2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Spooky Season 2024 has arrived! We kick off our annual Halloween series with a kid-friendly horror flick that the whole family can enjoy, based on R.L. Stine’s kid-friendly Goosebumps series of horror novels from the 90’s.

Did you know that R.L. Stine has sold more books than Stephen King? That’s a cool tidbit we learned from the mouth of the author himself (as played by Jack Black, of course). The movie cleverly avoids the tricky task of which of Stine’s 63+ Goosebumps books to adapt by just throwing the whole lot into one movie.

How will these kids team up with the prolific author to put back all the monsters they’ve unleashed from his books? Watch the movie to find out, then listen in and see if you agree with our assessment of it.

Stay tuned for more Halloween thrills to come!

Episode 409, 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, the Halloween season is upon us.

Craig: It’s so exciting. Oh my god. I love it so much.

Todd: At times like this, I I wish I were back in America every single time, just for this one month, if I could just, uh, have Halloween. 

Craig: I know, you say for just this one month, but honestly, Todd, I don’t know why it is, but Halloween is having like a moment, and People are getting so into it that it’s starting in like late August.

Oh my God. Like people, people are getting so excited for spooky season so early. And then like by the very beginning of September streaming services were already featuring like their spooky stuff and their horror stuff. And it’s brilliant. You’re trying to depress me, aren’t you? I’m not trying to depress you, I just want you to know how happy it makes me.

Oh god. Oh god. You know, I’ve got all the fall stuff out in my house, and it’s my favorite time of the year. 

Todd: Is 

Craig: Spirit 

Todd: Halloween already open in a bunch of places? 

Craig: I don’t know. I’m not, you know, my town’s not big enough for a Spirit Halloween, so I don’t know 

Todd: about that. You get to trip down the road a little bit.

Yeah. Also, Spirit Halloween always feels to me like a little bit of a cop out. Like, we didn’t have that growing up, right? There was no big, giant Halloween store that would pop up around the country when we were kids. No. You had to go to the mall and go to the Walmart or whatever. 

Craig: Well, sometimes.

Sometimes. Something would pop up in one of those empty spaces in the mall, like, just Rare. Around Halloween, and it would be exclusively, like, costumes and stuff like that, but Yeah. Not all the time. I’ve never been to a Spirit Halloween. I don’t have any idea what they, like, are like on the inside. I, the, I know what the logo looks like.

I know what it looks like slapped on a big abandoned warehouse, but 

Todd: Right. I’ve never been in one. It’s an interesting business model, that, that place. I didn’t even get it, you know, like, how do these just happen? You know, when I first saw them, I thought they were some one guy’s kind of, like, thing that he just did in this one place, and then I noticed, you know, oh, other towns had them too, and then I realized it’s this big intranational thing, and it’s this whole business, and it’s so cyclical, and it’s so weird how they just find places to pop up that are empty.

And the last time I was back for Halloween, which was two years ago, I guess? I went to one of these places with Kenshi, and I was kind of blown away. I was like, man, their selection has grown. Like, they have things that they clearly have made specifically for them, exclusive to them. Animatronics that you can, like, put in your yard and at your house and on your door and I mean it’s kind of elaborate.

I was impressed, but all that shit just sounds expensive to me. When I was a kid, we made our own stuff. 

Craig: You know? And then what do you do with it for the rest of the year? Like, um, Home Depot is selling those enormous skeletons. Which are great, and I think they’re, you know, fun. But they’re like, 20 feet tall or something.

Like, where do you put that for the rest of the year? I know, right? Gosh, I don’t know. One might think that we were talking about the movie Spirit Halloween, but we’re not. Thank God. I heard it’s bad. I heard it’s bad too, I haven’t seen it. We’ll cover one of these years. I was really surprised you didn’t put it on the list.

I thought for sure you would, but Eh, let’s get these other ones out of the way first, shall we? Well, I think that the ones that you picked Are really good if we stick to the plan, I think all but one of the ones that we have planned are family friendly movies. Yeah. And I love that. Yeah. I love that so much.

I, you know, I think it’s gosh, you know, I don’t have kids of my own. I’ve got nieces and nephews and like my cousins have kids that call me uncle and stuff. But I think what a better way to spend if you’re a big fan of that, like if you’re a grownup. And you’re a big fan of the holiday season, what better way to celebrate it than to share it with your family, your kids, young people in your life.

These movies are going to be a lot of fun to talk about. 

Todd: Well, and we talk about these kind of movies as gateway horror, you know, family friendly, kid friendly movies that are still scary enough, but not really, that you can watch with a younger child as well, but an older child and adult will enjoy it as well.

I think of Halloween as sort of a gateway horror holiday anyway, you know? Yeah, yeah. It’s probably, I would imagine, where I, if not many of us, picked up our love for horror, the horror genre in general. No, at least in part, sure. Yeah, I mean, that’s what got me into spooky stuff, you know? That’s what got me into spooky music, and movies, and books, and all that.

I would say, probably, at least, like you said, a very large contributor to it. And nowadays, Halloween is springing up around the world like it wasn’t even 10, 20 years ago. I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I could say from experience that when I was living and teaching in Japan in the early 2000s, 2001 to 2004, I was introducing Halloween to my students.

Mm. I did a big unit during October where we would talk about Halloween traditions in America, and I would dress up, you know, for that last week, and I would encourage the kids to dress up, and our English club, we would have Halloween parties, and I’d organize, like, bobbing for apples and other disgusting stuff like that.

And now, the last time I went to Japan in October, which was just a couple years ago, it’s a thing there. They’re almost as big on Halloween as we are in the States now. You did it. I saw Halloween every Yeah, it was me! I planted the seed. You’re all welcome. And it grew! Mission accomplished. Yay me. So yeah, so I, I feel like even our international listeners, if, if by now have probably know a lot more about the Halloween holiday than they would have 10, 20 years ago and can probably relate to some of these movies because some of the movies we’ve picked are very Halloween specific.

This one is not. This one is the 2015 film Goosebumps based on the Goosebumps series of books. It’s so funny because we’ve been talking about Christopher Pike a lot because we do, we have this ongoing Christopher Pike book club now since we did the Midnight Club and all that. Um, we did at least one or two minisodes about some Christopher Pike related stuff for our patrons and uh, so I’m really in that mind space.

Like you and I are now reading a Christopher Pike book like all the time now. We’re on what? Yeah. The sixth or seventh one I think? 

Craig: I have no idea. A lot. We tried to figure this out yesterday. We were thinking more like nine or ten. I think you’re 

Todd: right. I think you’re right. But like, that’s in my headspace now, recently, and it kind of brings me back to when I was an adolescent.

And I, Chris, R. L. Stine, and the Goosebumps were just a little too young for me when they came out. But I just remember at the time thinking of them as, Oh, this is like the Christopher Pike for the young kids. So, I never read a single Goosebumps book, but they were HUGE! Like, absolutely huge. And my understanding is they were huge around the world, they were translated into like 35 different languages.

I’ve talked to people I know from other countries who’ve said, Oh yeah, I read some of those books when I was growing up too. So, uh, major international phenomenon. I was surprised to learn, uh, the second best book serie uh, selling book series of all time. After Harry Potter? Yeah. Crazy. Wow. 400 or 450 million copies sold around the world and counting, and Harry Potter’s up to 600 million.

It’s just 

Craig: nuts. Jack Black, who plays R. L. Stine in the movie, says something really early on. 

Clip: You’re him, 

Craig: aren’t you? 

Clip: You’re R. L. Stine. R. L. who? I don’t know who that is. Oh, really? Well, just as well, because his books suck. What are you doing? I can’t decide which one I hate. Or, go eat worms. I’m so confused. You see the endings coming from a mile away.

It’s like, stop trying to be Stephen King, man.

Let me tell you something about Steve King. Steve King wishes he could write like me. And I’ve sold way more books than him, but nobody ever talks about that! Okay. WAY MORE BOOKS! 

Craig: And I thought, that can’t be true. So I immediately looked it up and it is. What? That’s crazy. By a margin of like a hundred million.

Yeah, it blew, it blew my mind. But then I thought about it and I thought, wait a second. Stephen King, as prolific as he is, and he’s very prolific putting out like a book a year. I don’t know. Cause I didn’t follow the Goosebumps thing either. We had book club yesterday and we talked about this and they were all shocked.

You know, they’re all. One of them is, is exactly my age and the rest of them are about five years younger than me. So I think that it just, we, you and I just missed it. Like it was just too young for us. Just barely. So anybody even some, some people even just like five years younger than us who are into the same types of things that we were like, this was touchstone for them.

And they were shocked, shocked that I had never, Read a single rl stein book either you too, huh? Yeah, yeah, not a single one and I do I remember overlooking them because I read mostly steven king or excuse me Mostly christopher pike, but not exclusively there were some other adolescent teen Authors that I read occasionally, but I always looked at the goosebumps books and even just the way that they were published They were They looked like kids books.

They were made like kids books. They weren’t your standard novel size. They were, they were larger and the print was larger. They were shorter for sure. They were shorter. And the, the artwork on the front, what I really enjoyed it. I looked at it cause it was fun to look at, but. It looked more like it was for kids, and the subject matter looked more like it was for kids, like the blob that ate everyone, and Yeah.

Yeah, the titles sounded like they were meant for younger kids. Ultimately, I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t pick them up back then, because I think that I probably would have been pleasantly surprised, but Anyway, coming into this movie, I had seen it before. I didn’t realize how old it was. Gosh, time goes by so quickly when you’re an adult.

It’s true. I would have told you probably this movie came out four or five years ago. Yeah. It’s been almost ten years, so I had forgotten about that. But I know that I had seen it before, but I remembered nothing about it. And I always think, like, that can’t be a good sign. Like, if you saw it and you remember nothing about it, that can’t be a good sign.

But I was watching it yesterday. And I was, I really enjoyed it. Like, it’s not specifically centered around Halloween, but it feels like such, it feels like a Halloween movie. Ironically enough, there’s a sequel to it that is about Halloween. Like Halloween is in the title, but I don’t know anything about it, whether it’s good or not.

But I sat and watched this and I really liked it and it felt more like. Kids horror movies from when we were younger that they don’t really make it was still anymore 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: it was still maybe a little bit tamer, but it felt like the monster squad or yeah 

Todd: Where kids are battling against monsters? Yeah that are in their neighborhood, 

Craig: right and like action action heavy and Not terribly scary, but no a suspect like like it kept you on your edge of the seat Your seat and like the action sequences and stuff and it’s, it’s, it is action heavy with like car chases and big monsters, you know, running around, destroying the town and like, like a whole horde of months, like there’s a lot going on in this movie.

Todd: It’s, it’s got a madcap pace that kind of just never stops, but also it’s very inoffensive. Y’know, nobody dies, you never feel like anyone’s ever going to die or be hurt in any way, like, Y’know, it just has that tone of, Alright, this is like a, quote unquote, safe kid’s movie. Right. Y’know, my seven year old son might be scared by a few things in here, but not because there are horrible things happening, just because the monsters might be a little scary and he’ll think about them later, y’know?

Craig: Look a little scary, sure. Yeah, 

Todd: yeah. 

Craig: But I was also thinking, I, I, I wonder, I can only imagine that if you were a fan of the books, that this would be just glorious, like, because it references a countless number of, of his books. And, and I read that people had been interested in Anne R. L. Stine movie for a long time, but I think R.

L. Stine said, like, there were so many books that they didn’t know where to start or which one to choose. And at different. points in time different projects were being talked about like at one point Tim Burton was Toying with doing something with RL Stein George Romero wrote a script. Yeah For an adaptation of one of his books.

Can you imagine? I know 

Todd: right 

Craig: what of 

Todd: course it was one that involves zombies I read a little synopsis of what it was supposed to be It was like the first one, Welcome to the Dead House or something, which involves zombies, I suppose. And George Romero wrote this thing where, yeah, eventually the neighborhood’s gonna be taken over by zombies and whatnot.

That would be interesting to see him doing a children’s movie like that. Did he ever do a children’s movie? I Somewhere in my head I think we did something childlike, but I don’t remember. I don’t know. Part of the genius, I guess, of this movie is that it takes the same approach that the Alone in the Dark movie did.

In that it’s not about any one book, and so it’s basically about the fictionalized other book. R. L. Stine and him writing these books, and in this world, his books are dangerous, you know, the books themselves. It’s 

Craig: brilliant. Yeah. It’s a brilliant conceit, I love it. Well, we should, we should talk about it when we get Yeah, 

Todd: but yeah, so that’s why this book, this, this movie had, took so long to come out, is because they, everybody was fretting over which book to do, and none of them could really agree or figure out a good story for a full length movie based on it.

Any one of these short books. So yeah, I like that aspect to it too. I think Jack Black is always fun and great in the stuff he’s in. And like you, uh, well, unlike you, I’d never seen this movie before. But, uh, like you, I jumped into it knowing full, full well what it was. I was not disappointed by it. And I was kind of along for the ride.

And not at all scared ever, but uh, enjoying myself nonetheless and, and what better movie to put you in the Halloween spirit, you know, than something like this. 

Craig: And it’s fun and funny and, and it’s shot well. One of my only complaints, and it’s like, I don’t know, who cares? The CGI is a little iffy in places.

It’s a little dated. Yeah. And it’s, uh, It’s pretty CG, it’s CGI heavy. So that was a little disappointing, but get over it. Like, okay, great. It doesn’t look that great, but just enjoy it for what it is. Hey, if 

Todd: we can handle choppy stop motion animation from an earlier day and, uh, you know, grubby prosthetic effects and things like that, this, uh, we can handle crummy CGI, I suppose.

Less than perfect CGI. Let’s put it that way. 

Craig: Yeah. It’s pretty to look at and it’s got. Really good people in it people that you will recognize not necessarily like huge a list stars But I recognize so many people in this movie and it’s funny So it’s got a lot going for it out of the gate. It’s this story about okay, so it starts out I don’t know If now we have to say every aerial shot of a car driving down a road is an homage to the shining.

I have no idea, but that’s how it starts. An aerial shot of a car driving into this small town. So typical, dragging a U Haul, classic horror movie setup. Exactly. Oh, we’re, we’re moving to a new place, right? Okay, great. So it’s, it’s Zach played by Dylan Minnette, who was in, I think he’s most famous for like the 13 reasons why series, which I haven’t seen, but he was also in one of the new screams that I’m.

I think you and I talked about, I don’t remember, and his mom, single mom, I don’t know if they, did the dad die? I don’t remember. I think 

Todd: that, I mean, we never get it clearly said to us, but, uh, it seems like he did. The way that they’re kind of like, uh, staring at his picture, and his son is looking at old videos of him, it seems more like he died rather than he left.

Craig: Yeah, single mom Gail, played by Amy Ryan, who was great in The Office, and she was also in Only Murders in the Building. She’s so funny. She doesn’t have a huge role here, but I just, I’m a big fan of hers. So, they move into this big house in this little small town, and it’s, it looks, you know, like Grover’s Corners, like, you know, like, every, every back lot, small town set you’ve ever seen.

Todd: By the way, it, it’s, uh, Did it strike you that this beautiful house on this street was impossibly large for these two people? I mean, 

Craig: Oh, it’s always that always like that, right? I mean, it’s huge houses. 

Todd: You’re a school teacher. Do you think that an assistant principal at the local public school would be able to afford 

Craig: like this?

Oh, gosh, no, no, especially now like that house would be over a million dollars. Oh, yeah. Oh, gosh. Okay, so it bit right away. Zach sees The somebody next door, like, like close the blinds really fast or something. And then he meets the guy next door, Jack Black, who introduces himself as Mr. Shivers, but he’s R.

L. Stein. And there’s an Aunt Lorraine who is played by Jillian Bell, who I recognized just last year. There was, I think it was just last year. There was a new Christmas movie starring Eddie Murphy called Candy Cane Lane, and she’s the funny antagonist in it. And that’s a really cute movie. If you haven’t seen it, you should watch it this Christmas time.

We also meet a young girl, you know, apparently Zach’s age. Hannah, played by Odeya York, I didn’t really recognize her from anything, but there’s obviously a connection between these young people right away and they’re gonna be little cute love interests or whatever. But R. L. Stein warns Zach. 

Clip: Do you see the fence?

I, yes. Stay on your side of it. You stay away from my daughter. You stay away from me. And we won’t have a problem. 

Craig: Yes. Multiple times. If I’m being totally honest, I’m a big Jack Black fan. I think that he’s a hilarious actor and he seems to be a really cool, genuinely good guy in real life. I just wasn’t feeling his choices in this movie.

And that’s just a personal opinion. I read somewhere that Jim Carrey was a At one point in time considered for the role. I’m not as big a fan of Jim Carrey as I am of Jack Black, but R. L. Stein, the actual man makes a cameo in the end of this movie. And he, Jim Carrey would have Jim Carrey looks like he would have kind of nailed it.

Todd: The best that Jack Black can do is some dark, uh, glasses. Some dark rimmed glasses. And he’s affecting what he said was more of an Orson Welles type of approach. And it, I mean it does. He sounds like he’s affecting a kind of Orson Welles accent. And it’s fine. I mean, but you’re right. It’s nothing special, I guess.

It’s not Particularly endearing or funny. It’s just kind of vanilla. I don’t know. What can you say about it? Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah, I mean he made a choice and that’s fine. It’s just I didn’t particularly care for it but and then there’s also You know the mom is the vice principal at the school and the son goes to school and like meets people and stuff and he meets this Dorky kid named champ who’s played by this kid Named Ryan Lee, who was doing a lot of work at this time and just before he was in a hilarious TV show with Malin Ackerman called Trophy Wife, which got canceled after one season.

And I was so mad because it was hilarious. Bradley Whitford was in it. Gosh, some other really good people were in it. That was so funny. Alan and I liked it so much and it got canceled. He was in that and he was doing a lot of other work as a kid. I don’t know if he’s still doing a lot of work now, but he’s really funny.

He’s so 

Todd: funny. He was in Black Friday, which was one of our holiday picks. Was it last year or the year before? Yeah. Yeah. He played one of the. One of the employees in the store. Yeah, whatever it was. 

Craig: So I guess what Zach and Hannah though They’ve been forbidden to see each other immediately see each other Yeah, you know, she doesn’t go to school with them and she’s like what’s high school really like or something and he’s like What do you mean?

She’s like, well, I’m homeschooled. Okay, whatever but she’s like, come on Let me show you something and they go out into the woods behind their house Behind their house, I guess, which like overlooks the whole town. Like it’s gorgeous. And there’s an abandoned carnival out there and it’s apparently been abandoned for a long time.

He’s like, Whoa, you know, what’s this place? And she’s like, Oh, they built it a long time ago, but then they ran out of money, but then she goes on to like flip a switch on a generator and like the whole place lights up,

Todd: the whole thing. As improbable as, uh, this little abandoned carnival in the middle of the woods right behind their house with a giant Ferris wheel that goes up above the tall treetops and this cool looking farmhouse. And 

Craig: it’s like her secret place. Yeah, 

Todd: right? Like, uh, as cool as that is, as unlikely as that was.

I would have loved to have that to explore as a kid. 

Craig: Oh my gosh. It’s an amazing set piece. Like there’s like a fun house and it’s really fun. And for a movie like this, it’s a great set piece and they return to it later, but they have a cute little moment or whatever. And I don’t really remember. So I guess when they come home.

They get caught? Is that what happens? No, when 

Todd: they come home, she just goes into her house, he’s sleeping, and uh, he wakes up to hear arguing across the way. And when he looks out the window, he sees the shadow of her and her dad, R. L. Stine, and she screams. And he panics, he thinks that maybe she’s in trouble, and he runs over there and bangs on the door.

Doesn’t really get a response, gets and then ends up calling the cops. 

Craig: Yeah, and these dumb, dumb cops come over. Oh 

Todd: my god, the cop thing was so stupid. Like, look, I don’t have high expectations for the, you know, this movie being particularly clever, witty, or realistic. I know they’re throwing in a lot of slapstick and a lot of these jokes, and it’s a it’s a very kid type humor with a lot of this stuff.

But those cops were just Almost offensively dumb. I mean, come on. One of them is so stupid. The guy opens the door and she whips her gun out and says, Freeze! And the other cop’s like, Calm down, calm down. I’m sorry. She’s our cop in training right now. No, we don’t need guns at this point, ma’am. Like, oh my god.

Craig: And the kid says he heard a scream and Jack Black shows them a TV with like, I don’t know, like he’s watching a horror movie and a girl screams. I don’t know if one of them says, why is it so loud? And he says, Freeze! I’m sorry, is it against the law to be an audio file? And she like freaks out and rips out her gun.

Oh, what a file. Like he insulted her. No, like she, like she thought he had a file. Yeah. Like she didn’t know what the word meant. Right. Cause she’s a dummy. Like that’s the whole gag. She’s a big dumb dummy. 

Todd: Not only a big dumb dummy, but a big dumb dummy who just is gonna whip out her gun at every small infraction.

Yeah. 

Craig: Oh boy, oh boy. So stupid. But he says Hannah’s not even there. He says she flew back to London. 

Todd: He said that she’s visiting him, like, because she’s on holiday from her mother. 

Craig: Her mother’s getting remarried or something? I don’t know. So he says she’s gone. The cops leave. But then, Zach sees him arguing with somebody again in there.

So, he’s like, He, he calls champ over and, and lies and says, they’re going to go to the dance. By the way, this is the night of the dance. That’s so funny. Right? 

Todd: Cause like they’re making this big deal about the dance and Zach has no indication of he’s going to go to this dance at all. No. Well, I mean, they just got there.

He doesn’t know what he, I don’t know. But his mom’s got to go there and like chaperone the thing. There’s like no mention made of it, except that she says to somebody, well, I gotta go chaperone the dance now. Also, Are they having 

Craig: a dance on like the first weekend of school? Like, didn’t school just start?

I think so, yeah. Like the first night.

Back to school dance. It’s formal. That good old fall 

Todd: dance that 

Craig: gets earlier and earlier every year. So he calls champ over to, and says like, I’ve got a couple of girls and we’ll go to the dance. So champ, champ comes over in a full suit. Like, and so he’s wearing this suit and he’s such a goofy looking kid anyway.

So then to put him in a full suit for the whole movie, it’s, it’s. It’s pretty hilarious, but they set it up that I guess Zach set it up. He called R. L. Stein’s house and claimed to be the police and said he needed to come down to the station. And then he and champ break in through the cellar. Where there are bear traps?

Lots of bear traps. Down there, 

Todd: yeah. I’m 

Craig: not exactly sure why. 

Todd: I think by the end of the movie it might be, that might be why. Like their protection for him, not, not about people coming in, but about things getting out. Also, who would do that? You know how dangerous those bear traps are? Right. Yeah, you’ll shatter your leg and permanently injure yourself break your leg to come downstairs and but yeah He makes his way through the bear traps and I’m sure I am sure there are tons of little Easter eggs down there with all The detritus that’s sitting around.

I know there’s a cuckoo clock that pops out at him that references one of our L Sine stories and whatnot, but they make it through the basement they come up into the house now It’s really funny to me that The conceit here is that R. L. Stine and his daughter there move around a lot, like every few years or every couple years or something like that.

Like, they’re always on the move. But when you look at this house, it looks like they are set up and have been living in there for centuries. Ha ha ha ha ha. Yeah. It’s got all this antique y furniture in there. It’s your classic, almost like a spooky mansion type set up with things. Yeah. Including, what they come across is a bookshelf that lights up and is filled with manuscripts.

Bound manuscripts, all of them with the same just plain black cover and taped on the side. And 

Craig: handwritten titles. 

Todd: Yeah, there’s a lot of care put into these books, including having his name stamped at the bottom of every one. R. L. Stine. But when it came down to the title, he had to hand write it on and And they’re all locked.

These are all Goosebumps manuscripts. What’s he doing 

Clip: with a bunch 

Todd: of kids books? But, 

Clip: but, these aren’t kids books. Okay, kids books help you fall asleep. These books keep you up all night. Okay. Carl Stein, whatever happened to that guy? 

Craig: That’s a good question. Like, is, is he still writing? Do you know? 

Todd: Yeah, he’s still writing.

He’s still doing, he’s been a writer since forever. Even before the Goosebumps. You know, the Goosebumps books, because I was very curious about this. He was almost 50. When he started writing the Goosebumps books and then he he pumped out like 63 of them and plus some spin off series and you know normally Writers who do this kind of thing, like even the big writers, will have ghost writers.

The Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy books were written by so many different people just under one pen name. But R. L. Stine literally sat down and wrote every single one of these books. He’s super prolific. And before he started writing the Goosebumps books, he was writing for television, he Do you remember a Nickelodeon show called Eureka’s Castle?

Vaguely, I don’t think I watched it, but the name sounds familiar. The late 80s and stuff. He created that show, and uh, wrote most of the material for it, and was writing Humor. Books for kids, and, and, always kids stuff, it seems like. He got into writing these Goosebumps things at the request of a publisher who I think wanted to start this series, and, uh, that just really, really took off.

65 books, I mean, can you imagine? Now, the guy apparently was at his height here at this era, and this would have been from the 92 to 90. I mean, this was right when we were in high school, and I think that’s why it just kind of bypassed us, but it’s like 92 to 95 or 96 at his height. He was making 40 million a year.

Craig: Oh my gosh. 

Todd: You believe it? 

Craig: He’s so widely known, and his properties are used all the time, like, Netflix is still doing those Fear Street movies. There’s a new one coming out soon, I think. Is there 

Todd: really? 

Craig: I’m happy to hear that, because I liked the first three. I really did. Yeah, I’m pretty sure. But yeah, so there’s all these books, and they’re all locked.

But there’s a key in, under a bell jar, just in plain sight, like, lock that up, bro!

It’s so dumb. So they get it out. And they pop open one of the books and it like falls to the floor and then Hannah appears and she’s like, what are you doing here? And they’re like, we thought you were in trouble and I don’t know. And she’s like, you didn’t open a book, did you? And he’s like, yeah, but it’s fine.

And he picks it up and it starts to like match. I really liked this sequence. Like the, the letters start to like bleed off of the page into the air. And then they are kind of like smoke. And it was awesome. They start to fall. Yeah, it was really cool. And it eventually forms the Abominable Snowman because that’s the book that they opened and it’s not great CGI.

I mean, It looks fine, but it looks, it doesn’t look like a real thing in the 

Todd: room. I know what you mean. It’s early CGI, earlier CGI. It’s not that early. It’s 2015 for God’s sakes, but it’s still not, I read that this was Sony picture animations, first film that wasn’t an animated film, correct? So I assume that their animated film division did a lot of this.

And so I assume that they didn’t have. As much experience with doing something that was a mix. Yeah. So probably getting that mix of live action animation right, it probably was a little, a bit of an earlier effort for them. 

Craig: Well, and maybe it was a choice. Maybe it was a choice to make it a little bit more cartoony.

Maybe if it had been too real, it wouldn’t have been. Well, that’s true. For kids. Yeah. I don’t know. Whatever. It’s an Abominable Snowman. Okay. So, you know, it. I don’t know, what, chases them and stuff? And then it busts out of the house, like it busts like the whole side, the whole side out of the house. And then Jack Black comes back, he’s like, See, I told you something bad would happen!

Todd: Well, I just think it’s funny because the minute they leave the house and they go to, I guess, I guess they follow the path of destruction or something. It’s just so hilarious because it’s the middle of the night. So of course they, you know, they want to situate at night cause it’s more fun. And I guess the whole neighborhood, they’re just very, very heavy sleepers because this abominable snowman has apparently stomped through the whole neighborhood, led a path of cars with their alarms going off.

Nobody ever pops out of a house to see what’s going on and leads them somehow to the ice rink. Of course the Abominable Snowman is gonna make a beeline for the ice rink, right? Yeah. And the minute they pop into this old ice rink, I’m thinking, Oh, this is cute. So I wonder, how many different little set pieces are we gonna have around town?

You know? Is there gonna be the arcade? A lot. Is there gonna be, obviously we’re gonna be at the school at some point. We gotta end up at the carnival, probably at the end. And so I, just in my head, I was kinda checking off the boxes of all the different places they could go. And by golly, they hit almost all of them.

Ha ha ha ha! But it’s at the ice rink and so she opens the book and she gets close enough to it The whole movie feels like one big chase sequence after a while. Yeah, it does but it’s fun. It is exciting Yeah This is the beginning of it and so she sucks the ends up they end up together getting that thing sucked back into the book Because Jack Black shows up 

Craig: right?

Yeah, he’s there with them. He drove them there. I think But that’s, that’s the setup is that I guess if you get, it’s like Ghostbusters, like you get close enough to him and you open up the book and it’ll like suck them back in before they leave the house, Jack Black monologues about what happened, like when he was a kid, he was lonely and he didn’t have any friends.

And so he had to invent his own friends and, and he invented these monsters and he wrote about them and then. They came to life 

Todd: because his imagination was just so vivid. It’s a real ego stroke for R. L. Stine. Let’s put it that way. 

Craig: Well, it’s better than the real story. Well, one day I was approached by a publisher.

I suppose so. But he has to keep them, he has to keep them locked in the books, that’s the only way to be safe, they have to stay locked in the books. And also before they leave, you see another book just pop open, I’m not really sure why that is. Yeah. But another book just pops open, so. That seemed 

Todd: Like, cheating.

I didn’t get that at all. If they were all locked by the key, and the key was keeping them safe, and he screwed up by unlocking the book, why does this one book, that just because it fell on the floor, gets to pop open on its own later? But they all kinda do, I guess, don’t they? It’s not the only one. 

Craig: Well, no, because I feel I don’t remember when it happens, but you see, when that book opens up, it’s Night of the Living Dummy.

So, Slappy, the ventriloquist dummy, Is out like I feel like slappy’s doing his own thing back at the house Like he burns his own book and he’s like talking to He says i don’t papa. He calls rl stein papa He’s like papa all of your children are coming out to play and he takes all the books and I think He opens them.

Yeah, I think you’re right. It’s a little tenuous. I think he opens some of them, but then there’s also a big reveal at the, like, not a reveal, but there’s a big moment at the end where they open all of them. So some monsters come 

Todd: out first. Yeah, I guess you’re right. Well, he takes all the books and he ends up driving off.

We don’t get to see how the dummy drives the car, but, you know, he’s magical. He gets he can do what he wants. He drives off and leaves them to come home. And when they all get back, they find that the books are open and something’s burned. He’s like, oh no, this is my biggest, uh, Basically, I think that Night of the Living Dummy was one of the most notorious of his books, right?

It’s one of the most recognizable characters and covers. 

Craig: I think in large part because of the TV show. I think that And I may be wrong because I didn’t watch the TV show either, but I think that Slappy was a big part of the TV show. I think, I could be making that up. But yeah, I think it’s one of his most iconic ones.

Yeah. I can picture clearly the book cover, that character is, and I think that it’s an iconic character for a certain generation. I think that Well, you know, ventriloquist dummies, this isn’t new. That’s the thing, like, his books aren’t particularly novel, for lack of a better word. Like, they, immediately when they get back, they get attacked by garden gnomes.

At some point, there’s a blob, like literally the blob. 

Todd: It’s 

Craig: literally 

Todd: pink and big and 

Craig: veiny, just like the blob is, 

Todd: yeah. 

Craig: And I just remember seeing Seeing those book covers and I remember seeing all of these specific ones. I remember seeing the the lawn gnomes the The giant praying mantis the man eating plants and yeah, the venus fly traps that are the venus fly traps I remember seeing those and just thinking Oh, that’s cute.

Like, like that’s taming down horror for, for kids. Yeah. But I didn’t feel like it was for me. But it is cute. And like, the aliens that freeze the cops, you know, like there’s these aliens walking, they, they kind of look like, kind of, not really, kind of like the Mars attacks aliens running around, like freezing people in the street and stuff.

All of this is. It’s cute. It’s cute, but it’s also super fun. Like, I don’t want to make it sound like it’s stupid because I didn’t find it stupid at all. I was really into it. I’m like, this is fun. Well, 

Todd: I mean, I think, you know, what you and I are kind of talking about, it’s probably why we didn’t pick up the books in the first place.

It’s because we looked at them. We’re like, yeah, that’s cute. But you know, I’m just like, I’m not going to pick up a kid’s book about Frankenstein’s monster or a mummy. I’m Probably going to give these a pass, but when you throw them all together in this movie, like you said, like the monster squad or whatever, it becomes kind of fun.

It’s, I’ve heard this movie described as sort of a cabin in the woods for kids. 

Craig: Yeah, yeah, sure. 

Todd: All the monsters of all different kinds have been released and they’re wreaking havoc and it’s, that’s fun. I really actually, I really like this garden dome sequence. I thought it was one of the most clever sequences in the whole movie.

Because, you know, these garden gnomes are made out of, you know, they’re ceramic and they’re hollow and so there’s all this cuteness of where they kind of come out of the book and they assemble themselves and they’re going to work like as a team doing things and then Jack Black and the kids come home and they’ve got to fight them off and they’re breaking them and they’re shattering them and they’re Chucking them in the oven and watching them burn up, but then like the pieces of them are able to reassemble 

Craig: Yeah, but they can’t be killed.

Yeah, they can’t be killed at all. None of the monsters can correct Yeah, I guess that’s what the bear traps are for But all it does is slow them down because they Hannah told them told the boys When they were chasing the abominable snowman, they can’t be killed. The only thing that you can do is get them back in the book.

So, and, and again, like you said, nobody dies in the movie. Literally nobody, like not even the bad guys die. Like, uh, if, if your, if your kid gets attached to those little gnomes, he’ll see them get crushed, but they just. reassemble themselves and are fine. 

Todd: The monsters don’t seem to give a care. The people, you know, you know, are gonna be fine.

It’s just that kind of movie. I love it that, that Slappy now goes to, I think the only other two characters in the movie they can possibly do something to, and that’s the two cops. Who are apparently the only two cops on the force in the town. And they come back, and their police station I think is dark or whatever, and they flip on the light, and there is Slappy sitting in the chair.

And immediately, of course, the cop draws her gun on him, and he looks at her, And he says my favorite line in the whole movie. 

Clip: I come in peace, unarmed! Ha! Ha! Ha! 

Craig: Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Oh 

Clip: god. He’s 

Craig: funny. Slappy is funny. And I do like Jack Black’s performance as Slappy. Yeah, his voice, right. He’s not credited.

Yeah, it’s his voice. 

Todd: And thank God that for most of it, too, they didn’t use CGI on Slappy. That was an honest to God puppet, and you could tell it was really, it was really good that they did it that way, I think. 

Craig: Loved him. Loved that he was the, uh primary antagonist. Because, basically, he’s leading this army of monsters, and, and, the aliens come in and freeze the cops, and, you know, we just, we keep kind of cutting back and forth between people.

At one point, we check in with Aunt Lorraine, and she hears something at her door, and she opens the door, and There’s a, a poodle there with like a, something on it’s forehead, I couldn’t tell what it was, like a pink flower, just a pink, or something, and she goes to get water and she comes back and it’s floating and then it like turns into an evil, like, like it’s face like monsters out, oh, and I loved that, and I’m sure, I’m sure that poodle the video.

Of course it is. Everything is, is, is from the book, but, oh, it’s just, it’s so funny. 

Todd: I 

Craig: think Zach is the one that figures out that the way that they have, the only way that they can solve this is if R. L. Stein writes a book about capturing all the monsters at once. And then, and then they’ll all be captured or whatever.

And he’s, he’s like, start writing. And he’s like, no, I need my magic typewriter, which again is also from one of the books. It’s a typewriter that makes stories come to life or something. And for some reason, his magic typewriter is in one of the trophy cases at the school. So was he like an alumnus of 

Todd: this university or something 

Craig: of this 

Todd: school or 

Craig: something?

I have no idea. Cause you said they moved around and stuff. I miss that part too. I miss that. I don’t remember. Well, she’s talking maybe she was lying. 

Todd: When she’s talking to, to the, to him, they’re opening up, right? She’s talking to Zach and Zach’s talking to her. Her name is, uh, Hannah, right? They’ve got their budding little love, cute little young love romance boo going, and she says to him something about how she knows how he feels about feeling alone sometimes because.

She has been moving around every couple years. I don’t know if that means that she’s been bouncing back and forth between him and his supposed mother in London, or if Okay. I thought it meant that the two of them had been moving around a lot. 

Craig: So here’s the deal, like, there’s a whole Great scene with the werewolf that if you want to talk about it, we can, but it’s very soon after that it’s when they get to the school, it happens a couple of times, I think the first time they’re running through a graveyard, yeah, 

Todd: cemetery, the, 

Craig: the, the moonlight shines directly on her and she becomes.

Like ethereal and ghost like. And after seeing that happen a couple of times, he figures out that she’s a ghost or a monster or something. And eventually he confronts R. L. Stein about it. And R. L. Stein’s like, yeah, I wrote, cause he was lonely or something. He just wanted a daughter, but he says, she doesn’t know I wrote her.

To believe she was a real, alive girl. Right. So, maybe all of her memories are just a construct, because she is just a fiction, she’s a written character. 

Todd: It could be, that’s true. So maybe he did grow up in that town, and everybody knows him as the author, which begs the question, why is he using some weird alias?

Mr. Shivers or whatever. I don’t know. I don’t, I guess we don’t need to look too deeply into it. But who cares? It is a big surprise when it’s like, Oh, the typewriter was at the school in the trophy case with his name on it. All right. Yeah, you’re right. There’s a deal with those, with the werewolf at the supermarket and Lorraine, Aunt Lorraine shows up.

Craig: I loved it. It’s great. The werewolf chases them all around the supermarket and it’s, It’s, it’s fun and, and again, not great at CGI, but it’s a super fun scene and, and Lorraine 

Todd: takes one glance at R. L. Stine and seems to suddenly get so smitten and, and he likewise that it’s a, it’s like a Disney movie. Oh, oh my God, what’s your name?

I’m R. L. Stine. It’s really funny. I’m Lorraine. 

Craig: Okay. And I think he starts to run away with the kids and, She says something like, do you want to exchange the numbers? And he says something like, yes, but this isn’t a great time. Something like, it’s really cute. 

Todd: Yeah. So supermarket with werewolf, cemetery with zombies.

Craig: Exactly. That’s what I was just going to say. You said it’s a lot of set pieces, supermarket with the werewolf, cemetery, then they run through a cemetery and there are a bunch of zombies, all like thriller style. And it looks great, but it literally takes, it’s like 30 seconds. Like it’s a, they literally just run through the cemetery, the zombies chase them, and then they’re out the other side.

And right into the high school, where a formal dance is happening, high school dances in movies always look like so much fun. They’re not like that in real life, guys. I wish they were half as fun as they 

Todd: looked in the movies, 

Craig: that’s 

Todd: for 

Craig: sure. 

Todd: With 

Craig: all the drama. Yeah, it is not a bunch of gorgeous twenty something looking People in couture.

Their best clothes. Right. Like 

Todd: super expensive decorations hanging up 

Craig: everywhere. And amazing like DJ and like lights. It looks really fun. It’s really just a bunch of awkward sweaty teenagers in a cafeteria. 

Todd: With some 

Craig: paper streamers. And handmade signs. Oh boy. It’s pretty 

Todd: pathetic. They have their own charms.

I actually miss high school dances a lot. I used to have a lot of fun at those, but not everybody did. It could be very awkward. 

Craig: You’re welcome to come take my chaperoning dude. One, if you need to relive that experience. That’s a high school student. I miss them. I don’t think I’d want to be chaperoning one.

Anyway, okay, so then they end up at the high school. They take the stage. They, yeah, he does. I guess he kind of runs off on his own. For some reason, the teenagers all end up like in the dance. I guess their champ wants to like warn everybody. Like he gets on the mic and warns them all about something bad happening or, or something.

And they don’t believe him. But then some kid. Is standing up, looking out the window and he starts shouting, Oh my gosh, there’s something ripping something’s head off or I don’t know. And everybody thinks that he’s joking in response to their announcement, but then doesn’t, does the praying mantis bust in?

Is that what happens? 

Todd: Yep. And now all hell breaks loose. In the meantime, Jack Black’s character, R. L. Stine, has his typewriter, and he needs to sneak away to write. And what better place for him to go is in the theater, where he opens the door, looks at the stage, and they’re set up for a production of The Shining.

Craig: I didn’t catch that. Did you catch that? I read about it, but I didn’t notice. No, it said The 

Todd: Shining in big letters over the stage. Oh, gosh. Yeah, and he goes, oh my god. That was so funny. That was so funny. Oh my God. I just, that was my second favorite part of the whole movie. The first one was that line, I’m, I’m unarmed from the ventriloquist dummy.

The second thing was him sitting down at a typewriter on a stage production of The Shining. 

Craig: Well, he, his animosity towards Stephen King. Like there, it, it, there are like two or three different jokes. Yeah. That that’s funny. That’s funny. Yeah. But also 

Todd: that the shining is about, you know, a guy who’s trying to write a story.

A writer. 

Craig: Right, right, 

Todd: right. And I just, again, I love the conceit. I’m just going to go with it. We all know it’s crazy, but this guy can plunk out cause he’s like, it’s got to be a real goosebump story. You know, I can’t just like write three sentences and they say the end. It’s got to be a full story with a twist in it and that whole deal.

And within the course of five minutes, this guy has pumped out all, but maybe the last three sentences of his story. 

Craig: Slappy shows up there and they have a confrontation, but Slappy has also, Gathered all of the monsters outside the high school, like on the football field. And that’s when they also open all the rest of the books.

So there’s literally like a horde of them in there. I would like to watch it again and just. Almost just pause that scene where they show the whole horde of them because it is like cabin in the woods there at the end when it’s just a whole sea of villains and but they’re all specific like a killer clown stands out but oh gosh there are just so so many and and they all attack the school I don’t remember what happens with Jack Black and Slappy in the theater.

Slappy 

Todd: confronts Jack Black and leaps up onto his typewriter to interrupt his writing and then slams the lid of the typewriter down on his fingers, which apparently breaks all of his fingers, and that’s gonna prevent him from being able to continue his story. I think the kids burst in, somehow the dummy disappears, and they run away.

With the typewriter, but Jack Black’s like, you know, eventually like, You’ve gotta finish the story or I’m gonna dictate it to you, and that’s kinda how it goes. But you can’t forget the moment where Champ gets his girl too. In the hallway. 

Craig: Oh, yeah. He saves her from the werewolf, right? Oh, God, that was so cute.

Todd: This girl who we only saw in the very beginning. 

Clip: And 

Todd: here 

Clip: she’s getting attacked 

Todd: by the werewolf. The werewolf has her cornered. And Champ, in this big bout of uncharacteristic courage, leaps up onto his back. And I’m thinking, how in the world is this guy gonna fight off this werewolf, you know? And he bites into the werewolf’s neck, and the werewolf completely freaks out, becomes very incapacitated, and sort of scurries off.

And like, what was that? And she pulls him aside and he’s like, opens his mouth and he goes, Silver fillings. 

Craig: Yeah. He’s got, he’s got like at least one whole silver tooth. He’s like, yeah, when I was a kid, I didn’t brush my teeth for a whole year.

Oh boy. That was really funny. And then they 

Todd: kiss because she is so overtaken by him suddenly in his act of bravery that she’s ready to mound him right there in the hallway. So. Oh gosh, 

Craig: yeah that was sweet, and he’s such, he’s funny, that kid, that actor is really really funny. He really is. And so, endearing.

So charming, I, I, yeah, I was so happy to see him get his kiss, that was sweet. But then, okay, so they have to, they, the monsters are all converging, so they have to figure out a way to get out of there. Like, Jack Black is, like, Slappy just wants me, I’ll go out there, and you guys, the rest of you can get away.

And Zack’s like, no, no, I have a plan. Ten, you, you explain the plan, cause I, it’s a little fuzzy to me. 

Todd: I’m not sure, I’m not sure if I looked away from the screen at this moment. I feel like I must have, because the next thing I know, they’re driving away in a school bus. Jack Black is going some other direction.

And then, the monsters have attacked another school bus and got down on its side. 

Craig: It’s a mislead. It’s an intentional mislead because, like, it looks like Jack Black is driving. A bus away, and I guess he is, but, but the bus that the, the first bus that the monsters think is Jack Black, they attack it, and it’s empty, there’s not even a driver, right?

I don’t think there’s a driver, like, but it drives a long way. 

Todd: It drives a long way, it doesn’t have a driver, they leap onto it, and when it’s, it’s kind of on its side, and so when I think it’s the werewolf opens the door in it, they can peer inside and see. I What is in there is some kind of weird Rube Goldberg type contraption that apparently these kids were able to rig up in two minutes.

In seconds. Yeah. A 

Craig: bomb. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: that explodes. It’s a huge bomb, like, it’s a huge explosion that like blows up. Tons of the monsters, again, they just regenerate, so it doesn’t really matter. But, it, it was a decoy, it was a decoy bus, and the rest of them really are on a bus. 

Todd: But also, like you had said earlier, in the way the monsters assemble, I like the way that they de assemble that way as well.

Like, when it blows them up, they all kind of explode into ink, which then just, you know, is on the ground. And then, of course, that ink just reassembles itself back into the monsters. But it’s so cool, like, it’s, it ties really well into the theme. theme of the words coming to life from the page, but also makes this movie extremely non violent for kids, right?

There’s no blood, no bits of monster going anywhere even. It’s a neat conceit and it works. 

Craig: It almost, it, yeah, it kind of reinforces, subtly reinforces that they’re just make believe. Yeah, yeah. This is just pretend, this is just imagination, nobody’s getting hurt. It’s fine. True. And 

Todd: also that they’re immortal, you know, like the words on the page in our imaginations, they’re immortal, you know, you can’t kill these things.

It also adds this element of what in the world are they going to do to it that I really liked, you know. You see the big bomb go off, and I thought for a minute, Oh, now they only have Slappy to deal with. Because Slappy wasn’t there. Right. But, nope, they all reassemble, and I was like, Oh shit, no, there’s still a full on horde coming at them, so.

Craig: Yeah, so they go back to the carnival for the big final showdown, I guess. 

Todd: They run into the funhouse first, and they’re all inside the funhouse, and Jack Black is dictating the rest of the story to Zack, and he’s typing furiously away. But then Slappy immediately appears in the funhouse, and all these different mirrors, and at one point there’s kind of a superimposition where, you know, the way the reflection in the mirror works, it looks like half of R.

L. Stine and half of, Slappy go together in the same person. I 

Craig: found that hilarious. I like they’re treating it like a psychological thriller in this moment. And I, the way that it’s shot, that’s what it looks like. And I don’t remember any of the lines, but I just remember it’s Jack Black talking to himself.

Yes. And honestly, like I actually like that component of it too. Like. He really is talking to himself, you know, this is his creation, you 

Todd: know. It’s a little heady for the kids, but it’s kind of a nice little throw in there to make it more interesting for the adults, I think, you know. 

Craig: But it’s, it’s kind of like slappy and I like that part that you mentioned where they do kind of, it’s not split screen, it’s, it’s meant to be like, you know, part of the illusion of the mirrors in the, the fun house, but their, their faces are.

You know, one half is Jack Black, one half is Slappy, and well, it was cool. I liked it. 

Todd: He makes some comments earlier, and I don’t remember the context and exactly when he said them or why he said them, but he does make some allusions to the fact that Slappy was his most, um, um, Like, the character he related to the most, or the one that he thought was the most like him, or There’s something along those lines that is said more than once earlier in the story.

Like, this is gonna be his nemesis, because this is sort of like the dark side of him, or the character in his book that is able to say the things he can’t as a person, you know, I don’t know, but Mm hmm. But yeah, it was a nice image. A lot of this kind of detail put into a movie that didn’t require it.

That’s nice. 

Craig: Yeah. Oh, gosh, yeah, I think that’s great. The writing is excellent fan service. 

Todd: Mm-Hmm. . 

Craig: And I think that’s fantastic. But yeah, I said they had to get to higher ground. Now I remember the reason because Slappy opens the blob book. Mm-Hmm. . And so the blob, you know, fills the whole fun house and starts coming out of the fun house.

And so the kids say they had to get to higher ground, so they climb the Ferris wheel, but because Jack Black tells them go and he tells Zach to finish the book. He’s like, I don’t remember. Yeah. And he’s like, just finish it.

And, and he runs off to what, I don’t know, confront slappy, I guess. He 

Todd: just, he just stands out. I was a little puzzled by this, but he just literally stands outside and lets the blob overtake him. And he kind of pops his head out of it. So he’s not like dying in there, but. He just succumbed to it, and I’m not sure if that was supposedly a distraction?

Or what that why he did that. 

Craig: I know, I just have yeah, in my notes, I just have the blob eats stein. Eheh, and then it carries on. The kids climb up the ferris wheel, the monsters all converge, he finishes the book. And locks it. It instantly binds it by the way. Yeah. Oh, that was hilarious. Like it just like, he just like stuck it in binding and it was done.

Like, look, Oh my gosh, it was funny. But then the mantis sends the Ferris wheel rolling, which is fun, but they would have been dead. That would all have 

Todd: died a hundred times over in this rolling Ferris wheel. I 

Craig: feel like they keep showing the kids as it’s rolling and rolling, like it rolls Far they conveniently never show close ups when the kids would be at the bottom right because they couldn’t because they would be dead Of course But they I guess when they land they’re gonna you know The monsters are coming and they’re gonna open the book and Zach is hesitant and Hannah’s like it’s okay I know so it turns out she really knows that she’s just a story and And she tells him to open the book, but he won’t.

So she does, and the monsters all get sucked in and he grabs hold of her. And he, and I love this. I love, you know, a big, all the bad guys get sucked into it. The portal vortex at the end of the movie. I love it. Uh, I love it. And he’s trying, he’s gosh, this is so monster squad. I didn’t even think about it until now.

Like he’s holding onto her just like Phoebe holds on to. Frankenstein at the end, and she’s starting to get sucked in and Slappy gets sucked in and he says, Slappy’s not happy. See you in your dreams. Oh my gosh. That was great. And then Hannah, oh gosh, sorry. I, I’m just excited. It’s so funny. Go on. Hannah tells Zach that she’ll always be in his imagination, and she kisses him, and then she gets sucked in, and then everything is just back to normal, like, I have no idea how much time is supposed to have passed, like, it almost seems like it’s the next 

Todd: day.

Right. That’s how it’s almost presented, really. They’re all back in school and R. L. Stein is the new English teacher. Okay. And he walks down the hall and he passes by a guy who walks by and he goes, 

Craig: Oh, hey. Oh, wait, real quick. While he’s in class, he’s the new, he’s the new English teacher. And he had, I thought he had such, I love the line.

He said, every story has three components. The beginning, the middle. And the twist.

Not what I was expecting. I loved that line. Yeah. No, not me either. I loved that line. I thought that was such a clever, fun line. I liked Jack Black’s delivery of that particular line. It was good. But yeah, go ahead about Mr. Black, Mr. Black, the, uh, 

Todd: drama teacher. Oh yeah. He just walks by the drama teacher says, Oh, Hey, Mr.

Black. And Mr. Black looks up as he’s walking by and goes, Oh, Hey, uh, Mr. Stein. And it turns out that’s R. L. Stein’s cameo. So Jack Black is calling R. L. Stein, R. L. Stein, Mr. Black, and R. L. Stein is calling Jack Black, Mr. Stein. It’s kind of funny. 

Craig: It is funny. I was looking away from the screen when I heard that line.

Oh, really? Yeah, and I, I, but I heard it and I turned back to the screen and they had already gone on with the scene, Zach and Jack Black talking together. And I said, I bet you money. That was R. L. Stine that he said, Hey, Mr. Black 2. So I rewound it and I saw the guy and like, I don’t know what R. L. Stine looks like, but I saw him walk by and I’m like, that’s him.

Like that, that is such the, the, the cameo at the end of the real guy. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And so they talk about Hannah. And Jack Black says, she’ll always be in your mind and in your heart, but also over there.

And he points back and she’s standing there and Jack Black as R. L. Stine says, yeah, I wrote her back. Todd, I almost cried. Are you serious? Yes, yes, I almost cried. I thought it was serious. So sweet. It 

Todd: was sweet. He holds up his book and then he, then he lights the book on fire. So I guess it can’t, she can’t get sucked back into it anymore.

And then immediately drops it into a garbage can and closes the lid on it. And I, my first thought was. That’s going to put out the fire, bro. You need to, you need to let that burn a little longer, but yeah, she’s back and, uh, her and, uh, Zach embrace. And that’s the end. 

Craig: Well, and then, but then Stein is just walking his new, his magic typewriter is back in the showcase and he’s walking by it and we see and hear the, a click of the typewriter and he stops and he starts looking at it and it starts.

I don’t remember if it starts to type or. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s typing. 

Craig: It’s typing. It says the Invisible Boy’s Revenge, and then he’s like, yeah, you forgot about me or something, and the Invisible Boy, I guess, attacks him, and then that’s the end, and the credits roll, and it rolls over. Artwork by the guy who did all the cover artwork.

I mean, it’s it’s the R. L. Stine imagery, but mm hmm 

Todd: So how much sense does that make though? I mean wouldn’t the invisible boy have gotten sucked in with all the other monsters like what one would think I don’t know Was there some loophole in the the end of the story that Zack wrote that excluded the invisible boy?

Craig: I don’t think we should overthink it. I think it was just, it was just a stinger. It’s just a stinger. 

Todd: Fair enough. I just thought maybe, maybe they accounted for it somewhere and I missed it. 

Craig: That moment where I almost cried almost didn’t happen because they filmed. That she didn’t come back But he just happened to meet a girl that looked strikingly like her But test audiences didn’t like it.

So they Reshot it with her actually coming back and I like it that way. It’s sweet. It’s good for kids cute. It is good for kids I I liked this movie. It really did. Like I really enjoyed it and I’m glad because I couldn’t find it streaming free anywhere, so I bought it. So I’m glad if I hadn’t liked it, I would have been really pissed off that I paid 8 for it.

Todd: Well, I mean, everybody else seemed to like it too. It got very, very favorable reviews from audiences. It seemed like the critics all said, yeah, this is really nothing groundbreaking, but it’s super cute and it’s good for kids. And, and it’s, it’s a nice little nod to R. L. Stein and all of his work. And it did really well as far as money goes.

And all around the world. Enough to spawn a sequel, Goosebumps 2 Haunted Halloween. Which will probably do another Halloween season, I’m sure. Maybe. I don’t know. That movie apparently only has a brief cameo with Jack Black’s character in it. So, I guess R. L. Stine didn’t end up becoming a central figure in the sequel.

The sequel. So yeah, I think he shows up at the end. That’ll be a little disappointing, honestly. But anyway. Yeah, no, I enjoyed it too. I, for the same reasons you did. It was just a nice, fun, cute little movie. Nice little popcorn kids movie, something the whole family could sit down and watch. And like I said earlier, perfect to kick off your Halloween, I think.

Craig: Yeah, me too. And I’m glad, I’m glad you picked it because I wouldn’t have, because it, like we said at the very beginning, it’s not specifically said at Halloween, but it may as well be, it feels. So much like a Halloween movie. I mean, it’s definitely definitely a fun one for this time of year to get you in the mood.

Yeah, for sure. 

Todd: Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. Find us online. Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast is all you need to Google to get to our website. Find our Patreon at patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast. And of course our website, chainsawhorror.

com. Leave us a comment there. Let us know what you thought and let us know what you’re planning to do for Halloween. It’ll be a lot of fun. That’s something we’ll certainly be talking about behind the scenes with the patrons. So if you want to get in on some of that conversation, consider becoming a patron over at patreon.

com slash Chainsaw Podcast. All right. Happy kickoff to the Halloween season, everyone. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We lost a legend, folks: A young and strapping James Earl Jones stars in this loony folk-horror movie that hilariously fails to hit on almost every mark. So bad it’s good? You’d better believe it. And he’s not the only Oscar-winner in this. You’ll also be treated to performances by José Ferrer and Lila Kedrova, a young Martin Kove, former Miss USA Deborah Shelton, and some of the most gorgeous views of the Greek Isles you’ll see on film.

We can’t say enough good things about the iconic American treasure that is James Earl Jones, but we do our best to give an overview on his life as we marvel at his range and willingness to commit to a variety of projects.

Bloodtide (1982)

Episode 408, 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 once again to a tribute episode for this year that we really needed to sneak in just because this actor has been Such a part of our history as, as people. 

Craig: Yeah, this one, you know, sometimes every once in a while, we’ll, we’ll do one of these tribute episodes for somebody that may not be a huge star, but for whatever reason, you know, is near and dear to us for whatever reason, this guy.

is a legend and and I really think that his legacy will be sustained for a really really long time like he’s just so iconic and his voice if nothing else his voice I don’t think is going anywhere I mean people are going to recognize this voice 

Todd: It’s almost like Orson Welles, right? In case you haven’t figured it out yet, we are talking about, uh, the legendary James Earl Jones, who passed away, I would say ripe old age, he, he lived to be 93.

