2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

We go ultra-modern with this tale of a haunted swimming pool that premiered this month on the Peacock network streaming service. How far can you go with the concept of possessed water? We take a deep dive into this Blumhouse / James Wan production to find out.

Dive into the chilling depths with us on this episode of “2 Guys and a Chainsaw” as we uncover the haunting secrets of ‘Night Swim’! Released in 2024 and recently premiered on Peacock, this eerie tale merges childhood fears with supernatural twists around a seemingly innocent swimming pool.

As summer beckons, join us as we dissect the layers of this fresh horror entry – from its nostalgic nods to the dread of night-time swims to some unexpected (and some truly laughable) reveals. Could a pool really harbor ghosts?

We really wanted to love this film, and while our feelings were mixed, there were some truly creepy moments!

If you’re intrigued by haunted tales and watery mysteries, this episode is for you! Don’t forget to subscribe for more horror reviews and wade over to our Patreon page to support our splash into horror critiques. Can’t get enough? Search “2 Guys And A Chainsaw” on your favorite podcast provider for more eerie adventures!

Night Swim is directed by Bryce McGuire, based on a 3-minute short film he made 10 years ago that got optioned for film by James Wan. Here’s the short that started it all:

Night Swim (2024)

Episode 389, 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, we’re taking a bit of a break from werewolves right now to, uh, dive into the water. I guess, is it the beginning of summer that is a fast approaching that inspired you to have us watch this movie, Craig? The movie we’re watching, by the way, is called Night Swim.

It couldn’t be much more recent. 2024. Yeah, it just 

Craig: came out. Yeah. It just came out like at the time of this recording, I think it, it premiered on Peacock like a week ago or something. Yeah. The reason I was inspired to do this is because I had heard of this movie before it came out. I’m pretty sure I saw a trailer and I thought.

What a silly premise for a movie. Haunted swimming pool. But I want to see it. A haunted swimming pool. And yes, summer is coming up. And I love the water. I just absolutely love the water. Yeah, me too. Growing up, my grandparents, who lived precisely a block away from us, had a swimming pool. With a nice big privacy fence all around it.

And we lived there in the summer. That’s just where we were. We were in the pool. Young people today may or may not have a similar experience, but my parents and my aunts and uncles all had kids young. Because that’s what you did back in the day, you know, like you got married in your early twenties and you started popping out kids like it’s, it’s very different these days, but my parents and my aunts and uncles were young and they still enjoyed getting together and having fun by themselves together and it was just.

A nice coincidence that there was a swimming pool that 

Todd: they could just 

Craig: send the hundreds. I say hundreds, I’m exaggerating. But there were a lot of us, a lot of kids. And, you know, go to the pool. 

Todd: Go to the pool, stop bothering us. 

Craig: Yeah, and we did, and it was amazing. And I remember, I remember swimming at night.

Even if this is the pool that you have been swimming in, like, your whole life that you can remember, at night, you can still convince yourself that there’s, like, sharks in the deep end. And we did. And my sister and I also were, like, super dramatic, and when we would play, we would do, like, Imaginative play, like we would create scenarios for ourselves and then like act them out.

Uh huh. Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe Such as? Well, one of them was in the pool. We had this, this story where there was like a sea serpent? I think it was like a snake. I remember its name was Sandusky. 

Todd: Were you vacationing in Ohio or something? What was this all about? No, 

Craig: no, it was just in the pool, just in grandpa and grandma’s pool.

Fair enough. And there’s a sea serpent named Sandusky and, and we would, you know, like. Kristen would get like, it would get her and I would have to like, pull her to save her. Sandusky’s 

Todd: got my leg. 

Craig: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. So I like pools. I like swimming. I thought this movie looked stupid, but in a way that I was really intrigued by like, well, yeah, I want to see them pull off a haunted swimming pool movie.

And as soon as I started watching it, because you and I hadn’t planned, This I texted you and I was like, I started watching this movie five minutes and I knew it was a movie. We need this. This is what we’re doing. Fair enough. So either you’re welcome or I’m sorry. I don’t know yet. 

Todd: Well, it’s not getting the best of reviews right now.

That’s for sure. I am also a swimmer like you are. In fact, I know my experiences. I would grew up on a mill in a military family and about half of the places we lived as we moved around. Had swimming pools, like the Air Force base usually has a swimming pool. That’s really popular often to one for the officers, one for the enlisteds.

That’s probably changed by now, but, uh, swimming was a very popular thing for us to do in the summer. I pretty much remember whether or not we lived on base. We were at that base pool almost every single day during the summer when school was out. And so much so that I was enrolled in the swim team. Never did I go to a school that was big enough or rich enough to have a swim team.

But, uh, I was on the community swim team pretty much every summer from the time I was, yeah, four or something like that. I see that. You’re, you’re tall and lean. I wasn’t, I wasn’t very good. I, I didn’t really win big accolades. I wasn’t super fast, but you know, I got pretty good at swimming. I’m very, very confident, comfortable in the water.

Later on in life, I got scuba certified. And so I’m, you know, one of the most, most important things for me, for my son is that he is a confident swimmer. I feel like everybody. Needs that skill just as a general life survival skill, you know, if you can’t swim then being around the waters is potentially dangerous And so in that way, well, there’s a lot of horror that happens in the water, you know, we’ve got the Jaws movies Right.

What was that one where the people were sort of stranded out? It always ends up being sort of man against nature or sort of situational situa you know, kind of. 

Craig: Oh, oh, open water. 

Todd: Open water Yeah, where you’re stuck in the middle of nothing and then there are potential sharks or there’s just the potential that nobody’s gonna come To get you so you’ve got to survive.

And aside from those kind of movies, the only other film I could think of as I was watching this was Lady in the Water. The M. Night Shyamalan movie. Oh, right, right, sure. Did you ever see that? Yeah. It took place in a backyard pool at an apartment complex, but there was a little bit more going on than just the pool.

But it was I guess you could say kind of a horror, more of a fantasy really. It was goofy as hell. 

Craig: Yeah, most people didn’t like it. I, I, I did. Like, I watched it with my whole family. My parents, my sister, and Alan. We all sat and watched it together. And all of them thought it was the dumbest thing they’d ever seen.

I was like, I liked 

Todd: it. 

Craig: I didn’t hate 

Todd: it. I didn’t hate on it like everybody else did. By the end of it I thought, okay, there was a little bit of pretension there, like when he cast himself as a writer that was gonna save the world. You could tell he was, he was pretty high on his game and didn’t really mind doing that kind of thing, and I think that that was half of why people were turned off by it.

And the other half I think people were turned off by it was it just felt so convoluted and strange. But to me, that’s what fairy tales are, you know, to me, it felt like a fairy tale that he was in. It was right. A fairy tale. He was spinning for his daughter. And so I was able to buy that this movie. I was really interested to see how they could pull off a haunted swimming pool because.

Sort of just like Jaws, it’s like, well, if the swimming pool’s haunted, don’t go swimming. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Right. Problem solved there, right? 

Craig: Or drain it or something. 

Todd: Right, but 

Craig: they do. I mean, they don’t realize, they don’t realize that it’s haunted right away. Right. 

Todd: So I was really curious to see, you know, how they would do with a haunted swimming pool.

And they, they did about as much as they possibly could. I mean, any, anything pool related. Any of your phobias, any of the games you would play, pool parties, you name it, it’s thrown into this movie, right? So, uh. I know. 

Craig: Yeah. God, that’s, that’s just also, like, so this family, there’s an open, cold open that we need to talk about, but this family, you know, they’re looking for a new place to live, the dad was a professional baseball player, but he has MS, and it’s, you know, ravaging his body, and so they’re looking for a new place to live, and they, End up finding this place with a pool and that’s, it’s so funny to me because the dad’s like, there’s a pool about it because he needs the, the doctors told him that water therapy would be one thing that would help him.

Yeah. He’s been diagnosed with like early stage at 

Todd: mass. 

Craig: Yeah. Which is a. Devastating 

Todd: disease. Horrifying. I’ve known a couple people. It’s actually 

Craig: terrible. 

Todd: Yeah. Before the family gets into the picture, we do get a flashback to summer 1992, right? Yeah. Where there’s another family at the pool. There’s a young little Asian girl and a boy who we never quite see his face.

But he’s 

Craig: in a hospital bed. He’s in 

Todd: a hospital bed in the house, yeah. She’s out by the pool, it’s night time, and she sees a toy boat floating around out there, which must belong to him. And so she kind of runs upstairs and to his back, Hey, Tony, I’m gonna get that, your toy boat out of the pool. She runs back downstairs by herself.

She’s a little girl, God, what is she, maybe, is she eight, maybe? Eight or nine? Seven, yeah. Seven, maybe? Just real small. Like, please do not let your little kids out and around your pool late at night with no supervision. Oh! She goes out and she tries to fish the boat outta the water. All kinds of fishy things are happening, right?

Like the boat’s kind of moving away from her and it sinks to the bottom and she uses the pool net thing on the extender to try to get it out. She tries to reach and she can’t quite scrape it up from the bottom and she ends up falling in. 

Craig: Well, something yanks it. Yeah, she doesn’t, I mean, the, the movie teases like her feet are just.

Teetering on the edge of the pool like the movie teases that she’s gonna fall in but she doesn’t just fall No, something yanks on the skimmer that she’s using and then she’s in there. Yeah 

Todd: She goes in there to fish out the toy boat and then we get some some scenery that we’re gonna get a lot of shots of and in a lot of times in this movie where I couldn’t tell whether the pool was haunted or the pool and outside the pool was also haunted You know, they were a little fast and loose with some of that, because I really liked the idea that when she was underwater and she was looking up, she thought she saw her mom by the side.

And then when she comes out of the water, her mom’s not there. Like, nobody’s there. And so that freaks her out a little bit. The lights in the pool flicker on and off. As she’s turning around, you also kind of see behind her, there’s a figure on the diving board, just some very dark figure. But she doesn’t see it, and then she’s pulled under and completely disappears, the lights flicker when they come on, we see she’s just completely vanished.

Craig: And that’s important, it’s important to the story later, you know, I watched this movie a week ago, and then I was like, uh, maybe I better put it on again. And I’m glad that I did because I wouldn’t have remembered a lot of it. And this is one of those things that watching it again, I was like, Oh yeah. Well now I remember that that was important, like this establishes a lot of stuff.

They find this house and it has a pool and I don’t know about you, but to me, a pool is like the highest symbol of. Like, prestige. Prestige. Yeah. You 

Todd: know you’ve made it. 

Craig: If you have a pool, you’ve made it. An in ground pool, not one of those above ground things. No, no, no. It’s gotta be in ground. No, I would happily swim in one of those above ground pools, but it is not the same.

Well, 

Todd: you gotta have money for an underground pool, I’ll tell you that, because my parents have one, and it has probably been the biggest money suck of their whole house. There’s always some maintenance that needs to be done. Yeah. And that whole thing’s been drained at least twice to patch things up, and And then the filtration system went out once and she, you know, I mean, anything can go wrong with this thing when you leave on vacation.

If your filtration system breaks down or stops, you come back to something green and then you’re dumping chemicals in it and going back and forth to the pool place to test the water to get it right. And sometimes you just got to drain it and try again. I mean, yeah. Oh my god, it’s a nightmare. It made me believe that even when I am at the height of presti Well, I guess if I’m at the height of prestige and somebody else can mess with all that stuff for me, I’ll take a pool.

Clip: That’s what I was gonna say! 

Craig: I 

Todd: was 

Craig: gonna say, so, you need a pool and a pool boy.

And I’ll take it. But, I totally agree with you. My, the pool that I was talking about that I grew up with, my grandpa, it’s still in his backyard. He’s like, 85 or I don’t know. It’s been closed for 10 years. It just sits there empty because he’s like, I’m not messing with it. But anyway, okay, so this family, the dad who we’ve already talked about, used to be a professional baseball player, has MS and is struggling.

I hate to just sweep by that because one of my family members has MS. There, you know, we know lots of people that we love. I say people we love. I mean famous people that don’t know us and that will never know us, but like Christina Applegate, Selma Blair, lots of other people struggling with MS and it’s just a terrible, terrible debilitating disease.

So I don’t want to make light of that, but. He is played, his name is Ray, and he’s played by Wyatt Russell, who is the son of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn. Yeah. And I see both of them in him so much. He is the perfect blend of the two of them. Like, ha, ha, 

Todd: ha, ha. It’s spooky. 

Craig: And I love them both. Like, I just absolutely adore the both of them.

And I love that they just have this unconventional romance where they’ve been together for decades, but they’re not married, right? Love it. I like him in this movie and his wife Eve is played by Carrie Condon. I saw that she had been in other things. She’s in the Marvel universe. I, she plays, she’s a voice actress for a character that’s been in multiple Marvel movies.

She’s great too. And then they have two kids. I don’t remember what their names are, boy and girl, whatever, who cares. Izzy is the girl, and Elliot, though they call Ellie as the boy. And they’re cute, they’re just a nice family, and they are looking for a place to live, and the one person that I recognized most from this movie was their realtor.

Did you recognize him? 

Todd: I said oh my god that woman she’s been in everything known to man I went back to her IMDB and she’s got like a probably close to 200 credits and every single TV show I think I’ve ever heard of from the 80s on she’s had at least one role to play in it for an episode or two. 

Craig: The thing that I remember her distinctly from is she was the waitress, the waitress.

In the great outdoors, when John Candy ate the old 96’er, like the 96’er steak, and oh god, she was so funny, and the wife in that movie’s like, has anybody ever done it? And the waitress is like, oh no, oh no, not in my lifetime. That was her! And I loved it. Oh, man. You know, we’re, we’re, we’re skirting around plot because there’s not a whole lot of, the pool is haunted.

Todd: The pool’s haunted. 

Craig: So I don’t know what, what, what happens? Well, the cat goes missing. The cat, 

Todd: the cat sighter, which is the cutest name for a cat. I’m actually gonna, I’m actually made a mental note for that one in a, for a future cat possibility. No, when, when they’re looking at the pool before they even end up taking the place.

He notices a baseball floating around in there, an old baseball that’s kind of falling apart. His first experience with the pool is falling in as he’s trying to grab the baseball, and he gets caught up in the tarp that’s on the pool. It’s like a pool cover that, again, the pool hasn’t been used. We learn later that the previous family hadn’t used the pool for like 15 years because Yeah, so why is there water in it?

Yeah, right? Good 

Craig: question. Okay, whatever. 

Todd: So anyway, yeah, he falls in, and while he’s in there, he’s struggling, and you don’t think he’s gonna make it out, because of that frickin tarp. Plus, you know, he has MS, and he has this vision of himself playing baseball while he’s down there, and hitting his home run.

That kind of comes into play later, I think. It’s really interesting how, again, like, he tried to do what they could with the pool, so what can happen when you’re in a pool? Well, you can look up and you can see things mercally through the water that may or may not be there. You can kind of be thrashing around and possibly drown.

You can have visions while you’re under there, you know? You can sink to the bottom and You know, so like, uh, we gotta get all that here in the beginning, we know all the standard dangers of the pool, and even the danger of falling in when the cover is on it, you know, sort of comes into play later as well, so.

Craig: Didn’t we see another movie one time where somebody murdered somebody in that way? Like, they threw them in the pool, and then they, 

Todd: like, 

Craig: closed. I’m almost positive. Was 

Todd: that, um, 

Craig: Trick or Treat? That really shitty I don’t know. It was somebody’s, it was somebody’s mother. Like, like some woman killed somebody else’s mother by throwing her in the pool.

I’m 

Todd: pretty sure it was that shitty Trick or Treat movie that was, uh, that was filmed in that famous person’s backyard. I don’t know, who cares. Is that how the woman died in House on Sorority Row, or did they just end up throwing the body in the pool? There was a lot of pool stuff in that one, too.

Remember that? Uh huh. Yeah, the sea pig. Yeah. Go back and listen to that episode if you hadn’t heard it. And also what I was thinking of was the terrifying pool scene in Burnt Offerings. 

Craig: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Now that you just even just said that, I’m like, I almost feel like there’s a scene in this movie that almost feels like a callback to that.

Todd: Yeah, because kind of what happens is it’s like what happens in all these movies where a family buys an old house. Like, the dad ends up turning evil, right? Right. Like slowly, but surely gosh, but it was the mom. Wasn’t it the mom? 

Craig: No, 

Todd: in that 

Craig: one, it was both of them. I don’t, both of them got, yeah, but the father was, yeah, but the dad, yeah.

He, he almost drowned the kid and there’s a scene in this movie that’s kind of like that. Okay. So, so they, they buy the house. Yep. And they clean out the pool, they totally drain it, and they clean it out, and the dad is cleaning out the drain, and he gets a big gash in his hand. What? Don’t reach deep into a drain full of dirty, gross water.

No, you gotta be careful. And, and, big gash in his hand, and of course I thought, okay, well, you know, like, he’s bleeding into this thing. Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know if that even had anything to do with anything, but it’s just setting things off in my mind. Like, all right, like he’s connected to the pool or something.

I don’t know. And as soon as that happens, all this black sludge comes up out of the pool, kind of almost to fill it. Right. It comes up very quickly out of the drain. And so they call a pool guy, and I love this, I love 

Todd: this, this is a comical part of the movie, yeah, for sure, 

Craig: so funny, this stupid, this stupid, goofy, goofy ass pool guy, tells them, oh, I’ve never seen this before, I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never seen it before, like, your pool is fed by a natural stream, spring, 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: spring fed, yeah, yeah, yeah, 

Todd: yeah.

And he’s like, yeah, that’s the great thing about spring fed pools is they’re constantly fed, they’re natural, they don’t need all the filtration and all that stuff, the chemicals and things, I had to look this up because I thought, I 

Craig: was hoping you did because I didn’t. 

Todd: Is it a real thing? Alright, a spring fed pool is a real thing, but a spring fed pool is like literally kind of a pool on a spring, which this could kind of be if they also decided to concrete over it?

Like, it’s not gonna look like a backyard pool. Where the drain it just like has water coming up and then also this natural filtration he’s talking about is because you will have like wildlife in your pool like you might plant some some seaweed in there and you’ll probably have fish swimming around in there I mean everything I looked up that showed photos of these spring fed pools it looks like a spring That, you know, they put a nice concrete area around and some ladders into and stuff, and a diving board and you know, so it kind of looks like a pool, but the water’s green, so it’s a thing.

But I don’t think people are likely to have this in their backyard disguised as just a plain old in-ground pool with all of the accoutrement that comes with it. Including, oh yeah. Including those flappy drains on the side and the drain on the bottom and stuff like that. So, 

Craig: yeah, I mean this, this is a backyard pool.

It doesn’t look, no, there’s nothing that would suggest to. To you that there was anything special about it. It’s just a backyard pool, but it’s got to be important 

Todd: for the lore because suddenly this guy gets very philosophical and he, he just stands there with his leg on the diving board and just kind of stares off into space.

And it’s like, 

Clip: it’s funny, isn’t it though? I mean, we evolved out of the water and some part of our reptilian brain knows we’re not supposed to be there anymore, but I guess that’s why we try to tame it so hard. Yeah. It’s like trying to conquer death. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you okay? God, sorry. Butterfingers.

Alright, 

Todd: well here’s your invoice. Oh well, you know, that’ll be 150. Like, what the hell?! I thought it was so funny! It’s in our reptile brains. I’m sorry, but it was just a little too shoehorned in there. It’s not the first time in this movie where there’s gonna be a bit of goofiness that feels like, Oh, come on.

Craig: Ahh! Get your eyes 

Todd: out. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s funny because, So I watched this the first time last week and I was excited to do it. And then a week went by and I put it on again. I was like, why 

Todd: were you, are you saying your second experience? This movie was very different from your first. 

Craig: I think it’s just because. The first time around I was just like soaking it in like this is fun like go to haunted pool fun and then the second time I’m like I’ve already seen it so there are no surprise right and so I’m kind of like poking holes in it so I I I don’t want to discourage people from watching it you probably shouldn’t listen any further in this podcast I want to watch it because we’ll spoil everything and then it won’t be fun like yeah the the the second time I watched it I was like well.

I’ve already seen it, and it’s not that great, so. Yeah. It’s not a bad movie, I don’t think. I actually enjoyed the character performances, all of them. The whole family, I thought they all did a great job. 

Todd: I was on board with this family. I thought the acting was great. I thought the situations were very believable.

You know, this dad with his His major league baseball career getting cut short, but you know He’s dreaming and he’s trying his best to fight it and the family’s rallying behind him and they’re doing all they can you know and the reason they buy the house is the pool because the doctor says Swimming is the best thing you can do.

It’s a low impact sport that can help in your recovery And so yeah, like this whole situation Everything was quite believable and I was really behind it all and he does start recovering quite rapidly Right, and it and it’s very obvious. Yeah, there’s something about the pool Well, he He 

Craig: unwraps his hand like, uh, yeah, a day later, the next day.

Yeah. He had that huge gash in his hand, but in the meantime, he’s been in the pool and he like one day later, he takes it off. Perfectly healed. I also thought that that was hilarious because you said you swam a lot. Do you remember that? That’s true. Like a huge gash in your hand is not going to heal in one day, but the chlorine in the pool would make cuts and scrapes.

Heal so fast. 

Todd: Yeah, I do. I do. They were just always a little different right when you came out of the pool It’s almost like your body I guess it’s you know Whenever you shower it kind of wets that scab down and it kind of sloughs off and then almost reveals your wound all over again But when you’re swimming in a pool and it’s never really had a chance to scab over it It does seem to have some kind of different effect.

Yeah, you’re right, 

Craig: but whatever I mean, it’s obvious something supernatural is going on because not only did it heal his hand, but it is You He was pretty frail when they moved in. And as soon as he starts Swimming in the pool, which he loves, and like, can’t stop talking about it, like, he is wet for this pool, 

Todd: oh my god, everyone, everyone is wet for this pool, now seriously, and maybe this is just my own personal experience, my parents, bless their heart, they have this big beautiful pool, and this big beautiful house in Arizona, and almost never gets used, like, the amount of times they’re in there, And when I’m, I’m over there, I, I’m trying to get in the pool just every once in a while.

I don’t get out there all the time because I got to pull the pool cover back or the temperature might not be right and they’re discouraging me from it. Man, these guys are, their lives are now revolving around that pool. They’re in it every day. They’re like, Hey dad, can you, can you toss coins in for me to dive in and get after?

Craig: But weird, weird shit is happening. Like they do that. They do the diving for coins thing when they’re all together in the day and it’s cool. Yeah. And we did that too. I mean, we dove for coins or little plastic McDonald’s toys or whatever was fun. Loved it. They do it. Then they also have like individual like, okay, so the mom does laps at night one night.

And she thinks she sees the husband standing there, but then when she comes up, he’s gone. Yeah. This happens to all of them at least once, right? Yeah. And the boy wants to swim after school one day and the mom’s like, you can’t swim alone. Good mom. Yeah. Get your dad. Not good dad. Because the dad, I feel like this is something that they started in the movie and then they didn’t really follow through.

I think that this felt like kind of an Amityville thing where he was getting haunted and what was what was motivating him was his Thought about getting back to base into baseball. Yeah, I think you’re right because like he’s videotaping himself and that kid walks in And a videotape is playing And it’s the dad talking about, yeah, I’m, I’m really getting back into better shape and I just wanted you to see, it’s, it’s almost like he’s going to send this video to team.

Todd: Yeah. It seems like, like a recruitment video or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. But the movie doesn’t follow through with it. Not really. It doesn’t have time for that. We got, we got to deal with the haunted pool first. 

Craig: Right, right. Okay. So, so the kid says, dad, can you come swim with me? And the dad hands him the jar of coins and says, nah, you know, just stay in the shallow end or whatever.

He gives him one quarter with a smiley face drawn on it. He says, throw that in the deep end and I’ll, I’ll come get it. But don’t you go to the deep end. Right. So the kid goes, and I can’t tell if he’s really staying in the shallow end or whatever, like, our parents did that too, they were like, stay in the shallow and we’ll be inside drunk.

My mom would die if she ever heard that. She won’t, because she doesn’t listen to the podcast, and to be fair, not her. Not my mom, but my aunts and uncles. 

Todd: That’s hilarious. 

Craig: Oh my god. 

Todd: It was a different time. 

Craig: It was a totally different, and we were fine. I mean, there were some near drowning, but nobody ever drowned.

Well, 

Todd: those of us who are here to talk 

Craig: about it are perfectly fine. My god, that pool had a slide in the shallow end. A big slide. It said on the stairs, like as you were crawling up, like, Do not put this in the show.

There were some injuries, more than one person was injured. But it sure was fun. Um, okay. So anyway, the kid’s in there and he’s hearing things. He thinks he hears his dad, more coins get thrown in the pool, even though there’s nobody else around. He thinks he sees his dad up there, I think, but then he hears.

This voice and he thinks he sees a girl. I keep saying thinks he sees, we’re just looking through his eyes through the water, so everything is, you know, kind of wavy and you can’t really tell what you’re looking at and he thinks he sees a girl and then he comes up and he thinks this is his sister and messing around with him or whatever, but then he hears a voice.

In the pool skimmer. Yeah, yeah. And then it is basically exactly the Georgie scene. From it. From it. Yep. 

Todd: Completely ripped up. I’ve, even down to, I found your toy and it’s a boat. Oh no, this is, his is a doll. I’m sorry. He has taped. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He kind of like glued the, the smiley face coin to the doll and he pulls the doll out.

And he can see a little girl figure and action figure. Yeah, sorry. Action figure. 

Clip: Let’s get 

Todd: it right. Little he man and there’s girl’s hair attached to it. And as he pulls it out, a hand reaches out to try to grab him and pull him in. And he flips. He also has a bit to do with the diving board. I think when he’s under the diving board, it’s banging and he feels like there’s something.

Yeah, 

Craig: there’s, there’s definitely somebody on there, but then when he. Pulls himself up. There’s not somebody there. Yeah, 

Todd: the 

Craig: pool’s haunted. Yeah 

Todd: He’s basically sorted that out. I think his sis his sister. No, maybe it’s later that his sister gets freaked out, too 

Craig: Yeah, we okay. Okay. Yeah, I feel like we just need to hit major plot points at the yeah Yeah at some point the sister has a boy Ronin that she’s interested in over when the parents aren’t Home and they swim together and it’s cute.

They’re teenagers, you know, they’re flirty or whatever and they’re playing Marco Polo But at some point I guess time just freezes for the boy because he doesn’t remember any of this happening but she Starts to hear weird. She’s got her eyes closed and she never opens them, which I think is ridiculous, right?

As soon as I started hearing weird voices, my eyes would be wide open, but you know, I guess, you know, she’s a rule follower. And, um, so. She’s calling Marco, and these weird voices are responding to her, and it’s a lot of spooky stuff that happens, but eventually some, like, fat pool monster guy, like, starts interacting with her.

I was honestly kind of confused by this at the first, like, The first time that I watched it, I didn’t then ultimately understand what I understand now. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: This pool is haunted, but it’s not haunted by a single entity. It’s not like there’s one pool ghost. There are lots of pool ghosts. 

Clip: Yes. 

Craig: And they can show up and mess with you.

And this one happens to be An overweight bald man covered in algae. I 

Todd: sort of figured when I saw him that he was kind of bloated. He looked like he, you know, like when people are dead in the water. At that point I sorted out, okay, so we’re going to be seeing all the ghosts of people who’ve previously died in the pool.

We had the little girl, we had this big bloated guy. That’s probably what’s happening. It pulls her down and at this point the pool just starts to seem super deep and dark. So that’s another thing that kind of happens. 

Craig: This, yeah, this is where it’s established that the pool can become, like, an infinite, the pool is just like a, like a portal to like this infinite underwater place.

Yeah. Which is kind of cool. And she gets out of it. What’s the next major plot point? The pool party, 

Todd: right? Uh, yeah, well, the two brother and sister chat with each other and sort out that, you know, the pool’s probably haunted. But they don’t want to tell their parents because they don’t want to move again.

Clip: Things have been better since we moved here. I mean, dad’s healthier, mom’s happy. Do you want to freak them out just so we have to move again? What makes more sense? That the pool’s helping us or that it’s haunted? What if it’s both? 

Craig: And I, I don’t know, I, I, I may be wrong, but I feel like we failed to mention the ghost that the boy saw in the pool was that young Asian girl that we saw in the beginning of the movie.

Yep, yep. And her name is Rebecca and she’s looking for her mother. She’s 

Todd: a sweet ghost. She’s the ghost who, even though he kind of freaked him out, she’s the helpful ghost. She’s Casper. Yeah, 

Craig: her story ultimately is very tragic, but we’re not there yet. Pool party, right? Pool party? Yeah. So they have a pool party because the boy is having difficulty making friends, even though his dad went to his little league practice.

And showed off like it went out of the park that was hilarious okay so he’s he’s helping the boys he’s coaching the boys on their hitting that’s cute that’s great good job dad but then the coach and I get this I am I’m being too hard on them the coach is like well we’ve got a professional baseball player here you wanna you wanna hit a couple and he’s like I don’t know I think he strikes on the first one.

And then on the second one, he, like, falls down, and everybody’s super concerned about him, as they should be. He has MS. At the beginning of this movie, he could barely walk. The doctors told him, be in a wheelchair. 

Todd: Yeah. And he just totally ignored that. You have to be very careful with physically exerting yourself when you’re in a, uh, when you’re 

Craig: Right!

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Right. But, then On the final swing, he hits Was that all CGI? That whole thing had to be CGI, right? It’s a slow mo of the bat hitting the ball, and the ball just 

Todd: Shatters. 

Craig: Being obliterated. Yeah. Like, it splits the seams, and it Does that happen? It 

Todd: happens in movies. I don’t know if that could possibly happen in real life.

Unless you have the shittiest ball that’s held together with twine in the first place. 

Craig: I have to say, it looked pretty cool. It looked 

Todd: cool, but you could see what they were doing there, right? I mean, first of all, it was his vision that he had had when he was in the pool that he kind of visualizes that makes him hit that ball.

And then that ball now has the shape. Of that ball that he had fished out of the pool that was super old. And I’m like, whoa, are we going to get into some weird time loop thing here? Like I wasn’t sure if that was going to come back or not. And it did, but in a very non significant way, just later at the pool party, a kid hands him a ball to sign.

And he signs it and he happens to notice, Oh, this is just like the ball that I fished out of the pool, was it? 

Craig: Yeah, and that kid is the coach’s kid. Yep. And the dad is like, Hey, steroid Shrek thinks he owns the pool. Come help me take him out. So there’s this big guy who has a kid on his shoulders who’s playing like chicken in the pool.

And so the dad takes this kid and they’re playing chicken and it was very awkward. Yeah. I vaguely remember playing chicken. I don’t, but this just seemed weird. Like it was two giant men. With boys on their back. Like, what are these boys supposed to do? I, I don’t really understand. You’re 

Todd: supposed to slap each other around or something.

I don’t know. Yeah. Push on each other. It was weird, like one’s trying to push the other off the shoulder. I think. 

Craig: Yeah, I, I mean, that’s the point of the game, but when I, when I remember playing that game, like we were all kind of the same side. Oh yeah. We didn’t have a little tiny child on your back. True , like, what’s the child supposed to do?

Like we were all the same size, so there was leverage and stuff. Yeah. Whatever. So stupid Doesn’t matter. So the dad gets this kid on his back and they’re, they’re, you know, the boys are like slapping at each other and trying to push each other over or whatever, but they keep edging back, back, back further towards the deep end.

And eventually, the kid who’s on the dad’s back wins. He knocks the other kid off and he’s like celebrating, but the dad keeps backing into the deep end to the point where the kid, they’re both completely submerged and the kid is saying, let me go, let me go. Yeah. And I think that the sludge comes up out of the drain, comes up around the dad, goes into, like, inside him, like, in his nose, like, his eyes turn black.

He had been kind of holding onto the kid the whole time, but then he, like, locks in. The kid’s dad has to jump in and pull him out, and they’re both in bad shape. Yeah. Both of them survive, but Now, the neighbors don’t like him. 

Todd: The neighbors hate him now. You better not come out to practice anymore. Like, man, they have no forgiveness in them.

Craig: But the realtor was also at that party, and she later reassures the wife, Oh, don’t worry. Later, you know, people forget these kinds of things. It’ll be fun. Because the pool party was a huge hit! I’m telling you, like, if you’ve got a pool, you are like the coolest. Like, everybody wants to be your friend. And so it was a big hit.

At the party, the realtor also confessed. Cause the, the mom was like, Come on, be serious. There’s something not right about this pool. And the realtor’s like, I swear to God, I didn’t even know about it until after I told I sold you the house. But yeah, a little girl drowned in the pool. The pool and she said, I don’t know why that would keep people from using a perfectly good pool and I agree with her entirely.

I also agree with her, except for the fact that it’s haunted, but then the wife ends up going, she does research and she learns that. It wasn’t just that little girl. It wasn’t just Rebecca, like lots of people, lots of people have just disappeared. 

Todd: And if the photos she’s coming up are to believe it’s all the way back to like the 1800s, like people would pioneer dress, you know, and like, I guess the newspapers of the time, it’s pretty hokey.

I was like, okay, all right, well, we’ll go with it. I 

Craig: liked it. 

Todd: I mean, I’m always down for some research. Don’t fix what ain’t broken. And it’s. Yeah, 

Craig: but okay. So she goes, she eventually, she gets, I don’t know. The realtor helps her find out where the last family is now. And she goes and talks to the mom, Rebecca’s mom, who seems to be doing very well financially.

She says that her son is doing very well. And the mom is like, well, what about your daughter? And at first she’s like, No, I don’t have a daughter, just a son. But then It’s exposition time. Rebecca’s mother, I have no idea how she knows this. I don’t either. 

Todd: Well, she first calls it, so what she says is, I know it gives us our deepest desires.

It’s Temagami. Which means the deep water. And when she’s talking, and she’s Asian, so I was thinking, Temagami sounds very Japanese to me. I looked it up later, and it’s actually native, because this takes place in Canada, and it’s native to Canada. It’s an Algonquin word. So, so yeah, I mean, that tracks, but I was very confused at first.

I thought, is this a Japanese ghost that has possessed this pool, and so this Asian lady’s going to tell us all about the secrets of the Orient? But no, it’s, it’s possessed water, is basically what it is. And someone has to pay so that the water can keep giving the way that it gave to me. Yes. Tommy was so sick and look at him now.

So basically this woman knowingly, I guess, sacrificed her daughter to the pool so that her son could get well. And that’s really sad and sick. 

Craig: It is. And I, I don’t want to expose my ignorance by saying that, gosh, I’ll just not. I feel like. Male children in Asian culture are, are, yeah, 

Todd: okay, that’s, that’s all I’m saying, I don’t want to go in.

Well, I live in China and that is 100 percent the way it is, has been here for many years. 

Craig: Yeah, this mother, her son, her older son was sick. And she had to make a sacrifice and now he’s healthy, happy, wildly successful, and she seems 

Todd: okay 

Craig: with it. 

Todd: What I love about this scene is how now just all water is possessed and spooky.

I know! 

Craig: She has, she has a fountain, a beautiful fountain in her house. And then also like just pouring water out of a pitcher into, The glass and the water is like rippling and stuff. And I, and I feel like the mom, the main mom, like notices these things and notices that like, ah, the water is evil. And this woman at the end of her tail starts like weeping the black water from the pool and it’s like coming out of her eyes and it’s coming out of her nose and out of her mouth.

And she turns and looks at the mom and says something really creepy like, 

Clip: It’ll be over soon.

The water will sleep again. And

someone else will find the house. Someone else who needs it’s 

Todd: help. And when she’s saying this, we’re getting, like, visuals of nature and the actual spring before the pool was in there, so, again, it’s really hard for me to buy that this was this huge, almost lake, you know, that we see in this image, in this big forested area, that then This whole neighborhood got built up around it, and somebody just, like, one person built, like, a pool with a I mean, it just I I I felt like, you know, to be honest with you, I was really on board with the movie up until the last act.

And the last act got so goofy and so silly that I just all I could do was laugh at it at that 

Craig: point. The dad goes totally Amityville. Like, I feel like they cut away from the mom, like, leaving, like, she knows something’s wrong, like, they’ve gotta do something, and it cuts to the dad in the shower, and he’s having, like, a fit, like, he’s convulsing, and, like, the black water is, like, pouring out of his eyes, and it’s, like, you can see the black water, like, running through his veins.

Like, he’s just totally possessed. 

Todd: And the mom is driving in the car frantically trying to get home and she pulls her phone out to try to call people, but water has manifested in her bag where her phone was. I was like, what? What? Is just water all possessed now? Or like, ugh, it was so funny. So, yeah. So she couldn’t call, her phone was dead.

So she gets home and then I think this right is just when everything is all hell breaks loose. Those water, black water is bubbling back outta the pool. Oh. ’cause the mom had drained the pool, right? They, she drained the pool. Yeah. 

Craig: Right. But then it filled itself back up. Mm-Hmm. . And the kid, the, the, the little boy gets lured out there.

He hears the cat, which the cat disappeared a long time ago. Yeah. Like the pool ate it. We know that, but they don’t. This poor boy, who’s so 

Todd: scared of the pool, now is suddenly not is okay with walking around looking for his cat. 

Craig: Well, I get it. He was worried about his cat and he heard it. And he thought, like, there’s like a huge, like, flamingo floatie on the pool and it sounds like the cat is On there, but when he touches it and turns it around, the cat is not on there and then somehow he gets pulled into the pool and pulled down and the pool cover starts supernaturally closing and the mom and the sister run out and they are like, they’re fighting the ghost.

Trying to, and they do, they, you know, they eventually, it takes both of them, they eventually get it to stop, and then the mom just like stomps the handle so it’s jammed, or whatever, but she dives in there, can’t find the kid, he’s not in there anymore. She’s got a tether hose, right? Well, I, she, Does she see that there’s like an opening in the bottom?

I think that she does. 

Todd: I think after she’s been in there once she kind of looks down and sees that there’s more to it and she’s going to need to go deep and so then she gets the garden hose and ties it to the yeah to the diving board and I’m like what’s possessed and what’s not all right so this pool Can throw pennies in from outside the pool.

People can manifest on the diving board. The diving board can do shit. The pool cover can move back and forth, but it can’t untie this hose that she’s tied up to the diving board. Okay, fine. Fair enough. She dives in, and then the rest of this kind of reminded me a little bit of Insidious, you know? It’s just like, now she’s in this supernatural world of ghosts.

That’s super, super deep, and she’s able to hold her breath for a very long time. She is down there for far too long. Everyone in this movie can hold 

Craig: their breath. And the kid has been down there for like, five minutes. Yeah! Like, come on. But you’re right, she swims down, and eventually the hose tethers. She lets it go.

She reaches the end of it. You know, she takes one last breath out of the hose, which is smart. I wouldn’t have thought of that probably, but she leaves it behind and she goes and she finds her kid. And as she’s trying to pull him back up, like you said, like insidious, like all these other ghosts, presumably the other people who have been killed by this pool are trying to grab her.

But she gets away pretty easily. Like it’s really not that 

Todd: big a deal. Which is always my problem with insidious, by the way, but go on. 

Craig: She can’t find the surface, but then Rebecca finds her. The little ghost girl. I loved this. She opens her hand to reveal that. Smiley face coin, and the coin falls up, which tells the mother that she’s disoriented and that she has been swimming down, and when she looks the other way, and the whole camera does like a 180.

I loved that. 

Todd: I thought that was so cool. It’s really smart. Cause that happens. I mean, anyone who scuba dives knows that you Deep water, right. It’s very easy to get disoriented. You always have to be mindful of where’s up. 

Craig: Uh huh. It was cool with that. I thought that was so cool. And she gets out. And she gets the kid out, and that kid would surely be dead, but he’s not, you know, she revives him, but then the dad is there, and what, is he like, biting them?

Cause the 

Todd: girl goes in to get help, and the ghost water in the kitchen, like, makes the cup full of water vibrate off, which breaks, which then she slips and falls on, this ghost has got incredible foresight, she slips and falls on, cuts her hand on, and then that just sort of stops her from doing anything else.

And then she runs into her dad, and her dad is, again, full on ghost water possessed. And he’s coming after her, and he chases her to the garage, and there’s some sequence in there. Finally, they all get out into the backyard. And Elliot’s choking and there’s something about I felt like it was almost like the distance to the water or 

Craig: something when they first Realized that the pool was haunted they had tried to get away from it I tried to leave but the dad couldn’t like like he started like choking and dying and they had to go back At some point like after that, he was in bed begging his wife like Just let me go back one time, I just need one more time in the pool and it’s, it’s so cool in the pool.

Clip: I’m pretty sure he said that! He 

Todd: did! It was so corny, it was so corny. It’s so 

Craig: cool in the pool. 

Todd: Well, basically what happens is Izzy grabs dad’s own baseball bat and beats the black water out of him. 

Craig: Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s right. But, even though He’s now not possessed, they start trying to leave, and the kid starts, like, choking and dying, and the dad says, I swear to God, I did not see this coming.

Todd: I so saw this coming. 

Craig: The dad says, it requires a sacrifice. Someone has to pay. Someone has to pay, and he jumps into the pool. And the pool takes him and he’s gone. Like I did not see this coming. You know, this kind of movie where you’re focused on a family, a small family, like it feels like poltergeist, you know, you, you think they’ll be okay.

Like they’re going to go through something together, but they’re going to be okay. I guess evil dead rise should have. Taught me a better lesson that that’s certainly not gonna be the case burnt offerings. Yeah. Yeah I thought that these people Were gonna get out of it and I expected it to be like Poltergeist or like oh shit.

Our house was haunted. Thank God. We got away from there intact, but it’s the Like the dad dies and then the lat well or gets the Taken by the pool, whatever. And then the last scene is the other three of them standing by the pool! And the mom’s like, you know, we couldn’t move! And the girl’s like, yeah, but if we did this would just happen to another family, right?

And they’re like, I guess. Dad wouldn’t want that. Dad wouldn’t want that. So they’re just gonna stay there. And you see, you see like a bulldozer or whatever start filling in. The pool full of dirt. Oh man. 

Todd: I don’t know. 

Craig: I mean, I thought it was, I liked 

Todd: it. It was okay. I’ve seen way worse. I it’s not getting a lot of love online.

I can kind of understand why. Like I said, I do think that. The concept kind of falls apart by the end. There’s a lot of weirdness that sort of has to happen, and it’s like stuff we’ve seen before, which is not a knock. I mean, oftentimes we go to these horror movies knowing what we’re gonna see, and we enjoy seeing the tropes come out.

Sure enough, there’s the research. Sure enough, there’s the old lady, you know, who knows everything and can exposition to them. And of course, just like every other poor family who’s gotten some new real estate on their hands, you know, the dad gets possessed and the family’s in trouble. I don’t know, man. I just, ah, it was, it was just kind of mediocre for me.

Did you see, this was actually based, uh, it was directed by Bryce McGuire and it was based off of a short that he did. Did you watch that? No, I didn’t. It’s very simple. It’s It’s just a woman swimming. I mean, you can see it on YouTube, and I’ll put a link on our website to that, but it’s just three minutes long.

And as a short, it works really, really well. You know, just a girl swimming at night, and then she sees kind of a ghost by the side, and then the lights flicker, she pulls under, and the lights come back up, and she’s nowhere to be seen. To take that concept and expand it out as much as they did into a full length movie, you gotta give them some credit for that.

For trying absolutely everything to make that work from Marco Polo to playing chicken to murky water and pools to refill themselves, right? I mean, they did their best that 

Craig: maybe subconsciously. That’s why I was drawn to it because I do. I love the water so much and full confession. I have not been submerged in water since.

The pandemic, I’ve not been in a place where I could be in a pool or in the ocean since before the pandemic. So maybe I was just feeling very nostalgic, but no, I honestly, I really did like it. And I think that it’s not a very good movie, but the actors. And I should probably give credit to the director to save it.

It’s, it’s well made and to say that I care about these characters is probably an exaggeration, but I believed them and they seemed like nice, real people. And. I was rooting for them, all of them, you know, like, the boy is, you know, he has trouble making friends, and the mom is super concerned about making sure that her kids and her family are happy, and the dad is struggling with a debilitating disease, like, I was rooting for these people, so I don’t know.

You could go so far, I think, as to call it kind of like a poltergeist knockoff, but that wouldn’t even really be fair. It’s just a haunted house movie. What’s haunted is the pool, and

Todd: And the water itself, actually. By 

Craig: the end of the movie, I’m like Is the haunted part, like, a deal breaker? 

Todd: I’d really like a pool. I was wondering, now that they’ve appeased the pool, is it okay to swim there again? Do they need to fill it in? That was unclear, 

Craig: because the Asian mother said the water will sleep until somebody else comes.

So it’s almost like maybe the pool just needs some sort of sacrifice every so often. Yeah. Like how long exactly? Maybe till the next pool party, to 

Todd: be honest. 

Craig: What are we talking? What are we talking? Like three years? 

Todd: This was an investment, all right? I expected to get more out of it. Oh boy. Well, you can go to our website and leave us a voice message.

And one of our listeners, Seth, did just that. So let’s have a listen to what Seth had to say to us. 

Seth: Hi Craig and Todd, uh, this is Seth here, and I just wanted to say congratulations on having over, uh, 370 episodes, and I’ve enjoyed every episode I’ve listened to, but if I had to pick a favorite, I’d have to say The Midnight Hour, because that was the first episode I listened to, and I remember being a fan of that movie when I was younger.

Some parts were scary, but, uh, It was probably more just being, or having, a crush on Sandy. When I was in high school is when I really got into horror, I remember watching John Carpenter’s Halloween, and I was just hooked after that. It’s still my favorite franchise, and I’m hoping someday you guys will do Halloween 6.

Just love to hear both of your takes on that one. But thank you again for doing this podcast, for taking time each week to, uh, you know, watch a film, take notes, edit in clips. Get it out there. Um, I really do appreciate it. I also just want to say, you know, thank you guys for being fans. First. Um, I know some movies are better than others, but, you know, unlike some other podcasts, you guys give it a chance.

And if it’s bad, it’s bad, but at least. Then we know which movies, at least for myself, you know, some people rate movies on a scale of one star to four stars. Now I know which movies I can put on in the background if I have friends over and goof on. So, uh, thanks again and, uh, wish you guys nothing but continued success.

Bye. Oh, 

Clip: thank you 

Seth: so much, Seth. 

Craig: That’s really nice. I know. Those, those messages are so humbling. Like, people are so friendly. I appreciate it. 

Todd: Yeah, The Midnight Hour, that was a good time. I remember that being a very, very important movie for me because as, as I told on the episode, that was a movie I didn’t get to watch all the way through when I was a kid and was very upset about it, so, uh.

It’s fun to be able to revisit that as an adult. So it’s kind of fun to see that another person had that childhood memory. I’ve often thought too about doing a rating system. You know, we’ve never have gone that far and I just don’t, I just feel like it’s a little difficult, right? Because there’s so many different reasons or ways you might like a movie that it’s hard to just give an overall.

Star rating something to it. 

Craig: No, I, I agree because movies like this, I, I, I wouldn’t say this is a great movie, but I enjoyed it. So, so what do you do? Like, no, I don’t, I don’t think that’s us. I like that. I like what Seth said that, and he’s right. We are fans first. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: That’s why we do this. That’s why we got started doing this.

Right, he’s absolutely right. I’m willing to give almost anything a chance, and if we end up not liking it, fine. Whatever. I, I still appreciate the genre and the opportunity. And I, I appreciate when filmmakers try something, even if it fails. Good job. Like, yeah, I see what you were trying. Making a movie is hard work.

Yeah, exactly. You did it. Exactly. But right. So many of the bad movies that we’ve watched. Have come from heart the heart, you know, they yeah. Yeah, and so even if it ultimately isn’t a great movie So what who cares you did it you made a movie. Good job. I’ve never made a movie. I know you have 

Todd: Well, I think proof positive that you are willing to give pretty much any movie a chance to just look at our back catalog It’s some of the stuff I foisted on Craig Yeah against his will and some of those you’ve turned out to really enjoy I was 

Craig: gonna say some of them.

I hated You Vampiros lesbos and some of them I thought were amazing and that I would never see before how sue oh yeah and many others. So yeah it’s it’s not a surprise like oh listeners guess what I like horror movies 

Todd: well what we appreciate even more is you guys reaching out to us and thank you so much seth for taking the time to do that.

And any of you can do that as well. All you have to do is go to our website. There’s a link there. It’s up in the menu right now, but it should be a little more prominent on the page later. And just click the talk to us. And, uh, you don’t even need any special software. You don’t have to register, install anything.

You just simply go to a webpage. And as long as you got a mic on your phone or your laptop, and who doesn’t, you can just record a quick little 90 second message, and when you click that button, it’ll go right to us. Please find our website there. It’s ChainsawHorror. com. You can also find us just by searching Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast.

We’re on Facebook, we’re on Twitter, we’re on Instagram. If you, uh, follow us in all those places, you can leave comments on everything that we post out there, or send us private messages. We love to hear from you. So until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton star in this Brian Yuzna produced, Stewart Gordon directed special makeup effects extravaganza! This 80s horror flick may have one of the world’s simplest stories, but that doesn’t mean it’s not highly entertaining to watch – made especially gruesome with a smorgasbord of slick, slimy body horror practical effects that kept us glued to the screen, constantly shaking our heads going, “whaaaa?!”

A young Barbara Crampton in bondage gear certainly didn’t hurt either… We highly recommend From Beyond (1986)!

From Beyond (1986)

Episode 388, 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, this week I chose the movie, and I wanted to go back to the 80s to a film that wanted to do FOREVER, especially since I fell in love with Brian Yuzna. Brian Yuzna didn’t direct this movie, but he produced it, and then Stuart Gordon, who is a close associate of his, I think the both of them actually wrote the story for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

We did Reanimator that Stuart Gordon directed and really, really enjoyed it, so. I was excited to come to this film, uh, which is called From Beyond. It is a 1988, is it 88? Six? I think. 86, yeah. 86. The year after Reanimator Stuart Gordon, just basically because he was an old theater guy. He started, I believe it’s called The Organic Theater in Chicago, which I’m not sure if it’s still going about 10 years ago.

It was still going. He started it back in the late sixties. But very respected theater troupe and was very used to just working with the same actors over and over again. So he felt like he could get better results on his next feature if he just used the same people. And so we’ve got Barbara Crampton in here, Jeffrey Combs in here, both starring in this movie again, and I wanted to see them again.

So I just thought, let’s just do this. It’s funny because I think a lot of people who are into horror know of this movie, but I don’t. Here people talk about it so much. Yeah, I’d never seen it before. I think I saw the cover art on the video store shelves, but was never particularly compelled to pick it up.

And God, I wish I had because teenage Todd would have frickin loved this movie for so many reasons. But also, you know, 46 year old Todd really digs it too. I I’m just going to come right out and say I loved it. I’d never seen it before. So glad I saw it. I’ll probably watch it again. How about you, Craig?

Craig: No, I haven’t. And much like you, like, I, I kind of can’t believe that I haven’t seen it because the image from the box cover, I know that so well. And I can’t believe that I never. Picked it up now to be fair. I wasn’t really like a big Brian Yesna or Stuart Gordon fan really before we did this.

I think I had seen one or two when I was like in graduate school or doing my Internship or whatever, but you and I now have watched a bunch of these guys movies and they’re wacky and I like that. They’re wacky. It’s right. They’re weird and these in particular are based on HP Lovecraft stories and you and I have talked about this before.

Like, I really like HP Lovecraft in theory, actually reading him. It’s very dense. Kind of stodgy. Yeah. And. This movie and, and Stuart Gordon’s other H. P. Lovecraft adaptations, I feel like make Lovecraft really accessible to me and to other people like me. You did, did you read 

Todd: this story from beyond? No, I was kind of curious about it because what it’s only like seven pages long.

Did you? I did i read it last night 

Craig: because just because i was curious because i really liked the movie and i say i really like the movie that doesn’t mean it’s a good movie like it’s it’s goofy but i did i was entertained and it’s short it’s only an hour and twenty five minutes long what i was really interested to find was that the movie is.

Reasonably faithful to the story. Really? Yeah, and Lovecraft is so heady and he’s typically very vague in his, like he talks about these ancient gods and these ancient beasts and things, but he’s heady. Typically pretty vague in his descriptions of them. He’ll just say like, it was the most awful thing you can imagine.

Like, just, just gazing upon it will kill you. Like, in fact, that happens in this story. I say it’s relatively faithful, but it’s also very different. The, the short story. Is very much like pose the fall of the house of usher where there are really only two characters there is the crazy guy and the guy that’s narrating and visiting him that’s very much what this is like and it’s interesting because Crawford tilling has who is played by Jeffrey combs in this movie.

In the story that name is used, but it’s really used for the character of Edward, the one that gets like super caught up and everything and gets corrupted by it in the story. In this. Unnamed, as far as I remember, narrator visits his old friend, Crawford Tillinghast, and then it’s just a story of this guy, and I visited my friend, and here is this crazy story that he told me, and then he tells the whole story.

Yeah, he tells the whole story of how he invented this machine, but everything is, is very similar, like, there are no tuning forks, but there is Like a big electrical machine that can tune into these other places and when you’re in these other places you can see In a different way, like, and it’s more specific, like it’s supposed to not just bring the little penis out of your head.

But, like, it talks about how, like, we only have access to five senses, but there are astounding senses beyond that. Right. Which is true. Maybe, I don’t know, whatever, but it’s, uh, And at the end, it turns out that the scientist guy lured this guy here because he has to appease the beast. Oh. And so, like, to appease the beast, he has to feed him other people so that it doesn’t eat him.

The only difference, but all the stuff about the, the gland coming out, whatever gland that is, it’s all in there. Really? I, yeah, I was really surprised by how, I mean, it’s a fairly faithful, it’s certainly, the movie certainly takes liberties, but the core of the story is really pretty faithful. 

Todd: Is the, the sexiness and all that in there too?

Probably not right no it’s a different time it’s like 

Craig: i felt like it was kind of suggested by saying there are all sorts of. Senses and sensations that we don’t have access to and i actually like watching the movie i thought that was kind of silly and like. Salacious, like, uh, you get some sexy times in the movie, but it actually, it makes sense.

I mean, it does talking about heightening our ability to experience sensation, whatever that means. I’m certainly going to be interested in,

well, I mean, like, sure. Like, uh, I’d love to smell better, but, uh, let’s talk 

Todd: about my wiener. What can we do in that department? It is what drives technology, you know, the development of the internet and everything. We all know that, you know, I was getting major Hellraiser vibes from this because it’s very similar thematically, right?

A guy who is just kind of seeking for the ultimate pleasures. And so he goes into this nether, this beyond this other dimension to try to find it where he can, where he can get that. And then, of course, it, you know, it’s, it’s a little too much and it sort of starts to overtake him. And it invites that other world into our world.

It’s so Hellraiser that I just kind of feel like Clive Barker was tapping into something here that, but when did Hellraiser come out? 

Craig: I don’t know. That’s I was looking at dates. That’s why I look at it 

Todd: now because I’m super curious. It is so close that it’s almost, this is like the chaster version of Hellraiser, I think, uh, in some ways, 

Craig: but it’s not chased either.

Todd: No, no. 

Craig: I I and I like that about it and I you had already kind of alluded to it hellraiser 1987 oh 

Todd: the year after 

Craig: yeah but that’s that’s 

Todd: it’s too much overlap it’s not gonna they might have been aware of each other while they were in production but this is also like hellraiser was a production that clive barker was you know fretting over for quite a while yeah you know working out so well and it was based on a book yeah he’d already written exactly 

Craig: yeah right yeah.

Speaking of overlap, though, I was super amused to find that Stuart Gordon filmed dolls at the exact, like he was filming this at the same time that he was filming them both at the same time. Crazy, right? We’ve done that movie and I love that movie. And right after we’re done here, we’re going to record a minisode about like the first horror movies that we’ve ever seen.

And I know that wasn’t one of the first ones I’ve ever seen, but it was an. Early one. It’s the one you’re going to talk 

Todd: about. 

Craig: I don’t know if I’ll talk about it at length, but that was one of the early ones. And that’s not a great movie, but I like it 

Todd: a lot. We loved dolls. We did an episode on dolls and we just thought there was something very charming about it.

And I think maybe that was the episode where. I was like, this was not really in my consciousness when I was into horror growing up and when I was watching all these movies and not really knowing who produced what and what not. But now that we’ve been doing this podcast, this whole thread of pictures that have come from Empire pictures and Full Moon productions, they’re basically the same thing, you know, produced by Charles Band.

It’s its own niche within the horror genre and it was something that I. Kind of overlooked when I was, I think when I was a teenager, it was like, Oh, these are the low bud. This is sort of the low budget crap. This is the weird shit that when I did touch upon, I’m like, Oh, that’s bizarre. Now I just appreciate it so much.

Like the inventiveness, the sheer volume of productions that they’ve done and it just set. It seems to be that these folks that have come out of the Charles Band camp and have been making these movies under his production house, they have these whack a doodle movies that we need. You know, you can only watch so much of the same shit over and over and over again.

You need something fresh and weird and wacky and they, they have been delivering for decades. Yeah. And this is right in that realm. And not only that, but you wouldn’t even believe that this movie is low budget. The effects in this film are insane. Yeah. They’re all practical. They’re quite good. It’s gross and it’s weird.

It’s this body horror. It’s sort of like a low rent David Cronenberg. Yeah. And, and yeah, of course it’s low budget, but he even said, I think it was Charles Bander, maybe it was a Stuart Gordon himself said that if they had made this movie in the United States, it would have cost 15 million, but they went to Empire Pictures headquarters at the time, which was in an old Dino De Laurentiis studio, which was literally, I think, a castle in frickin Italy that they had for, for a little while, and they were doing these, these programs there for much cheaper, and so this, this ended up costing only like two, two and a half million, and so they saved money that way, but boy, did they put a lot of money up on screen, I think.

The special effects are just wild. Five different special effects houses working on this, and for that alone, I was just giddy. I mean, I was like watching this. I almost didn’t care about the story because everything that was flashing before my eyes was so damn crazy. I couldn’t stop watching and I loved it.

Craig: Yeah. But, and that’s what I’ve come to expect from Brian Yesna movies. Like. Lots of practical effects and they’re fun. I loved them too. And there are a lot, like there are like monster effects in this and it’s all tangible, you know, like I just, that’s what I love about practical effects. Like I feel like that it’s something that I could touch, right?

Even if it, it may not look as slick. As CGI, but it looks like something that I could touch and I, and it would be slimy and wet and organic. And I don’t know, I, I’m not, I’m not going to speak ill of CGI. CGI is great. Thank God we have it. It led to a lot of great things, but I still love, uh, those practical effects.

But even in dumb. Yes, in the movies that we’ve seen, and I say dumb, I still love this silent night, deadly night. Three or four or 

Todd: five what it five the toy maker. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, he did for do you remember like Clint Howard and those like worm worm leeches thing that was for the initiation. Yeah, 

Craig: I love that.

