2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

In week three of our Halloween series, we finally tackle the long-requested 2013 analog horror/comedy WNUF Halloween Special, framed as a found VHS tape recording of a 1987 local newscast and a live call-in seance.

We dig into how convincingly it recreates the era—VHS degradation, nonstop regional commercials, and corny local-news Halloween coverage—and why it works best as nostalgic “party atmosphere” rather than a sit-down scare.

We break down the funniest bits in the opening news segments, the repetitive ad structure that undercuts tension, and the ultimately chaotic haunted-house special involving a rude host, paranormal investigators (and their psychic cat), an exorcist, and a cult-driven finale.

Episode 510, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Week three of Halloween. Spooky season here on Two Guys and a Chainsaw with our specific Halloween episodes. Just when we think we’ve found about all the Halloweeny themed episodes that we can, we’ve been doing this for what?

Six, e- t- 11 years? Is this our 11th year? Yeah, I 

Craig: I don’t know. 

Todd: It is. It’s our, it’s our 11th year, man. We, we try to do this every year, and we always find something. This one is the WNUF Halloween special from 2013. This one has been on our list for quite a while. I think every year somebody recommends it for us to do, and we came really close to doing it last year, but we swapped it out last minute, and this year we’re able to, to get to it.

Y- you know, I hadn’t really heard about this before. Honestly, this was something that our listeners had clued me into And aside from that, this isn’t like a thing that ever popped up for me on Netflix or anything like that. It’s not something that was coming through on lists for me. It’s listed in Wikipedia anyway as a comedy horror, analog horror film produced basically by one guy.

One guy directed it and enlisted a bunch of people to also direct little bits and pieces. And when I first saw this, I thought, “Oh, this will be fun to do,” because it looks surprisingly like, uh, the concept maybe anyway. It’s like found footage mixed with, um, maybe Ghost Watch. So we sat down to watch it.

It’s my first time seeing it. Craig, had you seen this before? 

Craig: No. I remember you bringing it up several times, and like you said, we just, it, it didn’t make the cut for whatever reason. But this was really kind of the first time that I looked into it. And you said found footage. It, it’s… I mean, I think it’s kind of meant to literally be like a found VHS tape.

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: We talk about this all the time, I mean, not all the time, but regularly, about how in our homes growing up, VHS was our media, and you would have tapes that would have multiple movies on them or tapes that you had taped off TV or whatever. And this appears to be that, like something that would be from somebody’s home media library.

A- and, and it happens to be a recording of the nightly news followed by a s- a special both on Halloween night. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And I thought that that concept was really clever. And so even going into it, I was kind of excited about that concept, and still am to some extent. I, I don’t know. I, I don’t, I… I’m not sure what I expected and, and I like, ultimately my verdict on the movie, I’m not really sure, ’cause it depends on what you’re looking for, and I, it almost, it depends on like how you approach it, like…

Right.

So I’m interested to hear what your thoughts were. 

Todd: I’m gonna go off of what you just said earlier about this being an actual tape that was found more or less. Uh, the… Did you ever go to garage sales and just buy random, like, VHS tapes that people had- No … just to take them home and see what was on them?

Clip: No. 

Todd: No? I, I did that every now and then. I was, I think, you know, if it was like a quarter or something like that. And, you know, people would just sell stuff in garage sales, and you’d just kind of secretly hope that you could take it home and maybe there’d be some porn on there or something. Never was, but it was always stuff like this, which you’re right, was s- this is e- exactly like something my sisters and I would have popped in because it’s got commercials and everything.

It’s something taped off a TV. In fact, the producers, I say his name, Chris LaMartina, they actually went to a VHS, like, they have these little conventions or something. And they dropped tapes of this just unceremoniously, just l- left them on tables and tossed them out of windows onto the street and stuff, trying to create a little whisper campaign about it, hoping that people would find it and check it out and w- and wonder about it and talk about it online or something.

Craig: And I like that. 

Todd: It’s such a great idea. 

Craig: I know. I think it’s a great idea, and if I found something like that, I, I would think it was really cool. I, so yeah, I like that whole concept of it. And honestly One of the things that I’m gonna give this movie a lot of credit for is if I did find a VH tape, VHS tape like that, and I popped it in, I, for the most part, like for most of the duration of this movie, I don’t think that I would question its authenticity- 

Todd: Right

Craig: at all. That is why the movie appeals to me on a certain level because it is so familiar. Now, I don’t know how familiar- 

Todd: Mm … 

Craig: this is gonna be to a wider audience or, you know, not, you know anybody outside of the United States. I have no idea. I live in rural America. The commercials and stuff are so authentic.

Like- Yeah. 

Todd: They really are. 

Craig: I, I, I never would’ve questioned… It, it, towards the end things start to get a little crazy, but up to a certain point it just feels very real. So that’s what I’m saying. Like, if you’re approaching it as, you know, like, “Ooh, I’m excited for a fun Halloween movie,” well- Mm … bad news.

Todd: It’s gonna be a lot of, uh, Bill’s Carpet Barn- Yeah. … or Token’s Arcade and Chesterfield Shopping Mall ads that you’re gonna be watching instead. 

Craig: A lot. A lot. 

Todd: Tons. Tons. 

Craig: But if you’re looking at it like they approached a project and they wanted to do it really well, they did. Like- They did … they did a really, really good job of doing, I think, what they were trying to do.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And I may as well just get it out of the way now. I actually think that this is excellent as atmosphere. Like, again, at your Halloween party- I 

Todd: was just gonna say that … put it on. I was gonna preempt you and you fricking did it anyway. Yeah. I was literally, like one comment before your comment I was gonna say, “Craig, I’m gonna preempt you and I’m just gonna be like, if you wanna have this on during your Halloween party, it’s the perfect thing.”

Yeah. God. It is. It’s atmosphere. The whole movie’s just atmosphere, and that’s the atmosphere it is. It’s a tape that you just popped in that had been recorded off the TV in 1987. It’s not really spooky Halloween atmosphere. 

Craig: I mean, it gets a little spooky sometimes. Yeah. But honestly, like, like what the whole movie, I don’t even know how long it is, an hour and 23 minutes, so it’s short anyway, but like the actual footage of the special.

Like, I actually think that the newscast in the first 10 or 15 minutes or whatever is kind of the funniest part of the movie. Yeah. We can come back to it. But like the, like after that is this special, like this live special that they’re doing, and if you were to cut the movie so that it was really just the footage from the special without commercials or anything else, I think it would be like- 15, 20 minutes maybe If even 

Todd: that.

If even that. 

Craig: So the vast majority of the movie is other stuff. Yeah. Mostly commercials. 

Todd: I will give them a lot of cred- Now, I, some of the commercials are quite obviously pretty silly. L- you know, you talk about authenticity, you would have probably believed that it was a real thing. I think there probably would’ve been a point fairly early on where you would’ve been like, “Some of these commercials are just too on the nose and too silly to actually be real.”

I mean- I 

Craig: know, but some of the real ones were like that. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. I mean, your local TV commercials of, like, the local car dealership and stuff like that usually did some pretty wacky things. No, no, I get you. They used a lot of stock footage, you know, to put these together, and they shot the whole thing on actual VHS, and then apparently, like, copied it over two or three times to really degrade it.

Craig: Right, which gives it that authentic feel. Like, we would w- we watched things like this. Like- Oh, yeah … I, I look at it now and I’m like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe that this was just the standard of the quality of what we were watching- Right … all the time.” 

Todd: It was, though 

Craig: I know. Especially those tapes that you watched over and over again.

I do remember, like, certain tapes that we would watch over and over again. Eventually, like, the very top or the very bottom of the streen- screen would, like, start to stretch, like, far left or something. Mm-hmm. So, like, everybody would have, like, weird pointy side heads. 

Todd: Yeah. That’s true. 

Craig: Or, or like, eventually, like, the tracking would start to roll, and you would have to, like, try to, like, manual adjust the tracking to keep it from rolling.

Uh-huh. Oh man, we’re old. 

Todd: I know. 

Craig: But the… I like that about that. It’s nostalgic for me- Yeah … but I feel like it’s nostalgic for a very specific- Yeah … generation. Like a, a 10-year period. Those of us who specifically grew up in the 1980s, this is going to be really familiar, and just that familiarity is appealing to me.

It w- and, and I was really impressed. Like, the things- Yeah … you’ve already said, the authentes- authenticity of the content, but also the way that it’s presented, it really… Like, it feels like, uh, again, uh, let’s keep a cliche count. It, it feels like a time capsule kind of. Like, it, it- Right … it feels legit. It feels like you popped this tape into a VCR- 

Todd: Yeah

Craig: and that’s what you’re seeing. 

Todd: Yeah. Uh, 

Craig: throughout, throughout all of it. And, and the quality of the, the commercials, like, some of them look like they were made with, I don’t know, whatever they were making cheap commercials with back then. But it looks like the filmmakers took the time to authenticate it.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Yes, it looks cheap, because it looked cheap back then. 

Todd: Yeah, yeah. It is 

Craig: 100%. But it looks authentic to the time, which I liked. 

Todd: That said, I was really hoping for something more. I was really hoping that as the commercials went on, maybe I would see some, some themes or, surfacing- Yes … or maybe something happening in the background of some of them, something that would s- Right

tie them together to a larger narrative, or maybe some little Easter eggs or something like that And, uh, and there isn’t any- No … as far as I can tell. 

Craig: Not that I… Me either. Right, and I was looking for that too, and I thought that that was, I mean, I guess maybe that wasn’t what they were going for, but I did think it was a missed opportunity.

Like especially- Hmm … since some of the commercials you see multiple times. Yes. The same one. 

Todd: Yes. And to be fair, and, and thankfully, some of them when they come on for the second time, there’s a fast forwarding. 

Craig: Uh-huh. Like 

Todd: somebody is fast forwarding through the tape. 

Craig: But you certainly see parts of it several times.

Yeah. And I kept thinking that too, I’m like, “Something’s gonna be different.” Mm-hmm. Like, there, or, or there’s gonna be some hint or… I, I, I expected maybe them to get darker as the movie went on- Right … like to suggest something strange was happening, but they don’t. 

Todd: Yeah. They don’t at all. Ugh, and, and there are a, a lot of them, and that was the other thing this reminded me of, just how chock-full of commercials television used to be.

Uh-huh. I mean, we bitch about, and I bitch about YouTube and Tubi and all the time, but honestly, it was, it was even worse when we were- Oh my gosh … watching TV. You know, 10 minutes would go by, you’re cut to like five minutes of commercials. Another s- didn’t even seem like another 10 minutes would go by, and you’re cut to a lot more commercials, and this, this was authentic in that way too.

Craig: Yeah. Yes, yeah. Oh. It, it really was. It, oh, it was crazy. And, and the commercials, even though some of them repeat, they’re, they’re fun because they are- 

Todd: They’re fun ’cause they’ll, they’re nostalgic … 

Craig: they’re nostalgic, and they’re like local and regional commercials. So super low budget, but, a- and so because they’re local or regional, you can believe that they’re real, they’re just not things that are in your area, you know?

Right. But, but they seem, but they’re familiar. They’re the types of commercials you would have seen for like, like you said, like Carpet Barns, but also like, oh gosh- 1-900 numbers, like 1-900-MONSTER and- 

Todd: Yes … 

Craig: I don’t know. There’s so many of them. I, I re- there’s a really funny one near the end for some weird off-brand wine cooler.

Like- 

Todd: Yeah. There’s one for tampons where two girls are playing tennis, which is such a cliche tampon commercial. There’s one for a pumpkin carving kit. So some of them are actually Halloween. Most of them are not. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: Most of them don’t have anything to do with Halloween. They’re just normal commercials.

But some of them, again, like those local commercials would do, would be like, “Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. It’s Halloween. I hope you’re enjoying yourself.” “Come down and buy a car. We’re go- we have a spooky sale going on.” You know, that kind of thing. But then there were the drug commercials which brought me back.

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: There were several of those. But one of my favorites was there w- it was like some kids playing spin the bottle. 

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: And, uh, this guy comes on and is talking and he’s like, “It looks like it’s just a game, but it’s really a game of death.” And then you see that the bottle’s like aiming at different drugs.

Like, like they’re spinning the bottle to see which drug they’re gonna take. 

Craig: It’s like syringes, yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. Playing with drugs is playing with death. Sponsored by Parents Against Partying.

And there were just some little things like that in some of these that made you realize it was pretty silly. 

Craig: Well, it really is laughable now. Mm-hmm. But those… That’s what the commercials were like. 

Todd: They really were. 

Craig: They really were like that. 

Todd: We can’t say that enough. We probably said it too many times, but yes, these are very authentic commercials.

They will take you back. 

Clip: They think it’s no big deal, just harmless fun where everyone gets a turn. But they never bothered to check the rules and think they can stop any time they want There’s many ways to play, but they all lead to the same result. Game over. Playing with drugs is playing with death 

Craig: Seeing that one reminded me, like, i- it’s crazy how that was the big bad thing.

Like, “Drugs are gonna get your kids, and they’re gonna ruin your kids, and they’re gonna ruin…” They’re like the fear tactics that, that are still being used today. Like, it’s not necessarily drugs today, but it’s still the same thing. Yeah. You still see these commercials. They’re so crazy and stupid, and hopefully 40 years from now people will be laughing at them, but-

uh, it’s wild. Anyway. 

Todd: Well, it’s also the local news station, right? And that’s pretty much almost gone- 

Craig: Mm-hmm … 

Todd: the way of the dodo, to be honest. Everything is syndicated. Everybody’s just broadcasting the big news or whatever. But, uh, you used to have your… And in some markets you still do, but it’s pretty rare now.

Used to have your local anchor people who were not always the- Yeah … most professional, but they were trying their best, and they have these corny jokes that don’t land at all but are h- hilarious for that. And in this case, they’re dressed up for Halloween. She’s like a witch. He’s like a vampire. They’ve dressed the set behind them in Halloween, and they’re giving the news, and most of the news is also kinda Halloween-y.

And I liked this bit, and I know you wanted to talk about this, and I agree. This part in the beginning is almost more entertaining and interesting to me than the, quote-unquote, “main narrative” that begins afterwards when the actual special begins. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: It’s the news, and they tease this special where they’re gonna go live to a hau…

I mean, it’s very Ghostwatch. “We’re gonna tonight go live to a haunted house and investigate it with some paranormal researchers, and where this horrible thing occurred, and nobody’s been in this house in 20 years since these horrible murders happened. And we’re gonna go live and see if we can scare up the ghosts.

But first, here’s the news.” And it really runs the gamut, and it’s all Halloween-themed, and I loved it. 

Craig: Yeah. It was And super legitimate. Like, this- was the funniest part, but it still felt real. I was gonna say it reminded me, I, I was trying to look while you were talking, I was trying to look up the name of the actress.

I can’t remember her name, but Fred Willard, the anchor guy reminded me of… That’s his name, right? 

Todd: Oh, yeah. The actor Fred Willard? The com- 

Craig: Yes … comedic 

Todd: guy? Yeah, uh-huh. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. And, and it reminded me of the kind of back and forth that he had with, gosh, I can’t think of the name of the actress. She also played Effie Trinket in the Hunger, Hunger Game movies, but I can’t think of her name.

In the Pitch Perfect movies, they were commentators, and they had- Hmm … kind of this back and forth thing. Mm-hmm. And he’s good at that. He did the same thing in Best In Show. Like- Yes, yes … he’s really funny at that kind of back and forth. And this guy kind of reminded me of the Temu him. 

Todd: Yes. Exactly. He’s not funny, but he’s trying to be.

He’s cracking- Right … jokes that are just dumb.

Craig: And the, the, uh, his co-anchor was really funny too. Like- … obviously c- you know, kind of a, a stiff, you know, she’s in a, you know, a 1980s woman news anchor like blazer, skirt suit. But she’s trying to be fun for Halloween, you know? Like- Uh-huh. And they’re cr- like you said, they’re cracking corny jokes and laughing at each other.

Clip: Hey, Deborah, what’s a vampire’s worst nightmare? Oh, I don’t know, Gavin. Sunlight? Mm-mm. Tooth decay. Oh. And local dentist Dr. Stanley Allen knows plenty about that subject. 

Craig: But that, I think, was the most fun part. 

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: And like, yeah, all the, they, they, they do a live tour of a haunted house and go to a pumpkin patch at High Pike Farms.

That’s a funny coincidence. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Wasn’t High Pike the, an actor in, like, one of the last movies we just did? 

Todd: Yeah, in Hack-O-Lantern, the first one we did this season. High Pike. Yeah. Yeah. There’s a apparently a lot of little references to horror actors or horror l- B-movie actors or directors in here. I, I noticed a couple anyway, and then I went online and I saw a few more listed in the trivia.

Yeah, uh, they had these little packages that were so cool too, that are typical for this time. There’s the local policeman, Sergeant Barnhart or whatever, and he’s going to tell you that you need to be safe and inspect your candy. And he’s got these like, all these rules, right? Make sure that you wear bright clothing, have your flashlight, and then he talks about inspecting your candy so that you don’t end up eating a razor blade or a needle infected with the AIDS virus.

And as hilarious as that sounds now, this kind of shit people were literally saying. Like- Right … people would put razor blades in your candy. I 

Clip: know. 

Todd: Again, I’ve- we’ve said this a million times, but how in the world do you get a razor blade in an apple without anybody noticing? I just… The idea that people would randomly just do this shit, or put a needle infected with the AIDS virus 

Craig: Yeah 

Todd: Just to randomly fuck with kids.

Ugh. 

Craig: Yes, but those little segments were- 

Todd: Oh, they were so much fun … they were so 

Craig: funny. 

Todd: Even, even the ones that’s not, are not supposed to be funny, I was cracking up so hard. Like the horrible tragedy that had happened this year where this little Asian boy dressed up as G.I. Joe, wa- seven-year-old shows up at the doorstep of an Army veteran who has PTSD, and as soon as he answers the door he thinks he’s like a Viet Cong soldier and shoots him dead.

I couldn’t help but laugh when they showed the picture- I know … of this little kid in his outfit. 

Craig: And I had kind of forgotten about that. I guess there are some that are probably a little over the top. 

Todd: Oh, 

Craig: my God. But honestly, like, they, the, the people, the actors in these segments, these news segments play it so straight.

Yeah. Like, it could be real. Like, it see- Ugh … it seems, oh, that’s, that’s ridiculous. Surely they wouldn’t put that on the local news. But then you see the performances and you’re like, “Well, maybe.” 

Todd: Some of them, some of them for sure, although some of them I think are quite bad. You know, what I said a couple weeks ago when we were talking about the authenticity of somebody being interviewed, you know, in, in the last found footage movie we did.

Mm-hmm. And, and there were a few segments in here where I was like, “This actor c- is not convincingly being interviewed.” You know? Uh, when, when they interviewed, they said, “We, we’re, we need to make sure that we’re fair and balanced, and so amidst all the celebration and stuff we’re interviewing a local church group.”

And- 

Craig: Oh … 

Todd: they’re very much against Halloween and, and think that it’s the realm of Satan, and there’s a whole package on that as well. And God, the interview with that woman was god-awful. It, it didn’t, that didn’t work for me at all. 

Craig: And it was dumb. It was like a whole is Halloween Satanic? I guess this is, like, an anti-Halloween cult, right, or something?

Todd: Yeah, or, like, a local church group or something. 

Craig: Called Harvest or something. Yeah. And, and the woman’s like, “There are goblins in the candy.” What? What? But- 

Todd: People be praying all night at the Baptist church. I thought that would be something 

Craig: But it’s important. It is, isn’t it? 

Todd: It is kind of. I mean, it is. It, it does come back.

But I just thought it would come back in a more, I don’t know. I thought there’d be bits of it dripped here and there, like breadcrumbed out. The dentist interview with the local dentist who was doing trade in your candy for, uh- 

Craig: For money, and you would get a dollar for every pound of candy. Rip. 

Todd: Imagine.

Craig: Keep your candy. 

Todd: This guy. What is he gonna do with all that candy? That’s what I wanna know. 

Craig: Eat it. 

Todd: I, I didn’t find him- Obviously. Hand it out next Halloween. I didn’t find him to be very convincing as an actor either. He took me way out of it a little bit. I don’t know. I thought 

Clip: it was funny. 

Todd: I mean… 

Craig: See, because when you put…

I love it when you put non-actors, just random people off the street, I love when you put them on camera and they have something to do, because they don’t have any idea what they’re doing. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: And so it, it always looks awkward and silly. And- Yeah … so I think, I, I thought it was funny. 

Todd: Okay. 

Craig: Oh. I, I, I mean, yeah, silly, but I don’t know.

I thought… I, I mean, the whole idea of it is stupid but again, these were the things that we were being told. Like, we were legit told to watch out for the razors. We were, like, “Don’t eat candy, your teeth will fall out.” Like, ugh. 

Todd: There was the big satanic panic as well, and later on- Yes. 

Craig: For real? 

Todd: Later on that g- there’s a package that gets cut in about that.

You know, they’re talking about, uh, local Satan w- devil worshipers and things like that, satanic activity happening lately. They talk about it so offhandedly like it’s just common knowledge, everybody knows it’s happening, but none of this shit was really happening. But God, it was on the news all the time, and talk shows, and- 

Craig: All the time 

Todd: Oh, it was crazy.

I also loved the commercial about the… It was, like, from the oil company, and they were like, “We’re helping to clean up the environment. Clean up the air.” That was hilarious. “Clean up the water from unavoidable accidental oil spills.” 

Craig: We’re all in this together. That was funny. Unavoidable accidental oil spills.

That was hilarious. I did like that one. I, well, I also liked how, again, this was good production on their part. The commercials early on are family-focused and family-friendly. Like, during the news segment- 

Todd: Hmm … 

Craig: it’s kids Halloween stuff. Right at the very end of the news, there’s a trailer for a movie called, like, Doggone It.

Todd: Uh-huh. 

Craig: I, I, I don’t even remember what it was about, but it was very dog-centric, but like- Yeah … a silly rom-com with a dog, very family. But then as the night goes on, then it starts getting into the 900 numbers. 

Todd: Strip club. 

Craig: And, right. Uh, which, which again, gave it some level of authenticity. But anyway, they sign off, unfortunately.

They reappear very briefly at the end. But they sign off, and then the special begins, and it’s, it’s advertised as, like, the first ever live call-in seance, and they talk about the- they’re gonna be in this house, and it’s got some history with, like, a, this… It’s, like, the spirit board murders or something happened there.

Todd: Mm. 

Craig: And we’re introduced to the producer, Veronica- 

Todd: Oh my 

Craig: God … who is basically just, like, on a headset in a van for most- Yeah … of the movie. But she shows up with a chainsaw Again, these little Little things? Yeah, these little production moments were so funny to me because I could see you doing this. 

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Like, I could see you on the mic walking up to the van with a producer coming out with the chainsaw and you being like, “Veronica, what are you doing?” Like, this is so you.

Todd: I take that as a compliment.

Authentically dorky. You know, trying to spice up something to make it sound interesting, I l- I was a journalist, you know that. I worked for radio more than I worked for television, but I worked at a radio station. We did a live call-in show called Area Scene. Is that still going on, by the way? Do you know?

Craig: I don’t know. 

Todd: And down the road in Marceline, Missouri, I think I might have talked about this here before. I’ll talk about it again. We- we’ve got 500 episodes. Probably you haven’t heard this. The, down the road in Marceline, Missouri was Disney’s hometown, and they were pr- premiering a new VHS tape of Disney cartoons, like the Mickey cartoons that had not been re-released for like 20 years called Spirit of Mickey.

And they decided, the Disney company did this whole thing at the town where they were, you know, gonna have a little parade. They were gonna premiere it in the, the theater where Walt himself and with his brothers used to go see movies and all that stuff. And they had invited journalists down the day before to like walk them through how they could cover it, and they had vans there to take us from one event location to another on the day so that we could get everything in we needed to.

And we had the bright idea, we’re like, “Look, this time actually overlaps with our normal call-in show, so let’s make this a live thing.” So you know, I just had a cell phone and I was frantically trying to find people to interview and, you know, I kinda had to set up people the day before during that, that media tour that like, “Oh, this guy who’s there was like an expert.

He was doing like a biography on Walt Disney,” so that’s why he was there. And I was like, “Oh, maybe can I interview you tomorrow while we’re on the bus to tell me some facts about Walt Disney and la-di-da-di-da?” So I kinda had to figure out a whole bunch of shit just like this to fill the time and make it interesting, you know, as we were going live.

And you’re right, this is the kind of stuff you have to do, honestly. 

Craig: Well, right. And when I say it’s right up your alley, like especially like what this guy is doing is he’s doing a feature like a Halloween special on a local, like a famous local landmark. Like it’s- Right … this old spooky house where these murders took place.

Like you would eat this up and have great fun with it. 

Todd: Oh, yeah 

Craig: This guy’s kind of an asshole. 

Todd: He is. 

Craig: Like, not even- It’s- … it’s not even kind of. Like, he is an asshole. 

Todd: It’s so funny how much of an asshole he comes across, and they establish it really early, don’t they? Because they’ve got a little crowd of costumed revelers outside the front of this house, and he’s just doing filler.

You know, just interviewing each of them. “Do you believe in ghosts? Do you believe in ghosts?” And every time somebody responds anything like, “I believe in ghosts,” he’s almost making fun of them. Like, “Really?” 

Craig: Oh, 

Todd: yeah. “So that’s what you believe, 

Craig: huh?” Super condescending, right. My, my favorite then, but he goes, like he’s super…

Especially there’s one girl who’s kind of bubbly and nervous, and he’s like super condescending to her and telling her to calm down and stuff. And then right after that he’s like, “Let’s go to the vampire.” And he goes to this guy dressed as a vampire in the back who looks horrified, and he’s like, “What do you think about these murders?”

And the vampire’s like, “Somebody died in this house?”

And just looks horrified. And the guy’s like, “Uh, yeah,” and just walks away. Oh, this is gonna- Oh, boy. I thought that was hilarious. And, and then they give a bunch of exposition that ultimately, who cares? But I guess, what? Uh. There was a family that lived there, and there was an evil Ouija board and- 

Todd: Yeah. Boy found it, got obsessed with it, and it told him to do all these horrible things like steal and vandalize and whatever, and even commit murder.

And he ended up, like, axing his parents or something like that. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And then the house had been boarded up for 20 years, and now they’re opening it up again for the first time 

Craig: What happened to him? Did they say? I don’t remember 

Todd: I don’t remember. I honestly don’t. 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. 

Todd: Who cares? It doesn’t really matter.

He disappeared. Yeah, whatever. 

Craig: Because then Claire and Lewis arrive. Oh. Now these are, these are obvi- They’re supposed to be, like, the local Warrens, I think. Yeah. Or, like, the regional… Like, they’re like psychic investigators or whatever. Mm-hmm. And, and she’s the psychic, and he, I guess, is just her partner, and then their third partner is their cat, which is so funny.

Todd: The psychic cat. 

Craig: The cat is psychic, too. Oh, man. And it helps her.

Oh, gosh. I don’t- Yeah … find that really any more or less believable than ch- than she’s psychic. Like, if, Yeah … if she’s psychic, why can’t the cat be psychic? Sure. Exactly. Why not? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But it’s, but it’s hilarious. She can communicate with spirits, and Frank the butthole guy- Right … tells her she has a very pretty pussy.

Todd: I know. Oh, there are little moments like this. 

Craig: As much as this guy is an asshole, like you knew this guy too, right? Like I’m sure- Yeah … at some point, you know, working in production, you’ve known this guy. 

Todd: Oh, 

Craig: yeah. I am guessing this guy, like he was probably drunk, would be my guess. 

Todd: Right. He was probably pulled out of a, another job he’d rather be doing- Uh-huh

to do this instead. Yeah. He’s probably not getting paid extra for it. He’s bitter to just be there, honestly. I know, and I knew this guy, 100%. I’m not gonna name names, but- I literally knew a guy just like this. 

Craig: But, but basically this is when they start doing, you know, they’re gonna tour the house or whatever, and before they even go inside, there’s some disturbance.

Somebody shouts out something. 

Todd: There’s a little flicker of something in the window, and he’s like, “Oh my God, did you guys see that? There was something in the window. Okay, we’re gonna cut to a commercial, and we’ll be right back.” And by, by the way, we’re 40 minutes into the movie right, by now. We’re all, uh, yeah, like halfway through And finally we’re getting to what is ostensibly the main narrative or the thing that we’re all looking forward to, because this is the thing I thought shit was gonna go down.

And it’s interesting because we go through a series of events in the house, and after every event, we cut to commercial. So it doesn’t really build much tension because just like TV was, as soon as, as soon as some tension is built, you get interrupted- Mm-hmm … to these lame-ass commercials, and then you come back, and because it’s live, like five minutes have passed, and they’ve sort of sorted what just happened, and now everything’s kind of back to baseline in, in some way.

So it’s got very little time, because of its structure, to really have a satisfying horror narrative, I think- 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: you know, that we’re emotionally engaged with. 

Craig: Even worse, because it’s live television, any time something exciting happens, they immediately cut to commercial. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: that’s 

Todd: what I mean. 

Craig: So, so every time you come back it’s like, “Hey, something crazy happened off-camera.”

Todd: Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. “And here’s the result,” you know? “Oh, okay. Thanks.” Yeah. So we, we missed all the really good stuff. 

Craig: Pretty much, but that, but you- you’re right. Like, it feels, I don’t know what the right word is, stagey or episodic. Like it’s just- Yeah … one, like one setup to the next, but disjointed, so yeah, it cuts the tension.

And it doesn’t… I mean, I guess the stakes are ultimately kind of high. They go… It’s also silly, but they, they go in and he’s like, “What are you feeling?” And she’s like, “I need a minute.” He’s like, “What do you m- mean, what do you mean you need a minute? It’s a live show. How you feeling right now?” And she’s like, “Oh, I feel something.

Uh, is it bad?” 

Clip: There’s someone here. It’s ter- it’s terrible feeling. It’s terrible. It’s overwhelming. It’s overwhelming and, and terrible. It’s horrible. It’s full of malevolence. It, it’s not Donald It’s not his parents. Oh my, oh my. It is, it’s pure evil Now, Claire, Claire, are we in danger here? We’re not safe And maybe that will translate to some good ratings.

Todd: It’s, he’s pushing it along, you know, ’cause they’ve got, they’ve got- He’s trying 

Craig: his hardest- 

Todd: Mm-hmm … to push it 

Craig: along because it’s boring, but- 

Todd: And he’s trying to kinda play up the things that otherwise, you know, aren’t really happening. The cat runs upstairs and the, those two follow the cat, and now we get introduced to Father Joseph Matheson, a respected Catholic priest and exorcist.

And he’s a weird dude. He’s just, like, nervous and strange and- He 

Craig: seems very anxious, right? 

Todd: Yeah. He says he’s never… He admits, actually, he’s never actually performed an exorcism. You, you know, it’s not like he’s specially trained in exorcism. It’s just a, like, one of the things in their toolbox that they all kind of, priests all need to be able to deal with eventually.

And, you know, then they go to commercial, and then after the commercial it’s like, he’s like, “We’re back and we found some proof.” Like, upstairs the wo- they, they believe they found some definitive recordings, EVP recordings in the house. Well, okay. So last thing we knew, they were running upstairs after the cat.

Now, again, after just five minutes of commercials, we’re in a spot where they have recorded something off-camera, and they’re playing it back where he asks the house if there’s anything there, and there’s a voice that says, “Leave.” It’s just kind of a mess. 

Craig: It’s not super clear. 

Todd: Yeah. Again, it’s like he’s like, “Uh, did you hear that?

Did you hear that?” Frank’s like, “Eh, play it again.” Sure. And then they’re like, “Did you hear it?” He’s like, “I heard something.” And then he’s like, “Okay, yeah. Well, I got to admit I definitely heard ‘leave.'” Like, again, he’s just trying to move it along. And then they decide they’re gonna go to the basement, right?

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: And as they’re walking to the basement, there’s a noise back from where they were. 

Craig: Cut to commercial. 

Todd: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They go back, the tape’s been smashed. Cut to commercial, and now they’re back, and it’s almost like that didn’t even happen. They’re already set up for a live call-in seance. 

Craig: And the s- the psychic guy is kinda pissed.

He’s like, “Who’s gonna pay for my stuff?” And Frank’s like, “I, I told you we’ll talk about it later.” 

Todd: Exactly. And this is, is so lame, this, this seance. There’s just some candles on a table and they’re just sitting around and they’ve got the, the call-in number at the bottom of the screen. But again, this is exactly how I would expect this to actually go.

They’re having a hard time getting anybody to call in, and everybody who calls in is just, like, a jokester. The first guy who calls in is like, “Iron Maiden rules!” 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And the second person who calls in is like, “Hey, can you reach my grandmother and tell her she’s a bitch?”

They never get anybody who actually asks a question. 

Craig: No, but one of them, like, doesn’t somebody call and s- say you’re going to hell or- 

Todd: Yeah, it’s like those, it’s like those anti-Halloween people, yeah, calling in. 

Craig: Yeah. And there was a little disturbance outside the house. Somebody was heckling or something outside the house, too.

So there’s been two heckling things at this- Yeah … at this point. 

Todd: That’s true. 

Craig: Oh, God. Who, who cares? 

Todd: They, then they hear the cat meow and they leap up and, oh God, there, there’s the cat. Cut to commercial, right? And then as soon as you get back from the commercial, guess what’s happened? Cat cat is a bloody mess on the floor.

And, 

Craig: and the camera cuts to it, and the host is like, “Oh God, don’t, don’t show that. Don’t sh-

It’s… And I don’t know, it, it looks like it kind of exploded or somebody hit it with a- … comically large sledgehammer or something. 

Todd: It really is just a splat. But the Burgers are understandably freaking out, and they run out and we never see them again. And it cuts to the… You know, ’cause they don’t know what to do, so they cut to the producer and she’s like, “I really want to apologize for what you guys have seen tonight.

While we get things sorted, why don’t you watch this, uh, video from our local dentist?” The, the candy program. And again, for the second time- 

Craig: Doesn’t she also… Yeah, we, we do see the dentist one again, but doesn’t she also have a package about devil worshiping? 

Todd: Yeah, that comes next. Mm. 

Craig: And animal mutilation?

Yeah. Like, was that just filler? Were they plan- I don’t remember if they were plan- it just- 

Todd: I think it’s one of the things they planned to, to do to fill time, ’cause they knew shit wasn’t gonna happen in the house. But then once we g- once we see our thing on devil worship, we come back and now it’s just Frank and this, and this priest.

And Frank is like, “Perform an exorcism. You gotta perform an exorcism. Perform an exorcism.” And he’s like, “That’s what you’re here for.” And the priest doesn’t wanna do it, and he’s like, “You need to do it. That’s what you’re here for.” I mean, he’s really pushing him. Finally he’s like, “Okay, fine. I’ll perform an exorcism.”

He’s like, “That’s great. Now, when we come back from these commercials, Father Matheson will perform an exorcism.” But one of those ads is for the Burgers’ book, and that’s kinda fun That couple’s book 

Craig: Oh, yeah 

Todd: Yeah. Again, that Lorraine Warren. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: Then they’re back in the basement, and it’s just him and the guy, and he says to, asks him to start the exorcism, and he gets, like, from, “In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

Wait, what was that? There’s a noise, and it’s upstairs. And so they run up the stairs and they find they’re locked in the basement. And then the producer says they’re gonna send another camera in, and then they go to commercial. I 

Clip: know. 

Todd: And then when they come back, it’s the producer. She’s like, “All right, we’re gonna send our intern.”

I love that bit. We’re gonna send our intern in with a ca- like, you know what’s gonna happen now, right? And we get the camera’s eye view from the intern as he walks through, and all you can hear is just this very nervous breathing. And then- 

Craig: And he, he gets killed, doesn’t he, right away? 

Todd: Yeah. Like, the camera kind of s- swipes over, and you see this sort of, this flash of, like, the lower half of a person with an ax who suddenly comes out of a room and, and axes him.

Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah, and then the camera goes down, and then cut back to Frank and the priest, and the priest says he’s just an actor. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Like, they had hired this guy, and he, and he pees his pants. 

Todd: They really showed us that, didn’t they? 

Craig: Oh, 

Todd: yeah. Yeah. 

Craig: And the door opens, I guess. 

Todd: Uh-huh. 

Craig: And Frank, I thought, got hit with an ax.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And then it goes to commercial, and then it, right in the middle of the commercial it goes, it cuts to technical difficulties, and then static, and then it comes back. It’s, it’s a different point of view. It’s, it’s, it’s not their cameraman. Somebody else is behind the camera, ’cause it, like the angles are all askew and stuff.

But, like, Frank is tied up with his mouth taped closed, and all of the guests that they’ve had all night are there and dead. Uh. And it turns out it was those religious cultists from- Uh-huh … earlier. The ones who were, like, anti… The ones who were all gathering at the church for their prayer thing or whatever.

They’re here, and they kill them all. 

Todd: God told them to do it, I guess. He cuts- they cut out Frank’s tongue. It’s the only real on-screen anything that we see happen. You know, that’s, that’s, like, a little disturbing bit, and then it goes to static again, and then it cuts back in to what must be weeks later. I think it’s, like, two weeks later or something, and it’s the newscasters again.

It’s, like, their m- nightly broadcast, but this is all normal now, and the guy is just like, “Yeah, so, uh, s- it’s been two weeks, and we d- we, we’re all broken up and shaken by what happened. Nobody knows where Frank is or, or those other people, and investigations are continuing.” So that tells you, right, that whatever that little clip was of Frank and the bodies- 

Craig: Uh-huh

Todd: it’s like that’s cut in by someone else, right? Like- 

Craig: Huh. I didn’t think about that … 

Todd: like, we’re watching the videotape that belongs to maybe the, the murderers. 

Craig: I didn’t think about that. I don’t know. ‘

Todd: Cause otherwise- 

Craig: Well, I… No, I, I don’t, I don’t know, because I feel like the crazy woman- Who’s either right in front of the camera or right behind the camera.

Right before it cuts out, she says, “From all your friends at WNUF, Happy Halloween,” and then it cuts to static. But I guess you’re saying if they don’t know where they are, then they must not have seen that footage. 

Todd: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. 

Craig: Hmm. I don’t know. 

Todd: Like in what- I’ll 

Craig: have to think about it … it, 

Todd: I thought ’cause it was surrounded by the static, right?

So it’s almost like, uh, the tape got- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: like something got cut in and- Could be. Yeah. And then there’s, it’s so cute, right? A- again, kind of making fun of the, of the news. So he says this real somber thing, and then it kinda moves over to her, and she’s like all cheer. It’s like, “Well, the holidays are coming up soon.”

Yeah. 

Craig: Christmas is right around the corner. 

Todd: And cut. 

Craig: And then the tape cuts to static, yeah, and that’s the end. I don’t even remember, were there credits? I don’t even remember if there were credits or not. 

Todd: No credits. Not at all. 

Craig: It, it was cool. Like- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: as a, like, as a project, I think it’s really cool. And I think that they set out to do something very specific, and I think they executed it really, really well.

I think they- Yes … were really successful in what they set out to do. 

Todd: I agree. 

Craig: It is not a sit-down, like- I don’t know, like- Get out your popcorn. 

Todd: It’s not one of 

Craig: those … yeah, I mean, I, like, if, if you want to have the kind of movie night where you put on a movie just to kind of have on while you talk, then, then yes.

But if you all wanna r- like, really sit down and watch a good movie, I wouldn’t recommend this. It, it, it- Yeah … ultimately, g- if you’re just sitting down and watching it start to finish, ultimately, I- it feels tedious. But I think in bits and pieces, it’s interesting and, and cool to look at. So again, like I said from the beginning, it just kind of depends on how you approach it.

I like it as an oddity. 

Clip: Yes. 

Craig: Um, and I would recommend it, I would very much recommend it in that capacity, especially for people who are familiar with that era. I think it’s really interesting and nostalgic and, and cool in that way. But it’s not, I don’t know, it’s, it, it’s, it’s not a super exciting experience.

Todd: It’s not. And, and it’s not really That creepy. I mean, it’s not scary. It just can’t be. I just don’t think that, you know, the narrative, it doesn’t really- it’s not enough, and it’s broken up too much. And ultimately, like you said, it’s really good for what it is, of what it’s trying to be, but it’s not like a movie you’re gonna sit down and it’s gonna freak you out and, you know.

But it, but it’s, it’s, you know, it’s got the Halloween vibes big time. 

Craig: It does. Mm-hmm. 

Todd: And there’s a sequel. Did you know that? 

Craig: I did. I, I, all, all I know about it is that it’s more geared towards the ’90s, so- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: similar in concept, but just more ’90s. But yeah, that’s all I know about it. 

