Twenty-Five Years Later And Still Haunted In The ‘Hood’

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Unknown Speaker 0:08
Welcome to part of madness, a horror comedy show that proves life is mad.

Unknown Speaker 0:17
Case in point, my 30th birthday, which is today, and if that's not horrific or mad, I don't know what it is. Yeah, I know I'm a little mad, not angry mad, but the kooky I have been since I was a kid. See, I already assumed you knew me. It's an only child thing. I'm your host, Jordan Gaspari. I'm a Podcast Producer, investigative journalist, Leo and of course horror fan. On this first episode of pot of madness. I talk with sometimes at rusty kind of director and co writer of one of my favorite movies, Tales from the hood. Without further ado, here's rusty.

Unknown Speaker 1:09
So what I wanted to just kick off the conversation with with a little bit of the backstory of how Tales from the hood, the inception and sort of painting us a little picture of what was going on in the country at the time for those who might have been children are not born yet, because I imagine that some of that played into I could be wrong, but imagine that Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:30
no, I didn't

Unknown Speaker 1:33
have to remind myself of what it was, you know.

Unknown Speaker 1:38
25 years is a long time I know.

Unknown Speaker 1:40
Yeah. No, no doubt. No doubt. I'm trying to remember the politicians name because one of the things that was happening, the episode was Corbin bernsen. With the dolls

Unknown Speaker 1:52
Yeah, what is it kkk come up It's okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:56
Yeah, idea for that came from Wasn't it was running that political ad back then. I mean, that's based on a real political ad. And I just can't remember the candidate. But he had this whole thing where he was writing on a thing and he crumpled up something because he didn't get accepted into a school or a job or something like that. I can't because he said it was because of affirmative action.

Unknown Speaker 2:23
meaning to me, and that was the scariest vignette because I don't like dolls that come to life. That's actually one of the few things that really scares me to this day.

Unknown Speaker 2:32
Oh, really? Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 2:51
There was an ad. And we pretty much mocked the entire thing in that episode, where it's like down you see that and come down and crumpled. thing out. And that was one thing that was going on. And of course, everything else was just kind of what it was and what it still is in an odd weird way, you know, the police stuff in their dealings with the black community that was, I guess as current than as it is now. Sadly, you know, my interest in the story about the kind of child and domestic violence that's something that's like carry with me from my childhood, not that there was any of that my house, but there was a family down the street from me that I used to play with one of their kids from time to time. And I remember going over his house one day and his younger sister there were three of them the older one, and then his younger sister. She caught like all the hell in the house that she was like, blamed for everything. She couldn't have been more than eight nine years old when I kind of remember this moment, but I went over his house to play in the back east everyone has basements I don't know if you guys haven't been texted I don't think you do.

Unknown Speaker 4:15
It depends but not the same thing because you're from Pittsburgh, right?

Unknown Speaker 4:18
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So almost all houses back there have basements and the older houses the basements would go down and it's literally like a dirt floor down there. Some sometimes there's, you know, they've filled it in with some concrete but a lot of the homes have these dirt floors. And, and so yeah, we were going down into his basement and at the top of the stairs. His younger sister was gagged and hogtied and facing a wall. And I'm like what? And I was yet a series and I was probably I was in grade school, which now would probably be called Middle School. So maybe somewhere between fifth to sixth grade somewhere in there, something like that. I don't know. And I'm like, Yeah, like, what, what, what's going on here? He's like, Oh, she did. She did something bad. She's being punished. And I knew even then that that was like insanity. And I remember talking to my father about it. And my father was a detective in the juvenile division of the Pittsburgh police. But he was even out and and so I tell him that I saw this, you know, should we do something? Should you call someone, and we were the last family that moved into this neighborhood, a few families left after we moved in, or a few kids that I couldn't play with. And, you know, it was just a lesson and learning how those moments when you realize that your parents either are not perfect, or they're not superhero heroes. They can't do everything. And so my dad's, you know, I tell him to stop. Like, yeah, we got to do something down here. There's something that happened. And he said, I can't mess with those wipes. Oh, my God is probably right. It's probably right. He just felt that even with his badge and his position, he wasn't in a position to to deal with it. I've always had an interest kind of then I don't know if it was because at that moment, but child abuse domestic violence is always kind of had some weird place in my head.

Unknown Speaker 6:34
Is that why you're in that segment to

Unknown Speaker 6:37
miss Johnson? I came to talk to you about your boy Walter, because he seems to be having some problems.

