Terror in Tandem
Horror-curious? Want to explore what the horror genre has to offer? Looking for insight into the macabre? Then let our two charming hosts guide you through the underbelly of the unspeakable. Terror in Tandem is a celebration of all things horror, brought to you by Laura and Richard.
Terror in Tandem
Killer Openings
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The start of a film is critical to setting the tone, starting the vibe, and getting some exposition out of the way. An effective opening scene in horror can set up what you are in for; whether we meet the villain, the hero, or just the concept of the frights to come, the best openers get you ready.
This episode is all about the beginning.
Welcome to Terror in Tandem, a podcast about finding entertainment in the macabre. Hosted by the knowledgeable and lovable Laura and Richard Mathiasin. Each episode we discuss the horror genre. From books to film to TV and beyond. Sometimes even from the beyond. You can find us on all of the things at Terrentandem at Terrentandem.com. Terrentandom at Terrentandom.
SPEAKER_00So we can workshop that, right?
SPEAKER_01Nope. That's how I'm doing it from now on.
SPEAKER_00I hate it. Good. Um welcome. Welcome to Terrentandem.
SPEAKER_01I already said that. The podcast about finding out the city. I'm just saying it in a non-weird way. Um No, actually you're not. Everything out of your mouth is a weird way.
SPEAKER_00So welcome. And welcome to the fall. It is officially fall, I think, by the calendar, but also by the gooses.
SPEAKER_01The gooses are bad. There were so many geese at the frog pond.
SPEAKER_00It makes me so happy. I mean hundreds.
SPEAKER_01Our town uh it's a it's a I would say our primary luxury property geese.
SPEAKER_00It's a stop along the way. They every year, just the the come in. They come in the Canadian tourists, and unfortunately, the geese are the only tourists from Canada still coming to visit, and we are, although deserving of it, sorry, very sorry.
SPEAKER_01But they're pooping everywhere, which we deserve.
SPEAKER_00We yeah, we we also Canada, we hear we see you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, let your geese poop as they will. It's it's understandable.
unknownFuck.
SPEAKER_00Um, but we do miss you. Anyway, it's really fun because like every year there it's just they're every they seem like they leave about the same time every day.
SPEAKER_01Well, it it changes because the light.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but you just hear like Yeah, it's a lot in their V formations. Yeah, they take off in little squadrons.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you should really if you get a chance and it's like getting close to the gloaming, yes, sit and watch how they go off in groups, and sometimes you'll have like a little straggler who might be new to the group, and he's like, Oh no, hold on.
SPEAKER_00I'm coming! Yeah, no, to if you have uh the privilege to witness the the flight of the goose.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. We oh, by the way, uh we should tell our audience we've totally changed the concept of this podcast. It's now a nature podcast. Oh, yeah. Where we only talk about animal droppings.
SPEAKER_00It's my favorite time of year, yeah. Welcome to Guanocast. Um and uh I I just I'm I'm very happy. I have a little pep in my step. But let me bring us down because I actually something has happened recently that I find very interesting. It we've we've talked about this on the podcast before, but I I want to get like a little serious and bring up, I don't know if you saw Matthew Lillard um on uh he was being I don't know exactly what it was, but he was being interviewed. Is that like a screening or something? He was talking about Scream 7, and he said he apologized for taking. Yeah, and he he specifically called out Melissa Barrera. Yeah. And, you know, I we've talked about it a little bit because that's the that is the reason why I wrote Scream 7 off completely. Like I never gave it a chance, I haven't seen it, I won't see it. And I'll be honest, I was happy that it got bad reviews. That's a mess. I heard, yeah, because they were gonna close out the trilogy. It was gonna be directed by Christopher Landon and um Melissa Barrera go back and check out what she did. Um, it was, I believe, retweeting a um a an Israeli scholar talking about the issue, and for that she had her career taken away.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00For doing something that, like, you know, listen, the Macklemore of it all, uh, we're still dealing with it, but I feel like this is a very important thing.
SPEAKER_01The McClamour has been talking about it before there was anything happening in the news.
SPEAKER_00Heinz Hall is is an incredible song. Yeah. Um, you know, everybody likes to goof on Macklemore and and whatever, but he's been real forever. So it's um, but getting back to Melissa Barrera, like there is a book about these times. Um, I believe the title is One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. And I wanted to give a moment to s just talk about the bravery and how incredible it was that that she did that, that she accepted the consequences, although they were completely disproportionate. And a little aside for Jenna Ortega, nobody believes it was scheduling issues. She left that movie in Solidarity, which is something we don't see often enough. Yeah. And Solidarity is everything. Um, because I I I feel like the 1%, it's not the 1% really, it's like the 0.01%, and they are richer than gods at this point. It's really all of us together, um, against like 15 to 20 people, you know? Um, but I I'm ranting, and I specifically I did have a question. How do you feel about Matthew Lillard talking about it now? I mean, after he's done the movie and cash his check.
SPEAKER_01Um, I mean, I don't really have an opinion about Matthew Lillard and his stances on anything, so whatever. Opportunistic, but I think he's kind of a harmless person. But he just wants to stay in the news.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00Um, yeah, no, I mean, I I um I I have complicated feelings about it. Like, on the one hand, no one else has said that, and it is good to hear.
SPEAKER_01And he did it in an appropriate forum.
SPEAKER_00And he was, it was, it did, it was heartfelt. He was, I mean, it was a vulnerable apology. It wasn't like a notes app type Ed Sheeran bullshit. Like it he seemed to have genuinely grappled with the issue. It's just it I would have been better had he if he had turned it down, but I don't want to ignore growth for like some kind of thing. Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. But we do uh love Melissa Barrera here at Tarantanum and wanted to talk just briefly about what I hope is is a a a little bit of vindication after after a long period of bullshit.
