2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Thanks to Paul for this long-standing request, selected by our Patrons. This Kevin Bacon haunting film, based on a novel by Richard Matheson, got a little buried by the Sixth Sense when it was released. Coincidentally, they share similar themes, and Stir of Echoes is stylishly directed by accomplished screenwriter David Koepp. We had nothing bad to say about it. Enjoy!

Stir of Echoes (1999)

Episode 399, 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: Well, it is about time for another request. And as always, we send our requests over to our patrons. Every request that we get goes into a separate video. stack, and then we pick out a few, usually try to follow like a theme or something so that they’re all kind of comparable.

And we put a little poll up there. Craig put the poll together this time. And what was the theme? It was like haunted house movies? Yeah, hauntings. Yeah, it was loose, loose jumble of haunted house movies. And we ended up with a tie, a tie between stir of echoes and grave encounters. And at the time of this recording, anyway, everyone got their votes in and it’s still a tie.

So we. Actually, we had a preference. You did. I did. And I was willing to go along with it, because I also wanted to see Stir of Echoes. Had you seen this before? 

Craig: Oh yeah. 

Todd: Okay. You know, when I watched it, I was like, God, I feel like I’ve seen it before, but I didn’t remember any of it. 

Craig: Well, that’s, maybe that’s good.

You know what I’m saying? Like, maybe, just kind of seeing it with fresh eyes, I think. Right. I kind of wish that I could see it with fresh eyes again. Ah. I’ve actually seen it many, many times because, I think I probably mentioned this before, but when I was in college, I didn’t have cable. I couldn’t afford it.

So, I just had like this extensive collection of DVDs and before the era of streaming, we would just watch the same things over and over again. Of course. And this was a movie that Alan and I both really liked. And so we would just pop it in periodically. So I’ve seen it a bunch of times. It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen it, but watching it again, I actually kind of wished That I could be seeing it for the first time because there were no surprises.

In fact, I found myself, you know, I’m taking notes and I found myself typing out lines that I wanted to remember before they said them. You have this down. Yeah. Like I knew, I knew what the next line coming was and I knew it was important. So I already had it typed out before they even said it. So I I’m glad that, yeah.

whether or not you have seen it before that it was kind of fresh for you. I’ll be interested to see what your response was. 

Todd: It might’ve been one of those things that like people had on and I saw little bits and pieces, that kind of thing. It’s a 1999 movie. And so I would have been in college when this came out and it stars Kevin Bacon and I love Kevin Bacon.

Clip: I 

Todd: love that guy. He seems like a cool guy too. He just seems like, yeah, the coolest. And he just plays so many interesting roles, and he’s good in all of them, and so, and he was good in this too, I thought the acting in this movie was solid. And the director is David Koepp. David Koepp, he’s the career I want to have.

He’s more of a writer than a director. This is not his directorial debut, but it was his first big hit. Well, I mean, it was his first, like, big movie, and it probably would have been bigger if it hadn’t come out the same year that The Sixth Sense did. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And so, there’s a big sense among the people who are involved in this movie that it just kind of got buried in the success of that and a couple other movies that came out around the same time.

But he, I mean, this guy wrote the screenplay for Jurassic Park. He, one of his first big screen plays was Toy Soldiers, and we love Toy Soldiers so much that we did a mini sode about it for our patrons, and I think that was as long as a regular episode, that’s how much, we couldn’t justify that as a horror movie because it’s not at all, but we had to pay tribute to, uh, it was Louis Gossett Jr.,

right? What a great movie. And then of course, uh, Death Becomes Her after that. Jurassic Park, Carlito’s Way, which won so many awards that year for the Academy Awards. Have you seen the shadow that Alec Baldwin was in back in 1990s, the mid 90s? If 

Craig: so, I don’t remember it. I mean, I can picture it in my mind, but 

Todd: That was one of those superhero movies that kind of came on the heels of the Tim Burton Batman, so they were really going for the dark kind of superhero that I love that movie.

I think it’s great. I’ve always liked it. It wasn’t a huge success, and I don’t understand why, but it had like Alec Baldwin in it, Tim Curry is, is one of the villains, it’s got great music, it’s got a great soundtrack, and I just, I love that movie. So he wrote that, he wrote the screenplay and story for the, the Mission Impossible movie that Tom Cruise did that kicked off that whole franchise, so, Snake Eyes, Panic Room, Jesus.

Did he write 

Craig: the two most recent Indiana Jones movies? Did I, See that? 

Todd: Yes, he did. Yeah. Yeah, he did. Take that with a For better, for worse. For better, for worse, exactly. I liked the most recent one, actually. The one before it, yeah, was kind of, oh, disappointing. They were both, 

Craig: okay. But whatever, it’s Indiana Jones.

You get the chance to write an Indiana Jones script, you write an Indiana Jones script. So, good for him. No 

Todd: joke. 

Craig: You know, he’s, you’re right. His career has been amazing. And, You know, this was horror, but I think the other big draw for me at the time was Kevin Bacon because I’ve been a fan of Kevin Bacon my whole life.

Probably first introduced in Footloose, of course, but he was also in, I think the first Friday the 13th and he’s just been around forever and he’s still working all the time. He just seems like a cool guy. Like he just seems like somebody you’d want to be friends with. Like he seems like a fun, very down to earth guy.

Todd: My mom admires him because he’s been married to the same woman for 30 years. 

Craig: And she’s amazing and, and they’re adorable as a couple. And she’s a brilliant actress also. And, you know, they live on a farm and they sing to their animals and they’re just like, it’s disgusting how adorable and you mentioned that he plays all kinds of characters and really interesting characters and does it very well.

And, and you’re absolutely right, but he’s another one of those actors that we’ve talked about. Acting is a job and he has, he’s been really transparent. He and. Kira, Kira, I can never remember Sedgwick, his wife, his beautiful wife. They’ve been very transparent about how they lost everything in some big investment scam.

And so they continue to work. He continues to work as much as he does because they have to. They’re just so cool. They’re, they say, you know, don’t feel sorry for us. You know, it’s, it’s fine. This is our job. We, they’re just the coolest people. And the movie, I don’t know. I remember the trailer. I didn’t rewatch it, so I hope I’m not just, you know, making this up in my head.

But I feel like the movie heavily features the Rolling Stones Paint It Black. And, and I think I remember the trailer featuring that too. And as soon as the trailer opened, those first chords of Paint It Black start. And those chords are just so eerie in themselves. Like, that’s such a great song. Oh yeah.

I love the Stones, particularly their older stuff. But, um, funny enough. My 60 something year old mother went to a Rolling Stones concert last week. No way. With a bunch of other Women of a particular age and, uh, they had the most amazing time. 

Todd: You know, I don’t know. What’s more amazing is that your mother went there or the stones are still having concerts.

I mean, I know, right? I think Jagger’s like 

Craig: 88 or something like that. I don’t know. He’s, he’s super old, but anyway, so that, that haunting song combined with kind of the haunting imagery that, you know, you, you see, and I remember, you know, the, in the trailer. You see Kevin Bacon being hypnotized because that’s a big part of it.

And the imagery of that scene, which we’ll talk about in a second, but scored by the haunting chords of that song. And I was just in, and I’m pretty sure I saw this in the theater. I don’t remember. All I know is I have the DVD somewhere and have had forever and I’ve watched it a bazillion times and I like it.

I don’t know that it’s aged well, or, or maybe we just don’t see this type of movie. Very much anymore. I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it. 

Todd: I know what you mean. Actually, it’s filmed quite well. Oh, it’s beautifully shot. 

Craig: I think 

Todd: the cinematography is great. It feels nineties, but maybe only because I know it’s nineties.

Cause it doesn’t have that like distinctly nineties feel. And I don’t know what I really mean by that. I guess just things are very well lit. Everything is quite clean. The people are clean. Clean, you know, it’s like it takes place in a suburban Chicago neighborhood, and it’s just a bunch of white people 

Clip: Yeah, 

Todd: and they’re all just middle class.

Well, I guess he’s Supposedly blue collar, but look at right 

Craig: That drove me crazy I lived in that area or an area very much like that and He is a lineman, which is you know, that’s actually a pretty lucrative career for 

Todd: sure You 

Craig: But she, I don’t even know if she works. I don’t even think she works. I don’t remember, but they live in this enormous brownstone.

And at some point late in the movie, he’s complaining about something like he’s, he’s just all worked up about something. And so he tries to like turn on a water. Spout, and it doesn’t come on, and he, under his breath, mumbles, 800 a month, my ass. And I was like, there is no I don’t even care. In 1997, when this movie was probably made, there is no way that huge ass brownstone was 800 a month.

Todd: My god, then, you know what? If they were really hard up on money, they they could sell their furniture, and all their fancy china, and all the stuff that was outfitting this house. I mean 

Craig: I lived in a two bedroom flat on the first floor. Third or fourth floor and it was 1, 200 a month. Now it was in a beautiful area and you know, it, it looks a little bit like this area, except the brownstones weren’t separated.

They were, everything was kind of connected. So it was a nice area, but still, come on, but we’re getting into the minutiae. I think maybe part of why it seems a little bit dated to me is because. I feel like we consume this type of story now more through television crime procedurals. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s like a one episode.

Craig: Yeah, this movie in particular reminded me of the show Cold Case. 

Todd: Did you ever watch that show? I never did, but I’ve heard of it, and it sounds like an awesome show. 

Craig: It was really good, and it was just like this. It was, you know, they were digging up these old unresolved cases, but you got to, you always, within the show, as they’re investigating and interviewing people, you get to see, in fuzzy recreation, the flashbacks to the events as they really happened.

Oh, okay. And then, in the end, whoever, it’s always centered around a murder. It’s always homicide. In the end, the, the person who’s dead, the actor who has been portraying them appears and like locks eyes with the lead investigator to like, you’re like, thank you.

While, while an amazing pop culture in the now moment song plays in the back, or just something that’s really relevant to the story like this. Now, Paint it Black isn’t necessarily relevant to the events of the story, it’s just kind of a theme, both visually and, and, you know, audibly. It’s just kind of a theme, but it works, and it’s that kind of tie.

Seriously, you can go back and watch old episodes of Cold Case. They’re still good. I really, and they’re one offs, you know, like, Of course there are like season arcs with the main characters and stuff, but those don’t really matter. It’s the, you know, the case of the week. That’s really cool. And this reminded me of that.

And it is a mystery and I like it. I can’t think of anything that I don’t like about it, but like the fuzzy, brightly lit flashbacks, it’s got a very 90s feel and it’s not as though we still don’t see that kind of stuff, but we see, I think we see it more in 

Todd: Cinema you’re right. It’s like 90s television and it could have been now that you mentioned it could have been an episode of One of these things it 

Craig: could it very easily could have been 

Todd: I mean that’s not to disparage it It just you know, it’s it’s that kind of story 

Craig: I think that it’s elevated by the style and by the acting I think Kevin Bacon gives a tour de force Performance in this movie.

He basically carries the whole thing on his back. 

Todd: It’s all about him. Really? 

Craig: It is all about him and he does a really good job of playing tough but vulnerable 

Clip: You 

Craig: know, I I think that he is a tough guy and he’s also a trouble guy Okay, so, you know, they’re like this blue collar lower middle class family.

They live in this Decent neighborhood, you know, like you said it’s a bunch of white suburbanites They’re, you know, they have block parties seemingly every night. 

Todd: That was another thing that I was like rolling my eyes at. But on the other hand, I was like, I kind of like seeing this portrayal because, talking about my family, I’m the oldest of three and my second oldest sister, she and her husband have in their later years, like, you know, like me, like my age, they managed to have these kinds of parties with their neighbors.

Mhm. I don’t. But, you know, they, you know, open up the garage and people come in and they, like, drink and smoke cigars and turn on music and talk about what’s going on and things like that. And I think that’s really cool. It’s like college continued. For them. I wouldn’t have believed that, you know, this actually happened, except, like I said, my sister and her husband do this in Kansas City on a fairly regular basis.

Still? Well. I think it’s a dying 

Craig: practice. I just read an article yesterday about third spaces, like back before the era of, you know, the internet, we had work, we had home, but then we had all these third spaces too, like the mall or the arcade or the roller rink or the bowling alley or block parties, you know, all these third spaces where you could interact, you know, do things, occupy yourself and interact with other people.

And they’re disappearing all of those things. are disappearing. And I think that this type of social interaction between neighbors is disappearing too. I know my neighbors by sight. I’ll throw them a little wave, you know, if I drive by or whatever, but I don’t even know their names or anything. 

Todd: Don’t get me started on this, man.

I have a whole life philosophy built around this concept that that’s one of the reasons why we’re so polarized right now is that people don’t get together face to face and just interact. People just say stuff online to folks that they would never say in person and people have more patience with each other in person.

They just navigate things better and the less we practice that, maybe the more we’ll even lose that skill. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And then the only people you’re having a block party with are the, you know, the five or six friends that you met online that you know you already agree with on anything and the reason you’re having this block party is so that you can like, Talk politics and bitch about some other group, you know, like, 

Clip: Oh 

Todd: yeah, I’ve got a whole philosophy about this.

I think it’s terrible. I tried to build a business around this whole thing and it didn’t, didn’t pan out. But, uh, anyway, yeah, I totally get what you’re saying, but I think they still get together with their adult friends and go out and do adult things. And I admire that. And I like seeing is portrayed in a movie.

The movie makes it look like they have these huge, like, it’s like a high school party in a slasher movie, right? We’re just like. Everybody and their mother’s over drinking at someone’s house. And 

Craig: the characters that we meet and we don’t need a lot of them, you know, this is a huge event and eventually as the night gets later, I just want to mention because I think it’s adorable.

Like I think it’s actually brilliant. The block, the, the party is right across the street from their house, so they don’t even hire a sitter. They just take the baby monitor with them. Now, I don’t know if the baby monitor would really stretch that far, but if it does. Yeah, 

Todd: it’s a brilliant idea and like, if this weren’t the night, if this were today, it would just be like an app on your phone.

Right. And like a whole camera. Sure. 

Craig: He’s right across the street. Like it’s, it’s perfect. But anyway, the only people that we meet at this party, aside from Maggie’s sister, Maggie is the wife. She’s played by Catherine Urba. We meet her sister, Lisa, who’s played by Ileana Douglas. I don’t even know. Cool. I couldn’t even name something else that Ileana Douglas has been in, but I love her.

Yeah, I think she’s hilarious every time she pops up. She’s Maggie’s sister, and she and Tom, Kevin Bacon, have kind of the, you know, the snipey brother in law, sister in law relationship. Like, 

Clip: I 

Craig: don’t think they really hate each other, but they just kind of bust each other’s chops all the time, whatever.

Todd: She’s like the crunchy person and he’s like just a down to earth, working class, skeptical guy, right? Exactly. 

Craig: Exactly. And all that comes to a head at the end of the party, but I was, what I was trying to get at is all the other people all kind of live in a high school mentality. Yeah. We really only meet a few.

There are, there’s like two neighbors, Harry, And Frank. Frank, I recognize he’s played by a man named Kevin Dunn. I didn’t look him up, but recognizable. And both of them, they just can’t stop talking about their sons and high school football. 

Clip: So Tom, how are you liking the neighborhood? You know, I grew up just over Bridgeport, back in the yard, so it’s a foreign country.

That being right, it’s not a foreign country. This is the best neighborhood in the city of Chicago. That’s because we all look out for each other. And as he’s saying a lot, as we approach the year of our Lord 2000. 

Craig: And it seemed very much in place to me. Like, yep, that’s what these guys would be talking about at this party.

Like, people would be talking about it all the time. Like, shut up. You’re living in the past, man. I know. But the party culminates, you know, it dies down. There’s only like, you know, you know, 10 people left or whatever. They’re all sitting around in a living room and they’re teasing Lisa, uh, the sister about being psychic.

And she’s like, no, I totally am. And it’s all real. And I can hypnotize people. And they’re like, we’ll hypnotize somebody. And she says, no, I can’t. She says, no, I can’t for a couple of reasons, but Kevin Bacon’s like hypnotize me. And she’s like, no, I’ve been drinking. You’ve been drinking. It’s dangerous. And he’s like, come on, come on, I’m not drunk.

I loved how he said that line too. I’m not drunk. Like, 

Clip: it’s so obvious. 

Craig: More than in any other moment that he was totally drunk. Right. But then she hypnotizes him and I just love this sequence. It’s a visually interesting Like, she kind of lulls him into it, which I read in the trivia, that the methods that she used are actual methods for hypnosis.

They were, actually concerned that audience members might fall into hypnosis. So at the end of the sequence, there’s a bell tone that’s meant to bring people out if they have fallen under. And according to, and according to, you know, what I read, you know, who knows, but some audience members supposedly did kind of go under, but were brought out by that bell tone.

Todd: Hypnosis is a real thing, but it’s not what movies make it seem to be. I mean, there are no magic words that do it, right? But it’s just suggestion, but it really depends on the participants willingness to go along with it. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: You can’t really, like, hypnotize people against their will. But, I don’t know, I guess, I suppose, if there were audience members who were kind of really into it, really willing to go along with it, maybe they, maybe they 

Craig: fell under or something.

Well, and maybe it would pro I don’t It may be too long, I don’t know, but Well, she says something like, it’s risky. I may end up opening doors that you’ve never opened before. And he says, well, what’s the worst that can happen? She says, close your eyes. 

Clip: Now I want you to Pretend you’re in a theater, a movie theater,

and there, it’s one of those great old movie palaces. And you look around, it’s a huge, empty theater. You notice that the walls of the theater are painted in black,

and the seats are covered in black. And in the whole pitch black theater, there’s only one thing you can see, and that’s the white screen. 

Craig: It’s almost like he’s kind of falling away from her and immediately his mind and what we’re seeing is what he’s seeing in his mind. His mind pictures theater for the stage, like for a stage production, and then it says a movie theater and it immediately switches to a movie theater and everything just gets washed over in black.

And all of this is just really cool. Fading effects, but they’re fast. Like it’s not like it takes them a while to conjure something. She just says something in it and immediately shifts in such a really, really cool way. I love it. And then she says you look at the screen and there are letters on the screen and you can’t quite make them out.

You’re you float closer and closer to the screen and we see all of this and you finally, when you get up in front of the screen, the letters say sleep. And then it goes into a bunch of quick shots. There’s a, just a really quick shot of. Their house and you hear screaming and then it seems like you see like somebody’s face like struggling under plastic and then Snap, he wakes up and he’s freaking out and everybody else is amused because she lisa has successfully hypnotized Him and she’s had him do things under hypnosis That they all saw.

Like, I don’t know, they may, she made him say something funny, I don’t remember, but the thing that they were most impressed with was that he stuck a safety pin all the way through the meat of his hand, and she told him, stick it through and only bleed on one side, and he did. And so they’re all amused by that, but he’s freaking out, and he’s also really thirsty.

I guess being hypnotized makes you thirsty, I don’t know, it’s a thing in this movie.

Todd: It’s a cool sequence, because It takes us into him, instead of, like, I don’t know, every time I see hypnosis on TV or in movies it’s usually we’re watching the person being hypnotized and we’re seeing what they’re spitting out. We’re rarely ever in the mind of the person being hypnotized. This is what it would be like, you just wake up, and like, all this stuff that he’s not aware of, they’re all laughing their heads off that he did, right?

And we don’t even know what it is, because we didn’t see it either. Cause we were in his mind, and I thought that was cool, but what we did see was the disturbing things. Right. And apparently this opened doors, and here’s the thing, like, like again, she’s very critical of him, she says that he’s too closed minded, and so her goal was to kind of quote unquote open his mind, but now the conceit is, his mind has been opened.

Been opened like psychically. Yeah. You know, so now he sees things and, and is aware of things and is tapped into oth the other, the otherly realm in certain ways. And man, if we could just do this to everybody, that would be kind of cool. . Well, I think that the, to sit down at a party and do that, I 

Craig: think that the movie suggests that he has always had these.

Abilities, he just hasn’t opened those doors before because the son. Oh, 

Todd: I totally skipped that the very opening The opening scene of the film if i’m not mistaken is his son is looking straight into the camera Yeah and talking but 

Craig: he’s having a one sided conversation And it sounds like he’s answering questions But we don’t know who or what he’s looking at, and Kevin Bacon’s just sitting in the background playing guitar.

Yeah. And eventually Kevin Bacon comes It is creepy, and eventually Kevin Bacon comes and he pulls the kid out of the tub and he dries him off and whatever, and he goes to get the kid’s pajamas, and the kid’s standing there and he’s just looking at the And he says, Can I ask a question? And he pauses as though for a response.

And then he says, Does it hurt to be dead? Then it moves on. 

Todd: The movie does a great job of starting off creepy. Yeah. And kind of maintaining that. And a lot of it has to do with this son. Whenever you’re just kind of getting, whenever you’re just kind of drifting off into all these social situations or whatever.

You’re kind of reminded, wait a minute, there’s something creepy going on with this son. Like, even when he’s at the party, that baby monitor’s crackling, and you can hear the son asking questions of some other person. Who’s obviously, you know, he’s in bed in what’s supposed to be an empty room, right? And so there’s just Sprinkles of that kind of thing throughout it that just make it so creepy from the beginning It’s just I felt like the movie from the beginning and all throughout was unsettling even before The main events start dropping.

Craig: I know that’s what 

Todd: and I like 

Craig: it’s funny because I I told alan i’m like, I don’t know what i’m gonna say about it because I still like it But I remembered liking it so much And I don’t know that I liked it that much this time around and I said what is it that we liked about it? And he said I don’t know it was just different And I said, What do you mean?

How is it different? And he paused for a second, and then he goes, I don’t know. It just scared me. 

Todd: Well, I think you might have hit it earlier. Like it was different for the time. I mean, for a mainstream movie to kind of be like this. I mean, think about when Sixth Sense came out. The exact same time. At the exact same time.

That was huge. And that was a mind blowing movie for all of us. But would it blow your mind now? 

Craig: Probably not, because I feel like that was the very last moment where you could still surprise people. I I think that now, we would all know. That’s true. We would all know the big twist before we even got into the theater, unless we worked really hard not to find out.

Todd: Now, the trailer would spoil it. Yeah! 

Craig: It totally would. happen. So lame. Oh, God. Yeah, what I was gonna say before is I think it’s safe to say, Kevin Bacon does have psychic abilities. He just didn’t know it before. And this is based on a book by Richard Matheson who has written a lot of really cool stuff.

Todd: He’s brilliant. He’s been all over film. Mostly sci fi, fantasy, Twilight Zone. So many Twilight Zone episodes were either written by him or based on stuff he’s written. I might be wrong, but I Thought he might be the original author of Planet of the Apes and he definitely was the original author of I Am Legend, which has been done like six different times.

First by Vincent Price. Did you ever see that one? No. The Last Man on Earth? No. God, it, it’s okay. It’s actually kind of a boring movie, but I love Vincent Price. I’ll watch him in anything. Right. But I remember as a kid watching the Charlton Heston version called The Omega Man. And that was a movie that creeped me the hell out as a kid because all the people who are left on earth are these sort of like vampire type people with white eyes and that movie was good.

I mean, I don’t know if it still holds up today, but when I was a kid, uh, the Omega Man was just crazy. And then of course, like later on, I think it was done two or three more times, Will Smith. I’ve seen literal I am legend. Uh, that was a pretty good movie. I like that one But I mean, no richard matheson is like a god in my book as a writer.

He’s insanely good Yeah, he’s done tons of cool. I’ve read the book too. 

Craig: You read this book. 

Todd: No, I read I am legend I was gonna say 

Craig: I want to read this book now because I think that they made some pretty significant changes But one of the things that’s in the book is that We get more background about Kevin Bacon’s character.

Like as it turned out, I think he was working as a lifeguard when he was a teenager and his psychic abilities helped him to save the life of Maggie, his wife. And that’s how they met and that’s how they got together. And like there’s other changes too. I, I would be really interested in, in reading the book, but I do think because he immediately starts, visions.

First, he’s asleep. Well, he’s tossing and turning in bed with his wife. I want to say again, this scene where they’re just laying in bed and they’re lit from the lights outside and it’s, it’s all blue light and it’s so much blue light and shadow. I think that there’s a lot of really good cinematography. I think this movie is stylish in the way that it’s shot and I think that it’s Attention is paid and, and care is given to what you’re seeing on the screen, and I really appreciate that.

And then he starts having these very stylized dreams of the hypnosis, but he has flash His wife starts to make love to him, but he starts having flashes of some really horrible imagery, like a bloody tooth skidding across the floor and a fingernail breaking and really gruesome stuff that pulls him out of it.

And at some point, like he can’t sleep, so he goes downstairs and he puts on the TV, but he, I love this shot. He grabs the remote. Off the coffee table. He sits down, he turns the TV on, he leans forward and the camera follows him as he leans forward to put the remote back down. And when he leans back, there is a ghost sitting right next to him.

It’s like 

Todd: a classic jump scare. 

Craig: It’s fantastic. 

Todd: But it’s so effective. The movie’s full of these little moments, and, and they’re good. They’re creepy, and I jumped almost every single time. And then, I don’t remember if it’s this moment, or a little bit later, on the heels of this, that he goes to the bathroom, and he looks in the mirror, and he sees his tooth, and he, he pulls his tooth out, and drops it in the sink, And then when he looks back up, I mean, and like, you know, his lip is bleeding and everything like that, and he looks back up And suddenly, his tooth is back, and it’s all clear, and whatever.

And I read in, I don’t know if it’s a trivia or Wikipedia, that that shot was done all in one take. I think I read that too. Yeah, that he had like a false tooth in front of that tooth, and he pulled it off, and then dropped it, and that when the camera panned down, quickly, someone from off camera ran in with a rag, and just like, wiped the blood away from his face, and that, whatever was The black piece or whatever was on his real tooth just in time for the camera to pan back up again.

That, that was cool. 

Craig: Yeah, I think, I don’t know, I think that ghost reveal that I just talked about, I think that was done in one shot too. I think the actress slipped in, you know, quickly when the camera was briefly panned away. 

Todd: And why not, yeah? 

Craig: Sure, but I mean, I say ghost, she’s just, she’s brighter. It’s almost like she’s like a, She seems corporeal.

I mean, she seems like she’s physically there, but she also almost seems like a television image or something like she’s brighter or she, I mean, she’s kind of all in blacks and whites and grays and she’s got kind of a glowing aura around her, but she’s not a wisp. You know, it’s not like she’s like a wisp of smoke.

She’s there and he’s freaked out. And of course he is. And the next day he’s freaked out and he calls his sister in law and he’s like, did you do something to me? And she’s like, no, not really. I mean, yeah, I did. And she says, I just said, You know, when you wake up, your mind will be totally open. And I, I think she was speaking figuratively, like you’ll be more open minded.

But he apparently psychically took it as your mind is open, like open to all these other things. And he’s kind of troubled by this for a while. Then there’s a scene where, like, I feel like they just went out the night before, but apparently they want to go out again. And the mom is in the foreground on the phone talking.

She’s like. You know, how are we going to get a sitter or something? The kid is in the background behind her, again, talking to somebody who’s not there. And then he says over his shoulders to the mom, Try Lucy. Ask her about so and so. Out of nowhere, he knows So she calls her friend Lucy and she’s like, Oh, do you guys use so and so for a sitter?

Yeah. Are, are you going out tonight? No. Great. Okay. Well we’ll hire so and so. So they hire this girl to come over. So obviously this has been suggested to the kid. I mean, we see it happen. We don’t hear it, but we see it. This girl comes over and Kevin Bacon opens the door and is sitting The immediately when he opens the door, everything goes red, like radioactive red.

There’s even like a buzzing, like a radioactive buzzing. It couldn’t be more like warning, warning. That’s what it looks like. And he’s really unsettled. And he keeps looking at her and she’s looking at him. Now, really, The reason that she’s looking at him weird is because he’s looking at her weird. Like, she’s just this teenage girl.

But he’s got, you know, he’s just really bugged out. But you’re not sure at this point, right? No, we only know that in 

Todd: retrospect. Yeah. We’re like, is she creepy? What’s going on? 

Craig: When I’m watching this the first time, I’m thinking, Bro, this is clearly a warning like something is not right 

Clip: Yeah, 

Craig: and I think that that’s what he thinks too But this is also new and he doesn’t know what it all means He’s very unsettled, but he goes and again The entire neighborhood is going to a football game and you would think they were you know Trying to get in to see the rolling stones because there’s crazy security and like these line this crowd of people There’s like crushing themselves to get into this place He keeps seeing red everywhere.

He keeps getting these flashes of red. Meanwhile, the babysitter Here’s the kid on the baby monitor and he’s saying things like, I don’t know. I haven’t seen her yet and, and like weird, creepy things. And so she goes up to check on him and she’s like, who are you talking to? And he’s like, Samantha. She’s like, what?

And he’s like, yeah, Samantha. I talk to her, talk to her all the time. And the babysitter starts freaking out. When, where is she? Where do you talk to her? What? And he, uh, I don’t know, he’s not, doesn’t really seem scared, but he’s like, Stop yelling at me, you’re hurting me. But he won’t really tell her anything.

So she grabs him and throws him over her shoulder and runs out. Now, I have no idea what’s happening at this point. 

Todd: Yeah, I was so confused. But Kevin Bacon, 

Craig: it’s like, he knows, like he gets a flash of red again and he says aloud to himself. She’s taking him and he turns around and he starts running home and his wife sees him and so she follows She’s just a little bit behind he gets home and he checks the house And they’re not there.

He meets his wife on the street and he’s like, he’s not there And she’s like, what do we do? And he just takes off running and she says where are you going? He says I don’t know they end up At the train station where they find the girl and there’s a big confrontation with the police because obviously Kevin Bacon and his wife are scared They don’t know what’s happening.

You know, this babysitter has stolen their son taken him to the train station They assume she’s trying to board a train And there’s a big confrontation, and the girl, the babysitter, is very upset. 

Clip: If you tell me where she is, I’ll tell you where she is! Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! Everybody shut up! Are you okay?

That girl kidnapped our son! Is that your child? You asked him about Samantha! I’m asking about that boy who sure as hell doesn’t look like he belongs to you! Wait, I can explain this, alright? I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to her. Is that boy your child? No, she was babysitting for us. We never used her before, but you know what you’ve done is a felony young lady.

You can go to jail for this. Where were you taking him? I wasn’t taking him anywhere. Then why the hell did you bring him to a train station? I’m going to press charge him. Look, she came here because of me, alright? I work here. I’m her mother. 

Craig: Her mother? 

Clip: When are you going to ask them some questions? When are you going to ask them 

Craig: about Samantha?

And the story comes out that this babysitter, her older sister, has been missing. For a long time. And she’s presumed runaway. But the sister says she didn’t run away. She was taken or kidnapped or something. And she’s hysterical. She’s crying. I mean, it’s a really kind of very sad emotional scene. And the cop asks the mom, You know, is this all true?

Yes, it’s all true. And the mom pulls out a picture and says, this is her. This is my daughter. And she shows it to the cops and the cop hands it to Kevin Bacon and his wife and says, do you recognize this girl? And it’s the girl, it’s the ghost girl, but But they say, no, they both say no. And the cop says, do you want to press charges?

And Maggie, the wife says, yes. And Kevin Bain says, no, no, we don’t want to press charges. Let’s just let it go. And he explains to her immediately, you know, they’re just, they round the corner and start going up the stairs and she’s like, what the and he’s like, it was the girl, it was the girl that I saw. So, I mean, it’s pretty clear at this point that this is a haunting.

And this ghost is trying to communicate, but at this point, they know, they know that Jake has something to do with it. That’s their kid. And so as soon as they get home, they sit him down and he’s just playing and like humming to himself. And they’re asking him questions like, who’s Samantha? Do you talk to Samantha?

Where do you talk to her? And he’s only giving vague answers or maybe not really any answers at all. Mommy’s asking you a question, bud. Is Samantha 

Clip: someone who talks to you sometimes, Jake? Can you remember any of the things that she Don’t ask the boy any more questions. Talk to me. 

Todd: Yes. So creepy. I would have bolted out of the room at that point.

I don’t care if he’s my son. 

Craig: I wish that it had gone further. It was just kind of a creepy moment that never happens again, and they don’t even really continue talking to him. The kid just kind of snaps out of it. Yeah. 

Todd: And they also kind of let it pass. I don’t know, maybe just cause Kevin Bacon’s already got all this weird stuff going on in his head.

This is just one more thing to add to the pile. So he doesn’t like immediately quarantine his child and strap him to the bed. You know, I don’t know. Like it, it, it was kind of bizarre that they kind of just left that go. 

Craig: Yeah. I mean, after all of that, they go to yet another block party where Tom asks those two football dads that he’s met before.

about if they knew anything about a girl named Samantha. And one of the doofy football guys is like, Oh, that R word. I don’t like that word. So I’m not going to say it. I mean, and they, they even kind of call it, but they mean a mentally challenged person. Even one of the main kind of douchey dad after the, that guy says that word more than once, he’s like, come on, don’t say that.

So even in 1999, they knew a little bit better. But, but these guys are kind of like, yeah, we, you know, she was around her, and I chalked it up to 

Todd: a runaway or whatever. I’ve got to say, like, by this point in the movie, I was like, I pretty much had it all figured out. I just didn’t know the details. 

Craig: See, other people, I, I’ve read online that other people say that it’s predictable.

I, one of the main, uh, Reviews just a viewer review that I read was the like the heading was just goes to show predictable can still be entertaining I don’t remember finding it predictable. In fact, I don’t even remember. I just thought at this point, you know He’s asking around it never occurred to me that I should be paying more attention Like, you know, he’s got a little bit of information.

He’s at this black party with his Neighbors he’s asking around it never occurred to me to think of it beyond that 

Todd: the kicker to me Is that we learned in one of the very first scenes of the movie that one of those neighbors is his landlord Yeah, and that was just so obviously broadcast. Yeah, and he just bought the house a year ago or something Yeah that I think You know, by the time I realized there was a ghost in here that the house doesn’t belong to them But it belongs to one of his neighbors something bad happened to this girl.

I’m like, okay. All right something bad happened to the girl and She’s come back to set it right and it happened in that house And so therefore that neighbor is probably involved just didn’t know all the details, you know 

Craig: in Kevin Bacon’s flashes I mean everything is very fast, but you get This girl died a violent death, like there’s no question about that, and it seems to have ended with plastic around her head.

You see one of her teeth knocked out, you see then, you know, her face, the teeth are gone. Obviously this girl has died a violent death, we just don’t know the details of what has happened. I guess if you’re thinking about it, It’s got to be within the scope of what we know. You know, it’s not like this is just going to be some random thing.

So maybe I just wasn’t paying close enough attention, but things go on. I think next Kevin Bacon has a dream. One of the neighbors, Harry, I think is in his house and says, I’m going to kill you. And Maggie or something or I’m gonna have to kill you or something like that And the neighbor walks out and when Kevin Bacon follows him out, he’s not there anymore So he just walks down to his house And when he he knocks on the door and somebody says come in and he goes in And that kid’s foot or that guy’s football player’s son is standing in the living room And he says I want to show you something and Kevin Bacon’s like, okay, and he pulls out a gun Kevin Bacon’s like Hey, hey or whatever, and just very abruptly the kid shoots himself, right?

I feel like he shoots himself in the The 

Todd: side, not like in the head or anything. It was bizarre. 

Craig: Yeah. I’ve never seen anybody do that. It was kind of bizarre. But then Kevin Bacon wakes up, but then it all plays out again in real time. 

Todd: Yeah. Well, except for his neighbor visiting. 

Craig: Right? The neighbor’s not there.

Right. But he walks out and everything is the same. He doesn’t get there in time to stop the kid from shooting himself. And everybody goes away in an ambulance that, you know, that whole family. And of course his parents are distraught. And then Maggie. To get away from the crime scene, Maggie takes the kid Jacob for a walk and they walk to this cemetery where the kid is just willy nilly talking to ghosts.

I love that. Like, I love that the kid just talks to ghosts randomly. Like, Hey, what’s up? But they also encounter this man who can sense that. Oh, that was 

Todd: so weird. 

Craig: It, well, it was weird and it doesn’t really go anywhere because the guy says your kid can see or something. I don’t know. And he’s like, can you, and she says no.

And he says, well, maybe. His dad and she says, well, maybe, and he’s like, well, here, you know, give, give your husband this card and tell him to come meet. You know, a lot of us meet in this back alley. 

Clip: So 

Craig: I don’t really know where this goes except for to kind of convince. Cause she goes to the meeting instead of Kevin Bacon.

And the guy that she met is upset about that, but he’s like, look, your husband’s mind has been opened. He’s going to be open to all of these things. Blah, blah. He has in the meantime, he goes back to Lisa and says, hypnotize me again. 

Todd: Yeah. And she does close my mind basically. 

Craig: Right. She does, but she’s not in control of it.

You know, she goes through the whole thing again. She says, look at the letters on the screen. They say sleep. But they don’t. They say, dig. And, and she says, no, they say sleep. And he says, no, they say dig. And from that point on, he’s kind of manic. 

Todd: He’s like me. He’s like, he’s sort of sorted out what’s going on.

He’s like, I don’t know the details, but there’s a body here. In my house. Somewhere that I’ve gotta find. He’s enlisted his kid. 

Craig: I can understand where he’s coming from because I want this resolved. Yeah. You know, like, this is messed up. It’s messing with me. We, we hear, you know, when Maggie talks to Lisa, she’s worried.

She’s like, he hasn’t been to work in the, like, the last nine days. If he, if he doesn’t go back soon. We’re going to lose our insurance. Like there are high stakes and he’s not well. And he’s like frantically, manically digging up the whole backyard and he’s got Jake helping him and stuff. And she’s angry cause she doesn’t understand.

And there’s a great scene where they kind of get in a fight and at the end of the fight to punctuate the fight, he kicks a bucket and it smashes through one of their kitchen windows, which was totally an accident. But he stayed in character and they kept it. It’s a great shot. Oh, 

Todd: that’s cool. I didn’t know that.

He’s making so much noise that even the neighbors are noticing. And again, in the back of my head I’m going, Oh, this is not a good thing. 

Craig: You know? Well, he starts making the noise when he gets the Jackhammer, but that’s first after immediately after this fight She gets a fax from like her brother or something that says grandma’s getting moved to a different hospital And she tells her husband that she’s like grandma’s getting moved to a different hospital and he goes Oh, no, she and then he cuts himself off And then the phone immediately rings and it’s Maggie’s brother and the grandmother has died and he knew And Maggie knows he knew, but she has to go away for the funeral, and he doesn’t want to go, and she’s pissed, and they have a little marital spat about that, but it gets Maggie and Jake out of there, so that now he can just Run wild.

And he does, he tries digging up the backyard. He’s not finding anything. He goes down to the basement to try to figure out something that’s wrong with the water. Like he can’t get the water to work outside, but while he’s down there, I guess it occurs to him that maybe he should be digging down there and he starts digging in the basement and then like he, he, he tries doing it with a pick, but it’s, it’s concrete.

So he might be able to do it eventually, but it’s going to take a lot of time and effort. So he goes in red. It’s an air powered jackhammer from Menards, and that’s when the neighbor across the street hears him. And not only is he jackhammering, but he is screaming maniacally. 

Todd: Yeah, he’s just insane at this point.

But it’s an interesting character thing because this kind of coincides with his continuous complaints about how he’s just a boring person and there’s nothing significant about him or whatever. And which, you know, was something that his sister, you know, the kind of the whole reason he was hypnotized.

was to shut him up about that, but then, you know, he yells at his wife when they’re having that argument. He says, this is the most important thing that’s ever happened to me. I need to see this through. I can’t go. I’ve got to keep digging. And so it all kind of tracks. It probably reads better in a book than it comes across on the screen.

Craig: I don’t think that it’s really an original concept of somebody becoming obsessed with something and kind of losing themselves to it, but 

Todd: the burbs. It’s funnier version of this really. 

Craig: It kind of feels like Poe, you know, like, 

Todd: Oh, for sure. 

Craig: The telltale heart or something. He’s got to figure it out and it drives him crazy to figure it out.

But while he’s down there, he accidentally bumps into a wall and part of the wall, it’s like a stone masoned wall and part of the stones fall down and there’s like some brick behind, but I don’t know if this is a flaw in the system. Set, or if it was intentional, I’d like to think it’s intentional. It seems like very loose brick work, which would kind of make sense because they would have been doing in a hurry and, you know, but he’s very quickly able, you know, he spent all this time digging up the backyard and trying to dig up the yard and literally poor guy.

He brushes against the wall and it falls out. 

Todd: I know. I thought, Oh, how frustrated would you be? Right. Also. Screw that ghost, for telling me dig. I 

Craig: know, that’s not digging! It’s not digging at all. Put a wall, put a wall on the boy. Come on. But anyway, so, you know, he pulls the brick down, he pulls the stone down, he pulls the brick down, and he immediately finds 

Todd: Plastic.

Craig: Well, I think it’s the coat first, and we know it’s the girl’s coat, we’ve seen it. And he pulls that off, and it’s plastic underneath, and he cuts it open, and there is a mummified corpse in there. 

Todd: With some hair in its hand. Conveniently. What a convenient oversight. 

Craig: And lucky for them that in all of the business of moving her around and entombing her in this wall that it didn’t fall out.

Todd: Right, that too, yeah. 

Craig: But, anyway, we get the backstory, and it’s horrible and tragic. It reminds me very much you always get, you know, in those episodes of Cold Case, eventually you get the scene of the murder, you see what happens. And that’s what we get here. And it’s, it’s terrible because, you know, this, this actress portrays this character, the, the victim, as slow.

Um, you know, I, I don’t know how else to put it. And she’s lured into this house, Kevin Bacon’s house, by these two teenage boys, the sons of these guys. And they lure her in saying, we want to show you something, and she’s very naive, and she’s also confused because why are these boys talking to her? They’ve never talked to her before.

And they lure her in, and they tell her that they have a surprise, and she’s very uncomfortable, obviously, and, and, and she starts to leave, and they’re like, no, no. The surprise is Is we want to be your friends and she says, really? And it’s, you know, at some point she says, you can kiss me if you want to.

And one of them starts kissing her and then starts kissing her very aggressively. And she resists and he starts to get violent with her. And it just escalates very quickly. And, uh, she, I don’t think that it’s, I don’t think that she’s pushed. I think it’s an accident, but she falls and she falls right on her face and her teeth fall out.

And, you know, there’s a lot of blood. And when he flips her back over, it does seem like he’s pretty intent on assaulting her. 

Todd: It felt like he was in the act of raping her, but it’s, it’s all through her eyes at the, at this point. Yeah. I don’t know, he’s like, he’s like on top of her, he’s kinda thrusting, I was like, oh god, not this again, cause you know how I and you both feel about sexual violence, but like, it, he’s, he’s trying to get his friend to hold her down.

Craig: Well she’s screaming, and he tells his friend to put something over her face, and the thing that, you know, this is a house that’s in development, so there’s a lot of, Plastic around and he grabs some plastic sheeting and puts it over her face. And that’s, we are seeing all of this from her perspective and you can hear that she’s struggling to breathe and then she starts to fade away and they realize that she’s not moving and they take the plastic off and they’re like, Oh man, she’s dead.

And you know, the one, the one who wasn’t, the one who wasn’t actually participating in the assault who, I mean, he was standing by, so he’s not. Innocent, but he seemed very uncomfortable and very uneasy. He doesn’t intervene. In fact, he helps, but this is the boy who we’ve already seen shoot himself. We, we understand now that it’s probably out of guilt and.

But the one boy is just gross. He like, in fact, he says, he’s like, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dead person before. Gross. And we’re seeing this all from her perspective. And eventually she starts to fall away. Like the frame that they’re in becomes smaller. She’s falling into the sunken place basically.

Clip: And 

Craig: then she’s gone. And, and, and Kevin Bacon sees all this. So he knows now what has happened and he really kind of does the decent thing. Maybe the stupid thing he should have called the police. He should have called the police first. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: But he does the decent thing and he walks over to the neighbor’s house, the one whose son shot himself, and he says, Look, I need to show you something.

I think I know why your son killed himself. Yeah, and I’d rather you hear it from me. By the way, the son is not dead. We don’t know ultimately if he survives or not, but at this point he’s not. And, and the guy, the neighbor seems a little shifty, but you know, it may just be because he’s concerned about his son.

You know, he’s trying to get back to the hospital or whatever, but before he’ll go with Kevin Bacon, he says, all right, just give me a second. And he goes back in the house. And I knew that was trouble. Like, I mean, it could be totally innocent. He might just need to grab a jacket or his keys or whatever. In a movie.

I knew something was up. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: So Kevin Bacon takes him back down. He shows him the body. And then this neighbor gives a monologue. 

Clip: Yeah. What were we supposed to do? It was an accident.

The kids come to us. She’s already dead. The damage is done. There’s nothing anybody can do to bring her back.

But these kids got everything ahead of them. So what were we supposed to do, Tom? Send our sons to jail for the rest of their lives because of her? Like, it’s so disgusting. 

Todd: Classic argument, by the way, right? Uh huh. 

Craig: Because of her, right? Like, cause it was her fault. So gross. I mean, I understand loving your kids and wanting to protect them, but there comes a point.

Come on. But anyway, this guy is apparently racked with guilt too, and he pulls out a gun. Which is what he had to go back in for, I’m sure. Yeah. And, it seems like he’s gonna kill himself. And Kevin Bacon tries to stop him, but he’s like, if you, if you don’t get out of here, I’ll shoot you like he fires the gun meanwhile.

And I have no idea why the other teenage boy has seen some of this happening through the basement window. 

Todd: Yeah, so convenient. 

Craig: Yeah, I don’t know, like, you know, his dad had heard something going on, so conceivably his dad could have said, Hey, go look and see what’s going on, cause, you know, it sounds like something crazy.

Conceivably, but we don’t see that, so it just looks very convenient that he’s there. Kevin Bacon goes back upstairs out of the basement and we hear another gunshot. So, presumably that guy down there has killed himself. Then, immediately, there’s a knock on the door. Sometime in the meantime, Kevin Bacon had talked to his wife, who is at the grandmother’s funeral, and she’s like, I’m sorry that we fought.

I, you know, I understand that you’re going through some stuff, but I’m going to come back. I do want you here. I’m going to come pick you up. I’ll just honk the horn when I get back. And the kid was going to go with her, but she wants the kid to go with her. But he’s like, no, I want to stay here. I don’t want to go.

And she’s like, why? He’s like, because I’m scared. Scared of what? The feathers. What does that mean? I don’t know. 

Clip: But she 

Craig: leaves him and she goes, okay. Meanwhile, back at Kevin Bacon’s house, The doorbell rings, and he opens it, and it’s the landlord and his kid, and they force their way inside. It’s obvious, they’re going to kill him.

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: He has a gun, he throws, it’s so gross, I think that maybe that’s part of why, The movie had such an impact on me at the time. It just, it, it felt like such a horrible, horrible, tragic story on so many levels. 

Clip: Um, 

Craig: the fact that this poor, innocent girl had died such a tragic and violent death. And then, you know, I, I’m not going to give too much sympathy to the other boy who participated because he did participate, but at least, at least he was racked with guilt.

At least he knew he had done something wrong. And I can kind of find some sympathy for his Family, they knew that family knew they were doing something wrong, the dad and the son were both racked with guilt about it, but then it’s also tragic that you’ve got this other father and son who are not racked with guilt.

And, I very much get, I’m not surprised that this young man is who he is, because if his father is willing to do all of this, that’s who raised him. And so it’s almost like, I almost feel bad. For the bad kid for having been brought up by a monster and having been turned into a monster himself, 

Todd: right? 

Craig: But they’re going to kill him.

But right before they do, I mean, he tries to weasel Kevin Bacon tries to weasel his way out of it, but you know, their intent, I’ve got a gun and they’re drinking whiskey and blah, blah, blah, right before they’re about to shoot him. You hear the car horn and it’s Maggie outside sitting in her car in the rain.

Stupid trivia facts. It was actually raining the night that that happened and they tried to shoot it, but the rain didn’t look real enough. The real rain. So they had to build a structure over her car to shield it from the real rain and then turn rain machines on. Underneath it. That’s craziness. Oh, it’s so funny.

But anyway, she’s sleeping. But as soon as she starts to go in, all of the lights in the house go off. Shady, obviously. So she goes back to her car and she pulls out a knife and she goes in and there’s a big scuffle. And it seems like the, I mean, she stabs one of them, the dad or the son, one of them in the foot.

I don’t remember, you know, there, there is a scuffle. They put up a fight, but it does seem like. They have been bested. Tom and Maggie have been bested, and they’re about to be shot, when out of nowhere, gunshots fire, and you see bullet holes appear in the dad. And then it cuts over, and the BASEMENT neighbor apparently had NOT killed himself, and he turns the gun immediately and shoots the kid too!

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: which kind of surprised me because I don’t think they were both armed. Maybe they were I don’t remember 

Todd: I don’t remember either but yeah 

Craig: He shoots them both and then he just walks outside and sits down on the porch and Kevin Bacon comes and sits by him And he says something like I couldn’t let him do that This is a 

Todd: decent neighborhood.

It kind of bookends some, some comments they had made at the beginning, which are, you know, it’s like, this was, this, this is a decent neighborhood or this used to be a decent neighborhood or something like that. I don’t know. It’s, it’s ironic, isn’t it? 

Craig: In, in the final scuffle, a detail that I fail in the final scuffle, I think when the bad dad falls, his gun goes off and it shoots through the door.

The ceiling directly through Jake’s pillow, and feathers fly up from the pillow. That’s what he was afraid 

Todd: of. What an interesting little added bonus to tack in there, you know? Like, the kid avoided his own potential death by, uh, The ghost can see into the future as well as, uh, As well as help. There are a lot of little things about this movie that I think made, would make me want to read the book because I feel like they were probably bigger in the book or they had some thematically were a little more to do with it.

There’s a lot of drinking involved. They’re going to these parties. These guys are getting drunk. There’s a couple of these guys like they get into fights and they’re drunk in fights, right? And these kids, when they’re getting ready to assault the girl, they’re drinking to get their courage up. Yeah. And then the bad dad and his.

Bad son when they burst in dad hands his son a flask and it’s like, drink this like he’s giving him alcohol to give him the courage to do what they’re about to do all of that was just so icky. Those are nods to something that’s probably a deeper theme in the book. The other thing, you know, was the thing we had mentioned earlier that really went nowhere was the quote unquote magical Negro in the cemetery.

And the minute that guy turned around and he was black and he gives the. People look and it’s following him. It’s like your son. He has the eyes. I’m like, or is it the shining? It’s dick Hallorann Yeah, I was he even looks Similar I was groaning God and people people point out I mean, I guess the alcoholism also is a lot like the shining people people do point out the sorts of similarities between this and The shining I mean Richard Matheson’s novel came out in 1958.

So that was before Stephen King wrote The Shining. So if anything, Stephen King might’ve been influenced by that, but I always hate seeing that in a movie because it’s just such a racist trope. 

Craig: I know. Especially 

Todd: here, where it goes nowhere. 

Craig: Well, and especially, like the first time we meet him, I think he’s, he’s a police officer, I think.

I think that it’s a funeral for a fallen officer, I think. But then the next time you meet him at this like psychic meeting, he’s in like Some like, tribal garb? 

Todd: What was that? What was that supposed to be? There’s a guy yelling at him from the back. He’s like, you’re not supposed to be here. I’m like, what is going on here?

We’ll never know. We have no idea. Is this a meeting of psychics? I don’t 

Clip: know. 

Craig: It was 

Clip: weird. 

Craig: To wrap up the movie, You know, everything’s okay, and, you know, everybody’s outdoors, and the police are arriving, and you see Samantha looking down from the window, and then it pans down to the street, and she’s standing in the street, and she’s in color now, and she, you know, she, she looks as she did in life.

She doesn’t look ghostly anymore, and she smiles, and she wraps her coat around her, and she starts walking into the night, and she just kind of fades away into the night, and that’s nice. I mean, I, I, I do like that. That, that’s what, seriously, that’s what Cold Case is like too. It’s always some terrible, violent murder, and you have to unravel the mystery and see it all play out.

But then in the end, the bad guy always gets caught, and the spirit can be at rest. And that’s satisfying. I liked that show a lot. 

Todd: I would watch, I would watch a show that was nothing but these stories, one after the other. I mean, it’s, it’s classic. It’s classic for a reason. It’s so satisfying. It’s like typical Agatha Christie.

I was getting, um, What Lies Beneath. Vibes another one that maybe we should consider doing sometime. I love that. Sure. Sure. Yeah It’s it’s like so many other movies and maybe that’s why Like you said it just it didn’t really it didn’t really hit 

Craig: yeah, there’s the there’s the funeral for samantha and then the family drives away and jake is in the back seat and He starts hearing voices from every home very ominously and he covers his ears and that’s when it cuts to black and and you know, that’s the end but the suggestion is like He is going to continue to be haunted.

Now, whether or not Kevin Bacon is, I don’t know, but this kid certainly is. And he’s going to be inundated. It’s just so bizarre. These things happen. They just happen. But it’s so strange that this and the sixth sense came out at the same, the exact same time, right? 

Todd: He hears dead people. 

Craig: I know. Because they have such, you know, blatant similarities, but they were being produced at the same time, you know, who knew?

And The Sixth Sense was such a phenomenon that I know that it just overshadowed it. Now, we could have a debate on whether or not The Sixth Sense is a better movie, and maybe it is. But it’s unfortunate that this one Kind of got lost you throwing the baby out with the bathwater kind of 

Todd: right, right because 

Craig: I do think it’s a good movie I think that Kevin Bacon gives a great performance.

I think it’s got really interesting style There are certainly I really don’t have many criticisms of it If I had to I would say that there are some they’re not even loose ends They’re just plot points that are introduced that go nowhere like the little kid speaking in a scary creepy voice Ghost voice for a second.

Like if that was great, it was very scary and effective, but if you’re not going to use it, it’s a little bit cheap to throw it in there just for that one scare. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Throwing in the big deal about the wife being pregnant in the very beginning and then never mentioning it again. I wonder if that was a product of rewrites.

I think that I read that in the original script at the end of the movie, she was supposed to give birth and it was supposed to be clear that her new baby daughter also had these. 

Todd: I wonder how they were planning to make that clear, by the way. Was the baby going to come out? 

Craig: You’re like, look, who’s talking.

Look, who’s talking to dead 

Todd: people. Who’s talking to dead people. 

Craig: We should write that movie. Well, I 

Todd: like that idea, actually. 

Craig: I think, you know, Get, get somebody famous to like voice a baby talking to dead people. That’d be awesome. Psychic 

Todd: babies solving cold case files. 

Craig: Solving mysteries. I am on 

Todd: it. 

Craig: No, but I, uh, again, I’m on it.

This happens so often, but I watched the movie. I thought, yeah, I used to love this movie. I, I don’t know. I’m just not as stoked about it as I was. And then we sit down and talk about it. And in talking about it, I’m reminded of all of the reasons that I liked it. Yeah. And then I do, I think that it’s, it’s very good.

And if you haven’t seen it, I mean, obviously we’ve spoiled it at this point, but it’s still worth watching because I think that it’s just very well made. It’s, it’s nice. It’s, it’s, it’s easy to watch, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting to look at, it’s well performed, the story is compelling, it’s, it’s upsetting, it’s, it’s tragic and sad and there is violence and there is, at the very least, implied sexual violence, which I know is tough for a lot of people, myself included, but it felt like a very compelling story.

I wanted to know what happened to Samantha, and I wanted Justice for Samantha, and I felt like you get it. And so ultimately it was very satisfying. I give it two thumbs up. I very much recommend it. If you haven’t seen it. 

Todd: I would echo that. Absolutely. I feel the same way. I mean, it was, it was solid. It’s a very mainstream movie, you know, it’s a very mainstream horror movie with people.

Big stars in it, big names behind it. Like I said earlier, it all has that kind of clean feel to it. Not a hair out of place on a person. All these working class people still, there’s not a speck of dirt on their clothes. It’s, but it’s got some. I want to respond to that just briefly because 

Craig: I actually, one of, one of the things that I liked about it was that Tom and Maggie were a little gritty.

They lived in a very nice house and they lived in entirely white neighborhood. You mean their personalities? Yeah, they seemed cool. Yeah. I believed that they were cool people, and they had met when they were young and cool, and I felt like that was part of the plot, was that they were kind of struggling with now we’re middle aged white suburbanites, who are we?

You know, like, Right. He had aspirations of being a rock star, and You know, now he’s, he’s just a line man. And, um, you know, he, he’s worried that their life is boring. And he, she confronts him at some point near the end of the movie and says, every time you talk about your dull, boring life, what you’re talking about is our dull, boring life.

And what does that mean? 

Todd: Right, 

Craig: right. I totally believed them as a real couple who loved each other deeply and were super hot for each other and had great sex. But. We’re struggling with being adults and being parents and it’s very real stuff. So I just, I thought, yeah, I thought it was real and compelling.

Todd: No, you’re right. You’re right. But, but as a ghost story, it’s pretty pedestrian. I think again, I don’t have a problem with that. Crimson Peak and, and what lies beneath and so many ghost stories are Exactly the same and it’s a, you know, anything Agatha Christie you read, it’s half of it’s like this, you know, that’s fine.

Like we like these stories and so I don’t have a problem with it. It’s well made. It’s well told. It has some surprises in it. Like I said, I found it a little predictable about halfway through, but. Fair. Maybe I just felt satisfied at being able to figure it out, too. Sure. That’s a good thing. Sometimes I don’t understand why people complain about a movie being predictable.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter that a movie’s predictable, it’s still just a great story. Agreed. Other times, you know, maybe you’re just kind of clever. Yeah. Just give yourself some credit for that and don’t knock the film, you know? What’s worse is a film that does not give you enough information to be able to sort it out yourself.

That’s actually not true. Not a big knock on it as far as I go. I would totally recommend it as well. And I also want to thank Paul. Paul is the guy who originally, I think a couple people have mentioned it since then, but Paul was the one who originally put in the request many years ago. And uh, we’re finally getting around to it now.

So Paul, if you’re still a listener, and I sure hope you are, thank you for recommending this movie, and we’re sorry it took us this long to get around to it. And thanks to the patrons for suggesting it to us. If you would like to be a patron, just go to chainsawhorror.com and follow the links. You’ll find our Patreon where you’ll also be able to vote on our requests and what we do, uh, coming up, as well as a lot of other things that we talk about.

Please go check that out. Just find us online, chainsaw horror.com. You can just Google us: “two guys and a chainsaw podcast”. Leave us a message, leave us a review, and, uh, send us more requests. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig, with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Freaky is a high-concept horror take on the classic body-swapping comedy Freaky Friday, directed by Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day), co-written by Michael Kennedy (It’s A Wonderful Knife), and starring Vince Vaughn in a masterful and hilarious turn as a teenage girl trapped in the body of a Jason-like serial killer.

Ultimately, we both agreed this modern horror-comedy is pure popcorn fun from beginning to end, yet still maintains a satisfyingly sharp, gory edge. Check it out!

Episode 398, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well this week, Craig’s turn to pick the movie, and he chose 2020’s Freaky. This is a film I didn’t even know about, probably because it only came out a few years ago, I think you mentioned during one of our episodes, I think it was over the Christmas time, when It’s a Wonderful Knife kind of disappointed us, and you said that’s a shame because there’s this movie Freaky that that writer had written.

That the same writer had written, and you really liked it, so, uh, that was the first I’d heard of it. But it’s a take off of Freaky Friday with the, with the body swapping, and the concept sounded awesome. Just like the Wonderful Knife concept sounded awesome, but, uh, this one, considerably better. First time I had seen it, Tell me about this movie, Craig.

When did you watch it? 

Craig: I don’t remember exactly, but fairly recently. I would say within the last year probably. And it sounded great, but I think at the, at that particular moment, it wasn’t streaming somewhere that I had access to. And so I put it off for a while, but I eventually convinced Alan to watch it with me.

And we, we both, Really liked it. I told you about it since then. We’ve talked about it. It’s been on the list for a while. And after the last couple of movies that we did, which were fine, I kind of wanted to do something a little bit more light and fun and with a more modern sensibility. Like, I need some jokes, folks.

Like, I want, like, direct in your face jokes and gags. Cause I want to laugh. And I think that this movie is great. I think it’s a great horror comedy. You said the concept is great. One of the original titles, one of there were several, but one of them was Freaky Friday, the 13th. That really is probably a little bit too on the nose, but that’s pretty much exactly what it is.

And I love it. Like, what if Jason and the, you know, final girl switched bodies? That’s exactly what this is. I mean, I mean, what if? 

Todd: Right. It’s a great idea. I think it’s a great idea. I read that the, the writer, Michael Kennedy, now this is co written by Michael Kennedy and Christopher Landon. By the way, I just have to say, I think it’s awesome that Michael, one of Michael Landon’s sons is doing horror movies.

Craig: Oh, I didn’t know he was Michael Landon’s son. That’s funny. 

Todd: Yeah, Michael Landon has quite a few kids, I think. And yeah, Christopher Landon was one of them. Well, he has 

Craig: a really good resume. He also did Happy Death Day and its sequel, which I haven’t seen yet, but I hear good things about. Paranormal Activity, The Marked Ones, which I feel like a lot of people don’t like, because it’s Kind of a side story.

It was one of my favorites, actually. He did Scout’s Guide to the Apocalypse, which we watched and talked about and really liked. Yeah, so, I mean, for, I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t have any idea how old he is. I saw a picture of him. He’s a really handsome guy. He really is. He’s a stud. Yeah, he’s just a few years older than us.

I think he’s born in 75 

Todd: Yeah, he’s really handsome, and he’s got a pretty good resume under his belt. So Christopher Landon directed Freaky, and then he co wrote it with Michael Kennedy. My understanding is that Michael Kennedy saw Happy Death Day and really enjoyed it and thought that the idea of combining Groundhog Day with a horror movie was so cool that he wrote freaky you.