93? Yeah. That’s pretty good, yeah, that’s pretty good. I mean, I hope I live to be 93. 

Craig: I know, I read some clickbait headline that was like, the James Earl Jones tragedy, the, his unexpected death, something, something. It’s like, unexpected? Like, he’s 93. 

Todd: You 

Craig: lived to 93. If you’re not expecting it at 93. 

Todd: I’d be looking over my shoulder every 

Craig: day if I was 93.

I know, right? Here we go. You tell me about James Earl Jones. Here’s what I know about him. He’s a damn fine actor. He’s been in a lot of things that were big touchstones for us growing up. For us in particular, I think it’s Star Wars, of course. 

Todd: Oh, yes. 

Craig: Darth Vader is one of the most well known and and popular characters in pop culture around the world period the end 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: and james earle jones did the voice acting for that and and we associate him with that and it’s it’s huge I mean he he was he was still doing it up until a few years ago 

Todd: Yeah 

Craig: that and then of course mufasa and the lion king again one of the biggest movies of all time and and he’s uh Well known for that among many, many, many other things.

He did, you know, he did film, he did television. I assume he did stage. Oh yeah. Was he an EGOT? Yes, he was. So yeah, he did everything. He did it all huge, huge, huge star. And from everything that I ever saw him in, in terms of interviews, he seemed very humble and very down to earth. He was willing to make fun of himself.

He did a hilarious episode of. Will and Grace, where he played one of Jack’s acting students, and of course, Jack is a terrible actor, and here he is giving James Earl Jones acting lessons, and they performed together, I think, a scene out of Sex and the City. Oh God. Jack, Jack, they like, He, Jack had to teach James Earl Jones to like, go up higher in his register and say like, Jimmy Choos!

When I heard that he passed away, I was sad, of course, but you know, to see that he lived to be 93, he had just in the last, I don’t know, I have no concept of time, but it’s been within like the last five years that the live action. Lion King came out from Disney and I’m pretty sure that he was the only performer that they asked to reprise his role.

And he did. Look 

James Earl Jones: Simba, everything the light touches is our kingdom. A king’s time as ruler rises and falls like the sun. One day Simba, the sun will set on my time here and will rise with you as the new king. 

Craig: His voice is one of those like, if he’s still available, who else do you get to do it? You don’t get more iconic than James Earl Jones.

So it’s, it’s sad that he’s gone, but damn, what an amazing, amazing career. 

Todd: You’re absolutely right. And you know, you mentioned Humble. He famously didn’t get to do it. on screen credit for the first two Star Wars movies. He refused. He did not. He said, I didn’t play that big of a role in the film. So I don’t deserve a credit.

He finally acquiesced by the third movie. That’s just a testament to how, uh, you know, compared to Orson Wells, for example, who was notoriously, uh, cocky and arrogant. This guy had to know what an icon he was and remained humble. And. I think one of the cool things about him is that he was willing to do almost anything.

I mean, a guy of this stature doesn’t need to be in low budget movies, doesn’t need to make little appearances here and there. And yet, even throughout his career, all the way back to the early days, you know, he would be performing in Movies like we’re going to review today, you know, alongside big important films.

And that’s also, I think, a Testament to his, his humility, you know, nothing, not no project seemed beneath him as long as it interested him. And I think a lot of that comes from his. Childhood and his upbringing because he stumbled into acting kind of by accident as a high school student now as a voice actor and an Aspiring voice actor for much longer than that many years ago.

I read I think I was the height I think I might have been in high school myself It was either a biography or a mini biography an article about James Earl Jones interestingly enough He had a terrible stutter, huh? In fact, he was mute He had such trouble with his stutter that he did not speak. And he said that his muteness started, uh, the first day of his first grade of school, and continued until he started high school.

Wow. He just didn’t talk because he was so embarrassed by his stutter, and got made fun of, and just couldn’t talk. How ironic is that, you know? To the day he died, he said, He still had to think very carefully about everything he was going to say before he said it, in order to overcome that stutter. And the first thing that got him going down that road was his high school English teacher, who noticed that he really liked to write poetry, and used this as a way to encourage him to speak in front of the class.

And then he decided he could take acting lessons in order to help him. Overcome the stutter as well. So, uh, that is really how we got into acting was as a very practical way of overcoming this debilitating, this debilitating hindrance that really, really kept him quiet and closeted, you know, as a child.

And then he goes on to have this deep baritone voice.

All of these roles that we know him for. It’s pretty interesting. 

Craig: I feel like anything that needed voiceover narration. For the past 30 years, they’re like, can we get James Earl Jones? No. All right. Helen Mirren. Call her. It’s fine.

Todd: It’s true. George Lucas actually picked Orson Welles initially for the voice of Darth Vader, but at the end of the day, thought that his voice was just a little too recognizable. To do it, so. Oh, man. He was actually a pre med major in college, and he was even in the army during the Korean War. And this was all before he started pursuing an actual career in acting, but while he was waiting for his orders, he was already taking acting classes and acting on stage, and he was working, I think, as a janitor for that theater in order to pay for the classes.

His father was an actor. 

Craig: Yeah, his father was in sleepaway camp. You Yeah, he was a cook. He 

Todd: was the cook who got the boiling water on 

Craig: him. I don’t remember if he was the one that got the boiling water, maybe he was, but he was definitely a cook in Sleepaway Camp. Oh 

Todd: my gosh, you’re absolutely right. Well, his father like left the family when he was very young and apparently they were estranged for quite a while, but then they did end up acting together at least in one or two plays.

So they supposedly made amends. I don’t think there’s a lot really known about that whole relationship, but yeah, I He started working on stage, just kind of like you suspected, and uh, from there moved on to movies. His film debut was in Dr. Strangelove. 

Craig: Did 

Todd: he study? 

Craig: Does it say anything 

Todd: about Yeah, he studied acting.

Yeah. 

Craig: He seems like somebody who’s studied. You 

Todd: can tell. He has a very theatrical presentation in everything he does. He does. For better or for worse, really, because I’m sure. There are some roles Obviously film requires a different style of acting, and sometimes he works In a movie and sometimes he Doesn’t I think based on that 

Craig: I can’t think of anything that I haven’t enjoyed a minute Actually, i’m just sitting here and trying to think of the things that he’s done and I remembered coming to america He was so funny coming to america.

Oh, that was great. Yes, like he’s he can be he seems like a very Serious actor and he is and he can be but he can be really funny too. 

Todd: Oh, yeah 

Craig: Gosh, I just love people like that. He just seemed like an all around really gifted guy 

Todd: We’ve talked about him before on this podcast at least once when we reviewed The exorcist part two and that’s probably the movie We I would imagine we would have jumped to if we hadn’t already done it as a probably 

Craig: I don’t remember him in that at all.

Todd: Oh, he was the, he comes in kind of midway towards the end when they go to Africa and go to that tribe, and he’s a researcher. 

Craig: A researcher? Did he have like lots of bugs or something? 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: yeah, 

Todd: that’s the one about the locusts and things. Yeah. Yeah, okay, alright. That movie, I think, came out around the same time that he, oh, that Star Wars came out, the same year.

Craig: What year did Star Wars come out? 

Todd: It’s 1977, yeah, 77. 

Craig: It’s too bad that he had to continue doing, apparently, movies like this one.

Todd: Oh my god, you sent me three that you had looked up, and when I, I looked at all three and I have to say this one kind of jumped out to me as the one that probably he’s in the most. Yeah. And that’s what we usually strive for, you know, for better or for worse. We’ve done tribute episodes where a character came in for a scene and then left.

I think Christine was that with, um, Kelly Preston. But, no, he is 100 percent in this movie. He’s one of the two main characters, I would say, in this one. And so, I was like, let’s do that one. And then, when I saw that, Cobra Kai man himself, Martin Kove. Yep, yep, the star. I’m like, dude, we gotta do this. So, uh, even though I had never heard of it before, we did 1981’s Blood Tide.

Have you heard of this before? 

Craig: I don’t think so. I mean, the title is kind of generic, so I may have heard of it, but I’ve certainly never seen it, didn’t know anything about it. I’m not surprised. 

Todd: Yeah, I know. I’m not surprised at all that this has languished in obscurity. Although, I was surprised at the sheer star power for its time anyway in this movie.

I just couldn’t believe. You’ve got Martin Kove. You’ve got James Earl Jones. We have a former Miss USA in here. 

Craig: Which one was she? The dumb one or the less dumb one? 

Todd: Oh, I’m not sure which one you’re talking about. She’s the spacey one. She’s the spacey one who’s kind of the object of everything. 

Craig: Okay.

Todd: Restoring patience. 

Craig: Not, not Martin Kove’s wife. They’re married. Aren’t they? They’re on their honeymoon, right? 

Todd: Yeah, yeah, they’re on their honeymoon. Martin Kove’s wife was Mary Louise Weller. Mary Louise Weller, well, we’ve seen her in The Evil. Remember? We saw that one recently. The one about the haunted house, it was really cheesy.

Electrical wires, electrocuted people. Oh, yeah. Uh huh. She was the main character in that one. The 

Craig: psychic one? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Nobody cares. 

Todd: Including us. Her biggest role was in Animal House. She was Mandy in Animal House. She was 

Craig: Both of the women in this were in Animal House, I think. 

Todd: Yeah, most of them were. 

Craig: So, there’s her, and then there’s Babs.

Her name’s Barbara. Do they call her Babs, or did I just call her that? I don’t remember. 

Todd: No, they say that she, uh, I’m Barbara, but you can call me Babs. That’s what everyone calls me. And then I don’t think they ever call her Babs again. 

Craig: Yeah, I know, right? Was she the Miss USA? No, she wasn’t. 

Todd: Madeline. Yeah, Madeline.

Deborah Shelton. Yeah, she was Miss USA in 1970. Well, she’s 

Craig: very beautiful, but they’re all pretty. 

Todd: After Miss USA, she started getting into acting, and I think she did a lot of television. She’s got that face. She’s got that 80s television face, totally. She starred in Brian De Palma’s Body Double in 1984.

Brian De Palma didn’t like her voice, the way she talked in that one, so actually she was dubbed by another actress. Helen Shaver. So, uh, you can see her in there, but you’re not going to hear her in there. 

Craig: Well, she barely talks in this movie. She doesn’t really have much to do except like stare. She’s weird.

I’m just, I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna let the cat out of the bag. This movie sucks. 

Todd: Oh, this movie is so bad. 

Craig: I did not enjoy it. It’s laughable and like, like laughably bad, but not in a like, Oh, isn’t this fun? No, I didn’t think it was fun at all. 

Todd: I just thought it was terrible. I don’t know. Maybe if you had someone sitting next to you while you watched it who, where you could laugh at how bad it was, you would’ve had more fun.

Craig: Maybe? I do. I wasn’t surprised, and in fact, I actually appreciated the movie more when I read, I think one of the actresses in, I think it was one of the actresses, and an interview said something like. The only purpose of the movie was to move money around. 

Todd: Yeah. Currency transfers. 

Craig: You’ve talked about this stuff before.

Is this like, I don’t know, is this like tax shelters or is this, I don’t understand what’s, I mean, I get it in general, nobody cares about the movie. It’s just a means to an end financially. 

Todd: She was talking about different currencies, right? Like currency transfers and stuff. Cause there was like, this was filmed in Greece and there was something else, you know, obviously like, um, American production and.

Greek production, some American actors, something like that. I don’t, I don’t know. I’m not clear on that. But, uh, 

Craig: she just said she was surprised that they were able to cut it together into a finished product at all. So it sounded to me like they were maybe just shooting stuff because they needed to like they did.

Well, I got the impression that they didn’t really care about the movie and that’s what it seems like. I was kind of surprised that they can cut it all together too, because it’s wild. I’m sorry. I’ll let you, I’ll let you talk about it, but it’s just a re it’s a really bad version of the wicker man. 

Todd: Yeah.

It’s trying to be a folk hero movie, but it’s also trying to be a couple other movies, and it gets really, it’s very tonally off from time to time. You know, at one point it’s getting kind of mysterious and almost artsy in cutting together all these different disparate shots and closeups on things and giving us cuts to people who we haven’t met yet and won’t meet for a while doing weird things, but then It gets like 80s horror when we get a girl sitting on the beach with a boombox who starts exercising And then takes her top off and dives into the into the water It’s like what why is this in this movie all of a sudden and yeah, so sometimes it’s funny Funny.

Sometimes it’s that, and sometimes it’s dead serious to the point where it’s overdramatic and melodramatic. It doesn’t have that same consistency of tone or emotional through line. 

Craig: Yeah. Really nothing. And I mean, the plot is really thin and we’ve seen it a million times before. You said, you know, it seems like it’s trying to be a lot of different movies.

It is. What is that? Again, we’ve done it. I can’t remember the name of it. The fish people 

Todd: movie. Oh yeah, um, Humanoids from the Deep? 

Craig: Yeah, it’s that, kind of. It also has the feel of any of those movies where, you know, Americans go to a foreign village and, you know, everything seems shady and everyone seems shady and there’s some dark history.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: We’ve seen it a million times. It’s just, this one is boring and it doesn’t make any sense. Like, I, it’s not like it doesn’t make sense. I get it’s basically kind of the same thing as Wicker Man, this Martin Cove and his wife are newly married and they’ve come to Greece. And this does look, they shot it on location and the location is stunning.

Todd: Oh yeah. 

Craig: That’s the one thing that I’ll give. I mean, I, I read that it was miserable to film there, but it looks. Amazing. 

Todd: The photography is really beautiful. And when I say that, I just mean literally, the photography is beautiful. It’s not that the shots are stylistic, you know, or unique or masterful.

They’re quite plain. But you just freeze the frame and look, and I, you know, it looks like your vacation photo is on some exotic beach somewhere. It’s just beautiful. It’s gorgeous. 

Craig: Yeah, it looks like more rustic Mamma Mia. Like, it’s like, you know, the, the Greek Isles, you know, right on the shore, it’s, it’s really beautiful.

I, I guess it was so hot, like, I, I, like 120 degrees or something. I’ve never even experienced that kind of heat, I don’t think, but I can’t imagine working in it, but you could tell because they were all covered in sweat at all times. 

Todd: That’s true. Martin Kove’s sweaty chest, and it felt like the movie was really a vehicle for Martin Kove’s chest.

I loved how in almost every scene he had his shirt off, even though it didn’t seem to make sense. 

Craig: He was a beefcake. He had his shirt off, and his hairy chest, and then little shorty shorts just running around. 

Todd: Yeah. He looks 

Craig: good. 

Todd: It 

Craig: was difficult for me to accept him in a hero role, because he’s, in my head, he’s a villain.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: He’s that bad guy from Karate Kid, so it’s difficult for me to reconcile him as anything else. But he does fine. He does fine in this movie. He doesn’t have a whole lot to do. Nobody has a whole lot to do. 

Todd: I have to say, first off, like, that was part of the joy that kept my eyes glued to the screen. I just was fascinated by the idea of seeing this young Martin Kove, like you said, as a hero, with these two, three, gorgeous, absolutely way too gorgeous to have three men this gorgeous in one place, in one small town.

That’s how, you know, it’s Hollywood because this would not happen, but these three stunningly beautiful women on screen, 

Craig: and I feel like the only other women in the movie are nuns. 

Todd: Direct contrast, but one of those nuns is an Oscar winner. We have three Oscar winners in this movie. Really? We have James Earl Jones with Lila Kedrova.

She’s Russian. She won an Oscar for her role in. Zorba the Greek in 1964. She played Madam Hortense. I know I saw that a really long time ago, but I don’t remember. And then there is a mayor of this community. You know, it’s just like the Wicker Man. They show up, they land, they’re wandering around this town and the mayor pops out.

Craig: And they’re looking for someone. Neil, Martin Cove’s sister was here because she’s an art student or something. But. They, they haven’t heard from her in a really long time. But it’s the same thing, like, he was looking for a kid or whatever. This, this guy’s looking for his sister. And of course she’s kind of floating around ethereally staring at people from cliffs.

Todd: It’s so corny. It is so. Corny, and there’s also little children running be like popping out and running away and like barely visible as they flit around the corner But then there’s a cat

One of the kids throw like they just look up and a cat is coming down at them and I mean somebody threw a cat threw a cat, like, I can just imagine this cameraman laying on the ground, aimed the sky, and somebody way up high just chucks a cat over at him, because this cat is coming out like a flying squirrel, all four legs extended, falling straight to the camera.

Craig: I laughed so hard, I don’t even remember where that is, I know I took a note on it somewhere, but wouldn’t that have, who, they, the kids threw it at. Martin Kove and his wife when they first get there, is that right? Yeah, that’s Neil. Neil and Sherry, yeah. I think that I heard the cat, like, scream, like, a split second before I saw it.

And so I was like, oh, cats care. You know, that’s regular. But no, it’s like, these people just Shut this cat. Oh my God. It was hilarious. And it scares them and it made them jump. Oh God. It was really funny. That was probably the best part of the movie, I would say. 

Todd: Oh, it’s one of the This movie, I think, is filled with little nuggets of gold.

I can’t wait to mine them. I was just gonna say, though, that the mayor pops out and brings them into his house, and like you said, this is when he explains, when they explain to him that, you know, have you seen this woman? Shows the picture, and of course he’s like, nope, nope, have never seen her before, never at all.

And the mayor is, uh, is played by a veteran actor, Jose Ferrer. And he’s the other guy who’s an Oscar winner. He What an Oscar for his leading role in the 1950, I believe, version of Cyrano de Bergerac. 

Craig: Huh. Okay. I can, yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. And God, this guy’s been in tons of movies. The Greatest Show on Earth, and Greatest Story Ever Told.

He was Herod. That was 1965. And, and lots of television, and movies and television all the way up until the, the day he died in 1992. So. 

Craig: Wow. I recognized his name. I didn’t recognize him, but when you said Cyrano de Bergerac, I can see it. I can see. White and that and he’s the shady mayor because everybody’s shady.

Like when they first arrived, it seems deserted and people are like peeking around corners and stuff. And, and the mayor basically says. People don’t visit here often and you should leave. Get out. We’ll make you up a room and then you can leave first thing in the morning. 

Todd: Yep. Oh boy. The dialogue in this movie is so bad.

It is so laugh out loud, funny, bad. Because then, coming into the room, there’s this crazy guy who’s just, uh, talking to himself and cackling the whole time and doesn’t speak a lick of English. 

Craig: Yeah, he’s like Igor. Yeah. I don’t know why he’s there. We keep referencing all these other movies, but that’s because it’s, it’s so basic.

It’s cobbled together from other movies. Transylvania 6500, wasn’t there like a, uh, Murderous basement dweller basically that was just like this guy like an Igor character. I don’t know the point is Trope after trope after trope like just sewn together in a in a not Really creative way. Oh, no. I was not impressed 

Todd: Yeah I love it that she just says like he calls the guy over to like fill their glasses or something and he calls him Dionysi and she pipes up Sherry.

Clip: Did you call him Dionysus? 

Todd: Dionysus. 

Clip: But it’s like Dionysus, the god of wine and theater. That’s really neat to have an innkeeper called Dionysus who sells wine. How greek. 

Craig: Yeah, but see, we’ve done a lot of movies, and even some recently, where the dialogue is so bad it’s funny, but I feel like that’s almost more tongue in cheek.

This is played so straight. Like, there isn’t a wink, I don’t think, of intentional humor. They’re not trying 

Todd: to be funny. I 

Craig: don’t even think the cat scare was intentionally. I don’t think that was meant to be funny. I think that was really meant to scare you. 

Todd: Yeah, you’re right. 

Craig: And this, yeah, it sounds ridiculous, but no, she just played that just straight as a wire.

Todd: Almost all of the acting in this movie is quite bad, but I don’t necessarily fault the actors. The lines they’re reading are pretty ridiculous. They’re poorly written. The situations are kind of silly. Characters suddenly jump from one thing to another, which we’ll talk about in a minute. And, uh, I also probably fault the directing, you know, I just can see where, you know, scene by scene, these actors were directed to go a certain way and so then they played it up, but then it doesn’t cut well with the rest of the scene or the scenes that come before or follow, I just really got that sense of a movie that was.

It’s all cobbled together. Absolutely. Yeah, from a bunch of different shots and scenes that not a lot of thought was put into making them consistent and coherent, you know? That’s what I mean, like, no emotional through line. 

Craig: It is all cobbled together, and it’s not as though throughout it I was confused, but I, nothing is happening, like, there’s just vague suggestions of things, like, Madeline, he finally finds Madeline.

Who at various times is like catatonic and then other times, okay. And like, she just, she just kind of wanders away to stare wistfully a lot or like hide behind things. And it’s, it’s super weird. So we’ve seen her a couple of times already staring and now she is with James Earl Jones. Here’s how bad the writing is.

James Earl Jones, pretty much. Only just quotes Othello through the whole thing, like, they, like, I guess they just couldn’t even really be bothered to write lines for him. 

Todd: He does initially, and then he, he quotes Othello, unless he doesn’t, and then when he doesn’t, He doesn’t seem like the same guy. It’s weird.

So, the guy, Dionysus, you know, stumbles when he sees the photo of the girl. So, they know that they’re hiding something. But, you know how it is, they gotta stay in town and figure it out. So then they go out on a night exploration, this couple. And that’s when they find James Earl Jones. Right away. Extremely dramatic conversation with him.

Well, you’re right, he just quotes Othello, and he just seems like a total loon. 

Craig: He seems like a lunatic, and he seems really menacing, and like he holds a knife to Neil’s throat. And I thought immediately, like, he must be a bad guy, but then I guess Madeline’s like, no, it’s cool. And Then they’re all just cool.

No, 

Todd: not only, I mean, it’s this real dramatic scene where he’s like, he’s holding a knife to his throat and she talks him down. He’s like, okay. And he sits in the corner and he’s angry and he’s quoting Othello. 

James Earl Jones: Rude am I in my speech, and little blessed with a soft phrase of peace. 

Clip: Cut it out, Frye. 

James Earl Jones: Okay. Okay.

You weren’t expected. And the natives here aren’t exactly friendly. 

Todd: And she’s all spacey and weird and they’re exchanging weird glances and they’re kind of saying some cryptic things to each other. But she kind of seems to be a little pissed off at him for some reason and she starts to walk out of the room.

And then, who pops in but this Bubbly, blonde girl in skimpy clothes, and Hi, I’m Barbara, but you can call me Babs! And just sits down next to him, practically in his lap, and just like, So, what are you guys doing? Why are you here? I’m like, What? Where did this come from? The whole scene was so weird, it This scene is like a microcosm of the tone of the whole movie.

Like, the whole movie’s like this. Yeah. It’s so crazy. 

Craig: I never got a handle on what was going on. 

Todd: Between those three? 

Craig: Well, just in general, like, what was he doing? We left out the very, very beginning of the movie. is set in like, I don’t know, ancient times. And there’s a voiceover, a really annoying voiceover that talks about the struggle between good and evil and they have to placate the power in the sea with a virgin sacrifice.

And it kind of shows this, like the marking a woman, like marking her head and like carrying her on a platform and delivering her to this, this, ancient looking archway or door underground. Now, when we come to our actual story, James Earl Jones is Like exploring these caves and apparently has been for a long time and knows what’s down there like he’s found The door because after they all talk they also just casually mentioned that scuba diving is forbidden for some reason I don’t remember why 

Todd: I think it’s cuz um, they don’t want people bringing artifacts up from the floor 

Craig: So is that what he’s doing?

Is he like is he in Indiana Jones? Is he trying to steal ancient artifacts? 

Todd: It took me forever to sort this out and I think I did by the end of it. So what we see in that opening that you’re talking about is that they put a woman on a raft and they kind of carry her to the water and set it down in the water.

They mark her on the forehead with this distinctive mark that looks like a kind of an upside down, um, ribbon that you’d wear. Yeah, I was just gonna say that. We might as well be blunt. Yeah, breast cancer awareness, whatever. Yeah, 

Craig: right. 

Todd: But then they give her a coin. And so she has a coin in her hand or they put it in her mouth or something as they sent her into this cave.

So, I guess in ancient times you didn’t have to dive under the water to get to this cave. Like you do now. Anyway, they send her into this cave, and there’s this gate that looks like it’s out of the video game, Myst. 

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: You know, with that same symbol over the top of it, and something happens to her, you know, she kind of falls off the raft, there’s a howling or whatever, and there’s a big struggle in the water, and blood comes up, and so you, you get there’s a monster.

She’s, they sacrificed her to this monster. I 

Craig: get that, but what is James, so James Earl Jones is just trying to get, uh, So yeah, stealing he’s 

Todd: yeah, well what I guess over time those coins have accumulated down there And so it seems like he’s been going down there and gathering those coins So he doesn’t necessarily know all about the monster, but he’s weird because we see him down there And he’s got explosives with him.

He goes out in the middle of the night with Babs, right? And they go rowing and he puts on his scuba gears and he dives so that he can get into the cave. You have to dive to get into the cave. He services inside and lights up the lights that he’s put in there and gathers up the coins for some reason. He brings the bag of coins with him and is, has plastic explosives that he opens up.

And this whole time he’s just. Talking to himself, but in very very dramatic ways like quotes I just figured he knew what he was getting into and he chose today to blow open the seal on this this gate So back in the early times this gate was just a big opening and now it’s it’s been Deliberately bricked up and so he mounts his plastic explosives on there and blows it up The explosion is so big that it causes waves to rock boats and splash water in the windows Everybody in town wakes up and hears it You see all these clips of that.

When we come back to the cave, we see that he’s blown out four bricks, very neatly punched out of this, this opening and, uh, smoke ominously. Yeah, fog 

Craig: pours out all over the surface of the water. 

Todd: And then it’s morning, 

Craig: like, I have in my notes Big Monster. I feel like we get a glimpse of something like this.

We do, 

Todd: but I guess, but he doesn’t, right? Like, he just leaves. He doesn’t go inside. 

Craig: Yeah, I don’t know. That’s why I didn’t understand what he was doing. I didn’t either. Because I don’t understand a lot of it, like, Like, right after that, Madeline dreams of being sacrificed with that symbol on her head. We see, like, a flash in her dream of, like, a painting of a demon with a boner.

Yeah. All right. And that comes back later, but I have such random notes. The next scene, Babs, Barbara, comes over to her boyfriend, James Earl Jones, Fry, and he says, I thought I told you to get me a melon and a loaf of bread. And she says, Ugh. And she runs off. And then she comes back and gives him a melon and a loaf of bread.

What? He sets it down. And then, and then he says, he says, I didn’t tell you to bring a knife. 

Todd: He says nobody cuts a watermelon with a knife and then he 

Craig: punches it open 

Todd: and eats watermelon like no person ever ate watermelon ever By like what the fuck is happening? The pieces of watermelon is the biggest mess in his head and that he just like reaches his fingers in and I don’t know I don’t know how you eat watermelon that way But I guarantee you, Mr.

James Earl Jones, Everybody cuts watermelon with a knife, Because your way is really stupid. They’re on the beach, by the way. They’re hanging on the beach! They’re just all hanging on the beach! 

Craig: They’re just chillin right. Madeline is just lounging on a rock, staring, As she is playing. Prone to do, and Sherry walks up in Lake tries and makes small talk with her, and it’s like, 

Clip: hi, you know you don’t have any strap marks at all, right?

Meditating TM Zen. I try to meditate for a while, but I kept, you know, finding myself thinking about where my khaki pants were, whether they went to the laundry or the cleaners, something. 

Craig: Here we got you a present. Like, you must have had a bunch of birthdays, so here’s a birthday present. And she hands her, she hands her a wrapped present, and Madeline opens it.

Like, I don’t understand. It’s like when she is in this state that she’s never been a person before, like she, she doesn’t know anything. So, she opens it up and it’s perfume, and she opens it and smells it, and Sherry’s saying, Yeah, we didn’t know what you’d like, so we just got the most expensive one. And as soon as she says that, Madeline takes the bottle of perfume and just starts pouring it all over herself, like all over her face.

Face and shoulders and Sherry’s like, uh, that was expensive. What is happening? I don’t understand what is happening. What she steps out into the 

Todd: water and then starts like touching herself. She’s like, uh, rubbing her chest and like, almost like she’s in ecstasy. And then Sherry is like, well, that was weird.

Just walks away. Neil, your sister’s acting a little strange. I mean, why are they all, why are they all hanging out on the beach? This is what I don’t understand. Well, 

Craig: I mean, I guess Neil and Sherry are on vacation. Everything’s 

Todd: cool now, like the guy, they hold his knife up. Yes, they found her. The dude blew open the ancient tomb and may or may not have seen a glimpse of a monster, and now it’s just the next day and well, you know, we gotta hang.

They’re all, 

Craig: yeah. Well then, and then they go, they, and then they go boating, and they hit something. Oh God. James Earl Jones jumps in the water and like, finds some, like, guck on the propeller or whatever. But then he comes up and he’s like, yeah, we hit something. And Martin Kove’s like, we couldn’t have hit something.

My depth finder says we’re at like, 300 feet. We have just seen under the water, and we’ve seen the ocean floor. You need to have your depth finder checked, because you are max like 15 feet. 

Todd: Yeah, you were maybe, maybe 12 feet, and that’s generous. James Earl Jones could almost have stood up next to the boat, and it would have touched the top of his head.

I thought he was gonna come back and say, no, you’re wrong, but he didn’t. I think that was just a big mistake. Oh, so funny. Now see, I was so into the movie at this point, because I could not believe how bad it was. That I was just rolling at all this stuff. And I couldn’t wait to see where it was going and absolutely was not disappointed.

So I don’t know, I just, I mean, I agree with you. The movie is stupid as hell. It doesn’t make any sense. But, for me, firmly in the, so head scratchingly bad, it’s good. And that the fact that these people are in this movie, like, Amplified that ten times for me. I just, I couldn’t wait. That’s fair. I couldn’t wait to see what was gonna come out of their mouths next.

And how it was gonna come out. And in what context. Cause the context keeps changing. Like why are these guys all friends all of a sudden? I, I just didn’t get it. I don’t know. It just, it sapped all of that mystery that they were supposedly building for the previous twenty minutes or so. 

Craig: And it, again, I’ve said it a million times and I’ll keep saying it until we, I guess, but what is going on with Madeline?

I don’t understand. I don’t like she’s there because She’s an artist and she’s like restoring a painting or something and she tells the nun why why are there nuns? What? They just popped in suddenly. Yeah, there’s just there’s just randomly a 

Todd: Monastery a 

Craig: nunnery. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: but she’s like Restoring this painting and she tells the nun well the first layer was just all fireplace soot But they thought that the image disappearing was a miracle, but no it was just fireplace soot, so I took that off She’s like but then I realized there was another layer underneath it And it was something else and then I realized there was another layer underneath that and it was something else all this builds I’m jumping around but I This was the part of the movie that killed me the most.

Eventually, she gets to the bottom lair. But she does so by peeling the ancient plastic film off of the painting. As though discovering that there was another lair meant that she was peeing. Peeling another plastic layer off of it. It’s 

Todd: very clearly plastic. 

Craig: I don’t know how they thought they were gonna get away with it.

Oh my 

Todd: god The clear plastic edges are sticking out a little spatula tool slips right between those little plastic bits And she peels 

Craig: it off like it’s like a film like a plastic film to reveal below it the demon with a boner and a Chicks sitting right in front of him like yeah, so she’s gonna have to blow this team and I think 

Todd: I Couldn’t wait I was obvious I couldn’t wait cuz we knew the movie was gonna go there because it’s very cavalier and weird about nudity like I said earlier Then we get the scene with Babs where she goes to the beach and she just hangs By herself, and she’s got a boombox, and she sets it down, and she’s in 80s clothes, a crop top, got a lot of underboob there.

And, uh, she just starts exercising. Like, doing Jane Fonda’s workout on the beach. Leg lifts and things. Yeah, that’s weird. And pretty soon she turns it off and decides she’s gonna peel her top off. And I was like, is this really this kind of movie? The first 20 minutes, I wouldn’t have imagined this was this kind of movie.

But now, I just think this movie can be whatever movie it wants to be. Cause she peels her top off, and dives into the water. While a few of the townies from the, you know, from the cliffs up above come out and just stare. And she turns around and says, Pervert! Dirty 

Clip: old Thought you gratefully liked little boys!

Oh my god.

Craig: Uh huh. Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. It’s terrible. It’s terrible. But she, she was one of my favorites. She was very pretty and she was bubbly and funny. Yes. I enjoyed her and I enjoyed her energy. She 

Todd: didn’t even belong in this movie, but yeah. 

Craig: No, she did not belong in this movie. Not at all. And then, you know, she takes her top off and then it’s Jaws for about a minute.

Yes. And I actually thought, I thought that looks great. The underwater photography. All of it. Looked really, really good. Loved it. And, and she was filmed, you know, from like Monster or Shark POV from quite a distance. Like the camera was pretty deep in the water and she was some distance away and it was very clear.

The water there must be amazing. But I loved the underwater stuff, but she basically gets attacked, I think, kind of. And you kind of see it, I don’t remember. And then they find a dead girl, but the first dead girl they find isn’t even her, I think? Oh, it’s 

Todd: so weird. They come back to town. This is so convoluted and strange.

The rest of them are on a boat while she’s been doing her thing. Because they just hang out on boats now. And they come back into the dock, and the mayor is there with a bunch of his guys. And the mayor tells them that a girl who went swimming has not returned. It’s And they were like, you’re not implying that the thing we hit with our boat was that girl.

And he’s like, all I’m telling you is that no boats are going to leave this dock. So now they are stranded on the island until this mystery gets solved. And then, yeah, like you said, uh, it turns out that they find a body, and it’s The woman that went missing, that went swimming. 

Craig: But then they also immediately find Babs.

Yeah. Chopped up in pieces. Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t get it. The monster just 

Todd: bit her a few times and then let her wash up on you. 

Craig: Yeah, like, like chomped her feet off and spit them out. Ha, ha, ha, 

Todd: ha, ha, ha, ha. The kids are all surrounding it, just staring at it until an adult comes by. Cause that’s what, that’s what kids do in movies like this.

And so then they do a funeral procession and they bury them and You know, as the procession goes through, there are these two wooden coffins, and they sit down, and the nuns are there saying their prayers, and whatever, and then the mayor comes stomping in with his guys, and he starts prying open a coffin, and that upsets the nuns, but they don’t intervene, and he insists on putting a coin in that woman’s mouth, and Some herbs or something over her.

And then he goes to do the same to the other coffin, which pisses off James Earl Jones character, who lunges at him, and he’s like, You keep your voodoo to your own people. But, he says this is important, you know, for Charon to, for her to have safe passage to the, the next world. This is What we do on the island.

We are like an hour into the movie now. It’s only an hour and a half. And I’m like, ugh. There’s no real mystery right now? Yeah, okay, there’s a monster. It’s been set loose. It killed these girls. And these islanders have their rituals, you know, which were from before, to protect them. So I’m just waiting for something to happen.

I mean, not that these girls getting attacked wasn’t something, but god, it’s an hour into the movie. And then what? Is it just gonna be more Jaws? Like, just people keep going out of the water, keep getting eaten? Like, James Earl Jones apparently doesn’t know about the monster. The only person who seems to know about the monster is Loony Madeline, who’s just staring off into space all the time.

Craig: I don’t get it! What is happening? Like, is Okay, so James Earl Jones just casually mentions at some point that she’s a virgin. How and why he would know that, I have no idea. She’s acting all weird. Are we supposed to think that she’s, like, drawn to this Monster or something? It, it, it doesn’t make any kind of sense.

Todd: The next thing that happens is that they’re back out on the boat again, and James Earl Jones decides to go diving while Neil and Sherry are hanging on the boat. And Neil’s saying, you know, I’m gonna go after him, and Sherry’s like, you know what they said about diving? Like, who the f cares? This guy’s been diving three or four times since we’ve joined them, right?

But he’s like, no, I’m gonna do it anyway. So he dives after James Earl Jones. I keep calling him that because we never really find out his name. He’s like Mr. It’s Fry. Fry? Yeah. So he goes in to the cave and they have a very bizarre confrontation. 

Craig: What the hell? I did not James Earl Jones like holds a spear up to his Neck or something.

I have in my notes. Why is he mad? I thought they were friends. What is happening? He tells him he says Madeline brought him there And he tells Neil that he and Sherry should leave because something got to Madeline and I don’t have any ideas So they go to the convent to look for her and I have in my notes So, why does Martin Kove wear a string as a belt?

Both laugh. It bothered me. His belt is a shoestring. 

Todd: It seemed very hot there. I wanted to know why suddenly he was wearing jeans but no t shirt. I thought maybe he should at least be in shorts or something. 

Craig: My notes don’t even make sense. I say they look for Madeline at the convent, but a nun tells them they have to leave because Madeline has entered something?

And then they, they go outside and they’re calling her name and she’s hiding behind a rock, but she doesn’t answer. The camera 

Todd: pans over dramatically and she’s like on the next mountaintop, almost like she’s curled up hiding, but also spaced out just laying there. And I, It’s so laugh out loud funny. And then they, it seems like they kind of stopped looking for her for a while, because now Madeline is no longer a concern.

We get some kids who are on some rocks by the waterside, who are playing their game. This is the same group of kids we’ve been seeing over and over again. And one of them draws that symbol on the girl’s forehead. I don’t know, how old are they? They’re like, ranged from Twelve, I don’t know. And they do some skipping.

In a circle around on those rocks, which already looks pretty dangerous. I think it’s the girl’s mother just pops in. It just happens to be a few rocks away all of a sudden and calls out to her. And it’s like, no, no, I don’t know. It’s not English, but she’s yelling out at them and she starts to make her way across the rocks to them.

And the girl who again, probably about 12. I 

Craig: couldn’t figure that out. I think that she was going in the water. You think she jumped? No, I think the boys pushed her. I don’t know if she was in or not. Maybe she was. But I think the boys pushed her. intended her to go in the water. I think this, this was a sacrifice.

It’s the same symbol that they used the sacrifice 

Todd: before. That’s what I was thinking. 

Craig: Maybe they’re playacting it, I guess. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But I didn’t think it was an accident. I mean, why would the mom be freaking out? 

Todd: Maybe. Well, I mean, you’d be, you’d be freaking out if your kid slipped. If your 

Craig: kid was playing on a cliff, I guess.

Todd: But what freaked me out was the girl falls into the water and there’s an underwater shot of like, Her boobs. Oh, I didn’t notice that you didn’t notice that. I was like what why do we have child nudity in this movie? I mean, it was only about two seconds long which made it all the more unnecessary. It was just like her top was half off What I don’t need to see this 12 year old girl’s boobs and then she surfaces and her shirts back on and I thought Did they insert a shot here?

Maybe. Did they like I honestly 

Craig: missed it. 

Todd: Oh, we needed to put some more boobs in here somewhere, so we’re gonna choose the 12 year old? I don’t know, cause it was, it was shocking. I can’t believe you missed it, dude. 

Craig: Well, I’m not upset that I Like, that’s fine. But somehow, James Earl Jones is there, and he jumps in and saves the girl.

From the underwater demon, that we get a full shot of at this point, this is, I think, there’s one point for like one second that you get a full shot of it. And it just looks like a guy in a creature from the Black Lagoon type suit. And it seems like Fry sees it, but he never says anything about it. 

Todd: Well he does, because the mother leaps in as well, or falls in, I can’t remember which.

Craig: Yeah, it gets the mom. 

Todd: It gets the mom, it chomps her. Actually, that’s You know, again, it’s like an underwater, kind of like a brief chomp on her. It’s got jaws, right? But at times it looks like a horse’s mouth, at other times it looks kind of more demonic with fangs, and I feel like it changed from time to time, but I don’t know.

Craig: You didn’t see much of it. I 

Todd: thought Fry saw it get the mom. I was, I was positive of that. 

Craig: I don’t know. I remember blood in the water. The mayor threatens James Earl Jones, and then James Earl Jones gets He’s about to tell them about the demon, I think, and then he passes out. 

Todd: Well, this is at this happy festival.

Like, suddenly, after all this stuff went down, and all this ominous shit, Now it’s that stereotypical, Oh, look, the old folk village is having their happy festival. And I’m like, guys, somebody’s mother just died. This was literally the next day. And they’re just having this happy festival like nothing happened?

As opposed to that funeral that they had a while back when the last person died? Yeah, and he pops down and he says some really bad dialogue. You know, we should probably talk about James Earl Jones a little bit while we go through this. 

Craig: Well, he’s fine. He just doesn’t have much to do. What’s, what was interesting to me is I don’t know that I had ever seen him in anything at this age.

And I always think of him as being a portly man, a big guy. And he is. He’s kind of barrel chested. He’s a big guy. But he’s younger and 

Todd: Surprisingly fit in this movie. 

Craig: Yeah, leaner. And I don’t think that I had ever noticed, and I don’t know, this may be colorization or something, but he’s got, in this movie, these beautiful blue eyes.

And it was just He’s one of those guys that ever since I remember him. He’s old. He’s always been an older guy. Yeah, so to see him Younger it was cool. It was cool to see him at a different stage of his life Yeah, it was 

Todd: fun. And you’re right. I think his theatrical training comes through here again Maybe you know being an earlier film or something like that But it just feels a little too Presentational for the close ups that we get on him and the long shots of him in these conversations Transcribed And I could tell, too, not not just with him, but with all the actors, I could tell they were cutting around performances quite a bit.

Craig: Oh yeah. 

Todd: There’s an awful lot of off screen delivered dialogue, you know, where two characters are talking and the camera’s always on the person who’s listening. But yeah, this he’s drunk, and he He doesn’t quite tell them what’s going on. By the way, these two are no longer interested in looking for their sister, apparently.

They just want to sit and enjoy the festival and have fun. 

Craig: And it’s, the festival is just shady, and like, the, the boner demon, somebody dressed as the boner demon shows up, and like, that, the little girl that was thrown in as part of the, the ceremony, and, It’s all just very shady. It feels like the end of the Wicker Man, but I feel like we just need to get to the end because all of this is inconsequential.

Like, I didn’t get it. We cut back to the nuns. Are the nuns worshipping the demon? Are they scared of the demon? Does the demon attack them? Because then a bloody nun stumbles into town. Then they go to the convent and there’s a bunch of dead nuns and that black goo is all around. So I guess 

Todd: That was so hilarious, by the way.

The nun massacre. I just 

Craig: couldn’t get over 

Todd: how silly it was. Like, they’re literally, like, one’s slumped over a chair, one seems to be stuck to the wall somehow, the other one’s laying on the floor. 

Craig: And then, who says this? I have in my notes, in quotes, So, little virgin’s finally gonna give up herself. What?

Who says that? That sounds like something James Earl Jones would say. 

Todd: Yeah, I think he said it. 

Craig: And, okay, and so then Madeline somehow is on a boat, underwater, in the cave, with the symbol on her forehead, and then she lays on the rock slab, puts a coin in her mouth, and starts just f ing

herself just writhing in ecstasy 

Todd: Oh, I thought the demon was there boning her but then later you just oh, I 

Craig: I thought first No, I thought for sure she was getting eaten out for sure Only in her mind. Oh my God. It was insane. Oh God. And then Neil is like, shows up in some scuba gear looking for her and he gets to her and she screams like, I don’t know.

Todd: Suddenly it’s raining inside the cave. 

Craig: Oh my God. 

Todd: Dude. I could not contain myself. I was. On the floor at this point, I was having so much fun with this movie. So yeah, there’s a big battle kind of thing. And Frye, I guess it’s like, go, go, you must go. And he’s got a big wad of his plastic explosives. Yeah.

That he had put together to come in and they swim out. Neil saves his sister. They swim out and then he gets attacked by the demon. And did the demon chomp his crotch? 

Craig: I don’t know. I just have the demon chomps Frye, but it looks so bad. Like. It looks like a cheap Halloween mask, um, in this shot, like you can almost see the plastic of the neck like flapping.

Todd: But just for a split second. Yeah, 

Craig: just for, it’s very, very brief. You barely see the demon at all. And so then he blows up the cave and 

Todd: And himself and himself 

Craig: in it, right. Which And Neil and Sherry and Madeline leave, and Neil has that bag of coins, I guess, and he just jumps them in the ocean and then that’s it.

No, no, 

Todd: no, no, no. That’s the end of it. No, no, no, no, no. Right after that. Right after that, before they take off, Neil and his sister embrace and have a moment on the boat where she leans in and kisses him a little too passionately for a brother. 

Craig: I must have been looking at the clock. Because I don’t remember that.

Todd: Yeah, that was weird. I did a double take. And it almost seemed like Martin Cove also did a double take because there’s this weird look on his face when she goes by. And then it cuts to the next morning. When, like you said, they take off on a boat away from the island. He dumps the coins into the ocean, and everything’s fine, which takes a little bit of the fun and mystery out of an ancient demon when all anyone ever needed to do is get down there and blow it up.

I guess it’s not so supernatural. Oh, 

Craig: yeah, I mean, I just, I, I couldn’t find anything really to enjoy. Honestly, James Earl Jones in it. I Felt like what why are you here? Yes You are too good to be in this movie, but I get it. That’s another thing that I respect about him. He was I said before he was humble.

He was also a working actor. Like he did commercials and he did document like he, the man worked. And so this is early in his career. I’m he’s 

Todd: in a lot of stuff 

Craig: and he has done a lot of stuff. He’s done voice for animation and video games and all kinds of stuff. And. So I, whether, you know, maybe this was just for a check and if it was just for a check, that’s great.

Or whether it was just for the opportunity, just for the opportunity to do what it appears that he really loved to do and was really good at. 

Todd: It’s early in his career, too. 

Craig: Yeah, either way, good for you. If you want to get nostalgic about James Earl Jones, watch one of his good movies. Don’t watch 

Todd: this. I don’t know, man.

I would say, If you want to see a young, fit James Earl Jones, early in his career, 

Craig: Yeah, it’s true. I don’t think 

Todd: you’re gonna find a movie with so much of him in it. And he’s shirtless in a lot of it too. I mean, it’s Right. That’s true. And it’s in a beautiful location. It’s not an ugly movie to watch. I don’t know, man.

I’m I kind of had a very different feel of the movie than you did. I thought this was so bad it was good. Every bit of it As the longer it went on, the less sense it made, and the more silly it was. But I still loved watching these people kind of do their thing as ridiculous as their thing that they ended up doing was.

If they had been unknown actors, I might have felt differently. You know? But we’re talking Three Oscar winners Of former Miss USA Beautiful people in a beautiful location in a whack a doodle movie true. I think it’s worth the watch I think you should seek it out and the guy who Produced this and co wrote it.

His name is Nico Mastarakis. Have you ever heard that name? I don’t know. I don’t think so. This is like a blind spot in horror history for me But this is an independent producer who’s greek who’s done a lot of things You Like, I think he’s a bit of a self promoter, so, you know, take that for what it’s worth, but he has his name splashed over a lot of out there, independent films that I think are very cult and a lot of people like.

And I feel like we’re going to be returning back to this guy at some point. with one of his other movies, and I’m kind of surprised we haven’t hit them yet. He, back in 1974, watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and apparently was so taken by it and its popularity that he’s like, well, I’m just gonna make another movie that’s more violent and more disgusting so I can make a bunch of money.

And he shot a movie called Island of Death on another Greek island, and I guess it’s notorious. I don’t know about it, but the more I was reading about it, the more I thought, you know, We should probably put this in a rotation somewhere and visit a little bit more of this guy’s movies. Cause, for what they’re worth, you know, they’re kind of interesting.

The fact that you could get all these actors in this movie is kind of surprising and says something, I guess. But uh, man, I have notes about the song over the credit sequence, but I guess you probably just shut it off by then, huh? Or you weren’t paying attention? I 

Craig: actually, well, I, no, I did turn it off, but I did hear the first part of it and I’m like, oh, that sounds like a good song.

And it, and it, it sounded kind of familiar, I thought maybe, but. No, I slammed the computer shut. 

Todd: I, I listened to it and I was listening to the lyrics and I was like, Oh my god, it’s kind of like the movie. It’s, it’s like a pastiche of early 80s songs that you would expect to hear, but not necessarily in a movie like this, something a little more poppy, but then the words are so lame.

You know, they’re like something about the past, something about the future. And I want to sail with you to our next destination forever. It 

Clip: sounded catchy, but at the same time, 

Craig: it seemed tonally completely off. Like, Oh yeah. Yeah. Completely. I think you put this at the end of 

Todd: the wrong movie. Yes! Exactly!

That’s why I loved it. And I found out information about it. It was written by Shuki Levy, who, if you don’t know who this guy is, he wrote thousands of theme songs for children’s cartoons. And scores for them. So we’re talking He Man, She Ra, the World Ghostbusters, Inspector Gadget, Power Rangers. He’s the guy behind the music in most of those.

Nice. Nice. And he was married, at the time, to Debra Shelton, who played Madeline. 

Craig: Oh. 

Todd: And she’s the one singing. 

Craig: Oh! I didn’t know that either. 

Todd: But James Earl Jones, man, what more can you say? 

Craig: No, again, you know, we’ve done this so many times, I say the same thing every single time, but He’s gone, that’s sad, but Him, even more so than a lot of the people that we’ve talked about.

This guy is, his legacy is cemented. He, he, he’s a legend. He’s a John Wayne. He’s an Elvis Presley. He’s James Dean. People are going to know his name for a really, really, really long time. What more can you hope for really? 

Todd: Never had a controversy, never had a bout with drugs and alcohol, never was difficult to work with or anything like that, just everybody spoke glowingly about him.

And, and, you know, that’s how he came across on the screen, too. Just, uh, an actor very serious about his craft, but also having fun with it, and, uh, just seemed like a genuinely nice person that the world’s gonna miss. Well, thank you for joining us again for another tribute episode here on Two Guys in a Chainsaw.

We have our Halloween October season coming up, and we have a lineup that we think you’re really gonna enjoy. Please stick around for that. If you have friends who are into horror or who endure Halloween, or should I give a little preview if you have kids and are looking for a horror movies for your kids, we’re going to be covered more than a couple of those.

So, uh, if you know anybody like this, send them word of our podcast. You can send them to ChainsawHorror. com or just have them type in Two guys and a chainsaw podcast so that they can subscribe to us on their favorite podcasting platform Because we’re really looking forward to, uh, to Halloween this year.

Also, uh, for our patrons behind the scenes, we’re going to have a few extra special minisodes for the Halloween season, as we usually do. If you’re interested in joining the crowd, go to patreon. com slash ChainsawPodcast and look to sign up. Five bucks a month gets you access to all those minisodes, our Christopher Pike book club, the mini reviews we do, conversation with us behind the scenes.

and also influence over which requests we will do on the show. Patreon. com slash Chainsaw Podcast. Until next time, I’m Todd. And 

Craig: I’m Craig. 

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

This week, we are delighted to be joined by another guest and devoted listener, Jules O’Brian, to discuss her choice of the 2022 Danish-Dutch psychological horror thriller, Speak No Evil.

Be warned, friends: The laughs may be bright and carefree, but the movie is about as dark as they come. We follow the harrowing journey of a sweet little family as they visit the home of another family they met while on vacation in Tuscany. This month, an American remake hits the theaters, and we’re dying to see if and how it shakes things up.

Jules is a comedian currently touring around the UK. You can find her current touring schedule on her website, or catch up with her shenanigans from the comfort of your own home on her monthly podcast, Avoid Excessive Cleavage. Thanks for joining us on the show, Jules! The pleasure was all ours.

Episode 407, 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: And joining us today for the first time is loyal listener, Jules. Jules, say hi to the people out there. 

Jules: Hello everybody. This is a dream come true. 

Todd: We’re so happy to have you on, you know, you reached out to us and said that you were a fan of the podcast.

Now you’re based out of the UK, right? 

Jules: That’s right. Yeah. I’m in, uh, I’m in Birmingham. So slap bang in the center of the UK and, uh, and yeah, I travel around all over the place. Cause my, my job is I work as a standup comedian. So yeah, I travel all over the country and I discovered you guys, Oh gosh, not very long ago, really probably only about.

I think probably about three months ago, and I think I’ve, I’ve listened to nearly, I’ve listened to more of the podcasts that you podcast episodes that you have recorded than I haven’t, if you know what I mean. So it’s kind of, it’s bordering on obsessive.

Todd: Oh, that’s So flattering, I have to say. I’m sure you have some very boring nights. They must be especially boring if you’re resorting to listening to us. 

Jules: It’s fabulous. It’s great. Honestly, I’ll be driving down the motorway and, you know, it’ll be sort of a three hour drive or something, and I’ll be thinking, Oh, God, I just want to get home.

And I’ll be, you’ll be making me laugh as I’m driving. It’s brilliant. I absolutely love it. So thank you so much for that, for the entertainment. It’s been an absolute godsend finding you. Seriously, it’s Well, 

Craig: you’re kind, I very much appreciate your kind words and I am like immediately charmed by your accent.

So, I’m blushing, I’m blushing. That’s a brilliant place 

Jules: to start. I’m so pleased. Seriously, this is like a little party for me. I’m all set up. I’ve got a glass of wine. It’s fabulous. Oh, nice. I’m just having the best time ever. 

Todd: It’s evening time for Craig and I’ve had probably six or seven beers, but that’s been over the course of like seven hours.

I, I I just got off a really long board gaming session with some friends, we’re really big nerds. 

Craig: Oh my gosh, you and the board games. Yeah, this was I think, Todd, I think you may have a problem with board games. I may. It could be. It could 

Todd: be. Well, 

Jules: I love that you pick on Todd for the, for the, the board game situation, but I’ve just said I’ve got a glass of wine and that just gets to me.

Breezed over, that’s fine, that’s not a problem. Are 

Todd: you kidding me? I would, I would bet 50 50 roll the dice that Craig has a mimosa in his hand right now, and it’s like early in the morning for him. 

Craig: I don’t know what you’re talking about. 

Todd: Yeah, that’s right. Moving on, moving on. Anyway, 

Jules: well, 

Todd: we were so flattered that you reached out to us and so interested to chat with you, and since you’re no stranger to speaking into a microphone for Hours on End, we thought it would be lovely, lovely to have you on the show, and, uh, do Movie that you chose and you chose a few and I think it was more Craig that was narrowing it down with you But he and I chatted and I think we ended up among the three of us settling on 2022’s speak no evil directed by Christian Toftrup.

I believe right. It’s a Danish movie And, uh, I’m gonna butcher all of these Dutch and Danish names 100%. I think one of the reasons we really honed in on this is that it has an American remake coming up this month, in fact. So, you suggested it, and I’ll tell you right off the bat, I had never heard of it before.

And, uh, so of course I’d never seen it, so I was very interested in checking it out. Craig, did had you seen this before? 

Craig: Oh boy. All right. Storytime. What? I had seen it before and I remembered it being really dark. I was doing other stuff yesterday and I didn’t really get around to watching it. And I told my partner, Alan, I’m like, you may have to watch this movie with me.

And he wasn’t happy about it. 

Jules: Oh, 

Craig: and then we, we, we sat down to watch it together and we watched the first 10 minutes. And he was like, you’ve already made me watch 

Jules: this. Oh, 

Craig: no! 

Jules: Oh, can I apologize to Alan? I feel like I know what this is about. So, 

Craig: Alan, I’m so sorry. He’ll never hear that, but I’ll for him.

That’s true. So, we had to Stop. I was like, I’m not gonna make you and like I made him kind of prove it. Like yeah. Well what happens? And he started telling me I’m like Yeah, I guess I did make you watch it. 

Todd: You didn’t remember. So we had to, 

Craig: no, I remembered, I just didn’t remember. I’m shocked. I probably sold, I probably sold it to him the first time, the way that I tried to sell it to him this time too.

I’m like, it’s not, you know, like a monster movie, you know, it’s not that type of horror. It’s like a thriller, like, like a psychological thriller. Cause he gets into stuff like that. And it is. So I didn’t make him watch it again, but that meant then that I had to get up super early this morning to watch it first thing in the morning.

Oh, 

Todd: so you just came off it fresh. 

Craig: So, yeah, yeah, I just finished watching it like a half an hour ago. And, yeah, I, Jules, I’m with you, like, I had forgotten how dark it was. I was like, 

Jules: Yeah. 

Craig: Oh my God. This is horrible. 

Jules: When you just said that you’d forgotten that you’d seen it, I’m surprised by that because it’s one of those movies that I don’t know.

I mean, I find that quite a lot of horror movies I’ll watch and I’ll enjoy them in the moment. And then they’re pretty much, you know, they can be a little bit disposable, can’t they 

Todd: sometimes? 

Jules: This is one of those that has stayed with me, you know, although what I will say is I had forgotten the very, very ending of it, you know, after the, the, the, the brutal scene in the car, after that scene, I’d forgotten that there was another brutal scene after that one.

I think cause I was so shocked by the brutality of the, The first one. So yeah, but I am surprised that you’d kind of money. Perhaps you blocked it out because it was just, that’s what I was going to say. 

Craig: I wonder if it’s like selective memory. Like it really is. As soon as the movie was over this morning, I felt a little sick.

