Eye On Horror

Saws and Nails with composer Charlie Clouser

May 10, 2021 iHorror Season 4 Episode 8
Eye On Horror
Saws and Nails with composer Charlie Clouser
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

This episode, the guys welcome composer Charlie Clouser, who did the music for all of the Saw movies (among many other projects), including the new Spiral: From the Book of Saw.

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James Jay Edwards:

Welcome to Eye On Horror The official podcast of iHorror.com. This is Episode 65 otherwise known as season four, episode eight. And I am your host James Jay Edwards. And with me as always is your other host, Jacob Davison, how you doing Jacob?

Jacob Davidson:

doing? Great. I'm fully vacced and getting ready to see my first movie in theaters in over a year.

James Jay Edwards:

Yes, I'm fully vaccine as well. And I the first thing I thought was I'm going to see A Quiet Place Part Two and a theater damnit. Awesome. How do you feel? Did you have any side effects?

Jacob Davidson:

Oh, yeah, no, like after the second shot. I just felt like hot garbage for like a day or two.

James Jay Edwards:

I was fine that afternoon. But then the next day, I felt like it felt like a hangover without the nausea. It was headache fever. The chills?

Jacob Davidson:

Yeah. And I had them flu like symptoms. And I was like, I was so physically weak. Like I was having trouble going up and down the stairs. But it didn't last that long. And you know, like, I feel great. Now.

James Jay Edwards:

That's your body, I guess learning how to fight it. So Oh, yeah. It's good to have a mild case like that. And if that was a mild case, oh, I don't ever want to have it. Also with us yet again, is your other other host, Jon Correia. How you doing Correia

Jonathan Correia:

Doing Well. I'm also fully vacced at this point.

James Jay Edwards:

Well, you did the one and done.

Jonathan Correia:

Yeah.

James Jay Edwards:

We have the three of us. I did Pfizer, Jacob did materna and Coorreia did Johnson and Johnson. So if you have any questions about any of the American vaccs options, where you're guys we can answer. We got all three bases covered.

Jonathan Correia:

It was funny too, because my partner Lindsey, she got her one and done the day prior. So like, I got to get a preview of what was to come because she felt like crap that whole first day, like the rest of the day into it. So I was like, oh, man, that's gonna suck. I get my shot the rest of the day. I'm just like, I was I'll admit, I was being a dick and I was running around the house working out and stuff be like, I feel great. This stuff. This shot didn't do anything to me. Next morning, down, I was down for the count. Everything was sore. I felt like shit. I was like, uh, she still felt like crap. And that at that point, it was like day three for her. But by like the evening I was fine. So I feel like a prick cuz I was kind of rubbing in her face how it didn't it didn't hit me as hard.

James Jay Edwards:

It passed for me by about 6pm the next day. But um, it but yeah, it hit me hard. I was like, this is this is crap. But hey, you know, now I know that my body can fight it. Um, we missed an episode. And it is entirely my fault. Because until podcasting pays the bills. I have to work at this other company that does web streaming. And I quarterback the international streaming of the Grand Slam a curling so yeah, not only is that why we missed an episode, that's why I don't have anything to talk about as far as what I watch. I can tell you that. Bruce mo at one both the men's Champions Cup and Players Championship.

Jonathan Correia:

Yeah, he did.

Jacob Davidson:

Good to know

James Jay Edwards:

Rachel Homan won the women's Champions Cup and Carrie Anderson won the women's players champ. But as far as any new movies that come out, I got nothing. And so what do you guys been watching?

Jacob Davidson:

Uh, well, Joe, Bob Briggs is back with the last drive. And so I've been watching a bunch of those episodes every Friday. And they've been pretty fun. And also he's been doing guest stars. Like the first night he had Eli Roth, and they did the original Mother's Day and House by the Cemetery. And on Friday, this Friday, April 30. They had Jeffrey Combs, and did. Bride of Re-animator and this Australian horror movie called Next of Kin, so it's been pretty fun.

Jonathan Correia:

Next of Kin is so good.

Jacob Davidson:

Yeah, I never seen it before. But it it was pretty unsettling. Like, there was some pretty good scares in there.

James Jay Edwards:

Is Ship to Shore doing the Next of Kin soundtrack? I feel like I saw a targeted ad

Jonathan Correia:

if they do that's a that's a day one buy for me. I

Jacob Davidson:

Oh, yeah, cuz it's the dude from Tangerine Dream. Yes, yes.

James Jay Edwards:

Yeah, it's got it. Yeah, I think it is next of kin. I remember seeing that because I actually went and did a little shopping on Ship to Shore yesterday and and it just popped up like and it wasn't there the day before. So I think that yeah, I think that Ship to Shore is doing it's pricey. It's like 40 bucks

Jonathan Correia:

worth it.

Jacob Davidson:

Wow.

Jonathan Correia:

It's a great soundtrack.

Jacob Davidson:

Yeah, I mean, an exceptional soundtrack.

Jonathan Correia:

Yeah. Did you guys see In The Earth yet? And we Yes, so I thought of the driving same Ah, it's that's definitely one movie. I always recommend going in as blind as possible with movies but with this one I knew nothing about except it was Ben Wheatley, and it was shot and kind of takes place during a pandemic. And that's that's all you should know going into it. It's absolutely phenomenal. What do you think Jacob?

Jacob Davidson:

I loved it. I like to equate it to like this movie is to director Ben Wheatley. What Phenomena was to Dario Argento because this feels like an encapsulation of all his work as it has all his kind of styles and tones in one movie you got like the folk horror stuff. You got the pitch black comedy stuff you got like the surrealism and trippiness. So you know, just, I mean, there's in the best way it does kind of feel like it's got elements of like, Sightseers and Field in England and Kill List all kind of wrapped up together. But it's really well done. And it's very interesting because he shot it during the pandemic, and it kind of fits into the plot.

Jonathan Correia:

Yeah, it No, it's it's a big part of the plot, especially in the beginning.

Jacob Davidson:

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Correia:

And they shot it like, not early, early, but like mid like over the summer. Last summer. I think so. Yeah. It's It's incredible. Not only were they able to do that safely, but like actually make like a really, really good movie with that, too. Oh, yeah. Because like, we've seen a bunch of movies come out that were shot over the pandemic, and let's be honest, a lot of them were not good. It's not worth risking.

