2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

William Peter Blatty got an opportunity to make up for the disappointment that was The Exorcist Part 2 (episode here) with this installment, based on his novel “Legion” – this time, behind the director’s chair. It’s weird an uneven and (as usual) plagued by studio interference. But it IS the source to one of the single-most-notoriously-effective jump scares in horror cinema. And yes, we talked about that too.

Mad thanks to Adam for the request!

The Exorcist III (1990)

Episode 260, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: It’s time, Craig, for another request this week, this request comes from loyal listener, Adam who several times over perhaps three times in fact. Has requested The Exorcist Part Three. So Adam, this goes out to you, uh, I think we’ve done the Exorcist 2.

Before on this show, we’ve been shying away from the Exorcist. Like we shy away from all of these, uh, super classic films. Well, not all of them, but many of them. Right. But the exercise three, I remember from, I think I watched it in high school, came out in 1990. I remember getting together with friends. We would often rent movies and watch them at night over at somebody’s house on a Friday night or Saturday night.

And I’m pretty sure we popped in The Exorcist Part 3. The extent of my recollections of this film was one scene in particular being one of the scariest jump scares I’ve ever seen to this date even. And maybe a lot of people would say that. And then I do remember falling. I remember yeah. Dozing in and out of the movie and I’m not having very strong feelings about it.

I think I just remembered as being pretty scary. And now that I think about it probably was all based on that jump scare. Um, I was really excited to come back and revisit it because I forgot pretty much everything. Except for that scene. How about you, Craig? What’s your history with this

Craig: one? No, that I had seen it probably like you, I probably saw it when I was in high school or early in college.

I don’t know. I didn’t remember much about it, but you know, I do recall reading, um, a lot of flattering things about it. I mean, it was much better received than the extra SIS two, which in fairness is not very good. I mean, I don’t hate it. I don’t, yeah, I don’t hate it. I, you know, I liked that, uh, This, they continued the story of Reagan.

I was interested in that story, but it was lacking in a lot of ways. The writer and director of the source novel also wrote the source novel for this movie and directed this movie did not like the extras too at all, and, and wanted to distance himself and distance this movie from that. And so that actually was conceived as a film.

Uh, William, Peter Blatty, the writer wanted to make a sequel to the original film. Um, and he approached, I don’t know, a studio, some studios, William

Todd: Friedkin, the director. Of the original no,

Craig: no. This, the, the, the writer of this movie, I think,

Todd: I mean, William, Peter Blatty approached William Friedkin. Oh, okay.

Gotcha. For the sequel. Yeah. Who wasn’t interested apparently.

Craig: Well, at least not in this story. And so William, Peter Blatty went ahead and wrote it as a novel, entitled it Legion. And it is a sequel. It features several characters from the original. It, it does not follow, uh, Reagan’s story. The film ignores the CQL, the Exorcist to, but doesn’t directly contradict it either.

But anyway, the point is he wrote the novel and then. After he had written the novel, then there started to be some in, in, in the meantime, the extras two came out. Uh, bladdy hated it, but eventually he was given the option to make this movie. He wanted to simply title it Legion as he had titled his novel.

But the studio that, uh, picked it up was hesitant about that. They wanted the name recognition of the Exorcist. And so bladdy, uh, said, well, let’s call it the extra since 1990. Um, instead of the Exodus three, the studio initially said, okay. And they shot it under that title, but eventually they just went with, uh, the extra SIS three anyway, watching this movie again, I found that I really didn’t remember much of it.

And I imagine that part of the reason that I. Remember much of it is that this movie, I may be giving it a little bit too much credit here, but it’s kind of heady it’s, it’s very different than the first movie. And what we’re watching, what we watched is the theatrical cut and there was a lot of studio involvement in the theatrical cut.

The original cut was much. More closely adapted from the novel. And that was the deal that bladdy made with the studio. He said, I want to make it the way I want to make it in the studio. So that’s fine. You can make it your way, but we’re going to give it one preview. And if the preview doesn’t go well, then we’re going to do reshoots.

And bladdy said, okay, that’s fine. And, and so that’s, they did he filmed it the way that he wanted to, they did a preview, uh, bladdy in interviews seems to kind of suggest that the preview was kind of a hit job. Like they intentionally brought in an audience that they knew wouldn’t respond well, and they didn’t.

And so we had to do reshoots and they reshot it extensively. The original footage was thought to be lost. Forever. Uh, and it wasn’t until 2016, 2017, right before bladdy passed away, um, that they found the original footage and they recut it with varying video quality because the footage that they found was VHS, I think, um, and it wasn’t super great quality.

They, they put a disclaimer up before it, but the laddies directorial cut did come out before he passed away in, in 2017, I think. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen that. And I didn’t even realize all of that behind the scenes drama until I was watching this. And there were parts of it that were just a couple of parts in particular that were so oddly cut.

I’m like what? Yeah is happening. Right.

Todd: One part,

Craig: there was one part in particular that, uh, I thought. My internet had messed up and like jumped forward or something. It cut to what was clearly the end of a scene. And I rewound it to make sure that I hadn’t missed something and I hadn’t, and it just turned out that it was because they were cutting around footage.

Um, and so when I realized that there were these two different versions, of course, you and I are on opposite sides of the world. So I’m watching it, you know, the day before we’re going to be doing it, but that’s the middle of the night for you. And so. I texted you really quick. I’m like, dude, there are two versions and apparently they’re like vastly different.

So are we watching the same one? Do, do we watch different ones and talk about the differences? And when I had finished watching this cut, which is what we ended up going with, I texted you. And I said, you know what? I think they’re so different. I think it would be confusing if we watch the different versions.

So we both watched the theatrical cut and I have to say based on the descriptions of the director’s cut and based on my viewing of this one, I can’t say objectively, because I don’t think I’ve seen the director’s cut, but I think we made the right choice.

Todd: Yeah. It seems like it. Well, that seems to be the consensus online.

Most of what I’ve read at best says there’s not actually that much. Difference. That’s so significant. That really alters too much, except for the ending,

Craig: like the last third of the movie and a major recast, they inserted a whole new character, which does it

Todd: feels, feels like it a hundred percent. Yeah. He, he

Craig: feels spliced in it’s it’s bizarre, but another significant change this centers around a detective or a cop, whatever he is named Kinderman, who did appear in the original novel and in the original film, he’s recast here because the original actor had passed away.

Um, and he’s played by George C. Scott, uh, in this movie who is a renowned actor. I have to say, I always find him to be. Over the top.

Todd: Well, over the top of this movie, and especially in the beginning, it was almost to be distracting, right? He’s just this sort of like a disgruntled sort of seen it all angry and also upset kind of cop.

Who’s always got this witty. Snide comments to make and you know, never cracked a smile. My

Craig: wife’s mother is visiting father and Tuesday nights, she’s cooking as a carp. It’s a tasty fish. I have nothing against them, but because it’s supposedly filled with impurities, she buys it live. And for three days it’s been swimming up and down in my bathtub up and down, and I hate it.

I can’t stand the sight of it moving it’s guilt. You’re standing very close to me, father. You noticed

I haven’t had a bath for three days. I can’t go home until the is asleep because of, I see it swimming.

Well, not only that, but he goes from zero to 60 in like a split, like, like he just flips out.

Todd: He says the wrong word and suddenly screaming and holding his head. Right. It’s distracting. Actually

Craig: it is distracting, but I mean, to his credit, I mean, this is a, he’s a reputable actor. He’s done a lot. You know, big things and, and gotten a lot of acclaim.

So whatever we’ll excuse that. The other thing is though, he is investigating these murders that appear to follow the patterns of this serial killer, who was supposedly killed years before. But now all of a sudden these murders have come up and they have the same emo as the serial killer, the Gemini. And eventually he stumbles upon this patient in a mental ward of a hospital, the disturbed ward of a hospital who claims to be the Gemini killer.

And that character is played by, oh, help me out here. I can’t think of Brad, Brad, Dora, Brad Dorff, who is probably most famous at this point for voicing Chucky. And I love the Chucky movies and I love Brad Dorf in those movies, but this movie reminded me that Brad Doris is an exceptional. Yeah, he is

Todd: amazing.

It’s amazing.

Craig: It’s so good. And you know, you don’t think when you think of the Chucky movies, you don’t think of them for their outstanding acting, acting performances there, but you know, they’re fun, whatever. But, you know, I was reminded that my first exposure to Brad Dora was in one flew over the Cuckoo’s nest.

He played Billy Bibbet and he was, he was amazing and devastating. And that movie too, and his talent is just on full display here and in the original shoot, he played this character throughout, you know, it, it was just him when they did the reshoots, the studio wanted somebody from the original, an original cast member.

So, um, they got the other guy that you said, what was his name? John Jason Miller, who played father Charisse the Exorcist in the, in the first extra cyst. And they share the role, which sounds really strange, but actually I think it works really, really well. And, and supposedly they were going to have, um, Miller play the role.

Initially. They said he was unavailable later in an interview. Brad Doerr said that the truth of the matter was that he was an alcoholic and because of his alcoholism, he couldn’t memorize some of the lengthy monologues that, um, the Gemini killer slash Charisse has to deliver. So when they did the reshoots, they brought in Miller and he filmed some of the scenes with shorter dialogue and it just bounces back and forth.

Between the two of them. And that sounds so odd, but it worked for me. It really, it

Todd: really did. You did, although it did raise some questions, I’m still not exactly sure how to parse all that out as to what was sort of reality and what was not, because there’s another scene that was inserted after the director’s cut that.

I thought casts a little bit of that. A doubt on what’s going on there. I don’t know. I guess we can talk about it right. As we get, as we get through there, it’s, it’s a weird movie. And like you said, yourself, it’s especially. Bizarrely cut. I think I was reading up on something online or some Quip about it that mentioned that William Peter Blatty is a little reminiscent of David Lynch in this movie.

And I kind of have to agree because things get a little esoteric and strange, and these random cuts to things that don’t seem to match or these thematic elements, like there’s a red rose that kind of pops in and out that you, you know, you know, must be significant, but there’s not really. It’s it’s never settled for you.

You know, a lot of these little things. It’s interesting. I think William freakin in the original didn’t do much of that. He inserted some sort of subliminal shots, like, you know, couple frame flashes of demons and things and stuff in there. So this movie, I actually felt like this movie was much closer in tone, to be honest to the sequel, to the exercise too, than it was to the first one.

And the first reason I say that is that it’s not a very. It doesn’t appear to be a very straightforward plot. The very first Exorcist has a very straightforward, pretty linear plot with sort of a subplot involving the father Kara’s character, but it’s more of a thematic plot than anything else, just his brooding and what we, you know, kind of what’s going on inside of him.

The second movie, it goes in bizarre territory, right? It’s about

Craig: psychic stuff,

Todd: psychic stuff. And then we kind of go to Africa and like people like flying through the area to dream sequences, and then they kind of pop out of dream sequences and suddenly they’re reality again, but you’re not even sure, like if what you just saw was real, it it’s, it’s bizarre.

And it also gets comical. And also it’s just not very scary. Uh, there’s not a lot of horror. Happening in the exercise part too. And as I recall, there’s not even an exorcism happening in the exercise part too. And that was part of the issue when, with the first cut of this movie, which was based on his novel Legion and William, Peter Blatty was very insistent that, you know, he didn’t really want this to be a horror movie, right.

He wanted it to be based on the novel, which as the movie plays out in general, it’s kind of like a police procedural in a way with, with some supernatural elements to it, but nothing overtly horror and the bits that were added. One of the main things was an actual exorcism at the end because apparently I’m the secretary of one of the producers or somebody involved in the movie.

He was like, look, you’re, you’re calling it the Exorcist three and there’s no exorcism in there. And so they made him go back and alter the ending of the film to add that extra character. Uh, you know, as it’s basically another priest, that’s just very loosely and quickly referenced earlier in the film, we see a couple shots of him looking pensive and disturbed, and then you never see him again until the very end when he’s kind of mysteriously and unexplainably shows up.

Yeah. To, to perform an exorcism. And then the exorcism, it’s just so different in tone from the rest of the movie, it’s this special effects extravaganza. Uh, it’s almost like something out, a nightmare on Elm street, you know, and, uh, crazy. And it, it apparently costs like $4 million. No, it’s insane. Lido said, look, he’s like, I kind of went in there thinking, all right, I’m going to put lipstick on this pig.

You know, if they want me to do this extra bit, I’m going to make it look awesome. And. It’s okay. I mean, it’s, it’s perfectly fine. It’s an awesome kind of scene in another movie. But in this movie it just kind of comes out of left field. Although to be fair, you’re assaulted with a lot of out of left field things in this movie.

Anyway, anyway, just the tone of this. Is

Craig: different movie. It’s a freaking fever dream. Like there were parts of it when I was like, did I accidentally take some acid?

Okay. So we are, there are some scenes that are so bizarre. There’s one scene in particular in which Kinderman George C. Scott, I guess it’s a dream, but he like ends up in like, what looks like? Maybe it could thedral but it’s set up like, as like a triaged ward and like there’s all these angels, like in full angel, get up with the huge wings and stuff like ministering to people, but then like, There’s little people there and Fabio is there?

No,

Todd: it’s so weird. This happening drafting cameos in this film, like, oh, they’re cameos in this movie that are just like a two second shot of a guy and you’re just like, holy shit. That was lyric. Like sitting at a table, ordering something like, and again, the same thing in that fog, it’s like Fabio, and it’s just a

Craig: shot of him.

Like sitting there looking pretty like Fabio, like, like he’s posing for a cover of one of his romance novels or something. It’s like, what? What’s funny, what’s

Todd: happening. Like, it’s so bizarre as the director of fan, did he call in a favor? Like how did he get like a split second shot of this movie with barely mentioned, but it happens.

And that just adds to the surreal, distracting quality. Apparently Samuel Jackson is in that too. No, I didn’t catch. I know. I didn’t

Craig: see him. No, but there’s, there’s also another thing I have to admit that it pulled me out a little bit though. It shouldn’t have, but so many of the minor, minor characters in this movie, Incredibly recognizable B-list actors.

Like it seems like almost everybody you’re introduced to you’re like, oh, that guy, oh,

Todd: I don’t know their name, but you know, you’ve seen them before. Exactly.

Craig: So it was, it’s weird. It’s, it’s a weird movie. And honestly, about halfway through was when I texted you the first time and I’m like, dude, it doesn’t even make any sense.

And then by the time I got to the end, I ended up liking it. And, and that, that, that, that closing scene, the big exorcism at the end, it w it felt kind of in keeping with, um, the first movie in so much as, at this point, father care, the man Miller who played father Charisse in the original has, has taken the role.

Um, and they have him in makeup and the atmosphere. Is all very similar to what it looked like in the first movie, like his possessed persona is very reminiscent of what people look like, who are possessed, especially at the end of the first movie and, you know, atmospherically it’s very cold. And so there’s lots of fog and you can see their breath and the lighting is like, you know, in shades of blue and stuff.

Um, so I felt like it did tie well to the first movie, but you’re right throughout, it is just be in terms of being so odd. It is kind of more like the second movie. I really hadn’t thought about

Todd: that. I mean, be honest to the first movie gets a lot of credit for being really scary and it’s iconic and it’s got this cool theme, but it’s extremely exploitative.

I mean, there are parts that don’t withstand scrutiny. It’s absurd, uh, at a moment, you know, where Reagan’s head completely spins entirely. Right. And yeah, that’s just total horror movie. The ending, you know, is, is just kind of another special effects extravaganza floating and, you know, possession and the demon kind of shows up and there’s a face splashing up there.

We Revere this movie as being spooky, but you kind of forget that it has its moments too, where it’s a little hokey and crazy. And especially if you see like the director’s cut where apparently like there’s like she spider walking down the stairs. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, in that way, like the whole franchise, if you will, it doesn’t pretend to be this sort of deep psychological drama.

It just. Enough of that, that somehow it just feels a little more respectable than most, a lot of the other horror movies we watch, you know, I don’t know what to, what I’m trying to say here, but, uh, I guess it just, what I’m trying to say is it just got elements of all of it.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I’m not exactly sure what you’re trying to say either because I will not, I will not speak ill of that movie.

You know, if people ask me what’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen, I’ll throw that one out. Cause I do. I do find that movie to be very scary, you know, and again, we’ve intentionally not talked about it. There’s so much to talk about. I mean, you know, uh, Linda Blair and the woman who’s very famous, but I can’t think of her name who played her mother were both severely injured because of the director.

Careless treatment of them. And, you know, they’re a bunch of people die. Like the movie is supposed to be cursed or whatever, if, if you haven’t, if you’re interested in that movie and you haven’t looked into it, read up on it. Cause there’s a lot of really fascinating things going on there. And, uh, they, they did an episode there on shutter.

There’s a series called I think it’s called cursed films or something like that. Um, and they did, I think the very first episode was on the extra cyst and there’s a lot of really fascinating stuff that’s going on there. This, you know, aside, aside from all the studio intervention and all that kind of stuff, you know, A whole lot of fascinating behind the scenes stuff.

It’s really more just about how it came together. Um, that’s so interesting.

Todd: The story is hard to follow for a while. Oh my gosh. I think maybe why you and I also ended up like appreciating it a little bit more by the time it was done is simply because at some point. In the movie, there’s just a long monologue that explains it.

And I mean, I might knock the film for that, but by God, by that time, I just wanted to get a sense on what was happening. And it’s, you know, Brad Dorff or in the Gemini killer character who eventually just spits out in this long monologue. Exactly. What’s going on. And by then, you’re like, okay, all this now that I’ve been seeing sorta makes sense.

There’s no way I think you would have without that. So there’s a real, like, there’s just a sense. I feel like the movie just builds a sense of, I don’t want to say wonder just confusion. And it’s just interesting enough to kind of keep you going along in that confusion, shoot all this random stuff at you, these random images, all these things are happening and you’re just looking, you’re trying to piece the mystery together.

You’re trying to puzzle it out, but it feels like the movies actually try to confuse you more. And then there’s that more. You know, I think three quarters of the way through where he just basically explains and what it is is apparently the Gemini killer was executed. I think, I think if I’m getting

Craig: this right electric chair

Todd: 15 years ago, at the same time that you know, this exorcism with Reagan happened.

And so AFAs father Keras fell down the stairs and died the devil,

Craig: like right Legion

Todd: reward or revenge or whatever for this exorcism happening and going away, he decides to stick the Gemini killers, spirit or essence as a demon. Now, whatever into father Keras, although father carries his body now is just jelly he’s brain dead and everything.

So it takes the next 15 years for this spirit to regenerate enough of his body that he can actually. Come to life and move about in the world because as he explains, like spirits need a human host in order to walk around through the movie. So you literally, father Cara says body. I mean, we don’t see this.

We just hear about it was real resurrected and ended up in a psych ward right now. Here’s where it’s weird. Right? Okay. He says that, you know, we need this human thing. So he spends all this time, regenerating, regenerating ends up in a psych ward. I’m not sure we know exactly how he ends up there. I think it might’ve been explained at any case.

He says he’s also a traveler. So now that I guess he’s in a completely regenerated body, he’s able to hop, hop around it, you know, which kinda doesn’t make sense anymore. Right. But anyway, he’s able to hop around any hops around to the older and more elderly people in the nearby psych ward so that these elderly people can go out and commit these crimes.

Right. That’s that? And it’s pretty silly. Yeah. It’s pretty silly. That’s why I say it’s kind of a lot like the exercise to almost as silly as the exercises to what? Yeah.

Craig: I mean, it’s, it’s just a matter of willing suspension of disbelief. Like it, it is silly because all these murders are happening and there are several brutal murders, a young boy, and, and just like in the original movie, you know, it’s not just murders.

It’s always in some way made to be profane. Um, this, this young boy that, that Kinderman actually knows because he’s part of like the police squad boys club or something he’s murdered in the beginning and his eyes are gouged out and he’s decapitated and his head is replaced with the broken off statue, head of Jesus, but it’s painted up like a minstrel show and he’s crucified on oars.

Like, so, you know, not only is it just brutal murder, but it’s also clearly intentionally like an affront to God or whatever. And then I don’t know, a priest, uh, is killed, um, while he’s doing confession. I liked that scene. It’s so bizarre. B I didn’t know, because this is before what you just explained was explained.

This priest is doing confession and it’s this little old lady’s voice. And then she starts saying these horrible murderous things that she’s done. And then her voice changes into this demonic voice. And then the first was that, wait, Tricia near candlestick park, I cut her throat and watched her bleed.

She bled a great deal. It’s a problem that I’m working on father, all this lady,

she kills him. Well, apparently as you just explained, that makes sense because he’s using these convalescence as conduits, like he’s, he’s inhabiting their bodies or whatever.

Todd: What I want to know is how were they getting out of the hospital? I don’t know. I know know knocking out and in the maximum security ward, but there’s, your heart are able to just like leave, you know, w unnoticed and then sneak back in somehow.

It’s just the magic of Satan. I guess when I was watching that scene with a confessional, I couldn’t stop thinking about hello, Mary Lou prom night, too,

which must’ve come out around the same time and also had an entertaining, uh, confessionals

Craig: then. Um, Kinderman is, uh, friends with this other priest named father Dyer and father Dyer is just kind of this affable guy. Um, I think another reason that the movie is a little bit confusing for me, and I would assume for some other audience people is that it is following.

The story of people who were involved in the first movie and the first scenario, but they were minor characters that like, I don’t remember.

Todd: And they’re played by completed by different

Craig: actors. So it’s like, oh, you know these people? No, not yet.

Aye. Remember how they were connected. Um, apparently Kinderman was like best friends with father Karrass who was the, the, the main or the younger, I guess excersice the one who ends up taking on. The demon taking, he invites the demon to come out of Reagan and into himself. And when the demon does that, then he throws himself down those infamous stairs, that staircase in Georgetown, which we see a couple of times, which my mom loves reminding me that she’s visited.

Anytime the Exorcist comes up, which is more than you would think,

Todd: oh, you and your family, I’m not surprised

Craig: I’ve been there. I seen those stairs. Yes, mam.

Todd: It’s one of the few contributions, I think, to the horror movie discussion at the Craig’s dinner table, the Higgins dinner table that she could

Craig: make.

Well, and my mom can’t remember any movie she’s ever seen. Like I like we’ll be talking about it. My mom will be like, I haven’t seen it. And my sister and I’d be like, yes, mom, you have you watched it with us? No, no, I didn’t. I haven’t seen it.

But, so, so, and, and so the whole movie, I mean, there’s, it’s long, it’s, it’s almost two hours. It’s an hour 50. Um, and it’s long and it’s a lot, you know, like you said, it’s much of a crime procedural, basically a lot of investigating, talking to different people, talking to the people at the hospital. I mean, the fact that he just stumbles upon this Gemini killer in the hospital, is he?

Yeah. Kind of silly and stupid too, but then there’s also always stuff. And I don’t remember this at all. And I was watching this with earbuds in, so I wonder how much I would have noticed had I not had the sound directly in my ears, but throughout the whole movie, there’s tons of just like demon breathing and demon roaring and demon chanting.

That’s just happening all around people. And like, they act like they don’t notice

Todd: well, it’s it’s I watched it on a big screen and I still notice some of that. So I think it was, you know, pretty heavy handed in there. But, but like you said, like it’s still in the background. I think the movie, if I was to, there was a point there’s kind of a chase scene toward the end where like he rushes home because it’s clear that like his family is in danger and there’s this core to kind of.

Almost tribal drum beating going on in the background. And it occurred to me like, yeah, there’s been a lot of this, like drones, meaning even just these Wong, uh, in the background that the whole movie may be subliminally at moments, cast a bit of a spell on you, you know, and that it adds a little bit of an extra tension to scenes that are all, ultimately don’t pay off or don’t really go anywhere or just confusing.

They’re all tied together, you know, by the sense that everything seems just a little off in a theorial. I don’t know if it works a hundred percent, but I think I can clearly see that, you know, as far as from a sound design perspective, I feel like William, Peter. And his crew were kind of going for this.

It sounded

Craig: cool. It was just kind of odd that like, it was just happening, but just for us, like the people involved, weren’t like, I kept thinking, how are they not hearing this? Because it’s so loud in my ears now, are they not noticing?

Todd: I feel it was meant to be just things like impressions coming and going.

Maybe, maybe coming in and out of the character’s thoughts or, or something like that, that maybe aren’t actually happening in real life. Although there’s one moment. There’s one moment where he, uh, is talking with, um, another person. Oh, God. What was his name? Con Canavan or something? I don’t know. Father cath.

Yeah. He’s um, he’s talking with him and father Canada just seems like a bit like kind of aloof to everything. Just maybe just a little bit drunk and weary and tired. He has this meeting with him in the office and then the clock stops and they look over and father cannon almost couldn’t care less.

Whereas. Just somewhat bemused by it. And then like the door kind of creeks open and things start to laugh.

Craig: It’s flash,

Todd: there’s hearing sounds and he gets up and father Canam and just, is just sitting at his desk, like whatever. And I’m going, what? What’s cool. Are they, they’re not reacting. Like people should react in this store.

Yeah.

Craig: And so it made me wonder, it made me wonder if Kendra, like, if it w if Kinderman was the only one who was noticing, like, not, not necessarily that it was in his mind, but that he was the only one, like it was targeted at him. So he was the only one who was kind of experiencing it, but you’re right. It is weird that the other character just sits in the background.

Like, doesn’t even say, why are you getting up and looking around? Like, he just. Sits there. And Kinderman goes out into the hallway and looks down the hallway and he doesn’t even see it, that we see this statue that looks like it was probably originally, you know, of some religious figure, but it looks like the joker from Batman and it’s holding this giant knife and it’s just such a bizarre image and nothing really comes of it.

It’s just strange imagery. Yeah, it

Todd: comes. And it goes. And what was that? Is that a real statue? Is it, was it an enchanted statue? Is, is it just this weird thing in his mind, but he wasn’t even there to see it. I didn’t get that. Right. But I feel like, I feel like sometimes he’s just throwing random stuff in here just to mess with our minds, just to put us on edge, you know,

Craig: is atmospheric.

I mean, I, I, I do like the atmosphere that it creates, it just. It’s so strange. It’s really bizarre. The, the Gemini killer kills people well in really specific ways, which I thought was interesting. First of all, he injects them with a paralytic, how he has all of this medical knowledge. I have no right,

Todd: or how this end manages to happen in all these circumstances

Craig: and how he just to get his hands on this powerful paralytic that he injects into people so that they are paralyzed, but conscious while they are being tortured and dismembered, which is nightmarish, especially since you consider that, I’m the first person that we know who was killed was a 12 year old boy.

Like that’s, that’s horrible. And like at one point, Brad Dora says that, well, he decapitates them and then he gouges their eyes out and then he always takes a finger. Cause he says, he’s a collector. He likes to keep some things. And he always carves the symbol of the Gemini into the other hand. The one that he didn’t take the finger from.

And then throughout the movie, he does various other things. There’s one character, there’s a nurse, which is the jump scare that you were talking about. Um, she gets killed and they say that he, he completely dissembled her. And then stuffed her with rosaries again, where do you get enough? Rosaries, just have a body full of them, but, um, full of rosaries and then sewed her back up.

So his emo is very gruesome and cruel. Uh, and, and that too adds to the atmosphere. I appreciate that. But beyond that, all of that stuff is, you know, most of it is stuff that we hear about off screen. We don’t really see. A ton of violence, you know, come to think of it. I feel like we really don’t see any, no

Todd: violence at all.

Yeah, actually you’re right. Except for the very end that that sequence we were talking about, that was kind of shot at the end. Yeah. There’s some gross and that’s why it’s so out of place really. I mean, let

Craig: part of it. Yeah. I mean, you can tell that he did what they wanted. They wanted some gore, they wanted it to be a horror movie.

And like you said, bladdy before he passed away, did interviews in which he said that he much preferred his ending and that he felt like the new ending recharacterized the whole film and, and completely changed the tone. But he also said. It is what it is. And if they were going to do that, if they were going to make those changes, I’m glad that I got to do it.

So he wasn’t like, it didn’t seem like he was super bitter about it. It was just kind of, you know, that’s Hollywood, it’s going to be done. They’re going to change it. At least it’s in my hands. And, and I liked the end, but, but what’s scarier to me than even these descriptions of all these horrible things that the killer has done is Brad Doris performance.

Finally, it worked first, a bit of the old succinylcholine to permit one, to work without, uh, annoying distractions. Then a three foot catheter threaded directly into the inferior vena cava.

Todd: Or

Craig: superior vena cava. It’s a matter of taste. I think don’t you and the tube moves through the vein under the crease of the arm, into the vein that leads to exactly into the heart.

And then you just hold up the legs and you squeeze the blood manually into the tube from the arms and the legs as a little shaking and pounding at the end for the drugs. It isn’t perfect. There’s a little blood left, I’m afraid, but regardless, the over all effect is us Tanisha. And isn’t that really?

What counts in the end? Yes, of course. Good show biz, Lieutenant the effect, and then. Off comes the head without spilling one single drop of blood. Now I call that showmanship Lieutenant. He’s just phenomenal from, from an actor’s perspective, his face, his voice, his, uh, motivation. I mean like just his delivery is just phenomenal and so much of what he does are these long.

And when I say long, probably not more than a couple of minutes. In a S in a shot in a movie, a couple of minutes is long. And for, just to be one person just talking and the camera on them for that long, just talking, um, that’s a long time and he is just captivating, frankly. Yeah. I was blown away, so

Todd: good.

And he’s in tears

Craig: half the time. And his nose is like snot coming out of his nose. Like it’s just raw rides. So good.

Todd: And, and bladdy does an interesting thing on occasion where he will switch to a first-person POV, which you don’t often see in movies. Um, I think it’s wind, his priest friend, uh, ends up in the hospital and the killer gets to his priest friend.

And he first walks in this whole sequence when he walks into the hospitals in first-person you just see people looking at you at the camera and he goes in and all that, I thought, oh, that is an interesting choice. Will he does this again to kind of shake things up during these long monologues? So Brad Dorf, isn’t just like delivering these long, like you said, no cut monologues towards the detective, but at some point that the camera view will switch and he’s delivering it straight.

Straight to the camera. It’s really captivating. And again, very talented for him to be able to do that. It’s it’s not hiding behind a Chucky doll that’s for sure. Right. It’s amazing. And then this doctor at the hospital, which I almost thought for a while was like fricking comic relief. Yeah. He was weird.

I didn’t get a super chain smoking.

Craig: Like a poster hung up in his office, in the hospital.

Todd: What’s all kinds of weird stuff on his, on the wall,

Craig: in the hospital, relics and idols and stuff. I had no idea what was going on here was supposed to be because of all those idols and things. I thought that maybe he was in on it with the Gemini guy or the demon or, well, he kind of was

Todd: right.

Well,

Craig: yes, only because he was being coerced, the demon or the Gemini killer, whatever. And that’s the other thing like the Gemini killer is definitely in there and Charisse is in there too. And when Karras kind of comes out, that’s when we see the other actor who also does a good job and it is nice to see a familiar face from the original movie.

Yeah. He he’s he’s. I mean, he doesn’t do a lot aside from sit there and be familiar, but there’s also like, like the demon is in there too, and, or a demon is in there too. And can also come out and talk. It it’s weird.

Todd: It’s weird, but you’re right. I mean, like, it’s kind of interesting, but then they flip. Okay.

For real quick, I just wanted to say the actor who played the doctor, I found out later is Scott Wilson who played Herschel on the walking dead. Oh,

Craig: I don’t watch that. So

Todd: it doesn’t mean anything to me. He doesn’t look at all like him, but I just, you know, I only know Herschel with the white hair and the beard and all that stuff.

So that was kind of interesting. No, but here’s the deal. So they, they bounce between Dorff and Karus. And at first when George C Scott’s character walks in there and sees this guy and, and is stunned by his face, um, the

Craig: scene, that’s the scene that I thought that there was something wrong because like, he’s talking to that doctor that you were talking about.

And he wants to see, he had been drawn to that guys to the gym and I killers cell, but we didn’t really see him. All we saw was somebody sitting in the dark and silhouette reciting death, be not proud by John Dunn, which was kind of weird, but then Kinderman wants to go back. So it’s like, he says he wants to go back, but then the very next thing you see is him coming back out of that cell freaked out.

Yeah. And you don’t have any idea what happened in there or why he’s freaked out? I mean, he explains it later. He says, you know, that the man sitting in there is so-and-so Karrass when he then does go back in and we actually see him at his father. But then while they’re talking in one moment, it’s father Charisse and then it cuts back to Kinderman and then it cuts back.

And then it’s Brad Dorf. Yeah. But Kinderman, doesn’t react at all. So I still don’t really understand this. I don’t know if Kinderman was always seeing Charisse and we were just seeing the Brad Dorf, Gemini killer guy. I don’t know. There’s another scene where after they talk pretty much every time after they talk at the end, the Gemini killer, like.

Tired and just immediately passes out. And there’s one scene where it’s, it’s Brad Dorff and he starts to go to sleep and he goes to sleep and then Kinderman looks at him again and it’s Karus and Kinderman goes up to him and says, Damien, cause that’s Kara says first name and Brad comes back out and just screams in his face.

Like, and it’s super scary and creepy, but I still don’t really get, I don’t understand if Kinderman was seeing him in both. Carnations or if that’s just us. I don’t, I have no idea

Todd: what’s going on is obviously he is Damien’s body because cause he’s retained. He explains that he explains that, but then he seized him as Doris character.

And then later he there’s a shot of him. It’s toward the end of the movie. He’s sitting in his kitchen and he’s going through some files and a book and all that and kisses his daughter goodnight. And he flips open one of the files. And it’s the file on, on, um, the Zodiac. I’m sorry, the Gemini killer,

Craig: who is based on the Zodiac killer.

Correct.

Todd: He flips open that file and boom there’s Doris face. So you can see that the face of the Gemini killer who was, you know, executed 15 years ago, That’s him. So at first that was a little confusing to me. And this may or may not have come before the big explanation. I think it might, I think it came before the big explanation of Kara says regenerated body.

So I was like, okay, wait a minute. Like, who is he seeing? And why? Like both of these people. You know, it’s, it’s not like he’s flipping between at that time. I was thinking, so it’s it. Can’t be like he’s flipping between the real one and the one he’s got in his mind, he’s literally flipping between the two people he has in his mind.

He knows he’s talking to the Gemini killer. So he’s seeing sometimes seeing him as the historical Gemini killer, but then he’s also in the body of father Cara. So sometimes he’s seeing him as father Charisse. And I think if I’m not mistaken, it’s the times in which he is more or less speaking as father Caerus or referring to the father Cara story, that he sees him as father Charisse.

And it’s definitely at the moments when he’s more Gemini killer that he sees him as bread Dorff. So bread Dorf is like the figure figure of his imagination. Sure. They’re the actual Gemini killer, but yeah, it’s so confusing. I mean, deliberately obviously to throw us off balance and, but also there’s, you know, clearly production reason for it.

Craig: Well, it, it works for me because. In the director’s cut. I can’t think of his name. Jason Miller, John Miller, whatever his name, the guy that played Charisse. He wasn’t in it at all. So it was always just Brad Dora. And had that been the case then I think I would have been confused as to why Kinderman thought it

Todd: was Karrass.

Yeah. Yes, exactly. And then the whole explanation of, you know, I took his body and regenerate it, it doesn’t make any freaking sense. Right. So if anything like this at least creates a reason for it, the newer version. Anyway, let’s, let’s give, I guess we’re kind of wrapping it up, like, so, you know, there’s just all this back and forth.

And then eventually the Gemini killer gets really, really angry at him and says, oh, you’ve just opened up a seat at the dance or something like that.

Craig: Yeah. You just delivered an invitation to the dance or something. The reason for that, and I did find this fascinating is because. Pretty much from their first meeting, the Gemini killer tells him I am the Gemini killer.

Now he doesn’t explain how that is until a little bit later, but he is adamant that Kinderman tell the press that the murders that are happening are Gemini murders. I feel like that’s very true life. A lot of these serial killers, they want the claim. That’s why so many of them leave clues or write into newspapers or leave notes for the police or whatever, you know, they the same way every time.

Right? They, they want the recognition and, and he keeps saying, tell them, and eventually he says, tell them, or you’ll, you’ll be sorry. And when a Kinderman refuses or something else insults him in some way, he says you just, uh, you know, issued an invitation to the dance and Kinderman is like, well, what does that mean?

And he doesn’t explain, but that’s also where he talks about, Kinderman says, how do you get out of here to do those things? And Brad Dorf in a very cheeky way says it’s, child’s play. Yeah.

They came out the year before this. So they had to know what they were doing. Then we’ll

Todd: cut to the little boy with freckles and red hair,

Craig: red hair. Right? Exactly. So the Gemini killer warns them or something. And then Kinderman thinks for some reason that he’s going to send somebody after that little boy.

But they burst into the little boys room and it’s just a nurse that they know that we’ve seen throughout. And so then he figures out somehow, I don’t remember how,

Todd: I don’t know how it didn’t make sense to me. They

Craig: killers is going after his daughter. There are so many bizarre things like, so it’s suggested like Kinderman after the Gemini killer says, oh, I have friends who helped me.

And Kinderman goes out into like, you know, the common room of this psych ward. And he’s looking around at all of these patients. And it’s, it’s almost as like he figures out and we’re supposed to figure out that somehow he’s utilizing them. Meanwhile, one of them is crawling around on the ceiling unnoticed.

Yeah. It’s just so bizarre. But another one of them, a woman kills a nurse. Takes her clothes and leaves the hospital and is in a car and Kinderman is trying to call home, but his wife’s on the phone, so he can’t get through. And so he’s racing home. Well, that nurse gets his house before he does, but he gets to the house and the wife opens the door and like, everything seems fine.

But then the wife’s like, what’s this nurse, it’s all about. He’s like, wait, what? And he goes in and it’s this patient who’s catatonic. And then I guess, psychically Brad, Doris says, it’s so easy to manipulate catatonic or it’s so easy to possess catatonic or something. And he says, I waited until you got here because I wanted you to see.

And the nurse picks up this giant medical sheers, which we’ve seen before. And puts them around the daughter’s neck, but the grandmother pulls her out of it like a millisecond before they

Todd: she’s got like cat-like reflexes, this woman to

Craig: be in the military. Yeah. Then this old lady is fighting with Kinderman, but all of a sudden it’s like, she’s not possessed anymore.

And the reason she’s not possessed is because this father morning who we’ve just randomly seen a couple of times, and we’ve been told, has presented, has done an exorcism before shows up in the Gemini killers cell and starts doing an exorcism. So it’s like the demon had to leave. Ladies body to deal with father morning.

And then that’s when we get this big exorcism scene, very reminiscent of the exorcism in the first movie. Um, except it’s it’s brief father morning starts doing the exorcism, but then the demon, I I’m assuming it’s the demon speaking at this point, he’s got yellow demonize in Kara says body throws morning, all around the room.

There are other effects with like fire and snakes and weird stuff that throws them all over the room, pins him up to the ceiling and then it’s like, he’s glued to the ceiling. So when he tries to pull away, like his skin rips off.

Todd: Yeah. That’s super gory for compared to what we’ve been seeing so far, it’s like, hell raiser.

And you know, I mean, it’s just, yeah. Again, like at eight, totally. Just so different from the rest of the movie. I think

Craig: give bladdy credit here because he said, oh, they want to cool exorcism. I can give them that. And he did, you know, it like, it’s, it’s a good, I mean, it gets kind of weird, but it’s interesting.

It’s it’s Shotwell. Well then Kinderman shows up out of nowhere. Like I guess he races back to the hospital, I guess always

Todd: racing to the hospital. I mean, she’s just always shows up there for one reason or

Craig: another. He gets back and he sees that morning is dead. And then he starts getting thrown around the room.

Todd: Well, he pulls out his gun to try to shoot him. You know, this is original. All he did was show up there, pull out his gun and shoot father Karras to basically, yeah, it says,

Craig: forgive me or something like that. Um, any, and he does say that line, but instead of shooting him, he gets thrown all around. He gets thrown up against the wall.

It looks like he’s going to get killed. The demon asks him, you know, have I helped your belief because he’s been Kinderman as a religious skeptic, blah, who cares. But then he delivers this big monologue about, I believe in disease and I believe in murder. And I believe in he had a, like, I don’t know, it’s kind of cheesy

Todd: bad stuff.

Yeah. Cause I’m a hard-boiled cop and I’ve seen all the bad

Craig: stuff. And I believe in you I guess. Um, but then father morning who he assumed was dead. Cause we saw him crumpled on the floor, grabs his crucifix and holds it up to the demon and says fight Damien, fight it. And apparently. Father Charisse is able to take control of his body momentarily and he yells to Kinderman shoot me, shoot me now do it now.

And so he does

like three times and then, yeah, that is pretty much it. I mean, he’s dead. And the very last scene we see. Kinderman and some other cop, I think standing over the grave, which was in the original cut, but came much earlier in the movie. Like they were exhuming, exhuming the

Todd: body. Yeah. You right. Or something.

Yeah. Finding somebody else in there. But between those two shots is a shot of the sun. And I was like, oh, it’s going to end on a shot of the sun. Because as I remember, that’s how the first Exorcist movie opens is a shot of a, of a sun out in the desert. And, uh, but no, it it’s, it goes to this, to this. I think the original, the director’s cut actually did end on the sun.

And I thought that was like a nice little bookend to the, to the series recognizable.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I forgot to mention that while Kinderman was pinned up to the wall a whole to hell.

No,

Todd: I don’t think so. By like, you know, 15 bolts of lightning striking it, it takes a while. For the, for that to manifest and he’s

Craig: creepy the height on it. I mean, they’re not demonic looking, but they’re like all made up and white and their hair is white. And at first it’s the young boy crucified the boy from the beginning, but then it’s father Charisse crucified.

But I think it’s all mind games from the demon or whatever. And then the only other thing we didn’t talk about that jump scare, but I kind of was, uh, saving it for the end. There’s one scene in the hospital where the camera is just positioned at the end of the hallway, shooting down the hallway. And there’s a little.

Business, not a lot of business, but there’s a nurse at the nurses station. And then there’s a guard posted and the nurse gets up to check on something like she heard a weird noise and it ends up being nothing. And she goes back to the station and then she hears another weird noise. And as she gets up to go check on it, like the guard, like it’s like the changing of the guard or something.

And so the guard walks away. And so the nurses on the left side of the screen investigating this weird noise, and then she opens the door, looks in, closes it, and she turns around to walk away and this robed figure walks up behind her. And there’s a scary sound.

this figure with those sheers walking right behind her. And it comes out seemingly of nowhere and it’s very quick and it’s very spooky imagery. And I feel like it’s an iconic. Scene. It

Todd: is. It’s brilliant.

Craig: It’s really good. And I think that part of what makes it so good as the stationary nature of the camera kind of from afar.

So the sudden movement seems so jarring and the reason I kind of saved this for the, and now you’re right, you said it was Adam who requested this, right? Yes. He’s requested this several times and we’ve entertained doing it several times. It’s just that something else has always come up when he requested it again.

Recently, the reason that I wanted to do it is because my partner and I recently watched the two seasons of the television series, the extra cyst, and we both. Really liked it. And Alan’s not a huge horror enthusiast. He’ll watch stuff because he knows, I like it. If it’s really bad, he’ll be mad about it for a minute.

He gets over it, but we both really, really liked the series. And if you are a fan of these movies, especially the first one, but, um, any of them really, um, I really think that you would enjoy that series. It’s streaming on Hulu. It acknowledges the event. Of the first movie, it doesn’t specifically acknowledge the events of any of the subsequent movies.

However, there are cool throwbacks to at least the first and third movie that I can remember, um, imagery, uh, stuff like that, throwbacks. And I don’t want to say too much about it because there are great. Twists and things that you don’t see coming. It’s got really good people in it. Um, Gina Davis is the lead in, in the first season and it basically follows these two priests much.

Like it was two priests, father Merrin, and father Charisse in the original. These are, you know, younger, newer priests, but they’re exorcists, we really, really liked it. And critically, it did really well. The critics were really kind to it. It just never found an audience. Um, and so it only lasted two seasons, but both seasons are solid.

Um, I really encourage people to check that

Todd: out. Yeah. I’m going to have to check that out myself too. I’m kind of curious, especially with such a rousing review from you. Like I said before, I feel like the movie is a. You know, it’s weird. I didn’t find it super scary except for just one or two moments found it really odd.

I found it very difficult to follow at first. And it would be the kind of movie, honestly, that I might’ve even stopped watching. About 30 minutes in, had I not been doing it for a podcast or had it not been titled the Exorcist part? You know, we’re just sheer curiosity alone kind of makes you want to.

Okay. Well, we’re going to have to see where this goes and how all this ties in because the original has such a pedigree that, uh, anything claiming to be a sequel by the same writer and director, uh, the same writer of the original now also as director is worth a lot. Yeah. I mean, I think, uh, can I recommend it to, I wouldn’t recommend to just anybody.

I probably wouldn’t even recommend it to most people I’d say, have you seen the original? If not, God, go watch it. Right. And then the rest of them only if you’re curious.

Craig: Yeah. Ultimately I ended up really enjoying it. I don’t think it’s an excellent movie, but I thought there was some really interesting stuff going on.

If nothing else, visually, it was interesting to watch. I did find George C Scott’s performance over the top. Uh, I didn’t love his portrayal of Kinderman, but

Todd: yeah. Apparently got nominated for a golden raspberry that year for worst actor.

Craig: Well, I can kind of see it. I think that this movie is worth watching for Brad Doris performance alone.

I mean, God, I I’m no expert, but I would go so far as to say that this is like a master class in performance. Like he is. So good. So I would recommend it on that alone, but, uh, I’m really glad we did it and I really appreciate the recommendation. Um, I’m glad we finally got around to it. I, I had a good time and I had a good time talking about it.

Todd: Well, thanks a lot, Adam, for your request and, uh, the rest of you out there as well. If you have any requests, please send them to us. You can find us online just by searching or two guys and a chainsaw podcast where we have a website, there’s a Facebook page and we have a Twitter feed. You can, you can reach us any one of those ways.

Let us know any requests that you’d like to do us to do in the future, as well as any comments about this episode or anything that we’ve said tonight until next time I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Occasionally, someone tips us off the an incredible gem of a film that we never would have discovered on our own. This is one of those weeks. Big thanks to Liz for suggesting this Japanese horror…well, it’s hard to categorize, really.

In fact, this is another one of those weeks where we suggest that ALL of our fans go out and see this film before listening to the episode. Its charms – and there are many – will be best experienced if you don’t go into it knowing much about it, much less a play-by-play of the plot.

You’ve come this far with us. You can trust us. This is worth your time.

One Cut of the Dead (2017)

Episode 259, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, uh, this week’s episode was suggested to me by a good brand big shout out to Liz who, uh, suggested one cut of the dead, told me nothing about it before I started. Watching it, and I didn’t look anything up, but I did know that it was on shutter. And since you and I both share a shutter account, I knew that this was something we could watch.

So, um, thank you for the suggestion. And here we are, we are watching One Cut of the Dead, a Japanese zombie. Sort of from 2017, man, I had not heard about this. And I was really kind of surprised that I hadn’t heard about it. I think one of the, probably one of the main reasons is just because it’s Japanese.

Unfortunately we don’t get a lot of exposure to world film in the USA, probably because there just so many of them and this one, you know, it’s, it’s a good movie. I th I think it’s a great movie. I’m just going to come around and say that right now. Certainly. Internet thinks so. And the critics thoughts.

This is one of the few movies you can find on rotten tomatoes with a hundred percent approval rating. That’s based on 86 reviews. And then it was shot on a $25,000 budget and ended up grossing $25 million thousand point, um, return on it, uh, in its native Japan, and then around the world, it’s done pretty well.

Again, didn’t probably get much of a big release in the USA right now. Your best bet to go see this movie is going to be on. And that is where we watched it. Had you ever heard of this movie before Craig? You follow it? You know what? You go, you follow these websites a little more closely. Maybe you’d heard of this before somehow.

Craig: Uh, if I had, I don’t remember. It did get a state side theatrical release, which I think was unexpected. I think, I don’t think anybody expected it. This, this movie has an interesting production history, so yeah. Said, this is what we’re doing without consulting me

Todd: often is the case. And then you want to murder me afterwards because you hate it.

Craig: And that’s the thing. So wait a minute.

Todd: So what you’re going to say is, so I walked into this expecting to hate it.

Craig: All right. So I’ll, I’ll be completely honest. I wasn’t really looking forward to it because I’m one of those lame ass Americans who doesn’t love subtitles.

Now. It’s not because I don’t like to read. I do in fact very much like to read, but if I’m going to read. I’ll read a book. I don’t want

on a read TV and even it’s so stupid. I take all these notes. I take, you know, tons and tons of notes. And then I usually barely even look at them when we’re we’re talking. So the subtitles pose an additional challenge because I’m constantly going back and forth between this, between two screens between.

My video screen in between, you know, my computer screen taking these notes. And I was afraid that I would miss stuff now. Ultimately, I don’t really think that I missed much, but watching the first 35, 37 minutes, I was like, Jesus Christ. He did it again. Like why do I let him pick these horrible movies?

And then after that 35 or 37 minutes. Things changed. And that’s one thing that I want to say from the beginning. Now you said you knew nothing about it going in, and I think in the email that you sent me, you said I’ve heard that you’re better off not knowing anything about it going in. And so I didn’t look it up.

I didn’t read anything either. Um, I, I looked up the IMDV page to see how long it was, and it’s not terribly long. It’s a little over an hour and a half, which is perfectly fine. I was very, very glad. Ultimately that I didn’t know anything about it going in. So if you are interested in watching this movie, and I think that you should be, I’ll say that from the beginning, this movie is worth a watch.

If you have not seen it. And if you don’t know anything about. Don’t listen to this right now, because I’m sure that we will spoil important things very, very early on. And so, yeah, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll kind of leave it at that for now, but, um, yes, ultimately I thought it was really good initially. Okay. So it’s called one cut of the dead.

So I’m like, okay, I get it. And so we start watching it and it seems like a cheesy. Zombie movie. It seems like it was made by, you know, people who were doing it on the cheap and on the fly and for the love of it and the production value. Wasn’t good. It was all kind of, what do you call it? Handycam or whatever.

And so the, the video quality wasn’t great. The acting was pretty bad. The, the effects and makeup were subpar and I’m just thinking, oh my God, this is. But then when the initial and biggest twist was revealed well, and while that was all going on and because they were clearly doing it all in one, cut it, wasn’t an edited piece.

It, it literally was one, one shot. And you could tell. So what I was thinking and what I was preparing to say for the podcast was it’s ambitious and it’s. Creative, you know, they’re not the only, they’re not the only folks who have ever tried to make a movie in one cut it’s been done before. It’s rare that it’s been done before.

And so watching that, I was like, it’s ambitious and it’s creative, but that does not necessarily a good movie make. And this is not a good movie. So I was already, I was already to talk about it in those terms.

