The Scariest Thing Isn't the Monster

What if the thing that scares us most isn't lurking in the shadows?

Filmmaker Shal Ngo joins Corey and Kendall for a conversation that starts with horror movies and ends somewhere much deeper. They explore why fear can be healing, how horror creates space for empathy, and why understanding the monster might tell us more about ourselves than the monster ever could.

Shal discusses making Control Freak, balancing practical effects with psychological dread, and building stories around anxiety, identity, and the pressure to hold everything together. The conversation wanders through The Shining, The Thing, Midsommar, horror conventions, childhood fears, and the strange comfort of sharing scary stories with strangers.

Along the way, they ask a bigger question: in a world that often feels overwhelming, can horror help us find our humanity instead of losing it?

Plus, Shal reveals his favorite final person in horror, shares an incredible hidden detail about The Thing that many fans have never noticed, and previews the terrifying ideas already taking shape for his next films.

Guest Bio

Shal Ngo is a writer and filmmaker whose work blends psychological storytelling, striking visual style, and deeply human themes. His horror feature Control Freak explores anxiety, identity, and body horror through the story of a woman whose seemingly perfect life begins to unravel. His work pushes genre storytelling into emotionally rich territory, proving that the best horror lingers long after the credits roll.

Thank you for listening to Horror Heals. 

Share the show with someone who loves horror and someone who needs a little healing.

If you want to support our guests, check the show notes for links to their work, conventions, and fundraising pages.

You can also listen to our sister podcast Family Twist, a show about DNA surprises, identity, and the families we find along the way.

Horror Heals is produced by Mosaic Multimedia LLC.

Is horror good for mental wellness? Of corpse it is.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Hello, foils. It's your old vowel to I can hear the voice of the critique. And I want to welcome my good feelings of the Horror Heels Podcast. Is horror good for mental wellness? But of course it is.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Welcome back to Horror Heels. I'm Kendall, and I'm Corey. One of the things we hear all the time is, why do you watch horror? Doesn't life have enough scary things already?

Corey 0:42

And our answer is usually yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Horror lets us face fear on our own terms.

Corey 0:49

Which makes today's guest a perfect fit. Filmmaker Shall talks to us about Control Freak, a body horror film built around a simple idea that somehow it comes absolutely terrifying. An itch you can't stop scratching.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Underneath all the creepy imagery and the practical effects is something surprisingly relatable. Anxiety, perfectionism, family expectations, the feeling that if you can just keep pushing, just keep working, everything will somehow be okay. Shell talks about why horror is uniquely suited to explore those ideas.

Corey 1:19

Audiences come expecting scares, which gives filmmakers permission to sneak in bigger conversations about identity, mental health, and the things that keep us awake at night.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

We also get into giant creature effects, filming on a tight budget, why original horror is thriving right now, and why seeing an Asian woman at the center of a horror film matters.

Corey 1:40

Plus, we discover that Shall's childhood trauma came courtesy of The Shining.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Which immediately made him one of us.

Corey 1:46

We also spend an unreasonable amount of time talking about The Exorcist, our breakfast room display, and the kind of horror collections that make visitors slowly back toward the door.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Their loss. Absolutely. Is horror good for mental wellness? Of course it is. Here's our conversation with Shall.

Corey 2:05

Hey Shal, welcome to the Horror Heels Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Hey, how y'all doing? Thanks for having me.

Corey 2:10

Um, excited to talk to you about your career as a filmmaker. You know, Kendall and I are obsessed with horror movies, have been since we were kids, and we love unique voices in the world. You know, like we love all different genres. But before we get into that, how do you feel about our sort of mission of getting the word out that horror and horror movies and culture is actually good for our mental wellness?

SPEAKER_02 2:33

I think it's really relevant. Just psychologically too, I was thinking a lot about it. This is the first like straight-up horror movie I've made, but I've always liked it. And I also feel like I feel lucky to be in this space now because it kind of goes in this waves. And with the state of filmmaking it where it is right now, I feel like for a while, horror has been the genre where you can actually explore subjects a little bit deeper. And there's something about like I take this inception model sometimes when I'm making a film where it's like you try to kind of like incept this idea into people's heads while keeping it very entertaining. And I think horror as a genre is fundamentally built like that, where it just allows you to tackle greater themes and deeper concepts in an easier way because the framework is already there. Like the audience knows what they're going to expect. Like they're going to be scared or it's going to be intense, but it allows you to kind of like bleed in these deeper themes or questions or ideas that you want to explore as a topic. And I think a lot of that can be very healing when you know properly used. And obviously, there's just like the catharsis angle, but that's sort of just my own personal window into I think a similar concept.