James Jay Edwards:

I want to ask you guys that. Do you think the stuff that comes out over the pandemic, and I'm not talking about stuff that they just risked shooting, but like, um, things like Host where the pandemic actually plays a major plot point, or the TV show, This Is Us is leaning hard into the pandemic, so much so that, you know, they talk about temperature checks, and you know, and they wear masks everywhere they go, and they're talking about vaccinations? Do you think this stuff is going to look dated in about five years? Or are people going to remember, holy crap, we lost a year of our lives to this pandemic I'm struggling with, I don't know if this stuff's gonna stand up. If it's a mistake that these, you know, that shows like, This Is Us are leaning into the pandemic. And I know they're trying to be responsible. They're trying to say, hey, it's cool to wear a mask in public. Well,

Jonathan Correia:

I mean, it depends. Like there's there's I've definitely seen some stuff like, like the Blacklist doing that really crappy animation for their last like episode or so that already hasn't aged well at all. But it finished their their season. So they just, they hired like a like a storyboarding company to do the animation for their last episode. It did not look good. I don't think stuff like that's going to age well, but I mean, there's some shows like there's this drag show on HBO max that I got really into, and they couldn't finish their season because they were filming it when the pandemic hit. So they ended up doing like a retrospective on the lives of the hosts and stuff. And it was a very emotional and very well done episode. And it came out like early pandemic, so it hit really hard, because here they are talking about how this can meet how, you know, finding this community saved their lives. And now no one has that community because it's mid pandemic. So I think stuff like that is going to age well as you know, as long as it's good. And the message and the message is is still there. I think anything can be timeless. I think anything that as the things that don't age well as pop culture references, Shrek is not going to be and Shrek in the Shrek sequels. Especially they're not going to be as timeless as a Pixar movie. Because it It dates itself very hard, you know? Sure.

James Jay Edwards:

I think that the media that's being produced right now, it's going to be a time capsule of this pandemic, for better and worse. So, you know, you're going to look back on it. And you know, if you're going to look back on a movie, like Host, and you're going to remember you're going to say, Oh, yeah, that did happen, you know. And Host is an amazing movie. I love that.

Jacob Davidson:

Yeah, I think it just stands on its own.

James Jay Edwards:

Yeah, well, yeah, that's true. Because it's not like a huge crush crutch they use I mean, it's like yeah, this is why they have to do this seance over zoom. But you know, it's not, you know, it's not gimmicky, it doesn't feel good. It's organic.

Jonathan Correia:

And same with in the In The Earth because a lot of the stuff where they function within the pandemic works well for the plot. And it's and it's pretty realistic because it's it's a lot of the procedures that we were doing, you know, at that time, so it is a time capsule, but it works really well with the story, so I think it will function on both levels. Yeah, no, that

Jacob Davidson:

makes sense to me.

James Jay Edwards:

Cool. What else you guys been seeing?

Jonathan Correia:

You guys see the new Mortal Kombat?

Jacob Davidson:

Not yet, although I'm actually going to see it in IMAX today.

James Jay Edwards:

Oh, in IMAX,

Jacob Davidson:

I'm fully Vaxed and I even renewed my Have a list so I'm going to go up to the universal AMC and see it in laser IMAX and experience at the theatrical experience for the first time in over a year.

Jonathan Correia:

You're going to double masks though,

Jacob Davidson:

right? Oh, yeah, no, no, I'm going to be fully fully masked. I'm gonna double very careful. Yep, double mask 2k 95

James Jay Edwards:

as far as I'm concerned, I'm still gonna wear a mask wherever I go to. Because not it's for other people's peace of mind. You know, it's like,

Unknown:

you know,

James Jay Edwards:

I can bring I can carry around my car. This I'm vaxxed all I want, but I'm not going to be that dick. You know, I'm going to be like, you know, hey, if it's going to make everyone else in the theater, more confident that I have a mask on. I'll wear a mask. You know, I'm not that asshole.

Jacob Davidson:

Oh, yeah. No, no, I was I was totally planning on wearing a double mask. Like, my technique is k 95. mask, and then my Jason Vorhees mask. Because I because it's all about style.

James Jay Edwards:

Yeah, it's more of a fashion choice at that point.

Jacob Davidson:

Yeah. If there's one good thing to come out of this pandemic is that I can just go around wearing a Jason Vorhees mask in public.

Jonathan Correia:

You're just getting your money's out of that fucking mask.

Jacob Davidson:

Oh, yeah.

Jonathan Correia:

It's the biggest, loudest thing. It's like, I remember when you first bought it, I was like, man, is he gonna get much use out of that? Because like, this thing might only last like a couple months, and it's just gonna sit on his wall or something. But here we are, like, we're over a year later, and you're getting your fucking money's worth.

Jacob Davidson:

Oh, yeah.

James Jay Edwards:

You're assuming he's gonna stop wearing it when he's gonna keep wearing

Jacob Davidson:

it's my god given right to wear Jason Voorhees mask, for the public health.

Jonathan Correia:

And not only that, but you also wear your Giallo black leather gloves to like, at least the times when I've like come over to drop off stuff. Like both and it's just like, you like it, like an amalgamation of horror.

Jacob Davidson:

I mean, I did that more at the beginning. Because you know, does I remember everybody was more like, Oh, you should wear gloves too. But I guess it's not as big a deal now. So I don't really wear them as much But yeah, no, I mean, I did wear the clothes for a while. But you know, I was just, I was using what I had handy, you know, doing what I could

Jonathan Correia:

I saw you also finally got an autograph too, right?

Jacob Davidson:

Oh, yeah. Well, actually that was that I had bought that initially like is is like if you paid extra? Tom Savini autograph, autograph the mask so like I got one that's not autographed. And I got one that is autograph.

Jonathan Correia:

Oh, you got a second one that's autographed. Yeah. Oh, awesome. Yeah, cuz I remember you you paid for the autograph and when it came in it didn't have it so so you got two now all right so yeah, no I got I got to masks all right when one for you know everyday use and one for you know special occasions I guess Exactly. We're going to the MoMA this weekend. Make sure you wear your autographed Jason Voorhees now Oh, yes, of course.

Jacob Davidson:

But ya know, I'm excited to see Mortal Kombat and I'm especially excited to be able to see it in IMAX although I do regret missing Godzilla vs. Kong and IMAX but yeah, the drive-in experience for that was still pretty awesome. So

Jonathan Correia:

you know, I'm not too disappointed. It just seeing it on the big screen was was worth it. Even though Yeah, like I you know, I know we sometimes say even at the drive-in if the drive-in is still good quality stuff. As long as you have decent speakers in your car. It's still Oh, yeah, great experience. Have you guys heard of Russian raid?

Jacob Davidson:

Russian raid?

James Jay Edwards:

I have not

Jonathan Correia:

No, no. Uh, it's a it's a Russian movie, obviously. And it's inspired by The Raid: Redemption,

James Jay Edwards:

so it's not just a clever name.

Jonathan Correia:

No, it will it is clever. And let me tell you something. This movie as me inspired I hope every country does their own version of The Raid. Because this is not a straight up remake. It's It's literally just its name. It is a Russian raid and it is the most Russian thing possible. it's it's a it's about this group. This guy hires this group of thugs and this ex military sniper guy to raid a Russian vodka factory. And like a stronghold takeover from the Russian mob.

James Jay Edwards:

That's the most Russian thing to raid.

Jonathan Correia:

Oh, it is. And then the guy and the thugs that they hire all were tracksuits.