Todd: You had written down your notes are correct. Is like one thumb down ambitious, but falls short.

Craig: Yes. And then at about the 37 minutes. So it’s, it’s very typical in that first half hour. Like they’re in this spooky environment, it’s an old like water filtration plant or something. The premise initially is. The people in the movie are making this cheap zombie movie, but then apparently something happens.

It’s suggested that the director who is dissatisfied with their performances does something to actually. Bring real zombies into the fray. And there’s some mythology about how this place was said to be a place of like experimentation by the Japanese government, bringing people back from the dead. And it’s suggested that the director does something.

To make these zombies rise. And then it’s, it’s pretty typical. The zombie show up, they start chasing the lead actors around of course, as is always the case with these types of movies. You’re like, seriously, the camera guy is still just, you know, filming everything while all this is going well, while also

Todd: not getting attacked himself,

Craig: avoiding being attacked himself the whole time. It was silly. Typical, but, you know, par for the course for cheap zombie movies and, and it was getting to about the half hour mark and then getting closer to the 35 minute mark. And I was like, seriously, there’s an hour of this left. I have to watch another hour.

And then it was over. And the title card came up and the credit started rolling. And I was like, what the fuck? Like, is there going to be like an hour retrospective about this movie at the end or something? And it wasn’t, it wasn’t that at all, it totally changed gears. And from that point on, I was like, Oh, shit.

This really is clever.

Todd: Once again, once again, if you haven’t seen this movie at, this is another safe stopping point, we’re warning you, you could stop here and watch it and be totally surprised by what’s going on. I mean, what really helped was, and I thought this was especially clever was that as you said, the movie within the movie is kind of a Metta movie itself, right?

A movie about this director, like you said, who was scouted at this location and supposed to be this big military thing? The first thing we see is a zombie attacking a girl, basically cornering her into the edge of what looks like almost like a gymnasium. Uh, and she’s holding an ax out and she’s crying.

And he’s very slowly stumbling towards her. Very slowly stumbling towards her. It looks bad. And then she’s like, no, no, no. And then he stopped. And then it’s like, this was one of her former lovers. And so she kind of reaches out to him and starts to touch his fingers. And then he comes at her again and anyway, she’s doing a poor job and this is really dumb.

And eventually you hear cut and the director pops in and he starts berating her. If you are a lousy, why can’t you act like you didn’t feel it? You were just acting like none of this is realistic. And then he turns around eventually the guy playing the zombie kind of comes over. The director turns to him and grabs a scrub of his neck.

And it says, and you, you know, when your rehearsals, you you’re pretty, boy, you have no talent act, blah, blah, blah, screams at him as well, storms off and hits him. He hits and that’s right. It’s so good. This is great about this is that there’s so many payoffs to come later. They go up the stairs. Co was the name of the boy.

She Nazi is the name of the girl. And then there’s this PA name? She, uh, you know, is kind of doing their makeup. They’re taking a break and she mentions the fact that they’re casually talking about, you know, where did they get this creepy location? And she’d mentioned that, oh, the director actually founded, it, took him forever to find it all over Japan and split.

Supposedly during world war II, there were these experiments, uh, where the army was working with reanimating the dead, and then there’s suddenly a bang at the door that startles them all, but sort of nothing happens. And so then they’re like, well, that was weird. There’s just this long pause. And finally the guy speaks up and.

Do you have any hobbies? You have any hobbies? And I was like going, oh my God, you’ve got to be kidding me. And it’s funny because actually Chinasa speaks up and says that she goes, that’s a random. Yeah. And he’s like, well, you know, we’re just trying to have fun here now jumps up. And he’s like, well, actually I’m learning self-defense right now.

Oh, really? Why don’t you show me some. Okay. And so she gets up and it’s like, now approach me from the front and she twists his arm. Oh, that’s horrible. They’ll approach me from the back. Oh, that’s horrible. Finally, you know, there’s another bang anyway, what ends up happening? Gosh, there’s no way we can walk

Craig: you through all of it.

No, but it, but it’s funny because, and I understand why you want to, because there are so many little things that you notice in the beginning that you just kind of scratch your head about. Like after that a zombie. Comes in and they fight the zombie, but meanwhile, there’s this other guy, like, I feel like he’s supposed to be another production assistant or something, and he’s just sitting in the corner, like watching all of this go down.

Like everybody else is freaking out and there’s this one guy just sitting there and I’m like, why is he just sitting there? He’s not reacting at all. And eventually he kinda tries to sneak out. And by that point, the director’s back and the director grabs him and shakes him. He’s like, where are you going?

And, and so like the random, what are your hobbies question? And like this guy randomly sitting there, there are all these little tiny things that just in the back of my mind, I’m like, oh my God, this is a terrible mood.

Todd: Well, and I was thinking, well, maybe this is good. They get more clever because the director does pop in and go, aha. See, you know, now I’m finally getting good reactions from you. And it’s funny, actually, I thought it was hilarious because they are presumably being attacked by these real zombies. And now it’s like, you didn’t do it.

Did you? And he’s like, yes, I put the blood on him. Was like, oh my God. And you release the actual zombies. Like, yes. Now we’re finally getting real reactions. This is going to be a great movie. And so now you realized sort of the conceit is that the director has concocted this found footage film together by unleashing real zombies.

And I was really questioning that the whole way through like, come on. It can’t really be that, or is it, you know, what’s up. Maybe that was where the movie was going to go with suddenly kind of giving me a twist that would, that would explain.

Craig: And it was funny because so at, from that point, basically the zombies just chased them around for the next 20 minutes.

All of the members of the crew, you know, get dispatched in various ways. And then of course there’s, um, bees in there chasing them all around. What was the most funny to me is that at the most random times, when they’re getting attacked by zombies, the director. Burstyn and go act, John,

and he’d be saying things to the zombies, like get that bitch

so fun.

Todd: And then there are these moments where it’s like, the camera is just focused. So it’s towards the end of it, this, um, uh, I think co and, uh, she Nazi who up on the roof and now is up there and now it’s kind of going ballistic because apparently, uh, she Nazi has been cut or bit on her ankle and they noticed that.

And so now wants to kill her with this app.

Craig: Right. And she goes, she goes nuts. Like out of nowhere, her character just totally changes. And. And, and I had in my notes, like, is she a zombie now? Because all of a sudden she’s super aggressive and violent and she’s chasing to Nazi who around and they ended up on the roof and there’s a big scuffle and then co kills now with an ax and  two runs away and ends up in a shed that’s marked with a pentagram on the ground.

And these it’s a close on her and these zombie legs come into frame and just stand right next to her for a second, as she’s cowering in fear. And then they turn around and go away and I’m like, what is happening? This is weird. And it ends up with a chin Nazi backup on the roof somehow, for some reason, facing off with co and it ends up co apparently is a zombie now.

And so basically they are in real life reenacting the scene that they were shooting in the very opening scene and the director is there and he’s like, yes, this is the real reaction. This is how you would really be feeling. She ends up. I, gosh, I don’t even remember now jumps back up out of nowhere with an accent, her head for just a second and then just falls away again.

And I had no idea what was going on there. And I, the director, I feel like gets killed somehow now, kills co. And another thing that I know. But that didn’t really strike me as weird is that most of the big kills happen off camera or they’re obscured by something. So all that you really see is the blood flying.

You don’t really see graphic intense, special effects was a

Todd: great moment in there too, because the cameras, again, this is all one takes. So the camera’s running after them and blood actually splatters up on the lens of the camera. And there’s blood on the scene for a while. And I thought, okay, how was this going to happen?

And during one of the chases I hand comes in and actually wipes the blood off

of

Craig: the lens, I loved it. I loved that.

Todd: I loved that bit. And I later read in the trivia that that was actually real. Like they didn’t add that later. All of that actually happened. This movie was like I said, it was shot for 25,000.

The whole thing is a very low budget production to everything that we saw on the screen that I don’t think there’s anything digital about it whatsoever. So

Craig: the way that the, the, the movie I’m air quoting, as I said, that the way that the movie ends is she kills co and then she. Upstanding on this huge pinch of gram made with blood on the roof.

And there’s like a crane shot, like the camera moves up so that it’s shooting her from above and she’s just standing there and that’s when the credits roll. And I, I had no idea what was going on really seriously. I was sitting here. They’re thinking what is happening? I have no idea what’s happening, but I did think that.

Up to that point, even though it was bad, like it was kind of poorly made. I thought, well, it was fun. You know, like there was, there was a lot of action, a lot of running and the camera’s running and the zombies are chasing. It’s all very unrealistic. Um, like there’s one point where, uh, Janata, who is in a underground tunnel and there are zombies at either side.

So the, the tension is very high, but then she just kind of skirts around one of them and keeps running. I didn’t think that it was amazing, but I thought, okay, well, you know, for what they were doing, It was interesting.

Todd: You were writing your notes that said, you know, Craig Higgins one thumb down look out for, but not a good movie.

However, if you had a Halloween party playing in the background, drinking beers

Craig: with your buddies. Yeah, kind of. But actually what I was thinking was the reason that I find this fun is because I thought that you and I could get our friends together. And make this movie. Exactly. So that was kind of fun. Um, but then the credits roll and it fades to white and I had no idea what was going on and that, because like they, the title card comes up, the credits roll.

I’m like, what is going on? It fades back in onto a city. And this is when the twist is revealed and it also says three months earlier and it jumps back to when the director of this movie is being picked. The movie and all of a sudden the cinematography is far more traditional way, cleaner way sharper.

It looks like an actual movie as opposed to something that somebody shot on their iPhone. And that’s, that’s where we figure out what’s going on. And what I, now I will concede that this is mentioned in the IMD B trivia, but I really thought of it. Before I read it. It turns out that this movie is the horror equivalent of noises off.

Yes,

Todd: that’s exactly what I was thinking when I was watching it. Cause I was involved in a production of noises off. It’s a great play. Oh, it’s hilarious. It’s like you see the play from the beginning, from the river. Is like act one and then act two, you watch a production of the play from backstage, and you’ve gotten a sense from the first act, how wacky these characters are in their rehearsal and all of their little quirks and issues and problems with each other.

And there’s all kinds of drama going on. So then you can see backstage as they’re trying to put it. Far. So, which was, you know, doors opening and closing and kind of, kind of mad cap FARs. It’s just as mad cat backstage as they’re like sabotaging each other. And they’re like pissed off at each other and, and things go wrong and they’ve got to cover for it and all.

And then you see it. Finally, the third act, I think, is like the closing night of this play and it’s from the front, the actual production. And you can tell that the production itself has just kind of devolved into shambles. Right. It’s just hilarious. And you’re right. This is exactly that just in zombie world zombie movie.

Craig: Right. So what we saw was the movie that was made, we saw the production that aired, and as it was pitched to him by these executives, they wanted a half-hour long live one cut zombie film. And when they pitched it to this director, he laughed, he thought they were kidding. And they’re like, no, we’re serious.

Todd: Well, Because they tell him like, why they chose him. Like, you know, why, because all he’s ever done or like some music videos and some small documentaries. And he says, well, what is your catch phrase again? Fast, cheap. Okay. Average. And that’s

Craig: why we picked you. And that’s what they want. Okay. What’s something fast, cheap, and average.

They want cheap entertainment. And it’s funny. So we see, uh, what I will call act two. We get to meet the actual actors and all of the people involved in the production before the production. Yeah. And the actor who plays co is this pretty boy heartthrob kind of guy. He’s a total snob. Douche bag, the girl who plays chin Nazi, who is this up and coming star, who, uh, is very sweet and very pretty, but also kind of prissy and is really concerned about like what her agency will allow.

Like you can’t spray anything on. It’s not that I care, but my agency won’t allow and we meet the director and his family. And, you know, the, you know, they seem like a nice average family. The daughter is a. I would guess late teens, early twenties, she still lives at home and she’s interested in filmmaking too.

And she’s, I think, um, is working as a PA on other productions and stuff. And the wife seems a little bit, I mean, I I’m making this more deep than it is, but she seems a little bit lost. Like she used to be an actress, but she’s not anymore. And she’s. You know, been exploring all these different hobbies, but she’s not really found anything.

That’s really caught her interest. And the daughter is trying to encourage her to get back into acting and stuff. And then some of the smaller characters who we had seen as zombies in the movie, like one of them. Is a big drunk. We find out another one of them has irritable bowel. If he drinks the wrong water, he will have horrible diarrhea.

Todd: That was the best

Craig: part. And then that goes on for about 15 minutes, I would say until then we get to the shooting of the production. And when we see the shooting of the production, all of these things that we’ve learned about these people, first of all, two of it’s live and two of the actors get caught in traffic or something and can’t show up.

So the director has to step in to play the director in the movie. And his wife, who’s just visiting the set with the daughter because the daughter’s obsessed with the actor who plays co volunteers, her to play now the PA makeup artists. Um, so they get thrown a very last minute and then we get to see the first act again.

But from behind the scenes and all of those weird things that were going on and making us scratch our heads when we were watching it, the first time are explained and it’s hilarious. Like I was laughing out loud and that takes quite a bit for me. I thought it was. Really, really funny. It was

Todd: laugh out loud, buddy.

Like for example, that awkward bit at the beginning where there’s a bang at the door, but nothing happens. And so then co asks now. So what are your hobbies? They had to improvise that because their zombie was supposed to come in the door, but this was the drunk guys on B and the director outside runs and finds that he’s.

Laying on the ground, not come standing up totally drunk. And he’s like picking them up and trying to wake him up. And they’ve got like a PA like an assistant there and is trying to drag him to the door to try to get him to go through the door. So all the best he can do is bang on the door and walk away.

And then an assistant from all the camp for behind the camera shows a big sign that says. Improvise improvise some things going bad. And this happens a few times, which is hilarious, right? This little, like, there’ll be a PA who was giving directions to them from sending they’ve written out a piece of papers and black art.

So that’s why now jumps up and is like, well, I’m learning self-defense and which is

Craig: she? Cause she had been, she left. That was, that was one of the hobbies that she was exploring in her real life. It was so funny because like the, she shows, you know, how you protect yourself from the front. But then the real joke is when somebody comes and grabs you from behind you throw your arms up to get out of their grip and you yell something.

I don’t remember what . Yeah. And then she keeps doing it because she kind of goes crazy. Like it’s established. She stopped acting because she would get so into it that she couldn’t control herself. That’s what happens here. And so people keep trying to grab her to restrain her and she just keeps throwing her arms up.

Wow.

So funny, we can’t, we can’t do it justice. You have to see it. Um, but I’m telling you, I’m telling you it is hilarious and all of those little things. You know, I was wondering why is that guy just sitting there, like while all of this is going on? Well, the reason is, is because he’s the diarrhea guy. He’s got diarrhea.

So we straightened that two ships. And he finally traced it, sneak out and the director’s like, where are you going? And he runs out. And when he ran out the first time we heard him screaming, no, no. And so we just assumed that he was getting killed by a zombie, but the truth is he was shitting himself.

Okay. There was a hilarious, see where like the director runs out after him. And we see the behind the scenes stuff where he just has to squat on the ground. And you hear the pooping, like at one point, at one point he’s standing there talking to the director and he’s like, it’s coming in. Director’s like what’s coming out poop

and then he’s squatting on the ground because there are no bathrooms are out. And the director makes the PA. Uh, another PA put zombie makeup on him while he’s pooping on the ground so that they can turn him into a zombie to bring him back to explain what had happened. Like they’re desperately trying to keep this going and they’re jumping off and on script at one point.

Um, they’re so off script, nobody knows where they are and in the booth. The booth people are like, we’re going to have to just cut it. We’re going to have to cut to a card that says we’re having technical difficulties and we’ll try to get things back together. And the director’s daughter who is interested in filmmaking says, no, we can do this.

And like, she jumps in with a plan. She’s like, okay, send so-and-so back in. And then we’ll jump from page 11 to page 16 and just keep going from there. And they communicate with the actors via cue cards, which also explains those. Pauses and silences from the movie. It’s because they don’t know what’s going on and they’re reading cue cards, telling them what to do next.

It’s not like a one time the

Todd: camera man is holding the camera, but he’d kind of turns back and sees a cue card there. And that’s to flip the page to the next page. Oh, there’s so many great little touches in here. And that zombie leg that you had described earlier when she was cowering in the shed, but that zombie life came.

It was one of the production staff who stepped up there and was holding a cue card in front of her saying, go get an ax. And so she, you know, as soon as he leaves, she runs out of there and in the movie she goes and she picks up her name. Oh, annex lucky me.

Craig: Well, and it’s all, you know, like, like you said, we can’t go through it step by step, but it’s all very contrived is the right word, but that has a negative connotation. Yeah. It’s like noises off it’s so well planned. Like when the actress who plays now, when she goes crazy, they have to figure out a way to get her out.

So. Kill her off with an ax off screen. And then the ax ends up embedded in her head, but they realized that they need an axle later in the, in the movie. So they have to take it out of her head and plant it and then tell the girl to find it like they’re just there they’re problem solving as they go along.

And I think that that is what really endeared the movie to me is that ultimately, whereas. Felt so bad. And so amateur in the first part, in the third act, you could tell that this was so meticulously planned the first act and the third act just, I mean, literally you could watch them. If you had two different screens, you could start them at the same time and you could see what was going on on screen for the viewers.

And you could see what was going on. Behind the scenes and they align seemingly perfectly. Um, and the fact that, you know, with all of this craziness going on and the director trying to do his directorial duties while also having to be in the movie. And so he’s running around like a crazy person and everybody is.

Yeah, they’re making it work. And the exacts who are watching it from a booth are like, oh, this is so much

Todd: fun. Everything. What are the last lines of the movie is one of them standing up and going, well, everything worked out for you

Craig: went off without a hitch. I think she says. Uh,

Todd: but part of what’s endearing about it. This is the subject matter, right? It’s like you said, at the beginning, when you were watching the first part you were thinking, well, it’s bad, but Hey, this is something we would have gotten together and could have been herself.

So that makes it a little endearing. This is. This is that same spirit, right? Hey, these guys are trying to make this movie and they’re falling all over themselves to do it right. And they are making the best out of what they have. It’s just really charming and fun and funny. There’s it’s just a fun.

Craig: Well, and that’s something else that I, that is just in Deere, you know, after I watched it, I went and read about it.

And this movie is the result of like a writing and directing workshop. Like yeah. Um, all of these people, all of the actors involved in this were amateurs who paid money to take part in this workshop. And so essentially they paid to be in the movie. I don’t remember how they raised 25,000. Is a lot of money to me, but when it, for film production, that’s,

Todd: it’s nothing, it’s like a, it’s not even going to cover food, but, but I think it was a crowdfunded.

Most of, a lot of it was not all of it, but a lot of it was actually crowdfunded.

Craig: And so they made it for $25,000. They were all basically amateurs doing this to invest in and further their craft. And it was released, you know, on, on like a few screens in Japan and, and, you know, not much happened, but then I think that they submitted it for festivals and it did really well at festivals.

And then they, uh, Did a, a second release in Japan and it did really, really well. And then it got a worldwide release. Like this is, this almost never happens. It does happen, but almost never. And, and that, I don’t know, you know, being somebody who is into the arts and when I participate in things like this, I’ve only done a couple of student films, but you know, I’ve done a lot of like community theater.

Like you don’t really get into. Thinking that it’s going to be anything more than entertaining for your very limited audience and satisfying for you as a performer. And I imagine that that’s what these people were thinking when they got into it. You know, this was going to be kind of a stepping stone, a silly little thing that they did, and then it just blew up and made a thousand times more.

It costs to make it. Wow. I was just super impressed.

Todd: Me too. It was funny reading the trivia about that one take in the beginning that, I mean, the whole movie was only was shot in eight days, but the first, you know, movie within a movie took two of those eight days and six takes for the cast and crew to get.

Right. And apparently they actually got it. Perfect. On the second take, except there was some issues. With a camera error and one of the cameras stopped, so they couldn’t even use it.

Craig: Right. Unfortunate. And that in itself really is impressive because it was, you know, a 35 to 37 minute scene. Now, if it was like, it all took place in that one room, I would think.

Okay, well that’s reasonable. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s, you’re basically filming a play, but it’s. You know, they move around. There are multiple set pieces, um, multiple angles, special effects, makeup changes, like significant makeup changes and effects that are going on. In real time. That is impressive. That is really impressive

Todd: to coordinate.

It’s a lot of crew that have to run around and just stay out of shot of the camera, but be back there to help support and run sound and all this stuff. And then apparently also a behind the scenes guy behind all that with a GoPro who also has to stay out of the way. Right. After the credits of the movie role, the real movie, finally, when we’re done, you get to see some of the behind the scenes of that.

Well, it’s the behind the scenes. It’s crazy, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really, really great. Um, I would highly recommend it for anybody. Anybody really, you don’t even have to be a horror fan. You just have to be able to take a bunch of cheesy zombie fake blood

Craig: stuff. Yeah. Ultimately, I got it. It’s a difficult movie to categorize because it does have, you know, a lot of blood splatter.

I mean, it’s obviously fake. And like I said, you don’t see, there’s not a lot of graphic violence on screen, but you do see the aftermath and that’s something else that I really enjoyed too. And I think that horror fans would enjoy seeing a lot of how some of this stuff has done where you’ve got live actors in a scene.

And then just through creative camera work, you have production assistants off camera. Throwing fake bodies and severed heads and severed arms into the getting blood in

Todd: people’s faces. Right?

Craig: Hoses. Like I love that. Look, when a chin Nazi was, is hacking up co at the end, she’s behind a show. It’s not a wall, but she’s behind something so that you can see her from approximately the waist up.

And so you can see her as she’s lifting the ax, but then as she. Takes it down the blood just splatters on her face. And when we get to see the behind the scenes, it’s just a guy crouched down there with a hose in his mouth, taking big swigs of blood and then shooting them through the hose and it looks great.

It looks

Todd: fantastic. And it’s a payoff for that gag, where she was like things can’t spray on my face, getting loads of it.

Craig: Oh, gosh. Uh, and just little, little things, like in the first part of the movie, the movie movie, you know, you hear people say things like, who are you because random zombies or PAs are just jumping in to try to.

Get things back on track and the actors have no idea what’s going on. And it’s so frantic in the moment that those lines just fly by that. Then when you see it later, you understand what’s going on and that the actors have no idea what’s happening. One of my friends. We talked about how in the movie within a movie now, just out of nowhere goes nuts.

Well that’s because the actress kind of gets lost in her character and goes nuts. And so they’re all chasing her around, yelling at her to stop. And eventually her husband, the director has to grab her, pull her off scene and choke her out so that she. It’s unconscious. And then while she’s unconscious to explain what happened to her, they have to get her into zombie makeup and put an accent, her head.

And so in the movie later in the very last scene, when she pops up out of nowhere, that’s just because the actress regained consciousness and had no idea what was going on. So she just jumped up in the middle of the scene and we see later in the, behind the scenes stuff, that her husband just grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back out of scene.

And that’s, there’s no explanation for it in the movie, within the movie, but, uh it’s and there are other things like that

Todd: too. One of my favorite bits is when. The camera man gets whacked. I don’t, I’m not exactly sure how it happens, but he gets knocked out or something or gets injured. And he falls on the ground in the movie, within the movie, it seems like a cool kind of found footage type trope, right.

Where the camera gets knocked out of someone’s hand for a brief moment and it’s right there on the ground, but it’s still managed this to film most of the scene before it gets picked back up again. Well, in the, in the, behind the scenes, we see, uh, that this guy was incapacitated and this woman who I think was kind of aspiring.

To be a camera person, really interested in that, but just completely out of her league, like looks left, looks right. And she’s the only person there who can like pick up the camera and run with it. So she picks it up and totally runs with it. And even while she’s running through the fields, like slips and falls,

Craig: oh, another one of my other favorites was the, uh, the drunk actor.

Like he promises that he’s not going to drink. Through the shooting, but then somebody brings a bottle of like fancy Saki to the set and he finds it. And so he is literally like passed out and the director has to basically just hold him by the waist and. Marionette him through his scenes. And it’s so funny because like he’s, he’s, he’s got him around the waist and he’s trying to stay low and stay out of shot, which he does.

So in the movie, it just looks like this guy is shambling. A zombie. Um, but when you see what’s really happening, I mean, he’s just barely lucid at all. And the reason that he’s moving that way is because somebody is holding him by the waist and just puppeteering him through. This seems very clever. So clever.

Um, this is not a movie that I ever would have watched. Now maybe if there were a dub diversion, Maybe I would have watched it, but it’s unlikely that I would have watched it, uh, otherwise. And I’m really, really glad that I did. But again, I think a lot of the joy of it came from the unexpected ness of what happened.

I didn’t know what was going on and, and I, and I. That, uh, it was, it was an experience like my, the whole experience of watching the first part and being pissed off at you for picking another stupid ass movie, and then it shifting into something else that I wasn’t expecting at all. And then. That thing that I wasn’t expecting at all, ultimately being really well done and really clever, like it was such a great, great pay off.

I, uh, I, man, I just really enjoyed it. I don’t know that I would necessarily recommend it to everybody, but I think. Fans of horror and, or especially horror comedy, or even people who are just fans of kind of farce and slapstick comedy who can handle a little bit of fake gore. Absolutely. And man aspiring filmmakers.

Oh yeah. Watch this, check it out. Like I just. So clever. I ended up walking away from it with a great big smile on them. Ah,

Todd: and I finally feel redeemed.

Craig: Don’t get, don’t get two full years. It was a diamond in the

Todd: rough. You need a few more movies like this to break as events.

Well, and a big shout out to Liz also for recommending this film to us, uh, really, really grateful again, to get recommendations from people. Uh, things that we probably, like you said, would not have found on our own. If you have a request for us, please send us a message. You can find us online. You just have to search by Google, two guys and a chainsaw podcast.

You will find our Facebook page or Twitter. And our website, you can simply leave us a comment or message there and let us know what you thought of this movie, or send us a request for a movie we should do later until next time. I’m Todd and I’m Craig with two guys and a chainsaw. .

We’ve passed by this iconic cover sooo many times on the video store shelves, but would you believe that neither of us had seen Slumber Party Massacre until now? Or that it was written by feminist author Rita Mae Brown?

Well, thanks to listener request, we finally found an excuse to check out the Driller Killer in all his phallic, penetrative action. Hard to believe this is the first in a series of three Roger Corman-produced slumber party massacres. And a remake is in the works!

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

Episode #258, 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: This week, we go to another listener request. This. Was requested by two guys, mark and Josh, we’re fulfilling your wish talking about 1982’s Slumber Party Massacre. I’m sorry. THE Slumber Party Massacre today. Correct.

Now this movie is kind of iconic. I mean, it is iconic. It’s the first of the series of slumber party massacres of which there are three and apparently there’s more of what you might call it. Sex trilogy. What do you call it with six deck cology deck. I don’t know. Six of them. There’s six movies that are of the Roger Corman produced massacre series, slumber party massacre one, two and three, and then sorority house massacre, one, two and three, which are scary.

Tangentially related to this, they kind of feed off of each other and they were produced by they’re all produced by Roger Corman. The one shocking thing about this film is that it is the first horror series to be written and directed by women. I think all three in this. Of slumber party massacres were directed by women.

And the writer of this film is none other than a feminist writer. Rita Mae brown originally wrote the screenplay titled sleepless nights, and she intended it to be a parody of slasher films. However, There was a woman looking for to make her directorial debut. Uh, she was an editor and writer, uh, in Hollywood, got involved with a friend of Roger Corman and he passed her a bunch of scripts and she picked this one out of the lineup.

They retitled it The Slumber Party Massacre and they shot it just as a strict horror film in Roger Corman fashion. Although she said she didn’t find the original very funny and had to actually insert. Comedic elements into it. So it has an odd pedigree, this film. I just remember it as a kid passing by it on the shelves, weirdly enough, this is exactly the kind of movie that we would have picked up from our Friday night jaunts to the video store, me and my friends, when we would do what we called stupid movie night.

And we would mostly pick up either goofy 80 sex comedies or. Dumb looking eighties, horror films, and this movie has a poster slash cover art that is kind of unmatched. It’s the most suggestive thing you could imagine. There is a four women almost naked laying down on the ground. Um, and there’s a guy standing over them, his legs spread, and there’s a drill.

Coming down between his legs towards one of the women, especially who is laying down on the ground with her mouth open. I mean, all you need is just something dripping off of this drill, like blood say to just complete the whole picture of what I feel like this poster is going for and succeeds. And so anyway, yeah, I used to pass by this all the time on the shelves.

I don’t know why we never picked it up and watch a part. This is one of the few we didn’t, I’m a big fan of sorority house massacre too, which we’ve done on the show and you’ve got to go back and listen to that. It’s one of my all time favorite, stupid horror movies. And that actually pulls from this film.

It takes footage from this movie. And repurposes it as a flashback sequence.

Craig: Right. But like out of context, right.

Todd: Different story line, different, whatever. It’s just like typical Roger Corman, right? Hey, we’ve got this footage from a movie we own land, just chuck it in and use it however you want. But I found sorority house massacre to infinitely more entertaining than this movie.

I’m just going to come right out and say it right there. Uh, gross 3.6 million at the box office on a budget of $220,000. Critical reviews are not great, but apparently it’s kind of a cult classic. In certain circles. Craig, how about you? What we’ll get to it. How about you? How did you feel? Well, what’s your background?

Had you seen this before? You have to have

Craig: seen this before? No, I don’t think so. Um, I know that there is one part that I saw, but I really think that I had just seen that one part and I don’t remember if it was in some kind of compilation of like stupid scenes or if I just happened to see that it was on cable and stuff.

For a second and just saw this one part. Um, but it was so dumb. Uh, I don’t even know my real life that it was from this movie, but when I was watching the movie, I was like, oh, I have seen this part so stupid. Yeah, no, I don’t know. I, when we were kids, I wasn’t as drawn to these movies that you could tell were going to be bad.

I mean, I certainly inadvertently watched lots and lots of bad movies, but the ones that you could just tell from the box art, that that’s what it was going to be. And, and that’s what it was kind of intended to be. I was more interested in being scared. That’s not to say that I didn’t watch these types of movies on up all night all the time.

I certainly did. Yeah. And, uh, I do, you know, the, okay. Couple of things. First of all, Rita Mae brown I’m as an English teacher, I should be more familiar with her. I’m really more familiar just with her name. Um, and the fact that she’s a feminist writer, uh, she wrote Ruby fruit jungle, which has been on my to read list for decades.

Haven’t gotten around to it. So it’s crazy that a very serious reputable feminist author wrote this exploitation film. Now the fact that she intended it as parody makes a little bit more sense, but then, uh, Or Amy Holden Jones, like you said, wanted to direct, um, she was and remains successful, you know, as a technician, a camera person, a cinematographer.

Um, but she’s only directed four movies. And one, I only knew one of those movies and I don’t know, I remember what year it came out, but it started Allie Sheedy and it was called, made to order. And my sister. Loved that movie when we were growing up it’s eighties and cheesy and stupid, but it’s got, um, Allie Sheedy in it.

It’s got Beverly D’Angelo and it’s a Cinderella story, a reverse Cinderella story where this rich snobby socialite very badly behaved her fairy godmother in the form of Beverly D’Angelo comes and turns. Her makes her poor and she has to get a job as a maid. And of course, Learns the value of hard work and decency and she finds love and light.

Okay. It’s super corny and I love it, but this director faced a lot. Backlash for this movie because people said, you know, here you are a woman. There are so few women in horror, which is true. And so it’s nice to see, um, a project helmed by women. That’s very refreshing, but, uh, it is. Classic slasher exploitation, tons of moobs, um, you know, suggestive kills.

Uh, and, and I really enjoyed her response to the criticism. She basically just said, that’s not fair. Nobody criticizes me. When they make these types of movies, why shouldn’t I be able to do it? You know, she’s she was trying to launch a career as a director and arguably she did, she didn’t direct a lot more, but her other movies made money.

They weren’t huge, but they did fine. Um, and, and so I appreciated that she pointed out that double standard. So what, I’m a woman, these types of movies sell Roger Corman movies sell. That’s what he does. He’s in it to make money. Um, he, he pumps out cheap movies. Um, usually with high entertainment value, not super high quality, but they, they make money.

And, uh, that, you know, she took advantage of that. And so for that, I applaud her the movie on the other hand sucks. And the reason. I think it sucks is because it’s just completely paint by numbers aside from the fact that for unexplained reasons, this killer makes almost all of his kills with this ridiculously oversized industrial drill.

Aside from that, there’s nothing unique about it. There’s virtually no characterization, whatever it’s just introduced. A bunch of mid twenties playing high school kids. People. Yeah. Just lining them up for one kill after another. There’s no mystery to who the killer is. He’s just some random, crazy eyed guy.

With the giant journal who you see from the beginning, like there’s no mystery of who it is. Um, the only backstory for the killer is that he’s a psycho and he’s killed people before and he’s busted out of prison or the asylum or whatever, and he’s on the loose again. That’s it. Then there’s a slumber party.

And one by one, everybody gets killed. That’s it. There’s not enough speaking. To it. Um, and it was kind of frustrating. I mean, there, there are some fun kind of sight gags and some things, but, uh, over, I mean the acting isn’t good. The effects aren’t good. The blood doesn’t. I mean, the, the, the makeup effects of the wounds sometimes is okay.

Sometimes terrible, clearly just like painted on, um, the blood doesn’t even look like blood. It’s just Cairo syrup and like, I guess, red food coloring, but it’s not the color of blood at all. Ah, I don’t know the here’s, you know what the best part about the mood? I bet you can

Todd: guess it’s not even an hour and a half,

but damn it. Does it not feel like two hours though? I mean,

Craig: it feels like at least an hour and a half. That’s not necessarily to say that it’s boring because it does move. I mean, they line up like a dozen people to get killed. So you have a kill every couple, every few minutes,

Todd: the body count is high in this movie.

Surprising. Yeah.

Craig: But, uh, yeah, I mean, I don’t know what else you going to say about

Todd: it could be our shortest episode ever. And I’m really, I’m really shocked. I thought we’d have more to say, but I mean, the reality is, like you said, there’s no suspense, there’s no tension. I wasn’t feeling any anyway, it’s just, oh, here’s this guy.

And this girl turned the corner and there is and drill and she’s dead. You know, it’s a movie that feels like maybe it’s trying to be Halloween, you know, because it takes place in the suburbs and there’s a slumber party instead of a babysitting gig. And there’s a next door neighbor who ends up popping up.

But the honest to goodness truth is I couldn’t even keep track of who was who no, they all look the same, the same unique about any of them. And then again, uh, you know, to come from a script from a writer who, with some literary talent, perhaps now, I don’t know, you know, that was the original script. I’m sure it was modified over time.

So, you know, we can’t. Fault Rita Mae brown for that, but there’s very little characterization. I th I think nothing. That’s that interest. You know, it’s just all these kind of typical girls in high school who, who all, you know, as usual look like they’re 28 and not 18. There’s nobody to root

Craig: for. Like, no, there’s no, nobody stands out.

Right. The right. And usually. Types of movies. You can kind of pick out who the final girl is, you know, there’s, there’s one kind of sympathetic character or, or Virgin li character or something. And there’s just not here. I mean, Final girls of this large cast of young people. Most of them are dead by the end.

There are just a few left at the end. And I suppose you could argue there’s one girl, because she’s new to town. She’s kind of an outcast. That’s the only reason that she’s an outcast, unless you read between the lines. And she’s prettier than the rest of them. So maybe, maybe they’re all jealous. I don’t know, but there’s really no focus on her character.

It’s just setting her apart from everybody else so that she can be in a different location across the street and come in. And, you know, we keep checking in on her and her sister just doing mundane things at their house and like, like fighting with one another. Meanwhile, all of these girls, these teenage girls look like they’re old enough to teach high school and the, the, the younger sister, and I’ve seen this done in so many bad horror movies, they dress her super young and like put her in like, Pigtails and stuff to suggest that and give her a lollipop.

Yeah, a giant, like a big lollipop to lick on while she looks at Playgirl like, oh my God, it’s so silly, but she doesn’t look any younger than the rest of them. And then there’s another woman, a coach that apparently they all like, she’s like their gym teacher or something. Indistinguishable from the rest of them.

Like she could have just as easily played one of the teenagers. Honestly, I wish that there were specific things that I could point to as interesting. There’s not, it just, it opens up since suburbia. We literally see a newspaper headline that says mass murder of five. Russ thorn escapes. And then the main character Trish takes her clothes off.

And this is within the first three minutes. And so, you know, immediately what’s going on and then conveniently Trisha’s parents are leaving for the weekend, but the nada. Creepy neighbor, Mr. Content is going to be keeping an eye on her. And, uh, and why, why so many stupid things like, like this girl Trish woke up this day and apparently decided today.

I’m a woman and I’m going to pack up all of my childhood things in a bag and throw them in the garbage for no reason. Other than that, we get to see a creepy hand, pull her Barbie doll out of the garbage can so that, that can come back later. You

Todd: have to imagine that maybe in the original script, there was something of.

But maybe there was more character development and this, this became a thematic element, but, uh, I don’t know. That’s that’s pure imagination. Yeah. Come with me. If you will be pure imagination, much better movie than this one. Oh yeah. And scare

Craig: here.

No joke.

Todd: Oh, give me gene Wilder over this guy. Any day, this guy wanders around it was his first acting job, big surprise. And it’s so funny when you read the trivia and you know, a lot of this probably comes from the movie commentary, which I will never bother watching, but he mentioned that this being his first acting job, he spent all this time preparing for the role, read a book about a serial killer helter-skelter helter-skelter and then.

He decided that he needed to model his character after a peacock, which is funny

Craig: because I only read that after, but then when I read it, it was like, oh, that’s why he was walking like that

Todd: around and stuff. He doesn’t say anything until towards the end. And then apparently he also. Isolated himself from the rest of the cast during the shooting, you know, to stay in his character. It’s just so cute to read that because I know

Craig: Twain’s, it’s his first acting gig. He’s trying to go all method on this horrible movie

Todd: bug guide, looking around through this movie, like a peacock, I guess you could.

And he’s

Craig: always right there and like there’s no reason.  why he’s targeting these girls. Like, I guess he just happens to know they’re all going to be there. So he just like hides in the bushes where we can plainly see him as girls pour into this party. The first time we see him is when, so there’s also a couple of guys, Jeff, and some other guy.

I don’t know. It doesn’t matter because they have no character, but they’re just walking along like. Well campus and they hit on like a line woman or something like she’s like repairing the phones. You know, I’ve been having some ringing in my ear and my phone and I thought maybe a phone woman could help me up our old phone in this pretty, I wouldn’t know.

Would you ever consider dating a younger man? I mean, you know what they say about younger men? Try it. You’ll like it. I hadn’t really thought about it.

Well, my number side of board, if your number is zero, she is nice, but shuts him down. And he, Jeff and the friend keep walking the door of her van swings open, and somebody grabs her and pulls her from inside. Granted, this is midday, like rhyme day, right in the height in the parking lot of a high school pulls her in and she gets up and starts like pounding on the windows and screaming as these boys are walking away and they just don’t know.

And she gets drilled in the forehead right there in the van, in the parking lot. Oh man. And that’s just, that is seriously. I don’t know that there’s any point, like, no, the next thing is some girls like, oh, I forgot my book and the gym. And so she runs back into the gym and he follows her in there and he chases her around there and then he drills her.

Like,

Todd: it’s not just that it’s like painfully long and. You know, she’s hiding and then we get, oh God, five or six minutes of him full on poking around room to room, looking left and right. Going back to the room, going back to where he was standing there, looking left and right. Looking down, I mean, oh my God.

And. A lot of these movies, like we said earlier, there’s no question who the killer is, right. There’s no attempt to make him mysterious. There’s no, there’s no twist. There’s no mystery or whatever. He’s just a guy. And so he’s not interesting to watch. He’s not even interesting to watch stock these people with

Craig: a huge drill

Todd: mass.

Drill. And you know, when this thing turns on, even the sound department got it wrong. I mean, this drill should be, what would it be? Gas powered. I mean, you would have to be loud as hell, but he’s able to just kind of wander around with aplomb and. Drill through people, which is a really awkward method of killing when you kind of get down to it.

It even plays out kind of awkward in the movie. If people just get cornered in these situations where they can get drilled, you know, but a knife is a little more. Helpful. And I think they even know this because there are times in the movie where he just swings the drill to cut somebody open. Right. But it’s a metaphor.

I mean, of course it’s a

Craig: metaphor, right? I mean, he even gets castrated at the end. It’s real castrated. So stupid. Painful scene of them playing basketball, like again for a good five minutes. Like I do not see. Yeah. Just so you can watch their boobies flopping around a little bit. And then there’s a group shower scene where.

Some of them. And they’re all just chatting in the shower casually talking about this. Trish is going to have a party because her parents are gone or whatever I did read. I didn’t keep track of the actresses. A couple of these actresses, the actress who played Valerie, and one of the other actresses were both in sorority babes at the slime ball bowl.

Aroma. Yeah. Also

Todd: a better movie,

Craig: which I never would have watched if you hadn’t made me. But I really liked that movie.

Todd: It’s funny, isn’t it. So I

Craig: saw, you know, just a snippet from an interview from one of these, um, women who, and we’ve heard this before, you know, we talked to the Linnea Quigley and, um, this woman. Good. What she told us that if you wanted to work during this time, nudity was just expected. You did it, or you didn’t work.

So they did

Todd: it. Good jobs wouldn’t get because you’re right to take your top off. And that woman you’re talking about is brink Stevens. And she is a, she’s been in a thousand of these movies. She’s known for being the girl, taking her top off in these movies. But actually she’s not a bad actor. Either. So she’s one of these scream queen

Craig: icons.

Yeah. And she said that she’s glad that she’s of an age now that people don’t want her to take her clothes off.

Um, but apparently yeah. Some of these women did object to the nudity. So some of them put a tape over their nipples so that they wouldn’t be able to use any footage of them that showed them from the front. So some of them, you only see from the back, but I mean, again, it’s just exploitation, which is fine.

I mean, these are beautiful young women. Prime of their life. They look great if you’re into that. Great. I mean, this was part and parcel for the era and for the genre. So I’m not criticizing that. It’s just in fact I celebrate and applaud that in some movies, but in this, I mean, it’s just, like I said, it’s just paint by numbers.

It’s just like, okay. Kill somebody. Okay. Boobs. Okay. Somebody stalking, like

Todd: what. Even that wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t just so darn boring. I mean, I wasn’t interested in any of these characters. I had no, even their banter. Everything’s quite subdued. Like, there’s no drama going on. Like there’s no boyfriend jealous of some girl or guys who were sneaking over.

I mean the two guys kind of sneak over, right. They pop over the Lear in the window a little bit, but then the driller killer gets one of them outside before he even makes it in. And, uh, you know, there’s a pizza delivery guy gets drilled through the eyes, but you don’t even see it. You just see the aftermath, which doesn’t

Craig: even make sense.

No. How would the pizza guy be standing there holding the pizza with his eyeballs drilled out until they opened the door and he fell inside. And then, and then of course, you know, they know there’s a killer. So one of the girls, Trish was already on the phone with their coach because. Big debate about basketball scores from the game last night.

Like what, who are these girls? I didn’t know. These girls,

Todd: the worst thing about it is that they know there’s a killer and they don’t leave the house. Do they try to call the cops. They

Craig: try, she, she tries to, she gets the cops on the phone, but she dilly dally is in giving the address. And so by the time she starts to give the address, the killer cuts the phone line.

But yeah, like at that point there are still, I don’t know, probably four. Girls at least, and the boys are there. And of course they have the same stupid discussions that people always have in these movies where the boys are like, we should go for help. And Trish is like, well, maybe we should just all stay together yet.

You think like, there’s. One guy in like 25 of you, like shrilly I don’t know. But so the boys decide that they’re going to go out separately and look for help. And somehow, even though they run out of opposite ends of the house, they both end up getting killed within seconds of running outside. Yeah, it’s just, this guy can be anywhere.

And then they’re, they’re lurking, you know, they’re just kind of lurking in the house. Like I said, that Valerie, the new girl and her sister are like kind of watching from across the street and they maybe hear some screaming and they may be here a drill, but they’re not really all that concerned. And.

Like there’s dumb stuff where at 1.1 of the boys runs to their house and is pounding on the door. As the driller killer is coming up right behind them, uh, him and, um, he’s pounding on the door and screaming, but Valerie doesn’t know that because she’s watching a horror movie in which other people are pounding and screaming.

So she doesn’t go to the door and he gets killed and, uh, Eventually they make their way over there. But meanwhile, the other girls are just kind of cowering in their laundry. My F the part that I remembered seeing was a part where they’re kind of creeping around. And they stumble across the pizza guy and they’re like, maybe he’s not really dead.

Even though he’s been laying there for a half an hour with his eyeballs drilled out. No, I’m sure he’s fine. And one of them reaches down and was like, no, he’s already getting cold. And another girl is like, is the pizza. And she literally pulls the pizza. From under the dead body, sits it on top of the dead body.

And it’s like, when I get really nervous, the only thing that makes me feel better as if I eat. So she sits there and eats pizza off of the dead pizza guy.

Todd: Yeah. It’s the

Craig: second seconds later, there’s a knock on the door and they’re like, maybe it’s the police. And so the pizza girl gets up and opens the door. And of course it’s just the killer right there. And he slices her across the abdomen and she’s dead. Huh? At which point there are only a couple of them left.

Um, Trish and Kim. I liked Kim. I looked at her, uh, IMDV page. She she’s been in a lot of stuff. She has an interesting face, but again, they’re just cowering. Valerie comes over and is like coming through the house, looking for calling for them. And they’re like, we can’t call back because, um, then maybe the killer will know where we are.

And what if Valerie and the killer are friends?

Todd: Where did that come from?

Craig: So Valerie’s. Having not seen anything, I guess. And these two girls are just cowering in a bedroom, the killer sneaks in a window right behind them and kills one of them. I don’t know. It’s so dumb. I mean, he just, he just keeps showing up and killing people the end.

And then at the end, there’s a few of them left. There’s Trish, Valerie, and her annoying little sister Courtney and. The coach shows up, I guess she was worried or she really, really needed them to know the basketball score. So she shows up the only other gag that I thought was funny is when Valerie and Courtney are looking around the house, Courtney wants to steal beer out of the refrigerator and Valerie keeps going like, no, no you can’t.

And so Courtney keeps opening the door, but not looking in there. And every time she opens. Kim’s body is in there and falls out a little bit and then Courtney closes the door and she goes back in and she opens it again. And Kim’s body falls out a little bit. And then she goes back in. That was kind of,

Todd: yeah, that’s kind of classic though.

I mean, I don’t know if this was the first time we’ve seen that gag, but, well, it’s not the first time we’ve seen that gag, but I don’t know if it was the first time it ever appeared in a movie. Yeah, there’s that gag then there, the little gags where like, uh, oh, they’re making Kool-Aid. So it’s like mixing up some blood red liquid, or somebody drops a glass of wine on the floor, which, you know, splashes red bull, red blood looking stuff, you know, or it cuts from the drill to them.

Blending. There’s a cat scan is a cat scan.

Craig: There’s another scare where out of nowhere they hear shattering glass and then they go in the kitchen and it’s the coffee pot that Kim has left on the stove, burner, a glass coffee pot, and she’s like, oh, darn it. I left the burner on. And then she picks up the coffee pot and holds it by the bottom.

I thought that just shattered because it was hot. It’s lazy, it’s dumb. It gets to the end. And there’s nothing really, even to say about the end, like. It was a little fight. You think the coach is going to be the hero and she kind of is for a second, but then he gets her and then they have a fight out by the pool, which I also, so apparently initially they shot the.

Finale indoors in the same room where they’d been shooting everything else. And it was just ho-hum, which, you know, is par for the course with this movie. Um, but Roger Corman saw the initial cut and liked it. And so he threw a little bit more money at him and said, reshoot the end, make it more exciting.

And so they took it outside. By the pool. And I thought this was hilarious because Valerie is wielding a machete and she’s like backing up the killer and he looks down like, he’s like right on the edge of the pool. Like he’s afraid he’s gonna fall in or something. But it’s as though it’s as though he couldn’t just side step away from it.

Like I know, right. Take a step to the left. Well, you don’t have to keep going directly into the pool, but she swings her machete and she cuts off the tip of his drill, Hardy har har, and then I don’t know, she slashes hands and he goes in the pool. Yeah. It cuts off his hand, falls in

Todd: the pool, then they all embrace and you think he’s dead, but then he crawls out handless silently comes at them again.

I think gets one of them. And then he comes leaping towards who was it? Was it her? Valerie?

Craig: No, there’s only a few of them. There’s Valerie.

Todd: She had Trish that’s it? Three of them had, you know, is laying on the ground. Has the Michelle in her hand whips it, whips it around. And he basically leaps on this machete impales

Craig: himself on it.

Yeah. Yeah. And then you just see, you just see the three, yeah. The three remaining girls, all just laying on the ground by themselves sobbing and you hear police sirens, and then the credits are all like, Ugh, it was,

Todd: you get more, you know, you get the, the end credits and the beautiful score that we’ve been treated to, which is pretty typical for these horror films.

The score was done by the, I think it was the producer’s brother. Director’s brother. Ralph Jones and he recorded the whole thing on a tiny little Casio synthesizer. It sounds like it, but it’s, you know, it’s pretty typical for the era. It kind of set a stage anyway, actually reminds me a lot of the scores in these Roger Corman horror movies that were done around this time.

So I can’t fall to too much for that. It wasn’t, it wasn’t true. But, uh, it wasn’t great.

Craig: Yeah. According to the testimony of the people who worked on it, the director, the director went to one of the first screenings and she was just shocked when from the very beginning, the audience reacted to it really well.

They were screaming and laughing and, you know, yelling at the screen and, um, just having a great time. And she said that she went out into the lobby because that’s where Roger Corman was. Um, he wasn’t watching the film. He was just listening to the audience reaction and she went out and she’s like, what is going on?

What have we done? And, and he said something like, we just had the best opening. Was it new line that did this? I don’t remember world new world, new world. We just, we just had the best new world, uh, opening in history. It is. I mean, I, I get it, I guess, in the right context, if you, as I’ve said a bazillion times, if you were going to the theater with a big audience and you were all in it for the fun of it, and people were, you know, screaming and shouting things at the screen, I can see how the atmosphere would elevate.

V in some way. Um, but without that, there’s really nothing good to say about it. There are no standout performances. There are no standout kills or affects. Um, it’s all. Tame. I mean, he just, he either drills people or he slashes them with the drill or every once in a while somebody will come at him with a knife and he’ll get the knife away from them and stab them.

But that’s it nothing creative, nothing innovative. Um, really a pretty laughable performance by the guy who plays the killer. I don’t want to be overly critical. It was, you know, it’s crappy material. So it’s not like he had much to work with. And apparently he really tried. I don’t mean to be critical in that way, but the end product is just goofy, like goofy, not even in really a fun or clever

Todd: way.

