Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This podcast is a collaboration between costart and Touchstone Productions and the dads from the Crypt podcast.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Jesus Christ.
[00:00:08] Speaker C: Hey, where you going?
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Where are you going? You're under arrest. You're not the police.
[00:00:12] Speaker C: No, but we can tarn. Sure hold you till the real police get here.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Let's go, old man. I can't believe this.
[00:00:16] Speaker C: We caught a body snatcher.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Shut up. How much do you boys make?
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Excuse me?
[00:00:21] Speaker A: How much?
Not enough. That's what I thought.
[00:00:25] Speaker C: Now, I will pay you $500 if you will help me steal this corpse.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: $500 each.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the how not to make a movie podcast. I'm Alan Katz. Gil will join us shortly.
Can I tell you, doing this podcast is pure pleasure for myriad reasons. One of the biggest is how doing the podcast has put me back in touch with so many people from my past. I hardly recommend catching up with people. It can be really gratifying. Today, we catch up with tales from the Crypt alum Larry Wilson. Now, remember when we did crypt, tv and feature films lived in completely separate area codes. There wasn't much mingling, especially among writers. So when we got Larry Wilson to write an episode of our little tv show, it was both gratifying and significant. Larry had Beetlejuice and the Addams family in his pocket. See what I mean? Big feature writer.
Thing is, Lee had quite a few big feature writers, but none of them got crypt the way that Larry did. That's why Larry wrote five episodes for us and directed one. His first time in the director's chair. We had an actual history with Larry. That's why a crip reunion with him was absolutely in order.
Now, Larry has a lot of plates spinning right this second. I'm not sure if he's the busiest person in showbiz, but he might be. So our deal with Larry is he's going to come back and talk about the rest of that, including everything you want to know about making Betelgeuse, and Betelgeuse, too. For today's conversation, we're going to talk almost exclusively about tales from the crypt. A few other topics might creep in as they do, but for the most part, this is an especially joyful tales from the crypt reunion with our very good friend, Larry Wilson. So you. You did five episodes, Larry?
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Yes, I did.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: In fact, you were there.
We hired you to the first season that. That we produced it. That was season three.
You wrote the script for easel kill you.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: Which ultimately, John Harrison directed. Tim Roth and William Atherton were the leads in my question is, I think, back to that particular time and place. How the fuck did we get you?
How did we pull in the Beetlejuice guy?
[00:03:13] Speaker B: Well, it was really Walter. Walter Hill. I'd left writing behind writer's block 101. And I was an executive at Paramounthood when Walter was doing 48 hours. And I got to know Walter because his office was 48 hours office was basically adjacent to my office, and I got to know him. And as much as you can become friends with Walter Hill, we became friends.
And then when he was going to go make streets of fire at Universal, he was starting a new company, the Phoenix company, and he asked me to come over and be his director of development. And that was the relationship.
Walter probably recommended me. And Walter may have known that I had been like an EC comics fan, a tales from the crypt fan, since I was a kid. I got very lucky, and they were like the holy grail of comic book collectors because they were banned. I mean, how many comics has that happened to? And I got a hold of a stash of them.
I love them, you know, and they were, they were not, and they were the best written, best drawn comics out there, you know, bar none.
And I, and I just, I loved them. So I think I had a passion for it, too, that maybe I talked to Walter about, because we talk about pop culture stuff all the time, and I imagine it's been a long time. I'm not quite sure, but I think probably I came through Walter.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I, that makes a lot of sense because I've racked my brain and thought I had no connection to you. I can't kill. You had no connection to.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: No.
[00:05:01] Speaker C: I was a big fan of Beetlejuice when it first came out.
Have you been in contact with Walter since?
[00:05:06] Speaker B: Or, you know, off and on over the years? A few times. Not for a long time. I ran into him at a screening. Oh, my God, it was probably 810 years ago, and that was the last time I saw him. But, you know, it was, I just always, you know, had such admiration for him.
[00:05:26] Speaker C: He must be up there in age right now. He must be close to 90, right?
[00:05:30] Speaker B: I would think. Yeah, I would think, yeah, he's, he's up there. And of course, he had, you know, issues with his eyesight and all of that, but, you know, one of the, one of the greats. I still want one of the great renegades. And, and what, watching him at Paramount on 48 hours was amazing. So I. Yeah, I, yeah, he knew how to work it. Yeah.
[00:05:52] Speaker C: Yeah, I loved working with him on tails. I mean, when we did the shows with him that he directed, they were just so much fun to be with him and to be on the set and talk stuff. It was just great experience.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: What part of the world did you grow up in, Larry?
[00:06:07] Speaker B: I grew up in a little slum called Laguna Beach, California.
And I tell people I grew up in a trailer park, and I did, but it was a trailer park located at the time was one of the best private beaches in all of California, quite honestly. It was.
And my parents moved us there when I was eight, nine years old, and I grew up there. But then it was, I could see sort of the two roads, as they say, diverging. And one was I could stay on the beach and be that guy, or I could go to Hollywood and try to be in the movie business. And so I moved to Hollywood, LA, right after high school and, you know, and started trying to get into the business. Yeah.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: You were always into movies.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Always, yeah.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: Do you remember the first movie that you saw or that imprinted itself upon.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: You and absolutely, positively as Bride of Frankenstein? I claim it as my favorite all time film. Always. Yeah.
And, you know, it bears kind of a resemblance to crypt, tonally, because some parts of it are horrific, some parts of it are insanely funny.
And actually, the Doctor and Doctor of horror, the Austin Pendleton character, is based on Doctor Pretorius from Bride of Frankenstein. That was the inspiration. Yeah. And that movie I saw when I, you know, on tv at the time, you know, dating ourselves here, dating myself, you know, shock theater, you know, Universal had done a syndication package of all the universal horror movies, and every city had their horror movie hosts and all of that. And I saw it on shock theater. And whatever my eight year old brain said, you know, was like, I want to do that. I didn't know what that was, obviously, but. And that was the start of it. Yeah.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Wow. What a terrific movie to be inspired by.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: It explains so much.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Yeah. It's one of the best films ever made. I will stick to that always. Yeah.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: You know what? What makes Frankenstein and the monster work so well is that there's an emotional subtext to it.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: And it carries through in the most peculiar way into that second movie. There's.