Jacob Davidson:

Oh wow.

James Jay Edwards:

Because why wouldn't they?

Jonathan Correia:

Well, because it's it's the Russian raid. And of course eventually the KGB get involved and but most of the fighting is MMA style like they they purposely put it in the plot like there's gonna be no gun so like for a good portion of movie it's just straight up MMA fighting and is so ridiculous. It's not as good as the raid movies, but it's it's fun for what it is and it and what it is is the most Russian fucking movie that they could have possibly made like,

James Jay Edwards:

is it campy fun or is it like an actually a good action Like how is the stunt? You know, the stunt performing? And I mean, is it good? Or is it is it like so bad? It's good?

Jonathan Correia:

No, when the action happens, the action is good. It gets you. I definitely got exhausted by the third act where I was just like, Alright, I'm kind of getting over this, but it was a fun time. Like if, especially if you're a fan of the raid movies, it's worth checking out. I just, I just again, I really hope that for that we start seeing like, you know, a German raid or Japanese raid

Jacob Davidson:

Canada raid,

Jonathan Correia:

I want to see Canadian raid bago.

James Jay Edwards:

Excuse me.

Jonathan Correia:

Excuse Yeah, it's just a lot. like they've raised a maple syrup factory or something I don't know in the Mounties come in.

James Jay Edwards:

And they're fighting with hockey sticks.

Jacob Davidson:

And curling.

James Jay Edwards:

curling. curling is actually a Scottish sport that Canada embraced.

Jonathan Correia:

That makes sense.

James Jay Edwards:

I can see it I'm full of nuggets like this. It just asked me anything.

Jonathan Correia:

That that checks, because a lot of Scottish sports are about moving really large or heavy objects. So it makes sense that they would have one where it's like, yeah, we're gonna move it on ice.

James Jay Edwards:

And the guy who won both both the tournaments that I did, the man, the men's champion, Bruce Moe at his team is from Scotland. So not only did it originate there, they can still curl.

Jonathan Correia:

Yeah, that's awesome.

James Jay Edwards:

Let's let's move on to our guest. Because because we really want to talk to him.

Jacob Davidson:

Yeah,

James Jay Edwards:

we have very special guests. This episode. We've got with us today, composer, Charlie clauser. How you doing, Charlie? Good, how you guys doing? Great. Charlie is the composer behind all of the Saw movies, among other things. But his newest project is Spiral: From the Book of Saw. And that's what we're going to talk a little bit about everything but but we want to talk about that especially. So how are you doing?

Charlie Clouser:

good man,

James Jay Edwards:

let's start with the typical questions. How'd you get started in music? Yeah, I know. It's, it's you. It's a, it? Well, we're born with it.

Charlie Clouser:

No, but like, you know, most people when they're growing up, like have an older brother or a cousin or something that turns them on to like Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin or whatever. And I didn't, and my parents were kind of older. They were born in 1930. So the only there was a lot of music around the house, but it was all like Dixieland jazz, and Scott Joplin, Ragtime, and stuff like that. And it wasn't until I bought about two records at a yard sale for 25 cents each, I think when I was I must have been in about third grade. And one was David live, which was David Bowie live at the tower in Philadelphia. That was a double album from his sort of Thin White Duke era. And the other was Led Zeppelin 1 and I bought them both because of the cool artwork on the cover. And of course, that blows any third graders mind coming home with those two records. Because I had always played instruments and never practiced them. So like any typical elementary school student, you know, take clarinet lessons for a year and never practice and then give it up and then take guitar lessons for a year and never practice and give it up. By the time I was in about third grade, I was playing the drums and that stuck. So that was the only instrument that I stuck with, through high school and through elementary school in high school.

James Jay Edwards:

And you're you're an original member of Nine Inch Nails.

Charlie Clouser:

Well, quazi original, I joined in 94. So which was kind of in the middle of the touring cycle on the back of the Downward Spiral album.

James Jay Edwards:

Okay,

Charlie Clouser:

so James Willie was one of the original keyboard players and and about halfway through that tour, he was just over it. And so they and I had been on the road with Nine Inch Nails kind of oper doing studio stuff and an operating and man handling the hotel room studio rigs that we would set up whenever we could. And then eventually, you know, Trent was like, okay, you, you're up. And I had never actually played even though I was a synthesizer, jockey and computer geek and drum machine fiend and all that. I had never actually played keyboards in front of people before until my first gig with Nine Inch Nails, which was I think, New Year's Eve 94 I think and 22,000 people, something like that.

James Jay Edwards:

Wow. Did you do the tour, the tour that Nine Inch Nails did with Marilyn Manson opening and the Jim rose circus sideshow.

Charlie Clouser:

That was the one yeah.

James Jay Edwards:

Okay, that was your first tour that I saw that tour and then I saw one before that with Type O Negative opening. But okay, so one thing about Nine Inch Nails that always blew me away, and you might be able to shed some light on this. At the end of their shows. There's no equipment left intact on stage, complete Carnage everywhere. Did you have techs, Or maybe it was you before you started playing in the band? Did you have text had to repair all that stuff? Or did you just go buy new stuff?

Charlie Clouser:

Well, we had an army of techs and you know each each band member had their own dedicated tech and of course, there was a crew of was a stage manager and a stage carpenter, and so on. So they could do things in a pinch, like build a little stand, so that when Robin Finn kicked his guitar cabinet, and it fell over backwards, it wouldn't fall on the jack and break off the, the jack. So they would, you know, stage Carpenter could build a little trestle, that it would fall back and hit on. But we do, we did have an army of Tech's and we used all the all the keyboards on stage, even though we break two or three a night, they were all the original brown metal Yamaha DX7 synths from the 80s, which is a cheesy and corny sounding thing. And we all secretly felt we were doing a duty to society by taking as many of them out of commission as possible. But that wasn't the reason we use them. They were everywhere, you could find them in any pawn shop for 300 bucks, and there would always be one at the local music store. And they were made of metal, so they could really take a beating parts were available. So if you needed one key because a key had snapped off, you could get them and they could be waterproof fairly easily. You could open them up, wrap things in saran wrap, put silicone caulk in there and close it up because Trump would come around with his water bottle and squirt your keyboard and try to disable it or cause some catastrophic electrical malfunction. So they were we use those pretty much exclusively. But the main thing was that, you know, they were available everywhere. And you could take one bring one home from the pawn shop or Guitar Center or wherever, and just stick it on stage and plug it in and didn't need to be programmed or set up or have the channels changed or any. So it was they were ready to go right out of the box. So

James Jay Edwards:

so it was a combination of repairs and just buying a new one.

Charlie Clouser:

They were just ubiquitous, we would carry about we had these big trunks that held six each. So we tried to carry 12 at any given time,

James Jay Edwards:

because yeah, cuz those shows were I mean, it was like a catharsis. But I mean, and these, you guys wouldn't just like, you know, snap a jack off. I mean, the keys would be streamed about the stage, I mean, they would be destroyed, you know, drums kicked over.