Todd: Apparently, the director decided to do that after he had finished Call Girl of Cthulhu Which I think we need to put on our list.

But, uh, yeah, he did that and then, uh, this one, the sequel’s called Out There Halloween Mega Tape, and supposedly it’s better. The response, the reviews say that it was, uh, d- okay, I, I’m just reading right here, Dread Central and National Scene. National Scene commented that, “It was much more polished than its predecessor,” and that it was, “structurally innovative and deeply re-watchable.”

Craig: Oh, cool. 

Todd: Yeah, so it kinda makes me wanna see it. Maybe next Halloween we throw this one on the list, you know? 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Maybe- 

Craig: I would like to. 

Todd: Apparently that one follows, it’s a little bit more of like a Ricky Lake type or Jerry Springer type show, and they’re doing a live investigation of some alien encounters.

Craig: Oh, I love that. 

Todd: It sound all ve- all very ’90s, yeah, so could be f- could be fun. So l- let’s do that one next, next, uh, year. 

Craig: Okay. Sounds good. 

Todd: Well, guys, thank you so much. We’re still knee-deep in the Halloween season. Uh, whatever you are going out there to do, whatever you’re dressing up as, whatever other movies you’d like us to check out, drop us a line.

You know the drill, just Two Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast is all you have to Google. ChainsawHorror.com is our website. You can find our Facebook page, you can find our, our Instagram. Uh, you can also find our Patreon, Patreon.com/ChainsawPodcast for just five bucks a month. Chat with us back there. Get in our book club.

We’re doing Halloween books this year. It’s not too late to get in on the next one that we’re doing. It’s really, really fun. We chat about those, uh, every couple of weeks on a live Zoom call. And, uh, yeah, book clubs are fun. Reading’s good. Reading’s good. Don’t just watch. Read. But you can also listen to our uncut, unedited, uh, recordings that have a lot of personal stuff that we leave out, in case that interests you, and all the other things that just don’t make the cut here, and you get that before the actual episode comes out.

So it’s just a little something extra we do for our patrons, as well as minisodes. We got a whole… We’ve got over 60 minisodes backlogged up there on the site. Yeah, it’s a lot. I didn’t 

Craig: know that. 

Todd: And this Halloween we’ve been doing a bunch as well. We’ve been doing, uh, classic Halloween- 

Craig: Specials … 

Todd: cartoon specials, yeah.

It’s been our theme this year. So Patreon.com/ChainsawPodcast gives you access to all of that, plus our undying gratitude. Until next time, I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We kick off Halloween week two with 1998’s Halloween H20 (“H2O”), the franchise revival that leans hard into the late-’90s slasher wave (Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer) and largely ignores the earlier sequels.

We talk about why the movie feels so different from Carpenter’s first two films—more jump scares, more comedy, and a less-mystical Michael Myers—while still appreciating Jamie Lee Curtis’s return as a traumatized, alcoholic Laurie Strode living under an assumed name.

We break down the opening with Loomis’s nurse, the tense rest-stop sequence, the teen cast (Josh Hartnett, Michelle Williams), the Janet Leigh cameos and Psycho nods, and the finale Laurie vs. Michael, including the controversial “definitive” ending and how the next sequel undermines it.

Episode 509, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: Halloween week two, baby. 

Craig: I know. I’m excited. 

Todd: Yeah, me too, man. You chose this week, and we chose Halloween H2O. Or as I learned when I was looking it up online, it’s H2 zero. Get it? ‘Cause it’s 20 years later. This came out in 1998.

You know, when the original Halloween came out in 1978. This one was, like, a pretty big revival of the franchise, which I think, uh, had ended with, what, the fifth one? Was it The Return of Michael Myers? I think- Sixth one. Oh my God. 

Craig: I think it was The Curse of Michael Myers, I think. Yeah. 

Todd: Was that even in the ’90s?

Maybe very early ’90s, wasn’t it? 

Craig: I don’t remember. 

Todd: But this one without… N- none of the rest of them except for, I think, the first two, right, involved John Carpenter? 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: Obviously, the third one involved him. He produced it and, uh, did he direct that, too? I don’t think he did. No, 

Craig: he didn’t 

Todd: direct 

Craig: it. No. Mm-mm.

Todd: He produced it, but they were planning on going on, like, a, you know, Halloween is the theme of the series, but they were gonna have more of an anthology bit. And then it turned into, like, the people just wanted to see Michael Myers again, so then they just made, like, what, three more, I guess. And then they laid it to rest, ’cause it was kinda getting stale, I think, and a little weird.

Craig: And it wasn’t doing well. The last ones hadn’t done well. 

Todd: Yeah. You know, Michael Myers, he’s a guy who, for me, I was never that into. I’m more into him now as an adult than I was as a kid. As a kid, I didn’t see the hook. You know what I mean? Jason had his hockey mask. His hockey mask and his machete. I mean, technically he didn’t always, but you know, when I was a kid.

Jason had his hockey mask and his machete, and he’s this brutal, hulking guy who just appe- I mean, you know, there’s a whole language to that film that ended up developing, and it went in some fun directions and played with it a little bit, but it was mostly the same thing over and over and over again, which is why I’ve said before I was never really that into Jason, either.

Michael Myers was even less because for me, it’s just a guy in a white mask. Even less of a hook. I don’t know. It just didn’t have the pull that Jason did. I didn’t really get the fascination with him. I saw the first one. I thought it was scary. Had no interest in seeing all the rest of them. Now as an adult, I see it psychologically different, and I have a strong appreciation for the first movie.

First movie’s just a work of art. John Carpenter’s so skilled at creating and maintaining tension there, and there is a language in that film, and I think the one after it- That he developed that I think just kinda got lost through the rest of the series. And you know what, God, now s- then, uh, H2O came in 1998, and we were all like, “Oh, the return of Michael Myers.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a Michael Myers movie.” I know I saw this. I don’t think I went to this theater to see it. I think I saw it when my friends rented it. I was in college. And, eh, I thought it was interesting. It was very much in the flavor of all of the slasher movies that were becoming revived at this time, right?

Scream, and I Know What You Did Last Summer. It was just the late ’90s became horror revival slasher time. And so at the time I was excited to see this, but I remember watching it and I remember just being eh about it. And all these years later, I hadn’t seen it again, I didn’t really remember why I was so eh about it.

So, uh, it was fun to watch it again and be able to discuss it this time around. What’s your history with it, Craig? 

Craig: Yeah, I was excited about it, too. It was, it- I think that it was really smart to jump on that Scream bandwagon because the plot or, you know, or, or the characters fit so easily into that mold.

I mean, Scream really is, is, uh, very much like Halloween, where you’ve got a quiet masked figure stalking teenagers. 

Todd: True. 

Craig: And those… And, and it was wildly popular and made tons and tons of money, and they were making sequels, and they were doing well, and I think it was really smart Jamie Lee Curtis, you know, she’s spoken about it differently.

Of course, when it came out she was very positive about it. Well, she was promoting it. But in later interviews she’s less kind in talking about it, and says it would’ve been better if she would’ve produced it. And it really sounds like she, uh, she’s said that she wanted to come back and do it at the 20-year mark as a gift to her fans.

She’s also said outright that she did it for the money, so whatever. I’m sure it was some combo. Both, I guess. Right, exactly, right? Like- 

Todd: A gift to my fans with a big fat paycheck. 

Craig: Yeah, sure. Why not? Who cares? But, but she was willing to come back. The last ones hadn’t done very well. I saw them and I didn’t…

They were fine, but they were… I, I felt like they were trying too hard with the world building. Like- 

Clip: Oh … 

Craig: it, it, it became that Michael Myers was the conduit for some cult, like some ancient Celtic cult or something. And- 

Todd: I didn’t even get that far … 

Craig: it was this centuries-long thing, and it had all been building up to him, and they were all very invested in him, and, ugh, it was a whole big, it was a whole big cult thing.

Todd: Sounds, sounds like some serious retconning going on there. 

Craig: Yeah. Well, and they killed Laurie off offscreen, and like gave her a daughter, and then they killed off the daughter, and then there was a granddaughter. And like there were things that I l- there were things that I liked about it, like Danielle Harris wa- starred in two of them, I think.

I don’t remember if she was Laurie’s daughter or granddaughter, I don’t remember. But I like her, and they were decent, fine slasher movies, but they were getting a little silly. So when Jamie Lee wanted to come back, that’s what I was excited about For whatever reason, I don’t agree with you that Michael Myers is just a guy in a white mask and doesn’t have his thing.

I think there’s a l- a lot going on with him. 

Todd: Oh, no, no, no. L- let me correct that. I, I said wh- when I was a kid- You felt that way … that was what I thought. Yeah. Nowadays as an adult, I have a stronger appreciation for him. I see what makes him special now. 

Craig: Well, I, to be fair, w- much like you, I was not as into him as I was the others.

I still watched the movies, but I wasn’t as excited about them as I was, you know, when sequels to those other franchises would come out. But this one I was excited because Jamie Lee Curtis was coming back, and at that point in time she was doing pretty well. You know, her- Yeah … she was doing very well and, and she had successfully branched out into things beyond horror and was doing action movies and dramas and thrillers and- 

Todd: True Lies I think was just a couple years before this.

That was huge. 

Craig: I loved that movie. Um- Me too … and- 

Todd: It hasn’t aged well, but let me tell you, it was a fun movie . 

Craig: Yeah, I loved it. A- and I think that she really had kind of established herself as a, not serious, but you know, a, a serious actress with some range, and I thought it was cool that she was coming back.

I didn’t think that she ever would And I remember liking it. I mean, it’s, it may as well be a Scream sequel really. I mean, even if you just look at, if you look at the, the poster, there for, like, from the time Scream did it, for the next 10 years, every single one of these movie posters looked exactly the same.

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: Um, it was, it was just your, your principal characters’ faces- 

Todd: Mm … 

Craig: you know, in, in some sort of, on some sort of dark background, in some- All looking like cool- In, in some configuration. Right. Right. And it looks exactly like that, and, and it’s got a major Scream influence. But I thought it worked well, and it’s got…

There’s a lot of cool stuff about it. This is what… I was trying to think about it, and I didn’t take the time to do any kind of investigation, but would you… Do you think this is kind of the first legacy sequel, where- 

Todd: Ever? 

Craig: Yeah. Well, I don’t know. Where, I mean, where you take a property that was successful that had been gone for a long time, in this case 20 years, and then you bring back the main actress.

I just couldn’t think of any time that it had happened. It happens all the time now. 

Todd: Well, you kind of have New Nightmare. I mean, it’s not like this movie- 

Craig: Yeah, New Nightmare was before this, I guess. Right before. 

Todd: Y- Little- Yeah, right before. And it kind of falls in the same vein. And I guess when you call it a legacy sequel, it’s one that kind of goes back to the source, right?

Craig: Mm-hmm. ‘

Todd: Cause, ’cause New Nightmare kind of went back to the source, kind of forgot. It didn’t disallow all the movies that came in between, but it more or less just referenced the first couple or first one. And this one in the same vein, it seems like it’s referencing the second one. Like, it’s looked like more or less a sequel to the second one.

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: While maybe leaving a little room for the others as well. 

Craig: Yeah, it basically ignores all the others. She still says, Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode, but she’s living and working under an assumed name. And the only person I think who knows the truth is her teenage son. She says in this movie that she staged her death.

So the fact that she had died in the earlier, that, that could be explained by the fact that she staged her death, but- Right … you know, they were planning a sequel anyway, but it was gonna be direct to video, and it didn’t have anything to do with Laurie Strode. But then Jamie Lee wanted to come back, and of course they jumped at that opportunity and wrote scripts with her in them and s- and took bits and pieces from the previous scripts.

So it went through all kinds of incarnations, but In one of those incarnations, they did have a scene where a student in Jamie Lee Curtis’s class would do a report on the Halloween murders, like a, ugh, a book report or something. 

Todd: Wow. 

Craig: And it would tell the whole story of Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, and up to…

And it would say, “You know, but Laurie Strode faked her death and is presumably living under an assumed name somewhere else, but her daughter died.” And that would be when Laurie, Jamie Lee Curtis, would find that out and would run to the bathroom and have an emotional breakdown, ’cause she just found out that her daughter died.

They decided to cut all that, and I think that that was probably the wisest choice. Like- It’s 

Todd: probably going a little too far, you know, into 

Craig: the- Right. Just let it go … like trying to make it fit. 

Todd: Let’s just… Yeah. Yeah. They, they already did more than they needed to, honestly. 

Craig: It’s interesting because that kind of sets into motion what will become one of the most interesting franchise timelines.

Th- because this, this franchise is like a multiverse. Like- 

Todd: Yeah. It is … 

Craig: there are so many, you know, Michael Myers, I guess, except for Part III, which doesn’t really have anything to do with him, but he’s in it because in that movie, Halloween and Halloween II are movies that exist in the world. 

Todd: Oh, that’s true.

Craig: But they’re just movies. So anyway, Michael Myers is the through line. But you’ve got like the f- the continuity of one through VI, excluding III. But then this one, which is VII: H2O, ignores that. So then you’ve got a new timeline that’s just I, II, VII, VIII. And then you’ve got the whole, what’s the tril- the Rob Zombie timeline, which is total remake.

That’s 

Todd: II, right? 

Craig: There’s two of those, and then you’ve got the Da- uh, God, what’s the guy’s name? David Allen… I can’t remember. Re- the new ones. The guy that did… Yeah, the new ones. The, the ones that started in 2018, and those are just Carpenter’s original and then boom, boom, boom, those three. So there’s like three or four different timelines.

And honestly, one of the things that I liked about this movie, and spoilers obviously, I thought that this was cool that it came back to the original characters after 20 years and ended it definitively, and I really kind of wish that it had just stopped there. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Especially ’cause the next one is terrible.

Ah. I, I, I kinda doubt if we’ll ever get around to doing that one, but the next one’s the Michael Myers reality show- 

Todd: Oh … 

Craig: se- sequel. Oh my God. 

Todd: I don’t even know what that one is. 

Craig: It’s bad. And they kill Laurie off super unceremoniously in the first five minutes. I, I guess, I don’t know, Jamie… I, I’ve been reading conflicting things.

Like, she said she would only come back if they killed Michael off, but the producer, he specifically wanted it in the contract that Michael couldn’t be killed off because he wanted to continue producing sequels, as he ultimately would. And I don’t know, I guess they compromised and they were gonna shoot two different endings or, or they were gonna shoot the ending where Michael dies, but there was a loophole that it ultimately really wasn’t gonna be him.

And I… Like, I’ve heard different accounts, like Jamie Lee Curtis knew that from the beginning that there was gonna be a loophole, or that she didn’t and thought that this was gonna be it. I mean, ultimately we know that it, it’s not. It, it goes on, even this timeline goes on for one more movie. But there’s, there’s a little part of me that kinda thinks, “Gosh, if it had just ended here, that would’ve been a nice…”

I don’t know. I kinda like… Anyway, I’m ju- I’m getting ahead of myself clearly. 

Todd: Nah, it’s okay. 

Craig: All that to say I actually really like this movie and I still do. It’s a definite throwback to that very specific time. 

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: Um, but I liked those movies then and I still do. I, I, I like, I still like them, so. 

Todd: It is so ’90s slasher.

It’s just taking… And I guess that is one thing that, one criticism I have of the movie, and I’m gonna point out specific parts of it, and it’s not really a criticism because you can do whatever you want. You don’t have to stay true to the original director’s cin- cinematography style or the way that his pacing or anything like that.

You’re gonna make a sequel, shake it up. It’s fine. So it’s not really a criticism per se. It’s just a glaring difference. If you’re a big fan of the first two movies, this movie’s gonna feel a bit jarring. And then again, also the subsequent sequels are gonna feel jarring too. You know? So what am I trying to say?

I, I just, I just think it’s interesting how different these movies are in the way that they really are geared to appeal to that particular ’90s aesthetic as far as pacing, as far as the characters go, as far as the cinematography goes, and everything that we were so engrossed in at that time. The director, Stephen Miner, has been, you know, directing horror movies since, uh, the second Friday the 13th.

Mm-hmm. In fact, that was his first dir- It was his directorial debut. Friday the Th- 13th Part II, Friday the 13th Part III, House, which we love. I love that movie. 

Mm-hmm. 

We did Warlock. That was goofy fun, but was a big one for us when we were kids, and another one of those ’90s, well, late ’80s I guess, horror movies.

Really bridged the gap there that we watched on t- a lot. And then he went off to do a bunch of other things that weren’t horror at all. He did, like, Forever Young with Mel Gibson- 

Mm-hmm … 

which I remember being really nice, but I haven’t seen it in the longest time. TV with The Practice and Dawson’s Creek, all this stuff, and then came back to horror with this, and then immediately followed it the next year with Lake Placid, which we also did.

I think that was our Betty White tribute, right? 

Mm-hmm. 

S- so, so yeah, this director is, is, uh, well-seasoned in horror and other things. It was, uh, it was probably a smart thing to have him be the guy to come back and do, and do this one. I think it was pretty successful, right? 

Craig: I think so. I don’t remember. I didn’t look up the numbers, but I do think it did pretty well and, and I’m not surprised.

Like I said, those movies were really popular and Kevin Williamson, the guy who, you know, was one of the main writers on the first couple of Screams, worked on this. He ended up only getting a production credit, a, a producer credit because I guess the writing rules that time said you had to have been credited for at least a third of it to get a gr- a writing credit.

Ev- So even though he worked on it, and his influence I think really comes through. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting because it is so ’90s, but it’s also interesting to hear you say how different it is from the original because I just feel like Scream felt like such a throwback to specifically Halloween, that type of stalker.

You know, I, I think of, I think of Ghostface inexplicably lingering around public spaces. Like I re- Yeah. I, I remember- Just standing there … you 

Todd: know, like- Nobody notices him except that one character, and then he’s gone. 

Craig: Right. Right. I mean, so far as I think at one point in time he’s, like, in the video store with them, and like really nobody notices.

I feel like that came from Halloween. So this almost, I don’t know, it just feel, it, to me it feels like a natural progression. Yeah, it’s got, you know, uh, Scream modernized it, I guess, and it definitely had a more modern aesthetic, and, and this definitely leans heavy into that aesthetic. But it just, I don’t know, the vibe of it fits so comfortably into what it is.

And, and it is, and it is very formulaic e- especially to its benefit or to its detriment, I’m not really sure, because they do lean heavy into that ensemble cast of good-looking people. You know, you’ve got the big star in Jamie Lee Curtis, so she gets a prominent space on the poster. She’s the Neve Campbell or the, an, o- originally the Drew Barrymore.

A- and then you’ve got a cast of beautiful young people, in this case introducing Josh Hartnett. I, I had completely forgotten that this was Josh Hartnett’s first movie because he went on immediately to become a huge heartthrob in these types of teen movies and was all over the place. And, and then Michelle Williams, I didn’t realize that this director had worked on Dawson’s Creek, if that makes sense.

That’s probably how he knew her. And, and, you know, she was a teen star at that point. But she’s an, either an Oscar nominee or an Oscar winner now. Like, she’s a very well-respected actress in Hollywood. Janet Leigh in here, you know, got a mother-daughter scene, which is really cool. And then another thing that makes it super, super ’90s is that you’ve gotta have silly comedy in it, too.

So s- check and see if LL Cool J’s available. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: Because if he is- 

Todd: He’s the 

Craig: one … we’re 

Todd: gold. God, how many, how many movies did LL Cool J play the comic- I know … relief for at this time? 

Craig: Oh, gosh. 

Todd: But that’s where it’s different, right? That’s what I was referring to. It’s got far more- Yeah, yeah … comedy in it. 

Craig: A lot.

Todd: Plus, of course, you know, I mean, obviously the Scream franchise is, the Ghostface killer is a costume. You know, it could be anybody in there, and we know that it’s, it’s a mortal, and there’s a question, there’s a mystery behind it. Who’s doing the killing? Whereas in the, all the Halloween movies, there’s really just no question.

It’s this one guy. It’s Michael Myers. We know from the beginning, you know, escaped mental patient with a history, and that’s it. So I think those are pretty significant differences tonally. The only other tonal difference I guess I would say is that I feel like John Carpenter was really good about creating Michael Myers as almost this mystical guy.

We knew he’s a person, but is he really? Because he just seems to have almost the supernatural ability to pop in and out of frame inexplicably. Whereas in this movie, we just see him moving around a lot more. And I- almost to the point, not that he’s running, but there’s, there’s moments in here that we’re gonna talk about that I’m, I feel like, ugh, that just doesn’t feel like the Michael Myers I know.

It does feel like the Michael Myers I’ve seen in the sequels since, but it doesn’t feel like the Michael Myers that John Carpenter had in the first two movies. So that’s, that’s all I’m referring to, and we’ll, we’ll talk about that when we get there. 

Craig: Yeah, I do. Yeah. 

Todd: You know what I mean? 

Craig: Yeah, I do know what you mean.

Well, I, I, I feel like we should just dive into it, ’cause I feel like I’ve got more… We, I, I think we both have more specific things to say, but it’d probably be better in, with some real context. So it also, the movie goes out of its way to give us throwbacks to the original. It, it opens up with Mr. Sandman, the song, which features prominently in the second movie, and I, I can’t remember if it gives us…

It, it does give a… It, it tells us that it’s October 29th, 1998. It, it’s a, you know, suburban street where it’s all Halloween, and a mom, like, stabs a huge butcher knife into a pumpkin and, you know, it’s, uh, setting the mood right away. But this nurse’s house has been broken into, and I believe, w- is this the same actress?

This character was Dr. Loomis’ nurse in the first or second. Right. Yeah. And I think it’s the same actress. I could be wrong. But somebody has broken into her house, and so she gets the boys next door, one of them being Joseph Gordon-Levitt. 

Todd: Uh-huh. That was funny. 

Craig: That was funny. It’s also funny that he’s, like- I don’t know, like 50 now.

God, we’re so old. Oh. 

Todd: He, he’s a kid in this movie, like a kid. 

Craig: Yeah. And, you know, the, the, the kid goes in and looks around, but the… And, and the office is a little bit disheveled, but nothing else has been disturbed, and he goes and tells her that, and the two boys go next door, which is their home or whatever.

And she goes in and she looks around, and she sees that what is missing is Laurie Strode’s file. And then Michael, we see that he’s there. She doesn’t, but he steps into frame behind her, but she is scared that something’s up, so she runs next door and she finds the next-door boys murdered, and then-

Michael finds her, and it’s… You know, all of this, I wanna say the Kevin Williamson open, where you’ve gotta have this- Yeah, it kinda is … you know, this setup for this great first kill to introduce what’s going on. 

Todd: And this close call where they almost find 

Craig: her, right? Yeah, the co- And just in time. I mean, ’cause they’ve called the cops, but the cops come to her house, and by this point she’s next door.

And so the cops are right there, and she’s screaming for them, but they can’t hear, and she gets her throat cut. 

Todd: Yeah. Now, can you help me with this a little bit? If I remember correctly- Isn’t Michael Myers a, like isn’t he kind of a one-trick pony with a knife or does he al- also use other implements to kill people typically?

Because I remember him as just being a knife guy, but he uses some different implements in this movie. 

Craig: Yeah, I, I, gosh, I don’t… The whole skate through the face thing was, you know- Yeah … obviously- That was really out there. I mean, it, it looks, it look- We didn’t actually see him do it. I guess ’cause- We just saw the aftermath, but i- it looked good on screen.

I hadn’t really thought of that. Maybe he hadn’t found his knife yet. Oh, 

Todd: maybe. 

Craig: Any- anytime he walks by a big block of knives, he, he’s always sure to grab one. Um- Yeah, true. Maybe, maybe he just hadn’t found it yet. I don’t remember. What I also am not sure, do they ever tell us where he’s coming from? Why is it 20 years later and he’s just now showing up?

I feel like that- I don’t 

Todd: think we ever 

Craig: know … that question gets asked a lot, but I don’t think it ever gets answered. 

Todd: I don’t believe it does. There’s no like, “Ah, Michael Myers has escaped from the institution.” 

Craig: No. No, because they think he’s dead. 

Todd: Right. Right. 

Craig: But they never found a body. They, they think he, he, he burned up in the hospital at the end of part two, but they never found a body.

Todd: He’s just been hanging out quietly. 

Craig: Yeah, and people, I, more than once, people say to Laurie, Jamie Lee Curtis, like, “Don’t you think he, if he were coming for you, don’t you think he would’ve come by now? Why would he have waited until now?” Like, they ask the question several times, but they never answer it. I guess he just- 

Todd: Well-

Craig: was taking a break … 

Todd: they k- they kinda answer it in that, like, again, we’re jumping ahead, but why not since we’re talking about it. Her big revelation seems to be looking up and seeing that, and realizing that it’s her son’s 17th birthday- Oh … when she was killed on her 17th birthday. 

Craig: Oh, yeah. 

Todd: I don’t know if that makes a hell of a lot of sense, but that’s what they say.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: I mean, what was he doing for these 20 years? He was literally like, “I just gotta wait for, for that kid to turn 17. In the meantime, I’m just gonna chill and not do anything.” Just doesn’t really seem to be in, in his character, you know? 

Craig: How would he even know she had a kid? Because she faked her death- 

Todd: True

Craig: and then went off and had a kid with, I don’t know, some drifter or something. 

Todd: Who 

Craig: knows? I don’t know. At some point, at some point she tells her son, she’s like, “Oh, you got a birthday card from your dad. I guess he, like, took a break from the methadone clinic or something like…”

It’s weird. 

Todd: Oh, it’s so easy to just write in things to try to- But, but how 

Craig: would he even know? 

Todd: Yeah, how would he know? He w- 

Craig: He clearly didn’t know where she was because he had to break into Loomis’ nurse’s house to get the file. 

Todd: Pretty lucky he just happened to be there 17 years later- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: right after his son was born.

Craig: It’s a… Yeah. 

Todd: Coincidence. 

Craig: Right. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but that’s okay. Who cares? Yeah. So then we catch up with Laurie. 

Todd: There’s a lot of, I mean, aside from that initial kill- There’s a lot of exposition here where we’re getting introduced to Laurie, we’re getting introduced to her son and his friends, and the fact that now she’s a headmistress at a private school out in California with a different name.

I don’t know, though. I would think if that you’re trying to be low profile, you wouldn’t wanna be, like, the headmistress of a school. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Not in California. I don’t know. It’s a quiet school. It’s a small school apparently, so she’s out there, and then she has a guy that she’s involved with at school. Maybe it’s a little bit of a secret or something, or maybe they just kinda got started.

Craig: I don’t know. I can’t tell. 

Todd: At first, they make it sound like it’s illicit. 

Craig: I know. 

Todd: But I, I… It’s not. I guess it’s- 

Craig: They’re just sneaking around … I know. They’re just sneaking around. I guess it’s just ’cause it’s an office romance, and, like, I don’t remember what the dynamic- Mm-hmm … is. I think she’s his boss, isn’t she?

Todd: Uh, yeah, yeah, she is, ’cause she’s the headmistress, and he works there. Adam Arkin is the actor here. 

Craig: He’s really familiar. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I was, I was bothered by his performance, though, because as the movie went on, I felt like they were trying to make him seem shady, and I couldn’t figure out why. Right. I couldn’t figure out why because we know that Michael is the killer from the beginning.

Like, there’s n- I guess in one of the scripts, it wasn’t going to be Michael. It was gonna be a copycat killer, or it was gonna be one of the teenagers who we haven’t talked about yet. There’s John, the son, played by Josh Hartnett, and Molly, his girlfriend/love interest, played by Michelle Williams. But then there are two others, Charlie and Sarah, who don’t really have anything to do.

They’re just around. Is, and at one point it was going to be Charlie, but it’s not. We’ve seen Michael from the beginning, and we also know that Jamie Lee Curtis, Curtis is Laurie Strode. The other people don’t know, but we do. They don’t keep that a secret from us. Yeah. This isn’t like, okay, spoiler for, like, 10-year-old show coming up.

This isn’t like that Exorcist reboot. Did you watch that, the TV show? 

Todd: No, I didn’t see the TV show. 

Craig: Oh, gosh. You’re gonna spoil it for me too, huh? Yeah, I’m gonna spoil it for you too. Go 

Todd: ahead. It’s fine. 

Craig: I’ll- It stars, uh, Geena Davis, and it’s about this family, and the daughter becomes possessed. Well, it, about, I don’t know, a, halfway through the season, you find out that Geena Davis is Regan from- Oh

the original Exorcist. 

Todd: The original. 

Craig: Uh-huh. But this isn’t that. This isn’t that. We know it’s her, and we know it’s Michael, so I thought it was weird that they were casting suspicion on other characters. Like, what? Is he helping out? I don’t get it. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But anyway, you know, the whole setup, I guess, is that though- She is very successful.

She is still irreparably damaged from- 

Todd: Right … 

Craig: this trauma that she’s been through, and sh- she’s struggling with alcoholism, and she’s having nightmares. She sees Michael everywhere she goes. She’s overly protective of her kid. Like, little Josh Hartnett just wants to go to Yosemite with his class, but she thinks that’s a ridiculous ask.

Clip: What the do you think you’re doing? 

Mom, I’m really uncomfortable with you saying that 

word. Well, then don’t put me in the position, John. Do you know what day it is? Of all the days for you to pull this shit. What do you think you can do? Just wander around town? I don’t ask you for very much. Just give me one day.

Mom, I’ve given you 17 years. 

And I need you to be responsible. Do you know what that means? Responsible? Responsible. 

Don’t talk to me about responsible, 

Mom. I just need this one thing. 

Mom, I am not responsible for you That’s it. That’s enough. I can’t take it, Mom. He’s dead. Michael Myers is dead

What do you want me to say? 

That it’s over. That we should try to get on with some attempt at a happy existence, Mom ‘Cause all the shit that’s going on in your head is leaking out on me, and I can’t take it anymore 

Craig: And so there’s a lot of tension there. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: That’s kind of the setup, and th- that’s it. And then she’s afraid Michael- That’s it

she’s afraid Michael’s gonna show up. Everybody’s like, “No, you dum-dum, he’s dead.” And then he does show up, and she’s like- Yeah … “

Todd: See?” Could you, could you imagine telling this woman for 19 years, “Come on, it’s okay. He’s not gonna show up,” and then like the 20th year it’s like, “Oh, shit.” 

I 

don’t know how I feel about that, honestly.

“It’s been 20 years, Mom. Oh, geez. Don’t you know that’s a nice even number? You’re 17 now.” Oh, God. 

Craig: And that glosses over a lot, because there’s stuff going on, but I mean, that’s the gist of it. Yeah. And then, you know, and then Michael comes back and chases them around. I mean, that’s basically the gist of it.

There’s other fun stuff, like as I mentioned before, Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee Curtis’s mother- 

Todd: Oh, she’s 

Craig: so good … the actress who played, I think Marian Crane in, in Psycho, here plays, I think Jamie Lee Curtis’ secretary. 

Todd: Yeah, Miss Tate. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And- 

Todd: They have some good moments. I l- I mean, when we first see her, it’s kind of a quickie where they’re kinda running through and she’s rattling off all the problems at the school and, and they’re getting ready for the trip as Jamie Lee Curtis is walking through the office before she shuts the door on her.

And she says something about, “Oh, and the d- and the drains are clogged in the women’s bathrooms, but we think we have a solution.” 

Craig: Mm-hmm. And 

Todd: I was like- Cute … “Oh, that’s funny.” And then later they have a heart-to-heart moment, which has no purpose except just to give her a little bit of a cameo. 

Craig: And to give them some screen time together, which is actually really sweet.

Todd: Yeah. Super sweet. Could you imagine your mom being in this just iconic movie, and then you becoming a famous actor, and then being able to just share a moment with them in a 

Craig: movie? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. 

Todd: And I love it. She just approaches her. She says, “You know it’s not my place, but if I could be maternal for a moment.”

And she’s like, “You know, just calm down, relax,” or whatever, and then she walks back to her car. The theme from Psycho gets briefly quoted in the score, and I’m like, “They were having so much fun with this.” 

Craig: And her car is the car that she drove in that movie. The same car. Yeah. It’s, it’s a- Oh … it’s a fun l- And it wasn’t even supposed to be her.

Like, she was second choice. It was supposed to be P.J. Soles who played- Oh, really? Yeah, who played, uh, Jamie Lee Curtis’- Oh, yeah … best friend in, in the original, and she was not gonna be playing the same character. I liked her. Just the same actress. But they, but I don’t know. She, she never, she never responded, I guess, is what I heard.

They’re going for trying to make it super character-driven, but in doing so it almost pushes to melodrama. Like, I really like Jamie Lee Curtis, and I think she’s giving it her all, and I see- what they’re trying to do. She is damaged, but she also just comes across as a bitch. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Like, like, uh, I, I get it.

Like, but do you really need to be such a bitch? She yells at some waiter. It’s just, like snapping at some waiter to get her wine that she can chug while her boyfriend’s in the bathroom and- 

Todd: I actually like that bit. 

Craig: And then she, and then she confronts her kid in the street outside during the day. Now, he’s not supposed to be there.

He has snuck off the grounds that are apparently like a prison. That, that was so weird to me. I know, 

Todd: right? Why, why can’t they, these kids leave? What’s going 

Craig: on? Right, like just jump the wall. Like this is, it’s very strange. But they al- they also make it seem like it’s impenetrable. Like that, that front gate that LL Cool J guards- Uh-huh

it, like if, if it is closed, nobody’s getting in or out. Like- Yeah … it’s like Fort Knox. 

Todd: Like Willy Wonka’s factory- … in there, man. 

Craig: Oh, man. I don’t know. But she, okay, so Jamie Lee Curtis also yells at her kid, and that’s where she, she, you know, she’s screaming at him and she’s like, “Just give me one day.” And he is like, “Mom, I’m not responsible for you.

Michael Myers is dead.” And then he says, “All that shit in your head is leaking out on me, and I can’t take it anymore.” 

Clip: If you wanna stay handcuffed to your dead brother, that’s fine. But you’re not dragging me along, not 

Todd: anymore. 

Craig: It’s very melodramatic. 

Todd: It is really, yeah, saying things that people will never say, in ways they’ll never say them.

Craig: Right. And for ultimately like it not to really matter because she’s right, but this convinces her that she’s wrong even though the second they drive away, like they walk away from this fight that they just had in the street to reveal that Michael Myers is right behind them in his death wagon that he stole.

His 

Todd: death wagon. It’s a very distinctive car, isn’t it? 

Craig: It reminded me of The Creeper’s van. Yes. Now, it’s not really that big, but it reminded me of that. 

Todd: I was thinking exactly the same thing. Oh, that he stole from that couple. Not that 

Craig: couple. It’s not a couple. That’s a mom and a 

Todd: daughter. The mother and 

Craig: the child.

Oh, my God. I actually, this is a scene that really has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie. It’s just when Michael originally leaves from killing those people in Illinois, he pulls out in a dark-colored sedan, much like the one that he drives in the earlier movie. So I guess maybe he’s been dr- you know, I don’t know, living in this car.

I don’t know. But- Somewhere on his way to California, it breaks down, gets a flat tire, and there’s this scene in a rest stop that I think is the scariest scene of the whole movie. 

Todd: Hmm, yeah. It is, ’cause there’s a child involved And you kind of think they’re probably not gonna go there, but you never know.

Yeah 

Craig: It’s just suspenseful. Like, we don’t know these people. Like, this mom and this daughter pull up in this really odd-looking vehicle that looked like something that a serial killer would drive, and they, the g- little girl has to pee really bad, and so they go up to this rest stop in the middle of nowhere, and as they walk up to it, the camera kind of pans back and shows that Michael’s car is there.

And then the mom puts the little girl in one stall, and she goes in the other, but then the mom realizes they’re not alone in there. She sits her purse down in the stall, and somebody really quick grabs it and startles her, and she looks up, and it’s Michael Myers out there, like, in his mask and everything.

And it w- I, I guess it’s just really situationally scary. Like, we know that they’re in the middle of nowhere. We know that Michael Myers is evil incarnate and that if he wants to do anything to this woman and her child, they’re helpless against him. And her, you know, her daughter is in the stall right next door, like, humming a little song.

Meanwhile, she’s terrified, and eventually he just goes away and steals their car, and they’re fine. But I actually thought out of the whole movie, that was the most tense and suspenseful moment. 

Todd: Honestly, it was, yeah. Well, it’s early enough in the movie that you’re not quite sure what’s going on and what the stakes are and who’s gonna get killed and who’s not, and also it’s just this innocent victim, which you kind of…

They’re usually the ones who die, right? It’s usually the random people that just come for a scene for a kill and then go that you’re thinking the odds are high maybe they’re gonna get it, and this mom and her daughter? That would suck. Yeah, so I thought that one was, was way more suspenseful than most of everything else we saw.

And you know, like for example, the LL Cool J bit, I would say that there’s still Michael Myers sightings happening up until he starts literally just into the campus and, and, and starts killing everybody, right? 

Mm-hmm. 

But then this thing with LL Cool J at the front, they do the John Carpenter thing where he’s in the back, and then he’s not in the back.

But then they start doing this thing where he’s in the back window, but he kinda… LL Cool J’s talking on the phone with his wife with this stupid thing that he’s, like, trying to write romance novels and… Okay, whatever. He, he just needed some shtick, I guess. And as he turns away from the window, Mike Myers rolls into the window, just like, zoop, like from around the corner, almost like Bugs Bunny.

And then as soon as he turns back around to it, he just r- roop, rolls right away just in the nick of time. Like, that is kinda stuff we don’t normally see from this guy. We usually see him pop in or pop out, or the camera kinda frames it so we’re not sure if he’s gonna be there, he’s gonna be not But this Mike Myers does a bit of ducking and dodging.

Craig: That’s true. 

Todd: A little too much for my tastes, you know what I mean? 

Craig: Yeah. Especially when nothing comes of it l- as- Yeah … like in that moment. The whole thing is he just needs to get in the gate. Well, he gets in the gate. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: We see him walk right behind LL Cool J, and LL Cool J doesn’t notice him, so he gets in.

So what’s he just creeping around for? What- Like, if he’s not gonna kill him, what are you doing? 

Todd: I thought it was gonna cut back to this scene or we were gonna see him later dead, but no, later on he comes popping in like, “What can I do? How can I help?” I’m like, “Oh my God, he’s alive?” We just had him being slightly menaced from behind for a while.

What was the purpose of that? 

Craig: That’s one thing that I, that’s one thing that I will be a little critical of the movie of. Like, it relies a lot on jump scares. There are so many jump scares. 

Todd: Oh, there’s a million jump scares, to the point where it’s almost a parody of itself. 

Craig: I- yeah. Yeah, it’s too much, and, and they never amount to anything.

Well, they very rarely amount to anything. 

Todd: It’s like her mother surprises her, her f- her boyfriend surprises her. The boyfriend. 

Craig: Everybody 

Todd: is s- Everybody’s surprising each other with a “da” kind of cue. 

Craig: God, so many jump scares. 

Todd: Well, she ends up, uh, revealing herself to her boyfriend, I guess you could call him, and, uh, he’s not, doesn’t really take her seriously at first and then he does.

And then, uh, he’s like, “Oh, I need a drink.” And so she goes to get a drink, and I think it’s during this conversation that she looks up and realizes, “My son is 17. He must be coming back now.” And I’m like, “Okay, that’s a huge leap, but okay.” 

Craig: I, yeah. 

Todd: I, I, again, I’m not really sure why she was any more worried about him this year than any other year.

Yeah, she keeps seeing him in the background, but w- we’ve established that these are like figments of her imagination, and she knows it. 

Mm-hmm. 

Right? She blinks and it goes away. There’s even kind of a cool sequence where it looks like Mike Myers is walking towards her, and she blinks and he doesn’t go away, and she blinks, he doesn’t go away.

She blinks again, and you’re thinking, “Dude, this is the real guy,” but it turns out to be her boyfriend jump scare, right? So I mean, it’s no different than any other year for her except that her son is 17. I think it’s a big leap. Anyway, she goes and she finds that they haven’t actually left after all with the group because her son, like an idiot, not very good at covering his tracks, left his bags in his room.

So she’s like, “Somebody’s not on the trip. Oh my God, let me call.” And so she’s gotta track him down. In the meantime, her son and his girlfriend are getting menaced at exactly this moment. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And that’s another long chase scene. 

Craig: Yeah, they got… I mean, Jamie Lee Curtis actually did give, at the last minute, gave the son, John, permission to go.

Like, his little outburst about being handcuffed to her dead brother or whatever changed her mind, and she gave him permission to go, but he had already made plans with his friends to stay behind. And so he didn’t tell her, but they stayed behind, and they’re throwing a super… I, I’ll go ahead and say it anyway.

