2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Our tribute episode to Kirstie Alley casts the late actress as a no-nonsense government-appointed epidemiologist brought in to investigate the sudden mysterious pregnancies of nearly all the women in an otherwise sleepy town. With their glowing eyes, cloud-white hair and utterly humorless affects, as podcast fave Buck Flowers intones with full gusto: “These kids ain’t right.”

Help us raise a glass to our first tribute episode of 2023!

Village of the Damned (1995)

Episode 329, 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, here we are right by the beginning of the year and uh, we do have our first of 2023’s tribute episodes. December 5th, 2022. Kirstie Alley died. It’s really hard to believe she was 71, to be honest with you. Yeah, she still looked amazing.

Uhhuh . I remember her growing up from Cheers, which ran for a very long time. She was Rebecca on Cheers, Uhhuh , and also from the Look Who’s Talking movies. . Mm-hmm. , that’s what I remember her the most from. But she had a pretty interesting career, uh, working steadily in film and a little bit of tv. Got a bit of notoriety later on, uh, for her weight.

She gained a lot of weight and she became a spokesperson for Jenny Craig and lost it, and then got it again. And, and I think that just became something that she talked about a lot, uh, during her last, uh, couple decades. And, uh, even had a TV show or TV series or something called Fat Actress and wrote a book about it and everything.

So I think she was one of those people who was trying very hard to create a body positive environment for female actors in film. In her later years as she struggled with this, she was also notoriously Scientologist. Mm-hmm. before she even went to Hollywood. In fact, I think she moved to California specifically.

For the Church of Scientology. Yeah. That 

Craig: was one reason she was going to college in, uh, Iowa. She, she’s a small town girl from the Midwest, you know, very nearby where I’m from, and, uh, went to high school, I think in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I think, and went to college for a couple of years, but dropped out to pursue.

acting. Well, actually, she went, uh, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue interior design. Yeah, that’s what she says. Yeah. And when she, she got there, she started working as an interior designer, but she also was, uh, pursuing Scientology. I don’t know how she got involved in Scientology. I don’t think Scientology is huge in the Midwest, but I do.

You wouldn’t think so. Well, they have a lot of outreach. I know that. But anyway, I, I don’t know if it was a family thing or if it was something she pursued on her own, but yes, she was very much involved, uh, in her church. Uh, she did, she went to Los Angeles. She, uh, was on a couple of game shows. I, I, I imagine she probably didn’t have a whole lot of difficulty making her way into the entertainment field because she stu she was stunningly beautiful.

Yeah. She just has a, a, a gorgeous face, these beautiful sparkling blue eyes. And, uh, I think. Her first big break was Star Trek, is that right? Yes. That was before. Look who’s talking I think. 

Todd: I think so. Yeah. She’s in the Wrath of Khan in 1982. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And uh, she was a big Star Trek fan and, um, you know, continued to be a Star Trek fan her whole life.

I think she was really excited when she got an action figure, uh, . But you’re right, her, I think her first, you know, uh, what made her a household name was Cheers. When Shelly Long left, they brought her in kind of as the female lead replacement. And she played a, a tough, broad, uh, kind of lady and a again, very beautiful and, and very funny.

She was a very, very funny lady. She did that and then the look who’s talking movies were huge. She did those with John Travolta, who was her dearest friend. She said, you know, Took everything in her not to be able to just snatch him up and run away. She, you know, she called him the love of her life. But of course, um, he was married to Kelly Preston, who we’ve also talked about on this show.

And so their relationship was platonic, but she had very deep, deep love for him, and they remained friends forever. Of course, he too is very much involved in, uh, the Church of Scientology. And you’re right, like I, I think that part of the reason that she embraced her body later in her life was because the earlier in her life, when she was thin, you know, um, and, and really kind of fit the stereotypical look of Hollywood, it wasn’t, she didn’t achieve that in a healthy way.

Uh, she, she was, Huh, well, she was on coke for a lot of that time, did a lot of cocaine. And uh, you know, one of the side effects of that is it, it does tend to make you, um, leaner. And when she got off drugs, then she started to put on weight and, you know, she was a full figured woman. And I think that she just kind of embraced that.

Like you said, she, uh, did Jenny Craig for a while. She lost a bunch of weight and then she gained it back. And, um, she just kind of embraced who she was and, and she didn’t allow her weight to dictate her narrative. Instead, she decided to dictate her narrative and say, you know what? I’m, I’m not chubby or round, I’m fat, and, and that’s just who I am and deal with it.

Um, and she was unapologetic. And I think that a lot of people, both men and women, responded to that in a really positive way because more of us. are fat , then Hollywood skinny. And, uh, we all know , you know, the, the, the struggle. Yeah. And I think that that was very relatable and I think that she was just relatable in a lot of ways.

She seemed very down to earth. She was really funny. She had a great sense of humor. She was fun to watch on screen. My favorite movie of hers, Is drop Dead gorgeous, which is, um, a super dark satirical look at beauty pageants, but it is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen in my entire life. , um, and she’s, she’s great in it.

So I was sad to hear of her passing. Um, I’m only gonna say it briefly. You know, in the latter part of her life, her political views did not align with mine. You know, whatever. Fine. I don’t care. I, I saw her, uh, on screen playing characters. I saw her in life. She was kind, she was charitable. Uh, in the wake of her death, all of her celebrity friends came out of the woodwork to talk about what a wonderful person she was.

What a loyal and generous friend she was. Um, she was a mother, uh, of two adopted children. She had tried to have children of her own and was unable, and so she adopted two children who she adored and who adored her. So I think she seemed like a very cool person. Somebody that I think that I would’ve very much liked to have been friends with, and much like many of her other friends, I think that, or I guess I hope that we would’ve been able to put, uh, our political ideologies aside because she just seemed like, she just seemed like a really nice.

Person. Uh, and it’s, it’s sad that she’s gone, but, um, as always, you know, she is among those few people who are lucky enough to have left behind this legacy. And, and, uh, people will remember her for a long time and, and her work remains. So, um, I’m glad to have the opportunity to pay a little bit of tribute to her, even though she’s not a hor, she’s not known for horror.

No , she did in the latter part of her career. She worked with Ryan Murphy. She worked on screen Queens. Uh, I think she joined the cast in the second season of that show. I didn’t watch the second season. I only watched the first season, so I didn’t actually see her on that show. But, uh, she was great, or at least in my opinion, she was great in everything she was in.

And the movie that we’re talking about today is, uh, John Carpenter’s remake a Village of the Damned from 1995. In which she starred opposite Christopher Reeve, who, uh, is another icon that we lost too soon. Yeah. But this movie is interesting. I had seen it before. I must have seen it around the time that it came out, but I didn’t really remember much about it preparing for this, um, before I watched it again.

Had you 

Todd: seen it? You know what’s funny is that Village of the Damned, Children of the Damned, they’re pretty iconic, right? And, uh, they’re even parodied in The Simpsons . There was this great mm-hmm Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode where one of the little mini uh, there, those are like anthologies. And one of the little mini shorts in there was, there was a fictional show called the Blooding, and the whole thing was clearly patterned after Children of the Damned.

And you know, it was these kids with these white hair and these glowing eyes that could compel adults to kill themselves. And basically they just took over the town. But I had ne I, as much as it is a part of pop culture awareness, I had never actually seen the movie until now. In fact, I hadn’t even seen the original, which is unusual for me because usually, yeah, I, I’m one of those people to seek out the black and white originals, if not having watched him growing up because my dad was really into this kind of stuff.

Uhhuh , and, and this is really, I mean, in a way it’s more of a sci-fi than a horror. It’s like a horror sci-fi movie. Yeah. Which would totally have been in my dad’s alley, but it just didn’t end up on our VHS shelves when I was a kid, so I hadn’t seen it. This was the first time to see the 1995 movie and I thought, you know what?

I got some time. I’m gonna go ahead and check out the original as well to see how they compare so we can chat about that too. So I ended up watching the 1960 original, just actually finish it about half an hour before we started talking here. So it’s kind of interesting to see this, the differences in the similarities because, uh, this movie apparently was a bit near and dear to John Carpenter’s heart.

He was brought on to direct it. Apparently it was a movie that had been in the works for a while, like people had been trying to remake it for a while, Uhhuh. And, uh, he was at the time a little touchy because it’s based on a novel. And the novel. Obviously when you’re writing you could write whatever you want, but in movies they had strict codes, especially in the sixties.

Right. Uh, the original movie was produced in Britain where they were especially, About what you could and couldn’t talk about and say in the movie and, and this 

Craig: you couldn’t even talk about pregnancy. No, I mean, we’re, we’re talking, you know, like ridiculous. I can understand we’re talking about in the sixties, you know, uh, maybe abortion, which is, you know, mentioned in this movie.

I could understand how that might be a little bit taboo, but to not even be able to mention pregnancy. Right. That’s ridiculous. 

Todd: It’s kind of crazy. Well, I think they couldn’t mention impregnation, like, as a thing, right? Okay. You could say somebody’s pregnant, but like talking about how they were impregnated starts to us to get on tricky waters, right?

what’s wrong with us? But , I dunno. The, the mo, the novelist is called the Midwitch Cuckoos. And uh, it was published a 1957 by John Wyndham, who wrote a bunch of novels actually, and several of them were made into horror movies. Uh, at the time, the Chrysalids, the Day of the Triffids, were a couple of the more popular ones.

And I think around the time that the, the Body Snatchers was remade was the time it was in, I think I, I think 1976, 1978, that was quite successful. Invasion of the body snatchers were re was remade with, um, yes, Uhhuh , uh, not Donald Pleasance, but it, no, Sutherland Sutherland, sorry. It was remade with him and it was such a success that they started to revisit this movie.

We’re trying to remake it, but again, like they just couldn’t get it off the ground until the early eighties. And even in the early eighties, they were having troubles talking about things like abortion and stuff like that. But eventually John Carpenter was brought on board and, uh, they made it happen in 1995, considerably later.

Mm-hmm. . And it’s funny because John Carpenter at, on the one hand, he talks about this project, if you look at his contemporary reviews, he talks about how, oh yeah. Like I looked at this, I saw. Yeah, this is an easy movie to make. It’s quite straightforward. Should be simple. He himself had a personal connection to the original because he loved it as a kid and he said he even had a crush on one of the girls in the movie.

He said, he said she was like his first love and, and in his fantasies as a child, like she could mind control him and make him do whatever he want. She wanted to . That’s funny. But on the other hand, you know, he’s been a bit disdainful of it since this came out saying, I really just did this under contract.

It’s not the favorite of my films. Right. Although he claims, you know, all of his movies, he’s very proud of this movie and I mean, I think I can agree it’s, it’s not really up there in the John Carpenter uoi of film making. No, uh, it does feel like a paint by number or something and he just kind of did under contracted away.

Craig: I know. Which is really disappointing, right? Like, yeah, this movie should be really good. John Carpenter is a good director and there’s a lot of talented people in this movie. It should be. But like you said, I, I read where he said that he just really wasn’t passionate about it. And it shows Yeah. Like, it just doesn’t, there’s just not a whole lot to it.

There’s, it’s, there’s nothing really dynamic about it. It does feel very paint by numbers. The whole time that I was watching it, it felt very much to me, like a Stephen King television event. Yeah. That’s what it felt like. , it felt like toned down in some ways. Yeah. Toned down the stand, you know, the, the mini-series version of The Shining, or even it, and, and not even as good, but it just felt, I don’t know, it felt kind of cheap.

Yeah. 

Todd: In it really did. It really did. In a lot of ways. It felt cheap. It felt, I don’t know, it was very non-committal, you know, uh, there are moments in here that are a bit horrific, but the Gore, you know, and John Carpenter was, was not shy about gore in several of this films, but it, it’s mostly off screen.

Anything particularly gross, although they put in some quite shocking moments. That did definitely like turn my stomach a bit. Yeah, so it does feel a bit like a made for a general audience’s type of movie. And to be fair in reading some of what John Carpenter himself has said about this, I think more contemporaneously with when he was producing it, he said that, you know, this is was a different kind of movie.

It had a bigger budget, it had bigger stars, and it needed to be more mass audience friendly than his typical low-budget, scrappy, independent fair, which could be a little edgier, which could kind of push the envelope. Which I think is kind of honestly really where he excels. Yeah. When he’s kind of allowed to do what he wants to do.

It feels like maybe in this movie it was John Carpenter himself holding John Carpenter back. You know, just saying, look, we’re just making a big Hollywood movie that we hope is gonna play to a million theaters and everyone’s gonna watch it from young to old. So we, we gotta keep it somewhat tame and somewhat straightforward and somewhat simple because it’s basically all of those things, right?

Yeah. , 

Craig: it’s too simple. It’s too simple. There are, you know, it’s a big cast of characters and you know, some of them big names, people that you’re gonna recognize. I mean, if you were alive in the eighties, uh, you’re gonna recognize a lot of these people and and talented people. But there are so many people that you don’t really get to know anybody.

Yeah. And it just feels like the story is just, okay, here’s the story. And then it, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just like, it, it’s just told, but there’s no, you’re not invested. It’s, yeah. I don’t know. I, 

Todd: you know, I, I was actually thinking about this because I’ve been doing a lot of, um, investigating recently on some of these, um, Kindle authors.

You know, they’re people who are pub, who self-publish on, on Amazon, and they are like, make it bag, you know, they publish like six books a year. They’re cranking stuff out. It’s very genre specific. And, uh, the reason I was, I, I’ve been into this kind of thing is because I do audio books for a lot of these people, and I’ll tell you straight out, a lot of this genre specific stuff that sells really well is quite simple.

I don’t really understand it, to be honest with you. There’s no kind of literary talent there. Sometimes these books feel like just somebody just. Telling you a story, like a guy would relate what happened yesterday in the bar, you know what I mean? Uhhuh , it’s, it’s uhhuh, it’s it’s condensed, it’s, it’s all narration.

Um, it just skips over huge chunks of things and no detail. It’s just the very basics of a story that somehow captures people enough that they’ll pay, continue to, I don’t know, A lot of, it’s kind of unlimited. So like, you know, they get, like, they pay a subscription a month and then people can just read as much as they want.

Right. It, it reminds me a little bit of like, you know, when my mom used to read Danielle Steele and all of these Sure. You know, romance novels, she knew that they were just kind of, uh, uh, you know, I hate to say this, but she knew that they were more or less kind of garbage to her. You know, there weren’t high literate, high high literature.

Right. But she got some enjoyment out of them. There was a story to be told, and it was told to her and in a particular way, which was not in this case, uh, not com particularly compelling, not particularly detailed. And like you said, and I, and I re I’m reminded of something you’ve said earlier with one of the other movies we did, and I can’t remember which one it was, but you pointed out to me, There’s no real central character for us to revolve around here.

Right. There’s no protagonist. It’s an event that happens to a village full of people, and we’re gonna see all these people. And Christopher Reeve’s character is the closest thing to a protagonist that we have. But he’s in and out. Yeah. And he only becomes really crucial towards the end. Uhhuh. . Other than that, it’s like we’re bouncing around between different people and it’s more about what’s happening and it’s about these kids, but then like honestly, we don’t even see the kids all that much till no halfway through.

And even then there’s just a thousand questions I have about how do we get to that point, you know, like Yeah. 

Craig: And they’re boring and they don’t really do anything. No. And the town, like, it’s just so weird. It’s a really interesting premise. I, I was gonna say, I do this all the time. I start a thought and then I go somewhere else and maybe sometimes swing around to it.

What I was going to say was, the kids are kind of boring. They don’t really do anything. They all look exactly the same. They wear, which I don’t understand at all. They all wear the exact same clothes, just like these gray, drab, uniform type clothes and they can do whatever they want. Yeah. The parents don’t it.

It is just kinda like, oh, okay. . Like our, our kids are, our kids are weird and evil. Right. Shrug like, 

Todd: like I know. That’s the major question, right? Like number one, my question is how did the kid, alright, so just real quick, cuz I’m sure we’ll go into the details of the movie, but just to give everyone a general overview.

An event happens in this town. All the women are pregnant at once. I guess six of them. give birth to children 

Craig: more. I think that there are eight altogether cuz they’re in pairs. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. And one of them is quote unquote stillborn, but the event. 

Craig: is one of the coolest things. Like Yeah. In the beginning of the movie, like, I don’t know, I think this was kind of stupid.

You like, you kind of see like this shadowy presence, like scoping the town. Mm-hmm. like, like flying around the town or something. And I say a shadowy presence. It literally is just a shadow. Yeah. That you see like flying over the ground and over houses and stuff. And they, and all the people hear this weird whispering, well they make nothing of that.

And then there’s this, uh, big like, uh, fall fest for the schools. This is a small town. Pretty much everybody in town is at this fall fest when out of nowhere at exactly 10:00 AM everybody passes out. Yeah. People, animals, everybody. And it’s completely unexplained and it’s in a very specific location. Like the authorities eventually arrive and they can dr, they can draw, uh, you know, like a parameter around the area.

Yeah. That’s affected. And, and nobody knows what’s going on. And nobody knows what’s causing this. And, uh, eventually, like eight hours later at like five or six o’clock or whatever, uh, everybody just wakes up. Yeah. And that’s it. And, and they’re like, oh, well that was weird until. Every woman who is capable of being pregnant, including children is pregnant.

Yeah. W well, ch teenage, uh, one of a, a teenage girl. Her name is Melanie, who’s played by Meredith Salinger. I had the biggest crush on Meredith Salinger when I was a teenager. . Really? Oh my God. Did you ever see Dream A Little Dream? It was one of the, the Corey’s movies. No. She was, uh, the romantic, leading that, and she was so pretty and I had the biggest crush on her.

Wow. She had really big boobs, , which was like a kind of a plot point of the movie. So God. But anyway, she’s a teen. Like, not only is she a teenager, but they make very brief mention of the fact that she’s also a virgin. So, and another woman, um, this lady named, uh, Callie, she is an adult woman, but her husband has been away like, yeah.

For like a, a professor and he was, yeah. So he’s been away and has only now just come back to find that she’s pregnant. And, and of course, you know, it’s, we know that she didn’t cheat or anything. She was a faithful. So it’s all unexplained, but they just kind of go with it. That’s the thing like, Everybody just kind of goes with it and it bothers me.

And Kirsti Ali comes in out of nowhere. She plays this character named Dr. Susan Verner 

Todd: Chemicals, 

Craig: guys, no, it can’t be. The edges of the affected area are well-defined. Stationary doc, this is Dr. Susan Burner, like Turner with a v. Uhhuh epidemiologist National Science Foundation. A 

Todd: Chaffee md. Yeah, 

Craig: he’s breathing.

Good pulse. I think he just 

Todd: fainted. Is mid much affected by this. My hunch would be yes. My wife’s mid 

Craig: witch. We’re trying to get through for the last six hours. Doc. Nobody picks up the phone. Nobody calls out. Now, could somebody please get me some blood and urine samples? What is an epidemiologist? Isn’t that like a skin doctor?

I 

Todd: think they just, I don’t even, or is it epidemics? Do they, do they talk a, do they study epidemics? I assume that’s what it was. Uh, like not epidermis, but epidemics, . It’s, 

Craig: it’s, it’s a branch of medicine which deals with the incidence distribution and possible control of diseases. Oh, yeah. And other factors relating to health.

So, okay, so she’s a disease doctor, so she comes in and she’s interested. Um, but like, yeah, I don’t know. I know she, she basically just gathers all the people and it’s like, I wanna start off by saying that we are all very concerned about your wellbeing, but ultimately it will come down to individual decisions.

And I understand that these decisions will be probably the most intimate personal. Difficult decisions that you ever make in your life. However, because your pregnancies have attracted intense scientific interest, including the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, those of you who decide to have your child will have all prenatal expenses paid.

You’ll also receive $3,000 monthly as an allowance.

You allow your child to be examined and tested on some sort of a regular basis, and they’re all just like, okay, well, she also, briefly, she’s like, but if you don’t want to go through it, we’ll also pay for the abortion, but nobody does. Yeah. Uh, have the abortion. They all decide to go through 

Todd: it then, which she thinks is weird, you know, which is actually, I guess in a way, a plot point of the movie.

Maybe these women felt mentally compelled to have these children, right. . It’s interesting because having watched the original, the original is a very talky film. The original is is a lot like your typical sci-fi movies of the era where they’re dis Yeah. And, and in the original it’s a male who’s the Dr.

Vicker’s 

Craig: character. Yes, it is in the book too. Mm-hmm. . Oh, there you go. Have you read the book? No, but I read about it and it’s fascinating. Perfect. Yeah. . 

Todd: I didn’t read about the book. I read a little bit about the book, but anyway, the original Yeah. Is a male and, and anyway, like they discuss, like most of the movie actually is this sort of scientific discussion about what’s the, what’s going on here, how are we gonna approach this, you know, what does this mean for humanity?

And they’re even arguments like, well these kids are, especially when things start to turn poorly, you know, when they kind of realize these kids have ma bad intentions and are actually causing destruction. There’s still. Other side of it where they’re having these arguments where, yeah, but, but think about what this does for science.

Like we gotta still study them. Like we have this un unmatchable opportunity here. And the movie, the weird thing about Dr. Vicker’s character is if any of this is happening, if any of this discuss discussion is happening, we don’t see it. She just pops in every now and then to sort of be the representative of science in the government.

Yeah. And she kind of issues these mandates from on high and just kind of disappears. And one of the burning questions I had through this movie was like, wouldn’t this be a much bigger deal? Right. Would there be many more people involved and a lot more discussion happening than just. What this woman ends up 

Craig: doing.

Right. And who is she and who is she reporting to? Like, I think that she says she’s reporting to the government and there’s one scene where she’s like sitting in a dark Yes. Conference room, like talking to all these men around a couch, around a table, which just looks stupid. That’s my biggest, well, I don’t know.

I might have lots of complaints. It’s weird. It’s it’s hokey. It is hokey. And. I really like Kirsti or Kirsti Ali. I, I, I think she’s very funny. I think she’s very capable as an actress. She’s not given anything to do in this movie. No. And her character is so, and I could, I could say that of virtually everybody, nobody’s given anything to do.

Their characters are so flat. Yeah. They’re not dynamic in any way. Kirs, Kirsti Ali just plays like a, a stock. Kind of government figure, kind of cold, right? And straight cold Al always dressed in, in like black or, or really dark colors and always smoking. Yes. So, you know that she’s like, in every scene, literally every scene she’s in, she’s smoking a cigarette.

She’s like, you know, talking to these kids, smoking cigarette, like blowing smoke in these kids’ faces it. I mean, it’s, it’s just dumb. She’s, she’s a dumb stock character. It’s unfortunate that this is really the only horror movie that she did, , because we’re, we’re not gonna be able to, you know, talk about her incredible range as an actress or anything because it’s super flat.

She’s a very, very flat character, as is virtually everybody. Christopher Reeve, I love Christopher Reeve. Christopher Reeve will forever be my Superman. Hey, you know, he’s, he was tall and handsome and you know, in those movies, just genuine 

Todd: and. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. Just, just a, a good guy. You know, when I was growing up, Superman was the dude, like he was the hero.

And I loved those movies and I loved him in it. And he’s flat, like you said, he’s kind of supposed to be the protagonist, but I bet he doesn’t get more than 15 minutes of screen time. Yeah. Like, because we’re spread so thin. Yeah. That’s the problem with all of these different characters. And so all of these women, um, get pregnant.

One of them is, uh, Jill, who I think is also supposed to be a main character. She’s played by, uh, Linda Kozlowski, who is Crocodile Dundee’s wife. . Mm-hmm. in real life and the movies, and I recognized her. She’s beautiful. But again, she’s like the school principal. And she and her husband, her husband is played by, oh, Michael per, I think is his name.

Uh, he’s done a lot. Uh, I remember him, he was the lead in a movie called Eddie and the Cruisers from the eighties that my dad really liked. So I remember him from that. But he gets killed off right away, like right away. Like, and he’s like fourth build. I don’t know if that was because he had a lot of name recognition at the time, but I thought that he was gonna be a main character.

And then in the first 10 minutes he gets killed. Yeah. Because he’s driving home during the pass out event. And as soon as he like crosses the county line or whatever, I don’t know. Um, he passes out and his truck crashes into another truck and blows up and he’s dead. Huh. But she’s pregnant anyway. They all end up going into labor at the same time, and they all give birth in a barn.

Eh, okay, sure. , 

Todd: why not a barn set up as a hospital. They have a lot of doctors there. A lot of proper equipment. Yeah, sure. , it’s a small 

Craig: town. Kirsty, Kristy Alley. Yeah. Christie. Alley’s like running around, checking on everybody. Um, the teenage girl loses the baby an in incredibly shady fashion. the Kirsty alley.

She’s like delivering the baby. And she’s like, uh, it’s still born. Sorry. . She like harasses away it up and sticks it in. Her coat runs outside. like, Hmm. Not shady at all. No. And then that’s it. So they all have these babies and then I feel like it, it jumps like six months to show us that all of the babies are now sitting in, you know, eating solid foods, sitting in high chairs and stuff.

Yeah. They all have ridiculous. bleach, blonde hair. Yeah. The, it just looks stupid. . 

Todd: And they’re all the same. I What did all these parents go in together and decide, well, we’re gonna cut all our kids’ hair the same and eventually we’re gonna dress them all the same too. Right? , I don’t get it. And, and these kids are, are super smart, right?

Like, uh, it’s established early on, like the, one of the kids who ends up being one of the main, uh, antagonists, I guess you could say David. Well, I shouldn’t say antagonist cuz in Okay. In the original movie, the kid named David is the antagonist, he’s the leader of the group In this movie, the kid named David is given a role that doesn’t exist in the original movie, which is he is the, so he’s sort of the pair, uh, that like each of these kids are kind of male female pairs.

Yes. Except his pair was the stillborn one. So Right. His pair is missing and so he ends up being the one of them that actually ends up getting a little bit of empathy and feeling right. Which, It is a nice idea. It’s a, it’s a departure from the original. I don’t know if it was in the book or not, but I think the only thing that really Christopher Reeve’s character does in this movie is provide that, that, I don’t know what you call it, like that argument or that narrative theme to the audience, which is they don’t have feelings.

These kids grow up and they have no empathy. They have no, they’re basically aliens who are gonna take over the human race and that’s it. Like, they don’t see any reason why they should have any sympathy for the humans, whatever like that. It’s just a doggy dog world out there. Whoever’s the strongest survives.

And he’s like, no, you have to have feelings. You have to care and this is what makes us human and this is what makes us different and superior. And so he provides that. And David, because he’s lost his sister and it, he feels, I guess, uh, probably some kind of emptiness in him. Uhhuh . He, uh, gets. A modicum of sympathy and in the most, I think, kind of unconvincing ways he ends up being a, a force that kind of helps defeat those guys.

Those guys 

Craig: kind of, I actually thought that whole plot twist was stupid too, but Yeah. We’ll, I’ll, we’ll save it for the end because it literally is the very end. Yeah. Then, okay, so the, the babies are, I don’t know, six, nine months old, something like that. I don’t know. And, and the first weird thing that we see is Baby Mara, who is Christopher Reeve and his wife’s daughter, she’s sitting in a highchair, and I guess she doesn’t like the soup that her mom.

Made for her. Yes. So telepathically, and when they do telepathic things, their eye, their eyes glow, like sometimes sparkly green. It, it seems to depend kind of on the intensity. It’s a cool effect. It is a cool effect. It does look cool and, and like the more intense they get, the brighter it gets. And um, but you know, when they’re doing something cuz their eyes, you know, get all sparkly or whatever.

But because she didn’t like her soup, she forces her mom telepathically to submerge her entire forearm into the boiling. Soup and Yeah. You know, Jill comes in and like, tries to pull the mom’s arm out of the soup and the mom like puts her arm back in and Jill’s like, what are you doing? Yeah, . And then the mom like never recovers.

Like, I don’t know if she knows something is wrong or if Yeah. If the kid did something to her head. But when she, she comes back from the hospital and immediately kills herself, throws herself 

Todd: off a cliff. Yeah. And, and she’s Christopher Reeves’ wife. Right. Right. And then the kid, David, uh, is the son of Cali.

Cali, and he can spell his name in blocks and he’s just like, you know what? 

Craig: No, I lied. David is, um, Jill’s kid. Jill’s 

Todd: kid. That’s right. 

Craig: Jill. Jill, yeah. Crocodile Dundee’s wife. . 

Todd: Yeah. Jill’s the one, . Jill’s the one whose husband Frank, uh, had died. So, I mean, it’s interesting because there’s a lot of human drama here to mine, right?

There’s Jill, whose husband has died, but she’s bearing. What she originally at least thought was her child anyway. And, and she talks about how they wanted, were trying to have kids. Uh, and then there’s the, the one woman, Callie, whose husband Dan, you know, was off to Japan forever, and then comes back and isn’t convinced initially that this is his child.

And he initially leaves her, but then he just kind of comes back like as soon as she has the baby. Like he shows up there a second after the baby’s born, and it’s like, oh, he’s had a change of heart. Right. Christopher Reeve’s character doc, they mostly call him Doc through the movie whose, you know, wife, um, kills herself.

And, and so like there’s all this human drama to mine, but we are never really given a chance to dwell in it. And so, no, it just, uh, kind of goes by like, again, like I’m saying, like, oh, and by the way, so-and-so’s wife died and so-and-so’s husband did this. And so it is just like you’re narrating a story.

Exactly. Then that’s how the movie feels. And so, okay, so you’re kind of whiplash from one thing to the next. and it moves at a steady pace, but it insists on taking you through everything. Right, right. But 

Craig: everybody, the the, what’s so frustrating to me is that everybody knows what’s going on. Like the kids don’t even make any kind of attempt No.

To mask what they are or what they’re doing. The parents know that the kids can read their minds. Yes. Because the kids tell them that like Exactly. And, and like warn them, like, don’t try to keep things from us cuz we can read your minds 

Todd: like . And we jumped to, you know, them being eight, like seven or eight years old, probably about midway through the movie when it starts to become really sinister and you just, you’re just questioning like, what happened up to here.

I just, I just couldn’t imagine this whole town is just raising these kids and they’re just sort of tolerating this general mischief that they’ve all collectively come to figure out as a problematic, but they’re not gonna do anything about. 

Craig: Well, and people are getting hurt and dying all over the place.

Yeah. And nobody cares. Yeah. Like they know it’s the kids doing it. But I, I guess, what are you gonna do? You got, you know, alien kids, . 

Todd: I couldn’t help but think of this Twilight Zone episode. It’s one of the classics, you know, so this predates this. It’s in the fifties. And it’s one of my favorites, and I can’t remember the name of it, but it’s about this kid 

Craig: who’s psychic.

Yeah. They did it in the movie too. It’s my favorite segment from the movie. You remember 

Todd: that? It’s Soma. Mm-hmm. . It’s so scary. It is super scary because this kid has utter control over this family, and they have no choice but to do whatever this kid wants and to fulfill his every whip. They’re just living in utter fear because he can just conjure a dinosaur outside the window and bite his dad’s head off or whatever.

Right. And so, you know, he wants candy. He gets candy, you know, he wa he wants to stay up late. He gets to stay up late. It’s, it’s really a, a very terrifying notion. And for some reason, that 20 minute Twilight Zone episode was way more terrifying and way more convincing than this movie . Yeah. You know, because I just couldn’t understand.

How they all allowed it to get to this point. Why Great move. We are watching the movie and they’re just like, well, okay. Oh, you all wanna go to the barn now? All right, we’ll all drop you off at the barn and that’s where you’re gonna live. Yeah, because you have no choice. Like really the military and the government apparently through Dr.

Vickers still interested in you and still investigating you and whatever, but they all just let this stuff happen. Oh my God. 

Craig: As, as it turns out, this has happened in a couple of other communities too. Uh, we find this out from Dr. Verner, both of the other communities, very remote, um, and small, much like this small town.

Um, and we find out from her later that both of those other communities have been destroyed, presumably by the military, and that they’re planning on destroying this town too. And so everybody has to get out or whatever. Meanwhile, David, for whatever reason, and this kid, the kid who plays David, is really super cute and he’s still working.

Of course, he’s an adult now. Thomas Decker, I think you can look at his ID MDB page. He’s still working, uh, a lot. Um, and he’s super, super cute, but like he just kind of strays from the rest of them. And I think that it’s supposed to be explained by the fact that he’s kind of incomplete because he doesn’t have his mate.

I assume that they’re supposed to not siblings, even though they all have like the same genetic makeup. Yeah. I, I assume that they’re paired because eventually they’re meant to procreate. That’s, that’s the assumption that I had. Yeah. Um, but his mate, you know, didn’t make it or whatever. And we eventually see the stillborn baby that Dr.

Verner had taken. They have, they kept like in a. Big jar or something. And it’s a hideous alien. . It, it’s enormous. It doesn’t even, the prop doesn’t even make any sense. No. It’s like three times the size of an infant and it looks like an alien cabbage patch doll. 

Todd: Yeah. And, and how I, I just don’t understand , like, like, okay, so there was an abnormality.

So this was born completely not human. I don’t know how that thing passed through this woman’s vagina, . 

Craig: No. Well, and especially the thing, the thing that Kirsti wrapped up looked like it was about the size of a potato. Yeah. And this thing is enormous. But anyway, so he is kind of off on his own and like he goes to try to find the grave of his mate or whatever, and then he runs into, uh, Dr.

Allen, Chris leave there, who’s there, right? Who’s there visiting his wife’s grave. And they have a whole talk about feelings. Do you have a memory of the baby? 

Todd: But it 

Craig: bothers you. 

Todd: It hurts, it hurts to lose a loved one. 

Craig: She was to be with me. We were 

Todd: to be together. How do you know that 

Craig: you’ve lost someone too?

The scene ends with them holding hands. Like that’s supposed to be some indication that maybe David is more human than the rest of them, or some, I don’t know. Yeah. Um, but somebody has a conversation with Mara who’s the leader. Mm. The, the girl. And she says stuff like, why should I be experiencing emotion in this moment?

What is empathy? Maybe David says that. What is empathy? And um, Christopher Reeve tries to explain it and he explains it here. And he also has a big monologue at the end, like a huge dramatic monologue where he’s screaming like you need to feel. And it was the most melodramatic. Yeah. I was embarrassed for Christopher Reeve.

Yeah. I’m like, I can tell that you had to have been directed to do this, but it just looks so melodramatic and stupid and you’re better than this . And they just kinda of felt that way for the whole movie. You know, eventually the kids, they kill other people. I don’t know. Um, they kill Buck 

Todd: Flowers. Yeah.

Buck Flowers. Oh God. It’s just perfect that he’s in this movie cuz we all love Buck Flowers. But yeah, , he’s like this random dude drinking in the, I guess a kindergarten classroom or something. When the event goes down, then we don’t see him again at all until closer to the end when the kids are all in a classroom and, and he, again, he’s drinking, he’s just a OneNote drunk guy.

Right. Which to be fair, that’s kind of Buck Flowers is kind of his thing. Yeah. Uhhuh kind of his thing. We need a, we need a drunk, kind of like older kind of hobo type dude. Oh, bring him Buck Flowers. Uhhuh . He’ll, he comes in and he’s poking at them with the mop and he waxed David accidentally, I think on the side of the head.

And uh, they go crazy on him and they all kind of compel him. Up onto the roof where he leaps off the roof while holding his mop. He’s a janitor of the school, I guess, holding the mop to his chest and he falls into a car and also imp pails himself and, and Buck. He’s got an equally, you know, it’s the same thing.

Y’all ain’t right. 

Craig: I don’t like the way you’re looking at me. Boy,

I got a gun too, and I’m the only one. One day somebody’s gonna get up on a rooftop and they’re gonna start picking you little bastards off one by one by one. 

Todd: And I’m thinking, yeah, I know. Of course, but they don’t what? Like we don’t need a drunk guy to tell us this . 

Craig: Instead, Mara just says to her, dad, Christopher, things are gonna change, or there are gonna be some changes.

And like they all their parents help them pack up and move them. Yeah. To this barn or whatever where they all just gonna, okay. Where they all just sit and write at desks. What are they writing? Like what are, I don’t, 

Todd: they’re writing, they’re reading from an encyclopedia. I don’t know what the heck they’re doing.

I don’t, honestly, I don’t. I’m not even quite sure what their end game is. I guess they’re supposed to take over the world, but why don’t they just do it already? They got all the powers to do it. Well, 

Craig: I mean, she lays it all out later in the end, she tells them, like, she basically says to Christopher Reeve, you know who we are or what we are.

She says, because you know about the other colonies, uh, had told Christopher Reeve about these other colonies. Yeah. And they had been destroyed by the military, and the military was going to be destroying this one. But they have to keep it super quiet because if anybody knows, the kids can read their minds and will avoid it or something.

I, I didn’t read the book. I would actually like to now because, uh, reading about it, it sounds really interesting. Yeah. Even though it does sound, it sounds like the movie follows the, the. Pretty closely, but it just seems like there is a lot more to flesh out. It’s called the Mid Witch Cuckoos, which I thought was just kind of a clever name.

You know, kind of like, uh, Romero’s the crazies or whatever. Like we, we think of a cuckoo as kind of a lunatic or, or something like that. So I just assumed that was a reference to the kids cuz they’re weird, you know, they’re cuckoos, but actually it’s not. Uh, it refers to these birds, cuckoo birds. And there’s, God, I wish I had written it down.

I’m sure I did somewhere, but I’ll never be able to, to find it. Um, but there are certain species of cuckoo birds and other birds who trick. Other species of birds inter rearing their offspring. Yep. And so that’s basically what’s going on here. Like these birds will secretly put their own eggs in with the eggs of other, you know, nesting birds.

And then the cuckoo birds will mature faster and be larger. And usually they’ll hatch first and then they’ll push the other eggs. Or if the other young hatch, they’ll push the other eggs or the other young, um, out of the nest. And I thought that was really clever. It was a phenomenon that I wasn’t familiar with.

And it, it makes sense, you know, that’s what’s happened to them. Whatever this species is, they have just used these women to host their offspring. Um, and now the offspring are, are planning to take over martel’s. She has this whole big monologue about how they are a superior life force. And, um, you know, they don’t, they don’t need emotion.

And that’s, that’s when he gives her this big monologue about how you should feel. You know, without feelings, you’re just a second rate mimic of a higher organism. That’s right. We’re better than you because we are the capacity love, like it’s so dumb. . Thank you. It’s so dumb. Please. And, and it’s not even just that it’s dumb.

First of all, what he’s saying is, is pretty stupid. And I can’t imagine would actually be something that you would take the time to try to explain in a moment like this. Right. Secondly, He’s, he’s saying it to a child. Thirdly, he gets so worked up like Yeah, he, he was ju it was just the performance of a lifetime.

like, you have to play, like he’s shouting and he gets all red in the face and tears are streaming down. And I mean, he was going for it, but it just comes off as schlocky and stupid. Well, uh, 

Todd: also, it’s not co I mean, it’s not a very convincing argument. Like he’s just like saying this matter of factly, give me a good reason.

You know why that’s better. Why is it better to have emotions? I mean, it’s a, it’s a very interesting argument. Yeah. But this movie doesn’t really mind that for the, it’s not really interested in making us go through mental, I, I, I think the, it’s just like, it was just another box to be checked here. 

Craig: Yeah.

Another box to be checked. I agree. I just think that, which is why I’m interested in reading the book. I think that you could get far more into the intricacies of the situation because I, I can imagine. , you know, you have a kid, even if the kid is weird, you’re gonna feel a bond and a connection and you’re gonna have a pat, a paternal or maternal instinct to protect that kid regardless.

Yeah, I get that. I just feel like that’s not particularly well explored here. No. Something else that I thought was, uh, fascinating about the book. In the movie Kirsi Alley tells them that the government or the military has taken out these other two colonies. That’s not what happens in the book. In, in the book.

One of the places where this happened was like an Inuit, uh, tribe, and they killed it as soon as the babies were born, they killed them all themselves. Mm. Because they knew there was something wrong with them. And then the other group was another, I think, kind of native tribe somewhere. And they, on their own, without government or military intervention, killed all the kids and the mothers.

because they thought that there was something, uh, wrong. Wow. So this community that we are focused on are the only ones that even allowed the kids to live, 

Todd: which could be interesting material because, uh, you know, at one point I think she says to him, and, and maybe in this moment you were a prisoner of your values, Uhhuh , and you won’t be able to receive us.

And, uh, that struck a chord with me, you know, having lived in the Midwest where there are these sort of strong, very religious values about children and about, you know, childhood, about abortion, all that kind of stuff. Right, right. I, I thought, oh yeah, that is interesting territory to mine, but I just don’t think you can just as easily explain that away because they’re gonna be other outside forces that are conflicting with that.

Like, for example, Dr. Verner and her thing and all that. And it just should have been more complicated than it was. But like we said, they just do everything these kids want ’em to do. They’re not happy about it either. They raise their heads up and, and they just kind of like, they’re already under a spell.

and it’s clearly not the case. They take him to this barn, uh, where they’re supposed to do their preparation and they ask a doc, you know, make preparations for us. And this is where he discovers that he can block their, their mental fingers into his brain. Yeah. By ama he’s imagining an ocean. And even his daughter there, what was her name again?

Uh, Mara. Mara comments. This is a particularly strong image. We’re not able to get past it, which is stupid. But anyway, , right? Yeah. Then she would say that, and I mean, it’s like, don’t tell us this. 

Craig: Just show us this. Well, I know, I know. And just the whole thing. And eventually, like at first they want the doctor to try to like work with the kids and see if he can help them.

And he’s reluctant, but he decides that he will, cuz he feels like he sees a little bit of humanity in David. And, and I guess in the book, this character, I don’t know if it’s got the same, if he’s got the same name or whatever, the kids. Kind of grow to trust him, um, and will allow him more access to them than anybody else.

And just like in the movie, uh, he kind of exploits that trust and he’s the one that eventually takes them all out, which he does here too. But it’s just dumb because we know that the government is coming to take them all out. In the meantime, the kids kill the minister. Who’s Mark Hamel? Yes. Which I can’t believe we haven’t mentioned yet.

But again, given nothing to do, I love Mark Hamel, and he just plays a creepy 

Todd: weirdo. He’s like weird and creepy in this movie. It, it’s so sad. He’s the 

Craig: creepy and there’s no reason for him to be Yeah, he’s just a creepy, that’s weird. 

Todd: Yeah. I don’t understand that. Was it a performance thing? Was it his lines?

I don’t know. Was he saying, please be creepy? Because he’s a creepy priest who comes in and, and almost says menacing things sometimes. And then at one point he’s trying to take the girl out with a. With a, with like, he’s trying 

Craig: to a rifle, like a sniper’s rifle and 

Todd: the kids are behind him. Oh no. And you know, they force him to shoot himself.

You know, honestly, there are some horrific things that happen here. Once again, the idea of it is quite horrific. The theme is quite horrific. And them making somebody shoot themselves, even though it happens off screen, it’s a bit stomach turning. Then when Kirsty Ali’s character gets it, the kids, you know, break into her place and she’s, you know, she’s in like the clinic.

I don’t even know what she’s doing, honestly. This doesn’t even make 

Craig: any sense. It’s like holding up, what were they 

Todd: doing to her Anyway, they go in there and even though these kids are supposed to be able to read mines and know whatever’s going on, they seem to be shocked to discover that she has been holding, you know, their missing brethren there in that tank the whole time.

And so again, this is something they psychically compel her to do. She lays down on a table, like an examining table and picks up a scalpel and eviscerates herself and. That is on its own is a very disturbing stomach churning scene. It’s even more disturbing cuz they don’t really show you, they just show you, you don’t see anything.

The pained look on her face and the sounds of the scalpel cutting through and then she just dies. And then she dies. And, and honestly like, that was the only scene in the whole movie that gave me any form of emotion, whatsoever. I don’t know if my imagination was just running wild or I was maybe a little drunk at the time, but you know, I’m watching this scene and I was like, oh God, that is, that is horrifying.

Craig: I guess they were, it didn’t even make any sense to me. I guess they were just mad at her. I, I don’t even know why. Oh yeah, they were mad at her. She’s still in the way because of her involvement. Government representative because it’s, I mean, she didn’t kill that baby. No, but 

Todd: presumably, but she represents the forces against them.

Right. So of course they had to take 

Craig: care of it, I guess. Right, but then like to, but then to force her to lay down on a, a table and, and just slice herself up the abdomen with the what? They don’t care. Why? Because they have no empathy. They don’t care. Well, they just stand there and watch. I suppose it just, I don’t blow her head up or something.

I don’t know, , 

Todd: whatever. But the most unrealistic thing is when they start sending the military in, the kids are held up in the barn waiting for the arrangements of doc. He’s got his own plan cuz he’s been to the clinic and he’s seen the Kirsty Allie’s character is now dead. And he knows it’s just, we just gotta destroy them.

Finally, , he loads up a suitcase full of, uh, a briefcase, full of explosives, and he goes out to their place. In the meantime, the military and the cops, like, there’s just a whole line of cars coming down the street and the kids, you know, are quizzing him, like, what are you doing? They go outside and they start compelling them to shoot each other.

Craig: Yeah, so the cops all shoot each other. That’s kind of a big action sequence. 

Todd: Why don’t you guys just nuke the place, like shoot a missile at it from afar. Like, you gotta be nearby these kids for them to do anything to you. You’re the military and 

Craig: I really don’t know what their end game is. Mar’s like, you have to get us out of here.

Okay, well, where are you gonna go? Yeah. You know, like, that’s a mystery. Well, where are you going? How are you gonna hide from the military? Like, I, I don’t have any idea, you know, an angry mob led by the minister’s wife, like tries to come after them and they force her to like emulate herself and she’s all burned up.

Meanwhile, Jill still wants to save her son David. So while Christopher Reeve is standing there in front of all these kids, and this time he’s put up a literal brick wall in his mind that they can’t. I like it, babe. Get behind. Which again 

Todd: is dumb. No, I don’t know. I kind of like, I mean, it is, it’s so on the nose, right?

It, it’s definitely, 

Craig: yeah. But it’s just one of those things, it’s a, it’s a contrivance in these types of movies that I just don’t buy. You can’t do that. The, the very, yeah. The first thing that you’re gonna do when you have something that you can’t think about is think about all the time. It’s all you’re gonna think about.

Yeah. . Yeah. Like, 

Todd: don’t 

Craig: think of a White House. It’s impossible. Uhhuh. . Right. Um, so. But whatever, I mean, you, you get this imagery of this brick wall that he’s got and, and the daughter Mara is just getting really pissed off and like her, her eyes glow like they usually have, but then she’s getting so intense that her whole face glows and you can kind of see the alien.

That was cool. Face behind her face. Yeah. That was kind of 

Todd: cool. As much as the movie decided to do this and had to do this for whatever reason, and that was dumb. I liked how he played out this scene. I liked the image of the brick wall. It was kind of pulsing towards you. You could see it start to crack and everything.

Like in a book you can do this quite easily, but in a movie you have to visually communicate everything. And I thought that with the editing and the special effects and which are quite impressive. Well I guess it’s 1995. I don’t know why I’m placing this in the eighties, but in 1995, still decent. Yeah.

You know, and it was cool to see a little bit of the alien skull, I guess behind their. Actual skulls, like all those bits were, were nice and I thought this was a well-done sequence. As ridiculous as it was, it was fine, 

Craig: I guess. Um, while she’s distracted, while she and the other kids are distracted, Jill comes in and, and whisks David away, 

Todd: which should never, how does this happen?

No. How does this happen? I 

Craig: know, and it’s just such a stupid ending of the movie. So, Christopher Reeves manages to hold them off until like, you know, he’s counting, he’s got a bomb on a timer in this briefcase, and he keeps looking at the clock and the kids are like, , why do you keep looking at the clock?

And eventually Mara is able to break through his mental wall and she sees, but there’s only like five seconds left and the five seconds runs down and the whole barn blows up, presumably killing all of them. But then the end of the movie is Jill driving away with David in the passenger seat and she says, don’t worry David, we’ll go someplace where nobody knows who we are.

This is a terrible idea. Like , this kid, you know, this kid maybe showed some scintilla of empathy or humanity somewhere along the line, but he’s not, he’s an alien. And the aliens want to take over the world. And to be 

Todd: fair, it’s terrible. I feel like it ends on that note, like she says this to him. But then the, the closing shot is a lingering shot on his face where he’s staring almost emotion.

Emotionless forward. And I felt like that was the impression we’re supposed to be left with is like, ha ha ha, you’re underestimating this guy. 

Craig: I know. See, and I think when I was a kid and I saw, I say kid, I was in high school, but when I was a kid and I saw it, I was glad that he got away. Like, oh, that, you know, she rescued one, he’s good, he’s gonna be okay.

Now was a jaded adult. I’m like, you’re so stupid. Like that kid is gonna kill you. and his brethren are gonna arrive and take over the world and you’re an idiot. Um, I mean, I get it. Like I get the maternal instinct. Um, and, and she plays it well. I like her. She’s, I like this actress. I liked her in the Crocodile Dundee movies.

I like her here. She’s beautiful. She’s a good actress. It was just such a stupid choice in my opinion, that it was hard to feel, it was hard to empathize. I guess I’m becoming one of these little white-headed kids and don’t have any emotion or feeling. Cause that’s almost dumb . 

Todd: No, man. It’s because you have emotion and feeling that you cannot understand this movie.

Where most everybody here is just wooden. And which a again, it’s too 

Craig: bad. Like I, it shame wanted to like it. I still wanna like it. I, and I don’t know exactly where it went wrong, but the whole time, honestly, like, it, it felt so much, I, I’m thinking specifically of, uh, the, the, the film version of like needful things, Uhhuh , um, or something like that where, you know, it, Stephen King books are much like this in that they’re very broad in scope and there are tons of characters and that’s really difficult to encapsulate in an hour and a half.

It really is Uhhuh . Yeah. Unless, unless you really narrow the focus, which has been done and I think could have been done here, focus on a couple of characters, get us invested in those characters, but instead we’re spread out all over the town Yeah. With all of these characters. Yeah. Who you ultimately just don’t care about.

Like, I, I wanted to care about the teenage girl, you know, I, I thought that that was such an interesting, such an interesting element of the movie that, you know, she’s. A virgin, it’s, it’s impossible that she could be, and, and the emotional stuff that she would’ve had to go through. And eventually in the movie you do, do see that.

Like she turns to booze and she kills herself. But it’s just an afterthought. Yeah. Um, and, and everything, everything feels like an afterthought. Uh, and so I couldn’t connect with any of the characters. I just didn’t feel like God, especially poor Kirsti Alley is so one note and not her fault. And Christopher Reeve very one note and really not his fault.

Like I, I feel like these people were, you know, they showed up, they did the job. It’s just. For whatever reason. And John Carpenter’s a great, I have so much respect for him. Yeah. He’s a great filmmaker. He is a brilliant guy. Just something didn’t go right. , 

Todd: I agree with you a hundred percent. And John Carpenter, I love him to death.

He’s an awesome filmmaker, 

Craig: composer. He’s, yeah, he’s fantastic. He 

Todd: insists on shooting in a classic style. He doesn’t go for shaky cam or like craziness. And I, I think somehow that helps his movies to stand the test of time. They never feel dated in their style. They never, I guess they’re not stylish enough.

I, I would say he, he, he gets high concept stuff, really good actors and has interesting stories to tell, tells them in a very straightforward but compelling way usually. And this movie, you know, it’s still very John Carpenter. It’s very traditional in its filmmaking. It’s very, uh, straightforward, but it’s too much.

It’s too much material there that. We can all see the deficiencies. Yeah. We all want more out of this. Like this movie could have been four hours long, could have been a mini-series actually. Isn’t there a mini-series 

Craig: now? Right now there is, but it’s in Europe. It’s uh, I think in Britain. I don’t think it’s available, uh, in the States yet.

I checked it’s, uh, a of the book and shares the title of the book, the Mid Witch Cuckoos. 

Todd: Gotcha. That’s interesting. Uh, I also found it interesting that is it Margaret Atwood that wrote The Step, the Stepford Wives. She was directly inspired by, uh, this novel to write the Stepford wives. And she, she was very open about that.

And a couple of Wi White Whi Widoms, John John Weems books, uh, inspired her for that. And that, you know, went on to be a mini-series. It, it plumbs similar emotional material. It’s kind of similar really in. The mad at content, right. It’s just a little different in the way it’s presented, but it’s much more effective.

I think the, the movie adaptations anyway have been a little more effective. And I’ll tell you, having watched the original, um, don’t bother. Okay. Good to know. It’s smarter than this movie, but it’s more boring. , you know, it’s very talky. It gets very scientific and whatnot, and it does simplify things so that you don’t see the deficiencies.

You know, this movie tries to go a little too broad. I think that movie keeps things quite narrow, and that is to its credit. So I would say it’s almost, in a way, it’s a better movie, but, By modern day standards, it’s not gonna hold your attention. Yeah, yeah. It’s really disappointing from John Carpenter, but John, I don’t think John Carpenter has ever been above taking a paycheck.

He’s been very no open about, you know, how he’s primarily in this business to make money. Oh, yeah. And so as good as he is, and as good as a lot of the movies he’s done, this is certainly not his only Turkey. And I think even John Carpenter himself will say like, I didn’t really have my heart in that. And to be fair, at least in the wake decades later, he said he never really had his heart in this film either.

So that, that’s a shame. It really is. It is a shame because it had 

Craig: potential. I, I think it really did. And I I imagine it will probably be remade again in our lifetime, would be my guess. Yeah. Um, and, and, and hopefully better. Um, not that it matters, but Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale. 

Todd: Handmaid’s Tale, what did I say?

Stepford wives. Stepford wives. Yeah. Easy, easy mistake. That’s what I meant. I honestly though Kirsty Ali, she’s fine. She’s fine with what she has to, she’s fine to do. She’s. But, but she’s, you’re right. She’s given 

Craig: nothing. I find myself sometimes, uh, wishing and, and really not. But, but there, there are movies that I would love to talk about in this format that aren’t horror.

Uh, you and I could talk about and, and laugh our butts off about, uh, drop Dead gorgeous. If you’ve never seen that. You need to see it. It’s hilarious. It’s a documentary about pageants and she plays like the ultimate pageant mom. Um, and she’s great. And they’re, you know, even the look who’s talking movies are stupid, but they’re funny.

Uh, and they’re, they’re fun. Um, I really like her. Um, I was sad to hear that we lost her. I thought that she was younger than she was, so she did have a full life, but she’ll, she’ll be missed. I, I want to go ahead and say the same thing about Christopher Reeve. Yeah. Great. American actor, 

Todd: tragedy. This was his last film.

Roll it before his accident. Mm-hmm. . 

Craig: Um, he was in a, a horseback riding accident and he was paralyzed from the neck down for the remainder of his life. And he, he did do a couple more movies from his, his chair, but, uh, again, a, a tragedy that. In that he had to go through the last part of his life that way.

But you know, he, he carried on nonetheless. Valiantly. Yeah. And that’s, that’s commendable. So anyway, two actors who I have a lot of fondness for, um, a lot of nostalgia for it. It is just not a great movie. But that happens. And, you know, even, you know, we talk about John Carpenter never turning down a check.

I, I don’t have any problem with that. We’ve talked about this before. Oh yeah, for sure. This is their, this 

Todd: is their job. This is business . 

Craig: You know, I think it’s, it’s, it’s so easy for us. To, uh, you know, sit back in our armchairs and criticize people for taking a movie for the check or taking a role for the check or whatever.

It’s their work. It’s their job. They’re in it to make money. Yeah. And I, I’m sure they’re in it for the artistry too, but at the end of the day, this is how they support their livelihoods. Yeah. So a check is a check. So whatever, you know, carpenter has made a ton of good movies. He’s proved himself 

Todd: this isn’t one of his best.

Yeah. 

Craig: He’s proved himself. He’s, you know, laughing his way all the way to the bank and, and good for him. You know, this isn’t his best work. So what , he got it done. He cares. , he got it done. It’s not, and, and as, as hard on it as we’ve been, it’s not terrible. You know, it’s not no incompetently made. It’s, it’s perfectly competent.

It’s just nothing special. If you were 

Todd: younger, if you were a kid, this movie would probably freak the freak you the hell out. You know, if I saw when I was a kid, if you hadn’t seen anything more sophisticated than this, you know, in a while, uh, this movie would. No, we’ll push some buttons for you. I think so.

Yeah. It’s 

Craig: not as bad as we’re making it out to be. No, it’s just disappointing cuz it could have been better and based on the people who were involved, you would expect it to be better. Yeah. But it is what it is. Not a waste of time. I had a good time talking about it and I’m glad that we got to say some nice things about uh, Kirsti Ali cuz she was a cool lady.

Todd: Me too. Uh, cheers to Kirsty. Well, thank you again for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share with a friend. Here we are in 2023. We got a lot of, uh, episodes to come. So submit your request to us. Just Google, two guys in a chainsaw podcast. Find us on Facebook, find our website, and, uh, find our Patreon account.

Think about, uh, sub supporting us, throwing a few bucks our way. And, uh, you will get access to some special features. We put out a couple mini SOS every month. We have an exclusive interview on there. We allow our patrons to help us choose the next movies that we’re doing based on the requests. Please, uh, consider that.

And, uh, thank you so much for your support. No matter which way it comes, just listening to us is support enough. Yep. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Happy New Year, Loyal Listeners! We sure wish we could have chosen a more compelling flick for the holiday, but this laughably bad flick will have to do. For all the wrong reasons, it was lots of fun “unraveling the complex web of intricate traps and puzzles” in this high rise of horror.

Thank you all for your support over 2022. Looking forward to a bang-up 2023 of horror!

Steel Trap (2007) – Ep 328

Episode 328, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. Happy New year Craig. Happy New Year. Again, here we are. 2023. It is. What’s the point anymore? These years . I think they’re getting better for you. I think so somehow. For me it’s just like more of the same BS, although Since Covid.

yeah. Started. It’s been 

Craig: a rough few years, but I, I do think things are getting better. I, at least I, I certainly hope so. It feels better. 

Todd: Yeah, it, it feels better in the us. You know, I’ve had this time in the us uh, here to spend the holidays. Uh, coincidentally enough. Uh, when I came here, I missed all the craziness in China where everybody kind of had enough of it.

And, uh, there were some protests. And then, you know, I, I escaped this place where it was just total lockdown all the time. It was getting really annoying and really was enjoying my time here and now over there it seems like they’ve opened up again, but opened up just suddenly. So it’s just mass chaos and there’s run on runs on the hospitals and Wow.

Shortages of medicine. And everyone is messaging me like, don’t come back yet. , . I might, I may extend my stage just a little bit longer. And they’re like, bring ibuprofen,

So depending on how things work out, I might get a nice little black market going in ibuprofen when I return. Who knows? We’ll see. Couldn’t, could turn out to be a good year after all, . But it has been nice and it’s been, uh, it’s been a good year for the podcast. I think we’ve had a lot of fun here. It was really great this year to come back during the Christmas holiday and be able to sit in person with you.

It’s been a while and it was, that was a blast. That, that episode, I think you can tell there’s an energy there that just comes through. I think sometimes when we’re, uh, chatting face to face as opposed to patiently waiting for each other to finish our sentences over the phone. , , 

Craig: or just talking over one another, either one.

Todd: Right. A lot of that does get edited out , but, but if you’re a patron, you can hear the entire phone call and all of it’s gory, nonsensical detail. Well, we’re dorks and we’re always trying to find movies that match a particular holiday. And for the last several years, we’ve been looking for New Year’s Eve themed horror movies.

I don’t know if this works against us more than for us. More often than not, you know, it does tend to get us to seek out movies we might not otherwise choose. Uh, and sometimes they’re real turkeys and sometimes they’re real surprises. This movie, um, Well, we had two. I had one I proposed and Craig had one he proposed and uh, well you watched the one you proposed first.

Yeah, . 

Craig: And then I said, that was shitty. Let’s try the one you picked. . 

Todd: So I was like, oh good, because I was excited about the one I picked and then we watched it and like, oh, this is shitty too.

Which to be fair, I mean this is a movie I would’ve chosen anyway because it was very intriguing to me. It popped up, I think the poster popped up on, on Facebook in one of these horror movie groups that I’m in, and it’s a dimension extreme Uhhuh, you know, which is usually really brutally gory, kind of like edgy type stuff that never made it to theaters.

Sometimes it’s foreign, and I think this movie was, it was German produced German. And it’s called Steel Trap, and it’s got this picture of this woman who looks like she’s kind of trapped in a metal box or something. And yeah, there are these blades coming out at her and it says, surviving each floor is the name of the game.

Yeah. And I’m like, oh yeah. That sounds good, and if you read the blurb on the back, which I sent to you in my defense, a New Year’s bash in an abandoned, high-rise building turns into a grizzly bud bath. When five guests receive a mysterious text invite to a V I P party on the 27th floor joined by two Crashers, the strangers soon realized they’re trapped, and the only way out is through the twisted clues of a murderous psychopath.

the catch. Each game leads to one of their own gruesome deaths with a series of shocking twists. Steel trap holds you in its grip all the way through to its mind blowing ending. I don’t know 

Craig: what movie they’re talking about. . 

Todd: I’m, me neither. I wanna see that movie. Yeah. , 

Craig: first of all, the uh, poster or the box cover or whatever it is has nothing to do with this movie.