SPEAKER_01And I hope that you know they write her career because she had a really solid one coming. And yeah, unfortunately, she's not getting the type of work that is in line with her talent. And she's very talented.
SPEAKER_00That needs to that needs to change. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I um I want to make it very clear that I do like Matthew Lillard a lot. I'm very happy about the like resurgence in his career because listen, I uh scream, whatever, but SLC Punk, that was my formative movie.
SPEAKER_01Um not to be too political, but freedom of speech is even for people that you don't like what they have to say.
SPEAKER_00You don't actually have to give that qualifier when I just spent seven minutes being overtly political. I mean, not to be too political, but we've crossed that line. Like we we we are going to.
SPEAKER_01That was my wrap it up.
SPEAKER_00It's part of the community. Yeah. Anyway, worth discussing.
SPEAKER_01But if you fast forwarded past all of that, that's fine. Um, we're ready to talk about the topic of the podcast after. Uh did I turn my mic off?
SPEAKER_00Please put the knife down.
SPEAKER_01Ugh, you're the worst. Oh my god. Everybody, please, everyone help me.
SPEAKER_00Help me. Someone, whoever's listening. Um He's not saying that. Speaking of long-winded uh openings, we're gonna be talking about opening scenes in horror movies.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you can classify this opening in in the way in which we are gonna try to classify some of these horror movie openings. Like, was this opening did it only get better from our opening?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And um the idea here is you know, I think a lot of us, or really any of us watching or loving horror movies, has in their minds an example already. When you say like banger openings to movies, and there's something about the horror genre, you know, being I think it's really uh conducive to or maybe attracts a bombastic opening or a shocking opening, something that really grips you because it's a horror movie. It wants if if the point of a thesis is to kind of make your point and and foreshadow the rest of the experience, it makes sense that in a horror movie that's gonna be intense.
SPEAKER_01And we didn't say like scariest opening or necessarily you know, because that's subjective. So we're going to talk about first, we have a couple of categories, and our first is just kind of these classic horror movie openings that have a lot of intensity, like they put a lot of intensity right at the start. And as you said, foreshadowing, what better example of foreshadowing with a movie opening and final destination?
SPEAKER_00I mean, yeah, it's if foreshadowing was the whole thing, um, that's you know, that's interesting, right? It it it is just really just like a a convention stretched out to 90 minutes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and uh but they're they're different. Oh, yeah. No, foreshadowing.
SPEAKER_00One has a roller coaster.
SPEAKER_01Right. So um the final destination opening. Some are better than others. Like, for example, the second one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's the classic.
SPEAKER_01We love that opening, right? But the rest of the film, meh, not so great.
SPEAKER_00I feel like if you are a certain age, that movie in directly uh informed how you drive behind a car. Oh, true.
SPEAKER_01Any anytime I see log trucks now, I still get the same feeling.
SPEAKER_00I will not drive if I fucking have a choice, I'm not driving behind a log truck. No my God. Between that and City of Angels, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01Let's start with the first episode or the first one, the plane crash and you know, high school trip to France, and all of these signs, you know, as you watch the opening, all of these signs, the like gate or the sorry, the flight number and time is the dude's birthday, and all of these flights are being canceled, and it says on his uh bag tag, final destination, titular line in the opening scene. Um, so we all know the plane crash, and then it's all these openings end with the character we're going to follow's jolt awake, you know? They jolt awake because what's happened hasn't happened yet, or they snap out of a daze.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, it's the it's the the pre what is it, the the the precognition?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So we have plane crash with the first the log truck, the third is the roller coaster, which is interesting because everybody's already screaming, right? Everybody's already screaming, and then one guy that's using a little handheld camera, right? We see some of the mechanisms of the roller coaster, like there's a a leaky oil, we see a rickety wheel, but it's only when the guy drops his camera and the roller coaster rolls over that it starts to like dismantle and the sets the problems in motion. The fourth is the racetrack, which I think is the worst.
SPEAKER_00I don't even remember. I I oh no, no, no, is that the yeah, like the tire comes flying off because it was it was it was 3D. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01Um and then the fifth is the bus on the bridge with the bridge collapse. And the final one, which just came out, the newest movie, the um what is it? The legends.
SPEAKER_00Sure. The prequel one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01No. Sort of no, but it's it's like the opening starts as a prequel to all of them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's like a space needle type rotating restaurant bar where everything collapses. And someone flicks a penny off the top, and that sets things in motion. So sometimes the final destination, other people set these, you know, downfall of a collapse in motion, and other times it's just, you know.
SPEAKER_00Random dominoes.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I um yeah, about the Space Needle restaurant. Like, who doesn't love eating and turning in a circle at the still doing it?
SPEAKER_01I remember I think it's supposed to get a whole view of the city.
SPEAKER_00Who who was like riding the teacups and being like, hmm, I wish I'm so hungry.
SPEAKER_01Well, if you just vomited up your lunch, you're probably hungry.
SPEAKER_00No, you're not. That's the worst time to eat.
SPEAKER_01So I just wanted to talk about the final destination opens because they're really classic and they are, you know, super intense and they give away clues for the rest of the film. And usually the person who um, you know, just the person who is the main character, like come out of it right before their death happens. Yep. So you don't quite know, but final destination.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, no, it's a classic opening. Good example, too, of of one of my uh sort of tropes is um you know, it's setting a bar. Like that's the risk of a really strong opening is you've set the tone. Like, can you meet it? Because the next scene you you have to bring it back down, you know, it's like a classic uh mixtape. Um, but can you ever match that tone again? And and my little quick one, because I'm pretty fucking sure you haven't seen this movie, it's 2002's Ghost Ship.