Charlie Clouser:

Well, it was cool the way the trend laid out the set where we play, sort of the first half of the set, and things would get more and more insane. And we'd wind up playing the song Happiness and Slavery, which was just a total rodeo roundup as we call he would go around and lassoo people with his mic cable and he's everything just gets destroyed. And the drum kit gets flipped off the riser and keyboards are flying. And then that movie screen would come down for the three song quiet section in the middle. And that would allow the all the stagehands to basically rebuild the entire setup behind the curtain.

James Jay Edwards:

I remember the mic cable lassoing because I was wondering if the guitar player would ever get pissed because Trent would run around him and then pull and he would fall it would trip him Yeah. Is he ever get pissed? Or he's basically tripping him and making

Charlie Clouser:

him No, at that point, you're you're so caught up in the moment you're like, that was what really attracted me to there, you know, joining the live bands, I wanted it to be maximum violence and chaos and fistfights between band members and just utterly out of hand out of control that you know, some of our favorite gigs were when we play smaller venues where there wasn't room for that security barrier where you know, they have a metal barricade and then like a gap where there's a bunch of yellow shirt guys standing. But when you play in a smaller venue, there's not room for that. So now the punters can get up on the stage. And now they can come and try to steal the cymbal stand off the drum kit or whatever. So those were always the most fun was when it was just completely unhinged. Because the set was laid out in such a way that even if a guitar broke, or a mic broke or something the music would still go on. It wasn't we weren't persnickety about Oh, you messed up my solo man. You know, there was there was none of that attitude. It was really all about cathartic. Violent mayhem.

James Jay Edwards:

Yeah, the the the time I saw you guys with Type O Negative it was in a tiny little place like that. It was on the campus of SDSU is I think it was Montezuma Hall. And then with Marilyn Manson, it was at the San Diego sports arena and there were the yellow jackets. But the Montezuma Hall show was much more fun. I mean, it was, yeah, you're like you said it's just it's boil, boil, boil, explode.

Charlie Clouser:

And when there's a sense of risk that something bad might actually happen. That's kind of more feels more visceral and more real than when there's five guys beating the heck out of each other and their instruments. But there's a bunch of Yellowjacket guys standing in the barricade and the audience can't participate. It's kind of more fun when all the techs and roadies have to come out and stand along the monitor the wedge monitors and start pushing people back into the pit because they're bum rushing the stage like that was always our favorite kind of gig.

Jonathan Correia:

I missed those type of shows.

James Jay Edwards:

For them now, but it's good enough talk about Nine Inch Nails How did you get into? Well, we'll probably come back to it, I'm sure but how did you get into film scoring? Well, actually,

Charlie Clouser:

the you know, when I was in college I studied electronic music, which in this was an era before MIDI keyboards, everything so electronic music in those days meant a giant ARP synthesizer the size of a refrigerator and a bunch of four track reel to reel machines. It was old school academic electronic music, making tape loops and you know, BBC Radio phonic workshop type of bloops and bleeps quarter inch

James Jay Edwards:

plugs like Exactly, exactly.

Charlie Clouser:

And after college, and the kind of music I was always into was like Brian Nino and Roxy Music and kind of, you know, sort of more on the art rock side of things, you know, and a couple of albums that I really fell in love with in my formative years was the David Byrne and Brian Eno collaboration My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.

Jonathan Correia:

That's a great album,

Charlie Clouser:

which is was just a mind blower because it sounds nowadays, you could put something like that together with samplers and with Ableton Live and all that, but they did it completely manually with analog equipment and tape machines. And there was another David Byrne album that Eno, also collaborated with him on the was a burn score to the Twyla Tharp dance recital called The Catherine wheel, which was another great album with all kinds of wacky sound design and instrumental tracks and all the heavy hitters of the art rock era were involved like Adrian Balu. And, and people from the Talking Heads kind of extended universe. When I moved to New York after after college, this would have been 85' , right after MIDI and computers started to come on the scene of Christmas. Absolutely crude, we're talking like Commodore 64 computers. And like the old original Macintosh, remember the little one with the little screen like this? Yep. And for about a year and a half, almost two years, I actually had a real job for a minute, which was working at the SAM ash music store on 48th Street in Manhattan back in the day, when, if you wanted to find out what the hot new sampler or drum machine was, you had to physically go to 48 Street, all the music stores were right there on this one half of the block area and you had to go there too, you can just look it up on the internet. And I kind of became sort of the computer and sequencer guru at the store where there be, you know, a line of people waiting and waiting for me to show up half an hour late to work every day. But one of my customers there was an Australian record producer of turned film composer, who was who'd come over twice a year to buy whatever the cool new goodies were to take back with him to Australia. And in about 80 sometime in 86', he hired me off the off the floor at the store to be the third man in his three man operation scoring the final season of the CBS TV series, The Equalizer, which now is like they have movies, and they've rebooted the series and everything. But that series, the old version of that series had been scored by Stewart Copeland from The Police. And he was I guess he had to leave the show to go to a Police tour or something. So this Australian guy took over and hired me to do like the sound design and program all the sounds for the sense and kind of be the hands on the rig. And so that was great, because I got to see how the, how the sausage gets made is a cliche phrase, and to see what was involved in the, the workflow and the terminology and just how does one do it. And of course, that's a path that a lot of composers take is they'll be an assistant or an apprentice or an intern or whatever to an established composer so they can see how it goes without it being their name on the line, you know, and that this all happened before I got involved in making records and doing you know, White Zombie and Nine Inch Nails and all that kind of stuff, which was a 15 year detour. But when I came back, when I left Nine Inch Nails in 2001 and came back to LA, I actually reunited with that same composer and we scored a TV show. And then the phone rang and it was the Saw movie, and we were off to the races.

Jonathan Correia:

And what was the was there a connection with the with the makers of Saw the reason reason behind you getting that call? Yeah,

Charlie Clouser:

