unleash
terrible supernatural forces.

[speaking Latin]

[scary music]

♪♪

narrator: But you might nt
suspect that the cabin

is just the front end
of a supernatural

"Big Brother" - style
reality show

made for an audience
of ancient evil gods

run by a team of scientists
working deep underground.

We have a winner.
[people groan]

It's the Buckners,
ladies and gentlemen.

The Buckners pull the W.

All right,

that means that congratulatios
go to maintenance.

[people cheering]

Who share the pot
with Ronald the intern.

Yeah!

I love that it's outrageous.

You're setting up
that... that all over the world,

there are these scientists

that are responsible
for making sacrifices

in order to keep
these unseen gods at check.

I mean, right there,
the premise is so brilliant.

Not here.

Oh, baby, come on.

We're all alone.

♪♪

These kids,
they go to this cabin,

and they're under surveillance

by this kind of ridiculs
m*llitary-industrial complex,

right?

And they're kind of
watching them,

filming them being k*lled
by these monsters,

and it's... it's...

they're... they're watchig
a horror film.

- [screaming]
- [screams]

And the way that they all
sort of consume this

as entertainment, almost,

in an almost
sort of religious way

was sort of its own
kind of commentary

on sort of the... I think maybe,
like, a depraved sort of turn

that we've all taken, perhaps,

with sort of
recent horror films.

Aah! Oh!

Aah!

narrator:
To appease the evil gods,

this high-tech death trap

follows a strict set of rules

about who dies
and in what order,

just like the tropes
of slasher films.

[grunts]

But she's still alive.

How can the ritual be complete?

The virgin's death is
optional as long as it's last.

Main thing is that
she, you know, suffers.

♪♪

Which one?

narrator: But the controlle'
plans are disrupted

when two
of the students escape

into the subterranean
compound.

It's an elevator.

[roars]
[both scream]

They're going down
the elevator,

and you see little cubicles

with all
the different monsters.

[muffled screaming]

[dog barks]
[baby cries]

[metal clanging]
[ghostly moaning]

And the seeing
all the behind the scenes

of, okay, so this is,
like, a big government-run

situation where you have all
these different, uh, monsters

and then that going haywire

and them all getting loose
from their own pods.

Oh, (bleep).

[elevator bells ding]

[g*nf*re, screaming,
and screeching]

[metallic whirring]

♪♪

That's the depiction of...

how I think
most people feel

about government
incorporations now,

where we're like,

"Oh, they think they have
everything together,"

and what they're actually doing

is delicately
holding together chaos,

something that could destroy
our entire society.

[roars]

They've decided that
they know how to control it

and can keep it together

and we don't even know
it's happening.

So we're just sitting here,
victims of something

we are not even aware of.

narrator: As chaos reigns,

the students discover
there's an even lower level

to this house of hell,

one that literally
adjoins the underworld.

At the end of the day,

it's all sort of really run

by some, like, weird primitive,
you know,

giant... barbaric, giant,
evil gods or whatever.

What's beneath us?

The ancient ones,

the gods that used
to rule the Earth.

As long as they accept
our sacrifice,

they remain below.

And think there's something
funny in that sense,

that sort of we... we... we like
to think that we've, you know,

sort of created
this nice civilized society

but perhaps,
at the end of the day,

it's all really
just cosmic indifference.

You can die with them,

or you can die for them.

Gosh, they're both
so enticing.

By the time you end,

you're in a completely
different place,

and you never saw it coming,

and you had a great time
getting there.

That's a win-win for me.

[expl*si*n booming]

[dramatic music]

[both laughing]

narrator:
"The Cabin in the Woods"

was a fantastic
darkly funny commentary

on horror and horror fans.

I'm chilly.

[people moan]

But there's few laughs
and no fantasy

waiting at our last stop...

[crying]

narrator: "The Last House
on the Left."

Yes, who is it?

narrator: In ,

one notorious film turned
a quiet suburban home

into a metaphor
for American society.

[horrific musical sting]

It has one of the most famous
trailers in horror history.

♪♪

male announcer:
"The Last House on the Left."

To avoid fainting
keep repeating...

all: It's only a movie.
Only a movie.

Only a movie.

narrator: Two teenage girls
looking to score dr*gs

before a concert in the city

wind up being r*ped and
m*rder*d by escaped criminals.