SPEAKER_01No, but I feel like I played a video game.
SPEAKER_00Uh maybe similar on a ship. Yeah. Well, anyway, Ghost Ship, it's it's got a banging cast, you know, Gabriel Byrne is in it. It's got um others, but no, no, it's uh it's it's uh Juliana Margalise and and um Isaiah Washington, they're they're from ER fame. Yeah, it's like legit bunch of people, but the movie is garbage, it's it's just stinks. It's one of those like late 90s, early 2000s, just there were like a few like deep blue sea and and and deep rising. There was like a bunch of cruise ship ocean movies, probably Titanic. But um this one has an incredible opening. There it it's a the cruise ship, the haunted ship, and I guess this is what makes it haunted, but what you see is uh it's like a fancy party, everybody's gathering. It's like the 1940s or 50s style. Um, you know, they're all dancing, a little girl is dancing with the captain, and everyone's wearing tuxedos and drinking, and there's a band, and at the same time you can see like uh the steel cables like around the ship sort of coming off their winch and you know, like unspooling and becoming really taut, and it's all inner cut, and you're like, uh oh. But then the line snaps and it snaps horizontally through the crowd. It chops them all in half. The best part, it chops everybody in half. The line reaches ones from one side of the tip to the other in like nine in like a second and a half, you know, just bit. And then it's just sort of twanging there with a bunch of blood and guts on it, and everybody, the whole dance floor is just standing there, like with shocked looks on their faces, just like and you can hear gargling noises and like water and like liquid spilling noises. Yeah, then you just watch them all slide and fall up to pieces while the little girl who was dancing with the captain, she's so short, she's the only one that makes it.
SPEAKER_01She watches like is that future Juliana Marguis? I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00I think she's like someone else.
SPEAKER_01I really haven't seen it.
SPEAKER_00No, listen, I haven't seen it in a long time, but I I did watch the opening, you know, again because it was the first one I thought of. And this is a is a real example of like, god damn, and then the rest of the movie. It it also felt like maybe they blew a large portion of the budget on this scene and casting, you know, so like between Gabriel Byrne and Juliana Margalise, and then this incredible opener, there wasn't like a lot left, I think. But the rest of the movie, I just remember it being, you know, there. Um the opener. It's something, like it really is, and it's um I the effects are like not terrible, but it's surprisingly gruesome. Yeah, it sounds so yeah. You see a whole dance floor full of fancy people get bifurcated. But uh yeah, ghost ship. Check that one out, or not.
SPEAKER_01Or just watch the opening.
SPEAKER_00You could just YouTube the old beginning, ghost ship opening scene. Um, but that's not how I did my meticulous research.
SPEAKER_01So my next kind of is uh a classic, classic opening and a classic, like they killed off the main character already is Scream. Originally original Scream, the OG Scram Casey Becker, uh played by Drew Barrymore, which was obviously an homage to When a Stranger Calls from 1979, Fred Walton. Um is it Fred Waltons with an S?
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, um, I know that that was the inspiration, and uh to be honest, this sets up this opening not only sets up for the movie, but it sets up the whole series because we have the voice modulator, we have the trivia, we have the classic landline ring.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Everything really is in the opening moments.
SPEAKER_01But and this is all how it's gonna play out in future scream iterations.
SPEAKER_00But at the time it was like nothing. Let's just say you are a junior in high school, uh, and and by the way, and you know Drew Barrymore's in this horror movie. Yeah, uh in life and with the looks.
SPEAKER_01No mouth gear.
SPEAKER_00Everybody loves you, and the girls are swooning. So um, yeah, no, like the whole all the trailers, the marketing, it it it put Drew Barrymore at the front, and she's a huge star.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, been in things since she was like an embryo. So like icing her in the opening moments of the movie, and this is pre-internet, so like none of us knew that was gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01Serious Final Girl energy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, I mean you would expect. Yeah, that's that's and that was the point of Scream was um, you know, upending the tropes and the expectations, which is awesome. But I remember seeing that in the theater and being like, so there was a a collective holding of breath as the audience was like, so what happens next?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you also think that she gets away. That's the other thing. You think she's gonna get away and there's and her parents pull up and she's trying to yell to them and like are they gonna do that? Yeah, her final moments are ended.
SPEAKER_00It it does set the tone for the brutality of the series, too, because Ghostface everybody's on the table. Yeah, like no matter who's who Ghostface is, too, they're they're like vicious.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They they really there's a cruelty to their kills.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and this is like one of those opening scenes that immediately starts the intensity of the movie at such a high level, yeah, you know, and it it does like have its lower vibrations and then it peaks up and peaks up, and so like you never really can relax.
SPEAKER_00It's an all-time opener, and it's definitely one that I think the movie does meet. Yes, absolutely. It meets the bar. You know, the I think it was it it sort of repeats this in in all of the movies. It's like their James Bond opening, but the sixth one with Samara Weaving in the alley, that was fucking amazing. Yeah, that was just particularly intense.
SPEAKER_01And it was aligned with the the contemporary times that the movie took place, yes, as opposed to being home with your boyfriend and you're answering the phone.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, no, for sure.
SPEAKER_01It it it's um you know, in your fancy house with a pool, yeah. And this is she's meeting somebody that she met online on a date, Samara Weaving, that scream, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And they don't really have any crossover with the main characters in the rest of the film.
SPEAKER_00I knew as soon as I saw Samara Weaving, I was like, Oh, you're dead, because she's also pretty recognizable.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, she's Hugo Weaving. Niece?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00I've only recently learned that. I'm just assuming every single Hollywood star under 35 is a Nepo baby at this point.
