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CNN Saturday Morning News

Interview With Andy Seiler, Michael Brody

Aired October 27, 2001 - 08:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Birds were the means of horror created by Alfred Hitchcock in his 1963 movie of the same name. And with Halloween around the corner, moviegoers are seeking out scary films like these. And if history is any indicator, times of war may actually be good for the genre.

Are moviegoers ready for the horror? Well, let's talk about that with our two guests. Andy Seiler is a reporter with "USA Today" and recently wrote an article about horror movies and war and Dr. Michael Brody is a practicing psychiatrist. They're both joining me from Washington. Good morning, gentlemen.

DR. MICHAEL BRODY, PSYCHIATRIST: Good morning.

ANDY SEILER, "USA TODAY": Hi.

PHILLIPS: I tell you, those film clips woke us up this morning, how about you?

BRODY: Definitely.

SEILER: Definitely.

PHILLIPS: Well, Andy, let's begin with you and just talk about, do people want these type of horror movies right now?

SEILER: Hollywood is trying to figure out what people want and it's pretty much frozen in indecision. In fact, some war movies and other kinds of things have, they took them from the release. But the fact is that for the last four weeks, whatever was the most violent movie out there was the number one movie. Right now it's "From Hell," the Jack the Ripper movie. It's not that big a hit, but it's the biggest thing out there right now.

The strangest thing is you would think people wouldn't want stuff like this, but these Halloween movies were already scheduled to come out. They let them go and it looks like they're going to do fine.

We looked back at some data from WWII and from the Vietnam War and we discovered that, in fact, horror movie production in response to box office demand goes way up enduring wartime and then drops off at the end of a war. It seems to defy common sense, but that's the way it is and the statistics bore us out. I mean they would double or even triple during wartime. PHILLIPS: Well, Andy, what about WWII? Wasn't gore censored so people saw movies like "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" instead?

SEILER: That's exactly right. The censors wouldn't have allowed anything very bloody in those days. It was, you know, the third, fourth, fifth and sixth "Frankenstein" movie and the third and fourth mummy movie and the wolf man and all that stuff, and they weren't gory at all. In Vietnam, of course, the censorship was gone. It was pretty much a ratings system like now, for the most part. And things like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Last House On the Left" and "Night of the Living Dead," really pretty gory stuff even by today's standards.

But in any case, I think that, you know, during WWII people couldn't have seen gore if they had wanted to. They still gravitated towards the most monstrous thing they could find. And in Vietnam it was they could find something a lot more grizzly.

PHILLIPS: Dr. Brody, what's the psyche here? Is this a part of the healing process or is this trying to get control on what's happening right now?

BRODY: Well, I think the nature of horror movies in general followed along a certain script. So like a roller coaster ride, it gave us some control.

But I'd like to address my own psyche here. I went to see "From Hell" and I lasted about 15 minutes. The first...

PHILLIPS: You also went to ground zero, too, didn't you?

BRODY: Right. Unfortunately I had gone to ground zero about two hours before that, but here was a movie that had Johnny Depp, who I love, England, Jack the Ripper and I could just sit through about a half an hour of it.

PHILLIPS: Well, can't...

SEILER: I...

PHILLIPS: Go ahead. Go ahead, Andy.

SEILER: I wanted to ask him what it was, was it like the gore and what was it that made you have to not take it anymore?

BRODY: Yes, it was just too descriptive and I think one of the problems with the horror that we're all facing now is it seems these terrorists have a Hitchcockian sensibility. You know, the most horrible things about the Alfred Hitchcock movies was the buildup of suspense. It's what we didn't see.

When we saw "Godzilla" or we saw "Frankenstein," we felt much better. But it's that hidden thing, it's that under current thing that's really horrible, that's creating all of this anxiety.

SEILER: And this is a really good point because we don't really know what's going to happen or how long this war is going to last, obviously. It's a very different kind of war from those wars. I mean they did not take place on our soil. And when people are afraid to go to their mailbox or afraid that somebody might crash into their building, maybe horror is not necessarily going to be therapeutic. A lot of the people I talked to in the horror business say that's why they got into it. They had traumatic childhoods. It was very helpful to them.

But whether that's really what people need or want right now, we are going to, we're about to find out.

PHILLIPS: So...

BRODY: It usually serves as a metaphor for something we're very afraid of. I remember going to elementary school and that we had to hide under the desk. And it was at that time that we had all of these Grade B science fiction thrillers that were out.

So this metaphor that we could concretize on the screen and then feel better about after it leaves is very good. And I think some of these statistics that Andy is quoting are also coincidental. Because at the same time that we had the Vietnam War, we also had women's liberation. And the horror movies took a great turn for the worst. They became very cruel. Women were slashed in the movies. So I think that they served also as the metaphor or the target or the victim of these movies.

PHILLIPS: Do you think, both of you can jump in on this, that Hollywood will, after since September 11, will now consider making movies in a very different way when it comes to horror movies or movies about terrorists? Is it possible we will never see a movie about a terrorist attack again?

SEILER: No, see, here's the thing. Everybody was saying when this first happened that oh, they'll never make another "Die Hard" or another "Terminator" or anything. Do you know those "Die Hard" movies and all those films, the "Terminator" and "Rambo" and all those, those have been the top renting things at video stores ever since the attack.

Hollywood does not know what to do right now and nothing they've got in the pipeline fits with anything. But when something is a big hit, they'll make more of them because money is what -- I mean they've very honest about it, it is a business.

BRODY: I agree with...

PHILLIPS: Dr. Brody, talk about what's healthy here. I mean if it's, even if it's put out there, what should we be doing and our kids, too, taking our kids?

BRODY: Well, I think the kids should definitely avoid this just the way parents should monitor their kids' media, watching, whether on the Internet or on television in general. But certainly during these times kids are very frightened and one of the reasons they're frightened is their innocence has been lost. And as a parent, we cannot reassure our kids. We can't say there is going to be this kind of safety.

But I agree with Andy, Hollywood is immobilized and the most important thing about Hollywood is there's no business, there's no show if there's no business. So they're trying to look at the commercial possibilities and perhaps the reason that these rentals are so high for "Die Hard" is as a nation we want to get mastery. We want to get control over what's happening.

SEILER: I have to say that when I was in fifth grade and Vietnam was going on and I discovered the sort of contemporary more bloody horror movies, I wanted to get into the worst rated one I could, often did, loved them and I don't think it had any bad effect on my psyche. So just in defense of horror movies. I don't know why I was so attracted to them but we thought they were great fun.

Now, they're fantasy -- they were fantasy...

BRODY: Yes, but children...

SEILER: They didn't have anything to do with...

BRODY: But children are not small adults and children are going to be suffering from night terrors just the way when they saw Bambi's mother killed. Children should be...

PHILLIPS: Hey, that's left an imprint on me even now as an adult, guys, OK?

BRODY: See? They're...

PHILLIPS: So...

BRODY: See, there it is.

SEILER: Then they can't see Disney movies either.

PHILLIPS: Tonight we're renting a love story, OK?

SEILER: Good idea.

PHILLIPS: Gentlemen, thank you so much.

BRODY: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Dr. Michael Brody and Andy Seiler of "USA Today," it was a pleasure guys.

BRODY: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Thanks for a great discussion.

SEILER: Thank you.

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