And that’s the most disappointing part about it. I think it’s, it’s just not that fun. I wish it could be fun. I mean, again, if I had maybe if, maybe like you said, if I’d watched it with my friends back in high school together, we, we might’ve had some fun with it, but it’s almost just too boring for that.

Really? Yeah.

Craig: And I remember, I don’t remember particularly loving the second one, but if memory serves, it was way better than this one. I mean, it was still a bad slasher movie, but it was more fun. That’s the one. Yeah.

Todd: The driller killer is, is a guitar player.

Craig: All I remember is these girls, like they buy an old house, you’re going to renovate it where there were, where there were murders and what I remember not because I had seen the first movie, but talking with you about it, they do use the footage from this movie, but they changed the backstory entirely.

They like, but you’re

Todd: thinking of, you’re thinking of sorority house massacre too. Yeah, summer party massacre two was super campy, and I think we should do it sometime. The killer in that it has a, has a drill on the end of a guitar. He’s like. Ghostly supernatural hard rocker or heavy metal

Craig: dude. I can see in my mind, the box art, um, with the guy, with the guitar, with the drill on the end,

Todd: I remember that one being pretty campy, but I’m certainly more fun than this, but yeah, you’re talking about.

House massacre too, which is one of my favorite movies and you’re right. It, the acting is terrible. It’s also pretty pedestrian, but it just has a charm to it and a fun aspect to it that this one doesn’t, that was directed by Jim Weiner. Norske one of my, oh,

Craig: okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I feel like we’re being totally lame and have nothing interesting to say.

I’m sorry, audience, that you had to listen to us, have nothing to say about this.

Todd: Mark and Josh probably would have had, we should have had them on here to chat with us about, there is apparently a remake in the works, which can only be better than this. It’s supposed to come out this year by a director named

And I think she did, um, a few horror movies, including the banana splits movie from 2019. How about like a sort of, I saw that, is it good?

Craig: It’s campy and fun. It’s about, uh, animatronics that come alive and kill people. Right. And it’s, it’s based on, um, a kids cartoon, I think from the

Todd: seventies. Yeah. Like Jim Henson.

Craig: Yeah, it’s silly and stupid, but I, I had fun watching it. I mean, are there any other movies we should talk about?

Maybe we’ll see a couple of these, uh, women again sometime soon too, because the last I heard and this has been probably a month ago, so it’s probably over. Um, but last I heard Linnea quickly was shooting sorority babes too. Oh, man. Maybe we’ll get to see, uh, a couple of these, these ladies pop up, reprising their roles.

I don’t know. But when I saw that that was shooting, it kind of made me excited.

Todd: I’m sure it’s going to be a lot more fun to watch than this movie was. I don’t know. I don’t know. We’ll see. Thank you, mark. And Josh or suggesting it, nonetheless, this was a movie we were planning to get to eventually fun to talk about.

Nonetheless, it is a bit of history, you know, I mean, Iconic again. I can

Craig: say I’ve seen it now. Um, and that’s good. And when people ask, what about a slumber party? Masker? I’ve heard. That’s good. I can save well,

oops, let me, let me give you you a couple of other recommendations. Maybe now. When I finally get around to teaching Ruby fruit jungle, I can tell my students, the author also wrote the horror masterpiece, slumber party masker. And

Todd: you could show in school, right? Yeah. Movie day.

Uh, all right. Thank you again for your request and thank you listeners for tuning in this week. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can search us online, just Google, two guys, and a chainsaw podcast. Find our Facebook page, our web page, our Twitter feed. Drop us a note there, let us know what you thought of this episode and give us some suggestions for future episodes.

We, we do love doing requests.

Craig: Until next time. I’m Todd and I’m Craig

Todd: with Two Guys and a Chainsaw. .

“In 1992, the BBC aired a Halloween special so scary, approximately 1 million viewers called in to complain, and children who inadvertently watched it later showed signs of PTSD. For decades after, the network refused to air it again.”

Thus began the tantalizing meme that led us to this week’s episode, reviewing the horror mockumentary, Ghostwatch. We think many people who grew up during the early 90’s in Britain have strong memories of this one, as evidenced by the commentary on our Facebook feed when I proposed this episode. And good news: You can watch this one online in all its glory at the Internet Archive.

Ghostwatch (1992)

Episode 257, 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: The subject of this week’s episode came from a meme. You guys all know what those are. This is something I found. I belong to a couple of these different horror pages on Facebook. For those of us who still use Facebook. Right.

And I’m right. And this meme came across that had this picture and it said: “In 1992, the BBC aired a Halloween special. So scary, approximately 1 million viewers called in to complain and children who inadvertently watched it later showed signs of PTSD. For decades later, the network refused to air it again.”

So I posted it to our page and I wrote, sounds intriguing. What do you think? Should we do it? And I thought nobody, you know, would really respond. And uh, oh my gosh, we got quite a bit of, um, response to it. Yeah. I was surprised. Right. I mean, there are, people were like, oh, I was a teenager when this aired and, and uh, oh, it’s like a must and got really excited.

Then I thought, well, shoot, we better do it then. And so this is called Ghostwatch. It is, I would say kind of a 4runner to the whole found footage thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. I I’m maybe, maybe found footage is a bad way to put it more of like a blending Metta sort of trying to blend a bit of reality. With fiction.

Uh, and it was a television special that went on the BBC. So I had never heard of it before at all. This meme actually introduced me to this. And so once it got that response to decided, I talked to Craig and he said, yeah, well, let’s, let’s give it. Um, Craig had you, did you ever, ever have any exposure to this whatsoever?

Craig: I’d never seen it, but I had seen it pop up on lists. I don’t, I don’t even remember what, you know, the subject of the lists were, but, um, I had seen it, so I had an idea of what it was that it’s basically like a Dateline special kind of deal, a new, special, except it’s. Live. Um, and what’s most interesting about it, I think is that if I’m not mistaken and you know, in all transparency, we were meant to do this last week and something came up and we couldn’t.

So it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve seen this movie. Um, but if I remember correctly or remember reading about it, I think a disclaimer popped up on the screen beforehand saying that it wasn’t real, that it was fiction, but a lot of people tuned in after the disclaimer had aired. And so they didn’t realize that it was fake and adding to the confusion was the fact that the people who play the like anchors and reporters were actual BBC anchors and reporters.

So if you were to tune in. You would see these familiar faces, who you were accustomed to seeing delivering news content. And this is the content that you would get, so I can understand easily, um, how people would have believed that this was happening live in real time. Um, and if you believe that I can imagine that it would have been unsettling.

Todd: Yeah. I mean, it’s sort of like the war of the worlds thing, right? Yeah. Orson Wells, uh, you know, did this radio broadcast and, and formatted it as though it were news, uh, about the aliens invading. I mean, if you listen to it, now you can tell, I mean, it’s definitely a scripted thing. They even broke in, I think with commercials and, and reminders and things.

But, but apparently it caused a bit of panic and I don’t even think it causes much panic. The myth and the legend kind of says it does. Um, but it was quite a bit of a stir at the time. And it actually created rules in broadcast. I was a journalism major and I, I learned that there were things like this, things like war, the worlds, things like ghost watch, which forced, uh, television stations and broadcasters and news organizations to make more clear rules about what they can put on it.

Um, and how they can put on the air. And it’s interesting, like the genesis of this. So I go back and I read, I read a lot about it. And Steven Volk is the kind of the brainchild behind this. He was a screenwriter actually wrote a Ken Russell film Gothic, and that was his first produced screenplay in the eighties.

And he had the idea for basically a five-part series. He might’ve even written all the scripts for five-part series for the BBC. And the last in the series was going to. Uh, purportedly live broadcast from this haunted house that the previous four episodes were clearly more fictional. And, uh, he was told, you know, why don’t you just give us something that’s 90 minutes long, just, just a full length deal.

And his idea was why don’t I just take that last episode and make it into a full length special? And it ran as part of just like HG Wells is broadcast. I’m just like Orson Wells as broadcast. It ran as part of a normal like this. This was a drama series on television. You know, we used to have these, you know, in live TV you’d have made for TV.

Movies are made. You know, full length things that came on at a particular time. And it’s part of the screen gems brought to you by craft or something like that. Alfred Hitchcock presents, you know, that kind of thing. So there, when you go back and you look at interviews with the producers of this thing, they knew that this had the potential to fool people.

Right. But then. Claim. They really didn’t think that people would be so full that they didn’t. They were really quite shocked that it costs a stir. The BBC itself was a little bit more nervous about it. They almost didn’t go on, on the air because the big wigs were a little more nervous about it, but they, they made the.

Put, you know, the normal intro, uh, in front of it, obviously, um, some writing written by credits at the beginning. Right. But they didn’t go so far as to put little disclaimers as the show was going on, Hey, by the way, this is fiction because you know, what, why would you do that? It just kind of kills the whole mood of what you’re doing.

Right. And so they didn’t do that. And it caused a huge stir and made a lot of people upset, even though it went on during what we call the safe Harbor. Time safe Harbor in the U S is after 10 o’clock I think. And I think in, in Britain it was after nine, but that’s just generally the time of the day when.

Television stations can broadcast more adult content, right? That’s just established. The kids will probably be in bed. And so parents just are aware that anything after nine might not be as suitable for children. So they kind of followed all those rules, but what he, what they ended up with was something that ended up flowing a lot of people.

Like you said, that tuned in, in the middle of it and watched it and thought that this was an actual live broadcast happening. It was on Halloween, the Halloween special. So welcome live this Halloween. The first ever TV ghost watch. That’s a scene in a Fox hill drive in north Hilton. Right? So broadcast units to there.

That’s the house where it might all happen tonight. We shall see, we’re going to investigate one of the most baffling and fascinating areas of human experience. The supernatural tonight, television is going ghost hunting in an unprecedented scientific experiment. We’re hope to show you for the first time irrefutable proof that ghosts really do the gist of it is that these reporters are going in life.

Quote, unquote, Britain’s most famous haunted house interviewing the people who live there and showing some clips from past experiences. When they’ve had investigators in there with their hidden cameras and whatnot, interviewing the neighbors around and all that at the same time, one of their news reporters is going to go in and spend the night there.

And, and, uh, they’re going to do like a 30 minute deal and then check back in on them throughout the night. And that’s, that’s the framework for telling the story. Anyway, I I’m, I’m going to say, I thought it was quite good. Um, it’s a little dated. It’s not going to fool anybody today because we’ve seen this a lot.

We have all, a lot of found footage stuff, but I could imagine I could put myself in the shoes of a person watching this at the time and think, yeah, this would probably freak you out. I mean, if, especially if you were a kid watching this, this will be quite an impression on you, despite the fact. Now you said that there were some famous actors, you know, famous news personalities on there, which added to the realism.

There were also some actors in there that even I recognized when you look at interviews from the producers, years after the fact, they kind of mentioned like, look, we even had actors in there. The people. Like Pete, reportedly playing real characters that people would have seen on television and other series.

So they really weren’t going out of their way so much to fool people. They were just trying this innovative way to tell a story. They knew they were treading on, you know, the possibility, some folks getting confused, but they didn’t think it would cause as big a stir as it did. And it turned out to be, uh, to be the opposite.

And I guess it became a bit infamous to the point where it’s true, the BBC didn’t show it again and almost sort of refused. Allow references to it in the future. That was up for an award at one point. And then. Said, we don’t even want it to be considered for, for this award. Crazy.

Craig: Never repaired it. Right.

I thought that I they’ve never repaired it. Um, which is weird, but I, you know, I don’t know how popular it is, but like you said, we got a lot of response to it. A lot of people, we had people saying they watch it every Halloween, you know, it’s a staple in their rotation. Um, and I can only imagine that the people who are.

This are people who saw it when they were younger. I understand because I weave and if you listen to the podcast, you know, this, I saw Blair witch. When it first came out before it was widely known that it wasn’t real. And the marketing campaign tried to make it seem like it was real. And early on before it had been widely distributed and widely seen, you know, eventually people figured it out and, uh, But he knew that it wasn’t real, but when I saw it, I thought it was, um, and thinking that it was real, made it quite scary going back and rewatching it, knowing that it was a film, um, and that there were directors and producers and that it wasn’t entirely scripted, but the plot was scripted.

Yeah. It’s not as effective. And so going into this, knowing that it’s a movie and that it’s not real for me, it, I don’t know it was okay. And it’s not like, um, we don’t see stuff like this anymore. We on, you know, Saifai and various other quote, unquote like news. Channels, they play these specials, these paranormal specials, these, uh, like paranormal investigations and ghost hunters and, and all of these things, which sometimes purport to be real.

But you always in the back, your mind are skeptical. Um, because we know that for the most part, it’s usually just sensationalism. Um, so, so. We still see stuff like this and we still see, still see stuff that’s presented kind of in this format, like this documentary slash news format. Um, and maybe those programs owe something to this.

I don’t know. Um, but I enjoy some of those, even when I know that they’re not real, they’re still fun to watch. And even if. Bet. They’re not real. There’s still a part, at least for me, there’s a part of my mind that wonders like, Hmm. Maybe. Um, but this going in, I knew that it was entirely scripted. I knew that it was a fiction and I have to be really honest, upfront.

I just kinda thought it was boring.

Todd: I kind of just felt like watching the news. That’s so interesting because you’re the one who tends to really dig this kind of thing. And I’m usually the one that just kind of rolls my eyes at it. I mean, you’ve, you’ve made me come around a bit to the found footage genre.

I mean, we’ve seen some, some good stuff that I’ve been like, okay. You know what I actually, that was, that was pretty scary, you know? And that’s, that’s kinda how the found footage genre has been since the Blair witch though. Right? I mean, now that, that whole. Thing is done and everybody’s kind of in on it, then nobody subsequently can come by and kind of pull the same scam on people.

Right. And maybe not for another few more decades anyway, because Blair, which, like you said, like they went out of their way to really try to make it seem like it was real. They were really throwing stuff out there. I was one of those people I went and I saw Blair witch. Pretty bored with the movie when the first time I saw it.

And I think that might even be partially due to the fact that I wasn’t fooled. I mean, I kind of, I don’t know, you know, I was just like, there’s no way that, uh, you know, at some actual footage of some terrible tragedy is going to be packaged up as entertainment by some company and released to theaters worldwide.

You know, I just thought that that would be. Crazy. And I still think it’s a crazy idea, but we’re not far off from that. You know, we have cinema now that is very experimental and really blurs that lines like even bore at right. Yeah. Bore at, went out there and kind of blends fiction with reality and shows us real people doing real things that are disturbing, but we all kind of knew exactly what that was before we went to go see.

Well, it

Craig: it right. But see, I don’t even know really where this falls exactly on the timeline, but what year was this made?

Todd: 19

Craig: 92 92. I mean, that’s late. Like I remember in the eighties faces of death, you know, that they, they, they claimed that was real as it turned out. There was a little bit of actual footage, but most of it was fake.

Um, eh, even something like a cannibal Holocaust, which I don’t even remember if they presented that as a documentary, but people believed it was enough so that, um, the director was sued and. Produce the actors to prove that they hadn’t been brutally killed. Uh, and, and so, you know, in 1992, this wasn’t new in America?

No, maybe, maybe in Britain. Well, because stuff like that, like faces of death and cannibal Holocaust would have been video nasties. And so they would. Been true. They wouldn’t have, you know, maybe, you know, before the age of the internet or at least widespread internet use. Um, a lot of people wouldn’t have had access to some of that stuff over there as we did.

I don’t know that we should, we should talk about the movie, I guess. Right. I mean, it reminds me. It reminds me a lot of, yeah. And there there’s not a whole lot to it, so it’s not like we have to go through point by point, but it reminds me a lot of the conjuring too. Have you seen the conjuring too? Yeah,

Todd: I haven’t seen it, but I’ve seen the conjuring and yeah, no, I know what you mean.

It’s. Well, it’s like a lot of these, honestly, these haunted house movies or investigators go in and check it out.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s exactly what I mean. That’s what the conjuring two is. And Lorraine Warren, you know, get called to this haunted house and it ends up that. I think I seen it once when it came out.

So I, I apologize if I’m butchering the plot, but, um, it turns out there’s this evil entity in the house and it is. Affecting, if not possessing one of the daughters and hi-jinks and Sue and, and, and that is the plot of this movie. You know, these reporters all show up. There’s the in studio, people who, Michael, is this older?

Um, gosh, I can’t think of the word. Describe he’s very Dan rather. Uh, yeah,

Todd: what’s the word for those guys? Classic news host slash anchor, you know, they would be guide delivering the news to you. And also they would do these specials and things like that. Uh, but the very trusted figure. Right, right.

Craig: And older gentlemen.

Right?

Todd: Yeah. My grandmother would be like, if Walter Cronkite said it, then she would be. Right, right.

Craig: Yeah. And we had those in our generation too. It’s so, you know, the, the news again, I use air quotes because you never know what’s real news and what’s not really in America anymore, but back in the eighties, There were these men, mostly there were notably like Connie Chung and some other women, but primarily these older gentlemen who you trusted to tell you the truth about what was going on.

That’s this guy, Michael, and he’s in studio with this woman named Dr. Lynn Pascoe. And she’s like the in-house supernatural expert. And then the ghost hunter guy. Which we see again, we still see these ghost hunter type shows and these charismatic guys that go and do the interviews and have all their equipment and look through the house and all that stuff.

Um, his name is Craig Charles, and he’s actually on the scene. And then the on scene reporter is this very likable sweet, feminine kind of maternal, actually a reporter named Sarah Green and her husband. Is also in the studio. Her husband’s name is max and he’s running like the foam board because people can call in, um, and respond or talk about their own supernatural experiences or whatever.

And then there’s other tech people who really aren’t important, but, uh, they go to this house and it’s a family. Uh, Pam is the mom. I don’t know. They explain where the dad is, but he’s not there. Uh, he’s he’s never around. Um, and there are a couple of daughters, Suzanne and Kim, um, Suzanne is the older one.

Kim is the younger one and Suzanne was the first to see the ghost and they give it, you know, they. As these kinds of things always do. Like, can you tell us a little about what’s been going on here and, um, the mom kind of starts to talk and she says, you know, some weird things were going on. There were weird noises, but in order to calm the girl.

She tells them that it’s an old house and it’s just the pipes. Well then every time something weird happens, one of the daughters, the younger one, I think Kim says pipes is here. Pipes is here and, or Mr. Pipes or whatever. Um, and then the next thing that I have is that they tell them. Pipes lives in Harry Potter’s room.

Todd: Um,

Craig: there was a little Harry Potter there’s room under the stairs, and that’s where he lives apparently. And they’ve got it all boarded up. And then the rest of the movie is just, you know, kind of filling in little bits and pieces of the supernatural things that are going on. And also them experiencing it.

It takes a quite a while for things to actually start happening, but they do eventually start happening.

Todd: But see, this is what I really liked about it. And actually for me, this is what kept me entertained is that it. So set up like a real TV show, like this would be, and I, and I come from this field a little bit.

I mean, I have had to do live reporting from an event and you never know how it’s going to go. You don’t even know if anything interesting is ever going to happen. So you have to kind of prepare in advance a lot of stuff to fill in the gap. Inaction, um, and to keep things interesting and moving for the listener or else it’s just boring.

Right? And so this production is no different. The guy that you were talking about, um, who’s on the scene. Uh, Craig, Craig, Charles Wright, the interviewer, actually, he was in, um, red dwarf. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that, but even at the time, this was, this, this went on the air. Like he was a popular guy on red dwarf and he is, which is, was a comedic sort of star Trek type type television show.

He’s like the color Laffy guy, right. He just kind of runs around and is like jokey. Um, he’s interviewing the neighbors. He’s like showing the equipment and the van. And we’ve got this van parked out here and there’s surveillance stuff inside. Um, they have special cameras that will go off, um, that are infrared, that they can run around with.

And he has the camera guy show the infrared feature and you know, we’re thinking, okay, well, we’ll, that’ll come into play later. Right. And he’s like, you know, then later on, they kind of bring you back to those guys. Got temperature sensors in the house. Uh, we have, uh, uh, the, the image, his equipment, LinkedIn, uh, the tape is time coded and atmospheric condition and temperature, uh, logged on screen, uh, by sensors.

The little burglar alarms with the red lights, except that triggered by cold instead of heat, um, intense cold spots are a secondary phenomenon. Uh, we also want to detect, uh, low and high frequencies, basically any aberration at all could be a signal, which is interesting because as much as they went through all this stuff, almost none of it actually ends up coming into play.

In the actual movie, except for that infrared thing at the very

Craig: end. Right. But there is interesting stuff going on. I mean, like, because they’re, they’re airing, these interviews live, um, and they do have this phone back. And, and they do an interview in the girl’s bedroom where one of the girls shows them a picture that she drew.

And we see that there are like weird drawings and writings and Suzanne school notebook and color start calling in and saying that they saw. A ghostly figure in the background while these people were filming. And so the folks in studio are like, oh, well, let’s see if we can pull up that footage. And they do.

And they play it through once and they’re like, oh, we don’t see anything. Well, I did. And yeah, there is. Ghostly figure in the back, it looked like a man to me, but it’s, it’s, it’s very vague, you know, you have to really kind of be looking for it to see it, but then they’re like, we didn’t see anything. So they rewind it again and they play it again.

And then there isn’t anything there. So obviously there is, or at least they’re setting it up, that there is supposed to be something going on. And again, if I were watching this and I thought that it was primetime news and it was alive and it was hosted by news, you know, prominent news reporters that I knew, and I saw that it would freak me out.

Todd: That’s really great way of playing with the audience. Right? I mean, you watch it and if you know, and when you, when they point out, oh yeah, the, the, the caller says it’s back there in the curtains to the left, let’s play that footage and you see it’s as clear as day, there is definitely some kind of figure there in a vague way, but Mo definitely there and the news host and the other woman are saying, ah, I don’t really see it.

And he was like, we’ll out this thing and you’ll use your light pen to maybe trace where you might think it might be. We the viewer going, like, what the hell are you talking about? I mean, it’s clearly right there when they replay the footage, like you said, it’s different. It’s definitely not there. So it’s almost like, I suppose if you’re a particularly gullible viewer, you would think all my God was I seeing something and she kind of outlines this like vague little spot where she’s like, oh, well maybe you can kind of see ahead here.

Maybe you can do a shoulder thing here. And I was like, oh, that was really smart. That they actually just the producers, each one played something different. For us there so that even we couldn’t go back and. You know what we thought we saw. And I think that kind of sets it up. And this was, I thought the creepiest thing about the movie, it was almost, it was very much, a little bit like sinister in a way.

I thought where there are moments in this film where you see a figure like in the background and it’ll swoop by or whatever. Maybe you miss it if you’re not paying attention. But there were a few moments where I was a little, I jumped a bit. There’s one point in which they’re playing back video and it’s not confined to the girls in the house.

There’s one moment in which, um, the doctor, uh, what was her name again? Dr. Lynn Pasko is playing back some sound. Clip, uh, on a reel to reel that was nice and cute and quaint in the studio as like, you know, and again, this is all very staged. Like they really prepared all this stuff just to walk you through, which is exactly like these television programs are, and they stand up from where they’re sitting and yeah.

Set by a fireplace it’s kind of decorated for Halloween and they walk to this table. That’s under a spotlight that has this reel to reel on it and they stand around it and he’s like, all right, well, you know, play, go ahead and play some, some of the sound that you, that was recorded, that this girl was sleeping or something, or, or was awake.

And she had kind of a demonic voice come out of her.

Jesus.

Are you dead? Are you in heaven? Oh, good.

And while they’re playing that the set dramatically gets dark. And, uh, you know, it’s just like a shot of him and a shot of her and a shot of him and a shot of her. And at one point there’s a shot of her, but in the background on the set suddenly very faintly, a figure kind of lights up behind her and you could miss it, but I certainly.

Did you, did you see? I

Craig: don’t know. I don’t know if I remember that or not. When I read about this, I read so pipes apparently is this entity, whatever it is. Um, and apparently he pops up more than 20 times in

Todd: the movie. Oh really

Craig: 13. Okay. All

Todd: right. She said an interview. Yeah. But all right. I only counted eight.

Craig: Oh, I see. And I maybe saw two or three. Um, uh, definitely there was one time early, very, very early in the broadcast before they were even in the house. There’s a crowd of neighbors. Like standing around watching, which, you know, seems very realistic. If there were a major production going on in your neighborhood, you’d probably go out and see what was going on.

And, and, uh, the on-screen personality guys kind of interviewing some of them standing there. And there’s one. Figure on the very far left, this tall figure that you never, I mean, he’s never lit he’s, he’s always in shadow. And I don’t even know if that was meant to be the entity, but when I was watching it, I was like, oh my gosh, I think that it’s standing right there.

And there were several. Uh, apparently again, I don’t know if it was just the transfer that I had, but, or it could very well just been that it was eighties television, but the picture wasn’t terribly clear. It was a little bit wavy and grainy. So I never really knew. Exactly what I was seeing. I mean, it wasn’t so bad.

It wasn’t as bad as I’m making it sound. It just wasn’t clear, like, like what we see today. But I think that that also works for the movie. Yeah. You know, I don’t there’s there’s, there’s all these stories happen. I’m sorry. Go ahead. But I I’m looking at my notes and there’s all these stories about things I don’t even remember.

So you’re going to have to fill in the blanks. Like there’s stuff about like an Indian concubine. Who died and was buried in the garden. There was like neighbors found like a dead dog in the

Todd: park, pregnant one that’s fetus ripped out.

Craig: Yes. Uh, like some, some spiritualists had come and try to exercise the whole street.

Like, and, and you, you don’t know, as you’re watching them. Whether these stories are true or not, because it could just as easily just be local or even neighborhood legend or gossip. And there’s no way of knowing any of these stories might be true. Might not be true. They might be connected. They might not be connected.

And, and you don’t know, you never know.

Todd: Well, and that’s the nature of these things, right? Which, which made it realistic. And it’s also sort of the nature of news, which tends to try to remain objective and not, I mean, These guys interviewed these people. There’s not time to go and research and tell the audience for sure.

Like, was this true? Was this not? Or what are the details? Um, so they don’t really ever present that to you. So it’s very realistic in that sense where they would run around and interview these different people and get all these interesting juicy stories, but not ever follow up and say, well, we looked into this and that was.

Right, right. Well, let’s fly to yeah. Cause it’s live exactly. Right. But almost to a surprising degree. And you also kind of think, look, if these, if any of these things were real, like they would know it because even before they put this production together, like they would have researched at least the history of this house.

And they would have known these, some claims are going to be coming up, but that might be one of the criticisms I have of it as far as a realism standard or whatever, that, that there was very little. When I would have thought that a news organization, like the BBC would have gone into this and especially having set everything up, have a little bit more of their own backstory of the house and not just be figuring it all out live right then and there, and not really questioning it or, or.

I I just to go back to the figure really quick, I saw, of course, just like you, I saw the figure in the currents and I thought, oh, okay. This means we’re probably going to be seeing figures. Then when I saw that figure in the studio, I was like, oh, this is going to be like a thing. And so that became the game for me.

And that was one of the things that really kept me engaged was. When, especially when things were happening, I was constantly looking around in the background, trying to see if there was going to be a figure or some apparition. And I could see, you know, if I were a viewer, uh, you know, it’d be the same thing.

There’s this moment in there where there’s some activity, the girls run upstairs, something happens. They hear noises come from downstairs and Sarah runs back downstairs with her camera crew and. This child’s drawings trail of them basically, uh, that had been set on the floor through the kitchen, to the back door.

And then there’s an actual cat scare where a cat jumps up against the back. You know, it’s one of those Florida ceiling glass, sliding glass doors that are common in kitchens, whatever. And the camera comes up and around and there is a reflection. Another one of those, I think, blink if you miss it things.

But I was really looking, there is a reflection of a man. Would have been standing right behind the camera person against the wall, in that kitchen that you see. And I was like, whoa. And it looked like the figure in that girl’s picture, you know, it was kind of spotted and bald and big. And then that camera, of course, whips back around as she walks back through the kitchen and that figure’s not in there.

These moments just really sold it to me. I really liked those bits. And that’s another thing that really kept me engaged, but you’re right. There’s, there’s all this local lore. Once again, like it, it moves very nice and smooth, like a television program and isn’t until, um, I think the girl starts to, has it kind of a traumatic thing happened to her that, um, the host comes on and says, you know, we, we would, we would normally go to the next program right now, but because of what’s going on where we think we’re going to stick with this instead of taking you to the next scheduled program.

And he says that almost offhand. And I, but I looked at the time and it was, it was an hour in and I thought, oh my gosh. Yeah. Even they even timed it like that. So when you’re watching this on television, right. That, that part was kind of real well. Yeah.

Craig: And that’s smart. Um, and, and the pacing I think was smart because I think that not, I, I’m not saying that I necessarily enjoyed it, but I think that it was smart because if things had started happening right out of the gate, In that time and place, I would have been much more skeptical.

You know, it builds up to it. And the doctor is talking about these different stages of haunting or possession or whatever. And I don’t remember what the first two stages are probably noises or I don’t know, strange things going on, but she says the third stage is moving objects. And then they’re getting calls

Todd: to a phone in studio.

My what’s been happening well, it’s understandably fairly chaotic here. We’re getting all sorts of calls in Darby. Someone was ringing to say that her clock had stopped again, a clock stopping a can enjoy Shrivenham from Telford in Shropshire. There. Has gone dead. And the microwave oven is pinging repetitively.

Well, where are they happening? I mean, is there a geographical pattern? How many of these incidents are there? I dunno. I dunno how many these to take with a pinch of salt, Mrs. Pender from Chepstow her dog won’t stop barking. In fact, we have loads of instances recorded here this evening of pets acting up all

Craig: through the program, and then we start seeing.

Things move in the house like a plate moves, and then there’s loud noises and the girls are freaking out and Sarah, the reporter is scared, but they’re running around. Sarah’s like leading them through the house because she’s scared. She’s going up to check on the girls and the camera. Catches. Like, I don’t think that they catch it right away.

I think that they go up and they look in the girl’s room and Kim is in there and she’s scared. Um, but the people in the studio are like, hold on a second, roll that back and slow it down. And they roll back the footage of when they’re coming up the stairs and you see the daughter, Suzanne. Doing the banging she’s banging on something.

And so Michael, the host concludes that it’s a scam. Oh, that’s, that’s

Todd: quite extraordinary. We set out to catch a ghost and I’m certainly very sad. They will. Witness was a remarkable exposure of a hope. It’s not be too hasty. Come on daughter, please be surely got to accept. We saw an established. Genuine phenomena followed by the fakery stage.

When the children feel obliged to come up with the goods. I’m sorry. Well, I mean, after eight months of commitment and commit to work, like you’ve been through, I can understand you feel upset because you’ve been, I’d be the first to admit it. If it was absolutely sure I had been dealed or

Craig: to really simplistic, this is one incident amongst many, many dozens.

And when they confront the mother and they confront Suzanne, and I think they’re in different places. Like the mom is appearing on screen most of the time, like they have her somewhere else. Doing like a private interview or something, but Suzanne said, And the mother believes her. I just wanted something to happen so that everybody would believe us.

Like this stuff does happen to us, but because it’s not happening while you’re here, I was doing it just so everybody would believe because you know, they’ve been bullied in school because nobody believes them. And, um, you know, in the community, people are skeptical or whatever, and she just wanted them to believe.

So she. Kind of making it happen. And the in-studio paranormal list is upset, like disappointed, but she also just still firmly believes that something else going on. And they’re still getting phone calls, uh, about this ghostly figure that people are continuing to see, um, and, and paranormal stuff going on in people’s houses.

Like one caller’s coffee table exploded and hurt her husband and other people’s clocks are stopping some people’s children are being hypnotized by the TV. Um, so. It’s still going on. And then they interview the young daughter, Kim, and she describes Mr. Pipes. And she has, she says he has a disfigured face and he wears a robe.

And the doctor says, what if it’s Kim? Like they had all thought that it was Suzanne that was maybe influenced and possess because she had been the one who had done the drawings in her school book or whatever. But now they think that maybe it’s Kim. And I feel like this is when things start going crazy.

Like they hear whaling cats. And then Suzanne is screaming and she’s, they go to her and she’s covered in scratches and the temperature is fluctuating in her room and everybody’s starting to panic and they want to leave the people in the studio want them to get out. But Kim says, no pipes says you’ve got

Todd: to stay.

Nope. This is what I really liked. Actually, I remember the, you know, the camera’s kind of running up and exposes Suzanne who’s laying on the bed, you know, with all these scratches on her face, suddenly. It’s pretty creepy. It’s kind of almost like a one of those possession type things. And I thought it was an effective bit and the camera kind of lingers in there.

And like you said, they’re talking about leaving the camera kind of goes away. Kim says, no, keep filming. People need to see this. People need to believe what we’re going. And you know, that, that we’re very neatly solved that, you know, the found footage problem right. Of why do people keep just filming and being around for this stuff instead of just throwing the camera down and running away, I thought that was a really clever way of keeping the cameras rolling.

And she’s like, look like you got to keep the cameras rolling. We got to kill, you got to tell our story. And that that phone line was, was not only like a working phone line. It was the typical. BBC call-in phone line. And when people called it, they would get a message that said, look, uh, this is fake ha happy Halloween, but go ahead and, you know, tell us your stories anyway, just to be clear,

Craig: you’re talking about in real life, like, as this was, as this was airing people in real life, real life, people could call the hotline and then they would get that message it’s fake.

But go ahead and tell us your story. That’s

Todd: right. That’s right. That’s the message. However again, real life. They didn’t anticipate how many phone calls they were. And so the lines were jammed most of the time. So Mo many of the people who called didn’t ever even get anything, they got a busy signal. And so that just only added to the panic apparently, you know, behind this, this program.

Cause that’s what you’d basically expect. If you happen to be watching the ghost watch at that time and try to call that number again. Chances are likely you, weren’t going to get through that message. That that’s kind of interesting, I thought, but anyway, yeah, you’re right. That’s when things start to escalate.

And at that point, when, you know, what, if you know, this is a movie things start happening, the studio itself, which I wasn’t expecting. Uh, and I thought it was a bit much, oh, I liked that actually.

Craig: And I was kind of expecting it because I expected, and maybe this is just a result of watching lots of horror movies, but, you know, it’s, it’s like that typical Ouija board, uh, lore, like when you start messing.

The supernatural, you kind of invited in, and in this case, the conduit is the broadcast. And the fact that all of these viewers had been experiencing all these strange things in their homes. I felt, you know, it, this is getting way too deep for this movie, but it’s kind of like the power of television. I mean, you are bringing.

Things into people’s homes by missing or tampering with this supernatural stuff and providing this gateway, you know, it’s, it’s allowing it into people’s homes. And I, and I thought that it would make sense that it would eventually infiltrate the studio, but I also thought that it made a lot of sense that that wouldn’t happen until near the very end, because once that happens, then.

Where do you go from there? You know, like, but I, I did like it and all of this stuff, this stuff. The big, exciting stuff. It all happens in the last 10 minutes, but everything starts going crazy in the house. You know, Kim tells them pipes doesn’t want them to leave. He says, she says, pipes wants to see everybody.

Look, everybody wants to see him. The guy in charge of the phone says it’s spreading rapidly. They start to experience video and audio problems in the studio. And then Susie starts talking in a demon. And another thing that I liked about this was that Sarah, the reporter is invested in real time. Like her reporting duties.

It’s not like she’s ignoring those entirely, but they keep telling her to get out, but she isn’t. In this family and she’s concerned about them and she’s concerned about the girls. And so it’s not that she just wants to stay cause it’s good TV. She wants to stay because she wants to help. So she’s trying to help and they, they hear those cat noises again.

I keep calling it Harry Potter’s room. I think that that’s preferable to calling it what they called it, which was the glory.

He couldn’t

Todd: stop laughing every time they referred to it as the glue. And it was, it was actually, I think it was more of a basement. Wasn’t it? I don’t know. Cause

Craig: we never go in there. I mean, it just looks like the room under this, the stairs,

Todd: that’s the glory hole.

Craig: They, I think they hear Suzanne’s voice in there, I think.

And the cat noises. So they, they it’s it’s boarded up. So they pry off the boards, they open it up and their silence. This is when things start going crazy. The, I, I mean, they already have been a little bit, but things are really going nuts in the studio. There’s

Todd: wind and stuff in there. Yeah.

Craig: They lose their network link.

Um, some color, I guess, this, they must be airing. This says that a molester lived there. Um, and he was in. By ghost and hanged himself, and that they kept their tools under the stairs. And the neighbors constantly heard cats screaming, and then there’s like wind in the studio. And all I have in my notes is in quotes, massive seance.

Like I doing this by, by broadcasting, this what they have done. Inadvertently has created this, uh, massive seance, but in real time live, everybody else gets out of the house except for Suzanne. And so the mom. Sarah go around looking for her with the, the infrared light things are still happening in the suit studio and they hear Suzanne in the glory

and Sarah. Being the sweet, protective person that she is, goes in it immediately slams behind her and she’s locked in there. It cuts back to the studio and it, apparently everybody else in the studio is gone. Yeah, the, the lights come on, but it’s just the host standing there and he’s looking around like, uh, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here, folks, but then he’s talking directly into the camera and all of a sudden he starts talking in the demon voice.

And I don’t remember if they do something to kind of distort his face or something, but then it just cuts to black, like, like the feed got cut. Um, yeah, that’s it, that’s the end. And then it rolls credits, which I assume that it did in real life too. So again, one would think that people would figure it out and maybe at that point they did.

Who knows. Um, but yeah. That’s how it ends. It is very chaotic at the end. I did enjoy the end, all of the chaos and all that. It just, and I understand why they did it. If they were trying to make it feel as real as they could make it feel it would have cheapened. To have had big stuff happening right from the get-go, uh, for their purposes.

I think that it made more sense to do a slow burn and then hit people, you know, hard. Once you’ve already built up the tension, then hit them hard at the end and then just, boom, you know, it’s done it’s over. Um, so I think it was. Done just know, just knowing that it wasn’t real and it is pretty dated. Uh, it just didn’t have the impact on me that I’m sure that I had on people at the time, but I can say that for myself about so many movies that I enjoyed and that scared me when I was younger.

Or on first viewing or whatever. And now I look back at them and I’m like, yeah, that’s pretty hokey. Or I show them to Alan and he’s like, this is stupid. And I’m like, I understand why you think so, but you know, like I have fond memories of it, so I didn’t get it. It just

Todd: wasn’t for me. I don’t know. I’ve really thought it was a well constructed story.

I mean, I just liked the pacing. And I liked the fact that it took some time to build some mythology and using this unique way, likening it to the Blair witch project. You know, think about the first 15 minutes of that, where there’s just some it’s, it’s pretty pedestrian. They’re running around with their camera.

They’re interviewing some people from the town. There’s an unsettling moment or two in there, but you’re only getting bits and pieces and little snippets of what, what this is. And then as the movie goes on a whole hell of a lot of nothing happens, but still you’re getting a little bit more of some kind of story you’re trying to construct in your head.

And I thought that this did a really good job of parceling this out with the interviews and the sudden the extra information from the viewers, you know, Well, this viewer called in and he knows about the house cause he used to live there, you know, kind of stuff that I thought it was, it was building towards something and I don’t, I’m kind of the opposite.

I was pretty engaged with it, even, even knowing it was fake, you know, I thought it was a pretty well slowly took time to build this legend. And then at the end, you know, kind of unleashed it by the end of it. We. Figured out what everything was all about. Right. We’re wondering what these scratches are.

These cat noises, all that stuff, the house, what’s the, what’s the, the glory hole and all that. And by the end, it’s kind of like that color. I think that puts it all together. And it’s basically like, yeah, I did some social work around there. And I know about this child molester who apparently, you know, developed his photos in that dark room down there and ended up hanging himself down there.

And when they found. Because there were a whole bunch of cats, tight, light locked up in there with him, you know, they had scratches all over his face and it’s like, okay, all these elements like that we’ve been experiencing all add up now. And I thought that was nice. And it was dark too. I mean, I was kind of surprised.

I mean, they’re talking about child molesters, they’re having these things happen to these children. It’s really freaky seeing that. Face, all of a sudden caught up and, and the girls talking, the demon voices and stuff like that, not the typical stuff you would see on television in the, you know, late eighties, early nineties.

So I thought it went to some interesting places as well. And I’m, and I’m once again, like those figures coming up, they were a bit jumpy for me. I mean, come on, you know, I understand, but it was almost a little bit like sinister where you watch they’re running through this house and suddenly see a glimpse of something.

And then I went back into and I read about it and I read about a couple more and I went back to see that the figure actually shows up again in the studio at, toward the end. There’s a shot of the light. Like one of the lights exploding and flickering out up in the rafters, the guy, the guy standing right there underneath the light.

I didn’t even catch that myself. I liked it, man. I thought it was great little, obviously little experiment. And then the BBC to its credit apparently has this television program called back that I don’t know if it still does, but it did at the time where they get a little panel. Audience members in and the creators of the TV show or the movie or the news program or whatever they way they produced.

This is reality by the way. And. And like say, Hey, like, uh, criticize us will w was this wrong? And there were quite a few people in that little studio. Once I watched it, it was on YouTube. There are quite a few people in that studio audience who were pretty pissed off. Let me bring in Mr. Langer there, Eden Langer, you saw it, you were taken in what’s your reaction?

Yes, sir. Thank you, firstly, I must just say, uh, the kind word is that it was actually theoretically a brilliant piece of television. That’s the nice part house of the way, but I also think that you’d be true. The trust that the audience has within the BBC, you toyed with the emotions of the audience, because the audience weren’t actually sure.

Or I wasn’t actually sure if it was fact or fiction, if it was live or if it was in fact a drama, there were illusions before the program and in some of the papers, I don’t get the radio times, many people don’t either. I hate to say that. You weren’t sure, because it was Michael Parkinson and the elders, whether it was fact or fiction, and the producers were very defensive.

You know, they were like, we, we weren’t setting out to fool anybody. We didn’t want to create a hoax. And we thought we had put these little safeguards in there. Some of the safeguards they thought they put in there were just like obvious things. Like we didn’t think anybody could possibly believe, you know, X, Y, Z.

So that’s why we threw it into the movie. And so it, yeah, I can see why right now people look back on this and go, gosh, that was an insane time. I mean, I’m sure if I grew up in the UK, maybe some of our UK listeners, this is a touch point of their childhood, you know? Like when we saw it on TV, remember that was like an event that mini series.

And we were all talking about it for days afterwards. So this was probably the same kind of thing. So for, for that, and also I think even just watching it now as a standalone. I thought, I thought it was perfectly great. You know, we’ve, we’ve seen so much worse. We’ve seen better, but as sort of a found footage thing, it’s really well-written and well-constructed, uh, very well acted.

Yeah.

Craig: Well, and I’m glad to have seen it just because I have seen it, you know, pop up on lists and things. And I like, God, I, I find myself saying the same things over and over. I can’t, I can’t imagine how people listen to

Todd: this. They’ve already turned off by now. We can say whatever.

Craig: But I just, I like to see horror movies that I haven’t seen.

Um, and especially ones that people talk about, you know, I want to know I want to be part of the conversation. Um, and so for that reason, I’m glad to have seen it. I didn’t love it. I appreciate it for what it was and I get it. I get how. Would have affected me differently at the time. Um, so, you know, if you’re like me, if you’re an enthusiast who wants to be part of the conversation, watch it.

Why not? You know, it’s an hour and a half. You’ve got time.

Todd: Free online right now in the archive.org. And I’m gonna throw a link up to it on our website. Cool. Yep. Yeah. Check it out. All right. Well, thanks again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend can find us online.

You can search for two guys in a chainsaw pod. And you’ll find our Facebook page, our website, our Twitter feed, and then let us know what you thought of this film. Maybe you experienced it as a kid. We’d like to hear your stories about it. And then if there’s anything else, like Greg said that we are missing here, that we should be doing on this program where you want to be a part of the conversation, you can be a part of this show too.

So your requests, uh, we have a nice long list and we love the hearing requests from our viewers and getting around to those. Until next time. I’m Tom and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Happy Mother’s Day! To celebrate, this year we’re examining a classic of the “motherhood gone horribly wrong” genre: Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby”

If you have yet to see this film, we highly recommend you watch it BEFORE you listen to us talk about it. It’s that good.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Episode #256, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, Craig, it is mother’s day. Yeah. Big shout out to all the moms out there. Our moms, we love all you guys. And of course it being a holiday. It’s just another excuse for us to pick a movie that we might not normally pick. This week’s movie, uh, is a very famous film. Normally we don’t pick very famous films, but, uh, just because, uh, what are we going to say about it?

It hasn’t been said a hundred times before, however, in the same vein, it’s so much fun to talk about some of these, right? Because there’s so much to say this week in honor, of mother’s day, we chose 1968. Rosemary’s baby, an icon of film in general, not just horror film. Okay. So God, I hadn’t I’ve I’ve seen Rosemary’s baby.

I don’t know. Two, maybe three times. I don’t think I’d seen it in at least the last 15, maybe 20 years. Oh, It, it it’s great. I know what a great movie holds up so well, and, uh, it was just a joy to watch. And I was actually shocked when I saw, as soon as I pulled it up, there was over two hours long.

Apparently the original cut was over four hours long. And Roman Polanski, the director, Roman Polanski. Oh yeah. Roman Polanski, the director, like didn’t know what to cut. So he just gave it all to his editor and said you make those decisions. And what we ended up with as far as I’m concerned as a downright masterpiece, I don’t know, man, it’s going to be hard to find flaws in this film.

It’s just, uh, it’s just great. So I remembered loving it when I first saw it, I read the book. Me too. I was surprised when ever, I mean, I read the book after I read the movie. Same. I don’t know about you, but I was just surprised, like. Coming off of Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, these very literary type authors.

I found the book to be very straightforward and simple, simple in its language. The book read almost like a screenplay. It wasn’t full of flowery language and highly descriptive things. It was just like dialogue and the bare bones of what you need to know yet. So densely plotted and so intense, just like the movie IRA Levin is the author.

And he wrote several iconic novels that were also made into movies. But he said, when this film came out, this has to be the most faithful adaptation of a book ever for a movie because it’s, it’s exactly the same. Like there’s very little difference between the two. And I guess the producer William castle said, well, that might just be, because this was Roman Polanski’s first crack at adapted material.

And so he didn’t know that he could take some liberties with, and he decided not to. But why, why would you that the source material was solid and great. It read like a movie as far as I was concerned. The movie is great and so fun. Anyway, I’m going to stop talking. You say something about it?

Craig: No, the, the faithfulness to the novel is, uh, impressive.

I mean, even. Down to minor details that you wouldn’t even notice watching the film that he pulled from the book. It really is very impressive. Like you, I read the book after I had seen the movie and it didn’t feel like a waste of time. It was still a very enjoyable read. I enjoyed it very much, but it, it, I mean, the movie is so faithful that, uh, you know, there weren’t any surprises, but that was fine.

And it, again, like, I almost feel like we’re gonna struggle with what to say because the movie just really is that good. And, and it’s, it’s different from what we typically cover. I mean, it’s certainly horror, but there is next to no. Violence now there is implied sexual violence, but it’s done in a very dreamlike Hetty way.

It’s not graphic at all. And beyond that, there’s really no other violence. There’s no blood, there’s no Gore that I want to call it more of a psychological thriller, but that’s, that’s selling it kind of short because there certainly are poorer elements. There’s witchcraft and covens and the devil and Satan ism.

And certainly all of these things that fall right into the realm of horror, but it also feels like a human drama centered around this woman. Rosemary played by Mia Farrow. Now. Mia Farrow at the time was married to Frank Sinatra. She was a burgeoning actress. She had done stuff on stage and she had done stuff on television, like Peyton place and, and a few other things.

So she was known. But she was kind of more known for being Mrs. Frank Sinatra than for her own thing. And when this movie, when they started making this movie, she was not the first choice for the role. Um, several people had been considered, uh, ahead of her. One of them being Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski’s, then wife.

She was finally selected, but she was going through marital problems with her husband. Frank Sinatra told her that in order to work on their marriage, she needed to quit this movie. And she was ready to, she was prepared to, but then I think it was the director. Somebody showed her the dailies and said, Mia, you will win an Oscar if you do this.

And she decided, you know what, this is my shot. I’m going to do it. And she did. She stuck with it. And days later, Sinatra served her with divorce papers on the set and they were divorced while the movie certainly, I mean, it sky rocketed her, uh, to fame, but she didn’t get the kind of critical, well, I don’t even know if that’s true.

She didn’t get the, uh, she didn’t get an Oscar nomination. She was nominated for several other awards, but she didn’t get an Oscar nomination. And it’s, it’s kind of gone down as one of the biggest Oscar snubs, frankly. I’m not really sure how to feel about that because her performance is really interesting.

Like, I don’t know that I would watch this movie and think, wow, this woman is an amazing actress, but she does play. The vulnerability of it very, very well. And I was very much on her side and rooting for her scared for her. She just, she just did a really good job of really making me feel for the character.

You know, I wanted to be there and I wanted to be her friend and I, I

Todd: wanted to tell

Craig: her to get out

Todd: right away. Well, I feel the same way, you know, like, I don’t know if it’s just because they’re both red heads or something, but like Carrie, she had just feel like, I felt similarly about sissy Spacek, you know, also at the same at the time, very. Lesser known actress, but just had a vulnerability about her.

That just brought me to her almost immediately. I don’t know. They kind of have a similar look don’t they as well. Maybe that’s why, but she is much more than Carrie. She’s more in control. She, she can take control. Let me put it that

Craig: way. She can. Well, I mean, Carrie could too, she did. She killed her most people

Todd: when she was finally driven to it, you know, like, ah, yeah, you’re right.

Craig: You’re right. But yeah, I, I, and the other thing, I think that the reason that we feel for her so much is that we come to realize very soon that everything is working against this poor vulnerable woman who just has no idea what she’s getting into and

Todd: for no good reason. Like, you know, like she had nothing to do.

She didn’t bring this on herself. No,

Craig: no. And, and, and the thing that troubles me and I’m sorry, like I can’t help, but frankly, first of all, if you’re listening to this, if you’re into horror, you’ve probably seen this movie. If you haven’t turned this off, go watch it first. Don’t listen to us. Talk about it first, go watch it.

It’s worth it. And then come back. The thing that troubled me the most is that she’s this young woman in a marriage, you know, and they are kind of starting their lives. It appears that they’ve kind of waited for her husband to establish himself in his career. He’s an actor, he’s a working actor. They establish that early on, but he hasn’t met the kind of success that he has hoped for.

He’s not a star. I can’t tell you how many times in the beginning of the movie, when Rosemary and she’s introducing herself and her husband to their neighbor, they move into this new building. And she’s, she’s constantly talking about. You know, she has to explain who they are. What does your husband do?

He’s an actor. No, Kenny what’s his name, guy would house. He was in Luther and nobody loves an albatross. And he does a lot of television and radio. She, I watched TV all day long. I’ll bet. I’ve seen him. He aspires to more. And the thing that really gets under my skin about this movie is that your partner, your husband, your wife, your, the person that you choose to devote your life to that should be the person.