When he's rejected.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
She hate me.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I.
Wow, wow, wow.
I don't think there's a moment quite like it.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
You know, and there's. It's just full of metaphor, you know, it's a Christ metaphor for the time being. He's literally crucified on a cross and, you know, and on and on. But they just, I didn't, you know, I understood it that as an eight year old understood it, but I knew it was something really powerful and really special. And I watch it again every few years. And I teach also, I taught screenwriting for a million years.
And there was a screening of it when I was still living in Los Angeles where it was like a new digital 35 print. And I told students, you should go see this movie.
And they're like, 1935.
They had movies, but a few of them showed up and they all were like, wow, you were right. That's a one of a kind, still very powerful, almost 100 years later film. Yeah, but that was the one. Yeah.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Who wrote bride?
[00:10:13] Speaker B: Oh, there were several writers involved, but, you know, and, God, I hate saying this as a writer.
I'm stabbing we writers in the back. But James Whale, the director, really brought that home and he had that ability, done it on a couple of other films to mix sort of like, you know, high english drawing room comedy with horror. And it was, you know, it was an incredible combination. Around that time, I was a little older, I happened upon this stash of EC Comics and that really.
That was the deal there. Yeah.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: You see, added. Well, it was subversive.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, they were, a neighbor of mine, his older brother had left behind a box of comics that the kid who was my friend didn't care about. And he just gave them to me. And there were a bunch of ecs in his older brother's collection and they were just like, wow. And then there was, they did a couple of paperback books that republished the stories in black and white. And then I got those and, you know, and I was, I was hooked. Yeah. Turned out well. I'm glad I was. Yeah.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: I think that's one of the reasons why we meshed so well with you and why you meshed so well with us. You know, one of. One of the things that, when Gil and I started in that third season, one of the things we were charged with was recharging the franchise.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: Reinvent.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: We reinvented the cryptkeeper. We turned him from a puppet that talked into the cryptkeeper.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: But we also, because I, too, grew up a huge fucking fan of Bill Gaines and Mad Magazine and tales from the crypt.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: That whole world, the whole sensibility.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: I understood it intrinsically. And my, my literal job on the show, as originally just the story editor, was to be the overseer of the franchise on the page yeah. And I knew.
I knew in my gut what that franchise was, and most writers didn't really understand it, or they understood it, but they didn't see the subtleties.
[00:12:46] Speaker C: I think they might have been a little intimidated by it because, you know, we took those comic books and we really ripped them apart, took the title, and then restructured the whole thing because if you read the first two panels or three panels, you knew the whole comic.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:02] Speaker C: So I think a lot of the writers were a little intimidated by, okay, here's the comic book, but they're taking it, and they're, they're doing what to it. They want to. And I think that might have been a little off putting.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: A, yeah, I can totally see that. And you're right. I mean, the comic stories, I mean, they're great for what they are, but they're very simplistic and needed to bring something to it.
And you guys were great at certainly when we worked together and steering me in a direction to give it more depth, but also the slyness of, well, I mean, you know, the crypt keeper was always funny, but the fact that you could inject humor into the shows if it fit, that, that was a big thing for me too. Yeah.
[00:13:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Well, that's what tales from the crypt, that's what Bill Gaines did. Those things were deliciously funny and so dripping and the most delicious kind of irony, just the gooey irony.
[00:14:00] Speaker C: And you had to have warped, you had to have warped personalities like ours collectively to appreciate that and to say, oh, I want to do that.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: Your first episode was easel kill.
[00:14:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Was that a comic that you were aware of? And you said, that's the one I want to do. Or was that one where after we, you know, we, Walt said, meet my friend Larry. Oh, we'd love to meet your friend Larry. And we met you. We said, larry, here about, here are the comics we're thinking about. Because at that particular point, this was a beginning of season three. You know, we didn't have a gazillion comics to play with. We had about 100 and some odd comics. And really, of those, half of them were, you know, we're not really usable anyway.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: The other half, you know, hey, it's variations on the theme.
[00:14:50] Speaker C: They kind of told the same story in a different way.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: So were you, was that a comic book that you remembered from your misspent youth?
[00:15:05] Speaker B: That I believe it was. And don't hold me to this. It was either in one of the original issues that I had glommed onto, or it was in one of those paperback collections.
But I was aware of the story.
And the thing that I loved about it was this idea of an artist who realizes that the way he's going to become a huge success is to start painting accidents.
And it appealed to me because I was obsessed with horror movies as a kid. I had a very patient mother who would take me to the drive in and see all this stuff and she would be like this. I got caught in one of my classrooms with one of those ec paperbacks, and there was this idea that if you thought about this stuff, if you like this stuff, there was something off with you.
And I liked the idea of an artist and a creator who found his inspiration in the worst. I think that was what, what draw drew me to it. And I don't know if you presented it to me and I said, oh, yeah, this one, or if I asked for it. I honestly don't remember.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: Yeah, it was a perfect pairing. I don't recall doing any work on that script whatsoever.
I have no memory of that whatsoever.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: And I think I'll take complete credit then.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: So, yeah, yeah, it was.
Yeah, it was one of those episodes I don't think I had a lot to do with. And because the script just didn't need a me.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it.
You know, I'm going to. I'm going to just say one thing here. One of the things I loved about the show, and you two as enforcers of the rules, was that you had 21 pages, as I remember, and that's all you had. You didn't have 22 pages. You didn't have 19 pages. You had 21 pages. And that was always a very interesting lane you had to work in. And it was great discipline, actually.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: I don't know how to say if.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: You did not have anything to do with the script. The thing that you did have to do with the script was that because I've been a screen writing movies and there's could be however many pages, not ridiculous, but the idea that you had this amount to tell a story, it was, it was, it was very challenging at times, but it was really fun and really a great exercise also.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: We may have started that way. I don't recall finishing that way.
