The Darkside of Society (2023) Movie Script
1
(thunder crashing)
(ominous booming)
(slow piano music)
(air whooshing)
(dramatic piano music)
- [Patricia] Okay, do
something fancy darling.
Got you on video.
(dramatic piano music continues)
(bright suspenseful music)
- [Zeph E. Daniel] I sat
down to write "Society."
I felt naughty, I felt bad.
For me, it was like,
"Don't do it, don't
touch it, don't go there.
Don't stir that up,
leave that alone."
There were some really bad
things that went on in there.
I was Truman, man, I was
completely brainwashed, 100%.
100% means 100%, it
means there is no thought
that it might be real.
(bright suspenseful
music continues)
(typewriter clicking)
Everyone knows
that story is real.
- 1988.
- Just yesterday.
- When-
- You look great, by the way.
- You look great.
When Rick Fry.
- Ah, ha.
- Grabbed me as I was
coming outta my office
and handed me this,
the first draft of "Society."
And I had just finished a
year of working with the
kind of insane Dan O'Bannon
on a project we called The Men
and it was about a
woman who discovers
that all men are alien.
And it was this great,
ironic paranoic,
real paranoic atmosphere.
And then he bailed
on the project
and when Rick gave me this
and I read it, I went,
"Wow, talk about paranoia."
(ominous music)
(women screaming)
- [Julian Sands]
Recently recognized by
Entertainment Weekly
as one of the best horror
movies of the eighties
is 1989' "Society."
The directorial
debut of Brian Yuzna.
- Don't get too hot.
- [Julian Sands] "Society"
offers a scathing satire.
- Anything?
- A timeless comment
on the division
between the rich and the poor,
featuring one of the
most bizarre endings
in cinematic history
courtesy of special effects
master Screaming Mad George.
(suspenseful rock music)
(women moaning)
"Society" is widely regarded
as one of the most influential
genre films of its era.
- Every sort of horror
film that was coming out
was a franchise sequel.
I mean, it was like
"Friday the 13th,"
it was the latest
"Nightmare on Elm Street,"
the new "Stepfather," there
was "The Exorcist III."
I mean, all these
films and you know,
okay, some of them are
really good movies,
but they weren't
anything really original.
And of course, and
"Society" came along
and that's one of the reasons
why I thought it would work.
(suspenseful rock
music continues)
- This film came out
after the era of gore
because slasher films and
George Romero's zombie films
where we loved these movies
because they were full of blood
and slashing and guts
and all the stuff that
had now become illegal,
certainly in England,
but it had also been cracked
down on in the US as well.
So horror movie directors
had to get creative
with what they could get
past censors at the time.
- Basic concept of this
whole movie is the paranoia.
Its main concern was the
ending festivity shunting,
crazy orgy, the original
script was in a blood bath,
there was like really
a cult madness,
you know, with just
bloody everything.
(ominous music)
(women sighing)
Brian Yuzna didn't really
want to go for a gore,
but he wanted to do something
very, very fantastic.
And so listening to that,
and I asked him,
"Well can we do Dali?"
And he said, "Well,
that sounds good."
I brought two paintings of Dali,
one is called
"Autumn Carnivals,"
which gives the whole
essence of shunting
and another one is the
"Premonition for Civil War."
This paintings also gives
one of the structure,
or like the how they
transform in the shunting.
(carnival music)
- It's a good example
of the way horror
movies deal with
society's issues in
their own unique way,
like the "Invasion of
the Body Snatchers"
dealt with McCarthyism,
"Dawn of the Dead"
dealt with consumerism,
and this deals with the
whole idea of the rich
feeding off the poor, literally.
- It is a microscope
put onto an elite
upper class and how they feel
they can tell anybody to do,
you know, when you
think about it,
if you've got so much money,
so much time to waste,
what are you gonna do?
You're gonna sort
of like exercise
probably the worst tastes
and the worst sort of
extremes that you're
ever gonna go through.
(ominous music continues)
- It's a shame that
here in the States
there was a long drawn out
problem getting into theaters
or even on video at the time.
It was held up for at
least four years where
the film was creating
a sensation in Europe
and we finally got to
see it here in '92.
But you know it
was maybe a little
too little, too
late by that point.
- I think sex is something that
Americans are a lot
more prudish about,
especially in mainstream cinema.
We Brits we just lap it out,
we can't get enough
sex in our movies,
but the Americans tend
to shy away from it
and I think the sexual
content of the movie
probably put a lot
of Americans off.
- Clarissa?
- Because it was
such a strange film
I don't know that it was
considered among contemporary
horror fans at the time as
a classic, but over time
it has become that way
and it's one that's
absolutely survived
because it's a
quintessential example
of that kind of horror.
- He looks really weird.
(flesh squishing)
- "Society" has wormed its
way into the consciousness
of a lot of today's
horror filmmakers
like Gary Astor
and Jordan Peele,
even though they've
taken a different tangent
you could just feel
that they must have been
watching this film
on late night TV
when they were growing up.
- "Society" really, I
guess, embodies that
basic paranoid archetype.
The notion that the whole world,
the conventional civilization,
society is lying to us.
That our parents
are lying to us.
- They don't
approve of me, okay?
They, they, they don't
accept my friends.
They don't, they don't talk
to me like they do Jenny.
- That we are
essentially being set up
for sacrifice or used as
fuel or breeding stock by
a privileged inhuman elite
who are secretly
manipulating world affairs.
The notion of quite
who these elite are
changes from generation
to generation
and I think in "Society"
it quite wisely postulates
that they're not even human,
but there are another species
which are essentially
using us like cattle.
That the rich are
truly different.
Perhaps it was in keeping with
this theme that the movie was
publicized with the tagline,
"This time it's for real."
(phone ringing)
- The phone rang and
I picked it up in the,
there's a bedroom at the top of,
there's like a
traditional house.
And I got it and you know, and
it was a person that says
they knew me and she
had just read the script
and she said it was all true.
You have to understand
I've been going
years and years and years
without anything like
that bothering me.
So I kind of like,
that was crazy.
You know calling me almost
what from the casting office
and I ran into Brian,
I ran back to the room.
(gasping) She, I mean,
she just called up
and she said it was all true.
She found these Polaroids
and I never said to Brian
what was on them or
anything like that,
but you know and
then Brian said,
and I mean this is my memory,
said, "I don't want
you to be hurt.
I don't want you
damage from this,
we can just pull
the production."
(dramatic suspenseful music)
(Polaroids clicking)
She mentioned the Polaroids
because she wanted me
to understand that this
is not just opinion.
She addressed me as if
I wrote the screenplay
and didn't know what I wrote,
that's the other main thing.
She wanted to tell me,
in case you don't know
this is real, it's real.
It happened, it's
happening, the Polaroids.
She also indicated
that everybody knew.
Everybody knew.
Everyone knows
that story is real.
But what I saw when I was a
child, what happened to me
was, yeah, there was
Satanic ritual abuse,
that is a satanic ritual
involving children and adults
being groomed for sex, okay?
And orgies and things like
that and also assaults,
you know, rape assault
and all those things
that happened to my
brother, it happened to me,
and happened to, well, in the
words of some of these people,
like in the words of my
own mother, it was like,
"Well, that happens
to everybody."
A lot of it's like they're
all tied in with witchcraft
and sorcery and satanic
rituals are for power,
power to influence people,
power to hurt people.
They don't need to believe
in Satan to be a satanist,
they don't even
have to believe in
any kind of gods or anything.
To be a a satanist
is really more about
the sacraments of death and
the sacraments of perversion
and that's what it really is.
It's everything
opposite of what's good.
(dramatic suspenseful
music continues)
(crickets chirping)
(high-pitched whirring)
Well if you look at
the film "Society,"
you'll see that the character
Billy is being gaslit,
that means tricked into
thinking his friend just died,
but it was a trick.
And he'd go talk to the
student body and he'd say,
"They killed my friend."
- I saw Petrie.
(students laughing)
- [Zeph] And then the friend
shows up alive and well-
- Someone wanna tell me
what's going on here?
- [Zeph] So that
kind of trickery.
- I had car trouble.
(students laughing)
- Nice speech, Whitney. (laughs)
- When you watch the
movie you don't really see
what's being said.
You know what you're
getting subliminally,
you're not seeing that,
you're not getting that,
you're watching the
people and they're talking
and they're doing things.
We have wars and kill people
and do things and all,
you know the dark side, for
power, for money, for whatever.
And so here we have it all in
one, but it's completely off,
so you don't get it directly,
so you're not pissing
anyone off.
- Well, you get pieces
in the sense that because I
remember when the bathroom scene
came about-
- Jenny.
- [Brian] I had at that time
been reading books about
horror movies and stuff
and they would say that,
"You know horror is
usually based on taboo
and one of the deepest
taboos is incest."
And I'm looking and I'm
going, yeah, well this,
it's got it, of course,
it's in the script.
- It's in there.
- But so let's do more of it.
- Yeah.
- [Brian] And let's have
Billy accidentally go into-
- So Jenny, I'm just gonna-
- The shower
to get something and then
see the twistedness of it
and I think the same thing
went for the class thing.
It's in the script, it's
about Beverly Hills,
it's about being in society
or not being in society.
And then, I just thought,
well eat the rich,
let's make a new monster
and the monster is,
you know, it's the upper class.
Hey, you're not, you're a
different species from us.
(suspenseful dramatic music)
(books rustling)
- Oh, that was his
birthday, March 11th, 1954.
- [Lacy Lou] Beautiful
baby boy, baby Zeph?
- [Patricia] Yep.
- [Julian Sands] Woody
Keith was born into a world
of wealth, privilege,
and high society.
His parents, Don and Beverly,
were socialites of
the Los Angeles elite.
- That one I like
of him and his mom,
where they both look happy.
This is kind of nice of his dad.
Handsome young man too.
- [Lucy Lou] He was,
they look alike.
- [Patricia] Yeah, they do.
(suspenseful dramatic
music continues)
- [Julian Sands] In those
days, the Keith family
was very well known in
the state of California.
Donald's only brother,
World War II war hero,
Captain Willard W. Keith Jr.
gave his life as he led
his company to victory
at the Battle of Guadalcanal.
He was posthumously
awarded the Navy Cross
for his heroic actions
and the United States Navy
Destroyer, USS Willard Keith,
was named in his honor.
- We have photographs that
were in the newspaper where
Zeph and his brother are there
at the award ceremony
for the ship.
(suspenseful dramatic
music continues)
- [Julian Sands]
Woody's grandfather,
Willard Woodward Keith
Sr. was an industrialist
and a member of the power elite.
(suspenseful dramatic
music continues)
In World War II,
he was appointed
director of the Southern
California Office
of Civil Defense.
Willard was a Freemason,
a member of the
infamous Bohemian Club
who ran with presidents
from Eisenhower to Reagan.
Working behind the scenes,
he helped build empires that
still stand to this day.
Journey back through the
rich history of California
and you will find Keith there.
Donating buildings to USC
along with his friend,
Louis B. Mayer,
sitting with Conrad
Hilton as a president
on the board of the
Hilton Hotel conglomerate.
Willard Keith Sr. can be
found involved in everything
from the construction of Walt
Disney World's Disneyland
to mega corporations that
are still around today,
like Lockheed Aircraft
and Marsh McLennan.
Keith was even rumored to
have ties to organized crime
and was said to be
known in some circles
as the insurance man.
- That's the Eisenhower
Medical Center.
He was a founding
trustee of that.
When he was angry with Zeph,
he threatened him, said, "You
should change your name."
He didn't want him
carrying on the family name
and then later Zeph
did change his name
from Woody, from Willard Woody
Keith III to Zeph E. Daniel.
So grandfather got his wish
then, but he did repent
and he wished Zeph well,
and he said, "Keep going."
He told Zeph, "Keep going."
He actually repented pretty
much on his death bed.
Pretty shortly after
we got together
he wanted to take me
over to his parents
and meet his parents
and at the time,
his father was, he was
bedridden, he was not well.
His mother, she had him at
home with in-care nurses
and Zeph and you know he
wanted to please his parents,
he wanted everything
to be fine, you know?
