In this exciting episode of ‘Two Guys and a Chainsaw,’ we are joined by two special guest speakers for the first time ever – Kristen and Heather! Together, we dive into the classic 1992 horror comedy ‘Death Becomes Her,’ starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and Bruce Willis.
We discuss our personal memories, favorite lines, and explore the groundbreaking special effects that made this film an instant favorite. Listen in as we celebrate Horror Comedy Month with insightful commentary, engaging anecdotes, and lots of laughs.
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Episode 442, 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.
Todd: We have a very special day today. We are joined by not one, but two guest speakers. I, for the first time ever, I think, yeah, it’s really great. Kristen and Heather. Kristen. Heather, say hello to everyone else.
Todd: Welcome to the show.
Craig: Kristen and Heather have both been with us multiple times, but we’ve never had them together. And for our last week of our. Horror Comedy Month. This is the one I honestly, I think that this movie is the whole reason that I wanted to do this whole month. Um, I love this movie so much, and Heather, when, when we were in the middle of the horror comedy, she’s like.
Are you gonna do this movie? And I was like, yeah. And, and Kristen. Kristen was excited about it too. And I thought, I think we need to get both these ladies on here to talk about this movie. ’cause it’s just so good
Todd: for those people just joining us on the podcast in general, who may not have heard some previous episodes, Kristen is Craig’s sister, and I have to imagine that part of the reason you’re on here is because you two have some memories watching this growing up.
Am I, am I right or am I wrong?
Craig: We watch it all the time.
Kristen: All the time. And it was funny for me to, we haven’t even said what movie it is, but it came out when I was 10 years old. So the first time I would’ve been viewing this and many times thereafter, I was, I was 10.
Todd: Oh. So, so now we’re gonna reveal something you might not want revealed, but we’re doing 1992 is death becomes her.
Craig: Yeah. So exciting. Yep.
Todd: It’s super exciting. This came out, what, 92? I think you would’ve been early high school. Late junior high, I guess. Yeah. Early high school. I think Jurassic Park came out around this time.
Craig: Uh, Jurassic Park came out a little bit after, and they used some of the effects that they developed in this movie.
I think on it think, because I,
Kristen: I heard the, the writer. Also wrote Jurassic Park. Is that right? Oh yeah.
Todd: David Kepp. Yeah. One of the writers. Yeah. David Kepp has written a lot of really well loved movies. We did Stir Of Echoes on here. Mm-hmm. As well. And he wrote that he wrote the Mission Impossible movie, you know, the remake, uh, of course he did Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which a lot of people don’t like, but like a lot of Steven Spielberg films, war The World’s remake was his.
He wrote the screenplay for Sam Ramey Spider-Man. He did Panic Room The Shadow, which Oh God, I like that movie so much. And uh, and uh, we haven’t talked about it much. And then Craig and I did Toy Soldiers. That was one of his first among his first. I used to make Kristen watch that a lot too.
Craig: Oh, what a great movie.
Todd: It’s not a horror movie. It’s like an action thriller movie. And we did it as a mini so for our patrons and posted that. ’cause we do that sometimes. Sometimes we just find non horse stuff and. We, we dive into it just ’cause we love it. I’m threatening to do it for a cloak and dagger, but Craig tells me you guys didn’t watch that growing up.
Heather, did you see Cloak and Dagger?
Todd: Huh? See it’s not just me. Alright, well you guys grew up with this movie, Heather, how about you? When did you uh, first watch this?
Heather: Probably similar. I mean it came out yeah, like Kristen said, when we were 10 and I, I feel like I watched it. Like I wouldn’t have seen it in the theater but I think it was a rental and then I’m pretty pretty sure we owned it and I watched it a lot because it’s fantastic.
Kristen: Well I wanted to ask Craig because I feel like, was Meryl Streep also in that movie? She Devil with Roseanne Barr? Yeah. Okay. I think we had recorded this on a VHS and it must have been some TV like double feature Meryl Streep because I remember watching Death Becomes Her and She Devil like back to back all the time.
Craig: I don’t remember it being on the same, but I, I think Death Becomes or was on HBOA lot, but I, I, I don’t remember. I, but I do remember watching both. She Devil is a terrible movie and I still just think it’s absolutely hilarious. Uh, and it’s, it’s interesting that Meryl Streep was, you know, Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep, and she’s been Meryl Streep for a long time.
Um, that is profound. Craig, that hot tip from Craig, today’s, I guess, that she’s done throughout her career. She’s done some comedies and things, but she’s mostly known for being this highly regarded, well-respected, serious actress. And so she, this period in the mid early nineties, um, she was kind of doing some oddball comedies and I think it’s great because I think she’s hilarious.
What, what I remember about this movie, it came out like I, late junior high, probably, uh, for me, I didn’t know I was gay at the time, but. My enthusiasm about this movie should have been a big red flag.
Like I was, so the, the trailer, I think I just thought that Meryl Streep and Goldie Han were just like the best actresses that I knew, and I was a huge fans of both of them. And they looked so beautiful and glamorous and, you know, it’s like fashion and hair and plus it’s, you know, the, all the horror gothic, you know, big scary mansions and um, the tales from the crypt music literally in the trailer.
And it was like, ugh. I was so excited about it and I wasn’t. Disappointed at all. I loved it from the beginning and I still watch it, you know, probably at least once a year. I quote it probably at least
Craig: maybe once a day. I was texting the girls last night and I said, I’m taking notes, but all I’m doing is writing down the lines that I say ad nauseam in my real life all the time.
Todd: I don’t know how many times in my life, and especially when we were growing up as kids, we find some reason to be. You pushed me down the stairs. I The stairs,
Todd: Yep. The minute you brought up death becomes her. That just pops into my mind immediately. And I remember this being on television probably because it was on HBOA lot, but they were making ofs of it because like you said earlier.
This movie definitely was one of the earlier big effects films that incorporated, uh, the CGI and Robert Ek, who has always been a real innovator as far as using technology in films. Uh, he directed this and it was huge. I mean, this guy at this time could do no wrong and he kind of still can’t. He did Romancing the Stone, which was this big romantic comedy in 84.
Then he came out with what may be one of the best movies in the entire world throughout history, which is Back to the Future in 85. And then, you know, went under Produce amazing stories they did, who Framed Roger Rabbit, which combined the cell animation with live action. Then the other two, back to the futures, I mean, and then boom, boom, boom.
Here comes, death becomes her, and we’re seeing him use computer generated graphics for the first time in these ways that were really blowing us away. You know, they were more limited, I think, than I remembered them being, and maybe that’s a good thing because there’s a moment or two where it’s a little distracting to me that how dated it is and how unnatural it is.
We’re just so used now to things being absolutely perfect that it’s, sometimes it’s hard to go back.
Craig: They show their age a little bit. Yeah, go ahead. I
Kristen: remember as a kid though, thinking that the effects were so. Cool. Same. Yeah. So good. Like everything to me, I remember the potion thinking how beautiful that glowy potion was, and then when her neck was turned all the way around and one of my favorites is just her boobs tightening up.
Uh, which I actually, I listened to a different podcast episode about this movie once because I love the movie that much. And they talked about how to get that effect. They literally just had people push her boobs up.
Todd: That’s what it looked like. Yeah. I don’t think that was computer effects on that.
And I was watching, I mean, you know,
Kristen: I’m sure you were, but there are for the research.
Craig: But, but there are, I mean, even in that scene it’s, you know, this is kind of a fountain of youth kind of thing. We’ll get into the plot here in a second, but even in that scene, it’s not just, yeah, the boobs, the practical thing of the boobs, just getting perky.
That’s cute and funny, really funny. But there’s also, there is. You know, light and magic stuff going on on her face, like her face dages too. And for the time I thought that those, um, effects were really impressive.
Heather: To piggyback what Kristen was saying about the effects, you guys all know that I love, I.
Special effects makeup. And so I know watching this when I was a kid, I was just floored with all of that. And I know that there was CGI and things like that involved, but the makeup itself, I just fell in love with. And, and Dick Smith was the makeup artist for this. And so in doing this podcast, I thought surely he would’ve won an Oscar for the, the makeup effects.
But he didn’t. The, the Oscar was for visual effects, but he won an Oscar for Amadeus. So
Craig: I also think that it’s interesting, I don’t know how this movie would fly now because these women are supposed to be 50. They’re really only, I think Goldie ha was 46 and Meryl Streep was 43. And the idea, I don’t know, the idea that these women would be perceived as old even before their big transformation just feels very not of this moment.