Corey 3:40

Yeah. So one, I just want to say it's a kudos to you. You know, we don't we rarely see an Asian woman as the lead in a horror movie. And so it's just to have that representation out there is so important. We're all about diversity here. Great. So what are the challenges of going into a flick like control freak?

SPEAKER_02 4:00

I think there's similar challenges to most films, and it always comes down to money and time. So this one, those are both challenging, but I would say the time was the most challenging part of this one. You know, we have 28 days to shoot it, and we had a big monster, animatronics, some gore, some location stuff, some under like fake underwater stuff, a ton of stunts, ton of visual effects with not a ton of money. So it was all I think the time was definitely the biggest constraint, figuring out all this the insane headache of figuring out a schedule with a character that's visually deteriorating over an hour and 40 minutes. So even just figuring out Kelly's makeup schedule could be an insane headache. We had to do some very hilarious and ridiculous creative scheduling things to make it all work. So that was definitely, I would say that was the biggest challenge was the scheduling.

Corey 4:54

I love that you included animatronics in this. It's it's practically a lost art. My grandfather was an amateur filmmaker, and he would do Super 8, and he would do it frame by frame, and he taught me how to do that. Like he had just he had like movie magic. Like I still don't know exactly how he did this. It was something with fishing wire, but was like he sets a wallet down, it opens, and the money is going up the fishing line, explodes into a cloud. It's like all the money is like exploding. So yeah, and this is he you know, he did this back in the 70s, you know. So, like can you talk a little bit about using like practical stuff in your movie?

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Sanchi, this guy Stanley White was playing the Sanchi monster, and so one arm he controls himself, and the other as then his other arm is controlling the head, and then there's a puppeteer controlling the jaw, and then there's like another actor behind him, or sometimes two or three actors behind him playing the other limbs, and then another puppeteer like controlling that giant arm. So it's like this whole they all have to kind of move as one, and um, it's hard to make it look good, and you need to keep it dark, you need to have the right m movement. Like the big arm was probably the biggest challenge because it didn't really have like an articulated joint. But I'm pretty proud of how you know all the different departments were able to. We had a really great team, just production design, the lighting of it, obviously the the actual performance of it, and then the fact that they built such a great articulated job. Like the head, I I think the head looks pretty good close to the head, which is pretty cool. So, yeah, that was like part of it.

Corey 6:30

There are definitely themes of anxiety and dread in there. Is that something that you personally relate to? I suffer from anxiety, and I think a lot of people in the aura community do.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Yeah, definitely. I have a lot of those sort of like I itch it kind of itched myself a lot. I itched myself a lot more after making this fucking movie. Like God, it just became a thing. But yeah, definitely. There's a lot of you know, anxiety baked into the film, like the anxiety of of having to perform on this big level, of having like a good life, of putting all these things together of what you project out into the world versus who you are inside. And uh and also, I mean, maybe this wasn't I don't know how much this came across, but also just trying to kind of hold on to what you've already built. Kind of I think Val has a sense where, at least in my head, where she's come so far. You know, she she came from poverty, she came from pretty pretty tough family life, and now she really has it together to a degree, and she wants to keep that. So there's that anxiety of it all kind of slipping away, which does happen to her. Yeah, a lot of layers of that for sure.

Corey 7:35

Do us a favor, don't scratch the your beautiful head of hair like this is coming from two bald men.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

That's how it happened, right? Too much scratching. Mine was probably just in a while.

Corey 7:48

Yeah, I think we we tortured our hair when we were in high school with a lot of different colors and bleach and stuff, and so yeah, not smart. No, not smart, so now we're paying for it. So I think we're at an interesting time for horror films, and we the Oscar recently happened, and horror was definitely rewarded there. And even though a movie like Sinners has got a huge budget, it has that indie feel too. So it's not using any kind of existing characters or anything like that. And cross genres and everything, I think people have seen that musical sequence time and again. How do you feel about the state of horror today, horror movies?