He loved them and yet he was
also harboring all this pain.
He wanted them to approve of me
and I think his father did,
his father couldn't
really speak at the time,
but I had a lot
of empathy for him
because I was in the
healing arts at the time.
And you know I definitely
wanted to help him
when I first saw him 'cause
he was just looked so pitiful
and he had been a
very handsome, dashing
young man in his youth, but
he was not at all mobile
or anything anymore and
you could tell there was a big
sorrow there on his part too.
One of the difficult things
about having a relationship
with Zeph's mother, Beverly,
was that she had multiple
personalities and
it was really apparent.
In some of her personalities
was wonderful, very gracious.
She really had that
high society thing down,
and yet, you know and she
wanted to talk to me privately
very much off the bat.
One of the weird things
she said was, Zeph,
at the time Woody, was a genius.
And she made the remark
that, "Yeah, he's a genius,
but even a doberman has a
very high IQ or something,"
like comparing him to
a dog and I was like,
I mean, this was like, what?
You know what are you saying
about your son, you know?
Kind of like she was
feeling me out to see
what I thought about that.
You know and my response
was just not to answer,
not to say anything.
She also had a personality
that really loved the Lord
and was honoring God.
And then she had more of
a witchcraft personality.
We really had to deal with,
you know, attempted murders
and various things like that.
Her then lover, he
would brag to us
how he could poison somebody
without them maybe
knowing it, just like.
I mean we were over for dinner,
Thanksgiving dinner
or something, and
he's telling us this?
And little things like he would
have certain salads made and
one salad was going
to be given to someone
and he's like, "No, no,
that one's for Zeph,"
I mean, that's for
Woody at the time.
The salad was tainted
and it resulted in a tear
in Zeph's stomach lining
after that dinner.
And this is after like bragging
to us how he is basically,
knows how to assassinate people.
On her birthday, I can't
remember which birthday it was,
she had like a party
and we were there,
but Zeph got so sick, it
was like they poisoned
some soup that he had.
We were having the dinner
downstairs, he's upstairs.
We had to get him outside,
out of the air conditioning
into the sun because
he was just shivering.
He was just like shivering,
he couldn't walk,
he was crawling around,
and he was vomiting.
He was just vomiting and
vomiting and vomiting and
shaking, you know?
And I had brought the
blanket down from upstairs
and here we are out by the
pool, out by the tennis court,
and crawling around
in the garden
vomiting, that's
what he was doing.
So that was kind of
wild and then the next
day when she saw him,
she looked really angry
that he had survived and she
said in like a derisive tone,
she goes, "Well, you're really
strong," you know, like that.
I was like, "Huh?"
So it was like suspicious.
So we knew, you know we
really shouldn't come back
for our own safety.
- I know it's weird because
you know this person's trying
to kill you on the one hand,
but then mom on the other,
so you become confused.
I kept wanting to have
approval from mother,
you know what I mean?
And from my father.
And I did on one
level love them both,
but you know they were
involved in something that
we just could not be compatible,
it's just gonna lead to
this horrible conundrum
and so, but yes, (laughs) and
she loved me in that level.
- You know it's been really
kind of hard for Zeph
to realize that his
own family would,
you know supposed to be
a loving family, and yet
some really unloving
things happened, you know?
So it's been a real
adjustment to deal with
that kind of organized satanic
crime I guess you'd call it.
(deep ominous music)
- [Julian Sands] Satan and
witchcraft have terrorized
mankind from the dawn of time,
societal fear of the
cult sour to new heights
during the satanic panic.
Starting in the United
States in the 1980s
and spreading throughout
the rest of the world
by the late 1990s,
over 12,000 cases of Satanic
ritual abuse were reported.
(deep ominous music continues)
- Allegations of
physical and sexual abuse
of children at a baby-
- [Julian Sands] In the early
1980s, the term ritual abuse
began to be used in the
mainstream media in courtrooms
to describe a particular
form of abuse,
mostly that of children.
- Friends of family
and strangers and
my family used to rape me,
make me abort the babies I had.
To be made to do
things with the
adults and the animals
and then a sacrifice
would happen.
- The sacrifice, were
these animal sacrifices?
- Animals and people.
- [Julian Sands]
As defined in 1989
by the ritual abuse task
force of Los Angeles County,
ritual abuse usually
involves repeated abuse
over an extended period of time.
The physical abuse is severe,
sometimes including
torture and killing.
(ominous humming)
It includes mind
control techniques,
which convey to the victim
a profound terror of the cult
members and of evil spirits
they believe the cult
members can command.
Both during and after the abuse,
most victims are in a state of
terror mind control
and dissociation.
(deep ominous humming)
- Playtime is when
they're grooming the kids
to have sex with adults,
so what they do is they
have like someone's house,
it'd usually be at some
other house somewhere in LA
and the kids are out
in the middle of a,
I won't say a circle, but in
the middle of the room here.
And the adults,
including the mothers,
are up against the
wall in the back
and they're like,
they're communicating,
then they're adult males,
I mean this is gross,
this is sickening, but
there are adult males that are
there and touching the kids,
getting sexual with the kids,
showing their penises
and their hard ons and
getting the whole
thing going with kids.
And kids are in
there, four years old,
three years old, five years old.
(ominous humming)
I fought, you know?
I mean I fought back,
I didn't want to keep
going down that road.
Then these kids
from the playtime
pushed me against the,
headfirst into these rocks.
And I got my head broken open
here and then I was treated.
No one said anything like,
"Now that's a warning."
It just was one of those
weird things, it's like
almost supernatural.
It was like something
took them over
and they were acting as a team
and they pushed
me into the rocks.
Once they got indoctrinated
by their parents
into this stuff, you know
and that's who does it,
then they become the
stalkers, they start targeting
the ones who are not going
along with the program
or who can't go along
with the program
'cause they're just
not made that way.
- Well, Billy.
- I want to talk to you about
Blanchard and my sister Jenny.
- I thought they broke up.
He wasn't really
her type anyway.
(hands smacking)
(deep dramatic music)
- You gotta be so intense.
Just relax.
Enjoy.
- You could write
those characters
like me and Rick, are
you kidding? (laughs)
How would we know
those characters?
- When I was here, I
didn't believe anything,
but then again, I had
been in the program
and they had
compartmentalized my mind.
So when I was here
doing that, I didn't believe
any of that was real.
(typewriter clicking)
(ominous humming)
- [Brian] But you knew
that it should be kept in a
dark place under lock and key.
- [Zeph] I did because
I had programming that
was like self-destruct.
If I had to talk about
any of that stuff,
the Beverly Hills stuff, if I
had to talk about that, then
you know I might get killed or
I should kill
myself or something.
(ominous booming)
- [Lacy Lou] How many times
and over how many years
were you institutionalized?
- Well it was constantly
for about seven years.
In the beginning in
Los Angeles on and off
there was some really bad
things that went on in there and
that's why I one time escaped,
the first thing they want you
to do is stop with your story.
That sounds crazy.
I can't believe how sadistic
he was, looking back on it,
anything I'd say he
would counter with
either that sounds
insane, that sounds crazy,
and it always resulted in,
"Well, you're not
ready for a home visit,
you're not ready to go home."
Basically what they're
doing is harassing me,
stalking me, torturing me,
and making it look
like it's therapy.
The hospital it was a
terrible, terrible thing.
You know you're locked in there,
they have a nurses' station
and then that's where
the seclusion rooms
are, right there.
And then you have this hallway
with people in
their various rooms
and these inspections
every hour.
And it's just very
oppressive, you know?
And they give you
drugs all day long,
they want to look
under your tongue
to make sure you're
not tonguing it,
And the reason you
would tongue it usually
was to kill yourself.
And I did this a couple
of times in there
just because I was so miserable.
(ominous dramatic music)
So I took several
handfuls of pills,
I was about to give up,
you know? I just felt like
I couldn't make it anymore.
And then I passed out there
and then the next thing I know,
like a month later, I finally
woke up in the hospital.
I went into a coma
and they couldn't revive me.
(ominous music continues)
(heart monitor beeping)
My heart stopped for
about 20 minutes,
but they decided to try to
revive me at least one time.
(defibrillator whirring)
(defibrillator pulsing)
And the heart started
again after 20 minutes and
about two weeks later
I was able to wake up.
I was coming outta the coma,
but I wasn't really
very conscious
'cause it'd been about a month.
They gave me brain tests
to see if there was
anything brain damage.
I hadn't done anything wrong.
Nothing was damaged, but I
just couldn't use my hand.
So I stayed there about a month.
Eventually my motor
movements came back.
At that point they were
gonna bring me back to LA,
but they wanted me to go to a
long-term facility after that
because obviously I failed.
They had therapy
and group therapy
and people would sit
in a circle and then
talk about their problems
and if you didn't
talk about a problem,
like, I might do
something to get,
and this would get me in trouble
like, I'm fine, you know?
(Zeph laughing)
And then of course that
brings out the torture.
One incident where I remember
they gave me like
double drugs one day
and when I fell asleep,
I was passed out,
I couldn't fight back and
I thought I was being
raped, you know?
'Cause I thought I was
actually being penetrated,
but what they did is they
put a thing of like drugs
that they would give you anally.
And the next day I was
deathly ill, I mean I was,
thought I was gonna
die, I mean just
throwing up, puking, I
couldn't move, just terrible.
- So you believe they
were trying to kill you?
- Yeah because
they were laughing.
Because they laughed at me.
And then the psychiatrist comes
'cause they come five days a
week, Monday through Friday.
And so then he arrives
and I said, "I'm really sick
and they're trying to kill me."
And then that's just
paranoid thinking.
See that's what we're
trying to deal with here.
And I said that I
gotta get outta here.
(ominous suspenseful music)
- [Julian Sands] In and
out of mental hospitals,
pumped full of drugs,
and reprogrammed
until he would eventually be
released back into the fold.
A newly reformed, productive
member of society.
- There's a couple
where I escaped
and then I got brought back,
then eventually
there was the party,
which I call the black mass.
The game plan was
to make me feel like
I was gonna finally fit in.
It was just exactly
like the movie "Carrie."
You know, that she was gonna
be the queen of the prom.
I got tipped off by someone
that was working there
that you better get outta here.
At that time, I didn't
like anyone there.
So I started insulting
people and being
kind of a jerk, you know?
My father got mad at me and
I threw him against the wall
and he tried to punch me
and it got really ugly.
And I left, I escaped, and
went to a girlfriend's house,
which was, it wasn't
prearranged, but she was like,
you know, well come over or
whatever and I went over there.
The next day she
starts telling me,
"Well, you need to go home
because everyone
knows what happened,
it was just you had a little,
it was too much
pressure, you know?
We understand, you
had another breakdown.
You had another crack
up, another thing.
But it's okay, we'll go home and
put the pieces back together,
it'll be okay tomorrow."
(crickets chirping)
When I got there,
the one thing I noticed
that was really strange
is that all the lights were off.
Usually in all those
neighborhoods in Beverly Hill,
the lights are on, you
know they're lit up,
but this was weird.
There were no cars, no lights,
looked like a dead
house, like death.
So I went to one of the
doors to check it, you know?
And this is very similar
to what's in "Society,"
you know, mom, dad,
is someone in there,
and then I could hear people
shuffling around in there
and breathing and stuff.
- Mom? Dad?
- And the door was locked
and then this door was locked
and then there was a
maid's quarters door locked
and there was a
room out in the back
and that was locked and
it was all locked
and the same thing,
I could hear people
in these rooms.
At that point I
was scared to death
'cause I realized what
had happened I was
lured, that this was the
plan, to lure me there
into blackness.
And so I went to the
kitchen, I got the knife,
and it's the same scene
that's in "Society."
And I told him, I said, "You
touch me, I will kill you."
You know, you might get me,
but I'll kill you first.
I'll stab a lot of people,
I'll stab you to death,
I'll kill you, you
know, all that, so I
yelled at each door
and made sure they
understood I was awake,
I was armed with this knife,
this big butcher knife,
and I meant business.
And I went into my room
and I could see that
there was people
driving around the block
at like two in the
morn, you know?
They were looking up there,
I faded out there for,
just didn't seem very
long, like maybe an hour.
