2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

It’s our 250th episode extravaganza! You know what that means: As we always do for milestones, we dig out another Wes Craven-directed flick from the vault to either gush over or lament.

In this case, it’s really neither, as we identified as many charms as flaws in 2005’s Cursed – a movie with a production history that lives up to its title. Hear more inside. And thank you, dear listeners, for 250 solid episodes of support! Let’s raise a bloody glass to 250 more.

Cursed (2005)

Episode 250, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: Hello, and welcome to the 250th episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I know insert fake applause. Woo.

Todd: “Looks like we made it after all.”

Craig: 250. Can you believe it? Like that is just, it blows my mind.

Todd: Yeah, it’s kind of hard to believe that you and I have sat down and had 250 conversations about for an hour each that’s 250 hours, even a little more than that of a us and namely chattering.

Just about dumb movies. You believe it, who else can

Craig: say that? I know there’s a running joke in my house, and I know that you are in a similar situation. My partner doesn’t listen to these episodes at all, ever. And so I told him we have to get to three 65 so that if I die first, he’ll have an episode to listen to every day for a year.

Todd: Nice gift. You will leave him with

I’m sure he was thrilled about that by the way.

Craig: Yeah, he totally is. But, uh, here we are at two 50 and, um, with one exception on every mile, The stone episode, we have returned to our roots and done a West Craven film. Of course, we’re both huge West Craven fans. We were both pretty devastated when we lost him years ago and, uh, we’ve done a lot of our favorites.

Um, so what we’re left with are some of his maybe less popular films. Uh, there are some still, uh, that we haven’t touched for various reasons. Last house on the left comes to mind. Mm Hills have eyes. Yeah. Oh God, that’s a good one too. But, uh, I actually have been trying to get Todd to do this movie. For a while.

Really the primary reason is because this film has such a storied production history. What we’re doing today is a 2005 cursed, which is West Craven’s only werewolf film that he did with his, uh, Collaborator on scream, Kevin Williamson, even though it has a very interesting production history, which I’m sure we’ll talk about at length.

Another reason that I wanted to do this is despite the fact that Craven and really most of the people involved with this movie were ultimately. Unsatisfied with it when it was released, I actually find it to be a fun and a really entertaining film. Yeah. It’s not bad. It’s really not. And despite what you will read about it and despite all of the.

Production trouble that they had. I think ultimately, you know, it’s still fun and it I’m surprised that it wasn’t more successful than it was because it really wasn’t. It was kind of a flop really, but it’s very much in line with. And in the same style as those movies that were coming out in the early odds like scream, and I know what you did last summer, it’s just full to the brim of young, famous, good looking people.

It’s very hip and. Cool and young and we are not exactly, but we were a member. We were a member a day, you know, when we thought we were

Todd: cool. Yeah. That’s the big distinction when we thought we were,

Craig: we never, maybe thought we were as cool as some of these kids in these. Teen movies from the early odds. But I, I was excited about this movie when it came out, I was always excited about new West Craven films.

Um, of course, you know, both of us were big nightmare fans and then, you know, scream and West Craven really. Was kind of at, I don’t know if I would necessarily say it as best, but it is most popular, uh, during this time very mainstream and I was really, uh, excited about this movie. I don’t think I saw it in the theater, but I did see it.

Uh, you know, I think as soon as it came out on video and I remembered liking it then, and I’ve watched it. I don’t know, maybe once or twice since then, it’s been a very long time since I’d revisited it. And I really thought that maybe my fondness for it would have waned over the years, but watching it again yesterday, I’m still a fan.

I mean, there’s, it’s not great. It’s not one of his. Best movies, but I still found it to be entertaining and not super scary, but you know, good, scary elements going on overall. I enjoyed it and we can talk about its flaws and all that stuff. And that’s perfectly fine because it’s not a perfect movie. Um, and I’m.

Really interested or would be, I suppose, really interested to know what the original vision would have turned out to be. But this is what we’re left with. There are actually a couple of versions. There’s an unrated version that I was unable to track down. So I watched the PG 13 version, which is available to rent on Amazon.

Is that the version you watch too?

Todd: Yes, sir. Unfortunately,

Craig: I couldn’t find the unrated version and I, I’m not sure what the major differences are. Whoever owns the rights. I read a name. I don’t know who it was, whether it was a studio guy or what, but whoever owns the rights claims that they have. Three different complete versions of this.

Yeah, the editor actually the editor, right? So there’s basically the original cut with all the original practical effects and the original actors. What’s so interesting about this is they shot it and then the Weinstein’s were unsatisfied with it. So they had to go back and reshoot it. And then the Weinstein’s were still unsatisfied with it.