I was gonna say a super lame basement party- … but whatever. It was just as cool as any basement party I’ve ever thrown, so 

Todd: Yeah, don’t be too cocky there, 

Craig: Corey. 

Todd: Did you even bother to make a sign like he did? 

Craig: They… I, I was worried by the number of candles that they had down there. That just looked like a fire waiting to happen to me.

But yes, they are being menaced. The other two- the other teenage couple, who again, I- are only there as fodder, do their job as fodder. You know, it’s, it’s established that there’s a dumbwaiter so we can play with a dumbwaiter. That’s fun. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Those two, the other random couple, go up and down the dumbwaiter getting chased by Michael.

The boy gets killed. Okay, so they’re in a k- they’re in a kitchen, like, on a lower level of the building, and the boy uses the dumbwaiter as an elevator to go upstairs to get something, and he gets killed, but he gets killed off screen, and then the dumbwaiter comes back down And his dead body’s in it, and then Michael starts chasing her around.

It really bothered me that she gets in the dumbwaiter and she gets upstairs. Michael gets one stab in her leg, I think, before she gets up there. But she gets up there, and then she cuts the rope on the dumbwaiter and crushes her own leg in it. Like, are you stupid? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: What are you doing? Pretty 

Todd: dumb. Like, 

Craig: pull your, like make sure all of your limbs are clear of it-

before you cut the rope. Oh, God, I don’t know what was gon- she thought was gonna happen. And then does she get killed? My mom called me at this point in the movie, and my remote wasn’t working. It wouldn’t pause, so I was trying to pay attention to the movie and talk to my mom on the phone at the same time.

And I think, does she get killed on screen or does she get killed off-screen? They find her later. 

Todd: No, no. He pulls her out and jumps on top of her body and stabs her a bunch of times. 

Craig: Okay. 

Todd: So yeah, that, that happens. And then the other couple comes h- comes back, sees the blood smear. Again, typical Halloween.

Craig: Is this some kind of joke? 

Todd: I guess. I mean, 

Craig: it’s Halloween. There’s huge blood… I know, but there’s huge blood trails- … all down the hallway. You guys, knock it off. 

Todd: I know. So he jumps out, and they start to get the best of him for a while, and then they, they do the smart thing. They fricking run out of the house, leap across the backyard, tear down the back street, and they’re running for quite a while before they stop.

And I’m like, “All right, this, this couple actually did something smart.” Of course, they’re stopping. They stop for about two seconds, and in true to fashion, suddenly he’s there. And he leaps out at them from the bushes. He starts chasing them some more. And this is where it gets very un-Michael Myers for me, because they end up at this, like, like a little gate that leads into the front door of this place.

Right. And she’s got the keys to it. So she’s got her keys, and she ends up fumbling. There’s a whole deal of her getting the keys. She unlocks it. She closes it. And I guess it kinda locks, but also she drops the keys, and he comes towards her. But he gets the keys, and now they’re backed up against the door.

And he, his arm is sticking through, just wildly swiping at them. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: Like, he’s, he’s at least two feet away from them, but he’s wildly swiping at them like he’s a, I don’t know, like a toy, a wind-up toy that’s stuck. I thought, “This is so distinctly not him.” Like, usually at this point he just disappears, right?

And suddenly… I mean, he’s not usually that stupid. Then he crouches down and picks up the keys and starts fumbling with the keys to get in the door. And I don’t know, man, I just, it just felt very It felt more like Scream here than it did a Halloween to me I don’t 

Craig: know. I don’t know. It, it 

Todd: felt very- 

Craig: When Michael Myers is 

Todd: swiping wildly at people and fumbling with keys.

Like, come on. 

Craig: I mean, the dude drives. He, he, he drove, he drove in the first two movies, so it’s not like he’s- 

Todd: Yeah, but it takes a little bit of the mystique out of it. Also, can I say another thing? 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: I remember distinctly from at least the first movie, maybe the second movie, we don’t really see his eyes, right?

His mask is just black where the eyes are. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: His eyes are there, we just never see them. We see a lot of his eyes in this movie. A lot of his eyes. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: That also, ah, you know, kinda bothered me. 

Craig: Yeah, I thought that that was some sort of an attempt to remind us of his humanity, which I don’t … Which I think is kinda stupid.

I, I think the whole point of him is that, like, he’s pure evil. 

Todd: Yeah, he’s evil incarnate. He should be kind of … We know he’s a human, but he’s almost supernatural. 

Craig: But since you mentioned the mask It looks pretty terrible in this movie. Yeah. And, and it’s also inconsistent. There are, there are a couple of ti- y- like they, I don’t know.

They started with one mask, and then they decided it didn’t look good, and so they got replicas of masks that they had used before and used them for a while. And then they decided they didn’t like them either, and so they, they made another one, and then they went back and tried to fix some things that they’d already shot with CGI.

And so there’s different mask looks kind of throughout. W- One of them looks so just blah and kind of washed out. I just hate it. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: But then it also bothered me because at times, the mask seems to change expression, and that really bothered me too. Yes. 

Todd: It fits too tight, you know? It’s, like, narrow, but it’s a little too tight-fitting and yeah, it seems to 

Craig: move.

I re- I… There’s one time, it’s that time that you were just talking about where they ran away, and, like, this part bothered me too because they re- like you said, they run for a long time. And they pause for a second, and he somehow jumps out, like, in front of them. Like, what? 

Todd: Yeah. It makes 

Craig: no sense. How did he know where they were going?

But they fight for a while, and she ends up, she, Michelle Williams, ends up hitting him in the head with a rock. And he falls to the ground, and then he looks up, and the mask is angry. Like- … how does the, how does the mask get angry? I don’t understand that. Oh. Um, and we also skipped one part that was a big part that they showed, I remember they showed in the trailers, where it’s Michelle Williams sitting in a classroom, and Jamie Lee Curtis is the teacher now.

But Michelle Williams looks out the window and sees Michael Myers out there, and then the teacher distracts her, and she answers a question. She looks back, and he’s gone. It’s a big throwback- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: to Jamie Lee Curtis. 

Todd: Doing the exact same thing. 

Craig: I don’t remember what they were talking about. 

Todd: Frankenstein.

Craig: Well, yeah, Frankenstein here. In, in the first one, whatever the teacher was talking about was poignant and, and relevant to whatever was going on, but it is here, too. This is where they are really heavy-handed- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: about telling us what this movie is about. 

Todd: Right. In the most typical way possible. A teacher giving a surprisingly poignant lecture in the classroom.

Craig: Right. And Michelle Williams, uh, what’s her… Jamie Lee Curtis asks her some question about Frankenstein, and Michelle Williams gives a very poignant answer for a high school student. 

Clip: But I think that Victor should’ve confronted the monster sooner. I m- he’s completely responsible for Elizabeth’s death. He was, he was so paralyzed by fear that he never did anything.

It t- took death for the guy to get a clue. 

And why do you think he was finally able To confront his monster? 

Well, I think that Victor had reached a point in his life where he had nothing left to lose. I mean, the monster saw to that by killing off everybody that he loved. Victor finally had to face it It was about redemption.

It was his fate 

Craig: Mm-hmm. And that’s the big conflict that Jamie Lee Curtis is going through. Like- Yeah … she has to face her monster in order to be, to find her redemption. So all of this has been building up to this point where, like you said, they’re in that little cage. But Jamie Lee Curtis rescues them at the last second, and she and Michael come face to face, uh, like a porthole window.

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: They share a moment of eye contact, and she looks away, and then he’s, he’s gone. But I feel like she runs around with those kids and the boyfriend, and I remember that there’s stuff that happens here, but it all feels insignificant because ultimately- Yeah … she just gets them out of there. Like- 

Todd: Yeah.

She gets them out of there, and we never see them again. 

Craig: Never see them until the end. 

Todd: They’re no help to her. They’re not under threat. 

Craig: That’s what I was saying, like, th- they Scream-ified the movie by giving us this cast of teenagers, which makes sense. The original was a cast of teenagers, too, and that’s fine, but these teenagers, they’re irrelevant.

Like- Yeah … if you took them out of the movie, it would just make it shorter. That’s the only difference that it would make. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Because it’s all just leading up to the final confrontation between Laurie and Michael. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Uh, which I think is probably what the fans were wanting anyway. And Jamie Lee Curtis has said that for her, the movie starts when she escorts those kids off the grounds and tells them, “You go on, go down to the, the Barkers,” or something.

You know, it’s a throwback to when she, a throwback to when she sent the kids that she was babysitting down the street to the Mackenzies or whatever. She’s like, “You, you all go down there. I’ll be right behind you.” And then she sends them away, and then she grabs an ax and heads back in. And the m- the, the Halloween theme, the dun, dun, dun.

Like, you know, like it- Mm-hmm … it swells as she marches back in there to face him. 

Todd: This is the moment. 

Craig: And that really is. That, I mean, that really- 

Todd: Last 10 minutes, really. 

Craig: I kn- yeah, but it’s the very end. 

Todd: Yeah, yeah-huh. 

Craig: And just like with the newest ones where we, I, I don’t know about everybody else, but I was willing to wait through three movies to see the final showdown between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode.

I, I f- I was disappointed, and this one is k- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: pretty disappointing, too. 

Todd: It is. It’s just kind of a little bit of a lame back and forth and fight. Then he falls from a, from a great height just like before. 

Craig: Well, I did like the scene, kind of, it went on for too long, but in the cafeteria where she’s kind of under the tables and he’s above her, that, there was some suspense there.

But then she runs, like, to a kitchen, pulls out a huge drawer full of knives that scatter on the floor, and she just took- keeps tossing them at him. Like, it’s almost comic. 

Todd: It is, actually. 

Craig: Like, she’s just, like, she’s just tossing knives at him, and they’re just ricocheting off of him, having absolutely no impact whatsoever.

Todd: Uh. 

Craig: But yeah, she finally stabs him and pushes him off a balcony. Again, callback to the original, and he’s laying there seemingly dead, and she goes to stab him again, as well she should. 

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: But- 

Todd: Like a freaking idiot. LL 

Craig: Cool J- But LL Cool J comes in- … and is like, “No, no, no, he’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.” 

Todd: Oh, my God.

Craig: And I was ready… Like, I’m, not literally, but in my mind I’m screaming at the screen, “Just keep stabbing him,” like this is- 

Todd: Don’t stop … 

Craig: like, don’t listen to LL Cool J. LL Cool J- He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. 

Todd: Mind your business. 

Craig: You have been through this before. 

Todd: We have. Oh, my God. So then there’s the st- the, the police and everything, and they, they zip the m- the guy up in a body bag, and she somehow gets a hold of the van, right?

That is driving his body bag. 

Craig: Somehow she grabs a knife and one of the cop’s guns. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. And is like, runs- 

Craig: Is like, “Get back.” “

Todd: Get 

Craig: back.” “Get back. 

Todd: Let me do this.” 

Craig: Which I thought was also hilarious because she could have just slipped into the van. Yes. 

Todd: And she could have… You know what’s better than driving him away in the van?

Is just jumping in there and stabbing him through that body bag. Just finish. 

Craig: Or shooting him with that gun. 

Todd: Do both, right? You don’t have to drive down the road. Oh, my God. So then we get a whole other scene, which you can see coming a mile away, where of course he unzips himself from the body bag and they have a tussle inside the van.

And then, you know, she… He ends up k- tossed out of the van, and then he’s in front of the van, and then she goes to run him over, but as she hits, he’s standing, and as she hits him, of course, he just splays across the windshield and they get another moment where they’re staring at each other through the, through the glass.

And then of course instead of hitting a tree or anything effective happening, they end up going off the road. She tumbles down. I mean, s- it’s a huge dramatic thing. I don’t know how she got out of there in one piece. 

Craig: She slams on the brakes. He flies out through the windshield, so she hits him again and then they- Yeah

go, they, they, down the cliff. He ends up pinned to a tree. Now, I remember when this came out liking this and f- F- I don’t know. My little teenage heart found it, like, touching- Oh … that she had this moment of compassion for her brother. You know, he’s there. I also found it strange at the time that he’s kind of out of it, ’cause he’s pinned against this tree, and she calls his name more than once, and then he, it, it, like, he wakes up.

Like, he was unconscious and he wakes up, and he kind of feels at his head like he’s confused- 

Todd: Right … 

Craig: uh, uh, for a second. But then he looks at her, and they have this moment of eye contact, and he reaches out for her. 

Todd: Ugh. 

Craig: And she reaches out for him. And it’s hard to impossible to tell if he’s reaching for her looking for help or if he’s still just- Trying to grab her

trying to get her. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Yeah, right. And she kind of, you know, she’s kind of crying, and she reaches out to him, but she’s also not stupid, and so she takes the ax and cuts his head off. 

Todd: Yeah. Pretty definitively. 

Craig: Dun, dun, dun. The end. Should 

Todd: be the end. 

Craig: Yeah, and his, and his head goes flying But God, I mean, part six picks up exactly where this leaves off and they retcon it.

I mean, not really. I, I guess they had this planned, but turns out that wasn’t really Michael. The real Michael Myers had swapped clothes with- 

Todd: Oh, God … a 

Craig: paramedic, and somehow made him unable to speak, cut out his tongue or something, put him in his clothes and mask and switched places with him. And so in the next one, Jamie Lee Curtis is in the insane asylum because she’s racked with guilt for killing an innocent man, and Michael shows up and kills her in the first five minutes.

Super stupid. 

Todd: Okay. 

Craig: Super dumb. But this one… The… Okay, the only other thing that I wanted to say that I didn’t say before is that ultimately the ones that started, the trilogy that started in 2018 were more in line with what Jamie Lee Curtis wanted to do here. Jamie Lee Curtis wanted Laurie Strode to be a mess, like just destroyed by what had happened.

Todd: Yeah. That’s a better setup. 

Craig: And I think Kevin Williamson convinced her, “No, you need, she needs to have more to lose, so let’s make her successful,” and, you know, she, n- she’s not just protecting her family, but sh- she’s got a life and all that. And, and so she went along with it. So we, we get, I think, what was ultimately more of Jamie Lee Curtis’s vision in the later ones.

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And I think that works fine. I liked those movies okay. But if I were going to pick up any Halloween movie to watch just for fun, it would probably be this one. The first one’s great- 

Todd: But it’s slow and suspenseful. Yeah. This 

Craig: is- And, and it is. And it’s, it’s more like i- if you’re gonna watch it, you really should sit down and watch it.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: This one I feel like- 

Todd: Action-packed. It’s candy. 

Craig: I- right. Exactly. It’s candy. Like the first one is a good film, like you should pay attention and appreciate it. This one’s just easy and it’s short. It’s the shortest of all of them out of the whole franchise at, at 86 minutes. It’s a quick ride. Jamie Lee Curtis looks great and is, you know, I, I think, as she always does, she’s giving it her all, and there’s fun.

You know, if you are our age, as I think many of you are, and you grew up in this time, it’s a great throwback to that time and those actors that we were growing up with, like Josh Hartnett and Michelle Williams, and it’s just cool to see them as kids knowing, you know, what they’re doing now and that they’re still successful and working.

And it’s, it’s a very specific time capsule, but it’s very palatable, and I’ve kind of wanted to get to it for a long time ’cause the entire franchise isn’t my favorite. I, but I do enjoy it, and of all of them, I think that this is probably my favorite. It’s not the best one In terms of quality, but I think it’s probably my favorite.

Todd: Well, it’s not my favorite, but I guess with your caveats, I would agree with you that it’s a, it’s a big ride and it’s pretty… I mean, if you’re gonna just sit down and watch one, every- everything you said, basically. If you’re just gonna watch one and you just wanna watch one to say you’ve watched a Halloween movie, you could watch this.

You could also watch Scream. You could also kinda watch- Right … You Know What You Did Last Summer. They’re all kind of like this, you know? Uh-huh. It’s not that much different, so, you know, take your pick. It’s fine. Plus, you get Jamie Lee Curtis in it, you get some in-jokes. That’s, that’s cool, so- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: that’s fine.

Ultimately, though, no, the first one is totally, totally great. And then the, the sequels are, run the gamut, uh, you know, for their own reasons or not. I found the Rob Zombie ones incredibly brutal to the point where I just was too distracted by that to enjoy them really. 

Craig: I thought they were really well done.

Not really my cup of tea. 

Todd: Yeah. Well 

Craig: done, but, but yes, very brutal. 

Todd: They were well done. They were very Rob Zombie, honestly. 

Craig: Yeah. Uh-huh. 

Todd: And then the last three, I honestly have only seen the first two. I didn’t see the very divisive third one, so, uh, I can’t, like, like, give you my whole feeling about it. But I actually like the first of the last, of this last trilogy.

I liked the setup. 

Craig: I liked the first one, too. I, I thought that both the second and the third I thought were disappointing. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Uh, again, I mean, I guess kind of spoiler alert, it’s an old movie at this point, but the third one does what this one tried to do, like, make it definitive, like, he’s dead. 

Todd: Mm.

Chopped up into tiny pieces. Burned at the stake.

I can’t wait. 

Craig: Oh. But anyway, thanks for indulging me, ’cause I have wanted to do this one for a long time. I think, you know, every Halloween we come up with a long list, and it’s always hard to pick. And this year we were like, “You know what? Let’s just each of us throw out our, our, our top two and, and go from there,” and we did, and neither of us had any objections, and this was, uh, I think, my first pick, and so I’m glad.

I, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity. It was fun to talk about. 

Todd: It really was, and a good Halloween movie. A pretty good, pretty good movie for Halloween. Well, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. Let us know what you’re doing for Halloween. Just find us on our socials.

Search for Two Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast for Facebook, Instagram, or our website, chainsawhorror.com. Be a patron at patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. Five bucks a month gives you, uh, complete access to our unedited phone calls, plus minisodes. We’re doing a lot of fun minisodes this Halloween, and a lot of extra goodies back there for our patrons.

So please check that out if you’re interested. Until next time, I’m Todd. 

And I’m Craig. 

With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We kick off Halloween season by diving into 1988’s direct-to-video oddity Hack-O-Lantern, a surprisingly decent-looking but truly terrible, wildly entertaining Satanic cult slasher loaded with Halloween atmosphere, costumes, parties, and plenty of gratuitous nudity.

We talk about how the movie’s “so bad it’s good” charm comes from its community-theater-level acting, baffling plot turns, random musical dream sequence, and over-the-top grandpa cult leader performance, while still delivering serviceable gore and nonstop seasonal vibes perfect for background viewing at a Halloween party.

We break down the major story beats—Tommy’s cult grooming, inexplicable killings, a chaotic party climax, and a twist ending—then share why this scrappy DIY mess feels like classic late-night cable Halloween viewing and a fun way to start our month of Halloween picks, plus details on upcoming episodes and Patreon extras.

Episode 508, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: Oh, buddy, it’s Halloween season. 

Craig: Oh, it’s exciting. It always is exciting. I mean, we’ve been looking forward to it, talking about it forever. I’m glad it’s finally here. 

Todd: Me too. I love it every time of year, no matter where I am in the world.

It’s a little bit of America I can bring with me to wherever I am. Out in Asia, they don’t do a lot of Halloween. Japan’s where you gotta go for the Halloween celebrations. I think I mentioned that once before that I single-handedly brought Halloween to Japan 25 years ago. 

Craig: Yep, yep. I 

Todd: remember. Yeah. You’re welcome, Japan.

So here we are, and, uh, we have a nice selection of Halloween goodies this year. I’m really excited about what we’ve chosen, especially this first one, which has been on my list, our list, for a very long time. And knowing that it was just, like, a straight to video deal, I, I really kind of dismissed it as some piece of crap that we would get to at some point, maybe if we didn’t have anything better to do.

I envisioned it as this shot on video, kind of like that turkey movie we did once. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: For, uh, Thanksgiving. You remember that? 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: So I don’t know why I had this in my head that 1988’s Hack-O-Lantern would be more or less like that. But actually, it’s shot on film but was put direct to video. And oh boy, is it a trip.

Craig: Yeah, it’s something. 

Todd: I guess, I didn’t realize this, but I guess it got some play- Recently from, uh, those guys, Red Letter Media, who do the funny commentaries on movies and things. So that whole Star Wars breakdown about why the new Star Wars movies were lousy. Yeah, I, I like those guys. I really like their breakdown of the first, the, the prequel Star Wars movies.

They really make a lot of points, and they’re really funny. Uh, they have a big following. Uh, you got- Have you never, uh, listened to them or- 

Craig: It’s not- … seen 

Todd: their stuff? 

Craig: The RiffTrax guys? 

Todd: Red Letter Media, not the RiffTrax guys. 

Craig: Yeah, I don’t, I don’t think so. 

Todd: You’re right. They did a RiffTrack on this as well, and it is ripe for it.

This movie’s its own RiffTrack. I cannot believe that I- This is the first time I’ve seen it. I’m so excited. Had you seen this before? 

Craig: I don’t think… No, I’ve definitely never seen it before, and I don’t think I’ve even ever heard of it. And I’m surprised just ’cause, like, Hack-O-Lantern’s a great title. Yeah.

That’s fantastic. And 1988, I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s prime, you know, prime time for us. But no, I’d never heard of it. And I expected it to be bad, but I, but m- but more so than bad, I expected it to be really low budget. Like, I, I, I think you suggested too. But I, I think that what we saw… I’m not positive ’cause you just sent me a link and I didn’t question it and I watched it, but I think what we saw had to have been, like, a restoration.

Like, I know that there has been a 4K restoration, and I feel like that must be what we saw ’cause it looked really good. Like, I was surprised by how good it looked, and I was surprised by the… I mean, the cinematography is certainly serviceable. Yeah. I mean, i- if not, if not, downright okay. I was surprised by how good it is.

Now, the acting and, and the writing is an entirely different story, but it, it looks… I was surprised by how good it looked. And because I was impressed… Ah, impressed might be exa- an exaggeration. But- But because of my reaction to the, the quality, the technical quality, I was surprised that I hadn’t seen it, you know?

A- and you said that it’s streaming, I think, on Tubi. Like, it’s never popped up for me, or at least I don’t think it has. I mean, maybe I’ve overlooked it. I don’t know 

Todd: It’s directed by an Indian guy named, uh, Jag Mund- Uh, I always butcher these Indian names, I’m sure. Uh, Jag Mundhra or Jag Mundhra, uh, who, uh, just has ba- basically done low budget movies.

He’s done quite a few of them, like 31. Mostly, I think, direct to video. Either horror movies or kind of sexual thrillers, things like that. He only died about, uh, 15 years ago, so, uh, this was his fourth movie direct to video. He did a number of other films after this. It all seem like direct to video films.

And the writers, one of them was a ghostwriter who did scripts on spec, like 65 of them. 13 of them were actually produced, so he’s usually credited under an assumed name in, uh, in his movies. But uh, he also wrote, uh… The story guy, not, not necessarily the screenplay- Yeah … person. The story guy is, uh, Dave Eisenstark, who would, uh, called himself Buford Houser for his films.

But Creepozoids was what he wrote under that pen name before this. We’ve done Creepozoids. That was the one we interviewed Linnea Quigley on. 

Craig: That’s right. That’s what I was thinking. Yeah, and it also was not very good. 

Todd: No. Oh, man. Consistency is the name of the game here. Yeah, uh, the, the screenwriter hasn’t done anything else at all besides this movie, so I mean, that, that tracks.

Craig: Well, good. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I think whoever that was learned from this experience that they probably had other talents- … that they should work on. Not this. 

Todd: Career choice, right. It’s funny you mention the cinematographer. Pretty good. The cinematographer was the cinematographer on Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama.

Craig: Well, I really enjoyed that one as well, so. 

Todd: Yeah, we really did, and at least one or two of the other, uh, gals in this were in that movie as well. 

Craig: Oh, really? 

Todd: I think Vera in here was on, uh, S- Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama. 

Craig: Ugh. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I need to watch that again. I’ve only seen it that one time that we watched it together 100 years ago.

I need to- 

Todd: Ugh … 

Craig: That’d be a good one to pull out this time of year if you haven’t seen it. Yeah. 

Todd: That’s a good Halloween style movie, uh, one of my favorites. 

And so yeah, there’s some connections here to a bunch of other low budget shot to video stuff, uh, mostly by the women and by the people I’ve mentioned here.

Otherwise, the guys in this, uh, only a couple of them went on to much more. This movie, A Polish Vampire in Burbank, which a few of these gals were also in before this. Have you seen that one? 

Craig: No 

Todd: I saw that a long time ago, like when I was in, I think when I was in college. Because at the time, and we’re talking 1983, that movie was the most successful independent film ever, ever.

It was like shot for $2,500 and went on to make like a couple million. 

Craig: That’s wild. I’ve never heard of it. 

Todd: It was one of these cases of a guy who just, you know, shoestring budget, independent film, very niche and very genre, just made it big. Not with the general audience, but just made tons of money, I think, in the, the, the straight to video market, some of the midnight stuff, cable, things like that.

So for an aspiring filmmaker, as I was back then, I’ve always remembered that movie as kind of a, a tale of what you could possibly do. So yeah, so I mean, there’s little connections to other movies here. This movie isn’t out on its own in a vacuum. Because while I was watching this, I was also thinking of Scary Movie, one of those movies we did for Halloween as well.

Do you remember that one, about the kid who was super scared and went through the haunted house and- 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, that movie had this flavor. Very independent, very low budget, very w- competently filmed, but as far as story, as far as acting and everything else, it just looked like a production that just a town came together for.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: A bunch of amateur actors, you know? I was getting that flavor from this, and that’s part of what I liked about it. 

Craig: Yeah, the, the rural setting of it also was kind of reminding me of one of the Halloween movies we did. Uh, Night of the Scarecrow, I think. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. Mm. 

Craig: It was kind of giving me those vibes, just because of like the local color and it being so small and such a small cast.

I mean, there are lots of… I guess there are extras, ’cause it all kind of culminates in a big Halloween party, which is a little disappointing after all of the build-up. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But yeah, I mean, it, it… Aside from the fact that there’s tons of boobs in it- 

Todd: Uh-huh. Tons … 

Craig: it, it feels like something that would’ve been on network television around Halloween time.

Like- 

Todd: Oh, yeah … 

Craig: it, it kind, it kinda has a movie of the week kind of vibe to it. And it’s bad. Like- It’s 

Todd: terrible. 

Craig: We should just, we should just say outright, it is a really bad movie. And I kind of, I, I try not to read too much about these things, ’cause I, I, I don’t want my opinions to be swayed one way or another, especially if I don’t know anything about them anyway.

But I had kind of seen something that suggested that maybe it was kind of a so bad it’s good kind of movie, and I think if you’re going to appreciate it, that’s what you’re going to appreciate it for. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. 

Craig: How successful it is in that way, ah, I mean, like I’ve, I’ve definitely seen better, but it’s funny and there are elements of it that are funny to watch or, or at least worth it talking about.

But I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve said it. I used to say it all the time. This for sure is one of those movies that you could just put on in the background. Like if you- Mm … are cultivating a, a playlist to have on your television at your Halloween party where people are gonna be milling about and talking and you just want atmosphere in the background, this is great.

Todd: Oh, yeah. 

Craig: Put it on the list. 

Todd: This checks all the boxes. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: It is just dripping with Halloween atmosphere from start to finish. Takes place during Halloween. There’s a satanic cult- 

Craig: Uh-huh … 

Todd: involved. There is, like you said, a Halloween party. There’s tons of costumes. Just- 

Craig: Pumpkins galore … 

Todd: ah, 

Craig: yeah. Boobs. 

Todd: So many boobs.

Craig: There’s a music video. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. 

Craig: Like this thing’s- Yeah … got it all. 

Todd: Satanic cult, right? I would say it’s the kind of movie that y- like you said, for sure, I think this movie would’ve been a blast with you sitting next to me. Sure. It would’ve been a blast with a room full of friends where you can just collectively laugh at it.

I’ll bet that Rifftrax is out of sight. 

Clip: Oh, I’m 

Todd: sure it’s great. And, uh, I, I might actually get that one. I, I love Rifftrax. I, I listen to them all the time. But you’re right, there’s something about it that’s also kinda slow and boring, a little plodding at times. But then you’ll have a moment, kinda like in Pieces.

You remember in Pieces where there’s that moment where for no good reason at all just Kung Fu guy- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: Bruce Lee impersonator just leaps into the screen and does a whole shtick and then leaves. 

Craig: I think vaguely. 

Todd: This has a moment or two like that too where there’s just some weird shtick that just happens for n- no good reason except you have to think it was really important to this guy to put it in his movie.

Or his friend who’s acting in this movie. Ah, and we’ll get to that too, I’m sure. 

Craig: Well, I think they were just… Yeah, I think a lot of it was probably just stretching for time because there’s nothing to this movie really. No. Like- 

Todd: Well, there’s a lot of people 

Craig: I guess there’s a lot of people, but there’s not a, a whole lot of…

God, there are too many people, frankly. Who cares- Yeah … about all these stupid people? And r- not a whole lot happens, but the setup is funny. Like, it, it is, like, in the country, like out in the middle of the country, and this weird grandpa visits his- … I guess daughter’s family, but he’s really only into this one little blonde boy named Tommy, and he’s there to give him a pumpkin ’cause he’s a pumpkin seller.

That’s his job. And he also, he also said, “I would give you something else that’s really special. You can’t even look at it.” And Tommy’s like, “Okay, whatever.” Tommy, I guess, ac- is, is carving the pumpkin that his grandpa gave him, and his mom… God, there’s so many things to talk about. We gotta talk about his mom.

But she’s, like, hanging the laundry or something, and she’s like, “I told you to wait for your daddy. You’re gonna cut yourself.” But then she doesn’t do anything, and so then he does cut himself with the huge knife, and he’s, like, licking of his own blood. And she’s like, “We’ve gotta clean this up.” And he’s like, “No, it tastes good.

Grandpa says it’s good for me.” Okay. Oh, God. I’m getting into too much detail, but eventually the dad goes to confront the grandpa. The grandpa is having a cult ceremony in his barn, and they kill the dad and burn him up in the car. And that’s the whole- That’s the whole- … that’s the whole setup. 

Todd: That’s the childhood trauma that leads us to today.

That’s, it’s pretty typical. 

Craig: But we gotta talk about the mom and the grandpa, but the grandpa especially. Now I don’t know this guy. What, what is his name? He is a character actor who had done some other things. I think- 

Todd: Hy Pyke, I think. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And I haven’t seen anything that he’s been in, but I guess he had a s- teeny tiny little part in Blade Runner, and he’s done some other stuff.

Todd: Vamp. 

Craig: He is wild. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: He’s funny, he’s odd-looking, and he’s so over the top. He speaks, like I guess it’s the country so they all have Southern accents, and his Southern accent is so thick that sometimes you can’t… I couldn’t even understand what he was saying sometimes. And in the beginning he’s young and he has black hair.

I mean, it’s the same actor in both obviously, but they- With like a toupee … like they try to make him- Yeah … yeah, like a, like a black toupee and eyeliner. And then when he’s in the cult I think he’s just like in a red robe, but when he burns up the dad in the car he looks like an old Italian grandmother.

Like- … he’s wearing like a black like scarf around his head, thick black eye makeup. I swear to God he looked like a stereotypical mafia grandmother. And it was so campy. I didn’t know what was going on. And then he’s campy throughout the whole rest of the thing, but never in that way again. So he is something, something special.

Todd: He’s a campy mess. It, I, I feel like the whole movie really revolves around him. And he’s one of these guys who just pops into every other scene for no good reason except to- 

Craig: Mm-hmm … 

Todd: leer and… He, he’s the head of this cult. What are they doing? I don’t know, culty stuff. They just have rituals in his barn.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Him and like six other people. What’s their goal? Mm. 

Craig: At some point in time, like, I think Tommy is supposed to be, what? I don’t know 

Todd: A child of Satan or something? ‘

Craig: Cause, like, they’re grooming him ’cause he has three grandkids, but he’s not really interested in the other two. He’s only interested in Tommy.

Like, and, and he says that Tommy’s the chosen one. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And gosh, is it b- is it be- is it before or after the dad is dead? Oh, it’s after he’s dead. The grandpa comes over and visits, and then he leaves in his car, and then the mom magically appears in front of him in the middle of the road- 

Todd: Yeah. Teleports, basically

Craig: to have a talk with him, and it’s revealed through a flashback that the reason that he’s only interested in Tommy and not the other two kids is because he’s really Tommy’s dad because he had sex with her on her wedding day? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Clip: You are a beautiful and alone woman who hasn’t had a man for 13 years.

Don’t you think it’s about time we did something about that? 

No! Stop hurting Tommy. Stop ruining his life. 

Learn, my sweet. You must learn. You cannot stop what is meant to be. No. You have no power here. The force of nature will conquer all. 

Todd: Oh, my God. Gross. It’s so disgusting. I mean, it’s his, her dad. I, I remember if he says it to her, if he sa- oh, he says it to his father.

Yeah. “Tommy was never yours. He belongs to something greater than you could ever imagine. Bye, Bill.” Yeah. Uh, but we don’t really know what’s so great. Um, he, child of incest, I guess. 

Craig: I guess. I don’t know. 

Todd: The devil’s child. Well, he gives him this amulet. It’s… He gives Tommy this thing, and we don’t even see what it is till Tommy opens it up, uh, later in his bedroom.

And we get a nice transition to present day where, uh, suddenly, like you said, he showed up. Tommy is now a full-grown adult. He’s living in the basement. All the other kids are full-grown adults. They’re all living at home still. 

Craig: Yeah. This is weird. Also, they say it’s 13 years later. Now, I would guess that that kid, Tommy, when we first saw him, was, I don’t know- 10

between the ages of 10 and 12 maybe. This is supposed to be 13 years later. Tommy looks like he’s 40 now. 

Todd: He looks like a 40-year-old. He looks like Joe Piscopo, and he’s very angry, and his hair turned black. 

Craig: And he… Yes. A- his hair turned black- … and he’s… I, I didn’t even thought about that. That’s funny. And he’s just a angry loser who hangs out in his mom’s basement and, like, only comes out to brood and- 

Todd: Fight with people

Craig: and he just sits down there and lifts weights and listens to music. Oh, my gosh. So funny. 

Todd: But he’s still got a good relationship with Grandpa. Grandpa comes by to visit. He’s like, “It’s not just any Halloween. You don’t know your own strength. The ceremony will begin at sundown.” 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And Tommy’s like, “Yeah.” I love this bit.

Remember, his grandpa drives off. This is before Mom appears in front of him. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And then Tommy just turns towards the camera, takes off his sunglasses and just stares- 

Craig: It was so strange … 

Todd: glaring right at us. 

Craig: It was really weird. 

Todd: But yeah. Then we get the little, uh, the thing you mentioned, the flashback.

Craig: She says something about, “You’ve been bothering me ever since my husband’s been gone.” And he says something like, “He’s never been gone. He’s always been right here with us,” and he shows her a bone that he wears around his neck. 

That was so funny. Oh, 

my God. 

Todd: That was hilarious. 

Craig: Yeah. It… That was funny to me, but it was…

I was still grossed out by the revelation that- He’s, like, trying to bang her 

Todd: Yeah 

Craig: She’s also something else. She’s got, like, long blonde hair down to her butt Wow, 

Todd: neat 

Craig: And she’s, she’s, she’s crazy. Yeah 

Todd: She’s crazy Gosh, I don’t know She’s a, she’s an interesting actress. She’s got one speed this whole thing, and this is on the verge of tears or in tears the entire time 

Craig: Uh-huh.

Yeah. What’s… Like, calm down. It’s been years and years. Ah, God, I don’t know 

Todd: We might as well, we might as well say. C- she’s played by Katina Garner. Katina Garner was in a movie called Wacko a couple years before this, which is on my list of things to do. Kind of along the same lines as Pandemonium, it’s supposed to be a ridiculous hor- a horror comedy spoof of slasher- Huh

movies by Great and Clark, which means it could be fun. It’s gonna be corny. It’s gonna be cheesy. But I really, it’s… I really want us to do it soon. Yeah, so she was in that. She was also in The Polish Vampire in Burbank, a couple other movies like The Tomb and Cannibal Hookers before this. And then- 

Craig: She’s got a great look.

I can see how, you know- Yeah … especially in a melodramatic role I think that she would be really funny. It’s just, ugh- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: she’s weird in this 

Todd: She’s weird in this 

Craig: We, we catch up with, uh, the sister, Vera, in a, in the bath- Mm-hmm … and her friend It’s Beth comes and it… Or Beth, it- Halloween is Beth’s favorite holiday, and so she’s going to celebrate it by scaring her friend who’s naked in the bathtub with a big fluffy fake spider.

Just so, just so that we can see Beth in the bathtub all covered in soap except for her breasts, you know- 

Todd: Perkiness … 

Craig: right out there. Yeah. Right? And bathing herself and singing a generic song. I- Uh- I- I really love in movies when people just sing songs like- Just random stuff … 

doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.

Like, there’s no melody or like- Yeah … it’s obviously not a real song. It’s just they can’t sing a real song ’cause they don’t wanna pay for it, so just sing something. Who knows? Like, people do that- Yeah … in real life. They do it all the time. I have never found myself- All the time … I’ve never found myself soaping up my legs and just composing a little.

Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. 

Todd: When you sing in the shower, you sing with purpose, right? 

Craig: I do. 

Todd: You’ve got a song- Yeah … in mind. 

Craig: Yeah, absolutely. 

Todd: A real song. That’s right. Not a fake one. Well, Vera- Oh, 

Craig: yeah … 

Todd: Vera has loads of bubbles all over her. She gets up, Beth surprises her with the spider. She’s like, “Oh, Beth, you’re crazy.”

And Beth hands her a robe, which Vera puts on over her completely soapy sudsy body. 

Craig: I noticed that too. With… I- I thought, do people, do women really do that? Like, do they not- What? … rinse? Like, what? It’s 

Todd: a mess. It doesn’t matter because in the next shot she’s all dry, so it doesn’t- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: apparently 

Craig: it didn’t- Perfect.

Her hair. Yeah, it’s great. 

Todd: She was, uh, she’s Karla B., and, uh, she was the one who was in Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama as, uh, Frankie. She was also in a movie called Necromancer before this one, and in a couple other horror movies after this, The Jigsaw Murders and Terror Night. She hasn’t done anything since 1989.

So these two are, like, really, really good friends, and we’re gonna be following them a lot in this m- 

Craig: They’re kinda always together. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And then we go back to Tommy, the weird basement creep, who’s down there listening to music and won’t answer the door for his mother. And then he puts on his earphones and lays down in his bed and falls asleep, and we are treated to an entire dream music video.

Uh, which again, is just something very special, and I was asking myself- Who are these people? I, I couldn’t tell if they were the other actors. Like if he was having a dream and everybody- Right … it was like a, a Wizard of Oz type thing. Like, and you were there and you were there. But no, I think it’s just a bunch of randos.

Yeah. And they sing a whole… They, it, it’s a whole song. 

Todd: It’s a real rock band named DC LaCroix or at least, ah, the, the lead singer is named DC LaCroix and that was also the name of their band. This is a, a crazy little sequence isn’t it? You’ve got magic and laser eyes and- 

Craig: Yes, uh- All kinds … a, a, a, a woman…

First she’s just dancing and then- … and then she like starts shooting lasers out of her eyes and- … and then everybody else in the band disappears except for Tommy and he’s like playing guitar and, and this woman is dancing all around him. She’s very scantily clad. She’s like straps and stuff all over and eventually she like pushes him down or lays him down, I don’t remember, but she stabs him in the head with a pitchfork.

And, and then, and then pulls his head off and holds it up with her glowing eyes and that’s- The end and he wakes up. That’s it. Yeah. It doesn’t have any other connection to the rest of the movie at all, but it is something to see. 

Todd: It’s another one of those moments. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s also funny because at first, like when it’s the band, there’s a lead singer, a lady lead singer of the band, and she’s singing and playing and blah, blah, blah.

But then everybody disappears and it’s as though the dancing woman takes over the vocals, like she starts moving her mouth. The voice doesn’t change. 

Todd: Right.

Craig: It was funny. I liked it. That was one of my favorite parts. 

Todd: The song is pointed. You’re The Devil’s Son is the name of it. 

Craig: I couldn’t tell if it was son or spawn, but yeah. 

Todd: Tommy’s freaked out. Roger, his brother, is now a deputy, and he’s working the Halloween party tonight. It must be a slow day in this sleepy town where they’ve assigned one of the three deputies in the whole place to, uh, just sit around at a Halloween party later.