SPEAKER_02 8:28

I thought Sinners is pretty cool. I thought weapons was really cool. I really liked weapons, and I'm glad that these guys are getting money to do some weird shit. And I'm even happier that people are paying to see it. Like that's exciting. I I honestly, when I first was getting into film, I wasn't ever really planning on going the horror path. But after making one out, and not only like the joys of making it and like the benefits of making it, but also just the fact that there is an audience that's receptive to it right now is really, really cool. Especially, you know, when our industry's going through such massive shake-ups and changes over them over the last 10 years, and it's only gonna get crazier. But I also like that I guess weapons is they both have like a darkness to them. I also kind of like that I felt like there was this phase where kind of like the Game of Thrones era where everything was just like so dark and like kind of negative. I actually kind of feel like these newer horror movies have shine a light on something. I don't think they're like they're they have like a playfulness to them. They don't feel as pessimistic necessarily, which is also kind of a fun part of the trend now I see in some of the horror stuff. It's not as d doomsday, or it's at least has like a playfulness. I feel like Sinners and Weapons are incredibly playful films, just despite their subject matter, which I also think is cool.

Corey 9:55

Oh, yeah. I mean, there's definitely some laugh out loud moments in both movies, and I think that's important. I I like that in horror. It doesn't have to always be gloom and doom. And I'm curious, what do you think? Because we're obviously living through insane times in the world, what do you think the horror community reaction, like the horror filmmakers' reaction to this, is gonna be? Is it gonna go down that gloom and doom path or is it gonna go the opposite direction?

SPEAKER_02 10:17

I think maybe it will go down the the I feel like maybe the instinct is to go down the doom and gloom path, but I also think that when the world is so fucked, like we have less of an appetite for that, for that specific idea. But definitely, I mean, if you're talking about anxiety, like the anxiety of annihilation of the species is pretty big. Yeah, I'm not sure though. I I don't really have a good predictor for that because there's so it's also just like so there's so many layers of what's going on and where people sort of find their issue that they care about. That's what's been kind of interesting to me without even going fully political. What's been interesting to me recently is how much bad stuff is out there and what people decide to latch on to where that bad stuff is and what other bad stuff they accept and sort of where morally you find yourself in a situation where like you have access to so many terrible tragedies. Like which one is the one that you're gonna put your I'm kind of thinking these days, like there's always like a bigger fish, kind of you know, like there's always there's these bad things, and there's like these worst things, and there's the even worse things after that. I feel like personally, that's like territory I'm kind of interested in to explore with the film. Just what level of evil you can accept when there's like an even greater evil now that we have like true potential existence. Now we have something that could actually kill all of us, like realistically, where like smart people are like, oh yeah, that could totally happen. Then then where does your morality shift when it's like species ending?

Corey 11:55

We're agnostic slash atheist over here, but end of days kind of stuff. It's like you re like when that becomes reality, like where does your brain go? Like, how do you where do you find hope and joy?

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Yeah, it's tricky.

Corey 12:11

And we're not over overtly political on either of our podcasts, but it's yeah, you almost have to talk about things these days, otherwise you just yeah. So as someone who lived in Minnesota, like how did you feel about what happened there recently? And is that kind of inspired any kind of storytelling for you?

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Oh yeah, I mean I try to like I actually try to never post any politics on social media because I find it annoying. But I was like one of the few times I posted because I felt like I had like some message of hope or or like some connecting with people because yeah, after Alex was killed, I was just I was so angry. And so yeah, I sort of that was one of the few times I actually spoke expressed my feelings because I felt like I had something to say in the moment. But yeah, I mean it was it's fucked up, it's terrible. It's really it's a really evil thing that's going on. It's still going on. It's actually gotten a little bit better. And I was talking to my mom, there like there's a lot of community organizing coming together, and you're seeing a lot of the the better aspects of society that when people can come together against that kind of stuff. But yeah, I thought it was fucked up.