Yeah. . I don’t know who that chick is. She’s not even in it. I don’t know where she is in this like saw trap that surviving each floor is the name of the game. No. Nope. Like , there’s like one floor or maybe like two. And then you talk about, you know, these like crazy games or whatever, they’re just nursery rhymes.

Like . 

Todd: Yeah. There’s no game to be played in any of these. No. Even one thing is set up as a game and it’s not, it’s like , one woman at one point ends up strapped to a giant wheel. Yeah. Which starts spinning and you’re like, okay, this. At least kind of interesting. What’s he gonna do with this wheel? What game is this gonna be?

No. He stops the wheel and axes are in the face. Yeah. . That’s the game. , these games suck. . Oh, man. 

Craig: Yeah, it, it was disappointing. I knew because before, all right, so you picked one and then I was like, eh. Because you said it kind of looks like saw, and I’m not into saw the way that you are, but you know, I thought, okay, whatever.

So I, I, I started looking at some user reviews and the u or, or like viewer reviews and, uh, they were bad. They’re like, don’t fall for it. It’s nothing like what it’s promised it’s not good. And so that’s why I was like, well, maybe let’s. Something else. And, and the one that I picked had really good user reviews and I was like, okay, awesome.

Uh, they were both disappointing. Um, I, I, I honestly don’t know which one was more disappointing, but I thought that it had premise, like promise, not premise. I thought that it had promise initially. Mm-hmm. just based on the concept, even the real concept. Cuz the real concept is, you know, these like five stranger.

Uh, are all at this New Year’s Eve party, and that’s how it starts out. It starts out as a New Year’s Eve party, and it’s very New Year’s Eve and Oh yeah, there’s a, and there’s a, you know, there’s decorations and everybody’s having a great time, and there’s a band and there’s the New Year’s Eve countdown and the band sings this, uh, rock version of Al Dang Zion, which I actually.

Enjoyed 

Todd: like, yeah, me too.

Craig: I was like, woo, yay. This is gonna be fun. New Year’s eve time. And so then of those people at the party, like these five random people, get these invites that say something like, this party is lame. The real party is downstairs on the 27th floor. Come 

Todd: down there. Yeah. Enter this code into the elevator. Yeah.

Enter 

Craig: this code into the elevator, you know, to come down and, um, everybody assumes that it’s like this v i p party. And then they get down there and that’s when like there are clues and stuff and they start, they think it’s a treasure hunt at first. Okay. So all of that said, I thought this could be an interesting premise.

Yeah, but it’s not. As it turns out, it’s just another one of those movies where five asshole. Go to a place. Yeah. To get picked off one by one by some guy in a mask. And that like, there’s really nothing interesting about it. And then the end, the end is so stupid that I wanted to cut my face off , like it was one of the dumbest.

it was because you knew. You knew you. So there’s a killer. So you know that there has to be some kind of motivation, even though you can’t figure it out, because these people, if they’re related in any way, it’s totally trans gently, like mm-hmm. , one of them is like a famous, uh, TV cook, and one of them is like a.

Former team heartthrob or something. And one of them works in the TV industry as a producer. So there’s maybe like these tenuous connections between people, but they don’t know each other. But you assume that there’s gonna be some motive for the killer, which ultimately there is. But it is the dumbest motive.

Yeah, it’s the 

Todd: stupidest, yeah, . It’s really stupid. It’s really stupid. And, and you know, there’s no, there’s nothing clever about it because there’s no. that this would have been, no, 

Craig: there’s no hint to it. And it’s also ridiculous because as it turns out, these people are connected in a way, that’s what the motive is, but none of them realize it, which is absolutely nonsensical.

Todd: Yeah, exactly. I mean, All right. We’ll talk about it when we get to it, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll, we’ll keep some mystery, at least in the podcast. , , 

Craig: like, I mean, there is mystery in the movie, but ultimately when it gets explained, it’s so dumb. You don’t care and it, the movie’s only what, like an hour and a half?

Long, an hour and 32 minutes. Mm. It got like in my notes, it got to like the 45 minute mark, and I’m like, this is only half over. I know. I thought that it would never end. It felt so 

Todd: long I was so ready for it to be done. I had so many wines in me and I had, uh, I, I, you know, it was like midnight and I’m just like, oh God, please be done.

Like, I’m like slapping my face trying to get, you know, to be, again, in my defense, I didn’t read up as much about it as you did. I saw this posted, somebody posted, said, Hey, I thought it was cool. What did you think? And the first comment on there was, oh, the, there’s this twist ending that’s really cool. And so as soon as I saw that, I stopped reading mm-hmm.

because I didn’t want to encounter. Spoilers or anything like that. So my impression of this movie as it was presented to me was, Hey, it was cool and it had a cool twist and it’s not, and it doesn’t have a cool twist, but uh, you are right. It did start out with some promise. There’s this guy, Adam, he’s. Got this girl, Nicole.

There’s these pickup lines. You know it’s really sad at the New Year’s Eve party, you don’t have anyone to kiss at midnight. That is so sad. I can only 

Craig: imagine. 

Todd: In fact, I didn’t have anyone to kiss at midnight. Poor you. How do you find the strength to carry on? Oh, it’s hard. Let me tell you, . So is that guy your boyfriend?

Is that any of your business? Yes. Oh, how’s that? Well, I need to know how he’s gonna. When I lean in and get myself a New Year’s kiss from the prettiest girl at the party, uh, there’s this dude at the bar named Robert, who it turns out is Nicole’s boyfriend. And they have a fricking weird relationship. Yeah.

And he’s gonna propose to her, you can see, because he’s got a ring. But then he sees her kissing Adam, so he kind of like, you know, tucks it away. They come over there, Adam kind of wanders. With this girl who’s the party? Crasher Melanie, and she’s a 

Craig: self-proclaimed slut. Like, yeah. They go off and he gives her some coke, and then she blows him in the stairwell like

That’s how they introduce these characters. 

Todd: It’s all stuff like this, and it’s really it. The dialogue thinks it’s witty, right? But it’s not. It’s like if you gave an. And then actually AI’s even better than this, but if you gave an AI, the instruction, you know, if you set up this scenario for them and said before, as we introduce the characters, do some witty, teen style, edgy kind of dialogue for these people to say to each other, then this is what it would be.

But it comes off as stupid, even stilted, like the acting is all. I don’t know how to describe it. Well, they’re, 

Craig: they, they’re all assholes. Like there’s, there’s nobody, like, like the, the couple, like you said, they have some weird relationship where she just will make out with any guy that comes up to her and he’s supposed to be okay with that.

And then she’s like, well, you can go make out with somebody, I guess. And so he tries to like, it’s weird. Yeah. And Melanie, again, you know, if you wanna be promis. That’s fine. I don’t care. But like, it’s just such a flat, it’s over the top characterization and it, it is just dumb. And then, um, Wade, he’s the 

Todd: singer, 

Craig: right?

He’s the singer. He’s just like washed up. I mean, he’s a nice looking guy and there’s nothing wrong with him or whatever. But again, they just, none of them have endearing qualities. Kathy is like this, uh, celebrity. And I don’t know. I mean, she’s, it’s hard to say what they’re like in real life because they all just seem really pretentious and Yeah, like, like you said, the, the dialogue is so stilted, like they’re just trying to be so cool.

Yeah. Like everything they say is so, Sharp and and edgy. And then Pamela is this cartoon character. Yeah, this blonde Bobblehead who’s like this head of programming at some station. Who is kissing Kathy’s ass. 

Todd: Kathy, hi. It’s great to see you. Isn’t this a screen, a party on top of an abandoned building? It’s so, I don’t know.

Postapocalyptic, right? God, I hope they haven’t decided to blow it up. Sorry, do I know you? Pamela Reynolds, head of programming at tcb. Kathy, I have to tell you, I am your number one fan. Well, I don’t know Pam. I, uh, I hear that quite a lot and I’ve got some pretty loyal fans. Of course you do and you deserve even more.

You know, the cooking’s great. It’s fantastic, but I see you with more a whole 

Craig: lifestyle. They’re just characters. They, they don’t feel like real people at all. Yeah. You can’t tell at all who, if anybody, you’re supposed to be rooting for, and it doesn’t seem like you’re supposed to be rooting for anybody because they’re all assholes.

Yeah. There’s, there’s no nice sweet. Girl or guy or sweet innocent couple or, or anything like that. They’re all jerks and they’re not like, you could maybe excuse it if they were teenagers or 20 somethings, but they’re not. They’re, they seem like they’re supposed to be like grown ass adults. Successful, successful adults.

Yeah. But they’re just petty and stupid. Yeah. Um, and they make. Decisions throughout. I mean, they , they, so they, they go down to this floor 27 4 27 or whatever and what is the god? What? So the, they, they all get a text. I wrote the whole thing down, so you have to listen to it. Oh, girls and boys come out to play.

This smiley face will lead the way. This party is so over. Come join the real party downstairs, 27th floor elevator five punch in the code 1 0 1. Question Mark . So stupid . So they all go down there? They do. There’s name cards on the table, but all of them have some bad trait associated with them. Like, and it looks like it’s written in crayon by like a four year old.

I don’t know what aesthetic they were going for here. It looks like a birthday party set up for a seven year old. It does. It’s, and they think, they’re like, oh, we’re at the cool v i p. 

Todd: What? Look, if these were real people, the minute any one of them stepped outta the elevator and saw a long card table set up with kids birthday favors and things on it would’ve just turned around and walked back upstairs.

Exactly. There’s a pile of cupcakes on there that say, eat me on them. Each of their little placards, like you said, looks like they’re written in crayon, like one of them is heartless. Another one, lover Boy. Another one, pig. This one. Two Toothface. I 

Craig: know. And I wrote them down and I’m like, in my notes, I have, you know, in parentheses in case it’s important, which of course it is.

uh, all of these things. So Kathy is the loser. Adam is the pig. Pamela is two-faced, Nicole is heartless, Wade is lover boy. Mm-hmm. . And then two people. Melanie and Nicole’s boyfriend weren’t invited, so they don’t. Name cards at the beginning, but don’t worry the. Involves them later. . So they’re So they’re not left 

Todd: out , right?

They all do some coke . Yeah. There’s a bunch of killer p o V, this guy lurking in the shadows, wearing a mask, and then they decide stupidly to eat all these cupcakes that say Eat me. Right? And there’s a, this little piggy rhyme, uh, under. Don’t tell me you wrote that down too. Oh God. 

Craig: I probably did it . I had like a page and a half.

Oh, I did. Here it is. This little piggy fountain silver, this little piggy found gold. This little piggy ate my cake. This little piggy had none. And this little piggy cried wee wee wee all the way to 27, 21 . And that’s what the whole thing is, like this whole thing. Is like a treasure hunt for five year olds using nursery rhymes to lead them to different locales.

Yeah. And that happens two or three times before anything interesting happens. And then even, it’s not really that interesting , 

Todd: it’s going to a place where they find something and another nursery rhyme like there’s nothing. Uh, inside room 27 21 is a pig head. It’s kind of stuck on a steak Al almost looks like it’s floating like a balloon.

Yeah. Yeah. Like the rest of them wearing a crown. Uh, and Pam reads the note and it’s another rhyme about going where the water flows. Yeah. So they’re all like, oh, could that be the bathroom? Oh, I don’t know. And then they just kind of split up like. Like they are acting like this is engaging . Like I don’t get it.

They all think, I guess, that they’re gonna find something cool at the end, and so they sort of are together, but they also sort of split up. We’re 20 minutes into the movie. I already want all these people to die. Uhhuh, . Quickly, Adam hears some child voices it, and it’s random too, right? It’s like they’ve got this whole floor, presumably to explore, and so they kind of end up stumbling into these different areas that they’re supposed to go to, right?

Like this killer can read minds or something. Adam hears, some child voices goes into a dark room for some reason. Decides to hang out in the dark room and light up a cigarette for some reason. Gets pretty brutally hooked with a, the Killer’s got a hook with him and that was, I don’t know, it was filmed.

Okay. I mean, it seemed brutal. It’s a lot of cuts, a lot of real quick closeups. And this was 

Craig: the most interesting of the kills after this. They just happened very quickly and it’s nothing to write home about. At least this guy gets, he gets stabbed with a hook and then he gets, something gets injected into his neck.

Yeah. I assumed it was gonna be a sed. And not something to kill him, cuz why wouldn’t he just kill him with the hook? Uh, and as it turns out, it is a sedative. So Adam’s like paralyzed. While this killer, whoever it is, sows his mouth shut. While he’s conscious, which I thought was actually a really good shot.

Mm-hmm. maybe the only good shot in the whole movie because it’s a closeup on this guy’s face and he’s paralyzed. He can’t move, but his eyes are open. And this other, you know, mask glove person is, uh, sewing up his lips and it’s all in closeup and you just see one tear fall out of, uh, the guy’s eye.

Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Um, which, which was really. Gross and disturbing and scary. Yep. And that was the only moment, , 

Todd: that would be a clip like perfect for the trailer. Right. Uhhuh, to trick you into thinking this movie’s clever and smart and fun. Right. But yeah, no, uh, but yeah, you’re right. It is, it is that way. But at the end of the day, I’m kind of wondering why, because he sows him up while he’s alive.

and then the next time we see him, he’s just dead. So if the killer did some other torture with him or something like that, you know, we’re, we’re really not aware. Right. I love it because they’re, they’re trying this kind of creepy thing where he, he was slowly crawling towards this door as sedative was taking effect that was open that, uh, Robert and Melanie were walking past and just as they’re about to get past it, they stop and have some argument.

Like she’s trying to get him to, she’s like literally just asking him to bang her. And he’s like, no offense, but I’ve enough skanks for a lifetime. , 

Craig: yeah. And she’s like, I haven’t , . 

Todd: Right. This is the dialogue and the killer closes the door quietly just before they start back up again and walk right past it so they never notice him.

You know? Meanwhile, everybody else is just kind of split up into random rooms and we’re just bouncing back and. Between them, we really have no idea like where they are. Any sense of the layout of this place. Pamela is running wandering by herself. She runs into Kathy and, and then they’re kind of teamed up and Kathy gets this weird idea to look for a fire hose.

Oh, I think I saw fire hose back here. They run there and they unspool it and it also has. You know, a Georgie Porgy rhyme written on it as you pull it out. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. and the clue ends up being X marks the spot. Right. Another thing that was fr I don’t know, it wasn’t really frustrating. I didn’t worry about it that much, but, um, I think that this movie was filmed all on like the eighth floor of some building.

Mm-hmm. . Um, and the filmmakers try to make you believe, It’s like this labyrinth of corridors and stuff. No way. No. Like this is just like an office building. Yeah. There’s no way there’s this many twists and turns and 

Todd: Oh my God. Not just that, but like, they’ll pop into a room and suddenly it’s just like full of pipes and things, or like another room and it looks like a jail cell.

Like what? What kind of office building is this? 

Craig: or like a, I don’t know, like an industrial shower or something like weird. I don’t. 

Todd: It’s stupid. Yeah. it doesn’t, it doesn’t make sense. And they, they try 

Craig: to build atmosphere with lighting, like lighting it and like the red emergency lights and stuff and it just doesn’t work.

Like, yeah, there was no tension in it for me. But anyway, they X marks the spot. They figure out that that’s the x in a, a broken exit sign. Only the X is flashing. They realize that Adam is missing and then they, uh, go into this stairwell where the exit is and they find Adam hung upside down, dead in the stairwell with his lip zone shut.

And, uh, He like a pig snout on his face or something. 

Todd: Yeah. Huh. . I, the, some of the lines in here are just truly mind blowing. I, I, at some point, one of the characters just turns to everybody else and says, does anyone else feel like this is just some elaborate prank ? Yeah. And, and they’re talking to Melanie about Adam.

He, he was your boyfriend, something like that. And she goes, he’s not my boyfriend. He is just a guy. I blew . Yeah. . I don’t know why some chick goes off by herself. Um, you know, they just like wander away from each other. 

Craig: They keep doing that. Well, I mean, and like, there’s silly stuff like, I don’t know, like, it’s kind of like there’s traps.

Like they touch Adam hanging up, which like triggers, uh, Carrie. Pig blood bucket to spill on Melanie for no reason. Mm-hmm. and, and then so she freaks out and starts screaming and runs into an elevator and the door closes and then they just hear her screaming from inside. And when they finally get it open, she is like, her face is all burned up.

Or I, maybe it’s just the blood that fell on her. I don’t know. 

Todd: No, I think she’s, Electrocuted. Yeah. 

Craig: Cuz she’s hanging by these, uh, electrical wires. And Kathy has a seizure for no apparent reason. I, yeah. God, I don’t 

Todd: know. Robert I think tries to run in to grab Melanie, but somebody else says, no, it’s a trap and pulls him away just in time for them to see some blades stick out from the door as it was closing.

Uh, I don’t know, like, what did this killer know Melanie was gonna run into this particular. 

Craig: Place. Right. Apparently the whole place is rigged, which is another thing that I didn’t buy. Now they did establish that the original New Year’s Eve party was being thrown on the top floor of an abandoned building.

Mm-hmm. That was gonna be demolished. Yeah. Um, so I’ll, I’ll roll with the fact that there was nobody else around and maybe just kind of in disrepair, whatever. That’s fine. However, unless this killer, whoever it is, is some sort. Engineering genius. There are dozens of ways to get off of a floor of a building.

Yes. You know what I mean? Like 

Todd: the whole time I was going, why doesn’t anyone try the fire escape for 

Craig: the fire? Escape The, there have to be multiple stairwells elevators. Uh, and to be fair, I mean they do, but every time they check any of these pla like the elevators aren’t working, okay, fine. It’s an abandoned building, I’ll buy that.

Um, but then they go in the stairwell and they run down the stairs for a while and they end up coming to an electrical fence, that’s all, you know, sealed up the entire stairwell. Yeah. So they’re like, oh, darn, it can’t go that way. So they turn around to run back up, and then they’re closed off on the other way too.

Like it seemed to me like the killer. Another fence behind them while they were gone for 30 seconds. 

Todd: Right. I know, right? Like, or just get off on that floor. Yeah. Go down one 

Craig: level, find another stairwell. 

Todd: You know, like, come on. There’s not, yeah, it’s, it’s stupid. Or find a way to. Pry the electoral fence away.

I think you could do it. There’s a lot of random shit kicking around there, right? At one point the killer gives him a, I don’t think it’s yet, but at one point they get a crowbar Robert, unhooks Adam, so he can get a hook, the hook that he’s hanging from to to run around as a weapon. Then there’s a package back at the party table that they stumble upon that says, Simon says, try this and it’s a crowbar.

So Wade goes and tries it on. Steel door that he was trying to open, and when he opens it, there’s just a brick wall behind it. Like, yeah, what? What? First of all, this doesn’t make any sense that there would be a steel door with a brick wall behind it unless the killer bricked it up. And number two, Of all of the doors on that entire floor that they’ve been exploring, why was Wade trying to open that one and why did the killer know that that would be the door?

There’s nothing written on it or anything. Mm-hmm. , there’s nothing leading them to that particular door, but when they do open it and find this brick wall, there’s another thing written on it, another poem. Mary 

Craig: Mary, quite contrary something, it, it ends up saying something like, you can’t leave until I say so, 

Todd: or, or something like that.

Yeah. It’s not another clue. So they 

Craig: try, they probably open an elevator door, and again, there are more blades in it, but they prop it open with a table and they all start climbing down the shaft and they actually all do. But while Pamela is going down, she somehow gets nabbed out of the shaft. . How did that work with no that, no, like, they’re between two floors, but somehow, In between those two floors, she gets nabb.

I don’t know. It’s dumb. And then this, at this point in my, in my notes, it’s only half over. I know . 

Todd: Oh my 

Craig: God. So the loudspeaker announces a game and they see, because there are random monitors set up around, they know they’re being videotaped, they’ve. Figured that out already. Uh, but they see on one of these monitors that Pam is on a giant wheel and there’s a countdown.

Yes. What was this? They have to find her, but that’s the other frustrating thing, like they keep splitting up for no reason. Like one person will just run off like Yeah. With no motive, nothing. Just bye. Like mm-hmm. , where are you going? What are you doing? And so they keep ending up, you know, by themselves or in pairs or, or whatever.

God, I don’t know what, what happens. I don’t know. They’re 

Todd: looking for the studios cuz they figure she’s in the television studios or whatever, and I guess they’re, one of them happens to know there’s a studio on this floor, so they gotta find the right one. So one of them wanders into one room and there’s a, there’s a TV in they’re playing that has.

Kathy’s cooking show, and it says the next course, and another guy runs into another empty studio, but picks up a newspaper in it that has somebody else’s name written on it or something that I, you know, we’re supposed to maybe be some kind of clues, but they weren’t. It’s just nothing. Mm-hmm. . And then, uh, finally the countdown ends and they see on the screen that Pam’s wheel has stopped and the killer goes right up to her with an ax and access her right in the middle of the face because her 

Craig: name, under her name was two-Face.

Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s about as clever as this show gets . God. I 

Craig: know. And so then Wade and Nick, I don’t know Nicole, whatever her name is, they, they go in there and they find her, and Kathy’s already in there and says, the only way out is to kill the killer. Yeah. God, I don’t know. Like, I don’t even remember. And then that’s when they find the electric fences and yeah, there’s a little bit of, they’re supposed to go to a different floor 

Todd: and, uh, there’s some byplay because they look, they see on the tv, one of the TV screens somehow Robert’s not there for some reason, and they see on the TV screen that Robert is, is struggling with this killer.

He’s like, because killer. In the hallway with him, got a knife up to his throat and so now they run down to try to find him. But uh, like you said, there’s things being blocked and whatnot. And then they manage once again on the second floor, on this other floor, wherever they are now, they manage to stumble into this room.

Mm-hmm. , which is the classic killer room with the pictures and printouts of them on the wall and stuff written on it and files. Stuff and, and you know, it’s obvious he’s been planning this for years, you know, cuz they’ve got pictures from years ago. Like he’s been surveilling them and they find a, then they just randomly, one of them finds a G P S 

Craig: that looks like a.

A game boy from the eighties it did. 

Todd: Or, or an an iPod. I thought it was an iPod with sticker stuck to, it looks stupid. , which is just like a picture of the map and the big smiley face where they’re located and they see this flashing green light, you know, coming down the hall towards them so they all get ready cuz they think that’s the killer and he’s gonna come in.

But it’s. And now you know, Robert is suspicious because they don’t understand how he got away, right? Like, we just saw you struggling with this guy. Now you just kind of wander in here like, like nothing happened. And he is like, yeah, well I don’t know either. And he’s definitely suspicious, but I don’t understand how this g p s with the.works, or they’re reasoning behind the reason for it.

I, I just didn’t get this whole g p s thing at all. But anyway. No, cuz there’s 

Craig: no payoff, right? Like they, they make him take off all his clothes cuz they assume that there must be a tracker on him because that’s what they were seeing on the g p s. So they make him take off all his clothes, but they don’t find the tracker.

So he says to his girlfriend, unless you stuck it up my butt this morning, I get, I don’t know where it is. Oh my 

Todd: God. Yeah. Then they’re like, well, maybe it was in the cupcake you ate and they, oh yeah, maybe. And then they just kind of leave that thing. But that’s it. Nothing ever comes of it. Right. It’s like, what’s the point of the Jeep?

Why would one of them have a tracker on it? Like what, what? No, 

Craig: nothing else 

Todd: ever comes. And why the killer left the GPS in the room for them to find? Uh, I don’t know. It’s hard to say, but, um, they mentioned something about her, his name not being on the list, which I do not remember, but then they find files with his name on it.

So he is like, well, I guess I’ve been on the list anyway. And then, you know, I think they go through a second round of trying to figure out how they’re all connected. Three sentences, but they don’t figure anything out. And then the , I think it is Robert or somebody picks up the G p s again, and now the screen looks different.

And he says, oh, the G P S seems to be displaying elevator codes. Yeah. What so. So they go to the stairwell and they trip a lay mass trap, , oh God. It looked like a home alone trap, . Oh, it’s so stupid. And, and I thought the stairwell, they weren’t able to use, so I couldn’t figure out why. Suddenly the stairwell was clear.

Again, I 

Craig: don’t know. But they, they, so they, so they call an elevator and they end up getting the one that has Melanie’s dead body in it. But they type in a code to go down to the lobby and they’re so excited cuz it’s going down. , I actually like 

Todd: that bit where they open the elevator, open some Melanie’s in there and one of ’em says, Oh, I forgot about her.

Yeah. And they walk in just awkwardly have to stand with her dead body as they tra in Traver travel in the elevator. Oh, that was kind of funny though. But it 

Craig: was kind of funny. The elevator ends up going past the lobby down into the sublevels, and so they start freaking out and finally when the door opens, I guess the killer’s right there, and he shoots Wade with a crossbo.

Todd: Yes. And then like what? They just kind of run past him. Uhhuh, , Nicole and Robert run out and I’m like, oh, they’re gonna run out and tackle that guy. No, no. They just like run, and I don’t even know where the killer is at this point. Like I don’t, he was right there in front of them anyway. Wade and Kathy are stuck in the elevator.

Wade has an arrow in his leg and they’ve got this . They’ve got this difficult scene where he’s like, it seems to think that he really needs to get that air out of his leg. He wants her to take it out of his leg. She’s like, I can’t. I can’t. He says, you can baby. You can. She says, okay. 

Craig: Oh yeah, I know. Why did he call her baby?

That was weird. You don’t call random strangers, baby . I don’t know. Maybe if you’re like a former famous person, it’s a thing. I 

Todd: guess. I dunno. Everything. Everybody’s, Hey man, when you’re, you know, a musician and then you’re rock star up on stage, everybody’s baby. 

Craig: Yeah. He just need, yeah, he just needed to get like that Austin.

Accent going, you would’ve to 

Todd: pull . Hi baby . I do think that most of the actors in this movie were British, affecting an American accent and doing quite well of it. But, but 

Craig: am I wrong in thinking that this movie was filmed in English? , but then also dubbed in English. 

Todd: It seems like a lot of it was dubbed.

Yeah, especially, um, Nicole, she especially seemed to be dubbed a lot. I I, I, I felt like maybe there was a different actress’s voice coming outta her mouth. I wasn’t 

Craig: surprised by the dubbing because I knew it was a German film, but then I was watching, I’m like, they are speaking English, like, oh yeah, for sure.

I can read their lips. They’re speaking English. The dub doesn’t match up perfectly, but I can tell that I don’t know it. It was 

Todd: weird. . Well, there’s an implication. There’s some gas coming into the elevator cuz it just shows a closeup of the grate in there. And then Nicole and Robert end up in a pink room and he’s messing around some stuff.

I don’t know why. He’s just like probing and opening tiny little things and whatnot. The puff of something knocks him out. Mm-hmm. . So they’ve been fighting this whole time. It’s not very convincing. Fighting like, I don’t understand why they’re going off on each other so much, but you know, there’s all this stuff we’re.

Earlier, he kind of lets, lets it known that he was going to, I guess they find the ring on him when they’re arguing and you know, with him and think he might be a, a killer. And then he kind of says, yeah, well that was, you know, that was a mistake that thankfully I never made or whatever. Uhhuh, . And then after this little gas or whatever, knocks him out, he falls down and she’s, Nicole stands over him and says, I would’ve said yes.

So stupid know. Was that supposed to be a moment ? 

Craig: Well, see the thing was like in the beginning I thought that he was kind of supposed to be the sad sack put upon kind of guy. Like she was kind of the bitch who you know, was treating this nice guy badly and kissing other guys behind his back. No, he’s a dick too.

So he’s 

Todd: a total dick. He’s like the Dickies of all of ’em, right? 

Craig: So who cares? Who 

Todd: cares? Yeah. . . She runs out and finds Kathy and Wade like they’re sleeping in some bed. So they’ve been propped together away. Yeah. I had no idea what that 

Craig: was about because the last time we saw them, they were both fully conscious and fine.

Todd: Yeah. I think they were gassed in the 

Craig: elevator. Okay. , right? So they’re like, you know, snuggling like, like they’re not spooning, but they may as well be in a bed just laying there. Uhhuh . And so the killer chases her for a while and she has the genius idea to break open a glow stick and splash it on his face.

It does, does absolutely nothing. I Is that possible? Well, I think it is possible. Really? No, I, I, no, I know it’s possible cuz fun fact, fun fact about me when I was in college, I. Frequented raves and, uh, , no kidding. People would put those, uh, glow stick things in their mouths and they would break, and, uh, so the whole inside of their mouths would glow it, which is incredibly toxic young.

Yeah. Don’t do that. People out there don’t do that. It may look cool for a second, but you could get really sick. 

Todd: great. Craig’s like, I know , but 

Craig: it serves no purpose other than it kind of looks cool on his. Shiny chrome mask. Like, yeah, like they just kind of wanted that cool look. Look. . 

Todd: Yeah, that’s about it really.

It like gets in his eye for like a half a second. Then this is the most cat and mouse the movie has gotten so far because there’s actually some scenes where she’s hiding and then she’s, you know, he’s walking nearby. You know, it’s that classic right killer is stalking the girl who’s trying to hide from him.

And this happens for like five minutes and then it cuts away from it and Wade wakes up on the floor. And he is like, where’s Kathy? And it turns out Robert is sitting up against a wall. I don’t know. How about Nicole? She’s gone. Like, he’s just being weird. And why are they in this big room? It looks like a sewer or something.

Oh yeah. It’s like a dirt 

Craig: floor or something. I have no idea what’s going on. 

Todd: It’s bizarre. And then it turns out Kathy is in some prison cell or something right next 

Craig: door? No, she’s like in a, she’s like in an adjacent room or something, but she’s on the other side of like a metal screen or fence or 

Todd: something.

And they’re like yelling at each other. I go, can you get to me? No. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then like she just kind of opens a door and gets out. Yeah. Some other direction, not to them. I, I mean, you know, this is just a problem. Like we have no sense of this, this place, this no. Where they are, what it is, and it, you know, it’s not confusing in a cool way.

It’s just confusing in a way that you don’t understand the significance or you don’t understand, you know, where they should be going to. It’s just tiresome, right? Like, what 

Craig: is this building? Because Kathy finds Nicole tied to a table in some big, like kitchen, kitchen. I don’t know. It’s like all white tiled and there’s.

Uh, like half walls, you know, coming up out of the floor randomly in their sinks and stuff. And I, there’s a big, oh yeah, there’s like a platform that Nick, like, Nick is like tied down to a table and Kathy finds her and then the killer comes up behind Kathy and then it cuts back to Wade and Rob and they argue and Rob drops a key and Wade’s like, where’d you get that?

And Rob’s like, I swear to God, I’ve never seen it before. . So they both I think go for the key and Wade ends up bashing Rob’s head on the ground and killing him. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, that was crazy. He just full on out kills him. And he seems a little distraught by it, but I 

Craig: think I, I think that he thought that Rob was the killer or was in on it.

And to be fair, there had been some shady stuff like, you know, Rob had been attacked, but then he had gotten away unscathed and now he’s got this key and the Rob’s being 

Todd: has been set up, I guess, by the killer, this killer who really just goes around and kills people. Does this to Rob. I, I just assuming that that key will eventually fall out or right of his sleeve or wherever he put it.

I don’t know, like in a place where it’s gonna be helpful because then Wade just like opens a door and leaves. So I guess he used the key on a door that was in that room, 

Craig: but it just leads him, it just leads him into, oh wait. No. Well, first we see the killer. cutting Nicole’s heart out. It said heartless underneath her name, on her name plate.

But he cuts her heart out with a circular saw. Yeah. And, and like pulls it out and like it’s still beating and, and its hand in his hand. Uh, it was 

Todd: very unconvincing effect also. How would you do that with a circular saw and Right. It was weird, but at this point I was like, oh, okay. I know who it is because we had just seen Kathy in that room and the killer’s standing behind.

And then without anything, it just cuts back to that scene and we’re focused on Nicole getting her heart cut out, like, what the hell happened to Kathy? Well, 

Craig: the very next scene, Wade finds her and she’s tied up in a chair. I didn’t know who it was, but at this point I was getting frustrated because I was thinking at this point, it has to be somebody that we don’t know because we have seen the killer with everybody else.

So, It can’t be one of our people. It’s gotta be somebody we don’t know, or maybe somebody that we saw very briefly at the party. That was the only thing that I could. Think, and either way I’m like, that pisses me 

Todd: off. Like I had accomplice idea in my mind. I did 

Craig: not. Now you see, you’re not smarter than me, but I’m 

Todd: two steps ahead of you in this crazy cat and mouse game where there’s traps everywhere and twists and turns.

Yeah, God. 

Craig: He, okay, so, so Wade finds Kathy. She’s tied up, so he unties her and she tells or he tells her that Rob is dead, that he doesn’t mention the fact that he killed him, and then they find a menu. Like a, like a, a dining menu with all of their names on it. And it says that, that Kathy is the main course, like, it, it lists all the people who are already dead.

Like one of them was the appetizer, whatever. And then Kathy is the main course and he’s the dessert. He’s like, I don’t wanna be the dessert . Like, 

Todd: like he’s, I also love how there’s just a bunch of random food. It doesn’t even look good, that’s sitting out on, on, on dishes. He takes one glance at it. It goes, Hey, these are all dishes you’ve cooked on your.

Yeah. What? 

Craig: She’s like, how do you know he’s, I told you I’m a fan. . 

Todd: Come on. It’s like a plate of green beans, a salad, . Yeah, it’s really 

Craig: stupid. So he ties her back up, like he just untied her. Now he ties her back up as bait. Um, and the killer comes. And Wade’s like behind him, and he goes to stab the killer, but his knife turns out to be a retractable prop knife.

What, 

Todd: where, where did he get the knife from? How did he not notice? It was re retract? I just had so many questions at this point. 

Craig: I know it doesn’t, it doesn’t make any sense. Uh, and then he gets stabbed and hung. And then Kathy starts to cut him down, but she hears a noise and she goes to investigate that and the killer is coming.

So Kathy stabs the killer and then takes off the killer’s mask and she says, oh my God, he’s my number one fan. Had we seen this guy before? 

Todd: No, we hadn’t. No, I I thought maybe 

Craig: he had been at the party and I had forgotten. Nope. And she, she cuts wade down and she’s like, this guy always shows up anywhere I am.

And he, he always says, he’s my number one fan. But then she cuts him down and just starts talking. Yeah. And totally reveals her motive and her whole motive. Is that she used to be fat and people made fun of her for it, and she’s mad. That’s it. Like, yes, . It’s the stupidest fucking motive ever in any movie, ever.

It’s so dumb. Like she got made fun of for being fat when she was a kid, so she’s gonna kill everybody who ever. Slighted her and all of these people knew her in some capacity, yes. When she was fat. But don’t recognize her now because when you lose weight, you become an entirely unrecognizable person.

Right. 

Todd: Of course, in n nevermind, you become a celebrity chef , and nobody puts together the fact that they knew you. When there’s like a jilted boyfriend, , you know, there’s like the one. Teased her, like she just, there’s this long protracted ending where she just goes one by one through each of the people.

And the horrible thing that they did to her when she was in high school, I mean the implication is also that maybe at least a few of them all went to the same high school. Like they couldn’t put that together. I know you. Sure you do. I’m Kathy King. Can’t walk down the street without seeing my face on a billboard or the side of a bus.

No. Feel that girl feel more high. Your name’s not Kathy. What’s your name? You don’t remember. I can’t tell you how much that hurts my feelings, but then again, why would you, in high school you never even looked at me. It was as though I. Exist. And when I finally worked up the courage to tell you how much I loved you, you laughed in my face.

Of course you don’t remember my name. You never called me by my name. What did you call me? You must remember that lady, Lord ass lady. Lord ass. Now I’m getting rid of the dead weight. Oh, just really stupid. 

Craig: It’s really stupid. Uh, like she’s mad because he laughed. She had a crush on him and he laughed at her advances and called her lady lard ass.

And yeah. Um, he’s like trying to talk to her. He is like, well, isn’t living. He’s like, you’re doing great now. Isn’t living well? The best revenge? And she says, she’s like, nah, killing people.

And then she does this. Set like a cooking demonstration set where she lays out her recipes for revenge and, and lays out the whole menu, including the, you know, the bodies and in trails of all of these people that she, she’s killed. And it’s long, like when, when I was first listening to it, I’m like, oh, he’s gonna have to play a clip of this.

And then it kept going on and on and on, and it went on for like five minutes. Yeah. During the whole thing. The killer. I guess wasn’t totally dead. And so he attacks her, but she kills him. And while she’s doing that, Wade tries to escape, but he can only like drag himself along. So she gets on top of his back and is talking to him and cuts his throat and then turns and says something directly to camera.

I don’t remember what she says. It doesn’t matter cause it was so stupid. And then that’s the end. Yeah. The end. Yeah. God, it was just so, so 

Todd: bad. It was bad. And to 

Craig: be fair, like it’s a pretty typical slasher. Yeah. But, but the characters are so unlikeable. , and I don’t even know if the acting is that bad or if it’s just that the writing is so bad that there’s really nothing that they could do with 

Todd: it.

It’s both. I couldn’t figure out Pamela’s character, you know, was so unconvincing. I thought, my God, this woman is a terrible actress. Like she is just as wooden as can be, just delivering these lines. And then I go to her IMDB profile and she’s the most prolific of all. Oh, she’s like working all the time and in big stuff, small roles, but in big stuff like Bridger 10.

And so, you know, either she’s improved or it is truly just the writing or maybe the director. I mean, I always give the actors a little bit of a pass when it comes to the acting thinking that maybe the directing was poor. Yeah. And they were put in bad hands and they were made to. Do something, the director convinced them looked good, but in turns out they look silly.

I, I mean, what you say is true and that makes it very hard to get into this movie, even with a dumb premise, even with a lot of plot holes. It’s not like we’ve haven’t seen movies that are nonsensical and don’t make sense. Right. And, but you know, you just, you don’t care about any of these people. You don’t, you’re not even convinced.

They’re real people. They’re all just saying stupid things all the time. They’re all assholes. And what it says on the cover of this, surviving each floor is the name of the game. No, like just. Wandering around empty hallways in the dark was the name of the game. Uhhuh Uhhuh . It’s impossible to believe that this killer set this all up elaborately and, and pushed everything to go according to plan because so much of it was random.

Somebody randomly runs into an elevator, somebody randomly tr decides this is the door they’re gonna try. Yeah. There’s nothing saw like about it where they’re being led through a series of things, right? So, oh. Just stupid. Yeah. 

Craig: And, and the guy, like, I didn’t recognize any of these people either, but I just, I don’t know.

I think that he had an interesting, uh, IMDB profile picture that I couldn’t figure out. So I clicked on the guy who played Robert, and he was just in a movie that I recently saw called See for Me. and I liked that movie. It was about a, it was a home invasion movie, but, um, the girl who, you know, was in the house when it was invaded is blind.

Uhhuh . So she has to call this like, service that’s called see for me. And, uh, you know, somebody on the other end of the line using the phone on her camera, like leads her around through things. And she has to do that for this, uh, to. To survive this home invasion or whatever. And I actually liked that movie

Um, and I don’t, I don’t remember him specifically in it, but it was a really, really small cast. So I assume that he was good 

Todd: in it. I noticed that he was in, um, several video game, heavy rain and, uh, of. A few of the Assassins Creed ones, the latest Farc cry. I mean, I was kind of impressed with his resume, but not this movie, but he’s busy.

He’s the other person who’s super busy. Everybody else hasn’t been, as far as I could tell, has hardly been in anything else, if anything else besides this movie. And the same thing with the director and writer. They’ve barely done anything besides this movie. And this movie was done in 2007. . Mm-hmm. , you know, if that gives you any indication.

This movie 

Craig: is just typically bad. Like I feel like we are being maybe a little bit too harsh on it. Yeah. There are lots of direct, there are lots of direct to D V D movies or direct to streaming or whatever. Now they’re like this, that are like this, that aren’t very good that, you know, a few years ago you would’ve stumbled on on.

some cable channel in the middle of the afternoon. You’re not expecting super high quality, so that’s fine. I don’t know, I just, I, I was just disappointed. I, you know, it’s our New Year’s episode. I wanted it to be something good. I watched two different movies, you know, to try to find something good for us, and they both ended up being, Terrible.

And, uh, I, I just, I wish we had something better to recommend to you, you know, watch New Year’s Evil, if you haven’t seen, seen it yet. That was fun. Yeah. I mean, it’s a bad movie too, but at least it was fun and funny and fun to watch. This movie just wasn’t even any fun. Like it wasn’t, it wasn’t. Funny, evil, the, the, yeah, I am evil.

That’s one of my, that’s one of my favorites, . But this one, it’s not even, you know, you don’t care for any of the characters. It’s not, there’s no humor to it at all. It’s played totally straight and serious. Um, ultimately the plot is just, Dumb. The, the, the end is unsatisfying and stupid. Like, I just don’t have, it’s boring.

God. It’s the even, it’s, it is, it’s boring and it drags on forever. Ugh. I, I, I can’t, I, I can’t in any kind of good faith recommend this movie on any sort of merit. I, I just didn’t like it. Avoid it. Watch something else. . 

Todd: It’s a waste of time. . Yeah. Absolute waste of. Well, on that note, happy New Year everybody.

Happy New Year. We could only go up from here. I think with our selections, , it’s gonna be, I mean, we will go lower. Don’t worry. We’ll find much worse, . We’ll find more fun, worse movies as well, I think this year. Thank you so much for sticking with us for another year, for our patrons out there. Thank you so much for your support.

We’re getting new patrons every day, and it’s just a heartening to see if you would like to support us and keep us going. Uh, we would really appreciate it. Just go to patreon.com/chainsaw podcast for just a few bucks a month. You can get access to special features Mini sos an exclusive interview with us, the entire unedited phone call that we do, including our chat before and after, uh, the podcast recording.

Check it out. Uh, also we want to hear more requests. Shoot us some better movies to do, especially if you know a good New Year’s one . 

Craig: Yeah, we’ll need something 

Todd: for next year. We sure do. You can find our webpage, two guys dot redford net.com. Post something there, or, uh, you know, go on our Facebook page. I think that’s where most of our chatter is.

All you have to do is Google Two Guys and a Chainsaw and you’ll get there. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We asked our Patrons to tell us which “Silent Night XX Night” horror movie they wanted us to wrap up December with this year, and this is what they said. This really weird flick stars an insanely young Mary Woronov, much of the entourage from Andy Warhol’s The Factory, and is an early producing credit for Troma’s Lloyd Kaufmann. And it’s also in the public domain, so you can check it out on YouTube for free if you’re so inclined! What a way to wrap up 2022. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Silent Night Bloody Night (1972)

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

Craig: and I’m Craig. Merry Christmas. . You 

Todd: Well, Merry Christmas Craig. It’s snuck right up. Yeah, it really did. It feels like this month flew right by. We had a blast doing three Christmas themed horror movies. Uh, strangely skewed towards Santa Slashers this year.

Uhhuh . I think there were just a lot of those out, but I also had the opportunity to get together in person. That was nice. Unforgettable. Really nice to see a movie in the theater. You know, one of the few movies in the theater I had actually seen at all since the Covid era started. Mm-hmm. . So, um, that was cool and especially special to, uh, be sitting there with you in the dark watching, uh, violent night.

That’s what it was. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, it was fun. So, uh, the movie that we are doing this week, we decided to put towards our patrons. Uh, we put up a little pole and, uh, all three of the movies that I pulled them with were like, silent Night, something Night. I said, which Silent Night movie would you like us to do for the Christmas season?

And I think Craig was really gunning for, what was it called? Silent Night. Silent Night. Yeah. with, uh, a more, more modern movie with, uh, what’s her name? It, Kira Knightly in it. And, uh, a bunch of others. But, um, the patrons spoke and they, uh, would preferred that we do Silent Night, Bloody Night, a very moody 1972 Horror movie that, uh, has been in the public domain actually for a while. Yeah. Um, be because it wasn’t registered with the US Copyright Office when, uh, after it was released, which is no longer necessary, but a lot of really, um, notorious horror movies such as a Night of the Living Dead. and a lot of the ones that Elvira would do on her show.

Yeah. Which, you know, have later gained a cold following are in public domain due to those laws. Um, stupid things, right? Like, oh, we just didn’t put a copyright notice on the credits or whatever. Right. That’s 

Craig: maybe the most interesting thing about this movie is that , you know, as, as, as soon as it finished its run in like the drive-through circuit, it became public domain and then nobody really talked about it again until Elvira featured it on, uh, one of her.

Shows, and then I guess from that point forward, it kind of gained a cult following. Maybe you could explain to me why . 

Todd: I don’t, well, I, I, I agree with you that this movie is not fantastic, but I don’t think it’s by far one of the mo most interesting things about this movie. One of the patrons that, um, really wanted to see this movie, put a little comment on the page that, uh, Mary Waroff sold her.

Yeah. Uh, on this movie, Mary Waroff is one of, uh, the stars in here. Uhhuh . And she, she is a cult actress who I think you and I really like. Oh, yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. I like her. I, I can never, we’ve seen her in several movies. The, the only one that I can remember. That one where aliens came through the satellite dish. . 

Todd: Oh, yeah.

Uh, television. Yeah. TerrorVision. I know 

Craig: she’s been in several other movies we’ve watched, but that’s always the one that comes to mind. She would 

Todd: always show up on those USA up all night movies. Yeah. And not always in horror movies. Right. Lot, lots of like sex comedies and things like that. Uhhuh , she had a very brief role at the beginning of Killbots.

Just sort of like a cameo role in Killbots, otherwise known as Chopping Mall. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah, she was, she’s interesting. You know, she was a member of Andy Warhol. Entourage. I read that. Yeah. Back when, uh, I, I guess she visited there during a class trip, huh? , which is interesting. And, uh, decided to stick around.

Uh, this is her first, I believe, her first film role. And, uh, she got it because she was actually married to the director. Right. Um, the director, Theodore Ghany. He did one or two other movies after this. Uh, he wrote and directed this one. He co-wrote it with, A guy named Jeffrey Convitz who wrote the novel, The Sentinel.

Oh. And also, uh, co-wrote the screenplay for that. Have, I don’t think we’ve done the Sentinel yet on here, have we? No, it’s been on my list though. That’s one of those satanic cult type movies that I kind of like from the seventies. Anyway, we’ll do that eventually. Aside from that and this movie and one other movie that’s kind of a thriller, erotic thriller, like, uh, it doesn’t seem like the direct.

Theodore Gini did much, uh, after this. Neither did, uh, Jeffrey Convitz after he did the Sentinel, he did a f He produced a few things a couple decades later. But then when you look at the cast of this, there’s it’s kind of impressive, stable of older horror older movie stars who are maybe a little bit past their prime or coming up into.

To that point. Yeah. This is a Cannon released film and they were sort of notorious for doing this. Of course, I think this was the first film that Cannon releasing did later in the eighties. They would go on to do like Chuck Norris movies and these action thrillers and horror, just like all kinds of crazy stuff.

The Masters of the Universe movie. That was so terrible back then. You know, we, I think we did a whole episode where we talked in depth about, uh, cannon, and I can’t remember which movie it was that. Where we’re doing at the time. I don’t remember. . Yeah, I don’t remember at all. But I think that’s kind of interesting.

This is their first one and uh, also one of the co-producers on here is Lloyd Kaufman. Oh. Who would later go on to co-found, uh, Troma. Yeah, I believe that after he did this, he was running around, he did some, I think some location scouting or something for Saturday Night Fever. He popped around a little bit in the Hollywood area before he decided to go and do a movie called Battle of Love Returns.

Which then kind of went off to co-found Troma. So, so this was like around that era. So it’s, it’s sort of this interesting point where all of these interesting characters are in this, otherwise this movie that was quite forgettable for the time. Let’s see what we can name off a few other people. John Carradine is in here.

Uhhuh 

Craig: in a non-speaking role. Yeah. That’s weird. 

Todd: Yeah. , maybe it was cheaper that way. I don’t 

Craig: know. And is that, is he like David Kaine’s. Yeah, 

Todd: Uhhuh . We did a, a movie, I think it was a little later than this, it was early eighties or late seventies called Monster Club. Oh, right. Remember, he and Vincent Price were in the beginning, he was definitely a little older.

Oh, that’s right. In that movie. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely spoke in that one. . Yeah. He has a long history. Patrick O’Neill, I think, um, pretty notable. He starts out as a guy in this movie named John Carter. 

Craig: Yeah, that was another interesting thing about this movie. They, that, um, they pulled a psycho Mm.

The, the people that I thought were gonna be the main characters for the movie got killed first. . 

Todd: Yeah, exactly. kind of suddenly didn’t they? Uhhuh . And, and you know, also, I couldn’t believe when I was watching this movie, there was a point where I was like, wait a minute. I had to look up and see if Black Christmas came out before or after this.

And it turns out it came out after this because there is such a striking similarity between the killer in this movie and the killer in Black Christmas that I cannot, for a moment, believe that it was not influenced. And it turns out this, yeah, this movie was shot like four years before Crip. Black Christmas came out.

I think it was released two years after it was shot. So still two years before Black Christmas. I have no doubt that Bob Clark must have seen this. That’s funny. You know, I 

Craig: hadn’t really thought about that, but you’re right. You know, the, the killer making phone calls and talking in a funny voice and Yeah.

And claiming to be somebody. Yeah. Oh my gosh. There are a lot of similarities. I hadn’t thought of that. It’s also got 

Todd: breaking into a house and hang, hanging out up there. Uhhuh, . 

Craig: It’s also got kind of a yellow feel with, you know, the killer and the black leather gloves and lots of killer p o v and like heavy breathing behind the camera.

Todd: well. It’s kind of interesting when you think about it. You put this at 1972 just before sort of the slasher craze, which we sort of credit Black Christmas. Mm-hmm. with kicking off, which then influenced Halloween, which then kicked everything into high gear. This movie’s actually got some, you could almost argue it.

Set a tone. Yeah. It’s set up a few of these standards. Of course, we’ve also reviewed a Diallo film, uh, called Bay of Blood. also has, you know, I, I mean it’s complicated. The history of horror, you know, has a lot of influences from a lot of different places. But yeah, I would be not convinced if you tried to tell me that this movie completely flew under the radar and did not influence anybody.

Right. Uh, who later came along. Cuz there’s some very direct and solid influences there, regardless of what you know. I mean, it’s. It’s slow. . It’s slow. Yeah. 

Craig: It’s moody. It just, it feels, it feels kind of old school. I, yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, I feel like, I don’t know, I could just be making this up, but it feels like it kind of comes from a time period where they could take their time.

Um, I, I feel like we’re a little bit more impatient today. Um. But cuz it is, it’s a slow burn. Uh, I don’t know. Ultimately, like , I kind of felt like the whole time, like I didn’t know what was going on. Yeah. Like I couldn’t, I couldn’t keep track of who was who and when was when, because. Mm. Like a lot of stuff happened in the distant past, and then some things happened in the recent past, and then things were happening in the current time, and by the end when it finally was over and it was kind of revealed what was going on, I was like, 

Todd: What

I know the ending is a little unsatisfying. , I’ll just say the least, but it’s narration heavy. There’s a lot of narration. There’s a lot of flashback Also, you know, usually flashback is rather quick, right? We get a flashback, we kind of see, you know, what happened, and then we come back to present day with this.

The last flashback in this movie that sort of explains everything goes on for like 10 minutes. , it’s long. 

Craig: Yeah. And it’s in, its complete, it’s shot in a different style. It’s weird, like all like out of nowhere. You’re kind of in like a silent movie from the thirties. Yeah, . 

Todd: It’s weird. SepOne Uhhuh, kind of black and very monochromatic sep Sapia tone.

It’s very artsy and I think. So I was reading and, uh, Mary Waroff has a quote, uh, that she talked about, uh, for this movie. And she said, silent Night, bloody Night was terrible. We were given a weird script and Ted, the director, tried to spark it up. He tried to make it an artistic statement, but it didn’t work.

It didn’t even make much sense. Most people couldn’t understand what was going on, which is not good, particularly for a horror film. And I think that’s pretty fair. Yeah. 

Craig: Uhhuh. . She nailed it. . . 

Todd: So thank you all for listening to this episode. No, actually, I think All right. I agree with almost everything that she said.

I don’t think it’s a terrible movie because I can see what it was trying to do, but like you said, it was just not entertaining enough to pull it off. Uhuh. Yeah. 

Craig: Well, and. Like you said, like the heavy narration, it goes on for so long like this. It’s silly. It is, and it, I like, I don’t care. I don’t care. And it’s, and it’s taking itself so seriously, like, and again, like I didn’t know what was happening.

I didn’t know who any of these people were. It just throws you right in, in the beginning with her, I guess Mary Warnoff like revisit. House and, and she’s telling us in this very serious voiceover that like she’s revisiting this place once more before it’s demolished. And I don’t know, like I have it in my notes that she grew up there, but like, is that even true?

I don’t know. 

Todd: It seems like it, right? I mean, it gives that impression. I think the movie is trying very hard at the beginning to set up this sort of gothic tale of generations, right? Yeah. It, it’s really got that vibe and, and initially that’s kind of captivating, you know? Oh, it’s the mysterious house kind of.

Craig: But I, I couldn’t even under, like, I couldn’t follow the timeline. I don’t, because they say that the guy who built the house got put into a mental institution, but then, He came back and then , he caught on fire. , 

Todd: right. . That, that’s really funny. It’s, it’s a house in the snow. And we’re getting all this in narration, but then we’re getting to see some of this happen in the backtrack.

It’s supposed to be the day before Christmas in 1950 and suddenly this guy comes stumbling outta the house and he’s on fire. . Yes. Yes. Fully, fully. In flame. He runs out into the snow and tries to, I guess, put, he doesn’t try very hard actually to put himself out. I. He’s in the snow. He, he could maybe, anyway, uh, he falls down and then we get a shot from inside the house through the window of the guy burning in the snow in the distance.

Some 

Craig: old lady just like playing piano . 

Todd: Yeah. It slowly pulls back through the house and then there’s a person in there playing like a harps supporter piano or something. All of us believe that his death was an accident. No one knew that another person had come to Butler house that Christmas. Yeah. But I mean, it’s setting up a central mystery, right?

There was this mysterious death, but by 

Craig: the, yeah, but by the time that mystery was solved, I had forgotten about like, . I had forgotten that hole. But then nobody else, nobody knew that someone else had come to O. Okay. I, I totally forgot about that . But then it, but, but see then, like it jumps around in time cuz they’re like, well, and then they buried Wil.

Butler on New Year’s Day, so I guess he was like the owner. Mm-hmm. . And the guy, the guy who built it and the guy got burnt up, but then it said he left his house to his grandson Jeffrey? Yes. But then the house was empty for 20 years. and then it shows somebody breaking out of another mental institution.

Todd: Yes, and I didn’t know who it was 

Craig: and I thought it was Jeffrey, and I thought it was 

Todd: Jeffrey for a long time, but then I think we’re supposed to. Yeah. Uh, I didn’t know 

Craig: what was going on. I was totally lost 

Todd: and bored . Yeah. I, I agree with you in being deliberately misleading. It’s a little. It’s confusing.

That’s the problem. You know, there’s a fine line right in, in withholding information, creating some intrigue, doing some foreshadowing and whatnot. But if you don’t do it well enough, then you’re just confused and. Unsettled, you know, through the whole thing. And I, I, I felt, I, I, I agree. I was waiting for all this to come together and it didn’t really come together towards the end.

And then I was questioning myself like, what did I really know? Or did I miss something throughout a lot of it, uh, I just wanna, I want at least point out a few things I liked about the movie. I really liked that point of view of the killer. Bits, uh, where he broke out of the metal institution, beats a bunch of people over the head with like a wrench or something.

A wrench and, and drives the car and takes off. I thought that was kind of interesting and well shot. And then the, you know, she says a man who came to sell the house. Had never seen it. He was just a man doing a job. And that’s when the couple pulls up to this house taking pics and selfies. And there’s this woman who I never caught her name.

I don’t know if it was ever uttered 

Craig: the girlfriend, like, hi, the girl that he’s with. 

Todd: Yeah, I think it’s. Must be his. Ingrid. I think. Ingrid. Okay. Uh, Astrid Huron. This, this was, it was also 

Craig: weird because, okay, so when they introduced this guy who’s played by Patrick O’Neill, I feel like I should know him from something.

He looks really familiar, but I couldn’t figure out what I know him from. His name’s John Carter. Carter, and he’s just there to sell the house and he goes and meets with the mayor, and then the mayor introduces him to this like shady. . It’s like the, the people who run the town or something, but it’s like they’re all weird.

They’re all weird. And, uh, he, it’s the sheriff and the switchboard operator. Yes. Who’s a lady and the newspaper editor who is, uh, the guy who doesn’t talk, uh, played by the guy that we already talked about. His name. John Carradine. Yep. John Carradine. His name’s Toman and he doesn’t talk for unexplained reasons and they’re weird.

The mayor is introduced and the, I don’t even know what’s happening on or what’s going on. The, the guy, John Carine, like just every once in a while, he’ll ring a bell. Just that’s it. Like he just does, and it’s 

Todd: his way of communicating and everyone seems to understand what he’s saying, , 

Craig: and they seem like, like the, the whole group of them seemed like.

I don’t know. They’re just super shady. You’re like, why are they so weird? And why are they just sitting around a table silently and staring like mm-hmm . It’s so weird. I don’t know what’s going on. And apparently they say that, uh, Carter says, I know that the town wanted to buy the house. Well, I’ve got a deal for you.

Well, do 

Todd: you still want the house? Are you offering it to us, Mr. Carter? Exactly. Why? Well, that’s Mr. Butler’s business, isn’t he? You know, we are not rich. Most of us came here during the depression, but we love this town. It’s our home. And naturally you want to improve it. Exactly. My client understands that and he fully sympathizes and he’s willing to sacrifice the.

For $50,000 in cash 

Craig: by noon tomorrow. What? ? 

Todd: Yeah. Why is the town buying a house? It. It’s weird because it’s, there’s the, there’s the impression left that the, the town is embarrassed by the house. Right. That it’s a scandalous place because something terrible had happened there. And I’m thinking just what this, just because this guy burned up anyway.

And then, and then, yeah, my idea was, oh, maybe the town wants to buy the house so that they can tear it down. And, and it is true, like I think later. The mayor asks the group, so what are we gonna do when we buy the house? One of them says, burn it down. But yeah, they’re weird, right? They’re all sitting around the table on one side staring.

They’re just off. Yeah. And later on we find out why. Yeah. Which is funny. . Yeah. Really funny, but just, I don’t 

Craig: know the like serious, honestly, I really didn’t know what was going on. Yeah. I somehow missed that that house had been turned into an asylum for a while. 

Todd: Like I thought, Nope, I don’t think it was told at this point yet.

I don’t think anybody knew it at this point. Yeah, I don’t think we find that out until the end. Well, 

Craig: so then this killer. Again, who we don’t have any idea who it is. You know, black coat, black gloves. That’s all we see. And then we see from their point of view, they show up and like, I feel like the, the movie is still kind of trying to trick us into thinking that it’s Jeffrey, because Jeffrey is also arriving.

Yeah. Um, but, but he’s not mask. or gloved or anything. 

Todd: Somebody drives by Jeffrey. I think it was Mary Warnock’s character. It’s 

Craig: the one. It is. I couldn’t tell the two women apart at first and that was confusing me also. But yes, it is her, like he’s like along the side of the road and I think he’s like holding a wrench, like maybe his card broken down or something.

But we had just seen somebody else kill somebody or, or at least threatened somebody with a wrench. 

Todd: Oh God, I didn’t know. So red 

Craig: herring and, and she just, she drives by and just looks 

Todd: at him like, and then he smashes the windows. He’s 

Craig: trying to flag her down, but she doesn’t stop cuz he is shady. He smashes the windows.

Yeah. I don’t 

Todd: remember that. Why? Yeah. He smashes the windshield and. I still don’t know why I, I really have no idea what car that was and why he smashed the window. The windows , 

Craig: I don’t know. It’s weird. And then the, the, the killer. Stabs a dog outside of the house for no 

Todd: reason. I guess it was a guard dog or so, or maybe it was just a dog.

That was annoying him. Yeah, I, I thought, oh, Craig . I’m sorry. Every time there’s cruelty to animals, I always think of you, Craig. Well, that one bothered 

me. . 

Craig: Sometimes they have it coming, but that dog was just, It’s not bothering him. Plus, fine, it’s a guard dog. Whatever. There’s nobody else around. What are you afraid of?

Like ? Yeah, just go in the house. 

Todd: Leave the dog alone. . Well, I might mo you, you know, I mean, who knows? Oh, it like a nice dog might bark and let other people mow you there, 

Craig: So, but anyway, this gloved person is just like prowling around the house and then Carter and his girlfriend, I guess when he goes inside.

Yeah, they. They go inside 

Todd: the, well, first of all, the bad guy go the, the, the killer breaks into the house and goes in, there’s some stuff of him kind of wandering around POV shot, uh, in the house before the couple shows up. 

Craig: Yeah. And then I was not really confused. I guess they were just kind of trying to set it up that this Carter guy is a dick because, uh, yeah.

