A Horror Movie Halloween Special: The Dread Under the Bed

Cannonball with Wesley Morris

The New York Times

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Arts

4.8 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Wesley Morris doesn’t go for cheap jump scares or gratuitous gore. Instead, his favorite horror movies fill him with a sense of dread. This Halloween, he invites film curator Eric Hynes to rewatch scenes from some of the scariest movies they’ve ever seen — some you’ll find in the horror section and some you won’t.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Wesley Morris, and this is Cannonball.
0:07.3	Today, boo!
0:10.0	Boo?
0:11.2	No, you can save your boo for somebody who cares. Listen, I love a good horror movie, but it's got to be done right.
0:29.0	I have needs.
0:30.6	Don't be trying to jump scare me for no reason.
0:33.9	I do not consent.
0:35.7	Don't be gooseing me with your scares, with sound effects,
0:39.1	because your camera and script don't have the goods.
0:42.7	What I like in a horror movie, what I need,
0:45.6	isn't blood or evisceration,
0:47.8	although the quality I do need could involve gaudges of gore.
0:51.6	I need a very specific feeling,
0:53.5	and blood is not a feeling. You know
0:57.1	what is a feeling, though? Dread. Basically, how afraid am I that this movie is going to show me
1:03.9	something terrible and how long do I have to wait to find out? That's what I love in a good
1:09.4	horror movie, but you don't need to be watching a horror
1:11.6	movie to experience that. So I brought my friend Eric Hines in to try to think through the
1:17.2	pleasures of dread. Eric's the director of film curation and programming at the Jacob
1:22.1	Burns Film Center about an hour away from where we are sitting right now in New York City
1:26.2	in Pleasantville, New York.
1:28.2	Eric.
	...

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