Like we’ve got women who are in their fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, who are still looking amazing. And owning it. So, uh, I just think it’s kind of interesting how culture has shifted.
Heather: I have in my notes 50 exclamation mark, exclamation mark, like you’re ancient.
Craig: They’ve talked, uh, I don’t know if they’ve talked, there’s been internet rumors of, um, a remake, uh, of this with, um, Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, and I’m sure it’s just rumors.
I’m sure it will never happen. Um, but I think that would be great. I think Kate Hudson, uh, is much like her mom and very fun and funny and that would be great. But I just don’t know if the story would hold up. I know, except
Kristen: that I heard someone compare this to the substance, which I still haven’t seen, although I’ve listened to your, your episode, um, on it.
Mm-hmm. And so I think it’s still a relevant topic in Hollywood Fair, fair in particular, you know, that women are aging out or not seen as sex symbols or whatever past a certain age. So I think that. Piece of the story still holds true,
Todd: and the movie embraces that angle. You know, it is very much about Hollywood and rich people and, you know, people who are in, um, you know, this is their job is to look good.
You know, you and I, and we might have our own certain kinds of vanities, and of course we all have our own insecurities and things, but if you’re up there and your whole livelihood depends on people wanting to see you, and how attractive are you, how much are you gonna get cast in roles and things like, the main character in this movie is Meryl Streep.
Then, uh, it, it lends a different angle to it that I think, I think it would be interesting to see this from a position that’s not that, you know, um, but you’re right, we might not see it. It’s safer to, to, to do this from a, a Hollywood angle, I think.
Heather: Yeah. And because then we don’t offend
Heather: Right. Well, I think about that even in my daily life. Like, you know, Craig talked, we, we and Kristen, you used to perform, but like we still try to make it a point to do a show, you know, once a summer, and it is getting sad that the roles that are available for somebody in their early forties as it’s. It’s getting slimmer, right?
And so there, there is definitely, this is still very relevant, I think.
Craig: And these characters, I think it’s easy to laugh at them because first of all, they’re so over the top, which is one of the things that I love about it. It’s so melodramatic and it’s hilarious. But they’re the elite of the elite apparently.
I guess technically they don’t have to be. We’ll, we will get. To that, but I don’t know.
Todd: Judging from their houses.
Craig: Well, I know, I know. But, but you know, the whole potion thing, um, when Meryl Streep asks how much it costs, Liesl says it’s different for everybody. We find out later that Goldie Hawn has taken it to Meryl Streep says, how much did it cost you?
And she said, I gave everything I had, which was nothing. So like, I think it’s more about seducing people, but then I think they become the elite because they’re so gorgeous and beautiful or whatever. But there are so many things that I wanna talk about. And the very first thing that I, you know, I put on the movie and I’m sitting there and the score comes on and I’m like.
Ugh, I’m in love already. Like the score is so good. That
Heather: was my first note too, Craig. Amazing score.
Craig: It’s a a, a big fixture in the movie, like it really establishes tone and it’s spooky, but campy and I love it. Then we cut to one of the millions of. Greatest scenes of the movie, which is Broadway, 1978, where Madeline Ashton played by Meryl Streep, is performing in a musical version of a Tennessee Williams play about an aging actress.
And the audience is like walking out and trashing her and like, oh my God, her career is so dead and it’s so over, and they’re like getting up in the middle of her performance and walking out. I thought it was fantastic.
Craig: that’s what I was gonna say.
Kristen: I was gonna say, as a 10-year-old, I’m sure there were lots of things that went over my head, but I just didn’t understand that.
I was like, there’s sequins on her dress, there’s lights, there’s singing, there’s dancing. What is not to like? Like I was enthralled. I loved it.
Craig: I, yeah, and I do sing that song here. I see me. It’s, it’s a hit.
Todd: I think this is one of those things from the movie that hasn’t really aged well in that the, I think the comedy and I had to kind of really think about it in order to get it, because I think the comedy of that whole dance sequence is that it’s like a mashup.
She starts out and sort of a modern thing kind of goes to this stur forties thing that it becomes disco and whatever. And nowadays that just doesn’t seem that weird to us anymore. Like we’re used to mashing up and, and inconsistency and sometimes we do that on purpose, you know, and that’s where the comedy comes from.
So I was actually kind of, um, kind of surprised how, like the same way I was like, I don’t think anybody today would’ve walked out of that audience.
Craig: I loved it then. I loved it. Now, uh, it’s great and everybody, okay, so in the audience are Helen, who is Goldie Ha looking just absolutely stunning, but she’s supposed to be.
Mousy at this point. Like she’s the mousy one or whatever. Okay. And her fiance is, uh, Dr. Ernest Minville, played by Bruce Willis, who is in his mid early thirties during this movie too. And everybody hates the show and is walking out except for Ernest, who is just absolutely enthralled and like stands up and is clapping and cheering and they go backstage because Madeline and Helen are friends from childhood.
Todd: unclear. To me there’s probably a line in there I missed that, explained it all, but, uh, I couldn’t remember their relationship.
Craig: At least college. They’ve known each other for a very long time and apparently we’re. Or have been very close, but it doesn’t seem like they really like each other very much.
Heather: Yeah. There’s a conversation later in the movie about when they were younger and you stole so and so from me and you were always trying to beat me, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, since childhood, I think.
Craig: But anyway, Madeline, before they come back, she’s looking at herself in the mirror and she says, wrinkled, wrinkled, little star.
Hope they never see the scars. And so she’s self-conscious. She, I don’t know what’s her again, she looks great. There’s nothing for her to be concerned about. She looks fantastic, but she’s afraid she’s aging. Earnest and Helen come back to visit and Ernest is clearly smitten with Madeline from the beginning and she is.
On him like a cougar, you know, right from the beginning. It’s, it’s super obvious that she’s, you know, and, and she’s putting the moves on him because he’s the famous Dr. Ernest Menville, the plastic surgeon. Mm-hmm. Um, so that’s, uh, of benefit to her too. And then we get a scene where Helen is talking to Ernest and it’s like,
Clip: Ernest, you don’t know Madeline the way I do.
She wants you, she wants you because you’re mine. I’ve lost men to her before. She just turns on that flash and that glitter in there, gone. That’s why I wanted you to meet her before we got married, because I just had to see if you could pass the Madeleine Ashton test. Please, please don’t fail. I couldn’t take it again.
I have absolutely no interest in Madeleine Ashton
Craig: cut to the his wedding with. Madeline, so she steals them. I don’t know. I’m trying to get the plot in there. What, what are the important parts?
Todd: Yeah, I, well, you know, to be honest with you, I like didn’t take many notes because after a while I was just kind of enjoying it and it was so madcap and I thought, I’m gonna remember most of this stuff anyway.
Craig: need to, I mean, I remember it like, because Madeline steals her man, Helen loses her mind and she becomes the crazy cat lady. Becomes the crazy cat lady. Uh, again, like we’re so pc, I don’t think that we would put a beautiful young actress in a big gross, fat suit. I think, uh, any actress would probably take a lot of flack for that today.
I still think it’s funny. And Goldie Han is hilarious in the fat suit and out of it, but she’s like eating frosting out of the can. And it’s, is that what that was? Okay.
Kristen: That’s one thing that, um, when she opens her cupboards, it’s just all different flavors of frosting. That’s all the food that’s right in the house.
Craig: And there were just
Kristen: little things like that, that just like set the whole tone of the movie so that they have the freedom to just be silly and as crazy
Todd: as they want to be. Yeah. Yeah. The, the whole film is just heightened like that, isn’t it? And it’s set for that way from the outset so they can get away with a lot without really caring about realism or anything like that.
Oh, yeah. The whole movie, it feels like a big, almost like a big comic book mixed with, um, just a wacky com. I mean, every bit of this movie feels like a comic book, even in her house, you know, where it’s just, it’s lit dramatically. She’s being hit from dramatic angles, you know, nobody’s apartment well. I mean, there are people with real hoarding problems, but you know, like this apartment is clearly dressed up to be unrealistically crazy with the cats everywhere and these, you know, things in there and, and it gets more and more like that throughout the film, which is one thing I like about it.
One thing I kind of stinks, it sets it apart from most of the horror comedies we’ve done this month. It’s just unabashedly. So Uhhuh not in a Mel Brooks way, just in a very stylish kind of way.
Craig: Yeah, and, and I really like it. I mean, this is a comedy first and foremost. There are horror elements if you look, uh, on IMDB and you look at the descriptions, you know, it says horror, it says body horror.