Unknown Speaker 6:47
Here perhaps because you just recently changed schools. What kind of problems? I mean, our kids have problems with life, his problems. He Gotcha, yeah, step into the life for me.

Unknown Speaker 7:05
Well, he seems to come to school, a lot of bruises, you know?

Unknown Speaker 7:11
which didn't hit me until someone sent me an article and I was like, wait, she's

Unknown Speaker 7:17
the owner? Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 7:19
can't say that. That's all I have to say. Actually, I don't that I can't say that. I'm just saying that because of that. I think it just turned out that but it is something that, you know, just had a really big impact on me at the time. For you know, for all those different reasons, the idea to actually do Tales from the hood, kind of came from I had written out one play that got performed a few times out here in Los Angeles called Black horror show, Black Panther, which, you know, look anthropy was a disease of being aware of world disease and being black and there was a lot of Kind of there was a funny piece where a guy was started turning into a werewolf, he was turning into a Panther, but a militant Black Panther. And he was a very conservative black guy. And he was trying to deal with these issues that he had. So I had written that and we performed a few times. And then Darren spot who co wrote with me and produce. He's a horror geek. I don't consider myself for a geek like he's a Corgi. I like horror. And I'm geeky in different ways. So no, no shade on Geekdom. But I just don't consider myself exactly a hoarder. I don't know. I'm some kind of, I'm just a geek of sorts. But he's like, it was insanely into horror and stuff like that. And I liked certain aspects of it. So he was like, we should do a horror film or you know, and he wanted, I can't remember exactly how he was. Going into it and I said, Well, if I do a horror film and has to deal with some kind of issues, I'm not really interested in doing horror just for the sake of horror. Yeah, that's, you know, kind of how tales kind of came about, you know, it was first kind of looking at this play, and he wanted to do this horror thing and write it together. But you asked me about something. It can't just be we're smearing you. Which is fine. I like those movies. But for me to get invested in something that has Yeah, there you go.

Unknown Speaker 9:31
Yeah, cuz to me like looking back like the the movie is comedic. But for me personally, the comedy stems from just like how Dicky lists the issues are like, like, it's not necessarily they're saying jokes to me. I was laughing at like, Oh shit, like, this is just so stupid. This is just like, this is like it's satire. It's just ridiculous. What's going on?

Unknown Speaker 9:57
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting cuz Some people go Yeah, it's a really funny movie. I you know, never look at it. I mean, I know there's funny stuff in Corbin bernsen section is very funny

Unknown Speaker 10:17
fuck did you little

Unknown Speaker 10:17
black ass come from?

Unknown Speaker 10:23
Do you think you would sell ooh do pitch get scammed me out of my apps.

Unknown Speaker 10:28
I don't care how many slaves died.

Unknown Speaker 10:35
You can do reparations.

Unknown Speaker 10:45
But the first section with the cops and Tom Wright who plays the politician, I consider that one you know, comes back as a zombie. Zombies are funny to me, but this the context What's happening here man? Yo, there's nothing there. That's really funny. Wings Howser who plays one of the cops was so good in his role that a lot of the cast really didn't like him. They actually they said he really believes all that stuff. He's really a racist asshole. I hate him. Like he's an actor, if he really felt all those things, this is not the job. I don't know. The wins is a very nice guy and extremely concerned with social issues. And you know, and carbons character who does have, you know, does bring a lot of humor to the way that role was played with the dolls and stuff, you know, is interested in years later, I ran into him and he was he was thanking me for he said, Thank you. And I said, For what? And he said, I have this huge, black following. And I was like, Are you kidding me? Yeah, but the end the thing was, but it there's a lesson of course to be learned, which is if you're funny, people accept things or deal with things in a different way. And so they looked at that character through a different lens. I mean, I think they realized that he was a character with a racist character. He deserved what happened to him. But at the same time, she got all these fans and like, oh, love you thing, blah, blah, blah. So we have a character and Tales from the hood three, that's pretty outrageous, and I'll be interested to see how people react to him.

