ANTHOLOGIES ATTACK! - Asylum - Special Guest Darin Scott

The most terrifying form of evil is that which lurks within the human mind. Asylum the ultimate in horror. This is an asylum, incurably insane, asylum filled with stark, raving terror. From Robert Black, author of Psycho Asylum, the Prison of Madness where few enter and non written see Asylum, You have nothing to lose but your mind.

Welcome back, Midnight viewers to Anthologies Attack, where we're taking a look at anthologies of every genre in media. Antonio

Glad to be here. That was the best introduction I've ever had.

Hello, we like our guests to feel welcome here.

It was great and I love the concept of your show.

Zone, the original, original Twilight Zone fifty nine to sixty three.

Eighty yes, and the original Twilight Zone. So when these horror anthologies came along, I was a horror fan and they kind of had the feel of a Twilight Zone of you know, the individual episodes do. So I'm just figuring out my own psychology while I love this genre, maybe that has something well.

I mean, the reason we started the show to begin with was we wanted to take a look at Tales from the Crypt, the television series, and we covered that, and then we covered we covered Twilight Zone eighty five, and now we're covering Tales from the dark Side.

Actually, and I I.

Used to watch those all the time. I was impressed by what they were doing with very low budget. So that's what impressed me.

Exceedingly low budgets, and when you look at what was going on at the time, because Amazing Stories was on, they rather got contemporary. Those episodes cost a million dollars each. Meanwhile, over it Tells from the Dark Side, they're like anyone got any Scotch tape, and the Tales from the Dark Sides were so superior.

They were better, They were better. They didn't have you know, rubber wheels on the World War two plane, all the coopy stuff. I really wasn't in it, but no, and when they brought Tales from the Crypt, I think the original movie is probably my favorite.

Hornhalo, the original Test the Crypt from seventy one.

Original Tales from the Crypt. I mean, it's story after story after story is good, ending with the fantastic blind Man story and great great performance. The ending of that is just so awesome.

It's really it's really jarring. The ending of that one.

And I agree with you that one is it's like nothing but bangers and they cram some stories into what is essentially a ninety minute running time.

Yes, yes, and all the stories are good. I mean, did you ever look at Santa the same again? And then later we had all these Santa Claus hormon But you know what the original was that episode and that's what people saw and said, oh, we need to turn a hole make a whole feature out of that.

I watched that every year, The original that the Joan Collins Tales from the Crypt. It is so perfect, Like I can't even describe it, and I think you use. I've shown it to younger people who do not jibe with it because no, they find it.

A little bit hokey.

And you know, as as violent as the Amicus films were, they're not gory.

Yeah, they're not gory at all.

So like at the end of that segment, Santa Father Christmas comes in to effectively strangle Joan Collins. But it's all very stagy and kind of you know, overblown.

But it shouldn't matter.

I know, it doesn't matter to me, and it probably didn't matter to you either, because it was such a fun concept that.

Yes, yeah, and she's a great villains and just a concept's trying to balance dealing with this murder and the kid, and she doesn't keep the balance together and mommy.

And her plan was so solid.

It was a solid plan. It was a solid thing.

All right. We're not here to talk Tails from the Crypt tonight.

Or it's potentially not superior, but almost an equal in Vult of Horror.

Baltimore doesn't have as many good stories as.

I like Baltimore. You know, let's go through them just real quick. Yeah, for the audience if they don't know these films so they can seek them out. Tales from the Crypt Master Asylum, awesome, Doctor Tears, House of Horror really cool. You know, I don't know why they called it takes place on train, so weird. It should have been like, you know, the Train of Horror something like that. I never can figure out. But anyway, but it's good.

And really hard to find actually, or I mean it might now be more, but I remember searching for that on VHS for fucking ever.