SPEAKER_01Well, um that actress that's on the pit, she's um her last name's Duriff. Okay. Brad Duriff is her. Oh, Fiona Duriff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, I know her. She's in a bunch of the Child's Play movies, and she was on um Dirk Gentley's holistic uh detective agency. She's great. Yeah, she's great. She is great.
SPEAKER_01She's on the pit, and also Brian Cranston's daughter is on the pit. And she's awesome.
SPEAKER_00Everyone's daughters is on everything.
SPEAKER_01Well, that show that I just watched, Sterling Point.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Mark Ruffalo's son.
SPEAKER_00Great. Hey, I'm I'm listening I'm I'm I'm rooting for all the rich kids out there. I I I they've got it a real the headwinds. They've just believe in yourselves and know that no matter what. No matter what, you can never actually truly fail in life because it's not.
SPEAKER_01But you just said you're just you're you're just counteracting exactly what we said. Never fail Durif. She's awesome.
SPEAKER_00She's great. Yeah. Love her.
SPEAKER_01Hey, I just said I'm rooting for all of them.
SPEAKER_00And know that no one will ever, ever let you get really hurt.
SPEAKER_01Let's get back to this episode. So our next, unless you have more classic openers. Nah, keep going.
SPEAKER_00Our next um category is Oh, this is the classic openers with intensity?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you gotta mention jaws.
SPEAKER_01Oh, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00A billion thousand.
SPEAKER_01I just saw a wine bottle that had it it has the jaw shark. It's a blue bottle. It has the jaw shark. And right at the top line of where the cork is, there's a painted swimmer. So like at the top, it looks like the swimmer is like right at the top of the water. I mean it's pretty funny.
SPEAKER_00I perfect for summer. Like it's one of those things I I I really encourage just watch it on YouTube, the opening scene, because it's one of those things. Everybody knows it, right? It's the swimmer.
SPEAKER_01Starts out days.
SPEAKER_00I can't remember her name, but I believe she was a stunt act uh stunt performer.
SPEAKER_01She was tricked, wasn't she?
SPEAKER_00No, no, no. I well, I don't know about that. But like she was a stunt performer and they had um lines hooked to her her Levi's. She was wearing jeans, um, and that was how they're able to whip her around. But what I everybody knows that, okay, the opening of Jaws is the swimmer and she gets eaten by the shark, right? But when you I've forgotten, as many times as I've seen this movie, every time I watch it, I'm reminded every time of how fucking brutal the opening is. It's really horrific. Like she screams and screams, she calls out for God, she begs like for help. She gets that moment of like she reaches the buoy where she's like kind of safe. But the just the the fucking how long it takes and how much she's like screaming for mercy and then flashing to her dumb boyfriend on the beach, like completely oblivious. It leaves you as the audience member, like so helpless and horrified, and you just Steven Spielberg drags it out, yeah, too. And it it's like you you kind of oh god, just fucking eat her already.
SPEAKER_01And it was a surprise because he didn't tell her when exactly she'd be pulled under the water, and she was attached, she wore a harness, and there were like underwater cables. Um, and the crew would yank her back and forth.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So she didn't have to do that. Yeah, it was done for her, which also I think added to the fear.
SPEAKER_00When you watch it, she's being yanked because like she gets pulled and her arms still like they they linger, so she's being pulled like from the hip.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like how a shark.
SPEAKER_00Like how a shark, exactly. It's it's really something. And I watched it with headphones too, and she fucking goes for it. Like uh, it's rough. Um, and that sets such a tone for the movie because when the dumb mayor is um you know not listening to the warnings and everything, we as the audience have already seen what this thing can do, and we're like, no, no, no, no, you really you you should have already closed the beach. Oh my god, it's it's just an all-timer, and it plays into um a movie that I'll be talking about later.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, her name is Susan Blacklinney.
SPEAKER_00Ah, good for you. Yeah. Really crushed it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't doubt she did anything after that.
SPEAKER_00There's also the well, she's a stunt actor, so you probably did. Um there's uh also a lot of some of it is filmed through like Predator POV, so you see like going up at her legs, um, and the John Williams score peaking at that at that moment. It's a lot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is, it's very intense.
SPEAKER_00Nice.
SPEAKER_01All right.
SPEAKER_00What's your next category?
SPEAKER_01Openings that leave you wondering, what the fuck?
SPEAKER_00Nice, nice, nice. Yeah, I've got some of those.
SPEAKER_01So my first example is it it follows. I love this movie, I love everything about it. And the opening scene is just kind of uh early morning, girl in a nightgown running down the street, her neighbor's like, Are you okay? Um her dad comes out and is like, what's going on? She runs in the house, runs back out, and drives. And now we're in the car with her. She's driving, driving through the night. We um just hear some music, and her phone has been ringing, and then we see her at the beach lit only by the headlights of her car, and she's sitting kind of holding her knees.
SPEAKER_00She's also wearing heels. Yeah, she's running in like fancy, nice heels, which is like weird.
SPEAKER_01And so we know that she's been driving for almost like an entire day, and her phone rings, and it's her dad, and it's that conversation that you've heard other people have where she's saying goodbye. She's like, I'm sorry if I was a pain. Yeah, tell mom I love her.
SPEAKER_00Like you never want to hear someone at the other end of the phone saying to her.
SPEAKER_01She's saying goodbye to them, and so you're wondering, like, is she gonna drown herself or whatever?
SPEAKER_00She's distraught.
SPEAKER_01And then we see the lights come on, basically. It's it's dawn. It's a it's a jump cut, and she is dead, and she's jacked up, her body is all broken in weird ways.
SPEAKER_00She's laying on her back with one leg up and then the top part of her leg bent like bent towards her with her heels on. So forming like a almost a square.