And approached Michael Landon about it, and then they, of course, continued to work the concept together. They were both billed as co writers on this. Yeah, and then Michael Kennedy went on to write, It’s a Wonderful Knife, and we didn’t care for that too much. He’s only written, uh, It’s a Wonderful Knife and Freaky.

He’s got a couple upcoming ones, something called Time Cut, and another one called, uh, Heart Eyes, which are I don’t know. I don’t know if those are horror. I have no idea what they are, but high concept, sometimes it works really well, sometimes it’s disappointing. With It’s a Wonderful Knife, I think we found it a bit disappointing.

With Freaky, I thought this was great. Honestly, this was just um, it’s just a fun movie. It wasn’t, uh, deep, it wasn’t life changing or anything like that, but I mean, just to sit and laugh and enjoy yourself with a solid story. I loved it. Actually, what I really loved the most about it was the acting. Vince Vaughn playing a teenage girl was just drop dead hilarious at times.

He 

Craig: is so talented. I mean, I just finished listening to Amy Poehler’s memoir, and she talked about how one time she was shooting a I think Beastie Boys music video, um, and it was her and some other celebrities, including Ted Danson. And I guess the Beastie Boys, like we’re supposed to like burst through this window and all of these celebrities, I don’t know if they were playing themselves or playing roles.

They were supposed to, you know, actually scared and they did. And Ted Danson turned to her and said, Oh God, isn’t acting embarrassing. And she talked about how that. Is kind of the essence of what acting is like you have to be willing to embarrass yourself. Oh, right. And she, she said, you know, good actors make it look easy.

So everybody thinks it’s easy, but it’s not. I think that some people would look at this and just say, Oh, Vince Vaughn’s just acting silly and goofy. Anybody can do that. No, not anybody can. Right. Not anybody really can kind of take on the physicality. And characteristics and mannerisms of a, not just a teenage girl, but a specific teenage girl who’s also in the movie.

Right. And not make it totally stupid. Right, exactly. No, I believe him as her, like when they switch bodies. Yeah, I believe both characters and I was just before I was waiting for you and I just had the IMDB page up and it ran through several trailers and then it ran through this long series of interview clips with the main actress whose name is Catherine Newton who’s been, she’s a rising star.

She was in Ant Man and the Wasp and Big Little Lies and she was the lead in Lisa Frankenstein and a bunch of other stuff. She was doing this interview and she said that she and Vince Vaughn just clicked and they respected each other and they wanted to develop these characters together because they were both playing both characters.

And she just said that they had a great relationship. I don’t know what to attribute it to. I, I suppose just to the fact that they are both very talented or it’s well directed or it’s well edited or A combination of all of those things. But I thought the acting was great. And there are so many things that I like about the movie, but going along with acting, every character was endearing.

Yes. I mean, it was obvious who the bad guys were, but all of the, like Catherine and her whole friend group and her mom and her sister, and I called her Catherine. That’s the actor’s name. Her character name is Millie. Then when Millie is in Vince Vaughn’s body, she’s super endearing in that body. It’s wild.

I really enjoyed it. I could go on and on and on. This is one of those movies that I almost wished that there was some way that we could do like a watch along either together or with other people, because it just seems like this movie is just a fun experience. Us talking about it. There’s no way we can recapture that.

I can gush as much as I want, but you really have to see it to see how well done, in my humble opinion, it is. I liken 

Todd: it a little bit to cooties. I liken it a little bit to Little Monsters. These modern movies that are just more comedy than horror, really. Mm hmm. Because, I mean, like you said, you know how it’s gonna go.

It’s, I mean, honestly, it’s kind of utterly predictable in a way. Until it gets towards the end, and then it did surprise me a little bit at the directions it went. And then there was kind of a false ending as well. Where you thought it all wrapped up and it hadn’t. I wasn’t expecting that either, so it did have some surprises for me in there.

But ultimately, yeah, you know, this is too light hearted of a movie for this to have this bleakness that, you know, Yeah, I was never really worried about any of the characters. That said, you know, you’ve got the wise cracking gay friend. He’s hilarious. He was so funny. 

Craig: He pulls up to pick up Millie, like to give her a ride to school or whatever.

And she’s talking to this guy in the park. And you just, you know, this car pulls up and this kid who we’ve never met before just leans out the window and goes, I love your black wiener, Mr. Daniels, Joshua. 

Todd: The dog is black. Nyla, 

Craig: the guy has a weird dog, 

Todd: but he’s also black. 

Craig: Yeah. And he’s also. The, like, the character.

Todd: Josh, yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And he’s, he’s great. And then, the other friend, Nyla, I don’t know, they’re obviously kind of the little outcast group. Which is funny, because they’re all hilarious and good looking. I also think that it’s funny that they try to establish that all of the, like, jock guys keep calling Millie a dog, like, and so, in much more explicit, like, Ways in disgusting ways, but basically insinuating that she is just like Disgusting.

They are 

Todd: awful to her. 

Craig: This girl is stunningly beautiful. She is gorgeous 

Todd: Like yeah, even she’s not even one now there she goes through a transformation. There’s the there’s the moment You know where the the body switch happens Where the guy decides that, you know, she’s going to put on makeup and she’s going to pull her hair back and she’s going to wear a leather jacket to school.

And then suddenly, all of a sudden she’s hot, she’s hot. Everybody turns and looks at her and it’s like the most minute 

Craig: change. Yeah. And it’s the opposite of what usually happens. Like usually in those movies, the girls take out their ponytail and let their hair like flow down and everybody’s like, Oh my God, she’s so hot.

This time she just puts her hair up in a ponytail slaps on a little lipstick. She’s good. And that’s it. Yeah 

Todd: It’s not a big transformation to make you would think it was, you know night and day the way everybody suddenly drops their jaws at her When before they were just overtly calling her a dog and all kinds of nasty names.

I, you know, I don’t know. I, I remember school being cruel. I remember there being people who were real bullies and people who were really mean. Kids are like that at times. But it was a bit over the top how hard they were going on this girl. I, I thought it was a little silly, but it’s a trope. It’s a hundred percent.

Craig: Like in any actual movie that doesn’t even make fun of itself. I mean this It happens all the time, you know, these bullies are picking on this girl, telling her how unattractive she is when she is gorgeous. Like, let’s just not make this joke anymore. Like, it’s old. It’s kind of dumb. I don’t know. It’s kind of silly.

Todd: Yeah, I’d like to think kids are nicer now, now that we’ve called attention to bullying and things like that. If this were a movie that were set in the 80s, it would have played better. But with the modern sensibility and all the wisecracks and the things that everyone else is saying and how everybody is Totally cool with everyone being gay and homosexual, which was not 80s It kind of feels out of place a little bit, but I’m really picking nits here I got it.

I saw where they were going with it and it was fine. And I thought the Josh character was hilarious She’s got another friend Nyla and then there’s Ryler who is this jerk girl gang leader Basically who’s kind of off on her own And she pops in for a little bit to be that smarmy. 

Craig: Snobby. She’s just the snobby bitch, yeah.

Snobby 

Todd: bitch, yeah. She’s 

Craig: fake, talking about people behind their backs, you know. And 

Todd: then there’s that guy Booker, who Riley has a crush on, who they allude to early on, and then At first I thought he was kinda treating her He wasn’t even treating her poorly. No, that was like a not a trope from the very get go She kind of had this crush on this guy and it was pretty obvious All she had to do was walk up to him and say hey, you want to go out sometime?

And it will it would have been fine. So I also I didn’t understand what her big hesitation was there except for her own Insecurity insecurity. Thank you. 

Craig: Maybe not even insecurity, but just awkwardness. Like I just feel like she’s yeah supposed to be it As beautiful in real life as the actress is, she’s supposed to be kind of socially awkward.

So she likes this boy. I think it’s pretty obvious that he likes her too, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re just going to be like, Oh, let’s be boyfriend, girlfriend. Like they’re both a little hesitant and reluctant. That kid is in the movie Booker. His name’s Uriah Shelton. He is so cute, but he also looks like he’s about.

Three or four years younger than the rest of them. Yeah, that’s true. But, but he’s adorable and she’s late to class and she’s like, Oh, I’m always late. And he’s like, well, let me tell you a little trick. Just, I always set my watch five minutes fast and then you’re never late. And she’s like, Oh, isn’t that sweet.

But then there comes an announcement on the radio about the murders from before that we haven’t talked about yet because we have been focusing on, which is perfectly fine, the murders. The teen dramedy and more comedy than drama, but you know, in those teen comedies, there’s always relationship drama and whatnot.

We’ve been focusing on that and it is very stereotypical of those things, but that’s kind of what I like about it. It takes something like Can’t Hardly Wait, for example, one of these mid 2000 teen romances or whatever. It takes that and mashes it up with A slasher, then you throw in the body swap thing and it gets even better.

But the slasher component of it to me is very satisfying. 

Clip: It 

Craig: is. And I, I don’t know that it had ever occurred to me and I can’t imagine that it should. Vince Vaughn should have been playing a masked killer all his career. He’s enormous. He’s a big guy. 

Todd: I did not realize how big he was until he plopped him.

They plopped him in this movie. And basically gave him a Jason character. He’s like a Jason who talks. And not very much. 

Craig: Not very much. Which I think was a really smart choice. Because I think it would have been difficult for the actress. 

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: If he had talked more. 

Todd: If he’d been Freddy or something like that.

Right, right, right, right. He starts out with a whole different group of kids. There’s Isaac, and Evan, and Jenny, and Sandra, and they’re all over at this impossibly rich house. 

Craig: It is just your typical slasher cold open. You’ve got a group of beautiful teenagers sitting around a campfire telling stories, and this one happens to be about this, uh, guy called the Bliss filled Butcher, and before we get all that on the screen, it says It, you know, pops up Wednesday the 11th.

I’m like, yes, you know where this is going. So they start talking about the Blissfield Butcher, but they have different stories. Like one’s like, yeah, he’s been killing people, killing teenagers since 1977. And the other girl’s like, uh, no. He killed a bunch of kids at homecoming in the 90s but then he disappeared and she’s like, it’s just a made up story to warn teenagers about the dangers of underage debauchery.

Ever since Scream. I feel like these type of slashers don’t have much choice but to be self aware. Unless they’re gonna really throw you for a loop somewhere else. I feel, I feel like there’s got to be a little bit of self awareness. Oh yeah. And there totally is here. And so two of them go off into the house and two of them stay behind to bang.

And the two that go in the house, the boy is following the girl and he walks past. Apparently this girl’s dad collects artifacts. I, because there’s, 

Todd: Artifacts everywhere. He’s a regular Indiana Jones. It’s like walking through the British museum. This guy’s house and it’s so funny the way this friend, I don’t even know why he’s wandering around in there.

Like he just goes in, he’s not looking for anything in particular. He’s just going in. Cause the girl was going to the bathroom and before you’d know it, he’s like wandering through the living room for no good reason, going down to the bit, to the wine cellar, 

Craig: he walked, he walked past a wall. Full of tribal masks and there’s one missing one’s missing.

Yeah. And we just saw him walk past the doorway, but kind of in the foreground, there’s this glass case with a dagger in it. Maybe he even takes it out of a box or something. I don’t remember, but it’s like this glass case with a dagger in it. And the handle of the dagger is bone and the top is shaped like a skull.

And like, he doesn’t see it, but it’s eyes glow red. Oh boy. It’s very exciting. It is. But then. The killer 

Todd: comes in, right? Well, he picks up a bottle of wine, and it’s very expensive. The kid, yeah. The kid does, yeah, he’s down in the basement. And then he kind of hears a noise, and he turns around, it’s this whole deal.

And eventually the killer comes from behind. Uh, grabs that bottle from him, shoves it down his throat, It was gross. and breaks it in his neck. That was something. And I thought that, that was unique, I’d never seen this one before, and then I read in the trivia, no, this is like the third time this has happened in a movie.

And we’ve seen them. Yeah, we have. I totally forgot. Anyway, so he’s wearing a mask, he’s wearing that tribal mask, and then he breaks in on Sandra, who, and smashes her head in the toilet till she’s dead. Very, 

Craig: very violently, like, yes. It’s very 

Todd: violent. 

Craig: We, I mean, we have to fly by it as a plot point because it’s not really all that important, it’s just establishing, but it’s very violent and graphic, like you see her head get crushed and the blood is flying out.

Yeah. It’s gross. And these first couple of kills and the next that are coming, In a good three to four minutes told me, oh, like, yeah, oh good. This movie’s not gonna pull any punches. Right, right. And I liked that. And then it doesn’t ever really, like, there’s all this carnage in the beginning and then there’s more later, but it’s a little bit more spread out.

I was happy that, uh, we were gonna get this kind of. thing. But yeah, and then he finds the other two. Bang. And like, it’s a funny scene where she finishes and he doesn’t, and she just walks away and he’s like, come on, I only need a couple more minutes. And she’s like, no, women have to, you know, be unsatisfied all the time.

There’s lots of that kind of commentary. Yes. In the book. All of these movies, lots of feminist commentary, lots of queer representation and queer commentary, which doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I find it smart and funny. Sometimes I’m like, ah, okay, I get it, but it doesn’t bother me. I know that there are some people that just.

They’ll blow their lids, you know, like, oh, it’s woke. Keep the politics out of my movies. Like, come on. Okay, whatever. Anyway, they get killed. The killer, Vince Vaughn, in a mask that looks like an over, it’s a tribal mask, but it just looks like an oversized hockey mask. Yeah. It looks like Jason, basically. He is standing behind the guy.

He breaks a tennis racket in half and then stabs 

Todd: him in both sides of the head. That was so goofy. Yeah. I 

Craig: love that! 

Todd: It’s funny. No, I like it. This isn’t, this isn’t a knock on it at all. But, like you said, it’s all very graphic, and I liked that, just like you had just said. Another movie that’s a lot like this is Final Girls, right?

Another high concept kind of movie like that. And I always felt, look, I can’t say anything bad about Final Girls. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time, actually. Horror or not, I cry every time I see it. It’s very emotional. I love the concept, I love it, all the characters in it, but it loses a little something by kind of holding tight to its PG 13 rating.

They purposely just kind of like, there’s no flash of the boob, there’s the, they kept the blood very minimal. And when you’re doing a movie, a movie about slasher movies, you gotta kind of, even if it’s a comedy, like I kind of appreciate that they, Go whole hog and make it like a real slasher movie. Right.

So, uh, no, this was good. And again, also the, the kills are very creative, which is another hallmark of slasher movies, you know? So, uh, I’ve never seen a guy get stabbed with two ends of a tennis racket for no good reason. But then of course it looks like a tennis rackets gone through his head. It’s kind of silly, funny.

And then the killer bust through the French doors as Jenny’s trying to escape. And he gets her with a Michael Myers style wall stab, where he stabs her up on the wall and she’s kind of hanging by that. And literally even does the little head tilt. Yep. Just like in Halloween. So it’s throwing back to this stuff too.

Yeah, there are so 

Craig: many throwbacks. We couldn’t possibly hit them all and I probably missed a lot. But, uh, the character names, I mean some of them, you know, are just briefly or you catch a brief glimpse of them on the back of a letterman’s jacket or something, but all of the characters are named after somebody connected to something in some movie.

Just tons of little Easter eggs for big horror fans and they’re fun. But yeah, so there’s that whole thing. And the last thing we see in that cold open is that when the parents find her and they come in and they scream, it pans to where the knife was and it’s gone. So we know he has the knife and then everything that we talked about before happens like, all these kids doing high school stuff.

I feel like one of the only people we didn’t mention, we talked about her friend, her cute friend Booker in shop, but we didn’t talk about the fact that shop teacher is This total ass like he’s just what a dick mean I don’t know I feel like I remember there being teachers like this but I don’t know any now but like he obviously just hates his job and hates everything and for whatever reason he is singled Millie out to just be a dick too but he’s played by Alan Ruck.

Yes it’s so great to 

Todd: see him again I mean To be fair this guy’s been working non stop, but I don’t know I just never see him that often I think he’s just permanently ingrained in my head as Ferris Bueller’s friend Cameron. 

Craig: Yeah 

Todd: But he’s actually been in 

Craig: so many movies I love. Oh tons and television, yeah, but he’s a total dick to her.

Next 

Clip: up is Millie Kessler Time to present your doghouse Uh My presentation isn’t scheduled till next week. This isn’t debate class. But, you said the 16th? Um, it’s not ready yet. Once again, Miss Kessler is holding up the class. And once again, Miss Kessler is unprepared. Dang. Something to add, Booker? No.

Do it the 16th. Can I just do it the 16th? Speak up. Oh. Crocodile tear doesn’t excuse your poor planning, Miss Kessler. 

Craig: I guess what they’re trying to set up is that she’s kind of an outcast. She does have these friends. We mentioned her gay friends. We didn’t say much about her other friend Nyla. Her other friend Nyla is played by Celeste O’Connor, who has been in both of the new Ghostbusters movies, which I haven’t seen.

And she was also in Madam Web, which I feel bad for everybody involved in that because It was just critically panned and they will never do anything with that again. I, like, I, they were obviously setting it up. She was one of the main girls, you know, it was Dakota Johnson was Madam Webb. And she like, she didn’t assemble.

It was thrown upon her with like this group of girls who were then going to be like this group of like spider women or whatever. And you can tell that they were setting it up for a franchise and it bombed. And Alan and I recently watched it. Cause I was curious. I was like, it can’t be as bad as people say it is.

It just can’t be. It is, it is terrible. Really? It’s terrible. Yeah. Like you should watch it for sure because it is so bad. Like you to laugh at. Yes. I just kept looking at Alan. Like he was sitting next to me on the couch. I just kept turning and looking at him. Like, is this really happening? Uh, everything about it is terrible.

And it’s all the writing, the writing is awful. And so the actors have nothing better to do than just be like, I guess I’ll say these lines. I’m really Wow. There’s my mini review of Madam Web. Wow. Um, get a 

Todd: little bonus 

Craig: for this 

Todd: episode 

Craig: guys. But they’re, they’re a cute little misfit group. She also has a little bit of a problem at home.

I thought this was a little contrived and silly. Like her mom drinks a bottle of Chardonnay a night. Who cares? Big deal. She’s fine. Yeah. Um, but apparently it’s an issue and her sister is kind of a gruff. Okay. So they have tension at home. She’s also the mascot for her high school team, the beavers, but the high school football players tell her she’s the only beaver that they’d never touch.

Oh, okay. You knew that was coming. She gets left alone. Her mom was supposed to pick her up, but she had her bottle of Chardonnay and she forgot. So she’s alone at the football stadium and the butcher shows up and she’s like, please don’t be the butcher. And then he starts. Like, you know, coming at her and she runs away and there’s a great chase, but they end up like on the 50 yard line on the football field.

Yes. Ugh. I thought this scene 

Todd: was 

Craig: really cool. This awesome. 

Todd: He tackles her on the field. He’s got her down there. He’s above her, kind of straddling her. He raises the knife, and just sort of everything happens at once. You know, it’s basically the fulfillment of a prophecy. Uh huh. It’s like Friday the 13th, and he’s got the ceremonial dagger, and it’s a full moon, and like, the clouds billow over the moon, and suddenly we just get this whole vision, like, The camera shoots upward, and instead of the football field, suddenly it is a sacrificial temple.

It’s like they’re on the top of some Uh huh. What’s it supposed to be? Inca or Aztec or something like that? Who knows? Something like that. Probably. And, uh, you know, he stabs into her shoulder, actually, because he doesn’t get her quite where he wants to, I suppose, because she’s fighting him. And then it, you know, comes right back to that, but suddenly, like, something’s not quite right, and Her sister shows up.

Was it the other cops or was it actually her sister that time? 

Craig: I can’t remember who. I don’t remember. 

Todd: Somebody shows up, and is like, freeze, and like, he gets away, and she’s nursing her shoulder, and then I I got the impression that the magic didn’t fully happen until the clock changed over to 

Craig: Yeah, that’s a little confusing because I don’t think that it does, but something does seem, she seems a little off.

And when the butcher runs away, he runs kind of funny, like kind of high knees, 

Todd: but they couldn’t. So you couldn’t make the change in a movie like, like you couldn’t make the change happen. Like right that moment, because it would just be, I don’t know what you would do with it in that scene. You know? You have to have the next sequence.

You do. You have to have them waking up the next morning. Of course! Cause that’s how these movies always go. Don’t you remember when these body swapping movies were like a brief thing in the 80s? Oh yeah. It was just like Fred Savage and, and what’s it, Judd, Judd Reinhold was it? In Vice Versa. Yeah, yeah.

There was, of course there was Freaky Friday, that was a little earlier. It, uh, Big is kind of like that but not really. Yeah. 

Craig: Uh, Kirk Cameron and Dudley Moore. Yeah. And like father, like son. That’s a terrible movie. Oh, I’d never. I used to like it when I was a kid and I went back and watched it within the last year.

It’s awful. 

Todd: I don’t know. I wouldn’t watch anything with Kirk Cameron in it nowadays. That guy’s off his rocker. What a dick. But, and I guess he was a dick back in Growing Pains, honestly, but. He was. Anyway. Yeah. Like, that’s always, you know, there’s gotta be this moment where they wake up in the morning, they’re confused, and then they look in the mirror and they scream.

All these things happen. They’re in the wrong place and. Of course, he, in her body, wakes up in this girl’s room, and the mom has come in, and she’s confused. That was hilarious. And then, she, in his body, wakes up in this abandoned cracked in It turns out to be the old mill, I guess, right? Like shades of the burning or something like that?

But anyway, yeah, it’s like in an old mill, and she looks around, and it’s just Stereotypical. A little Texas Chainsaw, but without all the bones. It’s like he’s got a mannequin here with, that he’s been driving pins through, and he’s got a little I 

Craig: was amused by that. I was amused by it. But it’s right out in the open, and if there are murders, like serial murders happening, like That would not be difficult to find, but it was amusing.

Nonetheless, it was pretty funny. I love this because right from the beginning, I mean, I can’t say enough how impressed I am with Vince Vaughn in this movie. I like Vince Vaughn. I’ve seen him in other things. He’s good. He’s a funny guy. And, and I really think that he’s a very, very talented actor. It’s not, but it’s not like I’m like a Vince Vaughn Stan, you know, like.

I think he’s fine, but I think he’s so good in this, when he wakes up, he has this great monologue, where he says to some homeless crackhead who’s looking for drugs, like literally looking for crack. Yeah, right. 

Clip: May I ask you a question? What? Yeah, just, you know, I’m just curious, what do I look like? Like, when you’re seeing me?

Right now? Do I look like a, um, you know, do I look like a girl? Girl? Yeah. You know, like 5’5 very petite, blonde. You’re fucking lying, man. You think you got the drugs? You’re high right now. Oh, no, no. I don’t have the drugs. Come on, man. Give me some of those. That’s good stuff. Please don’t. I want to feel like a teenage girl.

I want to feel like a girl. Come on! Come back! Come back! Oh, fuck your dick! 

Craig: And then, and then as he runs away, as, as she, I knew when we got to this point, it was going to be difficult for me. So I’m going to very much try to continue to call the character of Millie, Millie, even though Millie is now in Vince Vaughn’s body.

Right. And I will refer to the butcher as the butcher, even though the butcher is now in Millie’s body. This is where things, it gets funny, and, and this, I feel like, is kind of the Three Stooges part of it, and I don’t say that in a negative way, but it’s just, Millie, in the Butcher’s Body, just walks around town, there are pictures, like, police sketches of her all over the place, everybody recognizes her.

The Butcher and so there’s a lot of comedy there of her Running and bumping into people and being super polite and like, oh my god. I’m so sorry We just can’t do it justice. So there’s no sense in trying to Right go on and on about it But it’s just that lots of her not really understanding that she’s in this huge man’s body and then the butcher in Millie’s body like kind of navigating school and And the actress does a great job.

Very leering, very kind of quietly predatory. Yeah, not saying much. And Vince Vaughn had established that. And menacing, like, as that character, I found her very menacing and scary. And when she’s at school, and that dumb Ryler comes up to her and is like, Oh my god, tell me everything that you went through.

The butcher is like, come with me, let’s go somewhere private. And like, He’s going to kill her. And in Millie’s body, he does kill multiple people. Yes, 

Todd: he does. I love this bit where he takes her into the women’s locker room and she’s sitting down, Ryler wants the gossip and Millie’s really not saying much, but she’s kind of pacing and almost like.

I’m sorry, it’s not Millie. It’s, uh, the killer in Millie’s body. I know, it’s 

Craig: hard. 

Todd: Oh god, yeah. We’ll get 

Craig: it. 

Todd: Anyway, he, he, she is pacing and kind of trying to figure out what they’re gonna say and what they’re gonna do. It’s sorting things out and, uh, and then sits down and I I thought it was gonna go, it was just interesting.

She goes, finally this girl gets impatient, says, 

Clip: Honestly, Millie, I’m missing AP bio. I didn’t come here to clam jam with you. 

Todd: Which was a funny line. That was a really funny line. Yeah, I know. Clam jam. I’m putting that in my My repertoire like, oh, that’s a real clam jam going on over there. I don’t know when I’m going to use it.

I just want to use it. All of 

Craig: the appropriate moments. It’s good. It is a good one. 

Todd: I don’t know when I’m going to use it. I just I’m praying for the opportunity because it’s hilarious. But yeah, you know, you think there for a minute that maybe him and her body is going to go, go a little further. And Riley’s kind of getting that impression with the looks she’s given her.

But anyway, they go into the, you know, Other room, and I don’t know what this is, there must be some kind of machine that athletes use to make things super cold? A cryo something? I’m sure 

Craig: there is, but it’s not, it’s not like a liquid nitrogen tank. Yeah, 

Todd: I 

Craig: know. 

Todd: This was about as confusing to me as the water bed in the workout room in pieces.

I’m like, why is this here? I’m not sure what, but clearly it’s just to serve the purpose of this film. And, uh, she kind of pushes her in there and shuts the door and sets it on and walks away. And when, who is it who discovers, who discovers her eventually? 

Craig: I think it’s Millie in the killer’s body. In the 

Todd: killer’s body.

Yeah. Opens the door. It tips out and shatters. 

Craig: Millie comes to the school, I guess, cause she doesn’t know where else to go. I think she wants to enlist in the army. The help of her friends, but she realized that she stinks first. There’s just so much great physical comedy. Oh yeah. Like he’s taking a shower around places.

Yeah. But before that, she’s like crouching around like outside the school and she like tries to sneak like through some small trees and she’s like, Oh my God, I’m a giant. Like the branches are all hitting her in the face. Like, it’s just funny. Her, I can only imagine being a, an average size, but petite.

young woman, and then being in the body of this behemoth. It was definitely something to think about, yeah. It would be insane, and she, she has, she learns, she kind of, and that’s kind of an interesting part about the movie, like it makes her feel empowered. Like, I feel like that’s something the movie is trying to do.

Like, it helps her find her inner child. 

Todd: Well, she literally says this later, you know, it, it shouldn’t have been so on the nose, but you know, whatever. 

Craig: Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, the killer is just lamenting the fact that his body sucks. Like, it’s not like it gives him more empathy for his victims or anything.

Todd: He just hates that his body is so weak. It’s so funny. It’s like, if Jason were just sort of neutered and now suddenly, like, you know, he’s like a normal human with, feels pain and can’t just throw people up against the wall anymore. And it’s 

Craig: a really interesting dynamic for both of them to be able to play as actors.

And I think especially her to play a character that for, you know, legitimate reasons has so much confidence in his. In her body, he initially approaches all of those scenarios with that confidence, and he’s kind of genuinely surprised when he’s easily overtaken because he’s in the body of a small 

Todd: woman.

And this movie didn’t need to take such care, and it did, and that’s really It just elevates it, to be honest. It’s pretty good. 

Craig: Such, such great, great performances, such great performances. But my favorite part, he, you know, he comes in, he takes a shower, he finds the body, but then he does eventually find his friends, obviously they’re terrified of him and this excellent chase ensues where he’s chasing.

Guys, come on! I’m not trying to hurt you! Like, stop! I’m your friend! And they’re just running away. I swear to God, I’m not going to hurt you! And they’re running and they’re fighting. And eventually they get into the kitchen and they’re fighting. Like, they’re standing off. And this is when Sh She, Millie, pushes one of her friends away, Nyla, and Nyla like goes flying into a wall.

And I think that she maybe pushes Josh too or something, but she realizes her strength and says, Oh my God, I’m so strong. But she’s, I, I love the, at some point she’s like, Look, I’m not going to hurt you. If I were going to, would I put my weapon down? And she puts down whatever weapon she has and she looks at them and they just take that opportunity to start beating the crap out of her.

But, but 

Todd: she pushes them away again and they’re on the floor. Once again, just like these movies, she breaks up something, brings up something that only she would know. She starts doing this beaver dance or whatever that I guess they’ve rehearsed or. Isn’t she also in a play with them, and she knows some lines?

It’s all just stuff that we don’t really know about, but it clearly resonates with these two people, and, uh, that it’s unmistakable that, oh my gosh, this is, this is her. They quiz her, too. They start rapid firing questions over here. What’s your favorite band? What’s your favorite movie? And she just spits that out really fast, and that’s enough for them.

Yeah, 

Craig: what’s it, what’s your favorite movie? I tell everybody it’s Eternal Sunshine, but it’s really Pitch Perfect 2. It’s cute, and like, it’s rapid fire. They are shooting things at her that only she would know, and she’s got it. Like, because she is her, and then they just believe her. And they’re like, oh my god, this is so crazy.

But they’re concerned about the fact she especially is concerned. About the fact Do they know yet? When do they find out about the dagger? 

Todd: This is next. So she, she says something about the dagger, and they decide they need to look it up, because it must have been some magic with the dagger. They look it up on the internet, but all the information they got about it is in Spanish, so they take it to their Spanish teacher, and there’s some funniness there where they’re not that great of students, but their Spanish teacher’s kind of chewing them out for it.

Anyway, they find out from the Spanish teacher and what they found on the internet, That they have to stab him with it. It’s called the dola or something like that by midnight Or the swap will be permanent. 

Craig: That’s important 24 hours. Yeah, it becomes permanent after 24 hours But when they I don’t remember exactly, you know at some point they do go to the teacher But there’s also another point where I feel like Nyla is reading information In the bathroom, while Millie is taking a pee in the bathroom.

And I thought this was one of the 

Todd: funniest things that I had ever seen. And great sound design too, honestly. 

Craig: She’s, she’s peeing in, she’s. Squishing into the stall or whatever. She’s like, Oh my God, this guy’s enormous. And Josh is like, is everything enormous? And then she’s just peeing and she goes, this is ridiculous.

You guys got to see this. It’s like a floppy anteater.

And there’s a point where like the girl distracts her and she turns and she’s like peeing off the side of the toilet, which I thought was such a clever, right? It’s so funny because. Guys are stupid. I mean, we, we get distracted and do that. And we’re used to being in the toilet with our wiener. But I also thought it was funny when you see, you know, it’s everything’s, you know, from like chest up on Vince Vaughn, but you see him like swiveling his hips and you hear a, Flop flop flop flop flop slap slap slap slap.

It’s and he, Millie’s just smiling and giggling. I thought that was so funny because I don’t know, maybe I’m a big pervert, but if I got body swapped, I would like check out my body. That’s all I would do. Really? I feel like if I got swapped with a woman, like. I’ve never been a woman. I’ve never been with a woman.

Like, I’d want to look around, see what’s going on down there. Right. But, this girl, Millie, you know, if she’s as, uh, awkward and virginal as we believe her to be, I fear that she may be facing future disappointment. Vince Vaughn is a big man.

I don’t know. Anyway, I just thought that scene was hilarious. But you’re right. They find out about the dagger. And once they have figured out they’ve got to find the butcher in Millie’s body, they start looking for her and or him. And Millie says he’s here. He’s probably right here in school. And who knows how many people he’ll kill before we get to him.

But then they bump into him immediately after he kills. The jerky shop teacher. Yeah, 

Todd: that was brutal and satisfying. 

Craig: It was brutal and it was a great scene in the movie. Yeah. I mean, cause he’s such a dick and like the teacher, I can’t say I blame the teacher entirely. He’s too initially rough with him.

With the killer, but the killer is like attacking. So, I mean, you have to practice self defense. I mean, you can’t just let a student beat the crap out of you or whatever. 

Todd: But this is kind of the first time. First time, like you said earlier, where you can see that the killer realizes he’s not as strong as he’s used to being.

Because the shopkeeper’s at first really giving him a run for his money. Gleefully so, and the killer in Millie’s body is getting considerably frustrated by it. But, he turns on the table saw, and the minute that table saw goes on, you know, At least you’re hoping that there will be a satisfying payoff, and there certainly is.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. That teacher gets completely bisected, and, uh, it doesn’t leave anything to the imagination. Nope. He pushes him right down it, and you see that body split in half. And it was satisfying, too. Because you, you hated that shot. Yeah, 

Craig: I really liked it. You know, I, I love Alan Ruck. I’ve seen him in interviews and stuff.

Like he just seems like a totally chill down to earth guy. He was a terrible character. He was, you know, you hate this guy, but yeah, it was fun seeing him play a dick. It really was. Yeah, it was, it was. But immediately after that, she comes out of there. I think, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. The three friends and the butcher meet up in the hall.

And the butcher just starts screaming and saying, it’s the butcher. It’s the butcher. He’s trying to get me. It’s pretty smart, which was totally the smart thing to do. And the school guards or the cops or whatever show up and chase them out. And they go on this big car chase for a second. And they end up at the like bargain barn or something because they say, we, everybody knows what you look like.

We have to disguise you. But the bargain barn is also where the mom, Millie’s mom, works. Millie’s sad, alcoholic, widow, mom. You know, 

Todd: and Oh my god. This scene Alright, so the scene is that he’s in the dre he slash Millie is in the dressing room changing. And the mom comes in and knocks on the door. And she’s frightened, and then it finds out it’s the mom, and the mom’s like, Oh, I’m so sorry, and it’s like, Oh, no, uh, I’m just in here, you know, trying on, uh, uh, polo shirts.

And the mom’s like, oh, I happen to be an expert in picking out polo shirts for men. And as they get to talking back and forth, she just kind of wants him to, her to go. But the mom kind of wants to stay because she’s suddenly making a connection with this guy. And then she starts talking about her husband.

Oh, my husband used to, I don’t know, wear polo shirts or something like that. And Millie, because it’s already been established, she is, Very protective of her mom like apparently ever since ever since her dad’s death, you know, her older sister accuses her of just like enabling her mom, basically, by just doing everything she wants her to do, not going to the school, going to college because her mom wants her to stick around, all these kinds of things, because she feels sorry for her mom and she wants to be there to support her and love her.

And she’s kind of taking that role on here as well. Like she starts leading the conversation. Oh, I bet he was really nice. Oh yes, he was. And And then I’m, I’m worried about my daughter, of course, it, you know, kind of goes into that. She’s like, oh, I bet your daughter loves you very much. And it becomes this sweet little moment that, to be honest with you, I just didn’t have enough set up for to get emotionally invested in.

Yeah. We barely saw the mom before this. All we knew about her being an alcoholic was seeing that bottle in there. And all we know about the fact that her dad is dead or whatever is, is some comments that people have made since then. It’s just been established. So, I just couldn’t really get into the scene.

I was almost ready for it to be over. It felt shoehorned in. 

Craig: I 100 percent get it. The performances sold me. Like, I thought that Vince Vaughn and the woman who played the mom were enough to make me feel for them to make me empathize for them. But you’re right. It does kind of feel shoehorned in. I was going to say earlier when you compared it to the final girls, I very much agree with that in the, in its originality and its impact, but this movie doesn’t have the same emotional gravitas on that movie.

Yes. I cry, cry, cry at the end too. It’s just the relationship between that mother and daughter, even though they don’t even really like the mom doesn’t even really know, but then she kind of knows the end and like, yeah, it kills me. It kills me every time. And this movie doesn’t, you’re right. It, you don’t have enough.

You don’t have enough establishment of those kind of relationships. They’re suggested at the same time. This movie is already close to two hours long. And I don’t know that they had, I think it was probably wise to keep those things light because there’s just so much other stuff going on. They get out of there.

I thought it was hilarious that the only disguise they put him in is a full Aaron Rodgers. Rubber head. Like, that’s not going to look unusual. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Nihilistic. Okay. You’re going to be scary Aaron Rodgers. Like, is there a different kind of Aaron Rodgers? Um, but anyway, so then he’s just running around with that mask.

I guess it was kind of an homage to the Michael Myers mask, I guess for a second. But I don’t, I don’t know. They’re, they’re interested in finding out where the butcher is. And she’s with. Some, they see her on Instagram live on one of the football players instas, and they go to this, uh, arcade, I guess, where they are.

Todd: It’s like one of those little fun centers, but it’s called Grimm Golf, which I thought was cute. It’s like, uh, you know those glow in the dark golf places that are indoors and some shopping malls or whatever? But, but it’s got a horror theme to it. The 

Craig: black lights, right? 

Todd: Which is cool, because now we get, uh, Again, kind of typical for these movies, right, where they’re going through a deliberately scary place, like a haunted house or something like that.

Craig: Love it. 

Todd: Yeah, I loved it. I thought that was cute. So I wanted to go to Grimgolf. 

Craig: The friends are all racing there as The butcher is luring Booker, the cute shop kid into that like haunted mini golf. And the, the butcher is planning to kill that kid, but they arrive in time and they save him. But again, because there’s always confusion because Millie looks like a big tall killer.

There’s always confusion. So in the confusion, Booker gets knocked out too, but they do get the butcher tied up. And they take him to Josh’s house cause his mom’s out of town and he’s tied to a chair and Booker wakes up and she, Millie has to explain to him in this body who she is. It’s great. I can’t imitate it.

I can’t remember exactly what she said, but here is seven foot tall, 300 and something pound Vince Vaughn speaking like. A teenage girl, and I’m not just talking about words, I’m not just talking about inflection. He doesn’t put on like a high pitched voice or anything, he just changes his inflection and his mannerisms and his facial expressions are so natural and believable as a teenage girl.

Again, people think it’s easy. That is not easy. That’s hard to do on stage to have a camera right in your face and convincingly portrayed the facial expressions of a, a younger person. You know, I’m just so impressed. And he’s great. This is definitely where it’s most 

Todd: impressive. Yeah, for 

Craig: sure. And he convinces him Booker.

Oh, because Booker starts to leave, like, I gotta get out of here, and Vince Vaughn recites a very romantic poem that we didn’t know that Millie had written and slipped anonymously into Booker’s locker, so. Yeah, it’s kind of, did we miss that bit where she slipped 

Todd: something into his locker, or did that 

Craig: just come out of nowhere?

No, we did not. It came out of nowhere. It’s a shame. I think, unless I missed it, I think it came out of nowhere, but we do know for sure that she definitely has a crush on him. Yeah. In fact, that’s one of the identifying questions. Like, when they’re, you know, trying to figure out if it’s really her, who do you have a secret crush on, and she says him.

So anyway, I know, you know, we’re, we’re Push in the hour and we’re close to the end, but there are so many great things that happen. They need to go get the dagger because they need to repeat this thing. So they, and, and Millie knows that it’s at the police station. So they head there and they leave Josh at home with the butcher and at the police station, Nyla lies to the sister cop and gets in and she kind of gets the dagger, but there’s a whole scene.

That happens while she’s in there. While she’s in there, Millie and Booker are in the car. And they’re just talking. 

Todd: Oh gosh. It’s 

Craig: I Okay. I I’m I’m curious about 

Todd: your thoughts on this scene. This scene played too easy for me. I thought it was cute. I thought it was really sweet. How he turned around and they they get to talking.

And. It just becomes this case where he admits to her that he’s been into her and she admits to him that she’s been into him and he’s like, Well, all you had to do was say something and then he’s like, Can I sit in the back? And she’s like, Sure. But it’s, he’s talking to Vince Vaughn. Oh, right. Right. And they just play it as though Vince Vaughn isn’t there.

That is how the scene is played. Like, in this Booker character’s mind, like, he can totally overlook the fact that she looks like a big dude. As he’s talking with her, and I really kind of expected a little more comedy here, honestly, like, I don’t know, I just, it didn’t feel real to me, you know, I mean, I just felt like there was gonna be a little more comedy, where they’re having this sweet moment, but at some point, he’s gonna be a little weirded out, or something silly’s gonna happen You know, to kind of bring them to reality.

Like, all right, well maybe when you’re back in your real body, we’ll, we’ll continue this a little further. She’s actually the 

Craig: one that says that, you know, yeah, they do, they, they kiss. Briefly, they do kiss and, and she kind of pushes him away and says, maybe we should wait to do this until my hand isn’t the literal size of your whole head.

See, 

Todd: because of, yeah, because of all this, I kind of thought it was going in a direction where maybe Booker was gay or bi or, you know, something like, I 

Craig: think what they were going for was that it didn’t matter. He loved. Her, no matter what. Right. He loved the inside. The outside wasn’t important. He says, I can still, I can still see you.

Or something like that. Something very sweet. It’s a sweet message. I can see how it would come across as trite or cliched or even like there being some kind of agenda behind it. But, I felt that they played it so sincerely That I just thought it was sweet. They did. And I swear to God, when, when he said, can I come back there?

Alan and I watched it together the first time. And I said, Oh my God, are they going to go there? And I had no idea where they were going to go, but I did like that they went as far, you know, what we should be more concerned about is the fact that Vince Vaughn is probably old enough to be that kid’s grandpa.

Um, we should probably be a little bit more concerned about that than the fact that they are two men, but I was surprised, but I also thought that it was You know keep it simple. Yeah, that was sweet Let let them kiss for a second and then pull back and say let’s wait a minute Like I thought that was I I liked it.

Todd: Once again, it’s not an 80s slasher movie It does not have those sensibilities. It has very modern sensibilities when it comes to this stuff And so yeah It’s very natural for this to just kind of like be played like it’s no big deal And I mean, you know Christopher Landon’s gay. He came out, when he came out, he thought his career would be over because of it.

Instead, it’s gone on and it’s thrived. And so he’s, you know, he deliberately puts, he’s deliberately put some queer themes or like some gay characters in his movies so that he can treat them with respect and, you know, fight against stereotypes, I guess is what I’m trying to say. And, and so of course I didn’t expect him to put stereotyping or weird homophobic stuff in his movie.

I, I’m just saying, like, it felt a little false. Not that I thought it was, it would be impossible for Josh. Do you 

Craig: want me to ask, do you, do you, I was gonna say, do you want me to ask you, like, if you were in that? If a woman that you loved, if her soul, her essence, her character, whatever you want to call it, was against her will, moved into the body of a man, could you still be with her?

I 

Todd: mean, this is, this happened like, like he learned about all of this like 10 minutes before. Five minutes ago. Yeah, so I just think it would take, it would just take a little bit more time, right? For that to be, to, to come across. That’s all I’m saying. I, I would think there’d just be a joke made. I would make a quip.

I would make a joke. I would be fighting hard, not against the concept, just, you still have to reconcile the fact that you’re sitting here in this serial killer. Who’s been going around murdering all your friends is having his heart to heart with you. And this is the person whose body they’re in and they smell apparently really bad.

And yeah, I’d at least make a comment, you know? 

Craig: Uh, yeah. And, and I, I totally put you on the spot. If you turned the question around on me, I don’t know what the answer would be. I do think that young people today are a little bit less hung up On those things than we are. I think that you and I are both very open minded and everybody should do what they want and be with who they want But I think that we still have some hang ups that young people some of them more of them than when we were young just don’t have like I don’t know.

Maybe I thought I was straight, but I met a guy that I liked and Oh yeah, I mean, 

Todd: so what? Who cares? Let’s, let’s, let’s see what happens. I totally agree with all that. I mean, a hundred percent. That isn’t really the issue. I mean, I really don’t think it’s, it’s about the gay, the straight. I mean, the situation here is that five minutes ago, he learned that his girlfriend is now inhabiting the body of this big, hulking, stinking guy who’s murdered people.

And maybe he’s into it. Maybe that’s it. 

Craig: I mean, it sounds kind of hot to me. I don’t know.

Todd: Fair enough. These are questions the movie doesn’t answer, but there’s certainly a window interpretation. 

Craig: Yeah. And, and we took it into a weird place when in real, in reality, I feel like it was a very simple question. Sweet scene. It was sweet, like, oh, oh, they’re sweethearts like, uh, . But like I said, it’s adorable.

Todd: It’s just the same as that thing with the mom in the changing room. It’s not that I thought that the, it was objectionable. It’s not that I thought, oh, this can’t happen. But in this case, just sort of shoehorned in an awkward way that was trying very hard. To like, not be awkward. Do you know what I’m saying?

Yep. I hear you 

Craig: and I respectfully disagree. Okay. Fair enough. I thought it was cute. I liked it. I thought it was a cute little moment. Meanwhile, it doesn’t really matter. There’s a cute thing where Josh’s mom comes home and he tries to explain why he’s got the butcher tied up. With bondage. And she’s like, isn’t bondage a straight thing?

I don’t know. This was a funny little thing, but the butcher somehow he comes to the police station. He gets the dagger. He’s really good. The butcher is actually really good at faking people out as Millie, maybe better than he should be. I don’t know, but he’s good at, he gets the dagger and I don’t really remember exactly what’s going on here.

Was he just going to the, Forbidden high school dance just to kill people for fun. 

Todd: Yeah, I wasn’t sure about that either But he had he’s the one who suggested the location for the dance 

Craig: Yeah 

Todd: because the kids like the dance got canceled right so the kids were planning their own dance and She as Millie happened to be there and said to someone hey Why don’t you do it at the old mill and one of the kids was like, oh my god That’s the perfect place.

And so as kids in this world of these movies do you know within 12 hours? They had a full blown party set up At this location with lights strung everywhere and music and food and the whole nine yards. So yeah, I think he had suggested they all go to the mill so that he, they would be in a convenient spot for him to go in.

Craig: Well, it’s convenient for the plot too because it’s, It’s act three, you know, like act three is when you need to bring everybody together and it’s a bloodbath and the finale and it’s great, you know, you bring all these young people together at this abandoned place and it’s all decorated and everything and the butcher is in there totally incognito because nobody knows who he is because he’s in Millie’s body and Millie has to put the Aaron Rodgers mask back on because everybody does know what he looks like and great stuff happens in here.

The butcher in Millie’s body. Kills a bunch of rapists. Oh, that was great. Ugh. I just hate that those scenes have to exist. Like, I’m glad that they do. Like, let’s turn the tables on these predators. But, yeah, they still just make me Wildly uncomfortable. She kills all those guys. 

Todd: She does, yeah. What do I have in my notes?

I said weird takeout with alarm. I have no idea what I meant by that. 

Craig: What 

Todd: alarm goes off? 

Craig: Another kind of odd trope is that Josh kind of gets led away by a seemingly kind of predatory closeted gay football player. Millie and the Butcher end up face to face and she’s a better fighter. But he’s well Stronger, you know, it kind of comes down to them playing to their strengths or whatever and they fight and fight and I don’t remember like They’re up and down.

It’s a great fight scene and then her two friends show up and they’re helping out and they they end up somehow Getting the butcher in Millie’s body down on the ground. 

Todd: Mm hmm, 

Craig: but then the This was so 

Todd: dumb. I’m sorry. This was so dumb She raises her arm to stab this this this guy like she’s supposed to by midnight The alarm goes off on her watch and she stops and lowers her arms like, Oh shit, it’s already midnight.

Like, just do it anyway. Sure. Like, what? Give it a shot. Who says it has to be, like, the stroke of midnight? You don’t know any of this. You don’t even know if this is real. So, like, you know, just, just do it. The fact that she suddenly looks at her watch and sees that and is like, Oh, we missed it. I guess there’s nothing else left to do.

I was like, come on, just stab her anyway. See what happens. What else are you gonna do? But no, they kind of sit, and that just, again, just feels like kind of a written twist. Where that she suddenly remembers that comment from earlier. Oh, I set my alarm five minutes earlier. 

Craig: Yeah, at some point we did skip that.

Booker puts his watch on Millie. And she has the flashback. He says, I always set my watch five minutes fast. They’re not behind. And I guess the Millie stabs the butcher in the shoulder again? Mm hmm. And this is like right at midnight. And so I guess because it’s right at midnight, this time they can switch immediately.

Millie. Yeah, right

But they switch immediately and Millie now apparently back in her own body now the first time I saw this I was very Skeptical I was like wait, is it midnight yet? Have they really switched right because they 

Todd: continue 

Craig: the 

Todd: movie 

Craig: Her friends ask Millie, they say, who’s your favorite athlete? And she says, nobody, I hate sports.

And so then they believe her. I was like, I feel like that’s something that the butcher maybe could have come up. You were really thinking 

Todd: hard through this. 

Craig: Well, I thought maybe they hadn’t changed or they hadn’t changed yet because then the cops show up and they shoot the butcher in Vince Vaughn’s body again.

Dead. You presume. And then there’s the great ending where, like, everybody’s great, and the mom and the sister come and, like, you know, hug Millie, and then she’s sitting in the back of the ambulance with Booker, and they kiss, and it’s so cute, and, like, great, the movie’s over. But it’s not, because then you cut to the ambulance, where the butcher is not dead.

But he tricks the paramedics into thinking he is because he takes the heart monitor off of his finger. Then we’re back at Millie’s house and She’s like in bed with her mom and the sister says good night But then Millie gets up to go to bed and she sees that the door’s open And she’s kind of walking around and then the butcher’s right behind her and then I don’t remember all the DLT stuff Details of it, but they fight and eventually she he says something like something I learned from you What did the butcher learn from her?

Do you remember? Oh, anyway, it doesn’t matter She says I learned something from you too. He throws her on the ground She said I learned something from you too, and she kicks him in the nuts And she’s like, ball suck. She got hit in the 

Todd: nuts earlier. 

Craig: Yeah. And then the mom and the sister both show up and they both fight them.

And this reminded me of that scene at the end of the most recent Halloween trilogy, the first one. And we reviewed where like the grandmother and the mother and the daughter are all fighting the bad guy. 

Todd: Right. Right. Yeah. 

Craig: They all fight and they all put up a good fight and they’re all getting beat up.

Um, but eventually Millie impales him. And then there’s a fun credit scene that’s like comic book style. And then the end, my final verdict is I really liked this movie. I watched it that one time with Alan. He liked it too. Not a huge horror fan, but he enjoyed it. And then. Going to watch it again. I thought oh, you know, I’ve already seen it It probably won’t be as funny, but it had major rewatch value.

Like I was still so amused. I was still so impressed this is one that I Highly highly recommend. I was just looking at it thinking everything’s good. The acting is good. It looks great Cinematically, it’s paced. Well The the characters are all you’re invested in Good ones and you know who the bad guys are and I can’t really think of much to criticize about.

I think it’s really clever I think the writing is clever funny quippy jokes funny Scenario set up. It’s it’s not brilliant. Like I don’t think that deserves like You know crazy awards or accolades or anything, but just as a fun Movie, I had a blast. 

Todd: It’s a popcorn movie. It’s just 

Craig: yeah, 

Todd: you can even turn your brain off You know, you’re you kind of know where it’s gonna go You kind of see the end result and it’s more or less the same It’s got a couple little surprises in there, but more than anything It’s just about watching some great actors do great acting and quite a romp.

It doesn’t take itself very seriously It’s just And then, you know, for real horror fans, it gets some brutal gore and kills in there as well. You know, in a way, I guess I can understand why you’d go PG 13 on a movie like Final Girls is because maybe you want to widen the audience. 

Craig: Yeah, before, when you were talking about it before, I was going to say, I kind of appreciate that that movie is a little bit more chaste.

Mm hmm. 

Todd: Um Because you can show it to more people. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And, and I think about this and I, I’m, I’m watching it and I’m thinking, oh, so and so might like this, but then I’m like, ah, it’s gonna be too gory for them. And so then, right. Sure. You know, then that kind of, kind of xs that out. So, but not for me.

it worked for me too, and I think it would work for a lot of horror fans and it’s just fun. It’s just a fun not so serious comedy, much like the source material is kind of based on those Freaky Friday movies. Just kind of fun, mindless, silly. Entertainment. And I enjoyed it. Me too. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us online by googling Two Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast on our Patreon. Patreon. com slash Chainsaw Podcast. Join the crew, get behind the scenes with all the fun stuff and conversations that we have with our diehard fans back there. We put some minisodes up.

Craig is writing these things called, uh, what do you call them? Real time reviews. Seems like a lot of work to me, writing a real time r review of the movie as he’s watching it, and I actually think it’s kind of fun to read through because, uh, you can see how your train of thought goes. It’s kind of fun.

Anyway, there’s, there’s that. There’s lots of other stuff we do for our patrons back there. Five bucks a month gives you access to you’re interested, show us some love there. The other way you can show us some love is just by writing a review for us anywhere you listen to your podcast on any one of those platforms.

Let other people know what you think of us as long as it’s good until next time. I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

This week we pay tribute to Donald Sutherland, who recently passed away, with the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Along with a look at Sutherland’s performance, career and uncharacteristic magnetism, we discussed why this story has resonated with audiences throughout several generations.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Episode 397, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, we come to you today with a tribute episode. Sadly, Donald Sutherland, a longtime actor of the silver screen, as well as a lot of horror movies that we’ve ended up doing, many mainstream ones actually, recently passed away, and we were sad to hear that, but I think that we knew of only one movie that we could, you were like, you were like, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, right?

It’s time. We’ve been talking about doing this one for quite a long time, and we’d already done Don’t Look Now, which would have been my only other suggestion, really. I mean, he’s been in a number of horror movies. You know, it’s interesting. He’s kind of one of those actors that, sometimes when we do these tributes, there’s these great actors that we know from so much stuff, but we have a really hard time finding a horror movie that they’ve been in, maybe only done once or twice.

This guy didn’t shy away from any role, really. I feel like he’s played a lot of different characters, a lot of different, I mean, God, his career, he was born in 1935, his career spanned six decades. He’s Canadian? I didn’t realize that, I thought he was American. And of course his son, Kiefer Sutherland, is one of his more famous children.

And I read that Kiefer Sutherland said, you know, my dad, he just loves acting and was a big inspiration for him getting into acting, just his passion for the craft. 

Craig: I think all his kids are actors. 

Todd: They are, are they? I think so. I don’t even know, I only know Kiefer. You know, I actually, I actually ran into Kiefer Sutherland in Vegas once.

Yeah. Was he an asshole? I’ve kind of heard he’s an asshole. He was Surrounded by a posse you know he’s super short which is so funny because his father is super tall yeah they’re walking around and so we kind of bumped into him and kind of said hi but I was too embarrassed to like approach him you know I just don’t know.

Yeah right so like we kind of ran I was like hey hi I’m a fan of your work is like oh hey thanks but you know he was on his way to the blackjack table and he and his little posse sat down at the blackjack table but they were like two or three empty seats and. Me and the guys I was with were like, What if we just went over and sat down or stood up?

Do you think they’d shoo us away or are they fun loving people? I don’t know. Just the vibes he was giving off, I was kinda like, Nah, probably not. We’ll probably move on. 

Craig: I mean no disrespect, Kiefer Sutherland, if you’re listening to this, I’m a big fan of your work. I’ve just kinda heard. You might kind of be an asshole, but that’s fine.

Whatever. That’s okay. We’re here to talk about your father. We’re here to talk about your dad. I’m a fan of Donald Sutherland, but he’s just one of those people that we’ve talked about before. Like he’s just that guy who’s kind of always been around and he’s in a lot of stuff and he’s always good. Yeah.

He’s really versatile. I’m not surprised that he did. I mean, I’m not surprised that he didn’t shy away from any role, but specifically in horror or sci fi, like. I would say Invasion of the Body Snatchers is definitely horror, but it’s sci fi too. Like, yeah, the premise is very sci fi. He has a really unique look.

Yes. I wouldn’t even go so far to say as he’s handsome. He’s, well, he’s very tall. Yeah. You know, that’s cool. But he’s just a very distinctive look. And what I was, even in this movie, I don’t know why. But he just has like this great sex appeal. I don’t get it. I don’t understand why but they do like close ups on his face and he like He gives like looks like the to the person he’s talking to i’m like, oh my god, you are so hot like what?

Todd: That’s funny like I never thought of him that way But he does, like, I’ve always thought of him as either a little goofy or a little scary. Yeah, 

Clip: yeah, yeah. 

Todd: Depending on the role he’s in. He has like this intensity that is, it’s like, this is a man I don’t want to cross. But if he’s not mad at me, I feel like he could be so much fun and he might be my best friend.

You know, oh, yeah, that’s the vibe. I feel like he gives off and it really just depends on the role that he’s in How I take in his presence, you know, he 

Craig: can be very sinister And I like that, you know, I think most young people know him from the Hunger Games series. Yeah. He can be sinister or jovial. I don’t know, you know, I’ve seen him in a lot of things.

For whatever reason, one of the main things that I remember him from is Animal House. Go. I forgot he was in that. My parents let me watch Animal House. 

Todd: That’s crazy. Crazy. My parents forbid me from watching that. I mean, kept me from watching that movie. 

Craig: Wasn’t he like, kind of like a cool professor? And he was like sleeping with one of his students.

I don’t know, he was sexy in that. 

Todd: Yeah, I guess so. 

Craig: I don’t know. I looked into his backstory. I’m like, Oh, I’m sure this guy has a great backstory. And he does. But his backstory is just that he was into acting and he pursued it. And he did well. And he kept getting roles. And he just kept getting more and more successful.

Like, yeah, I don’t even feel like there’s like a big break. You know, he was just doing it. You know, he studied acting, he, uh, got dual degree in acting and engineering, but then, you know, he went to London and was working on the West end. And then he started getting film roles. So he moved to Los Angeles and his career just, it just skyrocketed.

He just has the most amazing trajectory. Like I think it’s not luck. He’s not one of these guys that just got lucky. It just so happens that he’s a really talented guy. 

Todd: He is. And I mean, like most actors, you know, he, he started out in theater and maybe getting some small roles in, in TV and films, I think in a lot of British stuff.

But I think it’s cool that his first big film break was alongside Christopher Lee in a couple of horror movies for Hammer. Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors and the Castle of the Living Dead in 1964. And 1965, he was in Die, Die, My Darling. Another Hammer movie. You know, that’s really apropos for what we’re talking about here, but then of course he just went on to do a whole bunch of other stuff.

I think it was his role in 1970, he was Hawkeye Pierce. That was the big one. Yeah, the movie. But 

Craig: he was already doing well, you know, like. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: He was a working actor. I mean, so many people, you know, struggle like waiting tables and whatnot. Based on the little bit of research that I did about him, it just seemed like he was just doing fine.

You know, he was working. Oh, yeah. 

Todd: Consistently. He’s in. Don’t look now, in 1973, which we did, and I, I don’t remember exactly how you liked, I think you were a bit mixed on that, I loved that movie. I liked it. I liked him in it. It was weird, but he was really good in it. He was, I, man, I just, that’s one of these movies that just haunt me, I think about that movie and it just gets me emotional.

Especially now that I’m a father. Because that movie deals so much with the pain of, of a family that loses a, a son. And he’s just so intense. And I, I look back at that one scene in that movie where he picks his son up out of the water and is just wails. Oh yeah. Oh my God. Like I, it brings me to tears just thinking about that.

I just buy it a hundred percent and it’s awful. And then he was in a Fellini movie three years later. As Casanova. You say he’s sexy, and then he goes on to be in Kentucky Fried Movie, and Animal House, and then this movie, you know, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And I think Animal House was the same year as this one.

And then he was also the same year doing The Great Train Robbery with Sean Connery. These are three big movies. If you want to steal someone’s acting career, steal this guy’s. I know. 

Craig: And worked, you know? He was working. When he passed sadly at 88, 88 and still getting around and working like that is a life well lived like kudos, right?

It’s amazing. Yeah. Yeah. He’s just, he’s, he’s got this amazing voice and I don’t know. He just has kind of a calmness and a stillness. About him that is just really effective and magnetic. I’m not a bit surprised you you come across these people sometimes these Unicorns that are just brilliant at doing it.

I went to college with a girl who was one of those people She was just amazing. She could do anything She could disappear into any role and then she grew up and became an adult and doesn’t do that anymore But I feel like he’s just like he’s just so natural You He just, uh, makes every role his own. But we should get to talking about this movie, because I actually, I can’t Oh god, I feel like I say this all the time like i’m a broken record like I can’t believe I haven’t seen this But I can’t believe I haven’t seen this Is this the first time you’re seeing it too 

Todd: god?

I am so sorry to say this is is and this has been on my list for years and this is a movie that even my dad has talked about picking up before like I remember when I was a kid He’s like, oh we need to watch invasion of the body statues and I never did now That said I have seen the original I have not but i’ve seen at least one of the later ones Oh, yeah, because this has been adapted, what, five or six times in one way or another?

Yeah. It’s all based on an original novel by Jack Finney. W. D. Richter wrote the screenplay for this one. And he’s done a number of science fiction novels that I think of several of them have been made into movies. This one probably the most famous. He did another novel called Time and Time Again that, uh, deals with time travel and stuff like that, but, uh, This movie, uh, I think the original, which was in 1956, You know, contemporaneous with the release of the novel, basically, is good.

You know, I kind of assumed, especially with a title like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, You know, it sounds very silly and B movie. Yeah. And it’s black and white, and, and it, And to a certain extent, it, it is a bit B movie, but it is powerful. Like, it’s one of those B movies that actually kind of almost deserves to be an A movie.

Because it’s unsettling. This movie’s unsettling. In a different way. That movie is very unsettling, not just for its time, but I just remember watching it and thinking, my God, this is, this really holds up until the end. And the end is not as bleak as the end is of this movie. And the novel ending is also not bleak.

I guess I might as well say it. The way that the novel ends is that the pod people who are invading Earth do kind of realize that the Earthlings are putting up a bit more of a struggle than they expected. And so they just kind of leave. Because this is sort of what they do. They, they go to different planets and try to take over and evolve.