At sometimes he ca at some point he calls like his kid, like his little kid. Mm-hmm. and talks to her and his wife apparently. Yeah, but he’s there with. Bimbo? I don’t know. I don’t know anything about her. She’s probably lovely.

but she’s definitely a side piece. Mm-hmm. . But I’m thinking that they are like, it, it’s, it seems like they’re gonna be the main characters like Carter and, and Ingrid are gonna be the main characters, but then they’re just, Inside. And they go to bed, go to bed together, and the creepy guys just creeping around and then they get ax, both of them in the bed and yeah.

Um, lots of blood, blood splattering everywhere. Mm-hmm. , you know, bloody hands, pretty brutal blood. Yeah. And at that point, That first killer was like, okay, I might be able to get into this. Mm-hmm. , because that was a pre, like, even though it wasn’t super graphic, um, like you didn’t really see a lot of like the, the hits.

You didn’t really see the ax hit, but it was really bloody and. 

Todd: Well, I thought it was kind of a, I don’t can’t believe I’m making this comparison, but I thought it was kind of effective in the same way that, you know, the shower seat and psycho is effective. Yeah, you didn’t see the ax hit, but gosh, you saw a limbs flailing and blood everywhere and it was pretty, I felt.

Very skillfully done kill for not ever seeing the ax hit the body. Exactly. 

Craig: And I was thinking the same thing and I was thinking I was, I was like, okay, I mean, if, if it’s gonna be this kind of movie, I can at least get on board for that . But then 

Todd: you have to wait a while, , you have to wait a 

Craig: while and then it doesn’t, like, I don’t know, I don’t even remember.

I just watched this yesterday. I don’t even remember what happened. . 

Todd: Let me fill in some gaps because I just finished watching it right before we watched this, before we started recording. First of all, uh, Patrick O’Neill, uh, he, he was a TV actor, like he would pop into TV shows all the time. I, I, he might have had one series that he was a primary actor on, but he was all over television in the seventies, a little bit in the eighties.

Um, he was in the original Stepford Wives in 75. He, I think his last role was, uh, captain Adams in Under Siege. I think he was the captain of the boat. Okay. Before, uh, it gets taken, which is one of my favorite Steven Sigal movies. Oh my 

Craig: God. You have a favorite Steven Segal movie, . 

Todd: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I have a favorite Van Dam movie too.

Oh, geez. The one that takes place in the hockey rink. Which one is that? Oh God. I don’t know. It’s actually pretty good. I don’t know.

Of what does that say? Something about me, what he tried to say.

Dude, I grew up in the nineties, right? I mean we were watching all you were too. Don’t, don’t pretend. I don’t know. I never 

Craig: really could get on bor with Sigal. I’ll give 

Todd: you van dance. Well, especially not now, but yeah, it was always, he was always a little weird, but uh, he’s really gone off the rails. Yeah, he’s cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs these days.

He’s a Russian citizen now, isn’t he? So, I don’t know. He’s crazy . So I thought, alright, I agree with you. I thought the kill was cool. I was like, all right, this is kind of, you know, what I was looking for anyway. Yeah, the, the, the dude kills them with the ax and uh, then he picks up what looks like a bible, opens it to a marked page, places a crucifix in the dead guy’s hand.

Yeah. All these things I thought were going to be significant first. Don’t think they were. No, 

Craig: I don’t understand it. No. I expected it to be some religious thing, you know? Mm-hmm. , like, like, or some like religious guilt thing or some, or, or, or this guy, you know, is punishing them because they’re sinners or something, you know, like there are so many possibilities, things that we’ve seen in these movies over and over again.

Even like Silent Night, deadly Night, you know? Yeah. The, the kid, you know, has all these terrible feelings about sex because of mm-hmm. , you know, seeing his parents. His mother like raped by Santa and then , you know, growing up in this, you know, Catholic nun run orphanage in school. So like there was motivation there for like this religious kind of stuff.

But here, yeah, I, you see it happen. You see him like open the Bible and like lay it down and then put the cruise fix. Clearly there has to be some reason for that. 

Todd: No, not at all. Not that I could tell anyway. No. Well then at very, uh, black Christmas styles slash yellow style, these gloved hands pick up the phone and dial And Tess is the, is it’s funny because Tess is introduced in that group earlier in the meeting in the mayor’s office as their communications direct.

Well, let’s just say she’s our communications director, is what they say about her. And I’m like, that’s a weird way to introduce this woman. Mm-hmm. . And then you realize she’s a switchboard operator like Uhhuh . Oh my gosh. Even in 1972, like, think about that for a minute, right? Yeah. Wow. So, or, or I think small towns even still had this, because I also remember Black Christmas, only four years later, um, has this big deal about them tracing the phone call and they’re literally in the, the telephone, um, oh, right building, right Running up and down these physical switches and stuff looking, I mean, so that was kind of interesting.

He picks up the phone and ends up with her and, uh, the dude says he’s the owner. Of the house and that Carter is not there. I, I’m just gonna play this audio because this sounds exactly like the dude from Black Christmas Te 

Craig: I 

Todd: have come back. What’s that? Te I wanna see you again. Okay. Hello. 

Craig: Who is this?

You know 

Todd: Mees. It’s Maryanne.

Craig: I’m waiting in my father’s house, 

Todd: Des, 

Craig: it’s so lonesome. Don’t belong. I’m like, who the fuck, fuck is Maryanne ? 

Todd: Like, what are you talking about? And you sound, you don’t sound like a Maryanne . 

Craig: No, it sounds like a man barely disguising their voice. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. I, I, at that point I was actually kind of intrigued. I was like, holy crap.

That’s when I went back and looked up black Christmas. Yeah. And it, and found out this movie came years before, so it’s pretty creepy actually. It was creepy. 

Craig: And eventually she does go there, which I don’t even understand why. Like, 

Todd: well, she knows why, right? She knows who this is, but I guess we don’t know at this point or what the connection is.

She dials the sheriff. There’s no answer. Um, she dials, I guess the, the, the next woman on her shift asking if she can come by early. And then, um, we see the guy who had previously smashed the windows. Jeffrey. Jeffrey, who we later learned is Jeffrey Butler. Uh, who is the grandson. Grandson. 

Craig: He grandson who’s inheriting the 

Todd: house, right?

Mm-hmm. . He goes into the car that the couple left outside the door, finds that the keys are in there and takes it off. Takes off. So, , I’m thinking, well, the movie wants us to think that he’s the killer cuz he’s at the house and he leaves in the car. But it’s not gonna be that simple. So immediately I realize, well, this guy’s not the killer, but he’s associated with the house and, and Warnoff is at home somewhere wrapping presents the, the movie’s very Christmas, right?

I mean, I guess. There’s Christmas throughout it. It happens on Christmas Eve. I think most of it are a day or two before the movies, um, anchored in an event that took place, uh, Christmas many years ago. Yeah, they 

Craig: sing Silent Night a lot. . Yeah, 

Todd: suspiciously. So yeah, it’s like the movie that, you know, keeps repeating.

Its, its title. Yeah. I, 

Craig: uh, God, I just 

Todd: don’t know at, we don’t know. She. , that’s the problem. 

Craig: We, we find out who she, but that’s the thing. Like she kind of just pops up out of nowhere. Like doesn’t, does Jeffrey show? Okay, so Jeffrey shows up at her house. Yeah. And the reason that he shows up there is because she’s the mayor’s daughter, so he’s looking for the mayor.

Mm-hmm. . But the mayor’s not home, but she’s there. with a lot of shotguns. did. Did you notice that there were like five guns like hanging on 

Todd: wall? Yeah, I don’t know. I guess the mayor, you know, is not well liked or something. , I don’t know. He’s got such, I 

Craig: really like Mary Waroff. Uh, cuz she’s tough. Yes. Like she always, uh, first of all, I think she’s really tall.

If I remember correctly, she, I think she’s really tall. She’s a statuesque woman. Like she’s got really kind of defined facial features. In all of the things that I’ve, all of the things that I’ve seen her in have been after this. Yeah. She’s really young. Uh, yeah. In this movie and just really, really beautiful.

Um, and, and not that she then just turned ugly . I mean, she was always beautiful , but she’s just so young in this. It was kind of cool to see. I’ve never seen her this young. 

Todd: Me neither. Well, I mean, it was her first role, so nobody had Yeah. 

Craig: and, and, and, and she’s, she’s kind of a bad. You know, she’s a no nonsense.

You know, this guy who she doesn’t know comes to her house, and so. Like she pulls a shotgun on him, doesn’t 

Todd: she? ? Yeah, she does. She’s like the demands to see his id, all that stuff. Uh, you know, I, she had a bit of a Jamie Lee Curtis vibe. I, uh, Uhhuh . Uhhuh . Yeah. In fact, if you, you know, if you squinted a little bit, you might think she was, her.

Could be. It was similar in performance, uh, you know, with some of Jamie Lee Curtis’s roles. Similar in looks, I think in some ways when she was younger, like this Uhhuh , I, I was into it. I, but again, I was like, you, I was a little confused. I’m like, this is a little too much to ask for me to keep all this in my head.

Right? Uhhuh, , they introduced her really, really early on, but gave no indication that she was the mayor’s daughter. So, That wasn’t fair. That wasn’t nice . But eventually she does. She reveals it that she’s the mayor’s daughter. He is not there, blah, blah, blah. He says he just wants to get into the house and he’s looking for the keys.

Great. I guess he thinks the mayor has the keys to everyone’s house. . I, that’s I wa. Fun fact. I was a mayor of a, of a city at one point, and I’m telling you, when they hand you that key to the city, it’s, it, it doesn’t really, it’s not a skeleton key. . It’d be 

Craig: cool if it was purely symbolic. I’d run, I’d run for mayor if I got a skeleton 

Todd: key to the whole thing.

you’d be really a lot more choosy about who you elected for. Mayor I probably never would’ve elected. That’s true, . That’s true. 

Craig: But, but yeah, at this like, okay, so I didn’t notice that it was happening. As it turns out, like then it just kind of sets it up as a series of ways to mess with that. Like city board of trustees or whoever it was that we’ve met.

Yeah, like it just like kind of one by one they get messed with. And I think that Tess is the first one, right? Like the, the person on the phone. Phone? 

Todd: No. She leaves, but the sheriff is the first one, the sheriff. So she says the sheriff, oh, the sheriff might have the keys. You should check him out. Oh, right, right.

So they go and drive. But the sheriff is actually in route to the house. And we hear this through the radio. It’s like a radio thing, right. Uh, I think Tess finally got ahold of her. Somebody got ahold of her, actually, I’m not quite clear on that. But the sheriff, for reasons I don’t understand, pulls over at Alfred Butler’s grave.

Yeah. We’ve seen Alfred Butler’s grave from the flashback, so we know it’s there. Guess it’s close to the grounds. It’s one of these graves in the woods, you know? Right. And so I’m not sure why he pulls over there. Like maybe, 

Craig: I think he saw a light or something. Oh, I don’t rem I could totally be making that up.

I don’t remember, but I thought, no, you’re probably right. I thought he saw a light or headlights or a flashlight or something. I don’t know. But yeah, he goes and, and I feel like it is like a little graveyard, cuz there are other little graves mm-hmm. around it. But the, the main one, the, the guys, um, is this great.

Like cross, uh, with his name carved in it and everything. Um, but then he gets hit in the back of the head with a shovel, right? Yeah. And then killed, I think with 

Todd: a shovel. He does pick up a diary. There’s a diary there. Alfred Butler’s diary is there. He picks it up, kind of looks at it, but again, he gets killed.

So there’s nothing he can do. Yeah, and I’m not sure why the diary was there, honestly. I mean, in retrospect, I guess the killer was holding it. I, I don’t know why he set it down right for the sheriff to find before he killed him, because it’s not like he opens it and looks through it or anything. 

Craig: No. It comes back later, but, uh, yeah.

Oh God. . But see, and then it’s all like, I don’t know, it’s so weird. Like the, the somebody, uh, I, I feel so Jeffrey and, um, what’s Mary Warren’s 

Todd: character saying, Diane, they return 

Craig: to her house, Jeffrey and Diane, they’re like a team. Mm-hmm. from now on and, and eventually they like, they find the sheriff’s car and there’s weird stuff going on, but Tess goes to the house.

Is she looking for the sheriff too? I think. and maybe like maybe when she gets to the house, maybe his car is there or something. I don’t know. No ? Yeah. No, I don’t know. All I remember is that she ends up going into the house and then it’s, she does a, a weird scene that I like on its own. I enjoyed, I, it was difficult for me to be into this movie, but it was kind of spooky when she gets in there.

And I don’t know if the lights go out or they already were 

Todd: out. Tess is one of the last people to get killed. Is she? And we’re, by then, we’re 50 minutes in, but a few more things happen, so, okay. Jeffrey Butler and, uh, Diane returned to her place. Um, they say, well, we’ll just wait here because my grandfather should sh my, my father should show up cuz we have dinner every Thursday night.

Right, right. Eventually they decide, well, we’re just gonna go to the house. Instead they find his grandfather’s grave. The sheriff’s glass is there and. You know, that’s when he was like, look, the lawyer’s missing. The sheriff is missing. We’re getting strange phone calls. They, they got a weird call too, I think, and she suggests they go down the road to the town to get help cuz it’s only 10 minutes away.

And then back at the newspaper, Mr. Taman is there, he’s, he bids goodnight to his employee. Then the mayor is in his car, he’s driving, I guess he’s driving back home, I’m not sure. And then we see Mr. Taman. The newspaper guy putting black gloves on. I thought, oh, wait a minute. They’re not trying to say he killed anybody, are they?

He shows up, he writes on a piece of paper that Tess has gone to the house. Butler asked Tellman to drive him there. They go out to his very classic car, which, you know, I was, I was going back and doing the math. There are a lot of really old looking cars in this movie, like 1940s style cars. And then I’m thinking, yeah, I guess in 1972.

Mm-hmm. , you know, that would be, Me and getting running across a car that was done in the fi, you know it was made in the nineties or eighties. Uh, I guess so. And that leads, leads him to Tess’s Place and town is, why is that? That doesn’t make any 

Craig: sense. He drives, I think because Didn’t Jeff ask him to take him to 

Todd: the house?

News House? Yeah, like the house, he just drives them there anyway to Tess his place. And Jeffrey’s like, what? This isn’t the house. And Talman seems to be trying to communicate something. He’s dist. And learns that someone has called there before. Uh, then Diane gets a creepy phone call and the, the guy on the line, Maryanne asks her to bring her father to the house.

Tell him I have the diary, I’m waiting. Uh, yes. And he gives her a date, 1935. And she wonders how she’s gonna know what the deal is and he just says he’ll know. And 

Craig: that’s when we see Tess at the house. Mm-hmm. . And she sees someone with a flashlight inside and she thinks it’s the sheriff cuz his car’s out there.

But then, It’s dark in the house and Killer the killer, has a flashlight and shines it right in her face. It’s like, you can’t see me, but I can see you . And then he tells her she’s fat , 

Todd: you’re ultra now one fatter . 

Craig: That was my favorite part. Like, oh, good to see you again. You’re fat . And but so then he kills.

With an ax. So then Diane does some research. Okay. Yeah. . And she finds out that Maryanne was 15. And she was, God, I don’t even, was this in a newspaper? I think she’s like, I don’t know. It’s Yeah. 

Todd: Research mode. Yeah, it’s research mode. It’s like newspaper. I think, uh, I, I even have in my notes check Wikipedia for this cuz I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but the girl 

Craig: Maryanne was, when she was 15, she was attacked and raped.

Mm-hmm. . And she gave birth to 

Todd: Jeff to a. Right. Yeah. 

Craig: Jeff. Yeah. So Jeffrey is the son, and then this is the part, it’s so stupid. It doesn’t make any sense. So like, I guess because of her attack and rape, she’s like mentally disturbed. So the guy who owned the house supposedly, I guess the guy who burned up or whatever, he turns the house into an asylum.

Yeah. So that she can be treated and committed there. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s really, really weird cuz he feels guilty and later we figure out what we learn, why he feels guilty. Yeah. With that weird ass flashback. I know, by the way, it’s very, very slow. It’s, it’s very slow. And this should be intriguing mystery revealing stuff.

But by now, you’re right. Like at this point you, you almost don’t care. No. Because you’re a little confused, uh, and you’re not sure what’s going on. That never feels good. 

Craig: No. And I still don’t know what’s going on because Jeff then Rejoins, Diane Uhhuh, and we see the killer destroying somebody’s car. Yeah.

Todd: Ruining somebody’s car. There’s a car on fire. And I think now that I think about it, I think. Oh God no. I still have no idea who it was. I have no idea 

Craig: who is it. It could be the Sheriff. It could be, but all I know is that Jeff and Diane like head to the house. Oh, it’s Tillman’s car. I think that’s burning Well, because then they’re driving along the street and Toman jumps up like out of a ditch onto the street and they hit him.

Yeah. And he goes flying off the side of the road and he’s dead. But then Jeff says something like somebody cut off his hands. 

Todd: Who someone was cutting. Someone cut off his hands. He was asking for help. Yeah. Uh, oh God. I, I don’t get it was, plus it was way too dark. Couldn’t see what was going on at all during the scene.

Like ba, like seriously, the screen was almost entirely black. They get in the car, they arrive at the house, and now I guess it’s unlocked. So Butler can go inside and, and explore everything, touching everything, leaving Diane in the car. I don’t understand why he left Diane in the car, and I don’t understand why everything slows back down again.

At this point, this is where I thought, okay, there must be more to Jeffrey than meets the eye. He’s almost seems like he’s in a trance going through what I guess was his childhood house, which actually, now that I think about it, begs a few questions. But anyway, yeah, he’s like touching some things and he’s walking around and he’s clawing closing his eyes.

And then, uh, the killer calls the mayor, uh, the mayor’s back home. , and again, this is Maryanne Butler and invites the mayor over taunting him that his daughter is there too. Right. The mayor grabs a gun or whatever and goes, and then, uh, Butler back in the house finds his grandfather’s diary and this I know.

Yeah. It’s just 

Craig: a stupid exposition dump, like 

Todd: it’s super long, super dump. 

Craig: It’s super, and it’s that, it’s that weird sepia toned, silent movie feeling flashback, which could be 

Todd: cool. I think it could be cool. It just goes on for so long that it gets tir. . 

Craig: Yeah. I almost feel like, I suppose, but I expected there to be, like, it felt like there should be that music behind it.

Like do

but it’s not, instead it’s very serious and it, it, it starts out when he turns the house into asylum to help Marianne. But he didn’t trust the doctors and like the, the dad and the doctors and their wives, I guess don’t know. I guess they, they all just seemed like rich and snotty and really welled unclear and drinking and smoking cigarettes and stuff.

I wasn’t really sure what was going on, but the, the dad came to not trust. , the doctors. And then I just have in my notes Gross . , because it turns out that he Butler Sr. Was banging his 

Todd: daughter. Mm. He’s the one who raped her. 

Craig: Yeah. Right. And got her pregnant. And that’s Jeffrey’s mom. So Jeffrey, I guess. His own Uncle

Todd: Yeah, he, this is kind of narrated by Arthur Butler, the, the grandfather. 

Craig: Yeah. Cuz it, right, cuz it’s, it’s from his diary. 

Todd: My cruelty to Maryanne was inhuman. I know that. I had loved her. I had fathered our child, Jeffrey. And brought her to this. I swear that on that afternoon, all I wanted was to save my child.

My hope was to get her away from that house, but also I wanted to set free those other Wretches who had so long been abused by the doctors. I knew what they might do if these inmates were freed and. Is my guilt. I knew and still I freed 

Craig: them. And you see them all. It’s very walking dead. Like they’re all like lumbering up to the house.

It’s a very night of the living dead actually. That’s what I meant. Yeah. And they uh, they lumber up to the house and they kill the doctors and their wives. And Maryanne, 

Todd: didn’t you think anything else was kind of interesting about this scene? I don’t. 

Craig: I mean, I didn’t know what was 

Todd: happening. I was trying to figure something out too because, because Maryanne was obviously a man trying to affect a woman’s voice.

I happened to notice that in the flashback scenes, some of the women in there were clearly trans. Oh, I didn’t notice that. Yeah, one of the, especially one, definitely two of them, and I was like, is this like one of those things where they’re trying to say that she went nuts and decided she was a man or something like that, and that somehow the doctor and them were.

You know, influenced her or something like you just raised more questions. I, I looked this up afterwards because it’s actually in, um, some of the notes and many of the people who are in this movie, and especially in this particular scene, were part of Andy Warhol’s Factory Entourage, and that woman I was just talking about.

In there is a very famous trans woman of the time, Kandy Darling. Mm. She was quite an icon, I think actually, uh, in the seventies. Um, wow, I didn’t know that. And was in a number of, uh, Andy Warhol’s movies and, um, hung around with the, you know, again, with the Velvet Underground. So, I thought that was interesting, but it did raise more questions for me because I thought that might have something to do with it.

Because, you know, at this time we, there’s a lot of this stuff where the twist turns out to be that the mentally ill person thought there were a woman or something like that, you know? Right. And I thought maybe that was what made Butler so angry is that they were turning her daughter into a man or something like that.

But no, it, it doesn’t turn out to be anything like that. 

Craig: No, I think, I think they killed her. I think they killed Maryanne. Yeah. But Butler, that’s it said that after that, well, again, it’s him. It’s him narrating. He says, for the next 40 years I lived in prisons and asylums, but now I’m back for my vengeance.

Yeah. And so Diane goes in the house and Jeffrey is in there, and I guess that from reading the diary, he’s figured this all out and he tells her that his dad, Is still alive. And she’s like, no, that can’t be, because people saw him burned and he’s like, well no. It was a transient, like there 

Todd: was like, yeah.

How does he know this? I 

Craig: don’t know. It must have been in the diary. I guess. 

Todd: It must have been. Yeah, 

Craig: we just didn’t get that bit. But apparent, apparently Butler faked his own death by burning a transient to death and he’s still alive. And then we learned that that whole city council. They were the inmates of the asylum.

Yeah. So apparently, apparently after they all broke out and killed all the doctors and stuff, they just set up shop in town. We’re like, I’ll be sheriff and you can be the switchboard operator and you can be the mute newspaper guy, , and we’ll just go on about our lives as though nothing has happened. 

Todd: How they pulled that off, I’m not quite sure, but that’s that.

So, um, at this. Alfred Butler comes walking down the stairs, and that was 

Craig: weird too. Like, he looks weird. I, I don’t know. I, I don’t know how to describe his look. He’s. He looks crazy. He’s got like mm-hmm. wild, crazy hair and he’s kind of got like a boo rat thing going on, except for like with like Einstein hair.

Todd: They’re just trying to make him look like, especially old, I think. I guess. But I guess it’s, I dunno, it’s gotta be a different actor playing it. He doesn’t look at all like the guy in the flashbacks, 

Craig: right? No, not at all. He looks younger, in fact. 

Todd: Yeah, that’s true. Uh, Diane shoots him. I don’t 

Craig: know. The, the mayor shows up, right?

Todd: Yeah. Then he shows up and he’s got his shotgun at the same time that, uh, also Jeffrey has a gun and Jeffrey’s just being bizarre. He’s like, put on a tux for some reason. Yeah, yeah. 

Craig: like a, or like a smoking jacket or something. I don’t know what’s 

Todd: weird, like, oh, he has like a Dracula cape at one point. He spins around and you see that he’s wearing a cape that’s red on the inside.

I don’t know what that’s 

Craig: all about. Like he just like, he found out that he was the incest. Child, love child. And so he’s claiming the house. He decided he was gonna become like, yeah, he’s gonna become like a gothic, I don’t know. It’s stupid . But, but the, and I don’t understand. I have these things in my notes and like, I’m reading them thinking, what bec the sh not the sheriff, the mayor and Jeff shoot each other.

Why 

Todd: I don’t, why I think. You’ve got a couple things going on here. I think Jeff, obviously Jeff knows now that the mayor is one of the inmates who okay. Killed his mother and drove his father crazy or whatever. Okay, so he wants him dead and then the. Mayor is either confused or he just thinks he needs to take out Jeffrey too.

So anyway, they shoot each other at the same time and they both die. And then Diane wanders out of the house. And then we kind, well the, but the 

Craig: after they shoot each other, that’s when the elder Butler appears and he calls Diane Maryann, oh you are right. And chases her upstairs. But she shoot. and 

Todd: then that’s it.

You’re right, that’s when she shoots him. I thought I was thinking he came down earlier 

Craig: and then we cut back to the like the beginning, like the wraparound with where it’s her just like walking around the grounds and a more long, stupid narration and she. Talks about the house is being torn down, but it’ll always exist in her memory or something.

I don’t know. Something 

Todd: really stupid. I mean, it’s it’s pretty classic gothic horror type material though, isn’t it? Yeah. That’s fair. I guess I, I think in a better movie it would’ve worked just fine. Be better presented even. It might work better, but it’s convoluted and. They, they’re not particularly skillful at doing that the right way.

You know, there’s a right way to kind of unfold things and to kind of bring it in, introduce the intrigue and the mystery without just, uh, confusing the hell out of us. And I think that’s mostly what happens here. I, I, I actually, I don’t think the movie is that bad. I do agree that it was confusing, but I also agree.

I think it was quite stylish and I think they were trying to go for something that just kind of fell flat. But yeah, and it’s kind of a waste of some of these talents, here, but it, uh, did the drive-ins for a while. Again, it kind of fell into obscurity. Elvira picked it back up for her show. And then Cannon Re-released it and I think in 1981, calling it Death House, but it clearly influenced black Christmas.

There you cannot, nobody can tell me that it hasn’t. Yeah. And also this style of movie we’ve seen Better Done. 

Craig: Yeah. It reminded me of some things. It reminded me, what was that movie with Donald Pleasant where like the. The inmates took over the asylum. Do you remember what I’m talking about? Yeah. 

Todd: I don’t know.

Don’t look in the basement. Yes. Was a Grindhouse movie like that. You know, it it a little bit like Burnt Offerings is one of these, you know, a little bit. But that was a good movie, . It was. It was better done. Yeah. Yeah. I 

Craig: don’t know. It’s funny cuz I think, obviously this movie’s been around for a long time and every Christmas it’s come up like we’ve talked about it and I don’t know why we’ve not done it up until this.

Todd: Apparently c b s got the rights to it, although, I mean it being public domain, I don’t understand how this works, but they showed one, at least one of their big affiliates in Chicago would show this every year at Christmas, and it did really well for them. There’s a sequel. Did you see that? There’s, there’s like two sequels I, there are there.

I think Lo Lloyd Kaufman came back and at least had a cameo part in the third. Oh, I didn’t 

Craig: know there was a third one I just read and it was made much later, like in the nineties or something. Yeah. Um, and it, it looked awful. , , 

Todd: I can’t 

Craig: imagine. I didn’t, uh, I didn’t watch it, of course, but it didn’t look.

Good. But it did like, I don’t know, new people move to this town and find out about the gruesome history and something, I don’t know. It looks stupid. Uhhuh, . Um, yeah, I don’t know. Uh, I, I, I can’t lie, I, I, I didn’t like it . I, it was, it was really kind of a struggle to get through, and it’s short. It’s only like an hour and 20 minutes long and it feels longer

I, it does, and I kept, like, I’m watching it on my computer. I kept touching the. The keypad to like check the time and every, it would be like three minutes later since the last time I checked it, I’d be like, ah, oh my God, will this movie never be 

Todd: over? I had to stop it and go to sleep and wake up to watch the last 20 minutes.

Oh my gosh. It was 

Craig: terrible. Like, I, uh, I, I’m moving my mouse like on the timeline, like checking to see like, when do the credits start, like, okay. The, the credits start two minutes before the run time, so I’ve really only got 22 minutes left. , oh my God. It was, it was, I did not enjoy it. But again, I, I’m really surprised that it took us this long to get to it.

Oh, yeah. And now we can check it off the list and move on and never speak of it again. 

Todd: again. Thank you, patrons. I still think this is gonna be a memorable Christmas episode for us. like, 

Craig: okay,

Todd: Well, thanks again to our patrons, uh, for supporting us this year and for picking this movie for us. We really appreciate your input. We also appreciate your support. If you would like to support us as well, head on over to patreon.com/chainsaw podcast and uh, you’ll find all of the mini soaps that we’ve done up.

To this point. Uh, and then every month we do one or two. Uh, we also give you some say in what movies we’re going to do in the future, especially with requests. And we have a couple other goodies there for you as well as, as well as the unedited copies of our phone call conversations. Well, this is times get kind of interesting.

As always, if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. They can find us If you just googled two guys in a chainsaw podcast and uh, we’ve got our website there, two guys.red boarding.com, please go there and leave us a comment or leave us a comment on our Facebook page. Until next time, I’m Todd.

And I’m Craig. Merry Christmas everyone. Merry Christmas. This is Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Christmas is almost upon us. We decided to continue with the killer Santa theme this season and review yet another movie that is brand new and currently streaming online – this time, on Shudder! Check out Christmas Bloody Christmas – a no-holds-barred, you-get-what-you-paid-for kind of flick about a Santa animatronic gone amuck. Cheers everyone!

Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022)

Episode 326, 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’re going full steam ahead on the brand new Christmas movies. This is kind of an unusual year for us, isn’t it? 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. It just seems like the horror genre is booming, uh, these days, and I, I really think that it’s because of.

All of the avenues that these filmmakers have today, primarily because of streaming. Even though the film that we’re doing today, uh, did release in theaters, it also released on shutter at the same time. And there’s just so many outlets for content these days that we’re just getting so much and it’s exciting.

Yeah. I love it. Well, 

Todd: this movie that you selected for us, uh, is premiered on Shutter basically the day we watched. . Mm-hmm. just like, uh, you know, earlier we did, uh, violent night and watched it the day it premiered. So, uh, you know, we’re two for two right now. How can we be more current and update and relevant to our audience?

Upgrading Two Guys and a Chainsaw. That being said, I feel like. This movie again, Christmas Bloody Christmas, felt like 2020 version of a bad 80’s horror movie like KBOs or something. . In fact, KBOs is referenced in the beginning. There’s like a couple fake ads on tv, which by the way led me to believe we were gonna be watching something retro.

You know, it led me to believe we were gonna be some watching some period piece set in the eighties, because that seemed to be the style of the TV ads. No, it takes place in modern day anyway. One of the ads says something about like a Kbo Christmas coming, you know, soon on channel 83 or something like that.

Oh, that’s funny. In that way. Anyway, in the feel of it, it felt a little bit like that, except minus the comedy minus. The ensemble cast and honestly for me, like sort of minus the fun, obviously most of those bad eighties movies that we review are a bit tongue in cheek, especially like that one with Jim Wynorski, who’s purposely making comedies, uh, and writing a lot of jokes and stuff in and silliness.

This one had an awful lot of silliness, but it was played quite straight, very serious. You know, sort of a self serious. I, I felt like this director, Joe Beos, who is, uh, new kind of, I mean, I don’t know. He’s done some other movies. He’s done a movie before this that I kind of would like to see that’s got all these old stars in it, like Fred Williamson and, uh, the dude from Cobra Kai, the, the bad guy.

But, um, He hasn’t really done much of note. He, 

Craig: well, he seems to be up and coming. He’s, uh, directed I think four, either three or four feature films before this. None of them are huge and I looked at each of them and I, I hadn’t seen any of them, but they all looked interesting. Yeah, they did. And, and he has, I think, uh, a growing fan base.

Is that right? Yeah. There are people who really, really, His style and who feel like he is just getting progressively. As he goes along, but I, I, it’s interesting that to hear your kind of lukewarm reaction to it, um, because I’ve been looking at stuff online and it’s just the reactions are on just complete opposite ends of the spectrum.

Like people think it’s absolute garbage or they think that it’s. The greatest horror movie to come out this year, and it’s gonna be, you know, a holiday tradition for the rest of their lives. Um, so it seems to be really polarizing and I am a little bit ambivalent, uh, about it because in some ways I feel the same way that you do.

On the other hand, I feel like it delivers exactly. What it promises like. 

Todd: Yeah, in a way. Well, yeah. I mean, it’s a killer Santa, right? It’s a killer, uh, animatronic Santa who goes crazy. What haywire, you know, whatever. During how, during Christmas night or. So is it Christmas night, Christmas 

Craig: Eve, Christmas E, that it’s Eve, it’s Christmas Eve.

Oh, okay. And that, that’s the thing. That’s all there is to it. You know, it’s, it’s this, um, in these, uh, eighties commercials, which I really liked. And I, I do think it was trying to establish a vibe. You’re right, it is set, uh, in modern day. But I do think it was trying to establish a vibe. Uh, and, and to be fair, I think that the movie delivers on the vibe.

It’s, it’s shot on 16 millimeter. So there’s, uh, a graininess to the film stock a lot. There’s a lot of like, bleeding colors, especially since this movie is just like, the whole thing is just dripping in neon. 

Todd: Oh yeah. It’s like neon red and 

Craig: green Uhhuh , which I actually love, like, um, because, because it’s all, it’s all Christmas light ambiance, like pretty much the whole movie is.

By neon Christmas lights. And because of the quality of the film, the, the lights kind of bleed. Uh, I don’t know how to describe it. You know, the way that, the way that Christmas lights look when I take off my glasses, Yeah, 

Todd: I know what you’re saying. It’s got a little bit of a halo around and whatnot. Yeah.

I I, I, I got the feeling like, do you remember when, when they’ve gotten a lot better, but I would say maybe two decades ago, maybe not even that long, when l e d Christmas lights, Coming out Uhhuh , right? Yeah. They, the, the multicolored l e d lights that you could put around before that. I dunno, it’s kind of hard for a lot of people to remember, or even to believe.

But l e d as a general lighting source for us has been fairly novel. Yeah. Uh, back then. And so it was like, oh my gosh, now they’re making Christmas lights in l e d, except they would put together these strands with all the different colors, including. Like what I think was supposed to be purple or blue uhhuh , but it would come off as this brighter than all the other colors kind of uhhuh purple or bluish purple.

And it was garish . Yeah. I have a tree strung with lights from there and it was very different from the warm. Multicolored lights of past and Right. I, I know, I, I didn’t like it so much, but, uh, it did look like, you know, the inside of a head shop or something like that. , I mean, yeah. Yeah. And that’s what this whole movie kind of looks like.

It looks like, you know, they’re hanging up velvet paintings everywhere and gonna be smoking doobies, but with maybe a little more red and green than usual it, uh, 

Craig: yeah, it really does. It really does look just like what you described, but it feels intentional. That’s one of the things. I, I think that this movie is really stylish.

It’s really stylized, and I give it credits for that. I, I, it was, uh, visually captivating. To watch, like visually it was stimulating, uh, to watch. And I really, I liked that. I think so. Like, I, like I said, I haven’t seen this guy’s other movies. I have a feeling that they’re pretty stylistic too. I, I feel like I’m gonna find myself defending 

Todd: this

I thought we might end up in this spot. . 

Craig: Yeah. And, and I think I’m kind of defending it to myself too. I didn’t love it either, but I read Okay, the, the reason you’re trying, I, right. I had two, uh, it was my turn to pick this week and I had two movies on in mind and, uh, like complete opposites, you know, this is, you know, gory out there, killer Santa.

And the other was more like of a heady kind of think piece kind of. And you said, well, this one sounds more fun. And then I read a, like a glowing review of it on bloody disgusting. And I look at bloody disgusting a lot. And you know, sometimes I agree with their reviews, sometimes I don’t. But I think that the people who write for them, who I think are mostly freelance, but the people who write for them, really, they love.

Uh, and, and they get excited about things. And even though ultimately the review that I read of it there, I think was maybe a little bit too glowing. First of all, when I saw the review, I just, I scrolled down to the bottom. They do like a five skull rating. Um, and it had four and a half skulls, which is really, really high for that.

Website. Mm. Um, and so I said, okay, it’s getting a great review on bloody list. Disgusting. Let’s do it. And then, but so, but I didn’t read it. I just looked at the rating and then we watched the movie and I went back and I read the review and everything that the review said was stuff that I had thought while I was watching it sometimes like to the word, like it was a little creepy.

Like they described things exactly the way that I was thinking of it. , the guy who wrote it loved it a little bit more than I did. Mm-hmm. , like all of the things that he appreciated about it. I appreciated about it too. He just, I was a little more excited than I was . 

Todd: Well, again, I agree with you very stylized, uh, on that note, uh, as, as a piece of filmmaking, like as you know, when we’re talking about cinematography, camera work, all of that is fine.

Uh, even the acting. Acting is fine, but I’ll tell you. Okay, so let me just, let me just pop, pop in real quick in the beginning. So, uh, we, we get these fake ads and one of these ads is advertising Robo Santa. Plus, the US Defense Department has spent over a trillion dollars on 

Craig: the most cutting edge robot technology deployed 

Todd: overseas for swift victory against 

Craig: America’s deadliest en Mae.

And now Sal Robotic Products is here to 

Todd: make that technology 

Craig: fun for the entire family.

Oh oh. Introducing Robo Santa Plus for the upcoming holiday season with a vocabulary 

Todd: of over 90,000 words, a full range of motion and built with military grade construction. 

Craig: Robo Santa Plus 

Todd: fully replaces your local degenerate 

Craig: mall, Santa, keeping you and your children safe exclusively this weekend at Midland Mall and GW Bonkers.

Todd: And that made me laugh. I thought, okay, this is cute. I, I mean, I feel like this is gonna be that again, like you said, that mall Santa kids are supposed to come up and sit on his lap and he is gonna interact with them and, and that sounded novel. No, it is really just the Santa, that they stuck at the beginning of the store that every now and then springs on and waves in a robotic way and says, hello, welcome to t w Bonkers, or Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas.

And that. Okay. I don’t know, maybe, maybe they do pull him back to the, to the throne, you know? And he has. Functions, but the, the movie really just makes him seem like not much better than the standard animatronic robot. Of course, we don’t get to see a lot of personality from this robot during this movie either, right.

So, you know, whatever. Okay, whatever. That’s fine. Then we get introduced to this woman named Tori, who is this young gal, smart ass, and then we get to meet all of her young, smart ass friends, uh, at the record store that I guess she owns. It’s like a vinyl store. And that’s when we first get the screen a wash in Neon because they just have lit this entire vinyl store with neon lights.

I, I don’t honestly know how you read the liner notes on vinyl under black light like that, but okay, fair enough. But I would say within 10 minutes. By the way, the first 10 minutes of this movie is nothing but her dialogue with. This, uh, worker of hers named Robbie, and they’re gonna be two of the people that for quite a while, were gonna be following the most.

Craig: It’s a, it is, it is a lot of talking. It is. 

Todd: So, look, here’s the deal, man. It’s not good talking. It. I wanted to, I wanted to kill these people myself after about 10 minutes. Oh, see, that’s funny. Oh, dude. After 10 minutes, I would’ve shut this movie off if we weren’t watching it for this podcast because it was this dumb smarmy.

Like ink, kind of fast, witty dialogue that like, I remember when I was a teenager and I thought I was cool talking about music and talking about this and talking about that. And then as it goes on, they’re half drunk and so then they’re half drunk talking about this. And look, I, I give them credit for the performance because, Once again, it brought me back to those days of being a teenager and thinking I was so cool by making all these little references.

Well, don’t you like, well, that album and this like that. Oh, but nothing beats the Crip Keep or whatever. Yeah. Do you 

Craig: wanna keep, keep complaining, or do you wanna just walk in silence? 

Todd: What do you wanna do? You’re the one who’s complaining all day about fucking Christmas. This Christmas down. Don’t want fucking hate Christmas.

Well, Christmas 

Craig: fucking sucks. Do you not agree that there’s no good fucking Christmas music? No good Christmas 

Todd: movies to fucking get it over it. I hate Christmas album. . It was good. There aren’t many albums that gimme that spirit of fucking Christmas. 

Craig: Well, that fucking religion ain’t it buddy. Gimme that.

I would go as far to say there’s like fucking two, two Christmas songs that are good. And that’s if you don’t count. If and only if You don’t count. Fucking Crip Keeping Christmas Wrap. Okay, love 

Todd: Tailing The Grip. That song sucks the fucking shit outta my ass asshole. 

Craig: This is coming from a guy who jits his fucking.

Every single time here. Buster Point, Dexter’s cover of, is that you? Santa 

Todd: Claus? Hey. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t like that cover. I like the version with the commentary from Beating and Butthead. Okay. 

Craig: Okay. Merry Christmas Ramones then. That’s 

Todd: mine. What’s your big fucking runner up? Uh, 

Craig: sorry to say, but Merry Christmas Ramones.

That’s some fucking runner up. Yeah. Fuck you. First place. First place is our Lord Savior Lemi with run Rudolph. 

Todd: Oh, it’s magic. Okay. It’s not like it’s Motorhead. It’s Lemy with the fucking Foo Fighters. No. All right. Pete. Oh, r i p. Also Lemy is fucking Motorhead. You idiot. Yeah, and you know, I mean, that’s fine for like, I don’t know, a scene or two, but it’s the whole freaking movie until the Killer Santa comes out.

Craig: Right? That’s what 

Todd: I was gonna say. Oh my God. I, I, they were driving me. 

Craig: You said, you said 10 minutes. It’s, it’s the first half of the movie. Oh yeah. The movie’s only an hour and 25 minutes long, and I would say the first 40, 45 minutes is mostly just them talking. Oh, yeah. But it didn’t bother me. It’s not interesting.

This stuff I, 

Todd: oh God. Did you, I’m sorry. Maybe you thought it was interesting. It’s fine. I don’t 

Craig: wanna, well, only interesting because the stuff they were talking about was the stupid shit that we would talk about. Like, you know, who’s the better band and what, what era is better of that band and you know, what’s the better horror equal now?

I thought that uh, Tori, the main chick had shit taste in movies cuz Yeah, she was saying like the best nightmare on Elm Street was Freddy’s Dead and Blair Witch book of shadow. Better than the original. And, uh, pet Cemetery two was better than, than the original. I at least appreciated that she explained why and her explanations made sense.

Like this is one of those moments where it’s obviously just a character spewing the writer slash directors viewpoints about things. Yeah. Which is fine. I don’t really. Problem with that. It’s just, but it’s like, I don’t 

Todd: know, annoying hipster type, counterintuitive type stuff. Or people you know, who try to make that argument.

The pets, you know, pet cemetery too is better because they’ve got, they’ve really thought deep about this and they, they wanna, they wanna be different from everybody else, you know? And I, I, I don’t know. And, and with the rapid fire delivery of it, everything, I had this feeling that majority. At least half of what they were saying was Adlibbed.

And the reason I felt that way is because there was an F bomb every 

Craig: other word, and people online were really upset about that. I don’t get it. Horror fans are so weird. No. Like they’re, they’re so fickle, uh, about things. Um, and uh, you know, I think that in a lot of ways horror fans, you know, are, are. You know, very accepting of other people and different ways of life and all that kind of stuff.

But when it comes to movies, man, we can be super critical. and, and some people, you know, were just ripping this movie to shreds and one of the things that they were ripping apart was how many F-bombs there were. And I noticed, but I’m, look, I’m not, who cares? Like, I’m a grownup. Like, look, I, I’m 

Todd: not offended by it, okay?

I wasn’t like, oh my God, if there’s another F bomb, I’m tatting this shit off. You know? It was just so. That it was dumb. Maybe also it’s, you know, my acting background. You know, I’ve directed actors and you’ve gone through ad-libbing and things like that, and that is what ends up happening when people who are not talented at ad libbing.

start ad-libbing. They feel like they need to keep talking. They don’t know what to say, but say they’re in a scene where they’re supposed to be arguing with each other and suddenly the cursing comes out because it’s an easy filler word. Yeah. And so I’m aware of that, and I guess I was so aware of that, that when I watched this, I was like, yeah, I feel like that’s what’s going on.

Like literally not. These people use the F word a lot. It’s that these actors. Are really trying to fill the space with this rapid fire dialogue, and the best they can do is throw a bunch of F bombs in there. And it’s just because it happens so often, it’s not that I’m offended, I’m just distracted by how stupid it sounds because.

Yeah, I know there are people who talk like this, but not 

Craig: that many. Well, and even there are people who talk like that. My goodness. I work in a high school. I mean, I swear to God walking down the hallway. I just want to turn to kids and be like, do you not know any other words like ? I, I agree that it’s.

It’s stupid in juvenile. Where I disagree is I thought that the performance between these two actors, uh, Tori and Robbie, uh, I don’t know. No, there was only one person in this movie who was familiar to me, and it wasn’t either of these two. Um, but Tori’s played by an actress named Riley Dandy, and Robbie’s played by an actor named San Deik.

As asinine as their conversations were, I found them to be really believable characters. Well, um, and. I thought that the two of them together had excellent chemistry and I thought that they had this and this, again, I swear to God I’m not plagiarizing this review that I read, but he, the reviewer said it and I thought the exact same thing.

I thought that they had an excellent will they or won’t they? Chemistry coming off. Yeah, that, 

Todd: I mean, it was clear that they were headed towards potentially hooking up, even though she seemed to be drawing some very strong lines in the beginning, and he was. y pushing them, but kind of respecting them, but in a very playful way.

It was very, yeah. By the time they do start bumping UGLi, I was like, yeah, waiting. Been waiting for that to happen. Uhhuh, , you know, and it felt, but it was good thought, 

Craig: completely natural. His sexual a tension and Yes. Oh yeah. I thought that the chemistry was really good. And I li I liked both of them. I liked him more than I liked her.

Uh, he seemed a little bit more fun. And I won’t go so far to say as these seem like people that I would be friends with. First of all, they’re much younger than me and. Don’t have it in me to party the way that they do anymore. Mm-hmm. . Um, but I can see how, you know, when I was in college, these might have been people, I don’t know that they would’ve been people in my innermost circle, but they’d be people that 

Todd: you encounter.

Craig: Yeah. They seem like, they seem like people would be fun to party with for a night or whatever. Look, it, it, 

Todd: I, I’m not saying the acting was bad, actually. I think it takes some skill to pull off what they did. I just think that it was annoying. , I feel like they were annoying people, and if I were drunk along with them and they were my friends and I was contributing to the conversation, this would all be quite fun.

But to sit. In silence and watch two people in this state having this com, this kind of what ultimately when you’re sober ends up looking like pretty stupid conversation for like almost 30 minutes is just tiring. And I was, I was tired of it after 10 minutes and it went on, like you said, until about 45 minutes.

I do think this 

Craig: movie would be, Maybe more enjoyable if you were chemically enhanced . 

Todd: Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. With the colors. And like I said, you’d probably be like, yeah, man, she’s got some good points about Pet Cemetery too. , the Tales from the K Crypt Halloween album is my favorite 

Craig: Halloween album. Oh, dude, 

Todd: when she said that, the Christmas album 

Craig: song, Christmas, Christmas album.

Christmas songs, like, yeah. And they were talking, you know, I, I don’t remember who all they were talking about, but they were, they’re more, you know, into kind of rock and roll. But she said that there’s nothing better than the Crypt Keeper Christmas rap, which I didn’t know was a thing. Oh, and I. I, I immediately googled it, praying that it was a thing.

It is, and it is, 

Todd: and it’s wonderful. It’s glorious. And Elvira pops in there too. . Yeah. I, I go, dude, you are way behind. I got that Crip keeper album, the, the, the year it came out. And it is in regular rotation for me. Oh man. It is a cornball thing, much like the Crip keeper himself, which makes it just 

Craig: wonderful.

Not that people aren’t capable of, you know, doing a YouTube search themselves, but you may need to post that video. Mm, up with this, up with this movie, yeah. It be appropriate because it was ki it was, it was just as fun to watch as this movie was . Uh, no, that’s not fair. I honestly, I enjoyed this movie, but I had to remind myself, I had to put myself in the mindset, like as I’m watching it, I had to say to myself, this is what you signed up for.

You knew exactly what this movie was gonna be, and it is exactly what it promised. It is a killer animatronic Santa. Just going around killing people and that’s literally all it is. Yeah. And no, there’s nothing more to it. There’s no why, why is he killing these people? Who cares? He 

Todd: just is. There’s no character arcs for anybody in here.

Nope. Nobody’s gonna like, you know, come closer together and, and anything like that. It’s actually the complete opposite of the of violent 

Craig: night, right? . Yes. And I, and I really thought that if we hadn’t just come off watching that, That I would’ve liked this better. Um, I think that that set the bar a little bit high for Santa movies for this season.

Um, and, and the robot, the, it doesn’t have any personality, but it’s not supposed to No, it is a terminator. Yeah. In a Santa suit. That’s all it is. That’s all It is. A terminator in a Santa. Suit. That’s it. 

Todd: Yeah. Much like Terminator, that’s, you know, that’s the horrifying thing about it. It has no feelings. It has no, you, you even question it’s motivation because it’s like, obviously with the, with Terminator, it, it’s, it’s trying to kill somebody in particular, and it’s, uh, taken out anybody who gets in its way.

With this one, it’s just like, looks like it’s out to kill everybody. Just indiscriminately for no reason, although it does seem to be honing in on her, um, because it ends up everywhere she goes. I, 

Craig: yeah, I think really that it’s just like vicinity like. She happened to be around, um, and it kind of followed her for a 

Todd: little, it’s like unfinished business or something.

Well, I guess, 

Craig: I think it just kind of, after it kills the first people that it kills, then it sees her and Robby walking down the street so it sees them and it follows them, but it doesn’t even like just pursue them. It kills off a couple of other people along the way. Yeah. So it just kind of seems like it’s.

You know, drawn to activity or whatever, and it’ll kill whoever is in its way. I was laying in bed thinking about this this morning and thinking about, you know, what am I gonna say about it? What are some good things I can say about it? And one of the things that crossed my mind is that everybody in this movie who’s not Tori, except, and then I was like, wait, except for the bartender.

Everybody else that’s in the movie who’s not Tori dies. 

Todd: Oh yeah. I guess you’re right. 

Craig: And it’s not a big, it’s not a big cast. Um, it’s actually like the, I don’t what there’s like maybe seven, eight people in it total. And that 

Todd: was one thing. I mean, I, I understand it’s probably not the highest budget film, but you know, at some.

And I don’t know, maybe the excuse is, whoa, it’s Christmas Eve. Everybody’s at home trying to do their own thing, but there’s all this mayhem going on. at some point. Oh, explosions. Yeah. I expected more people to be out there at least, you know, for a little bit more. So I thought that was. It wasn’t enough to be distracting cuz you get this in horror movies a lot and we ultimately don’t care.

You can look past it, but there should have been a little more involvement from a few extras , a few witnesses, a few people who would’ve noticed, you know, the giant ambulance truck that’s burning and on fire flying down the middle of, uh, the downtown and through a residential neighborhood and exploding against a couple police cars and Uhhuh , I mean, you know.

I thought, again, a little bit distractingly silent and focused on these few people. But then again, I think they’re also trying to portray this as a somewhat sleepy town because the police force, which gets involved later, which is more the sheriff’s office, I guess, is understaffed and undermanned, which were repeatedly being told, uh, by like three or four people who all end up dying.

Craig: Yeah, it, well, it actually kind of reminded me, um, you know, her shop. Downtown, you know, like a, a small city downtown, um, like a commercial, you know, where with lots of shops and stuff. And there’s also a toy shop down there that her friend owns, and that’s where the Santa is and, and comes alive and everything.

But at least for the first half of the movie, they’re walking around that downtown area and it’s all lit. By just dim street lights and Christmas lights. Mm-hmm. . So he’s got all that, you know, color saturation all around, but there is nobody because it’s late, you know, they’re, they’re closing up their stores.

Uh, it’s late at night, and when they were walking around down there, it reminded me of. Gremlins when Billy and Kate, when they’re walking around the downtown, like in front of the movie theater. Yeah. Like nobody’s around, you know, it’s just all the Christmas decorations and the snow falling and yeah, it’s, it’s a little bit, uh, remote and desolate, so it didn’t really seem out of place to me.

I would be willing to bet if I went out on Christmas Eve at 1130. Downtown part of my town. I bet it would be just as equally deserted. 

Todd: Oh, in the beginning, yeah. But then if, you know, you started setting explosions off and screaming and stuff, . Fair. Totally fair. People would, some lights would come on, some heads would appear in windows.

You know, I think , that’s true, but. That was just my point. I, they, they, I love, by the way, the name of this store, t w Bonkers. I thought that was cute. I thought that it could be the name of a store. It could be like a TGI Friday’s knockoff or something like that. , yeah. And they meet up with a couple friends and again, you know, they’re, they’re getting wasted in this store.

That’s where they’ve chosen to bang on Christmas Eve apparently. 

Craig: Well, the, they own it. It’s a husband and wife and I, it, it seems like the wife. Owner or the manager, whatever, but they’re both there. And I kind of liked, I don’t know, you just, you hardly ever see that, especially in horror movies. You know, they’re, they’re sexy young people, but she specifically says something about her husband.

Y you are, you hardly ever see representations of young. Married people, you know, they’re usually a bunch of young people banging whoever is That’s true in arms reach. Yeah, 

Todd: that’s, that’s a good point. So 

Craig: these people, you know, they get freaky. They’re like the toy store. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s pretty . 

Craig: I don’t, with their husband and wife, they love each other.

Good for them. 

Todd: Yeah. I mean, it is in full view of like the, the window at the front. Yeah. I mean, I know they’re not hiding. Thing there. I thought that was, I wonder how many customers, well, they’re really banking on it being a sleepy town, let’s just put it that way. Yeah. And, and that’s when the Santa wakes up.

And, uh, we see most of his carnage through his eyes, especially in the 

Craig: beginning. Lots of p o V, it looks like. You, you know the terminology better than I am, but the, the old video games, like doom, like yeah. Like a first 

Todd: person shooter, fir, 

Craig: first person shooter with the weapon right in front of the camera, like bobbing as it walks along.

Mm-hmm. . Um, in, in this case, the weapon is a big fire ax that, uh, he finds and he does, he kills them while they’re, 

Todd: Banging. That had to be traumatic, by the way, 

for 

Craig: her . Well, I mean, she’s dead in a few minutes anyway, but Yeah. But yeah, her husband is behind her and, uh, the Santa like raises the ax and brings it down and splits him into like the middle, down the head to the waist.

Yeah. Which is ridiculous, but. fun for a movie. Uh, and this movie is, uh, gory and violent. Um, and there’s a lot of, uh, up close gore. And it seems like to me, the majority, if not the vast majority of it was practical. And I liked that. I, yeah, I appreciated the effects. I liked the violence. I liked the gore. Um, and Santa, you know, he does, he kills them and then he.

Keeps on 

Todd: moving, pursues the Tory and, uh, Robbie, and they go to their plate. Finally, they bang. And, and that, you know what, I’ll say this was, um, that was a moment that needed to happen, right? Like you said, there’s all this will they, won’t, they kind of going on and finally in the kitchen, just in mid-sentence, pretty much, you know, she sets down her drink and just grabs him and just starts kissing him.

And it’s, it’s on right then and there. And they run upstairs and. You know, they, they have a certain kind of sex and it was hot it, it 

Craig: was, that’s was, see, that’s 

Todd: super hot. Like super hot. And I, I, I’ve got, I’m sorry, but I just have to say this, like, oftentimes in movies, especially by first time directors or in low budget flicks and especially horror movies, like the sex can be awkward or forced or weird or whatever.

This was. Naturalist could be, and very hot . 

Craig: Right. Well, and I feel like the, particularly in horror, but really kind of in general, sex scenes are for men. They’re, they’re, they’re more focused on the male gaze and the male fantasy. Yes. And uh, I really liked this. I really liked Robbie. I thought he was charming.

I thought he was cute. He was funny. He clearly, like he has puppy dog eyes for this girl who’s his boss. Who’s his boss, and. Guess probably at least a little bit older than him, but he’s clearly got eyes for her. Uh, and when the time comes, being the gentleman that he is, He takes care of her . Yeah. And that’s it.

Like his pants never even come off . 

Todd: Yeah. Well, to be fair, her underwear never really comes off either, which is a little unrealistic, but whatever clearly is an actress who didn’t want to get nude, which is fine. Uhhuh. . But yes. And then, and then like she gets up and she like starts putting her clothes back on and he doesn’t even seem to care.

Again, like you say, that’s very nice. Maybe not the way it would’ve really gone down, but, uh, uh, or maybe she was just, you know, getting ready for round two or something. Yeah, I, 

Craig: that, that’s the impression I got. They were just taking a break, like she was gonna go. Get a drink or something. Yeah, you’re right.

And he says, you know, I’ll be here when you get back or whatever, but while she’s out there, the killer Santa has gone into the house next door and just slaughters the whole family. One at a time. Yeah. Including the kid. Including the kid, which we don’t see. They don’t show it on camera. Not much. We just see, we see the kid standing in front of Santa, and Santa raises his ax and then it cuts back to.

Point of view from across, looking through a window from across the street and she sees the ax fall, but we don’t actually see the kid get it, but he does. And that’s when she screams and freaks out.

This guy just kill the kid next door. You’re telling fuck.

Now. Come on. Fuck. Have you seen my phone? Get my phone. Shit. Is your phone? Have your phone. Robbie Phone. Find the phone. She lives with her sister and her sister’s husband. They wake them up and this is where things took a surprising turn for me because they, the Santa comes into their house. Mm-hmm. and pretty much immediately dispatches first.

the sister’s husband, which I figured would happen. But then the sister too, which I didn’t think would happen, they, you know, they usually don’t establish these kind of relationships in horror unless. , there’s gonna be a reason for it. Yeah. And usually if there’s, if there’s like a sibling relationship, one is usually gonna be protecting the other.

Mm-hmm. , no, the sister gets it right away. And then Robi, she and Robbie go outside and, and try to get away in the car, but, Because he’s panicked. He keeps like crashing the car into things. Yeah. , 

Todd: which is another, you know, typical horror thing. But it, it made sense in the, I guess in the, in the process of this, I wanna step back really quick and just reaffirm that we’re 45 minutes into this movie and for me it’s finally getting interesting.

Yeah, that’s fair. The other thing is Santa bursts into this house through the window and it is, , it is like the director just took notes of every Dario ATO movie, Uhhuh and decided Uhhuh, he wanted to distill it into this one scene, uh, Argento, at least in some movies, right? Especially like Susperia, right?

It’s got that very stylish, colorful, uhhuh lighting. Uh, it’s very stark in it’s colors and things. And of course, that wonderful goblin soundtrack.

And when Santa bursts into the window, everything goes into slow motion. And, uh, we’ve got all these bright garish colors, even brighter and more garish than they were before. But a lot of. But something comes on that if it wasn’t written by Goblin, it was, it directly inspired . That just jolted me. I was like, whoa, this is like susperia.

Whereas, uh, I would say the rest of the movie, I feel like the director is, he’s clearly been inspired by, uh, Rob Zombie. I would say I, yes, I feel like there’s a, for sure quite a bit of that vibe in there with the characters and, and also with the, the, the type of just no holds barred, brutal violence without much stuff.

Craig: Graining. And cut. And the grit. The grit of it. Yeah. And these characters. Uh, are much like Rob zombie’s, characters in that they are grittier Yeah. Type characters. They’re not clean polished, they’re not Abercrombie 20 

Todd: somethings. They’re the goths and the, you know, the tattooed 

Craig: well and, and all. You know, all of the adult men have like long hair and, and handlebar mustaches and stuff.

Mm-hmm. Like, um, the, the sheriff, even the sheriff, sheriff Monroe, he was the only one who I recognized. His name is Jeff Daniel Phillips, and he’s worked with Rob Zombie, uh, in, in several things. I’m pretty sure he was in three from hell. But most recently he was Herman Munster. Oh. Uhhuh in the new, uh, Rob Zombies knew the monsters.

Um, so I think he’s worked with zombies, so I don’t know if this guy, uh, our director here, uh, Baygo. So I don’t know if he has any affiliation with Rob Zombie or not, but it seems to be an inspiration. Um, and the score that you mentioned, the guy who does the score is the guy named Steve Moore, and he doesn’t have a lot of credits, but he’s got at least one or two other credits with this.

So they must have a working relationship. And I thought the score was really effective. It was kind of, uh, rock synth. Um, yeah. Yeah. 

Todd: And it was continuous. I, I don’t think there was a quiet moment in the entire movie. There’s always music 

Craig: going and it highlighted the action really well. And from this point, it’s pretty action heavy until the end.

Mm-hmm. , no, it goes pretty hard. Um, and you know, they’re out there in the car and I feel. A cop shows 

Todd: up. Yeah. Cuz she called the cops. Yeah. Yeah. Uhhuh . And the cop A cop does show up. Yeah. 

Craig: And, and shoots. I don’t remember when it happens, but, um, Robbie gets killed, which really surprised me because I had, I, I thought that maybe he might get it, but later.

Yeah. 

Todd: and it would be a moment, right. 

Craig: Uhhuh . I thought that he would make it a lot longer that, that it would be kind of the two of them, you know, against the bad Santa or whatever. And that maybe in the end he might get it or have to sacrifice or, so no, he gets it right here in the beginning. He gets axed right in the face and the, 

Todd: and the movie doesn’t stop for it.

It just uhhuh keeps plowing forward. Right, right, 

Craig: right. And then the cop shows up and he shoots the Santa a bunch of times, which of course we know isn’t really gonna cause that big of. Problem. Um, that’s, if I’m gonna complain about the movie, that would be one of the complaints that I have, is that they keep taking Santa down, but every time it’s just for a couple of seconds, then he gets right back up, which I, I suppose is fine, but yeah, it just happens a lot, right?