And then an hour later
there was two
ambulance attendants
and they brought
the bed with them
and they strapped me down
and they restrained me,
so I couldn't
move, onto the bed.
And then the neighbors
were watching me
be loaded in the back
of the ambulance.
And there was a whole
bunch of people in there,
they put me in seclusion.
So I had to be there until
I talked to my doctor,
which would be the next day.
I also saw a couple
of friends in there
and I wondered what
they were doing there.
That's when I became aware
that some of my roommates
were plants, were like
people they trained
to be your roommate,
to try to convince you.
See, part of the, see another
thing people don't know,
they have plants in there
for certain people like me
being from that family, et
cetera, they'd have that.
It must cost extra, I guess.
But they would
have plants there.
And what they try to do
is try to convince you to,
you know, go along
to basically split.
That, yes, all this
stuff is going on,
but we're going to
look the other way,
we're not gonna be
focusing on that.
But the reason I
was focusing on that
is because I had been
traumatized and split into,
I was not just like
normal and going,
"Wow, look at all that evil."
And just, that's all
I want to focus on.
I wanted to play
baseball and go surfing
and go on trips and
enjoy the world,
I didn't want to have problems.
(bright suspenseful music)
There's also group therapy
with parents when they came
and all my mother
wanted to know is,
"There were no people
there that night, right?"
And I said, "No, there were
no people there that night."
And so we're talking
about two nights,
we're talking about one
night was this party,
but then this next night,
this black night, where
everything was blacked out.
No, there were no people there.
And that's all they wanted
to talk, that that was it,
that's what they wanted to hear.
In other words, that would be,
I think the deal was
if I failed with that,
then that would be
the end of the end,
I think they were still giving
me another chance out there.
They told everyone and everyone,
of course, in Beverly
Hills understood that I was
a terrible person and
horrible and bad to my parents
and bad to everybody.
So they floated this
rumor that I was dead.
I, um.
(sighs) You know the
idea that I was dead,
that people were
told I was dead, and
the idea that they would
be able to advance,
they were able to
buy another house and
have another life starting and
a whole nother thing going,
higher level of-
- [Lacy Lou] So they intended on
keeping you away forever.
- I was told by the guy
that got me in there
and he was a Hollywood
guy and he said,
"Best thing for you to do
is go become like a farmer
in the Midwest and don't
ever come back here."
But then about a year after
that, they wanted to release me,
but I couldn't make
it on the outside.
At that point I was completely,
I dunno, I guess
institutionalized or something,
I just couldn't, I
was so depressed I
couldn't do anything.
Eventually got out of there
'cause I was playing music
and then I'm playing
rock band and cover bands
and now I'm having fun playing
Led Zeppelin and stuff.
What made a difference in
leaving the halfway house
was I moved in with my
girlfriend or some girl I
knew that was in with me,
an inmate, another inmate,
I guess another patient.
And when we moved in together,
it's like we could
hold each other up.
I didn't have the
institutionalization that
the depression I had
when I was alone.
(bright suspenseful music)
We weren't really compatible,
but together we
moved back to LA.
Something was nagging
at me to go back
to Los Angeles, you know?
- [Lacy Lou] What
do you think it was?
- Well, just what
happened there. I mean,
I was like a guy that had
amnesia, my brain was wiped,
something was bothering me, and
I kept asking her too, do
you know anything about that?
I'd ask her surreptitious
questions like,
"Do you know anything about
this? About anything?"
And she acted like she didn't,
so that made me think,
"Well, maybe I was sick
and maybe she's right."
So we went out there
and I wanted to make up for,
you know I wanted the
favor of my family
and I wanted to apologize
for being sick and being.
Yeah, that's a hard one.
For being psychotic
or whatever and.
So I got started getting
involved in real estate
in Beverly Hills and I
got a licensed and got involved
in commercial properties
and put on a coat
and tie and pleased,
my father was very
pleased with that.
(typewriter clicking)
(dramatic piano music)
- [Julian Sands] Keith decided
that he was not cut out
for any of those things
and returned to one of
the loves of his youth.
He takes a course
in screenwriting.
- I did this
screenwriting course,
that's where I met Rick and
I met some other
people in there too,
it was a very weird class.
It was when they
used to have classes
and we went through
famous movies and like,
here's why they work,
here's why they don't,
and all that stuff.
But mainly I just started
writing a script, so
I wrote one that
actually got optioned
by a guy that's a
successful producer.
I was so buoyed by
that I started writing,
and I was like, "Okay,
I think I'm finding
maybe what I'm good at here."
So I sat down to
write "Society."
So anyway, I started
writing and I realized
I would try out, I didn't need
to outline anything, I was.
I felt naughty, I felt bad, I
felt like it was like porno,
you know, like I
shouldn't do it.
- There's some really
heavy themes in the film.
- Yeah but I mean,
for me it was like,
"Don't do it, don't
touch it, don't go there.
Don't stir that up, leave
that alone," you know?
So I'd lock it in the drawer.
At that point, I
didn't suspect anybody.
- So you just were
just living your life.
- I was Truman man, I was
completely brainwashed, 100%.
100% means 100%.
It means there is no thought
that it might be real.
- But writing this was
like a floodgate kind of?
- The story was, but
it didn't influence me.
In other words, I kept
going and I was having,
then I started having a
breakdown toward the end, right?
Coming up when the boy
that's raised by his
own satanic cult family is
now gonna be sacrificed.
They're like, ah,
I started having trouble
writing that, you know?
And that's when I went
to have it transcribed,
just to like an IBM PC and I
had to get Rick to help me.
I found him in a, he was
in an office in Van
Nuys and the woman there
gave Rick office space
to write her script.
And I went in there to get,
I had 88 pages or something
to get him transcribed.
Rick saw it and it's like,
"Hey Rick, what's happening
since school," you know?
And I need help with this,
I'm having a nervous
breakdown. (laughs)
And he read it and then
the secretary told me
he went nuts, he
loves it, he wants in.
- This was "Society."
- Yeah.
- This was your-
- That's all I'm gonna
talk about today.
- This was your
original version, yeah.
- And so, okay, so
what happened then is,
and see that's where
that draft came from,
he wrote a 250 page draft-
- Based on yours.
- Based on 80
pages or something.
And I loved it, it
was, but I'm like,
what are we gonna,
it's not a series.
So I had to spend time, yeah,
I had to cut it all back down.
And then we went back and
forth and stuff like that,
trying to make that work.
- [Lacy Lou] Were
you feeling guilty
when he was writing it with you?
- Feeling guilty? Less
- Because he was
in on it with you?
- He doesn't, I knew he
didn't believe any of it.
- Yeah.
- He is what I might call
more of a scientific
mind. (laughs)
He doesn't believe any of
that stuff I don't think,
but he's really
good at writing it.
- I always tell people that
that I say, "This is
an autobiography."
- Well, not-
- This is a biography.
Oh it's, yeah, it's, okay
a roman clef, you know?
- You subconsciously
or unsubconsciously
wrote "Society" not
realizing that it was
things that happened to you?
- Literally, the narrative
that one thing follows
the other and you know,
obviously not autobiographical
'cause there's
a hospitalization and
there's this and that
and people changed and
characters changed.
You know it wasn't exactly but
the incident that
kicks it all off,
that I think isn't there in
the beginning like it was.
No, it is, there is
a little flashback
of him holding the knife
and being in the
kitchen and all that.
That's literally true.
It's real and my excuse was,
you know after enough
incarcerations in
mental hospitals
and psychiatrists
and programming,
I had to learn over time
that there was no such thing
as satanism, satanic
ritual abuse,
pedophilia, orgies,
human sacrifices.
People getting killed
here and there,
friends getting killed even,
and I had to, that was me,
that they convinced me
over a long period of time
that I was just sick.
(ominous humming)
- [Julian Sands] Visionary
filmmaker, Richard Stanley,
exploded on the scene in 1990
with his cult hits
"Hardware" and "Dust Devil."
Six years later,
Stanley's dream project,
"The Island of Dr. Moreau,"
quickly became a nightmare.
His private war against
the Hollywood machine
was well documented in the
2014 documentary "Lost Soul."
Stanley is a man
of many talents.
In addition to his trademarked
black Australian Akubra hat,
Stanley is an adventurer,
anthropologist,
screenwriter, a cult expert,
and a child abuse survivor.
- Who knows where a
conspiracy truly begins.
It's my opinion that
the archetypal conspiracy
represented by "Society"
is spread like a
psychoactive virus,
that it travels from
one community to another
in a similar way to what
evolutionary biologist,
Richard Dawkins
would've described
as a religious meme,
a meme or an idea which
travels like a virus
from one culture or
community to another.
And it's extremely variant,
this is a virus which is
capable of destroying lives,
destroying careers,
and destroying the
very fabric of society.
For me, it might have begun with
child abuse, I was abused
as a child by many people.
I had many terrible
things happen to me
when I was extremely young.
(ominous humming)
The first allegations of
satanic ritual abuse,
the notion that
a secret pedophile elite
is running our world, is
secretly running the country,
that is a conspiracy
that extends
to the highest
echelons of government,
to the greater and the good,
to the people who are
actually adjudicate our lives.
- Because the owners of this
country don't want that.
I'm talking about
the real owners now.
The real owners, the big
wealthy business interest
that control things and make
all the important decisions.
Forget the politicians, the
politicians are put there
to give you the idea that
you have freedom of choice.
You don't, you have no choice.
You have owners, they own you.
(ominous humming)
- One of the things that
you know kind of
becomes obvious is
these people are everywhere.
You know, do they think
they're gonna live forever?
Do they not care about anyone?
Are they disconnected
from being human?
I mean, all this stuff
we're dealing with,
but here was this classic
thing, I gotta just read this.
So here's Bill when he is
starting to confront them
and this is what's
getting him in trouble.
You know what's happening
is the father is massaging
Jenny, the daughter, the sister.
- Yeah, right there
Dad, that's good.
- [Billy] What's this?
- Oh god, Bill.
- Is that thing
what I think it is?
- That's a really
disgusting thing.
- I'm just, I don't know
how many times I've seen it,
but lately doing the novel
made me watch it a
bunch more times and
there's a lot of subtle
things that people,
I'm not surprised that
people keep going back
to find little tidbits in there
'cause you had George,
you had Rick, you had me,
you had Brian all putting
in different layers
and then Brian orchestrating
it all, you know?
- I'm not paranoid.
- The most evil
character in the whole,
'cause I've just gone
through it forensically,
so it's not, I'm
like a detective.
It's Jenny, the sister,
the way she
sacrifices her brother
and she's so nice to him.
Oh, basketball's
much more important
than my stupid coming
out party, 'member?
- [Brian] Oh yeah.
- And then, but when she
was there fooling him
and he really got humiliated
in front of the whole class
and that was the end
of him, pretty much,
she was, all you see is
Ferguson as the audience
'cause he's waving
and he's a tall guy.
You don't see her next to him,
evilest laugh,
most disgusting and
real thing that I have,
it's exact, it's perfect.
- Guess what?
Telegram came for you.
- Listen Jenny, something
bad happened today.
- Oh, come on, don't
you wanna open it?
- Go ahead, read it.
(paper rustling)
- Mr. William Whitney,
you're cordially
invited to a party
to be given at the residence
of Theodore S. Ferguson.
- Wow.
- You guys don't understand,
I'm trying to tell
you something.
- We know all about the the
automobile accident son.
It's terrible, just terrible.
- Oh my, just awful.
(ominous humming)
- So, what're you gonna wear?
- You mean to the funeral?
- No you weirdo. To
the Ferguson'a party.
- I think one of the
reasons that kind of
banter, that kind of
humor, that black comedy
is one of the reasons
why the thing persists
'cause people can
relate to that.
If you just had it literal
'cause we've all seen
films that have literal incest
or literal satanic rituals
where they're killing babies
and drinking the blood.
It does nothing, it has
no effect on people.
So what?
So this humor though,
getting at it that way
is the way to get under
the skin of the public.
- Jenny is a real beauty.
She possesses such
natural poise.
- Yes, Jim and I both derive
a great deal of
pleasure from her.