The ending of the original movie wraps it up in a nice little bow, like, the authorities are onto it and it looks like everything’s gonna be solved. 

Craig: Right, but this one doesn’t. This one doesn’t. And thank 

Todd: God it doesn’t, because I think it suits the material so much better. And obviously we’ll talk about all this more, but, uh, I just had to get all that out.

Like, seriously, another great actor, Kevin McCarthy, so good. Yes! I love him and he is in the original and he has a cameo in this one that is just, just made me 

Craig: chuckle. God, I knew nothing about this going in. I, I hadn’t read anything. I mean, I know what it’s about. It’s the invasion, like, pod people. I know what it’s It’s in the title.

Yeah, 

Clip: I know what it’s 

Craig: about. And I’ve definitely seen clips from it, including, you know, like the last image from the movie is I’ve seen it a million times, but never in contact, 

Todd: right? And thank God for that, actually. Cause I wasn’t, Oh God, 

Craig: I knew it was coming, but I was so excited. But when, what was his name?

Kevin, did you say Kevin 

Todd: McCarthy? 

Craig: The actor? Yeah, he gets hit by a car and he’s shouting some lines.

Clip: They’re coming! They’re coming! Listen to me! Listen! No, you better shut up and stay. Help me! You’re next! Please! Please! You’re next! We’re in danger! Please, listen to me! Something terrible! Please! You’re next! You’re the other! They’re already here! Help! You’re next! They’re coming! They’re coming! 

Craig: I was like, oh my gosh.

A, what is happening? B, I know that guy. Both laugh. Every time Kevin McCarthy shows up in a movie, I’m like, Isn’t that that guy from Interspace? Like, that’s not even one of his big movies. Oh, it’s so funny. That’s the movie that, that’s the movie that I remember him from. Yeah, it wasn’t until afterwards that I looked it up and I was like, Oh my gosh, that was a cameo.

He was the, 

Todd: the lead guy in the original. Don’t feel bad about thinking of Interspace first, because the first thing I think of when I think of Kevin McCarthy is UHF. The Weird Al Yankovic movie. He is so great in that. Oh, but he is a goofball in that movie. But anyway, we’re not talking about Kevin McCarthy he’s great.

Craig: No, 

Todd: we’re not talking, no. I mean, we can, but. 

Craig: Okay, I just want to be up front and say, I actually really liked this movie. Yeah, me too. A lot. 

Todd: Me too. 

Craig: I liked it a lot. And, you know, Donald Sutherland is a huge, Huge part of that, but the other part of it is that it just starts and then it just keeps going. Yes.

And when I saw that it was an hour and 55 minutes long, I’m like, Oh my God, it’s going to be so long. No, things are moving 

Todd: the whole time from the very beginning and yet it’s not like A modern take on this would be, it moves in a different way. Modern movies, they move with a lot of action, and there’s like, lots of call outs and things, like, almost like you’re dumb.

I feel like modern blockbuster films feel like they really need to tell everything straight out to the audience. And leave no room for thought, you know, just boom, boom, boom from one thing to the next, 

Craig: right? 

Todd: This movie is so striking in that it moves and it’s compelling but it’s told in a very old style way 1970s style way of of being subtle.

Yes being quiet Being realistic. Yeah. It’s got a grittiness to it because it takes place in the city in San Francisco. That’s one of the things that they updated, you know, from the original, the original, it’s like small town. 

Craig: Okay. 

Todd: It’s almost like your standard sci fi B movie thing, right? They all, it’s always like the evil starts in a small town or the aliens start in a small town where everybody can easily and quickly get overwhelmed.

But then when the big city boys come in, the army gets called in and the tanks roll in and then it’s all over for the aliens usually. Right. This brought it to San Francisco, so immediately, the problem is clearly not going to get solved that easily. Because, if the aliens can overwhelm San Francisco so quickly and so easily, with all the authorities and all the power, like, what hope do we have?

What’s the next level that’s going to save us? So, I thought that was very effective, and I love seeing just the little bits and pieces, and just the little nods and the little touches that happen almost in the background at times. Blink and you miss it. Oh, yeah. Yeah of oh sinister things are happening Yeah, tons of great background stuff going on, especially in the beginning The point i’m trying to make is it’s just so respectful of its audience, you know It’s a piece of art that has layers and it expects you to catch things and if you don’t it’s okay But like it’s not spoon feeding this stuff to us and yet it still moves.

I love these kind of movies. 

Craig: Yeah, I I don’t, I, I agree 100%. I don’t know that it necessarily expects you to catch things. Of course, filmmaking is, is, you know, a conglomerate of people working together on things. But the people who are making these decisions are ensuring that there are little details. In the background that some filmmakers wouldn’t concern themselves with.

Yes, and that’s not entirely fair. I’m just, I’m just saying there are like, if you’re just watching the people in the scene who are talking, you’re going to get everything you need. But if you also pay attention to the things and the actors. Especially early on, one of the things that I love most about this movie is that it’s just like, uh, the aliens are here and they’re everywhere.

Todd: It’s just, it’s constant paranoia, right? Like once you notice, like you can’t help but be looking in the background and realizing like, wait, wait, is he an alien? Wait, he’s got a, maybe she has too. Right. Yeah, it’s like 

Craig: the whole thing. Cause they’re just standing there like staring. And I do love that too. I agree with you.

I feel like modern. Filmmakers feel like they have to show us everything. And I’m sure they’re right! We have super limited attention spans! Yeah, these days maybe they’ve helped with that though. Uh, that’s kind of why maybe I don’t know I don’t know, but they got they got to be flashy. They got to keep us interested They got to keep us off our phones.

This movie doesn’t have to do that. I i’m i’m still intrigued the one thing that It was a little funny to me, and again, loved it, was the very opening, where it opens on an alien planet full of like, jellyfish, 

Todd: floating up into space, 

Craig: and then the jellyfish fly to the earth. And turn into gloopy rain. I loved all those shots of the like gloop, like hanging off the plants and stuff.

And then they start growing spores and little pods and little flowers. And I. I loved it. Like, yes. 

Todd: I love this. It’s kind of like a hearkening back, I think, also to the 1950s B movie roots. Like, even those first scenes, like, they look so B movie, just colorized. But like you said, it’s like, it’s very obvious, the spores, they’re landing, they’re little jelly things.

And then like the flowers sprout and the girls come and they pick them and they’re like, oh, what pretty flowers. And the teacher in the park is like, Go ahead, pick all the pretty flowers you can find. Yeah. And our main character also grabs one and takes one home, and this is five minutes into the movie.

Like, we are sad. Yes! We know what’s happening. 

Craig: Yeah, and she puts it in the vase right next to the bed, right next to her boyfriend. And then, the next morning, again, we are like, Five minutes into this movie, then the very next morning, her boyfriend is acting weird. It’s 

Todd: so funny. 

Craig: One of the things that’s in the background, I’m going to bring it up now because it bothered me throughout the whole movie was there are like, they are just collecting garbage.

every day. Yes. And I kept like, every time someone would go dump something in the garbage, I’m like, what is that? Like, right. It was always the same thing. It was never actual garbage. It was just like some kind of. Silky 

Todd: gray stuff. 

Craig: And as it turns out, it’s the remains of the people that these pod people are replacing.

That’s also something that I didn’t know. My, the point that I was trying to get at is it’s literally like five to seven minutes into the movie when she goes to her friend, Donald Sutherland, and Who’s a health inspector of all things. Of 

Todd: course. She just works down the hall from him, right? She’s in the lab.

I don’t know, the public lab where they do maybe forensic analysis and stuff as well as whatever. I guess? 

Craig: Yeah, but five to seven minutes into it, she’s like, That’s not my husband. Mm hmm. He’s something else. He’s different on the inside. Yeah. I was so surprised that it happened so quickly. Yeah. And it just continues to happen so quickly.

Like Sutherland’s name is Matthew Bennell. 

Todd: I 

Craig: call him Matt cause we’re friends, but Matt goes to the. Dry cleaner and the dry cleaners like my wife. It’s not her. There’s something wrong. She’s different. It’s not her like this is happening everywhere. And in the background, while people are having these conversations, there are just there.

There was one scene in particular where I think they were in their offices. I think you’re right. I think that They’re in the same building, but they’re walking down the hall and they walk past a door and there’s just a woman standing, staring out the window. And they just walk past her, but that happens repeatedly.

And this invasion happens. So fast, but I love that. 

Todd: I 

Craig: actually 

Todd: think that’s, I think it’s genius. You know, honestly, I post COVID. I have no complaints about that. We’ve seen how fast things can spread. 

Craig: This is an alien plant. It’s an alien plant 

Todd: with scores that I don’t even know. How close you have to be to it or exactly how it gets to you 

Craig: It seems like you just have to be close to it You have to be close to it and asleep and asleep and when you’re asleep, then you get really chapped lips your Cheeks start to like flake and eventually I think you’re supposed to kind of be surrounded in like tendrils But they kind of drop that after a while.

Todd: Yeah, that just kind of stops happening or maybe it It happens quickly and then goes away, so by the time, like, I don’t know, I feel like it’s just a very, very, it has to be a very, very fast process. Like super 

Craig: fast. I knew again. I I had the general idea of what this movie was but when I Heard invasion of the body snatchers.

I assumed that something got into these people and stole their bodies Yes, I didn’t know that it was a whole other thing. Like that was a surprise to me. I didn’t know that 

Todd: Ultimately what it is it’s duplicating them Yeah, it’s duplicating their bodies and then their original body just basically shrivels into a husk and supposedly, I guess some of their personality and stuff is still in there, but they’re devoid of basically their humanity.

Craig: Spock says later, Leonard Nimoy is in this, Spock says later that like all of your memories like will be transferred, but you won’t have any emotion, like you won’t have hate or fear. I mean, we’re jumping all over the place. This is near the end of the movie, right? I mean, that’s exactly what. A pod person would say, you’ll like it.

You’ll like it better. Don’t worry. It’s better. It’s better. We all float down here. I’m just going to kill you and I’ll take your memories, but it’ll it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. 

Todd: It’s interesting because these movies and the novel itself have all been, you know, discussed as in terms of political situations like, you know, in the back in the fifties, this was seen as a Metaphor for McCarthyism and the Communist Red Scare.

And that is something that the novelist absolutely denied. And the people who were making the movie denied and said, We were just, we’re really just making a thriller. We didn’t put that stuff in there. Later on, the director of the movie did admit, he’s like, look, I mean, it couldn’t be avoided that people would draw these kinds of conclusions, you know, about the film, but, you know, I didn’t actually try to make the movie about this, but I was very aware that people might draw these conclusions.

This is a different time. This is the 70s, and in some ways, the director here, Philip Kaufman, seems to have kind of a slightly different agenda that is in keeping with the times. This is the Era of self help and, uh, movements and new agey stuff. And it’s interesting that we’ve got this prominent psychiatrist in here that is played by Leonard Imhoi that you said.

Interesting to see Leonard Imhoi in a role that’s not Spock, right? He was, I think, trying for years to escape that. And he’s a damn good actor. I’ve always felt that Spock was an easy character to play. Or a really hard character to play. Maybe. To keep that interesting. Oh, to keep it interesting for sure, I guess.

And then they did play with Spock too, right? Like, Yeah. He kind of like got some, a bit of human emotion and kind of learned things. Like, you know, there’s layers to Spock, but he could never really escape the Spock character and, and get those roles. In this movie, I read that he was cast in this partly because he did want to escape that, but also they were thinking, yeah, but eventually he does kind of turn into Spock.

He turns into a similar character, so it kind of worked for him too. In that way, they knew he could pull that off. But yeah, he’s like this self help guru. And I feel like we keep bringing this up in these movies from this era, that because it was trendy at the time, you know, psychiatry and psychology, we saw in The Exorcist when we talked about it.

When all the psychiatrists and psychologists are sitting around and talking about well, what are the psychological reasons for her issues? And, uh, you know, the horror movies of this time, it seems like there’s always a psychiatrist or psychologist that’s coming in to give that scientific explanation.

Because it was. It was, like, a big deal at this time. So I think, you know, they were really playing into the pop culture. And this movie’s no different. You know, we have a psychiatrist here who’s super famous. He’s kind of a guru. He’s written books. He’s introduced to us at a book signing that Sutherland’s.

Matthew suggests to Elizabeth, 

Clip: Do you want to go see my friend David Kibler? The psychiatrist? Not like that. I mean, you talk to him. I mean, he would put things into perspective for you. I’m not crazy. No, no, no. I’m serious. He would eliminate a lot of things. He would eliminate whether Jeffrey was having an affair, whether he’d become gay, whether he would, uh, had a social disease, whether he’d become a Republican.

All the alternatives, all the things that could have happened to him to have made you feel that he had changed, something that he was doing. You know what I mean? You wanna go see him? 

Todd: Maybe this is reflective of your relationship with your husband. Because you get the feeling that it hasn’t been horrible, but it’s a 

Craig: little, she’s, there’s a little distant from her.

Well, and she definitely wants to bone Donald Sutherland. She does, 

Todd: but she resists. 

Craig: And that was surprising. They have an 

Todd: interesting tension between them, don’t they? 

Craig: Yeah, I mean, it’s great. I mean, they are co workers, they’re friends. Like, she goes and talks to him about her relationship concerns. He’s the first one that she goes to when She’s convinced that her husband is not her husband.

They do have this great relationship, but again, it’s that Donald Sutherland thing where he’s like making them dinner or whatever, and they’re just having a very innocent conversation. But just the way that he’s looking at her, I’m like, sexy eyes. I see what you’re doing there, Mr. There’s a 

Todd: bit of flirt, flirtatiousness there, but it’s almost like they do consciously.

It’s 

Craig: innocent, but it’s definitely flirty. And he’s wearing a cardigan. I swear to God, I did read somewhere that there was like a theory that this is his favorite cardigan, but it’s not true. But as soon as I saw him in that cardigan, I remembered Animal House. Because in animal house, he’s like naked, except in this card again, and it looks just like this one.

And that’s how I think of Donald naked in a car again. Totally such a cute button. That movie go back and watch that movie. Ooh, what a cute, but Donald’s other one, but I kind of wanted to go back to what you were saying, this movie, like, yes, in the fifties. It resonated for a particular reason. In the seventies, it resonated for a particular reason.

I feel like there have been at least two or three more iterations of it. And for whatever reason, it always resonates with something you and I should write a movie now where the threat is AI, the invasion of the body snatchers is AI because they’re going to come and they’re going to take over our, you know, Personalities in our lives and they’ll be like you don’t need to be alive.

I remember everything, you know But but I feel like if something came out now it would resonate for that reason like because it’s always about like how you’re not Really in control of your life Right, 

Todd: maybe our biggest fear is losing our humanity and we see even threats within ourselves You know in our systems and things like that that that will deprive us of our humanity or convince us that we don’t need it Anymore, or we’ll be better off without These things that quote unquote make us human because you can continue to live and do things and whatnot, but you’ll be lacking like But 

Craig: not I mean, that’s the thing like that’s what the that’s what the plant aliens say Like you’ll still be here, but but no like you will be dead The copy of you you will be dead and you will be that weird ashy stuff in The garbage trucks.

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: which again I didn’t know, I didn’t really understand what was happening. This whole thing, like you already talked about them going to the Leonard Nimoy’s book signing. Why, while there, they also run into Jeff Goldblum. Yeah, Jeff Goldblum. I did not expect that. I didn’t even know Jeff Goldblum was in this movie.

I didn’t either. And he’s like 15 years old. No, I’m just kidding. He’s super young. He’s an adult, but he’s so young. He’s so young and he’s just there and I don’t even know who he is. He’s like, just like so 

Todd: weird. 

Craig: Poet 

Todd: or something? He’s a poet. He’s the guy who’s railing against the system, and all, nobody cares about art anymore.

Nobody cares about the things that make us human. You know, he’s, he’s the guy kind of at the extreme of this, the hippie. More or less. I think he was so frantic. I didn’t really 

Craig: know what was happening. 

Todd: It was weird. All he does is like rail and rail and he, he sounds very like, uh, upset that he’s not as successful as this guy is.

And he, the books that of poetry that he’s written aren’t as successful as this guy’s self-help book. And 

Craig: oh gosh. So then he’s there, and then he’s also married to Veronica Cartwright. Oh, Jesus. 

Todd: Oh, I didn’t know she was in this movie either. 

Craig: I didn’t either. She plays Nancy and she’s also very young like they’re supposed to be this young couple.

That’s weird They own a spa. They own a weird mud spa Was that a thing? I think it still is. Oh that grosses me out. Their spot grosses me 

Todd: out I mean, I would want a spot that didn’t look like that. Let’s just put it that way. It’s just kind of 

Craig: Yeah, it’s got like, oh, it’s so gross. Like, just like clear, like it kind of looks like a meat locker.

Like it’s just like clear plastic, like shower curtains, dividing things. And just a room with like three tubs full of mud with disgusting fat guys. Just like. Cooking in there, not to shame, disgusting fat guys. I mean, that would, you know, disgusting fat guy strong, but, uh, I would not want to go sit in some other guy’s mud.

Like that mud just was, that’s gross. Especially when it starts bubbling. And I know it looks like that. I feel like they almost made it look like it was fake. Yeah, they did.

Between their legs, yeah. Oh, God. Disgusting. Whatever, I mean that’s just, they just do, they like own this mud spa or whatever. But then, She’s, like, trying to close up, and she thinks her husband is laying flat on his back with the blankets pulled all the way over his face on one of the, like, spa tables, so she pulls it down.

This bothers me a little bit, because it’s amorphous, like, it’s clearly a person, but it’s kind of covered in, like, thin, Tendrils like almost like a silky Cocoon, yeah kind of thing 

Todd: almost like the veins on the back of a leaf as you know If you kind of took that and made it semi translucent just wet it and laid it over somebody 

Craig: and I like it I like the look of it.

What bothers me is that for the rest of the movie? They don’t know yet, and we don’t know yet, that what these little flower pods are doing is duplicating people. But from this point on, when we see it happening, it is entirely evident who is being duplicated. Like, why is it not Jeff Goldblum on the table?

Todd: I 

Craig: don’t know, maybe it’s not far enough into the process or something. I don’t know or maybe it’s just for plot because they don’t know yet that that’s what’s happening They don’t know who that is. So they don’t know what’s happening Yeah, I just but this just goes on it just goes on for so long. I don’t know specific parts to point out because they’re just I don’t know.

People are getting duplicated and the main people are running around like kind of figuring things out. But I guess what’s ultimately interesting to me is they kind of know what’s happening from the beginning. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Like from pretty early on and then It’s about them trying to thwart it at first. Oh, we can stop this.

We just got to contact the right people, but they can’t because it has immediately spread everywhere. And it seems like everybody except them are these pod people. 

Todd: Pretty much. You get to see the full thing only much later when it attempts to get Donald Sutherland’s character as he falls asleep, so it is a little like, like you said, I think you’re, this is what kind of what you’re trying to say.

It’s a little like unclear and maybe a little unrealistic exactly how all this could happen so fast to all these people and the only these like few people really are clued into it because Somebody’s gotta fall asleep. They’ve gotta be near one of these plants. Then the tendrils kind of overtake the plant for at least at least five minutes.

They’re gonna be gross and weird. And then this pod’s gonna be next to them. That’s the thing I didn’t understand about the guy on the table, like this big pod. Then like opens up a flower and then this crazy birthing process. like kind of like a cloning of a full half formed human, except it’s a full size adult, comes out of this pod, and then the original person.

So just shrivels up into apparently a husk. We never really see that. We start to see it on her later But anyway kind of 

Craig: at the 

Todd: end. Yeah, and then these husks are then disposed of by the duplicate or maybe one of their cohorts because One of the things that’s happening early on in the movie one of the mysteries to solve is uh Her husband elizabeth’s husband jeffrey when she’s like he’s not right like he’s not going to work.

He’s like walking around town He’s meeting with strangers there They’re, they’re exchanging packages and walking away. And so, you know, I like the way that the movie layers this mystery on, like, you know the pod people are here, you know that the aliens are here, and they’re infecting people, but you don’t exactly know all the details.

Craig: Right, but I like that too, because all these things are intriguing, and they’re all happening in plain sight. I think that that’s what this movie plays to with audiences too, is just paranoia. Yes. Like All of this nefarious stuff is happening in plain sight, and it’s happening all around you, and it’s the people that you know, and everybody is conspiring, except for you.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: That plays for me, like, I, I get it. I’m gonna be probably walking around now like. Looking at people like 

Todd: Well, and this is interesting too and I think why you know updating it for a modern era would be so interesting because now We’re we seem like a wash in conspiracy theories and I have friends who I feel like they’ve kind of gone crazy Because they’ve gone down rabbit holes feeling like the whole world, and they’re one of the few people in the know.

This movie, and movies like this, and stories like this, posit that they’re right. That’s what the story is, anyway. And that’s exactly what paranoid people do. So I, in the same sense, like, I don’t think it’s completely unbelievable that at first, even though it’s almost obvious, that these educated people, You know, one of them is a health inspector.

He’s, he’s out there trying to dig up deception. He’s out there finding the rat turds in the soup that the kitchen is hoping is gonna go unnoticed and that they’re trying to hide and they’re coming up with excuses for. No, he’s gonna find it. She’s a lab technician. She tests and tests and tests things.

One of the first things she does when she gets one of those cute little flowers is try to identify it. When she can’t, she wants to take it to the lab and test it. You know, this is before, you know, She thinks anything’s wrong. Like, this is these people’s personalities. And the psychologist, right, is all about, oh, the answers are not the crazy sinister things that you think they are.

They are rooted in your life and your relationships with other people. That’s where it’s coming from. It’s deep within your psyche is why you’re having these things. 

Craig: But he’s placating and gaslighting her because I think that he is a pod person from the time we meet him. You think so? Yeah, I think so for sure.

I don’t think so. I think he’s totally, I mean, it wouldn’t be out of character for him to come up with an actual psychological explanation for what’s going on, but he’s, I just feel like he, I think he’s a pod person from the beginning, from the time It’s unclear. It could, it could very well be. That’s a good, that’s a very solid theory.

The thing that you said that resonated with me, you’re like, we look at these characters, you know, these well educated, intelligent people, and we think, how could they not see what’s going on? I think that that’s A big part of what this story plays into as well. Yes. Because haven’t you felt that way personally?

Right. How do these intelligent, well educated people, how do they think this? Right. I, I, I can’t understand. And sometimes you feel, or I have in my experience, In certain company felt very alone. Like I, I, I’m the only person who feels this way. Like what is happening? 

Todd: So it goes both ways, right? Like it’s just adds to the paranoia of life.

At some point, if you’re smart, you’re kind of looking at yourself and going, am I the crazy one? I could be the crazy one, right? You know? Right. And that’s what smart people do. Maybe that’s why this movie resonates so much is that this just taps into a deep fear and all of us in this sort of. Anxiety that maybe we all have about ourselves, like, maybe I’m the crazy one.

And so that’s why, yeah, I think it makes sense that these guys at first, even though there’s all this evidence and stuff around them, are in denial. But then, they can’t deny it anymore because it frickin happens, it starts happening in front of them. And I think once they figure out it’s more or less what’s going on, and it’s this group, right?

Then Sutherland realizes they need to be, they can’t fall asleep, and so they’re over at someone’s house, and they’re, I mean, I feel like I’m probably skipping around. 

Craig: Well, we have to, I mean, so much of it is just us and them kind of slowly figuring out what’s going on, but meanwhile also, More and more people.

Eventually it gets to the point where basically everybody except our core group of Donald Sutherland and his not girlfriend but they love each other or whatever and the other couple Jeff Goldblum, Jack, and Nancy They’re just kind of Against everybody else and they’re running 

Todd: and they’re getting chased and they end up they end up hiding in in shadow in the apartment Jack can’t get anything on the radio David the psychiatrist gives Elizabeth a pill to help her sleep There’s like just a slow quiet terror in all this like what the hell can they do?

Matthew goes up to the roof to stare out at the city and he starts not often he does and this is when we First see all this happen There are tendrils in this grass that’s up on the roof. I guess it’s like a bunch of plants up there 

Craig: Really confused what was all of a sudden he was like in troll land.

Yeah, like there’s like mystical vines And huge pods. Is he not the only one in there because it seemed were they like multiple duplicating him? I didn’t understand what’s happening Seem like more than one and also, okay, I can deal with this. Like the, the, the alien goo comes, it turns into these little flowers.

It starts killing people. Maybe the pods can start getting bigger because they don’t have to worry about being conspicuous. So I’m not concerned about the fact that now the pods are enormous and they are birthing full grown hairless. But then, those people immediately mature. Like, there is a duplicate Donald Sutherland lying right next to him, until he wakes up and like, stomps his head or something.

Todd: Yeah, exactly. He comes back and smashes his own head in it, that’s kinda nice. I think the original movie, if I’m remembering it correctly, One of the things that shocked me about it, at that time, was that they find the pods pretty early. Like, there are pods growing in the basement of this guy’s house, I think there’s a greenhouse full of pods.

They are fully aware that there are giant pods. And about, the thing is that there’s very little they can do about it. And so I thought that was interesting, whereas this movie, we don’t really see the pods. You know, I mean, they’re tiny ones, but we don’t really see the giant pods or whatever until this moment, until much later.

It’s got more of a build to it. But yeah, I agree with you, and that was like kind of a weird thing. Like, number one, okay, so he didn’t notice all this stuff around him when he was up there? Or did it suddenly just all climb up on the roof with him while he was as Yeah, where did it come from? And then this giant pod manifests so quickly, like And then how is this happening at everyone’s home?

I mean, I didn’t really get that. I don’t know. 

Craig: I don’t know, but obviously now they kind of know what’s going on. At some point, Jack gets Separated from them, and then the next time we see him, he’s a pod person, and Leonard Nimoy is a pod person, and he tries to explain, he’s telling them, he, he has a whole monologue about how we travel on the solar winds, or something, 

Todd: right, 

Craig: and we go from planet to planet, and like, he paints them.

Whatever they are as being almost like philanthropic like we’re here to help like 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: people suck. So we’re gonna eliminate Emotions, so there’s no hate and war and yeah, 

Todd: you’ll be born again into an untroubled world free of anxiety fear hate and then The last minute kind of off screen he says and love almost like it’s thrown in there But that’s the most sinister bit right is like oh, wait a minute You I mean, at first you’re kind of, I mean, I’m not, I’m not along with the ride, but I mean, I’m saying, like, it doesn’t sound horrible, like, free of anxiety, fear, hate, and love, oh yeah, love is an emotion too that you’re gonna give up when you’re one of these pod people, like, it’s all part of the package, folks.

Look, we just finished watching Inside Out 2, which, by the way, was a lovely movie. 

Craig: Oh, good. 

Todd: All these emotions are part of what’s being human, you know, and so, that’s another thing that this kind of toys with, right, is like, you can’t just take away those things. Right. Without also taking away something that is very much makes us who we are and is the counterbalance to the things that we consider the more desirable emotions and feelings, you know, which is, which is interesting.

It’s interesting. I mean, that’s not like the movie goes into great detail on that. But yeah, your mind and memories will be totally absorbed and everything else will remain intact. And This part when he is injecting Donald Sutherland and Sutherland just looks at him and he’s like David, you’re killing me, David.

Man, I was just like, this is his friend, you know, and he’s just looking at him and there’s only thing he can say is, David, you’re killing me. A pleading. God, he’s 

Craig: such 

Todd: a good 

Craig: actor. I just Yeah, he’s fantastic. But it doesn’t have any effect on Leonard Nimoy because Leonard Nimoy is not Leonard Nimoy anymore.

No, he’s not David. Yeah. This guy, Donald Sutherland, is pleading to his friend. That’s not his friend. He may have all of his friend’s memories. God, I feel like I’ve already mentioned it. I have already mentioned it once, but Also, in Troll, when the young kid is He thinks there’s something wrong with his sister.

He’s watching a movie on TV on a black and white TV. And it’s like, that may look like Tweety. It may even sing like Tweety, but it’s not. And the woman goes, are you saying. Yes, your Tweety is a pod person from the planet Mars. And it’s just a fake movie in that movie, but it’s obviously a riff on this and it’s really funny, but that’s, that’s what it is.

It’s not Leonard Nimoy. They can’t be reasoned with, but they’re also not. 

Todd: According to him, they’re not sinister either. He says, we don’t hate you. There’s no need for hate now or love. And then she, she, Elizabeth Amelie turns to Matthew and says, I love you, Matthew. 

Craig: I love you. Yeah. That was, they 

Todd: also kiss at some point later, but I just thought that was, that was the first time that she flat out admitted.

Okay. Yeah. I love you, Matthew. And he doesn’t. He doesn’t respond back. I love you, too, or anything like that. But later, he’s compelled to tell her he loves her, right? 

Craig: And God, we might as well just say he’s compelled to tell her because though they run and fight and try to call all these You know, like he tries to call the local cops.

He tries to call the FBI He tries to call Washington and every time he gets on the phone with somebody they’re like, oh, yes We know who you are. Dr. Your name. He’s like, how do you know my name? Like wait right there? Everybody You Is in on it. Yeah. Right. So, so there’s no getting away, but they keep trying eventually they’re in some like shipyard or something because these pod people have a distribution center.

Yes. And it’s very efficient. Like they are loading up trucks and buses and ships and they’ve also got like a huge greenhouse for all of these pods and. 

Todd: They’ve learned the ways of Earth very, very quickly. I would have to think there are other planets out there just like Earth for them to have sorted all this out within the matter of Of what, a few days?

A week? I don’t know how much time 

Craig: passed, but they’re sending pods to Salsalito and all over the place. 

Todd: It’s so true. You’d think they could just rain down on the planet everywhere. I mean, uh, that would be easier. 

Craig: Right? I don’t know. But, uh, Donald Sutherland and, and, the girl that he loves, like, I don’t know, they’re like on the outskirts of this thing or whatever.

First of all, Spock sedated both of them. He gave them injections of a sedative. That would knock them out. They are not gonna be They 

Todd: took speed before that, remember? Just before. 

Craig: Oh, did they? Yeah, remember they No, I didn’t She found some pills in the lab. Oh, I do remember he said like, how many, how many does it say to take?

And she’s like, one. And he said, okay, I’ll take five. I forgot about it. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: That 

Todd: was the 

Craig: only way. So they stayed awake for a minute, but then I guess she falls asleep and he’s like, trying to wake her up and her face is getting fuzzy. Cause that’s what happens. Yeah. And he’s like, I love you. And then she dies.

Yeah. He was really sad. She disintegrates in his arms. I don’t know 

Todd: that I would say it was sad. Really? I, I don’t know. I felt this was a pretty emotional scene, just because I really bought their relationship, and I thought it was cute, and I thought it was sweet. Because, like I said, there, there is a very specific moment in this movie where they could have just jumped into bed together, and they didn’t.

You know, in a way, nobody would have blamed them either, but they didn’t, and, And even up to, until this dire circumstance, none, neither of them did anything to like profess their love to each other and now they’re forced to and it’s too late because they’re going to be stripped of all feelings of love very, very quickly and it’s like a last gasp of humanity.

I just thought this personalized it very, very well. And I was just in it. I just was in it with this couple that wasn’t a couple, 

Craig: you know? I mean, I don’t, I don’t have any problem with their relationship. I think their relationship was perfectly appropriate. They were coworkers. They kind of had a flirty thing going on, but she was in a relationship so they didn’t pursue it.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Then once her guy was out of the picture and they were in dire circumstances together, then they could. You know, talk about their true feelings. That’s fine. I found the scene more devastating than sad because sure, like he loves her or whatever, you know, it’s not like they’re married. It’s not like they have some deep connection, right?

But she is also his last companion. 

Todd: Yes. He’s going to have no one else. 

Craig: You’re alone in the world. Like it’s literally you against everybody. Now, now the Nancy is still out there somewhere. That’s true because Nancy’s 

Todd: Nancy and Jack at some point sorted out that they could hide among the pod people. If you just kind of act like them, if you don’t show emotion, you can walk around and kind of get in their lines and kind of go through their thing.

Without being detected, but the minute you show emotion, which, which happens when a dog with a human face runs up to Elizabeth? What was that 

Craig: shit? There had been this homeless guy throughout the movie who played the guitar and sang, and I read that at least the guitar, if not the vocals, were Jerry Garcia.

Really? Uh, what? Yeah, yeah. Wow. Playing, I don’t, I don’t know. I, I think Jerry Gar I don’t know. Oh. It was definitely him playing, but this homeless guy that like they liked, and he had like this nice dog that they liked. And you see him a couple of times in the beginning. And then at one point when the two of them, Donald Sutherland, and the lady are running away together, he sees them asleep on the ground and he tries to wake them up, but he can’t.

And so they keep running. But he kicks the pod and the pod like shoots out some goo. Now, I didn’t really understand if that Was the reason why then later is why all of a sudden the dog had the homeless guy’s face? I missed all that. Was it a result? Was it a result of Donald Sutherland kicking the pod? I don’t know, but it was weird.

And creepy, and yeah, and it freaked Elizabeth out, and that, you know, triggered everybody. Once Elizabeth is dead, and, you know, she like withers away in his arms, but then her nude doppelganger pops up just feet away. And it’s like, uh, it’s great, you’ll like it. You know, join me or whatever he runs away and then he has a huge aqua action sequence, this like pod nursery that good for him for going out with a bang, but really doesn’t make any difference.

I have to admit, 

Todd: like. You said that this didn’t feel long, here it started to feel long, because it just keeps piling on the hopelessness, that I was like, there’s no way this is gonna end, and the minute he comes across the pod nursery, I was thinking, man, they spent a lot of time and money on this scene, which was kind of unnecessary.

Because, we’ve seen their sophisticated organization, there are probably nurseries like this everywhere. So, I can’t really get behind him, I mean, good for him, again, like, destroying it and sending it up in flames, but it’s not like it was the last one on earth, and Now we have a chance. 

Craig: Donald Sutherland doing all his own stunts.

Oh yeah? This actually reminded me of that scene in Don’t look now. There was an action sequence where he was like, jumping and falling on scaffolding? 

Todd: Right? Wasn’t there? Oh yeah, he almost fell yeah, because they were repairing the frescoes or whatever on the ceiling of one of the chapels. 

Craig: This, I mean, it’s, it’s pointless, you know, he’s not really doing anything to save the world or whatever, but he does destroy this nursery and he’s jumping from level to level and doing all of his own stunts and it’s a, it’s a fun action sequence.

Sure, yeah. And then I don’t even remember what happens after that. He just runs away, right? Yeah, 

Todd: he does. He just runs away and I think it’s morning. 

Craig: And then somebody, I think it’s Spock says. We’ll get him. He can’t stay awake forever. And then the next scene it’s daytime and we see Matt Donald Sutherland on the street and everything seems normal.

Like all the people seem normal. They’re like kids going to school. 

Todd: Well, they’re busing and kids for. Field trips that they’re guiding them to these special places. Like I thought that was hilarious 

Craig: Matt goes to his lab and flips something out of the paper Yes, because he that was something that he did before like that was one of his quirks like he clipped newspaper clippings or whatever But he sees elizabeth like through a window, but she doesn’t see him and pays no notice So Obviously what you’re acting yourself is has he been duplicated or is he just acting because Nancy told him you can act and she’s been acting and she’s been walking amongst them for a long time because she figured it out.

Just don’t show any emotion. So, That’s what we, the viewers, are asking ourselves. At the end of the day, at the end of the workday, he falls in line with all the other people leaving, and then he’s out just walking on the street by himself, and Janet kind of approaches him, like she calls his name from across the street, like, Matt, Matt, and she just like waves at him a little bit, and he points and throws his head back and shrieks, we haven’t even said that!

Todd: No. 

Craig: The pod people shriek. And like, point. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s 

Craig: like an alarm system. It’s like an alarm system, but that again, I said earlier, this last image of the movie, Donald Sutherland throws his head back and contorts his jaw in a really unnatural way. And just glares at her pointing. And I have no idea if the shriek was actually him or if it was ADR or whatever, but it’s very scary and completely bleak.

There, there is no other way really for this to turn out, but it’s confirmed, you know, they win, they win. And I think that you had alluded to in the 56 version, this scene is different. Like the two people meet on the street, but they kind of give each other a wink and a nod. Like. Things are going to be okay.

Well, like the, the military is coming or something like that. 

Todd: In the fifties version, the producers made them tag on an ending that, that, um, the original director, Don Siegel did not want, but you know, they were the producers. And so they got what they wanted where. The FBI calls the CIA and like there, there’s just a sense like, all right, now the big boys are on it.

We’re going to get them. And it’s kind of like the government’s involved and they know what’s going on. And so now this is the end. It’s not like, you know, the big title card comes and says the aliens were driven off, but that’s the sense that you get. Their original ending that was written for the movie was, was more bleak, was kind of like this, where I believe they were, Well, he was walking down the street and he just saw a truck full of pods just going right past him and you know Nothing he could do about it and that movie sort of ended on that note And I think they restored that ending for re releases even theatrical re releases I believe ended up restoring that ending so I can’t remember which ending I I saw, I’m pretty sure the one I saw felt more Pat.

But yeah, this, this ending I think was also brainstormed with the original director and screenwriter, Don Siegel. By the way, Don Siegel, the director of the, of the 50s, 50s version has a cameo as the taxi driver. Yeah. In this movie. And so they actually chatted with Philip Kaufman and Jack Finney to brainstorm this, this, this ending to make something a little different.

And I think God is so effective and Donald Sutherland is so great. 

Craig: Yeah. Fantastic. 

Todd: Got a face for this too. 

Craig: I may be conflating stories. I hope not, but I think that the studio wanted Philip Kaufman to shoot a different ending, a more hopeful ending, and he just didn’t shoot it. Because he was afraid they would use it.

He wanted this bleak ending. And yeah, that, that final image of Donald Sutherland shrieking. It’s iconic as is. Donald Sutherland. I mean, again, I’ve said it already. I’ll say it again. What an amazing career. What an amazing legacy. Like as of this recording, you passed away a few days ago and I’ve been reading the things that his contemporaries.

Say about him and and they just say that he was just lovely and a gentleman and a hard worker and a brilliant actor And you know keifer his son tweeted or x or whatever it’s called now, you know a tribute to his dad and Just seemed like such a cool guy and i’m sad that he’s gone. But again, he was Old and he had a good life if I make it to 88 and I’m healthy enough that I can keep working I will consider that a huge success but I also feel like Donald Sutherland is among the last of a generation of actors the likes of which We won’t see again, I think 

Todd: You mean guys that are just good at everything and Can continue to work and do important roles well into old age is is this what you mean 

Craig: and that their success is most Largely based on their talent.

Donald Sutherland is not necessarily there again. I find him very sexually But he’s not he’s not a sexual Stereotypically handsome guy. No again not to discredit. I I know there are many many many young talented Talented actors and actresses out there today, but so much is dependent upon look 

Todd: and yeah 

Craig: These older guys didn’t have to be To be successful.

And I feel like he’s kind of among the last of that generation. I, you know, Martin Sheen is still out there. There are other guys who are still working because they should be because they’re very talented, but I, sadly, I’m afraid we’re going to continue. To lose them because that’s the nature of things and and even you know talking about this and thinking about this and talking about him I was really thinking you and I are probably not all that far off Before the people that we grew up with and and are all gone.

Yeah god time. It’s a crazy It’s a crazy thing, but If you are fortunate enough, and talented enough, and hardworking enough, You Donald Sutherlands of the world. You can leave, you can leave your mark, and, and he certainly did. 

Todd: He sure did. Oh, I love watching him. I’ll, I’ll watch anything with him in it, honestly.

And there’s a lot of stuff to watch with him in it. And there are other horror movies we can do. That we haven’t done yet that happy minute. So we will see him again. Thankfully, the nice thing about it is his work lives on. So, 

Craig: yeah, I’m interested. I don’t know about whether or not for the show, but listeners, Mr.

Harrigan’s phone was one of his most recent. Films, it’s a Stephen King adaptation. I haven’t seen it, but I’m interested so If you recommend it, let me know. 

Todd: Oh Well, thank you so much for listening to this tribute episode If you enjoyed it, you’ve got a donald sutherland fan among your friends Please send them this spread the word for us.

You can find us online Chainsawhorror. com anywhere that you Listen to your favorite podcast as well as YouTube. Send us a review. Let us know what you think of this. Consider joining our patrons at patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast and get a glimpse behind the scenes as well as a lot of discussion going on at Christopher Pike Book Club.

Minisodes, written reviews, all kinds of fun stuff that you get for being a patron. Until next time I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

A typical haunted-house story gets a Satanic twist in this lackluster 70’s entry that almost feels like a goofy made-for-TV movie. So naturally, although we were hoping for much better, we had a blast picking it apart and groaning.

The Evil (1978)

Episode 396, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: This week, well, I just kind of dug into our pile of movies. You know, back when we started this podcast a little while ago. What has it been now, eight years? At least, I think. Yeah, eight or nine. We might be in our ninth or tenth year, I’m not sure.

Craig: I think we started in 2015, like late 2015. 

Todd: Yeah, we did. Time flies, and not long after we started, I moved to China. You might remember, although I’m not even sure if you still have it anymore, Craig, before I left for China, knowing that we were going to be apart, but still going to continue the podcast, I loaded up a hard drive full of movies.

That I knew that I was going to want to do eventually some movies that were hard to find and, and all that. And I made a copy of it for Craig as well, so that he would have those thinking that we would kind of plow through these and we haven’t dipped into that too much. A lot of movies that we, that were on that hard drive, I still want to get to.

A lot of them were some things that I’d either seen when I was younger. Or, I had seen them on the video store shelves, but always wanted to do them, but didn’t. And this was one of those. And because I’ve been really, really busy this summer, really, with my son visiting me here in China, I just didn’t have time this week to pick a movie, and it was my turn to pick a movie.

So, kind of at the last minute, I pulled that hard drive out, I looked through it, and I just almost picked a movie at random. And I sent that to Craig and said, let’s just do this this week. The movie I picked is 1978’s The Evil. A haunted house movie and I’m always down for a good haunted house movie and this movie I remember seeing on the video store shelves when I was perusing the horror sections on those Friday nights when I was in high school looking for a horror movie to do.

Never really watched it until now and that is my history with it. Craig, how about you? Had you heard of this movie or even seen it before? 

Craig: No, I had never heard of it. And it was actually kind of just typing it into Google or even into IMDB. Like it didn’t pop right up. Like you had to scroll, like it would bring up a lot of other titles with evil in the title.

There’s a lot of them. Yeah. Before you even got to the evil. So no, and I wasn’t familiar with it at all. I do still have that hard drive. I haven’t tried to use it in forever. It’s been so long. I don’t even know if it’s compatible. With my computer. TV. It’s just funny. It also, it also speaks to how long we’ve been doing this because it seems kind of quaint now that you.

Felt it necessary to put all of those movies on a hard drive, which I always appreciated and still appreciate, but since that time Nearly everything we do is widely available, you know, online. Thank God 

Todd: Tubi TV Between Tubi, which seems to have most of the esoteric things we want. Yeah, and then Shudder, you know, which We might as well be shilling for, yeah, you can almost find anything.

Craig: Honestly, at this point I’m, and again, we’re not getting paid for any of this, but I’m more likely to shill for Tubi. They have an extensive, extensive horror catalog. Um, and it’s free. It’s awesome. I mean, yeah, you have to watch ads, but they have figured out their model. I, they are outperforming the other premium streaming services.

And they’re, they’re marketing on that, like, we have so many more viewers than Netflix or Hulu or any of these others. 

Todd: Wow. 

Craig: Yeah, they’re, they’re kind of my go to. It’s pretty great. And this is the kind of movie that’s on there. Yeah, it is. You can find some, I mean, you’ll, you’ll find a lot of garbage on there too, but there’s, uh, a lot of really cool stuff.

Now, I don’t know which category I would put this into. I certainly wouldn’t put it into the garbage category. No. I have seen far, far, far, far worse. But I didn’t love it either. 

Todd: Yeah, I know what you mean. I didn’t love it. Maybe for its time, it was probably, it got decent reviews for its time. Yeah. You know, released in theaters, did fairly well.

And it comes at kind of an interesting time in history. This is 1978, right? And I was just watching this and I was thinking, oh yeah, this, this really falls into, Burnt Offerings came out in 76. So, you know, two years before this, the year before this, we had the Sentinel and even Hausu over in Japan. I mean, this has the flavor of those plus Amityville Horror, which came out in 79.

I mean, it just seems like this comes square in the middle. Of a whole bunch of movies that, you know, in the late seventies that were all. About either haunted houses were possession or some combination of the two. And there’s a lot of crossover here with the cast and with the director, the director, interestingly enough, his name is Gus Triconis.

And if you go to his IMDB page, you’re going to see that he has directed a 48. Things. He was also an actor, probably most famous for being Indio. In the West Side Story, the 1961 West Side Story. But most of his career, he was directing. And what he had been directing was mostly cheap, indie, drive in or grindhouse stuff.

He was originally kind of well known for doing that. So, I mean, if you go and look through here, we’re talking about Five the Hard Way, Supercock, The Swinging Barmaids. Nashville girl, the student body, she’s dressed to kill, you know, all these kinds of like, you can just tell from the titles, sensational, low budget, but highly respected for doing these kinds of things.

And he did a ton of TV, particularly after this movie, he seemed to pretty much just direct episodes of TV shows or tons. Of tv movies and so you remember that beauty and the beast tv series in the 80s with lynda hamilton Yeah with lynda hamilton that one always fascinated me. He directed 12 episodes of that quantum leap the commish Oh, I loved quantum leap, right?

He did 22 episodes of baywatch. So the director is uh, you know, pretty decent Interesting conversion here and this is a total coincidence We just did a minisode for our patrons, and Craig picked it, he, we did it over the Twilight Zone 1980s revival of that series, and you picked a particular episode called Grandma, and the Twilight Zone episodes there were, were bunched into three, so like one, um, I, I guess I would say episode would be like three stories in there.

And the Grandma episode was bundled with two other stories. One of those stories was called Cold Reading. And guess who directed it? 

Craig: That’s funny. I was, I was all prepared for you to say, and guess who directed grandma. Gus Triconis and that was going to blow my mind. I know, right? That was, that was going to blow my mind, but still an interesting coincidence.

I I’m not super proud to say it, but I’m not ashamed of it either. Like I’m big time into like celebrity gossip. And so, and so one of the things that was most interesting to me about Gus Triconis was that before he found any success in the industry, he married and also completely green Goldie Hawn. Yeah.

When they were, when they were both. They got married very, very young and then she got laughing and just her star was rising at an incredible, incredible rate. And she wanted to start having kids right away. but he thought she was too flighty and so they ended up getting a divorce. In the divorce settlement, he demanded 75, 000 from her and out at first she was outraged and I read, I don’t know if this was an interview or something, but you know, it was like his perspective.

He said, you know, here she was on the verge of making millions and I literally had 125 to my name. So apparently, Eventually, after giving it some thought, she relented and gave him his 75, 000. And he said that they, you know, because then they both went on to be successful. I mean, she became an enormous star, still is a huge star, a legend.

Right. And, you know, he was very successful himself and in the same industry. So he said their, their paths crossed from time to time and they were always Friendly, and he was very happy for her success. So, you know, it all ended okay, but it has nothing to do with this movie. No, I’m fascinated by 

Todd: Hollywood stories.

Oh yeah, of course. That’s great. Well, another interesting thing, you know, we’ve done a lot of movies on this podcast. One that we did that was also in the same realm. It was when I decided we’re going to do like slashers from 1981, this very odd category. David Sheldon, the Ri, one of the writers of this credited, he produced just before dawn and then went on to produce what for its time in 1976.

I’m sorry, this was before, just before Dawn, but in 1976, he produced and, uh, wrote to this film called Grizzly, which was this phenomenal, a low budget success. It was one of these movies that, for its time in 1976. Like was the indie breakout, you know, sort of the Blair Witch Project of its time. It cost almost, it cost very little to make, but then, uh, became world famous and grossed like 52 times the cost of its production.

And then that went on to spawn, uh, several others. The sequels. And, uh, shortly after he did Grizzly two years later, he was executive producer of the Manateau. Oh! One of our all time favorites. One of 

Craig: my favorite movies that we’ve ever 

Todd: done. Oh, God. It’s 

Craig: fantastic. If 

Todd: you haven’t heard our Manateau episode, oh, Jesus, go back and listen to it.

I 

Craig: think it’s one of our best. It’s one of my all time 

Todd: favorites. Uh. One of the other writers in here, Galen Thompson, worked a bit with Steven Spielberg with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 1941 all that’s of course after this one of my favorite Roger Corman movies called battle beyond the stars He did 1980 just a couple years after this So, um, yeah, and that’s not even getting into the actors, which I’m sure we’ll talk about as we go through it So, I mean, you know, this movie’s got a unique spot, I think in the Just the genre itself of these sort of haunted house movies and possession movies kind of coming out around this time.

And then it’s got this really interesting intersection of characters who are involved in writing it, producing it, and starring in it. So it’s going to be a fun movie to talk about. 

Craig: Well, I’m really interested to hear more about the actors because I only researched one of them and he doesn’t show up until the very, very end.

And I read some interesting stuff about him, but I didn’t. I didn’t recognize any of the others. I recognized the name, Richard Krenna, and my sister, who listens to the podcast, I think would scold me if I didn’t mention that the reason that I know that name is because on the show Friends, Phoebe wanted to write a song about Ross and Rachel’s daughter, Emma, and she sang a song like, Emma, your name causes a dilemma, cause nothing really rhymes with Emma.

Except the actor, Richard Crenna, who starred in Rambo, or something like that.

Oh God. So that’s how I know Richard Crenna from Phoebe’s song on that one episode of Friends. 

Todd: He was a famous guy, died in 2003, but he’s got over 120 credits to his name, was all over television, like pretty much every TV show from the 70s or 80s. He was in an episode or two of them, but I mean his career spans back to like 1950, you know, so, um, He was a classic actor, best known more, more recently in his career for being in Rambo.

Actually, he was in the first three Rambo movies. Troutman. Yeah, that’s what Phoebe said. And then he was, he was even Colonel Denton Walters in Hot Shots Park Do, which was, you know, a Rambo slash Top Gun, What, Mel Brooks type movie, right? 

Craig: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was funny. Yeah, it was funny. I don’t remember if it was Mel Brooks.

But it was funny, it was Charlie Sheen. 

Todd: Mm 

Craig: hmm. Yeah, and I can see that. He’s a handsome, manly guy. Yes. I can see him as a lead role in this era. I mean, he fits it to a tee. He’s great. He’s 

Todd: just like one of these actors from this era like, what, Tom Selleck and like Brolin. They’re just like straight guys. I don’t mean straight as in their sexuality.

I just mean they’re just very like Right. Like, uh, 

Craig: masculine, you know, tall, bigger guys. Handsome, 

Todd: calm, collected and cool under all circumstances. Mansplaining left and right. You know that these guys, right? Sure. But yeah, he’s been in, he’s been in a lot of stuff. I believe he was also in Leviathan. In 1989, which is another movie I really want us to get to eventually.

Craig: Yeah, I’m sure I’ve seen it, but I don’t remember. I, I feel like I remember thinking that Leviathan was a cheaper version of The Abyss. It was. I know they’re different. I, I know Leviathan’s kind of like a monster. Yeah. Anyway, whatever. Okay, so, Richard Crenna, I recognize his name. The others, I know nothing about, so we’ll get to them in a second.

But, you had mentioned that it is a Haunted House movie, and it is. And it does remind me. Of lots of haunted house movies, the haunting or the haunting of Hill House or any iteration of that story, it reminded me stylistically a little bit of the woman in white to some extent, this had the feel to me of one of the darker afterschool specials.

It’s one of the only ones I ever referenced because it’s one of the only ones I remember is the Red Room, you know, like there where there’s like, you know, like a gothic house and it’s haunted and there are apparitions and stuff. I feel like I’ve already used this word once. I have a wider vocabulary, but it feels a little quaint.

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: In some regards, you know, with the big gothic house. And then especially when, there’s really only one ghost, I guess. But when the, when the ghost starts appearing to one of the characters. At first, it’s very I mean, it’s all done in the type of special effect that I don’t know anything about technically, but that was so commonly used during this time where it looks like something was added to the film in post.

Is, is 

Todd: that right? Yeah, it’s like an optical effect, right? Yeah, where there’s a 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: It’s just kind of overlaid, so it’s a little You’re right, like the lady in white had that a lot in there, didn’t it? 

Craig: Well, yeah, and here, and this is not at all uncommon, at first, the apparition starts appearing to her in a vaguely human shape, and it’s all in, like, white light.

Uh huh. But it’s, it’s, it’s out of focus, and very wavy. Eventually I don’t know if her psychic powers get stronger or the ghost just is more urgent or what, but eventually it begins to appear very clearly. I mean, it’s still surrounded by a white aura and the ghost is entirely white, including its open eyeballs, which I thought was kind of cool, but you see it distinctly.

I mean, it, it, it’s a man in a suit and at, at that point, and I may have read this in like a user review or something. It, it, Feels almost Disney haunted mansion. Yes. That’s what it looks like. And it’s almost like a, like a hologram. And again, I’m not citing that as a criticism because Disney’s haunted mansion is one of my favorite rides, right?

Same here. I love it. I, I love the holograms and you know, the things appearing, you know, like in mirrors and right in front of you, all very cool, cool. Techniques that were also used in these types of movies. But it makes, you mentioned, you know, you mentioned other movies. You mentioned like Amityville and other things that came out around this time.

I’m not really surprised that this one got lost in the shuffle. Because aside from a really goofy ending, which I think probably makes it even more forgettable. Yeah. There’s not a lot that’s notable or that’s notably good. Right. About it. 

Todd: Or new. Right. I mean, even for the time, it’s kind of just like, it’s so silly, really.

The things that happen to them in this house. I mean, the Amityville stuff can be a little bit suspenseful. It can be a little vague. Burnt offerings is also, well, 

Craig: the same, I was, the same thing about both of them is that the threat feels more imminent and dangerous. Yes. In, in those movies, I’m afraid these people are gonna get, you know, their heads blown off by a phantom shotgun or the house is gonna POEs possess the dad and, and make him violently drown his.

Sun. Like it, it just seems a lot more tense in this one. There is a supernatural threat, but because you rarely see it. It’s a lot of people just flailing around.

I wouldn’t have even thought that they went to much effort to make it look good. Because to me, it really just looked like people flailing around. At one point there’s like an earthquake and it was some of the most ridiculous earthquake acting I’d ever seen. These people were just like jumping up against the walls.

And yeah. Oh, yeah. It was really, really funny, actually. There are other points where the, the people are supposed to be being beaten up by an invisible force, and it looks like they were just told to kind of throw themselves and jerk themselves around. Now I read in the goofs, you know, on IMDB in the goofs section, it says when one of these women is being, Moved around by this unnatural force, you can see the wires.

Yeah, I watched it on my laptop as I always do. And I certainly did not see the wires and was surprised to even find that there were wires there because unlike in something like Jaws or The Exorcist, it really didn’t look like they were being jerked around violently. Like, I can imagine a bunch of friends with jump ropes surrounding a person and just kind of playfully pulling them around.

That’s kind of what it looks like. Right. Well, apparently there was more care given to it than I saw. 

Todd: When you talk about the, um, earthquake scene, it’s the difference between this and like on Star Trek, the ship, you know, being jerked around and they kind of, you know, flop around. A house isn’t a spaceship floating in space.

Like, if there’s an earthquake and people are being jerked around as violently as they’re being jerked around in here, The house would be crumbling down around them. The very foundations would be like in 20 pieces. Yeah. That’s why it looks so silly. Although on the other hand, I got to disagree with you on the one where the woman was being attacked and maybe it’s because I did watch it on a bigger screen, but coming on the heels of that ridiculous earthquake bit, I thought her bit was pretty impressive.

Comparatively, there were moments where she was clearly being pulled, you know, where she wasn’t flailing, where she was being pulled across, and I felt like of all the things that happens to everybody in this, that was, and again, within the context of all the things that happened in this movie, That was probably the most disturbing thing for me.

And I thought it was very effectively played. That said, I 

Craig: found it confusing because I wasn’t really sure what they were going for. Well, the whole movie is, well, I mean, it’s not confusing that I understand that there it’s haunted. I understand that there’s a presence. I mean, we don’t really know, is it ghosts?

Is it, we don’t really know what it is. Poltergeist. We don’t know, but the, whatever it is, is capable of physically manipulating The environment and, and the people and, you know, smacking them and punching them and, and throwing them around. So, you know, that’s a legitimate threat, but this scene confused me because it was the type of throwing around that we had already seen, except it seemed a little bit more slappy.

And it was definitely a man’s voice laughing. You hear voices in the background faintly sometimes early on in the movie. To me, it sounded like children later. It sounds like in this scene, it sounds like a man. And what I imagine one of the things that made you uncomfortable as it did me was that this scene is different in that whatever the entity is, rips off her Right.

And then throws her on a mattress. And I was prepared for what was going to happen. Bracing yourself. You were right, like, because we, we’ve seen this before. You know, we have seen these kind of supernatural sexual assaults before. Mm hmm. But that’s as far as they’ll go. Like, they will suggest, it tore off her clothes.

I mean, she’s not nude, she’s in underclothes. A bra and, and panties. Yeah, it gets only that far, yeah. As far as bras and panties go, pretty modest. I mean, Not like she’s nude, but she does get thrown onto a mattress, but then everybody just comes in and she says, it just kept hitting me. It just kept hitting me.

It seems to me that they wanted to suggest something, but they weren’t willing to push the envelope. Yeah. Which is interesting because it’s an R rated movie anyway, which I, I don’t know why. I mean, I understand that this was before the PG 13 existed. So I guess by nature of it being, um, A horror film, and the devil being in it.

Maybe that was enough to push it to R, but other than that, it’s very, very tame. Very tame. 

Todd: I suppose that’s why, you know, it gets, it has that after school special feel, is because it never really takes anything to an extreme. I mean, yeah, people die, that’s as extreme as anything that can happen in this world, of course.

But like, It’s not super graphic, like you said, it gets this scene that looks like it’s getting very sexual, it still seems to imply the sexuality, but it stops at her underwear, and then it’s kinda like not really mentioned, and it’s just implied very loosely, you know, where this would go right over a kid’s head.

Yes. You know, it basically, and then the whole movie’s a little bit like that, plus it’s just a mishmash of stuff, like, There’s very little consistency or rhyme or reason as to what this entity is doing throughout the house. So although there’s this overall mystery that they’re trying to piece together, it all feels a bit silly.

Classic Haunted House stuff. That’s just being pulled from this novel and that novel in this novel in that novel. Yeah Oh, they we find a book and we read some stuff in somebody’s diary and oh, I’m seeing these ghostly apparitions over here And oh now there’s an earthquake and oh now like there’s this unseen entity doing these things I saw I thought I saw a statue move right and all these things kind of happen separately But it’s not like that statue ever moves again or comes to life, right?

Or, you know, I mean, it’s all just very, it’s just a bunch of stuff. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, statues moving and coming to life is a classic trope that you continue to see. I was just going to say, I’ve kind of been meaning to say this since the beginning. Cause I, I’m beginning to think that we’re not going to get into chronological details of the plot.

It actually reminded me a lot of a movie that I really, really like that probably most people think. Is a bad movie, but early, early in our tenure, we did the movie Troll, which, which is about a group of people who move into a new house, something mystical opens up in the basement, and then chaos ensues in the building itself, and there’s a lot of threat until at the very end, the heroes get out into the sunlight, embrace, and drive away.

The exact same plot. 

Todd: You kind of described it, didn’t you? The only difference is, and even Troll has a lighter tone, right? Almost childlike tone. But the difference between Troll and this movie is that Troll is wildly creative. Just, it goes in odd places and it’s fascinating and it’s just as much fantasy as it is horror.

And so, Like, Troll’s just compelling. You’re just like, what? And wow. And this movie isn’t that way, because we’ve seen all these things before in much better movies. With better consistency and way better payoff. 

Craig: Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s not a bad setup. So, what it is, is there’s this old mansion that apparently, I don’t know, Somebody, the caretaker who we first meet and know is scared of it, we don’t know why, but he is because he goes in there and he starts cleaning up and then he’s like, oh, well, I guess there’s nothing to be scared of until he starts hearing Like children’s voices in the basement and he goes down there to check things out and everything’s fine And he thinks he hears something in the furnace, but he opens it up and there’s nothing in there He’s like, oh hardy har and then the furnace explodes and he is completely on fire from head to toe and dies.

Todd: The first of a few flame effects. Yeah. And there’s people on fire effects. Yeah. 

Craig: And that’s fine. But I mean, even that character felt very stereotypical, like, oh, I’m the creeped out caretaker. 

Todd: Takes a swig from his bottle before he goes in. Yes, 

Craig: yes. I mean, he’s, I mean, this isn’t even like an old guy. This is, uh, he’s probably younger than us, but he’s kind of like hunched over his broom, like.

It’s silly, and then we meet people again. I understand that this is how these movies work But we have to meet a whole bunch of people so that there are people that we can kill off But there are still gonna be people alive at the end. But what it basically comes down to is this Psychiatrist Richard Krenna CJ and his wife Who’s also a doctor, but I don’t know what she does.

I don’t know what kind of doctor she’s a psychology. I guess. I don’t know. Yeah. They’re buying this building. It’s an old building, Caroline, Caroline. Yeah. They they’re given a tour of this old building and it’s just a big, cool old building. I mean, it is, it’s a cool old building, but they’re told that it was built at a long time ago by this guy named.

Old Mr. Vargas, even though he died in his 30s. Which they call out, to be fair. It was built on sulfur flats or something. 

Todd: Because they wanted the heat, yeah. 

Craig: You’re right. But then Something happened on Vargas’s 30th birthday where all his hair turned white and nobody really ever saw him much after that, and then he died soon after.