I don’t know that I would consider this body horror, but I guess, I guess kind of,
Kristen: I guess the, I guess the breaking of the neck
Heather: and things like that. Yeah. I mean, getting a big
Heather: Well if they did remake it, my gosh, they would have to add more of those elements in. You know what I mean? Like,
Craig: but it’s not played, it’s not played for gross really?
And it’s not played for scary. Well,
Heather: I think it would still be a comedy. I think they would have to, um, appease this generation and give it some more gore too, which would be totally different from what this one is.
Craig: It’s funny, it’s slapstick. It’s three stooges type of stuff.
Todd: It’s body horror the whole family can enjoy.
Craig: But even like it’s, you know, at some point in the movie, and I’m not spoiling anything, this is iconic. It’s on the, it’s on the poster. Goldie ha gets a big, uh, hole blown through her abdomen, but it’s not like there’s no blood, there’s no guts. Like it’s just a big black hole.
Kristen: The pool fills with blood.
That’s true. Which is really, that’s true. That’s true. I remember thinking that was really cool, but she’s not like oozing intestines or anything like that, so it’s
Todd: no missed opportunity, but okay. Yeah. Although Meryl Streeps fall down the stairs is pretty brutal. Even more brutal than I remembered it being.
Craig: Yes. I felt the exact same way. I don’t know. ’cause I guess I was watching it to talk about it. I was paying closer attention. I was like, dang, those effects were crazy. Like she really is breaking. Yeah, all over the place.
Kristen: The sound effects are pretty gross. The cracking, the crunching of her bones, breaking as she falls down a million stairs.
Todd: I was honestly a little surprised by that to be honest. But, uh, what is the movie rated? Is it pg? It’s PG 13. Mm-hmm. PG 13. Okay. Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s PG 13. The whole inciting incident for that is that Meryl Streep? I mean, there’s a bunch of stuff that happens.
Craig: Yeah. The right. So there, okay, so time, more time.
She, um, Helen, uh, big gross. Helen gets institutionalized and she’s fixated every time they ask her in, um, therapy, they’re like, is there anything you wanna talk about? She’s like, yes, I want to talk about Madeline Ashton and all of the other patients. Like, no, no, she makes the mental patient’s mental. It’s like, that’s all she ever talks about.
And then she’s in therapy and her therapist says something to her like,
Clip: you have got to forget about her. You have to erase her from your mind. You have to completely eliminate in it what you have to completely eliminate. You’re right. What. You are absolutely right.
Craig: Like so she has to totally eliminate her.
Cut to seven years later where we catch up with Madeline and Ernest who are miserable. He’s a big drunk, he can’t even do surgery anymore because he has like the dts and so he’s now, he does makeup for, uh, dead people.
Kristen: Mortician and she Yeah,
Craig: a mortician. Yeah. And she is just a washed up actress, you know, doing her best to clinging to her youth.
And they’re miserable. They hate each other, but they get invited to Helen’s book party. And on the way there, one of, another, one of my favorite lines is they’re just sitting there in the limo on complete opposite sides and Madeline says to him, could you just not breathe?
Kristen: That’s when, that’s when my first note happened.
And I said, Madeline is my inner monologue. Yeah.
Craig: Could you just not breathe? It’s Alan too, like. Why are you breathing like that?
Kristen: Yeah. She said something else right before that, that I thought that too. I can’t remember what it was now. I should have written that down. But I feel like she says everything that she thinks, you know, she just doesn’t have a filter.
But a lot of times, like we think those mean things when we’re irritated, but we certainly don’t say them out loud. But she just says it all. She says it all out loud.
Craig: Oh God. It’s funny. At the book party, um, it turns out that. Helen, there’s this big reveal, like you see, they think they see her from behind ’cause there’s this heavy woman that they think is her.
But that heavy woman steps aside to reveal just like Jessica Rabbit style, um, Goldie Han, she’s got this long flowing red hair. Just, you know, a red, you know, form fitting dress. Uh, you know, just a bright red lip. She just looks absolutely stunning. Her eyes, I don’t know if that’s her natural eye color or if, because she’s normally a blonde, so I’m not used to seeing her with dark hair.
And I think that the dark hair makes her eyes strikingly blue. They really pop. But I mean, she just looks amazing. And I remember people talking about this movie at the time, like, oh my God, she’s 47. Look at her. Look how amazing she looks at 47. Well, like, that’s just what 47 looks like these days, I feel like.
Anyway, so Meryl Streep is of course very, she kinda wants to get out of there. She, she turns to leave, but. Helen Caesar, and they greet each other like they always do. I’ll do one. You do the other one. Kristen. Mad. Oh.
And it’s so vague. God, you guys have a whole routine worked
Craig: you? And they hug each other and they clearly hate each other. And like, um, Helen is already making eyes at earnest over Madeline’s shoulder and stuff. And another line that I use all the time, um, Helen’s like,
Clip: oh gosh, I’m glad you came.
Oh, I didn’t know if you would. I spoke to my PR woman and she said, Madeline Ashton goes to the opening of an envelope. Oh, those people can be so cruel. I fired her. Well, I almost fired her.
Craig: I, I, I say so and so would come or would go to the opening of an envelope. All the time. That’s another, do you really?
Yes, it would go to an opening of an envelope, but there’s a whole, okay. I don’t know. I don’t need to go through it line by line. But the plan is, but you want to,
Kristen: I could, I could. I
Kristen: the whole thing. It’s so good.
Craig: Um, Helen is, is scheming to get earnest back. So she’s, you know, talking to Madeline saying, oh, it was never your fault.
It was him. It was him. And then she talks to Ernest and she’s like, it was never you. It was her. It’s her. It’s always been her. Um, but she’s
Todd: really scheming to get earnest back because she wants to do Helen dirty. I, um, Madeline dirty, right? Yeah. Yeah, I never got the impression that she gave a, that either of them gave a shit about Earnest.
Kristen: No. So here’s something kind of interesting that I heard from that other podcast. ’cause the other podcast I listened to was more about, I think it was writers. Uh, it’s not a podcast I listened to all the time. It was literally just ’cause it was this movie. But they said in the script, which they said many of the things are line for line in the movie.
Like it’s a really close adaptation, but that it’s kind of hinted at more often that earnest may be closeted and um Oh really? And so like he’s really more in love with the glamor and so whichever woman is sort of more appealing, he talks about the magic of women. Even they say it in his eulogy and different, like he’s fascinated by the glitz and the glam and youth and beauty.
Hearing that, I’d never really thought of it, but I feel like if you have that in your mind, you could kind of see that. ’cause Helen doesn’t even in the beginning, really seem in love with him. They both just kind of seem like these people that were together because they should be, and then the women kind of fight over him.
But it, you don’t get the idea that anyone’s in love with anyone in this movie. Like it’s not about love.
Craig: Well, not for them. I think that earnest is Well, and of course, you know, at the end we find out that this is true. I think that he’s probably a good guy. The both, these women are just both toxic. Um,
Craig: they only really care about themselves.
I don’t know. Or you wanna side, I think, or at least I did, I wanted to side with Helen because she’s kind of the mousy one and it is, uh, Madeline, who is stealing her man away, and that’s not nice. And so you wanna side with her, but later they talk and they have history and when they talk it all out, fight it all out.
It’s a big fight scene. It’s a, a great. But the issue that comes out is that they were always jealous of each other. And Madeline felt like, Helen thought that she, Madeline wasn’t good enough. Like her, her family thought that she, Madeline was trashed, and Helen said something like, we just weren’t accustomed to having pushed in the
Craig: Trash in the house,
trash in the house. And, and so they talk it out and as it turns out, you know, they were hurting each other on purpose. You hurt me on purpose. And once they get down to their issues, then they realize that they really do love each other. And it was just all, you know, a misunderstanding because they, um, were jealous of each other.
But by that point, they’re both dead now to get there.
Kristen: I was gonna say. We jumped to the end somehow. Yeah.
Craig: So now, okay, so Madeline now is scared that Helen is gonna steal her man back. So she goes, she had already been, she had gone to her plastic surgeon and the plastic surgeon refused to do any more work ’cause she’s having so much work done.
But then said, you know, for a very elite group, there’s this lady, I can give you her card, her name’s Liesel Vaughn something or whatever. And so initially she doesn’t go, she thinks it’s just like a quack thing or whatever, but now that she’s nervous about Helen, she goes, and I love this whole scene. Okay, so she pulls up to this castle, I guess, in la like it’s this huge modern gothic, it’s gorgeous.