It was 

Todd: screaming mad George. I think who did the effects for for the initiation, which was that weird, which coven thing with with him and the worms and stuff, but then even five, which I don’t think he directed that. Yeah. And that had, like, Mickey Rooney in it. Oh yeah, we did it too! Yeah, it was like the Toymaker.

And it had the same guy, Screaming Mad George, who did the effects on that. This had five special effects team and none of them were Screaming Mad George. I was kind of surprised because we did Society, which was the Yuzna movie that we will never forget. Oh, I love that movie. Oh, it’s so good. And it’s similar type stuff, really.

All this kind of weird body morphing, gross slimy stuff. Did you read about how difficult it was for them to get, like, an R rating for this film? 

Craig: Yeah, a little bit. But also, I feel like, I read that they didn’t have to cut that much it surprises me that they didn’t mess with the MPAA for reanimator and they just released it unrated.

Yeah, I guess they hoped that they would be able to reach a wider audience with a rating. 

Todd: They were hoping for more money this time around. They, they felt maybe they got burned a little bit on reanimator. You know, I think they were thinking they needed a rating. And so they went a lot of back and forth and Stuart Gordon said the frustrating thing was that the MPAA just, they were like all of it as a whole.

They didn’t give any pointed directions like we’ll cut this scene or cut that scene and they really didn’t want to cut any scenes. So they just started trimming little bits and pieces here and there from different scenes. And finally at one point, they came back and said, look, cut this single frame and we’ll give you an R.

And so thankfully, The majority of what they wanted, especially scene wise, all remained intact. And it’s so quaint, like, today all this would pass, like, with no problem. My gosh. There’s been so much worse. It’s funny because I guess there was a quote from Stuart Gordon who talked about how a member of the MPAA on the board at the time said something like, well, your last movie was super bloody.

And he’s like, so they intentionally went more slimy? Yeah. Than bloody? And he said, they said. Honestly, this is worse. Admits it like it’s 

Craig: more gross. It’s grosser. Yeah, I read that too. And I, I kind of agree when, when you saw that kind of red tinted, it’s not red slime. It’s like slime with like red pigmentation in it, like loading out from under a door.

That was gross. There were a lot of gross things. I also read that they ran out of budget. To do everything that they want to do in the finale and i feel like you can kind well i don’t know i feel like you can kind of tell yeah because the antagonist gets more monstrous throughout the course of the movie and in the end obviously like it’s supposed to be its final form but they had to do a lot like most of it is an extreme face close ups yeah which is fine i like that too i thought the actor was good and menacing and we understand.

We get glimpses of what it looks like. We don’t need to see it in full all the time. That’s fine. I didn’t have a problem with it. In fact, if I hadn’t read that, if I hadn’t read that they ran out of money, I don’t think it would have crossed my mind. I think I would have said, actually, that’s a good choice.

Get in on his face. 

Todd: I thought that was actually good at the end of the day because it was more expressive. The makeup and everything was so good and so seamless in those, even in those close up shots, that it allowed the actor to be expressive, and he was. I was. Really impressed. And I think even Stuart Gordon said at the end of the day they ended up with a better product because of it because he said his original cut might have lingered a little too long on the SFX to make it so that the audience had a little more time to kind of see the seams.

But I think Honestly the sliminess and maybe why it’s so much more gross and in particularly when you kind of look at this movie and how it thematically ends up it’s it’s more sexual 

Craig: this movie is so already it’s 

Todd: this is a 

Craig: horny 

Todd: movie really isn’t this line more than blood and these kind of fluids 

Craig: i 

Todd: love the way god barbara crampton is 

Craig: i gotta tell you there is a moment in this movie where.

It may have been getting a little rumbly in my downstairs. 

Todd: You, wow. I mean, I certainly was, uh. 

Craig: No 

Todd: question 

Craig: here. I don’t know how we’re gonna approach this, like, are we gonna go back and talk about the plot? I don’t know. But there was that moment, there was that moment near the end where Margaret Cranston was getting Next thing i know like 

Todd: yeah there was a moment near the end where i was like yeah definitely movies that never went by the mpaa you know go down this road on a way more frequent basis oh my god 

Craig: that brings up a lot of things.

So stewart gordon had already made reanimator and he had this idea you know all this i’m not talking to you and talking to the listeners stewart gordon had this. Idea that he wanted to do a bunch of hp love. Craft adaptations using the same actors much as I who is the filmmaker I want to say the Vincent price a ground poem movies there Corman Roger Corman Roger Corman’s the ground movies that use and surprise and a lot of the same actors all the time and he did.

For a little while he made two or three movies with these folks and and he fought to get barbara crampton in this movie because she plays like a renowned psychologist it’s just like she’s like 12 no she’s she’s not she’s a fully grown woman but she looks very young and and the producers were concerned that people wouldn’t believe her as a psychologist who cares i can’t believe that horror.

Producers in the eighties were concerned that we weren’t going to believe that Barbara Crampton was old enough to be a renowned psychologist. Who cares? So they put her in like black framed glasses and pulled her hair back to make her look more professional, I guess. 

Todd: Magically. 

Craig: But who cares? But. At the same time, she is so beautiful in this movie.

Oh God. This podcast has made me a huge fan of Barbara Crampton. Like I love her. I love everything she’s in. I get excited when she’s in something new. She still looks fantastic. I think that she is an amazing horror actress. 

Todd: Like. Keep casting her. Full disclosure, when we watched the reanimator, which was one of her first films, of course, everything about how great she looks and how great her body is and how willing she is to do nudity and all that stuff aside, when I saw the reanimator, I thought, oh, you know, this is clearly one of her first films.

Maybe her acting, like, isn’t A hundred percent the best. I don’t remember what my assessment was exactly when we did the reanimator, but that was just my that’s just my impression because it’s been a while this movie. Oh, my God. I was like, this woman is a great actress. She’s really bringing it to a role that she didn’t need to bring it to.

You know, that’s true. This role doesn’t require the degree of Actual convincing emotion that she brings to it and and she’s got the pressure on because there’s a lot of close up. I think Stuart Gordon likes close up, you know, he gets right in the faces of his actors in these scenes, which is dangerous to do when you’re doing a low budget production with B list actors.

And there were moments in here where I was like, Oh, my God, like, she’s really good, like the expression she’s giving or the way she read that line. It was fantastic. 

Craig: I loved her. Jeffrey Combs, on the other hand, who I would count them as co leads. They both have about the same amount of screen time. Jeffrey Combs.

Is one of those actors who he kind of like does that one thing. Yeah, but that’s fine. Yeah, he’s a character actor and he’s kind of like he’s super super expressive in his face. And I think that that’s that’s probably one of the reasons for so many close ups is because Jeffrey comes as a face actor. He is, he is a face actor, but he’s fun to watch and I think that he’s perfect for these types of movies because they are, they’re exaggerated.

They’re hyperbolic. They’re, they’re not set in a realm of reality, right? Jeffrey Combs would have been great. In, like, silent movies, like, You have a fucking gun! That’s the kind of style he brings, and I dig it. And I dig it! I know! I just like this movie overall, and it’s crazy, and I I don’t mind that we’ve been talking for almost half an hour and haven’t gotten to the plot.

It’s fine. It’s simple. 

Todd: The plot’s simple. The plot is 

Craig: so simple, right? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I mean, even, like, it’s established in such a simple way. It’s not like we get a bunch of exposition. We open on Jeffrey Combs, and he’s got this room full of computers and this big machine in the middle that entails, like, a bunch of tuning forks and stuff, and then he turns it on, and the lights get all crazy, and he sees Ghost eels, and one of them attacks him.

So basically the story is, he and his mentor have invented this thing that can send out vibrations to stimulate your brain. What is it? Penial gland? And, and I looked this stuff up and, like, it’s, it’s real, like, even H. P. Lovecraft knew about this gland that I’ve never heard of, and it can, like, it can stimulate that gland and it can allow you to, Some other philosopher, Descartes, or somebody else described it as your third eye, like it’s, and you can see different things.

And so they’ve invented this thing, and it, and it works, but then they also see, 

Todd: like, it, it opens up their sight into the other dimension that’s kind of always around us. Right. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s always around us. The story explains that really well. The story. Hold on. I wrote down how I explained it. It said that you see all of this other stuff that’s around us all the time.

But the way that the story explained it was like, you see it, but it’s all like super imposed on reality. So you still see. Everything that’s real, but all this other stuff that you don’t usually see is like superimposed on that. But, the other thing, again, true to the story is, if you move, they can see you too.

And, while the machine is on, if they can see you, they can interact with you, which means they can attack you and That’s what kicks off the plot is that he runs and gets his boss partner. Yeah. Weird pervert. His mentor. 

Todd: He, I mean, this guy, uh, played by Ted Sorrell, who I could have sworn I’d seen in more stuff.

Me too. But I looked him up and I’m like, no, he’s just got a face. It must look like another actor that I can’t name. Same. And you know, immediately this guy’s a dick, you know, he almost comes across as Hugh Hefner, you know, he’s in his lounge, his, his, his silk lounge where, and he comes in and he’s mean.

And he. He jumps in the middle of this field, whereas Jeffrey Combs character, whose name is Crawford, is terrified. 

Clip: Edward, shut it off! Never! Can’t you feel it? Crawford! In the mind!

Troll, you’ve got to turn it off! 

Craig: No! 

Clip: No! No, I want to see more. More than any man has ever seen. Edward! It’s running itself!

Todd: Something’s Coming. And it starts to overtake him. Geoffrey Combs gets bit by one of these giant flying eels, and I think he has that wound on his face the entire Yeah. The entire movie! Because the whole movie only takes place over the course of like a few days, right? Yeah. So, uh, yeah, it bites him, Edward’s called in, and then there’s this cat lady neighbor, or dog lady neighbor.

Who calls the police says weird stuff’s happening across the street like it always is and and then her dog runs off So then she has to go and chase it into the house So she kind of gets up in in there. I thought she was gonna die or her dog was gonna die 

Craig: That was funny. There are funny parts of this movie It’s funny that the dog’s name was bunny and that’s the actual name of the actress who played.

Yeah, I Noticed that I wondered if that was like an in joke I don’t know and and she was funny and and the movie stewart gordon’s movies definitely have a sense of humor they’re not outright. Hominids but they’re just so exaggerated or over the top little campy. Yeah very can’t be i would say but i i don’t mind that in fact i like it so something goes wrong i mean that guy edward or whatever.

Turns out, you find out that he’s, like, a freak, like, he likes to, like, whip, like, chain up women and whip them and stuff. He’s 

Todd: got a sex dungeon, yeah. He 

Craig: has a sex dungeon, and, in that moment, when the main guy, Crawford, knocks on his door, like, the machine works, well There was a cut scene. I don’t remember if they filmed it or not, but on the other side of that door, Edward was supposed to be nailing a woman’s tongue to a board.

Like what?

Todd: That I read that too. I didn’t understand that. I didn’t see how, even in my mind’s eye, I could not picture how this scene would 

Craig: well be you. I feel like you said. That this movie is much like hellraiser and that would have made it even more that would have made it feel like a hellraiser movie that’s like they’re exploring leisure and pain and yeah i am so not into that like i am same here pain no thank you pass i can’t relate but i respect it sure sure that’s your 

Todd: thing yeah do it 

Craig: and i i understand you know exploring boundaries and stuff like that not my thing but no shame whatever.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The movie basically becomes Jeffrey Combs. Like supposedly destroys the machine, but he doesn’t really. They can’t. He really just knocks one of the tuning forks off But then he gets put in an institution and we meet Barbara Crampton who is Dr. Catherine McMichael

Dr Catherine mcmichael’s right and she gets introduced to jeffrey combs and she’s fascinated by his story. 

Clip: I was assisting dr. Pretorius with his experiments yes purpose of the experiments to stimulate the pineal gland with resonant vibrations the pineal gland why. Dr. Pretorius believed the pineal was a dormant sensory organ.

Sixth sense. Yes. Well, that’s not a new theory. The philosopher Descartes believed it was the third eye. It’s not a theory. It’s a fact Then your experiments worked. They proved the theory 

Craig: and immediately she wants to recreate the experiments And there’s another doctor in the institution that, like, wants to block it, but can’t, and so, they release Jeffrey Combs into Dr.

Catherine McMichael’s custody, so that she can take him immediately back to the house. And they can immediately put the machine back together because all he did was knock off a tuning fork, so he just puts it back, and then they immediately turn it on, and there’s also another guy, Bubba, right, is that his name?

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: good 

Todd: ol Bubba by Ken Forey, you know, uh, Mr. Dawn of the Dead, he’s been in so many of these horror movies. I love him 

Craig: in this 

Todd: movie, one of the reasons He was great in this movie. 

Craig: Great in this movie because sometimes I felt his line readings were like I can’t believe I’m doing this. This is the stupidest shit I’ve ever said.

Todd: Yes, he was playing that guy. I mean, you know, 

Craig: it’s a little cringy 

Todd: today, but I’m 

Craig: the only one with any sense. 

Todd: But I’m still not going to use my authority as a policeman to stop any of them. 

Craig: No, no, but he is the only one with any sense. But it’s hilarious. It’s so funny because then they start messing with the machine, but they explain what the machine does and how it opens you up to different things.

Senses and but they they turn it on and barbara krabs 

Todd: yeah the minute they turn the machine on she’s turned on it pretty much it’s obvious from that looks over at jeffrey combs and she have these moments yeah 

Craig: she is a wet like there’s a mess on the floor he’s so into it yeah the story is that edward the the pervert like the monster bit off his head a monster came.

From beyond and bit off his head and we’ve seen that and that’s what jeffrey combs kept saying and that’s why they said he was crazy they’re like he’s like it ate him it ate it okay fine all right now they turn the machine back on they they get all tingly on their insides and then um, then edward shows back up and when he first shows up he’s normal but he’s naked and he’s covered in goo but other than that.

Other than that, it’s just Ted 

Todd: until Jeffrey touches him and then it’s like his flesh is like silly putty. He can just kind of, yeah, press his flesh around and, and you realize it’s not actually the doctor. It’s this creature that is sort of assume the doctor’s form. Clearly part of his personality or something like that, his soul or whatever has sort of transcended to this realm and merged with this creature, I guess, or vice versa.

It’s not very clear. 

Craig: Well, whatever. I think that this creature from beyond, you know, it ate this guy’s head. I think it’s just assuming his base to mess with these folks. And that’s what it does. It keeps messing with them. I think I have a page and a half of notes. I have no idea why I do this. I don’t even look at them.

But it keeps messing with them, but the thing is, like, first of all, Jeffrey Combs tells her from the beginning, no, we can’t do it. Uh huh. And then as soon, as soon as they get there, he fixes it and they do it immediately, like. Yeah. And, and, and then there are bad consequences and they turn it off and they’re like, no.

We can’t do it again. And then they do it again. They do it 

Todd: again. Yeah, I mean, I, Jeffrey Combs, his character is kind of written, the writing’s a little unconvincing here. This guy would be fighting tooth and nail, he’d be climbing the walls, he’d be like, put me back in the institution, I’m not gonna do this shit again.

Craig: We’re just getting me out of here. 

Todd: Yeah, but it’s all this weird bullshit where the police officer turns him over to her custody. So now she’s like you’re either gonna be an institution or here like none of this shit actually happens in real life You can’t just like pass people back and forth into other people’s care like That being said, it gives Geoffrey Combs an excuse to look distressed and upset through the entire thing, and that’s the best you can do with this writing, right?

If it’s gonna be so ridiculous that he’s being forced to do this thing, then, of course, he’s gonna just look wild eyed and upset. About it the entire time he’s fixing the machine up against his will and and putting it together also Catherine her character is kind of the same like you can’t imagine that this woman who goes through these experiences over and over and over again is going to want to just be more energized no it’s so stupid 

Craig: the first time it goes terribly wrong and they’re all traumatized by it but she then cooks herself a full breakfast and is like.

Exhilarated and the cop is like, 

Clip: Well, we learned what we came for. He ain’t crazy and that ate Pretorius’s head. They’re going to think we’re crazy, but that’s their problem. Well, we just have to try the experiment again. Did you say we? Catherine, we can’t. You don’t mean go back up there now, do you? You always run an experiment twice to check the results.

Uh, wait. Now, I saw it get to him, Catherine. Just exactly what you’re feeling, and it ruined him. Pretorius. Yes. I’d like to know more about him. That resonator is a 

Craig: work of genius. And she’s like, well, I know that that didn’t go right, but next time Right. I just need to make sure that I stand by the switch.

Yeah, I just need to make sure that I’m in control so I can turn off the machine. When necessary like yeah, I mean this is also not uncommon like this mad scientist thing like learning with danger. This isn’t uncommon. It’s just like this is a 22 year old.

I just don’t buy it. I like, but again, I don’t, I don’t care. I don’t care. 

Todd: I don’t care either, but we’re talking about it. We’re, we’re critically analyzing it. It’s funny because I don’t buy it. I would potentially buy it. If I just thought, maybe in a way, she’s just as crazy as Pretorius was. Like, deep down inside her psyche, she’s got this, like, super horny bit, that particularly was awakened by the machine.

And she herself is kind of seeking that pleasure, which is sort of where Hellraiser tends to go. Well, this goes there too! It does! There’s that scene where She gives an alternate excuse. You know, it’s like they try to bring it to reality. This is when she’s trying to convince Jeffrey Combs character to do it again.

She’s like, my father, you know, my father was holed up in a mental institution, and he was tortured, and he died, and my whole life’s work Is to make sure this never happens to anyone else again. And so I’m just thinking that this research could be the thing, you know, it proves everything we thought about this gland and yada, So we’ve got to do it again.

I was like, Oh, come on, 

Craig: that was such bullshit. In my notes. I have it as Delmas sob story about dad. Yeah. Who cares? 

Todd: But it just gives us the next great scene because they go up again. She turns it on, she’s by the thing, Praetorius appears again. This time he’s even more monstrous than before. He looks like he’s half transformed the thing from thing, the thing, you know?

Yeah. And then he pulls her, he’s got this tentacle type thing that just kinda slashes out and pulls her towards her, him before she can do anything. Combs runs out of the room, he doesn’t give a shit, he just leaves. Leaving her, this guy’s got her behind the throat and then his, his hand is there, and all of a sudden, he extends his fingers, rips off her shirt.

Oh my god, this got so sexual. 

Craig: Hahahaha! What was he doing? 

Todd: What was he doing with those fingers when they dropped out of the frame? It was pretty insane. So, this gets insane, and she is distressed as f k. And I’m so impressed with Barbara Crampton and how she played this. Geoffrey Combs runs to the basement, I think the guy gets there.

Isn’t this where the giant worm is in the basement? Oh my god, well I mean, 

Craig: they turn the machine off and on. Two or three times the edward monster gets progressively and progressively more and more grotesque yeah it always has his face on like some kind of appendage or stuff there’s also snake like things will like burst out of his face or out of his body or whatever and this Transcribed Part that you’re talking about bubba has said we’re done.

We’re not doing this anymore. Let’s take a nap and then we’re leaving

And so they all like go to bed But she gets up and she turns it on by herself And of course the big monster comes out and then Jeffrey combs comes in like tries to rescue her and I don’t remember exactly what? Happens, but then you’re right. He just runs away. He runs downstairs and there is You A big, like, snake monster, I don’t know how to describe it, it looks like a lamp, it’s like a lamp ray, you know?

Todd: Yeah, it’s kind of like a graboid in a way, kind of a simpler, yeah. Yeah, just a big circular open law 

Craig: lined with teeth. Impressive it is impressive except that in some parts it looked like it was made out of hefty bags which I mean it was still a tangible thing that they were dealing with. And the other thing from this scene that i thought was so funny was that event like bubba comes out and helps.

But they’ve been in bed so he’s just in these tiny briefs briefs 

Todd: the does the whole thing like that it was great. And I enjoyed it.

There’s a little something for everybody in this movie to say, 

Craig: Oh, a little something for everybody. And then, so they, I feel like at this point they beat those monsters and then they’re still not leaving, but they’re trying to leave. 

Todd: Well, she’s so upset by the end of this, I felt like, oh, this is her turning point, like, this is the moment where I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but she’s gonna be convinced she doesn’t need to do this anymore, like, but no, no, she, once she’s by herself in the sex dungeon and gets a look at all that equipment, Suddenly she gets real curious about it.

And, and so the idea is that, you know, I think with every time this sort of thing happens and they’re in the field and their gland gets excited or whatnot, it has a change in effect on them. And that’s, what’s happening. 

Craig: God. And we we’ve completely forgotten about Jeffrey Combs. Jeffrey Combs at one point got eaten halfway by the snake monster, which dissolved all of his hair and left him in kind of a catatonic state, but also Something is like pulsing and happening in his forehead and eventually something pops out of it.

Like we are to believe that the pituitary gland has been so stimulated that it is now grown to the point that it is protruding from their heads. Um, and I, I read that on set, they couldn’t decide what it looked more like, like an asparagus spear, which I think I, that’s what I think it looks like, or a dog stick.

Which I, I can see also in the, the thing that I read, it said, you know, neither one of those descriptions made Barbara Crampton feel very good about it when she had to put it in her mouth. And I read, like, I read that, that, that trivia piece. As I was watching the movie and it hadn’t happened yet and I was like, if Barbara Crampton fillates that pituitary gland, I am going to f ing die and I thought that that was where it was going.

Todd: Oh, it seemed like it. 

Craig: She gets super turned on in the sex dungeon. Yeah. And she like, you know, touches all of the like bondage shit and then she gets in the closet and she’s like, Rubbing leather on her face and fondling her nipples, which I thought was hilarious. Then she puts on a full bondage outfit.

Now, we’re talking g string, tiny, you know, just a tiny little bit covering her lady parts, a corset. And she looks Great. Fantastic. This is what I’m talking about. Like, this is the part where I was like, Hubba Hubba. And Alan is sitting behind me doing a puzzle, and I’m like, Ooh, I’m gonna get a little stirring that’s happening.

And because then she goes over to comatose Geoffrey Combs, no, he’s asleep, and she starts like, sensually like, touching him down his torso, and then she reaches down under the blanket, under his 

Todd: waist, and is like Is doing something down there. And then she pulls her hand out and smells it, holy shit! And he just 

Craig: laughs!

Oh my. And then! She, she straddles him, and it only ends because Bubba comes in and he’s like, what are you, what are you, and he like She’s like, well you told me to get dressed. And she makes some very suggestive comments to him too, like Gets up close to him. She’s ready to throw down with him too. 

Todd: It almost seems like he’s kinda up for it.

He’s fighting it He’s tempted. A bit, yeah. Yeah. I get it, but he’s like, you’re asking for it, but that’s the point where the machine magically comes to life. And this is the part where, you know, it’s like, it’s just a fricking machine. Like, just call the power company, have them cut the line, like chop the lines together.

They have these kind of lame ways. of bringing the machine back to life. In this case, you know, I can kind of get behind the idea that maybe these beings that always exist around us so we just can’t see them, maybe through the power of that machine being turned on enough times, have the ability to move things around.

So, the machine kind of plugs itself back in, and then we get another shot in the basement of that Circuit breaker kind of powering back on and stuff. But then, you know, every attempt to like chop the wires or whenever wires are separated, it’s like, Oh, it doesn’t matter. Like just electricity can just jump from one to the other.

And well, in the courts can plug themselves back in. Yeah, that’s when they go run back upstairs, so the thing comes back on, Pretorius materializes again, but not until they’ve all been sort of covered in bugs and locusts or something like that. 

Craig: That was such a weird scene, they’re all like Crawford, Jeffrey Combs, and, and the girl are, Up there with the machine and bugs start attacking them and then there’s some weird thing where bubba like if he shines a light on them the bugs go away but yeah they’re attracted 

Todd: by the light 

Craig: but then he drops his flashlight and then for some reason the bugs then all attack him 

Todd: because the lights on 

Craig: him I 

Todd: guess I don’t know why he couldn’t step to the side but go on 

Craig: the bugs were attacking the other two for a long time.

And then he falls on the ground and the bugs all start attacking him and they eat away all of his flesh. The other two are virtually on the heart. Like, 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: that was weird. Whatever. Who cares? I like, uh, his eaten away body looked great. Yeah. The effects in this movie are so 

Todd: good and so fun. I don’t remember how they kind of stop it.

Oh, she blasts the machine with a, with an extinguisher. I don’t know what that means, does it freeze it or something? I don’t, I didn’t know extinguishers froze things. I 

Craig: guess it renders it, 

Todd: yeah. But then it cuts to the hospital, so like now presumably someone’s called the police, they’ve all gone to the hospital, Jeffrey Combs is in really bad shape, he’s sitting there, he’s got that thing poking out of his forehead, and the doctors are like trying to Probit, but they can’t and it’s also weird like you wouldn’t imagine this would just be just another thing for them in the hospital You’d think all stops are called and like this would be a major ordeal Like what is what the fuck is going on with this guy’s forehead, but that’s how it is Then dr.

Block is back and she’s going to do electroshock therapy Because now now custody has been granted to her over Oh, for Barbara Campton’s character, and so now she decides she’s gonna do electroshock therapy on her for, just cause she’s sadistic, I guess. But, Jeffrey Combs wakes up, and this is the part of the movie where I thought it started to really drag, because, Ugh, Jeffrey Combs wakes up, and, and really what we get for the next 20 minutes is him wandering around the hospital with these urges to like, Eat the brains and the specimen jars in the pathology lab, and then, Dr.

Block pops in and he jumps on her, bites her eye out. I think that 

Craig: he’s supposed to be, like, eating their brains through their eye sockets. Because you see, one of the things that we haven’t mentioned and that is in the story is that, This gland is like a third eye and it allows them to see things differently though it’s kind of basic you do see that in the movie like you get weird POV that’s I don’t know what that effect is like 

Todd: a negative or like it’s like it’s like predator vision right right right that’s colorful negative 

Craig: that’s that’s what I was thinking to for whatever reason it sees and is attracted to their brains.

So I think it’s supposed to be he’s eating their brains through their eye socket, but it looks like he’s taken an apple bite out of their eyeballs and he does that with her and he does it with a couple of paramedics and then he and Barbara Crampton both escape. She barely escapes her shock treatment and they just go back to the house so that that interlude at the hospital.

Pointless. But if we didn’t have it then this would only be an hour long and it wouldn’t be feature film. I get it 

Todd: but they get back to the house somewhere in there barbara crampton managed to put together some dynamite with a timer i don’t i didn’t know that she had this special skill i miss that entirely 

Craig: it wasn’t until.

Somebody is it jeffrey combs is like hanging on to her in the house and she’s like we. We have to get out of your I set a bomb and I was like, you said a bomb 

Todd: Oh, you must have been looking away. No, there was all the first thing she did when she walked in the house was go upstairs to the machine and caress it a bunch and then sit down her back and then she pulls out, you know, this comically large, it’s a bunch of dynamite strapped together with a timer on it and straps it to and it’s, it’s got a countdown for four minutes and I thought, okay, well, then she’s just going to walk out of the house, but that doesn’t happen.

Craig: Where did she get a bomb? 

Todd: I don’t know. I don’t know where she got it from. I don’t know where the know how for this came in. Like, literally, she just She stopped by the hardware store. She hopped in a van and drove to this place, is all she did. But, yeah, so, like, I mean, the thing’s gonna explode in five minutes, so that should be it.

But Crawford attacks her and chains her up in the sex dungeon and is about to bite her eyeball out, too. Which reminds me, it was very recently that we saw a movie where somebody Who was possessed or whatever jumped up on someone and bit their eyeball out and I said to you God I’ve never seen a horror movie where this has happened before and now twice within the same month It was evil dead rise evil dead rise.

That was it now. I’ve seen it HAHAHAHAHAHA Twice 

Craig: Twice in a month. Ed, I have Ed, Ed is the monster guy, eats Crawford’s head, and then there are most, there are more ghost eels, but then the ghost eels. Free her. She tricks them into like biting her 

Todd: vines 

Craig: or 

Todd: whatever. They freak Catherine. And then she uses a matchbook to distract them, because apparently they’re all attracted by light, not just those bugs.

Yeah, 

Craig: well, and the Ed monster has eaten it. Crawford’s head, but then the next time the Ed Monster confronts her, Crawford, like, tries to crawl out of its 

Todd: head. 

Craig: Oh 

Todd: god, that was so funny! Actually, I think it was intentionally funny. He crawls out of the head, which is gross, and reminded me a lot of society, actually.

Yeah. Uh huh. But then, He kind of gets pulled back in, and then it’s sort of like Praetorius crawls back out of him, and then he crawls out of him again, It’s like they’re fighting each other. And they’re just fighting each 

Craig: other on the floor. It’s 

Todd: like this crazy Mobius strip of the two of them, like, coming out of each other and fighting each other.

I kind of liked that, actually. I thought that was fun. I did, too. It was super 

Craig: gross. 

Todd: It was disgusting. And 

Craig: practical and slimy and disgusting, and I liked it, too. And then she makes it out. And Oh, no, she jumps out of the third story window, right? Like as the bomb goes off, like it goes off right behind her.

Todd: She’s she’s fine. Well, she does like break both of her legs. Like it was, Oh, does she? Oh yeah. I mean, the grossness doesn’t end there. The minute we see her next, like she’s got two bones sticking out of her knees. I was like, Oh my God, this movie. They don’t care. They’re just going to throw all that at us.

Cause the neighbor lady, the, the dog lady comes back suddenly this house, which sort of seems like it’s out in the middle of nowhere, but it has been established that there is at least one neighbor, like suddenly like 15 people show up. They should have showed up a lot earlier as far as I’m concerned, but whatever.

And this neighbor lady is like, wanders over and she’s like, are you okay? And she sees her legs. She’s like, Oh my God. I missed that too. 

Craig: I must not have been paying very close attention, but then she just says it ain’t him. And then she just starts laughing monotonously. 

Todd: Yeah! I dug that. And that’s the end.

I like that. Like it’s driven her crazy, which is kind of a lovecraft thing, right? Like everyone and their encounters with these monsters just drive them insane. Yeah, I dude I I was it’s not my most favorite of the films we’ve seen but it’s definitely gonna be in the top 20 of films I’ll probably see again just because the sheer insanity of it the joy of the effects Barbara Maybe mostly Barbara Crampton.

I may hit the rewind button, I may ride that, you know, a little bit. But it just had everything as far as I’m concerned. A fine little mad scientist plot I could get behind. Some supernatural gobbledygook that I could buy. A bunch of disgusting, crazy effects. This monster, this thing. thing like thing that just every time it came out just got more and more gross and disgusting and I just loved the gusto with which it dove into that.

Except for that bit in the hospital where it was just kind of boring watching Jeffrey Combs wander around and eat out, you know, five people’s brains. I’ll fast forward through that. And watch the rest of the movie. I loved it. And I thought Barbara Crampton did a fantastic job. I thought he did a great job with the character he was given.

I’ve got pretty much nothing bad to say about it. I wish I had seen it a lot earlier, honestly. 

Craig: I can’t believe. I kept thinking as I was watching the first half hour. I have to have seen this before. I have to have. But I, I, I know for a fact that I haven’t. And, and it was cemented. When Barbara Crampton put on that Dominatrix outfit, I’m like, no, I have I would have remembered this.

Right, exactly. And I can’t believe it because that the image from the cover art, which is of The Edward in one of his later, yeah, with his face like stretched and gross, that’s so at the forefront of my mind. Like that’s such a, an image that I remember and I can’t believe that I haven’t seen it, but I’m glad to have now.

It was fun. It’s silly. Oh, it’s goofy. That’s, that’s what it’s going for. I mean, you can’t past Jeffrey combs. I don’t think you can. I, I, I don’t know. I mean, who knows? Maybe he, uh, maybe he can do things differently and This is just the way he does things. Cause that’s his thing. And I think it’s great. I love it.

I think that he’s super fun. He’s like I said, like he’s so expressive in his face. I’m a little bit envious. I mean, that’s that’s talent. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And, and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the movie overall. I, I agree with you a hundred percent, even at an hour 25, it was a little long, but only because of those hospital scenes.

And, and it’s not like I was like, Oh, I’m going to stab my eyes out. No, I mean, they were fine. I just get back to the house and let’s wrap this up. Overall, I really enjoyed it. And I think that our, you know, the listeners that communicate with us seem to have similar tastes to us. And I, I think that they will really enjoy it too.

So if you haven’t seen it, check it out, it’s streaming. All 

Todd: over the place for free. Yeah, check this sucker out. Watch the un unrated. I don’t even know I think I did. I see the unrated edition. I’m not even sure and I’m not either. Yeah, it’s fantastic Well, thank you so much for listening this episode and for joining us here If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend You can find us all over online just by googling two guys in a chainsaw podcast find our website Leave us a message Let us know what you thought of this film and what films you’d like us to do in the future If you would like to support us go to our patreon You You can find that from our website as well.

And for just five bucks a month, you can get access to all kinds of great stuff. Uh, we have a little Christopher Pike book club going on so much fun. It’s actually been a blast. And I’m going to about to post a sample of that. Actually, it’ll probably already be out there by the time you hear this podcast.

A lot of fun there. We have a lot of fun with our patrons. We post a mini sodes for them as well. And uncut versions of our phone calls that we do here. Just go on over there and check it out. And if you’d like to support us, it’s just five bucks a month until next time I’m Todd and I’m Craig with two guys and a chainsaw.

Big thanks to our Patron, Paige, for this request! You guys chose Stephen King’s sole directorial effort, Maximum Overdrive, for us to pick apart. From noisy, smoke-belching cars to laugh-out-loud dialogue and hilariously improbable situations, there’s a lot to marvel at and yuk it up over. Classic rock band AC/DC adds to the fun of this wildly over-the-top cult classic.

Transcript coming soon!

WOW. Evil Dead Rise is brutal, intense and hella scary, yet still manages to maintain the signature humor of the series that was conspicuously missing from the 2013 reboot.

With the new rules and lore established in this movie – now there are THREE books of the dead? – we can plan to see a lot more of this franchise, just as Bruce Campbell has promised. And if they’re all as fun, intense, and even genuinely heart-wrenching as this one, we’re in for one wild Deadite ride, folks.

Evil Dead Rise (2023)

Episode 386, 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: Craig, I cannot believe that we are finally getting around to the Evil Dead franchise. It 

Craig: is ridiculous. Like, we both, like, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I can speak for us both when I say we love these movies.

Oh my 

Todd: god, I know them all by heart. I know! How has it been, eight plus years, that we have managed to do it? I could have sworn that we had done the original and the sequel. The evil dead movie from 2013. And you were like, no, we haven’t Todd. And sure enough, I looked it up and couldn’t find it anywhere. We did do a mini so early on in our patron stuff, 

Craig: right?

Yeah. Where we kind of glossed over the whole shebang, like. That’s so weird. I started listening to it last night, cause I, I, I, I, me too, I was like, I, I know we’ve talked about it. So I started listening to it last night, but, yeah, I, I can’t believe it either. It’s crazy, I, I honestly feel a little guilty, like, like, I’m, I’m sorry, Raimi, I’m, I’m sorry Mr.

Campbell, I, I, I love you. 

Todd: It’s crazy because these are, I mean, I’m sure you share the same feeling, but these are very important movies to me. The original was a big, big, big influence in making me even want to, to try my hand at filmmaking. The second one army of darkness was huge. When we were in high school, my friends and I would quote army of darkness lines to each other all the time.

I must’ve seen each of those three foot films. I don’t know, I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen them. I love them to death, and I show them to anyone who’s never seen them before. And then I saw Evil Dead, the 2013 version. I think you had said, you know, you should check it out, it’s pretty good.

And I did, and I remembered liking that. It was gory and over the top and pretty ridiculous. It’s fine. Fetty Alvarez 

Craig: directs it. Yeah, it’s a fine movie. The only thing that I didn’t like about it is, it doesn’t have The humor of the like, it’s, it’s really dark and it’s really gory. And as a standalone film, like if nobody had ever seen the other evil deads and they wanted to see a scary movie, it’s a good, scary movie.

It is. It’s scary. And the effects are great. It was a little lacking to me because it didn’t hit the humor at all because. The first one, God, we don’t have to rehash all of this, but 

Todd: we should just go and do the first one that 

Craig: I saw was part two and maybe that’s the reason why that one’s my favorite one.

It’s gross. And the deadites are like scary, but they’re also funny. It’s a really funny movie. And I like that. Element of it. And you know, Bruce Campbell is the heart really of this franchise or has been, you know, he’s involved in this, but he’s not really in it. I mean, technically he is in it, but you know, you don’t see his face, but like he produced it and everything.

And he is a super funny, funny guy. Yeah. And so I like that little bit of humor. The movie that we’re doing today is evil dead rice. The most recent bit. In fact, I think this came after the series, too, right? Yeah, it did. This is brand new. It is. This came out just last year, 

Todd: right? Yeah, it’s pretty new. I, in fact, I didn’t realize it was already out.

To be honest with you, that’s how, how behind I am on things. I remembered hearing about it. I remembered seeing posters for it. I remembered thinking, Oh, when that comes out, I’m gonna have to check it out. And here we are a year, almost a year later. And I think it came out in April of 

Craig: last year. It was originally intended to just be a streaming release.

For HBO Max, but it tested so well that it got a theatrical release, and I’m glad and I’ve got so many things in my head that I want to say I would what I was going to say was, I feel like this one does a good job of balancing the modern expectations for horror and gore. But there is still that little bit of humor in it too.

And there are so many callbacks to the other movies, but much like the other movies, I would say that this one, if you had never seen another evil dead movie, you could watch this and it would be fine. You don’t need. To know what happened in the other ones, right? 

Todd: Yeah, the first three in the series, they each take place right after the events of the previous one, you know, evil dead one ends and and then the sequel basically picks up right at the end of that.

Then the third one army of darkness is what happens when Bruce Campbell’s transported at the end of evil dead 

Craig: to well and into and army of darkness at the very beginning opens with a recap, right? Yeah, exactly. So you can. Jump on this train on any car. 

Todd: Yeah, you really can. And I think a lot of people jumped in on army of darkness, at least in my generation, I think a lot of people ended up seeing army of darkness first.

Or the second one, like you said, cause evil dead, the first one came out like in the late seventies. And, uh, that was the one. That was Sam Raimi. This was basically almost high school kids. Yeah. These guys were super young, fresh out of high school. They had been making Super 8 movies. They were very big, like, Three Stooges type fans, and they were, they loved to do these sort of comedy movies.

And that’s really why the series Has comedy at its core and that’s why I think it’s really important tonally for at least to have some of it in there Right. It’s got to have a little bit of slapstick It’s got to have a little bit of hardy har and this movie has it Whereas the the one from 10 years ago, and I can’t believe it’s taken 10 years to see another theatrically released evil dead movie Yeah, the one from 10 years ago.

You’re right. It was just it was very solid very disturbing horror And without the comedy effect, it just didn’t have the same tone that you expect from an evil dead 

Craig: movie, right? I mean, I still liked it. Like it was still a good movie. I just missed that stuff. But, and, and this one does not lean into the comedy hard.

It doesn’t no 

Todd: closer to the first one in a way it’s here 

Craig: and there, and there are lots of winks and nods. Fans of the franchise, like repeated lines and similar scenarios and, and things like that, so many, so many, there’s no way that we’ll remember to talk about them all. I liked that. But the other thing that I like about this one is that kind of even more so than the 2013 one, this one doesn’t pull any punches and it’s, uh, Pretty dark.

Like I went into this, you know, there’s a Cold open, which we should talk about because it’s good, but ultimately this is a movie about a single mother and her three children and you think, well, wait, they’re, I mean, they’re going to all be okay, right? No, 

Todd: they’re not. There aren’t too many people to kill if, if, if they were all going to be okay anyway.

It 

Craig: surprised me. This. I don’t know. Like, I guess in the first movie, everybody’s likable. You don’t want anybody to die. They’re just a bunch of innocent kids, but they’re like 20 something kids. These are like kids. Real kid, kid. Yeah. But any, yeah. Anyway, I don’t know where you want to start. I don’t know if you want to jump right into that cold open or 

Todd: I think the cold open is kind of nice because it starts us off where we’re so used to the evil dead being out in the woods at a cabin and a very modern looking cabinet that it’s a giant.

A frame that I guess was just a facade for the production, but giant A frame with the woods almost bending around it the way that the, the camera lens is it’s, it’s so 

Craig: cool. Well, yeah, the immediate open though, is that classic POV that is consistent through all of them where it’s just like. Some, well, I know, I don’t know how they do it now, but I know that when the Ramey’s started, like in part one and two, they strapped the camera to a two by four and then two guys stood on either side of the two by four and they just ran through the, through the forest woods and that’s what it looks like.

And you know, there’s. The sound of a fly buzzing, which I guess is, you know, consistent throughout the series also, but I also liked that this one tricks you because this is a drone. It comes in on this young, good looking couple on a dock. Like you said, cabin in the woods. But, you know, we don’t know these people, but it’s, I just like that it’s, it’s so immediate, like it tells you in the first three minutes that this is an evil dead movie.

Yeah, 

Todd: exactly. It’s got all those little elements, all those little classic elements. And then the kind of ha ha wink, wink that it’s a drone, you know, which is, which is really funny. And it’s just three people. It’s, um, Teresa, Jessica and Jessica’s boyfriend, Caleb. I think it’s Caleb is piloting the drone and Teresa is, uh, standing outside there and the drone almost hits her.

And she makes a comment about how you got to be careful. You know, that almost hit me in the face. And he’s like, ah, It’s okay, it’s not like it would have taken your head off, you know, it just would have scratched your face up real bad. And then Teresa goes inside to see what Jessica is up 

Craig: to. Because she’s not well.

Mm hmm. She’s checking on her because she’s 

Todd: not well. And I was thinking, are they really gonna start this off that quickly? And sure enough, you know, she’s on her back, on her side in the bed, we can’t see her face. And Teresa is reading Wuthering Heights. Now, who in the world is gonna be reading Wuthering Heights on vacation?

Hands up, this guy. It’s a very nerdy 

Craig: girl. I read Wuthering Heights in a boat on a lake in Minnesota. Are you serious? And I am not making that shit up. 

Todd: Wow. Well, cool. So anyway, just like Craig, this girl is also reading Wuthering Heights on her vacation. And it does another callback to the first movie.

Where suddenly, as she’s reading the text, Jessica, who can’t see it at all, she’s facing the complete opposite direction, and seems to be asleep. Suddenly starts reciting the text on the page. Which is very similar to in the, in the first Evil Dead when they were playing this little game where they were flipping cards.

Guess, right, and guessing or whatever. Yeah, and that’s the first reveal of the Deadite in that one too. So anyway, long story short, she sits up on bed, she kind of rolls over on the table and uh, over onto the floor. And then, um, Teresa comes by real quick and is like, are you okay, are you okay? And she starts vomiting stuff.

And she just basically goes full on deadite and ends up taking them both out. But that also runs out, cause this is the fun thing I like about the deadites too, is like, they’re not zombies, they’re the evil dead. They’re like dead spirits, nebulous dead spirits that are brought back to life somehow, that just possess people, and then just fuck with everyone around them.

I love it. Cluding! The bodies that they’re in, right? Because they don’t care. They just like to torment people and I just love it and I love the way they look they have a very specific Look, it’s great. And she’s got it all she runs out down to the dock scares the crap out of Jacob grabs the drone And she’s holding it and it’s going and Again, and a nod to something that Jessica had said, or that Teresa had said earlier, smashes it up against her face, and I went, oh my god!

Ha ha ha! Jumps into the lake, but she’s not 

Craig: dead. No, he jumps in after her, the boy friend, jumps in after her to like try to save her or whatever, but it’s like Jaws attacks him, like he gets pulled down under, and like the whole water around him turns red. Meanwhile, oh my god, she scalped her cousin by Ripping her ponytail off and so the bloody scalped cousin is on the dock and the deadite girl rises up out of the water and the meat like I don’t even remember what the score was like, but it was like a just a 

Todd: swell and the title comes up around her.

Craig: Yes, it rises up the title evil dead rise rises up behind her and you can also see it reflected in the water. I thought it was fantastic. 

Todd: And I can’t believe we talked so much about just this little opening scene. But to me, this just encapsulated, this set up, the fact that I knew I was going to like this movie.

Good. I was like, they got it all right. And I was like, I have very high hopes for this. And I was not disappointed. No, 

Craig: it’s fantastic. And so then it cuts to black and it tells us one day earlier. Which is kind of cool. It’s kind of cool because you know that this is all going to take place over the course of one day and yeah, I loved it.

But anyway, we meet, I guess, our protagonist, Beth, who is a guitar technician who works for a band but she pees on a stick and finds out she’s pregnant. So, she goes to her sister, Ellie’s house. High rise apartment. That’s the pun of the title evil dead rise because it takes place in a high rise, right?

Which is cool. Like I was excited when I heard that they were gonna take it out of the woods I mean they they did for army of darkness, but that was all a whole 

Todd: different medieval 

Craig: When I was like, oh they’re gonna put it in an urban like skyrise I thought that was really clever. Ultimately, they don’t really do very much 

Todd: with it.

Well, ultimately, the apartment becomes another isolated cabin in every which way, you know, ultimately they can’t get down. Nobody can get up to them. Their cell phones don’t work. They are effectively as isolated in this high rise as everyone is in the cabin in the woods. So, uh, you know, it’s, it’s kind of cool how they did that.

And then they were able to do interesting things with it, right? I’m not 

Craig: complaining. I love this movie. I think that the reason that I didn’t realize that it was so new is because I’ve already watched it three times. So I, I’m not complaining. I just kind of thought when I heard that it was going to be set in a high rise, I had like gremlins two or, you know, I don’t know.

I just, 

Todd: I just thought something bigger in 

Craig: scope, right? Yeah. Like, Oh, this is a great playground for the evil dead. Like they can be, but whatever. Like you’re right. It’s still claustrophobic and confined because Ellie is a single mother. Her sister doesn’t know that because her sister has been not like, Listening to her messages or something.

They have a strained relationship. Whatever. But Ellie, who is played by Alyssa Sullivan. I want to make sure I mention her name because I think she’s fantastic in 

Todd: this movie. Alyssa Sutherland. Yes. Oh. It’s so funny. I have seen her now three times just in the last two days. Really? Yeah. I’ve been, I’ve been watching her.

Turned on this, um, this old TV series called The Vikings because my girlfriend’s been playing this Viking game, uh, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla a lot and so then, uh, we kind of got on this Viking kick and we flipped this on and she stars in that series. I think it’s about Ten years old that series, but it’s got Gabriel Byrne in it and about eight years old I think it’s kind of interesting and then we also recently started watching the missed TV series and she’s in that too So then she popped up in here and I was like god Why is she showing up all of a sudden and everything I see but she’s got a real striking look.

Craig: She’s striking That’s exactly what I was gonna say striking. 

Todd: Oh, it works so well for the dead. I’d like I 

Craig: Spoiler alert! Right, okay, so she’s got these three kids. The oldest is Danny, and he’s, what, 17, I would guess? 

Todd: Yeah, maybe 16, 

Craig: 17, yeah. Younger sister Bridget, who seems like maybe just a year younger.

She’s a teenager too. And then, Cassie, Is the little girl and she’s little she’s so good in this too because she’s like a figurine, you know She’s like like she’s like a precious moments figurine She’s blonde haired and blue eyed and isn’t 

Todd: she even in a dress? I can’t I 

mean 

Craig: I think she’s in a dress or like a nightgown or something.

I mean she gives me major caroline and Poltergeist one vibes, like a little precious blonde girl that like must be protected at all 

Todd: costs. 

Craig: Somebody should get her out of this movie. 

Todd: I don’t want her 

Craig: to see the things that she’s about to see. Oh my god, oh god. Okay. So I took so many notes I don’t know why I took so many notes because it’s actually really simple.

They seem like a great family They all have each other, you know, like they mess around with each other and they’re fun and the little girl has A broomstick with a weird doll’s head on the end and it’s name is Staphanie and the reason that she has it is because her older brother told her that the building used to be a bank.

And somebody greedy died there, and if they hear you walking around with change in your pockets, they’ll scare you to death so they can steal your money. So she has Staphany, so if that ghost ever confronts her, she can scare it to death with Staphany before it can scare 

Todd: her to death. I’ve just gotta say that I feel like Staphany is just a little too clever for this eight year old to have made up herself, but I don’t 

Craig: know, like, I thought it was It was so weird, but 

Todd: so out left field.

I don’t 

Craig: know. Kids come up with crazy stuff, but it was funny, but we do get that backstory that this used to be a bank. So when the two sisters have to start having like serious talks, because Ellie has to explain to Beth that her husband left and now like the building is condemned and they’re getting kicked out and they have nowhere to go, like.

It’s trouble all 

Todd: around. And Beth has to explain to her that she’s pregnant. 

Craig: Right. So they send the kids away to get pizza. And they have those kind of serious conversations. And it’s obvious that they love each other. It’s obvious that they’ve been through a lot. But, you know, there’s also distance, as happens with adult people, you know, like 

Todd: Yeah, even when you’re family, you just Well, you’re very close to your family, actually.

You see them an awful lot. I do. My family is Gosh, you know, I can go for months, if not years sometimes, and not say a word to my sisters. And I love them to death! We all get along great. We’re all, we’re wonderful. It’s just, that’s how it is, you know, so 

Craig: I get it. I live in the same town as my parents and, and so I, I usually see them at least once a week.

And I think it’s weird if I don’t hear from my sister at least every 

Todd: other day. Wow. Are you 

Craig: serious? Yeah. Still, I’m not the one that’s good about it. Like she reaches out to me, she texts me and calls me all the time. I called her the other day and I was like, I haven’t heard from you in like three days.

And she’s like, well, I’ve texted you a bunch and you never respond. 

Todd: Well, it’s kind of the same here with with Beth too because Beth is not up to date on this whole situation with the husband leaving because Didn’t respond or even really notice or receive the two texts voicemail that Ellie had sent her.

Yeah voicemails. That’s right Well listens to voicemail anymore. Anyway, do you I don’t know if I have voicemail I wouldn’t even know I don’t listen to those things but she’s like calls her she keeps calling her a groupie because she’s a Guitar technician, but she kind of disparages her about that. Like you’re not, you’re just a groupie running around with these, these bands.

There’s a little bit of tension there, a little bit, a little bit of judgment, I suppose. I don’t know. She kind of feels like maybe Beth is on the wrong track with her life or something. They’re 

Craig: sisters. Like you can, sibling relationships are complicated, right? Like, I mean, they’re, they’re as complicated, I would say, as like romantic partnerships.

Like, you know, each other so well. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. There thus ends the Dr. Phil portion of our show. 

Todd: But anyway, they said, we’re not taking any more calls 

Craig: guys. Didn’t they send it right? They send the kids off to get pizza and they have their serious conversation. And just as the kids get back, there’s an earthquake and the kids are in the garage and the ground opens up and when they’re, and they drop the pizza, whatever.

And Danny goes and looks down where the ground has opened up. And he’s like, Hey, it looks like an old bank vault. And it 

Todd: is, and like an 

Craig: idiot, like an idiot and at his sister, you know, his sister protests, he goes down in there like, bro, there are, there are likely going to be aftershocks. Do you really want to be like.

Anyway, but he has to get down there because it is an old bank vault and it’s more than that. Yeah, it also, there’s a giant crucifix that like groans as it falls over on him. And there are crosses and like Saint Benedict medals, like protection medals, like. Hanging all around a 

Todd: giant like sarcophagus shaped thing in the middle like what kind of bank was this I don’t know evil one 

Craig: or a good one I guess because I had all those but it was protecting like this is such one of those things in horror movies you’re like.

Get out there if I ever walk in a room that is protected by a huge crucifix and tons of hanging I am turning. Around. Yeah. I am not investigating. This is not a place that I need to be, which 

Todd: just gets followed by a series of dumb choices that are very typical in horror movies to the point of parody where you, they just continue to do stupid things they shouldn’t do with mysterious artifacts that are creepy.

Craig: Yeah. Well that’s the thing. He finds a bunch of shit like. He finds a photograph of some, like, priests, like, shaking hands or something, and, and some documents that he doesn’t really look at, but he is, he, he finds a couple of vinyl albums. He’s a DJ, we didn’t mention, so he, he’s interested in these vinyl albums, which I get that, yeah, if he’s a DJ and these are albums from like, God knows when, sure, I 

Todd: get it.

The 20s? I’m sure he’s really gonna make a great house mix with those 1920s photograph records. The 20s.

At least, at least he has the material to play it. Who else would have a record player in their apartment? 

Craig: And then in that sarcophagus, in which there also appears to be a body that, and that doesn’t seem to bother him. He reaches in and he pulls out. What’s clearly a book like wrapped in like linen and it appears to be moving under the linen So he opens it up and all these bugs fly in his face.

Oh so many red flags, right? 

Todd: Stop think about what you have Have you not seen the Evil Dead series? 

Craig: But they go back upstairs, there’s a little incidental stuff where the mom is like talking to the neighbors because she is worried about the kids and I don’t know, she can’t get downstairs 

Todd: or something. A neighbor brings up the cat walking around in the air vents for purposes.

We know immediately that’s going to come in later. 

Craig: Obviously. I was hoping we would get to see a, uh, deadite cat. I know 

Todd: I was don’t very 

Craig: disappointed me too, but then the kids get back up there and there, you know, it’s everything’s fine, whatever the mom has to go do laundry and Danny starts playing those records.

They won’t play at either of the speeds that the record player will play them at either of the RPMs. And so. He has to, like, physically spin it with his finger, but when he does that, then it starts playing through the speaker system, and the first one he plays, that’s like a conference, right? I would like to present what I believe to be one of the three fabled volumes of Naturum De Monta.

The book Of the dead My tests today have revealed that its bindings are made of pure human flesh It’s passages and etchings inked in blood I seek church approval to translate the spiritual mysteries. It’s pages undoubtedly home Called the book of 

Todd: the dead for a reason that was 

Craig: bruce campbell That line that you just said, that was Bruce Campbell.

That’s his only appearance in this movie, as far as I know. Right, destroy it, destroy it. By the way, 

Todd: I was gritting from ear to ear. Cause this is the series like, hallmark, right? Oh, it’s, yeah, it’s fantastic. There’s always the evil book. And then it always is a recording of somebody. I’ve just discovered this book.

It appears to be the book of the dead. Now, let me read out loud and record from the passages in the first page. I was so happy to see this. Yeah, it 

Craig: was a really clever way of doing it because, like, in the original two, at least, It’s like a reel to reel recording. Yeah. So, when it starts up, it starts like, Rrrrraaawww, that’s a little lag, and then it comes, and they, they recreate that here with the vinyl.

It’s, it’s really clever. And then he starts playing. The second one and the priest is like, even though they said I shouldn’t do anything with it. I’m going to anyway. So now I’m going to read from it 

Todd: for an incantation that appears to be able to summon demonic entities like he literally says that out loud.

He knows what he’s reading before he reads it. Yeah, it’s funny and 

Craig: he starts to read it and strange things start happening and Danny tries to stop like he takes his finger off it, but it keeps playing any. He tries to turn off the record player, but it, it just keeps going. And like the, the pages of the, I guess the wind is blowing in the apartment and the pages of the book are flapping.

Meanwhile, his mother is getting into the elevator with her laundry, and all of a sudden. As this incantation is going on, we see the evil dead POV. I don’t know what else to call it. It’s like the, the spirit POV or whatever. And it’s racing and it ends up slamming into her, slamming her back into the elevator so that we can have Yeah.

The evil dead tree rape scene. Yeah. Even though there’s no raping in this one, which, which I’m, I’m, I’m, no, I’m, I’m glad. 

Todd: No, I’m okay with it. I was waiting for it. I’m okay. It’s not there, but 

Craig: it is a great homage to, that happens in at least the first, at least the first two, something like. 

Todd: It’s one of the most shocking and out of left field scenes in the first movie, because it just happens and then it’s done.

And you’re like, did I just see what I thought I saw? And then it’s never spoken of, you know? And then the other ones, I think people similarly get twisted up with vines and stuff like in the woods and whatnot, but they’re not the one shooting between the legs, like in that first one, but it’s a great homage.

Like you said it more, more than anything, it seems to just like twist her limbs in all directions and maybe even break them 

Craig: like with, uh, I’m not, yeah, 

Todd: it’s like hanging electrical bits from the elevator because it’s kind of broken because, eh, whatever, but it contorts 

Craig: her all. I mean, it’s, it’s beautifully shot.

I mean, it’s, it’s so well, it’s, it’s an amazing scene and it, it contorts her, her, her limbs are, and her neck are all bound. By these wires like thick cords and it’s just moving her around like a marionette and in very like seemingly torturous Positions it just beats the shit out of her for a while. Yeah, even before it pulls her 

Todd: up Like it’s like an invisible force like 

Craig: a ghost is like punching her.

Mm hmm. So she’s all beat up She goes through this terrible ordeal. It’s very violent. I didn’t notice I should have, I don’t know why I didn’t, but her arms are all tattooed with vines, that’s also an homage, uh, to this. I didn’t notice that either. And that, that’s before she was even attacked, like that’s just part of her character.

So then, She goes back home, but she’s a Deadite now. She walks with a very strange posture, I assume because she’s at least partially broken. But eventually, she’s also, I mean, she’s like an evil demon. She’s a Deadite. I know, listeners, I know you know what I’m talking about. It’s, it’s a distinctive look.

It’s, it’s not like a zombie. It’s, it’s more like a supernatural demon or something, just kind of inhabiting It can do unnatural things. It can move in unnatural ways and float 

Todd: and yeah, right. Smile extremely wide and all kinds of crazy stuff. That’s why 

Craig: I wanted to mention that actress because she is fantastic.

Like, she was very sympathetic as a character before. Like, she’s this tough, single mother who is really fighting for her family. They live in kind of a slummy, condemned building. These are people who are struggling, but they are a tight family. And, and very easy to root for, and so she’s already sympathetic, and now, for the rest of the movie, she is this deadite, and she plays it so 

Todd: well.

She has a lot to do for the rest of the movie. A lot. A lot. She’s kind of, ultimately, the main force against them. I mean, there are gonna be other deadites, but like, she’s constantly there, and she’s the ever present threat, and, you know, up to the very end. She’s terrifying. It is terrifying. She just walks in, stumbles in, and you know what?

As a kid, and seeing your mother just off, you know, even seeing your mom sick, you know, that’s a little scary. I know, uh. Huh, and though, so to see her just suddenly come in and she just more or less, like you said, stumbles into the kitchen in this unnatural walk, slowly starts cracking eggs just by throwing them in a pan, like she’s making them breakfast.

Muttering and mumbling and I think the idea here is that she’s still a little bit there. 

Craig: I guess like the real her Has one last gasp It’s in me

Don’t let it take my babies God like oh You watched this just for the first time for this right? What were you thinking at this point? Oh my god. I was thinking There’s no way they’re gonna kill these kids. There’s just 

Todd: no way. There’s just no way. I always thought, there’s no way they’re gonna kill the youngest kid.

I feel like teenagers are always fair game in a horror movie. Even these cute ones, you know, that seem really nice and sweet. I guess, 

Craig: but usually, not always, but usually They’re the heroes. Well, there’s, you know, there’s like They get killed, but there’s something they shouldn’t have been doing, you know?