Ideally, I know that it’s not always the case, but ideally that should be the person that you can rely on in any circumstance that you can trust. And her husband betrays her and puts her through hell. For his own ambition and it’s disgusting. And it’s so, you know, obviously I had seen the movie before and I had read the book.

So watching it again this time and knowing what was going on, I was just sickened by the manipulation that was going on there, because like you said, she doesn’t, she doesn’t deserve it. You know, she’s, she’s a wonderful, supportive, loving wife and, and he just completely beyond anything that I can imagine in real life betrayed.

It’s disgusting.

Todd: And you know, I feel like this is a movie that’s even more rewarding upon repeat viewings because. Once, you know, what’s going on, you can really appreciate the tells and the things early on in the film. I don’t know if it was my age, cause I know I first watched us probably when I was a teenager, but I remember when I first watched this wondering.

If the husband was in on it, like thinking, Oh, this is an intriguing thing. Like maybe he is maybe he isn’t, but like this time watching it around again, maybe it’s my knowledge, but it’s so obvious. It’s so obvious that he is basically the instigator more or less of all of this, that, like you said, it pissed me off.

Even more. Yeah. He’s such a slime ball because he is really good at just gaslighting her. Yeah, exactly. That’s what it is, right. Gaslighting her he’s so good at gaslighting her, which I was just thinking about that too. I’m like this movie is like, Just the kinds of conversations and the social place we are now where we’re confronting these sorts of issues.

And we’re talking about it. It’s a movie for our time. It is movie that has aged. Great. You know, because I don’t want to say it’s ahead of its time, but I mean, I’m just feel like you can watch it today and feel like it was made today because it’s kind of treading on that same stuff. It’s very much a sort of a feminist, I guess you could say movie we’re, we’re very much abroad onto Rosemary’s side.

In the beginning. We can see very clearly that she’s being manipulated and worked against and gaslighted. And then it is even as the film goes on, and this is a part that I had forgotten about, I forgot just how much she ends up and how early on she ends up realizing that something’s not right and taking some action.

She takes initial steps, but like. Almost like starting from halfway through the movie to the end, she gets more and more agency and more and more determined to fix this, to extricate herself from the situation. Her problem is she doesn’t understand 100%. The situation she’s in, that’s the only problem.

And as that gets more and more revealed, she gets more and more desperate and actually takes action. She’s not, um, I mean, she is a victim, but like she’s not very much not like a helpless. Victim in this movie, she’s simply helpless because there’s no way anybody is going to be able to overcome what she’s dealing with, but she certainly tries very hard

Craig: is a victim.

Um, and Mia Farrow in subsequent years, I think in the nineties and in interviews and talking about this was kind of critical of the character in calling her a victim. I don’t think that that’s fair because you know, she is, first of all, victims should not carry a stigma. You know, that’s, you’re a victim off and it’s not your fault.

You know, something happens to you, something, somebody does something to you. That’s not your fault. But what I like about Rosemary is that when she does. Come to feel and believe that there is something going wrong. She stands up for herself forcefully. Yes. Eventually she seeks help. And I know that we’re going totally out of sequence.

We can come back and kind of wrap up the story or whatever, but she seeks help and she goes about it all the right ways,

Todd: but it’s bigger than her.

Craig: It’s bigger than her. And in those, because of the situation that she’s in, when she seeks help, she seems crazy. She’s not, she is spot on. She knows what’s going on.

She knows what’s happening to her. But when she tries to explain it to other people and I, you know, I have to put myself in their shoes. If this woman was saying these things to me, I would think this woman is crazy and she needs help. Not from the things that she thinks she needs help from, but because.

She’s crazy. I would think that too, but she’s not, that happens, you know, it does. It’s so frustrating to watch it because you want people to help her. She reaches out to the people who should help her, but they just think she’s crazy. And it’s so frustrating.

Todd: Well, and this being our mother’s day episode, I mean, this bears discussing.

Part of the reason why we chose this movie anyway, but like pregnant woman, women in particular, right? We all, there’s almost a stereotype and you know, it comes from a truth that this is a very hormonal time. Like it is a time of great change, psych physiological, psychological change, all very much of it is just biologically motivated.

And so having, you know, gone through this with my own wife and our son and, you know, through a pregnancy and all that, like, you’re always constantly aware that like, look, am I in a bad mood today? Or am I saying crazy things? Where am I doing weird things? Just because like, this is what I would expect.

This is a, is hormonal, this is biological. It’s gonna mess with your brain. It’s going to mess with your mind. And so nobody is really wrong in questioning when she, you know, comes with these re outlandish kinds of things to them. That’s what, like you said, makes the situation so tragic. Like how can you get help when you.

No. At the end of the day, pregnant women are going to be susceptible to hormonal imbalance and medical physiological, and therefore psychological kind of changes and mood swings. And all this stuff is just real. It’s real. It’s not about being a woman. It’s about carrying a baby and all that, that carries and so perfect stew for this kind of, um, plot to, to work out.

And, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s very much behind the manipulation that she experiences with these people. It’s why it’s so successful. And it’s why she’s almost doomed from the start of being able to get anybody else on her side. It’s tragic, right? It really is. And we know it’s tragic, we’re watching it. And so that’s part of the frustration, right?

And that’s what makes us horror. Like she’s in this thing that she just cannot get out of and we can all see it and she can even see it, but where’s the way out. There’s no way out. And even she doesn’t know where it’s going and we don’t know where it’s going. You know, there’s still kind of. More or less, uh, I don’t know.

I’m I wouldn’t say it’s a shock ending, but it’s definitely, especially for the time, I didn’t realize this until I did research for this film 1968. This was the first of the sort of like string of these say tannic cult type movies that were so popular at this time to the point where I releveled himself said in 2002, and I’m quoting him here.

He says, I feel guilty that Rosemary’s baby led to the Exorcist. The omen a whole generation has been exposed, has more belief in Satan. I don’t believe in Satan. And I feel that the strong fundamentalism we have would not have been as strong. If there hadn’t been so many of these books, of course, I didn’t send back any royalties,

but is the Genesis of this whole thing. And so, you know, maybe us, in retrospect, looking back on this kind of like saw where it was coming from a mile away, or at least kinda got on board with the, we knew where, who the enemy was and where this was going, but maybe at the time in 1968, uh, this was a bit of a Whoa.

Wow. That’s crazy.

Craig: Oh gosh. I think that’s totally true. I think that it. Obviously, it’s been a very long time since I had seen this movie for the first time. And even when I had seen it for the first time, I kind of knew new going in generally what it was about. But I think that if you took somebody who had lived in a bubble their whole life and had no idea what this movie was about, it’s shocking.

It’s surprising. I don’t think that you would necessarily know, I guess what was going on. Yeah. You would feel that there was something weird going on, but. I don’t think that you would ultimately come to the actual conclusion on your own. And I think that the ending would be surprising and that you would also question Rosemary sanity more now watching it.

Now I know that she’s right. I know that what she suspects is going on is going on, but if I didn’t already know that I would wonder is she just paranoid? Is it just hormones? Is she losing it? I don’t know. Yeah. I

Todd: feel Craig I’m so comfortable talking about this movie as though people have seen it. I’d still want to go on, I don’t want to jump in and talk about the plot just yet, because what you just said is so real, especially the end of this film.

So, okay. Everybody, let me catch up on the plot. Uh, Rosemary and her husband moved into an apartment. Her husband betrays, her, gets her impregnated by Satan. The neighbors are part of this big satanic coven, and they are bringing the antichrist into the world. And this ends up being the baby antichrist and they hold it from back from her as much as possible until the end when she has this great moment, which we’ll probably talk about.

And she figures, you know, she obviously she’s kind of figured out something’s not right, but she’s not sure what it is. She thinks that because the apartment complex that they’ve lived in and what their previous landlord who knows so much about this apartment complex, literally tells them in the beginning, this place is kind of known for weird shady shit,

Craig: then transistors for two proper Victorian ladies.

Thank you. Eight several young children, including a niece. Oh, lovely. Adrian McCarter practice witchcraft. He made quite a splash in the nineties by announcing the lead capture up living devil. Apparently people believed him. So they attacked him, nearly killed him in the

Todd: lobby of the brain devil worship, cannibalism babies found dead in the basement.

So at worst, she’s kind of thinking like they want my baby so they can do weird shit to it. Yeah. She’s not thinking, Oh, they’re trying to birth the antichrist. Right, right. So that would be the twist that we get at the end. Right. That in retrospect, we probably from looking back on it now and monitor through modernize, we’re probably figuring that out from the beginning.

So anyway, at the end, when she kind of discovers all this and she breaks into the apartment next door, then they’re all standing around milling around very naturally. And there’s the baby. And so she’s actually sees the baby that they told her was dead. There is still like 10 more minutes of film. Um,

Craig: or still, I was thinking the same thing, 10 or

Todd: 15.

Yeah, there is. When you think the movie should be over, like in a Twilight zone episode, this would have been over like, Oh my God, the baby was the anti-Christ. Aha. All hail Satan. We’re done. No, there’s her coming to terms with it. There’s Demme talking with her about it. And then sort of the twist ending is they kind of convince her, look, I mean, this shit’s already happened and you’re still the baby’s mother.

So would you consider at least continuing to be as mother and take care of it? And

Craig: you don’t have to join us if you don’t want to just be its mother.

Todd: Yeah. Then she’s kind of like by the end of the movie, of course, in the book, it’s crystal clear because there’s more, but like in the movie, that’s the edge.

It ends on pan out from her rocking the baby in the cradle and you realize she’s gonna more or less succumb to this fate of hers after fighting it and all that. Now, now like the ultimate tragedy is that she’s going to willingly more or less be the mother to this child. Right. Is this the devil?

Craig: Right?

And that’s the only thing like, seriously, the movie is so faithful, but there are just some things that you can’t do on film that you can do in a movie or in a book. Excuse me. Like in these moments, in the very end, when she realizes. First of all God, the husband is such a Dick, like from the beginning, really?

She, she has the baby and under duress because she knows what’s going on and they’re like sedating her and holding her down on the bed. And she has the baby when she wakes up, the husband’s like, Oh, it’s fine. And then she goes back to sleep and she wakes up again and the doctor and the husband come in and they’re like, Oh, there were complications.

The baby died. Well, then she starts hearing crying from the neighboring apartment and it’s already been established that there’s like a, a secret entryway through a closet. And so, like you said, she gets in there. She sees the baby in the movie when she sees it at first she’s horrified, the producer of the movie wanted us to see this demon baby.

The director said, no, It’s better left to the imagination, which I think was totally the right decision. But you see the look of horror on her face when she first sees it. But then like you said, the leader of the coven has that whole conversation with her. You can still be the baby’s mother. You are its mother.

So just be its mother. And the very last scene, aside from a pan out from the building is her standing, looking at the baby, seemingly lovingly. Like she realizes that it is her baby and she loves it now in the book, I’m not criticizing the movie cause I don’t know how they could have done this, but we’re privy to Rosemary’s thoughts.

And she thinks about taking the baby and committing suicide and killing the baby. Like by jumping out of the window, like this other girl who they had tried to the coven had apparently tried to groom earlier. Had seemingly done. Maybe she thinks about it, but ultimately she decides, yes, the baby is half the devil, but it’s also half me.

And maybe if I can nurture the baby, I can fix it or whatever. And that’s ultimately what she decides to do. She does ultimately, however aside to alert the Pope,

cause she, she was brought up Catholic. She’s not a practicing Catholic in her adulthood. She was brought up Catholic and she decides that she is going to inform the church of what has happened and that she is going to accept whatever decision they make about what should be done. And that’s where the book.

And do you remember that, um, anthology that we watched for one of the segments was clearly a followup to this movie, even though they didn’t say it. Do you remember that?

Todd: Uh, was that XX? I don’t remember

Craig: which one it was, but the woman, uh, you know, it was a single mother and her teenage son and he was like going through weird changes and it was, it was clearly a follow-up to this.

I remember that I really enjoyed that segment. I don’t remember the movie, but I really enjoyed that segment. Yeah. Anyway, I just thought of that as I was watching

Todd: apparently, and I didn’t know this either until now this movie had a follow up. It was a TV movie called I shit. You not look what’s happened to Rosemary’s baby.

Yeah. And it started

Craig: Patty, Duke, Patty, Duke, as the. As Rosemary, I don’t know anything. I’ve never seen it. I don’t even know what happens in it. Do you know? I

Todd: mean, I, I, I went to Wikipedia and you can read a synopsis. There are like three parts to it. It did not get glowing reviews sort of lack. I mean, it’s supposedly according to Daniel Goodwin and scream magazine, It catches up with the characters from Polanski’s classic in a gosh and bumbling chase movie slash disco horror hybrid, a hodgepodge of awkwardly lumped together, chase and dance sequences, festooned with ham acting, garish, fashion, glitter balls, and satanic rituals, which actually doesn’t sound too bad to me, I think.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, as a curiosity of be interesting, but like I also read that those, you know, the Exorcist and the omen, which followed this, both of those went on to be franchises with multiple sequels and prequels and remakes and reboots and TV series and blah, blah, blah. And this one doesn’t have that. Like it does have the lane made for TV.

SQL that wasn’t received well, and there was also a remake. Oh, I can’t remember who the actress, it was a black actress who played Rosemary in the remake. And Alan tells me, I made him watch it though. I don’t remember it at all. Um, but this doesn’t have it. And I think that that’s because it works so well as a standalone film, I almost kind of don’t want to know what happens next.

You know, like I, I just like the ambiguity of. The ending and yeah, it just thinking about this character and again, Mia Farrow’s portrayal of her. She’s, she’s very feminine. She’s kind of way fi she has a very high pitched voice. She’s almost childlike in some ways. And it’s just something about her as a person and her performance that just makes her so violent.

Durable.

Todd: Yeah. She’s like a little bird

in

Craig: here. Right? Protect her. Ironically, this is a movie. Uh, you said feminist, I can see that. I think that that’s, you know, accurate, but it’s also a movie about abuse and manipulation and rape and sexual assault. And ironically Mia Farrow’s son Ronan would go on and, you know, just what, not even five years ago to kind of blow the lid off of this toxic masculinity in Hollywood and really initiate the me too movement.

Um, and the time’s up movement. It’s a very interesting kind of circle.

Todd: Yeah. And speaking of abuse, I’m curious because something that I also completely forgot about from the first couple times I watched this movie were these flashback sequences to her days as like a Catholic school student.

Craig: Yeah, I had completely forgotten about these flashback sequences too.

And frankly, even watching it this time, I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of them. Cause there, there were those Catholic school girl moments, but then there was also a bunch of water imagery and like her on a boat.

Todd: Yeah. And some, some incident that happened with the windows that I guess she was getting blamed for something like, I, I didn’t quite get that and I wasn’t quite sure where all, I mean, I almost felt like I was watching the director’s cut of the movie.

And that those were originally cut out. I mean, I know we didn’t, but they were so out of my memory and to me almost unnecessary, maybe they’re more necessary than I realize, but were they to establish that she herself is a religious person yet has had bad experiences or a guilt or something associated with that, which therefore made her a good candidate for this, or at least provided some character conflict with what was going on or was just sort of foreshadowing the religiosity of what was happening to her.

I just, I. Didn’t get that. Although they were really well filmed. I don’t know. It was, maybe it was a little artsy. I mean, the movie is kind of art. Maybe you just kind of treaded more into those artsy waters at those moments where I was a little unsure as to what the point of those

Craig: scenes were. I still am too, but it was disorienting and, and some of it happened during the scene.

So, so th so they move into this building with a sorted past, and they immediately meet their neighbors. The cast of vets. Yup. Minnie and Roman, Roman. There’s lots of really good actors in this movie. Um, but I really like Minnie and Roman, they’re this eccentric old

Todd: culture. Well, but they could be anybody’s neighbor.

I mean,

Craig: typical. Right. And they’re very New York. They’re very, like, I know like I’ve, uh, I’ve never even been in New York, but stereotypically New York, like she’s kind of brassy and nosy and he is. Very friendly. There they’re both hikers.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. Old, you know, old money kind of clearly like a, has got a long past, he talks about his travels and all that stuff, you know, just like kind of classic

Craig: name, any place in the world and I’ve been there.

Um, okay. And as it turns out, he is the son of this notorious witch or warlock, I guess though they never use that word. They just say witches, but his father had been this, you know, notorious witch or whatever who had been killed. He had lived in that building and had been killed at that building in the book.

Uh, Rosemary figures it out. She figures it out in the movie too. But in the book, um, the wife, many figures out that, uh, Rosemary has figured out her husband’s parentage and she says, that’s why we have to move around and travel so much because people always eventually figure it out. And it’s been, you know, the bane of his life being connected to his father.

Well, really not. He’s continuing his father’s legacy, but I liked them both, but I especially liked Ruth Gordon. I just love her in this movie. What is your hobby do? He’s an actor. I know what I said at a Roman yesterday. He’s so good looking what movies was he in? No movies. He was in two plays called Luther and nobody loves it now, but trust and a lot of television and radio, this is very.

I got a two inch thick pillow and just take, sit and defroster right this minute. When you guy come over, I have stop all of this tonight. What he has said. No, we couldn’t. No, no, really. That’s very kind of, you listen to be a real help to us. Hey, first name will be alone since she’s new nosy and like that’s mildly irritating to Rosemary, but at the same time, she’s also very supportive and helpful.

Todd: And she’s good at her manipulation. Yeah. Yeah. So offhanded about it. And that’s why this movie works really well when you watch it a second time, because so much of this blows right by you.

Craig: Right. And because they don’t seem sinister. I mean, there are little clues, like, yeah, they’re very nosy and they’re very much in their business.

And as soon as they find out she’s pregnant, they immediately say, Oh my gosh, you don’t want to keep going to your doctor. We know the best doctor in the city. I’m going to set it up for you right now. Like in hindsight, super shady. And it does turn out that the doctor is part of their coven. And so it all works out.

I also really like that initially, like when Rosemary tells the husband, these, these neighbors want us to come over to dinner and he’s like, Oh my God, if we go over there, we’re going to be connected to them. And they’re going to be coming over all the time. And, uh, and she’s like, well, we don’t have to, if you don’t want it to.

And he’s like, no, we can be neighborly, but he is immediately enamored with them. Like they have dinner. The dinner is not even good. It’s like. Not well-prepared or whatever, but while, and these are just little things that you would only notice on the second viewing. I think while Rosemary is helping many with the dishes, Roman, the old guy and guy, the husband are sitting having cigars in the living room and you can’t see them.

You can’t hear what they’re talking about, but all of a sudden guy is very interested in maintaining that relationship. Well, my stories are pretty damn interesting though. Never even heard of Forbes Robinson before I’m going to go over there again tomorrow night and here’s some more, yeah. He asked me here, do this damn thing for him.

I felt well, I’m going to do something with Jen and Dick jealous because that definitely it wasn’t definite let’s see the next week. You don’t have to come along. If you don’t want to, you can stay here. Yeah, I think I will stay here. All of a sudden he’s spending all this time with them. And when you watch the movie having seen it before and having known what’s going on, he is constantly leaving to go plot with them.

Yes. Like he’ll claim he’s going out for ice cream or he’s going for a walk or he’s going to get a newspaper. No, he’s not. He is constantly going over there to plot and to let them know what’s going on. Like if Rosemary’s friends are getting too Snoopy, or if Rosemary’s thinking about switching doctors or whatever it is, anytime she brings it up.

Something like that or something like that happens. Or she’s visited by a friend who expresses concern. He’s constantly leaving to go over there and he’s in on it with them the whole time. Oh, he’s such a Dick. And he’s played by John Cassavetes who I don’t know from anything else. Jack Nicholson had been recommended for the role, but the director Roman Polanski said, he’s too sinister looking.

It’s it’s too obvious. John Cassavetes. I don’t think that he’s particularly sinister looking, but watching the movie now, just look at him and I just want to punch him in the face. Like you are such an asshole. I know. I know. So th the neighbors they’re great. I think they’re cool. One of the other things that I wanted to talk about, it was the stylized scene, Rosemary and guy.

Want to start a family. They want to not just have a baby, but they plan to have several babies in succession, but they want to have a baby in their planning for it. And guys like I have, you know, I did the math and I know exactly when you conceive and like he’s circled something on the, uh, date on the calendar.

So they have a special romantic dinner that night during dinner, they’re interrupted by a knock at the door and it’s mini who brings them dessert. I wouldn’t have noticed this watching the movie, but it’s, it’s two goblets of chocolate mousse and it’s very clear in the novel and they do it in the movie, but I never would have noticed that the two desserts have different toppings.

Well that’s because one of them is drugged and guy needs to know which one and he gives Rosemary the one that’s drug. She can taste that there’s something off about it. And again, You know, watching the moving, knowing what’s going on. He’s so insistent that she eats it has an under taste and chalky under taste.

Good. That’s silly, honey. There is no under taste. There is. Come on the old bad slaved all day. Not eat it and like it it’s delicious. Hey, you can have mine. I don’t need it. There’s always something wrong. Oh, it’s going to

Todd: turn into a big thing.

You

Craig: really can’t stand. It just don’t eat it. It’s delicious. No one to test it all.

But then he goes to get a drink or something and she dumps most of it into her napkin. So she doesn’t actually consume most of it. So the next part of the plan is when she is supposed to pass, she does get very dizzy and disoriented. And, and that’s when we start kind of seeing these flashback scenes and stuff, but he puts her in bed and he undresses her.

And then like, she’s going between dream. And reality. And obviously she doesn’t know the difference. It’s all just very dreamlike to her, but we see her surrounded by all these old naked people and her naked husband. And at one point her husband says she’s, her eyes are open, she’s awake. She can see. And Minnie says, no, no, no.

They just do that. Sometimes she won’t see anything. She won’t remember anything. This part actually confused me a little bit because it’s all so surreal. It looks for a moment. They tired of the bed she’s naked and they paint. On her in blood, but it looks for a moment like her husband crawls on top of her, but then it’s not her husband anymore.

It’s the devil

Todd: like hairy hands and fingernails stuff like that.

Craig: Uh, like goat eyes with the weird pupils and stuff

Todd: beyond since it’s almost hokey really. But

Craig: I actually don’t think so because you see so little, it’s just suggestions. It’s just like the eyes hovering above her, the cloven hands stroking her body.

And you only see it in glimpses now. Yeah. You could argue that like the hands clearly look like their costumes that’s fair, but it was really unsettling. I mean, rape scenes very much bother me. Period. I, I cut somebody’s head off disembowel. Somebody I’m down. Sexual violence makes me very, very, very uncomfortable, but here it was subtle enough that I knew what was going on, but it was like, she didn’t know what was going on.

Like she had her head turned and was talking while this. Thing was thrusting into her.

Todd: And then she basically yells out. It’s almost like she gets a sudden realization. She yells out point blank. This is not a dream. This is really happening to me. The most disturbing part of all, this was the next morning when she wakes up and she’s kind of disoriented and she sits up and she looks at her shoulders and her sides and she sees scratch marks down there.

And she’s like, what is this? And he, again, playing it off as like, Oh, I’m sorry, you know, you out of it. But I was so anxious to have a baby with you that I went ahead and did it. And it was

Craig: kind of fun in a necrophiles sort of way. That is so gross. Like, Oh my God, like I can kind of, and she even says something like, you could have waited until this morning.

It’s not like it had to happen in that instant. Yeah, I can, I can almost understand from her point of view, like when you’re that intimate with somebody and you give yourself over to somebody in that way, it’s almost as though, you know, like you have a right to my body because I’ve given you that right.

But don’t take advantage of it in such a disgusting way. Like he blows it off. Like it’s no big deal. Like, Oh yeah, I do. While you were unconscious, like, no, like, Oh, I just did it.

Todd: Necrophiles sort of way, you know, just as well as banging a dead body. Yeah. That’s how fun it was. So yeah. I mean, it’s gross and it’s weird.

And she, you know, you talk about her acting. She’s clearly unnerved by this, you know, she’s not a flat out screaming at him. What you raped me on was asleep, but she’s still like, Oh, well, I mean, Yeah, but really could have waited till the morning. Like, could I be a part of this too? Uh, you really feel for her in this moment and he’s such a douchebag, but again, when you watching it, maybe you catch this the first time around, but especially when you’re watching it the second time, the way he continually blows her off is just the way he’s gaslighting

Craig: her is.

Yes. That’s it

Todd: both expert and really upsetting.

Craig: That’s it. Exactly. And like putting myself in her shoes, I can imagine the conflicting feelings like. You shouldn’t have done that. That was bad. And at the same time, but you’re my husband. So like, I guess it’s okay. Like, uh, like it’s just so gross and he’s so blocked.

Say about it. Like that’s, what’s so disgusting. Uh, God, I mean, it’s, it’s nuanced. That’s what I like about it. It’s, you know, they’re in a relationship and she trusts him. She trusts him up until the end when she. Comes to understand and realize that he is part of it. And she’s not stupid. She’s manipulated for a very long time, but when one of her friends who the witches have incapacitated and ultimately killed, but he’s able to get a message you’re not from beyond the grave, but before he died, he sends her a book about witchcraft and about specifically.

That her building and the people who lived there. And that’s how she figures out who the neighbors are and whatnot. So she’s not dumb. She figures it out. And when she figures it out, she figures out that her husband is in on it and she knows why it’s because of his ambition. They can make him famous.

They’ve done it before and everything that they’ve done throughout the movie blinding, uh, another actor who won a part over her husband and then her husband ends up getting the part, putting her friend who was on to them in a coma. And then he ultimately dies. These are all things that she can read about in this book.

And she realizes that her husband is in on it. And at that point, what do you do? Do who do you turn to? She says that she has family. She says that she has sisters. Um, and I think she maybe mentioned a brother, but that they’re not close and it, and she has friends at one point, she gets so tired of many and Roman being.

So in their business that she just decides to throw a party. And she says, it’s just our young friends, nobody under 60 is invited and, and many tries very hard to get herself invited or, or to be some part of it. And Rosemary is very firm. No, it’s fine. Thank you. I can do this on my own. And when she does have that party, her friends are supportive of her and tell her to seek help because.

She looks terrible and she feels terrible. And her witch doctor has told her, don’t read any books on pregnancy. Don’t talk to your friends. Every pregnancy is different. Well, he’s done that because she is going through hell. And that was one of the only other things that I really wanted to spotlight was I thought that they did such a good job of showing her transformation early in her pregnancy.

She looks like. Death incarnate, skeletal skeletal, and like pale to the point that in some parts of the movie, I’m sure it was the makeup. She looked blue. So like just, and she looked so sick and she was sick and in pain. And that was the other thing that made me so mad. Her husband is watching her go through all of this.

And at the end, when she figures everything out, when everything is blown wide open, and she goes into that room where everybody is standing around, it’s like a bris or like a baptism or something like everybody’s standing around celebrating. She sees her husband. And at first he like hangs his head like, Oh no, she’s figured it out.

But then he comes around and he tries to justify it and he says, They promised me that you wouldn’t be hurt and you haven’t really been fuck you. She went through hell during that pregnancy. And then he, and then he’s like, what if it had just been a normal pregnancy and you had just lost the baby, like you would get over it like that.

This is just like that, right? Like, are you kidding me wrong with you? Yeah. Uh, I just, I wished that he would die. I hated him. So

Todd: much. Well, like I said, I was a teenager when I watched this movie. So sometimes things went over my head when they really shouldn’t have, but I really felt like the first time around, I didn’t hate him as much, obviously till the end, but you know, not, not all of this stuff there, there, it felt like at the time there was enough ambiguity that I wasn’t quite sure how much of it he was in on, or how much of it he understood.

And even at the end of the movie, you realize maybe he didn’t. Quite get everything, but you’re right. The evidence of his eyes and the fact that this is your mate and she trusts you and you love her. There’s no excuse. So, you know, we’re not going to be able to talk about this movie in its entirety to what it deserves, but there were just a couple of the things I wanted to mention.

And that was when the credits first started to come up. I was kind of shocked to see that William castle was the producer. William castle produced so much low budget schlock, but fun, like. House on haunted Hill. I love it. Even though it’s silly. Oh, one of the actors from house on haunted Hill, Elijah wood is the guy who leads them through the apartment in the very beginning.

And he’s been in a lot of William castle movies. He was even in black ULA. He was the, the mortician and Blackfella. So you’ve got these, these really great actors. You’ve got these guys who have come in, you know, from his other movies and he got the rights to the book. And so that’s how he could produce the movie, but paramount wouldn’t pay for it unless it was stipulated that he wouldn’t direct it because they didn’t want that.

So obviously it was a good choice getting Roman Polanski and Roman Polanski was apparently he is such a perfectionist that he would spend hours and days filming scenes that, you know, probably William castle and. His typical stable of directors wouldn’t give, but a few hours too. And it shows in the movie, the movie is just layers upon layers and it’s just thoughtful.

And it’s smart. A lot of the movie is filmed in like one take scenes that go on for a long time, which also indicates just the quality of the actors. I love the beginning and how it just sort of pans across this modern city and then into the central park, which, you know, kind of brings us into the woods a little bit.

And then down to this apartment complex, which is extreme in extreme contrast, it felt like a step back through time, modern city. Forest. And now very Gothic, old style apartment complex, and the design of the set, the design of the apartment complex and their hallways. It just had this very Gothic get decrepit kind of feel just somewhere in between modern and old, but way more in the old, the set design is so good.

The colors are so good. The cinematography, he was beautiful. Just the movie was just a joy, a feast for the eyes for being a talkie film for being just nothing but talking drama in rooms, the movie looked better beautiful and was always visually interesting and hats off to Roman Polanski for doing that.

That’s the, it’s his style. It’s the way he is. Uh, I can’t say enough great things about the technical

Craig: aspects. Right. And Roman, Polanski’s one of those people who is problematic. Um, you know, but ironically, right, we we’ve we’ve talks about this before, you know, we can recognize that people do bad things and we can condemn those things, but we can still appreciate their art.

And it’s, it’s difficult to try to reconcile that because I don’t in any way condone Roman Polanski’s I would say alleged bad behavior, but it’s really not. I mean, it’s pretty much confirmed. Yeah. He was convicted, right? Yeah. And I want to get too much into it. It, the point is he may not be. A good person, but he made some good movies.

Uh, and this is an excellent. Mo. I, I just think it’s excellent. Like honestly, when every week when we pick a movie, one of the very first things I do is look to see how long,

what I saw that this movie was over two hours. I was like, Oh my God. But it was a joy to watch. I just, I loved every minute of it. I was invested in every minute of it. Um, I thought the performances were great. Really? Mia Farrow really carries this movie. You know, there was a lot of responsibility on her shoulders.

She’s in every scene. Yeah. And it’s a lot of responsibility, but she did a great job. I just wanted to say real quick. I know you said earlier that Elijah wood was in this movie. I think human Elijah cook, right?

Todd: Oh yeah. Sorry.

Craig: What is a highlight?

Todd: Not even a twinkle in anyone’s eye when this movie came out

there was, I also remember this moment in this film, just this nice little touch when they decide they’re going to go when they’re going to do it right. When they’re just sitting in the empty apartment and they’re sitting down, I loved that and she just looks at him and she’s like, let’s make love and nieces.

Okay. And they just start undressing. It’s a long scene. It reminded me a little bit of a don’t look now in the honesty. Of what a marriage is and what a committed relationship is, it’s romantic, but it’s also kind of in a way it was very pedantic, like, like, you know, like the way they just kind of undress and next to each other in this dark room and he’s going to take it off his pants and she’s kind of taken off her stuff like that went on for a little while.

And I thought, Oh, that’s so cute. Like this sold me on this couple,

Craig: you know, me too. That’s the exact same thing I was thinking, like, it reminded me of what it’s like to be young and in love, like it’s, it’s, it’s great to be old and in love too. It really is. But things change. Like I remember the early days of my long-term committed relationship.

Where would just be the middle of the day and it’s like, let’s do it. Okay.

Todd: Just like, okay, well I’ll have to take my pants off, take the shirt. I need to go brush my teeth. I go to the bathroom or whatever like that. Right. It’s not like. Movies, try to make it be, you know, I just thought that was a nice bit of

Craig: honesty I did too. And I thought that it did a lot to establish their relationship, which I think made it then even more tragic that he would put Dre her in such a horrible,

Todd: yeah, he doesn’t come out looking the slightest bit sympathetic in this movie.

Does.

Craig: I can’t recommend this movie enough, if you haven’t seen it. I hope, I hope that’s not the case. I hope you have, because we’ve obviously tainted you. If you haven’t seen it, you know, you know, what’s going on, it’s still a great movie. You’re still going to enjoy it. It’s like a great book. Like when you finish a great book, you wish you could go back and read it again for the first time.

I wish I could go back and watch this movie again for the first time. Um, without knowing and without the expectations, it’s just so good. And it’s suspenseful. It’s scary in non-typical ways. It makes you as. The viewer questions so much. If you don’t already know what’s going on and, and, uh, Mia Farrow, again, I’m not gonna like go on and on about what a great actress she is.

In fact, there were parts of this movie where I thought her acting was not so great, but she’s so vulnerable and she’s so easy to get behind as the heroine of this movie. I love it. I love her performance. It’s dark. Things turn out badly, but, uh, it’s a fantastic movie. It’s a classic. I think it is an absolute classic.

Todd: It’s the first of a genre. Of course we had movies about devil worship before this, but you know, they, they didn’t really bring it into the modern. They didn’t bring it into the urban, like this movie really did. We’re not in the Backwoods. We’re not in, you know, rural America, we’re in the middle of the city.

And this is the third of three horror slash suspenseful, psych psychological thriller movies that Roman Polanski did that take place in basically the same setting. And I’d actually recommend the other two as well. I’ve seen them both repulsion, I think, and the tenant disturbing, but in different ways, but this movie’s a more tightly plotted kind of unfolding mystery than those movies are a little more art, art housey.

Yeah. I’m going to echo everything. You just said a great film, Charles. Grodin got his start here and then I were leaven. I was surprised he also wrote the Stepford wives. And death trap. Yup. Yup. Yeah, the material is great. The film is wonderful. The acting is good and it’s just a classic and even watching more than once you, I think you just get something new out of it every time and very apropos for our modern age.

So I’m really glad that we could take this opportunity for mother’s day to reach out to all of our Mazars out there and say, Hey, you think you got it bad? At least you don’t have it this bad. Hopefully.

Craig: Yeah. And, and before we sign off, I want to take a moment to wish happy mother’s day to all the mothers out there.

But specifically to my mom, I have one of the coolest moms anybody has ever had. She inspires me every day. Uh, and I just. I think that she’s amazing and I couldn’t love her more and she couldn’t be more supportive of me. And I also want to say happy mother’s day to all the other mothers. And I want to say happy mother’s day to the aunts and grandmothers and women who are pet mothers, um, and women who maybe thought that motherhood was in their future.

And it didn’t work out that way. We honor and appreciate every single one of you. And

Todd: now that you’ve said that it would be really horrible if I went back and did not also reach out to your mother, Greg, your mother is wonderful. She’s a great gal. Yep. I know. And I wish her a happy mother’s day as well.

All right. Well, thank you again for another episode of two guys in a chainsaw. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You could find us online, just search for two guys in a chainsaw podcast. Look us up on Facebook, or just go to our website or Twitter. Leave us a message there and let us know what you thought of Rosemary’s baby.

Let us know any film that you would like us to do in the future for a future holiday. Be it mother’s day, Kwanzaa, Christmas, whatever, uh, until next time I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

An urban legend comes to life after a grad student gets a little too academic with his mythology. And now that Jordan Peele has completed filming and will be releasing a new version, we felt it was time to finally tackle this iconic horror franchise. We couldn’t believe how well this 1992 film held up.

Candyman (1992)

Episode 255, 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: And today we are doing Craig’s pick, which was 1992’s Candyman, requested by no one but Craig, and also I believe because this is one of the few horror franchises we haven’t touched outside of leprechaun, and we’re not super excited to touch the leprechaun yet.

Although I’m really vying for Leprechaun in Space, you might be working towards Leprechaun in the Hood. I don’t know. Well, your preference is when we get around to that one, we’ll get to it. Yeah. Candyman, I think is, is coming up, uh, with a reboot or a spiritual sequel, I believe directed by none of none other than Jordan Peele.

That’s supposed to come out this August. So it’s fairly timely for us to be doing it right now. And I think it was a great choice. I remember when I was growing up in high school, we watched this movie. I came out in 1992, as I said, I started high school in 1992, and this was something that we rented a once at least.

For stupid movie nights or scary movie nights with my friends. And we all kind of talked about it. I remember it as being kind of an iconic film even at the time. Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s funny because I, it still holds up. I think that right now people still talk about it. Obviously they’re making a new one and it’s probably Tony Todd’s most famous role.

He playing the star, the titular character. And so I think we’re going to have a lot to talk about today and I’m really excited to go and see it again. After watching it this time around, I realized I didn’t remember it at all. Like, I really had not seen this since like 1990, two 93. And, uh, sadly, I, I was pleasantly surprised to see what kind of a film it was.

And, yeah. So how about you, Craig? When did you first see this movie?

Craig: I had to have seen it around the time that it came out. I don’t think that I saw it in the theater, but like, you you’re older than me

Todd: one year.

Craig: So I was still in middle school, but I’ve, I’ve been into a. I’ve been into horror since I was like eight, so I don’t remember specifically, but I feel like it was kind of a big deal. Like it was a big movie. And so I saw it, uh, and I remembered really liking it and thinking it was really scary. That’s what I remembered.

But like you, I hadn’t seen it probably. I don’t know. I probably rewatched it at some point in college, but it’s been a really long time. And I did remember it. I remembered the basic story and I remembered, um, Tony Todd, who I think is great. He’s great. And horror, he’s tall and imposing, and he has an amazing haunting voice.

So he’s, he’s good. And he’s really good in this, even though I had kind of forgotten that he’s barely in this movie, like if you. Super cut. All of his scenes. He maybe is in this movie for like 10 minutes, maybe it’s true, but he’s very good and haunting and I remembered Virginia Madsen. Uh, this was the first thing that I remembered her from.

And she says that from all of the movies in her career, this is the movie that she’s most recognized from. That certainly holds true for me. I remembered her and I remembered liking her. She’s young in this movie and she’s a very pretty, but she has a very kind of deep raspy kind of sexy voice too. It may have to do with the fact that she smokes 3000 cigarettes in this movie.

I don’t know.

Todd: Back when we smoked in movies. Yeah.

Craig: Everybody was smoking in every scene of this movie. Yeah. Um, but I, I remembered liking her and, and so going back and watching, it was an interesting experience because I don’t think that I enjoyed it as much as a horror movie, but I did think that it was really interesting and that there were some really interesting things to talk about.

So I’m looking forward to talking about it too.

Todd: W as I was watching it, I was thinking, God, this is like a better version of urban legends. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s funny. Yeah, because when I was in college, I started a research on urban legends and the term urban legends and the internet was, was becoming popular at that time.

Of course we just surfed web pages. We didn’t have social media, so it was kind of a novel thing, but I felt like I was kind of on the cutting edge back in like, you know, 97, 98 doing this English paper on urban legends and about this brand new site that had come out a couple years before called snopes.com.

That was, that was, I’m trying to sort of. Research he’s legends and putting it online. And it all sounds so quaint right now. And then when the movie urban legends actually came out the year after my paper, I was like, dang, it’s like, I’m right on the edge. But no, like this movie 1992, I’d forgotten was about an urban legend and they talk about it as they use the term urban legend at some point in the movie though, not throughout it is so good at that at, at really not just being a exploitative horror film, but it seems like it has a lot of different things to say about not just class and race relations, but about the nature of myth and legend and its place in our society.

And then. And then in, in a way it takes a bit of that. Um, I can’t remember which came out first, but West Craven’s new nightmare aspect to it where, you know, a bit of the premise of West Craven’s new nightmare is that these things exist as long as we believe in them. Right. Right. And then if we don’t believe in them or we stop believing in them, not only may, might they cease to exist, but perhaps these entities which have been created by us in, in a way will fight for their survival.

Seems to be what Candyman is doing in this movie is sort of fighting for his survival against us, a skeptic, somebody who’s gonna, you know, kind of put an academic twist and research this whole legend and, and neuter it, you know, in a community where it’s actually being held very much alive and very much taken seriously.

So, I mean, it’s interesting, like I think the idea that we’ll probably talk about in this, you know, it’s a kind of a chicken and egg thing, right? Is it the, the legend that is being kept alive by the people that always existed? Or is it the people that have created the legend and caused it to exist? I don’t, I’m not sure exactly.

The movie’s based on a Clive Barker short story called the forbidden and was originally the story is placed in.

Craig: London, Liverpool, I think actually, Oh yeah.

Todd: Liverpool, Liverpool. You’re right. Liverpool. Um, the director, I believe approached a Clive Barker because he was working on his own little version of Nightbreed and a Barker had just come off a hell raiser and was apparently a little upset that it had been Americanized a little bit.

Uh, and this director talked to Barker. Barker, gave him a free option on the story, the forbidden, and he chose to just go ahead and rewrite it so that it took place in America. From what I read, uh, from his words in an interview online, he said he chose Chicago because, uh, it was just the, the place in America he knew about.

And he called up, uh, the Chicago. Land place and said, what’s the worst neighborhood that you can think of the worst development in Chicago and without a doubt, without hesitating, they said Cabrini green. So, uh, I was kind of shocked actually, when I was researching this movie to find out that this was an actual place that really does exist, did yeah.

Exist. And historically was, sounds like it was every bit as bad. If not worse, then what is portrayed in this movie? So. Wow. What a, what an interesting like movie and interesting time capsule as well. Cause some of this was actually filmed on location in these places, right? It seems like the director and his name was Bernard Rose.

Um, really tried to do justice to this and, and even involve the NAACP when he was, uh, working on the script and working on the movie just to make sure that because he was diving into this race stuff that, uh, he wasn’t getting in over his head and being too insensitive to, to things. And his, his real goal was to show that, you know, even though in this, in this bad neighborhood, there are people living there just trying to get by.

Yeah, there are people living there just like the rest of us that we should be able to relate to if we’re going to be able to be scared by this movie and relate to the characters in it. So I feel like he did a pretty good job of that, to be honest, even if it’s a little hokey at times.

Craig: Yeah. Well, I mean, gosh, you said a mouthful, there, there are so many things I want to respond to, but though yes, they did.

Um, actually filmed that, uh, Cabrini green and, um, par uh, stipulation for them being allowed to do so was that they cast some of the actual residents and they also had to, I don’t know, negotiate with the local gangs, um, for their own protection and cast some of them, uh, as extras as well. And because they did that, they didn’t really face a lot of trouble.

There was one shooting incident, very near the end. Of filming where a production van was shot at by a sniper, but nobody was hurt beyond that. There wasn’t really any big deal. Um, it went pretty seamlessly, but yeah, I lived in Chicago very briefly and I love Chicago. Chicago is a great city and amazing city, but it does have a pretty sorted history of red lining.

Um, and you can see that still today. When I lived in Chicago, I lived in the Ukrainian village, which was a very nice area, reasonably priced, but there was one street. I don’t remember what street it was. It was very near where I lived and directly on the other side of that, I believe was the Puerto Rican village.

And, uh, it, you know, I went over there and ate, they had great restaurants and stuff. But it was a very different, it was just amazing to me, a rural farm, not farm boy, but a rural boy living in the big city for the first time, how distinct those lines were, uh, between neighborhoods in between areas. Um, and it’s still that way.

Todd: It’s crazy. Yeah. And not just in Chicago, but in a lot of American cities, that’s like this on one side of the street, you know, you can walk down the sidewalk more or less without fear you cross the street and suddenly you’re in the danger zone. It’s

Craig: well, and that’s something that they were trying to capitalize on too.

In this movie, they were trying to capitalize on the fact, you know, gosh, I don’t remember what I read, but the, the director wanted to set it in a scary area. And he felt that for most of his audience being placed somewhere where they were uncomfortable, not necessarily. Because it’s a bad place and the people who live there are bad, but because we have these preconceived notions that we just, we are fearful about stepping out of our comfort zones and into areas where we are less comfortable.

And though, Hey, you know, the intention. I think was good. He did also face some criticism from certain factions of the black community who said that this was perpetuating perpetuating stereotypes about black people, that black people are inherently dangerous. And the places that black people populate are inherently dangerous.

And I don’t think that that was his goal at all, but I could see how it could be interpreted in that way. To me. I see it as not being an issue of color or race though. That’s obviously something that is tied up into it, but it’s really more about, more about socioeconomic concerns. And, you know, I, I have.

I studied this in literature. Like if you read, um, Oh, native son, it takes place in Chicago and deals with this same kind of thing. And you read about the history of it. Uh it’s it’s, it’s sad because it was racist and discriminatory, but these black neighborhoods were subpar in terms of quality of living, um, standard of living.

But. The cost of living was also higher than in many of the neighboring white neighborhoods that were just across the street. And so it’s an unfortunate part of American history that sadly it has not gone away. Um, but, but I think that this shines an interesting light on that. And I, and I don’t think it’s perfect.

I don’t think that it’s a perfect study in racial divide or anything like that. But I do think that it’s an interesting look at it, especially from a 1990s perspective. One of the other things that you talked about was like the idea of urban legends. And I took a graduate course in oral tradition. Um, and it was just fascinating to hear about, you know, How stories are passed down and are changed and modified and reflective of the times, but they maintain still kind of core elements.

Uh, and that’s, what’s going on here too. The other thing though, and, and I read this, I’m not taking credit for this, but I read, and it resonated with me that this is also very much kind of like a Gothic romance, much akin to like Dracula where the bad guy is the bad guy, but almost in a romantic. Kind of way.

Um, there’s definitely romantic is in the terms of lovey-dovey romantic is maybe not the right word, but there’s definitely a connection between Candyman and Helen. The main character here that is very reminiscent of Dracula and Nina from the Dracula story. And I really liked that element. This is ultimately a slasher movie, but it’s more than that.

It’s more than just TNA and a bunch of 20 somethings getting slashed up. That’s not it at all. There’s, there’s a lot more to it. And in that way, I think it’s ambitious how successful it is. I don’t know. I. I mean, ultimately I enjoyed the movie. I found it to be a little bit too long. I don’t want to say that there were parts where I was bored.

I just felt like get sped up a little bit, but maybe that’s just my attention span because they do a lot of, um, plot building in the first part. And Candyman doesn’t even show up until halfway through the movie he’s central to the plot throughout, but the actual character doesn’t appear until 45 minutes into the movie.

And I think that having seen the movie before, I just like, Oh, come on, like get Tony Todd here. You know, I, I want, I want to get to the Tandy man. Yeah. I don’t know already. We’ve thrown out all of these things and we’ve barely gotten into the plot. Virginia Madsen is a graduate student. She plays, uh, Helen.

Her husband is a professor. Named Trevor. And she’s working with, um, another graduate student Bernadette, and they are doing their graduate thesis on urban legends. So they are interviewing students specifically freshmen and asking them about urban legends that they’ve heard. And you know, all these freshmen are telling them these stories that they’ve heard.

And it’s exactly the way that oral tradition and the urban legends work. You hear it. It’s like the game of telephone. You know, my cousins, brothers, sisters, husband knew this guy, and this is what happened. And so they hear, you know, they talk about the alligators in the sewers and a couple of other very popular ones, but they also hear this legend of Candyman, which is really a combination of.

Two urban legends, the bloody Mary story, where you say somebody, you say bloody Mary in the mirror five times and bloody Mary appears and kills you. And also the urban legend of the hook, which there are variations of. But the one that I always remember is like, it’s like a couple, like it make out point and they hear scraping on the car.

And then depending on the version you hear, like they drive away and then later they find the hook attached to the car door or something. It’s a combination of those two, the director slash writer who adapted this from Barker’s story faced criticism, because. They, or maybe it was Barker. I think it was actually Barker who faced criticism for profiting off of a black, urban legend.

And in response, he was like, I made this up.

Not or appropriating anything here. I’ve made this up. But, uh, yeah. So, so they’re researching that, which eventually Helen is listening to a audio cassette of her interview with somebody who was talking about Candyman and a campus. Cleaning lady, a black cleaning lady over here says, Oh, is that about Candyman?

I know all about him. He lives in Cuba, Cabrini green, and then another, she calls in another housekeeper who tells her this? I think her name is Ruthie Jean. And she heard this banging and smashing, like somebody was trying to make a hole in the wall. So Ruthie called nine one one. And she said, there’s somebody coming through the walls and they didn’t believe him.

They thought the lady was crazy. Right. So she called nine one one again. And they still didn’t believe it. But when they finally got there, she was dead. Was she shot? No. Um, she was killed with the hook. Yeah, it’s true. Yeah, it is. I read it in the papers, Candyman killed it. And that’s where it all starts.

Then these two women start investigating what they believe. You know, they believe that like, this is an urban legend. In progress and they feel like that will give them an edge on their thesis. Like they’re not just regurgitating a bunch of things that have already been discussed and written about, but they can actually immerse themselves in a culture that actively believes in this.

And, uh, they do. And that’s when they get in trouble,

Todd: two girls or Helen is played by Virginia Madsen, as we said, and a woman named Bernadette, or they call her Bernie and she’s played by Cassie lemons and she is actually black and. I’m sure that, you know, that helps a little bit right. To have this, this white woman and this black woman also kind of working together on this thesis project when you’re, you know, trying to kind of navigate those boundaries of trying not to be too exploitative or trying to, you know, be sensitive to races and things.

And I just have to say Cassie lemons, the first stole my heart as, as a Nina Blackburn and fear of a black hat, which I have called out once before on this podcast, when we did tales from the hood, um, which is a movie that rusty Conda who directed and, uh, had a role in that movie, uh, also directed and had a role in fear of a black hat.

She’s great. Also in this movie, I think it’s interesting, the way that they play the dynamic of the university, you know, you and I are both very intimately familiar with the university. We both went to the same one. Your mom works at one. I worked at that university for awhile and it’s a little silly, right?

That there’s this sort of implied rivalry between their graduate professors and them. Yeah. And Helen does dating. No. Helen is

Craig: married to, I think

Todd: a guy who, I guess the ideas that is, is the notion supposed to be that he’s a bit older than her because he is a professor and she’s still a graduate student, but they both look about.

I don’t, I don’t know if this was implied to be a thing where she was a student of his at one time, and then, you know, they kind of had a relationship and then they got together. What do you think? I, I

Craig: don’t know that that’s necessarily implied, but that’s easy to deduce deduce based on what happens later, but you know, Helen, um, it’s funny cause she’s playing a graduate student, but she actually looks like a graduate student.

Like in most of these movies, she would look like a coed, you know, she would be, you know, the big busted, uh, long blonde hair co-ed she actually looks like a graduate student. She looks like she’s in her. Right. Early twenties, but she looks like a grownup. Uh, but her, her husband, yeah. He doesn’t look like he’s probably that much older than her.