SPEAKER_01It's so it starts out she's running from something, we don't see anything. She's driving from something, we don't see anything, and she's killed by something, and we don't see anything.
SPEAKER_00That is it's terrifying. Um, not being able to see, not knowing or seeing what did it, but seeing the catastrophic bodily damage it did. Like, not what could possibly do it? Looks like she was hit by a fucking truck.
SPEAKER_01And also basically, she ran as far as she could and then was just waiting. Yeah, she had her back to the water and she was just waiting for it to happen, saying goodbye to her family.
SPEAKER_00So she knew it's amazing, it's the it's the best moment. It's it's almost like a piece of flash fiction. Um, because contained, it's an effective short film of its own. It leaves you with so many questions, but shows you just enough to to have you really upset.
SPEAKER_01What what the fuck? Yeah, you don't have any idea. You still don't have any idea. The movie opens and you're like, I don't know who what is this? Yeah, what is this movie gonna be about? Because it it does take a while to get to uh you know it could be anything too, it could be a serial killer, it could be, you know, the supernatural, it could be whatever.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you see, it looks like she fell there out of an airplane. Yeah, um, yeah, it's all all fucked up. Uh I have just the the I think the quintessential example of the holy what the fuck beginning uh opener, which is uh Saiyansono's 2001 film The Suicide Club. Oh, which trigger warning does contain teenage smoking. Um so the Suicide Club opens with a pretty amazing scene of um the subway in uh I think Tokyo, where just like a hundred little middle school girls are walking, holding hands with their, you know, and it's Japan, so they're all wearing the cute little uniforms, and they're singing, they're singing little songs and da-da-da, and walking down and holding hands, and everything is like what a nice whimsical community this is. It doesn't look like a subway station in America, I'll tell you that. But um, no one's really paying attention, and then all the girls go down to the subway platform and they line up right at the line, and the train is coming, and the train is coming, and they're singing and they're holding hands, and they're just joyful, yay! And they all line up so that there are like a hundred or more little middle school girls in their uniforms, holding hands, singing songs, train is coming, train is coming. People start to notice, like, what's oh no, and then they all all of them in a line jump and the train goes through. It's the trolley problem, but with like 150 little Japanese girls, and you know, but it was a problem you didn't see coming. It's fucking unbelievable. It it um so you know that Saiansono is is crazy, makes crazy movies, does crazy things, but this uh was I mean it's uh it's hard to even talk about. It's really like the there is um you're kind of with the the the the crowd in when you're watching the girls because it takes a long time to figure out that there's something wrong. Um and it's really only when they start to line up at the platform that you're like, oh no. But um it's an unbelievably shocking opening. It's probably what everybody who's seen the movie remembers it most for. Um, but it it immediately leaves you, I think, rightfully going, what the fuck just happened? Yeah, yeah. No, and and and the movie is sort of like the mystery of why people why are people like just killing themselves like this?
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SPEAKER_00All right.
SPEAKER_01My next example is long legs.
SPEAKER_00Ooh, yeah, good one.
SPEAKER_01So the opening of this is kind of some of the title credits, you know, and it's red, very like bright red, um, but like a muted red. I don't know how to explain it. Classic red. Um, and we see, you know, produced by, you know what I mean? Like the title credits. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Some of them. Um, and then we uh move from the title credit red block to a car. We're in a car with someone and it's red, it's illuminated red. And then all of a sudden the red fades into almost white. It almost feels black and white, but it drains all the color out to white, and it's snowy. We pulls up to a house, we see the car parked, and a little girl watching out her window. She puts on a red sweater to go outside and see who's there, and she's walking around, hear somebody, walking around, hear somebody, and then all of a sudden, nose to waist of a stranger with like white face, yeah, talking to her about her birthday and saying, Oh, it's your birthday, and oh my long legs couldn't carry. There she is. And then as suddenly as that sentence comes out, the entire face of long legs drops down to her view.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01And then we go back to the red title card, yeah, and it says long legs, yeah, and then Micah Monroe and blah blah blah, and everybody starring. And it's such a shock to your visual, like to your corneas, because you have this like intense red fading out to white, snowy brightness, little bit of a jump scare, back to red. And then it's like, what? Who? Who's that? What?
SPEAKER_00This is um it it it's a lot like the opening scene of Sinister, uh, Scott Derrickson, where it's the scene of the like the the eight millimeter film of the the family, they've got hoods on, the nooses, and someone is sawing uh a tree limb that's the counterweight to the rope, and when they saw through it, the the limb drops and tightens the the rope and it raises them all off the ground and they just kick until they're dead, and you're watching it like and um you get the sense after both of these things of like I just watched something I shouldn't have. Yeah, it was wrong, like and now having watched it, I'm in on it, I'm somehow affected, I'm tainted, whatever it's it's gotten into me. Um, and the rest of the movie, in both cases, I think, kind of live up to that.
SPEAKER_01That sense of like and there's very little dialogue. The dialogue that is spoken by long legs doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_00And then sinister, it's silent except for the sound of uh the projector.
SPEAKER_01Right, the clicking.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So long legs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, good openers that um they set the the tone, but again, it it it does something as the audience member of like, hey man, I just came here to watch a movie. Like now you've brought me into something.
SPEAKER_01And it's it's a it's a physical and like visceral shock to your system because of how the light plays off of it. And you don't know what's happening. Yeah, you don't know what this movie is even about, and for a while you don't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I am going to talk uh one of my what the fuck. It's it's due to its length, its sort of completeness almost as its own story, and the fact that you don't see m really most of these people at all for the rest of the movie. Sort of one of them, but not really. Um, and that is The Empty Man, which came out in 2020. And this is a movie with a complicated history. It was completed, I think, in 2017, um and it just sort of got belched out in the in the in the dark COVID times. So it didn't make a lot of money, and critics were pretty mean uh to the movie. I saw it when it was streaming and I liked it, but um, it has since been reappraised.