Craig: I was also confused by this because at first I thought the mom was throwing the party, ’cause I thought the sister said something about the party being important to Mom or something. I don’t know. But it’s not. It’s like a whole town party, right? 

Todd: Yeah, the kids in town, I guess. Yeah. 

Craig: Seems like it. I don’t know.

But yeah, Roger, he’s, you know, the good son now. 

Todd: And he’s comforting his mom. 

Craig: Yeah, and, God, and all of it’s so dumb. And like grandpa shows up again to interrupt Tommy and his girlfriend- 

Todd: Yeah. … 

Craig: uh, to tell Tommy, “Hey, you need to get rid of her. You, you gotta be pure for the ceremony.” Like what? “

Todd: I’ve come by the store to pick up some candles for your ceremony.”

The 

ceremony. 

Jesus, Grandpa, give it a rest. 

Clip: What do you call yourself doing here? 

I don’t know, just, uh, having a little fun, you know. Yeah. 

Ordinarily, I’d say screw her brains out, but I don’t think that little witch has got any. But where is your head, Tommy? You know you must be pure for tonight. Knock this off and preserve that energy And as for you, sweetheart, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get his little butt home, and I mean right now 

Todd: You are- Oh, my 

Craig: God.

Grandpa, I’ll be there. Calm down 

Todd: You’re killing everyone’s vibe, man. And Vera comes home with Beth to talk about the party, and that’s when she says she’s 18. Vera is 18? Apparently. None of these people look any younger than 30. 

Craig: Well, she’s 18 and she’s a virgin, but she’s bummed out about it, so she plans on boffing Brian, her boyfriend, later while everybody else is decorating for the party.

I thought that was such a funny plot line. Yeah, but later this afternoon while everybody’s decorating for the party, I’m gonna… I’m like, “Okay, let’s…” Just squeeze it in between lunch and- 

Todd: Yeah. But Roger says he’s gonna go talk to Tommy for Mom. There’s a lot of banging on the basement door yelling down, “Tommy, what are you doing down there?

Tommy, you can’t be living like this,” from Mother. So then Roger goes over and decides he’s gonna do the same thing. “Tommy! Tommy, open up!” Comes downstairs into the basement and Tommy is super aggressive, busy furiously exercising on his equipment- Yeah … down there. 

Craig: Before he answers the door he has to pause for a second to do some pull-ups.

Todd: And 

Craig: then he 

Todd: answers the door. Tommy sits down and is like, “What’s going on, man? Why, why are you like this?” Eventually Tommy… Roger sits down and says that. Eventually Tommy jumps up and says, “Hey, let me show you something,” walks over to this door, and there’s this huge reveal where he swings open this door under the stairs and he has a full-on ritualistic shrine in there to the devil.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Wi- 

Craig: With a bunch of candles. I don’t think you can- Lit 

Todd: candles? … 

Craig: light candles- You can’t really do that … in a closet like 

Todd: that. Not really. Not really. You think maybe he just lit it and kind of assembled it right then and there just, just minutes before- I 

Craig: don’t know … before 

Todd: Roger came down … it seems very 

Craig: intricate.

Todd: Super dramatic. Maybe it’s magic. Then Roger’s like, “Christ, Tommy, now I know why Mom is so worried about you spending time with Grandpa.” 

Craig: Next scene. I know. It’s like- … 

Todd: what 

Craig: was the point of showing him that? Like- 

Todd: Ah. 

Craig: It’s, “I do too have something going on in my life, look.” Like, oh, boy. Oh, boy. 

Todd: In case we didn’t get the memo that, uh, Tommy is just as into this as Grandpa is.

Craig: Yeah. And then Tommy, by the way, his girlfriend, y- she had a moment in the convenience store where other people, like, ogled her and commented that she had a tattoo on her butt- And then Tommy, like, brings her back to his house, doesn’t wanna hang out with her. So she goes and hangs out in the pool by herself.

And then, and then we see her swimming around in the pool in a bikini bottom and some sort of sheer top. And so her boobs are out. And then not just that, s- she immediately gets out of the pool, walks into the house, and slowly takes off everything- … and just twirls around a couple of times for us to look at her naked body.

Yeah. 

Hit my nail. And then, and then gets in the shower, and then the killer shows up. But I’m sure you can tell us about this girl. I know this girl. She’s one of the few of the people in this movie that kind of had a career- … 

Todd: before, 

Craig: during, and after. 

Todd: This is Gianna Fine. Yeah. She, uh, she went straight from this movie into the adult film world.

Many, many, many films under her belt. 287 of them, to be exact. She has a great body. She has a great look. I freaking love her hairstyle in this. She’s got that very punky look. 

Craig: Yeah, ble- uh, platinum bleach blonde, spiky. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. She was doing porn before this as well, so it, it, she- I think she had kind of a bit of an on and off again career in that, but, uh- 

Craig: Mm-hmm

Todd: pretty solid it seems like if you look at her, like maybe on for a couple t- weeks and off for a couple weeks. ‘Cause she was pretty solid all the way through the mid-’90s. 

Craig: Yeah. I read a little bit about her. It’s just funny ’cause if you go to her IMDb page, she looks like, you know, your aunt or your mom or something.

Like she’s- She does 

Todd: now. 

Craig: But yeah, she, she had a successful career, and she, you know, she, like you said, she does, she has a beautiful body and she- It’s on full display here. She hears something outside and goes out thinking it’s her boyfriend, and at first she doesn’t see anybody, but then this guy in a mask, like this weird devil mask, pops up in the window and she’s like, “Oh, Tommy, you’re so crazy,” or whatever.

And she lets him in, and he’s in a full, like, costume. Like, it looks like a decent Halloween costume. It’s a full, like, robed thing and a devil mask. And she- Yeah … I guess thinks it’s her boyfriend and invites him in and is like… 

Clip: So come and get it, you devil. Come on. Don’t you wanna see my costume? You’re gonna love it, you know.

I’m Lady Godiva. Wanna play my horsey? 

Craig: Oh my God, it was so funny. And then she just, like, sprawls herself out on the couch. I don’t even remember what she says. She’s like, “So are you gonna surprise me?” And she says something like, “Go easy,” or something, “Last time you left marks.” And then she closes her eyes and he puts a pitchfork through her head or, or I don’t know, some sort of- 

Todd: Yeah

Craig: spiky gardening tool. 

Todd: Spiky gardening tool. Not quite a pitchfork. One of those, uh, what do you call them? 

Craig: I don’t know what they’re called … 

Todd: those things you use to till the ground with. 

Craig: Yeah, they’re like long-toothed rake, like, like three-pronged rake-like things. I don’t know. But that’s his MO. He kills a lot of people with that.

And, and, you know, those effects, they… I think that the director or, or cinematographer or editor or whatever combination was wise not to linger too long on those shots. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: They, they show you… You see it. You see the weapon- Blood … you know, impaled in these people’s faces and the blood and I thought it looked good- 

Todd: Yeah

Craig: on my computer screen. I thought it looked good. And I thought it was, it was smart not to linger on it too long. You know? You, you see it long enough to see that it’s there, and then the camera cuts away, and I think that was probably- 

Todd: For the best … 

Craig: smart. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, so this was Tommy killing his own girlfriend, huh?

Craig: I guess so, and I don’t know why. 

Todd: I don’t either. I thought surely there’s, like, some setup or some switcheroo or something, but then, uh, as soon as, uh, he comes home, we see, we see later a shot of Tommy coming home and he packs his things up and one of the things he does is pull out one of those masks.

Makes a big point of showing it off for the camera. 

Craig: Yeah, and it’s… I mean, there’s a couple of things that happen in between there, but n- not really anything important. Like, for a second the grandpa shows up and, like, starts hitting on Vera, his granddaughter. Gross. And her boyfriend Brian jumps in to stand up for her.

Mm-hmm. And then sh- Brian and Vera go off and start, like, fooling around, and Tommy comes in and beats him up a little bit. It’s right after that that we see that he has a mask, and then he immediately goes to kill Brian. So it’s not like there’s- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: yeah. It’s, this is not a whodunit, at least at this point.

We know it’s him. 

Todd: Yeah, exactly. He kills Brian and dumps him in a grave or something. 

Craig: And that scene was so weird. Like, again, I, I, I still don’t know why he killed his girlfriend. I guess he’s killing Brian ’cause Brian was trying to hump his sister. Like, who cares? Get over it. You’re all grownups. Like, move out.

Yeah. Go away. Um, and, and he kills Brian in broad daylight in the middle of a giant cemetery. 

Todd: Everywhere. Which apparently is- Just outside their house- Yeah … and within walking distance of everything else. 

Craig: It was cra- it was so funny to me, like, so Brian finds them making out, you know, half-dressed or whatever, and he, and he throws- 

Todd: Tommy.

Tommy throws Brian 

Craig: out … Tommy finds them and throws Brian out. And then the next thing we see, it’s, he’s halfway in the middle of this giant cemetery, and he has put on a shirt and a jacket. And apparently the last thing that he did was to close his pants and close his belt. Like, I just thought it was so funny- Might be the first-

that he had been walking for a while- … with his pants open. And then it’s right in the middle of broad d- broad day, and I feel like he just hears something. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And he starts running as fast as he can. 

Todd: He kinda turns around and looks behind him, but there is no way anybody’s hiding in this cemetery. 

Craig: No.

Todd: This isn’t a creepy cemetery in the woods. No. It’s a big, bright city cemetery with no trees and wide open, middle of the daylight with these short little graves. There’s no way he’s being pursued through this cemetery by something he can’t see. 

Craig: No, but he takes off running as fast as he can and ends up just falling in a freshly dug grave that inexplicably is full of bones.

Human bones. 

Todd: How do they bury people in this place? What? Get some coffins Get some coffins, you country bumpkins. 

Craig: Oh my God. Not on there. I mean, uh, apparently they’re just burying people one right on top of the other too, ’cause there were a bunch of bones in there Like 

Todd: multiple skulls, yeah. 

Craig: Oh, boy. And then the guy just, Tommy I guess, in the costume just hits him over the head with a shoulder…

or his shoulder, a shovel. And, and again, the shovel goes into his head. You see it for a second, and then it cuts away. But like really, that guy was so stupid. Yeah. If he hadn’t been running and looking behind him and fallen himself, he would’ve been fine. Bro, it’s the middle of the day. Like- … 

Todd: walk 

Craig: to the police station.

I don’t know. 

Todd: 100%. 100%. 

Craig: Oh, boy. God. 

Todd: It’s super dumb. You know what kind of movie you’re getting definitely. Well, you kinda knew from the beginning, but especially by now. There’s no real rhyme or reason for what’s happening. 

Craig: And nothing matters, ugh, 

Clip: ultimately. 

Todd: The whole setup is nebulous. It’s really weird, okay?

So this guy who is destined for Grandpa’s ritual or something, but he’s- he seems to be cool with it. So, uh, he’s just as weird as Grandpa is, just as satanic and mean, and he’s running around killing his own girlfriend. So, like what’s happening? It… Well- And why? 

Craig: I don’t know. And then we cut back to Grandpa’s cult in the barn, and it’s not just him.

He’s got like three or four friends who are in the cult with him. We never really see them, but when we do they just look like normal, average, middle-aged people who just- Yeah. … you know, are in a cult. 

Yeah. 

But they’re, they’re in there and they’re robed and they’re on this big pentagram and he’s like, “The hour of Satan has arrived.”

And then he’s like, “Prepare the sacrifice.” And they have this hot naked blonde And they brand her on the ass with a pentagram. Now I am confused. Was the, was the girlfriend’s ass tattoo the same thing? 

Todd: Yeah. It was supposed to be a brand. I mean, it’s black. It’s more like a tattoo than a brand, but yeah. 

Craig: So is she connected to the cult?

Todd: I guess. 

Craig: Or was she? 

Todd: So why was she killed? I have no idea. 

Craig: I don’t either. And then this other girl, at first I thought it was the same girl because they both have that platinum blonde hair, but I think that this girl’s hair was longer. 

Todd: This girl’s, uh, the same actress that also plays the stripper at the party.

Craig: Oh, okay. 

Todd: The stripper at the party has a mask on to obscure it, but yeah- Oh … this is the same, the same gal. 

Craig: I didn’t know that. 

Todd: Not the same character, I think. Sh- they just had the same actress playing. 

Craig: Hmm. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: All right. Well, they brand that girl on the ass, and then Roger takes Beth to the graveyard, uh, to investigate something.

Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t- 

Todd: I, I just know Beth is gonna be late to this party. That’s all I know. 

Craig: Oh my God. 

Todd: She’s supposed to be there by 7:00. Super dark. 

Craig: It is already, and they run into some kids who look like cult members, but they’re really not. They just dropped their candy, I guess, as they were walking through the graveyard.

Todd: Ah. 

Craig: Okay, whatever. Yeah. So they leave. So Beth and Roger decide to just bang right there on a grave. Oh, listen, good for them. It’s Halloween, they wanna have a good time. They just met today. Like, they have spent 10 minutes together. But, you know- Yeah … it’s Halloween. It’s, it’s, like- 

Todd: It’s inspiring. Graveyard, good old night.

Craig: I know. And, and there’s, like, a, a corpse hand and, and she grabs it. 

Todd: She said, “Your hand, it’s so cold.” 

Craig: And he’s like, “I, I’m, I, well, I’m about to get real hot,” or something like that. 

Todd: Now, how they can go through this whole rigmarole on this grave and then stand up, get dressed, get back on his motorcycle and drive off without her or him noticing that there is a hand sticking out of this grave that she put her own hand in?

Craig: Well, and also when we see it, it is a huge mound of dirt. Yeah. Like, it’s not like they were just laying on the flat ground. Like, they were laying on a big hill. No. 

Todd: That’s not an easy place to make out on. It doesn’t 

Craig: even make any sense. They should’ve rolled off that. It also doesn’t even make any sense because they come back to it later for no reason- Yeah

other than for Beth to show Vera where she her brother. 

Todd: Yes. That’s, like, 

Craig: like- 

Todd: Like, she had to make 

a point 

of it … that’s the 

Craig: only reason they go back there. 

Todd: Yeah. Oh, I love that bit. I love that bit. 

Craig: Oh my God. And when they go back there it’s a huge mound, and it turns out that the person buried under there is Brian.

But that doesn’t make any sense either because we… The last time we saw Brian he was in a six-foot hole. So why is he now buried three centimeters- … at the top of a huge mound of dirt? 

Todd: Oh, 

Craig: boy. 

Todd: It’s a really good question, actually. But, you know, it’s the same as, uh, zombies. Lucio Fulci, those zombies two inches below the earth so they can 

Craig: burst out.

Yes, true. Yeah. I also thought that it was… Okay, two funny things. First, we finally get to this Halloween party, which, you know, th- they’ve been building up to. They’ve been decorating for it for the whole movie, and then we get to it and it looks like a high school dance. Like, it looks totally lame. 

Todd: It’s pretty lame, but they have a live band.

Craig: They do, they do have a live band, and everybody is in costume. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: So that’s, that’s fun. But it, there’s a woman in a red dress and a white fur stole and, like, a masquerade mask, and we track her through the whole party until she beckons some guy who comes over and dances with her for a second and unzips the back of her dress.

And I was like, “Where is this going?” Well, where it’s going is that she then does an entire striptease where she takes off all of her clothes. Mm. Like, I- Mm-hmm … I did not s- I did not see this coming. And I still- 

Todd: I didn’t either … 

Craig: I still don’t understand really what was happening. Like, did they hire a stripper for the party?

‘Cause it really seems like she was just getting into it and getting naked for the fun of it. I- 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: And then immediately- Wow … after that happens We cut to outside the party where a guy stumbles out and says to all the people just gathered there standing around outside, “Hey, did you guys see that stripper?”

And then goes into a full comedy routine for, like, five minutes. 

Clip: And boy, you know, she reminded me of one of those girls from the girly magazine. Did you ever see those girls in the girly… Like, my favorite part in there is, is the naked girl. I love the naked girl. But now I got a favorite brand-new part: the little memo right underneath the naked girl’s picture.

‘Cause the things they say about themselves, they’re not quite accurate, are they? I mean, they say things, for example, like, “

I’m just a conservative girl.”

Todd: This guy’s a master of physical comedy. He’s, uh, he’s something. 

Craig: The… Oh, boy. This r- watching this scene made me think of moments in real life. C- like, this is the kind of thing that happens in real life. Like, you’re out there just hanging out with your friends or whatever, and then some drunk asshole stumbles out and thinks that they are hilarious and gives you, like, a whole routine, and you just have to stand there and look at them and be like, “Uh-huh.”

Oh, boy. 

Todd: Oh, no, they think it’s hilarious. They’re all laughing- Oh, yeah … at this story. 

Craig: They’re laughing and laughing. 

Todd: There’s nothing funny about this routine. He’s playing a turkey. He’s writhing around on the ground. He… Oh my God, is it bad. It’s so bad- It goes on 

Craig: for a long time … 

Todd: it’s embarrassing to watch.

That’s how bad it is. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: Poor Bill Tucker. I wonder what he felt when he was out in the audience watching this for the first time. 

Craig: Oh, boy. Oh. 

Todd: Party comedian, Bill Tucker. So he gives his little thing, and now… Oh yeah, so then we’re back in the house- 

Craig: They find Brian on the grave, yeah … 

Todd: with the girls. Yeah.

And the girls are, like, getting ready for their h- for their thing. And I just love this transition because the girls are talking about how, “Oh, so-and-so hit it off with Roger,” and she’s like, “Did you do it?” And she’s like, “Yeah, I guess we did.” She’s like, “So tell me, where did you guys do it?” Cut to they’re in coats, they’re outside at the graveyard, and she’s pointing, “Over there.”

She had to walk her to it. And, uh, yeah, you’re right. So she’s showing her the grave. She sees a hand in there sticking out. She’s like, “Ah, ha, ha, very, very funny, Vera, putting this fake hand out here.” And she pulls it up and ends up pulling her boyfriend out of it. 

Craig: Yeah, and she’s really upset, and she’s like, “I’m gonna get Tommy for this.”

Todd: Oh, my 

Craig: God. Okay. So she goes to Grandpa’s satanic barn- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: and interrupts the ceremony. I would call the police, by the 

Todd: way. 

Craig: Yeah, she… Yeah. She, she tells Beth, “Wait outside. This is family business.” And she goes in and she interrupts the satanic ceremony, and Grandpa, uh, says that she has to pay the price for the sacrilege of disrupting the ceremony or something.

I don’t know. “

Todd: You’ve intruded on the ceremony of blood, and now you must pay the price for your sacrilege.” Ah. He hands Tommy a knife, and he’s gonna stab his sister. Like, what kind of weird up 

family is this? And if Grandpa is so evil, why did he wait this long to off all of his grandchildren? It’s just- 

Craig: I know

so dumb. Like, it’s not like it’s… It, it’s not like it’s Tommy’s 18th birthday or anything. This guy is in his mid-40s. Like, I don’t… What were you waiting for? 

Todd: I know, right? Oh, my God. And then, so she’s kneeling on the ground begging him, “Tommy. For God’s sake, Tommy, I’m your sister.” And Grandpa’s like, “Don’t be a fool, Tommy,” as Tommy hesitates.

And he goes, “She’s my sister.” Mm. And now Tommy has failed the master. He lets his sister run out. He runs out, and Grandpa turns around, walks back towards the camera, and he looks very sad about it.

This is a masterclass in community theater acting 

Craig: It’s really funny 

Todd: Every bit of it is melodramatic- Yeah … and hilarious. 

Craig: It is pretty funny. 

Todd: And I, and I say that with a smile. You and I have both been in community theater. 

Craig: Oh, 

Todd: yeah. And, uh, you know, I’m not disparaging that at all. But it’s, it’s just horrible.

It’s just melodramatic, over the top- Yeah … terrible dialogue, stupid situation. 

Craig: It’s pretty funny. 

Todd: And now Tommy, who’s gone through, what, 40 years of his life in anger and building up to this moment, within s- a split second, I guess, you know, he could kill his girlfriend, he could kill his sister’s, uh, boyfriend, but killing his sister was a bridge too far.

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: It broke the whole thing. So you’d think it’s kind of over by now, right? ‘Cause what the hell’s Grandpa gonna do? Yes. I don’t know. It’s not like they’re summoning demons or anything, you know? I 

Craig: know. 

Todd: A- anybody could just take this guy out. If he bothers you, just tackle him to the ground. 

Craig: Right. And he, he, he says like, you know, very solemnly like, “I know what I must do.

I have no choice.” I’m like, “Okay. I, I mean, I don’t know what you need to do, but I, I guess we’ll find out in the next 10 minutes.” And then a lady dances with a snake. I guess this- Mm-hmm … is back at the Halloween party. There’s- Yeah … like a – They 

Todd: hired a snake dancer … snake dancer … as well as a stripper. We get to see her for no reason at all, just Halloween atmosphere.

Craig: The devil costume shows up at the party, and I thought, “Okay, that must be Grandpa. He’s-” carrying out whatever mysterious mission they’re carrying. I don’t know, but it’s not Tommy, so it must be Grandpa. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: And he k- he kills a lady in the bathroom. That was such a weird scene. Oh my God. There’s a lady in the bathroom, and the devil thing comes in, and she’s like, “Help me with my corset.”

And so, like, he starts helping her, and she’s like, “Make it tighter.” And so he starts pulling it tighter, and her tits start to pop out, and then he stabs her. That’s it. 

Todd: I thought this was gonna be like he squeezed her to death or something. I think it was just an excuse for them to really zoom in on her tits almost popping out.

Craig: Almost popping out. Oh, boy. Gosh, what else? And then the, the, the cops investigate the barn. What, what was funny to me is the brother, Roger, is at the party when the grandpa shows up, and then the next time we see him and the rest of the cops, they’re out at the barn. Like, what are you doing out there? Like, nothing’s happening out there.

Like, get back to the party. 

Todd: The girls ran into the party and got Roger- Okay, okay … and Roger left with them, and then he got the police, and they went to the barn. But of course, no one’s there. The girls are back at the party crying, and they go into the women’s room, and they see the body in there, but they think she’s just drunk.

Even though her eyes are open, she’s just staring out into 

Craig: nothingness. Yeah, and she’s made up like a corpse. I mean, I guess it is Halloween. We’ve talked about this. Yeah, I guess. If you’re gonna kill somebody, do it on Halloween. 

Todd: But even Roger’s made it back there by now. 

Craig: Well, Beth gets strangled. Beth gets killed.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I was kinda surprised by that. 

Todd: Yeah, it surprised me too. 

Craig: But yeah, she gets, she gets strangled and then s- hung up in a closet, I guess, in the bathroom or something. And then Vera runs out, and she runs into the devil costume. But then Tommy also shows up also in the devil costume. 

Todd: I was so confused.

There are two people in a devil costume. I guess one of them’s Grandpa and one of them’s Tommy, but d- I have no idea which is which. 

Craig: And they’re fighting. 

Todd: It’s supposed to be a big dramatic fight sequence, but it looks so bad. 

Craig: The grandpa gets killed. 

Todd: He falls. 

Craig: For… He falls down, and then Roger runs in at this point, and Grandpa’s on the ground, and Grandpa’s like, “Roger, the power is in the blood,” and he, I don’t know, touches his face or something.

And so then Roger pulls out his gun and shoots the other person in the devil suit as they’re running away. But when they get outside, they take off the mask, and it turns out it w- it wasn’t Tommy, it was the mom. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Okay. 

Todd: Ugh. So What? How did Mom get the mask? What is Mom doing? Why is she at the party? Uh, did she know Grandpa was gonna be there?

Did she know he was gonna be in a mask, too? Like, what, what… How is Mom involved suddenly? But you forgot about the animated red dot that shows up on, uh, Roger’s forehead when Grandpa touches it. That seems to be important. Yeah. 

Craig: Oh, boy. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: So 

Todd: it’s the one with long blonde hair, and God, it’s so labored. I’m thinking, “Where is Tommy then?”

And suddenly Tommy shows up. He’s also in the cemetery. She stumbles to her dead husband’s grave and falls down on it, and I’m thinking, “God, is this over yet?” And oh, no, here comes Tommy, and he comes over to comfort her. He’s clearly a changed man. They confess their love for one another, they cry together, and they fade out.

Clip: Mm-hmm.

I only wanted t- to keep my family.

Todd: I’m sorry.

I love you

Clip: Tommy. 

Todd: So is she dead now? I don’t know. 

Craig: I don’t know. 

Todd: Is she’s dead? She got shot. 

Craig: Who cares? 

Todd: Whatever. Now we fade in and there’s another ritual happening in the barn. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: And the person who’s leading it turns around, and it’s Roger as the high priest. 

Craig: Yep. “

Todd: We welcome the night.” Fade out. 

Craig: The end. Yeah. Twist 

Todd: ending.

Wow. 

Craig: Yeah. Good boy, you know, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Roger is the- … the, the evil Satan cult leader now. 

Todd: A finger to the head with that red dot. That’ll get you every time, man. 

Craig: It will. You gotta watch out for that. Yeah. Oh, boy. Yeah, no, it’s terrible. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a awful, awful movie. But there- You know, like, if, if you’re, if you’re looking for…

I- you picked this one. We have, you know, thought about and talked about and planned out what we wanna do over the rest of the month for Halloween, and I think we’ve got some good ones picked out. But you picked out this one, I’d never heard of it, and you said we should just go ahead and start with it.

And I’m glad you did because I think that this is a really fun way to kick off the season. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It’s, it’s stupid. It is. It’s stupid and funny and fun and light and like- And 

Todd: baffling- 

Craig: Uh … in 

Todd: all the right ways. Yeah. I, I love it. I think I’m gonna be thinking about this movie a lot. This might be one of those I revisit every, uh, every now and then for Halloween because it is just that goofy, and it’s got a lot of boobs in it.

I’m not gonna lie. That part’s appealing. 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. It’s, there’s… And, and like you said, it’s, there’s so much Halloween to it, like Halloween decorations and so much talk of Halloween and people in costume and 

Todd: it- Halloween party, bands playing music … 

Craig: as bad as it is, it, I feel like it, it in some weird way kind of is emblematic of the crazy fun, unexpected…

Like, that’s, that’s… Halloween for me is fun- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: first and foremost, and this is fun. It’s, it’s mindless. You don’t have to pay any attention to it really. It’s just kind of a ride, and I think it’s worth seeing i- if, as long as you go in knowing it’s bad and, and just enjoy the ride. 

Todd: Well, I’ve said this before about other Halloween movies similar to this, is Halloween to me is scrappy and DIY.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: You know? Halloween is putting your costume together yourself, putting out the cheesy decorations, just going to the nines with the fake spider webs and the fake… Whatever you do to your lawn, wherever you’re going, it’s just, it’s just a mess of just whatever people throw out there, and that’s what I love about it.

It’s just the scrappiness of it. It’s not polished, and, uh, your local haunted house or two put on by the Shriners or the Lions Club or whatever is also scrappy and unpolished fun. You know, it doesn’t make any sense either. It’s just a mishmash of stuff. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And, uh, that’s why I think a movie like this just totally captures the spirit of that season, and it puts me in the mood.

You know, when the weather is cold outside and this is happening, boom. Yeah. Hack-o-Lantern is, is a go-to Halloween movie as far as I’m concerned now, and I just wish I had gotten to it earlier. As a kid, I might’ve really enjoyed it. I mean, even without the boobs, I probably would’ve- … had a good time with this.

Craig: It does. You know, it also very much, you know, from very early on, es- with the first bathtub scene, I’m like, “Oh, gosh, this really takes me back to Ron DeScheer and Up All Night.” Yes. This is exactly the kind of thing- Yes … exactly the kind of movie that you would’ve seen on Up All Night l- in the, you know, at 2:00 in the morning on a Friday or Saturday night.

W- you know, you’re 11 years old, and your parents are asleep, and you’re watching movies with boobs. Mm-hmm. And like, it, it just, it, it re- and, and it’s terrible, but it’s sexy and funny. And yeah, it’s, it’s a nice throwback to that. It was a fun, it was a fun watch. 

Todd: Well, thank you guys so much for listening, and Happy Halloween season to all of you, no matter where you are in the world.

I hope you’ll join us in the spirit of the season this month, as we have five Halloween movies coming to you, so four more after this. They only get better or worse from now on. That’s the only promise we can make to you. Go to chainsawhorror.com to have all the fun. We also have a really great lineup of stuff planned for our patrons this Halloween season.

We’re gonna go a little bit more all out with the minisodes than we usually do. I have some posts and things lined up, some special surprises in store, maybe an audiobook or so, like I did a couple years ago. I may bring that back this year. If you wanna get in on all that fun, plus get unedited episodes the minute that we record them on the phone, plus join our book club, we’re gonna be reading some Halloween-themed books this year as well.

We’re in the middle of one right now. Just, uh, drop us a line at patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. And for just $5 a month, there’s no better month to jump in, uh, and enjoy the spoils of Halloween at Two Guys and a Chainsaw. Until next week, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We return with a tribute episode honoring the late Reggie Bannister, the longtime anchor of the Phantasm series, by diving back into 1988’s Phantasm II.

We talk about Bannister’s unique career and background and how Reggie evolves here into a more action-hero figure. We break down how Universal’s higher budget and studio demands changed the sequel’s tone—more linear, more action-driven, recasting Mike, and adding love interests—while losing some of the original’s dreamlike surreal horror.

We discuss the road-trip structure, psychic subplot, mixed lore elements, standout practical effects, memorable set pieces, and the ending’s reset, plus where the series goes next and why we might revisit later entries like Ravager.

Episode 507, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: Well, we come to you with another tribute episode. It’s been a little while since we’ve done one, ha- no, we did a tribute episode a couple episodes ago, didn’t we? 

Craig: Yeah, but I bet our listeners won’t find this one much of a surprise if they keep up on the news at all.

Todd: Yeah. Today, we are mourning the death of Reggie Bannister, very prolific actor in horror, who is best known for his breakout role in Phantasm, one of my all-time favorite horror movies. So we decided that since we hadn’t really done much else in the Phantasm series in all these years, that we would dive back in there as tribute to him with 1988’s Phantasm II.

I had seen Phantasm II in high school, and I remember at the time thinking, “Whoa, this is quite different from the original in tone.” And so, uh, I was curious to see if my impressions of it this time around matched what I remembered, and I think, yeah, it kinda did. It really did match how I, I remember, and I can’t wait to talk about that.

What’s your history with this movie, Craig? 

Craig: Uh, I really didn’t grow up watching this. I, I wish that I had given myself time to go back and listen to our original discussion on the first one because it’s been so long. And, and I feel like it was, you know, not long before that that I had watched the whole series from start to finish pretty much all at once.

So when I was introduced to Phantasm, I, I mean, I knew f- like, the orb and the Tall Man, the imagery was stuff that was familiar to me. I just hadn’t actually seen the movies. Mm. And once I finally got around to seeing them, I watched all of them. At that point, I think the first three, maybe the first four were out.

I know that Ravager wasn’t out yet. I remember that Ravager came out later, and I saw it later. But I kind of, I kind of knocked them all out at once, which is a different experience, I think. It’s, it’s an interesting series. I’m, I’m a little surprised that we haven’t come back to it. In hindsight, I don’t know.

I think this was the right choice. It might have been interesting to do something like Ravager, which, you know, Reggie Bannister, he was the, pretty much the anchor of this series along with Angus Scrimm, but I think Ravager came out even after Angus Scrimm had passed away. Reggie Bannister really was kind of the anchor of, of the whole series, and, and it spans almost four decades, so- Yeah

it might have been kind of interesting to look at the last one. But this one has some interesting backstory, and fan opinions are mixed, and so I think we’ll have plenty to talk about. 

Todd: Yeah, we cer- we certainly will. I think Ravager came out in 2016. That was the only one except for the first two… Well, I guess the first two and that one got a theatrical release, and the rest went straight to video.

So I guess we’re talking the third one and the fourth one went straight to video. I think that same year is when Reggie Bannister was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: He acted quite a bit- Up to that point, and then he had a couple movies after that, and then I think just, uh, retired from acting to take care of his health.

And, uh, I think we knew last year that his health was deteriorating. 

Craig: He’s been unwell for a while. I, I think that his, his family or, or whoever is in control of his estate was, uh, was even reaching out to fans, I think, to help finance his living situation and his healthcare needs. I mean, he’s, he’s been in bad shape for a while.

So this didn’t really come as a big surprise and, and that’s sad that he was unwell and that he’s passed, but he had a really unique but cool career. Like, he’s one of those… Phantasm, I feel like isn’t as well-known as, let’s just say, the Evil Dead franchise, ’cause I feel like that’s kind of the best comparison with Bruce Campbell as Ash.

I mean, he’s kind of the Bruce Campbell- Yeah … Reggie Bannister is the Bruce Campbell of this series. And this is another one of those unique series that follows a direct continuity start to finish. There really aren’t lots of contradictions. There’s evolution and some things change along the way, but it’s a, it’s a direct continuity following Reggie Bannister’s character, Reggie, and, and the other central characters with the central antagonists throughout all of them.

So he may not have been an A-list guy, but he certainly had like, you know, a storied career, uh- Yeah … and, and r- really cool connections with, with Don Coscarelli. And so it’s, it’s cool to be able to kind of talk about him and celebrate. This was such, so special and meaningful to him and, and he was always, uh, really appreciative of the support that he got from fans.

This is something that he really embraced, so to get to kind of celebrate him after his passing feels good. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s kinda sad. He was, um… Well, it’s, it’s good. It’s great, actually, because he got into acting after a pretty rough time in the military. He was in the Vietnam War. He was drafted. He, he was against it, but he got drafted, so he became a, kind of more of a frontline soldier.

I think he was a radio operator for an automatic weapons specialty group. And because he was around these weapons so often, big weapons, like, he ultimately got some hearing loss- And, uh, he was exposed to Agent Orange. So I think he, when he retired, he got some disability and, uh, also took his GI Bill from the military and decided that the next thing he was gonna do was use that money to study acting.

So, uh, it’s really cool that he could transition into this, and very lucky that very early in his screen acting career, you know, basically within two years he got that role in Phantasm. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: He didn’t really get another role until nine years later with this movie. 

Craig: Yeah, he had kinda quit. Like, I think he had intentionally kinda quit.

Todd: Um- W- yeah. Didn’t he even spend some time embalming bodies in a funeral home in the meantime? Yeah. This is crazy. 

Craig: Yeah. A- and, and he was a musician, too, and he was in other stuff. I mean, this is what he’s known for, and a lot of the other stuff that he was in, he appears in, like, horror or indie cameos.

Todd: Small roles usually. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I, I remember seeing him in Wishmaster or one of the Wishmasters and- 

Todd: Yeah, the first Wishmaster. He was a pharmacist in that. We did that one here. We did Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: The Initiation, one of my all-time favorites. Yeah, 

Craig: yeah. 

Todd: He was in that. 

Craig: And he’s really recognizable because he’s n- got a unique look, and he’s not a glamorous Hollywood leading man type.

He’s much more of an everyman kinda guy. But over the course of this franchise, he got to… His character got to evolve from kind of a dopey sidekick to, you know, a badass chainsaw, sawed-off shotgun-wielding, leather-wearing action hero kinda- I mean- And, and, and that starts here, but by, by the last one, he’s, like, a post-apocalyptic, like, Mad Max-type character.

Like how much- Wow … you know, how fun. H- you know, no wonder he embraced it. How fun to get to see a character in a story through that kind of evolution. It’d be awesome. 

Todd: Very Bruce Campbell in that way, huh, like you said earlier. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Just, like, almost a very similar type character, but his own unique spin on it.

You know, Bruce Campbell’s got that smarmy, good-looking, badass kind of look, and this is the everyman kinda forced into doing what he can but taking it up with enthusiasm. I, you know, uh, there’s such a stark contrast between the first movie and this movie. And unlike you, I haven’t seen the others in the series, so I remembered when I was a kid seeing this movie and thinking, “Ugh-” It’s kind of disappointing because it doesn’t have that dreamlike, ethereal, surreal quality of the original.

One thing I just love about the original movie is just how weird it is. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And that weirdness translates into, for me anyway, into a very unsettling terror, and I think this is why it’s just one of my all-time favorite movies is because it’s a rare movie that I just feel the way I feel when I’m watching Phantasm.

Craig: I feel like this is an excellent example of the price you pay for studio. Y- you know, w- when- Right … when you get a studio involved, when a studio is in charge, yeah, they’re gonna give you a lot more money than you’re going to get otherwise. But they have a lot of control and expectations, and this movie comes almost 10 years after the original.

I guess sequels were doing well, making money, and Don Coscarelli’s former lawyer or something worked at Universal, I think, and was a big fan of horror and, and just kind of pushed this through, and they gave it a, a much higher budget. W- what was it, like $3 million, I think? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: For this, which I don’t remember how, b- but the, the first movie was very, very low budget.

But it came with demands and a more linear storyline and moving away from that more ethereal, dreamlike… And, and what I, I remembered in the first one was an uncertainty about what was happening and what was real and what wasn’t real because you were kind of jumping in and out of dreams and reality.

And to be fair, it was a little confusing, and I think that there was an attempt in this movie to make it more linear and a little bit less confusing, which is fine, but you’re right, I think it takes away from some of the charm. The other big change was that the studio, for sure I know, wanted to recast both of the leads.

Now, I didn’t read anything about Angus Scrimm. I can’t imagine anybody wanting to recast him, but they wanted to recast both of the principal leads, and Coscarelli had to fight. I mean, both of the original actors had to audition, and Coscarelli was basically given the Hobson’s choice, like, you know, you can…

It’s one or the other. Either way you’re gonna lose somebody, but he picked Reggie Bannister, and so the other lead, Mike, is played by a different guy in this one, which I can understand why fans of the original didn’t like that But the studio wanted somebody more recognizable, and so they passed on Brad Pitt and picked this guy, and- 

Todd: Yep, and then they went right back to, uh, the guy from the original for the, the, the f- the subsequent sequels, right?

Craig: They did. I, and I, I don’t know why. I, I imagine probably based on fan response. But yeah, he played… The original guy came back. And I remember reading the IMDb trivia about the first one when we did this, the first one, like 10 years ago. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And I remember reading that he was still kind of salty about it.

Well, that was 10 years ago. Who knows if he’s still- … salty about it. But I, I mean, I get it. It would be… I would be mad, too, if I was the one guy who got recast. Um, but the, the, the guy that they recast does fine. I, I think it’s just, especially since, you know, Angus Scrimm and Reggie Bannister both came back, this new guy, I think, just, I don’t know, didn’t have much of a chance.

His name’s James LeGros. And I knew I recognized him, but I couldn’t figure out what it was from. He has been in a movie that I’ve seen. He’s in a, uh, adaptation of Macbeth called Scotland, Pennsylvania. It’s a modern-day retelling set in the ’70s, the 1970s. And I haven’t seen it in its entirety since the ’90s, but I remember really liking it.

I show some clips of it in my class when I do Macbeth. But the one thing that I r- I, I recognized him for sure from was he was in one episode of Friends- 

Todd: Oh … 

Craig: where he was a guy who went on a date with Phoebe. And he was super obnoxious, and she a- she’s like, “So what do you do?” And he’s like, “I write erotic novels for children.”

“They’re wildly unpopular.” And then his, his other good line was, “I also have a PhD.” And she’s like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” “Yep, a pretty huge…” And then she cuts him off. I always- Oh … thought that was a funny line. Funny. 

Todd: He got the good lines at least. 

Craig: Yeah. So if you are a Friends fan, he’s, uh, that guy. And he’s fine, and he did beat out Brad Pitt.

And they threw in a couple girls for no good reason. Yeah. Okay, there’s girls in it now too. And those were the studio’s demands. And they did it, and it’s fine, but it certainly is a move away from, I think, some of what made the original interesting and, you know- 

Todd: Scary. I would say scary too, because I don’t find this movie quite as scary.

Honestly, because the, the first movie is really all about these people, and stuff is happening to them. Now, the kid gets very investigative because he’s freaking out about what’s happening in the cemetery and what’s happening with the, you know, the stuff and the, and bodies are disappearing. So he, you know, he gets wrapped up in a thing that he feels that he has to explore, and then his brother ends up kind of getting involved.

But in general, they are just victims and there, there’s, things are happening that they can’t explain. The Tall Man keeps visiting them and, and all this. They end, end up do, I think, having a final scene, right, where they’re in the- 

Craig: Mortuary or whatever. Yeah … 

Todd: mortuary. And the explanation is just totally bonkers.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: It’s just totally bonkers and I love it. It’s just the weirdest crea- most weirdly creative thing. So you also have these orbs that are flying through the air, which are pretty unique also. I mean, I don’t think horror did anything like this before. And what’s the deal with the orbs, you know? There’s just so much strange stuff happening, but it’s scary and the Tall Man is scary and he’s menacing, and there’s just this threat and you don’t know what’s going on.

