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Happy Halloween! Welcome back to Insider Pix, where we uncover what entertainment and culture insiders are watching, reading, and listening to! Next up:
Michael O’Rorke
Michael O'Rorke is a media and entertainment executive with extensive experience in business strategy, marketing, and operations. He spent more than 15 years at Showtime and Paramount+, helping drive growth, connect with audiences, and shape marketing strategies for hit series like Yellowjackets, Dexter: New Blood, Landman, and Tulsa King. Most recently, he served as SVP of Marketing Strategy & Insights at Paramount+, where he worked across teams to turn big-picture business goals into action.
Michael’s 5 Picks
Best spooky TV show you’ve watched recently?
An easy answer, but Widow’s Bay is one of the most entertaining series I've seen in some time. It pulls off its tricky blend of comedy and frights with great aplomb and manages to be knowing about the genre while also remembering to be scary. A good time and a deserving Emmy winner.
Best horror movie you’ve watched recently?
Among recent high-profile new releases, I found a lot to like in Obsession (simple premise executed smartly) and Backrooms (a trippy, dread-filled ride). And in the streaming space, I quite enjoyed the twisted gimmick of sharks-as-torture-devices in Dangerous Animals. But the best horror film I've seen in a theater recently was an oldie-but-bloody The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as part of a classic screening series from Regal Cinemas.
A hidden gem you wish more people knew about?
Before internet content became the one-stop shop for "Best of" videos and "All Time" top rankings, we relied on Oscar-night clip sequences from Chuck Workman and compilation films like That’s Entertainment! to scratch that montage movie itch.
1984's Terror in the Aisles was the big-screen clip compilation for horror film lovers, and it's a blast. Semi-serious narration from genre staples Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen adds to the fun, and the editing—weaving dozens of horror and suspense films into a series of crackerjack sequences—is first-rate.
A 5-star-worthy horror or thriller book you’d recommend to anyone?
Our local movie theater was showing The Silence of the Lambs the other night, and I took my high schooler so his first time seeing it could be on the big screen. I've watched the movie so many times over the years that I had nearly forgotten how gripping the original novel is as well.
I was my son's age when Thomas Harris' book came out to much fanfare. And I'm not one of those people who always says the book is better than the movie—and in this case, the movie is nearly perfect. But man, Harris' novel is hard to put down. Even if you're only familiar with the film, it's worth a read to get deep inside the head of one of pop culture's most indelible villains.
A spooky or true-crime podcast you can’t stop thinking about?
The best true-crime podcast I've heard chronicles a very different kind of horror. White Lies (Season 1) examines a Civil Rights-era cold case, the unsolved 1965 murder of Rev. James Reeb. Podcasters Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace investigate the mystery in Selma, Alabama, in this thoughtful look at a truly horrific event from the segregation-era Deep South.
Pix: What four movies are on your Mount Rushmore of ‘80s horror movies?
MO: David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of The Fly is always at the top of my Mount Rushmore lists—not just for ‘80s horror, but across all genres. Compelling themes, sharp performances from Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, and gruesome imagery fueled by stunning practical effects that still hold up 40 years later. The whole thing plays like a tragic opera of body horror.
John Carpenter's The Thing wasn't well received when it debuted in 1982, but time has been kind to this grisly, tense exercise in frigid paranoia among a group of Arctic outpost researchers led by Kurt Russell and a host of familiar character actors. Another high mark for practical effects, all the more impressive now in the CGI era of contemporary filmmaking.
If 1978's Dawn of the Dead is the mature, thoughtful (and guts-filled) gold standard of zombie epics, then The Return of the Living Dead is the '80s-era, punk-ass juvenile delinquent you somehow still can't help but love. A fantastic and freaky balance of death rock, humor, horror and…brains…more brains! Plus, the movie's stellar soundtrack is almost as good as the film.
Re-Animator is Stuart Gordon's perverse 1985 adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft short story. Its queasy mix of mad scientist horror and tongue-in-cheek humor features a great score and witty performances from Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton. More than a bit offensive, it's another perfect artifact of the over-the-top '80s—and a fitting choice for Rushmore-worthy inclusion.
Pix: What's an '80s horror movie that traumatized you growing up but you can't help revisiting?
MO: A Nightmare on Elm Street was the featured entertainment for my friend's 7th grade birthday party sleepover, but there was NO WAY the 12-year-old me could survive watching the Wes Craven fright-fest. The secondhand stories I had heard about Freddy Krueger were scary enough! So, naturally, I had my mother concoct a made-up excuse for why I had to leave the party early that night—and conveniently before Nightmare would be shown.
But in a terrifying twist worthy of Elm Street, the host started the movie early. Suddenly, we were watching Freddy craft his signature finger-knives, and all I could do was sit there, down in that basement with my friends, sweating it out. My heart pounded as I tried to keep my cool, but I was dying inside. My mother did show up (finally!), and I was mercifully spared the rest. When I was a bit older, I watched the entire film, but the pre-teen trauma of that night still gives me chills and chuckles in equal parts today.
Pix: The '80s gave us some of horror's most iconic villains, from Freddy Krueger to Jason Voorhees. Who's your all-time favorite, and why?
MO: It's sort of a cheat to cite Norman Bates, since Psycho came out in 1960. But I discovered cinema's most notorious mama's boy when I was a kid in the 1980s, and two high-profile sequels slashed into theaters in '83 and '86. Psycho II remains one of the most underrated horror films of the era— its clever pivot places Norman at the center of the action, and Anthony Perkins' deeply moving performance has the audience actually rooting for Bates to keep his demons at bay. Perkins himself helms Psycho III with similar empathy for Norman, a killer desperately trying to hold on to his last shreds of sanity. Creepy, haunting, and forever memorable.