Corey 13:20

You know, what's and it's ultimately ended up being inspiring, but it was also sort of triggering. So I was just in the Atlanta airport this past weekend, and it was, I mean, just I'd never seen anything like it. All of the I mean, just the lines of people just like going, you know, just rows in rows, and then of course, ice is all over the place, you know, and people are covertly snapping photos of them and stuff like that, you know, and it's just but what reflect I mean, it was stressful at the time, but reflecting on it like everybody was so chill and cool, like people that have been waiting there for four and a half hours. I didn't see anybody getting belligerent or irate or anything like that. It's like, okay, we're in this situation. And you know, I've seen stuff at the airport when it's not crazy times, like people being jerks, you know. So it's like, wow, maybe we can, you know, come together and just be relaxed and chill and you know, and get through this because you know, this is all it's like they they want that footage of riot or something at the airport, and it wasn't there. There were people playing classical guitar in the background. It was like, okay, all right. I think maybe humanity has hope after all.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

I think we should we really just need to start talking to each other, and I think this the longer it goes on, the more you need to realize that, at least for me, which is also just a very useful thing as a good writer, as a and a creator in general, is like you really need to be able to get into the perspective of a villain or a serial killer, or you know, or like you know, some horrifying character and and see where they're coming from. And there's clearly like massive appeal on both sides of these issues. And so the guys that we don't like, they're drawn to something that's beyond just like the base or instinct. There's got to be some level of connection or some kind of hurt or pain or longing to belong. There's tools in there that we can use and explore, but if we don't take that viewpoint very seriously and understand why millions of people can embrace it, then I don't see a way out really. Like the new projects I'm working on aren't really exploring that yet. Personally, like the issues that are concerning me or like that are interesting to me are more like just like more moral than political at the moment. I they coincide, but yeah, none of my stuff right now is about a police state or anything like that.

Corey 15:41

But I it's a good time to explore morality because you got to wonder like where are some of these people's morality that or where did it go?

SPEAKER_02 15:47

I heard that Manosphere doc was really good. I was curious about to see that. I like the idea of an in-depth exploration of something like that without a lot of judgment. I feel like that's something that's very useful. So if I was gonna make a political movie, it would probably be from those people's perspective in a way that wasn't like ideally wasn't like super divisive. It would be like shocking or controversial, but it wouldn't. There's something about not taking a there's something about not like your stance being a little bit nuanced that can do a lot more pushing things into a more even territory, even though it feels like we're on the brink. Like a war. So yeah.

Corey 16:26

So let's go back a little bit. What was Young Shal's first exposure to horror?

SPEAKER_02 16:31

I saw the shining, I think I was like 10, and I couldn't go in a bathroom without pulling back the shower curtain for five years. That scene is seared into my brain as like the scariest scene ever. And I think for most people, that when you ask them what the scariest movie is, you're actually asking them like, what is the movie you saw at your youngest age that you could actually comprehend? And yeah, so I remember seeing The Shining way back in the day, and that just being just blowing my mind. And then I had this like one of my like my best friends growing up, this girl Emma in Minnesota, she loved horror movies. So we would watch like all the Halloweens and the screams and all that. So I always enjoyed them as more like popcorn movies, but didn't really honestly didn't even take them that seriously beyond like a handful of them that I really loved going into college. But yeah, the it was just that scene, the scene of shining with the shower and the woman coming out the worst thing I've ever seen.

Corey 17:26

I don't remember how old I was when I first saw The Shining, but because it's a mind fuck, especially that the last 20 minutes of the movie is just insanity. So crazy. Kendall and I both, for whatever reason, our earliest kind of thing we remember was both like that what when our parents were watching the TV version of The Exorcist, like when the Exorcist first was shown on TV and we snuck, you know, down the hall and and Kendall was behind the couch, like watching. I didn't even see it, I could only hear it, but I could hear like the demonic things happening. And I'm like, what is this? I mean, it just works. But now when people ask, what's your favorite horror movie? We say The Exorcist, we've got an Exorcist display in our breakfast area. What's in the display? So we've got a bust of Reagan in full demon mode, and we've got like little miniature props, original artwork from our good friend Brad that he did. He does this really cool thing where he'll take the novel of a war movie and he'll do art on the actual page. So and then he did this other thing where it was like black paper that he's like scratches out, and then so the art is black and white, but it's so he's got the it's the poster image of the priest like looking at the house. Oh, cool, and then our our page is like Reagan floating above the bed. It's just yeah, and then we've got a couple of we've got a couple of dolls, we've got um a piece of uh a piece of the stairs, the stone stairs.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Like the what are the stone stairs again?