Unknown Speaker 12:45
Is it loosely based on Trump? I can imagine something's gonna happen right? And the third one,

Unknown Speaker 12:50
we have a character that would definitely be a Trump acolyte and from raw rar this studio was in two and in this one very against us making any references to Trump. In fact, I wanted to have a poster with a red tie in there like he had a poster with a red tie. It was kind of ridiculous and a lot of ways I don't know if Trump has a lot of stock with NBC nbcuniversal but that's interesting

Unknown Speaker 13:21
cuz you know, I mean like the some of the latest purge entries are very much like the poster of that the first purge or whatever had the hat that was like, make America like it was very overtly a Trump reference. And so yeah, that's weird that a studio would be not

Unknown Speaker 13:38
Yeah, I don't know if it's because you know, I don't know I have no i i it's, to me, it was like a very ridiculous thing. We did have an executive that we're dealing with on the second one, that was a republican got upset that one of the episodes I have I had a character who said that he was going to leave. It was an m&a deal with the Emmett Till story. anteil comes back as it goes. And the guy says he's going to leave the Republican Party. And she wanted us to take that out. And I just know it's ridiculous. And funny. Like you made her cry. I'm like, party is her party is ridiculous. She should she should crap. Yes. And I don't think all republicans are evil, by the way, but if you're still supporting Trump, you're a fucking moron.

Unknown Speaker 14:38
I've had many a conversation with my family and my mother to who is a republican about all of this. Yes. That would be interesting. Because one of the things too, from the original movie that I guess I shouldn't have been surprised because like I said, I'm scared of dolls that come to life. And you said Corbin And how you know, I was having a blast following that, it seems like that's the story that seems to be the one people remember the most. And I remember in college we had this like hippie dippie smoke shop in my small town college town. And they had one of the dolls sitting up from Tales from the unknown. No joke I pointed out was buying cigarettes. And I was like, Wait, is that doll from Tales from the hood? And they're like, I have no idea. I'm like, I'm pretty certain. That's the main doll from the story.

Unknown Speaker 15:27
No idea where they would have gotten that.

Unknown Speaker 15:29
I was just gonna ask you like the merchandising. Like, if

Unknown Speaker 15:32
there's never been merchandising.

Unknown Speaker 15:36
Oh, yeah, if you go ask me about these dolls all the time. Now there was a woman who was crafting on her own. I don't think it had anything to do with Tales from the hood. He's kind of these dolls that felt very chiseled and carved. And some of those look like they could have been Tales from dolls, but I don't believe believe that they weren't so we might have had one of those. The actual tails, dolls. I mean, there weren't that many of them made. I have one. Darrin has one. I'm sure a couple other people, the Chiodo brothers who were the puppeteers for the dolls. I'm sure they still have one. Mine is hanging in there because they were made, you know, to be able to kind of bend and move. So they're rubber with armature underneath, and, you know, a little a little fragile. But every now and then I pull him out. He's not here. If he was in here, I'd have to go into the house again. But there's a few of them out there, but not a lot. Not a lot. And that doesn't mean that one did not end up somehow in a smoke shop in Texas. So that

Unknown Speaker 16:45
would just be so

Unknown Speaker 16:51
that smoke shop has since closed like when I was in college like it had been around since the 70s. And then close and I was in college like my last year or two. And so I wonder what happened to it. Yeah. It looked exactly like the main doll from that segment.

Unknown Speaker 17:03
Well, you know, it could it could be your you know, maybe maybe those dogs are just getting around. Maybe that's what's up. But yeah, I know the dolls have a lot of people remember the doll that probably is one of the more memorable episodes of the first nails. I like it because it has my dad and mom it.

Unknown Speaker 17:29
Alright guys.

Unknown Speaker 17:31
So my dad is the preacher when they're burying. What's his name in the movie is what

Unknown Speaker 17:40
was it the communications director guy? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 17:43
Yeah, the actor's name is Robert Smith. I'm just trying to remember the character's name But anyhow, yeah. So my dad was the at the gravesite doing the doing the eulogy or whatever. And my mom is the wounded woman. She's the one in the rocking chair.

Unknown Speaker 17:59
That is Hilarious. Yeah. Was that your decision? Or was that Oh, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 18:04
no, I, you know, I might not know. But my parents, my dad was always trying to. He was like a ham in a weird kind of way. I didn't even understand it when I was a kid because I didn't think he was funny or handy at all. But I was like, Oh, he likes pontificating about stuff. So he showed up with like, he had written a sermon. I'm like, Who can say all this and all you got to do say Ashes to ashes, dust, yet, like, three pages. And then of course, when I call to action, he's like, get on nervous. And that's kind of funny. And then my mom, who's the opposite of my dad, like, my dad's an extrovert. My mom was an introvert. But she was great. She had no problem. She was. Yeah, she didn't have any lines. But I told her like, you know, look mad, like, you know, when you are angry at me or something like that.

Unknown Speaker 18:55
She was scary. I thought that was scary.