[00:17:54] Speaker C: I remember conversations with filmmakers, writers and directors on the show where I would say stuff like, well, you know, it's an HBO show, so it's not 22 minutes like a network show, and we have latitude here. It can be anywhere from 22 minutes to 27 minutes, but include the crypt keeper and so maybe that. Maybe we evolved into that after that first season we took over. But I remember that that was sort of the mantra that I remember using in terms of, okay, how are we going to. How are we going to shoot this? How are we going to get it?
[00:18:27] Speaker A: Indeed.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: And, of course, the crypt keeper, you know, that was. That was this whole segment, this whole time, too.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: And by the end of the first season, we did yellow, which there are no time constraints, or it was Bob Zemeckis was. That script was going to be. However, the.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Yes. I was not Bob Zemeckis. Yes.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: But easel Kelly is a great episode.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: I was very happy with it. Yeah. And it's, you know, and it's in the best. And I know you. I know you guys know what I'm talking. It's very queasy, that episode.
It feels disturbing. It's like, about.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: It's as uncomfortable as Tim Roth's character is inside his own skin.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:19:14] Speaker C: I think that's what we liked about it.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. That's what I liked about it. And Tim Roth was really good. Yeah, he got it. Yeah.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: It'S really good.
I don't know how to buy it. It was there on the page.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: Thank you.
I believe that, too. Yes.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: Well, hey, if it wouldn't have been, we wouldn't have brought you back the next season.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: Well, that was always, that. That was always nice. That was like, first date for five years. Look, they love me.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: Nobody. Nobody wants to work with people who make. Hey, it was extra work for me. The last thing on earth I wanted, it was the fact that really, it was, hey, it's a Larry script. Larry will do what Larry does, and whatever tweakage and otherwise, it's one less thing to have to worry about.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Well, it really and sincerely, it always was a real honor to be asked back like that. And it was. The whole crypt experience was one of the high points of my career, and it remains to this day. I think about it like that.
That was so much, you guys. I mean, it became such a well oiled machine, and I really liked that part of it, too, that it just felt like you were stepping into a room where there were grownups running the show, and that was great. Yeah.
[00:20:57] Speaker C: And then there was Alan and me.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: Yeah. I didn't say who the grown ups.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: It was fa Miller. Really. He was. Fa Miller was the grown up in the room.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: Well, and a wonderful grown up to have in the room.
Your second episode is one of the.
[00:21:14] Speaker C: Classics on a dead man's chest.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Oh, yes. Oh, yeah.
[00:21:19] Speaker A: And Billy Friedkin directed with a cast of unknowns, as we thought of them. Except for a couple of rock and roll legends, they're not unknown. Now. Sherry Rose. And I'm going up on his name. I'll drop that in here.
Yul Vasquez. I knew I'd come up with it. I'm not going to have that senior moment. Fuck that senior momentous. And, oh, gosh, there was, of course, now I'm going to go up on those names, of course, Greg Allman.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The manager. Yeah.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: And Jonesy from the Sex Pistols.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: So we had a couple of real deal cool names backstage. And, of course, Billy.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Which was that. That was phenomenal to write something that. Oh, who's directing it? Oh, William Friedkin. And you know what was amazing, because, of course, he had a reputation for being William Friedkin. And I was invited to go on set and say hello. And, God, you didn't know. What are you going to get? Get the fuck out of here.
But he was like, oh, hey, great, great script. Stick around. If you have any ideas, let me know. And I couldn't believe it. And again, just like, because I love freakin's films.
And of course he exorcists. Yeah. But he was just one of the greats. And to have him be so friendly and accommodating was a brilliant moment.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: It was another great script.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: Well, he seemed to think so. Yeah. And I think it was the tattoo, like the wooden mallet and I. The, you know, whatever that thing, that instrument was that heavy.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: Heavy d. Heavy D with.
Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: And I think that maybe came from you, Alan. That idea of using that primitive tattoo, is that. Is that possible?
[00:23:34] Speaker A: That's. That. That is possible. But as we were sitting around thinking of ways to make it, you know, more really disturbing.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Really painful. But it was a great idea. Yeah. And turned out well. I think that was yours. Yeah.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Well, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. That is very kind of you to.
I had quite forgotten. But, yeah, that held it right up my alley. That was one of the cool things about tells from the crypt, because it was where at a time when tv and feature films had nothing to do with each other, on crypt, they bashed into each other.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Which was amazing because you're right, that tv was still. It was changing, but it was still considered a step down. And that was not, you know, and you got these, you know, a plus list directors on the crip, which was incredible.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it was when, when we got the idea in our heads to go after Billy and Gil. Of course, we had to get that past Joel first.
It was a funny con. It was a funny conversation because a maniac is trying to tell you not to hire a maniac.
[00:24:42] Speaker C: Well, he threatened me, Joel. I went to Joel and said, who better than Billy freakin, he goes, Billy freakin out of your mind. He can't shoot anything in five days. He'll shoot the one scene. And we got into this big argument, and I said, but I really want Billy freak. And he goes, then you're going to pay for it. If he goes over, you're going to pay for it. I said, why would he go over? I'll make sure the script is accommodating to five days, and we'll board it out. He'll look at it. He goes, I don't care what he tells you. He's going to bullshit you. He's going to want seven days. I said, no, Joel, he's not going to get seven days. He's going to do it in five days. I want Billy freakin. He goes, well, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but you're going to pay for it. If he goes over, you're going to pay for it. I said, I'm not going to pay for it.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: What does that even mean?
[00:25:23] Speaker C: Yeah, right, right. I'm going to write a check like he did for a million dollars. Then that's why I'm involved with the show. So I went to Billy, and I've told this story before, but I I went to Billy, and, you know, I said, I met him at Hugo's, which was a hot place for breakfast, and people said to me, just, you know, be careful with Billy because, you know, he could punch you. He could punch you out. And I go, what? He's like, what? He's not going to punch. I'm going to talk to him about the show. So I'm telling him about the show, and I'm going, Billy, you're going to do it in five days, but I'm not going to give you a script and say it's five days. We're going to work on it together. We're going to board it, and we're both going to say it's five days. And if you don't agree that it's five days, then we're not ready to shoot it yet, and we're going to have to rework the script.