So they ended up shooting it at least one more time. I think that by the time they had finished it, they had done four shoots of this movie so much. So that entire plot points changed. And the cast changed like they had filmed? No, I can’t imagine they had filmed. You know, the original shot and there were all these other people in it who, for whatever reason, either their characters were cut or then, or they just weren’t available for the reshoots.

So they couldn’t come back and they had to recast them. Heather Lang in camp was originally in it. Scott Foley, Omar Epps, skeet Aldrich, James Brolin, Corey Feldman, Eliana Douglas, like Mandy Moore.

Todd: Popular famous people.

Craig: Yeah. Skeet Ulrich and Heather Lang in camp and Scott Foley had all worked with a Craven in the past.

You know, these were like, Cravens folks. Um, and, and they’re gone. They’re out there totally excised from the movie. And man, if those versions exist, the fans want to see these cuts, you know, release these cuts. We will, Oh my

Todd: God. Somebody needs to start a Kickstarter to buy the rights to this film or something and get that original.

Because also one of the maddening things about this movie, which by the way, this was the first time I’d seen it is that you read and even see credited Rick Baker as doing the special effects. And Rick Baker is a special effects. Genius. He’s you know, he’s the one who did American werewolf in London, which has I think to date.

To date still the best werewolf transformation scene I’ve ever seen in any film. And one of the first things they did when that second reshoot is, they brought in a whole other team KNG or Knb to come in and redo the effects. And then the third time around, they decided they were going to just paint over.

All of the Knb effects? Well, not all of them, but most of them with fricking 2005 CGI. Oh, what a shame you can go online and you can find some photos, you know, Fangoria had photo. Thank goodness for. Outlets like Fangoria entertainment tonight actually ran a story, a brief story on this film while they were shooting the first version and they interview skied all rich and whatever.

It’s, it’s only like a little five minute thing, but there’s a lot of little behind the scenes footage of them shooting this movie with skeet Ulrich in it. And so, uh, it’s kind of cool to go and look at some of that stuff too. And again, You know, they decided at some point that, uh, it needed to be PG 13 instead of R so he’s Gore effects were cut entirely from the movie that they had before.

And it was trimmed down and re edited to make it a little less provocative. When, you know, when they first announced the movie, Bob Weinstein said, this is going to reinvent the werewolf genre. I mean, if the original script was going to do it, I don’t think the script did it, but, uh, I mean that, might’ve been a little bit of hyperbole all the way around, but it’s certainly, I think my take.

Well, overall on it is just like you said, perfectly fine movie, kind of fun. I mean, fun, entertaining hip for its time and you know, fun to watch. And it does some interesting things with werewolves and puts them in situations that we haven’t necessarily seen them in before. But that being said, it’s. It’s not reinventing the genre and it’s not, it’s a little pedestrian and predictable in some ways and the little flat in some other ways.

And honestly, probably because they were their third go around. Some of the production feels a little cheap for what is supposed to be a star-studded big box office, movie, and all those things combined damage it. But you’re right. Yeah. I would love to go back and see it’s not the first time was Craven was messed with, right?

Oh no, but he was. Super resentful of the process of this movie. He said, I wasted two and a half years of my life ended up with something I didn’t like. Wasn’t happy with. They cut it off to shreds. And, uh, during that time period, I could have made, he said this, he said, this will be the last time he did anything for money because they agree to pay him double his salary, uh, for this movie to convince him to do it.

But he said in the two and a half years, it took for him to shoot this movie. He could have done. Two or three other movies and made more money. Anyway, the reason why his phone stopped ringing, he said is because that was quite well known. So it damaged his prospects a little bit. He got taken off of, um, a movie that he had co-written called pulse, which was a remake of a Japanese movie.

That was one of another one of those things where it seems like he said he has absolutely no connection with how that turned out. It didn’t look at all like his original script and he obviously didn’t get to direct it. So bit of a toll. You know, you never know how a project’s going to end up. And this is an industry, you know, the people, the money you’re ultimately pulling the strings, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a business first and art second, and sometimes that’s what happens, these compromises.

And then we get, we get a film like this, but it’s still a lot of fun to talk about and a lot of fun to watch. So I’m really glad that we’re gonna be doing this. I’m glad you brought it up and I’m glad we. When we came around to it for 250th episode,

Craig: I am too. And, you know, despite all of those things, like we’ve already said it it’s really not a bad movie. I enjoy it. There are good things going on here. It’s it’s clever, there are some funny parts. There are some silly and ridiculous parts, but it’s kind of funny too. And still, despite all of the recasting.