It gets 

Todd: a little repetitive, you know, Uhhuh, , I mean, you expect this kind of thing in a horror movie. At some point you think he’s down then. Then. Then they turn around and he’s gone, or he’s gotten back up, but not like, you know, 10 times, which is exactly what happens. Yeah, and it does end up calling to attention to the amount of punishment that this robot gets.

Now, of course, it’s like Terminator, right? This is supposed to be military grade. It’s supposed to be able to take a lot of punishment. I think in one of the Terminator movies, I mean, the. The thing is like half broken down and, and, and, and in pieces, and the, the pieces that are remaining are still crawling towards her.

You know, that’s kind of the sense that we get with this Santa as well. Although again, it, I think it just happens so much that it mm-hmm. just, it’s j like you said, it’s just a little repetitive and gets a little distracting. It stops being, the movie stops really. There’s not a lot of emotion in it. Like I couldn’t get emotionally involved.

I couldn’t suspense. It really lacked suspense. Yeah, that’s true. And that was a big con contributor to it. I was never on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen. I just knew that this thing was just gonna keep plowing through and plowing through and getting up and whatever, and know that led me to really not care about.

Anymore. I just felt like just watching this thing unfold in front of me, I wasn’t really invested in it, so I was invested in Terminator. But that’s because, you know, you really get to know the characters and you care about them, and the stakes are high and right. And here it’s, it’s not at all like there was, I.

I don’t know. I mean, I cared about her, I guess just because we’d spent so much time with her, but I still felt like she was an annoying 

Craig: person. Yeah, that’s true. And there really wasn’t, like you said, there’s really not the emotional investment. Like if she had had a second to. Respond. I, I mean, I guess at one point, like when they first run out of the house, she’s like, I have to get my sister, I have to get my sister, or something like that.

And the guy’s like, no, she’s dead. And then it’s basically like, oh, okay, . Well, there’s, there’s just not, there’s not a lot. And, and the same thing when Robbie dies. Like if she had been. Horrified and screaming and in tears. I, I guess in real life, maybe you don’t have the time to Sure. If, if, if you’re all about self-preservation and surviving, maybe you don’t have the time to have an emotional breakdown in that moment.

But it did make it feel a little bit emotionally detached for me, even though, like you said, I was rooting for her. I, I did. Her to win. And I, and I assumed that she probably would. Yeah. But it’s just, uh, it’s just Santa in pursuit for the next 30 minutes, which wasn’t boring. And, and there’s big, like he, the, the cop shoots Santa, Santa goes down for a little while, the cop and, and uh, the Tori are like arguing about what they need to do next.

And they don’t see Santa get up in front of the headlights and start coming right towards them. Yeah. And the cop shoots Santa again, but then Santa kill. The cop, and then she runs Santa over with the cop car and drives away and ends up intercepting like a, an ambulance and another cop car. Yeah. Now it’s a lot.

It’s a lot. You know, it, it moves. It does, you know, from, from this point it takes a while to get there, but once it gets to the Killer Santa, it moves fast. But 

Todd: also the movie keeps creating, it’s one of these movies. The woman could just run away the, the Santa doesn’t move that fast and now the Santa can apparently drive a car.

Yeah, cuz he does drive an ambulance. Once again, like I said, to the very police station where she went to as though he is pursuing her still. But in, in any case, it just keeps finding these moments for her to like not do that and not really convincing. It’s just like at one point she breaks back into her own record store and just sits there and takes a cigarette practically waiting for ’em to come.

Yeah. I mean, there’s so much of that. Her and the cop arguing in the car was just dumb. Yeah. You know, no cop would sit there and argue with the person about why they can’t, you know, send a bunch of people out. It was just, It was stupid. And then this bit where you, like you said she drives off and then, uh, she encounters the ambulance and another two cop cars that are coming down the road to the scene of that crime.

And she stops and they stop. She gets out, she’s covered in blood and one of the cops there, I think his name was, uh uh, Jay. I don’t remember what his name was. I don’t know. Bobby or something like that. Bobby, I think was his name. He starts screaming at her, get down, put your hands down, put your hands on the ground, and he is just an asshole to her.

Mm-hmm. like she did all this. Now come on, he doesn’t know what’s going on. Right. Nobody knows what was going on, and this guy has already pegged her as a serial killer, is bitching her out, screaming at her, treating her like absolute garbage, putting her in the car, angry, and the guy doesn’t even know what he needs to be angry at yet.

Right. That was really irritating and the guy doesn’t let up on this. He’s the one note angry cop guy. Pissed off, I guess, at life and the world, and I, I thought that was stupid. And they even bring her back to the station, which is probably the one lull in the whole movie where she’s sitting in front of the sheriff and this guy’s ranting and raving.

Again, I’m really not sure what he’s ranting and raving about. This girl is clearly a victim. Everybody can see that he didn’t kill your friend. There’s no reason to think she did. You know, they, they already know people are dying at the scene and still he’s ranting and raving at. . And then when the ambulance comes up and, uh, crashes through the, some cars outside there, they go out.

It’s like, again, he’s like this crazy man on a mission. It’s like, are these people not trained police officers like ? 

Craig: They don’t really look like it. They 

Todd: don’t look like it at all. They, yeah. Uh, I thought that was dumb. Anyway, you know, he gets it real, real fast and so does the, uh, Tossed tossed in the air over the ambulance.

Uh, then that guy gets his own rifle, turned on his neck and gets his head blown off. Mm-hmm. . And then there’s just more of, you know, Santa pursuing her through the police station, DA back downtown, back to a record store, and then the final confrontation. Right. Which, yeah, was pretty cool. I thought that the final confrontation between her and this Santa, which is almost unbelievably mangled, yet still able, Walk and come after her?

Craig: Yeah. At this point, I don’t remember what I mean. He’s been run over. She blows him up, I think at, oh, he’s been some 

Todd: point shot at point blank times, several times. She’s stabbed stuff through his guts and things and mangled the wires. He’s sparking like crazy. 

Craig: Well, she, yeah, she, uh, she pinned him under a car somehow and then set, like 

Todd: dropped another car on.

Craig: Dropped another car on him and then, uh, put a cloth in the gas tank and lit it and, and like, so, and, and then the whole car, uh, exploded and with him underneath it. So at this point in the last, you know, confrontation, the, the machine underneath, which looks exactly. Like a terminator, um, is showing through, you know, like half of his face is gone, got half of his suit is gone.

Yeah. And um, this is where, you know, the machine eyeballs are shooting out these green lasers. . When I saw, when I saw the lasers in the trailer, that’s, that’s really what sold me on this movie, the Laser Eyes. That’s what sold me on the movie and ultimately it was a little bit of a letdown. Yeah. I thought that he was gonna be able to like shoot like le like weapon lasers.

Yeah. But it, it really seems like it’s more just kind of a detection thing. Like he swings his lasers around and if they catch her then he’ll know where she is. And she, she does a good job of, you know, avoiding the lasers and it’s, it’s kind of tense with her moving around, you know, crouched running around her shop and the Santa’s lasers scanning all around kind of tense.

Todd: Yeah, not really. I agree with you. It’s kind of tense, but not really. I mean, I thought the scene was creepy. I thought it was really well shot. I thought the robot was creepy. With those lasers, they’re not even like, they’re kind of a skew too, so like, you know, they’re going around Uhhuh , but. You know, we’ve seen him just take so much abuse by this point, and we’ve seen her crouch and hide and get away from him so many times at this point that I was just kind of waiting to see what’s the thing that’s finally gonna get him?

The water doesn’t do it. Sh the giant, 

Craig: enormous sword that she imp pails him with. Yeah, I mean, it takes him out for a second. Like sparks fly and he shorts out and his lasers go out and. 15 seconds later, they just come back on . Oh yeah. And he pull and he pulls the sword out. And like you said, she sets off the sprinklers.

And at that point, I feel like as she’s trying to set up the sprinkles, she like falls and breaks her leg, . And then, I mean, she takes a beating too. She like puts her. Hand up on a countertop or something and he chops her fingers off. 

Todd: Oh yeah, that’s right. She’s holding a bloody squirt and stump there for the rest 

Craig: of it and Right.

And dragging herself along the floor. At this point, they’re both, she’s like dragging herself away and the like the burnt up, shorted out. Terminator is like dragging itself behind her. Mm-hmm. . And she ends up getting, Counter, and she pulls an electrical wire out of the wall and, uh, like, I don’t know, shoves it in his torso or something, and he finally blows up and stays down finally.

Yeah. I, I feel like the, the filming changes, like it’s a new stylized kind of, it’s not slow motion, but, I don’t know. It’s weird. It’s a different style than has been used, but she hobbles out in the snow and uh, you know, to the silence of 

Todd: the falling on her of the town . 

Craig: Yeah. And it’s mourning and she collapses on the street and she’s just laying there in the street and it just freezes on her anguished face.

And then that. Yeah, that’s the end. But I mean, it feels like a suitable end. Like that’s a Sure. That’s what we were watching. We were watching this story of this, you know, killer Santa that goes after these people. There’s no happy reunion at the end. There’s, there’s no real resolution. It’s just, you know, she killed it.

It killed everybody. Yeah. Except. the 

Todd: end. I don’t need those things. You know, sometimes a horror movies freakier without it, but this movie I, I can see why people call it badass. You know? I can see especially why if, you know, if you were drunk or high or something watching this, you’d be like, oh my God.

Right. I just, I think most of it was a bit stupid. I’m gonna, I’m gonna fall on that camp again. All these things would be kind of forgiven if I think I was just a little more on the edge of my seat. I felt there was a little more tension. Uh, I was more engaged, especially in the beginning of the movie, but I was kind of none of those things.

Not to say again that it wasn’t what it. Promise to deliver. Not to say that it wasn’t 10 times better produced than most of the things we see. It just, it just didn’t hit my emotional triggers, and so I wasn’t really invested in it that much, and so I was just, just kind of watching the ride from afar.

Craig: Well, I mean, that’s it. I, I think that that’s what it’s meant to be. I think it’s supposed to be, not entirely grindhouse, but kind of, and I, I think. What we’re supposed to appreciate is the violence and the action, and I, I don’t think that story is, it’s focus. Uh, yeah, for sure. Do, do you wanna see a movie about, uh, a terminator in a Santa suit?

Okay, . There you go. And, and that’s, that’s it delivers, that’s what you get. I didn’t dislike it. I didn’t like it as much as I had hoped that I would. I, I hoped that I would really like it. I hoped that it would be really fun and really fun to talk about. I was 

Todd: really excited about it, honestly. So, yeah, I 

Craig: was too and I’d been looking forward to it for a while cuz I’ve seen, you know, trailers and I’ve, um, seen it, you know, talked.

In anticipation of its release. And, uh, it was, you know, kind of exciting that it just so happened to release the day before, you know, we needed something to do. And, um, I do like, you know, watching new things and, and I, I like tracking people’s response and it’s been interesting to track people’s response on this too.

Again, it’s just been so, uh, polarized. You know, one end of the spectrum either loved it or, or hated it. And I, I’m a little bit in, in the middle. Uh, I didn’t love it, but I, uh, still think, I’m still glad I watched it. It, it did everything that I should have expected and I shouldn’t have expected more. And if I did, that’s more on me than on the movie.

Mm. I I think that this guy, you know, I haven’t seen anything else that he’s done either, but I kind of want to now. Yeah. Um, I think that he, uh, has a really interesting. Point of view and uh, an interesting style. Um, and I like, you know, that he kind of pushes it with the gore and the violence. That was kind of exciting.

So I’ll be interested not only to go back and look at some of his earlier stuff, um, but to see where he goes from here. Cuz I think that this guy has a lot of talent and we may see some more good stuff from. 

Todd: Yeah, I, I think so too. In fact, I think, you know, much like we were talking about violent Christmas or violent night, you know, we were kind of arguing, is this really even a horror movie?

You know, it was more like diehard with Santa, I feel like this again was like Terminator with Santa. It was, except for the Gore and the violence, it was a lot more like, um, action movie. Yeah. Really. Heavy action. Heavy action without the, you know, the funny quips and the cool characters. You know, , right?

Talking about this, this, this director, he did a movie, the movie I was referring to earlier is called vfw Uhhuh. . It’s supposed to be about a bunch of old war veterans helping this girl out, taking shelter against. Some bad guy in a, their local VFW post, and that as a premise Sounds cool. And the, uh, actors in there are like Fred Williamson, you know, who’s, you know, total like, um, blacksploitation King, you know, shaft, we’re talking, uh, Martin Cove, who was the, uh, bad guy, you know, Cobra Kai, he’s the mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. , the main villain. Stephen Lang is in that, who? Uh, he’s the, he’s the evil general, I guess, in avatar. You know, and he’s been in a lot of stuff. Mm-hmm. , I mean, just the cast list and the premise from that alone combined with what we’ve seen right now from this director makes me wanna see that movie like Tomorrow,

Yeah. Yeah. So you’re right. It’ll be interesting to see what he comes out with after this. And it seems like he has at least one foot set firmly in the horror genre. Maybe another one, you know, in the action genre. And the action was well shot 

Craig: because this movie is so new, there’s not a whole. Of outside information to be found about it, aside from like the technical specs.

But one thing that I did read, I don’t remember where I read it, was this, this started as, um, a silent night. Deadly Night Remaking. Hmm. That’s what it was going to be. I don’t know if that changed because there already was another one, uh mm-hmm. or, or if it just evolved into something else. But I can see.

You know, silent night, deadly night, uh, the, yeah, I can see the influence for sure. Especially with, you know, the Santa with the ax, all of the stuff in the toy store. There was a lot of that in the original Silent Night. Deadly Night. Um, and it does have a similar feel. It’s got kind of that mean spirited feel that the, that the movie, the Silent Night, deadly Night was so criticized for mm-hmm.

You’re right. This kind of runs with that and, and I don’t know if celebrates it is the right word, but, uh, utilizes it like it is, it is kind of mean spirited and that doesn’t bother me. I think it’s kind of funny. It’s kind of ironic for the Christmas season. Yeah. It’s, it’s the total opposite of. Like what you just said, violent night.

Mm-hmm. violent night. We went on and on about how it’s got all this heart and at it’s core it’s a Christmas movie. This is kind of an anti Christmas movie. Yeah, very much 

Todd: so. , 

Craig: it’s, it’s dark, it’s gritty, it’s not wholesome and, and family oriented at 

Todd: all. It’s don’t watch this with your kid, , your young kids, 

Craig: you know?

No. No, but I can see how, you know, you and I are kind of sappy and I think we really were in, in enamored with violent night for those reasons. Mm-hmm. for the kind of sappy Christmas reasons. Um, I think that people who are more cynical than us might like this movie more. Definitely 

Todd: be, that could very well be.

Well, you know, we are so cutting edge. Having watched this, you know, basically I think the day it came out, and I remember a after last night. I watched it last night and I finished watching it. I went to imdb and of course there wasn’t even a trivia page there. Right now, as we are talking, I get on and you know, God bless the people on the internet.

Somebody’s put together a trivia page in the last like, you know, 15 hours. Oh wow. Speaking of how un family friendly it is and how I talked about the, the F word earlier, it says here somebody. God bless them. 487 uses of the F-bomb with an average of 5.6 F-bombs per minute. , I believe it. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode.

We’ve got one more coming your way for this Christmas season. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. Find us online at all the normal places. Support us on Patreon, patreon.com/chainsaw podcast. A few bucks a month will get you, uh, access to some mini sos It will get you, uh, access to our behind the scenes stuff, the things that we talked about before and after each podcast, as well as all the little things that I added out in the middle, most of which is just embarrassing, so makes us look bad,

Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Our second episode of the holiday season is a creepy take on a cherished Christmas tradition around the world. But these advent calendars aren’t filled with chocolate. They’re filled with EVIL. But also chocolate. Both evil and chocolate. And holiday cheer, of course. Enjoy!

The Advent Calendar (2021)

Ep 325, 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, it is that time of year, Craig. Christmas time. Yeah, like my third favorite holiday . I like the season though. It’s a really nice season. It just comes on the heels of my two favorites.

But it’s a nice excuse to get together with family and do things and watch Christmas horror movies, of which there seemed to be a ton. I know. 

Craig: We used to complain. We used to be like, well, we’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel now. And uh, now we, my God, we could do them year round. Like they’re coming out like crazy.

I attribute it to streaming. I think that since we have all of these streaming services, we are. Being exposed, first of all, I think that it allows for a lot more opportunity for, mm-hmm. up and coming filmmakers. It’s so accessible, whereas, and I’m nostalgic for these days too, but whereas we used to have to go to the video store and, you know, peruse through things and probably a lot of things would slip through the cracks.

Oh, sure. Um, now, you know, it’s all right at your fingertips. Um, gosh, I’m watching stuff every day. 

Todd: Well, and I think streaming probably, you know, allows producers to test the market. You know, I would imagine that at one point there was an idea that maybe there isn’t a huge call for Christmas horror films.

And certainly, you know, when every movie more or less, Had to hit the movie theater first and sort of justify its existence, you know, for a very general and large audience. You know, there’s that silent night, deadly night, which caused a lot of controversy back when it came out and, you know, it was almost more of a novelty.

And maybe now with the streaming services, you know, Netflix has done its numbers and been like, Hey, a lot of people watch these Christmas horror movies make, you know, 20 more . Right. You know? Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And also maybe I, I’m mistaken, but 10 years ago I feel. You really had to kind of go out of your way to find foreign films except for, except for some that made big splashes at, uh, festivals or whatever. You know, there were always a few every year that would make a big splash at some festival and, and would get an American release. But other than that, if you wanted to see foreign films, you really kind of had to seek them out.

Something like this, like what we’re watching today, um, I doubt very much that I would’ve come across if it weren’t for the magic of streaming.

Todd: you’re absolutely right. And that’s one of the, it’s one of the joys of streaming, right? Yeah. The movie that we’re doing today might be our first Belgian film, um, that we’ve ever done. It’s called The Advent Calendar, and it’s from 2021. It, it does seem like just the last two years there’s been a particular explosion.

I know you sent me a list of ones and most of the ones on, I would say about half of that list were from 2021 or 2022. Interestingly enough, the one that you picked is the one I would’ve picked because the premise seems so interesting. Essentially, this quadriplegic woman whose friend, uh, Sophie, gives her a advent calendar on her birthday, and it’s three days into December, I suppose.

So she kind of opens the first three. And, uh, it turns out this, this, this calendar is, is sinister. Uh, the gifts that it gives are more than meets the eye . 

Craig: I mean, this is a really classic trope in film and literature that, you know, um, some sort of supernatural force offers you some great rewards, like your heart’s greatest desire.

Mm-hmm. , there’s a price to pay. I, I mean, you see that in all of those, the devil and, you know, the devil, a Tom Walker, the Devil, a Daniel Webster . Um, but then you also see it like in the Monkeys Paw. It’s not like it’s unique. Regard, but I’ve never seen it done with an advent calendar and when we were, you know, looking at, uh, Christmas movies to do this year.

I love a good killer Santa movie. I do, and we may do one or two, uh, this year, but. I just thought, you know what, I’ve never seen a horror movie focused around Advent or an Advent 

Todd: calendar. A killer Advent calendar. Yeah, that’s pretty new. . 

Craig: And I just thought, you know, that’s, that’s clever. Why not? Yeah. Um, it’s a, a corner of the market that hasn’t been touched yet, and I thought, you know, there’s probably a lot of possibilities with this.

And, uh, it is, uh, advent now, uh, the advent season started. Last weekend, advent is the, um, beginning of the liturgical year, uh, in most, uh, Christian denominations, including my own. And so it seemed appropriate. , 

Todd: it’s like our countdown right at the beginning. Uh, leave it to the Belgians to make a movie about advent calendars, since they always make such great chocolate that ends up in these things, Belgians and Germans.

You know, maybe it just occurred to me that some people don’t know what an advent calendar. I know when I was a kid, it was one of my favorite things of the Christmas season, and I still have, you know, I still go out and get an advent calendar. Actually, interestingly enough, all the advent calendars I ever had were German, uh, and they were chocolate.

And so you just get this, I don’t know, what do you call it? Just like a thing. Like a, it’s bigger than a size of a piece of paper, a little thick, thicker, and it all, it has doors on it, and each door is numbered from one to 25. So you’re supposed to count the days from the beginning of the holiday season of December 1st, all the way up to Christmas day, the 25th.

And usually with those advent calendars, you know, you, you open up a door and there’ll be a piece of chocolate and you can eat. And so just every day you get a little treat with a different shape or something. And then on the 25th, maybe it’s like double size. It’s pretty simple, but you can also like, um, you can get ones that have little toys and um, or, you know, trinkets.

Lego makes them. Actually, my mom’s apparently giving me a beer advent calendar this year. So I get a can of beer every day. And. Awesome. . 

Craig: That’s funny. Our, uh, our friend Heather last year gave me a Halloween advent calendar, which, you know, oxymoron. But, um, every day that I would open it, it would be a little trinket of some little monster or like a little cute.

Uh, Michael Myers or a little cute Jason Voorhees. . 

Todd: It was fun. That, that is awesome. . 

Craig: It was really cool. I’ll have to send you 

Todd: pictures. I took pictures of them. Okay. I love that. . We should just do an advent calendar for every month. Right. So this is Abelian film. I think it takes place in Belgium, uh, or France.

Um, they are speaking French. This girl’s friend, uh, Sophie, uh, gives her this calendar from Germany and it is not one of these little chocolate advent calendars. It’s just kind of light and made of paper. It is a. Large, beautifully detailed, uh, box. Mm-hmm. that opens up in the front and everything I was getting, you know, for the story, like you said, I was getting monkeys paw vibes, you know, from this box.

I was getting kind of like, like hell razor sort of like puzzle box type vibes, you know? Yeah. I 

Craig: read something that compared it to Jumanji. I thought that was kind of a good comparison. Oh 

Todd: yeah. I, I don’t know how I feel about this movie. I, I felt it got a little repetitive and a little boring at 

Craig: times. I didn’t find it boring, but I, what I did, I took so many notes on this movie.

I have like three pages of notes, whereas I usually have one, so don’t let me get too bogged down in the plot. But it’s really plot heavy because, because you’ve. 24 days of opening this calendar. So basically 24 things have to happen. Like . 

Todd: I do remember being on like day, uh, eight or nine and I, and it hit me.

I’m like, oh my God, we’ve got like . Yes, I know at least like 12 more of these to go. And I was just like, That was the point at which I started to feel a little anxious. And then one of them, she opens, it sort of skips her like three or four days and I was, I was, let that happen again. , 

Craig: there are a couple, they did, they did a couple of clever things to skip some days.

First of all, they had her not get it until her birthday, so she could open the first three at the same time. And I have found that always to be true. I have never like started an advent calendar on day one like you. Started right late . So you get to open the first several, which is exactly what she does.

So we get, you know, kind of to skip those days. And you’re right. At some point she opens one, the candies will always kind of give a little bit of a suggestion of what it’s gonna be, a little hint. Um, and, uh, she opens a clock one and she eats it. And then immediately she looks at her phone and she’s missed like 20 calls and there’s like 15 messages and she’s, I apparent.

Lost like four days and I was like, oh, thank God. , . 

Todd: That’s exactly what I felt,

Craig: but I did. Whereas it was kind of repetitive. I did find it clever and it did a good job of kind of building dread because things got more and more dire. As it went on, it, it starts out relatively innocent and she kind of is getting these little rewards, good things. Um, yeah, like for example, on the first day, one of the things that she, it’s her birthday and, uh, she, we had already seen that she had called her dad and she’s got this bitch of a stepmom.

Mm. The Eva is the girl, and by the way, she’s paraplegic, not quadriplegic. Oh, sorry. God. I guess I might as well say she used to be a dancer, I think a professional dancer. Mm-hmm. . Um, which makes, you know the fact that she has been in an accident and is paraplegic. Even more tragic because it takes away from her the thing that she loves.

But anyway, she calls the stepmom and says, it’s my birthday. I, I wanted to talk to my dad. And she’s like, why? He doesn’t even know who you are. And, and she, apparently the dad has Alzheimer’s and, um, the stepmom won’t even let her. Talk to him, but she gets this little candy and she tells Sophie, oh, these were my dad’s favorite.

And Sophie says, well, you should eat it and uh, maybe it’ll make you feel closer to your dad. So she does eat it. And then later that night she gets a phone call and it’s her dad. And I’m like, oh, that’s sweet. And maybe it’s a coincidence, or it’s probably the advent calendar. But then she tells Sophie about it the next day and she says he called.

On a disconnected phone, like Yeah. The phone isn’t even in 

Todd: service. It’s like a landline phone. Yeah. Right. They’re not using anymore. 

Craig: Right. So obviously something is, something strange is going on. Right. And there’s a, like when it’s first introduced, like you said, it’s super ornate. It’s, it’s, it’s frankly very beautiful.

Uh, the craftmanship of it is beautiful. It, it’s a little bit dark. It’s kind of got some kind of dark. Pagan like imagery. Um, and on the back there’s a German inscription that says, or dump it and I’ll kill you. . 

Todd: Yeah, . It’s very sinister. This advent call right 

Craig: from the bat, right? Well, yeah. And um, when she opens it up, the first few candy wrappers have like rules on the inside.

And gosh, what are they? I wrote them all 

Todd: down. It says, uh, the first one says the calendar contains candy. If you eat one, eat them all, or I’ll kill you. Uhhuh. Uh, rule two, respect all rules until you open the last door or I’ll kill you. And number three, dump it or I’ll kill you. And all of this is written in German, and she doesn’t speak German, but her friend does.

And. Kind of cool actually, that she has to have her friend translate it. And she says to her friend, sounds grim. And her friend says, well, Germans are grim.

Which is funny because it’s true . 

Craig: But, uh, and this, those of you who. Don’t know. This is not typical of an advent calendar. An advent calendar is no , you know, a religious kind of celebratory type thing. , um, it’s kinda like a New Year’s Eve countdown, frankly, Uhhuh, but it’s celebratory. There’s none, none of this weird stuff.

The inscription, I think, has a signature, it’s like e, like ich. Mm-hmm. . And the first night when midnight strike. Like an alarm goes off in the box, but it, it, it’s talking, it sounds like a recording, like an old recording and it says it’s midnight time to open the box or something like that. And this creepy guy kinda like, like a paper doll type thing.

Todd: Looks like a priest or something. It look like a priest. That’s what I was 

Craig: thinking. It pops up at midnight every night and on the back it’s, it’s labeled ich. So apparently this. The thing. Mm-hmm. and, and when she eats the candies the first time, we get some kind of weird, surreal glimpses in like tones of fusia or purple and it, it’s really surreal and you can’t really tell what you’re looking at, but it at least kind of has the figure of a man.

Mm-hmm. wearing maybe some kind of, Mask or, or something. It’s, as it turns out, it is the demonn or spirit or whatever it is that’s attached to this box. But, uh, they do a, I thought the film did a good job of teasing you with it before giving you a, a, a true reveal where you get to see it all it’s 

Todd: glory.

Later on, now that you mention, you talk about the demon attached to the box. Now I’m also thinking of the DIC box. Yeah. Yeah. I can’t remember what the name of that movie was, but it even was similarly kind of opened up, right? It opens up like, uh, two doors in the front opened up to reveal, you know, the goodies and stuff inside.

And I guess the notion is that there is a demonn attached to this box here. Yeah, it’s the one kind of. You know, fulfilling the wishes or something. Sort of a genie, A genie in a box kind of thing, I suppose. But it’s all very vague. Like we’re never gonna know, even at the end of this movie, we’re never gonna know the source of this.

We’re never gonna have a backstory. We’re we’re real? I, unless I missed something. No, I don’t 

Craig: think so. I don’t think it’s ever explained. Fun. Bit of trivia since you brought it up. Uh, that movie, the DIC Box is based kind of on a true story, like the, the box itself, the haunted box. Exists. And uh, when that movie came out, the box that it was based on was in the possession of a man who lives in my hometown.

Yeah. random, I think. I think he still has it. I don’t think he lives here anymore, but he’s a 

Todd: true believer as well. Yeah. He said weird things happened to him when he got it, but, uh, he, he believes in a lot of that stuff, so it’s really an interesting connection. It’s a shame. The movie wasn’t that great, , man.

You could do some really great things with that concept. And the movie was like, oh, like super disappointing. But anyway, um, she’s, she is unable to go ahead. The, the, there’s like a little key in there and every one of these boxes, uh, has a little lock. She has to open with the same key. And, uh, when she tries to open that fourth one, it’s jammed, she says.

And then, like you said, at midnight, the box kind of wakes up. There’s like a little, almost like a little recording inside that just repeats over and over and over again. In German, of course, it’s midnight, open the door, it’s midnight, open the door. And that, like you said, that thing pops up. Uh, and then she’s able to, The next thing.

So it’s entirely feasible that this could be mechanical. Like if there really is like a little clock in there and, uh, until that guy pops up, you know, these, each door, you know, won’t unlock. It’s possible. I, I found that notion charming. I did say, you know, it wasn’t like, uh, entirely just like supernaturally controlled.

And it adds to the mystery, like, who in the world would make something like this? Mm-hmm. . And, uh, she asked her friend where she got it, you know, how, what she paid for it or whatever. And her friend’s like, um, I don’t know how much it cost because I stole it. Uh, she literally stole it from this shopkeeper, I suppose.

Craig: Yeah. A, a German Christmas market or something. 

Todd: Yeah. Which are also cute. I do enjoy that part of the season, going to Christmas markets. Yeah. 

Craig: I, I do too. We just had one, like a craft show here. Last weekend, I didn’t go. My mom went, she said it was cute. Anyway, when, when, when she opens the rules, um, she also want the last candy that she opens that night has another inscription on the rapper that I feel like is important.

It says to cure, hurt, destroy what hurt you, and that comes into. 

Todd: Later on. Mm-hmm. . And that’s a candy she doesn’t eat right away, right? Yeah. It’s a little Jesus. It’s white, unlike the others. The 

Craig: others are all chocolate and, but that, that one that she doesn’t eat, um, the note in the rapper says, and, and Sophie reads this out loud, uh, Jesus said to the cripple a rise and walk.

And then once Sophie realizes what she said, she, she kind of is like, oh, 

Todd: sorry, . 

Craig: It’s a little on the nose, but Yeah. But she doesn’t eat that one. She saves it for a while. 

Todd: Yeah. That’s her first indication that, I mean, that’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it, ? Yeah. But 

Craig: it still, it still could be coincidence.

It could be up until now. Um, I mean, obviously we’re watching this movie week. No, something is gonna be scary, but in the realm of reality, it could 

Todd: be. One other thing the movie does is it kind of shows her life as a paraplegic and, uh, it seems like at every turn she’s really being, uh, discriminated against or looked down upon.

Yeah. One of the opening scenes is she’s swimming. And, uh, a guy’s real is coming onto her and calling her cute. And she asked him to fetch his, her chair for her. And, uh, he’s a little taken aback and surprised, and he does so, but then all of a sudden it doesn’t seem like he’s so interested in her anymore.

See, I didn’t 

Craig: get that. I got like, I think that he was taken aback a little bit, but it’s not like he recoiled in horror when he realized no, that she was the paraplegic. It, it seemed more to me that she was projecting that. And, and you think so? Yeah, I, I can, I can’t relate cause I’ve never been through anything like that.

I can only speculate, but I can speculate that if something like that happened to me, I would be angry. And bitter and a little bit self pity. Right. And I think that she is as well, because you’re right, the, the movie does make it out that pe like her boss, you know, makes comments about how he knew she couldn’t take care of business and her condition and Oh yeah.

Todd: He’s really mean. Like, uh, she, she, uh, she’s like selling insurance or something and he’s called her into his office and said, you know, you’re, you’re falling behind or whatever. That, and I might have to cut your salary. And, uh, she says, you, you get a grant. You know, which we presume is like some kind of extra help in order to be able to hire her.

And he says, yeah, well that extra bathroom cost a fortune . So I, I. Took that to mean that he had to install like special accommodations. Sure. In the bathroom for her. And so it’s like he throws that in her face, you know, like, what an asshole, this guy. And later he actually hires a woman who is clearly, he’s training to replace her.

Right. Well, 

Craig: making her train her own 

Todd: replacement. Yeah. You know, and I’ve heard about that, but yeah, God, that’s 

Craig: doey and, and that woman says something to her like, you’re so brave. I just couldn’t do it. And I know people say things like that and they have good intentions, but come on. Yeah. So, so yeah. You know, people are very kind of condescending to her and she does seem to be a little bit self pitying.

And all the while I’m think. You again, in her shoes, I would probably feel the same way, but she is perfectly capable, you know? Yeah. Like she’s, she’s fine. She gets around fine. She’s certainly capable of selling insurance, you know, like Yeah. The fact that nothing to do with that wheelchair has nothing to do with her ability to sell insurance.

Yeah. But yes, I mean, the movie kind of makes it goes out of its way. to show how miserable she is being paraplegic and it, and it kind of has to do that because if she weren’t, then she wouldn’t have the motivation necessary to do what she does. For the rest of the movie. 

Todd: Exactly. You’re right. It is very important that we feel that she is miserable and the, the movie’s very plot heavy, as you said, and so it just kind of has to do that through plot.

It’s gotta do it through situations and things that she encounters. And you’re right, I feel like. I felt like it just a little bit on the edge of going out of its way, , you know what I mean? I, I, I felt like there was maybe one or two too many of those. Like I got it. I mean, really, does she encounter this like every single day?

I don’t know. Maybe people do, and maybe that’s just my ignorance. Her friend invites her out. On a date. Uh, she’s got a guy who’s invited her to dinner somewhere and said she, he would pay. And so she’s like, why don’t you come along with me now? This is something women do, right? Like, is it like the first time you meet a guy, you’re not quite sure, so you might bring a friend along kind of thing.

I got the sense that might have been it or also that her friend just wasn’t serious about this dude, so she just thought they could both kind of take advantage of him for a a fun dinner. 

Craig: Yeah, I think that was the case. But I think, you know, often women do that and it seems like, um, the two of them, the two women were only planning on meeting.

A guy, but he brought along a friend too. Mm-hmm. And I would think that that would kind of be more common, like yeah, if, if a man, a stranger, I mean, it would be different if it was somebody that you already knew, but if a stranger asked you out, it might be wise to say, that sounds fun. I’ll bring a friend.

Do you have a friend you could bring, you know, safety and numbers? Mm-hmm. . Um, and the guy, the original guy that they’re meeting, his name is Boris and he’s a douchebag. Yeah. Cheap suit and, um, he just, I don’t even remember the things he says. He just makes terrible, insulting sexist ableist jokes. Yeah. Um, but the guy that he brought, Thomas seems nice and it seems like Eva ha is a little bit interested in Thomas and the two men go up to the bar.

And Sophie says, what do you think? And Eva was like, what do you mean about Thomas? I don’t know. He, he seems nice and Sophie’s like just a second. And she goes to the bar and she’s talking to them. And it seems like Sophie and Thomas are both kind of looking Eva’s way. Uhhuh. And then, Sophie comes back and she’s like, he wants to have a drink.

And Eva’s like, oh, I don’t know. I’m not really, I’m really tired. And Sophie says, not with you, with me. Like . That so surprised me cuz Sophie seems like she seems like a nice friend and it seemed like she was trying to set Eva up with a nice guy. But no, she was taking the nice guy for herself and dumping Eva off on Bo.

Todd: I’ve always felt Sophie had a little bit of an edge to her. You know, I did kind of question her, uh, well, obviously in this scene as well, right? It was kind of, kind of interesting. So she does, she drop, she dumps her off on douchebag Boris, who, they’re in a car like, I mean, he’s like snorts some coke before he goes into the car.

I’m like, oh God, please tell me like they’re not going somewhere else. And uh, clearly she’s just driving. He’s just supposed to be driving her home, but she’s falling kind of asleep in the car and nodding. And she wakes up a little bit to find that he’s taking advantage of her. Yeah, it’s gross. He’s on her.

Yeah. It’s really disgusting and it’s filmed very up close. And actually a lot of the movie seems to be filmed. Sort of like a what? A close up with a wide angle lens sort of feel to it. Very claustrophobic, very kind of in your face and moving around and you know, she can’t feel, he’s like, oh, well I thought she wanted it.

And she’s like, I have no feeling down there. She 

Craig: had fallen. Yeah, she had fallen. And yeah, I guess he had pulled over and was messing with her. I, I don’t wanna get too graphic, but I mean, he is male. He is physic, he’s sexually molesting her when Yeah, when she wakes up and she pushes, she pushes him off. Um, and then he, he tries to force her to perform oral sex.

It’s, and it’s, it’s really uncomfortable. Um, yeah, it’s not terribly, terribly graphic, but. , um, it’s very tense because I’m, it’s violent. It’s violent, and I’m really worried about this woman because she really doesn’t have a lot of ability to protect herself or to flee. Yeah. So when he got out, he eventually gets out of the driver’s side and comes around.

I was afraid he was going to pull her out and rape her, which would’ve been worse, but it’s bad enough that he pulls her out, throws her into the street, tosses her wheelchair out, and just leaves. 

Todd: Yeah, from the street dumps her by the side of the road. Huh. And then interesting this, this was an interesting point of the calendar.

She screams out at him, drop dead, and the Eek has popped up from the calendar back in her apartment, and the door has sort of swung open by itself and out rolls a little toy car that looks just like Boris’s car, and she has a dog. The dog comes up and sniffs at the car and then starts nudging it around and biting it, and we see it’s like a voodoo car.

You know, this exact same thing is happening to Boris’s car down the road. All of a sudden it’s getting smashed up and spinning around and then just, I guess, crashes and you know, into pieces basically. And she gets a 

Craig: call the next morning that he’s. Dead. Mm-hmm. , the rules of the box are a little tenuous, frankly.

because it can do things on its own. Uh, as we just saw, like now. Sure. Maybe it’s acting on her desires, um, in, in some way, but it can, it can kind of do things on its own. And also one of the rules. If you eat one candy, you have to eat them all or you’ll die. Well, she doesn’t eat them all, so. 

Todd: Yeah. But you know, I guess if you think about it, like it doesn’t say when she has to eat them

Right. But, but she, there, 

Craig: there are at least two that she doesn’t eat at all. Somebody. Oh, that’s true. Somebody eats them. That’s another one that’s coming up. She meets Sophie in the park and they talk about. But they, she sees this guy, this cute guy. He’s handsome, but he’s also cute cuz he is wearing earphones and he is singing out loud and he is a terrible singer.

But, but that’s, that’s charming. That’s charming. Right. And, uh, so she sees him then, and then that night. Her prize from the calendar is a little heart, and she doesn’t eat it right away. She goes to the park the next day at a little cafe and that same guy shows up. He orders first, then the waitress comes to her.

She orders the same thing that he ordered, and the waitress brings hers, but sets the tray down to like take another drink to somebody else. And Eva drops that little heart in this cute. Wine and as immediate, the second he takes a sip of his wine, he immediately looks up and locks eyes with her. Mm-hmm.

And then he comes over and Sophie had said when they were in the park, you should go talk to that guy. And she said, Um, what am I supposed to say? Hey, are you a nurse? Cuz if you are, you can wash my private parts. Uh, and when the guy comes over to her, he’s like, Hey, I’m a nurse. I can wash your private parts.

Whoa. I have no idea why I said that. I just couldn’t not 

Todd: say it. He’s under like a spell for like a split second or something. And, and she doesn’t seem to mind ? No, because cuz now she’s understanding the box is magical. Right? Like, for sure. Uh, and I, I, I did wonder though, why did she not eat the chocolate?

What gave her the idea to drop it in that wine to, to so fl the rules like that? I, I don’t think. In that situation would’ve thought that was acceptable. I would’ve been worried. But she seems to know exactly what to do. So I do wonder if at some point, you know, maybe this demonn is kind of giving her knowledge or kind of imbuing her with kind of, you know, putting her under a spell from time to 

Craig: time.

Well, I don’t think that she’s put together yet that. Gosh, I don’t know. I mean, I, I don’t, I don’t think at this point she’s put together that Boris died because of something that happened with No, 

Todd: no, that’s for sure. So I, I, so 

Craig: I think that she may think that there, well, she knows that there’s something weird.

Uh, about the box because her dad calling on the disconnected line, um, and she’s even talked to people about it and, and she eventually talks this guy, William. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , they become close like they are dating and, and she tells them that weird things have had, she doesn’t tell him that she gave him. A loved one, and then he fell in love with her.

But she tells ’em weird things are happening and they speculate that maybe the, the candies are laced, you know, maybe they’re like laced with, uh, ecstasy or acid or, or some hallucinogen. Oh, 

Todd: that’s true. Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Maybe she hasn’t quite put it together so she knows 

Craig: something. She knows something’s going on, but, uh, I don’t think that she understands the danger yet.

Todd: Yes, for 

Craig: sure. But she figures it out soon though. It doesn’t take. 

Todd: This was ironically when I was like, oh my God, we are on day six. Are we gonna have to go through 19 more of these ? And it’s already, you know, I don’t know, a quarter of the way through the movie. And, uh, one thing that we didn’t mention was that Boris is, um, This sort of this douche bag.

He’s like bragging about how much money he makes on the stock market and he has this app that he uses to invest and he says, Hey, I just made like 457 euro I’ll, I could give it to you. Just as he’s blabbering on and talking. And after his death, she gets a message on her phone and that she. She has like an account with this investment thing and 457 has been dropped in there, so that’s kind of weird too.

Right. Anyway, thankfully, right as I was thinking it, see I think the boss really works, uh, right as I was thinking it, uh, she calls William, she explains that she thinks something’s going on because she’s waiting for the next door. This midnight, uh, and when it opens, this is the clock sh the, the chocolate shaped like a clock.

So she eats it. Uh, and like you said, uh, her phone wakes her up and it turns out she’s eaten. Three or four more Uhhuh, and it’s already day 10. And she gets a call from her boss, where were you? And he fires her, uh, for not showing up at work. And she calls William and she explains, she thinks something’s going on, maybe it is indeed drugs.

But then she notices these rappers that are in front of her, if the chocolate, she’s apparently eaten, didn’t remember it over these last day. They piece together to form the image of a logo, which she recognizes from the investment app as like a company she can invest in or a fund or whatever. So she just drops.

That money into there and it immediately earns like 9 cents. So, yeah, so this time she, she puts a book on that popup thing so that when it turns midnight, that thing can’t pop up and the box is clearly sort of agitated, I suppose. And it gets the attention of her dog. Mm-hmm. and her dog comes over. And like you said, it’s sort of like, here’s where the rules get weird again.

It opens up and. There’s a bone inside and the dog, you know, it’s a little candy bone or treat or something. Yes. So the dog takes the bone and there’s skulls on the walls on the inside of that chamber, which I, I was really looking, I found myself, especially after this, really looking at the design of the chamber.

You know, the little room or whatever that each of these little treats come out of, because it was quite intricate and quite interesting. And some of them I thought gave little clues. And this one definitely that. Poisonous. Well, chocolate, I suppose is poisonous to dogs anyway, right. Uhhuh, . I think the next scene we see is the dog’s kind of puking.

No, I I don’t think the dog 

Craig: pukes it. The, the, the box lets it out of the. Really? Yeah. Like you see the, the outside door swing open and the dog goes out the box. Also, it didn’t just get the, it called to the dog, like, 

Todd: Marvin. Oh, I didn’t catch that part. . And uh, 

Craig: and the dog ate the tree. And then the front door swung open and the dog went out and she gets up in the morning and she hears the dog whimpering or something and, and she notices that it’s outside, so she opens it up, but it’s whole muzzle.

Is drenched in blood. 

Todd: Oh, oh, I didn’t catch this. Okay. She, she cleans 

Craig: them up. You see, she’s got a big bo uh, basin full of water, and it’s just all stained red cuz she’s cleaning up the dog and she pulls something either out of its teeth or out of its fur and it’s a little. I don’t know, a little charm.

Shrink char, a little charm that she recognizes as her bosses. I don’t remember if he wore it on his lapel or mm-hmm. , uh, on his 

Todd: tie or his, around his neck, I think on a little chain. Yeah. Yeah. The implication here is that, The dog went out and killed the boss. Right, right, 

Craig: right. And she calls the boss and she just gets an answering service.

And this is when she starts putting everything together, I feel like. And she mm-hmm. , she kind of puts together, you know, that classic kind of detective board that you see in all these movies I 

Todd: know. Where people just suddenly like start writing on, like, writing on their table post-Its pulling out a post-it note, like, like they can’t remember any of this stuff unless they like spread it all out and label it deliberately,

But it’s helpful for her, I guess. I think it’s this at this point, because she’s kind of like dealing with the dog and, and throwing away the stuff that she used to clean him that she notices pieces of the car in, uh, trash can. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. Piece of this car, it looked like Boris’s car. And like you said, she lays it all out.

Um, but she also lays that, uh, One chocolate that she hasn’t eaten yet and just labels it with a question mark. And, uh, it gets to day 11 and it’s another white Jesus chocolate, which says, Jesus said to the cripple, arise and walk. So now she has two of them in front of her and I’m thinking, oh, two chocolates, two legs.

Hmm. . And she decides to eat both. Uh, and her legs start to twitch and she conv, VULs. And, you know, I’m thinking like, oh, okay, like this calendar is helping her , you know, it’s, it’s this monkeys paw sort of thing, but so far everything it’s done for her. I mean, yeah, it’s terrible that people are dying, but they were all douchebag assholes who were mean to her.

Right. You know, none of this was that ironic, like, oh, you know, you’re, you got a million dollars, but that’s because your favorite aunt died and this is your inheritance, you know, kind of situation. Right. Only knowing that this was a horror movie did. I realize we’re probably gonna get to that point where it’s gonna get more difficult.

But, but that started to go through my mind right now cuz I’m like, oh my God is, she’s gonna walk now, so what’s gonna be next? Like, that’s the ultimate gift she can get. Right. But it’s not, it’s kind of a taste of it. Yes. She also, I think kind of blacks. Right. She does. She blacks 

Craig: out and they uh, she wakes up in the hospital and William, who is a nurse, is there, and he says they found you in the street, clutching the box, and you, you wouldn’t let go of the box.

And again, they kind of speculate about what’s going on, but she kind of realizes she has kind of these flashes. that she was walking, uh, when she’s getting like an MRI or something, she has these flashes and other, something else happens in the, in the hospital. Like there’s a, a woman chanting, and I don’t know the woman, it looks like the woman is kind of menacing her.

Um mm-hmm. , like, I have to stop this evil or something. But then Eva pulls out the, Candy and it’s a chocolate host, a a chocolate communion host. Mm-hmm. . Um, and she gives it to the woman, and I think the woman, does a woman die? I’m 

Todd: not sure she goes away. I didn’t know what happened to her after that. I, I really wasn’t clear on that point.

Yeah, I I would you think the woman was like, uh, sort of like a mentally tapped into the box and like recognized it as evil? It seemed like it to destroy it or something. So this, this was kind of the way of like getting her to shut 

Craig: up and leave, right? I think so. And, and then we, we constantly get these updates.

I mean, she’s making bank on this app. Like at this point we’re up to door 14 and she already has 14,000 euros. Um, but Door 14 is another after eight bar, which is her. Favorite candy. So she, she knows at this point it’s got something to do with her dad. So she visits her dad, finds out that 

Todd: his, she eats it, and she was waiting by the phone.

You know, for a phone call, that’s what she’s first expecting. And when she doesn’t get that, she decides to visit him outright and you, you have to notice cuz it’s made very clear like the, when she does open that and pull out that after eight bar, there is a very ornate skull on the inside of that door.

That’s when I thought, okay, this is gonna start to get sinister. Maybe this visit with her dad isn’t gonna go so well as the nice, cheery phone call that she got. I thought the movie was very good at telegraphing. You know, possibility. 

Craig: Well, yeah, but she, when she does visit, She has, I don’t know if she ate it, but she has one of those candies, one of the after ate things cuz uh, she finds out, the stepmom, tells her that she’s selling the dad’s house.

And oh, you’re right. She’s, she’s gonna put the dad in a nursing home. And so, uh, Eva goes to her dad who is, um, in the late throws of dementia. He doesn’t seem. There at all, but she feeds him this candy and Oh, you’re right. She feeds him Instead. It’s like he comes back, like his mind clears momentarily, but he says to her, and how he knows this, I have no idea, but he says to her that the box is going to require.

Sacrifices. If she wants to walk, it’s gonna require sacrifices. She’s gonna have to kill people, she’s gonna have to kill strangers and eventually family and friends. And he’s, and before he tells her that he. She says, I miss you. And he says, I miss you too. And I miss your mother. I wish there, I wish you could help me get back to her.

Yeah. Um, and when he is telling her that she’s gonna have to kill people, he says, and when it’s my turn, don’t hesitate. Yeah. And so at this point, she kind of knows what’s 

Todd: going on. Yeah, it’s very sinister and now we’re midway through the movie and it’s day 15. At this point I, you know, we kind of knew what was going on.

I was intrigued. Like I said though, I think it was just knowing that I had 10 more to go , you know, that I just kind of went, okay, so it’s gonna be open a box, get a chocolate, probably gonna, you. Kill somebody that she doesn’t like, or open a box, get a chocolate. It’s gonna have to, you know, I, I was just feeling a certain level of impatience, , I think at this time.

Well, you’re 

Craig: right, because at this point you know what’s going on too. So, okay, come on, let’s get to it. Like , 

Todd: uh, and she gets, she gets another white one and she goes to William to take it in his presence, which was smart. Yeah. Um, and, and her right leg bounces and she kind of spasms and seizures. But you know, again, she’s not walking quite yet, so I’m getting this idea that, you know, enough of these white chocolates is gonna fix it.

Craig: Right? Right. Well, and and she, she convulses and falls to the floor and he gets down to try to help her, but she says, I can feel you. She can feel his hand on her thigh. Right. Which she couldn’t before. So he takes her home and drops her off, but realizes that she left. Keys in his car. Meanwhile, she has gone to the pool, so when he gets back to her apartment, she’s not there.

So he drops the keys like in a, a potted plant, um, and, and goes to leave. But as he’s going to leave, he realizes the door is open a, a crack. So he goes and he closes. It, turns around to leave again. When he is getting to get in his car, he sees that the door is wide open. So he goes in, he finds her detective calendar.

And realizes because she has kind of made notes about everything that’s happened with each one, and one of those was his love spell, and so he realizes that he’s under a spell. The door slams closed, the phone rings, he hears his name, and then some gibberish on the phone. Ick pops up looking scarier than usual, and then pops back down.

This was weird. Pops back down and then he gets closer to the calendar and hears a scratching and he looks closely at one of the little glass windows and he sees somebody scratching. Don’t dump it from the inside. So it’s, it’s, it’s backwards, but he can read it. So he grabs the calendar. Marvin growls at him, but he takes it to a canal and throws it in, and it sinks aggressively.

But then the water kind of starts bubbling and foaming, and the sky goes purple and ick. The demonn emerges from the water looking very much. Pinhead . Yeah. Very hell. Priest vibes going on here. Uhhuh and William tries to drive away, but it breaks the car window, pulls him into the canal and drowns him. Um, and she’s in the pool and as it’s happening, she kind of sees it and actually she comes up from under the water and finds that she’s no longer in the pool.

She’s in the canal. Yeah. It approaches. And then she just wakes up at 

Todd: home. She wakes up at home on the floor and the next chocolate is like shiny and stuff. Her dead phone rings and it’s just lots of ringing. Um, eventually she, she sees that like her mirror has kind of lit up. She has this oval shaped mirror across the room and she goes over to it and there’s like, I think maybe like a little piece where mirror starts tofl away.

Yeah. Uh, I think that’s what it is in, in the corner there. And when she looks through, She can see William. It’s like through the eyes of that creepy popup doll, you know, that, um, that he was looking at when he was looking at the calendar. I thought this was 

Craig: clever. I mean, I thought the suggestion was, , it was her in there.

Yeah. It’s kind of some like weird time loop thing. Mm-hmm. , she writes because she, she’s the one who itches Don’t dump it. Yeah. On her mirror. And that’s the etching that he sees. 

Todd: It was cool. Yeah. It was definitely a left turn, you know, for this movie, just into weird kind of like, Surreal territory with the time loop and stuff, and this guy coming out and actually physically manifesting.

And, uh, but then the next, uh, a knife pops out of the calendar with the image of a dog etched on the blade. And I thought, oh, Craig’s gonna love this . 

Craig: No, no I didn’t. I think I feel like I’m getting more desensitized to it. Oh yeah. It’s just a movie. It’s fine. Yeah. But it’s terrible. Like, cuz Sophie Sophie’s been gone for a couple weeks on holiday or something and um, she shows back up at this point and she goes in and she sees this long, huge trail of blood that leads to Eva in the sitting on the floor in the bathroom.

Holding the dog. That’s whimpering. Like if you’re gonna kill the dog, just kill it. Mm-hmm. , like, don’t draw it out. Mm-hmm. . And I also feel like, you know, Sophie isn’t particularly concerned that she found her best friend. Yeah. Huddled on the floor. Right. Pulling a dog. She’s like, she’ll be all right. You know, and, and like her boyfriend.

Thomas is there with her and they’re supposed to be going off for a weekend together and well, let’s just bring her with us. She’ll be fine. . Yeah. And they go and it’s on that trip that we find out, we, we get a flashback to the accident that led to her paralysis. Mm-hmm. . Um, and as it turns out, she had. Had a really great audition for something important.

Um, and it had gone well and Sophie had picked her up and was driving her, and she’s like, we need to commemorate this moment. And she pulls out her cell phone to take a selfie while she’s driving. Mm. Um, and that’s what caused the accident. Yeah. And so what it comes down, I mean, Sophie had, you know, stolen one of the candies.

Sophie’s got a kleptomania problem. Yeah. She had stolen one of the candies. It looked like it had a boner on it. , yeah, . And, uh, you know, so, you know, Eva’s in one room, Sophie and her boyfriend are in the other room and she’s trying to get frisky. He’s like, I can’t, I not with her in the other room. Like, I physically can’t do it.

Like, I guess, bone or shy or something, uhhuh. Um, so she gives him the magic Viagra, . Uh, and then again, here’s where the rules are, kind of ambiguous because the thing said to end your hurt, kill those who hurt you or something like that. But she doesn’t actually have to, it just takes care of it for her.

Yeah, it kills. Sophie and the boyfriend. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And it’s pretty gruesome and violent anyway. I don’t know. , then what happens? , 

Todd: uh, there’s the tapestry. There’s some tapestry. Oh, that’s how that kind of goes down. Oh, that’s 

Craig: right, that’s right. While, just before like when, while the other two are in the room.

Getting frisky. She finds a secret compartment in the box. It’s not one of the days, it’s like at the very top. And, um, she opens it up and there’s a tapestry in there and it’s a, uh, a painting, a gruesome painting, um, of a Christmas scene, and there’s a Christmas tree. And the calendar, the advent calendar is underneath the tree.

And you just see, I saw a little boy. Dead like slaughtered on the floor, but it’s also signed on the backs with an address. So she goes, and it’s this artist, she says, you know, I found this painting that you did. And he’s like, what are you talking about? And she said, yeah, it’s a painting that you just did last year.

And he is like, that can’t be because I’ve been blind for five years and he takes off his glasses and his eyes are all messed up. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. He runs his hands over the painting and he gets flashbacks of him killing his wife and son. He says, but that 

Craig: can’t be because my wife and son are alive and well. And they are.

They’re right there. Yeah. So now she figures this out. How she figures it out, I don’t know, because it seems like quite a leap to me. Mm. Like apparently you can do all of these things and you know, kill all of these people. But once you get to the end of the advent calendar, Everything will just go back to normal.

Yeah, because like, like everything will be erased. Cause 

Todd: the rule is you don’t have like, like if you interpret that second rule, quite literally, it’s like you must eat all the candies until the last one. And so she posits that. If you don’t eat the last one, 

Craig: she doesn’t figure that out. She just thinks that cuz that’s at the very, very end.

Um, she just thinks I can go ahead and do this and I can have the opportunity to walk and dance, but then it won’t be any big deal because after the last one, 

Todd: oh, everything’s gonna 

Craig: go back to normal. Everything will go back to normal. All the people, I forget all the things that I’ve killed and I’ll forget it and it’ll be fine.

But I at least have this opportunity. So at that point, knowing. Everything is, you know, time is just gonna rewind and she’s not going to have done any of these things. She won’t be able to walk, but she has the opportunity to now. So she kind of just goes hog wild. Mm-hmm. , she, uh, she kills the woman who replaced her at work.

She kills her dad’s. Terrible wife. She gives her dad another one of those candies and he’s like, oh, is it my time? And she says, yeah. Uh, and he says, did you have to sacrifice her too? Meaning the wife? And she says, no, that was just for fun.

Todd: You know what? I thought it was cute that the evil stepmother had exactly the same hairstyle as like the evil stepmother and the Disney, um, Cinderella cartoon. Yeah. . 

Craig: She was a caricature, but sure, for sure. A fun villain to, to hate. So the dad turns around because he had told her, when it’s my time, don’t hesitate.

You know, he’s, he’s anxious to rejoin his wife. So he turns around and she has a gun, and she raises it, and she lowers it, and she raises it, and she lowers it, and she raises it and she lowers it like, 10 times . Um, so like she’s hesitant, but then it just cuts to an exterior shot of the house and you hear the shot and you see the flash.

Um, and the next thing you see, I think the cute guy from the pool when she had disappeared from the pool and ended up in the canal, he had. Been curious as to where she had gone. So he had brought her chair and her stuff back to her house and he had left his number. So she’s got tons of money. So she rents a nice hotel room.

She calls him, he shows up at the door, she’s standing there at the door in a robe, and he is like, Uh, you’re not paralyzed anymore. She’s like, no, I’m fine now.

And the next thing we see is them in POIs, codal Bliss. And she’s kind of explaining to him what happens, but she’s like, once I eat the last candy, everything will go back to normal. Nobody will remember any of this. And he’s like, well, you won’t even remember me. And she’s like, no. And you won’t remember that this ever happened cuz it won’t have.

Uh huh. So she goes up to right before the stroke of midnight on the last day, she goes up to the roof and she records a message on her phone. She’s leaving a warning, just like the artist had left a warning for her. We had kind of seen some of this at the beginning, but it was outta context, so we didn’t know what was going on.

Now we know what’s going on. Um, she dances, uh, and records it, and then she, she puts her cell phone. The secret compartment and seals it up and then the, it strikes midnight, she opens up the last one. It’s like glowing and all like crystals and stuff in there, and she pulls out the candy and it’s clear and iridescent and kind of glowing.

It’s very plain. It doesn’t in seem to indicate anything as some of the others have. And she starts to go to eat it. When the cute pool guy comes running up, he’s like, wait. The rule said you have to eat every candy until you open the last door, but you’ve opened the last door. So the rules are Nolan void now.

You don’t have to eat it. And he basically says, if you don’t eat it, everything will stay the same, but you can. You can go on with your life. You have this whole new life in front of. And we can be together, whatever, . 

Todd: Right? 

Craig: And so it kind of, uh, closes up on her and she’s clearly, you know, I think it flashes to all the people that she’s killed, at least the ones that she liked, , right?

And she’s torn. And, and, uh, she just, it closes up on her and she just screams, I guess, in frustration or something. And then it cuts to. and then it opens up on a new scene. Did it give us a timestamp? 

Todd: No, I didn’t. I didn’t see one. No. 

Craig: Presumably now I wasn’t really sure what went on at the end. So I did a little bit of investigating and I found an explanation, but I don’t know if it, it does, it came from a fan.

I had not the filmmaker, so I don’t know if this is accurate or not. The fan speculated that this was a year later and a, a man is knocking on someone’s door and he’s holding his. He has her cell phone and he says A year ago this happened to you and you left this morning and the door opens. And I don’t know if we see her or not, but I think the indication is that ultimately she had eaten the last candy.

Yeah. Um, and everything had gone back to normal, including her being confined to her wheelchair again. But it also. Reset the advent calendar or whatever, and so now it’s happening to somebody else and they’re seeking out her 

Todd: help. Which makes me wonder, like, what did she then do with the Advent calendar when it was done?

How did it get in the hands of somebody else? Did it just 

Craig: kind of disappear? I don’t know. I mean, if every, if everything, if everything reset, Maybe she never, maybe it never even came into her possession in her timeline. I don’t know. To be, honestly, I liked it. I, I understand your complaint. Um, it does get a little bit repetitive in that the same thing kind of keeps happening, but it’s not always the same thing.

Yeah. There’s 

Todd: enough variety in there, right? That it, you’re not quite sure what it’s exactly gonna be. Yeah. 

Craig: But the just, you know, by nature of the advent calendar, there are, you can’t change the fact that. You know, 25 days in that season, um, you can cheat a little bit and have her miss a few days or whatever.

But if your whole premise is that you have to take something every day and that each one of those things is going to cause something to happen, well, I mean, that’s , that, that’s pretty limiting in term of plot and pacing. It’s really interesting. I still thought it was, uh, interesting and, and original to an extent.

And the performances were good and I thought that it was a well made film. Oh, yeah. I thought that the, the cinematography was good. There was some really interesting stylistic things going on. We don’t see a lot of the demonn, but when we do see him, he’s, uh, a very ominous. Frightening presence. Yeah, there was some, you know, her, she had some moral decisions and, uh, to make, which I, I thought was, uh, interesting plot-wise.