Like, we’re never told, as far as I can remember, what happened. I guess it has something to do with the evil that’s in the house, but we’re never told. 

Todd: This is the first of the piling up of things. It’s like, okay, so he builds us over these sulfur Mines or springs or something like that, and it was known as a healing place, but then the springs dried out as soon as the house was finished.

And the Indians gave this place a wide berth and call it Valley of the Devils. I mean, I expected there to be, like, an ancient burial ground. I mean, like, how many other things could there have possibly been? Like, this house was definitely doomed. Yeah, I mean, I guess And the house is impressive. Like, he’s giving them a tour.

Yeah, it’s amazing. The real estate guy. And it’s huge, and he’s like, 

Clip: It said his hair turned white, and only glimpses of him were ever seen after his 30th birthday. That was before the war, the Civil War, that is. After that, it was converted to a conservatory for young women. 

Todd: And there are 200 rooms in the main building, and I had to rewind, I was like, 200 rooms?

Well, yeah, and even the movie doesn’t do this, this building justice. This was actually shot in, uh, what was at this time, abandoned health spa and resort that was literally built in the mid 1800s. Huh. And then rebuilt twice. And known, uh, around the area as, I mean, the reason it was built, it was a giant hotel because there were supposedly healing springs, so it was kind of a big health spa and whatnot.

And, uh, yeah. It was taken over, I think Jesuits had the building, but weren’t doing anything with it, and they, you know, they’re the ones who rented it out for the, for this production, and then shortly thereafter, uh, it did become a, a university, and right now, to this day, it is. It’s a, I guess, fairly well accredited university of business.

Wow. It’s massive, and it’s been renovated and restored. It was in pretty bad shape, apparently, when this was shot. And then, uh, about a couple decades later, the state got a hold of it and got some money together. And I made a historical, you know, place and it’s now it looks gorgeous. You should go online and check it out.

It’s, it’s pretty interesting. I I love these old, like yeah, mid 18 hundreds, late 18 hundreds, like health spa things like Kellogg built up in Michigan, you know, for rich people to go to the healing waters. Mm-Hmm. to think that these places are still standing and are so Victorian and massive and grand.

It’s, it’s really cool. So the setting’s awesome too. 

Craig: Yeah. The, it, it’s the, the entryway is. I mean, super, super high, multiple, at least two story high ceilings and columns and big staircases and then they’re like big ballrooms because they, you know, you know, I, I don’t know if this is fact or fiction, but they say in the movie it was a conservatory for girls.

And so they built all these like dance floors and ballrooms and stuff. And there are these. Big cavernous set pieces. Yeah, I, I, I, I mean, amazing things can be done with sets. Don’t get me wrong, but it just always kind of, to me, kind of add something atmospherically when things are shot on actual locations.

Yeah, this one is cool. So, so I guess they ended up buying it. I don’t know, but they bring several of their friends. Who they refer to as volunteers and I think that what what they they want to turn it into like a A drug rehabilitation center. Is that right? 

Todd: It’s never outright said I think you have to piece it together but yes, i’m pretty sure that’s what his venture is 

Craig: one of the People who is going to be one of their counselors felicia.

She’s the one that eventually kind of gets Supernaturally sexually assaulted. She tells one of the other girls at one point that she had been addicted to heroin and this doctor, you know, rehabbed her and saved her and now she wants to give back. So I think this is going to be a drug rehabilitation center.

It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that they all show up. There’s eventually six of them, right? Three couples, um, There’s, there’s, there’s CJ and his wife, Carolyn, who’s also a doctor, but also appears to be psychic because the second she gets into the house, she knows there’s something bad going on there and starts seeing things immediately.

She is not in the house for more than 10 seconds before she sees that ghost and says nothing. I know. I understand that it’s a movie. And I understand that you have to suspend your disbelief. But if I were touring a home, which I’ve done because I’ve, I bought my home. If I were touring a home with my partner and I saw a ghost in there, I would say something,

but I don’t know. She doesn’t. And so they’re all there. And I mean, that’s the setup. It’s the exact same setup as the haunting. Yeah. You know, you have to get a big group of people into this haunted house. So creepy things can start happening to them. And that’s, It’s fine. I just wish there had been more interesting stuff going on.

Todd: Yeah, it’s, it’s, again, it’s just a whole bunch of ominous stuff piled on in the beginning, which just made me chuckle. So she sees this shimmering ghost, without a doubt. They’re talking stories about the house downstairs, and bits of the ceiling start to fall down on CJ, and Oh, hurry up, get out of the way!

Bits that probably wouldn’t harm him much, but they’re falling on him. And then she wanders out into the driveway, which is circular, and there’s this statue on there that looks, you know, it’s got kind of a gargoyle type guy sitting on it, and she reads the inscription, Disturb not he who is here. And then later, you know, after they decide they’re going to take the house, they’re moving things in two minutes later, she thinks she sees a statue move, you know, by the fireplace.

So, I mean, I was like, okay, there’s a lot of stuff going on here and it’s all, it’s all very familiar. And the other people who joined them, there’s Dwight, who’s, I guess he’s their handyman, who’s going to be really helping fix the contractor. And he’s kind of a cowboy type dude. Pete is the jokester, which I also chuckled about.

You always have to have one in. And then Felicia, like you said, then Mary, she’s the gal with the frizzy hair. And then there’s this other sort of couple, Raymond and Laurie. Raymond is introduced to us as he is lecturing his psychology class. And I guess this is going to be his last lecture because he’s going to go on to greater and better things.

At a university or something like that because he just got his phd. What is he a professor of again? I think it was psychology because he says later that oh you inspired me cj, you know when I was in your class Oh, right, right So all these are either like people that he’s rehabbed or people he’s had associations with and they all seem to deeply respect him And then He’s got this thing going on with one of his students, Lori, which is it’s so funny how lightly it’s played Yeah, because I guess it’s really no big deal, you know, but they play it so 

Craig: lightly.

Yeah at the time in one moment They get very flirty at the end of class as everybody else is walking out and then he says something about oh now now We need to be discreet. Well, then they walk out in the hallway and just like start making out And I love it. So like, that’s not discreet. And it’s, it’s just funny to me because I imagine that.

But at that time, it was probably frowned upon, but like, it happened. You know, and I, I had a friend whose mom and dad, the dad was significantly older than her because he was her college professor and they met when she was his student and they got together and got married and had a big family and were happily ever after.

So I’m not necessarily one to judge. I’m just saying that looking through a modern lens. That would be Oh yeah. Probably a little bit more 

Todd: than frowned upon. Well, let’s be clear, I mean, it’s just not very professional. I mean, if they’re your literal student in your class, like You know, there’s some conflict of interest there when you got a grade that you got to give this person But right sort of aside from that, I don’t know I know like I think at least three couples who’ve you know met met this way I it doesn’t scandalize me so much anymore, but it’s funny because it’s even it’s even mentioned Like, when everybody’s introducing each other, and he introduces himself and says, and this is Lori, she’s one of my students.

One of them says, Oh, you’re one of those guys, huh? And they all have a chuckle about it. Yeah, they 

Craig: all 

Todd: laugh. So whatever. They are all just gonna go in and like, work, put their own elbow grease into fixing up this house and make something of it. That is why CJ has assembled everybody here. Is to be part of his business venture, I guess.

Craig: Yeah. And at this point, the ghost, the shimmering white ghost is like trying to warn Caroline. She, he shows her this diary that doesn’t really have an, an enormous diary. Like I, I surely thought it was like a photo album or something. Comically large. Nobody 

Todd: would write in a diary. No, it’s not a fricking diary.

It’s a giant book. It’s super thick. It’s the only thing in the house, like literally walking through the house. There’s no furniture in here. There is absolutely nothing until she’s led to this one little room where there’s a desk and plain as day on the desk is this book that is almost as big as the desk itself sitting there.

With a pile of cobwebs and dust on it that she has to blow off. And once she does and opens it up, the fireplace lights up behind her. And she gets a vision of somebody hammering a cross on an anvil. Like, was that supposed to be like, a blacksmith that at one time was in that room, like, using that fireplace to craft?

Craig: It just now occurred to me when you said that, I bet that whoever that was was making that cross. Yeah. Is that what you were sa Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, making that cross. I did not put that together when I watched it. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, no, I, cause somehow I was just like, what is happening? Like, why is there a guy with an anvil all of a sudden?

Todd: Well, I mean, I think the cross was referenced at some point, because I did have that thought at that moment, but my other thought was, was this at one time the blacksmith’s room? Cause it sure doesn’t look like 

Craig: it. No, I don’t know. It was very odd. I keep trying to get to the inciting incident, which is the first weird thing that happens that they’re all aware of is the dog kind of freaks out.

They hear it howling in the basement and it’s, we see it. It’s like digging at something and then it starts howling and they’re looking for it and they find it in the basement, but it attacks its owner and then runs off. I think it’s at that point that CJ and Caroline, maybe, I don’t remember, where the dog was digging, they find like a trap door.

It’s bolted with this ornate iron cross, and they pull the cross out so that it’s, you know, it’s not bolted closed anymore. But they can’t get it open. But as soon as they walk away, it like supernaturally explodes open and all this steam comes out and that’s when the big earthquake is and all of the doors slam and all of the bars like slam down on the windows and they’re, they’re trapped in there and they can’t get out.

And the rest of it is them trying to figure out how to get out while, Individually dealing with supernatural things that are going on. Yes. And we already talked about Felicia, you know, and what happens to her. What are some of the things? That happened to the other people. I don’t remember. Dwight’s one of the first to go.

Now he goes during the earthquake, doesn’t he? Shortly thereafter. I think it’s during the earthquake and electrical cord like falls from the ceiling and he tries to grab it like a snake or something, but somehow it manages to twine itself all around him. Yeah. Yeah. And he gets electrocuted. I thought it was hilarious because in the aftermath of the, uh, Earthquake, everybody’s running around to look and see if everybody’s okay.

And somebody comes into the room where Felicia is like, just, you know, regaining consciousness of the stairs and dead Dwight is right there. And the character is like, Oh no, well, he’s 

Todd: dead. That’s the other thing that took it out of it for me. And again, this is in so many movies, right? Where like people’s friends are dying all around them.

And yet, it’s immediately after they discover the body, the next scene is they’re all sitting contemplatively around a fireplace, talking about what, you know, their next steps are gonna be, and everyone’s calm and collected, and it’s like, wouldn’t you be freaking out just a little bit more, successively, throughout all this?

And I read that this movie was shot in like, 30 days, and I thought, this movie feels like it could’ve almost been shot over a couple weekends, because half of the movie is just dialogue that takes place While these people are in the same scene standing around a fire. As though nothing has just happened, just talking calmly and collectively, it’s like that, Well, I don’t know what it could be.

Well, I think it might be supernatural. No, doctor, how could you believe in the supernatural? We know there’s gotta be a logical explanation for all of this. And like, this back and forth discussion, it always comes back to that. They find a body, they find something’s happened to somebody, they’re back there by that fireplace.

It’s really kind of amusing. There’s a lack of emotion, and, and like CJ himself has got, a serious lack of emotion. I feel like his whole staff could have died off before he looked concerned and worried. 

Craig: Yeah, I mean, they want to get out. I mean, they do. I don’t know. Caroline is constantly saying, there’s something in the house.

It’s not the house, there’s something in the house. I feel it. Nobody listens to her. Lori. Who is the student girlfriend at one point panics when everything gets locked up and she’s like Like and she just got ridiculously hysterical and I was so excited because I just knew knew what was coming Yeah, I have seen this setup.

I have seen this woman getting hysterical in this way 

Clip: Look

at me. It’s all darling. It’s all right. 

Craig: I knew he was gonna slap the shit out of her He did And it was actually shocking in how violent it was. Oh, I know. I expected him to slap her, but he did. And I feel like she comes back and there’s a big red mark on her face. And it unsettled me a little bit, to be frank, even though I had expected that.

I, I had expected it to be almost like, Comic yeah as those scenes often play out. I mean obviously different sensibilities striking a woman isn’t funny But that that was a comic trope, you know The the only way to calm the frantic woman was to yeah slapper or throw water in her face 

Todd: Which then instantly calms her Right, she’s fine dead of making her more angry So the shutters as you said before all the shutters shut And, you know, by themselves, and we’ve already noticed that there are bars and doors over everything, the bars over all the windows, the doors lock by themselves, they can’t get through them, Pete picks up a folding table and tries to smash it through a window, and just gets blown back by an unseen force, him and the table just go flying, and then he stands up like, well, that was weird.

You know, and they kind of try these kinds of things, but there’s this force acting again to kind of jerk them around. Oh, and it starts raining outside. So it’s, it’s storming 

Craig: and they can’t get out, but they try different things to get out. Like at one point. CJ and Pete, the goofy one, somehow access some, like, copula or something that’s open air.

And they find some rope, and they’re gonna climb down it, which should be fine, right? Except, Pete goes first, and he gets halfway down. And just starts swinging around wildly. Yeah, I know. Was that like the wind or something? I couldn’t figure that out at all. And I was also thinking like, if you’re, if something is swinging you around, what, like, just keep going down, like go faster, like you’re getting closer to the ground all the time, just keep going.

Slide down that rope. But instead he starts to try to climb back up and CJ tries to pull him up. But then I guess the rope. Gets really hot and then Pete just bursts into flame. Yes. Burst into 

Todd: flame and falls to the ground. I was like, was it, did I miss something? Was there saw a lightning strike? Was this an electrical cable?

No, he just burst into flame 

Craig: and burst into flame and he falls and dies. 

Todd: I was really surprised we lost our jokester so early. You know, he only got one. Hilarious gag in earlier, pretending that he was hung by a noose in a room. Hung 

Craig: himself. Oh 

Todd: my god. 

Craig: And you know, when they opened the door and it was the jump scare of him hanging and they freaked out, it was a nice jump scare, but I knew immediately it was a joke.

Oh yeah. But before he revealed it, I knew it was a joke. You used to see this, like, whoever would think that was funny, but then also during this scene on the rope, I thought it was such a missed opportunity that he didn’t get hung. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. It would have been ironic, right? Like, the 

Craig: rope should have supernaturally wrapped around his neck and he got hung there.

I know, I know. Like, haha, shows you for whatever. 

Todd: I thought the same thing. And 

Craig: then I think Felicia gets assaulted, I don’t know. At some point, Mary goes to get Towels or something and she gets attacked by her dog again Yeah Which pushes her over a stair rail and they both fall to their death and then somebody gets the genius idea that because There’s a lightning storm and because there are iron bars on the windows They can set up wires to electrocute the whole house And melt the bars?

Todd: Oh my god. Is that what 

Craig: he said? 

Todd: It was the dumbest plan. Because he saw loads of lightning rods on the scene. Like, what? You’re gonna hope that lightning strikes these lightning rods? You’re gonna divert the electricity to these bars so that when it gets there, it’s gonna melt them? Yeah, it was dumb. They noticed the generator’s working.

And so they grabbed some power tools. And. I think it’s Raymond who tries to saw through the door with a circular saw. But it’s like the door is suddenly made of steel or something because they’re like, oh, like, this is grinding the teeth right down on the circular saw, that’s crazy. While the other two are going to get cables and trying to attach them to that.

Raymond, suddenly, as he’s trying to saw through the door again, and he’s suddenly compelled to saw through his whole hand? I was very confused by that. Yeah, it’s like he looks like in his head he’s getting a little dazed or something. And we see a close up of that saw go through his entire hand. Am I wrong about this?

Craig: No, I think you’re right. I, I think that we were to believe that he was in some way compelled to do it. But that’s just odd because we never really see anything else. Like that. Mary’s corpse reanimates. Mary’s corpse reanimates very briefly. Like it just sits up long enough to scare Felicia. It does nothing else.

She backs into the electrified bar. Yes. She, so Felicia, so Felicia dies that way. And then at some point. Caroline gets possessed by the ghost, but that’s, that’s a different type of thing. This seems like mental suggestion. I wasn’t sure. This is one of the only gore effects we get. The saw kind of goes over his hand.

It looks like it saws all the way through his hand, but then they bandage him up and he’s fine. 

Todd: Yeah. Well, even in the, in the wide shot or the medium shot, it’s just, he’s got blood all over his hand. Yeah. From what I saw, it looks like half his hand should be gone. 

Craig: Yeah, exactly. The, but as I was. You know, scratching my head about whether or not he was somehow influenced to do that.

I thought, it doesn’t matter because that was bound to happen either way. Right. He was, he was using that circular saw on a surface that wasn’t giving. The tiniest, tiniest of slips would send that thing flying. And you would certainly cut your hand off. Yes, 

Todd: exactly. 

Craig: Well, I’m not, you know, Gosh, craftsmen, but most of my friends were theater majors, and so they all had to take stagecraft and the most important thing in building stagecraft or otherwise is safety.

And that, it was just stupid.

You’re gonna 

Todd: cut a hand off, and he did. We missed one bit that I, that I wanted to mention. Caroline wakes up. Okay, this is before. Everything gets wired up and Felicia dies and Ray cuts his hand, I think. Or maybe it’s after he cuts his hand, but it’s before she dies and before the other kid, the other woman, Mary, sits up.

CJ notices that Mary’s body is gone somewhere. Carolyn wakes up and sees that shimmering figure gesturing at a cross by the fireplace. And he just beckons her to one room and into another room and she follows him into this giant room. Where all of the others are creepily just sort of standing around Mary like they moved her body there And now they’re just looking down at it.

And then I have no idea what was happening in this scene Yeah, what was this all about? CJ spins around and suddenly he’s very hairy He’s got bushy eyebrows and maybe his beard is bigger or something. He looks like the guy from Witch Board 

Craig: Yes, the guy at the end of Witch Board. 

Todd: Dude, that was exactly what I was thinking She holds up the cross and you can’t do this Well, do what?

What were they doing? I have no idea. Which blows them all back and away across the floor. And then, she’s like, Fight back! Fight back! And he grabs her, and is like, choking her or something, and she’s struggling to get out, and pulls him in front of a mirror, and then he looks in the mirror and gets freaked out, and then the mirror breaks.

And then, they’re back by the fire, calmly chatting again. Was that a vision? I have no idea. Yeah, that was bizarre. 

Craig: No, I, that, that reminded me of Gothic. Oh yeah, we’re, the whole 

Todd: movie is just visions, really. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. So the Vargas ghost appears to Carolyn and points it across and then they disappear.

Carolyn says to CJ, you’re the one he wants. There has to be a key to this prison so they go to the diary and in the diary now It says something like there’s an angel with a key and a chain and he laid his hand on the devil and bound him for a Thousand years. I know. 

Todd: And I’m like, oh my god, is this really, are we dealing with actual Satan here?

Is that what this is 

Craig: gonna be? God at some point Ray, Ray somehow gets out like there’s a broken window or something and he gets out But then he just gets That was so weird. Outdoors. It was weird. He runs, 

Todd: he breaks through the window, he runs out, he’s like, I’m free, I’m free! And he wanders into the middle of that, instead of to the car or anywhere else, he wanders into the middle of that thing and then it’s like quicksand.

Again, reminded me of Nancy trying to get away from Freddy on the staircase. I don’t know. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Just, he starts falling into goop and then it just takes him down until he’s gone. So it’s quicksand in the yard now. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And then the window seals itself back up again. Oh man. 

Craig: And that’s when Caroline literally gets possessed.

Like the Vargas ghost sits down in her lap, I feel like, all Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Swayze style, and like takes her over and. says that he sacrificed the caretaker to scare them away. So he was the one that killed the caretaker. That was very nice. But then he says, you released the evil when you opened that door.

So you have to return the beast to the pit and then never disturb this place again. And so they try to go to the basement, but like the wind tries to keep them out and they try to close the pit door, but there’s more wind. And then she just falls in. I was like, guys. Be careful. 

Todd: I honestly wasn’t expecting that.

I mean falling in the big smoking pit that I figured led to hell like, oh, okay This is going somewhere. And he jumps in after her. It’s like, oh. I 

Craig: know and I was, I was, you know, Like, I don’t know if he could see her fine, but if that were me and that was like a pit to hell I’d be like, I guess she’s gone.

Sorry. I’ll still try to seal the door. Yeah, I’ll do my best! But he jumps in too, and somehow they lost the cross, and then He walks into a big white stone room. I read that there was originally a different ending, or they had planned a different ending, but the studio Wanted the protagonists to literally meet the devil at the end.

So CJ walks into this giant cavernous white room and meets the devil. 

Todd: I know. 

Craig: Oh boy. I was 

Todd: rolling my eyes. And the devil could not be more hammily acted by Victor Buono, who is a hammy actor anyway. We’ve been in a million things, television, movies. I was a big fan of the Batman, the 60s version of Batman that played in reruns.

And he was the King Tut character in that, but he always played these kind of characters. But this guy’s been in Planet of the Apes and what happened to Baby Jane. 

Craig: Yeah, I remember him from that, exactly. He was Jane’s smarmy a companyist that she hired out of the newspaper who kept assuring her that, you know, they were going to be, she was going to be famous again.

It was really, if I remember correctly, it was really just kind of out of his morbid, like he was just taking advantage of her, but I definitely remember him from that, but he’s just goofy. And I just don’t understand the problem that I have with it is just, it doesn’t fit tonally with the rest of the movie.

No. All of a sudden. It kind of feels like a Mel Brooks comedy. And I actually would find that hilarious if it were kind of a horror comedy and then you get to the end and the devil’s just kind of this goofy guy who is just messing with you and laughing at you from afar. But here it just, it just seems stupid.

Clip: What is it 

Craig: you 

Clip: want from me? My 

Craig: accounts. 

Clip: I fill my accounts. You have a will, Mr. Arnold. Strong, sometimes misdirected, but a will. So you have some value, even among your kind. By the way, where is that piece of holy excrement? Your cross. It’s a thing of God. How could it come here? Don’t question me. I have little enough patience.

Craig: One of the things that I did like, I don’t know, he starts, like, taunting CJ and telling him it’s all his fault, and One of the things that I did like about this scene is that the devil’s look, like, he just, he looks a little bit jovial at first, But his look becomes more sinister. Yeah. They do more sinister makeup on him.

Cut away in more makeup and cut away in more makeup. Over the brief three or four minutes, That he’s in the movie because this is at the very end like I’m watching this and all this is happening And there’s like five minutes Yeah And the devil wants the cross and he’s kind of fighting with CJ and then out of nowhere Carolyn shows up and stabs the devil with the cross.

Yes, and they run away. They run away But she takes after she stabs him I guess she pulls it back out of him and takes it and so they get out and they seal the door up Again with the cross and as soon as the door is sealed the house Opens back up. The doors fly open, the, the bars fly up, the, you know, the shades open.

And again, like I said, just like at the end of Troll, they emerge from the building, into the sunrise, they embrace. They get into their car to drive away. Ghost Vargas waves at them from the window. Yes. The end. Oh god. 

Todd: Oh 

Craig: god, this 

Todd: movie. 

Craig: Ha 

Todd: ha ha ha ha. I don’t know. I mean, that’s the problem. They should not have had to meet the devil.

That was a producer mistake. I just feel like the devil can do anything. If the cross is lost, the cross is lost. Just, when you introduce the devil as your protagonist, physically in front of you, you don’t escape that, you know? You don’t sneak around behind him and grab the cross when he’s not looking and stab him.

He doesn’t even need the frickin cross. Like, why, just go. The door’s open, it’s been open for the duration of the movie. He could have just left. He didn’t need to hang out down there any longer. I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t really get it. It’s dumb. 

Craig: Initially it was just supposed to be some demonic force.

And I think that that would be better because this is, you know, silly, but there’s that old phrase. Which is better, the devil you know or the devil you don’t know. If you’re gonna go with the devil you know, in a horror movie, it better be really good. And there are times that I’ve seen that, like, the one that always pops to mind, to me, is, and I don’t know if this is technically supposed to be Satan, but certainly a devilish figure, but Tim Curry in Legend.

Right. If you, if you’re gonna go, Devil go, devil, 

Todd: that’s badass. 

Craig: I think I’ve seen other effective ones too, but I think that I would be more frightened by something unknown, something original, or with its own lore, whether it be actual lore or just movie lore. I think that would be scary. There’s somebody in the credits on IMDB credited as the demon.

I don’t have any idea who or what that was. 

Todd: No. I don’t either. I just, uh, what, really, like, in the 1800s, this guy named Vargas built a giant house and managed to seal the devil in the basement, just with a little cross that could be dug up, and then he gets unleashed, and all he does is mess around with the people in the house for a while, but then he gets bested, and this Dinky little cross like closes the seal and now we’re without the devil for a while for 

Craig: another thousand years There’s there’s a whole thing What’s her name Caroline reads something about how?

Somebody you know trapped him for a thousand years, but when the thousand years comes he’ll be back You know, we talked about this in such a disjointed way. I’m afraid this is going to be really boring. Right. As I really kind of found the movie, I, when you suggested it, I was pleased to see that it was only an hour and 24 minutes long.

And I can’t say that it felt that long. Oftentimes I say, Oh my gosh, this hour and a half movie felt like three hours. This wasn’t like that. It didn’t feel super long. I just wasn’t particularly interested. No. And so. I just kind of kept wishing it was over. Once again, I took a break in the middle and took like a two hour nap and then I got back up and finished it.

I didn’t hate it, but I wouldn’t recommend searching it out. You can find something better. 

Todd: Yeah, I mean, it’s not terrible. We’ve seen Movies. And we’ve seen a lot of movies like this. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with doing a Haunted House movie. They’ve all got the same tropes and things like that. And, all right, you want to throw the devil in there?

Fine. It was just, it was just so disjointed and unfocused and ultimately not satisfying. And you could kind of tell it wasn’t going to be. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd: About halfway through just because it was so derivative and so eye rolling. That I can’t imagine anyone being terribly emotionally invested in it and therefore very freaked out by it.

Craig: Plus, it’s not very scary. No. It’s not very funny. There are moments, like that, the earthquake moment, that border on so bad it’s funny, but that one scene is not enough to save it. 

Todd: Well, I say, don’t watch this, watch this, like, Don’t watch this movie. You want to see a highly entertaining Haunted House movie from around the same time period.

See, Amityville 2, The Possession, way better vibes and feel and way more fun. And Raymond from this movie was Father Tom in that film. 

Craig: Well, and I feel like, I mean, it’s been, it’s been so long since we talked about it, and I haven’t watched it since, but if you’re looking for like a funny kind of thing.

Bloodbath at the house of death. Oh yeah. 

Todd: That’s total comedy. 

Craig: That was really goofy and fun and funny and, and kind of, kind of with the same vibe, but it leans into the humor. And I enjoyed that movie. I had a good time with that movie. This one. I, uh, I could have passed. Yeah. I, I would, I would, I, I don’t feel more complete having seen it.

I it’s, it’s completely unmemorable. Five days from now, I’ll remember nothing about it. 

Todd: Right. Of course. We’ll be comparing other movies to it. It’ll be a benchmark for us for a while and not in a good way. I’m glad we watched it, though, because I’ve been intensely curious about it for decades, so, um, I’m glad we finally got to see it.

Kind of sad to see how disappointing it is, but not altogether surprised, either. Heh heh heh heh. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us online just by googling Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast. Let us know what Haunted House movies you love and you’d like to see us, uh, review.

Uh, you can find us at any one of our places online, uh ChainsawHorror. com, Facebook, Twitter. Leave us a review wherever you listen to our podcast. That’s one of the best things you can do to help spread the word. 

Craig: You should check out the new design at ChainsawHorror. com because Todd’s been working really hard on it, and it’s really cool.

Oh, thanks, 

Todd: Greg. We’ve got some nice little cartoonish representations of us that may or may not be accurate. I love it. You gave me way more hair, and I love it. Sometimes I like cartoon me a lot better than me. Our patrons know for sure, though, we go behind the scenes with them. We do video chats with them.

We got a Christopher Pike book club still going strong, but we do a lot of fun things for our patrons. And if that is something that you’re interested in being a part of. Patreon. com slash Chainsaw Podcast, just five bucks a month gets you access to minisodes and all the fun stuff that happens behind the scenes over there.

Until next time, I’m Todd, and I’m Craig, with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

After a bit of a hiatus, we are back with an entertaining episode about a notoriously ridiculous Italian grindhouse horror classic, Burial Ground. Touted by many as a “solid zombie movie” and reminiscent of Fulci’s far-better Zombi 2, we found it…well, a little dull and tedious. With one very notable exception…

Burial Ground (1981)

Episode 395, 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: Well, coming fresh off of Werewolf Month, uh, decided to just do something totally random that had been on my list for quite a long time. Today, we’re doing one of Craig’s favorite genres. Old 1970s, early 1980s Italian horror films.

This one is Burial Ground, otherwise known as the Knights of Terror, Le Notti Del Terrore. I don’t know. My Italian’s probably sucks.  

Craig: I alreadyneed you to explain something to me. Why is it called Burial Ground when that’s not the name of the movie? It was retitled. The name of the 

Todd: movie. Is the Nights of Terror.

Well, it was retitled. You know how these things go. It’s retitled when it gets put in like the American market or on video or things like that. Often they’re too lazy to even change the title card in the movie. You remember that one? What was that one we did that was the mutilator, but the original title was Fall Break?

I don’t know. We were super confused. If you see it on the shelves in the horror section, which I did a lot, it was called Burial Ground. And had this weird, almost dolly esque picture of a skull. It’s a little silvery, but not also dripping and kind of on a desert wasteland. I don’t know. It’s all very weird.

Doesn’t look at all like the movie. But yeah, I think Burial Ground is not a bad name for this. Probably a little more interesting than The Knights of Terror. The director is Andrea Bianchi. He died in 2013. Okay, so he lived to the ripe old age of 88. And he mostly was known for doing giallos, uh, and then just like most of the giallo people dipped into, like, gore, horror every now and then.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I sat down and watched, uh, his 1975 film, Strip nude for your killer, which, title alone. Sexy. Yeah. That was another one I had seen on lists that, um, you know, were like, yeah, some giallos you need to see. And, uh, for a giallo, it wasn’t, it wasn’t awful, it wasn’t super great, but anyway, it’s been on my list for that reason.

It’s been on a lot of lists. People say it’s a fun zombie movie. That’s got everything you expect in a zombie movie. Lots of, lots of old, decrepit zombies lumbering about. Lots of gore, lots of kills, and boobs. So, uh, I went into it with that expectation, and a number of the reviews I had read were quite positive.

Clip: Then, 

Todd: after watching the movie, I read more and more reviews, and I saw they were very across the board. Like, I mean, it’s almost polarizing what people, either you love this movie and you think it’s great, For whatever reason, or you’re like, this is just, like, boring, dumb trash, so. I’m not sure which side of the fence you’ll fall on, we’ll find that out, but I assume you’ve never seen this before.

Yeah, of course not. Never heard of it. Even the cover art didn’t strike you from the 

Craig: I don’t know, I don’t even remember what the cover art was. Oh, okay. But I didn’t know. I just want to say off the bat that this movie is an hour and 25 minutes long. I aged 40 years

Watching this movie I swear to god. I was like just hitting the touch pad on my Laptop every 30 seconds and every 30 seconds like They’re still 40 minutes left and then, uh, 30 seconds later. Oh, 

Clip: there’s still 39 minutes 

Todd: left. Well, it does kind of plod along at the pace of a zombie and not the 28 days later zombies we’re talking the original George Romero zombies.

Uh, maybe even slower, honestly. Yeah. I felt like, you know, if I were to sum up this movie, it felt like. a whole bunch of b roll That was cobbled together And then some actors were brought in to flesh out the bare minimum of what you could possibly consider a story I have no 

Craig: idea how this movie was originally presented because all of the dialogue is clearly Adr.

Oh, yeah, so I couldn’t tell it almost Looked to me like they just shot footage without the actors talking at all. Uh, and then they just laid dialogue over it.

I don’t think I have no, I don’t think that these actors had any idea what they were going to be saying. saying in these scenes, I think they were just told to like, maybe move their mouths a little bit, but it didn’t even matter because everything was shot in such tight closeup that you could only see their eyes for the most of the time.

So you didn’t even see their mouths moving. So it didn’t matter, but there was all this ADR laid over it and the dialogue was so close. That’s stupid. 

Todd: I know. You would have to imagine that a person, even if English isn’t their first language, like if a person actually was given these lines to read on set, they would have been like, nah, I’m not doing that, come on, we’re going to massage this a little bit.

Just film me with my mouth closed. It’s a good strategy, it’s a good strategy for keeping your options open, just maybe I wouldn’t have chosen these particular options at the end of the day. Oh man, I can’t wait to talk about some of this dialogue. It is crazy. 

Craig: It, it, I mean, it worked, like. Here’s the thing.

Here’s the thing. I went to IMDB not to read the trivia because I, I typically don’t like to read trivia until after, like I want to be surprised by things. Right. But I do sometimes go and read reviews. And the, like, viewer reviews are like, This movie is fantastic, like, it is the best, so bad it’s good movie, like, Uh, it’s awful, but it’s great.

Every review that I read was like eight out of ten, nine out of ten, 10 out of 10, like great reviews. And I texted you and I’m like, Ooh, I’m excited.

Then I started watching it and I’m like, this. As I was watching it, I was thinking I want to live in the world where this is really funny and It’s it’s it’s hilarious and I’m enjoying watching it. I tried to Make a lot of connections to troll 2 because it kind of looks like that It kind of looks like troll 2.

Oh the makeup effects a little bit. Yeah Oh the the costuming the makeup effects Not good, but on I mean they they made a whole documentary about it You know the best worst movie or whatever, which is a great movie if you haven’t Yeah. If you, if you haven’t seen that documentary, the best worst movie, you should watch it.

Yeah. It’s great. It’s great. And, and troll two really is a great bad movie. It’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, but because it’s so bad, it’s hilarious. Yeah. This just didn’t quite get there for me. Like I wanted it to be that, and there were elements of it that were like that, but overall I was like, holy shit, 

Todd: please let this be over.

I think what you like about Troll 2 and what most because it’s campy, right? It’s super campy. This doesn’t really have camp. It’s just Bad. I think if I had been watching this with my friends, uh, we would have been rolling on the floor. I think I tr I think we would have I 

Craig: tried to imagine I tried to imagine a Scenario in which I would enjoy this and I couldn’t.

The only scenario Oh my god, this is going way back into our roots when I used to say this all the time. Put it on a screen, a big screen, and At a Halloween party with no volume at all. Just this movie on a screen, no volume at all. Great, great ambiance for a Halloween party. But other than that, no. 

Todd: This movie is a hundred percent the movie that’s showing on a television screen in another horror movie.

Yes. Like the scene where people are watching a horror movie. This is the kind of movie. That is there. Either it’s a movie like this, or it’s a movie that they’ve shot to look like this so it seems silly. Yes. And for that, you know, it’s kind of fun. I mean, I had fun at moments, but like you, I was kind of waiting for it to be over.

I mean, look, we might as well just start talking about it, like, in detail. Because there’s some details I definitely want to hit. Totally, however, like, 

Craig: I have a page full of notes. I always take notes on the plot. But, there is no sense in trying to talk about the plot of this. There’s no plot. Zombies.

Zombies attack, 

Clip: some people, 

Craig: that’s all. Yeah, the end. All right. Okay, great. So I totally agree. There are things that are very much worthy of talking about here, but if we try to get into the plot, okay, so basic setup in the beginning, some scientist or professor or something is like at an archeological did either Jesus.

Or a lost member of ZZ Top. I figured he’s one of the two. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: He’s at an archaeological dig and he, like, moves some rocks, which sets something into motion, which wakes up zombies. Yeah. Fine. Then, a bunch of assholes show up at, like, a mansion to hang out, and it’s like three couples, and then they just start getting picked off one by one by zombies randomly.

That’s it. That’s the plot. So Yeah. There are fun things to talk about. I’m excited to talk about some things, but that is the plot. Yeah, that’s it. 

Todd: Well, that’s, I mean, to be fair, that’s the plot of almost every zombie movie we say, with a couple small details changed. So In that regard, it’s not all that different.

But, uh, the fact that it is so bare bones, and you’re not gonna learn anything about, well, you learn a couple things about a couple of these characters. But other than that, nobody is of consequence. I can’t wait till we get to it. But anyway, I love You know what I’m talking about. I know what you’re 

Craig: talking 

Todd: about.

Craig: It was the one thing, like halfway through the movie, I went into the trivia because I was so And there was, like, one, like, spoiler trivia. I’m like, I don’t give a f k. Like, I don’t care how this movie is going to end. I don’t care if anything gets spoiled. And then I read that one spoiler thing and I’m like, Oh, well I have to at least watch to see that.

Todd: Wouldn’t it have been more fun if you had been totally surprised? That would have been kind of I don’t know. Oh, who knows. You might have been looking away by that point, who knows. Probably. I love, I love that he, this guy, who, you know, like you said, it’s just his standard setup. We don’t know what he’s discovered.

It doesn’t matter what he’s discovered. All he does is say, 

Clip: I’m the only one who knows the secret. It’s incredible. Incredible. Yet it’s 

Todd: true. It must be. And that’s it. And then, when he goes into the tomb to hack away at a rock or whatever, which apparently somehow, for some reason, wakes up the zombie.

That’s literally all he does. Is Hakaway to rock. The zombies are coming at him and he goes, 

Clip: No, no! Stand back! I’m your friend! No! No! 

Todd: Oh my god. I kind of about fell out of my chair on that one. But yeah, the zombies are kind of crusty. I mean, I did and I didn’t like the zombie makeup. We’ve obviously seen way better zombie makeup.

This gets compared a lot to Fulchies. Zombie 2. Zombie 2. And sometimes it’s been titled Zombie 3. I think when it was released in Italy, you know, some distributors titled it Zombie 3. Because you can do that. You can title your movie whatever you want. There’s no copyright on titles. So a lot of these Italian movies would try to pass themselves off as sequels to more popular movies long after the release date, just by changing the title.

But Fulcis are cool because they were crusty, right? They came out of the ground and they felt like those old school voodoo zombies that have been in the dirt for a while. They don’t have, like, rotting flesh hanging off of them, they’re just, like, mummified, you know? And I really liked that about that movie.

And I felt that this movie, most of the way, took a similar tone. Right down to the throwing maggots on them very, very frequently. You see a lot of close ups on their faces. But the Fulci makeup was done way better. This looks like everyone’s kind of wearing masks. You can even see, like, like human eyes in some of them.

Like, like they’re wearing a Halloween mask. Like, you know, you would paint around your eye black, so that it looks like it’s an eye socket, but really there’s an eye in there. Even some close ups on some of them, you could see, like, their lips. Ha ha! Behind the teeth. And I read in the trivia that some of these masks were just modified versions of very well known masks.

Like, there’s an actual Boris Karloff Frankenstein mask. Where once I read it, I was like, oh yeah, no, no duh. Like, one of those mummies looks totally like Frankenstein with just some hair, and I think they threw a couple extra teeth in there. So, I mean, I, I enjoyed the attempt at making these scary zombies, but ultimately I couldn’t get past feeling like these were guys walking around with masks on.

They moved a bit like that too. Yeah. Especially when they started picking up tools and using them, and organizing themselves. Behind battering rams to, uh, batter the door down. 

Craig: What I had in my notes when the zombies first appeared is that I I The design is okay. I I I said it’s just guys in masks and costumes.

My problem with it is Okay, so, if this were a stage show, and the zombies didn’t need to talk at all, I would think they’d look fantastic. But, it’s not on stage. It’s close up, and you can clearly see that they are just in masks that do not because they don’t talk. So they’re just full head masks. And then they’re basically just dressed in like burlap sacks.

Like that’s not even fair 

Todd: to say all the same costume 

Craig: and they walk with their arms outstretched like zombies, like cartoon zombies. Yeah, like cartoon zombies, like Scooby Doo zombies, like arms outstretched, fingers dangling at the ends of their 

Clip: Yeah. For 

Craig: the most part. I’m doing it. Can you see it? Can you see what I’m 

Todd: doing?

We all know this one. It’s, it’s just Right, right. It’s the standard mummy pose as well. Yeah. Uh huh. And it’s 

Craig: fine. But it’s fine. But they, like, they don’t move fast. At some point in the movie, one of the characters is like, well, we can just run past them because they’re not fast 

Todd: anyway. One of the characters says, after they’ve kind of fended themselves, uh, they, they end up locked in the house, right?

And back in this big mansion and they board up a couple of windows. And they fended off a few zombies. A couple of them have been attacked through windows or whatever, but they seem fairly safe in there. But they feel like after the battering ram, they’re going to be overtaken. One of the characters says, 

Clip: Let them come in.

Maybe it’s something in the house they want, not us. I’ve got an idea. What? Well, let them inside. We can keep out of their reach. They’re all so slow. Oh my god. 

Craig: I wrote that down too. So dumb. And you, and one would think that that would be the case. And yet 

Todd: they keep getting attacked. Especially outside, Jesus Christ.

I, I, 

Craig: I, I, I have to go back in the earlier movie to kind of set things up because there are some things that I want to talk about that need set up. Okay, so after we see this one guy. 

Todd: You realize we’re gonna end up going through the plot. You realize it’s just gonna happen. I 

Craig: don’t want, no, that’s not. But you’re gonna have to.

We cannot, because it’s so boring. Oh, it is boring. It’s so boring. Yeah. Um, okay, so, then, these three couples, I wrote down a ton of names, it doesn’t matter, they’re just these three couples, like, middle aged, I don’t know. I say middle aged. They’re probably like in their thirties. Meanwhile, I’m 45 and ancient, but they all show up.

Uh, and I have in all caps, it’s all ADR. Oh my God. That drove me nuts too. I understand. I understand that these Italian. Films were made and they had every intention of dubbing them and that’s fine, but it still gets on 

Todd: my nerves. Well, this is one of the poorer dubbing jobs. I mean, we’ve seen way better dubbing jobs.

This one’s horrible. 

Craig: Oh my God. Like I said earlier, you see them talking sometimes, but for the most part, they’re just like filmed from the nose up or they’re not on camera at all. And you just hear. Dialogue, it honestly feels like somebody gave somebody the print of this movie and said, I’m not going to tell you what it’s about.

Just film some dialogue over it.

Todd: You might not be wrong, actually. 

Craig: And there’s, there’s so much like, ah, get it. 

Todd: Like it’s. It’s insane. It’s crazy. Well there has to be to fill all that space. 

Craig: Oh 

Todd: my god. One zombie attack can take ten minutes and it’s not an exciting ten minutes. 

Craig: Oh, it’s so long. No, not at all. There are three couples, they have giant palatial bedrooms in this mansion, and one of the couples has A son named Michael, who is creepy as and 

Todd: as far as I’m concerned, the star of this movie, 

Craig: the star of this movie, the only reason to watch this movie because this child.

is played by a grown dwarf man. Like he’s a little person. He was 

Todd: 32 

Craig: or so when he did this. He’s credited on IMDb as a dwarf. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: The, the verbiage, the verbiage is controversial, but that’s what he has chosen for, I guess. I mean, he’s dead, so I don’t know. 

Todd: He’s a diminutive person. Yes. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And, and he’s playing a child and to fantastic effect, because he is so creepy because you can tell, like, this is not a child.

Like you can just tell by looking at him, like he has grown man hands, but they dress him like a child and they treat him like a child the whole time. And they had to do that. They had to. You cast an adult man to get past, wherever they were, in Italy or wherever, the legalities of casting children in violent or sexual scenarios.

Right. And thank God,

Oh, it’s so silly. I mean, that’s, I, I, I’m not going to jump to the end. I’m not going to jump to the cum shot of the movie. Do not. 

Todd: Just, just as we were watching the film to get to this scene, you have to go through the podcast to hear what we’re talking about. 

Craig: Exactly. Okay. So then there’s one guy who has a mustache, who I will henceforth refer to as mustache, he, he and his girlfriend, she finds some lingerie, like in a closet and puts it on and.

And he says, you know, just like a little whore, but I like that. 

Clip: What 

Craig: is this? And then, and then composite of everybody. Yeah, just everybody, everybody’s. Everybody’s banging and somebody you don’t know who is snooping watching all these people bang. And then it turns out, I guess that it’s the kid and he walks in on his mom and her boyfriend, I guess, banging and she jumps off her boyfriend’s dick and Stands there in front of him.

And I swear to God, I wish I could show it in my notes. I have. She only covers her puss, not her boobs.

And in the moment I was like, well, they’re in Europe. They don’t really care about boobs. They’re Europeans. But I feel like maybe that’s important later. Oh my god. Those are the important plot points that I have. 

Todd: This is very clever foreshadowing that the director has slipped in here. You’re right, that’s exactly what this is.

Oh my god. That’s 

Craig: about it. I mean, those are the important plot points that I have. 

Todd: I, you know. Then there’s Joan. There’s Joan and uh, and uh, Or is it Janet and Mark? Janet. Yeah. Is freaking out about nothing. I believe something terrible is going to happen, Mark. And so Mark calms down his hysterical woman, who becomes the stereotypical hysterical woman throughout the entire movie.

Yeah, for the whole thing. Yep. And then, like you said, the zombies in the crypt, they’re slowly making their way out of the catacombs right now. It switches between day and night so frequently, I couldn’t tell whether it was supposed to be Day for night in some outside shots or whether it was really nighttime or whether it was really day, 

Craig: it was, it was giving me shades of things.

It was giving me shades of Gothic in the way that they shot the house. Um, like, like shooting up, uh, like ceilings, balconies and stuff. Yeah, right. Um, and it was also giving me shades of. Well, probably zombie too. Yeah, that’s that’s what I’m thinking of. Yeah, like the the zombies I mean, they just come out of nowhere basically, but at some point I feel like it’s when mark and janet are humping God, there’s so much humping in this movie.

They’re doing it outside in the garden All their clothes on, but he is humping her leg, her leg. Oh God. Oh my God. It was crazy. But, but one zombie comes up out of the ground and I liked the way it looked. It reminded me of zombie too. It reminded me of thriller, but these. These types of movies posit that you bury people two inches under the ground.

Yeah, just anywhere, like in the 

Todd: garden out back. 

Craig: Their arms, as though they’re laying prostrate, like just rise up out of the ground as though the grass is growing out of their fingers. As far as I know. We bury people down in the ground. I don’t know whatever it doesn’t matter The 

Todd: zombies come out and they chase them around.

One zombie comes out of like a flower box in the garden. I’m pretty sure. Yes. Oh, I think that was supposed to be a crypt. Really? I think. Sitting out there on top in the middle of the garden right by the fountain. Yeah, 

Craig: well and like things are growing out of the top of it like big plants are growing But I think it was supposed to be a crypt I don’t know.

Again, I have so many notes, but honestly, 

Todd: nothing happened. Well, I mean, the creepiest part in the movie for me was when the candle shaped light bulbs start breaking On the candelabra and you get the shot of the butler and his maid Both going back and forth like they’re in a tennis match. That was 

Craig: hilarious 

Todd: It’s left 

Craig: and right as the candles break on the candle.

The butler and the maid were my favorite characters Because They had nothing to do and they acted so scared when those bulbs started exploding and it was, you’re so right, it was like a 10 inch match. It was like you see a light bulb explode and then it goes back to their faces and they’re just looking back and forth.

Oh, it’s hilarious. That was hilarious. They were my favorites.

My, one of my other favorite things was like, once they are like, they know they are being besieged by zombies and there are zombies outside the house, there are zombies all over the place. The servants still continue to serve 

Clip: them 

Craig: like they’re serving them 

Todd: champagne on trays. Yeah. Like with white gloves and everything,

Craig: Yeah, there are zombies. I am no longer your maid go to 

Todd: hell, not the kind of service we require right now. I want you to put up some, some windows. I’m not getting paid 

Craig: enough for this. Thank you very much. 

Todd: I loved this, these sets that these, some of these indoor sets, not the ones that were inside of the, uh, the mansion, which was clearly filmed in some actual mansion somewhere, but.

Like, when they were in these bizarre rooms, like some sculptor’s studio, and then some room that looks like a garage, and then some other room that’s quite empty, I’m pretty sure they were all the same room. That was just lightly decorated, like, the decoration of the set just changed slightly between the scenes.

And this woman is practicing shooting a gun, indoors! In this sculptor’s studio. When Michael comes in and yells, MAMA! And he runs over and kisses her hand, And I’m like, what? He like, gives her this hug, and she gives him this embrace, it’s a little weird. That was my first moment where I was like, something is either hilariously inept, or about the acting here, or they’re trying to allude to something very weird between Michael and his mother.

Craig: Which they are, and at that point, it’s uncertain. But, again, like, Mark and Janet are humping, they’re still humping, on the ground. And then A zombie shows up and I swear to God, the dialogue, 

Clip: oh, mark, what is it? 

Craig: I don’t know. 

Clip: God adorable. Whatever it is, it’s not human. It’s a walking car. Oh, terrified. Mark.

Come on, 

Craig: let’s get out of here. Now! 

Clip: Come on! 

Craig: And then they run, and again, that’s another reason why this movie is just so dumb, because somebody even calls it out in the movie. Just run away from them, it’s not that big a deal. And up until the end, they keep just putting themselves in confined spaces where the zombies like, just go out into the woods and run until you can’t run anymore!

They can’t chase you! 

Todd: You can walk away from these zombies. You don’t even need to run. They have these stare downs while the zombie slowly stands up. That one I think you’re talking about is where they just sit on the ground watching while the zombie slowly stands up and then just kind of stands there and looks at them.

Yeah, almost like it’s a puppy. It’s so bizarre. Yeah, and they are still acting terrified and screaming and yelling, but they’re making no move to run off until some other zombie comes and attacks her from behind. Then they run off. And then it’s like, just a whole bunch of b roll, it’s just close up shots of zombies, zombies popping out from behind bushes, zombies walking between the trees, sometimes wide shots, sometimes medium shots, sometimes extreme close ups, sometimes there’s one coming out of the ground, sometimes there’s not, just cuts.

In between shots of the other people standing around looking scared and occasionally running from one spot to another in this pretty open area where they could really go anywhere they wanted. 

Craig: Anywhere! At one point the zombies come across I don’t know, uh, the weird kid and his mom and the mom’s husband and the husband tries to shoot the zombies and we get like 20 shots of these zombies getting shot and nothing happening and then they all just converge around him and that’s typically what happens when anybody dies like it’s just a bunch of zombies Surround them and grab them and start disemboweling them.

Now, as far as special effects goes, the practical effects are not bad. When they were disemboweling people, it looked okay. 

Todd: I mean, it’s like animal parts and red paint or something. Exactly. I 

Craig: feel like they were pulling out real livers and stuff. It looked fine, but it didn’t make any sense that these people would just stand there while they were converged upon.

Like, just move! Just leave! And a couple of them get eaten. George, the stepdad of weirdo Michael, gets eaten. Meanwhile, everybody else is still like, making out. 

Todd: How about Janet getting caught in a random bear trap in the garden? Oh my god. Of this, 

Craig: of this, of this. Right before that in my notes I have in all caps.

Oh my god, there is still an hour left This is only an hour and 25 minute movie and I surely thought it was almost over and it only been 25 minutes Yeah, and she’s caught in a bear trap for far too long Like, oh my god, like, the zombies are, you know, coming on him, he’s trying to get her out. Meanwhile, he is pulling the bear trap completely open, and she’s just sitting there like, Pull your goddamn foot out!

Todd: What is wrong with you? And then later, when she ends up in the house and they take a look at her wound, She says, oh, your ankle’s really bruised. Unless your ankle was in a bear trap, it should be broken. I don’t understand this. 

Craig: She can still run around mostly, except at one point, she says, oh, it hurts so bad, it hurts so bad, just let me die, just let me die.

What is wrong with you? Just let, my ankle hurts, just let me die. I would let her die. 

Todd: Her boyfriend just leaves her there in the bear trap to try to fend off the zombies. I don’t know where he got it from, but somehow he had a pitchfork in his hand, which he just mostly shakes at the zombies menacingly until a one eyed zombie basically presses himself up against it.

And I thought he was going to walk into it. I thought we were going to get a cool special effect. I did too. No, he just takes it away and tosses it aside while Mark stands there patiently waiting for the zombie to get to him. This is why it’s so boring, is because all these scenes are so long and they have no logic to them.

So, there’s no tension here. I didn’t feel any tension, I was just laughing. Again, if I had been with friends, we would have been laughing through this whole thing. When you’re watching it by yourself, It’s a different story, I think. 

Craig: No, it’s terrible. Should we get to the good shit? I feel like the good shit is at some point Michael and his mom are in the garage?

Michael and his mom. What? I don’t hear This came out of nowhere, and to be very honest I went ahead and read the spoilers because I didn’t care, but this scene comes out of nowhere! Oh, are you gonna jump to this already? I don’t 

Todd: know. I don’t know, are we? Like, is Just a minute. Is there more? Before we get to that, I want to point out a couple more things, because it’s like, we get the couples, and then Michael and his mom are the couple, right?

Even though I think the father is still alive right now. No, he’s dead. Are you sure? Wasn’t he the bearded one? Yeah, I think he was the first one that got killed. Oh, okay. I think. 

Craig: I don’t 

Todd: know. I don’t know. So they’re the couple. You know, it’s just couples, couples, couples, couples, and they’re the couple.

They’re in like a garage or a storage shed or something. And a zombie is again, slow walking towards them, and they’re just standing there. And he, Michael goes, Mama, we can set it on fire! Oh my god. So. She very deliberately and slowly picks up, like, a pen. Paint can or paint thinner. I don’t know what it was some chemical.

I have no idea It’s green goo in a bucket that is sitting there are two of these buckets that are expressly set up for this purpose Just sitting there for no reason that she kind of tosses on the zombie and then he has a box of matches and she goes Back and she gets a match from him. Then she runs up to the zombie and sticks the match on him Bursts into flames and so, you know, you get your cool You You know, low budget, uh, effect.

It’s always awesome to see a person on fire, cause you know, the stunt is very dangerous. So you got the zombie on fire who then collapses in front of him. Another zombie walks in after and she does exactly the same. 

Craig: Because Michael says, do the same thing to him. Yes, 

Clip: so she 

Todd: does. Oh my God. It’s it really, it’s like watching the exact same scene play out twice back to back.

It’s just as slow and deliberately the second time with no change as it did the first time. I mean, a lot of this does feel like they’re trying to chew through time. Honestly, 

Craig: um, the maid gets killed. The zombies are the maid. Getting killed was cool, like surrounding the castle. I 

Todd: liked the ma. Okay, let me put it this way.

I have a, I have a note in here. This is 40 minutes in where they all end up inside the, the mansion. And at this point it felt like it was still day, but somebody turns to the maid and, and asks her to go get something. So the maid lights a candle and starts to walk through the now dark hallways of the house.

And so, at some point here, it became night, quickly. And so now we have the standard person walking slowly through the dark hallways of the house with nothing but a candle to light her path. She ends up at a window, and she leans out the window. And one of the zombie has throwing daggers? Is that it? I guess.

It’s like he throws a dagger at her, which impales her hand, which is sticking out on the sill. Impales her hand on the sill. Which makes her immobile, so she can’t move. Apparently she also can’t pull her head back inside. Because down from below, the zombies who have tools now, this scythe, I mean, I thought it was almost comical the way this sickle or scythe or whatever you call it, you know, the thing that death carries around.

Slowly comes up and over onto her neck and kind of saws 

Clip: through her neck 

Todd: and takes her head off. The guy runs in, sees her body there, sees her head off, looks down, sees that the zombies all have axes now, and are starting to hack into, uh, the door. So he decides that the best course of action for him right now, for reasons I still don’t understand, is to go ahead and toss her body out the window.

Which he does. But it pivots on that hand! So she’s hanging by that hand, and the zombies pull from below, and it rips through her hand. A totally unnecessary bit of, of violence to an already dead body that Still, I thought it was kind of funny. Ha ha ha ha! Were you not amused by that? I thought that was hilarious.

Why they went through all this trouble to do that thing, I’ll never understand. 

Craig: I don’t know. I felt like it was, they were trying to do stuff with effects, I guess. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand, like, now all of a sudden These zombies are like, knife throwers? Yeah. 

Todd: They’ve got axes. They just walk away too at some point, right?

Like, uh, they decide the axes aren’t working, so then all the zombies turn around and literally just walk away. And when they come back, they have a giant log. That they’re using as a battering ram. Like, heave ho, heave ho. To 

Craig: smash the door down. I know, well, I mean the movie doesn’t make any sense. Like, most of the time they’re just lumbering idiots.

With their arms outstretched. But they can also organize and Use tools. 

Clip: Yeah, it’s stupid. 

Craig: I don’t know. I mean, I keep saying it’s stupid. It’s, it’s not like much different than any other zombie movie. I guess what I read was that, uh, a lot of critics just felt like this was a cheap rip off of zombie two, which we’ve talked about, honestly, I don’t, I don’t remember.

I don’t remember what we said about it. I don’t remember watching it. I don’t remember if I liked it. 

Todd: I think you liked it too. You, uh, we, we both thought it was pretty solid. 

Craig: And they said that this is kind of a cheap ripoff but with like more creative kills I didn’t think the creative kill. I didn’t think the kills in this were particularly creative.

I felt like it was fairly Commonplace as far as these types of movies go. Yeah, I just wish the the only thing you know and and God, I don’t know. I wrote down so many lines, like, They can only be killed by blowing their heads off. How do you 

Todd: know that? I don’t know. But, he goes outside, onto the ledge, with a shotgun, and we get I don’t know, 8, 10, maybe 12 close up shots of zombies heads exploding.

Craig: This happens multiple times. That’s another thing that bothers me is that sometimes, usually, the women are being attacked by zombies and the men will just come in and bash their heads in and they’re dead and they’re fine. Like, it’s like, oh, well. Like, just bash their heads in, it’s not that big a deal.

But I, I, I guess it’s just when they’re overpowered by a lot of them. I don’t know. Or one. Yeah, uh, Mustache’s girlfriend gets grabbed by a zombie through a window and her face gets all cut up. And they do like these practical effects that you see in these Italian, uh, Zombie movies all the time. You know, there are practical effects, and I love practical effects, but they weren’t particularly good.

These are 

Todd: not particularly good in this film. Not at all. I mean, even the close up, the skin looks like clay. It looks cheap. I mean, I applaud them for throwing some gore in and doing something and doing things in close up and trying to make it gross. Most of it just looks really cheap and third tier.

Craig: Yeah, I agree. And that’s in part due to the time and their resources, but I’ve seen better. I know it can be better. Every Fulci 

Todd: movie, I would say, has better effects than this. 

Craig: Yeah. So Mama protects Michael from a zombie and cuts off his head. And somebody says, Good work, everyone. Now let’s get out of here.

Like, these are the lines! But that leads up to the point where for some reason, Mama and Michael are in a room by themselves, like on a settee. Yes. And, uh, And he makes out with her. There’s no other way to put it. Like, I’m okay with the parent kissing their child on the lips. Here’s going to be something controversial.

Alan thinks it’s weird. I kiss my parents on the lips. Uh, I do too. 

Clip: I 

Craig: do too. 

Todd: I kiss my dad goodbye. Just a 

Craig: quick, just a quick, Yeah, just a quick peck on the lips. It’s not like we’re making out, like, I love you. I just gave a quick kiss on the lips. Not a problem, but he like, that’s how it starts. But then he starts making out with her and feeling her up.

He exposes her breasts. Yeah. Which she seems to be perfectly fine with until he starts to go up her. 

Todd: And then she’s like, uh, maybe not. I sort of feel like she’s cool with it until he starts talking. 

Clip: Oh mama, I love you so much. I need to feel you near me. I need to touch you. When I was a baby, you always used to hold me to your breast.

I loved your breasts so much, mama. 

Craig: It’s so gross. I need to feel you near me. I need to touch you. Oh man, 

Todd: it was disgusting. And it’s out of left field. I mean, like I said, They seemed a little weird early on, but I was, I was kind of willing to shock that up to just bad acting and bad staging or stupid lines.

But this, yeah, no, this lays it straight out there. They’ve got a special relationship. Or do they? Maybe he I don’t think they do, I just think he’s a freak. He’s weird and he’s just taking this very seriously. Inopportune moment. 

Craig: Because she slaps him. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Like, ew, no. And she slaps him and he runs away. And then he finds the zombified, one of our characters that we’ve known, who’s gotten killed and is now a zombie.

Leslie. He finds, yeah, Leslie. And, uh, I think that was, uh, Mustache’s girlfriend. Yeah. And. She’s the one who got pulled through the window. Yeah. God. And, like, then. Mark, the young comb over guy, says, Let them come in. That’s right. Maybe they want something in the house, uh, that’s not us. And he’s, and they’re slow anyway.

Oh God. So then, so they, they don’t let them in. They just stand there in front of the door while the zombies batter their way in. And then as soon as the zombies get in, they run away. Yep. And then Mama finds Zombie Leslie eating Michael. Yeah. She kills Leslie by beating her head against the bathtub, and then Leslie bleeds a combination of blood and toothpaste.

I didn’t understand 

Clip: what 

Craig: that 

Clip: was 

Todd: all about. I don’t know what that was supposed to be. I thought it was like oatmeal. I wasn’t sure. She goes back to cry over Michael, holding him close to her breast, just like he asked for. And the camera does this weird thing where it like pans up to Leslie for good measure, like twice, like the same panning thing, the same shot twice.

Oh my God. 

Craig: I just, I feel like there was no script for this movie. They just did things like, because at this point, like they, the, the zombies get in, but the people who are still alive get out and they run to. A monastery. Um, but all the monks are zombies. Like, 

Clip: what, what, 

Craig: what? And so then they’re in this monastery and then they run away from the monastery and then they’re in this weird.

Set which I read has been is just a set that has been used in lots of horror movies And and they’re confronted by the monk zombies and then the Michael zombie shows up this This is the only reason that this movie is notable. Yeah, I think yes And it’s not even worthy of being, it’s dumb. Like this isn’t even a good reason for a movie to be notable.