And I said, do you understand that? But I'm telling you, Billy, no more than five days. If I think you're trying to screw me and go, five and a half days, I'll fire you. I'll fire you. And as I'm saying this, I'm getting closer to the middle of the table, and all of a sudden, he leans forward to me. I'm like, oh, shit. He's going to punch me in the nose.
And he leans over and he goes, do you know who you're talking to? And I go, yeah. I back off a little bit.
I've never heard a producer talk so passionately about his projects. I'm going to do this in five days. We're going to do this in five days together. And I want to do it that way. And he did it. And the only change he really made was he wanted the scene with the music to be live. He didn't want to pre record. He wanted.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Oh, when the band was playing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: He wanted raw sound.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:02] Speaker C: And I said, billy, you know, if I. If we agree to this, I still need you to do it in five days. This is not an addition to the five days. No, I know, I know. We're going to do it in five days. I said, well, if you guarantee me it's going to be done in five days, then you can do this. And he did it. And you know what happened afterwards? You know, he. He went over to Paramount, and he movie about basketball.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:27:24] Speaker C: Something. I can't remember the name of it. And the next thing I know is I get a call from Paramount saying, can you come over and talk to us? And I go, sure. About what? I go, well, Billy Freakin's doing a movie here, and he's asked us to talk to you, meeting.
And I said, they sit down. The first thing they say, there were four people in the room. First thing, they look at me and they go, okay, you got to tell us. What do you have on Billy freakin?
What do I have on Billy freakin? Nothing. I have nothing on Billy freakin. Why is he asking that he wants you to produce? I said, I don't know. Maybe because I never lied to him, and I've always told him the truth. And I've always said to him, this is how it has to be. And if we don't do it this way, then we shouldn't do it. And so they offered me the job to produce the movie. And of course, Joel heard about that, and he said, you can't. You're not available. You're doing tails from the crypto. And then we're doing this movie afterwards about. So I didn't do the movie and I didn't talk to Billy for years. And then I would say about. It was after. I think it was after Covid. I was in LA and I was at a restaurant and I saw across the room Billy with Sherry Lansing.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Yeah.
[00:28:33] Speaker C: And my wife said, you know, you should go over and say hello to Billy. And I said, no, I don't think so. I don't think he'd even remember me. I mean, it's a long time ago.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:28:42] Speaker C: I sat there and having dinner and all of a sudden I feel these two hands behind my back on my shoulders and a head leans over from the back and says, I know who you are and I still love you.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Ah, wow.
[00:28:58] Speaker C: I turn around and it's Billy. And he gives me this big hug. It must have been like, within the last five years because I think he died, what, two years ago?
[00:29:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:29:07] Speaker C: And so I saw him and, you know, Sherry came over and said hello and I. And we had a nice chat and then that was it. And then I, you know, I tried to reach him after that. I couldn't reach him.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: Yeah, well, maybe he was getting sick. I'd forget. Yeah. But. But that's amazing. That's great. And that was probably what was. Oh, my God, 20 plus years. And he remembered you. Well, yeah, yeah.
[00:29:31] Speaker C: And I. And I said to Jeanne, he's not going to remember me because first of all, he probably won't even know I look different. I'm not going to. And he recognized me from across the room as I did him, only he came over and wanted to make contact and say hi.
[00:29:45] Speaker A: Like some enchanted evening.
[00:29:47] Speaker C: Yeah, it was.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:48] Speaker C: Made my evening.
[00:29:50] Speaker B: I don't know if I ever shared this story with you guys about that episode.
Someone, some friend. You know, I had a. When I still lived in Los Angeles, I had a house fire and I had all this wonderful memorabilia in the. In the basement that burned up.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: You lived in Laurel Canyon.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I lived in Laurel Canyon.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember your house.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: I visited it on a number of occasions.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And. Yeah. And, you know, and we had this fire and a lot of this stuff burned up. And one of the things that I know burned up a friend had sent me at the time after was easel kill you. The or not easel kill you was on a dead man's chest. The opening episode of that season. Or is that the one there where there were three in a row?
[00:30:33] Speaker A: Yes. It got reviewed. It was part of a trilogy, which is what we released. That was always our release. And. Yeah. And it got reviewed. It got very, very, very well reviewed.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it got reviewed by a christian newsletter that someone found and sent me.
And the headline was, if you want proof that Satan is working in television, go no further than on a dead man's chest. I mean, and it was. I thought, yes, we did it.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: Wow, talk about a badge of honor.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: You know it, right? Yeah, I was. Oh, I love that. I love that.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: I'm so glad to hear that story.
[00:31:14] Speaker B: That is. I don't. I didn't know if I'd ever told you that.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: No, no, no. Hey, I just had a catharsis. Religious people.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Well, we had you back the next season because suddenly it became, well, what's Larry going to write this season? That suddenly you became like, the furniture man.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Yeah. That's very nice.
[00:31:38] Speaker A: You wrote a script that ultimately had a very problematic production history. Are you aware of the production history of food for thought? The one that you wrote about a psychic act in a carnival and.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: No, I'm not. Yeah, no, that I'm not aware of the.
I remember meeting the director once and him saying to me, because of the sleazy, greasy clown, he said something like, well, there must be something wrong with you. And he kind of meant it.
That's all I remember. He found the material distasteful.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: Rodden did.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, that's my memory of my conversation with him. And I don't know if he didn't feel like he was kidding. Maybe he was, but. Yeah, but maybe I don't think he was.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: I think I remember hearing something like that from him as well.
[00:32:38] Speaker B: Oh, really?
Well, just doing my job.
My job.
[00:32:46] Speaker A: The guy's working in horror. Is he not aware of.
