is the weapon of choice.

- [James] Oh, what're you gonna do with that?

- [Joe] Well I think you have to,

shove it down the front of her dress.

(cackling) (bomb exploding)

And, set it off, because otherwise how are you gonna

get rid of her?

(chainsaw revving) (techno synthesizer music)

- [James] Hey I'm James A. Janisse,

and some of you may know me as Dead Meat.

If you do, you probably already know

that I love to watch people die.

(screaming) You know, like, on screen.

I've always wanted to talk to the horror legends

who put those kills on screen and find out what scares them.

And also, if they could survive their favorite kill scenes.

This is Meat Up.

Today's guest, director and Gremlins creator Joe Dante.

(slow swing music)

- Hi Joe, I'm James. - Oh, Hi.

Come on in.

- Thank you. Thank you.

Hey, welcome back to another episode of Meat Up.

I'm James A. Janisse and today I'm here with Joe Dante,

who has done so much marvelous work, thank you.

- And, we've got the meat, for Meat Up.

- That's right.

- Foods here, it's from Lala's

- [James] Yep, we ordered out.

- You have the best one which is pechuga dijon.

- [James] Oohh

- It's the best thing they have.

- And Lala's is an Argentinian grill

from, its in Studio City.

I've gone there before.

- There's one here in Hollywood.

- Oh, this is from the Hollywood one.

- Because this would really be cold

if it came from the Studio City.

- That's what I thought, yeah.

[Casual Music]

Horror fans might best know you for Piranha or Gremlins

but your career has spanned a lot of different genres

and a lot of different films but they all have

that kind of fun play to them.

The're kind of fantastical.

- I like the genre and um when you start out in something

and it works then they tend to tell you

that we like you to make more of it.

- Mhmm

- But it's fine with me because I enjoy these pictures.

- Yeah, and I've heard ah, various other people

kind of complain or like it rubs them the wrong way

that they get kind of pigeon holed into the genre

but even though you say your fine with it.

It does seem like you've been able to

breakout of it a little bit.

You haven't just done horror.

- Well yeah because, because I think horror

and comedy are kind of aligned

and some of my favorite comedies are

horror pictures and uh vice versa.

- What are some of your favorites, like that?

- Well everybody always says

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

- Of course.

- That's the one that that blends all the stuff

that scared you when you were a kid with the things

that made you laugh when you were a kid.

But I remember watching the James Whales movies,

um, like the Invisible Man.

Where you know the Invisible Man is obviously crazy

and he does a lot of weird crazy things

and it was sort of funny, but then in the middle

of it he will hit someone over the

head with a stool and kill them.

You sort of, you laugh kind of catches in your throat.

- Yeah

- And a laugh in the right place is a relaxer and

you can scare people a lot more easily if their relaxed.

(upbeat swing music)

- [Jame] Roger Corman, would it be fair to say

like you started your career with him?

- I wouldn't have a career if it wasn't for Roger Corman.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And I am not the only one who can say that.

There's a whole generations of people in Hollywood

whose career wouldn't exist if it wasn't for

working for Roger, because you made movies

that were under the radar for not much money

and you learned all these problem solving ticks

that you wouldn't get otherwise.

- Mhmm

- And because you had to have a movie at the end

of your ten days or whatever it was that

you got to shoot it and it got released

which was fairly terrifying.

And so many of the people who went through The Corman School

became Academy aware winners and became

the pillars of the industry.

And Roger is still going, he's 92.

I had lunch with him yesterday.

- Oh wow

- And he just doesn't show any signs of quitting.

He's still making movies.

- That's so good to hear. I love hearing that.

You began by editing some stuff for him right?

Editing trailers and uh.

- Yeah, I started in the trailer department,

uh, which is a great way to learn

how to make movies because you have to take every scene

and reduce it to down to its components.

Uh, you take a three minutes scene

and you got to reduce it down to 30 seconds

and then in doing that you start to realize,

well you don't really need that

angle at all. You can go from here to here.

All those things are in your head when

you finally get a chance to direct a movie.

- Mhmm

- So instead of wasting time shooting angles

that you don't need and covering the scenes

as if every angle in every shot and every actor

is going to be important.