And I just love that movie to death for it. This movie picks up right where the one, the other one left off. 

Craig: Exactly, 

Todd: right. At least it finishes out the scene for us, right? Basically, the Tall Man has one of his goons come through the mirror in one of those, like, Friday the 13th style endings, right, where suddenly Jason appears and, and grabs them when they think they’re safe.

Coscarelli thought that the first movie was just a complete story and he loved the ending, and he only wrote this movie because of money and because he was pressured to do it. But he said once he f- figured he could just start from the ending of the first movie, things started to fall into place. 

Craig: Yeah.

And he was inspired by Salem’s Lot, the Stephen King- 

Todd: Mm … 

Craig: novel. At the end, the very, very end of that story, the main characters go on, like, a vampire hunt, like a, a road trip, hunt 

Todd: Yeah 

Craig: And, and when I say the very end of the story, it’s like the last couple pages. Like, they just- Yeah … they decide- It’s just like-

they’re gonna go off on this thing. And that was kind of what inspired this. And I, and I think that is fine. I think that that’s a, a fine way to go with it, and I f- I’m pretty sure it kind of carries through the rest of the movies. I think all of the rest of them are kind of road movies. If I remember correctly.

I could be wrong. It’s been a long time. 

Todd: You’re right. It’s fine to do, and, you know, it’s a great way to continue a series when you’re being asked to continue it, but it definitely changes the whole character of the film. So now it’s these two on a vigilante mission against The Tall Man, who takes a while to appear, and the c- the notion is that he’s now going from town to town doing this thing and leaving empty towns, I guess, behind him.

Craig: Yeah, which is weird because in the original, wasn’t, didn’t he have some history in the town where they were? Like, he had been there for, for a long time or something? 

Todd: I don’t remember exactly. 

Craig: I- I don’t remember exactly either. But what was interesting, well, to me, about the first one was every- everything that was happening was so weird, and you kept kind of seeing new, even more weird parts of it up until the end, where things aren’t really explained except for you know that there’s another dimension and he’s, like, taking bodies out of these cemeteries and crushing them down into these little troll like people.

Troll-type creatures. I call them Dinks because they remind me of the Dinks from Spaceballs. Right. So that’s what I called them in my notes. But… And that’s what they look like. They look like little people that just, like, waddle around, and they’re, like, in monk robes and hoods. It’s funny. But he’s turning them in- he’s turning corpses into these things, and then these things are like his minions, and they’re, like, taking, I don’t know, these squashed down people to another dimension.

But why? I don’t kn- like, and I don’t feel like it really ever explains that. Yeah. And it doesn’t really matter. I think kind of one of my problems with this one, the sequel, is that we still have all of those elements, but it doesn’t really expand on them or explain them any further. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: Like, it’s still, it’s still there.

It’s just there’s really nothing new. Okay, sure, there’s a new fancier orb that’s gold instead of silver, and it’s cool. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But beyond that, there’s not really any expansion of the lore except for, and I- you’ll have to remind me. I don’t remember if this was part of the first one. In this one, it’s introduced very early on that Mike is now psychically connected to this random girl.

Todd: Ugh. 

Craig: And because they are psychic They have the power to defeat the Tall Man, and they just have to psychically find each other. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s unfortunate. 

Craig: And they do. And one of my favorite parts of the movie is that when they find each other, she’s running through a graveyard, and she falls into a grave, and Mike’s in there.

And so she falls into the grave and in love in the same second because they’ve never met before- … except for in their psychic dreams. And they just start- Right … making out the second that they meet. I thought that was great. Like, 

Todd: I guess there’s a lot of, a lot of psychic sex- psychosexual tension- 

Craig: Foreplay.

Yeah, there was a lot- … that’s been building over the years. There was a lot of, a lot of dream foreplay. It was good. But yeah. Okay. So there’s that, that psychic element of it, and then we mentioned that there are, like, love interests for each of the two male leads. Then this other girl shows up kind of out of nowhere, and I don’t really have any idea what’s going on with her.

Todd: That’s one of those sort of surreal elements that I guess kind of got by the studio or something, which didn’t want anything like that. At one point, when they’re hunting through one of these bombed out towns, one of the mor- one of the many morgues that they’re going to be exploring probably throughout the whole series, I imagine- 

Craig: Yeah, one of the giant marble mortuaries that they went- 

Todd: And then they go into, like, usually, like, the embalming room or something like that, and he sees a body, a woman’s body on the table.

He’s a little fascinated by it, but, you know, she seems dead, and he walks around, and you’re waiting for her to come alive or some crazy something to happen. But actually, he just flips around real quickly, or maybe it’s just as he’s walking out, she’s completely gone. And so you’re left wondering, did he dream her?

Was she really there? Is this some weird supernatural thing? You just never really know. A little bit later, he’s kind of daydreaming. It seems like he’s sort of falling asleep in the car as he and Reggie are driving to the next town- And either in his dream or maybe he gets a vision, I guess it’s in a, in a dream more or less, he sees her as a hitchhiker that they drive by.

And then he wakes up or kind of comes to, and he turns to Reggie and he’s like, “Oh, hey, how are things going? I, I had this weird dream. I saw this girl.” And then she pops up from the backseat and goes, “Oh, he- hey, hello. My name’s Alchemy. But you can call me-” 

Craig: Kimmy for short. 

Todd: Kemmy for short. Okay. 

Craig: Oh my God, Alchemy?

Come on. 

Todd: Ugh, so weird. And he’s like, “Oh, yeah, I just picked her up back there. I hope you didn’t mind.” And so I thought immediately this girl’s trouble, you know? 

Craig: Obviously. 

Todd: A mysterious trouble girl. 

Craig: But it’s so random, and she’s just kind of around for the rest of the time. 

Todd: Well, not only is it random, but it’s also…

It get- It’s, it’s almost like he’s just trying to check the boxes of the studio notes, right? He’s like, “Well, I guess I gotta give Reggie a love interest, too.” And so she and Reggie just get real comfortable very, very fast. 

Craig: And she’s super into him. 

Todd: Oh, big time. Big time into this balding middle… What does Re- 

Craig: Middle-aged…

Yeah. 

Todd: What does, what does, um, Mike say to him? There’s one of my favorite lines in the whole movie was when he turns to him, they’re, they’re a little, uh, down. 

Clip: Reg, who are we kidding? I’m a 19-year-old kid. You’re a bald, middle-aged ex-ice cream vendor. 

Thanks, Mike. 

Craig: Yeah. What are we looking at? 

Todd: But yeah- That’s funny.

I forgot about that … she was, she’s got a type, you know? So she was really into him, and they have this sort of sex scene with her underwear on. 

Craig: And hi- he’s fully clothed, which- … I, I get is, is, is- How they get- … possible, but … how they get in these situations, I 

Todd: don’t know. I mean, it can 

Craig: happen- You know … 

Todd: but, you know.

Craig: It’s, but it’s also hilarious. Like, I just kept thinking it was so funny because she’s very, she’s very beautiful, and I would guess at least 10 years… And she’s super into him. I, I read somewhere that she asked the director, Coscarelli, I guess, “Why, what is my motivation for- … wanting this guy?” And he was like, “Oh, you’ve got a bald fetish.”

And so then I guess she just totally played that up, and the sex scene is hilarious ’cause she’s- That explains it … super into his bald head. That, and rubbing it and- I know. And she’s just, like, rubbing her boobs on it and smacking it. I, God, I don’t remember where I read this. I was trying to look around, but I, I read that she was so into it, she was smacking his head so hard that it turned his scalp all red, and they had to like- Makeup

more than once apply makeup to his scalp- … to cover up the red from her smacking it. It’s a funny scene. That’s great. Oh, my God. I, ’cause I, I feel like the charm of the original comes through in little moments. And, and they’re those funnier moments when it’s u- and usually smaller moments, like between Mike and Reggie.

Like, when they’re talking or conferring or, or even, you know, putting together their silly, though effective, arsenal and, and outfits that they wear. I mean, like, it was really funny to me every time they would suit up, and Mike would be in a welding hat, and he’s got a, you know, the homemade flamethrower, and they’ve got the f- four-barreled sawed-off shotgun.

Like, the, the humor there and, and the kind of silliness, and a lot of that I think is attributed to Reggie Banister. That charm still comes through. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It’s just not as consistent. Yeah. And, and I do think it’s that studio stuff that makes it not as great. And, and all the psychic stuff, like, I don’t understand.

Again, it, it’s really never explained, I don’t think. No. Why Liz is calling out to him psychically, “Mike, I know you’re out there. I need you. Soon my grandfather will die, and my visions will become real.” What are you talking about? 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: Like we, we don’t know this girl. 

Todd: How is this random girl getting visions of the Tall Man now?

Is, it’s- 

Craig: And what does her grandfather have to do with it? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I, I- And there’s 

Todd: a lot of scenes 

Craig: And eventually her grandfather does die and we go to his funeral. And like, I feel like the Tall Man is there and, and then the, the grandfather disappears out of his coffin, and then is just like popping up around places.

I, I really didn’t understand what was happening. 

Todd: Yeah. I read, and now this was news to me, but in my research, I don’t know where I read it, but it said that there was an element of the first two movies that was so confusing that they dropped it from the f- from the following movies. And that is this idea that the Tall Man appears to everyone else as a normal undertaker, but to people who are psychic, they can see him as he truly is.

I did not get that impression from the first movie in the slightest. 

Craig: No. I mean, I guess retroactively I could look back and say, “Okay,” but I don’t know. No, I didn’t get it. 

Todd: Well, there are other… He’s got like minions or s- or there are… Maybe they aren’t. I don’t know. There are other undertakers doing things in this movie.

Craig: Seemingly, right. I also thought that was weird. I was like, “Did they only have Angus Scrimm some days?” Because in those scenes where… And, and there are two of them, and they look exactly the same. I don’t know- Yeah … if they were, I don’t know if they were twins or just actors who were made up to look the same, but there are two of them.

And I didn’t know… There was one scene in particular where one of those undertakers has Liz, the blonde psychic girl, like in a crematorium. And I just kept thinking, “Why isn’t this Angus Scrimm?” Are they otherworldly? I mean, they, they seem a little pale with like dark circles around their eyes, but they also seem to be human.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Unlike Angus Scrimm, who seems to not be. 

Todd: Yeah. You know, everyone else is attacking them. Those are the little munchkin things. These undertakers really aren’t doing a lot of aggressive stuff. It’s like they’re coming in when, when they’re incapacitated or they’re… That maybe they think they’re dead And they’re wheeling them in.

Like, there’s that one scene where they wheel them into the furnace room, and then she comes alive. Yeah. And then he goes after her, and she gets the best of him. Then, then there’s that big scene in the hallway. 

Craig: That’s what I was gonna say. Because one of them is trying to attack Liz, I think. I don’t remember if this is…

They’re in mausoleums so often. Like, mausoleums all across the American Southwest. I don’t know. 

Todd: Massive old school- Yeah. … like, Gothic mausoleums. 

Craig: I don’t know if this is at her grandfather’s funeral. And, like, sometimes she’s in one by herself. Sometimes they’re in them together. I don’t know. But at some point she is being chased around by one of these undertaker guys, and what ends up saving her is the spheres come out.

There’s also a random priest. Yeah. I don’t even know if he’s worth talking about ’cause he doesn’t do anything. His sphere death is notable, so I guess we should talk about that. But at this one point, the… I was not confused, I guess, but the spheres come out, and you can kind of see, like, sphere vision. Hmm.

Yeah. But it goes, it goes through the hand of the undertaker. Once he’s pinned to the wall, another one comes around the corner, and it seems like it’s gonna, like, kill him or whatever. I don’t know that I understand the spheres. Right. Are they just, like, motion sensing? I, I guess they don’t differentiate between good guys and bad guys.

It’s just whoever is around. 

Todd: I, I- That was confusing, wasn’t it? I… The minute- Yeah … the spheres are attacking this guy when they seem to be aiming for the others. It’s like they ducked out of the way just in time. The sphere gets his hand, but now that it’s, it’s gonna go after him, and then the other one comes around, like you said, and that’s the gold Rambo one, right?

Which also has, like- A laser? A 

Craig: laser? 

Todd: They really up- Yeah. They really up the tech on these spheres in this one, I’ll tell you. It’s got a laser. It could, like, burn through doors. You know, the other thing about the spheres that was kind of creepy in the original too was that they just kind of fly through the air, but you don’t get the sense that they’re gonna stop, change course, turn around, float for a little while, wander up and down the hallway like they’re patrolling, like they have some personality.

Whereas these spheres do, or at least the Rambo sphere seems to have this bit to it. I mean, it kind of comes in almost like a, a droid from Star Wars when the two kids are hiding. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And, and it’s got this laser scanning of the room and stuff. I mean, it’s, it’s a big difference. 

Craig: Yeah. I… You find out later in one of the movies that there are little brains in each one of those.

Todd: Oh my God. Okay. Wow. 

Craig: There’s a little human brain in each one. 

Todd: There’s- 

Craig: That, that’s all I remember. I don’t remember names. 

Todd: There’s some things you don’t even wanna know, you know? There’s some things you don’t wanna explain. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: But this is just emblematic, again, of how I think this second movie just totally changes the character of the original.

I mean, the second movie is just so action heavy and so much like, “We’re gonna go and hunt down the, the Tall Man and stop what he’s doing.” And in the beginning especially, i- it’s almost like even though you don’t see the Tall Man, I mean, the impression is the Tall Man’s on the run. And that, in a way, neuters him a little bit, I think.

Even though when he does appear, he’s got full control and nobody can really get him. He just- 

Craig: See, but another problem of mi- yeah. Another problem of mine is you said it’s action heavy, and I suppose it is, but nothing really happens. Like, they’re just constantly, I guess, one step behind him until they’re not anymore.

Todd: Right. Nothing happens to advance, like, the story beyond- 

Craig: Right … “

Todd: Oh, the Tall Man’s out there doing these things. We’ve gotta get him. Oh, we just missed him,” or, “Oh, we just had an encounter. Now we move to the next place.” Right. You know? It’s just like a chase. 

Craig: In Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me, there’s this one scene where they’re just talking about, like, they’re having deep philosophical conversations about the TV shows that they watch.

And Gordie’s like, “Have you ever noticed on Wagon Train they never get anywhere? They just keep on wagon training.” And like, that’s what this movie felt like. Yes. Yeah. They just kept on wagon training. And then it, it, it seemed like the town, there was… They kept naming this town, I don’t remember what it was named.

Not Pierogi, but that’s all I can come up with. Something like that. 

Todd: Pierogi, sure, prob- 

Craig: And, and it was like, it was Anesthesia or what was her name? What was that girl’s name? Oh, Apothecary. Tommy, Kimmy. Ap- Apothekimmy. Apoth- Apothecary. Whatever her name is. It was, it’s like it’s her hometown or whatever, and when they get there- 

Clip: Looks like a ghost town.

Things sure have changed since I left. Oh 

yeah? How long has that been? 

I don’t know. Must be 10 years now. 

We’re gonna have to find a place to hole up. 

You know, my uncle owns a bed and breakfast on the other side of town, and, uh, you guys have been really nice to me, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind giving you a room.

That’d be great 

Craig: And, and they’re talking about how everybody’s staying inside ’cause they’re all scared, and then there’s some mention of how the Tall Man is harvesting everyone in the town. What? Why? What is happening? Is this a special town? Is Apothecary or whatever her name is, is she really from here?

Like, there were just so many story elements that didn’t go anywhere. Yeah. I, so I just didn’t understand really what was happening. Because ultimately none of those things really matter. It kind of just turns out ending the same way the first one did, with a showdown in a mortuary. Yeah. Where they seemingly win.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: I don’t, I don’t intend to, to jump to the end. There’s more to talk about, but- Yeah … it’s just kind of a big road to nowhere. 

Todd: It is, yeah. So like, once you’ve introduced… The joy of the first movie is all these weird elements, and it’s just a big mystery and you don’t know what’s happening. And even when more elements are introduced, it, they’re just more questions than anything.

All the way up to the end where it’s explaining that, “Oh, by the way, there are these two, like, giant tuning pins inside the mortuary that between them lead to this fan- this world that j- doesn’t look like much of a world, just a big ass wasteland.” 

Craig: Mars. Yeah, it 

Todd: looks- Yeah. Like, why would you need to sh- shrink people down to send them into this wasteland, you know?

Kind of weird. And then I think he kinda gets the better of the Tall Man by stopping the tuning forks, right? Doesn’t he put his hands on both of them, which somehow breaks something? 

Craig: I don’t remember that. 

Todd: That’s what kinda sets off their advantage. And that’s kind of juxtaposed nicely with Reggie himself as a guitar player.

He has his tuning fork he keeps bringing out. 

Clip: Oh, yeah. 

Todd: It, it all kind of seems to fold together into this interesting thing where you’re like, “There are layers here we’re just not understanding and, and are not being given to us.” But you know, there feels like there’s a weird David Lynch-esque type vision behind this that is just inaccessible to us, but I’m really enjoying this ride and it’s creepy as hell.

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: This movie just, like you said, it doesn’t provide any new information. All we get are these new elements, but sadly, not in a real creepy way, just a very practical way. Okay, these are the patrol balls. They’re not that mysterious anymore. They’re just like, like cyborg orbs that w- can even use their lasers to blast through doors and scan a room when they’re looking for somebody.

These little munchkin monsters You know, well, okay, so he’s shrinking them and sending them away, but also apparently they are also minions that he can keep here to help protect him and what he’s doing. And so they’re just goons. You know? They’re just goons that pop out every now and then. Uh, just when there needs to be some action in the movie, suddenly from around the corner, three or four of these things come and attack the person.

Okay. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Todd: And then the, it’s said specifically in the movie that they have been going from town to town, and that the Tall Man is leaving these traps for them along the way. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Todd: Okay. So like, what, they just miss him every single time? The, the Tall Man leaves a, a little vision behind to go like, “Fooled ya.

I’ll see you at the next town.” 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: You know, like You don’t know. What? Okay. But it just loses a lot of the m- mystery and horror. 

Craig: Well, and that was w- one of the traps… So he says that. He says sometimes he sets traps. And then they show us an old cemetery and, like, these dug up graves. So, like, evidence that he’s been there or whatever.

But we know that this is fake, I guess. And then they find a boarded-up church, and they use their chainsaw to get in there. And there, he f- there’s a naked- Mausoleum … corpse. That’s, that… Yeah, mausoleum. That’s when he first sees and- Elizabeth? But then later after that, after she finds… No, the other one.

Arcadia or- Oh, oh, right, right

Todd: I 

Craig: can’t remember what her name was. Arcadia. Gim- Gimmy. Apothecary. Yeah. Kim- a- alchemy. Alchemy. Yeah. 

Todd: Alchemy. Yeah, that’s right. Sorry. 

Craig: That’s when he first sees her. But then after he sees her, then he’s still looking around in there and he sees just, like, a huddled figure, like, under a, like a shroud or something.

And as he gets closer, it’s Liz, who he’s seen in his dreams before. And sh- I don’t remember exactly. Does she have… I think she has tape over her mouth? And he’s like, “Don’t worry, it’s okay. I’m gonna save you,” or, or something. And then he notices, I think, something, like, moving around under whatever she’s draped in.

Her back. 

Todd: Yeah, like under her… She’s in a cloak. 

Craig: Yeah. And so he, like, he pulls the cloak away and I swear to God, a miniature version of the Freddy snake from Nightmare on Elm Street 3- 

Todd: Yes … 

Craig: comes out and talks to him. Now I don’t remember the timing, but they look so much alike. 

Todd: Oh, it looks so similar. “

Craig: Come east if you dare.”

Like, why is this Tall Man taunting them? 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: Like, why? Why, why are either of them messing with one another? Now in the first one, if I remember correctly, all they were doing was stealing corpses. Is that really that big a deal? Like- True … is that really bothering you so much that it’s worth throwing your life away to go on this…

Like, just let them have their corpses. And like, sure- … I guess that the Tall Man killed their family. Like, s- I don’t even remember what happened to the older brother. I don’t remember if he died or… He comes back. This is the only movie he’s not in. But, uh, I don’t remember what happened to him. Something happened to him, and then in the beginning of this movie, the Tall Man kills Reggie’s entire family, like blows up the whole house.

Like, there’s a huge house explo- Right. But that’s only ’cause they were messing with him. Like Yeah. Leave the guy alone. Let him and his dinks collect their corpses and send them to Mars and everybody will be fine. Calm down. 

Todd: You’re kinda right about that. And, well, you know, in comparing it to The Evil Dead, the biggest, most jarring difference is that Bruce Campbell is a reluctant hero.

Craig: Right. 

Todd: You, you just get the distinct impression that he’s a badass. I mean, he’s fed up with things, but he doesn’t exactly go seeking out the Deadites. They’re just constantly menacing him. It’s just like one long story of him just trying to finally be rid of them. This is them actively going after this guy who, like you said, uh, might as well just be doing what he’s doing.

He’s not, like, causing an apocalypse. But then again, is he? Because if he comes to these towns and everybody’s afraid, and they’re boarding up and they can’t come out, he must be doing something else. 

Craig: Well, and he’s taking living people this time. I don’t remember if he… Well, not exclusively. He’s still taking dead people, but he takes the grandmother too.

See, I didn’t understand that whole part. I didn’t- Oh, I didn’t either … understand the grandfather kind of being a zombie for a little bit. And, like, he shows up in the grandmother’s bed, and then the next time we see the grandmother she’s a dink, and that was really a hilarious scene. Yeah. Liz has to fight her dinkified grandmother, and then she, like, knocks her out with a big vase, and, like, the dink goes flying across the room and she goes, “Sorry, Grandma,” and then just runs away.

That was so funny. I laughed 

Todd: out loud at that. 

Craig: Sorry, Grandma. Oh 

Todd: my God. So hilarious. 

Craig: Oh, God. It, it, it sounds, I’m sure, like we are really tearing this movie apart, and, and I think that that’s fair. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It’s fine. It’s entirely watchable. I’m disappointed that Angus Scrimm isn’t in it as much. Like- He’s not.

Yeah … he just kinda, he just kinda pops in and out and doesn’t really have a lot to do. And I don’t get that. He’s the best part of the first movie. If anything, I would’ve thought that he would’ve gotten more screen time, but he just kinda pops in every once in a while to say something kind of menacing- 

Todd: Yeah

Craig: and then just go away. 

Todd: It really does beg the question if he’s really the catalyst. Like, you get the idea in the first movie that he’s the guy pulling all the strings. Like, he’s the god of… He’s in charge, you know? In this movie- I don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff moving around and happening without him.

Craig: Oh, yeah. 

Todd: I mean, maybe he’s behind the scenes where we can’t see, controlling it, or maybe his minions and, are just so effective that he doesn’t need to be there monitoring them the whole time, telling them what to do. But you just don’t get a sense that he’s an active presence in most of what’s happening.

So they’re hunting The Tall Man, but they rarely see The Tall Man. I mean, God, if I was The Tall Man, I’d just kinda stay out of their way. I mean, no need to pop in every now and then. You’re always one step ahead of them anyway, laying traps and whatnot. 

Craig: Yeah. I, I mean, he really doesn’t show up as a major threat until the final act, and then he’s not really around a lot then because after Mike and Liz have some sort of weird dream date where they talk to each other without moving their mouths, but like- Oh, that was so 

Todd: weird.

Craig: It’s the most, it’s the most chaste thing I’ve ever seen. Like, they’re lying in a bed together, fully clothed, on top of the blankets, and then they wake up and just… I guess they’re dreaming, so they can talk to each other without actually talking. But they don’t do anything. 

Todd: I thought they were just psychically communicating with each other like they had been over distance, except this time they were next to each other.

Clip: Lips aren’t moving We’re dreaming 

Todd: Wow. 

Clip: This is great

We’re different, Mike. That’s why he wants us, ’cause we’re the only ones who can see what he’s doing. I prayed so hard that you’d find me, and you did

Craig: I love you. I don’t know. After that, and after that weird sex scene with Kimmy and Reggie, then the Tall Man shows up and, and grabs Liz through the window. He’s a big fan of doing that. That’s like his MO. Yeah, 

Todd: that’s his MO. Yeah. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: He d- I did get kinda tired of that, honestly. It, it was awesome the first time it happened, and then the second time- Yeah

you’re like, “Oh, okay.” And then the third time it’s like, “Uh, is this gonna be a thing?” ‘Cause now it’s lost its impact. 

Craig: Right. Yeah, and so then they have to go find her and, and Reggie tells Kimmy, he’s like, “You drive south.” And she’s like, “Will I ever see you again?” And he says, “I’ll find you if I’m able.” Okay.

Whatever. 

Todd: They really do just ditch her, don’t they? 

Craig: They do, and I didn’t think that we would see her again, but she does show up again. But- 

Todd: I thought she’d come in as like a, you know, big savior at the end of one of the s- one of the, you know, final battle or something like that. She’d kick open the door.

Craig: See, and I was still super suspicious of her, so I thought that she would show up and be like helping the tall guy or whatever, but she doesn’t show up until the very end. But there’s a big… They chase the hearse, and Mike flips the car, and there’s a big explosion, but somehow they still make it to the c- the mausoleum/crematorium.

There’s a scene, I, I loved that scene of Reggie and Mike standing in front of the like burning car and the fla- you know, they’re- Mm-hmm … lit by the flames. And they’re like, “Let’s go kick some ass.” Yeah. And they suit up in their makeshift suits, and they break… For reasons I, unknown, Mike sees an embalming station and is like, “I’m gonna put some hydrochloric acid in this embalming fluid.”

Oh, God. And he makes some comment. He’s like… I don’t even know, like what, what was his thought process? Like- Let’s see him try to, let’s see him try to- Embalm somebody with this … see what he does to that body or whatever. Like why? Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. And they find what Mike deduces is a keyhole, and he’s like, “We gotta catch a dink,” or something. They- Well, we gotta- They have to, they have- 

Todd: They catch the ba- the orb. 

Craig: Yeah. Well, they… Okay, right. They have to catch one of those orbs I guess. And they do. I mean, we already talked about the way that they get the sphere, we already talked about how it gets the, the mortuary guy.

And it, he, to, to escape the second one, he’s pinned, his hand is pinned to the wall by one. To escape the second one, he cuts his hand off. So after they dispatch him, they go back and they get the orb, and Mike, again, just deduces that the orbs, as long as they’re embedded in flesh, don’t move, I guess. 

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Okay. And so- If you say so … good, good 

Todd: thing of figuring that out, and they use it as a key. 

Craig: And they do use it as a key. Meanwhile, Reggie is having his hero fight with some huge guy in a gas mask who has just popped in every once in a while. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I, I don’t know who he is. We have no idea who this guy is, 

Todd: why he’s wearing a gas mask.

Craig: Or why randomly, somewhere in the middle of the movie, he was pushing around a smoldering coffin. I don’t know what that was about. Mm. It was like it had burned, and it was still smoking, and he was p- uh, again, I don’t know. But there’s a huge chainsaw fight, and it’s funny ’cause Reggie has a little tiny chainsaw and the other guy has a great big huge chainsaw.

I really dug that. It’s very phallic and silly. That was funny. I thought it was funny. And it’s a whole action thing where at some point, like, Reggie, like, leapfrogs over the other guy and his chainsaw, and eventually he saws the guy’s cr- crotch. And then they all get together and they use the sphere to open the lock, and they find the tuning fork yet again.

Todd: Almost get sucked in. 

Craig: And, and, and then the Tall Man shows up. Yeah, they- And then- … almost get sucked in, ’cause I guess it’s sucky now. 

Todd: Right.

Craig: Oh. Yeah. And M- yeah, so and Mike and Reggie almost get sucked in there, and there’s, like, a slimy, big, like, c- crawling at them. Crawling towards them. But- 

Todd: Elizabeth shows up, and the Tall Man’s there … 

Craig: and he ties her to a thing, and he’s gonna embalm her with the acid, and he doesn’t even know it’s acid. But Mike, once he gets Reggie out of the tuning fork, I think, he somehow gets one of the spheres and launches it at the Tall Man, and it gets him right in the face.

And instead of blood coming out, it’s all this yellow gook that shoots out of him. Yeah. And, and then there’s a hole in his head from the sphere, and, like, a long, like, pincher- Like a claw? On, like, a tentacle Like a great lab, crab claw or something comes poking out. Yeah, like a long claw or something comes out.

I, I don’t remember… I do remember that in part four especially, they really get into the nature of who and what the Tall Man is. 

Todd: Okay. 

Craig: And I can’t imagine that you mind spoilers, and this is only to the best of my recollection anyway, but he, he used to be… Well, there was a man that looked like the Tall Man back in, I don’t know, the late 1800s or something, and I think he was a scientist.

And he built that tuning fork thing. I think he was trying to explore other dimensions, and he went through it, but when he came back out, he was different, and he was the Tall Man. Hmm. So there was an original guy that looked like that, but I think that whenever he went in there, he changed and became something else.

And if I remember correctly There’s not just one. Like- Oh. He’s kinda like that guy from The Matrix. 

Todd: Oh, like Agent Smith? 

Craig: Yeah, he’s kinda like Agent Smith from The Matrix. Like he- He cloned 

Todd: himself? 

Craig: He- well, he’s really more like an avatar. Like- Oh. You can kill one, but if you kill one, another one will just step right in.

Oh. Um, a- and I, and I think in, in four, at some point in time there’s like a… You see like a whole army of them or something. I don’t know. But we don’t know that at this point. At this point, all we know is he bleeds yellow gook and he’s got tentacle claws coming out and, but, uh… And, and they fight a little bit, but Mike, I think Mike, I don’t know, somebody ends up stabbing him with the huge embalming needle and flips the switch to pump the acid into him, and he kind of dissolves, I guess, from the inside.

He melts and his eyes explode. It’s all practical effects, and there are tons of practical effects in this movie- Yeah … and they look good. It’s great. Greg Nicotero was one of the guys. I don’t remember, uh, the other main guy who worked on it. It’s another p- But these are great practical effects, and I guess this took a long time, and Angus Scrimm had to be in the makeup chair for hours at a time to get the various stages of this decomposition.

But anyway, he melts away and, and they run out of the mortuary, and surprise, surprise, Kimi is there in a hearse to drive them away, and they drive away as the mortuary burns, and somebody literally goes, “Woo-hoo!”

Todd: Yeah. Oh 

Craig: my God. And you 

Todd: think it’s the end again? 

Craig: Yeah, but I, I mean, I think you anticipate that there’s… Because of the great kind of shocking Friday The 13th jump scare at the end of the first one, I anticipated there had to be something, especially since it had wrapped up so quickly. Like, as, as great as those practical effects of the Of, of the Tall Man melting away were.

It felt anticlimactic. It, it, it- Mm-hmm … it reminded me a lot of the end of Poltergeist III, which is a movie that I’ve mentioned to you lately that I would like to do. But the ending of that is somewhat similar for different reasons, interesting reasons. But it just felt anticlimactic. So I was expecting something else, and you get something else, but I don’t know.

Todd: I don’t know either. It just kinda resets everything in a way. Kimi, is that what we’re calling her? Alchemy? 

Craig: Yeah. Uh. 

Todd: Whatever. She’s driving, and Reggie’s n- next to her, and in the back is Mike and, and Elizabeth. And Reggie calls back to him to check the, the… ‘Cause they’re in the hearse, I guess, and he calls back- Mm-hmm

to check the coffin, and he says, “Oh, there’s nobody in the coffin, thank God.” And so then Kimi closes the… There’s, like, a rising and closing door. Like any hearse would have this. It’s like a limo, right? 

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: right. Like, there’s a little door to separate the back from the front so that, to, I guess, to give the corpse some privacy when you need to.

And and they get their privacy, and Reggie reaches, you say, says something to Kimi. And Kimi reaches up to her hair or something and pulls a big chunk of hair out, and some of her flesh comes off, too. And, and this is when you’re like, “Okay, yeah, she is trouble, isn’t she?” And then in the backseat, the… So they’re screaming, and I think there’s flying all over the road.

And in the backseat, the two of them are back there and realize something’s wrong, and they’re looking at each other, and they’re like, “This is just a dream. We just need to realize it’s just a dream.” 

Craig: Well, the, the car, the car comes to a stop, and Reggie, all bloodied and battered- 

Todd: Oh, yeah … 

Craig: plasters, gets plastered up against the window in the back- Uh-huh

and, like, falls, like, falls to the ground. 

Todd: Falls to his… It looked, like, dead, right? Like- 

Craig: Yeah … you 

Todd: messed 

Craig: him up. And the hearse drives away. Yeah, the hearse drives away, and you see an aerial shot, and he’s just laying there in the road, presumably dead. Not, I mean, obviously he’s not, ’cause he comes back, but…

So the hearse is driving away, and that’s when, you know, the, it’s just a shot of them in the back of the f- hearse face-to-face, and he’s saying to her, “This isn’t real. It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream.” And she says, “It’s just a dr-” And then Then 

Todd: the Tall Man- The, the- … springs up in the window of the car and goes- Yeah

“No, it’s not.” And then reaches in like he always does s- through the window and pulls them out. 

Craig: Somebody does. Something pulls, yes. They get grabbed through the back window of the hearse and pulled out. 

Todd: That’s true. It’s not him, is it? ‘Cause it’s, they’re pulled out of the back window. How many times are people gonna be pulled out through a window?

Craig: I think more- I think so … as the series goes on. 

Todd: They’re gonna have to top the four times that happened in this movie. I mean, my God. Up the ante 

Craig: I’m pretty sure that part three, much like this one, picked up exactly where part one left off. I think that part three picks up exactly where this one leaves off.

Well, 

Todd: it had better, you know? I mean, come 

Craig: on. But I, but I also think that they have a tendency of just ignoring certain things that happen in different, like- Kind of retconning stuff … yeah. Like Gosh, I don’t remember specifically. But they- do they even mention… What, what is the brother’s name? Like Jordy or- From the first one?

Yeah. They barely mention him in this one at all, and then he becomes a main plot point and character again in the next one. So I think they kind of just pick up and- Interesting. I, I don’t remember if these two girls, Kimmy and, and Liz… ‘Cause I know they drop the whole psychic thing in the next movie. Huh.

So I don’t know if Liz is- Psychic Liz is still around in the next one. I don’t remember. But I would be interested in revisiting them a- and, and particularly Ravager. I don’t remember any of them well, but I do th- remember that Ravager was one of those deals where it cuts back and forth between different timelines.

And there- I think there are three timelines, but the ones that I remember specifically are in one of them it’s basically… Do you remember when they were going to make a sequel to Army of Darkness and it was gonna be Bruce Campbell waking up in, like, a post-apocalyptic world? Yep. 

Todd: Yep. 

Craig: That’s basically what one of the timelines is.

It’s Reggie in, like, this kind of post-apocalyptic landscape where there are these huge, you know, spheres that have destroyed entire cities and, and all that kind of thing. But one of the other timelines is it’s just him as an old man in, like, a convalescence home and, and Mike, again played by the original actor, is visiting him, telling him that all of those adventures that they had had are just in his mind.

Todd: Oh, boy. 

Craig: And, and I, and I don’t think that… I, I think in the end of the movie you, you know, you’re, you’re meant to question w- did any of this really happen or did- was it all just delusions in this elderly man’s- So I would be, I, I would be interested in going back and watching the other ones because even…

I feel like this is, like, kind of the commercial one, and because it didn’t do particularly well. It made back its budget barely in the United States, and then I think it made, like, 7 million internationally or something like that. So, you know, th- they didn’t lose money on it, but it wasn’t the hit that they were hoping that it would be, and that’s why the next two sequels were direct to video.

And then you said Ravager got a theatrical release, but I think it was really limited. I don’t think it played many theaters. Hmm. So I think because this was the only one that was studio-backed, they were able to go back to more of their kind of creative, weird, do-whatever-we-want kind of vibe. 

Todd: I see. 

Craig: And I would be interested in revisiting those.

And, and maybe for the show, maybe not. This, this piqued my interest in those again. 

Todd: Yeah, I would like to. I mean, I think at some point we should probably just finish out the series. I’m, I’m, I’m interested. Although As I kind of remember from, again, when I saw this as a kid, I, I’m, I’m still a little disappointed.

Honestly, I guess it’s more of a sci-fi thing, isn’t it? And that’s fine. Obviously Don Coscarelli can take this story wherever he wants, and the original also has these strong sci-fi elements to it. By the end, you realize that it’s It’s definitely got sci-fi in it. But I feel like this movie just, it just wasn’t scary.

Craig: It wasn’t 

Todd: really. It was just kind of a big adventure thing. You know, it’s fine. 

Craig: It was still fun. I mean- Yeah, it was still fun … it, honest to God, I’m, I, I, I would say this whether we were doing it as a tribute episode or not. Reggie Bannister is having a lot of fun, and I think the guy that played Mike is having a lot of fun, too.

A- and to be very fair, you know, I’m glad that they brought the original guy back. I think that that was the smart choice. I, I think this guy legitimately is a better actor, and that’s not to say that I think that he’s an amazing actor, but I think that he’s better than the other guy. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: But I get wanting continuity.

I get being of a fan of a movie and, you know, wanting the original people back. I totally understand that. But it’s, it’s still fun. It- I, I still f- found this movie fun to watch. Is it a great movie? No. But there’s, there’s enough w- with Reggie Bannister and, I mean, even just Angus Scrimm, even though you don’t get to see him that often, he’s great.

Yeah. I, I don’t wanna make it sound like it’s terrible ’cause I don’t think it’s terrible. I don’t think it’s as good as the first one, but sequels rarely are. But at the same time, I, I don’t think that you should just disregard it. I don’t, I… Especially if you liked the first one and have any interest in seeing how it continues.

I think it’s, I think it’s worth it. 

Todd: Yeah. I don’t think it’s bad. And I have to say, I remember from the first movie not being particularly impressed with Reggie Bannister’s acting. 

Clip: Hm. 

Todd: In this film- Totally fair … s- something’s happened between the two. I think he’s great. I think he feels comfortable in his skin.

I feel like he has a good, solid take on his character. I b- I thought he was very believable in what he did, and I thought he was charming to watch on the screen. Like- Yeah … legitimately charming. More than anyone else in this movie. Well, you know, except for maybe the Tall Man, but again, we don’t see much of him.

Craig: He’s got kind of a Clint Howard vibe kind of, I would say, in that- Yeah … he’s, he’s, he’s likable and kind of easy to root for. Because I see myself in an actor like him far more than I see myself in, you know, a big Hollywood… A- and I think that’s, that’s appealing- Hm … to me and probably to others, too. But, but you’re right.

I don’t know. His, his acting is a little hammy, but I think that’s appropriate. And, and like you said, charming. I, I really liked him, too. 

Todd: Well, RIP Reggie Bannister. You will be missed, and, uh, we are looking forward to exploring some more of your oeuvre as we continue. Guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. Find us at chainsawhorror.com. Leave us a voice message there by clicking Talk To Us, and we would love to hear you give us a request or d- say whatever’s on your mind to. Go and write a review for us on one of those podcast review platforms. We would love to see your positive reviews up there.

And, uh, also head on over to patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. See what we have to offer back there for only five bucks a month. We do our complete unedited phone calls just the minute we finish them, uh, for our patrons so that they can get a sneak preview of the episode in its complete and unfiltered glory before it ever goes out each week.

We have mini-sos up there. We have a book club that’s ongoing and quite fun, and lots of, uh, fun, interesting discussion behind the scenes that could all be yours for just five bucks a month. We appreciate your support, and we certainly love our patrons, as well as all of our listeners. Until next time, I’m Todd.

Clip: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

THE DOG DOESN’T DIE! Don’t worry, folks.

With that out of the way, we dig into 2025’s Good Boy, a low-budget haunted-house horror told largely from a dog’s perspective, and talk about why it’s basically 75 minutes of being up close with Indie (and why that’s either a feature or a bug).

We cover the film’s SXSW buzz, long shoot with an untrained dog, and surprising box office success, then unpack what worked for us: the eerie atmosphere, subtle shadowy scares, dream/vision sequences, and the ambiguity around whether the cabin is haunted, the family is cursed, or we’re just watching death creep in as the owner grows sicker and more unstable.

We also discuss pacing, the fox trap subplot, the muddy “reaper” finale, and why the dog-centered viewpoint makes the story uniquely unsettling—plus, yes, the dog doesn’t die.

Episode 506, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: Well, this week we have decided to go with a pretty new movie, Craig’s choice. This is a dog of a film. Good Boy. Oh, was that bad? That was pretty bad. Sorry. This is Good Boy from 2025, last year, starring a dog. And I knew why you picked this from the very beginning.

