You are now listening to post-mortem with Mick Harris, where the most influential

voices in horror cinema will spill their guts, literally.

To the renowned horror director, writer, and producer.

Now here's your host, Mick Garris.

I'm Mick Garris, and this is post-mortem. You know, television never used to be a very good friend to horror stories.

Yeah, the twilight zone and the outer limits could be chilling, but it's hard to build tension and suspense

when you've got to sell baby wipes and

cleaning products every eight minutes and network television was also

hamstrung by high levels of censorship. That changed a lot when paid TV channels

like HBO and Showtime started making successful series of their own

and broadcast TV had to compete. HBO's tales from the crypt was a sensation with its weekly

jolt of shock blood and nudity. I remember when we were making the mini series of Stephen Kings the stand,

ABC told us there would be no open eyes on the dead.

Well, we extended our middle finger to broadcast standards

by going right in tight on the cloudy dead eyes of one of the

super flu victims during the title sequence of the very first night. Things were changing.

But even when we were doing Masters of Horror for Showtime, we ran into censorship from the network. One of the episodes,

Takishimi's imprint, never aired because the powers that be decided it was just too shocking

for their audience. It seems like a long time ago. It feels now like horror is better on television than it is in the movies.

Shows like the Walking Dead, Penny Dreadful, the strain, and most importantly for us today,

Hannibal and American gods gods are much more satisfying, smart, and scary

than anything you'll find in the cinemas.

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