You do what you need to do,

in order to be able to make it work.

- Did you ever edit any of your own features?

- I, yes, I started out editing my own picture

Hollywood Boulevard, which I co-directed

with Allan Arkush and he also

- Mhmm

- co-edited it with me.

And then I did Piranha which I was one of the editors on.

I did The Howling which I was one of the editors on.

But I discovered when I got into the studio business

that to give the director the power

of editing his own movie.

Is really in their eyes giving him a little too much power.

- Yeah.

- And so its like, they feel that you're

not really the best judge of what it is that you shot.

So, its better to have someone else do it.

(energetic groovy music)

- Yet you have this tendency to blend genres,

a Gremlins is, it's like what kind of movie is this even?

Is it a kids movie?

Is it a holiday move?

A comedy?

A horror?

And I always appreciate that.

I am fine with ambiguity.

I'm fine with things not being put into boxes but ah.

- But you obviously don't run a studio.

- Exactly. Yeah, or how do you respond to people

trying to tell you to make things that

are more one or the other?

Which I'm assuming--

- Nobody wants to be dictated to.

On the other hand, you know, these people are

spending a great deal of money

and they have a market and they have ways of

doing business and stuff and you want to make them happy.

In the case of Gremlins, which was made

for Steven Spielberg, who was very accommodating,

to letting directors make their own movies.

Once the time comes to show it to studio

and the studio was totally confused by the movie.

They just didn't get it. They didn't understand it.

They think Gremlins are so ugly and

they rub their nose on the curtains and its like urgh.

Why can't they all be like Gizmo.

Why can't they just all be cute and lovable.

Part of the success of that movie is due entirely

to Spielberg's insistence that even

at the last minute like a month before

we started shooting, that Gizmo does

not turn into Stripe the bad Gremlin.

Gizmo stays Gizmo for the entire movie

and that character I think led parents to

thinking this was going to be E.T. two.

Once the Gremlins came out, uh, a lot of the

parents were annoyed and disturbed and

particularly when they went into microwave.

- I was going to bring that up. Yeah.

- And so the studio was not pleased with this stuff

and they said there's just too many Gremlins.

And so Spielberg said, I think, correctly,

why don't we just cut out all the Gremlins

and we'll call it people.

(laughing)

- But nobodies going to go see it.

But again the benefit of working for Speilberg

was that director makes his movie.

And that's the version of the movie that gets previewed.

But if we had done to the movie

what they wanted to do with the movie.

We'd be, we wouldn't be talking about that movie at all.

- Yeah

There wouldn't be dozens of Gizmos around your house.

- Yeah.

- I love it. (laughing)

(slow jazz music)

Well, now is the fun and games segment of this show.

- There's fun?

- Well, hopefully, fingers crossed.

Yeah.

Before we started we had to give us

three of your favorite horror movies.

But the movie I chose for this game

was the, Horror of Dracula.

Also known as Dracula.

And this was the first, Hammer film, Dracula.

Right?

- It was the first Hammer Dracula.

It followed the success of,

The Curse of Frankenstein.

And it lead the rather small company,

onto a whole new path of making gothic horror movies.

And the Dracula adaptation is particularly

interesting in that there wasn't a lot of money.

And they cleverly wrote in materials saying,

that its a common fallacy-- - Yeah.

that people think--

- yeah they hang the lampshade on it,

no we can't do that.

(laughing)

- And its also very a very sexy movie.

And it set a tone and a template

for all the pictures that followed it.

Its efficient, its well done,

its beautifully photographed.

Its a terrific movie.

- Yeah, watching it,

its actually shocking that it was made in fifty-eight.

And its got such like vivid colors and its you know,

a little more extreme than you might expect

to come out of the 50's.

- No it was a big hit, it really put them on the map.

- Well, hopefully you understand Dracula,

cos we're gonna put you in it,

for this little segment that involves the,

Chum bucket.

- Why, have you had that all along?

- I have, I have.

- You've been hiding it.

- I had the Lala's delivery guy

- It must have been under your shirt.

- drop it off with me.

Inside here it has a bunch of index cards

with ramdon items on it,

so what I'm going to have you do,

is draw three of them, and then I'm going to put you

in the place of Jonathan Harker actually