Michael shows up as a zombie and his mom is like, Oh, Michael, you’ve returned to me. And the zombie walks up to her and like pulls her shirt down. And she’s like, 

Clip: Oh yes darling, just like when you were a baby. Go ahead darling. I know you want to. You used to love it so. 

Craig: And then he eats her boob. That’s the only, that’s the only interesting part of it.

Incestuous Michael and like boob eating zombie Michael is the only interesting thing about this movie. 

Todd: Oh my god, but what a gem it is. I mean, mom’s attitude totally changed.

Go ahead, darling. I know you want to, you still love it so. 

Craig: Oh. Well, and then he starts eating it and she freaks out. Yeah, well, cause he bites it off. Showed him. Gross. And then he’s, yeah. Well, that’s it. Like, most of them, most of them get killed. They’re still just Mark and Janet, I think. And then all of the other characters that we’ve known throughout the movie show up as zombies.

Yeah. And they’re just all, they’re just all converging on Mark and Janet. And it’s obvious that Mark and Janet are going to die too. Yeah. And then some text. That’s like, I don’t know. I didn’t write it down because I was mad. I was so done with this movie. Did you write it down? I didn’t write it down. It was just some prophecy.

Some prophecy like, the dead will walk the earth and blah blah blah. 

Todd: Half the words are misspelled. It’s really kind of funny. That shot though was cool though. That final shot where they freeze framed it with all the hands coming over the girl. Yeah. That might have been the best shot in the movie. It was fine.

Probably because it was the last one. 

Craig: I, I, I read the trip, like, uh, whatever it says about the dead, you know, coming to life or whatever. It says prophecy of the black spider. I read that the black spider was actually a real prophet who very accurately predicted many things, um, like the bombing of the twin towers and many, many other things.

But this was not. One of his prophecies at all. They just made it up, man. No, bro. Look, I know I went in, I went in wanting to like it because I had read, Oh my God, it’s so bad. It’s good. And. I didn’t. And I I really kept trying to put myself like Put yourself in the headspace where you will enjoy this just just enjoy it for being silly and stupid and and I just couldn’t I I I just couldn’t I was I, I was looking at the timestamp every two minutes.

I was counting down by the minute for the last 20 minutes. I was like, Oh my God, there’s still 15 minutes left. Are you kidding me? I couldn’t put myself in the right headspace. I do think that if you just muted it, And put it on in the background, it would be nice ambiance, but beyond 

Todd: that Well, because there’s probably no more zombie movie out there that has more shots of zombies than this one.

I mean, this one is so Every other shot is a shot of a zombie, I think. But they don’t look good. No, they don’t look good. I’m just saying, quantity wise. You know, it’s good background stuff for Halloween, you know, like I said, the movie that’s playing in the background on television and another horror movie is this one right here.

Cause this is zombie, zombie, zombie, zombie, zombie. Uh, I don’t know, man, I felt that it was so bad. It’s good. That didn’t mean that it didn’t get boring in parts, but if you were watching this with friends, you would have a riot and you’d have plenty of time to get up and go to the bathroom or. You know, go to the kitchen and get more drinks.

Yeah, you’re not going to miss anything. Or just, uh, you know, hold a parallel conversation. You know, without missing anything. But, uh, with it playing, I mean, I would, I would have had a ball with this. If, I think you and I probably would have had a ball with this watching it together. Although, once again, a little boring at most of the time.

Really? 

Craig: I wish I had more to say about it. W would I recommend this movie? N no, not really. Like, 

Todd: no, it’s kind of hard for me to recommend too. 

Craig: I, if you’re into those Italian movies, I, I mean, I get it. I get that it is part of a genre that people really enjoy. Well, it’s just not. A genre that I particularly enjoy.

So I don’t feel like my opinion on it should influence people. If this is stuff you like, you and I have different tastes. Yeah. You like this kind of stuff. Usually now the fact that you’re saying maybe this isn’t great. You usually like this type of stuff. I usually don’t so Don’t take my if you’re gonna take anybody’s word for it take yours because You’re more into this stuff.

It’s it’s just not my cup of tea. 

Todd: Yeah, I mean, what can I say? Uh, I I do feel like you would like this movie if you like these kind of movies But it’s not the best of these kind of movies by far It’s not the most exciting of these kind of movies by far. Uh, it’s not even the most adept. It’s just boring.

At a lot of times, and so I, it’s really hard for me to, to recommend it as well, when there’s just so many other great, so bad they’re good, and sometimes just so good they’re good, Italian horror movies out there in the same vein, so. Sure, sure. Yeah, very disappointing considering all the hype it seems to get online.

I don’t know, sometimes, uh, I wonder if, if when we put this up, there’s gonna be vehement Stern messages in the comments. I don’t know. I don’t think many people have seen this movie. Maybe not. Well, you can skip it if you haven’t. Go check out Zombie 2 instead. Yeah. That’s a good alternate. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us online just by searching Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast. Or going straight to ChainsawHorror. com where you can leave us a message, find us on social media, any one of those places. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a review and let us know what you thought of this podcast as well as any other articles.

Um, as long as your review is going to be good. And if it’s not, uh, yeah, keep your opinions to yourself. Keep to yourself! No, seriously, we appreciate any and all feedback, as well as the support of our patrons. Go to patreon. com slash chainsawpodcast and, uh, consider five bucks a month, you will get our complete unedited phone calls.

And let me tell ya, This one would be a doozy if, uh, if you are at all interested in our personal lives, and I don’t know why you would be, but some people are. Finer unedited phone calls, uh, mini sodes that we put out there for our patrons, mini reviews, uh, lots of actually little good, little interesting things we have going on behind the scenes.

Love interacting with those folks. Thank you for your support. That again is at patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We wrap up Werewolf Month with a listener suggestion. 2015’s Howl is kind of like a Train To Busan, but with werewolves in the dead of night in the English countryside. A solid film to end a solid four-week overview of the werewolf genre. Hope you’ve enjoyed Werewolf month, sponsored by Manscaped!

Howl (2015)

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

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, here we go. Wrapping up werewolf month sponsored by Manscaped.

Craig: Thank you, Manscaped.

Todd: It was actually recently that I realized that our month would go on for five weeks instead of four. So we had done our four episodes.

Then, we had some room to take a request. I believe on Facebook, one of our listeners recommended we check out this 2015 British film called Howl. I’d never heard of it, and uh, I thought, oh, well, let’s give it a try. But yeah, had never heard of it before, but it is directed by Paul Hyatt, who was, did, uh, makeup effects on Dog Soldiers.

Uh, and worked closely with the director there, so I guess he decided, uh, eventually he needed to make his own werewolf movie, and he did the makeup effects for this one as well, so, how about you, Craig? 

Craig: No, I had never seen it before. I’m kinda surprised, I’m, I’m not sure why. You know, the cover art is interesting enough, and it’s It’s pretty good.

Like I put on a lot of movies and turn them off in the first five minutes. No, I can already tell this is going to be bad. I wouldn’t have turned this one off. It’s interesting. It looks good, but no, I didn’t know anything about it. So you already mentioned the director was involved in dog soldiers. He also did the makeup for the descent and the lead it.

from the descent is the female lead in this movie. Like there’s all kinds of connections, like these crossover, um, which I didn’t know until, you know, I did some research or whatever, but it was interesting. I’m always interested to see how these things. Um, because it is an industry and people’s paths cross.

And when you find people that you like working with, you find ways to work with them again. And, uh, this is an interesting example of, uh, that, and the stuff that I was reading about it, like reviews were like, well, it’s pretty good for low budget. Well, I mean, I don’t know how low budget it was, but it didn’t feel cheap.

I thought it was pretty good. 

Todd: I wouldn’t have looked at this movie and said, Oh, this is definitely a low budget film, but. But, you know, nowadays, a low budget can get you pretty far. You know, I mean, a low budget back in the day, you know, you get like cheap looking effects, it’s kind of garbage, uh, you know, nobody could afford CGI if they wanted to do something fancy.

Uh, nowadays, you know, I can, I can practically do passable CGI on my laptop. True. True. The, the standards, and, and with, um, video cameras. Being the primary way that people film nowadays, you know, a lot of the original expense of a film that would go into just the film stock itself is gone. So, well, you know, you can spend that money on other things, and so as long as you’re not trying to hire big name actors and use far flung locations, I suppose you can get pretty bu You can get pretty far, even in 2015, I think.

Uh, with a quote unquote, low budget. So, well, 

Craig: yeah, and this movie’s smart. Like it’s obviously shot on sets, I would guess. And, and the sets are small and very minimal. The outdoor shots, I couldn’t tell what was going on. I loved the look of it because it looked very like spooky Halloween, like dark forest on a, you know, with a fire.

Full moon, you know, making kind of that eerie light and atmosphere. I couldn’t tell how much of that was set or if it was near the end when they’re running through the forest. I felt there was a lot of day for night there. Surely was. Yeah, but I couldn’t tell, it could have been like a matte painting for all I could tell, but I liked the look of it, but I can see where they, you know, saved a little bit here and there.

Todd: Yeah. You’re right, like, the exterior scenes seemed kind of, um, I don’t want to say fake in a disparaging way, but they just seemed, like you said, otherworldly and unreal, which, which, you know, it worked for the movie. Having this sort of unreal atmosphere works, I think, for the movie, because It’s all about isolation.

It’s sort of like these people on this road. It almost doesn’t work any other way because ultimately the movie’s about this, um, very short train car that, uh, is, you know, traveling the Red Eye in England and ends up stranded out in the middle of their route. And immediately I was thinking, okay, like, They can’t be that stranded, you know, like this is like a regular, I mean, I’ve been to England, I’ve been to London.

I mean, yeah, you know, you can, you travel through the countryside. Maybe there’s nothing else there, but you’re in constant communication. There are other trains that are eventually going to come down that line. Maybe not at 1 AM, but who knows? You know, like I just thought. They can’t be that isolated. So I think maybe visually it helped to just say, you know what?

This is kind of an unreal situation, maybe in a way they’re in another world, you know, not literally, but that’s just what it feels like. Because then you’ve got to like sort out, does this happen all the time? I mean, if they’re werewolves out here in the woods, like, are they regularly attacking dream cars?

Like, you know, no, I think it’s coincidence. 

Craig: I don’t think, I don’t think that those werewolves. Threw a deer in front of the train. To sabotage it. Right. Um, I think the train just happened and, and they do, they do say at some point, we can’t be more than a couple of miles from the train station. Right. And they get out and start to walk, but there are werewolves, so they have to go back to the train.

But, but yeah, I mean, you, a couple of miles is isolated. Like if you’re in the woods, true. Uh, but I don’t know, I guess we’ve kind of gotten ahead of ourselves, but that’s what, what’s this movie is. It’s werewolves on a train immediately. When I saw that we were following this guy, Joe, who works for the train company, and, I don’t know, I feel like he’s supposed to be kind of a What is his problem?

Why is he so, like, downtrodden? I don’t get it. He’s 

Todd: kind of a loser, honestly. He feels like, just like I don’t know what’s going on in that guy’s head. I was actually compelled by it. I thought, okay, well I can see where this character arc is going. Well, right! 

Craig: But he’s like, he’s a good looking guy, and I just don’t buy that everybody is Picking on him and the women like only pity him and aren’t interested.

I mean, well, what’s wrong with him? Like he seems like a nice young, handsome guy. 

Todd: Yeah, but he’s not all he’s not uber friendly. He kind of has a weird kind of quietness about him. And not that that’s bad, but it’s just like, I don’t know what I thought. I did feel like this guy’s a little off somehow. I’m not sure why.

I’m not sure what his problem is. Maybe he’s like depressed. Maybe he’s. Just one of these guys who doesn’t really get people and how to interact with them But I bought this this guy, you know, I bought the character 

Craig: I did eventually because as you already indicated like it’s obvious that this is the hero arc like oh Here’s this loser who is gonna step up and become the hero of the movie and he spoiler alert.

He does Sort of. Sort of. Uh, but when I saw him like, you know, getting kind of bullied into taking this red eye, uh, this last run or whatever after he just finished a full shift and the, the supervisor has given him crap about not enforcing, uh, like ticket fees and stuff, which whatever, who cares? It’s boring.

It’s all just to establish that he’s a loser, basically, when I saw that and when I saw that it was going to be on. A train and that they were introducing all of these different passengers. I’m like, oh it’s train to busan. Yeah, except with werewolves Yeah It really is and it’s it’s not that good 

Todd: Let’s clarify that right away, it’s not train busan and it’s quality Honestly my ultimate feeling let’s just put it on the table is this movie is okay It’s not bad.

It’s not great. I can’t say I will watch it again, but I was just ticking the boxes. I’m like, oh, okay, uh, loser guy. Um, is going to be stuck in a situation where he needs to prove himself and become the hero. Alright, check. Douchebag passenger who ultimately is going to sacrifice other people to stay alive and will meet his end.

Check. Cute elderly couple, something sad and tragic is going to happen between the two of them. Check. Surely somebody’s going to get bitten early on and uh, then they’re going to be, you know, turned in the middle just when everybody thinks everything is uh, fine. Safe. Check. I mean, girl who initially is not interested in the loser guy, suddenly, you know, they have to come together and have some relationship.

I mean, as I’m watching the movie, and as I see these characters introduced, I just ticked those boxes off. I’m like, I know exactly where this is going, I really hope this movie proves me wrong and surprises me. And it doesn’t at all! It’s like carbon copy. Of maybe six or seven other, usually they’re zombie movies, honestly.

It’s werewolves, you know, interchanged for zombies in this very, very similar situation. 

Craig: And that’s it folks. Thanks for tuning in to Two Guys in a Chainsaw. It sounds like maybe 

Todd: you liked it a little more than I did though. 

Craig: I did. I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I didn’t think it was great, but I actually, even though they were totally stock, I liked the characters.

I liked the loser guy, I liked the girl who was not interested in him at all, and then because he gets brave or whatever, they kind of, I don’t know, they kiss, I guess, at the end. The old folks were cute, I thought that the young guy hero, again, a total trope from Train to Busan 2, you know, there’s this one young guy who’s gonna be really heroic.

I liked him, Billy, whatever his name is. Um, it was very cliched, but it moved? I felt like it, I don’t know, I mean, I’ve got a whole page and a half of 

Todd: notes. Well, once it started going, it moved. I mean, like, like we said, you know, he starts out and he’s very schlubby and he’s getting forced to take this midnight train.

And he’s also lost his, um, promotion. He was, he was going for supervisor and, uh, and he didn’t get that. So he’s a little bitter about that. You could tell that when he gets on the train, he’s sort of like, What is my life about? You know, you just see it in his face. And I liked the aspect that we got introduced to all of these other characters on the train quite quickly.

Because he’s going through and checking tickets. 

Craig: But that part worried me because that’s what I didn’t consider was that that was at the beginning of the route. So there were so many people like, and they were all so rude to him. And I guess, you know, maybe that’s true just of service, you know, workers.

Like, I don’t know. I hope I’m not rude like that to people. I try not to be, but whatever. He’s just checking their tickets or whatever, but we’re meeting all a bunch, a ton of people. And I was like, Oh no. There’s no way I’m going to be great, but then once he meets everybody, he goes back and I don’t know, he locks himself in some room and he’s sad and he falls asleep and then he wakes up when the train like screeches to a halt.

It took me a second to realize that they were. route to the final destination. So they had already made a bunch of stops because it took me a second to figure out why now are we only following like six people? There were a ton of people on this train. It’s because they all got off. This is the last. Stop.

It took me forever. I couldn’t figure out their names because they’re listed in no particular order on IMDB. Like, it’s just random, but okay. So we’ve got, yeah. And I also just, you just kind of had to categorize them, but I did. I finally figured it out. The douchey business guy’s name is Adrian, and then there’s also a kinda douchey business lady named Kate.

She’s blonde. I think she was the lead lady from, uh, the Descent. 

Todd: Shawna McDonald, yep. 

Craig: There’s a guy, uh, named Matthew who wears glasses and is like reading a book. There’s an obnoxious Teenager girl. I think she’s supposed to be teenage, teenager, early twenties named Nina. And she’s so obnoxious that I didn’t even care when she gets killed.

She gets killed. Uh, Oh yeah. 

Todd: She’s like the first. 

Craig: I was glad that was so satisfying, obnoxious, the cute young guy, Billy, the old couple, Jed and Jenny, and then the, the, the two rail workers, um, our main Joe and his. Love interest, I guess. Ellen. Their names don’t really matter, but ultimately, like, that was a tight enough group and a diverse enough cast that I, I was into it.

I was into the conflict. I was into it when Adrian the douche, like, had a private talk with Joe and was like, these werewolves are gonna come back, cause there’s werewolves. I’m going totally out of my mind. I apologize, but I appreciate the intrigue when he’s like, you know, these werewolves are going to, or this werewolf, they think there’s only one at first, this werewolf is going to come back.

We need to plan. There’s some of us on here that don’t stand a chance anyway. So to buy ourself time, we may need to throw these people to the wolves. Um, and, and it’s not really conflict because Joe’s immediate, like, no, you’re an asshole. We’re not doing that. But I did appreciate like the, the human.

Intrigue of that stuff. I don’t even remember how so the train crashes and the driver goes out He says we must have hit something and he goes out to check and see and he finds a deer And he starts pulling it out and he’s immediately attacked by a werewolf. This movie does not try to hide what’s happening Like yeah, it’s called howl.

There’s full moon imagery all over the place. There’s wolves howling in the You’re getting wolf POV and the second that he gets attacked and blood, I love this, blood splashes up on the window right behind the business lady and she just doesn’t even notice. There is lots of blood and gore. Oh, we’ll have to talk about that specifically.

But then they’re stuck there and do they figure out that there are werewolves? How do they figure it out? Do they see it? Is it when it gets Nina? They all get frustrated 

Todd: because they really, really, really want to get off the train. And he’s not allowed to let them off the train. He’s not, you know, that’s not protocol.

Speaker 4: But the station can’t be more than what, two miles walk? Three, max? And we might even get a phone signal before then. 

Speaker 5: I’m in? Yeah. Yes. 

Speaker 6: Wait, wait, wait, no, no. You can’t, you can’t just, you don’t Because safety protocol clearly states that passengers must stay on the train with wet assistance. Those are the rules, madam.

I can’t let you, it’s not ridiculous, those are the rules. I’ll lose my job. Sir! You can’t get out of there without any keys. 

Todd: But anyway, they, cause he’s kind of a wiener, they coerce him, uh, and, uh, convince him to use his key to unlock the, that’s the key, is he’s got the keys to be able to open and close the doors to the train.

And so he’s like, fine, fine, we’ll get off and we’ll walk, because we’re not that far from, a mile or two from the next stop. So he gets out, he helps them all out, and he leads them down, and as they’re walking along, suddenly there’s some screaming and a howl, uh, and he, heading a little bit forward through the woods, it’s kind of interesting that they don’t follow the train tracks, I mean they do, but they’re kind of walking through the woods parallel to it, that was a little strange.

Yeah. But anyway, he comes across, half. Of a body, he can see the half eaten corpse of his, uh, the driver, and he’s like, uh, stops and turns around and says, we need to go back. And just at that moment, something starts coming after them that I guess they can see, because they’re all panicked and they’re running and running and running.

And so they run back and get almost everybody on the train, but just at the last minute as they’re pulling in the older woman, somebody shuts the doors, and they shut on her leg, and so her leg is stuck. And she’s like, And as it’s stuck out there, a werewolf has grabbed her leg and is pulling her up and down through the door.

So they can see, yeah, this is terrible. They don’t initially think it’s a werewolf, because by the time they pull her in and they see her leg has a giant bite taken out of it, and with the violence that she was thrown up and down before they could pull her in, Um, I think somebody said, she says like a bear or something like that.

She thinks it’s bears. I don’t know. She, 

Craig: I think she said that it was more like a man, like she’s insistent. Like she’s like, it wasn’t an animal. 

Todd: Yeah. I mean, I guess the idea is because she was the last one in, she was able to catch a glimpse of it. I didn’t think anybody saw. But I guess she must have so that 

Craig: scene See, I feel like there are really good things about this movie.

Like that scene was crazy like yeah I don’t know that doorway is probably six seven feet High and she’s just being flung up and down and up and down and they finally pull her in And then she’s got this disgusting wound That evolves throughout the course of the movie and just gets progressively more and more disgusting.

That’s super gross. You know, the, the director of this movie is an effects guy. Did you say that he did the effects on this too? Um, I think he did, yeah. Well, they’re, they’re really good. Yeah. Um, but it also, that, what we were just talking about leads to a discussion. Because we see the, when the driver gets killed, We have a view from underneath the train and we see werewolf legs.

Like that’s just what they are. There’s no mystery. Um, and I guess the legs were mostly or entirely CGI, but everything else was guys in suits. I don’t mind guys in suits when they look good. And I thought these. Suits looked good. They did. They were interesting. They were, they were interesting in that And I noticed this of course, but I read it too.

I think it was intentional. They were less wolf than most werewolf imagery that we see yeah It’s more of a man wolf hybrid with more leaning towards the man than usual. Um, I mean, still very beast like and, and big and strong and hairy. Yeah. Not as hairy as sometimes, but I don’t know. I just thought it was a really unique design.

Not entirely. They still look like werewolves. They just don’t look like the traditional werewolf. Maybe I get, 

Todd: well, I’d say, yeah, what they’re lacking in the face, anyway, seems to be that maw. Uh, they don’t have that elongated face that looks like a wolf or a dog. A snout. They’ve, yeah, you know, there’s the ears, and there’s the hair.

Teeth. Uh, and then, but when they open up their mouths, they’re, it’s just like a bunch of teeth. It’s not even, you know, like canines. So, in a way, it reminded me almost from the waist up like an orc, you know, like a hairy orc. Kind of. Which I was totally cool with, and then, you know, waist down, it was a wolf, but then when they’re outside kind of running and prowling around, they’re not on all fours, they’re the ones standing up and stuff.

Yeah, I bought that these were werewolves, you know, who knows what a werewolf looks like, it was okay. And I liked the fact that it was a little unique. And I really was impressed with, they’re very judicious, really, in showing you their faces and things, you know, they don’t hold back at moments, but even when the werewolf ends up on the train and is attacking them, a lot of it happens in very quick cuts.

You don’t get a whole, long, full on, you know, look at their face much. But when you 

Craig: do, it’s impressive. Yeah, I was gonna say, especially towards the end, Because towards the end, it, it, it starts to become Dawn and you do get some closeups on all of them. And what I was impressed by was that they’re distinctive.

Yeah. They have distinct looks, like as people do, you know, like they don’t just all look the same. Um, they’ve got, for lack of a better word, character. They’ve got, and there are ones that clearly seem more female and then ones that seem more The one that they kill on the, uh, train is huge. Like, I think he must, I think he was probably the alpha.

I think that’s what we’re led to believe. One of the werewolves, the, the, when they think there’s only one before they know there are more, before we know there are more, the old lady gets bit. And then I, is it? Uh, the annoying girl that gets ripped out the window next. 

Todd: I think that’s when they realize it’s a werewolf, cause they get enough of a look at him when he reaches in and grabs her and pulls her out.

That somebody says for the first time, I think they’re werewolves. Am I wrong about that? 

Craig: I don’t know. I am totally lost on where we are. I do know that like, the werewolf like rams the train. And so they know there’s something big out there, and then there’s this scene where it drags its claws along the car.

Yes. Ha ha ha 

Todd: ha ha ha. That was so corny. It was like Freddy Krueger dragging his claws menacingly along. Except this werewolf’s really doing it for nobody, but I guess his own pleasure. 

Craig: For us, I guess. I don’t know. There’s intrigue about how the train, somehow, I don’t, there are lots of things that I couldn’t put together.

Somehow, this young kid Had just come from engineering camp or something And so he knew what was wrong with the train and he knew how that was so silly Yeah, it’s funny 

Todd: because he did but he didn’t really do much about it until the end. I felt like there’s a moment These are the bones I have to pick first of all i’m with you.

I believed these characters. I really believed these characters I felt like they were real people even though Like I said, they were trope y and kind of stock, um, they came across as realistic, like, um, that was fine. But there’s this moment, you know, where everybody’s just arguing with each other, and the wife’s been bit, and maybe the girl’s been taken out.

Our schlubby, Joe, he doesn’t ever really take control of the situation. But the older guy just yells. You’ve got to do something! So there’s his reticence. 

Speaker 5: What are we gonna do? Stop listening to this little prick for starters. 

Speaker 6: He’s doing his best. He should even be on this train. 

Speaker 5: Enough! Do you all want to die tonight?

Because if you do, you just carry on whinging and arguing and soon enough that thing out there He’ll take care of it for you. But if you still intend to get home, then start acting like it. It’s an animal. Animals hunt what’s easy to catch. And look at us. 

Todd: We’re sitting ducks here. And I thought, okay, cool.

Older guy shots everyone to reality and makes them realize they need to do something. Sadly, schlubby guy, this was his opportunity to do that and he didn’t, you know, because he’s supposed to ostensibly be the leader. I thought, okay, fine. It’s not, he’s not ready yet for that. The old guy’s providing an example.

And that, I believe, is the moment where, uh, the douchey guy says, Have you got any tools? Because we need to barricade this up. And so they start pulling all the pieces out, and they pull out the tools, and they start barricading the windows with random bits of sheet metal and screws, I guess, that they find everywhere.

I don’t know where they get this stuff from, it’s, it’s weird, but, again, it’s the zombie thing! It’s, get all the boards, every house has a huge stack of boards in the basement that you can, nails and hammers, that you can immediately use to barricade the doors. I thought it was a little silly, but here’s the deal, like, so that guy, you know, takes control, and then he’s got a backseat?

For the rest of the movie. Like we don’t really hear much or see much of this old guy doing anything except sit there. 

Craig: He’s just tending to his wife who is obviously turning into a werewolf. And the douchey guy says that 

Todd: he says, you know what werewolves are all about. She’s going to turn. And she is obviously getting much and much worse.

An old guy who seemed so smart. It’s just like, uh, uh, uh. Yeah, no, 

Speaker 7: we just gotta get her to the hospital. 

Craig: Like, she’s barfing, she’s barfing up black bile and her teeth are shooting out of her mouth. Like, she is not going to be okay. And he’s no help, 

Todd: and they all just sort of kind of ignore him, you know?

Like, in a lot of other movies, there’s a big argument here, and she gets, you know, quarantined, maybe with or without her husband, to some other part of the train where they’re gonna board them in, you know, that kind of thing. But here, they just let it go. Like, they’re well aware of what’s going on, and they just kinda let it go.

I thought that was a little silly. The other thing was, I didn’t feel like our guy was very heroic, you know? I was expecting to see him slowly and slowly take control. Kind of like Trainbook to Busan, where, you know, this guy who’s very, very selfish, eventually decides he needs to start helping to look out to other people, and then he starts getting engaged in the action.

And by the end of the movie, you’ve seen this clear progression of circumstances and instances where he’s been tested. And he’s eventually, you know, done it. I feel like our guy was still just kinda going with the flow most of the time. 

Craig: Until the end. Yeah. Until the end when he had to stand up against the douchey guy.

Yeah, you’re right. One of my favorite scenes Okay, so that teenage girl gets sucked out the window Not sucked out. The werewolf The werewolf Bursts in and grabs her and tears her out. And that’s when they barricade everything up. But eventually they hear noise in the train and they’re like, Oh my God, what is it?

And I guess to be fair, Joe is the only one who’s going to go and investigate. And they kind of board, they kind of barricaded up. Behind him after he goes out. And it turns out it’s this fat slob that we met in the introduction when we were meeting. But we assumed he was gone. I knew it was gonna be him.

Yeah. I’m like, there’s no way. They introduced that guy for no reason. 

Todd: And then of course he’s the guy who’s gotta go to the toilet a lot. I mean it’s so, yeah. 

Craig: And I feel like there are two, like he comes out of the toilet, but it doesn’t matter. ’cause then he just. goes back in and they realize that he’s missing and Joe goes to get him and a werewolf busts in through the top of the toilet and kills the fat guy in the toilet, but now it’s on the train And they barely get Joe back into the safe car And I don’t know.

I think they’re planning on getting out and running again because they think there’s only one at this point, but they don’t get out. I think, correct me if I’m misremembering this, but this big werewolf gets in the car with them and there’s a big fight. And I loved this scene because it seems like you seldom see this.

It seems like in horror movies, there’s, you know, a big monster and it just rips through the training, kills everybody. I would think that this is potentially more realistic. Like if these people. All fought back, you know, like it’s a, he’s a pretty big monster, but there’s six or seven of them and they’ve got like weapons and stuff.

And they do, they fight it and it’s brutal. And, and, and they, it’s not as though they go undamaged. One of the women, I think the main girl, I don’t know, one of them gets really beat up, but ultimately. Uh, I think it’s, Matthew gets it with an ax, like in the chest. Yes. Like a bunch of times. I mean, there’s tons of stabbing and all of this is, uh, practical effects.

So you’re seeing stuff up close and it’s blood splattering and 

Todd: it’s good. 

Craig: Gushy. Gushy sounds, . Uh, there is so much like a DR, like gloopy, like, like . Like at one point. At one point they’re dressing. Jenny the old lady’s wolf bite wound and it’s like, like, it’s 

Todd: so 

Craig: disgusting. It’s gross. 

Todd: Man, when they peel the bandage back from that wound, uh, and it’s like slimy and sticking to it and all that.

I was like, hats off to that guy. I mean, how many times have you peeled a bandage off and you know what it’s like? And they got that just right. So. Oh, so gross. 

Craig: But the effects are great and they kill it and like. I also like that they think it’s dead and then they have a little conversation. I don’t remember what they’re talking about.

And then the wolf just sits up in the background, but they immediately see it. And somebody, I think it’s Joe. What does he get? Like a fire extinguisher? It’s a fire 

Todd: extinguisher. Yeah. And bashes its head. Yeah. Like, it’s like, oh, here we go. And that was the moment. That was the first moment when Joe actually does something, you know, like when he actually Kind of takes control.

I mean it was a little anticlimactic for being that first moment, but I thought oh, okay from here on We’re gonna see Joe like rising to the occasion a little bit more and And sadly he kind of doesn’t until the very end. Well, maybe this is the point since the werewolves on the train now, maybe now is when the old, the douchey guy says she’s going to turn.

Craig: Yeah. But right before the big werewolf dies, it lets out these howls and we see that there are three. Three other werewolves in the woods that hear it and I, you know, I didn’t know anything about this movie going in. I mean, I knew the movie wasn’t over. So we still got, we still got Jenny, the old lady, who’s obviously turning into a werewolf.

In fact, Adrian, the douchey business guy wants to kill her. But the others won’t let him and eventually at some point they tie both of them up I thought this was so funny. They tie adrian up. 

Speaker 3: Oh my 

Craig: god, because he tries to attack somebody or something I know that i’m missing plot points and I feel terrible about it, but they end up tying him up Right and they tie up the werewolf lady, too Right next to each other.

Like, she is literally, like, leaning on him. And, like, you guys, she’s gonna turn into a werewolf. And she’s gonna just immediately eat this guy. Not that I care, cause he was a douchebag. God, I don’t know. Yeah. So they’re both strapped down and, and now they think all their, their only problem is they’ve got to get the train running and Billy knows how to do it.

Right. So he gives them a quick tutorial on how to drive a train. What? How does he know? I don’t understand. And then he’s going to go out to patch the wires and Matthew is going to help. And then. God, this was one of the parts that I thought was so silly. Joe, in his role as the guard of the train, gives a motivational speech over the PA.

It’s like, it’s like, 

Speaker 4: This is your guard speaking. I’d like to apologize once again for the delay to your journey this evening. A few hours ago, we were strangers. Most of you probably wish we still were. But we’re gonna try and get out of here now. We’re gonna do whatever it takes to survive. Together. 

Speaker 7: All of us.

Uh, just, uh, once again, I would like to apologize for the delay in your journey. Like, 

Craig: oh my god. 

Speaker 7: Yeah. 

Craig: Oh. It’s pretty goofy. And at this point I, like, are they leaning into the comedy? The humor? I don’t know. But, Billy’s under the train, he gets the line patched up, but Matthew hears Oh my god. from the woods, 

Speaker 3: Help me!

Todd: No, did he hear, is that what initially sent him out of the woods? I thought the help me wasn’t coming till he was in the woods. 

Craig: No, he heard it from the train. And it distracted him. And he started walking away. Meanwhile, Billy’s like, bro, I need the light. Yeah. I know, and why is he walking out there? And I was really confused at first, because I was like, Can werewolves do that?

Like, can they imitate young girls voices? Like, can they, can they go back to their human form to like lure people in and then wolf out on them as it turns out, like he walks out there and he’s got a flashlight and he realizes that the voice is coming from above. So he pans his flashlight and the camera follows it up the tree where he sees Nina being eaten by the other werewolves up in the tree.

I had forgotten Nina existed.

It took me a second to be like, Oh yeah, that girl. 

Todd: Okay, I get it. What’s crazy about it, I mean, you know, you know what’s gonna happen, you’ve seen enough of these movies, I mean it’s almost obligatory, but I was like, you dumbass, at least stay with your friend, you were the guard, you were standing there to guard this guy, and without a conversation, without anything, he just starts wandering off into the werewolves are.

This didn’t make any sense to me. I don’t care who’s calling out to him, this guy was supposed to be smart, he was reading a book. That’s how we know he’s supposed to be the smart guy, and, ugh, my god. So anyway, the thing about it is, it almost seemed like the werewolves were done with the train by that point.

It was him being out in the woods. Yeah. You know, where the werewolves are having their little powwow and eating 

Craig: Mina that lures them all back. That’s true. Cause they jump, they jump down and surround him. I feel like we have to mention the fact that in the nighttime their eyes glow. Yeah. I feel like that could be a polarizing choice.

I liked it. I thought it was sinister. Yeah. Also, it’s like animals are like that, right? Yeah. Right. 

Todd: Eyes. They don’t like literally glow, but they’re reflective. And so they look like they’re glowing. I was down with that. I liked it. 

Craig: Um, and when they all jump down and are surrounding him, and then, you know, you see them all, uh, converge, uh, on him.

I just thought it looked good. I thought that this was a scary werewolf movie. Like, I, I feel like if I had seen this when I was, you know, A kid. Oh yeah. I would’ve thought it was really cool. . 

Todd: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Craig: But you’re right. But then, so I guess now that they, I don’t know, have been reminded that there are other people, they come, what’s his name?

Billy gets the train fixed and they actually get it going. Yep. But the werewolves show up like right at that moment. 

Todd: And Billy’s caught, cause he can’t get out of the train, cause the werewolves are there, and as soon as Joe sees the, the fuel line thing come on, cause what he did was, he had to patch the fuel line.

I don’t get the logic of this, I was watching this with my dad, and I turned and I looked at him and I’m like, So, when the fuel is out, and it’s, because it’s like, leaking or something, does that mean Electricity goes off? You can hatch the line and suddenly you have fuel again? Or does it have something to do with just pressure in the line?

And my dad was like, well if it has to do with pressure in the line. You know, just wrapping it with a few winds of duct tape is not going to help, you know, but in any case, it’s not going to withstand the pressure. 

Craig: It’s exciting in the moment that, you know, they get it, they do get it, you know, uh, going, but the werewolves are there and that part to me, uh, Billy underneath the train can see them.

He can see their legs and we kind of are seeing from his point of view and we see them. Start to crouch down to look under the train. I was, I mean, I wasn’t scared. Like I’m legitimately scared, but I thought that was a scary part. I mean, like what is, and when, when then we switched to their point of view and he’s not there, I mean, I, before they revealed in the next second that he was hanging up underneath it.

I figured it out, but I was like, oh, where did he 

Speaker 3: go? He was just there. 

Craig: Right. Um, and then I also thought it was scary that you know, he was stuck hanging on there When they started the train Like yeah 

Todd: They gave up on poor billy This is why i’m not sure joe is such a hero by the end of the movie because he kind of waits for billy for A little bit, but then he just decides well, we need the werewolves are here.

So we need to start the train I don’t know like Sure, I guess, but he didn’t poke his head out the window. You know, he didn’t like do anything. It’s just like, all right Well, well, here we go Leaving that poor guy behind, but he wasn’t left behind. He’s under the damn train and that’s terrifying too But I thought if Billy could ride this out I’ve heard of this happening before where people can You know, clutch underneath the train and, uh, and be okay, uh, in the end.

I thought if Billy can ride this out, he’ll be all right, but he can’t because like, he, you know, his arms aren’t strong enough. In fact, he ends up grabbing one of the fuel lines just to pull himself and just destroys it again, which stops the train again. So it’s frustrating. 

Craig: And yeah, another thing that I like about this movie is that there are always lots of things going on at the same time, because while all this is happening in the passenger car.

Ginny is, has turned into a werewolf, like she is full on wolfed out. The old lady. Oh my god. She escapes and then there’s just chaos there because she’s in there and the other three werewolves are out there. Yes. Kate like gets pushed up against a door or something and it opens and the werewolves are right there.

And I think they grab her, and she’s, like, reaching out to Adrian, like, Help me, help me! And instead, he just kicks her 

Todd: out the door! I knew that was gonna happen, eventually. And of course, we knew that the woman was gonna turn. But again, I’ve got a problem with the woman turning. I mean, you know, not really.

But, like, Come on, she is standing there. By the way, she, she looks freaky as heck. And the actress did a great job. Oh, she was fantastic. But she just stands there and snarls in place at her husband. While this guy is like, uh, uh, uh, honey, honey. He just lets her after a while at first, it seems like I’m thinking, Oh, come on.

You know, this is so bad. She does not lunge. She does not attack. She just like, and it just backs him slowly into the seat. Eventually nobody else does anything. She just bites the heck out of his neck. And I’m like, come on, this guy. Okay. We thought this was the smart guy, because he, earlier on, was getting everybody and, you know, telling everybody to fuck up.

And he’s such a moron, and I don’t know, you know, like, I get it. It happens all the time in these movies with zombies. I realize this is your loved one. I realize you don’t know what this means. You want to hold out hope that maybe they’re half turned, or maybe there’s a cure, or something like that. But this, I’m sorry, if I saw somebody in that state, you know, my significant other looking at me like that, I would be doing significantly more than standing there, Honey, honey, honey, and letting them back me into a corner.

I mean, I might not take their head off, but I would do something. At least run. 

Craig: No, come on. Jesus Christ. So she, yeah, she eats her husband. Joe kills her. I don’t really remember. It must not have been particularly notable because I just have Joe kills Jenny. And then the wolves get on the train and Joe is trying to unlock the door so they can get out, but Adrian attacks him.

I don’t really remember why, but then Adrian gets off the train while the other two, the two rail workers, Joe and his girl, whatever, while they’re preoccupied with the wolves, he, Adrian gets off the train, but he takes the keys with them because you can only open or close the doors with the keys. So he takes the keys so he can run off, leave the two of them back there to be food for the werewolves or whatever.

It’s a mean plan, but. Not a bad one.

Joe and Ellen are there and they’re, they’re surrounded like from either side. The wolves are coming from either side. And they can’t get out, but fortunately, Billy has made his way out from underneath the train and has secured Molotov cocktails. Okay. Where did those come from? I had no idea. Where did they come from?

And Billy should not be handling open flame. He has been laying underneath a leaking fuel line for the last 20 minutes. I have watched him get saturated by gasoline for the last 20 minutes. But he throws Molotov cocktails at the werewolves and it hits them and then frightens them and Joe pries the door open somehow.

Um, and he and Ellen get out, but Billy gets killed. I was sad. I thought Billy was a good kid. I wanted him to make it. He didn’t deserve it. 

Todd: You went and go back to, get back to school. Yeah, 

Craig: back to engineering school. Um, but he died a hero. So that’s great. Yeah. And so, so then Joe and Ellen run through the woods and this is where it’s very clearly day for night.

But I guess it’s also supposed to be nearing dawn. So that’s fine. Whatever. 

Todd: I, that’s what I was thinking, but yeah. 

Craig: And they chase them. And then in, honestly, when I was watching it, Now that I’m about to say it out loud, I’m like, this is so stupid. Joe stops them in the middle of the woods. And they have a good minute conversation about how they’re not going to make it.

And he has to urge her to continue running. I guess his idea is that he’s going to stay behind to fight them or sacrifice himself to give her the opportunity to run away. I think that if they had just kept running, they would have had a pretty good shot. Yeah, whatever. Uh, anyway, so. He eventually convinces her to keep running and he stays behind and he does put up a fight gives her a big kiss Oh, yeah, they kiss they have like the big, you know moment like you expect the the orchestra like It’s a big kiss moment and then she runs off and he stays behind and to be I mean he puts up a fight But it’s him against three werewolves.

Todd: He’s got a die. 

Craig: They get him and you just see You What appeared to me to be the larger female wolf. grab him almost in an embrace, um, and, and is biting at his neck. And then the ending wraps up pretty quickly. Uh, Ellen just walks into the train station bloody and, and beat up and tattered and torn. And like nobody even pays attention.

That’s it for her. And then it cuts back to the woods where Adrian is trying to make his way out. And he hears the rustling in the, Brush that we’ve been hearing throughout and he gets surrounded by the werewolves and one of them Joe is now one of them. Like he’s still like in his suit, but he’s a werewolf He changed much more quickly than Jenny did.

He sure did. But he has a distinct look too He kind of looks different from the other werewolves. Yeah, I don’t know Maybe this is me reading too much into it But I kind of got the impression that the alpha female had been Turned him they didn’t kill him they turned him and now he’s gonna be the alpha male to replace the alpha male that was killed Earlier in the movie.

Todd: I did not make that leap, but it makes sense I mean, it’s weird how the werewolves will eviscerate and eat some people but then other people like in Joe’s case I guess deliberately turned right? Yeah, 

Craig: that’s that’s why I said it when that big female And again, I’m making assumptions, we don’t see their genitalia, but it looked like a female, to me, grabbed him and bit him.

It seemed more like an embrace, like she didn’t ravage him, she just 

Todd: went in for a bite. Oh god, and I was getting flashbacks to all the werewolf porn novels that I voice. It’s always this, you know, they mark each other. By grabbing each other and like, taking a big bite out of their neck kinda shoulder area.

Oh my god as I watched that. It’s funny I didn’t draw the conclusion you did, because that was the first thing that came to my mind was, Oh, mate. Ha ha ha 

Craig: ha ha ha! Too much werewolf porn for you. Too much I’m You know honestly, I’m I enjoyed it. I, I certainly wouldn’t steer people away from it. I thought it was entertaining.

I actually enjoyed it more than Wolfen. Mm. People, you know, we’ve already had our, uh, Facebook friends and stuff say, What are you talking about with dog soldiers? What are you talking about? We knew it. We knew it would happen too. I know. I enjoyed this more than Dog Soldiers. It was more fun to watch for me.

So I don’t know. Overall, I have to, I have to confess that I, I, I enjoyed it. I, I don’t think it’s great, but I thought it was creative. The gore effects were really skillful. Maybe I just appreciate what they did with, uh, Practical Effects. You know, this guy’s an effects guy, but I’m sure the budget was also somewhat limiting.

And I don’t know, I don’t, I really don’t know why I’m being apologetic about it. I liked it. I’m just going to say it. I liked it. Own your 

Todd: feelings. I didn’t hate it. You know, I didn’t despise it. I can’t say I was particularly moved by it, and that’s because I feel like I’ve seen this movie six, seven, eight times before, just with zombies instead of werewolves.

Craig: Yeah, it is a zombie movie with werewolves. You’re absolutely right about that. 

Todd: But, but what kind of, you know, criticism is that? I mean, you know, as it comes out of my mouth, like, how many times do we watch literally, like, the same movie over and over again? You know, anytime we start dipping into 80’s slashers, that’s what it is, and I love them to death, and that’s why I love them.

I love the familiarity. I love seeing the formula play out. If somebody puts a new twist on it, then cool, that that’s exciting. If somebody doesn’t put a twist on it, I still probably get more out of the movie or enjoyment out of it than I did out of this. So I’m not sure what my expectation was. I think just the lack of novelty here was my biggest criticism.

I was looking for something that just had maybe a little twist, you know? A little something I hadn’t seen before. End. The fact that there was no twist, there was nothing I really hadn’t seen before here, I didn’t feel like there was anything really novel about it. So it’s just kinda like, you know, it’s okay, it’s fine.

But it didn’t blow me away, I didn’t hate it. But was I a little bored? Mmm I think as I just saw all the tropes play out, I was kinda checking my watch. You know, I was like, alright, we’ll wrap it up, I get it. He’s gonna be the hero, she’s probably gonna get away. They’ll have a moment. It happened. It was so predictable that, that I wasn’t in it.

I wasn’t anticipating anything. So I wasn’t really riled up, you know, 

Craig: I get it. I feel like this is kind of a popcorn movie. I actually might watch this again. If somebody said, let’s hang out. Let’s, let’s watch a fun, scary movie. You know, somebody who maybe doesn’t watch a lot of scary movies, I guess that’s to say it doesn’t have a whole lot of expectations.

Like, I feel like there are enough, there are little things that we didn’t even talk about. There are jump scares. Like there’s a, in the very beginning, Joe is checking people’s tickets and some old lady drops hers and he bends down. To pick it up and then it cuts to a POV shot from under the seat and you think something’s watching And then something jumps out at him really fast and it’s just a little chihuahua dog, but they treat it like It’s a monster.

I’m like, that’s how it’s shot and that’s how it’s scored. 

Todd: That was cute. And 

Craig: it, like, it, it really made me jump. And I feel like that would be something fun to watch with my niece and nephew or friends who want to dip their toe in horror. And it just, to me, it seems like a fun movie to watch. It’s not a great movie and I wouldn’t rave about it, but I had a good time.

So it’s, it’s a thumbs up for me. 

Todd: And I mean, it’s a fine movie to end our werewolf month on. Yeah. We’ll probably do some more werewolf movies in the future. We’ve done some werewolf movies in the past. Yeah. And, uh, if you go to our YouTube channel, um, you can see a whole werewolf playlist and I’ve just conveniently put them all.

So in case werewolf month has inspired you to seek out more werewolf films, you can see what else we’ve tackled and also would love to hear some suggestions as to, um, other werewolf movies you think we should do in the future. We’ll come back to these here and there, uh, as we move on. It’s funny, I don’t think there are werewolves is another one of it’s sort of like cannibal movies.

Like. It’s a genre that hasn’t really been played out yet. I think like, you know, how many there are millions of zombie movies. I feel like Dracula and vampires are, are, are huge. Don’t feel like. We have a massive back catalog of werewolf movies to choose from when we want to. Am I wrong about that? 

Craig: Well, I think there are a lot.

I mean, I’ve seen More than I realize, huh? Yeah, I’ve seen a lot that we haven’t talked about. I, uh 

Todd: So you don’t think it’s an underserved subgenre? Well, 

Craig: I don’t I don’t think it’s as popular as some of the other genres, but I also think that like vampires, Werewolves are kind of timeless and I don’t expect them to go anywhere.

I think that we’ll continue, we’ll continue to get werewolf stories and werewolf movies because I think that like vampires, werewolves speak to something to us about ourselves and humanity, the beast 

Todd: within 

Craig: the beast within. And it’s the same thing, um, for vampires. I think vampires lean more heavily into the seductive sexuality side of it.

And werewolves are more kind of the, the carnal violent iteration. But because I think that they are commentary on human nature, I don’t think our human nature is going to evolve in my lifetime to a point where we’re not still interested in that. So. 

Todd: True. Take it from me. They’re just getting sexier and sexier.

So, uh, you know, as long as they can, uh, dip their toes in the romance genre, as well as vampires have, and they are going full steam ahead in that direction, they’re going to be with us for a very, very long time. In all kinds of iterations. I’ll take your word 

Craig: for it. 

Todd: Yeah. I’ll do a mini sode about my experiences voicing vampires.

Werewolf porn. We 

Craig: should, and you should play clips. I want to hear this. I want to hear the steamies or you could do a live reading. That would be exciting too. I might have to turn my camera off. 

Todd: No, yeah. You would not want your camera on for that a hundred percent. 

Craig: No, I wouldn’t want you to see what I was doing while you were doing your live 

Speaker 3: reading.

Todd: And with that, thank you very much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. You can find us online just by searching Two Guys in a Chainsaw Podcast. We’re everywhere that you find podcasts. Please leave us a review in one of those places. Those reviews really, really help us out.

And go to our Patreon page and think about supporting our podcast patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast. Uh, that will, uh, get you access to our unedited, uh, phone calls, lots of mini sodes, lots of, um, reviews. You can get a taste of those just by going there. We put a lot of stuff up for free and little free previews.

If you like what you see there, consider joining. It’s only five bucks a month. Also, big thanks to our sponsor this month, Manscaped. If you go to manscaped. com, use the code chainsaw. Real easy to remember. You get 20 percent off your order. Plus. Free shipping. It’s a great deal. Um, Craig and I have both gotten the products.

We, we, we both really like them. They’re, they’re real nice, so check ’em out. manscaped.com, code CHAINSAW to get 20% off, plus free shipping. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw

Werewolf Month continues with a story about soldiers on a training mission encountering werewolves in the woods of Scotland. Jammed full of action and gunfire, this Neil Marshall debut did remind us a wee bit of Predator. We just wish we had enjoyed this one as much as we expected to. Hopefully you’ll enjoy this episode though!

And when your “dogs” need a bit o’ soldiering, you can’t go wrong with a shaving kit from Manscaped – sponsor of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw’s Werewolf Month! Get 20% OFF @manscaped + Free Shipping with promo code CHAINSAW at MANSCAPED.com! #ad #manscapedpod #manscaped

Dog Soldiers (2002)

Episode 393, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, God, I just think we could keep this werewolf thing going forever, because I’m actually having a ball finding all these different werewolf movies and doing it. And I’ve never been terribly obsessed with werewolves myself, and I think it was just kind of realizing the fact that there are a whole bunch of werewolf movies out there, many of which I’ve been wanting to see and haven’t seen.

This movie that we’re doing now is 2002’s Dog Soldiers, and my dad, who you know, Isn’t a huge horror fan. Actually, he’s not a horror fan really at all, but he saw this movie probably 15 years ago and reached out to me and was like, Todd, you need to see this movie. This movie is great. It’s Dog Soldiers.

It’s a horror movie. I loved it. And I have, I probably think about it once every three months, every three months or so I think, Oh my God, my dad like recommended a horror movie to me. I should probably see it. And I think because I’m not big into military movies. I was like, okay, Dog Soldiers? Okay, I’ll get around to it.

So, it’s been one of those movies that I’ve been wanting to see forever. The director, Neil Marshall, has gone on to do incredible things based on this, his very first feature length film directorial debut. He had only done shorts before this. Since this, he’s gone on to do so much stuff, including Writing and directing one of, I think, our favorite horror movies, The Descent, right?

Craig: Yeah. You’re a big fan of that

Todd: And we did that on this podcast. He’s got 13 producer credits to his name, three upcoming. He’s written a number of things. Like 11 things. He’s directed 18, two more up and coming. He was a director on the TV series Hannibal. He directed an episode of Game of Thrones. He did a segment from Tales of Halloween that we absolutely loved.

He’s directed some stuff on Westworld. He was involved in 2019’s Hellboy, which he has disassociated himself with because he said it was his worst professional experience of his life. He hated it. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. And, uh, I don’t know. I can’t speak for everybody in the world, but I don’t think the 2019 version of Hellboy was quite as well received as the earlier one.

Anyway, my point is, this guy has gone on to do great things on the basis of this ultimately low budget film. It’s like a 2. 1 million dollar movie. Neil Marshall himself has said, By 2001 standards, this was a low budget movie, but by today’s standards, you, with digital photography, and you can kind of do so much of it yourself, you could make a movie like this even cheaper.

Still, it made a mark. It’s still a big favorite. It’s a cult favorite. It’s still real, really well loved in the UK and other places. Did not get a wide release in the US. Sadly, it went straight to the SyFy channel, which he was very upset about, but he, Blames out on the producers. He says the producers were just a little shy about what they had and kind of took the first deal that was offered to them.

But I have seen this movie pop up on numerous lists. A lot of people cite it as a movie you need to watch. And so, uh, I was super happy to finally get around to doing it. It seemed like you were just as enthusiastic to see it as I was, or, or was this your first time seeing it? Did you seen it before? 

Craig: Oh, no, no, this was my first time seeing it and several things.

One. Your dad not being a big fan of horror movies has really good taste in horror movies. He also, together, the three of us, did Train to Busan, which I still think is one of the best movies I’ve seen. Period. Period, right? Yeah, it’s such a great movie. And, and yes, there is a lot of hype around this movie.

I told you, when we were talking about doing it, we were going back and forth a little bit. You were kind of interested in sticking in that same year, like 80. Three or whatever year that all those werewolf movies came out and I was like, I know, but I really want to do dog sold.

Because I have known about this movie since it came out like people have been talking about it since it came out. When I went to IMDB yesterday, To look this up, I scanned down to the reviews and the, you know, the very first displayed review was like a, I don’t know what their rating system is, but you read it and was like, um, this is arguably the best werewolf movie ever.

And so I was super stoked and I was so confident in it. That because you and I, based on scheduling, that’s boring to you listeners, had to watch two movies yesterday. I ended up needing to watch this last minute and I’m like, Ellen, do you want to watch this werewolf movie with me? Like it’s really popular and people say it’s like the greatest werewolf movie.

And we watched it. He was like, Oh, I don’t know, man. Like, I’m really interested to hear what your thoughts were on it. Because I was really surprised by my reaction to it because I, I thought it was going to be great. And I thought we were going to sit here today and talk about how great it was. Right. I don’t know.

Todd: You know, it has elements. There are things I really like about this movie. I would say the thing I like the most about this movie There are two things I like the most about this movie. Number one, I like that it Maybe because we kind of recently came off of Predator, right? So we had this sort of monster in the jungle with a military aspect to it.

I was getting To a certain extent in this movie a bit of the predator vibes 

Craig: it’s very predator the werewolves have predator vision except it’s in black and white like in the military element of it I also wondered you mentioned that I your dad is a military man I wondered if that was part of the 

Todd: appeal I think he likes that kind of stuff yeah so I mean it had that element to it which I like so I mean it’s a horror movie.

It’s an action movie. It’s maybe more of an action movie than a horror movie, much like Predator, right? Like, uh, it’s a horror movie because it’s, it’s gross. It’s got a lot of gore. It’s got a supernatural element to it. Predator, even maybe not even supernatural, technically, but sci fi, but right. In any case, they’re kind of the same thing, like creatures that don’t exist or coming in and with the military people who should be up for the task, but are being overwhelmed by this force.

Right? So, yeah, I thought that was cool. Like, you don’t, Actually see a lot of that. Maybe not enough of that. And so definitely in the werewolf genre, it feels like something a little unique. So I was happy to see because also my stated goal, as I’ve said, I don’t know, one or two episodes ago was I wanted us to do a variety of werewolf movies that kind of covered a whole swath of subgenres.

And so I thought this fit in perfectly. I don’t know if there are any more military werewolf movies. This is the only one I know of. So I like that bit of it. The other thing I really liked about it was the creature design. It was Upright, it was very condescending werewolves. They were really high and they were big and they were frightening.

It showed its low budget by, you know, not giving you too much of the creatures, but unlike a lot of really low budget movies that we do, it wasn’t scared to show us enough of the creatures. It was to a, to a degree where it would get in there and it would show us the werewolves in flashes and things like that.

But I never felt like they were trying to compensate for their low budget by hiding it excessively. Do you know 

Craig: what I mean? That’s true. No, I do know what you mean. And, and the werewolf reveal is gradual. 

Todd: No, you’re right. The werewolf reveal is gradual. And that’s kind of a low budget thing, right? But like once they’re out and they’re fighting and they’re doing their thing, like, I never felt cheated.

You watch a Monster movie, you want to see a monster and you wanna see a lot of the monster. And I almost feel like your satisfaction with the Monster movie relies on two things. Number one, how much of the monster are you gonna see? Flat out on the screen and number two, when you do see the monster, are you gonna be laughing at it or are you gonna be like, Oh, that’s really badass.

That’s really cool. And for this movie, it fulfilled the first. I saw a lot of the monster number the second. I wasn’t laughing at it. Did I think it was super badass? Did I think they were the best werewolves we’ve seen so far? No, but I really respected the fact that they kept everything animatronic and real and like, they didn’t go to CGI at all.

At this time, when this movie came out, 2002 Jurassic Park had not been out too long and, uh, you know, CGI was kind of in its infancy and they were, well, it’s a low budget, I mean, CGI 

Craig: gets expensive. I think 

Todd: it does. But they were explicitly worried that if they tried to release it, too much on CGI, it would just look fake and people would be disappointed.

And so they made a conscious decision against CGI, and you and I both respect and love that. So, for that aspect of it, I love it too. That said, I can’t wait to talk about the details of the plot, because there were bits of this movie that confused me. There were bits of this movie where I was like, rolling my eyes, like, Oh my God, like, do not expect me to buy this.

Craig: Oh boy. Let me respond to the werewolf design and then we can talk about the lunacy that is this movie. I feel bad saying this, but I really didn’t care for it, the, the design, and, and I think that the re, in close up, I thought it looked great, like anytime they were in close up on like the werewolves, like maw, like that looked fantastic and scary and I liked it, but when it was the full werewolf, I don’t even know.

God, I didn’t read the trivia. I am so unprepared. This is the most unprepared I’ve ever been. I don’t know how they did it, but it looked like I was at a ballet about werewolves. Like it just looked like very fit. People with like, a shoulder headpiece on. You really didn’t 

Todd: read the trivia. I didn’t read anything!

So, I’ve gotta credit you because, ironically enough, if you read the trivia, you will find that Neil Marshall recruited dancers to play the werewolves, specifically ballet dancers, because yeah, he wanted this like, kind of like the motion and kind of like the, the grant, he felt that dancers could better portray the werewolves than just like big burly stunt guys.

So there were literal ballet dancers in the werewolf costumes. They were on stilts and they also The sets were smaller, well, especially when they were shooting the werewolves. They built the sets just a little bit smaller so that they would have to hunch over more and they would appear to tower over everybody.

So, yeah, you’re not off the mark there. 

Craig: And now that, now that I know that’s true and that that’s what he was going for, like, thumbs up.

Todd: I don’t know. I think he was going for graceful ballet dancing werewolves, to be fair. But 

Craig: there are just so many things, like, I have so many questions. Like, as soon as Alan and I started watching this movie, I was getting on my phone to make sure that we were watching the right movie, because this movie was made in 2002.

And I was like, no, This is clearly a movie that was made in the 70s. My video quality was poor. I streamed it on Hulu. My video quality looked like it was something that was shot on film in the 70s. Oh yeah. That movie that you hate about like the wild man in the woods. What is that movie? Don’t go in the woods.

Yeah. That’s what it looked like. Oh, yes. Oh my God. No, like seriously. There were lines in the film. Like it looked like it was on film 

Todd: and there 

Craig: were cigarette burns. 

Todd: No cigarette burn. You stream this on Amazon, 

Craig: on Hulu, 

Todd: on Hulu. 

Craig: Yes, I don’t know what print it came from, but I was really worried that I was watching the wrong movie that I looked it up and I wasn’t and then ultimately, as I got into it, I literally turned to Alan and I said, This has to be a choice.

It has to be. There’s no other explanation for it. And it fit the movie. It feels like a movie that was made in the seventies. All those low shots up at it. Trees and shit. We have seen that in other 70s movies. I have no idea. I don’t know if Hulu just got a bad cut of 

Todd: it. I don’t know. I feel like what I watched had been cleaned up.

However, it’s also interesting that you say that. Because, apparently, when they went to go and do the Blu ray release of this film, like, to properly release it, you know, this was a low budget film. It was shot in, it’s, it’s shot in Scotland and Luxembourg and a bunch of places. It’s an independent film, it was.

And so Neil Marshall said that they didn’t think they could release it because all the original stuff had been, basically they lost it all. Like nobody had it. Nobody was taking care of it. Big budget movies are shot at studios that care about their product and they keep it and they hold on to it and they preserve it.

And this movie, they thought they had lost all of the original stuff and a path. Happened to have two prints of it that he said by some miracle were sent to us. Pathé is in Italy, it’s a studio and apparently, I don’t know, I don’t know all the details, but anyway, they had two prints of it that they managed to send to them and from those two prints of the film, they were able to salvage and release a Blu ray, so maybe some of the film, well, clearly some of the film quality you’re talking about, especially the cigarette burn bit, those only come from prints, those don’t come from the negatives, those come from reels you need to change, right?

Craig: It happened twice. I, I had convinced myself the first time that I had hallucinated it. I thought, no, surely not, surely not. But then it happened again. I’m actually a little bit sad that you didn’t see it like that because eventually, like, I felt like that was the vibe of the, it feels like an, it doesn’t feel like a movie from 2002.

It almost feels kind of grind housey. 

Todd: Oh, no, that it does. Uh, no, I agree with you. And I think it’s even more than just the film quality. I think the, again, it’s probably due to the low budget nature of it and what they had to do, they had to submit to the same tricks that grind house films have to do to kind of, 

Craig: yeah, I don’t want to suggest based on my comments about the film, like the actual video quality, I don’t want to suggest that it’s shot poorly because I don’t think that it is at all.

I think that it’s shot really. In a very smart way, but. In a way that again seems more like what we would see it at times reminded me of like cannibal holocaust like yeah handheld close shots of people’s faces just kind of observational Shooting about yeah, especially with all those soldiers. We haven’t even started talking about what the movie is about

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I swear to God, in the first 10 minutes, there’s an interesting opening shot or scene, which we should probably talk about. But within the first 10 minutes, when we’re introduced to this troop of soldiers, I looked at Alan and I said, Oh, great. It’s a bunch of soldiers that all look exactly the same. Yeah, there’s no way that I am.