Unknown Speaker 18:58
It was actually pretty scary. I was surprised that you worked out great. And the funny thing to me was that she was a, she taught arts and crafts said this after school program that happened, you know, in the neighborhood that we live in, but she taught arts and crafts to these young kids. And after the movie came out, it was like for years, all the kids were kind of afraid of Army. She was nice. So they knew she was nice, but at the same time, they were lunch stalls. So he didn't have a lot of problems with our kids after definitely after the movie.

Unknown Speaker 19:37
I love that. And one of the other I think memorable scenes that we've talked about is on the phone was the scene where David Allen grid just turns into a soup kind of monster. And the other story that we had talked about the domestic abuse that I remember distinctly where my mom actually was like, Oh, this actually might be a movie not for children. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 20:00
Did she say that when he was dying or when he was eating

Unknown Speaker 20:04
when he was dying when he was, you know what it means to like, you know, domestic abuse cool children can watch that. But when he began to that's not

Unknown Speaker 20:14
cool. Yeah, no, that's that that's that's what I was asking. I was like, we're Americans are very okay with certain types of violence and have different issues with sexuality and paranormal. So that makes sense actually. But ya know, David Alan Grier was, you know, I had known I come from stand up comedy originally. So I knew David as a comedian, but I also knew that he was a classically trained actor.

Unknown Speaker 20:43
I didn't know that I used to watch in living color. So that's how I know him. A

Unknown Speaker 20:48
bird flying over a woman with with big breasts.

Unknown Speaker 20:55
And that's what most people knew him from, but he's this amazing As you can see in the thing, amazing actor so when we were auditioning actors for this we didn't audition David by the way I just cast but different people did come in and they were all too obvious. You know, I don't know if you know who tiny Lister is. If you ever saw Friday's Yeah, he's crazy guy.

Unknown Speaker 21:23
That's nice. What's up Brett? Thanks for the bike.

Unknown Speaker 21:29
You got my 40 homie. I thought you at $200 do I want to spin raise money?

Unknown Speaker 21:38
Um, bro.

Unknown Speaker 21:40
Yeah, no, we have people like that. I'm like, you know, there's no doubt who this guy is. You know, he comes in.

Unknown Speaker 21:49
I'm imagining that. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 21:52
yeah. Like, it's kind of an obvious thing, you know? So, David was, he was a good choice one because I knew he was a good actor. He could do the roll, but to because of Tim's three of being now a funny guy, I'd like people aren't gonna see it coming quite as much. And he just, he just did a great job.

Unknown Speaker 22:15
Yeah, he was scary, too.

Unknown Speaker 22:18
Yeah, he was really scared. I mean, he was casting him was a really a really good move. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 22:27
Clarence is a really good cow. He is very, to me. I talking about like the mixture of comedy and seriousness, I think that he, he was very, very good.

Unknown Speaker 22:39
He was amazing. I had no idea what we had gotten when we cast it. Yeah, I'd always liked him. You're too young to probably have watched it. But, you know, when I was young, I watched the Mod Squad that she was on with Peggy Lipton, who ended up Married to Quincy Jones at one point I forget the other guy, but it was, you know him. He was like one of the first black TV stars. That was kind of an action hero he kind of guy because it was the modsquad was about three young people who were on the bad side that the cops get to work with him on the good side. But you know, they're wearing bell bottoms and he had a big Afro and they have, you know, Curt sheets where he didn't have one but the white guy had a curtain.

Unknown Speaker 23:37
I can't give that lift. Oh, what is this big kind of pre sweet? No.

Unknown Speaker 23:43
It's just like to get to know john banks better.

Unknown Speaker 23:49
Come on, let's go.

Unknown Speaker 24:00
I knew him, really from that. And then from a few other things he had done but mainly from that. But you know, he's another guy that came up in the theater in New York, just a really, super professional actor and person on set. He took this, this role really seriously. And he just brought so much to it. And there was a point where, when we started doing this, it was right at the beginning of nonlinear editing with avid systems and stuff like that fact was so new that the first editor we had, we had to let go because he didn't understand the equipment. He was an old school guy and was trying to get so we got somebody else to kind of do it a little bit. So we had shot clearances. Big final Welcome to hell.

Unknown Speaker 25:12
Yeah, yeah, the horns in my well we shot the horns too, but we you know the first part where he's just like, yes, a No, you're wrong.