[00:32:49] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I know. Yeah.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Sleeves or grease or any of that shit.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: That's always my argument. Yeah. Well. So, no, what was the production history? The troubled production history.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Now, we had. There was another director before Rodman was hired at the last second, and you. I forget the name of the original director, but you became increasingly uncomfortable, Gil, with their ability to. To direct this piece of.
[00:33:22] Speaker C: I remember the situation, but I, too, don't remember the director's name.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Just as well.
[00:33:28] Speaker C: Yeah, probably better.
I do remember the more we spoke, the more I was feeling. Is he really going to be able to pull this off? Does he understand what our show is more so than even five days and how many shots and how many. What we have to accomplish each day? It was just. I didn't understand. I didn't know if he understood our show, which is, which is. Which was really frightening to me.
[00:33:53] Speaker A: Yeah. They were focusing their. When you would talk to them about shots, they were, they were focused on all the wrong things, like way off to the side. Like even their, their ability to direct period was.
[00:34:08] Speaker C: Right.
Right.
It was one of the few episodes that I really had real scare and real trepidation feelings about, is this guy going to be able to pull it off or not?
[00:34:23] Speaker A: We ultimately, our pattern was to shoot two days out, three days in. That was our usual pattern.
[00:34:33] Speaker B: Right.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: I don't know what our pattern was with that one, but we suddenly decided to put the whole thing on the stage.
And did we shoot that in fewer than five days or did we make it? Was that a five day shoot kill?
[00:34:49] Speaker C: I don't remember.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: I think we may even have shaved a day off because we were doing it on the stage. And I think it turned out there was a way to accommodate another. I have a vague memory that it was like, oh, this actually would serve two purposes.
[00:35:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: And because it was on stage, Rodman was a young director that seemed controllable. I don't know who suggested Rodman where, where he came from, but, yeah, we had a really good cast. Great cast. We had Joan Chen and Ernie Hudson.
Ernie's terrifying.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: And Joan is. She's beautiful. She's so delicate and yet strong.
Then, of course, there's John McLaughlin was in it, and Phil Fondacaro.
It was our first brush with Phil, who we would later work with on Bordello of Blood.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: Oh. And which I'm sure is a story unto itself, as I understand it.
[00:35:59] Speaker A: It's a podcast by itself. The whole first season of this podcast, and very successfully too, I would say.
Yeah, Phil. Funny. One of my memories. I'll just holding on to Phil. When we were shooting that movie in Vancouver, Canada, the whole cast was housed at the.
Oh, what's the name of that hotel? The Vancouver?
[00:36:27] Speaker C: Gill Sutton place.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: Sutton Place. Thank you. Thank you. At the Sutton place. And I remember on multiple occasions watching Phil Fondacaro walk through the lobby with a variety of stunningly beautiful women.
And they were all different, and they're all going up to his room.
Filth on DiCarrow was a fucking stud.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Well, there you go. Yeah.
[00:36:57] Speaker A: And that's all I'm going to say about Phil Fondacaro.
Good in the episode, too. Well, we got to the next season, season six, and not only did you say, hey, what's Larry going to write this season?
[00:37:14] Speaker B: You gave me the chance to direct, then, it was, it was an unforgettable, in a great way, experience for me. And I have always been, you know, I talk about crypt a lot when, you know, when I'm doing interviews or when I'm teaching or whatever, and I talk about it, as I said, it's like one of the happiest experiences in my career. And to be given the opportunity to direct and something that I wanted to do, and just never, no one had opened the door for me. I mean, I remain grateful to this day. And, you know, I still, you know, people like when we're this, I've just done this short film, which I'm hoping you guys can take a look at at some point. I think you'll like it. And I was telling Alan Gillenore, it's called teething problems, and it's like a supernatural story, comedy, dark comedy. And I've said to Alan, it's like a close cousin to a crypt episode in my mind.
But when I was very young director, 21 year old, young english girl, first film. And, you know, and she was, she was just asking me about all the different stuff I've done. And I said, we'll take a look at Doctor of horror. And, you know, and it's still, it actually impresses people. And when I tell them it was four days, it's like even more impressive to them. So that was really just one of the highlights of my movie career. And I'll tell you a couple of things. Well, no, you go first.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: Well, no, I was going to say, I quite forgotten that you were one of our four day episodes when we did that.
[00:39:07] Speaker B: I believe it was called the smaller ization season. I seem to remember that phrase coming around.
[00:39:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we did four episodes. We did in four days instead of five because they'd cut our budget yet again.
[00:39:20] Speaker C: Well, with filmmakers like yourself, Larry, we just felt it wasn't challenging enough. Five days, this guy can do it in his sleep. So let's make four days and challenge him.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: Right. So not only is it going to be your first time, you're going to do it under. It's like extreme duress.
[00:39:36] Speaker B: Well, yeah, but, you know, I had no, no names, but I remember before I was going to direct, being on the set, just observing one, one of the other, you know, what episodes being shot. There was a director who wanted a shot, wanted something. He was not going to be able to get it. He wouldn't let it, let it go. He was being abrasive to the crew, and I could imagine Gil walking in and saying, go to your room. I mean, it felt like it was getting to that point. And I thought, I'm not going to be that guy. That that's the guy I'm not going to be. And I'm going to go into this, I'm going to know what I know, I'm going to know what I don't know, and I'm. And I'm going to approach it like that, and I'm really going to. I'm really going to prepare for it. And one of the, you know, one of the, you know, and Levy Isaacs, you know, the cinematographer, did such a great job, but I was making him nuts after a point, you know, just asking him questions like how, you know, and, can we do this? Can we do that? But, you know, but he respected it, too, I think. And one of the, you know, there were so many highlights for me in that. But one of them, Gil, was walking through the set with you. Cause you wanted me to walk you through the episode, how am I gonna shoot? You know, and I did it. And you said. You said afterwards, and, you know, and, Gail, you could be a little scary for me sometimes. Cause I was waiting to see what the hell was gonna happen.
But you said. You actually said. I'm paraphrasing, but you said, that was really great. He said, so many directors come in, and I asked them to walk me through the episode, and they're talking about the emotions that they're going for. They're talking about the feel. They're not talking about how you're going to shoot it. And you just told me how you're going to shoot it. And I thought, well, okay, wow, that was a test that I passed.