Like, that’s terrible. And yeah, we’ve, we’ve watched and talked about other, Movies that had a similar effect. Like it reminded me quite a bit of funny games 

Jules: and 

Craig: creep a little bit, 

Jules: the strangers a little 

Craig: bit. Um, Todd, you and I did that movie home movie. Do you remember that one? Where like the kids evil. It gave me all of those vibes.

It was just very dark and very disturbing and maybe more upsetting than the typical horror movie, because the scenario is something that any normal person would do. Could fall into now, I wouldn’t because I don’t trust or like people , so I 

Jules: would 

Craig: never . 

Jules: Well, this is kind of 

Craig: the 

Jules: message I would never, the movie, I think, isn’t it?

The message is trust no one. Everyone’s an asshole. Oh my God. Is what they’re 

Todd: saying. I, I have to tell you personally, I, I don’t gravitate towards movies like these. Tend to, and this is also where Craig and I, uh, uh, differ a bit, you know, in what we have historically watched movies for when we were growing up.

Particularly, we talk about this a lot. Like, I really liked watching horror movies because they were silly. You know, I, I grew up in the eighties and we would go to the video store, we would try to pick the worst looking movies on the shelf so that we could sit around and we could laugh at ’em. So my expectations were really low.

Keeping in mind also, I really love Halloween. I love being scared. I love going through, you know, haunted houses and things like that. And so I do want to watch movies that scare me. But ultimately, at the end of the day, you know, I want to be entertained. And horror movies are not something I go to when I want to have to think a lot and come away with this, this deep message.

And so movies like this can go one of two ways for me. Either I feel like they’re so mean spirited, and brutal and bleak and nihilistic that you just walk away and you just feel sick and you feel gross and, I don’t know, I need to like pop in Super Mario Bros. or something like that to like cleanse myself of This idea that, you know what, the world can actually be a really shitty place for a lot of people, and horrible people do horrible things to each other, and it’s not something I necessarily want to be reminded of.

You know? 

Jules: Mm hmm. Let alone Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Todd: In kind of an entertainment form. And so, even with the torture porn era, and those kind of movies coming out, generally speaking, like, what you’re seeing on screen is pretty brutal and gross and mean, but in general, most of those are still rather silly in their concept, or whatever.

But these movies, like, you just rattle them off, Craig, you know, like funny games and this and whatnot. They’re all too real. I was actually thinking of the vanishing. Have you guys ever seen that? Yes. Mm hmm. That’s it. 

Jules: Is that the one that was originally French and then there was a remake of it in the early nineties?

Is that right? Yes. Yeah, I know. Yeah, 

Todd: that might have been the first movie I ever watched that was so bleak and had an ending that was dark and didn’t turn out well for anyone that really, really unsettled me and bothered me. And I was thinking about that a lot when I watch this movie because once again, it’s it’s this case of these people who are on a vacation and they’re having a good time and they just stumble into a situation through it.

Yeah. Well, in The Vanishing, it’s almost just they’re no fault of their own. It’s just these bad, random things happen to people. In this case, like you said, Jules, the message of the movie seems to be like, maybe we’re too trusting of people and maybe we’re, we’re trying too hard to be polite. Yeah. Yeah. And so just to sum up my thoughts, like, I don’t hate this movie then.

You know, I, I don’t like a movie that’s just mean spirited and bleak. I’m like, wasn’t that awful. This movie does have a message as bleak as it is. And, and it’s as troublesome as it is. So, uh, I feel like it’s a, it’s a nice bit of art and there are a lot of nice things you can say about it. Even though I would warn people, if you’re already turned off by the topics we’re talking about right now, you’re probably going to want to give this one a hard pass.

Jules: Yeah. I think there’s probably something in that, but it is, I think this is such a good example of, of people not wanting to offend anybody, you know, and it gets taken to that ridiculous extreme. Cause I’ve, I’ve read some comments about it online with people saying things like, Oh, it’s so ridiculous as if you’d stand for that as if you put up with people behaving like that.

But I think it, when I read people commenting things like that, it made me think of, um, You know, the theory of if you put a frog directly into boiling water, it will jump out immediately. Of course it will. But if you put a frog into normal, you know, room temperature water and then slowly heat it up, it will stay in the water and die.

And it’s that kind of idea, isn’t it? You know, these people that are the, you know, the baddies, in inverted commas in the film, they don’t start out as being these idiots. sort of evil, dreadful people if they did, if their behavior was at the beginning of the film, as it is towards the end of the film, or, you know, certainly when it reaches that climactic point, you’d have run a million miles away.

You would have never engaged in conversation with them, but they, they almost groomed, don’t they? I guess that’s the term they groomed. Certainly Bjorn, the main So I found it a really interesting watch from that point of view. Just how much will people take? Although I’ll be honest. There were also times when I was going, don’t go back.

That’s ridiculous. 

Craig: Okay. So, yeah, I, I, I agree with you and I love that analogy. I think I’ve heard that before, but it does make a lot of sense. But there were just so many points in this movie where I couldn’t rationalize it. Like, I can’t rationalize why you’re saying, just leave. Like, you don’t have any connection to these people.

It’s not even your family. Like, just go. Never speak to them again. Like, why is this a problem? They are strangers to you. 

Todd: You 

Craig: know what 

Todd: though? I think everyone kind of falls on a different spectrum. And it probably depends on how, where they’ve grown up. Or, you know, how they were raised or whatever. My family, you know, I had a very idyllic childhood.

Both of my parents, we didn’t experience real stress. We never had real problems. And, uh, we were all have remained a very happy and loving family. And so we have just skidded about life. And most of our encounters are very. Friendly and normal and happy and we were raised most of our lives in the Midwest where everyone is polite to each other I mean, this isn’t a generalization, but you know compared to New York City or something like that People walking up and down the street and they say hi to each other and we We greet strangers we smile at them.

Craig: We wave to each other from the car Like if you pass them Like if you’re driving and you pass somebody walking, you wave at them. It’s 

Todd: ridiculous. We’re weird. And, and since, since I’ve moved abroad, you know, and I’ve been abroad a couple of different times and I do a lot of traveling, you know, I got to learn that most of the world is not like that.

There’s a spectrum, but most of the Americans in particular, I think have a sort of a reputation around the world for being, Overly friendly, overly sharing of their personal lives and things. You could sit next to a guy on a bus and we want to start up a conversation with them and pretty soon they know all about the last ten years and what we’re doing and who our family is and where we’ve been and all this stuff.

And I think people are, at best, amused by that, at worst, turned off and annoyed by it. Like, what in the, why in the world are you talking to me? So. So. Um. I get that, and so I kind of put myself in place, and you know, the Todd of 20 years ago wouldn’t have probably acted like this guy 100%, but he was very much of this mindset.

You know, I want, and still the Todd of today, really in a social situation wants everybody to be having a good time, and I will take some hits just to make sure that nobody else is offended or nobody else is having a bad time. So, I do kind of get how this can happen, and I have Only recently come around to this point where I need to be a little bit more like just like no, you’re a stranger I owe you nothing and this is weird and I goodbye I’m not gonna have anything to do with you and I’m not gonna feel bad about saying that 

Jules: Yeah, I think I’ve got I’ve had very very similar thoughts and feelings about this movie exactly what you’ve just said really But I think my issue with it is, like you say, you’re happy to take some hits when it’s concerning you.

You know, if people are having a good time, or I don’t want to be the party pooper and look like I haven’t got a sense of humor or whatever, or I don’t want to offend anybody. Um, but as soon as it starts to affect your children, I think that’s when, for me, that was the point when I suddenly, you know, I mean, I’m, I am a very non confrontational person.

And I will do everything Anything to avoid an argument with somebody. I just want to keep people happy. But I think if the kind of situations that arise in the movie happened in real life, I would very quickly learn how to punch somebody in the face. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. Gosh. I hate to be this guy, but I feel like we need to like give the, because I want to talk about those things.

Like 

Todd: when you say, 

Craig: when it starts, when it starts to affect the kids. I 100 percent agree and I want to get there, but I feel like I, we need to give the setup. Okay. So right? 

Jules: Like 

Craig: this, this normal couple, what are their names? Bjorn and Louise. Yeah. And, and they’ve got a daughter, Agnes, and they’re just on vacation and they meet another couple about their age who has a kid about their age.

And that’s Patrick and Karen. And, Patrick and Karen seem like normal and fun or whatever and they have a kid and the kids hang out together. And when they’re done with the vacation, Patrick’s like, you guys should totally come visit us. And they’re like, okay, whatever. And then they go back home, Bjorn and Louise go back home, and tell their friends, yeah, we met this couple, and they’re like, you should come visit us, but we’re probably not going to.

And their friend’s like, no, you totally should! It’ll be great! Well, 

Todd: in fact, one of their friends says, it would kind of be rude not to, wouldn’t it? Don’t they? Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. 

Craig: And somebody, and somebody says, what’s the worst that can happen. You guys, you guys, that is my headspace. My headspace is always, what is the worst that could happen?

And that’s, and that’s why I would never. I would never, like, I don’t care how, like we click on vacation. We have a great time on vacation. That’s great. I am not coming to your house to stay there for several days. I 

Jules: saw part of one of the trailers for the remake that is, that you mentioned is coming out very soon.

One of the actors that was in that, I think it’s the, the lady who’s playing, The Karen character and she said well I think probably the moral of this film is never hang out with vacation friends after the vacation.

Perfect. 

Todd: I mean, yeah. My point here is that we can delude ourselves in the moment into thinking we know somebody better than we do. Or that we are friendlier with them when we do. And that you were so susceptible to that on vacation. You can spend an intense week with a group of people, and you feel like you’re best friends, and then when you walk away, you never think of it again, and you realize, yeah, I didn’t really know anything about those people.

Honestly, even the time we had together wasn’t that amazing. It was just that we were together for an intense period of 

Craig: time. That’s my favorite part about it. Is that you get to, like, hang out and have fun with these people, knowing that you’re never gonna talk to them again. So, so, you can just totally be Yourself and like, you 

Jules: can pretend to be somebody completely different, 

Craig: right?

Or crazy or crazy, which is what this way to 

Todd: bring us back. 

Craig: Yeah. They take their child. To go stay at these people’s house. And that’s another thing. Like, I remember when I was a kid and I would get to go on vacation to like, spend a week with my cousins and we didn’t really have anything planned or anything.

We would just hang out and ride our bikes and play. And that was great. It was a great vacation. I can’t imagine as an adult, just going to somebody’s house to just hang out. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: it’s weird. Like, I don’t know, but it was 

Todd: another, it’s another country granted. It’s only an eight hour drive, but you know, they were like, we’re going to show you the Danish countryside.

You know, our son is really looking forward to your visit, which immediately sounds like a lie because their son barely talked and was super shy the whole time. He doesn’t 

Craig: talk at all. 

Todd: Well. 

Craig: Because he has no tongue! 

Todd: They don’t know that at first. 

Jules: That’s true, that’s true. They find that out later, don’t they?

I looked this up as well, by the way. I’ve been a proper geek about this. He mentions the condition that apparently they say that the child has been born with. And I thought, is that, is it actually real? You know, is that a condition that exists? And it is. I can’t, I can’t find in my notes now what he says it’s called.

Congenital aglossia. 

Craig: It’s a condition. 

Jules: Yeah, that’s it. There are, there are only 11 people in the world known, recorded people, 11 people in the world living with that condition. Really? So that would be a pretty weird thing to go and, you know, to just stumble across this family and the child happens to have that.

Although, of course, they wouldn’t know that at the time, but, um, yeah, I just thought that was an interesting little, little bit of info. Yeah, 11 people in the whole world haven’t got a tongue or born without one. That’s 

Todd: crazy, but they don’t tell them that at first and what I really liked about the movie was that it immediately I mean, you know, you’re watching a horror film so you were immediately expecting to be scared But yeah, I thought the film did a really good job of instilling this sense of dread from the very beginning Some of that came from the music And some of it, I mean, having pretty recently reviewed The Shining, I thought this actually copped a bit of style from that, especially in the earlier stages.

Yes! 

Jules: Oh god, yes! 

Todd: Yeah. 

Jules: That’s so true, that journey in the car at the very beginning. 

Todd: Yeah, very long still shots that were extremely wide that didn’t move, and mostly it’s just nature or, you know, the house and things like that. It was pretty creepy. 

Jules: Yeah, 

Craig: it hadn’t occurred to me, but I did have something, yeah, about the score in my notes and I hadn’t made that connection, but I definitely agree.

Sorry, I started talking and then thank you for establishing. But I think what, what bothered me Was that I understand that when we meet new people, and especially if we have no connection to them, maybe they say something a little off and we’re just like, You’ll let that go. Cause who cares, whatever. I just feel like there are so many red flags.

Jules: Yeah. 

Craig: So, so, so many, and maybe not. I, even though I just watched it hours ago, I don’t remember so much if on their vacation, there were those huge red flags, but as soon as they go to visit them, then there are like, but they’re rather small. The very first thing. The, the mom, well, I mean, they, they seem nice and hospitable or whatever, but the very first thing that happens is they come, they’re like, Oh, we cooked you dinner, we roasted a hog.

She had made a whole point. She was a vegetarian and she had explained to them why, like it was a whole thing. It wasn’t just a casual, like, Oh, sorry, I’m a vegetarian. And that’s the end of it. No, they had had a huge conversation about it. And then she shows up and he’s like, 

Clip: Louise, is this for you? Oh no, no, 

Craig: that that’s 

Clip: fine.

I insist. I insist. No, no. I’ll wait till the It’s my favorite part of the roast. It’s delicious. It’s crispy and soft at the same time. Yes. How would I feel? Yeah. What? What’s happening? Let’s go. It’s good, right? Very good. 

Jules: She just accepts it. She, she takes hold of the fork and goes, Oh, okay, then I’ll have some of the wild boar that I, you know, just like crazy.

I mean, both of my daughters are vegetarian. And if I did that, they, they’d tell me exactly where to go. You know, if I tried to say to them, Oh, here you are. Just have some of this roast beef that I’ve cooked. It won’t do. Come on. It’s really nice. It’ll do you good. They would not stand for that for one second, but that was what.

It did start to annoy me, kind of, and I thought, is that part of the whole message? You know, are we supposed to feel like that? Are we supposed to be aware that she’s not standing up for herself? 

Todd: Number one, I think, I think this is a cultural thing. The director himself, in some interviews, said that he was surprised that this movie translated across cultures because he said, this is such a thing that we Scandinavians, you know, that we, that we deal with.

Dutch, Danish, we are very, very constrained by this polite society, and we are never wanting to step on anyone’s toes. You know, I lived in Japan for three years, and the same kind of things can happen there. People will acquiesce to things that they are very uncomfortable about doing, just because they have been trained, you know, to keep the peace and to not say no.

And so 

Craig: Yeah. Always. That’s, that’s not . I, I understand that, you know, in different cultures, you know, you’re, but that’s not an American thing too. Like, yeah, if I go to somebody’s house and they serve me dinner and it’s something that I don’t like, I will still eat and be polite about it. But it, but if I have.

If I have told them in advance, I’m a vegetarian and I have specific reasons for being a vegetarian and then they serve me meat, I’m not gonna do that. 

Todd: That’s you, Craig. 

Craig: Maybe 

Todd: That’s you. Todd, come on. I’m telling you. No. Seriously? No, seriously, people will do this. It does seem extreme, really. People 

Jules: will do 

Todd: this.

Do you think? Uh, yes. Wow. They will. And now, I don’t know why she didn’t just pipe up and say, oh, don’t, don’t forget, I’m a vegetarian. She probably just could have said those words and whatever, but in the moment, with the chuckling and the insisting and all this stuff, there can be a lot of things going through your head.

There can be like, well, maybe he doesn’t remember, or maybe, you know, he, then you think, oh God, well, he cooked this whole roast boar and this is all we’re going to eat tonight, and then I’m going to spoil the whole thing by speaking up and saying something for it. You can be caught in this kind of position.

And now, you or I. Probably wouldn’t do that, but I am telling you, especially in some cultural situations, it would be again. It’s it’s so against your training that you just might just go along with it. Take a little nibble or just pretend like you ate a little bit of the end or something like that. But what’s going on here really is that these people are being tested.

You know, by the end of the movie, I was like, why did, why did all this happen? And there’s an answer, and I think we’re going to get to it, but They’re, they’re, what becomes obvious is they are being tested. These are just a series of, because they could just take this couple, you know, Hi, you’re at our house.

Put plastic bags over their head and do what they’re going to do with them. But yeah, you don’t know if they’re going to put up a fight, you don’t know if they’re gonna what they’re going to do. It’s so much better to do this grooming and to do this testing so that you know what you’re getting into. And I think that’s what’s happening here.

Jules: And I think they enjoy it as well, don’t they? I get the impression that it’s part of their, their game. It’s something that they like to do. It’s their hobby almost. So, um, yeah, very strange. 

Todd: Also, there’s this other dynamic too, right? There’s the husband and wife dynamic, and I think what is very clear from the beginning before they even go to that house is that Bjorn is a little unhappy.

He’s mm-Hmm. kind of got this longing for the simple life, you know, he’s very taken by Italy. By their time there in Tuscany, he’s, he’s like almost crying at the girls singing and looking around and, and he sees Patrick kind of raises glass like, Hey buddy, I’m enjoying this too. From across the way. Yeah.

And then back in the city, you know, he’s distracted when he’s at the apartment and you can see him staring out the window and the parallels are obvious, you know, he’s looking out the window and he’s like, this isn’t Tuscany. So he’s kind of wants to get into this and he kind of wants to, he’s, he’s got this appeal of this remote place out of nowhere.

And these people who seem to live this simpler life and are very easy going. And then. You know, now you have this husband and wife dynamic. Maybe the wife isn’t quite like that, but because the husband kind of is, he’s kind of like, Oh, go ahead, go, go with it, honey. You know, and they can’t argue in front of the guy.

And so, you know, that’s happened before 

Jules: in any relationship. That’s interesting that you’ve interpreted it like that because I interpreted. Bjorn as being incredibly bored with his life. I felt that he was sort of in that, I think we all go through it at some point, you know, when you realize, you know, adult life can be so monotonous and, you know, responsibilities and there’s that.

Brief moment when they, they go back home after the Italian holiday. And Louise is saying, Oh, Agnes needs some new shoes. What do you think of these shoes? And shows them a picture and, Oh, and she’s going to need another little jacket as well. I think I might order her one of those. And that’s when he’s looking out of the window and I, I imagine him just being so bored and then later on as well, when he’s, he’s in the car talking to Patrick and, uh, and he starts describing, well, Patrick is describing, I get this feeling inside that I can’t express and I need to, to let this thing out.

And what he means, of course, is because actually I’m a serial killer.

As well, you know, yeah, this, this feeling, there must be more to life, that kind of thing. Cause I was watching, I felt really sorry for Bjorn, but I just wanted to say, Oh mate, Do you know what? Just have a quick affair or something that just get it out of your system. 

Craig: I feel sorry for him in this situation because this is a terrible situation that he finds himself in with his family, but I don’t feel sorry for him for his life.

And I, I really kind of hate this trope of. People who are in long term relationships, like I’m, I’m so bored and I, like, I, I need something else. Oh God. Like you, you can be, you can be in a happy long term relationship. You 

Todd: can be, but I mean, it’s not necessarily just a trope, Craig. It does happen to people just cause you’re happy.

I understand. 

Craig: God, I understand it just bothers me like and and that scene that you were just talking about where they’re talking together in the car I 100 percent thought that they were gonna fuck

They did look at each other My mind 

Jules: didn’t go though. Oh 

Craig: my god I thought that Patrick is gonna whip his dick out and they were gonna go to town Huh? 

Todd: That 

Jules: would be a whole other movie. 

Todd: That’s the way you wanted it to go, wasn’t 

Craig: it? I don’t know, like, he, like, the bad guy is like 

Clip: You know, sometimes I have this, this thing, right here.

And, and it’s so powerful and wild. And, and, and I like it. That’s the weird part. I, I really like it. You understand? Yeah. You do? Totally. Normally I just, uh, Just try to hold it down or Keep it in, keep it in chains. Why?

I don’t know why. Too many rules, I guess. It’s, um It’s what? I don’t know. It’s close, yeah, I don’t know, it’s close to fabric, you know? It’s like I’ve become this person that I don’t want to be. 

Craig: Yeah, you know. What you’re supposed to do, but don’t you ever want to do what you’re not supposed to do? Like, uh, I think I’ve seen this movie.

Gosh, gosh, gosh. But I get it. You know, they, whatever. I would never do it, but they do, they go and they spend some time at the house. I’m like, everything’s okay for a while, but then everything’s weird. Like that’s. my problem with it. Like red flags and beyond that The red flags, they leave and then come back and stay.

Todd: That made me so angry, 

Craig: but 

Todd: I got it. I did not think, look, you can, you can look at it one way and say, I would never do that, but it doesn’t mean that it’s unrealistic. I think. I don’t think these people would do it. I don’t think they were unbelievable characters. Because it’s not like all these red flags all the time and they’re so severe, you know?

The first thing that really happens is when they’re out in the fields and Abel’s sitting on the slide and Agnes wants to slide down. There’s a language barrier. The parents all talk English to each other, but it seems like the kids can’t quite, I don’t know what it is, but anyway, one speaking Dutch, one speaking Danish.

Louisa asks Patrick, hey, you know, could you, could you maybe tell Abel to get off the slide so that she can go down? And he stomps over there and yanks him off the slide, quite forcefully, is like, apologize to her and whatnot. Now, he’s, he’s a bit rough with them, and this is the first time they’ve ever seen these parents deal with a kid who has an issue or something like that.

And. You know, I’ve been in situations like that where I’ve seen some parents and their parenting style is not something that I agree with. But, to me, that’s not like, oh, these people are weird. It’s like, oh, I don’t agree with this parenting style and it’s making me uncomfortable and I wish they would stop.

But Fine, 

Craig: fine, fine, 

Todd: but do 

Craig: you want to be friends with them? Do you want to go stay at their house? Well, 

Todd: if I’m already there and he’s a little rough with the boy and he’s like, no, you don’t need to be, it’s okay, you know, like, whatever. And 

Craig: then Yeah, I don’t question people’s parenting styles either.

That’s not my place. I, I, I understand 

Todd: that. The part that bothered me The part where I thought, Oh, my God, what is going on here? Is later that night, Louise expresses her feelings to Bjorn. She’s like, I don’t really feel comfortable here. And at first he feels like, well, he’s listening to her, but he’s like, well, maybe we can just manage it for another day, day and a half.

What’s the harm? And then almost immediately the next day in the morning, the woman comes in. Or might even be the next minute. The woman comes in, Karin, and says, Hey, we would like to take you out to our favorite restaurant here in town. And they’re like, Oh, that’s great. And as she leaves, Bjorn kind of looks at Louise and is like, So unpleasant, that woman, huh?

Like, you really think this is a big deal? But then, that night As they’re getting ready to go, a guy shows up and it’s the surprise babysitter. 

Jules: This was the moment for me. This was the moment when I thought, no, okay, that’s it now. No, no, no, no, surely they’re not gonna do this. They’re not gonna say, yeah, okay, we’ll leave our child with this man we’ve never met in our lives before.

Doesn’t even 

Todd: speak English. No way. That’s 

Craig: hilarious to me. 

Todd: That’s hilarious to me 

Craig: because my parents So would have done that. Like if their, if their friends had hired a babysitter and we were just going to be there, that would be fine. They’re friends, not 

Todd: their friends, but like they’re people they just met.

Jules: Exactly. I mean, I don’t know. I mean, he 

Craig: seemed nice. I mean, like, how, how much do you vet a babysitter really? I mean, like, he seems, 

Jules: well, 

Craig: I don’t have kids. You’re right. I would probably, I would, yeah, I would, but no, like my parents were young, they were in their twenties. I was a kid and they wanted to. My parents are middle America people, and they’re not wild at all.

When I say they wanted to go out, like, maybe once in a while they wanted to be away from their children. If that meant that they had to hire a college student that they’d never met before, 

Jules: I’m sure it’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. It just felt a bit different that obviously they didn’t, they didn’t know these people at all.

And you’re just taking somebody’s word for it that you’ve only known really for a matter, matter of hours and saying, well, yeah, that’ll be okay. 

Craig: Yeah. What bothered me is that Agnes’s parents, obviously you can see in their performance that they’re hesitant. They’re reluctant. They, something doesn’t feel right.

And they keep going along with it anyway. And that’s true for most of the movie. And I get that. Honestly, guys, I’m a very, like, antisocial 

Jules: person. I just 

Craig: am so happy to just be by myself in my house because I’m crazy. Um, but I, I get it. Like a rational person would normally, you know, you give people the benefit of the doubt, but to what extent?

And I just can’t imagine as those parents, they obviously sense that something is wrong and they continue to sense it. I just can’t. Yeah, but they continue to stay like but yeah, 

Todd: they yeah, they do but they’re they’re one foot out the door I mean, this is where it starts to really ratchet up like up to this point.

It’s kind of weird Yeah, but then at the dinner Patrick gets suddenly weird and confrontational about her Vegetarianism 

Clip: and remember I’m a vegetarian. I’m 

Todd: sorry. 

Clip: Yes. I don’t eat meat. Oh, yes. Yes, so good for the environment Yes, but you eat fish, right? So you’re not a vegetarian, you’re a pescatarian. Yes.

And fish is not meat? Of course, um, but it’s better for the environment. And the way the fishing industry works and how we treat the oceans is not affecting the climate. 

Todd: And they’re at this quiet restaurant that’s totally just them. It’s not really even a restaurant. It’s more like a bar with some tables.

Luisa’s getting drunk. They get up and dance and start making out. And at first, Bjorn and Luisa are like, Oh, you know, well, maybe we should get up and dance too. But then the other couple just starts going to town on each other. And it’s just making them so uncomfortable. And then when they go to leave Patrick looks at the bill and is like, Well, somebody had a good time tonight.

Craig: Yeah. I am out. I will pay that bill. I will pay that bill and I am f ing out. We’re done. Thank you. 

Jules: I just, I thought exactly that. That would be the moment, wouldn’t it? Where you would go, right. Okay. Literally, you have to really cross the line now. Things can’t get any worse. Surely. 

Todd: They’re driving drunk and their music’s loud and they won’t turn it down.

And they’re being rude. And. It wasn’t. Rude. Yeah. That was it for them. She, what, she takes a quick shower and it seems like, um, Patrick has come into the bathroom and is peeing while she’s brushing his teeth while she’s taking a shower. She comes back and they all agree. They both agree. We are leaving. So they get in the car and they go and to me this was like, you know, if this movie had gone any other way This is like they didn’t pass the test These couple did what they could to ratchet up to a thousand percent to see what would make this couple break This made them break and they left and then like you knew was gonna happen as they’re driving away This girl who we’ve already established loves her rabbit more than anything and the dad is like a little hero for going and fetching it Whenever she loses it.

She’s left a rabbit Oh my god. Oh my god. I was thinking, you remember Burnt Offerings? I was like so Burnt Offerings. It’s like, just go. Keep driving. You will get a new rabbit. Oh my god. 

Craig: Don’t go back! Yeah. Yeah, so stupid and then and then when they go back like it turns out the rabbit was in the car the whole time That was so um, yeah 

Todd: So cruel for the audience.

I felt so mad at the director for that. 

Craig: Yeah, and then there And so then they’re back and the husband goes in, it was like, sorry, we left. And the bad dad is like, Oh, good. I just hate that you didn’t think we were good hosts. Yeah, he does that so well. I thought that was funny. And the wife, the wife does.

like, I’m sorry, our house isn’t a mansion and we really thought you’d be comfortable. Like, fine. I get it. Who cares? Leave, send them, send them a nice email.

Jules: I’ve written in my notes here, I’ve just made myself laugh, I’ve written in my notes that the part where when Louise is in the shower and Patrick walks in, he’s brushing his teeth, I’ve written, am I a victim blamer? Because I was really angry with her in that moment. I thought she doesn’t even have to, you know, you wouldn’t have to be aggressive about it, but you could just kind of go, Oh, hi, did you know I’m here?

I’m in the shower. Can you, you alright, just give me a You know, she just kind of stands there and freezes in the shower. I thought, her husband’s literally just over the way. So just say, oh mate, I’m just here. Can you give me a minute? But then, no, and then to choose to go back for a cuddly toy. Oh no, this was when I started to really feel, as I say, a little bit, and I did think, am I, am I a bad person?

Am I victim blaming? Am I saying they’re asking for it? What am I dreading? I don’t know. They’re not 

Craig: asking 

Jules: for it. Ratcheting it up really slowly, isn’t it? You know, bit by bit, these people kind of fall into the trap. 

Craig: They’re not, I don’t think they’re asking for it, but they’re stupid. There’s no reason for it.

Like, and so many things happen. Like these people become, obviously, abusive to their own child who doesn’t speak because he doesn’t have a tongue, then I’ll just gloss over the point that the bad dad watches the nice couple and The and the good dad sees it and just doesn’t say anything

Jules: So weird and that was just after the shower scene as well She just got out of that shower obviously feeling really quite understandably Creeped out by it. She gets into bed with her husband and starts making out with him. And that felt a bit, that felt a bit weird to me. I wasn’t sure what was going on there, but okay.

I’m not, no judgment. 

Craig: I mean, no, it’s fine. To be fair. They can have sex. Next, if they want, that’s fine, but you are in somebody else’s house. And like, honestly, this house seems super small. So it seems like all of the rooms are kind of connected and everybody can hear. Like, I don’t know, maybe calm down, but whatever, that’s fine.

But when you see the gross, so dad watching you, I mean, and you’re just like, whatever, that’s cool. 

Todd: He glanced in, as he walked by in the hallway, he wasn’t like he was Standing there forever. I, I, 

Craig: he was standing there. He only walked away. He only walked away. 

Todd: He made 

Craig: eye contact and walked away. Yes. He only, yes, he only walked away because the guy saw him.

Well, he was standing there watching them. 

Todd: Yeah. Okay. Well this was also the same point at which the girl was trying to get into the bedroom. Yes. So her timing was poor. So obviously, you know, Patrick would be up because he was what we find out, he got the, he got the girl, he got, um, Agnes. The mother after they’re done banging gets up and is looking for Agnes and she’s not in her bed And it turns out she’s laying in bed with the other two couple with the other couple NAKED!

Craig: He’s naked, 

Todd: yeah. NAKED! He’s naked, yeah. 

Craig: That’s not okay! No, it’s not okay. And I feel like that’s the But this is the point I feel like that’s the thing that pushes them over the We really have to go and thank God they do. But then that God damn bunny and they come back. 

Todd: No, no, no, no, 

Craig: no. Am I going backwards?

You’re going 

Todd: backwards. Yeah, this is, you’re going backwards. This is when, yeah. No, this, this, they decided they were definitely going to go. But then there’s shit happening with Patrick and Abel at night. Bjorn confronted Patrick about the bed thing. Patrick tried to make him feel guilty about it. Like, well, your daughter was crying.

Where were you? But then, like, some stuff happens with Patrick and Abel at night. He can hear, Bjorn can hear them kind of yelling and arguing. Doesn’t really understand. And at this point, you can see it on his face. He’s like, we’re going to leave, but it almost feels like this kid needs rescuing. And so he gets up and he follows Patrick.

Well, he kind of wakes up and walks around and he sees Patrick kind of go out to the garage. Sort of follows him out and around and he finds, Camera equipment inside. That’s like a shed or something. And there’s a staircase up the stairs. And when he gets to the top of the stairs, he sees all along the walls, all of these many photos of them posed with families, much like the photo that this family had sent them after their vacation in Italy.

And what he notices is. That in each of these photos, it’s like they’ve kid swapped. There’s a photo of them with this other family and their kid. And now they have that kid and he immediately knows what’s going on. He goes downstairs and he wanders out to where the, I guess is another building where the pool was, right?

And this, this was the part that really turned my stomach was when he walked into that pool and saw Abel floating face down. 

Craig: Yes. It was horrifying. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, I knew what was going on. I knew these people were crazy. I knew that they were grooming or whatever their victims. I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, but to see them posed with all of these other families with their.

At the time, child, and then, you know, the victim parents with their child, they’re just doing this. It made me sick. And then, I really think that the most shocking thing From this movie, you know, despite the fact that Abel or whatever the kid’s name is, has been kidnapped and tortured and blah, blah, blah, to see him floating dead in the swimming pool, really, really upset.

Jules: Yeah, it is. That’s upsetting, isn’t it? It is a really upsetting moment. But you know, I thought that the actor who plays Bjorn, I thought, Thought he was absolutely brilliant. Did you? Cause all the way, all the way through the movie, I’ve been so frustrated with him, so annoyed by him. And then to see his facial expression, you all know, you see the penny drop when he’s looking at the photographs and you think, thank God.

Okay. Now he’s going to leave. And then. He’s confronted with that horrific moment of seeing this poor, poor little boy floating in the pool. And I just thought the act, that actor was so good. Yeah. I thought his facial expressions were absolutely spot on. So yeah. Horrific scene, but absolutely brilliantly done.

I 

Todd: thought. Oh, he was brilliant. So amazing. 

Craig: Yes. Agreed. Agreed. I think that the acting in this movie is fantastic. I think this is a really good movie. I think that it is beautifully shot. I think that the acting is fantastic. It’s very suspenseful going in. If you don’t know what you’re getting into, it’s shocking.

And there are a lot of twists. Like, I think it’s a great movie. 

Jules: Yeah, 

Craig: I suppose it is very difficult to watch because, and I think for me, the reason that is difficult to watch is because as anti social as I am, I could potentially find myself in a situation like this, that I’ve tried to be nice and now I don’t know how to get out of it.

Jules: Yes. 

Craig: Yeah. Ultimately, I, I think that that’s what the big struggle is. They try to be nice and they’re trying to get out of it, but they don’t know how. And then in act three, it turns into something totally different where these people are in fact psychopaths. They are doing this. Apparently, systematically.

And we don’t know why. Like, We never find out. We don’t know why! No! And, like, is it just them? I, I, I did read that they had initially intended to The finale was supposed to be larger. That, like, it was, like, supposed to be, like, a religious sect that was sacrificing people and, and yeah, me too. Me too. I am too.

I prefer that. It’s just these crazy people. 

Jules: Yes. The fact that it’s meaningless makes it more horrific, doesn’t it? I mean, obviously it’s horrific anyway, regardless. But the fact that there is no real motivation, no real purpose, it’s, it just is, that’s, what’s really scary. I think. Well, and that’s why 

Craig: I said in the beginning, you know, I listed all those movies that are reminded me of the reason that I included the strangers is because there’s such a similar line in the very end, one of them says, why are you doing this?

And the bad guy says, because you let me, yeah, like that’s so crazy. But at the same time, I’m like, yeah, I would not have put myself in that position. I feel bad for you, but don’t put yourself in that position. 

Jules: Especially obviously on the rewatch. I thought there are so many moments where you go, okay, if you just stopped now, if you turned around now, everything would be okay.

No, you’re going to keep going for a bit. Okay, well, if you stop now, that was a bit horrible, but it will still be okay. You know, there’s so many, there’s probably about 10 moments where they could have taken the opportunity to go, Do you know what? That’s, that’s just gone one step too weird. We’re going to go home.

But they don’t, they just keep rolling with it. 

Craig: They almost get away so many times. 

Jules: Right. 

Todd: And you still feel like they could have. And there were so many moments when they could have, but they were so paralyzed and so inactive. 

Jules: Yeah. 

Todd: Basically, they get in the car, they take off, they have car trouble, so of course they gotta stop, and like an idiot, he says, You guys wait here and I’m gonna go up to the house.

Yeah. Ugh, don’t do that, you know? So of course he goes to the house, there’s nobody there. When he comes back, Patrick and Karin are right there. And they’ve already brought the girl and the mother into the back seat and told them that Patrick called for them. And he’s standing outside the car and, uh, Pat Stop 

Craig: listening!

Stop listening! If you Yeah, if you don’t want to be disturbed. Bjorn, 

Todd: Bjorn says to Patrick, like, please don’t hurt my family, and Patrick lies to him and he says, everything will be fine as long as you do exactly what I say. By the way, everybody out there, that is never true. 

Jules: Yeah, that 

Todd: is something people say it’s never true.

So he goes in and he is continues to be compliant. He doesn’t turn around and shout. Something’s wrong. He doesn’t reach over. Patrick even tests him one more time by pulling over to the side of the road, taking a piss, leaving his keys in the car. He could have done that. The movie is just hammering this point home that evil exists in the world and sometimes it’s able to be successful because we literally just stand by and do nothing even when it’s our own best interest.

And it’s frustrating to see him do this and then they drive all around and then they stop because they’re clearly not going to the house. And the most heartbreaking part of this whole movie for me. Is when the mother and the girl are getting scared and in the back and the girl’s like mommy mommy I’m scared and she pulls her to her and says honey.

You know what? Mommy’s always told you nothing bad can happen to you While mom is with you 

Jules: Yes. 

Todd: Oh. And two seconds later, something bad happens to her. 

Craig: She gets her tongue cut off. 

Todd: And dragged away forever. 

Jules: Oh, it’s heartbreaking. That part is just, oh, I could feel that in my stomach. Just that, you know, literally having a child dragged away from you.

And don’t tell your child this thing. And it’s the babysitter. It’s the babysitter. We knew. We knew. Don’t trust the babysitter. Yes. It 

Craig: was bad. It was bad. My God, that part killed me too, because I feel like when that Girl, when Agnes was ripped away from her mother, her mother died in that moment. Like, for the remainder of the film, she wasn’t even there.

She didn’t care. She was done. She was done. I think that the dad and God, if you haven’t, if you’re listening to this and you haven’t seen this movie, I really, you should watch it. Like stop now and watch it.

Jules: But I 

Craig: was 

Jules: just 

Craig: so, I just felt so sad at the end. It felt so tragic and they take those. people, the nice people, the nice couple that we like, they take them and they force them to strip. 

Jules: Yes, there’s more humiliation on top of the heartbreak and on top of the dreadful things that have already happened.

They take it even further. It’s just so horrible. 

Craig: Right. Just, just your humiliation, degradation. Yeah. But only just say, go here. And then we’re going to stone you to death. Yeah. I have never, I have never in my life I think seen, I don’t know, maybe some religious movie like Passion of the Christ that I’ve blocked out.

I don’t know, but I’ve never seen somebody stoned. Oh 

Jules: yeah. That’s brutal. And, and 

Craig: to, and to see these two people who are. scared and defeated. I mean, they’re defeated. It’s, it’s over and they know it. Yeah. To see them just cling to each other and then be brutally stone to death. It’s sick. It’s disgusting.

And it was so hard to watch and and then the credits just roll and my jaw is just on the floor like watch

Jules: Who is this strange British woman who’s made me go through this experience? 

Todd: No, I was like, who is this team of people who’s investing time and money into remaking this for an American audience? I was like, what the hell? What are they thinking? 

Jules: I’m really interested to see it. 

Craig: Yeah, did you all read that whoever the money behind this movie wanted them to film alternate endings because they didn’t feel like the audience would be satisfied with this ending.

So they, they wanted it to be a lot of different people executing people or they wanted there to be some explanation behind why. These people were torturing these other people and ultimately they just didn’t do it So I’ll be very interested to see in the remake if they stick with the really really bleak Nature of this or if they do something different.

I have no idea 

Jules: Yeah That is gonna be interesting because I think the one of the reasons that this film was so unsettling and upsetting is precisely for that isn’t it as we said earlier that the fact that you’re not given a reason it’s we’re not told you know what these horrible people’s childhood was like or you know what it is that why their how their brain is wired wrongly so that they behave in this horrible way they just are almost the epitome of, of evil, really.

They’re just bad people. And it’s really difficult to have to have to think about that, isn’t it? You know, we like, even when, you know, dreadful things happen in the real world, we all, one of the first things we ask is why did they do that? You know, not that it makes the actions any better, but at least we can start to try and gain some sort of insight into what that person’s, what they’re doing.

Source of thinking was, but yeah, this, this kind of, I will be interested to see if the remake, because I presume the remake will have had a much, much bigger budget. And, um, yeah, they’re going to have to obviously, you know, they, they’re going to want to sell tickets. So are they going to do it so that it’s got a happier ending, you know, and the good guy wins out.

I’m really interested to see how they’ll do this. 

Craig: God, I can’t even imagine. James McAvoy, I think is playing the, 

Jules: yeah. 

Craig: Patrick the bad guy. I 

Jules: love him. 

Craig: He’s he’s brilliant. He’s brilliant. Yeah, he’s a brilliant, brilliant actor. Yeah. What split I think was the one movie that he did. He is That’s 

Todd: that guy. He’s fantastic.

Yeah. He’s got 

Jules: eyes that just, he can do this thing where he, and I don’t know if you’ve watched the trailer for the remake of it, but his eyes are amazing. He’s got this look, hasn’t he? Of you don’t know what I’m going to do from one second to the next. You know, he’s just, he’s got this, But he’s all because he’s such an attractive man, you sort of, he’s perfect playing that kind of person that can lure you in and then just, you know, kind of completely turn into something different.

Yeah, I think everything. I don’t think I’ve seen James McAvoy in anything that I haven’t. Enjoyed, you know, and it’s largely down to his performance. I just think he’s he’s excellent. 

Craig: Well, yeah I 100 agree and I I think that he’ll be great. This seems like a great role for him I I think he’s got i’m i’m looking forward to it 

Todd: I think he’s got a big shoes to fill because I thought the original actor fed.

Yvonne Hewitt. Oh, absolutely 

Jules: Yeah Did 

Todd: you know, by the way, he’s married to the, to the actress who played his wife in the movie, Karina Smulders. He has a very, very, very long and accomplished career from the Netherlands. He’s just, uh, he’s been in a lot of movies and he’s apparently very well respected and loved.

I just, you know, I don’t see enough of him because I don’t watch a lot of foreign films. See what kind of happens to come past me, but, uh, I was very, I had a lot, I had a pretty good time reading up on him and going back and looking at some clips of some of the other stuff he’s done. He’s brilliant. And he really pulled this off well.

Jules: Yeah. I thought the cast in general were fab, weren’t they? They were just great. Yeah. 

Craig: A hundred percent. I thought they were fantastic. The, the woman who is his wife and played his wife, I thought she was spectacular. I thought they were all great. Everybody did a great job. Todd and I, when, when I told Todd that we were going to do this movie, I said, it’s so weird to me that there’s going to be a remake because this movie just came out in 2022.

Todd: And 

Craig: I said, and it, and it’s an English language film. I had forgotten that it’s not entirely English language. But I, I, I still, I still find that a little bizarre. Like, why are, why are we remaking movies two years later? It just came out. Yeah, it 

Jules: is interesting. And I hope they do keep that sort of understated vibe to it.

But the more we talk about it and the more, as you say, it’s only two years later, makes me wonder if they will. Completely change parts of it so that it’s it’s not quite so understated and it has got that more sort of Budget, I don’t know, slightly more action horror feel in places to it, you know, what do you think?

Yeah. 

Craig: Well, well, I, I mean, I’ll watch it. I don’t, I might, I might see it in the theater or I might wait until it comes out on streaming, but I’ll, I’ll definitely watch it and, and maybe then you can watch it too and come back and talk with us again, because this has been great. Like, oh man. 

Jules: It has been so much fun, I can’t begin to tell you.

It’s so nice. 

Craig: It’s so nice when people reach out to us. I, I told Alan this morning, like it was right before I was getting on, like 20 minutes before I was getting on. And I said, there’s, there’s a woman in London who is excited to talk to me.

I’m, I’m as shocked 

Todd: as you are, Craig, honestly, 

Craig: here I am, here I am in my little tiny modest house in middle America, Missouri, and I’m like, there’s somebody out there in the world who is excited to talk to me and that just makes me feel really, really good. 

Jules: Talking to the two of you has just, it’s been the highlight of my year, honestly.

And the fact that you’re mentioning Alan to me is Alan, Alan knows who I am. That’s amazing. 

Craig: He does. He’s like, Oh, are you, are you recording with the comedian today? Like, yep.

Jules: Love Alan, love him for that. 

Todd: Tell us about your podcast. You’ve got one as well, don’t you? 

Jules: Yeah, I have a podcast. My podcast is called Avoid Excessive Cleavage and it’s named after the title of my comedy show, which is, the full title of my comedy show is Avoid Excessive Cleavage and Other Advice to Ignore.

And the reason that it’s called that is because Because I am a woman of a certain age. And once you get past around about the 40 mark, you seem to just be given so much advice about what you should and shouldn’t wear, how you should and shouldn’t behave, things you should and shouldn’t do. And I just got a little bit tired of it.

So I did a whole show about aging and how. You should just own it and be happy and have a great life, no matter what age you are. So I ran with that and my podcast is also based around that idea of kind of, who cares how old you are, just live your life and have fun. 

Todd: Mm. 

Jules: So yeah. That’s what my podcast is all 

Todd: about.

Gonna have to get listening to that. And so if we just search for that name, we can find it. 

Jules: Avoid excessive cleavage, guys. 

Todd: Wonderful. Oh, well, I don’t, I’m not going to take that advice, but, uh,

I happen to have a fondness for excessive cleavage myself. So, uh, 

Jules: there you go. 

Todd: I will take 

Jules: it. Get your cleavage out and then have a great time. That’s all good. 

Todd: Then I’ll take your advice. That’s wonderful. 

Jules: No, it’s been fabulous. I’ve absolutely loved it. Thank you so much for having me on here, guys. It’s been fabulous.

Todd: Thank you for coming on. It’s been lovely chatting with you, and thanks for the recommendation for such a good movie. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jules. Thank you all out there for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please reach out to us as well. You can just go on to our website and click talk to us, where you can record a little voice message.

You don’t have to have any special software or anything installed. You just send us an email. Send that straight to us. We’d love to hear from you. If you don’t have to do that, you can also just shoot us an email, or find us online at Facebook, or Twitter, or our Instagram channels. Just search for Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast and you’ll crack us down there.

If you really want to get deep in the weeds and become a part of the party, join our patrons at patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast. We have a lot of fun behind the scenes and a lot of chatter going on there as well. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. And I’m Jules. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw. 

We’ll see you next time.

If you’re looking for a late-night-cable-horror flick to goof on, Demonic Toys would fit the bill. Otherwise, there are probably better so-bad-they’re-good movies to spend your time with. Craig revisited some nostalgic one-liners from his childhood, while Todd just threw up his hands.

Episode 406, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys in a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. Well, today we are doing a movie that you suggested, Craig. I had suggested we do Ghoulies. Just kinda out of the blue, really. But you came back with, Oh man, I wanna do Demonic Toys. Because, uh, you wanted to do something quite silly.

I thought Ghoulies was gonna be silly enough. But, uh, apparently, The bar wasn’t, wasn’t low enough. Before we did 

Craig: it, I kind of wanted to have a talk about Ghoulies, because I honestly don’t, I don’t remember Ghoulies that well. What I remember really liking is Ghoulies 2. The one where they’re in like a circus, and I never saw that one.

It’s got our favorite old guy in it. I don’t be able to think of his name. He was in The Blob and House 2. Oh, yes. Royal Dano? Yes, yes. He’s in it. So anyway, I just wanted, before we committed to Ghoulies, I wanted to kind of toss that around. Have a serious conversation. Okay, fair enough. 

Todd: Well, we’ll save that for another day.

Now we’re gonna have a very serious conversation about demonic toys, aren’t we? Well, it 

Craig: did, it brought that movie to mind. They’re not dissimilar, they’re both little creature movies. And, I didn’t remember much about this movie at all, except for the fact that fact that my sister and I used to watch it when we were kids.

Yeah. And I felt like I, I remembered either liking it or thinking it was funny or, or something. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but I thought 

Todd: it’d be fun to return to. You would have been in middle school when this was released. It’s a direct to video release. Yeah. And so do you think you rented it?

Maybe copied it or. Maybe you rented it. This feels like something that. It feels like late night. Yeah. I was just going to say like USA up all night. A hundred percent. I was getting Sorority Babes and the Slimeball Bola Rama vibes. Almost anything really by Charles Band around this time kind of has these same vibes.

It’s just, uh, you know, let’s face it, relatively cheap, straight to video schlock. But, you know, they have their charm points, and I certainly enjoyed watching those movies. When there was nothing else to watch late at night, mostly hoping to see some boobs and a little bit of gore too, and something silly.

And, and, this has all of that in it. A bunch of silly stuff, some gore, and a couple boobs, so, uh, I mean they were Not God given, but they were there. Big, yeah. As was the style at the time. Right. Nineties. Oh my God. I’m 100 percent certain I’d never seen this before, but I had heard of it. You know, I figured we were going to get to it eventually.

I am aware that this movie spawned some sequels. And, uh, some crossovers with Dollman. There’s like Dollman vs. Demonic Toys. There’s Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys or something like that. We did Puppet Master earlier and, of course, It’s kind of hard not to compare the two since they are both Charles Band productions.

Yeah, I’m just gonna come right out and say I think Puppet Master is a far better film than this one. They’re both similarly a little far fetched and corny. Similar production value. I don’t know. I think Puppet Master has a higher production value, but it came first. I think They were up to Puppet Master 2 or 3 by the time this movie came out.

Yeah. And those were at least released in the theater, I think, and this one never was, 

Craig: so. The security guard in this movie is watching a Puppet Master movie on his TV. Yeah. Little in joke there, right. Yeah, I don’t know, I think Puppet Master probably had a little bit better production value. I know we’ve talked about it, but it’s been a long time, I don’t remember it all that well, but I kind of seem to remember it being at least a little bit scarier.

Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Then this movie, 

Todd: this movie isn’t really scary. Unlike a lot of these, really, it doesn’t make any pretense toward any kind of suspense. I liken it to almost like just a supernatural slasher without the suspense. The characters are, almost all of them are just unlikable, or you just don’t care about them, or they’re just unbelievable because the acting is kind of terrible.

We’re going to talk about it because, you know, we’re nobody. Look, nobody is going to take this movie seriously. Nobody’s probably supposed to take this movie seriously. Now our job here on this podcast, we fairly review horror films where our job is to take this movie seriously somewhat. So we’re going to talk about the good and the bad from a critical perspective, from a movie that probably doesn’t never asked to be reviewed from a critical perspective.

Yeah, 

Craig: I, but. That being said you’ve got to take it for what it is like, oh, yeah, that’s what I’m saying This movie doesn’t have aspirations to greatness in any way. Oh, no. No, I think it’s just it’s trying to be fun Yeah, it’s weird. The thing that I found the weirdest about this and we can talk about specific Moments moving forward, but I couldn’t tell if the movie was written for 13 year old boys or by a 13 year old boy, like 

Todd: I agree with you all the only thing, if it had been written by 13 year old boys, there would have been more than two boobs in it.

So I would say probably probably for 13 year old boys. 

Craig: Yeah, gosh, some of the dialogue, especially wow. Wow, 

Todd: the writing, you know, there’s this, there’s this line, right? I mean, there’s movies like this and then there’s movies like, and I just want to keep coming back to it, Chopping Mall. Yeah, and you could almost say Chopping Mall is just as corny and silly, but Chopping Mall has a bit more tongue in cheek.

Not that this movie doesn’t. There’s something about Chopping Mall that is just laughing at itself so much that it’s charming and I didn’t find a lot of charm in this movie. I and I found it Entertaining if you have nothing else to watch, you know, there’s stuff going on. There’s stuff to see it’s not boring.

That’s well, it is a little boring in some parts, but it’s, you know, it’s not as charming as I thought it could have been and should have been. I remember the puppet masters movies being charming maybe because there was a degree of mystique and mystery and, and a bit of lore that was actually rooted in history that, I mean, even though it’s rather silly.

It wasn’t quite as silly and convoluted as the bizarre lore from this one. Oh god, right? I get what you’re saying. You know what I mean? You’re saying I’m having a hard time expressing how I feel about it 

Craig: Yeah, I get really hard. It’s not good. Like like you got to go into it It’s a it’s bad. Like it’s a bad movie, but I think it just Manages to reach so bad.

It’s good. Like for sure There are parts of this movie that are really funny that that made me laugh out loud and it’s, it’s so silly and so ridiculous and like you talk about that The backstory of it. It’s so stupid, but 

Todd: the backstory does feel like it was written by 13 year olds. 

Craig: Oh my God. Well, and the whole thing, I mean, the whole story is so there’s so little to it.

Right. The, the main character is this woman cop. And in the beginning, she’s sitting out in front of this factory with her partner, who is also her romantic partner. 

Clip: We were right to move in together. And, now that you mention it, maybe we should get married. Look, I got nothing against marriage. Just that, you know, we should get married when we’re ready to have kids, you know?

Do you want kids? I mean, cause we never really talked about it or anything. 

Craig: Yeah, 

Clip: sure, someday, 

Craig: you know. And she confesses that she’s pregnant. Yay, they’re gonna have a baby, but they’re on a stakeout. And, as soon as 

Todd: That was clever. They’re having this, almost like this romantic talk there. It’s funny too, the way it’s shot.

It’s shot over each other’s shoulder, but they’re each looking at the camera in close up when they’re talking to each other. I think Witchboard did this. I can’t remember which other movie we saw that, where I thought that was really But then, you know, they’re embracing, and it’s like, Oh, I’m pregnant, oh, I’m gonna be a father, And it’s like, you shouldn’t have come out here tonight.

And, you know, and she’s like, That’s okay, you got your piece? Yeah, I do too. Alright, let’s do this. That was funny. That was funny. 

Craig: And well, and then this car comes racing around the corner and for a second, her partner guy, like pretends that they’re making a deal, like an arms deal or a drug deal. I don’t remember.

It doesn’t matter. But as soon as he says, yeah, now you’re busted. You’re under arrest. The bad guys pull out guns and start shooting and shoot him dead.

That was. 

Todd: Yeah, dark and quick, and also the most inept cops you can possibly imagine. He pulls out his gun and says, freeze, while the criminals who are, I don’t know, 12 inches away from him are both holding guns. It’s pretty stupid. 

Craig: They have a little shootout, and I, does she shoot one of them? I think she shoots one of them.

It’s such a little shootout. 

Todd: She shoots one of them as he’s running away, and then proceeds to kneel down very dramatically over the body. Oh 

Clip: my god, no! No! 

Craig: But, but not call anybody. No! Cause that would, that would make far too much sense. So instead, she just left him. Yeah, she leaves him there on the ground in an alley.

For dead. And then chases this bad guy with a gun into an old toy factory. Where the rest of the movie takes place. Oh, maddeningly. Okay. And it’s just, like, stacks of boxes and, like, chain link fences. Like, 

Todd: it’s cheap. It’s a cheap and boring location. Oh, my God. But this is very typical for these productions.

I mean, you find your one location or your three sets that you can use and just move the boxes around and make it look like a slightly different aisle or whatever, you know? Uh huh. It’s lit like a TV movie. Lots of blues, like, like blues and shadows 

Craig: in hallways and stuff. It needs more shadow. It needs more grit.

That’s where I would say that, that, that is somewhat charming to me. These feel like those late night movies. They, like you said, they were, many of them were like this low budget, cheap sets. So I’m kind of getting into it at this point. I made a huge mistake of. Skipping the actual beginning, which is a dream sequence, 

Todd: which is 

Craig: weird.

Todd: Oh my God, this dream sequence. How convoluted is this movie? They’ve got what could be a dream sequence out of Nightmare on Elm Street visually, except the cheaper version. Cheap, yeah. Very cheap version. It looks like, again, like the high school put it together with their, with their theme. theater flats, but it’s the, the woman, uh, what was her name?

Judith. Sitting in a chair, two boys in front of her who were playing war with cards, you know, the, where you, where you’d flip over a card. The boys are facing each other and then surrounding them are clocks, like tall grandfather clocks, smaller clocks. There’s even a giant pendulum swinging behind her on the wall.

gossamer curtains. Oh god. Oh, they tried 

Craig: well and the and like the camera is doing all these angles like it’s it’s not just shooting them straight on it’s like You know tilted 15 degrees or whatever Oh my god, it’s so silly and they’re just sitting and like the whole thing is one is blonde. They’re the same age.

They’re both, I would say, I don’t know, eight, nine, something like that. One is blonde and the other is brunette. And then I don’t remember if this is revealed here. We come back to the stream sequence a couple of times and it’s always the same. Um, but at some point you realize that the dark haired boy also has these, you know, Unnatural eyes like these green kind of demon eyes and he’s also got like claws instead of regular fingernails It’s super heavy handed and they’re playing war but they’re like drawing every time like yeah Or or one wins and then the other wins and then the other wins and then it’s it’s very Kind of even God, it’s like, what could it mean?

What could it be? Well, we’re just going to have to watch and find out. I suppose we’re just going to have to watch and find out now this is part. I’m not sure if I remember. Okay. So they go, there’s a guard in there and stuff. He’s like this fat, this fat guy. And he calls for chicken, which brings the chicken delivery boy eventually.

