Paul Thomas Anderson interviews Jordan Peele about Us in latest Fangoria

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Cinestate's revival of Fangoria magazine is off to a great start, and each issue so far has had some kind of feature that has made me feel strongly compelled to read it. In the first issue, it was an article that took a look at treatments that were written for a sequel to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE in the late '70s – treatments that were completely different from each other, and from the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 that was released in 1986. With the second issue, legendary movie host Joe Bob Briggs got the cover story. And now the cover for the third issue has been revealed and it comes with a surprise.

Jordan Peele's US is the main cover story in the new Fangoria #3. That's no surprise, it's a major horror release that's coming out this month and Peele won an Oscar for his previous genre film, GET OUT, so of course US is the main focus. The unexpected thing here is that the US article was written by Paul Thomas Anderson.

Yes, the Paul Thomas Anderson who has written and directed films like BOOGIE NIGHTS and MAGNOLIA.

How did Anderson end up writing a Fangoria article about Jordan Peele and US? The idea goes back to the day when an interview was conducted with Peele for the documentary HORROR NOIRE, "about the history of the horror genre’s relationship with the black community." Fangoria editor-in-chief Phil Nobile Jr. was also an executive producer on HORROR NOIRE, and while he was on set with Peele he handed him

…a copy of Fangoria #32 and pointed out an article in which Martin Scorsese writes about David Cronenberg. 'Just something to think about,’ I joked. I don’t know if he took it to heart or what, but when he came back saying he’d like to chat with Paul Thomas Anderson for the article, all our jaws were on the floor. Ian Cooper and David Torres at Monkeypaw [Peele’s production company] were instrumental in making the interview happen, and we are thrilled and humbled that these two amazing filmmakers are in our magazine talking shop with one another."

The Peele / Anderson connection goes back to the mutual admiration expressed when their films GET OUT and PHANTOM THREAD were released around the same time. Anderson got to see GET OUT while he was still shooting PHANTOM THREAD in a London winter, at a time when 

…I really needed a lifeline and I needed something to inspire me. I was cold and I didn’t think we were doing well, and I took myself to the movies on Sunday night. I was an enormous fan of everything he’d done in television, but the film inspired me so deeply and hugely. It was also a connection back to my country, as peculiar as that connection might be. It actually ironically made me homesick."

After Peele saw PHANTOM THREAD, he told the audience at a film festival Q&A that a scene in which the character played by Daniel-Day Lewis is looking for Vicky Krieps' character at a party

…really f*cked me up. The emotion, the psychology and the visual beauty of that moment are working in harmony, in a way that is just a pure cinematic moment that you almost can’t describe. I get choked up, thinking about the character, who is looking for the woman he loves and he realizes there is a rift between them that may never be mended and may never make sense. This beautiful moment of searching for this person he loves and simultaneously realizing that he needs to let go of her in some way. I’m not sure if that’s how he was thinking about it because that might be my shit, but it was one of those moments of realizing, ‘This is cinema!’"

They loved each other's movies, and now they're talking about Peele's latest in the pages of Fangoria.

Fangoria #3 also features articles on GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS, Mick Garris, Osgood Perkins, the PET SEMATARY remake, and Travis Stevens' GIRL ON THE THIRD FLOOR.

Readers must subscribe to Fangoria by March 10th to recieve this issue.

US arrives in theatres on March 22nd.