Probably a little bit older than her, but not that much, but yeah, he plays this smarmy guy and like, he just, this guy just looks like a smarmy guy and you can tell from the beginning that he’s like flirting with his students and she even calls him out on it. And she it’s almost to the point where she’s naive.

Like we, as the audience are like, Oh, come on. Like, he’s obviously screwing around with his students, but she chooses to. Believe him and she chooses to ignore it.

Todd: It’s more than implied throughout the movie. I mean, there’s a moment where she tries to call him and he’s not home at like 2:00 AM and there, as the phone is ringing in his, in their empty bedroom, the, the camera’s panning over photos of them and marriage and things like that.

And they’re moments where they really lay heavy hand, like, like he puts his hand on hers and you kind of see both of their wedding rings there and you just know at some point, okay, he’s messing around. Totally. Right. I mean, it’s, it’s so obviously projected from the beginning, but this guy’s played by a guy named Zander Berkeley, and he’s one of those names that you don’t even know, but when you see his face, you’re like, Oh yeah, he’s in like a ton of movies, right?

Like, he’s that he’s like the cab driver or he’s like the Colonel or something in the military, or he’s the clerk behind the counter or he’s the guy holding up the liquor store. I mean, he is in, so. Many big movies, like the rock air force one, like this movie, I mean, this guy’s got 242 MDB credits to his name.

So, um,

Craig: yeah. And still working. I mean, he’s got lots of stuff like in production and post-production he’s yeah, he’s working a lot, I think. And, and he’s good. He’s fine. All of the performances in this movie are good, but you talked about, you talked about her best friend. Uh, Bernadette Bernadette also played Clarice’s best friend in the silence of the lambs.

Initially, uh, Virginia Madsen was cast as Bernadette and the director’s wife who is also an actress, but not as big name. She was cast in the lead. Well, I think for a couple of reasons, first of all, the director’s wife found out that she was pregnant, that played a role, but also I think. That they decided that the character of Bernadette should be African-American I think because they wanted a different representation of an African-American person as well, to just the villain, the Libris green and the villain.

Right. Um, which makes sense. I think that today, It would be far more effective it’s hell it. And were played by an African American. Like that would seem to make a lot more sense if you were concerned about representation, but in 1992.

Todd: Yeah. True. But, but then again, the story kind of begs it right now. My understanding is that Tony Todd made up the backstory for his character.

That’s what the director said. Oh, I didn’t know that. At some point when the two graduate students meet with they’re having dinner with, I guess, their thesis head, or I don’t know, one of, one of their smarmy or professors, uh, than her husband and her husband. And again, it’s so hilarious because they’re like, he’s like, well, what are you working on?

And they’re like, we’re going to bury you. Thesis, you know, it’s like, guys, this is not how a university works. It’s a very collegial, it really is generally speaking kind of encouraging environment. People. Aren’t like, you know, cutthroat about the papers that they’re writing,

Craig: but at least at the, at the college that we went to, I,

Todd: I don’t know, maybe if you’re going to like science and technology, something or whatever, and you know, you’re engaged in deep.

I don’t know.

Craig: Well, I didn’t go to an Ivy league school. Maybe that’s more cutthroat, but you’re right at the small liberal arts university that we went to, it was very familiar. Like you were friends with your professors, you hung out with them. You weren’t, you know, like it wasn’t a rival

Todd: or yeah. Well, it probably at the university of Illinois too, which is where this is done.

But, um, but yeah, like, um, when they talk about what you’re doing and they’re like, well, we’re, we’re talking about Candyman and we’re investigating this murder that took place. He was like, Oh, well then you should read the paper that I published on it, you know, 10 years ago, which is a convenient device for him to give us the full backstory and the Candyman legend.

And what the candy main legend basically is this, there was this freed slave, uh, who was an artist who very quickly Rose into aristocratic society and was very well known as a portrait painter. And he was hired to paint a portrait of this woman, um, a white woman. They fell in love. She got pregnant. And of course this being at that time, nobody liked that this guys hired a bunch of goons to go out, find him and they cut off his right arm.

But

Craig: this was just the beginning of his ordeal nearby. There was an apiary, dozens of hives filled with hungry bees. They smashed the hives and stole the honeycomb and smeared it over his prone. Naked body.

Handyman was stunned to death by the bees, banned his body on a giant Pyre and then scattered his ashes over Cabrini-Green.

Todd: And so he is the candy man, and he comes back to enact his vengeance upon people. Uh, when, uh, you look into a mirror and you say his name five times, which is like you said, it’s the bloody Mary.

Urban legend that we grew up with and they play with that in the movie. Of course, people look in the mirror, they say his name, but they don’t get quite get to five because they’re too scared to do that. Actually earliest in the movie. I think the movie kind of opens with the telling of the tale. Yeah.

Craig: It’s like, it’s like scream, you know, it opens up with like an expository, like where we see what can happen, but it’s not really connected to the direct story. It’s just some woman in some guy and she dares out some guy, Ted Ray,

playing, playing this bad boy or whatever. And, uh, they of course, you know, they say it and there’s a big kill right at the beginning, which is nice because it establishes for us what can happen. Um, and I think that it was smart to do that because then it takes quite a while. To get to any more

Todd: of that.

Right. And he’s not even visible that that happens kind of just, yes. Right in the background. And he’ll cut you with a hook from crotch to throat or shoulders basically lays out the legend for us, but she is basically doing a lot of the library research about this actual murder that the may told her about.

And she decides to go to Cabrini green. With her friend, Helen and, um, Bernie go to Cabrini green and instantly, you know, this is a rough place. It’s extremely rundown, it’s a project development. And, uh, they go inside and they’re harassed by people downstairs who are very distrustful of anyone white who comes walking through and they think they’re police, they go up and they actually find the hallway.

And then the room, the, the apartment that this woman was in, which has basically been sort of abandoned and graffitied over since the murders. And there’s graffiti on the walls leading in called sweeps to the suite. Yeah.

Craig: One of the things that I found to be kind of contrived is that Helen somehow realizes that her building, the building that she was, that she lives in was meant to be project housing, but somehow they like.

Got messed up with the red lining. Like they were on the wrong side of it. And so instead they turned it

Todd: in, they needed a barrier. Yeah. That was what they said. So they quickly made

Craig: those into luxury apartments, but her luxury apartment, which is amazing, like gorgeous has the exact same feelings. Yeah. But it somehow has the exact same layout as this apartment that this woman who is supposedly killed by Candyman lived in.

And because of that, she knows in the bathroom, there is no wall between apartments. It’s just the medicine cabinets. So if you take the medicine cabinets out, there’s just a hole. Into the next apartment and the police believe that that’s how the killer got in and killed this woman. Of course, they’re not considering anything supernatural.

They just think it was a murderer. And apparently that’s based in truth. Like this really happened in Chicago. I think. At the time. Um, and there was a story within the last few months of some woman finding that to be true in her apartment. Like she took her medicine cabinet out to a remodel or whatever, and there was just a hole into the next apartment.

And then in that case, in this recent story, it was just an abandoned apartment. But, uh, I just thought that was kind of silly, like, okay, your luxury apartment is the same as this project apartment. Um, I did like the design now. I don’t know because though I lived in Chicago. I, my experience was very limited.

I don’t know if those, you know what, and of course when I lived there, it was like 2003. So the last building in kolibri green was torn down in 2011. So it did exist when I was there, but I didn’t go there and. It may be, I just don’t know. Maybe it’s authentic. Maybe it’s stereotypical. My limited experience doesn’t inform me, but I did like the design of this area, and I know that they did film some things actually in these buildings, but covered in graffiti and the graffiti, you know, graffiti has a negative connotation, but at its root, it is art and it is, looks really cool.

Yeah. She gets into that apartment. Lots of interesting graffiti. For some, for some reason, there are tons of holes in the walls. Like she’s not using doors. She’s like walking through holes in the wall and she’s taking pictures. And at one point she looks through a hole and she’s taking pictures and we hear that her film runs out and starts rewinding kids back in the day, back in the day, our cameras actually had rolls of film in them.

And when you ran out of film, it would automatically, at least in my day back in my parents’ day, you had to rewind it yourself. But in my day it would automatically rewind. And that’s how you knew you were out of film and you couldn’t take any more pictures. So that happens as she’s looking through this hole, then we see her from the other side.

So we’re looking at her in the hole and it’s a huge portrait of Candyman. Face and the whole is his mouth open. So when she comes through, she sees it, but she can’t take a picture and she seems immediately affected by it. Like she almost gets like a little dizzy or something looking into its eyes. Um, and just the aesthetic, like whoever was the set designer for this, it looked amazing.

It was designed to look like a rundown Gothic church that the people of kolibri green, who believed in Candyman had designed almost as like, I don’t know, a shrine or something, but. It looks great. It is an excellent set piece and, and very atmospheric. Um, and I really liked it.

Todd: Well, I think it’s a kind of, um, paying respects to the gods kind of thing, right?

Like you have this shrine built to him and we kind of preserve this area and we kind of respect his name and keep his legend alive, then he’s not going to bother us. Right. Right. And so that’s interesting. She meets like a little kid outside too. Who, uh, what’s his name? I can’t remember. What’s his name?

Jake. Jake.

Craig: Yeah. And I don’t remember the actor’s name, but everybody on set, loved this kid. Like they called him like one take Jake or something because he just nailed it every time. Um, and he is this super cute little kid, and this is really where the action gets started because she talks to him and she says, if you show me where Candyman is, it will be our little secret.

And so he takes her to this free standing concrete, outdoor. Bathroom. He tells her this story about this little kid who, um, he describes what the R word that I don’t like, but, uh, a mentally challenged little kid. And, uh, he was with his mother at the store across the street, but he was bored and causing a scene.

So his mother told him to go to the bathroom outside this little free standing place. And then they just heard screaming and the mother tried to get to him, but everybody else held her back and eventually some big tough guy went in and he was only in there for a couple of seconds and came out and had been so effected that his hair had turned white.

Helen says was, he did was the little boy dead. And he says, no, apparently what had happened was Candyman had ripped this little kid’s Dick off with his. Hook and left him there to bleed to death. And we see it. I mean, not in great detail, like it’s quick and it’s not super up close, like it pans through the bathroom, but the bathroom is just covered in blood.

And so she, of course this was before this is a flashback. So she goes in there, she sees that suites for the sweet graffiti. Again, she opens up one of the stalls and there’s an arrow painted an excrement, I think, pointing down to the toilet and she opens it and it’s full of bees. But then these four or five guys from, I don’t, I can never remember if I’m saying the name right from this neighborhood.

Kolibri green come in. And one of them is in a long coat and is holding a hook like he is the epitome of Candyman. And he says, you were looking for Candyman where you found him and he hits her in the face with. The hook and knocks her out and she is terribly injured. Like it looks like her ocular cavity was probably shattered.

Like it’s, she, she looks awful. Um, but she survives and then she’s able to pick that guy out of a lineup. She then talks to Jake and she’s like, Candyman is not real. He’s just this guy who’s capitalizing on this legend that now he’s gone and now people don’t have to be afraid anymore. And that is what gets her in trouble.

She, she removes. The fear. And that is when she is approached by the actual Candyman. I don’t know, time goes by because her face is healed. Bernadette, uh, gives her some pictures that she was able to recover from the smashed camera from, from the attack. And right after that, she’s in a parking garage and the real Candyman, Tony Todd, who is dressed in a long flowing coat with fur cuffs, not at all on reminiscent of like blaxploitation character look.

Um, so he

Todd: can exploitation Dracula in a way.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. Not at all. Unlike black ULA. Um, very much like that in fact, but he confronts her and he talks to her from a distance. And most of the time when Candyman speaks in this movie, it’s voiceover he’s present, but his mouth doesn’t move. And he says to her in a very.

Theorial voice you doubted me. You were not content with the stories. So I was obliged to come. I think

I am the writing on the wall through whisper in the classroom without these things. I haven’t nothing. So now I didn’t let shit with me. You’re right. I mean, it’s very much like new nightmare. Like by removing the fear, she has taken away his power. And so now to regain his power, he has to give them a reason to be afraid again.

Um, and he’s going to do it through. Her. And right after that, she wakes up not knowing where she is. She’s on a floor somewhere she’s covered in blood and she hears screaming. And she goes out into this apartment, which we N we immediately recognized because she had befriended a woman in kolibri green who lived next door to the other woman who had been murdered.

And this woman had a baby and a dog, a Rottweiler. And the first thing that she sees is this Rottweiler’s head decapitated, surrounded in blood. And she goes in and the woman is standing over her baby’s crib, which is also covered in blood, but there’s no baby. And the woman because, uh, Helen is holding a meat Cleaver, like she found one next door and she thought covered in blood.

That it would be a good idea. I mean, I guess you want to protect yourself, but what’s somebody going to think if they come into their house and everybody’s dead and they see you holding a meat Cleaver. So obviously this woman attacks her. And she to protect herself to be fair, like cleaves the woman in the arm, but then the police come in and arrest Helen and think it was

Todd: her.

Yeah, she’s totally set up.

Craig: She has no memory of it. So she doesn’t know what to do. And she had worked with this detective at kolibri green to put away the guy that they thought was responsible for the murder. So she thinks she’s going to have an ally in him, but no, like everything points to her, nobody is at fault for thinking it was her like, who else would it be?

But that’s, you know, and then it goes on from there and he continues to use her to that purpose from there. And I thought it was really effective. And the other thing that I thought was really effective that I know that I didn’t consider the first time I saw this, there is a strong possibility when you’re watching this movie, that Helen is just crazy.

Todd: Yes. And I was thinking about that the whole time as well. And it’s interesting because this movie sets up one thing I really like about this, it’s so different from a lot of other horror movies. Is it, this, this emo of his he’s basically setting her up again and again, as she refuses more or less to be, be his victim.

And so then suddenly she passes out and she wakes up and she’s in this situation that presumably he’s concocted, but maybe really she has actually done this was apparently the director. Talked about how he wanted to avoid this cliche of people, just women, just screaming and horror movies. And so he wanted to establish more of a hypnotic thing.

Like you said, when she first sees that image of the eyes and the big mouth in that, and the hole in the wall, in the abandoned apartment, she seems kind of entranced by it and hypnotized by it. In fact, they use this very old movie trick of Oh, oftentimes where like the rest of her face will be in shadow, but her eyes have like a kind of a brighter streak across them.

Yes. In a lot of shots that that’s very no

Craig: R isn’t it it’s

Todd: super new are, it’s also a little corny, but, you know, whatever, it’s, it’s cool. Like that’s what they do. So there’s this notion that she’s hypnotized by him that, uh, th that’s part of the sort of Dracula, right. The sort of sexual hypnotic power that Dracula has.

And so then therefore, There is this possibility that he’s not just, you know, murdering these people and then dropping her in the spot, but that he is hypnotized her to actually do these things. And then when she wakes up, you know, she’s, she’s been broken from the trans well, I

Craig: feel like that this is an interesting place to mention that they did hypnotize Virginia Madsen for a lot of these scenes, um, to the point like when she’s interacting with Candyman and in the aftermath, um, she was under hypnosis and they had trigger words and phrases that would break the hypnosis.

And they did this for a while to the point that it made her so uncomfortable that she asked that they not do it anymore. Um, and I, I thought that that was really interesting. And Tony Todd said the same thing, like. His character for whatever reason is, well, I it’s because of his backstory, because he was killed with bees.

Like he’s often surrounded with bees and there are bees all over him, which is all real, there’s even a scene when his mouth is full of bees, all real. And I don’t know if they intentionally also hypnotized him, but he said that he fell like he was in a hypnotic state. Like that was kind of the only way that he could do it.

Yeah. I just find that, you know, I don’t know what else I’m going to be able to bring it up. So I’m just gonna bring it up. Now, the fact that they use real bees, uh, the, the bee handler. The bee handler was the same, the handler that worked on my girl and that worked on fried green tomatoes. They specifically bred these bees for the production because they had to be a certain age because apparently young bees are far less likely to fly and far less likely to sting they’re capable, but they’re far less likely.

And so Virginia Madsen originally refused the role. Cause she said they, she was allergic to bees and the director’s like, uh, go get tested. She did. And it turned turns out that she was mildly allergic to bees, but she went ahead and took it anyway. And both of these characters had to be covered in bees and.

They would put a queen bee pheromone on them so that the bees would just be attracted to them and stay on them. And then they would suck them off very, with a very gentle, uh, vacuum that didn’t harm the bees. And Tony Todd said that he did it, but that he had an excellent lawyer and it was negotiated.

That he would get a thousand dollar bonus for every time that he was stung over the course of the three movies. He was stung like 26 times. I think 23 of those times were in this movie. I don’t know what they did in the other movies. Maybe they used more fake BS in the other movies. I don’t know. And like when they were in his mouth, like he wore a dental dam to keep them from going down his throat.

But all of those scenes with them in closeup with bees, those are real bees. They also do special effects with like bee swarms and stuff, but all of the close-up stuff is real. Uh, and it looks great night. Yeah. It’s just so cool. You know, they would, I just feel like nobody would, would ever do that now just because they don’t have to.

Then now we’ll just see GI at the fact that it is real and you’re watching it and it looks real and you know, it’s real, it just ads. Something to the movie. Um, it does, but I don’t know where you were getting close. You know, like you said, he just keeps setting her up. Trevor brings her home from the hospital and she’s at home.

Candyman appears to her again, like he bursts through her medicine cabinet and scares her, which she didn’t know was going to happen. And, um, really did frighten her, her reaction is real. And he, he, I say he chases her around, but that’s not true. He’s supernatural. He can just appear wherever he wants and he’s scaring her and, and he just keeps telling her, you just have to surrender to me.

That’s it. And, and he’s also told her, the baby in question is still alive. And if you. Submit yourself to me, if you, uh, surrender, I’ll let the baby go. But then he keeps appearing to hurry. He appears, and Bernie, the best friend shows up. He kills her. She gets set up for that. She gets taken to a mental hospital where unbeknownst to her she’s, um, sedated for a month before she wakes up and is questioned by a, uh, psychologist and the psychologist.

You know, she, she’s trying to tell him the truth and he doesn’t believe her. It’s like, I can prove it. And so she summons Candyman in the mirror, in his office and Candyman shows up and kills that guy. But before he leaves, he releases her from her restraints. So it’ll look like she did it. She escapes and goes home where she finds that Trevor is already shacking up with that.

Grad student, but she ends up back at kolibri green, where she has decided that she is going to sacrifice herself. I mean, what choice does she, she had, he basically says to her, you’ve lost everything. The only thing that you have left is my desire for you. She says, all right, as long as you promise to let the kid go, I’ll do it.

And he asks if she’s scared and she says, yes. And he’s like, are you scared of the pain or what comes after? And she says both. And he says, well, I promise you, the pain will be exquisite, but when it’s all over. You and I will be legends and we will live on in rumors. We will be the writing on the wall. We will be the stories that kids tell around the campfire.

We will be the, the, the fear that causes lovers to hold each other tighter in the night. Um, it’s very seductive. It’s super seductive and kind of sexy.

Todd: It’s sexy. And it’s also, uh, again, it’s like that, that dragon Kyla thing, the thrall,

Craig: it’s the thrall

Todd: kind of thing. It happens in this location. That’s like this Gothic church, like you said to him.

And so it’s full of this imagery and there’s the alter, you know, that she’s on and everything. And that’s when they do the big exchange, right. That he’s got the, he opens up his chest and their bees in there, and then their bees coming out of his mouth. And then he kisses her and their bees going into her mouth and she’s covered with bees, but she’s under a trance and he seems, you know, kind of out of it too.

And he carries her way. It’s it’s really. Great. And at this, it was probably at this moment that I was like, God, I did not expect, I didn’t remember this movie being so sophisticated, you

Craig: know? Yeah. Well, and it’s interesting, like they, uh, I assume it was the director had Tony Todd and Virginia Madsen take ballroom dance class together so that they would have like this kind of grace with one another and it shows it really does.

I mean, you can see their comfort in movement together. It’s very sensual. And, um, I also read that they ended up cutting quite a lot of it because in 1992, they were concerned about the repercussions of. The interracial relationship. That’s hard to believe which today seems so silly and offensive, frankly.

Um, but, uh, interesting for the time, but what we do get is graceful and I mean, it does feel. Gothic, uh, it feels like out of a different time, you know what I mean? Um, well, the score and I just really liked it. The score adds a bit of

Todd: a score. Right? We got to talk about the score. Phillip, Phillip freaking glass.

Craig: I know. Oh, my God, this score is amazing. Like I could listen to it all day. It’s fantastic. And,

Todd: and apparently he was, you know, Philip Glass is just, I mean, he did a ton of composing for films, of course, but he’s also just, he’s an very established composer and respected in his own, right. In the field of opera and classical music and stuff like that.

Uh, but this was a, I don’t know, he’d done a handful of scores, quite a few actually before this, apparently when he first scored this heat and he hadn’t read the final script, he had read the, the, the short story forbidden. So he thought he was doing the score for this story that kind of took place in England and was, seemed like kind of somewhat Gothic romantic to him.

And then he apparently, when he saw the movie, his first reaction was he was a bit appalled by. What he considered a very schlocky, low budget slash or Lasher, but it’s perfect for the movie. And the movie does have that Gothic flare to it. It’s it all works really, really well. And it probably wouldn’t work as well, you know, honestly.

Oh, no,

I

Craig: don’t think so at all. I mean, there are so many things like that. Like, so it happens. We talk about it all the time. It’s just when the right elements come together, like, and here, you know, if, if you didn’t have this score, if it were. An inferior score. I don’t think the movie would have worked nearly as well and other things too, like Virginia Mattson.

I like her. I’ve seen her in many things. She, I like her as an actress. Tony Todd. I’ve seen him in many things. I like him too, but they just work really well together in this movie, especially when you consider that this could have been Eddie Murphy and Sandra Bullock. Nah,

Todd: imagine Eddie. Oh my God. Yes. Oh my God.

Craig: He was concerned for this role. They deemed him too short and that’s why they went with Tony. Todd. The director said that had it not been Virginia Madsen, it probably would have been Sandra Bullock. Like what a different movie that would have been. And I seriously doubt we would be talking about it. I don’t know, we talk about all kinds of things.

Todd: Maybe not in such glowing terms. Let’s put it that way.

Craig: I mean, anyway, whatever kismet, fate, whatever it all came together and it does end up being a quality film. I think it, it does rise above your typical slasher, even though ultimately that’s what it is. It’s also really the only horror movie that I can think of.

The only horror slasher that I can think of that has a black antagonist. Um, now there may be some obscure movie that I have missed, uh, but when we’re talking mainstream movies, um, and it really Tony Todd’s career, he had been working before this. Um, but this really bumped, uh, his career, especially in the horror genre.

He he’s a staple in the horror genre now, but anyway, she does succumb and, um, she wakes up. And at some point in his layer, she has picked up a hook. Like there are a bunch of his hooks, like hanging on a chain or something. So she’s carrying that around and she hears the baby crying and she looks out the window and she realizes that it’s coming from this enormous pile of rubble that they have set up for a bonfire that the kid just says, Oh yeah, that’s for a party.

It was in the original source material. It was for guy Fox night, which I don’t know a whole lot about, but apparently bonfires are a tradition of here. It’s kind of out of place, but whatever, um, So she hears the crying coming from there. So she goes there, she starts climbing it. She finally hears where the baby is, so she starts descending into it.

And that’s when Jake sees her. And when he sees her descending into it, the last thing he sees is the hook. So he thinks that Candyman is in there, which he is. Um, but, uh, but she, that she and the baby are also in there. Um, and so all of the residents of kolibri green, um, gather around this pile of rubble and set it on fire.

Um, and as it turns out, it appears that Candyman had lied to Helen. He said that he would let the baby go if she succumbed, but it looks like that’s not going to be the case. The fire starts raging all around them. And she, um, grabs a burning piece of, you know, something sharp, a board or something and stabs Candyman, and he’s an agony and can’t get to her or whatever.

So she grabs the baby and starts crawling out. And, you know, it’s a great set piece. It’s a huge bonfire. I have no idea if it was real or not, but the, you know, tons of people of this neighborhood gathered around watching cheering, because they think that they’re finally burning up Candyman, but she comes crawling out with the baby.

She crawls right up to the baby’s mother. I don’t think that she hands the baby off. I think somebody takes it from her and gives it to the mother. But the mother obviously knows that Helen pulled her baby. Who’s been missing for months, which also doesn’t make any sense like that. Baby’s just been hanging out in candy man’s apartment next door to its apartment, and nobody found it there.

Okay. Whatever. Um, but, but Helen is terribly burned and dies, but we also see, and the residents of kolibri green, see that Candyman is burned up in there. And presumably dead. And the next thing we see is Helen still burned, but kind of made up a little bit in her coffin and the  at her funeral when they are lowering her into the ground.

And the only people there are her husband, his mistress, jeez, get some taste, people leave the mistress at home. And those smarmy professors that they had had dinner with, those are the only people there. But then in a big parade, all of the residents of kolibri green come marching in led by Ann Marie, the baby’s mother to pay their respects and Ann Marie hands, Jake, the kind of burnt up.

Hook candy man’s hook and he throws it in her grave. Um, and I think that that was like a tribute, like a thank you. Like you, you did this, you got rid of him for us and we’re here to pay our respects. And I really liked that moment and I suppose it could have ended there, but I also kind of like the,

Todd: yeah, the end cap is interesting.

Trevor, the husband is back at home with his. Student now they’re still living together, but she’s clearly pissed off because he’s still distraught about Helen. And, uh, he’s basically in the bathroom crying and he looks in the mirror and he ends up saying her name in his crying five times. Into the mirror and she shows up behind him, she’s got a great

Craig: line.

She had said it earlier, when she bust out of the hospital, once a man of Trevor scanned of something,

Todd: just really funny and, you know, Hear him being gutted. And then the, you know, there’s a little bit of voiceover and the camera is back in that urban chapel, if you will, to Candyman, but it’s been changed.

And it actually has, is now attribute to Helen just slowly kind of focuses in kind of pant and dollies in, on her face, on as it’s painted on the walls, just like, and it’s

Craig: angelic, it’s angelic like, like she’s floating, but also it’s, it’s, it’s like there are flames behind her. It’s actually quite beautiful.

I wish we had gotten a better look at it because we, we view it through the rolling credits. There are some breaks where we get to see it, but it looks really good. The other thing I liked about the end cap was that the student girlfriend had been making dinner. So when she finds him, she’s holding this great big, nice.

I liked the, I liked the implication that maybe she would be implicated in his murder. I thought that that was. It’s

Todd: fine. I mean, it’s so great because it plays right with this, this whole urban mythology in that and where these real life events can spawn these supernatural tales and these legends. And so, you know, you know that the legend is now, okay, you say Helen’s name five times in the mirror.

Right. You know, this incident happened and they say, this girl killed him, but really it was Helen who came back and, you know, so the legend goes on, but now Candyman has been completely defeated and he’s been replaced by her.

Craig: I know. And you know, what’s, what’s, it doesn’t bug me. It’s fine. But there are sequels, there are two sequels to this movie and Tony Todd reprises his role in both of them.

And that’s great. I want to see the hell and see, like, I want the CQL to be it’s Helen’s movie. Now. That would make sense. Yeah, it would make sense. Like in, um, in Hellraiser, the original hell raiser, it was intended that there was going to be a sequel and Julia. Was going to be the antagonist, pinhead was so popular that they just brought him back.

I don’t know. I don’t know if they plan to sequel or, or whatever, and it makes sense. They brought Tony Todd back. He did a great job. He’s great. You know, he has become, uh, an icon in horror and Candyman though. He doesn’t get at, I, I feel like he’s not as talked about. He really does have a place in the Pantheon of horror icons.

Um, so that’s all well and good, but it was a perfect setup for a hell and SQL. And I want to watch the shit out of that movie.

Todd: That’s the one you’ve seen this equals that. Right. Have you seen, I mean, is one of them a pre-qual or are they truly sequels to this? I

Craig: think they’re both SQLs, but I can’t really say because I know that I saw the second one. Um, I don’t, I don’t remember anything about it. I don’t remember if I saw the third one.

I don’t remember. I know

Todd: that I haven’t seen either of the sequels, but I’m really pretty excited about seeing what, you know, the hands of Jordan Peele are going to do with

Craig: this. Oh my gosh. What they can do with it now. And, and Jordan Peele is so good about being socially relevant and culturally relevant.

I feel like he can really do something great with this or. If he just wants to make a good slasher movie, that’s fine. He’s not under any, he’s not under any obligation to provide social commentary. I have a feeling that he will. Um, and yeah, I’m, I’m really excited about it too. It was supposed to already be out, but of course, pandemic.

So hopefully we’ll get it in August. We’ll see. And yeah. I insight and you know, there’s been a lot of talk. Is it a sequel? Is it a reboot? And as is often the case, they’re kind of keeping hush hush about it. Now, Tony Todd is tied to it somehow. So, uh,

Todd: apparently Virginia, Madison’s got a role in there too.

Craig: Oh, does she? Yeah,

Todd: maybe, maybe it will all be pumped and it’ll be the Helen sequel that we’ve been looking. I don’t know.

Craig: I mean, if I do hope that there is a tie, even if it is, you know, small, I would love to see both of those characters again, even if you know, Tony Todd’s Candyman is. Passing the torch to somebody else.

That’s fine. But I would love to see Tony Todd, I would love to see Virginia Madsen. I love Jordan Peele. I’m excited about it. I think it’ll be really good. It

Todd: should be, well, it was great talking about this movie. Like I said, I just couldn’t believe it. My recollection was not that it was so deep and sophisticated as it turned out being for a slasher movie, it was really impressive.

I really enjoyed it. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. Of course you can find us online just by Googling two guys and a chainsaw podcast. Find our Facebook page, our Twitter feed. And of course our website, you can leave us a comment at any one of those places.

Let us know what you thought of this film and give us some suggestions for any films that you’d like us to do coming up until that time. I’m Todd and

Craig: I’m Craig

Todd: with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Can’t get enough of Nicholas Cage going over-the-top crazy? Then belly up to this jet-black comedy that makes fun of those moments when parents just want to murder their kids. ‘Cause in this movie, they do.

Listen to this week’s episode to learn why we were not as thrilled with it as everyone else seemed to be. Maybe we’ll understand when we’re older?

Mom and Dad (2018)

Episode #254, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: I’m Craig.

Todd: All right. After a little bit of retro action that we’ve had those last a few weeks, we’re going a little more modern to 2018’s “Mom and Dad”. This was a straight out of the blue selection by Craig this week. It is directed by Brian Taylor and starring….

Craig: Uh, the ever so subtle….

Todd: Yeah. Nicholas Cage.

Very good. Very good. You thought I was going to say Selma Blair or something? Yeah, definitely a Nicholas Cage. So yeah, it was kind of Nick, Nick Cage, man. This guy’s in everything now. Is there a project? This man doesn’t take. He’s all over the map and all over the place. And honestly often is playing these characters.

This isn’t really the Nicholas Cage movie I wanted to do. I was really interested in that new one that seems like he’s in. Like a Chuck E. Cheese that’s gone crazy or something. And apparently doesn’t speak a word, but, uh, have you heard anything about that one? Well, what is that about? Uh,

Craig: uh, I’m not really sure.

I think I know about as much about it as you do. It’s like, uh, Possessed animatronics or something. I don’t know if they’re possessed or evil or malfunctioning or what, but yeah. Uh, I also recently, I, I also recently saw him in another movie, um, color out of space, which was based on, uh, uh, HP Lovecraft, um, story.

Uh, and it was. Pretty good. I liked that one. Really. I picked this one at the last minute we had something else planned and, uh, I couldn’t find it. And because we’re on opposite sides of the world, it’s not easy to immediately communicate. So I didn’t have time to talk to you about what we should do. And so, uh, I just went to Hulu to see what was on my to watch list and this was on my to watch list and it was also the leaving soon list. So I thought, well, let’s give it a go

Todd: the best, our best shot at it. And how do we feel about that choice? It’s I don’t know, man, people, people rag on Nicholas cage a lot. There are a lot of movies there, quite a few movies he’s been in that I’ve really liked. And I hadn’t really had a problem with his performances.

I hadn’t really cared. Yeah, he goes crazy. And a lot of them, whatever it’s Nicholas cage, but also maybe it was just because back in the days of the rock and that kind of thing, like, uh, he hadn’t done, you know, 20 rolls in a row that were almost like the same character. So it didn’t bother me as much, then it doesn’t really bother me now.

I don’t care. Um, Arnold Schwartzenegger is in a bunch of movies and he just plays a big muscular, tough guy, generally speaking. So, uh, I don’t really have this. These weird feelings about Nick cage, just like a little while ago, I was saying maybe it was on this podcast may was just a conversation over coffee that I don’t really have a problem with Keanu Reeves either.

You were good at playing a certain kind of role. Those are the roles you’re going to get. And, uh, generally speaking, Nick cage is really good at going crazy. So he might get those roles and this movie is kind of crazy. I don’t know. I never heard of this before. What did it play in the theaters or was this like a straight to streaming?

Craig: I, I don’t know. Uh, I think this movie got a theatrical release. I’m not really sure. It’s uh, yeah, it’s bizarre. I had heard of it. I, I don’t know if it was. Just, you know, perusing horror websites or what, but I had heard of it around the time that it came out and I’m not a huge NIC cage fan either. I don’t have, um, any problem with him.

A, you know, he is what he is. And I feel like, uh, especially these days, he’s really kind of embraced his unique acting style and he puts it on display in the films that he’s in and he gets work. Obviously there must be an audience for him. Um, he must have his fans. Uh, he’s a little bit over the top, kind of a kin in my.

Perspective to like Jim Carey, not really my cup of tea, but you know, I get it. They have their own particular acting style and that’s fine. I think that I was more interested in the movie because of Selma Blair. Um, I really liked Selma Blair. I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time. I think. The first time that I was introduced to her was, um, in cruel intentions, uh, which is such a schlocky movie in hindsight, but, and she played such a silly character in it.

Um, but I really enjoyed her in that. And she’s done a lot since then. She was in a John Waters movie with. Tracy Ullman, uh, that was crazy and off the wall. And I liked her in that. Um, and, and she’s done TV and other movies. I would say that. If this movie has anything going for it and it may have more than one thing going for it.

But I think that Selma Blair is the shining light of this movie. I just think that her, I don’t know, there’s something about her. She’s interesting. Um, she’s endearing, sadly, you know, um, in recent years she’s been diagnosed with Ms, which has really re yeah. And it’s really restricted. Did, um, what she’s been able to do as far as work is concerned, but as far as her life is concerned, she’s a fighter.

And, uh, she’s a spokesperson for Ms. And, uh, she’s, she’s living her life with support, you know, from her fans and from her friends like Sarah, Michelle Gellar, like Elizabeth Berkley from saved by the bell. It was actually Elizabeth Berkley who recommended that. Uh, she go get checked out. Elizabeth Berkeley’s brother apparently is the doctor.

And, uh, she referred Selma to her brother and it was, uh, he, that, um, diagnosed her with Ms. And, um, when she was finally diagnosed, she was relieved more than anything. Because she had been struggling with symptoms for so long. Um, she said that she estimates that she had probably been dealing with symptoms of Ms for 15 years before, uh, she was actually diagnosed.

Um, so, you know, it’s a struggle that she faces as you many people around the world, Ms. Is, is a terrible debilitating disease, but she’s a tough broad, and, uh, I like her you’re right.

Todd: She was definitely the shining star in this movie. Brian Taylor is the writer director of this. Uh, he tends to do more high concept films.

I think he did crank, which was one of Jason’s datums earlier films, which is a, again, another high concept movie of this guy who has to keep adrenaline going in his blood or he’ll die. Cause he gets injected with this thing. And this movie is kind of like that, uh, in that it’s, it’s, it’s a high concept idea and it is so simple.

It’s basically one day for, for reasons we never. Never understand or know all the parents in the world decide they need to kill their kids,

Craig: their kids. It’s really, it’s a really interesting concept and you’re right. That we never know what is going on. It seems like somehow there’s some sort of signal through televisions or something like through static and television.

That seems to be the trigger, but it happens to different people at different times. Um, and, and we never know the root cause of it, but I think that the concept of eventually, you know, like the news stations. Try to explain it. They, they say, you know, consider parental instinct and how your parental instinct is to protect your kids at all costs.

But what if somehow that instinct could be reversed? And I feel like that’s a really interesting concept, but I just felt like ultimately it just didn’t play out like. Well, I have to say upfront as much as I was looking forward to watching this movie, I walked away from it more than disappointed, actually a little bit pissed off.

Todd: Yeah. Similarly, and this movie gets really great critical acclaim. I mean the rotten tomatoes score is high and all that, and they were saying, wow, it just, I didn’t find it that deep. I felt like it’s just like, it’s like a joke, you know, it’s like a, it’s like a J one punchline movie that just extends for an hour and a half.

And I found it kind of boring after a while, honestly, because it didn’t really have anything beyond that to say, you know, you watch a movie like the purge, for example, maybe that’s somewhat close to this in a, in a way, you know, where just suddenly society’s kind of gone wrong and society’s kind of, you know, but, but, but that, that film.

The concept has a lot to unpack this notion that, you know, we, we, we have one night, a year to kind of, uh, deal with our violence so that we can’t be, you know, we’re not violent anymore. And, uh, all of that, I mean, there’s a lot behind that. There’s, there would have to be a history to that. There’s sort of political ramifications.

There’s a lot to say. This is just sort of the idea that, you know, We love our kids. I’m speaking as a father now, unconditionally, we’re supposed to anyway, we generally do, unless there’s something majorly wrong with us, but we don’t always like them. You know, they, they, and I, you know, and even if you’re not a parent, you were a kid once.

And you remember how you treated your parents and what a douchebag you could be at times, and, or it’s coincidental that I’m watching this movie this moment because my son just turned four and he up until about six months ago was the most compliant. Sweet. Just generally smart and kind of like insightful little, little kid.

And, uh, we would go to play dates and, uh, he would be the one who, you know, some kid was hitting or punching or kicking him or whatever. He would just kind of look in amazement, like what’s going on? Why are you doing that? And I was really always proud of that. I heard about the terrible twos and we get through the terrible twos and almost the terrible three supposedly.

And there’s nothing, but now here we are at four and he’s become that kid now. Uh, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about being a parent, it’s that there’s never any like Stacey Russ, it’s always like, just when you get into this routine, just when you think everything’s sort of settled and, uh, you’ve, you’re starting to learn about your child’s personality and everything’s kind of congealing and, and into something routine, it changes.

I think it’s just the nature of child development, you know, went through all of us and it’s something that we all put our parents through. And, you know, it’s tough to deal with as a parent, it just is tough to deal with, and it makes you feel guilty because you just want to wring their necks sometimes, you know, like big, you know, so this movie just takes that notion and make some, makes a movie out of it.

But. But the problem is that’s it like, okay, like this is a normal part of Parenthood, normal part of the way we are. There’s nothing more to say about it. So once that was sort of established, here’s the idea, it just became a bunch of kids running away from their parents who were trying to kill him.

Right. It didn’t have anything more to say, now don’t get me wrong. It leaves lots of room for black comedy and dark humor and kind of poking fun at this notion that ah, you know, Well, so we could have really kill our kids sometimes. And, but this movie does what horror does. You know, horror is generally not subtle as a genre.

It really kind of rebels in taking something and, um, Making it extreme and playing that out in front of us. So that’s what it does. So this isn’t a subtle psychological study of the, uh, bond between parents and children and what that means as they develop and grow older and how the end of the toll that it takes on them.

It’s a horror movie that just says, Oh, one day. Parents decide they’ve had enough for some reason. And, uh, all of their psychological frustrations on their kids get taken out in the most extreme ways. And that the very matter of faculty, they decide they need to kill them. And like you said, not anybody else’s kids just.

Their own. Right. So I found it boring after a while. Honestly, I was kind of ready for the movie to be over after about an hour.

Craig: Yeah. See, I think that the, my problem with it is more on me because I had expectations for where I thought it was surely going to go. And when it didn’t go there, I, it irritated me.

Um, I, and, and I think that maybe it’s because I’m not. Used to these type of movies. I think that they are going for a modern Grindhouse kind of feel. Um, and I, and it’s, it’s very nihilistic. Like it opens up. The very first thing we see is a mother with. Uh, uh, baby little tiny kid in the backseat of the car, in a car seat.

And she gets out of the car and walks away and we realized that she’s left the car on the train tracks and the train just smashes this car. And that’s the first thing we see after that. Then there’s this really interesting seventies style Grindhouse style opening credits, which had me excited

Todd: me too retro.

It was just. Charming and fun. And I thought, okay, this is what we’re going to get. And then. W we didn’t get that, like, like the movie has a very modern style to it. I thought

Craig: a very modernist aesthetic. Yeah.

Todd: That was so disappointing,

Craig: which is strange because it does end up being pretty nihilistic. I mean, it it’s, it’s the story of this family.

We’ve already mentioned the parents, Nick cage plays Brent. He’s the dad, some of Blair plays Kendall. She’s the mom. Um, there’s a teenage daughter. Carly played by Anne winters and a son who I guess was supposed to be probably like seven, I guess. I don’t know. Um, I felt like they had him playing a little bit younger than he looked, but whatever.

Um, his name is, uh, Josh played by a kid named Zach Arthur. I don’t know anything about any of these people except, um, the two

Todd: leads, but they’re all well accomplished. I mean their own lot of stuff. It’s acting movies. TV, they’re all over there somewhere. I know, just not instantly recognizable

Craig: and, and it just establishes them as a family in the beginning.

And, you know, at this point they’re very typical. You know, the son is still very young and sweet and cute and running around in his little pajamas. Meanwhile, the teenager. Is a teenager like, um, you were talking about, you know, your four year old and all of a sudden he’s somebody that, you know, you don’t recognize from six months ago or whatever, but that, I think that happens to virtually every parent, when their kids become teenagers, I was horrible as a T like, I wasn’t super rebellious as a teenager, but I was a smart ass.

And I thought I knew everything and I thought I knew better than my parents. And I was constant. I was constantly in conflict and fighting with my parents and my parents were great parents. I was the one that was being a Dick, but at the time I didn’t realize it. And you feel like, you know, people go through that as teenagers and I’m sure that’s really hard on parents and it does seem to be particularly hard on Kendall.

The mom. Driving the teenage daughter to school, she’s trying to connect with her. She’s trying to talk with, to her, you know, why don’t you talk to me anymore, part of a family, Carly. And that means that you love each other, even when you can’t stand each other and that you give a shit, even when you don’t really give a shit.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It’s just for me, you and Josh are everything. So you don’t get to just shut me out. It’s not fair. It’s not my fault. You have no life.

I would have said that to my dad. And then we would have. Had a horrible, shouting match. Nothing in my life was better for my relationship with my parents than when I moved out. Um, and I moved out fall semester college. I immediately moved out of the house. Never went back. I don’t think I’ve spent a night at my parents’ house.

Um, since that time and I was ready to go, my parents were ready for me to go.

And our relationship improved 10 fold. Like we get along great now. And even then, you know, immediately, as soon as I was out of the house we got on. Great. But I understand how this mother, you know, she’s sad and I, I can imagine. I don’t know. And we’ll never know because I don’t have kids, but I can only imagine how sad that is.

Um, on the other hand, and this is something that I kind of had a problem with in the movie was Nick cage as a Brent, there’s an after this whole scene in the car with the mother and daughter, then there’s a scene where the kid is lying on the couch and it’s a very. Ominous shot of Brent approaching Josh.

It looks like he’s going to attack him, which I mean, I guess kind of he does, but it’s a tickle fight, but then right after that, he, the dad’s getting ready to leave for work. And, uh, Josh throws like a Nerf ball or something. Adam and it hits him in the head and it looks like he’s almost ready to snap and, and rip this kid’s head off then.

And this is well before the sickness has impacted him. So, and throughout the movie, I got the sense that the dad is bat shit crazy Loco

Todd: from the beginning.

Yeah. Well, The thing is, I felt like you’re right. And that was a problem because it just kind of clouds everything. You’re not quite sure it doesn’t seem consistent with what the movie is trying to be, where it’s supposed to be horrifying that these otherwise relatively normal loving families. Have these issues, but then again, dad is going through clearly some sort of midlife crisis.

And I think that’s, what’s maybe in between that clouds things a little bit, because he gets these little flashbacks, like he goes to his car and he just looks inside the car as he’s about to step into it. And he has this, what is it? A Firebird it’s like a classic car. Trans-Am and there’s a whole story behind it that we hear later where he tr he crashed it with his father, made him pay to have it repaired.

Now he owns it, blah, blah, blah. But, um, there’s this quick flashback to him as a young kid, you know, running around, doing donuts in this car with his half naked girlfriend sitting in his lap and kind of having the time of his life. A little over the top, you know, but, uh, I mean, I guess it gets the point across that he had Wilder days and they’re done, and he has this reminder of the Wilder days and he regrets the fact that he doesn’t have those wild days anymore.

And now he’s just got two bratty kids. I mean, I felt like maybe there was a little bit of that that was supposed to be coming out here. It’s just dads going through midlife crisis. Not necessarily going crazy, but you’re right. Like the movie plays with it enough. You know, what makes a tickle fight seem sinister.

And then that seems like a joke, right? It’s just a tickle fight. But then when he throws a Nerf ball at him, that’s not a joke. Right. And so I’m not sure if we’re supposed to read that as this is sort of a crazy guy, or this is a guy who, you know, I mean, just cause he had, uh, your, your playing around with your son doesn’t mean your son has permission to whack you over the back of the head or if it’s this.

Guys going through this midlife crisis, he’s having these issues. And so he, his emotions are kind of conflicted or is that the early onset of whatever is affecting all these parents is sort of slowly creeping in. And you know, it’s not just a sudden switch, that’s flipped in their heads, but it’s something that kind of creeps in.

And that, that was just a foreshadowing of that. I’m really not sure what to make of that scene, but yeah, I mean, the scene was. Obvious and intentional and very dramatic. So, uh, I mean, what, what it did more than anything else, it’s just really set up attention. Like something’s weird here. Like something’s going to be going on.

Yeah.

Craig: I wanted to believe that it was that, you know, whatever this was that was happening to these parents, that it was slowly setting in with Nick cage. But ultimately, I don’t think that that’s the case because it seems like everybody else

Todd: he’s late to turn. Right. He’s late to turn he

Craig: is, but everybody else who turns right.

Um, it’s, it’s

Todd: immediate, but, but do we see that though? I mean, we see, yes, we see the immediate turn in the others and we just see that they’ve turned,

Craig: we see the immediate turn it’s in my favorite scene, which comes later. But like, I feel like everything that happens up until that part is kind of just boring.

Todd: Like, yeah. It’s just setting up kids at school here. All the friends here are the relationships. She’s got a boyfriend, blah, blah, blah.

Craig: Right. And, and like, the teacher gives this big lecture about planned obsolescence, about how like technology manufacturers intentionally keep putting out new things so that the old things will become obsolete.

And I thought that that was going to be like significant, but if it was and went right over my head, they spent so much time on it. Yeah. It was weird.

Todd: I wasn’t sure about that either, but I’m trying to think about it now. Like, does that mean, are they talking about like, like, like kids and adults, like grow older and so then you kind of become obsolete and.

Uh, uh, I don’t know. I don’t either in the eyes of the younger generation or

Craig: right. I don’t know either. We, I mean, we do start to see some ominous things. It’s like a zombie movie where you kind of start seeing things in the background that should suggest you because we know we’re watching a horror movie.

We know what to watch for, but like kids are being called out of class at the daughter’s school. Cops are showing up. Their, um, parents are like ominously waiting right outside the door of the PSA T where Carly’s boyfriend is, is taking the PSA. But when he goes out, nobody bothered there’s him. You know, because it’s not his parents, they’re just waiting for their kids to come out.

The daughter gets her phone confiscated, which again, I thought it was going to be significant, but really wasn’t like, I thought, Oh, ha, they’re setting this up. So she can’t doesn’t have her phone. But like it never even, yeah. Is an issue. And then they evacuate that an alarm goes off. The whole high school starts evacuating.

These parents are waiting on the other side of offense. Um, and they’re beckoning their kids to the fence, but most of the kids aren’t going, but one kid finally does run to his mom and tries to jump the fence. And the cops and the teacher tried to pull him back, but the parents get them over and the moms stabs him to death with her car keys.

And at that point, the parents breach the fence. And this is probably the most fun sequence. There’s tons of chaos. As all of these parents are chasing all of these kids, but, and they’re chasing them through the parking lot and across the football field and like these great big fat middle-aged dads are like,  their kids.

And, um, it, it was a fun scene. It doesn’t go on for very long. Carly and her female friend see parents like running towards them and they cower in fear, but the parents just run by. So I feel like it’s at that point that they realize, and we should have at this point have already realized that they’re, the parents are only going after.

Their own kids. And I really liked that part. Like I, so I’m stretching for things to say because it’s like things keep happening, but. Nothing is particularly significant. Like Damon gets attacked, but th that’s the boyfriend gets attacked by his dad and his dad ends up falling on the bow. He breaks a bottle to attack his son with and he ends up falling on it on his neck.

Can we talk

Todd: about this for a second too? There’s some kind of problematic things in here. I thought the thing that day. Okay. The one child of color. In this movie is the one whose dad is clearly like an alcoholic and an abuser and abuser and, and it’s, and, you know, it’s kind of made to be like the way that he is now with this affliction.

Isn’t too far off from the way he is pretty much every day, you know, just one step away from murdering his son. And I thought, Oh, come on. Really? You know, and then the family has a housekeeper who’s Chinese who has a daughter and. I don’t know, man, I’m sorry. Maybe also, because I live in China and it wasn’t even right.

The way she was speaking with her. Chinglish like, it was a complete caricature of a. Chinese made or whatever housekeeper in, you can barely speak English in the, his house. And it was supposed to be kind of funny, but I thought it was cringy the way that she talked and the stuff that she said. I don’t know, man.

There was some that was weird too. It was supposed to be funny, I think, but I didn’t find it funny. A little racist.

Craig: Yeah. I get what you’re saying. It’s not as though, um, non-American housekeepers don’t exist, right?

Like

Todd: what they do and they don’t believe it. Perfect English and all that, but, but there’s a difference between the way it kind of really is.

And the way that like a cartoon character version of that would be, and I felt like she was closer to that. And when

Craig: you’re. Presentation of minority characters play into those stereotypes. Yeah. Yeah. It’s I agree with you. It’s it’s a little, uh huh. But Oh God, the mom, uh, Kendall has a flashback where like she wanted to go back to her old job after the kids were a little bit older, but the boss treats her as though, you know, like she’s useless.

Because she’s been out of the field for so long and she cries in her car, but then she gets a call from her sister and we knew that she was waiting for this call because her sister was going to be going into labor and she gets this call and it’s obvious that it is the call. And as soon as I realized that we were going to be seeing a delivery scene, I thought, Oh man, Oh, this is going to be bad right before she gets there.

