The Dark Territory
A deep dive into unsettling, obscure, and often overlooked works in film, literature, and music. From body horror to haunted Americana, industrial noise to dystopian novels — it's about exploring the media that lingers in the shadows.
The Dark Territory
Trick Or Treat
While we put the finishing touches on our big Halloween special coming next Wednesday, we wanted to share a little treat with you. This bonus episode features real horror fans answering one simple question: What’s your favorite scary movie? From cult classics to modern nightmares, their answers capture the spirit of the season.
What's your favorite horror movie of all time?
SPEAKER_06:That's gonna have to be the stop right.
SPEAKER_02:Every single fun movie, everything related to John Kimmer, everything about it.
SPEAKER_04:And if you can't be safe, be sanitary.
SPEAKER_03:Voices whisper from beyond the grave. They said it was too dangerous, too terrifying to listen alone. Yeah, I know you don't like Dark Territory. You can fight me on the From the shadows of your worst nightmares comes a new descent into fear. The Dark Territory podcast. Available wherever you listen to your podcasts.
SPEAKER_05:Smash some pumpkins. Smash some pumpkins, that's right.
SPEAKER_04:Watch trick or treat.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Watch uh inspect all your candy for razor blades.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Listen to the misfits.
SPEAKER_05:Uh well, I'm I'm really excited about this episode. This is one that we've been kind of uh waiting to do all month. Yeah. And uh this episode This is take two, actually. Yeah, yeah, right, right.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, we uh Sean wasn't happy with the level, so we had Sean is a slave driver.
SPEAKER_05:Sean is a slave driver. I'll get the outcast. Um yeah, so last week we kind of sat down and got to watch it, and I I got to see it for the first time. And you know, you showed me a couple clips earlier, and I was really impressed with just how cinematic and atmospheric this movie is.
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah um atmosphere for days.
SPEAKER_05:Oh yeah. I mean, from the first shot you see just how uh the cinematography kind of takes hold and and just the atmosphere, the lighting.
SPEAKER_04:Um I would uh I would uh venture to say that this film has more atmosphere in the first 15 minutes than a lot of movies have nowadays.
unknown:Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_05:Especially one with the premise that this one has.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Uh you wouldn't expect a movie about a giant pig to be so kind of enveloping in that way.
SPEAKER_04:Visually, it's just it's a beautiful film.
SPEAKER_05:Oh yeah. I mean, even you know, taking notes for this podcast episode, I was looking at some of the screenshots, and each one looks like a masterpiece. I mean it's got just such presence.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah, and I did I did some more digging on it, and uh I have to revise one of the one of the trivia facts about it. I was wrong.
SPEAKER_05:What's that about what?
SPEAKER_04:We'll get into it later.
SPEAKER_05:Well, uh I thought we'd start off this episode by talking about our favorite scary movies.
SPEAKER_04:You go first. All right.
SPEAKER_05:Well, I was thinking about it, you know, kind of going through my my whole catalog of films that I've seen over the years. And one thing I I thought about is not just what's my favorite scary movie, but what's my favorite experience with a movie. And I'd have to say that The Shining was by far the most intense, scariest uh experience I've had with a movie. You know, I was at the time, I think I was 16, living out in this small little community in Ording, Washington, uh on the on this road called Patterson Road.
SPEAKER_04:And down that road?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Back in the day, I mean, I don't know what it looks like now. Yeah, there's nothing else. Uh and one of my friends that I I would hang out with all the time, you know, Eli. Shout out to Eli if you're out there. Uh he suggested that we watch the shiny. And so I hiked my ass out there fucking in the middle of the woods. You know, I it's about three and a half miles away. So uh it wasn't it wasn't nighttime when I left, but it was definitely nighttime. Or it wasn't nighttime when I headed out there, but it was night nighttime when I left his place. Um and so yeah, he he has this little single wide album in the middle of the nowhere, and we're smoking weed and getting a little drunk, you know, as one does.
SPEAKER_04:Uh when you're about to watch one of the most terrifying films ever made.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I remember just uh that soundtrack. You know, you got Wendy Carlos. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Going up the going up into the mountains, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And it that movie disturbed me so much. And I don't know if it's because I was drunk and high, but I I was so disturbed by it that I couldn't finish.
SPEAKER_04:I didn't know.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. So we I I I told my friends, like, look, man, I gotta go home. So I I hiked through the dark wood rather than sit there. I I felt so disturbed by this movie that I had to leave. And every step of the way, I'm just looking around like fucking terrified out of my mind. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You weren't a you were a country boy, you shouldn't have been scared of that.
