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Gav and Dan lend their unique perspective to horror films and the world surrounding them. With Gav's unique perspective as a filmmaker and Dan's peculiar perspectives, The Podcast on Haunted Hill offers a fresh view of horror cinema!
The podcast on Haunted Hill will contain spoilers and swearing.
I am the devil, and I am here to do the devil's work.
I saw this when I come.
And be one of us.
Hello, and welcome to Podcasts on Haunted Hill, Episode 161.
Yeah.
That's correct.
Brilliant.
Just making sure, my name's Gav.
My name's Dan.
Welcome back or welcome front, I guess would be, would be if you are here for the first time, we welcome front.
Welcome, welcome at the front, and you're welcome at the back.
Is that what you say, welcome front?
No, I don't think it is.
I think you say welcome back, or welcome if this is your first time.
You're welcome back because they're coming back again, and you're welcome in them.
Welcome in them, in them, in them, in them, in them.
Welcome in.
Back.
So front is just not, the front is never said, because if they're coming back, they had to come in for the first time, and unless they had the front at the first, then they didn't, because front doesn't exist.
Well, if you are listening for the first time, this is Gab's brain you're currently listening to.
We're just spewing out of it like lava from a hot volcano.
And that's the sound of it.
Welcome, welcome.
Yes, this is the podcast on Haunted Hill.
This is our tenth year of podcasting.
So what we're trying to do for as many times as we can is do a director special.
Director special.
We've never, we haven't got a jingle for that, but there we go.
No, we should have.
I make jingles really easily, but every time I don't, because I forget.
We just forget.
But this is a director special.
And this time we're going to be talking about M Night Shyamalan.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Shyamalan.
Yeah.
But that might deem like we're being taken the piss out of his name.
We're not.
It's just, I couldn't help it.
It fits, it fits perfectly.
And I found out that the name Night come from really him just studying late in the library.
Yeah.
And he changed it.
That's not as cool as I thought it would be.
People also couldn't grasp his full name.
So he's got an Indian name.
Yeah.
So he changed it to M Night Shyamalan, which is fine.
Well, his name is more equivalent to Michael in India.
All right.
So it's quite a common name in India.
Well, we'll get into that because yes, M Night Shyamalan.
So what we're going to be doing is breaking down his back catalog.
Always puts a smile on our face when we say that.
We'll be going through his back catalog, everything he's directed, a couple of things he's produced along the way because he is a voice in horror, quite a loud voice.
He puts bums in seats, people buy tickets for him.
Well, funny enough, though, he started off strong doing like a kind of supernatural thriller with a A-lister.
Yeah.
Pretty much not as his first movie, his third film actually, but his first actual like Here I Am.
Yeah.
So we'll be talking about M Night Shyamalan, everything he's kind of done career wise, his style, his idols, his background.
And we're going to be covering his first and third films because they are both very spooky films and two of our favorites of his probably.
What was the second?
His second movie was Unbreakable, which is still a fantastic film.
But we're going to be looking at The Sixth Sense, the one that kind of got his name on the map, really.
Starring Bruce Willis, John McClane himself, spawned I See Dead People as one of the biggest quotes.
And apparently, it broke the box office record because up until The Sixth Sense came out, Jaws held the box office record for the horror film.
But then The Sixth Sense smashed that.
So, wow.
Well, he must have had something, I think quite a good writer really, for reviewing the film, especially The Sixth Sense.
Really good writer, naturally.
Well, he wrote it.
Yes, I'm saying.
Great character, the development, stuff like that.
So I think must have been in the writing that he went and said, you know, I'm going to do this movie, but they were really like, yeah, okay, the two can actually make films.
And trust him enough to say, oh, all right, we're going to give you Bruce Willis, because it wasn't like he was friends with Bruce, because on the set of the film, they had just done a scene after dinner, seen Bruce and his wife in the film.
And he said, yep, I think we got it.
And M Night was like, hmm.
He went over to him and said, yeah.
And he knew as he was walking over to him, he's just like, look at him like he's going, because it wasn't that, yeah, it was a studio thing, so Bruce would have been hired by the studio and the producers rather than like a relationship with the director, do you know what I mean?