Unknown Speaker 25:23
And it's crazy and

Unknown Speaker 25:24
it's the curly eyes. And we, uh, we were showing it to some of the executives that came to the set because we actually had the avid at a room just off this warehouse that we were shooting. You know, we built the funeral home and we built that Sears Southern mansion. We were editing, just Ah, because we're like, oh, with avid we can see our dailies right away. So a couple of studio executives came down to see what was going on. And so we showed them the scene. You know, with parents doing this thing, and they're watching it, and they're going, oh, wow, he's already morphing isn't When did you get the chance to make more? And you're like, he's not he wasn't more. It was just Claire, just acting the hell out of the scene. Sometimes you just get lucky. And oh,

Unknown Speaker 26:21
yeah, no, I think that was very lucky that Yeah, the Clarence was involved. Yeah, he gave me nightmares to one of the things I thought was funny that you had said in her previous phone call. When I told you, you know that I saw the movie at such a young age. You were saying that, you know, you have children, and that you didn't allow some of your children to see Tales from the hood until they were slightly older. I really liked that story that you said. But you have how many children? Yes,

Unknown Speaker 26:47
I have. I have 320s.

Unknown Speaker 26:54
Yeah, and yeah, so the 20 year old Oh, I think he might have been close to a teenager or at, I can't even recall. And my daughter, the middle child, she was a little bit younger. And the youngest child, he saw the youngest, he probably saw it when he was 11. You're not the first person that has told me they saw tales that like a ridiculously in my young age, and I'm like, Oh, your parents, what were they thinking? But, you know, I kind of get it. It's weird, because, you know, when you look back at older movies, like for example, I was gonna have my kids watch The Goonies. It was something like that. It might have been The Goonies it might have been. It was it was something like that was a PG movie made in the 70s I think. So. PG and the 70s are like fuck Because you can bag like

Unknown Speaker 28:02
the good old days. Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 28:06
It's like our tolerance or scatological kind of crazy stuff, even though it's weird because it's what I grew up on. But it seems like as the people who grew up on it are the people that are like, Don't Don't look at this terrible hypocrites. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah, I mean, you know, and it's so like, the other day when I watch I watch booksmart again and I'm like, Okay, so this was this is I think books Martin are I like it easily would have been a PG. So I don't know, we've gotten very precious with our children. I mean, not just in movies, but you know, they, you read child psychologist and stuff. They're always talking about how kids are so sheltered. Now, where you used to just go, Okay, go out, go out and play, go out and do go out in the world. And now, you know, it's play dates and, you know, I got to look your parents up online. See, are they these people? It's, you know, I know. My parents didn't know half of the people that I played with parents. Yeah. And I was at their house. And now that said, you could also end up at the house with the kid who's gagged and hogtied, which I did. And, you know, and there are other times where you're like, this is not a great family. You know? I'm not coming back here. Yeah, maybe I should be here, you know. So, I guess there's some value to it, but it's probably we're probably very overprotective. This has nothing to do.

Unknown Speaker 29:51
I'm curious what your kids thought of Tales from the hood. They liked it.

Unknown Speaker 29:55
I mean,

Unknown Speaker 29:57
you're their dad though. Right? Gotta say that's gonna be yeah

Unknown Speaker 30:01
though, I mean, they're free. They're pretty honest with me actually. Cuz you know, sometimes when I'm coming up with a story out pitch them, you guys think about this free thing can be frustratingly honest. If they don't like something or they think it's not working, and in fact, on tails too, I wish I had listened to my son because we we did the title sequence for this kind of a last minute thing. And just like okay, whatever, we're gonna have these digital skeletons dancing around, and he looked at it and he's like, no,

Unknown Speaker 30:38
like, No, we think it's cool.

Unknown Speaker 30:41
And, you know, we got we got a lot of flack for that opening different people like this is shitty and blah, blah, blah. They're actually pretty honest. So yeah, they, they definitely like the first one.

Unknown Speaker 30:58
What do they have to say about the third one?

Unknown Speaker 31:00
Well, actually, because we got so nervous about the opening on the, because of the reaction to the second one, there is no opening and this one, it's all tale credits. But we had a tail credit sequence done that my kids looked at and they really liked it. It's actually really good. And if I had known it was going to be put it at the beginning, but it's not that it's

Unknown Speaker 31:27
at the end. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 31:29
Yeah, it's all integrated now. So now the story just you just go right into the story. And we got Tony Todd in the stories. Oh, really? You got Jody, okay. I love Tony. Tony's cool. So

Unknown Speaker 31:43
are you gonna be okay? I said bad things still hear things

Unknown Speaker 31:51
that I think are bad things.