And that’s it. 

Todd: That’s 

Craig: everybody. That’s all our people. 

Todd: Except for the demon, right? The chicken guy, who at first I thought must be his son or related to him. I guess he’s just a good friend. Cause he asked to get him on the phone. He just delivers chicken to him every night. That must be it. And there’s a bunch of dumb bi play with the boy.

Unrealistic dumb bi play with the chicken guy at the chicken shack. 

Clip: Mr. Wayne. Mr. Wayne? You got a cigarette in your mouth? 

Craig: No. It’s your dick. This is the, this is the writing. This 

Todd: is what a 13 year old thinks he could just say to his manager and get away with. Those are the jokes, folks. They don’t get any better than that.

They get worse. It’s chunky chicken? Yeah. And he asks if he wants his chicken extra crispy or chunky and he’s like, You know. Chunky. What would that be? I don’t know. I don’t want to know. That sounds awful. I don’t want to know either. I was like, I was waiting to see it. I thought that was going to be a joke of some kind and I’m kind of glad it wasn’t because I wasn’t sure what that would be.

So you’re right. He drives up and he’s got a hatchback with a giant chicken on top. And that’s apparently what they tootle around town in. The Chicken Mobile. to deliver chicken to people. He pulls in, and you’re right. We’re inside the warehouse, and these are gonna be our people. And what happens is that the woman, in this very long, drawn out, god awful action sequences, is chasing after the bad guys.

And there’s the really, really mean guy. And I don’t remember what Oh, Lincoln. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: He’s the utterly crazy one. And then there’s the one that she’d actually shot, the blonde, the white haired guy. And he is crawling after Lincoln, and Lincoln’s like, Oh, fuck you, man. He kicks him down the stairs. Lincoln’s not having it.

So Lincoln runs upstairs, and this poor guy is just crawling across the floor. And then he bleeds. Yeah. On a glowing spot on the floor that is cut in what we later see is the shape of a pentacle? Star? It’s not even that, it’s just a star. I think it’s, I 

Craig: think it’s a pentagram, but There’s no circle. Right, well, yeah, I think there is, cause Later there’s a circle.

Cause the baby draws it. Exactly, that’s what I was gonna say. Cause these bad toys come to life. Does the body, like, disappear? I don’t remember. His body? Yeah, I don’t remember. He bleeds into the floor and then these bad toys come alive. This is hilarious. This is what I love about this movie. These bad toys.

Now, it’s very much in the vein of like Puppet Master or any of, or Ghoulies or even Troll. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Right, right. But these, I love the design of them, but what’s hilarious to me is that they are very clearly just hand puppets. Or just toys that somebody is holding from behind and shaking. Yes. 

Todd: Like, 

Craig: at their worst.

They very, make minimal, minimal effort to make these things look at all real or alive. Like it’s just a puppet on somebody’s hand or somebody holding a doll around a corner and shaking it as it’s supposed to be talking. And I think it’s kind 

Todd: of hilarious. It’s hilarious. And that’s, that’s the thing. Part of the charm of the movie, but except for Baby Oopsy.

Well, there are some, there, 

Craig: there are some really tight close ups of like their faces and stuff. But anytime you see them in their entirety in the shot, it looks not great. There are some close ups, like the baby, the bear gets some scary close ups and stuff. Yeah, but what were you gonna say? Sorry to interrupt.

Todd: Well, I was gonna say I appreciated the effort given to Baby Oopsy. Baby Oopsy is a very rudimentary animatronic. It’s almost like a ventriloquist dummy with where just its jaw kind of comes down. But then you can tell there are like two wires somewhere in there that are only there to pull him up into an evil grin.

Which it does almost painstakingly at times. Ugh, and pull, and pull his um, his brow down into a, you know, an angry look. Baby Oopsy is kind of the Chucky wannabe of the group. This, that’s what makes this a little different from Puppet Master. Actually what I really liked and what I thought what kind of Upped Puppet Master’s game just a little bit is the fact that none of those dolls talked.

They were a little mysterious, right? They were all marionettes made out of wood and different things like that. Here, they growl, and they laugh, and they chuckle, and Baby Oopsie has a bunch of lame dialogue. And that Oh my god. 

Craig: See, I think it, okay, in terms of actual quality and fear factor, yeah, it takes it way down.

That’s what I meant. In terms of camp and humor, I think it elevates it. Through the roof, yeah. I think that it’s, I, yeah, I think that, Baby Upsy’s the only one that talks. The others vocalize, but they don’t actually talk. But he’s like a wisecrackin foul mouthed baby. And this, aside from the fact that they’ve made its face look ugly, like, no kid would ever want to play with this doll, it really does look just like a generic baby doll.

And so for it to be so foul mouthed When the guard first sees him, the baby goes, 

Clip: Hi, you fat fuck. I’m baby oopsie daisy. You lord ass. Will you be my special friend? 

Craig: What the hell? 

Clip: I can walk. I can talk. I can even shit my pants. Can you shit your pants?

Craig: And when I saw that, I remembered why my sister and I liked it. We thought. That was hilarious. When you were 13. I could walk, I could talk, I could even shit in my pants! Oh my god. I know! It was so funny. And not even the lines are that funny, but just the delivery. The voice coming from this little baby doll.

I still, I laughed out loud when I heard it again. I completely forgot about it. 

Todd: Glad that was able to rekindle some childhood memories for you guys. Yeah, well they killed, they killed Jesse and, and that’s pretty gross. I mean, you know, one of them is, uh, Wait, who’s Jesse? Which one’s Jesse? The guy, the, the, with the white hair.

Yeah, Lincoln, Lincoln and Jesse were the, the two people. And Jesse’s the one who falls down, the blood, the toys come to life, and then they kill him. There’s, one of them is, uh, is, um, a jack in the box. I liked this one. Did you? I 

Craig: don’t know if I don’t know if this is a hot take. I certainly didn’t read it anywhere else, but I didn’t do a lot of research either.

I was watching this thinking, I wonder if the designers on Krampus were inspired by this movie. Oh, you could hardly not be. Pretty similar. They are. The, uh, the jack o lantern that’s evil. I mean, they even kind of look alike. Yeah, you’re right. The bear, even the baby doll, that angel’s kind of like a baby doll with wings.

True. I mean, all of these things are. Very common childhood, generic childhood toys, too, so 

Todd: Yeah, there’s only certain ways you can take it, but 

Craig: It could be a coincidence, but I would be a little bit surprised if it wasn’t a complete 

Todd: coincidence. Well, what I liked was that the Jack in the Box He would pop out, and he was a, he was a, you know, a nasty looking clown with very sharp fangs and a huge head.

But then, he had a tail to him. He was almost like one end of a snake. And he had a tail to him that was holding a rattle. A literal rattle, like a baby rattle. Eventually, that gets severed. And so we, I mean, you know, the fact that it’s not just confined to this box was kind of cute, actually. I, you know, you expect this thing to be bouncing around inside of a box, but it, it wasn’t, it was like a creature inside the box and, and it’s got big sharp teeth.

And it, it, it, Leaps on this guy and just takes a huge chunks out of his cheek and the bear leaps on this guy And you know actually for a low budget movie. This wasn’t half bad. No, it’s pretty good. The bear like bites his fingers off, right? Yeah, it was I mean look we’re still heads and shoulders above the uninvited With the demon cat.

Remember the demon cat on the boat? That one where this movie wasn’t even trying to be good like that movie was. So uh, 

Craig: The blood. Oh. And, and the baby draws the pentagram around that spot in the floor. And then the blood from this dead guy. brings this kid. Now it’s the dark haired kid from the lady’s dream.

But now he talks and he talks in this weird man voice, like this weird, I can’t describe it. It’s it’s like they put it through some kind of, they put it through some kind of filter or something. It’s, It’s odd. It’s, it’s not natural sounding. Thanks 

Clip: for 

Craig: coming. 

Clip: I’ve been sleeping for a long time, waiting for someone just like you to wake me.

We’re going to have a lot of fun here tonight, friend. We’re going to raise hell. 

Craig: And then a lot goes on. I don’t even, you know, it’s so ridiculous. The other people, okay, so like, Mark the chicken guy and the guard are in one room, and then Judith and Lincoln, they’ve had a fight and she’s got him handcuffed, but they’re like locked in a storage room or something.

For reasons I 

Todd: don’t understand, she decided that once she cornered him in that room, that she was gonna put the cuffs on him and just sit there for a while. 

Craig: I think they’re locked in, but I don’t know why, like, I don’t know if the door just closed behind them or what, but they can’t get out, but they make a bunch of noise, And, and then the guard and the other guy come looking for her.

And this is all just the toys, you know, menacing and 

Todd: attacking. And at one point after they’ve been menaced by the toys a bit, I think they all kind of end up back in that room. And I guess they’re locked in again because they can’t get out or they don’t think they can get out because of the. The toys out there, and then Lincoln gets that animated 80s electricity all over him and transforms into that boy, Demon, which says some cryptic things to Judith, taunts them some more, and then turns back into Lincoln.

Craig: Yeah, that’s right, Lincoln is possessed, and he says I need your bodies, I need flesh and blood. I don’t remember when it comes, like, I, I know that, you know, the, uh, they kill the guard, the baby kills the guard, and they, like, drag it away, because they have to, it’s very Hellraiser, they have to, like, bleed people on this.

So that the demon can come back fully before he goes into her baby. I don’t know. And, and like the baby is dragging the guards. Like you’re heavy. You Moby dick. The baby’s lines cracked 

Todd: me. Yeah. Suddenly it’s like people under the stairs, the vent opens up and this. Kind of disheveled dirty girl comes sliding out of it.

I was watching you. I What’s happening? Well, I’ve been here for a couple days. Oh, you’re a runaway, huh? You could say that All right So now at least we have one more person because there wouldn’t be a high enough. It doesn’t even make sense No, I didn’t even think about it. She’s like, I’ve been 

Craig: here a couple days.

The toys are evil bitch. They just woke up They just woke up Yeah I don’t know what 

Todd: you’ve been seeing up to this point, but nothing cuz it just 

Craig: happened. 

Todd: I didn’t understand that either because later In a complete almost non sequitur. There are these three girls Spirits who are riding tricycles with, and they’re wearing old style gas masks on their faces?

But they’re not real, because they disappear. But they’re still scared of them. And the girl sees them and is like, Oh yeah, no, don’t worry, I know they’re not real, I’ve seen them before. So, is this place, when it’s not full on, you know, toys coming to life, is it still just vaguely haunted? Maybe? Ah. We’re not really meant to pick this apart.

Well, 

Craig: we get the backstory, but I, I felt like the backstory I don’t remember when we’d get it. Maybe it’s near the very end. 

Todd: No, what happens is, somehow Judith gets knocked out. So they’re in a toy factory, or a toy warehouse, or something. While Anne and Mark are crawling around in the vents trying to find their way to the security room, Anne is back there with Lincoln, and Anne sees a dollhouse, and starts staring in the window, and pretty soon she finds herself inside the dollhouse.

And that is when we get the long ass convoluted backstory. And oh boy is it a joy. It’s long! It’s like, it’s like a quarter of the movie length, this backstory. And it needs to be, because it doesn’t make any sense. And he talks so much. This, when he appears, at this point, is he still just appearing to her as the boy?

Yeah, he says. I can appear in any way I want. And then changes into a demon and then changes into something else. And then finally down to, Oh, like, yeah. The, uh, her husband’s like dead gross body. Yeah. And then back to the boy. But this is the form I like the best. 

Craig: Right. He, uh, yeah. He says he needs a body.

He says that animating, okay, so God. I guess it just so happens that today was the day that it’s been 66 years and he was finally had enough energy to animate the toys. And then he tells the back story, which is a whole flashback and is pretty interesting. Awesome. I’m not gonna lie. It shows that it’s like Halloween 1925 and this woman in this dark room is in labor and there’s a bit like a dreamcatcher pentagram hanging behind her.

And that’s how we know it’s evil, by the way. This old woman delivers a demon baby, and it’s like this big 

Todd: demon. It looks like a little demon. I loved it. But a slimy demon, like you know, it gave birth, it came out of the birth canal. It’s a little wet, it’s a little slimy. You recognize the woman, right? I wasn’t paying that close attention.

Oh, God. Pat Crawford Brown. Probably, she’s been in a million things. But, I especially remember her as the old stuck up lady in Elvira. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. 

Craig: Oh, yes, yes. I did 

Todd: recognize her. You know, 

Craig: I don’t 

Todd: know if we said this when we were watching that movie. And I don’t know if I knew this when we did that episode.

She started her acting career at 60. I think I knew that. She retired from teaching English and started her acting career and then was in like 200 things before she died. All over television and movies and things like you saw her everywhere. This was actually one of her very first movie roles. Right after Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

She was in a lot of TV. 

Craig: I did. I did recognize her. She’s, she’s very familiar. Yeah. Any horror fans, if you saw her, you would recognize her. Yeah, for sure. Though she didn’t just do horror, she did lots of stuff. She did comedy and stuff too. She was just the old lady in a ton of movies. Yeah. Mm hmm. Little old lady, cute.

But anyway, so they’re like, oh, the baby’s dead, I guess we’ll have to try again. But then, it’s Halloween, so some trick or treaters come. And they’re like, the trick or treaters are like, trick or treat! And the doctor’s like, hold on a second. I got something better than candy. And he goes and he wraps up the dead demon baby.

And he’s like, it’s like a seed. You have to plant it or something like that. And then it will 

Todd: grow. And they’re like, thanks, sir. 

Craig: They run off like they 

Todd: understood everything he said. 

Craig: Oh my God. It’s so hilarious. Right. And so then they like go out, I don’t know where they go. I think they were 

Todd: at a construction site.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. The factory is probably being built or whatever. And. They open it up and they’re like, ah, and they throw it. And I guess that’s just where it stays in a hole. And now 66 years later, he’s back and I don’t, I, I, gosh, there’s so much great, great dialogue in this, but he says something to her.

He says something to her about writing shotgun down the old birth canal. Yeah. 

Clip: Even now I’m taking care of your friends in the air conditioning shafts. Yeah. No. Then I’ll come for you. Then we can do the nasty. 

Craig: And then we can do the nasty. And he says it multiple times. The nasty. That was the other thing that my sister and I thought was so funny.

Like who says that other than like 11 year old 

Todd: boys, Satan, Satan, do the nasty. When Satan refers to sex, he’s gonna say, Do the nasty. 

Craig: He keeps saying it. Oh, it’s so funny. He talk he talks about how they’re gonna do the nasty like two or three times. And then we can do the nasty. And then he’s like, but don’t worry then, I’ll, you know, I’ll speed up the pregnancy or whatever and you’ll be a mother by 

Todd: Sunrise.

Yeah. So this is, this is the back, this is, this is somehow supposed to explain why we’re here and why all this shit’s going on. God, 

Craig: it doesn’t make any sense. But it’s still pretty funny. Okay. So Mark and this mystery girl. Oh, by the way, also from Elvira. Oh, that’s right. She, yes. I, I looked her up too. She was, um, the cute, I don’t know, the cute young girl who, uh, was enamored with, uh, Elvira.

Yeah. It was, yeah. I remember her. She ended her acting career with this movie. I 

Todd: wonder 

Craig: why. I was going to, yeah, I was going to say she didn’t do. Yeah. Oh my gosh, but yeah, they’re crawling around in the ventilation system for some 

Todd: reason? I don’t They’re looking for I don’t understand why they can’t just break the door down or something like that, or break the window.

I don’t know. They can’t get out the door, apparently. Or they think I think what they think is if they go out that door, the toys or the girls are going to attack them. So if they go to the security room, they’ll be safe. So they go down to the security room, but they’re pursued through the ventilation shafts by these toys.

You’ve got to just imagine that these toys can f Including this robot that just rolls around like a tank can somehow roll its way up the wall and into the ventilation shaft, too. And that’s where this movie, I mean, you know, again, it’s just, it’s just silly. This toy can shoot lasers. Mm hmm. And it shoots two lasers at you and you’re dead.

But inside this ventilation shaft where it’s got a straight shot a foot away from this kid somehow it misses him and Then they kind of get out and then they kind of kick it over and kick it away and anyway It’s just it’s hard to take it seriously Like we said, there’s like no suspense here because you can’t really believe anything that’s happening So they fall into the security room The doll and that robot show up at the top of the shaft and look down at them and start shooting at them, missing completely.

Doll, ha ha ha, cackling. At some point, he gets some hairspray that happens to be sitting on Was he using it for his beard or something? I don’t know. Hairspray that’s sitting on the console and his lighter and does a flamethrower action onto those guys. And the doll says, 

Craig: Hey, you f ed up my makeup!

Cackling. I was clearly amused because I wrote all these lines down. Yeah, 

Todd: I’m glad 

Craig: you did. I’m glad 

Todd: you did. 

Craig: I have a whole list of things that happened, but like, I don’t even remember because they’re so inconsequential. Like, the girl gets killed, she shows, she’s only there for like five minutes. And then she’s dead.

Yeah, 

Todd: that shocked me. And the baby kills her in kind of a brutal way. Stabs her in the eyes with her, with it’s Cause they come back, right? I guess they come back. And the baby leaps down on her and it grabs a pen and stabs her in both eyes with the pen and she ends up dead. And then that Jack in the Box thing ends up there and I think it bites her face too.

But then the guy manages to wrestle it away from her and tear off, I think it’s the back part of its limb. I think he blows its head off. Well, eventually he does, yeah. But then it’s crawling around, and then he stomps on it, and all this green goo comes out, and Ugh. The thing I was thinking is, why are they farting around here in the security room?

The minute they came out of that shaft, why didn’t they just open the door and leave? But yeah, so he ends up doing just that. They get a gun. I think the guy in there had a rifle. A double barreled rifle is what he picks up. Nowhere in the rest of this movie is this rifle going to act like a double barreled rifle, where once you shoot two rounds out of it, you’ve got to open it up and put the shells back in.

They can just shoot as much as he wants out of this rifle without loading it. He runs out into the place with all of the boxes, and I guess looking for an exit. 

Craig: Yeah, that’s the thing, like, there’s a bunch going on, I don’t know, like, The blonde girl from the Playboy that we didn’t talk about before, The fat guard was looking at a Playboy before, and he showed it to Mark.

Todd: And Mark, like, sniffs the centerfold, that was hilarious. He’s like, what do you think of that? And Mark picks it up, he’s like, Oh yeah, that’s awful. 

Craig: What? I don’t, that’s, I don’t wanna, I don’t want him to know.

So she appears to him and strips off her dress, and then nothing else happens. She just disappears or something. 

Todd: Yeah, she just disappears. He tells himself they’re not real. And so apparently if you just tell yourself it’s not real, they go away. Until Lincoln pops out. Well, some 

Craig: things are and some things aren’t, right?

She’s not real, the blonde girls in the gas masks aren’t real, they can’t hurt you, but the toys certainly are. 

Todd: It begs a bunch of questions, like, what are they, what is going on here? This demon, what can it do, what can’t it? Is it just toying with him? Why is it sending these, like, spirits to just mess around?

Like, what, what’s the point? I don’t get it. It’s just probably just demons. They want to play. I guess. That’s what ghosts do. And then, but then Lincoln springs out. Like, he has gotten himself unhandcuffed and, uh, is now downstairs and leaps out at him and he’s gonna blow him away too. But then, in the nick of time, Judith shoots him in the head from behind, and now it’s just the two of them trying to escape the dolls.

Craig: The evil boy who is now sitting on the Yeah, he’s just sitting on the pentagram, and out of nowhere, this little toy soldier comes to life. And you see him come to life, and then he walks away. And then you don’t see him again for a little while. They shoot the baby, but, but then other toys, not just the, cause most of the, like, main bad toys are, have been blown up or something at this point, so other toys start to come to life.

I’m just meaning they start to shake. Right. Um. Mark shoots the robot. There’s a whole sequence. And then they start shooting, like. Yeah. There’s a whole thing of them shooting the toys, and, but then, the bear, I guess, the It’s still alive and grows to full size. And at this point is a man in a bear suit chasing Mark around, which I really, really 

Todd: enjoy.

That was a good day. I like that bit a lot. First is chasing Judith and then it’s chasing Mark. It’s, it’s really fun. Well, and then they end up trapped in a room or one of them does. I can’t remember who it is. It must be Mark. No, it’s Judith because what does she do? She says a prayer or something. I don’t remember how she met.

Oh. The soldier opens the door. And by the way, that soldier? Best special effects in the whole movie. It was stop motion and it was smooth as hell stop motion. It looks good. Yeah, really good. I could not believe that amount of money and time was put into this movie. It’s nowhere else but in this stop motion character.

It almost feels like a different crew worked on that, which is probably true. That thing opens the door, so we know that it’s friendly. But then, she gets out, and then the bear starts running after Mark, because there’s a confrontation, right, at the pentagram, where the devil kid is there. And he’s telling them, you’re, you’re, nothing’s gonna happen, you know, you’re too late.

And that, I think, is when he tells her that he’s going to possess the child and her body, correct? Okay, 

Craig: wait, all right. The dead boyfriend. Shows up again. Oh yeah. And he’s all disgusting and like, he like, tears his own eyes out 

Todd: or something? Yeah, yeah, she was about to get out. Yeah, she runs toward the exit.

And he steps in front of her and says, You know I only have eyes for you. Oh my god. And while she just stands there and screams, he pulls his eyes out and that causes her to faint. 

Craig: Right, and so then he drags her to the pentagram and ties her up, and Mark is leaving, but he hears her crying out for help.

And so, the bear chases him away. Yeah. It’s at this point that the kid turns into a man sized, like a tall, lean, man sized demon. Almost like a Halloween costume demon, but better. Like with actual makeup and prosthetics, not just A mask, but, but it’s horns and really kind of, yeah, and he says, first I’m going to crawl on top of you and do the nasty, then I’ll be inside your womb, I’ll eat the soul of your baby, 

Todd: and then I’ll crawl into its shell of its body, and then I will speed up the birth.

The camera’s on. Ugh. 

Craig: It 

Todd: goes 

Craig: on for a long time. Doesn’t he talk forever? 

Todd: He gets very detailed about it. Like, you know, we need to know exactly how this process is going to, is going to work from step one to step 20 because he tells us in very clinical fashion. It’s 

Craig: really long. And then he licks her. Then he’s laying on top of her and licking her, like licking her face.

And then the toy soldier shows up and. The demon freaks out. He jumps off of her and goes, you know, that’s impossible. And then it cuts back to outside where Mark kills the giant bear with the car. And then for no good reason, blows the car up. Oh my God. Why did he? Shoots the gas tank. I, I, for no reason, just so that they could have an explosion.

That’s exactly why he did it. My God. Oh. And the soldier then cuts. Judith Free, and then turns into the blonde kid from her dream. Um, but he’s still in a soldier’s outfit. And then these two kids, the demon turns back into the smaller kid, and these two kids just wrassle. They just have a play fight. For a while.

Just a play fight. It is so funny. It’s hilarious, but then it’s like, is it like flashing back and forth between that and like the dream? Like they’re playing war in the dream. 

Todd: The demon kid throws down a king of clubs and then the other kid throws down ace of hearts and that beats him. No. And at that point he has kicked him over onto the sword, which the demon writhes for a little while and then completely dissolves and vanishes.

And then the kid faces the mother, and for her benefit and all of our benefit, goes into great detail about what just happened. 

Craig: I started writing it down. Okay, so here’s how far I got. He starts out saying, It’s okay now, Mom. We won. I’m your son. The demon’s gone back to hell. But then it goes on for like another minute and a half.

Todd: Yes, we explained as if we didn’t get it by now. I was, I’m your son. We played war, blah, blah, blah. I turned into a soldier. Like, yeah, we saw that. 

Craig: It’s okay. Yeah. Play it, please play it in its entirety because I couldn’t believe, like, I was just watching it and it just kept going on and on and I couldn’t believe it.

I thought it was so 

Todd: funny. It felt like this was written for like the lowest common denominator. And, and maybe at some point they were like, you know what? This movie, like, no one’s gonna understand this shit unless we just literally lay it all out. He went a little overboard. You know what? The writer of this movie is David S.

Goyer. The guy is a great writer. This was, like, only the third screenplay he ever did. But not only did he go on, he went on to do Dark City, one of my favorite movies. Dark City, you remember that one? He wrote Blade. He wrote all three Blades, and Batman Begins. 

Craig: Oh, yeah. The 

Todd: Dark Knight. Wrote the screenplay for Man of Steel.

So this guy, I mean, he cut his teeth on this thing, but he definitely learned a lot between 1992 and 1998. 

Craig: Yeah, I just feel like it’s, it’s, it’s a sign of the time. Like, you know, this is just, they’re cranking out these movies. They’re cranking out these scripts. They’re not, 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: this was an assignment for money.

They’re exactly like a Corman production and they’re, they’re not spending a lot of time on rewrites and, you know, here you go, shoot it, let’s get it, let’s get it out here and that’s fine. Yeah. Okay. So the, the, the. The boy turns back into the toy soldier. I don’t know. I feel like there’s Mark and the woman reunite and she says something stupid.

I don’t remember what it was. And then the kid, like, does the guy say something like, who’s that about the kid or about the toy soldier? He said, like, she’s holding the toy soldier. He’s like, what’s that? And she’s like, it’s my son or something.

She explains it again. Oh, it’s hilarious. And yeah, so then the toy soldier waves goodbye to them and disappears. Wow. That’s the end. Wow. I don’t know. Like when I started watching it yesterday, I was watching the first half hour or so and I’m like, Oh God, this is bad. Now I feel bad for recommending it.

Cause I, you know, Todd’s not going to like it. It’s so stupid. And then the further I got into it. And your nostalgia kicked in. The sillier it got. Your nostalgia kicked in. Well, I just started to appreciate it more. Look, I enjoy the silliness. And that’s what I told you. I said, I, this week, I want to do something that I know is stupid and silly.

I want it to just be goofy and fun to talk about. And I think it was. It’s not one of the best worst movies we’ve seen. No, sadly. But I still think that there are parts of it That are pretty darn funny, and it’s, it’s relatively short, it’s under an hour and a half. Yeah. Again, like you said, back, back in our day when we were kids, our, our Options were relatively limited in terms of what we could watch at any given moment.

So, if this happened to be on, we might be drawn to it because there was really nothing else. Now, people have everything at their fingertips. So, I don’t know how people would really stumble across it, but I don’t think it’s a waste of time. I think it’s funny. 

Todd: Yeah, there’s really no place for a movie like this nowadays.

Like, you know, because like you said, it’s a product of its time. Mm hmm. It was created mostly for, for the video market or to sell on cable and be entertaining as well. And, you know, we just did, we just did a whole series of Roger Corman films and gushed over that guy and, and, and how he has a whole great body of work devoted to that kind of thing.

Charles Band has always been kind of the low rent Roger Corman, I think, but Still, there’s been a lot of entertaining stuff and this certainly falls under that category and it’s entertaining. We did the seed people, the seed people came out. It was either this year or the year after also by the same director, Peter Mnookin, and I would put that in the same category, except I thought seed people.

Was way more fun than this one. It was even wackier, but it was also a little more expansive. Like it took place in multiple locations and had a few more characters in it. And had a little more of a quote unquote down to earth concept as much as, you know, you could be with mutant alien seeds that sprout on the planet.

Craig: I only have the vaguest recollection of that. You don’t remember? I vaguely, I vaguely remember. I feel like I remember a giant. of a door at somebody. You don’t remember 

Todd: the giant seed plant like opening up and like splooging all over the 

Craig: guy walking outside? I vaguely remember. I texted you about 10 hours ago.

I assume you didn’t get it. Um, it was about, The sequel to this movie last night when I was watching this I was watching it on a free streaming service to be but it’s streaming free in a lot of places and you know when you’re watching a streaming service if you just You know, whatever you’re watching is over something else will come on and What came on right after this was doll man versus the demonic toys and you watched it I watched the whole thing because it’s, it’s, well, first it’s only an hour long.

Oh, and it is, if you think this movie is wacky, oh my God. In fact, I would almost say just watch the sequel. It is. Wild, wild. It’s only an hour long. And part of the reason that it’s wild is because it’s technically a sequel to three different movies. It’s a sequel to this. It’s a sequel to doll man, and it’s a sequel to another, one of these like Charles band movies.

And of course you’ve got the demonic toys and Judith comes back. But then you’ve got Dollman, who, Oh my God. The funny thing is, the movie, the movie is only an hour long, and a big chunk of that is huge recaps of all three movies. I see. But the recaps of the other two, Dollman, Dude. I wasn’t, I’m not sure if I didn’t catch it.

I think, I think he comes from a different planet. Like this dystopian planet where his arch nemesis is just like a head on a flying saucer that flies around. 

Todd: It’s out there. I started to watch Dollman a long time ago and I think I might have turned it off about twenty minutes in and said I’m not drunk enough.

To continue watching this movie. It looks bad. Yeah, like 

Craig: I think he gets shrunk or I don’t know Maybe he comes to earth and he’s just small because he’s an alien I don’t know, but he’s tall that’s why they call him doll man because he’s only a foot tall Okay, so then the third movie I don’t remember what it was called but in it for some reason There’s a one foot tall nurse.

Why is she one foot tall? I don’t know. Why is she still a nurse, even though she’s one foot tall and like, she just lives on her kitchen counter, but she still wears a nurse’s uniform. I don’t know. 

Todd: Don’t worry about it. 

Craig: One of the fun parts was getting the recaps of all three of these movies because I felt like oh I don’t have to watch that now I just got to see all of the good parts like they just showed me all of the best part great idea and and then they intertwine, you know There is a plot to this movie like the cop lady from demonic toys and doll man and the nurse All work together to fight the demonic toys.

And at first, like, I, if you don’t want to hear spoilers, turn it off now, but who cares, at some point Judith gets killed. And so, which I thought was crazy. Cause this is only supposed to be a year after demonic toys. I’m like, she just had a baby. She shouldn’t be putting herself in these situations, but once she’s killed, it’s just the doll man and the one foot tall nurse against the demonic toys.

So now. The demonic, they’re all the same size. Yes. They do a lot of forced perspective, but there are also full human size versions of all of the demonic interesting. And the plot is crazy. And in this one, baby oopsie needs to. Have sex with the one foot tall nurse. He’s gonna do the nasty with her to bring the master back.

Lots of talk about doing the nasty. Doing the nasty, they talk about it some more. Oh my gosh. The movie is bonkers. Absolutely bonkers. And it’s only an hour long. Maybe just watch that. 

Todd: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I, yeah, I wouldn’t I can’t really recommend this movie unless you just want to watch an up all night movie.

You know, that’s exactly what this is. And, you know, I would be laying on my sofa, I would have had some snack or something like that, tucked under the covers, and probably fallen asleep by the time the movie was over. But, trying to stay up for Ronda Shearer to pop in every now and then, and Cracker jokes.

That’s what it is. You want to hear 

Craig: one more sad thing? 

Todd: Oh, no. 

Craig: Guess what came on after?

Todd: Dollman versus demonic toys. Puppet master versus demonic toys. And you had nothing better to do. 

Craig: It was re it was getting really late, but I did watch the first half of it. It is. Awful. It is awful. It is literally a made for tv Christmas special about the demonic toys in Puppet Master. I’m not kidding.

Christmas makes sense. They’re toys. 

Todd: It stars Corey Feldman. What? We’re talking about the older, more depressing Corey Feldman. 

Craig: Oh, it’s really bad. Yeah, I think this came out in 2003, and they have him playing like a mad scientist, but the only thing that they do is they take gray stage makeup and spike his hair up with it, and, and put black framed glasses on him, and he’s kind of this mad scientist kind of character.

The acting throughout is terrible. The production quality is awful. The redesigns of the demonic toys are so stupid and bad. Oh boy. I couldn’t watch the whole thing. I had to turn it off. I felt bad for Corey 

Todd: Feldman. There’s a point, right, where it’s like, ugh, if you’re gonna make some schlock, at least put some effort into it, right?

Like, don’t phone it all in, or else it’s just sad. 

Craig: Well, I think that they were, it seemed that this one was being presented as a joke. Like, we’re just goofing on this, like, we’re, this isn’t meant to be anything serious, but it just, it felt cheap and 

Todd: lazy. That’s what I mean, though, is, no matter what, even if it’s a joke, like, make it a fun joke, you know, don’t make it a lame and sad.

Don’t watch that one. Stick with, so your recommendation. To go on the record, is watch Dollman vs. Demonic Toys. And then we don’t even have to do it on the show now, do we? We can say we’ve more or less covered it. I feel like you just covered it, just then. Pretty much. Two for one, folks. What a special week it is for you.

Well, thank you so much for joining us here on Two Guys in a Chainsaw. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. You can find us online just by googling Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast. Let us know if you’ve seen any of these movies and which one is your favorite. Make a case for the Christmas special if you want.

You can also find our Patreon at patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast. Throw five bucks there every month. That’ll get you backstage. You’ll be able to put in requests for wonderful movies like this. We have a lot of chatter going on in the back. We have Special mini sows that we put up there, mini reviews that are written, interviews, uh, Chris for Pike Book Club, uh, check that out, and we hope to see you there as well.

The best thing you can do for us is just, uh, write us a review on your favorite, uh, podcast listening service, like Apple Podcasts. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We wrap up our Roger Corman tribute with the last film he directed, way back in 1990. It’s a smarter-than-you’d-imagine version of the Frankenstein story that incorporates a modern-day mad scientist, time travel, and Mary Shelley herself – not to mention an all-star cast, including Raul Julia, John Hurt, and Bridget Fonda.

We absolutely loved this film, and we loved even more this too-brief trip through Roger Corman’s illustrious career as a mentor of talent and producer of some of cinema’s most iconic films.

If you wanna check out more of the Corman films we’ve covered so far in the podcast, we have a YouTube playlist up of previous episodes here.

Episode 405, 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: And I’m Craig.

Todd: And here we are with the last of our Corman Tributes. I chose 1990’s Frankenstein Unbound. And the reason I chose this movie, it was the last movie that Roger Corman directed. Now, of course, we’ve been doing this tribute series because he died at the age of 98 this year, and what Corman had been doing from 1971 was just producing.

You know, he was mostly a producer. He did direct 56, 57 films. Oh yeah. So it’s pretty significant. Uh, he produced hundreds. And so at that point in 1971, I think he was just getting a little frustrated as a director. He said, directing is kind of hard producing. I can do in my sleep. And so. He really focused on that, but he came out of directing retirement to do this film.

And I believe it was at the urging of an editor in the business named, uh, Jay Cassidy, I think. I don’t know. You know, it’s actually, I had a hard time finding too much information about the background of this production. Me too. It’s like no interviews really with people about it. I couldn’t find any interviews with Roger Corman where he mentions it.

It just kind of came and went, which is a bit of a surprise considering The people in it. I mean, I know the cast is all star It’s John Hurt, Raul Julia, Bridget Fonda Jason Patrick is in there. This guy, Nick Brimble, I mean, that might not be a name you know, but you have seen him in so many things. He is a working actor to this day on television and movies, and was at the time he did this.

So yeah, there’s so many big names in this movie, and the movie has pretty good production value for a Corman film. Decent script, I think. Decent idea. The script is based on a 1973 film. Three novel, I believe, by the same name. And of course, it’s a playoff of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Uh, the alternate title for that is Prometheus 

Craig: Unbound.

Well, the alternate title is or the modern Prometheus, which she borrowed from, I think her husband, it was either her husband or Byron who had. Written something called Prometheus Unbound so like a 

Todd: poem, right? Yeah, I think it was her husband. Yeah, you’re right. You’re right Yeah, 

Craig: get ready for nerdy lit shit I 

Todd: was expecting Now before I even sat down to watch it and I had not seen it before I texted you you texted me and You said I love this movie And I think that wasn’t facetious.

I’m not sure. 

Craig: No, it wasn’t. And did you love this 

Todd: movie? 

Craig: Yeah. And I, I, I, I texted you that like halfway through and I was like, well, I’m going to wait to send it. I’m going to wait to send it until it’s over just that I don’t regret sending it. And I hesitated to send it to you at all. Cause sometimes I don’t want to tip you off as to whether or not I liked something, but I just couldn’t hold back for a variety of reasons.

This is my favorite of the four that we watched. Oh, yeah, and I I can’t believe I can’t believe I haven’t seen it because I don’t think anybody knows about it. I mean, I was vaguely aware of its existence. The, the, the box art, I was always intrigued by, cause it’s very Frankenstein y in that it’s, you know, human pieces stitched together, but it’s tied up on the eyes, and the eyeballs, like, eyeballs of different colors are all stitched together, and it, it really pops with color, and, like, it’s cool.

Yeah, I remember seeing it on the shelves, I think. Yeah, I did. But for whatever reason, I wasn’t interested, and I never hear anybody talk about it, and I haven’t read anything that I can recall about it, and it’s really, it’s, it’s hard to find. It’s up in full on YouTube in good quality. That’s where I watched it, and the quality was great.

Todd: Yeah, like free YouTube, like just somebody uploaded it and they haven’t been ordered to take it down. And it’s been 

Craig: there. I checked it’s been there for years. So yeah, hopefully it won’t get taken down because you should watch it If you haven’t seen it, it’s great 

Todd: You know, of course it reminded me a lot of gothic, you know And I think I appreciated this movie a lot more having seen gothic Months ago we did gothic maybe last year.

Yeah last fall Yeah, and that movie was a real trippy film that, uh, took us to that summer in Switzerland where, uh, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley and her husband were all getting high and batting about story ideas, and that is widely known as the birthplace for the idea, this challenge to Mary Shelley, like, you write something.

You know, you write, you write a scary story. 

Craig: Well, it was a contest. 

Todd: Yeah, between them all. They all, they all wrote. Yeah, but I mean like, obviously like, we don’t remember anybody else’s. But that was the challenge, right? 

Craig: Yeah. To write a 

Todd: scary 

Craig: story. Yeah. Well, one of them was the vampire with a Y, which Inspired.

Inspired Dracula, I think. Yeah. Gosh, I don’t know, go back and listen to that episode. We talk all about it. We talk about 

Todd: it we gushed over that movie and we got really deep into the history as well of these people and this time. And so What was really cool is this is a time travel movie. And it takes us back to that year, what, 1817 is.

And, and so, uh, I found it immediately intriguing because it, it mixes a little bit of history with a little bit of fantasy and a little bit of time travel, and that’s always kind of a fun mix and typical Roger Corman fare, right? Little horror, a little sci fi spectacle. 

Craig: But that is. And that’s certainly a part of it, but I would say that this is very atypical of the Cormen that I’ve seen.

Because the sci fi stuff is certainly important, but almost secondary to the literary and historical drama that is unfolding before you. The reason that I loved this movie was because I knew it had something to do with Frankenstein, and I knew it had something to do with the future. So I just thought, well, it’ll be Frankenstein in the future.

That’s fine. I’m down for that. That’s not what it is at all. No. It’s a time travel movie. And that starts in 2031 where this guy, his name’s Buchanan, played by John Hurt, whose name you already mentioned, famous. I know him from the film adaptation of 1984 because I showed the trailer for it in my class.

But he’s been around doing stuff forever. The 

Todd: most basic horror fan, he’s the guy who gets the chestburster in Alien. Yes, 

Craig: of course, 

Todd: of course, but so many other things he’s been just a very respectable British actor. I think 

Craig: it’s also, it’s also structured like Frankenstein and that it starts in the present for the characters and then it flashes back.

So, and it’s the exact same thing as in the, in Frankenstein, this guy is just walking through winter tundra and he starts telling his story. It’s like, I’ll start from when the time slips. We’re just beginning. And I was like, What?

Yeah, and I was already sold because it was already opening just like Frankenstein and I’m like is this gonna be a good adaptation and As it turns out it is Before getting into too much of the detail of the plot what I was so impressed by Was I desperately want to read this novel now? Yeah, I can only imagine that the novel might be even smarter than the movie and I think the movie is smart It’s just such a clever concept to say let’s take a piece of literature that we already have that Everybody’s familiar with and we can also place that in the historical context of which it was written because that’s also interesting So we’ll kind of combine those two things and then we’ll have a time traveler from 2031 come back And be immersed in it.

Yeah. But we’re going to completely and totally respect the source material. This is one of the most faithful adaptations of Frankenstein. I was just giddy going through it like everything about the plot and characters of the story pretty much until the very, very end is straight out of the book. And as you already mentioned, you know, all the stuff that’s going on with Byron and Mary Shelley and, and Percy Shelley, all of that is very true to history.

So I just think that’s such a smart thing. To be able to take something, take a foundation that’s already there, insert something in it and make something new. I’ve never read the book or seen the movie, so I’m only kind of speculating. But when I was watching this, I was thinking, I wonder if this is kind of like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, where it is, it is Pride and Prejudice.

There just also happened to be zombies. Laughter 

Todd: Well, what I liked about it is, well, first of all, the conceit is that Mary Shelley is writing about her neighbor. So, the Frankenstein story is happening in parallel. With Shelley and her friends and their day to day drama that revolves around that, and so she’s inspired by those events to write her book, which hasn’t been written yet.

But, what I really liked about it was that John Hurt is himself a mad scientist. Right. And so, In sort of being sent back to be witness to Frankenstein that he’s totally familiar with because you know, he’s from 2031, he sees himself reflected back and so that is a major theme. I think of the movie as well, that I don’t think is really.

Treated as deeply as it could be treated, quite frankly. I thought it was 

Craig: pretty 

Todd: evident. I mean it was evident, but I felt like John Hurt as Buchanan was a little aloof. He pretty much operated in the past as though he was invincible. And didn’t also seem worried about Manipulating the past because he gets deeply involved with the characters.

He shows Mary Shelley a copy of her own book, you know, that she hasn’t even written yet. And so I guess we’re to believe that because he’s able to do this. I mean, this is all time travel stuff, right? Like these paradoxes and whatnot. The movie is not concerned 

Craig: with paradoxes. It’s not. There are a lot of things that the movie is not concerned with.

And I was just ready. to roll with that. I was ready to roll with the fact that, uh, oh gosh, there are so many things, uh, that this 

Todd: guy’s just driving his, uh, futuristic 

Craig: car around, like he and he and Bridget Fonda go on a s Scenic drive in the mountains and I’m like what road is he driving on right? It’s not even like an all terrain vehicle or anything.

It’s like a sports car and I It’s ridiculous and I saw it and I’m like, this is ridiculous and I’m like, yes Craig, it is ridiculous. Look at the car they are driving in. It is ridiculous. It’s, it’s fun. Just enjoy it. And that was the Cormen part of it that I loved. And I have no idea, you know, how all of the technology and the future stuff is handed in the novel.

But all of the stuff in the beginning where they’re in the future and they’re in like these labs with all these computers and stuff. Lasers 

Todd: and things, yeah. It was 

Craig: so cheap. In the best way. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: exactly. I I’m sure he had a budget for this movie. I’m sure he had probably a really big budget. I would guess.

I mean, here’s this legend coming out of retirement, not out of retirement necessarily, but he just hadn’t direct in 20 years. 

Todd: And 

Craig: he’s got all these stars to be fair, some of them earlier in their careers, but nonetheless, not all of them. Some of them established already. I can only imagine he had a budget.

And yet. Those set pieces, where it’s like, you know, a room just full of big panels of flashing lights, like bleep bloop bloop bleep bloop bloop bloop. Like, old school 

Todd: computer. And they’re, 

Craig: they’re wearing like, metallic space suits, and even when he goes outside of his house, and like, the kids are in these ridiculous, like, futuristic outfits.

It was so cheesy, in exactly the way that I wanted it to be. To be cheesy. Yeah, it was such a great. I wouldn’t even call it a throwback. This is his style. Yeah, it was so him 

Todd: that I was so on board. I thought it provided a good parallel, counterpoint, whatever you want to call it to later in the movie where we see Frankenstein’s lab in all of its classic cheesy monster lab glory, you know, that is classic and fun and cheesy in its own way with What do you call them?

Jacob’s Ladder electrical pieces and big bubbling pots of red liquid that have smoke coming out of them for no apparent reason? 

Craig: That comes almost directly from like the Karloff Frankenstein film, right? Exactly! So, I like how it’s paying homage to Both and like every when that happened, of course, that’s the climax basically When that happened and I saw that set piece and it almost looks exactly like the set piece from those old black and white It’s alive alive movies I was so stoked.

Oh, dude. Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know how you want to approach this because I could just gush all day. I could gush about a lot of things. 

Todd: Well, I think in retrospect to having a lot of Frankenstein movies to choose from and a lot of background and, you know, we approach this in sort of a film criticism historical context.

Like we probably see this movie. through different lens than the audience saw it in 1990. It did not do well. People thought it was kind of bad and silly. But I think that what we’re talking about is, there are these sort of silly elements, but they really work thematically. That’s an artistic choice.

Maybe it wasn’t interpreted that way back then, but I’m willing to go with that. Especially because they’re drawing these parallels. This guy, Buchanan, is a scientist who’s working on a weapon and he’s a scientist who’s working on a weapon. Again, it’s the naive scientist who thinks he’s going to save the world while really he’s doing this horrible thing.

He thinks he’s going to create this weapon that’s going to be so powerful. It’s going to end all wars and since he’s been testing it suddenly time rifts have been opening up and bad things have been going on and A time rift indeed opens up right there in front of him, and that’s what sucks him in his car.

Thank God He had his car else. I don’t know how he would have gotten around. 

Craig: Yeah, Bruce Campbell style, right? 

Todd: Yeah into 1817. And like I said, like, when I say he’s kind of aloof, like, once he kind of realizes where he is and what’s going on, he does have a sort of detached interest in it all. But then he starts to get involved.

I guess that a part of the novel, now, I have to admit, I have not read the novel. I’m sure you have. You have you talked about it? I taught 

Craig: it last fall for the first time. That’s why we did Gothic. 

Todd: A big part of the novel, apparently a part of the novel that’s not in most of the film adaptations is this trial of a woman for the murder of Victor Frankenstein’s younger brother.

And so John heard, sees what’s going on and knows this woman’s innocent. He knows that there must have been a monster involved because he’s read the book. Right, he’s read the book 

Craig: And all of this is so true. Like the character names are true The only thing that’s not true is that mary shelley herself was not in the gallery Like right as you as you already said the movie posits that she’s writing this story as it unfolds now how she knows And maybe she doesn’t, I don’t know, maybe she would figure it out later, but how she knows that there’s a monster, and it wasn’t really Justine, Justine is the girl who’s on trial, who’s played by Roger Corman’s daughter.

And, I mean, it’s a tiny part, but it’s, it’s entirely true to the book. This girl was a, a very, very dear, dear family friend. And she did not kill the younger brother, Frankenstein did, excuse me. I’ll probably make that mistake again. The monster did because Frankenstein made him, brought him to life. And then it was like, ah, you’re hideous.

Get out. And like, did nothing to help him or aid him or anything or assist him. And he’s had to go off and live in the world and be terribly mistreated because he’s ugly and disgusting. And then he just comes back to Frankenstein to beg and look, I know I’m an abomination, whatever. Just make me. A companion, and I’ll leave you alone, and you’ll never hear from me again.

And then it’s all about Frankenstein’s moral dilemma, like, does he make another one or whatever, but the monster’s leverage is that he can keep coming after Frankenstein’s family, and that’s what he does. I think he kills the dad first, maybe, and then he kills the little brother, and Justine gets blamed for it, and does get hung.

In the book, just like she does in the movie. You get my drift. Yeah. It’s very close. So he’s, 

Todd: so he’s a, 

Craig: he’s an outside observer as a reader. But now, in this world, he’s experiencing this narrative that he already 

Todd: is familiar with. And it’s so funny because he goes to this trial. He sits down right next to Mary Shelley, strikes up a conversation and makes acquaintance with her.

Forgive me, Miss 

Clip: Godwin. The young girl 

Todd: over there, is she the one on 

Clip: trial? Yes, she’s accused of killing William Frankenstein, who was six. She lacks the physical strength necessary to commit the crime as described, so of course she’s accused of witchcraft. No. It is a travesty.

Yes, but excellent material for a book, I suppose. 

Todd: And then, during the hanging, which is a pretty cool scene, you know, it’s this old fashioned classic medieval style hanging in the middle of the town square with loads of people. He runs up and grabs an axe from somebody and whacks someone in the stomach and runs up on the stage and pulls the noose off from her head and, and is like, she, she must go free.

She must go free. And I’m like, is this going to work? Of course it doesn’t. They just pull the trap and he falls down under the stage and then he gets beat up and she gets hung anyway, which I thought was actually kind of funny. How anticlimactic that ended up being this movie is filled with a bit of dark humor.

Then just events continue to unfold, despite the fact that he’s in the midst of them and he’s interfering with them. 

Craig: Well, at this point he knows because he’s read Frankenstein that Mary Shelley knows what’s going on. So he needs to go find her. Well, while she’s having this Bacchanalian weekend, you know, this sex and drug fueled weekend with her boyfriend and Lord Byron, which is super sexy.

And that other movie that we watched. Yeah. That one out for more details. So he goes there and interrupts and he meets Lord Byron first. And Lord Byron is played by Jason Patrick, who this is 1990. So this has to be just a few years after lost boys, right? 

Todd: Yeah. I think it was just two, three or four 

Craig: years after young and stunningly gorgeous and plays Byron so well.

I have no idea what. He was going for in 1990, but from a 2020 lens, he seems very kind of sexually fluid. Like, like you can’t really get a read on him, like, but he’s mysterious and super hot with his piercing blue eyes. There’s him. And then Mary Shelley, she was Mary Godwin at this point. She and Shelly weren’t married yet, but she’s played by Bridget Fonda, who.

This has to be an early role for her. She has to be a baby in this, right? This is 

Todd: like a year or two before, uh, single white female, I think. 

Craig: Oh, okay. Okay. 

Todd: Yeah. Because 

Craig: she’s young and gorgeous. She’s great. I mean, she doesn’t have a lot to do. Actually, I’m not going to criticize it because I really don’t have any criticisms of this movie, but I feel like her portrayal of Mary Shelley could have been more dynamic because.

At 19 years old, she was such an intellectual, and such a, you know, an artist, and she’s just kind of a demure, kind of, uh Yeah, 

Todd: she 

Craig: just kind 

Todd: of comes across as a demure, introspective, like, she’s just sitting and processing everything around her, but not saying too much, and then what she does say is very poetic.

In a lot of cases. It 

Craig: is, but what I will say about her, and all of her work that I’ve seen, she is so expressive in her form. face. Like her face just tells a whole story. And God, I’m such a, I’m such a huge fan of hers. But anyway, so the, I don’t know, where did we leave off? Oh, he has to go find her. So he goes there and he’s introduced to them.

And he’s also introduced to Percy Shelley, who is played by David Hutchings. Is that his name? 

Todd: Uh, Michael Hutchins. Yeah, uh, NXS. 

Craig: The lead singer of NXS, and I had to look him up, and I was, I read, Oh, he was the lead singer of NXS, and I was like, I remember NXS, they were really cool. And then I read more about him, and his story is so sad.

Did you read about any of that? 

Todd: No, I did not. He died young, I know that. 

Craig: You know, NXS was a big hit for a second, and then, you know, the later stuff that came out just in a couple of years wasn’t really doing well. And so he wanted to move into film, and the first movie he did was NXS. Aimed at a teenage audience, but unfortunately got an R rating.

So it didn’t do well at all. And then this was his second thing. And he thought it was going to be like his big breakout, but he’s only in it for like a minute. And then when, when, when nothing was happening, he took his own life. So young and so talented. And I remember his music. I mean, that was a big part of the soundtrack of the 

Todd: late eighties.

It’s true. Nineties. Yeah. 

Craig: Anyway, but so he goes there. I don’t even know. Basically, he talks to them and nothing comes of it because he’s like, he’s like, you know that Justine isn’t guilty. And she’s like, yeah, I know, but I don’t need proof. So 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: so he leaves right? 

Todd: Mm hmm. Yeah, is this the point cuz I didn’t I’m sorry I didn’t take any notes on this Is this the point where he meets up with Shelly and they have their little drive or is that a little later?

Craig: That well, I mean, I think it’s a little bit later What we haven’t mentioned yet is that he’s also run into Victor Frank. Yes. 

Todd: Yes several times, too Played by Raul Julia in the classic Victor Frankenstein mold. Dark, tortured, aggressive, mad scientist, man. 

Craig: I love Raul Julia. I love Raul Julia. Another guy who died to a presence.

Yeah. He died of a terrible stomach cancer. Immediately after filming Street Fighter? Yeah. I want to say. I think that was his last movie. I always think of him as Gomez Adams. And I think that he was an amazing Gomez Adams. But he just has this amazing charisma. He reminds me a lot of Tim Curry. 

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: He almost even kind Tim Curry could have done this.

Tim Curry could have done this role too. But Raul Julia is Great in it. I mean he’s arrogant and and 

Todd: Well, he has that dark sexiness about him too, you know, tim curry. Yeah, it wouldn’t really have brought mystery. Yeah Yeah, that kind of classic classic Sexy leading. I 

Craig: don’t remember how everything goes down, but it’s right.

I guess it’s right after shelly Excuse me, mary. Shelly says she can’t do anything. He goes back and tries to interrupt justine’s hanging is unsuccessful unsuccessful and then At some point, he follows Frankenstein to, like, a creek. And the monster is there. 

Todd: Yeah. Cause he 

Craig: sees the monster too. 

Todd: We should 

Craig: talk about the monster.

Todd: I love this monster. Actually, I did too. I thought that the makeup design was great. Obviously everyone is challenged when they do a Frankenstein story to make it as Little like the universal monster design is possible because that’s copyrighted and you can get in trouble. So, no more flatheads, no bolts coming out of the side of the neck.

You gotta be careful with your stitching and how boxy he is or whatnot. But, obviously, Frankenstein’s monster is stitched together with parts of corpses. And some movies go really all out with that. This movie, I felt, almost took a more medical take on it. The monster’s a little off because he’s I think it’s like he’s almost been bulked up with some additional stuff.

You see his neck is about as wide as his head is. It’s really, really thick. And where we would have these, you know, we have these big arteries in our neck. His are like tubes. Two or four big prominent arterial tubes that are under his skin, you know, but make up the bulk of his neck coming into his head.

And then his face is almost as though a face has been stretched over. You know, an underlying skeleton. It feels like it’s got a little more stuff in it than your average human head. It’s just a little wider. And of course it does because it’s got to accommodate whatever electrical stuff he’s got in there.

Instead of having these bolts coming out of its neck, he has these flat metal protruding contact points from his forehead and, and it just gives it a real good look and then overall, he’s just big, huge, he’s nasty looking, the eyes are are great too because they’re just like the poster. It’s, it’s an eye that where each eye has been stitched up with other eyes.

So the pupils of several different colors and he, he just makes them look creepy. I don’t know how practical that is. I don’t know why Frankenstein would need to stitch up like five different eyes to make one, but at least it gives a good look, right? Yeah, it looks great. So it’s very unique. And it looked great, and it doesn’t look like a guy in a suit, you know?

It looks like a monstrous Frankenstein like I want to see. And he’s big, and he’s bulky, and he’s strong, and he’s played by Nick Brimble, like I said before, who has been in a lot of movies. He was Little John in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. You remember that movie? The Kevin Costner one. I remember the movie, I don’t remember him, no.

Yeah, he has such a role in that. But this guy, this guy’s been acting forever. He’s got 145 credits. He’s in a movie, TV series right now called Grantchester. And he’s one of these people who’s done two to three to four movies a year, you know, ever since he started. And I think 

Craig: he does a 

Todd: great job in this role.

Craig: Well, I liked the look of it because you look at it, And it’s obviously Frankenstein, but it’s a different take on Frankenstein. The general idea is there, it’s all the parts put together, but especially the stretched back face just makes it different enough. Now, I don’t know that I would go so far as to say that it looks amazing.

Like, it’s amazing. It’s all clearly very prosthetic and even his face is pretty plastic looking. He definitely has articulation in his eyes and in his mouth, but you know, all that stuff with the stretched face is obviously prosthetic. What else would it be? But I mean, it doesn’t look amazing, but that’s, again, I find that charming.

I want it to show in. It seems a little bit well because that’s quorum in to me and you had mentioned earlier and I’m sorry to ramble But you had mentioned earlier that it didn’t do really it’s like It didn’t make a lot of money. I can completely understand how this would not Resonate with a general audience, right?

Because they don’t know what they’re getting into. And that’s not to be snobby and that’s not to condescend to anybody. It’s just, I don’t know how to put it like you and I, and anybody else who would be into Corman or whatever. would know what his style was. So we w it wouldn’t be a surprise to us. If it looks cheap, we understand why that is.

Todd: I don’t know. You understand what I’m saying. I know what you’re saying. I mean, also, I think just the movie itself, it’s Of course it’s a horror movie, but it’s not straight out. There’s so much drama. There’s so much historical kind of stuff in it. Like you said, it’s like Pride and prejudice with zombies in a way, you know, and, and so the movie doesn’t dwell on it’s not just Frankenstein’s monster hulking around and killing people and everybody running away from it.