Todd: It looks almost like Batman’s, uh, Bruce, Bruce Wayne’s manner from the outside. It’s insane. Yeah, it’s, and I love this. It’s done up so good. I don’t think it’s a big accident that Madeleine’s house is equally as huge and Oh, amazing. It’s just a giant mansion. The only difference is that Madeline’s house is very, um, art Novoa, and this one is a, a lot more like, got classic gothic, I think.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, in it’s dial and it’s,
Kristen: there’s always lightning and it’s always storming and anytime we’re outside, which I, I lived in la I love
Kristen: Yeah. I lived in LA for three years. I don’t think it rained one time when we lived there, but Oh yeah. For this movie, it’s storming every day.
Craig: So she meets with this, uh, well there are all these like man servants around and stuff, and like big, like dobermans, like just prowling around and it’s amazing on the inside.
Everything’s like stone and it’s fantastic. But she gets led into this like big parlor with the fireplace, and she’s introduced to Liesel, played by Isabella Rossini. Who was also, she was in, I think she was 39 when this was filmed. And it’s funny because she looks stunning. I mean, she’s wearing next to nothing virtually nude.
She’s got like a big bejeweled. It’s a necklace that covers her nipples
Todd: somehow. And I was trying to figure it out, you know, again, research for the film, you’re,
Craig: you’re so broad with. Yeah.
Craig: but she looks fantastic. They, you know, they talk about, she’s like, I know why you’re here. And she’s, you know, got this great European accent and
Clip: this is life’s ultimate cruelty.
It offers us the taste of youth and vitality. And then d witness our own decay. Well, it is the natural law. No, screw the natural law.
Craig: And she says, how old would you guess I am? And Meryl Streep’s initial response is my favorite response that anytime, any, if anybody ever says, how old would you guess I am?
I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, why would I do that? That this is a no win situation. But she says 38 and Lisa looks offended or whatever. It’s kind of a funny end joke considering that she really was 39 and looks amazing. But she’s, I’m 71 years old, and then she pulls out, what is it? She pulls out like a, it’s like a,
Todd: it’s, well, it’s like, it’s a box within, which is another box that is closed with a dagger within, which is like a fge egg, which has a, it’s almost like a magician, you know, doing a trick, right.
Undoes the ribbon on the top and then that egg opens up and inside is a vial. It’s so funny. Handed down by this manser. Right. That’s always behind her. And I didn’t catch until later that her man servant’s names were Tom, Dick and Harry.
Heather: Yeah. When I was little and she got to the house and she sat next to the man servant.
I thought he looked like he man. And I thought that was cool how they incorporated him into this movie. And then I also really enjoyed that the potion is kept in a berger egg. So
Todd: she, she sits on him more than, it’s so weird.
Kristen: Well, I love that. ’cause he doesn’t move at all, just like snap up. But then it’s Lisa who’s like, what does she say?
Like. Make some dumb room where she like orders him to move. I don’t remember what she said, oh, move your ass or something, I can’t remember. But
Craig: then she turns around her chair and says, but keep your ass handy. Oh, yeah,
but, but this is my favorite, this scene. Okay. So to entice her, she pokes Meryl Streep’s finger with a dagger to draw blood. And I love that Meryl Streep goes, ow
uh, what are you nuts? It’s, it’s so funny. And then she puts a little dab of the potion on there, and there’s a great effect that shows her hands de-age, like her liver spots disappear, her veins disappear, her skin smoothed out, and then she holds up both hands and compares them. And then she says. How much, so Liesl writes a figure on a piece of paper and she’s like, yeah, I can’t afford that, or whatever, but I don’t know.
Somehow she seduces her into it, right? I don’t know. Well, I
Heather: shows her the price first, and then she pricks her finger and then she says, okay,
Craig: that’s right. That’s right. That’s right. She,
Heather: she then my favorite line is coming. Yeah.
Craig: She writes her a check, she writes her a check, and she goes, bottoms up, and she drinks it, and then Liesel goes, now a warning,
Kristen: and then Madeline says Now, and it’s just the best delivery of a line.
Craig: That’s the one that I say on probably a weekly basis now, a warning that it, it just seems like there’s context for that in my life a lot. So I, I use that one a lot. Yeah. But
Heather: the, but I also have in my notes. Yeah. How cute checks are. ’cause clearly it was a large amount and she just wrote the checks and enhance it to her.
And she’s not even gonna cash it first. She’s like, here’s the potion.
Todd: Yeah, that’s, that’s a lot of trust there. Yeah. Oh, checks. That’s another thing we don’t have anymore. Does anybody write checks? I do. Oh my God. For bills. Just for bills you guys.
Kristen: But yeah, now it’d be like, I’ll Venmo you.
Craig: Yeah, right, right.
Craig: The warning is she just says, be good to your body. You’re gonna be in it for a long time. And the rules, and I don’t remember if she explained the rules before or after. She took it.
Todd: After. After, yeah.
Craig: Which is shady. She’s like, you can, you know, live your life publicly. Up until like, like you, she just says
Kristen: 10 years, I think
Craig: Does, is it 10 years?
Kristen: Yeah, because she’s supposed to be 50 and so I think she thinks past 60. It would be a little weird that you still look this age. It was a short amount of time. I feel like.
Craig: I know, and that’s, I don’t, I probably never thought about it when I was a kid and it’s not like it’s, you know, deep or anything, but that would totally change the deal.
Like why would I wanna live forever if I can’t enjoy it? I mean, I guess they continue to enjoy it. They have their own little private elite. You know, society or whatever, with Elvis and James Dean and, uh,
Kristen: Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn
Craig: Monroe and all these
Craig: Jaja Gabor. I had to
Todd: explain to Liz because I watched it with Liz for, and she saw it for the first time.
I had to explain to her, there was this moment, I think in the late eighties where people were convinced that Elvis had faked his death and was still alive. And there was a book about it and a woman who claims she had recordings of him, you know, from her answering machine or something like that, that was handed out with the book and all this stuff.
Like, all those things, like, you know, they’re jokes that for, for not putting the actual number on the check. You know, that she shows her and for kind of keeping that secret to keep the movie a little more timeless. It’s funny how they really inserted these jokes that, like Jaja, I don’t, Marilyn Monroe.
Okay. James Dean. Okay. Like Andy Warhol, those people. Okay. They’re pretty timeless, I suppose. Like probably in 50 years we might still know who those people are. But isn’t Jim Morrison? Is he the guy in the pool later? Yeah, at the pool. Uhhuh. I had to think about it hard. I was like, I think that’s supposed to be Jim Morrison, but I’m not sure.
I’d have to explain that to people.
Craig: I think I, I think I’m right about the Jaja Gabo one because when she’s saying, she’s like, you can stage your own death or you can retire, or just go away or whatever, and she says, or as one of my clients says, I want to be alone. And I, I think that’s a Jaja Gabo reference, right?
Because didn’t jaja Gabo become like a recluse. In her later life. I think
Kristen: I, that was my first, those things as a kid, it was like I, I saw Marilyn Monroe from, which I probably mostly knew ’cause she was wearing the outfit from like the Madonna material girl. Yeah. Video. So I like got that reference and I think Elvis, but all the other people as a 10-year-old, I didn’t, I
Todd: wouldn’t have gotten Andy Warhol as a 10-year-old, let’s put it that way.
Definitely not. But instantly this time around. So.
Craig: Well, and here’s the great, you know, scene. She walks away and she, before she leaves me, Meryl Streep does, before she leaves the house, she stops and looks in a full length mirror. And at first she’s disappointed ’cause she doesn’t really see much change.
But then all the change happens before her eyes, her boobs, perk up her ass perks up her face glows, her hair softens. I mean, it’s great effects. And she looks amazing. And she’s a beautiful woman Anyway, so now she’s all confident and she goes back home. She doesn’t know that Helen has been at her house all this time convincing earnest that they have to kill her.
And I love the fantasy sequence where Helen explains how they’re going to kill her. I forgot how funny that is. She’s like, so I’ll call and I’ll get her to invite me over and you see Meryl Streep pick up the phone and say, fine, why don’t you come for dinner?
Kristen: And also in this montage, Bruce Willis is like carrying this big candle labra with candles as if they don’t have electricity in their house.
Craig: I didn’t even notice that. That’s so funny. So they’re playing and, and then they’re gonna, they’re gonna drug her and finish dinner and then put her in a car and send it over a cliff and there’ll be no trace.