Unknown Speaker 31:55
them you know the bad things they

Unknown Speaker 31:59
they know how to Hi.

Unknown Speaker 32:01
In order to make themselves look normal

Unknown Speaker 32:05
Evil has a way of looking really nice and shiny on the outside on the surface with it so

Unknown Speaker 32:13
that's why we're gonna go that way. Okay well yeah so then and the youngest one he actually liked it the oldest one none of my kids it's odd none of my kids are like really well the older two are not so much in the for the younger one like scary stuff. But the older two don't like to be scared.

Unknown Speaker 32:35
And they have a dad who makes horror movies. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 32:39
What do you do

Unknown Speaker 32:43
for the for the third movie? What is the the title is it just Tales from the hood three or what is the title right now?

Unknown Speaker 32:53
We have nails

Unknown Speaker 32:57
like chills from her colon something

Unknown Speaker 32:59
Yeah. tails, tails.

Unknown Speaker 33:02
I got to look it up. I came up with it and I can't you finish editing it probably maybe a month and a half couple of months ago. And then we've been just working on. We had been working on special effects and ADR and all of that kind of stuff. And we just finished that, maybe. Yeah. And so all Tales from the left my brain.

Unknown Speaker 33:34
I'm very similar though to especially when you spend like months on something like I don't even want to talk. I don't even want to think about

Unknown Speaker 33:40
about it like it's done. And it's like, okay, we're out of there. But what did they tell me? tells me that I can tell you this. It'll be in our Target or Walmart or something. On October, October,

Unknown Speaker 33:57
I was just going straight to DVD.

Unknown Speaker 33:59
Oh yeah. You Yeah, well, no, it's also going to be no screams dumplings, and then it's going to be on sci fi channel. I don't even involve myself in that, in that part of it is just annoying and painful when

Unknown Speaker 34:16
you take this though,

Unknown Speaker 34:18
so they don't they don't come to you or you don't want to be involved like they're like, hey, they just they just cut

Unknown Speaker 34:22
whatever they they need to has, like I made the movie I want to make over here.

Unknown Speaker 34:26
So with the first Tales from the hood, then was the film that was released. Was that what you wanted to see then? Or did they cut a bunch of stuff out from the original?

Unknown Speaker 34:35
No, no. Pretty much what I wanted. There were stuff that we were forced to do to get our AR, which I've made is kind of ridiculous when I see some of the things that get ours in my opinion as worse. For example, in that movie, the scene where David Allen careers first beating Molly's the beats are literally about goes on. The initial cut went on longer. I don't know, I can't remember how much longer but it was painful. And they're like, well, this, you know, this is going on too long. And I'm like, Yeah, it really, it really should have kept going on the way it was. Because I remember this from one of our test screenings when it was the way I wanted it to be. We had a lot of young people in the audience, or older people, but young people as well from high school to just into college. And that episode, when David Alan Grier first starts eating her kids laugh,

Unknown Speaker 35:40
they laughed.

Unknown Speaker 35:42
And I understand it. I mean, I can't remember if this was going on then or not what did Schindler's List come out, but there was a whole thing for a minute about a school. I think it was in San Francisco or Oakland or something like that. That has screenings. Words list. And I think a lot of black students and they laugh, the different things. And everybody got upset. why people are these screams are terrible because they're laughing at Jews being killed and so on and so forth. And my take on it was a little bit different. And which is why I wanted to seem to stay long and I'll explain in a second. I'll tell you what happened in the scene and you understand so the scene plays and they laugh, you know, it's like, Oh, is that right? Yes. But as it goes on, it sinks in. And similar. I think me to the shimmer listening is that teenagers, people in general, but especially teenagers, and particularly, teens who deal with bad shit anyway, your initial reaction to bad things that are too real Try to act like you don't get your act. You don't Yeah, you're protecting your emotional self. You don't want to feel that. And by letting that beating Go on, they felt the pain. You can hear it in the audience as you got quieter and quieter. And just and, and they're like, Well, you know, blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, that is before in the movie. The monsters are not the horror. This is the horror. And if you don't let people feel the hoard that it's all for not. So I think it's still works. I don't think it works. It's as effective. You know, and some people don't, maybe as much of that, but, you know, it really helped solidify what was going on in that thing and then by the end of it, and it's the first time I've ever seen Seeing it in any screening or movie, anywhere. Maybe some other people have had this experience. But at the end of that segment, the audience after David Alan Grier got twisted into the ground, they were on their feet of flying. Yeah. And I've never seen that in the film before. I'm sure it's happened someplace. But it was because of the reality of of what he was doing felt so honest and real. And then, you know, kind of come up and steady gets at the end. And that was something that I was actually a little concerned about, because there are a couple of women that came up to me afterwards, it said that they weren't for a house that took in, abused women. I didn't know how, what their reaction was gonna be because I was like, Well, you know, that that story worked for you because you can't feel your monster with a piece of paper. Yeah, ultimately, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 39:02
yeah, it's like giving false hope or like, yeah, that's