So overall I liked it. Uh, I think it was well done and I, and I would recommend it. It’s not gonna be for everybody. It is a foreign film. If there is a dubbed version, I didn’t have access to it. Uh, so you’re gonna have to read, uh, subtitles if that’s something that you’re averse to. You know, don’t watch it, but if, if you don’t mind reading subtitles, which I don’t, I think it’s worth the.

Todd: Oh yeah, for sure. I, I enjoyed it. I, I really did. Ultimately, it has a little bit of a, you know, it has that quality of like a fable or fairytale a little bit to it, uh, right. With the idea that this will kind of keep going and it’s like an age old story of the monkeys paw. So it has that pedigree. And I think it leaves just enough mystery, , you know, we never know who this demonn is, the origin of the box, anything like that.

I doubt there’ll be a sequel. It’s not the kind of movie crying out for a sequel, even though one theoretically could do it exa. That’s what I was 

Craig: gonna say. But I thought it’s not crying out for a sequel, but I felt like it was a genius idea because in. They could make one of these every year. 

Todd: Yeah. Right.

You know, . Exactly. Just it gets 

Craig: passed to a new 

Todd: person every year. Mm-hmm. . So, uh, yeah, it, it was interesting and, uh, it got me inspired. Like I kind of wanna make, like, I like to make things. I would love to make an advent calendar as awesome as this not one that kills people and grants your wishes. Just that looks like it.

Yeah. And has some cool mechanical aspects to it. Like that was really 

Craig: fun. Oh yeah. I, I mean, I don’t want a haunted advent calendar. That if I could get a facsimile of that one from the movie, I mean, it’s gorgeous. Mm-hmm. , you know, it looks like somebody painstakingly made this. If you were to actually find something like this that were actually made with quality materials, oh, it would be in far too expensive for me to afford

Yeah. But it’d be cool to have. It’s your, you cool to have to put up on your mantle at the, at Christmas time, . 

Todd: Well, thanks again for listening to another episode of Two Guys in a Chainsaw. Uh, if you have any ideas for any Christmas horror movies that we could do, go ahead and send them our way. You could just look us up, two guys in a chainsaw podcast, reach out to us on Facebook on our website, two guys.red 40 net.com, and, uh, send us a message.

I would say Twitter, but, uh, you know, we, we barely check Twitter anyway, and that seems to be going down the tubes right now. . So don’t bother reaching out to us on Twitter . Find one of these other avenues, or you could have very direct access to us. If you become a patron of our podcast, go to patreon.com/chainsaw podcast.

Consider joining, uh, and supporting us so that we can continue to, uh, put out these things we really appreciate all of our patrons. And, uh, if you do join, you get, uh, access to the behind the scenes chatter that we do some extra goodies. Um, Yeah, we just go there and check it out. Until next time, I’m Todd.

And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Well, we have a rare double-treat for you this week. How often do we get to review a film currently in the theaters as we sit, side by side, on the same sofa?

That’s right: Craig and Todd are back together again, in the same room, for our first holiday episode of December, reviewing Violent Night. Yeah, it may be more of an action-thriller, but we’re calling it a gory home invasion horror flick for our own selfish purposes. Happy holidays, everyone!

Violent Night (2022)

Episode 324, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, it is a very special holiday episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw, a holiday production, really as, um, Craig and I have this rare treat, this rare present where we are here and we’re we’re taking 

Craig: We’re taking selfies.

Todd: We just, we just snapped a selfie for you, . We are here, uh, together for the first time. In how many years has it been? A long time. 

Craig: Your kid was an infant the last time we were together. Yeah. 

Todd: So I think it was five and a half years ago, and I believe that was the, um, something we could, this way comes episode that we recorded in your living room.

Yep. And uh, that was a very special movie for both of us and uh, and so we were able to do that and be together at the same time, just the way we started things. Great. And I don’t know about you, Craig, but. They, they always felt like if you go back and listen to the earlier episodes, there’s a different kind of energy.

Yeah. , you know what we’re like sitting right across from each other and face to face and, and, and all that. Instead of patiently waiting for the other person to end up to finish talking. Right. So then we can, or kind of judging, oh, now I can come in. Oh. Oh, no, no, no. Wait, wait. And all those things we edit out.

Right. Most of the time this is raw, pure, at uncut right here, uh, in a hotel room. . Yep. Where we just got off of watching Violent Night, which just came out today. 

Craig: Today, I think. 

Todd: I know. It’s crazy. I think that’s another first. I 

Craig: think so. Except I was trying to think while we were there. We’d done this before.

Yes. The Witch. The Witch. Did we see Krampus together in the theater too?

Todd: Yes, we did. You’re right. Yes. It was the Witch and Crumps. At least. It’s like a Christmas miracle. Aww. The Trinity Mary Joseph and the Baby Jesus is today . So it really feels good, by the way, to be back here, just face to face with you.

It’s so cool. It does just like, you know, we talk every single week and we don’t see each other, like, we don’t do video chat or anything like that and, but we’re way too lazy to, uh, wanna see what state each of us are in in the 

Craig: morning. Oh my God. Yeah. I roll out of bed and roll in front of my computer. I I, 

Todd: nobody needs to see that.

And I strip down naked for no reason at all, . Just because I can . Oh man. So, 

Craig: no, it is nice. It’s, uh, it, it was a nice surprise because I had, I had wanted to see this movie. But for some reason I thought that we weren’t gonna, it was, it came out later, so I didn’t think we were gonna, you’re only here for a couple days.

Right. Um, so I, I didn’t think we were gonna get to see it together, so it was a fun surprise, but, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s weird cuz we saw it in a theater, so I didn’t take any notes. . 

Todd: And then we had that awkward moment where we’re leaving the theater and we’re like, we can’t say anything about the movie. Right.

because we gotta, we gotta save it for 10 minutes later. What we can get in front of a mic. Yeah. And, 

Craig: and just FairWarning uh, we had dinner before the show. And then a couple of really quick, nice strong drinks. Nice 

strong 

Todd: drinks, and we may or may not be sipping on something right now. Yeah. So, 

Craig: we’ll, we’ll see how it goes.

But I’m excited about it because I’ve been looking forward to this. Um, I don’t know. You know, we’ve seen like Killer Santas and stuff before. It’s not like that’s anything new, but, uh, this has good people in it. It, it seemed like it, you know, was filmed on a, I mean now in hindsight it seemed like it was filmed on a big budget.

Yeah, it felt like a big budget movie. I wasn’t expecting that. I wasn’t really either. I didn’t know what to expect. I really kind of expected it to be goofy, but fun and, uh, you know, I’ll just spill the tea. I fucking loved 

Todd: it. . Yeah, it was a blast. . It was 

Craig: a lot of fun and it surprised 

Todd: me. Me too, me too. I was surprised 

Craig: by how much I liked it because, , to be fair, I don’t know if it’s really a horror movie.

This is a 

Todd: home invasion 

movie, 

Craig: right? Yeah. It’s more, it’s more of a, a violent thriller and it is really violent. It’s gory and, and there’s lots of good fighting. Mm-hmm. like exciting fight scenes and lots and lots of like gun play and, and lots of creative violence. So it’s definitely bloody, but at its heart it is like one of the Christmasy Yeah.

Christmas 

Todd: movies I’ve ever seen. It’s like, it’s sort of like what they did with the Jane Austin and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It’s like you took a very heartfelt Hallmark Christmas movie and you just laid, you know, terrorists and Santa Smashing people in the face and blood and things like that over it.

Right. Yeah. It just, another layer added to what ended up actually being a very, like, serious seriously Christmas movie. Yeah. In that it was hitting all of the notes. 

Craig: Right. I, I was surprised how much hard it had like, I was feeling a little sappy at the end. I, I can’t say I shed a tear or anything, but it was sweet.

Like it was weirdly sweet in the end. 

Todd: Well, but my point with that is like, it’s genuine, right? Mm-hmm. , it’s weirdly sweet. It’s not like a lot of comedies, which will hit these notes as part of the gag. And so in the middle of it you’ll see that they’re not really playing it straight. Right? Uh, and, and this movie, all of that was played straight.

All the little moments, like, you know, when the girl talks Sandy into believing in life again, you know? Right. And these, I believe too, and, you know, all this sappy Christmas stuff or like the kisses and the re reunifications and things like they were played totally straight. Mm-hmm. and they felt real. 

Craig: It worked.

It, it, gosh, 

Todd: that’s how it worked, I think. 

Craig: I would think. Yeah. But it just seems like on paper, the two, the two, uh, you know, the really violent, that’s the thing. Like I, I was sitting there thinking, gosh, I, I, uh, don’t know who to recommend this movie to like, Action fans I guess. But I really feel like if you have teenage kids, especially boys, but yeah, maybe that’s sexist.

If you have teenagers take them to see this, it’s super fun. It’s gonna keep their attention. Um, but in the end, ultimately it’s a sweet movie about family and, and uh, putting family above all else. And, and even just like Christmas spirit type shit, like 

Todd: Fool at 

Craig: Christmas, spirit shit, we in Santa a Claus and yeah, it’s, gosh, yeah, it was hard not to talk about it immediately coming out of the theater cuz I really enjoyed it.

I just had such good time. We were sitting there. And it is fun, you know, uh, when this is how we started, we would get together usually at Todd’s house. Mm-hmm. , um, and, uh, sit on a couch in his little, he had this little tiny man cave with this enormous ass tv, , 

Todd: enormous for the time. I, I’m not even sure if it’s still would be considered enormous a hundred inches.

Well, that’s pretty, yeah, it was 

Craig: huge. And the fact that we were sitting like six feet in front, like in this little room, uh, on your like dorm room couch, , uh, it, it was. That it was fun. We got to experience the movie together and I got to see or hear your reactions and it was really fun to sit, not just with you, but I’m really glad to have seen this movie in the theater, especially I think on opening night because I think that the people who were there were people who had been looking forward to it and they were there to 

Todd: have a good time.

Well, the only people coming to Violent Santa on opening night are the people who really want to be there. . 

Craig: Yeah. Our, uh, I, I feel bad. Our bartender before the movie was like, oh, you’re going to see that. Come back and tell me how it was. I’m the only person I know who wants to see it. 

Todd: too bad. We don’t have business cards with our, uh, we could have just slipped that to him, like, check back in a week.

It 

Craig: out . But no, it was fun. And, and the audience was small. I mean, I live in a small town, uh, so it was a pretty small audience, but it was more mixed 

Todd: than I thought. Yeah. Did you see there was like basically somebody’s grandmother sitting behind. I, I looked like the grandma was taking her two granddaughters out to see this movie.

I thought. I wonder how she’s gonna react to this . 

Craig: But as, I mean, aside from the violence and it is really violent, like lots of machine guns and stabbings, lots of stabbing create things. One of the things, I mean, establishes really early, it’s about this family we’ll get to in a second, but this, this, it’s an extended family.

Um, but the main people that we’re focused on are, are this small family of a mother and father, uh, who seemed to be going through some marital problems. And they have a young daughter. And in the very beginning it’s established that the young daughter stayed up late the night before and watched Home Alone.

Mm-hmm. . And so then later in the movie, I had seen this movie advertised as Die Hard Meets Home Alone, which is actually not a bad description. It’s maybe even a little bit on the nose. Yeah. Um, but in the end there’s some total, uh, Home alone homage, I 

Todd: guess. Yeah. Oh yeah. Straight out copying. But 

Craig: it’s hilarious.

It’s funny because it treats the stuff that happens in home alone, the way that it would really be like those guys home alone being dead. Yes. Home Alone is a terribly violent movie if you 

Todd: think about it, and very unrealistic and it’s portrayal of that violence. 

Craig: Right. So these, so this ultimately, I mean this comes at the end of the movie, but this little girl sets up these booby traps for these bad guys.

And ju it plays just like 

Todd: home Alone. It even’s got music that uhhuh it tracks along with the the home alone theme. Music. It’s cute 

Craig: except for the results of these traps. Are realistic . So these, so these people are getting messed up. 

Oh 

Todd: God. And killed. And killed, yeah. . Oh man. Yeah. And, and so the, the girl, and you can see that she and her, uh, you know what, actually I didn’t catch that they were divorced in the beginning.

Craig: I didn’t know if they were divorced or they just having problems. Um, they, uh, the daughter and the mom who I, I didn’t recognize her from anything. She, I know she was in Harriet. I don’t know if she had a, a big role in it. Beautiful, beautiful actress. Um, the mom and the daughter pick up the dad and the dad says to the mom, thank you for doing this.

And the mom says, I’m not doing it for you. Oh yeah, 

Todd: she did say that. And I kind of wonder what it was. I was too dense to realize. So 

Craig: I have a feeling that they are separated, but maybe, maybe they’re divorced. Maybe not. Cuz it, it seems like, well, there’s animosity there. There’s animosity, but. May the kid at least still hopes that there may be some reconciliation.

Mm-hmm. , in fact, ultimately that’s what she asks for for Christmas. Um, when they get, they’re going to their grandmother’s house, their grandmother is played by Beverly D’Angelo, who I love. Yeah. Uh, I know her primarily from the vacation movies. And, you know, sh uh, Christmas Vacation is an iconic holiday movie.

I saw it like three weeks ago. Yeah. It’s a great movie. I, it’s my favorite of the series. Um, and she’s great in it. And, you know, I, I saw an interview with her where she talked about how, um, She really had a good time playing that role in Christmas vacation because that was her mom. Um, she was playing her mom, the one who always kept everything together, who was the peacemaker, you know, who really cared about everybody and brought everybody together.

And so, you know, the interview is asking her how does it feel to step into a new, what may very well become an iconic Christmas role. And she said, she said, I hope it does. Um, but it, uh, very different. But she had a lot of fun with it because her character in this movie is totally 

Todd: the opposite. The opposite, yeah.

She’s a complete bitch. . 

Craig: Yeah. Oh, she’s, she’s a cold hard bitch. They are. They’re incredibly wealthy. Like, she lives like comically wealthy. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, she lives in this, uh, huge mansion that is just absolutely decorated to the nines. Like, it looks like you’re walking into Macy’s or something. It’s crazy.

Todd: And yet, it’s so cute because in the beginning when we’re, we’re sort of introduced, it’s as they pull in to the mansion and they say hello to the, the gatekeeper there. This couple, they pull in, she’s like, oh, and she’s makes some comment. I can’t remember. The wife makes some comment to the husband about how, oh, I can’t, I hate it.

Coming to your place or coming to your, it’s always weird to me that you’ve come from this. Right, and the camera, as they’re coming in tracks through the house. As different people in the house are making preparations, the idea is this family is so wealthy, even though it’s just a get together of like five or six people, they have a staff that easily outnumber them, putting up all these decorations and slicing meats and and things like that.

And they’ve got one guy walking around coordinating it, you know, almost like he’s a, you know, police, uh, SWAT team coach. But nobody is smiling at all. . Right. In fact, they look rather pissed off and serious at each other and someone goes over and even yells at the woman slicing the meat I told you to slice at dinner.

Right? Cause they’re coming in. So you know, this isn’t gonna be a house full of holiday cheer. And I just like the way that was communicated early 

Craig: on. Yeah. And, and Beverly D’Angelo plays it really well. There was a time, I don’t know, probably 10 years ago where I think Beverly D’Angelo popped up in a c.

Commercial with the rest of the cast of Christmas vacation. And I know, you know, there was kind of the reboot of the vacation series with Ed Helms and Christina Applegate, and she camed with Chevy Chase and that, and there was a period of time where I thought, ah, I love you so much, but stop with the work.

I don’t know. I don’t know if she’s, I don’t know if she’s grown into it, but she looks really good now. She looks better now than she used to. Yeah, she’s in that regard. She’s in, in real life. She’s in her seventies for a woman in her seventies. She looks great. And she really just kind of seemed to be eating this up.

Oh yeah. Like, it just seemed like she was having a great time. She’s playing it real hard, real mean cursing like a sailor in front of her grandkids . Um, I, I mean, she 

Todd: comes in cursing. All we do is we hear her offscreen talking on the phone to somebody, and she’s bitching and cursing and just crude and crashed and the things that she says.

Uh, and then at the end, she. Right. Well, anyway, Merry Christmas to you said, Mr. Senator hangs on the phone. 

Craig: Oh, God. And, and so yeah, it’s, uh, the, the family that we’ve met, I don’t remember their names. The dad’s very handsome. Um, 

Todd: he has a very distinct look, which made me think I’d seen him before, but I didn’t 

Craig: recognize him.

Well, his name’s Alec. Uh, Alex Hassel, um, he play, it’s the Lightstone family. He plays Jason Lightstone, he’s the son. There’s a son and a daughter, and it’s, it, it, they make it out that the son is the favored one. Um, he was in the Boys, which is a show that I love. Um, but I think he must have had a small role cuz I don’t remember him from that.

But he and his wife Linda played, I, I assume his wife played by Alexis. Louder. Uh, just, I’m looking at her picture on imdb. She’s just stunning. And they have a little girl. And the little girl is named after the grandmother, whose name is Gertrude. Um, and then there’s also a daughter in the family She is with.

I, I couldn’t tell if they were married or not. I got the feeling that, uh, may maybe boyfriend. Boyfriend. Yeah. He’s like a famous actor, good looking guy. Mm-hmm. stupid but good looking, trying to 

Todd: instill. They must have just been boyfriend though, cuz he was still trying to impress her, right? 

Craig: Yeah. And it seemed like she has a kid too.

And I did not get the impression that this guy was her kid’s dad. Yeah, 

Todd: exactly. Um, Bert, Bert is the name of the kid, Bert, because they named 

Craig: the . The, the son named his daughter Gertrud after the grandmother. So the sister named her son Bertrude. , 

Todd: not to be outdone . It’s established pretty early on that not only do they have this rivalry and they can’t stand each other, but this is also geared.

The mother, they’re both vying for mom’s attention. Yeah. Presumably for the inheritance. I mean, that’s kind of what seems to be implied 

Craig: here, but it also seems like the money is the cause of the rift between the husband and wife. Mm. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s right. Like, like, uh, the, the wife doesn’t like that the family is so preoccupied with money, and I think.

Part of the problem that they are having and we meet all of them, but we didn’t even talk. That’s not even how the movie starts. The movie starts introducing us to our 

Todd: Santa. Oh, that’s right. . He’s sitting in a bar drinking with other Santas. With other Santas. So your first impression is this is a bunch of mall Santas hanging out and they’re all kind of bitching and especi.

Our Santa, who is one is completely foul mouth. And it just like, yeah, he is fucking kids. You know, they’re all assholes every year entitled assholes. Every one of ’em. This might end up being the last Christmas. He, you know, smashes his beer on the table. Like, whoa, something’s got up his, you know, stocking

And then he walks. Does he go to the fireplace? And, uh, 

Craig: I think he just walks out the door. But the bartend, well, first of all, he pulls, that’s right. He, out of his sack, he pulls a gift and he gives it to the bartender and says, give this to your grandkid. And it’s got her grandkid’s name on it. So the lady’s like, how does he know my grandkid’s name?

How does he even know I have a grandkid? And then he exits and she’s like, Godammit, that’s the door to the roof. . I’m gonna have to go get him outta there. Um, so she walks out and she’s like, yes, hey, get outta here if you fall off, it’s my at. And then she looks up and Santa’s flying away, uh, in his sleigh with his reindeer.

Drunk 

Todd: and Santa. Drunk and Santa. And then 

Craig: he stands up and barfs over the side. Burst right on her face. She’s looking up and just gets, uh, splattered with Santa 

Todd: Bar. It’s disgusting, but it really sets the tone. Yeah, it’s hilarious. It’s 

Craig: funny to, yeah. And you see him kinda, you know, going from house to house and he’s got his wishlist or whatever.

All anybody wants is cash or video games, and he’s just disgusted, um, kind of with the state of things. 

Todd: Uh, he gives one guy a lump of Cole, who’s obviously some, you know, drunk dad passed out, and then his daughter, whatever, who’s in the crib, you know, lovingly puts a present next to her. Right. So, you know, you can tell he’s just, he’s he’s pissed off and kind of tired.

Yeah. After 1100 years of this and he is 

Craig: drunk and, I mean, it’s funny, it’s a a, 

Todd: it’s an, it’s an bought Santa Clause. It is, 

Craig: but I, I buy it like, I would think that Santa would probably . I totally buy that, that would be his attitude. It’s true, um, about the state of the world today, but, He eventually ends up at this big, huge mansion.

Um, but the, the conflict that arises is the, this group of mercenaries. As it turns out, the caterers are actually this group of 

Todd: mercenaries, which is sort of our first action movie cliche. Right, right. Like, isn’t that always? I think every Steven CIGA movie’s always start out with the wait step, . 

Craig: Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And, uh, they are led by, He goes by Mr. Scrooge. They all just go by Christmas code names like Scrooge, crumps, ginger, gingerbread, candy cane, like, yeah, snowman. It’s silly, but it’s funny. And, uh, John Zamo is, uh, the leader. Um, and they, with the help of, you know, the catering staff burst into this home.

You know, they kill all of the real surface, all of them, all of the security, just, I mean, just blow ’em away with machine guns, um, and gather most of the family in, uh, the living room. Mm-hmm. . Before that, there had been a cute scene with. The daughter, the daughter had said to her, dad, dad, you didn’t take me to see Santa at the mall this year.

Uh, and there was kind of a little bit of discussion how that’s a big deal for her. It’s special, something that she gets to do with her dad every year. She also 

Todd: clearly still believes in Santa Claus. 

Craig: Right, right. And she is so cute. Like it’s ridiculous. They, must have just auditioned for the cutest kids 

Todd: because she’s adorable.

Leah Le Leah Brady’s her name. Oh, so 

Craig: such a cute kid like Trudy, right? Yeah, yeah. Right. Well, , that’s, she goes by Trudy and, and she tells the grandmother that she’s, uh, the grandmother says, oh, and here’s my little Gertrude. And she says, everybody calls me Trudy now. And the grandmother goes, That makes her sound like a whore.

Todd: right over her head. . Yeah. And 

Craig: the parents look at her and she’s like, she doesn’t even know what it means, . But there’s kind of a big deal. The dad feels bad. So he real quick runs to a closet that’s like full of games and toys and he, he grabs, uh, a walkie-talkie and he bring, he wraps it up real quick and he brings it to her and he says, this is a magic walkie talkie.

You can talk to Santa. He may not be able to respond cause it’s Christmas and he is really, really busy, but he’ll hear everything you say. Mm-hmm. . Um, and it’s sweet. Uh, and they sneak 

Todd: outside the door and they listen in on her. And of course, you know, she’s like, oh, Santa, I know you must be really tired tonight.

Blah, blah, blah. She’s like, and, and here’s the only thing I want for Christmas. And the parents are, you know, listening intently and you know, you can predict it. I just want mommy and Daddy to be together again. . I 

Craig: know. And it, it is corny. 

Todd: It’s corny. It works. Yeah, it plays, I don’t know even, I don’t even know why it plays, but it just does.

I don’t 

Craig: know because we’ve seen this movie, you know, this is what happens in these movies, you know? Yeah. The, the, the parents are having problems, but through the magic of Christmas, they realize the value of family. It sounds corny and cliche cuz it is mm-hmm. . Um, but it’s the 

Todd: Christmas message. Yeah. One of 

Craig: them.

It’s, it’s sweet and it just, it it works. It could be corny and, and maybe in to some extent it is, but in the context of this movie, for whatever reason, it just works. Because I think 

Todd: it, it strikes a balance. It does strike a balance. I think it’s, cuz they do play it straight, you know, they’re not parroting this in, in at all.

They’re, they’re being this kind of movie. And I think that’s probably 

Craig: why it Well, and everybody, not everybody, I mean, I liked Beverly D’Angelo just because she played it. She just seemed to be relishing in it. But she’s not a likable character. The sister and her boyfriend and their kid who’s always like on Instagram live being a douchebag , they’re, they’re not likable.

No. But the, the mom and the dad and the little girl are very likable. And, uh, even though you can tell that, um, there’s. Tension in their relationship. They both seem like decent people that you might, you don’t hate any of them. 

Todd: No. You don’t hate ’em. And you think, you don’t think that dad, the dad comes across really nice and liable.

You 

Craig: know, I actually was, I was questioning for a large part of the movie, like, what is wrong? Like, I, did he do something? Did he cheat? I, I think ultimately it comes down to the money, because later on the wife says something about him thinking that money is the answer to the problems and really the money is the problem.

Um, but that comes 

Todd: much later. Well, and he, and he promises too, I think around this time. You know, he pulls his wife aside and says, what do you think if we just like, could start all over. I’m sorry, it’s a little later. But he pulls her aside and says, what if we can make her wish come true? Right. And the mom’s like, what are you talking about?

I’s like, what if we get back together? And she’s like, that, we can’t do that. And he’s like, no, no. I mean, I mean, get away from the family. Get rid of all this. Leave tonight. Just go forever. Never turn back, never see my family. So it’s pretty clear. That is what would fix things. Right? Right. He’s promising.

So the family and the money is the problem. Right? 

Craig: Yeah. So, you know, it sets up all this tension and then the machine gun wielding folks come in, um, and Santa, at first he hears, you know, the, the machine guns and everything, and he’s kind of sneaking around. It’s funny the way that it’s shot. He’s just kind of peeking around corners the way that Santa does.

Mm-hmm. . Um, and nobody, nobody’s really, you know, even these hitman or whatever are not seeing him. Um, but ul initially, he’s just trying to get out of there. Oh, 

Todd: he wants to save his ass. . Even when the guy burst into the room, he’s hiding behind a Christmas tree that dude’s like, get out from behind there. He comes out, he’s like, I don’t want any trouble.

I don’t want any trouble. I just want to get out. I want to go back up on my sleigh and finish delivering my presents for 

Craig: tonight. . But the guy, for some reason, he can’t get up the chimney. I don’t remember if it’s, I, 

Todd: I don’t know if he was. He said, darn it, 

Craig: something, he was too scared or like, he didn’t have the, maybe too drunk, I don’t know.

But he couldn’t get his nose magic to work, and so he couldn’t get up. And then the guy who’s confronting him, um, shoots his machine gun, I don’t know if it’s accidental or intentional, but through the roof, which spooks the reindeer and they take off. Mm-hmm. and Santa’s like cursing at them through the window telling them to come back.

But at that point, he’s basically stuck there. And, and, 

Todd: and I would say this is like our first action sequence, right? There’s a big fight. I think there’s a big fight between the two of them. And uh, and I think it’s kind of funny because they, they use every Christmas element in that entire room for this battle.

Like, you know, they, they stumble against the tree and then he grabs the lights off the tree and comes up and tries to strangle one of ’em. And then Santa grabs this and Santa grabs that. And by the way, Santa has been having these little minor flashback. These little minor flashbacks to which you can tell must be his past.

And the first flashback is just a close up on what is obviously his face, but in like a warrior helmet. Mm-hmm. , um, this is like clearly, you know, thousands of years ago. And, uh, you get the sense, okay, he was a warrior. You don’t know how he became Santa. And I still don’t think we know how he became Sam. No.

But you know, the idea is that, oh, the, the impression that you get is when Santa starts being really, really good at beating these people. Is that okay, this guy has these abilities. Right. Like it’s been established so very quickly and cleverly by those shots of him as a warrior that the guy can fight. We just didn’t 

Craig: know it.

Yeah. And, and I don’t think that we’re gonna be able to help but conflate some things here in the middle because it really is for a long time. After he kills this first guy, he, he throws him out a window. I think he goes out the window with this guy, but the guy ends up getting impaled on a big bicycles, a bicycle, , Uhhuh,

And the other bad guys eventually find that guy. So they think that, they know that there’s somebody there, what do they call him? A mole or something? I don’t remember. Yeah. Um, so they kind of know somebody’s there. So he’s kind of sneaking around for a long time. He ends up, you know, confronting a couple of them.

And like you said, it’s all kind of Christmas gags, like canes, candy canes, and, you know, uh, filling a stocking full of, uh, pool balls and pool cues, beating the crap out of a guy. Um, he, one guy he, uh, stabs through the eye with a, a Christmas tree topper that’s a star. And then he plugs the star in and the guy’s head catches 

Todd: on fire.

And then it kind of, On fire for a little while and he’s a bit spied for a little bit. It’s like, oh, oh, . 

Craig: And, and while all this is going on, at some point I feel like it’s after the first or second fight that he has with one of these henchmen, um, he’s there, I think in that game room that, uh, the dad had gotten the walkie-talkie out of.

And so the dad had only given the girl one walkie-talkie. So the other one’s still in there and he hears the girl talking 

Todd: through it. Well, I think what he does is he takes the, cuz the, the, the bad guys are talking on the walkie-talkie of, of his, uh, of the dude he just killed. He starts spinning the frequencies saying, oh 9 1 1, I gotta get an emergency frequency like that exists.

Gotcha. Right. And that’s when he stumbles upon her frequency. Yeah. But 

Craig: yeah, and then, then he can’t leave, you know, like this little girl is counting on him. Uh, he sees her at some point, you know, through the frosty window, kind of in peril, um, with all of these bad guys. And then he can’t leave. Uh, and it’s, it’s 

Todd: cute.

There’s a lot of fun stuff through it. Like he has his list, like, so eventually, um, at this time, after he beats this guy up and does the walkie talkie, he’s talking on it and she hears it. And so even though they’re in the same room, you know, they’re being held hostage in the living room by a couple of goons, um, this girl starts talking with Santa and that’s when she realizes he’s, there’s this guy in the house that’s gonna help them.

And he’s asking her for intel. Right. And, you know, this house better than anybody else, but first she has to establish. Right, that he’s real cuz he says he’s Santa. And of course she gets excited, but she’s like, but my mommy and daddy just told me Santa wasn’t real. And this was a scene that I think we skipped over.

But, uh, um, yeah, it was just a scene where, um, they’re trying to get, oh God, we skipped over a bunch. 

Craig: We skipped over a bunch. The whole reason that these guys are there is because this, they know that this family is somehow in some sort of shady arrangement with the government, uh, where the government is giving them 300 million, um, in exchange for kind of covering up shady oil deals in the Middle East.

Mm-hmm. like government deals. Um, and so that’s why they’re there. And at one point, uh, they’re trying to, I think that they, they get, gosh, 

Todd: I don’t remember. I got, I’m getting it out of order cause I’m thinking they break. They didn’t break in at this point? Well, 

Craig: the, the, the, the mother says, you know, when John Zamo originally says, this is why we’re here, we know you’ve got 300 million down there.

She mouths off and he punches her, which I thought I didn’t see coming. , John Zamo punching a 72 year old woman. Mm-hmm. . Um, but she’s tough. She can take it. Uh, but she says, uh, you know, when I was a kid, my brother was kidnapped and the kidnappers demanded ransom. And my dad didn’t even call the cops. He just sent in his, uh, extraction team.

Extraction team, so you should know what to expect. And John Lag Giza was like, uh, yeah, I know everything. , 

Todd: I know all the details of that, and you know who all those people were and everything. So, and eventually it’s clear he is expecting this extraction team and they clearly have some plan to deal with them.

Craig: Right. And eventually they get, they do get down to the, uh, vault and they open it up, but there’s nothing there. 

Todd: Yeah. What happens is they, they, the extraction team shows up. But it turns out the extraction team’s in on it too. Yep. The douchey boyfriend of the one woman runs out, manages to get out the window and, uh, runs out and, uh, they see him and they, they quiz him real quick and he says, oh, I just escaped.

And then they just shoot him. Mm-hmm. , that’s when you know the extraction team’s in on it, because that, that he’s the guy who apparently has the key, they’ll unlock the vault. Right. And so once he’s there and they’re together, him and the John lag leg, Guam character, Scrooge go down and they unlock the vault.

But like you said, they see that there’s absolutely nothing in there anymore. So he comes upstairs and they start quizzing. And so some people are supposed to be, 

Craig: well, they start torturing. They’re, they’re like, who? Oh yeah. They, who should we torture? Mm-hmm. and the sister and her boyfriend are like, uh, torture.

Him, he’s mom’s favorite. So they start torturing him. It’s silly. Like some Nutcracker they crush his, yeah, they crush his finger in a nutcracker. And then John Za was like, um, let’s not mess around here. They’re not called finger crushers. And he grabs this giant Nutcracker and he is like, somebody put his balls in there and there 

Todd: there’s a whole gag.

There’s some reason why the daughter speaks up. 

Craig: Yeah. Cuz she’s trying to protect her dad. Protect her dad. And she says, uh, Santa’s here and he’s gonna help us. And the mom and dad are like, sh no, there’s nobody here. Nobody’s gonna help us. Don’t say anything. Um, don’t say anything. But the girl keeps going on and on until finally the dad shouts.

There is no such thing as Santa now. He doesn’t know , that there’s really a guy in the house, uh, trying to help them out. He just thinks. The girl believes, but she’s just gonna end up getting them in more trouble. Get them more hurt. Yeah. She’s 

Todd: just talking to herself on this s walkie talkie. Right. I guess they haven’t heard the other end.

Craig: Well, she’s got a earpiece. Oh, you’re right. Mm-hmm. , so they wouldn’t hear it. She’s got a earpiece. Oh, that’s clever. So, but yeah, as it turns out, we had seen earlier, like, I don’t know, just to entertain themselves or something, the. Had told the family that they should exchange gifts. Um, and what it turned into was, uh, people giving the grandmother gifts.

Mm-hmm. , um, the, the douchey boyfriend of the sister basically gives her a proposal to fund a movie that he wants to be in . And he’s like, what a, what a better gift than the gift of an opportunity. Such a douche bag,

And then the mom gives her, the sister rather, gives the grandmother a picture. And she’s like, it’s a sentimental portrait of the day I was born. And the mom’s like, yeah, I know. I 

Todd: was there, was there, it’s been a across the room. But 

Craig: then the son, well he doesn’t want, somebody’s like, you know, you give her your present.

And he’s like, oh, I think I left it in the car. And the dumb. Teenager nephew is like, no, no. I saw you brought it in here. I’ll get it for you. And he gives it to the grandmother and the grandmother opens it and she says, oh, it’s my favorite whiskey. And then she goes to open the card and the dad’s like, oh, you don’t have to read that.

You don’t have to read that. And so she reads it to herself and then just folds it up and puts it in the interior pocket of her jacket and just says, thank you, whatever his name is. Mm-hmm. . And doesn’t say anything more about it. As it turns out, the, uh, the hitman guys eventually get it out of him because they threatened his wife.

Yeah. They threatened to shoot his wife. They get it out of him that he had, it was him. He stole all the money and his plan was to take it and run away with his. and separate himself from his mother’s family. 

Todd: And I think this is where the wife comes in and gets kind of pissed, right? Yeah. She’s like, it’s, it’s you, you stole the money.

You were gonna take the money with us. Like money is the root of all this, right? Money’s the problem. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And, and so then it becomes, you know, a matter of, uh, John Zamo and his henchman looking for the money, and they end up, the guy hit it in the manger scene out in the yard. But there’s, there’s a lot of stuff that goes on.

There’s a lot of fighting. There’s, there’s one point where, um, Santa Claus, he, he goes to the gate, uh, to, to try to talk to the guard who’s been killed. Um, and he realizes that in one of the fights that he’s been in, he’s been injured. And he take, he goes back to the house and he takes. His, uh, jacket and his shirt and he’s, you know, like Santa Claus is supposed to be, you know, a jolly portly dude, port dude.

But he’s also covered in these cool, kinda like tribal tattoos, which I thought was a really 

Todd: cool touch. It was a really interesting touch. Like it, it just immediately start some mystery. Right. Yeah. Was 

Craig: going on there. That’s not really answered, which makes me wonder if they plan on following this movie up.

I mean, I feel 

Todd: like it was probably part of his warrior, you know? Right. But yeah, we don’t know. 

Craig: But like you said, he does, he explains eventually to the little girl that he wasn’t always Santa Claus. He used to be, I don’t know, Nick Abu the. Red or something like that. Mm-hmm. . And he was this warrior and he had this hammer that he called skull, skull pressure

And he was like the deadliest warrior of all time, but it doesn’t, at least, I don’t remember. No, it didn’t, it didn’t go further. It doesn’t explain how he eventually becomes Santa Claus, but I remember, uh, seeing him on screen kind of heavy and overweight. I have no idea when this movie was filmed, but I do know that David Harper got ripped for the most recent season of, uh, stranger Things.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like ripped. Um, because he was supposed to have been held in this, uh, Soviet prison, you know, and starved, and all he did was work out. So in the most recent season, he is buff. So I don’t know if that was prosthetics or if it was filmed before, but whatever, you know, he, he kind of fixes himself up and, and that leads, I think at, at some point.

Um, the little girl says over the intercom, Oh no, they found me. Mm-hmm. . And he said, cuz she’s, she at some point ran off and hidden the attic and she told him I can set booby traps, like home alone. And he says, I don’t have any idea what that means, but yeah, do that . It’s 

Todd: funny how this Santa, every now and then it kind of pops in that, you know, he’s a man out of time.

Really? Yeah. The only concerns himself of distributing presence. He can’t keep up with the latest in technology. Even at one point he grabs a gun from somebody and he just, does anybody else know how to use this? And chucks it to the mom. It’s like, all right, well you can use it. You know, the idea is he doesn’t even know what this is, but for a guy who can’t figure out a gun or doesn’t know what home alone is, he needs, he seems to intuitively understand what the power tools in the garage all do.

Yeah, that’s true. 

Craig: The later. . I don’t remember where that scene, I mean, there’s a, I feel like there’s a part where Santa is talking to the girl on the walkie-talkie and she’s kind of giving him a pep talk. Yeah. And because he’s kind of given up, he’s injured and he’s like, I’m sorry, because that’s when the, the excision squad or whatever mm-hmm.

it was, they had shown up and it turns out, you know, that they’re bad too. And Santa’s like, I’m sorry, I don’t, I don’t think I can help. And she said, of course you can. You just have to believe. Uh, and she says, if, if you only had one Christmas wish, what would it be? And he’s looking at his wedding ring and he takes it off and he says, if I had one Christmas wish it would be that I could see Mrs.

Claus again. And she says, well, then go out there and make that wish come true. . And he drops his ring and he goes scurrying after it. And it rolls right into a sledgehammer, . And he picks that thing up and like six guys with machine guns. Burst through the door and he just takes them all out. Uh oh. Yeah.

With his sledgehammer all to Christmas music. Yeah. That was another thing that I loved about 

Todd: this movie. Oh, the music was fantastic. Again, it’s so good. It was just this kind of music for this kind of movie. It was a totally serious. Beautiful Grand of Christmas movie score. Uhhuh. 

Craig: Yeah. And, and the score incorporated traditional carols that you would be familiar with, but then they also, uh, backed some of the scenes.

I feel like this big kick ass scene was back to some like sappy Brian Adams Christmas song . Yeah. Like, and, and it works so well because it shouldn’t, like, you shouldn’t have this badass action scene with Brian Adams singing some sappy Christmas song in the background. But it, the juxtaposition just works.

It works 

Todd: really well. It was great. It’s seamless. Really? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. It is so seamless. I 

Craig: just thought it was really clever. Mm-hmm. . Um, and every, you know, it was acted well. It was choreographed well, the fight scenes were really fun and exciting to watch. 

Todd: For most of the jokes totally land. Mm-hmm. , not all of ’em, but most of them totally land.

And then there’s no shortage, like we said, of gag. Right, right. But, but that never gets old. Right? That never gets stale. It’s like, just enough. Some 

Craig: of them I even saw coming, like, uh, the little girl leaves Santa a great big candy cane. I’m like, oh, he’s gonna stab somebody with that candy cane later. . 

Todd: He, he sucks on it.

Almost like he’s chomping a cigar while he’s taking these guys out. Like, what’s his name from the, A team . And then, and then toward the last guy, he pulls it out of his mouth and by now it’s, it’s sharpened to a point, right? From all the, it’s hilarious. From all the subject, right? Oh God. It was, 

Craig: that was really funny.

I don’t even, I, I can’t even remember all the gags. There are so many, but they just, they work and, and eventually, like the bad guys know where the money is. They go to get it. But, 

Todd: well, the dude, once he, once, once the father confesses, he leads them out to where the money is, right? Which is in a major scene.

It’s hidden under a bunch of hay piled up behind. And that’s what everything converges. Now you’ve got most of the family there, you’ve got all the bad guys, including the leaders. Uh, and then Santa has, you know, kind of beaten his way through a bunch of people, and he’s. Sneaks in like from the back and starts to take out a couple of them.

Craig: And the girl has taken out two of the worst of them, two of the most dangerous of them with the home alone g with the home alone. Gags while, while she’s hiding in the attic. Yeah. And that, that scene plays exactly like a home alone almost beat for beat. Yeah. Yeah. Almost. And like the same kind of jokes like, ha ha, kid, you’re gonna have to do better than that.

in that 

Todd: cool, you know, 

Craig: ball to the groin and then he falls and you know, a nail that she has set up goes all the way up in, through his chin, into his mouth. You can see like it really is, these 

Todd: are. In the audience were viscerally reacting to that. Yes. There was a collective, Ooh, from everyone in there. We, 

Craig: you know, we watched another Christmas movie, I think it was called Better Watch Out or whatever, where the kid was like fascinated with home alone and he wanted to see if the traps would really kill people.

And they did. And they did . And that’s what this is like too. It’s the same gags and it’s played in the same tone, like these two villains that this girl is facing off with. They’re over the top, they’re, they’re like, I don’t know if she’s supposed to be like Soviet or foreign in some way. Him 

Todd: too, in a slightly, he’s like sort of Scandinavian 

Craig: or something.

And so it plays, it’s funny, it, it, it’s played with the humor, but the results are what the real results would be if somebody were to fall on a matte, spiked with nails or have a nail go through. Face their face right, or get or get whacked with a bowling ball. Bowling ball too many times. Uh, I loved the part where the guy who’s still down, it’s one of those, uh, drop down staircases for the attic.

And the guy who is still down below the woman, the bad woman, has gone up and the girl has started rolling bowling balls at her and she’s kind of dodging him. The guy downstairs picks up a nail and like, for no reason at all, it like holds it up above his head. Like he’s examining it and then one of those bowling balls comes down, pushes the nail right into his head, and then he falls back onto the matte 

Todd: full of nails.

That might be one of my lone criticisms of this movie, is that made no sense that he would be holding that up and examining it . But 

Craig: I think they were reaching for that. Well, I think they were being intentionally silly. I mean, I think that’s probably true. They mentioned home Alone by name several times.

There’s no, there’s no hiding the fact that this is what they were going for. And I think it’s really clever, uh, to show it in a more, even though you’re right, it’s silly and the people probably wouldn’t respond the way that they do, but the, but that’s 

Todd: also how Home Alone was too, so Yeah. Right. So it’s like a parody really.

Craig: They’re bumbling like the guys in Home Alone. Yeah. And there’s another funny part where, um, the mom, the little girl’s mom and, uh, the sister and her kid are left alone with one of the worst, uh, henchmen. He’s, he’s been violent and nasty and 

Todd: seriously, so he, he’s just waiting to kill somebody, basically.

Craig: Right, right. He, he can’t wait to, to murder people. Um, but they end up alone with him, and I don’t even remember how they do it, but they get the better of him, and it’s just a hilarious scene where they just beat him to 

Todd: death. Yes. , they’re standing over him and each of ’em have a different implement from the fireplace and they’re just bashing, bashing up to death.

Craig: And I feel like the mom says something like, well, it is nice to do something as a family. Yes,

Todd: The obvious joke, but it works. It really works. Yeah. That was an audible laugh, especially from you. 

Craig: Yeah, it was funny. And then they’re, okay, so then they’re outside 

Todd: and ah, they’re at the major scene and Santa comes, they fight, they got some gags with Jesus. 

Craig: But does somebody take off with the money? I don’t remember.

I think, uh, John Zamo has the money and he’s on a snowmobile, and Beverly D’Angelo is either on a snowmobile with him or one of the other hinging men, and she ends up somehow getting off, uh, she messes falls or hits something, something. She gets 

Todd: off Santa, takes the baby, Jesus’s major and follows them.

Craig: Right. Like a, like a, with a sled or something. And, but the, what, what ends up happening is John Zamo and Santa end up in this like outdoor camping site or something. Yeah, 

Todd: it was like a part on the property where there was a shed built, but also it was an old, clearly there was some older almost cottage there that had been.

Torn 

Craig: down and all that was left was like the chimney in the fireplace or something. Mm-hmm. , 

Todd: I don’t know. I saw Did you know where that was going when you, the minute you saw that? No, 

Craig: I didn’t. Yeah, 

Todd: I didn’t know that was clever. I was funny. There’s a lone chimney sitting out here. Pretty sure that’s 

Craig: gonna come into play.

I, I thought maybe he’ll escape, uh, through that. But it’s, it’s a big showdown and it is big. You know, there’s, there’s 

Todd: fire. It’s, it’s diehard style. It’s like a Jean-Claude Van Dam movie. Yeah. Where there, there’s fire, right? They, they go into the shed and, you know, they’re fighting and whatnot and he, I think he fights off a couple other henchmen in there as well, but ends up pulling a grenade off of one of them, and it goes off and they, you know, fly out of this exploding cabin, which now has created fire.

I mean, it’s totally every shot for shot, like a diehard movie. And now there’s like a, almost a circle of fire all around them as they’re burning debris from the building is, is circling them. It looks just like a Van Dam movie. Oh yeah. So they’re fighting back and forth and. The whole deal is leg. Guam.

One of the gags in the movie is that there’s a, a naughty and nice lift. That’s list that’s kind of magical. And Santa just opens up this scroll and whoever’s kind of in the vicinity, it shows whether they were naughty or nice. And leg. Guam picks it up, uh, as he comes into Santa as he’s injured and lifts it up.

He says, you really 

Craig: are real. Did you notice that it like listed the reasons that he was nodding? Mm-hmm. , I, I could tell that that’s what it was, a list of the reasons, but the only one that I could read was broke his mother’s heart . Oh. 

Todd: Now on the nice list, I, you might have had to exit the theater briefly while Santa was checking on the daughter.

Probably. He opens the thing and there’s the nice list and the daughter, it’s all the nice things she’s done and one of them. Invited weird kid to party

Craig: Oh, that’s 

Todd: hilarious. That’s funny. So, you know, that’s kind of this, again, this also with the villain becomes this sort of Christmasy thing. Like Zamo the villain almost seems to track his whole childhood trauma, which led to him being a terrible person back to a bad Christmas that he had, you know, which is typical of these movies.

And he stopped believing and he stopped believing in anything and Santa and Christmas and all that stuff. Then when he sees Santa’s reel, but you know, he’s on the naughty list, he’s like, we’re gonna end Christmas right here, right now. . It’s the ultimate villain, right? Even in all like the cartoons on the TV show, like they just want to end Christmas, right?

And so they go through this huge crazy fight scene and it’s really well done. Um, and uh, basically leg Guam has Santa pinned up against this, um, Chimney that is lone chimney that is sitting outside and uh, and leg. Guam says something like, you’re, you’re gonna die now. Or something like that. And Santa says, not.

If not, if you believe Uhhuh. And Santa just puts his finger beside his nose and he’s holding onto leg Guam. And he goes up the chimney. But you see the leg. Guam has a much harder time coming up. The Chiney , 

Craig: he gets like folded in half. 

Todd: Yeah. Santa stands at the top and he’s just got this torso, man. Yeah.

And chucks it down on the ground. And that was, that 

Craig: was great. It was great. It was a lot of fun. It was really, I mean, the action is good if, if you’re, if you’re a fan of action, you’re gonna appreciate this. It is like die hard or Oh yeah. Or something like that. I mean, it’s that level. It reminded me a little bit of like, um, True lies.

Uh oh yeah, for sure, because it’s got the great action that it’s funny too. Um, but, uh, so then you think everything’s gonna be okay, but then out of nowhere, you know, Santa’s standing at the top of this chimney and out of nowhere he gets shot like four or five times and he falls to the ground. And you see that it was the head of this squad that was supposedly working for the grandmother but wasn’t.

Um, and uh, that guy walks up and I think that he points his gun like he’s gonna shoot Sam in the face. And he is like, this ends now. And then out of, you know, from off screen, you see an arm raised with a gun to that guy’s head and it turns out it’s Beverly D’Angelo. And she’s like, you’re damn right it does.

And she shoots him in the head. . I loved. I just loved her being, being, which was highly appropriate. I know I just loved her being a badass in this movie. Still cold-hearted, badass. I loved her in this movie. I just love her. Period. She’s great. . Um, But then Santa’s dying and it’s the, it’s so 

Todd: typical. It’s typical, but it was, but it works.

And it did work. It actually was an emotional moment, it feel like, 

Craig: feels like Miracle on 42nd Street or you know, any of these sweet movies where the family, some of them assholes, which reminded me also of Crumps, like , you know, some of the fa, some of the people in that family were assholes. But even by the end, you realized that they were just people, you know, like you weren’t Yeah.

Rooting against them. All these, the remaining family gather around and the little girl’s, like, we, you know, we have to believe. And she says, I believe in you. And then her dad says, I believe in you. And the mom says, I believe in you. And, um, a little bit begrudgingly, but at the same time, sincerely, Beverly D’Angelo says it too.

Todd: And she’s like, oh fuck. I believe too. . And then like, the mob’s like Jesus Christ, right? I do the 

Craig: douchey Instagram kid. It’s like, I believe, and, uh, the, the VAD aunt is like, Ugh, I believe too . Um, and it, and it brings Santa back to bring, 

Todd: brings him back to life. And, and the whole time, you know, it’s perfect.

Actually. Just excuse. He says it’s Christmas magic. And I, I can’t explain it. I dunno how it works. , which is all the explanation we really need, really, you 

Craig: know, and, and then, uh, the reindeer show back up and he’s pissed at them for taking off and leaving him and only coming back when everything. Um, was okay, but then, but then he notices the sack.

Yeah. In the back. John, like Zamo had thrown his magic sack in the fire and he was like, no, that sack was full of children’s dreams. . Hilarious. 

Todd: That was probably the funniest line. But then, 

Craig: but then, uh, well, yeah, because he delivers it with such sincerity, like he’s in agony. No, and it’s 

Todd: so 

Craig: ridiculous. It is.

Uh, but the reindeer had gone back to the North Pole to get his spare sack . And, uh, Mrs. Claus, he finds a note from Mrs. Claus says, I thought you might need this too. And it’s his skull crusher . It’s a little late, but it’s the thought that counts. Sure. And it’s cute. He, he talks to the reindeer. He’s like, oh, I can’t stay mad at you guys.

He’s like, snuggling him and petting him and stuff is adorable. And then he just, Flies off, right? Yeah. Like he says goodbye and flies off, uh, the classic Santa Sleigh going across the huge full moon. Um, and I thought that there would be some cynical, uh, cap scene. There’s really not. There’s, there’s a, a really brief.

Not really mid credits, it’s just after a few seconds of the credits, there’s a little scene where the douchey, uh, Instagram kid is, you know, on Instagram live, like showing the bodies and like, whose guys dead? That’s what happens. Be nice guys.

Oh man. And that was it. And, uh, I had to pee again. So I, I made you sit through the just to credits. 

Todd: Sure. These are the things, this are the things we do for the, you know, journalistic integrity of the program. Yeah. Had to make sure there wasn’t another end credit scene and there wasn’t. And there 

Craig: wasn’t.

But man, you know, I walked out there. Like through, through the whole movie. I just had the biggest smile on my face. It was funny. It was, it was sweet. Yep. Everything. Like, I, I don’t really have anything negative to say about it. It looked expensive. Yeah. Uh, it looked really great. It was shot really well.

The action sequences were super exciting and really well choreographed and, um, great performances from Lego Zao and Harbor and, uh, uh, Beverly D’Angelo. But there wasn’t a bad person in the cast. No. I thought everybody was perfectly suitable. 

Todd: Yeah. For their roles. They were all great. Yeah. The little girl 

Craig: was adorable.

It was so, you know, her interaction with Santa, he’s this, you know, he’s Santa Claus, but he’s also this big tough mercenary type guy. But with him, he’s clearly got this. So with her the size, he’s clearly got this soft spot. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. . Well, she’s taught him to believe in Christmas again, right? Yeah. I love that bit where he’s lying and he’s starting to die.

And the, um, the, the guy says, oh, you know, What does he say? Not you killed Santa. He says, uh, I don’t know. I don’t remember. No Santa. Oh, you saved Santa uh, Santa saved. Oh yeah. He goes up to Santa and he says, Santa, you saved my daughter. And he says, no, she saved me. Yeah. . 

Craig: And I don’t care how corny it sounds with us talking about it, it is corny, but it works like it just feels so appropriate.

Yeah. To the tone of the movie. I just really feel like they did such an excellent job of balancing it. That 

Todd: was a ch a challenge. Right? 

Craig: It should be. It doesn’t seem 

Todd: like it was. And you know, it struck me because I came into this movie completely blind. Like I had seen the title, I had seen the poster coming across advertises new movie.

And of course this is in my mind I’m thinking maybe we could watch this, you know, if, if it comes out when I’m there. And, uh, but that’s all I knew. I didn’t look up anything about it. I didn’t know anything about, I assumed it was a horror movie cuz it was called Violent. Right, right. Santa. . And then as the end credits were playing, Tommy Cola popped up on the screen and I’m like, Tommy Cola.

Tommy Cola. Oh God. Like we’ve seen mm-hmm. at least one movie by him that we really liked. And it turns out, oh yeah, it’s dead. Snow one and two. Yep. What is it about, I think at least a quarter of the Christmas movies that we’ve reviewed on this show came from Scandinavian countries like Norway, a bunch of ’em, things like that.

Right. Like rare imports. Rare imports we loved, but it was quirky. Yes. Syn we didn’t like as much, but it wasn’t a comedy either. Right. But we, yeah, it’s unique and it stroke an interesting tone. And then Dead snow. Dead snow, which just, it has a wicked sense of humor. Mm-hmm. that that movie and the second one is even better than the first.

Really. There’s just a perfect little comedy blend there that really works. It’s, it’s played a little dry. It’s really violent. Um, and it kind of throws you in different directions. It’s, it’s different from what this movie, I think would’ve been like if you had put it in the hands of an American director, to be quite honest, I think it would’ve had a slightly different sensibility.

I think the satire of it would’ve maybe been played up more. Mm-hmm. , um, I don’t know. Just things played out very much like they did in Dead Snow, to be honest. Right. Which really worked for me. And so I felt like this guy’s got a really great handle on mixing horror with comedy and now we know he can make a perfect Christmas movie as well.

Craig: Yeah. It’s wild. You know, it just, gosh, it just seems like it shouldn’t work. Uh, but we’ve seen this kind of thing before where you take your conventions of a Christmas movie and, and you. Give it a twist. Like Crumps is still one of my favorite. I know. Uh, Christmas movies and it’s genuinely scary. 

Todd: It’s genuinely scary.

It strikes a really interesting tone, doesn’t it? Yeah. But it’s also 

Craig: sweet and about the importance of family and being there for your family, and that’s the lesson that they all learn in the end. It is a 

Todd: Christmas movie in that sense. It’s about a 

Craig: parody of a Christmas, even Christmas vacation. Those vacation movies were not family movies, you know, the, uh, the original vacation, European vacation, they were raunchy movies.

Um, and then Christmas vacation comes along and there’s a lot, there’s the same type of humor, but it sets it in the context of Christmas and has that Christmas message of the importance of family and being together. And it just works and believing. And . Yeah. Well, and it, and it, and it just works here too.

Uh, I don’t know. I gosh, it’s such a unique thing for us to see a movie not having any idea how it’s going to be received. Mm-hmm. , whether or not people are gonna like it, but. Folks, uh, if you like the kinds of movies that we like, you are going to like this movie. I say go out, go to the theater, put a mask on if that makes you feel better.

Uh, be cautious or whatever, but go to a theater and see this movie with an audience. Yeah, because I think that you’re gonna have a lot of fun. 

Todd: It’s great because number one, it’s gonna be great with an audience because of the reactions, cuz it’s a comedy and, and also a hor, bit of a hor. I mean, I’m, I’m, we’re gonna put it in the horror camp just cuz we have to Home Invasion movie is what this is, right?

It’s no different from, uh, you know, funny games or something like that. . But, but I mean, seriously, uh, it, it’s that too. And, um, so if you were to strip out the extremities of the violence and make this a more like pg, PG 13. It’s actually a pretty decent family movie. Yeah, absolutely. And all ages who, you know, 13 and above kind of ages kind of movie where I think everybody would, would love it.

We say this 

Craig: all the time, it depends on the sensibilities of your kids. Yeah, of course. You and I would’ve watched this at nine, 10 years old. Right. And been totally fine with it and would’ve seen movies I watched Die Hard when I was a little kid. Yeah. You know, like, uh, and, and other things. And so some kids.

Would probably be fine with this and would probably really enjoy it. It’s, it’s not for kids. I mean, it is really violent. There’s a lot of cursing. It, it earns its r Yeah, for sure. Sure. So if, if your kids, you know, if they’re not ready for that or you’re not ready for them to see that kind of thing, then, then no, it’s for grownups.

But you know your kids. Yeah. If you think they would like it, they probably will. Yeah. And, and you could have a lot of fun watching it with them. And that’s really, yeah. That’s like, and I think you, you would be like the cool parent. Yeah. 

Todd: do it. Don’t you wanna be one of the cool parents? Huh? Don’t you? All the cool parents are doing it with their kids.

Yeah. But like, that’s my point. You, if you stripped all those things out, this would just be a movie you would naturally just wouldn’t think twice about going to see with your family. Yeah. So that’s the only consideration really, is the violence level. But if that were out, like all the humor, all the storyline, the feel of the movie, the, I mean, there’s nothing more Christmasy.

It’s all just so warm. Mm-hmm. and Garlandy and Yeah. You know, it just, Feels like that 

Craig: throughout. We have done Christmas movies where maybe there’s like a Santa in the background or no, this is a Christmas movie. Through and through. Through and through. Yeah. A hundred percent. I, I loved it. I don’t know.

I’m a little drunk too, so , maybe thats, I, I had a great time and maybe, you know, maybe it’s just, it’s been such a good time to get to see you and hang out with you. It’s weird, like you’re one of my best friends that I haven’t seen you in like six years. It’s crazy. So just to get, to actually sit down with you and have a conversation with you face to face, it’s nice.

Maybe in six years we’ll do it again. Yeah, 

Todd: we’ll see. . If you wanna ensure we’re around for six more years, check out our Patreon page.

I loved it too. I thank you, Craig. It’s been a blast. I’m so glad we could visit. We need to make a shorter time to. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thank you guys all for listening. Very much Merry Christmas to you guys. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. Um, if you’ve gone out to see this movie recently, be one of the first to make a comment about it.

There’s very little online right now. Yeah. So, uh, we’re gonna have this podcast out to you real fast. Check it out. Um, find us on two guys.red 40 net.com, or just search for us by searching two guys in a chainsaw podcast. Leave us a comment on our webpage, uh, on Twitter. Leave us a nice little review on Apple.

If you enjoyed this episode, if you didn’t enjoy it, just skip that part, . All right, we’ve got more Christmas themed or holiday themed. We have more holiday theme movies coming up for you, uh, these coming weeks. Uh, so enjoy your holiday season. Hope you are making the best of it. Until next time, I’m Todd.

And I’m Craig with Two Guys and A Chainsaw. 

We admit: This week is a very looong stretch tribute, in tribute to Leslie Jordan. It’s a “horror-comedy” that’s not the least bit scary OR funny, but it’s the best we could find to showcase Jordan’s breezy comedy chops that were taken from us far too soon. So forget about the movie and just enjoy learning a little bit more about the man, courtesy of Leslie Jordan Super-Fan Craig.

Frankenstein General Hospital (1988)

Episode 323, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Todd: And I’m Todd.

Craig: Well, I feel like I need to start with a disclaimer. A couple frankly, . First of all, we are not morbidly obsessed with death here on Two Guys and a Chainsaw . We do enjoy our tribute episodes, but really it. It’s sad that we seem to be losing lots of, uh, special people.

Um, and this week we are doing a tribute episode for Leslie Jordan. Leslie Jordan is a actor, was an actor, um, known principally for comedy. Leslie Jordan is not known for his work in horror. This is really a stretch for us , but. When I, uh, heard that Leslie Jordan had passed, first of all, I was shocked. Um, it, it really hit me like, like, uh, a ton of bricks, um, because he appeared to be in good health.

He was relatively young at just 67 years old and it really seemed that he was at the zenith of his career. Um, having worked in Hollywood for many years and having gained some recognition, especially for his work on Will and Grace, uh, where he played Beverly Leslie, and was just absolutely hilarious. His career really hit a peak, uh, during the pandemic when he started posting videos to Instagram, just of, you know, kind of his musings and telling funny stories about his life and his childhood.

At the age of 67, he became a huge Instagram star . And I remember during the pandemic it was a rough time for all of us. Uh, of course we were all. You know, Hold up in our homes and isolated from friends and family. And Leslie Jordan really just was a breath of fresh air. He would open his posts with, Hey, you fellow hunker, downers, uh, , and, and he would just, You know, sometimes, sometimes he would talk about the pains of, of being alone and cooped up in his house.