[scary music]

But retribution will come

in a suburban
house-turned-abattoir.

♪♪

"Last House on the Left"
is kind of just, like,

the world's most, you know,

(bleep)- up after-school
special, you know?

Uh, you don't know where
we could, uh, score on some,

uh, good grass, do you?

Nah, I don't know
that stuff.

- Aw.
- Thanks.

[laughing] It's... it's kind f
just like, "Oh, my God,

"if I go into the big city
and smoke weed,

"I'm gonna get, like,

"horribly, like,
molested in the woods

and then sh*t in the head?"

That's a very rough movie.

Aah!

[chaotic music]

♪♪

I'm gonna k*ll that bitch.

[dramatic musical sting]

narrator:
was a rough year

for the United States
of America.

Cities were crumbling,

the w*r in Vietnam
was a lost cause,

and the flowered hippie dream
had collapsed

into the darkness
of the drug culture.

First-time writer-director
Wes Craven

and producer Sean Cunningham

decided to make a film

that reflected
the ugliness around them.

Wes' thought was
that we could shape this movie

by showing a sort of
a prsonalized v*olence

that the audience
could react to.

[crying]
No. No.

[gasping]

[bird cawing]

That, uh, it would become a
much more visceral experience,

not unlike
"The Virgin Spring."

♪♪

narrator: Ingmar Bergman's
"The Virgin Spring"

is an unsparing study of r*pe,
m*rder, and revenge.

"The Last Huse on the Left"

borrows "The Virgin Spring""
plot

but trades Bergman's
art house perfection

for a raw style inspired
by cinema verité documentaries

and the constant barrage
of violent w*r footage

broadcast on television.

Oh!
[grunts]

The impulse I had
for "Last House" is,

I'll stage
these various scenes,

and I'll... I'll do it like
it's actually happening,

and I'll do it basically
like a documentary.

It was only after we did
a couple scenes like that

that I realized
they were powerful,

and you could start to feel it.

[wailing]

I think that's part
of the reasons why

that it engages you so,

because it doesn't...
doesn't look staged.

It looks sick.
[laughs]

♪♪

The as*ault itself is even
almost so much more horrifying

because it, too,
looks amateur.

It looks like a bunch
of people who have no idea

what they're doing.

Just a bunch of, like,

horrible hillbilly,
evil people

doing their worst to you.

[g*nsh*t]

[dark music]

narrator: The last act
of the film

takes place
in the last house on the left.

This place is in the middle
of nowhere, you know that?

♪♪

narrator:
Posing as traveling salesmen,

the K*llers are welcomed
into a nice suburban home

by a doctor and his wife..

♪♪

Who offer to let them
stay the night.

Guess who lives here.

♪♪

narrator: They soon realize
they're staying in the home

of their latest victim.

[breathing heavily]

I'm all right.
I'm all right.

[gasps]

narrator: When the parents
learn the truth,

they take brutal revenge.

Don't move.

♪♪

narrator:
The mask of civility drops.

The nice suburban house
becomes a t*rture chamber.

[chain saw whirring]

I think there is a morally
questionable dynamic

going on in that movie

because I find revenge
to be, um,

a distinctly American,
uh, derangement.

There are revenge films, um,

elsewhere in the world
and always have been,

but revenge is such a staple
of American cinema,

and then you take it
into the horror genre,

and you get really grapc
and extreme with it.

I think you're tapping
into the American id

in a way that is, uh,

revealing but not healthy.

[chain saw whirring]

It's a very difficult film
to watch.

[screaming]

[chain saw whirring]

When I went back to it
ten years later,

I just found myself going,
"Oh, Jesus."

Going, "Oh, God."

all: It's only a movie.
Only a movie.

Only a movie.

narrator: As often happens
in horror,

a wave of imitators
sought to cash in

on the success of
"The Last House on the Left,"

and in ,

Wes Craven returned
to housebound horror

with "A Nightmare
on Elm Street"

starring Freddy Krueger,

whose name is a play on Krug,

"Last House's"
lead psychopath.

[ominous music]

Houses of hell
are sometimes realistic...

[g*nsh*t]

Sometimes supernatural...

♪♪

But they all poke
at our illusions

of comfort and safety.

They remind us that
no matter where you live

or who you are,
life is short...

Human relationships
are fragile,

and you should never move
into the m*rder house.

[scary music]

♪♪