Corey 18:54

Uh the when those that he falls down at the end. Oh we're a little bit obsessed. And I I I was fortunate enough in college to be able to walk up that staircase. Oh wow. Yeah. Um were there any uh horror directors or horror adjacent directors that were inspired you to get into filmmaking?

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Kubrick and and Pastani, obviously. The shiny was probably the biggest one, but it was more 2001. I was more like a sci-fi guy. It sounds so pretentious, but it was one movie that really struck me when I was like because I went through a very pretentious phase from like 15 to 18. I was working at this video store called Discon Video, and they had like thousands of VHS tapes. So I was just watching so many goddamn movies. And one movie that stood out to me was Carl Dreyer's like Vampire from like the 20s. Have you seen that one?

Corey 19:43

I've seen clips of it, I don't think I've seen the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Early sound film, and it's just so it's so crazy. It's like over a hundred years old, I think, now. But it was just the use of shadows. There's a scene where he's like in this weird trance and he's in a coffin. The main character is this dream. It's it's very trippy movie. It's insanely trippy. There's a vampire, there's this man who comes to this town, there's all these other weird ghost figures in the movie. It's kind of a retelling of Dracula in a way, but then there's a sequence where he's in this coffin and his eyes are just open in this coffin covered in flowers, and they attach the camera to the top of the coffin while he's being carried. So it's like you can see the space below it. It's like overhead shot at a slight angle, and it's him just being carried in his coffin, and it was just such vibey imagery, and the whole movie just had so much style to it. And it was just that movie was a big influence to me because it's like, man, they were doing such awesome innovative stuff like a hundred plus years ago.

Corey 20:42

We definitely encourage people to go back and seek out those early films because like I can't imagine the mindset as a filmmaker and the creepy ass imagery goes out. I mean, that's like it's nightmare-inducing stuff.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

And not knowing what it's going to look like at all, too, which is such a modern convenience we have. I guess people still shoot on film, but like when you don't shoot on film or you just have the image already, but just the fact that they were doing overcranking, we just the level experimentation back then I find very inspiring. And so I sometimes go back to those periods or even later on just to see the levels of innovation that people go to. So that was pretty influential for me.

Corey 21:20

Shell, you attended any horror conventions.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

I'd be down. I wish the problem was like with control frig. It was straight to Hulu. So we did a we didn't really have a festival run that wasn't built into it, but I would have loved to go to Pantasia or Fantastic. I've always wanted to go. I have applied with other films and not gotten in. But yeah, those must be fun, right?

Corey 21:38

Yeah, I think you can definitely find your people there, and it would be a nice break from the insanity that's going on. And there's some really good ones here on the East Coast. There's uh several in New Jersey. Go as a guest and just experience like the community is amazing. Like, there's it's from infant dressed up as Pennywise the Clown to grandma in a wheelchair who he's can't wait to meet. You know, Jason Voorhees and every everywhere in between, uh so diverse, and just people having conversations that w would probably never have conversations or have a reason to, and it's just the vibe there is electric, it's so positive. So I definitely encourage you to go, especially if the horror bug is bit you because we do need voices lectures out there making horror stuff.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

What's the top one in Jersey? I should go to.

Corey 22:22

Uh Monster Mania is fantastic. And there's one that's just like New Jersey horror count. I think it's happening next month. But Monster Mania is in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. They do another one in Pennsylvania, but they do two. There's one in August.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Fun. This is cool.

Corey 22:37

So what's bubbling around in your brain right now that's horror or horror adjacent that we might see?

SPEAKER_02 22:42

I'm working on this like Norwegian horror movie called Earworm, because my wife is from Norway. So I'm working on a film there about like a kind of an underwater entity and a whale researcher recording something underwater and spiral imagery and just an exploration of pain and the links that we'll go to to avoid pain, how that factors into our life and what a life would be like without pain and how important pain is. And then there's I've I'm also really into rock climbing, do a lot of trad climbing, go out to Yosemite or Red Rocks, and try to as much as I can. I'm a father now too, so I don't do a ton of climbing trips recently, but I still fit them in. So I wanted to do like a horror movie about a about a couple struggling to conceive. And they're both former like rock climbing professionals, and they go out into the wilderness and come across a younger couple and a child that they idolize or envy or see a different version of their life, and they may or may not be like immortal monsters of some kind. I haven't quite figured out yet. But I feel a rock climbing horror movie would be really cool to and to use that. So I've been scheming for a while like how to make filming climbing dynamic because it's very very slow, but it's very, very scary when you're doing it when you're up there. And if you could capture that in a good way, take that energy from Free Soul and put it into a horror movie and have a chase element to it and not have a million dollars. Love that. They haven't done like a good horror climbing movie, they've done like the descent. The descent was awesome, but the scent's not the sense Alpine, but I'm thinking like on the wall type shit.