Hard to find. Yeah, you're right, and I got it on DVD and I think I have it in a Blu ray format. Now I got a to go look again. But I love that one. And the creepiest thing in it is Donald Pleasant's daughter because she looks so much and it's just freaking weird. And I'm not saying that she was an unattractive lady, no, no, no, she looked like Donald. She actually she was kind of cute. Considering the fact that she looked like Donald Pleasance. I guess

I was going to say, Man, that's not it's so sad we're not gonna get to see that movie.

We just can just in.

Piecemeal exactly like you can see in piecemeal. It's another Baltimore is cool. The only one I don't like is Petuergarden, and I'm sorry because I love Burgess Meredith. He's one of my favorite character actors of all time. He was awesome on the Twilight Zone.

A torture Gardener what no, no, no, no, let's talk about this because I agree with you.

What is it about Garden that we just can't get behind?

You know what?

For me, part of it is just the way it's shot. It feels too greasy.

Yeah yeah, I can go along with that, And the stories just aren't that compelling, and the wrap round is weak. It's actually shocking. Will below all the others for me because on any given day, I can easily watch any of the others and sit down and go, oh, yeah, let's watch Baldipore. Oh let's watch Doctor Tiff. But you say, let's watch Torture Garden, And I'm like, I call that torture audience.

That's it's the one anarchist film that I struggled. I think it was a multiple night viewing for for Torture Garden.

Yeah, and I'm with you.

It should be fucking off the charts because it's Burgess Meredith as our crypt keeper and it's.

Written by Robert Block. Is from Beyond the Grave? That's their last one? No? Yeah?

Was that the last one they did? Or was The House that.

No, it's from Beyond the Grave because then it's strong. Beyond the Grave great films. After that, a lot of the team would get back together to do Monster Club in nineteen eighty.

But that is technically not an Amicus film, right, No, it's not an Oh.

I know we're supposed to get to Asylum.

I don't care. Just have to talk about man. I love Amicus. I love talking Amicus.

I just have to share this hilarious story. I saw Max Max Rosenbom, who was the producer along with Milton Subotski, was a writer producer at the American Cinematech. I don't know how many years ago it was something, but Rosenberg was like ninety three ninety four. He died a few years later, but he was still spry and he was still talking a gang of stuff. And he got up there after there after we showed it was one of

I can't say enough bad things about him.

Oh my god. I was like, all of this stuff had to be fifty.

Years ago, and this still tick deck right.

Great stuff. So asylum, Yes, asylum pulls the distinction for me.

I agree.

You know. I've always been of a mind that the wrap around segment for an anthology film is either the most important part or the least important. Right, if you're going to attempt to weave your wrap around into your store, into your film, into the into the framework, the fabric, you better be good because because we as an audience, we don't care how we're getting the The spongy twinkie is just to get that fucking cream in your mouth, so it's just a delivery system. So but I do

Come into the vault. I'm John giel Good, and I will tell you you know. But they're very simple. Their atmospheric I like them, but they're not as clever Asylum. It's really clever.

Let me for those of you who haven't seen it, we're probably gonna be spoiling some shit, so you should probably go watch it. Build on Amazon Prime right now. You can go watch it for free. Go watch it.

We'll wait, We'll be here when you get back.

You should watch it.

But as a summary of the film, I'll give you this. This is actually from the British Film Institute. A young doctor applies for a job at an asylum and is challenged to guess which of several inmates is the former head of the institution, who has now who has now gone criminally insane?

Doctor B Starr? The doctor.

Yeah.

The doctor hears the strange stories of how these inmates came to be locked away before deciding who he thinks is doctor Starr.

That and he's very cocky that he can figure it out too. They challenge him, do you think you can figure out who he is? I know I can't.

It's not even a question to this question that he's going to be able.

To and okay, his entree into the asylum the beginning of our wrap around segment. The hospital administrator effectively is Patrick McGee, who most folks will know as the writer from Clockwork Orrin.

McGee is awesome and why.

Yeah, and he's an amicus stalwart.