You just wanted to see a dog for an hour and 15 minutes. 

Craig: Yep. 

Todd: And that’s basically what it is. We are looking up very, very up close and personal with a beautiful little dog named Indie. I believe this film premiered at South by Southwest, got a very good reception, went to theaters and stuff all over the world.

Eventually, I think it’s in streaming now. It was shot over the course of three years, I think about 400 days over the course of three years, just because the main actor, who’s a dog, wasn’t a trained dog. It was just the writer-director’s dog, but he insisted on using it because he liked its expressiveness.

It took a long time to shoot, but only cost about $70,000, and grossed to date, I think, over 8.7 million at the box office worldwide. Nice. So that’s pretty doggone good. Had you seen this before we watched it for this, uh, this, this episode? 

Craig: Yeah. I remember reading about this at some point before it came out, and I was…

You know, you’re right. I’m just, uh, I’m a dog person. I like dogs, and so I was just… The fact that it was, you know, about a dog was interesting to me. But what was more interesting was that it’s shot kind of… I don’t know. It’s not shot from the dog’s perspective. It’s not like POV most of the time. Right.

But the narrative is from the dog’s perspective, basically. I mean- Yeah … we’re riding along with the dog, and so I was, uh, intrigued by that. And so, yes, as soon as it became available to stream, I watched it, and I really liked it. And I talked to our friend Heather about it, and she saw it, and she liked it.

And I’ve had it on my list of movies for the podcast for a long time, but we’ve just never gotten around to it. And I, I just kind of picked it at random this week, and I’m interested to hear what you think of it. ‘Cause watching it again, the first time, all I really remember about it, you know, is, is kind of the basics of the plot and that it’s from the dog’s perspective, and that I liked it.

I remembered that. I didn’t remember a whole lot of the details, and watching it again, I kept wondering what your reaction to it would be- … ’cause though I know you are an animal lover in general, you’re not exactly a dog person. Like, and I wonder if you kind of have to be a… A- again, that’s why I prefaced it with I know you’re an animal lover in general.

You just tend to be more of, if, of a cat person, I guess if you, uh- Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, if I have my choice, I’m more of a cat person. Right. And that’s purely selfish reasons. Like, uh, if I’m gonna have an animal, and I, I grew up with cats, so I’m a little biased that way too. Gosh, until we moved to China, I’ve always had a cat in the house or two from when I was a kid.

We had a cat named Taco who was a You know, lovely member of the family and had her own quirks, and then, you know, when I went off to college she passed away ’cause she was getting old and had a bacterial infection and that took her. And then, uh, yeah, later, you know, my parents got two other cats, and then when I got married, Vic and I had cats, and we had to give them away before we came to China.

I gave them away to my aunt. But I understand. You know, I’m an animal lover. I love animals, I love pets. But for me, selfishly, cats I can manage because cats don’t require a lot of attention. 

Craig: That’s right. 

Todd: And dogs require so much attention, they might as well be another child in the house. In fact, sometimes cats don’t want you to give them too much attention, and I kind of like that about them.

I like that they’re independent and- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: you know, they’re, they’re quirky. 

Craig: They are independent and they’re… Yeah, and they’re far- They’re, like, they’re way more low-maintenance than dogs. Yeah. They’re just a lot… Uh, y- you know, I remember back in, you know, the days when I left the house, if you would need to leave for, like, a weekend or whatever, you could just leave a big huge bowl of food and a big huge bowl of water or, like, leave water in the bathtub or whatever, and cats are fine by themselves for a few days.

Dogs certainly not, which is one of, one of the only issues that I have with this movie. It’s about a dog, and he locks that dog up in the house and never takes it to the bathroom. 

Todd: That’s a very good point, right? We never see that. We never see him really taking him for a walk, to the bathroom, anything like that.

And 

Craig: that’s a, that’s a big, that’s a big part of your life if you have a dog in the house. Yeah. Like gotta be taking him to the bathroom on the regular. 

Todd: Managing some oth- some- something else or someone else’s pooping and peeing schedule all day long, that’s just a bridge too far for me. I had a kid. I have a kid, and thank God we’re past that phase where we have to do that.

He can go on his own now. It’s fantastic. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd: And I figure… And I felt like as soon as, as soon as Kenji was potty trained, I’d almost felt like my, my work as a parent was half over. I don’t want to sound like a, a- You’ve 

Craig: given him the essentials. 

Todd: Yeah, that’s right. It’s, it’s important. The stuff that’s not gonna embarrass him on a first date.

Everything else, whatever. You know, I don’t want to sound like an i- like an, an asshole, but there’s little that is more off-putting… I shouldn’t say off-putting. Frustrating, not the right word either. Just kind of a bummer Whenever you’re hanging out with friends with dogs, at any given time they’re gonna chime in with, “Oh, you know what?

I gotta go ’cause I gotta take the dog out.” “Oh, this, this spontaneous thing that we came up s- with sounds like a lot of fun, but unfortunately we can’t do it because I gotta get home to the dog.” You know? You- y- that, that kind of thing is just such a part of a dog owner’s life that I just, I don’t… I can tell I couldn’t tolerate it.

It doesn’t, it doesn’t fit with my life, just like, uh, a lot of things don’t. Smoking- 

Craig: That’s one of the main reasons for having a dog is so that you can do that. 

Todd: Well, I, I can see where getting out of the situations is pretty, yeah, it’s pretty handy for that. Don’t, don’t get me wrong, having a kid works the same way.

Craig: Right. 

Todd: I’ve used that excuse many a time. But, uh, but it’s a real thing, you know? You’re, like you said, you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta do these things on a regular basis with the dog, which makes him more maintenance. But 

Craig: yeah. I get it, ’cause I was just gonna say you and I have, like, very different lifestyles.

Like, you’re always on the go. It would make a- a- and you live in the city, and it would make no sense really for you to have a dog. You’re not home enough. I’m home all the time, and so, like, I really appreciate the companionship, and it’s really nice to have a little creature that, like, loves you more than anything and just wants to be, like, super loyal to you.

Right. It’s, it’s, like, all the good parts of having a kid without all the bad parts. Like, I don’t know. I do still… My- I have to wipe my dog’s butt so- Yeah … I go even a step further than most dog owners. 

Todd: I 

Craig: see. So I, I, I get it, but I… That’s what I was saying. Like, I’m just curious if the movie hits the same way whether you’re, like, a dog lover or ambivalent about dogs.

Todd: I thought the concept was strong enough that I was entertained, and I was kind of glued to the screen to see how they were gonna pull it off. And I was also curious to see if the story would be a little different because it was from the dog’s perspective. I kind of wondered to a c- certain degree… I mean, to a certain degree we’re in this dog’s world, right?

Because we’re, we’re down to his level for most of it. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: This movie makes you highly aware that a dog’s life is really a lot of just standing around, nothingness, staring at nothing, being interested in tiny little things that happen because they’re not going to work, they’re not talking, they’re not watching TV, you know?

They’re, they’re just there in a place where there’s just not a lot going on for so much of the time. And so I wondered if it was gonna insert other things like, well, maybe the dog’s senses. Maybe it can hear better and, you know, we all know dogs can… Can’t they see, like, a different spectrum or is that not true?

I think 

Craig: so. 

Todd: So, you know, is, is that gonna be a part of it? Is this gonna truly be from the dog’s perspective? And in a way it was, and in a way it wasn’t. You know, it didn’t really go that far, which is fine. Honestly, when we did Wolf, they did that to a certain extent, and I thought that was fascinating. And we’ve seen other horror movies where you’ll get a, an animal’s perspective from time to time, and you’ll see through their eyes, and the different colors of the ultraviolet spectrum, or the heat sensing or something like that that they have, which adds flavor to the plot.

This plot didn’t need it, but also it made the movie a little boring, I thought. Pacing wise, I… A- And it was only an hour and 13 minutes, which thank you, by the way. We love short movies. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: But it was a long hour and 13 minutes. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And that’s really because it is a lot of creepy atmosphere and not too much else for most of the running time.

Long, long shots of the dog staring at something, and so I don’t know if I would watch this a second time. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: But I actually did enjoy it the first time through, and by the end of it, I felt like the story was rather simple. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: And that’s, that’s okay. It’s fine that it’s that simple, but it felt a little long and slow for me.

I don’t always need an action-packed thing. I’m not, I’m not that guy, right? And I was in the mood enough to have the patience for it tonight, so I enjoyed watching the movie. I think Todd, in an- on another day, might have been checking his watch an awful lot during this. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: So depends on what mood you’re in, I guess, is what I’m saying.

Craig: Yeah. I, I, I totally get that, and you’re right. I mean, it, it feels like a solid hour and a half. It, it feels like a feature length. It, it doesn’t fly by. Um, and, and all the things that you said are correct. You know, because we’re, we’re really just with this dog and his owner for the vast majority of the movie.

Like, there’s a few other people, actors that pop in occasionally, but it’s mostly just the dog and his owner, whose face we almost never see- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: throughout the whole film. I mean, it, it’s, it’s very… A- And the other adult people, we… I don’t recall if we ever see any of their faces, at least not before the end.

They’re either voices on telephones, or they’re… There’s the guy in the woods who’s, like, wearing a camouflage mask thing. Like, it’s very focused on the dog, and you’re right. Like, dogs don’t talk, so they can’t tell us what they’re thinking or feeling, and they’re also limited in what they can do. Like, you said that it just shows that dogs sit around and stare at nothing a lot.

Well, I think that that’s true. But I also think that it shows that they are observant and curious because – 

Todd: They have no choice? 

Craig: I mean, maybe it’s… It- Well, I was gonna say, maybe it’s by nature, but what else is there to do? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But, but I, I, I also j- I, I thought that that was- An interesting perspective, ’cause there were times when, like, the dog would see something sus, and I’d be like, “Don’t go in there.

Don’t go in there.” But I’m like, he’s a dog. He’s just curious. Um- Yeah, he’s gonna go in there … my dog’s a big scaredy-cat, I don’t think would ever do anything like that, but, but, but that, that perspective interested me, and I did not mind for one second watching that dog because it’s just the, like, the cutest- 

Todd: It is

Craig: dog. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s a very pleasant dog to watch. It really, really is. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And you can tell, like, to be honest, the dog has one expression. 

Craig: Kind of. 

Todd: But they’re using music, and they’re using, you know, editing techniques and things that we, we all know. You know, you can say, you can show the same shot of a person staring off into space.

It’s what follows the shot or what comes before the shot that reads your interpretation of what they’re thinking, right? 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. Are they looking at a sandwich, or are they looking at a bomb? You could read the same thing off of someone’s face just by the mise en scene. You know, it’s, I think it’s what they call in French.

So yeah, y- I mean, ultimately you are watching this dog doing kind of the same expression, going around to things. And, and again, uh, probably this is also part of the filming, but maybe it could be argued that this is also part of looking at things from a dog’s perspective. The dog seems surprisingly not as rattled by some of the things that you would think, well, would certainly rattle a human.

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And I thought about that, and I thought, “Well, yeah, that kinda makes sense, though,” right? Because the dog doesn’t understand the world, so, you know, it doesn’t… No dog really knows all the rules of the human world and knows what should be amazing and what shouldn’t be. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: If it saw a baby fly through the air, a human would be like, “Holy shit, why is that baby flying through the air?”

A dog might just be like, “Oh, I never saw that before. I guess babies fly through the air.” 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: There was that aspect, too, that, uh, as I was watching, I thought, “Oh, that’s, that’s actually kinda cool that we’re in this horror scene. There’s a dark, strange figure.” And instead of your typical horror movie where the protagonist is running away or hiding or screaming at their friends, it’s a dog who is going to be more apt to, depending on how it feels, bark at it as it’s, as though it’s a danger or, like, just investigate further.

And this dog is more of the investigative type, it seems, for a lot of stuff. And so that perspective was kinda nice, too, ’cause it allows us to linger, and it’s like, “What is that dark… What is it? Is it… It’s coming closer. What’s it gonna be?” You know, that kinda thing would, that often the camera’s gonna cut away before we get to, to figure that out.

And unfortunately, that wasn’t played with to the degree I thought it could’ve been played with. But yeah, I mean, it’s a solid… It’s a, it’s a very typical kind of ghost story about a haunted house, and it’s so simple- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: that I wondered if I was missing something. I, I was very confused for a lot of it, to be honest with you.

How about you? 

Craig: There are things that are confusing about it, I think. I, I mean, but even the things that are confusing about it, some of the choices that make it confusing, I actually liked because I thought that they were unique and creative. I thought that it was creative that w- we’ll be seeing a scene with the dog in the same perspective as we have, but then the dog will wake up.

So apparently- It’s dreaming … we are privy to the dog’s dreams. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: The first time it happened, again, I’d seen it before but I, I re-watched it last night and Alan watched it with me, and I, I said, “Wait, was that a dream? Was that a dog dream?” Hmm. 

Todd: I had the same feeling. 

Craig: And then also, then later the dog, like, starts having visions, I, I think.

Right. And we’re privy to those also. A- and it was kind of confusing, but I also found it spooky and suspenseful and interesting. But y- I suppose that you’re right. To a degree it is a typical haunted house story. This guy, Todd, he’s moving into his late grandfather’s cabin, like, out in the woods because I think he’s really sick.

Did they ever say specifically in the movie what his illness was? 

Todd: No, 

Craig: they didn’t. I mean, it, it could’ve been… I mean, he’s coughing up blood and he’s in really bad shape, so. Could’ve 

Todd: been lung cancer. We’re not 

Craig: sure. He… Something- That was my guess … yeah, something like that … ‘

Todd: cause I think cancer’s referenced at some point, but- 

Craig: He’s really, really sick and at one point he leaves for a whole day, and when he comes back he’s got a bandage on his arm that looks like it was a port So I wondered if that was maybe chemo.

God. Um, like maybe, I- 

Todd: Right 

Craig: I don’t know. 

Todd: Doesn’t he come up from the basement or something too, just before that scene where we see the 

Craig: bandage? Well, he comes home. He, it, the dog is upstairs, so yeah, he’s coming up the stairs, but he’s been gone that whole day. 

Todd: I kid you not, I wondered at that point if he was on drugs.

Not that that was his whole problem, but that he was abusing drugs in order to deal with his illness or something, you know? 

Craig: Well, I think it’s… I don’t know. I, I suspect that it’s intentionally ambiguous. 

Todd: Yeah, I think so too. 

Craig: That makes a lot of sense because of course a dog would have no idea what’s going on.

Now, his, he would just, the dog would just notice s- strange behavior. They wouldn’t know necessarily that the person was sick, except for the fact that Todd’s sister, Vera, who we only hear over the phone until the, like, last few seconds of the movie, she’s worried about him for a couple of reasons, but one of those is she’s worried about his health.

She asks if Indy has been acting weird at all because she has read that dogs can detect, uh, in fact, early detect disease like cancer and stuff like that. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: So she’s worried about his health. So there’s obviously something wrong with him, but she’s also worried because their grandfather died in that house alone.

He also had a dog that we find out later went missing when he died, and I guess he was also sick and maybe kind of crazy. And so she is worried about him being in that house. I don’t know if she initially says that she’s worried that it might be haunted, but that’s kind of what seems to be implied. 

Todd: Yeah.

Was the uncle a fan of horror movies or was he a producer of horror films? 

Craig: I think he was just a fan because- Okay Todd says he finds a whole bunch of old videotapes, and some of them are just, like, self-recorded things, like the grandpa just talking into a camera. The grandpa, by the way, was the only actor I recognized.

His name’s Larry Fessenden. I recognized his picture on IMDb, and I looked him up, and he’s been in small roles in lots of things that you’ve probably seen. I couldn’t name one, but- … lots of things. 

Todd: He’s one of those guys. Yeah. 

Craig: Right. One of those guys. Some of them are those self-tape things, and the rest of them are just old horror movies, like either black and white, or he watches them on a black and white TV.

I… ‘Cause it’s always black and white. And then those horror movies are just kind of on in the background for most of the rest of the time. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I- which I thought was kind of atmospheric and cool. But the stuff that the grandpa says on the tapes gets progressively weird, and weird stuff is happening around the house from the very beginning.

Yeah. I mean, Indy starts noticing weird stuff around the house from the beginning, and it seems like kind of typical haunting, and we should continue to explain, you know, what’s happening. But ultimately, I question the nature of the haunting. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: So I wanna talk about that eventually. But yeah, initially it seems pretty typical, right?

Todd: Yeah, and, and I agree with you. I question the nature of the haunting, too. I think, I’m just gonna say this now, I think there could be an interpretation here that the house isn’t haunted, that all of this is just in the mind of the dog Ultimately. You already mentioned their neighbor who, oh, you know, when they went out and about warned them of f- fox traps- 

Craig: Right

Todd: that he had set up in the area. This is something that I thought was gonna be significant and really wasn’t, I don’t think, unless I’m mistaken. 

Craig: Well, I think the dog gets caught in one later. 

Todd: He… Oh, you’re right, he does. I- oh, was that what that was? Okay. Oh, now that makes sense. I think it’s around the same time that we hear over the phone about the previous owner’s dog missing that our dog is every now and then seeing glowing animal eyes, and you know animal eyes glow.

Mm-hmm. It could really be anything. Could be a fricking raccoon. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: But I feel like because we’re starting to see these glowing animal eyes, I’m being led to believe that maybe there is a ghost dog out there somewhere. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: And so that was something that I thought about, but then there’s a point later on in the movie where he sees these eyes and a fox comes running out, and I thought, “Oh, maybe this was just a fox the whole time,” ’cause, you know, it had been set up they were foxes in the area.

Craig: Right. 

Todd: It was interesting. You know, it’s, it’s like the movie does a lot of making dread and terror about something that could totally be explained away, like, that very moment, like the glowing animal eyes in the woods. 

Craig: Sure. 

Todd: There’s a lot of that happening when they go out to the woods and when they go around.

Craig: Well, and in the house, the dog is, like, seeing… And it’s really subtle. In fact, if you’re gonna watch this movie, I really recommend that you watch it in a dark room- Yeah … because some of these spooky things- They’re 

Todd: shadows … 

Craig: like, the dog just kind of sees… Yeah, the dog sees an odd shadow in the corner. 

Todd: Hmm.

Craig: And if you’re watching it in a bright room, it’s very difficult to tell what you’re supposed to be seeing. 

Todd: There’s a lot of this, and there… and a shadow will… a dark figure kind of shadow will appear behind the dog. 

Craig: Like a, a dark silhouette just kind of in the background. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Sometimes blink and you miss it, but there’s definitely something spooky going on.

The dog is definitely… I, you know, I don’t know about, I don’t know about the eyes because though, yes, we do later see a fox and, and you’re right, in the wild, animals’ eyes glow like that when they reflect light. But you also said we also think, wonder is there, like, a ghost dog. Well, is there? Because- 

Todd: There could 

Craig: be

because I, I said the dog dreams at one point, and I d- it’s a scary dream. Like, it’s having nightmares. It’s having nightmares of, like, weird ghostly hands grabbing at it and stuff. But then there’s another part where this may be the part where the guy leaves and the dog’s home by himself all day and night and never goes out to the bathroom.

But it, it’s like sitting, looking out the window for the guy, I think, and out of the corner of its eye and, and we kind of see it out of the corner of ours as well. It seems like another dog runs past- Yes … uh, an entryway or something. Mm-hmm. And it almost looked like the same dog. Like, I, I- It did … I was like, “Is it, is it seeing itself?”

I was, I was confused. 

Todd: Me too. 

Craig: I guess he follows, uh, the dog or what he thought he saw up the stairs and kind of looks around and, and I don’t remember if he hears something, but he, or smells something. But he’s drawn under a particular bureau and, and, and pokes his nose under there, and sees or finds a bandana like the other dog was wearing around its neck.

Indy starts to reach for it, but like right before he gets to it, he has like a vision. 

Todd: Yes. I didn’t get this at all. 

Craig: And the vision, I don’t remember exactly what happens. I didn’t take notes. But it’s a violent vision with, I think the dog ends up dead. 

Todd: Yeah, and- 

Craig: Yeah, like maybe the dog rearing up against something.

Todd: But then there’s like a human in it as well. There’s like a, a hand That I thought was gripping the bandana, just the bandana, and did the dog disappear or something? And the bandana falls from that hand, but it’s not just a dry bandana, it’s like a bloody mess. 

Craig: It’s soaked in blood, yeah. Yeah. And the dog is scared and runs out.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: I don’t remember at which point it was. There was a point in the movie, because in addition to all these other things, scary things that are happening, Todd is getting worse. And not only is he getting more sick, but I… Again, it’s ambiguous. My interpretation is that his illness is making him lash out.

Todd: Yes, I think so. 

Craig: But I, I think that you could also interpret maybe that he’s being haunted or influenced or possessed supernaturally. Like, the influence… See, here’s the thing. Is the house making him sick, or is it just a coincidence that his grandfather also died of a sickness and people thought he was crazy in the house?

Todd: I think there’s a third interpretation. There’s more probably. But I think the genius of this movie is that it is so ambiguous. I think that’s actually what makes this movie work, that we’re never very clear on what’s going on. And I think because it’s being told from the perspective of this dog, it’s only more confusing because everything’s a little muddied by the confusion of this animal and its reactions.

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: These visions that the animal is having, and I don’t know if the, if the movie could also be positing that just animals have visions and daydreams and psychoses like we do as humans as well. And at the end of the day, I did kind of wonder if this muddy spirit was just a sort of personification of death coming for him.

Craig: Right. 

Todd: Just like it came for his grandfather. It’s not really about the house It’s not like it lives in the house or haunts the house, it just haunts the person as they’re dying. But the person himself, I don’t think, unless there is a moment at the… Th- there’s a moment at the very end, I suppose, where I feel like the p- person sees death for the first time, and that’s when we start to see the person’s face actually, right?

The owner’s face, Todd. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: I’m not sure that’s a coincidence- 

Craig: No … 

Todd: that when it sees the sp- specter or seems to see the specter finally, we finally start to see his face. Because I sort of feel like at this moment, I know I’m jumping way ahead, but I sort of feel like at this moment he sees death coming for him and this is the end.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Whereas the dog is seeing death lurking about this whole time. Yeah. But also maybe the remnants of the spirits of the previous dog and owner as well, right? So 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Right. And I, I think that y- it could be interpreted in that way, that it’s just death personified, a grim reaper of sorts. It could just be the disease, like a, a metaphor or- 

Todd: Right

Craig: some kind of incarnation of the disease and, and maybe it’s a hereditary disease. Mm. It could be like a curse on the family. The only thing that we know is that we hear it several times, generations of that family have lived and died there. And when he goes to the graveyard, he’s like, “Oh yeah, here’s all my, uh, relatives.

Gee, they all died young. Head-scratcher.” Like 

Todd: Right. And they’re all buried here. 

Craig: But it could just… Right, it could just be a, a hereditary thing. Who knows? And a- again, I think it works that it’s ambiguous. The point I was trying to make is because of his illness or curse or whatever it is, he’s becoming increasingly unreliable.

Mm-hmm. For example, leaving the dog locked in the house all day and night without coming home, behaving strangely. That night after he comes home, you know, he creeps up the stairs like a big creeper. Th- that part was very suspenseful, but I also felt like it was cheap. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Then again, I mean, I guess if we’re just looking at it from the g- dog’s perspective, he doesn’t know what that shadow is.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: So it’s very creepy as it’s slowly coming up the staircase, but it’s revealed to just be the owner. But he falls into bed and clearly is not well. Again, I don’t know if he had just received chemo or if he was out shooting up drugs- Yeah … which I think is just as likely, but he’s not well. And when the dog tries to comfort him, he scolds it and eventually yells at it violently and, and kinda throws it off the bed.

So he’s becoming increasingly unreliable. The dog seeing all this spooky shit around the house. There came a point where I was like, “Dog, you just need to, like cut loose. Like, get out of there. 

Todd: Leave the house. 

Craig: You gave it a good go, you know? Yeah. Uh, when he first moved in and he was talking to his sister on the phone and he was talking about those videos that he saw, she hears a bark and she’s like, “Oh, was that Indy?”

And he’s like, “No, I’m watching one of those videos, and it’s Grandpa and his dog, Bandit. Don’t you remember Grandpa had a dog?” And one of them says, “Yeah, he always had a bunch of dogs, but they always ran away.” No shit.

Todd: They were the smart ones. 

Craig: Yeah. But apparently Bandit is the only one who stayed, and is now a spirit guide or something. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: I 

Todd: guess. 

Craig: Ugh. But yeah, it was, uh… There came a point where I was like, “Indy, you gave it your, your best go. Maybe it’s time to let it go.” 

Todd: Well, at this point, I mean, he does, uh, run out of the house probably around here, right?

I think at one point Todd is, like, banging his head against the wall. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: He’s being weird. 

Craig: Yeah, and then he gets… I don’t remember if he gets dragged into another room or if he just goes into another room, but the door slams and the dog can’t get in. So yeah, he runs out and goes for help. 

Todd: Okay, I didn’t get that, but you’re right, he was going for help, and that’s when he gets caught in the fox snare, right?

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: Although, in my viewing of it, I didn’t see it that way. I thought he was being supernaturally chained or something from this thing that he kept seeing in that log, right? Wasn’t it, wasn’t it in that same log he’d been looking in? 

Craig: It might’ve been. I don’t remember. But yeah, and I can understand why you would be confused, especially on a first viewing, because we really only kind of get the dog’s perspective of it.

Like- something grabs him and, and drags him into the darkness, but then the next thing we see is he’s chained to a doghouse back in the yard at, at, at Todd’s house. 

Todd: Yeah, and he’s saying, “Stay.” 

Craig: Yeah. I think that we didn’t see that the guy who sets the traps, who’s not a bad guy, he just happens to also live there and is a hunter, I think he must have found the dog and brought him back, and Todd was chaining him up so that he couldn’t go back in the forest.

Hmm. But it’s also keeping him out of the house and, uh, you know- He’s freaking out … we’re approaching… Yeah, we’re approaching the, uh, the, the finale here. He- I guess he hears, you know, the- Todd is sick and coughing and kind of freaking out. The lights are flashing. It’s all very spooky, but he’s chained to his doghouse, and then all of a sudden that mud monster, which he’s already had to fight the mud monster once, now the mud monster comes for him again.

Todd: By pulling his chain. 

Craig: That was the scariest part of the movie for me. I am not a big fan of putting dogs on chains. I, you know, I understand different people have different circumstances, and as long as you care for your dog well and they’re not just living their life on a chain, that’s a different story.

But I have, I have negative feelings about chaining dogs like that, and this only reaffirmed that. Like Yeah, the mud monster could come … it was so scary to me. Yeah. Well, I, well, it was just so scary- … to me that, like, that monster grabbed a hold of his chain and was just slowly, slowly pulling it. A- and when a dog is on a chain s- like that, they’re just at the mercy of the chain- Yeah

basically, and that scares me. I don’t like it. 

Todd: In my other interpretation of this, I see this as the dog is just chained up, and he’s fighting against the chain, and in his vision, there’s something pulling on the other side. The reality is it’s just anchored to the ground But the dog sees it as a monster, some- something pulling against him, keeping him away.

Again, I don’t know if that, you know, you could say that, but I mean, v- visually on the screen we literally see, you know, the- Yeah … these mud 

Craig: monster hands pulling- Monstrous hands coming out of the dog house, pulling it, slowly pulling it, and we see the dog, you know, digging in its feet and, and trying to pull out of the collar and whatnot.

And eventually, I think what it does is it lunges at the house- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: and kind of tussles with the monster inside until the house overturns and it’s able to break the chain free. And then it’s dragging that chain for the rest of the time, but it doesn’t matter ’cause it’s not very long. I think he makes it upstairs.

Well, first we see Todd laying on his back in his bed, and he is in bad shape. He can barely breathe, like he’s just wheezing and, and kind of trembling. But then he hears something, and he looks up, and it takes a while, but slowly he begins to notice footprints, muddy footprints coming towards him, and sees a flash of the mud demon.

Yeah. Which, by the way, is all CGI, right? I mean, that’s all- 

Todd: Yeah. Yeah, it is. 

Craig: But it looks okay. It’s, it’s dark enough that it… I, I thought that it actually looked pretty good. 

Todd: Yeah, it looked fine. The dog doesn’t get in the, the house from the front door, though. It goes into the cellar. 

Craig: Oh, that’s right. 

Todd: Right.

And as it’s passing down the cellar, w- we see the skeleton of Bandit. 

Craig: Yeah, and Bandit opened the door for him, right? 

Todd: I guess. Yeah. 

Craig: Because the cellar door, it- it’s one of those… Gosh, I don’t even know how to describe it. Only 

Todd: from the inside kinda. 

Craig: Well, I mean, you have to, you, you have to… You could open it from the outside, but you have to lift.

It’s one of those big double doors that you have to lift almost up off the ground. Yeah. Um, and he looks at it once and it’s closed, and he looks away and he looks back and it’s open. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: And then when he goes, you know, down just a few steps, we see the skeleton of the dog, but we know that it’s Bandit ’cause it’s wearing the Bandana 

Todd: So did that bandana in the bedroom not exist?

Craig: I g- I don’t think it did. Oh. I mean, I guess a dog can have more than one bandana. 

Todd: That’s true. That’s the bandana that got lost, and they replaced it- Yeah. … with the other one. Yeah, that could be very well. Fair enough. 

Craig: You’re right, but Todd s- is seeing the thing coming towards him, but I don’t remember, it, it, it seems to be really close, but then it’s not there anymore, and instead, Indy, the dog, is there, and crawls up with him on the bed, and it’s like a friendly reunion, and he’s like, “Oh, Indy, hey, what’s wrong?

What’s wrong?” And in just a second there, I was thinking, “He sure is acting awfully healthy- 

Todd: Right … 

Craig: for as sick as we just saw him.” 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: And also it took me a s- and, and Alan, who’s watching it with me, also had to kind of point out to me, you realize this is the first time we’re ever seeing his face. 

Todd: Right.

Craig: And it is, and it’s because he asks Indy, I think, “What is wrong?” And then I think he sees in the reflection of Indy’s eyes himself behind him. There’s a lot of very intense close-ups on the dog’s eyes, where you see things reflected in them throughout the movie. Mm-hmm. But when he turns around, when Todd turns around, his dead body is laying there.

So yeah, you re- you, you, uh, suggested it earlier, but I think that we don’t see the owner’s face until he’s already dead. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Which is an interesting choice, kinda cool 

Todd: And the figure now appears, right, and grabs him and pulls him through the house and all the way down into the basement. 

Craig: Yep. 

Todd: And Indy is chasing him and trying to save him, but he gets pulled into this giant cavernous tunnel that is down there.

It’s like the entrance to, I don’t know- Hell. … it’s, it’s weird. Yeah. It’s… doesn’t look like something that actually exists in this cellar. 

Craig: No, it looks ancient. Yeah. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. It 

Craig: looks like a, the entrance to a temple or, or something, all stone and- 

Todd: Which made me wonder if it did exist or if this again is just like a- 

Craig: Right

Todd: a vision. 

Craig: Or was it always there? Is it always there? I mean- 

Todd: Right … 

Craig: weird stuff. It… the dog has been hearing weird stuff from the cellar, but- 

Todd: Oh, is this an Amityville II? 

Craig: I don’t know. Disappearance thing. I don’t know what’s going on down there. Yeah. But yeah, he goes down there and he just, I mean, he just sees the big opening basically and he hesitates for a minute, but then he runs in, and he actually drags Todd back out.

Is he all covered in mud at this point already, I think? And- 

Todd: He gets covered in mud. Yeah, it’s kinda like mud covers over him, or maybe it did just before he got pulled away. I don’t remember exactly. But yeah, that’s when he looks at him and he says, “You’re a good boy, but, uh, you can’t save me.” And then he just, like, disintegrates into skeleton nothingness and maybe the skeleton gets pulled back into the tunnel.

I’m not sure. Definitely there’s a transformation here where he goes away. And so the dog’s just sitting there. And I’m thinking, you know, this is, this I guess explains Bandit’s death. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: That if this exact same thing happened to the owner, Bandit was just sitting there waiting for his master who’s never showing up, as dogs are known to do, right?

Dogs 

Craig: are- Yeah. Well, and also presumably he was trapped down there. 

Todd: That too, right? 

Craig: Because those doors were closed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and they didn’t find… The, the, the hunter guy, the neighbor, was the one who found the grandpa, but he said they never found the dog. Well, the dog was down in the basement.

Well, 

Todd: they didn’t look too hard, did they? I mean, that cellar- 

Craig: Yeah, no … 

Todd: is accessible. ‘

Craig: Cause it was right there by the door. Yeah, like you would s- you see it immediately as soon as you open the door. 

Todd: Yeah. And then, I mean, this basement’s accessible from the inside of the house as well, right? Or else he couldn’t have gotten dragged down there.

Craig: Right, 

Todd: right. So, you know, it’s- They didn’t look very hard. 

Craig: No. No, no. But then, yeah, so, so Indy’s down there by himself, and then in the mor- I think it’s the next morning- Yeah … Todd’s sister shows up. She was co- she was coming to visit. We knew that. But she shows up, and we hear her. W- we ca- we’re just looking up from, from kind of from Indy’s perspective, looking up at the cellar door, and we kind of hear her, and she’s distressed, and she opens the door.

And of course, when she opens the door, the first thing she sees is the dead dog. Now, There shouldn’t be any reason that if it had been Indy, that he would’ve decayed that much. But if I were looking for a dog and I found that skeleton, m- probably my first thought would be, “Oh, no,” too. And I think that was her first thought, too.

But then Indy kinda shows himself, like he kinda walks into the light or whatever, and she calls to him. I think at this point she probably already knows that her brother is dead. Mm-hmm. I think that she’s loo- I, I think that she’s looking for Indy. I don’t think there’s any other reason why she would be looking around- Yeah, I think she’s 

Todd: found-

outside … Todd. Yeah, for sure. 

Craig: Right. Yeah. So she’s relieved to have found him, and she calls him up, but he looks back several times and is very hesitant before finally going up, and then it cuts to black. And then as the credits roll, it just kind of shows Indy with his head out the door as they are driving down the road away.

A- and you mentioned before how, you know, there have been instances of, of dogs literally waiting for years and years, you know, for their, their owners or masters to return. And I don’t know, as a dog person, like, dogs are so, so loyal, and- … I felt sad. I felt bad for poor Indy. I, I do think ultimately that we’re meant to understand that one way or another, this was just death.

And as good a boy as Indy was, dogs may not understand it, but you just can’t fight that. Like- Right … y- you know, you, you can’t save everybody indefinitely. But it was kind of interesting to look at it through a, a, a dog’s perspective, somebody who wouldn’t understand, and it would be frightening and confusing and scary.

Now, the physical manifestation, I don’t know what to make of that. I don’t know if it was a real thing, if it was just the dog’s perception. There are little things like why was whatever it was messing with Indy at all when he was chained up to the doghouse? 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: I guess if I wanted to rationalize that, I would say, well, it was afraid that the dog was going to try to interfere, so it was trying to stop it, but that kind of seems like a stretch.

Regardless, you know, I really don’t mind the ambiguity. In fact, I think it’s probably wiser to leave it ambigu- ambiguous rather than to over-explain it. Yeah. But re- regardless of all of that- I don’t know. I, uh, I thought that it was quite different from anything else that we’ve seen in just in its … I hesitate to call it a gimmick because that makes it sound cheap, but the way that he ch- the director chose to approach it, I thought was, you know, interesting and- 

Todd: Yeah

Craig: fairly well executed. I think it was wise to keep it at, like, an, an hour 12. In fact, I think it probably could’ve been more like 50 minutes and- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: I think it, it could’ve been tightened up a little. I understand. Alan was a little bored, too, and he kept saying, “How much of there is, is there left?” And I kept saying, “It’s only an hour long.

Calm down.” But yeah, I think it could’ve been trimmed down a little bit, but I really enjoyed watching it, and I think it’s … You know, you don’t have to be a dog lover to appreciate the technique or at least what he was going for. But I think especially if you’re a dog lover, it’s not gonna hurt- 

Todd: Yeah … ‘

Craig: cause you’re not gonna mind watching this really cute dog for an hour.

Todd: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you don’t have to be a, a dog lover to, to enjoy this. Uh, and, and I’m just gonna repeat what I said earlier, you know, which I think is, dovetails nicely with what you said. I think the ambiguity of the movie is its strength. It’s not just a strength. I just think the movie wouldn’t have worked as well if it hadn’t been so ambiguous what’s going on.

And even the director has said that, he said that he got the idea initially for a horror movie around a dog’s point of view after seeing Poltergeist, where the, the dog in that movie is, like, the first to sense the presence of ghosts. 

Craig: Mm. 

Todd: And he realized it was kind of a trope across horror and other haunted house movies.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Apparently, he was also thinking of The Shining as well, in that, you know, there’s supernatural elements happening, but you’re … It’s still left kind of ambiguous whether or not this is a psychological thing in the characters’ minds or whether they’re genuine. You know, it’s just kind of- Yeah … open for interpretation.

So, um, yeah, it was, it was well conceived. It was different than anything else we’ve ever seen, I think. I don’t think there’s really another movie quite like this. 

Craig: Yeah. It’s different. 

Todd: Yeah. And I can see why it, it did well So yeah, go- I would also recommend you go check it out 

Craig: And the dog doesn’t die. I think we should have just said that from the very beginning.

Todd: Nah. 

Craig: I, I, I did read that, like, you know, like, when the movie was coming out, there was a huge influx of people googling, “Does the dog die?” Uh. 

Todd: Yeah, so many people would just, like you included, I think, would give this movie a hard pass if they had to watch the animal die. 

Craig: Oh, absolutely. I would be mad that I watched the whole thing if the dog died at the end.

It would break my heart. 

Todd: That is so funny to me. I just do not have the same… I have the same, uh, you know, if the dog dies or a human dies, it really just depends on the circumstance for me whether or not I’m gonna care a lot, you know? It just- 

Craig: Yeah, the humans- … I usually don’t care, but the dogs, it bothers me.

I- in fact, that’s the first thing that, like, w- without being prompted or without even saying, “No spoilers,” anybody that I told about this movie, I was like, “Oh, yeah, you should watch it. The dog doesn’t die.”

Todd: I’d have been so mad if you told me that, by the way. Oh, okay. 

Craig: I’d wanna know. Well, I’m glad I didn’t then. 

Todd: I don’t need such trigger warnings for animals. Well, thank you so much for recommending this, Craig. Thank you guys all for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Please write us a review everywhere that podcasts are can be reviewed.

You can go and leave us a message as well at, uh, chainsawhorror.com. Click the button up there that says Talk to Us. Just leave us a voice message right there in your browser. You don’t need any special software. You don’t have to sign up or anything. It’ll just send a, a little voice message right to us.

If we hear that, we’ll play it on the air. You can send us a request that way. You can send us a request just by googling Two Guys and a Chainsaw podcast and hitting us up at any of our social media channels. Those requests get voted on by our patrons. We have a Patreon, patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. For just five bucks a month, you can get complete access to our unedited phone calls that produce this show every week, including all the juicy tidbits that we leave out for the general public and all the personal stuff that’s going on in our lives.

We also have a book club back there. Patrons get to vote on what our next request is going to be from the requests that we receive. We just generally have a lot of fun back there talking to our patrons, and if that kind of access interests you, patreon.com/chainsawpodcast gets you down that road. Until next time, I am Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We dive into 2008’s Lake Mungo, an Australian found-footage/mockumentary that surprised us with how authentic and well-acted it feels, more like a traditional documentary than a jump-scare horror film.

We walk through the central tragedy of 16-year-old Alice’s drowning, the family’s grief, and the subtle escalation of eerie evidence—dreams, noises, strange photos, and hallway camera footage—before unpacking the film’s major twists.

We talk about how the movie plays more as a drama about mourning and uncertainty than a straight ghost story, why some turns feel contrived, and why the final montage retroactively makes the whole experience linger.

We also touch on the ongoing appeal of true-crime and mock-doc horror and what makes this one worth watching.

Episode 505, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: This week was my turn to choose, and I went into just my list of things that I was curious about that is, uh, post-2000, ’cause I thought you’d might appreciate a more recent film. And this is 2008’s Lake Mungo, which I had heard about, never seen before, but it comes up every now and then.

People talk about it when they talk about creepy, unsettling movies that really bothered them or, or hit them hard. And they talked about twists in it and maybe an ending that was a little unsettling or ups- upsetting. So it had always been on my list for that reason. I believe this has been requested at least once over the years.

Craig: I think so too. 