And so when you get into a movie like modern day, Frankenstein, Frankenstein, Unbound, whatever, you’re probably as a general audience expecting to see something a little more on those lines. When it’s Mary Shelley and Buchanan taking a drive, having sex. I think they have sex, right? 

Craig: Pretty sure. It’s implied.

That’s, that’s another thing that I can’t believe about this movie. Well, I guess I can. It’s rated R, but aside from some gore effects, which I don’t know, do you think this would get an R today? I mean, the gore effects are pretty graphic, but it’s not like they look real. It’d be PG 13. It looks like movie magic.

Yeah. It’s, I, 

Todd: I. It’s not dwelled upon. I wouldn’t, I honestly don’t understand why this is rated R. I think it’s a 1990s R. It’s gotta be. 

Craig: I was, I was really thinking, like, when I got halfway through and I was so into it, I was like, can I show this to my kids? Oh yeah, your high school kids. Yeah. Yeah. And I looked and I’m like, it’s rated R, and then I went to the I never, ever do this.

This may actually be the very first time I’ve done it. I went to that, like, parents guide. Oh yeah. IMDB. Yeah. Where, where it breaks everything down. And there’s nothing. There’s like, no swearing. There’s certainly not any effort. Words. Nudity. There’s no nudity. At all. 

Todd: So weird for a Corman movie actually.

Craig: There’s implied sex and by implied it’s like they kiss and then it cuts away and then it cuts back to the morning and she has her top off under a blanket like, okay, it’s 

Todd: not, 

Craig: it’s not like that’s scandalous at all. And yes, there are some gory effects, but I’m thinking about, I’m like, this is nothing that my 17 year old kids haven’t seen.

This is. Tame compared to the things that they have seen. I think I could show it, and I think that I might. Well, 

Todd: there you go. I mean, why not? Again, I just think that the crowd going to see this was probably looking for a action packed Frankenstein movie and was a little jarred by the long segments of what I thought was very interesting and very fun literary sort of drama.

Craig: Stoker’s Dracula come out? 

Todd: The Coppola movie. It’s got to have been around the same time. Cause I imagine this came out as a response to it. 

Craig: That’s what I’m thinking too. And if people went looking 

Todd: for that, I could see why they would be disappointed. Okay. Oddly enough, as was kind of common with Corbin stuff, Bram Stoker’s Dracula came out two years after this.

So this predates Dracula by two years. This isn’t the first time this has happened with Corbin. Have you, you know, Carnosaur, right? Yep. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but you know of it. Yes. Do you know that Carnasaur predates Jurassic Park. That was in, well, they were in production about the same time.

And I think Carnasaur came out first. So yeah, this is another case where almost like, uh, it seems like maybe they had a little bit of the pulse of where things were going just before they made it big with a bigger budget movie. Sure. Sure. The drama circus, Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. What other movies like that all came out around this time?

These updates of the classic monsters. 

Craig: That’s, oh gosh, I don’t know, I don’t, I didn’t watch the trailer. I don’t know how this movie was advertised. Maybe people were just going in and I don’t know what people were expecting. Who knows? 

Todd: But unlike Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Bram Stoker’s Dragia has a lot of salacious stuff in it.

You know, it, it starts off, it’s super atmospheric. It’s got sex. It’s got nudity. It’s got hints of vampires and then vampires and monsters and creatures. Throughout, even though. You know, it has pretensions to be this literary kind of movie. It really is a spectacle. This movie is not, it has its moments, but it’s nothing like that.

Craig: This movie is a spectacle in a different kind of way. That’s what I mean. I don’t know. It’s it’s, but it is, I mean, it’s bigger than most of the stuff that he does now to be fair, like the 1870s. sets, they look like sets. I mean, if you told me right now that army of darkness was filmed on those same sets, I wouldn’t be surprised.

That’s kind of what it looks like. And the costumes don’t look like this is not going to be nominated for any awards for costuming. Yeah. Shelly’s dress is kind of sad, simple. 

Todd: Maybe it’s historically accurate though. I don’t know. The 

Craig: townspeople, it almost feels like. They almost feel medieval. They don’t feel 1817, do they?

That’s absolutely true. I was just gonna say, I mean, they just got their costumes off the back lot. I don’t want to say a lot of care wasn’t put into it, because I know that that’s not true. I know that Corman was very concerned about what things looked like in frame, and he wanted them to look interesting and good.

So I don’t want to say that no care was put into it, that just 

Todd: It just has a cheapness to it, right? Yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean. 

Craig: So After the kid is killed and Justine is hung, then Buchanan tries to reason with Frankenstein and be like, You just have to tell the truth, you have to tell the truth, and Franken’s like, Frankenstein’s like, Okay, here, I’ll give you this sealed letter.

Deliver it to my wife and he delivers it to the wife and he thought it was gonna be like go to the magistrate and Tell them Justine is innocent, but it’s not it’s just telling her to get out of there So in other words, he’s not gonna do the right thing But the monster has already threatened to kill Elizabeth if Frankenstein Elizabeth is Frankenstein’s If frankenstein does not make a mate for him And I think at this point frankenstein has said i’m not going to do it now He waffles back and forth in the book at some point.

He tells the monster he’s gonna do it And then he says he’s not gonna do it and then it doesn’t happen the same way Elizabeth is killed in her room in the novel, but in this The monster chases elizabeth through the forest and again, I couldn’t find I couldn’t find a lot about this but she’s you know in a Horses and carriage and he’s chasing behind and it’s a it’s kind of an action piece.

Yeah, and it looks good 

Todd: I really enjoyed it. I like the way the monster was moving like when he was running after it He had this very odd kind of stilted gait, but But fast, it was very menacing and he gets up and gets up and he gets up and then you can see he’s grabbed onto the back and then when she turns around, he’s gone and he’s there in the front, you know, and just stops the horses Superman style with his hands and rips her chest open.

Oh, my God, that was a bit gory. Actually, I could see that might, that might warrant something close to an R. I 

Craig: mean, it is. I get it. 

Todd: Yeah, she’s dead. She’s dead. And so that’s the thing that I think finally convinces Frankenstein he’s going to do it, because he has an interest in resurrecting Elizabeth. And that’s more his selfishness than his hope to help out Frankenstein’s monster.

And I think that tracks with the book, right? 

Craig: Well, the townspeople show up and they are going to, like, lynch Buchanan for the murder of Elizabeth. Oh, that’s right. The monster, the monster goes on a rampage and kills a bunch of them. Now they know about it. I’m not confused by this. I just think it’s a little loose.

It, I guess that Frankenstein does have control over the monster because he’s the only one that can give him a mate. It just seems like the monster just killed his fiance and now it seems like the monster is Frankenstein’s. Lapdog like right do whatever he says and so he kills all these people to save Buchanan because Buchanan is from the future and he has a futuristic car and they can use the car To harness electricity.

Oh my god. It’s so back to the future, right? He’s gonna uh We missed the first one in in the very very beginning when Buchanan first gets to the ancient past He drives his car and he hides it exactly like Marty McFly. Yeah, which 

Todd: which 

Craig: is so funny 

Todd: You Cuz it lasts all of like, uh, a minute before he takes it out and he’s just joyriding through the countryside.

Doesn’t care who sees him, doesn’t give a shit. 

Craig: But 

Todd: then 

Craig: Back to the Future comes back here. 

Todd: You wanna know what else is kinda funny, small tangent, is this movie takes place in 2031, which is always amusing to see these movies that take place in the future when now the future is either here or really, really close.

The way he’s talking to his car, back And asking his car for information and his car is kind of sentient here. In 1990, I would have watched this and been like, Oh, this is that cheesy, you know, computers are never going to be like this. And here we are with AI in 2024. That is basically exactly like this.

Is Alexa quippy? Is Siri quippy? Can be. 

Craig: That’s funny. 

Todd: And chat, GBT. You know, you can ask it. All these things. 

Clip: Reference Mary Shelley, born Mary Wilson, CRT Godwin, Mary Shelley, born 1797, died 1851. Mistress to the poet, Lord Byron and wife to the poet Percy Shelley. She’s chiefly remembered as the author of the novel, Frankenstein Hard Copy, novel Printing a hard copy.

The subject matter is artificial intelligence. Ms. Shelley wrote the book when she was only 19 years old, while living with Byron and Shelley at the Villa Diodati, presently some 200 yards north northeast. People warn Dr. Buchanan, probability is high that they are late sleepers. 

Todd: And it has this like, uh, I guess little mini printer or fax machine or something inside the car that just serves it out on a tray.

And I thought, yeah, that could be an option in a Tesla if somebody really wanted it. 

Craig: I thought the car was funny because it was, it, I mean, I know, you know, the reference to, it reminded me of Kit from Knight Rider because I don’t have Alexa or Siri. I sometimes talk to Google, but that’s very simple. 

Todd: So I don’t know 

Craig: if Siri or Alexa quip with you, but the car quips with him.

Like they joke with each other. And I thought that was hilarious. She had several lines that I typed out in my notes that I take extensively and never referenced. 

Todd: Ah, geez. Well, anyway, so yeah, his whole deal, their, their deal is somehow, I guess the car probably has some kind of futuristic, uh, energy generator of electricity.

And so, he has the monster climb up the tower, dragging these cables up with him, and attach it to the roof? So, I guess, lightning still needs to strike the cables, which are attached to his car? Or is it all a big ruse? I’m not exactly certain. I don’t know, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, they’re, they’re, they’re I think he needs a charge.

Yeah, 

Craig: I think that maybe the car can like the lightning can strike and then the car can store. I don’t know. It really doesn’t matter. They all have to be hooked up together. Meanwhile. Buchanan has also, he has the prototype for his Laser. Ion laser, I don’t know what it is, for his laser in the back of the car.

And he’s also charging it up and he has it pointed at the tower. 

Todd: So this is a direct parallel then, isn’t it? It’s like lightning strikes this beacon, which is gonna allow Frankenstein to bring his monster alive. At the same time, it’s gonna give Buchanan enough power to light his laser up. Ha ha ha ha! So they’re both Right, right.

They’re both doing exactly the same thing, just with, with different ends. It’s kind of clever, isn’t it? 

Craig: It is clever. And then once they get everything strung up there and then they get into. Frankenstein’s lab. It really feels like those old black and white Frankenstein movies with all of the like electricity things and the things bubbling up and you know, cylindrical tanks and all kinds of crazy lights and the big storm.

And I can’t say enough how much I like Raul Julia, not just in this role, but I just think he’s fantastic, but I think that he’s fantastic in this role. He’s charming and charismatic, but I also entirely believe him as Insane. Oh yeah. Like he’s manic and crazy and power hungry and egotistical. He plays Frankenstein so well.

Clip: I wanted to give man the power to create life to free him from a cruel and fictitious God. What man ever achieved that? 

Craig: You know, the Frankenstein in the book is like 19, like, he’s like a first year med student. Film adaptations should age him up. Like, he needs to have had a lifetime of thinking he’s Top dog to really, I think, have that kind of insane intensity about him.

Right. It’s great. And basically everything happens just as it does in those movies. Well, except here and it’s not Igor helping Frankenstein, it’s his monster. Now I don’t really recall, they never make the mate. In the book so this is this is really more like and i’ve never seen it but i think the clips that i’ve seen this is like bride of frankenstein the the monster is helping frankenstein make his bride and that all kinds of happens there’s some drama where there’s not enough lightning but then there is and then she finally wakes up it’s elizabeth by the way who basically looks pretty much the way she always has except he gave her enormous thumbs now why do you think that is 

Todd: i don’t know.

That was odd. Did 

Craig: you notice that ? 

Todd: Yeah. It was an odd choice. Right? I didn’t know if like, uh, she also, did he have clamps on her thumbs too? I don’t know. 

Craig: I don’t know. Like she looks pretty much the same except she’s kind of stitched a little bit on her face and like around her hair it looks like maybe it’s a little burned or whatever.

But then when she wakes up here in a second, she has enormous. Thumbs. 

Todd: Maybe they wanted her to look monstrous, but not ugly her up too much. So they just decided to focus on the hands. 

Craig: I’m going to, I’m going to choose not to put too much thought into that and just let it go. But anyway, that happens. They kind of bring her to life, but at the same time, there’s enough energy for the laser to go off.

And the laser goes off and it shoots out. At all of them, I guess, and it shoots the whole castle happens. Yeah. Yeah. Something crazy happens. And then all of a sudden they are in a wintry tundra. The mansion slash castle is kind of in ruins. But they’re all there and so 

Todd: what an interesting notion, right?

Because isn’t the book the framing story that eventually Frankenstein chases his monster as far as like Antarctica or something like that 

Craig: like to the North 

Todd: Pole Yeah, and so that’s which you know, I don’t know how practical that is. But anyway, that’s what happens And so this nods to that but in a different way, this is like the future So I think it’s supposed to be All of this is supposed to be taking place in, like, the same location, the same physical location.

We’re just jumping around in time. So, in the future, humanity is more or less reduced to this frozen tundra. And, in the past, this was the site of Frankenstein’s lab. In 2013 This was the site of Buchanan’s lab. Whoever knows how far into the future we are. The world is a tundra wasteland, but Buchanan’s lab is still there.

But we don’t know that yet. 

Craig: Well, to be fair, now, like, like, again, I don’t think the movie is concerning itself with this, because Buchanan didn’t get sucked into the time rip. From his lab. He had driven home. Oh, right. But I but I don’t even I don’t even think they care I don’t even know that his lab and home were necessarily supposed to be in the countryside of geneva Who cares whatever he got sucked into frankenstein and now 

Todd: They’re in the ruins of his castle because it kind of broke apart while they’re there, but now there’s this drama where Elizabeth slash Frankenstein’s bride wakes up, looks at herself, and starts to walk towards Frankenstein, Frankenstein’s monster, and they kind of embrace.

But then Victor Frankenstein turns to her and says, come to me, Elizabeth. And so she has this whole kind of mental realization, you know, it’s all on her face. It’s all just this, this bit, what’s she going to do? And then what’s that going to do? You know, if she goes to Frank and Victor Frankenstein, then the monster’s going to be pissed, you know, so you’re wondering what’s going to happen.

And in a very, very quick scene, because Frankenstein has his gun out and he’s aiming it, think of the monster. Uh, she goes up to Victor and grabs the gun and pulls the trigger herself, forcing him to shoot her in the chest, and now she’s dead. So, that was tragic. But, expected. 

Craig: Sure, sure. 

Todd: Again, 

Craig: I’ve never seen Bride of 

Todd: Frankenstein, so I don’t know how that goes.

At that point, there’s a little bit of a battle, I think, right? Between them? Uh, the monster kills Frankenstein and he trudges off. 

Craig: Oh, that’s right! He kills him. He goes up to him. I liked this. He grabs him and he picks him up by like, crotch and shoulders, I think? Yeah. And holds him up over his head, and I think, now I don’t know because it was a really quick shot, but I think that that was a whole dummy of Raul Julia.

Todd: Yeah, it must have been. 

Craig: And, and like, breaks it over his knee, and then Raul Julia lays in the snow and bleeds out of his mouth and dies. He’s 

Todd: dead, yeah. 

Craig: And then the monster takes off. Yeah. 

Todd: Now Buchanan is literally Victor Frankenstein in the novel, going through the frozen tundra after the monster to try to kill him before he Reaches somebody else and kills more people he stumbles on to a portal 

Craig: It’s a hatch like like a hatch from lost like down into the underground Mm hmm Buchanan finds this and when he goes down there, it’s different It’s not like his lab before but it’s all this technology with like, you know big panels of computers and like lasers everywhere and when Buchanan goes down there An AI voice says, welcome, Dr.

Buchanan. I don’t know what the implication here is. I think 

Todd: it’s that it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s his old lab. 

Craig: Well, maybe it’s his old lab or it’s the technology that he. Created. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Developed. So it recognizes him, but the monster is also in the room and the monster says 

Clip: This world you made is better than Victor’s.

It is barren as I am barren. Lonely as I am alone. 

Craig: All of a sudden the monster is like all philosophical and knows all this stuff and he’s like, This is the brain of the great city beyond, the last refuge of mankind. Oh my god, like there’s, there’s, there’s Heavy drama. 

Todd: It’s 

Craig: heavy drama. 

Todd: And the monster just knows all this shit, all of a sudden.

Craig: And it’s all happening with like lasers and like all this Crazy stuff is going on. Buchanan like shoots the monster, but he’s not dead. And then he, the monster says, what am I that you must destroy me? There’s, just as there is in the book, they, they maintain it in the movie too. It just seems like in the book, whereas it’s a big kind of philosophical, moral, spiritual debate, like they, they touch on it here, but It doesn’t really have the same impact.

He’s like, what am I that you must destroy me? And Buchanan’s like, an abomination in the eyes of God. And the monster’s like, so what are you? And then he says, I am Frankenstein? 

Todd: Yeah, I thought it was a little heavy handed. I mean, I think he just recognizes. He did the same thing, you know, like he created this monster, his monster was this laser, and, you know, it ended up destroying the world, it ended up turning against its creator, and, and now he’s responsible for all this pain, and in Frankenstein’s case, you know, sort of like the village and all that, and who knows what else the monster’s gonna do, but in Buchanan’s case, it’s just the entire world, you know, in his effort to save it, uh, he, uh, ended up destroying it.

And so I think that’s, I think that’s the parallel, that they are very strongly painting with a very dark brush here. 

Craig: Yeah, eventually, I mean, there’s more fighting, like the monster, I think Buchanan shoots him, but then the monster rips off his own arm and tries to beat Buchanan with it. That was hilarious!

I thought that was hilarious.

Todd: He’s swinging his own arm around for no good reason. Anyway, that was great. He’s distr he’s trashing the place too. He’s pulling things down and whatnot. But Buchanan still has his lasers and I guess he still knows how they work somehow. 

Craig: And he uses the clapper to control them. I’m not kidding, guys. The clapper.

He uses the clapper and some like hand motions to control lasers and the lasers shoot the monster. Oh God. And then the monster’s like getting electrocuted and stuff. And he’s like, you don’t understand. You can’t kill me. I’m like, I don’t know, whatever. And then Buchanan exit, like he leaves the facility and he looks at this like big city on the horizon.

And then is it the monster like voiceover? You think you’ve killed me. But I am with you forever. I am unbound.

And then it’s a long, like a wide, like a, an aerial shot of Buchanan walking towards this post apocalyptic city that may or may not have 

Todd: anybody in it. We’re not sure. 

Craig: That’s the end. 

Todd: Ah, yeah. I loved it. 

Craig: I thought it was a blast. I enjoyed it. This is an odd movie to recommend to people, because I think that there are a lot of people who are kind of casual horror fans or maybe more modern horror fans, who I would recommend this to, and they would watch and they’d be like, What the f k?

Right. Why? Why did he recommend this? And then I feel like there are people like you and me, just as you just now introduced this movie to me, I would be so excited to introduce it to somebody like you or me who hasn’t seen it. Cause I was giddy. Top to bottom. Front to back, Giddy through the whole thing.

It’s so obviously Corman. It’s so obviously his style. However, it’s clearly a much larger budget. There are tons of people that you will recognize in it. The performances are good. The acting is good. I don’t have any complaints about the acting. It’s larger in scope than any other. Cormen film I’ve seen.

Most Cormen films I’ve seen are shot on very, like, they’re shot on sets. It is very small. It is very confined. You usually have three or four locations, if you’re lucky. This that, you know, I don’t know how it was done. I don’t know if they did it with screens or if they were actually shooting on location.

I have no idea, but it looks good. It looks much bigger and broader. I was impressed. I’m used to Corman directing cheesy, goofy films that I often enjoy. But this, he shows a little bit of gravitas. 

Todd: I 

Craig: feel like he shows me in this last film that he directed that he could do those movies like the other guy did.

That’s just not what he does. 

Todd: Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s interesting. This movie had an 11. 5, I think, million dollar budget in 1990 dollars. I’m not sure what that translates to in 1960 dollars. It’s, 

Craig: it’s low. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But, I mean, 11 million dollars, even in 1990’s, low. 

Todd: And so, in a way, this really harkens back to what we did at the start of the series, The House of Usher.

You know, here was Corman presented with better actors than he usually has a bigger, bigger budget, puts together something that has a little more spectacle to it based on a literary property that everybody knows and allows it to get philosophical and a little heady as the material warrants and crafts a really fine little film.

Unlike, you know, House of Usher, which was very well received and made a ton of money. And then, of course, as we had said earlier, spawned a whole series of those PO films. This movie just didn’t. failed. At the box office, it didn’t even make a half a million dollars. And so, uh, you know, more or less just went straight to video.

Wow. And it seems like everyone’s forgotten about it, which is a shame, really, because I feel like, I mean, here we are reappraising this movie. I feel like people nowadays might reappraise this movie and see something a little more special there. 

Craig: I think so too. Yeah. I think so too. 

Todd: Again, it’s cheap and corny in spots.

Like the ending, again, the dialogue there is a little corny in what they’re trying to say, and I was a little heavy handed, and we talked about how the sets and things do look a little cheap and a little off the shelf at times, and that’s fine. Again, I think it serves the material well. But it was probably more a function of what they had to work with and Corman’s efficiency, but the performances are great.

The story is interesting. I was never bored. I had a lot of beautiful, pretty things to look at. You know, I liked the thematic parallels and sort of being mentally challenged there as well. You know, it wasn’t just a pure popcorn movie. I just thought all around, it was a, I mean, it was disappointing for him, you know, because it didn’t do well.

But I think Corman could be very proud of this movie as a director. 

Craig: I loved it. I loved it. And I’m so glad that You chose it. I mean, I, I had said, let’s, let’s do something a little bit more modern. That was my only request. I think if I remember correctly, and you picked this one. And I was kind of glad cause I had looked at it.

I was interested, but I’m so glad now that you picked it. I’m so glad to have seen it. I just. Oh, I enjoyed it so much and I know that I know for a fact that a lot of that is because I just taught Frankenstein for the first time last year and I really enjoyed it. My students really enjoyed it So to be that close to it and i’ll be teaching it again in the fall And it just makes me even more excited to read the novel again 

Todd: Well, what an interesting career.

Corman has had and there’s so many more films You can go and check out that he either directed or Or that he had a hand in producing many of which are fun. Some of which, you know, are kind of silly and maybe forgettable. Almost every single movie that he made, made money. And he was very proud of that.

He said he had very, very few. I mean, you could probably count them on one hand and this, I guess, being one of them. Movies that he made where he did at least recoup the budget. They were happy if they made money, they didn’t need to be up for Academy Awards or anything like that, or be this huge box office hit to be satisfied and move on to making the next picture.

And that’s what I really like about this guy. God, you know, there are times when I feel like I was just a couple decades late to the party. I like this ethos. It really gels with my own ethos. And as an artist, as a creator, getting along in the world, it really would have been fun to be a part of his team at some point in my life.

And I’m sad that I’ll never have that opportunity, but it’s been fun looking back on his career. And we will do so many more Corman movies. Of course we will. In the future. I’m Carnosaur now. Now that we’ve seen this, I was thinking, man, we should do Carnasaur. And I want to go back and revisit some of those Poe films as well, because, uh, love Vincent Price.

And a couple of those Poe films I remember as just being a lot of fun. Hopefully our listeners will have some suggestions as well for their favorite Corman produced movies and, uh, Who knows? Maybe we’ll do another series at some point. Alright, well thank you again for listening. Again, give us your responses.

We want to hear your feelings and thoughts about Cormint. Just, uh, write them in the comments wherever you’re listening to this podcast. Maybe on Apple Podcasts. Maybe you went directly to our website at ChainsawHorror. com You can leave us comments there as well. We try to respond to everything we receive, even on our Instagram and Twitter pages.

Axe, whatever you call it now, and our Facebook page. Just google Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast and those will pop right up for you. Also, we have a lot of fun chatting with our patrons behind the scenes. Go to patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast and think about subscribing there. We love our patrons. We thank them for your support.

We thank you for your support. The best thing you can do for us is just to refer this to another friend and get us a new listener. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

This week on Corman Week, we went with a Corman-produced film, this one being Joe Dante’s first directorial effort. And what a banger it is too. Stephen Spielberg called this his favorite Jaws knock-off, and we can see why. It’s just cheesy fun from beginning to end, with great underwater photography and terrible, horrible mutant piranhas on the attack.

Piranha (1978)

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: We are in week three of our Roger Corman retrospective, and I just could not be happier. And the reason I chose Parada, you had mentioned something earlier in one of the first movies that we did, I think it was House of Usher, you had said, I don’t know what we have chosen, but you know, Roger Corman, he was maybe even more of a producer than he was a director, wasn’t he?

And so, are we gonna be doing some of that? Yes. You’re right, he ultimately produced more movies than he directed. He directed a sizable number, we’re talking like 56, 57. But, um, at some point he decided to, you know, to really focus on producing and gave the reins to other directors. This is why I really wanted to highlight Roger Corman as a producer in at least one of these because he was well known for being so successful as a producer that he gave a lot of famous people their start.

And I thought this movie was a good representation of that. Look at the laundry list of Hollywood big shots that came up through Corman’s shop first. We’re talking Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Jonathan Demme, Ron Howard, John Sayles, Joe Dante, Peter Bogdanovich. It’s just Jack Nicholson, Robert Towne, it’s a who’s who.

Of Hollywood and a lot of other people who you might not know their names, but you’ve seen their work People who rose up in special effects people who rose up in writing makeup set design all of these things Corman just gave the first opportunities to so many of these people through his low budget movies They learned on the job, they got their chops, and then they went on to do bigger and better things.

On the actor side, you know, Jack Nicholson. We just did The Shining a couple, you know, weeks ago. Jack Nicholson got his first jobs in Corman’s Pictures. You know, he was in The Little Shop of Horrors. We referred to that movie last week. Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern, Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, David Carrady, Tommy Lee Jones, Sandra Bullock, William Shatner, Pamela Greer, The list goes on and on.

Even Dick Miller, who you see as a bit actor in so many, so many movies. He had a starring role in the movie that we talked about last week. He has a sizable role in this movie as well. And I just love seeing him on the screen. 

Craig: Well, and he, you know, he was a favorite of Corman’s, but then he also became a favorite of this.

Directors. Yeah. He must have been a good guy to work with. . 

Todd: He must have been, even Spielberg put him in, you know, this film was one of Joe Dante’s first directorial efforts, and Joe Dante, in case you’re unaware, just the only thing he directed before this was another picture for. Corman called Hollywood Boulevard, which I’ve always had on my list to see I’ve heard it’s a lot of fun But then after this, of course the howling we’ve covered the howling fairly recently actually Twilight’s on the movie did a segment in there gremlins obviously was his really really big hit Uh, that he did in collaboration with Steven Spielberg.

Then, uh, Explorers, which is a movie we love. Yep. Innerspace, which still stan I mean, have you seen Innerspace lately? It, it holds up today. It’s such a I’ve seen Innerspace a million times. It’s such a good movie. I love that movie. The Birbs. Small Soldiers. He did a movie called The Hole, which I think is a fun kids horror movie.

Hopefully we’ll get to it at some point. I saw it, yeah. Yeah, I don’t think he’s doing much directing right now, because he’s getting older, and I, more or less, uh Probably feels more or less retired, but he’s still in the business. He’s still in the scene. And then, uh, the writer, John Sayles. It was his first screenplay, actually, and he took the money that he made from this, uh, to fund his other projects.

He wrote some novels and did some things, but he started writing for Roger Corman. A lot of his the writing he did was Cleaning up scripts and ended up completely uncredited. But after writing the screenplay for this, he went on to do the screenplay for Battle Beyond the Stars, which is another really fun Corman picture.

We did Alligator, 1980, and he wrote the screenplay for that. So teamed up with Dante on The Howling, and then just kind of went on to write a lot of stuff from there. Clan of the Cave Bear got a lot of critical acclaim when that came out in 1986. In any case, John Sayles is still writing. To this day, and again, got his start from this.

So those are two, two big people, but then, uh, this is a movie about piranhas, and so there’s a special effects needs here, but they’ve got to do it on a cheap, supposedly, you know, 50, 000 budget. And who would jump in, but this would be the first opportunity. For Phil Tippett. Well, I don’t want to say first opportunity.

He was doing stop motion animation for the last two Star Wars episodes. By this time. 1977. But this is a 1978 movie. So he did was creature designer and animator for this. And then Phil Tippett started his own studio after this. And went on to do creature effects and things for it. We’re talking Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Yay. Howard the Duck, uh, RoboCop. All the RoboCops. Wow. Uh, all the animation sequences for that. Willow, uh, Jurassic Park. The list goes on. He’s just one of these guys. And then, uh, you got a little bit of stop motion in this one too, which is kind of fun to talk about a little bit later. So there’s Phil Tippett.

And then I do also want to call out before we move on, so I don’t forget. Rob Bottin, who did all the makeup effects in here. Again, he had done a few things before this. He was an assistant makeup artist in Star Wars Episode IV. Then we did the Fury. He kind of cut his teeth on that one as well, before doing this film, and then went on to do makeup effects for so many things.

The fog. Maniac. Airplane. The howling. The thing. He was special makeups effects creator and designer of the frickin thing then legend, you know again RoboCop total recall one of my favorites seven mission impossible right 

Craig: so point point being that Roger Corman really was pivotal in some amazing So whether or not, you know, his name, if you’re a fan of horror or movies in general, you are exposed to his legacy because so, so much talent came out.

Well, and, and, and who’s to say, you know, it’s not to say that these people would have been nothing without him. Who knows? Maybe they would have found other paths, but obviously he made it easy. Well, he, yeah. He had a penchant for hiring very talented people. 

Todd: And, and, uh, people love to work with him. You know, we talked about this on an earlier episode.

People just respected him so much in the industry and they were watching what he was doing and they fought to, to, to work on his movies. And get paid, you know, much, much less. But, uh, to get those opportunities. So I thought this movie was just kind of a nice little tribute to that aspect of him as well.

He didn’t direct this. Now, he did put together the team, as a producer always does, but this was among many Jaws rip offs that were coming out around this time. And, uh, he got a script from, I believe, uh, it was from a Japanese distributor or script writer or something like that. He said it was, it was not very good.

So he hired John Sayles to rewrite it and gave his input on that, gave the final approval, and then hired Joe Dante to direct it who had, like I said, had just come off of Hollywood Boulevard for him. He slashed the budget. The budget was supposed to be like 600, 000. He took 200, 000 away because he was doing a big disaster movie called Avalanche.

Which by the way, I’ve seen and that’s kind of I think I’ve seen it too. Yeah. Yeah, it’s not bad It’s not nearly as good as this movie, but uh, so he took money away and then he was just so busy on avalanche They said he didn’t even visit the set or pay attention to what they were doing Even when they were cutting the film He only saw like one of the final cuts and made a few more notes on that and that was it So it’s not like he had his hands in this production once it got going But obviously, you know a little bit green lit the final product 

Craig: I read that he said Less nudity, which is shocking.

That was weird, right? I mean, not to say, I mean there’s still boobies. You still get boobies, but, uh, apparently, I read that he felt like it would take away something from the movie, like, uh, make it seem more cheap than he felt like it was. Which I kinda get, because I was a little bit surprised that you picked this.

This seems a little bit more up my alley as far as, like, mainstream stuff. If not famous, this movie, at least infamous, I feel like pretty much everybody knows about this movie. Of course, there was a remake, not, what, I don’t know, like, ten years ago, or I have no sense of time. Anyway, I was, uh, I was a little surprised that you picked it and.

I wasn’t looking forward to it, because I knew that I had seen it before, and I just didn’t really remember a lot about it, and I thought, 

Todd: ugh, 

Craig: boy, if I don’t remember anything about it, it’s probably lame. I was really pleasantly surprised. In fact, of the three that we’ve watched so far, in terms of watchability, I think this is my favorite so far.

I found this movie to be incredibly watchable. 

Todd: I did too. I, I’m not going to say I wasn’t looking forward to it. I was looking forward to revisiting it because I remembered seeing it when I was in high school and being disappointed. I remembered it being a little too talky. I thought, you know, there weren’t enough piranha attacks, and I might have just stopped paying attention at some point in the movie.

And that’s kind of how I left it. And so, to come back here and sit down and watch it from beginning to end, I really wasn’t sure how I would feel about it. But knowing That Steven Spielberg himself said that this is, uh, the best of the Jaws rip offs that he saw. In fact, that apparently saved this movie from getting sued.

Universal just c was just putting out Jaws 2. And, I don’t know, some people think they were afraid this movie might be even better. Ha ha ha ha ha! But, um, Steven Spielberg’s comments and support for this film basically made them drop it. So it came out and it did really, really well. This was a huge hit for them.

Made them a ton of money. Generally got, I mean, the reviews were favorable to mixed, but Yeah, I thought it was funny. Roger Ebert, who I always go to, gave it a pretty decent review. He said it’s campy, it’s fun, it’s got the humor that it’s going for, it’s got everything like that. He said the only thing that he thinks is a little weird is the propensity for people to dive right into the water just as soon as they find out there are piranhas in there.

And there’s a little bit of truth to that in some of it. So yeah, I mean, it was a big hit. That’s, I think, why it was remade. That’s why it kind of lives on. Again, I think it had to have boosted the career of Joe Dante and John Sayles, who, when they first saw the first cut of this movie, were both convinced that it was going to be the worst film ever made, was going to ruin their careers.

Joe Dante was practically ready to give up on filmmaking, and Sayles said, I was just going to go back to writing novels. Right. So, uh, even they were a bit surprised by how well this was received. I’m not surprised. 

Craig: I’m not either. I think it’s really fun. It rem It definitely is a Jaws ripoff, and it doesn’t even try to pretend that it’s not.

Like, it makes direct references to Jaws. Oh, yeah. 

Todd: It’s putting it in your face. It’s, it’s, it’s a deliberate comedy. Yeah. It’s got very comedic, groan worthy, it’s, you know, in a ways it’s a parody of Jaws, as much as it’s a rip off. That’s true, but 

Craig: part of the reason that I found it so entertaining was that it felt more, to me, it kind of felt like a throwback to the creature features of the 50s, where it’s very silly, but they play it straight.

Yeah. And that makes it, Even more fun and more silly and funny and fun to watch. Yes. And it’s, and it’s really hammy. Like the, the characters are all really hammy. 

Todd: The stereotypical, you’ve got the Texan investor. Who’s got the big resort on the lake. That’s getting ready to open. You’ve got the mad scientist, the drunk protagonist kind of washed up.

Craig: Yeah. Loner guy you only know he’s a drunk because they tell you like he doesn’t he never acts drunk But they tell you he’s just certainly like this washed up Man’s man who just lives in the woods and the oh, you know, like he only has one friend old River Jack who lives the river 

Todd: Right. Well, all he needs is his dog and the river 

Clip: at the river wakes me up in the morning Gives me a bath, does my laundry,

gives me my dinner, puts me to sleep real gentle, I got my river, got my brandy. 

Craig: Oh my god, old Jack, I loved old Jack and old Jack just delivers booze to this guy and they just enjoy their solitude out in the woods and like the main guy Paul, he literally looks like the brawny man, like the. He does. Yeah.

With the, the beard and the red flannel sweatshirt and, or not sweatshirt. Lumberjack red flannel shirt. Yeah. You kind of like the lumberjack. It’s funny. So there’s that hamminess to it, which I appreciate. Then you get into the hamminess of the piranha, which just worked perfectly for me, like they, it just struck the perfect balance of showing it, like showing the fish.

enough, but not too much. And I, you know, I’m, I’m obviously kind of glossing over things. We’ll get more specific about, but like the sound effect of the fish that I liked all of the, and just throwing it in all of these different scenarios, you know, you’ve got like a military test facility, but then you’ve also, and then you just got the river.

So like, you know, it just seems like nature or whatever, but then you’ve also got a children’s. Summer camp and like a water theme park. There’s so much going on. It was just, I found it very, very fun to watch the opening scene even. Oh yeah. It’s at night and the camera is panning, you know, like across this outdoor scene and you see a fence with a great big sign on it.

That says military test site, no trespassing.

Todd: And two hikers who are like, that’s okay. We’re going to go right in. Who cares? Not only that, well, we’re going to start skinny dipping. In this murky water that we know nothing about. I know, 

Craig: and the guy who is reluctant, he even says, What if it’s like a, like a sewage treatment facility? Which, if I walked into that, it was outdoors, so I assume it was actually some sort of facility.

But the looks of it, that’s exactly what I would think it was. That’s what it looks like. Industrial looking site. It’s gross. And even the water’s green. You couldn’t get me to dip my toe in there. You 

Todd: know, no way. But the enthusiasm with which these people dive in here is, uh, is something to see. So we get our boobs.

She strips down, she pushes him in, they go in and they swim. And it’s just, it’s almost, I’m not really, but it feels shot for shot, like the opening of Jaws. 

Craig: Yes. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. That’s what it feels like late night swimming. Oh, what was that? I felt something. And I also loved, you know, he, she pushes him in.

He doesn’t want to go in. She pushes him in and then she dives in after him, but it’s the second that she’s underwater that he gets bit the first time. I loved the timing of that. I thought it was hilarious. Why’d you bite me? I didn’t bite you. You’re crazy. Paranoid. This is a thing. And then he starts getting hit and it does, it looks so much like that opening scene of Jaws where he, like, he’s surprised.

He doesn’t know what’s happening. And then the water starts churning and all he’s screaming and then blood comes up and she’s watching and she doesn’t, you know, of course know what’s going on. And. It’s really fun. And then it cuts to the full moon and you just hear her screaming. She’s obviously attacked and killed too, but it’s mostly off screen.

You just see her bloody hand, like reach up for the side of the pool or whatever it is. Um, and then it cuts to the title and I love how the title bleeds into the water and turns the water red. And after that first five minutes, I was like, Oh, I’m not dreading watching this anymore. I’m excited about it.

Todd: And then. Once the title sequences are done, it dissolves into our main character, Maggie, playing a Jaws video game. First of all, I didn’t realize there was a Jaws I mean, this would be 1978. Video games were not sophisticated at this time. 

Craig: Oh no, it was arcade style, like, uh Asteroids. Yeah, 

Todd: it was very simple, but she’s playing a simple jaws themed game.

And, uh, and she is doing, what did they call it? Skip tracing. I couldn’t figure out for a while. I thought it was bounty hunting, but they called it skip tracing. I guess he’s hired by a guy who I still don’t know who that was. I don’t 

Craig: either. At first I thought maybe she was a reporter or actually at first I thought she was a kid because she’s playing that video game and she’s, you know, I don’t know how to describe her.

She’s sassy. She, I thought she was a kid, but she’s not. She’s, she said at some point that she can find anybody. She’s found all kinds of people. So I, I think that that’s her job is to locate people. And we find out soon that she’s looking for these. Kids the the kids that got killed by the piranhas. We were introduced to those guys We already talked about Paul and by the way, 

Todd: Heather Menzies played Maggie and she got her start as a child actress She was a Louisa von Trapp in the sound of music.

Craig: Oh, I didn’t know that I didn’t recognize any of these people except obviously for the mad scientist who we’ll get to So I didn’t bother to look them up But that’s interesting. I didn’t know that. She didn’t do much 

Todd: after this like she she was pretty busy like again it’s like a child actress in the 60s and then up to kind of the the late 70s with this movie and then after that she’s on tv a bit and then just kind of Kind of fizzled out by 1990, I think is, is, is her last credit here, and she did die at 68 in 2017.

So, uh, so she’s not with us anymore. She, she does a fair job, and I think she’s fine in this movie. She’s fine. She’s just plucky, very happy go lucky. Woman who’s not gonna take no for an answer and somehow manages to convince that guy, Paul, who’s this grizzled, grumpy, grumpy guy, to, to drive her out to the military installation.

I, I don’t know, that was a little weird, like, he just goes along with it. It’s not a character driven 

Craig: film. 

Todd: Well, for 

Clip: sure. 

Craig: It’s, it’s, it’s action driven, but it’s cool. You’re right, she’s plucky, and he’s grizzled, but she gets it out of him that there’s a military thing up in the woods or whatever because he lives in the woods.

She’s like, you’re gonna take me there, and he’s like, no I’m not. And then the very next scene is them in the jeep going up there. Yeah, 

Todd: it’s such an old gag. Just like that gag where she’s about to leave on the plane and the guy’s like, you’re gonna be alright. She’s like, you know me, I can find anything, anywhere, nothing gets by me.

And then she’s like, oh. Wait a minute, where’s my ticket? It’s like, 

Craig: Oh, uh, thanks. Goodbye. Yeah. And, and then from, from that point on, from the time that she gets him to go up there with her, they are like the dynamic duo. They they’re together solving this mystery and dealing with this. Scenario for the rest of the time 

Todd: I’m actually kind of surprised that they didn’t try to throw a little romantic angle in there Was it there but I missed it.

It seemed like the movie was trying to go there, but then would just stop short every time 

Craig: Well, I’m glad they did that’s boring. Yeah, I don’t certainly unnecessary in this movie. Okay, so they they go up there It seems deserted. Now we know that there’s somebody up there already because after the kids got killed, a light went on in the facility and somebody opened the door like they heard something, but you just saw a silhouette.

But we know there’s somebody up there. They go up there, they look around. She doesn’t know what’s going on. She finds a locket with the girl’s initials on it, so she knows they’ve been there. So her brilliant idea is, we don’t know what this facility is, but let’s drain it. He has a bit of background 

Todd: on it.

He’s bitching about the military, and they came in, they did this, they did that, and then they just kind of up and left. But he doesn’t know what was going on there. And they look in, and you’re right, she just decides she’s going to drain it, so then they go in. And I was shocked. I was shocked when they opened up the door to that facility.

Facility. I couldn’t believe what I saw. Because I wasn’t expecting it to be that elaborate. Almost the first thing you see is this beaker that looks like a human fetus is floating around in it. Yeah, there’s a lot of weird stuff. Yeah, there’s just jars of weird things. Again, it’s like, almost like typical mad scientist stuff.

Then, there is this little stop motion Creature that almost looks like a fish with arms and legs that springs up pokes its head around. They never see it It’s just in the foreground. It’s really well done. Yeah, I like it. It’s super fun Yeah, and it and it kind of scurries away and you’re like, oh, this is gonna be interesting 

Craig: It reminded me of the stop motion creatures from the gate.

Yes, but it looked it looked more like In Spaceballs, the spoof of the, the Xenomorph chestburster that like does the little song and dance. Hello, my baby. Hello, my baby. That’s what it looked like. It looked more like that, but yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was, it was stop motion, but not only do you see it kind of like walk across the frame on a countertop, but there are also close ups on its face that are really well articulated.

I was just shocked to see it here and they never see it. We see it several times, but they never see it. There’s also some sort of like weird eel, Godzilla thing in a 

Todd: like in water that they do see. And that’s like a puppet, but it’s It’s impressive. 

Craig: What makes me sad about that, and I read that Dante, I think, had intended for that little creature, the walking one, he had intended for it to appear later in the movie and for it to continue getting bigger and bigger, and they just didn’t have the budget, which is really upsetting because I want to see that movie.

I know. That would have been 

Todd: such a great, I mean, that would have been a great zinger at the end. You know? That’s, that’s what they wanted to do. They wanted to have it kind of like at the very end after everything was done, like it was sort of looming over the beach. Like, this is the next big threat. It’s fine that these 

Craig: things are confined to the lab, and that these things aren’t the things that escape the facility.

Yeah. But it’s still It’s unfortunate because I would have loved to have seen that, but they find, I don’t know, they know somebody’s there. They find like a cup of warm coffee and, but they don’t know who’s there, but they find this big lever, I guess. And she’s like, okay, well, let’s drain it. Like these assholes, it never crosses either of their minds that this might not be a good idea.

And, and she pulls the lever or whatever. And then immediately the mad scientist, Dr. Hoke, who works there. And it’s Kevin McCarthy who we’ve talked about a million times. We just talked about inner space. He was in that. That’s what I know him from, but he’s been in everything. He had that cameo in 

Todd: invasion of the body snatchers, which we only did about a month ago.

Craig: He starred in the original. Yeah, right. Yeah. He’s been in so many things and he jumps in and he’s like, He’s like, no. And he tries to turn the switch back off. And in response, they attack him and fight him and knock him out so that he’s never able to turn the thing back on. It never occurs to them to ask him why.

Yeah, just, they just like, when he goes for the thing, like, I guess she’s right there. So she’s kind of in the way. So I guess he has to get a little bit physical with her, but it’s not like he’s even going for her. He’s going for the. The switch and they just attack him 

Todd: and knock him out. They just treat it as like a personal affront.

Like this guy was crazy and attacking them even though he’s yelling, no, don’t do it. It’s uh, 

Craig: and the little creature is like running around watching it. Like Get away from my dad! 

Todd: Like, it like, in almost a very cute way, pokes its head out and blinks a couple times from around a pipe. I mean, it’s this cute little darling creature that for a very brief moment I thought, this is like the genesis of gremlins right here.

Like this Yeah, yeah, 

Craig: cute little darling to us. I mean, it’s, it’s still like a gray, hairless, weird creature. It’s, it’s not, it’s not gizmo. It’s no, but it’s more gremlin y, but, but I get what you’re saying. I find it adorable as 

Todd: well. It’s not toothy and evil looking. Yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of funny that, you know, you want, you would kind of think that maybe he would, once he came to would.

Would have a little something to say about his little pet, you know, that just completely dropped. Well, 

Craig: they don’t even, they don’t even wait! Like, they just leave him in there, and then they go outside to find that the whole thing has been drained, and when they find a skeleton that they think is a dog, maybe, it didn’t look human, but if it was a dog, it was a really big dog.

Yeah. But it’s, it’s only when they find that skeleton that they’re like, hmm. Where does this drain? And the guy’s like, um, probably the river. It could have been anything in there. It could have been toxic waste. It, it could have been absolutely anything, but yeah. Uh, the doctor that they have just ignored and, and.

No nothing about steals their Jeep, but then also because they knocked him out. He’s still woozy. So he passes out and he crashes and rolls it. And when they run to him and when he wakes up, all he says is razor teeth. You don’t know what you’ve done. 

Clip: What’s he doing? You don’t know what you’ve done. The question is what you’ve done, mister.

I told you. You don’t know. They breed like flies. There’ll be no way to stop them. Would you talk sense, dammit? Now what about those kids? I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you. Oh, mother of God, they’ll kill us. They’ll kill all of us. Okay, mister, listen. 

Todd: He is such a great crazy man. 

Craig: So they take him back and then I think he goes unconscious again and they take him back to Paul’s house where they just chat about life for a while.

And I have to admit, I kind of zoned out at that part. I’m not really sure. 

Todd: I thought it was amusing that Paul drinks his liquor out of a canteen. Like, even in his house, he’s pouring the liquor into his canteen to to to swig from it. But yeah, they talk about life. This is one of those moments where I thought, you know, Oh, they they they might be starting something here, but no.

That whole 

Craig: recap started with me trying to get back to this point, because I they they chat about life, and then they kinda they get under a blanket together, and she teases them, like, Took you long enough to, or I don’t know. She’s like, I’ve been trying to get under this blanket for an hour or something.

It cuts to an exterior shot and she just giggles. And then it’s the next morning. I guess there’s a novelization of this that kind of digs into their backstories a little bit, but I guess it makes it more clear in the novel that, yeah, they banged. In the night. Because that’s what 

Todd: you do, you meet somebody, you know.

Yeah, yeah, I 

Craig: mean, you 

Todd: go through an experience. They’re in the middle of the 

Craig: woods, the doctor’s passed out, I mean, what are you gonna do? They don’t have a TV, I mean, what are you gonna do? Yeah, that’s 

Todd: true. They don’t even have a car. This guy, Paul, he’s really roughing it because, because her jeep was wrecked, now they don’t have a way to even get this man to the hospital.

So that seems to be what they want to do. So what is Paul’s solution? He’s like, well, you know, my daughter, cause I guess he’s divorced and he has this daughter that, uh, That’s 

Craig: the only thing of significance that we learned from their chat about life is that, yeah, he’s got this daughter and she’s at summer camp down the river.

I know, 

Todd: and you, as soon as I heard that, I was like, alright, we can see where this is going. And, and he walks outside, he’s like, well, you know, we were reading Huckleberry Finn last year. Yeah. And so, we put together this raft that’s just lashings, not a, not a nail in it, it’s just lashed up with the rope.

And I’m thinking, alright, this is gonna be important too. That’s the most ridiculous 

Craig: plot point, but like, I didn’t even care, like. It’s just so there can be a certain scene later. I mean, otherwise it could have been anything. It could have been a, I guess they just had to make them more vulnerable. You know, like if they had been on a pontoon boat, it would have 

Todd: been a motor boat or something.

It would have cost a lot more money to probably to have the shark attack it. I shark, what am I saying? The, the piranhas, I liked the novelty of that. What I didn’t get was. So they load everybody up on this raft, and the way that they propel the raft down this river that does not seem to have much of a current at all, is these long Poles, you know, it’s just big, long sticks.

It looks like it is taking them ages to move six feet. 

Craig: That, well, that’s what I was going to say about the raft too. Like, I also wonder if they did it for pacing, because if they were in a motorized boat, they could just get wherever they needed to be immediately. But instead they have to laboriously make their way down this river.

So like it takes. All day. Well, 

Todd: it certainly gives Kevin McCarthy a lot of time to wake up and explain who he is. And he was a scientist for the military and they were doing experiments. They wanted to create this race of super fish so that they could poison the North Vietnamese waters, which sounds like a horrible idea and yada, yada, yada.

And the military left and closed it up, but he stayed on to continue his research. And now you’ve released them into the water and you don’t know what you’ve done. He freaks out when she dips her hand in the, in the river. Tells her not to do that. And again, it’s going by so slowly that I’m like, you know If they just docked on the side and started hiking there, I think they might get there faster.

Craig: Yeah, maybe maybe I The doctor is laid out on the thing. So I guess maybe we’re to believe that he’s kind of incapacitated I guess I guess they couldn’t carry him. You’re right. You’re right That actually makes sense now that I think of but you’re it does take forever But fortunately for us there are other things going on Like there’s there’s this side stuff going on at the camp where we meet paul’s daughter suzy You Who’s this cute little blonde, like, like white haired blonde girl.

And her whole thing is that she’s afraid of the water. And so there’s this whole thing where she has these two very nice camp counselors, one blonde girl and one brunette, and they’re both very nice to her, but the brunette in particular, you know, tries to talk to her about the water and there’s nothing in the water that would hurt you.

And she’s like, what are you afraid of? And she’s like afraid of the fish or whatever. And she says something like. The fish in the river aren’t interested in little girls fingers and toes. Uh. Uh. Uh. 

Todd: Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. 

Craig: Uh. 

Clip: Uh. 

Craig: Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Yeah, she won’t do it.

So, so it’s a real thing, but I just thought that was hilarious. And then there’s also the jerky camp counselor. Who’s like, you’re going to get in the water. Do you want to be the one to lose the competition for the minnows? Like the, the, the camp is divided up into these teams and they’re going to have this big camp competition that involves a lot of stuff in the water.

And he, he gives her this whole. spiel about how she has to have guts and stuff, but it’s fun stuff. Like it, it feels very seventies of the moment. Like you’ve, you’ve got what’s going on on the river with the doctor and stuff, but then you’ve also got like meatballs, you know, like this little camp movie going on to, Oh, it’s so funny.

I really, I really enjoyed that. 

Todd: I liked it, I thought it was just enough. It didn’t feel pa I mean, it was a little padded for time, but, but, but, things moved there too. You could see, okay, we’re establishing this girl, isn’t interested in going in the water, she’s the daughter of this guy, and eventually we kno you know, he knows he needs to go and try and find and save her.

Which, by the way, I always think is really cute in movies, how they always make there to be like, One person or like a dog or something that it’s really really important that they make it out alive and All the other people around them You know the 40 or 50 extras like who gives a shit like we’re supposed to care a lot about this one person because we know That’s the daughter of one of the main characters.

But anyway, that’s what they’re establishing And the guy is Paul Bartel the the guy The red headed, bearded, jerk. And he’s been in a lot of little Corman things, sometimes just little bit parts. Uh, he directed some movies for Corman, he wrote some movies for Corman. He’s, he’s been in some big time movies, too.

Are you talking about the camp guy? Yeah, the camp guy, yeah. Oh, I thought, I thought he, I remember him being bald, I don’t remember 

Craig: him being 

Todd: Well, he’s got a red beard, I mean. Yeah, he’s got, he’s bearded. Even in, again, because All Roads Lead to Chopping Mall, which is also Corman produced. He had a bit part in the very beginning with Mary Warrinoff, where they’re, Watching the presentation of the robot.

Right! 

Craig: I knew he seemed familiar to me and I couldn’t place it. I do, I vividly remember him from that. He has kind of, not because it’s incredibly unique, but his voice was familiar to me. Yeah. And now I can hear him. I can hear him talking in that opening of Chopping Mall. That’s interesting. 

Todd: Well, his big break was, um, was with Eating Raoul.

He wrote and directed that, and he and Mary Warrenoff starred in that. And, I mean, that’s another one of those crazy stories where, you know, Corman got him his start and got him going, and then I think he took money from, like, his parents sold their house or sold their apartment or something and gave him a bunch of money to make Eating Raoul, and that went on to be a minor hit.

It was up for Academy Awards at one point. I’m not sure if it won any, but I do remember people chattering about that movie in, when it came out. Yeah, so, so he’s in there and he’s just like, it’s so funny, but they’re like playing darts and shooting, you know, throwing darts openly at this guy’s, uh, photo and, and he’s ordering the kids around like a drill sergeant over the silly stuff, just like swimming and having fun.

And, but every time they flashed to the cam, I’m like, Oh man, I can’t wait. Tell those piranhas. Yeah. Oh yeah. You’re 

Craig: just waiting. You know, they’re coming, right? It’s 

Todd: such a great setup. 

Craig: It’s funny because you know, the, the guys on the raft guys and gal. are moving down the river slowly, but we’re also to believe that this swarm of piranha or school of piranha are also making their way down the river.

So it’s only a matter of time before they get there. And this isn’t revealed until much later, but much later, somebody’s like, Oh no, they, they were. Bread to be able to live in both saltwater and freshwater. So the reason that they’re heading down river is because they want to get to the ocean. And then when they get to the ocean, they’ll just go up every river and they’ll attack everybody, which I thought was because we’re also to believe.

I think that these are intelligent piranha because in the lab, they had like lab rat mazes, but underwater. So these are highly intelligent. Fish. Another part that I really enjoyed again, it’s not, it doesn’t feel episodic, but it just, it just cuts to different scenes on different parts of the river, dealing with different people.

And one of them, we returned to old man, Jack, who, you know, and his dog who loves the river. And he’s sitting on a, Tiny little doc on the shore fishing with his feet dangling in the water. And I just thought it was such a charming scene. He’s obviously drunk, but he’s talking to his dog and he tells his dog a joke.

And I just thought, I don’t remember what the joke was, but I just found the whole thing so charming, but then the dog starts to get nervous and he’s like, what’s the matter boy. And then his feet start to get attacked. Eventually, when the, when the raft people get down there, the dog is freaking out, and they, you know, stop, and, and they find the guy.

And apparently, Take the time to bury him. 

Todd: I’ll go get a shovel. He wouldn’t want to be buried in town. Oh my god. Do you guys not have phones? Should somebody call the cops? 

Craig: Just give me a few hours. I’m just gonna bury him, and then we’ll get back on our way. And like, dude, don’t worry about it. Like, Nobody is coming there.

He will still be there when you get back. I mean, I guess if, if you’re worried about wild animals, there’s like throw him in his house, it’s right there. Throw a sheet over him or something. 

Todd: Oh, God. Well, and then we also get a scene of a guy and his son fishing in a canoe, and he reaches over to pull up a fishing net, and he’s got some funny things to say about that, and then he gets pulled in.

I thought that scene was really good. Also, I mean, a little heartbreaking. Again, maybe I’m just getting a little too sensitive because I’m a father now, but, like, anytime you have the scenes where this young kid sees his father die in front of him, God, yeah, that kind of bothered me a 

Craig: little bit. That kid, we never get any character with either of those, the father or the son.

And the kid is around for a while and then he’s just not like, he doesn’t have much to do. But in the time that we know him, he sees two people brutally killed. He’s obviously, I was impressed with this scene too. I wondered how many shots it took because The the piranha get a hold of the dad’s arm and start pulling him underwater, which is ridiculous Doesn’t even make any sense.

No, but in pulling him underwater it they also flip the canoe, but the kid Somehow manages to like squirrel monkey him Like he never falls in the water like as the canoe is tipping he’s able to Kind of climb over it so that he’s now on top of it, you know, it’s underside up, but he’s still on top. It seems like that would be a difficult thing to do in the 

Todd: best of times.