Unknown Speaker 39:05
me. I'm like it was just too silly and too stupid. And they said, No, it is cathartic. You know, people who have gone through this will get that out of it, they will be able to process doing this to their monster. So that was like a really cool moment. For

Unknown Speaker 39:25
me. We

Unknown Speaker 39:26
had a couple of things like the the crazy k segment. I've had, you know, not not recently, but definitely a few times more than two times in the past. had people come up to me and say, I was gang banging and I thought,

Unknown Speaker 39:44
Oh, my gosh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 39:48
Yeah. And so, you know, I, I'm a big believer that film him. It's usually not that obvious of a, of a reaction or a response. Well art, literature, movies, TV, all of it. Things see then the good and bad. Yeah. And so you know, I'm not one of those people that believe that you shouldn't, you shouldn't know what you may be trying to say, when you create something. There's other people who feel differently in numbers. But I think you kind of owe it to yourself to know, at least have an idea of what you think you're putting out. It may be received differently. Because my first known fear of of blackhat there's different responses to it. So

Unknown Speaker 40:39
I'm curious who you thought the audience was going to be for Tales from the hood? Because I don't I for one, I told people how much I like it. And they looked at me and are like, like, I think that they don't see me as the audience being white and being a woman as being the audience for Tales from the hood. So I was just I'm just curious to you. You thought it was gonna be Oh, You know, I don't know,

Unknown Speaker 41:02
quite honestly, I don't know that I put a lot of thought into it. I imagine I guess it would just be some black book.

Unknown Speaker 41:11
More or less, you know,

Unknown Speaker 41:14
whoever went to see what was it? Whoever wants to see that? minister society though, maybe they'll show up. And you know, yeah, those people. Yeah, boys in the hood, that group probably who I imagined it would be. I am surprised at the audience that has seemed to have picked up. That's kind of surprising. But, you know, what I also know is that though, for community, there's a lot of people that just come to something because they've been unwell. It's gonna be a horn. So I'm going to see what the fuck it is. But at the same time, one of the knots that we get constantly Tales from the hood movies that are those are fans that are either very right wing conservative, just off the bat. Or maybe not that conservative maybe they are that are like, we don't need a fucking message to scare me. Yeah, well, there's plenty of, you know, there's plenty of horror movies for you if you just want to be scared. You know, why did you even come here? Because it says what it is, you know, you know, it's there. Especially, you know, the last one, this one coming up. It's like, it's not an unknown entity. It's, you know what, know what you're gonna get. So you got a problem with it just. But I'm curious. I know you're interviewing me but so well, you saw it at such a young age. I can't really I don't know that I can

Unknown Speaker 42:53
think like six years old when I saw ish it was whenever it came out on VHS at the blockbuster. I remember those.

Unknown Speaker 43:06
Oh, wow. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 43:07
Yeah. And I'm trying to think like, I'm pretty certain It was me that had wanted to see it. So I like from a young age of love, like Tales from the Crypt and love like anthology series. And I think the draw was like, Oh, it's another anthology series. That's horror. Fantastic. No, you know, yeah. So mom, and I watch it. And I think what has stuck with me and why I continuously like recommend it to people and why I've seen it over the years, as I've gotten older, I just see a lot of comparisons to people I know, or to my family's background, as well to the stories in Intel from the hood, which I think is an interesting thing. Like, because, yeah, I can see why somebody would look at me and be like, I don't think you're the right audience for for a movie like this or, you know, how do you relate to some of these topics, you know, but, but I think that but yeah, that it's a I think a lot A lot of people can relate to these topics regardless of whatever background gender race. I

Unknown Speaker 44:06
think you're right. I mean, we definitely like to have fan of the movie that sometimes you want to go Wow. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 44:17
Oh,

Unknown Speaker 44:18
yeah. I mean, it's great. We're glad to have all all awesome.

Unknown Speaker 44:23
I do remember that you saying on the phone that when that I just think this is hilarious and doesn't surprise me that we had talked about filming. Yeah, we're filming we're in Canada for the third movie.