And, and in this one, I guess you could justify the brother, like the sister, the middle sister. He, when he opened the book, which was also a cool scene, the, the book is, has like teeth in this one. Mm hmm. And when he tries to open it, he cuts himself and it bleeds on the cover and the blood seeps in. Of course, they don’t see any of this, but then the book opens and they look at it and it’s typical Necronomicon stuff, but the sister’s like, I don’t like it.

Get rid of it. He says, Well, mom is not gonna let us leave the apartment tonight. ’cause of the earthquake. Yeah. Um, she’s like, okay, but get rid of it first thing and then he still plays the records or whatever. I guess you could say if he were to get killed, he brought it on himself, but nobody else did

Todd: But that’s how this works. , 

Craig: even the original, I know it’s the evil dead. The evil dead don’t care. 

Todd: Like that’s what sets the series apart really. It doesn’t follow that convention. Now that I’ve. Completely think about it where it doesn’t set up these bad teenagers who are even doing things like, Oh my God, having sex or, Oh, doing drugs, right?

Not that bad. But anyway, it gives them some kind of moral reason to go. I don’t think the series follows that rule at all. Just it just doesn’t care like the evil dead. They get everybody. 

Craig: Well, yeah. And the television series, yeah. Doesn’t either like They’ll kill who whoever Kid dead ites, whatever like they don’t care 

Todd: either Danny lives with tremendous guilt after this that he was the one who might have caused this or he’s pretty convinced He’s the one who caused it and he is yes 

Craig: Mean to do it, but seriously like don’t mess with Evil relics.

It’s never 

Todd: good. The warning signs were there. Yeah, right? I mean, come on. Okay, alright. So anyway, a couple of the neighbors come over to help because she’s just, they just think she’s dead, but she looks very strange and they comment on that and they lay her in the bed and there’s a bunch of little creepiness where, you know, they try to close, they close her eyes and then her eyes spring back open again.

There’s even a call out to the first movie, where there’s a close up on her eyes, and then they look left. You know, she’s supposed to be dead. But then, she kind of wakes up. So there’s these neighbors, uh, one guy is from across the street, across the hall, and the other dude is a kind of an older man with a beard and a gun, kind of a good old boy type guy, but It 

Craig: doesn’t really matter.

They just need to establish that there are other 

Todd: people there. They’re like the only other people in this entire building. It’s kind of insane. 

Craig: Well It’s being condemned, and they only, she only has like a week to get out, so I assume that everybody else has just already left. Yeah, I guess it’s Or most everybody, there are 

Todd: a few There’s a comment about that, isn’t there?

But 

Craig: yeah, you’re right, like, before, when Beth still thinks Ellie is dead, she’s like, talking to her, and she’s like, Uh, you were always the one that fixed things, and blah, blah, blah. And then Ellie starts talking to her through Beth’s phone. Yeah. Like it starts out the messages that she had left, but then it’s like, Beth, help me, I’m burning alive.

And then she wakes up and she’s alive again. And she’s like her temperature, like she’s burning up. So they put her in the tub. And when I say they, I mean, Beth and the children put her in the tub and she convulses and then jumps. Up to the ceiling where she suspends herself from the ceiling and stares at Bridget and screams so loud that the kids and Beth have to cover their ears and everybody else in the building can hear it.

Yeah, 

Todd: breaks glass and all that 

Craig: stuff. Right. And then she just stops and falls back into the tub. And then she like, comes, her face comes up like just a little bit over the tub, like looking at them. Oh, mummies 

Todd: with the maggots now.

Craig: I think they used that in the trailer. This, but this just like it’s scary for what it is that I think are very scary because yeah, they’re sadistic and and they take pleasure in tormenting people and torturing them and that’s that’s creepy, but it’s tenfold creepy that Cassie is maybe what, like seven.

Maybe not even maybe like five. 

Todd: She could be six or seven easily. Yeah, she’s about my son thing She’s this 

Craig: tiny little child and she’s seeing this is her mother. Yeah Oh my god, it is an absolute nightmare The mom crawls towards them and stabs Beth through the hand and oh 

Todd: god, that was painful Yeah, 

Craig: well I’ll allow it.

Not the most painful. I’ll allow it because it’s an evil dead movie, but like, it’s just one of those things, like, she gets totally stabbed through the hand and then she just wraps it up and then tapes it. And she’s 

Todd: fine. Right? She can even kind of use it. 

Craig: Yeah. For the rest of the show. She’s fine. And the mom, this goes on for a long time, like, the mom just kind of torments them.

She jumps on Bridget. She talks to Bridget in her, like, the actual mom voice. And Bridget says, what, what’s happened to you? And she says, I’m free now free from all you titty sucking parasites. 

Todd: And then a taxer, there’s a drill. What is that? I think it was a tattoo needle. Oh, okay. I thought, why did they have like dental equipment in here?

Craig: I, maybe, maybe Ellie is a tattoo artist. 

Todd: Oh, I think you’re right. Somebody is. Yeah, you’re right. She, she basically ends up nicking her on the cheek before a neighbor walks in at the most inopportune time. So she takes her attention off of Bridget and lunges onto the neighbor out of the hallway and then takes what looks like a giant bite out of his face.

And when she pulls away, you can see that she has bitten his eye out. Yeah. I have never seen that in a movie until now. I just have to feel like they were sitting around just writing like, all right guys, what just hasn’t been done yet? Cause we’re just going to put it all in this movie. But then, 

Craig: but then she like chokes on it.

And coughs it up and it flies into somebody 

Todd: else’s mouth. Yeah, which is exactly like what happens in the second movie when they’re squeezing the, the, the giant demon and it flies, Except in that movie, when the eyeball pops out of the demon’s mouth and flies into one of the gal’s mouths in there, I think that causes her to be possessed too, and it didn’t seem to have that effect this time.

Well, it 

Craig: flies into one of the neighbor’s mouths, I don’t know if that’s, uh, what causes, cause, So, they, they take, the family takes advantage of this situation and locks the mom out. Yes. And so, the mom is out there and we see through the, uh, what’s that called? The peephole. The 

Todd: peephole. Ugh. 

Craig: You see through the peephole, it’s like the mom just slaughters everybody else in the 

Todd: hallway.

It’s like watching TV. All they can do is watch through the peephole as mom is putting on this performance of slaughter in front of them. It’s It’s funny, actually. And it also, it’s, you know, there’s so much of Raimi’s style in this movie. Yes. With the quick zooming in and the quick dolly shots and the interesting angles and this is classic Raimi.

Through that peephole, it’s all distorted and, oh, it’s 

Craig: so good. It is great. And, and like you see some of it and you don’t see some of it because you only have the perspective of the peephole. And at one point, The mom is standing in front of the people and you hear a gunshot and she flies out of frame somebody the the big guy the guy that you mentioned before the white hair guy shot her with a rifle, but she’s not dead and she jumps up and she kills him too so now the.

Hallway is littered with like three bodies, and the mom is locked in the hall, and she keeps trying to get back in, but Bridget blames Danny, she says it was the book, Beth’s like, what are you talking about, and Danny’s like, I have to show you something. So they go off together, and so that leaves Cassie and Bridget.

And Cassie asked Bridget if she’s okay because she’s acting a little weird and she goes into the kitchen and I had kind of forgotten about this but like when you get injured in the world of the evil dead like if they bite you or they scratch you You can, you don’t always, but you can become infected with evil.

Todd: It’s an evil infection. 

Craig: And you know, ashes hand gets demon infected. And so he has to chop it off before it spreads to the rest. And so, you know, that’s how people sometimes turn into dead And while Danny is Showing Beth the book and the records and stuff. Bridget is in the kitchen turning into a deadite and it’s super gross.

And I felt bad. Like one of the things that I liked about this movie so much was that these were really sympathetic characters. I cared about this whole family. They were decent. Kinds. Equal. 

Todd: They didn’t 

Craig: deserve this. They weren’t asking for 

Todd: it. One bit of premarital sex. No, they weren’t 

Craig: asking for it, they were just minding their own business at home and the ground had to open up and reveal.

Evil. Ugh, that was a bummer. But man, that scene was gross 

Todd: though, right? Oh god, it was so gross. I like too that they kept a little bit of the original Evil Dead with the, with that kind of those black veiny cracks showing up around the, around the face. I was like, you know, they didn’t have to do that. They didn’t have to.

Slip in all of these actual, you know, they’re doing a new movie They can do whatever or the but the the attention to that level of detail But was just great and such fan service. I loved it Yeah, she turns at the same time that this is happening in there Cassie is getting called by the mother in the mother’s voice because it’s something else the deadites do Yeah, they’ll try to trick you by taking the voice of the victim like what’s wrong with you mom 

Craig: I was just feeling sad about me and your dad You But he’s here now, he came home to see us, we’re getting back together, we love each other.

Isn’t 

Todd: that right, my darling? Now, if you were Cassie, I don’t care how young you are, and you’re looking through that peephole. And you’re seeing your mom look like she does. I don’t think I’d be able to look at her, let alone believe her to open the 

Craig: door. Interesting choice there too, because in the previous movies, the Deadites have the ability to make themselves look like the person.

Yeah, like not to flip right back, right? Not to turn off the evil look. Right, right. And they don’t do that here, which is fine. It’s just as much as they do and you say it’s, it’s fan service. I do think it is, but I also can, I can only imagine that Lee Cronin, the writer director of this movie is a huge fan.

And if you’re a huge 

Todd: fan, you try to keep it consistent. 

Craig: Well, you want to do it right. You know, you want to, I don’t know. I, I also understand wanting to go in different directions and things like that, but. I don’t know. This feels like a love letter to the franchise. 

Todd: Yeah, and I also read, because there’s a lot of turmoil as far as like, were they going to do a second Army of Darkness, were they not?

At one point they were, then that kind of ended up being the TV series. And then this movie, you know, there was going to be a sequel to the 2013 Evil Dead and that didn’t turn out. So then there’s this movie. The Raimi and Campbell and Robert Taper, the producer, have all been involved in all these efforts from the very beginning.

And I was, I was kind of surprised to hear that Bruce Campbell fairly recently, I think, or as recently as last year, said there are probably going to be more of these movies coming out, probably every two to three years. And Raimi and Tappert are working right now on a series bible, writing down the established rules and all that stuff and the timelines and where this can go to guide people in the future.

And I thought, I’m surprised they haven’t done that already, but it’s cool, right? Like, they all care, they want to keep it consistent, and not apparently go off in a wild nude. I guess the whole reason I’m talking about this is we’ve seen so many remakes and redos and reboots that just totally trash.

Everything, they’re trying to be original, you know, and trying to be clever, which, a certain extent of that is okay, but you still want some consistency, and at least the basic rules and the, I don’t know, the visual language and stuff of, of what you love about so many movies that came before. They’re gonna do it, apparently.

They’re gonna make sure. And 

Craig: I think that Campbell’s probably right. You know, these will keep happening. This 

Todd: one was massively successful. 

Craig: So yeah, well, I mean, it’s I’m not surprised that they decided to put it in theaters because it tested. Well, I’m not surprised it tested. Well, especially for fans of the franchise.

I think it’s great. I think it’s fantastic. But you know, what’s her name? Bridgette Bridgette’s transformation is disgusting. She like blood, like black, gross blood bleeds out of every come out of her eyes and her nose and her mouth and her ears. And then she vomits blood. And then the ant finds God, how did they even 

Todd: do that?

Right? I don’t know. Cause most of this movie was practical effects. They had very little CGI in this whole thing, which is kind of 

Craig: crazy. Well, and it looks fantastic. And she, she pukes up like maggots or something. And then the aunt finds her eating a wine glass. And she says something like, I got to kill the creepy crawlies that I got inside my tummy.

And then she taunts Beth about. Her pregnancy. Beth hasn’t told anybody she’s pregnant. No. And then she attacks Beth and they’re like, I think one of the famous, most famous bits from this movie is the cheese grater. Oh 

Todd: God. She 

Craig: takes a cheese grater to Beth’s leg and that I can’t believe I don’t recall ever seeing that in a horror movie before.

And I can’t believe I haven’t because that is one of the most nightmarish things I can imagine. Oh, 

Todd: ho, ho, ho. Oddly enough, right? I literally screamed out loud, Not the cheese grater! To which Liz turned and looked at me and just busted out laughing. It’s like, you actually said out loud, not the cheese grater.

Had she seen it before? No, 

Craig: she hadn’t. Is she a fan 

Todd: of the franchise? She is a fan. I don’t know if she’s seen all of them, but she’s seen the first one. We watched the 2013 one together at one point, and so yeah. But, I think It’s so weird. This is the goriest movie with so much gross and insane stuff happening, and I think that bothered me the most.

Oh, 

Craig: it’s visceral, because you can, you can imagine, like, that, yeah, that’s even more upsetting than right next. Chainsaw in the head. Well, and Cassie, Cassie, this small child, now, it’s not even intentional, it’s inadvertent, the, uh, her sister, Attacks her and she just holds up Stephanie, Stephanie impales Bridget through the head right through the mouth.

Yeah, right. She’s dead, but when you’re a dead, you’re not really dead. You’re only dead for a while, but so she comes back later, but it’s like little things like the little girl says. This is a nightmare. It’s just like a nightmare. This is what happened to Bridget. Mom gonna have to us. I’m not gonna let that happen.

I promise.

You’d be a good mom someday, honey pie.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. You know how to lie to kids. Oh my god! 

Todd: Like, 

Craig: what are you doing, Evil Dead movie? Stop 

Todd: it! I am not gonna cry in this Evil Dead movie. It’s interesting though, because that seems to like, almost solidify Beth. It’s almost like at this moment, at least how I interpreted it, Beth makes this decision that she wants this baby, and that she’s gonna keep this baby, And now, she needs to be a good mother and protect this baby, and, you know, this, I don’t know, maybe it was just me, but that was like, my feeling, that that’s how, suddenly she snaps and she says, I’m gonna save 

Craig: us all.

She, Beth, and Cassie, are Ripley and Newt. Oh, yeah. She is gonna protect this kid. 

Todd: Right. So she decides she needs to listen to the third record to understand. She’s like, look, if these things told you how to do it, maybe their third record is going to show us how to end this absolutely not. It’s just, it’s just listening to the priest recording himself despairing about how nothing kills these things, which is funny because in the first movie, uh, or is it the second one?

I can’t remember. They talk about the only thing that will stop these guys is total bodily dismemberment. And in this one, he says, even dismemberment doesn’t work. Every little piece of them will come hunting you down. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean That was different. That was a little different, if I recall, right?

I’ve pretty I seem to remember Oh, no, it’s not true. I seem to remember beheading them, killed them, but no, because no, in the first movie, their heads can 

Craig: stay alive 

Todd: and talk. Mm hmm. There’s all kinds of comedy with headless bodies 

Craig: running around. Well, and Ash’s girlfriend’s head in that vice, talking to him and taunting him.

Mm hmm. But, eventually, The mom gets the idea from the cat to go through the vents, and she gets in and gets in behind Beth while she’s listening to the records, and the sister, who they’ve already killed and tied up in blankets, but she comes back to life and, and attacks. And she stabs the brother in the arm a couple times, so you know he’s done for.

Right in the bicep, Jesus. I know, ugh! The mom attacks Beth, the sister, but while all of this fighting is going on, Cassie is hiding under the couch, and at one point she slides scissors to her aunt so that she can stab the mom. Up through the head with the scissors. There’s a lot of up through the mouth stabbing 

Todd: there is.

I guess this is the most brutal. I thought Ellie for sure was going to rip the fetus out of out of Beth. It was so close. She’s on top of her and she’s got her hand down there and she starts to dig her nails. And she 

Craig: says another great callback. There are several great callback lines, but I’ll swallow your soul.

And then she goes down to her abdomen and she looks up at her and says, Two souls? That’s 

Todd: right. That’s great. She ends up stabbing her, they end up out in the hallway, I believe. Well, Danny 

Craig: dies, he apologizes to his little sister and he dies. And the aunt and Cassie end up in the hall. 

Todd: There’s the whole dead by dawn chant that, you know, all of the bodies in the hall start coming 

Craig: to life.

Right. Right, and the mom comes out, and they’re trying to get the elevator working, and they do eventually, but the mom comes out, Beth shoots off her leg and her arm, but then all of the other dead bodies in the hallway turn into deadites, and one of them says, You’ll all be dead by dawn. And then they start chanting dead by dawn, dead by dawn, which that’s classic.

Oh, yeah, it’s the title of the second movie, right? 

Todd: And this literally happens in the second movie. I love 

Craig: it. But then one of the things that I love about this movie, I don’t remember if anything like this has ever happened before, but because the mother. Has lost an arm and a leg. Both of her deadite kids, and some of the other deadites, like, surround her and start, like, ripping into her body.

And you kind of see an illustration of this in the book, the Necronomicon, or the Book of the Dead, or whatever. And I don’t remember, I feel like I kept referring to it. To it as this in my notes because I feel like maybe it’s from one of the other movies, the abomination. Yeah, I think that’s from the last movie.

I think that the big bad at the end was called the abomination. I don’t know what to call this, but it’s the thing, the thing. Yeah, 

Todd: it’s like, it’s like all three of the press together and jutted out different directions. It’s like a giant spider of people. It’s 

Craig: gross and it looks gross. Fantastic. Yeah. As that’s assembling, they get into the elevator.

All of a sudden, the electricity comes on. The electricity has been out this whole time, by the way. At least in the elevator, the electricity comes back on. But then it starts to fill with blood. And it does. Fill with blood to the point where they are swimming waiting in it and that Monster is in the elevator shaft on the top So the blood is raising them up towards this thing like there’s just all arms akimbo like reaching through the the top of it But then it makes a point of showing the blood rising above the capacity sign, and you hear the elevator cords snap, and it falls, and at the bottom, the doors burst open, and blood, the, Beth and Cassie just spill out in a wave.

Of blood on the floor. It’s like the 

Todd: shining. It is. It’s so cool. I, I was just thinking about this. You know, there’s that whole thing where if you’re, I’ve always wondered when I was a kid, like if you were in a falling elevator, if you just jump a little bit before the end of the ground, you’d be safe. The answer’s no.

But I did wonder, okay, well, if you’re in an elevator filled with liquid and it hits the ground, is the liquid enough to, if you’re bobbing in the liquid, is that enough to cushion your fall? I don’t know. 

Craig: I think you would kind of flow out like they did. 

Todd: I don’t. Well, you would. Yeah. But at least you didn’t smack against the ground real 

Craig: hard, you know, right?

Right. I mean, it seems that they are at minimum in shock for a moment. Yeah. But the aunt wakes up first and then she wakes up the kid. And again, it’s very much like that scene in poltergeist where they get Caroline out and she’s unconscious and little kids. It seems like have a hard time playing that like they’re a little stiff.

Yeah. It reminded me so much of that scene in poltergeist. Anyway, then they get out, they get in the car, they’ve got the keys. It seems like they’re kind of home free, but it takes a while for the gate to open. It does open, but it takes a while. And apparently in that time, the monster has come out and is holding the car back?

No, 

Todd: I think they, they get stuck in that hole in the ground. She drives the front tire right into that hole. So they have no hope of getting out of there with the car. And so as the monster stalking them, they slip out of the car. In this very tense scene where, uh, yeah, they’re kind of sneaking around the car and then sneaking around the back.

I just don’t think this deadites trying very hard, which is, which is typical for them, they’d rather torture you than anything else could have just jumped on the top of the car and come down hard on them, but no, they kind of, it’s just a whole bunch of sneaking right where they get around and there’s a giant, what looks like maybe a garbage truck or something, but it turns out it’s like a wood chipper.

Yeah. 

Craig: For like grinding. No, I think, I think you’re right. I think there’s also a chainsaw there. I think that we’re meant, we’re meant to believe that this is like a maintenance thing, like a groundskeeping type thing, some kind 

Todd: of tree trimming service. Yeah, 

Craig: yeah. Something like that. And yeah, like they, they do.

They Indiana Jones it out under the gate, but the monster grabs Cassie and pulls her back just as the gate closes. So the ant has to get back in, and she does, and the monster has Cassie in 

Todd: that thing. 

Craig: Yeah, inside there, and it’s like, I just want your head, and it’s got the chainsaw, and it’s about to cut her head off.

Todd: Is this the moment at which she has the rifle that she’d gotten from the neighbors? She must. This is her line, I think. She somehow, she says, come get some, I think, and shoots the monster. Yeah, another great Bruce Campbell line. 

Craig: And so then Cassie gets away. She’s fighting it, the monster is dragging her into that mulcher, but Cassie turns it off, and somehow Beth is able to get the advantage and she flips it around and she gets the monster and, and into the mulcher and tells Cassie to turn it back on, and she does.

And then Beth like, chainsaws it back in there, and you see the brother and the sister, their, their, their heads are, it’s like a three headed monster, you see them, only Ellie talks, only the mom talks, but she’s the last one, and she begs for help, and, you know, in her real voice, and Beth chainsaws her head And until the whole monster gets sucked in except for Ellie’s head and it talks to her, you know, you really do look like mom and you’re going to fail miserably just like her and then punch her head into the grinder.

Into the grinder. It’s hilarious. And Beth and Cassie embrace and they start to walk away and then they pause and Beth comes back and picks up the chainsaw, like, we’ll take this with us just in case. 

Todd: Smart move, but hilarious, very smart. They did everything short of, you know, having her hand get chopped off and put the chainsaw on her.

Right, right. It’s a cool nod. Like. You got to get that chainsaw in 

Craig: there. Oh, absolutely. And I love the throwback lines too. And they work. They don’t feel forced. No. And again, you could, uh, if you’d never seen any of these other movies, I don’t think that you would be like, where did that come from? Like, 

Todd: oh, you’d enjoy it just as much.

They’re in jokes, but they’re not in jokes that leave everybody else. Right. 

Craig: They’re good lines. Then the camera pans to like the key chain. It’s, it’s Ellie’s key chain in their station wagon or whatever. And it’s like a picture, like an amusement park picture of the family. I know sad, God, that poor child.

But, uh, then it’s the next morning and a girl is coming down and she’s talking on the phone, she’s like FaceTiming somebody. And she’s like, yeah, I was up all night cause of the storm and there’s been no electricity, so I didn’t get any sleep, but we’re still going to the lake. It’s the girl from the beginning and she’s talking to her cousin who we saw in the beginning and she hangs up the phone and she gets in her car but then I guess she notices something strange and so she walks towards the grinder and she sees all the blood and carnage and she’s scared and screams and then the evil gets her.

Todd: The evil drone shot. The end. What a great movie. I loved it. I did too. Dark slapstick humor in here. Even darker, really, than the previous ones, but it’s all still there. Tonally, it really worked as an Evil Dead movie. I loved all the nods without it being overbearing and stupid. Sam Raimi’s fingerprints felt all over.

It was a total homage to his filmmaking style. I just thought it was great. Bruce Campbell’s not in it, you know? He wasn’t in the previous one, but it took place at the cabin since they had been there, apparently. This is just totally kind of fresh. I, I like that. 

Craig: I do too. I, and I, and I think that it opens up a world of possibilities.

Yes. This can just happen anywhere. Yeah. I think it’s established that there are three books, but whatever, those books can end up anywhere. Who cares? Anybody can find it. I’m into it. And I do hope that they continue in some way, you know, Bruce Campbell has said that he’s done with ash, not not with the franchise.

He’s invested in the franchise, but he’s done playing ash. He said that before, 

Todd: too. Yeah. Before the series, I think, didn’t 

Craig: he? Yeah. So we’ll see. I mean, I’d love to see him back if he wants to. But, you know, he is getting older and it’s fine if, you know, they, they just keep moving on in different directions.

But I love the deadites as horror villains. Oh, they’re fantastic. They’re unique. They’re, they’re scary. They’re funny, 

Todd: funny and scary at the same time. Sadistic, really dark humor. Yeah. Right. It’s so 

Craig: good. Right. I love it. So I, I hope that it can, you know, in some way continues on, but. This one’s good. I’ve been talking to you about it for a while.

I’m glad that we finally got around to it. I can’t believe, listen, you know, we’re gonna have to go back and actually talk about some of these other 

Todd: movies. Oh, we’re gonna do them all. There’s no way. We can’t, yeah. Oh, I’m not gonna skip over a single one. I freaking love this franchise. I know, they’re all so good.

I could record an episode in the first three right now. I don’t even have to watch it. I’ve seen it so many times. It’s memorizing. 

Craig: We did, we kind of, yeah, we did, but we went through it so quickly and there’s so much to talk about. That’s another thing that’s really cool about this franchise is like you said, these guys, they started out with nothing, you know, they, they made the first one on a shoestring budget.

And. Yeah, because of the success of that, they went on to become really incredibly successful filmmakers in their own right, but they never forgot their roots and they have all stayed friends and continue to work together. And it’s just, there’s so many cool behind the scenes things to talk about. Yeah, we’ve got 

Todd: to do it at some and they just seem like really good guys.

Like. Yeah, cool guys. Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi, the stories I’ve heard. I knew, I knew a person who worked with him on one of the Spider Man movies and you just, uh, I’d love to be friends with those people. I have a 

Craig: feeling that under different circumstances we would. They’re the kind of guys that we would be friends with.

Yeah, because 

Todd: we’re cool.

Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend, let us know online on either our website or our social media channels, which evil dead movie you think we should tackle next. Should we go straight for the first one? Should we do the newer one first?

Should we jump to army of darkness, which is a favorite of a lot of people? Let us know anywhere there. Also leave us a review. That’s one of the best. things you can do to help us spread the word about our podcast, just on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else. Also, uh, we have a Patreon, patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast.

And if you had been a patron a couple years ago, we did an episode where we went through the entire franchise for our patrons. So there’s a lot of cool stuff we do for our patrons that you guys never see. You can get in on that by just going there with a very, very low price of five bucks a month.

Support the podcast. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Today, we pay tribute to the late, great Carl Weathers – athlete and actor of the highest caliber. Perhaps best known for playing Apollo Creed opposite Stallone in the Rocky franchise, he also had a prominent run in another big-strong-hulking-guy 80s flick opposite Schwarzenegger. In each, he more than holds his own. Thanks to Josh for the suggestion!

Predator (1987)

Episode 385, 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, Craig, we’re not doing a Chucky movie today. Whoa. What a bummer. 

Craig: I forgot that there were other movies. 

Todd: Anyways, that was a long, long, long stretch of Chucky. And then, I enjoyed it so much that I ended up binging the first season of Chucky in just like a day in the morning.

Ha ha ha ha ha. You’re nuts. It was fun though, I really enjoyed that. But anyway, today we’re doing another tribute episode. This is 1987’s Predator. Which, uh, stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers, as Dylan and Carl Weathers died, uh, last month, I believe, from heart disease. He was 76, and he’s probably best known for the Rocky franchise, playing Creed.

Mhm, Apollo. Rocky’s really cool. Good friend. Well, adversary 

Craig: turned friend that, that, yeah, that’s really, I mean, I remember him from this and he did other stuff too, but that’s, that’s what I remember him from. ’cause those movies are really good movies. I don’t know if our listeners are into, you know, those movies or whatever, but I liked them all really?

But Oh yeah. The first three, especially, were like, really good, like, character driven movies. Carl Weathers was in that, in the first movie, he’s Rocky’s opponent, and like, you know, they’re kind of adversarial or whatever, and Apollo’s the big shot famous guy, and Rocky’s the new up and comer, and Carl Weathers is super charismatic, very handsome.

He’s really got the charisma of, like, a prize fighter in real life. And so that, Worked for him in that movie, and it’s on display here too. He’s a charismatic, charming guy. He really is. But, uh, that’s kind of all I know about him. I didn’t really have the opportunity to do more research, but what I do know, after Carl Weathers died, Sylvester Stallone almost immediately got on Instagram.

Todd: Today 

Craig: is an incredibly sad day for me. I mean, I’m so torn up, I can’t even tell you. I’m just trying to hold it in because Carl Weathers was such an integral part of my life, my success. Everything about it, I give him incredible credit and kudos because when he walked into that room and I saw him for the first time, I saw greatness.

But I didn’t realize how great that was. I never could have accomplished what we did with Rocky without him. He was absolutely brilliant. His voice, his size, his power, his athletic ability, but more importantly, his heart, his soul. It’s, it’s, it’s a horrible loss. And I’m standing here in front of this painting because it was probably the last moment we were ever in the ring together and I’ll never forget it.

He was magic. And I was so fortunate to be part of his life. So, 

Todd: Apollo, keep punching. 

Craig: He’s really struggling to hold back the tears. And to see a big tough guy like that get so emotional over the loss of what was clearly a dear friend, you gotta think the guy had to be pretty cool. 

Todd: Yeah. Did you see, um, I think is it called Stallone or Sly or something that a whole documentary on Sylvester Stallone on Netflix.

No, I didn’t. There’s a similar one called Arnold that’s, uh, that’s up and if you’re at all interested in these two guys and their careers, you should give it a listen. I think we might have even kind of mentioned this or maybe just you and I chatted about it briefly some other time about what an interesting guy Sylvester Stallone is and how he is the closest thing Hollywood, Has to a self made man, you know, he, uh, was just basically had a dog and was practically homeless and was doing bit parts and movies and not going anywhere.

But at heart, he’s a writer and he wrote that movie Rocky just basically to survive and was hoping to sell it, but was really insistent that he directed. He got a couple offers, but he held out until he got an offer that allowed him to direct. And of course, you know, that just. Launched him into the stratosphere.

And then at this point, he and Arnold, and it’s really interesting seeing both of those documentaries, I have to feel, I didn’t look this up, but I have to feel they were almost shot by the same teams, or at least they shared footage with each other. Because there is a point where Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, their careers almost paralleled in the 80s.

They more or less invented this notion of the big budget action superstar with muscles. And I never really considered this before, but before those two guys, action superstars, they were just dudes, you know, like they weren’t big muscly bodybuilder type guys. And because of those two, they suddenly all the action movies we got in the eighties were guys who were just ripped, you know, huge biceps going out with guns blazing and just tearing through stuff and tearing through people and they had a competition going.

Like, literally, these two guys were at odds, like, with their careers. They were not even friendly to each other for a while. You know, oh, your movie had so many guns. Well, my movie’s gonna have so many guns. Oh, your movie had this big of a body cut. Well, mine’s gonna have a bigger body count. All the way up through the 80s until finally it, you know, it became less of a thing and it’s all rather silly anyway.

This is one of those movies earlier one of Schwarzenegger’s after Terminator where he really just it’s just all about muscles and guns At least 

Craig: for a little while. No, that’s all it’s about well an alien but that is all it is and it is straight action the only reason you would call this a horror movie is because The antagonist is otherworldly.

That’s it. I mean, yeah, movie. It could have just as easily been just some other bad guy who was really good at, I don’t know, hiding. And then it would have just been a straight action movie because it totally is. And that’s great. I like these kind of action movies. They’re fun to watch, but it is. It’s just a bunch of big, muscly guys.

And like, Oh my God, I can’t even imagine the testosterone on this. Like they were always trying to outdo each other, like Arnold Schwarzenegger and who was the wrestler? Oh, Jesse Ventura. Yeah, Arnold Schwarzenegger pranked Jesse Ventura because he told the wardrobe people to tell Jesse Ventura that his arms were an inch bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s and that totally, you know, pumped Jesse Ventura’s ego.

So he challenged Arnold to a contest and whoever won would get the champagne and then he lost because it was all. A lie like stupid bro things like that and like they had Arnold got to the gym one day one morning and Jesse Ventura was all we already there so then they kept one up in each other getting there earlier and earlier and earlier Carl weather said eventually they were getting to the gym at like three o’clock in the morning meanwhile Carl weathers who’s also ripped never worked out with them because he was trying to trick them into thinking that he didn’t have to work for it like that was just his natural.

And so he did work out all the time, but never when anybody else was around just stupid like guy stuff and they’ve all got big guns and there’s lots of explosions. I know, 

Todd: right? It’s wild. They don’t make movies like this anymore, really. Really? I mean, God, the 80s. I think I said this on an earlier episode too.

What is it, the one that we did where the guys were cops and one of them ends up, uh, Joe Piscopo’s in it, one of them ends up I don’t know, Dead Heat? Dead Heat, that’s it. Well, we did Dead Heat, which is kind of a parody of, you know Well, not these kind of movies, but similar movies in the eighties would, and there’s just one scene in the beginning that we talked about how it’s just so eighties with insane gunplay, just the number of rounds of blanks and squibs that they went through in five minutes is just way over the top.

And that was just what it was like. This is what movies. I think this is what brought people into the theaters in the eighties. And it’s funny that you mentioned because. You’re right. It is debatable, I suppose, whether this is a horror movie because I was mentioning to my friends the night before I watched this, I was out at a little party, going away party for a friend of ours.

And, uh, I said, I’m doing predator for the podcast. And they were like, that’s not a horror movie. I said, yeah, it’s, it’s a horror movie. And they’re like, And they’re like, no, it’s not like super scary. Like, you know, the monster’s not creeping around the corner. I’m like, well, yeah, he is. But, uh, and then I just started rattling off other horror movies.

I said, well, is Frankenstein a movie that a horror movie then? Because you see the monster in the very beginning and know exactly who he is. Oh yeah. Well, that’s true. But you know, I mean, anyway, we were going on and on and, uh, it was a very. Interesting conversation, and I think I changed some minds and broadened their horizons a little bit about what a horror movie can be.

A horror movie can be a slasher, can be a comedy, can be an action movie, all this stuff. And after watching this, I sort of felt like, this is more or less Friday the 13th with muscly army guys. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is the final girl. You could even, I think even when the script was getting passed around, it was being talked about as alien in the jungle.

The writers are two brothers, uh, Jim Thomas and John Thomas, mostly known for doing this movie and a few other action, exciting movies from the eighties and early nineties. Like Wild Wild West, which didn’t do too well, executive decision, which I remember enjoying a lot. And the director, John McTiernan, very.

Big time action director. Uh, the year after this, he was directing Die Hard. Mm hmm. The Hunt for Red October came next. Die Hard with a Vengeance. Last Action Hero. That’s a good movie. Thomas Crown Affair remake. Yeah, man, I love Last Action Hero, and it does not get the love that it deserves. So you got all the pieces in place, all, you know, action writers, action stars, Shane Black, haha, who wrote Lethal Weapon and more or less changed 

Craig: it.

That’s what I thought, I, his, his name was so familiar, I’m like, he’s done other stuff, like, I think he’s done stuff not as an actor. Yeah. So he wrote 

Todd: those? Yeah, he wrote the Lethal Weapon movies, he’s basically credited with changing the whole landscape of, of action films in the 80s and these kind of buddy cop things, and also wrote, uh, Long Kiss Goodnight, which everybody else loves.

Oh, I love that movie. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I think it’s way over the top and ridiculous, but that’s what it’s good about it, 

Craig: or yeah That’s what people were going to the theater to see they want They don’t want to see something tame. That’s lame It’s got to be big 

Todd: the bigger the better. That’s true Well, and he’s in this movie as an actor so but back to carl weathers.

This guy was an all around athlete Like, growing up, he went to school on a football scholarship, he even played pro football with the Raiders for a few years under John Madden, but he always wanted to be an actor, like, from the get go, even in high school, he was in school productions, when he was in college, he majored in acting, and when he was doing football, he was as an extra in movies, and he eventually went on to, uh, To get a master’s, I believe in theater.

So he definitely had his heart set, even when he was playing football and sports on acting from the very beginning. Not one of these like sports stars turned actors later. So yeah, what an interesting guy. And he didn’t just play football, man. He was like cross country, track and field, basketball, just all around athlete.

And so, well, he has an 

Craig: amazing physique. Like he’s a big guy with. Big muscles, handsome, handsome guy. And I’m not surprised. None of this, even though I didn’t do the research, I did, I do remember now that he played professional football. I knew that at one point, but, uh, all the acting stuff, it doesn’t surprise me.

He’s really good. He’s not just some good looking dummy. Like he’s a good 

Todd: actor. Oh, he is. Okay. 

Craig: Okay. Okay. I didn’t know when to quit, huh? Damn. Good to see you Dutch. What is this f g Thai business? Oh, come on. Forget about my Thai, man. I heard about that little job you pulled off in Berlin. Very nice Dutch.

Good old days. Yeah, like the good old days. Then how come you passed on Libya, huh? Oh, that wasn’t my style. You got no style, that you know that. Come on, why’d you pass? We a rescue team, not assassins. And I forgot that he’s kind of shady in this movie. I had completely forgotten about that. Like, I thought that he and Arnold Schwarzenegger were like, like this was kind of like their buddy movie.

Yeah. And it is a little bit, but they also are, there’s, there’s tension between them too, and they’re angry at each other at different parts. I had forgotten that. Well, 

Todd: apparently as originally written, this movie was supposed to be just a solo, It was just gonna be all Arnold Schwarzenegger in the jungle.

Craig: I don’t even understand how that makes sense. That seems dumb. That was a bad idea. Smart of Schwarzenegger to bring more guys in. Yeah! Because if it’s just the two of them, what do you do? You just watch them tussle for an hour and a half until what? Well, like, 

Todd: how does that end? There are movies like that.

I mean, what? The Revenant was what? How long? I don’t know. The movie already felt long enough. I couldn’t have imagined just seeing Schwarzenegger and this guy in the woods for the whole time. So yeah, it was good. There’s a little bit of drama. It’s it. The movie almost obviously with the marketing and the name and all that stuff, you know what you’re getting into, but it almost pulls a fast one on you because it is.

It does start out as a straight up action film with this Crack team of commandos who were sent, uh, under kind of weird pretexts to rescue diplomat who found himself on the wrong side of the border. And by accident, the helicopter is downed and there to go in and rescue him. And, uh, but it’s, you know, again, like all these movies are, it’s, it’s, this can’t be official.

It’s ex army military guys who have their own little kind of elites rescue squad is what he says. They don’t do assassinations. Schwarzenegger’s character, Dutch, makes that very clear early on and tries to clarify, this is a rescue mission, right? Cause that’s the only kind of thing we do. And he’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it sure is.

And, and then later it turns out it wasn’t quite that. And then it turns out to be something else altogether. It 

Craig: seems like they are like private contractors, right? Like they are not part of the military establishment. Correct. But then later, Carl Weathers starts giving Arnold Schwarzenegger orders and he takes them.

I didn’t understand that. 

Todd: Yeah, you’re right, actually. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. But also, isn’t Carl Weathers a representative of the government or I think so. One of the 

Craig: army? I think he’s military. Yes, because I think all of these folks, Schwarzenegger’s folks, are all ex military. Yes. And Carl Weathers was like their friend, but he didn’t leave.

And Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks that he’s jealous and that’s why he’s trying to insert him itself into this mission because Carl Weathers is there by surprise when they arrived. They didn’t know he was going to be there and Schwarzenegger like greets him like friendly. But then the military guy says that.

What’s his name? I don’t remember. Dylan. Dylan is Carl Weathers. He’s gonna go with you, and Schwarzenegger’s like, Nope, nope, it’s just our team, not doing it. But they talk him into it! So, he goes to. And they’re going into the jungle, And they, like, sh I don’t remember where they shot, But, in the actual jungle, where they were Mexico, 

Todd: apparently.

Poisonous snakes 

Craig: and spiders, And they all got dysentery, and like, It was Pretty miserable by 

Todd: nightmare. 

Craig: Shoot. Yeah. Super hot. Like, Oh God, that would be terrible, but they’re going in there, but they’re told in advance that the place is crawling with guerrilla soldiers and it is. So. I mean, we immediately see Predator POV.

Now, of course, if you’ve never seen this before, you don’t know what’s going on. But it’s just, it kind of looks like, uh, what is it called? Infrared or 

Todd: heat. Yeah, it’s, it’s like infrared camera type stuff. And you’re right. We’re not exactly sure. Well, there is an establishing shot at the very beginning of the movie at, as the credits start of a spaceship flying by the earth and something getting shot off and, and falling in.

That’s right. So an alien presence is kind of established, but you could easily forget that. And like, you’re right. It is. There’s like a predator POV and they’re weird sounds. And, you know, I have to say like the sound design in this movie, I was really impressed with, and I felt like the sounds of the predator and the sounds when the predator was doing the predator POV added a lot to the horror at a time, particularly early on and for quite a while in the movie where there’s not much horror going on.

Like you have the sense, you know, these guys step out of their helicopter. Sure. I wrote in my notes, two future governors jump out of the helicopter, both Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura would go on to be governors of California and Minnesota. Oh, that’s right. I forgot Jesse Ventura was governor too. So funny.

And then they, you know, they get in their tent and they have their meeting, like you said, and there’s this gratuitous bicep shot. Where the two of them lock arms when they first see each other? I didn’t even understand what 

Craig: was happening. It was so 

Todd: crazy, right? 

Craig: Like, until they greeted one another. And it’s such a, like, macho power move.

Like, I am the dominant one. Like, it’s so 

Todd: stupid. It’s like become a meme, I think, since then. You can see this stuff, they just, the camera just lingers on their two biceps as they’re doing this little arm wrestle in the middle of the air kind of thing. So weird. 

Craig: And then Arnie beats Carl Weathers, which I don’t even know if I buy, because Carl Weathers arms looked huge.

And ironically, Arnold Schwarzenegger lost a bunch of weight for this movie. That’s funny, right? Yeah, I know. I think it was like 40 or more pounds or something. I don’t remember. It was a significant amount. Because, apparently, mercenaries need to be muscular, but they also need to be lean. Cause they have to be fast and like, you know, tactical and stuff.

So he actually took off a lot of body mass. So, and, and there’s other stuff. Like we meet the other guys, like these other guys are fun. Like the, they seem like, I mean, they’re tough, but they are like loyal. Like they are a real team and they’ve got each other’s backs. And, and, and I don’t remember, God, who’s the guy that tells the jokes.

I love the guy that tells the jokes. 

Todd: That’s Shane Black, but I don’t remember the name of his character. Williams or something like that? Hawkins, Hawkins. Hawkins, Hawkins. 

Craig: They’re all in this plane, like, going out to the jungle. He’s like, I said, you know, I’d like a little pussy! She said, me too! Mine’s as big as a house!

Todd: And he keeps making 

Craig: these jokes. I’ll forget, so the other one. Wait, wait, I don’t want to mess it up. Maybe you’ll just play it, but I remember the punchline. Oh gosh. Um, 

Todd: so the other day we, you can, you can tell I was going down on my girlfriend and I said, man, your pussy’s huge, man, your pussy’s huge. And she said, why did you say it twice?

He says, I didn’t.

Oh 

Craig: my God. Oh, like he’s so it’s, it’s funny to me. Not because I mean, the joke is crude, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s really crude. 13 year old guy, humor or whatever. But. What got me was just that he delivered it, not just with such sincerity, but with just such glee, like he was so proud of himself and he thought they were the funniest jokes he had, I laughed a lot 

Todd: well and he’s delivering them to Billy, this like a native, I think Native American, or at least he’s supposed to be Native American guy.

Well, he’s Spanish speaking. That was the vibe I was getting. Yeah, I don’t, I have no idea. And you know, the whole, the whole shtick that he is, is like, he doesn’t laugh. And so it’s like, he kind of explains it to him, like he doesn’t get it. But Billy is like the super, super stoic, super serious, badass of the group.

And that comes into play 

Craig: later. But, but he does the, the, the, that second joke gets him and he like laughs like a huge, you know, gut laugh out loud that whatever’s in the woods records. And plays back really quietly. So we find out that whatever this is, is collecting recordings of their voice. It only comes into play once.

Later in this film, but I think it comes into play later in the other ones. And so, but anyway, this is all leading up to, and there’s other guys too. There’s a Mac. He also is real serious and seems like a real bad ass. And, uh, I don’t know. Okay. But this is all leading up to what had to be, I have no idea. I wasn’t paying attention to the time.

It had to be a 15 minute action sequence, right? Oh yeah. Oh, at least they, they get to the camp. Do they find some dead guys first? Yeah, 

Todd: they find three bodies, skinned bodies, hanging upside down in a tree. Boy, I forgot how gory this movie was, too. Me too. I guess, I’m stupid, because I didn’t remember mainstream movies this time, you know, being as gory as they were, which also made me think, yeah, definite horror, definite horror movie, but, God, RoboCop was one of the goriest things I’ve ever seen in my life.

Oh, yeah. And it was Certainly around this time as well. But yeah, this is a very gory movie for a mainstream action film, I think. And not just like, oh, the guns shoot the guy and so blood splatters, but there’s horror type gore. Yeah. You know, there are stabbings and heads exploding and skinned bodies and entrails and.

People getting 

Craig: their spines ripped out. Mortal combat style. Yeah.

I guess it is a horror movie. Definitely 

Todd: a horror movie for sure. Yeah, they find these bodies skinned alive and they, and they know one of these guys, so one of these guys was from, I think, another team that they had sent in. I don’t know, that all kind of missed by me, I hadn’t picked up earlier on that they had sent another team in, but I guess that’s maybe what the downed helicopter was from.

I 

Craig: wouldn’t have figured it out, I mean, they have to tell us, they have to tell us, we know these guys, these guys are like extractors too, what’s really going on? Yeah, what are they doing? Yeah, something, something’s going on. Ultimately, I don’t even really I don’t really know what was going on. Carl Weathers is involved in some way.

Like he manipulated, like he got them there somehow. Like he’s the reason that they’re there. It’s it’s 

Todd: ham fisted and it’s nebulous. It’s, it’s almost like lazy writing and almost eye rolling because by the time they get to the guerrilla camp, huge explosions, lots of guns. Obviously, they mow everybody else down without breaking a sweat.

It’s typical Schwarzenegger where at one point he just is walking forward and just shooting his machine gun in random directions. Nobody’s bullets hit him. Smoking a cigar. Oh, smoking 

Craig: a cigar. I don’t know, maybe. That’s what I see in my head. I don’t, I 

Todd: mean. Oh, no, absolutely. He’s smoking a cigar. The whole first part of this movie when he’s just cocky dick, you know?

Anyway, they they make it into the camp and they take out everybody but this this unconscious woman who’s in this room that looks important because it’s got maps and things in it and documents. And he picks up one of the documents and I don’t know Oh my god, are you just 

Craig: gonna skip over it? Like, honest, shit, that was like 15 minutes, that action sequence.

Oh, I know! It kicks off with him, like, rolling some kind of truck that they’re using as a Generator? I didn’t even 

Todd: know what was happening. Which he lifts with his bare hands. 

Craig: Uh huh. He lifts it up from the back. And so that he can put it down in the tires will touch the ground and like he sets a bunch of bombs like in it and it like drives into the camp and huge explosion and then there’s You know machine gun fire back and forth between the mercenaries and the gorillas and you know They’re fighting with their fists and they’re fighting with knives and how am I and it goes on forever Oh, and Jesse 

Todd: Ventura’s gun is this massive, like, Gatling gun type thing that just rotates and shoots out bullets after bullets.

And I was like, God, that is an insane that’s the only gun I want. I think everybody should just have that gun. 

Craig: Nobody could shoot that gun. No. Those are not even intended to be held. No, they’re not. Like, those are the kinds of guns that are mounted on Oh, 

Todd: apparently that gun was so heavy and unwieldy, it, it, it, they had to slow down the frames because it would go through a, you know, a round of bullets in like two seconds.

So they had to slow down the frames so you could actually see it spin and, and, and give it some time. And I think there was a guy who had to run behind him with the gun. The giant 100 pound battery and all kinds of stuff. No, it was a mess to get to have him to have him operating this gun. It’s just insanity.

Looked cool 

Craig: as f k though. It sure does! 

Todd: By the way, all through this movie, the amount of ammo that these guys are obviously like carting around through the woods, especially when they’re all on their own, is just, 

Craig: it’s insane. There’s a scene later where Mac fires that same gun. For a solid minute, at least.

Yeah. Like, that had to have been thousands of rounds. Right. 

Todd: It’s so cool. 

Craig: I mean, there’s, there’s not a lot to really talk about. I just want to emphasize the fact that it was a huge, like, this is, it’s an act in and of itself. Oh, it is. And then, right, then he finds, he finds those documents, and that’s where he kind of finds out what’s going on.

But I still don’t really 

Todd: understand. Yeah, okay, I understand you don’t want me to gloss over the giant action scenes, but, but yeah, you’re right, the documents, it’s never really explained, but it seems like there are different people who are meeting there, like one of the guys who were dead was like a Soviet person, he said something big was going down here and we were meant to break it up, weren’t we?

And he’s like, yeah, and you lied to me and blah, blah, blah, and I don’t know, it doesn’t even matter, right? I really do think 

Craig: that it’s not. Entirely clear because I feel like there are like theories about what was really going on and and I don’t remember if this is in the movie or if I read it, but ultimately the military knew about the predator and they were sending in Dutch and his Oh, I didn’t knew about the predator and they were sending in Dutch’s team.

To flush it out. Maybe that’s just a fan theory, but I know I read that somewhere. 

Todd: Oh, it could be Predator related, except, you know, then you would think that Dylan knows there’s a creature. Like he would be the guy in the know, right? Maybe. He would be the The Paul Reiser character, you know, the alien or something like that.

Yeah, I don’t know. Anyway, whatever. I don’t know. I just got the sense that there was some political bullshit 

Craig: happening. Right, and I think that it’s explored further in the sequel, because I read some stuff about the sequel too. Ultimately, I don’t think that the target audience for this movie cares. Like, who cares?

Stop talking. More 

Todd: explosions. Quite frankly, neither do I, to be honest. 

Craig: And I’m not trying to demean the target audience. I’m the target audience for this. You know, young, adolescent boy to middle aged man. This is right. Down my alley. I love it. Yeah, I don’t care. Like it really doesn’t matter. Actually. Why are you complicating it?

Like it doesn’t have to be complicated send them in there for a legitimate reason and there happens to be an alien there What are you 

Todd: gonna do? Yeah by this point their goal is very simple They’ve got to get to their extraction point and which is being delayed for some reason because something’s been compromised again There 

Craig: are too many gorillas.

Yeah, there are gorillas 

Todd: all around even though They never encounter another gorilla ever, 

Craig: but apparently they are surrounded by them except for this one valley, but the helicopter, I don’t think the helicopter can land in the valley. So they’ve got to go through the valley and like, they make a big deal out of, Oh, great.

The Valley. Like, why is that any different than the rest of the jungle? I don’t 

Todd: really understand that. Oh, I’ll tell you why. Like, from a military standpoint, you don’t want to be in the valley, you want to be on the mountain. Right, right, 

Craig: right. Cause, you know, line of sight and all that. Which, which ultimately is important because this Hunter I think Hunter would have been a better name for this franchise, by the way.

Cause that’s 

Todd: what they are. Wasn’t that the original name of the franchise? I don’t know. Maybe it was. No, this was shot, as they were shooting it, they were gonna call it Hunter, but there was a problem with, there was a very famous TV show or something right this time. Oh, I missed that. So they changed it, yeah.

Craig: I missed that. Well, that’s too bad, because it would’ve made more sense. Whatever, Predator is iconic now, so who cares. But that’s what this is. It’s a game, Hunter. The humans are 

Todd: game. Yeah. It’s like the most dangerous game with an alien. 

Craig: Yeah, there’s, there’s some, like, talk of eventually, so this girl, that the one person that was left alive after this big action sequence, they take her captive for reasons that I don’t understand.

Carl Weathers is insistent that they bring her along. Wait, she goes with us. She’s too valuable. She’s got to know their whole network. She’ll give away our position any chance she gets. No deal. You’re still under orders, Major. Now you wanna make that call or should I? She’s your baggage. You fall behind and you’re on your own.

And Carl Weathers is terrible at holding on to this girl. She gets away from him several times. He’s 

Todd: also just terrible at staying quiet. I think there’s one point where one of the soldiers chews him out. I think it’s Mac, right? Turns around and is like, you give our position away one more time and I’ll kill you myself.

Craig: They’re not very happy with him because he definitely deceived them to get them there. Mm hmm. And, and now they’re in trouble. And then, I don’t know, what, the Predator shows up, starts killing people. Who’s he kill first? There’s, 

Todd: uh, Trail, So Much Cigar, Scorpion Smashed, Back to Predator, Descend into Valley, Great Sand, Oh, I love this line by Jesse Ventura, I think this is before The Predator, but one of the guys looks at him and says, you’re hit, you’re bleeding, man, he goes, I ain’t got time to bleed, 

Craig: Yeah, that was in the action 

Todd: sequence, and then he throws like a grenade, he goes, well, you got time to duck, That’s

Craig: I found Jesse Ventura to be very amusing. They stop because Billy gets spooked. You said before, like, he’s kind of the stoic one, like, super serious, hyper aware. Arnie’s like, What’s going on and he’s like there’s something in the tree in the trees and he’s right but they can’t see it and it runs away for the second time and Hawkins Shane black chases her and catches her but then is killed by the predator like he turns around and I feel like it’s standing right behind him I don’t remember if it stabs him 

Todd: or this is no he swipes at him and in front of the girl this is this weird it’s like an invisible hand thing right all we’ve seen so far is predator vision and I liked the way that this was.

I really like this because we see a bunch of predator vision, we know they’re being stalked by somebody or something, but we don’t see what it is. And then there’s this bit where a guy kills a scorpion on another dude’s shoulder and leaves it there. And then the predator vision comes by and takes the scorpion, but we see up for the first time like a claw, like a claw type hand.

Yep. In the predator view, grab the scorpion. So now it’s established there’s something otherworldly, you know, stalking them, but we still haven’t seen it. And then in this scene, we still don’t see it, but what we do see is this weird kind of cloaking, like it’s invisible, but you can sort of see where the, where the woods kind of the light bends around it.

So it’s got some kind of invisibility cloaking device, which I saw a little documentary about this a couple of years ago about how they pulled this off at the time. Cause you would think that this, you know, nowadays this would be like CGI. There was no, there was not much CGI happening in 87, not enough for this movie, way too expensive and complicated.

Craig: It’s so clever, I’m so glad that you’re going to explain it because when I read about it I was like, that is so clever. 

Todd: Right? They had a guy in the, in the predator suit. You know, wearing all red, but you can’t wear green, because the whole jungle’s green, so it’s, it’s all red. And they film that, and then they do the take again, but then they change the lens on the camera.

So it’s like a, a wider, uh, vision camera, which is gonna distort, compared to the first, it’s gonna distort what you see. So then they just keyed him out, and then they overlaid the second foot, the footage from the second camera, uh, that was shot with a different lens. Where he was in, you know, where everything was red now becomes the second footage, which is just jungle.

So the jungle is just like a little more distorted around that very area where he was. It’s so smart, really. 

Craig: And it looks kind of just like a shimmer, like, like a shimmer in the ether. It’s reminiscent to me of like heat waves. Yeah. That you see, you know, on a really hot surface, so camouflaged, virtually impossible to distinguish, especially surrounded by all of that nature, you know, surrounded by trees and bushes and you know, all that stuff.

He blends right in it’s and it’s cool because even us watching it. It’s like where’s Waldo a little bit Yeah, you have to look cuz it’s it’s just a little it’s just slightly off. But once you find it, there 

Todd: it is It’s very cool But once you know this and you you know You watch the movie carefully you can see that they don’t move the camera During those scenes when the predator is there right so that they can accomplish this effect so they can do two takes right at least When he’s there, you know in the cloaking But she’s not killed, this guy’s dragged off, and almost immediately they come, and they notice she hasn’t been killed, and there’s something weird, and she sees this green blood that nobody else either sees or is interested in, which I thought was weird, but what they do is track the body, and he finds a mess, I think, I can’t remember if it’s Mac, I think Mac is the guy who goes and finds it, he’s like, um, I found something, but I’m not sure.

If it’s Hawkins or what it is, and they go back and it’s just guts, they fairly quickly surmised. I think it’s later, but Schwarzenegger surmises that the reason that she was not killed is because she was not armed, 

Craig: right? These are game hunters, but they are ethical game hunters challenge. They will not.

Attack and kill you if you are unarmed. It needs to be a fair fight, which I respect. You know those asshole big game hunters who are going and killing lions and shit? If the lions had guns too, fine, that’s fair. But they don’t, so you shouldn’t get to either. You wanna go out there and fight a lion? Go for it.

Be my guest. Otherwise, leave them alone. But anyway, we find out in the second movie that they also do not kill lions. Children or pregnant women. Oh, so like I said, ethical game hunters. We see that Hawkins body is hung up high in the tree. That 

Todd: was a great shot. It was good. It’s very horror. You know, like this is so it really takes a lot from horror in a lot of these shots in these scenes and this one too, where there’s a body that we see, but nobody else discovers it.

There’s a point where somebody discovers the body. You know, it’s way more horror than action in the way some of this is shot. And I thought that was cool. That scene where it just slowly pans up the trees and you’re just waiting and waiting and waiting to see what horrible thing it’s about to reveal to us.

It’s really clever. She, she grabs some of the green blood before they, before they take off. She does, 

Craig: but she doesn’t say anything about it, but she touches it. Like, I don’t think she’s like taking it with her. I think that she’s just touching it to see what it is. Yeah, and she wipes it on her She wipes it on her pants.

And it glows this, this is a neon green iridescent light that they just used some kind of gooey sticky substance that they mixed in the chemicals that go in glow sticks. And so it glowed, it looks cool. I mean, why not? It’s an alien. It can have glowing blood. Awesome. But it’s, it’s really soon. They just stop in another place.

And Blaine, Jesse Ventura, gets shot and killed from afar, and Mac sees the predator in his cloaked form, running through the forest, and shoots that giant, ironically they’re called a minigun, but that big, you know, spinning gun, and starts shooting into The forest and then all of the rest of them come and join him and they all stand there and shoot machine guns into the forest for a solid minute 

Todd: they just mow down this force in front of all yeah it’s so funny you know it’s interesting because I read in the trivia later that they didn’t I you know what I don’t know what it is about me but like I was thinking of ethical filmmaking you know I was a little bothered by the I think they obviously killed that scorpion, although it’s just a scorpion.

It’s still, you know, like to do something like that for a movie. We’ve talked about this before. Also, you know, destroying jungle for a movie is kind of shitty, but apparently they didn’t destroy this part of the jungle. This was already cleared out and they just went in and sprayed a lot of tree stumps with black and stuff like that to make it look like it had just been mowed down.

So that was kind of nice to see. But anyway, yeah, they, they mow that area down and it’s like, how much ammo do these guys have and why are they using it all up in one go? As I 

Craig: understand it, ammunition is very heavy. Yeah. And the amount that they’re using, where is it? And how are they, how are they trekking it through the jungle?

Todd: Exactly. There’s nobody’s dragging a big wagon full of ammo behind. They’re not even wearing packs. No, it’s ridiculous, but it’s exciting. It’s a movie, whatever, who cares. Jesse Ventura has a giant ass hole in his body. It’s pretty impressive. This thing can shoot as well. It shoots like laser type energy bursts or something.

I don’t 

Craig: know what they are, but they like, like you said, it blows a hole through his whole body. Yeah. It looks like a little ball of light that moves pretty fast. Yeah. Like when it finally impacts, it kind of explodes too, doesn’t it? Yeah, it does. I feel like there are lots of explosions. Yeah. Apparently Blaine was his best friend and like there’s a whole mourning scene.