Ever going to know who is who and I never did ever know, like there’s one guy named Cooper who’s like the main guy, but then the rest of them were like guts out guy.

There’s a guy named spoon. Yeah, but I couldn’t tell you who that was. 

Todd: Yeah, I know. I 

Craig: couldn’t, I have no idea. 

Todd: Yeah. No, that would be one criticism of the film, but for an action film, it doesn’t tend to matter. 

Craig: It does, it doesn’t matter. 

Todd: It’s, 

Craig: all these characters It is so much like Predator. You’re, but you were right.

It is so much like Predator. It’s just a different antagonist, but in Predator, all of those guys were distinct, like they had distinct looks. They had distinct personalities in this movie. It’s like six guys and they all look exactly the same. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: exactly the same. 

Todd: It’s true. But, but you know what, I don’t think we’re obligated really to be able to like, uh, come do character names and things like that because ultimately it really doesn’t matter.

Like, it’s just gonna be a bunch of people fighting werewolves. There isn’t a lot of real drama between the people. They argue and they fight. say things to each other and stuff like that, or they allude to things that happened in the past or some beefs or whatnot, but like ultimately none of it really matters to the story and it’s not real heavy.

Honestly, at some point it becomes night, night of the living dead, where they’re just stuck in a house that’s being besieged and they need to defend these guys off. And this movie is so. Chalk full of references to other movies that is it? Oh God. Yeah. Oh, I 

Craig: didn’t read the trivia. What? 

Todd: Okay, good. Tell me, I’m excited.

There’s a lot of them. I mean, there’s so many, I mean, I think as we go through the plot as we do, we’ll get to them, but like here’s evil dead vibes. There’s like I said, night of the living dead vibes. There’s character names. Like one of them is called Henry G Wells or something. I mean, There’s just so many, like, little nods, actually there’s so many in here that you could just tell the director got super excited and there’s, there’s shit that’s so esoteric that you would never piece it together unless you watch this movie a hundred times or you read the trivia on IMDb, like that is how chock full of, of references to other films it is.

Craig: Well, I’m Disappointed that I failed in my duty to educate myself this time around because honestly, like I feel like there’s not a whole lot to talk about. The plot is 

Todd: so simple. It is super simple, dude. I’m just just while we’re talking about it, literally when Megan cuts her hand on the window, you remember that moment?

Yes, there is a very, very small segment of music from the company of wolves. That is how minutely referential, like, elements of this movie are to other movies. 

Craig: That’s so funny, because that’s one of the only moments that I was like, Oh, that’s important. Like, like they make a big deal out of it. Like, she cuts her head and then she looks at it like, I know.

You’re like, Oh, is she a werewolf now? You’re like, put a pin in this, right? Right.

Oh, man. Megan. Oh God. Yes, please. Please. You do it because it is so simple. Like, I feel like you can do it and like, it’s okay 

Todd: because we’re not talking about just the plot, but like it starts out with these two guys. God, I wish I could remember their names, but I can’t. Ryan is the name of the, the superior.

He’s played by Lane Cooper. 

Craig: Ryan and Cooper are the only two names you need to know. No, excuse me. Ryan Cooper and Megan, the only girl. Three names that keep track of those. Ryan, Cooper, and Megan. 

Todd: Liam Cunningham plays Ryan, and you will recognize him, particularly if you’re a Game of Thrones fan. He was, uh, Davos Seaworth in Game of Thrones.

Uh, he’s been in a hundred and fourteen movies. Like, I, I’ve never watched Game of Thrones, and I instantly recognized this guy. So, he’s a, a very, very prolific actor on television, on movies, pretty much equally. I feel like Cooper was familiar to me too, but I couldn’t immediately call up how or why. But anyway, it does a little bit of a fake out where they’re military guys in the woods, and there’s some shit going on, and they’re doing some fighting, and then, I don’t remember exactly how it all goes down, but at some Point there’s a dog involved.

What is it? He gets attacked by a dog or something. 

Craig: There’s nothing there. No, no No, nothing that dog didn’t do anything. Really? It was just like a test of will or something like now shoot the dog Yeah, shoot the dog. 

Clip: He thinks i’m pulling his leg. Do I look like a sodding comedian shit boy? No, stop I still wouldn’t do it.

You don’t have a choice finish the job shoot the dog Woof! Woof! Woof! Shoot it! No! Stop! Woof! 

Craig: And he’s like, well, if you don’t, then I can’t trust you to do what things you may need to do. And he’s like, no, I’ll do whatever to protect the squad or whatever, but I’m not going to shoot this dog unprovoked. I 

Todd: can kill a dog.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m just not going to kill this dog for this reason. And he’s like, well, you’re out 

Craig: for no reason. Right. And then, and then Ryan shoots the dog for no reason. This dog that’s just like, you know, sitting there obediently. 

Todd: I find this a little confusing because then when we come back, we find out that Cooper is still in the military.

So, I was like, oh, but he 

Craig: got kicked out. The first ten minutes of the movie. No, he didn’t get kicked out, he just didn’t make that special squat. Yes. But the first ten minutes of this movie are wild because it’s like, you get the, you know, these, these, Screen things telling you where we are. And the first one was like Scotland and these people are camping and they’re getting busy and the woman gets killed.

And then it says two hours earlier in Wales. And then we see that. Scene where he’s supposed to shoot the dog or whatever and then it says four weeks later in the highlands of scotland Why are we jumping around in time like that? 

Todd: You’re right I forgot about the campers out in the woods getting killed because I thought at first I thought is this movie gonna be a horror comedy Because what happens is they’re getting ready to make out and he starts to unzip her zipper and then the zipper sound keeps going until And they look up and they realize that their tent is being unzipped.

I actually thought, I laughed out loud at that. I thought that was pretty clever. It was the cutest thing I’ve seen in a horror movie. 

Craig: This movie, that, okay, that was funny. I did enjoy that. But this movie confused me. I kept looking at Alan like this. I think that was supposed to be funny. Right. Yeah. Like, I kept thinking, I think that was, Comedy, but it didn’t make me laugh, right?

Is it just because it’s it’s like, is it British comedy that I don’t 

Todd: get? 

Craig: I have to, you know what? 

Todd: So this is hilarious. I was out shooting today when I got a message from you and I got very concerned that we were going to be watching the wrong movie today. We had two movies to watch. And I hadn’t watched the first one.

I had given myself enough time to watch it, but thinking that I was going to have to watch two movies today, I was like, I’m going to need to use all of my free time, you know, my lunch break. And then, you know, maybe even on my trip home to watch this movie. And thankfully my taxi ride home was like almost an hour and a half.

So I pulled out the laptop and me and a friend of mine, who happens to be Irish, which is, you know, it’s Scottish adjacent, was sitting next to me, and we were watching this movie together, and I was like, Oh, this is cool, because this is kind of happening near and around in the UK, you know, around his home, so he’s going to enjoy this too.

And we’re watching it, but it was a little noisy in the car, and the sound wasn’t, you know, was up as high as we could get it. And because I was in a hurry, I put, I cranked it up to watch it like 1. 25, you know, speed or whatever, and eventually he turns to me. He’s like, man, he’s like, we need to slow this down or we need to put some headphones in or something because I can’t understand what the hell they’re saying.

And I was like, thankfully you’re not the only one. 

Craig: No, I couldn’t understand what they were saying either at regular 

Todd: speed. There’s so much slang and so much shit going down. That was a bit of an adjustment. Yeah, and I’ve seen a lot of, I’ve purposely pushed myself to watch UK films where people are just speaking in like Cockney accents and Irish Brogue and all kinds of stuff, and even my Irish friend was like, I’m not even sure what this means, I’m not even sure what this means, I’ve never heard that before, the guy grew up in the UK, right, and he’s a linguistics guy, of all things, so like, Yeah, so, uh, we ended up finding a place to stream it where we could actually put subtitles up, and that helped us tremendously.

Craig: Yeah, I don’t know. Okay, so, like, there’s this team out, and it’s supposed to just be like a training thing, right? Like, they’re like on a training mission. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s just It’s just drop you in the middle of the jungle somewhere. Not jungle, but wherever it is in Scotland. Forest, uh, yeah. Forest. And you’re just supposed to go through this training mission.

They’re all issued blanks. You know, they’ve all got guns with little yellow things on the end. So like, they all know that it’s just all fake. But then as they go through the woods, they come across like a, they’re sitting around a campfire. Yes. Oh my God. I was not going to let you pass that part. They’re sitting around a campfire and they’re telling stories and one of them’s telling stories from Iraq and how, you know, like a buddy of his, you know, when they found him, he was in like 15 different pieces.

And then 

Craig: in my notes, my notes is campfire tale about Eddie’s ass tattoo. 

Clip: Me and Eddie, we went out a few drinks. We had a lot of drinks and we went down to the tattoo parlor and I got a desert rat done and Eddie being Eddie wanted something a bit more meaning and being a bit of a believer. He said that his soul still belonged to God.

But his flesh, well his flesh was way beyond redemption. And it was up to Satan to save his skin. So he got this great laughing devil tattooed right on his arse. Anyway, about six days later we were making a regular sweep along the Iraqi border. And, uh, Eddie triggered an anti tank mine. Blinding lightning flash and a f ing deafening crack, and by the time we’d picked ourselves up off the deck, Eddie was He was gone.

Just bits and pieces of him. That’s all that remained. The thing that really freaked us out that day was when left hand Charlie found a bit of Eddie with a tattoo on. I mean, everything else was burnt to a crisp, covered in carrot. All mushed up, poked up. Not this bit. This bit was perfect. And there’s old Nick, chalking his fucking arsehole off at us.

So you could say that Eddie was right. That Satan did indeed save his skin, just not all of it.

That 

Todd: was a great monologue. So it was, it was interesting and it was cute and it’s very military and I was willing to go along with it because we’re still only like 15 minutes into this movie that we know is going to have some soldiers in it. It’s very typical, again, predator esque, whatever. And then suddenly, a dead cow drops, drops from a height.

Into their campfire and they’re like, what the hell? And one dude’s like, start shooting at it. And he’s like, what are you shooting at it for? It’s blanks and yada, yada, yada. And then they stop and they’re like, Oh my God, this cow, like it, it, it’s clearly been like mutilated and yada, yada, yada. All right.

Well, I guess for the night we need to like, put up some positions and like. Have some I’m thinking what a dead cow just dropped into your camp, and you don’t think this is from 

Craig: the sky

Like I just felt like yeah that guy like reacts and shoots his gun or whatever but then they’re like well that was weird Let’s go to sleep, I guess, put up a patrol and watch, you know, and then they get up in the morning and they go looking around and, and they kind of go off track. I feel like, like they’re investigating this whole cow thing.

I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. Yeah, we do know, however, that that guy that we had seen earlier, Ryan. Captain Ryan is following them and communicating with somebody else and he’s like, tell them that the flock is approaching the fold like what? But it’s intrigue, but we know that this is a, we know it’s a werewolf movie and, but then he, that guy gets attacked by a werewolf and then this group of military men that we’ve, I’ve gotten accustomed to in looking at like investigating the cow thing.

They come across a military camp that has just been decimated. Like you don’t even see any bodies or anything. It’s just blood and guts everywhere. Yeah. The whole point is 

Todd: there are no bodies. Yeah, 

Craig: you’re right. But, but Ryan, Captain Ryan, the one who’s been following them is there and he’s like slashed open, but he’s okay.

And, and he keeps saying there is only supposed to be one of them. I really didn’t understand what was happening in this movie most of the time. I swear to God, my notes, my notes are short and they’re like, I’m bored. I don’t know what’s happening. Like that’s 

Todd: literally in my notes. I mean, to be fair, I mean, it’s just setting up mystery.

I mean, I was okay with not knowing exactly what happened because I figured it would be explained later, but in retrospect. I’m still a little confused. But anyway, yeah, you’re right, they come across Ryan, he’s been slashed, he’s asking them for help. He leaps out at them, almost gets himself killed, cause he leaps out at them.

They aim their guns at him, they find him, they patch him up, and they start to drag him along. And as they’re dragging him along, they get beset by creatures. And it’s pretty clear. That, I mean, it’s clear as day. 

Craig: It’s clear as day because it is day. 

Todd: It is day. Yeah. 

Craig: What is happening? 

Todd: Werewolves. A full size, no question, are coming at them, and they’re shooting at them, and they’re dragging this guy along, and they’re trying to get somewhere.

And what happens is they sort of stumble down a hill onto a road right in front of a jeep that happens to be driving by. Right, that happens to be driving by at that moment. 

Craig: Why are the werewolves Why are the werewolves werewolves during the day when they very clearly later talk about how they’re only werewolves at night, like somebody says later, we just have to wait until morning.

This first werewolf attack on the military crew happens in broad daylight, and I looked at, God, I’m just going to keep saying it, but I did. Is this supposed to be night? Because it was broad daylight! Is it a 

Todd: day for night situation? Yeah, no, it didn’t seem to be. No. It was broad daylight. I don’t understand.

But it’s twilight, it’s coming up to night anyway. Maybe, you know, the moon is full, but the sun hasn’t gone down yet. Two o’clock in the afternoon.

Whatever. Alright, fine. It’s night. It’s fine. They stumble in front of this jeep. I’ll go with it. I’ll continue to go with it, even though it’s raising questions. Whatever. 

Craig: Wait! No! We can’t go there yet! Because first, one of the guys, whose names I don’t know, gets attacked by the werewolf, and his abdomen gets completely sliced open, and his guts are hanging.

Ow. Yeah, that happened. His guts are hanging out. And another guy comes up and is like, Just put them back in! And he’s like, No, no, they won’t fit. And the other guy’s like, Oh, they’ll fit. And they just squish his guts back inside him. And like, pull his pants up. And he’s fine. Are we sure? He can get out. I thought he’d get up and run.

Todd: He gets up and run. No, this is the guy. Oh, this isn’t the guy they rescued, right? I thought there was a dude who got killed and they ended up having to leave behind and they were distressed about and that was the guy. 

Craig: There was one guy died, but that wasn’t the guy whose guts fell out. That guy whose guts fell out is around for most of the rest of the movie.

They put him in that bed and there’s a whole scene where they sleep. So 

Todd: because he’s the, he’s the captain. Yeah, that’s right. I feel like there’s an explanation. Guts were out. I know, but I feel like there’s an explanation for that. Because 

Craig: he, he, I think he became a werewolf because of that attack. 

Todd: Yes.

Yes. 

Craig: So are you, are you suggesting that like the initial swipe of the werewolf claw, like makes you immune to injury? Yeah. If that’s okay. All right. Okay. That’s werewolf lore, 

Todd: right? You get attacked by a werewolf, you get scratched by a werewolf, you can become a werewolf, and werewolves have these regenerative qualities.

At least, that’s American Werewolf in London, that’s at least one other movie we’ve seen, that was The Howling, right? Like, so, yeah, I mean, I’m willing to go along with that, but it is pretty shocking. The moment that these stuff is guts back and guts 

Craig: are out. 

Clip: Right. 

Craig: Okay. And so then they meet Megan. They just fall in front of her car.

She’s like, Oh my God, thank God I found you. What? What are you 

Todd: talking? Where did she come from? At first I thought she was also military. She’s like, get in the, get in the Jeep and like whatever. And then she drives them off. And in the jeep they’re talking about oh my god that was f ed up and she’s like okay well like the closest place nearby is this farmhouse down the road and so 

Craig: And a werewolf attacks their car it’s not like, it’s not like there’s any mystery as to what they’re dealing with now even though they, they kind of continue to pretend like they’re not sure what’s happening And at one point somebody, maybe it’s Megan is like Is it wolves?

And Megan’s like, well, it’s like kind of not entirely wolf, but not, but a little bit man. And I shit, you know, I was sitting there thinking, isn’t there a word for that? It’s f ing werewolves. Are you kidding me? You I’ve seen them, they’re 8 feet tall, they’re bipedal, they’re obviously werewolves. Ugh. I need to calm down.

Yeah, 

Todd: it’s okay. No, I, it’s funny because I was also turning to my friend Thomas multiple times during this being like, shouldn’t they understand by now? Like, didn’t they sort of sort this out? They’ve been fighting these wolves. You’ve seen them. They’ve been fighting these wolves out there. These wolves attack their car.

An arm came down through the roof of this jeep. They stabbed it multiple times. One guy was holding it while the other dude was stabbing it with the knife. They get to this farmhouse. They go inside. There’s nobody there. It’s so Goldilocks and the Three Bears that some guy even makes a reference. It’s so funny.

Craig: I know, I don’t understand it. That’s part of the charm though, the Goldilocks bit is Why did the werewolf family leave on the stove? Why? Why? Were they just, like, were they being hospitable? Like they wanted their prey to be well fed? Fed. They go, what? 

Todd: They go there and, and there is, you know, it’s one of those deals where like, oh, there’s nobody here, but there’s a boiling kettle on the stove, which is a mystery.

And then a guy looks and they’re like, well, we’re gonna eat ’cause we’re hungry. And I was like thinking, don’t eat that shit. Like, do not eat mystery things from a place you don’t know. 

Craig: No. 

Todd: And . And one guy even asked another dude, what is it? And he’s like, I don’t know. It’s. Seems like pork. And I was like, it’s a human being.

Like, it was very clear to me, 

Craig: like you guys, I don’t even know. Yeah. I don’t even know if anything came of that. I was just like, no, it makes no sense. Like why would these people flee? It’s also been established that the people who are from here know that there are where, yes, this is the other thing. And lots of people, like people go missing from this place.

All the time. 

Todd: This woman, she claims, and I’m still confused about this, but as they sit there, Megan claims that she is a zoologist. 

Craig: She’s a zoologist! I’m about to shit my pants when she said, I’m a zoologist. I was like, you are fucking kidding me. That is, oh my god, and Alan, who hated this movie and was so So angry that I made him watch.

I mean, like he tolerated it, but like, it was obvious that he hated it. When she said, I’m a zoologist, we both just died laughing.

Todd: Oh God. It’s so stupid. So she’s, she’s a zoologist and she says, I’m a zoologist. And I came out here specifically to study these creatures. So And I know how to kill them every time to the point of comedy, which I thought this cannot be an accident. Like this has to be a joke every time to the point of comedy.

She starts to verge on information that will be helpful to them. They interrupt her and say, Oh, we don’t care about that. 

Clip: Do you have a name? Soldier Cooper going to need your help here, miss. My name is Megan. And I know how to kill them. You’re leaking like a slave. Look, I need you to get some super glue and some whiskey, all right?

I’ll see what I can do. 

Craig: They just cut her off when she’s about to give the 

Todd: most crucial information. At one point I turned to Thomas and I said, Mark my words, there will be a scene later in this movie where this woman is like, The only way to stop them is

It didn’t come, but I was ready for it because that was the tenor of everything. Anytime anyone in this movie can possibly share important information, they either don’t, or nobody else gives a shit, or somebody interrupts them. This guy, who they found, turns out to be shady, because He’s like, obviously we know he knows something.

He’s saying stuff about, oh, he was always supposed to be one of them. He’s the only surviving member. Yet, they do not press him for information, even though he says shady things. And so, they get very suspicious of him. They’re like, what’s your deal? Especially because this guy’s got a pass with him. So it’s like, oh, it’s like a personal thing.

As well, right? Cause Ryan was the guy who didn’t let Cooper join the special forces. So Cooper’s immediately attacking him. And he’s like, let me see, let me see your wounds. And Ryan’s like, I would really appreciate it if you didn’t. And he’s like, well it doesn’t matter, cause I’m gonna see your wounds anyway.

And they lift up his shirt, and of course his wounds are healed. I’m sorry, huge red flag. What do they do? Duh! Oh, I can’t trust you, uh, we’re gonna tie you to a chair. And then they walk away. This guy Why aren’t you pumping him for information? And why, when this girl is saying, I know how to kill them, you’re not like, Alright, let’s pull up a chair, you tell us, as your zoologist, person who studied these creatures, everything you know.

Instead They’re still not even quite sure if this is a werewolf. Well, I don’t know if I buy that. I don’t know. Like whatever this was hard for me to 

Craig: swallow. Yeah. But okay. The movie is far too long. And there are so many times in my notes where I just am like so much talking and I didn’t care. Like I didn’t, they were just talking forever.

I’m like, I don’t care, but. At some point, Ryan straight up tells them that the military knew there were werewolves and they were sending this group of guys in as like bait because they wanted to, I guess, capture the werewolves and use them As a military capture one at least yeah, and use it as like weapon like weaponry alright, and then he starts to turn into a werewolf and I think he does he turns into like a great big huge one and there’s fighting there’s always fighting there’s gun play and fighting all the time, but nothing really comes of it and then there’s always talking talking talking and then at some point.

Megan, I don’t know, at some points in the movie, like, they have cars, but then every time they have cars, the werewolves disable them, and then at one point, Megan’s like, Oh, uh, I forgot to tell you, there’s a car in the garage, you should go get it. And then she’s like, uh, I think all the werewolves are probably hiding in that shed, we should blow it up.

This plot point, Has no purpose. 

Todd: I have to be honest with you, at this point, Megan is saying two different things. On the one hand, she is trying to convince them, we just need to wait till morning. We just need to wait a couple hours, we need to hold out, and then everything’s gonna be fine again, because it’ll be morning, and they only hunt at night.

But then later, they concoct this plan, like they need to get to a car and try to get out. I’m like, why? You guys have successfully defended your little fortress here. There are no werewolves right now. You seem to have all the ammo in the world and you’re not concerned about it. Like, hold down. She’s literally been telling them, we just need to wait an hour or two.

And then, two scenes later, she’s like, I think we should go to the shed and get the car. Why? Why? And blow up the shed! Oh, we should go out into where the werewolves are. Somebody needs to go out into the forest where the werewolves are, act as bait. That is the dumbest plan! So that another person can, while they’re distracted, go out into where the werewolves are, to go to the shed to get the car, to back a car up to the front, so they can all get into this car, so that they can drive out into where the werewolves are.

I don’t get it. 

Craig: Oh, 

Todd: it’s 

Craig: dumb. It’s dumb. And, and she, this whole plan, like they get the car, but then the guy who got the car gets killed because there’s a werewolf hiding in the back of it. And then Megan’s like, Oh, we need to, I bet they’re all hiding in that shed. We should blow it up. So they do. And then as soon as they do, she’s like, just kidding.

Like they, just at that point. Somehow they have a revelation like there has been throughout this entire time a family Portrait of the family that lives in this cabin, but they only just realized in this moment. Oh, I this family’s probably the werewolves and Megan’s like, yeah, they are

Todd: You tell me you’d figured that out like Way long ago because 

Craig: I knew Megan was shady, but this whole the whole plot was so convoluted. I’m like, I don’t know Well, here’s what I don’t understand at one point. I thought they all could be werewolves for all I 

Todd: at one point Megan seems to be telling the truth because there’s like a Moment of truth or whatever when she’s talking to Cooper and a couple people are dead And the werewolves are descending on the cabin.

I think this is after the car was backed up but the guys killed and by the way I don’t understand why they didn’t still go for the car I mean this guy gave his life to bring them the car he did end up killing the werewolf because they opened the back door of the car and they saw all this death they shot the werewolf and whatever like why didn’t they then Push the blood in the body aside and get in the car.

Like, I don’t think the werewolf disabled it. I don’t know why they didn’t just follow through with their plan anyway. They just retreated back into the house. Anyway, Megan tells Cooper, I believe it is, When you came up in the woods, I, I thought you were the one who could save me from this hell and this madness, but I realize now you can’t.

I had already kind of Sorted out that she was a werewolf because there were some weird scenes of her sitting down and playing at the piano You know in the house some sheet music that she obviously knew before and then when she caught herself on the window She was kind of looking at it funny and then her hand was kind of fine later and shit So I felt like it was projected that she was a werewolf.

What I don’t understand is what was her motivation through this entire thing? 

Clip: When I found you out there tonight, I truly believed you were the best chance I had of getting out But now we have no chance. There is no out. 

Todd: There never was. She like literally screams out. You think I wanted to be a part of this effed up family?

I’m like well, then you were driving away. Why don’t you just leave? Yeah I mean if they’re only a threat at night in when there’s a full moon You can go whenever you want. You said you live in a full moon Farmhouse just a little whale die on the road like it doesn’t seem like there’s anything keeping you here How are these people your salvation just none of that made sense?

I don’t know Maybe someone’s gonna listen to this and they’re gonna explain to me something I missed 

Craig: some people are gonna be mad Because people 

Todd: love this movie. You know what to be honest with you. I didn’t hate this movie I actually enjoyed watching it as much as I, I thought it was puzzling. It was silly.

I liked the action. I really did. I didn’t feel for any of the characters, but I liked it. Like, I like any action movie. Like, I want to watch Predator or Commando or something like that. Like, I thought there was great action in here, and I thought it was bloody, and it was gory, and it was kind of fun. I liked the werewolves.

I liked seeing all that. I just didn’t think the story made any sense, and I agree with you. It was 100 percent convoluted to the point of lunacy. It didn’t make any sense to me. It didn’t make any sense. I 

Craig: mean, I feel like we, we didn’t even talk about how it ends, but that’s, that goes to show how much I cared.

And, and I think that part of it was the whole time I was watching it, I was feeling apologetic because I knew Alan wouldn’t like it. But I thought that based on public response to it, I’m like, well, it won’t be terrible. Like it’ll, it’ll be a decent movie. And I knew that he was just miserable watching it.

And I felt apologetic. And I understood why at one point I offered, I was like, we can turn it off. We can watch something else. And he’s like. No, we can finish it, but after it’s over, you need to leave me alone.

That’s hard. So I did. We finished it. Then I went in another room and,

um, but I mean, how does it end? Who cares? I mean, there’s werewolves and then Cooper like kills them. And, and, you know, He and the good boy Doggo, who we haven’t talked about at all. And when they first arrive at that cabin, somebody hears some scratching behind a cupboard door and they open it out and like an Australian shepherd comes out like a sweet farm dog.

And we had already seen that one German shepherd get shot in the head. And when that Australian shepherd came out, I looked at Alan and I said, that dog will be fine. I guarantee it. I mean, they had already. Set up that Cooper was like more like he morally objected to killing a dog. And I’m like, Oh, this good dog.

Oh, he’s going to be fine. 

Todd: I actually thought because of that setup, he would face a situation in the future where he would shoot the dog. So I was kind of impressed that I was surprised that it lived. Honestly, 

Craig: it crossed my mind that maybe the dog would also be aware. But he wasn’t, and in the end he helped, and he survived.

Todd: So what? Like, this is the family dog that on the one hand was barking at the werewolves sometimes, but on the other hand the werewolves had to lock up in the closet? 

Craig: Yeah. Oh, yeah, they just lock him up in the closet. That’s fine. I mean, that’s what you would do. I mean, you’re going to turn into a werewolf, so you got to make, you know, make sure your dog is safe if you’re going to turn into a werewolf.

I get it. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: I would do that. 

Todd: I love the point. Like, there’s some interesting physics involved. And, you know, where there’s a point where it’s basically the end of the movie, Cooper ends up blowing up the whole house with this little trap or whatever. He’s in the basement, the house blows up, but I guess an explosion like a tornado, right?

As long as everything above ground explodes, everything underground is okay. It’s just like, that’s 

Craig: Todd. It’s so funny. We, uh, we’re going to talk about that more because the same thing happens in the other movie that we watched for today. 

Todd: Anyway, carry on. So anyway, I think we pretty much did it, right?

Like she turns into a werewolf and he shoots her in the head real fast, or somebody does. I can’t remember who does. 

Craig: Well, right. I don’t know. And then you’re right. The whole house blows up, but because they were in a basement, they’re okay. But it turns out that one of the werewolves is still down there. I think it’s the, the captain Ryan.

I think it’s supposed to be him. And he and the main guy fight. And somehow, I have no idea how all of this is connected, but somehow Cooper has that silver letter opener from the campers from the first story. Oh, 

Todd: okay, cause I And he kills them. I, I think I missed that because when the werewolf breaks in through the floor and comes down and starts fighting Cooper, a whole bunch of stuff falls down with him, and then there’s a moment where Cooper sees that letter opener, and it’s like an aha moment, right?

And I was like, Am I supposed to recognize that there’s a point made earlier in the movie where they’re going through the drawers looking for things and somebody even says, God, this whole family doesn’t have a silver thing in the house, which is a big giveaway. But also, I was thinking, yeah, I mean, of course, OK, so they’re werewolves, yada, yada, yada.

I thought that from the moment they went into the house. But then I was like, so where did that letter opener come from? And I guess I missed it earlier. What we was in the first camp what 

Craig: yeah in the in the opening scene with the campers the girl gave it to the guy as a gift and yes and she said something he’s like I I don’t know I feel like he said something like I hope I don’t lose it and she’s like yeah you better not it’s pure silver but the 

Todd: point is.

Those two characters had nothing to do with anybody who came here. 

Craig: So how would Except for, no, no, no, except for they were in that area. Because when the soldiers talk about Coopers, like, yeah, this area is notorious. People go missing all the time. Just a week ago, a couple of campers went missing. So I guess that we are supposed to believe that these werewolves not only kill, but also loot.

Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. I get that, and so that’s fine, so it ended up down in the basement somehow, but how does Cooper look down at this metal thing that fell down, instantly deduce that it’s silver? He would have no idea, right? He doesn’t have any association with these people, they’re not part of his backstory, and then decide, oh, that’s the thing, and so, and stab him with it.

I didn’t know 

Craig: that it doesn’t make any sense. And also, it’s not like he kills the werewolf with the letter opener, but it’s just like if the wolf is injured with silver, it makes them more susceptible to injury. And so once he stabs the werewolf, like, I don’t know, I feel like maybe He was late at night.

I don’t remember at this point, but it’s almost like you saw like a rippling effect through the world. And then he shot it in the head. 

Todd: Yeah, I think you’re right about that. Now I kind of had to have that explained to me by you just now, but. Also, that brings up the other thing that was going through my mind through this entire movie was like they shoot the hell out of these werewolves.

They are constantly shooting at these guys with machine guns at point blank range. There’s one point where a werewolf bursts through a window and no less than four guys, six feet away from him, are blasting machine gun rounds into him. It does nothing. It does not hold them back. I mean, it kind of, you know.

Put, you know, they fall back a little bit, but they keep coming. Are these guys that stupid? You have been shooting at these werewolves this entire movie and it’s done nothing to harm them. Why are you not changing tact? Why have you not thought back to that moment where this woman told you, I know how to kill them and thought there must be a way, right?

Like stop trying to shoot them. Start trying to figure out how to kill them. Maybe even just turn and ask her, Hey, you remember back when we interrupted you? Like, how do you kill them? Also, why would she volunteer this information if she’s part of this werewolf family? Like, I just don’t get it! I 

Craig: don’t get it!

No, it doesn’t make any sense! It doesn’t make any sense! Any sense. Oh, now why is 

Todd: she so coy? Right? What? Maybe she wants her fam. I’m sorry. Maybe she, she says later. You think I like being part of this effed up family? Okay, I get it. So you’re turning against your family. All right. Why were you so coy and quiet about everything?

Why didn’t you just say, Hey guys, guess what? I’m a zoologist. This is part of my family. I’m part werewolf. And, uh, this is how you kill them. Now that I got you on my 

Craig: side, we can do this. No, it doesn’t make any sense and it is frustrating and I want those of you out there because I know you’re out there.

Yeah. I want you to comment and yeah, what are we missing? Are we overthinking it? Maybe we’re overthinking it. I don’t know. I think, 

Todd: you know what we probably sound like, we probably sound like the guys who are picking apart an Arnold Schwartzenegger movie. Like, oh, he jumped outta the shed and 15 people shot machine guns at him and he mowed them down and he was fine.

And then I know we’re, everyone’s like, you know who cares? Like that’s what I come to watch. I wanna see an action movie. Maybe that’s how everybody feels about this movie because I’m serious. I really enjoyed the action bit. I really did. I like that. 

Craig: There’s so much talking like, God, like if, if, if it had cut out all of those long talking scenes, I mean, there were parts that I liked.

I liked when the werewolves were running through the forest in silhouette. It reminded me a lot of a movie that I think you are in the company of wolves. Was that the Angela Lansbury one? It reminded me of that. I like like a spooky forest with, you know, interesting imagery. I enjoyed that. I really did like the werewolves in close up it with seeing them in full again.

Like it’s not like they didn’t look good and it’s a unique look and I appreciate that, but it just looked like really buff guys, but lean like dancers. As they were, like the wolf would be though, tall. I think that tall, I mean, I get it, I get it. A dog, you know, a dog 

Todd: can be strong and muscular, but, but lean like I, I I thought that was fine.

Craig: Yeah. But it looked mostly human. It looked like they were wearing like a dog head costume. I’m, I’m not gonna continue to criticize it because I don’t want to, because I don’t think it’s a bad movie and I don’t think that people shouldn’t watch it. I was just, I had been. I, I’ve wanted, you’ve been primed.

Yeah. I’ve wanted to see this movie for the last 20 years. And I 

Todd: wanted to love it more too. I a hundred percent feel you know, I’ve been primed that this was like an insanely great movie, underappreciated independent film gem and still it’s a well made movie. It’s got a lot of skill behind it. It’s well acted.

It’s well shot. It is, it just didn’t make a lot of sense, and I think that was so distracting that it was kind of disappointing, because why? Why does it have to be so convoluted? You could have made an awesome, action based werewolf movie that would have been nothing more than, Oh shit, they’re werewolves, let’s retreat to this house and fight them away, and it would have been great.

Played better for me, I think. You know? Me 

Craig: too. I, I, like, I’m feeling dejected, like, oh boy, like, I hate that I’m saying negative things about this movie. But whatever. Tell us. It was fine. It was fine. I would not steer anybody away from it. In fact, I would steer people towards it and say, because I would want to say like, because I want to see what you think.

I think I’m wrong. I think, I think I’m missing something. I feel like I’m missing things 

Todd: too. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. So y’all should watch it and either validate Or invalidate us, because, I mean, the whole point of doing a podcast is for, like, validation, right?

Todd: Oh, man. Invalidation, yeah, is okay too. As long as it’s not mean spirited, we’re fine with that. All right, well, again, reach out to us. Let us know what you think. We really want to hear from you. And the place you can do that is on ChainsawHorror. com or you can just Google two guys in a chainsaw podcast.

You can find us all over the internet. Find us on our places where our podcast is hosted. Leave us a review. Send us a message, you can even send us a voice message through a link on our website and we love hearing those. Find us on our social media through the same channel, just let us know what you think.

We’re gonna continue with werewolf movies, we’re on a roll. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Week 3 of Werewolf Month (brought to you by Manscaped!) brings you the THIRD “werewolf” movie released in 1981. But is it even a werewolf flick at all? Opinions are as mixed as the message in this artsy oddity based on a Whitley Streiber novel and starring a host of famous actors, rounded off by none other than Albert Finney, Gregory Hines and perennial Two-Guys Favorite, Tom Noonan.

And when it comes to male grooming (how’s THAT for a transition?), you can’t go wrong with a shaving kit from Manscaped – sponsor of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw’s Werewolf Month! Get 20% OFF @manscaped + Free Shipping with promo code CHAINSAW at MANSCAPED.com! #ad #manscapedpod #manscaped

Wolfen (1981)

Episode 392, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: It’s our werewolf cycle here on Two Guys in a Chainsaw. We kicked it off with An American Werewolf in London and The Howling – two comedic, campier werewolf outings, like most of what I imagined we would be doing. And then, uh, I was clued into this third film, which was also released in 1981, the same year the other two were released.

It did not do as well as the others, probably because it’s definitely more of an artsy, thoughtful film than your campy horror movie, which apparently was not what the distributors wanted. They wanted something a little more just campy and horror. It is based on a 1978 novel called The Wolfen by Whitley Streiber.

And I’ve brought up Whitley Streiber on our podcast before, back when we talked about the Alien Encounter movie that we did, the found footage movie of the family invaded by aliens. 

Craig: Okay. 

Todd: I think it was during that movie because Whitley Stryber wrote, it’s supposed to be nonfiction, called Communion and has since become, he claims he doesn’t know what has been visiting him and he’s been having these encounters with he stopped short of calling it extraterrestrial He thinks that’s jumping to conclusions, but he wrote two very popular novels not novels Sorry nonfiction books called communion and transformation in 1986 and 1989.

I think I read both of them I was utterly fascinated with them and his descriptions of the people who visited him were Sort of the basis of where we get that modern conception. Oh, that’s why I talked about it in that podcast, because that conception of the alien with the big oval head. Yeah. And those black eyes sort of originated by him.

But before he wrote those books, he wrote a couple novels that were turned into movies. The Wolven, which is this one, and The Hunger. Which is a vampire movie, which we might end up doing at some point. I think Susan Sarandon, David Bowie, they’re both in it. This one, uh, definitely takes a different, uh, tact.

This is a very sort of like, almost, it’s very much like an allegory for what are we doing to the earth, the ecology, you know, I was getting a little bit of like deliverance ish vibes, especially in the beginning. Deliverance in the beginning of that film takes great pains to set up this metaphor that I think it’s It’s doing where it’s showing lots of, uh, city development and, and, and destruction of the rural landscape and a plowing down forests and things for progress.

And, you know, just that imagery at the beginning, you know, really sets up that tone. And I felt like this movie, I didn’t actually end up taking a lot of notes on this movie because I watched the first 15 minutes, sat down, was really taking notes on it. And then I, I couldn’t watch anymore because I had to go to sleep.

And then the rest of it, I watched in one big swell and, uh, didn’t take any notes. But like, I’ve got like a. Guys with headbands and a bird on top of the historic bridge in a big city building demolition, rich people snorting coke in the back of a limo but hippies are throwing a bottle at them and then running along the support cable of a bridge It’s just all of these like crazy scenes all kind of slammed at you together which betrays the fact that it was directed by a Documentary filmmaker, Michael Wadley.

And apparently he was taken off the project in post production because the first cut that he submitted was over four hours long. So he still was credited as the director, but this was heavily edited by Raymond Hsu, who is an award winning, uh, Academy Award winning editor. Did Star Wars and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and a bunch of big famous films.

Anyway, also starring Albert Finney. Oh my God, I just couldn’t watch this movie and not think Daddy Warbucks the whole time. Oh 

Craig: God, I didn’t even go that far back. Like I looked at, obviously I recognized him because he’s just that old guy in everything. Right. And has been that old guy in everything forever.

Alan walked through as I was watching it and It was the part where he was walking up on the bridge and he, he, he said, did he ask Aaron Brockovich if he could go up on that bridge?

He’s been in a bazillion, bazillion things. And it was weird to see him in this movie. Cause I guess I kind of just have always, my whole life is. Far as I remember, thought of him as that old man and stuff. And in this, I feel like he’s supposed to be sexy. I don’t know. No, he’s not. 

Todd: I felt he was supposed to be almost a little washed up because he’s a, he’s like retired, right?

He’s like retired with the police force, but he’s kind of pulled out of retirement for this. I think I saw a quote by him once that’s claimed that, you know, he said that like he, he sees himself in these movies and. He’s asked to play these parts that are way older than he really is. I mean, he just kind of always has had that old look and, and, uh, he’s been cast for it, you know, a lot of times like, well, I can’t remember what other famous role he had when he was like in his late thirties and it was playing like a 50 something year old guy.

I don’t know. Like, and 

Craig: it’s not like he’s an unattractive person. Like he, you know, he’s a good looking guy. He’s just not. I feel like this is, I don’t know, any leading man, you know, the Brad Pitt role or what, like he’s supposed to, he’s the lead guy. So today he would probably be played by somebody a little bit more handsome.

I don’t know. I’m digging myself into a hole. Get me out of it. But you know, Albert Finney, he’s been in a ton of stuff and he’s great and he’s the lead in this movie and he plays this guy named Dewey Wilson who they bring in like, okay, We, you already kind of covered that first part where like it opens up on a shot of the Twin Towers that will forever be eerie to me every time I see one of these old movies that heavily, and it’s so often heavily features the Twin Towers, it gives me the heebie jeebies, but you left out some important things like the Native American on top of a bridge swinging around one of those crocodile Dundee things.

Oh boy, I was like, what is happening right then the slums buildings being demolished. You’re right. It’s setting a scene because this is going to be a very, very important thing, but there’s also prominently this church. Now what I read is like this whole devastated area was just real somewhere in the Bronx.

Yeah. The Bronx. Right. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But they built that church. And, and destroyed it afterwards, like burned it or whatever. But it looks cool, like it’s like this big, kinda, decrepit church, like this, the ceiling’s all fallen in, it’s mostly just like the frame, but it still is obviously a church. And that’s an important location too, and at this point, we get our first Instance of wolf vision.

Yeah. 

Todd: It’s so interesting that we have covered just within the last month predator, right? Because a predator is kind of known for that wolf, that, that predator vision. And that was what, what 87, 86, where this is 81. And this is recorded as the first instance of that technique being used in a movie. 

Craig: I read that.

And I wondered if it was true. Cause if it’s true, that’s pretty cool. Because. Bazillions of movies have used it since as POV shot of alien or monster or animals or something. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It feels like it came earlier. It’s a little more rough, I guess, as far as a special effect is concerned, but yeah, it’s not as colorful.

Let’s put it that way. Yeah. Okay. Let’s just leave it at that. But it’s that it’s that concept and then there’s like a helicopter flying around and you talked about there’s this wealthy couple like snorting coke in a limousine. One of the Native Americans from the bridge throws a bottle at them. I’m like, what is happening?

Like, well, this movie was weird. Like, I 

Todd: get you didn’t see this is setting up this whole like the progress. Why would I think that? Cause it’s like, 

Craig: why would I be like, this is going to be a movie of like. Native Americans and gentrification, like, no, it’s just some random guy on a bridge throwing shit at a limo.

There’s nothing random. I don’t have any idea who they 

Todd: are. There’s nothing random when a person cuts together a movie, they do it for a purpose. I’m instantly looking for the purpose and I thought, I mean, if it wasn’t so weird and so out there as a Native American guy on the top, you know, doing his thing on the top of this bridge overlooking the modern city, which is sort of trope y, right?

Yes, then it’s this wealthy couple snorting coke and then they’re throwing a bottle at him, you know, I mean 

Craig: the guy like like Scurries down the bridge like a spider monkey. Yeah, just throw a bottle of beer or something It’s weird people. I can’t I yeah, like I just didn’t know what was going on and I still Still, it took a while like they set up this whole thing.

There’s this couple. All we know about them is that they’re wealthy and debaucherous. That’s it. That’s all we know. Yeah. And they, they go to battery park and they’re walking around and we see that a wolf. We presume since the movie is called Wolfen is watching them and they have a driver and the driver is just like hanging out.

And another part of the park or whatever and cinematically, it’s kind of cool. Like there’s really cool shots and, and they take advantage of some cool set pieces. I don’t know if those were actual things that were in the park that they just used. I kind of doubt it because they looked very fragile. It was like some kind of like weird ass window and they were playing, the wealthy couple was like playing around in or whatever.

One of the things that bothers me about this movie is that this wolf vision, and I guess it’s explainable, but I feel like it doesn’t really get explained until the end. These wolves can apparently get right up within the wolf’s vision. A couple of feet of people and they don’t see them right now. Are we to come, they’re not, Oh, so many things to say.

First of all, we were bamboozled because this is not a werewolf movie, correct? It’s not. 

Todd: It’s not a werewolf movie. It’s a shapeshifters movie, but shapeshifting is werewolfism, really. They 

Craig: talk about shapeshifting, but it really just seems like, I, I’m not even, we’re jumping to the end. Is that okay? I don’t know.

I think we can. I, I think we can, because it doesn’t really matter. And I was just so confused all along. I didn’t understand what was happening. I was told. Not by you, even by the internet that I was watching a werewolf movie and we had just watched those last two that had these great transformation moments and I’m waiting and I’m waiting.

I’m like, when are we going to get the great transformation moment? And I’m like, at least when are we going to get to see the werewolf? We’re not because it’s not a werewolf movie. Yeah, it’s a movie about, I don’t get it. Like, is it literally human Native American spirits that can shape shift? Or is it just other beings who are like Native Americans in their lifestyles, but they predate us and they’re just kind of still hanging around and surviving?

I didn’t get 

Todd: it. I think that’s open to interpretation, and the latter is maybe a little closer to home, but they share a kinship with Native Americans, and because the Native Americans are well aware of them, Right. And they call them the other peoples, right, the other tribes, or whatever. Something like that.

And I think this has its roots and I, I did read this. I don’t remember where, but this sort of has its roots, especially in the novel, which, which actually the novel kicks off apparently in this, in the eight 17th century, the original Dutch explorers to the U S would refer to native Americans and wolves using similar terminology, calling them the Wolven.

You know, to kind of, you know, it’s a racist thing. I’m sure. 

Craig: Well, that’s what I was going to say. I mean, that was to intentionally dehumanize them, right? Exactly. To equate them with animals. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: I don’t know. I feel like there’s something really interesting there and it doesn’t really, it’s suggested throughout.

Kind of, but there’s a huge exposition dump in like the last 15 minutes. 

Todd: Yeah, there is. And 

Craig: I just kind of wish that they had placed that exposition dump earlier. Yeah. Because I was just confused as to what was going on. This is an odd movie, Todd. It’s unlike the types of movies that we usually do.

Especially, it was not at all being a werewolf movie, which it’s not. What I. Had anticipated, this is much more like a drama. It’s much more like one of those Italian movies that you would make me watch. Wouldn’t you agree? Like it’s, it’s far more interested in like intrigue than 

Todd: Action and it is intense in that way.

Some of the intensity maybe gets lost when you’re just a little confused by it as well. Right? But like, I think it’s very brooding. I think it’s very you’re not quite sure what it’s about, but you just haven’t a sense of unease. I felt a sense of unease through a lot of the movie. There were times in which I thought something important might be happening or something sinister was around the corner, and sometimes it seemed like that was true, and sometimes it seemed like it wasn’t.

It had very dreamlike I felt a little bit like Possession, in a way. When we weren’t sure exactly what we were watching, if it was real or if it wasn’t. This is a little more grounded in reality than Possession. But also like a Ken, ugh, Kenneth, uh, what’s his name? Lair of the White Worm. Was one of them. I don’t know.

Yeah, where, where he goes to these odd places and he’s setting up a tone. Like you said, Oh, Gothic was another one of his right where he’s setting up this thematic thing and you just kind of go along the ride. But, but I thought this, this still, this had a very discernible and easy to follow plot. It has a pretty typical police, prestigial mystery murder plot as well.

So I don’t even think it was that ethereal. No. The feeling 

Craig: that I was having was boredom. Like, I shit you not, I literally had to stop in the middle and take a nap. It’s slow. 

Todd: It’s one of those kinds of movies you gotta be in the mood for. I was falling asleep. I could not imagine this at four and a half hours.

That would 

Craig: be insane. Oh my god, no. And then I got up. And I went right back to it. I never even finished out that opening scene. And then they get attacked. But you don’t really ever see anything. Like, you see That’s not fair. You do see things, but you never see the assailant. We come to find out that these are, in fact, wolves.

I’ll be at supernatural wolves, but I think that they must also carry samurai swords because they can just slice off like that. That driver’s hand just gets sliced off. I can’t think of what would be sharp enough to do other than a samurai sword. This is it. And it’s just gone. And they also do heads later.

It comes right, right, right up on him. Like it’s literally feet away from him before the guy notices, but he eventually does notice, which makes me think they are visible. Of course they are. Okay, fine. Right. But the reason that I’m sighing is because we find out at the end that they can be invisible. They can disappear at will.

So I’m wondering. Do they, like, sneak up on them, invisible, and then right before they’re about to attack, turn visible? 

Todd: I 

Craig: didn’t 

Todd: catch the disappearing at will bit. They disappear at the end. From the 

Craig: apartment? Yes! They let you, they disappear! No, they don’t. You see them. Yes, you do. You, I watched this movie, and I watched a wolf disappear.

Like, it faded away. 

Todd: Oh, I did not notice that. I, I remembered the policeman shooting, and the guy was like, don’t shoot it, and they cut to him shooting, and they cut to all the mirrors on, or in the room, and the mirrors on the, the French blinds and all that, and then when they cut back, the wolves were gone, but the French blinds were still swaying.

I thought they had just jumped back out and Done it so quickly. 

Craig: No, they disappeared. 

Todd: Okay. 

Craig: I mean, I don’t know. Now you have me questioning myself, but I was like, this was middle of the day. I was stone cold sober. I had just had a nap. I had just had a nap. So I had to have been clear. I don’t know. I could have been hallucinating.

Whatever. Anyway, I don’t know. Like, that’s the thing. I feel like we’re hesitating to get into the plot because there’s not a whole lot to talk about. Well, I think there’s a lot to talk about, but, but, okay, well then you lead it because I don’t know if I, if I keep going, I will just try, keep trying to hit plot points and I don’t think that that’s necessary.

No, I do want to talk about how there are. So many familiar faces in this, which is ironic because I read that he didn’t want to cast well known people. Well, they 

Todd: weren’t as well known at the time, except for, of course, uh, Albert Finney. 

Craig: Yeah, right. But he, the other people he wanted to cast lesser knowns.

So he went to Broadway, which is where he got a couple of them, including Gregory Hines, who, God, I couldn’t believe it that pulled that got me like I don’t usually do this, but I pulled up the IMDb page for this and and the, uh, trailer started playing silently, you know, on mute or whatever. And I was just, you know, looking to see who directed it or whatever.

And then all of a sudden there was teeny tiny baby Gregory Hines. I’m like. What? So, so I watched the trailer, so I was excited to see that he was in it and he got a couple of other people from like Broadway and then just people who, you know, were new to the industry, like Tom Noonan, Tom Noonan, baby, one of his first roles.

Oh, I know. Like he was brand spanking new and he’s young and he’s. He’s handsome and I was like, come in and I know we’ve talked about him before. And so I started looking at the stuff that he had done and I was like, Oh my God, he’s Frankenstein from the monster monster 

Todd: squad. But also like more recently in the house of the devil, he was the, yeah, the guy there, the 

Craig: older guy, the older guy.

And he was also the villain in another movie that we’ve talked about a bazillion times, the last action hero. And I had forgotten that that was him. And it’s, I was thinking like Frankenstein in the monster squad. Now he was in heavy, heavy makeup in that, but he still acted it. It still looks like him and he can still act and like he really does.

And oh my God, he just breaks my heart in that movie. And then in the last action hero, he is a nasty, nasty villain. So I like that guy. He’s great. So, okay. I said, I wanted to talk about it. I did all these familiar faces pop up. Um, and, and this is when they were lesser known. Oh my God. Edward James Olmos.

Is the Native American guy on the bridge. 

Todd: Yeah. I 

Craig: wouldn’t have even have recognized him. 

Todd: You really wouldn’t, would you? But what, Battlestar Galactica, both the original and the remake and so many other things. 

Craig: Oh, well, of course I know him from that teacher movie. I don’t even remember what it was. I only remember the name of it, but he played like an amazing inspirational teacher, um, in some movie.

Oh God. Anyway. So yeah. So a mate, like all these amazing people just keep popping up like over and over and over again. The guy I, Oh God. We watched so many movies. Was it this movie that the guy from inner space was in? Maybe it was a different movie that we watched. I don’t know. We’ve watched so many anyway.

I 

Todd: mean, Dick O’Neill. Who’s been in like, Everything Ever Made. Yes! 

Craig: Yes! And he was in Inner Space! It’s another movie that, but he’s just this, yes, and he’s barely in it, like he’s just, I don’t know, like a boss. Uh huh. In their business for a minute. Those were the things that kept me in it, because other than that, it was a little dry for me.

I didn’t dislike it. I, I thought it was fine. It’s just, we’ve been so, especially you have been talking about werewolf month for years. You wanted to do werewolf month for years and I just kind of keep putting it off and, and then we just kind of fell into it. And then I was watching this and I was like, this is a disappointment.

I feel like we wasted a slot. 

Todd: No, no, see my whole thing about werewolf month is like if they’re all just cheesy werewolf movies, it’s not fun I’m really looking for and hoping that we continue along the path of doing a variety of different takes on werewolves And so I was real happy with this. I thought this this fit right into that and you’re right.

I mean, it’s not Technically a werewolf movie and even I read Roger Ebert’s review of it, you know, which was very glowing He thought it was about Indians who can Exchange souls with wolves. And I very well could be, but I, and I say Indians, I mean, Native Americans, but they also refer to them as Indians in the movie too.

And that’s the classic term. And so I’m, I apologize if I, you know, offend anybody, if I slip into that mode, but that’s also part of the intentional fake out though, the mystery is, is, are these werewolves, like there are these strong hints and some red herrings in there that. There is actual werewolf shapeshifting going on.

The Tom Noonan character is frickin bizarre. At first I thought he was just like a zookeeper or a zoologist or something like that. But then he seems extremely fascinated with wolves. Like, that’s kind of his focus of study. And that’s pretty cool. Probably why they go to him to examine because they’re finding all these bodies that have been mutilated But mutilated like with precision and bits of it that have been left behind happen to be diseased So like it’s like whatever is killing and mutilating these people Knows that they are like gonna die anyway or something like that and they find hair On some of the bodies eventually.

I don’t know if this is true because I would buy that maybe nowadays we have this degree of sensitivity in our medical equipment, but I can’t believe back in 1981 that Gregory Hines character’s whole diatribe 

Clip: is not a trace, not a speck of metal. You know how every piece of metal, no matter how sharp or smooth, will leave a residue when it cuts.

Could be as finite as dust. Soft x rays should pick it up. Nothing. And nothing soft that could have ripped and ravaged like this. Some plastic weapon. Synthetics. I don’t think there’s any way I can check that. 

Craig: Really? I don’t know. It seems far fetched, but I don’t 

Todd: know anything about forensics. I thought I might be learning something here or maybe it’s just a bunch of bullshit.

Craig: It would, it seemed to me like, and this is another thing that I felt like was a little bit misleading because why wouldn’t they just automatically. Assume is an animal attack. It just is now. I understand like the precision of leaving behind certain organs. Okay. That’s weird. But the wounds it’s claw wounds, and I don’t understand why they don’t get that right away.

And I felt like it was a little misleading because I felt like what they kept saying was it can’t be an animal. Because it’s too big. 

Todd: It’s too big or it’s too smart. There was a degree of intelligence that was being attributed to it. Okay. In its selectivity of victims, that kind of thing. 

Craig: And that’s fair.

I did, I really liked that scene. I really, really liked Gregory Hines in this movie. He was a highlight of the movie for me, yeah. He really was. He brought A little bit of levity to it. It was so like, it was so serious. Yeah. Like this movie is so serious. 

Todd: Well, and it’s not like he was this like hilarious, comedic character.

He just brought a dose of like reality to it. Like, Oh, here’s a normal guy. Like a little jokey. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Not staring off and brooding everywhere and saying cryptic things to each other. You know? 

Craig: No, it wasn’t even like he was like yucking it up. He wasn’t. He was just acting normal and like being. Friendly, and like, and, and it was not, and, and he’s, gosh, you know, I, I was unaware that he passed away a long time ago.

Todd: I was too. I went and looked him up. I was like, why have I not seen him in anything lately? I, let me go see what he’s been doing. And I was like, holy shit. I didn’t investigate 

Craig: it further, so I don’t know what happened, but like, he was on Will and Grace, and he looked young and healthy, and like, that was the, that was his whole thing, like, he was super sexy, and they were all super into him, or whatever.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: That was the last time I had seen him, and apparently he passed away, and I don’t know how, but he Was such an amazing talent, 

Todd: like that man, 

Craig: holy crap. Like not only is he tall and handsome and could act obviously. And like, even in a role like this, where he’s totally secondary, he could be a totally forgettable.

Character and again, highlight of the movie for me, but he could also dance like, uh, list listeners. If you have never seen Gregory Hines dance, like go to YouTube immediately. Check it out. Because like he, he’s so talented and he just, Oozes charisma, make you drool a little bit. It’s so true. But anyway, I know that’s off topic, but I saw that he passed away and I’m like, I’m so sad because he was so amazing.

But yeah, I really enjoyed him in this movie, but I don’t understand why. It took them so long and then they find the wolf hairs. Where do you want to go? There’s a whole other character. There’s a huge character that we haven’t even introduced yet. This they introduced for no good reason. This woman. Um, her name is Rebecca Neff, and she’s played by Diane Venora, and I think they pulled her from stage work, too, I think, if I remember correctly.

And she’s fine, but she’s just an inconsequential character. It just feels like they have a male lead, so there has to be a romantic counterpart. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: And I don’t need a romance in this movie. It’s dumb. And they have no chemistry. At all. No. Because he looks like her dad. He does. And again, she’s a lovely person.

I don’t like to judge people based on their looks. But she does not look like a starlet. She just looks like a normal person. So then we’re just supposed to like, be interested in this normal looking person. Are we though? Banging her dad. 

Todd: I’m not sure. All right. So the banging bit really came out of left field for me because like you said, there was no chemistry.

In fact, I wasn’t even, I wasn’t even tapping a love interest angle here at all when I was watching it. They just 

Craig: work together. 

Todd: They just work together. I saw that scene as more of just a thing that happened because they were both stressed. You know what I mean? Like, I didn’t think the movie even was trying to push that, Oh, these guys are now falling in love.

I saw this again as more of this animalistic type thing. We’re all people. We’re part of nature, even though we’ve kind of tried to rise above it and take it over. 

Craig: We all f whoever is around when we get nervous. Well, don’t you? 

Todd: Don’t you? No. I’m not, you are twisting my word. 

Craig: 30 years . You’re 

Todd: twisting my words.

No, I agree with you. I think that, I think that was weird, but like, okay, so we’ve got, everybody here is troubled by something like this woman investigates. What is it? Like all over the world? She’s supposed to be like an expert in all the horrible way things that people do to each other all over the world 

Craig: or something.

Like she’s, she’s like the greatest psychologist in all the land or something. Yeah. And so God. It’s so convoluted. Okay. It’s so convoluted because that rich guy, it’s all an investigation of who killed this rich guy, because he’s like a van der Veen or something like, obviously a play on Vanderbilt. Like they’re these rich people who are in control of shit or whatever.

And they own security corporation called executive securities. So it appears to me that executive securities are investigating the murder, as are the cops. And are they working together? Yeah. I don’t understand. 

Todd: Well, she has this, and I think it’s sort of referred to as her machine, so that’s why I say she has this, this, almost this laboratory where she claims she can kind of tell where people, whether people are lying or not.

Craig: She has a fancy pants lie detector test, that’s all 

Todd: it is. It’s like four different, you know, technologies put together. It’s thermal imaging to try to capture, you know, changes in temperature in your face. face. It’s a voice thing to try to catch your tremors in your voice. They got something hooked up to her finger, like a, like a classic lie detector to monitor, you know, the heart and all that stuff.

There are these very shadowy, almost evil, like surveillance style scenes, right? Where they have these people hooked up to this and they’re. Talking to them and interviewing them people who somehow they think might know something about this or be ancillary related they have this initial notion and this is like it’s like the chief of police is following this one lead and then this guy and Gregory Hines’s character are following the other lead.

Craig: Oh, right 

Todd: where the police is like these are terrorists Because one woman says And they’re convinced, 

Craig: they’re con 

Todd: That’s so stupid! Oh, it was definitely a terrorist activity. Like she knows. But they’re like, no, the lie detector tell you know, clearly shows she’s lying, she doesn’t know crap about this. So, you know, again, I think, I think all this makes sense.

In the sense that, again, we’re setting up this whole, here is the future and here is modern day society, here is a sort of New York under surveillance kind of thing. Oppression, surveillance, corporate Controlled stuff. And then here is the grittiness of the reality of what some of that does. Right? You have these this urban blight.

You have this whole area of the city that was once developed and is now a wasteland and nobody cares and the exact opposite kind of people live there. And actually, I thought that the movie was very sensitive toward the people, for example, the bar that’s on the edge of that in the Bronx, where the Native Americans are and the homeless people who are wandering around in the slums and, and, Amidst the ruins that are surround this broken down church and that is where all these attacks are happening And these are the kinds of people that are getting killed until the rich people Get killed and now all of the efforts are going into trying to figure out who these rich people are when actually There have been a whole bunch of people who nobody gave a shit about because they’re homeless.

Yeah are being killed 

Craig: that’s the whole thing like this Vander Veen guy or whatever was Developing These run down areas and, and he’s got like in his apartment or their headquarters or something, I don’t know. There’s like a model of this, you know, very modern development that they’re going to put up there.

And as it turns out, the wolves are protecting their territory. Like the last of the territory they have. Yeah. They don’t want it. Developed because this is where they hunt. Support for two guys in a chainsaw during werewolf month is brought to you by Manscaped, who is the best in men’s below the way grooming, shaving your jewels doesn’t have to be risky business anymore.

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It’s easy grooming, no surprises. Get 20 percent off and free shipping with the code chainsaw at manscaped. com. That’s 20 percent off and free shipping with the code. Chainsaw at manscapes. com. The question I was going to ask before I forget, we’ll get back to it. I don’t even remember how Albert Finney got turned on to the native American aspect of it.

I feel like he just kind of knew this guy, Eddie. 

Todd: Yeah, well, he knew this guy, Eddie and the woman raised some point, which I don’t remember exactly what it was. Something about wolf attacks, and I think, I don’t know, somehow he got in this, this notion of Native Americans and shapeshifting into his head, because he basically climbs up the bridge to where Eddie is actually working on the bridge with all of his Native American friends.

Craig: Now let me, let me ask you a question, because you’re the filmmaker. Did they shoot that on top of that bridge? 

Todd: For sure they did. Yeah. Those were not green screenshots at all. That was an accomplishment. 

Craig: I know. I thought the same thing. I’m like. They are up there on that bridge and that is pretty cool.

Like, again, the cinematography, there are amazing shots of New York in 1980. Just amazing, amazing shots of 1980s New York. It’s haunting, kind of. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But anyway, okay, continue. They’re up on the 

Todd: bridge. So they’re up on the bridge and he pretty much almost directly asks him, Hey, you know, what can you tell me about shape shifting werewolves?