He was so sour, our young doctor, our prick of a doctor. He he heads off to to our first story. Basically, okay, look, he goes upstairs, Patrick McGee, the hospital administrator. This is important. The pat the hospital administrator, is in a wheelchair. He cannot go upstairs. He doesn't know what's going on in the rest of his asylum. So so our cocky young guy goes up and meets the orderly who is going to escort him around the hawk and we're given our

Pretty So husband is tired, our wife is tired of the other.

It's like the inverse of that tales from the crypt Christmas one. It's that it's a golden husband who is tired of his wealthy wife, who's who has her under his or has him under her thumb. Also she spent a lot of time in Africa and his studying voodoo. Maybe don't mess with your wife, sir. But he's got a mistress.

And you know, what do you think of this one? Overall?

I think it's pretty good. You know, it's fun. It's it's the thing about a stile. The stories are very solid, but the rapper one is so good that you don't even I don't remember all the stories that clearly.

It's such a weird phenomenon, right, yeah, And it does have that similarity.

It's not the most original, but it's fun. It's fun.

It's fun.

It's a little weird in that we're dealing with a husband of this wealthy woman and he chops her up into pieces because he has a mistress and as soon as the deed is done, they're going to run away together.

He has purchased a.

Refrigerator, a freezer, you know, like these giant freezers that you would stack your meat in, to stack the body of his wife, and.

Then his rap pieces very well.

Very well, oh my god.

Clean with the brown paper was you know, you'd.

Be working at Macy's around Christmas time this fellaw, which was weird because he you can tell he spent so much time lovingly wrapping it, and then after the fact he's hesitant to pick up the head, like now it's a frightening object. It wasn't so frightening when it was bloody and gory and your wife's head in your hands while you were wrapping it.

But anyway, maybe he was starting.

To get a premonition of what was going to happen.

It would be yeah, maybe they're just.

They had pieces right.

You know, and you definitely want to throw your wife's bracelet in with the body parts when you go to leave it there.

Oh.

But my point is his mistress says, we're gonna have to take that body with us, and the reaction isn't like why did we buy the refrigerator?

When did this happen?

Maybe she just want to make sure everything was cold, so when instinct they took it.

Out er, they're like, so the one thing I did was that they're running away because most most of these I'm going to kill my spouse tails and with them the body, which means it's no longer a murder case as far as the concern, it's going to be a missing person's case, which is going to last years and years before they're finally declared dead.

So if this is like an inheritance thing that ain't ever gonna.

Work, well, wasn't there a thing though? Back then and in England? And then when did no fault divorce? Yeah?

I don't know was that around the because there was a time.

When I know, definitely the fifty and I think still in the sixties somewhat where it wasn't no fault divorce. You had to have a reason, you had to basically, and if your spouse didn't want to give you, then you had to sue them for divorce, prove that they cheated on you or something. People could be actually held locked in relationships. She won't give me a divorce. You watch old, old classic movies and you'll hear that plotline, she won't give me a divorce. And you know, now,

Going to be slightly inconvenienced. You gotta go, you.

Gotta go, and they a'll hire some friend to do it, and they're surprised when they get caught.

I'm like, you would be lucky in that scenario to have dead body parts come after you, right, I mean, just to avoid the sheer humiliation of how poor a criminal you.

Work, exactly. It's embarrassing, but it's much more fun to have the supernatural bring justice.

Now here's the thing.

One other aspect of this movie and block script that I really admire is setting in an asylum automatically makes every character an unreliable narrator. So this character there might not have been any I mean, their body part, sure, because there was something.

The stories could be told byes. But but if I remember correctly, a story, not that one, the one with which you have. She has some scar. No, that's is that this episode?

Yeah, because it's the mistress telling the story and she's she's had her back all the time, and then she pulls her review that that the body part hand was on her face, and then she used the act.

Yes, Okay, now I'm remembering, and that is what proves that the story that she told was because up till then we're kind of thinking this is some crazy making to see that.