And then they can live happily ever after Meryl Streep gets home. Helen sneaks out, right? Bef, you know, right before she gets there, she’s all feeling herself. So she goes and puts on. This body suit, the black body suit. The
Todd: gosh. You guys, when I popped on this, so we all decided we were gonna do, um, this vi you’re, you obviously can’t see it, but we decided that in order to make sure that we’re not stepping all over each other, we were going to do this, uh, as a video call.
And that’s how we’re recording it. And I popped on to see Craig dressed as the spitting image of Bruce Willis. Kristen here has his makeup on her neck to look twisted, and Heather’s skin is completely peeling off her face and neck. It was funny you guys go all out, you pictures. We took pictures.
Craig: We’ll send some pictures.
Maybe you can put ’em on, put ’em on the website.
Todd: If I had known I would’ve been on here in my Isabella Rossini outfit, but, uh,
Kristen: that, that would’ve, you didn’t tell me.
Todd: You didn’t tell me I
Kristen: wasn’t enough to do that. No, I said we should surprise Todd. It would be a cute, funny surprise for Todd.
Todd: It’s a riot and I can’t stop staring at your neck this entire time, Chris.
It looks so good. I’m so glad.
Kristen: I’ve never been great at the stage makeup. So Heather’s peeling paint. I was like, damn it. She, I knew she’d go all out, but I think I did okay.
Todd: It it’s fantastic. You both look great.
Kristen: Your neck is amazing.
Todd: It really is, isn’t it? You next Never look better, Kristin.
Kristen: Well, I, I, I couldn’t quite do the like, head turn full fully around and say Maas.
I. Yeah, we’ll get to that.
Craig: Yeah, I was just gonna say it was funny to me. Well, first of all, I love that she puts on this thing that you know is really fitted to her body, so that when these effects come up later, you know it, it enhances it even more. I really like that. It also just highlights that she looks amazing, her body, she does have the body of a young woman.
I don’t think that it had ever occurred to me that she takes this potion and dies. Like a half an hour later, same day. Yep. Doesn’t get to enjoy it very long, but the, yeah, she doesn’t get to enjoy it at all. She doesn’t even get to go out like she was gonna go out. But she meets earnest at the top of the stairs and they argue and they just start throwing insults at each other and it’s just very catty and mean, and they’re clearly just trying to hurt each other’s feelings.
And he calls her cheap. Which is the thing that hurts her the most. But I like, she calls him a tragic, boozy flacid clown fla. I can’t even do that with my flacid.
Kristen: Oh gosh. She’s brilliant. I just love her.
Craig: She’s so funny. Like, I think we think of Meryl Streep as being very classy, and so when she plays this kind of crude off, it just is so funny.
She just goes for it. Which shouldn’t be a surprise. She’s a brilliant actress. Um, she can do anything. It’s fun to see her in a role like this,
Kristen: because when I was thinking about, I was thinking, I can’t believe, like Bruce Willis, Goldie Ha and Meryl Streep did this. Movie. You know, those are really, really good actors.
But I heard that like she had been doing a lot of really serious kind of Oscar type, which by the way, did you know this movie does have an Oscar?
Kristen: I think it’s for effects. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Uh, but anyways, uh, she wanted to do something really different and fun. Like she just Yeah. Was ready for, for something fun.
And you could tell she had so much fun.
Craig: Oh gosh. It looks like they all had a lot of fun, especially the two lead women. Uh, Bruce Willis is kind of the, I don’t know, the,
Kristen: you, you feel sorry for him.
Craig: Oh yeah. I feel sorry for him, but he’s just a victim of circumstance.
Craig: pretty much. And he’s a sad sack and all that kind of stuff.
But I do wanna say that I think Bruce Willis puts in a great performance too. You do feel bad. You feel bad for him. I mean, he’s, he’s kind of a dope, uh, he’s definitely
Todd: a dope, but, well, we often forget, like Bruce Willis came out of comedy, you know, he was doing moonlighting Yeah. On tv. Yeah. When he got his role in diehard, and for a while, everyone was afraid diehard was gonna fail because nobody would take him seriously as an action star because he was such a comedy guy that solely changed everything.
And apparently Bruce will like doing comedy so much that he showed up at like 5:00 AM on the set, on the first day of doing this, just ’cause he was so excited to get back in and be shooting a comedy again. So
Craig: I can only imagine how fun this was. They fight and fight and fight and eventually he grabs her by the throat and holds her at the top of the stairs, like leaning back over the stairs.
She is kind of begging please. And eventually he lets go of her neck, like, what am I doing? But she’s still standing there like wobbling on, I mean, it’s ridiculous. She’s at an angle that there’s no way that she could still be standing there. She’s like, help, help, help. But then she makes the mistake of getting mean.
And what does she say? Something like, help me, you idiot. So instead of helping her, he just, with one finger pushes her and she goes down the stairs. Now this is a big winding marble staircase and I don’t have any idea. I didn’t read anything about how they did this. Um, and like you guys said before, a lot of it is in the.
Sound ’cause it’s a lot. You hear just, you just hear, uh, bones just snapping as she tumbles down the stairs. Whatever kind of dummy they used and however they shot it, it looked really good and painful.
Kristen: There were a couple closeups of like her head and her neck just bent and really disturbing ways that we’re, yeah, getting
Kristen: Really make you cringe as she’s going down and then the pile of her at the end. Yeah. Really seals the deal.
Craig: Her limbs are just completely akimbo in directions that they should never be.
Todd: I think the movie’s really smart in that. It’s kind of been setting us up all along, not to take all this too seriously.
So even when this does come up, you’re not too grossed out by it. You know? It’s still, I mean, I love the production design of this film and sort of like. Kristen said earlier, Bruce Willis is walking around with a candelabra when he doesn’t need to. You know, there’s thunder and lightning coming through.
It’s just like a big cartoon and it really, I think, pays homage to one of Roberts EK’s big inspirations as Tales from the Crypt. I mean, he co-created the, the movie series, but we talk about the comics and stuff, you know, that came from that on here constantly. This was originally, apparently supposed to be a sequel to like a Tales from the Crypt movie that he wanted to do.
Mm-hmm. And you can totally tell, and you can totally tell in the kind of movie it is. Like these tales from the Crypt comics, if you read them, every other story involves some kind of version of this monkey’s paw type situation where somebody does some devil’s bargain and then it turns out really, really wrong because you know, they didn’t take care of themselves, or some accident happened and the tables turn.
And this is so in line with that, that by this time you’re just. I’m just really into this movie and I think, again, we’ve been set up for it this whole time. Like we all kind of know what kind of movie this is gonna be. It’s not gonna surprise us with any ironic twists. It’s not gonna mess with us tonally, you know, where it suddenly becomes scary at the end or something like that.
You know, it’s, it’s just funny throughout and that’s, I think what kind of keeps it family friendly is the fact that from beginning to end, it’s the same kind of movie. Even in this incredible violence, you know, at this moment the staircase she’s tumbling down is not your home staircase. It is just huge long, some of the comedy comes from the fact that the staircase is just so long and her fault.
Yeah. So long down it, you kind of can’t help but laugh after you’re done grimacing.
Heather: This summer I get to go to New York and I get to see. Death becomes her. It’s a new Broadway musical, and I’m super, super stoked because I was, I’ve been doing research and seeing reels and all this stuff, and the staircase scene on Broadway, they’ve built this entire like neoprene staircase and at the top of the stairs, Madeline gets switched out with like this acrobat gymnast.
Who does a slow motion fall down the stairs. So they’re, they’re holding onto the rails and contorting and twisting their legs. That sequence alone has 45 cues in it. So by the end of it, they, they can fall and they can twist their body to, to replicate how she looks at the end of the staircase. And I’m, I’m probably gonna cry ’cause I’m gonna be so excited.
Craig: That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Wild. It’s wild. You can watch that scene on YouTube. It’s, it’s impressive. It’s a lot like, it suggests to me that the stage play is going to take the cue of the movie and really just play up the, the melodrama. It’s really gonna go for the physical comedy and I’m. Very envious, uh, that you get to see that.
Is the original cast still, like, is Megan Hilty still in it?
Heather: You know? Yes. Yeah. And I might get to meet her and I’m super excited about that too. Oh my
Craig: gosh. Wow. Okay. So Ernest thinks she’s dead. So he go, goes and calls Helen and he’s like, she’s dead. And I love Helen’s like exactly what part of the plan.