The teenage girls like smoke some weed and then see news footage of parents killing their kids and Dr. Oz cameos, um, explaining, explaining savaging, which is apparently a phenomenon in nature where animals killed their kids. I don’t know. Uh, Carly’s friend. Gets murdered by her mother, which Carly sees and screams and runaway runs away.

And then, okay. So I previewed it. 10 minutes ago, but finally getting there. My favorite scene, Kendall is in the hospital with her little sister who is giving birth after she gives birth, she holds the baby and she’s like loving on the baby. And then all of a sudden on a TV screen in the delivery, every room, the static screen comes on and everybody notices it.

And I have to say that one of my favorite things about this movie was, um, The soundtrack. I thought they made excellent use of music, and this was my favorite. Part, yes, this new mother, this new mother is holding her baby and they see the static screen. And all of a sudden you hear ding, ding, ding, and it is rock sets.

It must have been love.

Oh, I thought it was so funny. Cause the words of the song are, it must have been love. Oh, nah,

Todd: it was

Craig: brand new and the new mother starts trying to squeeze the daughter to death and Kendall freaks out. Starts trying to tear the baby away. And, um, the new mom is like trying to grab a scalpel off the medical tray next to her is trying to stab the baby. They eventually get the baby away from her and I think they have to knock her out or something.

Um, but that scene was really tense.

Todd: It really was.

Craig: And I just thought the movie was. Or the music was gold. Like I was just laughing out loud and I’m like, this is so good. Uh, that was my favorite part of the movie.

Todd: Yeah. It’s one of those eerie juxtapositions, right? Where you have this kind of music, that’s kind of supposed to evoke something different from what you’re seeing on the screen, but also kind of fits.

And then that’s followed up by, you know, a shot of all of these expect and fathers and mothers, whatever, just. Standing outside the nursery staring in the window, like very patiently staring in the window, like waiting, like, like just get that baby into my hands, you know? And it was so creepy. So it had these really cool creepy moments.

Right. And this really eerie stuff and a lot of mystery to like, what’s going on, what’s with the static. Why are these parents turning like, what is causing this to happen? But then. I don’t think the movie’s really interested in the reason. No. Like I said, at that point, I mean, all of the exploration is kind of done.

Right? And so all we get is parents chasing after kids and kids trying to defend themselves and that culminates and Josh and Carly holding themselves up in the basement, trying to get away from mom and dad when mom and dad. Finally turn. And it seems to me like Kendall turns a little bit later than everybody else.

And I wondered if that was significant

Craig: in some way. We’ll see. I don’t know because you know, she, the interesting thing about it is they, the movie seems to suggest that that static on the TV is what triggers the change. However, they only then. Seem to be triggered at the sight of their children. So like, I assume that Kendall was, you know, she was exposed to that signal at some point during the day.

But for some reason, it’s, you know, even after that, she’s concerned about her kids, she wants to get to her kids and she hears on the radio. Somebody saying, whatever you do, stay away from your kids because. It seems like until they see their kids, everybody’s normal. And then they see their kids and they freak out and they kill them.

And then they’re basically still normal, except they’re remorseless about what they have done. They interview a guy on TV. Intellectually, I should feel devastated. This should be the most awful thing that can happen to anybody. I get that, please. Just,

I’m trying to sum it up. Some crocodile tears for you, just so you don’t think I’m a monster.

Do you think it’s good? What’s happening? Absolutely not. I think it’s horrible with time. But for you, it was exactly

Todd: right. It had to be done. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig: It’s, it’s really kind of bizarre. And we get like all of these. Um, and they do, you know, uh, Damon and Carly get back to the house and where they find the housekeeper who has killed her own daughter, who was there helping.

And she’s just, you know, cleaning up as though nothing is weird, but then the dad does get home and he has a really super angry conversation with the boyfriend before he even sees his kids, which again, makes him seem like he’s unhinged. Already, but then when he sees the kids, he immediately tries to attack and he brutally knocks Damon out on the floor and chases the kids and the kids go down to the basement when we get a flashback and we keep having these flashbacks that I feel like are supposed to establish something, but I don’t really get what, like.

It says three weeks ago. And we see that the dad is building a pool table and then Kendall comes down, the wife comes down and fights with him about it. Like we can’t afford this or whatever. And it, you know, it does seem like he’s having a midlife crisis. Like he’s building a man cave or whatever, but he’s not.

That’s like she chastises him mildly for doing this without consulting her in for spending money when they can’t really afford it. So he picks up a sledgehammer and destroys. Like it’s a big scene of him destroying this pool table that he had just put together while singing some kid’s song. What does he sing?

Like? The hokey pokey or smell super crazy. And then they, and then they sit down and the dad, Nick cage has this whole monologue where he’s just crazy feeling, sorry for himself about, you know, how he used to be Brant, you know? And he was super cool. And . And the wife sits down and very calmly is like, look, I get it.

There’s this bigger thing all your life, you know, it’s coming. And there’s this mix of anxiety and excitement and terror because you know that one day inevitably you’ll create this. Hugeness of it, the importance of it, everything is building to that moment and then it happens. And no matter what you thought it would be.

It’s not like, I know this is the way things are supposed to be. I know we’re doing it right. It’s just hard to get my head around, you know? I mean, I used to be branch and you used to be Kendall now. We’re just mom and dad. Yeah. And I felt like that was supposed to be a really significant part of the movie.

And I. I get it. I understand the message. It’s true. You know, we all grow up. I was wild and fun to one. Now I’m in bed by 10 o’clock every night. Like I used to be wild, fun. Crazy party guy. And now I’m just Mr. Higgins, you know, like I get it, but get over

Todd: it. Right. And so it’s not super sympathetic. I mean, you understand it, but at the same time, like parent or not, this is what happens, right.

I mean, you know, it’s not really about being a parent that that happens to you. It’s just part of growing up. So it’s, it’s not quite. There, you know, she, I think what I think what she actually says is she, when she’s talking about the kids, she says, you, no matter how you think they will end up, it’s not like that.

So she’s kind of saying, you know, you have this vision for your children. It’s probably very positive. You, you know how you’re going to have a relationship with them, how they’re going to grow power, they’re going to turn out and then. It’s just not ever that way for anybody, you know, and that’s depressing that that’s a different point, right?

From the midlife crisis point of, I used to be wild and crazy and have my own identity. And now I feel like a completely different person blaming the kids for that. Uh, I don’t know, you know,

Craig: like it’s yeah. I was going to say like, I feel like I understand it conceptually, but it’s naive. Like, no, your kids aren’t going to be exactly who you expect them to be.

They are people, you know, they are individuals and they’re going to make their own choices and they’re going to be their own person and they’re going to screw up and they’re going to do things that you don’t agree with. Like. You should know that going in. Right. Well, and you all, like you said before, we were all kids once, you know, like, yeah, geez.

Todd: Well, and you and your kids didn’t make you lame your job. Did your, uh, growing up being an adult did, it’s just natural part of life as you grow up and you don’t do those wild, crazy most of us anyway, do we don’t do those wild, crazy things anymore because we have responsibilities now because nobody’s taking care of us.

So you have to take care of ourselves. And that sometimes involves, uh, you know, a lot of work and, and a lot of struggle. And then, you know, you don’t have time for running around and driving around in cars with half naked chicks on your lap. And so like, there’s it doesn’t connect. I don’t think it’s a complete

Craig: point.

And the mom’s response is a little bit more sympathetic, but the dads it’s, it’s like the more I talk about it, the more it irritates me, like when you grow up your priorities change and they should, and he is like that loser at the bar. Who’s just constantly thinking back on his high school glory days, like grow up like

Todd: w and it’s.

It’s not your kid’s fault, right? It’s not the, it’s not becoming a dad that made you this way. You know, maybe to a certain extent, the kids are just more responsibility. So they’re more things, quote, unquote, dragging you down, but also wait a few more years and your daughter’s going to be out of the house.

And it’s like, I mean, and you’re in a, you got a nice job and you’ve got to like a clearly like established neighborhood and everything’s internal, everything’s personal for him. But it’s all inward. And so I’m really kind of failing to see the point that the movies making, I mean, on the surface, when you hear this conversation, it kind of seems to make sense, but when you really think about it, it doesn’t.

Craig: Yeah. And you’re kind of shitty people and you’re kind of shitty parents, if that’s the way that you feel

and that, you know, everybody, you know, I can only imagine that parents have rough. Days and, and difficult times, and everybody does. And I get that, but it just seems like he, especially, I do get the sense that Kendall is sad and disappointed that she doesn’t have the relationship that she would like to have with her daughter.

And I get that, but the, and maybe it’s just Nick Cage’s performance, but his he’s just, he’s only focused on him. It’s like, he feels so sorry for himself. And. I don’t feel sorry for you. Like you’re just a douche bag.

Todd: Here’s the other thing, too, when you get mad at your kids or when I do it to this level where you just like, want to, like, not literally, but you just feel like you want to strangle them or you want to shake some sense into them.

It’s usually because of an immediate thing, like they are completely tearing into your day or you are super tired and now they’re being an asshole and it just is irritating. Right. These kids are, they’re just normal teenagers and they’re not causing major strife in the household. You could say the, probably most of these kids at this school are not coming home and acting like four or five year olds, or they’re fine.

One second and crazy the next. And you’re irritated at them. You’re mad at them and you just want to strangle them. It’s just not that way. So. No, I get it. I realize the movie’s trying to be kind of a Twilight zone. What if type thing? And it’s trying to make this point. It’s just a hard thing for me to get behind and, and, and really care about it.

It’s like sort of like too high concept maybe is what is what I’m saying. It it’s incomplete. It doesn’t really work for me the way it was presented in the movie.

Craig: The more that we talk about it, the more that I realized that that’s kind of what my big problem with it was because I didn’t really care the way that I wanted it to turn out is I wanted.

I wanted their parental instincts to somehow overcome whatever this was. And, and I just expected. That in the end, you know, I thought, well, maybe Nick cage will die because he’s an asshole, but you know, Kendall seems nice. You know, she can overcome this something,

Todd: we’ll talk her out of it. Right. Somehow.

Yeah. Something will snap her out

Craig: of it. But what does happen? And as Kendall gets home and she immediately switches to. And so both the parents now are going after the kids and, you know, Kendall tries to trick them by pretending to be nice. They’re locked in the basement and she tries to coax them out.

The, the kids won’t come out. And so then, uh, Nick cage releases a tie, right? Tirade of mother efforts. That’s it like, he’s good at it. Eight times in a row. So silly. And so then. The parents tried to get in and they try to solve their way in the, the son has a gun, uh, where there’s a flashback where we see him playing with a gun, which is terrifying to me that that just made my blood run cold, but they shoot and I think Kendall gets shot, but she’s.

Fine. Um, when they can’t get them out, even though the hinges are on their side of the door, I could have easily just take

Todd: it, figure that out myself

Craig: when they can’t get them out, then they decide that they’re going to run a garden hose. Um, from the gas line in the kitchen, into a basement window and gas them up, that

Todd: was, you know, all of this was so weirdly elaborate. Right? I mean, come on. Like he had his saws all just saw through the door. It just like you did, once you realized that, you know, you thought the kids were gassed enough, which is what they do, except the daughter is kind of smart and she finds this place that she can kind of, that they could maybe hide and crawl out of the basement through the wall or something.

And so then she gets some matches and the match thing. And does this sort of MacGyver type thing where she tapes the matches on the door. So that. When the door opens, it’s going to create a spark. That’s going to ignite the gas or whatever, but they’ll be safe because they’re already gone and it does a Nick cage gets blown away.

The

Craig: mom is totally okay. The dad is. Uh, burned but alive the kids, I don’t know if they were trying to get away or whatever, but they’re in the house now. And the mom sees them and chases them and there’s, you know, like a flashback to nice times between mom and daughter. And then the mom gets in and is like fighting and biting at the daughter.

And the boyfriend is somehow now magically awake and he’s helping out. And I don’t know. I think I usually watch these movies stone cold sober during the day, but because it was so last minute, um, I had to, uh, convince Alan to watch it with me. And one of the only ways that I was able to do that was like, well, we can have a couple drinks.

Todd: So,

Craig: so at this point, I think I might’ve been a little drunk, so I’m a little fuzzy.

Todd: Well, it’s all it was is just a bunch of fighting. I mean, It was well done, I guess it was, seemed very brutal the way it was filmed, lots of close-ups and flashes and sped up things. And, and, uh, again, it kind of committed that sin, sometimes aware things are cuts are so rapid. You don’t really have a sense of what’s happening, but like you said, the sound design was really good and it made everything.

Very visceral and raw and that bit I did like, I mean, I thought the cinematography and stuff was nice. The problem is like, like you said, they were going for this Grindhouse thing, which, which isn’t generally known for it. It just had still as stylized as it was. And as brutal as it was, it was still very modern aesthetic.

And that was a little disappointing because I felt like they were. From the beginning credits and from the theme of the movie and where it ended up, I felt like they were trying for something more retro, but it didn’t play that way. So it wasn’t even interesting in that way. For me, I was just ready for it to be over, but just okay.

Just who wins, who wins, fight, fight your parents. And I almost fast forward through all this. It wasn’t that great.

Craig: Wait there, I mean, there is some good brutality, like the mom. Um, stabs Damon, the boyfriend through the cheek with the coat hanger. Yeah, that looks kind of cool. And then she pushes him over the stair railing where he falls flat on the, you know, like tile floor below.

And I thought he was surely dead, but he’s not like how he should have been dead several times,

but my, okay. So my second favorite part, they had casually mentioned in the very beginning that the grandparents were coming over later. And so just as the parents are about to like, get the kids, the doorbell rings and they’re like, Oh, it’s grandma and grandpa. And I saw this coming too. And I was so excited.

Um, the dad went to the door to, and was like, mom and dad. It’s really not a good time or something. And his mom pepper sprays him and his. Dad played by Lance Hendrix. Yes.

Stabs him and Josh, the little boy begs the grandpa not to hurt the dad and the grandpa’s like, he still loves the grandson. Like he’s like, Oh, Sunday, don’t worry or whatever. Um, but then it’s a hilarious cat and mouse thing where. Nicholas cage is chasing his son and then his dad is chasing him. Oh my God.

Money. And they end up in the Trans-Am and like each father is trying to kill their son. Um, Kendall is fighting with her mother-in-law who, this was hilarious too, because it turns out that the mother-in-law just hates Kendall anymore. She’s it’s not because it’s her daughter. It’s just because she hates her and she’s a bitch.

And so they’re fighting the Trans-Am somehow gets started and. Bursts out of the garage and ends up hitting the mother-in-law. And I liked when the grandpa’s is, is fighting with the dad and he’s like, I fought in Wars, whatever.

Yeah. The grandma gets taken out by the Trans-Am Damon knocks out. I don’t remember what happens to the grandma or grandpa. Um, Damon knocks out Kendall. With a shovel. And then the next thing we see are they have mom and dad, um, Kendall and Brent, both tied up in the basement and they’re trying to like pretend to be nice and talking about how much they love them.

And then Nick cage says, we love you, but sometimes we just want to, and then it cuts to black and that’s the end. And I was so pissed off. Like there’s no resolution. It all.

Todd: Yeah, no worries. No explanation. I could have done with the no explanation, but no resolution was kind of, I guess God, I thought this movie would have been a good black mirror episode.

Could have been interesting. Shorter form. Well, those aren’t that short, I guess, but they’re about an hour. Yeah. This, this movie just got boring real fast for me. And I didn’t feel like it really went anywhere. It made its little point. It wasn’t even that coherent of a point and a, that fully formed, I should say of a point.

And then, uh, it was just watching them all fight for a while and, and run away from each other. And then again, that it was well done in that respect. You know, I mean, it was, well, it was exciting fight scenes and stuff, but even sort of like watching transformers, you know, you watch enough of this. If the fighting goes on for too long with basically no break, it does get boring.

And I did get to that point. And then it just seemed like a, you know, a kind of a vehicle for a bunch of these little silly jokes. And, uh, and that was fine. At least there were jokes, but. Oh, I don’t know. It’s disappointing was

Craig: disappointing. Especially I had been looking forward to watching it for a long time.

It had been on my list for a long time. Alan’s in here. He just gave it two big thumbs down in case you were

Todd: well he’s among the minority. Apparently. My goodness. I know because

Craig: yeah, it’s got a, it’s got a decent, um, rotten tomatoes score. I just, I don’t get it. Like it, it didn’t work for me at all. I ultimately, I was kind of disappointed that I felt bad for making out and watch it. I kind of felt bad for making you watch it.

I think I texted you and I was like, dude, it’s, it’s pretty lame. Sorry.

Todd: I’ll never forgive you.

Craig: Whatever it is what it is. And there are people out there who like it and it’s, so if you’re, if you’re one of those people, shoot us a message or comment on our Facebook posts and let us know what we’re missing, because I feel like I’m missing something aside from Selma Blair, who I really did think did it.

I thought she did a really good job. I liked she,

Todd: dear performance was very nuanced.

Craig: Yeah, I really liked her beyond that. I just, there was that, that’s it? I mean, there was nothing else for me to really like, except

Todd: for the music, honestly, it was the nuance of her performance that made me really hold out hope that she was going to turn back.

Like you said earlier, like she was going to come to some realization or something was going to snap back. And it was really curious to see what that would be. I

Craig: thought maybe she would have to turn on the huddle. Spend to protect the kids, which could have been interesting. I don’t know. Maybe it’s my desire for things to be tied up in it.

Nice way that is impacting my overall view of it. And you know, that’s not really fair. Filmmakers are under no, you know, they’re, they’re not required to meet my expectations every time in term of, in, in terms of storytelling, but, uh, it just didn’t work for me, but

Todd: the, the, the lack of resolution kind of.

Makes the point incomplete, right? Like what’s the movie trying to say, like, I feel like only some kind of resolution here would have clarified that instead what the movie is saying is, Hey, you know, sometimes parents hate their kids. That’s it that’s it. So, anyway, well, it was interesting to chat about it.

Nonetheless. Thank you,

Craig: Greg. Yeah, there’s something that I can grab onto to say, well, if you like this, if you like this, I don’t know. I, I mean, I guess if you really, really like some of layer or you really, really like Nick cage, I mean, if you’re a Nick cage fan, like you’re going to get Nick cage and all his glory.

So I guess there’s that, but I’m not a huge, I mean, I think he’s,

Todd: I know that he said this was at the time anyway. His favorite role in 10 years?

Craig: Yes. Well then like Clinton Tarantino loves. This movie there’s a lot of people do again. Seriously fill us in, what are we saying? But yeah, that’s, that’s it. I I’m I’m I’m spinning me too.

Todd: Well, thank you for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can just search us online, two guys and a chainsaw, and you can find our Facebook page or Twitter feed and our website. You can leave us a message at any one of those places and they give us some feedback.

Till then, let us know what we’re missing about this movie, and also, uh, suggest some other movies for us to do in the future until then. I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Ahhhh…just what we were looking for as spring hits: A movie about Fall Break. Whatever that is, it’s the sunny original title of the forgettable-but-memorable 80’s slasher “The Mutilator” that everyone has already forgotten about. You love those “so bad it’s good” movies? Look no further. We got exactly what we were looking for with this one, with a catchy theme song thrown in. Some films just go the extra mile.

The Mutilator, a.k.a. Fall Break (1984)

Episode #253, 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: Today’s request is a long standing request. Actually it comes to us from long-standing listener, Dave, and it is 1984’s The Mutilator. The Mutilator is a sinister, sinister title. I passed by this on the video store shelves when I was a kid, it did catch my eye. Got a hook in the foreground and big hook being held by a hand, dripping with blood and some really scared teenagers in the background behind it. Nevertheless, I never picked it up. I never watched it until this very night. I don’t know. It’s just something about it.

Uh, we were in the mood for an 80 slasher. This is 1984 and, uh, was going through the request list. This popped up and it happens to be available on Amazon prime. And Craig said, Oh yeah, I’ve seen it. I remember a little bit of that. Huh? So this will be interesting to do, but definitely first time seeing it and I finished watching it about 20 minutes ago. Craig. How about you? What’s the, what’s your history with this film?

Craig: It’s funny. Cause when you recommended it, I said, Oh yeah, I’ve seen it. And then I went to play it again. I didn’t know it was on Amazon prime. I wish I had, cause I found it on Tubi, which is a free streaming service it’s ad supported. So you have to watch commercials.

So that’s where I saw it and where you can find it for free if you are interested. But when I went to play it, yeah. Uh, it started it about 30 minutes in, so I realized that I had started watching it, but I hadn’t finished it. I like to go to, to B when I’m grading papers, especially like not essays, but just like grading, like, like worksheets and papers and stuff like that, that I don’t have to put.

Tons of thought into, I like to put on old horror movies that I haven’t seen just to kind of have in the background. And again, here we go, you know, recommending these streaming services, but to be as free and, uh, they have a huge, huge. Horror catalog a lot of stuff that I’ve never seen or heard of. And this was one of those, I don’t remember seeing this on the shelves.

I don’t remember thinking or knowing anything about it back in the day until I just came across it online. But, uh, Yeah. I wonder why. And I think, yeah, that’s the thing. Understand why I’d never really heard of it. I understand why I don’t hear much about it because there’s really not much special about it, but it’s typical.

It’s, it’s a typical eighties slasher. It hits all the notes. You would expect it to hit a bunch of horny. College kids get together. They don’t go to a cabin in the woods instead they go to a condo, the beach

that is that’s the, that’s the goal big that kind of sets it apart from any other typical eighties, slasher that, all that being said, I mean, it’s fine.

Todd: Well, it’s it’s exactly, really what I thought it would be more or less turned out, you know, to deliver exactly what I was looking for, which was what you’d described, a typical 80 slasher that hits all the notes, but it’s been lost to time because it’s not particularly great, which oftentimes means, you know, it’s so bad.

It’s good. And we can laugh about it. We can make. The fun of it. And I, I think we’re going to have a ball talking about this movie because despite, you know, the fact that it’s paint by numbers, there are a few charm points in here. There are, there are a few elements, uh, that when we get to them as we’re recounting the movie that you’re going to go.

Oh, at least I did. You know, I’ve made movies. I think people on here probably know that don’t get me wrong. You’re not going to be able to rent them anywhere. You’re not going to find them on Tubi I’m not going to pretend. They’re amazing. But you know, I know what that was like to go out and make a film and gather friends together and do it.

And for that reason, I tend to appreciate most movies. Even the really bad ones. Even the really, really amateurish ones like this one back in my mind, I’m thinking it’s still got some heart, you know, there were people obviously involved in this. Clearly, if you look at the cast list, you know, the directors last name shows up in like five different places.

So, you know, he brought his family in, on some of these things. And then when you go to the trivia section and I MDB, it’s almost cute, you know, it’s like, Writer director, buddy Cooper kept a lot of the props used in this film. Well, yeah, of course he did. It’s the only movie he ever made and probably most of those props came from his house in the first place.

Right. Ruth Martinez still in college when she made this film. Well, yeah, that’s obvious, you know, and the climax was shot in a single night again. No, I’m not surprised. It’s just that kind of movie. But I have to say as a guy who at one time just imagined he would be making movies for a living. I so wish I was of age in this era and was in a place with resources and smart enough to know what a cash cow, horror films, slasher movies like this were, it came out in 1984.

Even those movies is totally this movie had a different title. Before it was the muda later, it was called spring break. Fall break. Yeah. Fall break. Sorry. Fall break. Because it was kind of the only thing left, right. Because we’d had prom night at this time, there were all of these movies, prom night, April fool’s day coming out around holidays and things like that final exam.

And so of course this was shamelessly made. By one guy just to capitalize on this thing and it made a bunch of money for him. It didn’t go down in history as a remembered and well loved film, but there it was, I mean, he did it, he put it out there and we are going to fricking talk about it 40 years later, which is kind of remarkable, you know?

So in that respect, I’m going to really enjoy talking about this movie and picking out the charming points while at the same time, laying it all on the table from the beginning. It’s pretty dumb. It’s pretty silly paint by numbers, standard slasher, but we’ve seen so much worse. Oh yeah.

Craig: Right. I mean, yeah.

W I mean, we’ve seen worse and we’ve also seen movies that got a lot more attention that people remember that weren’t necessarily any better, you know, it’s just. Kismet that some movies find an audience and some don’t. And this one I find charming for similar reasons that you do. Uh, I did a student film in college.

Um, I played. I don’t even really remember. I think one of my friends, a guy, I don’t know if I should say people’s real names, but I’m going to Pat McGowan. Did you know him in college? We went to college. We went to college together. No, no. Anyway, he made a student film and I started in it. Like, I don’t even have it.

You say you can’t find your movies on any of these streaming services? The one, the one that I was in, I don’t even have, but it was, it was a lot of fun. To make, it sounds like this was to the actors who were involved really had a good time and they hung out together and partied together at night, the movie was shot in chronological order and most of the actors.

Save one stuck around even after their characters were killed off just to watch and hang out and have a good time. And that’s endearing to me. And I don’t know, you know, the acting in this movie is not amazing. I read several reviews and several reviews were very critical of the acting. I thought it was fine.

Todd: Oh, he did. Oh God. I thought it was

Craig: fine. I didn’t, you know, we’re, we’re not talking Shakespeare here, you know?

Todd: Oh, come on, man.

Craig: They knew their lines. They, they delivered them with some expression. Like it was all right.

Todd: They delivered their lives without grammatical mistakes. And therefore the acting is perfectly fine.

I need the right example. Great either. Right. So, I mean, always in these movies, you’ve got to cut the actor, some Slack when the material that they’re working with. Isn’t isn’t exactly Shakespeare either, right? Well,

Craig: and they’re kids. I don’t have any idea how old these kids were. I’m guessing somewhere in their twenties.

You know, you said that one girl was in still in college? Yeah, probably. I mean, they were probably most of them, you know, fresh out of college, I would guess. Yeah. As is typically the case. The actors look older than the characters they’re meant to play, I think, but I don’t know. Just overall, like watching the movie, I thought, yeah.

I mean, it’s, it’s a competent slasher film, but I’m just saying, like, if you look at the performances in this movie and compare them directly to the performances and Friday the 13th, which spawned a huge franchise, it’s not dissimilar.

Todd: No. You’re right. And as far as everything else goes in this movie, I mean the cinematography, everything else, I mean, it’s not remarkable, but it is certainly not terrible.

I mean, we have seen terrible. We have seen people say to me, like all the people always love to say, Oh, this was like the worst movie ever made, you know, like the latest movie, starring the rock, you know, the cost $5 million or whatever. Please, you, you do not have a horror film podcast with who’ve been going on for over 250 episodes.

You know what I mean? You have not seen the drag of the drag, like we have seen and you’re right. I mean, this is kind of like, Friday the 13th level material and filmmaking, I think more or less, you know, what’s great about this. The movie starts out with the woman making a birthday cake and the music is just so nice.

And it’s one of these movies that starts with. Nice playful, cheerful, kind of happy music. Cause you know, something horrible is about to happen because that’s how these movies always start and she’s baking a birthday cake and it’s like happy birthday. And then there’s a little boy named ed who’s in the other room who was very cheerfully sticks, a sign up on his dad’s.

Gun cabinet that says happy birthday, daddy, they’re all clean. Thanks to me. Thank God button cabinet. And I’m like, Oh shit. Like really?

Craig: I know,

Todd: but I did thinking the same thing I did. He was gonna kill himself. And what he ends up doing is, well, he’s, you know, Ineptly cleaning this gun up, staring down the barrel of it and everything.

He just raises it up and buy and it’s loaded and it shoots through the kitchen door and kills his mom. So his mom who is decorating a cake, so it’s a family tragedy. And at that moment, when he goes in to see what happened, his father stumbles in and his father, it must have been decided some point in the casting of this film that his dad was good enough to play.

The dad in this movie, but not to speak. Yeah, because he says nothing and he just kind of stumbles in and sees what happens. And it’s the whole thing is almost done in pantomime where it is dramatic pantomime, where he kind of confronts us, spawn son slaps him, um, and then drags his wife’s body

Craig: away. Yeah.

I mean, the way that this opening scene is presented, it, it’s almost laughable. Like, you know, what’s going to happen. I mean, I, I don’t know it, as soon as you see that a kid is going to be cleaning guns and you know, you’re in a horror movie, something bad is going to happen, truthfully, you know, Lock up your guns.

People I’m being serious. This is I can for our podcast. I I’m not. Anti-gun uh, I come from a rural area where hunting is an important part of life. I’m not a Hunter, but many people in my family are, I’m not anti-gun but lock them up. Lock them up because you don’t want your kids getting a hold

Todd: of them.

This public service announcement brought to you by to

lock up your chainsaws too, by the way. But

Craig: yeah, I love that idea, but I, I saw, you know, this happened and it’s sad. I felt bad for the kid and like, I felt bad for the dad too. And like the data’s so stoic, like he has, he drags the mom’s body into his little hunting dinner or whatever, and props her up next to the couch that he sits on and he sits there and he has a drink and he gifts and she’s.

Dead. And he gives her a drink of the whiskey and he takes, he takes the sign that the kid had made down in, pins it on her chest. It’s like, Oh my goodness. It’s so silly. And I read that the actress who was cast as the mom. Uh, backed out at the last second for religious reasons.

Todd: What daddy put me? No, she was anti birthday or anti-gun, I don’t know,

Craig: but, um, she backed out at the last minute.

So the, this set caterer stepped in and, uh, the director said that his biggest regret about this film was that he didn’t get an opportunity to. Taste that birthday cake.

You

Todd: kidding me? That’s as big as, Oh, bless this. Man’s heart. I mean, this makes the movie just so charming and cute.

Craig: Yeah. I, I mean, it’s an obvious set up and especially since then it jumps to present day, the eighties or whatever. Ed Jr. The kid is now in college and he’s just hanging out with his college friends in this bar and they’re like lamenting how they don’t have anything to do for fall break.

Fall break, fall break is fall break.

Todd: What does fall break?

Craig: Is it like Thanksgiving?

Todd: Maybe, I don’t know, Arbor day, there’s like a three-day weekend

Craig: fall break. We need to, you know, talk about how they ended up getting to this condo, but we can’t fail to mention the great song. The fall break song written.

That was clearly written for the movie because it references like it’s about the song is about the movie. It’s like fall break, go into this condo. I thought.

Todd: Sure. Doris all left about a month before, and we’re going to have

Craig: a good time.

Todd: In name, dialogue in the bar, it’s been plucked out of every high school sex comedy made in the eighties. Oh, what are we going to do? I don’t know. Well, my dad’s got this condo. He gets a call from his dad and does at the bar, uh, at, just at the time they’re lamenting what they’re going to do fall for fall break.

And it turns out his dad who he hasn’t talked to in ages, and he has nothing but bad things to say about despite the fact, by the way that he killed. His wife. Yeah. I mean, get a little bit of sympathy for your father here. You know, I mean, you seem remarkably well adjusted after all this. No, he’s fine.

Craig: Half a little by, cause it didn’t mess him up at all.

Todd: He has absolutely no regrets about this incident or something, or he is he’s really good at. At compartmentalizing. Well, what’s

Craig: the problem. You let the man talk. He wants me to close up his condom in the winter. Oh, that sounds like work. Well, what’s the matter big, strong you afraid of a little work.

Oh, he just has to save his strength for more important things. Right? I mean, all my life, the creeps ignored me, treated me like some red headed bastard. I’m sorry. Now all of a sudden he calls me up and asked. We didn’t do something.

Todd: Oh, that sounds great. Sounds like we have a new plan. Let’s go to the beach.

And then the song kicks in  far break.

Craig: Not before, not before ed says I got a bad feeling about this.

Todd: down the highway, you get a convertible and it’s Heidi dodging. The cops goofing off goofy route jumps out of the car and peas in a field. Ooh, that’s hilarious. Cops 

Craig: ditch him. They’re like

Todd: so goofy. I had to stop. I literally stopped the movie and went back to be. Am I really watching the muda later or is this

Craig: cause they, they, when they changed the title of the movie, they didn’t even change the title card.

You know, like the title card still says fall break and fall break theme song. Like I really don’t even understood. Okay. So I guess what happened was, um, they made the movie and it went through the NPAA and it was getting to get an X rating for Gore and they didn’t want it. That, because at the time the X rating was heavily associated with porn and they didn’t want that association.

So they decided to release it unrated, but by releasing it on rated, it had a very limited release and didn’t do well at all. So the following year they, uh, edited it. Not very much. I mean like seconds, they took out. A number of seconds of, of the Gore effects and they released it again still under the title and it got a wider release, but it didn’t really do any better.

Than the first time. And so I guess when they released it on video, they decided to change. I read they changed it for marketing purposes. What does that mean? I don’t like, I don’t know. I understand some movie that nobody saw it initially. You’re just going to change the name and think that’s going to make a difference and not even bother to change the.

Title card. I

Todd: don’t know. Well, I mean, to be fair or a movie called spring break, sounds like, you know, Rodney Dangerfield is edit or something like that, and it’s just going to be some goofy comedy, which is what this movie appears to be for. Like the first 30 minutes. Yeah.

Craig: We’ll, we’ll have to watch a movie.

Called spring break sometime. Cause that’s not what this one’s called.

Todd: Oh my God. There’s no such thing. Yeah. Yes sir. I know. I’m just giving you crap.

So yeah. You know, so, I mean, I understand like the mutilators sounds like a movie we would watch fall break does not sound like two guys in a chainsaw

Craig: that makes sense. It had more. Shelf appeal. That makes sense. Video store shelf appeal the mute later. That sounds a lot more, yeah. Intriguing then fall break.

They, they haven’t yet get to the condo. Okay. There’s a stupid scene that I didn’t really understand the purpose of where Ralph, the goofy one like goes into BICE and beer and thinks he tricks the. Store clerk into giving him a discount, but then the store clerks just make fun of him. And that was some terrible.

That was the only acting that I,

Todd: by the way, terrible at time dubbing. Oh,

Craig: it was almost charmingly bad.

Todd: And it’s really throws you off for a loop because once again, it’s just sets you up for this movie that it’s not going to beat, which is probably why they ended fricking change the title. You watch a movie called spring break or fall break.

Excuse me. You watch a movie called fall break. You go to the drive in and you start watching the first 30 minutes of this. And you’ll probably start running back looking for a refund because you’re like, I came in here to see a horror movie, and this is like the worst. So-called comedy is it wouldn’t have lived up to expectations by that point.

Thankfully they get to the condo and while they’re at the condo, ed gives them a tour. So I mean, the characters are ed and his girlfriend, Pam, who we learn. And are repeatedly reminded that she’s the Virgin. That was so frustrating. Oh my God. Right.

Craig: I literally have, in my notes, Pam won’t fuck for unexplained reasons. They make like, they make a huge deal

Todd: out of it. Oh my God. Repeatedly. And then there’s a huge scene where she lays it out. For ed, once again, as they’re sitting on the bed, 

Craig: we have a deal, buddy, and I’m holding you to it. Come on. You know how I feel about you?

I want to, I really do he know that, but I’m just not going to some other time maybe, but not here and not

Todd: now God, come on. Lighten up Pam.

Craig: Well, but she, she doesn’t even give any reasons or anything. Okay. Now, to be fair, you don’t have to explain yourself if you don’t want to be intimate with somebody, that’s your choice.

It’s your choice? Like why is the movie making such a big deal out of it?

Todd: They’re projecting. I think they’re projecting that she’s going to be the final girl. Just as much as they are. They have projected the killer. There’s no question who the killer is in this movie,

Craig: by the way. No, there is him from the beginning.

That is

Todd: the weirdest thing. And there are no red herrings. There’s no twists. There’s nothing. It’s like, yeah, Ed’s dad is the killer and we don’t even really understand why, but anyway he is. And that’s the end.

Craig: I mean, we understand why, I guess he’s

Todd: crazy because his wife died. Right.

Craig: And he has these weird fantasies.

About killing his son. Like at the time, like he has a fantasy like it at first he like strangles him and holds him up in the air and then he shoots him, I think. And then he slits his throat. Like he’s fantasizing about all these ways he can kill his son. Obviously he’s been traumatized and damaged by the death.

Death of his wife, but why now? And why kill all of his friends? First, those

Todd: poor guys,

Craig: it seems to me, they

Todd: were just out to help. He’s the one who asked for them to come out of winter as the cabin, let’s clean his house poor way to show your appreciation, at least wait until they have quote, poured antifreeze into the plumbing.

Which is not a thing either. This was one of the list of things that he’s supposed to do. Don’t do that guys. Don’t watch this movie and think you’re supposed to pour antifreeze in your plumbing. If you’re worried about your plumbing in the winter time, just keep the hot water heater on. Keep the heat in your house on.

You’ll be fine. Maybe drip your faucets. Oh my

Craig: God. I feel like there were several things that people said that I’m like, what, what are you talking about? That’s not a thing.

Todd: I don’t remember anything like that. Like fall break,

Craig: like fall break and they go there and like the house looks like. A frat party had been held there the night before.

Like there are booze bottles everywhere, but there’s this hilarious scene where they’re looking around and like, there are hunting trophies everywhere. And ed Jr says, yeah, dad used to tell me I’ve hunted everything, but man, okay. Of the hunting trophies is a framed picture of a mutilated. Dead man. The dad had run over with his boat.

Like it’s framed picture. Nobody even thinks that’s weird.

Todd: And they’re like, Oh, that’s a distinct what’s what else is on the wall? But what is, it’s like a little metal, tiny little metal pyramid or something. I don’t know what that was in there. It must be some weird Southern thing or something like ed tells a story of how.

Right. His dad was drunk with his friends one time and they decided to throw these at the wall and his dad one. And so then he just stuck a frame on the wall, around the spot where they played this

Craig: game. Right. Where like this spiky thing had stuck in the wall. Yeah. I mean, it it’s a set up there, you know, there’s kind of payoff for it later, but I had no idea what that thing was.

I have no idea what I’ve never heard of my life. But, but there’s also, uh, a giant gaff hook on display. The, I mean, it just looks like an enormous fishing hook, but it’s the hooks that big fishermen or excuse me, fishermen who fish for big

Todd: fish? Probably. They’re also big too. Yeah.

Craig: Probably it’s what they use to, you know, grab them and pull them into the boat.

But obviously ominous like, Oh, somebody is going to get killed with that later. And then there’s like a Mayan ritual sacrifice mask that they make a big deal out of that has no connection to the plot. Yeah. I read that. That was a setup for a sequel. Oh, I had no idea one. Why they ever thought that there would be a SQL to this movie or.

Where are they plans to go with this Mayan rituals, sacrifice mask? I don’t know. There’s also a place that’s supposed to be. For a battleax, but it’s missing. And they’re like, Oh my gosh. Maybe somebody broke in here and stole it. Call the police. I feel like that’s Pam, the sensible one. And it’s like, no, I’m sure he just took it with him.

It’s his favorite battle?

Todd: Why wouldn’t you take. Why would he take the

Craig: battleax

Todd: he’s not far off, but then

Craig: the dad and no, I know because the dad’s just hiding in the garage. And like, as soon as they talk about the battleax you see him hiding down there, just like holding it, like

Todd: he’s snuggling it. He is like sleeping with the battleax like a woman or a man, depending on what you’re into in, in, in the closet of the basement and, and.

That’s it. Like we see them and I’m thinking, okay, they’ve done all this foreshadowing on the dad and how weird he is and how he’s into all these scary things. And he’s a trophy Hunter and all that. Oh, Ed’s like, they call them trophy hunters, like, okay, thank you. Einstein. And his dad and his dad is in the garage, in the closet, snuggling with a battleax.

Having dreams about killing his son. This is the first like 20 minutes of the movie and I’m thinking, okay, so who’s the real killer. There’s no way that the movie just went all out in the beginning and just slayed all this out for us. But yeah, that’s exactly what the movie well,

Craig: and I was not thinking that I was thinking they, the movie is laying it all out.

Like it’s making everything perfectly obvious and I felt like it had to do that because. Nothing else happens. This is a movie it’s like an hour and 20 something minutes long. I mean, with credits, it’s probably an hour 15, an hour 20. And in the first 25, 30 minutes, nothing happens. Like it’s just them getting there and talking about the dad and we see the dad hiding in the garage.

I’m like, come on. I mean, I guess, you know, we had, the mom got killed in the beginning, but that was an accident. That’s not, you know, a slasher type thing. It’s not until they finally finally get there. And, uh, they’re all in couples. It’s um, ed and Pam, Mike and Linda and Ralph and Sue they’re all couples and Mike and his Linda sneak

Todd: off to the garage to foreshadow all the future murder weapons.

That’s what the scene is. They like systematically go through, open up the closet of the garage. Oh, look at these. Crazy spikes on that. What are you supposed to do?

Craig: All the Neta? Wouldn’t think they’d have to be so shocked with you. I don’t know. Hey, look at this. You don’t think this is what ran over that sucker upstairs.

Do you it’s too small for a ski boat. Yeah. Too small for a ski

Todd: boat. Oh, check out this like spiky thing on here. I wonder what that is. For gosh, I wouldn’t want to be stabbed in the head with that. Literally systematically go through and introduce to us all the things we’re going to see the killer kill people with later.

That’s

Craig: right. That’s right. Every single death is foreshadowed and it’s also like it’s building tension because they just all most find the dad in there before they’re distracted and go off. And then they go off walking down the beach. I have no idea where this was filmed, North Carolina. And I think, I mean, it’s a beach front community.

It looked just like the beach, front vacation spots that I go to with my. Parents. Yeah, my, my, and my whole family, my sister and her kids and stuff, um, in Florida, like with the long peers and just all of these condos lining the beach, uh, it made me want to go on vacation, but not where their vacation killers.

Right. Um, but so then Mike and Linda are just walking around and they find. Uh, green.

It was like a enormous swimming pool, surrounded by like potted plants and trees under an inflated tent. Yeah.

Todd: It was so weird. That was weird. Freely available. Apparently, I don’t know for the public

Craig: or something at a house that was under construction. So I wonder if the pool and all of these plants were like covered.

For construction. I don’t know. I mean, it looks cool. It’s a good setting, uh, for her horror movie and then they get naked. There’s not a lot of nudity in this movie. You don’t see much. You do see Linda’s boobs here in this scene, but I feel like that’s kind of it, they skinny dip and the other couples are looking for them on the beach and we see the dad is watching them.

And then, um, Linda and Mike are playing like, Tag or Marco polo.

Todd: It’s hard to really interpret what this scene is all about because the movie just depends on closeups to sort of mask the fact that this is just two people in Relic in a completely empty pool. That’s brightly lit who are swimming around and ducking under the water and above the water.

And suddenly still having a really hard time finding each other. It’s bizarre. It, the pool itself is lit. I mean, it’s just bizarre. So they’re trying to play this Marco polo game or whatever. And apparently at one point, Mike is under water for 10 seconds and these Linda pops up and these two hands reach up.

From under the water. I don’t know. Like, none of it makes sense. Right. I mean, that’s it, I mean, there’s no way this guy could have been hiding under the water this whole time. Right. They were going to sneak off with her, like he

Craig: does he, okay. So this was supposed to be a Gore effects scene. He was supposed to shoot her with a harpoon from underneath.

Which if you watch it, the cinematography suggests that because she floats up. So like she’s doing like a backflow, like it’s a perfect setup for something to come bursting through her chest, but they couldn’t get the effect. Right. So they just did the drowning, which, you know, works fine. I mean, yeah. It’s just as scary except for the, then, like you said, the killer who’s the dad, we know, carries her up the pool ladder out of the pool and.

Apparently he took off all his clothes because I mean, we don’t see his whole body, but his legs and feet are naked when he’s crawling up out of there. I’m like this other naked dude slipped into this pool with you. And neither of you notice, and the guide didn’t notice when this other dude was lifting her body up, uh, But whatever, it’s fine.

Todd: You just got to grow with it. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig: And the dad takes all of their clothes and like uses them to leave a trail. Like Mike thinks that this is a, some kind of like sexy, gay.

And so he finds his pants and puts them on, but then he’s fighting like her panties and bra and stuff. And though it appeared that they had traveled far away to get to this pool. Mike is immediately led back. To the garage condo there’s panties hanging on a closet door in the garage. And so he thinks she’s in there, which she is, but she said, but he opens it.

And the killer is there with a boat motor like trolling, motor

Todd: Eddie immediately fires up.

Craig: And cuts this guy up with, and this guy, the guy who played Mike, his acting was bad. And he was the only one. He was the only one of these games, young kids that was not into hanging out, sticking around, having fun. I read that he was more concerned about just hanging out on the beach, working on his tan and it looks like it, like, he looks like that guy.

Um, And apparently like he was, he was even dissatisfied with his makeup and insisted on imply applying his makeup himself. And it looks like it, like, it looks like he’s got too much makeup on way too pretty. It’s ridiculous.

Todd: Um, as I learned from my last gig on the movie set, it tends to be the douchey is people who are also the worst actors.

Like it never. Right,

Craig: right. I mean, he’s not a bad looking guy, but I don’t. I think that he was as good looking as he thought he was. What I wrote about this kill is that it was a lame kill, but yeah. Decent Gore effects. Like you see all the slashes and the blood on his chest, the Gore effects throughout are pretty good.

I mean, it’s all practical. There’s a lot of dummy work. Good dummy work. Yeah, I know. I love it. Uh, even when it’s obvious, even when it doesn’t look real, I’ve said it a million times, people are going to get sick of it. I just appreciate the craftsmanship. I appreciate the artistry, the effort that goes into that.

So I liked that. And then the killer hangs up their bodies on those ridiculously sharp. Spikes that are supposed to be for hanging the nets. I thought that he would surely pick them up and like impale their backs. No, he just like sticks it through the back of their heads. They’re just hanging there by their heads.

Todd: I guess the idea is like he’s making trophies, like human trophies in the closet down there. Yeah. But it’s kinda, yeah. And

Craig: that’s, what’s suggested by the cover art too. It is what it is. It’s

Todd: fine. Everybody else goes out, looking for them, but they’re not really looking for them. They’re just kind of hanging out on the beach and then they run into this cop who says, Hey, you know, your kids might want to go inside.

Be careful there’s a storm coming, blah, blah,

Craig: blah. That part was dumb. Like I felt like it was just a setup for another kill, which is fine, but like, God, why is this cop harassing them on the beach? And like, he’s so ominous, like, Oh, Like I’m here to work. You could get struck by lightning onto the beat. And they’re like, okay, thanks, Graham.

Todd: They’re freaked out about it. And they go back, but there’s also kind of a big deal made by ed in the beginning of the movie. When he’s like, yeah, the cops don’t really come out here much. There’s one guy who just like comes out across the bridge, patrols the beach and goes home every day. And I thought, okay, well, that’s like going to be significant.

Like at some point they’re going to try to reach the cops or they’re going to need the cops and they’re not going to be available. It’s it’s really just like setting up this guy, coming in to warn them about being struck by lightning. And then he goes back and he has the weirdest kill, like. Somehow the kids mentioned.

Oh, um, have you seen our friends? Cause they haven’t been here. Uh, and they say something about the house, about how, when they were up there, you know, it seemed like the place had been trashed and the cop says something along the lines wide. I don’t know if I’ve seen anybody up there recently. And so I guess the cop goes back to the house just to kind of double check on things.

Cause instantly he’s back at the house in front of that garage again and he walks around a little bit and then he turns around and it’s the weirdest. It’s like the most awkward stab with a fence post stabs him in the face in the cheek. He looks weird. It was weird, but then he cuts his head off. Yeah. So that part’s cool with an ax there.

Couple beheadings in this movie, just because beheadings are cool. I think. And it’s really gory. You see every little bit

Craig: of it. It’s it’s dummies. Yeah. But they, they look. They look good. I mean, you know, it’s bright red blood. It’s juicy. Like it looks good.

Todd: And then they walk back and Pam talks more about how she’s a Virgin and then they get back in there and they’re like, Oh, well the two are still aren’t here yet.

Blah, blah, blah. Let’s play monopoly. Now let’s play something else. And then another thing that I thought was foreshadowing, Pam gets pissed off at Ralph about something. Ralph the joker and immediately like pull some, my KIDO moves on him and like ends up with him down on the ground. She’s standing over him.

And I thought, okay, so we know Pam’s a Virgin and which she also must have these crazy, like martial arts skills and all this is going to come in handy later, which it didn’t, it’s just more stuff did

Craig: happen. Right. It’s funny because I don’t even. Remember that, and that could have something to do with the fact that while I was watching this, I was like, Looking at Facebook.

I just didn’t feel like I was going to miss much. It’s not necessarily that the movie is boring. And we have said many times that is the Cardinal sin. If a movie is. Boring. Uh, no, no boy, no, but it wasn’t boring. It was just like, yeah. Okay. I get it. I see where you’re going. When somebody starts screaming, I’ll check back in.

I really, I really did watch most of it, but I was a little bit distracted. I didn’t remember that, but. Just such silly stuff. Like, yeah, they play monopoly for awhile. Fun. Ooh. Everybody loves playing monopoly. You know, what’s even more fun than playing monopoly, watching people play monopoly. So they, God, they didn’t stick with that for too much.

But then when they finally get bored with that, then they decide to play blind man’s bluff, which is basically, I guess grown-up hide and seek. We used to call it. Go in the guard, in the graveyard or something like that, it’s basically hide and seek, but you play in the dark and one, the person who’s it hides.

And then everybody else looks for them. And when you find the person, then you just stick and hide with them until there’s only one person left. And then that person is the loser or whatever. I don’t know why I took the time to tell you all of that because it really makes no difference. They, they play.

But I did like. Obviously it’s, it’s not that dark in there because we can see what’s going on. I actually appreciated that because it drives me nuts when movies are so dark that I can’t see what’s going on, but we’re supposed to believe that they can’t really see exactly because while they’re in there, the killer comes in and is looking around and is right in the room with them.

But they just assume that it’s. And because ed is the last one of them, but it’s not, but it’s a nice tense scene, but with no payoff, because then the, the dad, uh, ed senior just leaves and ed Jr. Comes in and finds them. Okay, game over. And then he’s like, what should we do now? And they’re all like, let’s go to bed.

Todd: Then I love that. Um, Pam speaks up as this Pam’s role in this movie to be this person. And it’s like, but you know, I’m still worried about where Mike and Linda are. And I love how Ralph who’s been the goofy guy this whole time turns around to her and starts to have like a serious moment. They’ve

Craig: been gone so long.

Hey, don’t worry about Mike and Linda. They’re just having a good time enjoying each other’s company. You know, it has been a pretty long week for all of us and they’re just relaxing. Okay. All right. Come on.

Todd: Okay. Nevermind. Who cares about Mike and Linda? They all decide to go to

Craig: bed then. So they’re in bed. And Pam’s like, no, Hey, not going to have sex with you. And the guy’s like, okay, whatever. So they just go to sleep. But Ralph and Sue. Are starting to get busy, but she’s like, wait, shouldn’t we lock up. And he’s like, what about Mike and Linda?