They set up some defensive traps and the predator is off somewhere else and he’s still bleeding. But he turns off his cloaking device, which is the first time we kind of get a look at him. It’s dark, you don’t really get to see a lot, but he’s clearly alien. Stan Lee is the designer. The man is brilliant, took inspiration from a painting he saw of a Rastafarian.

John Carpenter said, I feel like I’ve never seen anything with mandibles. And so he gave it mandibles. 

Todd: Yeah, James Cameron actually said that. But yeah, you’re right. Apparently, James Cameron and Stan Winston were, happened to be sitting next to each other on an airplane when he was sketching this out. And so he got to throw some ideas his way.

It’s this is a very Rastafarian looking. I 

Craig: love it. I think it’s a great look. It’s very cool. Like it doesn’t literally have dreadlocks, but it has like these tendrils that come out of the top of its head that look like dreadlocks. It’s awesome. It’s a really cool design, but this 

Todd: was not the original design.

No. Have you seen what the 

Craig: original design was? I have. I didn’t look it up again this time. I don’t remember. I don’t know that I’ve seen the original design, but I did see footage of Jean Claude Van Damme in a bodysuit. Yeah, 

Todd: it’s really funny. Like this was going to have like backward bending legs and all kinds of stuff.

I mean, when you look at it, you can tell you don’t have to be an expert to tell this thing was. Clunky and lumbering and very difficult to pull off even just walking through the forest let alone Trying to do all the moves that they wanted the predator to do and so stan Winston was called in last minute as a friend of schwarzenegger’s I think it was schwarzenegger who recommended him to design something a little more and he ended up going with a more humanoid form which Obviously works a lot better for the stunts and the things like that poor jean claude van damme who I believe had been Had more or less just gotten to America and was trying to become a big action star and thought that he was going to be on screen for this movie.

Ends up in this clunky ass suit. Hates it. More or less quit, I think. Uh Yeah, he 

Craig: quit. But, I mean, then they redesigned it and turned it into a great big giant person. Mm hmm. Well, humanoid. Played by a, uh, a large actor. That suit was like 200 pounds, like And it’s a hundred plus degree weather and the humidity of the jungle.

I can’t even imagine. There were times where they had to have him kind of suspended by bungees just so that he could move 

Todd: around. That’s so nuts, right? It is 

Craig: nuts. Even looking at it. Those guys are so cool. Those stunt guys and stunt actors. The ones you probably wouldn’t even recognize their face if you saw them on the street.

Like Doug Jones. Like Doug Jones has been an. Everything. And he’s amazing. He has such unique movement in his body, but you never see him. He’s always under makeup and, or masks or whatever. You, you, you never, you very rarely actually see his face. This guy, same thing, you know, basically a stunt guy and, and such hard work.

But. It’s so 

Todd: cool! Unsung, right? I know! This is Kevin Peter Hall, and uh, he was a basketball player, he’s 6 foot 9, a super tall guy. The Predator, all together, is almost 7 feet tall. You know, he also, not only was he like in Predator 2 and whatnot, but, do you remember Harry and the Hendersons? Yeah, I love that movie.

Yeah, he was the monster in the monster suit for that as well. I love, like, I love that movie. God, man, that’s a movie that I would expect to be better remembered than it is. And so now I kind of want to go back and watch it and see if it was really as good as I remembered it to be. I watch 

Craig: it from time to time.

It’s 

Todd: adorable. He does make an appearance with his normal face as a helicopter pilot a little later on in the movie, I think at the end. But he died at the end. 35, man. So it’s really kind of sad, man. 

Craig: Yeah. I mean, I have absolutely no idea how he died, but sometimes people with abnormally large bodies like that face health.

Like it’s hard for your heart to pump blood through all that. I’m just totally making that up. He could have died in a car accident 

Todd: for all I know. I can tell you exactly how he died. Yeah, he died of AIDS, which he contracted through a blood transfusion. Oh, it’s terrible. It’s like the one two punch right there.

Craig: It is. I mean, they figure stuff out Dutch figures out that it’s in the trees and they figure out that it’s hunting them and it’s picking them off one by one because it is Anna reveals that she can speak English and they are like, what is it conveniently? Yeah, she’s like. I I don’t know, the forest came alive and it took him, which I I can’t really think of a better way to describe what Yeah.

She saw, I mean, how do you explain that? And so then it starts picking them off, and it does, it picks them off one by one. They gotta get, get to the chopper! You gotta get to the chopper! Get to the chopper!

They keep trying to get to the chopper, but the thing just, like, it’s literally just trailing them, and whoever’s at the back of the herd just gets picked off. Billy, like, resigns himself to his fate. Yeah. You know, like, it just stands there and waits 

Todd: for it. Dutch eventually decides they need to make a stand, and so that’s when they, they, they, like, set up traps and things.

I love this one scene where she suddenly becomes a chatterbox. Like, not only is she speaking English, but she has this whole long ass monologue. When I was little, we 

Craig: found a man. He looked like, like Butchard, the old woman in the village across themselves. And whisper crazy things, strange things. El diablo cazador de hombres.

Only in the hottest years this happens. 

Todd: And they called it the demon who makes trophies of men. So, it’s even known. So, like, I guess the predator comes back to the same spot. Like, this is his hunting ground for generations. We find out 

Craig: later in the series that this has been going on for centuries. Ah. The most recent.

Prey is set, I don’t want to say in prehistoric times because it’s the time of humanity, but like tribal days. Like I, I feel like the tribe that it focuses on are like Comanche or something. It’s fantastic, by the way, in my opinion, perhaps the best of the sequels. Anyway, that’s a tale for another day. Or.

For just 5 a month, you can read my, my review that I wrote on that movie after I watched it just to become a patron and you’ll have access to lots of extra stuff back to the show. You’re right. So when she’s saying what she saw, she also said, and it’s bleeding. I found some of its blood and I don’t know if she shows them.

I think she does maybe. And Schwarzenegger’s like, if it bleeds, we can kill it. I can’t do a good Schwarzenegger. I don’t have like the Germanic. Accent, but yeah, there’s a part where Schwarzenegger and uh and like the only other guy besides the two black guys I think his name’s poncho who immediately gets killed their goal is to But both Mac and Carl Weathers, Dylan, yeah, they go after the predator because the predator has now killed somebody that was close to each of them.

Yeah, they don’t even particularly care about getting out of there if they if they can get to the chopper, they can get to the chopper, but they’re most concerned about taking out this thing, which it’s so funny to me because like they kind of their team and their pair and Mac finds it and, like, points it out to Carl Weathers and it apparently doesn’t see them.

It’s still cloaked, but they, they can, you know, vaguely see it. And they hatch this whole strategy where Carl Weathers is gonna go around and flush the Predator towards Mac and then Mac’s gonna take it out. It doesn’t go at all to plan. No! Like Like Like Minute they are both dead. I was 

Todd: standing there thinking why don’t they just at least shoot at it from here, you know It’s 

Craig: in range I 

Todd: would think it seemed like it but maybe it wasn’t who knows mac.

It’s a terrible end badass really crawling underneath some trees as he’s crawling he sees these three dots on his arm and when he backs up those dots are on his head and the You know, it’s like a laser sight for the Predator’s gun and it shoots. I think it’s kind of funny, right? Like, so we have these laser sights and that’s a very typical action movie thing, right?

You see the red dot on your forehead. Oh, you know, it’s in trouble. I’m sure somewhere they were like, how do we make the laser sight seem more accurate? Alien. Oh, how about three dots instead of one? That’ll do it. But he gets blown up and then Carl, he has kind of an interesting end where he gets his arm chopped off the same arm he’s using to shoot the gun as it’s shooting the gun, the arm is.

It’s on the ground. And then 

Craig: he tries to one arm it, but the thing just kills him. Yeah. These guys do not really get valiant deaths, like they’re just kind of picked off. True. And so then once they’re picked off, then the predator goes after the other three, and it kills Poncho, or whoever else is the last of the commandos, or whatever they are.

And so now it’s just Arnold and Anna. Schwarzenegger tells Anna to get chopper, get to the chopper! So she goes off in one direction and he goes off in the other direction and the predator chases him and he ends up falling, thank god, and sliding, sliding on his butt. Maybe, I don’t know, 15 feet before going off a cliff that had to be, I have no idea.

I mean, it was ridiculous. It was so 

Todd: high. I guess that blew out the stunt guy’s knee, that stunt there. You know, jumping into water. I, I’m a swimmer. I’ve jumped into water from a lot of different heights and I just take it for granted that you’re going to be okay when you fall in water. You know, that’s what happens when you play video games, but you come in high enough.

No, you can, uh, it’s like getting concrete at some 

Craig: point. Right. But he’s fine and he starts going off into the woods. The predator follows him. Like he 

Todd: ends up with mud all over him as he’s coming out of the water, which I didn’t quite understand at the time. I was like, how did he get all this mud? I guess he was crawling through it.

And there’s this really tense scene where the Predator lands right next to him. And he’s just not moving, backed up against and within a bunch of roots of this tree. And the Predator can’t see him. And so he immediately surmises that the mud is keeping him protected and out of his sight. So, I guess we’re supposed to believe that the mud is cloaking his body 

Craig: heat?

Yeah, it’s dumb. I mean, great, fine, fine, whatever. No, the mud would just heat up and his eyeballs aren’t covered in mud. You know, apparently 

Todd: they literally tried this. They tried to shoot the thermal imaging stuff. With Schwarzenegger covered in the mud, but it turned out the mud, of course, didn’t cover up his body heat at all.

So then they were doing this elaborate shit, like trying to ice down the trees and spending all this money, where eventually they just went in and through special effects got whatever they needed. Well, 

Craig: and apparently it was terribly uncomfortable for him. I don’t know why. Maybe it was just because it was shot at night, it was really cold, and it dropped his body temperature.

I mean, it literally did drop his body temperature. Yeah. You know, he was, uh, shaking. I, I read that before I saw it and I, maybe I imagined it, but I felt like I could see him shivering. A little bit. Yeah. Anyway, it can’t see him because he’s covered in mud. I don’t know. I feel like at this point, the predator is kind of like, eh.

Lost one, whatever, and goes off into the forest to give Schwarzenegger enough time to, like, make a bunch of, like, booby traps out of sharp sticks and tree trunks and stuff. 

Todd: Oh, it is a long sequence of trap building. He’s a regular MacGyver here, which Schwarzenegger can pull off with the stuff. 

Craig: And they’ve already done this once before.

Right. But it didn’t work because they had everything on the ground. And the predator travels via the trees. So this time he knows the predator travels via trees, even though he does still have traps on the ground. He had like makes some bombs out of gunpowder and leaves and I don’t know. It’s, it’s a whole.

Deal, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s Kevin trapping the house in, in home alone. 

Todd: It’s that sequence. And he doesn’t have a gun anymore. So it’s just like a bow and arrow type stuff. Yeah. Like, 

Craig: but with like exploding arrows. Yeah. And so he starts, he starts a big fire, I guess, to lure the predator there and it works.

And the predator comes and I don’t even really like, apparently the predator still can’t see him because at one point the predator is right next to him and we’re to believe that the predator can’t see him and he kind of sidles off to the side. Schwarzenegger does. He wants to get the predator on this big log, like there’s this big log across like a ravine or something and he wants to get the predator on there, but I don’t remember why.

Is he just because eventually he shoots at it with one of those arrows. Did he miss intentionally or is he just a bad shot? 

Todd: I don’t think he meant to miss. I just think he was, you know, there’s a bow and arrow he constructed. I was going to say, 

Craig: these are crude instruments. So, all right, fine. Fair enough.

Then somehow Arnold falls in water. So his mud washes off so he can be seen again. To be fair, the predator’s camouflage system fails too. So we can see him now, even though the predator only has, he only has eight minutes of, you know, time. Screen time in the whole 

Todd: movie. His electronics are maybe like, malfunctioning.

I think because of that shot that uh, Schwarzenegger had done earlier, yeah. Maybe. He picks him up, and actually has him pinned by the neck up against a rock. And then he does something very interesting. He walks away. And just in front of Schwarzenegger, while he’s just standing there, he starts to take off his mask to reveal himself, and I guess that the idea is, once again, he doesn’t want to kill an unarmed guy, or he’s so impressed by this guy’s, you know, ability to evade him and fight back that he wants to make this Like he’s a worthy 

Craig: adversary?

Todd: Yeah. So Fair fight. So they’re going to go at it like mano a mano, no masks on no weapons or whatever, which is good because otherwise the predator had this shoulder mounted cannon. He can just pretty much aim at him and blow him away. Right. So, yeah, so now it becomes kind of a physical fight and Schwarzenegger is trying to lure him and eventually gets him back to that trap area and crawls through that little mini tunnel that he had made and is laying there.

And it looks like. The predator is gonna go right into it, but he is too smart for that. As he’s standing there, he just kind of surveys the scene and is like, something’s not quite right. And he kind of looks by his head and reaches up and notices the spikes there. And he goes over it and I was like, Oh my God.

Craig: I know. Up until that point, I don’t, I don’t feel that you emphasized enough that this is a physical fight, but Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting the shit beat out. Oh, he’s so it like, like he is just getting the, you know, like hit and flies 10 yards, you know, back and he’s getting thrown against trees. And at one point the predator has his head pinned to a log with like.

Spikes like a fork type thing. Oh man. But yeah, then he gets, then the predator evades that trap and it’s so frustrating. But what’s even more frustrating to me is then the trap just works anyway. Or was that like a backup trap? I didn’t understand what happened. I think it was 

Todd: like a backup trap. Yeah. He had a, kind of a big log, a hoist piece.

Had way up in the tree. I don’t know how he did that, by the way. I don’t . Yeah, 

Craig: you like a have a pulley system out there. . 

Todd: But yeah, he basically ends up dropping a giant log on the, on the predator. And at first he’s not sure it worked. ’cause then as he’s walking away, he starts hearing some screaming and he goes back and then he sees that it’s laying there and it’s just completely bloodied.

Huh. And that seems to be the end, however. He’s not too injured to laugh. 

Craig: Well, he pushes some buttons on the pad on his arm and something starts to happen on it. It’s not difficult to figure out as Dutch figures out immediately that it’s a countdown. I also thought that it was interesting that Schwarzenegger, when he sees that the predator is still alive, picks up a giant rock, like he’s going to finish him off, but then he doesn’t.

Yeah. That was, I don’t know if that was, I guess. But it’s, I don’t know if he saw some humanity in the thing or it was 

Todd: weird. They were, he had some respect for him or he saw, he thought he was going to die anyway. So let’s like, let it happen or something. I don’t know. But why, why give this guy an inch of.

Right. 

Craig: It doesn’t really make any, well, and then he’s stupid. Cause then he, you know, that countdown’s going down and the predator laughs. Now you caught that that wasn’t his laugh, right? That was the recording of Billy’s laugh that he had 

Todd: recorded earlier. Oh, I did not catch that. Oh, 

Craig: that’s cool. Yeah, that was so the predator doesn’t actually laugh like a human.

He just plays that recording back. I guess he’s mocking Schwarzenegger. 

Todd: I feel better about that. Okay. Yeah, that doesn’t sound it’s not nearly as cheesy. Yeah, 

Craig: so Schwarzenegger takes off running and then there’s a huge like electrical explosion. 

Todd: It’s like a mushroom cloud. 

Craig: But he’s fine. And then we see that Anna got to the chopper.

Into the chopper! And that’s it! Uh, we didn’t do his other taglines. He’s got like three taglines in this movie. If it bleeds, we can kill it. I think I did that one already. And then when, when the predator has Arnie held up by his neck pinned against a tree and he’s got his mask off and his mandibles kind of are moving and open up a little bit.

Arnie says, You’re one 

Todd: ugly motherfucker.

Craig: So funny, that line gets brought up again later in the franchise more than once, I think. But Arnold’s apparently fine, and the chopper comes and gets him, and he’s in the chopper, and it flies away, and that’s the end. Yep. 

Todd: That’s Predator. I started 

Craig: watching Predator 2 today. It’s wild. Really? It. Is. I didn’t finish it, but they had to do, like, They had to run it through the MPAA 19 times before they got it down from an NC 17 rating to an R.

Wow. No way. It is crazy violent, nudity, like, What? Some fairly graphic scenes. Sex, and this is in the first 20 minutes, because that’s all I 

Todd: watched. I haven’t even finished it. 

Craig: No, it’s crazy, and Danny Glover is the lead guy, and there’s other good people in it. I didn’t finish it, but. And I think, I think I’ve seen them all.

There was Predator, and then there was Predator 2, and then I think that it went away for a long time because Predator 2 didn’t do very well. And then there were the Alien vs. Predator spinoffs, two of those. And then Predator came back with like The Predator and Predators. Ah, right. One of those, I don’t remember which one it is, I think it was Predators, starred Adrian Brody, who really beefed up for the role.

And the premise of that one was that the Predators had taken a bunch of humans to like a game reserve on another planet. So the human beings weren’t the only other creatures and The Predators all had like different weapons and tactics and they had like hunting dogs, but of course they’re not dogs, they’re like alien dogs, it’s crazy.

That one was kind of wild. And then I already mentioned Prey, which is a, you know, a prequel from hundreds of years ago. I loved it. You’re 

Todd: not the only person to say they loved it. When I brought it up the other night to that group, somebody was like, Oh my god, have you seen Prey? It’s amazing. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s really good.

But anyway, I don’t know. I mean, I liked this. I was telling my friends at work today, by the way, part of the reason that we’re doing this is because my friend Rob, who I have lunch with every day in my classroom, he teaches with me in my department, he’s a fan of the podcast. And he texts me about the podcast sometimes.

And he texted me, he’s like, Carl Weathers died. Does predator count as a horror movie? And I wrote him back. I’m like, hell yeah. So thanks, uh, Rob for the suggestion. But I was telling my friends at work. Didn’t like it as much as I remembered liking it. I remember when I was a kid thinking it was so cool.

And I don’t know if just my sensibilities have changed. I still enjoyed it. But at an hour and 47 minutes. It was a little long 

Todd: for me. Yeah, I felt the same way. There was a point at which I was getting a little bored. But, but, you know, I could see in the, if I was, if I had paid money to go into the theater and sit down and this was my sole focus and my only option.

Right. It’s actually kind of engrossing to see how is this guy gonna survive. And it’s really around the point, I think, where it’s just one guy against the Predator, where it starts to feel a little long. At least it did for me. But, you know, like, the trap setting and all that stuff, and then the back and forth between the two of them.

I mean, it’s good filmmaking. It is, it is. It’s well structured, it’s very But, I don’t know, I think maybe also our sensibilities have changed. Like, like, movies just, they move faster, you know? They pack more into a shorter period of 

Craig: time. Well, and like you said, They just don’t really make movies like this anymore.

Yeah. Yeah. The closest thing that I can think of would be like mission impossible or maybe even better. Like the fast and the furious, like where it’s, it’s, it’s so focused on the action pieces that the story, you know, there’s a story, but who cares? And 

Todd: that’s not necessarily to say things have improved.

To be honest with you, I get. Kind of bored at these all action movies myself. At any point, they just feel unrealistic. Like, everything is happening and, you know, people are flying through the air. And I mean, you can do anything now with stunts and, you know. Oh, yeah. So it’s, it’s almost comical how ridiculous and over the top things get.

One thing that was kind of nice about this movie was how more grounded it felt. It did, 

Craig: aside from the fact that there was an alien with cool technology, it did. It felt, you know, the people never did anything that people couldn’t do. Right, it wasn’t 

Todd: like martial arts flying through the air and all kinds of crazy stuff, yeah.

Craig: Right, so anyway. I liked it overall. I mean, it was fun. Nostalgia is a major callback to a different time. It was nostalgic for me. I told you this privately, but my dad was a big fan of these movies and these big action heroes. And so that was something that we could do together. And, and I have great memories of, you know, watching these movies with my dad and he would get so excited.

He would get really excited about these action movies. He was like, that was so cool. So it’s nostalgic for me, uh, for that reason. Through my. Current lens, you know, I, I’m not going to rush out and go back and watch all of this Schwarzenegger Rambo Stallone. I’m not going to run out and go back and watch all of those.

I’m not that nostalgic for it, but this was a nice little return to something from my childhood and a great opportunity to pay tribute to the great Carl Weathers. Who seemed to be a very cool guy. He, you said he was 74, something 

Todd: like that. 74, 76. I 

Craig: mean, that’s, that’s a, that’s a pretty good run, but by today’s standards, that’s still relatively young.

I hope his family has found peace. It’s been a little while now. He was a good guy and I’m happy that we had the opportunity to talk about him. He 

Todd: was busy. He’s been on the Mandalorian. I think for the last few years. I have not watched the Mandalorian, but I I do believe he was nominated for an Emmy for his performance on that.

So working up to the very end. Well, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. As Craig said, Said, you can find us on Patreon as well if you want access to a whole bunch of behind the scenes stuff and extra things that we do for our patrons. That is patreon.com/chainsaw podcast, and also chainsaw horror.com where you can find our website.

Leave us a comment there on any of our social medias. Let us know what you thought of this episode and, uh, give us some requests for films you’d like us to do in the future. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We wrap up our Child’s Play Marathon with the final film in the franchise, Cult of Chucky. Never released to theaters, this 2017 installment struck a perfect tone between humor and horror, which creative director and writer Don Mancini had been refining and reinventing over decades of our favorite possessed killer doll. Not only is it a modern and brutal continuation of Chucky and Andy’s adventures, it also set up the television series with lots of material to continue.

Overall, we immensely enjoyed our deep dive into the entirety of the Child’s Play franchise! Enjoy this final installment, and let us know what you thought of it in the comments.

Cult of Chucky (2017)

Episode 384, 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: We are, well, technically we’re at the end of our month of Chucky, but we just decided we had to finish out the series, so we pushed it into one more month. So today we are finishing it out with all of the Chucky movies.

This is 2017’s Cult of Chucky, which came fairly fast on the heels of, what, four years later than, um, the one before it? 

Craig: I don’t remember. I don’t remember when the other one came out. This one came out in 2017. 

Todd: I’m just gonna come right out and say it. I really, really liked this movie. You know, it’s interesting because I think I was pretty shocked by the new tone that was set by the last movie as we had in our last podcast episode.

And this movie, I don’t know if I was just already settled into that tone. It just felt a little lighter than the previous movie. It’s definitely gory. In fact, I think it might be the goriest of the whole series. 

Craig: Well, Don Mancini had said he wanted it to be, I don’t know. They’re all pretty gory. Yeah, 

Todd: they’ve all, but you know, the earlier ones, the, the gore is kind of, it’s a little offscreen.

It’s a little more offscreen sometimes or just a little more abstract. But this is, this is pretty gory. It’s got a very cold, modern. It’s interesting how the previous film, it has a very cold feel to it as well, but it’s also very gothic 

Craig: in tone. And the last movie is very dark, and this movie is very bright.

Yeah. Almost everything is stark white. Quite a contrast, 

Todd: isn’t it? Uh huh. Well, because most of it takes, in fact, almost all of it takes place inside the mental hospital, and this is sort of a modern update of the old school mental hospital. It’s not quite as silly as having people wandering around muttering to themselves and doing crazy things.

It is like a very long hallways, open rooms. No decoration. I guess, theoretically, nothing for patients to grab, right, and mess around with. Steel tables. Right, 

Craig: but, like, literally everything, everything is white. The furniture, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the desks, the, the nurses clothes, like, everything is, And it’s not just white.

It is like stark dreamlike, heavenly white, like a real place, 

Todd: not a real place. 

Craig: I mean, it looks cool. It’s a really cool set piece and it’s kind of jarring. Like the, the hallways, like you said, are long and they’re kind of at weird angles to one another. And I don’t know. Yeah, it’s. It’s, uh, it’s very, very different in look than the last one.

I mean, it’s still, it’s, it’s very cleanly shot. I still think this one deserved a theatrical release. It’s, it’s a well made movie. It really is. But I’m really glad to hear that you liked it because I was uncertain whether you would or not. And it fares well for you that you did because I feel like more than anything, this movie is teeing up.

Really? 

Todd: It’s teeing up the tone, the feel, the everything? Yes. Ah. 

Craig: I don’t know if that was entirely intentional. I know that Don Mancini had wanted to take it to television, and also has said that he does also plan to continue the film franchise also. But, I think he at least, especially, You know, all of these movies, or many of them, kind of end open ended.

The story could go on. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, but it could. Um, and this one does too, but I feel like with as open ended and with, you know, a lot of new stuff. 

Todd: Possibility. Yeah, 

Craig: there are a lot of new possibilities at the end of this movie, and things just get started. Things that we’ve never seen before.

Yeah. And it really gives them a lot of room to play in the series, and they do. And so, I, I, I’m glad that you liked this, because I think that that means that you’ll probably really enjoy 

Todd: the series. Oh, that’s really good to hear. Because I, I think that the last movie, as I had said in that, in that episode, felt so cold.

And dark, and sinister, and of course Chucky is a sinister, cold, dark character, but he’s also got this sense of humor, and I felt like we had less Chucky in that movie, I mean, he was there, the doll was there. the first half, right? Yeah, his personality kinda wasn’t there, and when his personality was there, it was just the murderous Chucky, there was very little, he had some quips.

You know, here and there, but none of it sounded like he was having fun. You know, this movie has a lot more fun in it. It kind of brings back. I think some of the fun of the of the previous duology trilogy or whatever. What? We kind of split the movies up, right? Right. Right. And seed. And I felt like it struck a really good balance between being a modern or a movie that’s actually scary and actually threatening and bloody and serious.

And having this character in there who that we know and love who’s a little more jokey a little more fun And we get a lot of him in this movie because there are literally a lot of him Yeah in this but 

Craig: you don’t know that for a long time and that’s another thing like it kept me guessing. Yeah for a while I’m like, what is happening?

Why are there so many of them and my question was which one is it that yeah, it never occurred to me That it might be more than one and I don’t know that they started to kind of suggest it a little bit But then they’d pull back on it. So I at least had some suspicion, but it really kept me guessing for a while Yeah one of the things that I have consistently liked about this franchise and I’ve said it several times over the course of the last Month is that it keeps trying new things.

It doesn’t get stale The only time it got a little bit stale was with three and that wasn’t Don Mancini’s fault. He had done the first two back to back. They wanted the third one immediately and he said he was out of ideas and I get it. Still not a terrible movie. I still enjoy it. But. It’s maybe the one that does the least in terms of originality.

All of the other ones, it feels like every time they bring something new to the table and they keep you guessing, and, I don’t know, I like it. I liked it too. If I remember correctly, my initial response to this, and I think I said this to people, I may have said it to you. May have settled on the podcast, I don’t know.

But I think my initial response was, I liked that, but I know it’s going to be 

Todd: polarizing. Oh, the fact that it, that they add new things and kind of change things up a little bit? 

Craig: Yeah. You’ve got multiple Chuckies. You’ve got giant Chucky. You’ve got like 

Todd: Yeah. It has the possibility of going The rails. And I think it doesn’t.

And I think like we had said earlier, that is because the writer director Don Mancini has really embraced this and kind of made it his life’s work. It seems like because he is once again in the director’s chair and of course writing this movie. So he’s had full control over this. So, you know, to have one mind working with this all the way through, since the 80s, you’ve got a consistency of ideas, and he has a real clear idea in his head, not necessarily where he always wants to go, I mean, you’ve always got to sit down and come up with ideas, right?

But, at least He can make the characters consistent. He knows all of the lore from the previous movies. He’s a little more reticent to retcon things too much, but also, like you said, not afraid to try some new things. There are a couple places that we’ve even talked about in the previous movies where the rules that seem to have been established in the previous movies are broken, but just in very small ways.

Right, right. Like, I’m still not quite sure now if Chucky is. Human inside like if if he has flesh and blood when he’s in the doll he is I mean he is 

Craig: in this movie He is in this 

Todd: movie. He wasn’t 

Craig: in the last one. Yeah in the last movie They knocked his head off and he wasn’t organic in there. So yeah, I don’t know All of that has been relatively inconsistent, but come on who cares that’s not 

Todd: that important Yeah, and the silliest thing probably is how the voodoo chant stuff works at first.

Yeah voodoo chant then He needed an amulet for a while. And now there’s absolutely no need for an amulet and you 

Craig: can do variations on the spell. And, uh, right. I really liked that. I like, like, I like the consistency of the chant, but the fact that they changed it and not only did they change it, but I thought that the way they changed it was hilarious.

Yes, because it’s, it’s usually, uh, they do a Dembela. And now that he wants to, like, make a bunch of Chucky’s, he says, Ade Boku Demo. 

Todd: It’s a new chant that he found on VoodooForDummies. com. I just think, 

Craig: Boku is so funny, like, A lot. Right. I mean, we’re kind of getting ahead of ourselves. I don’t know. The only reason that I’m interested in talking about the very beginning is because, I don’t know, like, I was uncertain of what was happening.

These usually open up in, A very violent way, or at least a set up for something violent, and this shows us a beautiful, I don’t know, skyscraper, very tall building at night. It’s constantly storming in this entire franchise, like, it’s always storming, so it’s raining, but it’s actually a romantic date with Andy and this red haired girl, and she, like, he’s taken her to a really nice place.

Yeah, he must be pretty well off. Well, Don Mancini says he got a bunch of insurance money from all of the murder stuff in the first couple movies. I don’t 

Todd: really get that. It’s hard to believe anybody would insure him after one or two of those events. 

Craig: But whatever, yeah, I guess he’s independently wealthy because he doesn’t appear to work either.

No. I don’t know. I guess he could go to work and we just don’t see it, but whatever. Anyway, he’s on this date, this pretty girl. He’s taking her out to this nice place, but she immediately kind of starts interrogating him. I’m sorry, I’ve just never known someone who’s 

Todd: into guns before. I’m not into 

Craig: guns, Rachel.

I have a couple. 

Todd: More than the one. 

Craig: That doesn’t mean that I’m a fanatic. Okay, it doesn’t mean that I’m not for restrictions and waiting periods and background checks. So what does it mean, Andy? 

Todd: I 

Craig: just want to be able to protect myself. From what, exactly? 

Todd: You Googled 

Craig: me. Yeah, I did. And he goes on this whole thing.

He’s like, uh, yeah, when I was six, my babysitter was murdered and my teacher and my, my foster parents and like 39 other people that he knows of something like that. So he, he really feels like he needs to have guns and that’s. 

Todd: Pretty understandable. Oh, 

Craig: it’s totally understandable. That’s what I was getting at like this establishes.

I feel so bad for him like yeah Chucky chucky at one point. When was it that he told him I killed your childhood 

Todd: That was the last movie. He didn’t tell him that He told, he told that to 

Craig: Nika. He told Nika that, cause she said, You never, you never killed him. It’s the slowest murder ever, and he said, I, I killed his childhood.

And you see that he did. He, he ruined this 

Todd: guy’s life. Yeah, his adulthood as 

Craig: well. Yeah, and he, and he’s still dealing with the repercussions, and arguably is a little unhinged, as you I think you would be! Yeah. Um, and the fact that he’s unhinged is evidenced by the fact that he still has O. G. Chucky’s mutilated head.

Living mutilated head in his safe at home. And he takes it out and talks, 

Todd: he takes it out, talks to it and tortures it every once in a while. It’s kind of crazy. It’s a brilliant bit of animatronics too, but the head is a, is like half there. So it’s all kind of bloody, but it’s talking and you can see where it’s been charred and where it’s been cut and where it’s been shot, shot.

Like he’s definitely been, been playing with this head, really kind of his own personal therapy, I guess. This reminded me a bit of, uh, Laurie Strode in, in the new Halloween movies, right? Alone, in a cabin, with all this protection, in the woods. Sure, yeah, he’s got a whole arsenal. Sort of waiting for the nemesis to come, which is interesting because he thinks he has Chucky’s head.

So, presumably, he would be safe. 

Craig: Right. Like, he also, I don’t know, he’s killed him before and he always comes back, maybe he thinks That is a common thread. Maybe he thinks, if I keep him alive and I keep him secure, he can’t come back to get me, but Yeah. If I kill him, as I’ve done multiple times, he’ll just pop up in the mail again someday.

But I also, like, I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into it, I almost felt like Chucky says something like, What about Rachel? Didn’t she want to play?

Now we’ll never know if she’s a natural redhead.

Hehehehehehe Face it, Andy. I’m all you got. Sometimes it’s nice just hanging out on a Friday night. With your best friend. Like, again, I’m just thinking, This doll has this man in a doll’s body has ruined this guy’s life and he has nobody else. He’s 

Todd: alone. It’s sort of like in a way, kind of what, what would you call that Stockholm syndrome?

A little bit where you start to sympathize with your tormentor, 

Craig: uh, something like 

Todd: that. Not that he does, but I mean, there’s a hint of that in there. It’s, it’s complex. It’s kind of complex psychologically and kudos to Don Mancini for going there, you know, for giving us A realistic and, uh, effective portrayal of what Chucky’s victims are gonna be like over the years.

Yeah, they’re messed up. Not a lot of sequels bother with that kind of stuff, you know? They really don’t. And Halloween picked it up later. I have to wonder if it was inspired by this movie, uh, honestly. Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. 

Craig: But He asks Andy for a hit off of his blunt, and Andy gives him one, but then Chucky acts like he’s gonna bite him, and scares him, and, and laughs at him, so Andy says, you wanna play?

Let’s play, and he pulls out a blowtorch and starts torturing him, which, good for him, I mean, like you said, therapy, I guess. But then 

Todd: that question still remains, because, uh, at the end of the first, of the last movie, we saw that Chucky was in the process anyway. Of putting himself in the body of, what’s her name?

Annie Alice, A young girl. The end of that movie, who was the nephew of Nika right. 

Craig: Nice, but yeah, close now. Nice, right? 

Todd: Having trouble with words this morning. I mean, 

Craig: there, there is there, you know, there’s a lot of gender fluidity stuff going on in these movies. So yeah, but you that you, that was something that troubled you.

Because at the end of the last movie, by the way, I don’t know if you know this, but that scene with Andy at the end, the post credits scene, that wasn’t in the theatrical cut. That was only in the, oh, and there was no theatrical cut. That wasn’t in the original release. Oh, really? Um, they, they added it to the unrated version.

Oh. And you were bothered by that. You’re like, I don’t get it. He was going into the girl. What happened? Why is he back in the doll? Why is he here? You were you 

Todd: satisfied? Yeah, of course. Okay. Yeah, it’ll it’ll make sense now because I think as we already said, there are multiple Chuckies now, which actually works.

I don’t mind talking about this now. I mean, we’re gonna go through the plot of the movie, but let’s talk about this whole concept. It works because, in a way, it was already established in Seed. The One Doll, uh, Chucky’s son, went into two bodies. Uh huh. Right? Like, the split personality or whatever, the Right.

The male side went into the little boy and the female side went into the little girl. And so it actually had been done before just not a big deal was made out of it so although like we said Chuckie in this movie says that he found a new chant that allowed that to happen so right but was I terribly confused because I kind of knew I mean I have to say I think you let it slip earlier on that there were going to be multiple Chuckie’s I think maybe it was when we talked about the whole series way back it probably was our podcast or so I wasn’t I was more interested in figuring out how and what.

And like you said, so who’s the real one? And this brings up like a big, one of those big sci fi questions, right? I read a lot of sci fi, watch a lot of sci fi, and there are always these things where, you know, you download a personality into a computer and then can upload it back into your body, or you could live forever, you know, just by making a backup copy of yourself.

But then that raises this immediate question, like who’s the real you, right? And is that really you? So your body dies, but then are you going to wake up in the new body when your soul’s been kind of downloaded into it? Like what’s what is that? Right? Like even the Star Trek has the thing where with the transport of the teleporter Which actually just takes you completely apart bit by bit And then reassembles you using the molecules on that planet.

There’s a question, do you die every time you go through that transport process? Uh huh. It’s so, I mean, maybe the answer is they’re all Chucky. Ha ha ha! They’re all equally the same guy. Okay, 

Craig: alright, so I can kind of, they are. He says in this movie that he learned, he got on, Voodoo4Dummies. com and he found a spell where you can split your soul into pieces and put a piece of that in whatever you want.

He says anything with two legs and an arm for stabbing. Anything with two legs and an arm for stabbing, he can put himself in. And, uh, moving forward, we’re to believe that. Each of those is a part of the O. G., but I think we’re also now I’m extending beyond the end of this movie to I think that we are also to believe that the O.

G. Chucky is Is still around and is somehow different from the other ones. It gets really complicated because moving forward when there are multiple ones, sometimes fairly regularly, they have unique personalities. Oh, really? So I don’t know if you would say that maybe those are just different parts of Chucky’s soul, like.

Maybe he’s got a, a nice part, maybe he’s got, 

Todd: who knows. Child like part, a goofy part, a serious 

Craig: part. Right, right, maybe, I don’t know and I don’t know, I think it’s a little muddy. And that’s alright, I don’t care, it doesn’t bother me. 

Todd: Thinking too deeply into this too. Well, the 

Craig: other thing I was thinking about is like, is there just, is one’s soul infinite?

Like, are you gonna run out? Like, and what happens, what happens if you 

Todd: run out? 

Craig: What do you get? Is it like a Voldemort kind of scenario? 

Todd: If you make a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, eventually does that, you know, those last few ones, are they kind of limited? In a way. Right, right. I don’t know. Who knows?

Craig: All interesting questions that we are not going to get the answers to. 

Todd: Nor do we need to worry too much about. Right. 

Craig: But, the movie is largely about Nika. And it is basically One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Chucky. 

Todd: In a way, yeah, you’re kind of right. Which is ironic considering the fact that Brad Dourif’s breakout role was in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Right. 

Craig: And he’s great. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. He’s amazing. He’s so good in that movie. But, I don’t know, like, Nika has been convinced by her therapist that the whole Chucky thing was all in her head and she killed her whole family because she was clinically jealous of her sister and overly protective of Alice.

So she killed everybody else so that she could have Alice all to herself. And she can never, even though, you know, she knows it’s because she was sick or whatever, she can never forgive herself because Alice could never forgive her for that. And Alice is somewhere else and she doesn’t know where she is and she’ll never see her again.

But the doctor says, since you realize that you were sick and you understand that Chucky was all in your head, we’re going to move you to this medium security facility. And they do. Keeping in mind, she’s a paraplegic, like, I don’t think that she would be a huge flight 

Todd: risk anyway. Yeah, that’s actually a very good point.

So they 

Craig: do, they immediately move her to this place, and then, for the next while, we just kind of see her meeting people, and like, we meet this cast of characters who are Interesting, I guess. Yeah, but it’s, it’s, it’s kind of one of those things where I appreciate them trying to give all of these characters unique qualities and, and, and making them more than just fodder for the kills.

Yeah. But I know that’s what they are. So let’s just get to it. 

Todd: I also appreciate them not taking it too far. You know, you could really go far into camp with these characters in a mental institution. And most horror movies do this. In fact, a lot of mainstream movies until fairly recently would do this, you know, Oh, this is the one with a crazy twitch.

And not only do they have this twitch, but you’re going to see it every time you see them. And this person’s constantly seeing visions. And every time they’re on the screen, they’re going to see visions. And It might even be a source of laughter and comedy. This movie, I felt like these characters were fairly real people.

I was really on board with the reality of the portrayal of these folks. There’s the, um, Malcolm? Or is, or Michael? I don’t 

Craig: know. We, you don’t know at first. She meets him and he’s very nice. The first person she meets is The nurse, Carlos, I think is his name, right? And he’s gay and has an ailing husband and he’s kind of nice to her and she thanks him for that.

And he says, don’t get me wrong. We’re not going to be friends. Yeah, I just, I’m just doing my job, which I get weird that that’s, that’s a very healthy relationship. Like we can treat each other. With kindness, but we’re not 

Todd: friends. At least he’s being honest and establishing that up front, I suppose. Yeah, but it’s not very warm.

Craig: No, but I think it’s perfectly professional. These are crazy people. Yeah, 

Todd: that’s true. 

Craig: Um, she is a mass murderer. Or multiple murderer, I don’t know. They ever make a big difference out of it. 

Todd: Everyone wants to keep their distance from her, you know, and that, that’s understandable as well. 

Craig: But then she, then she meets this one lady.

This lady was probably my favorite, Angela, who thinks she’s a ghost. And she introduces herself as a ghost. She’s like, Can you see me? Yeah. Thank God. None of the others can see me. Please don’t be afraid. I’m not afraid of you. Good. I won’t hurt you. I just need someone to talk to. I spent my whole life here, then I died right here in this room a long, long time ago.

That’s awful. Angela, 

Todd: we can all see you. And then she just floats away. 

Craig: I just, I thought that scene was hilarious because I was like, Are there ghosts in 

Todd: this 

Craig: movie? But then this guy introduces himself and I don’t remember what he introduces himself as Michael I think and and he seems super nice And they hit it off to the point where within 10 seconds, they’re banging in the stairway.

Yeah And I mean I get it But the other thing I was like wow her experience has changed her Yeah, because didn’t you very much get that? She was very sheltered and likely virginal In the last movie. 

Todd: I did, and she was also, I mean, she was a tough cookie. She’s always been a tough cookie, but she was a little sweeter, and a little, I don’t know.

Now, she’s seen shit, you know, and she’s kinda mean, and relatively speaking, she’s kinda hard. In this movie. Oh, yeah, and you would be, you know, that’s what would happen, but you’re right. Her experience has changed her a lot. She’s banging that guy and she’s kind of got a bit of a scowl on her face. She’s treating everyone she meets with a little bit of skepticism.

She’s not out there looking for friends, but this Malcolm guy is probably the closest thing to a friend she’s going to have in here. Right. Even though they have sex in the stairwell, she still keeps her distance. She’s still very much kind of setting herself apart and, and staying alone. This has to be hard, you know, when you’re sentenced to this life, you don’t have much control.

No. Right. And I’m sure she doesn’t feel as quote unquote crazy as the people around her. 

Craig: Probably none of them do. And yeah, or like a lot 

Todd: of them don’t. A lot of them probably don’t, right? They, they, they, they’re all probably, why am I here? And, and that’s. Gotta be hard. Oh my gosh, I can’t imagine. You know, my mom worked at a psychiatric facility, but you know, people would come through it.

They, they weren’t sentenced to live there for the rest of their lives or for an indeterminate amount of time. It was very much a rehabilitation place and the expectation was that after a while, they’re, they’re gonna be ready to go out and face the world. And this does not seem like that kind of place.

These people seem like they’re all going to be there probably forever. Although there is a doctor here who has got some very interesting and perhaps progressive, perhaps regressive ways and theories of taking care of these people. And uh, what’s the doctor’s name? I 

Craig: don’t know, I just kept calling him Dr.

Foley. Dr. Foley he’s got all these 

Todd: weird therapies like the first scene that we see of her after we cut away from Andy is there’s doing like electro shock therapy on her which I thought was interesting because I thought that had pretty much gone away except in very extreme circumstance I was gonna 

Craig: say it’s kind of a last resort anymore but they do still do it I I actually just recently read about this and that the shock therapy that they use bears no resemblance to what it looks like in movies.

People are not thrashing around as insane voltages running through them. It’s, it’s very controlled. It’s, it’s, you know, small doses probably delivered. Yeah. It’s as safe as it can be. It’s not widely used, but it is still used. Carrie Fisher swore by it. She was, I think she was bipolar, and she would have incredible peaks and valleys, and sometimes shock treatment therapy was the only thing that could pull her out of some of those 

Todd: valleys.

Well, to be honest, there’s probably something behind it, because right now, we are getting major startups that are coming up, tech startups, that are claiming that they can manipulate your brain in positive ways by delivering very pointed electrical currents to the right times and the right places. To help boost your memory.

This was literally in the news this week, but I’ve been following this for the last of six or seven years. And so, yeah, I mean, your brain is, your body has electricity flowing through it in, in small amounts, and your brain is arguably kind of a big electrical machine, so it’s definitely not outside the realm of, it’s not quackery.

Right. The way it was done in the past has been a bit of quackery, but now there’s some solid science behind some of it. But then this guy goes into other, other territories as well, which I was questioning, like, is he really clever? Is he really smart? Is he using these modern, uh, techniques? Or is he a little psychotic himself?

Is he playing 

Craig: himself? He seems sadistic 

Todd: to me. He does seem sadistic, and we find out later that he’s probably even more so. It’s interesting that in this stark white hospital, his office is the exact opposite. It is dark and black, and it almost, it’s like the only place of warmth, really, in the whole hospital.

But that said, it doesn’t really feel like a warm place to be. But yeah, that’s the, that’s the black to the white, and I thought that was a really interesting choice of design. 

Craig: Sure. Yeah, it’s far less. It’s not sterile like everything else. It looks like human beings actually would use that space. 

Todd: That’s the place where they all come together to do work.

Well, 

Craig: yeah, they do. They do group. And the people that we’ve already mentioned, plus there’s A very, uh, an angry, paranoid Asian lady, what is her name? Claire. Claire. And she’s very suspicious of Nika. I probably would be too, for all they know, she just killed a 

Todd: bunch of people. Oh, she’s pissed. She’s like, why is this murderer here with us?

I’m scared for my life. And I kind of would be too. I get it. I 

Craig: totally get it. Yeah. And then Angela, who’s the ghost, Says something like he’s coming Chucky called me on the phone He said to tell you he’s coming for you, which you think she’s just a nutter But as it turns out Chucky did call her on the phone and talk to her.

Oh boy, but then dr Foley again, I I know that like aversion therapy is a thing and like facing your fears is a therapeutic type thing but I just can’t imagine that in all these movies, people just keep throwing Chucky dolls at the victims. I 

Todd: know, right? They either just happen to be there or they’re just like, Hey, I thought this would help you.

Or, Oh, I’m going to give this as a present to your niece. Just as much as Chucky is mailed to people, people seem to deliberately bring Chucky back into these poor people’s 

Craig: lives. All the time. This guy, this guy went out of his way to find one, one of the original ones that was named Chucky. He got it from a Hot Topic.

Todd: That was hilarious, 

Craig: actually. The, oh, one of the few things that bothered me about this movie was the Chucky voice is different. Did you notice that? Yeah. Like the doll voice is different. It feels 

Todd: different. Is that just because Brad Dourif is so old now? No, 

Craig: not well. I mean, his voice did sound a little bit different too, but I’m talking about the.

I can’t do it. It’s too high. But the, the check 

Todd: you want to play. Oh, that. 

Craig: Yeah. I didn’t, it’s not been Brad Dorff. Doesn’t voice that. The right Brad door. If only voices, Charles Lee Ray, the, the possessed doll, the, the voice of the actual toy is not him. And it’s different in this one. And it bugged me because it’s been the same in all of them.

And I’m like, come on, you have to have just, just reuse the audio. He only says like three 

Todd: things. That’s true. You can just literally cut and paste it from the previous 

Craig: movies. But again, that’s, that’s a minor complaint, but yeah, like he pulls it out and it’s like, and she’s like, no, it’s just a doll. It was me.

I did it. And then there’s another character, her name, Madeline, who is apparently in there. We learn over the course of the next half hour or so she’s in there because she suffered from postpartum depression and killed her own baby. And now she’s cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, but she thinks that Chucky is her baby.

And like, she takes it and starts treating it like her baby. And that’s fine. Like, Nika doesn’t really seem particularly concerned at this point. Yeah. Because I do think that he really has her convinced that it was all in her head, that 

Todd: she’s crazy. Yeah, I was unsure about that until this moment. And then, you know, to see, to see the result of this scene, that proved it.

I was like, oh, okay, I guess she does really think that she is crazy. So, that, that, you know, made sense. And that’s an interesting choice, too. A lot of times, In movies and stories like this, we, you know, the whole story is that character is absolutely convinced that, that they’re not crazy and they’re the only ones and nobody will believe them.

She’s not going there. There’s nothing in this movie about her trying to convince people that she’s not crazy and that Chucky was real. And that’s refreshing, actually, to be honest. Cause then it, it allows space for the movie to go in some other interesting directions, I think. Well, that, okay, so 

Craig: that Chuck, there’s already one Chucky there.

And then immediately, I feel like Nika is called out of this meeting. And somebody says, you have a visitor. Yeah. And she walks down to somebody’s office. Is it the doctor that’s in there? I don’t remember who’s in there. But, who should be waiting for her? The doctor, Nika, I’d like you to meet Miss Valentine and it’s Jennifer Tilly.

And Nika looking great, by the way, she looks different. She’s kind of got long blonde hair, but she, her face looks beautiful. She looks fantastic. And she’s just kind of sitting there filing her nails and Nika rolls in and says, God, you look familiar. Has anybody ever told you, you look just like Jennifer Tilly?

And she says, yeah, I get that a lot.

Oh my God. The first time I saw that I had to pause it because I couldn’t stop laughing. I thought it was the funniest thing because things are getting so convoluted because that is Jennifer Tilly, but it’s really Tiffany and Steve.

But anyway, the doctor is like, she was Alice’s guardian and they kind of trade jabs about something like Nika tells Tiffany she doesn’t look very motherly because I think Tiffany said, you’re not like what I expected. I expected you to be more formidable or like somebody who could actually do something or something like that.

And she’s like, well, you don’t seem very motherly. And then she’s like, well, how is Alice? She goes, Oh, sweetie, she’s dead. And, and Nika’s like, what? What happened? And she said, well, I’m no doctor, but I think it was a broken heart. 

Todd: She’s just there to dig into her. 

Craig: Oh yeah. She is just here to grind glass into this woman’s heart.

But then she says, but wait, I think Alice would have wanted you to have something. And she pulls out another Chucky. And, and the doctor’s like, wait, is that the actual? And, and she’s like, no, no, Alice’s doctor gave her this. She, they thought it would help with therapy. So now there’s two. And then, and then Tiffany just leaves.

I don’t know what happens next. 

Todd: Yeah, well, I think this is, this is when Chucky starts to animate and walk around. 

Craig: Well, the, the, my, one of my favorite scenes is two people are holding Chucky dolls, walking towards one another in a hallway. The two dolls pass by one another, and at this point, we still don’t really know I mean, we know that there are multiple dolls in the building, but we don’t know that there are any of them are animated and so I’m still thinking, Oh, which one is it?

Which one is it? And I don’t know. They, they make the Fiona, Fiona, Nika makes the doctor test to make sure that, but you’re right. This is when they, and, and Chucky, one of them. One of them reveals itself to move. We see its eyes move. 

Todd: Yeah. You know, obviously not to the characters, but as everyone’s left the room, it, there’s this long hold on Chucky, which is just brilliant.

It’s this long hold on him. And we’re sitting there waiting for him to move, like move, move, move. You gotta move. And then. He moves, and I, thank you, that was so satisfying. But yeah, at some point during group, I think they’re, the two dolls are there together. And, uh, she makes the doctor prove that one of them’s not real, and so he goes over and burns But at this point, somebody’s 

Craig: already died, that’s 

Todd: why That’s why she does it, yeah, because That’s why she does it.

Because Chucky 

Craig: animates. Because the ghost lady, yeah. And he comes, and he’s gonna kill Nika, But he finds that she has already slit her own wrist and is bleeding out, but she wakes up in the morning and by her bed is a pool of blood that Chucky has written. What not yet, 

Todd: not just yet or something like 

Craig: that, and he has crudely sewn her up.

Todd: I guess this is possible, 

Craig: whatever, which she hides from the nurse, but then they also find Angela dead. Same thing, Chucky had slit her wrist with the broken spoke from the wheelchair, and there’s a pool of blood at her bedside, and it says, Chucky did it. Now, 

Todd: Chucky on his way to Nika’s room, Angela pops out and looks at him and does the whole, can you see me thing.

Can you see me, yeah. They have a really interesting exchange here. Where’s 

Craig: Nika? Last door on the right, you can see me. Yeah, I can see you. Don’t be afraid. What? I’m not going to hurt you. You f ing with me? No, I’m not. Tell you the truth, I’m happy to have the company. Even if you aren’t real. Okay. Let me explain something to you.

I am a vintage, mass marketed children’s toy from the 80s, standing right in front of you, holding a very sharp scalpel. No, you’re not. Yes, I am. I’m a schizophrenic. I see things. Aren’t you the crazy bitch I talked to last night on the phone? Sometimes I hear things too. Okay, lady. You know what? You’re next.

I’m gonna be right back. Okay, you’re next. Just because she annoys 

Todd: him. That’s where the comedy of this comes in. Like, they had this really bizarre conversation that only a crazy woman who thinks she’s dead and doesn’t mind that she’s talking to a doll. And this killer doll was like, Who the f are you and what the f are you talking about kind of attitude and then at the end all right well I’m coming back for you, you’re next.

Yeah, yeah. It’s great. This is where I like the, you know, like I said, this is where I found the movie more charming than the previous one, because I felt like there was more of the, the old Chucky that I knew and loved in it. Yeah, I, 

Craig: I agree. There, we check back in with Andy really quick just to find out that he has read that Nika has been moved, but that somebody else in the hospital has died.

And he, we see him watching, he has a video where he is in Doc Foley’s office with the Chucky head. Yeah. Proving that it’s alive. But the doctor just won’t believe this and I still like, I just am not sure what to think of that doctor. Like, because he says to Andy, he says, Andy, are you sure that you’re just not crazy?

I mean, come on, the thing was in the 

Todd: room. He could prove it if he wants to. He just doesn’t want to. He’s like, oh, that’s a, that’s a clever bit of animatronics, whatever. And, oh, come on, 

Craig: come on. I really started to wonder, and I remember the first time that I watched this, I wondered if the doctor was in on it with.

Chuckie, right? And I don’t I don’t think he is. No, he’s not. In fact, Chuckie hates him. Yeah, because it turns out he’s 

Todd: a big perv. Oh, God, he’s an 

Craig: awful person who’s been molesting Nika. Yeah, it’s terrible. But then there’s the whole test she makes. And I don’t really understand this either, because she makes the doctor.

Hold fire to Chucky’s fingers, one of them, until they melt and elongate into this long claw, which makes him stand out from the other ones, which they intentionally did. All of the Chucky’s here, they tried to give them some defining characteristics so that you could tell between them. I don’t know why, they all have the same personality.

Right. Doesn’t make any difference. Yeah. But, I also don’t understand that scene, because Is, has Chucky just gotten really good at tolerating pain? 

Todd: Yeah, I know. I don’t get it either. It should have, according to the previous rules, he should have revealed himself. Is 

Craig: he not in that 

Todd: one yet? Oh, that’s a possibility, I suppose.

Yeah, maybe. Well, it’s sort of like the thing, right? Like, now it’s a puzzle for us. Well, which one is he? Is he hopping around? What’s going on there? And that’s, that’s kind of an interesting thing to occupy your mind when you’re watching this movie and keep you guessing. It does lend itself to some possibilities before it’s revealed that he’s pretty much in all the dolls.

Craig: Well, and we don’t know. Okay, so Nika suspect believes that it’s alive at this point, at least one of them. And it gets further complicated when the lady who’s treating the doll as her baby takes it outside and Nika watches them as though it looks like they’re talking to one another and then the lady hugs the doll so that it’s facing Nika and the doll flips her off so there’s no doubt she knows for sure that it’s Chucky and multiple Malcolm because the guy that she banged has dissociative personality disorder or whatever that’s called and he has like multiple personalities or whatever.

He goes out it appears that the doll tells Madeline to throw it in an open grave because they apparently have an open very people who died yeah they have a graveyard right outside so she throws the doll in there and then. She like points down to it but then she pushes malcolm in and then malcolm lifts the doll out but then malcolm like lifts his head up above the earth and looks at nika and gives her like a knowing look i still don’t know what to make of this because i believe.

That. And I think that Nika believes That Chucky has now possessed this guy. Yeah. Are we to believe that too? Cause he starts acting real weird. We’re 

Todd: to believe it, but later on, there’s something that he says that doesn’t jive with the actual. 

Craig: Well, I have a theory about that too, but. Oh, you do? Yeah, I do.

But well, I’ll just say it now. Who cares? At the end she finds him like over a dead body and well this is getting into some complicated things but he claims to have killed somebody but it turns out he didn’t really and he says no i’m charles nobody calls me chuckie but then there’s some dialogue i think that he was possessed or is possessed by chuckie a part of him but because he has multiple personality disorder that part of him Is now just one of him inside.

Well, for sure. I believe 

Todd: that 

Craig: Chuckie talks to him and says, you couldn’t handle it or something like that. So I think he did possess him, but I think that it didn’t take well, or that it’s like, like what happens if you possess somebody who has multiple personalities, you know, are you only possessing one personality?

I think that’s kind of, I don’t know. Who cares? 

Todd: I thought that was what, The idea was supposed to be that now he has the Chucky personality sort of added to his arsenal of personalities. Yes, that’s what I think too. But when his Chucky personality comes up, he says, well, nobody calls me Chucky. That’s not true.

He actually preferred to be 

Craig: called that. I don’t think that’s the real Charles Lee Ray part of him. I think that’s him. Faking. 

Todd: Faking. By now you’re saying he’s gone, and Right, 

Craig: right. Oh, okay. But, I don’t know. We don’t need to get that much into it. So, what happens of the rest? The Asian lady goes to throw away one of the dolls.

I hate when I re I hate when I do that. She has a name. Claire goes to try to throw away one of the dolls, but it bites her, and so she knows it’s alive, but they think she’s nuts, so they restrain her, they strap her to a table, and sedate her. And she’s terrified and like crying because they also leave the Chucky doll in there with her while they go to tend to something else.

I don’t know something else going on. They always 

Todd: do this in movies. A 

Craig: lot happens pretty quickly, right? But they leave her in there and you know We get the classic Chucky’s feet scurrying along and eventually she looks over and he’s just standing there looking at her with a wicked grin And she can’t move or talk or anything.

She’s conscious, but Out of it. And he is holding a bottle of compressed air and he says, compressed, does that mean what I think it means? And in what I can only assume is a nod back to bride of Chucky, he throws the tank down on the ground so that it explodes like a rocket and shoots up through an enormous skylight.

Uh huh. Directly above her, and the thick skylight glass shatters and falls down on her, and it’s snowing outside, and this all happens in slow motion. The glass and the snow fall. It’s a great shot. It looks fantastic. It is. 

Todd: So, I have some questions about the snow. Because, so she gets decapitated, it’s really cool actually, and cut up by the glass, much like the people in Bride.

And then there’s this beautiful scene, like you said, of just her body laying there and the snow falling down on it. Later on, I think Claire has Either a dream, or some visions, or Nika. Nika, sorry. Has a dream or some visions where there’s snow falling on her as well. I also remember in the previous movie, after she was wrestling with Chucky in the elevator, and she stabs him in the back and pulls out the knife, there’s stuff that falls on her that Looks like snow and I don’t remember that that was an unanswered question for me because I wasn’t sure if that was like some of his stuffing that went up in the air and came down.

I think 

Craig: so. Yeah, but it’s 

Todd: treated very similarly. It’s like slow motion and that’s coming down and clear looks up at it and kind of kind of like you look up at snow and I thought is she going into some kind of visionary state or something like that. Yeah. Is this gonna transition into a snowy scene? And it never does, but it’s a very stark thing.