That was a miracle of stunt work. I swear that kid didn’t even dip a toe in the water doing that. It was insanely good. And I was super impressed when I saw that happen. Cause I thought, Oh yeah, if he dips a foot in the water, like what, why are they just attacking dad? You know, there’s supposed to be thousands of them down there.

But, uh, he didn’t, and he gets up back on top of that boat, and he’s just there for the raft people to meet up with him. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And then this is the part where I think Roger Ebert was talking about the most, where I just rolled my eyes and was like, I cannot believe this is in this movie. It’s really stupid.

They see the kid up on the boat. The doctor, not the doctor, the scientist, Kevin McCarthy’s character, starts freaking out. And as they are canoeing towards the kid, he decides, instead of waiting for them to get over there to make a safe transfer from the top of this overturned canoe to their raft, to jump in the water and swim towards him.

It doesn’t make any sense. The very water that he warned that woman to keep her hand out of. I mean, like, what? Why did he do that? Were we to believe that he sacrificed himself? Because, you know, he does sort of end up in between the two, kind of handing the kid over as he’s being eaten apart. It 

Craig: doesn’t make, no, it doesn’t make any sense.

The reason that we’re meant to believe that he jumps in is because that kid’s canoe is sinking and the raft isn’t getting there fast enough. I don’t believe it. The canoe is not sinking that fast. They have plenty of time. In fact, after he dives in and swims there, They get there in plenty of time. If you just stayed on, if you just stayed on the raft, the kid would have been fine.

Everybody would have been fine. He was no help. They try to give him, I think, you know, cause there’s a lot of talk about who’s to blame. He, the scientist thinks that. Paul and Maggie blame him for this. And he’s like, I’m not to blame. It’s the politicians. The politicians were, you know, making these weapons.

I’m just a scientist and I’m not to blame. I think this is supposed to be kind of his redemption, but it doesn’t make any sense. So he, he does get to the kid, but the piranhas are attacking him. And then there’s a shot that doesn’t make any sense at all of him. Like lifting the kid over his head as he’s being eaten by the piranhas.

Onto the raft. Entirely unnecessary. If he hadn’t been in the way, there would have been no reason for him to have to lift the kid over. 

Clip: Mm hmm 

Craig: and and then they pull him on the raft alive just for him to die That’s right, but they needed him on the raft for the next scene where? He’s bleeding and his blood seeping through the the logs on this log raft Caused the piranhas because apparently they’re brilliant to chew at the the that are holding the logs together.

Another scene that I like in concept, but in filming it didn’t make any sense. And I also think that there are a lot of scenes. I don’t know about a lot. There are several scenes in this movie that I felt dragged on for too long. Like, like I like the scene. I like the idea of the scene, but it just goes on for too long.

And this is one of them because we see this raft breaking up For several 

Todd: minutes one log falls off another log falls off another and you’re like, how many logs are on this raft? I know 

Craig: they just keep falling off until eventually you would think that the three people remaining on the Raft were standing on like two logs, right?

Todd: Which would they float? I don’t even think they would but honestly I have to kind of disagree with you. I do agree. It was kind of silly and it did last a while, but I thought this was kind of masterfully edited because when you consider this is a low budget film, you know, and the complexity of trying to film a raft breaking apart like this from a nice wide shot, I thought they did a really good job in cutting this together to show the piranhas chewing at the the ropes underneath and For some reason, I felt like that was relatively convincing, you know, for what it was.

Craig: I liked the look of it, I just felt like it went on too long. 

Todd: Yeah, okay, fair enough. Well, at least they only had like, uh, about eight feet to go to get to the, to the edge of the river. So they all kind of jump off the raft by the time it’s done. I thought the underwater photography in this movie was quite good.

I 

Craig: liked it. They were smart about the way that they presented it because you never, they never lingered on it. You would just get shots. And so the fish that were just done with what, like plastic fish on sticks, I think. 

Todd: Yeah, I think, I think they were just rubber fish on sticks. Phil Tippett made like 73 of them and I don’t even know why he made that many.

I don’t feel like you ever see more than a dozen on the screen at once, if that, but they just get these really quick closeups on them. Right. And they’re, and they’re very fast moving. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it looked fine. Jabbing at the things and there were even moments, some of the fish, I think four of them had metal teeth so that they could, you know, kind of do the ripping stuff and they cut that in just enough so that you can see the fish literally, well, you know, when it gets to people, especially, you can see it literally taking a bite out of these prosthetics and pulling the skin just enough, it was really great.

I really, really was impressed. 

Craig: Yeah, me too. I thought it looked great. The fish make a sound. I read how they made the sound, but I Was it a dental drill? Yeah, 

Todd: dental drills that they just kind of stuck underwater and tried to film from underwater. 

Craig: It’s just kind of a buzzing sound. It’s simple, but I like it.

I can only imagine that fish don’t really make sound. But, in a movie, I 

Todd: It was menacing. It neatly solved a big question, which is, what does it sound like for 30, 40 piranhas to be slowly biting away and flipping around at something? And I thought it was good. I thought it was appropriate. It might not be accurate, but it worked.

Sure. Sure. Right. It worked. It’s like a swarm of bees, 

Craig: right? Exactly. Exactly. You know, in terms of filmmaking, the sound, the sound design, what are you going to do? Just have it, that all be silent. I think that would be kind of boring or just lots of just, just lots of splashing. That’s not, that’s, that’s not scary.

It’s true. Not scary enough anyway, but the funny thing is once they get, okay. So they’ve been trying to make it down river because the camp is on the other side of this dam. But apparently every day or every other day or something, they don’t dump the water on the other side of the dam. I don’t know anything about dams.

I don’t know if this is a real thing, like regulating water levels and stuff. I don’t know. But they’re trying to get to this dam. And the funny thing is, we know that the camp is on the other side, so we’re just waiting for this water to get dumped. But as soon as they get on shore, Paul takes off running for the dam, and he runs for a long time.

It takes too long. Too much buildup. Like they’re trying. So we’re seeing the dumb guy at the dam and we’re seeing him running and then we’re seeing the dumb guy at the dam and then we’re seeing him running and then it goes on for a long time. But I, I was surprised. I’ve seen this before, but I didn’t remember he gets there in time.

And so like the whole, the whole threat that they’ve been worried about, that we’ve been worried about, that the Prana are going to get there. They’re like, Oh, well he saved the day. He got there in time. The military shows up and they’re like, we don’t believe that these are Piranha. Yeah. But then they immediately do, cause they throw some meat in there and the piranha eat it up and they’re like, Oh, okay.

Well, it is piranha. Well, we’ll just poison them. It’s no big deal. Well, then the next plot point out of nowhere, we see Paul looking at this map of the river. And he’s like, if you look at this map, if you just go back a little bit upstream, then there’s like this tributary that they can circumvent the dam.

Like they can go around the dam and they can get to the camp and they can get to. The ocean and the military lady is like, that would never happen. They’re, they’re not that smart. Well, we know they are. And I think that we’re led to believe that she knows they are too. 

Todd: They’re like cover up people. 

Craig: Yeah.

And, and the military guy, he’s trying to cover everything up and we have not heard anything about this until now, but we also find out that just beyond the camp. A water park is opening. 

Todd: It’s so perfect. And he’s an investor of all, of all the coincidences. 

Craig: This is funny to me because this, it was, you know, it was accused of ripping off Jaws, which it does not deny in any.

Way, shape or form. But the last part of the movie is Jaws 3. I wonder if the people who made Jaws 3 ripped off this movie. Cause it sure seems like it. 

Todd: Yeah. By the way, every bit of water sports in this movie, I wanted to be right in there with them. I mean, you know, without piranhas, but this place looks like a place I’d want to go.

Definitely. And 

Craig: before we get to. The montage of water sports. They, they get to the camp first and, and this part, it, frankly, it still surprises me. This is a camp full of children, kids. These aren’t young teenagers. These aren’t 30 year old actors playing teenagers. These are children and the piranhas just come and eat them up.

Yes. 

Todd: I was so. Because the whole time I’m like, Are they gonna get the kids? Are they gonna do the kids? They’re not gonna do the kids, are they? Oh yeah, they’re gonna do the kids. 

Craig: To be fair, you don’t really see a lot of kids die, and you don’t really, I don’t remember if you see any kids die. Right. And, and they don’t linger on, like, dead children’s bodies.

Right. But this whole camp of kids are out like on inner tubes. Like they’re doing like a, an inner tube race or something. And they’re getting attacked and they get that attack goes on for minutes. Yes. And it’s bloody and they’re getting bit. And again, like you said, you’re seeing the piranha rip off chunks of these prosthetics and the kids are screaming and flailing about and it’s violent and crazy.

It is so 

Todd: great. Yeah, it’s great. I loved it. If I had popcorn in my hand, I would have been chomping on it during that scene. But you’re right, it goes on for a long time. It’s a lot of edits and stuff, but a lot of quick cuts and a little bit of gore here and there. And at one point, that mean guy, I can’t remember his name, is like pulling kids out of the water.

He seems to be okay. I thought he would bite it. He doesn’t bite. Me too. No, he doesn’t. He gets attacked, but he, to his credit. As he’s being attacked, he stays in the water and keeps getting kids out. Yeah, that was, uh, surprising. I’m, I, again, I felt like he was being set up to be the evil guy who’s gonna get chomped up and, and he wasn’t.

Right. 

Craig: Susie has kind of a hero moment where she pulls, cause she wasn’t in the water. She was never getting in the water. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But she takes a canoe out and tries to get some people out. She tries to rescue her two nice counselors and she rescues one. I, I think the only person that we see for sure killed.

In this scene is the brunette nice counselor like she was like the nicest one and I was shocked I thought the blonde was going to be the one to go. Uh huh And that was a very jaws moment. She gets taken down and and we watch her from underwater. We watch her Being pulled down deep through her own blood by the fish.

That shot was amazing. It looked fantastic. 

Todd: It 

Craig: was 

Todd: amazing. 

Craig: Maybe my favorite shot of the whole movie, 

Todd: by the way, her blonde friend, we’ve seen her before. We’ve seen her in The Fury. She was played by Melody Thomas Scott. She’s had lots of little bit parts and and, and roles and other movies and things, but she has been a mainstay on the Young and the Restless.

Huh. Since 1979, up to now. 

Craig: Hey, you know, all this is happening and then Paul and Maggie show up there, like, they, they just keep showing up everywhere. Too late. Yeah, I guess there are through 

Todd: line, whatever, I don’t care. By the way, the whole time I’m watching this and I’m seeing these two, these are our heroes showing up and trying to solve things, I’m thinking, You’re the ones who let the piranhas into the water.

Uh huh, yeah. You know? You created the problem. Yeah. When I 

Craig: talk about fault, it’s really your fault. 

Todd: It’s their fault, a hundred percent. So I’m just like, yeah, you better, you better clean this shit up. 

Craig: Okay, so we find out that the general or colonel or whatever his name is, is invested in this water park that’s opening, and his co investor and the guy who owns the water park is named Buck.

Played by Dick Miller. Yep. In a great role for him. 

Todd: Typical Dick Miller. Kind of skeevy business man. Brash Texan oil man, whatever. It’s funny, he has a Texas accent that comes and goes. Did you notice that? No, I didn’t know if that was on purpose or if that was a mistake because when he’s given the big speech for the crowd He’s got this thick Texas drawl going on but every other scene.

He’s just typical Dick Miller, New Jersey sounding guy

Clip: It’s been a great pleasure to invite you here this afternoon to our opening day festivities. Hey, at dawn today, if you have any questions about the purchase of the land up here, our people will be immediately in the crowds to answer your questions, help you out anywhere they can. Just remember, you’ve got no obligation to buy anything, only to enjoy yourself.

Craig: Well, maybe that’s kind of the showman in him, you know when he’s addressing the people he’s could be but I do like the scene Where it’s apropos of nothing really like we don’t need to know this but there’s a whole scene where he’s talking to somebody and he’s talking about how every attraction in the Park has been salvaged from some other place for whatever reason I don’t know if it was Dick Miller or it must be I guess cuz Again, like I said, it really doesn’t make any difference.

It’s not like that means anything, but I was just intrigued by his story. But anyway, it’s the huge opening of this water park, I guess it’s called Aquarina. It was a real, real water park too. Was it? I couldn’t, I couldn’t really get a grasp on what it was. Cause it, it seemed like just. You know, it’s on the river.

So like there’s swimming, but there’s also like those, those barges that are like floating bars. But like you said, water sports, water sports. montage, but I liked it because I felt like, and they were, I felt like they were setting us up for look at all the potential for what can go wrong with the piranha show up and they’re about to like, who are they going to get?

Are they going to get the swimmers? Are they going to get the scuba divers? Are they going to get the people on the bar barge? Are they going to get the water skier? And the answer is no. Yes. Yes.

They will get 

Todd: everybody, I think, except for Dick Miller. That water skiing scene. Oh, God. I loved that water skiing scene so much. Yes. Great stunts too. That water skier is amazing. He’s on one ski, first of all. Yeah, he’s 

Craig: really good. And, of course, who knows, They may have done it in a million shots. I’m sure they probably did.

But the way that it’s set up, like we see the scuba diver, like who is scuba diving in this river, like in the river, but the scuba diver gets eaten and then the water skier skis by. The guy’s floating body being eaten by a school of piranha. And he’s trying to communicate with the people on the boat to take him into shore, but they can’t understand what he’s saying and they’re messing with them.

And they’re actually trying to get him to fall. It’s so funny. It’s very funny, but I also found it really tense. I wanted that guy to get away. I don’t remember if he did or not. Did he remember? I don’t know if we ever saw what happened to him because. Somehow, I think he ends up going into the water, but we’re distracted away from that because the boat, like, crashes and explodes, doesn’t it?

There’s definitely a boat explosion. 

Todd: There’s two boats, like, there’s another boat coming around at the same time, and somehow it flies over the other boat and it explodes. And I was like, were those girls in there? Did they just kill those girls in an explosion? I don’t know what happened. Yeah, that wasn’t 

Craig: even piranha related.

It all happened very fast. The people who are swimming are getting eaten, the pe the people who are swimming are like, flocking the, the barge, the floating barge, and so like, it’s getting pulled down and eventually, the colonel who’s on there, he’s a villain anyway, so he ends up falling in and getting eaten, we don’t care about that.

The funny thing is, eventually Maggie and Paul show up, To do nothing. Yeah! Except for steal a boat 

Todd: and head further downriver. He was like, if we go further down there’s, I don’t remember if it was a treatment plant or something, and his idea was they can pollute the water. 

Craig: They’re gonna kill them with pollution.

Todd: It’ll kill everything. Okay, well, I guess you do what you gotta do. 

Craig: We’ve already been told that these fish have been like genetically engineered to withstand poison. Hmm, but Apparently, I think he even says, we’ll pollute them to death. Yeah. I don’t know if that was supposed to be some sort of environmental message.

I don’t know, but they go to this facility. They, they take the boat down to this facility. I don’t even understand what’s happening because as soon as they get there, he’s like, Oh no, it’s flooded. Half the facility is underwater. What? Why? I don’t like the, the dam didn’t even release today. Like how, how is it flooded?

I don’t understand. And then he ties a rope to himself and he’s like, I’m going to jump in the water and you count to a hundred. Because at a hundred, I’ll either have taken care of it or not. But either way, I can’t hold my breath past a hundred. Okay. Whatever. And so then he dives in the water. This also irritated me.

Why would they not have parked the boat right next to the facility? I know. Like a hundred yards away. So he has to swim through the lake. River or whatever to get there really good underwater photography of him swimming and you know He gets into the facility and he finds the wheel that he’s supposed to turn or whatever But he’s struggling with it and then the piranhas show up and they start attacking him now some people they can kill Instantly, but I guess maybe they’re a little bit full now having eaten hundreds of people.

So I guess they’re just pecking. It’s like picking at your dessert. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He’s a, he’s getting torn up or whatever, but he gets the wheel turned and she’s counting to a hundred and it’s cutting back and forth and eventually she gets to a hundred and she takes off and it pulls him through the water and she’s trying to pull up the rope, but it just comes up Cut and frayed, but then he pops out of the water.

Todd: Well, just a hand, a bloodied hand shoots up out of the water. It was, it was almost like a Jason moment. That was, that was kind of cool. I was more afraid that he was going to get cut to ribbons by crashing through that underwater glass window, which yanked him out at full speed. That was the thing I was thinking about as he broke the window to go in.

I was like, if she’s going to pull him out through that window, he’s going to be gone. 

Craig: Well, I was thinking about him getting like banged around corners. I’m like, this is not a good plan. He can’t die. I mean, if he were just the hero, it would be okay if he died, but he can’t die because of Susie. So he’s, you know, he’s, he’s reunited with his daughter and great.

And then the lady military guy. is talking to the press, I think, and she’s like, Yes, we’re going to launch a full investigation. I mean, she’s corrupt. We know this. But she says, And there’s absolutely no concern about the fish making it to the ocean. They just absolutely could not. And then it cuts to the ocean and the ocean turns red.

And that’s the end. 

Todd: I would have loved a big creature over the ocean a little bit more than that. It felt a little abrupt, you know, as obviously the big suggestion was. Or did they? I thought it was an excellent 

Craig: setup for a sequel. 

Todd: For sure, 

Craig: yeah. And there was. Yeah, but I know nothing about it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it.

I didn’t read it. I know nothing about it. I have no idea where they took it. It was called like the swarm or something. 

Todd: The Awakening or something like that, The Swarm. I think that’s the one that James Cameron did some work on. But we, we would be remiss if we did not point out that the scientist lady was Barbara Steele.

And, uh, I’m not sure if you know much about Barbara Steele’s work, but she was a goddess of early Italian, mostly horror cinema. She was a title character in Black Sunday, which we are totally gonna do one of these days. And that is Mario Bava’s just like, uh, brilliant, wonderful black and white horror film.

I can see 

Craig: the, the VHS cover. 

Todd: Yeah, yeah, you can see her there. And also, uh, you know, we did, uh, we did two weeks ago, The House of Usher. And so the second Poe movie in that was The Pit in the Pendulum. And she is the, well, one of the stars in The Pit in the Pendulum as well with Vincent Price. You know, she was starting to work for Corman at this time, in the early 60s anyway.

So by 78, she was popping back and forth and doing a few things for Corman. But, uh, just gorgeous woman. Just did so many great Italian horror films. And it was so cool to actually see her have a small role in this movie. Have, have 

Craig: you seen the Piranha remake? 

Todd: No, I haven’t. Have you? I saw it in the theater with my dad.

Piranha 3D, you talked about that once before. 

Craig: It’s fun, it’s dumb. Yeah, yeah, I liked 

Todd: it. 

Craig: It’s, it’s dumb. This was 

Todd: fun and dumb. 

Craig: The remake leans hard into the comedy, but it’s still very bloody and violent. And of course the effects are much better and it’s got good people in it. It’s got Christopher Lloyd plays the scientist role.

It’s a little bit different, but Elizabeth shoe, uh, is in it. Wow. It’s not good. It’s not bad. It’s funny. It’s, it’s. Entertaining. Uh, much like this, this movie isn’t as funny. I mean, there’s, there’s definitely comedy going on, but they’re not leaning as hard into it. Like I said, from the beginning, they kind of play it straight, which is what makes it funny.

Mm-Hmm. and I, and I think that’s intentional. I think they knew exactly what they were doing. Oh, yeah. But I, I was, uh, I was frankly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. I liked it, and, and, and I would, yeah, recommend it. I found it charming and again. I was entertained. It was just, it was a fun watch. 

Todd: Yeah, I completely agree.

I, once again, I was so happy to reappraise this film because I had remembered it as being boring and I don’t think it’s boring at all. I really enjoyed it. You know, Steven Spielberg obviously gave his stamp of approval to this one as being his favorite Jaws ripoff. We did another Jaws ripoff called Orca.

Mm hmm. That we really enjoyed. I remembered that being a fun movie and way better than we thought it would be. This one kind of has the advantage when you’re talking with piranhas. It’s not just one, right? Right. It’s hundreds and supposedly thousands of fish. So those attacks like everybody can get attacked at once and all the way up and down the river.

It’s it’s so great. It’s better. As far as body count and thrills, you know, it’s a better concept than, uh, one lone shark going out there that everybody has to stay away from and, and kill, you know, so, it definitely upped the ante, and I think it took full advantage of that. I love the scenes where people are getting attacked.

It’s just a blast, and I was, you know Quite frankly, chuckling when all of the kids at the camp were getting eaten up because horror movies don’t often go there. And, uh, it was fun to see this movie. I wasn’t afraid to go there as well. I read, I don’t know if this, you know, how true this is or to what extent it’s true, but, uh, Dante said that he and Corman would often cut a movie To fit the MPAA’s requirements, like, uh, to get it to an R instead of an X.

And then after they had gotten it approved, they would go ahead and throw those scenes and stuff back in the movie before they sent it out to distribution. Because they knew the MPAA never followed up on this stuff. That’s really funny. And it makes me wonder how much of that they did with this movie.

By today’s standards, you know, it’s a, it’s a very easy R, you know. But the fact that you’re, you’re eating up kids and things like that. Even though, like you said, it’s not, it’s not that explicit on the kids getting attacked still. Where a lot of movies aren’t always willing to go. And I loved it that they went there with this.

Like, just go balls out. Such a fun movie. 

Craig: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I would definitely recommend it

Todd: Yeah, I’d recommend it too, and I’m kind of interested to see the remake, and maybe we’ll get around to doing Piranha 2 at some point. Who knows? Maybe. Well, thank you so much for joining us on our third week of Corman Films.

Stick around, we’ve got one more coming your way. Uh, we’re gonna jump forward a couple more decades to the very last film that Corman directed, uh, after a long hiatus as a director. And I’ve never seen it. Honestly, I haven’t either. Uh, it’s called Frankenstein Unbound. Um It’s got some stars in it, and, uh, and so we’ll see.

We’ll see what that’s all about. Um, until then, look at our back catalog. We’ve got a lot of other Cormen, uh, hits back there. I went ahead up on YouTube, and I put a playlist together of all of our episodes that were Cormen related. Dementia 13, Galaxy of Terror, Chopping Mall, all these other ones that we have done in the past.

Go ahead and check that out and flip through those episodes and get some ideas for your next watch as well. You can always find us online on our website, ChainsawHorror. com. You can find our Patreon, Patreon. com slash ChainsawHorror. Please consider joining the club there. And until next time, I’m Todd.

And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Our second Roger Corman tribute is his first horror comedy, also directed by him, released just the year before House of Usher. Not only did A Bucket of Blood give Dick Miller one of his few starring roles, but it provided a story template (as well as leftover sets and actors) for Little Shop of Horrors a year later.

See if this Corman classic still provides laughs and chills today as we walk you through this homage to House of Wax that parodies the beatnik scene at the time.

Episode 403, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Craig, we are week two into what might just end podcast. I don’t know. I’m just so, I’m so excited that we have the opportunity. And I’m. I’m super bummed that Roger Corman is gone, but he did live to a ripe old age of almost 100. So, uh, if, if I can get that far, you know, it means that I’ve made some major life changes.

But anyway, we’re, we’re tributing Roger Corman with a second movie. Last week we did House of Usher, which was the first of his Poe series, which was a bit of a departure for him and his company. So Roger Corman, just to give a quick background. Was a low budget filmmaker. He had an arrangement with a company later to be known as American International Pictures to provide them with black and white features.

They provided double bills to what was now a whole bunch of independent theaters around the country. And so it was just a double bills of cheapies. He would get paid like 50 grand in 19, you know, 55. And he would have that to make two pictures that then he would provide to the distributor. And the whole arrangement was great.

Last week, we covered House of Usher, which was a grand departure from that. He realized that this model might not be sustainable going forever. And he convinced them, give me enough money to make a full on color widescreen cinemascope picture with the big name star and let’s put it out there and see what it goes But I’m still able to shoot it on the cheap Which he was, and that spawned seven more movies.

So that was that line. What we’re talking about today is A Bucket of Blood. It was filmed in 1959 and this is one of those black and white features that he put with a double bill of something else that he did for American International Pictures. Really super cheap, shot it in like five days. The reason I picked this movie is because it’s notorious for a few reasons.

First of all, I was kind of keen to do pictures that he was heavily involved in. As a producer, you might be more involved with some pictures than you are the others. This one, he produced, he directed, and he and the writer, Charles B. Griffith, with whom he would have quite a long relationship. They spitballed this movie.

They went out and were like, Hey, we need to shoot this picture. What are we going to do? And, uh, let’s do something about beatniks. Beatniks are sort of the, I don’t know what you’d call them. The hippies of the fifties? Yeah. I don’t know. 

Craig: The art, artsy, The Beat Poets and that. It was very focused around the art scene, I 

Todd: think.

Yeah. Honestly, like, pretentious, artsy people. Now, you as an English teacher in high school, do you teach your kids about this era? Did you talk about, like, I mean, how familiar are you with this? Because some very significant American writers came out of this school or era. Yeah, not, yeah, 

Craig: not, not really.

Yeah, we may look at some beat poets, but not in depth. Like we may read a couple of poems, but no, no, I don’t. I don’t 

Todd: go in depth in this era. Beatniks are like counterculture at this time, right? And this was kind of the peak. 1959 was kind of the peak. And so. They were in a way ripe for parody. And so he and Charles Griffith went out and literally went from coffee shop to coffee shop over a day drinking coffee, drinking some alcohol.

And eventually by 2 AM, they had between the two of them sorted out. The story for a bucket of blood based on what they kind of encountered what they saw and Roger Corman himself Started this with the germ of an idea and I’m gonna read from an interview from him He said the idea for this picture came from a screening that I went to from one of my horror pictures A character was walking down a hallway, I used my usual technique of moving the camera, it was like an actor’s POV, moving forward, and then as the, he was moving forward, he reversed, dollied back, and built the suspense, and by the time this character comes to the end of the hallway, he has to open the door.

And the audience sees that there’s something terrible behind the door. He said, the scene played perfectly, the audience screamed, and we opened the door, of course, something fell into his face. And then, after the scream, they laughed. And I thought, did I do something wrong? Like, why did they laugh at a horror film?

So, I was trying to analyze it, and I realized that I didn’t do anything wrong at all. That I did get the scream I was looking for. The laugh afterwards was a release, the tension had been broken. And also, they laughed at the appreciation of being taken in. Right, they’ve been had by the scene. So, he said, I started to think about the relationship between humor and horror, which I later started to equate with sex.

So in each area, you build the tension, build and build, and then you snap it quickly. And the end result is that you scream in horror, You laugh in comedy or you come in sex. So I did a bucket of blood as a little experiment to see if I could combine horror and humor deliberately. And that led to his other horror comedies, which came after this, which were little shop of horrors.

and Creature from the Haunted Sea, and all three of these were written by the late, great Charles B. Griffith, who, like I said, became a Corman collaborator for a while. Charles B. Griffith was known in the industry by Corman and all the people who worked with him as an incredibly inventive writer. He was just fun.

He had all these wacky ideas, and he put them into the script, and he would write super, super fast. His parents had a vaudeville background, and so he kind of came from that, and he himself said he was too stupid to realize and understand how long it was supposed to take to do a script. So he would write, like, super fast.

Ha ha! And that’s why Corman loved him, is he would get scripts out to him super fast, they would have these wacky, fun ideas. Griffith! Went on to write a number of things, so many things, many things uncredited, you know, lots of big name pictures that he didn’t get a credit on or he did rewrites on or things like that, but he said, Honestly, like I got lazy because it was so much fun to work for Corman and to do these crazy things that he would just fall back on writing another picture or two for Corman.

That was, um, The kind of relationship these guys had that they latched on early on, they had a similar ethos, I guess, in a way, and so I chose this picture because Corman himself was spitballing the whole concept with Charles Griffith, who then wrote it, and then they shot it, and they shot it in like six days.

It was amazing. An insanely short amount of time. In fact, after they were done shooting it, nearly a year later, the sets for this movie had not even been demolished yet. And so, Corman jumped in and was like, Hey, uh, I need to sh I can shoot another movie real quick before you destroy these sets. And on the same sets that he used to shoot this movie, he shot Little Shop of Horrors.

Again, with another Charles Griffith script that once again, They went just from cafe to cafe and bar to bar to spitball over the course of a day and little shop of horrors We know it made a bit of money, but then it spawned a musical It launched jack nicholson’s career. It had many of the same actors from this movie in it and corpsman shot it Super quick, because in 1960, the rules were changed so that Hollywood had to start paying actors residuals.

No longer could you hire an actor and say, All right, you know, you did this movie for me, I paid you, it’s done. Now you had to pay an actor every time that movie was shown. Residuals. And so Corman shot Little Shop of Horrors in three days, like in December of 1959. So that he could hurry up and get one more film in before he had to start paying actors residuals.

Like, that’s how, that’s how this guy worked. Bucket of Blood stars Dick Miller. I love Dick Miller. Yeah, who doesn’t? We’ve seen him in bit parts in so many things. And one of the great things about this movie is this is a rare occurrence where we get to see him in a starring role. Like, have you? Ever seen Dick Miller in a starring role before this?

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Well, yeah, because I saw Little Shop of Horrors. But he didn’t star in Little Shop of Horrors. He had a bit part in that. Oh, right. He was the flower guy. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, the guy that came in. That’s right. I forgot he wasn’t the lead. I was thinking he was the lead. I’m not at all surprised that it was The same director and the same writer, and, you know, it’s shot on a lot of the same sets and whatnot.

Because, they’re the same exact movie. They are! They’re the same exact 

Todd: movie. Except for the fact that one has a man eating plant and one doesn’t. Otherwise, the plot is exactly the same. Charles Griffith was very blatant about it. He said, I had this awesome structure that we used for Bucket of Blood and I just copied it and we used the exact same structure for Little Shop of Horrors.

And, and they use the same sets, they use the same actors, you know, for the most part. How great. This is what I love about this man. I, I so admire that I just felt 

Craig: like, uh, you know, I’m watching it and, and as things just keep adding up, I’m like, this is pretty bold. This is pretty bold to make the same movie again and put it off as something else.

Because, I mean, the plots are so similar and there are so many parallels, like the main guy in this movie, Walter. Is this kind of simple down on his luck lower class guy who’s working in this place where he’s unappreciated and kind of abused by his boss. But, you know, the one ray of light is the girl that he likes there.

He wants to be something more, so he has to try to do something else. So instead of becoming a horticulturalist for a strange plant, he decides he’s going to be an artist because we’re not in a plant shop. We’re in like a hipster. Coffee shop club kind of thing, but it’s the exact same thing. So then there’s an accidental inciting is okay.

So the clay, his clay, that’s his medium. Just like the plant is Seymour’s medium. Right. And he’s so frustrated with it. You know, like in the musical, he sings, he can’t get the plant to grow. And he’s like, grow for me. And in this movie, he’s like. Messing with the clay. He’s like, be a nose, be a nose. Like he’s so, he’s so frustrated.

And then there’s an inciting accidental incident. In Little Shop, he accidentally pricks his finger, and that’s how he learns that the thing likes, the plant likes blood. In this, he accidentally kills a cat. Both of these accidental things Lead to a series of events where to continue in his success, which he immediately finds like everybody is coming in their pants over this plant and over these, uh, sculptures.

And so to, to keep his success, he has to keep producing. And then the only way to do that is to kill people. He also has a morally ambiguous boss who is aware of the murders, but as long as he’s going to profit from it. He’s willing to look the other way. There’s also another male antagonist in a little shop of horrors.

It’s the dentist who threatens Seymour. In this case, it’s, it’s Lou the cop and they end up the same way. And in the end, his medium or whatever gets away from him. His, his, uh, ambition gets the best of him and he’s punished for it. It’s the exact. Same. Plot. 

Todd: I gotta say, I had never seen this movie before.

That surprises me. I know, I know. It has been on my list forever. And I even remember as a kid going to the video store and seeing this movie on the shelf, whoever packaged it and distributed it had presented it as though it was this long lost thing. Roger Corman’s bucket of blood lost to the ages finally resurrected and now check it out But it you know is packaged with one of those giant boxes and where it felt dirty and kind of weird And so I never picked it up.

It seems so quaint now that I never did but this is a black and white film This is one of Roger Corman’s black and white films Oddly enough, released at the same time that the movie we did last week was released. Again, this guy could shoot three or four movies in a year because he shot them in like five to ten days and was doing them, you know, to very specific requirements.

But he put a lot of thought and energy into it. And I love the fact, this is his first horror comedy. And he deliberately was like, I wanna do something different. He had seen this intersection of where horror and comedy seemed to go, and he wanted to explore it. Even the studio at the time wasn’t quite sure what to do with it, because they didn’t know comedy.

In fact, HE didn’t know comedy. Corman was like, I never shot comedy before, I’m afraid I’m gonna screw it up. And the best advice he got was Was from a friend of his who just said, you gotta shoot it straight. Have everyone play it straight. And I think honestly, he was successful about it because I watched this movie for the first time today.

And I got to admit, I was grinning from ear to ear. I honestly did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did. How about you? 

Craig: I, I think if I had gone in knowing that it was supposed to be, Campy and funny. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that it was I didn’t read anything about it or anything beforehand I was excited to see it was really short.

It’s only what like an hour and six minutes I I I didn’t know what I was getting into and so it took me a while to figure out Whether it was supposed to be funny or not and then about halfway through when I decided it was I was like, okay I I get what you’re doing. I see the And I see the jokes, but I don’t know that it had the desired effect on me.

And I think that again, had I been aware that that’s what it was going for, I think that I would have looked at it through a different lens and maybe I would have enjoyed it more. I thought it was, you know, Fine, you should tell me the things that you like about it because I don’t have anything in particular that I didn’t like about it There were just things that were kind of curious to me.

Like I loved I I love dick miller, too. He’s been in Everything he’s cameoed in a million movies that we’ve talked about and and he plays a character here named walter paisley And apparently this movie had enough impact on filmmakers that they wanted like dick miller plays a character with that same name You in a bunch of movies.

Yeah, Walter Paisley. Yeah, they’re not the same character, but he often or sometimes has that name. And like I said, he’s playing kind of the Seymour role where he’s kind of down on his luck and he’s meant to be sympathetic. You’re supposed to feel for him. And Rick Moranis is just kind of so He just comes across, Rick Moranis in Little Shop of Horrors comes across as very innocent, like very naive and very innocent, almost childlike.

It’s difficult to say what Dick Miller was trying to do here or what Corman directed him to do here because it seems like they’re towing the line between he’s just simple and, well, or he’s legitimately mentally challenged. Yeah. I don’t know if they didn’t want to go Too far in a certain direction. It was difficult for me to read what he was playing.

Now I appreciated what he was playing because he really went for it and he stuck with it. I’m not saying it wasn’t good acting. It was just difficult for me to grasp as a character. I’m like, I don’t really get who you are, especially since by the end, well, no, he’s kind of morally ambiguous throughout.

And that’s another thing. Like he starts killing people, but I, I can’t tell if he’s crazy or if he’s too. Simple minded to understand that what he’s doing is 

Todd: inappropriate. I sort of lean to the latter. Seymour is very similar, at least in the, you know, the original. I gotta say, like, the movie opens with this beatnik doing his, like, poetry.

You know, with a guy playing some drums or some music or whatever behind him. I will talk to you of art. For there is nothing else to talk about. For there is nothing else. Life is an obscure hobo bumming a ride on the omnibus of art. Burn gas, buggies, and whip your sour cream of circumstance, 

Craig: and 

Todd: hope, and go ahead and sleep your bloody heads off, creation is all else is not.

Craig: And then it goes 

Todd: on forever and you’re like, oh my god, shut up. It’s so much garbage. I was thinking of, um, have you ever seen So I Married an Axe Murderer? 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: God. Like, they do the same thing in that movie. They just Woman! Woman! Woman! Whoa, man. I love it. It’s similar. It just obvious that he’s out to satirize this movement of pretentious artists types who are standing up in bars and doing poetry.

That’s just stream of consciousness garbage. That doesn’t really mean anything. 

Craig: No. 

Todd: When they’re done, they sit down with their friends and they talk about how profound it was and how great they are yet. Everybody at the table. really is just Looking for attention. We’re all artists and we all appreciate and all this stuff and they’re just stroking each other’s egos Yeah, and I know this was a particular era, but it’s so relatable because I feel like this never ends.

There’s always a moment in art history where you have, like, your pretentious people who are so wrapped up in themselves and think that this quote unquote art that they’re doing is so important and so wonderful. That becomes their identity, that becomes their meaning, and it just, from the outside, it just looks sad and pathetic.

And the minute that That guy opens his mouth. I was literally laughing out loud because the more things change, the more they stay the same, you know? Like, I know people like this now. It’s just different stuff. But it’s the same pretension. And it’s sad. Like, it’s this Longing to belong, it’s like, this longing to be important, like what you’re doing is important, what you’re doing is meaningful, what you care about is important and meaningful, but like, anyone from the outside looking at it, it’s like you’re just masturbating, you know?

You’re stroking your own ego. It’s just so much bullshit coming from your mouth, it’s completely meaningless. I’m 

Craig: just gonna play devil’s advocate and couldn’t you really honestly say that of any artistic endeavor? Of course, 

Todd: especially, especially the things that, that move mountains, you know, like there’s one point at which, you know, abstract art was laughed at, but then taken very, very seriously by people, and now it’s incorporated, you know, into what we understand as art, and we appreciate it and whatnot, but I think this is all about taking it to extremes.

I feel a deep sympathy. For Dick Miller’s character, that he is Busboy in this, I don’t know, coffee shop? 

Craig: Yeah, I think so. 

Todd: Where there’s a little stage. 

Craig: It’s so funny because we talk, you know, we look at it from an outside perspective. Didn’t you go to those types of places in the 90s? Cause I certainly did.

These like, hipster coffee shops. There was one in my town where people would like, like they would come and they would just play their guitar and sing acoustic like on a little tiny stage or slam poetry or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. This is not at all unfamiliar to me. Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t, I was kind of a nerd.

I just kind of hung out with like these hipster kids and they, you know, it looked different, but it was the exact same thing. So it’s not like, and I’m sure that the, I know for a fact that these. Third spaces still exist. Not in my area, but they do. I’m just saying that, yes, us watching it as an audience, it looks super pretentious and stupid and it’s obvious that they’re making fun of it, but it’s also, I mean, I guess that’s kind of one of the points of satire is to, when satire gets too broad, then you kind of lose the message.

So, you, you kind of have to keep it, you know, Close to reality for the satire to even read so I think he does a good job of that here But anyway, I’m sorry. That was a tangent you were talking about how you feel. Sorry for Walter You know this meek 

Todd: guy in this environment Okay, so going back going to Walter by the way Everything you said is right going to Walter like he’s this guy who’s just a busboy and he feels unimportant and he aspires to All these people, they congregate.

There are all these self proclaimed artists in here. This guy gets off the stage and he’s spout out this quote unquote poetry that’s, that he even admits is meaningless. Everyone listen to my new poem. Do you think they really heard it? I heard it, 

Clip: Mr. Brock. Thank you, Walter. I’m sure you did. Bring on the multitude with a multitude of fishes.

Feed them to the fishes for liver oil to nourish the artist. Thank you, sir. That was word for word. Is 

Todd: it? I’ve forgotten. 

Clip: You mean you don’t remember your own poem? 

Todd: I refuse to say anything twice. Repetition is death. I don’t get it. When you repeat something, you are reliving a moment, wasting it, severing it from the other end of your life.

I believe only in new impressions, new stimuli, new life. 

Clip: I 

Todd: thought you believed 

Clip: that life is an obscure hobo bombing a 

Todd: ride on a I do believe that, Walter, but I also believe creative living. To be uncreative, you might as well be in your grave. You know, they applaud him because they all want to be a part of the circle, right?

Right. And this guy is outside of that. He’s watching it. He’s waiting their tables. He wants desperately to be a part of it. I don’t know. I just felt like aren’t we all kind of there at some point? You know, we want to fit in, we want to be right, but you’re right. He’s played us a little slow. So he’s very vulnerable and somebody actually says something about him.

It’s a dig. He says, Walter has a clear mind. One day a thought’s going to enter it. It’s going to get lonely and wander out. You know, he’s just such a pathetic character. 

Craig: Yeah. And there’s one point, somebody, somebody says something about being in the military and he said, they tried to draft me once, but I couldn’t pass the test.

And he just says it in all earnestness. Like it’s just. A fact and they all kind of look at each other like that was the other thing that bothered me that doofy poet, which I do want to go on record and say that everything that he was spouting was nonsense, but it was pretty well constructed nonsense.

Like if you if you actually listened to what he was saying, it didn’t make any sense. It was just like free association, but it did have a cadence and it did have a meter and you could pull some meaning from it. Sure. Yeah, it wasn’t just nonsense words like just random, like, you know, He was saying something.

Yeah. It was just a bunch of gobbledygook. But he, that guy, that poet, and Carla, she draws. You know, they’re all artists in some way or another. They aren’t mean. One might even say they’re nice to Walter. But in a really condescending manner, where it’s clear to us, I don’t think it’s clear to Walter because he so desperately wants companionship and community, but it’s clear to us as the audience that they’re condescending to him, and that they’re laughing at him behind his back.

And that makes him even more pathetic. And, and you feel bad for him. He’s unaware, 

Todd: right? 

Craig: I, yeah, I think he is. 

Todd: And so I instantly bonded with this guy and I was interested in his story from the beginning. And I was surprised by that. You know, I didn’t think that this movie was going to get there so quickly.

And Dick Miller, who I’m used to seeing in these like sarcastic, almost opposite roles, right? Self assured. Yeah. He’s kind of an every man, like he’s just 

Craig: kind of a likable, Every man and, and he comes home and he’s so excited. ’cause he has some clay. Well, that’s the thing that, that’s his in like art is the in to this community.

So he has to do something. I mean, they tease him, like, have you ever written anything? I don’t remember exactly what they say. He’s like, no, but I, I am working on something. I’m working on something at home. He clearly knows. That art is his way in. So he buys this, you know, huge cardboard box full of molding clay.

He’s already bought it before the events of the movie, but we see him, you know, open it and, and pull the clay out. And he grabs a port uh, not a portrait, an actual photograph of him. frame photograph of a woman. I don’t know who it is. Maybe his mother. I don’t know. Or maybe it’s Carla. I don’t know. It might be.

I never, it’s hard to say, right? Yeah, I don’t know. It’s as though he thinks that he’s just going to sit down and be able to sculpt whatever he wants to sculpt. He starts very clumsily putting together What’s supposed to be a head, but it, but he just, yeah, I mean, he just molds kind of a ball and then he pokes his thumbs in for eyes and then he tries to make a nose and he can’t even get it to look right, and he’s clearly visibly frustrated, like, why isn’t this working?

Why can’t I make it look the way I want it to look? And he gets really upset. Meanwhile We’ve heard this cat meowing. We know it’s the landlady’s cat. She told him it was lost or whatever. And he realizes that it’s stuck in the walls and he’s like, all right, hold on, I’ll help you out. So he grabs a huge knife.

I was the biggest damn knife you’ve ever seen. And he’s gonna cut it out, but of course you know what’s gonna happen. Like, you know, he gets a hammer or something and he hammers the knife in, and you hear RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR I laugh so hard. I’m a cat lover, but I laugh so hard 

Todd: at that. 

Craig: I It grossed me out when he Because then he pulled part of the wall down and he had in fact impaled the cat and when it was just hanging there Impaled I was like, oh, that’s gross.

And then when he started to pull it out and it was clearly not a real cat It had no Motion like it was if it was ever real it was certainly taxidermied at this point because it was stiff as a board Right, but he’s upset about he’s upset about it But he goes to sleep and he wakes up in the morning and all the time, this was something else that was interesting about his character to me is it’s almost like he has, and I’m, I’m probably going to use the wrong word because like an eidetic memory, like it is, he remembers.

say, and he can recite word for word everything people say, but, but that also means that those things are constantly floating around in his head. Yeah. And so he starts chopping together different things he’s heard and sssss. From the poet. 

Todd: Let them die, and by their miserable deaths become the clay within his hands that he might form an ashtray or an ark.

Pray that you might be his diadem, gold, glory, paint, clay. That he might take you in his magic hands and bring from your marrow wonder. 

Craig: And that triggers in his mind an idea. 

Todd: And it’s a really silly idea. He says, repetition is death, Frankie. That’s the first thing he says to this poor cat, right? And it’s ironic because the poet says, I never say anything twice.

Repetition is death. But he himself can’t help but repeat everything this guy has said in his head. Throughout the whole movie, he’s going back to this guy’s words like they’re really, really meaningful for him. And it’s really tragic in a way. I don’t know, like, I don’t want to get too deep into this, but, you know, this guy has said all these things, and in this particular circumstance, in this particular situation, this guy’s really taken them to heart.

And he’s taken them to heart in a very twisted way, and that just makes it more pathetic. He just latches on to what this guy says, and we can all look at it and see what this guy says. It’s just, honestly, it’s just garbage. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s just like free association. Like, just whatever comes to mind next, you should re you, you, honestly, because I imagine a lot of people haven’t seen this.

If we haven’t seen it, I imagine a lot of other people haven’t. If any, if any of our listeners are like me, they may be a little bit reluctant to seek out something like this. So you should play just a little bit of that so they can hear what we mean. Because it’s difficult to describe. He, he ascribes meaning to it.

So, I mean, what it comes right down to is he’s not mentally well. I’m not going to try to diagnose him. I’m not. He’s impressionable and he’s not well and he’s not. Making rational choices, but he’s desperate for acceptance again. Killing the cat was an accident. I find it morbid and gross that what he does is that he takes the clay and he uses the body as a mold or whatever.

And he just covers it. He encases it in the. I find that morbid and gross, but, you know, people do taxidermy, and I almost would be reluctant to judge that. But, what’s funny about the movie, and this is, I think, in large part what makes it a comedy, is he takes it immediately. I mean, that clay dries instantly.

And he takes it immediately to the coffee shop and the owner, Leonard and the girl he likes, Carla, are sitting outside. And he’s like, do you want to see something? And they’re like, yeah. And he has it wrapped in a blanket and he opens it up. And not only is it the cat, but he hasn’t moved it, nor has he removed, nor has he 

Todd: removed the giant knife going through it.

He hasn’t taken the knife out. I literally laughed out loud at that. I did not expect that. I thought it was hilarious. And then he asked him, what’s it called? That makes sense. Dead cat. Dead cat!

Craig: But what’s even funnier than that is Carla loves it. She thinks it is like the most brilliant thing she’s ever seen. This, it looks like a dead cat that has been dipped in clay. And they’re talking about, oh my god, look at how, uh, How you’ve captured the anatomy and like it’s crazy and she’s good. She’s like it’s a masterpiece and at first I couldn’t even tell if They were coddling him or making fun of him and he just didn’t Understand, but I don’t think so.

No, I I think that she actually really liked it and then Leonard put it in the back because Walter wants it displayed and So Leonard’s like, okay I’ll put it I’ll put it way in the back in that alcove in the back and then the next scene is him Walter working And I just thought it was so cute and pathetic that everybody he talks to is like do you like my cat?

Do you like my cat? Do you like my cat? Yeah. I 

Todd: just couldn’t help but feel for this guy, because he says to her, does this mean I’m an artist? Yeah. Honestly, I was emotionally invested in this movie. And Maxwell seems to kind of control the crowd, more or less. He makes an announcement that Walter’s a genius.

He makes this hilarious speech, and when he’s done, even when he’s done with his speech about how genius Walter is, he ends it with, bring me an espresso, Walter. Yeah. Like, like you’re, you know, you’re still serving me. 

Craig: Get me an espresso. You’re right. That guy seems to be the person, his opinion is what matters.

Like. Yeah. If he says it’s good, it’s good. I guess he’s earned that much esteem in that little circle or whatever. He’s kind of the kingpin and he really kind of holds court too. Yeah. People congregate around him and he, he’s always like just lounging in his chair, just vomiting philosophy. And 

Todd: it’s funny.

Yeah. It’s hilarious. I mean, don’t you know people like this? I mean, it’s so 

Craig: relatable. Yeah. Yeah. So the reason that I found it a little bit difficult to sympathize with him at this point, even though I knew that this was an accident, I knew exactly what was going to happen because I’ve seen Little Shop of Horrors and I already saw the setup.

Especially when they’re like, when they’re like, what are you going to do next, Walter? What are you going to do next, Walter? And he’s like, Oh my God, I have to do something next. 

Todd: You know what? I got to say, I loved this play on words. I think the writer of this movie was so clever. Maybe it doesn’t translate well now.

But somebody says to him, make another cat. And he says, well, I haven’t got another cat.

So that’s funny on that level, 

Craig: but it’s also funny. I did like that writing because I liked that writing and it continues in that vein where he never. Really masks what he’s doing. No! It’s just that nobody ever really asks. Nobody 

Todd: picks up on it, right? Right. And, also I love that play on words, cause, you know, in this era anyway, a cat is slang for a person.

Look at that, he’s a cool cat, he’s a cat, or whatever. I haven’t got another cat, but later He gets another cat. But in this circumstance, it’s a person and not a It’s an undercover cop. 

Craig: Okay, so there’s also a hilarious scene where after, like, seriously, they are, like, worshipping at his feet over this cat, and people want to buy it and blah blah blah, and some I don’t remember if it’s Payola.

Something like that. Yeah. Veolia or something. Some weird lady, some robust middle aged lady, like throws herself, throws herself, oh my God. Ridiculously 

Clip: water. I dug it. My cat, it was the most wonderful, wildest, like wiest thing I’ve ever seen. Walter, you’ve done something to me. Something deep down inside of my prana.

I have? Oh, Walter, I want to be with you. You’re creative. You’ve got a heart like bulb glowing inside of you. And I want to be warmed by it. 

Craig: You’ve done something to me deep down in my piranha is a line that I hope to remember and be able to pull out at parties. But anyway, she throws it, she throws herself at him and it’s very, cause he is, he doesn’t even know what’s going on, but she, she’s like, all right, well, at least let me give you something.

I have to contribute something. So she, she pulls something out of her bra and we don’t know what it is. And she puts it in his hand and we don’t know what it is. And he’s walking home and this guy follows him because there’s apparently a whole, Ring of undercover police that just hang out in this place all the time.

Yeah, they’re staking that place 

Todd: out Yeah, 

Craig: we we learned that early on one of them follows him home and knocks on the door and he’s like, hey Whatever. It turns out what she gave walter was heroin But he didn’t know that. He doesn’t even really know what heroin is. He has 

Todd: no idea. 

Craig: He’s like, oh yeah, heroin, isn’t that expensive?

And the cop’s like, yeah, it can be expensive. And he’s like, well, that was nice of her to give me something expensive. Like he just, he doesn’t get it. And when Lou, the cop, tells him he’s a cop, Walter, again, being simple minded and not really understanding how things work, doesn’t understand. He doesn’t feel like he did anything wrong.

And he sounds like a But I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t take it, I didn’t know what it was, she gave it to me, I didn’t know, it’s not mine. But the cop’s like, you’re coming with me, and he pulls out a gun. And then Walter is so scared of the gun, you’re gonna shoot me, you’re gonna shoot me. And he’s holding a frying pan, and he Kills the guy with it.

Todd: Gets him over the head. It is so Little Shop. The first kill, unintentional. I had to do it. Right. The dentist, right? Like he, 

Craig: that wasn’t on purpose, really, but anyway. Okay. So then there’s a funny bit where the landlady comes in. She was great. She’s in Little Shop too, by the way. And he somehow has hidden the body in his ceiling.

I haven’t, that didn’t make any sense to 

Todd: me. I didn’t get that. 

Craig: While the landlady’s in there, like the arm falls down from the ceiling dangling. So he has to get her out really quick, which he does. But then he puts, I assume this is where the title comes from. He takes a big pot, like a pot for the stove top and puts it on the ground to collect the blood that is pouring down this guy’s arm.

Yeah. And I guess that’s the bucket of blood because bucket of blood has nothing to do with the rest of. The events of the movie. 

Todd: Yeah, he’s just kind of talking to himself. I mean, I also think this is supposed to be funny. He’s talking to himself. I need another cat, something like that. You know, while this blood is pouring into this bucket behind him.

And I love what she says to him when she comes in. It’s just very straightforward. She’s like, Walter, what do you need as a girl? 

Craig: She doesn’t have to be pretty.

Just get laid. What she’s saying is that she, he needs somebody to take care of him. 

Todd: Yeah, for sure. 

Craig: Because she’s also upset by the state of the apartment. It’s not tidy or whatever, but he, he shoes her out. And then, I mean, you can see what’s coming a mile away. He comes back to the apartment. Place the next day and, and he’s like, Hey, I’ve got something else.

It’s called murdered man. 

Todd: He’s not very clever in his, uh, titles, but in between that and this Lou Leonard, who owns the club has picked up the statue of the cat and accidentally drops it. And then he sees first sticking out. And then he realizes, Oh, Walter is a fraud. Like this is what he’s been doing.

There’s a dude on stage singing a song about a murderer. Yeah, and Walter’s like very uncomfortably walking around. Oh god, I thought that was hilarious. Anyway, Leonard is starting to Realize what Walter’s on to and when he unveils murdered man, he’s extremely shocked about it Yeah, everybody else thinks it’s genius, but he’s like He 

Craig: tells Leonard, you’ve got to stop doing this.

But, at the same time, I don’t think that it has happened yet. Like, I think that he sees Murdered Man even before he’s going to call the police. Yeah, he’s, well, he’s an 

Todd: opportunist. He discovers the cat thing, and he’s like, oh, well, Walter’s a fraud. But just at that moment, some big, fat, rich guy comes up and offers him 200 bucks for it.

And then he offers him 300 bucks when he kind of demurs, and then offers him 400, and then says, you know, no, this Walter guy, he’s going to be big. I’ll give you 500 bucks if I can have the cat statue plus first look at his next door. Piece of art, 

Craig: right? And, and as this is going on, Leonard is literally reaching for the phone.

Like he’s going to call the calls. And it’s like, it’s the more, it’s the moral dilemma, like back and forth. Like he’s like 300. And Leonard thinks about it. He’s like, no. And he reaches for the phone and the guy’s like 400 and eventually he gets to 500 and he’s going to do it. And I, and I think that the reason for that is because, well, the reason that he was going to call the police, you know, I think he was still willing to let it go.

You know, If Walter would stop, but at the success of murdered man, Walter’s like, I can’t stop. I have to keep doing stuff. And I think that’s when he was like, okay, I’ve got to call the police. But then when he realized how profitable he’s going to be, he’s like, well, I guess I’ll turn the other cheek. 

Todd: Yeah.

I mean, it’s so, I think there’s definitely several obvious layers of social commentary in here. I mean, they’re bold on their face. You know, it’s not that sophisticated. It’s cool. You know, I mean, it’s more than you would expect for a quickie movie like this. He’s obviously self motivated by money, so he’s not going to turn him in quite yet.

So that’s an interesting dynamic, I think. Also, by the way, I’ve got to say this. There are these two guys who are running gag throughout the movie, who are just stoned out of their mind every single scene. They always have this kind of funny commentary, and there’s all these jokes in there about veganism, and about, you know, Are these eggs?

Smokin weed. Yeah, and wheat germ. By the way, I just have to say, because it’s part of our history, I think this is the third prominent mention of wheat germ. In a movie, that we’ve had so far. Do you remember back when we did, uh, what was it? Zombie Nightmare or something like that? I can’t remember, where a guy was going to buy wheat germ, and then like two weeks later, we saw another movie, and there was some dude talking about wheat germ, and then in this movie, they talk about wheat germ like five times.

I don’t know much of that. I think for the time it was shorthand for veganism or something like that. 

Craig: Oh, 

Todd: sure, 

Craig: gotcha. 

Todd: It’s a lot of these jokes in here. 

Clip: Watch it, the plate’s hot. 

Todd: Are these fertile eggs? Are these eggs fertile? 

Clip: Naturally. 

Todd: What’d you fry them in? 

Clip: We ran out of the safflower seed oil, but I found a bottle of peanut oil on the shelf.

Don’t worry, it’s not hydrogenated. 

Todd: Is that the cold press stuff or the junk Hildebrandt by mistake? And I think it kills. Roger Corman, when he was interviewed about this, I don’t remember what year it was he was interviewed, but he was just like, you know, the audience laughed at these bits. But now, a lot of the things that they were making fun of are accepted in society today.

You know, we have these things like the vegan lifestyle, and people wearing sandals with suits, and so it’s just not, like, funny now. People don’t realize is that a lot of those things that the beatniks were doing and writing about have now become part of our collective culture. Well, I sort of feel like those things have come back around again.

You know, where we’re kind of looking back on these things, and still there’s at least a segment of society that still makes fun of it. So in a way, it’s kind of funny how timeless the humor in this movie really is. Like, I was laughing, and I, by the way, I, Those two guys, go ahead. I, I eat very little meat.

