Shudder’s documentary collection Cursed Films returns this week, and since season one bought the heavy hitters out of the way in which (Poltergeist, The Omen, The Exorcist, The Crow, Twilight Zone: The Movie), season two permits for a considerably looser interpretation of the collection theme—although Hollywood nightmares nonetheless abound.

The first episode of season two indicators a shift for the collection—which was beforehand solely involved with horror movies—by digging into The Wizard of Oz, addressing lots of the well-known tales and legends concerning the 1939 traditional. These embrace: authentic solid member Buddy Ebsen needed to give up after the suffocating Tin Man make-up landed him within the hospital (true); a solid member hung themself on-set, a tragedy stated to nonetheless be seen in sure cuts of the movie (false, and extensively mentioned right here); and the actors who performed the Munchkins partied fiercely all through the manufacturing (false, although Cursed Films II does present the notorious talk-show clip of Judy Garland blithely giving rise to that rumor). Brisk modifying (every Cursed Films episode is round 45 minutes, which feels excellent) and a few shocking but welcome interview topics hold issues energetic—the latter on this case together with Steve Rash, director of 1981’s infamous Oz-themed Chevy Chase comedy Under the Rainbow, and comic Gregg Turkington, who makes a deadpan case for being thought-about Under the Rainbow’s largest fan.

With Oz specialists and offspring alike weighing in—together with Margaret Hamilton’s son, who remembers his mom recovering from extreme burns after a special-effects malfunction throughout one of many Wicked Witch of the West’s dramatic exit scenes—essentially the most insightful speaking head may be former Mythbusters host Adam Savage. He means that calling films “cursed” can be a means for followers to deal with unlucky, however not essentially cosmically pre-ordained, issues which may have occurred throughout a specific film’s creation. “Do we remove some magic about a narrative by busting a myth about that narrative? I submit ‘no,’” Savage says. “I submit that no one ever minds knowing more about a subject. You can certainly demystify things and still celebrate them at the same time … While some people may complain that in telling the true stories about some narrative, we’re somehow reducing some of its magic, I don’t think that’s true for most people.”

Episode two dips again into horror with Roman Polanski’s occult thriller Rosemary’s Baby, which got here out in 1968—a time of nice cultural and political tumult, one thing that’s given useful context right here. It was additionally only a 12 months previous to Polanski’s pregnant spouse, Sharon Tate, and others being brutally killed by members of the Manson household. As such, it comes throughout that the “curse” of Rosemary’s Baby is extra, “bad things that happened after the movie” relatively than “bad things that happened as part of the movie.” The Manson story will get a beefy tangent right here (as does the unusual life story of Rosemary’s Baby co-star Victoria Vetri); there’s additionally the truth that the Dakota, the New York City residence constructing whose exterior was used within the movie, was the positioning of John Lennon’s homicide over a decade later. (Polanski’s later authorized troubles, nevertheless, go unmentioned.)

Cursed Films II—which is written and directed by Jay Cheel—premieres with The Wizard of Oz episode at present on Shudder. New episodes drop weekly thereafter and the subject material this season is total relatively impressed; together with Rosemary’s Baby, episodes will concentrate on Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 sci-fi movie Stalker, Wes Craven’s 1988 Haitian Vodou exploration The Serpent and the Rainbow, and Ruggero Deodato’s notorious 1980 “found-footage” trailblazer Cannibal Holocaust. You also can stream all of Cursed Films’ first season now on Shudder.

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