I mean, it was a little bit diagonal. Because, you know, I have this music business lawyer that I'd worked with for at that point my entire career. 15 years or so, up till that point, most of what he had done would be like to organize the contracts for a White Zombie remix or something like that. And usually I only talk I usually talk to him once a year. It's usually on my birthday. And I can usually hear like waves crashing at his Santa Barbara estate. steaks sizzling on the grill in the background and ice cubes tinkling in the highball glass, and so he called me like on a Wednesday. Nowhere near my birthday was one He said, Charlie, I need you got a pencil take down this number, you need to call these guys right now. They have a horror movie. And this I was already involved. I already scored some TV and stuff just getting back into it. But at the moment at that point in time, I was actually recording vocals for a Helmet album at my house. And so my licensing call these guys right away, they have this horror movie, they've got a whole lot of industrial music in their score. They don't want like a thematic orchestral horror score they want like crazy crushing industrial music, you need to call them right away. So I did drove down and watch the rough cut of the movie at like, you know, 11 in the morning, while I'm still sort of choking on my Egg McMuffin watching these gory scenes, and it was on and they were like, okay, we need to do this right away. We have about five weeks, can you do it? And I was like, You bet I can. You know, and at the time, I remember at one point, you know, when you're working on a lot of projects, you know, that you you know, when you've done good work, and you think you have something great, but you never know if a project is going to find an audience. You know, whether it's an album or a movie, you never you're never really sure until it's out there on the street. And I remember at one point, James Wan is we're finishing it up said look, if this thing winds up going straight to home video, I promise I'll rent a movie theater so we can all see our name on the big screen at least once in life. Of course, things turned out very differently for both for the Saw franchise and for James Wan who's had a fantastic career and Leigh Whannel too, who would hey were writing partners and l ave courses in the first song mo ie. So it was a it was a ris at first. But it didn't it di n't feel like a risk once the t ing found its audience and found its legs and was up and runn

Jonathan Correia:

Yeah, cuz like like we said earlier, you've scored every single Saw movie you're the you're the connecting link, though nine so far.

James Jay Edwards:

With also other James Wan stuff. I mean, you like Death Sentence and Dead Silence. So which those those scores to me are what like you said the Saw movies are basically industrial pieces kind of thing. Yeah. But the other stuff you basically done all of James wants stuff that wasn't done by Joe Bashara or isn't called Aquaman, I guess. So, I mean, there's clearly a difference. Those are more subtle scores, whereas the Saw scores kind of is like a Mack truck.

Charlie Clouser:

It's full on. Yeah. I mean, that's part of the, the the, there's not much to difficult about the sauce scores for me because it is kind of right down my alley. But the the thing I have to kind of keep reminding myself of is that, you know, you can't really just repeat, and you have to up the ante, every trap scene needs to be bigger and more insane and more just utterly bonkers than the one before it. So that's if there is a challenge. That's the challenge.

Jacob Davidson:

Oh, yeah. And I was gonna ask what your process was, initially with coming up with the score. And I also want to ask specifically about probably one of the most infamous tracks from the score Hello Zepp, which has been in every movie. What was that like?

Charlie Clouser:

That? You know, we did have James is really great, because he's able to keep a zoomed out view of the conceptual approach to how to make things work both visually and with the score. And, you know, when we were starting on the first Saw movie, the concept that we kind of mutually agreed upon, in, in the space of like, an hour of talking was that it sort of you know, this that score is kind of different to many of the others, but it starts off a little bit light and almost curious, like, Hey, what's in the box, what are we doing in this weird dungeon, and then it gets darker and heavier and sicker. And it the root notes and the chords are moving downwards through the whole movie and it gets murkier. And muddier and more underwater sounding until in the in the final act, the score has just dissolved into basically banging on pots and pans and metal scraping and screeching and it's just this unholy music has gone out the window and it just turned into this, you know Einsteins and annoy button version of a score. And then at the crucial moment when Liegh Whannell character, Adam picks up the tape, they find one more tape and he picks it up and he pushes play. That was we wanted the score to feel as though like the lights just got switched on. And it's bright lights shining in the audience's face. And so for that Hello Zepp piece of music, it's in a different key than anything else in the movie. And the sounds are very sort of dry and kind of bright and strident. You know, there's that little string quartet kind of on brain rant. And it's very, there's nothing like that in the previous, you know, hour and a half of the film. And that was very much a conscious decision to make this huge tonal shift. But at the same time that during during that whole segment, there's a voiceover that sort of narrating the twist ending. And there's lots of quick cuts of visual elements, taking you to flashback scenes or alternate angles of scenes that you had seen earlier in the movie. But with the alternate angle, now more is explained. So there's a lot of information being conveyed like kind of rapid fire through that whole ending montage. So I knew that the piece of music couldn't be, it had to sort of be compact. And it had to not distract the audience from paying attention to this narration and all these quick visual cuts. So wanted to be strong and strident and insistent, but it couldn't be like some wandering flowery piece of melody, it needed to be just this little nugget of musical information that then kind of the phrases sort of repeat and build and change octaves, but it's not something that's going to be it's going to require too much attention on the part of the audience. So all of that was, was a conscious kind of game plan. And when you have a game plan like that kind of laid out ahead of time, then it's you know, my analogy is that that's like a coloring book. Instead of a blank sheet of paper, you have an outline, of you know, a clown riding a bicycle or whatever. So now you all you have to do is decide whether the clown's nose should be green or orange. But the the lines are defined and the parameters are defined, and it makes the job of filling it in musically, that much easier.

Jonathan Correia:

And it's so iconic, I would be remiss if I didn't bring up Bri from our other from our sister podcast Murmurs From the Morgue. I was talking, I told her that we were interviewing you today. And she said, she growing up. She's She's younger than all of us. But she watched some movies every night and there were nights where she couldn't fall asleep without hearing that before going to bed. So

Charlie Clouser:

Nice to know that it did some damage, you know?

James Jay Edwards:

Well, they reuse that whole that whole montage different angle thing that's basically at the end of every Saw movie where they explained the twist. Right? So So I mean, they definitely got mileage out of you know that coloring books.

Charlie Clouser:

It's sort of become like a signal to the audience of like, when that little like jangly little dulcimer part for at the beginning of Hello Zepp starts up, then it's like, Okay, everybody, pencils down.

Jonathan Correia:

We are going to explain everything. Now.

Charlie Clouser:

Pay Attention. Yeah.

James Jay Edwards:

And usually I hate when movies do that. I hate when movies tell you verbally. I hate it when they insult your intelligence. But the way the Saw movies do it, they do it visually as well. So they're like, oh, here's this angle. Oh, I missed that. So it works a lot better. I

Charlie Clouser:

think that and it's very crafty on the part of James and other various other directors that have rotated in and out. You know, once that was established as the sort of the the modus operandi in the first one, then they kind of have license to continue with that idea. And to and it's good it's very tricky sometimes how bill you know, the scene that you've that was appears earlier in the movie appears then in the ending montage flashback. But it's nine frames longer. So you see just a little bit more and you know, other alternate angles and stuff. It's very, it's a good reason I'm not a filmmaker, because every time I see one of those ending montages, I'm like, that was very clever. I never would have thought.

Jonathan Correia:

Now, you have a book of Spiral: Book of Saw coming out, which is from the moment it was announced, it's supposed to be very different because I actually marathon all the Saw movies and the sequels are very similar, very, they stick to the format like they everyone does their own take with the and they do different stuff. But it's very, there's a formula. And everything about Spiral is sounding like it's breaking that formula. And it still has like the key elements and everything, but it's doing stuff different. How was your approach with that changed?