I’m, I’m practically a vegan myself, and so, It’s okay, it’s alright, Todd, it’s okay, you don’t have to defend me, it’s fine. for your reassurance. Yes! But yeah, I mean, I think it’s hilarious, too, when everybody’s got to announce their veganism to everybody, you know? It’s just a funny thing to laugh about, and back in the 50s, it was no different.

It’s just so funny how little things have changed. 

Craig: Those two guys, I, I, it took me a while to figure out. What was going on with them as far as what their purpose was. But ultimately I decided that, and I can only think of one of the guy’s names, but those two old guys from the Muppets, the two old guys, Walt Waldorf, and Stant Stant Standler, I don’t, something like that.

That’s who they were. Like the camera would just cut to them so they could make some hearty, hard jokes. Sure. I also decided that those guys were gay. I don’t know that the movie projects that in any way, but I just decided that they were, um, because it’s, it looked like they, they dressed just alike and like, they probably shared clothes and stuff, but, uh, yeah, those guys, I, I found them really funny too.

At this point, Walter is like on top of the world. And he’s eating it up, and like, he comes to the coffee shop dressed like a pimp or, or, or something. 

Todd: Yeah, he’s got like a, like a beret, he’s got a scarf around his neck, and he’s got a cigarette holder and all this, it’s just typical stuff. Very stereotypical like pretentious artist.

Yeah, 

Craig: and he’s strutting around and he’s so proud of himself and everybody’s kind of falling at his feet Except for this one model who’s apparently been out of town. So she doesn’t know about everything that’s happened And she can’t believe that the stupid bus boy is this great artist and she gives him a lot of shit and she Openly to his face insults him and calls him an idiot and worthless.

Yeah, she’s a real yeah She’s not a nice person She’s stunningly beautiful, but she’s not a nice person and he he gets very upset and very angry and she’s like He’s like you’re ruining everything because she’s driving people away from him And anyway, so he stalks her home that night and lures her back to his apartment under the guise of he wants to pay her to model for him so he can sculpt her, but instead, after she strips nude, in silhouette only, he positions her on a chair and then strangles her, and then the next day, he has a new, uh, Statue the cat statue was a mess.

The people statues look kind of cool Like I could under I mean, they’re still pretty rudimentary there, but the the woman one in particular Looked looked kind of skillful. I could see how somebody might look at that and be able to find some artistic beauty there It’s still grotesque because she’s still obviously being strangled But yeah, that’s kind of the turning point, where, you know, he intentionally kills somebody.

Todd: Corbin shows some style here. This is a point in the movie where you could tell the movie starts to take a slightly different turn. He’s got more skewed angles. A darker turn. Yeah, even visually it’s more dark. It starts to feel more 

Craig: Hitchcockian in the 

Todd: way that it’s shot. Yeah. It feels more like a thriller.

It’s got more noir type elements. Things, there’s a lot more shadow and you know, he’s able to make these very small and simple sets kind of more interesting by casting a lot of shadow over it and darkness and very interesting ways. And, and again, like a kind of skewed camera angles and things like that.

It’s, I’m impressed. I’m, I’m, of course I’m impressed with Corman as a producer, but I think as a director, he put a lot of thought into what he was doing. I think he really cared and tried and was still able to do things on a small budget that were artistic. I really appreciate that. 

Craig: Yeah, and I think it’s well paced too.

I mean things move pretty quickly at this point like Again, everybody fawns over the woman thing And so they throw him a big party and he like wears a crown and everybody’s going on and on about how great he is And the poet gives a speech about him about it’s a poem He does like a poem about him and he really takes that to heart like He’s accomplished what he wanted to do.

People are acknowledging him. He’s part of the community. He’s been accepted into their community, but he’s drunk and he’s also desperate to keep that, like keep it going. Yeah. He’s now entirely motivated. By fear of losing it. 

Todd: He literally says, I gotta do something before they forget me. I know what it’s like to be ignored.

And yeah, honestly, this is really good. I think this is really good stuff. I mean, obviously it’s very bold to have him just state this outright, but. I get it. I sympathize with this guy. I understand how he feels. He’s in this desperate situation and all he wants is just to be accepted. And so I hate to see him.

I know he’s doomed to death. I know he’s doing horrible stuff. 

Craig: And I also understand because I think that that’s A challenge that anybody who finds success faces, because you find success and you receive all these accolades and all this acclaim, and then the next question out of everybody’s mouth is, what’s next?

What are you going to do next that’s going to impress us? And that’s, that’s a lot of pressure. And you’re terrified they’re going to move on. 

Todd: Right. How’s he going to maintain that? 

Craig: And Leonard knows that he’s dangerous, you know, he knows what’s going on. And at this point, Walter just gets, I think he’s drunk.

I think this is right after the party. And he finds somebody working construction alone on the street with a giant circular buzzsaw and little drunk. Walter somehow manages to fight this guy and pin him down and slice his head off. And then the next morning, he has a bust. And, and he brings it to Leonard, who has just heard on the radio that somebody had been found decapitated on the street.

Todd: Yeah, it’s the newspaper salesman who announces it, yeah. It’s silly and it’s funny, but 

Craig: Leonard says, you have to stop doing it. You have to stop doing it. If you’ll switch mediums, if you’ll start just doing like abstract or something, I’ll give you your show. Cause cause Walter is really wanted a show of his work.

And so he’s like, okay, give me my show or whatever. I don’t know if he has any intention of stopping. It doesn’t really matter at this point. No, he doesn’t because he has the show. But at the show, he confesses his love to Carla, and she tries to let him down easily. She’s like, you know, I, I do care for you, Walter.

It’s just, you know, I, I, I love your work. I, it’s, I don’t love you in that way. She’s, she’s not, she’s not terrible about it. It is sad. 

Todd: It is sad because, like, his whole thing, he’s just so naive, right? Like, when he revealed murdered woman or whatever, like, she kissed him out of, You know, she just gave him a pack out of excitement or whatever.

Oh, this is your best work yet But it turns out that he interpreted that as like you love me I mean, it’s just oh, 

Craig: I know I feel for him. He doesn’t understand and you know, he and he’s so naive and innocent that like in confessing his love he asks her to marry him like It’s it’s pathetic but it is sad but when she rejects him he gets angry but then he You Asks her if she would allow him to make and the way that he words it is important to because he can I make you a statue?

Yeah, not can I make a statue for you? Can I make you a statue and she’s like, oh I’d be flattered or whatever But they go to the show and she closely inspects the woman in the chair and there’s one place where the the clay hasn’t covered It’s like a A fingernail, and she can tell that it’s a real fingernail.

She bumps into him, and when she bumps into him, she confronts him about it, and he doesn’t deny it, because he’s never denied it. Oh. Again, just nobody has noticed or no like, like he doesn’t understand that he’s done anything 

Todd: wrong. In fact, it’s like, he’s following Maxwell. He says, Maxwell said it’s alright, and he quotes back, you know, some lines from his poetry.

Let them become clay in his hands, that he might mold them. 

Craig: It bothers me that at this point, he says something like, you know, Ooh. I don’t understand what’s wrong. I gave her new life or something. And I want to do that for you. He, you know, he says this to Carla. I made them immortal and I can do the same for you.

That’s exactly, exactly. Instead of screaming in the densely populated coffee shop and where they’re having this conversation, she runs. Alone outside into the night and he chases her but immediately after that other people at the party at the show realize what the sculptures actually are and then they are a Frankenstein’s mob, you know just chasing after them.

So it’s Walter chasing Carla and then everybody else chasing Walter. This part was so funny because I remember these exact sets. I think there’s a part in little shop of horror near the end of the movie where he’s running. Yeah, it’s almost an identical scene. He’s running by these exact sets, but Walter starts hearing the voices of the people that he’s killed, which is odd.

And. I mean, it was spooky, but it was new, like, I, I, I guess he’s going even more mad, but the voices tell him to go home, and like, they’re gonna get him and stuff, whatever, so he stops chasing Carla, and he runs home, and he knows the mob is coming, so He says, I’ll hide where the, where they’ll never find me.

I knew what this was going to be. I knew that he was going to try to make himself a statue, but I didn’t know if it was going to be in the vein of Little Shop of Horrors, where it was surreal that, like, Seymour’s face, like, showed up in I, I half expected them to open the door to find him a complete statue.

Uh, just like the other ones. 

Todd: Dick Miller was really pissed about this. He said, you know, this movie just needed, like, another day. This movie just needed a little more care, a little bit more production value. And at the end of the day, he was like, even this last scene where he’s hanging, he said they didn’t have enough time to cover him in clay or do any of that stuff.

So he just ended up with some brown makeup on his face and it, it reads poorly. 

Craig: Actually, you know, I don’t think so. I think it would have been interesting to see him kind of as a finished product or, or close to, but I think that, Realistically, and that’s not to say that it needs to be realistic, but realistically, this is more like what it would really look like, like he would smear some because the wolf is at the door.

You know, it’s not like he’s got hours to do this. He’s got moments to do it. So he smacks some clay on himself and then hangs himself and that’s how they find him. And that douchebag poet is like, It’s his greatest work. And then, the end. 

Todd: I suppose he would have called it Hanging Man. 

Craig: Yeah!

And I’m sure he would have. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I can’t say that I really enjoyed it. It was so short and it didn’t feel like it. And I think that’s just because There were no surprises, really, for me at any point, and I knew ultimately where it was going, and so Well, it’s not 

Todd: a new story. It’s House of Wax, right? I mean, it’s Yeah, sure.

Even for its time, it wasn’t a new story. 

Craig: And I knew that he was the doomed There was no way he was getting out of this, and so it was just leading to a foregone conclusion, and so I just kind of wish they would just get there already. I, I, I mean, I think there’s some interesting things going on here. I think it’s a, an interesting watch.

It was a little slow to me. If you are a fan of Little Chop of Horrors, either the original movie or the musical. This is kind of an interesting watch just to be able to see the parallels and, and how much they line up in that way. It was kind of like a, like a little treasure hunt. Like I’m waiting for this moment, the connections and, and, yeah, right.

And anytime, and anytime I find them, I’m, a little, there’s a little bit of glee, like, ha ha ha, there’s another one, but beyond that, it didn’t do a whole lot for me. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. It’s just not my cup of tea. 

Todd: Honestly, like, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I thought it would just be a little tedious and kind of boring and very dated.

It is in some ways, but honestly, I, I think I just bought into the humor part of it a little bit more. I enjoyed all the digs, and there are a million. Digs at the pretentiousness of this beatnik kind of art scene, and that I feel is almost timeless. Like, you know, you could, you could update this movie for today and really have a lot of fun with it.

Heck, you could make it tech bros, working on, 

Craig: Influencers, you know, like just constantly stroking each other’s egos and either actually being or thinking 

Todd: themselves to be elite. Well, yeah, for sure. And so in that regard, I really enjoyed it again from looking back perspective. I didn’t feel it was terribly original.

I knew where it was going. I was really happy that it was as short as it was. It’s just a little over an hour. So it moves fast. It kind of moves like a. Almost like an episode of Tales from the Crypt or something like that. Yeah, 

Craig: yeah. Well, I think it would be better in that format. I think it would be better at 30 minutes.

Yeah. And I could see something like this on Tales from the Crypt, but we’ve talked about this before. In Tales from the Crypt, usually the protagonist, I don’t want to call them the hero, but the protagonist is not a good person. In the end, You kind of get what’s coming they get what’s coming to them and there’s some satisfaction in that.

I don’t find satisfaction in this I feel like he was a troubled person and ultimately all he wanted was companionship And to be accepted in any community probably this just happens to be the community that he was in So it’s kind of tragic that in the pursuit of that he destroys himself But nonetheless, I think I could have gotten that 30 

Todd: minutes.

Fair enough. Well, interesting bit of trivia here. Fred Katz, who was the cellist who did the score for this, he scored a bunch of Corman movies. He did this, the score for this movie, which I liked. I thought it was very representative of the whole beatnik culture, sax notes and And things that were almost like they were accompanying a guy on the stage doing poetry.

And that was throughout it. It was quite good. He did this score and then he resold this score to Corman like six more times. If you watch Little Shop of Horrors, it’s basically the same score. He just had an editor piece together selections from it. Rework it and, and move it around and stuff. And I’m also really impressed with how Corman was able to do so much with so little.

I mean, when you look at the movie, you could tell, I mean, you could imagine this movie could easily be shot over a couple weekends. Yet, there is definitely a distinct shift in style from the earlier parts of the movie to the later parts of the movie, where it gets a little darker visually. There’s more shadow.

Things are a little askew and um, those same locations that we saw more or less lit evenly earlier on get cast in so much shadow that they, they may, they get a depth and a mysteriousness about them and sort of an urgency. You know when he’s being chased and things like that and that’s that’s smart.

It’s really clever I really liked that aspect of it as well. I thought it was quite noticeable and I really appreciate it You know, we talked about this the last Corman movie we saw House of Usher where he was able to take a limited budget and just cram the screen with stuff and Really make it feel perfect big.

And I feel like this film is really no different. Well, thank you so much for listening to another episode. This is the second of our Corman tributes. We’ve got two more coming to you. The next one’s going to be a big departure. We’re going to jump forward a decade or two into a Corman produced film that gave a very famous director his start.

And at least one very famous director says it’s one of his favorite. Homages. So anyway, that’s a little teaser for you. Enjoy that, uh, next week. In the meantime, please find us at ChainsawHorror. com. Let us know what you thought of this episode. Let us know what you think of Roger Corman. And, uh, if you’ve seen this movie, we would love to hear your comments as well.

Patreon.com/Chainsawpodcast. We’ll get you backstage. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Legendary filmmaker, Roger Corman, sadly left us this year. House of Usher (aka The Fall of the House of Usher) is the first of our four-part tribute to his legacy as a director, producer, and all-around powerhouse in the film industry. Starring Vincent Price, directed by Corman, and written by Richard Matheson, this tale based on Edgar Allan Poe’s classic story of the same name proved so successful that it kicked off a cycle of 8 Poe films with the same team.

Join us as we spend the next four weeks discussing all-things-Corman with a curated selection of films that represent some of the best of his horror output, while showcasing his uncanny ability to make box office bank by nurturing up-and-coming talents and producing films that people want to SEE on shockingly low budgets and timelines.

Episode 402, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast

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

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: Craig, it almost sounds morbid to say that I’ve been waiting for this moment for such a long time. 

Craig: Yeah, it does.

Todd: So maybe I shouldn’t say that, but what I really mean is, I’m just super excited at the chance to talk about one of my idols and heroes, Roger Corman.

We’ve talked about him so much on the show, we’ve already done at least six or seven movies that he’s either directed or produced, and he’s directed and produced hundreds of films throughout his career. And sadly, he passed away. Uh, just a couple months ago in May, but he was a ripe old age of 98. Whoa! 98, man!

Can you believe it? Almost there to 100. Roger Corman has been an idol of mine since I was old enough to start being interested in the people behind the movies that were made. You know that I grew up, you know, when my dad was, loved these old science fiction movies, these black and white. Films that he would go to the theater and see when he was a kid and he would see on TV when he was a kid You know attack of the ape monster and the day the earth stood still and all these crazy things So he had these VHS tapes around our house all the time They’re some of the first movies that I gravitated towards because they were fun They’re all kind of cheap and some of them are not well acted and they’re fun for that too but they’re just Fun to watch their spectacle.

Their interesting, cool stories. Those were the kinds of movies that I started to grow up on. And so maybe that really influenced my taste in horror and taste in films as I got older. One of the things that, you know, watching these movies kind of impressed on me was just how Realistic it is to make them.

These movies were very low budget. They, they took place in suburbia. They weren’t huge on special effects, but they did what they could. And you’d watch these things by guys like Roger Corman or guys like Ed Wood, and you’d be like, you know, I could make a movie like this. Maybe I could even make a better one.

So he had that influence on me as well. Stirring up an interest in. Wanting to produce and make movies myself, and I’ve dabbled in that. I’ve always been in the creative industry in one way or another. I’ve made some movies very Roger Corman style on micro budgets, and I look to these guys for inspiration and for tips and tricks.

And so, if you can say I’ve ever studied anyone’s career, I’ve probably studied Roger Corman’s career more deeply than I have anyone else’s. Anybody else just because he was doing the kind of thing that even now I would love to be able to do. He’s in the business. He was producing films. He was making stuff that might not have been the best art on the planet, but was artful and people watched.

And that was his driving thing. He’s like, I want to make movies people are going to see. He still cared about the art of it though. You know, we, we review so many exploitation films and a lot of stuff that we see, especially from this era, people didn’t care. Movies have always been a business. And so there’s always been that balance between the art and the business of movies.

And there are, there are a lot of horror films that we watch that are obviously like the people behind it. They were just interested in cranking something out for a buck. And there’s nothing wrong with that either. We find joy in those films as well. But Roger Corman is really set apart from those guys, where, yeah, he was very interested in making a buck, but he was also interested in making good movies that people would see and enjoy.

And he did. So, I’m just so excited to be able to sort of celebrate his legacy. We’re gonna do four films. That four is far too few and it was so hard to pick but the first of those films is the house of usher What what’s your exposure to Roger Corman? Were you even really into him? I know this is not really like your slice of the pie as far as you know Your interest in horror movies and stuff goes I’m kind of wondering if if this is a thing that only in later years since we’ve been doing that Podcast and I’ve been sort of cramming these things down your throat that you’ve just started to watch or if you had some early exposure to him as well.

Craig: Well, yeah, of course I did. Of course I did. Being a huge horror fan. If you’re a horror fan who grew up when we did and when even when our dads were growing up, if you were seeing horror, you were seeing Corman somewhere. I mean, you talked about how we’ve talked about him a million times. Well, I can’t imagine how you could do a horror podcast at all, let alone for almost 10 years and not reference.

I mean, he’s just enormous in the industry. And did I have exposure to him when I was young? Yeah, I didn’t know it. As I got older and as I started really getting more interested and not just enjoying movies, but, you know, reading about how they’re made and what goes on behind the scenes. How the sausage is made, basically.

Of course, his name popped up everywhere. I mean, he has this huge, huge body of work. I do think that he was concerned about putting out things that people wanted to watch, but with a resume as lengthy as his, there are bound to be some misses too. And, and there are some, you know, there are some really silly or really not the kind of thing that I would necessarily call artful.

Not to say not still entertaining. Wasn’t he, I don’t remember. And that’s the thing too. Like I make a big distinction between director and producer. Corman directed this movie that we’re doing and I’m glad we picked one of those first. I don’t know if our plan is to stick with that or if we’re gonna branch out into just some of the other things that he was involved in.

The director and the producer play very different roles. And so in looking at his work, and, and not, I haven’t seen this movie, which is kind of ridiculous, but I was happy to see A movie that he directed because I feel like the director has more of an artistic influence I understand that the producer has influence too sadly too much often, right?

This was cool to see, you know We we threw around I don’t even remember what we landed on but we threw around some things and he Produced some really fun things that I really enjoyed growing up like watchers with cory hame Based on a dean coon’s book about a psychic dog that I found Loved when I was a kid.

The girl from happy days when we did a tribute for her, didn’t he produce planet of terror or planet terror or whatever it was galaxy 

Todd: of terror. Yeah. 

Craig: Galaxy of terror. Yeah. So, and so, you know, there’s, there’s fun stuff out there that is really, it’s fair to call them B movies, but they’re still fun to watch.

And this was because you’re right, this specifically, this type of film. Is not really my cup of tea. I just don’t really get into this older style. Right. That said, I’m not going to say anything bad about this movie. I don’t have anything bad to say about it. I didn’t love it. It didn’t, it didn’t change my life, but I appreciated seeing it and I’m looking at it and looking at all these choices and reading about all these choices that he made and, and looking at some things.

Some shots that were visually stunning and there are just some really super interesting choices, artistic choices that I really respect. So you don’t have to worry about me trashing, you know, uh, this, this film from one of your idols. I’m not going to, I, I think it’s. It’s a very good movie. It’s a shame that I haven’t seen it until now.

I don’t know that I need to see it again, but I needed it in my tool belt. 

Todd: I know what you’re saying. I know exactly where you’re coming from on this. And, you know, it’s interesting because I think a big reason why I appreciate Corman is what he was able to do with so little. Right. You know, he’s Famous for people call him the king of B movies and Corman disputed that he said, I’ve never made a B picture what he means by that is look like nowadays we we use shorthand.

We say B movie and everybody just thinks it means low budget and that’s kind of become the term we use now. But B doesn’t stand for low budget back in the earlier days of film and a lot of people don’t realize this like in the thirties and forties when people were going to the cinema to see movies.

And I think this probably is an extension of theater. I’m trying to figure out why theater owners padded, you know, would give you one ticket to go see a whole bunch of shit in the afternoon or in the morning, but I guess it’s probably because before that people were going to see live performance and plays and things.

They last like three hours long and movies were an hour, hour and a half tops. They’ve since become much, much longer, what the public is generally able to tolerate as far as a movie goes. Right. So, and the longer movies back then had like, intermissions, just like plays would. And so, theaters would have like, a schedule of things that you buy a ticket to go see.

You would start off with a newsreel, then there would be a short or two, usually animated. And then you would see an A picture, which is the movie you were going there to see. Yeah. You know, the big build, high, high level production. And then you’d see the B picture. And the B picture was generally lower budget because it was tacked on, you know, it wasn’t the big movie people were going to see, but it was usually like an, a lesser film without as big a stars or not as well advertised.

It was kind of hoping to capitalize on the popularity of the, of the A picture. 

Craig: Can I, can I ask you a question because I’m genuinely curi Was thought put into how those films were put together beyond financial stuff? I mean, would it be like a theme? Like, would it be a night of two horror movies? Or would it just be two different movies?

Todd: Sometimes there were, sometimes there weren’t. I think as theater owners got more sophisticated, then yes, they started to put more thought. They thought, okay, well, this movie, we’re gonna show two horror movies back to back. Or we’re gonna show a horror and a sci fi. Or, or two dramas, you know. We’re not gonna, like, shock an audience that came here to see Gone with the Wind with, uh, you know, I Drink Your Blood.

Coming right after that. So yeah, some thought did go into that. I’m sure there was some mixing involved, but what got Corman really into the movie business was he started funding, directing, and producing films for a company pretty early on. It eventually became AIP, American International Pictures, but back then it was called American Releasing Company, ARC, by the legendary distributor, Sam Arcoff.

And uh, what they liked to do is they would package double features. And their main, at this point, this is like the fifties, and so car culture’s becoming a thing. Drive ins are being a thing. Smaller, independent theaters are becoming a thing. Because, not to get too deep into the woods of film history here, but it was at this point in the fifties.

Theaters started to become independent, because up until this point, the major studios of the era, the MGMs and the Paramounts, they all controlled the entire chain. They were producing the movies, they were distributing them, and they owned the theaters. And so they had a stranglehold on the theaters. If you were a guy who made a movie, you couldn’t get a picture into the theaters.

When drive ins opened up, those were more independently owned. And so independent filmmakers could get their films into drive ins. And then very shortly thereafter, the government came in and threatened to break all this up. They said, look, you guys have a monopoly on this stuff. The studios voluntarily gave up.

And so, suddenly all across the country, theaters are now independently owned, and they can show whatever movies they want. And so, theater owners got very aggressive, uh, not only about booking more independent films, but actually going out and saying, These are the movies we want! This is our audience.

We’re in small town America here, and we’ve got a chain of theaters in the Midwest. So, these are the kinds of movies we need in our theaters, because this is what the people in our towns want to see. They would either become distributors themselves, or producers themselves, or they would approach distributors and producers to specifically make films for their theaters.

And this is the role. Really, that companies like American Releasing Company, ARC, and AIP would fill. They would say, okay, we need these movies, these kind of movies. We need sci fi movies, and, and here’s the title, and we’ve already drawn up a poster. So, uh, they would find producers like Roger Corman to make those films.

And so he really came in at this sweet spot that doesn’t exist anymore. Where he was able to scrounge up funding and make cheap movies to fit the bill. And what he ended up making for ARC was double bills. So, ARC would immediately go to a theater with a package of two films. The She Woman from Outer Space and, you know, I.

E. or Flesh or something like that. And these would generally be black and white. Low budget films that were, as you asked, designed to be put together and sold as a package. And so, yeah, so, so this is how Corman got started. You know, he was born in 1926 in Detroit, Michigan. He studied to be an engineer.

They moved out to Hollywood. He went to Beverly Hills High School. He studied to be an engineer at one point after he got his degree. He moved to Paris. I think he studied out there, got a degree in English literature. He served in the Navy for a period of time, got out of it, spent like three weeks. At some engineering job and quit and was like, I’m sorry, this is just not what I want to do.

I want to be in the movie business. 

Craig: Yeah, but that fascinates me because it sounds to me, based on the little bit that I read about him, is that he approached filmmaking almost from like, An engineering vantage. Yeah. Like everything was so planned out, and I was, I was so impressed reading how he would have the script, and on one side he would have the text of the script, the dialogue, and on the opposite page he would have hand drawn diagrams of the script.

The set, but from an aerial view so that he could move the actors around almost like, you know, like a football coach on his whiteboard, like mapping, mapping where the characters were going. Lights, camera angles. Yeah. How the set’s going to be laid out. How the set’s going to be laid out to the, to the smallest of details, which I found fascinating.

I mean, ultimately in this movie, and I know that he used a lot of these sets, some of these sets, in some of his other movies. I mean, they look familiar because they just kind of look like a big, old Victorian house. But, there is so much to look at. And, and I read that that was by design. And he had some had read some philosophy about always being something for them to look at.

And so there are so many, the, the design of the spaces in this movie, there’s these rugs everywhere, and tapestries, and paintings, and knickknacks, and bric a brac, and just the entire set piece is just full of things to look at. Not only was he economical in that way, but also in that Unlike Kubrick, who we just talked about recently, who would do upwards of or more than a hundred takes, Corman would usually get it in maybe three or four takes, or fewer.

And it, and I look at it, and I wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t know. No, I wouldn’t know. I would think he used whatever the best he got was, which is great. And if he was able to, Through planning with his actors and communicating with his actors what he needed and he got it in three to four takes I think that is damn impressive 

Todd: in a way.

He shares a bit with hitchcock in this regard You know hitchcock meticulously pre planned his films Storyboarded them extensively and shot exactly what he storyboarded He found the film process of shooting the movie to be tedious, and that’s the part he hated the most. Ha ha! He really put his whole vision together in the pre production, and for Corman to have that same approach, that allowed him to be very economical.

Right. You’re not paying for anybody’s time when you’re planning. 

Craig: Right. Right. Well, and he said, you know, like, I, I mentioned all of those things to look at, but he said that he found you can get those things for really cheap. And it, you adds so much to the atmosphere and the storytelling and I was like That I mean, I guess it doesn’t surprise me that he comes from an engineering background But it almost surprises me that he doesn’t come from a theater background because that’s right Working in theater is like it’s making the most of what you have usually on a very small budget And trying to make it look as interesting as you possibly can and you can With a little bit of skill and a little bit of luck, you can make things look brilliant from the audience.

If you were to look a little bit closer, you would see the cracks. No pun intended for this movie, but Right. 

Todd: Yeah. I think that’s probably why, you know, he just, that was part of his brilliance. It’s why he was so successful. And it’s why he was I don’t want to say he was more a producer than a director, but I think that probably just like in any role, his director experience and he directed 56 films and this is like the 24th film he directed.

So having that experience allowed him to understand the process really, really well. So that he could mentor other directors so he knew what to spend money on he knew when people were wasting time You know, he knew what he could do because he had done it And so that’s why being on Corman’s set what everybody wanted to do it Everybody in the industry wanted to work for Roger Corman because they knew that he very quickly Would get them up to speed on almost anything Any act aspect of the business that they were interested in, and that’s why so many famous writers, directors and producers that we know as, as legends and gods in the industry got their start.

Thanks to Roger Corman. 

Craig: I was also really impressed to read that his production. Staff was so highly regarded That when they weren’t working with corpsman people would try to get them as a group like not to necessarily hire them out One by one. No, we want the whole production crew Because they were so efficient.

I mean this movie was shot in 16 days Again, I don’t I don’t know how the episodes are going to air or in what order Todd and I recently talked about a stanley kubrick film that took a year You And yet, this guy and his production company can pump out a movie in 16 days. And I feel like I interrupted you a little bit, too, because this was halfway through his career as a director, technically.

But at this point, he was so highly regarded that He had a lot of sway, right? Because they usually wanted him to shoot two films back to back for like 000, something like that, in black and white. Yep, yep. And for this, and I think for the first time, he convinced them, give me all that money, give me 300, 000, and let me shoot one movie in color.

And and they did 

Todd: yeah, they took a chance on that. That’s that’s interesting This was probably the first I would say big Big in terms of like how it looks on the screen, you know film that he did He did many more and produced many more after this but this as a director You’re right. It’s very unusual.

They took a gamble on this. He said I Think I can see which way the winds are blowing. He got a little more skeptical about how much longer the market for these double bill black and white films was going to be. And he said, let’s do a bigger, a bigger budget production, make it look more grand and true to form.

He thought, well, we’re going to do a horror picture cause they’re big and we’re going to hire, we’re going to spend a good almost third of the budget on a well established talent. Who’s going to bring people in and that’s Vincent price. And that was a good choice. 

Craig: Was this the first time they had worked together?

I know that they worked Many times together after this, but was this the first time they had worked together? 

Todd: I think this was the first time the two of them had worked together. Vincent Price being no stranger to low budget, uh, sci fi and horror films. And film radio god, we could talk about his career forever as well.

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: but yeah, I think this is the first time they had worked together and then he hired Richard Matheson who God, we just did stir of echoes, you know, 

Craig: it’s not wild 

Todd: based on his novel. I mean Richard Matheson another god of not just the movie industry, but, you know, just sci fi and fantasy in general.

Richard Matheson, by now, had done, I don’t know how many episodes of The Twilight Zone he wrote or were based on his work. He wrote so many novels. He’s written novels that have lingered and been remade multiple times, like I Am Legend. We talked about that. And so anyway, he hired him to write a Good script.

And this is also not the last time he worked with Matheson. He worked with Matheson on a couple more of these Poe productions, on a couple more movies after this. He really admired Matheson because he said, I would write his first, I would shoot his first draft of the script. It was that good. It needed almost no changes.

And then, basing it on a free property. Edgar Allan Poe is in public domain, even at this point, didn’t have to pay a dime for that. So, right away, you get established sci fi author, you can put up there, that everybody loves. You’ve got established actor to helm the film, Vincent Price, everybody loves.

You’ve got a genre that everybody is going to, uh, Enjoy horror never fails to sell as we all know. And you’ve got Poe, which everybody’s read in high school. And you know, even at this point, everybody would know the fall of the house of Usher. And so of course people are going to show up for this movie.

It’s just, it’s brilliant. And it was so successful that they made seven more in this series. Most, I think all of which were directed by, by Corman. So, it just kicked off a whole new direction for Corman’s career. And it was kind of around this point that he did less directing and a lot more producing.

And he eventually said he could produce in his sleep. It was so easy for him. Yeah, I was just going to 

Craig: say, that seems much That just, uh, I’m sure There’s a part in Amy Poehler’s memoir where she talks about the different levels of, if you are the talent, you know, how things work for you, and if you’re the director, how things work for you, and if you’re the producer, how things work for you, and she really focuses on You Like all the pains in the ass that you have to deal with in each role.

And so I’m sure as a producer, there is, but when you’re the money and you’re kind of the top dog, like the buck kind of the buck stops at you, like in more ways than one, I would think, especially if you’ve already established a career and you’re getting older, I’d be like, yeah, I’ll just, I’ll, I’ll produce this one.

Todd: Right. Well, I would think so too, especially if, I mean, again, that just seems to be his wheelhouse. You said it earlier. He had this engineering mindset. He was really good at putting resources together and planning things out. He loved that aspect of it. And that’s what allowed him to do these movies cheaply and yet put so much of the money on the screen.

And then when you have a reputation for this, you can get people to work for less. Nobody I’ve ever read about has ever said they felt exploited by Roger Corman. All of them were super happy to work with him, said it was almost like film school, you know, loved it and was happy to work with him for less than they would probably make on, uh, on, you know, making some other movie or doing something union, you know, it paid off.

For most people 

Craig: involved. Well, and, and bing, bang, boom. As you know, as an actor, as a crew, whatever, like boom, boom, you knock these movies out. No, I’m sure you can tell me again. I think that I know this sometimes the, like when they were doing those two movies back to back, they would keep not only the same production crew, but some of the actors would stay on and do both movies too, right?

Oh yeah. 

Todd: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that was big. He was known for that. He was known for getting a movie done under budget and ahead of time. He would still have actors under contract. He would still have sets and rental things and cameras that didn’t need to be torn down or returned. And he’d quickly, sometimes he’d have nothing prepared, but he turned to a writer and say, Hey, write a quick script for me.

I can shoot in three or four days. And he would do that. And, you know, interestingly enough, sometimes those, those movies that were just kind of shot because of opportunity. would end up becoming the more profitable picture. 

Craig: I would like to give kudos not only to Corman, cause I think that this movie is very well directed and well cast.

And like, I think, again, I don’t really have any criticisms of the choices that he made, but I give kudos to Richard Mattson. One of the reasons that I have never seen this movie is because I taught this story for I mean, it’s been a long time, but I can’t tell you how so many years I taught this story and it is a good story.

Sometimes it’s a little hard to get students into, especially today because it’s, it’s one of his longer, it’s still not terribly long, but it is a longer story. But I was skeptical of this movie because even in just reading the description, I thought, Oh, that sounds like it’s not a faithful adaptation.

Watching the movie today, I was wrong. This is actually a really, really faithful adaptation, aside from the fact that Richard Matheson had a certain amount of story to deal with, and it wasn’t enough for a feature film. Yeah. Had he not added some things, I don’t think that there was enough material for a feature film, and ultimately, the things that he added really don’t take anything away from the story.

It’s uh, I was, I was really kind of fascinated because this, the story is very simple and depending on what we decide to talk about, I can tell you specific differences, but the primary difference is that the main guy who is not named, he’s the narrator, but he’s not named in the story. His name is Philip Winthrop.

He’s coming to the Usher, the house of Usher, literally. But he’s not named. In the story, he’s coming there because he’s an old friend of the brother of Roderick’s, and Roderick is ill and has called him there just for companionship because he’s sick and lonely. And there is the sister, Madeleine, and pretty much everything that happens to her in the story happens to her in the movie.

Movie two except for the fact that the reason that they bring the narrator philip here is that he has a relationship with madeline They are affianced. So that’s a difference And the addition of the butler character is different There are there are only the three in the story And then there’s a trippy dream sequence at the end that has nothing to do with the real story But other than that, it is really Real Faithful.

I was impressed. I actually was like, man, I missed out 10 years ago when I was teaching this story. I could have shown them this as a companion because it really is a very faithful adaptation. 

Todd: Yeah, that’s a good point. I think it’s a bold story. It would not be my first choice of post stories to adapt because it’s, It’s a bit, what do I want to say?

Heady now, again, it’s been decades since I’ve read it, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but like a number of post stories, it’s very light on plot. 

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: it’s, it’s all atmosphere. It’s people talking. It’s a sense of dread. It’s, it’s very thematic and metaphorical, 

Craig: symbolic, lots. So like it is. And I think that that’s probably why we teach it in high school, because it’s an excellent example of symbolism.

Like it’s just. It’s kind of bold on its face, really. Um, but that’s good. That’s good for teaching a concept. Like, let’s not make you work so hard. Let’s, let’s show you some fairly obvious examples, and that will help you to figure out the lesson. Obvious examples moving forward, right? And I love the symbolism in this.

I love the symbolism in the book Not the story not all of it translates But they do at least make attempts like the big crack the big fissure in the house is one of the big symbols The mist and and the pond they call it a tarn Out in front are big time symbols. I guess another difference is that And maybe it’s suggested, maybe it’s suggested in this movie, I don’t know.

But this feels a little bit more like a classic ghost story. That’s really not what the actual source material is. In the source material, Poe makes it pretty clear that some maneuvering force has descended upon this house and this family and is actively destroying them. And has 

Todd: been for years, right?

Not, not just recently, yeah. Yeah, right. The 

Craig: family is cursed, absolutely. But, the movie expands upon that by making it out that they’re cursed because they’re terrible people. 

Todd: Well, to be honest with you, that’s kind of how I remembered interpreting the story. Because I saw it as so metaphorical. I wasn’t willing to entertain.

The idea that this was truly supernatural, you know, I felt, oh, it’s the house of, of this family, but then it’s their literal house, and as the family is going into moral decay, and, you know, wasting away, and now there’s nobody left in the bloodline, so the house, The literal house now is following suit and so I just saw it as one big metaphor, but but maybe I’m wrong Maybe I need to go back and reread that.

Craig: No, you’re not wrong That is true, but there are parts of the story like in the movie There’s a big crack in the house and it starts to break at the climax Which I would love to talk about the climax eventually, but it starts to break in the story At the very same time, the moon, the blood moon is descending right behind the house.

So as it’s splitting in the front, this blood red light is flowing right through it. And it almost looks like a force that’s ripping the house apart. And there’s lots of that stuff. There’s like, the opening of this movie is One of the closest adaptations to the opening of a story I’ve ever seen. The narrator, the main guy, is riding on horseback through this desolate, burnt out land and approaches this old, gothic, European renaissance mansion.

It is in America, but they make a point of saying that, like, the whole structure was brought over from Europe or whatever. And it’s clearly in disrepair, and there’s fog everywhere, and it’s super spooky, and all of that is exactly how the story is. The story goes a little bit further to talk about how the fog from the lake, like, glows in an eerie incandescence.

And even that can be explained through natural phenomenon, but it goes, it does make a point of showing that things are supernatural, but in a more subtle way. That I don’t know that you could really accomplish well on film or not with the resources that they have. So in this movie, in this movie, the way that they established a supernatural force is different and a little cheesy, but it didn’t bother me.

Well, 

Todd: yeah, I mean, it is a movie and it is, You know, trying very hard, I think very early on, like a lot of horror movies to immediately capture your interest. And so it starts out in a very typical way, right? Haunted house movie. Let’s show a big, decrepit, scary, spooky looking haunted house surrounded by mist filled the dead woods.

And interestingly. Just to talk about how, what little resources they had, Corman discovered that there was a section of the city that had recently, uh, some woods near L. A. that had recently burned down. And so he quickly sent his film crew out there with some fog machines, and they were able to film this opening sequence of him walking through the woods.

It looks great because it’s totally real, right? It’s totally a burned out forest. And he had a theory when he started these Poe films because, again, he’s a thinker. Corman’s a thinker. He had this artistic theory he was working on that Poe, most of his stuff takes place in the mind. And that is true. And I agree with him.

That’s why I said, you know, this is a bold adaptation is because so much of it’s just in your head. It’s not. It’s not what this character is doing to this character and the intrigue behind that. It’s heavy thematic. It’s heavy in style and the idea it’s trying to get across. Incidentally, the Mask of the Red Death, which is one in this series, which is widely recognized as probably being the best one, that hopefully we’ll get to cover at some point, that has almost no plot.

It’s hard to imagine that short story being adapted into a full length film, and yet, not only did he do it, but it’s regarded as maybe the best in this series. So, in going with this, he made the artistic choice. He thought that everything needs to look unreal. And so, he deliberately tried to make things look real.

Unreal and kind of fake to get you into that idea of like the dream state, visually speaking. And I think by the last movie in the series, he said, maybe I’m wrong about all this. We’re going to scrap that. And the last one he did, Tomb of Ligeia, he deliberately made very realistic. They filmed it in old ruins and things like that and had it very well lit and just tried to make it very Actually, very real, like it’s actually taking place in the real world.

So I think that really helps with this movie. It certainly helps with the setup. It makes it interesting. That big spooky mansion that definitely looks unreal. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s like a matte painting, clearly 

Todd: a matte painting and stuff. And the sets themselves are heightened on realism. You know, these. Cobwebs and spiderwebs stretched over everything and 

Craig: everything’s lit by candle.

It’s like the house of usher. I mean, I have no idea. I know that these were sets that they built on stages and I know that when they were done, they didn’t disassemble some of them so that they could reuse them again, but they’re Huge. There are these huge cavernous spaces, especially like the main hall, but even the bedrooms are larger than life.

I mean, this looks like an estate and it’s beautiful to look at. It looks like I’ve never even seen Gone with the Wind, but you’re right. The famous images that I’ve seen, that’s what it looks like. It looks grandiose and decrepit. Like, it looks like a place that was once grand. And has fallen into terrible disrepair, which is exactly what it’s supposed to be.

I can’t say enough about how good it looks. It looks amazing. The production value is gorgeous. The set pieces are gorgeous. And so intricately thought out. It looks like a big studio picture. Yes. And one of the other things I was going to say was, Usher, Roderick Usher, who’s played, of course, by Vincent Price, who is an icon in and of himself, Interesting choices in this movie.

He’s very vampiric, very pale, blonde haired, no mustache. Yeah, I mean, Vincent Price is unmistakable. Like, he can’t hide himself. But that doesn’t, that doesn’t mean he’s not a good actor. He just lives there with his sister, and they’re super weird, and we can talk about how shady he is and what all’s going on there.

But, eventually, he shows their visitor, Philip, this artwork in his house. And the first thing is like a painting of the house itself. And it’s a little bit surreal and very stylistic. And then later, he shows him, A series of portraits of his ancestors, and they are so stylistic, they, they’re, they’re haunting, they’re not realistic at all.

These people look like ghosts or phantoms or ghouls, some of them have like glowing red eyes, some of them are very wispy as though they’re not entirely physical. But there’s a whole series of them. Later in the film, there’s also a portrait of Madeline that is, The sister that is very ethereal as well.

And there’s one scene in particular where Vincent Price is standing almost in profile right in front of that painting and he’s standing off to the side of it so that their faces are almost next to each other in frame and it’s held there for a few seconds. And I thought I would hang that in my house, but it just looks, I was so impressed with the stylistic choices.

I know that they commissioned an artist to do all of that artwork. It’s stunning. I would say that the movie is worth watching just for that. And it almost felt a little bit eerie in that it didn’t match the, Yes. 

Todd: It looks more modern. Yeah. Yeah. It, it almost looks a little more modern. It’s almost an impressionistic style of painting in this old Gothic mansion, where you expect to see these old English style, you know, portraits and that’s unsettling.

And also they’re mounted high on the wall and they’re everywhere. And it’s just like, they’re looking down in a very evil way, always imposing. Upon the future generations, you know, this is your legacy and we’re watching you and we’re all evil and all of them have done the worst things you could imagine.

Terrible, terrible things. Anthony Usher. 

Clip: Thief. Usurer.

Merchant of flesh. Bernard Usher. Swindler. Forger.

Jewel thief, drug addict

Francis Usher, professional assassin

Vivian Usher, blackmailer pilot, murderess 

Todd: Yet you’re wondering well, what about this guy? Why does he feel so he seems not okay 

Craig: and his sister who has seemingly done nothing wrong Now in the story Usher basically explains to his friend that our house is cursed, we’re the last of our line, people sometimes think that they are meant to be incestuous.

I don’t think that that’s accurate in the story. The reason that people misinterpret that sometimes is because Usher, in talking to the narrator, says our family tree Is a single branch and and people think that that means that they were like inbreeding and so it was only one branch But what he really means is they it’s a single branch because they’re the last of the last so there’s only one Yeah, there’s only one branch of the tree lab.

No kids No kids they and they’re they’re both terribly ill and they have had these maladies all their life and his main one Is that all of his senses are incredibly heightened to the point where it’s very uncomfortable for him He can only wear the softest of materials. He can only eat the flavorless of foods, you know Any kind of loud sound is torturous to him That’s his main thing in the movie.

They give it to madeline, too I don’t think that’s true in the story because in the story madeline isn’t really much of a character keep in mind The guy who is her fiancee In the movie has no connection to her at all. And is in fact surprised to find that Usher has a sister. And the only way that Madeline is really a character is that the narrator sees her walking around like a ghost at night.

Oh, they never interact. And all of this happens over like one night. Uh, that’s in the story. Yes. Yes. And also, so also in the story, Usher explains to the narrator. Everything that’s going on and he does tell the history of his family just like he does in this. Like there’s a whole flashback where he tells the history of his family and how their property was once thriving and beautiful and blah blah blah but then some force came in and everything died and the lake turned to black and was stagnant and they started getting sick and all of his relatives went crazy and Basically that’s all true.

In the story He does it. It’s really weird. He reveals it in a totally different way in the story Roderick is freaking out As he often does and to try to calm him the narrator reads him a story from a book That is that backstory. 

Todd: Oh, it’s like the family, uh Memoirs or something. 

Craig: Well, it’s actually a poem It’s called like the haunted palace or whatever and it’s all very symbolic and metaphoric But it’s obviously the backstory of what we’re seeing And I apologize if i’m rambling i’m just trying to get the basic plot out So it people who haven’t he the the narrator only sees Madeline in like walking around like a ghost at night until the next day he wakes up and Rogers like, yeah, she died.

And so they put her in the family vault, which is under the house. And at some point, I think it’s even earlier in the story. It happens in the movie too, but at some point it comes out that one of the ailments that their family. struggles with is catalepsy. Catalepsy is an actual medical condition where your body seizes up and your vitals slow down.

Now, I don’t know that, first of all, it’s probably treatable with modern medicine. I don’t know, I didn’t research, but I can imagine it’s probably treatable with modern medicine. But even if it were not, I would imagine that with modern technology it would be very easily to detect that that person was in fact, Still alive, but you know, you hear all these stories in these days about people being buried alive because they thought they were dead or whatever in the story.

It really seems like it has just not occurred to usher that his sister may have been in one of those cataleptic events, even though she had been through them before, even though, even though as they are staring, God, the movie makes this even. So much more obvious, but it kind of changes things in the story.

The narrator and Usher are just standing over the casket and Usher is talking about how it’s so painful to look at her because she still has a flush in her cheek. She still looks like she’s alive. It still looks alive. And they put her in the crypt and then It’s a dark and stormy night, and the narrator’s trying to calm Usher down, but, uh, Usher keeps saying, Can’t you hear it?

Can’t you hear it? Can’t you hear it? And the narrator can’t hear anything. And at the very last climactic moment, the corpse ghost, it’s unclear, of Madeline BREAKS THROUGH THE DOOR, throws herself on her brother, who just Dies of fear. 

Todd: As one did at the turn of the 19th century. He just, 

Craig: they, they go down on the ground.

He is dead. He is scared to death. And then the narrator rides away on his horse and he talks about how, like, it’s specifically said, it’s not even subtext. It’s. Texts in the story that this whole journey is really a journey into the darkest side of the human mind. And that’s what he was experiencing through all of that, which is, you know, very typical.

Yeah. And the house comes down. I mean. And. Poe was a dark romantic and that was one of the things that they focused on. They were really interested in looking at the darker psychological side of humanity and human existence. So it’s really typical. It plays in the movie a little bit. The movie adds a little bit of stuff that we can talk about if you want to or not, whatever.

But that’s the basic story. Thank you. 

Todd: Thank you, Craig. I feel like we all just got like an English lesson. I taught 

Craig: that story. I taught that story for 10 years. I just gave you my best spark notes version. 

Todd: I was just going to say your students could just listen to this episode and then they could just goof off during your lecture.

I think. You were probably a lot more concise this time around. 

Craig: I hope so. You know that when I get talking, I 

Todd: can 

Craig: talk. 

Todd: Well, I do. And let’s talk about the differences a little bit. Because I think, you know, if I’m going to criticize this movie and the script, that I think that’s one of the weaknesses of it.

So Philip, in the film, is actually engaged to Madeline. He is coming back to visit her. Having Spent time with her and building a relationship with her. Recently. And recently in Boston. So it’s like, Oh, I guess she decided she needed to go back to her family home for some reason. That’s not really explained why.

Craig: It is really weird that like, he just shows up and he’s like, yeah, I’m here to see my fiance and the butler’s like, I don’t know anything about that. And he’s like, she’s bedridden. And that’s just, that’s just the whole narrative. Like, yeah, I know you were just hanging out with her a couple of weeks ago and you got engaged, but I swear to God, she’s dying now and she can’t leave the house.

Even though. She seems fine. 

Todd: That’s 

Craig: the 

Todd: other problem. It’s almost comical. Madeline, get ready to leave. 

Craig: I want to, Philip. 

Todd: Then you will.

Clip: Why? Because very soon I shall be dead. I forbid you to say that ever again. It’s true, Philip. It is not true, Madeline. You’re full of life. 

Craig: Look at me, Philip. Do I look full of life? 

Todd: Yeah, look at her. She’s gorgeous. She looks great. She doesn’t look frail or sickly at all. All to the point where you start to feel like maybe the real problem here is Roderick.

Maybe Roderick is just convincing her because he’s so doom and gloom about his family that she is also doomed like the rest of them, and she might as well give it up now. That’s the sense. It is that Roderick feels this compulsion that my whole family line is horrible. We thank God are the last of it.

We’re all destined to die. and rid the world of our evil. And so we just need to usher it along. You like that? That’s the sense you get from the movie because you watch it and you’re like, no, this girl’s perfectly fine. Like it’s her brother who’s keeping her here. Like maybe there’s hope for this family yet.

She’s got life in her. She’s got this guy who loves her, who wants nothing more to take her away. And after all of this. It’s, it really amounts to a good old turn of the century hospitality. You know, I was remarking to, I was watching this with Liz and I was like, I was remarking to you where I was like, boy, hospitality sure was different back in those days.

You know, you could show up at a house where you were not welcome, but you would be invited in any way. They would ask you to leave, but you would say, nah, I don’t feel like it. And they’d be like, all right, well, let me show you your room. 

Craig: All right. Breakfast in the morning. Yeah, exactly. 

Todd: You have a nice dinner and everything like that.

Like, really, I would like you to leave. Okay, I’ll think about it. And then he’s insisting, I’m gonna take her away from here and there’s nothing you’re gonna do about it. And Asher just turns his back on him and, you know, walks out of the room. So For a little while, Madeline’s whole response is, Oh, you don’t understand, I’m so sick, and blah blah blah, I can’t leave.

And Roderick’s like, Yeah, she’s right. You know, you can’t leave, Madeline. Don’t you know how futile that is? This sort of sense of, of destiny that he’s got going there. And so then Philip has a lot of time to wake up in the middle of the night and walk around the house and almost get a chandelier dropped on him and almost fall off of the, the banister because it’s falling apart and hear sounds 

Craig: and a giant cauldron of gruel almost burns him.

Three people, including the butler live there. He is making a cauldron.

Todd: Maybe this was his day of the week to cook. Who knows? 

Craig: Yeah, he’s meal prepping.

I do think that you’re right that the movie takes a different approach to it. I read it kind of somewhere in the middle because the movie tells us the house is haunted. But I also read it that Roderick is just so convinced of his fate that he genuinely believes it. He’s crazy, but he believes it. Yeah, I agree.

He believes it about Madeline too, and so the stuff that he’s doing, I think that he believes, yes, that he has the best of intentions. He’s just crazy . 

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t mean to suggest he was malevolent or whatever in doing this. No, I, I agree with you a hundred percent. He’s crazy. But then there comes a point.

Where Madeline starts to get excited about the idea that I could leave. Oh, you know what? Maybe I can leave. Just like, like a light switch. Philip said it five times instead of four. And now suddenly, she’s convinced that she can go. And it’s at that moment that, uh, Philip leaves his, the room. And the minute he leaves, Roderick is right around the corner.

Goes into the room. Philip is done packing the bags. And he hears the door open. Some argument he comes back to her room. He hears them arguing in there She screams seconds after she screams or they’re finished talking He opens the door and she is dead laid out in bed as though in a coffin Dead with a little smile on her face and Roderick is pensively looking out the window 

Craig: I don’t understand that at all now.

I I did read that And I wonder if this is one of those times. I did read that Corman sometimes went back in and did stuff with ADR and he, I read that he a lot of the times liked to insert screams because he felt it was more dramatic. I wonder if that’s what happened here. Because it doesn’t make any sense.

You said it’s seconds. It’s not seconds. He’s outside the door. He they’re arguing. They are having a full out argument that you can hear. She’s like, No, I’m leaving. There’s nothing you can do to make me stay. And then she screams and a millisecond later, he burst into the room and she is laid out. And Roderick is just like at the window.

I don’t think he’s smoking a cigarette, but that’s the vibe, like, yeah, she’s dead. It’s your fault. And, 

Todd: and, and he accuses Roderick, you know, but it’s so old timey movie, there’s nothing he really does about it, right? He accuses Roderick of, of causing this problem, but he’s like, no, you don’t, you know, she was so frail, she was, she was right on her deathbed, you know, even though, come on, like, she sure didn’t look like she was on her deathbed.

No, she 

Craig: was fine. 

Todd: But he checks her pulse, he holds a mirror up to her mouth, once again, okay, dubiously, he’s convinced she’s dead, he cries, and the next shot is they’re, they’re praying in the, the crypt, in the family, uh, cathedral, you know, in, inside the house. And, again, one of the differences from the story is that as they’re sitting there praying in front of her open coffin, Roderick has his head buried in, I’m sorry, Philip has his head buried in his hands.

And he’s talking with Roderick and Roderick is like, you know, reassuring him. No, you don’t understand. It was destined to be that way. And Roderick looking up, sees her fingers move. Obviously 

Craig: he makes a point of, I see that. And then he real quick closes it. And the guy’s like, let me have one more look. And Usher’s like, No, I couldn’t bear it.

So it is very apparent in the movie that he knows that she’s alive when she’s buried. Now I am confused about what happens next because what’s his name? Philip. Philip has a conversation the next morning with the Butler and the Butler lets the catalepsy thing spill. So Philip immediately runs down and.

Busts open the coffin and she’s not in there. So Philip in a rage runs up and confronts Roderick and it’s like, where is she? And he’s like somewhere safe. And he’s like, take me to her. And, and Usher’s like, no, I won’t take you to her, but she’s dead. She really is this time. I swear 

Todd: she wasn’t dead before, but she’s dead now is basically what he’s where.

And what’s the implication? That he, that he knocked her over the head with a hammer and finished the job? I mean 

Craig: No, I think that he’s still lying because Then a storm comes and I don’t remember the exact sequence of events But Philip at one time gets really upset about something and the butler tells him to take a nap.

So he does

And he has a crazy dream that was all shot It was shot silently, so it’s just scored with weird things, and it’s like, it’s all kind of weird and ethereal, like monochromatic blues and things, and you see people in silhouettes, and there’s lots of smoke. It’s very strange, it’s very stylistic, but eventually, It’s cool.

It’s, it was a cool departure from the rest of it. It felt very dreamy. 

Todd: It picked things up, you know, the movie needed this intrigue. First of all, 

Craig: because it doesn’t feel, yeah, it doesn’t feel like a monster movie in the sense that these monster movies typically feel like a monster movie, uh, Corman justified that to the, I don’t know who his producers or whoever, that, uh, the, the house was the monster and they were like, Okay.

But there’s this whole ghost scene. Yeah, there’s this whole ghost scene in the vault where it’s like all of the ancestors like ghoulishly like reaching at him. And then he sees, you know, Usher like staring at him in a scary way. And then he sees the girl in the coffin and she’s still alive, but she’s screaming and.

Is it that he wakes up and he’s convinced that she’s still down there? I don’t remember exactly. 

Todd: I love that in this dream sequence, it’s the rest of the ancestors out there too. It’s like, they’ve come alive and they’re cackling and you know, they’ve come to claim her, you know, it adds to that theme that, you know, they’re.

Roderick maybe is right, you know, this was all along, she’s, she was destined to this, this fate because of her bloodline, her lineage. I thought the dream sequence was, I mean, usually I roll my eyes at a dream sequence, especially in a Haunted House movie because it often feels like filler. In this case, it was, it was I think well needed and, uh, welcomed as far as I was concerned.

It was a nice departure from what’s otherwise a pretty slow burn. 

Craig: It is, it is. I ultimately imagine that it is kind of filler, but it’s filler that works. Yeah. And it’s in keeping with the story. I mean, this movie is not trying, I don’t know, I don’t think Poe in his original story is trying to keep it a mystery whether or not the house is really haunted.

I think that you’re supposed to question the reliability, not of the narrator, but of Roderick who’s telling his own story and telling his own history, because he is crazy. There’s clearly something wrong with him, but you’re left to question throughout most of the story, is he just crazy or is there really something going on?

And I think by the end it’s clear that something is going on. And so I don’t mind that they’re a little bit more explicit about this. Subtlety sometimes just doesn’t play in film as well as it does in literature. And in this case, especially when you’re targeting an audience who is used to Frankenstein and Dracula and zombies and, and all these kinds of things, I think this I think people would be satisfied with this and I was too.

I liked it. I enjoyed it. But apparently still, what’s his name? Philip confronts Usher again and Usher has just entombed her again somewhere else. Yeah, 

Todd: in a secret room next to that room. 

Craig: And she’s still alive and he’s like, can’t you hear her? Can’t you hear her? And this is all from the story. And eventually she gets out.