And he’s like, well, 

Clip: I can swim like a fish and I look like a bunny. I can shift with the best of them. Shift? Shape shift. We do it for kicks. Oh yeah? Turn ourselves into a different animal. One night a salmon, next night a deer. Or a wolf. 

Todd: Sure. And he unhooks. Dewey’s, Albert Finney’s character, from his safety harness.

Now, he’s never had the safety on, actually. But, uh, he unhooks him from the safety harness and grabs his arm and says, See, you could fly like an eagle, too. Just have a jump and, and see. It’s all in the mind. It’s all in the mind. Uh, yeah. It is a tense scene. And so, that’s creepy. 

Craig: It made me very nervous because I am terrified of heights.

Ha ha ha ha ha! When he unhooked him, I’m like, oh my god, I would, uh, I couldn’t handle it. 

Todd: I mean, looking at the way it was shot and looking at it, knowing the time period and, you know, like, I wouldn’t doubt that they were up there for a little while without any safety harnesses on shooting this. That 

Craig: was freaky.

Oh boy. 

Todd: So anyway, that gets us in that mindset. Like I said, I think this whole wolf thing is an intentional fake out, right? Like, that gets us in this mindset. Okay, well, now we’re following the detective down this idea, like, could these people, could there be werewolves? Could there be shapeshifters 

Craig: doing this?

And it’s also not long after that, that. Albert Finney follows Eddie, like he stakes them out, like there’s a bar that apparently all of these Native American people and they, they, I don’t know, they try to explain that Native Americans work in construction a lot or something, but they all hang out in this one bar and he stakes them out and he and a couple of other guys come out and then.

This older Native American man, they stop in the middle, like, they just stop on the sidewalk. And this older Native American man gets in front of Edward James Olmos, puts a necklace on him, and says something. And puts a 

Todd: piece of, uh, something under his It was like a drug, right? Like, in his, in his, uh, gums.

Craig: Yeah. I want, I didn’t know what it was and they never tell us what it was, but I assumed it was LSD or, or, or some natural hallucinogen or something like that. And so Albert Finney Dewey follows him to the beach where Eddie goes under the pier, takes off all his clothes and is naked for the next five minutes.

Yeah. Naked. Yeah. I was surprised by that too. And it’s like, whatever. He’s naked. He’s fully naked. There’s not a lot of like 

Todd: flopping wiener or anything, but Edward James, almost not Albert Finney. This other guy is naked. 

Craig: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would have been a totally different story, but he, he takes off all of his clothes and I’m like, yes, this is it.

This is it. This is the moment and it teases it. 

Todd: Oh, so bad. 

Craig: He does stuff with his feet. Face like he like, like contorts his face in a way that a person could, but you think, Oh, this is it. This is the precursor he’s going to turn. But instead he just runs around like a dog laps up water out of the ocean.

Yeah. Well, out of a puddle. A dog wouldn’t drink water out of the ocean. Out of a puddle in the I don’t know, whatever. But he just runs around like a dog for a while, and then he sees Albert Finney watching him, and he starts running up to him like, like he’s gonna attack him. It’s creepy. It is, and he faces him, and he like, snarls and growls at him for a while, but then he just stands up, like, like he just Honked him or something.

I I don’t even really understand what was happening. Like, he just resumes his humanity, and stands up, and I couldn’t tell if it was a, like, Like a gotcha moment, uh, because he says something like, see, I told you it was all in your head. And then the scene just cuts away. Right. And that’s it. Yeah. What a weird, weird moment.

And I didn’t understand what we were supposed to learn from it. Well, yeah. 

Todd: Again, I think, oh, okay, now this is probably a dead end, right? I think that’s what he’s learning about this, too. He’s disappointed he didn’t see this guy turn into a werewolf. 

Craig: But was he just messing with him? No, I, well, 

Todd: I don’t really think so, because I think that, um, a lot of traditional tribal religions that deal with nature.

I also think of voodoo. Voodoo goes down this route as well, where people will channel Spirits often using drugs, they will, you know, enter these trans like states where they’re supposed to be channeling spirits, channeling spirits of animals, channeling spirits of the saints and things like that. And I think this was really nothing more than just, uh, another version of that happening that he witnessed.

And, you know, conveniently, 

Craig: I think you’re right. But in that case, it feels a little trite, like, uh, pretend to be a dog for Three minutes, but 

Todd: I don’t think so because there are actual if you go into their bar, which he does later There’s wolf imagery on the walls. You see, you know old photographs of the Indians You know The the Native Americans wearing the the wolf hides and things like that and a couple of them him and an older man They’re going to a long diatribe Basically explaining the wolves and the Indians.

It’s not It’s interesting. It is. It’s 

Clip: not wolves. It’s wolfing. 20, 000 years, Wilson. 10 times your fucking Christian era. The skins and the wolves. The great hunting nations live together. Nature in balance. Then the slaughter came.

The smartest ones. They went underground. Into the new wilderness, your cities. Into the great slum areas. The graveyard of your fucking species. These great hunters became your scavengers. Your garbage, your abandoned people. Became their new meat animal. Animals? Are you sure, Wilson? They might be gods. In their eyes, you are the savage.

You got your technology, but you lost. You lost your senses. 

Todd: Thematically, it all, it all connects though. You know, it’s not random. It’s not like, you know, luck. They’re aware. You know, they know full well what’s going on. Over here with these wolves, and they feel a kinship with them. And again, like I said, I think it’s set up in the very beginning of the movie.

You know, just as modern society or the white man has driven the Native Americans out of their land, you know, out of their land where they were one with nature. I mean, he basically says this, right? So we all are driving nature out. Of its land, you know, and this is the last bastion and they don’t want it to go and that Burned out church is kind of a symbol, you know, it’s like the last standing holy place even when they go in there, there’s there’s wolf, uh imagery in you know pieces of the Stained remaining stained glass and stuff like that.

And again, this isn’t supposed to be so literal. It’s all metaphorical, but it’s a place. Sure. I mean, yeah, it, it’s, it seems contrived because it is because it’s all to push forward this theme, but I liked it. I thought it was a beautiful piece of art because of that. Yeah. As the movie went on, all of that.

At least for me, really coalesced into something a little more coherent, where I started to realize, Okay, this is a little deeper and a little more complicated than just some people who can turn into wolves. And I thought the movie did a really good job of faking me out a little bit, leading me down that path, introducing some really odd characters.

We haven’t even talked about much about Tom Noonan’s character, but he, as the zoologist, is one night, you know, watching this videos and making his, Audio notes about wolves, which is hated that looks that 

Craig: I think that footage was real and I hated it. 

Todd: Yeah, of course. It was real hunting. It was like wolf hunting footage from 

Craig: a helicopter.

Fuck you. Like, I don’t know. And for all I know, they may have been calling wolves for necessary purposes. I don’t know, but it was, it was really unsettling to watch those beautiful. Gorgeous animals being shot and, and clearly in agony, like, because the ones that we saw, most of them didn’t die immediately from the shot.

They were just taken down and you see them writhing and howling in agony and, uh, God, it just made me sick. 

Todd: At the same time, the wolf vision, you know, has been going around, and it has come outside of his window, and you can hear that it’s hearing what’s going on in there. And then he seems to kind of sense, or hear some howling or something outside, so he actually goes to the window and opens the window.

For no good reason except Possibly that it’s out. It almost seems like he’s like, if there’s a wolf out there, like I want him to see this or I want him to kind of know what’s happening. I feel like he was so fascinated by these animals yet. Here he is watching these video, you know, in the sort of science again, how we dissect nature, right?

As scientists, I’m sure that anybody who studies animals clearly respects them and loves them, or they probably wouldn’t be into them. But Not necessarily so, right? Science is full of a lot of, like, this kind of thing. Shooting animals so that you can, you know, dissect them, and, and he has stuffed wolves back in there, you know?

And so, he almost seems to represent this sort of side of raping nature for even what we seem to think is possibly good intentions. But, uh, I think the movie was almost Presenting him as having an unhealthy fascination or his methods were unsound to which for which he needed to be punished 

Craig: I hadn’t even considered that in fact I was confused why the wolves would kill him because I got the impression that he respected Nature, but now that you say yeah, he does have all those stuffed wolves back there He’s basically watching wolf torture porn.

Maybe Tom Noonan was miscast Maybe this should have been a smarmy or guy because Tom Noonan is very Soft and charming like yeah, he 

Todd: also has a slight in his soft and charmingness. There’s a slight Creepiness to it. I think, you know, there’s a deliberateness to the way he delivers himself. It was really obvious in the house of the devil.

I thought, you know, where you’re like, this guy feels sinister, even though on its surface, there’s nothing but charm and niceness and almost meekness coming from this guy. Jonathan Price can come across that way too. Sometimes I really, 

Craig: he is a little bit more sinister in my opinion, but okay. The things that I wanted to talk about.

Because we’re getting close to time, the guy Dewey and Rebecca do lots of investigating. That is most of the movie. And we haven’t talked about it at all. That’s most of the movie. But there’s one point where they go to that church and I’m not even sure why they’re there. But what I do know is they feel like they hear.

Babies crying or she does or something. And that’s a recurring thing that happens. I, what is that? Is that like a sound? Like, can wolves make a sound that sounds like human babies crying? Is that what was the suggestion? 

Todd: I believe so. Uh, not, not necessarily intentionally, but sometimes their howls resemble that.

Or, yeah, they’re, they’re mewling or whatever, maybe. I’m not, not to take you off the point, but just to go back to the Tom Noonan thing, like, it’s similar. I was confused why he called the, the, the fire department, and then he goes What?! 

Craig: I didn’t understand that at all! 

Todd: Again, I 

Craig: He reported a fake fire! 

Todd: Uh huh.

And then he leaves. 

Craig: I didn’t know. I had no idea why 

Todd: he goes out to the park, right? Central Park again, which is almost a nature preserve in the middle of the city, right? There are a number of scenes in this movie that take place there, but he goes out there and he stops and he listens and you can hear the sound of the sirens almost meld and morph into the sounds of this wolf howling.

And it seems to give him excitement. Metaphorically, it makes it sound like these two things are not that far off. Like the siren that we have now is. Similar to the cry of a wolf back then, it even almost sounds the same, that’s how similar they are, right? And they serve similar purposes. Sound the alarm, sound danger and things.

It almost seemed like he was setting that off because he knew that if he heard the, if the wolves heard the sirens, maybe the wolves would then howl. And he had a sense that the wolves were out and they were there because he actually makes that comment. I knew you would be here. 

Craig: Okay. Okay. 

Todd: Like a lure in a way.

Craig: Okay. Gotcha. I did not catch that at all. I didn’t know what was going on. And then he does hear them and then he gets attacked off of his motorbike. Did you notice the next morning when it’s after their bang session, the guy, Dewey, comes out of that girl’s apartment? And, like, a homeless guy is, like, scooting along on Tom Noonan’s motorcycle.

Did you notice that? Oh, was that his motorcycle? I wonder what that was. It was Tom Noonan’s motorcycle. Some homeless guy had just found it. It was, like, just scooting along. I thought that was hilarious. I wonder. Um, but anyway, okay. So, they’re, they’re at this church, Dewey and Rebecca. She starts walking up, there’s like a steeple, and there’s like a stairway that you can walk up the steeple, and she starts walking up there, and we know that there’s a wolf up there because we are seeing wolf vision watching her from that perspective, but all of a sudden, Dewey runs up there!

Frantically and grabs her and races her out like he knows that there’s a threat, but I didn’t understand what happened that alerted him that was something happening. And it’s also interesting to me this scene because at this point, they still don’t know what is going on, so they don’t even know what it was that was up there, if anything, and they just run away and just carry on with their day.

Well, that was a weird thing that happened. 

Todd: Yeah, I mean it’s a close call in a movie That’s you know, trying to set up some suspense every now and then I mean, I just thought 

Craig: did I miss something? Was there something that alerted him that there was danger? Because it just seemed like all of a sudden he was like and he ran up and got her and they left 

Todd: But isn’t that around the same moment where he is looking up and noticing all the wolf imagery around the church?

Maybe I wondered if that might be what what kind of alerted him to it And I really Again, I really like that image, like, this is their sacred place, and it’s in tatters, and it’s sort of their last refuge, and the last thing they have to try to defend. 

Craig: Then, I feel like the next interesting scene is, a lot happens, there’s lots of business, but eventually, Dewey and Gregory Hines, Go back and investigate that area also and they’re like staking it out from different buildings But they’re focused in on the church and at some point Dewey like I don’t know gets impatient and just starts walking towards the church but Gregory Hines gets attacked from above and I like it was kind of Exciting it was because he had a great big gun at this point We’re actually starting to see the wolves and they are just they’re wolves.

Yeah, they are not You Any kind of creature effect, nothing. They are wolves. They used real wolves in this movie. It’s crazy. I was also a little bit disturbed to hear that they had snipers in position at all times, and if the wolves got out of the contained area. Area in which they were shooting, the snipers were told to shoot to kill because these wolves were too dangerous to escape.

Oh boy, maybe don’t use real wolves then. But I have to admit, they looked amazing. Yeah. And they were very scary. 

Todd: Yeah, I mean, I kind of had a brand new appreciation for wolves, which, you know, For a while now, I always just think of it as like big dogs that are wild, you know, but like, in this movie, they’re clearly not, they’re clearly completely different creatures, they’re snarling, and they’re scary, and they’re kind of magical.

Craig: And they’re huge. You don’t realize how big they are, like, even in this movie, when they’re On all fours, I mean, they’re scary as heck, but they, they do just look like big dogs, but there is one scene. I don’t remember where it comes in the movie where they’re showing, I don’t remember if it’s the helicopter moment or not, but when they’ve hunted wolves, two grown men have to hold up the corpse of one between them and it is as big as they are.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Like they look smaller because they’re on all fours, but if you pick them up, they are as big as a man. 

Todd: It’s nuts. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s scary. And it’s, it’s very scary. And I feel like we need to get to the end. They kill Gregory Hines, which I was really upset about because he was my favorite character. But then Dewey gets attacked a little bit.

I actually didn’t really understand how he was as injured as he was. Cause it didn’t really seem like he was a, I don’t know. But anyway, he goes back to the native American bar and that’s where they give him all of the exposition that we’ve already talked about. And that leads up to the end and the end all kind of takes place.

It’s at that executive securities place. Well, it’s at 

Todd: the, yeah, it’s at the apartment or whatever of. Of the Vander beers, right? Kind of where they started their investigation. He comes back, but he sees it in a new light because it becomes very obvious to him. Okay. It wasn’t terrorists. It was the wolves taken out the people who were threatening their territory.

And this Vanda beers just a few days before had attended a groundbreaking ceremony, right? He had the shovel in there to break on this new development of which they had that big white model inside the apartment. 

Craig: Right. Okay. And so it’s the, it’s Dewey and Rebecca, and then also the executive, I guess, of this executive securities or whatever.

And they are trying to get out and go to a car. I don’t really remember all the context, it doesn’t matter. But they’re outside, and they get surrounded by wolves. Yeah, dude, that was scary. Great, looks fantastic, love it, love it, love it. And they all stand still. And I feel like at this point, Dewey understands they’re not just monsters, like, you know, they’re protecting their territory or whatever, and he’s just trying to be cool, and he tells everybody to be cool, but the executive runs off, and he gets his hand sliced off, too, but he makes it to his car, and he’s trying to start his car, and then one of the wolves pops up in the back seat behind him and Like classic horror moment.

You Yeah, like Jennifer Tilly, but I loved it. And it looked great and it was scary and it was great, but then Dewey distracts the wolves by shooting the gas tank of that car and it blows up. And so he and Rebecca run inside and they run up to that room, which is on. Like the top floor of a huge building.

It’s in that room with the big model of the development and they’re kind of just sitting around. And then I think it’s Rebecca sees out the window. The wolves are all lined up outside the window. This is like a top floor. So this is a Salem’s lot moment with where these wolves should not be able to be there, but they are and they burst in and this again, it’s like I’m flying through it, but it’s all so great.

This is the best part of the movie. 

Todd: Awesome. 

Craig: And then the wolves are all in there in the apartment and he has a gun, but He puts it down to show them like, and like puts his hands up, unloads 

Todd: it and everything. Yeah. Yeah. 

Craig: Like, I don’t want to hurt you. We’re not trying to hurt you. And then I guess to communicate with them, he smashes and destroys that model of the development.

Now I read afterwards that that was. Communicating to them that it was not going to happen. Like the, the development was over. It’s not going to happen. What? Like, I don’t know that he has the power to make that decision. Well, decision been 

Todd: made the way I interpreted it in the moment was he was just communicated to them that he was sort of anti development, like, I understand this is why you’re doing your thing and I don’t agree with this either.

So I’m going to tear it up. So you’ll spare me 

Craig: fair enough. And they do. And then the cops bust in and start. Shooting? Who are they shooting at? Because it’s not the wolves, the wolves disappear. 

Todd: Well, the wolves disappear once they start shooting. I mean But, but, but, 

Craig: then they, 

Todd: the cops never say anything about wolves.

Well, he says, don’t shoot, don’t shoot. You know, cause he’s trying to get them to not shoot the wolves. Right, 

Craig: but he Convinces them, the cops, that it was terrorists, right? Because he has to keep the wolves secret. People can’t know about it now. This is okay. So, and that’s where the movie ends basically, I think, but I’m still confused and I feel like the message of the movie is a little muddy.

Because I think that what we’re supposed to believe is that these wolves should be left alone because they are just protecting the only last bit of territory that is available to them and in truth They’re helping us out because they’re really only feeding on people who are gonna die anyway And they’re smart enough to not eat the diseased organs people who are only gonna die anyway You Or, undesirables who live in slums.

Todd: Hahahaha! Is that, is that right? That, I mean, you’re not far off. You’re, when you make it that blunt, it does come across as a little bad. I don’t think that’s the real reason. Again, I think this is just a high end metaphor, right? Just for man and nature and man overtaking. I don’t think the message is we need to leave wolves alone in cities, you know, 

Craig: they’re not real world, real wolves.

They’re a sacred spiritual wall. Yeah. And they’re just cleaning up the bad parts of town. So leave them alone because they have no choice 

Todd: because they have no choice. Yeah, fair enough. By the way, I don’t know. I thought the score for this movie was fantastic Amazing. Loved it. James Horner, one of his early works, he only had 12 days to write and record it because they booted off the guy, the previous score.

The score as much made the movie as the visuals as far as I’m concerned. And you can hear the theme for Aliens in there. That na na, na na kind of horn thing. It, 

Craig: uh, it sounded like Jaws to me sometimes. It, it had that kind of driving rhythm. And I know he didn’t do Jaws, but. 

Todd: No, well, it’s that, no, it’s that ethereal, like, Ha na, ha na, ha na, ha na, ha na, ha na, ha na, ha na, ha na, ha na.

Kind of echoing horn thing? Yeah. Oh. Kind of like, da da.

Craig: Regardless, I thought the score was very strong, too. And helped out because, uh, I didn’t love this movie. I didn’t hate it. I don’t think it’s a bad movie. I think that it’s a fine movie. I was a little, I felt a little duped. We’re doing a werewolf month and this, and I, and I almost texted you, I almost texted you.

It was like. Bro, it’s not a werewolf movie, just so 

Todd: you know. I mean, I think we’re, I think we’re throwing a wide net out. I mean, I, I disagree. I mean, of course it’s not a movie about people who transform into wolves, but I think it’s definitely within the realm of this idea, you know, of. Yeah, it’s not a werewolf movie.

Craig: Lycanthropic stuff. Lycanthropic stuff. Sure, sure. Yeah, 

Todd: you know. Fine, 

Craig: fine. And it’s fine. And, you know, it’s, it’s a well made movie. There are parts of it that I really liked. The ending with the real wolves was like, wow, I love that. All of these great people who I. Scene and other things and lights and other things.

I enjoyed those parts of it. I wouldn’t watch it again. I I really was It felt long. It wasn’t it really felt long. It was two hours. Yeah, it did it and 

Todd: it felt like it I feel like this is the kind of movie you’re either in the mood for you’re not You know, it’s a very, very slow burn, but it’s beautifully shot with a great score, fantastic characters in it, and it is peppered throughout with great moments, honestly.

True. The cinematography is gorgeous, like, the color palette is really interesting, you know, there are times when it almost feels black and white, because it’s so washed out, and those happen to be the moments when they’re in the city and they’re in the older part of the town, and it’s just, you know, when you really start to break it down, you realize This is a very complicated film.

It’s a, it’s a much more of a thinker than what we are probably than any other movie we will probably do for the rest of werewolf. Our werewolf cycle. Of course. Yeah. Right. Of course. And you know, we talked about that, that, you know, the howling was credited with taking werewolves out of the realm of cheese and giving them a little more punch and, and, and doing some interesting things with it in a way this movie that came out the same year managed to go in another slightly different direction, you know?

And so. True. For that, I, I, I like, I like the fact that we, that we did this and I don’t feel duped. 

Craig: Okay, good. And, and I’m not disappointed that we did it. I, I think it’s a movie worthy of talking about. And I also think that it’s really interesting that those three movies came out like in the same year.

Crazy, right? It’s wild anyway. 

Todd: Yeah. Three very interesting werewolf movies so far. All of them very unique in their own way. All of them in some ways, very surprising their own way. It’s a shame we’ve already done a company of wolves because that would also fall into this kind of like weird category, right?

Where that was like a fairy tale and it, it was a little nebulous at times about what was going on. I really liked that one. 

Craig: It very much. under the umbrella of what we’re doing right now. If people are listening to this and enjoying it, you should listen to that episode because that is a wild where it is 

Todd: trippy and artsy and cool.

And that was our Angela Lansbury tribute, wasn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you’ve enjoyed our werewolf story. And you know some other friends who might be interested in it, go ahead and send this their way. That’s one of the best things you can do.

Another great thing you can do for us if you want to support the podcast is write a review for us somewhere else. Or, go ahead and think about joining our Patreon. We have a great set of goodies for patrons out there. They get to hear our unedited episodes, they get mini sodes, written reviews, a lot of different things.

that we put out there. We’ve got a Christopher Pike book club that’s going strong and turning out to be a blast. I’m loving that. It is fun. We might just keep going on that. So there’s, there’s plenty of time to get it on that. Just go to patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast. Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We continue Werewolf Month with the Joe Dante classic, The Howling. Chock full of stars, this one is credited with re-inventing the werewolf genre for the modern audience and making lycanthropy as sexy as vampires.

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The Howling (1981)

Episode 391, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, we had such a lively discussion last week about An American Werewolf in London, and wondered why we hadn’t taken so long to get to it. That, I think in the middle of that podcast, we decided, you know, we should just do some other werewolf movies that we haven’t gotten around to.

And, really, number two on the list is The Howling. Ha ha! Another one that’s kind of strange that we haven’t gotten to it. Probably just as notorious as American Werewolf in London. Also came out the very same year. In fact, Rick Baker was working on the makeup effects with this when John Landis pulled him away and said, No, you promised you were gonna work on my movie.

So he left that in the hands of another guy who we’ll end up talking about here. And we got, within the same year, actually three werewolf movies. That all came out, oddly enough. There was the Howling, there was American Werewolf in London, both of which did really, really well. And then a third one called Wolfen, which I’m thinking maybe we should do after this one, because it sounds really interesting and wouldn’t it be sad to do these two and not that one?

It didn’t get any better. All the love that these two got, but I read that it takes a slightly different take on things and is maybe even just a little more thoughtful and profound than these movies are. 

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: and 

Craig: this was like amongst a whole slew of werewolf movies within like a five year time span.

There were several others and I was surprised. I mean, I don’t know. I just didn’t know that the guy who started doing makeup for the Howling got, like, like he had started doing it, he had started designing it, and then he got pulled away to do an American Werewolf in London. I didn’t know that, but now having seen this, it makes a lot of sense.

A lot of the same techniques. Similar designs. One of the only things was in this movie, the howling, the werewolves are bipedal. They, they walk around on two feet. And that’s what you’re gonna see. You’re the guy who knows the names, the original makeup designer or creature designer Rick Baker. Yeah, that’s how he envisioned it.

And that’s how he wanted it. And he wanted to do it that way in American werewolf in London, too. But Landis was like, now it’s got to be like a hell dog or something.

It’s just kind of fascinating. Yeah. This has also been an interesting experience for me because I’ve never seen this movie and I, wow. Don’t know how I haven’t seen it. It’s not like I’m unaware of it. You know? I, I’ve always been aware of it. I’ve seen at least one or two of the sequels, but I’ve never seen this.

That’s funny. So you have seen a couple, the sequels. At least one or two. I’m pretty sure I saw, there’s one that’s like, the howling, the original story, or the beginning, or something like that. Reborn? I don’t remember, but it’s more faithful to the source novel than this 

Todd: movie is. That’s right. Well, this movie’s credited with basically reinventing the werewolf genre, which, Almost up until this point was a little corny.

It was, you know, guys more or less walking around with furry hands and faces. And this took it a little more seriously in terms of the makeup effects and what werewolves might look like. Like you said, American werewolf in London took it down to like, basically like a wolf. He’s a wolf at the end on all fours.

And this one, there’s these giant hulking beasts that are definitely. More animal than man, really. I had attempted to watch this movie twice when I was younger. I distinctly remember falling asleep in the middle of it both times. And then some point, I think in college, I was like, I need to read this movie again at a time when it’s not late at night and force myself to stay awake because it’s an important movie.

I need to see it. But my initial remembrances from those first two times were It wasn’t quite what I’d expected. I was thinking it was going to be a little more jam packed. It’s got a lot of shit in it. But the, the pacing is very, very different from what I had expected. And even what I’d remembered, honestly, I feel like the pacing’s all over the place.

Craig: It’s an odd, it’s an odd story, and it strikes a really odd tone, like, all the time, I’m like, what kind of movie is this? It’s a comedy? I know, I mean, I read that they intentionally went for some Comedy, Joe Dante, what did he done? Just done some comedy just before this, 

Todd: right? Well, he did, he did rock and roll high school right before this, but, um, he did piranha piranha years before this.

That’s what I was thinking of, which is definitely a more comedic as far as horror goes. And it kind of has to be Joe Dante. You may or may not remember, got started in with Roger Corman. Actually, I think he did Hollywood Boulevard for Roger Corman. And then he did piranha. A couple years after that, and so he really came out of that school of people we talk about a lot.

In fact, Roger Corman has a, a mini cameo in there. He pops into a phone booth in the very beginning. And so he was very good at shooting things on the cheap and really fast, but, but trying to get, milk it out for high quality and also very much like sort of going for that exploitation sort of fun type movie that’s gonna get butts in seats.

And isn’t always necessarily gonna impress people in the, you know, art community. Ha ha ha! They’re audience pleasers. They do tend to be that way. And Joe Dante’s got a great record for that, by the way. Yeah. He directed and kind of kicked off the Police Squad TV series, which later became Naked Gun. He did gremlins after this we love gremlins even did explorers which I think we’ve talked about how much we love that movie from the eighties inner space which is a movie that still holds up today 

Craig: yeah there was a period right there in the eighties where he was cranking out stuff that I really like to burn so you know and he’s continued to do stuff he is is still working in like in horror anthologies he’s often asked invited to direct and wasn’t he the one who directed that.

Segment of the twilight zone where 

Todd: a bunch of people died. No, that was John Landis ironically enough who we talked about last week. Yeah Yeah We didn’t bring that up in american werewolf in london, did we no but This project was very much a director for hire type project There was a theater distributor who was very interested in producing more movies And he had optioned the rights to this book because he was a big stephen king fan You And this book that this was based on got a great blurb from Stephen King on it.

Although Joe Dante himself was not a fan of the source material. I think he said it was pretty corny, pretty cheesy. 

Craig: He criticized it publicly and frequently and once accidentally in front of the guy who wrote it. I thought that was a pretty funny anecdote. Some guy in the audience like so you didn’t like the book.

No, I really didn’t. Oh, well, I wrote it Sorry, sir, I mean there were good parts 

Todd: Right. Well, there were a couple goes at this. There was a script that had been written a Jack Conrad There was another script a version of it Joe Dante eventually hired John sales and John sales has been a very successful writer Of course, he also came out of the Roger Corman school.

He did write Piranha. We did Alligator, which he wrote as well. I don’t know if you ever saw Battle Beyond the Stars, that Star Wars knockoff that Corman did, but a lot of people really hold that dear in their heart. And I actually think It’s a really fun movie. Uh, he wrote that too. And then later he went on to, to write and direct a lot of things.

He, he did some rewrites on Apollo 13. He wrote and directed Lone Star. I don’t know if you remember that with Matthew McConaughey. Actually, he also has a little cameo in this. He’s the guy who is the mortician assistant or whatever, who kind of has a goofy scene there. 

Craig: There are a bazillion cameos in this movie.

There are so a bazillion winks and nods about wolves and werewolves. I mean, it would take us all day to point them all out. Like if, if you are really interested and I actually, I found it very fascinating because again, I hadn’t seen the movie before, but I caught A lot of them, you can’t help but catch them because they’re everywhere.

Yes. You know, like the Three Little Pigs cartoon with the wolf on the TV. Somebody’s reading Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. Like there’s wolf brand chili. Absolutely everywhere and it was fun it was kind of a fun little like like that page my favorite page in highlights magazine where it’s like find all these different objects that’s what this movie felt like.

Todd: You kind of what once you realize they were doing it then you kind of started looking for it and you were not disappointed it happened a lot which which is part of how you know you could easily tell this movie wasn’t taking itself very seriously. Whereas, on the other hand, there were moments when the movie very much felt like it was going for some serious, heady drama.

The way that it kicks off, that was, that was something else. 

Craig: That’s what I’m saying, that’s what I’m like, what kind of movie am I watching? It starts out so seedy. Another reason that I can’t believe that I haven’t seen this movie is because it stars a gorgeous, young Dee Wallace, who I I’m in love with.

You’re on your all time favorites. She’s amazing and she is so beautiful in this movie. She’s just young and fresh and gorgeous and she plays this like on air news personality. Or reporter or whatever, and she’s like undercover trying to meet with a serial killer, right? Yeah. It’s so, and so she’s like in a really seedy part of town.

I have no idea where this is supposed to be. 

Todd: I think it’s like basically Times Square, New York, which was very, very seedy in the 80s. Right. It’s interesting because I like the fact that it throws you right into the action without explaining it all for you right away, like you almost feel like you’ve jumped in and you’ve missed some stuff, you know, like you just jumped into a movie and I liked that because I was immediately engaged.

It was a little bit of a puzzle that you sort of had to unpack what was going on, but the gist of it is that she’s a news reporter and there had been a string of murders going on unsolved, but she, I guess because she’s a prominent public figure, had been getting phone calls from this guy. And so because she’d been getting phone calls from this guy, they set up a little kind of trap for him there where she’s connected to radio.

And I guess the police were involved, but initially it doesn’t seem that way. It’s terribly planned. 

Craig: There is no like support for her anywhere. There’s nobody nearby. No, it’s, it’s only like when they kind of lose. Her mic goes out and they’re like, Oh, well we better call the cops. And so they called the cops and the cops were like, uh, we’ll find her.

She’s wearing purple. I feel like I would regret it. If I didn’t say that before any of this ever happened, the opening credits are two and a half minutes long. And it’s all just like, it looks like it. An old school TV feed. That’s so fuzzy that you can’t see anything at all. Um, and just a bunch of like disparate audio clips, which I believe are clips from the rest of the movie.

And like, I think it is because you hear her voice and you hear other characters who we will come to meet later. You just hear little tiny clips of things that are happening. And oftentimes it’s people in distress. And I was intrigued. I feel like, why am I hearing these things that I’m sure I’m going to hear again later?

Todd: It was super compelling. I, I mean, you know, I don’t know, it’s just, it was just kind of a brilliant little bit of opening because there’s nothing to see, although it also kind of reminded me of when I used to turn to that special channel, you know, on TV, uh, that was all scrambled and just sit there for, you know, quite a while, try to see if I could make anything out.

Craig: 10, 15 minutes. 10, 15 minutes. 

Todd: Oh, who knows? However long it takes, let’s put it that way. And, uh, Ha ha ha ha ha! And, uh, and so, you know, visually, you’re kind of thinking maybe there’ll be something that you’ll see a blip of one thing or another, so you’re kind of engaged there. But then the audio, like you said, it’s all these clips that, that are interesting, and that you kind of want to hear.

Again, you feel like you’re supposed to piece something together. Really, really great way to bring you in. And then, like I said, bring, important’s going on, because even though you’re not quite Sure, yet what it all amounts to everybody’s walking by this woman and telling her. Oh, you’re so brave. You’re so brave to do this.

And then they go to this guy who later turns out to be. Is it her husband or just her boyfriend? I was never clear on. 

Craig: No, I was very. I think it’s her husband. I think at least he refers to her as his wife at some. Yeah, but then I could have sworn. That Meshack Taylor showed up for two seconds and said that he was her husband, huh?

I don’t know. I was confused Yeah Well it is It is confusing. Ultimately, they are a couple in the movie, whether they are legitimately husband and wife, I don’t know, but he’s played by Christopher Stone, who they were engaged at the, he and Dee Wallace were engaged at the time. And we’re married for some time because she took his name.

She was Dee Wallace Stone for some time. 

Todd: Well, I read a little bit of, of trivia here in that the producers of the movie didn’t even realize they had a relationship when they cast him. She and he were living together and they were having a hard time finding a man to play opposite her that was just the right person.

And she said, well, you know, I actually, I have worked with this guy, I think his last name is It’s like stone or smith or something. So she referred him just so that she would have no, you know, influence on the proceeding. So he auditioned and got the part all on his own. And then the, uh, the producer calls up and thinks he’s calling this guy and she answers the phone and he’s like, Oh, I’m sorry, I must have dialed the wrong number, but anyway, you know that guy you recommended, we’re going to cast him, he’s great.

And she said, oh, actually you didn’t get the wrong number. And there was a moment, and she jumped back in and said, well at least you only need to have one trailer. That’s funny, I hadn’t read that. They had acted together in Cujo before this. She was, they were, I thought, wasn’t 

Craig: Cujo after this? I thought Cujo was 84.

Todd: No, you’re right. Cujo was actually 83. Cujo was after this, but they had acted together. Were they together in the Hills Have Eyes or the Stepford Wives? I don’t 

Craig: know. I kind of recognized him and he’s been in so much. But that’s another thing about this movie that I can’t believe I haven’t seen it like every minute or two.

I’m like, there’s, there’s somebody else that I recognize from something. And like when, when Dick Miller popped up, I, and it all makes sense. It’s, it’s, it’s all the Roger Corman connection, I feel like. And then Joe Dante. Continued that tradition by continuing to work with the same people over and over again.

So even in like bit parts, small parts, there are so many familiar faces. And for somebody like me who has seen all of these movies, it’s such a treat. Like I so enjoyed watching this, but it’s so weird. Like it starts out like Dee Wallace is like super pretty and soft. And then she is in this terrible part of town and she has to go.

She talks to the killer, apparently, on a payphone, and he tells her to meet him at a porn store, so she does, and she’s totally by herself, and she goes there, and She goes into one of those shady ass back rooms alone. And this creepy ass guy is in there and starts showing her rape porn. 

Todd: I 

Craig: was like, what, what is happening?

Todd: It’s a very Adult and intense. 

Craig: The tone is so weird because it’s hard to tell whether she’s scared or into it or both. Right. Like it kind of seems like she’s kind of into it. 

Todd: It had a very Brian De Palma vibe. Like the very beginning of it, I felt like I was watching a Brian De Palma movie. Really, with these, these close ups on her, and kind of the soft focus, and the, the guy in the darkness, and this mystery, and these, very intense score, too.

The score with this movie was very all over the place as well, and it was, um, scored by, he’s an Italian guy, probably had a lot of experience scoring a lot of these Giallo and other kind of pictures that we’ve done, Pino Donaggio. You know, here, again, very intense, very cinematic, orchestral, suspenseful kind of score.

And then there are other times when it’s just like, kind of bouncy and goofy. He scored the Seed of Chucky, by the way, which we did recently. No wonder, and I just found this out just now as I looked it up, but, uh, he scored two O’Brien ended Palmas movies, Dressed to Kill and Body Double. Oh. So that makes perfect sense.

We even talked about how Seed of Chucky, the score was quite good in there. So, uh, he, uh, he scored this. And he scored Piranha, he scored Tourist Trap, which we’ve also done, so he’s The score for that was wild. Yeah. 

Craig: It was all just like,

Todd: So then it goes through this, and she has this intense experience, and the cops do end up showing up. And she gets attacked, like, 

Craig: ultimately he attacks her, but, like, he’s talking to her, and he’s like, He’s talking about the porn. He’s like, 

Clip: I didn’t feel a thing, Karen. None of them do. They’re not real, the people here.

They’re dead. They could never be like me. But you’re different, Karen. I watch you on TV. And I know how good I can make you feel.

Craig: I’m gonna light up your whole body, Karen. And then his voice changes like, and you can turn around now and she does, and she looks at him and we only see like her reaction, which again is horrified and aroused. 

Todd: Yeah. And we do see like a glimpse in the shadow of. Him kind of almost a little bit of a werewolf silhouette.

It does give a little bit of that away. 

Craig: He just, well, he just kind of looks like a really hairy guy. Like, I mean, we know he’s a werewolf. We know this is a werewolf movie, but he’s not. And that’s another thing about this movie. Like the effects are really great, but one of the things that I like about it are the various stages.

Of wolfing out like, yeah, it’s very gradual and, and they can be like, like a wolf, like a giant walking on two legs wolf. But sometimes. They’re just a little hairy faced and yellow eyed. Uh, but I like that. I like that. It’s kind of like a, it’s, it’s, it’s not just a, you’re a werewolf. It’s, it’s a gradual kind of thing.

And they all look great. The effects all look great in this. There are so many things to talk about. I don’t, I don’t know how to approach this. She starts having lots of nightmares. She talks to this therapist. This is important. His name is Dr. Wagner, Dr. Wagner. He’s traumatized. Seriously 

Todd: traumatized. She’s 

Craig: very traumatized.

She’s having nightmares. She, she’s a TV personality, but they have to take her off the air because she like freezes on camera. And Dr. Wagner tells her that she needs to go to the colony. 

Todd: Is that what it’s called? 

Craig: Yep. It’s like a, a 

Todd: rest retreat. Yeah, for his patients. It’s hilarious. You can totally see where this is going a mile away, right?

I guess. So I’m just sitting back and waiting for it to all unfold. And everybody in this colony is weird as hell. They’re 

Craig: so weird. 

Todd: It sounded like the outdoor hippie retreat version of all, of, of getting sent to the insane asylum. You know, 

Craig: in a lot of 

Todd: these movies. 

Craig: I mean, at first glance, it seems like fun, like they’re having like a beach party and they’re barbecuing and people are, you know, there’s music and they’re dancing and stuff and it seems fun.

And then you start to meet every individual and they’re all just weird as hell. Yeah. My other favorite thing about this party is not only is it a barbecue, but every person is like holding a huge, Hunk of meat on the bone and just, it’s 

Todd: so obvious. It’s hilarious. And we get John Carradine in here. So he’s like this weird ass old guy.

This was the same year, by the way, that monster club came out as well. Remember him and Vincent price. In the beginning of monster club, 

Craig: I had to look him up because I know, I know the name Carradine, you know, he was famous, his sons were famous. I know they’re famous. The reason that I, I recognized his name, but I recognized his voice more than I recognized his appearance because he looks kind of weird and scary in this movie, but I recognized his voice and I’m scrolling and scrolling and I get to the secret of nin and he was the great owl in the secret of nin.

I’m like, okay. That’s it. That’s that voice. That’s why I know that voice. That’s right. And I was giddy about that. 

Todd: He’s got a similar kind of role in The Sentinel, which is a movie that is so on the list that I really want to do sometime. We could have a lot to say about that one. It’s quite interesting.

Yeah, he goes back to the 30s and Yeah, 

Craig: yeah, yeah. He was in The Grapes of Wrath. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. Great character in that movie. The monster club, just the same time this year. He looked exactly the same when 

Craig: we were, when we were doing the monster club. And he’s crazy and weird. Everybody’s crazy and weird. He’s just kind of mumbling to himself about nonsense.

I don’t know. And then there’s like this crazy, exotic, horny woman. Yeah. The nymphomaniac, Marsha. She’s so funny. She’s so over the top. She’s so over the top. It’s hilarious. I love her. And she just, she’s constantly like looking at people, like just giving them like death stare. Like, she’s just giving intense gaze all the time.

Uh huh. Um, and she’s super horny and, Even the people who are being friendly are like overly friendly in that culty way. Like, Oh, you’re going to be so happy here. Everything’s so great. Like it’s the, uh, we’re the greatest little community ever. Like, this is weird. And why did she come here? I mean, I guess she was told to go there by her doctor, but why is her husband like, I guess it’s like a couple’s retreat for them?

I don’t know. 

Todd: I mean, well, of course, we later find out if it hasn’t become obvious already that this is a, these people are actually all werewolves. This is a colony of were, or whatever you call, a pack. Of werewolves all led up by the doctor. I mean, am I going to just going to spoil it now? 

Craig: I mean, it doesn’t matter.

I mean, that’s what it is. I 

Todd: think it’s so obvious at this point. And I don’t think he’s trying very hard to hide it either. I think this is part of the comedy of the movie is these funny little background references to werewolves are running right alongside this very obvious. All these people are strange and acting weird and eating meat.

And we know we’re watching a werewolf movie at the same time that this is going on, there’s this parallel story, which apparently wasn’t in the novel 

Craig: couple, Terry and Chris Terry and 

Todd: Terry and 

Craig: Chris. Yeah. And Chris was, Chris is the dad from Can’t Buy Me Love, that was kill, that was driving me nuts! Oh yeah!

I knew I recognized him but I couldn’t figure it out. 

Todd: And he’s also the director of like half of everything Adam Sandler’s ever put out. Oh that’s funny, I didn’t see that. Like Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy, Don’t Mess With Us, yeah he, he started out as an actor and he still does a little bit of acting now and then but like he’s done almost as much directing as he’s done acting nowadays.

Mostly comedies. Cool guy, actually. I liked him in this movie. I mean, again, it was like these two people are doing this investigation where they go to the house, and I don’t understand how this can even happen, right? 

Craig: I don’t even know who they are. Do they work for the TV station? Yeah, they were there.

Because they’re doing all this investigation that police should be doing. Like, where are the police? That’s 

Todd: my point. They literally break into the house of this guy who attacked her in the porno theater, which we didn’t say, but the cops sprung in and just blindly shot through the door of that porno booth.

Thank God they didn’t hit her. Shot this guy, Eddie, and so he’s dead, supposedly. So they visit his, they break into his apartment, I guess, before the police get there. And find all these sketches that he’s done and they’re all of werewolves and people and half transformation and there’s a picture of her there, you know, the sketch that he’s done and a sketch of, uh, of, of like a, like a lake.

It’s like a, a seaside. 

Craig: Yeah, a coastline. 

Todd: And they collect all these things to keep them for themselves and then presumably call the police. Then they go. They go to the morgue, and there’s a goofy morgue guy who is John Sayles. He’s got a hamburger on one plate and brains on another plate. He’s, they’re all kind of like, about everything.

And he’s all like, 

Craig: ah, this is nothing. No big deal. That’s such a trope in movies morticians eating sandwiches while cutting up dead bodies. Like, 

Clip: I don’t know how you can stand it. Don’t bother me. Only thing that freaked me out since I’ve been working here is the night old stew Walker came in guy who worked here, right?

I say goodnight to him at the shift change a couple hours go by. Then we get a delivery from the Oceanside unit. I unzipped the bag. There’s old stew. Smiling up at me, leaking seawater out his ears. Visitors, Eddie! 

Todd: Come on already. It’s all just goofy. And then, of course, he knocks on the door, the thing to slide the body out.

Hey, wake up in there. We’re about to pull you out. And when they open the door, the inside of it’s full of scratches. And he slides the thing out and the body’s gone. Oh, that’s weird. 

Craig: Well, yeah, yeah. And the door is full of scratches. Like, something is obviously, like, burst out of there. But they’re, like, Oh, that’s interesting.

Where do you go? 

Todd: Right. Oh my God. 

Craig: Everything, everything is so obvious. Like this little story. I don’t know when it happens in the movie. Cause it cuts back and forth from the colony and back to these two investigators. But at some point they go to this enormous bookstore owned apparently by Dick Miller’s character, Dick Miller.

I’m so excited to see him and I want to go to this bookstore. Where they also sell, like, occult items, apparently. And, and I think we’re to believe that Dick Miller just knows everything about everything, because he owns a bookstore. That’s right. Because he’s able to tell them every, any question that they have, he’s like, Oh, yeah, that’s, uh, lycanthropy, or, you, you, that’s an old Celtic And yeah, werewolves, uh, they don’t die.

They, they come back, but only after three days and they can regenerate, they regenerate, you know, just like, duh. Everybody knows this. Like, why are you so 

Todd: stupid? I think to be fair, it’s supposed to be an occult bookstore, but boy, there’s a lot of books on the occult that he’s got in there. The dude’s up on a ladder being slid around.

Oh yeah. And this book right over here, I know exactly where it is. And he reaches for it. 

Clip: They come back from the dead. If you don’t kill them, right. Plus they regenerate, you know what that is? Cut off an arm, cut off a leg, stick a knife in a heart, nothing. They may look dead, but bam, three days later they’re as good as new.

You 

Todd: believe in 

Clip: this? What am I, an idiot? I’m making a buck here. You want books, I got books. I got chicken blood, I got dog embryos, I got black candles, I got wolf men. Look at this. Silver bullets. Some joker ordered them. 30 06. Never picked them up. I think Bank of America, American Express, Visa, I’m gonna buy that a lot.

Craig: But here they are for later, just in case you might need them. It’s so corny and everything like that, that whole investigation is so funny because it’s so obvious, like everything points in the same direction. It’s obviously werewolves. And I feel like at some point they’re like, Werewolves? I guess. Maybe.

Better go to the colony to find out. Better go to the colony, right, right. And, but that’s also, okay. So stuff happens at the colony. Like Karen makes a friend who like takes her around and talks about how great everything is. And they get into some misadventures. I don’t know. Like they find, she’s hearing werewolves all the time and having these weird dreams and they go out at night, like, and find like some deer or something that have been slaughtered and the townspeople are like, Whoa, that’s weird.

Slim Pickens, the, the sheriff. 

Todd: Right. Ha ha ha! Yeah, I want it! Just a good old boy. I mean, basically Slim Pickens. Yeah. He always just plays this character. 

Craig: I don’t know him. He 

Todd: was a cowboy, so he always plays cowboys. Well, I mean, he’s most famous for Doctor Strangelove. He’s the guy riding the, the bomb at the end of the movie.

Craig: Oh, that’s, okay. 

Todd: But, do you remember Blazing Saddles? You saw Blazing Saddles, right? Yeah. Taggart! It’s been a really long time. Who? Oh, yeah, he’s Taggart in Blazing Saddles. One of the cowboys, yeah. 

Craig: But, yeah, I mean, just another one of many, many familiar faces from, you know, older Hollywood, older horror. Ah, God, so many references and that just makes it so much fun.

Mmm. But the men are kind of hanging out with the husband, whatever his name is, Bill, and teaching him how to hunt and stuff. Yeah. And then, Marsha the slut, like, so, so Bill, Bill shoots a rabbit, and then another weirdo guy who just, he’s like crazy eyed all the time. Just like he just looks crazy in the face.

He’s like a wolf himself. Yeah, and he’s always wearing pelts and just creeping around Oh my god, he’s like my sister Marsha will cook that up for you. He’s like, okay Marsha’s 

Todd: cabin in the woods. 

Craig: Yeah, and she’s like I’ll cook it later And then she tries to make out with him, but he pushes her away and then he goes out into the woods 30 seconds later is attacked by a werewolf.

I read that we don’t, like, we don’t know who this werewolf is. And I read that consensus is that it was her. I assumed it was the brother. Oh, I assumed that the brother was like lurking out there, but whatever. Ultimately it doesn’t matter. He’s been attacked. He goes to the doctor, they patch him up or whatever, then, he and his wife, Dee Wallace, or mistress or whoever she is, are laying in bed and she’s like, Hey, uh, you wanna like, uh, hey, and he’s like, no, I don’t feel like it, I had to get a big injection, cause he did, he had to get a big injection, and she’s like, We never want the same things at the same time.

Like, all of a sudden, had there been any tension with them before? If there had, I didn’t notice it. 

Todd: No, I mean, it was obviously new. 

Craig: They seemed like a perfectly happy couple. 

Todd: Yeah, so there’s new tension, right? Like, he’s acting weird. And also, like, there was a big deal in the beginning where he said he was vegetarian, he stays away from meat.

When he was first offered meat and he came to the colony. Right. And then now there’s a scene where he’s sitting out there and he’s eating some ribs and some character apologizes. Sorry I gave you ribs. He’s like, Oh, no, actually, these are quite good. 

Craig: Yeah, I couldn’t remember. That’s that’s after this because he gets attacked by this werewolf.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: And so now, now he’s eat, like, just like all the other people in town, he’s got like a big slab of meat on the bone, just gnawing at it. Yeah. Oh, I love it. God. So silly. Like, Oh, what’s happening. But then all of a sudden there’s this tension and he rejects her, but then she has another nightmare. She’s having nightmares all the time and they’re weird and trippy.

And she wakes up and he’s gone. And she’s like, And then we see him out in the forest where he meets Marsha the slut and they just stand there looking at each other and then they just, like, I don’t even remember if they say anything. Like, I think they, they just drop their clothes and they’re totally naked.

It’s 

Todd: a very long Sexy scene, actually. She drops her clothes very slowly and disrobes, and she’s got a pretty amazing body. And then he gets naked, and then they start going at it, and then they start half wolfing out in their faces, and they’re biting, and then they lay down on the ground, and they’re tossing and turning, and then, like, we get this wide shot.

And and suddenly they’re like cartoon characters. That’s unfortunate because almost all the other stuff in this movie, the effects are great, but apparently they ran out of money to get this wide shot and Joe Dante resorted to an obviously animated silhouette of them having sex as the camera pans up to the moon and they howl.

Craig: I liked it. It was fun. 

Todd: It was part of the cheese. It was, 

Craig: it was very 80s. Like People did that stuff in the 80s. Do what you gotta do. You mean animated, 

Todd: or 

Craig: what? Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, that’s what I’m saying. What was that movie that we watched, The Woman in White? Yeah. Where there was a big, I don’t know, we’ve seen several 80s movies where there are like animated sequences.

Of course. And this is really brief, it’s like a, maybe a three, five second Shot as it pans up like to the moon and yes, it was an obvious departure from the style of the rest of the movie, but it didn’t bother me. I was like, that’s fine, whatever 

Todd: it was, but the, the sex scene before it was pretty hot. I D.

Wallace said, uh, said that Joe Dante had approached her kind of cautiously and said, you know, crew and everybody, they really, really like you. And everybody’s wondering, like, are you going to be present while your fiance is, is filming this scene? And she said, Hell no, I’m not going to be there and he was like Whew, that’s great.

And she said she just went into town and got bombed that night while 

Craig: they filmed that. They seemed very naked. 

Todd: They were. 

Craig: I almost felt like I caught a little glimpse of balls for a second. 

Todd: You did. Well, speaking of male nudity and werewolves, you know, our werewolf month wouldn’t be possible without guys with hair.

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com show your balls some love and feel free as a dove. The, 

Craig: again, the effects, the werewolf change effects are fantastic. I mean, they’re, they’re practical. They’re pre I mean, it’s, it’s obvious makeup and prosthetics, but. When I say that it’s animated, I don’t mean like animated, like drawn, I mean that it moves, like there’s a lot of motion to it.

Yeah. And obviously there are a lot of cuts, there have to be a lot of cuts because you have to, you know, cut to different phases or whatever, but I can’t describe how great it is. 

Todd: There’s scenes where their mouth is open and they’re kind of looking up and their fangs are literally growing. Yeah, out of their mouths.

I mean, how they accomplished that, like 

Craig: the jaw protruding and like, you can even see it stretching the prosthetics. Like the front jaw will be moving in the nose and mouthpiece will be stretching from the movement of it. It looks great. Just watch it. If you haven’t seen it, just watch it. I wonder again.

I can’t believe I haven’t seen it because I know, I know that it was always. On the video store shelves right now, it’s really not all that easy to get a hold of on streaming. You pointed me to the internet archives where I was able to stream it for free. But the only other place that I was able to find it was you can buy it on Amazon for like 7.

Yeah, but I have a feeling that that’s why I haven’t watched it. In my adulthood, because it’s not everywhere, it’s, it’s just not everywhere. 

Todd: And that’s weird, as, as notorious as the film is within this And all of 

Craig: the sequels are! I don’t know what’s you can find the sequels anywhere for free, all of them.

Todd: Yeah, it must be a rights issue that’s probably tied up in something, you know? 

Craig: Okay. This just occurred to me. I wanted to talk. One of the parts that was really jarring to me was the next morning D. Wallace wakes up and her husband is getting dressed and she sees he’s got big scratches on his back, which one couldn’t have been made by a human being, right?

Because they’re enormous. But to the, she’s like, what happened to this? Why do you have those scratches? And he’s like, Oh, I must’ve got them in the attack. And she’s like, well, they weren’t there yesterday. And they, you know, Exchange, like maybe one or two more lines before he just backhands her like backhands and I was like, what, what is happening?

Like there, there had been no indication that this guy was a bad guy. And, and I, I said that they had exchanged like a couple of back and forth lines. Like, first of all, he totally tries to gaslight her. Like you’re crazy. Like you’re being crazy. And she’s like, no, I’m not crazy. And then he backhands her hard and she goes down on the bed.

And she is like, I’m getting out of here. I’m going to have Terry take me home. Terry has come at this point. God, I don’t know. And, and he says something like, you just don’t understand. I don’t even understand what’s going on here. Yeah, was he? Well, it only just occurred to me now Was he always a violent person or is he a violent person now because he’s a werewolf?

Todd: Oh now he’s the alpha wolf putting his bitch in her place. I think that’s what it is. I mean, I think this is Everything now is, that’s happening is, is showing his change, you know, so. Okay. You know, it was a shock to her. It’s certainly a shock to us, because exactly like you said, he really comes across as this sweet, nice guy, who could possibly be rough if he needed to be, and now there’s suddenly this side coming out of him, right?

Yeah. Actually really good casting I thought. He seems happy go lucky before this. Very happy go lucky. He’s got kind of a sweet charming face, but then when he is now a bit menacing, he comes across as menacing. It’s, it worked for me. That’s exactly what I thought was going on. Terry is going out and doing her research and she just happens to stumble into that cabin, right?

Because I don’t think there was anything else leading her there. 

Craig: Well, she, God, I don’t know. She does investigating of her own. And, and she eventually ends up on that cliff. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: And she recognizes it from the killer Eddie or whatever his name, she recognizes it from his drawing. His sketch. Then, she goes, I don’t, yeah, you’re right, she just ends up at this cabin.

Is it Slutty Marsha’s cabin? It’s 

Todd: slutty Marsha’s cabin. I think Marsha and Eddie have been shacking up. 

Craig: They’re brother and sister. Oh, that’s right. That’s right. Well, they are living in the same house. I only found that out after watching the movie and reading about 

Clip: it. 

Craig: Oh, I guess they make it kind of clear that slutty Marsha and the crazy guy in the pelts with the wild eyes, they are clearly brother and sister, but Eddie, the killer.

Todd: Okay, I didn’t, I don’t, I didn’t know if that was ever explicitly stated or implied in any way, shape, or form. I just figured they all lived in the same house for whatever reason. 

Craig: I think they all have the same last name, but it doesn’t matter, who cares? Right, so, so she shows up there and, uh, I read, as she was going up there, there’s like bones hanging on strings and stuff, and I’m like, this is so Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

There, there is some connection, like, did the guy who did Texas Chainsaw Massacre do this too? Because I know that there are some props from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre in this movie. Oh, 

Todd: interesting. 

Craig: But, you know, she goes in there and she finds a room that is like, Virtually identical to the room that she found with Chris, the, the killer’s room.

It’s like the same room. The same sketches, the same like newspaper clippings. It’s like exactly the same. And then a werewolf starts breaking through the door. She’s pretty badass. Yeah, she holds her own like she dives out a window and gets into like a little hidey hole. The, the werewolf is trying to attack her, but she has an ax and she chops the werewolf’s arm off.

Did we ever find out which werewolf that was? Did we ever see somebody? Who was it? 

Todd: It was the weird guy. The, the other brother, I guess. Yeah. Cause at one point When they’re all assembled later, he shows his stump and he’s like, look what you did to me. 

Craig: Okay, I assumed it was him, but I didn’t remember if he ever popped up again, but she gets away.

Then she runs to Dr. Meddler’s office and she calls Chris and she’s like, Oh my God, you need to come here right away. I won’t believe they’re werewolves. Yeah, they’re werewolves. And she says, and I think the doctor’s in on it. And he’s like, Does the doctor have a file cabinet is just like, yeah, he’s like, look at the files.

Who cares? Okay, so, so she says she starts looking at the files, but apparently unbeknownst to her, a 12 foot tall werewolf has been hiding behind the file cabinet

because it jumps out. And kills her. Like, bites out her jugular. It’s pretty gross. While Chris is listening on the other end of the phone. 

Todd: Poor guy. Oh boy. So he packs up and grabs his silver bullets and starts 

Craig: comes to the colony. He makes a quick trip to the bookstore. Grabs those silver bullets. And gets on the road in his Mazda.

Todd: I got the impression that the colony must be this like distant place, but they can, they can get there awfully quickly. So, uh, maybe it’s not so far away from town after all. But, um, Karen, for some reason, I guess because she’s planning on leaving and she needs to swing by the doctor’s office, right? For something.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. This all happens really fast. 

Todd: It really intensifies quickly. She comes into the office and, and Eddie’s still there, but now he’s, He’s, he’s not in wolf form anymore. He’s in kind of almost there. She 

Craig: finds her friend’s body and seems slightly upset about it. 

Todd: And not like, Oh my God, I need to get the hell out of here.

Craig: Like she finds her best friends. Mutilated body and she’s like, Oh,

she’s kind of like looks at it wistfully, like, darn, I really needed a ride. Dang 

Todd: it. I was really hoping this wouldn’t happen. And then very calmly turns around and starts to dial on the phone. And that’s when she gets attacked. I mean, if I were, I would have immediately run out of there not knowing where this guy is because he is in there.

Craig: Pops up from like under a sheet. Like he was pretending to be a body or something? I don’t know, whatever. It’s 

Todd: almost like it was her body and then she turned around to go to the phone and he put, he knocked her body off the table and secretly positioned himself under a sheet. But, this is where we get his full on transformation right in front of her and it’s impressive.

Now, the thing I’ve got to say about it is, On its own it’s very impressive this scene goes on for like five minutes this transformation it’s long we see every stage and the bladders are popping out on his face you know you see the movement it’s actually really cool and good it’s that classic monster movie situation where she just stands there in the corner screaming while he just stands in front of her and goes through all this stuff 

Craig: no she’s not screaming she’s looking at him like she’s fascinated And hot like She her reactions to everything are so weird like 

Todd: it is 

Craig: she could attempt to run away or She doesn’t she just stands there and she’s not really I mean, there’s there’s some fear In her face, but it’s not just fear.

There’s also fascination and like wonder and yeah, like she’s kind of into it. Just like she was kind of into it the first time. Maybe she, because apparently he was kind of partially transformed. He kind of in that porno room. That’s what she saw, but she, she can’t remember it. So now she’s saying it again 

Todd: to be fair is he like somewhat are the werewolves kind of somewhat hypnotic you know in the way that vampires are kind of hypnotic in the way that the march of the slut was 

Craig: well at this movie.

First of all these as it turns out these werewolves are werewolves but they don’t follow the normal rules silver bullets work apparently but they are just shape shifters who can change whenever they want at will 

Todd: yeah. It doesn’t have to be a film. 

Craig: No, I think in this movie. It’s it’s like vampires like they kind of have like thrall.

It’s all very sexual. Yes. It’s much like that little red riding hood Movie that we watch. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah company of wolves With Angela Lansbury y 

Craig: Yeah. I like the wolf part is kinda like the, the sexual animal inside and, and I think that there is something that appeals to even well to to d Wallace and to her husband.

Her husband rejected it until he was bitten. I think that she’s drawn to this animal sexuality even though this guy, the Eddie guy is so gross. Like he’s super ugly. They, they make him super ugly anyway, but he, he fully transforms and, and she’s, you know, enthralled, but then I guess when he lunges at her, she has a handy jar of acid that she throws in his face 

Todd: right behind her.

Yeah. That she kind of grabbed. Yeah. This is, uh, we saw that in Seat of Chucky now, too, by the way, throwing acid on self. Well, I was gonna say two other things about this, like what you were saying about the sexuality, that is what this movie is sort of credited with doing, is making werewolves sexy. And that has carried through to modern day, I mean, obviously there’s Twilight and all that, you know, where the vampires and werewolves are both very sexy.

I don’t know if you know this, but with my voice acting, one of my very regular gigs is reading dramatic audiobooks. Recording them for these niche genre places. There are whole platforms online and it is very, very popular genre right now of what we all affectionately call werewolf porn. 

Craig: I knew you were going to say that.

Todd: Yeah, essentially it’s just basically the sort of seductive males, 50 shades of gray type deals, or like twilight type deals, but. It exists in this universe called the Omniverse that has been created through fanfiction online basically over the last decade or so by some prominent authors, some of whom, many of whom are self published on Amazon and are making millions right now.