Charlie Clouser:

Well, I thought it was really I mean, first of all, it was amazing to hear that to get the call from the producers and they're gonna you know, you're not going to believe this. But Chris Rock came to us with a whole concept for how to re envision the franchise to take it kind of down a side street a little bit. And he's going to be massively involved. Oh, and by the way, Sam Jackson's in it as well. And I was like, I first of all, I'm on board for a Saw movie anyway, no matter what. But when I heard that, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. This is fantastic. And what they've been able to do is, you know, unlike most Saw movies, because like the first one was its own little weird thing. Then the second one was exciting. Another kind of weird little detour and then sort of three through x became kind of, they got more into the traps and like the the sense of desperation of this, this year's batch of victims. And this time around with Spiral, unlike many of the other Saw movies, there are scenes that actually take place outdoors. And some of them are even in daylight, which, like is not the Saw mode, you know, it's always dark and underground in some rusty dank bathroom or something. And it really centers around, you know, Chris Rock's character and Sam Jackson's character, it is not sort of divorced from the Saw reality. Some of the you know, a lot of the what the audience looks for in a Saw movie is definitely there. But it's a different kind of flavor of both visually, and just the pacing of the thing. And you know, it's not Chris Rock Performance in this thing is very much not Eddie Murphy in 48 hours or Beverly Hills Cop. It's not him cracking wise as everybody else is playing it straight. He's playing dead straight. And I always love when you see an actor who you might know, for one genre, kind of moving completely outside of what you'd expect, you know, whether it's Adam Sandler and like, Uncut Gems was that that was the movie replay. Yeah. Or I remember the scene in that, that Woody Allen movie with Cate Blanchett, where Andrew Dice Clay played had a really small role as like the ex husband of one of the actors. And it was, you know, I love seeing actors move outside that, that what you predict that they're going to do next. And in this career, it's great to see Chris like, at the end of his rope, his character definitely gets to the end of his rope in this film. But because so much of it takes place. Not in some dungeon somewhere. That meant that it was it needed a kind of a different approach to the soundscape of the score. And you know, a lot of times when I'm picking the sounds, I'm going to use or picking the chords that the strings are going to play or whatever it might be. A lot of my internal sort of reasoning is, this sounds like daytime or nighttime, or this sounds like indoors versus outdoors. And you have so many of the sounds that have become a part of the Saw, like Sonic palette, sound like, it's dark, and you're underground, and everything's murky and reverb. And so a lot of those kind of things just wouldn't feel right. In, in a different setting. So there was a lot of, of course, as the movie draws to a close things take a familiar turn to is to some degree, sonically and yes, we do hear some of some of our favorite saw hits. But the whole front chunk of the movie, all the way up until the final act is, is very much different to the texture and just the approach musically. So there's sounds that are percussive and, and bright and sharp and perky if for lack of a better word, that would never fly in in any of the other sequels. So it was refreshing to keep things in the dark and evil and heavy mode, but not have it be. You know, a rinse and repeat of so much of the previous scores.

James Jay Edwards:

Do you ever songwriters credit on the 21 Savage Song? Yes.

Charlie Clouser:

Absolutely. And you know that it's really cool. What I mean just kind of got derailed a little bit by COVID. But when the movie The movie was originally supposed to come out basically a year ago, and of course, locked down, you know that the world went into lockdown something like four or five weeks before the original release date. And what was going to happen was 21 Savage was going to, he was going to be headlining at Coachella. And they had this whole live production where he was going to roll out the song with projections behind them with using clips from the movie, and was gonna be this whole, like, integrated synergistic marketing reality where he explodes on the stage with Saw paraphernalia and Saw videos behind him and then the next week the movie came out well, thanks to COVID that didn't exactly go as planned but the tracks that that he and some of his other artists he collaborates with did for the soundtrack album, which also appear in the movie in various spots. Some of them use samples from earlier Saw scores, they 21 Savages track does sample the Hello Zepp theme and kind of flips it you know, he takes a little chunk of it and then like tweaks it and and so I was it was super cool to Can I know that there have been like you know if you get on YouTube you find type in Hello Zepp trap. remix there's, you know, a playlist of dozens of illegal unsanctioned versions, but it was cool to see. And the producers were super onboard with this. They're like hell yeah. So it's very cool to see that material like find a new life out there in the world,

James Jay Edwards:

do you when you see all of those unauthorized remixes? Or d? Does that piss you off? Or are you flattered? Do you think it's, you know, it's, hey, go ahead, do what you want with it.

Charlie Clouser:

You know, on the one hand, segundo you can play whack a mole all day long with the YouTube comment, copyright strike thing. But it would piss me off more if, because the scores are technically a work for hire that the master is, while it's co owned, I did have I do have a good deal with them. But I am not the sole controller of those mechanical copyrights. So I actually cannot issue copyright strikes on those that's up to Lionsgate films and Twisted Pictures. And maybe they have a whole, you know, a whole floor of an office building somewhere of guys hammering away issuing copyright strikes. But again, it's like playing whack a mole. You can never shut that stuff down. I mean, it's like, and I'm gratified to find that people want to do that stuff. It's better than having them ignore it. And it's not like it's, you know, it's not like I'm going to miss my cell phone payment because somebody illegally remixed it, you know, so, God bless them more power to them. Enjoy everyone. And it's like when you know, it's part it's this and this is part of why I train so wholeheartedly transitioned away from making records into scoring because, you know, right around 99 2000 2001 my last couple years with Nine Inch Nails that was right, when of course this is before iTunes before iPods, if you can imagine prehistoric, but Napster and Limewire did exist. And you remember back then. Lars Ulrich from Metallica got all kinds of hassle because he was coming out against Napster. And all the fans were like come on you zillionaire with your art collection and your supercar collection? How dare you tell I'm working Hot Topic, man. I can't I can't afford to buy your new album like How dare you tell us we can't download this stuff. And and then somebody showed me exactly how Napster and Limewire work and I was like, that's it. It's a it's a rap it's over. Because if I you know, I've been I've been broke like a joke. And I definitely would have been on Napster back in college if if it had existed. So I kind of, you know, I realized that the whole economy that I came up in, in the music business where you spend two years making an album and untold millions of dollars of the record company's money making these records, I knew that that economy would still exist for bands like Metallica, U2, Foo Fighters, you know, bands at the a triple A list. Blitz, there's gonna be this weird hollowing out at in the middle. Because a lot of the records I made weren't like, you know, they didn't set the world on fire bands like Helmet, which is an awesome indie metal band, they have a solid audience and is still going and they're going to actually going to be touring with Ministry in front two for two this fall. But a lot of those bands, they because they weren't, they weren't, you know, U2 or Metallica. they relied heavily on record company financial support to make the kind of records that we made back in the day when you had to, you know, lock out a studio for two months in order to your drums track. So I knew that was gonna be there's gonna be some teething pains in the record industry that I knew and loved. And at the time, the scoring side of things was still relatively a safer bet, because people hadn't quite figured out yet how to how to Bit Torrent, the latest season of Game of Thrones or whatever. So it was, although they have caught up to that as well.