Well, all that proves is she hit herself in the face with an axe. It doesn't mean that there were body parts. Co't look horror needs supernatural.

I agree with that, but I do like that it can go either way.

If you go either way on that absolutely going.

Either way leads us to the Weird Tailor. Now, interestingly, this was originally published in Weird Tales magazine. The Weird Tailor was I just like the the coincidence of Weird Tales and Weird Tailor. Now this this is the tale

The actor who played the tailor very very morse, very morse. He usually played the villain, the creepy guy, the one who's danger so it's cool in this one that he's kind of like, you know, struggling shy. You know, he's the opposite of what you usually see that actor. And I think that's one of the strengths of it because you have cushion, Yeah, cushion, but you know that guy

In the house, by the way, it was the name of that TWI yes, yes.

Yes, And he's a beautiful wife. Wait a second, Wait a second. Isn't his wife in that Twilight Zone.

Episode Joan Hackett? Is it Joan Hackett Hackett?

Okay?

What was Oh?

Oh, the King of diggression.

That's fine, But what I wanted to say was what you're talking about with Barry Morris, sort of playing against type here. I think that's also a strength of anthologies in general. Yes, so in television because there's so many of them, but anthologies in general because you can you can put somebody in there. Look, you know what, like.

Everyone else from the hood. We took a comedian, a comic app and turn him into a vicious wife.

It was David Alan Grier, right, That was which was people were shot. Absolutely, if you know what I would say, I would tell people go watch Creep Show. If you're a big fan of Leslie Nielsen and what a fucking hilarious guy he is watching Google Human being on Earth?

Absolutely absolutely, so here we've got I can hold my breath.

The Lord he's also really he showed up in Weirdly Given the Creep Show aniss of it all. There's an episode of Night Gallery with both Fritz Weaver and Leslie Nielsen.

He was in Twilight Zone.

He was in Zone which it's called a fear where Leslie Nielsen is this mercenary who is bet that that he cannot spend a night in a haunted house, but the haunted house has been rigged up to scare him to death.

By Fritz Weaver. Is that the one with the slime No wait, I'm getting mixed up.

That is the slime one where they've injected him and he thinks he's going to turn into a Yes.

Yeah, yes, it's okay.

We are the kings of digression. Where the hell are we here? They're cushing once a suit.

Well, we're going through the stories of asylum, and I'm like, we can go through them, but I think we've told go see the damn movie.

It's pretty great.

Do we have to spoil arized the entire film that you know?

Uh no, but we can shout out other awesome things in the movie, Yes we can, So let's keep all right?

All right?

So yeah, the weird tailor, it's it's you know, you're right, let's not spoil it.

It's good.

I don't think that's in here. It's it's exactly where it needs to be. The second spot.

Yeah.

Interestingly, Robert Block stopped working for Amicus after this. He did not appreciate them swapping the story placemental Originally that first story was the last story.

He got mad about that, and the last story was some from the Hollywood.

Robert, don't you know that they usually do much worse than switch the order of your story. I honestly think I.

Think it was a I honestly think it was a thing about money, and he was just looking for the excuse, and he was like, fuss.

Finally at the end, you.

Know we'll get Mathison. Dammit.

Yeah right, Chuck Beaumont on the on the horn. Our next story is Lucy, Come stay now.

This one.

I don't know who decided that they were going to put all of my fantasy women into one segment of horror anthology and expect me to do anything but drool. But this one starts Simpling and Britt Eckland, Fuck you. Charlotte Rampling has just gotten out of the hospital and her best friend Lucy shows him, and Lucy's a troublemaker.

Lucy's Lucy's Lucy's kind of like Karen Black. But I will give more other clue to those out there who we haven't seen.

Either, speaking of playing against type here now at this moment in history, Britt Eckland. Look, they're both sex symbols, Britt Eckland and Charlotte Rampling, right, But Britt Britt Eckland was the nice girl next door sex symbol and Charlotte Rampling was sort of the bad girl, and here they've kind of swapped rolls.