Didn’t you understand Ernest?
And she’s like, did you call the police? And he’s like, no, I called you first. Don’t you think the police might think it’s a little odd that you called me before you called them? So she comes over, meanwhile, in the background, well, they’re on the phone in the background. We see Madeline very awkwardly get up and, and she’s all broken and twisted, but she gets up and she starts walking towards him.
And when he gets off the phone and turns around, she’s standing there. That’s then Todd’s favorite line,
Clip: Ernest, Ernest. You pushed me down the stairs.
Todd: I think that was in the, um, that was in the trailer a lot. It was. That must be. It
Craig: was, yeah. Right. I watched the trailer today and half of it is not in the movie.
Kristen: in the movie. I know, I know. I think they, they filmed a. A few different things that ended up getting cut. But it was so interesting that it was in the trailer and then it wasn’t in the movie. There was something about putting her in the freezer.
Kristen: I, I did that too. And I was like, what that, is there an extended cut that I haven’t seen?
Todd: Tracy Ulman apparently played her agent right. And she was completely
Craig: cut out of it. She cut out completely. They completely changed the ending, which we’ll get to. And I want to, I I, I’ve heard that, um, the play, it blends the cinematic ending with one of the original endings. A little bit sweeter note that it ends on, but anyway, okay.
So. They just argue and she doesn’t realize what’s happened really. Um, it’s just a lot of physical comedy, which is great. Her just kind of stumbling around ’cause her head is on backwards, she’s trying to walk, but she can’t really figure it out. And she’s bumping into things and knocking things over and, and
Heather: when they’re trying to figure out what’s wrong, uh, they just conclude that it’s shock.
Kristen: I know I love it when, uh, we already said, when she says, I can see my ass. I just love his delivery of, and I think there’s something kind of wrong with your neck or whenever he sounds
Kristen: completely backwards. He, the way he plays everything too, just, it’s so melodramatic. But you can also picture yourself in that Yeah.
Scene where like, she is dead. I know she’s gotta be dead. Her head isn’t on the right way. And yet here she is in front of me talking to me. Medical
Kristen: Yes. She’s a medical marvel.
Todd: This is the part of the movie that for me, didn’t age as well. Now it’s kind of helped by the fact that a person who’s walking backwards is awkward anyway, but somehow when the CGI face was.
Mixed with her, and I don’t know the movement of it. It’s all, I mean, I think they had to do this in two runs. You know, she had to do it once forward or, or in front of a green screen with just her face. And then she had to do it again backwards. Meryl Streep hated it. She said doing this movie was like, uh, going to the dentist.
She didn’t like all the effects stuff that she had to do. And I don’t know if she’s done much effects stuff since then. It’s actually fine, but it just, uh, you know, it didn’t age as well as I think most of the other effects in the movie did. Mm-hmm.
Craig: I get it. I mean, it shows its seam. That’s, that’s totally fair.
I still think it’s really funny to watch, you know, and, and she, she twists her own head so that she’s facing the right way again. And then they take her to the hospital, which is a really funny scene. And the doctor is like bending her hand, like all the way back to her arm. And he’s like, are you, you’re telling me this doesn’t hurt?
He’s like, I said, it doesn’t hurt like nothing hurts, but she still hasn’t figured out that she’s dead until Earnest says you’re in violation of every natural law. And she goes, what? What? I’m in violation of what? Because that was what she and Liesel had talked about, you know, like, um, and then she realizes she’s dead.
She passes out, they put her in the morgue, eventually they get her back home. Earnest thinks it’s a miracle and it’s a sign that they’re meant to be together. Obvi, obviously she knows otherwise, but she needs Earnest’s help. So he spray paints her all up. We don’t really see, he’s not quite finished, you know, he’s spray painting.
He’s, he’s doing her makeup on her face. He goes downstairs to get something and Helen arrives with shovels so that they can take Madeline’s dead body out into the valley to bury it. And tis is like, um, she’s not quite ready to be buried yet. And he, and she’s like, Ernest. You’re not doing anything funny with Madeline’s body.
Todd: Oh my God. Oh. Which I thought was so funny. That was so weird.
Kristen: Madeline just comes downstairs. Yeah. Looking all beautiful. And so then she’s there all of a sudden.
Craig: Yeah. And she kind of confronts her and she’s like, what are you two scheming about? Or should I say what else? Because she overheard, they were, Helen was saying, you know, the plan was to kill her and now she’s dead and blah, blah, blah.
So she knows now she didn’t know before, but she knows now that they were scheming against her. And then she just walks away into the other room and Bruce Willis is like, uh, Helen, I think you better leave. This is not gonna be good. And Meryl Streep has passed through the room with all the guns in it.
It’s just a room full of guns
Craig: He sees her walk, uh, back towards Goldie. Ha. And then they exchange words. I only remember what they say, but she takes the shotgun and. Shoots at point blank. Uh, Goldie Han in the abdomen and Goldie Han flies through the air and lands in the pool. Um, and the pool just fills with blood.
Of course, the big reveal is. That she’s not dead either. She gets up. I love her dead look. Um, her eyes look even icier than before. Um, her skin is pale ’cause she doesn’t have any blood. Um, and she’s got that big hole, uh, in her stomach
Kristen: and I love that. All the pool water, just like when she stands up, falls out of her stomach.
Yeah. Yeah. Just pours out. And then so she’s got this huge hole, which was at the time, such a cool effect. And then another favorite line. Look at me, I’m soaking wet like
Kristen: And then that’s the, I think,
Craig: I think Ernest says, and there seems to be something wrong with your. Blouse.
Kristen: Yeah. You blouse or your stomach.
Craig: And she looks, and she sees that she’s got the big hole and Meryl Streep is like, Hey, what’s going on? And she walks up to her and she looks at her lapel and she finds the pin. Goldie ha has been wearing that pin, the whole movie. I had never noticed. I, I don’t know that I had noticed that before. Wow.
But in the book, not the whole movie, but at the book party, she is wearing liesel’s pin. We just hadn’t seen it before,
Kristen: which I did put in my notes. Is it like you had to sign a contract to wear that pin? Because for something so exclusive that’s not very discreet to just be like walking around with this pin.
But I think that’s because in the original script, Helen hasn’t taken the potion. There was something about how they changed that piece. I don’t know. I that really. She had just gotten very thin and like done this makeover. I could have that wrong, but that’s how I understood it when I was reading about that part.
Craig: I didn’t, yeah, I didn’t read that.
Kristen: So that may be how the movie, I don’t know. It’s different and changed that. But yeah, I just thought that’s interesting. But I remember us going back to see if she had been wearing the pin the whole time, or if they were just like threw that in at the end. That in what?
Craig: Wow. No, she was wearing it. Um, so they figure it out and so then they fight and they have a big fight. Uh, they’re hitting each other with shovels. Like Meryl Streep’s head gets both knocked clear back, so it’s just hanging, you know, her neck stretches out and her head is just hanging at her back. There’s another time, uh, Helen hits her, you know, on the top of the head.
And so her head like, like goes down into her body and at one point, Mar you know, like they’re like fencing with these swords. And
Heather: when they get the shovels, this is my favorite line, Goldie ha. Turns to Meryl Streep and says On guard bitch,
Craig: the choreography didn’t look that great. Frankly, when they were hitting the, I was like, why are you just banging the, like, that’s not how people fight.
You don’t just bang shovels together. Yeah, it looks like a fake sword fight.
Kristen: it might be how they fight maybe.
Todd: Or you could say it was an artistic choice that kind of with the whole cartoonish atmosphere, you know, style of the whole movie that their fight wasn’t, I
Heather: guess, and I just love the attention to detail here too, when they’re fighting because you see them fighting in silhouette and you see Goldie, Han’s, you know, hole in her stomach in the silhouette and.
It was just, it was just a nice touch,
Craig: I guess. Goldie ha got hurt shooting this scene. Meryl Streep hit her in the face with a shovel, and she got, she had a scar. But anyway, whatever. That’s not even the fun stuff. The fun stuff is like when one of the shovel breaks and Meryl Streep takes it like a javelin and throws it and it goes right through, uh, Helen’s the hole and Meryl Streep goes, yes, no damn.
And then they have the whole big heart to heart. You hurt me on purpose thing, which again, it’s played for the comedy, but it’s, it’s funny to see them like it’s supposed to be their tough. Veneers, like falling away and them, you know, sharing real emotion and being honest with, with each other, which they never have been before.