Obviously these platforms are making millions. They’re doing Tick tock dramas now that my friends here in China are acting in and I’ve been, I will probably get cast in one or two of these eventually. These very sordid soap opera type, one and a half minute long, 52 episode type deals. The hot new thing, you heard it here first, Craig, much of the themes of this is werewolves.

And it’s these werewolf packs and there’s an alpha wolf and he’s trying to get his omega, and they have to protect her, and it’s just very sexual, and they bite. And it’s just very sexual, and they bite. It’s funny because as I was watching this movie, I’m just like, yeah, this all tracks, like, who would have thought, you know, what is this, 50 years later, that, that we’d be seeing the same stuff, now, and I would be so deeply into this.

You know, into the production side of it anyway. It’s kind of crazy. So yeah. So this movie kind of kicked that all off for you youngins out there who might be into this sort of thing. Yeah. The other thing is that, uh, I thought compared to, compared to an American werewolf in London, what I really admire about the way that John Landis handled it, an American werewolf London was how judicious he was.

I think that transformation scene is more arresting and impressive than Then this very complicated and technically astounding five minute long transformation scene. Simply because, to be honest with you, maybe about two minutes into it I was kind of like, Well, it’s not done yet? I mean, whereas the Landis thing, it was so, there were so many close ups and, Every shot really counted, like you see that moss stretch out, and it’s slow, and it happens, and then it’s done, and you see those backbones kind of pop out of his back, and his, his legs bend into position, just once, and it’s enough, I mean, I thought that was an intense scene, this, arguably, is It’s got more stuff going on, which you could almost say is more impressive.

And it certainly doesn’t look any cheaper, but because it lingers so long and it’s got so much, I felt like it was a bit much and I wasn’t as, I didn’t think it was, it’s a scary. 

Craig: I don’t know if we would feel the same way if we hadn’t just watched the other one, they’re, they’re really not dissimilar except for a.

Couple of things like there are in in American werewolf in London. There are a lot more full body shots and and like seeing him there naked on the ground, right? And things happening to his whole body. And the other thing that is Different is that an American werewolf in London, this happened, like the lights are on, like he’s just in, he’s just in his girlfriend’s apartment and the lights are on.

So we’re seeing everything in this. I mean, it’s lit, but it’s kind of lit from like light from a window, like moonlight window. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s dramatic 

Craig: and it’s, it’s, and it’s, it’s darker, but they’re both good. I mean. They’re, they’re comparable, but they, I think that the people behind both of them were very skilled.

It’s ironic that they came out so close, uh, together. Yeah. Things go kind of crazy at this point, right? Like what happens? She throws the acid in his face and then she just runs to her car, which is the logical thing to do, but. The locals that’s what I started calling them at this point the locals stop her and they’re like no you gotta come with us and they drag her to this barn where Marcia the slut is like standing behind a table that with the body of Terry is that Terry 

Todd: it’s like a sacrificial altar almost this whole cabin it’s what 

Craig: it looks like yeah all of the locals are just like standing Like they’re going to do a production of cats or something.

And, and, um, like some of them are wolfed out, I think, and some of them aren’t, and it’s the classic 

Todd: cult confrontation scene, you know, it’s like the end of Rosemary’s baby. It’s like the Sentinel. It’s like. How many movies have we seen like this where, Oh, surprise at the end, everybody was in on it and it’s a big cult and we’re trying to initiate everyone.

Craig: And it’s not a surprise at all. We’ve known this from the beginning, but now she’s finding out and they’re all. God, I don’t remember. It, it, it gets nuts. There’s a fight with the, the locals are fighting with each other because the doctor, the, the rest of them are mad, crazy old Ezra or whatever his name was, he’s like, 

Clip: we should have stuck with the old ways, where’s the life in that.

The humans are our cattle. The humans are our prey. We should feed on them like we’ve always done. Screw all this channel your energies crap. But the danger of exposure. We need this shelter to plan. To catch up with society. Times have changed and we haven’t. Not enough. Shut up, Doc. 

Craig: Marsha, the slut, agrees with him.

She’s talking to the doctor. He’s like, you lied to us. You said that we could live among them and blah, blah, blah. And, and so now they’re totally revolting. And I guess that the plan, the doctor brought Karen here because he wanted her to be part. Of their community. Yeah. I don’t understand that. Like, did he, did he want her to come live there permanently or was he trying to change her?

And that’s, he also says that that’s why he brought the husband along too. Cause he was like, we thought that the husband could convince you once he was turned, he could convince you. But, or, or was it like to just like get a werewolf in a prominent position on TV? 

Todd: Yeah. Honestly, I mean, because the way the movie starts out is the interview with the doctor, and he’s written this book, right, about the wolf, about the beast within all of us, and our animal primal instincts and things.

I get the sense that the doctor’s mission here, and the way that he’s, you know, taking them out of the old ways and into the new, is he’s got this idea that, you know, the werewolves need to Evolve they need to kind of be a little more proactive and get out there and in front of society instead of hiding in the shadows And so he’s like priming the pump.

He’s out there. He’s written this book. He’s a prominent psychologist. He’s got this colony going on He’s inviting people out and because she is the more you’d like you said public figure Somewhere in his, I don’t think it’s really fully explained, but it seems like there’s this nebulous idea that he’s gonna use her as a spokesperson for, for them.

But, but, that does beg the question then, what about this Eddie guy? You know, why is he out there murdering people left and, was he just kind of a loose cannon? Or was he part of the plan? You know, I 

Craig: don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. But whatever. So Marcia, the sled is like, she’s ours now. Like, I think they want to eat her, but Chris shows up finally.

He had some gas station problems, but he finally shows up. And he’s got the gun and all of the townspeople are like, ha, ha, we’re not scared of you. Like he, he confronts Eddie first and actually Eddie gets his gun away from him and then monologues to him for like two minutes and, and like, like taunts him about, yeah, I murdered your wife.

What he’s saying is I murdered your wife, but the subtext is I fucked your wife. Yeah. Like that’s, that’s how he’s taunting him. Yeah, yeah. The bad guy gets the gun and then he’s like, here. Have it back. I don’t care because they think they’re invincible, I guess, or whatever. And so Chris shoots him with a silver bullet and he dies 

Todd: immediately.

They’re like, oh shit, he really does have silver bullets. It, they say something to like, aha, right. Silver bullets. Like, and then he shoots them. They’re like, oh shit. It’s almost like they didn’t believe that silver bullets existed or that this guy would have the wherewithal to have them. Right. So that was funny 

Craig: and and they’re all like half wolfed out at this point like it’s crazy and at first there, you know, they’re very menacing and they’re surrounding him, but then he shoots like two or three of them and he and Karen corral them into the barn and and lock up the barn and burn it down and there’s a lot of them in there, but I’m thinking, are they all in there?

And I’m also thinking like they’re pounding on these like barn doors. And they’re so flimsy and these, these wolves have like been bursting through doors and walls through the whole movie. I’m like, why can’t they get out now? It doesn’t make any sense. Don’t tell 

Todd: me there’s only one door to this barn, no windows, what’s going on, right?

And a, and a bunch of them burn out. Apparently while they were filming this outdoor, this, this climactic scene, all their power equipment went out. And, uh, Dante was like, oh shit, you know, this is gonna put us behind, it’s gonna put us behind budget, but then he remembered something that Roger Corman used to say constantly when they were on the set, talking about how you just make things work.

And one of the anecdotes he would always say was, back in my day, we would, we would light scenes with car headlights. So, he actually lit this sequence where they’re burning the barn down outside with car headlights, and while he was doing that, Dante is standing next to, you know, John Carradine, who by this point has literally shot like over 300 movies, right?

And he turns to him and he goes, Well, This isn’t going to be the, uh, best movie that you’ve ever been in. And Carradine turns to him and goes, well, it’s certainly not the worst one either. It’s funny. Kind of nice. Dick Miller. Apparently this is his favorite movie that he ever did. Really? He’s not even in it very much.

He makes an impression though. That’s the thing about Dick Miller, except for. No, I think even including Little Shop of Horrors, the original one, I don’t think he’s ever done like a leading role. He’s always a guy who comes in for a couple scenes and then, and then is done, right? So 

Craig: they get in the car and they drive away.

But they get stopped in the road by the sheriff. Who is also a werewolf. There’s a showdown with the cop and they, because their car runs out of gas when they’re stopped. And so they have to take the cop car. So they, they kill the sheriff. I guess Chris shoots him, but. It’s weird because I thought that he had used his gun to block the doors, the barn doors, but maybe I’m mistaken.

I don’t know. Anyway, and then so they get in the cop car and it, he can’t get it started. And meanwhile, all these other werewolves are attacking the car for a long time. Like how long does it take to break a car window? Come on. But he, he eventually gets the car started. They shoot a couple of the werewolves off, but as they’re driving away, one has burst in through the back Window and it, it bites her and then they shoot it and then she’s crying and they look in the back and it’s Bill.

It was her husband, but he’s dead now. She says something like we have to tell the world people need to know. And he’s like, yeah, it. It cuts to, I don’t know, some point in the future where she is getting made up to go on air. Yes. And he, I think, I think he’s her producer. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And I only know that because I watch that Reese Witherspoon show on Apple Plus about a TV show and they all have like their individual producers.

I think he’s her, the morning show. Gotcha. I think he’s her producer and he puts her out there and she, like, she’s supposed to be doing a story on the fire at the colony, but she starts, she, she immediately goes off script and she’s reading something else. And you’ll probably just put it in, but it’s something about how, you know, there’s a secret society and everybody needs to know about it.

And so I’m here to reveal it today. And then, like, it’s so, I love this part because The beginning of her transformation is kind of just her being like, uh, I’m reading kind of convulsing, and then she turns into a pretty werewolf. It’s so totally 

Todd: odd because she seems that she’s in pain, and there’s these knowing looks between the two of them while this is happening, and at one point when she wolves out, she, you know, turns her head sideways, and she, her face just looks incredibly pained.

And there’s a tear that runs down her eye. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s rather sad. I remember when I first saw this, I was like, Oh my God, this is horrible. Because she’s basically sacrificing herself. Because the minute she wolfs out, he is waiting there with his gun and his silver bullets, and he shoots her. So all this happens on live television, in front of everyone.

Craig: Right. 

Todd: It’s really sick, you know? It’s sick and tragic. And then, Everybody who’s watching it is like, we get shots of the people in bar watching it and stuff like that and they’re like, Oh, the great things they can do with special effects nowadays. Nobody believes them. 

Craig: Some people do, some people don’t. I mean, we, we see, you know, like there are kids watching the news, like it cuts, it cuts to a bunch of different people.

I think you’re right. I think the consensus 

Todd: is that it was a stunt. I think that’s the general impression we’re meant to be left with in the movie is that, Oh, you know, that all this happened for naught. Yeah. You know, because nobody believes it anyway. Like what’s it going to take? 

Craig: Right. Well, I mean, there is, there is the one guy in the bar and he’s drunk.

So maybe it’s because he’s drunk, but he’s like, no, she turned into a werewolf and he, he shot her. And then it pans to another guy who’s like, eh, whatever. It’s just a stunt. And he’s like, Hey, get me a cheesesteak and a burger for the lady. And it pans over and the lady is Marsha the slut. And the cook is like, how do you want your burger?

Each thing.

And then we get to watch this burger cook over the credits. I watched the whole thing. I’m like, Oh, I felt like if I wasn’t watching, I was going to miss something. So I watched that burger cook through the whole, and then nothing happens with it. And then it cuts to a scene from an old movie. And I don’t know if there was any relevance to that.

I think that was the original Wolfman. Obviously some of the people from the colony or whatever, some of the werewolves have survived and they’re still out there. Okay, great. Whatever. I did want to mention that the designer Dee Wallace didn’t want to be an ugly werewolf. She wanted to be a pretty werewolf.

And so they had to do a specific design for her and she does look very different than the other werewolves. She looks more like herself. The design of her werewolf look. Kind of looks like D. Wallace, the other werewolves just look like werewolves. I haven’t seen this movie, but I’ve seen trailers and I’ve seen the poster.

These werewolves remind me of the werewolves from dog soldiers, which I think is another movie that we should consider for this month. Yeah. So this movie is wild. Like it is, it is so weird. Like it’s, it’s, it just has WTF stamped all over it. And at the same time. It’s enjoyable and fun. It moves. I felt like it moved.

It’s just, it’s so, it’s so strange and weird tonally and like, is it a thriller? Is it a comedy? Like it, and when I read that they wanted to bring some of the piranha sensibility to it, I’m like, Oh, okay, well that means it’s going to be silly and it is in laces, but I would say that it’s far more subtle.

Yeah. At least then I remember Piranha being, I remember Piranha being really silly. 

Todd: It’s pretty silly, but also like, it does descend into camp. I mean that whole bit at the end where everybody’s confronting her, you know, it’s so campy. 

Craig: Yeah, I know, I liked it though. But I liked it. But you’re right, I mean it’s That’s my point though, it just, it goes all over the place.

It’s not really all that unique. Those, those things could have been, they could have just been backward, backwoods cultists. They could have been anything. We’ve seen this a million times where it’s the wicker man. It’s anytime. It’s a whole society of people. A conspiracy against an individual or whatever.

We’ve seen it a bazillion times. These just happen to be werewolves. And it is campy. I’m not disagreeing. It is campy. I’m just saying that that campiness doesn’t bother me. In fact, I kind of enjoy it. It’s fun. Well, I, 

Todd: I think it, especially for its time, it was probably. It was a bit hipper, you know, I mean, maybe through today’s eyes, it seems a little less sophisticated, but in a way, it had a bit of self awareness, it had a lot of winkiness, but it also was a serious thriller at times, it delved into very deep and very adult themes, it’s very gritty in the beginning, you know, we’re talking sexuality and the animalistic nature of people and the beast within and the sex and then, you know, You know, the very accomplished makeup effects that are very impressive, even today, you know, and I think that’s why it was so well received, you know, was for that reason.

It was so different for its time. Now, it seems a little like a less sophisticated version of the similar kind of stuff that we see now. You know, now it’s like, A little more cynical and jokey. This, like you said, is a little more subtle at times, so. 

Craig: Seven sequels. Wow. Seven sequels and a remake in development.

Andy Machete is set to direct. The remake of the howling now, this is it’s in like very early stages He’s connected at this point if he ends up actually doing it who knows but I 

Todd: would love to see some sequels Actually, I think I read a little bit like this Oh like it was the one you said I think the fourth one that takes it back to more of like the original novel Which Dante wasn’t terribly impressed with 

Craig: yeah 

Todd: I’d be kind of curious, 

Craig: one of the things that I forgot to mention that I laughed out loud was one of the people who sees her change on TV is Dick Miller and his response on my, I laughed out loud.

He’s watching it in his responses. Oh boy.

Todd: Classic Dick Miller. 

Craig: Oh boy. I thought that was so funny. It sure was. Anyway, we should wrap it up. I liked it. It was a good movie. If you haven’t seen it, you should definitely see it. Especially if you’re a big horror fan. It’s absolutely chock full of Easter eggs. Oh 

Todd: God. 

Craig: You, you should 

Todd: watch it immediately.

Yep. Absolutely. Everything you just said. I can’t believe. Well, I think younger Todd fell asleep at the slower parts. A lot of this went over younger Todd’s head as well. So, you know, younger Todd just went into a movie with certain expectations that if they weren’t met, you know, sometimes he just 

Craig: got 

Todd: distracted.

But older Todd was like, Oh my God, this movie has got everything in it. It’s It’s it’s a lot of fun and I was really excited to see where it went because I had forgotten so much about it. So 

Craig: there’s also tons of behind the scenes things that we just didn’t have time to talk, but that are very interesting.

And so if you are interested in that kind of stuff, you should check it out. Check out their Wikipedia page. Check out the IMDb. Yeah. Well, 

Todd: thank you so much for listening to our little werewolf series. If you enjoyed it and you have some werewolf fans among your friends, send them a link to our podcast.

What a great time to bring them in. Just happen Google two guys in a chainsaw. And leave us a review at any of the places where you listen to your podcast, Apple Podcasts or even on our website and let us know what you thought of this film. And, uh, give us some ideas for werewolf movies we should do in the future.

Until next time, I’m Todd. 

Craig: And 

Todd: I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Welcome to Werewolf Month on 2 Guys and a Chainsaw, #sponsored by Manscaped!

Our first film is John Landis’ classic horror-comedy about two backpackers in the English countryside who get attacked by a werewolf. Hilarity ensues as the dead one comes revisits his friend to warn him that he is the last living werewolf in this line of werewolves and really ought to kill himself to save humanity.

This film is most notorious for having perhaps the best werewolf transformation sequence in the history of filmmaking by special effects artist Rick Baker. It so impressed Michael Jackson that he enlisted the Landis and Baker team to produce his amazing Thriller music video. Talk about lightning in a bottle!

Check it out now to hear our step-by-step analysis and recounting of this horror classic.

And if your outer wolf is in need of taming, get 20% OFF @manscaped + Free Shipping with promo code CHAINSAW at MANSCAPED.com! #ad #manscapedpod #manscaped

An American Werewolf In London (1981)

Episode 390, 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: This time, it was my idea to do this movie, and the only reason it came to my mind is because it was my turn to pick. And Craig and I were chatting about something and he happened to mention an American Werewolf in London and I was like, Dude, we have not done An American Werewolf in London.

It’s one of those movies that I can’t believe we have been doing this for over eight years and have not hit. So it’s such an important movie in a couple different ways for me growing up. I didn’t actually get to see it until, uh, I think I was a teenager maybe, but Obviously, it’s known, for many of us anyway, as being the thing that sort of inspired Michael Jackson to hire John Landis and Rick Baker to do the Thriller video and made that video as good as it is, and that is just, we could do a whole episode on the Thriller video, I feel like, right?

And why not? So, today we’re doing Thriller by Michael Jackson. No, we’re doing an American Werewolf in London, 1981, John Landis. By this time, John Landis had had quite a few comedy hits. He had done Kentucky Fried Movie, Animal House, I think he had just finished Blues Brothers a little bit before he decided to tackle this, which was based on a script that he wrote way back in 1969, before his first film.

And, uh, he just shelved it, realized it was gonna be expensive to do, it’s gonna, you know, a lot of makeup effects, and obviously on location in London. And so he shelved it and then brought it back out later. Interestingly enough, and this I did not know about John Landis before we started talking, is John Landis first movie was a horror comedy.

1973, called Schlock. That was his directorial debut. And it was about an ape man in Southern California who is attacked in his cave. Wanders into the suburbs, falls in love with an adolescent girl. Of course, she’s just scared of him, so he resorts to kidnapping her. Kind of like, uh, low rent King Kong type thing.

Which was, his whole conception was, uh, uh, more of a basically a parody. Of the monster movies of the fifties. And this is pertinent because not only is it a horror comedy, which this film is as well, but it was one of Rick Baker’s first movies as well. And it started their partnership. And Rick Baker is the one responsible for the amazing.

Amazing transformation effects in this movie and countless other horror films. Yeah, I thought that was kind of interesting. 

Craig: Rick Baker, I assume, is the makeup artist that you’re talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, I feel like this whole episode could just be about that one transformation in the movie, even though there are other, like, that transformation is so great.

That it kind of, I can’t think of the right word. Like it overshadows the rest of the makeup work in this movie. Like there’s great makeup work in this movie throughout the werewolf in its entirety, like in its ultimate form. I really like, it’s impressive. Yeah. I really like it, but also Griffin Dunn’s character who gets like progressively more.

Like, decomposed and dead. Like, every one of those looks is, is great. The reason that this came up, we, you and I did a mini sode for our patrons about like, the first horror movies we remember seeing and this is one of the first ones that, I remember, I just remember being a really little kid. I have no idea how old I was, but I, I don’t have a lot of memories from that time, but I, I remember being small and, and sneaking around to get glimpses of this.

And as I said in the minisode, I’m sure my dad knew, 

Todd: you know, like I was trying 

Craig: to be sneaky and sneaking around and stuff. I’m, I’m sure he knew that I was watching and it like, it’s like a visceral memory and I’ve seen it since then. I’ve probably watched it. I don’t know. I probably watched it a bunch of times, but I haven’t watched it in a really long time and especially I haven’t like sat down and watched it start to finish in a really long time and I was kind of surprised by my reaction to it.

Really? 

Todd: Yeah. In what 

Craig: way?

I don’t know, like, I thought it was a little boring. There were definitely big time things that I liked about it, so I don’t want to put this movie down. But it was a little boring. 

Todd: Alright, fair enough. Well, it’s not the slam bang action fest that a lot of horror movies are, but it’s also a werewolf story, and they usually aren’t, right?

A werewolf story, and I think I’ve talked about this before too, in some ways, not all of them, because you can take them in many different directions, but if you kind of take the traditional werewolf trope, it’s kind of like the Dracula story. The creature only comes out in certain circumstances, at night.

It’s a threat, and then the morning comes, and Dracula’s asleep in his coffin, and the werewolf is transformed back into a human. So, unless your whole movie takes place over the course of some crazy night, which is just one giant werewolf attack, or, you know, Dracula’s one night of mayhem and they happen to catch him at the end, you’re gonna get these periods of calm.

And this movie’s interesting because it involves a guy who has been attacked by a werewolf, But he’s not sure that he now is going to transform into a werewolf, but he’s kind of all but sure a lot of the movie is him wrestling with this idea thinking, nah, no, it can’t be true. Even though all of the evidence.

points to the fact that, you know, he better beware when that full moon comes. And I think that’s where some of the comedy comes in, is this sort of self denial. Yeah. This is not like a horror comedy like your Shaun of the Dead. Like, when you hear the word horror comedy today, You think of something that’s a little slapstick, a little silly, people are doing one liners and quips.

No, like the humor in here is just comes from the situations. It comes from sort of the absurdity of things that are not directly pointed out to you. You have to be sitting there and shuffling with and go, Oh, I see what they’re doing there. You know, Oh, that’s funny. You know that even the whole bar, you know, that, you know, it’s these two.

Backpackers who are hiking, they’re both Americans, and they are starting a three month European trip, and they’re starting out in the nor in the northern England, out in the countryside, which raises some questions. How are they starting there? Did they land in London and then just decide to go up north and take a trek down after riding in the back of a guy’s truck with his sheep?

I don’t I don’t know! I guess they’re truly backpackers, they want to see all the wilderness, but In any case, they go into the next pub that they find, which is out in the middle of nowhere in this tiny, tiny little town, and it’s called the Slaughtered Lamb. So, and there’s a, what is that called, that flap that hangs out in front, the sign?

The sign, yeah. There’s a term for it, right? A shingle. The shingle that’s hanging outside that says the Slaughtered Lamb, and it’s a pike. A werewolf’s head on it. A wolves head. A wolves head on it. But if that doesn’t bring a smile to your face, the minute you first see it, like you’re not paying attention to this movie,

And, and then they walk right in and instantly ’cause it’s a trope. Everybody goes silent, just completely silent. And these guys, instead of going. Alright, well, maybe we’ll try the next pub down the road, decide to sit down anyway, and look around at the witchcraft symbols on the wall. It’s just so damn funny!

Craig: Yeah, it is, and I’m gonna defend this movie against myself. I really do like it, but it feels at this point kind of Wait, I feel like this was kind of the, these were the last moments where this movie could be the way it was without being a wink and a nod at itself. Like these two guys are on this trip or whatever and end up at.

This bar, but it’s not like the bar in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure where everybody looks like super threatening. It’s just, everybody is just really super annoyed that they’re there. That, the, the movie doesn’t, it doesn’t make any sense. Like, the conceit is That they know that there’s a werewolf. The people in the bar.

Yeah. The people in the bar know that there’s a werewolf and it’s a full moon. And like, I guess they’re just so annoyed that these guys showed up at their bar that they’re gonna be like, yeah, let the werewolf have them. 

Todd: Well, to be fair, the bartender, she, you know, kind of tries to stop them from going out.

Clip: Jack, we better go. Are you kidding? I’m starved. There’s no food here.

Shall we go, Jack? Apparently so. You can’t let them go. Uh, how much do we owe you? Nothing, lads. I’ll be with you. Oh, thank you. Wait! You just can’t let them go? Go! Stay on the road Keep clear to the moors. 

Craig: And it really is funny It’s a funny movie like because they don’t do any of that like they They immediately get off the road and they just casually stroll off.

It’s so funny. 

Todd: You’re watching their cheat. Why would you do that? That doesn’t make any Sense, even if you’re not paying attention and you’re just walking with your friend, you’re still going to stick to the path you’re on without thinking about it. Right? You’re in a foreign country. 

Craig: Yeah. Can you imagine?

Like, I don’t know. I’m a, I’m pretty naive to the ways of the world, but, and I know that England is much smaller than America, but you go wandering off in America and the wilderness, you’ll be lost forever and die. Right. Yeah, it happens a lot, actually stick to the road, but they don’t. And then they start hearing werewolves howling.

Oh, okay. So I came in saying it’s boring and now I’m like trying to recall it to summarize it. And they’re like, Oh, that was fun. That was funny. No, it wasn’t boring. It was cute because like they’re banter back and forth. I’m actually a little bit sad that Jack played by Griffin Dunn dies so early in the movie.

Yeah, he was a fun guy because those two guys, him and David Naughton, and I have seen both of these actors in other things. Nothing that like is, stands out. But I’ve seen them both in other things and actually watching this, I wondered about casting. I wondered if they like went back and forth between which of these guys is going to be our main guy and which of them is going to be the side guy, because I think it could have gone either way.

It really could have. They’re very similar. They look a lot alike. And they’ve kind of got the same. Quippy, based on the characters they play, sense of humor, and I like them both. The only thing that I specifically remember Griffin done, oh no, there’s two things. 

Todd: Go on. Okay. 

Craig: He was in My Girl. He played the teacher, that little Zzbeta Sultanfuss.

I had a big crush on in that movie, but the best movie that he was in was who’s that girl starring Madonna. Oh my God. 

Todd: Great. My God. Oh, I want to go back and watch that. Wasn’t that Madonna’s first movie? And she wasn’t in many movies, right? Just a couple. She wasn’t. Well, she’s been in a 

Craig: handful. And not many of them good.

No. I thought that she was quite good in Evita. But Who’s That Girl is a ridiculous movie, and it’s 

Todd: hilarious, and it’s so good. It’s just a vehicle for Madonna to be Madonna, you know, it’s self promotion. She’s really silly, she really plays 

Craig: up her silly, bubbly, I can’t wait. Let’s, well, hello and welcome to two guys in 

Todd: Madonna.

Here we go. Who’s that girl from 1987 starring Madonna? 

Craig: I could seriously talk about that movie all day. It’s one of my favorite movies. I watched 

Todd: it all the time when I was a kid. I’m actually marking it right now to watch before the week is over. Now that you brought it up, I’m kind of, I need to revisit this.

It’s so good. I quote 

Craig: it all the time. But anyway, these guys, they’re cute, they’re funny, they’re having a nice time, you know, like, yeah, I feel bad when they get attacked by a werewolf and, uh, Griffin Dunn gets killed and David Naughton gets like mauled, but I guess the townspeople collectively had a conscience and decided that they were going to help him actually, and so a whole horde of these townspeople shoot the werewolf.

While it’s attacking David. Hm. That’s convenient that the actor and the character have the same name. Right. So, poor Griffin Dunn is dead. But David wakes up in the hospital after having been unconscious for three weeks. Weeks? What? I know. How did that happen? Where is, where 

Todd: is his family? 

Craig: He got scratched by a big dog and he was unconscious for three 

Todd: weeks.

Where was his family? In America. Ha ha ha, just hanging out, hoping he’ll recover in London. Nobody came to see him. Nobody’s making phone calls. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this was definitely before the era of cell phones. We were not that in touch, but Usually you were a little concerned and his family knows that shit’s gone down.

Much later, he ends up calling them and he has to answer the question. Oh no, I’m fine now. Was this the first time they learned that, Oh, he’s out of his three week coma. I don’t care. I just thought that was such a weird 

Craig: line. Like it would have been so much. I could have just been a day later, right? Or two, it didn’t really matter, did it?

I guess in thinking about it, like they had to give him time to heal because he did have. Like those, those deep wounds in his chest that eventually become scars. True. So, so maybe they wanted to, you know, if we’re going to put him back on the street, it’s got to be believable that he’s healed. Okay.

Whatever. Fair enough. Fair enough. So what? Who cares? But, and, and, you know, like it sets stuff up. There’s a nurse named Alex, right? Isn’t that her name? Mm hmm. And like. I don’t know. She’s immediately horny for him, it seemed 

Todd: like to me. Both of the nurses are horny for him. One of them makes a comment about how he’s Jewish, and she’s like, How did you know that?

How do you know for sure? And she’s like, Well, I checked. I’ve read so 

Craig: little trivia. Like, I didn’t do any research for this movie at all. But one of the only things that I read And this surprised me was that they had to be really cautious about full frontal nudity with him because he’s uncircumcised.

And like, it’s a whole point in the movie that he’s circumcised. So all of the effects and all of the shots of him are pretty chased. Like, he’s always, he’s always in a position where his like legs are covering up his wiener. And I just assumed that was probably a ratings thing. I did you rarely see I didn’t know they were covering up covering him up because he was uncut

Todd: it’s it’s kind of nuts when you think about it because we’re not used to seeing a lot of male nudity period in movies there is a lot of male nudity in this movie. And there were times when the little, you know, there’s a little dangle flashes by one or, you know, a few times, but 

Craig: there are like when he’s running around in the forest in his dreams, that was 

Todd: when he’s escaping from the zoo.

There’s a bit of that, but also think about that for a minute. Would we have noticed or cared? And also that is just one line really like he had to take such great care and shooting this guy just to preserve that one little joke that I’m sure 

Craig: it would, you know, male nudity, male frontal nudity for whatever reason is just uncommon and always has been.

And I think that it’s because men, what is it? Like everybody’s got a dick, like, and they come in all shapes and sizes, like just. Just calm down. Like nobody really cares. Some people have great big ones. Some people have little ones. Just calm down. But I feel like so much of our dignity is connected to that.

Not stupid. I love it. But it’s just connected to that little piece of flesh that 

Todd: hangs between your legs. So stupid. Honestly, I think it’s because it’s genitalia. Like even female frontal nudity in movies. Even when you see a little bush, right? Like, that’s really all you see, unless you’re watching a porn.

You know, you’re not seeing the details of that gen those genitals. Well, speaking of male nudity and bush and werewolves, you know, our werewolf month wouldn’t be possible without guys with hair. And that’s why we have a brand new sponsor this month for our werewolf month here on Two Guys in the Chainsaw, and that is Manscaped.

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At manscaped. com all you got to do is go there punch in our code and you get that exclusive offer. Just go to manscaped. com enter the code chainsaw for 20 percent off plus free shipping. Show your balls some love and feel free as a dove. Oh I can’t believe we’re talking about this by the way. This 

Craig: conversation has got really weird like.

My, my point, my point was kind of that you see. Full frontal nudity in women a lot and and all the time and and I feel like for what God, it’s so dumb, but like I understand, even though I don’t have a lot of experience that it’s not all the same, but when you’re just looking at women. You know, from afar and just seeing them naked, like, that’s just what a naked woman looks like.

Like, penises look different. 

Todd: Well, thank you for that, Dr. Craig. I’m clearing that one up. But just to finish my point, right, if a woman just stands there facing the camera full frontal, unless she’s, like, spreading her legs way out or something like that, you’re not seeing the details of her genitalia. So it’s still.

Hidden, whereas a man, if he’s just standing there, all we need to do is stand there and you’re seeing everything he’s got, you know, I think it kind of just falls into that realm. 

Craig: Well, fine, but I mean, it’s objectively true that you see female full frontal nudity 90 percent more than male. Yes, of course, 100%.

I also think, God, I feel like I was just in a group chat or I just watched a movie, a great movie, by the way, poor things watch it immediately. Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, uh, newer one, huh? Yeah. Emma Stone just won best actress, the Oscar for best actress for this movie. And it’s kind of a Frankenstein type movie where Emma Stone is kind of like, Kind of like the Frankenstein’s monster, but I’m not going to say anything more than that about it.

Because, seriously, it is so artful. It reminded me of Pearl in the way that Pearl reminded me of the Wizard of Oz. And like, it’s just absolutely visually stunning. Lots of nudity, get ready to see Emma Stone naked. I am so ready for that. I mean, she looks like a naked woman. That’s kind of the whole point.

She looks like a naked woman. But also there’s several instances of male nudity in that movie too. And I think that I group texted my friends. And when I say my friends, I mean the people that I work with. So like my coworkers, I’m like. Lots of dicks in this movie, they always look weird just flopping around, like if they’re, if they’re not hard, they just look silly.

Todd: It is true. Maybe the reason we don’t see enough male nudity, so much male nudity in movies is just. Cause it’s such a big joke. Like people just laugh at it. 

Craig: It 

Todd: would be way too distracting. 

Craig: There’s, there’s a point in that movie where some guy, and these are not even like good looking men, they’re just average guys, and this guy is like.

Crawling around on all fours like a spider monkey and he’s lit from behind like there’s a big Window behind him and so you just see his wiener just like flopping around between his legs. I’m like that is so awkward

Todd: What are we talking about? We have veered more off topic than usual, honestly, but Oh my God, an American werewolf in London. Well, after the attack, he wakes up in a hospital. So what these townspeople have done. Is they have rest his wounds beforehand. That point is made like three or four times by the doctor.

They’ve dressed his wounds and they’ve taken him and dropped him off at the hospital. I also have questions about this, but meet 

Craig: me too. And let’s talk about them. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: do those towns people think that they have prevented him from becoming a werewolf? Why are those towns people protecting the werewolf and they’re not?

Because they shoot it. 

Todd: Yeah. Like, 

Craig: they just kill it, like, why are they living in fear? Why not? Why didn’t they just kill the werewolf anyway? 

Todd: Yeah, get a posse together instead of, uh, holding yourselves up in the, uh, in the bar. It’s kind of weird. And there’s only one. Well, maybe they don’t know. Maybe they don’t know there’s only one.

But, but anyway, yeah, I don’t understand why they’re protecting her. Cause, him. Cause they know that he’s been bitten, so they know that he’s gonna turn. But instead of taking care of him. Which would have been super easy. Because their cover story is That a wild maniac was on the loose and, you know, killed the one and scratched him up.

And that’s the guy, right? Like, once the werewolf is shot, he immediately transforms back into a guy. And so the police are satisfied. They’re like, yep, here’s the guy who’s been shot. And here are these two unfortunate people and yadda yadda yadda yadda. They could have just Off to this kid too for his own good and everybody else’s or just let him there to die or 

Craig: whatever.

That doesn’t make any sense. Like I’m not, I’m not bothered by it cause it’s just a movie, but it doesn’t make any sense. Like those guys show up in the pub and they’re all super weird. About it. And then they send them out and the one barmaid is like, Oh, we shouldn’t do this, but everybody else is like, shut up.

But then even though they’re all grouchy, then they go out and they shoot the werewolf, but then they release the kit. It doesn’t make any sense. And it’s, it’s fine. I don’t. They have, you alluded to it, but they have like 

Todd: a star. It’s not a pentagram. It’s like a pentagram without the circle. The pentacle, I think is what it’s called.

Craig: Yes. Yes. On the wall. And one of the guys Griffin Dunn says something about it. This setup is kind of stupid, but it doesn’t matter. But then, like, okay, so then he’s in the hospital, both nurses, as you said, are super horny for him. That was hilarious. Like, he’s, he’s a good looking guy. Don’t get me wrong. But he’s a patient.

He’s a, well, he’s a patient. And he’s like, he’s just a guy. He’s just like an average guy, not special. Right? No, he’s not like a Hemsworth or anything, you know? Do 

Todd: you think though there was a little bit of a fetishism going on here? Like, Ooh, he’s an American. We don’t see many of those, you know? I think that’s what they was kind of alluded to.

Craig: I know God, I just, I, I’m so far removed from my twenties. I forget. These people are young. They’re in their twenties. They’re horny for everybody. True. 

Todd: And she’s only had seven lovers, three of whom were one night stands. That is a whole conversation. 

Craig: I remember when she said that in the movie, I’m like, are we gonna talk about that?

Like,

are we gonna talk about if we’ve ever had one night stands? I 

Todd: think what we need to talk about is the forced sexual feeding in the hospital. What? He won’t eat. He’s not hungry. And that’s the theme. Again, we’re supposed to figure out, you know, it’s because he’s not satisfied with regular food. But he doesn’t want to eat.

Clip: You put me Kessler. How did I do that? Well, you ought to take these after you’ve eaten. Now what sort of nurse would I be if I failed in so simple a task as handing out some pills? You can leave the pills. I’ll take them later. Aw, come on, Nurse Price. You can call me Alex. Come on, Alex. Should I be forced to feed you, Mr.

Kessler? You can call me David. Shall I be forced to feed you, David? 

Todd: And he’s like, well, I’m not hungry. So she plops down on the bed, and in a very sexually suggestive scene, starts cutting up his food and feeding it to him while they are inches away from each other and staring into each other’s eyes. Oh 

Craig: yeah, they’re touching.

Like, she scoots 

Todd: right up next to him. This is the most unprofessional nurse in the history of the profession. Outside of porn movies. But it’s cute. Honestly, I didn’t mind because I knew the script. I knew it needed to go here. I knew that, you know, there was going to be this love interest and she’s going to be the one.

And so I was fine with it. You might as well have some goofy scenes like this to kind of kick things along, you know, down the road. I was fine with it. And actually I thought it was kind of cute and charming. So what, you know, and you kind of have to give him 

Craig: some relationships. The only other relationship that he had was his friend who’s dead now visits him still.

I keep trying to get there and not getting there. But Griffin Dunn, Jack, keeps visiting him, and the first time he visits him, it’s what he would look like immediately following the werewolf attack. So like, he’s all slashed up. I mean, it looks like him, it looks like Griffin Dunn, but he’s all slashed up, and 

Todd: it looks So good.

Oh my God. You can’t take your eyes off it. It looks so good. Like half of his throat is gone. The skin on his face is just hanging off in flaps. And apparently, well, he’s in there and he’s eating too. He like, he like grabbed some of his toast from the hospital bed. And as he’s eating, and apparently, one of the scenes that John Landis had to cut out, which he later regretted cutting anything, uh, for the MPAA, was a bit of that toast was supposed to fall out of his neck.

After he had eaten it. I mean, they put some effort into this, and Rick Baker himself said 

Craig: fantastic. 

Todd: Like, he just loved the fact that John Landis had such confidence in his makeup ability that this first appearance of him with all this makeup is in full daylight, all the lights on. You can just see every little bit of it.

And why not? It is amazing. Yeah. 

Craig: And it’s wet. And like, like, of course I’m looking at it hard. So, like, I can see. That it’s a prosthetic on Griffin Dunn’s face. I, I can see that because I’m looking for it specifically, but it looks great. And every single time Griffin Dunn reappears, and it’s always funny because he’s continually in a new stage of decay every time you see him.

But that’s physically the way that he appears. To his friend, like he’s just talking to his friend. Like he’s still the same guy he was before. And he just keeps telling him you have to kill yourself. 

Clip: Please believe me. You’ll kill people. Listen to me, the supernatural, the power of darkness. It’s all true.

The undead surround me. Have you ever talked to a corpse? It’s boring. I’m lonely. Take your life David kill yourself before you kill others

Craig: Like I and all of the other people that have been killed by this line of werewolves are doomed to roam the earth until The line of werewolves dies out and you’re the last one

There is a heavy suicide theme, like Griffin just keeps telling you, I’m serious, kill yourself. It’s 

Todd: the only way. And so that, you know, the movie becomes, again, we all understand, well, this is going to have to happen. And he even seems to understand this is gonna have to happen, cause he sees his friend, and then later he sees more of his victims, but he doesn’t want to.

He doesn’t want to kill himself. 

Craig: Well, and he doesn’t want to accept the fact that he’s a werewolf. And he has kind of a nice week. That’s the thing. There was the full moon, then he was unconscious for three weeks. Then he had a nice week where he had like a hot girlfriend and he was getting laid and they were having a great time.

They were having sex in the shower. That was kind of hot. Yeah. That was kind of hot because I felt like it was real and that it wasn’t horny. Yeah. It wasn’t about just banging. It was about like body contacts. Like they were like. Embraced and like feeling each other’s bodies. And I’m like, that’s real.

Todd: Honestly, I thought the chemistry between these two was great. Yeah. That’s how I bought it. And also, like you said, the sex was kind of sweet and Landis had to cut quite a bit of the sex as well to get the R rating, which he wished he hadn’t done. But I think it’s it works the way it is and we haven’t mentioned it but uh, this woman nurse, um, Well, alex nurse price is played by jenny a gutter who we just recently saw because we just did the whole child’s play Series and she was she In Child’s Play 2, she was the The mom?

The stepmom? The stepmom, yeah. The foster mom. Foster mom. I totally missed that. When you said her name, it sounded so familiar and I had totally forgotten. And dude, she has been working like a crazy. Like, she’s super busy right now on the TV series called The Midwife. Oh, she’s been in and out. She was in Captain America Winter Soldier as Councilwoman Holly and the Avengers.

And she’s been in so much on TV and movies that it’s uh, it’s pretty impressive. Uh, Logan’s Run, I also remember because I really was fascinated with Logan’s Run. That’s, that’s, uh, That’s a 1976 movie, but when I was a kid, I watched that several times, and, and she was, uh, quite attractive in that as well.

So yeah, she’s a good looking gal, I don’t blame him. I agree with you a hundred percent. They seem 

Craig: young. Like Love affairs, young love affairs, oh, how I remember them fondly, but yeah, so they, so they have this, you know, young love affair, but his friend keeps showing up to remind him that he’s a werewolf and that he needs to kill himself and he doesn’t want to admit it, but it all comes to fruition.

When, I don’t know, he’s staying with her, like that, you’re right, like, it’s so quaint and so 1980s that the nurse is like, So, do you have anywhere to stay when you leave? I don’t know, right? So he stays with her and they make sweet, sweet love in the shower and stuff, but then she leaves, I, I don’t know, I guess she has like a long shift or something.

Todd: She’s gotta go to work. Yeah. Yeah. 

Craig: And the transformation, it’s the full moon comes and he transforms and it’s long and I had forgotten that this didn’t happen until well, like the first half of the movie, maybe later it happens late, the werewolf transformation happens late and it’s worth. The weight because it’s, um, it’s so great.

So good. It’s so fantastic. I still don’t really even understand how they did it because it all looks practical, but there’s so much stretching like a flesh and. I can only imagine there, that there was like, mechanisms underneath latex or something to make these stretching effects happen. It’s all in close up.

And it goes on for a long time. His fingers are stretching into claws. His, this part of his face is stretching out into snout. His legs and feet are stretching to be more canine and it’s slow and you get to see every bit of it, and it is just out of this world, I honestly don’t. Think that. Anything has met or beat 

Todd: it.

You’re absolutely right, it’s pretty nuts. Rick Baker has said that he was um, initially kind of miffed that he had spent like three months working on that one mechanism for the, the maw, you know, when his face just stretches out into a snout. And he said Landis goes in there and all he wanted was a seven seconds, one take, and he was, it was moving on.

And he said, initially I was really put off and kind of mad at him, until I first saw it in the theater with an audience. And he was like, people were standing up. And cheering during that seven seconds. He was like, yeah, that guy knew what he was doing. And he had been working on the howling before he started this movie because Landis happened to be ready to shoot this at the same time he was doing prep work on the howling and Landis got in an argument with him.

He’s like, look, you’re supposed to be saving this for my movie, for my werewolf movie. And so he did hold back on some of the stuff he was working on. And I believe he eventually handed off a number of howling stuff over to another guy. So that he could then come here and work on this movie, so.

Craig: Confession! 

Todd: I’ve never seen The Howling. The fact that we haven’t done it yet, too, is kind of crazy. Let’s do it. Yeah, it’s a very different kind of movie, but it’s, it’s well regarded and it’s, uh, it’s pretty good, yeah. 

Craig: All of his werewolf stuff is great! Like, oh my god, I love all of it. He attacks and kills a couple who are drunk and like, are just walking around.

It’s fun. He attacks and kills some homeless guys. You don’t see a whole lot. No, you don’t. You don’t see a whole lot. And I’m not mad about it. 

Todd: It still worked for me. Well, you know what, like not seeing a lot of it is what low budget movies do, and it becomes painfully obvious. But we have just been treated Yeah.

To the most gorgeous high budget effects. And so after that, the movie doesn’t need to prove itself to us anymore. You know? So, we end up seeing a lot of the transformed werewolf himself, which is amazing. Walking around, running around in the street and all that, this is later. But like you said, during these scenes, we don’t see a lot of the attacks, and that’s fine.

There was, uh, three bums who were just, right, it’s so typical, right? This bum with a burning oil drum and everything. Of course, Along the river with, uh, I guess if you’re shooting in London, you got to get all the major landmarks in you want, so, you know, it’s got the, the tower bridge right behind him. Like, okay.

But one of those bums, I don’t know if you recognized him, he was a never ending story. Do you remember the old man who has all the inventions that sort of is, is at that place where the two sphinxes are zapping people with their eyeballs? Yeah, that was one of those bungs. Yeah. Yeah. The, the short guy, he pretty much looks like him too.

That’s no point here. Yeah. 

Craig: And on the next episode of the eighties with two guys in a chainsaw, we’ll talk for hours about the never ending story because it’s one of my favorite movies. The never ending story 

Todd: would 

Craig: be 

Todd: a theme month, I’m afraid. Yeah, we’d have to do at least four episodes. God. I still do.

I can’t say it still holds up today, maybe with a modern audience, but for Todd, nostalgic Todd, it holds up just fine. So good. What are 

Clip: we 

Todd: talking about?

You’d think we don’t want to talk about this movie as much as we’re talking about. No, I do 

Craig: this. I, I really like it. And I, these werewolf attacks are good and scary. I don’t know, like, I wonder how this movie would hold up with modern audiences. Like, I feel like we sometimes should talk with our friend Jordan, you know, who’s like in her twenties and, and see what people like that.

Think of these because I really enjoyed this movie, but I think that most of my enjoyment of it comes from the nostalgia. I don’t know that this. Would hold up for contemporary audience. I love the, the look of the werewolf in its full state, but it is also, it’s, it’s very reminiscent of the Gmort in the never ending story there.

It looks like a prop. It looks like a great prop. Yeah. And I love it, and I’m so proud of whoever made it, it’s so great. But it doesn’t necessarily look real, and I wonder how a contemporary audience would respond. 

Todd: Well, I watched it with Liz, and she had never seen it before, and she, she loved it. She thought the movie was great.

Good! Yeah, so. There’s one vote anyway. She’s definitely like, uh, more of a 90s girl than an 80s girl. 

Craig: Well, so she would still have some similar points of 

Todd: reference, but That’s true. That’s true. It’s interesting. You’re right. We would need to go, we would need to go deeper. We need to go with like a teenager or a 20 something.

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: right. I 

Craig: don’t know. I like it. So the climax He goes to a porn movie, which I thought was, God, I swear to God, I watched these things, these movies, and I know that we’re going to talk about them. So in my head, I think about like, what are we going to talk about? And I, I thought about like, I’m going to ask Todd, have you ever gone to 

Todd: a porn theater?

Oh God. Ask my dad if he went to a porn theater. Can you imagine? But that is one thing Liz asked me. She’s like, People went to theaters to watch porn? Ha ha! Like, are they, are they jerking off in the seat? Like, and, yeah. 

Craig: Oh, they so are. Yeah. Yeah, they 

Todd: totally are. Well, apparently when he wrote this movie, he was acquainted with London, and he had exact places where he was planning to film.

And this theater on Piccadilly Circus, Back in 1963 or 69, when he wrote it, showed cartoons all day long. And by the time it came time to shoot this movie, it had become an adult theater, so we actually had to write that in. Not that he couldn’t have! I mean, he’s showing his own movie anyway. They filmed this movie.

This was the first thing they shot, was this fake porn movie segment. Oh, that’s funny. And, and it’s See You Next Wednesday is the title of it. And, uh, that is a, that is a running joke with John Landis. He got the line from like a 2001 A Space Odyssey, and he has inserted that in every movie he’s ever done.

Whether it’s a character saying it, Or whether it’s on a poster somewhere or a billboard or something like that. You know it’s a John Lennon’s movie if See You Next Wednesday pops up somewhat prominently in it. That’s hilarious. But he could have, he could have just made it a cartoon. I mean, he could have done that.

He changed the posters anyway. He showed his own movie on the screen. But I think it adds to the comedy that it’s in the porn theater because it’s just so funny to see these guys meeting in here and the porn movie itself is hilarious. It’s a, yeah, it’s a parody of a porn film as well. 

Craig: Was that guy like, okay, so he talks to his dead friend again.

And, and Griffin Dunn at this point is basically just a skeleton, like with some flesh remaining, which is hilarious. Cause he still just talks like himself. Like his voice doesn’t change and all of the other people that. Our main character has killed as a werewolf are also there. The young lovers that he killed, like, don’t even seem particularly mad.

How shall I do it? 

Clip: Sleeping pills. The gun! I know where you can get a gun. Don’t I need a silver bullet or something? Oh, be serious. Would you? Madness. Oh, a gun would be good. Yes. You just put the gun to your forehead and pull the trigger.

Todd: Bubbly and cheery. Like they probably are like they came across in real life. Oh, let’s go around the back and give them a scare. Oh, that’d be so much fun. Like, yeah, you should kill yourself. Oh, you know, you could do hanging. You could do this. Yeah, you have to kill 

Craig: yourself. So he wolfs out the question that I had was there’s one point where David Naughton is starting to wolf out, but at the same time, it could be like sexual ecstasy that he’s experiencing.

And a man appears next to him. Did that man want to kick him out of the theater? Or did he want to suck his dick? 

Todd: I, the way the man stood there and creepily looked at him, I kind of think it was the latter. 

Craig: I kind of think so too, but whatever, it doesn’t really matter because he turns into a wolf and starts eating people in there.

At this point, I looked at the time stamp and there was like 13 minutes left. Or a very short amount of time left. Right. I remembered how it ended. Watching it this time. I was thinking, wow, this movie was a slow build to a very fast 

Todd: finale. Well, I mean, it is about him and his denial, right? The whole movie is him putting off killing himself, basically.

And so I get that. It’s not like it’s a character study. It’s too funny for that. 

Craig: He’s a werewolf for two nights. I kind of glossed over that. And you mentioned how, after the first night, he woke up in the wolf enclosure at the zoo. And again, the limited amount of research that I did, like they just put him in a wolf enclosure and they were like, they were like, It’s alright, we already fed them.

Todd: I’d be a little worried with my wiener hanging out in a wolf enclosure. 

Craig: No, you will not catch me naked in a 

Todd: wolf enclosure. I don’t care how recently they’ve been fed. Right, but that leads to, like, a funny bit, you know, this is what, the movie kind of goes all over the place, maybe, maybe that’s something I can say, why it might not play so well, and maybe it’s not even well structured, I didn’t have a problem with it because it kind of all made logical sense.

Tonally speaking, and I know that this was something that early production houses, before Landis had more experience, were really skeptical about with the script. They said, the script seems too funny to be scary, and too scary to be a comedy. I don’t know if he ever really did strike that tone. I appreciate it, but I think a lot of it’s understated, you know?

Even the horror in some respects is a little understated, because You know, there are these horrible werewolf attacks and everything’s gruesome and bloody, but then the victims come back and they’re laughing at them. 

Craig: We didn’t even talk about the Nazi werewolves. Oh, God. How did we miss that? I forgot, like, because even before David turns into a werewolf, he has these nightmares.

About being a werewolf, or of werewolves attacking him, and the first one is just about, like, I don’t know, a regular werewolf, but then the second dream that he has, it’s like he’s home in America with his family, and he has two younger siblings, and his parents are both there, and somebody knocks on the door, and they open it, and it is an army of Nazi werewolves!

That come in and shoot them with machine guns, and like cut their throats with huge knives, like it’s insane. That part of this movie is insane. Comes out 

Todd: of left field, and it just, it’s bewildering, like where did this come from? It’s interesting because after that, uh, scene, Liz made a comment to me, she says, Oh, I see what’s happening.

Like, this is sort of his internal psyche. This is the werewolf killing off all of his humanness on the inside, and so I thought, oh yeah, that actually is. It actually makes sense that way. Otherwise, it kind of doesn’t make a lot of sense. I did read in the trivia, it was inspired by the writer of The Wolfman.

The original Wolfman, 1941, who said that he saw werewolves as metaphors for Nazis. Like the otherwise good men who are driven to animalistic violence, who know their next victim by the symbol of a star on their body. Okay. I’ve never thought of it in that way, but I mean, I get it. It 

Craig: works as a metaphor 

Todd: in 1941.

You probably had Nazis on your brain a little bit more than we do now. So, yeah. But yeah. Oh, my God, dude. That scene was crazy. And I had forgotten. About that scene in Hirely me to it’s even cool because it’s a jump scare within a jump scare, right? Cuz he wakes up from the dream and the nurse is there and he turns her she goes to the window and another Nazi Werewolf comes out and stabs her and then he wakes up again that I jumped I jumped really I did too 

Craig: I feel like I started out the podcast saying the movie was kind of boring and I mean, I, I was being honest when I said that, but sitting and talking with you about it, like there are so many notable things to talk about.

And I feel like if you are a fan of the genre, you need to see this movie. Oh yeah. You can’t really, I don’t think, talk about werewolf movies. Without acknowledging this movie. 

Todd: Yeah, for sure. 

Craig: The, the werewolf design and the transformation design in this movie are unmatched in my opinion, and I feel like so many other movies have copied the design and have tried.

To go for the only other piece of art that I would compare this movie to is Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Because, you know, it’s the same people involved and that music video is legendary. So again, like, you know, we’ve seen other werewolf movies like Cursed. We saw the one with the girls in high school.

Ginger Snap. I feel like in some way both of those movies pay a little bit of homage to this movie in the look of the werewolves. And the transformation scenes, and maybe that’s just me being nostalgic for these movies. I don’t know. I just feel like this movie kind of sets the standard for what werewolves are.

Yeah. 

Todd: You’re right, 

Craig: especially cinematically. This movie sets the standard of what werewolves are. You can go with it, or you can deviate from it, and that’s fine, but an American werewolf in London 

Todd: set the standards. Especially for the modern one, right? Like, it’s not the first werewolf movie to come around, but it was the first one that’s not cheesy.

It’s 

Craig: not just 

Todd: a 

Craig: guy in an outfit. Right, with hair on his face. I’m all for a guy in an outfit. That’s fine, but This is special effects heavy, especially that transformation 

Todd: and it’s just done so well. Well, and I think you kind of made an interesting point at the beginning of the show, when you said, you know, that transformation seem in some ways overshadows the whole movie, it overshadows the history of the movie in a way, would we be talking about this movie so much, would we remember this film so much?

If that scene and the special effects were not so amazing. I mean, you said the movie was kind of, felt kind of boring, and I know exactly what you mean. The pacing felt a little off, it felt a little slow in parts, even though it was a lot of interesting, fun little parts strung together. In some ways, Maybe it was just a little slapdash, you know, like the way that it was strung together wasn’t quite as Skillful as the individual scenes that were strung together and now that I think about it That’s kind of what John Landis had been doing up to this point, right?

He had the Amazon women in the moon and Kentucky fried movie and the Blues Brothers, which are just Movies of sequences. Yeah, yes, yes. In a way, this is kind of like that. And maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel as cohesive and satisfying. It’s just a little disjointed in some way. And it’s abrupt. The way it ends is so abrupt.

Craig: Yeah, so he turns into a werewolf in the porno theater, he eats a bunch of people in there and then he breaks out and then somehow the girl and his doctor, who’s also been working with him, like, they find out and they go down there and the girl tries to talk him out of it. Killing people as a werewolf in a dead end alley.

And, but it doesn’t work because he’s a werewolf and, uh, he like jumps to attack her and a bunch of people shoot him. And then they show, as we’ve seen, we saw this when they killed the first werewolf too. It just shows David Naughton’s naked body. riddled with bullet holes and I that stuck with me for some reason when I was a kid like it’s one thing to see a monster be killed but to then see a naked Which, like, I, I just feel like you’re never more vulnerable than when you’re naked.

Like, a naked person with a bunch of bullet holes in them, that really resonated. I, I remember that from when I was a kid. That bothered me 

Todd: as a kid. Sure. Of course it’s going to because also, first of all, I thought the scene was appropriately emotional. I mean, I bought their relationship as quick as it was.

Yes. And she genuinely cared for him, I bought that too, and she wails, she’s pretty upset, this is her last ditch effort to save him, but it’s almost like she knows it’s probably futile, but she’s hoping, you know, she’s like, we can help, I can help you through this, and, and she can’t. And he gets shot in front of her.

And then it’s exposed. He wasn’t a wolf. He was a real person with feelings that she was making out with in the shower and all that stuff, you know, and to see that in front of you, that would suck. Yeah. To put it bluntly. And as a kid seeing that too, it’s just like, oh, he wasn’t a bad guy. You know, maybe, maybe this is one of the first movies you see where you see the bad guy get killed, but you’re faced with the uncomfortable confrontation that, you know, Not actually that black and white.

Craig: I like that about werewolf movies and werewolf stories. It’s that the person isn’t necessarily a bad person, you know? They just have this thing that’s unfortunate that they have to deal with. He’s a victim. Yeah, they’re a victim really, you know, vampires, I get it, they’re victims too, but then they’re dead and they’re evil being.

They’re like a new creature, really. They’re a new, they’re something new. I mean, they may have characteristics of the person that they were supposed to be, but the real person, the person’s soul is gone. And that’s not the. Same with werewolves. I, again, unsolicited recommendation. Alan and I watched the first season of Wolf Like Me.

Have I talked to you about that? No, you haven’t. It stars Josh Gad and Isla Fisher. And it’s cute. It’s like a cute little romantic comedy where he’s a widower and he has a young daughter and he’s, you know, navigating what life is going to be like now that he’s a widower and everybody wants him to get out there and date and stuff, but he’s really reluctant, but he finally starts dating and then he meets this girl, Isla Fisher, and she’s really nice.

Super cool. Cause she’s a widow too. And she’s just getting back into the dating scene and she, she just can’t be in a relationship. She’s can’t because she’s a werewolf 

Todd: and 

Craig: it’s great. It’s so cute. And they’re like these little 30 minute episodes. Each one, you should check it out. It’s really super sweet.

Love it. And honestly, like I liked this movie. I would 100, 100 percent recommend this movie to anybody. One of the few things that I’ve met, like I’ve been trying to get to it. And then I sidetracked on other things. One of the things that I love most about this movie is the music. 

Todd: Oh, it’s so good. Elmer Bernstein.

Yeah. 

Craig: Well, I’m not even necessarily. Oh, you mean the score. I’m talking about the songs that are implanted. Like the, the very first thing over the credits is blue moon. You know, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna sing for you waiting for it. No, but it’s, it’s, it’s adorable. You know, blue moon, you saw me standing alone, you know, like it’s so cute over the credits.

And then all of the other songs that are clearly intentionally inserted at intentional moments. And it’s not like just something just happens in the background. No, like I’m slapping 

Todd: you in the face with this song. It’s kind of part of the comedy in a way. Yeah. And you know what? I would say that having Blue Moon playing during the werewolf scene is comedic, and it Hood take the edge off?

But when I saw this as a kid to have this sort of like happier, I mean, it’s not like a peppy song, but it’s, you know, blue moon, you saw, I mean, you know, it’s, it’s a nice little song. They use three 

Craig: different versions of that same song. I know, yeah. In the movie. Like there’s, there’s the, the one at the end is, is the one that’s like bomb, bomb

You got, I got you singing after all,

Clip: but 

Craig: every time It’s so great. And I’m sorry to interrupt you. I know that you were talking, but it’s not just that song, but it’s also Moondance, I think is Kat Stevens. Great song. And then is it CCR bad moon rising? I see a bad moon rising. Oh God. So many moon song. And it’s just fantastic because like I said, it’s not like it’s subtle.

No. To say it underscores a scene is not even fair. It’s like the music starts and then it’s almost like a musical montage. 

Todd: Every time it’s fantastic. It’s that I loved that so much, but as a kid, seeing that transformation scene with that song, that the. Contrast was so startling that I thought it actually it made the scene more terrifying for me kind of like when maybe it’s the Same psychological effect as like when you see horror happening in the daylight.

This doesn’t jive You know, this makes me uncomfortable and I think it was the same way like I hear this song I’ve heard My parents used to play it in the car all the time and all that, but I never imagined I would have seen a werewolf transforming in such a gruesome way to this song. I actually found that that heightened the horror of that scene when I was a kid anyway.

Craig: It’s a great movie. It’s a great movie. If you haven’t seen it, you need to run out and watch it right away. Great performances. David Naughton and Griffin Dunn, I thought were both great and hilarious in this movie. I feel like they gave very understated performances. They really just feel like guys that you would know.

Yeah. And, and maybe guys that you would go on a backpacking trip with and drink and, you know, drink beers in bars with. Honestly, it wouldn’t have worked if they weren’t that way, you know, right, right. It’s great. The special effects are great. I can’t take back what I already said. I did feel like there were times that I love the opening up until the werewolf attack.

I felt like the recovery in the hospital lasted a little bit too long. I felt like the movie could have been a solid hour and it would have been great. And it is great still. I feel like there’s a little bit of unnecessary padding in there, but it deserves its reputation in the pantheon of horror films and special effects.

Todd: Agreed. I can’t say anything more. I feel the same way you do. And thus starts off our month of werewolf movies. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. I am down. I am down for the hairiness. I don’t know about that. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. If you have suggestions for werewolf movies that might be under our radar, please let us know.

You can do that by googling Two Guys in a Chainsaw. Just find any of our social media channels or our website, ChainsawHorror. com, and leave us a message in one of those places and we will totally get back to you. You can also leave a voice message if you want. There’s a link for that on the website as well.

Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.