Yeah, brick, but yeah, that's true. Britt was pretty.

Bad and Wickerman, well, everyone was bad at Wall I saw and I'm gonna say, like twenty ten, maybe they showed they weren't.

So I drove specifically to see it and I was great.

I'm standing outside of the theater and I'm alone out there except for this blonde standing two feet away from me, and it was fucking oh my god. And man, wow, yeah, so I got to talk. Yeah, she's shorter than me. I'm six two, she was like five nine.

That's still tall. Yeah, yeah, yeah, jesus Us stamp.

Yeah, and she's great here. I like I like naughty Britt Eckling.

Yes, and this one has a cool twist, which when I saw it the first time, I did not see And like I said, we've seen it done in other things.

Do you think it's more telegraphed for modern audiences than you and I watching it on a TV and a fucking kitchen when we were ten.

I'm sure it must. I'm sure it must be. But on the other hand, will they know using you know, in Trilogy of Terrors, in that particular episode, it's the same act, so you know, it throws you off a little bit more having Yeah, two different people play the alter so I think this one will probably actually fool them more consistently than even and I love Trill Care, but even than that ending episode of that that they probably spotted right things and stuff and to me, but yeah,

Yeah, I think this is might hold up.

Yeah, I think this one is superior to the Trilogy of Terror. It is similarity. Okay, Trilogy Care, A little born on the Zoo, the.

That's that's it. I do a second episode where hypnotizes the guy.

To man that I can't believe that was on national television.

He's like he's like having her fuck his friends and stuff like and like.

It was deadly. It was he was a monster. And I'll never forget you drugged me, No, dear, I've killed you.

Yeah in that wax cup, yeah, man like perspiring wax cup. All right, everybody go once again, watch the movie. We're going to the final set, talk about.

These things in the hope that hear it and go, oh, okay, I need to see that. I need to see that one, because people do need to see so many people, even filmmakers,

And anyone who that they can't find anything to watch, I want to strangle as.

Too much to watch now, that's that's the issue.

Everything is available now.

I would When we were kids, man, it was just like, here's your three channels. It's going to beat uh pan, and we're gonna jam commercials into it. You're never gonna enjoy yourself. But we really enjoyed ourselves and we wanted more and more and more, and we were denied. And now they got everything and they don't care too much.

They have too much. And that's why, you know, for me, I love the universal horror movie. I got into film noir. I got it the black and white fine, we had you know, everything on at first we had a black and white television, but then once we got color television, still all the old movie we'ren't black and white. My father's favorite actor with Reboca, so we would watch all that. And now younger people, younger the millennials down, they will not watch them. It can be the greatest movie. Oh

I worry that the TikTok generation won't sit still for Dead of No, No they won't. Well they should, and you should be watching Asylum as well, you pricks.

But if they're listening to this podcast, there's a chance they can do. So. Yeah, that's why we're.

Doing that, is true.

You know what, I guess we should mention Herbert Lahm here because he's fucking fantastic and I always love seeing Yeah, mainly known comedically from those fucking Pink Panther movies. But the reason he's so, he's such a good dramatic actor and got just like one scene basically here, and he's fucking captivating. Do you know what when somebody says the words of the Dead Zone the Stephen King movie, I think of Herbert lam.

He said that movie few seconds.

Yeah, you're right, you know everything is the whole thing with people that are constantly looking for the origin of story elements in modern and then they attack them because if they can figure out what an antecedent to, what previous use of that story element and another thing that gives them something to rip it and say, oh, that's just X, not realizing that all the movies that they love that they think are so original, they just don't know.

Said we're gonna wrap things up here.

But I do have a very particular question for you now, very since it's a very very important question. What is your favorite two Light Zone episode?

That would be impossible. There are so many that I adore, but our names, but I'll name a few that have been influential. Sometimes I don't have a title memrized.