Craig: It’s a, it’s a nightmare. 

Todd: I’m talking about the previous movie. Oh, right. So, to see that come out again, very prominently in this movie, like, two more times, that was a connection that I wasn’t sure what to make of. I don’t think you can deny there’s some kind of stylistic visual connection there. I don’t know.

Craig: I, I think it’s just a good visual. I mean, you could say the same thing about, well, it’s, you know, similar in the, the imagery to that scene from Bride. I mean, it may, it may just be an additional callback. 

Todd: I guess so, but it’s just, it’s just kind of weird to have snow indoors in three different scenes across two movies.

Yeah. 

Craig: But anyway. Well, and this time it’s a dream because we find out that her doctor basically brought her here so that he would have easier access to her because he hypnotizes her and molests her, which is disgusting. And fortunately we don’t get to see anything and he’s just a big sicko, but he has her hypnotized.

And she kind of giggles and he’s like, what’s so funny? And she says, Chucky, he’s right behind you. And of course the doctor doesn’t turn around, but then he gets knocked out. And even Chucky is like skeeved out by the doctor. He’s like, holy shit. And they call me sick. This guy is diabolical. What a piece of work.

I’m actually a little envious. He’s like, I don’t, I don’t know whether to kill him or take notes. 

Todd: And 

Craig: the first time this happens, Nika is hypnotized. And then she wakes up seemingly on that bed that Claire had just died on. And then she wakes up again, I think like on the floor in the hallway and she looks up and she’s lying at the feet of Alice.

And Alice says he’s coming or something like that. And then you start hearing these thunderous footsteps and then a enormous Chucky is standing over her as she lays on the floor and it turns out it’s a dream, right? But I don’t remember what happens next. We know that Andy is on the way. Tiffany calls Andy.

She calls him and taunts him and is like, The cult is growing every day. Andy knows something weird is going on because these killings are happening. And he thinks he has the only Chucky, but Chucky says something like, Did you think I was the only one? Yeah. And now Tiffany says there’s three of us and, and the cult is getting bigger by the day and she taunts him and laughs.

So he’s on his way there. With another Chucky that he pulls out of a closet and this one has like a buzz cut. 

Todd: What is this? Why does he have another Chucky doll that he’s given a buzz cut to in his closet? Why and how? I don’t 

Craig: get that bit. Well, and, and then the, the buzz cut doll gets delivered to the doctor who just is like, I don’t know why somebody would send me this and just leaves it on his desk.

Andy’s trying to get in, and this is the point, the doctor gets skeevy with her again, Chucky hits him AGAIN in exactly the same way and knocks him out, and both of these times, he’s tried to get Nika to kill the doctor, which in my opinion, she would have every right to do, but, um, she won’t, because like, she’s like, I’m not a murderer, and he’s like, not yet.

And there’s like the Chucky conference. 

Todd: That’s right. Well, is that before, after Madeline does goes through the whole thing with it’s after, yeah, I don’t even know how important it is, but Madeline, who, you know, has murdered her child and still feels guilty about it, smothers it with a pillow. She’s, she’s all nice and sweet to it.

Oh, she’s breastfeeding it. Which is, oh my god, that was so 

Craig: cringy. And her nipple is bleeding through her white 

Todd: nightgown. It’s not even stated, you know, it’s just something you see and take note of, which makes it even creepier. But, yeah, and, but then she smothers it. And then, as she smothers it, you know, Chucky’s hand is in a fist, and it opens up and relaxes.

And I thought, is this a new rule, too? That Chucky breathes and Can be smothered to death. No, I knew that was going to be a fake out. It was definitely a fake out, but it was a fake out. She couldn’t even see. Right. So that it was a fake out for us. Yes, yes, it was. Chucky was fooling the viewing audience, but yeah, but that’s when, uh, what’s her name burst in and says, no, don’t worry.

He’s faking it. Yada, yada, yada. And he said, all this other stuff happens, but you’re right. There’s a Chucky conference. So now all the adults are together in one 

Craig: room and they, they animate the short haired one. Okay. So there’s. The long claw one, there’s the dirty one that got buried, because they buried one of them.

Mm hmm. There’s There’s the short haired one. Like a regular, like a regular one in the sh Well, they wake it up here, and this is when Chucky tells Nika that he can do this. Oh, 

Todd: right, because he, he literally, because of course the short haired one is not animated yet. Right. 

Craig: But they animated and I think that it’s funny that they have a whole moment in here and I don’t remember what happens.

They are talking to me, but then they decide they’re going to split up and one of them is going to go kill Chucky and they they all want to do it, but the short hair ones like guys look at my hair and the other two are like. Oh God, I’m so sorry. Yeah, you, you could totally do it. It was such a stupid line, but I thought it was hilarious.

It was funny. Oh God, he also, when he’s explaining, you know, what happened here, he talks about all the people he’s killed and how, and then he says that he can be anyone. And that initially she possessed Alice because, People would question a sweet little girl even less than they would question a sweet little doll.

He said, but the problem with little girls is they can get hurt when their victims fight back and then once they get hurt, they’re not so sweet and 

Todd: cute anymore. Yeah, so I guess the implication is that he was using Alice and then Alice died during one of his attempted murders, right? Right. 

Craig: Or was so maimed that she wasn’t useful to him anymore.

Yeah. Which is pretty dark. It’s very dark. . And then Carlos, the nurse comes in and sees the dolls and they all attack him and kill him. Brutally. Like brutally. They’re all stabbing him and tearing at him, drilling him 

Todd: through the heart with a long ass. Well, I don’t know. What is the point of that long ass drill.

That’s what I wanna know. I don’t know. Why is that thing kicking around? The , the facility. Jesus. So 

Craig: then the short hair one gets to go kill Andy. Then we cut outside where there is a vintage. Car and I knew immediately that that was Tiff. That was Tiffany’s car. I mean, that would be totally her style. And this, the guard like walks up and there’s nobody in the front seat, but the Tiffany doll, who we haven’t seen yet is in the backseat.

And then Tiffany. As she is prone to do, slits the cop’s throat 

Todd: from behind. That is her modus operandi. The she, she, yep. 

Craig: That’s her signature 

Todd: move. It’s just a running gag now is what it is. She always like then takes the knife and kind of licks it or like plays with it afterwards and says something funny.

It’s cute. 

Craig: And then. One of the Chuckies possesses 

Todd: Mika. This is brilliant. I wanted to stand up and applaud during this bit because I thought this is so perfect. I 

Craig: thought this was so clever. Now, this pervy doctor has already put these, like, hooker red high heels on her, because apparently he’s into feet or whatever.

Gross. He also, like, sucks one of her toes. He’s disgusting. It’s so disgusting. Not that I’m, not that, I don’t shame you if that’s your thing. That’s fine, but not against somebody’s will. Yeah, gross. But when Nika is possessed, her body, I don’t know how to describe it, almost, doesn’t levitate, but, because her feet don’t leave the ground.

It’s, it’s, it’s as though her upper body kind of supernaturally rises. To standing position. It was a bit of a 

Todd: Nosferatu move there. Yeah. Yes. 

Craig: Well, it’s Chucky now inside her and she grabs her own boobs and says, Hey, there are some perks to these voodoo possessions. And he’s not just talking about the boobs, but also the fact that when she’s possessed by Chucky, she can walk.

And I think that this is brilliant. And I also think, and you only get to see a little bit of it here. You get to see more of it later. Viona Doroth playing her father as Charles Lee Ray is fucking brilliant. It really is. It is so good. She looks like him. She does, she 

Todd: has his eyes. 

Craig: She can get his facial expressions.

She can do the voice. To an extent. I mean, it still sounds like a woman, but it’s got his inflections. Can do the laugh can do, she can mimic his physicality. It’s brilliant. And I love it. 

Todd: She just stomps Foley’s head in. Oh yeah. That’s why he’ll choose. 

Craig: That was great. Then Nika who’s really Chucky talks to that Malcolm guy and, you know, tells him he’s weak or whatever, and then the Chucky’s kill him and then the short hair Chucky.

Gets it Andy has the only way he’s been able to get himself in was by attacking a guard to get himself committed, which that’s not how that works, but OK, so the short haired Chucky gets into his padded room and they fight a little bit, but Andy gets him pinned up against the wall and he pulls down his overalls and rips into his abdomen and pulls out a gun.

This was his plan all along. Yeah, I entered that gun in the inanimate doll to get it into the hospital. I guess knowing. That it would eventually be animated and come for him and he could get the gun, and he does. Oh, that question 

Todd: was nagging me the whole time. I’m like, why did he send the doll there?

That was a satisfying answer. At this 

Craig: point in the movie, it feels like it’s setting up for something. Yeah. But you look, and there’s like a minute left. Yeah. Like, what is, what is gonna happen? And Nika is standing in the doorway once he, he curb stomps that Chucky too. And that’s pretty gross, but then Nika is in the doorway and he turns around with the gun and she says, uh, kill me, kill her.

She just says, Oh, the, the alarm goes off or something. She just tag you’re at pal and slams the door. And then she walks outside and meets Tiffany out there where they chat briefly and then make out. And, uh, Chucky in Nika’s body says. So, this is different, and Tiffany says, I don’t know, works for me, and I, I love this, I think it’s great, I, I buy that 100 percent that Tiffany would be down for it, why not, they’re, they’re both hot, it’s still the same guy she knew, so what, Tiffany, they get in the car together, and Tiffany says, She kind of feels bad about Alice, it was kind of nice having Alice around, and Chucky kind of contemplates for a second, like, yeah, And then he goes, nah, that kid.

And then they’re laughing. And you also see that the Tiffany doll in the back seat is also laughing, laughing. So presumably there are also multiple Tiffany’s. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Drive away. And that’s the end, but you have to wait for the end credit scene, and the end credit scene is, you know, the Chucky head in the, in Andy’s cabin, and you see somebody through the frosted window approaching, and they open the door, and before, I think it’s before they reveal who it is, they pan across Andy’s photos, him and his mom, him and Kyle.

And it goes back to the door and it’s Kyle and Chuckie head goes, Kyle. And she says, Andy sent me, we’re going to have some fun. And then that’s the end. And I think maybe you hear him scream or whatever. Uh, I can’t tell you. And I’m sure I was not alone because two is such a fan favorite. Seeing Kyle return at the end.

I was dying and I, I thought, Oh my God, she’s, that means she’s officially back and surely we will see her again. And I was so 

Todd: excited. And, and at this point, Andy is locked up in a padded room in the facility, right? So he’s locked up though. Chuckie and Tina get away with everything and get out just like they did in the, in the last movie, right?

And even in Seed, I suppose. And Kyle showed up, and we got a Chucky head, and who knows how many other Chuckies are out there. And then I think there’s still the question of Alice. I, I mean, they kind of allude to the fact that she’s dead, but we don’t know that for 

Craig: certain. Tiffany says she’s dead, but she could easily be lying.

Exactly, that’s my point. Yes, I was just gonna say, the reappearance of Andy in the previous movie, and the reappearance of Kyle in this movie, made me believe that they were committed. To keeping This story canon and, and that I felt like this opened the door. Anybody from the past could pop 

Todd: up. Right, right.

And is that indeed how the series goes? I’m curious. Uh, I 

Craig: don’t want to be too spoilery about it, but definitely other people show up. People that have played prominent roles in the past that we haven’t seen for a while. There are new characters, of course, there’s, you know, it really kind of focuses on a new core, new core group of characters, but, uh, the old school characters are very, are pivotal to the events and play fairly large roles and yes, characters that we haven’t heard from in a while show back up and, and not all at once, you know, I’ve, there are three seasons out and I’ve, I’ve, I’ve said this before, but Alan and I are saving the third season kind of for the Halloween season.

So I’ve only seen the first two, so I don’t really know what happens in the third, but lots and lots of fun Easter eggs and, and cameos and character reappearances and yeah, it’s super fun. I think that you guys are really going to like it. If you, if you’ve liked these last few movies. I think you’re really going to be into this series.

Well, 

Todd: this movie set just the right tone for me. Like I had said with the previous one, I just, it was a little jarring how dark and unfunny it was. And this one has got a great blend of keeping that dark, horror, modern feel that it needs, really. And it’s still having the fun Jokey Chucky that I also love and Tina’s back in it and it’s just really That’s 

Craig: the second time I let it go the first 

Todd: time.

Oh and Tiffany’s back in it. Why? Jesus I don’t know why I want to call her Tina She looks like I feel like, is 

Craig: there a, I feel like there’s a, an evil doll whose name is Tina. There is 

Todd: talking Tina talking Tina from what is it? Twilight zone or I think it’s twilight zone. Yeah. Talking at all. 

Craig: Maybe you got that in mind.

I don’t know, but 

Todd: yeah, it struck the right balance for me and I was just. And, and just so clever, like I said before, Don Mancini knows how to plot a story, he kept you guessing, it was interesting, it was very satisfying in so many ways, it was cool to see the new, the old characters come back and play roles.

It was very unexpected, like, very unpredictable, you know, I didn’t know what was gonna go on, what was happening, and I was constantly surprised through the movie, and even the doctor character turning out to be such a skeeze was a surprise. So, like, the whole thing was just so much fun, and I really, really enjoyed it, and, you know, I know there’s a series, and that’s probably taking up a lot of time, but I would love to see another movie, too!

Craig: Yeah, I, and I, you know, he has Said that he plans to do more movies and I hope that he does I kind of expect that he maybe didn’t think that the series would get picked up as much as it did like after the first season I thought it was really good and it critical reception was was good but you know it’s so niche I thought I don’t know it will be really lucky if we get a second season and then we got a second season and then I thought.

Well, that was lucky that lightning’s not gonna strike twice. And then we got a third season. I, I’m not surprised because it is really good. I’m kind of surprised that it has found a large enough audience to keep it going because networks and production companies are so fickle. Oh, 

Todd: they’re, they’re completely data driven now.

And, you know, if even if it’s a large following, if it doesn’t hit that right number that they feel that they need, they’ll, they’ll cancel it without any regrets. So it must have reached that number or else you wouldn’t have seen Three Seasons. 

Craig: I guess, and you know, maybe he’s just milking this for all it’s worth until they tell him he can’t do it anymore and then he’ll take it back to, to movies, and I’m fine with that.

Todd: You know, I think if you start a series, you almost have an obligation to keep it going as long as possible because, you know, you’re giving these people jobs. Everyone wants it to keep going. Well, that’s 

Craig: true. I kind of thought you meant the franchise. And I think that’s true unless there just stop being stories to tell.

And I think that some franchises overstay their welcome. 

Todd: Oh for sure. When they jump the shark, right? 

Craig: Yeah. But this one has not for me. I’m still totally into it. I’ve been to these characters. I’m into the humor. Keep it coming as far as I’m concerned. And if the day comes where I do think that they’ve overstayed their welcome or jumped the shark, I’ll be honest about it, but it 

Todd: hasn’t happened.

That’s impressive. Actually, that it hasn’t again, I think it’s a testament to the Don Mancini really cares about these characters. And, you know what, he also has the benefit of doing this over decades. Right. And being able to see where other series go wrong. Yeah. Deliberately not repeat those mistakes that previous series have made.

I tell ya, this has been a crash course for me and Chuckiedom, and this villain’s got a new fan. I I really do enjoy this now, and you know, you had recommended the series to me, and you said, Oh, you know what, I’m like, I’m not really like that into Chucky, but if you say it’s good, I’d like to see it, but I need to crash course first.

Now I’m a bit into Chucky. Good. Like, I will go back and re watch some of these earlier movies, and honestly, I don’t even think the third was that bad. No, no, 

Craig: I don’t either. I like it. It’s probably my least favorite, but that’s not to say that I don’t like it or that it’s bad at all. You know, we put something up on our Patreon page and said something about the movie and somebody came on and was kind of fired up.

Uh, no, this is, this is not the worst one in the franchise and they thought Seed was the worst one, which I, there was a time when I shared that opinion. I don’t need more, but there was a time when I shared it. So I give it their, where that person is coming from and I don’t think either of us really are criticizing it.

It was fine, I just think that, like I said earlier, it was maybe the least 

Todd: creative. Well, you know, there’s, you know, what is objectively worse or better? Like, nothing’s objective in this case, but like, it’s a lot easier to talk about what’s your favorite, you know, which one spoke to you more. And I would honestly say that I, at the end of the day, enjoyed the third one more than I enjoyed last one we did.

Oh, yeah, cursed. So, you know, everyone’s gonna have their opinions. None of these are bad though. Really, none of them are bad. And I 

Craig: had a really good time doing this. I was a little nervous about it. I thought we might burn out, especially since we really powered through these. We haven’t done that in a long time.

Especially since Six, six Chucky movies in two weeks. God, I 

Todd: don’t think I could do this with many other franchises. I certainly, I did this once actually with Friday the 13th and I just finally I quit. I had to give up. Yeah. I couldn’t do that. I was like, Oh, I can’t take any more of this. And I liked those movies.

Yeah. I enjoy them in bite sized pieces, you know, every now and then it’s kind of fun to see a new one, but like to try to plow through them, no, they’re just, there’s not enough variety. Agreed. Well, thank you guys so much for sticking with us through this. I hope you enjoyed this. Please let us know what you thought of our little Chucky Marathon this last month and a week.

And you can do that by Googling us, Two Guys and a Chainsaw podcast. Find our website, find all of our social media, leave us a message there. The best thing you can do for us is leave us a review on your favorite podcasting platform and tell the world what you think honestly of our podcast. Well you know, we love seeing those reviews, we love hearing from you directly.

Oh, just go to ChainsawHorror. com and you can check out a link to our Patreon. You can talk to us directly using a link there to record a little message. We do love to hear from you guys, no matter how you find us. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Eight years after the wackiness of Seed of Chucky, Curse of Chucky came out of nowhere and surprised Child’s Play fans with yet another tonal shift for the series, setting up a host of new characters and bringing the killer doll lore full circle with the first film.

After 5 films of an increasingly wacky, campy and jokey premise, this one managed to deftly bring Chucky back to his horror roots, with a more spooky edge, stylized visuals, and dark themes.

Whooo hooo, what a ride this is turning out to be!

Curse of Chucky (2013)

Episode 383, 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 have plowed on through to the sixth in the Child’s Play franchise. Now it’s all about Chucky, Bride of Chucky, Seed of Chucky, and now this, Curse of Chucky. And, uh, we have gotten to this point. I’m just going to say it right off the bat, where watching all of these in sequence for the very first time is maybe going to color my feelings about this movie.

Craig: Oh no, that makes me nervous. 

Todd: Well, you don’t need to be nervous. What do you care how I feel about it? I 

Craig: do care because I love it and I want you to also. 

Todd: So what, this movie came out in 2013 and Seed was out in 

Craig: It was like seven years. I don’t know, but it was 

Todd: long. Seven years between the two. So, I mean, I understand that, especially by 2013, there have been some really shitty horror remakes and sequels.

Right. Especially the Nightmare on Elm Street one. Uh Yes. God, like, people are a little divided on the Halloween one. The Rob Zombie Halloween one, it was It had no joy in it. It was just a very brutal and violent sort of, I think, mean-spirited kind of movie, which one could argue is perfect for displaying what should be the personification of evil.

But I, I, I, I liked it , I’m, I didn’t mind it, but I wasn’t motivated to the see the second one, and I don’t know, I think, I think a lot of people remain divided on how that one went. But anyway, so this, I can see why they needed to go in a different direction with this. Oh 

Craig: Todd, I’m already disappointed. Ugh.

Because I like this movie so much. Don Mancini had wanted to do a remake. of Child’s Play for a really long time. And it was because of those movies that you just mentioned that he didn’t, because they sucked. Well, that’s not fair. I actually do like Rob Zombie’s Halloween movies. They’re different, and you’re right, they’re kind of mean spirited, but That, those are kind of the horror movies that he makes, and that’s fine.

Yeah. But like, the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, I didn’t care for at all. Like, you know, kudos to everybody who was involved with it, nice try. It just wasn’t for me. I also didn’t particularly care for the Friday the 13th remake. I just thought it was mediocre. 

Todd: I didn’t even see it. No, it’s 

Craig: mediocre. You don’t need to see it.

It’s, it’s, it’s dumb. So, he had wanted to make a remake for a long time, but after the, basically, the, kind of the box office failure of, of those, and, and the poor critical response that they got, he decided not to do a remake, because he didn’t think that it would be received well, and he went in this direction, and I love it, and I’m so sad that you don’t.

Because I think, because I think that it is such a cool, like, it is such a hard left turn. From the last two movies, you know, like not just 

Todd: the last two, I would say everything up to this point. Maybe the first one, you know, was attempting to be something like this, but it was the eighties. Yes, yes. But then, like the second and particularly the second one.

The third one, we’re getting a more jokey, kind of fun, Chucky. And then, of course, he takes that huge lean into the comedy with the fifth, with the fourth and the fifth ones that we just finished watching. And it was just fun. It was kind of a fun romp. And by the seat of Chucky, horror was kind of a backseat to the comedy.

And so, this is very much bringing it back to these horror roots. I, uh, the point I’m trying to make is, as a movie, this is a great movie. It looks good. It’s, it’s suspenseful, it’s well paced, I think, maybe a little slow in the beginning, but well paced, and, you know, if this was the first Chucky movie that I’d ever seen, I’d be pretty impressed with it.

I think just having watched over the period of just like a week or two, you know? Yeah, I know. All of the, I was gearing up for at least a, I knew it would go in a slightly different direction, but I was gearing up for that fun Chucky that I knew, and this isn’t the fun Chucky. No. This is a mean, Angry Chucky, he barely quips in this movie, he barely talks in this movie.

He 

Craig: doesn’t talk for the first 45 minutes. Yeah! Not Brad Dourif. You hear the doll Chucky voice, but you don’t hear Brad Dourif until 45 minutes in. 

Todd: Yeah, and then even after that, like, there, I saw, I saw in the trivia, Brad Dourif recorded all of his lines in less than a day, and I’m like, well, no shit, there may, maybe Chucky’s got 20 lines in the whole movie, it wouldn’t have taken them that long, so, this just isn’t, and maybe I’d been used to also, he had people to play off of before, not only was he playing off of, Jennifer Tilly’s character.

Did I get it right, Tiff? Yeah, you did. 

Craig: Thank God. Well, you didn’t, you didn’t actually say the name, but you got Jennifer Tilly right. Alright. 

Todd: Tiffany? Wasn’t the name of her? Tiffany. Tiffany. Tiff, yeah. Yeah, so Tiff, Tiffany, the Tiffany character in the last two, they had this kind of thing, and then God, even in like the second one, he’s practically playing off of Andy, you know, I, I mean, there’s just so much back and forth.

And this one is the brutal, cold, calculated, mostly in the shadows, popping out, and then going back to doll form or just not being there at all, Chucky with the knife, and it doesn’t have the fun and the joy of the other movies, which is fine. It’s not bad. It’s just jarring. When I’ve been inundated, well, 

Craig: see what you don’t like about it is specifically what I like.

about it because it, again, you have to keep in mind that we had, you know, I thought I thought the franchise, I thought the franchise was over. Like I thought it was done. I thought that seed had killed it. Like, you know, I’ve said before in previous podcasts, you know, initially I didn’t really like seed. I thought that they had leaned too far into the silliness and I just thought the franchise was over and I thought, you know, that’s fine.

It had a good run. You know, even Seed I liked it, so this came as a surprise and we didn’t know what to expect and I liked these first 45 minutes because the good guy doll looks I mean, it calls back to what, you know, it’s a pristine. When you see the first good guy doll, it’s a pristine good guy doll.

Gone are Chucky’s scars. Gone is Chucky’s scowl. We know what’s going on. We know this is a living killer doll movie. So we have these certain expectations. And the movie defies the expectations. It takes us back to part one. Like you’re not going to see the doll move very much initially. And you’re going to question what is going on because this is not our Chucky.

Our Chucky is an unhinged lunatic who just dribbles at the mouth all the time. This Chucky is still and silent and looks like a doll. And that happens for the first 45 minutes. And I had no idea what was going on. What is happening? Is this why now, after the craziness of. Seed and bride. What is happening?

And I didn’t understand what was happening and so I was very much on the edge of my seat. And then, when the coin flips, about halfway through, I was like, that was so clever. Because it is the Chucky we know and love, but you don’t find that out until much later. And this film is just shot so differently.

It is shot like A horror film. And Don Mancini said he felt like this was his first experience as a horror director because he felt like Seat of Chucky was a comedy. And this gave him the opportunity. The first, I mean, the first half is all like Dutch angles and weird lighting and I mean, it’s like Hitchcock.

Like, it’s shot like 

Todd: Hitchcock. The whole movie takes place in a big gothic mansion. Right. It’s raining and thundering and lightning outside. It is Over the top like a classic Universal monster movie. Right. And I actually like that. I thought that was great. I love those movies. I like to see modern takes on it.

I’m perfectly fine with that. Yeah, it’s not like the colorful and kind of whimsical scenarios and scenes that we’ve seen in previous movies. Right. But I’m willing to go with that. That’s cool. It’s just jarring. That’s all I’m saying. It’s jarring to go from the whimsical to this. If I had had seven years in between and was hearing that they were rebooting, remaking, whatever’s going on with the franchise, and then I had been presented with this movie, I probably would have better feelings about it, 

Craig: you know?

I warned you. I told you, I said, you have to go into this understanding that we had no idea what it was going to be. Yeah. And the fact I, the fact that it’s jarringly different, I think that’s the, the absolute best choice that Mancini and whoever was in charge could have made. Well, it probably is. I mean, Sure, sure.

You know, follow, you know, follow the formula, you know, yuck it up because Chucky’s funny and he is and I like funny Chucky. But, you’re coming back after so long, you’re in a whole, that’s another, such an interesting thing about this franchise is that it pops up every ten years or so, when the landscape of cinema has changed entirely.

Yeah. And if you, if you don’t come at me and surprise me somehow with this, I think you’re gonna lose me. And this one surprised me, and I liked it. 

Todd: Well, I mean, it’s very true that the middle two, I guess I’ll call them the middle two Chucky movies, right? Yeah. They had a distinct sort of 90s vibe. Yeah.

Early aughts. Yeah. Yeah. But like kind of coming off of what was established in the 90s, like where everything was very meta and self referential and nobody wanted to take everything, anything horror seriously anymore. Yes. So we were playing with that. So it’s dated in that way, even though you can still watch it and it holds up just fine.

Sure. It’s fine. And this absolutely has a more modern sensibility to it. This is absolutely what the first Chucky movie would have been like if it had been made for the first time. Correct! Ten years ago. Correct! I get all that. And you know, this is what the 80s movie was trying to be, in a way. It was just Right!

80s version of this kind of movie, which in retrospect is cheesy. I’m going to get 

Craig: you on board with this movie because like, you see, you know, like when the, the silly ones and I call them the silly ones lovingly, I really liked them, but bride and seed when they came out, that was so of the time. But I feel like after that things really diversified and you were getting a lot more variety in film.

Mainstream still exists, but there has been such an off branching that you’re getting more art house films and you’re getting more experimentation and right. And I feel like this followed into that trend. You know, like I’m thinking of that group of filmmakers who we talk about all the time. I can’t think of their names now, but like this movie reminds me a movie that you really liked.

Like the innkeepers. Do you remember that movie? 

Todd: Oh yeah, oh god, I saw it like last month, again. The first 

Craig: half of this movie gives me those kinds of vibes, like spooky, gothic, potentially like haunted kind of stuff. In Keywords is 

Todd: very understated. This is way overstated. That’s true. I know what you’re saying.

I, I, you’re talking about it, it’s, it’s slow paced, it takes its time, but it’s interesting. Right. And it’s spooky. 

Craig: Oh my god, I just feel like the way that it’s shot is so interesting. Nika, the main character, we’re going to get into this in a Like, immediately, but Nika, the main character, is paraplegic, and so she’s in a wheelchair.

And every time that the camera shoots from behind her at somebody else, it’s shot from her level. So you’re looking up at people. And anytime that somebody is talking to Nika, it’s shot at a sharp angle. All of the shots are really wide. It’s cinematic! It’s very cinematic. And I can’t believe this movie should have been released in theaters.

Yeah, that’s shocking. It is a crime that this movie was not released in theaters, because it deserves to be seen on a big screen. It looks Beautiful, and it’s shot in a big goth, like you already said, like a big, this big gothic mansion, like in the f ing woods. Like, that’s how the movie opens, you see this delivery van driving to this, it looks like a haunted house.

Basically or like monster house or whatever like in the middle of the woods And I immediately I made Alan watch this with me and I I turned to him and said I could live there I Want to live there bad, it’s 

Todd: so Classically horror that it border. It just rides the line to parody. It’s not but it is Everything you mentioned, the extreme angles, the big wide screens, the lightning, the thunder, the color palette is practically black and white.

Yes. 

Craig: Oh my god. And it’s so fantastic because the color palette is black and white that anytime anything is in color it stands out so harshly. There was one scene in this movie, I think it’s the title. It is the title. Okay, so there’s a whole pre title sequence. Which we should probably talk about. But when it finally pans to the title, like, Nika is in the background, like, way back, and she’s crying because her mother is dead.

We’ll explain why in just a second. The camera, like, pans. And everything looks like it’s in black and white. It’s not, it’s just that that’s the palette. And then it pans, and Chucky is sitting in a chair in the immediate foreground. In his colorful glory, his red hair, his blue overalls, his red and blue shirt.

And it just, it’s such a stark contrast. And then the title comes up, Curse of Chucky. Oh, Todd! I am so sad! I wanted to gush over this movie with you. You still can! I really thought that you 

Todd: would love it. No, I, I don’t, I don’t think you’re hearing me. I said the movie is fantastic. I said it’s jarring.

Coming off of all of these, I mean, in a very short period of time, I’ve been riding down this path on this road with Jokey, Fun, Chucky, I’m getting into it. I’m settling down to have fun. And what I’m getting is a straight out classic horror movie that’s updated for the 2000s and made brutally violent. He acts as a guy in the mouth in one of these scenes, which is totally not any of the Chucky movies, and it shows it in all of its gory, you know, detail.

We’ve got Child mutilation. We’ve got, like, some really serious, heady stuff in here, which in a horror movie that, you know, again, If it wasn’t placed squarely in this franchise that I’ve been going down a path with this whole time, was great. 

Craig: I get it. I get it. 

Todd: Yeah, so, it just, I mean It just, it takes a little adjustment for me.

It wasn’t what I was expecting. It’s 

Craig: so interesting because, you know, I waited forever for this. I really liked it. I thought, you know, they’re kind of going back to their roots. This was intended to be a horror movie, a legitimately scary horror movie. They’re going back to that. And I do find this movie very suspenseful and scary.

I wouldn’t say that Seed was scary at 

Todd: all. No, neither was Bride. But it 

Craig: wasn’t, no, but it was, there was gore and I really liked it, and I liked both of those movies, but they weren’t scary. I thought that there were legitimately scary moments in this movie. It was 

Todd: like goofy gore. Like the guy’s head flying off and then his body sits down and it’s squirting blood out the top, you know, and then they’re making out in the blood.

Right. It’s goofy gore. This is not goofy gore. There’s nothing funny about 

Craig: But it’s still, I mean it’s still really, like, It is gory. Like, I would argue even like, over the top kind of silly gory. In a serious context like it’s not a punchline It just so happens that this really violent stuff is going on There are so many things to talk about Another thing that I think is interesting about this movie is that it takes the story in a new direction Yes, we find out ultimately that it is connect everything’s connected, but this is a new direction We don’t know these people we don’t know What the f is going on?

Like, why is Chucky here? 

Todd: Why? That’s Yeah, it’s a there’s a central mystery here. Yeah, the 

Craig: whole first 45 minutes, I’m like, what is going on? What is he doing? I know who he is, and I know that, yeah, he’s acting differently than usual, but I don’t understand why. Yeah. And eventually it’s explained to you, but so it’s these new people, the central character is Nika, who is played by Fiona Doroff, who is Brad 

Todd: Doroff’s daughter.

Craig: How f ing cool is that? Can you imagine being a part of a legacy with your talented, you 

Todd: know, famous father, right? 

Craig: You and I both have wonderful, amazing parents. So we already know what that’s like, but to have that kind of legacy. Spoiler alert, Neek is not going anywhere. She’s still around. So, like, she gets to share this with her dad.

What an amazing thing. And I said, you know, I made Alan watch this with me. He said I’d made him watch it before. I don’t remember. But he said at some point, God, she is so pretty. And she is. Yeah. At the same time, she looks just like 

Todd: her dad! 

Craig: So, like, take Brad Dourif and make him really pretty. She also, she plays a paraplegic in this movie, and I think that she does an excellent job of it.

And she’s just, she’s super endearing! Like, I just, 

Todd: I love her. You have a lot of sympathy for this girl, but not pity, you know? Exactly, because her sister, 

Craig: Barb, is I’m not allowed to say the c word, right? Her sister, Barb, is a real bitch. And she’s a total bitch. Like, I just have that Except I didn’t say the b word, I used the c word in my notes.

I just have that over and over again. Barb is, uh Not nice lady, like she’s just so nasty and she’s constantly condescending to and patronizing Nika just because she’s in a wheelchair and at one point Nika says to her I’m disabled, I’m not a child, I can take care of myself. Yeah. Which is so obvious and as the viewer we’re obviously thinking the same thing and Barb is obviously supposed to be A bitch.

Yeah. Again, that’s her only defining characteristic. The whole reason she’s there is because Nika and her mother, who is an artist apparently, live in this beautiful mansion in the woods, and one day, a cute delivery guy gives them a package and flirts with Nika momentarily, which was cute. Oh my god. Wait a 

Todd: minute.

Oh my god, I know you. You do? Yeah, yeah, it was uh, City College. The psych department, right? That was me. When did you graduate? 

Craig: I didn’t. I never completed my thesis. Oh, on what? Uh, Completion Anxiety. I thought only guys got that.

Todd: So is your mom home now or what? That was cute. The mom was kind of a bitch, too. 

Craig: Nika’s like, was that guy flirting with me? Uh, I think so. And Nika’s like, well, maybe I should follow him. Maybe I should get his number. And she’s like, oh, sweetie, he was just being nice. What? Yeah. I know. Come on. That’s such a nasty thing to say.

Plus, again, Fiona Doroff is a beautiful woman. I’m not at all surprised that this attractive man would flirt with her. She’s gorgeous. Yeah. God. Okay. All right. So anyway, it’s a package, it’s delivered and they open it up and it is a pristine good guy doll. Now, this is one of the things that I want to talk about because the look of Chucky in this movie was very controversial and caused a lot of, a lot of fans were displeased, but it’s a pristine good guy doll.

They don’t know who it came from. And they basically are just like, well, that’s weird, and the mom throws it in the garbage. But, in the middle of the night, we see an exterior shot of the house, and we hear the mom scream. And then it cuts inside to Nika, who has been woken up by the scream, goes looking for her mother, finds her dead on the floor.

As though she has thrown herself over the banister onto the marble floor in the foyer. It was a beautiful shot, because you just see the marble floor, it’s black and white checkered marble floor. And you see the blood spreading, and as the blood spreads Nika’s reflection is apparent in the blood and I just thought oh my god.

Yeah, it’s gorgeous. This is a movie They care about what this looks like and I like it. 

Todd: Oh, it’s good Serious style, yeah. Serious style. 

Craig: Okay, so, I mean, where do you want to go from there? Because then, so, the mom’s dead now. Yeah, 

Todd: the mom’s dead. The accident’s been ruled a suicide. Isn’t there, like, a pair of scissors?

Isn’t she stabbed, too? I 

Craig: don’t remember. But it is established that she has had mental health Problems in the past and that potentially she may have tried to commit suicide. Yeah, 

Todd: they they’re ruling it a suicide basically, right? So that’s what her sister Barb comes along along with her husband Barb’s husband Ian and they have a daughter Alice and a hot nanny Was she in Urban legends this this 

Craig: I don’t think it was her but she looks I don’t know I don’t know what else she has been in but she does look kind of like the Nogzima girl She also couldn’t 

Todd: have been she’d be too.

Craig: She was too young. Yeah, she’d be too young She also kind of looks like the blonde who makes out with the wolf and cabin at the end of the woods She’s just a very beautiful very beautiful thin Cute. Tall. I mean, she looks like a model. Yeah. 

Todd: She’s, she’s stunning. Maitlyn McConnell. We might as well say her name.

Yeah, and I, 

Craig: I recognize her name. She’s the stereotypical hot nanny. But they also do something really clever with this that caught me totally off guard and I had completely 

Todd: forgotten. I was shocked. Because 

Craig: they set it up. It’s so stereotypical the way they set it up. I don’t know that this is It’s consequential enough to worry about sequence.

They set it up that it totally looks like either the dad is f ing the nanny, or really, really wants to. Wants to, yeah. And, and maybe he does want to, who knows, but there’s this surprise, like smack in the middle of the movie, where the nanny and the mom end up in the kitchen together, and they start making out.

And I was so Uh, I just love the way that it, I’m, I feel like I’m not easily surprised. I feel like I’ve about seen it all. Yeah. And this genuinely surprised me. There 

Todd: were a number of things that surprised me about this movie. You’re absolutely right. From the very beginning, you’re like, what is going on?

Because Like you said, Chucky doesn’t even speak until 45 minutes in. We have 45 minutes of just scratching our heads, going, What? Is this even Chucky? Like, what? Right! Bad things are happening, mysterious things are happening, The doll’s kind of alive, he’s speaking to the girl. So the girl, uh, the little girl Alice, she, you know, has, oh, oh, there’s a, there’s a priest there too.

Father Frank. Right. Random. Who came in to, to be the first victim, really. I knew that from the minute he came in. I was like, oh, here’s our first victim. The priest who’s here for no good reason. So they’re all in, and, and Alice, uh, is given the doll by Nika. There 

Craig: is a lot of fun tongue in cheek stuff. Like this movie isn’t with Humor there’s Nico it, like you said, wants to give the daughter the doll and Barb, because she’s a bitch for no reason about everything’s like, I don’t know.

Uh, I think you already have enough dolls. And the dad Ian says, it’s a doll. What’s the worst that could happen?

It’s not without humor. There is It’s funny stuff. At another point, the dad is holding the doll and like, seeing all the things it can say. And one of the things it says is, life is short, ha ha ha. And but then it says, it says it’s classic line, like, hi, I’m Chucky, I’m your friend to the end. And the dad said, that’s a classic.

The 80s were awesome. Like, so there is tongue in cheek humor, it just doesn’t push it the way that it did in the. No, it’s not humorless. It’s almost 

Todd: like Inside jokes kind of humor. 

Craig: Yeah. But it’s far less, like, again, we’ve talked about this with the last two movies. With the last two movies, we said they leaned hard into the humor, and that’s fine.

We both enjoyed it. Here, they’re changing course. Yeah. They’re just leaning in the other direction. And I like it! And I like that They can get away with playing around and doing different stuff, and I’m still on board. 30 years later. Oh 

Todd: my god. You’re a dedicated fan. I 

Craig: am! I’m a diehard fan, apparently. Don Manini gimme a call.

Like I, like, I’ll do, I’ll do like a commentary on a documentary or something. . . I’m pr I, I feel like I’m kind of an expert. . 

Todd: I’m sure he’s listening to this. Yeah. Well, 

Craig: uh, yeah. I mean, his vibes out there, his people, his people will hear it.

Todd: I hear they’re big fans. Yeah, I’m sure Barb is trying to convince Nika to move out to sell the house and to take her half to live in an assisted living facility like, you know, she’s 70 years old, right? And really, it’s just about money. But Barb wants her money because apparently she’s financially doing poorly and her husband’s working at Starbucks.

Craig: Yeah. And Nika’s like, you have a livid nanny. That was one of my favorite lines. Like Barb’s complaining about how tough they have it financially. And Nika’s like, You have a livid, Nancy. Right, 

Todd: and it turns out, because at one point the father asks her, So listen, how much is she paying you? 400 a week.

That’s more than I make. Like, he doesn’t know. Does this couple even talk? And she’s like, oh, like 400 a week. And he’s like, man, that’s about as much as I make. That makes a lot more sense later when you hear why. When you learn about their relationship. So, I mean Mancini is a really clever writer. I know.

One thing I have seen throughout this whole franchise is just, I’ve been blown away by how clever the writing is. It’s just really smart. Yeah. He can construct a story, even in the worst of them, you know, even in part three, I still thought the writing was really smart. You know, we had talked about how it was just, well, it’s a guy who had a very short period of time to do it, and he himself wasn’t very happy with the final result.

Right. 

Craig: I, I, I think he’s about our age. I think maybe he’s a little bit older than us, but I think he’s about our age. It’s so funny being this age now because the people who are in charge of television and movies are our age. Right. And so there are so many references. Like, the soundtracks of television shows and movies that are coming out now, it’s all like 90s stuff, obscure 90s stuff, that I was super into.

Right. 

Todd: You’ve gotta like, explain to the people around you, like, oh this is a reference to this thing, or whatever. Oh, I don’t have to explain. 

Craig: Well, you don’t. No, right, the only person that I would have to explain it to is Alan, and he was there. So, like, I always just look at him, like when Tori Amos pops up, you know, in a contemporary television show, I just look at him wide eyed and he’s like, I know.

But that’s what I feel like this, the sensibilities and the sense of humor. I, I just feel like Don Mancini and, and again, you know, like I associate him with these movies, but I just feel like he, he gets us. I think we are the audience that he’s appealing to specifically, and it’s working for me, but yeah, so it just becomes a lot of this movie is just.

Because Chucky barely ever moves or talks. And when he does talk, it’s in the doll voice, not in the Brad Dourif voice. He just looks like a doll. So it’s a lot of just interesting angle shots at him as a doll. And it’s spooky. And they do a lot with lighting and shadow. It’s very dark in the house all the time, with the main sources of light coming from Ahem.

Like ambient light outside either. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be streetlights or just like moonlight But like beams of light coming in from high windows, and that’s oh yeah Yeah That’s how the whole thing is lit or or candlelight like they eat dinner by candlelight and like Nika makes everybody dinner She makes them chili Everything is shot as though.

This is an art film 

Todd: Yeah, this, this in particular really impressed me. So, Chucky, you know, again, we don’t really see the whole thing happen. We see his hand, we see that he has poisoned one of the bowls of chili. Yeah, he’s 

Craig: not entirely immobile. No, but We don’t really see him moving around, but like you said, it’ll just be, we see his arm.

Come into frame and pour rat poison into a bowl of chili. Yeah, exactly. It’s not, you’re not seeing him fully animated. For a long time. But there, but at the same time, the movie’s, at least at this point, and we may have seen, I mean, we know he’s moved before. Because he’s been in one location and then they’ve looked for him and he’s been somewhere else.

We haven’t actually seen him move. But he’s not where he’s supposed to be. I think maybe the arm pouring the poison is the first time we’ve actually seen him move. But again, we know what he’s supposed to be. The mystery is why is it different 

Todd: now? Yeah, and why is it different and why is he involving himself with this family, right?

Like, what’s the point? Because we also know from the previous movie that he doesn’t care that he’s a doll anymore. He’s happy being a doll. So presuming they’re going to continue with that thread. His motivation is no longer to find some sucker to do the Aba, Dube, Damballa thing with, so. So anyway, this scene really, really impressed me.

In any movie, this scene is just golden. Now we see the very close up shots of each chili bowl being placed down. And as each one’s being placed on the table, I’m looking to see Which one is obviously poisoned and you can’t tell, this is a top down shot, and then the, the camera slowly spins, it’s a round table, and so the camera slowly spins as it comes up, and everybody one by one takes their seat at the table.

It’s just gorgeous! It’s so well shot! And then, the next scene does play a bit like a dark comedy, where we’re in on the joke. Because. We know one of the bowls is poisoned, and we’re just on the edge of our seat waiting to see who’s gonna get it. I thought it was gonna be 

Craig: Girl. The kid. Yeah. 

Todd: But then I was like, but that doesn’t make sense, they’re not gonna poison the girl, are they?

And then she does complain about the chili, the taste of the chili, and I’m like, oh, is it her? Really? And there are just a couple other little things that lead you to believe each person there might have the poisoned bowl. Again, 

Craig: that’s another thing that I liked about it because you think, oh, that it surely won’t be the girl, but then the movie has already defied your expectations at every turn.

So you have no idea what to expect. It’s not her. Eventually the priest starts to visibly sweat and he excuses himself and leaves and then Immediately, we get another scene with cops at an accident scene and apparently the priest has had a head on accident with a family who are all dead. I had forgotten about that!

Right? Like, he killed, he killed an entire family. Or, I guess Chuckie did. This scene feels very typical to the Child’s Play series. It’s very gory, you know, there’s lots of cops in these movies. Yeah. They, they find the guy and The cops are talking about him. What happened? Lost control. He had him head on.

Probably drunk. No, no, this isn’t right. I know him. I’m in his parish. He doesn’t drink anymore. You sure about that? 

Todd: He’s my sponsor. 

Craig: Okay. And then they, like, the car is totally crushed, but the priest’s head, it’s like Visible? I didn’t really 

Todd: understand! I don’t know what happened to the roof. Like, the roof flew off, but the hood of it got jammed way up against his neck.

Craig: I don’t know, but they’re like, he’s, he’s bleeding out, and one cop’s like, you have to get him out, and the other cop’s like, well, but we don’t know, like, how he’s injured or whatever. We can’t make that call. Yeah, he’s like, get him out! So, they pull the car apart, and the guy’s head just falls off.

And it is very gory and bloody, like, it’s, it’s still a nice. It’s R rated, horror, Chucky murder movie. All this stuff is in it, there’s just also the additional element of like, kind of the classic cloak and dagger, shadowy kind of thing going on too. Oh god. And then, okay, so then it goes back to the house, and this is at night, 

Todd: and Well, it’s important that they’re watching old film strips, right?

What are they watching? I don’t remember. They’re watching like, old home movies. Oh, 

Craig: right. Night! Night! That is important. 

Todd: It’s very important. Yeah, it’s like some picnic or something like that. And there’s this kind of guy in the distance who gets zoomed in on, but he’s wearing dark sunglasses. He’s got long black hair.

And I think it’s, I don’t remember who it is, Barb, or maybe it’s the father. Who says something like, who’s that guy? And, uh, and, uh, Nika is like, Oh, it’s, he was a neighbor 

Craig: back in Chicago. Did you notice that they retconned it 

Todd: again? Moved it back to Chicago. I was happy with that. I thought it was dumb. They, they had it in Jersey.

I did too. I 

Craig: did too. But it is, it’s Brad Dorff playing Charles Lee Ray, I think the first time since. The first movie, right? Yeah. Mm-Hmm. , like Brad Dwarf is in like the first five minutes of child’s play, and then you never see him again. It’s, it’s Chucky. Until this movie. Until this movie, and apparently, you know, obviously this is 30 years later, like they had to put him in like extensive hair and makeup and he doesn’t even look like himself.

lately. He really doesn’t. They do close ups, because he’s not only in these family movies, which was haunting. I, I, I, you know, I remember the first time I saw this, and I had no idea what was going on. And then they showed these home movies, and there’s Charles Lee Ray in the background. I was like, oh, f Like, like, here we, here we go.

Like, now I, I get it. 

Todd: For those of us who’ve seen, you know, the other Child’s Play movies, that basically solved the mystery. Now, oh, okay. All right. So he has a history with this family. We’re just about to find 

Craig: out what it is. Right. We don’t know what it is, but there’s history here. And I thought that, like, I was so excited.

I’m like, oh my God, what’s going on? Yeah. So many questions. But it was just, it was really cool to see him as that character again. And I love, you know, deep diving into backstory and lore. Yeah. Nothing that happens here contradicts anything. Oh, no. In fact, at one point in the movie, Chucky talks about all the other people that he’s dealt with.

Mm hmm. Twenty five years. Since then, a lot of The families have come and gone, the Barclays, the Kincaids, the Tillys. But, Nika, your family was always my favorite. And now, you’re the last one standing. So to speak. And the Tillys! Oh my god! I thought that was so funny! 

Todd: And there’s even a shot where they’re in someone’s bedroom and you see the camera pan over and sitting on top of the Dresser is a whole bunch of photos, you know, it’s that classic shot again but there’s like a Kent military school graduation thing and next to that is a Picture of the girl, right, who helped What was this?

That’s that’s 

Craig: at the very 

Todd: end, right? Oh, that is the very end, shit. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, that happens, it’s at the very end. It does, it does! So we So it’s 

Craig: all it’s it’s all connected! It’s linear. It acknowledges 

Todd: everything. 

Craig: Mm hmm. Right, exactly. Basically, over the course of the night, they don’t find out that there’s a killer doll running around for a while, but it the the mom and the nanny make out, and then they are having a very inappropriate online chat.

Todd: Oh my God. This was ridiculous. 

Craig: Can you imagine? Like if you’re, if you’re cheating on your spouse, don’t video chat your mistress while you’re in bed with your spouse. And if you are the parent of nannying for, don’t video chat with them in your skimpy lingerie in the child’s bedroom while they are sleeping immediately behind you.

Todd: It’s silly because she’s, she’s either right down the hall or even right next to her in another bedroom. At first I was like, oh, she’s video chatting with her to be discreet, right? Instead of leaving the bed and the husband wondering why she’s leaving the bed. But that’s not discreet at all! All he’s gotta do is turn over and open his eyes and he’s gonna see her!

I know! It didn’t make any sense! In her underwear! It was just a way to have the babysitter away from them when shit goes down. Oh, well, 

Craig: and I had in my notes My, my notes for this scene are male gaze Jill scene, like just for no reason have her take off all of her clothes and be in really cute underwear and like, she’s gorgeous.

I didn’t mind looking at her. She has an amazing body, but there, it doesn’t, come on, no need, right? She would not be in her. Little teeny panties and little teeny bra to go to bed in a strange house. Come on, come on, whatever. Okay, so she, this is funny because it’s been established long ago that there’s a bucket of water because the ceiling is dripping in this room.

And so all Chucky has to do is kick it over and it Flows into a outlet in the floor that then electrocutes the babysitter through her laptop. And I, I said to Alan, I said, that was an accident waiting to 

Todd: happen.

But, you know what, I’ll give, I’ll give them some credit too. This is maybe one of the very few movies I’ve seen that gets electrocution right. You know, a lot of times when people are getting electrocuted in movies, they’re flopping all over everywhere and stuff. My understanding, when you get electrocuted, you’re frozen in place.

Yeah. And that’s what happens to her. She is just frozen there while her skin is burning and the area around her eye starts burning away. And it’s interesting because Ibarb can’t, because I think of the resolution or the darkness or whatever, she can kind of see something’s wrong, but she can’t really tell that anything’s happening.

Right. Plus the computer’s, y’know, fuzzing out on her, so. But, they couldn’t video chat, could they? Oh, I guess they have Wi Fi in there, I’m sorry. Cause the other thing you gotta understand, and I was like, what time did this take place? Cause why doesn’t anybody ever use a cell phone? It’s cause there’s, like, no service.

I guess this is way out in the middle of nowhere. Whatever. Nobody’s phone’s working. It’s a horror movie, of course they’re not. I don’t think places like this really exist anymore, but whatever. Oh 

Craig: god. Okay, so a lot happens. Like, I feel like we’ve spent so much time talking about the beginning of the movie.

Eventually 

Todd: Ian awakes, and he’s like, where you going? And he kind of reveals that he knows about their affair. And he placed a hidden camera 

Craig: I love that! He put a nanny cam in Chucky! I love that! Because then he goes to look at the footage to, like, have evidence that she’s messing around with the nanny.

But I just thought it was funny that, for a while, they’re looking at that nanny cam footage and not surprised that it’s like running around 

Todd: like I thought he was he was thinking that the girl was carrying I get that’s 

Craig: what Alan said that’s what Alan said to but then it runs into the room where the girl is suddenly 

Todd: it’s a live 

Craig: feed yeah right God I don’t and so I don’t know so they eventually there’s a scene between there’s a scene between Nika and Barb where Barb is holding Chucky and Nika has done Research.

We forgot about this. Yeah. 

Todd: She got her research 

Craig: in. She does some internet research even though the phone lines are down and they have no service on their phones. Apparently 

Todd: they stole the internet. The electricity is out by now too, isn’t it? God, 

Craig: the electricity is out sometimes and not sometimes, like there’s a whole thing about it being out and somebody’s in the dark and then it cuts to the two, the mom and the nanny in the kitchen and there’s a light on.

I’m like, why, why is it out sometimes and not out sometimes? Chucky eventually reveals himself to Alice. It’s a dark and stormy night, and Alice puts her and Chucky under the blankets, and she says, Chucky, I’m scared. And he finally starts talking. And his face changes! Like, all of a sudden, he’s like, uncanny valley Chucky, and I don’t, like, That was weird, but she says, I’m scared, and he says, You better f ing be, or something like that.

And from that point, he’s basically Full out Chucky that we know. We’re skipping a lot and I feel bad about it. Like, there’s a very tense scene with Nika in her Victorian elevator with Chucky. And like, the lights go out and you hear a knife, but you don’t know what’s going on. And then it turns out later that she’s bleeding.

Like, Chucky had been cutting up her legs because she can’t feel it. 

Todd: Mhm. Well, eventually Barb starts to I believe she’s looking for her lover, right? Yeah, I she doesn’t fully go into the room because the Chucky doll is sitting outside. I didn’t get this part. I’m like, why didn’t she walk in the room and discover the body?

But instead, she picks up the Chucky doll and goes into the attic to look for her. Why? Why did she go to the attic to look for Well, I don’t know. She can’t find her. Yeah. I don’t know. She’s looking for her or the girl. I wasn’t too clear on that. Anyway, she goes to the attic, which is just typical in these haunted house movies, right?

She goes to the attic and looks around, sets Chucky down. Is feeling his outfit and feels that there’s something in there. I I felt like she was looking for the nanny cam at first, but then she pulls out the knife that he has had hidden in there. She’s like, that’s weird. I thought, oh wow, she’s disarmed him.

No, she sets the doll down, then she sets the knife down next to him, promptly turns her back away. And then, after she comes back around, she’s looking at the doll a little more closely. Is this her? That ends up peeling a little bit? Yes. Off of his face? Yes. So, his lower lip has, it’s just a little funny.

And it’s funny because I even noticed it before she did. And, and starts to peel it off and as she peels it off we see that there is a, a rubber layer or something over his Actual face. Yes. So when she peels it away, there’s the scar. And I was like, Oh, that is so good. 

Craig: I have in my notes in all caps and bold, it was a mask 

Todd: all along.

Right? This is still 

Craig: the Chucky we know. It’s the same Chucky. It’s the same doll. He’s got the scars. They’re just underneath. He hid them. He was covering them up. That’s why his head looked disproportionately large through the whole movie. And to be fair. With that reveal, he still looks different than he did in the last movie, um, and fans didn’t like it.

And so, for the next one, they course correct a little bit, a little bit. Not entirely, it doesn’t go entirely back to what he looked like in Seed, but closer to this. A little more gnarly. Anyway, but I loved it. I loved, loved, loved, loved, loved that reveal. And I remember the first time I saw it, I didn’t know what was happening.

And when she started peeling that away, and when I saw the scars, it was glee. Like, I was just gleeful. I’m like, oh my god, I get 

Todd: it! I really liked that bit, and again, it was just shocking for me too, and it was also very exciting. Again, I really liked that bit as well, I just wish that when he had peeled the rest of it off, he looked more Yeah, fair, fair.

I wish it had been like, oh, it was a mask all along, and the Chucky still looks like he used to. You can’t have so many years of establishing your character looking like this. And then in the reboot, pull A Nightmare on Elm Street, where Freddy looks god awful in the, uh, in that 

Craig: remake. Yeah, I don’t think it looks awful, but it is a deviation from what he looked like before.

He looks a little bit more polished. He looks a little bit cleaner. He doesn’t look like a 30 year old damaged doll. And 

Todd: apparently that was also a stylistic choice that Mancini did. He wanted to, he’s, like, you know, we’re updating the movie. We might as well update the doll, too, to look a little bit more like, uh, the more modern, like, American Girl type dolls.

Yeah. Instead of the old, like, My Buddy dolls, basically, which is what the The previous one we’re based on and that’s a nice idea except he’s the same doll So you can’t just change the doll so drastically. 

Craig: It really didn’t bother me, but I understand why some people didn’t like it I was fine with it. But then it goes, you know, pretty much, you know, now Chucky is back to his Normal self and he he kills the mom Barb like he pops one of her eyes out We said that Nika did back did research she did and at some point Chucky tells the whole story.

Charles Lee Ray was obsessed with slash in love with Nika and Barb’s mother. I got the sense that maybe that they had had a brief affair but then she had become afraid of him because he’s a lunatic and a murderer. So what we see is a flashback scene with Brad Dourif playing Charles Lee Ray. Barb is already born, but The mom is pregnant with Nika and he’s got the mom tied up like on a table.

In a 

Todd: basement. 

Craig: But he’s still talking to her as though like, we’re a couple and we’re gonna be together and I love you. And then, but she’s obviously terrified, but trying to not show it, not show it. And then the cops show up and he’s like, You called the cops, you bitch! How did 

Todd: she do that while she was tied down?

I’m not sure. Well, she 

Craig: must have, she must have called them before. I guess. I think it’s insinuated that Charles Lee Ray killed her husband. That maybe that they had had a brief affair, but then he killed the husband and she’s afraid of him now. She somehow called the cops, but he’s like, I’ll show you, you bitch.

And he stabs her in the abdomen, which we find out is why Nika is. Paralyzed! Yeah. Like, her spine was severed in utero, and that’s why she’s paralyzed. Now apparently that Chucky is no longer particularly concerned with getting out of his doll body, I guess he has nothing better to do than just settle scores with anybody that he had issues with.

So he came, and not only did he kill Nika’s mother, but he’s just gonna kill her whole family, and he basically wins! 

Todd: Yeah! 

Craig: I mean, there’s a lot, what are you, 

Todd: I don’t know, I mean What are you gonna say? It just, there’s a lot of tense back and forth, especially with Nika, not only does she, is she paralyzed from, you know, the legs down, but she also has a heart condition, so Yes!

Craig: But she’s not Helpless. That’s what I like about this. No, she really fights. And she refuses to be helpless. And even, like, yeah, she does. She has this heart condition, and at one part her heart starts to go out. But there’s another part then where she cuts Chucky’s head off with an axe, I think, and she thinks he’s dead and it was so cute, and Alan’s sitting right next to me and Alan goes, chop it up, chop it up.

All 

Todd: right, keep going, don’t stop. Because then you 

Craig: see, she thinks she’s safe and you see in soft focus behind her the body get up and go pick up and put its head back on. But this 

Todd: was another bit of retconning from the series because Chucky was supposed to be flesh and blood. Organic. So when he gets cut off, in this, he’s just plastic inside.

I know. 

Craig: Don’t ask me, I didn’t write it! I don’t know. Ahahahahahah But, and, and at one point he, well, I mean he kills Ian, the, the dad at some point, and Yeah, that was 

Todd: particularly brutal. I don’t even remember what happened. What happened? Ian’s laying back, on his back on the floor, Chuckie picks up an axe, walks over to him And then acts as, like, in his mouth?