We say this all the time. It’s so cliched, but we usually say it about the eighties, but this is really a time capsule of the early aughts, like so many famous people, like it opens up on like a. Peer or a boardwalk or something. It reminded me of the lost boys. You know, it’s the same thing. It’s just a lot of people, you know, doing their own thing, having fun.

It’s crowded, it’s fun. And, um, there’s a band and the band is. Playing a modern rock version of, Hey there, little red riding hood, which I thought was,

Todd: I like that song anyway. I need to bowling for soup actually is the band that’s that’s doing. Oh really? I didn’t know

Craig: that them right there in the movie too.

And the first thing we see. Is Portia de Rossi is a fortune teller on this boardwalk and these two girls, Jenny and Becky Jenny has played by Maya who was very famous at the time famous singer performer. And Becky is Shannon Elizabeth, who was also right at the height of her career. Gorgeous as always.

And they go and see her Porsche looks at both of their hands. I see so much blood. Okay. That’s nice. But you too,

you should fear. Okay. We’re done here. Come on back. Let’s go be aware of the moon.

You can’t tell people this shit. It’s funny to read about the history because a lot of the scenes were in the original script, but they were at drastically different places in the script and featuring different people. Initially the Maya character was supposed to be scuttle or rich and apparently. If you look closely, there’s a point where Becky and Jenny gets separated and Becky calls out Jenny’s name.

Really? She’s calling out. Vinny or whatever his name was supposed to be or Vince or whatever his name was supposed to be. And they just dubbed it over with Jenny, lots of trickery going on there. I took so many notes over the first 15 minutes, because this is one of those movies that makes a point of introducing you to all of the main characters in the first 10 mins.

Yeah. So yeah, it’s kind of a lot to do take in right at the beginning, but we meet Jimmy who is played by a baby. Jesse Eisenberg. He’s so young. I don’t know if this was his first film, but it’s certainly the first thing I remember him from. He’s so young. He, I mean, he plays, yeah, he’s a teenager in high school and he looks like a teenager.

He does. He meets. His love interest Brook played by Christina on a pout, which I thought her character was entirely unnecessary. Yeah,

Todd: I,

Craig: yeah, I did. I didn’t need her at all.

Todd: I was waiting for it, some payoff with this character. She just kind of pops in and pops out and then it’s so silly at the end when she comes in.

Oh, God, it’s so dumb.

Craig: That was the worst part of the movie.

Todd: You have to imagine that the, you know, the original script gave her more to do or had her head with her a little more significant in it. Perhaps. I

Craig: think I really, her only purpose is to introduce, uh, Jimmy’s rival bow again, played by a baby Milo Ventimiglia and I like my Levin’s Famiglia and I really liked him and heroes.

He’s. Still very successful. He’s on, I don’t know, some sappy, nighttime soap type. This is us, which I watched some of, uh, so I’m not making fun of it, but it is sappy. Oh, come on. You know, you watch them. I don’t, I don’t still watch it, but I did watch the whole first season and cried.

Todd: I can only fit so many soaps into your day though. I understand that

Craig: he’s a baby too. And Oh my God, he’s so cute. But he’s also just like the cliched bully and he’s constantly picking on Jimmy and all of his. Jabs at Jimmy or about how he’s gay. Um, and like he calls him a geek on his way to fag town and like calls up like an ass wimp, wad, like just the lamest insults.

Um, but it sets up, you know, this rivalry between them, which is kind of cute and actually in the end ends up being super cute.

Todd: Yeah. It leads to one of the funnier. Scenes in the movie, I think, and the movie does have quite a bit of comedy in it. That’s

Craig: true. We, we ultimately meet, um, our main character Ellie, uh, played by Christina Ricci and she’s Jimmy’s older sister who they all live in Hollywood.

She works on the late, late show with. Craig Kilborne pink. Yep. Okay. So I have an interesting, it’s not a connection really, but I don’t know how to else to say it. All of my life, people have said to me and to my sister, how much my sister looks like Christina Ricci or Christina Ricci looks like her. And that’s true.

Todd: She could be her stunt

Craig: double. I don’t know. It’s so weird. You know, I, I grew up with her, so it it’s weird for me, but watching this movie, I’m like, Oh man, they do.

Okay. She’s so cute. And I love Christina Ricci and she’s still working. I wish she worked more. I, I think she’s a good actor and sh and she’s so pretty. And. Uh, anyway, but she’s the main character in this movie and she’s dating a guy named Jake played by Josh Jackson, who at the time was hugely famous for Dawson’s Creek and was kind of a heartthrob.