So he went over and said, can you just do, I want another take, but I want you to do this and whispered something to him.
And he just looked at him, really cold stare for a long time.
And M Night, okay, audio, roll.
Imagine telling Bruce Willis, that wasn't enough.
After Bruce just said, no, we've got that, you know.
No Bruce, you weren't good enough.
Well, we'll also be covering.
But, there's more story to it, so.
Oh, gosh.
He went over at lunchtime, the producer said, yeah, Bruce wants to see you in his trailer.
And he had a really long walk down the street to the trailer, and he was walking down to him, and he's just, oh, fucking hell.
And he's just walking down there for ages again, this is not gonna be good.
Oh, God, knocks on it.
And he opened the door, and Bruce is high up with a towel over his head, he's been having a shower or whatever, and he's really high up, standing above him, he's really low, looking down up at him.
You know, it's his first film.
And Bruce said, what you did earlier, only once I've ever felt that before.
And that was with Quentin Tarantino.
You've got something.
And then he shut the door.
He shut the door, and that was it.
And then M Night said he skipped down the road, the only time he's ever skipped.
I would have done.
That's amazing.
Well, we'll also be covering that from 99, and also from 2002, another action icon that he scooped up and put into a alien invasion film.
Yeah, it's a fun one.
Signs.
Also with Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin.
Yes, Mel Gibson.
So two action icons from our Christmas episodes we've covered in the past, because we've covered Die Hard and Lethal Weapon for some of our Christmas episodes.
So yeah.
It's interesting.
Like I said, I think like what Bruce Willis saw in that one thing then, I thought it was really good.
I only found it out from the other day he had an interview, not he said about it.
M Not did.
I think that he must have shown that to the studio in some way with the script, shown that to the studio and then just go, yeah, okay, you know, to be able to feel that in him as well and trust in him.
Well, he liked him enough to come back and make Unbreakable.
Yeah, and Bruce did it as well.
Yeah.
So I think, I'm very impressed with what he's done.
And yeah, he is kind of a horror person, but he's kind of stayed mainstream.
He has, but...
But in a fine way, he makes us...
The fact that some of his films get out there and have made money, that would mean we've got other films come out with Kevin Bacon, like the supernatural sort of thriller.
Yeah, and funny you should say that, because Stir of Echoes, I think, came out the same time as The Sixth Sense.
What I was going to say was, he is kind of like, and I'm getting ahead of myself, we will discuss him in detail later, but he's kind of like a bit of a guaranteed tickets being sold.
He's almost a bit of a...
I would never compare anyone to the God Spielberg, but he is a bit of a horror Spielberg in some ways.
He's high above the...
He's above the layer, isn't he?
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
It's really interesting actually.
And I think he's done really well for himself actually.
Yeah, and I'm a big fan.
So we'll get into that properly soon.
But first of all, Gab, it's our intro.
Let's just quickly check in with each other.
You've been on holiday.
Did you have a nice time?
How are you doing?
How are you feeling?
I went to a cabin, kind of in the woods, so to speak.
There was other cabins there, but it was just all trees around us.
A big, massive cabin.
It's better than my flat.
It's fucking luxury.
The mattress is so good.
So good.
Anyway, I went there for a week with the kids down in the coast of, lower coast of England.
Dinosaur Museum, Sea Life Centre, you know, that sort of stuff.
It's nice, very nice.
Good father-children time.
One day at Port of Wraith, we sat and watched the Olympics, once a day.
And you watched Old, another Shyamalan show.
And Old played, so we all got round and we all watched Old, so I watched Old with all of my children, even my youngest.
He watched it as well.
Great.
Well, we'll chat about that when we go through Shyamalan's work list.
Good.
Well, I'm glad you had a good time and you're well and you're happy.
I'm well and happy.
I've got nothing really to report.
The only thing really, family wise, is also related to films, which is my favorite film of all time.
It's now my children's favorite film of all time currently.
I'm talking about The Princess Bride for anyone who doesn't know.
It's for someone who's such a big horror fan, The Princess Bride for me is the perfect film.
It's one of my three comfort blanket films.
And I introduced my children to it.
We all had COVID two weeks ago.
Actually, that is something you probably don't know about me, Gav.