And then I got on set, first shot.
There were two things. Like, I met with the production staff before. They were showing me the props they wanted to use, and there was one of those classic skeletons that hangs in a doctor's office or used to hang in a doctor's office. And I said, I don't know about that one. And I could feel the prop guys going.
And I said, no, no, no, I'm wrong. You know. Yeah, I meant, you should probably save it for Robert and Zemeckis, but if you want to give the skeleton to me, I'll love to have it. And I kind of got, you know, and they laughed, and I kind of broke that eyes, too. And then I, you know, I got on set, and the first shot, nervous, of course. And we did it once, and I said, okay, cut.
[00:42:29] Speaker A: Let's move.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: And everyone laughed, and they said, larry, you can do it twice. Okay?
So, you know, and, you know, and Hank Azaria was, you know, really, really, really. I mean, he was so. I loved his performance in it, and he was so supportive. And the one person I had a little bit of issue with was Austin Pendleton, who played the mad doctor.
[00:42:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: And.
And he did. At one point, they walk into this freezer where there's all these corpses, but the freezers died, and they were moldering corpses, and I had them wearing surgical masks.
And I remember Austin didn't want to wear it. And I said, but don't you think Austin, given the smell and all of that, you wear it? And he said, don't tell me how to fucking act. So I finally had. I had that moment. But then. Then Hank said, no, I think Larry's right. You know, and after the shot, as we were, you know, getting. Prepping for the.
For, you know, the next setup, you know, Hank came over and said to me, listen, you've got good instincts. Stick with him. And that felt really good. And then. And then, you know, and Travis Tritt, you know, really brought it, and it just. And. And this. I've always wanted to ask you this. Okay, now I get to ask you guys. At the end of the shoot, when we said, okay, that's a wrap. The whole crew gave me, like, a big round of applause. I don't know if they did that with every director, but I wanted to believe it was just me.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: They didn't even do it when Gil would directly.
[00:44:19] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Well, so then I will take it as a. Yeah.
[00:44:22] Speaker C: But we did pay them extra to do that because we had a four day schedule, so there was a little bit money left over so we could pay.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: Oh, I see. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Make Larry feel good.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Yeah. It was either applause or a second meal. The applause won.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: Okay. Very good. Yeah. But anyway, it was.
[00:44:41] Speaker C: I'm sorry. My reaction to your directing, though, was that you really had great instinct about what you wanted to do. Because I would learn a lot when I would have the walkthrough with the directors, because a lot of them would tell me story, as you were saying. They would just tell me, oh, this happens. And I would say, no, no, don't tell me what happens. I know the script. Either Alan and I wrote it, or we rewrote it. Or he rewrote it or somebody else wrote it. I know the script. I've read the script many times. I need to hear how you're going to portray and capture images. That's what this is about. And you were one of the few, maybe one of the only that would come in. And when we did that walkthrough, hit me right off with, here's the shot, here's the dolly, and here's how we're moving. And I'm going to capture it this way and I'm going to cover it that way, which was a delight and refreshing and gave me a lot of confidence that this guy knows what he's doing. He's prepared himself. He's going to be able to adjust if actors challenge him, and he's going to be able to get a good performance. And, yeah, this is going to work out well. So I would learn a lot from those walkthroughs.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, yeah, I just, I just, well, that was my instinct, just that, that it was, it was not about telling you the story. You did know the story, right?
Here's how we're going to do it. And I remember, too, that I think there was a crane shot that you weren't sure if you could give me the crane, but you gave me the crane. I remember that, too, which is, you know, but again, you know, Gail, sincerely and Alan, it was such an affirmation for me and such a, such a, one of those just really positive moments that you're lucky in this business if you have them. And that was a big one for me. So thank you. All these years later, I get to say it on a podcast.
[00:46:34] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for saying it, even though it's all these years later.
[00:46:37] Speaker A: Yeah, truly. But, you know, it cuts both ways because, you know, our asses are on the line and you deliver for us. And so that's how it works. You know, we're, that's the wonderful collaborative dance that we all do together. We really, it's a high wire act every single time.
[00:46:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Then my one other moment that I remember, Ben Steinhen sitting on the surgery, you know, he was about to be dissected and he, and he was sitting with his mouth gaping, gaping open, and we were going to put this probe lens into his mouth so we could get a shot of the camera going into, you know, going black and then coming back up on him, you know, being cut apart. And he was on the table waiting. He said, six years at Yale for this.
[00:47:24] Speaker A: I remember that our last season, we took to London. We didn't take you with us, alas, but we took your, took a script about face, which Tom Sanders directed with and had a good cast. Anthony Andrews, Imelda Staunton and Anna Frill, a sleazy vicar, learns he has twins and acts accordingly.
[00:47:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I actually, I ended up in London.
I was there with my, my friends, the male brothers, the Sparks band. And I was on set one of the days, or I came and saw Gill at Pinewood. I remember.
And I remember it was.
It wasn't the easiest season, but it was. Yeah. I remember going and going to Pinewood, which was kind of amazing because it's a legendary. Yeah. And I saw Gil, and I don't remember Gil's frame of mind at the time. That would probably be for Gil to speak to.
[00:48:26] Speaker C: I was aging. I was aging rapidly.
We have some, you know, funny stories about that that sometimes we've told. But, you know, the r1 quick one, which would give you a taste of what we were going through, was I would come to this. I would go to the set and watch them build, and I'd go. I'd come back towards the end of the day and I'd go, what the hell did you do today? There's nothing up there. No walls up. What happened? And they go, well, you know, we're doing the best we can. I go, what are you talking about? How come these sets aren't up? I mean, and they said, well, you know, you take the hammer and you take the nail, two penny nail, and you hit it into the wall. What are you guys talking about? Don't. Don't you have makitas here? And they go, what's a makita? I go, what's a makita? It's like. It's like a. It's like a gun. It's like a plaster gun. It's a staple gun. You know, you just pull the two pieces together and go, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And it's up. And they said, no, we don't have that. We don't know anything about that. So I remember getting makitas, ordering makitas and having to show these guys how to use them.