- My mother agreed to be an
extra in the film. (laughs)
And I think the
reason why is because
it would prove that none
of that stuff is real
'cause if it was real,
that's the last thing
that she would do.
So she was extra in it and you
can see her in the opening,
the scene when they're
going into the house
for the society party
for the final shunting.
And she's on the porch in
front of the house going in.
Later in life, when
she was gonna die,
she confessed that I was,
that it all was true.
So you see, I have more
than a few witnesses,
plus other kids that I knew
who had come to me privately
and said it was all true.
(ominous humming)
- [Julian Sands]
Believe what you will.
The fact is, an
individual's terror or fear
is just as real as
they believe it to be.
Everything young
Woody Keith survived
resonates with horrific truth
in every page of the
"Society's" script,
in every frame of the movie.
(ominous dramatic music)
Zeph and Brian Yuzna
have reconnected
and a new novelization of
"Society" is in the works.
- The novel part
that we're doing now,
Brian is the editor
and I'm the writer
and we're working to find
the novelization of "Society,"
which has a lot of extra
cool tidbits in it,
but went a little
further into Bill's mind.
I'm just gonna give
away one little thing
and it may not be there, okay?
After he gets done
with it, but let's see.
Coffee, tea, or do you
want me to pee in it?
And then in Bill's mind it's
I want you to pee in it.
(both laughing)
- Which is the subtext
of that anyway, probably.
- Well it was like his
mind is not, he's not,
he's holding back on a lot of
things he'd like to say or do
'cause he is got trouble,
he's a guy in trouble.
- He's a troubled guy,
he thinks something's
wrong with the world,
- And they're after him
and he can't prove it,
but if he says too
much to either shrink
or if he says too
much to his friends,
they already think he's
kind of on the way,
and he is trying to hold his
power as big man on campus,
the basketball champ,
class president
that he is running
for during the movie.
And so he's being very careful
and so that was
never in the script
because it's not a novel.
(bright dramatic music)
- [Brian] Okay, so
this is "Screenwriter,"
the publication of the Hollywood
Script Writing Institute.
And here you're
supposed to sign up
announcing the postgraduate
tutorial program.
Wanna know what HSIs Woody
Keith did between graduation
and selling his hits "Society"
and "Bride of Re-Animator?"
He took our course again.
Now Woody's a little intense,
italics, but if you've been
to his films you know that.
He's also one of our
most prolific grads.
So here you go, we know
you're tired of school
and anxious to try your
wings in the marketplace,
but if you ask Woody Keith,
he'll tell you a writer's
education never ends.
So this is how
they sold. (laughs)
This is how they,
you could sign up credit
card or check, 350 bucks,
and here on the other side they
show "Bride of Re-Animator."
So-
- [Zeph] I took.
- [Brian] There you go.
- Well I took the course after
I believe the "Society"
thing was happening
and the reason I took it is
'cause I was really lonely.
- [Brian] Well, I
think you, yeah,
you went back to
the well, you said,
"Hey, it worked
twice, try it again."
- [Zeph] But they
haven't had a sequence,
but yeah, more or less,
- I just think it's funny
that they were poo-pooing you,
no, they were putting
down his script
and then now they're
like elevating it
and saying, "Look it,
here's our great success."
- But a lot of things
happen like that.
(upbeat electronic music)
- [Lacy Lou] Did you know
about the film "Society"
at the time of knowing him?
- Not until I met him.
And he had like, he had
posters of all the films
that he had been involved with.
"Silent Night, Deadly
Night" and "Society"
and, of course, he
showed me the film.
We used to watch films,
he had a great dropdown
big screen in his house
and you just push a button
and the big screen comes down
and a big laser disc
collection and so
we were watching
movies right away.
(bright piano music)
- [Lacy Lou] How did
you and Zeph first meet?
- I was living in
LA at the time and
I had graduated from
the American Academy
of Dramatic Arts
and then I was taking
additional acting classes
and I met this gal there
who, she hit it off with me,
she wanted to be my friend
and she invited me to
her birthday party.
So it was a nice
house up in the hills,
I didn't know anything about
Zeph, he was Woody Keith then,
but she had invited
him to the party.
So he met me at the party,
but I had no idea of his
circumstances at the time.
I didn't know he was
married, I didn't know he,
his wife had just left that
day or anything like that,
we just hit it off and
he had written a poem
and he wanted me to
read it, so I did.
And there's like a
lot of photographs
at the party of him kind
of hanging around me.
And then we didn't
see each other
for a while after that because
my friend who had introduced us,
she was kind of
like the gatekeeper,
she didn't think I should
get involved with him
and apparently he wanted
to get ahold of me,
but she was like, "No,
you're not ready."
And I'm like, "Wow, how come
you get to decide?" (laughs)
But anyway, eventually we
finally did get together.
I was working in healing
therapeutic massage
at a directional non-force
technique chiropractic office
and also I had independent
clients, had a lot of
pretty high-end clients and
he made an appointment.
So that's when we first
really got together
and we've kind of been
together ever since.
(ominous humming)
I don't care
What you say
- [Julian Sands] I ask
you, who has the last laugh
some 30 years later, Woody
Keith now Zeph E. Daniel,
along with his wife Patricia
lead a blessed life.
- Greetings to the name
of the most high, so-
- [Julian Sands]
Founded in 2002,
Zeph's Ministry AKA "The
Zeph Report" podcast
offers spiritual, political
and philosophical observations
and constantly fights to
raise suicide awareness
and suicide prevention.
- We always feel like here we
were kind of led to this spot
and that we feel hidden
and protected, you know?
- [Julian Sands]
Also an activist,
Zeph uses his
ministry's platform
to fight against
human trafficking
and end modern day slavery,
working directly with orphanages
in some of the hardest
hit areas of the world
to save the lives of children.
(bright dramatic music)
When Woody Keith wrote
the script for "Society"
he thought he was writing
a piece of fiction.
It turns out Woody
was exercising demons
suppressed by years of therapy,
pills, and programming.
(dramatic orchestra music)
In the movie "Girl Next,"
the character Charlotte,
written by Zeph E. Daniel,
states that trauma
creates trauma.
(dramatic orchestra
music continues)
(men laughing)
(Zeph laughing)
- I am not even gonna ask.
(both laughing)
- [Julian Sands] Today,
Zeph is still processing
a lifetime of trauma, writes
novels, music, and new movies.
- I believe that
within each one of you-
- [Julian Sands]
Writing what he knows,
these dramatic
events of his past
give life to the characters
in these new stories.
Even though these
works of fiction
deal with fantastic
fantasy worlds,
the tortured characters
that inhabit these stories
speak with an authority,
a haunting feeling that
these words ring true.
These words were born
from a place of honesty.
Words written by
someone who knows.
- Three, two, one.
(electricity whirring)
(women screaming)
(upbeat electronic music)
- I'm really glad that
he's gotten back into doing film
because film was really
you know one of his first loves.
I mean, music, film, writing.
We started Crazed House and
we met Larry and his
wife Mary along the way,
and he, along with Mike
Moscow producer Mike,
they had come up with a
story called "The Voice."
And when it was
finished writing,
it was a great piece and
we're planning on making it,
but it was too big
of a budget for what
we had planned to do
for this first film.
So then they put that
aside, saved that for later,
and they came up
with this whole different
concept, "Girl Next,"
and Mike worked with
Zeph on the story
and Zeph wrote it and
then Mike found Larry and
just one thing after another,
pretty soon we're making this
movie and now it's out there
and it's doing really well
in the awards categories
of the festival situation,
which it's kind of nice.
Because through the whole
plandemic thing, you know,
we weren't able to do
what we wanted with it
and then now it's kind
of like getting its legs,
getting out there and getting
seen and getting noticed.
So we have high hopes for
the next one coming out
with "The Quantum Devil."
- I met Zeph through Mike
Moscow, producer Mike,
you keep hearing about.
It's kind of a weird
story, but I was actually
thinking about just not
ever make any more movies,
I was really pissed off at it
and being all emo and shit and
my wife kept telling me,
"Hey, these guys are calling,
they want you to do this movie."
And I'm like, "No, tell
'em fuck off, I don't
wanna make no more
movies, I'm gonna go
be a door greeter at Walmart."
But she said, "But do you
know who these guys are?"
And I said, "What?"
She goes, "Well, they
did a re-animator,
'Bride of Re-Animator."
I was like, "What?" Said,
"Bullshit, let me see."
'cause I saw it
said Zeph I said,
"I know Woody Keith
wrote that shit."
But then I looked, she goes,
"No, look, Woody Keith is Zeph."
I was like, "Oh, shit."
I was like, "Oh, fuck, I don't
wanna make no more movies,
but I'd love to meet
these guys." (laughs)
So I took the meeting with
Mike, we went and had lunch
and we talked and hit it off
and then he hooked
me up with Zeph.
And then when I got on
the phone with Zeph,
it was like I'd known
him my entire life
and we talked for like hours and
we were just really on the
same page about a lot of things
and it was really
cool to be 'cause
I had the feeling, I was like
having a conversation
with like, you know,
a literary icon, one
of the great writers.
(soft ethereal humming)
I'm not afraid of
how people will
think about this documentary.
Zeph and I, when we started
making movies together,
we agreed we'd never
gonna pull any punches
and you know, we have things,
we wanna make movies
we'd wanna see, you know?
And so we're never
gonna apologize for that
and I know that the kind
of fans that you get
when you make those
kind of movies,
you may have a small niche,
but those guys are like
diehard loyal and you know,
when people fall in
love with that movie,
they're gonna wanna know
everything about that.
I mean, that's the way I was.
You know whenever I
fell in love with "Jaws"
and got interested
in filmmaking,
you know I learned
everything I could about
what happened and all the
horror stories behind the camera
and it's fascinating.
(soft piano music)
- I think that this
documentary will be helpful
in healing, I do because
there's been a lot of
misrepresentation about
his role in the
film "Society" and
some of the things
that have been said
are just patently absurd
and frankly untrue, so
I think setting the record
straight and really having
the real development of the
stuff that led up to him
writing it and how
that story was kind of
written automatically
without him realizing
that it was actually
based on him and his life.
I'm hoping that that
will be a good healing.
(bright ominous music)
- [Lacy Lou] So there's
somewhat of a light
at the end of the tunnel here.
- I don't go that far.
- [Lacy Lou] No?
- If God wants me to
not make any movies
or do anything, if
I have to leave it,
if there's somebody
about to flip out
because I'm making a movie,
it's not that important.
You know what I mean?
But if I can do it, I've
always been a storyteller,
I've always been in the arts,
I've always been
involved in music,
I've always been involved
in all these things,
these are just
natural for me to do.
But at the same time,
I'm gonna be doing some
directing coming up on a project
that had already been filmed.
And then we're gonna do
something with the footage,
I've already had it transferred
and I think I did have an,
it is about death and it's,
I think it's something
that's universal
that everybody has
to face, death.
And it's not at all
in the horror genre,
it's a drama feature.
(bright ominous music)
- Having made peace
with his past,
old wounds have healed,
the ghosts of the past
now put in their place,
never forgotten,
but now forgiven.
Indeed the future
ahead looks bright
and Zeph E. Daniel is showing
no signs of slowing down.
- [Lacy Lou] How do you think
you survived all of this?
- By, first of all, I think
God helped me survive.
You know and even they
thought it was God.
Even my mother said, "You
know it's gotta be God
'cause you should've died."
She seemed to me to be
fairly excited that I was,
that when there was
a suicide attempt,
what she was very,
she was mad at me for causing
her to have to deal with that,
you know, there was a
lot of stress on her.
- [Lacy Lou] Do you forgive
those that hurt you?
- Yes, and they
didn't really hurt me.
I mean, nobody really
hurt me, it was,
you know, the flesh is weak.
People are weak, people
are afraid, you know?
And they didn't want to
tell me what was going on.
You can't just say,
"Do you forgive them?"
You have to say, "Do
you forgive humanity?"
And my leader, you know, if
you're really following Jesus,
you have to,
but it can't just be something
you say with your lips.
Okay, I forgive you.
It has to be from the
heart, it's gotta be total.