And, uh, basically, like, separating his head, basically, the upper part of his head from his jaw. And it shows it in gory detail, like, as it happens. It’s, it was shocking. Look, I mean, you know, we’ve seen a lot of gore and stuff like that. But still, you know, this is, like, torture porn era to style gore. And I was surprised to see that in a child’s play movie.

Not that we don’t see gore. Not that we, you know, people aren’t getting killed and stabbed and whatnot. But this might be I think the most brutal kill we’ve seen in these films. Eh, 

Craig: I don’t know. I mean, the series has got some pretty brutal kills, but Yeah, I don’t know, whatever. Ian, who cares? Uh, and then Chucky, like, axes Nika’s leg.

That’s what I’m thinking, I, I get that she can’t feel it, but that’s not, it’s not like that’s not any big deal. No. Anyway, whatever. He tells her the back story gleefully. And he talks about how he took care of, now it’s very vague and this comes up again later. He talks about how he took care of all those other people as though she’s just the next one on the list in this long line of people that he’s taking care of.

But we come to find out that these people are still around. It was probably smart on Mancini’s part not to get too specific. Yeah, like just give himself some options. I took care of those folks, but. Whatever, they’re still around. But she turns it back on him and mocks him. You know, you remind me a lot of Andy Barclay.

He was a whiny little bitch just like you. Did you kill him too? More or less. I killed his childhood. So you never 

Todd: actually 

Craig: killed Andy Barclay, did you? What? You know, it’s called completion anxiety. It’s very common in males. You are a male, aren’t you? Oh, I’m gonna kill you slow.

Yeah, no, I get that. 25 years must be the slowest murder in history. Like and she’s she’s ridiculing 

Todd: him. She’s using her psychology degree. She had mentioned earlier Oh, I 

Craig: completely forgotten about that. And I don’t know at some point, you know They’re they’re going back and forth about Andy and she says to him.

Let’s play mother

Todd: She gets his uh his 

Craig: knife she gets his knife which is the same knife Oh God, I don’t know. Anyway, earlier in the flashback scene, the knife that he used to stab the mom’s abdomen, it looked like a toy knife, like the good guy Chucky knife from the beginning. 

Todd: Oh, and, and we forgot to mention, like, uh, after he stabs her abdomen in that scene, and then it’s like the cops have shown up, he’s running away from the cops, and it turns out this was what he was running away from when he went into that toy store in the very first movie.

So it really brings everything Together! I really liked that, actually. It was, it was really smart. Right, 

Craig: it makes it feel immediately connected. Like, it’s, it’s not like this is just some rando side story. Like, we, it, there’s a direct connection to the first movie. Yeah. And, God, they stick with it. Like, I, I, I can’t imagine that you’re not gonna be sick of Chucky by the time that, I mean, we’ve only got one more movie 

Todd: to go.

Oh, we’re gonna kick off the series once this is done. Oh 

Craig: my God, the series is done. So good! 

Todd: Yeah, she’s, she was, she’s chomping at the bit to get to the series, and I’m like, wait, we’ve gotta finish watching the 

Craig: movies first! Oh god, it’s so good. Okay. So, basically they fight and fight, and I don’t know what happens, Nika stabs him, but he’s not dead, and then the cops show up, and Chucky plays dumb.

Like, as soon as the cops play up, he’s just, he just goes straight back into doll mode. Doll mode, yeah. Then, it cuts to who knows how long later, and Nika is on trial for the murder of her entire family. And she is sentenced to go to a facility for the criminally insane. Chuckie is It’s on the prosecutor’s table, like as evidence, and they wheel her by, and she looks like a lunatic as she screams at him and taunts him, I’m still alive, you didn’t get me, hahahaha.

I love that she’s taunting him, like that she still has the balls to do that, but it just makes her look, it makes her look crazy. It makes her look bad. 

Todd: And then, Todd, 

Craig: I love this 

Todd: movie so much. The ending really. Like the three 

Craig: endings. The three endings, 

Todd: yeah, exactly, where it was this thing, and then this other thing, and then this other thing, and I was like, oh, oh, oh!

I love how they set all this up. This, I don’t want to say redeemed it, because I told you, I did not feel bad about this movie. It just, tonally, it was different. But when they brought Jennifer Tilly back in, I was like, oh my god! Wasn’t it fantastic? 

Craig: Yeah, it was. Like, it’s basically a recreation of the opening of Two!

Yeah. Where a cop takes Evidence out of the evidence depository into his car and drives away and I don’t remember if he talks on the phone or but 

Todd: he did just like I got it you know you give me your make sure you got my money yeah and then 

Craig: Jennifer Tilly pops up 

Todd: from the back of the car seat slices him across the throat and 

Craig: says they never learn and then she turns to the evidence bag and says so you Who’s next?

Like, she’s been in on this all the time! She’s, she’s helping him. And then, there’s, you see a scene where she mails him. To somebody else. Good afternoon. Three day, two day, or overnight? Overnight. It’s extremely urgent. Fragile? Surprisingly not. Approximate value? Well My mother always used to say you can’t put a price on love.

Under 250 then. Would you like to insure the package? Oh, that won’t be necessary. It protects you and it protects the recipient. I doubt that. I am just filled with glee when I see her as Tiffany. Yeah. Because she’s just so With the huge smile on her face, and she’s gorgeous, Jennifer Tilly is gorgeous, she’s got this crazy bleach blonde hair and this insane smile on her face, and it’s amazing.

And then the next ending cuts to Alice coming home from school, and she’s like, Grandma? Grandma? And the package that Jennifer Tilly had sent is there on the table, open, and uh, Chucky is just sitting there, and he tells her, he, he, she’s like, where’s Grandma? And he’s like, in the cellar, and she says, what’s she doing?

And he’s kind of like. Side eye says, nothing.

It’s so funny and he says, we’re going to play hide the soul and she’s like, Oh, okay. And he’s like, cause you’re somebody that nobody would ever expect. And then it cuts away from that and then credits and then now you’re, you’re going to have to do this because I made Alan watch this movie with. Me, and by the time, the third ending with Alice, he’s like, I’m done.

So we didn’t get to watch. 

Todd: Oh, you did watch the post credit scene. 

Craig: No, we did not. Wow. I’ve seen it before, but not recently. So you’re going to have to refresh my memory. 

Todd: Well, you just see, Chucky has been mailed, and he shows up on a doorstep, a male, an adult male picks it up, takes it into his apartment and sets it down on the kitchen while he goes to answer the phone, he’s got cartoons playing on the screen, we see, of course I knew, I was like, this has gotta be Andy, and just in case you’re not sure, that is when we get that scene I referenced earlier, that shot that just pans across all of his pictures, and it’s got his Kent Military Academy thing, it’s got a picture of him with his mother, and You’re like, Oh, this is Andy’s house.

And that’s Andy. And then he cuts back to the container where already there’s a knife from inside, sawing it open. And I was like, okay, this is back to the Chucky I know. Right. This was so funny. And then he pops out. And turns around, but Andy is already there with a rifle pointed at his face, and he’s like, Play with this.

Craig: And it’s Alex Vincent! In his triumphant return! 25 years 

Todd: later! And he blows Chucky apart with a shotgun. Yeah, it’s fantastic. But I’m not sure, like, if he transferred his body into Alice, what’s this? All right, 

Craig: so this is where Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of, I’m not gonna tell you. Okay. Because we find out, we find out in the next movie.

Okay. And I’m, like, as excited as I was to talk about this movie with you, I’m almost equally as excited to talk about the next one because It changes again! Like, the next one is not this dark, gothic piece. It’s like, we’ve, we just reset. We know who Chucky is now. Again. And it follows Nika! Wow. And, and she’s put in a mental facility and that’s the next movie.

But it also does some new things that are crazy, like just so it’s gonna get crazy. Yeah. It’s, it’s gonna get 

Todd: crazy. Alright, well I’m, I’m looking forward to it because now Me too. I’m, I’m, I’m getting adjusted to the new tone. You know, it was jarring, but I get it. You got to do what you got to do. You got to update him.

You got to do something different. And quite frankly, that’s what Bride was. It was something different, you know? Right! 

Craig: So And I have to think that that has something to do with the staying power of this franchise. They, they stick with the core and, and they don’t They don’t retcon a lot. I know the whole New Jersey, Chicago thing, whatever, but that’s pretty insignificant.

They don’t retcon a lot, but they take it in different directions. And I think that that’s so smart, because it keeps it interesting. It’s still the franchise that I grew up with, but they’re taking it in different directions. And I just think that that’s brilliant, and I’m still totally on board. While 

Todd: keeping the story consistent, like you said.

Yes. Yes. That’s really, it’s really good to be able to do that. And once again, just probably just to have that same guy involved from the very beginnings. What makes that possible? How often does that happen, you know? Right. 

Craig: Don Mancini and Brad Dourif. I think Brad Dourif is essential. We’re obviously not going to talk about it.

They made a remake. You know, of the original movie, and I saw it, and it was alright as a movie, but it did not have the heart or spirit of this, and there was no Brad Dourif, and it just isn’t the same! Like, just No. 

Todd: Mancini wasn’t involved. No! It’s weird, right? Why would that even happen? 

Craig: Well, and like, Aubrey Plaza played the mom in it, and I love Aubrey Plaza, and she’s good in the movie.

It’s not a terrible movie, it’s just not The remake was something that nobody asked for. Like, nobody wants this. And, and, you know, I think it did okay, but fortunately not well enough to continue on, because it just didn’t matter, especially since the original franchise was still continuing! 

Todd: Like, what are you doing?!

It’s weird, right? Usually the remakes come when the original franchise is dead. 

Craig: Right, right. And this one is not yet. And I don’t, I don’t know, like three seasons of the series. I haven’t watched the third season. It’s available, but I haven’t watched it. Like I’m saving it. I think I’m going to save, cause Alan and I have watched each season during the Halloween season, um, every year.

And so we’re kind of saving. And, and Alan really likes the series. I, I made him watch this with me and about three quarters of the way through, I said, okay, now I know that you don’t love these movies, but I want you to be honest with me. Like compare, cause I want an outside opinion compared to like, you know, the silly ones like Bride and Seed.

How do you feel about this one just as a movie? And he said, it’s, it’s like, I like it. It’s fine as a movie. But he said. He particularly liked this one, Curse, because he said it’s already, and by it’s he means the whole thing, the whole franchise, it’s already so silly, that if it isn’t scary, It’s just lame, and that’s why he liked this one.

I really did think that this movie went back to more, leaning more into the scary than the silly. And for him, who is not a diehard fan, he appreciated that. 

Todd: It’s a very perceptive comment, actually, yeah. Right. 

Craig: Because it is. I mean, it is. It’s already so silly. It’s a killer dog. Dog. It’s a killer doll. If it’s, uh, yeah, if it’s, if it’s not scary, then it’s just lame.

Well, and 

Todd: you’re certainly not going to wait seven years just to do more of the same. Right. Do another jokey, you know, comedy movie. So, yeah, it makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense. And it probably brings other people in who hadn’t heard of the franchise before, maybe this is their first introduction to it, they know it is a horror movie, to have it be silly again and with all the in jokes and things, it probably has wider appeal because of that, so.

It was a smart move. Like I said, just coming off of a, like a full two weeks of seeing it. I even saw Bride and, and Seed a second time. I know. So like, when you’re in that spirit, and then boom, you’re whacked with this one. It’s just like. Oh my god, that was not what I was expecting, and not what I was gearing myself up for when I popped that popcorn and, you know, snuggled up on the 

Craig: sofa.

I have to say, I’m so glad we did this. I have been having so much fun talking about these movies. And I don’t know, it’s just been really fun, kind of focusing on one thing for a while. Yeah, it’s not bad. And, and again, I know the magic of podcasting, you all, you all will get these episodes over the Course of the next three weeks or whatever, but we have been recording them over the course of like a week.

So like we 

Todd: Deep 

Craig: living with dived it like it has been Chucky forever For us for this whole week I I’ve been super into it and I was really really worried that you were gonna burn out And you haven’t, and I’m glad, and I’m super looking forward to our, the next, the last one. The last one. 

Todd: I’m really excited about it.

Yep, we’re gonna, we’re gonna just take it right into the next month, cause we gotta finish it out. We gotta finish it out with Cult. Well, thank you guys for sticking with us. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. If you have a friend who’s a Chucky fan, what a better way to introduce them to our podcast than by forwarding them their, our episodes that we’ve been doing.

Let them know about this month, just, uh, find us two guys and a chainsaw podcast, uh, all you need to Google to find us all over, a Facebook page, you know the drill. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw

Seed of Chucky is the most divisive of all the Child’s Play films thus far. It was also the last to be released in theaters. This film leans so heavily into camp that even John Waters has a prominent role in it. Perhaps more comedy than horror, Chucky and Tiff’s son from the tail-end of the first film embarks on a journey of self-discovery and is horrified by his parents. But the REAL star of the show is Jennifer Tilly playing herself to hilarious effect. Have a listen and let us know which camp YOU’RE in: Love It? Or Leave It?

Seed of Chucky (2004)

Episode 382, 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: We continue our Child’s Play series. by moving along from Bride of Chucky to Seed of Chucky, the sequel to Bride of Chucky, which we did last week. And I believe this movie started shooting very quickly after Bride of Chucky was either released or had finished shooting itself, right?

They’ve always kind of planned to make this, this sequel to it. I think so. 

Craig: Uh, yeah, I think it was just about a year later after the last one. I’m curious before you get started, is it weird watching these all? Like. Back to back because this, this series for me was stretched out over three decades. When a new one was coming out, regardless of what it looked like, I didn’t care.

I was just excited for a new one. I could understand how it might be a lot to swallow. 

Todd: That was all at once. That was yours and my worry from the very beginning. Of course, we could be waiting, like, uh, in between recording each of these. Little bit of a spoiler, we’re trying to do them as fast as possible, so, uh, it’s been days between watching these movies and recording these episodes.

And, I don’t know, I mean, For me, it helps with my memory, so we could talk about these movies a little bit. Okay, that makes sense. But I understand what you mean. There was a time in which we had to wait for everything, right? We had to wait for TV shows. I mean, even Lost, right? It didn’t come out all at once on Netflix.

And so Oh, right. You’d watch an episode, and then you’d have a whole week to talk about it and think about it. And especially with the internet, you know, people were Chatting and had their whole fan bases built up around these shows and speculating about what’s going on and what’s gonna happen next.

Obviously, this isn’t the same kind of thing, but this is a pre internet era kind of thing where we had years, you know, between movies to talk about and discuss and maybe watch them again and rent them and, and really get familiar with the movies before the next one came out. And so there was a degree of anticipation that probably colored our reception of the film.

And I was 

Craig: just listening like a minute to go to a podcast that Kevin Smith was on and he was talking about how in our lifetime when we were younger, we didn’t have immediate access to everything. We weren’t like just constantly inundated. So a lot of times you wouldn’t even know these movies were coming out or, you know, if you were, you know, a big fan of horror like me.

And when you got the opportunity to go to the mall, you’d like check out Fangoria to see what was going on or whatever. You may have some inkling that was the one you may have some inkling of what was going on, but. Very, very few details. Like, any more, you pretty much know everything that’s happening, like, or if you don’t, that means that the studio has gone to great lengths to make sure that they’re trying to keep it under wraps.

Yeah. Times change, and that’s fine, and I appreciate the easy access. I, Alan and I won’t even watch a series anymore. If it releases week to week, we will wait until they’re all released, because 

Todd: Impatient. Yeah, 

Craig: we’re super impatient. So I, I’m appreciative of it, appreciative of that, but I kind of miss being surprised.

Todd: And nowadays it’s like the complete opposite nowadays. Like, you know, all the nitty gritty, the inside information, you know, it used to be Hollywood just controlled this stuff so much, and now either they can’t control it, or maybe they like the. Anticipation of it. Or maybe it’s just part of the business side that we just don’t see is that if you, if you know, you know, you read variety, you’re always getting, Oh, so and so is attached to this project or so and so was, was going to be writing the script for this project.

And, and now it’s three years later and it still hasn’t happened and they’ve been fired and a new writer has been hired and, you know, all these ins and outs of what’s going on behind the scenes and who’s writing what and who’s attached to direct and it changes before the movie’s even shot. Yeah, and so we’re so inundated with it, it’s a different kind of anticipation, I suppose, but then the reception of the movie is always like, I don’t know, sometimes it’s nice to not be privy to how the sausage is made, right?

You just see the movie come out. You don’t really know anything about the background of it. You just Looking to it content alone, you know, you’re not sitting here going. Well, let’s see how Don Mancini is going to do with this material. Right? So, um, yeah, I don’t know. It’s different, but this is the era we live in now.

The other striking thing about it is just from sequel to sequel because there’s so much space between them. It’s such a change, like from Chuck Child’s Play 3 to what, Bride of Chucky was seven years. Right. And in that amount of time, the whole film aesthetic changes, right? The lighting style is more slick, and I don’t know what budget 

Craig: this was shot on, but I bet it was significantly less.

Yeah. I don’t know. Everything about it felt just a little bit Cheaper than Bride. I think Bride was just so good. Yeah that this one had a lot to 

Todd: live up to It’s a stylish movie in the way that Bride was stylish, but you have a different director You’ve got Don Mancini who was the writer of the series a creator of it really from the very beginning Who steps in to direct this time even though that wasn’t the original intent and before that we had Ronnie Yoo Who was a very stylish director who really lent a sense of?

I don’t know, just a different sensibility to the movie. They may have had similar budgets, but it doesn’t look like it. Part of it’s the cinematography, and part of it, I think about halfway through this movie, I was thinking, this movie feels smaller. And I I think the reason is there are fewer characters, it really centers around a smaller group of characters, it’s a smaller setting, the first one at one point kind of becomes a road movie, so we’re getting all these different settings, and this one, my understanding is it’s all shot in Romania and all on soundstages, and that was also a conscious choice of Don Mancini, he wanted it to have that Older universal monster kind of Hollywood horror movie feel where everything was shot on sound stages, you know, the old Dracula, the old Frankenstein, it does have a different feel because of it.

The locations are, are smaller, more self contained. There are fewer actors in it, but the look of the dolls and sort of the sensibility of the series is, is similar except for the content, which seems to change drastically. Like the tone of the content. And the story, that changes quite a 

Craig: bit. It’s very different for a lot of reasons.

And one of those reasons is because, as I was watching this, and I was, I don’t know, halfway through, I almost texted you, but I didn’t know if you had watched it or not. I almost just texted you, This is a straight up comedy. Like, Yeah. Yeah, we said the last one was at least as much comedy as horror. This one is more comedy than horror.

I would say it is. There are gore elements and those, those things are fun. I really enjoy them, but this is a comedy. Like every line is a zinger. So that’s one thing that makes it different. At least somewhat like it, it, it amps it up even further, like from. Part 2, they’ve turned it up to 11. The other thing that I realized watching this, and this is the first time that I’ve realized it, I’ve seen it many times.

First of all, I remember seeing this the first time and not liking it. I thought that it leaned too hard into the humor, and I thought that the humor was really silly, and I didn’t like it. And so I didn’t really revisit it for a long time. And then, I’ve told you this before, later, more recently in my adult life, I had caught at least part of it again, and I was like, you know what?

They tried something different. Maybe it’s not for me, but I appreciate that they, you know, were continuing to try to do new things. Watching it again this time, I actually really enjoyed it, but I realized this isn’t really a Chucky movie. This is a Jennifer Tilly movie. Oh, yeah. This is a Jennifer Tilly and Tiffany movie, and then you throw the kid in there, too.

And Chucky is really very much on the side until the very end. Like, he does stuff. But he’s not really, it’s not his story. It’s not his journey. That’s it. 

Todd: He’s sidelined in the story itself, really. You’re right. It’s about Tiffany and it’s about their son, Glenn, who is hilarious. And you’re right, this is a comedy, and I think for 2004, this was a bit ahead of its time.

I think it plays differently now than it did then. It probably came across as more polarizing and edgy then, because I think Our sensibilities are a little different. This is very heavy on LG. This movie has something to say. Like, this movie has themes that people were probably talking about, some people were probably offended by, and some people were probably scratching their heads.

It’s super campy, but it’s no surprise that John Waters has a role in this movie, because this is very much like a John Waters movie. It’s not as crazy as a John Waters movie is, it’s not as in your face as a John Waters movie is, but it’s approaching it. Oh, 

Craig: yeah. Uh huh. 

Todd: I love 

Craig: John Waters, by the way. He loves these movies, by the way.

Yeah. Yeah, he’s, he’s a huge fan. They wrote, they wrote the role with him in mind, knowing that he was a huge fan. I 

Todd: kind of dug it. So I went from watching this to watching Child’s Play 3, which we are recording a minisode for, for our patrons. If you’re interested in hearing Child’s Play 3, we are not going to be covering it this month and probably not.

on the podcast, unless we get really desperate. You’re gonna have to join our Patreon community and when better, what better opportunity to do so. Go to patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast and sign up for just five bucks a month. You can get many soaps that we do. You can get our unedited edited phone calls.

We’re starting a Christopher Pike book club that’s going all kinds of stuff that we do for our patrons behind the scenes and this is one of them. So I worked, I would watch child’s play three almost immediately after watching this movie and the differences could not be more stark. Uh huh. Whereas child’s play three felt like.

More of a continuation of the tone of the first two movies, obviously bride took a complete left turn in a way this is like a 180 like you said, this is straight up comedy. It’s not really even trying to be scary. No, not scary. And it’s you’re right. It’s about it’s about the Tiffany doll. 

Craig: Well, and about Jennifer Tilley, who plays both.

First of all, Jennifer, Jennifer Tilley is top built in this movie, both as the Her playing herself and the doll surely has significantly more screen time than anybody else You know, she’s all over the place But my favorite thing is her playing herself in a self deprecating way that is so Funny. It is hilarious.

I would really prefer that we just stop talking now and just play all of her lines and scenes because I am just dying laughing, but then there are some, oh God, hopefully we’ll get to it. I don’t know. We may just gush about this movie and run out of time to talk about the plot, but there is a scene where both you Tiffany the doll and Jennifer Tilly are on the phone 

Todd: with 

Craig: another character and it’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

It’s so 

Todd: funny. It’s really smart, you know? Again, it’s one of these self aware meta type horror things where the whole conceit here is that in this universe 

Craig: Okay, wait, wait. I was trying to figure this out. Can you explain this? To me, how does this work? Because how does it work? I like, I really tried to wrap my head around it and I’m not sure that I can.

How do the character of Tiffany Valentine and Jennifer Tilley, the actress exist in the same right? 

Todd: You almost have to imagine that Tiffany Valentine is not actually Jennifer Tilley, right? Like in the universe, never Tilley was just hired to play Tiffany Valentine in the movie within the movie that they’re shooting here, right?

We have to kind of put out of our heads that she was also playing even though they have the same voice I know it’s like hard 

Craig: And they’re and they’re identical to one another Yeah Tiffany Valentine Is very much aware of Jennifer Tilly, she’s a huge fan. Yeah. But are we just to believe that they just happen to be identical twins and I guess so.

Nobody really just says anything? Cause I was wondering, I was like, How meta does this get? Like, Ha ha ha ha ha. All the, like, all the movies that we’ve seen before this, Were these dramatizations? Of what really happened, and now we’re in the real world where Jennifer Tilly has always played Tiffany Valentine.

Todd: Uh, but in this world, Tiffany Valentine’s a real person, and Jennifer Tilly is an actress, and Tiffany Valentine is in the doll. Jennifer Tilly is playing the role of Tiffany Valentine. Right, 

Craig: right, but hear me out, but hear me out, hear me out. So, the real life Tiffany didn’t look like Jennifer Tilly, but we’ve never seen her because all the movies we’ve seen have been about these famous doll murders.

Right. Oh, I see what you’re saying. Now the real life Tiffany who, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. Yeah, kind of. Still, why would she have the exact same voice? It doesn’t make sense. Right. 

Todd: It just so happens. I mean, you know, they try to find people who can look close enough to the person who they’re playing, you know, with these like, real life dramas or whatever.

Maybe you can I mean, that is also kind of a small, squeaky voice that she has. Jennifer Tilly has a very distinct voice, and that helps a lot. 

Craig: I love it. It’s so cute. 

Todd: Jennifer Tilly has just the right combination. You know, you take any one bit of her and her looks or her personality or her voice or whatever away, and it’s almost arguable that she might not have succeeded as an actress to the extent that she has now.

Because she’s just got a package that just works and is just so good. And I love her. Of course, I was in love with her as a kid, so that helps too, but like, you know, like I said last time, she’s like this Betty Boop of the 90s or 2000s, you know, she just, she has that seductive sultriness about her, whereas Betty Boop’s character is sort of not aware of that, she’s sort of super innocent and blissfully unaware about how she Attractive she is and how much men are swooning over her.

Maybe that’s the update. 

Craig: Jennifer Tilly kind of plays a heightened version of the way that she’s perceived. And I think that she’s a hundred percent aware that that’s exactly what she’s doing. Oh yeah, for sure. And so she, she kind of plays, you know, the big boobed bimbo. She has a line in the movie. She’s like, I know I come across as really slutty, but that’s just for my image and it’s, it’s, it’s so meta.

I can only imagine that it’s a result of her being a really good sport because I know some of this maybe was improvised, but I’m sure most of it was written and for her to be a good enough sport to take these really self deprecating lines and deliver them. With such enthusiasm. Yeah. Uh, I just absolutely love it.

Like, we’re not going in sequence, but I, like, There’s one point where her assistant finds out that she’s thinking about sleeping with a director to get a part. Think about what you’re doing. What are people gonna say? Who cares what people say? But don’t you see how evil this is? I don’t want to hear it.

You’re prostituting yourself so you can play the Virgin Mary. Joan, I don’t want to hear it. Oh, this is so evil. You’re going to hell. No, hell would be ending up on Celebrity Fear Factor in a worm eating contest with Anna Nicole Smith.

And the assistant goes, which you’d win because they’re constantly, they’re constantly making jokes also about how fat she is. She’s not fat. She is a curvy, beautiful woman, but there are so many self deprecating fat jokes. The first time that you see her, she’s like sneaking a candy bar, like on a movie set.

Oh my God. She’s hilarious. I could talk about her all day. Do we want to, are we gonna try the plot ? I don’t know. 

Todd: I, I wanna talk more about Jennifer Tilley. . I suppose we will as the plot goes on, so, yeah, that’s no problem. Okay. We can talk the plot, but she’s the star 

Craig: of the movie. This 

Todd: is her movie. She is.

Before we go into the plot, just a thought occurred to me before it passes what you were talking about again, about how modern this movie and is, how it’s received differently now. I think like. Back then, for example, Marilyn Monroe is a created character, right? Yeah. If you look at images of her and where she came from and all that, you know, the Hollywood system took her in and changed her, dyed her hair blonde, you know, she affected cute voice and all these things.

Uh huh. And so in real life, she would be, she was playing a character as well because it helped her with her career. Nobody wanted to see, even in real life, walking around the Marilyn Monroe that She was before they want to see this character and because of that then she can get these roles where she’s playing this character where this is like where life and art kind of intersect but it’s a very deliberate thing boy bands are put together very carefully and their images are very crafted and I think there was a time where we had to intuitively know that but maybe we didn’t maybe a lot of people didn’t maybe we always thought Marilyn Monroe just was born that way and it wasn’t she wasn’t so carefully crafted nowadays we know this.

And we know it so well, because we’re so connected, and we read so much online, and people discuss this incessantly, and even actors are more open about it. It’s different. Like, back then, this probably was, like, oh my god, why is Jennifer Tilley saying all these horrible things about herself? Nowadays, I look at it, and I’m like, oh, this is Jennifer Tilley acknowledging the image that she had to take on.

In order to be successful in Hollywood. So on the one hand, you know, nowadays, it just seems like almost any actor might be more willing to do this because the audience is in on the joke. Whereas even just 20 years ago. We weren’t all in on the joke, we didn’t all get it, and so we’d be scratching our heads here, and maybe even applauding her, like, Oh my gosh, she’s being so, so progressive, and, and she’s saying these things about herself, or is she revealing her inner insecurities, and stuff like that, and, Now we know this is also part of image crafting, right?

This movie itself is crafting an image of Jennifer Tilly, the actress, and it’s probably in her favor. You know, makes her come across as a really fun person. 

Craig: Yeah, she’s really super fun and endearing. And I read that in the initial draft, she was supposed to come across as more unlikable. That wouldn’t have worked.

I, well, I don’t think it would have worked or she wouldn’t have been the main focus, but I just don’t think, I just don’t think that’s just, that’s not Jennifer Tilly. Like. She just seems like such a cool person. She’s like a rockstar poker player. Did you know that? Like she makes millions of dollars playing poker.

She’s really good at it. Bad bitch. No, she’s awesome. There’s so many things, but I hope that going through will hit some of them. I want to talk about Julia Roberts. I want to, but I want to talk about, because I feel like it’s the second. Images appeared on screen. I’m like, Oh, this is going to be a different kind of movie.

The very first image is a red screen and then come starts dripping down. Oh my God, I 

Todd: looked up, I was eating while I was doing this and I looked up and I was like, those CGI sperm that we’re getting going down, 

Craig: then there’s a spoof of. The Luke who’s talking opening credits with the sperm but it’s darker and creepier and it makes a psycho baby, you know, we’ve seen this baby before.

Yeah, then it jumps to a POV shot of this little girl opening a present and she’s like, it’s a doll, it’s gross, I hate it and they don’t know where it came from and the mom and the dad go upstairs and anyway, this POV, this doll, this POV doll ends up killing. The dad stabs him and pushes him over the banister.

This is a good 

Todd: sequence. I mean, it’s Yeah. I know, we kind of want to brush through it because there’s so much movie to talk about. But I was really 

Craig: struck The reason that I hold on really quick. The reason that I was kind of brushing through it and I interrupted so that maybe you can explain it to me. I don’t really remember how it’s connected.

Well, Chucky’s 

Todd: gotta end up somewhere, right? Or, or Chucky’s seed. Chucky’s son. Well, 

Craig: you don’t know at this point. I think they’re trying to lead you to believe that it’s 

Todd: Chucky. There are, like, two fake outs right off the beginning of this movie. And then there’s a really clever line that acknowledges it.

And at that point, I was like, God, this is really smart writing. So you get the POV shot and it’s the typical killer POV that starts off a lot of slasher movies. We don’t know exactly who they are, but in a Jason movie, you just assume it’s Jason. Right. So in this movie, we’re assuming it’s Chucky, but immediately you’re thrown off by the fact that these people have British accents.

And I was like, Oh, that’s bizarre. Is this going to take place in England? And it’s a girl who’s opens, opened up a doll for the present, but doesn’t like it because she thinks it looks weird. All of this is shot through this doll’s POV. And when she and the family leave the room, the doll sees the half eaten birthday cake there, and it’s got a knife in it, so the doll picks up the knife, and then, as you said, starts wandering and going through the house, and kills the father, and he falls down the stairs, and then goes in the shower, where the mother is showering, where we get nudity.

I think it’s the only nudity in the movie. Well, and 

Craig: I think it’s the only nudity in the Series, it’s not the only nudity in the movie because tiffany flashes. No, not tiffany. Excuse. Yeah, tiffany the doll Flashes her boobs later in the 

Todd: movie. Yeah, we get doll nudity. Does that count? 

Craig: This is the only one in the franchise.

I believe that features any nudity at all. This is 

Todd: very horror movie This is very straight slasher we’re not going to get anything more like this for the rest of the film and I think this is a Conscious choice in the side of the director to give them give the fans this and then let them know we’re going to be subverting your expectations Because after this whole sequence is finished Which by the way is a very impressive sequence because it appears to be done all in one shot I can see the edits.

There are places where it was clearly must have been edited, but it’s it’s seamless So the whole thing looks like it was done in one shot. It’s really great. And then suddenly it’s like hey, hey, hey Wake up, shit face. And we get a face of a totally different guy. And we finally see the doll. And it is this little kid.

And this was like a dream he was having. That’s what I 

Craig: don’t really get. Was it a dream? Was it a memory? I 

Todd: don’t get it. I think he is tormented because this is like a, a DNA kind of destiny kind of thing where Okay. Both of his parents are killer dolls and so even though he doesn’t have this urge to kill and he’s, he abhors violence and doesn’t know where he came from and so he’s haunted by these like tendencies.

You know what I mean? Like it’s like a dream thing. Yeah. 

Craig: Sure. I get it. It’s like his 

psyche. 

Todd: Yeah, exactly. So I think that’s what this is. Okay. Yeah. Okay. For a moment there, I was thinking, so, how, does that, did the doll make it to England? Because it had to get to England at some point. 

Craig: And he has a British accent, though.

Yeah. Why does he have a 

Todd: British accent? Well, because his handler, his handler’s a ventriloquist. And so, and he’s like a rock star looking dude. You know, he’s got long, scraggly hair. He’s very goth. He’s got tattoos. And he’s smoking and he’s a jerk. And he picks him up and says, come on. And pulls him out of the cage that he keeps him in.

And out on the stage, where they’re in big. Uh, lights over the stage is psych and shit face. And that is this guy’s act. And they are at like the international ventriloquists competition, which is on an outdoor stage, like a rock concert. Can’t imagine ventriloquism being that cool. And he’s putting on an act with this guy.

And of course, you know, this is the whole, we’ve seen this before. We saw this as early as dead of night where you’ve got a ventriloquist who’s acting like he’s really talented, but the reality is the doll’s just alive and can talk freely. And he calls him shitface, and he’s a jerk, and in their act, he mentions that he found him in a cemetery in the States.

I I don’t know how that happens, there’s a British guy walking through that cemetery, we saw it at the end of Bride of Juggie, found him, and found he was alive, and decided to whisk him back with him. 

Craig: Oh, okay, so they’re in England at that point, okay, alright. Mm hmm. Okay, so this Puppet thing. They were conflicted about what it should look like.

I think, I don’t know, producers, uh, somebody, I think that Don Mancini wanted it to have unique features and look like something that would have been designed by Tim Burton. And the money wanted it to look more like Chucky. And so it does kind of look like. The guy from the Corpse Bride, you know, really gaunt face and, and kind of blue, but then it’s got, like, shocking red hair like Chucky, and I think it’s got blue eyes, so they kind 

Todd: of compromise.

And it has sharp re sharp teeth too, which I thought was an interesting choice. Well, they 

Craig: established that in the second one, remember? It’s the It’s Alive 

Todd: baby, it has sharp teeth. I just thought that was his baby teeth though, you know, I thought he’d lose those. Oh, 

Craig: maybe. This is like eight years later, so, who knows?

But anyway, despite his somewhat monstrous appearance and the fact that he’s an animate puppet He’s very mild mannered, and he’s voiced by Billy Boyd, who was Pippin in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I have no idea. That’s such a random casting, but I, I, I, again, I think, uh, they were just going for something, you know, like, He’s British, and he’s timid, not Cruel and murderous like the guy psych tells him you’re going to have to start being more scary and he throws a rat in the cage and I guess he wants this kid to like eat or kill the rat or whatever but instead he just reaches down and pets it and but eventually shit face because he doesn’t have any other name yet he’s sad that he’s an orphan all he knows is that he’s an orphan and he’s a freak and he’s japanese because it says made in japan oh my god there is So hilarious.

Uhhh. 

Todd: Is Japanese. Well during the show, he’s musing. I 

Craig: know I’m a freak. And of course, I know that I’m Japanese. But why do I have such terrible nightmares? Filled with hate, and blood, and guts. I’m not like that at all. I wouldn’t even hurt a fly. Oh, there he goes. Back to his family. Oh, I envy him. Sometimes, I wonder about my own parents.

Were they Zen masters? Did they serve the Emperor? Very mild mannered. But then he sees them on TV because there’s a news report about how they’re making a new Chucky movie based on the infamous killer dolls or whatever. That comes 

Todd: after because immediately while he’s musing, we get a cut to a graveyard.

Craig: Oh, yeah, I guess I just spoiled it. I assume any of you who are listening Have seen it have probably seen this 

Todd: but yeah, this is this is the second fake out. Okay, so we had that first fake out and that was shocking and then we have this and it’s just a Santa guy dressed as Santa walking through a snowy graveyard and he happens upon the Chucky doll.

And of course he gets murdered by Chucky and then Tiffany comes out from behind and murders him too. You are 

Craig: never real. You know what that kind of disappointment can do to somebody? Do you have any idea how that can? With your mind! With your mind! With your mind! With your mind! With your mind! Chuckie’s broke again!

Todd: And then we see a wider shot, and they’re on a film set, and Santa gets up, and he’s like, God, I can’t handle this, this doll’s malfunctioning all the time, and we see Chuckie and Tina with a whole bunch of tubes going into their backs, and they’re like, alright, let’s take five, and he wanders away. Again, what a clever line because that’s what the filmmakers are doing right now.

They are f ing with our minds. This happened for the second time. And now I was like, Oh my God, like this is like dream within a dream type situation. I don’t know what kind of movie this is going to be. Because now what we have is the production crew. Is using the dolls from real life that were involved in this series of murders that again, nobody knows that the dolls are alive, so 

Craig: I guess, wait, wait, wait, no, they’re not using, they’re not using the actual dolls, those are props, no, they’re not the actual dolls, they’re props, they 

Todd: converted the dolls.

Well, then why are Chucky and Tina’s personalities inside them? Her name is Tiffany. Tiffany, sorry. Why are, why are there personalities? 

Craig: They’re not. Oh. He does the voodoo thing and puts their souls back in there. From where? They’re different, they’re different vessels. Todd, we’ve been through this. You said you watched part three.

He says, I’m in a new body now. They can go into whatever. Yeah, but, 

Todd: but where are Chucky and Oh, so just from the ether, he says the thing, and so now the spirits of Chucky and, and Tiffany are now summoned back into these dolls? Yes, yes, that is correct. Oh. Well, that’s stupid. 

Craig: The guy who played Santa is Jason Fleming, who is an accomplished actor.

And he hates this movie and is so grossed out by the fact that he did it. I saw something where he said, so here I am in Romania on a set getting killed by a doll. And I’m like, how did I get here?

He was in great film adaptation of Great Expectations. He played Joe Gardner. He’s so good. I mean, he’s, he’s an accomplished actor. Who knows? Maybe he was in a slump then. Okay, so it’s, it’s a movie and it’s a movie set and it’s, they’re shooting Chuckie goes psycho, which was actually the original idea for this movie.

It was going to pick up right where the last one left off and Chuckie and Tiffany were going to go to the Bates motel and then it was going to turn into a slasher. We meet Jennifer Tilly, she has her assistant read her like out of the wanted ads, I guess, postings for, I don’t know, maybe in Hollywood this exists, you know, posts for auditions and roles and stuff.

She says something about Julia Roberts and Jennifer Tilly is like, Julia Roberts. I’m so tired of hearing about Julia Roberts. You know, I should have played Erin Brockovich. I could have done it without the Wonderbra. Julia stole that part right out from under me. You know how she did it? She slept with the director, that’s what I think.

Just all these silly, silly lines and, oh god. And then, and then she has this whole monologue. I mean, look at me, I’m an Oscar nominee for Christ’s sake, and now I’m fucking a puppet. I’ve got no fan mail, no paparazzi, no soccers. I mean, it’s so meta because it’s true. It’s all true. And it’s hilarious. It’s a great monologue.

It really is. The assistant tells her that Redman, the rapper, is directing a Bible epic, and the role that’s available is the Virgin Mary, and Jennifer Tilly is so thrilled, and she’s like, she’s like, I love the way she always, like, wore robes, and how her hair kind of framed her face like me. Laughter. Oh, my God.

It’s so funny. You’re gonna you have to take over. I’m just gonna keep doing 

Todd: it. I love your Jennifer Tilley impression, by the way. It’s really spot on. So anyway. Yeah. So she’s talking about that. So she’s gonna set up a meeting with Redmond to read for that role. In the meantime, like you said earlier, Glenn sees an interview on TV and it’s Chucky and Tina also in the interview chairs.

It’s like an entertainment tonight type show. You’re gonna keep calling her that. That’s not I know it’s Tiffany, right? Yes. God, why did I say that? It’s 

Craig: okay. Just from now on, if you say Tina, we’ll know what you mean. That’s okay. It’s 

Todd: all right. Uh, they’re sitting in the chair, and Chucky waves at the camera as the camera is saying goodbye, and Glenn notices the Made in Japan mark on his wrist as well.

So he assumes, oh my god, they’re my parents, and so he escapes from this, this evil guy, and then I don’t know how he manages it. I guess we’re just supposed to assume he does because the next thing we know there’s a box being taken to by DFS double fast service delivery. It’s a take off of apartment of family services.

Yeah, exactly. I thought that was cute. The whole movie is filled with this kind of humor on it gets dropped off and he finds himself inside a room with large monster statues that looks like an old fashioned operating room, but it’s yeah. Obviously like they’re buckets of stage blood and things and this is, I think, a callback to the second movie that we did where there’s an operating room for dolls, except in this case, it’s it’s movie dolls.

Well, yeah, 

Craig: I mean, this is the props room. Yeah, but the props 

Todd: room has all this, like, actual operating room equipment and the lights above and the stainless steel table and even the implements look like. It’s cute. It’s funny. And so anyway, yeah, he’s scared that he’s in there. And then, uh, we go to Jennifer Tilly with Redman having her little read.

Craig: It’s funny. It’s funny, but it’s not worth talking about. They do a reading. He’s like, yeah, I’m a big fan, but I’m going to go with Julia Roberts. And she thinks that Julia Roberts got Aaron Brockovich cause she slept with the director. So she is going to use the same ploy and she’s going to try to sleep with Redman.

And she sets. Date up with for him later. It’s a cute scene. Not worth wasting time on because the kid shit face Finds the chucky and tiffany dolls and has the heart of damballa Medallion because I mean why wouldn’t he right and also The chance is on the back of the amulet and either because I, I don’t really understand this.

I, I think it must be because he’s a voodoo baby. Like, he’s really good at voodoo and he only has to say the first three words. I know. And then say, awake, and they wake right up. 

Todd: He should have told his dad this. He could have saved his dad a lot of time. Yeah. Oh my God, 

Craig: it always takes everybody else so long.

And he’s just like, uh, ade due dembele, awake. And they wake right up. Oh my God. And he greets them in Japanese and they’re, they’re confused, but they figure it out. He doesn’t know if he’s a boy or girl. Is this when they argue over this? And, and take his pants off. I keep using male pronouns. That’s 

Todd: kind of, Chuckie’s like shit face.

That’s a terrible name. We’ve got to change your name first. I want to name you Glenn. And she’s like, no, what do you mean him? It’s a her she’s Glenda, which is a straight off. I was rolling my eyes at this. It’s a straight off nod to Ed Wood. Ed Wood, uh, the famous director who did plan nine from outer space and all these old black and white horror movies that I grew up on also did a movie.

Him himself was a, at least a cross dresser. I don’t, I don’t know for sure how far he went, if he, if, if he felt he was trans or not, or if he just enjoyed dressing in women’s clothing, but, um, he did a movie called Glenn or Glenda, where he was hoping to bring light to the subject and empathy towards crossdressers, and it’s just a silly, goofy movie that he actually plays in, and, uh, I love, uh, God, I, I could go on and on about Ed Wood, I just find him so campy and entertaining.

And so, throughout the movie, there’s this argument over his gender, and he’s just, Kind of like not sure whether he wants to be a boy or feels more like a girl. And so it’s Glenn for Chucky or Glenda for Jennifer Tilly’s doll’s character. That’s just what I’m going to call her because I’m Tiffany, right?

Yeah, Tiffany. And that’s a running thing throughout. And that is a major overarching theme of the whole film. This film very much deals with gender stuff. Well, 

Craig: and I, I, I am going to try my hardest with pronouns. But I think that. Glenn Glenda would use They, them, he, him, she, her pronouns, depending on the moment.

So I think we’re safe all around. It’s funny because for they kill the prop man, all the kills are great. Like they decapitate the prop man with what? Like a wire or something, because he’s trying to fix Tiffany and he takes off her back plate. And when he takes it off, it’s all gross and organic under there.

And of course that scares him. And then Chucky decapitates him with. Wire or something his head goes flying up in the air and 

Todd: yeah, they each have an arm hand on the wire and then as soon as that’s right, he falls down and his head is spurting out blood and you see the camera pan back and Chuckie and Tiffany in the foreground are just like making out in the blood because they’re just so turned on by what they just did right so funny 

Craig: and then Jennifer Tilley comes in and thinks that it’s just props because she’s surrounded by props and she came in there to get her candy bar.

She had stuck it in Chuckie’s overalls. Yeah. And she comes in and she plays with the decapitated head for a while and talks to it and she’s like, you’re cuter than my last boyfriend and she like kisses it on the mouth and then she’s like, you look so real and she looks closer at it. And, eventually realizes it’s real and screams, as she does for the entire rest of the movie.

She does a ton of 

Todd: screaming. Yeah. Oh 

Craig: my god. But Tiffany, before she freaks out and the cops come, Tiffany is in awe. She’s like, Jennifer Tilly. She’s so beautiful. And she’s like, and the voice of an angel.

Oh boy. They both compliment? And criticize each other’s voices at some point in the movie. Oh, and it’s so funny. It’s hilarious. What? Okay, the cops come. The cops are 

Todd: there. There’s a big interview scene where now there’s a big media circus. And John Waters is front and center. It’s so funny. And yeah, 

Craig: he’s introduced as paparazzi so we know he’s around.

And 

Todd: I love it. I mean, this movie is just hilarious because she’s getting in the car and you just hear the voices of the paparazzi fade in the background and John Waters is yelling out, Jennifer, how old are you really? What year were you born? Give us the exact date. 

Craig: Yeah, the most ridiculous question.

Just a total 

Todd: spoof on how Hollywood works. I think 

Craig: I heard somebody say, Do you have a problem with chocolate? 

Todd: But, but she’s got this chauffeur who we see watching this from a distance who’s in love with her and he’s rehearsing his one line, right? He’s like, will you marry me? Will you marry me? Will you marry me?

Craig: This is dumb. They just need him for later. So they establish him as a character. It’s stupid. But the dolls tag along and they’re just hanging out drinking champagne in the back of the limo and stuff. And it’s funny. Oh, 

Todd: but it’s hilarious because She’s talking to her, her assistant or agent or whatever on the phone, and she’s telling her, you know, Bredman’s gonna come over and whatever, and she’s like, oh, I’m just gonna be with him for a while.

And then she hangs up the phone and the chauffeur seems upset. She’s like, oh, don’t worry, it’s just one night and then I’ll be with you. And the Tiffany doll turns around and goes, Oh my god, she’s a complete slut! 

Craig: I know, it’s so funny! Why do you kill people? Excuse me? Why 

Todd: do you kill? Well, 

Craig: uh, it’s a hobby, really.

It helps us relax. Am I going to be a killer? Of course. It’s been a family tradition for generations. But violence is bad, isn’t it? They said so on TV. Not violence. Violins. Violins are bad. That screechy music’s gonna ruin the goddamn country. Chuckie, Glinda’s right. It’s time we owned up to it. We have a problem with killing.

And he’s like, we don’t have a problem with killing, and she’s like, no it is, it’s, it’s an addiction. We’re, we’re parents now. Right, and she, she makes him promise that he won’t kill, and he does, but he crosses his fingers behind his back, which is hilarious. And then there’s the celebrity fear factor joke, which is hilarious, and then Jennifer Tilly fires her assistant for shaming her.

Good for you. You should fire her. That’s none of her business. I don’t care if she writes all your fan mail to make you feel better. She does not need to slut shame you. You just sleep with Redman if you have to. That’s the way the world works 

Todd: sometimes. You’re prostituting yourself so you could play the Virgin Mary.

Ha ha ha! I love this line. It’s 

Craig: evil! Oh, God. Tiffany and Chucky’s plan is that they are going to put their souls in Jennifer Tilly and Redmond’s body, and Tiffany is so excited to be famous. She loves Jennifer Tilly, so she’s excited. But they also 

Todd: decide they want to have another baby. 

Craig: So that they can put Glenn’s soul in a human baby.

And then that human baby will have genitalia. So then it will just be decided. Yeah, cause 

Todd: part of the reason they don’t know Glenn at what, you know, Glenn is, is because when they, they, they pull his pants off to check and he just looks like a doll. He’s got nothing. Yeah, 

Craig: he’s a Ken doll. So they’re going to do artificial, they’re, they’re going to do artificial insemination using Chucky’s seed.

And so she tells him to be quick and he, and then she’s like, that shouldn’t be a problem for you. And he’s like, hey, aren’t you gonna give me a hand? And that’s when she flashes her doll boobs that have areolas and nipples. That was so funny. Which I thought was 

Todd: really funny. And he just ends up jerking off to a Fangoria magazine.

Uh huh. When this movie was titled Seed of Chucky, I really thought we were just going to be talking about his son. I did not realize we would see so much of Chucky’s actual seed in this film. Oh, yeah, 

Craig: we watch him jerk off for a while in silhouette, as does. John Waters, but John Waters is there because he’s trying to get pictures of Jennifer Tilley and Redman because he’s a paparazzo, but then he sees, does he say a midget?

A mastermating midget? Oh, God bless the little people. But that, that’s when he sees Tiffany too, and so he thinks there’s something weird and kinky going on here, but he just Thinks that they’re little 

Todd: people. This is where I wrote in my notes. This could not get much more campy. Maybe it can. It’s it can.

And it does, but this is just so comedy at this point, you know, it’s not a horror movie anymore. Jennifer Tilley is making out with the red man. They’re talking about the movie. She wants to be Chucky is upstairs in silhouette, jerking off to a Fangoria magazine. Tiffany’s downstairs watching it. John Waters is outside as the paparazzi taking pictures of all of them.

They’re going to artificially inseminate this girl. With what ends up being a turkey baster. I mean, it’s just, it’s not child’s play three. I’ll tell you that 

Craig: at all. Yeah. Oh yeah. No, it’s very different. It’s not scary. 

Todd: It’s funny. And it’s funny. I thought it 

Craig: was funny. Yeah, I did too. I was amused, but while they’re making out, Tiffany is behind the couch and she’s grossed out that Jennifer Tilley is selling herself, you know, for this movie.

So she hits Redmond over the head with one of Jennifer Tilley’s awards. And then she reveals herself to Jennifer Tilly, and shames her, and she says, You should be ashamed of yourself. Where’s your self respect? You know what my mother used to say about dirty girls? She said, you can always smell it on girls who sell it.

Oh, by the way, Miss Tilly, can I have your autograph? I’m a big fan. And then Tiffany knocks her out and they have to drag the bodies upstairs she says

Can’t believe it. She’s not even pregnant 

Todd: yet. 

Craig: Oh God Jennifer Tilley’s own voice saying how fat Jennifer Tilley is is just Hilarious to me again. She is not at all fat. She looks great. Her tits look amazing. Amazing. I just think she’s gorgeous. And I also like that in this movie, she’s not fat. Tiffany in appearance when she’s Jennifer Tilley, they actually have her looking very clean and natural most of the time and very soft.

Yeah. And you can tell that even without the makeup and she looks great in the makeup, but even without the makeup, she’s a beautiful woman and she’s a lot of fun now. Things get, I wouldn’t say they lag here, but I wasn’t as amused. They tie them up and they artificially inseminate her. And then red man and Jennifer Tilly wake up the next morning and don’t remember what happened and I don’t understand that.

I guess we’re to believe that because they were knocked out, they have some sort of amnesia? Well, they were 

Todd: drugged. They were kind of drugged. Well, she literally poured pills into their champagne. Right, a handful of pills. Could have been roofies or whatever. 

Craig: Then, three seconds later, Jennifer Tilly poured it.

Like, there’s no way that that had time to dissolve. But that’s picking nits. So there’s a whole day, well, and, and the boys, Chucky wakes up Glenn and takes him out because Chucky had seen, he, he like, he caught John Water, and so they go after, right, so he wants to go find him, and apparently knows where he is, I guess, I know, right?

Todd: And, you know, it’s funny because in the first movie, Chucky poo poos the idea that they, Take a car and drive. I think he says something. What am I going to be using the steering wheel and you’re going to be operating the brakes and it’s not going to work. I think that was in Bride. And in this movie, he’s totally fine taking Glenn out and doing exactly the same thing.

There’s a gag where a car that’s supposed to look like Britney Spears zooms by them. He runs her off the road. But this movie, it’s just so full of pop culture references, which is again, so John Waters, but it’s what makes this movie so different, even from Bride, I think. Did we talk about 

Craig: how they killed John Waters?

No. Chucky was just gonna stab him, I think, but then Glenn like intervened and screamed no, which startled John Waters, and he backed into, this is all in a dark room, he backed into a, shelves, yeah, not stationary set of shelves, and it like hit against the wall and then all the chemicals fell on him and sulfuric acid, do you need sulfuric acid to develop pictures?

Todd: I don’t think so. 

Craig: One wouldn’t think, but he gets his face melted off and he’s dead or whatever, but when they wake up, they don’t remember anything, but Jennifer Tilly says that she had a dream and her guardian angel and she had the most heavenly voice came and told her that she needed to do better and she needed to respect herself.

Meanwhile, Tiffany is really all about this not killing people thing, so she’s reading 12 steps in 3 days, and she skips some of the steps, like, like step 3, accepting that there’s a higher power, okay, and then she finally finds one that says, make a man, she’s like, oh, I can do that. So, she calls the wife of the cop that she killed in the opening scene of Chucky 2, and, er, Child’s Play 2, and she’s like, Is this Mrs.

So and so? My name is Tiffany Ray. Um, you don’t know me, but a few years ago I killed your husband, and I am so very, very sorry. Oh, no! I’m completely serious! But I want you to know I’m in recovery now, and I’ve put all of that behind me. I don’t know.

Thank you, Mrs. Bailey. Have a nice day. Get away from me! I feel better already. Then, Jennifer Tilly is going, I don’t know, to set, I don’t know. But her limo driver is driving her and she pukes in her purse, and you know what that means When women puke in movies that means they’re pregnant and she is and then at dinner that night.

She tells red man She’s pregnant and she says she knows she’s comes off. He’s like well, whose is it? Don’t even look at me Well, I haven’t slept with anyone else to advance my career lately. Who are you kidding? It’s true, Redman, look I know I come off all slutty, but that’s that’s for my image. It’s just You think anyone would cast me in these sex plot roles if they knew I hadn’t been laid in a year?

I haven’t even slept with my driver yet, and I think he really likes me. Hey, that’s all very touching and shit, but I’m telling you, it can’t be me. I know. I had a vasectomy as soon as I got to Hollywood, I ain’t no idiot. Hilarious. But then Tiffany is pissed that Redman dissed Jennifer, so she kills him, she disembowels him, which Jennifer doesn’t see, and she just goes off to bed.

Anytime Glenn sees one of his parents kill somebody, his eye twitches. Like he’s very close to losing it any minute. Yeah. Chuckie and Tiffany the doll are talking and Chuckie’s like well, how long do we have to wait for this pregnancy and she’s like well It’s a voodoo pregnancy. So it’s accelerated He’s like how accelerated then it cuts to the next morning and Jennifer Tilly gets out of bed at full term 

Todd: She is 100 percent pregnant 

Craig: Doesn’t realize it until she goes into the bathroom and screams Oh my 

Todd: god.

This is when she calls Joan and they have the three way call. Because they’re using a landline here. So, Tiffany finds she’s pregnant, she calls Joan, she’s freaking out. In the same way, Tina Was I right? Tina? Shit. Ti No, Tiffany! Tiffany! Tiffany! It’s even in my notes as Tiffany. What is wrong with me? Three way call with Tiffany on the other line.

So she’s playing Jennifer Tilly. And so there’s all this confusion on the line with the agent. And it’s just a funny scene. There’s no doing it justice at the 

Craig: very least. My favorite is when Tiffany, the doll is like, is everything okay? And she Tiffany’s like, yeah, everything’s fine. And meanwhile, Chuckie jumps on.

Jennifer Tilly’s back and is like fighting her in the room i think

Todd: after This happens. Is this when it’s revealed that Tiffany has actually killed Redman because he falls out of the closet? I don’t know, but anyway, there’s a, there’s a break in the 

Craig: action. And, and Tiffany and Chucky fight over killing and over Glenn. Yeah. He just screams, You’re tearing me apart! And it’s hilarious because there’s all this Family drama going on and just in the far background, almost in soft focus, is just Jennifer Tilly tied to the bed, watching all of this happen.

It was so funny. 

Todd: It’s cute because at one point Glenn is like, what about what I want? I think I want to be a boy, but being a girl would be nice too. And then Chucky for his part is talking about the whole killing thing and he’s like, look, if you guys want to stop killing, that’s your choice. But I like killing.

It’s not an addiction. It’s a choice. And it’s not something you should have to hide in a closet, and then the body falls out, and then it revealed that, you know, Tiffany has fallen off the wagon as well, because she killed a red man. It’s just, it’s a cute scene, again, I think like, for the time, maybe it would have been seen as a little more progressive, and perhaps even off putting for some people.

Now, it almost seems preachy. Because these are things we’ve been wrestling without in public for a while now, you know, to a degree that I don’t know, as a society, it’s getting, it’s getting tricky to navigate this stuff because there’s like, I don’t know, you know, I’m not going to get into politics or anything like that, but this is very much moved into the realm of politics.

And it’s been something that’s now sort of dividing us as a nation. And so seeing it now is very different, but I love how the movie goes here because it is. A strong theme of the film. It’s all about identity, right? It 

Craig: is, but it’s really not progressive. I mean, it’s progressive in that it’s addressing this and gender identity and those types of things.

And Glenn at one point says, Can’t I be both? But this movie really Proliferates a, uh, a common thing about people with either gender identity. Like it’s a 

Todd: choice, right? 

Craig: Like, as though it’s a choice and it’s just one or the other, and it I know what you mean. As though, as though it’s still binary, it’s still a binary choice.

Todd: Right, right, it can’t just be both, right, or 

Craig: nothing. And in this case, he’s basically two different people, and ultimately does become two different people. So it treats it more like it’s, they don’t call it multiple personality disorder anymore, but it seems more like that, like it’s two different personalities and that’s, that’s not what being trans is correct.

So I understand that. Yes. It’s addressing something that has become very much part of, you know, our social zeitgeist, but it’s, it’s still clunky and it’s handling of it. I don’t think that it’s. I don’t think that it’s intended badly. In fact, it’s intentional. It’s inspired by, I think, a couple of Brian De Palma films where there were male and female counterparts and the female one was always the, um, so it’s a, it’s a direct take on that.

But it’s not some kind of like, Oh, you know, they, they were prophetic or they were ahead of their time. 

Todd: Don’t you think for 20 years ago, I mean, we’re, we weren’t really seeing this in, in movies, let alone horror movies. Like they weren’t gumming this head on, even though it’s clunky, it’s very in your face.