That's how terrible it was when we got over there. People had no idea how to work as quickly as we were used to working in LA.
[00:49:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, our, our old formula of three and two out was completely didn't. Well, because building sets in London is really expensive.
Really, really expensive. And, hey, you got every location you could possibly want there. Why built?
[00:50:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:01] Speaker A: The only problem is that getting to the locations is a bit. Yeah. And don't ever try to move during a day. That is not going to happen. So you're pretty much locked in wherever you're going to spend the day.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:50:16] Speaker A: But great, great locations.
I think we had some great locations. I forget locations we had for your.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: Episode, but, yeah, I wasn't around for that. I just remember visiting Gill and, you know, Pinewood.
It was quite posh for the crypt in terms of, like, you know, I always made a joke like where. You know, where. When it would be the warehouse sets and stuff, you know, the direction is. Well, you turn left at the porn shop and.
Yeah. And then you, you know, those God awful, you know, play. Not God awful. I mean, you made him great, but, you know, in the deepest valley, you know, and that always felt like the crypt to me. Yeah.
[00:51:03] Speaker A: You have conflated studios. We. We. We did some stuff. Did. We do music sometimes at Pinewood?
[00:51:10] Speaker C: I think we did a couple of things at Pinewood.
[00:51:11] Speaker A: Yeah. So you could have met Gill at Pinewood, but we shot at Ealing.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, ealing. Yes. No, you're right.
[00:51:17] Speaker A: No, it was very, very possible because we did do some stuff there.
Or was that all related to Bordello?
[00:51:28] Speaker C: I think we did something there. I think we did a couple of things there because we were very friendly with the guy brothers who ran the Warner brothers. Guy who. Who was running Pinewood was really quite friendly to us and helpful.
[00:51:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:42] Speaker B: I might have been just, you know, I visited you there when you were doing something else. Yeah. But.
[00:51:46] Speaker A: But it was so cool to be at those studios. Ealing especially. That was a place with so much history, especially if you know anything about movies. It's haunted. Like every great studio lot is, with so much history.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, and all those ealing comedies, they're still brilliant. Yeah, but that one, I don't.
I think probably because I didn't have the chance, which I always did on the other ones, the visit set and, you know, really hang out a bit. That it. That one I have very little memory of, but. But it was always great. You know, every. It was always great to be asked back. Yeah, that's.
[00:52:30] Speaker A: You feel less connected to that last episode. Yeah. You know, I feel less connected to that whole fucking season.
[00:52:39] Speaker B: Well, just.
[00:52:41] Speaker A: Just as well. They shit can my ass after that.
[00:52:43] Speaker C: Oh, we did. We did have some great locations, and we did have some great castles, and it was freezing cold in every one of them.
[00:52:50] Speaker A: I. One of the coolest locations was Dorney court, which is not far from Heathrow Airport. But the Dorney court, the guy who owns it now, is a blood relative of the man who built it in the 14 hundreds.
[00:53:06] Speaker C: Is that the episode we did with Brian Helgeland?
[00:53:11] Speaker A: Brian Helgeland.
[00:53:12] Speaker C: What was the location with Hoskins? With Bob Hoskins.
[00:53:15] Speaker A: Oh, Bob's episode. Gosh, I don't remember another castle. Yeah, I don't. I don't remember that one. We also hate. We also shot in Dover Castle.
[00:53:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But the freezing cold. Yeah, I can relate. This may not be good podcast material, but I'm going to show everything's good podcast from my short that I'm talking about.
[00:53:40] Speaker A: Cool, cool, cool.
[00:53:44] Speaker B: That's outside a location, a cemetery in London at four in the morning, I believe. One of those days, you know, and freezing, freezing. Everyone was just like this. Yeah. So I can relate to that.
[00:54:00] Speaker A: Is this from the little short you shot?
[00:54:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, my, you know, I co wrote it with the director.
Yeah, yeah.
[00:54:08] Speaker A: But that's outside the bounds of what we're talking about today.
[00:54:11] Speaker B: Okay. Well, there back into tales. But, but it just reminded me when Gil said freezing that, yes, I relate. Yeah, yeah.
[00:54:21] Speaker A: I just want to make sure everyone kept to the rules.
[00:54:23] Speaker B: Okay.
I apologize.
[00:54:28] Speaker A: Because I would talk to you about everything else, but. But that is why this is just part one, part one of our multi part conversation with Larry. Larry's going to come back to talk about, well, when, when Beetlejuice opens, are you going to come back and talk about.
[00:54:44] Speaker B: No, what I'm going to do it is I, what I, one of the, the things I've been doing this last year, and it's something that I've been thinking about doing for quite a while. And Cynthia, my wife, Cynthia, was really saying, Larry, if not now, when I'm writing a book, that it's a memoir of the writing of Beetlejuice with my partner, Michael McDowell, and my, my experiences leading up to the writing of Beetlejuice, a little bit post Beetlejuice, you guys will be part of that.
No, in a good way.
It's blended with a screenwriting book, because I've taught screenwriting for 30 plus years. I taught at UCLA extension, the screenwriting program there for decades. And so I'm using the movie Beetlejuice as a, you know, a how to write a screenplay book. And I'm just about through the first draft, I'm happy to say. And I think it's good. And what I've tried to do with it is make it funny because I don't, I don't think there are many funny screenwriting books out there and be a bit irreverent towards the whole idea of how to teach people to write a screenplay, which I think you need to be irreverent about.
And so I'm hoping that when it's done and being published, or self published, I don't know yet, that you guys will invite me back and I can give you the full recounting of that and promote my book and sell a bunch of copies.
[00:56:30] Speaker A: It's an open, standing invitation, Larry.
[00:56:32] Speaker C: When you're ready, you let us know.
[00:56:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:35] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah.
[00:56:35] Speaker A: It's not like we got. You just, hey, you just throw. Throw a rock in our general direction, and it's your. Your.