Todd: Yeah, I didn’t go back to check our request list. I mean, it would be, it would’ve been years ago. Our, our request list, some of the things on there- It’s long … have been on there for a while. Yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty long. So whoever requested it’s gonna be very happy that we’re doing Lake Mungo today.

This is the first time I had ever seen it. How about you, Craig? You said you’d seen it before. 

Craig: Yeah, I had seen it, like, gosh, you know, 2008, right? That’s when it came out, I think. Seems like a long time ago, but I remember reading about it. I don’t know. I feel like people were talking about it for a little while.

I didn’t see it until later than that, and I just happened to come across it on some streamer. I recognized the title, and it sounded intriguing based on the description. It’s a found footage kind of mockumentary, I guess- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: you would say. And it sounded intriguing. So yeah, I had already seen it, and I was surprised that you picked it.

It’s not your typical choice, but I think it’s a good one. 

Todd: Yeah. You’re right. This is… Usually I’m going for older stuff. We’ve got such a… I feel like we have an obligation to hit just these o- old ancient movies that there are just so many, but every now and then I surprise you. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: This one, uh, I was surprised by this movie because I didn’t know anything else about it, and I went in to look it up and found out that the writer-director, this was basically his first feature film And he really hasn’t done much since or before this.

He did some shorts and, uh, he was in the script and continuity department for Late Night With the Devil. That’s about it. So I was actually kinda shocked. This is an Australian movie, and the first thing that struck me, I don’t know, about 10 minutes into this is just how incredibly well-acted it is. It is really well-acted.

We’ve done other movies like this before. Well, we’ve done other found footage movies, and we’ve done some documentary, mockumentary-type films. The one I was thinking of the most was that UFO one. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: Remember what it’s called? What was that called? There were two versions of it. 

Craig: I don’t know. I feel like maybe it was Lake something or- 

Todd: It was, um…

It was one where it had been done, like, in the ’80s, and it had been shot just on a shoestring by a bunch of… By a theater troupe, basically, and they didn’t really get much play or distribution for it. And it, it would’ve just sort of been lost to history except somehow the pre-release copies, I think the VHS copies that were sent to rental stores to try to get people to rent them, somehow they got copied over and copied over and got into the hands of some UFO people and distributed as though it was real.

And, uh, that became such a mythological thing that the original producer came out and said, “No, and you know, this isn’t real. I made it.” And because of the popularity of it, they were encouraged to remake it- 

Craig: Mm-hmm … 

Todd: in the early ’90s. And we watched that remake, and we ended up going ahead and watching… I think we independently were just so intrigued by it, we ended up going and watching the original, and we found the original so much better just because it had that air of authenticity that the remake didn’t.

It was because of the acting ability of the people in the… Well, I, I, I shouldn’t say acting ability. A- acting experience. It seemed like the acting experience of the people in the remake went against the authenticity of the film. It just felt more like people acting. 

Craig: Yeah, I remember. 

Todd: And especially for the new one, they had inserted little bits of interview, like they were interviewing people about the footage, and especially the interviews came across as really, really fake.

And it, you know, as an actor and a guy who’s… You know, for me, like, I do these, like, dumb mobile game ads, and they take a lot of different forms, and one of the forms that they’ve had me do a lot is that I’m the boss of some game company, and they’re interviewing me. Like, it’s like a clip from an interview showing me talking about our philosophy behind the game design.

And I often find that the hardest, to act like I’m just sitting there genuinely answering questions off the cuff from somebody even though I’m actually reading a script. Hmm. It’s so hard to come across as natural in that way. So I sympathized with and wasn’t even surprised that even the more seasoned actors when they came in and they were doing this interview style stuff, they just came across as fake.

It’s, it’s, it’s trickier than you’d think to act natural in that scenario. And this is all interviews. 

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: Everybody here is interviewed, and the actors are really, like, they didn’t do much after this. They didn’t do much before this. The director deliberately chose people who are very low-key and, and low-profile.

And God, they’re convincing. Don’t you th- Did you not think so? 

Craig: No, I did. I just didn’t really think about it very much because I, I feel like I’ve seen this type of mockumentary before. I, I, I think I saw something recently. I couldn’t remember it, so I was trying to look it up while you were talking, but I think it was called Strange Harvest: Soul Murder in the In- Inland Empire- Whoa.

which is a whole mockumentary. Uh, it’s from 2024. 

Todd: That’s a mouthful. Yeah. But I’ve heard of Strange Harvest. Yeah, uh-huh. 

Craig: Yeah. I didn’t know that I realized that it had a subtitle. I think I just found it under Strange Harvest. But it was much like this. Aside from fantastic things happening that seem out of the realm of possibility, it, it seemed, like, real.

Like, you could accidentally stumble upon it on television or whatever and, you know, think that it was real, and that’s kind of how I felt about this one too. So I guess that speaks to their authenticity, like, it feels real. 

Todd: Hmm. 

Craig: I, I think that I’m also just currently… I’ve been watching a lot of documentary, well, I guess documentaries and also, like, documentary series lately, like spooky creepy ones.

Mm-hmm. And so I’m just kind of immersed in that format- 

Todd: Wow … 

Craig: right now. So I think it was- … it felt immersive and like that. This is the type of movie that I can watch with Alan except for I- it’s risky. Like, either I don’t tell him it’s not real- … and then risk him getting mad at me when he finds out that it’s not.

Or I tell him it’s not real, and then he’s not really all that invested in it. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: But, you know, he can sit through this ’cause it’s the type of format of some stuff that we watch anyway, so… And I think that those types of shows, like- Gosh, Netflix I’ve been watching. I watched… These are recommendations, by the way, if you’re into dark stuff.

I just watched one called Toxic Love Story that was one of the twistiest things I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Wow. I kept being like, “What? What?” But then after that we started watching this show. There’s a whole series of them. I think we watched Worst Neighbor Ever, and then there’s also like- Oh, 

Todd: yeah

Craig: Worst Ex Ever and Worst Roommate Ever and, like, all these. And they’re all these horrifying tales of- 

Todd: Right … 

Craig: things that have happened- True … in real life. 

Todd: True things, right? 

Craig: Yes. But it, but it is. You know, these are the actual people that experienced it in most cases. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Uh, of course here you’ve got actors, but I guess all that to say, I suppose I agree with your assessment that they were that good because it felt very- 

Todd: Yeah, I was really surprised.

And, I mean, consistently real across the board, like every single actor I, I believed. And just like you said, if I’d come across this on television, I would 100% think it was the real thing. Now maybe I just haven’t seen enough of these to know that just people can be really good at this, but I’ve seen some bad ones, you know?

I’ve seen some ones that just didn’t seem very real at all or that just didn’t have so much interview footage in them. This is very, very traditional documentary. This feels almost, you know, like a Ken Burns type documentary. It’s got lots of footage overlaying interview with… You know, so there’s a lot of voiceover.

There’s no, like, omniscient narrator or anything. It’s just all the voiceover of the people who are being interviewed and their answers to the questions, and they’re narrating the story as it happened to them. I also found the footage really convincing. I thought that it, it, it really follows the disappearance…

Well, it follows the death of a girl named Alice in, uh, Ararat, Australia, which is a real place, and it was actually filmed there. She’s a 16-year-old who goes swimming with her family at some dam. And as they’re getting out of the water she’s not there, and they immediately conclude that she might have drowned, and they send to call the police.

And the divers come and, and go in the water, and eventually by that evening they, I think… or the next day, I can’t remember, they do end up pulling up her body. And it’s pretty heartbreaking for them. And it moves pretty slowly. You’re just kinda wrapped up in this tale, this family that had this terrible tragedy happen to them.

That’s like the first 10, 15 minutes. There’s nothing spooky- Mm-hmm … there’s nothing out of the ordinary about it. And so I did find myself wondering, where is this gonna lead, and when is this gonna get spooky? Ultimately, I feel like the movie did not meet my expectations, but I think that was in a very good way.

Because it’s a little bit unlike a lot of these things we’ve seen before b- because it’s not trying to be sensational, in your face, jump scary- Mm-hmm … type stuff. It’s really trying to come across as something authentic, and in that I believe it really succeeds. I was thinking also of Ghostwatch. 

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Again, not exactly the same, but that movie, you know, has moments where there’s the footage or there’s the interviewer or something happening, and then suddenly, boom, there’s something happening- 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: to them right then and there. Or you see something in the background and, you know, that jolts you- Right

or whatever, and this really doesn’t have that And I think that’s a strength of it. But, you know, it wasn’t what I was expecting, I’ll tell you that, when, when I just, you know, when I heard the hype around it. 

Craig: Yeah. Gosh, I was just thinking, I mean, you don’t have moments in the movie where a ghost jumps out at you or anything, but there are…

I think it was Ghost Watch or… But, I mean, it’s typical of these types of movies where they’ll show you something, and then later they’ll show it to you again and point out something that you missed the first time. Right. And I feel like that’s kind of typical of these haunting movies, but this one does it pretty well.

I, I think what makes this different than some of the other mockumentaries that I’ve seen like this is that often they seem very real up until a very specific point where something really crazy happens, and- Right, right … you know, the ghosts do appear or the monsters or the aliens or whatever and, and they’re captured on, on camera.

This is far more subtle. Like, this almost could… I- it is in the same category, I would say, as something like Blair Witch, where if somebody didn’t know this was real start to finish, they might think it was. Just didn’t know it was real- Yes … excuse me. 

Todd: Yeah, yeah. If this were presented as real, there’s nothing so fantastic about this that would make you go, “Oh, come on, we know it’s not real.”

Craig: Yeah. If it were I mean, if it were, if, if it was presented to me that way, I would still obviously be skeptical. 

Todd: Skeptical, yeah. Me too. 

Craig: But Yeah. But, yeah, you, you never know. So, you know, obviously this whole family is very upset by having lost their daughter and, and sister. And another thing that sets this apart from the stuff that you would, I think, tumble across on, on cable television is…

A- and I feel like this is always a tell if it… Is when they show more than you would actually see in a documentary about real people. Because when they show this girl’s body, they don’t, you know, blur the images or anything. It’s, it’s, it’s very… And, and of her face, like- Yeah … bloated and mangled. And typically, I think maybe even just out of respect, uh, I don’t know, or just basic human dignity, they would not show that, I don’t think.

So when I see stuff like that, I’m like, “Eh.” And in the last one that I- the one that I mentioned earlier, the one from 2024, it’s, it’s about a serial killer kind of. I don’t wanna spoil anything, but there came points where they were showing the grotesque aftermath of the murders with the victims. I’m like, “No.”

No real show would ever show this stuff. So- Right … that’s kind of a tell on it as well. But basically, things s- I guess there are some kind of bizarre things from the very beginning. Like, right after the dad identifies the body, on the way home the car stalls, and they have to drive home backwards all the way.

That 

Todd: was weird. 

Craig: That was weird, and I didn’t know if it was supposed to suggest that something weird was going on, like something didn’t want them to leave or I don’t know. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But they also start hearing noises from Alice’s room. The mom’s having dreams about her. The dad says, and I don’t even think he thinks he was dreaming.

He says that he went into Alice’s room one night and sat down 

Clip: Before I could kind of work out what I was doing there, Allie walked in and she went over to a desk and started sharpening a pencil and then she looked like she was checking for a text message on a phone. And, you know, I was completely freaked out.

She was completely oblivious to my presence. And then I don’t know what happened. I must have, um, moved the bed or, you know, squeaked my shoes or something, but she went completely rigid And I knew then that she knew I was there. And she slowly turned around and she looked me right in the eye fully for, you know, what felt like forever.

And then she just came at me and stood up and said, “Get out, get out.” And I just, you know, got up and went out as fast as I could. 

Craig: So he left, and like that’s the end of the story. I’m like, that’s- 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I, I, yeah. Matthew has like unusual bruises all over his body that the doctors can’t explain. Mm-hmm. And, and finally Matt, we find out that Matt is into photography, and he takes this whole series, like a time-lapse series of the fence in his backyard.

And ultimately in one of them on one particular night, an image of Alice seems to appear in front of the fence. 

Todd: And then another guy who’s taking pics of the dam, a guy who goes out surveying things. I get the sense that the father in this is also like a surveyor. 

Craig: I don’t know. 

Todd: I, I don’t know if it’s really clear.

He’s taking pictures of the, around the dam as they’re going out for one of their tests or their surveys or whatever, and he happens to notice a figure in the background that looks a bit like Alice. And so now the mom is convinced that Alice is alive. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: And now Jim is doubting that he identified the body correctly because Alice’s mom refused to look at the body, so it was really up to Jim to identify it.

Even though we saw these photos of this bloated corpse, Jim’s thinking, “Well, you know, I mean, maybe I just in my heart knew that it would be her, and so my brain just kinda told me it was gonna be her, so I jumped to the conclusion that it was her- Yeah … without really giving it scrutiny.” And I thought these elements were really good.

Now, it occurred to me about halfway, three-quarters of the way through this movie that this movie is just as much about how you deal with these kind of situations, you know? 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: The stages of grief and of doubt and denial and things as anything else. And the, the director himself came out and said he doesn’t even see it so much as a s- I mean, this is bullshit.

But he said he doesn’t even see it so much as a ghost story. He, he really intends for it to be more of a drama that is really examining the different facets of grief. And I could, I can definitely see that aspect in it. I was feeling it as I was watching it, and that is, I think, what made it feel so natural.

And so when these twists happen, they’re more… We say subtle, right? But I just say they’re more realistic. Like, this isn’t a, “Oh my God, suddenly we saw an image in a thing. We must be haunted.” 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: Now we’re starting to doubt maybe she’s actually still alive in some way, shape, or form and, and hanging around for reasons we don’t know.

So now we’re doubting ourselves and we- we’re hopeful. We want to believe she’s still alive, and so they g- they go through that. Because as I’m watching this movie, I’m thinking the same thing I’m thinking throughout all these found footage movies is, all right, somebody put this documentary together.

That’s what’s being presented to us. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: So it’s not gonna be like Ghost Watch, where suddenly in the middle of this documentary there’s something so extreme and so revelatory that just, like, blows everything out of the water. So in the context of that, how is this ghost story going to resolve? And so I thought it was really smart how subtle and how centered and focused around the family’s grief and their natural doubts and, and reactions to that, that this movie ended up being.

Craig: Yeah. I, I, I agree with you and I, I particularly, you know, in this part where the dad starts to second-guess himself, I mean, I, I don’t know that you could help but second-guess yourself. I don’t even know if you could, you know, just live with the fact that your wife might second-guess you, you know, whether you second-guess yourself- Right

or not. I, it makes perfect sense that, uh, y- as sad and devastating as I’m sure it would be, they would have her body exhumed, which they do, but it was her. Like, they do DNA testing and, and it, it, it is her. So then, then they do start to wonder if maybe it’s a haunting, and- 

Todd: Right … 

Craig: and Matt sets up a camera in the hallway, and it catches what appears to be, like, a specter or a ghost crossing the doorway.

And all of this just keeps up, and it unfolds in a very documentary way, you know, just like these, these events are being narrated to us basically sequentially by the people who were there. So- Mm-hmm … then we meet this new guy named Ray, who is a radio psychic. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I think I kind of mis- yeah, I think he’s a radio psychic.

Like, people call him- This is very 

Todd: dated … 

Craig: I don’t know, right. But he’s Al- he’s well-known in the area apparently. 

Todd: Uh-huh. 

Craig: And so they call him, and he meets with June and does, like, hypnotherapy with her or something, and under hypnosis, I think she, like, sees Alice in her room, and Alice looks sad. And, and then they do a seance and, like, nothing happens during the seance, but when they watch the video back, Alice’s face kind of appears.

Anytime I see this, like, the camera footage is low quality. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: And in order to zoom in on these supposed images, they have to zoom in pretty close, and it’s usually in the dark or in, like, a dark corner or something. So yes, it typically vaguely looks like Alice, but I don’t know. It’s also very, you know, soft focus.

Mm-hmm. If it didn’t happen repeatedly, it could almost just be a fluke, you know, like some fluke of the light or, or something. But it does happen repeatedly, so they set up more cameras, and then there’s more instances of her showing up. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And then’s when the first big twist comes, and that’s where things started to get a little bit iffy for me.

Todd: Yeah, exactly. Uh, this is where I was like, “What?” Although it does kind of follow the flavor of these modern-day documentaries where you’re like, “Really?” 

Craig: Yes, right. 

Todd: Like, this person did that? That is- 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: that is bonkers. The Withers video, right? The- 

Craig: Uh-huh … 

Todd: there’s a couple… Well, there’s a couple who was at the dam the same day that the photo was taken, and so I guess the idea is that once this couple learned about this photo, they were, like, going back through their footage of the dam.

And they’re like, “Oh, we saw that guy who took that photo in there. Oh, so we must have been there the same day. Let us peruse through our footage and see if we can see anything in there.” And sure enough, they see this figure, but for them, it’s very clearly Matthew. 

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: It’s not Alice at all. And now Matthew’s interview, Matthew says, “Well, actually, I was there, and I was wearing Alice’s jacket And actually I was responsible for all these other images, including the image For all of it in the backyard.

He did it all. And I mean, like, you’re, what is wrong with this kid? You know, like what was he hoping to do? And the movie doesn’t even explain it. Matthew’s real vague 

Clip: Mum kept, uh, talking about, she was always talking about getting Alice exhumed, and she was really, um, she was really keen on this idea that Dad had misidentified her body.

And so I knew that without more evidence it wasn’t gonna happen, so I Am I the photograph? 

Todd: But ultimately, June is devastated. The mother is devastated by this, and she’s like, “Oh, I don’t really know why he did it. He’s not really clear on it, and I’m not gonna push him.” So that was interesting. 

Craig: I know. It- gosh, I don’t know.

It just… At that point I was like, “What?” And I guess you’re right. I, I have said that many times recently, watching these real-life things, like it’s just… But it’s weird to listen to him narrate it as though it were real, that, you know, the, the, the images were showing up or whatever, and then just to be like, “Oh yeah, I faked it all.”

Like- 

Todd: Yeah 

Craig: Oh. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Okay, and, and, but he and Ray are still hanging around together and go leave- Go on a work trip … the house or something and, and leave some cameras just running in the house. He’s like, “Oh, I’d get at least 12 hours,” something. Okay, whatever. And then there are new images of Alice on the camera for- 

Todd: So- 

Craig: I think

Todd: why would he even do that? You know, I, I would think the jig is up, right? Like- 

Craig: Yes … 

Todd: why would he imagine, “Well, maybe there is actually a ghost even though I’ve been faking it this whole time. Let’s leave the cameras going”? Is it just because they legitimately heard bumps and had weird feelings about the house that he was just reaching kind of a- Oh.

I don’t know. Or like his guilt for doing that led him to try to prove that it actually happened? I, if 

Craig: I don’t know. But for some reason the mom wants to go back and review all the old footage that has already been proven to be fake or whatever, but she’s going back over it and in the video that we originally saw with Alice in it, she’s like, “And then I noticed in the corner there was somebody else in there.”

And sure enough, zoom into a different dark corner and there’s a silhouette of somebody else. And she’s like, “And I knew it wasn’t Alice because it was our neighbor, Mr. Tuey.” 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And I, and I was like, “I don’t know how you could tell that because it just looked like a black vague silhouette to 

Todd: me.” It does.

And this is a huge leap, right? Okay, so a neighbor broke into your house and you didn’t know? Right. You know, like while you were l- there? Who would do that? 

Craig: It’s almost frustrating in hindsight, like we had seen that. Like, that had been one of the major pieces of evidence of, you know, Alice’s ghost or whatever, and that silhouette had been there all along.

Our attention hadn’t been drawn to it. Yeah. And now all of a sudden it is. And now… And again, here comes huge twists number two- … that comes so far out of left field. It’s wild. 

Todd: Yeah. She’s like, “Well, what is he doing in here?” So- She goes into her room. She’s like, “He must’ve been searching for something,” and she finds her daughter’s safe?

Craig: Some- like a lockbox or something, yeah. 

Todd: I guess, and pulls it out, and starts going through it, and she finds her diary and some videotape, and realizes what she was looking for. And when she plays it, it’s a sex tape- 

Craig: Yes … 

Todd: of Alice and her neighbor, and is it her neighbor’s husband or wife? 

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: It’s like a threesome.

It’s 

Craig: the couple next door. Yes, it’s the c- it’s like a… Yeah. It’s a kinky threesome with the couple next door whose kids she babysat. And at first I was like, “Well, gross,” but, you know, big deal, whatever, until I realized she was supposed to be 16. I was thinking she was older for some reason. Yeah. I was thinking she was like 18, 19, but no, she’s 16.

No. So that is gross and creepy. But, like, this guy came out of nowhere, and they’re like, “So we tried to find the Tuoys, but we couldn’t. The end.” Like, what? 

Todd: And we’re done with the Tuoys now. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Like, are you kidding me? Is it really that hard to find this couple? Like- Right … it’s a family. They moved six months ago.

Oh my God, so weird. So- We 

Craig: never hear about them again, really. 

Todd: So 

Craig: weird. And they ask Alice’s boyfriend, like, “Did you know about the Tuoys?” Like, “No, I didn’t know anything.” “I, I thought we were fine.” It’s- Now- So weird … 

Todd: I think that the concept is solid, though. The family has to now come to terms with the fact that they didn’t know Alice 100%.

Nobody knows anybody 100%. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: Your closest family members, there’s an inner world that they’re living that you don’t have access to and never will. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And so this kind of thing could happen to any of us. You will discover something mildly shocking or extremely shocking about any person, no matter how close they are to you.

And I’ve often thought about this, you know, in death. Like, you know, you die suddenly, and you leave behind a whole house full of stuff. You know, who knows what embarrassing things y- when people are going through your stuff. I… That actually guides my life. This principle keeps me on the straight and narrow.

I’m like, “I don’t want anybody to be going through my hard drives or, or be going through my drawers or anything like that.” And when, you know, because I died in a car accident tomorrow, and be like- … “Oh my God, this changes our perception of Todd entirely.” You know what I mean? So I get this. I mean, I understand how this could happen.

Now, it’s a clever twist and it, realistic at its concept, but you’re right, it’s a little weird and a little far-fetched that this family can’t be found. That would be a huge… I mean, a normal investigation would be like, “And now we put out an APB,” and there was around the clock search across the country to every p- you know, police station to find these people because they created child pornography.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And they were having sex with a minor. I mean, this is a big deal. It’s a big deal. Way bigger. Yeah. 

Clip: I don’t know. It’s Australia. 

Todd: And the parents will 

Clip: be furious. Wouldn’t those parents be up in arms? 

Craig: Right. They are. Oh my God. Yes, well, especially because, like, Matt says he’s so mad because he feels like the dad that she was sleeping with or whatever was responsible for her death because he thinks that she killed herself- 

Todd: Because of her guilt or-

Craig: because of the guilt or whatever, which- Mm-hmm … hadn’t even occurred to me that this might be a suicide, but apparently he thinks that now. 

Todd: That’s understandable. 

Craig: And then out of no- again, we never really hear about them again, but randomly, God, this is so weird, I guess the mom is just constantly going through her stuff.

Randomly the mom is going through Alice’s calendar and finds Ray the radio psychic’s business card in there, and it turns out that the two of them had met before, and he just didn’t tell them because he wanted to protect her privacy. She’s dead. I don’t, like this doesn’t make any- Oh … sense to me. 

Todd: That’s so much bullshit.

I, I did not believe this for a second that- 

Craig: No, it was stupid. It made me wonder how they filmed this and, like, how it was written. Like, d- did Ray know when he was filming those earlier, earlier scenes that he actually knew this girl? 

Todd: Hmm. 

Craig: I don’t know, but- … apparently he did, and he’s like, “Yeah, yeah, she met with me, and we talked about a whole bunch of shit.

I just, I was trying to… I didn’t say anything ’cause I was trying to protect her privacy.” 

Todd: Come on. What kind of a dick are you? But also, I mean, it could be explained away that this guy really is a bit of a dick, and it also casts some question onto him and his character. Does he have something to do with this now?

Is he hiding something as well? As improbable as it is, I mean, I watch Tiger King. That, that gets weird and wacky and goes off in all kinds of crazy directions. You’re like, “How could you- That’s 

Craig: true … 

Todd: make these decisions?” It’s not 100% out of the ordinary for a very out of the ordinary kind of experience, I guess.

Craig: Fair enough. 

Todd: Life gets weird and complicated. But still, ironically, if this were presented to me as fiction, I would be like, “This is bullshit. This is bullshit. I don’t buy it. It’s fake.” 

Craig: Well, right. And the only thing that comes of that really is that she’s having these weird dreams, and I don’t even remember what they are at this point.

Todd: But they would be relevant enough for him to bring up in some capacity- Yeah … when he’s helping the family. Totally. Come on. 

Craig: I mean, just the fact that she was acting weird, right. And then seemingly out of nowhere, Jason, Alice’s boyfriend, just decides to tell the mom about some cellphone footage that one of Alice’s friends had or something from a trip that Alice and her friends took- to Lake Mungo, which I guess, I don’t know a lot about it.

It’s a, a dry lake in Australia, and I think it’s got some history, but I don’t know much about it. They found, like, ancient dead people there or something. 

Todd: Yeah. Something like that. They did. 

Craig: Like, the oldest human remains or something. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s pretty significant. Like, a 40,000-year-old woman, and then later another man.

Uh, so yeah, I mean, it’s pretty significant, but- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: it doesn’t have anything to do with this story. 

Craig: N- no, but it’s, you know… They, they, they go there, and it’s, it’s just fairly typical footage of young girls just goofing around in the desert or whatever. But they notice that though everybody else looks super happy, Alice, you know, looks forlorn.

A- and there’s footage of her- Thank God. It was caught on footage, some of her burying something- … under a tree. 

Todd: They’re lucky. 

Craig: So they go to the desert and find that tree. 

Todd: There’s only one. It’s so easy. 

Craig: Oh my God. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. They’re lucky. 

Craig: And they dig it up, yep, and there’s a bag, a plastic bag with Alice’s ring and necklace and watch and her phone.

Todd: Are you about to say what I was g- I think you’re gonna say? I don’t know. I love how they pull out her phone. It’s a little Nokia, right? 

Craig: Yeah, yeah. 

Todd: Now, it’s a Nokia. I don’t think it had a screen on it. I don’t think a phone- No … like that could record video ever. 

Craig: I don’t either. 

Todd: But anyway, they dig it up and the dad plugs it in.

It was like, “It was low on battery.” I’m like- Yeah … “This battery should be dead.” Yeah. “What are you talking about?” Oh 

Craig: my gosh. I know. I remember that. 

Todd: It’s, like, a magical phone that you buried, that she buried months ago. It’s still- 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Then again, that, those were the days. Phones lasted longer ’cause… 

Craig: God. And there is video footage on her phone.

Todd: Oh. 

Craig: And it shows her, like, shooting footage around the desert in the dark, and she’s scared, I guess. And she encounters what appears to be a, a person that when the camera zooms in, appears to be her dead- Mm-hmm … face that… And, and the dad recognizes it ’cause he was the one that- Identified her, and we recognize it from the photos 

Todd: Now, can I just say that if you had this encounter and you were freaked out, and maybe you’re even mentally unstable, who knows, do you think your first instinct would be to bury your possessions?

Craig: No. What is the… I don’t get that at all. 

Todd: Somebody says some throwaway line like, “Oh, well, she was preparing for death,” or whatever. No, like, she came home. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: She came home from the trip- 

Craig: And acted 

Todd: normal … and just said that she lost her stuff and acted normal for a while. So that doesn’t ma- I, I think that’s so contrived.

Craig: Yeah, and they think, they, they, they, they believe, the whole family believes that she saw her own ghost and knew the future was coming to get her. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But I guess that that’s all Alice’s spirit wanted because then everything calms down. They don’t hear things in the house anymore. They start getting along better as a family.

Like- 

Todd: I guess … everything’s- They start communicating a little better. Yeah. I hope Matthew stopped screwing around with 

Craig: photos and- Stopping all the weird … 

Todd: videos. Jesus. 

Craig: Yeah. And, and because of that, the mom says that she thinks that Alice just wanted them to know who she really was. I guess she really wanted her parents to see her getting banged in that video.

Todd: Right. “I just want you to know- 

Craig: Oh, God … 

Todd: I was banging the neighbor.” Oh, my God. Oh, my 

Craig: God. I mean, and the, I, I guess really contextually w- we shouldn’t laugh. It’s abuse. It’s child abuse. It’s just… It- a- and I think that they said even that part of the reason that the police didn’t pursue the Tuohy’s More is because that they would’ve argued that it was consensual.

Again, I don’t know what- 

Todd: He’s 16, though. 

Craig: Yeah, I know, but this is Australia. I don’t know what the age of consent is in Australia. 

Todd: Oh, you’re right. You’re right. It could very well be. I don’t know. I’m gonna look that up. 

Craig: But anyway, gross, whatever. So they start to feel better. Ray comes and visits them. I guess they’re friends with him again and, and they decide to move to put it behind them, and they pack up the house, and we see all the footage of them packing up the house and stuff.

And then June, the mom, has her final confer- consultation with Ray, and again, he kind of puts her under hypnosis and, and walks her through the house. But we see it played kind of side by side, clip by clip with his consultation with Alice about her dreams, and it appears that they align. 

Todd: Yeah. That’s an interesting idea.

Craig: Yeah. Like Alice- Yeah … Alice sees her mom walk… Alice is sitting on her bed in, in her dream and, and she sees her mom walk into the room, but it seems like her mom doesn’t know she’s there. And then the mom talks about walking into Alice’s room, but there’s nobody there or something. I don’t know. They align.

Todd: I as- I assume this is this concept that Alice, Alice’s ghost from the future basically haunted her So this is supposed to be like she had a vision of the future where her mother would be coming into the room and- 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: unknowingly her- she is there as a ghost in the room and, and, and the ghost… I, I actually wrote a story once about this idea.

I thought it was super original, but I’ll bet there, there’s, this has been done before about being haunted by your future ghost trying to warn you about what’s gonna happen, but it is going to happen or else the ghost wouldn’t be there, so it’s just fated to happen anyway. 

Craig: Interesting. It is an interesting idea.

Todd: It wasn’t as sophisticated as this, but I thought it was a clever concept. I’ve yet to see it. I’ve, I’m throwing it out there in case anybody wants to steal it. I mean, obviously it’s been done in this movie some way, so you know, it’s not super original. I wrote mine in, uh, 2000 and, uh, s- it would’ve been around the same time as this movie, I guess, 2006, 2007.

There, 

Craig: there must’ve been something in the air, yeah. 

Todd: I guess so. 

Craig: In 2007. But yeah, I, I, you know, I guess the mom, when she walks into the bedroom, she doesn’t see anything. She sa- you know, Alice in her tape says, “I don’t think she knows I’m here,” and the mom in hers says, “Alice isn’t here.” 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And, and so they leave.

So, like, it seems like the family is at peace. I mean, that Alice foresaw this in her dream is spooky and, you know, kind of … It begs the question that I think the final twist attempts to answer. 

Todd: Hmm. 

Craig: But again, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of frustrating because they, you know, they drive away, everything’s great, whatever, and then it goes back to the family photo, the very first family photo that we saw of the parents and Matthew standing in front of the house.

You know, th- this was the first thing we saw when we were introduced to the family. But now the camera zooms into the dark window in the background. Alice’s ghostly specter appears in the window. So I guess Alice was there all along. 

Todd: Yeah. Well, then it does a, a clever thing where then the credits start rolling, and after every two or three credits it shows another thing that we saw and shows us that Alice was there.

Oh, that’s right. So, like, it shows that photo of the backyard w- that he had faked with him on the left side, but then it zooms in on the right side and you see there’s actually Alice there against the right side of the photo And I think it does the same thing with the dam one and, and something else. So it’s leaving us with this impression that it’s layers upon layers of deception.

Yeah. Even in these deceptive things and these things that we’ve been looking at this whole time, she was also still there. 

Craig: She was there. 

Todd: I think it’s, it’s so understated that it works so well, and I really like this ending. And I think it’s because of this that people were talking online about how unsettling the movie was.

This would be the kind of thing that… I mean, look, I don’t believe in ghosts, so I’m very skeptical about all this kind of stuff. If some- if something like this was presented to me as real, I’d be like, “They’re faking it.” 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: But, you know, otherwise, it’s real enough seeming that if you believed that this were possible and you wanted to believe it, this leaves you with a, a, a sense of creepiness that, I don’t know, it stuck with me a little bit longer than I thought it would, the movie.

It got me thinking. And I think some of it had to do with, again, like, the family’s grief felt so real, and the twists and turns of their brains trying to cope with this, and the weirdness of some of the relatives and the different ways that they coped with it, like the kid faking photos. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: The weirdness of the n- of the Ray kind of, like, not bringing it up because he had some weird…

You know, everything about it is just so strange that it actually felt kind of authentic. Mm-hmm. ‘Cause real life just isn’t usually so tight and clean as a Hollywood movie. 

Craig: That’s true. 

Todd: And, and people are messy and people are odd, and we even do things and we’ll go back and go like, “Why did I even do that?”

You know? 

Craig: Sure. 

Todd: So there was enough of that in the movie Just at the right level that I just absorbed all that as a s- general sense of creepiness and, and I really liked it. I mean, I didn’t find it scary, but I did find it unsettling. And, and for that I, I, I thought it was worth the watch. 

Craig: Yeah, IMDb says that Jordan Peele has said that this is a movie– one of the movies that scared him the most.

I, I, I didn’t find it really that… I didn’t find it scary at all. No. It, it was f- you know, I don’t feel guilty anymore about forgetting to give spoiler warnings. People know what we do . 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: Right, right. Um, but, but really if you’ve listened to the… I, I, I feel like the twists are kind of what keeps it from being- Interesting

mediocre. I, yeah- Yeah … I mean, that’s, that’s what makes it interesting. And like if you already know that going in, I mean, uh, like I said, I’d seen it before, so going in this time I knew the twists. I remembered that, that the brother was faking it. I remembered that she was in some weird sex thing with the neighbors.

I remembered all of that. So, eh, it, it w- it, it- Yeah … it loses its shine after the first watch. But, you know, I, I think it’s good. I, I get why people were talking about it, too. I think it’s well done and well made. It’s for this type of movie, and if you like this type of movie, I think that this is a good one.

I think that you would like it. I don’t… Aside from the fact that ultimately I just found it difficult to believe, I don’t really have any cri- criticisms of it. But like you said, I mean, I… Even the ones that I mentioned earlier, uh, in, in the podcast, these, these stories that did happen in real life, like, I find them unbelievable, too.

Yeah. So if, if those things can happen, some of them, the ones that I’ve seen recently, are fucking way wilder than this . It’s true. So- It’s true … so I guess if those kinds of crazy things can happen in real life, I’m like, you know, I’m skeptical about the supernatural, but I don’t know. You know? Who knows?

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: So I’m skeptical, but it’s, you know, it’s, it’s spooky, it’s creepy Whatever. Yeah, I, I, I give it two thumbs up. I would, I would definitely recommend it, though if you haven’t seen it and you’ve listened to this at this point, apologies for spoiling 

Todd: the fun. Don’t bother. By the way, I did just look it up, and the age of consent in Australia is between 16 and 17, so it’s not quite as scandalous as we- Yeah

as it would’ve been in the US. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Still pretty young, though. I don’t know. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Still. Well, there you have it, Lake Mungo. Are we toward the end of the barrel as far as these kinds of found footage or mockumentary-type horror movies? There can’t be too many more out there that we haven’t already seen, could there?

Craig: I don’t know. I told you that, that one I just watched from 2024 was pretty good and, you know, good enough that I think we should talk about it at some point. 

Todd: We should. 

Craig: They’ll- people- they’ll- I, I… No, I don’t, I don’t think we’re at the end of them. In fact, I think that they will grow in popularity because I think true crime, especially bizarre true crime stuff and these types of documentaries, are really popular right now.

Like- Well, 

Todd: that’s true … 

Craig: the ones that I’ve mentioned are in the top 10 on Netflix all the time. There, there’s a huge audience for these. I’ve been eating them up. Another– I think I already mentioned it, but another one, Maternal Instincts, uh, I recently watched. Like, th- they abound. That’s true. And because that audience, because that audience already exists, I can’t imagine that filmmakers wouldn’t capitalize on it, and I think they would be smart to.

So no, I don’t think that it’s I, I, I do not think that the well has run dry on these at all. 

Todd: But it does run into that problem, right? That, like, what could you come up with that’s crazier and weirder and more shocking than all of these real dr- documentaries end up being. You know what I mean? 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: We- for a lo- for a while, Liz and I were really addicted to those, like, religious sex cult documentaries and, you know, you just couldn’t believe- 

Craig: Yeah

Todd: the stuff that people would do and to each other and were willing to go along with. I mean, it just blows your mind. You know, like I said, you see it in a fictional movie and you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna buy it, you know? You’re like, “Someone needs to write this better.” It’s only when you see it in real life that you’re just like, “I cannot believe it.

This is un…” It, it’s so shocking. Uh. It’s ironic, but kinda funny that way. So in, in the other sense, y- it’s a pretty high bar to cross- 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: to come up with something like this, that’s not just gonna end up being, like, a ghost story or an alien story or something that, where we’re really asked to suspend our disbelief, you know?

Craig: Ooh, well, there you go. I mean, that’s, then that’s, that’s where this movie- That’s where it’ll be … v- you know, well, do you go the, the route of this movie and go with something if you have any inkling of belief in the supernatural that is potentially plausible, or do you really go way over the top? I mean, I suppose anything is plausible.

You mentioned aliens. Like- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: sure, I guess aliens could come, and if they did, I’m sure somebody would catch them on their cellphone camera. But, you know, for me- … there, there’s, there’s a line. I think the ghost line, I can almost… I, you know this. I told you I saw Blair Witch before it had come out, that it was not real, and I totally thought it was real.

So- Right. I could, I can be convinced. But you’re right, I do think, uh, people who are, i- i- if people are gonna continue to make these mockumentaries, the bar is pretty high in terms of h- how far you can, uh, press our willing suspension of disbelief. Anyway. 

Clip: Yeah, I suppose so. 

Todd: Well, check out Lake Mungo if you haven’t already, and let us know what you thought about it.

Just find us online and drop us a note. Let us know some of these other horror d- mockumentaries that we might be missing that would be kind of fun for us to do, whether involving aliens or ghosts or murders or whatever. We’re always on the lookout for new and interesting stuff. Find us at chainsawhorror.com.

Google us at Two Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast. Find our Patreon, patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. Until next time, I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

This week we pay tribute to an actor that means so much to both of us, Tim Curry, and his performance as Darkeness in Ridley Scott’s “Legend”.

We reflect on how much he meant to us across roles like Rocky Horror, Clue, Pennywise, and extensive voice work, including how his stroke affected his career and why his memoir is worth reading (even if it’s brief and private).

In celebrating his legacy, we discuss Ridley Scott’s Legend (1985), including its troubled production, stunning practical sets, and Curry’s iconic, physically demanding Darkness makeup.

We compare the director’s cut and theatrical cut, focusing on how Jerry Goldsmith’s score versus Tangerine Dream radically changes tone, pacing, and character complexity, and we break down key scenes like Meg Mucklebones, Lily’s seduction/dance sequence, and the differing endings.

Check out BOTH cuts, as well as more of Curry’s work over his many decades in the business!work.

Episode 504, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: Well, we’re doing another tribute episode and I have to admit this one’s a bit of a difficult one for me. Um- 

Craig: It has been a rough week. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Like it’s been an emotional week for me. I don’t know about you but man, it was a rough week for me. 

Todd: You know, I don’t usually get so emotional as to cry when a celebrity dies, but this week for only the second and third time in my life, I, uh, I did shed some tears.

First of all was Dolly Parton And that was horrible. Yeah. But- 

Craig: Wept like a baby. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: We’ll talk more about that later. 

Todd: We’ll probably record a little something for our, um, patrons. 

Craig: For our patrons, 

Todd: yeah. Yeah, to talk about Dolly Parton. Not really horror related, but darn it, that’s what our patrons get.

Sometimes they get life stuff. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, and I’ve got a lot to say. 

Todd: Just turn the mic over to you for that one. This one is a man who I’ve been telling everyone for years since I was a kid is my favorite actor of all time. Tim Curry died at the age of 80? 

Craig: Yep. 

Todd: Uh, what can I say? I… Uh, he’s been with me since my childhood.

The roles that he has performed on screen have just captivated me throughout every decade of my life. I just saw a little bit of myself in this man. The more I got to know him, the more I thought, “Wow,” uh, he f-… He sounds a little bit like me in terms of how he approaches life, skittered through his career, and just really just done interesting things, just goes around and does the stuff that interests him and is quite good at what he does, and, uh, was pretty generally beloved all around.

I- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: much like Dolly Parton, I can’t think of a person who had any complaints about Tim Curry. 

Craig: No. 

Todd: And, uh, obviously, one of the most iconic movies, uh, in, in America of the last 50 years, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. God, so many, so many movies. A- Rooster in Annie, huh, Wadsworth in Clue, the concierge in Home Alone 2.

God, he was in Muppet Treasure Island and the Three Musketeers. Right. The Hunt for Red October. He played Pennywise. Huh, talking about horror, probably my favorite Pennywise is still him. And- Yeah … he scared a whole generation of people, and I really think turned the world against clowns single-handedly with that role.

I know. You said that. We’ve said that a lot. We did that on this show. We also did The Worst Witch on this show one Halloween. 

Clip: Oh, right. 

Todd: And he had a turn in there that I was surprised by, but you grew up with, that was just goofy and silly and fun and very Tim Curry. Yet he went on also to do hundreds of roles almost in, in- 

Craig: S- prolific

Todd: yeah, in voice work, th- things that I didn’t even realize. And that was where he– I feel like when you, when you read his autobiography Which I did. You sort of feel like that was a thing that he discovered a, a passion for and really settled into that through life, and then sadly had his voice taken away from him for a while and with his stroke.

Was still able to do some acting in some movies- Yeah … and was still able to do some audiobooks and things like that, but certainly not to the degree that he had before, and that had to be frustrating for the guy. But man, he kept a good spirit about it all, kept a sense of humor, bright mind. I’ve seen so many interviews with him even over the last several years, not just because he died this last week.

And it just so happened that I had been doing a lot of traveling this summer, and one of the three or four books that I had going while I was on the plane and resting in the various places I was, was his autobiography Vagabond, his memoir. Mm-hmm. Which you had recommended to me, and I’m glad you did. You had recommended I listen to the audiobook, but as much as I wanted to hear his voice, I don’t– I just prefer to read things.

I don’t… As a guy weirdly a guy who records audiobooks, uh, doesn’t really like audiobooks too much. That’s me. So it was so strange that two days later after I finished it finally got the news of his passing. 

Oh, wow! 

It was very weird. It made me not want to start the auto-autobiography, which is next on my list.

Oh my God, I know. I know. I don’t want her to be that third person yet. Ugh. So anyway, there’s so much to say about Tim Curry, but I’ve done enough talking. Uh, Craig, I know he means at least as much to you as he does to me. 

Craig: Yeah. Like, you know, our– I think our s- stories are similar. I, I grew up watching him.

Clue was one that my friends, when I got into college, all my friends had grown up with and I, I hadn’t really seen it. I, I had seen bits and pieces of it here and there. I didn’t really see that one until college, but it was, it was Stephen King’s It. Stephen King’s It was my sick day movie always. If I had a sick day at home, i- you know, that was one of them.

That, and The Goonies and Troll, that was kind of my, my go-to marathon. But also from the movie that we’re talking about today, Legend. I loved this movie growing up as a kid, and it was one of those that I don’t think that we ever had for whatever reason. You know, my dad would tape things off HBO or, or illegally copy things from the video store occasionally but we never had Legend and so when it would pop up on HBO or wherever it would pop up it was so exciting and Alan and I were watching it together last night and he said the same thing.

He said when he was a kid and he would stumble across this movie w- at whatever point in the movie he would stumble across it, th-that was it. Whatever else was going on ended and you sat and you watched Legend. And of course we’re gonna have a lot to say about the movie but you know I, I, I think he’s the best part of it but like Dolly Parton, like Paul Reubens, like God protector Cassandra Peterson, I, I mean these really honest to God are my childhood legends and my heroes.

You know? These are the kind of people that I… Uh, uh, I, I recognized it then but I don’t think that I coulda– have articulated what it was then. I recognize now that it’s these people Are all, were all unapologetically themselves. They absolutely refused to apologize for who they were and, and they just, you know, lived out loud and, and I…

Yeah, I, I, I listened to his audiobook which listeners, I recommend if, if you like audiobooks at all because he, he, he narrates it himself and he’s so charming, and that’s, I think, part of his appeal. He’s charming, he’s mysterious, he’s sexy, he’s a little bit sinister. I mean, he’s just s- got so much charisma.

He’s enchanting. Of course, in the wake of his death I’ve seen a lot of clips from him. I’ve seen a lot of tributes and, and whatnot, but I saw him in an interview probably midway through his career. He was still young, but not Rocky Horror young. And, and some, you know, very stiff-necked looking anchor woman, “You’re just so charming.

When you, when you play the devil, it makes a girl wanna go straight to hell.” 

Todd: Oh. And I

Craig: get it. You know, he often did play dark, sinister characters, but s- And he just had a seductive nature about him. And beyond that, if you … As you know, if you read his memoir, he was humble. So incredibly humble and grateful for all of the experiences that he had had. It… And, and he cautions early on in his memoir that he’s probably not going to spill the kind of salacious material you might be hoping for in a memoir.

You know, he doesn’t talk, I think at all, about his love life. 

Todd: No. 

Craig: And if ever there were scandalous things going on behind the scenes, like feuds or anything, he doesn’t really address that. I mean, he just seems really grateful for the experiences that he had, and to hear him talk about them from his own perspective is just, it’s fascinating, it’s entertaining and, and it’s just comforting hearing his voice because Career reflects, you know, his voice is one of his greatest tools.

One of many- Yeah … because I just think that he was an astounding, astounding actor. But Beyond that, just seemed like a really good guy. Was always generous with his fans. You know, we, we’ve dreaded this day. We’ve talked about it. We knew it was coming eventually and we had hoped that it would be a long time from now but we knew it was coming because he hasn’t been well for a long time.

I don’t remember when he had that stroke, but it’s been a long time ago. But even within the last year, even though he wasn’t well, he was still going to cons and, and festivals and, and holding panels and he spoke slowly and not as clearly as he once did, but he was all there mentally. You know? It, it had an effect– a physical effect on his body and slowed him down, but his mind was still sharp as a whip.

And I remember recently… The most recent one that I heard, he did a panel with Leslie Ann Warren, one of his co-stars from Clue, and you know, they were both there and I think that she anticipated having to do most of the heavy lifting, but ultimately she said that she could barely get a word in Because he talked so much and had, and so many stories and so many people had questions for him.

And he talks in his memoir about how he loved his fans because they were people who looked to characters like Frank N Furter and thought, you know, “If that person,” alien whatever it is, can be loudly who they are then I have permission to be loudly who I am.” And he really admired that in those people and wanted to give back to them too.

So I could go on and on and on. If you haven’t read the memoir and you’re a fan of Tim Curry’s, do yourself a favor. It, it’s certainly worth your time. Yeah. I mean y- I’m gonna … Uh, yeah, I, I shed a tear too. Hmm. It, it, it feels like a big loss. It real- And you know maybe this comes with being the age we are, but it really feels like we’re losing our heroes.

But Tim curry also felt, you know, multi generational and he kinda felt like he belonged to all of us. It, it feels like kind of a communal mourning. All of my friends were talking about it and were sad and, you know watching his movies with their kids in these last few days and – Yeah So obviously, his legacy will stand and You know, he was living comfortably.

He, he was sad that he couldn’t do the things that he could when he was physically able and he really enjoyed gardening but you know, he also was in a position where he could afford help and he had people who he… Had garden for him and he would sit in his chair- …and give them directions . Give some 

Todd: directions

Hmm 

Craig: He was– That was another thing that was so inspiring was, you know somebody who could have wallowed in their own, you know loss. He didn’t. He still felt like he had a lot of life to live and it was different now but he wasn’t gonna let that bring him down or at least that’s the way that he spoke about it and that was inspiring as well So just a great, great guy.

I’m sad that ,you know I, I, I’ve been saying for a while especially once I found out that you had never seen this movie, I’ve been saying for a while we’re gonna do this movie even if it’s when he passes We’re going to do it eventually. So I’m — I really am very excited to talk to you about it And I’m kinda glad that we got the sad stuff outta the way and now we can just celebrate At, at, at least You know?

I haven’t talked to you about how you feel about the movie yet. But at least I think we can agree in celebrating Tim Curry and his performance in it 

Todd: Yeah. I agree. You know talking about memoir real quick I, I was a little disappointed. I, I was very grateful for having something from him talking about his life but I did feel that is pretty surface and it was over awfully quick

I wanted a little more detail into him and his character but I just think that he’s more of private guy and he gave about as much as he willing to give and Like said for that I’m grateful If you’re on the fence about reading it and long books scare you Ill tell you that y- you wouldn’t have that problem so that’s, that’s good part of it i think 

Craig: Well and and not surprised to hear that because doesn’t speak much A- aside from his childhood and his relationship with parents.

He’s pretty open about that 

Todd: Hmm 

Craig: But yeah later on he talks friendships dear friendship s and and some acquaintances and it’s … You know? I’m always amazed by the six degrees of separation when it comes celebrity culture and how,- Mm …. sometimes they all kind of know each other and whose paths have crossed whatnot and that fascinating.

I’m interested in that kind of stuff and I’m interested in trivia and what he

does Is he runs through his career Or – Yeah …..or The biggest highlights of it basically gives you behind scenes perspective nd I found that be very interesting Rocky Horror for a very long time, ’cause that was a huge part of his life, which I didn’t know. I didn’t realize that he was playing that role for years and years and years- 

Todd: Hmm

Craig: and it was, you know, really defining for him as, as an actor. But he talks at length about Legend II, and I found that interesting. Ironically, I guess because it’s one of his most iconic roles, Pennywise, he barely talked about It at all. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And he kind of , and he kind of said something about that like, “I know it’s one of my most iconic roles, I just don’t really have much to say about it.”

Todd: Like Yeah. He really did. And, and he was almost, I don’t wanna say disdainful about it. He wasn’t disdainful about it but there was a certain kind of like puzzlement or like a m-… I don’t want to say exhaustion- Yeah …but something that kinda came through where he was almost sounded like maybe he was a little done with being recognized for being Pennywise.

Craig: Well, he was so gracious, you know, in terms of his fans but I, I– He did kind of express suppr-… He was surprised that that was the one that… ‘Cause, you know, it’s an evil, terrible character and, um, he was surprised that so many people connected with It. But, but he was grateful- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: and appreciative of the fans.

It was… Just didn’t have much to say about It . 

Todd: No, it was funny So interesting. Well we had a lot to say about It. You can go back and listen to one of our previous episodes on that and- 

Craig: Did we ever even do part two? I don’t remember. 

Todd: Yeah, we did part two but we didn’t do part two of the new It. Yeah. We did part two of the miniseries.

Yeah, so anyway Legend. You’re right, I had not seen this. I, I like that we’re talking about this in this way. I think this has happened once or twice where one of us has seen a movie since kind of grown up with it and the other one for some reason it just passed them by. And 

Craig: s- It’s very rare as of this point.

This- It’s 

Todd: weird, right? 

Craig: This could, this could be the last one. 

Todd: As, as surprisingly a film like Legend because it was in my face a lot. You know it was on TV a fair amount. Uh, I don’t even think I saw more than two seconds of a clip of it believe it or not. Y- you know I, I knew of the poster was always beckoning me from the shelves of the video store.

It actually looked like the kinda thing that my sisters and I would watch because this came out around the same time as The NeverEnding Story. Well also like Goonies and some other things but like there was a bit of a, of a fantasy resurgence in the mainstream movie world and- 

Craig: Uh-huh … 

Todd: so some big movies were going in this direction and- Jim Henson, yeah

j-… Yeah Jim Henson, uh, Labyrinth and whatnot. 

Craig: The Dark Crystal. 

Todd: Y- yeah The Dark Crystal too and I was really surprised to s- to hear that Jennifer… But not surprised really to hear that Jennifer Connelly was originally offered the lead female role in this. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: She turned it down but ended up working on Labyrinth anyway.

I guess I just kind of intuitively knew over the years that the movie just didn’t really latch on except for people who grew up with it I think. Kinda like The NeverEnding Story I suppose. That’s not a movie you hear m- too many people talk about nowadays. 

Craig: Anymore, yeah. 

Todd: Yeah so, uh, unlike I dunno a lotta the other movies that came out around that time.

Labyrinth I think. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Labyrinth is probably more fondly reviv- But I think a lotta that has to do with this one had a bit of a troubled production Ridley Scott had just come off of Alien and stuff. And then he did another movie that wasn’t quite such a big hit 

Craig: Blade Runner 

Todd: And, uh, he wanted to go into another big production on something that’s fantasy related, some epic dark fantasy adventure for adults.

Reached out to an American novelist William Hjortsberg to write this original screenplay for it. And he did, and, and he put this thing into production. My God, the… Th- there was just massive, massive production behind this. It 

Craig: w- It’s 

Todd: crazy It’s insane. One of the- 

Craig: Yeah, it’s huge … 

Todd: one of the biggest sound stages at Pinewood Studios was made for this giant indoor set of a forest.

It did end up burning down midway through the production before they’d even finished all, shooting all their scenes in there. I mean, it was like- 

Craig: That was one of my favorite stories from Tim Curry’s memoir 

Todd: Yeah, right? 

Craig: Was when, was when the set burned down, and his mom saw it on, on the news, I think, and called him and was like, “Timmy, were you smoking?”

And like

And, and then, then there was some other point in his life where something burned down, and his mom called and asked him if he’d been smoking. I kinda thought that was such a funny story whether it’s 

Todd: true or not. That was funny. Seems like a thing- Seems like a thing that ran through his whole life was, uh, trying to keep his mom at bay with the smoking and the drugs and things.

Yeah. 

Craig: Like, “What did you do?” 

Todd: But, um, you know, he, he pulled in the same people who worked with him on Alien and Blade Runner. You know, all these big fantastical sets, and as I watched the movie I was just struck by how gorgeous everything was and how detailed it was. Couldn’t believe this was filmed indoors.

It just doesn’t have that… It has an otherworldly look to it- Mm … but it doesn’t have that otherworldly because I’m on a stage indoors look that say The Wizard of Oz has, you know? 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: So it’s just, it’s just gorgeous, and I mean, the whole production’s crazy. I sat down and I watched the director’s cut.

Wasn’t my o- my choice, it’s just what I had, so I, I watched it, and as I was finishing it up I thought, “I better contact you, Craig,” because the director’s cut came out in like 2003 or 2002. You definitely didn’t grow up watching the director’s cut, so I was curious what you were gonna watch. We decided that we would w- watch both of them so that we could compare.

Like I said earlier, to come full circle, I’m really glad that, uh, I’m in this position because not only am I seeing this movie for the first time, I’m not colored by my childhood memories of it. I’m also not colored by the theatrical version. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: You know? I get to see them in the opposite order that a lot of people have grown up with it in and seen it in, so I might have a slightly different take on all this than you do.

We’ll see. 

Craig: Yeah, I can only imagine you will. Okay. So yeah, I grew up with it and I loved it. It was… I consider it in the same kind of ’80s children’s fantasy genre as those movies that we’ve already listed like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal and The NeverEnding Story, that kind of thing. I, I can’t imagine probably that our listeners haven’t seen this movie, but you hadn’t, so I don’t know.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: But if you, if you haven’t, gosh, I, I don’t like movie spoilers. I, I know some– Our friend Heather l- likes movie spoilers. She likes to know what’s gonna happen before she sees a movie. 

Todd: Yes, so does, so does Vic. 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t understand that, but whatever. To each their own. I don’t like movie spoilers, so if you haven’t seen this, I would say watch it before you listen to this, and that’s my general advice.

But- Mm-hmm … so anyway, I grew up with the theatrical cut And didn’t know until it existed that there would be a director’s cut. And when I heard that there would be a director’s cut, that was the first time that I had learned… You know, I’m never surprised to hear that movies get edited, you know, in the process.

Of course, there’s stuff that gets left on the cutting room floor and so then later you get director’s cuts where they can put in whatever they want. So, you know, that’s nothing new. But this was the first time that I had learned that the score that I had grown up with was not the intended score, that they had done an entire symphonic and choral score that was now gonna be on this thing.

And I thought, oh, how cool is that? Because I love movie scores. So I ordered it. I think I pre-ordered it, which I don’t usually do. And it came and I put it in and I started watching it and I was like, “This is a different movie.” 

Todd: It really is. 

Craig: It, it’s a completely– The score makes such a difference. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Now, this has been a long time ago.

It’s been a long time ago but it also, I hadn’t seen it in a really long time so I was excited to see it again and I’m like, “I’m so excited to s-see it again and I’m gonna see it the way it was intended.” And I put it on and I watched like the first 15 minutes And I turned it off and put, and, and put on the theatrical version.

You poor guy. And then I just went, and then I just went and watched all of the extended scenes and stuff on YouTube. So I really think that this is the first time that I’ve seen the director’s cut start to finish. Now, this is why it’s gonna be– I’m very interested too because this time I wanted to, you know, go in with an open mind direct- you know, director’s cut.

This is what the director wanted. And it’s good. Both movies are good. They’re both stunning to look at. I just feel like whoever… You know, they, they changed it. First of all, the original cut was like two and a half hours long. This, uh, director’s cut that we watched is right about two hours, and then the theatrical cut is right at about one thirty.

I think whoever made the decision to cut it and to rescore it was 100% right because I think that the theatrical cut drags, and I think that the way that it’s paced and the score, which is a beautiful– It’s an absolutely beautiful score in the director’s cut. It, you know, it’s, it’s orchestral. There’s, there’s choral stuff going on there.

It’s, it’s gorgeous, but it changes the tone entirely. To me, the director’s cut feels more like a classical almost British – 

Todd: Mm-hmm … 

Craig: fairy tale epic. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Whereas the theatrical cut feels like an ’80s fever dream. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And I like that more. And with the extended runtime, I think it with the tone because when you trim it down those scenes

Because there are comedic scenes throughout the movie, but in the director’s cut they’re kind of few and far between. And so- Right, they’re spaced out … when they h- whe- wh-when they happen it’s kind of jarring. Like why all of a sudden is this cute and funny now? Wh-when you condense it you don’t have so much space between those scenes and I just feel like it works better tonally.

Plus I just love the, the, the score um- … in the theatrical cut. Uh, it’s… Y-you’ll have to remind who did it. I should remember but I ca-… All 

Todd: I can come up with is Wagner. Tangerine Dream. Tangerine Dream- Tangerine Dream …. was the, you know, the sound of the ’80s. It’s a German band that, uh, scored a ton of ’80s movies and once you start hearing their scores you know what we’re talking about.

They’re th- they tend to be a little ethereal. They’re very synthy. 

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: The Keep, Risky Business. God Firestarter I think was scored by them. Legend obviously Near Dark had a nice score by them as well. I’m gonna kinda ride the middle here because I completely agree with what you’re saying to the extent of this is what makes the two movies different.

Jerry Goldsmith’s score works really well for what Ridley Scott, I think, ultimately wanted, which was a timeless classic. He wanted a dark epic fantasy tale th- that I think is like a little more adult oriented and I feel like that’s what he For 

Craig: sure. It’s, it’s scarier too. 

Todd: It’s so much- I think …scarier and, and a little more brutal and also the n-, the thing about the director’s cut is there are scenes and things left out tha-…

Of the theatrical cut that reduce the complexity of the characters. I would say that when you’re watching the director’s cut, you realize ev- almost every one of these characters is flawed in some way. 

Craig: Oh yeah. 

Todd: The princess comes off as a little more entitled and bitchy. 

Craig: For sure. 

Todd: Uh, Tom Cruise’s character comes off as a little like unsure and clueless and, and he’s got issues.

He, he’s also a little bit on more of a journey, I think, in the director’s cut because h- he’s not so good at stuff in the beginning and he has to try harder to … For example, he has to try harder to dispatch the witch whereas the theatrical cut, the witch scene is so short that it, it almost seems like it was second nature for her t-.

Him to just be able to cut her head off, you know? 

Craig: Correct me if I’m wrong ’cause I didn’t go back and double check but I felt like o- there was difference. Tom Cruise is the hero of the movie and he eventually kind of gathers a band of elves to help him. But if I remember correctly, in the direct- You know, in, in the theatrical cut, the elves just kind of find him and they learn that they need a hero and they’re like, “You’re good enough,” whatever.”

“You’re the 

Todd: guy,” Yeah. 

Craig: Y- And y- yeah, and then they just go off together. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: In the director’s cut They’re mad at him 

Todd: Oh yeah, they’re pissed. 

Craig: They’re pissed at him and they’re ultimately in the movie good guys but they’re also… In the director’s cut i- it’s very clear that they’re dangerous. Yeah. And in fact I think, I think Gump puts Jack to a test and I’m pretty sure that if Jack fails the test Gump is going to kill him.

Todd: Oh, yeah. 

Craig: And e- and then when, when Jack passes the test Gump is like furious that he didn’t get to kill him. 

Todd: Gump comes across as much angrier and testy as well in this, you’re right. And I think that’s what I liked about the director’s cut. I really liked that it w- didn’t simplify everything so much because I saw it first Right?

Craig: Right. 

Todd: S- so now I go and I watch the simpler version, it makes it seem more like a tale for children. Uh-huh. But I think it’s more appropriate for children. It’s less dark. It has darkness in it. Literally Darkness. Darkness is one of the characters played by Tim Curry. In fact, Darkness shows up pretty early on in the first movie.

He shows up early in the director’s cut as well but we don’t see his face and we have a very- You don’t see him, right … short scene with him whereas one of the things the studio said was, “We need to see him early.” And so we see him early on. And again, that’s a pretty typical thing to do for a kids movie.

You see the good guys, you see the bad guy, you see what the bad guy does and what needs to be fixed and then they go off on their adventure and then they pile on some friendly helpers to help them and then they go and dispatch the bad guy. Whereas the director’s cut isn’t quite as simplistic and it feels a little more adult.

And to me, I don’t know, it feels a little more timeless. I feel like maybe in another 20 years when the people like us who grew up in the ’80s are starting to fade away into obscurity . Hopefully it’s longer than 20 years. You know, and people are not remembering this movie from their childhood but they’re going back and watching it, I just have a prediction That people are gonna gravitate a little more towards the director’s cu- especially with what has come after.

You know, all these complex tales like Harry Potter and, uh, the long ass Lord of the Rings things. We have more of a tolerance and more of an expectation I think for a little more of this complexity in our fantasy. Whereas- 

Craig: Yeah, I don’t. 

Todd: Yeah. I know. I know. And, and but I’ll tell you, I freaking love the Tangerine Dream score in the simple other movie.

Isn’t 

Craig: it so good? 

Todd: It is. And, uh, i- it… But you’re right, it, it’s so crazy. This is a perfect example about how, how a score can completely change the tone of a film. It just makes it a lot more lighthearted and- 

Craig: And dreamy … 

Todd: dreamy. And, and that supports the visuals too. There are lots of times when the visuals are dreamy and stuff.

And also, you know, more ’80s. It 

Craig: definitely does. 

Todd: And we like the ’80s stuff. So, uh, there’s my bias showing there too. S-… But, but at the end of the day, I’m going to come down hard on the director’s side. I really just, I really do like the director’s cut a lot better, full stop. Although I will acknowledge 100% it’s a little slow.

It could have been trimmed a little bit. There were some moments where I was, I was a little bored. 

Craig: Yes. And, and, I mean, ugh, I’ll just come out and say I think if I were recommending it to somebody who hadn’t seen it before, unless I knew they were a real cinephile, i- if we’re just talking about somebody who wants a, a fun movie to watch, I would 100% say theatrical cut.

Yep. I, I think it’s more fun. I think the pacing’s better. 

Todd: I think that’s fair. I think we kind of said the same thing about the Clive Barker movie, right? 

Craig: I don’t remember which one it was. I feel- 

Todd: The one with the guys under the ground. Uh, we gotta, we gotta say the name. 

Craig: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Nightbreed.

Nightbreed. 

Todd: The Night- Nightbreed, right? Uh, we kinda said the same thing, that the director’s cut in that case really was more for like diehard horror guys or Clive Barker fans, whereas the theatrical cut seemed to be a better choice. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: Even though, like Legend, it, it bombed as well, so. 

Craig: Riiight. Yeah. And d- Well, I guess th- Yeah.

A- and, and you know, then if you’re i- a fan of the, the theatrical cut and you’ve seen it already and you’re curious, I mean, it’s, it’s definitely worth, you know, the… I, I find the theatr- or excuse me, the director’s cut certainly worth satisfying your curiosity. I mean, a- and, and again, I’ve said it before but I just want to reiterate, the score, the original score is gorgeous.

It, it really is stunning and appropriate. I don’t know, I just prefer the other, and it’s probably because I’m looking at it through th- the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia. But, you know, and again, I, I imagine that if, if you’re listening to this, you’ve probably seen the movie. But if you haven’t, it is a fairy tale.

It’s a beautiful kind of epic fairy tale. The, the visuals are stunning with beautiful, uh, huge ethereal forests with towering tree trunks and, and bright sunlight coming through the, the foliage, you know, illuminating fields of flowers. And then you’ve got, you know, the, the dark sets as well. Like in the theatrical cut, it opens in kind of the dark forest, and you see the animals all running around and then this very scary goblin.

All of the characters except Tom Cruise who plays Jack, who he’s, I guess like a forest nymph? 

Todd: I guess. 

Craig: Which is what I would say. He’s not mortal, I don’t believe. I think Mia Sara is the only mortal or human. Maybe mortal’s not the right word. Human. He’s, he’s not human. He’s something else. And, and Mia Sara is a human princess from a kingdom that we never see, but she likes to hang out in the forest and amongst the normal people.

But the, the origin- the … Excuse me. The director’s cut opens up with this very scary voice which is Tim Curry’s voice altered a little bit, and I think brought down. It sounds to me, if he was doing it by himself I, I don’t know how he did it ’cause it, he brings it really low in the register. 

Todd: No, they did, they did modify it.

He mentioned that in his, uh, in his biography. But he fought to have it not modified so much. 

Craig: That’s … Yeah. He y- he also didn’t wanna wear as many prosthetics as he had to, but, uh, ultimately I think was really pleased with the way that it turned out. 

Clip: I am the lord of darkness. I require the solace of the shadows and the dark

of the night Sunshine is my destroyer

All this shall change. Tonight, the sun sets forever

There shall never be another dawn 

Craig: Um, then he meets with his goblin minion Blix and says, “You gotta go hunt the unicorns because the unicorns make the sun rise, and I wanna rule the world.” 

Todd: Yep. 

Craig: The theatrical cut opens with a scroll- Ugh … a text scroll. 

Todd: So yucky. 

Craig: I kinda like it. I don’t know. Of course you do.

Uh, it, it … I know. But it kind of … Like, it gives you… Again, it, it makes more sense for children even though I don’t know that young children necessarily could read the whole thing, but it just kind of establishes the story. Like, it tells you, we are in a time when – … I didn’t write it all down, but th- there’s powers of light and powers of darkness, and the powers of light are i- embodied in the unicorns, and there’s a boy in the woods named Jack, and he’s a protector of the unicorns.

Like, it … So it kind of- … sets up the whole thing for you before throwing you right in. But, uh, the way that Blix is going to find the unicorns is because they can be baited by innocents. So I guess Alan, as we were watching it said, “Um, how did the Goblin know to follow around Jack and Lily?” And I said, “I don’t know.

They’re innocent. He figured it 

Todd: out” Questionable. 

Craig: But, uh, yeah, I don’t know. That’s it. I don’t know how … I took s- like copious notes, and I don’t know how much we need to get into the plot. But Jack shows Lily the unicorns, which he’s not supposed to do because I guess it’s, like, against the rules of magic in the forest, and she, against his protest, goes up and touches one of the unicorns.

And while she’s doing that, the unicorn is distracted, so the goblin Blix is able to shoot it with a poison dart and eventually cut off its horn which at least temporarily throws the whole country into a dark winter. 

Todd: Now, there’s still another unicorn, right? I mean, he doesn’t cut off both. Didn’t one get away?

Craig: One does get 

Todd: away. I was very confused by this. 

Craig: Yeah, he only gets one, and that becomes an issue becau- I don’t know. I mean, people who have complaints about the movie say that, you know, the story has holes, and it does, you know? I, I guess, you know, it’s fantasy so whatever the writer wants to happen can happen.

But I, I, I guess when this unicorn is killed, ’cause I, I think that taking its horn kills it, we see its motionless body covered in snow later so I, I, I think it’s supposed to be dead. Yeah. I don’t know. I … That caused enough of a disturbance to make it go into a dark winter’s night, but later Darkness appears to the goblins and says, “Did you kill both of the unicorns?”

And at first they say yes, and he’s like, “Well, that’s bullshit because the sun’s coming up,” and they’re like, “Oh yeah, there’s still another one”. And he makes them go get the other one. So- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: I, I think that If you want to try to explain it away, they thought as long as he had a unicorn horn, because it is magic, like the goblin starts using it like a magic wand and like shooting fire out of it and causing- Yeah

humorous ruckus, um, with the other goblins. I guess they just thought that was enough, but it wasn’t. He has to have both And eventually they, you know, they, they get the other unicorn and Princess Lily in the process. And so then Jack is on double duty, not… You know, I think most importantly what Gump and the other fairies and, and dwarves and elves are concerned about is the unicorn, but Jack is also trying to save his princess.

It’s, it’s all, you know, it’s all very kind of typical fairy tale. 

Todd: It really is. 

Craig: And that’s how it plays out, but it’s beautiful to look at. The elves and dwarfs or whatnot are the comic part, and one of them is played by Billy Barty. I think his brother, there are two that are brothers, I can’t- Brown Tom and Screwball And I think that the guy who plays Brown Tom is a, a famous little person actor.

There’s lots of little people actors in here. And they’re kind of the comic relief, and that does k- kind of, especially in the theatrical cut, ground it as a kids movie. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: But beyond that, beyond that, I just kept saying to Alan, “My God, they just do not make movies like this anymore for kids.” They just don’t.

Todd: No, they don’t. T- they lighten it up a lot more now. Yeah. They try to kind of make you know that everything’s still gonna be okay all throughout. 

Craig: Yeah. We, we are not beholden to any rules about what movies we pick, but I have said since we started talking about this, I think that this is a horror movie. I mean, there are so many moments where you could pause the frame and you could just not…

Anybody who looked at it would say, “Oh, this has to be out of a horror movie,” because there are horrifying elements of it. 

Todd: There really are. I was watching it and I was thinking, “Oh, I’m going to show this to Kenji sometime.” And then I’m … After, after I finish it, well, and I finished the director’s cut, I was like, “Eh, I don’t think he’d like this.”

He’s a little scared- It’s scary … of things. And, and I try to push him to, you know, y- you got to confront life, and fiction is sort- somehow is, is how we do it, and we don’t necessarily want to avoid scary things all our lives or we can’t deal with things. So I’m not overly protective of what he sees. But I was just watching this and I thought, yeah, there’s a lot of stuff in this that…

There’s, um… I think it’s, it’s early in the theatrical cut, but much later in the director’s cut when they’re actually showing the Lair of Darkness. That’s a freaking scary place. 

Craig: Heck yeah. 

Todd: There are giants in there that are chopping people up alive. 

Craig: I know, and cooking, barbecuing them. 

Todd: Oh my god. Oh my god.

And they’re, they’re showing it. I mean, it’s, it’s shocking. 

Craig: People are getting pulled away screaming and, like, seemingly thrown into the fire. But something else that I noticed, having watched it twice in one day Is the good guys might seemingly be hurt or killed, but they never are. The good guys never get hurt or killed in the movie.

Right. It, Brown Tom seemingly gets shot in the head to the point that it looks like blood flows down his face, but it turns out it’s just his wine that he kept under his cap One of the other elves or whatever they are who was posing as a goblin, but we find out later he wasn’t really a goblin, he was one of the elves.

He gets pulled out of the dungeon and carried away by one of those giant gross orc-like guys, and he’s screaming and screaming and screaming, and then it seems like he gets cut up and cooked. But then later we find out he’s not dead because they pull him out, like he’s been put into a pie, but the pie hasn’t been baked yet-

and they pull him out. 

Todd: It’s such a, such a fairy tale thing. I thought that was really cute. 

Craig: Yeah. It, it, it pulls its punches a little bit. 

Todd: Did you recognize him, by the way? 

Craig: I did recognize him, but I didn’t … Was he from Gothic? 

Todd: Yeah, he was the guy in Gothic. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. He’s been in a bunch of other stuff too, but he was very featured in that one.

Yeah, so crazy. So yeah, it’s spooky, it’s scary. And 

Craig: then of course Tim Curry is terrifying. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: That’s the one thing that I will give the theatrical cut great credit for. I do think that it was the right decision to keep his identity in shadow until much later. 

Todd: So you mean the director’s cut is what you’re 

Craig: saying?

Yeah, yes. Excuse me. That, yeah, the director’s cut. I, I like the theatrical cut where you see him, I mean, not really in his f- 

Todd: He looks different. 

Craig: Yeah. I mean, he’s kind of lit in green a little bit. Y- you don’t see him in his- He’s got glowing green eyes, dark. Interestingly, so Tim Curry had to go through hours of, of m- makeup and, and he was wearing like 18-inch iron framed lifts in his shoes, and then those horns which initially were really heavy, but it was causing really great strain on his neck, so they e- eventually made them with fiberglass and said that it was almost surreal how you would pick them up to move them, how light they were.

Like, because they were so large, but they had almost no heft to them. So Tim Curry, who’s like a 5’9″, 5’10” guy, like my height, so very average in height, ultimately, you know, from tip of horn to bottom of hoof was almost 13 feet tall. And he’s in, he’s in full body prosthetics and full face prosthetics including, you know, crazy contacts that, that covered his eyes that he ab- initially objected to and were very painful, but ultimately he thought they looked good.

The, the process of getting into the makeup was one thing, but then it also took, I think, at least an hour if not more of soaking in a bath so that all of the adhesive could be, you know, softened enough to be taken off safely. At one point he had a panic attack In that process and became so impatient that he just started ripping the, the makeup and the prosthetics off.

And in the process ripped off a lot of his own skin. So much so that they had to… I th- I don’t remember if they halted production or if, or if Ridley Scott just gave him time off 

Todd: Yeah, he gave him time off. They were able to shoot some other things while he waited but yeah, he was in the hospital and he had some time off after that 

Craig: But I guess ultimately that influenced his decision because he had to find ways to shoot around him and kind of keep him in shadow or not seen.

That influenced his decision to want to keep him, you know, kind of concealed until the end. But ultimately like you said, the, the, the f- the company or the production or whatever wanted to see him earlier so we ultimately did see him earlier than the theatrical one. But he’s horrifying too. I, I think- Mm-hmm …you know, one of the great

He’s never called Satan, he’s never called the devil but I mean, that’s obviously what it is in this fantasy world and I think one of the greatest cinematic depictions of the Devil in stop 

Todd: Yeah 

Craig: He looks amazing. And the other thing that’s amazing about it to me is that he is still able to act through all of that and I was just blown away 

Todd: It’s incredible.

A- you wouldn’t recognize him but if you’re familiar with Tim Curry there’s a l-… You can recognize him but i- eh, not really. I mean, you know, hi- his mouth, he’s always had a very I would say expressive mouth 

Craig: Yes! God 

Todd: And that’s their… Rob Bottin did the makeup for this. He had just come off of uh, The Howling and stuff.

We talked about extensively about him when we did our episode on The Howling and just how great that makeup is. He, you know, he did a really good job of putting appliances on his face instead of like more or less a big rubber mask- 

Right …

so that his m- face would move and we’re in his face a lot 

Mm-hmm And 

he…

You can’t tell that’s makeup. It really does look like a creature, a d- the Devil. Uh, uh, the everything on that face moves like skin would move. It’s fantastic 

Craig: Same with his body. I mean, you don’t see his full torso very often but when you do it looks real . Like it looks like a real buff- Muscular …you know huge, huge dude.

And Mia Sara This was, I think her first big screen role or maybe big screen starring role. I, I knew her first, I think from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off which was also heavy in our r- Mm … rotation when we were kids. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And she’s gorgeous. She’s gorgeous. She was absolutely gorgeous in Ferris Bueller. She’s gorgeous in this.

I think she’s perfect for this princess role. 

Todd: Yeah, she’s great in it. 

Craig: I think she’s fantastic. In the director’s cut she sings

a lot Hmm. 

Todd: You weren’t, you weren’t a fan huh? 

Craig: It’s not that she doesn’t do a good job. It was fine. I just found that to be a completely like “We just don’t need that.” Like.She says- 

Todd: Sort of like Cheer Up Charlie and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. It’s like slows the movie down. We don’t need 

Craig: a little song.

Uh yeah well I actually I love that but no. I mean sh- I think she says to Tom Cruise more than once like, “Shall I sing for you?” And every time I was like nah. I- I’ve heard it.

Todd: Oh God. 

Craig: But I do love her and she’s great in this. And I think that you see it a little bit in the theatrical cut but it is more in the other that she is certainly flawed. She’s selfish and y- you know like she just- Selfish princess. Yeah She … She is very much a princess and, and she does what she wants and she doesn’t think about consequence and this really kind of all her fault.

Um- Mm-hmm To, to, to her credit when she finds out because she overhears the goblins talking about it after the place has fallen into winter. She overhears them and, and f- finds out that it was her fault because she wasn’t supposed touch the unicorn then she vows to make it right. And ultimately though she is almost successfully seduced by darkness She does.

She comes around, she helps out. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But then the ending, which we do not need to jump to, th- that’s another difference between the theatrical cut and the director’s cut is the ending is very different. 

Todd: Hmm. 

Craig: Like, it… Ulti-… Like, it doesn’t look that different, but the implications are drastically different.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: That we’ll, we’ll get there. What else did you wanna talk about? I mean- 

Todd: I wanna talk about on their journey, there’s that witch, Meg Mucklebones. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Oh my God. 

Craig: That’s the part that I remember being the most scary from when I was a kid, and returning to it as an adult, I forgot that it is a tiny little part of the movie.

Todd: It’s so tiny, but it is scary as hell. I was scared. Yeah. She looks straight outta The Evil Dead almost, really. She’s got… Oh, well, Tom Cruise’s character, what’s his name again? I can’t remember. Jack. Jack. Of course, it’s Jack. What am I saying? It’s a fairy tale. Jack ends up in the swamp, and he’s got a armor that the little fairy gave him, shield, and the sword and all that.

And he’s going through the swamp, and he stumbles onto this spot where this big witch hag rears up out of the muck. And my God, she is… Got this long green nose. Her makeup is scary as heck. Hunched 

Craig: back. She’s all slimy and ugh. 

Todd: Awful eyes. D- sc- really scary eye-. 

Craig: And it’s kind of almost hard to tell what she is.

First of all, she just pops up out of, like, she was under the water. She seems huge. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Now, Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise on his own is a small person, and he spends most of this movie in a crouch. So, so he’s, he’s small, but she just towers over him, and I can’t… You kind of never see the bottom of her body. I don’t even know what she is.

No. I don’t know if she’s some kinda, like, serpent or- 

Todd: Well, I guess …’

Craig: cause you never s- you never see legs. I dunno. And the way she pops up is really scary. I didn’t read or see anything about how it was done, but oh boy, it looked good. 

Todd: I saw some behind the scenes stuff of appliances and stuff. It’s pr- it’s pretty good.

It’s great makeup. It’s really, really scary. She’s practically on top of him. He’s just h- whole… There’s just a shield between them. I really like how this goes down in the director’s cut ‘Cause this is a moment, and this is a moment that really tests Jack. He’s scared. He’s got her shield there. He’s really trying, and he gets the idea that he’s going to distract her by calling her beautiful, which she kinda only is half buying.

Clip: What a fine fat boy you are, Jack. You 

don’t really mean to eat me, do you, ma’am? 

Oh, indeed I do.

But that would be a shame because someone as fair and lovely as yourself, Miss Meg, deserves far better than scrawny me Don’t you think? 

Yeah. Think we fair, do you, Jack? 

All the heavenly angels must envy your beauty. 

Todd: But she keeps kinda looking in his shield and… I liked all this, and I felt like it deserved a long scene like this- Mm

and it says a little something about Jack’s character. You know, he’s still fumbling through this. He still d- isn’t really the hero that he needs to be. But that doesn’t u-… It doesn’t end up working, and eventually she kind of lunges at him but he managed to have grabbed his sword, and he swings it around and lops her head off.

Whereas in the theatrical cut, this is all quite quick. She kinda comes out, she’s kinda on top of him, and there isn’t much of this back and forth. Eh, he just kinda swings his sword around and cuts her head off. And I thought that was kind of unfortunate. 

Craig: Yeah. I mean, ’cause it is. It’s a, it it’s a scary character and she’s not…