He was sheltered in place with his mother , but he would also just tell funny stories from his childhood and, and honestly he was just kind of a ray of sunshine. Leslie Jordan was. Fairly recently, you know what he hoped his legacy would be, and he said that he wanted to be remembered like Dolly Parton would be remembered.

Just somebody who was joyful. Nobody had anything negative to say about. When I heard that he had passed away, he was, uh, in a car accident in Los Angeles. He was on his way to film scenes for the successful sitcom that he was currently working on. Call Me Cat with My Bibi. And, uh, it’s believed that he had some sort of medical emergency and, uh, that caused him to crash his car into a building in Los.

And he was pronounced dead on the scene. When I heard that, and this, this doesn’t happen very often, you know, often I hear that somebody, uh, in the public eye has passed away and I’m sad and I’m, it has an impact on me. But I cried when I heard that Leslie Jordan had passed because he’s kind of an inspiration to me being a gay man and a public figure.

and being so universally loved. Uh, he really is just an inspiration. So , of course, I immediately went to imdb. I knew that he had been in horror movies. Um, And, and we had a few to choose from. He was in, uh, I think the final Friday, one of the Friday the 13th movies. He played a, like a short order cook in that movie, and he was in one of the Demonic Yoys movies.

Yeah. And, uh, I’ve, I’ve seen, when I was a kid, I saw the original demonic toys, and that would actually be a fun movie to talk about, but I hadn’t seen the one that he was in, but I suspected that he was just a bit player in it. And he was also just a bit player in the Friday, the 13th movie. But I saw that there was a movie that he had done called Frankenstein General Hospital,

And he, he was among the top. I had never heard of this movie, but I suspected that it was probably available on YouTube and it is mm-hmm. . And so I watched the first 20 minutes of it just to kind of see, you know, if this is something that we should do. And even just from the first 20 minutes, it’s absolutely.

Awful. Yeah. like 

Todd: it is just one of 

Craig: the worst movies that we will have ever done on this podcast. Yeah. But 

Todd: this goes down in 

Craig: history. It does, but it features Leslie Jordan heavily, and if there’s anything positive to be said of this movie, it’s just that he’s in it and he’s young and. And, uh, silly, uh, any features prominently in this terrible, 

Todd: terrible movie.

Craig: And so I tortured Todd and, and made him watch it. And I guess we’re gonna talk 

Todd: about it , I’m sure. I’m sure it was torture for you too. I mean, , but the good thing about the movie is that it did have a lot of Leslie Jordan in it. I mean, so many, so often we do these tribute episodes and you know this, this well known actor has a bit part in it and there’s not a lot for us to talk about as far.

They’re acting or anything in that movie as it goes. But, uh, in this movie, at least, he is playing the Igor to the Frankenstein. Right. And he has a lot of, not just a prominent role, but he has a lot to do. Uhhuh, like, he’s on screen a lot, he’s doing a lot of comedy, a lot of physical stuff. He’s, he’s in it throughout and so at least there’s that.

I’m, you know, , it is a terrible movie. It. Horrible. Almost unwatchably, bad . And it as I was , and you know it, oh, you know it. Five minutes in. I was thinking about, uh, that other movie, uh, Transylvania 6-5000. And we also thought that movie was bad. It wasn’t this bad. No, but they’re on the same spectrum. Uh, they’re both trying to be horror comedies.

They’re both going for a Mel Brooks. Actually, I think this one’s almost going for a Zucker Abrams style like Airplane or, um, Naked Gun style of comedy, and it has a few comedians in it who have done things like that or bigger things, but man, this movie just falls completely flat. There’s almost no bit of it.

That is funny. No, I don’t know if I laughed once. Oh no, I didn’t. For sure. And I’ll just say, it reminded me that comedy’s hard. , it’s, that’s true. Comedy is hard to pull off. Uh, actors know this. Sometimes people who aren’t actors don’t realize it. They think it should be easy to be goofy, but comedy is 10 times harder than drama.

Mm-hmm. , this is one of those movies that demonstrates that. Probably somebody looked at the script and maybe you and I looking at the script could go, yeah, this is gonna be a goofy airplane style comedy, and in the right hands with the right actors. They could have pulled it off maybe, but this is just, um, a stinking pile of unwatchable, garbage

It 

Craig: is, it’s horrible. Listeners don’t bother. 

Todd: Don’t watch it. Don’t 

Craig: watch it at all. It’s really not worth it. I mean, honestly, it, it might be worth it to watch the first scene. The first scene is kind of funny and Leslie Jordan features prominently. Um, but when I say kind of funny, that’s being far too generous.

It, it reminded me a lot of student bodies. Wasn’t that the, we, we did that movie, right? It’s going for stupid, stupid humor. Mm-hmm. , um, low brow slapstick. Psych gags, psych gags, sex jokes, humor, 

Todd: the obvious silliness you know 

Craig: of, but it just, it, it just falls completely flat. I mean, that, that’s the problem with it.

I mean, the, the internet calls it the worst Frankenstein movie ever made. Now, I don’t know if that’s fair because I haven’t seen them all, and, and the only one that we’ve done was what? Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell or 

Todd: Yeah. Something. Yeah. The. 

Craig: Hammer one, and, and it was pretty bad, but , yeah, it looks like a masterpiece compared to this, but it was 

Todd: watchable.

Craig: It’s terrible. Um, I mean, it, it tries to do like a slapstick kind of sex comedy to the story of Frankenstein. But in modern day, um, in a modern day hospital, it, it starts out with like, I guess one of the. Good ideas that they ran with was kind of setting it up like an old school monster movie. So you get like title cards that like describe the scene that you’re going into.

Like 

Todd: it’s a silent movie in a way. Yeah. 

Craig: Mm, yeah. Mm-hmm. , uh, and so, uh, The first one tells us that, uh, we are in the basement of General Hospital. It’s Dr. Frankenstein’s lab, and then his voiceover. As I near completion of my creation, I grow weary. The only thing that keeps me going is my belief in the genius of my great, great grandfather.

Note regarding the Valter I inherited. When I turned it on to test it, a strange phenomenon occurred all the. Is drained from my laboratory. No one suspects my real identity. Therefore, I roam the halls freely under the assumed name of Dr. Robert Frankenheimer. So anytime there in his lab, it’s in black and white.

Uh, the, the lab scenes are the only somewhat salvageable scenes. Yeah. Because you’re right, they, they are reminiscent of the old movies. They’re 

Todd: reminiscent of young Frankenstein too, I think, in a way. Yeah. Which had to be an inspiration for this film, young Frankenstein. Absolutely. Absolutely. Even in the cast.

Yeah. Right. But 

Craig: young Frankenstein is really funny. Mm-hmm. , I just don’t know how this movie missed the mark so badly. Like, I just kept thinking, do they not know they’re making a terrible movie? And, and I almost felt like they did even in, okay. So in this opening scene, he’s already got the monster partially built.

He just needs a few more things and I. His assistant played by Leslie Jordan, um, brings him two legs. I got a Master. Boston Marathon specials . They’re wonderful. Any problem? Oh, no problems. Master. Good boy. You should have seen those two. Who were they ever squished? I’m talking pancakes. I never heard anything so freaky.

Jogging down the street and hit by a bus, then smashed into a wall. The only thing in one piece was their legs. They must have just just gone under the bumper and been just grounded up like hamburger meat. It was the most, I get the idea Iggy. It, it ends up that he’s accidentally brought two left legs and Dr.

Frankenstein is like, oh, I should have known, I couldn’t trust a short order cook to be my assistant. And Leslie Jordan’s like, no master. I, I’m so sorry. Here, just soft off my leg. You just go ahead and just salt right off and, and it’s, and it’s Leslie Jordan. As Leslie Jordan. Yeah, he is this diminutive little man with a funny little voice and this deep southern accent, and just everything about him is charming.

And, and funny. Yeah. He 

Todd: has that thick Georgian accent. It just sounds cute and fun no matter who it’s coming from. . Yes. Right. You know, and, and so he, he’s got that going for him. And like you said, he, he just comes across as a harmless, sincere. Nice heart on his sleeve kind of person. And I was watching, I have to admit, I am not that familiar with him and his work.

I don’t watch much television. I didn’t see Will and Grace. He, he looked familiar because he’s popped up in little bits and pieces here and there. So I at least recognized him, but, I didn’t have the name recognition that you did when I heard that he had died, and when I went to, I think you might have sent me a YouTube video that was a little bit of a retrospective remembering his career that just happened to have been filmed like two weeks before his death.

Yeah, so it was more of a, Hey, Leslie, Jordan, your career is really taking off again. Let’s go back and talk about it and what got you here kind of piece. And I was really surprised, uh, to see all of the cool stuff he’s done. His attitude, his demeanor. I thought, man, I, at 67, I wanna have something like this happen to me, you know?

And so very tragic, but watching him in this and then seeing clips from his other movies and clips from his TV shows in that series, I thought, yeah, he just kind of plays himself in a way, Uhhuh, you know, that’s not to diminish him at all. As far as his acting ability goes, you still have to be able to act in front of a camera no matter what character you’re playing.

Jeff Goldblum plays himself in pretty much everything he’s in, right? Yeah. And he’s very well respected. This guy, the same like he just, he was for me in this movie, and especially in this opening scene, he was the only thing worth watching. And I’m not just saying that because we’re doing this tribute episode about him, he literally seems to be the only person on this entire set that has some command of the scene.

And what he’s doing and it’s not like it, you know, he’s this huge presence. I just mean like, you don’t look at it and go, oh God, grown, grown, grown. I mean, you do, because the situation is stupid. He’s not given smart things to do, but Right. He, he’s got a definite character. That character is believable.

He’s acting out that character very well. And in another movie, this would’ve been funny. He, he clearly has a physicality that works. His timing is quite good. I, I love it when he is holding these legs and at one point when the doctor is talking, he just kinda like, kind of drops one a little bit and puts his arm on it.

I mean, he’s just so casually kind of doing these little bits with these legs while the doctor is talking. And I, I thought, whoa, that, that’s kind of funny, right? He, he’s cool. He’s cool, he’s fun to watch even in this horrible. 

Craig: He really is. You know, and there are other people in this movie who have done other things, but they’re not fun to watch

No, they’re, well, not in this, but you know. Yeah, that’s what I mean. The guy that plays Frankenstein, mark Blankfield, he’s a working actor. He cont he, he’s prolific, he continues to work. He can do 

Todd: this kind of stuff. I don’t know why he’s so bad in this movie, right? 

Craig: I don’t either. Because you really get the sense that he’s not a bad actor.

No, it’s just a terrible movie. The guy that plays the monster Irwin Keys. Really recognizable. I re, I recognized him from House of a Thousand Corpses. He’s this big hulking kind of scary looking guy. Oh yeah. He’s not, you know, like if it were a high school play, You would, you would clap at the end and think, oh, bless their hearts.

But like 

Todd: they really tried . Yeah. 

Craig: Um, Lou could, could tell, uh, plays Dr. Saperstein. He was in Young Frankenstein, and, and you’ll recognize him too. He’s been in a lot of stuff. Um, so it’s not that everybody. Is talentless. That’s, that’s not the case. It’s, it’s just a terrible 

Todd: movie, you know, in that way it’s really like Franken, uh, Sylvania, six, 5,000, you know, a-list stars in this movie that is just bad.

Yeah. And this is 

Craig: worse, but, you know, yeah. I didn’t hate that movie. It was stupid, but I didn’t hate it. I, I don’t know, I just don’t even care enough about this movie to hate it. Like, I, I kind of hated it when I was watching it cause I was like, oh my God, isn’t it over yet? It really, I just, I just wanna talk about Leslie Jordan.

You talked about his timing. Um, Megan Malawi, who herself is a comedic genius, her partnership with Leslie Jordan on Will and Grace, in my very humble opinion, was the best part of, of that show. Uh, I, I loved that show. I thought it was a great show. Will and Grace. Least interesting characters to me. It, it was the, the side characters who were the funniest and, um, Leslie Jordan was a semi-regular, but, but he was a guest star.

He would pop up. A couple of times each season and , Alan and I would just wait for it. Like, honestly, like that’s what we were watching the show for was for, to wait for him to show up and, uh, he would, he would always. You know, of course this is the writing, but he would always, uh, announce himself. Like he would just pop up out of nowhere in a scene and announce himself with whale, whale, whale.

If it isn’t Karen Walker, . Like every time, and every time we would hear that, like we. So happy and excited, and they had this hilarious re like adversarial relationship. But it was, it was just comic gold because, uh, they were both rich VAD characters and they were adversaries, but at the same time, they were friends and they, they played that relationship just beautifully.

He so deserved the Emmy that he won for, for his role on that show. And, you know, again, Thinking about him. This is a, you know, he was born, um, in the south. He was, he was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was a southern boy and he just had so many things going against him. He’s tiny. I have no idea how tall he is, but I would guess no taller than five two.

And he’s gay. Uh, effeminate and to, to be all of those things in the south, in the 1950s and 1960s. And I, I just can’t imagine what that would’ve been like. And, and he was somebody who knew he was gay from a very, very early age. And, and he came out to his mother at age 12, she said to him, I think that this will make you the subject of ridicule, and I can’t bear that.

So you should live your life quietly and to see how he didn’t, how he didn’t, how he went forward. Comfortable in his own skin, being himself and, and bravely frankly, being his, his genuine self and just, he just had such a positive attitude about. Everything. And, and, um, he moved to Los Angeles when he was a young man.

Uh, just in the past couple years. He posted on Instagram some photographs of himself when he was in his twenties and he was hot

He had kinda this hairy Robin Williams hotness going on. . He was, he was ripped. He was like rocking his six pack. Uh, He was a horseback rider. He, uh, he wanted to be a jockey, but he was too tall,

But he, he, he worked with horses that’s hilarious and trained. He trained and rode horses, uh, and was a big part of the gay scene, uh, in Los Angeles in the seventies and, and eighties. Somehow managed to, uh, avoid, you know, being. Directly affected by the AIDS crisis, but he, uh, volunteered, you know, during the AIDS crisis, he, uh, delivered meals to patients who were sick and suffering from aids.

Uh, sadly the, the, the sad part about his life, but there’s a happy ending to it. Uh, he fell into. drugs and alcohol and, and became an addict and really struggled with that for a large part of his life, but came through it, uh, and was sober for I think probably the last 20 or more years, uh, of his life. And he talked about that.

And he was a religious guy. He was raised Southern Baptist and coming from. A gay Catholic, I can tell you that it’s a challenge to grow up in the church, I should imagine. 

Todd: But 

Craig: regardless of how, you know, his church felt about his lifestyle, uh, he. Maintained, uh, a relationship with God and, and, and just last year released a gospel album,

Todd: I mean, the guy is just like singing and dancing and sing. Yeah. 

Craig: Acting. And, and that’s, that’s why I wanted to do this because honestly, he’s an inspiration. I wish that I could live a life like that and, and bring that kind of, To people. And he was friends with Dolly Parton. Um, she also released a statement when he passed away, and she said that, well, she, she called him little brother and she said that they had a special bond, a special connection, but she said that she also suspects that everybody who knew him, People, uh, who only knew him because of his celebrity who, who didn’t know him personally, but she said that she suspected that everybody felt that they had a special relationship with him.

And, and I agree. I did. I didn’t know the man. And, and I, I, I don’t even think that I realized how much I admired him until he passed. Hmm. But that’s, that’s why we watched this stupid ass movie,

Todd: Do we even need to talk about the movie? I mean, it’s, I don’t know. 

Craig: Like, it’s basically the story of Frankenstein. But throwing in like horny nurses and a bdsm. Psychologist with big boobs, . Yeah. 

Todd: And that sounds exciting, but it’s definitely not . 

Craig: Not at all. Well, I mean, if, if you’re 12 years old and and unaware of the internet, 

Todd: boobies.

Ooh. I was trying, while I was watching it, I was trying to figure out why I was rated R I’m like, there’s no way this movie is going to throw anything of me that’s R-rated. And I think the only thing it is, is they’re like, Three sets of boobs, , and not in a sexy, you know, oh, you know, they’re like making out kind of way.

It’s like, oops, my shirt came off kind of thing. , or, oh, I’m running out of the bathroom, topless, or 

Craig: whatever. Just like there’s, there’s the lipo section, Dr. Dr. Hoover, who just like carries around a giant industrial vacuum cleaner. He’s got a morbidly obese woman on the table, but he turns on the vacuum like before he inserts it, and it sucks off one doctor’s to pay and it sucks the nurse’s clothes off.

And she’s like, ah, . And then she runs into the next room where there are other doctors, and one of the other doctors says, I wish you’d come to one of my surgeries dressed like that. It’s so bad. . Yeah, it’s ridiculously bad. Mm. The only good parts are when little teeny Leslie Jordan is like sneaking around the hospital, like on tippy-toe.

Uh, and there are lots of running gags and I love a running gag, but when they’re not funny, the first time , they’re 

Todd: even worse. , I know. 

Craig: But one of the running gags is like the antagonist of the movie. He’s like the boss, Dr. Ruger. He, he runs the hospital. He keeps just catching Leslie Jordan out of the. Of his eye and he keeps asking people, who is that tiny man?

Yeah. I don’t know. And Leslie Jordan, like they’re harvesting organs. At one point he has to go collect the head of a. Kid from some other hospital, and he’s supposed to get the head of this genius kid, but he, he looks in the coffin and says, you’re too ugly to be a genius. . So he goes to a different coffin, ends up being the wrong kid, and there’s a joke about how the kid who’s head he ends up taking, uh, he died because he went down on a girl underwater and she was.

Like turned on that she held him down, clenched his head between her knees and he drowned. Yeah, I wish, I wish there was anything good that. We could talk about, but there’s not, in fact like it just, there were times even in the scenes, the scenes with Leslie Jordan and Mark Blankfield who played Dr.

Frankenstein. Their scenes were the ones that I enjoyed the best, but even then, I felt like there was something off, like sometimes the timing would be off and I couldn’t tell if it was because they didn’t really know their lines or if it, if they were making it up as they went along. sometimes like, uh, Frankenstein would just go off on this maniacal laughter.

It just seemed like they filmed the first take and just ran with it cuz it seemed like Leslie Jordan wasn’t sure of the timing yet. Like do I, do, I just let him laugh maniacally for. 30 seconds. Uh, is he done? Oh, okay. My next 

Todd: line, the camera work is really flat. A lot of these scenes are filmed in one long take.

The camera sits there and. It barely moves while we see three characters in almost full body on the screen. And so, you know, I think something that really works with the Mel Brooks movies and uh, the airplane type movies, the Zucker Abra movies, is that they’re cinematic. They have a style to them, even in just the cinematography.

And so when these actors are working, like we get to see their faces, when a guy goes off on a monologue, the camera might slowly dolly into their face or might cut to a closeup on their face. And so whatever they’re doing that, um, you know, make some funny or interesting is right there. But to see somebody going off on a monolog, While he’s standing in the middle of the screen with two other people, by his side, where there are all these other distractions and just people just standing there not knowing what to do.

you know? Yeah. But, but just look at him. It’s just, it just feels weird. I think that’s, One of the many things, you know, I’m, I’m trying to get lessons from this movie. Like, I, I really, when the movie was done, I thought, I suppose that could have been funny because it’s so stupid uhhuh that it was bad. But I’ve seen so many movies that are so stupid.

Intentionally, and they make it funny, like the airplane movies are dumb as hell. The jokes are obvious and silly and dumb, but they’re funny because it just delivered better, I guess, and filmed better. I don’t know how to pinpoint it. I’m looking for, you know, the formula. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard. Is that so hard to pinpoint?

You either got it or 

Craig: you don’t. Well, Dolly Parton has famously said many times, it takes a lot of money to look this cheap in in, in describing her own look. I feel like that applies to these types of movies. It takes smart people. to make a really good stupid movie. Yeah. Like Mel Brooks is a genius in terms of film writing and directing and, and comedy.

His movies are stupid. You laugh at the jokes because they’re so stupid, but they’re also witty. The same thing can be said of, uh, naked Gun, airplane, all these other movies. You’ve mentioned? Yeah, they’re dumb. The humor is dumb. It’s low brow, it’s juvenile. But, but like you said before, comedy is hard. Um, you know, the, the little bit of acting that I have done, It specifically in college.

Um, I did both dramas, uh, and comedies, and I felt so much more comfortable and confident in drama. I, I, I’m so insecure in comedy because it is hard to be funny. It’s really, really hard. And I, you know, I think I had varying levels of success, but , it, it’s tough. And I think you’re right. I think that this movie had some potential and I think that there were good people in it.

Somewhere along the way, something went wrong and it just, it, it’s just flat, like you said. I didn’t, I didn’t laugh once I, I, I smiled. I’m enamored with Leslie Jordan, but that’s, that’s it. That that was the only appeal. The sex comedy fell flat. I, I guess I thought it was kind of funny when the horny nurse bangs, Dr.

Franken, signed in the elevator and other people boarded the elevator and like didn’t even notice. Like that was kind of funny. I guess. , 

Todd: I . I think something else now that I’m thinking about it that really works too is that with, there’s probably no surprise that those movies, like we’re talking about Mel Brooks and whatnot, they tend to be ensemble like he has kind of an ensemble, he has actors and actresses that he works with on a regular basis, and they often end up in this, you know, different characters in different movies.

They all have that, you know, they have that ability. And I think part of their ability is they’re not just saying funny lines, but they still have a strong sense of character. Like Dom DeLuise. You know, Uhhuh can walk on the screen and have a bit part in a, in any movie, Mel Brooks, whatever, and it might last for three minutes, but when he leaves, you have a strong sense of that character like, He almost seems like a full fleshed out, you know, silly man or whatever he is playing in that movie.

It’s strong, it’s confident, and this movie doesn’t really have that, even with the people who are on screen for most of it. They’re just flat characters too. You would think in a comedy that’s just about telling jokes supposedly that almost anybody could step into that role and just do the jokes and do them well.

But I think, for example, I’m thinking about that doctor. Um, the psychologist who keeps popping in and out, who’s supposed to be angry and kind of a villain in a way. Yeah. He’s kind of getting in the way. He must have, he has some poll over the hospital. I thought he was more of like an executive or something of 

Craig: the hospital or something.

Yeah. Jonathan Farwells, the actor’s name. I think he did some work on Star Trek. 

Todd: Yeah. And he, he has a good look for the. He has kind of striking features, um, you know, kind of like evil, older, middle aged man kind of thing. And he has this great setup where he has this secretary who at first, you know, is wearing the glasses and seems kind of mousey or whatever, but.

Every subsequent scene where they come on board and she’s there, or he’s, you know, scheming to get Dr. Frankenstein kicked out looking for the little man and dictating things to his secretary, blah, blah, blah. She is getting more and more sexy and it sort of becomes revealed very quickly that they have this, uh, Sexual relationship that’s comically casual.

You know, like suddenly she’s typing, but now she’s in skimpy lingerie with garter belts and things and just stands up and walks across the room and casually picks up a whip. And then you see he’s hanging upside down with his boxers on. That kind of thing. Shows up a lot, you know, in these movies. Um, it’s actually kind of a trope by now, right?

It’s kind of, kind of been there, done that. It could be funny in this. , but he’s just not an interesting character. 

Craig: Right. And that’s the thing, like as you’re talking about it, like I feel like if somebody explained this movie to me, I would think, oh, that sounds funny, . Yeah, 

Todd: but it’s not

It’s true, but 

Craig: it’s not funny. Oh gosh. See? I honestly don’t know what else to say about it. Ben Stein is in it. . That’s random. . Oh gosh. What year was this made? 1988. That was surely after Ferris Bueller. Ben Stein slumming it in this movie, . 

Todd: Oh. Um, Bobby Picket. Is in, has a very short cameo in here. Bobby Bos picket.

Oh yeah. And I did a double take at the credits on that because I instantly recognized him as the monster Mash guy. He’s the one who wrote that must have just bankrolled his whole life. That that’s so long. He didn’t do a lot after that. But he was like a, kind of like a comedian, kind of a, I think a radio guy.

And uh, he wrote that song of Monster Mash. He was a musician and. Some people he would play with every now and then and threw that band together and did that Boris Karloff impression basically for that song. And of course that song’s played every year on the radio and movies at parties, things like that.

And he, 

Craig: I know I thought surely we would get a monster mash. You know, like, yeah, come on. You got the guy? Like, yeah, it’s a Frankenstein movie. Do the mo. I was waiting for it, like the movie was over and I’m like, oh. And, and when the movie’s over the, the main guy Frankenstein, like there’s a voiceover wait.

Uh, don’t leave yet. It’s not over. And I was like, oh, thank God. Finally the monster mash. No, it’s just some stupid, like, oh, I’ll explain what happened six years later. And it’s still just dumb . Oh 

Todd: yeah. Not interested . Wow. Thank you. About as fun as watching the slides of your aunt’s vacation, you know Uhhuh?

Yeah. I didn’t even know he was in it until after, cuz I didn’t really look up anything about the movie. And then when I saw he was in it, I was like, wait a second, did I miss something? And I went back to rewind to see if they even just made some joke or reference. Like, anybody’s gonna know what this guy looks like.

First of all, of course nobody really does. He does, but at. Did they put some kind of in joke in there? No, there’s nothing. It’s just this guy, they popped him in the movie very briefly as a dude standing in an elevator. That’s it. Missed opportunity there too. Yeah. Um, , 

Craig: uh, well look, I, uh, I’m sorry for making you watch this

Todd: Yeah. It made you watch stuff. I gotta get a little bit of. Of bad every now and then . 

Craig: Yeah. But to be fair, this is one of the worst movies that we’ve watched now. We have watched, uh, we’ve. We’ve talked about infamously, our, our lost episode, street Trash. That movie was terrible because it was terrible. Just because it was in such poor taste.

Like Yeah, I, I, I hated that movie. I, I don’t even like, 

Todd: actively hated it. Yes, both of us actively despised 

Craig: that movie. I don’t even like to think about it or talk about it. I don’t want people to watch it. It’s, it’s garbage. But this movie is maybe, W maybe the worst movie 

Todd: we’ve ever . Worst than don’t. Don’t go into the woods.

At least go, don’t go into the woods was fun in its badness. Um, right, 

Craig: because you could point and laugh at it, like, , you guys are terrible. This like, I don’t know, maybe, maybe they took it too seriously. Online, you’ll read that it’s the worst Frankenstein movie ever made. And then there are people who say, oh, that’s not fair.

And uh, some people are like, oh, it’s so bad that you know it, it deserves cult status. But the movies that are so bad, they’re good, are are entertaining at least. Yeah. Like at least you have fun watching them. And this movie just isn’t even fun. No, what I’ll say is if, like me, you are a fan of Leslie Jordan, and, and you know, it, it, it really is fun to see him young.

He just has these soft eyes and the most endearing smile. I’m sitting here in front of my computer looking at his profile picture on imdb and he just has this huge smile on his face and that’s really just. , what he embodied just, he just glowed with, with positivity and, and energy comparable, almost really like Richard Simmons.

Like they, they both just got that kind of really positive energy and he’s just an absolute delight. So if you, uh, are a fan of his, I would encourage you to go to YouTube and watch the first. Seven minutes or so. The first, the first scene with him, it feels very much like a Saturday night Live. Uh, skit. It, it, it’s not polished and, and it falls a little bit flat, but he is just cute as can be.

Um, and it, it, it’s cool to see him in his younger days. Yeah. I’m just, I, I’m just so charmed by him, you know, during the pandemic. I’d be scrolling through Facebook and he would pop up and, and he was very fit when he was young, but he was nearing 70, uh, when he passed away. And so in his videos, he’s got this pot belly and he’s.

Bouncing around and spinning around with batons and just , just having, just living his best 

Todd: life. It’s funny that he found himself in horror movies, honestly, because he doesn’t seem to be the kind of guy, like, we need this guy in our horror movie. You know? Yeah. Uh, he, but he, I’m, I’m just looking at the list.

Jason goes to hell the final Friday. He was in some horror comedies like this one or Undead or Alive A Zombie. I’ve never heard of that, but Demonic Toys, personal Demons, fear Incorporated. And he was a recurring character in several seasons. At least three seasons of American 

Craig: Horror Story. Yes. That’s just what I was just gonna say.

Uh, he did pop up an American Horror Story and, and he was really fun in those I. I really liked his character in this, uh, coven. One of the seasons was coven and he was a real, he was obviously the season centered around witches, and he was on like, uh, the high witch council. But, but again, I mean, he was just playing himself, but it, it was.

He was great and I love American Horror Story. I love Ryan Murphy. Ryan Murphy, uh, I think he’s probably about our age. And so all of the actors and actresses that he loves, he draws into the, his shows. Um, we’ve talked about it before, um, you know, like Betty White, just these people. Who are Angela Lansbury?

People who are just universally loved and deservedly so because they’re, they’re so unproblematic, , you know, there’s, there’s really nobody less problematic. You know, Leslie Jordan was so open about, His life and about his struggles with, uh, addiction. You know, that, that that can be very dark. But to see somebody be so honest about it and to have come out of it on the other side and, and lived such a fruitful life and, and made such an impression, he had over 6 million Instagram follow.

That’s crazy. I think he went from something like 800,000 or something before the pandemic to over 6 million and he said it was just surreal. Like he would open up his Instagram each morning and he would have a million new followers. like it blows me away. Close to a thousand people listen to us every week, , but, but 8 million people, I mean, you have really made an impact on the world.

And, and not just because of that, because I know that there are a lot of people with lots of followers on Instagram who are not as inspirational as Leslie Jordan, but I, I was honestly, uh, moved to tears because not only had. Really reached a peak in his career, but I just felt like he still had so much more in him.

I, I, I thought that we were gonna have him for so much longer, and I thought that we were gonna be getting more of him, and, and I was so happy about that, but, He went quickly, you and I, you and I have talked about, you know, if you’re gonna go, go like that. If, if I’m gonna go take me in my sleep, take me quickly.

Mm-hmm. , uh, he didn’t suffer. He went out on a high note, so I just. I, I thought it only fitting that we say some nice things about him. So thank you for indulging me. 

Todd: Yes, thank you. And thank you, Craig for the, the idea and for bringing that up and giving us this opportunity to talk about somebody, uh, who is well loved and admired, who’s taken from us too soon.

But, uh, Did leave this Turkey in his wake

Craig: Oh, I, I, I feel like maybe we should feel guilty about exposing this . Um, like I, uh, it’s on his IMDB profile, but I looked at his Wikipedia page and it’s not even listed as one of his credits on his . 

Todd: I wouldn’t blame it either. You know what though? I’ll tell you what, when I post this, I’m gonna post this on our page, and I’m also going to post a link to the video on YouTube and for what it’s worth, as long as that stays up.

Anyway, I’m going to have it show starting at what I think is the funniest scene of his in this movie, which is him making breakfast and coffee in the morning in the laboratory, and you get to see why. Iggy, which is his Igor name in this movie, has his weird way of walking . Yeah. That’s 

Craig: great. Yeah. We won’t spoil it.

We’ll let you watch it. It’s good. Go check it out. All right, well, thank you for listening to another episode of Two Guys in a Chainsaw. Uh, if you liked this episode, we’d love to hear from you. If you’ve seen this movie, I’m sorry, probably, but if you want to talk about it, leave us a message on any one of our profiles online.

You can find the podcast basically anywhere that you can find podcasts. Uh, just Google two guys in a chainsaw podcast and you’ll find us all over the place. We do have a Patreon page. Uh, if you’re a big fan and want to. A little bit more support and we’ll offer you some bonus content in exchange. But of course, we’ll continue posting all of our regular weekly episodes for free for all of you.

Uh, until next time, I’m Craig. And I’m Todd with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

As usual, we searched high and low for a Thanksgiving-themed horror movie this year and, as usual, we came up with something only tangentially-related to turkey day. A woman finds herself alone on a college campus during Thanksgiving break and has to deal with a bunch of crazies chasing her around. Man oh man, did we have fun laughing at the utter absurdity of Kristy. Won’t you join us?

Happy Thanksgiving, loyal listeners!

Kristy (2014)

Episode 322, 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, happy Thanksgiving to all of our American listeners out there, this is another one of those months we try to scrap together some horror film just to stay interesting and as a podcast that relates to Thanksgiving.

And there aren’t many to choose from, to be completely honest with you. For some reason, Thanksgiving just isn’t a holiday. People wanna center horror movies. I don’t know why. Anyway I got online and as usual, I just looked at some lists to see if there was anything new that came out. We’re we’re going through the dwindling number of Thanksgiving movies, movies that could even tangentially be called Thanksgiving Horror Movies.

And this is one of them really. Yeah, the movie that we’re doing today is 2014’s Kristy, and the only reason we’d call it a Thanksgiving horror movie is because it does technically take place during Thanksgiving. Yeah, , there isn’t much mention of it. But it’s about a girl on a college campus who gets stalked by some crazy killers during Thanksgiving break, of which she is one of the appears to actually be her and two security guards on this entire college campus for this entire break.

So yeah. So that, that makes this a Thanksgiving movie, and I’m glad you know, it’s, it’s a horror movie that actually was suggested to us by one of our patron Gary. Yeah, thank you very much for suggesting it when we called out on our Patreon page for anything we might have missed because that’s helped in the past.

We found some interesting holiday movies just by reaching out and, and, oh, oh yeah, this is, this is one we hadn’t noticed before and our patrons have helped us out, so thank you, Gary. For suggesting Christie from 2014 directed by Oliver Blackburn and written by Anthony Jess Whisky. Mm-hmm. Ali Blackburn has done the ovie Donkey Punch.

Have you? Yeah. Have you seen that? Yeah. Have you, you have, huh? Uhhuh . I heard that’s pretty terrifying. Kinda. No, it’s kind. No. 

Craig: Oh, it’s not, no, it’s really more of a psychological thriller. I mean, the whole movie is built around the joke of Donkey Punch, you know, like this sex thing that nobody really does.

At least I don’t, I hope not , but in the movie, a bunch of douchey like frat guys convince their kind of nerdier new frat brother to do this to a girl and it kills her and. Hi, JX and Sue, like, I mean, it’s, it’s a stupid movie. Is it really? Yeah. I, it wasn’t bad. I, I watched the whole, I watched the whole thing.

Todd: Okay, fair enough. So you wouldn’t call that a horror movie? That’s not anything we’re gonna 

Craig: really do, huh? No, I don’t think so. I, I don’t know what it’s labeled on IMDB or anything, but I would say it’s more of a psychological thriller. I mean, it’s, there, there is lots of violence, but other than that, no.

Other major horror elements. Okay. Anyway, and then the writer Jazwinski, he wrote the shallows, which I’ve also seen and wasn’t bad as far as shark movies go. It was okay. It wasn’t great. It was just one woman, Blake Lively in some fairly shallow water with a shark stalking her. Like that was the whole movie.

But wow. It kept my interest. She’s very beautiful to look at, so that didn’t hurt anything either. . 

Todd: Well, he, he wrote a movie called, Mary again, it seems like a horror mystery thriller kind of movie out in the out in the ocean. And to starred Gary Oldman. So I mean, that’s something in a movie called Satanic, which I kind of looked up after I was looking up more about him and I’ve got a little bit interested in it.

Maybe we’ll do something like that in the future. That’s supposed to be four, I’ll read it. Four friends on their way to Coachella, stop off in LA to tour true crime, A cult sites only to encounter a mysterious young runaway who puts them on a terrifying path to ultimate. So that doesn’t sound like it was written by some random person, does it?

Craig: I don’t know. Could be interesting. Could be terrible. It’s interesting though you said that movie’s called Satanic. Yeah. That that was the original title for this movie. 

Todd: Nature. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, it’s, I wonder why I, I guess you know this movie. All right, so I hadn’t seen it before. Hadn’t even heard of it before.

Honestly. I thought it was really well made, like really well made filming wise, cinematography wise, there’s some really interesting situations. And so other than that, it’s pretty standard. Stalking, killing movie, and I was waiting for a twist, really, to be honest, that that never came. So it was very straightforward.

This girl, like I just said, trapped in an empty campus over Thanksgiving break and a bunch of guys and one woman, but she’s not 

Craig: really trapped. That’s what’s frustrating. Like, yeah, she’s alone, but she, this, this whole movie mostly takes place you know, on this college campus just. Run and keep running.

Todd: Just leave. Yeah. or, or 

Craig: hide. Like it’s an enor. It’s a, it’s a college campus. You should 

Todd: be able to hide somewhere. That’s somewhere that’s unbreakable, right? Like just behind a big steel door somewhere. Lock that, you know, in a janitor’s closet. Something. Yeah. Right. I mean, these people are coming after her.

Just have knives, . Well, right. I 

Craig: mean, and it, you would think that she was wearing a homing device because Oh yeah. Wherever she goes, they’re right behind her. I, I just don’t understand that. I went to college, I live in a college. You make it around the corner and get out of their line of sight for a second and you can find somewhere to hide.

It’s not, 

Todd: yeah, I, I think you’re right about that. I mean, you’re definitely right about that. And, and it, it’s almost comical at times how quickly they find her. Like it’s got at least twice, maybe three times. That horror movie convention of she has run so far from them and you think she is absolutely, you know, at least has some time to breathe and then she turns around and there’s somebody standing right behind her , which is a little maddening, but it it, I mean, it makes for an intense movie if you can look past that

But can 

Craig: you, No that’ss 

Todd: the question. Well, yeah, I guess you’re, I mean, you’re right, right. Sorry, I’m trying to say nice things about this movie. I’m really trying because it’s not bad. It just, no, it’s not nothing remarkable. And in that way, you’re right, it’s, it’s a bit disappointing. The, the actress, the main actress is Haley Bennett.

She’s been in a number of things. The, there’s a remake of The Magnificent Seven. In 2016, she was in the movie version of a book the Girl on the Train, which I, I really liked that book. And she’s very busy. She’s acting once or twice a year in some increasingly bigger things. It seems like she was in the movie Borderland.

Which is in post production right now based on a very popular video game franchise. And I think that’s probably going to be very big when it comes out. And she’s 

Craig: good. I mean, yeah, she’s great. She’s very sympathetic. You’re rooting for her. Emma Watson was the first choice. For the lead. That probably would’ve made the movie more successful.

Just, yeah, because of the name recognition. I think they also considered Shalene Woodley, who is very successful right now too. But the actress who does the main role is, is fine. That’s the thing. Like I have seen this movie before. I saw it probably. Sometime soon after it came out, because it’s been a long time when Gary recommended this and we were talking about it.

I told you. Yeah, I’ve seen it. I don’t really remember much about it. It’s just a girl getting chased around a college campus by a guy and a mask and that 

Todd: is what it is. Yeah. Like . Exactly. Yeah. It’s exactly what it is. And I had 

Craig: forgotten that it’s actually more than one guy in a mask. I, you know, there, there’s like, A whole cult deal, which you could explain in a second.

But yeah, I mean that’s, that’s it. Like you meet a girl, she seems nice. Everybody leaves for break. She bumps into the wrong person at a gas station, and then she gets chased around. Yeah. For the next hour and 10 minutes. 

Todd: Well, they’re even wearing the same mask, so you know, I can’t, can’t fault you for

Yeah. And 

Craig: they’re just, they’re just guys in hoodies, different color hoodies. That’s how they’re billed on imdb, like gray hoodie, blue hoodie, . It doesn’t make any difference because they’re all wearing masks that looked like they just took aluminum foil and like pressed it against their. 

Todd: Yeah, exactly.

And, and it, it’s weird again, I just, I kept waiting for something significant or revealing to happen because there are moments where they zoom in on their eyes, like there’s something behind them or there’s some sign, something significant, I don’t know, emotionally or whatever about these guys. And then there’s a moment where she unmasks one of them and that.

Which happens I think in like a bathroom or something. She finally kills this dude with a bat that she has wrapped up with nails. And wax him in the back of the head with it and he falls back. And so he kind of undergoes a slow silent death and she un unveils his face and just looks at it. And I’m, I’m going, is he supposed to be familiar?

Is is he a That’s what I thought too. . Is this a twist? Well, what’s going on? Like, I was just a. Full of anxiety, like, why can I not recall this guy’s face? And I, 

Craig: she even kind of looked like her boyfriend. I’m like, wait, what? ? 

Todd: Yeah. Or one of the security guards or something. I’m thinking, was it the guy in the, I mean, there aren’t many people to choose from, right?

No. and, and that was another thing I was thinking of as we were watching this movie. I was like taking careful stock of the five other people that she comes in, random encounters. Wondering which one of them might end up being the one, but it’s exactly the person that turns out to be, you know, well, there’s no sur I mean, there there’s no surprise.

No. 

Craig: You know who they are. The, the beginning of the movie, like, what is it? You, you, in the very beginning you see what seems like found footage. Film, yeah. Of these people in hoodies killing a girl in a field and in the background, very ominously. You keep hearing Christy

and then there’s, there’s like news reports about missing college students and you see this whole thing like on the dark web and this voiceover is, Kill Kristy, follower of Christ. If you kill Kristy, you kill God. Kristy is pretty pure blessed. Find them, hunt them, know their fear. Show your work.

Like, 

Todd: wow, you wrote all that down? I did. I wrote it all down. Wow. So 

Craig: it’s a whole cult thing. Like there’s this cult of people who wear hoodies and aluminum foil on their face and kill pretty 

Todd: privileged girls. Yeah, I guess not because they’re privileged, but for religious reasons, I guess. Yeah. 

Craig: But I feel like that’s one, that’s one of the things, like they have to be pretty and good or innocent or whatever, but they do also target girls with privilege, which is ironic because.

Our girl who is not named Kristy her name is Justine. She’s not privileged. No. It just happens that her privileged in, in fact, it’s suggested that she, you know, I don’t remember. She has to do well so she can keep her scholarship or something because her family doesn’t have money, but her roommate.

It does come from a family with money. And at the last, she was gonna stay with her, but at the last minute her family called and was like, oh, dad’s coming home, so we’re all gonna meet at Aspen. So the roommate goes off, but she’s like, you can borrow my BMW for the weekend. Yeah. And it, it’s only because Justine drives that BMW to the gas station to get snacks.

That she ends up getting targeted. 

Todd: Yeah, exactly. So she, she has the appearance of a privileged girl, even though she’s not so, right. Oh, I guess it’s, that’s part of the tragedy of the story, right? Right. Wrong, wrongly targeted , 

Craig: wrongly targeted, but it, I mean, she wins 

Todd: So

It’s true. Could you imagine this movie, if she hadn’t won? Would it have been a better movie? I’m not sure. I don’t know. Maybe 

Craig: because basically this movie is the strangers. A college campus, but the strangers is a much better. Movie. I, I, I think part of what makes the strangers so compelling is that the heroes, the good people don’t win.

And when, you know, it’s the famous scene when Live, Tyler says, why, why us? Why are you doing this to us? And the girl in the Mass just says, because you were home. Oh. Like, that’s so chilling. It’s just, yeah. There is no reason. It’s just you were home that that’s, This movie’s kind of like two. Yeah. In fact, the second title of the movie was Random.

Hmm. I, I, I don’t, I don’t know how they eventually came up with Kristy. I don’t know if that cult, Satan 

Todd: was, was the title of the movie too, right? Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. Satanic first, then Random, and then Kristy, apparently. Yeah. I don’t know. It makes me wonder if maybe the whole cult thing was written in at the last.

Todd: Oh, yeah, you’re probably right 

Craig: to get some, but I don’t know. I, I don’t know if 

Todd: that’s the case. It could be, because it seems like in a way they’re setting it up to be a franchise or a sequel because we learn that this isn’t just some little local cult. This is something that’s organizing online at the end you know, there’s a, a.

A map of the USA and you see these, these little Ks, you know, pop up all over. So I guess, I guess it’s a religious cult that somehow thinks that when they’re killing white, privileged. Pretty girls. They’re doing something against God. Yeah. Which they hate. And they just need to do this and then post their stuff online, their videos in their little group, like their own little Reddit forum in the dark web or whatever.

Craig: But it just seems mean like, yeah, why? Why these? Girls, especially since kind of the leader of the little faction of this cult that we follow is a, a woman you know, a, a girl probably approximately the same age as Justine. I, I don’t recall. If you actually see or hear her name in the movie, but she’s, bill is Violet.

She’s played by Ashley Green, who is also a very successful young actress. Justine is at the gas station just getting snacks for her and the very friendly security guard in her dorm. Yeah. And This random girl in a hoodie and sunglasses is just being weird. First of all, she’s like throwing, she’s like picking up magazines and just tossing them on the floor.

I guess Justine drops something and Violet picks it up for her, and Justine says, thanks. And she’s like, I like your 

Todd: car. . Okay, , thank you. And then, You’re pretty. And then, yeah, Justine’s like, all right, you’re weird. You know right. Works faster. 

Craig: And then, but she ends up, so she’s checking out at the register and this girl walks up behind her and the guy’s like, 

Todd: you’re rockstar.

If you’re not gonna bar anything, you need to boogie.

How much do these sunglasses, what does a price tag say? I want a discount. What’s your id?

I want a discount. Look, I’ll pay. I’ll pay.

I don’t want anything from you.

You know, you try to do something nice for someone, and this is the shit you get.

You 

Craig: dunno what shit is, you don’t know what shit is

And then as she’s walking out, I think she’s like, bye Kristy, or something like that. So my point is, why, why are they doing this to these. ESP if it were all men, I mean, based on the last three or four movies we’ve watched, I’d be like, oh, that tracks men are trash. So that makes sense. But why? Why is this young girl a part of it?

And she looks like she’s been through some stuff 

Todd: like Yeah, her teeth are not great. 

Craig: Yeah. And, and, and she’s pierced. Not that I have anything against piercings, but she, she looks rough. She looks pale. I don’t even know how, I mean, she’s, she’s the actress herself is a beautiful woman. But I feel like her lip, I feel like her lips are almost like gray or, 

Todd: I don’t know.

It’s almost like there’s some drugs or some heavy maybe. Something going on there. Yeah. Right. I, I, I think it’s more about class perhaps. I, I just think perhaps this movie is a little more timely now in, in that regard than it would’ve been before. Or it’s just some disaffected, disenfranchised people who are just pissed at the world.

Yeah. And then they wanna unleash themselves. The world and get their revenge somehow. And so they found a scapegoat. And their scapegoat is God ultimately, right? So that religious makes it feel slightly noble, and so you kind of have an excuse, you know? And so I, I, I don’t know, it was kind of like Hans and Shades of Qan on and things like that of just people who just get weird, crazy ideas in their head because they legitimately are for whatever.

Down on their luck, just a franchise. Mad at the world, mad at the man. And rightly so. That makes sense. They’ve just tapped into somehow some darkness and bad influence. I think that’s kind of what it’s getting at here. And so there you go. There’s your motivation. , you know, it’s not satisfying, but it’s, that’s what it is.

Craig: Yeah, I think you’re right. And it, it does make sense. It, I just feel like. I don’t know. There’s just not enough to it because then they just, she gets back to campus and they just chase her around like, yeah. Another thing that bothered me about the movie is that like apparently on Thanksgiving break, the entire electrical network is shut off on campus.

bullshit. It is not, no, I’ve. 500 yards from a college campus my whole life. . Yeah. Like life goes on. That’s the other thing too, like there’s no point in time when there aren’t people on 

Todd: campus. Yeah. There’s somebody there, there’s some professors doing work over the weekend. There are students who cannot leave.

Right. There’s not 

Craig: only one student who stays behind and that they give. Master keys too. like, oh 

Todd: yes, she can get into anything. 

Craig: You’re the only one gonna be here. Here’s the key to everything on campus . 

Todd: That’ll go well, right , and at least they gave her one security guard in the one building that she’s staying in.

And then there’s one other security guard at a, apparently the only. 

Craig: Yeah, that the only gate like, like it’s a prison. Like what? 

Todd: Not much as prison . Now that tracks sometimes, but you know, , yes. It’s really, the premise is silly. We gotta all admit that and the motivations are kind of okay, whatever. Let’s get behind that if we can at least, you know, have an interesting movie.

And that’s why I was thinking there’s gotta be some twist, you know, there’s gotta be something that makes this a little more than what it seems like to be on the surface. It’s really 

Craig: predictable once they start menacing her there she’s kind of freaked out and so she calls her boyfriend and he’s like, I’m gonna come back and.

She’s like, no, no, I’m sure it’s fine. 

Todd: Don’t come back. I’ve got my security guards with me here too, 

Craig: so, right. And he’s like, okay, I won’t. And I’m like, okay. 25 minutes until he shows up, like, yeah, . It was 

Todd: just so predictable. 25 minutes until he shows up and gets killed. Right? Yeah. Right. But 

Craig: it was also, it was also frustrating because all of these people around they just keep getting picked off in the most stupid ways.

Like the security guard who’s so nice, like they obviously have a relationship, like they’re friends. Yeah. And he, you know, he’s a big dude and, 

Todd: and competent. I mean, he’s on top of it. Totally. Not stupid. He’s not dismissing stuff or anything. 

Craig: No. But. He doesn’t even get to fight, like I guess. No. Doesn’t he just, he just opens the door and walks out and they stab him in the 

Todd: neck or something.

It’s kind of weird, right? Like he’s outside. Apparently he’s seen something that disturbs him. Yeah. We don’t really know why. Maybe it was one of those people with a knife, but he tries to run and come back into there while she’s trying to get out and somehow the door’s locked. And I don’t really understand why.

Cuz she just came in through that door. Maybe she locked it and I forgot about it. But anyway, he can’t get in. She can’t get out. And he, with his back to whatever, freaked him out. This whole time he gets whacked over the head. It’s like suddenly all of the competence that we’ve seen from him before just completely goes out the window.

And the other thing too, I kept checking like, is this a period piece? Why is everybody on landline phones all the time and running for landline phones? Where’s her cell phone? Yeah. Where’s this guy’s cell phone? He’s actually calling people. He’s getting on his walkie talkie. Like, why can’t anybody successfully make a call out?

The bad guys? Oh yeah, the bad guys have no problems with it, so it’s like, oh, okay. Yeah, there are cell phones here. So what’s going on here? Like why, what ? Well, and 

Craig: there, there is one time when Justine gets her hands on a cell phone, but it comes after a time that like she, she 

Todd: runs to this house? Yeah, she runs to this 

Craig: house and she’s like, Scott, Scott.

Todd: Who the fuck is Scott? Oh God, I can’t, I could not figure this out for the life of me. I thought we were going to a flashback or something. I thought the movie was getting weird. It’s literally like a house, I guess, on the campus. I mean, it looks like a, the ranch house, one level ranch house. She goes inside and I guess this is the maintenance guy.

Craig: I have no idea. But the movie treated it like, we should know who that is. Like, oh yeah, Scott. Thank God Scott’s. 

Todd: Right, right. Yeah. Scott haven’t seen before and have no idea who he is or why. He’s in a house on the camera and he has a shotgun 

Craig: and a dog, and there’s a swing set in his front yard. What ? 

Todd: And he’s high.

And that’s the excuse that we have for why Scott Acts. Super weird When she’s there, he believes her immediately. They kinda lock the door, but she’s like, go get your cell phone. Go get your cell phone. And he disappears. And she’s sitting there and waiting for the light to come on outside because there’s a, a motion sensor light.

And he comes back with a shotgun and she’s like, where’s your cell phone? Where’s your cell phone? And he just says, oh, the police would never get here in time. What, number one, no, that doesn’t make sense. And number two, why does she just let that go? Right? Why doesn’t she just grab Stone Scott and be like, before you do anything , call the police.

Lead me to your cell phone. I’m gonna call the police. And then you can do whatever you want with the shotgun. Like it’s just, honestly, the movie is a series of really bad decisions, which well, right, as you said earlier, makes it distracting. And instead of just, you 

Craig: know, call the police. Even then just wait.

Like, yeah, it’s, instead, don’t go out there 

Todd: like, which is exactly what he does. Everything’s misty, super misty, and, and foggy. And so you can’t, it’s like Silent Hill. All of a sudden you can’t see two feet in front of your face and he just walks out into it with his shotgun further and further away from the door, and 

Craig: then his dog gets out and they kill his dog.

So mean. How they ate these 

Todd: people. Yeah. What did the dog come up to? Two. I mean, that was a big mean dog. What is it? A Rottweiler or something? Yeah. Yeah. Looked like it. It, I mean, that dog. Nobody can just, if that dog comes at you, you’re not gonna just like snap its neck, you know? No, there’s no way. But in the fog, apparently this dog runs at this guy, you don’t hear a struggle.

All you hear is 

Craig: for a long time, like it sounds like they’re torturing the poor 

Todd: animal. Yeah. hate, they’re way too competent, you know, to be, they are , it’s dumb, and 

Craig: they’re just, they’re. College age guys, like, there’s nothing special about them. 

Todd: And I think, I feel like that is what that whole reveal scene was supposed to be like, oh my God, these guys aren’t special.

You know, they’re just, this is just a random, once I figured out, I, I couldn’t recognize the guy’s face. She just sits there, I think. And kind of remarks in her head at how random this really is. And he’s not even much older than she is, if at all, and just looks like a normal dude you’d see down the street, you know, clean cut.

But with that being the message, like, God, they really are. They really seem supernatural , you know, in their ability to find her wherever she is. Wherever she goes. Doesn show up, doesn’t matter. Show up silently. You know where 

Craig: that is, you. Right. Even though the fog is so dense that you can’t see more than five feet in front of you, yet they can track her wherever she goes.

Yeah. 

Todd: I mean like the movie in these huge places, 

Craig: the Right, the movie got bad reviews based on the writing, but they did say that, you know, she did get a lot of praise from the lead. Actress got a lot of praise for her performance, and I agree with that. It’s not, it’s. Incompetently made movie. Oh God, no.

It’s just stupid. Every, it’s just a series of stupid events. Like, then she runs to the library. Okay, why not? Cause she’s got a key, but that’s what I was gonna say. She, she does get, what’s his butt’s Scott’s cell phone and she calls nine one one. But apparently, 

Todd: The cult has hacked his cell phone. Oh, or did she what?

She, one of the bad guy’s, cell phones. I think she tried to call 9 1 1 and either got interrupted or it didn’t work, or something like that. And then she received a call on the cell phone? That’s, yeah. And then the person said, did you just call 9 1 1? And she’s like, yeah. And then the person’s, you know, basically tricks her into revealing her location, which you, you would hardly think they would need it.

I mean, they seem to be able to find her no matter what, but she’s like, oh, I’m running to the library and I’m gonna lock myself in the library. And the woman on the line is like, okay, well stay there. Yeah. And then a couple minutes later, or seconds later, the woman on the line says, haha, Christie, don’t you know that the maintenance man’s phone number is posted all over 

Craig: campus?

Christie? That’s right. That’s 

Todd: right. Yeah. So instead leaving the library, she stays in there. She stays right? 

Craig: She stays in there until they show up and like spook around. Like that’s the other thing. Like it, it’s just the same thing over and over again. She gets to a new location and kind of hides and then they slowly creep around looking for, it just happens over and over again and again.

Here at the library, instead of running out the back door, she runs to the. Where they find her. So she jumps off and then gets up and runs away . That is not how real life works. No, it’s not. You do not jump off the roof of an, at least it’s, it was at least two 

Todd: stories. Oh, it was three. It was three at the least.

Yeah. Oh God. 

Craig: But, but, but she went through a tree, so. Somehow its 

Todd: worse. , she’s fine. , she limps for like three seconds as she’s running away. And then that’s it. Yeah. Now I will say, as you said earlier, like the plot is stupid. It is so full of holes, it is so unbelievable, and it’s baffling to the point of distraction.

That being said, As you keep saying, and I keep saying the movie is well made, I would go so far as to say that it is pretty top notch for any movie, let alone a horror movie that you know, when we do have our sequences of. The guys there inexplicably and looking for her. I think there’s genuine tension there, and I think the cinematography is really inventive.

One of the, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll call out two things that I thought were kind of fun. Number one is we do get that typical montage, so she’s by herself, right? So we get kind of a, a quick montage of all the things she’s doing to entertain herself while we’re there. I, I really thought for a moment where we were gonna get a Tom Cruise risky business you know, dancing in her underwear moment.

Yeah. It almost happened, but, but you know, it’s these quick cuts of her swimming, her jogging, she’s found a lot to do actually. Right. And I thought that that was stylish. Yeah. I liked it and it kept bringing up the swimming bit and I, I, it was so much so that I thought, okay, like, The purpose this is serving is, it’s, it’s establishing that she’s fit, she can run, she’s good at swimming.

All of these things are gonna come to play, right? But she’s probably gonna have some swimming bit in this or use that to her advantage. And that’s the other scene that I did like. She runs to the pool, which is a place she’s intimately familiar with and has spent a lot of time not before her 

Craig: boyfriend gets killed, which is another frustrating part because he just, he literal.

Drives in mistakes, just, or excuse me, mistakes. Violet for Justine. So goes chasing after Violet, and then Justine’s chasing after her. And she’s like, no, wait. And then a guy just pops up and kills him. Like . 

Todd: Yeah. It’s really unsatisfying that they could have left 

Craig: that out. Like it’s just an extra kill.

There’s nothing compelling about it at all. There’s no tension. It’s just, Hey, I’m here. Stab 

Todd: me. Yeah. I mean it’s, it’s like the whole shining thing, right? It’s supposed to establish that, oh, here, her night in shining armor’s never coming. Right. But it’s so unsatisfying. Yeah. Mm-hmm. and you wanna feel bad for her, but just the movie seems so silly at this point.

Mm-hmm. , well, she ends up in, in the pool, and I don’t think this makes a lot of sense because there are a thousand places you could hide. It seems like a swimming pool is maybe the worst. Mm. 

Craig: Because then also you’re gonna be. Which means that if you have to run away again, you’re gonna leave a trail, which she does

Todd: But anyway. Yeah. But, but she gets in the, she’s the guy, she’s in the, the office of the pool and she’s hiding under a desk and somehow she manages to get out of there while the guy’s searching in there and she out, ends up outside the pool and instead of hiding in the bleachers, Or leaving lockers or Right.

If we’re leaving right . She decides to go to the most open space in the entire building into one of the most vulnerable places and lower herself into the swimming pool by the edge of it. And this guy’s at the far end, and he’s swinging his flashlight around and as soon as he swings his flashlight toward her, she ducks down and holds her breath.

This was well shot. Yeah. Yeah. And it was tense because I was waiting for a hand to come down and grab her or for her to pop up. And as soon as she popped up, he’d be right there. Right. Which, kudos to the movie for not being quite that stupid, I guess. But the 

Craig: alternative is that nothing happens, like Yeah.

Which it, it just works. And, and it’s not to say that I don’t. Again, I agree with you. There are so many other places to go besides in the pool, but I do almost feel like it’s believable that he wouldn’t find her there. You know, she’s pressed up against the wall on the same side that he’s on. So even if he were to swing his flashlight, he’s not gonna see her.

No, I 

Todd: don’t think he would see her, and he would also be like, well, why the hell would she be in the pool? So I don’t think you’d do much, but give a quick glance at the pool and just look to see if the water’s disturbed. You know? So so yeah, I mean, that bit’s believable. So if we’re gonna say the filmmaker made this choice and they gotta film this scene it’s filmed really, really well, really tense, great underwater photography.

This actress in one take is holding her breath for quite a while and coming back up, and that guy went by, then it, cuts away and then cuts back. And now she is outside of the pool laying down in the bleachers and, Pulled a a hose from somewhere and turned it on. So there’s now disturbance in the pool, which now this guy comes around and does a double take.

So now she’s trying to lure him there. Uhhuh. Oh, I don’t know. It didn’t, didn’t make sense. And I know, you know, it’s, there’s, it’s obvious they just had to cut back to this because to actually show this happen would’ve defied all logic. She also has goggles on, yeah, I didn’t, I guess she went to her locker and got her goggles.

I dunno what, it’s so 

Craig: weird. Right? I know. And I don’t even remember what happens. She just hit ’em over the head 

Todd: or something. Yeah, she just comes up behind him, whacks him on the head. He falls in the pool and she jumps in after him and, and she wrestl. The bat out of his hand, kind of that’s right.

Pulls it around his neck and sort of snaps his neck underwater. And again, if you overlook, which is impossible to do, if you overlook the logical problems with all of this, it looks great. Yeah, it looks great. It really does. That’s the only thing I can say about this movie is it looks great. And she was a decent enough actress.

Craig: So confession time. So we usually record on Sundays, which means that I have Saturday to watch the movie. Well, this week we’re recording on Saturday. So I started watching this movie at work on my phone, , and I watched the first, probably half of it, the first 45 minutes. My point is, set yourself up for success for this movie because it’s very, Like it, it all takes place in the dark, as I said, like the electricity is out all over campus, apparently.

Yeah, except for like these emergency lights or whatever, trying to watch it on my phone. I was really just staring at a reflection of myself for the first 45 minutes, but then I finished it this morning in a, not like brightly lit setting, and it looked fine. Just don’t watch it on your phone in a brightly lit room, cuz you won’t be able to see anything that’s going on.

But she killed that guy. She killed that guy. And she we forgot she already had killed another one too. She ran one of them down with her boyfriend’s car. That’s right. Which great. Like, or you could’ve driven his car away, instead of smashing it into a wall. I guess that would’ve made for a shorter movie.