And she’s like, Oh, well go find them like what? Like this, I don’t understand on so many levels. First of all, you are college kids on a break at a remote location where they say a hundred thousand times nobody else is there. Like it’s the off season I have gone. On college trips. I don’t recall anyone at any time ever being concerned about locking up and the fact that.

Their two friends are still out there. Like you can’t lock up. Like, what are they going to do when they come home? It’s ridiculous. But she says, well, you know, go find them and get them in so we can lock up and then I’ll show you something. And then there is a completely out of place.

Todd: Benny Hill moment

Craig: sped up, seen of him like getting dressed, like, Oh, I’m going to get to see some movies if I find these people.

So let’s do it in fast frame to show how eager

Todd: I am right with that music behind it. Like Bubba, Bubba, Bubba, Bubba, Bubba, Bubba, blah, blah, blah,

Y Oh. Way to keep the tension up. It’s

Craig: good. Uh, so he goes out, he looks for them. He gets forked through the throat and pinned to the hideout door in the garage,

Todd: just for being annoying. Basically. That’s what

Craig: I, whatever, at this point I felt like, okay, there’s only a few of them left. Let’s get them killed off.

Get to the end. And that’s what they do. Sue goes out, looking for him, Pam here, Sue looking around, wakes up, ed says things wrong. Everybody’s missing nobody’s here. And he’s like, Oh, I’m sure messing around, blah, blah, blah. Eventually Sue, Pam and ed are all together. And, and Pam, the smart one wants to go get help, but Sue’s like, no, we should just look around one last time.

And they’re like, fine. You go off by yourself. We’ll go look. And so Sue, literally. 10 steps away. Turns the corner gets lifted up by the killer by her throat taken into the garage. The gaff hook gets shoved through her Cooter.

Todd: This blew me away. I could not, I was really not expecting this in the movie. Me

Craig: either.

I was like, is this really happening? Like in this movie, through her Cooter up through her abdomen. And then she gets chopped, presumably beheaded, I guess, with the acts.

Todd: Now a lot of these horror movies, especially this forgettable ones go down in history because they had that one scene. You know, that was so crazy and so shocking that that’s all anybody ever talks about.

And I do not understand why this movie is not in that category. I don’t know why more people are not talking about a giant gaff hook being shoved into this woman’s vagina and up through her stomach. Why are we not? Are we, are we just discovering this for the first time? I’m blown away by that. I mean, it was, and it was full on, I mean, like they didn’t leave anything to the imagination here.

You

Craig: see it. And like, is this a morality lesson? Is this because she was the one who was DTF that like, that she gets a hook through the Cooter. I don’t know. Wow.

Todd: They didn’t hang her up by it. So at least that much, you know, that would have given this movie, the notoriety that’s probably, they didn’t go far enough, I guess.

Craig: Uh, some ed and Pam, like they literally just circle the house. So they come back and they find her dead and then they stumble upon all of the other bodies and then the killer shows up. So. Ed locks, Pam in a closet. What, like, what was, what was he thinking? I don’t understand it. Like here I’ll protect you I’ll lock you in this closet so you can’t get out.

Not so that the killer can’t get in because he just like, you know, does the whole Sheva chair up under the door knob thing, but from the outside. So if he gets incapacitated or killed, then she’s just a sitting duck. Like I have no idea. What that was all about. So ed hits his dad with something, but then his dad slapped him in the face, which immediately knocks him out cold.

Mm

Todd: it’s. That childhood trauma,

Craig: I guess Pam somehow gets herself out of the closet and just barely stops the dad from chopping his head off. And somehow in the interim, the dad has also like. Hogtied ed. Yeah, it’s that entire,

Todd: I missed that too. That was like a cut scene or something, but he’s on the floor.

She’s knife the guy in the back and he seems to be out. So she cuts ed loose and they go to the car and they go to try to start it. Now it’s cute because she actually, this was pretty funny. She tries to put him in the front seat, in the driver’s seat. And the first thing I was thinking of, because ed has been stabbed.

Mercilessly and the right leg. I thought what he’s going to drive the car. And he’s like, I can’t drive the car. You need to drive the car. Okay. So she pushes him aside and I thought, Oh, that’s, that’s cute. Like the movie’s not that dumb. And then she gets in and she starts rolling up the windows and locking the doors.

And I’m like, Oh, it’s also not that dumb. But I also knew, well, they’re not gonna be able to start the car. And of course they couldn’t start the car, but this, this scene actually was the most tense scene in the movie. For me. I really liked the scene where they’re stuck in the car and they’re trying to get out and she’s panicked and she’s trying to start, and she’s pumping the gas too much, which is flooding the carburetor.

And it’s like, do you flooded it? We got to wait for a minute. And then. She like tries it again, but then he’s bleeding. And so she kind of bends down. She’s like, well, let me wrap your leg while we’re waiting. And in the background through the windshield, you can kind of see this, this guy walking away, which is totally what you expect is going to happen, but still was cool.

And then he’s like, Oh, turn off the headlights because you know, you’ll save the, the battery and she flickers the headlights and it’s like, um, he’s not there anymore. And at that moment exactly what I was expecting the guys on the roof, trying to stab through convertible top. Yeah, I really liked that seat.

I think it’s the best, most tense scene in the movie, even though, you know, it was predictable. I was just, it was good. She was a good bit. Yeah.

Craig: I thought it was fine. And he’s a, you know, like he cuts open the convertible top and he grabs it by the throat. Pam, who you got to give the girl credit she’s.

Crafty. She, you know, she can take care of herself. She pushes in the car cigarette lighter. I don’t even know if we have any young listeners, but if we do, they may have no idea what we’re talking about.

Todd: Yeah. We used to have these things called cigarette ladders in the cars and you push them in real hot and then you pull them out of

Craig: cigarette with it like red hot.

But what I liked about it was she pushed it in, but. Weighted real life fashion. Like it’s not immediate. You had to wait for that thing to heat up. And so she does, she waits, she pulls it out and she burns his hand and that kind of gets them away for a little bit. And then she finally gets the car started.

Right. Cops show up for unexplained reasons, unless maybe they’re concerned about the dead cop. I’m not sure

Todd: because he did call in and say where he was. So, I mean, if they hadn’t reported it for a while, they might be coming out to see what’s going. Yeah.

Craig: So they show up there in the background. Um, but meanwhile, this guy is still trying to get at them through the roof.

So Sue. Gets the car started and swerves it around so that the guy, the killer is kind of on the back, she puts it in reverse and floors it and backs into a wall, which crushes the dad, which would have been enough, but I’m glad they went there extra mile and just had it cut him. Right.

Todd: But then

Craig: what’s his name? Ed Jr. Like looks back and he goes, Jesus Christ. That’s my dad.

Todd: I know. I was like, did he just now realize that?

Craig: No, I don’t even think it was a realization. I think he knew it was his dad. I think it was just like, Holy shit. You just cut my dad.

So the dad is lying there into. Pieces like legs somewhere else, torso over here. And a cop walks up and the torso wakes up and with his ax chops, the cop’s leg off, and then he dies. Oh my God. I thought that was so funny.  chopped in half, but his torso still chopped that cop’s leg off. And then it cuts it.

It just cuts to ed and Pam in the hospital. And which is totally unnecessary. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. I mean, it’s just to establish that. They’re fine. I guess. I mean, he’s in like a hospital robe, he’s been treated for his injuries. She’s just hanging out wistfully and you know, they look at each other and smile the end, but, um, but then in the end credits roll and it’s bloopers.

Yeah.

Todd: Still thinks it’s like an 80 sex comedy because the end credits roll back up and it’s like, It’s fall break for heartbreak. And it’s, it’s those classic like ed credits where it like shows the actors names again, and then outtakes from the movie. Like when the actors are like in a smiling and it’s in a serious scene or whatever.

Craig: Right into camera. Right.

Todd: So cute. You know, I mean, it’s totally off topic.

Craig: The first one they show is of that fantasy scene, where the guy is holding the kid up by his neck and like they’re all serious and the kid is scared and then they just both start laughing.

I like it. I am a sucker for in credits, bloopers and outtakes. So I thought it was.

Todd: And then in my case, anyway, it said next up, you know, Amazon prime wanted to serve me up which board, which yeah. That was about right. I mean sure, sure. About right. That about fit the whole tone of this movie. Oh my God. The movie was so.

Like I said before, it’s completely textbook standard slash or movie utterly predictable to a fault. Like they didn’t try to hide anything, really good Gore effects, but silly, silly situations. And the acting was horrible. I’m sorry, Cray. But the acting was really horrible and that made it fun. Like, you know, it was, again, this was.

Very much. One of those, watch it with a group of people so bad. It’s good movies really enjoyed watching it, even though when you’re watching it by yourself, it’s pretty boring.

Craig: Yeah, it is. That’s true. But that’s the thing, like I. Have been enjoying recently finding these more obscure movies that I didn’t happen to see when I was a kid.

Um, I I’m super nostalgic for this time period, and I very much enjoy going back and revisiting those movies that I’ve seen. Um, but there’s also something to be said for. You know, seeing something that I missed and it’s new, it’s new to me, it has all of the familiarity of those movies that I enjoyed when I was a kid, but I’ve not seen it before.

So there is novelty to it. And this is one of those. It’s not a great movie, but I’m still happy to have come across it. I’m happy to have seen it. I’m happy to be here. Table two in casual conversation, referenced these obscure movies that most people don’t know. How about it’s, it’s fun for, you know, you and I are hard.

Fans. And so I think that people like us will enjoy something like this. Um, it’s not something, if I were trying to introduce somebody to horror, if I were trying to, you know, like, Somebody like my partner, who’s not big into horror. I wouldn’t have him watch this movie. It’s not good. I would pick something better, you know, uh, to expose him to, but I enjoyed it.

It was silly. It was mindless. It was fun. It was not a great movie. It wasn’t even really a good movie, but it was an easy. Casual watch. And, and for those folks like us who enjoy this kind of stuff, I’d say, yeah, get, check it out. Why not? Yeah. I mean, you’ve got time.

Todd: It’s only an hour, 24 minutes anyway. And it’s nice to know, like you said that these kind of movies are still out there for us to discover, you know, we feel like we might have seen it all and know, like there’s actually a long list of this same shit that we haven’t seen that we can’t wait to see.

So thank you, Dave, for a dredging, another one out from the muck for us to, uh, to enjoy and goof on. It was really fun. Yeah.

right. Thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us online on our website to guys are red 40 net.com or leave us a message there or go to our Facebook page or our Twitter account. And just let us know what you thought of this film.

Dig up a few more of these fun 80 slackers for us. We can’t get enough of them, really. If you know a really good one, let us know and we’ll be sure to do it. Coming up until then I am Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

This week we tackle a difficult-to-watch request from another loyal listener. Right in line with Lucky McKee’s incredibly female-centric filmography, The Woman is an uncomfortable watch that gave us a lot to discuss and consider.

The Woman (2011)

Episode 252, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, today we start off with another request. This is by Andrew. We haven’t done requests for awhile, so we thought we would get back to some of these after our 250th episode, blow out and do a film called the woman.

This is a movie by lucky McKee. We’ve done. Uh, we’ve done a couple movies, but, well, we’ve done may by lucky McKee on our podcast before. And then there was a really intriguing segment on an anthology film called XX that we did called the box, uh, which lucky Mickey also directed. He’s had a really interesting filmography as far as horror is concerned and, and mostly horror is what he’s done back in the day.

There was an author named HP Lovecraft, perhaps you’ve heard of him and he mentored a guy named Robert block. Perhaps you’ve heard of him as well. Uh, among other things he wrote psycho and Robert block mentored an up and coming writer back in the early eighties named Jack Ketchum. And Jack Ketchum wrote a bunch of horror novels as well.

One of them was called off season. He wrote off season in 1981. It was his first novel. And it was based on the same kind of incident that West Craven used, uh, as subject matter for his well, the Hills have eyes, which is about a crazy cannibal family that goes in, you know, gets, uh, starts terrorizing basically a suburban families traveling.

And, uh, then he writes a sequel to that novel. Offspring. This is a sequel to the novel offspring, the woman co-written with lucky McKee and lucky McKee is our director of this film. So this is how all of this ties together. This is a sequel of a sequel, this film centers around the last of a clan of cannibalistic, feral humans running around.

Um, and it’s about this woman who is captured by a guy. Well, he decides to more or less forced his family to try to civilized. I mean, right. This is a really interesting movie. I mean, uh, as soon as I started watching it, I was like, Oh, okay. This is a movie with a social message. I think much like may was before I really.

Really liked that movie. It was shocking. It had a shocking ending, almost a kind of ambiguous ending as well as I remember. Yeah. But it was very much centered around this woman and basically how she was tormented by people and specially guys and mistreated. And so it’s a very feminist type movie. Am I wrong about that?

Craig: Well, menaced by guys, I don’t know, like she was just such an awkward person and like, that’s the thing that I like about MEI it’s much darker than the stuff that I’m usually drawn to. Um, but I felt so much empathy for may. The main character. I felt so bad for her. And of course she was doing terrible things, but.

Even. So I just felt that the movie was very sad. Obviously this girl was damaged and had problems, but it ultimately, I was left feeling that the world had let her down. And, and I, I felt bad for the predicament that she found herself. And even though she was doing terrible things, it’s dark and this movie is dark too.

There’s also a follow-up movie to the woman called darlin. When I saw the woman the first time, which has been a while ago, I didn’t know that it was a cul in any way to a book, to a movie, nothing. I just thought it was a standalone movie. And I think that it works as a standalone movie and I’ve not seen offspring.

It’s kind of hard to find. You can find it, you can rent it on Amazon and on some other platforms, but I haven’t seen it. I’ve watched the trailer and I’ve read some reviews of it. And it looks very much like. A sister movie of the Hills have eyes this movie though. I can see how it is a follow-up to something like that is not like that.

It’s, it’s very different. In fact, it’s almost a reversal, you know, whereas in something like apparently offspring, which I haven’t seen, but the Hills have eyes where these wild feral people are preying on, you know, like a suburban family, this flips it. And it’s the suburban family who are preying on this.

Woman. Um, and it’s weird. This is a movie that’s been on my personal list for us to do for quite a long time. I think that I’ve mentioned it several times, but it’s never been like, Oh, come on, we have to do it. It’s just like, ah, let’s get around to it eventually. And Andrew requested it last week and it was just a good excuse to finally do it.

And more than I was looking forward to rewatching the movie, I was really interested to see what you thought of it because it’s, it’s very dark and nihilistic and that’s not typically your cup

Todd: of tea, right. Uh, it’s not really typically by my cup of tea. And I would say that especially lately, you know, I’ve been looking for escapism in my films and when things get so dark and so nihilistic it’s like, you know, the world has already gotten so dark lately that.

I don’t really need to revisit that, but that being said, I do enjoy these kinds of movies. If I feel like they have something to say in particular. And the thing about this film now, I hadn’t seen it before this I, this is my first time watching it as well. One thing that I have to say about this movie, I was a little disappointed.

Especially considering this in his Uber guar. Right. I really liked Mae. I thought may had some depth. It was weird. The movie was a little strange. The girl was a little strange. Yeah. It was a slow film that really took its time. And it was like a character study. You know, we got to know this girl and we got to see the depth of her oddness.

It just felt complete and round and whole, and then it took some really interesting turns and you could see how people interacted with her and how they almost used her in their own ways, which is life, you know, we all kind of use each other. Right. Uh, and, and so it, I, it just really, really enjoyed that movie and I felt that it had a depth and then it had a kind of a.

Funky little twist at the end, that was kind of cool and a bit of a shock and, and all of that really worked well for me, the problem that I had with this movie. Now it’s a fine film. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to rag on it. But the problem that I have with this movie, especially compared to that is I felt like it was a little hollow, too preachy.

I knew what was going on almost from the very beginning, almost from the minute we get introduced to the father character in this named Chris is super sinister and you just kind of know something’s not right here. So there’s no real surprise. And the women in this family, again, from the very beginning spend most of their time and all of their scenes staring off into space, just shy of tears.

So you know that they’re troubled and repressed and something’s going on there. And it just, your, your assumption as well, this Chris, guy’s a douche bag and he’s controlling them and it turns out to be right now, the depth of that, you know, gets really messed up to put it mildly. But, but honestly, like my mother, I was already racing to those conclusions.

Yeah. Practically from the first few scenes. And so when he captures this woman and he takes her in, I’m like, Oh, I mean this, basically, this is what this is. This guy is treating her just like he treats his family, blah, blah, blah. We’re going to get to see how this plays out. Maybe we’re going to get to learn more, but at the end of the day, there were really no surprises.

And what was nice about may I, it’s not fair to compare it to another movie. I mean, these are standalone works of art, but I’m just going to say it anyway, because it’s an easy way to talk about for me, what, what I didn’t like about this movie, what comparing it to may, may like I was kind of on the edge of my seat because this girl was mysterious and I just kind of watched the onion get on peeled, you know, layer by layer.

And it was fascinating. And I just had no idea where it was going to go, you know, was she going to come around and, and which was there going to be some epiphany here? Was she going to have, what was her arc going to be like? And then it took me places I didn’t expect. And that was really cathartic. And this movie felt.

Not like that. Uh, it, it started out. It was, I understood what, what it was about pretty early on. Um, it took me about all the places I expected it to go more or less. And then, uh, you know, then there was an ending and so it never felt so real to me. I don’t know how to express it. Like, uh, not that they were caricatures, but it was just.

Well may was a very slow and dramatic movie. This was a very slow and dramatic movie, but to me it felt really drawn out as a short, this might’ve worked a lot better for me than a movie that was an hour and 45 minutes long. Um, but yeah, that’s it, that’s it in a nutshell.

Craig: Okay. I agree with you too. An extent in that I could tell from the very beginning that though this family was presenting this veneer of, you know, perfect suburban nuclear family, you could immediately tell, as you already mentioned that there was something wrong.

It’s small town, almost rural, really? And the dad is a big shot lawyer, like in a state lawyer in town and seems to be very well-respected and very well liked. And it opens up at this barbecue where, you know, it seems like a pretty tight knit community, wealthier members of this community, but suburban, nonetheless kind of in the way that they look, but you’re right.

Like just something as he presents that. Very charming Southern lawyer persona, but everybody else in the family just seems a little bit off his wife. Who’s played by Angela Bettis who played Mae, who I think must either be a dear friend of lucky McKee or amuse of his and understandably so, because I think that she’s fantastic.

She just seems a little bit removed. Like there’s nothing behind her eyes. There’s nothing behind her face.

Todd: Craig removed is a very kind way of putting it. She just looks completely spaced out the whole time. Yeah. She’s on the verge of tears at every moment. And I mean, that was just projected a mile away and that’s fine.

I mean, maybe this woman is like that, but it didn’t make for a much of a mystery. You know what I’m saying?

Craig: Yeah. You can tell immediately that the dynamics are messed up. The older daughter, Peggy played by Lauren Ashley Carter. Very. Lovely young woman. I don’t really know her from anything else. She’s sitting poolside and sh let you know, all of the other teenagers are swimming and having a good time.

And she’s, um, you know, not in a bathing suit, she’s kind of quiet and by herself. And then there’s the son, Brian, this was his first film. I believe. I, I didn’t recognize him at all, but even just, I don’t know if it was the way that it was filmed or if the way he was directed. But you could just tell that there was something off about him too.

Like he never smiles. He’s constantly kind of just leering everybody. And he sees some boys, children, but these boys are picking on a girl, a young girl who’s smaller than them. And like in the very first. The first second that I saw that I thought, Oh, Brian’s going to intercede to protect this girl. But no, he doesn’t at all.

Todd: No, he just looks at her coldly almost from afar, sitting on his basketball. Um, and then just stands up and starts shooting free throws. Like, yeah, it’s very clear yeah. That he has no interest in helping her almost, uh, just a fascination with the fact that she’s being tormented by these guys. Well,

Craig: and that’s the thing like when you get right down to the nitty gritty of this movie, I think though, I’m not sure really how successful it is nor am I sure how hard they were going at serious social messaging.

But the underlying motifs of this movie are misogyny, patriarchy to the extreme. Um, and, and Brian ends up being a very clear product of. That toxic masculinity and toxic misogyny. Not that there’s an toxic massage anyway. And so there’s one other, there’s a little girl named darlin and, you know, for the most part, she seems like a normal little girl, except for that she’s bratty.

And this isn’t out of the ordinary. It’s nothing that you would question in a real life. I don’t think, but it seems pretty clear that she’s not in any way. Motivated by any fear of authority from her mother. Like she talks back to her mom. She, she acts out, you know, little kids do that, but as the movie goes on, you realize that there’s a reason for that because the mother really has no authority.

And so it’s just weird from the beginning, they live in a nice house in the country though, you know, something’s off on the surface, pretty normal family. The dad maybes kind of seems like a Dick, but that happens, whatever things get interesting when the dad goes out on an early morning hunt and he S I guess, Oh my gosh, we skipped the beginning and I don’t want to skip the beginning because it’s weird.

The first person that we see is the woman. And she’s this wild, dirty feral woman, apparently living in the woods. The thing that’s bizarre to me, And I have no idea if it’s connection to the previous film, she’s like walking in a river and she like kills or injures a wild dog, like in a dinner or something, but then she’s running through the woods and looking just above the camera and the camera work is all very stylized, like almost dreamlike.

And then. There’s a baby in like a wolves. Dan,

Todd: I got the, I got it. The impression she was having a dream here. You’re right. It’s super stylized. It’s very dreamlike. It’s actually unlike any of the rest of the film, which is almost the complete opposite close cuts and these fades and these cross fades and these, uh, super impositions of different, you know, footage of her running through the woods and sleeping and her running through the woods and sleeping some more and like killing the something and sleeping.

And then you’re right. Like a baby that’s laying down in a nest of sorts. That’s being kind of trolled by wolves. And I imagined what this was, was like her origin story. I kind of thought it would, this was, Oh, this is like a baby for one reason or another was raised by wolves because at one point the baby, like the Wolf kind of.

It kind of looks like it’s feeding something to the baby and then the baby kind of, kind of peels away. And the baby’s mouth is bloody and this hand is bloody and it’s kind of smiling and all that, that, that was my impression of what this meant anyway.

Craig: See, and I think that there’s also an underlying motif of, I don’t know if this is the right word, but maternity or motherhood, you think maybe she

Todd: was pregnant

Craig: or had been because she’s also injured in her abdomen?

Um, I don’t know what I do know. Okay. So the, the dad sees this woman while he’s hunting. He goes back home and he forces his family. In his absence, he doesn’t help at all. He forces them to clean out the seller and he doesn’t tell them why. It’s basically just like, you’ll see. And then the next day he goes back out into the woods.

And as she’s emerging from her little din, this woman, he throws a net on her, encaptures, her, knocks her out with the butt of his rifle, drags her back home and puts her in the cellar and strings her up on this like pulley and lever system in the cellar.

Todd: Craig, real quick. Let’s talk about when he’s out hunting and he sees her, he’s not almost in these, like almost not the least bit shocked that there is a woman running wild back there.

And also he’s like scoping her out, literally through the scope of his rifle. Like you might Lear at somebody through binoculars like that, except for in his, in his case, it’s through the scope of the

Craig: rifle. It’s the male gaze. Yeah. Yeah. It’s the male gaze through the, the site of a rifle, the litter she’s bathing.

Todd: Yeah. The editing is kind of interesting here too, because he sees her bathing and it really Lears on her breasts and her shirt is flapped open or whatever. And then she kind of tucks her breasts in and starts to walk away. But then there’s like a cut. Her breasts are exposed again, but then they’re not, and then they’re exposed again.

They’re not, and you get the sense that, Oh, like, you know, this is what he’s leering at. This is his imagination. It’s kind of mixing the

Craig: two. Right. I, I agree the sound design adds to that too, because there’s a lot of music in this movie. Um, and the second that he spots her, like this loud music comes in, it makes it very evident that he’s immediately aroused by this.

Um, I mean, you can tell what his thoughts and intentions are. Immediately. And

Todd: for me, it’s a little too on the nose, man. You know, like he’s highlighting this woman scoping around through the scope of his rival. That music just kind of was the cherry on the top, you know, it’s just like, okay, I get it.

Craig: And I understand what you’re saying, but I almost feel like that was purposeful.

I feel like this movie, there’s something about it that, that removes it just enough from reality, right? It almost seems like a fantasy or a really, really dark fairy tale or terrible, uh,

Todd: of sorts. That’s a really good point, Craig, what you just said, like the music and the sound design is off-kilter enough and even the acting, and I don’t know if it was just because the acting in some points wasn’t so great.

Or if it was just intentionally that way. You know what I mean? Like there were parts in which I felt it, it came across so false that I thought in a sense, he’s just trying to create an unreal quality to this movie. Like we’re going to deal with unreal subject matter. So let’s just kind of fantasize the whole thing and make the whole thing, the sort of, kind of male fantasy gone awry or whatever.

Maybe it’s smarter than I’m giving it credit for, but it still came across in the viewing of it as like a little too on the nose. Let

Craig: me just put it that way. Yeah. And I, I agree with you and I get that. I E the dad brings this woman back, ties her up, and then he just introduces the family to her. Well, before he introduces the family to her, he’s kind of leering at her and touching her.

She’s still unconscious, but as he’s like, Fingering her face, she wakes up and she bites his ring finger off, like at least, you know, up to the second knuckle. And it’s very satisfying, frankly, because he’s so smarmy and gross. And the woman who plays the woman, Pollyanna McIntosh, she’s very good. She’s very good at playing this very feral and very animalistic.

She has these very unnatural, inhuman grunts, uh, that she, that she communicates with. It seems like she’s verbal, but she doesn’t speak English. Um, and I read. That the movie evolved as things do in creation. I guess in the first film, these feral people communicated with one another with language and it was subtitled, but in this, we don’t get any subtitles, but I did read that after she bites his finger off and he’s all pissed off and he comes back into punish her.

He fires a rifle right next to her ear. Basically deafening her in one ear and, and threatening her to behave because he wants to introduce the family. He brings the family in the sun seems to fascinated because here’s this, you know, wild half naked woman. It it’s gross. Like, uh, that, that, that little boy who played this role, I give him.

Props because he plays it so well, but I’m like, Ooh, like he’s just so creepy. And the little girl darlin, she’s more fascinated than anything that he’s presenting this woman as though she’s a pet, like as though she’s some wild animal that they have captured and, and plan to domesticate. Um, and it’s a parent that the mother bell and the oldest daughter, Peggy, they are appalled, but have no idea what to do because they have no power.

And there are several scenes where the woman locks eyes with either of these women, either bell or Peggy and the direction, and the cinematography does a good job. I think of making it evident that she is trying to communicate with them through eye contact alone. She is, you know, they are communicating, she’s pleading with them.

They have feelings of compassion. Seemingly I read that, uh, In one of the earlier incarnations of the script, she was supposed to speak to them in Gaelic, which I guess her tribe spoken, I don’t know. And she was supposed to say something like, will you help me mothers? Because obviously the, the mom is a mom, but something that becomes increasingly evident as the movie goes on is that Peggy is pregnant too.

Uh, it’s so gross. And there are moments when it really seems like they are connecting with her and that they might want to help her. But. They’re so beaten down or, or in fear of consequences from the dad that there’s, they’re, they’re powerless. They’re helpless.

Todd: Yeah. Well, I mean, there is that bit where they go into clean her off.

So the dad has got them. I mean, first of all, I’ve got to hit this. Like she bites his finger off. He turns around to her and anger. And I, I mean, obviously it’s also symbolic, right? Like a bites off his ring finger, his wedding ring falls around all this stuff. And then he turns around and says to her that is not civilized behavior, that he, you know, he has strapped up downstairs and it’s like, you have clearly a very ironic line, but also I kind of rolled my eyes at how ironic the line was.

Craig: And that’s the thing right here. There’s good dialogue. Um, in this part where he entered when he introduces the family to her too, because he. Presents it in such a nonchalant way. Like that’s part of the reason why, you know, that this family is, I’m sorry, you’re going to have to either believe me or pardon my language, because I can’t just help from saying that this family fucked up and this guy is up.

Yeah. Just the way that he talks to his family. Like he, he presents her and then the wife’s like, what is this? And. He says, we’re going to have to share in the responsibility for caring for her. Um, we’re going to train her and civilize her. This is our project and it’s a secret one. And he also says, which becomes significant later in the most twisted of ways.

It’s the same as taking care of the dogs. Um, and this entire movie is scored by a background of dogs constantly. And there’s constantly, yeah. He referenced to him reminding either of the older children to go care for the dogs. Like every five minutes. There’s some reference to the dogs,

Todd: go feed the dogs or something like that.

Yeah.

Craig: There’s a payoff in the end, but. Just the way that he approaches it with the family is so messed up.

Todd: I mean, if you see it as like a fairy tale and so you take a kind of aloof, uh, look at it and don’t try to see this as real, but all as sort of allegory and whatever, that’s fine. You know, then, like I said, these sort of ironic lines it’s okay.

But I mean, at that point where they’re staring at this woman, it is so obvious that the women are completely terrified and speechless. He stands there just talking very matter of factly about this, cause this is our project. And then as the women walk away, Brian, the boy with kind of a leering look on his face, turns to his dad and says, do we get to keep her.

Like she’s some pet, I’m sorry, Craig. But for me, I was just like, Oh God, this is so it’s too much really, you know, it’s too obvious. It’s, it’s unreal. It’s over, it’s over the top and unreal, which is fine. Okay. Now that I’ve watched a movie, it’s fine that we’ve got, you know, that this is what it’s going to be.

All right. So anyway, so, you know, peg peg is scared of her dad and can’t concentrate. Dad goes in and has a weird conversation with peg where she’s staring off into the distance. And I mean, she’s like she never makes eye contact with him whatsoever. And then the mom comes in in the background and shadow to overhear it.

And then the mom confronts the dad and says, look, uh, I think this may, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this. And he just slaps her and walks away, which. Okay. Yeah, that’s kinda what I expected. It’s it’s shocking, but yeah, that’s what

Craig: it just goes to bed. It is shocking because Chris isn’t, he, you know, like a superhero type guy, but he’s tall and a lean and Angela bedus is a small woman meek in her appearance, or she can make herself appear that way in her roles.

And she just very softly says, are you sure we should be doing this or something like that? And just immediate it’s so fast. He just slaps the shit out of her. Um, and she just stands there and takes it. And he does it in the same way that one might. Give their partner, a kiss on the cheek and walk away.

Like it’s just so casual gets ready for bed and goes to bed and says, come on, babe, time for bed. And she just goes and sits on the corner of the bed. It just establishes the dynamic of this relationship so easily. You know, she, I don’t know the word for it. I mean, she’s completely submissive to him, not out of character necessarily, but out of, she’s been beaten into submission, like a dog she’s been beaten into submission.

It’s messed up and it’s sad, but I, I feel you, when you say that, it’s just so over the top that it’s almost hard to believe. It is hard to believe. It doesn’t feel like reality. It feels like dark fantasy. It makes no sense. That anybody would just go along with this stuff. They are so on their own little Island in their house that the outside world barely even affects them.

The only kind of thing that we see from that from the outside world is that one of Peggy’s teachers clearly can tell that something is going on with her. Uh, there’s this young, pretty lesbian teacher named miss Raton, um, who is concerned about Peggy because. She’s acting differently than she had previously.

She’s dressing modestly and in baggy clothes, she’s sick in the morning. It’s perfectly apparent what’s going on, she’s pregnant and it doesn’t take much, you know, you don’t have to even put two and two together to realize that she’s pregnant by her fathers, by her father.

Todd: Cause there’s nobody else.

There’s nobody

Craig: else eventually that comes to them to a head at, at the end of the movie. So it’s not directly stated at any point early in the movie, but it’s just so obvious and that interaction where he’s talking to Peggy on her bed that could have been. Perfectly innocent, but you can just tell by how uncomfortable she is in his presence.

Like you said, she won’t even make eye contact with them. The mother is watching covertly from the shadows, you know exactly what’s going on. You know, everybody knows what’s going on. The mother knows what’s going on. It’s sick and twisted, but sad too. I’m like, it’s like may in that way that I feel bad for these women, but you know, it’s a movie.

So what are you going to do?

Todd: Well, it’s funny, you said lesbian teacher now, where did you get that idea from? Well,

Craig: one thing, um, the first time that she kind of checks in on Peggy Peggy’s daydreaming and when the teacher checks in on her, Peggy just can I be excused? And she goes to the bathroom, but she had crumpled up a piece of paper and the teacher opens it and it’s an illustration of her.

And it says, miss Dyke, then later. There’s a scene where the teacher is considering calling the family to express her concern. And she’s talking to what appears to be a coworker, but I’m pretty sure she calls her, babe. And then I also read that in early drafts of the film, there was. And implied or maybe explicit sexual relationship between the teacher and Peggy that does not play into the movie at all.

It’s it’s not, it’s absent from the movie, but in an early draft, it was there.

Todd: Yeah. The, the movie really sexualizes the teacher early on too. I mean, you know, our introduction to her is kind of a long. Draw up her legs and skirt and stuff. She turned around and talks to the class, which, you know, so the gaze is definitely on the women.

He’s definitely focusing us on the women. I, yeah, the Mrs. Dyke thing is there. I didn’t really think about it and it’s not important. It’s not important, you know, as long as she’s not having a sexual relationship with these kids with this kid is as apparently wasn’t an earlier script, which was, would have been even more bizarre and right.

I mean, my God, thank goodness that was on the cutting room floor because the movie didn’t need that complication. It

Craig: did it didn’t. But at the same time, I think that it also would have made the whole situation even more bizarre because if Peggy were queer, it would’ve made even less sense that she was pregnant and it would have made, you know, there would have been no doubt, you know, like.

There’s really no doubt here. Anyway, there’s no other boys and they, they make a point of that. You know, she’s not seeing anybody, in fact, at the pool party in the beginning, a cute boy who apparently she had at one point, been interested in, shows interest in her and she just rejects him basically outright.

Um, so there isn’t anybody else. Uh, it’s gotta be the dad and it’s gross. I, I feel like, I don’t know. I know how to proceed with this because I feel like it’s just beats, like, you know, like there are these weird plot beats that you, you mentioned that they bathed her. Yeah, well they, first of all, they try to bathe her with.

Like boiling water off the stove, which the mom bell kind of tries to object to, but the dad shuts her down as he always does when that doesn’t work, because she’s so dirty, he fucking power washes her. Like this movie is so twisted.

Todd: That is torture, torture. He just does it. So nonchalantly like is washing the car and Peggy screaming in the background.

Eventually she’s like, stop dead, stop, whatever. And the woman just kind of looks up during that bathing scene. That’s when the woman and the mother first lock eyes. And it’s, it’s clear as day that they’re communicating because this is a long drawn out deal wall. Dad is there washing, trying to wash the woman.

Mother has picked up a board from the floor and is slowly approaching and it’s their eyes and it’s the board and it’s the rise and it’s the dad distracted. And you kind of think that maybe. Mom is going to whack him over the head with the board end to this. But instead she points out, up in the corner, Hey, I’m one of the islets or whatever that he had screwed into one of the overhanging boards.

It looks like it’s going to break free, which would be a big problem. And he’s like, Oh, thank you very much for pointing that out. And she’s holding the board out and he says, this will be a good start at fixing that. And so then he turns away and then there’s another look between the two and they go away.

Craig: But that other look that, that second look like, yes, it seemed like they were communicating. It seemed like maybe a bell was going to do the right thing and help her. But then when she doesn’t, they lock eyes again. And I just happened my notes that the woman’s look is like, thanks for nothing,

Todd: bro. And it’s an, it’s an interesting scene, right? I’m not sure what quite to make of it. I guess what we’re trying to learn here is that the wife is far gone. She’s gonna, she’s gonna be the dad, you know, the husband’s, um, lapdog through the whole thing, and she’s not going to do anything to save this woman.

This woman’s only chance at redemption comes from Peggy, because Brian is get is, is right alongside dad and getting sick and twisted, you know, feelings along with it. The

Craig: dad gets up in the middle of the night, like he’s being sneaky, like the bell totally as awake and knows that he’s leaving and knows what he’s doing.

Todd: Yeah. And like he’s done it before many, a times probably with her, her daughter. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig: Yes. And Brian is awake too. Brian follows his dad out there and watches, his dad raped this woman. Like it’s so twisted. It’s disgusting. Uh, I mean, and it is the thing is though. The content is so gross, but it’s really not super graphic.

No,

Todd: surprisingly it’s

Craig: suggested Everett. I mean, it’s more than suggested, you know exactly what’s happening, but it’s not graphic. Um, and it’s depiction, but it doesn’t have to be it’s disturbing enough.

Todd: But again, my God, Craig, this is just, it’s like an ABC afterschool special, but like none I ever watched, but you know what I’m saying?

The dad does the thing. And then the it’s an example to the son and the son literally watches it. And then what happens the next day? The sun goes down to reenact what dad?

Craig: Well, but th the next day, first of all, we see them in the morning and we see Chris going off to work and he says to Brian, so you got have day to day.

Yeah. And. Brian’s like, yeah. And he’s like, well, what are you gonna do with all your spare time? And Brian’s like, I don’t know. And Chris says to him, don’t do anything. I wouldn’t do

so grouse.

Todd: So it’s like, okay dad. And he goes down and he basically tries to rape her just like his dad did

Craig: even worse because unbeknownst to him, Peggy is home. But Brian is even more twisted than his dad because he doesn’t just molest this woman, which he does, but he tortures her

Todd: pliers,

Craig: dabs her with needle-nose pliers and tears.

One of her nipples off again, we don’t see it happen. We just hear the woman’s screams. And because Peggy has stayed home sick. She runs out and stops him. The aftermath of this. I was talking to my partner last night about the movie, and I said, you would have hated this movie. I’m so glad I didn’t make you watch it.

And I said the movie again, pardon my language. You know, I think about those people who contact us and are like, thank you for not swearing all the time. But I swear sometimes, sorry. I said to him, this movie is set up from the beginning. And then in the last 25 minutes, it’s like,

so messed up, like from, from the point that you see the mom and Peggy have Brian sat down at the table, waiting for the dad to come home so that they can tell the dad what he’s done from that moment on it is just. A nightmare. It was insane.

Todd: It’s too much. I mean, dad comes home and what does he literally say when they tell him what happened?

Oh, he’s a boy. Adolescents have urges. Boys will be boys. I mean, it’s a, nobody got hurt. Nobody got hurt. It’s a, it’s a litany of every single thing that, you know, the me too movement has said, you know, this is bullshit that guys tell their, their sons. Uh, and this is why we have such rampant misogyny in American culture.

You know, again, I’m sorry. Ma’am, it’s just way too much on the nose for me that I was just disconnected from it. It was screwed up. It was after, but I couldn’t feel it was real enough that I felt that emotional. Connection that it wasn’t just a play happening, a morality play happening in front of you. So maybe that’s a good thing.

Cause I mean, you know, if it had felt real, I would have needed to take a cold shower after this and felt damaged myself.

Craig: Well, that’s the thing, like I feel like as an English teacher, I should be able to come up with a better word, but it’s almost like satire, like it’s exaggerated to an extreme to make a point.

And I get, I get the point that they’re trying to make. I get the point about patriarchy and misogyny. And it’s specifically in this part, how that is passed down through generations. Um, and, and, you know, Brian has learned this by watching his father. And it’s been allowed to continue to some extent, and I’m not women blaming here at all, but to some extent, because the women have allowed it to continue at this point now because of that, that gets into, but that gets into a whole issue of power dynamic, too.

It’s not so much they’re allowing it. It’s that, you know, what choice do they have? They have been brow beaten into accepting it, which is why I love this next part, because once he says all those things, bell finally for the first time in the whole movie shows some humanity, she’s an actual person and she blows up and please, you know, Angela Bettis, I really, really think is a very talented actress and.

The shift here. It’s almost like the veneer breaks. Like she just can’t do it anymore. And that’s what she says. I can’t do this anymore. You can’t do this. And little bombshells are dropped here too. She’s like, how, how long do you think you can get away with this? She says, even what’s going on out there with the dogs would be enough to put you in prison.

And when I first heard that, I’m like, well, yeah, it doesn’t seem like they’ve been taking very good care of them. You know, maybe that you can get, you know, some animal abuse, serious a thing. Um, yeah. When she says that and, and really she loses it. She, she is really, you know, going in on him. He looks at her and I did not.

The first time I watched this, I did not put this together at all. I don’t even think that I knew what he was saying, that he shouts in her face and uptown Mia. That is your shame. You remember that? Did you catch that? And did you know what he was talking about? Well, first of

Todd: all, I didn’t know what that was until I looked it up later.

So no, and no, I didn’t catch that. I actually had that all went right by

Craig: me. I mean, it’s, it’s, uh, I guess we can save it for the big reveal. Something is going on out there with the dogs that we don’t know about. And when he throws that in her face, she says, I never condoned what you did. And he says, yeah, well, what are you going to do about it?

And that. Is maybe one of the more troubling lines for me, because I feel like that is so the position that abused women find themselves in, right? They feel so powerless. Um, and these men, and it’s not just men, any abusive person, they convince people that, what are you going to do? You have no power. I have all the power.

What are you going to do? And she says, I’m gonna, I’m gonna leave you. And she says, I’m taking the girls with me. You can keep your little rapist son for yourself. You seem to be teaching him, you know, just right. Um, but you’re not going to hurt me or my girls anymore. And when she says that he. Beats the shit out of her.

Yeah. Not like

Todd: horrible. Almost comically. Really. The teacher rings the doorbell and the girl goes to the tour while dad and the son are picking up mommy, he’s like, Oh, mom’s going to be fine. Go get her a wet rag, you know, whatever. And help me here at the same time, the, the girl answers the door, you know, like, like they’ve had to do this a thousand times before.

And the son of the dad are very casually, you know, not at all concerned that someone’s coming to the door, setting mom up at the table and, uh, And the teacher comes over and she, you know, she’s here to visit, to talk to the parents about what she thinks, you know, what she’s discovered about their daughter possibly being pregnant.

And the dad walks right over and says, Hey, how are you doing? Oh yeah, you’re the, you’re the geometry teacher. Great. Come on in, have a seat, sits her down right there in the room. And then, you know, she has a clear view of mom’s sitting at the table unconscious and he’s just kind of looks over and says, Oh, you know, she’s not feeling well, taken a power nap.

And then he says a line that I think was, was clever and significant as the teacher’s like, well, I would like to speak with you and your wife alone. And he says, we have no secrets in this family. Yep. And I’m like, yeah, well, truer words were never, were never spoken yeah. By him. But he’s like, yeah, you’d bring my, you can talk.

Why don’t, if it’s about my daughter, why don’t we bring peg in here? And she sits down and he’s like, and then. The Brian, come on in. You, you need to hear this too. You know, she lays out her idea that peg is pregnant and he goes ballistic on her quickly. He confronts her and says, what are you suggesting?

She doesn’t have a boyfriend if she had a boyfriend, I would know. So are you suggesting it was Brian, like that’s out of left field, right? For the tension? No, of course. What the hell are you talking about? It’s like, and are you, you must be suggesting it’s me. And she’s looking at him like, he’s crazy. And he’s like, well, you certainly are.

And I’ll have nothing of it. And then he whacks her out and that. This was the first surprise of the movie for me. So he knocks her out against the door and tells Brian, go get a rope. And this is what the camera, where it gets kind of interesting. Like they go for that whole Bob Clark, like wide angle camera and these closeup shots where everything’s a little chaotic and a little more dreamlike, just because it’s a little more distorted.

But, uh, he drags her out with Brian’s help outside ties her by the rope to the fence. And the same time peg is running after him screaming. You can’t do this, you can’t. And he she’s

Craig: my teacher, she’s my

Todd: friend. Yeah. And he, for the first time, just once again, then just grabs her by the neck and the camera’s spinning around him.

And he just lays into her. And one, one thing that he says, you’re all the same women are all the same. You and your sisters. Sisters and I did not escape me

Craig: only. Good. You’re only good for one thing and half the time, you’re not even any good at that.

so nasty. I mean, because he’s, he’s clearly speaking to her specifically, not just about women in general, but to her specifically, uh, it’s so nasty. Well, they, he and Brian drag, this poor woman who was just trying to help and do the right thing, um, drag her in and throw her in the dog. Pin. And these are German shepherds, unhappy German shepherds.

And so that’s very scary that she backs away towards one corner of the kennel. And the dad’s like, that’s a bad idea. And there’s like a little dog Hutch in the back and out of this dog Hutch bursts, this wild feral girl disfigured with a face deformity. That, that thing that he had said that, uh, anophthalmia what that is, is a congenital disorder where a child is born congenitally without one eye, or there’s another name for it.

They can be born without. Both eyes. Um, but what’s obviously happened here is that there had been another daughter who had born been born with a birth defect. And so they had just made her one of the dogs and that was just part of their everyday life. So every time he was telling them to go feed the dogs, they were also really feeding this.

Sister, feral sister that they had. And it’s so twisted because you realize that from the beginning, his family was shocked that you would bring in this feral woman, but he’s done it before. They’ve been living their life like this for ever. Yeah. Oh, it’s so dark and twisted and disgusting. And the feral sister kills the teacher while that is happening.

Peggy runs. And I don’t know what inspires her to do this, but I think that it was the smart thing to do. She runs and she releases. The woman.

Todd: Yeah. This is what you’re waiting for. And you’re hoping that this moment is going to come and it comes and it’s entirely satisfying. Yeah. Yep. She picks up a big piece of metal.

It’s like a knife or like,

Craig: um, it’s like a mower blade.

Todd: Yeah, it is. And the first thing she does is go after Brian, Brian, and the data been watching the teacher get eaten with a sick fascination. Like this has happened before. Almost really. Here’s the thing, like, there’s been a kind of motif through this movie where the mother keeps baking these cookies.

They’re like gingerbread men with the little girl. And, uh, there’s a T you know, when Brian gets the gingerbread man, he chops it in half with his hand before he eats it. It’s just supposed to show that he’s. Such a brutal guy or something. And this, he does this like three or four times in the movie and I’m thinking, okay, this is going to come to fruition at some point.

And it does because the woman, uh, slices twice across this Brian’s midsection. It cuts them in half. Like one of those gingerbread cookies, just

Craig: satisfying because he’s so disgusting, but eat. But even before that, as soon as the woman emerges, bell has run out, I guess, to see what’s happening. I mean, she’s terribly injured.

Like it seems like maybe her ribs are broken or maybe even her back is broken. I mean, she’s, she’s severely injured, but she makes her way out there to the cellar. And she opens the door and she sees the woman coming up the stairs and she looks at Peggy and says, what have you done? And the woman picks her up, throws her on the ground and kills her by basically eating her face off.

And then she picks her up above her head and throws her life. 10 feet away. I mean, this woman it’s ridiculous. She has superhuman strength. This is all very over the top violence. I have to say that I kind of felt bad that bill got killed. Sure. I’m a victim too. She was a victim too. Now I was, again, I was talking to my partner about it and I said, you know, when it comes right down to it, she allowed this to happen for a very long time.

But again, I don’t want to get into victim blaming. She too was a victim, but anyway, she gets it. Then Brian gets it. Then finally the dad,

Todd: no, in a way, the movie is kind of victim blaming. I mean, it’s saying that even though this woman was a victim, because she didn’t anyway, get the wherewithal to stop it.

Especially at that moment where she had the opportunity, she is just as culpable, which. Uh, I don’t know. I have a little bit of a problem with that. I mean, you can kind of just, you can kind of say, well, yeah, sure. That’s true. But on the other hand, I think we understand the psychological aspects of this.

It’s a little more complicated than that. And so I know that we’re supposed to feel happy that she got it too, because she was an enabler here. But yeah, once again, I think it really oversimplifies things and does a bit of a disservice to the point the movie is trying

Craig: to make well. And then, you know, like I said, the dad gets it too.

He, he tries to grab a weapon or something, but the woman comes up to him and just. Punches into his abdomen. Like it’s, it’s, that’s the thing like it’s, it’s not realistic. And I think again, I’ve said it already, but I feel like that’s intentional. It’s supposed to be a little bit fantastical, I think for just to drill home the message and she, you know, rips his guts out and then, you know, shoves her arm clear up into his cavity and pulls his heart out and takes a bite out of it while he’s still alive.

And then the end is very bizarre. Uh, but I like it. She comes out, um, Peggy runs and grabs darlin, and it seems like she’s gonna try to. Get them away. Meanwhile, the woman is outside and the dog girl, I feel bad even saying that about her, but you know, she is a human being, but that’s well, she does. Her name is socket.

Isn’t that nice?

Todd: Oh, that’s horrible.

Craig: Right. The dog girl comes out and the woman is like, seems confused a little bit by her, but she just treats her like a dog and kind of just when the girl growls at her, she smacks her and kind of into submission. So then this girl just kind of follows the woman around like a dog, like a dog.

The woman walks up to the house and, um, darlin runs out and hands her a bottle of water, which she drinks. And then she. Has bloody hands from the dad. She, she has the little girl lick her fingers that it’s almost like the little girl’s like, Hmm. Yeah, that was good. And, and so the woman takes darlin by the hand and just starts walking away.

So it’s her walking hand in hand with darlin followed by their family dog girl. And I had forgotten this, but in the very last seconds, it appears that Peggy starts to follow them too, as though they are all going to go off and be this new family, which is interesting and weird. But you know, now they’re like this tribe of.

Women, um, which is kind of interesting that, like I said, there is a follow-up to this movie called darlin. Peggy appears in it, but I don’t remember her being in it very much. I don’t recall dog girl being in it at all. You watched it. I did watch it. Um, it, it takes place, I would guess maybe 10 years later when darlin is a teenager and somehow Darlan gets discovered and taken away to a Catholic boarding school where they attempt to civilize her.

But the secondary story is that the woman is on a mission to retrieve her. Quote, unquote daughter, frankly, though I enjoyed the movie. It got into some really silly territory. It’s interesting. If you liked this movie, I would say, go ahead and watch it, but it gets even kind of more over the top. I mean, the woman ends up with a gun in the end.

She’s like, I don’t know. It’s kind of silly. Okay. This movie overall, to me, it’s just, I can’t say that I enjoyed it cause it’s so dark and twisted. Like it leaves you unsettled and almost feeling sick to your stomach, but. I think that it’s interesting. And I think that lucky McKee is an interesting director.

He makes interesting thought provoking movies, you know, maybe not a date movie, you know, if you’re into horror and if you’re willing to, if you’re prepared for some disturbing material, that’s at least going to get you kind of thinking, I think it’s worth the shot and it’s well-made Oh, that’s true. The acting is a little over the top.

Everything’s a little over the top. The cinematography is stylized, but I think it’s very competently made. Um, it’s very bizarre, you know, it’s very difficult to put into, you know, a category, but, uh, I don’t know, overall, I would recommend it to horror fans, but you, you kind of need to know you’re getting into something very different here.

Todd: Yeah. And I would take maybe a couple steps back from, from your position on this. I get it. I think it plays maybe better as a fairy tale. And maybe if you look at it through that lens, I would maybe look a little nicer on the movie. I just feel like this type of subject matter, which. Maybe now, I mean, the movies, why did he came out in 2011?