James Jay Edwards:

Yeah, the industry has definitely changed and I think that artists are relying less on record sales and more on tours and merch sales, which COVID took that away from them. Right You know, and that's why they're all struggling now. If there's a silver lining to Spiral's released a getting pushed for a year, it's because there's a there was a Shudder original called Spiral that came out about this time of year. Are you familiar with that movie?

Charlie Clouser:

No.

James Jay Edwards:

Oh, yeah. It's just called Spiral. It's about a same sex couple that moves to this little redneck town and they get terrorized. It's a Shudder original. So because there's a year space between those you guys won't I mean, not that anybody's going to confuse a Saw movie with this. But you know, same title Spiral.

Charlie Clouser:

I'm surprised at some at the quality of some of the horror stuff that I'm finding on alternative outlets that are you know, on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc. Like that, and my wife's watching this one series called Blackspot, which I believe is a French production that's on Netflix. And it's almost like a Twin Peaks, Wayward Pines kind of weird little mountain town where strange shit happens in the woods kind of thing. And like the quality, it's a little weird because it's originally done in French and then dubbed in English, which is now you know, a little lopsided, but the quality of the writing and the, you know, it's like that show Black Mirror which was such a hit. Again, that was kind of outside of the normal like channels for for horror, but it was so good. And I'm complete, pleasantly surprised at the quality of the stuff that's outside of the mainstream.

James Jay Edwards:

You bring up Wayward Pines, tell us about some of the other things you've done in your career besides Saw movies, you know, like, you know, like Wayward Pines is one of your themes, correct?

Charlie Clouser:

Yeah. And that was, you know, that was an, an odd little show. And when I signed on to do it, basically it was on the strength of, you know, they said, hey, it's Matt Dillon, Juliette Lewis, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Toby Jones. I was like, I'm on Jeesh, stop right there on board. Because those are my Those are my favorite kind of actors. They're maybe not the triple A list people, but they have a real interesting character. I mean, Terrence Howard's fantastic. that dude's just riveting when he's on the screen, and Matt Dillon, and Juliette Lewis, I love all of those actors. So I was on 100% on board. And, you know, the first episode is sort of this might be a Twin Peaks type of show where it's like this weird little town in the mountains, and everybody's in on something, but you're not quite sure what. And, of course, it turns out, it's a storyline across two seasons involves hibernation pods and traveling 4000 years into the future. And I mean, it's this whole, you know, the mutation of humanity into mutant creatures. None of that is apparent in the first couple of episodes. So again, it was a cool way that they sort of lured you in with this seductive little environment that they built. And then they flip that on you with a brutal twist in the storyline. So but it was a fun project because the first few episodes, the score is just sort of very small little sounds. There's no epic war drums, there's no you know, World War Z zombies climbing the wall kind of music. It's all like little guitar feedback sounds and just weird little brain fart music, as I call it, because Matt Dillon has a head injury and you're not sure if what he's seeing is is real or not. Then of course, later, we roll out the big guns and the epic war drums and the hordes of zombies climbing the wall in the whole thing. But it was an interest. It was fun to do something that had a didn't have a twist to like a saw movie, but it had a sort of a red herring and Lord you down one path and then said, oh, by the way, did we mention

James Jay Edwards:

what about American Horror Story? Yeah,

Unknown:

that's very adult. Yeah.

Charlie Clouser:

And that, you know, it's such a circuit. It's such a weird and circular path that came that resulted in that theme. And you remember the movie Se7en,

Jacob Davidson:

which Oh, yeah,

Charlie Clouser:

everybody's everybody must remember that movie.

James Jay Edwards:

One of my left in the box Exactly. But

Charlie Clouser:

the opening titles to that had a piece of Nine Inch Nails music, there was a remix of the song Closer, done by Peter Kristofferson of Coyle, and it bears no resemblance to the original song. It's basically like some snippets of trans vocal manipulated and then a track that Peter Kristofferson did. But it's just really atmospheric and dark grinding sounding soundscape, and that was using the main titles for Se7en. So 20 years and at that when that movie came out, there was a young guy named Cesar de Vila irizarry, who's my writing partner on the American Horror Story theme. He came home from the theater after seeing that movie and hearing that Nine Inch Nails remix in the opening credits. And he sat down behind his probably a beige Dell Pentium computer, like with the gooseneck mic that you used to get for free, you know, and his copy of cool Edit Pro, which was like a four track audio editor. And he inspired, created this weird little piece of music, he made some samples by taking a handful coat hangers, and dropping them on a tile floor in a bathroom and then time stretching it by like 1,000% to turn it into those chainsaw kind of textures that are that are in that piece of music those are and so he had this had a great time making this little piece of music, and then put it on his shelf and 20 years go by. And when Ryan Murphy is getting together to do the first season of American Horror Story is instructions to the picture editing crew and to the second unit where I want it to feel like the main titles from Se7en where it has this Kind of scratchy writing and there's, you know, weird pictures lit by candlelight, and so forth. And I want the soundscape to be like that as well. One of the picture editors was friends with Cesar. Cesar had also had event by that point moved into doing visual effects and working and picture editing teams. One of the picture editors on American Horror Story said, You know, I have this piece of music that was done as a sort of reaction to the close the Closer remixes in the beginning of Se7en. Let's use that as a temp track. And we can edit our images to that. That's what they did. And of course, Ryan Murphy, and everybody else involved fell in love with it. But it was just a scratchy stereo mp3, they didn't have the individual tracks, they didn't have the stems and the splits and everything. All they had was the mix. And so they came to me and they said, Okay, so you were involved in Nine Inch Nails. Maybe you can, this is what we had typed in there. It sounds really cool. But we need like something in the mix is a little wonky and lopsided. And we need to build out a better version. And so I took a few swings at it four swings, i fact, trying to write a ne piece of music from scratch tha had that spirit, but didn't Wha didn't use any of Caesar material. And they kept going You know, there's just somethin about Caesars original demo fro 20 years ago that we all jus love. So what we wound up doin in the end was I used like audi forensics tools to extract th parts that we liked from Caesar track those chainsaw noises. An this weird little like, kind o sounds like a hi hat, but it' actually sample of water o water coming out of a faucet, was able to extract these littl molecules of audio and then us them as the raw material t build a new track, which ver much resembles Caesars trac from 20 years ago, but is a mor modern version with all th stems and splits and the mixin capability that we needed. An so that long circular track o it started as being inspired b seven. Then they got me becaus I had had some periphera involvement with that 20 year earlier, and it went right bac around to Caesars origina track. So and the variou composers first, I believe i Steve Levine. And then late Matt quayle, who have scored th show. Each year they kind of d a new flip version of the theme They'll take my original stem and add some new elements kee the foundation of the thing bu add a new kind of layer on to that reflects what this year' what this season's theme of th show will be like for th carnival episode. They were th carnival season. They had lik this weird sort of Calliop steampunk kind of circus Orego thing that they overdub. So it' it's proved to be a ver versatile chassis upon whic they can build each year

Jacob Davidson:

And on some of your other projects, I was interested in asking about how you became involved in and how you worked on the soundtrack for The Collection.