(soft rock music)
(soft rock music continues)
(suspenseful dramatic music)
(thunder crashing)
(ominous booming)
(slow piano music)
(air whooshing)
(dramatic piano music)
- [Patricia] Okay, do
something fancy darling.
Got you on video.
(dramatic piano music continues)
(bright suspenseful music)
- [Zeph E. Daniel] I sat
down to write "Society."
I felt naughty, I felt bad.
For me, it was like,
"Don't do it, don't
touch it, don't go there.
Don't stir that up,
leave that alone."
There were some really bad
things that went on in there.
I was Truman, man, I was
completely brainwashed, 100%.
100% means 100%, it
means there is no thought
that it might be real.
(bright suspenseful
music continues)
(typewriter clicking)
Everyone knows
that story is real.
- 1988.
- Just yesterday.
- When-
- You look great, by the way.
- You look great.
When Rick Fry.
- Ah, ha.
- Grabbed me as I was
coming outta my office
and handed me this,
the first draft of "Society."
And I had just finished a
year of working with the
kind of insane Dan O'Bannon
on a project we called The Men
and it was about a
woman who discovers
that all men are alien.
And it was this great,
ironic paranoic,
real paranoic atmosphere.
And then he bailed
on the project
and when Rick gave me this
and I read it, I went,
"Wow, talk about paranoia."
(ominous music)
(women screaming)
- [Julian Sands]
Recently recognized by
Entertainment Weekly
as one of the best horror
movies of the eighties
is 1989' "Society."
The directorial
debut of Brian Yuzna.
- Don't get too hot.
- [Julian Sands] "Society"
offers a scathing satire.
- Anything?
- A timeless comment
on the division
between the rich and the poor,
featuring one of the
most bizarre endings
in cinematic history
courtesy of special effects
master Screaming Mad George.
(suspenseful rock music)
(women moaning)
"Society" is widely regarded
as one of the most influential
genre films of its era.
- Every sort of horror
film that was coming out
was a franchise sequel.
I mean, it was like
"Friday the 13th,"
it was the latest
"Nightmare on Elm Street,"
the new "Stepfather," there
was "The Exorcist III."
I mean, all these
films and you know,
okay, some of them are
really good movies,
but they weren't
anything really original.
And of course, and
"Society" came along
and that's one of the reasons
why I thought it would work.
(suspenseful rock
music continues)
- This film came out
after the era of gore
because slasher films and
George Romero's zombie films
where we loved these movies
because they were full of blood
and slashing and guts
and all the stuff that
had now become illegal,
certainly in England,
but it had also been cracked
down on in the US as well.
So horror movie directors
had to get creative
with what they could get
past censors at the time.
- Basic concept of this
whole movie is the paranoia.
Its main concern was the
ending festivity shunting,
crazy orgy, the original
script was in a blood bath,
there was like really
a cult madness,
you know, with just
bloody everything.
(ominous music)
(women sighing)
Brian Yuzna didn't really
want to go for a gore,
but he wanted to do something
very, very fantastic.
And so listening to that,
and I asked him,
"Well can we do Dali?"
And he said, "Well,
that sounds good."
I brought two paintings of Dali,
one is called
"Autumn Carnivals,"
which gives the whole
essence of shunting
and another one is the
"Premonition for Civil War."
This paintings also gives
one of the structure,
or like the how they
transform in the shunting.
(carnival music)
- It's a good example
of the way horror
movies deal with
society's issues in
their own unique way,
like the "Invasion of
the Body Snatchers"
dealt with McCarthyism,
"Dawn of the Dead"
dealt with consumerism,
and this deals with the
whole idea of the rich
feeding off the poor, literally.
- It is a microscope
put onto an elite
upper class and how they feel
they can tell anybody to do,
you know, when you
think about it,
if you've got so much money,
so much time to waste,
what are you gonna do?
You're gonna sort
of like exercise
probably the worst tastes
and the worst sort of
extremes that you're
ever gonna go through.
(ominous music continues)
- It's a shame that
here in the States
there was a long drawn out
problem getting into theaters
or even on video at the time.
It was held up for at
least four years where
the film was creating
a sensation in Europe
and we finally got to
see it here in '92.
But you know it
was maybe a little
too little, too
late by that point.
- I think sex is something that
Americans are a lot
more prudish about,
especially in mainstream cinema.
We Brits we just lap it out,
we can't get enough
sex in our movies,
but the Americans tend
to shy away from it
and I think the sexual
content of the movie
probably put a lot
of Americans off.
- Clarissa?
- Because it was
such a strange film
I don't know that it was
considered among contemporary
horror fans at the time as
a classic, but over time
it has become that way
and it's one that's
absolutely survived
because it's a
quintessential example
of that kind of horror.
- He looks really weird.
(flesh squishing)
- "Society" has wormed its
way into the consciousness
of a lot of today's
horror filmmakers
like Gary Astor
and Jordan Peele,
even though they've
taken a different tangent
you could just feel
that they must have been
watching this film
on late night TV
when they were growing up.
- "Society" really, I
guess, embodies that
basic paranoid archetype.
The notion that the whole world,
the conventional civilization,
society is lying to us.
That our parents
are lying to us.
- They don't
approve of me, okay?
They, they, they don't
accept my friends.
They don't, they don't talk
to me like they do Jenny.
- That we are
essentially being set up
for sacrifice or used as
fuel or breeding stock by
a privileged inhuman elite
who are secretly
manipulating world affairs.
The notion of quite
who these elite are
changes from generation
to generation
and I think in "Society"
it quite wisely postulates
that they're not even human,
but there are another species
which are essentially
using us like cattle.
That the rich are
truly different.
Perhaps it was in keeping with
this theme that the movie was
publicized with the tagline,
"This time it's for real."
(phone ringing)
- The phone rang and
I picked it up in the,
there's a bedroom at the top of,
there's like a
traditional house.
And I got it and you know, and
it was a person that says
they knew me and she
had just read the script
and she said it was all true.
You have to understand
I've been going
years and years and years
without anything like
that bothering me.
So I kind of like,
that was crazy.
You know calling me almost
what from the casting office
and I ran into Brian,
I ran back to the room.
(gasping) She, I mean,
she just called up
and she said it was all true.
She found these Polaroids
and I never said to Brian
what was on them or
anything like that,
but you know and
then Brian said,
and I mean this is my memory,
said, "I don't want
you to be hurt.
I don't want you
damage from this,
we can just pull
the production."
(dramatic suspenseful music)
(Polaroids clicking)
She mentioned the Polaroids
because she wanted me
to understand that this
is not just opinion.
She addressed me as if
I wrote the screenplay
and didn't know what I wrote,
that's the other main thing.
She wanted to tell me,
in case you don't know
this is real, it's real.
It happened, it's
happening, the Polaroids.
She also indicated
that everybody knew.
Everybody knew.
Everyone knows
that story is real.
But what I saw when I was a
child, what happened to me
was, yeah, there was
Satanic ritual abuse,
that is a satanic ritual
involving children and adults
being groomed for sex, okay?
And orgies and things like
that and also assaults,
you know, rape assault
and all those things
that happened to my
brother, it happened to me,
and happened to, well, in the
words of some of these people,
like in the words of my
own mother, it was like,
"Well, that happens
to everybody."
A lot of it's like they're
all tied in with witchcraft
and sorcery and satanic
rituals are for power,
power to influence people,
power to hurt people.
They don't need to believe
in Satan to be a satanist,
they don't even
have to believe in
any kind of gods or anything.
To be a a satanist
is really more about
the sacraments of death and
the sacraments of perversion
and that's what it really is.
It's everything
opposite of what's good.
(dramatic suspenseful
music continues)
(crickets chirping)
(high-pitched whirring)
Well if you look at
the film "Society,"
you'll see that the character
Billy is being gaslit,
that means tricked into
thinking his friend just died,
but it was a trick.
And he'd go talk to the
student body and he'd say,
"They killed my friend."
- I saw Petrie.
(students laughing)
- [Zeph] And then the friend
shows up alive and well-
- Someone wanna tell me
what's going on here?
- [Zeph] So that
kind of trickery.
- I had car trouble.
(students laughing)
- Nice speech, Whitney. (laughs)
- When you watch the
movie you don't really see
what's being said.
You know what you're
getting subliminally,
you're not seeing that,
you're not getting that,
you're watching the
people and they're talking
and they're doing things.
We have wars and kill people
and do things and all,
you know the dark side, for
power, for money, for whatever.
And so here we have it all in
one, but it's completely off,
so you don't get it directly,
so you're not pissing
anyone off.
- Well, you get pieces
in the sense that because I
remember when the bathroom scene
came about-
- Jenny.
- [Brian] I had at that time
been reading books about
horror movies and stuff
and they would say that,
"You know horror is
usually based on taboo
and one of the deepest
taboos is incest."
And I'm looking and I'm
going, yeah, well this,
it's got it, of course,
it's in the script.
- It's in there.
- But so let's do more of it.
- Yeah.
- [Brian] And let's have
Billy accidentally go into-
- So Jenny, I'm just gonna-
- The shower
to get something and then
see the twistedness of it
and I think the same thing
went for the class thing.
It's in the script, it's
about Beverly Hills,
it's about being in society
or not being in society.
And then, I just thought,
well eat the rich,
let's make a new monster
and the monster is,
you know, it's the upper class.
Hey, you're not, you're a
different species from us.
(suspenseful dramatic music)
(books rustling)
- Oh, that was his
birthday, March 11th, 1954.
- [Lacy Lou] Beautiful
baby boy, baby Zeph?
- [Patricia] Yep.
- [Julian Sands] Woody
Keith was born into a world
of wealth, privilege,
and high society.
His parents, Don and Beverly,
were socialites of
the Los Angeles elite.
- That one I like
of him and his mom,
where they both look happy.
This is kind of nice of his dad.
Handsome young man too.
- [Lucy Lou] He was,
they look alike.
- [Patricia] Yeah, they do.
(suspenseful dramatic
music continues)
- [Julian Sands] In those
days, the Keith family
was very well known in
the state of California.
Donald's only brother,
World War II war hero,
Captain Willard W. Keith Jr.
gave his life as he led
his company to victory
at the Battle of Guadalcanal.
He was posthumously
awarded the Navy Cross
for his heroic actions
and the United States Navy
Destroyer, USS Willard Keith,
was named in his honor.
- We have photographs that
were in the newspaper where
Zeph and his brother are there
at the award ceremony
for the ship.
(suspenseful dramatic
music continues)
- [Julian Sands]
Woody's grandfather,
Willard Woodward Keith
Sr. was an industrialist
and a member of the power elite.
(suspenseful dramatic
music continues)
In World War II,
he was appointed
director of the Southern
California Office
of Civil Defense.
Willard was a Freemason,
a member of the
infamous Bohemian Club
who ran with presidents
from Eisenhower to Reagan.
Working behind the scenes,
he helped build empires that
still stand to this day.
Journey back through the
rich history of California
and you will find Keith there.
Donating buildings to USC
along with his friend,
Louis B. Mayer,
sitting with Conrad
Hilton as a president
on the board of the
Hilton Hotel conglomerate.
Willard Keith Sr. can be
found involved in everything
from the construction of Walt
Disney World's Disneyland
to mega corporations that
are still around today,
like Lockheed Aircraft
and Marsh McLennan.
Keith was even rumored to
have ties to organized crime
and was said to be
known in some circles
as the insurance man.
- That's the Eisenhower
Medical Center.
He was a founding
trustee of that.
When he was angry with Zeph,
he threatened him, said, "You
should change your name."
He didn't want him
carrying on the family name
and then later Zeph
did change his name
from Woody, from Willard Woody
Keith III to Zeph E. Daniel.
So grandfather got his wish
then, but he did repent
and he wished Zeph well,
and he said, "Keep going."
He told Zeph, "Keep going."
He actually repented pretty
much on his death bed.
Pretty shortly after
we got together
he wanted to take me
over to his parents
and meet his parents
and at the time,
his father was, he was
bedridden, he was not well.
His mother, she had him at
home with in-care nurses
and Zeph and you know he
wanted to please his parents,
he wanted everything
to be fine, you know?
He loved them and yet he was
also harboring all this pain.