And so some time has passed since then. And now this me too thing is it’s not a thing it’s always been there, but you know, that this kind of realization that we have nowadays, uh, we need to very well, much recognized that this thing happens. I mean, this stuff we all should know has been happening, misogyny abuse, that kind of thing, obviously, but it’s more front and center now probably than it was in 2011.

And so I think nowadays we’re having more sophisticated conversations about it. And so, so maybe when you watch it moving nowadays, it seems a little too simplistic. It seems a little too over the top. And, uh, it’s maybe a little outdated in that way, perhaps. That’s why I kind of groaned through the whole film.

I felt like a, this subject matter deserves something a little more nuanced. Than what we got and that’s fine. I mean, look, this is horror. We do a horror podcast to horror is usually not very nuanced, but the reason I was comparing this to may is because may was a very nuanced film by the same director.

And I, I liked that. And again, subject matter, you know, the kind of plight of women in today’s society, they both share that as well. I just felt like, whereas I thought that may was a very nuanced and interesting and intriguing look at it, even though it also was fantastical. This movie was a little too fantastical to me.

It may be if it had dipped a little bit more into the realm of obvious fantasy, maybe if there were a little more magical realism in there, kind of like there wasn’t may, you know,

Craig: I I’m glad that you said that because I almost forgot. Did you watch the post credit scene?

Todd: There was a post credit scene.

How many about it? No, I didn’t know.

Craig: And it’s, it’s crazy. It’s it’s darlin like on a paper boat, on a paper. See traveling to this paper Island. Yes. And it’s, it’s all, it’s very stylized, almost like puppet theater. The only realistic thing is the young girl. Who’s the actress. And she ends up on like this tribal Island and like communicates with this.

There’s no dialogue, but like communicates with this weird papier-mache tribal God or something. Yeah. And then that’s it. And it’s just over, but just like that fantastical moment at the end of may, where it kind of seems like maybe the corpse is coming to life. This is kind of a little fantastical cap on this movie too.

I had never seen it either. I just happened to read somewhere that it was there. And so I went back and looked at it and I, it doesn’t even seem connected to the plot. Um, but it’s weird. Oh boy. Anyway, so yeah, there you go.

Todd: There’s the woman for, you know, woman. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode.

If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us online, just Google, two guys, and a chainsaw podcast. Find our Facebook page, find our homepage, leave us a comment there. Let us know what you thought of this film and our review of it. As well as leave suggestions for films we should do in the future.

Like Andrew, thank you again, Andrew, for this recommendation, we had a blast chatting about it and watching it. Until next time. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

This one takes us waaaay back to our childhood. But does anyone ELSE remember it?

It’s hard to believe this swashbuckling tale of intrigue, political thriller, horror and sci-fi seems to have been lost to time, especially considering it stars a young Dennis Quaid, Kate Capshaw, Max Von Sydow, and Christopher Plummer – to whom we are paying tribute this week. Listen in to see if this rings any bells.

Dreamscape (1984)

Episode #251, 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. Well, this week, we’re back after a bit of an absence. Thank you all so much for your patience. I had some things to do, and I was out of town for a couple of weeks. And so here we are. Back again, doing a tribute episode for another actor who has died recently, the late and great Christopher Plummer.

My goodness, this man very recognizable has had a long and illustrious career in Hollywood, Canadian actor born in. I believe born in Toronto, grew up in Quebec and just started off right out at the gate. I read that he got interested in acting in high school and went on from there. Studied, never went to university, which was something that he regretted the rest of his life, apparently.

But, uh, I don’t know if you can have too many regrets about this life. He’s well-known for the sound of music playing, um, captain Von Trapp in that one. Which ironically is a role that he didn’t care for too much. Uh, he just felt it was very one note and, uh, he didn’t really like it. He didn’t feel he had much to contribute to it.

I think he never even referred to that movie by its full name. Whenever he talked about it, he just thought it was sappy and, and, uh, sentimental stuff. Although he enjoyed working with Julie Andrews and I think it later on in life, he kinda came around and recognized it for what it was and said that he was honored to be involved in that, in that movie, which when it was released, I think it gone with the wind out as the most successful film of all time at that time.

Yeah. And I think it held that position for quite a while. So yeah. I mean, undoubtedly. Made him even more famous than he already was, but he had already had a long career, uh, in, in television start out television and like move straight into movies. And, uh, was one of those actors who could kind of go between stage and film and television quite successfully, 217 credits to his name on INDB as an actor.

And I think the last film that he did was knives out if I’m not mistaken, which was great,

Craig: at least. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. And I liked him minute. I, uh, I read that he started on stage and the, um, move to screen was actually kind of a struggle for him. There is I haven’t, I I’ve done next to no on camera work, anything I’ve done has been on stage, but I know that there is a distinct difference between performing on stage and performing for it.

Camera. I mean, they’re two totally different things. And I guess apparently a little early in his career, he kind of struggled with that, but obviously eventually it’s something that he overcame and he was, well-recognized all kinds of awards. Tony’s Emmy’s just right.  yeah. Uh, very well, well established and respected actor.

I mean, in my view, very much a man’s man, you know, tall, good looking stern, you know, commanding presence that carried throughout all of the roles that I’ve. Seen him in, uh, which is quite a few because he works a lot.

Todd: Yeah. Like every year he’s has two or three projects coming out. It seems like it’s crazy up to the, yeah.

A

Craig: very illustrious career. So, you know, it’s, it’s sad that he’s gone, but, uh, he had a very full life, so, and we can just kind of celebrate. His work. Well,

Todd: I have to recommend before we dive into this week’s movie, which is dreamscape, which came out in 1984, I have to recommend that if you have not seen murder by decree, Oh God, this is a fantastic movie.

And we’ve done a couple of Bob Clark’s movies on here. And I think I’ve even referenced a murder by decree once or twice, just because I love that film so much directed by Bob Clark and starring Christopher Plummer as Sherlock Holmes. If you’re into Sherlock Holmes and who isn’t, you’ve got to give that movie a look.

It is fantastic. It’s just one of the best Sherlock Holmes movies out there. And fun fact, he is, I think the second cousin to British actor, Nigel Bruce, which if you’re into Sherlock Holmes, like I am, you know, Nigel Bruce played a Watson in the long running radio series, which sounds so nerdy when I say this, but I have like.

Hundreds of these episodes on MP3. And I listened to them. I used to fall asleep to them, listening to them, uh, going to bed. I just, nothing like those old Sherlock Holmes radio shows and Nigel Bruce was a great Watson in those. But yeah. Anyway, coming back to Christopher Plummer and this week’s episode dreamscape from 1984, also starring a very young and fresh Dennis Quaid, which was a joy to see on the screen being such a.

Cocky jerky sort of, but also lovable guy. Okay. In the title role for me, the movie does bring back memories because this was a film that I remember very distinctly from childhood. We must have either taped it off a TV or taped it off of a rental tape or something because my sisters and I watched this quite a bit and I was really anxious to see if it lived up to my memories because I hadn’t seen it since my childhood.

It’s surprisingly not a well remembered movie. I think people don’t talk much about it and going into this, I was a little concerned like how data would be, or maybe my memories didn’t really hold up as well. It’s an interesting film. I would say it spans a number of genres, horror being one of them. It’s like a Saifai movie.

It’s a horror movie. It’s like a political thriller. There’s some romance in there. I mean, it’s. Got a little bit of everything. It’s almost like I’m trying to be a little bit more of like a scifi, Indiana Jones thing. You know, where the adventures happen in the dreams. I don’t know that I thought about that because his character struck me as a young Harrison Ford ish type thing.

And this movie came out in 1984. Uh, the same year, I believe Indiana Jones and the temple of doom came out and both films also CoStar the absolutely Kate Capshaw. I know. Right.

Craig: I think all of us were in love with her when we were kids. I mean, from, I don’t think that this had the widespread appeal of temple of doom, but hardcore Indiana Jones fans kind of viewed temple of doom as one of the redheaded stepchildren of the franchise.

Like I think that it was the bastard child before that stupid alien one came out. Oh

Todd: God .

Craig: But temple of doom was always my favorite. I just thought that it was so fun. Fun and exciting and funny. And she was just absolutely great in that movie. I loved her in that movie. She was also in space camp, which is another great movie.

She was married to Steven Spielberg there for

Todd: awhile. It is. She’s not anymore. Maybe she

Craig: is. I don’t know. I don’t remember. But, um, she was very beautiful of course, but she also just had a really. Bunkie and I’m sure she still does a very spunky personality that made her really fun to watch on screen. And she has a relatively small part in this movie, but I still enjoyed seeing her.

And, and you’re right. You know, this is young Dennis Quaid and somehow Dennis Quaid was. Involved in this movie kind of from its inception. And they wrote this role with him in mind and he was really the only choice to play it because he was so enthusiastic about it and bringing it to fruition. And I liked Dennis Quaid.

I still liked Dennis Quaid. He’s handsome. He’s funny. He seems very down to earth, but in this movie, he is very young, very handsome. You’re right. He’s got kind of that cocky attitude about him. It’s, it’s charming. It’s endearing. Um, and, and this really, I mean, he’s a baby in this. The other thing that I remember him from, especially from when I was a kid was Innerspace with him and Brian.

Oh my God. And I loved that movie. And this is even before that, He’s a little, he’s a little baby, but a very handsome and charming and, and good in this role. I would love the

Todd: excuse to do interspace on this show. We can’t really call it a horror movie, but man, that’s another movie you’ve got to go out and see that, you know, it still holds up.

I was actually guested on another podcast that was done by some friends of mine years ago. And the, we did interspace there and I remember us just loving that movie. It was so good even today. So I’m at this movie. I think this movie is kind of ripe for a remake. I feel like it’s dated. And it’s not terrible.

It’s just dated. Maybe that’s just the best way to put it. And I feel like you could take this whole concept, um, changed almost nothing about it and just update it for modern times. And, uh, it would be great. I think someone needs to do this. It’s really interesting. If you look at the poster for this movie, it is like a rip off of the Indiana Jones posters.

They’re really trying to make this look like this Indiana Jones, this type globe trotting thing with the poster art, it looks just like the temple of doom and the Raiders. Exactly. Poster art. I mean, obviously that’s intentional and then I have some really cool Italian poster art that I’m going to put up on when I, when we post this on the website, that’s hilarious.

Well, I

Craig: know that Italian stuff is crazy. Some of it doesn’t even make it easy. Like, did they even see this?

Todd: But in somehow that’s kind of in the spirit of this movie, because again, the movie is a little bit all over the place in what it tries to be in the genre that it is it’s, it has a surreal elements to it.

It has very down to earth elements to it has some corny elements to it. Some touching parts, somehow it still kind of works. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I mean, the movie is dated and it, I, you know, it had its issues, but the only real issue I had with the movie was the film score. I felt like the music, it didn’t deserve this music.

I don’t know. Maybe you feel differently. Uh, well kind

Craig: of just because I know having looked into it, that it was very intentional now. I don’t remember who the composer

Todd: was. W no, first you got the composers, Maurice JaRay who is a very

Craig: famous, Oh

Todd: yeah. Lawrence of Arabia, doctorate of Wago, you know? Right.

Craig: Like these huge classic films,

Todd: ghost dead poet’s society, gorillas in the mist. I mean, all of the, I mean, massive, massive films and really beautiful scores that this guy can write, just not in this movie.

Craig: Well, they wanted him to do an orchestral score like he normally did, and he specifically did not want to, he wanted to do a scent score because he felt like a synth score would.

Highlight the dream-like nature of everything that’s going on, both in the dreams and in the real world, because even in the real world, it’s all very mad cap like this, this movie is action packed. It’s not terribly long, but as I always say, you know, I take notes and I have like two pages of plot notes.

Like it’s always moving things happening all the time. It’s very plot driven, the scifi fantasy stuff with the dream stuff, which we’ll get into, which is. Important, but even outside of that, it really is very much a political thriller. And so, yeah, there’s lots of chases and investigation and tension and, and it’s good.

It all works, works together though. The score of does of course seem very dated. It’s very eighties. I feel like I get what he was going for, especially in some scenes, like the first time that we. Enter into dreams with our main character, Alex, Dennis Quaid, the synthetic score makes it feel very surreal and dreamlike.

And of course they do stuff with the cinematography that also today looks very dated. It takes you out of reality. It doesn’t look real. There’s something off about it. There’s something off about the way it looks and there’s something off about the way it sounds. And I thought it was effective. And I get what you’re saying.

I understand the criticism, especially from a modern perspective. I think if you take a young audience and put them in front of this, they’re going to roll their eyes and Oh my God, that’s so eighties and yeah, it is, but I don’t know. It was on point for that time, you know, it was. It was innovative at the time.

Yeah. I

Todd: mean, I understand the reason he made that choice and I can imagine that, you know, maybe make that same choice if I were him, but I kind of disagree on this. I feel like it, look, I love since scores and I don’t mind that dated quality. Heck you know, we talk about this all the time about how sometimes that’s, you know, that takes us back and we liked that, but I feel like it was a miscalculation in this movie because I felt like the synth score seemed thin and I felt like it cheap under the movie a bit, the film that’s trying to be this sort of a, not globetrotting, but like you said, this like political thriller, that’s always moving and there’s tons of action and there’s intrigue in this stuff.

It deserved. Something a little more orchestral and suspenseful. And somehow I just don’t feel like the synthesized score that he came up with rises to that occasion. It just bothered me. It bothered me while watching it. And I mean, I get it and it’s fine. And, and it works in the dream sequences, I think.

But then in the rest of the movie with the chase scenes and that stuff, I don’t know. It just, wasn’t what I normally expect in a film like this. And, and not that it always has to follow these rules, but in this case it just took me out of it a little bit. And I was disappointed enough. Anyway.

Craig: I mean, I feel like we, we can’t go through every plot point.

The, the, the podcast would be two hours long. So we’re going to have to kind of do the CliffsNotes version, but I feel like we should at least get into it. The first thing we see turns out to be a dream sequence. It’s this woman running away from what looks like devastation, and it’s all very like color saturated and reds.

It. Looks dreamlike, but of course, this is the very first thing we’re seeing. So we’re not sure exactly what’s going on and this woman’s running down the road. And then behind her seemingly a nuclear explosion happens. Um, and she ends up getting an isolated or whatever, and this guy wakes up, this was his dream.

And it turns out that this guy is the president of the United States played by Eddie.

Todd: Albert.

Craig: Yeah. For three

Todd: natures. Yeah. Right. I mean, I know he’s been in a lot of other stuff, but I just think of them. Oh, that’s the green acres guy.

Craig: I didn’t even realize that’s what he was from. But as soon as you said it, I’m like, Oh yeah, that guy.

And so he’s being troubled by these dreams. Then we find out that there are these people who are doing dream studies and it’s, uh, Kate Capshaw who plays a lady named Jane . And Dr. Paul Novotny played by max Von CEDAW and max Von seed out of course is huge, you know, around the world and in Hollywood.

Right? And he and Christopher Plummer, their paths crossed many times. Uh, they, they worked together several times. They were up for the same roles and it makes sense. They have a similar demeanor. So it makes sense. Anyway, they’re working on this dream project. Novotny talks about how he wants to get this kid that he worked with before that it goes to them named Alex, who was like played by Dennis Quaid, who was the most successful or, or talented, um, psychic that he had ever worked with.

But right in the middle of their work together, Alex had had just split, like he had just disappeared. And then we meet Alex and he’s a scamp. Like he’s a lovable scamp. I love it. He uses his psychic abilities to place winning bets at the race track with, yeah. Why the hell? Not

Todd: exactly what I would do if I were psychic, finally, we see something true to life in one of these movies was psychics.

Right.

But. It’s a little unclear, right? Like the extent of his abilities, because although he’s able to like predict the winning of the racetrack, it’s not like he reads minds so much in this movie, but he also apparently can move things with his mind. Or at least when he was being researched was, was able to do some of that.

We see in some footage later on or earlier on when they’re kind of talking about this guy right

Craig: later, we see that classic like psychic test where there’s two people sitting on opposite sides of the table and one person is drawing up cards and then, you know, he can get, it’s a red triangle, it’s a green circle.

And he gets it right every single time. Who knows if that’s really a thing, but, and he really

Todd: was in Ghostbusters Ghostbusters. That must be

well, that was that’s right. When he, they bring him back because he’s being chased. Uh, and at first he’s being chased, uh, at the, at this racetrack, by some guys who, who basically want to use him. Right. They want their onto them and then they want to cut and all that. And he he’s pretty good at escaping and getting the slip on them.

But then he gets taken at his home. A couple

Craig: of heavies show up at his door. Yeah.

Todd: Heavies from the university. From the university. Yeah. It’s hilarious that this university professor. They’re sending out

Craig: these right. He’s very compliant with them at first because the other guys, the racetrack guys are after him.

So basically these heavies are getting him away from the other heavies. And so he goes with them. But when he’s kind of in the clear, away from the guys who are chasing him, he’s like, Oh, okay

Todd: guys, Hey,

Craig: uh,

Todd: listen, guys, I’ve thought this over and

Craig: I’m not really interested once you just let me

Todd: out for the last Sienna.

You okay? I know this is going to sound a bit

Craig: sinister Mr. Gardner, but, uh, we have instructions to bring you back with us. I mean, I’m being kidnapped. Well, there are some people up at Thornhill

Todd: that

Craig: are anxious to meet with you. Yeah. Well, what would you do if I just opened the door and jumped?

Todd: Huh? In both

Craig: of these guys who play these crony type guys, both familiar.

I’ve seen them both in. Things as this type of character several times, but anyway, they ended up taking him to the university. You know, it’s a little suspenseful because he’s not really going, if it’s freewill, you don’t really know what’s going on, but when he gets there, you know, it’s Novotny and they know each other, they have a relationship, you know, he’s not, doesn’t appear that he’s in terrible danger or anything, but he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to have anything to do with it.

He just wants to go back to his life and do his own thing. And Novotny basically blackmails him and says, listen, I know what you’re doing. You know, with all these racetrack winnings and stuff, it would really suck if the IRS or to get wind of that. So Alex gets pulled into this and what they’re doing, and I love this premise.

I think it’s a great premise. They are doing therapy by psychically linking people and allowing the psychics to enter the unconscious dream state of. Patients and in doing that, they’re supposed to be able to help them overcome their fears, deal with whatever issues that they are working with or whatever.

It’s interesting because this movie came out, I think the same year or just one year before a nightmare on Elm street. And they’re very similar that idea of going into other people’s dreams. In fact, somebody involved in this movie, was it the writer? I think Chuck

Todd: Russell, one of the writers of the screenplays.

Yeah. Yeah.

Craig: He wrote nightmare on Elm street three. Yeah. So there major, major connections, which is kind of interesting that nightmare on Elm street went on to become such a huge franchise. And this one is seemingly forgotten because I think this movie compared to the original nightmare on Elm street in terms of quality, very similar, and they’re both very

Todd: competent brain scan, I think came out the year before this.

So there was a little slew here of, of jumping into people’s dreams, movies. Now I’m curious when I was a kid, my impression of this whole thing was that it’s this machinery, this technology that they’re using that allows people to enter dreams. And the fact that he’s psychic just makes it easier for him.

Like it, like somehow he’s more easily able to like adapt to the process or, you know, cause it does require some mental capacity as well. That has to be sort of trained. And some people are better at it than others. And they figure that these psychics or whatever are better at it. Right. Or is it really are the machines that they’re hooked up to kind of just monitoring their vital signs of what’s.

Do you know, is there a difference I’m

Craig: with you in that growing up? I thought that the machine, because it looks like their heads are connected by wires. They’re both, both subjects are sitting in these like. Recline chairs, something comfortable that they could sleep in, obviously. And then there’s a big machine between them and they’re both, they both got like some kind of like skull cap on, and then also things that are monitoring them.

I thought the machinery had something to do with it as well. Like you, I haven’t seen this. And at least a couple of decades, but watching it again this time, I wasn’t really sure, sure. What the machinery was other than monitor bring them because you find out later in the movie that the psychics, and we only see psychics do this.

If anybody can do it, we don’t see anybody else do it. Right. We only see psychics do it. We find out later in the movie that they can do it without the machinery. I don’t know if the machinery just, you know, AIDS in monitoring them or sedating them or what I mean, they, they are keeping, they’re monitoring them closely.

They’ve got cameras on their eyes so that they can see when they go into REM sleep, they’re monitoring their heart rates and all that kind of stuff, which is important because in the dreams, if something is going on, that’s threatening, you know, which they. Can tell by advanced heart rate and stuff, then they wake them up.

But I don’t know. I think really the machines are there to,

Todd: well, he makes a funny comment earlier when he first sees it, she got here, who’s your decorator, Darth Vader. So

Craig: funny. It is. It’s funny. So he gets, he gets blackmailed into doing it. Then we see them, you know, they do a little bit of training or whatever, but they basically just throw them right in. We also see before this, before he even knows what’s going in, he walks in on them doing this with somebody else, a little boy and another male psychic who we don’t.

No, we’re never introduced to, um, but something goes wrong and we see that the male psychic is catatonic in the wake of it. Like they take him away, strapped into a chair and a van and we never see him again, something went terribly wrong. So we know that the stakes are potentially high, but Alex wants to get right in there is like, let’s do it.

So they throw him in with this guy. Who’s a construction worker. In his dream there at the top of this construction site, it’s all shot. You know, I don’t, you would be better able to describe the cinematography style than I, but it is very dreamlike. And, you know, as it turns out, there’s like an accident on the site.

It’s just the two men in the dream, but the guy who’s dreaming, like falls over the edge and is hanging off a beam. And Alex has to like jump onto the beam to try to save him. And the score is very intense and eventually Alex falls and he, he wakes up right before he hits the ground, which is significant because later we find out that, that old theory that if you die in your dream, you die in real life.

Again, another connection to like nightmare on Elm street. But we get, I just thought that this was a really good scene to establish for us what’s going on. Yeah. Like you’re in the dream, you’re an active participant in the dream. Um, and things can happen. You can help each other out, but you also can

Todd: be harmed exactly.

And the way, you know, the way these were shot, I think it kind of goes in this movie’s favor unintentionally, or maybe intentionally is that what we get as a lot of special effects work that much of it looks dated. Now it’s like rear projection screen or blue screen kind of stuff, but also intentionally fantastic backgrounds and things as well.

And I’m willing to give it all a bit of a pass because these are supposed to be dreams. So I feel like even the filmmakers themselves, we’re not that concerned with this looking hyper realistic because they were looking for a surreal quality to the dreams. So absolutely

Craig: this one. Is the least surreal of them.

All the colors are kind of oddly changed and stuff. And like, you can tell that somehow, you know, the sky above them, the clouds moving faster. Right, right. Unnaturally fast. So it is very dreamlike, but of all of them, this is the most realistic later they become. Abstract and surreal

Todd: nightmares basically. I mean, they’re all nightmares.

And it’s funny. I actually saw an interview with Dennis Quaid, where he was talking about shooting this and they were up on the top of the tallest building in LA at the time I was like 50 stories and he says he distinctly remember shooting it because they were, they were up there pretty high. And he said, they basically just had nets underneath of that just to keep them from falling too far.

And he said, I’m not sure that would fly today.

God,

Craig: can you imagine? I can’t. And it’s funny because the way that it looks on screen, that seems totally unnecessary. Yeah. I

Todd: take really full advantage of that. Did they? Yeah.

Craig: Alex is excited because it worked and he can do it and he gets how it goes now.

Todd: Oh. And that other guy, uh, then he meets another guy, right.

Who comes into his

Craig: Rami. Tommy. And Tommy is the villain. Tommy establishes himself as the villain, right from the beginning. And he’s laid by a guy named David, Patrick Kelly, who was in some other things. He was in the warriors and he was in any always from what I read, because I recognize them. But mostly from this movie, he just has a very, weasely look about him and to his credit, he plays that.

Weasley guy very well. Um, you know, he seems like somebody, you would know and you’d be like, Oh, that guy

Todd: with the BDS eyes and the sharp pointed nose and all that like poor guy. But this is the really interesting thing about this movie. And this is where I think if I were to update this, you know, I would change it is that there’s never really any question who the bad people are and the sinister things that are going on.

You know, the movie doesn’t really hold its cards close to its chest. It really just kind of lays all this out for you openly and in the beginning. And just, uh, you know, your job is just to kind of follow the ride and see where it leads because after he meets him in his room and picks up a saxophone and annoyingly honks on it, does all, you know, kind of like basically he’s jealous of Alex’s first time, quick success in this,

Craig: because.

You know, Alex is the new bright shining star, whereas before Tommy had been the superstar. And so he’s all about telling Alex, you know, it’s cute that you’re good at this or whatever, but I’m the top dog and don’t forget it, stay in your lane. Exactly. You know, he’s marking his territory. Like this is my deal.

And he does it in a very smarmy way. I mean, if you want to get all analytical about it, I guess if I were in Tommy’s position, I’d be kind of pissed too. You know, I’ve been working on this for a while. I’ve been the superstar, and now here comes in this new hot shot who everybody’s all excited about. I’d be irritated too.

But like he, he, he obviously is on kind of a power trip. Um, and it just establishes his character, frankly. He plays a very small role too. But they introduce him here early so that we know that he’s there and that he’s a threat.

Todd: Yeah. How his character comes in early and so sinister in the very beginning and then seems to just disappear for a while until about three quarters of the way through or two thirds of the way through when the previous stuff is, is getting resolved.

And now we have this other danger that’s gotta happen. You know, it’s a very much, I mean, this movie is very much three-act structured. I think it’s very clear. I think it’s shortly after this meeting that then we meet Bob Blair who we’d seen a little bit earlier, but, and then he just goes right up to Alex and he’s like, Hey, congratulations.

By the way, this is a government project. Mike, congratulations

Craig: to you. They told me about your successful dream league. Well done. This is only the beginning. You know, we all feel that the possibilities for our program are tremendously exciting, but we’ve got to see that you don’t jeopardize the wonderful work you’ve already done.

I don’t follow you, Bob. You have been playing it’s a little fast and loose since you got here. That was unauthorized visits to the dream chamber. For instance, that’s

Todd: a bit

Craig: sneaky. I loved this scene only because even though Alex has already. Done this dream jump. Once they’re still doing testing on him and they’re doing like a cat scan or an MRI or something.

Um, so he’s just coming out of the machine and he strapped down and Bob Blair played by Christopher Plummer. He’s high-level government. And that’s kind of like, we all, you really know. Yeah. You don’t need the specifics. He’s just really, really important in the government. Right? A lot of Paul has a lot of sway and he comes in and he’s talking to Alex and Alex is strapped down to the table and, and Alex says, you know, can, can you unstrap me?

Can you let me up? And Bob’s like, no,

I’m just going to have this conversation with you, with you strapped down to the slab. Exactly. I just felt like it really, it’s such an easy way of establishing the dynamic. Like I’m in charge

Todd: and he’s super sinister about it too, you know, just the same kind of deal, like okay. Government project.

Craig: Got it.

Stretches this out, but I feel like we don’t need to. Um, Bob is, is, uh, a confidant of the president. They seem to be on very friendly terms and the president has. Told Bob Blair that he’s having these dream problems. And Blair is like, well, you know, I know about this project. Maybe I can help you. But in that same conversation, the president tells him what his dreams are about, about all this, because the president has several dreams throughout the movie and they’re all the same.

They’re all the aftermath of this terrible nuclear fallout. He feels that that’s something that could happen. And if it does, he’s responsible for it. So he confides in Blair that he’s going to meet with the leaders of, I don’t remember if it was the Soviet union or Russia at the time, but whichever he was going to meet with them and try to come to some sort of peace accord where they would do a complete disarmament, but Blair doesn’t like that.

And so it’s obvious from the beginning, basically what. Blair is setting up, you know, he’s going to somehow get the president into this dream study. It’s not necessarily evident exactly what he’s going to do, but he’s going to use this dream. Thing to try to prevent the president from doing this a

Todd: nuclear

Craig: disarmament treaty.

Yeah. There’s no sense in drawing it out. As it turns out he is planning on assassinating the president and asleep because he thinks that he can get away with it. You know, nobody would believe it. They can cover it up. They can just make it look like he died naturally and asleep. He’s just very sinister from the beginning.

Like you said, they, they, the movie lays its cards out, you know, it’s, it’s not trying to keep anything from you really, even though it is suspenseful because it moves at such a quick pace. Right,

Todd: right. And ultimately, this, this is another aspect of it. Like I said, I would change because. Oh, it goes all the way to the top, you know, it’s like, yeah,

Craig: the president doesn’t even have a name.

It’s just Mr. President. That’s right.

Todd: Hilariously high, you know, for this little study, that’s kind of being conduct. I mean, groundbreaking don’t get me wrong. You know, study book that has all these potential implications and could be weaponized in so many different ways and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But first we’re going to use it to assassinate the president.

Right.

Craig: And of course, you know, very unrealistically, but as it always happens in these types of movies, the people who are working on the project, it’s like they never considered that it could be used for these nefarious purposes. Like when they find out that. It might be used for these nefarious purposes.

They’re shocked and appalled like, Oh my God, what have we done?

Todd: Come on.

Craig: this leads up to again, another the dream sequences are for me, the most exciting, the action stuff is exciting too. Don’t get me wrong. There are great like car slash horse slash motorcycle flash, like airplane chases, like all that’s great. I very much enjoyed it, but the, the stuff that was my cup of tea was the dream stuff.

And I had mentioned earlier that psychic, who had gone into a dream and something had gone terribly wrong and he had ended up catatonic and gotten. Sent away. Well, the person’s whose dream he had gone into had been this little boy named buddy. Of course, this little boy is suffering from these terrible, terrible, debilitating nightmares that are caused, you know, his physical health is deteriorating because of them.

Alex takes a liking to him in part because Jane Kate Capshaw is working with a little boy. And he’s also trying to get closer to Jane. There’s a romance side plot too. There’s one part of that that I want to talk about when we get to it, but really it’s just the eighties romance subplot, which is fine.

They’re both sexy people. Watch them flirt with each other, right? Whatever Alex gets kind of attached to this little boy and he wants to help him. So he tells Novotny. I want to go in to this kid’s dream. And the Valley’s like, absolutely not. I already lost one guy to this. You’re too valuable. I can’t risk it.

And Alex says, well, we do it. Or I’m out, you know, Novotny is hesitant, but Alex is,

Todd: it’s hilarious that Nevani conveniently forgets that he’s still blackmailing him, that he can just go back. Well, you can’t get out cause the IRS, so no, you’re not going to do it. Then that’s the end

Craig: of that. I didn’t even really thought about that.

I imagine the truth of the matter is Nevani probably is very curious and interested to see what Alex can do. I do think that he’s trying to protect his investment. But ultimately he wants to see if it can work out. And so they do, I mean, this all happened so fast. Like it’s, it’s Alex in Nevada Annie’s office saying, look, I’m doing it or I’m out and about he’s like, no, you can’t.

Okay, fine then boom. We’re in the lab.

Todd: And this was actually my favorite dream sequence. I’d forgotten. Really good. It’s it’s special effects heavy and it’s great. There’s stop motion animation. And they’re, they’re these elaborate sets. Um, everything is kind of off kilter the boys just in real. Yeah. It’s just kind of like in a haunted house and it, and they basically ended up getting chased by this what the snake man he’s been drawing pictures of it and all kinds of stuff, but there’s this, you know, villain in his dreams basically that is this giant snake.

Man. Yeah, it’s just like a giant snake creature chases them through the house and they go down this crazy staircase and they end up in the basement and then Alex fights with it in the dream. And there’s a nice mix of great makeup effects and stop motion and the sets and everything. It’s just, it’s just a lot of fun.

Craig: And on the blue Ray release of this, there are behind the scenes interviews and they talk to, um, some of the special effects, people who worked on this. And, and like you said, it is a mix. There is a guy in a suit, but a lot of it is also done with stop motion, like Claymation. And it does look. Dated, but anybody who’s ever listened to this show before knows that I am a huge fan of stuff of practical effects.

It just it’s artistry. It’s craftmanship. And that’s not to say that CGI isn’t. I know that there are. Artists behind those keyboards, putting that CGI together. I get it, but it’s just different to me. And I just so much appreciate this. That’s why, when you said it’s rife for a remake, I agree with you because I think there’s so much potential that I feel like

Todd: you’re going to fuck it up with, uh, with CGI.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s just going to all be CGI. It’s all going to be effects driven. I feel like that they will neglect a lot of the story in favor of spectacle, which is okay. That’s fine. There’s certainly an audience for that. In fact, it’ll probably draw, you give, bringing more money in if that’s what you focus on.

I just, uh, I, I do worry and I would be totally down if they made a remake, I would watch it hands down, but I just feel like something would be lost. But the, the, the whole snake man thing is very scary, but the cool part about it is. To me is that Alex can’t defeat the snake man on his own. In fact, he gets wounded, um, in the dream and, and he’s tussling one-on-one with this giant, I don’t know, it’s gotta be nine, 10 feet tall.

At least snake guy, buddy has to be the one. To defeat it. Any is any chops, its head off and its head goes falling down into some like enormous fantastical spiral staircase or something looks great. And they both wake up and buddy is ecstatic. You know, we did it, we beat it. You know, now that he’s beaten it in his dreams, I guess it’s not going to be a threatening more.

I don’t think we ever see buddy again, but I felt like it was an important part of the movie to show what is possible there, but also that snake man freaked, Alex, the crack out.

And there’s a scene where he’s, I don’t know, in the cafeteria, the library, something on this campus and he’s, he’s sketching it. And Tommy comes up behind him and sees it and he’s like, Oh, I guess that really freaks you out. Huh? And he’s like, yeah, even in the moment you’re thinking, okay, there’s is going to be significant later.

Tommy knows. What Alex is afraid of. Yep.

Todd: It’s great. It’s is it C it’s also very Indiana Jones, right? Snakes. Why did have to be snakes? So many parallels? There’s more coming too funny. I’m just trying to get Jane to go out a budge and there’s a bunch of that crap. And then he goes to a bar. There’s a bar that they’ve been in a couple of times.

There’s a guy there named Charlie played by George went, you know, from cheers. Yeah. And this bit I thought was just totally unnecessary because we know sinister stuff is going on. We don’t need this character here to just hammer that point home. Yeah. But here he is. And so he’s a horror writer. He’s clearly modeled after Stephen King or something, you know, and he says, Hey, I know you’re involved in this project and I’ve got to tell you like their ulterior motives here, I’m investigating this as material for my next book or something like that.

Right. And then there’s shady guys there who kind of chase him out and it’s like, okay, this, this part

Craig: was dumb. It’s funny because in the movie it didn’t bother me. Like there’s even some exciting parts where they start getting followed by these thugs. And they end up in this big crowd of students that like a pep rally or something.

And George wind’s character ends up getting killed. Right. You know, in this big crowd, but there’s so much commotion going on that nobody even notices. Like it didn’t bother me in the moment. But as we’re sitting here talking about the movie, I’m looking at Jordan  picture. On IMD and the cast list. And I’m like, Oh God, how do we work that in?

Like, it’s so unnecessary. Like he’s just there to alert Alex to the fact that there is something shady going on. That’s it, that’s his only purpose. And it’s unnecessary. Cause he could have figured it out on his own or it could have been revealed in some other ways, some other way,

Todd: but it’s gotta be like this super famous writer who gets murdered.

Like, I mean, again, like it’s like, I guess this movie it’s like go big or go home. Right. It’s not just anybody investigating this. It’s like the Stephen King of the movie world who then is going to get shot, which would surely cause big

Craig: issues. Yeah. Everything happens so quickly after that, that I don’t even know that there would be time for it to be a big issue.

He tells him he’s after the president or something and Alex like what? And then the thugs show up and they shoot the author guy and immediately. They catch Alex, throw him in a car with Blair who says, yeah, we’re doing this. You can either get on board or we’re going to kill you. That’s it

just lays it out. Alex. It’s very simple.

Todd: Either you work for me or die,

Craig: but he gets away. And that’s when there’s a great, big, fun chasing, like back at the racetrack where he had been before and he’s on a motorcycle and they’re on the horse track and they’re chasing him in cars and it’s fun. It is fun. I liked it stupid, but it’s fun.

So at that point he knows what’s going on and yeah. And then it’s time to, you know, foil Blair’s plan. We skipped one thing that I, yeah, I know pursuit of Jane, which is totally fine and cute. She basically says to him, look, I’m into YouTube, but I also know that you’re a huge womanizer, which he is, we’ve seen it and she’s like, you know, we’re working together.

I’m not just going to be another one of your conquests or whatever. And, and she basically shuts them down. Despite the fact that she says I get it, I’m into YouTube. So they, they separate. And then. He comes to her office and she’s asleep on her couch and he sits down in the chair next to her and closes his eyes.

It’s obvious what he’s doing. He’s trying to get into her dream. And he does. And this scene, at least parts of it were censored from some releases because there’s a sex scene. Uh, a very mild with absolutely no nudity. Sex scene. Yeah, but after the theatrical release, I think on the initial video release, it was censored.

And then even on some subsequence, subsequent releases, it’s been censored. We saw it. It’s very tame. It’s totally within the realm of PG 13 coming at it from a 20, 21 perspective. I was like, okay, you know, like this is fun. It’s a fun, it’s cool that he can get into the dreams without needing the machinery.

This is the first time that we, I learned that and in the wake of what happens, he reminds her of that. And they’re both in awe of it as well. In my notes, I wrote and he enters her dream without her knowledge or her consent.

Todd: Right. Like, it’s not

Craig: okay. He is consciously aware of what’s going on and she’s not, she just thinks she’s dreaming and they bone, and then she wakes up and she’s like, how dare you?

But, and then whatever, like

Todd: a little rapey it is. And it’s funny how they do address it a little bit. Like she is pretty pissed off about it, but then like, you’re like, yeah. Okay. Well, you know, whatever it definitely nowadays, this is a, actually again, you remake this movie, that would be a really interesting aspect of this whole concept.

I mean, you could explore it, right. I mean, it’s.

Craig: Yeah, that would be a much bigger issue than apparently it was in 1984.

Todd: Oh yeah. It would be treated totally differently. It was a different time. We were

Craig: rapier. No, and it didn’t. I know isn’t that so bizarre. Like it didn’t, it never even crossed my mind in 1980.

No, never,

Todd: well, not as a kid either.

Craig: Well, uh, true. And, but even then I think had I been an adult, I thought, well, it was just a dream, you know, it’s not like, it’s not like there were any fluids exchanged or anything, no harm, no foul, but today I’m like, Ooh,

Todd: that’s pushing it a little bit. Another thing, there was apparently another sex scene between them at some point in the movie.

Oh really? I didn’t know that it was taken out and it’s sort of the last sex scene because supposedly it contained nudity. Supposedly was it was not taken out in Europe, but it was taken out in the U S and it was in one release. Wasn’t in another release. No, the sex scene supposedly was shot, but nobody’s ever found it.

Like, it’s, it hasn’t really shown up anywhere nowadays where it’s concrete and he photos of it or anything like that. So it’s, it’s a little bit of a mystery around the movie of Cape Cod capshaw’s, you know, boobies were in this at some point or another. Anyway. I mean,

Craig: I wouldn’t have been sad to see it.

They’re both. Very attractive people. I’m sure they looked great.

Todd: Oh, and you know, just like in like half of his movies, his ass is in this movie several times, right?

Craig: I mean, he’s in little, he’s in little tiny briefs, a lot, which is fine. I mean, if he just wanted to wear that all the time, that’d be all right.

Dennis Quaid is in his seventies. Now, and he’s still super

vulnerable. Oh my God. And he only, he recently within the last couple of years got remarried. He’s been married several times. He was married to Meg Ryan for quite a long time. And, um, their marriage ended, I think because, um, she had an affair with Russell Crowe, which was unfortunate because they were such a cute couple.

I just loved them. But he’s, I think been married a couple of times since then. I think I could be wrong. I didn’t look this up, but I do know that within the past couple of years, he remarried a much younger, very beautiful woman. And from everything I’ve seen, they’re very happy, so good for him. And good for him for still being hot in the

Todd: seventies.

This is, this is becoming our Dennis Quaid tribute episode, a parent listen, uh,

Craig: Christopher Plummer was hot too. I, you know, I don’t, I don’t think of him in that way. He’s more of a, like a fatherly kind of figure in my mind, but that’s a different how other people could get down with it.

Todd: It’s a different kind of fantasy maybe.

Oh

Craig: man. Okay. So this, it comes down to the final showdown where. Alex and Jane are aware of what’s going on. They make Novacki aware of it. And, uh, maximum on CEDAW and Christopher Plummer have a scene together where the body’s like, I’ll never let you get away with this. And Blair is like, okay, bye. My men are waiting in the hall to shoot you.

They do. And he’s dead and gets thrown in the trunk of a car. The plan is they’ve got the president there for this sleep treatment or whatever it is. And Blair, Christopher Plummer goes out of his way to make sure that the president is in this particular room. And as it turns out, it’s because he’s going to have Tommy in the adjoining room and he’s going to have Tommy go into his dream and assassinate him.

But Alex and Jane are on onto them. And Jane’s office conveniently is immediately below. The room that the president is sleeping in. So Alex goes into, and Alex actually gets there first and he gets there. And it’s the dream that we’ve seen. It’s on a train now, but it’s still, you know, just this train going through this post-apocalyptic hellscape Alex tells the president, this is who I am.

This is why I’m here. They’re sending somebody in here to kill you and they can do it. And it’s Blair and he’s against you. And the president’s like what, okay,

Todd: not the sharpest knife in the drawer of this president, you know,

Craig: whatever. But then Tommy shows up and I have to give David Patrick Kelly who plays Tommy credit. He’s great. In this scene, he is very. Intimidating and frightening. And what’s most frightening about him is that because he’s been doing this for longer than Alex, he’s a pro at it.

We failed to mention that we had seen that he had killed somebody in a dream previously. We didn’t actually witness it happen. We saw it happen from the outside, but Alex put two and two together that he had killed this woman in her sleep.

Todd: Also, Alex had broke it into the doctor’s office and pulled out the file on Tommy.

And it turned out that there’s a classic newspaper clipping that’s self-proclaimed psychic murders father with a

Craig: photograph of the dead father with bullet holes all throughout his body. I’m glad you remembered. Cause that is very significant, um, in this last scene, but this last scene, you know, it’s all a dream and Tommy has realized from his experience that he can do anything in.

A dream, you know, it’s all subconscious, so he can do whatever he wants. He can be whatever he wants. He can, if he wants to be a Ninja and uses nunchucks in the subway, he can. And, and it’s great. It’s a great scene. I actually read that, that nunchucks scene, which I think is really fun. And actually David, Patrick Kelly studied martial arts.

So he was showing off some of his own skills. It had to be cut in the UK because they had like a ban on nunchucks. Like why

it’s unfortunate. Cause he was really good with the nunchucks.

Todd: Wrong in this word has none shuts also sort of like kind of star Wars, the light Sabrie as well.

Craig: They’re kind of dream glowing. I don’t know it was fun, but like it’s a whole big chase. Like he’s chasing them through different places, different scenes.

And because it’s a dream, they can go through a door in a train car and then ended up in the subway and then open up another door and ended up in some underground layer, like, which is cool. And it is all very surreal and it feels very much like the end of a nightmare on Elm street movie, where they typically end up in some sort of Freddy hellscape, you know what I mean?

That’s what it felt very much.

Todd: And also this contains the one. Seem that I remember more than anything else about this movie that I just completely connected to. And that’s when he there’s like a policeman who comes in and in the dreams like, Hey, what’s going on here? And, uh, Tommy grabs him and displays his fingers, which are now has have blades on the top of each of his fingers, plunges it into this guy’s chest and pulls out a stillbirth.

Now we’ve already been talking about nightmare on Elm street, came out this year for the first time. That’s like an obvious type Freddy type thing. What a coincidence, right? Yeah. And then the second thing that also this year, Indiana Jones and the temple of doom and what happens right in front of Kate Capshaw in that movie too, is a dude gets his heart taken out.

You know, I mean, it’s, it’s crazy. These, these connections right in this movie

Craig: really genuinely seemed to be coincidence, right? It’s, it’s wild, it’s a big showdown and it’s fun, you know, and there are like held dogs and all kinds of crazy things going on there in this big underground place, fire, you know, Mostly reds, you know, in the color scheme.

And Alex is trying to get the president away, but eventually they come to a dead end. Tommy catches up with them, Tommy and Alex fight a little bit. But then Tommy says, I know what you’re really afraid of. And he turns into the snake man, and they fight a little more and he throws Alex a way. He throws him off to the side and Alex is kind of injured.

And then Tommy starts to go for the president behind Tommy’s back. Alex stands up and it’s like, not that he realizes that he can be whatever he wants, but he’s just never done it before. So it takes him a second to kind of figure it out. But he transforms himself into the image of Tommy’s dead father, complete with bullet holes and everything.

And he starts talking to Tommy and Tommy is obviously affected and moved. You know, he’s like, mm. Daddy. If he weren’t such a psychopath, bad guy, you’d feel a little bad for him, but he is. So you don’t and the president stabs him from behind. Everybody wakes up. Well, not everybody, uh, Tommy doesn’t it he’s dead.

Uh, Blair watches him, convulsing die in his bed, but everybody else wakes up and the president comes out to be greeted by Blair. And the president is basically like, I know what you did. And Blair’s like, okay, well, good luck proving to anybody else. Right. They’re just going to say you’re crazy. So whatever.

Um, and it seems like. You know, what are they going to do? And Alex is trying to run away because people are still after him. And he runs into the president and the president, thanks him and offers him protection or whatnot. But Alex is talking to Jane and he’s like, you know, I have to take care of this.

So the next thing we see is Blair walking in what appears to be a government building. I don’t know, some fancy building. He’s walking down this big, Holly comes to an elevator. He pushes the button and the elevator opens and it’s Alex just standing there. And, you know, I guess it depends on where your mind is at the time, but really at this point, I wasn’t sure what was going on.

As it turns out Alex’s entered Blair stream and he kills him

Todd: at a party fake monster or whatever in there and leaps out at them. And then I think the next thing is like, everything’s fine. Um, the girl and the boy are in the train and they’re starting to leave. And at this point, the ticket guy comes into there.

Carriage room. And it’s the same ticket guy that was in that sexy dream that he entered and they kind of look at each other and then go off into the sunset. So is this supposed to be like an implication that maybe that was a little bit of a dream too? I

Craig: don’t know. That always kind of blew my mind as a kid.

Like, because they, they look at each other like, Whoa,

Todd: what is

Craig: it that the same guy from the dream? And then there’s like, ah, whatever, and they start making out and then the camera pans out and it pans out on the train as it’s going away. And then. Score is very pretty and it’s romantic and exciting. And it’s ambiguous.

I liked, I liked the ambiguity of it. Maybe it is a dream. I mean, especially now the Alex knows that he can control the dreams. Why not just go on sexy train rides every day,

Todd: sexual dream tourism. Yeah, that would be, well, this just means down tap. If I had a coupon or

Craig: something,

Todd: you prefer Dennis Quaid, uh, to be the one taking care of these. Yeah, definitely. Well, it reminded me a little bit of the end of, uh, the final scene and total recall, you know, it also plays with your mind a little bit like that, you know, it’s very similarly, although this one in a less profound, but just kind of cute way.

I think. Yeah, like we said, I thought the movie was fun and you know, it was dated for sure. In many ways, it’s a little silly and over the top and some of these other ways. Ultimately would be a great movie to be remade. And I’m still kind of surprised that most people don’t really remember this film. I mean, in the internet age, everybody eventually remembers all this obscure stuff.

But up until recently, nobody was talking about this again. You know, we grew up with it, watching it a ton on VHS, but, uh, I never really met anybody

Craig: else who had, and on cable it played on cable a lot, I think. Yeah, we didn’t have it on VHS, but I remember watching it a bunch of times. And so I think that it played like on USA or some of those other cable channels.

So it had a bit of a life. It did, but you’re you’re right. It’s a, I just don’t see people talking about it very often anywhere. I like it. It’s a fun movie. It’s entertaining. It’s fast paced. It’s it’s action. Heavy it’s well acted for what it is. I mean, it’s not, you know, a serious movie, but. Everybody in the movie is very competent.

You’ve got some very, very prestigious actors in here. It is surprising that it’s not better known. I don’t know if movies that came after it were directly inspired by it. Like, like you said, there were other movies that were tackling similar things like going into dreams and stuff, but I read. You know, like a list of several movies that came after it, that seem to have been inspired by one of the ones that stood out to me.

The only one that I can remember is the cell, which is another movie that I think that people don’t talk about very much. It was, uh, Jennifer Lopez was in that movie. We need to do that movie because it’s kind of over, it’s kind of overlooked. And I really liked it. Like I thought it was really good. And it was about the same premise.

Is this movie going into people’s dreams, you know, for therapeutic. Purposes. But anyway, all I’m saying is it does seem to have had some lasting influence. I can’t say for certain that, you know, there’s a direct tie, but people who made those movies that came out later, I can only imagine like us, we’re probably around our age, we’re at least familiar with this movie and maybe there was some influence there overall.

I would recommend it. You know, it it’s PG 13. It was only the second PG 13 movie ever. Um, once that was, uh, established as a rating and it’s got a lot to offer. Yes, there are the horror elements. And I think the horror elements are scary, but it’s also got, you know, like we said, political thriller going stuff, going on, action stuff going on, comedy.

Romance. There’s, there’s really a little bit of everything. And I think that a lot of people could get on board with this, even if they’re not typically mainstream horror

Todd: fans. Yeah. I totally agree with you. It was critically well reviewed. It was a box office success, you know, it made 12 million against a $6 million budget.

It still has a 77% fresh rating on rotten tomatoes. And Roger, he really liked it. So, um, you know, I think this is probably why is because it just spans some genres and does it so well anyway. All right. So coming back to Christopher Plummer, of course, we reviewed this movie because we wanted to pay tribute to him.

This was one of the few horror movies that he was in and he’s good. He’s great.

Craig: He’s got a small role, but he’s good in it. He has such a commanding presence. I believe him a hundred percent as this villainous powerful character. I mean, he’s, he’s great. And you know, I’m not going to pretend to be like a, like a big, you know, Christopher Plummer, Stan, or anything, you know, I like the sound of music.

It’s fine. I like him in that. I loved him and knives out. I thought he was a lot of fun in that. I’ve seen him in other things. He’s a solid actor, a solid performer. I’ve never seen him in anything where I thought, Oh man, that sucked. No, no. I mean, he’s, he’s good. He’s a craftsman. And uh, I’m glad that we are able to pay tribute to him.

Todd: All right. Well, thank you so much for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can search for us online. Just look up two guys and a chainsaw podcast and find our website or Facebook page or YouTube channel a subscribe to us there and send us a message. Let us know what you thought of this episode and this movie and let us know what you would like us to review in the future until then I’m Todd with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.