And when they can both admit that they were jealous of one another, and that they did do things intentionally to hurt one another, and they both apologize, then they’re like, we’re besties again
Kristen: and we’re beautiful except for our neck and stomach problems.
Craig: Right. That’s when they realize that they need earnest.
They’re like, let’s have Earnest fix us up. And he does. But he’s leaving. He’s packing his stuff. He’s out of here, which is the smartest decision that he has made in this entire movie. The only decision
Todd: he is really made in the whole movie.
Craig: Yeah. But they’re like, no, can’t you, can you just fix us up? Please, please, please.
And he’s like, fine, I’ll do it. But on the condition that once I’m, once it’s done. I leave and I never have to see you again. And they’re like, oh yeah, sure, that’s fine. Whatever. And so then he fixes them up and they do look amazing. Like they, they do kind of look like they are covered head to toe in paint or makeup, but it looks great.
They’re admiring themselves. Um, but then a little piece peels off of Goldie Ha and Meryl Streep makes it worse. She like peels it down and, uh, she’s like, oh no, what are we gonna do? And they realize that they’re gonna need earnest forever to, to keep them looking that way. So their plan is they gotta get him to take the potion, but he is not interested.
He just wants to leave. So they have to knock him out. And then they take him to Liesel’s and he wakes up in a tuxedo in Liesel’s, you know, pool hall where she’s swimming naked and comes out. And then she seduces him and I, again, I’m sure that I noticed it before, but in preparing to talk about it, I just thought it was really interesting.
She offers him the potion. There’s no discussion of cost. I, I think the reason is, is be he could be very valuable to them. Surely Meryl Streep and Goldie Ha are not the only two people who have met with some misfortune who now could probably use a little bit of help. I. Aesthetically. At least that’s what I’m guessing.
Kristen: And also, she doesn’t want the secret out that, you know, because now he kind of, well, I guess he doesn’t really know, but he has seen, you know, right. These two women who should clearly be dead. So they kind of also need to keep it a secret. He’s not interested.
Craig: And she does the hand trick on him and he’s impressed.
And she’s like, think of all the people that you could help, or something. I don’t remember, or, no, no, no. It’s not even like that. It’s about being selfish. It’s like all your life you’ve been helping other people. You should live for yourself. You sacrificed your own youth, you should get to enjoy it, blah, blah, blah.
And he’s very tempted and he starts to drink it, and she’s getting increasingly excited. And she does her big siva, which she always does when they drink it. Siva live forever. And that stops him and he goes, wait a second. Live forever. Then what? Oh,
Craig: if I get bored? Yeah. What if I get bored?
What if I get lonely? And she’s like, but you’ll never get old and you’ll never die. And he’s like, yeah, but everybody else will, like, I’ll just have to watch everybody else I love, you know, get old and die. That sounds terrible. So he doesn’t want to take the potion, but he also says, you people have to be stopped.
And he takes the potion and he runs. And so she says, Dick, Tom, Harry. And, and sends, uh, the men’s servants after him.
Kristen: If I can just say that every single time I watch this movie, this is the part where I take a little nap. Ah, I fall asleep at this whole earnest getting outta here.
Kristen: Every, every time I fall asleep.
And so I kept like waking up thinking, oh, I gotta keep my eyes open, open. ’cause I’m watching this for the podcast. I’m like. No, I don’t really, I’ll just wake up up where I always wake up
Kristen: It just gets a little like
Kristen: long and like, yeah, yeah, we get it. He’s gonna get out on there.
Todd: That’s how I felt when I was a kid.
You know, when I was, when I was going back to watch this, this time, I thought, okay, like I remember this being pretty long and it got kind of like extended, you know, toward the end and whatnot. And then I looked at it, I was like, oh, it’s only an hour and 42 minutes. So it’s not that long, huh? Okay. Maybe just when I was a kid and then I remembered this whole sequence of him running away and getting, I thought, oh God, we’ve got at least another 30 minutes of this.
And it’s actually kind of short.
Kristen: So it’s a cat nap, I think. Yeah. But like, we know what’s happening and it’s, it’s not totally necessary to go on and on. And then, you know, if you wake up when he falls in the pool
Craig: Right, right. He just, he gets, he gets chased around. He gets chased through that party.
There’s all these, I mean, they’re not cameos ’cause they’re actors, but there’s all these famous people, cameos, famous dead people or whatever. And he ends up for drama, I guess, on the roof of this castle. And the women are trying to chase him down too. And they end up up there and he slips off the roof and ends up hanging by his suspenders on like a gutter pipe or something.
And they’re like, take the potion. Take the potion. It’s the only way you’ll survive if you fall and he’s going to fall. But he says, no, he doesn’t take it. He, he drops it.
Todd: You know why I think. This part bored me as a kid and why it made the movie felt long even to me as the, is that I think that this sort of succumbs to this trend, and especially true in kids’ movies and in cartoons in particular, I dunno where it you know, came from, but I started to recognize this, where everything has to be turned into an action sequence at some point.
Like every movie suddenly has to have a grand chase scene in it. And it’s like this movie didn’t really need that. And so this whole bit of him climbing out onto the. Just to get away and we don’t see him again. He might as well have just refused the potion run out of there. And the same result, like nothing really changes.
Todd: but that would be boring. We do much GS and we get the excitement of an action sequence. I mean, it’s the same thing with Roberts ecs. You know, I think feelings are mixed about his image movers, movies, polar Express and all that. But um, I’m actually a really big fan of the Jim Carrey Christmas Carol.
Kristen: Oh, Christmas Carol.
Todd: That, that animated Christmas Carol. I really like that one. But similarly, and again, it’s another Robert Zeki movie I. For some reason, toward the end, he throws in this huge chase scene. Yeah. It’s so out of place. It’s like going across the rooftops and all this stuff, and it’s like, wait, why did, when did Christmas Carol become an action movie Uhhuh?
You know? And I feel like this is exactly the same thing. Yeah.
Kristen: Yeah. That’s interesting because I. In, in action movies. Even in those sequences, I always fall asleep. Oh, me too. And my, my husband Zaner is like, you always fall asleep. But the most exciting part, I’m like, it is not exciting to me
Kristen: 15 cars blow up.
Todd: long, long, and drawn out. I’m sorry. Maybe this is gonna be an another old man thing, but you know, I think when stunts were more difficult and they were more impressive and you couldn’t just do cover everything with a computer and do everything, you know, real easily, they were parceled out.
They, they’d be an action sequence. It would be cool, and you’d be amazed that this car blew up and flipped in the air. Now you don’t give a shit. 15 cars are flipping and blowing up in the air, and that’ll be, you know, 20 minutes long. It’s, it’s annoying.
Kristen: Like, going back to this movie too, in particular, like, we don’t really care all that much about earnest, like no such kind of a boring character.
He’s there to serve the women and so it’s kind of like, get back to them. They’re funnier. Right. Um, not that, I mean, he did a great job playing earnest that’s just.
Kristen: I think that too makes it get a little long.
Todd: One could argue the main purpose of this sequence is to show that no, no, he’s actually really, really serious about not taking that because he chooses death.
I. Overtaking the, the potion. Right. And he just gets sit spared from it.
Craig: Right. But Right. He doesn’t die because he falls into the pool. I mean, he probably would’ve died anyway, crashing through that big plate glass, stain glass thing. But whatever he, he, he walks away unscathed. Yeah.
Kristen: That’s another, I think probably a line that I love with the, either Tom Dick or Harry.
He is like getting in the pool with this naked lady and he’s like, that was pretty neat.
Todd: That was Jim. That was Jim Morrison or that was,
Heather: I think Kristen just said something about Bruce Willis doing a good job. And I would just to, to comment on that. I agree. I think it’s. Really crazy that he even took a role like this in the midst of like die hard fame to play like the complete opposite of that.
Um, and even opposite of his character in, um, like the romantic comedies. Like he plays just a, a super bump. And I think that just speaks to him as a, as a actor, you know, like, I don’t care what, I’m just gonna take all the fun roles to try it out. And I think it’s, that was cool.
Craig: Yeah, he’s good. Uh, uh, like I said, he, he, he walks away and they realize.
That, um, they’re, they’re peeling and they know that they’re gonna have, Meryl Streep says, you know what, you know what this is? This is upkeep. We can do this. And they say, I’ll paint your ass and you paint my ass. And, and Helen’s like, who would’ve thought you and me painting each other’s asses together forever?