And I don’t remember, I think it, for its time, it was, I think we have 

Craig: seen this a lot. I think we have seen being transgendered through the lens of mental illness. Exactly and that’s that’s not 

Todd: what it is correct but that’s not what this movie is i think 

Craig: it kind of is because he’s got a split 

Todd: personality because he’s i don’t know i 

Craig: mean he’s a different person when she’s glenda she has a different accent when she’s glenda and an entirely different affect 

Todd: yeah i see what you mean although i think one could argue this is part he’s a child or she’s a child and still.

Exploring and figuring things out. That could be, I guess. Again, you’re right. It’s treated clunky. 

Craig: Do you remember that movie? I know you remember the movie, uh, Death Spa. Yeah. And that character that was a man sometimes and a woman sometimes and like. The woman was the real evil one. Yeah, that’s what this reminds.

Todd: That’s what this reminds. Oh, I hear what you’re saying. 

Craig: Anyway, whatever. I’m not. I’m not critical of it. I don’t think that it was mean spirited at all. And as I mentioned in the previous podcast, Don Mancini is a gay man himself. He actually, you know, this was. Meant to be kind of a metaphor for his own conflicted and confusing feelings when he was a kid, so I’m really not criticizing it, I’m just not going to give it a gold star for being 

Todd: terribly progressed.

Oh no, but I still, I think for 20 years ago, I don’t think you would have seen the balls to put something like this front and center in a movie. Although I can see what you’re saying, it’s played for laughs, it’s played for comedy, and it is played with a piece of multiple personality or something like that, a little psycho.

Craig: Ask, we’re running long, so I feel like we should give the cliff notes version of it. They decide that they, because red man is dead, they need somebody else. So they call the limer driver. They get him over there. Easily. Joan comes over at some point where they’re trying to perform the ritual and they kill her.

Actually, Glinda kills her because this is when she like switches personalities and Glinda is the murderous one. And she’s Glinda only comes out like in when emotions are really high or Glen or Glen is really agitated or scared. And Glinda dresses just like Tiffany in a way that is unsettling, like, I don’t like it.

Yeah. But I, I, I like that I don’t like it. It looks like It’s cringy. It looks like rough drag. But it’s interesting, to say the least, and the character choice is speaking in a different accent, a different voice. It’s the same actor, but speaking in a different accent, different voice is different. And Glinda likes killing.

And so does Chucky, they deliver the babies, and one of the babies is a boy, and one of the babies is a girl, and they tell Glinda that they can choose. But then Tiffany’s like, maybe they don’t have to choose, maybe they can be both, which is also weird. They’re about to go into the actual people bodies.

But Chucky decides at the last minute that he doesn’t want to. This is the moment, it’s a turning point in the franchise where he decides he’s fine in the doll. Mm hmm. I have had it! That’s it! There is a limit to how much I can take! What are you talking about? Look around you, Tiff! This is nuts, and I have a very high tolerance for nuts.

If this is what it takes to be human, then I would rather take my chances as a supernaturally possessed doll. It’s less complicated. You can’t be serious. As a heart attack. Think about it. What’s so great about being human anyway? You get sick. You get old. You can’t get it up anymore. I’m not looking forward to that.

Uh, I want to be Jennifer Tilly. I want to be a star. And I don’t want to be your chauffeur. As a doll, I’m f ing infamous. I’m one of the most notorious slashers in history. And I don’t want to give that up. I am Chucky, the killer dog, and I dig it! And Jennifer Tilly says, well, that’s not what I want. I want to be famous.

I want to be Jennifer Tilly. In that case, I’m leaving you, and I’m taking Glenn. And Chucky says, nobody ever leaves me, which is a character trait that we’ve Not seen before, but okay. And they fight, I feel like for a while, but then the cops show up. 

Todd: Well, he acts as her in the head. 

Craig: No, it’s not until they get to 

Todd: the hospital.

That’s the nobody leaves me line. 

Craig: Well, it happens again. Some they fight, but then the cops show up when the cops come in Jennifer Tilly’s room, it’s just her. They killed the chauffeur guy by accident, but as they were fighting each other, he got killed. It’s just Jennifer Tilly and the babies in the room, no puppets to be found.

So they got to the hospital, Jennifer Tilley’s talking to her agent. Yeah. Who says, you know, you’ve been cleared. They know it wasn’t you. Any publicity is good publicity. It’s gonna be good for your career. And she’s like, I don’t care about my career. All I care about is my kids. And my first thought was, is this Tiffany?

Like, because they, they’d started the ritual. But I wasn’t sure and so then the guy leaves and she’s alone in the room and the camera pans down and we see that Tiffany and. Glenn it is Glenn at this point back in the original costume there in there and Tiffany drugs her and she gets up and is feeling very woozy and she sees the dolls and she falls to the ground and they start to do the ritual to put.

Tiffany inside her, but then Chucky shows up in a Jack Torrance, the shining moment, axes through the door, just his face right in the door. And he’s got the, you know, the mean face and he’s looking right at her. And then he kind of pauses for a second and says, you know, I can’t think of a thing to say. I thought that was kind of funny.

But he, but he comes in and she, as he’s axing his way in, she’s doing the thing as fast as she can and the clouds are rolling in and she’s doing it and she’s doing it, but then he comes in and he axes her in the head and she falls over dead and she looks up at. Glenn is like, be a good girl, or boy, or 

Todd: whatever.

Don’t make the same mistakes your parents did. 

Craig: Especially your dad.

And then she dies. And then, Glenn, not Glinda, Kills Chucky and he and Chucky looks and says Glenda cuz Glenda’s the Psychopathic one and he says no dad. It’s Glenn. Are you proud of your boy now? And he is Chucky is proud of him. 

Todd: Attaboy kid, attaboy. As he dismembers him. As he 

Craig: dismembers him and kills him and then Jennifer Tilly crawls from where she is on the floor and comforts Glenn.

CUT TO 8 YEARS LATER. Jennifer Tilly is throwing a birthday party at her house. And the nanny is complaining that Glenn is the sweetest kid. Like he’s like an angel, but Glenda, like does all these terrible things. And, and, and she’s scared of her. And Jennifer Tilly is like, I’m not listening to this. I don’t want to hear it.

And she has a Tiffany doll and she picks it up. And the girl’s like, Oh, that thing’s gross or whatever. And she’s like, well, I thought the kids might like to see it. And the lady’s like. I’m sorry, I can’t handle it, I have to quit. And Tiff Jennifer Tilly is like, Okay, if that’s how you feel. Meanwhile, Glinda, this wild haired redhead, is standing outside the window watching all of this, and Jennifer Tilly kills the nanny.

But it closes up on her face, and her eyeballs flash Tiffany Green. So 

Todd: So Tiffany is inside Tilly. Yes. Are the two sides of Glenn inside the two kids? Yes. Okay, at first I thought maybe Glenda was Chucky, but, but then he goes outside and opens up the gift and there’s Chucky’s arm inside. 

Craig: Glenda is right.

Glenn still reminisces about his dad. He still has a picture that accidentally got taken of, of, well no, they took it on purpose. Him and Chucky with John Waters. Mangled dead body like he cherishes that but then he gets a gift and Jennifer Tilly says, Oh, there’s no tag on and I don’t know it’s from and he walks away and he opens it and it’s Chucky’s arm and he pees in his pants because he’s scared and his eye twitches and then the arm jumps up and grabs him and that’s the end except for then there’s a great end credits scene where.

They show everybody’s death and put up, you know, their credit right at the moment of, of their death. Yeah. Um, and, and, uh, Jennifer Tilly is credited twice as playing herself and as playing Tiffany. And it’s to fun music and it’s just a really fun way to close it out. Just, let’s just do a montage of all of the gory murders.

Yeah. 

Todd: And freeze it at their most unflattering moments. It’s, it’s cute. Okay. So it just occurred to me as we were talking that the boys, two sides of his male and female side are each in these two kids. Is that what it is? Yes. Right. Okay. That just clicked with me. So I can see what you’re saying about this isn’t entirely, you know, don’t give it a gold star for gender identity discussion because it does still.

It’s still very binary in that way, but yes, so then it does tend to fall into line with a lot of other horror movies that do this kind of thing. Like you said, where the guy clicks into a woman and is suddenly murderous or right. Usually it’s that direction actually, isn’t it? It’s hardly ever vice versa, which is.

Probably probably somebody’s written a paper about that 

Craig: i’m sure i’m sure this movie is polarizing and i was on the side of people who didn’t like it like i don’t like this one i like all the other ones i liked three fine even though i don’t think it’s great but this one i was like no too silly but now that time has passed and i revisit it.

I appreciate it for what it is. It’s, it’s different than the others. It leans more into the comedy, it’s goofier and sillier, and Chucky kind of takes a backseat a little bit, which honestly I don’t have a problem with. I love Jennifer Tilly. I, I have really kind of flipped sides on this one. I’m, I’m kind of a seed defender at this point, so I’m interested.

This is your first time seeing it. What’s your evaluation? Well, once 

Todd: again, I didn’t see this at the time, so I didn’t have the benefit of now, where I know I’ve got, like, three more Chucky movies to watch, right? So Two. Two more. Two more. Plus a series. So I can know it can be an anomaly in the middle of a series, potentially.

But at the time You think this might be the last Chucky movie you see, and so you could be disappointed by that. Like, oh god, this is how they end it, or, oh, this is the new direction they’re taking it. Everything after this is just gonna be crazier and more madcap and silly and goofy and, and campy and pop culture referencing and all that kind of thing.

And, oh, I don’t like that, you know, I like the slashers. So, I think if I had seen this at the time, I might have had a different opinion. Now I look at it, I just see it as a Standalone movie and I think it for what it was. It was funny. It had me laughing. I’d had me entertained. I don’t think it moved as fast as the previous one did just because it’s just so much like a comedy.

And for me, after a while I get bored of these comedies. It’s a tough comedy that keeps my interest for too long. Like this one I thought was cute and I thought it was funny, but I also think that like pop culture humor and referencing other movies is more of the like lower forms of humor. You know, it’s not.

As clever, and Don Mancini is a very clever writer, so he was clearly writing all these jokes in on purpose for a wide, broad audience, and I think, in a way, probably this movie, he was trying to broaden the audience beyond horror into something that would play bigger at the theater, and interestingly enough, this, I think, was the last Chucky movie to make it to the theater, and every movie after this has gone straight to video, so I guess it It didn’t make as big a splash as they wanted, right?

I think it was a little disappointing, box office wise, compared to the one that came before, Bride of Chucky. And it’s probably because horror fans were not getting what they wanted. And non horror fans weren’t going to go out and see a horror movie, particularly one titled Seed of Chucky. Ha ha ha ha ha!

So it probably just caught everyone by surprise and nobody really knew what to do with it. I liked it. It was fine. But it wasn’t a scary horror movie. Yeah. 

Craig: Okay. And I’m not saying that you are. I think I’m just at a different point in my life. I think that at the time that I first saw this, I was a little snobbier about my horror.

At this point in time in my life, I like to laugh. And. I don’t mind low or easy humor at all. Things like, there’s a psycho reference in the beginning, there’s the shining reference, there are other winks and nods to the audience that, for a non horror fan, might just go right over their head and that’s perfectly fine.

It’s not necessarily significant. But for the horror fan in me, I appreciate those winks and nods, and I, I just like to laugh, so even silly jokes, fat jokes, jerk off jokes, like, one liners, I love it, it makes me feel good, it entertains me, so I’m totally on board. I get it, I, I don’t disagree with anything that you said, I think some of the jokes are kind of easy, and uh, those nods are a little obvious.

It just doesn’t bother me. I, I don’t disagree with you. I don’t think this is as good as 2 or Bride, but there was a point in my life when I thought it was bad, and I don’t think it’s bad. 

Todd: No, I don’t think so either. Definitely not bad. If you liked Bride, I think you’re gonna like this movie. It’s just way more of a comedy than a horror.

And I’m really anxious to see what Curse is like. 

Craig: I am so excited! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Because it’s what? It’s an, it’s again, it’s another like almost 10 year, I think it’s like another 8 year gap before another one came out. Man. And I’ve said it on every episode that we’ve done so far. We didn’t know what it was.

They intentionally kept it a mystery. Is it a remake? Is it a reboot? And regardless of what, you know, go into it with this mindset. I don’t know what this is going to be. Well, I have no idea. I, I haven’t seen anything since Seed of Chucky. It was silly. I don’t know what this is going to be, and I hope, I, I hope that you can see it with the fresh eyes that I did because I liked it so much, and if you don’t like it, that’s okay.

I’ll, I’ll just tell you what it 

Todd: is. It’ll be an interesting conversation nonetheless. And that’ll be next week. So thank you guys so much for listening to this series. If you’re a fan of child’s play or our podcast, let us know. Just find us online. Just Google two guys in a chainsaw podcast, find our website and our social media.

Drop us a line. Let us know what your favorite child’s play movie is. Let us know where you stand on the whole seat of Chucky debate. We love hearing from you guys. And we love responding. If you want to tell us with your voice, you can on our website, click a link that says, talk to us and go to a site where just using your computer or your phone, you don’t have to install any special software.

where you can just leave a quick up to 90 second message for us. And once you click that button, it’ll get sent right to us. We’d love to hear from you and play your messages here on a future episode of the podcast. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With two guys and a chainsaw.

We continue our month of Chucky by skipping over part 3 and heading straight to the fourth in the series, which marks a distinct change in tone and style. It’s also missing Andy for the first time, but we hardly miss him because we love Jennifer Tilly so much! Leaning more heavily into the humor but keeping its horror vibe, it turned out to be a great new direction from Chucky’s 80’s slasher roots.

Bride of Chucky (1998)

Episode 381, 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: We continue our series on Chucky this month by skipping the third. We did the second last week, and I don’t know, Craig, you know better than I, so you suggested that we go ahead and skip the third and go with 1998’s Bride of Chucky.

So that’s what we’re doing today. What was the reasoning behind that again? 

Craig: Okay, so the third is not a bad movie, but it’s probably most people’s least favorite, except for there are some people who really hate the most recent ones. It’s just because It doesn’t do a whole lot. I mean, there’s a story, but it’s basically, Andy’s eight years older, he gets sent to military school, Chucky finds him, the chase ensues, the only thing that’s different is that Andy’s older, it’s at a military school, and Chucky decides he doesn’t have to go into Andy, he can go into somebody else, and he gloms on to this other little boy, and manipulates this other little boy to like, help him do bad things.

There’s a cool set piece at the end, just like there was in part two, and that’s really fun. Ten minutes are great, but there’s not really anything consequential in terms of the pl the overarching plot of the whole story. It rarely gets called back to because there’s just not really much to call back to.

So I thought it might be fun for us to watch sometime when we had time to like do a minisode or whatever, but we’re trying to squeeze in as much Chucky as we can, and I don’t think that one makes the cut, if we have to cut any of 

Todd: them. You’re right. Well, we got to cut some because this, we don’t have enough months.

There’ve been so many Chucky sequels. We did cover just kind of do an overview of the series and talk about the TV series in a mini soda a few months ago for our patrons and we will be covering child’s play three. In a mini sode for our patron. So if you’re interested in hearing a full discussion about that, it will not be on a publicly available podcast, but you can go to our Patreon page and get a sneak preview of that.

And if you like what you hear, consider becoming a patron joining the club and getting access to that. And a bunch of other Mini sos. So that is a chainsaw ho.com. You can follow the link for our Patreon page or go to patreon.com/chainsaw horror, and that is our commercial for today. Now onto the bride of Chucky.

Like I said at the beginning of this, I had said I’d only seen the first Child’s Play and that was a lie. I had actually seen Bride of Chucky as well. Those were the only two I had seen before we started this and I think it’s kind of part of the reason I was really interested in doing this whole series this month is because I am not as caught up as you are.

Craig is a mega fan. Definitely. I remember seeing Bride of Chucky back in the 90s and enjoying it a lot. It has a real mid to late 90s sensibility to it and I think it was rebooted after what, I think there’s seven years between. Child’s Play 3 A long, 

Craig: yeah. A long 

Todd: time. I think it was Scream and sort of the new era of slashers that inspired Don Mancini and uh, the producer, David Kirshner, something like that, to uh, reboot this series and definitely update it with more of a late 90s sensibility, so it’s got a lot of self referential stuff in it.

It’s very self aware. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: Hung firmly in cheek, and it’s very, very slick production with beautiful people. 

Craig: Ha ha ha, like we had during there. Yeah, because it was expensive. This was the most expensive one to date, as far as I know. I think it was like 25 million. Wow. And I think it shows. Well, it totally 

Todd: shows.

I mean, the series, even from the beginning, I think invested a lot of time and money and effort into getting these puppets right. I assume a lot of that production money went into this, but also just into the general set. I mean, this is a much bigger movie. It has explosions, and it has more locations, and.

It’s just grand in scope. And I’m not surprised because as soon as the credits came up, I said that the director is Ronnie Yu. And I am a big fan of Ronnie Yu. His movie, The Bride with White Hair, which came out a few years before this, and certainly is a big reason why he was selected to do this, is just phenomenal.

Craig, I don’t know if you’re into like, I sense you’re not really into, like, wuxia movies, like, kung fu type 

movies. 

Craig: No, the only thing that I know that Ronnie Wu did was Freddy vs. Jason. 

Todd: Oh yeah, he did that after this, didn’t he? Later. He did The Bride with White Hair, and I would suggest that if anyone out there is interested in getting into those Millions and millions of Hong Kong.

Wuxia is like a genre that combines, you know, martial arts with magic. And so people are flying around. And I think like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was one of the first sort of Hollywood movie, certainly not the first Hollywood movie, but certainly probably the most popular Hollywood movie that kind of brought Wuxia to mainstream American audiences.

And it was a big hit. The genre gets. Pretty wacky, way wackier than Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon ever was. And I think more fun. There’s a lot of horror crossover there. Like a lot of horror fans, I think could really get into that. And I would suggest if you’re at all interested, The Bride with White Hair is the perfect gateway movie into that genre.

It is just exciting. It’s fun. It has a heartbreaking story. It’s full of action and. It’s got a lot of the, those horror elements as well. It’s just a blast. And so, yeah, I can’t speak highly enough of that movie. So I’m really not surprised to see that he was behind this one, which I really enjoyed. I enjoyed it when I first saw it.

I enjoyed it again when I saw it, probably even more so when I saw it this time. In, in what, in some ways it was kind of like going back to an old friend because I remembered it and I remembered the sensibility. In other ways, it was like going back to the 90s and remembering what horror movies were like during this time as well.

And it seems to have set the stage for a turn. In the series, if you will, towards the, what the Chucky is more or less now, unless, unless we’re in kind of a third incarnation at this point, you can tell me 

Craig: more about that. Yeah, I would say we are maybe kind of in a third incarnation now. It’s a little bit different because these, even more so the next one, Seed, really lean into the silliness.

But this one does too. I have to be honest with you. When, you know, we decided to do this. I was down because I am a huge fan, but when I thought, okay, I’ve got to watch, I’ve got to watch Bride here in the next day or whatever, I was kind of like, uh, God, and part of that is just because I’ve seen it so many times, like so many times.

I’ve seen it. I’m like, uh, you’re kind of tired. I’ve seen it right. And then I started it and I realized right away that I hadn’t watched it from the very beginning in a really long time. I was sitting here. You know, in my living room, in front of my computer screen, as I always am, and from the get go, I was so into it, and I was dying laughing through the whole thing, like, I thought it was so funny, and it’s quippy, it’s one liners, but they land for me, and I’m just, it’s, it’s like Puns and, and, oh God, but it’s really well written.

Yeah. I basically retyped the script because there were so many lines that I loved. And so I had hoped that you would enjoy it because otherwise I was going to think, Oh God, I don’t know how to defend this movie. If you don’t like it, you just don’t. But it, it gets me like it gets my sense of humor and it’s action packed.

The acting is really good. And Jennifer Tilly, and I just love Jennifer Tilly. I just think that she’s fantastic. I’ve never seen her in anything that I didn’t like. This is what I know her from the most, but she leans into this character so much. Not to mention the fact that she is drop. 

Todd: Yeah, teenage Todd was very much in love with Jennifer 

Craig: Tilly.

Oh my god, she’s curvy and she just exudes sex and she’s got that Bixany kind of voice. Like, I love her voice. It’s, uh, and she’s great both as Tiffany, both as Tiffany Valentine, the person where you actually get to see her doing physical stuff, but then also as the voice of Tiffany, the doll. I just love her.

She’s my favorite part of the series. Period. The 

Todd: end, and that was our episode. No, she’s like a modern day Betty Boop. Especially back at this time. Like, she’s got that voice that is cute and doll like in itself, but also she’s got that huge sex appeal. It really works well, I think, in this movie. 

Craig: And she’s like, I don’t know, when did this come out?

I didn’t even write it down. 1998. Oh, 1998. So, a long ass time ago, and the girl still looks great. She looks faaaaaaantastic. And she’s working 

Todd: like crazy. She has so So many credits. Uhhuh . It’s, it’s insane actually. I think right now she’s in, I think she’s been doing Family Guy Forever and uh, she’s in the Chucky series now as well, right?

Craig: Yes. She’s an integral part of it, and it’s so good. Oh, it’s so good. But I, this movie’s great and I think it’s one of the greatest cold opens, like it’s one of my favorite cold open. Ever the evidence depository this, you know, it’s a dark and stormy night and you see a sign that says, I don’t know, Lakeview or whatever evidence depository and this, this lone guy walks in and all the lights are out.

So it’s just the like moonlight and lightning shining through the high windows that’s illuminating tall rows of evidence and in there you see the crate from. Creepshow, you see Jason’s hockey mask, you see Freddie’s glove, you see Mike Meyer’s mask, I think, and Leatherface’s chainsaw. Like, these are just all in this one police depository.

It’s so campy. And I thought, it’s so great. And this guy’s like, obviously being shady and sneaking around, and he opens up a locker and he grabs the contents, he throws something else inside, and then he leaves. As he’s driving, he calls somebody, and it’s a woman who we don’t know yet, but it’s Jennifer Tilly, and you can’t mistake her voice.

He’s like, I got it. And she’s like, okay. And just don’t forget, and then he like almost dies because he’s not paying attention to the road, and she giggles into the phone when he’s almost dying, and then he’s like, don’t forget what? She’s like, uh, curiosity killed the cat, and so he parks at the location that they’re supposed to meet, and it’s raining and thunder and lightning, he gets curious, and he goes to start to open the bag, and classic I told you, this becomes a thing.

People popping out from behind the driver’s seat of a car. It happens so often. And this is one of the best, and she pops up from behind him and slits his throat and pulls, you know, once he’s dead, she pulls out the eviscerated Chucky. And he’s all kind of mangled like that because of the way that he dies.

Well, no, I’ll save it. It’s because of the way that he dies in part three that he looks like that. Okay, yeah, I wasn’t And, uh, I just thought it was, uh, I just thought it was such a great, I love that it, it’s so atmospheric, and it really kind of sets the tone. This movie is really interesting tonally. They, they, it references, obviously, in the title, Bride of Frankenstein, and Jennifer Tilly watches Bride of Frankenstein later, and there are Parallels to the two stories.

And it kind of has a little bit, sometimes, not all the time, that kind of classic hammer feel where it’s always, yeah, yeah. And where it’s always dark and stormy and the lighting is really severe. And I 

Todd: love that. There’s lightning flashing through half of the scenes in this movie. Every time they’re outside, it’s dark and there’s lightning and there’s either a storm going right now because it’s raining or there.

It’s just a storm coming because it’s flashing all over the place. Yeah, it’s really great. That helps to add to that grandiose feel. And I might add a bit of that. Woosha. Uh, taste to it as well. You’re gonna find that kind of thing a lot in the wuxia action movies. And, uh, it’s really cool for me because I remember this period of time, I was just out of high school, I was in college right now, but this was the grunge slash, we were moving into like industrial type stuff, Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, all those were becoming popular, and it seemed like our movies were getting a little bit of that.

Edgier aesthetic and this film seems to really lead into it. We got a lot of Rob Zombie songs in here. Yeah, uh, Jennifer Tilley’s boyfriend who comes in. I wasn’t surprised to find out earlier that part had been offered to Marilyn Manson because the guy comes in looking like Marilyn Manson and he is this absolutely.

Ridiculous kind of wanna be goth guy. She’s very much a goth girl. Her trailer that she’s in is covered with dolls, and it just has, quite frankly, a really cool like haunted house aesthetic to it, and she’s clearly wearing the pants in this relationship. And I like that. Like, yeah, he’s pathetic. She is really strong.

You know, you really need a strong female character to kind of Go up, not against Chucky, but kind of with him, right, to play off of him in this movie. He ends up sort of abusing her, but she ends up getting come up and says here and there, like she’s not going to take his shit. And she does that both as an adult and as a doll.

And I think that by play really helps. Make this movie work as well. She feels in many ways almost as strong as Chuckie. Oh, absolutely. And certainly it’s strong in personality, you know? Yeah, 

Craig: she’s a great rivals, not the word, but adversary, I guess for him, like like a Bonnie and Clyde type. Right, right.

They have a love hate relationship and it works really well. And I love that. And Damien is played by Alexis Arquette before her transition. Like I think she’s great in this movie, but she is playing a spoof of Marilyn Manson. So it’s almost funny that they would offer it to him because he would really have to have a really good sense of humor about himself, which I kind of have a feeling he doesn’t.

Todd: I kind of feel like that. 

Craig: He doesn’t seem to be like a very good. person. I think Alexis does a great job. And I also forgot that before, you know, I’m sure she still was after she transitioned, but before she transitioned, she was hot. Like she’s covered in tattoos. She’s ripped. I was like, okay, Damien, like, I don’t know.

Okay. We forgot to say. She brings home the doll Tiffany brings home the doll and she like stitches it up and this version of Chucky just looks badass He’s like mangled. Did you notice they brought back the metal skull? I did 

Todd: notice that I was I had forgotten about that I get to make it more durable, right?

Craig: I guess but she she stitches them up and then she tries to do she has voodoo for dummies and she tries to do the They do a dim blah and you know she goes through the whole thing and at the end she says awake awake and he doesn’t wake up and she says what a crock and throws the book down and then Damien comes over she’s annoyed with him because he like says he’s going to kill people but he doesn’t really like he showed her a fake picture that was just like him made up to look all mangled or whatever but as they’re talking she noticed she looks and Chucky’s gone so she doesn’t know where he is but she kind of tries to get Damien to uh, Inadvertently look for him.

Todd: It’s like she wants Damien dead. Oh, she definitely does It’s obvious early on and Damien is it’s just a complete dork 

Craig: Hey, Tiffany. What are you doing here? Come on. Let me in. I’ll catch my death out here 

Todd: By the way, I knew so many guys like this in high school is kind of funny it’s so funny the by play and It creates a lot of tension for us.

I thought I really enjoyed this whole sequence, which could have, you know, maybe some people thinks this whole thing and maybe the whole movie drags on a bit. I found that the movie was really skillful in its writing that there was always, even if there wasn’t a kill, even if there wasn’t Chucky, there was always something really damn interesting happening on the screen, in my opinion.

And, and in this sequence is just well constructed and I really liked it. 

Craig: Yes, I do, too. And eventually Chucky, like, I don’t know, pops up somewhere. Tiffany, I knew you were obsessed, but I’m not obsessed. Chucky? He’s so 80s. He doesn’t even look scary. No, he’s not. Yes, he is. I feel like that was the attitude people, some people, skeptics had when they were bringing it back after 10 years or whatever it was.

Chucky, he’s so 80s. He’s not even scary. Stupid doll. Hilarious. Tiffany handcuffs Damien to the bed and sits Chucky on his chest and then dances. for both of them. That 

Todd: was really 

Craig: hot. At this point, she reveals her entire history with Charles Lee Ray. You see, we lived together for years. Of course, that was before the cops killed him.

That was before he passed his soul into that doll there. Boy, was he ever jealous. Anybody even Chuckie would take care of him. Wouldn’t you, Chuckie? We were gonna get married. Damien says something insulting. He’s like, he’s not even big enough to satisfy a woman like you or something like that. Chucky’s head turns around 180 degrees.

Very much Exorcist like. It’s 

Todd: not the size that counts, it’s how you use it. Yeah! 

Craig: Every line killed me! He rips out Damien’s face, piercing, this is a gory movie, I like that too. Lots of great, great practical effects. And then he suffocates him by holding A pillow over his face, and then just sitting on it while he has a conversation with Timothy.

It took him a long 

Todd: time to 

Craig: suffocate. And their conversation, their conversation is like, How you been? And she says, It took me 10 years to find you. And, and he’s like, Well, what are you doing with that guy? And she’s like, Well, 10 years is a long time. And she said, And I haven’t even been with him. You know me, I’ll kill anybody, but I’ll only sleep with someone I love.

She just, she leans into this character so hard. And at this point, she has to love doing it. I mean, I certainly hope so. It’s possible she’s just doing it for the check, but I really don’t think so. I think it’s just such a. I, I, I think it would be so fun to play and she gets to be wild and crazy and scream and do physical stuff later.

Again, I’ll try not to spoil too much. I kind of feel like you have a general idea later. She gets to have a lot of fun. Jennifer, Jennifer Tilley gets a lot of have. Fun lampooning herself and and she’s great at that too. So I could go on about her for the next 45 minutes. So we should probably just move on one thing that we have failed to mention so far.

And this is the only part of the movie that I don’t like. It’s the stupid starcrossed lovers subplot. Oh, yeah, it’s dumb. I don’t care for either of those actors. I mean, I don’t know him really from anything other than this. I looked at his IMDB page. He’s done a lot of like daytime soaps and some other stuff.

He’s a handsome guy. He’s very, very handsome and he’s not terrible. I just don’t care about these characters and anytime they’re on screen, I just wish they would go away and get back to the other things. And Katherine Heigl is the girl and I, I don’t care for her as an actress. I don’t know. She’s probably a lovely person, but I just don’t enjoy her as an actress and I don’t enjoy her here.

She was 

Todd: big at this time though. Well, this is right 

Craig: before she got big. I think, yeah. This is, she is right on the cusp of her huge breakout, which was Grace, of course. But, uh, Julia Stiles was originally cast, but she had to drop out to do 10 things I hate about you. I’m kind of happy for her. Because it’s just, it’s this star crossed lovers thing where this girl, she’s from the right side of the tracks and he’s from the wrong side of the tracks.

They’re both ridiculously good looking, but they want to be together, but they can’t because her parents have died and her. I don’t know her guardian her uncle. I don’t know if they ever make that clear But her guardian is like the sheriff and he’s sheriff John Ritter. John Ritter is awesome. By the way.

Oh, he is always yeah yeah, I think he passed before we started doing this because if if He hadn’t we certainly would have done a tribute for him cuz cool amazing amazing guy and and he’s fun in this It’s just fun to see him pop up and he’s sinister. He plays a bad guy in this Yeah, and he does everything he pulls crooked cop shit to keep them apart Like he’s constantly got like one of his deputies like trailing them and stopping them and stuff But they’re so in love and they just like they have to run away together and get married Uh, like it’s so boring.

Todd: You’re right These scenes are boring and it’s so typical and it’s cliche and I think it’s supposed to be I think they’re really Setting up kind of a parallels here between their relationship and then Chuckie and and Tiffany’s relationship, you know, very much right? Yeah, it’s almost obligatory, right?

You gotta have the teenagers in there doing teenage stuff. I also noticed that this also followed that late 90s sensibility that has carried into the 2000s of super, super gory, really, really chased on sex. Yeah, that’s true. There’s almost no sex in this movie and what sex there is, there’s clothes on and it’s, it’s almost a, a parody of sex really.

And except when the dolls get down to it. And I was really sad, but that’s just in silhouette, that was really sad. That was mostly in silhouette. That was kind of, you know, it took a, what team America world police to really give us a solid pornographic doll sex. 

Craig: Oh God. I love that scene. What, what, what kind of kicks off the events?

It just so happens that Jesse, who’s the Romeo, he lives in the same trailer park as Tiffany. Tiffany is dragging Damien’s body out in a big trunk and she asks him to help load him into the trunk. Which he does, it’s all very funny, it’s a very funny scene. But eventually, she hits on him, which I don’t blame her at all because I don’t believe for a second that that guy’s 19 and even if he was I could make an exception.

So she hits on it, but he’s like, nah, sorry, I’ve got a girl. And she, she’s like, Oh, well, she’s really lucky. She’s like, but be, be good to her. And he’s like, what do you mean be good to her? And she’s like, my mother always says she’s, she says that all the time. My mother always says she tells him, you know, like a good, you know, if she cooks you a nice dinner, do the dishes, you know, just, just, just be a good guy.

Tiffany is. A murderer like she kills like three people in the first 15 minutes of this movie, but she’s also a hopeless romantic Yes, honestly Her character develops and goes through different changes in different faces. I don’t even care when she is a villain I am rooting for her. I like her She’s very like she’s fun.

I think she’s a tough bitch and, and she’s very sentimental and girly in some ways. Like all this time, she’s been trying to get Chucky back cause she thought they were going to get married. And when he tells her, I didn’t leave you that ring. I just took it off some lady that I murdered and it was, I was going to pawn it.

It was worth a bunch of money. Then her heart is broken and she’s really sad. And so she turns on him and says, okay, well, I guess you’re just going to be my little baby now. And she locks him in a playpen. Yeah, 

Todd: and she even buys a little bride doll for him, which is a little girl doll. Yes! Chucks that in there as well.

And mocks 

Craig: him. I love 

this. 

Todd: I used to have a speak and spell when I was a kid, when I was really young, like before kindergarten, I asked for one and my parents were shocked and I learned to read through that thing. I loved it. And he’s got a little speak and spell in there as well. And I love that bit where, cause the speak and spell is, it says words and then you have to punch the words in.

And he, he’s Buncha Sid, bitch. And that just sums up his philosophy. Yeah, 

Craig: it’s hilarious. That, that sound is so nostalgic for me. Spell woman.

Todd: Oh God, I 

Craig: loved that thing. Folks, folks our age will get it. You youngsters won’t get it, but she, she makes the mistake of She put the ring that he gave her on a necklace around that doll’s neck and he uses it to like Hacksaw his way out of the thing. Okay. Meanwhile, she is looking like a snack lounging in the bathtub in the bubble bath watching Bride of Frankenstein, and it’s the scene where the bride comes alive and rejects the monster, and the monster is heartbroken, and says that they would both be better off dead, and she’s crying, like there are tears running down her face, she’s such a hopeless romantic, and you see Chucky like, from behind, like marching towards her, dragging the bride doll, and then he presses his face up against the clear shower curtain that she uses as like a door, and then, He just lunges at her with a knife, and she screams!

She screams so much in this movie. She’s got a great scream queen scream. And, but she’s quick, and she kicks him away! But before she can get out of the tub, he tips over the TV stand, into the tub, and it electrocutes her, and she’s writhing and screaming and splashing, and bubbles are floating all over the place, and Chucky’s just sitting there enjoying every second of it.

And then she died and like the, I love the effects. They’re a little bit cheesy, but it’s a parallel to the Bride of Frankenstein. You know, just like the Bride of Frankenstein was brought to life with electricity. This is how she dies, but it’s a very Frankenstein y electricity kind of moment. Yeah. And so Chucky, Chucky does, he looks at her and he puts the doll on the ground and he does the ah de do a dembala thing.

And it doesn’t seem to work. And he does the same thing she did. He said, but load of crap or whatever she said before, but then Jennifer Tilley shoots up in the tub for just one second and falls back down. And at the same time, the doll comes alive and she immediately looks. It’s totally different. Like, much like Chucky evolved, you know, her brow gets much sharper and she heard the expression on her face is much harsher, but she looks great and they come up with a plan eventually, but one of the first things she does is give herself a makeover.

There is a makeover montage in 

Todd: this movie. I know. It’s so cute. She has to make herself as goth as she was in, as a per, as a human. And so it’s really funny. Now, you’ve got to help me out with this. Maybe you know more than I do about this. I’ve read in the trivia or it’s Wikipedia or somewhere that this movie kind of really spoke to the queer community and now the whole series is kind of a fan favorite among the LGBTQ.

Is that true? Do you know? 

Craig: Uh, I mean, Jennifer Tilly is a gay icon, so there’s that. And then there are definite LGBTQ issues in the next one that we’re going to watch, and they’ve just kind of fully embraced that. The reason that I said that some might say that the show is in a new iteration is because there are a lot of people out there that would describe the series as woke.

It clearly has a progressive point of view. All of the characters, That we know and love are very progressive. Chucky, Chucky is totally cool with the gays. Like, uh, so, so, you know, I don’t know. I can’t speak for the community, but I, I, I could understand why. And I do know that it is true that it has been recognized for positive queer representation in the series.

Several organizations have recognized it for that. So. I think that’s cool. Yeah. But, uh, so now they’re dolls and they have a problem, but here’s where they start to mess with the mythology. Now, all of a sudden, Chucky says, there’s this amulet, the Heart of Dumballa, and we need to get it. Or else we’re gonna be stuck in these bodies forever.

Mmm, we’ve never heard of this before. This is a new development. You’d 

Todd: think this would have been the first thing he was looking for in the first movie, right? If this was, uh Right. Wow. Oh, God. There’s always gotta be a MacGuffin, right? 

Craig: Right, right. And the way that the two stories, the two Sets of leathers stories intersect is that Tiffany calls her neighbor Jesse and says, I need you to do something for me.

I’ve got these dolls that I need delivered to a friend in Jersey or something, which is where he’s buried, which is also doesn’t line up. He was killed in Chicago, and they say in this movie that he was killed in Jersey. The both the first two movies take place in Chicago. I don’t know why they would change that at this point, but he’s like.

I’ll give you 500. All you have to do is drop him off somewhere and he’s like, I don’t know I really need the money. I don’t need to get I don’t get messed up in anything. He’s like, I’ll do it for a thousand She says fine. We’ll give you 500 up front and 500 when you get back So he talks to his girl and it’s like we have to run away And he kind of talks her into it.

I love when she offers him the 500. She said, I’d do it myself, but I have to take care of a friend who’s mentally incapacitating. 

Todd: Like, 

Craig: Everything she says is so funny. And so then when Jesse goes over there to get the dolls, Like, as he’s opening the door, Tiffany kind of acts like she doesn’t know what to do.

And Chucky just goes, act natural. And then it shows Jesse coming in. And then when it comes back, Chucky’s just sitting there like a doll would be. And she looks like she’s on a fainting couch. Like she has one arm up to her forehead and like her head cocked. Oh my God. This movie is so funny, but they go, okay.

So then he goes to pick her up and they have a conversation about how they just, they should go, they should run away and get married. Unbeknownst to them, her guardian. Is standing right behind the van and he’s like, he calls his deputy and he’s like, they’re getting ready to leave and then he’s breaking into the van to plant drugs in the car and Tiffany’s like, what is he doing?

And Chuckie’s like, he’s with our ride. And so they kill him. Because they don’t, they need this ride, right? Like they don’t have anything personally against him. Not that they ever really need any reason to kill anybody. They kill a bunch of people in this movie, but this was one of the great kills where John Ritter like comes in, he plants the drugs and then he’s kind of looking around and Tiffany is in the passenger seat, I think, or the driver’s seat doesn’t matter.

Chuckie is kind of down in the floorboard and as he leans in, he looks at the dashboard and he sees that it’s lined with. Nails just like leaned up against it and Tiffany comes alive and says now and Chuckie cuts a line and the airbag goes and shoots all of those nails into John Ritter’s face and it looks great.

Like, that’s why I said I can tell this movie was expensive because it looks so good. It does. Everything looks good. Everything’s clean and sharp and the, the makeup looks great, the, the practical effects look great, the puppets, the movement of the animatronics or puppets or whatever they are. That’s fantastic.

It looks as real as I could imagine making it look real. And they do different things, like there’s one point where there’s an aerial shot of Chucky crawling. I don’t know if that was an animatronic. At the end The two dolls fight one another. I think those were little people. They were, didn’t you think?

Yeah, 

Todd: they were famous ones 

Craig: too. Gotcha. But they just did the, you know, so many different techniques to make these dolls appear as lifelike and realistic as possible. And I really think that they were super successful. here. I would even say this is one of my favorite iterations because in the newer ones, they’re still doing mostly practical, but they are doing some CGI.

Um, and I would almost just rather it look a little bit more rough around the edges and be all practical, but I’m not complaining too much. It’s still looks good. I understand that. Times change. Well, we talked about 

Todd: it in the last couple of episodes on the, on the, on the previous two movies as well. You know, these dolls, they’re animated dolls.

And so I like the fact that it’s not, you know, the rubber has limits. The dolls eyes can only move so much and its mouth can only move so much, but it’s not stilted, it’s expressive and, uh, it moves as much as it can. So I really dig that they would just look like cartoon characters and I would totally hate that.

Craig: Right. So. Right, or you’re right, like elves or something biological. Right. And to some extent they are, like, they bleed and they can be killed and stuff, but they still maintain the appearance of a doll. Which I appreciate because I think I don’t, wouldn’t like them to look like little weird humans. That would be weird.

Right. So now it becomes a road movie. The Guardian is dead. They hide him. There’s a hilarious scene where they have to clean this all up in like five seconds. And Tiffany is just on the floor like scrubbing like.

And there are hilarious moments like there’s a moment where Jesse opens the back to throw Jade’s. Luggage in, and Tiffany looks up, she’s still cleaning, and he just throws it right on top of her, like, cause he’s not even looking at what’s in there, and then they just manage to scurry back to their seats before they get in, and then they get pulled over immediately, the deputy had gotten tipped off, and there’s a whole series of events where he finds the drugs, and he’s like, well, you’re in trouble now, and Jesse’s like, oh no, but Jade’s not there cause she went inside to get some food, and in the meantime, again, you Chucky and Tiffany still need their ride.

So Chucky crawls to the car, the cop car sticks some fabric in the gas tank, sets it on fire, and then crawls back and the car explodes. Killing the cop, obviously. But Chucky also dropped a piece of evidence because what ultimately happens is the cops think that Jade and Jesse are a Bonnie and Clyde, and that they have been responsible for all of the murders that have happened in this movie.

Right because they’re all connected because they are all connected because they’re connected by Chucky and Tiffany They’re trying to pin it on Jesse and Jade because obviously they don’t know 

Todd: about the dolls and Jesse and Jade They’re going off to get married, 

Craig: right? Well, I don’t know if that was the in I think that was the ultimate goal But at this point because they were separate when the cop got killed, they’re both suspicious of each other They’re hearing about themselves and how their suspects on the radio Is it true that Jesse and Jade may in fact be the serial killers that you’ve been tracking for the past We can’t confirm that at this time.

The previous murders appear to be the work of just one killer. It’s possible, actually, it’s possible that one of them is a hostage, or simply unaware of what the other is up to. So they’re both suspicious of each other. Yeah. But for whatever reason, I think it’s because they know that there’s, well, you know, they’re eminently in danger.

They stop at Niagara Falls and go to an all night wedding chapel and they do get married. I had forgotten about that too. Yeah. Guys, guys. 

Todd: This must be why they said it in New Jersey, you know, in New Jersey, or they had to go to New Jersey because they wanted to get Niagara Falls in there because that’s, you know, that’s that classic your grandparents wedding destination, right?

That everyone has a honeymoon in Niagara Falls. And I wonder if that’s the reason why they moved it to the East Coast. I don’t know. 

Craig: I don’t know. I’ve never read any reasoning for that. Then there’s, there’s a fun scene here. Well, they’re both suspicious of one another, but they also have to deal with these swingers who are in the adjoining suite who just come in and make themselves at home and they’re putting the moves on that.

Like it’s our honeymoon too, but you know, the more the merrier. And Jade and Jesse are not Interested in sexy times, even with each other. They’re just trying to get rid of them. But the woman swipes Jesse’s wallet. And I think the ring, yeah, because Tiffany sees it. And after they’re gone, Tiffany whispers to Chucky, that slut doesn’t deserve to wear that ring.

So I love this scene too. Like it’s just a series of great scenes. This one’s one of my. Favorites. 

Todd: It’s a great set piece. Yeah. The two are basically on their bed and this is one of those. The, the, the swingers. Yeah. The swingers. Yeah. And this is one of those themed love hotels, basically. So it’s this big round bread bed.

There’s a mirror up above them. Water bed, right? Oh yeah. It’s a water bed. This is the chaste sex, you know, where they both got most of their clothes on, but they’re acting like they don’t and they’re getting all hot and heavy. And Tiffany comes up, grabs one of the bottles of champagne, and slowly sneaks up on the bed, and he, the man, turns around and looks up at the mirror, because he’s on top of the girl, and he sees Tiffany, which must have been terrifying, coming at her, coming with the bottle, and I was like, what is she going to do with that bottle?

Is she going to whack it with it? I knew exactly what she was going to do with it. Oh god, it was so funny, and then she throws the bottle up, breaks the mirror that’s above the bed, and all these shards of mirror Improbably anyway fall down on them and impale them also getting the bed and so there’s just blood and water just gushing out across the 

Craig: floor.

You said improbably yet totally improbably because not only like are they killed this would probably be very uncomfortable and could lead to some serious injury but no you wouldn’t necessarily die. These these people are, you know, just impaled with glass all over their body where close ups of it later, but it also.

Falls apparently with enough force to make the bed explode, right? 

Todd: The water 

Craig: shoots like 10 feet into the air 

Todd: and it’s completely filled with blood at this time, right? It just goes across the floor. They stand there later on a woman comes in. Well, I think I’ll go ahead 

Craig: Well, I was just gonna say you can’t forget that Chucky witnesses all this and it makes him super, oh, that’s right I was gonna say it makes it was gonna say it makes him super horny, but it’s not even that he just looks at her in awe and says I love you.

And then they reconcile and have a romantic moment and he proposes. He says, will you be my bride? And he puts that ring on her thumb. And I mean, it’s even huge on her thumb. Oh my God, I’m crying. I wonder if all the plumbing works. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to feel like Pinocchio here.

I am. Anatomically correct. No. What? No, you’re not. Of course he’s not. We’ve seen you naked before. That was another retcon. Maybe it’s a 

Todd: voodoo thing. He has a voodoo dick. Is that what it is? 

Craig: So they start kissing and they start like, they’re, we’re seeing all this in silhouette. He’s on top of her and she’s like, Wait, wait, do you have a rubber?

And he’s like, have you seen me? I’m all rubber. It’s just like, I thought you were plastic. And I don’t even remember what he says, but then they, they make sweet, sweet love. 

Todd: Yeah, they consummate their 

Craig: marriage. And the next morning, the maid, who is Kathy Najimy, What are you doing in this place? It’s so weird.

It is weird, but there are I don’t know. I guess this kind of is the first one that there are big can’t like big cameos. Like people would just show up to film for like a day recognizable people. There’s a big one in the next movie that we’re going to watch too. But Kathy and Jimmy finds them and, and you know, they’re dead and she screams and Jesse and Jade run in and see what’s happened.

And they grabbed the thing and run away at some point. They both. Call their gay friend, David, who we haven’t mentioned, but he’s friends with both of them, and he’s helped them out of sticky situations before, and they both call him because they both think the other one is crazy, and because they both call him, he’s convinced that they’re both fine, so does he meet them here?

I think he does, because she told, she told him on the phone where they were. So, right before they take off, he like, knocks on the window and he, he rides with them in their van. And this is a funny scene too, where he’s telling them, Listen, you both were so sure that it was the other one, that I think that there must be some sort of misunderstanding.

Todd: Yeah, you’re both innocent. By the way, something smells odd in here.

And he keeps saying this, and he, as he’s chatting with them and convincing them they’re both innocent, he goes to the back and opens his trunk where the body of John Ritter’s character. Was that her uncle? Or just godfather? Who, who 

Craig: was it? I, I don’t know. It was her guardian. I don’t know how they were related other than that.

Todd: Anyway, he’s, he’s in there and, you know, he opens it and he sees that and he closes it and they’re like, what’s up? What’s going on? It’s, it’s classic comedy. It’s pretty funny. But then, uh, I think, isn’t this when Chucky and Tiffany pop out? 

Craig: You, well, he grabs A gun. The, the guardian’s gun, cause, cause he’s the sheriff.

And he’s pointing it at the two of them and there’s a lot of confusion. But yes, then the dolls reveal themselves. And I don’t remember if they have guns. Maybe Chucky has a gun too. Maybe they grab his, I can’t remember, but. Maybe, I don’t remember. But Jesse pulls over on the side of the road and David gets out and he’s still waving the gun at all of them and he like signals the police and the police are coming.

Now is when the dolls reveal themselves. Right. And David is just so startled by this that he backs into oncoming traffic and gets plowed by a semi truck and just explodes into, into a pool of mushy goo. 

Todd: As you do. 

Craig: And then The dolls hold the kids hostage and make them run from the police, and they do, and there’s a big car chase, and huge car crashes, and 

Todd: What I love about the series so far is Chucky’s constant ability to hold people at gunpoint or knifepoint and make them do what he wants.

And that’s what they do. But then there’s all this cool byplay where Jesse and Jade kind of like start an argument between Chucky and Tiffany, because she’s back in the back of the RV, like making cookies and and things. Well, you’re such a good cook and yada, yada, 

Craig: yada. The dolls say, I mean, a couple of things happen, like they’re still in the van.

The dolls have to explain to the kids what’s going on. And Chucky says, like, they start talking about it. And then Chucky says, if it was a movie, it’d take like three or four sequels to do it justice. It was funny, but the dolls also make it clear that they, I mean, they, they all, but say it outright that their plan is to possess these kids, but the cops have found Chuckie’s fingerprints.

They, Charles Lee Ray’s fingerprints. How shocking update. I don’t know. I guess Chuckie has. Charles Lee Ray’s fingerprints. It doesn’t make any sense, but they, they have. So now there’s, you know, they don’t know what’s going on, but they also say they’re going to exhume the body. So the dolls panic. So they steal an RV.

They kill the old people and we don’t see it on screen. But later, as you said, as Tiffany’s like being a domestic goddess, like her hero, Martha Stewart, I just wish that this podcast, like I wish we could just watch the movie with. Everybody. Right. Because there are so many funny one liners and so many parts.

And they’re running the time to talk about them all. Yeah, 

Todd: and running gags. Like the Martha Stewart things are running gags. Chucky’s like, you know, again, it’s one of these 80s things that Chucky’s back awake after so long. Early on in the movie, Tiffany mentions something about Martha Stewart, and he’s like, Who the f k is Martha 

Craig: Stewart?

She’s a domestic goddess and my hero. 

Todd: It’s so funny that this woman would have Martha Stewart as a 

Craig: hero, right? But that’s, I love, she’s, she’s, she’s a, she’s not just one thing, and I love that about her. Pile 

Todd: of contradictions, like all of 

Craig: us. Uh huh. Yes, and and she is she you know here she’s wearing an apron She made Chucky Swedish meatballs because they’re his favorite and he’s like nobody makes Swedish meatballs like you babe Then she brings him some cookies and he’s like, thanks, babe.

These are great and she starts to walk away You know if I had known that marriage was such a great gig I would never have waited this long to tie the knot on the other hand. She’s not much of a housekeeper is she? Tiff Those, uh, dishes aren’t gonna wash themselves, you know. You were nice enough to cook for him.

The least he could do was wash the dish. And so Tiffany gets really pissed. And she starts throwing dishes at Chucky. And they’re shattering like on the windshield. Chucky says, Hey, what would Martha Stewart say? Martha Stewart!

Oh my god, it’s so funny. But they end up My I already said the first part, but also, Martha Stewart can kiss my shiny plastic butt! Jade kicks Tiffany, the doll, into the oven, which is presumably still hot because she was just baking. And Jesse kicks Chucky out the window. And then, I don’t know, he didn’t intentionally crash the RV, right?

No, it’s 

Todd: just, he just, in the commotion, I think he lost control of it, yeah. 

Craig: Burnt Tiffany jumps out. And she’s all burned up now. Like she’s charred from head to toe. She still has her hair, which doesn’t make a lot of sense, but no, but she’s in her dress is all sooty and black and she’s completely charred and like her plastic is cracking and stuff.

Um, and she attacks Jade, but somehow. They get out, and then Jesse jumps out and the RV explodes, he like jumps out of the explosion. They just 

Todd: happen to be at the cemetery now. Chucky forces, uh, Jade to take him, I think, and Jesse’s following, like all four of them are just basically walking to the grave.

Craig: Right. Chucky kills the gravedigger who was working late into the night exhuming his body. Right, 

Todd: with no one else around, late 

Craig: at night. Like, you. And he Right? And Jade opens the coffin, which is real easy, and retrieves the amulet, and there is, you know, silly lines, like Chucky’s like, hey, you broke my head off, or you broke my neck, or something.

Uh huh. And Jesse tries to use Tiff as a hostage to make an exchange. And he does the two girls, you know, it’s that classic exchange, like, you know, I’ll let her go. You let her go. And they, they cross one another. And right as Tiffany’s walking away, she looks at Jesse and says, why can’t I ever get it on with one of the real good guys?

I love that. Like, I love that the dolls are good guy dolls. Yeah. So it’s a great play on the words anyway. You know, she’s with a good guy, but not a real good guy. And Jesse’s a real good guy. And you feel bad for her. She’s a mess. Yeah. Murderer 

Todd: don’t feel 

Craig: bad for and I, my heart breaks for her. She deserves love, 

Todd: even mass murder, 

Craig: right?

And as she’s passing Jade, she looks at her and says, you’re a lucky girl. And she walks up to Chucky and she says. Catch me, Chucky. And she, she like falls forward and he sidesteps and just lets her face plant on the ground. Oh. So the, the lovebirds, the real lovebirds are reunited, but Chucky throws a knife into Jessie’s back and then he pulls a gun on them and ties them up and starts the ritual.

I don’t know why he would stab the body that he’s planning on. Immediately going in. Yeah, that doesn’t 

Todd: make a lot of sense. Also, it doesn’t seem to matter anyway that he had a knife in his back. It just gets pulled out and then it’s almost like it never happened. 

Craig: Right. And he tells Tiffany he’s like, this is it, babe.

And they embrace and Tiffany says that they belong together forever and they embrace and kiss, but she stabs him in the back and he falls down like an agony. You know, it’s very difficult to hurt this guy most of the time, but I guess she knew exactly where to stab him that it would like take him out.

It was in the heart. Maybe. On the back. And, uh, she says to him, We, we belong dead. It’s the, it’s the call back to Bride of Frankenstein. Mhmm. And, goodbye darling, I’ll see you in hell, and she falls over dead. But, Chucky is, oh no, she doesn’t fall over dead. Chuckie’s not dead. He gets up and this is when they fight with shovels and it’s all shot from above.

Big fight scene. Yeah. I can tell that it’s a little people. I don’t care. Just barely dark. What else are you? You know, that, that’s an excellent idea. Yeah, that’s a great idea. Shoot it from above. So the perspective is a little bit off, you know, dress them like the dolls. They look small. They, I believe it.

Love it. It’s great. Yeah, he ends up stabbing her I guess and she falls over but Jesse hits Chucky into his grave and Then pulls up the ladder. So Chucky’s stuck down there. He’s like, let me out. Let me out But the detective who’s been working on the Jesse and Jade case these murders the whole time shows up alone Just out of nowhere shows up alone and he pulls a gun on The kids, but then, he sees Chucky down there, I think it’s Jade, points a gun at her, at him, and he says, Go ahead and shoot, I’ll be back, I always come back, but dying is such a bitch.

And, and she shoots him a bunch of times and he’s screaming, but then he’s dead. And then the cops look at the kids and he’s like, nobody’s gonna believe this, but somebody calls him on his radio and he’s like, uh, we’ve got another body out here or another couple bodies or whatever, you know, send backup or whatever, but Jesse and Jade, they didn’t do it.

I think he says it’s a long story or something like that, but he has communicated to somebody that they didn’t do it. It’s always 

Todd: that, you know, convenient way to wrap things up at the end is to get some person of authority and to see, you know, something incriminating at the very end and then it can just unwind this whole mess for them.

So we know they’re going to be fine. Right. 

Craig: They’re going to be okay. He’s like, and he even says, you kids go home. What? How are they going to 

Todd: go home? How? Take his car? I 

Craig: guess. God. But then we’ve got the end where it’s just the detective alone in the cemetery and he walks up to Tiffany’s body and he’s like disgusted by it.

But then she sits up screaming, just wailing, screaming, screaming, screaming. And he sees something moving under her dress and then. A huge amount of blood splashes from out of between her legs, all over his face, he’s covered in blood, and he’s trying to wipe it off, and then the baby from It’s Alive crawls out from under her skirt, and it’s got those little sharp teeth, it’s quite literally the baby from It’s Alive.

It is, yeah. It jumps on his face, and then it cuts to black, and the credits start to roll. 

Todd: Setting up a sequel. 

Craig: Honestly, I didn’t expect to enjoy it this much, this time around as much as I did, but I am so glad that I revisited it, and if you are somebody who is a fan, but for whatever reason hasn’t revisited this, sit down and watch it from beginning to end.

Maybe with, you know, maybe with some buddies, maybe have a couple beers, but it’s a fun time. It’s a fun movie. And like we said, with part two, it moves like it just moves and moves and moves. The slowest parts are like the, Oh, we’re star crossed lovers. But even it’s not like those go on forever. Like you get a couple of those scenes here and there, and then it gets right back into the good stuff.

Yeah, I just, I loved it. And I forgot. I don’t know if I had read this before, but this was Brad Dourif’s favorite Chucky movie up until one of the more recent ones. He has since changed his tune, and there’s another one, one of the future ones, that is now his favorite. But at this point in time, this was his favorite one, and I get it.

It’s a bigger budget, it’s bigger in scope. It gives him more to do. It gives him more to do, he gets to be funny, and I think he’s really funny, I think the character is funny, I think that Tiffany and Chucky are a great, great combo, and the dynamics of their relationship are just fun to watch, Jennifer Tilly is a goddess, I think she’s, I mean, she’s great in this, and this is a silly role, and I love that she embraces it, I’ve seen her in other things, and she’s good.

She’s just a good actress. It’s interesting. I didn’t know before this time around that the first pick for Tiffany was Gina Gershon, maybe most famous for starring alongside Jennifer Tilley in bound, which is a huge movie for the LGBTQ community. Lesbians love that shit. I don’t remember if Gina Gershon turned it down or what, but I think that she I don’t know if they were already considering Jennifer Tilly, but she put in a good word for Jennifer Tilly and told Jennifer Tilly she could do it.

And I think Gina Gershon would have been great. Spoiler alert, she shows up later. I think this is a perfect role for Jennifer Tilly. She’s hilarious. If you don’t like chocolate with your peanut butter, if you don’t like comedy with your horror, this is not for you. Oh no. Um, because it is It is much a comedy.

Yes, at least. 

Todd: At least. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, it’s, it’s fun. Honestly, it’s not as corny as Freddy got. It’s funny, it’s, but it’s slick. It’s not trying too hard, but it’s not afraid to be a little 

Craig: silly. Freddy kinda got into dad jokes. Yeah, I’m a big fan of a dad joke, but, uh, I 

Todd: just like, you know, I think more sophisticated comedies, they set something up that have payoffs later.