And he plays the big heartthrob in this movie. Like he’s just beating women off with this movie. And I don’t know. I mean, he’s. He’s good looking, I guess,

Todd: I guess, but I have to say it felt like that was all he was relying on because his performance was so flat. It was, you know, when we’re first introduced to him, she is, uh, swinging by his nightclub.

He’s opening up a nightclub that called what talents, I guess. And it’s supposed to be,

Craig: but I want to go there so bad. Oh, God,

Todd: it looks amazing. It looks like it’s in an old theater and I guess it is like an old movie theater, but they’ve got it. And they’ve outfitted it with, uh, I mean like a cross between a wax museum and an Gothic castle also with conveniently with a mirror maze.

And as soon as I saw them set that up, I was like, okay, no, we’re going to get a mirror, may scene in this movie. All right. I haven’t seen that five times before. And we’re not disappointed. It certainly happens. It’s

Craig: mostly horror memorabilia. And I also love it. Like there, it, it looks a lot like the wax museum from Waxworks Waxworks, except way more hip and cool.

And. There are displays for everything. There’s a nightmare on Elm street display with Freddy Krueger. There’s a hell raiser Friday the 13th. There’s no, Saratu like, there are just every pretty much everything you can imagine is there. And it looks. So cool. Like I want to go hang out and drink

Todd: there. Yeah.

They should have taken all the PR, you know, once they dress that up, they should have just left it and made it a nightclub. It, he could have made so much money. It was so cool

Craig: in the original script, it was supposed to be a wax museum. And when they changed it, they just turned it into a nightclub, but they just kept the same set, which totally works for me.

Um, Jake also, by the way, was originally. His character was different, but the character was a written. That was the scuttle rich character. And when they revised the script, skeet Ulrich, didn’t like the rewrites. So he dropped out of his own accord and that’s when they got Josh. Oh,

Todd: he dropped out of his own accord.

I didn’t realize that. Yep.

Craig: Cause he didn’t like the, with the ending. I don’t want to spoil the ending yet that he didn’t like the ending. Maybe I’ll spoil it a little bit. Cause it was too similar to something that he had just recently done and yeah.

Todd: Well the movie was originally about three character, like three friends or three people.

Craig: Strangers, no

Todd: strangers. Strangers. Yeah. Who come together over a lot of basically like a car crash and a werewolf attack. And this movie ends up mainly revolving around this woman and her brother. Yeah. And so it’s, you know, it’s, it’s very different. And I think Jesse Eisenberg, you know, came out later a few years ago and said, when he was asked about this movie, he said, yeah, he says, I don’t know what was wrong.

W who had a problem with original script and why they messed it up with it so much. But now that we know what was going on in the Weinstein company at that time, it, it makes sense. There was some kind of turmoil, but he was like, uh, they just made it dumb. Like they turned me in her brother and he said the original was a lot more.

Edgy, I guess is what he said. Right. And

Craig: Judy Greer, who is also in this movie, she plays, uh, I don’t know if she is, she’s a sales

Todd: agent. Yeah. Hey, somebody Scott bales, publicist, which is so funny because Scott bale plays himself.

Craig: Yes. I only read that. This this morning, but Scott bale was supposed to be one of the main werewolves in this movie.

Yeah. Cut that part out.

Todd: Can you imagine, I mean that in itself actually

Craig: kind of funny and in 2005, I would’ve been totally fine with it. Scott Bay on now is. Fucking douche bag, but

Todd: he is,

Craig: but in truth in 2005, I didn’t know that yet.

Todd: What’s funny is there’s a scene in this movie that actually shows its age where she, I mean, I’m jumping ahead a little bit, but what we can come back yeah.

Where she goes to a party and she meets up with Scottsdale’s agent, her agent. Like you said is, is she’s totally a ditch she’s completely pushy and out there and full of herself and really pushing, doing her job, really getting Scott bale, the kind of recognition he needs. And so she’s supposed to quote unquote, interview him before he goes on the late late show.

And which just means meet up with him and kind of sort out the details. And she does this at this party and when she sits. Stone and starts talking with him. There’s a point at which he kind of starts coming on to her a little bit,

Craig: but you’re a beautiful girl when you’ve got this Warrah thing happening.

I just keep my finger on that when you can use your

Todd: own hands. And he actually puts his hand on her. Ni which it’s so funny because he’s playing himself right today. Can you imagine an actor being willing to go on screen, playing himself, basically sexually harassing someone else in the industry? Of course they wouldn’t do that.