Corey 24:15

I love horror movies in daylight.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Yeah, same. Yeah, yeah. Daylight horror movies are crazy.

Corey 24:25

So, as a dad, what age do you think it would be appropriate for your kid to watch The Shining?

SPEAKER_02 24:30

It's not up to me. He's just gonna watch it secretly.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Like 25, maybe 25.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Yeah, I think that's okay. Maybe like 16, 17? I don't know. Five. We all did any. We all got traumatized by these movies, but I don't think it's necessarily matters. I don't know.

Corey 24:51

You know what's bizarre to me is like I had a real aversion to movies when I was a kid of like amputation happening and stuff, like limbs being chopped off. And it still bothers me, but I will watch them now.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

It's definitely fun seeing he's two and a half, seeing like how his fear develops, you know, because he was a he's a extremely fearless kid compared to most other kids, especially like you know, even among his friends and stuff. He's the one who'll like go on the slide first, he'll the one who go up to somebody. He's like very fearless in that way, but his like different fears are kind of growing in different ways. He's terrified of he used to be terrified of clowns, of like water, of like shadows, and he'll talk about things being scary a lot, like things that he doesn't like, and it'll be like that's scary. What we went to like a movie night last night, we saw Mulan. I don't know if you remember the bad guy in Mulan, but he's so scary. Yeah, and as soon as he saw this guy, he just backed up and walked out of the room.

Corey 25:44

And I was like, No, that's okay. It's okay. It's like you think Disney is like all sweet and nice and stuff, but Disney's got some really dark elements to it. I didn't even think about this when my sister and I took our two-year-old niece to Disney, and we got on Pirates of the Caribbean. I was just thinking, like, oh, it'll be a fun little whatever. And it's a dark ride. She was traumatized the whole entire rest of the trip. She I don't like Pywits. I don't like Pywits. And she was scared to get on its small world after that. Like even the Winnie the Pooh ride has like a nightmare sequence in it. Oh man. I know we have just traumatized our niece for life.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Yeah, I know. I'm always impressed when I watch them now. I guess as a parent they hit differently emotionally, but they're like Disney movies tend to have like extreme lows, like people parents dying, or they're just so emotional and so much more intense that I remember them. I think they're designed as much, maybe more for parents than even for children, just to get like to me now, in ways I never even really noticed as a child.

Corey 26:40

Yeah. It just started streaming on Disney Plus, I think this year. I'd never seen it before until it was started streaming, but Kendall had like poster when he was a kid. But Ray Radbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes is one of the creepiest movies I've ever seen in my life. Yeah. And this is for children.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Oh, I gotta see that. That's with the carousel that there's several moments in there. I'm like, I can't believe, you know, my mother was very angry with my father for because my dad, he just didn't, he was like, ah, he'll be fine, it'll be great. And I actually enjoyed all of it, but my mother was not a fan of she was like, That is okay for us, that is not okay for that kid.

Corey 27:20

Yeah. But market it as a kid's movie. Yeah. Return to Oz is like the most evil movie ever. Saw that in the theater, and that that messed with me. I was 10. So that was like, oh man. Your head, dude. She's gonna take your head in front of a wall. But I love it now. Yeah. It's like that was like, oh wow, talk about dark. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

So dark. Wow. A little witch playing the main character, right? What's her name? In the craft.

Corey 27:51

So, child, the final question that we always ask on here, and you might have to go back to those early days with your friend watching the VHS tapes, but who is your favorite final person in a horror movie, a survivor?

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Favorite final person? Oh man. And this should go to be like back in the day movie, or can it be like any other movie movies?