SPEAKER_02Oh.
SPEAKER_00Um, yeah, people really coming to it as a cult film. And the reason being is this movie was marketed as a pretty pulse-pounding um horror movie, supernatural horror movie, and it's actually a slowburn cosmic dread mindfuck of a movie. Um, but the opener, it's like 22 minutes long. It star uh features four characters that are uh never mentioned again, except one of them appears later, but he's like catatonic. Um and it is a complete story. You've follow four American hikers in Bhutan, and uh they they hike to the top of this remote you know peak. They're they're not really at the summit or anything, but Aaron Pool plays one of them. We we know him from the void and other other great stuff. Um but he uh falls into a crevice, sees this weird like alien skeleton, and gets infected by an evil, the empty man. Amazing. It's it stalks them back to a cabin, they get stranded in in the cold, and eventually, like it possesses him and and and and another one of them, and they kill each other and themselves. Um the rest of the movie has different characters, it takes place across the world, and the only similarity really is the the entity of the empty man, but then it goes into like a cult, an ancient cult and cosmic space gods, and it's like Lovecrafty. And I really like this movie. It's a little long and the pacing is deliberate, it's a little slow, but uh it's a big swing, you know, like a lot of big ideas, and I I kind of I really liked it. I I'm glad it's getting its due. But this uh prologue, I've encountered this once or twice in books, and it's always a big swing to take the audience out of the main narrative for an extended period of time. Um you get really into this story and then it ends, and you're 20 something minutes into the experience when the movie says, We're starting fresh. Um, so it's I think for some audience members it was a little bit like, What the f what the hell?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now what happened and what they release and stuff that obviously plays into the rest of the movie, because it's the empty man, that's what they found in the cave. But um it's a like a little self-contained vignette almost. And kind of like I remember that for the first time waiting like halfway through the movie, like, Am I we're never gonna see these fucking people again, right? So interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01All right. Well, this is our last category, official category, um, is openings as a setup for the rest of the film. So what gives you like everything that you need to know, the total background, and you know what you're going to be watching for the next, you know, hour and a half or so. Yep. Um, and my first example, which I think it's a shared example, is Halloween from 1978. Interesting.
SPEAKER_00What do you mean? I mean, he's a little kid in in the opening, and then he he's a big man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, it starts out with the killer point of view, which we did have an episode for uh killer point of view last week. Um, and I think it might be the only time that we really stay fixed on him as the killer.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Maybe I I can't I I I I didn't research to find out if that's true, but we do see him killing from his point of view, and I don't know if that happens very often.
SPEAKER_00It's right away, too. Yeah. And you see the little eye holes.
SPEAKER_01Well, we see we hear some synth and we see a couple making out on the couch, then the killer's in the house, we see someone in a clown costume with small hands grab a knife and go upstairs after the boyfriend leaves, and then we have a limited view through this like small, small eyes as a nude woman is brushing her hair, and she sees him and yells, Michael, and then Michael stabs her to death, and all we can hear is his heavy breathing and her screams. And then we see him unmasked outside by his parents, and we pan out, and he's just Michael Myers is a little kid. Just a little kid, just a little blonde kid in a clown costume. Yeah, and so it's a setup, like this is the origin. This is the origin of Michael Myers. This is what happened when he was just a kid, this is how it all began.
SPEAKER_00And it was at its best, I think, when the motive was he's a monster. Like he he didn't there is no reason. He was a it from a nice family and everything was fine. He just he's evil.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it the babysitter, his babysitter was his first victim, so that's why like victims or his sister?
SPEAKER_00Or I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Could have been his sister, babysitter, whatever.
SPEAKER_00But um no, it's it's it's a classic. I I I do like the when you were talking when you were introducing the scene, like I thought of something very specific when you said, you know, it lays everything. Out. Yeah. Like it it it tells tells you everything that you need to know. And for me, that's a quiet place.
SPEAKER_01Um excellent.
SPEAKER_00The in the opening scene of a quiet place, um, you have the family communicating in sign language, not making any s noise. You have them, you know, John Krasinski like making a big deal out of taking batteries out of the toy and telling them it's too loud, the little boys.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're in the convenience store.
SPEAKER_00I should set it up. So that yeah, they're in the convenience store and the littlest of them picks up.
SPEAKER_01In a desolate town with nobody else.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You know, folks, I think we're assuming you've all seen these movies. But anyway, um, a quiet place.
SPEAKER_01Some people don't like horror movies that listen to our podcasts. We want to be inclusive.
SPEAKER_00And we love you. Um we love you the most. So, yeah, the the it's this post-apocalypse that everything has already happened. They're there's survivors of this family, they're quietly making their way through the town because the aliens are attracted to sound. And you get that through, you know, them walking around and and behaving the way they are and communicating in in ASL. And then um, as they're walking outside, you see like a fluttering newspaper that says, It's sound, you know, and you're like, whoa. Um, and then you know, everything unfolds in such a a beautiful way. They're walking in a straight line, shoes off, and the littlest one is in the back, and he still has the space shuttle, um, but we don't realize that he also still has the batteries. So you see everything sort of unfold through the point of view of the one of the the children, the daughter who's deaf. So she's looking ahead, and uh you can see her, but we can't hear anything because we're we're we're in like point of view audio style. So we're watching her and behind we see the lights of this toy go up. And at this point, you're like, okay, I think making noise is potentially a very bad thing, but we don't know yet. Um we watch John Krasinski, you know, put the look of horror on his face, he sprints towards his son, and at the same time tracking, there is something moving through the woods.
