Eli Roth's History of Horror

The bigger they come, the harder they fall. And when it comes to human civilizations, the modern world is as big and populous as it has ever been, so when the fall comes, it will be spectacular. The collapse of the Roman Empire was followed by roughly a thousand years of hard times for the human race. The collapse of the modern world will likely be even more traumatic.

But as history tells us and horror movies confirm, humans can survive just about anything, including world wars, global plagues, mass famines, and, maybe, a zombie apocalypse. The ones who make it through may be the horror fans who have absorbed the lessons taught by end-of-the-world spectaculars like World War Z, Train to Busan, Zombieland, War of the Worlds, I Am Legend, The Omega Man, 10 Cloverfield Lane, The World's End and The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

It started with Black Christmas. Bob Clark's groundbreaking slasher film took the then-shocking notion of setting a sorority bloodbath at Christmastime, offering a dark contrast to the joy of the holiday season. Halloween came a few years later, and its success spawned a slew of holiday-themed horror movies. The idea still catches fire every decade or so, retooled for new generations of viewers.

Why are these films so popular? It's partly because horror is the bad boy of cinema, always looking for ways to upset the status quo and topple sacred cows. To horror creators, the purity of a holiday is just waiting to be splashed with stage blood. But the deeper reason is that holidays are times when we gather with our families, and that can be joyful and painful. For some, the explicit violence of holiday-themed slasher films brings the angry undercurrents churning around the dinner table out into the open. For others, the shocking juxtaposition of a day of celebration with death and dismemberment is just another part of the play-acting thrill ride of moderated fear.

This episode features a deluxe sampler of holiday mayhem, including Black Christmas, Krampus, Silent Night Deadly Night, Terror Train, My Bloody Valentine, April Fool's Day, Happy Death Day and the blockbuster 2018 sequel to Halloween, featuring returning guest Jamie Lee Curtis.

The pursuit of knowledge can lead us down dark paths. Our quest to understand the workings of the universe has taken us from caves to cities, from the desert to the Moon. But it has also sickened our bodies and the planet, given us weapons of mass destruction and the surveillance state, and, most recently, created the poison candy of the Internet, which has completely disrupted how we live and how we think.

The justifiable fear that men and women of science will unleash even more powerful forces they can't or don't want to control is a favorite topic of horror films. That fear is embodied in the figure of the Mad Scientist, who tends to be either an amoral and egomaniacal villain or a noble explorer driven over the edge by the thirst for knowledge. But, like many cinematic monsters, mad scientists also appeal to our rebellious natures. For every unhinged Dr. Frankenstein there's a lusty Dr. Frank-N-Furter, happily challenging the boundaries of polite society.

Featuring: the many incarnations of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as Ex Machina, Eyes Without a Face, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Altered States and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.