I don’t know. So she killed that guy, then she killed the guy in the pool. Then she makes a, a knife, or no, excuse me, a nail bat. Yeah, . She takes the guy’s bat and makes a, and it’s so funny, I, I was like, I bet that has a name. I bet that kind of weapon has a name cuz I’ve seen him used a bunch of times. So I Googled Nail bat , I, I, I googled bat with nails in it, and I, the question that popped up was, what is a bat with nails in it called Nail bat

That’s the name of it. 

Todd: It’s a nail straight to the point. Just like the weapon itself gets to the point. So she 

Craig: makes a nail.

I just am gonna try to casually work that into conversations for the rest of this week. 

Todd: Hey, do you know what the, have you seen my nail bat? Here’s an interesting trivia thing for you. You know that bat with nails in it? That’s a really nasty web. And what do you think that’s called? Nail bat?

Look it up, dude. Google. What is it? Oh, I wonder what it’s, what they call it when it’s wrapped with barbed wire. Barbed wire. Bet

Craig: Oh man. This is a good movie. I’m telling you so much to say. Hurry. Hurry. 

Todd: We’re gonna run outta time. She goes to the ba I, I think it’s in the same bill. I don’t know, she’s in the bathroom or the locker room or something. And some dude again is tracking her. And again, it is a very tense sort of scene where she’s gotten clever.

She’s put he cell phone. I don’t know what she’s done. Has she like recorded herself crying or upset on a cell phone? That looks like a Nokia from, you know, the early nineties. I’m not. But anyway, she’s done this. We haven’t seen her do it, but we just see this guy slowly walking through and banging open all the stalls until he’s sure he’s at the one she’s in.

And it turns out that she has, I guess, recorded herself crying on this phone and hung it from the shower. And as soon as he sees that, she runs up behind him and wax him with the nail bat in the back of the head, which of course would kill anybody. And it does. And that’s when we get this slow scene of him dying and.

Unmasking him and sitting across from him and just staring at him as he dies. Mm-hmm. , huh? And that’s it. I mean, I, and that’s it. God, I, I have to be honest, like I, I thought at first there was just one or two people and then. As more people started getting killed, but then there were more people stalking her anyway, I was like, how many people are there in this group?

I, I don’t know. It’s just 

Craig: the three really Boys. Yeah, it was just the three boys. So at this point they’re all dead, but she grabs the one that she most recently killed. She grabs his phone and it gets a text from the girl from Violet that. Did you kill Christie? And she responds, yes. And then Violet’s like, okay, meet me at the car and post it.

Post it online. And so Christie goes to the website that Violet said to post it on, and she sees, so now she learns that it’s not just her. This is a whole group of people. And they do this and they post pictures and videos on the dark web. So she knows what’s going on now. So she decides to mix a bunch of pool chemicals together, and apparently she knows how to mix pool chemicals together to turn them into some sort of, Like explosive.

Todd: I don’t know. She gets, she starts MacGyvering basically. Yeah. And I was, I was shaking my head at this point. Now, to be fair, it is very briefly established in a literally three second scene. Which is part of a montage in the beginning of the film that her science teacher says something about the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle.

Craig: Heisenberg was all about unforeseen 

Todd: outcome, light bending, sodium nitrate, exploding with 

Craig: water. Boom. That sounds like an unexpected outcome to me. 

Todd: Yes. So I guess she was a really good student, and so she knows her chemistry really well and is able to randomly find all the chemicals that are going to put together the exact same thing that he demoed for them in the class so that she can do this.

I mean, I was just shaking my hand. I’m like, oh, please don’t make her. Oh, she’s gonna MacGyver now. Well, and 

Craig: I mean, Just leave, like call the police. 

Todd: Yeah. Come on there. One person. Now there’s one person like upload the link or something. Somewhere. Like you have a phone now, right? Oh, 

Craig: but no, she has to track Violet down, so she tracks her 

Todd: down.

Well, violet did kill her boyfriend. That’s true. You know, I mean, to be fair, people are gonna listen to this podcast, Craig, and they’re gonna say a couple. They’re gonna say, first of all, I’ve heard you defend these kinds of actions on podcasts before because this is the typical final girl material where not only does she want to get outta the situation, but now she’s so pissed and her boyfriend’s dead and everything like that, that she wants revenge.

So that kind of tracks for a slasher film final girl situation. And the other thing they’re gonna is, Hey, look guys, didn’t you just say that random. Is the most terrifying because the killer who doesn’t have a motive is scarier than the killer who has this deep, dark background and this past and this strong reason for doing what they’re doing.

So, 

Craig: It’s not that serious.

Todd: just anticipating there is a, there is at least a dozen people out there probably think this is the best movie they’ve ever seen and really, really loved it. And they’re gonna come out with those criticisms for our criticism. Well that and that’s fair. That’s 

Craig: fine. I don’t care. Yeah. To each their own, it’s just, yeah, I just didn’t care.

Like again, the perform. Are fine. There, there, there’s no bad acting. You know, it’s, it’s all good. It’s, it’s really the story that I have problems with. I mean, even it, it’s execut. Perfectly fine. Perfectly well. It’s just a stupid story, that’s all. And 

Todd: blame the writer. 

Craig: Right. And a lot of the movies we watch are stupid, and it certainly doesn’t deter me from watching.

I, I’m, I’m not, I’m not trying to hurt anybody’s feelings. If this is your favorite movie, that’s okay. I don’t think less of you . 

Todd: I, I like a lot of other movies. We can’t wait to introduce you to if this is your favorite 

Craig: movie. I like some really bad movies. Some of, some of my favorite movies are bad, so it’s cool.

I get it. Yeah. So so she finds Violet, she throws the chemicals on her. I don’t know, violet says something sassy or I don’t know, , but she likes, throws some water on her and 

Todd: you’d be CAE mother . She 

Craig: throws some water on her and she bursts into flames and she thrashes around for a while and then she lays down and dies.

Yep. 

Todd: The end get that. We get the little montage that shows that, you know, there are these cells all over the country and Yeah. And so it’s the 

Craig: beginning. All the bodies they give us, they give us very beautiful and artfully framed shots of all the bodies. And then we see all the posts on the Christie page.

But then there’s also news footage about it, like apparently Justine. Her testimony, you know, has exposed it and they’re starting to catch some of these folks. And then there’s like Justine’s voiceover. Justine is dead. My name is Christie.

Todd: Like what? . So 

Craig: I think that she’s gonna be like a vigilante now. Yeah. Cuz did you watch the Post? Did you watch the post credit? 

Todd: Was there a post credit scene? No, I didn’t see it. Yeah, I, 

Craig: well, the only scene I thought there might be, but yeah, I, I had read that there was, so I watched it. You see one of the, those guys in the aluminum foil masks like stalking another Christie, but then somebody, you just, it’s just a flash cut.

You see somebody’s coming up behind him. Now, I don’t know if that’s supposed to, Justine, I assume it is supposed to be her. Or probably maybe there are other vigilantes too. I don’t know. But then 

Todd: that’s it. I thought they were setting it up for a sequel or a potential franchise. Yeah, but I don’t think the movie got good enough reviews for.

Any dreams of that to move forward? No. I just, 

Craig: yeah, God. Like I don’t even wanna, it’s not like I actively dislike it. It’s fine. We have seen so many worse movies. Oh yeah. Just in terms of plotting, it’s predictable. It’s really not very exciting. Yeah. I mean, it defies logic at every turn. 

Todd: That’s where it kind of breaks down, right?

Like, you know, a lot of horror movies are not logical, but we kind of go with it. But I, I guess there’s a line somewhere, and I’m not quite sure where, maybe if it’s just way too much of it, or, or a movie like this, which is really trying hard to portray a realistic situation, right? Right. Like a home invasion movie, a girl on a campus being stalked by normal people, if there’s no like, supernatural element to it or anything like that.

Then we kind of, I guess we just demand a little more realism or else it just takes us out of the movie and we’re just too distracted by how dumb everything is. And I, I think there’s a kind of satisfaction. Gosh. Now, I don’t know. I’m just looking for things to talk about maybe. But I think there’s a kind of satisfaction in watching a home invasion movie.

Part and parcel of it is like, what would I do in that situation? You know, almost like it’s training in a way, you know, , like if I’m faced with this, like, oh, that’s a good way of turning the tables on them. So, you know, we don’t think about that when it’s like a Jason or Freddie chasing after somebody.

We’re just in for the ride, cuz we know they’re gonna get it. And so like, yeah, there’s something maybe a little satisfying about watching a movie that’s more realistic and trying to figure out what we would do in that, put ourselves in their shoes a little bit more, and it’s really hard to do that when.

The character’s just making this the most obviously stupid choices over and over and over again. Well, and that’s other satisfaction is 

Craig: lost. You know, I think that’s getting close to why it bothers me is because she seems like a smart, competent girl. So it doesn’t make sense that she keeps making all these stupid decisions.

I, I’m sitting here trying to figure out why it just doesn’t work for me. And I think that that. Part of it because there are some movies where you know the tension is high, the bad guy is near, and you’re like, no, don’t go in there. Don’t go in there. And then they do go in there and then they get their head chopped off and it’s like super exciting and fun and scary.

I don’t know what the difference is. I don’t know why they’re sometimes when it’s. I and I almost kind of wonder if it’s fun and scary if you’re kind of more rooting for the bad guy. 

Todd: Yeah, and, and you know what, in, in those cases, like bad decisions usually get punished, right? In this case, she never gets punished for her bad decisions, so, It’s usually the final girl that’s a little smarter than everybody else.

Right. Right. And so, you know, it’s, it’s the woman who, the idiot who goes upstairs or goes into the, you know, scary room that gets her head chopped off. Mm-hmm. in this case. Yeah. It’s the final girl who’s really stupid and making all these dumb decisions and still manages to make it out just fine. Yeah.

Yeah. It’s. Maybe that’s the heart of it. Yeah. It’s just not a very satisfying final girl situation. Happy Thanksgiving. . 

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: Aren’t we thankful that we are smarter than this girl? ? 

Craig: Are we though? 

Todd: Really? I don’t know. probably not. I know I’d be the first person off in a horror situation. I know. Yeah. You would be.

I, I’d run out of breath running and I just kind of have to fall down and be like, alright, take me

Craig: I’d be, I’d be soon after you. So, but yeah. Anyway, I mean, I, we do this every year, but sincerely, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, thank you to all of you who listen every week and especially to those of you who reach out and give us some feedback and interact with us a little bit, whether it be on Facebook or Patreon or wherever it’s hearing from.

That I think really keeps us going. Not that I don’t enjoy spending this time with you, Todd . Oh, really? 

Todd: The truth comes out now, . 

Craig: No, no. I, I, I do. I mean, this is fun to do, but a lot of the fun is knowing that we’re bringing. Something to other people. So thank you all for your constant support. We 

Todd: really appreciate it.

Yes, thank you. And thank you very much to Gary who recommended this movie, and I know it’s not his favorite movie because I think his assessment was more or less the same as what we did. So thank you though for pointing out this Thanksgiving movie. It’s so much better than. Some of the other ones we could have chosen from.

And I would like to very specifically thank our patrons cuz they’re the people who are, you know, we love all of our listeners, but these folks have the means and the ability to reach out and support us month after month with some money. And I just want to take this moment. To read off our current patrons right now, Rosalind Shannon, Sean Haley, Anthony, Seth, Tyler, the Destroyer, Haley Le Aquaman, Christ, Jessica, Adrian, Andreas, Gary Neil.

Nova, which is I know Nova Cascade is is short for another person, Ryan and Heather, and, and we’ve had other patrons in the past. I’m sorry, I cannot pull them up right now because I, I don’t have that list. But, you know, a few people who’ve, who’ve just chosen to support us for a little bit, and that’s fine too.

We really appreciate you guys as well. Thank you so much for your support this last year. We really appreciate, it. Really helps us keep this podcast going. All right, well if you enjoyed this one, please share it with a friend. If you can find us online, search two guys in a chainsaw, reach out to us again.

Let us know what you thought of this movie. Let us know what other movies we should be doing. We’re coming up on Christmas time and we do try to pack December with holiday movies, and there’s a ever growing list of Christmas horror movies. It seems to be a more and more popular subject every year, so we do need your help narrowing down to the good ones, the ones that are worth doing.

Please leave us a comment on any one of those places. And let us know what Christmas horror movie we should be doing next. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

This week’s film came out just last month, but we couldn’t wait to review it. It starts out strong and never lets up, providing some serious twists and turns along the way – including a shocking performance by Justin Long. Barbarian is currently available to stream on HBO Plus, and it’s getting pretty good buzz. We think that’s well-deserved. Have a listen, and stay safe out there!

Barbarian (2022)

Ep 321, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, this week we get a little more modern than we usually do. Once again, reviewing a movie that came out just this year. In fact, I think just these last couple months, right? Uhhuh, this is 2022’s Barbarian, which is getting a lot of buzz.

I think lately on the internet. It came out on HBO Max, but I think it was also released in the theaters for a little bit. Yeah. At least. So somewhere, right? But right now you can get it on, uh, HBO Max Streaming service, which is what, one of the 15 streaming services you subscribe to Craig? Yep. Is that right?

Mm-hmm. . All right. one just ain’t enough. It starts just long Bill Scars guard and, uh, a gal named, uh, Georgina Campbell, who I instantly recognized actually myself from her role in one of my all time favorite Black Mirror episodes called Amy. Have you, do you watch Black Mirror? I love Black Mirror, 

Craig: but I didn’t 

Todd: remember her.

I believe she was the one who was, uh, it was the two girls who kind of fall in love, but they’re, and then it 

Craig: turns out it’s like, Uh, VI or something. Yeah. 

Todd: Vr. Yeah. And they’re, they’re kind of dead in new bodies. Oh God. I love that series. Yeah, it’s great. I was really happy to see her in this because I hadn’t seen her in anything else, and I really loved her in that.

And I hadn’t seen Justin Long in a while, and I’ve always enjoyed Justin Long. Mm-hmm. , I think the first movie we did with him in it was Jeepers Creepers. Right. Uhhuh . Um, and he was quite good in that, um, yeah, at Central Character. He makes a surprise appearance in this movie for me because I didn’t look up anything about it.

You told me don’t read anything about this movie, Uhhuh. All I had seen was the buzz. I’m in these horror Facebook groups and things and people kept posting the poster and saying, oh my God, what do you guys think of this movie? Oh my God, this movie, what do you think? And I didn’t read any of that stuff, but I did make a mental note.

Oh, check this out. I think in our little duo here, I’m the one who is always constantly searching for older movies to do, and you’re the one who’s always constantly keeping tabs on what the newer ones are that are worthwhile. That’s why I tend to ignore him a little bit. So I didn’t even know Justin Long was in this movie until he pops in halfway through and I was like, oh, this is cool Justin Long.

So, uh, so anyway, like I said, uh, I hadn’t seen this movie before. I didn’t know anything about it. You proposed it and you said don’t read anything about it before you watch it. Uh, and so I was prepared for that kind of movie and I sat down and watched it last night for the first. How about you, Craig? Uh, what made you decide to do this proposing?

I 

Craig: don’t know. I mean, I, I guess you could say that I seek out, uh, the new things, but that’s just kind of, because I watch everything and so most, I’m, I’m, it’s not so much that I’m looking for something new. It’s, I’m looking for things that I haven’t seen fair enough. And so I was just, uh, as I used to flip through cable, now I just, you know, scroll through these streaming services and check out what they have available, Uhhuh.

And, uh, I went to HBO Max and it was there. I had never heard of it. I, I knew absolutely nothing about it. I saw that it was new. The description for the premise was a little bit vague, but sounded interesting. Basically, it just said, uh, you know, a woman arrives at her Airbnb to find that, uh, it’s already occupied.

And little does she know or something. I don’t know, , but it, it, I, I felt going in like. I knew what kind of movie it was gonna be. And then for the first half hour or so, I really enjoyed it because I was really enjoying the performances. Mm-hmm. and, and it was really it for the first half hour, it was what I thought it was going to be.

And I kept thinking, I know where this is going, I know where this is going. And, and it kept building towards what I, where I thought it was gonna go. And then out of nowhere, huge left turn that I didn’t see coming at all completely defied my expectations. , how could it, how could you, right. . Right. And that’s why I said don’t read anything about it.

Uh, because I think if you know too much about it, it’s not gonna be as fun. Yeah. So again, we always say, you know, if you’re listening to the podcast, you wanna see the movie, you should turn this off, watch the movie first, and, and then come back. Because I just, I watched it for the first time last week. We, we recorded last week and we were talking about what we should do for this week.

I told you about it and you were game. And so I told you not to watch it. So then this weekend I watched it again and it doesn’t have the kind of rewatch factor that some movies have. Um, because I, I knew what was coming so that, that shock value, that surprise value is gone upon a second viewing. It’s still a good movie.

I think that, um, it’s well made. I really like the performances a lot. I think that the cinematography and direction are, are really skillful. Oh yeah. So overall, I think it’s a really good movie and I, I highly recommend it, but if you can avoid reading anything about it or, or talking with people about it before you see it, I think you’re gonna have a more fun.

Yeah, 

Todd: I completely agree with you. I have to admit, like I, I just, I just thought it was an intense experience almost from the beginning to the end. But especially like you said, the first half hour this, um, is another one of those writer director movies, which are, are often interesting cuz there’s somebody’s singular vision here that they got to the screen, you know, so some indie writer director thing.

I, I’m always interested in seeing what they, what they have to come up with. And, uh, after watching it, I went in and I read about Zach Kreger Uhhuh, he’s an American actor director. He hasn’t done too much before this. He’s, he’s been acting in, uh, some TV series here and there. Nothing I’ve really noticed.

Mm-hmm. . But, uh, this is kind of his, I would say feature film debut. And, uh, it’s quite skillful in the direction. And when I went and I read about the background of him actually writing this, I. Super personally excited because he sat down and wrote this script as an exercise. Mm-hmm. , he wanted to write a 30 minute script after reading a book that I love and read years ago, um, called The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.

This is a book that, um, actually my wife read first the minute she read it. She said, Todd, you need to read this book. This book explains everything about how women feel. So, so I was like, okay, sure. I’ll read it. And I read it and I was just blown away. Just real briefly, Gavin de Becker is a guy who himself was.

A product of a pretty abusive household. And as he grew up, he found his calling in helping people deal with their problems with others, like basically stalker type situations, things like that. And he has an agency where he essentially helps celebrities and big name people deal with the attention they get the, the, the mail.

You know, they, they open their mail for them and, and, and sort through it. They, huh. Um, help screen some of their phone calls for them. And then when this person has an. Like somebody is stalking them, some crazy fan situation. Then they analyze like, is this something we really need to worry about? Who could this possibly be?

And uh, is it somebody close enough to you? And, and all that. And so he, his agency specializes in this and he wrote this book called The Gift of Fear. And it’s fantastic. And I feel like if every person in the world read this book, women, but also Men, , uh, who were open minded, they would have a better understanding of how to be better people.

And the long story short is the premise of the book is that fear is a gift that our body gives us. When you walk down a dark alley or you go into some crowded situation or something, wherever you are, if you’re starting to feel uncom, There’s a reason for that. Your body knows it before you do. Your brain, uh, is attuned to what could possibly be wrong.

What is different about this situation and what is uneasy about it before you recognize it consciously? So he says, you need to pay attention to that, and you need to. Act on it or else you will find yourself in trouble. And he says, one of the reasons why women find themselves in bad situations so often is because they are often taught as young girls not to be rude mm-hmm.

to be polite and to suppress these feelings. And so women will find themselves walking down a street and there’ll be some guy crossing on the other side that they just feel weird about, but they will go, oh, it’s nothing. It’s nothing. It’s fine. And it will turn out to be that guy. Or more to the point of the book than the practical advice as well, is that, uh, usually when he talks to these people and says, all right, you got this guy stalking you.

It’s getting creepy, it’s getting scary. Who do you think it could be? That person will go through like a list of folks, and then at the end of the list he’ll be like, all right, is there anybody else? And they’ll be like, well, you know, it’s probably not this guy because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but I don’t know.

It’s possible it could be him. And he’s like, It’s usually him, . It’s the one that person has recognized it’s problematic, but they have over time just talked it away, you know, tried to convince themselves he’s not. And so the reason why men should read this book is he goes into great detail about how men make women uncomfortable by preying on them, even when they think they’re not uhhuh

Or even when, you know, it’s just like, oh, come on, honey, I’m just teasing with you. Whatever men’s greatest fear is that they’re going to be embarrassed uhhuh by some situation. And women’s greatest fear is that they’re gonna get killed Uhhuh. And that. Has stuck with me that quote from that book. And, and B my wife pointed to that and said, this is absolutely true.

And it changed me a little bit. I mean, I’m, I’ve not been that kind of guy, right? Right. I think I’ve always been pretty polite, but I’m always hypersensitive and hyper careful, but never letting myself or anybody in my orbit make anyone feel uncomfortable in that way. Even if they think they’re joking, even if they think they’re laughing.

It’s pretty obvious that sometimes that goes a little beyond what that person thinks and then they get fearful. And so anyway, he read this book and he sat down, uh, to write a 30 minute short. Where a woman finds herself in a situation where she just starts ignoring all of the red flags and gets herself into trouble.

And that’s kind of how it starts out. But then as you say it, it takes a turn. 

Craig: Yeah. It’s, it’s ki it’s kind of a strange coincidence that we’re doing this just a couple of weeks after we did that little Red writing Hood movie in the Company of Wolves. It, it, I feel like it addresses kind of the same concern.

You’re right. Um, and also, I, I just watched another movie this weekend and I, I posted kind of a discussion about it on our Patreon page, but another movie called Run Sweetheart Run, which is very much the same thing. It’s about women kind of ignoring some red flags, because in many ways, you know, men are, they, they seem safe, they seem charming, and, and from an outside perspective, Like, we’ll get to talking about this movie in just a second, but this, the scenario that this young woman finds herself in.

It could be perfectly safe, but it could not. Mm-hmm. and, and yeah. And as a viewer, as an outside you, you can tell based on her performance that she’s hesitant and reluctant as she should be. Yes. But, uh, you know, from, as, from an. Perspective. I was very tense in those moments. I was just gonna say, you know, it’s, it’s sad that that’s the way that things are, that women have to be so on guard all the time.

Yeah. And, and also that men have to, or, or should try to be aware of that and, and do their best to make, uh, people comfortable. And I say it’s sad, but that’s just the state of things. And I do think that we as men have a responsibility to be aware of ourselves and how our actions, uh, can be perceived.

Even I a gay man, uh, a few weeks ago I went to the grocery store and it was one of those stores where you have to have a quarter to get to unlock a shopping cart. Mm-hmm. and I didn’t have a quarter, I had 25 cents. I had two dimes and a nickel, but I didn’t have a quarter. And there were two young women, I assume probably college age women, uh, shopping together, unloading their cart in the parking lot.

And this was broad daylight. And I went to. Ask them if I could give them my 25 cents in exchange for their cart. But even as I approached them, I was thinking this could make them uncomfortable. Hmm. A strange man approaching them in a public place. And when I said something, I said, excuse me, or excuse me, miss, or something, they turned around and looked at me and I could tell that just for a split second, they were on guard.

Hmm. Um, I don’t know this man. I don’t know what he wants. Um, and then of course they were polite and gave me their cart and I gave them 25 cents and we all moved on with our lives. But even in just innocent, simple moments like that, I think women have to be very much aware of their surroundings. And, uh, it, it’s, it’s unfortunate, but it is the.

Of the world because there are dangerous predatory people, not just men, but, uh, yeah, there are dangerous predatory men out there. And, and I think that that’s what the, the first part of the movie deals with. You know, it starts out, uh, it’s a rainy night. Um, this young woman, beautiful woman, Tess, played by Georgina Campbell, as you already said, pulls up to the outside of it’s nighttime.

Uh, a small house looks like a small suburban house with a, you know, a small front lawn. Looks like a, a fairly nice place. And she checks, um, her email for her Airbnb confirmation information. And, and she has like a, a code for a lockbox that the key will be inside. And she struggles with it. She, she memorized the number wrong for a second.

Eventually she gets it open and there’s no key in there. And she calls the, uh, property manager, but she just gets a voicemail. So she goes and she’s sitting in her car trying to figure out what to do when she sees a light on in the house. So she goes back up to the house and, uh, knocks on the door and this man opens the door and it’s Bill Scars guard and Bill Scars guard, you know, played Pennywise in the new IT movies.

Uh mm-hmm. . He, but he’s done a lot of things. You know, he’s, he’s launching what appears to be a very successful career and he’s tall and he’s handsome, but he’s also kind of, I mean, he played Pennywise for Pete’s sake. He’s got kind of a minute. I don’t know. There’s just, there’s something about his face.

Yeah, there’s something about his face that could potentially be a little bit, uh, frightening. But he opens the door. It seems like she’s awakened him from sleep. He’s kind of groggy. Yeah. I’m sorry. Who are you? Who are you? This is 40 76 Barbery, right? I don’t know. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. You don’t know. No, I don’t live here.

I’m renting this place. It’s the middle of the night. I don’t have it the top of my head. The 

Todd: address? No, I’m renting this place. What? 

Craig: I I’m running this place. I, I, I booked it on Airbnb like a month ago. I booked it on 

Todd: HomeAway. You’re fucking kidding. 

Craig: Wait, wait, wait. Are you sure you have the right place?

Yeah. My email says 4 76 Barbara, that’s here. Right. And my code works for the lock box. I’m supposed to be in here. 

Todd: Did you try and call someone? 

Craig: Yeah. No one answered. And you sure you have the right date? Look, yeah. I mean, it looks right. This is unbelievable. What am we supposed to do? I dunno. I dunno. Why don’t you, why don’t you come inside and we’ll call these idiots?

And right from the beginning, red flags are going off in my mind. Don’t go in there. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . You don’t know who this guy is. You’re alone. It’s ni it’s the middle of the night. Um, he could be anybody. He could be a squatter. He, you know, anybody, for whatever reason, she decides to go in and then, Kind of everything seems to line up.

She checks his confirmation information and it looks legit. They booked through different agencies. Mm-hmm. , but his stuff looks legit. He, he’s being 

Todd: nice. She runs into his, um, his, his wallet while she’s in his room. His name is what it says it is, and what he said it was. And, and also, uh, it’s really cool because she’s locking the door every room she goes into.

She’s obviously being cautious, right. Even as she’s doing this stuff. And it’s, the camera’s very clear. I mean, actually I really like the, um, I really like the cinematography in this movie. It’s very punchy. It very much wants to direct our attention very quickly to things that we need to uhhuh. It doesn’t zoom, but it’s got these fast dolly shots sometimes.

And these quick closeups. I saw it described, I think, by the director himself that. That upstairs, it’s uh, it’s like a David Fincher movie and downstairs it’s Rammy. . Yeah. There’s a very different, um, very distinct, different visual style between, uh, when the movie kind of starts to go into darker territory in a different place than here.

But here it’s very, I mean, and I think that itself ratchets up the tension. Like, oh, she locked the door. That’s important. Oh boy, , you know, uh, all of these things, uh, really add up to. Increase the tension as we walk with her through this and think, uh, like you said, like what, what would we do in the circumstance?

Uhhuh. maybe don’t do that. Oh, he might be okay, but, okay, good. At least you locked the door. All right, fine. Oh, he checks out on, alright. And maybe he’s not lying then He’s being sweet to her. You know, he offers to make her tea, but she doesn’t drink the tea. And that’s, you know, the first thing in a horror movie, don’t drink the tea.

Right, right. She doesn’t drink the tea. But then later he notices she didn’t drink the tea and says to her, there’s a bottle of wine here. I want to have a drink and if you wanna drink it with me, I noticed you didn’t open the tea, so I was gonna open it in front of you just so you were more comfortable.

You know, he’s being deferential. He knows and understands and he’s trying his best to make her feel comfortable, 

Craig: which is unnerving. 

Todd: You know? It is unnerving. Is it, is it a nice I’m move or is. You know, master manipulator move. 

Craig: Exactly. Even in that moment with the tea and the wine, I’m like, did he tamper with the wine somehow without her know, like, I’m questioning all of these things and that, cuz that’s what I’m expecting to happen.

Because, and, and I think that, um, bill Scars guard is just, I, I think he’s a really good actor and, uh, he does such a good job here not only of being charming, but of being aware. He, he understands that she’s nervous and uncomfortable. They talk about it. Yeah. He, they talk about how, he said that he wouldn’t know what to do if he were in her shoes and she said, oh, you would’ve just walked right in here.

And he said, you just walked right in here . But like, they’re, they’re both very aware of the dynamic and, and we are aware of the dynamic. Yes. He seems very mild mannered and charming. , but if you were trying to manipulate somebody, isn’t that what you would do? Like, you wouldn’t be aggressive from the get go.

And I mean, he does, he really comes across as very kind and warm and charming and, and he’s helpful. He, it’s raining. He goes out in the rain and he gets her luggage and he, he does offer to make her tea and he does consider that she might be wary of accepting a drink from a strange man. So he waits to open the wine until she can be present.

But the whole time, I’m thinking, yeah, that’s, they’re setting her up, you know, to be, to get comfortable so that. Later he can pounce and make his move. And then he’s going to become very sinister. Because I’m also very aware of the fact that the dude’s almost seven feet tall. Like he’s a huge guy, , he’s lean, but he’s big.

If he wanted to, he could easily physically overpower her. And that is where I thought the movie was going without question. I was just waiting for it to happen. Me 

Todd: too. And, and, and, uh, eventually she lets her guard down because she is there in town. This is Detroit, by the way. And she’s there in town to investigate the local music scene for a document.

Well, she’s interviewing for a, a position with a documentary filmmaker who does these documentaries about the local music scene. He says, oh, well, you should interview me then. And she’s like, why? And he’s like, well, I’m one of. Co-founding members of some collective, uh, music collective. And she’s like that one.

It’s like, oh yeah. And it turns out that he’s legitimately seen the, this sort of obscure, indie movie that, uh, this director had produced before. And so all of that is clearly coincidence. You know, there’s just no way he could know these things without being genuine about it. And so once that’s clear to her, it not only does her guard let down, but she’s kind of charmed by him,

Craig: And these two actors have really good chemistry together. I mean, this, it, at that point when she kind of lets her guard down, it feels kind of like a meet cute from a romcom, right? Like they Exactly. They really hit it off. And, uh, everything seems fine. He’s shivel risk. He offers to sleep on the couch and, and she sleeps, um, in the bedroom.

In the middle of the night, she hears the noise and she looks in the door. Her door, her bedroom door is open, and it had been closed when she had gone to sleep. So she kind of gets up, she calls his name quietly and doesn’t hear anything. She gets up, and then as she approaches the living room, she starts to hear these odd noises, and it’s him on the couch making weird noises.

It appears that he’s having a night. And, and she’s kind of nervous and she nervously touches him and he startles awake and, what are 

Todd: you doing, ? Yeah. And, and 

Craig: she says, I think you were having a nightmare. And she asked, did you open my door? And he’s like, no, . I mean, I, I just think he’s really good. He plays that kind of startled awake, groggy, like, leave me alone.

Yeah. Kind of thing. Really, really well. And then, you know, they just go back to sleep and, uh, when she gets up in the morning, he’s gone. He left her a nice note saying, you know, I have stuff to do today or whatever, but I hope to see you tonight. I had a really good night last night, and I’m thinking, wow, this, this guy’s good.

You know, like he’s luring her into this thing where she thinks that they’ve kind of got a relationship. You know, if he was gonna do something, he surely would’ve already done it. You know, he wouldn’t have given her the opportunity to flee during the day, but he did. And so, She goes outside to go to her, uh, job interview.

And that’s when you realize for the first time that although the house that they’re staying in seems very nice, it’s smack in the middle of what looks like a completely abandoned and rundown neighborhood. Like, it’s scary. A bad, bad part of town. Like the homes don’t even look like they’re occupied. Or if they are occupied, it’s probably just by derelicts or squatters.

Yeah. Anyway, she goes to her interview, it’s fine. The interview goes well, but the interviewer asks her where she’s staying and when, um, te tells her where she’s staying. The interviewer is like, what? Yeah. You know it , are you getting Well, I, I mean, yeah, it seems a little rough, but No, you shouldn’t be there.

What do you mean that’s not an Airbnb in Brightmore? Yeah, I mean, like, it’s a cute little house, but. Yeah, I suppose the neighborhood is a little intense. Well, I did try and find somewhere else, but, uh, there’s like a convention in town or something and I, I, I have a roommate, so it’s a, it’s a little complicated, I guess.

Okay. We’ll just be careful. Okay. So when she goes back, as she gets out of her car, we see in the distance somebody in the background running towards her and she eventually notices too. And it’s a homeless man who’s running and shouting at her, um, and almost reaches her just as she gets into the door.

And then he bangs on the door and says, you gotta get outta that house. You shouldn’t be in that house. And then he goes away. And this is when things started to get more directly scary. But I still felt like I knew where it was going. Mm-hmm. , you know what I mean? 

Todd: Yep. Uh, yeah. Does he come home at this point or 

Craig: she’s still poking around?

She’s poking around because she, she needs to, she needs toilet paper or something. That’s right. And so she’s looking around for toilet paper. There’s a door that leads down into a basement and she goes down there and she finds toilet paper. But in the time that she’s down there, the door swings closed and locks from the outside.

Yeah. And so she can’t get out. That’s when she start, I mean, what else are you gonna do? She doesn’t have her cell phone. 

Todd: She also has the key on her to the apartment, which she should have left in the lockbox for the guy. Yeah. So even she’s like, oh, you know, crap. Like when this guy comes home, he’s not even gonna be able to come in.

And how she gonna be able to signal that she’s trapped in the basement? So it’s, it’s, you know, it’s a pretty weird situation. That door, by the way, has been creaking closed. And open a little bit, you know, if you catch it in the background during the, earlier, some of the earlier scenes, especially at night when she woke up.

So it, it does also, you know, there’s a little bit of a supernatural ish feeling there perhaps. And, uh, while she’s probing around downstairs, um, she hears a noise coming from behind a wall. And when she turns around and kind of looks at the Walmart, she looks on the shelf and sees that there is a hole in the wall with a rope sticking out of it.

And she pulls on that rope and a hidden door swings. And it leads into this sort of dark tunnel. And she, at, at, yeah, at first she says, Nope. . Nope. Yeah, that was so brilliant. She’s saying what we’re thinking. Nope. . But, but then, I don’t know, curiosity gets the better of her and, uh, you know, there’s no light in there.

So she props up a mirror, which is kind of smart, uh, to shine a light from the ceiling down the hallway so that she can get down there a little bit. And she sees it’s a rather short hallway, but there is definitely another room or a door on the side. So she walks in and, uh, sure enough, when she makes this little left in this hallway, uh, there is a room and it’s creepy.

Yeah. It’s a bed with a bucket on the floor and a video camera set up in the corner. 

Craig: Yeah. And it like, and it, it looks. She says later, I think it looks like a dungeon and it does. I mean, we say a bed, but it’s just a dirty, disgusting mattress on a, yeah, on like a metal frame. And then the bucket looks disgusting and, and a video camera set up pointed right at the bed, like, yeah, this is 

Todd: bad.

This is not cool. I mean, you’re thinking all sorts of things. Obviously, torture, horror, movies, stuff like that. Also, you know, I keep thinking about real life stuff. Like, it was a year, I don’t know, probably 10 years ago or eight years ago, where suddenly we were finding little suburban neighborhood guys who were keeping women locked up in their basement for decades, uh, for decades, you know, and, and so you’re thinking, oh God, is this a remnants of that?

Is this still going on? Is. That guy, somehow he’s got something set up down there. It’s really, the movie starts to take a com, almost a complete left turn. Not completely. Cuz you’re still wondering, maybe it’s this guy. Oh gosh. I, 

Craig: I, I thought it’s him. I, I, I thought it’s him. It’s, he’s a bad guy. And, uh, so she kind gets out of there and, and bangs on the window because Right.

Cuz he’s there. He showed up and he, uh, gets the window open and she gives him the key. He comes in, he gets her out of the basement and she’s freaking out as she should be. He’s trying to calm her down and asking her what she found and she tells him and he’s like, well, wait, don’t leave. Let’s, let’s figure this out.

Uh, and he even says, look, I’m sorry that I’m not panicking because of what you saw, but I haven’t seen it. Yeah. I need to see it. He, you know, he, he says something like, So you found a room with an old bed and a bucket. It’s a basement. There’s all kinds of crap down there, which could logically be true, but yeah, the, the truth is he hasn’t seen it.

If he were to see it, he would be just as freaked out as she was. Yeah. And in this moment, you know, he’s trying to get her to stay. He even kind of physically blocks her from getting out. Um, even though he’s still being very gentle and and comforting, um, I’m thinking, you need to get out of there. Don’t trust this guy cuz he says, just let me, let me go check it out and then we can leave.

And so he goes down there and he’s down there for a little while and then she goes to the door, uh, of the stairway and calls down to him and he doesn’t answer. 

Todd: Well, at first he does. At first she says, are you, are you there? And he’s like, yeah, there’s, there’s like a very faint Yeah. Uh, Uh, but then she waits a little longer and yells a few more times.

And you’re right, he doesn’t answer. So, and I’m 

Craig: thinking, don’t go down there. Yeah. Like, this is a, this is so obviously a trap. Um, he’s down there waiting for you. The second you get down there, he’s gonna grab you and lock you in that room, and then we’re gonna have to watch you be tortured for the rest of this movie.

Right. . But she does go down. She almost locks herself in there again, but catches it at the last minute and props you. Yeah. 

Todd: That was a good moment. I , I like these little moments in this movie. This movie was good with these kinds of moments, uh, where just kind of subverts your expectations a little bit.

Like, oh, they’re, she’s gonna get trapped down there again. Oh no, actually, she’s smart. She ran up there in time and this, you know, this 

Craig: happens. She moves slowly. So the tension is building, you know. Oh yeah. It’s a very, very, it’s not like she’s running around, you know, she’s very slowly moving, looking around for him.

She fi she goes to the room, he’s not in there. She steps back out into that dark, creepy hallway and kind of looks around and realizes that. On the other end of the hallway, there’s another door that sh neither she nor we had previously 

Todd: noticed. Yeah. It’s even more hidden. It’s like at the end 

Craig: of the wall.

Yeah. And when she go, she opens that door, it leads to more stairs going even further down into what? I don’t know. I did not know what to expect. Like 

Todd: mine at this point you’re like, oh God, all bets are off. We have no idea. And he’s now faintly yelling, help help me. 

Craig: Uhhuh. Very faintly like it sounds like he’s, oh man.

Hundreds yards away. Like, yeah, where is he? Um, and she goes down there and it appears to be like this system of tunnels and she sees like large dog crates down there. It’s all very scary. . 

Todd: Yeah. And at the same time you’re thinking this woman is a good person. And she should run out. But also maybe this guy really is in trouble.

You know, Uhhuh, you can tell like she wants to help him. She’s not the kind of person who’s gonna leave somebody behind, especially when she’s the one who sent him in, you know, more or less uhhuh. So there’s gotta be a little, a certain level of guilt there as well. 

Craig: It’s really dark and she only has the flashlight on her cell phone.

And yeah, eventually he kind of pops out of the dark. Um, and it for a split second, I didn’t know, I still was thinking he’s gonna grab her. Mm-hmm. . Um, but he doesn’t, he just says, we have to get outta here. We have to get outta here. And she’s like, what? What’s going on? And he says, there’s somebody else down here.

And, and he’s whispering and he’s obviously scared. Why did you come down here? Someone else is, why, why did you come down here? Someone else is dony. What is someone bit me, . Okay. Wait, we need, we ain’t to go. Didn’t need to. No, no, no, no. Don’t go there. That’s where they were. That’s where they were. No, let’s go.

That’s the way out. That’s, that’s way. Come, come here, we stop it. I, no, that’s stop it. We have to come this way. That’s, we have to come this way. What’s down? Don’t just, I’m not going back. When Out of the darkness, behind him comes this lumbering naked person, um, with long, stringy black hair. Uh, and, uh, it happens really fast and it’s dark and you can’t really see what’s going on.

But whoever this person is, grabs Keith by the head and just smashes his head against the wall, like, just totally destroys his head 

Todd: repeatedly. Oh, it’s gross. 

Craig: And, and boom. Cut to bright, sunny daylight along. The coastal 

Todd: Highway. Oh, , what a jarring scene. I, I have to admit, I was really happy for the let up intention.

I, I had been on the edge of my seat for a good 15 minutes, you know, before this Uhhuh , if, if not to some extent, the whole movie before this really. And so I was very grateful for this bright, sunny. Okay. Oh, all right. We got something else going on here, but also completely puzzled. They just brought this new guy in outta nowhere, completely new scene, driving on, obviously not in Detroit, and it’s Justin Long Uhhuh, 

Craig: and he’s singing and having a good time.

Like Yeah, I was so, I was so shocked. I, I, for a couple of reasons. One, I thought Keith was gonna be the bad guy. I was positive. And then two, I never would’ve. That he would’ve gotten killed off. Yeah. 30, 40 minutes into the movie. He’s a big movie star. I figured, you know, he’s the star of this movie, or at least one of the stars of the movie.

And here he is brutally killed within the first half hour. I was so shocked. Yeah. And then for it to cut to this bright scene with Justin Long, who just seems like a very charming person Yeah. Uh, in real life. And that reads on the screen and everything that he does. Mm-hmm. . And so here we are with fun.

Justin Long driving in a convertible along the coast singing his head off. I had no idea what was happening at that point. And I loved it. I loved that my expectations had been subverted and I was really excited to see what was gonna happen next. Yeah, me 

Todd: too. And how does this relate? Right. And also, like you said, Also I, I love Justin Long, not just does he come across really well in movies and he’s fun to look at and he’s interesting guy, but he comes across as really nice just as a person down to earth.

Yeah. If you read interviews with him, he’s fairly scandal free. Seems very sensitive. And I mean, think, I’m gonna knock it on wood here. , you know, , who knows in this day and age. But yeah, he just, he’s just fun. And so I thought, oh man, this movie is gonna, is gonna get even more fun. I was totally taken by this point.

And as he’s driving on the highway, he’s chatting on the cell phone with, I guess his agent. It turns out he’s an actor or something. Uhhuh, there’s a problem with an upcoming project and there’s two people on the line and they’re delivering bad news to him that not only has he been pulled off of this project, but there are going to be allegations of sexual harass.

Towards him, and you can just see it. He, he’s stunned. He doesn’t know what to say for a little while. You see things are turning in his head. And of course I’m thinking, did he do it, did he not? Maybe he did, you know, like it instant drama and intrigue coming with this brand new character that we’ve seen for five minutes.

Craig: Well, and it’s, it seems like his, I, I’m guessing that it’s probably his agent and his lawyer. Yeah. And, uh, they, they kind. Try to ease him into it. But then when he gets, cuz he’s mad. I, I, I was the first to be attached to that. She came on after me. Okay. I recommended her aj, I think honestly, you just need to call that.

I think we should tell him the other thing. No, I think right now he just needs to cool down. What other, what other, it’s not important. Aj, you just have to relax. No, no, no, no, no. Fuck that. What other, what else? There’s gonna be a story tomorrow in the Hollywood Reporter about this. About what? About me? Are you kidding?

The allegations are very serious. Yo, what she’s saying I did. Is she saying I raped her or something? Aj, why don’t you just calm down? No. What the fuck? What is she saying? Yes, she’s saying that you raped her. Hey Jerry, you there? I gotta call you back. And pulls over to the side of the road and Yes. I’m wondering did he do it too?

I think that this is brilliant casting. The director offered the role to Zach Efron, which I also think would be an interesting choice, but I think that this is even better because we are so used to Justin Long, long being a good guy, a nice guy, a sweet guy. And it seems that, that from the time that we meet him, he seems very charming.

Mm-hmm. . And so then of course you’re questioning yourself, uh, you know, did he do it? He meets with his financial advisor who basically tells him that within a couple of months if he can’t find work, he’s, he’s gonna be penniless. And he says, you’ve, you know, you’ve got those properties in Michigan. Uh, he says, I could sell those.

And the guy’s like, well, yeah, you could, but it’s not like those are really hot properties that might buy you a few more months, but that’s it. Oh, and buy the way. I’m dropping you too. Like I, I think that this is very true, uh, of today. Yeah. When serious allegations like that are lobbied against, uh, a person, people want to distance themselves.

Yeah. They don’t, they don’t wanna have anything to do with somebody who could potentially be caught up in something bad. 

Todd: I mean, you have no help, you know, , right. You’re really on your own in these circumstances. And so he 

Craig: fl uh, he flies to, uh, Detroit, which his lawyer says is a terrible idea. And Justin Long says I’m not under arrest.

He’s like, I’m not fleeing. I’m just, uh, you know, I’m coming here to do business to do some liquidation. He’s like, am I going to be arrested? And his lawyer’s like, It’s definitely a possibility, . And he says, you know, let, let me just call this woman and, and clear things up. And the lawyer says, under no circumstances will you call this woman.

Oh. Um, and so then he, you know, he’s in Detroit. He’s going, he’s gonna liquidate one of his properties. He drives there. And of course, It’s the house. Yeah. From the first part of the movie. Uh, and both Keith and Tessa’s cars are still parked in front, which you would think would kind of tip him off because they’re completely out of place.

and they’re parked directly in front of his house. Yeah. But he goes up and I, I think the door is unlocked, like he checks, uh, for the key, but it’s not there. And I think the door’s unlocked cuz he just goes in and he kind of makes himself comfortable, but it doesn’t take long before he realizes that there’s something up.

He notices that the basement door is propped and then he finds luggage. He finds their 

Todd: luggage and it’s great too. He’s like, what the hell? Like, he’s got a great attitude and affect. He’s just, he’s acting like a normal. Person, like this guy would be in the movie. I think he, he just plays us so well. You know, I saw an interview with him and he talked about playing this role.

You should look it up online. It’s, it’s really cool. And one of the things he says is, you know, he says, I’m not really a method actor. I’m not a guy who just can just jump into a role. He says, I’ve heard stories of Leonard DiCaprio, how he can be playing a video game and then press pause and then jump in and do this amazing scene in character and then just come back to his video game and start playing it again.

He is like, I’m not that guy. So, uh, but he is so good as an actor and he can, he feels so natural in this role and, uh, you’re thinking, okay, what is he gonna find this stuff downstairs? Does he know about this? I can’t remember if it’s now or later. No, it’s, it’s now that he goes out, right. Hangs 

Craig: out. Yeah.

Well, he talks to his mom on the phone and, uh, you know, he’s talking to his mom saying, you know, she’s a lying bitch. And the mom’s like, oh, you shouldn’t really talk like that, whatever. But it, it, I feel like it just kind of starts to expose more of his true nature. But then when he goes out, yeah, a friend calls him and he goes out and they meet at a bar, and the first thing the friend asks him is, did you do it?

Mm-hmm. . And his response. Oh man. It, it’s just so, it’s so weird coming from Justin Long. I’ll be real with you. That’s all I’m asking. Yeah. That’s only, let me be real with you. We did Okay. Right. She just took some convincing off. That’s it. Okay. But what the does that mean though? Like, I mean, was she like, did she say No?

I mean like, no, stop at first, but like, I wasn’t like, come here bitch, I’m gonna rape you. I was like, in the beginning she was like, no, whatever. But like, then we started fooling around more and then she was down like freaking really pound, I’m a persistent dude. Right. I’m like, I had a tiger. Yeah. You know, and she came around and that’s it.

That, that’s what happened. Straight up. It sounds really fishy. 

Todd: It’s so shady what everything he’s saying, you’re like, oh God, he did it. Yeah, he totally did it. Did it? Mm-hmm. . So then that an, that question is answered and I’m thinking, you know, in my kind of movie analytical mode, I’m thinking, okay, this guy’s gonna get it too.

Because now they’re setting him up as an unsympathetic character. Uhhuh , 

Craig: when he gets home from the bar, he does call the girl. Of course she doesn’t answer, but he leaves a drunken message just saying he’s sorry. And if he did anything that offended her, he is sorry. And that’s, and he’d love the opportunity to apologize actually to her, not just a recording.

And what he’s saying that that’s another thing that makes it so unsettling because he sounds. Sincere in that, you know, he thinks that he may have pushed a little too far and offended her, dude, you raped her. Like, that’s not, yeah. Something that you’re offended by. But I, I feel like that’s just a really, it, it, it shows his character.

Like he really didn’t think it was that big a deal. But you can see 

Todd: like the, the remorse, right. And I don’t, 

Craig: I don’t think so at all. I think that he’s just, I just think that he’s upset that he’s in 

Todd: trouble. He’s caught. Yeah. Yeah. That could be. Yeah, it could be. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. I felt like there was a little bit more of like this guy, and look, it’s no excuse, absolutely no excuse, but I thought that there was just a hint of, of genuine, perhaps unaware in him.

Like he’s trying to talk himself outta something. He kind of knows, he. Okay. And you know what? I’m not gonna make excuses 

Craig: for this guy. I’m sorry. Yeah, I didn’t find him. I did not find him sympathetic at all. At that point. I’m like, this is a bad dude. And he’s pro, yeah, he’s probably done it before and gotten away with it and that’s why he didn’t think it was any big deal.

Todd: What happens next, I think is quite hilarious, and again, paints his character in a different light. He, he comes home back to the place and he’s gonna be putting this up on the market to raise money for his legal offense. And so he goes downstairs, he discovers this, um, 

Craig: Little room 

Todd: dungeon. Yeah, the dungeon.

Yeah. And he’s not, you think, oh God, well, he’s gonna be disturbed by this too. He goes back upstairs and the first thing he does is Google, do his basement, uh, square footage, add to total square footage of the house. , right. . He’s oblivious to the fact that he’s got this creepy dungeon in this basement, and he immediately goes down and starts measuring it.

Mm-hmm. the tape, measure gleefully measuring it like, oh man, I’m gonna get more money out of this. Then he finds that other door and he sees that creepy thing downstairs. I’m thinking, okay, well, surely he’s disturbed by this. No. He takes the tape measure to the top of the stairs and is measuring down the stairs, down the hallway.

It’s really funny. . 

Craig: It is funny, and like he, he kind of gives things sideways glances like, Hmm, that’s weird. He’s, he’s definitely more concerned about square footage, until way down the hall. There’s light coming out of a, like a room and he goes down there and there’s like fabric on the floor and there’s a TV.

That’s on and running a video of a woman like, like instructional video for teaching women how to breastfeed. Yes. Super weird. Mm-hmm. . And then as he’s standing there looking at that something or someone grabs his tape measure and yanks it out of his hand. And so he has a, he brought a knife cuz he had heard noises down there, but apparently he wasn’t particularly concerned.

So he is got a knife and he’s got his flashlight. Does the woman just come charging at him? I think she 

Todd: does, right? Yeah, she does. Yeah. She comes charging at him and he, he starts running, he’s like running in one direction. He’s kind of comes to a dead end. He runs another direction. Eventually the woman kind of pounces on him and he falls into a pit and this thing closes over him and suddenly out of the darkness comes Tess.

She’s down there, she’s like, So now we know Tess is alive, uh, and she’s captured by this creature and he’s down there too, and they’re both confused 

Craig: and she’s just this big naked feral. Woman. Yes. Um, she’s kind of got like a, a little bit of, um, wrong turn or hills have eyes kind of disfigurement of her 

Todd: face kind 

Craig: of thing.

Yeah. She, she’s, uh, vocal but nonverbal and she, Tess is trying. She’s like, you have to calm down because if you freak out, she’s gonna freak out. And I’m thinking, how long has she been down there? Like, ? What is the timeframe here? As it turns out, she doesn’t even know how long she’s been down there.

Certainly days, if not. I think when he, when he called his property manager, because he thought maybe somebody was renting the property manager’s like, no, we haven’t had anybody rent that for like two weeks. So I think Tess has been down there for a couple of weeks. The woman lowers through the grate at the top of this pit, a baby bottle, and it’s disgusting.

It’s got her hair all over it and she’s lowering it to AJ and Tess’s like, just drink it. Just drink it. . But he won’t. And so she gives it to Tess, and Tess does drink it. Ugh. But because Justin Long refuses, she opens up the, the woman opens up the great jumps down there and grabs him, pulls him out, and, and, and takes, takes him back to her room.

Well, of course, Tess wisely takes the opportunity to get the heck out of there. Mm-hmm. . And, and so she’s headed toward, The house. Uh, but she passes by the room that she’s billed as the mother, so I’m just gonna start calling her that. Yeah. Um, where the mother has Justin Long in there and is forcing him to breastfeed.

Oh. Off of 

Todd: these really gross, gross. Oh, this was so funny too, when, uh, it’s disgusting. And, uh, Justin Long in his interview was talking about doing this scene, and he said, you know, the, the actor who played, uh, who played the woman is actually a, a man. Yeah. And, uh, he’s, he’s pretty good actor. He’s well known.

He’s done a number of other movies, uh, has played, uh, in makeup, uh, in a lot of them. He’s quite good in this role, in this 

Craig: film. He is good in this because ultimately he’s sympathetic. She the character, she is sympathetic. Yeah. Matthew Patrick Davis is his name. Handsome man. I’m looking at his pictures.

Nice looking guy. 

Todd: Yeah, he, um, he dirties up. Well, I was, I suppose, and he was like, you know, filming the scene was of course very awkward because, uh, you’re riding a fine line here between. Making this kind of a little ridiculous, uh, or silly, or being a little campy or funny or, or dumb. And, uh, so he really struggled with this, trying to make it right.

And he said, of course, it’s, he’s trying to build up his emotional level. It’s hard to do. He said, horror movie sets are rarely actually scary. , you know, they’re just full of people and you’re surrounded in all that. So he is trying to build up this intensity and trying to do this scene, which is difficult.

And in between takes, Patrick is being super sweet to him. He is like, are you okay? Is everything all right? Do you need anything? And he says, which number one is weird coming from this guy in this disgusting mother evil makeup, but also is kind of taking him outta the moment, like , it’s hard for him to get so worked up again and start to be afraid when he’s being so sweet to him.

But, uh, yeah, he said this was definitely a challenging scene to take. And again, it could have been very different. Instead it’s gross and utterly terrifying. Uh, the d the filmmaking here is just fantastic. Yeah. 

Craig: And I don’t. Remember at what point, because I know that she, um, gets back into the house, into the basement of the house, but mm-hmm.

she’s locked in the basement again. So she goes to the window and starts crawling out the window. And the scary homeless guy who had been chasing her before, grabs her and pulls her out just a split second before the mother appears at the window and reaches out for her, but doesn’t get her. And then the mother just, uh, slinks back into the darkness and the homeless guy was says, I told you not to go in there,

And and he says, and she’s not even the scariest thing down there. And I was like, what? right. I believe is this when it cuts away? Cause eventually it cuts to another scene, like, like the same kind of jarring cut as before it jump cuts. To the same house, but clearly at a different time. Because, because it, the neighborhood looks nice.

It looks like a very nice, uh, small suburban neighborhood. 

Todd: Like in the eighties, Uhhuh when, you know, when the auto industry was booming and I actually lived in DC at this time. Detroit, you know, it was, I’m sorry. Yeah. I lived in Detroit at this time. It was very, uh, optimistic and everybody was making money working in the auto factories and things like that.

It was, uh, different 

Craig: than it is now. A man comes walking out of the house, we find out his name is Frank, but he’s played by Richard Break, uh, who is so recognizable. He just has a very recognizable face. He’s very tall and lean. Uh, kind of got a gruff face. I recognized him immediately from, uh, 31 Rob Zombies 31.

He played Doom Head, like the worst of the people. Crazy murderous game or whatever. Um, and he’s worked with Rob Zombie in other movies too. In fact, I think he is even in the monsters. Oh. But, but he’s creepy. Oh gosh. And, and his whole thing doesn’t take very long. He goes to a grocery store and he asks for help.

He needs plastic sheets because he’s going to be doing a home birth and, and it’s just gonna be him, no midwife or anything, which the grocery store person doesn’t find all that strange, I would find that strange. Right. But she gives him everything he’ll need, including like a, uh, instructional what to do with your baby vhs.

Yeah. Which I don’t even think that I noticed the first time around as I was watching it, I was thinking it was just a self-help book. But in hindsight, no. It’s a video. It’s the video that we’ve already seen. And then before he goes back home, he follows a woman that he sees in the parking lot. He follows her to her house, poses as a water and power employee to get into her house and unlocks her bathroom window.

So we know exactly who this guy is. Like he’s got a pair of coveralls in his trunk with a, a fake name on it. This just seems like something that he does. Mm-hmm. . And when he gets back to his house, his neighbor comes up to him and says, Hey, I just wanted to give you the heads up. Uh, there’s gonna be a for sale sign in our.

Uh, yard. Um, we’re getting outta here. We’re afraid if we wait any longer, we won’t be able to sell the house. And he said, the neighbor says, you think you’ll move? And the guy says, no, I, I’m, I’m never leaving . And then he walks into the house and it’s, you know, obviously in the eighties style, but it is the house.

Yep. And he walks all the way to the back and he opens the basement door and you hear screaming and crying. A woman screaming and crying from the basement. Yeah. So we know the history, at least some history of this house. But when it, when we come back, she, uh, has gotten out and she goes to the p she finds a gas station and she calls the police.

And they don’t take her seriously at all. They take her back to the house. But because she’s all dirty and she can’t provide any identification, they think she’s just some crackhead and they totally disregard her. Yeah. And leave her there alone. The homeless guy comes back and says, you gotta get outta here cuz she comes out at night.

But, and, but she says, but there’s somebody else down there. I have to help. I have to help him. She waits, I guess, till nighttime. Mm. And then the mother comes running out of the house and she plows the mother into the side of the house with her car. Yeah. And it seems like the mother dies. Yeah. So she, so she goes in looking for Justin Long, meanwhile, Justin Long is exploring around down there and comes across another room with a man, an old sick man in a bed.

Yeah. And it’s the guy that we had just seen, it’s frank, but obviously he’s aged 50 years or however long it’s been. And he’s old and decrepit and he doesn’t talk or anything. It’s everything down there is disgusting. And I didn’t notice the first time. I did notice the second time, there’s a whole bookshelf.

Loaded with VHS tapes. Mm-hmm. . And eventually before, uh, AJ notices the tapes, he says to the guy, um, don’t worry, I’m gonna get us out of here. The cops will be here any minute. And, uh, when he says that, Frank gestures towards something on the nightstand, but AJ can’t figure out what it is that he wants. So he just moves the nightstand over, uh, next to him.

And then AJ goes and starts looking around and he finds the shelf with all of the videotapes on it. And they all have like either women’s names or descriptions, like redhead from the gas station or puker or things like that. And he pops one. And we just see the light from the television illuminating his face as he’s horrified by what he sees.

And he turns around and Frank has pulled a gun out of the nightstand, and AJ’s like, no, no, no. Wait, wait. Um, but he doesn’t point it at him. He pointed at himself and shoots himself in the head. Mm-hmm. , obviously this guy knows that if the cops do show up there, he’s gone. It’s over for. Yeah, so , so AJ tries to get out, but he shoots Tess, which I don’t understand.

I, I guess he just sees her flashlight and, and is scared and so he shoots her. Yeah. I mean, 

Todd: he is coming down that hallway and she’s coming down to help him, but she’s not like really yelling out I’m, it’s confusing and I’m sure he’s just jumpy and he’s waiting for that. Lady to come jumping out at him because she should still be down there as far as he 

Craig: knows.

Yeah. Yeah. But she’s not dead. She looks dead for a second, but she’s not. And he helps her up and they go out. But as they get outside, the, the mother is gone. Um, she is no longer pinned to the house, so they don’t have a car. His keys are in the tunnels. And he says, I’m not going back down there. She says, I know where to go.

Cuz the homeless man had told her that he lives under the water tower. So they go to the water tower, they find the homeless man, and they say, who is she? Uh, AJ’s like, that’s my house. I, and he says, well, you may own the deed, but that’s been his house for the past 40 some years. And he said he used to take women in there and then he’d make babies with them and then he’d make babies with the babies.

Uh, and when you make copy, after copy, after copy, eventually that’s what you get. And she just lives down there and comes out at night. And he’s like, but don’t worry. I, I’ve been staying here 15 years and she never comes here. And as soon as he says that, she grabs him from behind, picks him him up, bursts through the wall.

Yeah. Bursts through the wall. Grabs him, picks him up, rips off his arm and beats him to death with it. . Oh my gosh, 

Todd: that was funny. That was, it was funny. Buddy 

Craig: moment. So AJ and Tes take off running, but they’re in kind of like a, I don’t know, they’re, they’re fenced in, so the only place for them to go is up.

So they start going up the water tower and when they get to the top, Tess is like your gun cuz he has one, he took Frank’s gun, he pulls it out and then fumbles it and drops it over the side. So they’re stuck up there and the mother is coming, she’s right on their heels. So, God, I mean like, I can’t say that I’m surprised.

It’s just, again, it’s so jarring to see from Justin Long. He’s like, we’re trapped, she’s gonna kill us both. And he says, So I can get away. You’re gonna have to distract her. So just as the mother gets to the top, he throws her off the water tower. Yeah. 

Todd: Test. You know, it’s funny you say you weren’t sur you were a little surprised, but you weren’t.

I I was the same way because there’s a scene we missed and I can’t remember what it was, but there’s a moment where Justin’s Long’s character is sitting and he is with some other people. And 

Craig: it was right before this with her. Yeah. And the homeless guy. And, and he’s 

Todd: like, I, I did a bad thing. I, I don’t think I, I might have done a bad thing.