[00:56:43] Speaker B: It's going to happen, and it's. And it's one of those good, good motivators to get it done. I'm at the point now where I'm so close and I'm fighting that urge to, like, well, maybe I can just go back and tweak it, you know, like, just finish the damn book already. So that's what's happening. And. And I would love to come back when it's ready to go and talk more, guys.
[00:57:08] Speaker A: Well, as we said, that invitation is.
We're handing it to you right here. Never mind to put it in the mail. Screw the mail through the mail.
[00:57:16] Speaker B: Okay. Well, Brian, I will take you up on it.
[00:57:20] Speaker A: It was wonderful sharing memories of crypt with you that we've never. Man, I haven't revisited a bunch of those since ever, so. And that's always.
[00:57:33] Speaker C: It was great to see you. I mean, I don't think we've seen each other for. God.
[00:57:36] Speaker B: Oh, God. You know, one of my favorite Gil moments was that, you know, Gil, because I'm sure no one has ever said this to you, you could be a little intimidating on set when you want it to be.
And I always liked you, but I always, you know, not scared. I'm exaggerating for comic effect. But then I came up to your house and I met your dogs and your lovely wife, and you were that version of Gil. And I said, wow, Gil, you're a different person. And I remember you said to me, larry, I shot 99 episodes of tales from the crip. I had 99 different personalities. Now you're meeting me, so I always appreciated that. Yeah.
But it's, you know, but to sum up, podcast audience and crypt was an amazing show. It holds up incredibly well. I was so proud to be part of it, and I'm very happy to have been able to talk about it with you guys.
[00:58:50] Speaker A: Well, as we've always said, one of the pleasures we got to work with the most amazing people in the business, craftspeople and really, we got to use, put our craft together with their craft and make these wonderful things. That was such a joy. You were one of the craftspeople that made it all worthwhile. Thank you, man. Thank you.
[00:59:17] Speaker C: It was always a pleasure. It really was always a pleasure.
[00:59:20] Speaker A: Good God, yes. Otherwise, we wouldn't have spent so much time together screaming at each other into the void.
[00:59:25] Speaker B: It really sincerely, it means a lot to me to have you guys say that.
[00:59:31] Speaker A: Well, it was a fact of life, and we are long overdue to have this from.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: Absolutely.
And just, you know, maybe this. You'll cut this part out, but it's just great seeing you both, too. Oh, my God.
[00:59:42] Speaker A: Hey, but, you know, that. That was one of the great things about doing this podcast. First of all, that's what put Gil and I back together again as a friendship, but also as a creative partnership, was I needed to tell this story. I needed the catharsis, and I couldn't tell the story without his voice, literal voice. And when he. When Gil decided that, okay, painful as it is, and I think you also found, Gill, that it's an incredibly cathartic experience to have done this. It was. Yeah, it got a lot of.
[01:00:16] Speaker C: But it is cathartic.
[01:00:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I get it. And at the end. Hey. And suddenly we had to come up with a second season, and now we're well into the third season. This is episode 35. We've got well over 100 episodes in the Cannes. Entertainment Weekly called us the best film podcast of 2022.
[01:00:35] Speaker B: No kidding.
[01:00:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Our first season, the story of bordello of Blood. Because, you know, it's. It's. It's not just a conversation between Gil and I. It's really. It's the whole from beginning to bitter fucking end story of, wow, how that movie. You know, it's just a mediocre horror movie, but it. It's a movie that nobody wanted to make. That's not the movie we were supposed to make in as the second tales from the crypt movie was to make a whole other movie in three weeks before the start of principle, Universal fucked us and said, no, you're gonna make this other movie instead, because of a deal they'd made. Buy this script called Bordello of Blood for half a million bucks and didn't want to eat it, so we were going to eat it instead. And literally every day on that movie was stupider than the day before.
It was just how not to make a movie.
[01:01:23] Speaker C: Have you ever heard of a documentary series? They did it, I think, of the seventies and the eighties, something about looking for the darkness. And it's James Cameron and I. Oh, God. And Carpenter, John Carpenter executive producing it. And.
[01:01:41] Speaker B: No, I don't know.
[01:01:42] Speaker C: They did it for the seventies, they did it for the eighties, and they wrote to me and they wanted to do it for the nineties. And I said, oh, great. Yeah, I do it. And they said, well, we can come to you or you can come to our studio in LA. And I said, well, I don't think you want to come to me because I'm in Vancouver. And they said, no, we'll send the film crew over to your place, if that's okay, or we'll get a studio. And I said, no, you can do it at my place. So they came about a week or two ago, and they did a two and a half hour. I thought it was going to be like an hour, a two and a half hour interview. That was really interesting to me, to relive all these things. I mean, they had done research to, you know, stuff I had forgotten about that was really quite interesting. And I'm just wondering if.
[01:02:24] Speaker B: Is it like a history of horror? I'm just thinking about the title. Okay. Yeah. And so a lot of. I think it's called searching for. Talk to you about the crypt. Yeah, yeah.
[01:02:35] Speaker C: I think it's called searching for the darkness.
[01:02:37] Speaker B: No, I don't know it. I have to look it up, take.
[01:02:40] Speaker C: A look, and I'll look up to see if I got the title right. But it was pretty interesting. I'm just thinking that, you know, maybe they should have a conversation with you about some of the stuff you've done.
[01:02:49] Speaker B: Well, hell yeah. You can steer them my way. I'd love to. Yeah.
[01:02:54] Speaker C: All right.
[01:02:56] Speaker A: Again, thank you, Larry, for, for sitting in with us, and I look forward to the next conversation.
[01:03:01] Speaker B: Wonderful to see you.
[01:03:02] Speaker A: Thank you, everybody, as always. We'll see you next time. The how not to make a movie podcast is executive produced by me, Alan Katz, by Gil Adler, and by Jason Stein. Our artwork was done by the amazing Jody Webster and Jason. Jody, along with Mando, are all the hosts of the fun and informative dads from the Crip podcast. Follow them for what my old pal the crypt keeper would have called terrific crypt content.