He wanted them to approve of me
and I think his father did,
his father couldn't
really speak at the time,
but I had a lot
of empathy for him
because I was in the
healing arts at the time.
And you know I definitely
wanted to help him
when I first saw him 'cause
he was just looked so pitiful
and he had been a
very handsome, dashing
young man in his youth, but
he was not at all mobile
or anything anymore and
you could tell there was a big
sorrow there on his part too.
One of the difficult things
about having a relationship
with Zeph's mother, Beverly,
was that she had multiple
personalities and
it was really apparent.
In some of her personalities
was wonderful, very gracious.
She really had that
high society thing down,
and yet, you know and she
wanted to talk to me privately
very much off the bat.
One of the weird things
she said was, Zeph,
at the time Woody, was a genius.
And she made the remark
that, "Yeah, he's a genius,
but even a doberman has a
very high IQ or something,"
like comparing him to
a dog and I was like,
I mean, this was like, what?
You know what are you saying
about your son, you know?
Kind of like she was
feeling me out to see
what I thought about that.
You know and my response
was just not to answer,
not to say anything.
She also had a personality
that really loved the Lord
and was honoring God.
And then she had more of
a witchcraft personality.
We really had to deal with,
you know, attempted murders
and various things like that.
Her then lover, he
would brag to us
how he could poison somebody
without them maybe
knowing it, just like.
I mean we were over for dinner,
Thanksgiving dinner
or something, and
he's telling us this?
And little things like he would
have certain salads made and
one salad was going
to be given to someone
and he's like, "No, no,
that one's for Zeph,"
I mean, that's for
Woody at the time.
The salad was tainted
and it resulted in a tear
in Zeph's stomach lining
after that dinner.
And this is after like bragging
to us how he is basically,
knows how to assassinate people.
On her birthday, I can't
remember which birthday it was,
she had like a party
and we were there,
but Zeph got so sick, it
was like they poisoned
some soup that he had.
We were having the dinner
downstairs, he's upstairs.
We had to get him outside,
out of the air conditioning
into the sun because
he was just shivering.
He was just like shivering,
he couldn't walk,
he was crawling around,
and he was vomiting.
He was just vomiting and
vomiting and vomiting and
shaking, you know?
And I had brought the
blanket down from upstairs
and here we are out by the
pool, out by the tennis court,
and crawling around
in the garden
vomiting, that's
what he was doing.
So that was kind of
wild and then the next
day when she saw him,
she looked really angry
that he had survived and she
said in like a derisive tone,
she goes, "Well, you're really
strong," you know, like that.
I was like, "Huh?"
So it was like suspicious.
So we knew, you know we
really shouldn't come back
for our own safety.
- I know it's weird because
you know this person's trying
to kill you on the one hand,
but then mom on the other,
so you become confused.
I kept wanting to have
approval from mother,
you know what I mean?
And from my father.
And I did on one
level love them both,
but you know they were
involved in something that
we just could not be compatible,
it's just gonna lead to
this horrible conundrum
and so, but yes, (laughs) and
she loved me in that level.
- You know it's been really
kind of hard for Zeph
to realize that his
own family would,
you know supposed to be
a loving family, and yet
some really unloving
things happened, you know?
So it's been a real
adjustment to deal with
that kind of organized satanic
crime I guess you'd call it.
(deep ominous music)
- [Julian Sands] Satan and
witchcraft have terrorized
mankind from the dawn of time,
societal fear of the
cult sour to new heights
during the satanic panic.
Starting in the United
States in the 1980s
and spreading throughout
the rest of the world
by the late 1990s,
over 12,000 cases of Satanic
ritual abuse were reported.
(deep ominous music continues)
- Allegations of
physical and sexual abuse
of children at a baby-
- [Julian Sands] In the early
1980s, the term ritual abuse
began to be used in the
mainstream media in courtrooms
to describe a particular
form of abuse,
mostly that of children.
- Friends of family
and strangers and
my family used to rape me,
make me abort the babies I had.
To be made to do
things with the
adults and the animals
and then a sacrifice
would happen.
- The sacrifice, were
these animal sacrifices?
- Animals and people.
- [Julian Sands]
As defined in 1989
by the ritual abuse task
force of Los Angeles County,
ritual abuse usually
involves repeated abuse
over an extended period of time.
The physical abuse is severe,
sometimes including
torture and killing.
(ominous humming)
It includes mind
control techniques,
which convey to the victim
a profound terror of the cult
members and of evil spirits
they believe the cult
members can command.
Both during and after the abuse,
most victims are in a state of
terror mind control
and dissociation.
(deep ominous humming)
- Playtime is when
they're grooming the kids
to have sex with adults,
so what they do is they
have like someone's house,
it'd usually be at some
other house somewhere in LA
and the kids are out
in the middle of a,
I won't say a circle, but in
the middle of the room here.
And the adults,
including the mothers,
are up against the
wall in the back
and they're like,
they're communicating,
then they're adult males,
I mean this is gross,
this is sickening, but
there are adult males that are
there and touching the kids,
getting sexual with the kids,
showing their penises
and their hard ons and
getting the whole
thing going with kids.
And kids are in
there, four years old,
three years old, five years old.
(ominous humming)
I fought, you know?
I mean I fought back,
I didn't want to keep
going down that road.
Then these kids
from the playtime
pushed me against the,
headfirst into these rocks.
And I got my head broken open
here and then I was treated.
No one said anything like,
"Now that's a warning."
It just was one of those
weird things, it's like
almost supernatural.
It was like something
took them over
and they were acting as a team
and they pushed
me into the rocks.
Once they got indoctrinated
by their parents
into this stuff, you know
and that's who does it,
then they become the
stalkers, they start targeting
the ones who are not going
along with the program
or who can't go along
with the program
'cause they're just
not made that way.
- Well, Billy.
- I want to talk to you about
Blanchard and my sister Jenny.
- I thought they broke up.
He wasn't really
her type anyway.
(hands smacking)
(deep dramatic music)
- You gotta be so intense.
Just relax.
Enjoy.
- You could write
those characters
like me and Rick, are
you kidding? (laughs)
How would we know
those characters?
- When I was here, I
didn't believe anything,
but then again, I had
been in the program
and they had
compartmentalized my mind.
So when I was here
doing that, I didn't believe
any of that was real.
(typewriter clicking)
(ominous humming)
- [Brian] But you knew
that it should be kept in a
dark place under lock and key.
- [Zeph] I did because
I had programming that
was like self-destruct.
If I had to talk about
any of that stuff,
the Beverly Hills stuff, if I
had to talk about that, then
you know I might get killed or
I should kill
myself or something.
(ominous booming)
- [Lacy Lou] How many times
and over how many years
were you institutionalized?
- Well it was constantly
for about seven years.
In the beginning in
Los Angeles on and off
there was some really bad
things that went on in there and
that's why I one time escaped,
the first thing they want you
to do is stop with your story.
That sounds crazy.
I can't believe how sadistic
he was, looking back on it,
anything I'd say he
would counter with
either that sounds
insane, that sounds crazy,
and it always resulted in,
"Well, you're not
ready for a home visit,
you're not ready to go home."
Basically what they're
doing is harassing me,
stalking me, torturing me,
and making it look
like it's therapy.
The hospital it was a
terrible, terrible thing.
You know you're locked in there,
they have a nurses' station
and then that's where
the seclusion rooms
are, right there.
And then you have this hallway
with people in
their various rooms
and these inspections
every hour.
And it's just very
oppressive, you know?
And they give you
drugs all day long,
they want to look
under your tongue
to make sure you're
not tonguing it,
And the reason you
would tongue it usually
was to kill yourself.
And I did this a couple
of times in there
just because I was so miserable.
(ominous dramatic music)
So I took several
handfuls of pills,
I was about to give up,
you know? I just felt like
I couldn't make it anymore.
And then I passed out there
and then the next thing I know,
like a month later, I finally
woke up in the hospital.
I went into a coma
and they couldn't revive me.
(ominous music continues)
(heart monitor beeping)
My heart stopped for
about 20 minutes,
but they decided to try to
revive me at least one time.
(defibrillator whirring)
(defibrillator pulsing)
And the heart started
again after 20 minutes and
about two weeks later
I was able to wake up.
I was coming outta the coma,
but I wasn't really
very conscious
'cause it'd been about a month.
They gave me brain tests
to see if there was
anything brain damage.
I hadn't done anything wrong.
Nothing was damaged, but I
just couldn't use my hand.
So I stayed there about a month.
Eventually my motor
movements came back.
At that point they were
gonna bring me back to LA,
but they wanted me to go to a
long-term facility after that
because obviously I failed.
They had therapy
and group therapy
and people would sit
in a circle and then
talk about their problems
and if you didn't
talk about a problem,
like, I might do
something to get,
and this would get me in trouble
like, I'm fine, you know?
(Zeph laughing)
And then of course that
brings out the torture.
One incident where I remember
they gave me like
double drugs one day
and when I fell asleep,
I was passed out,
I couldn't fight back and
I thought I was being
raped, you know?
'Cause I thought I was
actually being penetrated,
but what they did is they
put a thing of like drugs
that they would give you anally.
And the next day I was
deathly ill, I mean I was,
thought I was gonna
die, I mean just
throwing up, puking, I
couldn't move, just terrible.
- So you believe they
were trying to kill you?
- Yeah because
they were laughing.
Because they laughed at me.
And then the psychiatrist comes
'cause they come five days a
week, Monday through Friday.
And so then he arrives
and I said, "I'm really sick
and they're trying to kill me."
And then that's just
paranoid thinking.
See that's what we're
trying to deal with here.
And I said that I
gotta get outta here.
(ominous suspenseful music)
- [Julian Sands] In and
out of mental hospitals,
pumped full of drugs,
and reprogrammed
until he would eventually be
released back into the fold.
A newly reformed, productive
member of society.
- There's a couple
where I escaped
and then I got brought back,
then eventually
there was the party,
which I call the black mass.
The game plan was
to make me feel like
I was gonna finally fit in.
It was just exactly
like the movie "Carrie."
You know, that she was gonna
be the queen of the prom.
I got tipped off by someone
that was working there
that you better get outta here.
At that time, I didn't
like anyone there.
So I started insulting
people and being
kind of a jerk, you know?
My father got mad at me and
I threw him against the wall
and he tried to punch me
and it got really ugly.
And I left, I escaped, and
went to a girlfriend's house,
which was, it wasn't
prearranged, but she was like,
you know, well come over or
whatever and I went over there.
The next day she
starts telling me,
"Well, you need to go home
because everyone
knows what happened,
it was just you had a little,
it was too much
pressure, you know?
We understand, you
had another breakdown.
You had another crack
up, another thing.
But it's okay, we'll go home and
put the pieces back together,
it'll be okay tomorrow."
(crickets chirping)
When I got there,
the one thing I noticed
that was really strange
is that all the lights were off.
Usually in all those
neighborhoods in Beverly Hill,
the lights are on, you
know they're lit up,
but this was weird.
There were no cars, no lights,
looked like a dead
house, like death.
So I went to one of the
doors to check it, you know?
And this is very similar
to what's in "Society,"
you know, mom, dad,
is someone in there,
and then I could hear people
shuffling around in there
and breathing and stuff.
- Mom? Dad?
- And the door was locked
and then this door was locked
and then there was a
maid's quarters door locked
and there was a
room out in the back
and that was locked and
it was all locked
and the same thing,
I could hear people
in these rooms.
At that point I
was scared to death
'cause I realized what
had happened I was
lured, that this was the
plan, to lure me there
into blackness.
And so I went to the
kitchen, I got the knife,
and it's the same scene
that's in "Society."
And I told him, I said, "You
touch me, I will kill you."
You know, you might get me,
but I'll kill you first.
I'll stab a lot of people,
I'll stab you to death,
I'll kill you, you
know, all that, so I
yelled at each door
and made sure they
understood I was awake,
I was armed with this knife,
this big butcher knife,
and I meant business.
And I went into my room
and I could see that
there was people
driving around the block
at like two in the
morn, you know?
They were looking up there,
I faded out there for,
just didn't seem very
long, like maybe an hour.