I’m not a bad person. I can’t be a bad person. He’s really talking about his remorse back, you know, with over the rape incident 

Craig: and saying, he’s gonna fix it. I’m gonna fix it, I’m gonna make it. And, 

Todd: and this is almost like he’s redeeming himself by fixing their situation as well. So, you know, he’s got this on his mind.

Clearly it’s even in this intense moment, this is still weighing heavily on him and it seems like he’s trying to be a good person. And then he does this, which is just the most despicable thing, 

Craig: right? And it’s awful. But then also the perspective I think kind of shifts. I don’t know if it’s, we’re supposed to kind of be seeing what she’s seeing as she’s falling.

Yeah. But we’re, we’re looking up at the water tower and in kind of slow motion you see the mother dive. Off the side. Mm-hmm. . And it’s a beautiful shot. Uh oh. It’s amazing. It just looks fantastic. And then it cuts back to him and he looks over the side and somehow Tess has landed on top of the mother.

Mm-hmm. , and they both appear to be dead. And so he goes down. And looks, and it turns out the test isn’t dead. And, and he makes some excuse. And it almost sounds like he’s making excuses to himself. Yeah. Cause, cause at first he says, oh, I didn’t have any choice. Uh, but, but, but I didn’t even do anything that you, you slipped, like he’s, he’s re reframing the narrative.

Mm-hmm. not just for her, but I think for himself too. He doesn’t wanna believe or admit that he did what he did. Um, but he, he kind of helps her up. But then it turns out the mother is not dead either, which is totally unrealistic. But, um, she gets up, she grabs him, lifts him in the air, gouges his eyeballs with her long, gross, nasty fingernails, and then rip.

His head just apart. 

Todd: And that’s satisfying at this point. totally. We’re ready for him to die at that moment. And it happens at that moment. Absolutely. It’s very cathartic. It, it’s, I don’t understand how the mother ended up underneath this woman. 

Craig: I don’t know. It defies physics. I, I guess the suggestion is that she was jumping to try to help or protect Tess because Tess is her baby.

Maybe 

Todd: she grabbed her midair 

Craig: and flipped around or something. Who knows? Doesn’t make any sense. But I, that, I think that’s what we’re supposed to believe. Yeah. And then this part surprised me and surprised me even more on the second viewing. The mother comes over to Tess, who is still on the ground and she’s, the mother is trying to comfort her and like points to her wound and tries to cover it and is stroking her face and, and looking back towards the house, just going ba, ba and Tessa’s saying I can’t go back.

Really? The mother is just, Caressing her and trying to lift her up to try to take her back home. I actually felt very sympathetic towards this. monstrous woman in this moment. She’s a 

Todd: victim too. She is. You know, I mean the, the whole movies is about this, you know, it’s, it’s such a fake out in the beginning where we think the movie’s gonna be about this man who prays on this woman, and it turns out he’s the only good, decent guy.

Uhhuh, that Tess encounters in this whole scenario. Right. Everybody else is, even the, the male cops are absolutely no help to her. 

Craig: Right, right. So and so, yeah, so this woman, this poor woman, has led this terrible life, but not her fault. She, she’s a victim too, but ultimately, you know, Tess reaches for the gun and, and, and shoots her.

Uh, and it immediately, Cuts to black and that song from the sixties, I think, be My Baby, uh, plays. It’s really ironic and funny. Um, and there are a couple, it, it, it cuts back to Tess a couple of times as you see her picking herself up and the mother’s dead body is laying there. And then it goes back to the credits for a second and then it cuts back to her and just shows her walking away as uh, the dawn comes and you know that that’s it.

But ultimately I just thought it was a really fun ride. But it was, it was the shocking elements that made it so fun going back and watching it a second time. Uh, it felt a little bit more typical. I wasn’t as shocked by the appearance of the mother cuz I knew what to expect and, you know, I knew the backstory already.

It, it, it’s fun to let everything unfold the first time you see this movie. It’s a really fun experience and would be fun to share. With friends. That’s the only reason I think that I would watch it again was if I could watch it with somebody else who hadn’t seen it before. I think it experience it through their eyes.

Yeah. Uhhuh, I think it would be fun to see their, uh, reactions and stuff, but um, having seen it now twice, I’m good, but I do solidly recommend it. It’s a good. 

Todd: It is. I, it’s a fun ride. It’s tense. It goes in unexpected places, twists and turns everywhere. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed when the mom came out at the first bit, and this was my first time through.

I was like, uh oh. It’s like a mutant now you’ve shown me what it is that, you know, the mystery’s kind of gone and it’s gonna be one of those mutant things, but then the movie took enough left turns from there on out that, uh, yeah. I was like, didn’t have a problem with it anymore. Yeah. And it’s, it’s dark material.

Mm-hmm. like dark, scary. Within the realm of reality in a way, you know, we’re not talking about supernatural elements here. We’re just talking about this crazy kind of sad, inbred victim woman with this guy who does this terrible thing. And like I said, this is, this kind of thing happens. It’s in the news.

Yeah. So, uh, I had 

Craig: kind of forgotten about that, but you’re right. It, it probably was about 10 years ago that there were like two or three stories back to back. Oh man. About these men keeping, I think, you know, their daughters and then fathering children with their daughters and, you know, that’s such a real life nightmare.

And then of course, these women are found and let out into the world. They have children. Mm-hmm. , you know, by their father. And how do you move forward from that? I can’t even begin to imagine, 

Todd: isn’t that like more or less unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt? Uh, yeah. Backstory as well. Uh, you know, this. As dark as it was and as tense as it was.

Interjected. Little bits of comedy here and there. Yeah. Uhhuh. But it was never distracting from the plot. It was never, never devolved into camp. No, it was, it was also never obvious. Or like, okay, you know, now people are wise cracking and being silly in this, you know, bad situation. Just very, very skillful film making.

And I think that, uh, this director, Zach Kreger, is gonna get a lot of work from this movie. Yeah, 

Craig: I would think so. Cuz it’s really well done. Mm-hmm. , I mean, just technically it looks great. Oh yeah. It’s a really good looking movie. It’s well shot. 

Todd: It seems to be doing well too. I mean, uh, it’s, people are talking about it.

Yeah. People are talking about, they’re getting a lot of buzz. It’s getting good reviews on, um, you know, rotten tomatoes and stuff like that. I think financially it’s been successful. Uh, it was shot for four and a half million, uh, but because a lot of it’s on streaming, uh, there aren’t really a lot of figures right now as to what it’s making.

Right. But, uh, I can’t imagine that this movie is, isn’t making a lot of money right now among, among the horror. Well, thank you for recommending it Craig. Really, really enjoyed it. You guys out there, if you have any thoughts or if you’ve seen this movie recently, please check us out online. You can go to our Facebook page.

That’s one of the easiest ways to reach us. But also you can go to our website, 2guys.red40net.com, and leave us a message there. You can also, uh, join the conversation over at our Patreon page. If you donate about five bucks a month or 10 bucks a month, whatever you want, you get access to a bunch of little extras as well as a little more direct access to us.

We, uh, are quite active with chatting back and forth with our patrons there. We have a discord that you can access and, uh, some goodies as well. So please check that out at patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We tick off yet another one of the last major horror franchises that we had yet to cover: Wrong Turn.

This action-packed Cannibal Mutant Killers In The Woods flick has a slick look that belies its surprising brutality, courtesy of mostly practical effects by Stan Winston. There have been (to date) five sequels and one remake/reboot nearly 20 years later. Come see what we thought of the film the kicked it all off.

Wrong Turn (2003)

Episode 320, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Todd: And I’m Todd.

Craig: This week we kind of were at a loss for what we wanted to do. Uh, so I thought of something that’s been in the back of my mind for a long time because we’ve talked about how. After all of this time, we’ve pretty much covered about every franchise that we can think of.

Yeah. Um, but every time we have this discussion, there is one franchise, uh, that I think about that we haven’t done yet, and that is the Wrong Turn franchise . Wrong Turn. Uh, this movie came out in what, 2003? Is that right? Yeah, 2003. I remembered really liking it. In fact, I think at some point I bought the DVD v d It’s been so long since I’ve actually watched a dvd.

I have no idea if I have it or not. I don’t even have a working DVD player in my house anymore. So, uh, I may still have the DVD somewhere. I don’t know. Um, and it’s, it’s, it’s actually one, uh, that I’ve wanted to revisit, but it’s kind of hard to find, at least. It’s hard to find for free. Yeah. Um, , 

Todd: and that’s a little something about us

Yeah.

Craig: Um, but, uh, I, I, I asked Todd to work his magic , and I came and he did. Well, you, you did. But, um, Unfortunately, uh, the magical link that you sent me didn’t work. Uh, so, so I paid four whole dollars Oh, no. To 

rent 

Todd: it . Oh God. I’m so sorry. You should have told me earlier. . Oh, 

Craig: I know. No. Like, that’s $4 I’ll never see again.

Yeah, it was fine. It, it, honestly, it was worth the $4 just to be able to revisit a movie that I remembered liking, but probably haven’t seen in at least 15 years. Um, it, it had been so long since I’d seen it that I didn’t remember how it ended. Uh, I, I certainly remembered certain things about it, um, but I, I didn’t remember it well.

Uh, so it was kind of fun to go back to this movie. Did spawn a whole series of sequels. Uh, I think that there are five direct sequels to this movie. Um, and then in 2021 or 2022, there was a remake slash reboot. I haven’t seen it. I’ve read the synopsis and the synopsis Sounds nothing like this movie, really.

So I, I don’t think that it’s a, a remake. I think it’s a reboot of the franchise. It’s written by 

Todd: the same author though. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah, it is. Yeah. It, I think it’s the first time that the writer returned to the franchise. I, I, Correct. He’s, he’s credited on all the other ones, but only because, uh, the characters are inspired by, Yeah.

Uh, the original, I don’t know if I saw all of the sequels. They got progressively worse with each one, but they were fun because they had really. Interesting and really gross kills. Yeah. So it was always fun to revisit them just to see, you know, the innovative new kills. But they were bad. Yeah. , they weren’t, they weren’t good movies.

They were all direct to video, which is fine. But this one, I don’t know. It was interesting to revisit. Yeah. What, what, what’s your 

Todd: history with this? Well, I have no history. You know, I keep, I keep mixing it up with that, uh, Sean Penn movie, What was it called? Dead End or something like that. Anyway, yeah. So I always think, Oh yeah, I saw wrong turn.

And then when you suggested, I was like, Oh yeah, okay, well, we’ll watch it. But I don’t, not even sure that’s, Yeah. Then I realized, no, that’s not the movie. I thought it was, and I haven’t seen this movie ever before. Yeah. So I have, I had no history with this movie. It’s the first time I saw it. I, Well, as soon as we were watching the credits, I was kind of surprised to see that, because I didn’t read anything about it going in.

I was surprised to see that Stan Winston was involved. Yeah. And I thought, Oh, this, this must mean we’re gonna get some. I mean, he didn’t direct it, obviously. It was directed by a guy named, uh, Rob Schmidt. Honestly hasn’t really done much else. I mean, he’s done other things, but nothing of that I would consider of note, the author Alan B McElroy, as you said.

He, he actually wrote Halloween 4, That was his first, um, produced screenplay. And he’s had more of a, I think later in, especially now, he’s done a lot of writing for television. Mm-hmm. . Um, but yeah, their director hasn’t really done much else. And it seems like Stan Winston, although he produced it, this was one of the last things he was involved in.

I think one of the last movies he was involved in before he died, from what I read, he had some say in the, in the makeup effects, I guess. Mm-hmm. for the, our three inbred killers that we have here. Right. Um, but there’s no other like, creature of sorts in it. And yeah, I don’t know. I. I mean to be com completely honest with you, like it didn’t really blow me away.

I thought it was kind of dumb in a lot of spots and surprisingly really thin on the characters. I was, in the beginning of the movie, I really thought, Oh, these characters are gonna be interesting because they seem to have. Yeah, especially our, our guy who’s the doctor who we are introduced to first off.

And then as the movie went on, I was like, Oh, it’s just these people going through this thing. And I didn’t really feel anything particular for any of them. , to be honest. I accept, you know, again, like you said, really brutal. More brutal than I expected it to be. And I knew this was kind of a mainstream movie.

I know it was released to theaters. I remembered that much. But, uh, it does look like it did have some trouble because, uh, even the previews for the movie were deemed bad. Like, like sensitive. And so, uh, they weren’t able to even run previews for the film on too many, um, stations, or they had to cut them up a lot.

They even had to cut the movie quite a bit just to get an R rating. And I, and I’m not surprised because what we end up with is still a pretty brutal r Yeah. But also it has that slickness. Yeah. Of the time. Right. It doesn’t, it doesn’t feel like a low budget movie at all, which, No, it might be going against it in that way.

Like I, I, I mean, who cares? The movie is what it is, but, uh, I, I read that they were going for a 1970s style movie, like on the, like, like The Hills Have Eyes or Texas Exchange on Massacre. And although yes, the subject matter is that they definitely weren’t going for it in terms of filming style. Right. It was very slick.

It had, it had some really nice, like, interesting shots and some interesting sweeping camera angles and things that, uh, that were impressive. Some, some, I think some CGI in there. Magic had to be done to make some of that. But yeah, it’s, it’s definitely, uh, it feels slicker than maybe we’re used to seeing this subject matter being shot in

Yeah. 

Craig: You know what I mean? Yeah. I totally get what you’re saying. Like those movies, the director, uh, Rob Schmidt considers this kind of his homage to those types of movies. Like you mentioned, The Hills Have Eyes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and it really does have a lot in common with those, uh, in terms of plot and characters.

But those movies are gritty. Yeah. They’re, they’re gritty, not just in, in terms of their plot and the story, but in the way that they look, they look kind of gritty. Yeah. Like you said, I mean, this looks very clean. The cinematography is actually really good and, um, it’s. Almost entirely outdoors. Uh, I, I think that this was shot mostly in Canada, but it, it’s supposed to be West Virginia and it looks like the mountains of West Virginia.

Yeah. You know, these, these, uh, dense forests, um, isolated from civilization and, and as far as like outdoor photography and like you said, like the opening credits, Well, not the opening credits, but the opening shot is an aerial shot. It looks like a drone shot. I don’t know how they did it, but it looks like a drone shot over the forest and it really, it looks great.

It’s, it’s beautiful to look at and it really highlights the isolation Yeah. Um, of these areas. And, you know, I, I think most of our listeners these days are from the states. Uh, and, and if you are, I’m not a world traveler. Maybe you can tell me that this is the case all over the world, but here in the States, of course, obviously we’ve got small towns, we’ve got cities, you know, it’s populous.

But, um, there are also parts of the United States that are very remote and these dense, huge forests that are beautiful. But , they are very isolated. And in the 2020s, people still. Lost and never make their way out, you know that Sure. They’re, they’re sweeping. Um, and so there’s, for me at least, uh, even that kind of environment, if you were to get lost in a, in a desolate remote, Area the situation could be pretty dire.

Then add in , you know, backwards, cannibal, backwards, cannibals. Mm-hmm. , right? Honestly, like I, Okay, so on the weekends, I sit here in my chair, in my living room, uh, and either watch TV or watch these movie. On my computer screen, and Alan is usually sitting right behind me with his back to me doing puzzles because he loves puzzles.

I could care less about puzzles. I don’t touch ’em. Do you mean 

Todd: jigsaw puzzles? Like little, Yeah, jigsaw 

Craig: puzzles, like thousand piece jigsaw puzzles. Wow. He, he’s just sits there for hours and hours and hours, um, and does these jigsaw puzzles. I don’t have the patience, but as a result he listens and he’s seen this movie, you know, uh, we, we’ve been together for 25 years, so we were together when this movie came out.

So he’s seen it, but it, like me, he hadn’t seen it in a very long time. And last night when we were having dinner together, I said, you. I I that I actually liked it. I thought it was pretty good. And he said, Are you kidding me? It was miserable to just listen to it.

I, I, I see what you’re saying. I don’t, I, I can’t even put a finger on why I liked it, but I kind of did. Now, here, the reason here, okay, first of all, I was initially drawn to this movie when it came out in 2003 because it stars Eliza Duku, and I am a big fan of Eliza Duku. I was and remain a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire S 

Todd: Player.

Yes, I know. 

Craig: I, I stand by. I think that is one of the best television series to have ever aired. I, I, I just think it was amazing. Um, it was a fun, you know, kind of light horror comedy, but I just thought that it was ingenious the way that they made. The, the difficult things that people face in growing up and going from adolescence to teen years to adult years.

They used monsters and, and demons as metaphors for the types of things that everybody experiences. I, I can talk about that. Mm-hmm. , maybe we’ll do a mini, So about Buffy the va, I could talk about it all day, but , Eliza Duku, uh, was on that show. She played kind of a rogue, darker slayer as a counterpoint to Buffy’s Sweet Valley girl type slayer.

So I’m a huge fan of her. That’s what drew me to the movie. That’s one thing that it had going for, for it for me, um, from the beginning. But the other thing, I found myself feeling legitimately tense through a lot of this movie. Yeah. Um, there are some really, really tense scenes. Um, and there were at least two or three times when I jumped.

There are a couple of really good jump scares in this movie 

Todd: too. You’re right, you’re right. Absolutely. I’m with you a hundred percent on what you’re saying. 

Craig: I am. It’s, it’s not a, it’s not a great movie. It’s not, and, and it’s really kind of predictable and kind of something. It, it’s not original, you know, it’s no backwards hillbilly mutants for whatever reason.

I don’t know if there’s really any explanation other than inbreeding maybe. 

Todd: Yeah. I mean there is a, I didn’t pay close attention cuz I was distracted a little bit during the credit sequence. Yeah. But it seems like the credit sequence is trying to set up or hint at. Something cuz there’s like, I don’t know, like cells moving around and there’s newspaper clippings or something about genetic things.

I don’t know. I I, I don’t really, I didn’t really catch it all, but that’s it. I mean, if, if it’s anywhere it’s there and I, it wasn’t explicit. I think it was just, uh, Yeah, 

Craig: and you get some kind of, you get some vague quick shots. I mean, these are all like newspaper clippings that you’re just seeing little snippets of and it tells you, you know, it shows all these people have gone missing and, and you, you kind of see some, I don’t know, like, not full shots, but like small shots of, uh, disfigured people.

Oh, right. Yeah. And, and that’s, that’s, that’s what we, we end up with. But I, I just thought it, it, it, I don’t know. I, I, I can’t defend it too much because I, I have to concede that it’s not a great movie, but. Ultimately I liked it. . 

Todd: Well, I think, you know, in the same respect, I’m having a really hard time pinpointing why it didn’t really push my buttons, and I’m hoping that maybe just during our discussion we’ll I’ll, we’ll be able to kind of hash that out because there’s nothing wrong.

I mean, a horror is, is is rarely original . Yeah, yeah. You know, we get, we get our Jo Jollies from just seeing the same types of stuff over and over again and we, we like it. You know, I, I’m not really sure what criteria we, every, every week, I’m really not sure what criteria we’re gonna be measuring this movie by.

Right. I would’ve enjoyed it a lot more if it had been shot in the seventies. I think, uh, you know, grittier style, those, those other movies, I don’t know what it is. They, they definitely tend to, maybe because of the low budget and the film stock and whatever, they do tend to have a slightly more like a hint of a documentary feel to them.

Right. Which makes them a little more. I don’t know, uh, be real or believable when a movie is this slick. And, and I mean, this movie’s slick. I I feel like it’s like, it’s like Texas Chainsaw crossed with like, I know what you did last summer, you know? Yeah. Yeah. In that, in that way it’s just beautifully lit and, uh, beautifully filmed with great set pieces and, and nice looking people Yes.

That are pretty young. And so I think that’s, might be what goes against it. That, and just like you said earlier, it’s not particularly original and so, uh, I was expecting, I was hoping for something more than what I’d seen before, but it’s an homage, so Yeah. You know, it’s not trying to be something new, it’s trying to be a throwback.

So I can’t fault it for that. And certainly I’ve enjoyed other homages as well. What didn’t I like about this movie? I don’t know. I, I didn’t hate it. I just, um, turned it off and thought, Oh, okay. That was, that was fine, but. 

Craig: Well, it doesn’t bring anything new to the table. And, um, not that this is a requirement of horror in any way, so this really isn’t a criticism, but it really doesn’t have anything to say, You know, like, yeah, it, it’s just a story about a bunch of young, sexy people who get stranded in the forest and get chased around by mutant canals.

That’s it. There, there, there’s not anything more to it than that. Um, but I did, I, I thought that the performance. We’re good. I, I, I stand, I stand by my appreciation of Eliza Duku. I think she’s a, aside from being gorgeous, uh, I think she’s a good actress. And I didn’t think that there was anybody in this movie who was bad.

Jeremy. Oh, Isis. Jeremy Systo annoyed this shit outta me, but I I didn’t think that, I thought that that was his character. . 

Todd: Yeah. He was an annoying character and he was meant to be that way. Yeah. But, but it wasn’t over the top annoyance to the point of caricature. I just, I felt like these were real people.

I really did. Um, I, I, the acting was perfect. Uh, perfectly serviceable. I thought. Um, Kevin Zegers is in this, and he’s been all over the place. He’s quite famous now. More, I mean, uh, a ton of tv, that movie that we wanted, that we’ve been talking about, maybe seeing called Frozen. about people being stranded on a chairlift.

Oh, oh, was he in that? 

Craig: He’s in that. Yeah. I like that movie. I’ve watched that movie more than 

Todd: once, so, um, We should do that sometime actually. But I mean, this guy’s, this guy’s been all over, all over. He was in the Dawn of the Dead. He was in the, the Dawn of the Dead remake that Zach Schneider did, which I loved.

Craig: So was the girl who played his girlfriend Francine? Uh, her name’s Lindy Booth. They were both in it and, and I think there are a couple in this movie and, uh, I think they become a couple 

Todd: in that movie. And as far as horror goes, he’s gone all the way back to when he was a kid. He was in the, in the mouth of Madness and, uh, Airbus.

How was that? You know, in the se in the nineties. So even at this time, we have actors who are well trained and, and regarded all of these 

Craig: young actors. Ha have done a lot since then. Yeah. Um, and Jeremy Systo, who plays Scott, he, again, like I said, he’s an annoying character. He’s, he’s a fine actor. He’s just an annoying character.

But, um, he’s done tons of stuff. He was in May. Mm-hmm. , He was the boy that she was obsessed with. I think that he was originally considered for Titanic. Leonard, Leonard DiCaprio’s part. I think there are actually Oh, interesting. There a screenshot or like screen tests of him for that movie. He’s very recognizable.

Um, even like, uh, the guy who plays Three Finger, one of the mutants. Mm-hmm. , his name is Julian Richings. He’s like an esteemed actor. Like, really? Check out, Oh my God. Check out his IMDB page. He has. Uh, like it, it’s a h He has a huge resume. Um, and if you see his picture Oh, feature, you’re right. I think you’ll, you’ll, you’ll recognize him.

He’s done tons of stuff. He’s got tons of stuff like in post production now. Yeah. Getting ready to come out. I just recently saw him in a mo, a Netflix original that I really liked called, uh, anything for Jackson Uhhuh , where he played an older, uh, very, uh, like Gen Teal gentleman. Like, he, like, I couldn’t believe when I saw that it was him, because I, I, I think it’s cool that somebody who is such a.

Uh, uh, clearly, clearly a good actor would take on a role like this where he doesn’t even speak. It’s, it’s all no physicality and like strange vocalization and manic laughter. 

Todd: All, all buried under makeup. You know, Uhhuh ? Yeah. You, Oh, 

Craig: you, oh yeah. You’d never recognize him. There’d be no way to recognize him.

Mimic 

Todd: cube, Ivin legend. I mean, he’s not afraid to do horror for sure. He’s. But I’m saw four. He was in saw four, um, , but also 228 total credits. So, I mean, yeah, you’re right. It’s 

Craig: insane. Even the guy that plays the creepy gas station attendant had done quite, I think he was in Cube also. Um, he passed away in 2011.

But like, there’s, there’s talent in this movie that, like you said, the director hadn’t done a lot. I, I don’t remember. I looked at his credits, but I don’t remember anything 

Todd: else that he had done. I mean, pretty much nothing before this. I mean, you know, he did like a, a couple shorts and a TV movie called an American Town and something that I don’t called Crime Plus Punishment in Suburbia, 

Craig: which, uh, Yeah, Yeah.

But, but for somebody with not a lot of experience, he, he seems quite skilled. Uh, Yeah. Cause it’s well directed. Well, 

Todd: honestly, I’m, I’m shocked he hardly has anything since then. Really. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, me too. And the writer has, has a, a huge resume as well. A lot of tv, but, um, lots of stuff. So there’s a lot of talent going on here, but 20 minutes in, we should probably start talking about what, what happens in the movie.

Um, like I said, it starts out with an aerial shot at it’s West Virginia. Uh, the first scene that we get, I, I actually think it’s a great opening scene as is the case with many opening scenes in horror, especially this type of horror. Uh, it’s, it’s just, it’s the opening 

Todd: kill, it’s the Roger Corman, uh, formula, right?

You gotta have a kill right away, right? You gotta have some blood right away. 

Craig: A sexy couple is doing some rock climbing. The forest of West Virginia and the, the guy gets to the top first. The guy, you know, like walks out of her line of vision, uh, and she hears something strange. And then he falls kind of back into her vision again, right at the edge of the cliff.

And blood starts dripping, uh, onto her. Then he is thrown over the cliff and some unseen person starts rapidly pulling her up, uh, the cliff. So she cuts the rope and eventually falls, But is inexplicably uninjured, . Yeah. 

Todd: And even though her attacker was at the top of the cliff, there’s apparently somebody waiting for her at the bottom as well, who grabbed, had some barbed wire right.

Craig: Yeah. The trips he trips are with Barb Dwyer and, and then she gets dragged off frame, presumably to her death. So, um, we, and, and at, at the top of the ridge before she’s attacked, you know, you see the, the tree or like the, the shrubbery moving as though somebody’s running behind it and you hear this very creepy manic laughter.

Yeah, it’s kind of silly that, uh, she’s so easily overtaken when it seems that the attacker is at the top. But we do come to find out that there are three of these right guys. So potentially one of them could have been up at the top and another one or two of them could have been at the bottom, but, I thought it was a good opening scene.

It was scary and solid. Um, bloody and, uh, not something you want to 

Todd: happen to you. 

Craig: Exactly. Right. Then we, uh, after the title sequence with the like newspaper clippings and we also get some images of like dirty hands, like touching and mutilating dead bodies. Um, all of this in black and. Then we cut to what I suppose is our main character, even though this ultimately becomes kind of an ensemble.

Uh, the character’s name is Chris Flynn. He always introduces himself by his full name . 

Todd: Mm-hmm. , I dunno why, like, I don’t know either. Maybe like a douchebag doctor. I, I got the sense, the way he was playing it, at least, you know, he’s playing it rather cold. He doesn’t seem to be like a real sensitive person, uh, who’s just super friendly.

He’s got a lot on his mind. At the very least, he’s driving to get somewhere. Um, and he’s late and he’s gotta go through this sort of backwoods, I guess, of, uh, of West Virginia to get 

Craig: there. Well, he finds himself in a traffic jam. There’s been an accident. Oh, right. 

Todd: So he turns around to shake an alternate route.

Craig: You’re right. Right. And he takes, uh, a dirt road, which leads him to this rundown backwards gas station. with a filthy toothless. Sitting there drinking Pepto Bissol, , 

Todd: the dirtiest man, you could possibly imagine this. It’s really gross. Hats off to who put him together, you know what I mean? But, you know, I was expecting, and this I thought was kind of cute, right?

I was expecting the typical gas station thing. Well, you definitely don’t want to go up there. You better turn yourself right around and leave. Right? But this gas station attendant is completely uninterested in this guy. Yeah. Doesn’t care. . 

Craig: But, but when he, he see there’s a map on the wall and Chris says, Well, why is this road a dotted line?

Is it, cuz it’s a, a gravel road? And the guy’s like, Yeah, I guess they haven’t got around to paving it yet. like, you can barely understand him when he talks cuz he has no. True. And so, uh, Chris is like, Okay, well take care. And as he drives away, the guy goes, You’re the one good nude. Take care . Yeah. Like, he knows what he’s sending him into.

He just doesn’t give a shit. He just doesn’t 

Todd: care at all. It’s the, it’s the Antiga station attend it,

Craig: So immediately he heads down this, uh, dirt road and he’s driving recklessly. Like he, he dropped like his CD skips. So he pulls it out and drops it on the floor and like bends down to pick it up. And I’m thinking you’re going to have an accident, but it’s not even then it’s uh, he sees a dead deer along the side of the road and he passes it and he looks into his rear view mirror.

I, I guess cuz he needs a better look or something. And he smashes into this SUV that’s parked Yeah. Uh, kind of along the side of the road. I mean, it, it’s a na, it’s a dirt, a back. Dirt road, so it’s narrow anyway. Um, but he smashes into this suv. As it turns out, the SUV was parked there because it had gotten flat tires, and they, and the flat tires are because barbed wire was strung along.

The, the road. Yep. But this SUV was carrying this group of people. I read in the trivia that originally in the script, these people were all supposed to be in their late twenties, but they changed them to being 19 year olds to appeal to the younger slasher crowd. None of these people look anything like 19 years old.

No. . 

Todd: Not at all. . I read that too, and I was scratching my head. I was like, were there ages even referred to in this script? No. They all look like they’re in their mid to late twenties , 

Craig: I think. Oh, yes, yes. And I was thinking, I was thinking maybe like 23, 24 at the, At the youngest. Yes. I, I think they mention college.

Like I think they mention that they’re in college, whatever. I mean, it’s not like, it’s not. It’s uncommon for teenagers to be played by people who are clearly significantly older than teenagers. I just thought that it was interesting that they were intentionally going for younger. Right. And yet they still casted 20 somethings.

Like, 

Todd: And by the way, can I take this moment? I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this on the show before about how ridiculous this notion is that you need to cast people of a certain age to appeal to that age as though teenagers don’t like seeing movies about older people or younger people. Right. You know what I mean?

It’s just the stupidest thing. So this is almost like that taken to the, a hilarious degree where some executive was, was like, well, only green like this script if it, you know, if, if, if it appeals to, instead of the, the 24 and 25 year olds, the, you know, 21 and 22 year olds, Right. And they’re like, Okay, all right, we’ll write that in.

And then they end up casting, you know, 30 year olds anyway, . Right. And it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t matter. 

Craig: No. I feel like, especially in horror, like they just need to be sexy. Like that’s the appeal. It doesn’t have anything to do with their age as long as they’re hot. Young people, middle aged men like us, are, are going to find it appealing.

So it’s fine is all we care about anymore. Yeah. And, and all these people, you know, they are good looking young people. You know, the, the, the guy who plays Chris, uh, who’s supposed to be older than them but looks the same age, um, he’s played by a guy named Desmond Harrington. I kind of recognized some of the things that he had been in and I kind of recognized his face.

He’s just a good looking man. You know that. That’s it. The group of 20 somethings. You’ve got Scott played by Jeremy Systo. His girlfriend Carly, uh, played by Emmanuel. Uh, Cheeky. Um, I didn’t recognize her specifically from anything, but she’s been in tons of stuff too. Another couple. Francine is a redhead.

She’s played by a girl named Lindy Booth. Been in tons of stuff, has done, is still working. Tons of tv. Um, her boyfriend Evan, played by Kevin Zegers, who you’ve already mentioned, has been in a bunch of stuff, and Jessie played by Eliza Duku. Uh, apparently they are all on this wilderness trip because they’re trying to cheer Jessie up because she’s recently been dumped, 

Todd: which I don’t think we find out about until later.

Craig: Right. Yeah, I, I, Francine says something, To her boyfriend because everybody except Francine and Evan, even like within the next five minutes take off walking to look for help. Francine and Evan stayed behind and Evan says something like, We should have just taken her to New York City. And Francine says, Well, she likes all this outdoor stuff.

Yeah. 

Todd: So, but it’s for her sake that at least we know by then. Yeah, right. 

Craig: For her sake. But we don’t find out late until later that it’s because she got dumped or whatever. But lucky for her, this hot doctor has come along and they like, this is so funny to me, because they immediately gravitate towards one another, which is fine.

You know, they’re, they’re, they’re the only ones who don’t already have a partner, so it’s logical that they would gravitate towards one another. But as soon as they find themselves in peril, you would think that they had been in a relationship for years. , 

Todd: they just have that air. That’s right. They’re, they’re stuck with glue.

They’re communicating 

Craig: everything. She is clinging to him, like, like physically, like , like digging her nails into it. Like, uh, well, 

Todd: at the same time he’s just kind of like, Barreling ahead with her in toe, you know, Uhhuh, it’s not like he’s giving anything back to her. There’s no like real chemistry between them, beyond this is the stuff we have to work together to do to get through this ordeal.

Right? Yeah. He’s, he, he’s surprisingly just kind of cold and, and to the point where I thought that that was gonna be a plot point. Or I thought there’d be a character arc here, you know, where he warms up a bit or he tells us about his terrible life, or he was, you know, stifled and blah, blah, blah. And then this, this ordeal kind of makes him more sensitive and, and kind or some, There’s no character arc for any character No.

In this movie at all. No. Not at, just doesn’t happen. Nor do the relationships between the characters really change. Yeah, I mean, just like you said, aside from the fact that, uh, as soon as they meet each other, they’re stuck together like glue. Nobody gets closer to anybody else. Nobody find, you know, they’re just.

It’s just like four separate people doing their or well, I’m sorry, five separate people doing their five separate things. 

Craig: Yeah. And honestly, you know, in a situation like this, like if you’re, it’s realistic, right? I mean, yeah. I mean you, I, I, I, I can only imagine that you would clinging to whomever. It’s a kind of a love, the one you’re with kind of thing, you know, , right?

We’re in this together, whether we like it or not, so, We may as well have each other’s back and look out for each other. But like I said, uh, the two of them, Evan and Francine stay behind. And, um, as soon as the rest of them start walking away, we get POV shots to show that somebody’s watching from the woods.

It cuts back and forth between the people who are walking and, and Evan and Francine. Um, it’s, it’s more than suggested, but you don’t see anything that Francine blows Evan on the hood of the car, but there is zero sex. Or nudity in this movie? No, no. Surprising. And, and I read that in the original script.

There was, you know, there was a sex scene between Francine and Evan in the woods. Jessie, Eliza Duku was supposed to have her clothes ripped off, uh, at some point and, and maybe some other stuff too. But ultimately it just didn’t happen. I’m not really sure why. And it kind of makes it stand out. It does really in the world of horror, because there, I mean, that’s a staple in, in horror is, is nudity and, and sex.

And in the sequels, all of the direct to video sequels, tons of nudity and sex like , like that’s like definitive of tho those, those movies are defined by the amount of, uh, sex and, and, uh, nudity. But none here. And honestly, I didn’t miss it. No, it didn’t even really cross my mind. It seemed to me like it almost would it, I mean, it certainly would’ve been gratuitous, and it seemed like it almost would’ve been out of place.

The only place that I thought that maybe it would’ve made sense was near the end when Jesse is taken captive by these mountain men. Yes. Um, then I thought it would’ve made sense that the only reason that they would’ve kept her alive 

Todd: and, and not killed her right away, which they do to everybody else.

Right. 

Craig: That would’ve made sense if they had had other motives with her, but, Right. Other than that, I don’t know. I mean, I guess, you know, Francine and Evan, her boyfriend and girlfriend, it would’ve, it wouldn’t have been out of character, especially since they were alone in a remote place. And, and like I said, it’s suggested, you know, she kneels down in front of him and pulls his pants down.

Um, but then it cuts away, whatever. It’s, it’s just kind of an interesting, in this type of movie, you, you, you pretty much expect it and it’s just not there. 

Todd: Yeah. And, and when you’re building an homage, Right, especially like, you’re definitely expecting it cuz you’re thinking this is one of those tropes that has to be, you know, it’s a box that has to be checked.

So when it’s not there, it’s kind of, again, like you, I don’t care if it’s there or not, honestly, but, but you know, you’re, when you’re waiting for it and it doesn’t show up, it’s surprising . Mm-hmm. , you know, you’re trained to expect it. And also when you’re trying to figure out who’s gonna live and who’s gonna die, this.

Sort of thing tends to define that. Right. Although, although I’ll say from the beginning, I mean, from the first 10 minutes I had picked out who was gonna live it. It’s really no big surprise. 

Craig: No, no. You know, you know for sure. Yeah. And so, uh, the first, aside from the opening kill, Evan hears something in the woods and he walks away and Francine notices that he’s missing right away and calls for him and he doesn’t respond.

So, you know, something’s going on. Like I said, it cuts back and forth between the two groups. But, uh, eventually Francine takes two steps into the woods, , um, and. Evans first she finds his shoe and then she takes two more steps into the woods and finds his ear . 

Todd: Yeah, right. One thing that’s pretty remarkable in these early stages, cuz there’s a little bit of people sort of suddenly disappearing at like, they’re walking next to somebody and then they, you know, they take three steps and then they, they turn around and that person’s not there anymore.

Like, these guys are rather quiet about being able to dispatch these folks who are right around them, into the woods, let alone cut off their ear and do whatever to them. Uh, all while everything else is completely silent. You uhhuh, uh, completely silent. I, I had to smile at how absolutely silly that was.

Yeah. But, but that’s brutal though, when he comes up behind her and he Yes. He gets that barbed wire right into her mouth. And that’s like a theme in this movie. There’s a lot of people getting. cut in their mouths. , somebody gets an ax in their mouth later. Oh yeah, she gets uhhuh. You know that barbed wire instead of around her throat, which is where you expect it’s right for her jaw.

And, and 

Craig: it’s this, it’s a hulking guy. You don’t see his face, They don’t re, they don’t show these guys faces very much at all. Not in the 

Todd: begin, not until 

Craig: the very end. Right. More so at the end. I mean, you get kind of, you get glimpses, but it’s more so at the end that, uh, you really see them. But it’s just this hu you know, she, she sees the ear and she’s obviously frightened.

And so, um, she steps backwards and steps right into this hulking man, um, behind her. And then immediately the barbed wire threw her mouth and she’s lifted by that wire. And then it cuts away. Uh, and, and, and of course it’s, you know, barbed wire and your, it’s very bloody and it, it looks good. The, the effects, Yeah.

Overall in this movie, I think look very good. And it is very brutal. All of these movies, the direct to video ones, uh, and this one are bloody and violent. Mm-hmm. , I think that a lot more care was given in this movie to the effects. A lot of the effects in the direct to video sequels are cgi, but they’re still creative, um, and fun to watch.

Here. Um, more practical, I’m sure some Z g involved, but more practical and look pretty good. The, the other group, uh, Scott, oh God, he, I want to like him cuz he seems like a nice guy, but he’s so annoying. Like he’s just going on and on and on talking. He and his girlfriend are getting married and he’s like talking about the wedding plans stuff.

I’m like, dude, shut up. Like . 

Todd: Yeah. I feel like he’s supposed to be a bit of a parody or a spot on interpretation of like a California dude. He’s very positive at times. Yeah. He, he kind of goes off on these little soliloquy and rants about, you know, that are just basically like positive thinking. And I felt like that we were supposed to be laughing at him a 

Craig: little bit.

Oh, I think so too. And, and his girlfriend picks a flower and hangs it from the chain that he’s wearing. So every time you see him from that point forward, he’s got this silly flower necklace on. Uh, yeah. He’s a good guy. He’s a nice guy. He looks out for his girlfriend. He’s just, he would annoy the crap out me.

Yeah. But anyway, they, they find this cabin out in the middle of nowhere. There’s, there’s smoke coming from the chimney. Eliza Doku seems to notice right away that there are lots of cars out like in the front yard. Yeah. Which, which she seems to think is weird. I live in rural Missouri. This is not uncommon

It’s 

Todd: all . 

Craig: Not strange. It’s very common in rural areas to find a dilapidated house with five or six cars on blocks in the front yard. , 

Todd: Right. Weeds growing through them. Yes. Some different, different eras of cars and I don’t even understand it really. I, I don’t know what’s, I dunno what goes through the minds of residents.

The only thing is as a homeowner I can. You know, as you can probably say too, they’re just things you forget about and then they just sort of blend into the 

Craig: scenery. . Well, that’s the thing, I I, I think in my experience, I’ve, you know, I’ve known, I, my, my grandfather was a, a farmer and so, uh, I’ve spent a lot of time in rural areas and, and I think that these people who have these cars in their like, They’re gonna get around to it eventually.

Yeah. . Exactly. 

Todd: Or they’re just like, they just don’t want to throw those things away. Like, it’s just like, for me it’s just like, you know, the extra paper clips and, you know, scraps of paper and stuff. I think I might use them again and they just kind of pile up in a drawer here. It’s just that on a grander scale, that’s a, 

Craig: that’s a good car.

I’m, I’m gonna fix 

Todd: it’s parts in there. At least pull something out for another car. You know, when Tucson right, 

Craig: they debate whether or not they should go in. Um, and Chris is like, Listen, I’ve got places to be, so I’m gonna go in and see if there’s a phone. And Carly’s like, Well, I have to pee so I’m going into, So they all go in and it’s a very, you know, cabin in the.

Uh, Evil Dead. This 

Todd: was so dumb. I’m sorry. Like, I mean, it was cool. Don’t get me wrong. The said design was awesome. It was cool. Yes. It was very much like Texas Chainsaw Massacre without the bones. Right, right. It just like crap everywhere. Like a hoarder’s house. Yeah. 

Craig: But it’s beyond obvious what’s going 

Todd: on.

Yeah. Like, yeah. That’s, that’s what made it dumb. 

Craig: The, the fact that it takes them so long to even worry about it. Like, it’s so 

Todd: obvious they’re in there for like 10 minutes probably of the movie as them peering around. Like, this is strange. Oh, look over here. This is strange. It’s like you idiots, you’re kind of surrounded by horrifying things.

Yeah. Like I would’ve popped in there, I would’ve glanced around there and been like, Yeah, f this, I am heading out the door. 

Craig: Oh, God. But I mean, it, it’s so clear that this house is full of things that have been collected from people just like them. You know, like, yes, people who are on vacation, who have the things that one would take on vacation with them, It, it’s just full.

Like, they find a, a huge collection of sunglasses and like sporting goods, like, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s insane. Um, that they don’t figure it out sooner. It’s an insult 

Todd: to the viewer really, that this is, that this scene is allowed to go on for so long. Like, we get it. We got a long time ago. Please don’t draw this out any longer.

Like, do you think we’re stupid? And that sort of culminates in the point where, uh, Chris Flynn, uh, walks into this room and see there’s a generator running and three refrigerators there. Uh, and of course, you know immediately what he’s gonna find in those fridges. Like, there’s no question. Yeah. And he walks up to one of the fridges and he opens it and he’s looking, there’s, there’s gross jars in there with un almost unidentifiable organs or weird things in them, right?

But he’s the doctor, right? He pulls out a Tupperware container. Oh my God, this was so belabored. I was checking my watch at this point. We all know this is a psycho canal, backwards, hillbilly house, everything pointed to it. And why are we still here, , 

Craig: that, that’s fair. This does go on far too long. But when they do finally realize that, This is bad news.

They run to the front door only to look out the window and see a truck approaching the house. And it’s a tow truck to truck. It’s a tow truck and it’s, it’s pulling their car. 

Todd: Yeah. Both of their cars. is fantastic. 

Craig: Yeah. And, and this scene actually, you knows, like the, the people, the guys come in again, they’re shot so that you only see their torso, you don’t see their faces.

Um, and they come into the house and we don’t know where these other people have gone, but we see that they have hidden, Scott and Carly are hiding in the bathroom. And Chris and Jessie are hiding under a bed. And this scene goes on for a good four or five minutes. And it’s very tense. Yes, because it’s, it’s quiet.

The two that are hiding under the bed, Francine’s body is dropped. Within inches of where they are. And of course, uh, Jesse is horrified, but they have to remain silent. They have to remain silent as they watch these men butcher. Their friend. Um, and it’s a struggle, uh, and I can imagine that it would be a struggle to remain silent when witnessing something so horrifying.

And I found this scene very, very tense. I was on the edge of my seat and I’ve seen it before. , I knew they were gonna get out and then I don’t really understand why. Like, apparently after they kill somebody, these guys need to take a nap, like butchering people, Like where’s them out? Um, so they all lay down and go to sleep, and then everybody has to very quietly get out of there and, and it is tense.

I thought it was kind of stupid when Carly like kicked a metal pitcher. Like, Look where you’re going.

there are murderous sleeping mountain men right there. Like have a care take.

Todd: But this scene was good. I mean, this, this, and like you said earlier, this movie, what it does have going forward is it does have a few moments of genuine tension and well constructed scenes. And I actually really liked this scene. I did too. I was on the edge of my seat and I knew they were all probably gonna get out, or maybe one of them wouldn’t.

You know? That was kind of the one, the one thing I was wondering. But I knew they would get out, but I knew they would get out just in the naked time and they would end up waking these guys up who they would chase after ’em, which is exactly what happens. But it’s a 

Craig: great shot. Like they get all the way out the door and Chris is the last one.

He’s like holding the spring of the swinging door so that it won’t creep. Squeak. Yeah. And just before he. Goes to leave after everybody else is out, he looks back and one of the guys has his eyes open and is looking right at him. It’s crazy. And so then they just take off running. Um, the girl who plays Carly, I think either sprained or broke her ankle, uh, on this run.

And then in the next scene, well, I don’t remember when it was. Uh, the guy who plays 

Todd: Chris, he gets shot. I mean, they basically, they run up the hill and they run through the woods. And these, the, the cannibals hop in their truck and they take off down the road. So these guys are going into the woods, uh, and they’re hoping they’re not gonna encounter them again.

And where they end up is a kind of a clearing that is an even bigger car graveyard 

Craig: and blood. Stained everything. 

Todd: Everything. Yeah. And so that they’re in a good spot for another scene, which is exactly what happens. Those cannibals swing into that graveyard. And so they quickly decide that their best, their best choice is to sort of split up and, um, distract them in different directions so they can’t get them all at once.

And so Chris just runs away and is like, Hey, over here, over here. Which I thought was stupid, but yeah, it’s stupid for him. Uh, but he does it and he runs to the woods and he gets shot by the guy I believe with. Was it a gun or the arrow? I can’t remember this time. It’s a gun. This time it’s a gun. So one’s got a gun, one’s pretty good with a bow and arrow one’s 

Craig: really good with a bow and arrow.

And I think that that one, I, I think the one that I, I couldn’t really tell, um, they, they’re never named in the movie, but in the credits, they’re labeled as three finger saw tooth and one eye . And I’m not sure who was who. They’re, they’re all, I don’t either. Kind of gross. Um, but yeah, he gets shot right in the, in the calve of his leg.

Um, and you know, I get that it’s a movie and you have to have willing suspension of disbelief, but this guy is not gonna be running around the forest for the next 24 hours having just been shot in the leg. But he does. But anyway, because he’s taken out the other guy, um, Runs off in the other direction to try to distract the guys away and, and that works.

So the two girls go and get Chris and they take him to the tow truck. And they get in the tow truck and they. drive away with one of the mutants, you know, chasing after them on foot, but they get away and they’re driving around and they, uh, the guy running through the woods, Scott almost gets to them. But one of those mutants is really good with a bow and arrow.

Like really, really good , 

Todd: Like unbelievably good. Yeah. 

Craig: and, and shoots Scott in the back three times and he falls over dead. So they have to just keep going on without him. Carly is in my notes. I have, Carly is dead weight. , like they should have just left her behind cuz uh, she is just dragging them down.

But they, they eventually, the, the truck gets, they come to a dead end, the truck gets stuck, so they have to continue on foot. The cannibals are after them. Eventually they find this watch tower. Mm. And this is the scene that I remembered the most. I thought that this was a really cool scene. They go up into the watch tower and there’s a radio up there, and they’re trying to call somebody on the radio, but the cannibals are approaching and they think that the cannibals are going to just pass them by.

But at the most inopportune moment, somebody responds on the radio and the cannibals hear it. So they know they’re up there. Let 

Todd: me just say how dumb this is too. I mean, this watch tower is really, really high up in the air. Yeah. They have to go inside of it. It’s got a trap door. There’s a, there’s a radio inside and, and these cannibals are way, way far down on the ground, walking through the woods with their torches.

Mm-hmm. . I do not think that a little static on this radio, which is all it is, uh, that goes like this is gonna suddenly alert them from down below. It’s just not gonna happen. Maybe, 

Craig: I don’t know, but it does. Oh god, no. Well, and, and so they, the cannibals start climbing up, but they barricade the trap door.

So the cannibals set the 

Todd: tower on fire and, and the whole time this is happening, I’m thinking these guys are just spelling their doom because Yeah, they’re creating a big fire in the woods. I mean, if they’ve been able to go under the radar this long, um, this is surely gonna rat them out. , 

Craig: Right? Well, and this, it, it must be some kind of magical fire because it doesn’t spread to the sur like the immediately surrounding trees.

Todd: Right. Oh, the fire’s completely disregarded. As soon as they jump out of the watch tower, the only thing they can do is jump outta the watch tower. 

Craig: So they do. And trees, which is dangerous, but could potentially work. And it does, it could work. I mean, it still looks rough. Like when Eliza douche who hit the branch that she landed on, I audibly went, ah, like that had to hurt

Todd: They were really lucky, but it could happen. Um, yeah, and I saw in the trivia there that um, the other gal, the one who jumps down first, Ema Emmanuel Chiqui, the actress who placed her uhhuh actually dislocated her shoulder during this fall. and you can actually hear her shoulder pop on the production track.

Yeah. That’s crazy. 

Craig: I knew she got injured somewhere. Um, and, and, and then there’s actually, I I, I thought this improbable, but kind of a cool scene where they’re like traversing the branches of the trees and moving between trees and tree. Yeah. And uh, the, uh, one guy, the smallest one three finger is, uh, you know, up in the trees two and following them around, he eventually sneaks up on Carly and that’s when he axes her like in the mouth, like cuts the top part of her head off and then her body falls to the ground.

That was 

Todd: surprising. It was surprising. Yeah, I didn’t expect that. And like you said, as improbable, I mean really I was thinking about it the whole time as improbable as this, you know, walking between on the branches between trees up here, like. As improbable as it was. It, it was cool. . Yeah. Yeah. And it was shot really well, uh, Uhhuh and it was engaging and so I liked it, you know?

Craig: Yeah. And so the other two, Chris and Jessie set a trap where Chris is, He pulls a branch back and pulls it. T and Jesse goes out as the bait and lures this three finger guy onto her branch, onto her branch. And then she, I think she actually gets knocked over by him. Um, but she’s down low so that Chris can release the branch and it knocks three finger out of the.

Uh, out of the tree and he falls to the ground. Um, presumably dead. But these guys apparently have like superhuman strength because all of them, all of these mutants should have been dead at some point in the movie multiple times. Yeah. And yet continue to come back as does three finger later. It’s kind of a surprise cuz you assume that he’s dead.

But, um, so the only two left are Jesse and Chris, and they run off together and they hide. They hide behind a waterfall. Yeah. 

Todd: This is just like a quick cut. It’s like they’re in the trees, that guy falls and now suddenly they’re by a waterfall. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: like, Okay. I, I, I mean, I guess, you know, sparas the, the boredom of watching them slowly climb down from the trees, look and see for some reason the other two aren’t there.

And then find their way to a waterfall. But Sure. I was a little surprised. . 

Craig: Yeah. And, and they see the two. Mutants who are still after them. They see them bypass them, so they assume they’re in the clear, at least for a little while. So they, they sleep until morning. She is startled awake by it. It’s a dream.

But she imagines she dreams that they’ve been found and you know, the guys there with an ax or whatever. And that’s kind of a startling moment too. Mm-hmm. in the morning, they wake up and they continue looking for a road. They eventually find one, but it’s, it’s at the bottom of a very steep hill. So they’re talking about how they’re gonna get down there and there’s a great jump scare where an ax.

Flies into a tree right next to their faces. Mm. Um, I jumped at that point and, and the mutants are right there, and Chris gets knocked down the hill and they take, they, they get, uh, Jessie and, and take her away, but they were able to reach some sort of authority on that radio briefly. Uh, and so there’s, there’s a police SUV coming down the road and Chris is able to intercept it.

And the guy, whether, I don’t know if he’s like a, a forest guy ranger or something like, like that, a ranger or search and rescue. I don’t know what he is. But, um, he gets out of his truck and he is like, Calm down, calm down. And Chris is trying to explain what’s going on. The Ranger dude just gets shot with an arrow right through his eye.

Todd: Oh, that 

Craig: surprised me. Oh, I figured that guy was dead. . Well, 

Todd: I mean, you figured that’s the only thing that can happen in a movie like this, right? Cuz certainly Chris isn’t just gonna suddenly be saved. But once again, these guys are just escalating their own d I mean, if they have been living out in the woods under the radar for this long, doing this for so long, they have now burned down a watch tower, set a fire in the woods, and, uh, now they’ve killed a ranger who’s gone out, uh, to look for them.

I mean, they’re go, the authorities will descend upon this area and, uh, be startled by what they see very soon. . You know what I mean? Yeah. 

Craig: Oh, I mean, one of them even says that like one of. , one of our protagonist group. When they find all those cars, they’re like, how have they been getting away with this for so long?

That’s a good question. . 

Todd: It is a very good question. Did none of these other people have family and friends? You know, , nobody came looking for them. What? . 

Craig: But, uh, Chris tries to drive away in the police guy’s truck, but the keys aren’t in it. So he drops out of the truck and rolls underneath it and the mutant guy doesn’t think to look under the car for him.

The cannibal guy gets the keys off of the police officer and loads the officer into the back of the SUV and drives home. But like, and. Very improbable, but Chris, like suspends himself from the undercarriage, oh God, one. I don’t know that that would be possible. I don’t know that there would really be anything down there that you could grab, suspend yourself from.

Secondly, it would be incredibly dangerous. But I guess in this circumstance, what are your choices? So yeah, when the mutant guy gets back, drives the thing back to the cabin, Chris is there, they’ve got, they’ve got Jessie, uh, bound to a bed and she’s gagged. And one of the remaining mutants is kind of menacing her with a knife.

Todd: And yeah. And like you said earlier, the whole time, it’s going through my head, why every other person they have just dispatched immediately and dragged off. They’ve dragged her there. And my only explanation again, was like you said earlier, well they must be planning to do something else with her, but. It doesn’t kind of, it doesn’t really seem like that he’s about to kill her.

I, I think it, 

Craig: I don’t know if he’s about to kill her. I think it, it seemed to me like he was just trying to scare her. Maybe like he was getting off on, on frightening her. And I imagined that logically they were keeping her alive. I’ll try not to be gross about it, but to have sex with her. Like Yeah. That, that’s what I imagine.

Sure. Maybe, 

Todd: Or maybe they just ran out of fridge space, you know, that could be 

Craig: too . They have would make more sense. They have had a pretty big harvest over the past couple of days. , Yeah. Maybe they need her to like, help cook. I don’t know . But, uh, anyway, the, the other mutant comes in, drags the cop and they start butchering him and then, Chris, I, I, I think he Oh, he drives his car through there.

Yeah, well he sets the front door on fire first. Mm-hmm. . And then when one of them goes to like, see why it’s on fire or whatever, he drives the police officer’s truck in over that guy. Yeah. And then there’s a lot of fighting and it seems like they kill the mutants three or four times, but they keep getting back up and keep fighting.

And then three finger, the one who fell out of the tree shows up and they fight. I mean, they get some, one of the mutants gets axed in the chest. One of ’em, I don’t even remember what all happens to them, but ultimately, even when they have all of them down on the ground, they’re all still clearly alive.

Yeah. 

Todd: One of gets an arrow almost into the brain. I mean, Yeah. It’s 

Craig: pretty How, how, however, It happens, They’re all still alive, but Chris and Jesse go outside. He has one shot left in his shotgun, but I don’t think that he even has to use it because the suv, the, the, the, the cop’s SUV has gas tanks strapped to the back.

Um, and I don’t think that Chris even has to shoot them. I think that just because of the fire, the whole house blows up. Yeah. And the next thing we see is the tow truck speeding down the road and it goes back to the gas station and the, the gas station guy like locks up real quick and is peering through the window.

Um, which made me think that probably. That’s where these guys got their gas. Yeah, good point. And he probably knows about them, but it, of course, it’s not them. It’s Chris and Jessie. Um, and they just came to tear the map off the ro off the wall, and then they drive off into the sunset together and we never know.

You know what ultimately happens to them? There’s a mid credit scene where another search and rescue officer comes to the completely burned down shack and sees a boot or a hand or something and pulls some of the rubble away to reveal his partner or coworker, whatever, and then a burn. Three finger creeps up behind him and raises an ax, uh, and presumably kills him.

Yeah. And that’s it. You know, again, like ultimately I didn’t think it was bad. I was entertained. Uh, there were moments when I was tense and, and a little bit scared. It’s not a great movie, but I thought that it was ma it was well enough made that I found it to be an enjoyable experience. And if you not counting the credits and not counting the opening sequence, the, the opening credits, it’s really only about an hour and 17 minutes long.

Um, so it’s not like you’re wasting a lot of time in watch He moves. It moves. 

Todd: Yeah, it does. A more or less, again, I, I’ve, I was entertained too. I was on the edge of my seat at moments of it. I was forced to suspend my disbelief several times. Oh yeah. I rolled my eyes a few times and I was kind of waiting for something new to happen.

And, you know, late, you know, three quarters of the way through the movie, I realized, okay, there isn’t gonna be any twist. There’s not, this is just exactly what it is. And that’s fine. Friday the 13th has, has less creativity than this movie really. So, I mean, I’m not gonna complain about it as a horror movie or anything, um, it’s just, I’m gonna throw it on the pile as another one of these kind of films.

And I think, like I said earlier, if, if this had been a low budget, gritty movie, I’d probably look down on it with a little more relish than I did with this really slick production. Um, that was an homage to those kind of movies. But not only, didn’t really bring anything new to the table, it it. It up the production value considerably , you know, which I think worked against it, to be honest, in an emotional level anyway, for me.

But yeah, anyway, uh, yeah, it was, it was fine. , it was 

Craig: fine. Yeah, it’s not great, but I don’t know. I liked it and I think that fans of horror would enjoy it. It’s, it’s not bad, it’s a ride. The sequels are bad, but kind of fun. Three Finger is the recurring character. Like they said it in different places.

There’s different scenarios. There’s, in, in some of the movies, there are three or four mutants and, and at least one of them, there’s like a whole family of mutants. But the character of Three Finger inexplicably kind of recurs. Um, and 

Todd: I guess he’s. Basically immortal, right? , I 

Craig: guess. I don’t know. At least in the ones that I remember seeing, like I said, there’s five of them.

I know I saw at least the first three, I don’t know if I saw all of them, but they’re, you know, one of them is Henry Rollins is hosting an extreme reality show in the woods, and they encounter these uh, folks. One of them, I feel like there’s one, one of the later ones has Doug Bradley as like the patriarch of this mutant family.

He’s not a mutant, um, but he’s the patriarch and it’s at like some big festival or something that’s being held out in the woods. Huh. Um, so they’re, they’re creative and they’re interesting and they shake things up. One of them is set during the winter at like a winter resort. So they do different stuff with it.

Um, not good movies, cheap cgi. Um, but I still kept watching ’em, uh, and, and thought they were kind of fun. I’m really interested to see the reboot. It’s streaming on one of the few streaming services that I don’t subscribe to yet. It’s on, uh, showtimes streaming service. Um, Oh, you will, you will. I know I will.

I probably will today because if I bundle it with Paramount, it’s only $3 a month . 

Todd: And now you have 

Craig: an excuse. I know. And I was telling Alan, I’m like, I paid $4 to watch just this one movie. Surely I could afford $3 a month

So yeah, stay tuned cuz I’ll, I’ll probably have watched it by next week, . Anyway, Uh, yeah. So, uh, there you go. Uh, I, I literally at this point, Off the top of my head, can’t think of another franchise that we haven’t touched. So, uh, if you all, uh, can, Well, that’s not true. There are a few. There’s like Demonic Toys.

I don’t, we haven’t done any of those yet. . 

Todd: Witchcraft We haven’t touched the Witchcraft series. Oh 

Craig: God. I know. I’m dreading you making me do those , like you can’t wait. Yeah. Softcore straight porn really isn’t at the top of my list, but whatever. For the sake of the podcast, I, I’ll guess the sake of me.

Grin and bear it. Thank you, Appreciate it. But anyway, until 

Todd: we, we’ll only do the first seven, I promise you. All 

Craig: right. Uh, until then, , uh, thank you for listening and, uh, if you enjoy this podcast, please, uh, share it with a friend. Of course, you can find us on virtually any place that you can find podcasts. We do also have, uh, a Patreon website where you can show us a little more support and get a little bit of extra content that we don’t make available to the general public.

But, you know, we appreciate your support one way or another, just by listening and, and, uh, sharing, uh, us with your friends, you are supporting us and we very much appreciate that. So, until next time, I’m Craig. And I’m Todd with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.