I'll help if I can.

I did it. I did it one time, getting but one day it was influential on Tales from the Hood. I'm gonna just name ones that have had influence. Because I had a twilight his own festival and all my friends, I said, I'm gonna play my favorite. It went on for thirty six hours because there was so many I was playing. I played half the friend show. People were coming, going, leaving, coming back. That is the greatest.

If you do that again, coming, I.

Will, And it was fantastic. But I'll tell you one that was very influential was the one with Lee Marvin Lee van Cleeve, where Lee Marvin goes up to the grave. He's been dared by this guy who's supposed to be hunting down and everybody bets him that he won't have the nerve to go up to the hill at midnight because this guy before he died said this guy ever comes, So they hate if he ever comes anywhere near my grave.

That is the grave that's the name of that episode, and that was that was actually James Best, not not Lee Marvin.

In that one, Lee Marvin was in Steel.

Lee Marvin's James Best. This one, Lee Marvin is the tough guy and James Best the wimpy asshole who who wants to bet it and that really infuriately Marvin. But you are, you're a scaredy cat, you're a coward and you're betting me on mine. So anyway, how that relates to Tales from the Hood that actually supposed to be

Instead of a mystery, just kind of creepy mystery.

They said, we'll give you another one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you can go back and the dolls eating. And that's what we did. And in a rare case, the.

Studio was I didn't have a problem.

It was a better ending. It was a better ending. They give us some money to do it. Hey, so anyway, we'll be here. We could be here for six hours if I start going through all of it. But that's one that had an impact on something. I mentioned that. Obviously everyone that Burgess married, if we talked about they were all.

And had that tingle that that you mentioned.

Yes, yes, so his were great. The Jack Klugman's were great. I'm going by actors, the ones Jack Klugman when we were great. Thirty great episodes.

Of Twilight Zone. Episode of all time is the Howling.

That's awesome, Charles.

The talk about a spine chilling thing where that's the fucking slow zoom in on that door with the little thing coming off at the end and there's like a puff of smoke and a howl and that's where we cut to black at the end.

Fuck you, rud Certainly I didn't sleep for weeks.

That's a creepy one, especially the transformation as he walks past the pillars. Is cleverly done because they didn't have me Compewter and it's cool and you like and the old LaDue.

Yeah, they're good, they're good.

It's no, that's a great one. That's a great one. There's so many that's great. Have me on again. Sometimes, Yeah, we'll talk to talk about Twilight Zone, but we have to cut it into you know, sci fi space or brother because that's the only way that my love for the show is manageable where I can say, Okay, well let's talk about those. Otherwise I'm talking about thirty forty different Well.

I can super narrow the genre down for you know, make it super specific, like it has to have this and this and this, this kind of an element that'll be fun. Actually, I'll come up with some of them.

All right, all right, that sounds great.

Mister Darren Scott. What have you got coming out? You got anything working on you want to let the people know about.

We're working actually on the TV series version of Tales from Hopefully we're going to be able to get it off. There got some great stories, so your fingers and you'll see the Sea Tales from the Hood live on and I will the circling full back the way that the wrap around works and tales would not have existed if not for Acyl because connecting it to a story and finding out, oh, my wrap around characters are characters from

And incredibly he's real scary at the end. Then he's really scary. Clarence Williams could always be scary.

Remember that movie Against the Wall, the Attica prison riot movie, the Frankenheimer.

Oh yes, yes, yes, oh he just had this gravitass that makes him.

Hot soup motherfucker. He lives in my brain, that that version of Clarence Williams, the unhinged version.

Let's allow again.

We'll digress forever here, sir, I'm gonna ride it all right, great once again, Thank you for joining us here at.

Thank you for having me on. I really enjoyed it entirely.

Our pleasure, man, and stay in touch. We should do this again sometimes.

I'm totally up for it. I had a good time, all right, I'll talk to you soon. A minute