Podcast: Rocco T. Thompson on ‘Scary Movie’

Every so often on the Certified Forgotten podcast, we stumble into the perfect marriage of subject and expert. This is certainly this case with this episode on Scary Movie, a '90s horror film that has become something of a cult classic with its native audience of Austin, Texas. And to help explain why Scary Movie is a surprisingly good entry in the horror subgenre of haunted house movies, who better than Austin's own Rocco T. Thompson (Rue Morgue)?

Warren (John Hawkes) has a bad feeling about the local haunted house — so bad, in fact, that he spends his nights tossing, turning, and dreaming of being chased by a skeletal killer. But while Warren is a coward, no one can say he’s not a trustworthy wingman. That’s why Warren still enters the haunted house on Halloween — even with the news that a local serial killer has escaped from jail. Resurrected from the dead thanks to a premium home video release in 2023, Daniel Erickson’s Scary Movie remains a delightful tribute to keeping Austin weird.

In this short excerpt from the episode, special guest Rocco T. Thompson shares one of his favorite moments from the film:

"There's that wonderful moment [where] John Hawkes is looking at the mural of the skeleton killer painted on the side of the haunt, and the door opens, and then the door closes, and the skeleton's gone. he's stepped into reality all of a sudden. It's a very subtle moment, but the movie itself is playing tricks on you, sort of like the tricks you play on ourself on Halloween, scaring yourself."

The Scary Movie episode of the Certified Forgotten podcast is now available to stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or the podcast platform of your choice.