We all had COVID two weeks ago.
Probably should have mentioned that.
You said you guys are ill at one point.
That's probably when you probably then discovered you had COVID.
Yeah, my wife bought a test and she was positive, well, slightly positive.
How did you feel?
How did you feel?
Just comparing you to me because we're fairly similar age and size.
Well, this new strain, and I don't really buy into the strain.
Well, we just felt really anxious and confused because that is apparently one of the symptoms of a newer strain is there's like an element of mental health with it, like a bit of anxiety that comes with it.
I think my wife probably had it the worst.
Jack definitely had it quite badly.
My son, he was really hot and sweaty for three days and really not himself, really upset all the time.
I think me and Edith got off quite lightly with it.
But yeah, so we all had COVID.
So while we were all kind of in on the weekend, I introduced them to The Princess Bride and they fell in love with it straight away to the point that as soon as it ended, Daddy, play it again.
What?
Okay.
So we watched it again.
We probably watched it about 10 times in a week before nursery, after nursery.
We haven't probably watched it for a couple of days now, but honestly, even today, when I picked them up from nursery, Edith came up to me and said, as you wish, Daddy, as you wish, which is one of the quotes for anyone who knows the movie.
Drop your sword is another quote that my son always says to me.
And they're just, they're just in love with it.
And it's so lovely for me, because you know what it's like when you introduce a film to either your children or a loved one that you love and they might not have ever seen and they just don't like it or don't get it, you know what I mean?
Like when I showed the Goonies to Alice and she was like, yeah, it's a bit noisy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I was like, well, I suppose it is, but I grew up watching it.
But my, that's my takeaway really is I'm very happy that they like The Princess Bride.
Shout out to Kate Pollock who sent us, when we were, when we just had the kids, she sent me a bunch of books, children's books, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Ghostbusters, and The Princess Bride, but they were like baby books.
So they incorporate the stories of these films, but you know, like a toddler's sort of viewpoint.
You know what I mean?
So shout out to Kate, because I pulled the Princess Bride book out of the book box and I've been reading that to them every night as well.
So doing The Voices, they absolutely love it.
But yeah, so that's one thing I wanted to mention.
It's quite a good segue, actually.
Yeah, because funny enough, Daisy and I were talking Jaws films, because we watched Don't Wake Up, which we'll talk about in a moment, actually.
And she was just saying nothing beats Jaws.
I was like, nope.
And I do love the fact that all of my kids, all adore Jaws.
In fact, I took them to 3D screening of it and everything, you know.
They really love Jaws, which I like.
I'm honored to have been there actually with you all on their first watch of it.
I remember we were on your sofa together.
I remember, yeah.
Because your eldest swore under their breath.
And their head.
And I was like, yeah.
And I was like, don't worry about it.
It's a swearable moment.
I think they only said, oh shit.
But like enough that I heard it.
But it's like, what else are you going to say when you see a floating head under the water?
Come on.
This new film on Amazon Prime, No Way Up, is basically a destruction film and a shark movie.
So basically, it's an aeroplane crashes.
So it goes into the water and it's stuck in there.
And obviously, there's a bit of time.
They've got like 20 hours or so until it's completely gone.
And one of the people in there is a girl or a young lady whose dad is, might be the president of America?
I don't know.
Anyway, he's got a bouncer.
She's got a bouncer with him sort of thing anyway.
But they're stuck.
But the sharks as well.
So they got to figure out how they can breathe and get up to the top of the water while sharks around.
And actually, you know, it wasn't a bad movie.
It was well acted.
It was well directed.
The sharks looked fine.
Everything was actually fine for a shark.
If you want a shark movie, it's fine.
You know, I like aeroplane set in films and I like sharks.
Films.
So I worked on two levels for myself.
No way up.
From what I've seen of it, it's like the Poseidon adventure, but with sharks.
Yeah, it's fine.
It wasn't trying to force itself to do anything it wasn't supposed to do or be a tacky shark movie.
It was fine.
Well, talking of children's films, I know you talked about this couple of episodes ago.
I finally got around to watching Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio.
I really enjoyed that.
And I really enjoyed it too.
And I was about 45 minutes into it, I was saying to my wife, I think the kids would like this.