SPEAKER_05:I shouldn't have been, but I was there. Something deeply and profoundly disturbing about that movie, just a sense of dread.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, um I yeah, I would agree with you on that. That's not uh The Shining is scary, but to me the book was more terrifying. The book terrified me when I read it. Um that's to me, that's Stephen King's best book. That's that's my favorite Stephen King book ever. That's that's one of my favorite books ever. But um my most terrifying film was The Exorcist, hands down. Um The Exorcist. And I wasn't allowed to watch The Exorcist when I was a kid. My grandparents were they were very permissive with what I watched, but you know, I could they basically let me watch whatever I wanted, as long as it wasn't like porno or something like that. But uh I was expressly forbidden to see The Exorcist. Wow that they had seen it. Well, we were a religious family, so they didn't want to look at evil in it. Oh, and they they thought, and it's funny, it's really funny because um when I was a kid, this is kind of a funny experience. Um I was a kid, uh, we started getting Doctor Who on BBC, uh, not BBC, but on uh channel nine, I think it was either either either nine or twelve. Yeah, the uh you know the public broadcast. And my grandmother, I started watching Doctor Who. I got obsessed with it. Tom Baker was my doctor, the fourth doctor, and she thought that I was gonna join a cult for watching Doctor Who, and I was just like, it fucking blew me away, man, because I'm like, you let me watch like Texas Chainsaw and you know the Hills Have Eyes and everything else and all this other like really violent shit. Yeah, but you think Doctor Who is bad, really?
unknown:How did how did that compete?
SPEAKER_04:I don't know where you know it. She just, you know, I got into Doctor Who like so fast, and I I would watch it like every time it was on, and she was like, What is it about that shit? It's cheap looking. I was like, I know it's fucking awesome. You know, I loved it. I love Doctor Who.
unknown:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I think it sucks now, but I think I was more of a Red Dwarf fan than well, yeah, that too. And Black Outer.
unknown:Yeah, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Roman Atkinson was a he's a great actor. Oh absolutely, you know, Mr. Bean, all that shit. Yeah, but Red Dwarf, yeah. The the the cult British stuff was really good.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Anytime they had those uh ones.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Me and my friends, we all get together and we sit there and watch them for a fucking time.
SPEAKER_04:And all the all the people that they collected to answer the phones and shit, we're like, yeah, that checks out.
SPEAKER_05:We can make backstories about all the people that were on the phones answering the phone calls.
SPEAKER_04:All these people wearing like the hats with the H on it for hologram. Yeah. It's like okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So the Exorcist was like uh a transformative experience.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, it scared the shit out of me. Yeah, it still scares me to this day. I was 14 when I uh the first time I got to see it, and and I saw it at a friend's house because my grandparents would uh they'd look at some of the tapes that I would bring home once in a while just to make sure that everything was on the up and up. And uh it was a my friend's uh his 15th birthday party, and he's like, hey, I got the exorcist. And I was like, yeah, because I really wanted to see it, you know. You know, when you're a kid and you say you can't your parents tell you you can't do something, you're like, fuck you, I'm gonna, you know, yeah. So yeah, and that I watched The Exorcist, and I couldn't sleep for like three weeks afterwards. The the the image of of Dr. of uh Captain Howdy is burned into my brain forever. Oh yeah, and it's funny. Um uh about uh Captain Howdy. Um there's a rapper that I like named Vinny Paz. He has Dr. Howdy, Dr. Howdy, fucking Captain Howdy tattooed on his hand, and I was like, oh, if I ever got a fucking hand tattooed, that'd be it, dude. That's fucking dope. Oh yeah, yeah. It's just so evil looking, you know, yeah and demonic. And I think that's part of that film's power, is it's just so evil and over the top. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And and recognizes any sort of religious beliefs you have.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Oh, totally. And it makes you believe that there is true evil out there, which there is. I mean, I think that that film it it takes all of our fears about evil and it manifests it into something physical and ugly, yeah, and in the in the character of Reagan and how demonic and just evil she became. And it's it it's a profound film. I dare anybody to not feel something when they come out of watching The Exorcist. I fucking dare them.
SPEAKER_05:There's a reason why that that movie won awards.
SPEAKER_04:It was it was uh critically acclaimed as well as oh, critically condemned and acclaimed at the same time. The Catholic Church wanted that movie burned, they wanted it destroyed, and you know, William Freakin was like whatever. Yeah, you know, it's like you know, and um yeah, The Exorcist. If you haven't seen it, go watch it.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, absolutely. Uh practical effects are great, the sound is great.
SPEAKER_04:Dick Smith's makeup, that makeup won an Academy Award as well as it should have.
SPEAKER_05:Didn't the sound design get an award?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, or at least a mention. Yeah, Michael Oldfield's soundtrack, you know, tubular bells. That's how many times have you heard that? You know, that's earworm. Yeah, when you hear two tubular bells, you're like, holy shit. But anyway, on to Razorback. Yeah, but happy Halloween.
SPEAKER_05:Happy Halloween, everyone.