Corey 28:10

Anytime. Yeah, we've it's we've run the gamut of answers. Yeah, we're always fascinated by favorite final person.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

That's a good question. I'm really trying to think about all of them. I think my favorite because it's it's just one of my favorite movies of all time, and I honestly think it might be like maybe my in in the genre space, like my favorite ending of any movie is the thing. And McCready, right? Like, and I can't remember the other guy's name. Um but when those two guys like sit down and share a drink at the end of the thing, they're both kind of like final, they're final guys. Because I was thinking it's usually a final girl, but they're final guys. There's this inevitability to it, and this tough, resigned guy, and this sort of weird male bonding that happens at the end of it that I find just weirdly moving and so cool that they're both they both don't know who if the other one is gonna be a monster or not. They're both dying, and they just share a drink and they start laughing with the flames, and then like that boom boom comes in. I think that's just that is a to me, that's like the most fucking badass movie I've ever seen. I've never the thing is definitely my favorite horror movie of all time, and just those being the final guys. I just think it's an you know, I and I'm it's funny because you know, control a lot of my movies actually have like female main characters. The next thing I'm writing also is about a pregnant wife, but there's something about the thing that I think is really interesting and cool. It is all dudes, it's like a food's at face, and it's a very like masculine paranoia movie, and I think it's explored in a really cool way, and there's something about those two guys at the end that I connect with. I hope I could be like that in a way. You're saving the world, you don't know like this might just be the end. Now you're gonna share a drink with this guy and try to have like some humanity in this last moment and kind of like chuckle because that's just how it is. I don't know. There's something real, really badass and just rad about the way that movie ends. I think those two are my favorite final guys. Do you have a theory as to who's the monster? I don't think either of them are the monsters personally. I think they're both human. I think definitely McCready is human, but just like I just the from the performances, they both just feel so exhausted and so suspicious, and they're not to me the monster version will be trying more in some sense to they're they're like they're so hopeless in them. Yeah, things there's they're like they're just like it's over. Maybe you're the monster, maybe I am, but I don't think either of them are personally.

Corey 30:56

Okay, I am excited. There's a documentary coming out soon about the making of the thing, and I think everybody who's alive has participated in it, so excited to see that when it comes out. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Yeah, I have a fun little trivia thing because my wife is Norwegian, we rewatch the thing, and the Norwegians at the beginning of the movie give everything away in Norwegian. Oh. Because remember when they yell at him, they're like they tell the whole movie. So Sarah and my wife is like, Yeah, they're telling him, but that the dog is a monster and it can turn into things, and like you have to kill it, but they can't understand them. So it's just like any Norwegian that sees that movie, like when they came out, they'd be like, Oh, so the dog is a monster and it can turn into other things. I love that.

Corey 31:36

We just watched it recently and it was like, why aren't there subtitles for this? That's exactly why. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I've never heard that before. That's awesome. Isn't that funny? Yeah, and we love Norwegian horror too. Yeah. Glad that you're getting to explore that. Definitely. Well, thank you for taking your time to speak with us, and thank you for being a great independent voice out there.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Thanks for having me. It was great chatting with you. One of my favorite things Shell said is that horror lets filmmakers hide bigger ideas inside an entertaining story. You're showing up for monster's gore or an impossible itch. And suddenly you're thinking about anxiety, family pressure, identity, and the expectations we put on ourselves. That's what great horror has always done. The monster is rarely the point. It's what the monster represents.

Corey 32:22

We also love hearing Shout celebrate practical filmmaking. Big creature effects, animatronics, makeup, people building impossible things with limited time and money.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

It reminds us that horror has always been a genre built by creative people figuring it out as they go.

Corey 32:37

Maybe that's another reason why we love it so much. Horror doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to make you feel something.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

We also appreciate filmmakers like Shell who are expanding who gets to be at the center of horror stories. New voices, new perspectives, and new experiences make the genre stronger.

Corey 32:55

And if this conversation inspires you to revisit the Shining, the Exorcist, or discover an atmospheric black and white vampire movie from 100 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Don't blame us if you start checking behind the shower curtain every morning. We've been doing that for decades. Thanks for listening.

Corey 33:10

And remember, when someone asks, is horror good for mental wellness? you tell them, of course it is. The Horror Heels Podcast is produced by Mosaic Multimedia LLC.