Unknown Speaker 44:35
Oh, Winnipeg. No. Yeah, Winnipeg.

Unknown Speaker 44:38
I know you admit you made a comment about like one of the most difficult if not the most difficult part about filming in Canada. That's

Unknown Speaker 44:47
finding black remote. Yeah. The toughest part of filming it was find black people to be in scenes. Yeah, we got some really great locations. But yeah, there's nothing A lot of model of life in Canada, and not a lot of black Winnipeg games that have an American black attitude. So it was always we found some but I mean, it's tricky because actually we ended up bringing in actors from different parts of Canada. Some of our actors came from the States, of course, but we ended up with some actors from Vancouver. Yeah, Vancouver, Montreal, outside of Toronto. So we had brought people come from different places, there was a lot of folks on tape. In person, it was not easy to find. Fortunately, we had no huge seams, they needed a gang of people. So, but yeah, it wasn't, wasn't easy, but the actors that we did find are real We know that's awesome work.

Unknown Speaker 46:03
And how many stories are in? In this one? How many episodes?

Unknown Speaker 46:07
There's four with the rapper. Okay, there's four with the rapper.

Unknown Speaker 46:12
Cool. They're all

Unknown Speaker 46:17
no good. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I like this one overall better than two, though into I really liked the Emmett Till score. This one I think overall plays plays better. I think we learned some lessons onto and by that I mean, the first details was the budget was six, something 6 million something which in today's dollars, and considering that we shot at non union, one production manager I was, like you said, probably put us in the 16 to $18 million.

Unknown Speaker 46:56
Yeah, that's a lot of money. That's a lot of money.

Unknown Speaker 47:00
So, the second one, which we shot in Louisiana, was

Unknown Speaker 47:09
$2 million.

Unknown Speaker 47:14
And so, you know, we're trying to figure out how to really adjust out the stories that we tell, because we couldn't make them as big as we want it to. And I think we can this one, how to figure it out how, you know, hopefully a bit of a sweet spot. The stories, you know, they're not as big as the first tale is we just, yeah. But I do think that the stories are stronger overall than the second one. And the look of the film is better, a lot, a lot to do with the locations that we found, and one of the lack of black people but really good locations. But I don't think we we would have been able to find here for the price that we get.

Unknown Speaker 48:07
Yeah. Does it make sense? Did you ever find out the title of the third movie? I'm gonna let you go I swear.

Unknown Speaker 48:27
Or you can just let me know later this message.

Unknown Speaker 48:31
I swear to God.

Unknown Speaker 48:33
Totally. Me and part of me. I'm not sure if he's even still there but it was like Tales from the hood, something something.

Unknown Speaker 48:41
Something something.

Unknown Speaker 48:44
Where is it supposed to be based?

Unknown Speaker 48:50
We're hoping that it feels like stories are based in different places. So I think one is going to feel like it's in Atlanta. One might feel like Chicago. One in some placed in the middle of Nebraska or Kansas they're all kind of in different places all shot in

Unknown Speaker 49:07
Canada

Unknown Speaker 49:09
Oh, Canada

Unknown Speaker 49:15
part of it is I have to kind of see maybe 2003 this I don't know that they kept Oh, let me find a script now. Oh, if I can find this script in my files if I haven't already. All of that off my hard drive that happens

Unknown Speaker 49:41
there is a name Hang on.

Unknown Speaker 49:48
So I don't know that this is gonna be in the advertising but on the script is Tales from the hood three the mouth Have babes and demons,

Unknown Speaker 50:02
the mouths of babes and demons, the mouths of babes.

Unknown Speaker 50:07
Okay, all

Unknown Speaker 50:09
right, see you later.

Unknown Speaker 50:10
All right, bye bye bye.

Unknown Speaker 50:21
Thanks to rusty for being on the first episode of pot of madness. I'll be back in two weeks, for better or for worse, with Alex quero, the composer of the horror comedy anthology scare package. In lieu of birthday guests. You can like rate review, share this episode of all the podcast platforms. Better yet, you can casually mention the show to your friends. Something like I listen to this really great podcast today. I bet you've never heard of it because they probably haven't. And in case you forgot, this show, the one that you're listening to is called pot of madness. If you have a suggestion for it. Guest wants to put a curse on me. Send a message to Jordan at pod of madness calm or at pod of madness on Twitter.

Unknown Speaker 51:10
Thanks for listening

Transcribed by https://otter.ai