And they kinda laugh, like, ha. And then it jumps to 37 years later, and this was a, this entire ending was reshot because they shot a different ending that that audiences test audiences didn’t like at all. Earnest’s funeral. And we see that he has gone on through his eulogy. We hear that he has gone on to live a very full and happy life.
Uh, had kids, grandkids traveled, you know, service, all this stuff. I don’t think that the movie’s trying to beat us over the head with any kind of message, but I think that it was about, you know, enjoy your life. It’s, it’s reward to get old and, and all that kind of stuff. But there are two. Black, you know, all in black veiled figures at the very, very back of the church, and it’s of course the ladies and they’re scoffing at things that the priest says, and they’re laughing out loud, reading his funeral program or whatever.
They get up to leave and the priest says. And who can forget all of his stories about the living dead walking around Los Angeles. And he found the secret to eternal life. And that stops them in their tracks and they turn around and they’re like, the secret to eternal life. I don’t remember what it is, it’s something very cliche.
It’s about the people that love you and leaving behind a whatever. And then Meryl Streep uses the line that I say probably on a daily basis, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Oh, I, I swear to God, I say that all the time. Any, anytime somebody’s just going on and on about something and blah, blah.
Kristen: So Todd should start doing that to you, is what you’re saying on, on here? Yeah, for sure.
Craig: Yeah, all the time. But they walk out and they like, they, they’re veiled, but they pull their veils up and they look, their makeup is bad.
Um, you know, it’s a, a very amateurish attempt to cover up whatever is underneath there. And their limbs don’t really work, right. And they end up at, at the top of a set of concrete stairs and they’ve lost their spray paint. And we see the spray paint can right there. And they’re arguing about losing things.
Helen loses her balance at the top of the stairs, and Meryl Streep is not going to help her. So she just grabs Meryl Streep and pulls her down too. And they both go down and their bodies just completely shatter. And we cut to the base of the stairs in closeup where Meryl Streep’s head is just sitting there.
And then we hear something and Goldie Han’s head rolls into frame. And Goldie Han’s head just says. Do you remember where you parked the car?
Todd: What was the original ending? Do you know?
Kristen: I think, I know at least, I sort of know at least the concept that earnest, the, it’s kind of like the, the eulogy. It’s a little bit like that, but it’s more like you get to see that play out. Like he gets married and he is with a woman, his wife, and they’re old and they’re just sort of reflecting on like their life together and how, you know, his life began when he met her.
So like at 50 or whatever he was. So it’s just kind of this sweet thing about them together. And I guess they like held hands. They took hands and you see his old age spot hand and her old hand, but then he puts his other hand there and it’s like young because he, you know, that was the hand. Oh. ‘
Todd: cause he did the one thing
Kristen: that was tested.
But it’s, it’s kind of the same thing that we get from the eulogy, but it’s, uh, like a more. Sweet. Less comedy ending. Yeah. And just kind of a more focused on him instead of them. I think
Craig: I, I think that they were somehow still and, and may I maybe ’cause I what you just said, that’s what I heard. I heard that they are somehow incorporating that into the stage show and, and I think if, and, and I could be just totally making this up, but I thought that, I remembered the women who are, you know, gross now in their makeup and stuff, they see earnest and this other woman.
And I don’t know if it’s supposed to be like some sort of revelation to them if they’re supposed to learn something from it or if they’re still cynical about it or whatever. But I do think that they see that he’s happy anyway. We talked so long about this movie, but I, I’m not surprised because, and I, I, I, I, we haven’t done it justice.
You, I say this all the time, especially with these comedies, me telling you how it’s funny, doesn’t do enough. I can’t tell you how funny it is. You have to watch it. And if you’re just a real diehard horror fan and you’re not, you know, comedy’s not so much your thing. I don’t know if you’ll like it because it’s a comedy first and foremost, there are horror elements.
I would say the thing that makes it most horror to me is the atmosphere and the setting, even more so than the body stuff that, that to me, makes it feel more like a horror movie. But, um, I absolutely love it. I think the performances in it are phenomenal. I’m just a big fan of both of the lead actresses.
I’m a fan of Bruce Willis too, and it’s really nice to see him young and healthy, you know, um, he’s struggling with his wellness now and, um, isn’t in good shape and we won’t. I don’t think see him on screen anymore, but he, uh, is a really cool guy, uh, was and is a really cool guy. So it’s nice to see him get to, like Heather said, to get to do something atypical of what we usually see him do.
Um, so that was nice, but I don’t know, just super fun, tons of quotable lines that I’ll, I’ll shut up and let you guys give your. Final thoughts?
Kristen: I think you said it Well, I, so I ended up actually buying this movie to add to my collection. ’cause I was like, well maybe I’ll wanna watch this again. And then after I spent however much money I spent on it, I was like, I don’t know if I need to buy it.
I probably could have risked it and written,
Kristen: I, not to say I love this movie, but I don’t know, like if you’ve never seen it, if now in 2025 you would be like, yeah, that’s great. I, I don’t know. I’ll be interested probably around Halloween time, I’ll make my daughter watch it with me and I’ll see if she thinks it’s funny.
But I know my husband and I have been showing them like movies that we remember as so funny lately, and they’re like, what? Is this like one, they just don’t translate to a younger generation. Um, so it’ll be interesting. I’ll show it to her and I’ll see what she thinks. I just think that those women are brilliant in this.
Mm-hmm. And she did like Goldie ha and Overboard. We, we watched that. She thought that was funny. So maybe she will at least like the characters and their, their deliveries. But yeah, it’ll be interesting to see what someone who’s never seen it and is now in 2025 would would think of it.
Todd: Heather, have your kids seen this?
Heather: No, they haven’t yet. Um, I think my oldest would love it, but it’s so funny ’cause when I was renting this, I, I noticed that it was categorized as body horror and mm-hmm. We just didn’t have that genre, I think back when it came out. Right. So like, that wasn’t even a thought in my mind that it would be classified as body horror.
And of course it is, but really the movie itself is so. Tame, right? A few curse words, a few things, but it is just, it is a fun romp and it’s no wonder I love all this weird, spooky makeup stuff because I was so young when this came out and I’m sure it made an impression on me. ’cause it’s just, God, it’s just so good.
Kristen: Very campy. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Todd: Yes. Yeah. Campy over the top. And you, you know, Kristen, when you said Halloween? Yeah. This is like a Halloween movie really almost through and through. I mean, it doesn’t have anything to do with Halloween. Right, right. But it’s appropriate for the season. A hundred percent.
Um, so yeah, I could see, I could see that maybe being a sort of a family Halloween staple maybe because unless you’re really sensitive about partial nudity or, uh, maybe the more you know, her falling down the stairs and, and the F-bomb. I think there’s an F-bomb or two in here. Mm. There can’t be more than one.
Kristen: I You think ’cause Yeah, ’cause it’s peachy 13, so there can’t be any, there’s there’s
Kristen: I can’t remember. I thought
Todd: there was two. But you are allowed one for PG 13, but that’s it. But the partial.
Kristen: Partiality. The things our kids see and where probably, I don’t think that’s different.
Todd: scandalized me when I was a teenager watching this. I mean, you see Isabella Ru from the back, you know, just fully nude.
Kristen: You see that? And you Or body double.
Todd: Yeah, her body double. Yeah.
Kristen: He doesn’t care who it is. He, I really don’t give a shit.
Craig: let’s be honest, you can still pretend it’s Ebel Isabel Rossini.
Todd: the movie’s pretending that’s good enough for me. Yeah, you can see if you want see Isabella Ru, you know, without clothes on, you can watch blue velvet. There’s no body double in that one anyway. Okay, now I sound like the creep. Thanks a lot guys,
Craig: for all the creepers out there.
Well thanks. Thank you ladies for joining us. Alright, Todd. I. Take us out.
Todd: Thank you guys so much for joining, just like Craig said. Thank you guys so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. You can find us online just by going to chainsaw horror.com. We got a brand spank, a new website, kind of in the vein of tales from the Crypt comics.
Uh, you know, that was intentional. So if you’re in the mood for that, go there and check it out. Please click on our newsletter link to join and, uh, see our newsletter. Uh, we send out every week just talking about the movies that we’ve done, the movies that are coming up, and some horror news that’s happening and what’s going on with our patrons.
You can also send us a voice message by clicking talk to us. You don’t need any special software, just all you need is your phone or your browser record, uh, up to 92nd, uh, message and it’ll go right to us. Until next time, I am Todd. And I’m Craig.
Kristen: And I am the little Sister Kristen.
Todd: with two guys, two gals, and a chainsaw.
