Just in time for Halloween, the third season of Netflix’s hit The Movies That Made Us peels back the curtain on the making of three horror classics: 1978’s Halloween, 1980’s Friday The 13th, and 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.
The series also takes a look at enduring ’80s hits like James Cameron‘s Aliens, the Eddie Murphy comedy Coming to America, and Robocop.
With the spooky season upon us, ABC Audio caught up with Brian Volk-Weiss, the series’ creator and executive producer. He didn’t start out as a horror fan but as he and his “Mozart-level editors” Nick Ferrell and Ben Frost dove deep into what made the slasher flicks endure, he got it.
“You know what it is, I think, and this is going to sound crazy talking about these low-budget horror films, but they have in their own way, a lot of heart,” he says. “It is a very, very simple antagonist. And everybody just gets out of his way or not! But there’s a charm to these films!”
Volk-Weiss notes another key element: casting. “Maybe these aren’t people that are going to get Oscars for best acting. I get it. But they had charisma. They had charm. Yes, most of them were good-looking, but they had charisma!”
Movies That Made Us’ look into 1986’s Aliens is also eye-opening: it features an interview with James Remar, who was fired from the film after shooting started because of a drug arrest, forcing James Cameron to replace him as Hicks with Terminator veteran Michael Biehn.
“I still cannot believe we got Remar,” Volk-Weiss admits. “By the way, even when I was interviewing Sigourney [Weaver], I told her…and she was like, ‘Really?!’
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