And then an hour later
there was two
ambulance attendants
and they brought
the bed with them
and they strapped me down
and they restrained me,
so I couldn't
move, onto the bed.
And then the neighbors
were watching me
be loaded in the back
of the ambulance.
And there was a whole
bunch of people in there,
they put me in seclusion.
So I had to be there until
I talked to my doctor,
which would be the next day.
I also saw a couple
of friends in there
and I wondered what
they were doing there.
That's when I became aware
that some of my roommates
were plants, were like
people they trained
to be your roommate,
to try to convince you.
See, part of the, see another
thing people don't know,
they have plants in there
for certain people like me
being from that family, et
cetera, they'd have that.
It must cost extra, I guess.
But they would
have plants there.
And what they try to do
is try to convince you to,
you know, go along
to basically split.
That, yes, all this
stuff is going on,
but we're going to
look the other way,
we're not gonna be
focusing on that.
But the reason I
was focusing on that
is because I had been
traumatized and split into,
I was not just like
normal and going,
"Wow, look at all that evil."
And just, that's all
I want to focus on.
I wanted to play
baseball and go surfing
and go on trips and
enjoy the world,
I didn't want to have problems.
(bright suspenseful music)
There's also group therapy
with parents when they came
and all my mother
wanted to know is,
"There were no people
there that night, right?"
And I said, "No, there were
no people there that night."
And so we're talking
about two nights,
we're talking about one
night was this party,
but then this next night,
this black night, where
everything was blacked out.
No, there were no people there.
And that's all they wanted
to talk, that that was it,
that's what they wanted to hear.
In other words, that would be,
I think the deal was
if I failed with that,
then that would be
the end of the end,
I think they were still giving
me another chance out there.
They told everyone and everyone,
of course, in Beverly
Hills understood that I was
a terrible person and
horrible and bad to my parents
and bad to everybody.
So they floated this
rumor that I was dead.
I, um.
(sighs) You know the
idea that I was dead,
that people were
told I was dead, and
the idea that they would
be able to advance,
they were able to
buy another house and
have another life starting and
a whole nother thing going,
higher level of-
- [Lacy Lou] So they intended on
keeping you away forever.
- I was told by the guy
that got me in there
and he was a Hollywood
guy and he said,
"Best thing for you to do
is go become like a farmer
in the Midwest and don't
ever come back here."
But then about a year after
that, they wanted to release me,
but I couldn't make
it on the outside.
At that point I was completely,
I dunno, I guess
institutionalized or something,
I just couldn't, I
was so depressed I
couldn't do anything.
Eventually got out of there
'cause I was playing music
and then I'm playing
rock band and cover bands
and now I'm having fun playing
Led Zeppelin and stuff.
What made a difference in
leaving the halfway house
was I moved in with my
girlfriend or some girl I
knew that was in with me,
an inmate, another inmate,
I guess another patient.
And when we moved in together,
it's like we could
hold each other up.
I didn't have the
institutionalization that
the depression I had
when I was alone.
(bright suspenseful music)
We weren't really compatible,
but together we
moved back to LA.
Something was nagging
at me to go back
to Los Angeles, you know?
- [Lacy Lou] What
do you think it was?
- Well, just what
happened there. I mean,
I was like a guy that had
amnesia, my brain was wiped,
something was bothering me, and
I kept asking her too, do
you know anything about that?
I'd ask her surreptitious
questions like,
"Do you know anything about
this? About anything?"
And she acted like she didn't,
so that made me think,
"Well, maybe I was sick
and maybe she's right."
So we went out there
and I wanted to make up for,
you know I wanted the
favor of my family
and I wanted to apologize
for being sick and being.
Yeah, that's a hard one.
For being psychotic
or whatever and.
So I got started getting
involved in real estate
in Beverly Hills and I
got a licensed and got involved
in commercial properties
and put on a coat
and tie and pleased,
my father was very
pleased with that.
(typewriter clicking)
(dramatic piano music)
- [Julian Sands] Keith decided
that he was not cut out
for any of those things
and returned to one of
the loves of his youth.
He takes a course
in screenwriting.
- I did this
screenwriting course,
that's where I met Rick and
I met some other
people in there too,
it was a very weird class.
It was when they
used to have classes
and we went through
famous movies and like,
here's why they work,
here's why they don't,
and all that stuff.
But mainly I just started
writing a script, so
I wrote one that
actually got optioned
by a guy that's a
successful producer.
I was so buoyed by
that I started writing,
and I was like, "Okay,
I think I'm finding
maybe what I'm good at here."
So I sat down to
write "Society."
So anyway, I started
writing and I realized
I would try out, I didn't need
to outline anything, I was.
I felt naughty, I felt bad, I
felt like it was like porno,
you know, like I
shouldn't do it.
- There's some really
heavy themes in the film.
- Yeah but I mean,
for me it was like,
"Don't do it, don't
touch it, don't go there.
Don't stir that up, leave
that alone," you know?
So I'd lock it in the drawer.
At that point, I
didn't suspect anybody.
- So you just were
just living your life.
- I was Truman man, I was
completely brainwashed, 100%.
100% means 100%.
It means there is no thought
that it might be real.
- But writing this was
like a floodgate kind of?
- The story was, but
it didn't influence me.
In other words, I kept
going and I was having,
then I started having a
breakdown toward the end, right?
Coming up when the boy
that's raised by his
own satanic cult family is
now gonna be sacrificed.
They're like, ah,
I started having trouble
writing that, you know?
And that's when I went
to have it transcribed,
just to like an IBM PC and I
had to get Rick to help me.
I found him in a, he was
in an office in Van
Nuys and the woman there
gave Rick office space
to write her script.
And I went in there to get,
I had 88 pages or something
to get him transcribed.
Rick saw it and it's like,
"Hey Rick, what's happening
since school," you know?
And I need help with this,
I'm having a nervous
breakdown. (laughs)
And he read it and then
the secretary told me
he went nuts, he
loves it, he wants in.
- This was "Society."
- Yeah.
- This was your-
- That's all I'm gonna
talk about today.
- This was your
original version, yeah.
- And so, okay, so
what happened then is,
and see that's where
that draft came from,
he wrote a 250 page draft-
- Based on yours.
- Based on 80
pages or something.
And I loved it, it
was, but I'm like,
what are we gonna,
it's not a series.
So I had to spend time, yeah,
I had to cut it all back down.
And then we went back and
forth and stuff like that,
trying to make that work.
- [Lacy Lou] Were
you feeling guilty
when he was writing it with you?
- Feeling guilty? Less
- Because he was
in on it with you?
- He doesn't, I knew he
didn't believe any of it.
- Yeah.
- He is what I might call
more of a scientific
mind. (laughs)
He doesn't believe any of
that stuff I don't think,
but he's really
good at writing it.
- I always tell people that
that I say, "This is
an autobiography."
- Well, not-
- This is a biography.
Oh it's, yeah, it's, okay
a roman clef, you know?
- You subconsciously
or unsubconsciously
wrote "Society" not
realizing that it was
things that happened to you?
- Literally, the narrative
that one thing follows
the other and you know,
obviously not autobiographical
'cause there's
a hospitalization and
there's this and that
and people changed and
characters changed.
You know it wasn't exactly but
the incident that
kicks it all off,
that I think isn't there in
the beginning like it was.
No, it is, there is
a little flashback
of him holding the knife
and being in the
kitchen and all that.
That's literally true.
It's real and my excuse was,
you know after enough
incarcerations in
mental hospitals
and psychiatrists
and programming,
I had to learn over time
that there was no such thing
as satanism, satanic
ritual abuse,
pedophilia, orgies,
human sacrifices.
People getting killed
here and there,
friends getting killed even,
and I had to, that was me,
that they convinced me
over a long period of time
that I was just sick.
(ominous humming)
- [Julian Sands] Visionary
filmmaker, Richard Stanley,
exploded on the scene in 1990
with his cult hits
"Hardware" and "Dust Devil."
Six years later,
Stanley's dream project,
"The Island of Dr. Moreau,"
quickly became a nightmare.
His private war against
the Hollywood machine
was well documented in the
2014 documentary "Lost Soul."
Stanley is a man
of many talents.
In addition to his trademarked
black Australian Akubra hat,
Stanley is an adventurer,
anthropologist,
screenwriter, a cult expert,
and a child abuse survivor.
- Who knows where a
conspiracy truly begins.
It's my opinion that
the archetypal conspiracy
represented by "Society"
is spread like a
psychoactive virus,
that it travels from
one community to another
in a similar way to what
evolutionary biologist,
Richard Dawkins
would've described
as a religious meme,
a meme or an idea which
travels like a virus
from one culture or
community to another.
And it's extremely variant,
this is a virus which is
capable of destroying lives,
destroying careers,
and destroying the
very fabric of society.
For me, it might have begun with
child abuse, I was abused
as a child by many people.
I had many terrible
things happen to me
when I was extremely young.
(ominous humming)
The first allegations of
satanic ritual abuse,
the notion that
a secret pedophile elite
is running our world, is
secretly running the country,
that is a conspiracy
that extends
to the highest
echelons of government,
to the greater and the good,
to the people who are
actually adjudicate our lives.
- Because the owners of this
country don't want that.
I'm talking about
the real owners now.
The real owners, the big
wealthy business interest
that control things and make
all the important decisions.
Forget the politicians, the
politicians are put there
to give you the idea that
you have freedom of choice.
You don't, you have no choice.
You have owners, they own you.
(ominous humming)
- One of the things that
you know kind of
becomes obvious is
these people are everywhere.
You know, do they think
they're gonna live forever?
Do they not care about anyone?
Are they disconnected
from being human?
I mean, all this stuff
we're dealing with,
but here was this classic
thing, I gotta just read this.
So here's Bill when he is
starting to confront them
and this is what's
getting him in trouble.
You know what's happening
is the father is massaging
Jenny, the daughter, the sister.
- Yeah, right there
Dad, that's good.
- [Billy] What's this?
- Oh god, Bill.
- Is that thing
what I think it is?
- That's a really
disgusting thing.
- I'm just, I don't know
how many times I've seen it,
but lately doing the novel
made me watch it a
bunch more times and
there's a lot of subtle
things that people,
I'm not surprised that
people keep going back
to find little tidbits in there
'cause you had George,
you had Rick, you had me,
you had Brian all putting
in different layers
and then Brian orchestrating
it all, you know?
- I'm not paranoid.
- The most evil
character in the whole,
'cause I've just gone
through it forensically,
so it's not, I'm
like a detective.
It's Jenny, the sister,
the way she
sacrifices her brother
and she's so nice to him.
Oh, basketball's
much more important
than my stupid coming
out party, 'member?
- [Brian] Oh yeah.
- And then, but when she
was there fooling him
and he really got humiliated
in front of the whole class
and that was the end
of him, pretty much,
she was, all you see is
Ferguson as the audience
'cause he's waving
and he's a tall guy.
You don't see her next to him,
evilest laugh,
most disgusting and
real thing that I have,
it's exact, it's perfect.
- Guess what?
Telegram came for you.
- Listen Jenny, something
bad happened today.
- Oh, come on, don't
you wanna open it?
- Go ahead, read it.
(paper rustling)
- Mr. William Whitney,
you're cordially
invited to a party
to be given at the residence
of Theodore S. Ferguson.
- Wow.
- You guys don't understand,
I'm trying to tell
you something.
- We know all about the the
automobile accident son.
It's terrible, just terrible.
- Oh my, just awful.
(ominous humming)
- So, what're you gonna wear?
- You mean to the funeral?
- No you weirdo. To
the Ferguson'a party.
- I think one of the
reasons that kind of
banter, that kind of
humor, that black comedy
is one of the reasons
why the thing persists
'cause people can
relate to that.
If you just had it literal
'cause we've all seen
films that have literal incest
or literal satanic rituals
where they're killing babies
and drinking the blood.
It does nothing, it has
no effect on people.
So what?
So this humor though,
getting at it that way
is the way to get under
the skin of the public.
- Jenny is a real beauty.
She possesses such
natural poise.
- Yes, Jim and I both derive
a great deal of
pleasure from her.