SPEAKER_01And then very pregnant Emily.
SPEAKER_00Right right as he he reaches um his son, the monster comes out and takes him in like a flash. So we see like a leg, you know, but you don't really see the whole beast, it's just too quick. Um, but from the the way it moved through the trees and the way it snatched the kid, we get that it's very big and it's very fast. Um and they are all terrified to make noise, and now we get why. In a couple of minutes, we get the world they're in, we get some of the rules, a little bit of lore, and then a major death. Major death, like that that affects the the family and and paints the rest of the movie um with no spoken dialogue. Like well done.
SPEAKER_01And and also you see that she's pregnant, and you're like, well, she's really pregnant, though.
SPEAKER_00Uh John Krasinski directed this, and he this was a scene that that um uh back in Woods, the the screenwriter said that he actually wrote in rewrites with them. Um he John Krasinski and his wife Emily Blunt have said in interviews that their favorite movie of all time is Jaws. Um which props, but uh that is what he really wanted to get across in this opening scene was the opener of Jaws. That feeling of terror and semi-revealing the monster within the first few minutes of the movie, yeah. Um, but not fully, just enough to make you terrified.
SPEAKER_01Like just when you thought it was safe to use batteries.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Um, well, uh you go, you know, uh it's not the first time I brought this movie up, and I am going to propose maybe does it still hold up kind of vibe. But um one of my favorite openings is from 1987's The Stepfather, starring Terry O'Quinn. Classic opener. And we open on a regular house in the fall on a regular street, and you know, leaves are blowing, and it's just a morning, and then we cut to uh a man washing, you know, tools and his face and hands are all bloody, and he's washing them off in the sink, and he's got long hair and a beard, and he gets in the shower, and then he cleans it all up and cleans his face up and puts uh color contacts in his eyes, and then he's all dressed in a suit and tie, and he looks like super put together, right? We see it's Terry O'Quinn, and then he goes downstairs, and we see the bloody scene he left behind. And now this scene is so bleak.
SPEAKER_00So he like there's a dead bloodied kid. He walks past this tableau of a like a a suburban living room. It's a living room and hallway, you know, with and it's 80s, so like the the thick carpet.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, with the really nice upholstered couches, and there's bodies and blood and bodies and blood everywhere, all over. Murdered kids, the whole family.
SPEAKER_00A fucking slaughterhouse, like really something.
SPEAKER_01And he like steps over the bodies and he walks out the door and whistles.
SPEAKER_00And at this point he is he looks like a yuppie.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he whistles on his way out, and then he's on a ferry, and he has his little kit of tools in a suitcase.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because he puts in like um fake uh contacts. Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I said that.
SPEAKER_00Oh.
SPEAKER_01Um so he's on a ferry, he's got his little suitcase kit, and remember, at this point he has put in contacts. Off into the ocean, tosses it away, and then that's it. And we know that he's done this before.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01He's going to do it again as a different person with different eye color.
SPEAKER_00Maybe his family disappointed him.
SPEAKER_01Well, I guess we'll find that out. But this really sets up everything he did. First of all, it's called the stepfather. So now you understand because you do also see pictures as he's walking down the stairs, you see pictures of the family that he's just killed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so, you know.
SPEAKER_00It's that's that's a good point. Like the the way he does it, you can tell it's practiced. He's done it. This is not his first uh tableau of of suburban hell.
SPEAKER_01And he just walks away and he's like, Okay, I've done it, and now I'm off to do it again. Um I love that movie so much.
SPEAKER_00Did you have another category? No.
SPEAKER_01Other than we're gonna maybe mention openings that are great but overshadow the rest of the film. You know, there are some But I do have more in this category.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Then go for it.
SPEAKER_01Um 28 Days Later.
SPEAKER_00That okay, great. Yeah. That is just an all-timer. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01An incredible 2002.
SPEAKER_00The empty streets of London.
SPEAKER_01Um No, that's not the opener. It's the monkey. It's the chest.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, the monkey, but like also you're right. But the backing up the the the scene of like the rage monkeys breaking out, it's very intense. It's creepy.
SPEAKER_01This is patient zero, essentially. Yes. We see like lots of terror and terrible visuals of war showing on TVs.
SPEAKER_00Who wins the world's vote? It's PETA.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Then we pan out and we see that a chimpanzee is hooked up and watching these TVs. It's a research center.
SPEAKER_00He's getting like a clockwork oranged.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then we see masked vigilantes that want to set them free. And then we see the really angry primates that are banging on the glass and they encounter a doctor who tells them everything they need to know. They're infected with rage. Don't let them out. No, they're highly contagious. One bite from them or contact with saliva. Like he tells you everything.
SPEAKER_00You get it, get it all.
SPEAKER_01And the they're like, we're gonna let them out, and immediately they're all infected. And then the last moment of that is 28 days later, dot dot dot.
SPEAKER_00And it's still within the first few minutes of the movie where you know Killian Murphy wakes up and walks through the empty street. Which is great, which is fucking unbelievable. And I really encourage y'all, look up how that came about. Like the story of Danny Boyle and his daughter and her friends like holding back traffic and waking up at the you know, before dawn to just do this guerrilla filmmaking because they don't have any money. Yeah, it it's really special. And the way there weren't cops, like if you're watching that, this was not a like a production where there were police and stuff holding this, they just did it.
SPEAKER_01But it's so great because you have everything you need to know. You know how it's transmitted, you know what it's called, you know what it costs, and that way you don't have to have a big exposition dump later on in the movie, and now it's just about survival and finding other people that are alive and that can survive.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a really good way of of uh building the world very quickly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, I, you know, there are just a couple of of openers that I think deserve a mention.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, Smile, Parker Finn's uh opener, where we've got Soucy Bacon.