Now, again, this is embellished. Philip chases her through the house, through all these secret passageways. 

Todd: It’s like a second house, those secret passageways, really. And I think it’s interesting, I actually really liked that bit where she broke out of the coffin. I’m not sure how she did it, that thing was chained up five times over.

But there’s a bloody hand that reaches out, and that one gave me a bit of a shock. Corman mentioned that it got a good reaction from the audience too, and I guess for me, I wasn’t expecting in this movie to see any gore at all. So when I saw a bloody hand suddenly reach out, I was like, Oh! That’s something.

But yeah, we see her break out of her coffin, and run up a staircase, and Philip comes in and sees that the coffin’s empty, but it’s bloody on the inside like she scratched her way out of it. And then Roderick goes to pull out a gun, and I was like, what is he getting the gun for? Who’s he gonna shoot? I don’t know.

I guess it was her, right? Did he imagine that she was coming for him? 

Craig: I don’t even remember him pulling out a gun, but he’s just upstairs, and, you know, She shows up and she’s all kind of like Bride of Frankenstein y. And he’s so scared he 

Todd: just drops the gun out of fright. 

Craig: Yeah, and then she attacks him. I mean, she attacks Philip a couple times too, like she’s gone.

I mean, he explains it like, oh, she has the family madness. Well, I think that it’s suggested in the story that she went mad from having Had to claw herself out of her early grave, which tracks. It 

Todd: does. 100%. 

Craig: But either way, she’s crazy. Now she attacks him. They fall to the ground in her fighting. Meanwhile, the house catches on fire and the whole house burns down and that looks good because.

They were able to actually burn a building and shoot it and 

Todd: a barn and he’s reused that footage in a couple of these poe ones. 

Craig: That’s what I heard. I mean, smart. I’ve read again. I haven’t seen them all, but I’ve read. He reused that footage. Sometimes he reused sets. Sometimes Smart. Why not? Yeah. Like, and, and I read that he thought, ah, nobody will notice.

You know what? Probably nobody does. Like how many movies, I mean, I noticed because I’m looking for those kinds of things, but we have watched a lot of horror movies and I’m like, Hey, that’s the exact same facility that was in that other movie that we’re watching. Most people, most people are probably not going to pick up on those types of things.

It’s smart. Again, economical. And Roderick ends up, you know, the whole house burns down and there’s a quote from Poe at the end about how the lake just like enveloped the house and you see the house sink into, you see the matte painting of the house sink into the lake. None of it’s bad. No, none of it’s bad.

Todd. I walked away, like, honestly, it was kind of a slow burn. I was a little bored. And I think that if I were not such a fan of the story that I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much. But not only am I a fan of the story, but I’ve studied it extensively. I mean, that sounds really like hoity toity, but I just have because of my job.

So I appreciate what they did here because ultimately it is a pretty good adaptation. 

Todd: I think that was part of his calculus, you know, he knew that everybody had at least read this story in high school and discussed it and studied it, and so everybody would be familiar with this story, and they were, and I think that’s part of why the movie is so popular, because otherwise, even for its time, it’s a bit of a slow burn, it doesn’t really follow Even his typical formula, you know, Roger Corman, faith famously said, I need blood like in the first five pages.

He wanted movies to kick off with action and something shocking in the beginning to really hook the audience. And this movie doesn’t have that at all, you know, except for the visual. Atmosphere, really. So it’s spooky. It’s very spooky. Took a big gamble. But look, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a movie for a different time.

I don’t I think a modern audience and a modern adaptation of this would have to insert a little more action in there. A little more plot, probably add things to what is ultimately a very heady story to kind of make it work for our attention spans nowadays. There are 

Craig: 10 full length feature adaptations of this story, and that’s not all.

To mention television adaptations, shorts, anything like that. I haven’t seen them all, but I know some of them are really bad and trashy. I would venture to say that this is probably, if not the best, among the best. If you are interested in It being a fair and, and, and solid adaptation of the source material.

Like if you’re a fan of Poe and you’re a fan of that story, I think you’ll really like this movie. Oh, it’s very much in keeping with the tone and the feel. I, again, as I said, from the beginning, I didn’t love it. I may never watch it again, but I don’t have anything bad to say about it. I think it is well and competently made start to finish front to back.

And I, I would. Straight 100 percent recommend it to those fans of you out there like us who feel like you want to see as much essential stuff as you I would say that this is essential. Yeah, I would go so far as to say that this movie is essential. 

Todd: Having seen almost all of the Poe adaptations. I think I don’t think I’ve seen the Raven all the way through but of the eighth that he’s done.

I would certainly not say this is the strongest. It’s definitely the one that kicked it off. That’s why we chose it. It was very successful for its time. It set them on the path to do seven more of these. I will also watch Vincent Price in anything. Yep. I will watch Vincent Price reading the phone book to me.

I just think he’s, he’s just such a compelling guy. So that’s a big strength of the movie as well. I’d seen it a couple times, but yeah, I, I will probably not revisit it either. But like you said, I would strongly recommend you see it if you’re into these things. It’s very gothic, you know, it’s very dreary and it’s fun.

Craig: I want to toss this in here that I was talking to Alan about. But. Watching this movie and I mentioned Vincent Price and I’ve mentioned on the podcast before that Vincent Price was from around the area that I live in. Um, so much so that he, he like was the band leader for parades, like homecoming parades around here and stuff.

And at the university that we all, yourself included, attended, there was a Vincent Price acting scholarship. And Alan said, you can, You can tell them I got it twice.

Todd: That’s hilarious. And he did. By the way, another fun bit of trivia, local trivia. Did you know that Richard Matheson got his degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism? I did not. Then moved to California. Crazy, right? Wow. That’s also just down the road. Yeah. Very small world. Well, I’m super excited that we did this movie.

I’m super excited for the next three movies that we do in our tribute to Corman. We’re going to talk a lot more about the man and about his movies. Tried to pick a good selection because there’s so much to choose from. Obviously, the guy did so much more than horror. He was really just following the trends of the time.

So he did action movies and sci fi. Teenage romances and comedies and historical dramas and all kinds of stuff. Obviously, we’re just focusing on the horror. And I was really trying to focus around the stuff that he had a heavy hand in, either as a director or as a producer, as opposed to things that he just kind of put together and, and, you know.

You know, more or less let go. So I think you guys are going to enjoy the little retrospective that we have on Corman. I’m so sad to hear that he’s gone, but I’m so excited that we have this guy who can, we can look up to and the legacy that he’s left behind and the inspiration that he has been and will continue to be in the film industry is just mind blowing.

Craig: Well, and you said in the beginning, I’ve been looking forward to this day. That sounds kind of morbid. Sounds kind of morbid. I know exactly. Exactly what you mean. The man was 98 years old. We knew this was coming. Yeah, we’ve been anticipating this that that’s that’s what you mean Not that you were excited that he died But that we’ve that we’ve been both of us But the reason that I’ve been anticipating it is because I know how much he means to you And I’m happy to let you indulge in this because he has a career that warrants it.

So I’m looking forward to it too. 

Todd: Thank you, Craig. And thank you all for listening as well. If you have a favorite Corman film, please reach out to us and let us know which one it is. Let’s get a discussion going. Chainsawhorror.com is our website. You can leave comments there. But also, if you just search Two Guys and a Chainsaw podcast, you can find our Facebook page, our Twitter feed, our Instagram.

Leave us some messages there. Tell us what your favorite Corman movie is and, uh, the impact. If anything that he’s had on your childhood, your life, maybe even your career. I know we’re going to have lots of great discussion behind the scenes and our, with our patrons, that’s a patrion. com slash chainsaw podcast.

If you are at all interested in becoming a part of that, go there, check it out. Consider becoming a patron of the show. We’ve got lots of great minisodes and articles and reviews and just a conversation happening there behind the scenes. That’s patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. Until next time I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

When we learned Shelley Duvall had passed, we had no choice but to discuss her amazing career in the context of her masterpiece roles of Wendy in Stanley Kubrick’s classic, The Shining.

Honestly, there’s not much we can say about this film that hasn’t already been said. But we sure enjoyed revisiting it after so many years, and it still managed to surprise and delight us.

Transcript coming soon.

It’s our 400th episode! Following tradition, we celebrate with a Wes Craven film – this time, his first-ever and most notorious movie, 1972’s The Last House On The Left.

A controversial and nasty rape-revenge shocker when it came out, it nevertheless was defended by critics for being a standout amongst its kind for its uncompromising and raw treatment of violence against two innocent teens at the hands of some hardened and callous criminals. And it certainly set the stage for Wes Craven’s and Sean Cunningham’s takeover of the horror genre in the decades to follow.

Listen as we dissect this uncomfortable classic through a modern lens. We also reflect on 9+ years of friendship and fun talking about horror movies here on 2 Guys a Chainsaw. Thank you all for your unfailing support and company all these years!

Episode 400, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: And Craig, I’m here just as, uh, giddy as a clam right now. That sounds like something my grandmother might say, but, uh, I don’t know how else to put it. We are on episode 400, and I cannot believe we are here. 

Craig: It’s impossible.

It’s not possible.  

Todd: It’s just crazy to think, first of all, the time has just flown by as far as I’m concerned. Yeah. I cannot believe that almost nine years ago, you and I sat down And recorded our very first episode, which at the time we didn’t realize this was going to keep going. It was just like a, something we were going to try out, see if it goes well.

You barely even knew what a podcast was. We didn’t know each other as well as we do now. We were always acquaintances and friends. We went to college at the same school, but we didn’t really hang out together. We were in theater productions together, stuff like that. But one thing I knew about you and one thing that we definitely related on was horror movies.

And so. I was interested in starting a podcast and, uh, I thought that would be a great topic and you were the only person I could think of who might be worth a shot to sit down and chat about stupid horror movies. And it just worked, man. Like from that episode, we just had a blast. And it just gelled so well that we said, you know what, let’s just keep doing this until it stops being fun.

Craig: I know. And now here we are almost 10 years later. It’s crazy. Uh, gosh, it, it just, it comes up in my everyday life. Like people are like, Oh, you have a podcast. And I feel like such a nerd, like, yeah, doesn’t everybody, I 

Todd: feel like, I feel like such a tool when I have to admit that I have a podcast that I, you know, cause like everybody wants and thinks they have a podcast, but like, at least nobody can say, Oh yeah, for the last.

Eight, nine years or so, we’re about to record episode 400 that 

Craig: kind of makes 

Todd: up for it 

Craig: a little bit. It does. And, and, you know, of course we have, you know, regular listeners who we appreciate very much, but it’s just become, I mean, 10 years, bro. Like I know we’re not quite to 10 years yet, but 400 episodes, it’s just become a part of my life.

Like, I would feel weird not doing it. 

Todd: Mm hmm. It 

Craig: would, it would feel weird to me if we didn’t get together every couple weeks or every week or whatever and talk about a movie. So I’m glad we did it. We’re still getting positive feedback. I was just, you know, at dinner with virtual strangers last night.

You know, it was like a big group of people and you get sat with who you get sat with. And somehow it came up that I had a podcast and Then we had something to talk about. Thank God for that. It’s even helped your social life. I, you know, I’m, I’m being blasé, but I, I’m genuinely grateful for it. I look forward to it.

I, I love talking to you. I love hearing from people and talking to, you know, the people that have genuinely, in my opinion, become our friends on Patreon. 

Todd: Yeah. That was a game changer a few years ago. And, you know, we had always kind of bet on it. We never started this with the idea of trying to make a living at it, or trying to make money, or trying to be famous.

It was, it’s literally, and still is, really, like, we still have no expectations, sadly. Right. It’s just, have fun, right? And just the idea that enough people have latched onto that and are having fun with us. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Just at some point, you know, people were like, how can we support you? And we’re like, God, maybe we need to put something together, because people are asking for it.

Yeah. And that’s how the Patreon came about, and thank God it did, because we have such a great little community back there. And we got patrons that we meet on a semi weekly basis on Skype because of the Christopher Pike book club, and it’s just been so much fun to have that new set of friends. Yeah. Even people that, you know, maybe pop in and out every couple years and like, Oh, it’s that, you know, it’s that person, like, uh, great to hear back from you, you know?

We still remember those conversations, the movies that we both gelled on, the comments that they made, the requests they made, and it’s just been It’s been a wild ride. 

Craig: It really has been a lot of fun and just continues to be fun. And, you know, my, my not horror fan mom, you know, when we had done like 15 episodes, she’s like, aren’t you going to run out of movies to talk about?

I think she thought that there were like 30 horror movies period.

She’s so cute. But as it turns out. We keep coming up with things to do, and we keep coming up with For example, this movie that we’re doing today. Now, we did break from tradition once, right? Yes. I think 150th 

Todd: was Something Wicked This Way Comes, because that was such a special movie for both of us, and we hadn’t done it yet.

Craig: Right. But the, the very first episode that we did was the people under the stairs, right? Yep. And so for each, you know, like the 50th, the 100th, we did another Wes Craven movie. And again, we have broken from tradition, but for today we decided to go back to tradition. But we’ve done so many, I was talking to my sister last night and she’s like, aren’t you guys out of Nightmare on Elm Street movies?

And we’re not. I mean, there are still several nightmare movies that we could do. God, yes. But, for this one, I surprised myself. I recommended this. Yeah. And it surprised me. 

Todd: Well, the reason we chose Wes Craven was because, number one, he’s a horror icon. You know, for our first episode. Yeah. And, and number two, he had more recently passed away, I believe.

I was around 2015 when we started our podcast and so we kind of wanted to pay tribute to him as well. But we didn’t want to go obvious with like, you know, Nightmare on Elm Street. Kind of, you know, it’s been our struggle the whole time with this podcast is like, how do we do the most popular movies and be original at all, you know?

So, we both, you know, Knew that People Under the Stairs was kind of this underappreciated gem that not a lot of people knew of. But we both knew we liked that movie, and had good fond memories of it, and so we chose that. This movie is kind of the opposite, right? Like, it’s his directorial debut. And this is a movie that has been very notorious and was one that both of us did not have fond memories of just because it’s brutal and it’s violent and it has a lot, it’s, it’s a rape revenge story and we are not sex violence fans.

That turns our stomach quite a lot. And I don’t know about you, but when I first saw this movie, I actually actively avoided it for a while just because even as a kid, I was told like, this is, this is a horrible That’s just different from all the others. Like, I spit on your grave, held that same space in my head for a long time.

Right. And so I didn’t even have the courage to get up and see it until, gosh, I think, I think I was in high school. Maybe late high school, maybe early college before I started it. And sure enough, when I watched it, my recollection is it just, it bothered me. Bothered me for a long time. And you know, like, I think my track, our track record on this podcast is, like, we like to have fun, generally.

Like, we love our horror. We love all kinds of horror, but it’s more fun to just, like, see something goofy 80s horror, or something that’s really spooky or scary, something, even something like The Exorcist, you know? It’s just, it’s not real. And movies, when they start to delve into the territory of, this is just horrible people doing horrible, brutal, sadistic things to each other, that’s when Horror becomes real and maybe ceases to become.

So entertaining. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: You know what I mean? And that’s harder to talk about on a podcast really. It’s challenging. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And But we’re up for the challenge. We’ve done it before. 

Craig: Right, but I I mean if to be you know Fair and safe this movie that we’re doing the last house on the left from 1972 It is I don’t even know you mentioned.

Oh gosh. What’s the other you just mentioned it the famous rape revenge You Movie 

Todd: I spit on your grave, 

Craig: I spit on your grave. It’s in a similar vein and, and there is somewhat graphic sexual violence. So you and I have talked about this openly. It’s something that bothers the both of us listener. If it’s something that bothers you, maybe sit this one out because.

It is prominent, but it’s the same story. I knew about it. I’m a big fan of Wes Craven. I’m not a big fan of this type of movie. I didn’t see this or I spit on your grave until I was in graduate school and I approached them reluctantly, but this one, I’ve seen it, I’ve watched it. And I remembered it being very violent and very uncomfortable to watch.

Now, and then, that’s it. I watched it once, I’m like, I’ve seen it, that’s it. Never felt the need to see it again, but we decided to do this. So I watched it again, and I think that coming at it a second time around, I had an entirely different experience. 

Todd: Yeah. Same here, by the way. I think Two things. Number one, I had certainly conflated this and I Spit on Your Grave in my mind.

Craig: They’re similar. 

Todd: They’re similar, but my mind, I think, kind of pieced them together and confused the two a little bit in the sense that I think my experience with I Spit on Your Grave made me think that this movie was quite as brutal and as, as graphic. As I spit on your grave was actually it’s not honestly, I was kind of shocked same.

Yeah We will do I spit on your grave at some point. Oh boy. I don’t know 

Craig: bro That one’s a rough one. That one’s really rough that but and but that’s the thing like I kind of conflate them, too but that movie is just so Uh, it’s just almost sadistic and it’s painful to watch and I knew that this This movie had graphic sexual violence, but it’s not as graphic as I remembered, frankly.

No, it’s not. It’s, it’s not nearly as scandalous as I remember it being and as I remember people talking about it. It certainly is violent and there certainly are terrible, you know, the, the antagonists, you know, are violent psychopaths. There’s no getting around that. But I was actually. I’m a little bit shocked.

This time around watching it, I remembered it being far worse than it is. 

Todd: Yeah, me too. And I think number two, I think the second reason for that, for me anyway, Is the passage of time and seeing so much stuff since then. I think for its time and even for the time that I watched this movie, well certainly for its time this was uh, one of very few if any films quite like it that were willing to be as brutal and as cold and show violence to the With unabashed, sort of, you know.

The thing that Wes Craven, and that makes this movie very defensible, is that Wes Craven’s whole goal in doing this was like, I’m not going to glorify this violence. I don’t want this to look pretty. We are not going to glorify any bit of it. And in doing so, and showing it in it’s kind of it’s raw brutality, almost in a documentary style.

Which makes sense, because he and Cunningham had only done documentary films up to this point. 

Craig: Sean Cunningham, like, how are we gonna talk about everything that we need to talk about? It’s at such an intersection! Yeah, here’s Wes Craven doing his thing. First movie ever. He would go on to, you know, spawn one of the greatest horror franchises of all time with a nightmare and Elm Street.

And then he’s working with Sean Cunningham who would go on to produce direct. I don’t even remember, but Friday the 13th, 

Todd: he directed the first one produced it. Yep. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s, it’s his baby and it’s just, it’s just wild. We talk about this before, and this is the way that things work in Hollywood. You know, people work together and.

Whatever, but it’s just, it just blows my mind that in 1972, these two guys, neither of them knowing who they would be and what their careers would be, just worked on this low budget movie together. And then they both went on to. Gosh, the impact is insane. 

Todd: They were smart guys and very opportunistic. As we’ve talked before, Craven, school teacher, really wanted to be in the movie business.

Bit of a hippie, very soft spoken kind of guy. Everybody said he was just the nicest guy on the planet. Seemed to have no ego. Sean Cunningham had just gotten some money from some people to make, also wanted to get a break in the movie business, to make a movie called The Art of Marriage, which was just a sexploitation film.

You know, one that were dressed up as like an educational film, but it was really a sexploitation documentary. There were some distributors who Well, basically theater owners, you know, it was very different back then. You know, you had a lot of very regional theater owners. A lot of these theater owners would fund movies themselves to put in their own theaters, usually low budget, like the, the B picture to go with the a picture, you know, they used to do double features.

Right. So this particular set of distributors, they went by Hallmark, which is no relation to the card company. They’re theater owners out of Boston, and they needed a B picture. Well, they wanted a, a sex comedy. And so they approached John Cunningham and said, Hey, we really like The Art of Marriage. Can you do basically a remake of it that will work for us?

And so he did Together. And Wes Craven ended up as an editor. On that, because the two of them were friends. And so, the two of them got to talking, and then Hallmark came back to them and said, Hey, that was a big hit, and now we want a horror movie. Can you guys make one? And so then, Sean Cunningham came back to Craven and said, Hey, do you want to write and direct a horror movie for these guys?

And said, sure. And that’s how this started. He produced it, Craven wrote and directed it, and it’s his first time behind the camera. 

Craig: It’s wild. You know, I never know what to believe about the stuff that I read about these movies that we watch. But I did read that at one point this was supposed to be a hardcore porn movie.

Todd: Yeah. They were all in on it. Yeah, they were all gonna do it. The cast crew, everybody was ready. What a different time though, right? Like, this is like, oh my god. Half of these low budget sexploitation films, especially the porn industry, was all getting funded by the mafia at this time. I mean, porn was kinda breaking into mainstream.

Mainstream, right, right. A lot of that experimentation now. Everybody who’s got a brain is thinking, oh, I’m gonna make an intelligent porn movie, or I’m gonna make a hardcore horror movie, or something like that. I mean, they’re going in all these wild directions. 

Craig: Yeah, one of the guys, one of the main guys in this movie, Fred Lincoln, was A porn star.

And he’s good in this movie. 

Todd: More of a director and producer than a star. He was in some of his porn movies. Not often as a doing sex. But, uh, definitely. Yeah, 

Craig: I wasn’t familiar with his work. But in, you know, For the sake of research.

Todd: You do go long. Laughter. You know, I I took a look.

Craig: And, uh, to be, you know, I I’m not lying, I really did. 

Todd: Were you impressed? 

Craig: Uh, I I I honestly was, because the only, you know, I I looked at one picture. God, this sounds so gross. I looked at one movie that he had made and it was, it was a hardcore porn movie, but like it had a story like he acted in it. Like it, it, it wasn’t just f g right.

I mean, there was that too, 

Todd: but I, I read he didn’t actually do much of that. I mean, he had acted in a lot of them and without, you know, having sex in any of them or even getting naked. But I mean, dude, he directed 350. They’re all porn. 

Craig: Wow. 

Todd: 350. 

Craig: That’s wild. God, that’s so crazy. You know, we talk about, okay, so Wes Craven and Sean Cunningham, and then this guy who, you know, is like big in the porn industry and then the main villain of the movie.

Krug, this, good God, you know, Wes Craven’s first movie, his, his, his villain is named Krug, obviously Nightmare on Elm Street, Kruger, obviously connection, but the, the guy, David Hess, who plays him also lots of credits for acting, but he’s also musician who wrote a lot of Elvis’s hits. Like I’m researching this, I’m like, what is happening?

Todd: It’s crazy, right? Weird talk. We talked about him once before. I can’t remember what movie he was in, but we did talk about him once. I’m gonna have to go back and remember which one it was. I don’t 

Craig: know. But he’s a professional musician, like, seriously, like, he wrote, he wrote some of Elvis biggest hits.

Todd: It’s nuts. 

Craig: And he sings on multiple songs, not like he sings on screen. He’s, he’s actually a very good villain, very scary in this movie. But one of the things, and we’re going to have to start talking about the movie at some point, but one of the things that blows me away about this movie is that it feels very I would say early 80s.

I mean, this is 72, but I feel like this is giving like Friday the 13th one type of vibes with how 

Todd: it feels. I don’t know, man. I feel it’s more 70s grind house. I mean, I think I know what you’re talking about, but to me it’s more like fast cars, loose women, biker gangs, sleazy, gritty documentary style filmmaking that was really big in the 70s.

The acting is fine. It’s good. It’s not bad. I thought it was good. The only thing I would say is stupid and bad about this movie are the two cops, one of whom is Marta Kove. 

Craig: It took me like 20 minutes into the movie, I’m like, I know that guy. And then I had to look at him, like, are you kidding? Like, and it’s so obviously him.

He’s the, the bad guy. Dojo owner from Karate Kid still working. He’s Kreese. Yeah, John Kreese. He’s still playing that role on Cobra Kai, which I’ve never watched. Have you, have you watched that? 

Todd: Oh god, I’m, I’m all caught up. They saw they just released a new season. I can’t wait to get to it. It’s one of my favorite things on television.

It is just, I have heard such good 

Craig: things about it. 

Todd: Dude, you’re an 80s nostalgia nerd. I mean you grew up loving Karate Kid, right? Oh, absolutely. You will go over the moon. They just, they strike the, in my opinion, Karate Kid. They strike the perfect balance of serving up the nostalgia, but having a fun, compelling story, but also not taking it too seriously, but still seriously enough that it’s not a big joke.

It’s just. This great mix and it’s got great action sequences. The karate sequences in the, in that movie, some of them you’ll are just draw dropping. It’s so much fun. 

Craig: I’ve really only heard good things. I’ve never heard anything bad about it. So yeah, so he’s in it. He plays this dumb cop and yes, those parts are dumb.

What was interesting to me is like, this is a violent abduction rape movie and it’s terrible. Like it’s such a terrible. These young girls. Get themselves into a very bad situation, and it turns out horribly. But it’s so weird, because it is shot and scored like a goofball comedy. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: All of the music in the background is like ba ba 

Todd: ba ba ba ba ba ba 

Clip: ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba Like,

Craig: it’s just this silly, goofy That’s what blew me away with this was like, you would think based on those cop scenes, especially, and the music in the background, you would think that you were watching the Dukes of Hazzard or something. Like, I don’t even know. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It was jarring. From 

Todd: what I understand, reading interviews with Wes Craven, he did intend for it to intentionally be jarring.

They took great pains to make sure that the music was totally incongruous with what was happening on the screen. So, when there is some serious, horrible stuff happening on the screen, the music is almost wacky. And then when it doesn’t matter, it gets kind of folksy, and like you said, when the cop scenes come in, it’s just goofball.

Like, it’s almost like a whole different movie when the cop scenes come in. And they’re cut and juxtaposed deliberately against some of the most horrifying things happening. Suddenly, it’s like, cutaway, hey, here are the zany cops who are just one step behind everything that’s going on because they trip all over each other.

For like the 

Craig: last half of the movie, they’re just walking on the street because they ran out of gas. Like, no shit. For like the last hour of the movie, they’re just walking down the road. It’s ridiculous. 

Todd: I have to say, I think it works against the movie, honestly. 

Craig: It does. 

Todd: It’s not Have you seen 

Craig: the remake?

There was a remake in 2009, have you seen it? No. God, no. It’s okay! 

Todd: Yeah, I know the It’s not Full participation of Craven and Cunningham in that one. They got the rights back and so they, they were the ones who initiated it. So I’m sure it’s good enough, yeah? 

Craig: It’s not bad at all. The dad, I don’t have it up in front of me.

So it focuses more on the parents. My goodness, we’ve got to start talking about this movie, but the, the remake focuses a little bit more on the parents and the dad is played. I’m not going to be able to come up with his name, but the bad guy in ghost, Patrick Swayze, whoopie Goldberg ghost, you know, the guy that was Patrick Swayze’s friend and double crossed him.

Oh yeah. And, and that guy’s good. And that guy’s good in everything. And, and he’s good in that movie, but the, the remake, it takes itself more seriously. I wouldn’t say it’s darker because this movie is certainly dark, but the characters feel a little bit more real, especially Junior, 

Todd: or 

Craig: Willow. Willow slash 

Todd: Junior.

Craig: They kind of build him in the remake as a more sympathetic character. Like, I feel like Craven and. They were suggesting that here, but he was like, Everybody’s so over the top that it’s difficult. Anyway, I was talking about the remake. It’s fine. Let’s talk about this movie! 

Todd: You were gonna say it’s difficult to take seriously, weren’t you?

Yeah. I know what you mean. The way that the movie is shot is sleazy. The reason for it is that they were documentary filmmakers before this and Craven was like, I don’t really know what I, I don’t, he had a vision. Everybody said on the set, like the whole production was very rushed and it was not comfortable for everybody involved and they were constantly getting kicked out of locations because they didn’t have permits or whatever.

And over half the movie was shot basically like on Sean Cunningham’s parents property, like in their house and like in their backyard and down the street and stuff in Connecticut. And it 

Craig: looks like it. 

Todd: Yeah, and it did, but Craven said that, look, he said I figured we will just approach this like a documentary and we’ll just do long takes from a couple different angles, and then I’ll be able to edit it all together.

But he said the result was like Not all that stuff can edit together. Like, you know, when you don’t plan it out like that, and you’re just doing that, like the shots don’t always match up and you can’t necessarily do the good edits. And that adds a little bit, I think, to the amateurish feeling of the movie, but then also it adds to the realism of the movie because it does end up with this sort of documentary cameras are in their movie.

Not unlike Cannibal Holocaust was. 

Craig: Right. It feels voyeuristic. 

Todd: Mm hmm. 

Craig: You feel like you were. It’s difficult to explain, I guess. I mean, it’s not a difficult concept, but it doesn’t look cinematic like a movie. It looks like you are there watching it, or you’re there behind the camera. 

Todd: Yeah. Filming the whole thing.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: That feel of the film, coupled with, again, we see a lot of stuff from this era that’s very amateur and it just feels amateur, and again, it’s kind of in that vein cinematically, so you can’t completely, like, lose that, that veneer. And then, like you said, a couple of the characters are so over the top that you’re kind of, it does also take you out of it just a little bit.

But somehow the movie overcomes that emotionally, I think, ultimately. I don’t, wouldn’t say that it holds up today to the same degree that it did back then, or even when I watched it, you know, like a decade or two later, but I think it’s still there. 

Craig: I don’t know if i’m just romanticizing West Craven, but watching this.

Again yesterday. I’m like it was over and I’m like that was a good movie. 

Todd: Yeah 

Craig: It’s terrible the events of the movie in case we never get to them. Are these two teenage girls? 

Todd: 17 just once just turned 17 

Craig: Right are they’re gonna go to a concert and they want to get some weed and they meet a guy on the street and it Just turns out this guy happens to be part of this murderous group of people and so these girls are abducted by them.

The thing that is most horrifying to me, and I think that this is absolutely genius, is that all of this happens on the main protagonist slash victims doorstep. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: That is what is most horrifying to me. Like they get abducted by these people and these terrible villainous, violent people, their car happens to break down.

And so they get the girls out of the car and the main girl, Mary, Looks up and literally is looking at her mailbox like they were at her house 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: and that to me is the most horrifying thing that something so brutal and violent and horrible Could happen to you. Yeah, just within arms arms reach of your sanctuary of the place where you’re safest Her parents are home.

They’re worried about her. Yeah She is being brutalized a couple of hundred yards from her house that that blows me away. 

Todd: Well, it’s it’s classic Craven It’s like he’s setting up the themes for the rest of his career like it or not, right? He’s always bringing the horror into suburbia, into the places where you feel like you’re safe.

You know, that’s all of Nightmare on Elm Street is like that, you know, um, The movie that he does after this, The Hills Have Eyes, is kind of similar. It’s like the city people, you know, the comfortable suburban city people going on a trip that are in a A place suddenly where they’re, you know, that is foreign to them, and they’re out of their element.

Even though they don’t feel like they should be. And then horrible, terrible things happen to them. And it’s also a classic teenager setup. I mean, my life was like this, you know? Hey mom, dad, we’re gonna go see the Aerosmith concert in the big city. Right. We’re gonna drive to Kansas City with a car full of our friends.

We’re gonna go, don’t worry, we’ll be home late, but we will be home. But the reality is, if we got into the wrong neighborhood in Kansas City, and we needed gas or something like that, we were sitting ducks. We were not street smart. Sure. We didn’t know what was going on. And it’s kind of what happens here.

You know, this girl’s got these lovely parents, or it’s just been her birthday. They clearly want to have like a family birthday thing together, just the three of them, you know, when she gets home. God. They’re decorating for it. Mom’s baking a cake. 

Craig: That is so That’s crazy too, because again, you know, I, I don’t know much about the process, but Wes Craven’s the director.

I assume that he had something to do with the editing as well, but the way that I’ve already talked about the music just doesn’t make sense tonally. It’s, it’s crazy. But then also you will jump from these brutally violent scenes where these girls. are being beaten and raped. And then it will just jump back to the parents, like so happy, like making a birthday cake and, and decorating the room.

Clip: Oh, John, I should have bought one at the bakery. They have such pretty ones there. It’s truly remarkable. I want to attack you. 

Craig: And it’s. Jarring. That’s why I say that I think that it’s a good movie. It’s weird. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Knowing that this is his first movie, I just look at it and, and think, I see your early days.

Genius. Yes, this is not perfect and you will get better, but you are doing things that are shocking me and surprising me. 

Todd: And it’s not just shocking and different and surprising, but it’s a little unsettling. Yes, absolutely. I think it speaks to a deeper fear in all of us. You’re old enough like me, that you’ve probably been in a situation where something terrible happened, right?

Or you heard of something to, to, to somebody you know, or somebody you love and you’re thinking, God. And while that was going on, like, I was just at home having the best time of my life watching TV with somebody. Yep. Yep. That’s life. That’s what happens, you know? And here he’s throwing it right at you.

These poor parents are blissfully unaware in their excitement and their giddiness of getting ready for their daughter and goofing off and playing around and flirting and stuff like that, that in the meantime their daughter is being horribly brutalized. Right on their, in their backyard, essentially.

Absolutely. You know, there’s nothing that scares us more than that. You know, we all want to feel like we’re away from it. Like evil and badness is something that we can stay away from and remain blissfully ignorant of. But please don’t remind us of our ignorance. You know? But he does. And these kids, they’re out of their league, they’re out of their element.

The older girl that she meets up with, Eileen, is portrayed by her parents, like they have a little discussion about her before she takes off. I don’t know about Eileen, you know, I’ve never met her before. No, it’s 

Craig: Phyllis, isn’t it? Phyllis, Phyllis, you’re right, Phyllis. 

Todd: She’s more of a city girl. She’s a little more street smart.

Craig: Yeah. God, Todd, I feel like we could talk about this all day. I could talk about it all day with you. I don’t, I don’t even know where to begin because I like, I’ve already set up what happens. These girls get abducted, but I liked Phyllis. Phyllis seemed. And I guess that we’re just supposed to believe that because she’s from the rougher side of town, like she’s just more enabled to deal with this situation, I guess.

I don’t know. And that’s fine, and she is, and then the other girl, Mary, is so privileged and not equipped for this, that she basically just breaks, like, from the get out. Um, and Phyllis has to kind of take care of her, and I just thought, there were such interesting dynamics, and then when you read, about the making of the movie and you read that that dynamic with those two actresses.

was really kind of real. Like, the actress who played Mary was terribly, terribly uncomfortable with all of it. With the violence and the sexual violence. Multiple people have, who worked on the movie have said in interviews, you see that horror on her face. It’s real. She was terribly uncomfortable. And the other girl who played Phyllis, Okay, so the girl who played Mary, Sandra Peabody, and the pornstar guy who we’ve already talked about it, condemn this movie.

Like they won’t even talk about it in interviews. Well they, 

Todd: they, they do now. I found an interview on YouTube, yeah, where, where the, the guy, Fred Lincoln, was interviewed and talking quite extensively about it. He seems to be more comfortable. Sandra Peabody, she’s said some things, but she does not want to be on camera about it, and you’re right.

I still think she feels like. Well, her feelings have appraised, I think, in the passage of time. But when she first went to see this with her mother at the cinema, she was so horrified by the final product, it was just like a cast screening that she stormed out. She didn’t want to have anything to do with it.

I think now she recognizes that it was kind of important, and that it was, uh, She’s maybe a little more proud of participating in it, and she, you know, the benefit of time, you can look back and forgive a lot of things. But apparently, she was not treated very well by David Hess, because he was very method.

And, and she studied under Meisner. She was a very serious actress, I mean, this woman She was young! She’s a child. Yeah, but like, she’d been acting since she was a child. She was in plays, she was in soap operas, TV commercials. She had won awards by this point. And she had done a couple of these low budget exploitation films and things like that.

She wasn’t just like green person picked off the street who was out of her element. She just, her, her way of acting just did not gel with them. In fact, it sounds like. She wasn’t always able to deliver what they wanted, despite her being terrified. And so part of the cast took it upon themselves to terrify her a little bit to get her to Yeah, I don’t like 

Craig: that.

Todd: I don’t like that at all either. I think that’s just uncalled for, really, but Yeah, it’s a job. Apparently Craven was was consoling her the whole time and uh, and quite nice to her on the set the whole time 

Craig: Well, that’s not difficult to believe because he seemed like a very soft Kind man, but but I read things too I read that one of the actors the guy who plays jr.

They were shooting a scene And he didn’t feel like, and maybe Craven, I don’t know, but the other actor didn’t feel like she was giving it her all. And so, he physically threatened her, like he held her over a cliff and said, If you don’t Get this. I’m gonna throw you off this clip. Like, that’s not cool. 

Todd: No.

I’m not a fan of terrorizing actors to get to 

Craig: Yeah, I understand that actors take their jobs very seriously. And I also know the frustration of working with somebody and you just feel like it’s not working. And you feel like you’re doing everything you can do and maybe you feel like they’re not. But that’s not, God, it’s just so wild.

Like it’s just that, that, that, that happened. And we’ve talked about a lot of movies, a lot of movies that were made, you know, decades ago where people could get away with things. That they would never get away with today, but that’s just kind of blew my mind. Huh, I don’t know. What do we want to talk about?

Okay, so I feel so bad for these girls like they were just first of all to think about how young they are You know, this girl is on the verge of her 17th birthday, and they’re abducted by these Sex criminals, who, who we hear on the radio, recently escaped. And we hear on the radio and TV like, uh, yeah, these sex criminals escaped and, uh, and, and they’re just trying to buy some weed for the concert.

Like, it’s not like these are, you know, they didn’t do anything bad. 

Todd: That’s one of the unsettling things of it is just how quickly and easily they get into trouble. And it, it’s totally. You know, you just talked to the wrong guy in the street and he’s like, Oh yeah, come inside. I’ll get you some weed. And then they close the door behind them, lock it.

It’s horrifying 

Craig: because this is the kind of scenario that could happen. Things that could happen in real life are, are very scary. Basically, they’re abducted and, and the plot of the story, folks. Is that they are abducted, they take them on the road, they happen to break down right in front of this one girl’s house.

And then they sexually and physically torture them in the woods, in basically Mary’s backyard. Yeah. Phyllis gets away for a while. Oh god, that part of the movie made me so angry because there’s no reason why she couldn’t have gotten away. And the fact that she, they eventually caught her and murdered her brutally, and then they brutally rape Mary and she tries to run away and they kill her too.

That’s another difference betwe between the original and the sequel. And the remake, Mary, I don’t remember if that’s they use, but that character is brutalized horribly, I would argue more horribly than the actress in this movie, but she doesn’t die. There’s a part in this movie. Movie where the parents suspect that something weird is going on and they run outside to find their daughter Dead in the remake.

She’s not dead. She’s alive and they bring her back But other than that, it’s very much the same then the parents decide that they are going to take revenge on the Killers and they do and it’s weird. 

Todd: Yeah We, 

Craig: we’ve got about 15 to 20 minutes.

Todd: Well, you gave the summary so we can now just start talking about individual bits. I mean, I’d be curious, where did you see this? Did you see it on a streaming service or uh 

Craig: huh? Yeah a free streaming service that I don’t use regularly that’s out there It’s crackle C r a c k l e free lots of ads So this hour and 20 minute movie took me about two hours to watch because lots of ads It’s out there.

Todd: There are apparently a million cuts of this movie out there, like, you never know what you’re gonna find, what’s gonna be in it, what’s not, because even when it was being put out to theaters, and this is also a different era, right? It’s just so hard to believe, like, angry projectionists and theater owners would cut bits out that they didn’t like.

And so every time they’d get a print returned, there would be pieces and bits of it missing. And at one time Craven said they had a whole little studio set up to take all these return prints and go through them and try to piece together whole films from the bits that they got back. That was how strong the reaction was to this movie.

And yet, at the same time, Roger Ebert gave this almost a full four stars and a thumbs up. And he gets very critical, usually, of these types of films, but, you know, he saw something in this. There was, uh, at least one case of a theater chain that was, you know, parents and people were demanding that they stop showing this movie.

And they stood up to defend it. And they said, look, we think this is more than just an exploitation movie cash grab. We think this movie has a message. We think that it speaks to things that are actual dangers and horrors that teenage girls face in their lives. It’s a cautionary tale in a way. And they also said nothing about the violence on the screen is glorified.

Everything is very real. And presented appropriately, they said. And for that reason, we’re gonna keep showing it. And that’s a pretty bold stance to make. So, I’m curious because there’s so many different cuts of this movie. It seems, I went online and I found a documentary. I also found a whole bunch of Found footage that they found kind of in the early 2000s that they thought was lost None of it terribly significant.

Some of it was just lengthenings of different scenes and maybe just a little bit more But as far as like adding more explicitness to it, not really but one thing that it was different from the original cut that they put together and what kind of ended up going out to theaters. And some people apparently, some cuts of this exist, where when they parents find Mary, she’s not quite dead yet.

And so she’s able to tell them without a doubt, this is what happened to me and these were the people and in her dying breath. And I noticed a little hint of that in the cut that I had, like when they found Mary just sort of jarringly by the side of the river that she had been. that she had walked into.

I could see her move a little bit and I saw her mouth start to move as they looked at her. Then immediately it cuts to a different like angle on the shot and her mother says, what can we do to save her? And he, and the father says, oh no, she’s already dead. And I was like, oh, I thought we were getting a last gasp something from Mary.

And then when I went back into the trivia, I saw that no, actually cuts do exist that have that in there. So I thought that was, that was kind of interesting. I wasn’t sure if you saw that little That little bit in your cut or not? 

Craig: No, when the parents find her, which, gosh, it’s so crazy. So what happens is they brutalize these girls, and they ki Phyllis almost gets away, but they catch her and they stab her to death, and it’s very violent and terrible.

At some point, Krug rapes Mary violently, and it is a very upsetting scene. It’s very upsetting. It wasn’t as graphic as I remembered and it wasn’t as graphic as I expected. 

Todd: Yes. I remembered this lasting longer and being more graphic and it was neither. It honestly, I don’t even know if it, if it’s a minute long.

Craig: It’s very brief. It’s obvious. What is happening, but there’s not a lot of like explicit nudity or yeah, it’s, it’s terrible. I mean, sexual violence is just terrible and I just hate it. And I, I really don’t, I don’t seek out movies that I know are going to be about that. But when I go into a movie like this and I know that it’s coming, like if I’m prepared, I’m better, you know, like if I know it’s coming, if I’m prepared.

I’m prepared to deal with it. If it takes me by surprise, I, it just might. me, but it’s, uh, it’s not as graphic as I expected, but considering the fact that this young woman is supposed to be 17, barely 17 years old, it’s an absolute nightmare. And then when she walks away from it, which is also. I mean, just, it’s just disgusting and it’s, it’s, it’s so hard to think about.

Like she’s just been brutalized and all that she can do is just pull up her pants and walk away and she just walks into the lake and then they shoot her. So, I, I suppose we’re to assume that she’s dead. Well, then, they all get cleaned up. This terrible group of psychopaths get cleaned up. And, go to her parents house.

Where, this is where things start to get a little goofy for me. Because I just think that times are very different now. Like, this would never happen. Like, if a group of weirdos, Show up at my door. I’m not gonna be like sure come in. You can stay the night. I’ll make dinner like Fuck off No Bye 

Todd: Kind of imagine that because it does just cut to them in the house You guys you kind of have to imagine that some sort of good psychological manipulation happened in the meantime 

Craig: They clean up they put on like a Shirts and ties and stuff.

Yeah, and the girl there’s one girl in this group of psychopaths Oh my god, Todd. I swear to God we could talk about this all day. But the one girl Sadie She’s such an interesting character because she seems like a psychopath But then there’s one point in the movie where Phyllis is Almost gets away, but Sadie catches up to her and Sadie takes her down and says to her, I’ll help you, I’ll get you out of this, but Phyllis, I mean, of course she’s in self defense mode.

I would do the exact same thing like stabs Sadie or something. Did you think in that moment that Sadie was genuine? Like, I really thought in that moment, That, that woman, that girl, who has fallen into this terrible group of men, I really thought in that moment she would have helped Phyllis and Mary get out.

I think so. 

Todd: That’s debatable. Maybe. I sort of felt like Junior was on the edge of helping as well. I mean, he was always kind of cast as the one who was a little more uncomfortable with everything and he’s more interested in getting his fix than anything else and these guys are such assholes even to each other.

That they’re just like, they don’t even give a shit. Like this guy’s going through withdrawal and he’s like getting a little more and more like, I 

Craig: didn’t care for that. I didn’t care for that whole plot line. Like it just seemed really silly. 

Todd: Yeah. I mean, it felt obligatory. Like it’s kind of, I spit on your grave has a little bit of a character kind of like this too, but toward the end, he’s the one who kind of betrays them and, and almost does them in.

Craig: If I remember correctly, I spit on your grave has a character who is literally. Yes. Yes. Intellectually challenged. He’s 

Todd: sort of the junior equivalent in a way. I think as far as the plot goes, you know. 

Craig: Yeah. This kid, I mean, you kind of feel bad for him, like he’s supposed to be. to be Krug’s son, which I don’t know.

This adult man is not this other young man’s son. I don’t believe that. Right. But he just, he just seems dumb. I understood Mary’s. Motivation when she was trying to endear herself to him, you know, she’s she’s trying to get herself out of this But 

Todd: it’s not very sophisticated. It’s not real forested. It 

Craig: does 

Clip: Shut up, huh?

Junior. Junior. Is that your real name? I gotta give you another name. I’m gonna give you another name. I’m gonna call you willow 

Todd: Willow 

Clip: willow Because you’re kind of beautiful and you shake when the wind blows Cool some wind. Don’t leave me 

Todd: alone 

Clip: Willow do you have a girlfriend? I got lots of girlfriends just waiting to get me.

I don’t think you do. Well, you are right. I wanna give you something. I don’t want that. It’s worth a lot. I don’t want see. I wanna be your friend. Oh, you wanna get free? I wanna be your friend. I wanna be your friend. I can get you a fix. 

Todd: It’s a silly plot device to get her her necklace around his neck.

Craig: Exactly. And not to mention the whole forced plot device of the cops. That part is so stupid. I, I just, God, I don’t even know what to say about it, but eventually, so the, the parents take them in junior, the kid that you were just talking about is going through withdrawal apparently. And so he’s barfing.

And so the mom who is the most hospitable person in the world is checking on him and she sees. Mary’s necklace. They had given her an early birthday present. A peace sign. It was just a, a peace sign necklace. So generic, like, Oh my God, a peace sign necklace. It must be hers. But they figure it out and then they run down to the lake and they find Mary dead.

And then they decide to exact their revenge. Now, this is where it got to me more like I Spit on Your Grave. Yeah. Where it becomes like rape revenge. What shocked me was that these parents were more motivated by revenge. Like that was the emotion that motivated them. Like they, the fact that they’re. Child had just been brutalized and murdered.

To me, I would think that despair and sadness would be your primary emotion, but they’re immediately motivated by revenge. And, and they immediately go into like, 

Todd: Cold calculating mode really like a very business like and that just didn’t ring as true It felt it felt a little sloppy 

Craig: it did and he the dad Sets up home alone booby traps in the house, which I totally forgot about.

I didn’t remember that at all Me neither something else and and maybe this is just a thing With rape revenge movies of the 70s, but something that always Always me is that in their pursuit of revenge, women sexually gratify men. And that bothers me. It bothers me. Like I understand what the mother’s purpose was.

I get what she’s doing, but she blows that guy. To the point that he’s about ready to come. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Before she bites his dick off. Yeah. Like just bite it off. I Don’t like that. I don’t like that. I don’t like it I feel like something very similar happens and I spit on your grave. It does. The woman who has been violently Brutalized gratifies one of her attackers before she castrates before yeah, right I don’t like it.

Yeah, I don’t like it in the remake The parents also take their revenge this again Is it just as bad it seems like they made an attempt to ground it more in reality And so there’s not that like the, the mom is certainly not blowing any of these guys that raped and killed her daughter. Certainly not.

It’s not a bad movie. It really isn’t. Like if you haven’t seen the remake and you want to, Watch it, it’s fine, it’s a fine movie. 

Todd: I mean, I was just gonna presuppose, like, I’m sure that it has a cinematic quality to it. 

Craig: Absolutely. 

Todd: That takes away from the feeling you get, you know, this movie, I think it’s amateurishness.

At some points, like you said, like we’ve discussed, it Works against it. It makes the movie rather silly in points. It doesn’t always dull the violence But also in some ways it kind of elevates the film. It’s almost like a happy accident, really. Although I do feel like Wes Craven did know what he was doing.

Craig: I think that he was a very, very talented filmmaker and This is his first thing ever and I swear to God, I can’t even really tell you why. I mean, I don’t know. Okay, so the parents kill the bad guys and the cops who have been walking to their house for the last 45 minutes finally show up to witness them killing the bad guys.

It’s dumb. But when it was over, I don’t even know if it was worth it. How to explain it, but when it was over, I’m like, that was a good movie. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Why? I don’t even know. 

Todd: I just don’t know if I showed somebody now, like a kid, not a kid. I would never show this to a kid, but like, if I just showed this to like another, a A fellow, uh, human being who’s maybe a generation younger than me, or ten years younger than me, or somebody who’s never seen this before, really wasn’t into these kind of movies, or whatever, this movie, I really wonder what they would think of it.

I think it, through a modern lens, it’s probably a very mixed bag. Yeah. And I don’t know if they’d be as shocked, maybe, because I doubt it. I think worse We’ve seen so much worse in terms of sexual violence. Yes. We’ve seen much more mean spirited movies than this is. Yes. You can’t call this movie mean spirited because there’s so much goofiness in it.

No, not really. But there are There’s just enough of an edge to it that it worked particularly for its time. It certainly set itself apart. This is not the first rape revenge story that was ever put to film and not the first deliberately shocking exploit They were floating around like crazy in the 70s, you know 

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: but somehow this one after about five title changes apparently that’s what took him a while to latch on to Suddenly just became very notorious and rigorously defended by many critics and very divisive just ripped apart by just as many critics but made them tons of money and then Launched Sean Cunningham and What’s craven into the stratosphere as far as their future careers went.

It’s pretty nuts. 

Craig: It’s crazy. It really is crazy. I, I feel like it’s Notorious. Like this is one of those movies that gets talked about being, you know, terribly violent and it is. I’m not gonna say it’s not. It is this, it’s exploitation. You can tell from the first Three minutes that it’s an exploitation film this young girl who were to believe is 16 years old one day shy of 17 her tits are out in the first three minutes.

Showering. 

Todd: She has a conversation about her tits with her parents, which is kind of funny. That was really funny. Hey, no 

Clip: bra? Of course not, nobody wears those anymore. Nobody except us drill sergeants. Yeah, but look Estelle, you can see her nipples as plain as day. Daddy, don’t be so clinical. But it’s a modesty.

So I’ll get some sandpaper. Look young lady, when I was your age When you were my age, you all wore braziers that made your tits stick out like torpedoes or 

Todd: something. Tits? What’s this tits business? Sounds like I’m back in the barracks. 

Clip: Alright then, mammary glands. They used to tie them up like little lunatics in straitjackets, and they stuffed socks in their bra.

Mary! You told me that yourself, mother. If God had meant women to go around with their bust exposed, Mary Collingwood, he wouldn’t have given us clothes. 

Craig: But seriously, the first three minutes, Teenage Girl tits out. This is an exploitation. movie, for whatever reason, I just, I think it’s well done. Like the guy who played junior, he was going for a character and that’s fine.

I get that. And I’ve seen him in other things. He took me out of it a little bit. Cause he was so goofy, but David Hess as Krug was a very. Frightening, intimidating villain. Oh, 

Todd: yes. 

Craig: I loved the girl who played Sadie. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: She’s so crazy. Like in the beginning, she’s got this heavy, heavy makeup on and she’s got her hair teased out as, as far as it can go.

So like, she’s got this huge teased out do, but then later when they’re trying to pretend. To be normal people while they’re staying with the parents. She has her hair combed down and she looks just like a normal person. I was impressed with really all of the villains, all of their ability to go from so violent and brutal, just stained in blood.

I mean, they’re just covered in blood for much of the movie, but then to clean themselves up and present themselves people. Ultimately, I don’t know what to say about it, but I find this movie compelling. And if you are a horror fan, if you are a Wes Craven fan and you haven’t seen this movie, maybe you’re scared to watch it for the same reasons that I was.

It’s not As graphic as I remember it being, it’s not as brutal as I remember it being, and ultimately, I do think that it is compelling film to watch. I would recommend 

Todd: it. Yeah, I mean, I feel exactly the same way. Does it hold up today? Uh, no. Not like, hey, this movie looks like it could have been shot yesterday.

You know, absolutely not. No. Does it hold up emotionally? Like I said, it’s a little bit of an uneven batch. But can you watch this and walk away and feel like that was not a waste of my time? Yeah, that’s how I felt. Eh, maybe because I’m a horror fan. I don’t know. My parents would hate it. You know? But Oh, yes.

Yeah. But that’s the point, really. Like I said before, I think Wes Craven was successful in making a movie that did not glorify violence, and that is one of the things that turns my stomach as much as sexual violence does. And that is, any movie that I feel is just, glorifies violence. And that’s why, like, one of my most hated films is 300.

I almost walked out of that movie, and I never walk out of movies, because I was like, this film is trying to make this violence look beautiful, and it’s succeeding. All these people slashing each other, it’s like a, it’s like a ballet, and it’s a slow motion, and beautiful music, and these perfect compositions, and I’m like, I just felt like morally that was reprehensible.

Apparently, you know, obviously Quentin Tarantino is a huge fan of Craven’s earlier output. Craven went to a premiere of Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, and he walked out. Because he objected to the violence in it. And Tarantino made a comment publicly like, Look at this, the guy who directed Last House on the Left walking out of my movie because it’s too violent.

And Craven shot right back at him and said, Last House on the Left didn’t glorify violence like your movie did. And that’s the difference between us and I’m I’m right with Craven on this one. I love Tarantino too, but I also don’t like 

Craig: Yeah, they’re, they’re both brilliant. 

Todd: Yeah, so somehow this movie manages to do that even as an amateur first effort.

There’s a magic there that you can see that has obviously extended well into Craven’s all too short career. 

Craig: Well, yeah. Mio’s long, but It’s too short for me! We joke, I, I So, for our 500th episode, are we gonna have to do, like, music of the heart? Oh, God.

Todd: No, we’ve got a couple TV movies, and We haven’t even 

Craig: done all the Nightmare movies yet! Yet? 

Todd: No, 

Craig: we haven’t, we haven’t done well. He didn’t direct ’em all. Uh, dream Master, dream Child, 

Todd: we’ve got, um, also we did Deadly Friend, but we didn’t do Deadly Blessing, so we’ve got that one as well. No one as well. I haven’t done that.

Craig: Deadly Friend was great though. Oh 

Todd: man. Go back and listen to that one. It, 

Craig: it’s do or don’t like I, I, I listen to our. Old episodes and sometimes the sound quality is so bad. I’m like, Oh my God, this is embarrassing. 

Todd: We were just two guys on a sofa, you know, give us our Craven and Cunningham moment. You know, 

Craig: just two guys on a sofa and here we are 500 years later.

And I, I, I still love it. I appreciate you. My brother, my friend, this, this has been a labor of love for a long time, and if, you know, I wouldn’t do this with somebody I didn’t like. Both laugh. Same here. Both laugh. 100%. I, I genuinely, genuinely enjoy getting to talk to you. I mean, you live in China for two years.

God’s sake. Who would have 

Todd: imagined that? 

Craig: Who would have imagined and I still get to chat with you once a week And I really appreciate it and I so appreciate all of the people who listen and our patrons and we’re not famous It’s not like we have this enormous following but those of you who listen to us Kind and it’s, it’s genuinely, it makes my heart feel good to hear from you and, and to hear that we can make you laugh at work or on your, So, so thank you without, without those of you who listen, we would just be talking into an echo chamber and we’d probably, we’d probably keep doing it anyway, but it is, it’s, it’s really nice to hear from all of you.

Todd: Yeah. Well, you know, Craig, you’re one of my very best friends. I think about the podcast almost every single day. Um, we’re always planning what’s coming next, right? Yeah, God. And we’ve been through so much and we got so much more to go through. I feel I’m, I’m so excited. I can’t wait. We just got to sort out what we’re going to do for our 800th episode.

That’s what I’m looking forward to, but I ditto everything you say. I can’t wait. I’m looking forward to it. When we’ve done all of the horror movies that exist. All of them? Ha ha ha ha ha! Well, thank you so much for listening to this, our 400th episode. For those of you who have been with us through the very beginning, and those of you who have just joined us, it doesn’t matter.

We appreciate you so much. Really, so much for your support and your love. Both our patrons, uh, who are over there at Patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. And those of you who just drop us a line every once in a while on our Facebook page, our Twitter feed, our website, which is ChainsawHorror.com. Or those of you who are just lurking in the background and have yet to pop in and make yourselves known.

Thank you so much for listening. Please, do us a favor and share this with a friend that you think would enjoy it. Also, write us an honest review on any one of those sites, but especially the Apple Podcasts app. As long as it’s good, we love to read all those reviews. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig.

With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.