- My mother agreed to be an
extra in the film. (laughs)
And I think the
reason why is because
it would prove that none
of that stuff is real
'cause if it was real,
that's the last thing
that she would do.
So she was extra in it and you
can see her in the opening,
the scene when they're
going into the house
for the society party
for the final shunting.
And she's on the porch in
front of the house going in.
Later in life, when
she was gonna die,
she confessed that I was,
that it all was true.
So you see, I have more
than a few witnesses,
plus other kids that I knew
who had come to me privately
and said it was all true.
(ominous humming)
- [Julian Sands]
Believe what you will.
The fact is, an
individual's terror or fear
is just as real as
they believe it to be.
Everything young
Woody Keith survived
resonates with horrific truth
in every page of the
"Society's" script,
in every frame of the movie.
(ominous dramatic music)
Zeph and Brian Yuzna
have reconnected
and a new novelization of
"Society" is in the works.
- The novel part
that we're doing now,
Brian is the editor
and I'm the writer
and we're working to find
the novelization of "Society,"
which has a lot of extra
cool tidbits in it,
but went a little
further into Bill's mind.
I'm just gonna give
away one little thing
and it may not be there, okay?
After he gets done
with it, but let's see.
Coffee, tea, or do you
want me to pee in it?
And then in Bill's mind it's
I want you to pee in it.
(both laughing)
- Which is the subtext
of that anyway, probably.
- Well it was like his
mind is not, he's not,
he's holding back on a lot of
things he'd like to say or do
'cause he is got trouble,
he's a guy in trouble.
- He's a troubled guy,
he thinks something's
wrong with the world,
- And they're after him
and he can't prove it,
but if he says too
much to either shrink
or if he says too
much to his friends,
they already think he's
kind of on the way,
and he is trying to hold his
power as big man on campus,
the basketball champ,
class president
that he is running
for during the movie.
And so he's being very careful
and so that was
never in the script
because it's not a novel.
(bright dramatic music)
- [Brian] Okay, so
this is "Screenwriter,"
the publication of the Hollywood
Script Writing Institute.
And here you're
supposed to sign up
announcing the postgraduate
tutorial program.
Wanna know what HSIs Woody
Keith did between graduation
and selling his hits "Society"
and "Bride of Re-Animator?"
He took our course again.
Now Woody's a little intense,
italics, but if you've been
to his films you know that.
He's also one of our
most prolific grads.
So here you go, we know
you're tired of school
and anxious to try your
wings in the marketplace,
but if you ask Woody Keith,
he'll tell you a writer's
education never ends.
So this is how
they sold. (laughs)
This is how they,
you could sign up credit
card or check, 350 bucks,
and here on the other side they
show "Bride of Re-Animator."
So-
- [Zeph] I took.
- [Brian] There you go.
- Well I took the course after
I believe the "Society"
thing was happening
and the reason I took it is
'cause I was really lonely.
- [Brian] Well, I
think you, yeah,
you went back to
the well, you said,
"Hey, it worked
twice, try it again."
- [Zeph] But they
haven't had a sequence,
but yeah, more or less,
- I just think it's funny
that they were poo-pooing you,
no, they were putting
down his script
and then now they're
like elevating it
and saying, "Look it,
here's our great success."
- But a lot of things
happen like that.
(upbeat electronic music)
- [Lacy Lou] Did you know
about the film "Society"
at the time of knowing him?
- Not until I met him.
And he had like, he had
posters of all the films
that he had been involved with.
"Silent Night, Deadly
Night" and "Society"
and, of course, he
showed me the film.
We used to watch films,
he had a great dropdown
big screen in his house
and you just push a button
and the big screen comes down
and a big laser disc
collection and so
we were watching
movies right away.
(bright piano music)
- [Lacy Lou] How did
you and Zeph first meet?
- I was living in
LA at the time and
I had graduated from
the American Academy
of Dramatic Arts
and then I was taking
additional acting classes
and I met this gal there
who, she hit it off with me,
she wanted to be my friend
and she invited me to
her birthday party.
So it was a nice
house up in the hills,
I didn't know anything about
Zeph, he was Woody Keith then,
but she had invited
him to the party.
So he met me at the party,
but I had no idea of his
circumstances at the time.
I didn't know he was
married, I didn't know he,
his wife had just left that
day or anything like that,
we just hit it off and
he had written a poem
and he wanted me to
read it, so I did.
And there's like a
lot of photographs
at the party of him kind
of hanging around me.
And then we didn't
see each other
for a while after that because
my friend who had introduced us,
she was kind of
like the gatekeeper,
she didn't think I should
get involved with him
and apparently he wanted
to get ahold of me,
but she was like, "No,
you're not ready."
And I'm like, "Wow, how come
you get to decide?" (laughs)
But anyway, eventually we
finally did get together.
I was working in healing
therapeutic massage
at a directional non-force
technique chiropractic office
and also I had independent
clients, had a lot of
pretty high-end clients and
he made an appointment.
So that's when we first
really got together
and we've kind of been
together ever since.
(ominous humming)
I don't care
What you say
- [Julian Sands] I ask
you, who has the last laugh
some 30 years later, Woody
Keith now Zeph E. Daniel,
along with his wife Patricia
lead a blessed life.
- Greetings to the name
of the most high, so-
- [Julian Sands]
Founded in 2002,
Zeph's Ministry AKA "The
Zeph Report" podcast
offers spiritual, political
and philosophical observations
and constantly fights to
raise suicide awareness
and suicide prevention.
- We always feel like here we
were kind of led to this spot
and that we feel hidden
and protected, you know?
- [Julian Sands]
Also an activist,
Zeph uses his
ministry's platform
to fight against
human trafficking
and end modern day slavery,
working directly with orphanages
in some of the hardest
hit areas of the world
to save the lives of children.
(bright dramatic music)
When Woody Keith wrote
the script for "Society"
he thought he was writing
a piece of fiction.
It turns out Woody
was exercising demons
suppressed by years of therapy,
pills, and programming.
(dramatic orchestra music)
In the movie "Girl Next,"
the character Charlotte,
written by Zeph E. Daniel,
states that trauma
creates trauma.
(dramatic orchestra
music continues)
(men laughing)
(Zeph laughing)
- I am not even gonna ask.
(both laughing)
- [Julian Sands] Today,
Zeph is still processing
a lifetime of trauma, writes
novels, music, and new movies.
- I believe that
within each one of you-
- [Julian Sands]
Writing what he knows,
these dramatic
events of his past
give life to the characters
in these new stories.
Even though these
works of fiction
deal with fantastic
fantasy worlds,
the tortured characters
that inhabit these stories
speak with an authority,
a haunting feeling that
these words ring true.
These words were born
from a place of honesty.
Words written by
someone who knows.
- Three, two, one.
(electricity whirring)
(women screaming)
(upbeat electronic music)
- I'm really glad that
he's gotten back into doing film
because film was really
you know one of his first loves.
I mean, music, film, writing.
We started Crazed House and
we met Larry and his
wife Mary along the way,
and he, along with Mike
Moscow producer Mike,
they had come up with a
story called "The Voice."
And when it was
finished writing,
it was a great piece and
we're planning on making it,
but it was too big
of a budget for what
we had planned to do
for this first film.
So then they put that
aside, saved that for later,
and they came up
with this whole different
concept, "Girl Next,"
and Mike worked with
Zeph on the story
and Zeph wrote it and
then Mike found Larry and
just one thing after another,
pretty soon we're making this
movie and now it's out there
and it's doing really well
in the awards categories
of the festival situation,
which it's kind of nice.
Because through the whole
plandemic thing, you know,
we weren't able to do
what we wanted with it
and then now it's kind
of like getting its legs,
getting out there and getting
seen and getting noticed.
So we have high hopes for
the next one coming out
with "The Quantum Devil."
- I met Zeph through Mike
Moscow, producer Mike,
you keep hearing about.
It's kind of a weird
story, but I was actually
thinking about just not
ever make any more movies,
I was really pissed off at it
and being all emo and shit and
my wife kept telling me,
"Hey, these guys are calling,
they want you to do this movie."
And I'm like, "No, tell
'em fuck off, I don't
wanna make no more
movies, I'm gonna go
be a door greeter at Walmart."
But she said, "But do you
know who these guys are?"
And I said, "What?"
She goes, "Well, they
did a re-animator,
'Bride of Re-Animator."
I was like, "What?" Said,
"Bullshit, let me see."
'cause I saw it
said Zeph I said,
"I know Woody Keith
wrote that shit."
But then I looked, she goes,
"No, look, Woody Keith is Zeph."
I was like, "Oh, shit."
I was like, "Oh, fuck, I don't
wanna make no more movies,
but I'd love to meet
these guys." (laughs)
So I took the meeting with
Mike, we went and had lunch
and we talked and hit it off
and then he hooked
me up with Zeph.
And then when I got on
the phone with Zeph,
it was like I'd known
him my entire life
and we talked for like hours and
we were just really on the
same page about a lot of things
and it was really
cool to be 'cause
I had the feeling, I was like
having a conversation
with like, you know,
a literary icon, one
of the great writers.
(soft ethereal humming)
I'm not afraid of
how people will
think about this documentary.
Zeph and I, when we started
making movies together,
we agreed we'd never
gonna pull any punches
and you know, we have things,
we wanna make movies
we'd wanna see, you know?
And so we're never
gonna apologize for that
and I know that the kind
of fans that you get
when you make those
kind of movies,
you may have a small niche,
but those guys are like
diehard loyal and you know,
when people fall in
love with that movie,
they're gonna wanna know
everything about that.
I mean, that's the way I was.
You know whenever I
fell in love with "Jaws"
and got interested
in filmmaking,
you know I learned
everything I could about
what happened and all the
horror stories behind the camera
and it's fascinating.
(soft piano music)
- I think that this
documentary will be helpful
in healing, I do because
there's been a lot of
misrepresentation about
his role in the
film "Society" and
some of the things
that have been said
are just patently absurd
and frankly untrue, so
I think setting the record
straight and really having
the real development of the
stuff that led up to him
writing it and how
that story was kind of
written automatically
without him realizing
that it was actually
based on him and his life.
I'm hoping that that
will be a good healing.
(bright ominous music)
- [Lacy Lou] So there's
somewhat of a light
at the end of the tunnel here.
- I don't go that far.
- [Lacy Lou] No?
- If God wants me to
not make any movies
or do anything, if
I have to leave it,
if there's somebody
about to flip out
because I'm making a movie,
it's not that important.
You know what I mean?
But if I can do it, I've
always been a storyteller,
I've always been in the arts,
I've always been
involved in music,
I've always been involved
in all these things,
these are just
natural for me to do.
But at the same time,
I'm gonna be doing some
directing coming up on a project
that had already been filmed.
And then we're gonna do
something with the footage,
I've already had it transferred
and I think I did have an,
it is about death and it's,
I think it's something
that's universal
that everybody has
to face, death.
And it's not at all
in the horror genre,
it's a drama feature.
(bright ominous music)
- Having made peace
with his past,
old wounds have healed,
the ghosts of the past
now put in their place,
never forgotten,
but now forgiven.
Indeed the future
ahead looks bright
and Zeph E. Daniel is showing
no signs of slowing down.
- [Lacy Lou] How do you think
you survived all of this?
- By, first of all, I think
God helped me survive.
You know and even they
thought it was God.
Even my mother said, "You
know it's gotta be God
'cause you should've died."
She seemed to me to be
fairly excited that I was,
that when there was
a suicide attempt,
what she was very,
she was mad at me for causing
her to have to deal with that,
you know, there was a
lot of stress on her.
- [Lacy Lou] Do you forgive
those that hurt you?
- Yes, and they
didn't really hurt me.
I mean, nobody really
hurt me, it was,
you know, the flesh is weak.
People are weak, people
are afraid, you know?
And they didn't want to
tell me what was going on.
You can't just say,
"Do you forgive them?"
You have to say, "Do
you forgive humanity?"
And my leader, you know, if
you're really following Jesus,
you have to,
but it can't just be something
you say with your lips.
Okay, I forgive you.
It has to be from the
heart, it's gotta be total.
(soft rock music)
(soft rock music continues)
(suspenseful dramatic music)