Charlie Clouser:

That was you know, Marcus Dunstan was one of the writers in the Saw franchise. And he and I've done a few collaborations together. One was The Collection. And one was this little movie that he had, you know, a script he had had under his pillow since high school or whatever, called The Neighbor, which was just he was like, Can you do me a solid man, I just got it together to make this movie. It's not gonna set the world on fire, but I got it, I got to do it and get it out of my system. And it turned out to be this, this really cool little movie about hillbilly meth dealers and these people move in next door and the people you think are bad are not the ones who are bad. And it started Bill engvall, who is you know, like one of the Blue Collar Comedy guys. But again, much like Chris Rock and spiral, not playing, he's playing dead straight and playing a white trash, oaky really bad person. So that was kind of a that was a cool movie that Marcus who had directed The Collection, and The Collector that he and I collaborated on and I liked it, you know, probably coincidentally, the first movie Collector was scored by Jerome Dillon, who was the drummer and Nine Inch Nails during the tour during the second half of my tenure there. So and I love what he did was very dark and atmospheric and and just really cool. So another small world moment.

Jacob Davidson:

It's all connected. Hmm,

James Jay Edwards:

what is what's next for you? When you got anything on deck?

Charlie Clouser:

There's a couple things that um, there's a there's a series kicking around and a couple of other there's a there's a I'm gonna do my first documentary over the summer. Which is a weird I've never done that before. It should hopefully it'll be less hair pulling then a saw movie with a trap scenes but It's a cool, it's still not set in stone yet. But the The topic is a really interesting angle on social upheaval that occurred in recent decades. And how a certain cultural movement influenced that and helped to resolve this weird cultural conflict. And it was an angle I'd never thought of. But as it's explained to the documentary, it's sort of like, Oh, that makes complete sense. I can't believe I never thought of that angle on things. So that should be interesting and hopefully won't SAP my energy too much with Epic industrial beatdowns. And I would predict that this the world of Saw is not over yet. They keep clicking, you know, every time a movie comes out, it's like, it's the final chapter in that story, not gonna let that thing die.

James Jay Edwards:

I think that the final chapter of Friday, the 13th was what part four?

Jacob Davidson:

Air like Freddy's dead? Yeah. Every time they say it's the end, it's not

Jonathan Correia:

almost 20 years of Saw, right, because it's talking about 2003. So yeah, I mean, you got to do something for the 20th anniversary, at least I

Charlie Clouser:

know. I mean, they got to at least make it to Saw 10. So they can have like this skull and crossbones with the axe.

James Jay Edwards:

Not severed fingers. Exactly.

Jonathan Correia:

Well, I mean, you can't do what Friday 13th didn't stop at 12. You know, I mean, we're waiting on the 13th what that?

Charlie Clouser:

And you know, the fans, there's a certain, like group of fans that, like they, they're not standing on convention, they're not going to pick it apart too much. They just want a rollicking good time in the theater. They want jumpscares they want scripts. So it's okay if some of the Saw movies, if the if the, the you know, the writers at variety in Hollywood Reporter go? What is this the 15th Saw movie? That's fine. There's people out there that just enjoy it. And God bless them. I can't believe you know, it's it's fantastic that we found an audience for that stuff. And, you know, I won't stop until they love to pry that franchise away from my cold dead hands. And then it can put my cold dead hands on the poster.

James Jay Edwards:

At this point, people are going to the Saw movies for the traps. It's kind of like, like the Final Destination movies. Right? That's the same movie. But you go for these creative, you know, you know, death inspired kill scenes, right? People are going for the traps at this point. So as long as the production designers and whoever makes up the traps, yeah. Then Yeah, the saw. I think it's gonna keep

Charlie Clouser:

I'm 100% on board, you know, when the going on.

Jonathan Correia:

And and you have to be a part of it. I mean, it's like watching a Friday 13th movie without Harry Henry been freed it, you know? Yeah. You can't do that. producers are like, You're not going anywhere. Are you dude, you know, moving to Australia or doing anything silly like that. I'm like, Don't worry, you'll always know where to find.

James Jay Edwards:

At least maybe at least you'll have a piece of it for the Hello Zepp theme that they have. At this point,

Charlie Clouser:

at this point, if there was if the movie got to the final five minutes, and that little dulcimer jangly thing didn't start off. People be like, that's it. I want my money back.

James Jay Edwards:

They wouldn't know it was ending. They'd be like, okay, no, there's more.

Jonathan Correia:

Bri wouldn't be able to go to bed without it.

James Jay Edwards:

The credits are rolling. And they're like, Oh, no, this isn't done yet.

Charlie Clouser:

Post credit scene What the hell is up.

James Jay Edwards:

Charlie, thank you very much for spending your morning with us. This This has been a great talk.

Charlie Clouser:

My pleasure. Always fun.

James Jay Edwards:

So we're gonna get out of here. Our theme song is by Restless Spirits. So check them out. Our artwork is by Chris Fisher. Check him out. Charlie, where can our listeners find you on on the social media? You know, they want to know what's next for Charlie clauser.

Charlie Clouser:

Um, that's a good question. I don't have an Instagram. kind of have a Facebook. I think it's still active. Haven't tweeted in a few months. So yeah,

James Jay Edwards:

Keep coming to saw movies.

Charlie Clouser:

We saw movies. Check IMDb. If there's anything in the works, it'll say in production at the top of my IMDb page.

James Jay Edwards:

Fair enough. You can find the other three of us at the Eye On Horror Facebook page the Eye On Horror Twitter, the Eye On Horror Instagram. The Eye On Horror letterbox I think we have right Correia,

Jonathan Correia:

I just make lists on my personal. And we post a bit more frequently than then Charlie does. Not that much more. But we were getting there.

James Jay Edwards:

And you can also find us at iHorror.com, which is where we all write some more than others. But yeah, that's what we all call home. So again, Charlie, thank you very much. And we are out of here. So for me James Jay Edwards.

Jacob Davidson:

I'm Jacob Davison.

Jonathan Correia:

I'm Jonathan Correia

Charlie Clouser:

and I'm Charlie clauser.

James Jay Edwards:

Keep your Eye On Horror.

Intros and Vaccs
Curling Championships
What Have We Been Watching?
Pandemic Made Movies
Jacob and his Damn Jason Voorhees Mask
Introducing Charlie Clouser
Nine Inch Nails
Beginnings in Film Scores
Saw Beginnings
Hello Zepp
Spiral: From the Book of Saw
21 Savage, Coachella, and Covid
Wayward Pines
How Se7en influenced American Horror Story
Marcus Dunstan and The Collection
What is next for Charlie?