SPEAKER_01Smile the first and the second.
SPEAKER_00Well, the interesting thing about the first smile is when you if you watch it just with no knowledge, you watch the scene of Laura and her therapy session with Souce Bacon, and she sees the smile demon, she smiles, kills herself, sets up the movie, right? And also it's a great like what the fuck just happened? If you watch the short film that Parker Finn made before this called Laura hasn't slept, you know that she really hasn't. She's been through she's Laura. You see everything that she's been through to bring her to that point. So you're watching like the last scene in her story, but in the movie Smile, it's the opening scene of that movie. So it's kind of interesting in that way, but it's super intense, quick. It leaves you with uh you kind of get a sense of of something that's going on, but it's very much like what is happening. But the brutality and the scariness level is is 11. Speaking of openers, what would you like to end with?
SPEAKER_01Well, it the remake 2017.
SPEAKER_00That is um it's so sweet.
SPEAKER_01It's an all-time.
SPEAKER_00It's it's it's really it's one of the best. The rest of the movie is excellent, too. Like chapter one is as good a movie as chapter two is as bad a movie, um, which is really.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's as a bad a mess.
SPEAKER_00It's terrible.
SPEAKER_01It's so um but we see this little boy in a yellow raincoat following a paper boat in the rain, and the boat heads towards a sewer drain and it goes in, and then within minutes we see these glowing eyes, and we meet Pennywise for the first time, and he charms Georgie.
SPEAKER_00We all know this scene, and he doesn't charm us. Even if you haven't read the book or seen the movie, you know this scene. It's so it's the reason we're afraid of clowns.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's the thing. We as the audience then knows what happens to Georgie because he reaches in to grab the boat and then the the scene ends, but we know that he goes missing, and but and so we know what happened, but all the people, the characters in the movie, are then trying to figure out what happened to Georgie and trying to find Georgie.
SPEAKER_00Well, what happened to Georgie?
SPEAKER_01Pennywise took him.
SPEAKER_00So, yeah, uh great. So uh Georgie is following his little ship down uh the the the street. He's it's it's in a little rain stream and he's running after it, goes into the storm drain. Pennywise, uh a clown in a storm drain, which is one of the scariest things I can imagine. And he he charms Georgie, and when Georgie reaches in there, he bites his fucking arm off.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like that's the thing. In the in the in the 1990 version by Tommy Lee Wallace, there's the same scene, but it just cuts the black.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know? Um, you don't see what happens necessarily. In this one, he chomps his arm off at the shoulder, and a bloody screaming child in a rain slicker crawls away and gets dragged to his doom. It's really goes for it.
SPEAKER_01And Georgie is so small and sweet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And we have all of these things now lay out the whole film and what's to come. Clowns, sewers, stranger, danger. It's all there. It's all the biggest fears that you have as like a parent, and then the the parent tell the kids and the kids' fears. And, you know, he's like giggling one minute and screaming the next.
SPEAKER_00It's always a little bit shocking too when they show violence to a child.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's you know, usually a filmmaker will imply or cut away or just show right or do a blood splatter. Yeah, dead kid. But it's like uh Doctor Sleep was another one. Uh it's like the scene with Jacob Tremblay. Yeah. It's uh it's it's it's a lot, and Georgie Georgie has a bad end. Um, but this is the reason we are all afraid of clowns. It is this scene here. A clown in a goddamn storm drain.
SPEAKER_01And I'm afraid of storm drains separate than my fear of storm drain. You should be.
SPEAKER_00There could be any, it doesn't have to be a clown. Anything could be down there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they and and it's just yeah.
SPEAKER_00Anything. That's what storm drains are for. It's for monsters.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00You know, like how you're in your walking uh through a city and they've got little bat boxes for bats? Storm drains are like monster holes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00For traveling monsters.
SPEAKER_01I don't like that. Or alligators.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know what? They have to rest too. It's a migratory species.
SPEAKER_01It's also alligators.
SPEAKER_00True, yeah. Like that weird one that I had as a pet, and then I flushed it.
SPEAKER_01Well, if we missed any of your favorite horror openings, please send us a DM at our Instagram page, Terra and Tandem. We'd love to hear from you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And uh send us some of that, you know, Bitcoin and and uh our way.
SPEAKER_01Um just a reminder. We're at the end of September, and you know what that means.
SPEAKER_00I do. The member months.
SPEAKER_01No. Octafest. Octerrafest is creeping on the corner.
SPEAKER_00It is nigh. Repent, it will do ye no good.
SPEAKER_01We have a lot of exciting episode ideas and plans for our uh really spectacular Octafest.
SPEAKER_00You guys, it's gonna be something.
SPEAKER_01Is it our fourth annual?
SPEAKER_00Who can say? I think so. But yeah, it's impossible to know at this point.
SPEAKER_01I think we can easily find out if it's our fourth.
SPEAKER_00Some questions never meant to be answered.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's it's is it our fifth?
SPEAKER_00I think your hubers will do me.
SPEAKER_01Is it our sixth?
SPEAKER_00This no, couldn't be. Anyway, thanks for coming, everybody, and we hope to see you soon. Goodbye. Don't listen to him. He's whack.
SPEAKER_01Terror in Tandem is written, produced, and recorded by Laura and Richard Matthiason, and edited and mixed by Richard Matthiason. Our theme was written and performed by Carrie Denver, and all other music was written and performed by David Sispanic. All opinions expressed on this podcast are our own and should be taken as such. Thanks for listening, and please remember to give us a like, a review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time. We're standing right behind you.