You know, I, maybe my, the best example that is Sean of the dead, that, that movie is just brilliant for that. In this one, you’ve got these running gags, you have the Martha Stewart thing, you know, you have the, the, the comedy I think is. It’s more sophisticated than just quippy one liners and dad jokes, you know, and for that I really enjoyed it, and the special effects are great, the directing is awesome, the cinematography is fantastic, it’s a stormy night through the whole thing, and you’re right, it’s clear that Bride of Frankenstein and those Universal monster movies in general inspired the production, inspired the writing, inspired all of this, and I think, you know, those are classics for a reason, and so they really reach through and speak to me as well.

I dug it. I just dug the whole movie. I enjoyed it as much as I did the first time, maybe even more so as an older adult. And I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens to this little Chucky baby, because I have no 

Craig: idea. I am really like, I am so interested to see what you think of this next one because this next one is polarizing.

So I’ll be very interested to see where you land on the spectrum. I think you’re either going to really like it or really not. 

Todd: That is exciting. Tune in next week for Seed of Chucky, as we work our way through the Child’s Play franchise this month, and join our patrons at, uh, ChainsawHorror. com, you can follow a link through there, or go to Patreon.

com slash ChainsawHorror, and for just five bucks a month, you can have access to the mini show we’re gonna do on Child’s Play. play three, as well as all the other minisodes we do, all the conversations we have behind the scenes and a Christopher Pike book club that just popped up. Thank you all for listening.

The best thing you can do is forward this podcast to a friend who would enjoy it or write us a review online at any of the places that you listen to your podcast. Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Welcome to Chucky Month! It’s a full-month of crawling our way through the Child’s Play franchise, at the request of our Loyal Patrons. Since we’ve already covered the first film in a previous episode, we start things off at part 2, wherein Andy continues to be terrorized by grown killer in a doll’s body. And Charles Lee Ray really don’t wanna be in there no mo’.

Child’s Play 2 (1988)

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

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Well, another first of 2024. Here we are with our first theme month. We used to do these more often. I 

Craig: know, and we talk about it all the time, but we haven’t committed to one in a really long time. I have so 

Todd: many good ideas for theme months.

I have this long ass list. I know you do. I mean, we could have four years of nothing but theme months as far as I’m concerned. I just love the idea. Maybe I’m a little dorky that way. But this last time, I did have a few ideas I wanted to throw out there for theme months. And so a few months ago, I put it to our patrons.

What would you like to see us do a theme month for? And I was actually kind of surprised. I was too. But they chose Child’s Play. We had like werewolves, we had like a lot of interesting things in there. Not that those, that Child’s Play isn’t interesting, but uh, yeah, I know you were probably pretty thrilled though because we had done a minisode, oh somewhere in there, where we had talked about I believe the Chucky series, the TV series, and I am very unfamiliar with the Child’s Play franchise.

I’ve only seen the first one. Only when it came out and then again, when we saw the podcast and I don’t know why it’s so weird that so many of those movies have come and I, I remembered liking the first one. It was kind of an event for a kid that first one. I just remember like, Oh, this awesome looking killer doll movie.

And Chucky became this household name. That’s what I remember anyway. For 

Craig: whatever reason, it did really well, and I’m not really sure why, because it wasn’t particularly unique, like, there were several other doll puppet movies, and for whatever reason, the first one just did really well, and everybody saw it, and everybody was talking about it.

And so they went, they went immediately into production for part two, which is something that I will really enjoy because when you’ve got movies centered on kids, you got to keep the production going. Otherwise they’re going to age out like these stranger thing kids in the newest season of stranger things are like.

30. 

Todd: And 

Craig: they’re still supposed to be playing, like, 

Todd: 18. Riding around on bicycles and stuff. Right. You’re not the Goonies anymore, guys. It’s 

Craig: insane. But Andy I didn’t Alex something? What’s his name? Andy’s 

Todd: name? Andy’s played by, uh, Alex Vincent. That’s what Alex Vincent, that’s what I thought. I 

Craig: didn’t write it down, because I’m like, oh, I’ll remember, I know that, but Alex Vincent was virtually the same age, like he doesn’t look much older, and he’s still very much a child, and he’s adorable, so that works really well for this one, but He plays 

Todd: Andy throughout, right?

At least some of the later movies, am I right about that? Right, 

Craig: okay, so the first three are kind of like a trilogy, this is one of those Movies that’s kind of broken up into trilogies and it’s kind of by and not exactly sometimes they’re pairs or whatever But the first three they made in succession really fast and then three didn’t do so well and I understand why because it wasn’t that great It was fine.

I still liked it, but then they took a big break And then they came back with Bride with a really different tone. They leaned way more into the humor of it. It was still very violent. Lots of kills and creative ones at that. But they leaned a lot more into the humor. And then they did that for Bride and Seed.

And then after that, they stopped for a really long time, and then they came back with Curse, and none of us had, like, a decade later, and none of us had any idea what Curse was. Is it a remake? Is it a reboot? Is it something entirely different? We had no idea. You know, we find out. I won’t spoil it for you, even though I think I already have.

And then they stuck with that for Two movies, Curse and Cult, and then they moved it to the TV show. So they’re like, there’s all these iterations, but they all follow a continuous timeline. And that is so uncommon. Yeah, period. In a franchise that’s been going for over 30 

Todd: years. It’s hard to believe. We started, we watched this, 

Craig: I watched this movie.

Child’s Play 2. I watched this movie when I was a little kid. And I’ve seen it, oh my gosh, dozens of times. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but I have seen it probably dozens of times. It used to play on, on television, like in the afternoon. You know, a heavily cut version, of course, but, and, and I always liked it.

And in fact And I’ll be, I’m really interested to hear from somebody who’s never seen it before because it’s just kind of consensus across the board with Child’s Play fans that this is the best movie in the franchise. Oh, yeah. Well, 

Todd: it’s really funny. I’ll give you, I’ll give you my idea of why Chucky resonated so well back then.

I think it was the first time that the killer puppet thing was done so well and was so Bold and brash, you know before the this the killer puppets kind of mysterious. It’s like, oh he’s in the corner now He’s not they didn’t really have the tack or the the wherewithal to really Like animate them and get good close ups and give that puppet a lot of really deep personality I might be missing a movie or two in there that i’m unaware of or that i’m just that’s not coming to my head right Now, but I remember when this movie came out It was the first time that the killer puppet really had some personality.

You saw him on the screen, he’s talking, he’s cursing, he’s swearing, he’s pissed off. He’s basically a loudmouth version of the slashers that we were getting in the 80s. And so it fit right in there by taking that older concept of the spooky, mysterious killer puppet and updating it with that modern slasher sensibility and then doing such a damn good job with the Animatronics, because I do remember as a kid, there were TV specials, you know, about the animatronics on this movie, it was all over entertainment tonight and stuff, you know, they would pop up and show behind the scenes footage and clips of how this movie was coming together just because it was so groundbreaking with the animatronics and the guy who did the animatronics, I believe was Jaeger, right?

What’s his name? Keith Jaeger. I don’t 

Craig: remember, but Are you talking about the guy that, like, managed the puppet? Yeah. Because that was Catherine Hicks husband. The mother from the first movie Kevin Yeager, yeah. Her husband is the guy that ran the animatronic. And, like, there was all this speculation why she didn’t come back.

Because she’s not in this movie. They Relegate her to an insane asylum because she tells people that there is a living doll. And so she’s crazy. So they put her away. I guess there was all kinds of speculation as to why she didn’t come back. And as it turns out, they just wanted to go in a different direction.

And I get that. Like it makes sense. Take it out of the familiar environment. And I also think that it makes sense to remove this kid from the people who trust him, because otherwise. You don’t have that build up. Yeah. Only Andy can know for a while. Yeah. Because if everybody else knows, then the movie’s going to be over really fast.

Yeah, 

Todd: exactly. Like, you wouldn’t go through the trouble of resurrecting the doll. This confused me. And maybe I missed a line of dialogue in here somewhere, because there is a bit of explanation at the very beginning. But there’s just, like, There’s all these awesome close ups of this doll being cleaned up, like they’re stripping it’s skin, scrubbing the skull, scrubbing the teeth.

It’s got one good eye that that’s popped up, because he was burned at the end of the first movie. In the fireplace. In the fireplace, uh huh. And so, I’m like, who’s putting this to what kind of evil genius is putting this doll back together who knows about Chucky? And then it You know, there’s just this kind of long hallway talk between the head of the company that makes these good guy dolls and one of his lackeys.

Every supermarket tabloid in the 

Craig: country is running headlines about Andy Barclay and his killer good guy 

Todd: doll. What about his mother and the police that were on the case? The 

police 

Craig: were smart. They denied everything, which is fine because now they can’t hurt us, but the mother’s a different matter. She backed up her boy’s story in court, so now she’s under psychiatric observation.

Jesus, where’s the boy 

Todd: now? Midtown Children’s Crisis 

Craig: Center. Foster custody is pending. Uh, our biggest problem has been the rumors. A lot of people are saying that some joker here at the company must have tampered with the doll’s voice cassette, you know? Uh, Hi, I’m Chucky, I’m the Lakeshore Strangler, now I’m gonna kill you.

Something 

Todd: like that. Well, something like that. 

Craig: But the good news, Mr. Sullivan, is that 

Todd: now we’ve got the doll. And they’re recreating it. They’re restoring it. 

Craig: I was like, why? It didn’t make any sense. Like, why would you do that? But they do. They throw in a line of dialogue that explains it because apparently though nothing could be proven.

There were rumors that somebody. At their factory had messed with the voice chip and had had it say terrible things like I’m Charles Lee Ray I’m a murderer and so they restored it so that they could disprove 

Todd: that but like what how would they at their own factory? Reconstructing the doll then then handing it to somebody and saying see there’s nothing wrong with it.

How would that prove anything? 

Craig: Well, they’re not even going to like that’s the other thing like they’re not even Now that they’ve disproven it for themselves, they’re not even going to tell anybody. Like, it doesn’t make any sense. Like, I love this, I love this opening sequence, but this doll is a f ing Terminator.

They don’t make dolls out of titanium. No, that’s true. 

Todd: He has a metal Yeah, like 

Craig: it’s great and I’m glad they did it because it looks fantastic. It’s a, it’s an excellent opening, but like it disproves itself in the end. Yeah, he doesn’t have a metal skull. 

Todd: You’ve got a good point there, but I love the aesthetic of this.

It is so goofy that I was just like, Oh, so this is the movie we’re in for. And I was just. Warmly because when he goes to the part of the factory where they’re restoring this doll. It looks like a freaking toy Version of a very serious operating room. Yeah. 

Craig: Did you ever see that movie toys with Robin Williams?

Yes, I did It’s almost like that, not as whimsical, but painted like very whimsically. And that was a style choice. Like there, this movie on face value is a fairly typical slasher movie. It actually plays almost more like a thriller or. Like a, like a Giallo, except you know who the killer is, um, but that’s kind of the feel of it, like it gives me very like Hitchcockian vibes in the way that it’s shot, and it’s stylistic, and that was one of the stylistic choices that he made, he wanted the factory to be bright in color.

To contrast, you know, what you would typically expect a factory to look like. Other stylistic choices were like, he wanted the whole movie to look like it was being viewed from the perspective of a child. Everything was shot from low angles, so it’s like you’re looking up at people and the shots are broad, they’re wide.

It’s something that I don’t even really notice, but then the instant that it’s brought to my attention, Oh yeah, I see what He’s doing there. And there are lots of other really interesting like close up shots. Those cool. I love these shots. They’re kind of cheesy, but used effectively. Those shots were like, there’s just like a bar of light across the eyes and a really close in a really tight close up.

No talking about like, it’s like the Morticia Adams shot. Like she’s always only lit right across her eyes. There were a couple of times that they did that. Lots of interesting stylistic things going on. Ultimately, yeah. As I’m sitting watching this and I’m thinking, wow, you know, this kind of shows its age and I’m not sure how Todd’s going to feel about it.

And then I’m getting further into it. I’m like, no, this is good. This is 

Todd: a good movie. It holds up in a, in a day and age where nobody would bother to do it this way. They’d have CGI on here. They would want the doll to look as realistic as possible. In most of the scenes, it is remarkable. Number one, from a technical perspective, how.

Not distracting. It is that this is obviously, you know, some kind of animatronic. It actually helps, I think, because the guy’s a doll. I think we might have talked about this and during the first, you know, when we did the first movie to it’s been we talked about it a million times. Yeah, but yeah, the guy’s a doll.

And so, of course, he’s his face is not going to be fluid, you know, like a person. He’s not like a magical Creature, right? He’s a doll. And so his face is a little rubbery and his eyes can only kind of move left and right and a little bit up and down, but kind of jerky. And that’s actually adds to it. And it helps fit the illusion.

And so in that way, it’s always going to be timeless, right? They did it just well enough. That the illusion that this guy’s a doll is totally convincing the illusion that he’s talking with the lip syncing and everything is totally convincing And I read in the in the trivia how much effort they took to make sure that they 

Craig: were meticulous.

Yeah Yeah, this time around unlike the first time around Brad Dwarf was barely ever on set because he just Pre recorded all of his vocals as so that they could animate The animatronic to match his vocals. So he was never on set. They would just play the audio for the characters to work with. But I also read that they were so meticulous in wanting to make sure that the, the animatronic looked just right.

There’s one scene. About the midpoint of the movie where Chucky follows Andy to school and kills his teacher and there’s like one shot of him walking out of a closet. It’s, it can’t be more than five, seven seconds and it took like all day to shoot. Because they wanted to make sure that they got it.

Right, and I say all day, maybe even longer than that, but they were really, really determined to make it look as good as they could, and I think it looks great, it looks practical, and I like practical effects. I also thought that in this movie, Chucky is particularly brutal, like his face is much Meaner I feel like than in the first movie.

Yeah, slightly more believable I know that one of the problems that you have with these movies is like it’s a doll just grab it and throw it down but in this movie Chucky regularly almost always attacks from the back and is like clinging to somebody’s back and Biting like he’s a major big time biter in this movie.

Yeah, and I can almost Believe that in a commotion it would be very difficult to get something That was clinging to your back like that, off. Oh yeah. Much more difficult than if it were coming at you from the 

Todd: front. Honestly, it would be like a cat that had jumped on your back. Yeah. And was grabbing your shoulders and all that.

It’s actually kind of tough. I have had cats. I know what that’s like. So yeah, for sure. I was never taken out of it. And you know me, as you just said, I was, I was looking for this. I was, I was waiting for those moments and they never came. Because, you know, they do struggle with him a little bit, and kind of jump onto the ground and stuff, but he’s, he’s, he’s fighting them quite a, quite a bit from the back, and so.

Craig: And the threat is very real for Andy, because Andy is a small child. I just think that he’s adorable, and I think that he’s great in this role, and a big part of what I think is so great about him is his vulnerability. Like, there are times when he’s just walking around where he will, like, stumble. Or trip over something and I have no idea if that was choreographed.

I kind of suspect that it wasn’t like he’s a child, you know, kids kind of stumble through life, but it made him very vulnerable and I think he’s great. He, he has a lot to carry on his shoulders in this movie and I think he does a really good job. It’s 

Todd: remarkable. And also like a God, I felt so bad for this kid.

I felt so much sympathy for him way more than I expected. He’s by himself. He’s at, I believe at an orphanage or is it just a place that’s placing foster kids? I think 

Craig: it’s a temporary, it’s like Department of Children’s Services or whatever, but it seems like a lot of children are staying there. Yeah. But yeah, he’s, he’s getting placed with a foster family.

And before that, he talks to a psychiatrist or a counselor or somebody who asks him if he’s still having nightmares about Chucky. And he says yes. And they have kind of a nice back and forth, but ultimately Andy. I guess kind of recaps what happened. He tells us the whole lore about how he was this murderer and then he put himself in this doll, but then he had to get out of the doll because if he didn’t, he would be stuck in there forever, and he has to come in me because I’m the first one that he revealed his secret to.

Now, all of the voodoo stuff, I just learned this, I didn’t know this, but all of the voodoo stuff, Don Mancini didn’t like and didn’t want. I don’t know what his Idea for it was they have stuck with the voodoo stuff throughout like it’s continuous it changes a little bit and Chuckie gets Chuckie gets better at it and other people can use it to 

Todd: he’s not so good at it in this movie 

Craig: it’s not so good at it but the rules kind of change like eventually I and I I would bet money and we’ll see because we’re going to watch these movies I bet money that they somehow explain it because the whole Chucky can only go into Andy thing just goes away.

Todd: I had kind of forgotten that myself too. I remembered that he was just like it. He wants to be in me, but I wasn’t sure how hard and fast that was. And as we were watching this movie, I was thinking to myself, like, why doesn’t he just go into somebody else? It’d be a lot easier for him. Like one of these people he’s about to kill, just do his little voodoo thing.

But he’s just hell bent on Andy and then I was trying to come up with ideas like is it because he wants to be in a in a man’s body, not a woman’s body and maybe it’s because he wants to be in a kid’s body because it’s like he’s got his whole life ahead of him and you’re going to be like, it’s like the perfect cover.

Really? Everyone’s good. I don’t know. Yeah, I 

Craig: guess that’s interesting. That would be interesting to explore. Like he wanted to be able to relive his childhood because I read that there’s an official novelization of this movie where they give a lot of information about Chucky’s backstory. Like he was Autistic, and his father was abusive, and his mother was a little person, and the dad eventually, and he was bullied in school, and the dad eventually left, and the mother was so annoying that he eventually strangled her, and that’s how he became known as the Lakeside Strangler.

All of that backstory is Done away with later because series we get backstory and it’s not that But in the context of this movie if we considered that backstory it maybe would Explain his motivation for wanting to get into a kid like he wants A second chance or whatever that makes sense, but anyway, yeah, so Andy is going to foster care and he gets taken in by these two people and immediately like they’re good cop bad cop.

Like the mom seems super nice and nurturing and the dad just seems like a big jerk. 

Todd: Yeah, or I don’t know the guys played by Garrett Graham. And his name is Phil, and we’ve seen him before, probably most notoriously in Terror Vision, he was the swingin father. Oh, I 

Craig: couldn’t place him, and I must, I looked at his credits, and I, I must have missed that, and now that you say it.

Oh yeah. A hundred percent. 

Todd: He’s been all over TVs and movies for a decade. Well, 

Craig: that’s the thing. Most of the people in this movie, you will recognize from somewhere. Oh yeah. The foster care lady, totally recognizable, been in a million things, lots of horror. Yeah, 

Todd: Grace Zabriskie. Uh, I 

Craig: know for sure she was in, she was in the grudge.

She was the old lady who was like incapacitated in the haunted house. She was in 

Todd: Twin Peaks. Yeah. I mean, she’s like 80 or 90 right now. She’s been, She was born in 1940s. I think she’s been acting since the mid sixties. 

Craig: Child actor. The lady who plays the mom is still working. I think she’s on a successful television series right now.

She disavows this movie. She hates it. Apparently, they filmed a lot more stuff with her and, and they Cut all of it. And she was, she’s resentful. She feels like they took away all of her good stuff. They took, but she’s still around. The woman that plays the teacher is in everything. If you’ve ever seen a movie or an episode of television, you have seen this woman.

She’s been in everything. She was a semi regular on Seinfeld. She was in too long food. Thanks for everything. She’s literally been in everything and she’s fantastic. I love her. Yeah. She’s a brilliant character actress. She was on The Office. She was, uh, God, she’s been in everything. 

Todd: And because all roads lead to Shopping Mall, I just have to point out Garrett Graham was also the technician who gets killed first in Shopping Mall, so.

Okay. Remember 

Craig: that? That’s funny. So, yeah, filled with familiar faces, but they specifically did not want to cast big name people. And if you look at some of the other people who were considered, like, the only one that comes to mind is Veronica Cartwright. Like, Veronica Cartwright’s not a huge star, but another very recognizable face.

But they considered a lot Andy McDowell, I think, or somebody, I don’t know. Lots of people who you would recognize were considered for this movie, which is crazy. Right. Because This is a, like a, a little weird slasher. However, I guess I’m failing to consider what year did this come out? 1990. 90. Well, see, this was nearing the end.

Oh, I don’t know. It’s kind of late to the game. It 

Todd: is. It is a little, but I mean, we were still getting slashers. 

Craig: We’re 

Todd: still, yeah. Yeah. Nightmare on Elm Street, part four. So I think maybe around this time, something like 

Craig: that, it just kind of blows. I. I’m, I’m boggled by the success, despite the fact that I like them so much.

And despite the fact that I think this one in particular is a very well made movie. This movie is written by, or is directed by the writer of the first movie. Is that correct? John 

Todd: LaFia. There’s a whole Torah. He was a co writer with Don Mancini on the first movie, I think, right? On the first, he didn’t direct it.

Tom Holland directed the first movie. Right. But the first movie was Don Mancini, John LaFia, and Tom Hollander. All credited as writers 

Craig: on that. And then, when the director of this movie got the job, he brought Don Mancini back on. Which also surprised me because I thought that Don Mancini was just the godfather of all of this from the beginning and apparently he wasn’t.

I guess he just kind of Adopted it. Oh, interesting. No, but this the guy who directed this one, he just had in mind. I know I can do better. You know, we did the first one and I know I can do this one better. And that was his goal. And I think cinematically he accomplished it. And I think that he was really smart in some of the things that he did.

One of those things was giving Andy an ally. A hesitant ally at first, much like his mother, but somebody who eventually gets on notice also that Andy’s stepsister and not stepsister, excuse me, I keep saying that foster sister, Kyle looks very much like Andy’s mother from the first movie, exact same 

Todd: hairstyle.

That’s a good point. You’re right. I’m looking at it now. 

Craig: And. Kyle is played by Christine Elise, I think is her name. I love her. She’s fantastic. She’s another one of those people who is not an A list star, but has been working for decades, and she’s got a great look. Like, she’s kind of a tough girl. Really, yeah.

Kind of chick. And I really like her, and it’s really interesting to read the other people that were considered for her. I think maybe Jennifer Jason Leigh. Christine 

Todd: Swanson. Christy Swanson, right. And she kind of gives off a bit of that vibe, too. It’s, uh Yeah, a little bit. I 

Craig: believe Christine Elise. Kind of more as a tough girl than I do.

Christy Swanson, Christy Swanson, for whatever reason, she’s just got a little bit more of an edge to her, but she’s great. And I love her. And from the beginning, like she’s a rebel, she smokes and she, you know, I don’t know, where’s a leather hat or something. So, you know, she’s rebellious, but she’s not disrespectful to her foster family.

No, aside from the fact that she smokes in their house. But she’s not disrespectful to them. She actually tries to be helpful. Like you see scenes of her doing the laundry and stuff like that. But from the get go, she’s kind to Andy, but she also is real with him because she’s been through it, like she’s been, she tells him, I think very early on that she has never stayed in one foster home very long, like just the foster mother asks when.

She’s introducing Andy to Kyle. She says, Kyle, why haven’t you unpacked? And she’s like, well, ’cause I never stay anywhere very long. Now why? This girl would get passed around a lot. I don’t know because she seems lovely. . Yeah, . So she smokes cigarettes. Get over it. She’s 17. . Give her a break. . Um, but she’s kind to him from the beginning.

We have seen that Chucky. Has the, the douchebag lackey to the corporate guy, takes Chucky, and I don’t know, just throws him in the back of his car and is driving around, calls his mistress, this is one of the alternate scenes in the TV version, there’s a TV version that cleans it up a little bit and it, and elongates it to Make for time because they have to cut out some of the gore stuff in this scene in the TV version The guy first calls his wife and says oh no, honey.

Don’t bother holding dinner. I’m gonna have to be late again I know I’m so sorry. I know I promise and then he hangs up the phone and calls his girlfriend So that version makes this guy even douche here And then he has to stop at a liquor store and Chucky gets in his briefcase and finds like Andy’s information and then holds him at Quote unquote gunpoint and forces him to drive to Andy’s neighborhood.

It turns out the gun is just a squirt gun, but he ties the guy up in his car and suffocates him with a plastic bag. Yeah. Chucky or somebody else popping up behind the driver’s seat becomes A motif throughout the series that I love it happens over and over again because 

Todd: it happens like three times in this movie alone.

Craig: Oh gosh I love it 

Todd: so much at first I was like what in the world is he doing and then I realized that I guess he doesn’t realize he thinks it’s a grown man back there. That 

Craig: doesn’t make any sense either. He doesn’t like you would look the first thing you would do would be look in the rearview mirror, 

Todd: right?

Yeah, just see who is thing. Yeah 

Craig: But he doesn’t so he’s already killed that guy and he knows where Andy is So we know that now Andy goes to his room and like is it’s a room full of toys Like it’s a really nice place. Like ultimately these people seem like decent people. Yeah, but nice home 

Todd: But his house the first scene when Andy walks into this house I feel like the house was deliberately painted up and designed to look like a doll house, because Yes, everything about it is 

Craig: dolls.

There are little figurines everywhere, there are paintings of dolls, everything is dolls. It has 

Todd: this odd, almost like surreal Barbie Dreamhouse pink and blue motif, where the walls are pink and all the accents like the staircase and the borders at the top and bottom and the wainscoting is all this pale blue.

I It struck me, the moment he walked in, I was like This is weird, but like you said, it’s filmed from a child’s perspective and I immediately got that. I was like, Oh, like we’re seeing the ceiling on this, in this, in this house and we’re seeing, you know, this is sweeping around and it, it, it looks like a dollhouse.

It looks larger than life. I thought, Oh man, they’re putting a lot of thought in this movie. Like this isn’t thematically. This is quite cool. Yeah. 

Craig: The, the design of that, the design of the. Foster home is intentionally like off kilter and strange. He wanted it to feel unwelcoming and off. And you mentioned seeing the ceilings.

That was a stylistic choice too. He always, the cinematographer director always wanted to be able to see the ceilings because we don’t normally see that, especially on movies that are shot on sets. You know, there’s usually structures for lights and sound and all of that thing up above. So you don’t usually see the ceiling.

He wanted to show that. And again, it’s one of those things. Somebody, somebody not like me, who is well educated, you know, in cinematography, something that they would notice right away. It’s not something that I notice right away, but again, as soon as I’m, my attention is brought to it, I notice it and I understand it does have an impact, it makes a difference.

Todd: It leaves an impression nonetheless, and it also gives you this feeling of a little bit of claustrophobia. Right. That’s why I felt so much sympathy for this kid. I was with him as he walked into a brand new and unfamiliar place right that he was going to have to live with these new and unfamiliar people who he knew were not his parents and he wasn’t going to stay with.

And so it’s Bye. Bye. I just felt so bad for any kid in this situation. Then immediately he becomes a problem for his dad and his mom, because he’s talking about Chucky and he’s got these things and they think he’s a little crazy and he’s got trauma and maybe we need to give him back and well, he’s not my son and anyway, and he’s overhearing them have these discussions about him and it’s heartbreaking.

Craig: It is heartbreaking. And the dad comes off. As such a dick, I will say that in the TV cut, it’s a little bit more clear that part of the reason that the father figure is more distant than the mother is the fact that they are trying to adopt. In the TV cut, she tells him, the adoption people called again, we got turned down again, and he’s like, what?

And she’s like, well, I guess there are just so many kids to go around and they start they’re talking about Andy and Kyle and he says, but they’re eventually gonna leave. They’re not ours. So it’s like he doesn’t want to get too close to these kids because they’re not their kids and they’re just gonna they’re they’re gonna leave and he’s still a butthole.

But I can kind of empathize with that. It’s understandable. 

Todd: Yeah. I mean, you know, I get it. This is heavy stuff and it’s deep and it’s emotionally challenging. And to put that in this horror movie and to have it come across and feel real. I thought 

Craig: it did. Well, right. And it’s particularly, you know, like we, we skipped over the part when Andy’s.

Exploring his room, he reaches up to the top of the closet to pull down a skateboard, and a good guy doll falls down on him. They just happen to have one, and the mom’s like, Oh, I’m so sorry, I’ll get it out of here, and it’s like, Hi, I’m Tommy, wanna play? But, she takes it and she puts it down at the bottom of the stairs, and she’s gonna get rid of it.

Chucky doesn’t show up quite yet, or he’s there and Andy doesn’t know it yet. But like you said, he overhears the dad saying, 

Todd: You know, I gotta tell you, I’m not happy with this whole thing. Having second thoughts? Well You have to admit he’s a very troubled little boy, and he obviously has not come to terms with this whole 

Craig: doll thing.

Look, all I’m saying is that he may need more, uh 

Todd: attention than we 

Craig: can give him. So, to prove that he’s over the doll thing, Andy goes and gets the Tommy doll, flips it over on its back and checks for batteries. Because that’s how the mom figured out that it was alive the first time around. But it’s got its batteries and it seems like it’s cool.

Todd: I think by this time, is it already? It’s already the Chucky doll. Yeah, there’s a whole bit. It is. There’s a whole bit. Chucky shows up at the house because he makes a phone call to the orphanage to get the number, which I don’t think would ever happen today. I doubt it would have even happened in 1990.

But anyway, he gets there, he sneaks into the house, he sees the Tommy doll, he grabs the Tommy doll and bashes its face in. 

Craig: In my notes, I have any murderous The Tommy Doll 

Todd: because that’s what it looks like. There’s so much comedy in this movie that, that it’s so charming because of that there is just so much dark comedy.

I was giggling throughout it because of things like this. Yeah. See he murders the Tommy Doll and he buries it in the backyard with the plastic toy shovel, and he’s laughing Giddily while he does this, and then he replaces himself with the Tommy Doll and there’s this cute moment where Andy comes down.

He looks at the doll, he’s gonna pick it up like you said for the first time to prove. And, the doll comes to life, like he says, Hi, I’m And then looks to the side for a second, and then looks back, Tommy! Wanna play? 

Craig: Yeah, that was really funny. I almost 

Todd: fell out of my seat. That was hilarious. It was 

Craig: hilarious.

And then, Kyle and Andy have some bonding time. Chucky kills Tommy with this, like, precious tchotchke that belongs to the foster mom, and so when they find it broken in the morning, the dad accuses the two kids and says, I know one of you did it, and they’re both like, no, we didn’t, and he’s like, okay, well, until you do.

Until somebody confesses, you’re both grounded. Kyle acts irritated for a while, but then, like, she doesn’t take it. Then the very next scene is her and Andy in the laundry room, like, hanging out and chatting. It’s fine. And Andy’s, like, joking around with her. He tells her some dumb joke, like, You wanna hear me say your name backwards?

And then he turns, he just turns his back to her and says her name. Like, stupid jokes, but totally something a kid would do. And they’re bonding, and then they’re out, like, outside, and Andy’s swinging, and she’s gardening, and Chucky is sitting in a chair, ominously, in the background, and eventually, Kyle wants to turn on the swing.

And she’s dragging her feet because Andy’s pushing her and she doesn’t want him to and you see that it’s right over the spot where Chucky buried Tommy and it’s starting to unearth him a little bit like Chucky’s eyes get big But they don’t find him at this point What I love about this movie is they don’t pussyfoot around like they get to things like the very next thing that happens is like Andy, well, his, his foster mother, who is very nice, you know, reads him a story.

And then he’s like, my other mom used to sing to me. And I don’t think that this was intentional comedy, but I laughed so hard because he’s like, will you sing to me? And she’s like, okay,

like she doesn’t 

Todd: sing a song. She’s just like, starts 

Craig: like doing some melodic riffing, 

Todd: so 

Craig: weird. There are songs in the public domain that you can use, you don’t have to pay, give her something to sing. So weird. But anyway, then he goes to sleep, and then he wakes up bound and gagged with Chucky 

Todd: on top of him.

I love it how Chucky’s, uh, ropes of choice for binding anybody together are jump ropes. Yeah, hilarious. So cute. And 

Craig: there’s just an unlimited supply of jump ropes. I 

Todd: know, there’s at least four tying up his arms and legs right here. 

Craig: Did you miss me, Andy? I sure missed you. I told ya, we were gonna be friends to the end.

And now, it’s time to play. I got a new game, sports. 

Todd: It’s called Hide 

Craig: the Soul and guess what, you’re it.

Ade due dembele. Ade due dembele. Like, it’s the same. I love it. I could do that whole chant for you because It’s the same every time. 

Todd: It never changes. Yeah. Well, why 

Craig: not? It, it, it eventually gets a little bit fancier, like way, way down the line, like there are like variations on it, but, um, it’s always that ah de do eh dim ba la thing.

And he starts to do it, but Kyle interrupts it. Now, this is one part of the movie that I take issue with. Yeah. Because this child is bound And gag, and Kyle appears to be under the impression that he did it to himself, which would be impossible, and then the parents come in because Kyle comes in because she’s coming through his window because she snuck out to go on her date because they were grounded, and the parents hear something coming on and they come in and they’re like, you tied him up so he wouldn’t tell on you, like, I don’t know.

What? No, 

Todd: she did it. And he 

Craig: is saying like, it’s Chucky. It’s Chucky. Please, please believe me. If you don’t believe me, he’ll kill you. Another thing that I love about Alex Vincent’s performance is he keeps like, he’s trying to be rational. Like he’s not even as. Erratic as maybe a real child would be. Yeah, for sure.

Guys, I’m serious. Like, he is a killer and 

Todd: he will kill you. He’s remarkably adult about this in many ways, actually. Well, he’s matured a lot in the last couple of years. That’s true. He knows things. He’s matured 

Craig: a lot, Pat. But the dad’s like, fine, I’ll get rid of it. And he throws it down in the cellar and locks the door.

He’s like, oh, there. See, it’s gone. No. Okay. So then Andy and Kyle go off to school the next day and they have a discussion outside of the or at the bus stop. She drops him off at the bus stop. And he, you know, he’s like, it wasn’t me. It was Chucky. And she brushes them off. And he says, you’re just like everybody else.

Nobody believes me. And I think that gives her pause. I don’t think that she believes him. Necessarily, but I think that it gives her pause. Yeah. You know what I’m saying? 

Todd: Like, like, she realizes that this kid has nobody, somebody needs to be on his side in some way, shape, or 

Craig: form. Yeah. Right. And then he goes to school, and I love the school scene, but you should talk about it, because I’d be interested to see, I want to hear it from your perspective.

I 

Todd: love this scene, though. Oh yeah, this scene is great. You know, some kid’s flicking his head and the teacher’s being your typical douchey teacher as they are on these things. Like, well, I thought that the first thing on your mind, especially as a new kid, would be to get it to my good graces. And there’s this great shot where I guess everybody’s out for recess or something and Chucky’s inside the room and he’s looking through the papers like, where is it?

Where is it? Where is it? Like, what is this dog going to do with these like kids papers? After the teacher finishes bitching Andy out wrongly, She goes back to her desk and is flipping through the papers to hand back, and on Andy’s paper is scrawled in red crayon, Fuck you, bitch.

It was so funny. This movie can get away with this stuff, and it is super humorous, because it’s a doll. And this is just the joy that I found in this movie, and I hope it’s just gonna translate to all the ones that we do. I love this character, because he is like, A super frustrated angry adult stuck in a doll’s body and he just wants to freaking get out of it and it’s just everything is cursing and swearing and he just doesn’t give a shit about anything he just wants to do what he needs to do so he can get on with life and so whenever he’s cursing and he’s swearing and stuff it just comes across as really funny.

Well, 

Craig: I, I think it’s blasphemous that we haven’t uttered the words Brad Dourif yet because when you were talking earlier about why you think this one was more successful than the many, many others, you’re right. And I, and, you know, fact check me, I don’t know, but this is the first time that I remember the doll or puppet or whatever having real character and talking and Brad Dourif is great.

It’s an over the top, shouty, maniacal performance, but in the body of a doll. It’s just, it’s just great. It’s fantastic. And Brad Dourif is a brilliant actor. Just brilliant. Oh yeah. Like watch him in one. Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He will break your heart. Oh. And he’s just really good. Anyway, so yeah, so the teacher, so the teacher sees the paper and keeps him, makes him stay, locks him in the room, locks him.

Oh my 

Todd: God. I was, I was just shaking my head at this. Did we, did people ever really do this stuff? I guess probably. Maybe like my mom’s era. They 

Craig: probably did, but yeah, she, but no, but didn’t that classroom, didn’t that classroom totally ring you back? Like, oh yeah. That’s exactly what my classroom looked like 

Todd: when I was that age.

Exactly here. Same thing. The whole school, you know, it’s like this old, really well built old school with multiple floors and the classroom has a closet in it, like a full on walk in closet to keep things in. I was thinking of Invaders from Mars had the same classroom, Goonies, like all these older movies that they actually kind of have the same classroom.

Don’t they so just keep getting brought back to it and back to and back to and it was so much fun. So she tosses the doll inside the closet locks the closet And then she walks out of the room and locks the room and walks on down the hall He can’t get out and but chucky can get out of the closet. We don’t see what happens We just uh hear commotion and she comes into the room and can’t find the boy And she goes to the closet and of course thinks that he’s inside the closet because there’s noise and so she’s unlocks it and spends an Awful lot of time searching this tiny little closet for traces of Andy.

But no, Chucky springs out at her, she falls down and out of the closet. And that is the scene that you’re talking about where he comes storming out with the 

Craig: ruler. A yardstick. Oh, 

Todd: and I don’t remember what he said, but you know, it’s just, it’s just traces of how teachers would, and this teacher probably for sure, hit kids with rulers or yardsticks to get them to behave.

And what does he say, something like, you need to be taught a lesson or something? I don’t 

Craig: remember. She’s on the ground because he knocked her down and he’s just kind of stomping towards her with this yardstick. It’s bold. And then you just. See him, but only like it cuts to outside the school. So you can just see this his silhouette in the window stabbing with this yardstick.

And I guess that they shot more brutal footage of that, but they ended up cutting it for whatever. Did he stab 

Todd: her? Did he just hit her so many times? 

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t think you could kill somebody by hitting them 

Todd: with a yardstick. I don’t know. Maybe if it’s metal. Who knows? I don’t 

Craig: know. But Andy shows up and he, he tells the foster parents that Chucky was at school and he had to run away and he ran out the window and he ran home.

And Phil, the dad, shows Andy that Chucky is quote unquote still in the basement. Now somehow, Chucky has gotten himself to and from school and is now back in the basement. It was the bus, I guess. We and Andy overhear another conversation where Phil says he wants to get rid of Andy, and Kyle comforts them.

Andy, I’ve lived with dozens of different families. And they always seem to send me away just when I’m getting comfortable. But you know what? What? Every time it happens, it just makes me stronger. Because it reminds me that the only one I can count on is myself. Okay, and you have to learn that now. And Andy says, it doesn’t matter, wherever I go, Chucky will find me.

It’s so bleak! 

Todd: But, but it does, it does change something in him. It kind of like, he does get this notion, and good for him at this young age, like, maybe I do need to take matters into my own hands. I know! So we get this great fake out shot, it’s a point of view. And it’s this little hand that reaches up real fast and opens up the drawers in the kitchen and is closing them and is looking for a knife.

And it was about the third time that it happened that I was like, Wait a minute, that’s not Chucky’s hand. It’s too big. And it turns out, of course, to be Andy’s hand as the camera swoops around at just the right moment. And what Andy finds to use out of all the things in the kitchen It’s, it’s one of those electric knives?

Meat carvers. 

Craig: What are the Yeah, it’s like what your, it’s like what your dad would carve 

Todd: a turkey with. Like the, you know, normally in my house that thing was in a drawer or in a closet somewhere until maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas. Right. The one time we would have a giant ham, and although it’s perfectly easy to carve it with a regular knife, that’s why you bought that electric thing, you know, 40 years ago when they were in.

Right. These guys, they have it propped up and charging on the middle of the counter like they use it every day. Ha ha ha ha ha! But it’s cool. It’s a cool implement. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this in any of our movies yet. And so, uh, he picks it up and he starts to go to the basement. And sure enough, the Chucky’s not at the bottom of the stairs.

And then we get the creep around the basement looking for the doll scene, which was, uh, really effective. Like Yeah. It was 

Craig: tense. Except for there’s all kinds of weird things down there. There’s like a, like, like a spindle, like the thing that Sleeping Beauty like pricked her finger on and there’s like a cigar store Indian down 

Todd: there.

There’s all kinds. I did wonder if some of this was supposed to be little Easter eggs or little subliminal cues. I don’t know. That would make us think of other movies. It was that weird. You’re right, but a 

Craig: series of events now happens very quickly. I think that Andy and Chucky fight down there for a little while and Chucky kind of gets Andy down on the ground, but then the dad hears something and he comes and when he opens the door.

Chucky skitters away. And so, the dad starts coming down the steps. Of course, Andy’s left there holding this carving knife, so he looks like a lunatic. The dad starts coming down the stairs, and Chucky uses, like, a giant fishing hook 

Todd: spear. It’s like a harpoon! 

Craig: Yeah. Um, to trip him, which causes him to fall down the stairs and be suspended upside down over the edge of the stairs for a moment.

Well, he’s, he’s deliberately 

Todd: hooking his, his ankle with this spear to the 

Craig: stair. Right, and then Just long, he’s only suspended there long enough so that he can see Chucky and see that he really is alive. And I think that Chucky says something like, How’s it hanging, Phil? Right. And then he, he removes the hook and so Phil falls directly on his head and he breaks his neck and dies.

I didn’t expect 

Todd: that. I did by this, you know, a few minutes before I expected it, but I was, I did not think the father would die so quickly and so abruptly. Well, then everything 

Craig: happens really fast because the mom comes down and she’s really upset and she tells Andy to stay away from her and the ambulance shows up and the foster care lady shows up and takes Andy away.

But Andy says to Kyle, he’s still in the basement. Don’t let him get you too. And so, Andy gets taken away, the ambulance and everything leaves, Kyle goes down to the basement, gets Chucky, takes him outside, throws him in the garbage can. Then, she goes and wistfully smokes on the swing. But while she’s swinging, her boot up earths something, and she reaches down and picks it up, and it’s Tommy.

And she, like, she, like, turns. Quickly back and looks at the garbage cans and we, and the music swells. We haven’t mentioned yet the score. The score is amazing. Oh yeah. I don’t know how to pronounce his name, but I think it’s Graham Ravel does the score. This was his first big cinematic score. He had previously done.

Oh, that Nicole Kidman on a boat movie dead calm. Which is another great movie that we should do someday, but probably we’ll never get around to. That was he, he had done that, but that was small. That was with a small ensemble. This he did with a full orchestra and it’s fantastic. Mm-Hmm. like it’s so good.

Like it’s continuous and it’s suit. It just establishes the mo, the tone. So well love this score. But anyway, she goes back up to the trash cans, pulls the lid off, and Chucky’s gone. And so she hears a commotion upstairs, she looks upstairs and sees the light on in the mom’s room and she yells for her, but then she goes up there and all we hear is the sewing machine, she comes around the corner in the room, everything is in disarray.

And the mom is dead. Chuckie has strangled her and killed her with the, with scissors. That one I didn’t see coming. The dad had set himself up as a butthole and buttholes usually get, get their comeuppance, but the mom was nothing but kind. And so that was surprising. Maybe that’s why she was killed off screen and we just saw the aftermath.

I don’t know. But Chuckie attacks, Kyle, they fight a little bit, but then he, I don’t know. Does he have a knife or a gun? He makes her drive to like, yeah, 

Todd: he needs to be chauffeured all around. Oh, he’s held her up with a knife this whole time. Like she’s just completely at knife point. She gets pulled over by the cops, right?

Yeah. She’s driving and he’s trying to drive her to gosh, I guess it’s the foster care place. Oh yeah. The foster care case places. They got to get Andy. And they 

Craig: do. They get there. And Chucky has a knife like held behind her back. Like she’s holding him just like you would hold a baby or a doll and. She, uh, he’s got the knife behind her back.

Chucky pulls the fire alarm to get everybody out. The foster care lady is like, You did this when she sees them. And she pulls Andy and Kyle into her office where Chucky then attacks and kills her and throws her dying body onto the Copy machine that starts making copies of her dying hilarious. I love the humor in these movies I love it.

This is nothing like they Really lean into it like it’s kind of like with nightmare in Elm Street when Freddy started getting really jokey like in like Five yeah for really it eventually gets there But they they really eventually lean into it and they lean into it so much that it works for me other people disagree Some people don’t like the later one but then there’s this whole chase where Chucky runs away with Andy and like gets him in the back of a newspaper truck and Kyle is following them in the car and eventually I don’t know at one point I think this is when Chuckie is still in her car.

She like slams on the brakes, which ejects him from the car. Okay. Yeah. And then she tries to ram him, but it doesn’t work. Then there’s the whole foster place. Then she’s chasing him in the newspaper truck. She gets the newspaper truck to stop. It’s Chuckie flips her off from the back at one point, which I thought was hilarious.

And then Chuckie and Andy run off and we see that they are running towards the good guy factory, which we saw in the beginning, but only briefly. Yeah, this sets up the. I don’t want to say the final act because it’s pretty brief, but like this, this final finale, the finale in this enormous good guys factory filled floor to tall, tall ceiling with stacked boxes of good guy dolls and it’s everything is bright colored and the lighting is bright and it’s so good.

It’s like a kid’s nightmare. When they first get in there, Chucky does, he tries to do the ritual again. Right. And it looks like it’s going to work. The, the dark clouds roll in just like they did in the first movie, and there’s lightning and all this stuff. And it looks like it’s gonna work. In fact, there’s a moment where you don’t know.

Maybe it did. Like, the ritual is done, and Chucky is just kind of looking at his hands, and then he screams, NOOOOO! So you know it didn’t work, and he says, I’VE BEEN IN THIS BODY TOO LONG, UGH! And so he’s all mad, and so then Kyle, like, topples some boxes over, and then they can run away. Where they’re turning every corner.

I wouldn’t have thought this, and I can’t believe that it didn’t cross my mind, because it’s so obvious that this is an obvious homage to The 

Todd: Shining. Yeah, I didn’t think of it either. What was going through my head was this is the most inefficiently laid out warehouse I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t know how, like, forklifts got in to place these pallets, let alone in these locations, let alone they think they’re going to take them away.

But yeah, it was It was cute though. Like you said it, this is, this is meant to evoke an image. It’s a nightmare there, you know, it’s a kid’s, but it’s this bright toy type nightmare, and they’re going around and make a million turns before they finally had out of this factory. And again, very surprising to me as well.

How brightly lit and expansive this factory was. There are so many things 

Craig: in this movie that you have to just like, suspend your disbelief because there’s no logical reason why or how this factory would be running like in full effect in the middle of the night with no people around. 

Todd: Right. This one guy behind a counter in a monitoring room was just reading a magazine because the way that the way that the factory machinery is set up, there are a million points of failure here.

These dolls just are like sliding down, twisting slides 

Craig: half. Yeah, it’s like mousetrap. It’s like a Rube 

Todd: Goldberg device. Going down in any willy nilly any way, shape or form slowly down these. These conveyor belts, somehow they managed to get lined up enough for these arms to come out. And almost, almost like the Jetsons really, you know, these arms come in and can just pop legs and arms onto these things.

They go through this one narrow spot. As soon as it happened, I thought, Oh, please tell me this is going to come into play later. And it sure does where the dolls come into this point where something comes out to the sides to, to straighten them out. And then this machine pops two eyeballs, just like violently in those sockets.

And so it’s this. Kind of Willy Wonka type thing, and there’s clamoring around, and for no good reason, in my opinion, I mean, it doesn’t make logical sense, they decide the way to get out is to climb on the machines and start, you know, climbing up to the next level. I would have just been looking for a door.

I 

Craig: know, well, they are looking for a door, but they find one, but it’s as though the only way to get through the door is climb through the machines. It doesn’t make any sense. Girl, go around. And like, and so they, so they crawl through that eye popping machine and they get through it fine. And Chucky’s around, he’s kind of popping up here and there.

And at one point, like they have to climb up like a rolling conveyor belt, like, you know, like it’s just those series of rollers and they climb up that and Andy gets all the way to the top and then he loses his grip and slides all the way down and Chucky pops up at the bottom. 

Todd: Springs up. That’s a cool scene.

Even though it’s ridiculous. I loved it. 

Craig: And then Chucky’s, you know, following him up these rollers and Kyle, you know, helps Andy through and then slams down the gate on Chucky’s hand and they run and Chucky has to rip his hand 

Todd: off. Now, help me out with this, like Is Chucky like Pinocchio? Is he turning into a real boy?

Yes. 

Craig: Okay. Yes. Again, this gets a little loosey goosey later on. Okay. 

Todd: It’s like, early on it’s established like when somebody hits him in the face and he actually bleeds, he’s He makes some comment about, Oh, no, I’m turning real. I need to get He’s turning human. Right. That’s, that’s the clock turning on the, on the movie, why he can’t take his time with any of this stuff.

Right. But man, then now, now I guess that means he’s more vulnerable, and he feels pain, like he does when he has to rip his hand 

Craig: off. Well, and then he takes the hilt off of his knife, and jabs the metal. Not the knife not the blade in but the the metal part that was under the hilt into so like now he’s got like a Knife arm.

That was 

Todd: so weird that he takes the time to do 

Craig: that Well, especially if we’re to believe that he can feel pain like how could somebody really endure that and he screams in pain things Really get ridiculous here, and I really don’t care because no I didn’t mean I’m invested in the characters And so like Kyle and Andy are just running around and Andy just happens to bump into this button that reverses The conveyor belt and draws one of the dolls back into this box, where it like turns it into a crazy monster.

Like, the 

Todd: thing. Great! This big melted mess of limbs and 

Craig: arms. Like, why does this button exist? I don’t understand. Like, just in case we want to make like a whole Horrific, 

Todd: terrible version of this doll. It’s just a jokey kind of like, cause even the box itself, it’s like, I don’t know why it’s up on a giant pedestal, but it is the conveyor belt goes way up to the top where this thing sits like the temple of doom at the top, these metal doors, like from Star Wars that come in in two directions, come clashing together.

Smoke is pouring out of this thing. And then when things come out the other end, like you said, when they come one way, they’re, they’re perfectly fine. And nothing seems amiss. When they go through backwards, they become. Horrible nightmarish thing, but that’s okay because also Andy bumps into another spot where something drips down on him and it’s like a giant vat of acid or something.

It’s, it’s fine. It’s molten plastic. That’s okay. Well, it seems like acid at the beginning, right? Because it’s like hitting the ground and steaming. It like hisses. Right? Yeah. And that’s what happens, like, you know, they have this fight with Chucky over the conveyor belt, and at one point it looks like she’s gonna go up into that place, and she narrowly escapes, and it’s actually 

Craig: pretty quick.

They fight him for a second, then they, like, get him in, like, a stitching machine, so he somehow gets, like, stitched to the 

Todd: conveyor belt? Like, his crotch gets stitched to the 

Craig: conveyor belt! And, and then they, he goes up into the Monster Maker, and he comes out on All mangled and they think he’s dead and they walk away.

But then we see this big long blood trail. I’m not exactly sure what happened here. 

Todd: Tear his lower half off and crawl away from 

Craig: it. I guess well and somehow in all of this he has managed to hang. Oh, we didn’t even talk about the guy, the mechanic guy, when, when Andy, when Andy hits the monster maker button, or I don’t know, things get all jammed up in this, the, the night watchman or whatever comes down, and he’s trying to, like, unclog the eye popping machine, and once he gets it all unplugged, then Chucky attacks him and he lands on it.

You know, face up, and it pops those eyes right into his eyeballs. Funny. But, somehow, at some point, Chucky had the time to suspend that guy’s dead body from like a 30 foot rope from the ceiling, and then swing it like a pendulum hard enough to knock Kyle unconscious on to the monster maker conveyor belt so she’s unconscious going up to the monster maker and Andy like Chucky is dragging himself.

He has no lower body. He’s dragging himself. He’s like, you know what I’m gonna do when I get you I’m gonna cut your legs off, but coincidentally, he drags himself right underneath that spigot of Melted plastic and Andy opens it and it dumps on Chucky and he like screams and melts and stuff And he’s just a big disgusting blob on the floor Andy goes and saves Kyle right at the last second right before she gets put in the monster maker and they walk down and Chucky Is just a big gross mess on the floor, but in great slasher tradition He jumps up one more time One more time and in the most ridiculous turn of events yet Kyle grabs a random hose That is like hosing air and she stuffs it in his mouth and somehow his mouth seals around it and he blows up like a balloon and explodes all over the place it’s just ridiculous and it ends with like a crane shot of kyle and andy walking out of.

The factory and he says, where are we going? And Kyle says home and he says, where’s home? And she says, Andy, I had no idea. And then that’s the end. Okay, so the TV ending is different. Everything happens up until the time when they are walking out together. It pauses. Instead of it all being a crane shot and you just hear their voice like an ADR, you actually see them have this conversation and at the end of the conversation she has, she says, I have no idea, but it looks like I’m stuck with you.

And he says, I think you can handle it. And then they walk off together. But then it cuts back into the factory and it cuts to that vat of molten plastic. And you see that a little tiny piece of Chucky’s face when it exploded it fell in the vat like it’s like part of his upper cheek and one eyeball and you see it melt and sink into the vat and then you see the Plastic going through tubes and down into a mold and when the mold pulls away It’s a good guy doll face.

No eyes, you know, just the plastic face plate and it smiles. What? And that’s the 

Todd: end Well, that’s elaborate Why didn’t we see that? I think they should have kept it because 

Craig: that’s exactly where part three picks up. Hmm. They, they recreate it more stylistically in, in the beginning of part three. I 

Todd: just have to imagine what, while Chucky’s face, and this was going through my head while he was exploding, aside from the fact that why didn’t he just spit that hose out in the first place, was he must have been saying.

Although he couldn’t. God dammit! Where the f k did my middle skull go?!

Craig: Heheheheheheheh! He looked like a garbage pile kid when he was blowing up like that. He did. Ugh. I like it. I, did you? Cause I, I, I get it. It’s, it’s over 30 years old. I could understand why somebody coming to it knew. Especially, you know, somebody maybe not of our generation coming to it new, we just kind of write it off as any other 80s, early 90s slasher, but I actually think that it’s quite good as a movie.

I kind of would 

Todd: come out and say that if this movie just doesn’t fill you with joy, you’re a joyless person. Like, this is just It is just fun. And part of the fun is I read that it’s the shortest movie in the, I wouldn’t have known it could have been two hours long. I wouldn’t have known because it just moved and I appreciated how it just moved and moved and moved.

It was never boring. It was always interesting. It was funny left and right. Just funny things are happening. The character is just so good. And I never, I guess I never appreciated. Maybe that’s why I was never into him. I saw that first movie when I was young. I never happened to see much more. I didn’t really get into the character because I was so into Freddy and I liked the darker stuff, but I just Didn’t realize how charming and like I said it just because I just loved seeing this guy getting frustrated All the time and hearing him then curse and spit out just venom.

It was just It’s like seeing the bad guy get us comeuppance over and over again and getting some glee from seeing him get more and more frustrated. But though he’s still very, very scary and he is still killing people and he seems to against all odds, be able to manipulate and control people and hold them up at knife point and from the backs of cars and get them to do his bidding as much as he needs to.

Impro improbably, but whatever. Yeah. I loved it. I was willing to suspend my disbelief and that whole final sequence in the factory was just so gosh darn gleeful. Even when he goes up into that machine at the end, towards the end, right? The first of the three times we think he’s dead. Uh. It’s comically violent the way that those arms and bits and pieces, we don’t know what the hell they’re doing, but they’re just ramming themselves into the side of that box over and over 

Craig: again.

Well, and I also like, like he is screaming in agony. 

Todd: It’s just, the movie is taking this gleeful joy and just amping it up to 300%. I don’t know, there was just some magic about it, it just all felt right, and it was so much fun. 

Craig: Well, I’m excited to watch the others with you, I I don’t know if you saw my email.

You said we’re gonna skip the 

Todd: third, 

Craig: huh? I I kinda think we should skip part three, not because it’s bad, I like it, but coming off of part two, I think that it would be a big disappointment for you. So, I 

Todd: was thinking I would watch part three anyway, even though we’re not gonna do it for the podcast, just for continuity reason, but do you think I should just Minisoad?

Oh, we could. Or do you, do you think like, are you, are you saying like I should really skip it and just come back to it later? 

Craig: What I’m saying is, like, if you have the time to watch it and you want to, I don’t hate it. It’s not a terrible movie. It’s just not as good as this one. It’s not as fun. First of all, they up age Andy.

And he’s not played by Alex Barkley. This is the only time in the franchise that he’s not and the actor that plays him is handsome and good. I like him, but it’s, uh, I like Alex Vincent. He was too young. He was too young to play the character, but if you want to watch it, I would say go ahead. I still enjoy it.

You don’t need to because there’s nothing Consequential about the timeline in it. Okay. I 

Todd: see. So this is like machete order, you know, you’ve heard of that for uh, The star wars franchise. Yeah. Yeah, you watch the original like episode four watch episode five get the big reveal Then go back and watch episode two and three so you get the backstory and then watch the final six the sixth episode but You don’t even need to watch the episode one because it’s completely inconsequential.

There’s nothing, no information one that you need to understand anything else from two on. 

Craig: One of the things that I love about this series is they’re continuously doing callbacks. And I love that because I, you know, as a devoted fan, it feels like fan service to me that I appreciate. But there’s not really much in part three to call back.

To there. There just isn’t. 

Todd: Well, I like your idea. Maybe we do a minisode on part three and leave that for our patrons. Cool. You know, it would be a good reason if you’re not a patron to consider going and signing up. This is one of many minisodes that we do and lots of little things that you’re missing out on.

If you don’t get behind the curtain, join the club. We’re also doing a Christopher Pike book club. Back with the patrons. You’re going to join us on that, aren’t you, Craig? Yeah, okay, okay, yeah. What? I think I’m a little more excited about this than he is. Anyway, yeah, we’ve got a handful of people who are willing to give that a shot, and I haven’t read them for ages, and so, kind of curious to do that, so.

Craig: I’d give it a shot. Have you, have you all decided what you’re going to start with? I 

Todd: mean, I was going to, like, You know, take my privilege and suggest, remember me, which if I recall, that’s a good one. Okay. I 

Craig: can probably get on board with that. Yeah. The two that I remember being the best were that one and chain letter.

So if you start with either of those, I think I, I think I could get on board. Okay. 

Todd: Yeah. Chain letter, I think was the first one I ever read. Me too. I think I’d be down for those. Yeah. For sure. We’re going to do remember me for sure. We’re going to get to chain letter. Maybe it’ll be the second one. That’s what we need to hook you in.

And that’s totally fine. Craig. I can defer. I can defer to your whims. Well, anyway, thank you so much for listening. Thank you to our patrons for suggesting this month. I am so on board with it now. I’m so excited. I was always on board, but I’m even more on board now. I can’t wait to see the other movies in this franchise.

If you want to help guide the show like our patrons do, just go to patreon. com slash Chainsaw Podcast. You can also get there from our website, ChainsawHorror. com. There’s also a link on there for you to chat with us. You can send us a little voice message and we will be playing those voice messages on upcoming episodes.

We give our unedited phone calls with lots of personal information we chat about before and after and some little tangents that we go off on during the episode that we leave on the cutting room floor. All of that is there in its uncut and raw glory for our patrons as well as lots of other stuff and just general chatter.

We just like having our little conversations behind the scenes with our super fans. Thank you so much guys and until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.