And definitely not in the Weinstein movie.

It’s such an interesting element of this film, right?

Craig: Uh, yeah, I know the, I don’t know. There’s a little bit of drama. I mean, there’s not a whole lot of drama in this movie, but Jake tells Ellie that like, he just wants to take it slow or he needs time and space or something. I don’t know that whole, all the relationship stuff is just it’s.

So it’s just thrown away. Like it happens in a matter of seconds. It’s it’s stupid and there are no stakes, but then we see. The LA city scape at night. And I don’t know if I noticed this the first time, but. This time. I did, even before I read about it, the lights in the cityscape of LA make a pentagram, which I thought was kind of cool.

And then Ellie and Jimmy are in the car. They’re going home and they hit a deer. All good. That’s what it looks like, which causes a great big accident with. Becky Shannon Elizabeth, who they don’t know. I mean, they’re in different cars, they’re on Mulholland drive, which is notoriously dangerous and, and her car goes rolling down the Hollywood Hills.

Luckily she has her seatbelt on, so she’s okay. But she’s stuck upside down in the car and Ellie runs down there. Jimmy calls the cops, but then he runs down there too. They’re trying to get her out and she’s hysterical. And Jimmy finally. Frees her from her seatbelt and from the dashboard, which is kind of pinning her in.

Um, but right after she’s freed, as she’s kind of laying there in the driver’s side, what is clearly werewolf bashes in through the woods window and grabs her by the shoulder and it’s jaws and, and rips her out. But Jimmy holds onto her legs, Ellie. Grabs onto his legs and it drags them all yards away from the car before they eventually.

Let go or get pulled away or whatever, but they, they basically see her get mauled and, and killed. Jimmy has a closer look because he was closer to her. Ellie doesn’t see it clearly, but when it’s all over, both Ellie and Jimmy are scratched or injured in some way. And the cops arrive. And I was so tickled to see that the cop, that interviews them was Nick Offerman.

Did you notice?

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: I was like, Oh my God.

Todd: Watson. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig: It was cool. Even if, if we didn’t know that this was a werewolf movie already, which we do obviously, but Jimmy’s dog, this cue like golden. Retriever is now very wary of him. And in fact bites him and, you know, from there, I mean, what I, one thing that I do like about this movie is that they don’t waste a lot of time.

Jimmy immediately starts doing research because they’re not supposed to be any wolves in the Los Angeles area. So he starts doing some research and he finds, you know, unexplained. Animal attacks. And he basically right from the beginning comes to the conclusion that it was werewolves.

Todd: Yeah, he, it’s funny.

I love his, you know, he’s on an, uh, one of the early IMAX he’s clicking around websites. You remember when you just used to go to websites for information, there’s a website that’s like werewolf attacks in LA and then there’s another whole website about, you know, werewolf. Yeah. But yeah, that’s cool. And then she, there’s kind of a sequence where she’s at home and.

One thing that, you know, Craven does really well, I think is set up these scare sequences, right? You’re alone in the house and the wind blows in and the windows open mysteriously. And then you sneak through and the cuckoo clock scares you. And I had to roll my eyes that they happen to have this cuckoo clock on the wall.

That’s like little red riding wallet. Hood thing that has a little wool jumping down, as opposed to a cuckoo over a spinning, terrified a little red riding hood, which I thought, my God, which German workshop did this old, a cuckoo clock come from, I want one so badly. And then, uh, Jake surprised us her there.

And you know, this is kind of the beginning and really throughout the movie, he’s just creepy, I think, through the whole movie, because he’s so. Flat his effect is so flat. It feels like he’s hiding something or he lacks emotion somehow. And he just shows up Missy, just mysterious leader at our house. And the reason is dumb.

It’s just like, Hey, I just wanted to follow up on our conversation from before and tell you that I still love you. And she. And embraces with him and then almost vampire style. You suddenly see her grow these fangs and bites into his neck and a big spurt of blood comes out of it. And then we’re barraged with these images, just random, crazy freaky images and boom.

She wakes up. And she’s in bed and I’m thinking, did that really happen? Did it not happen? And when we see Jake later as though nothing ever happened, I thought, Oh, okay. I guess that was a dream sequence. And I’m still to this moment kind of puzzled as to when that dream sequence started. I don’t know if that was just,

Craig: I think it was a dream and in the dream, she turns.

Into a werewolf, of course. But I also read that a lot of those, you know, it’s just like flashes of various images. And I read that a lot of those images were taken from the various shoots that they did. Like those had been actual parts of scenes and some of the shoots and they just reuse them for the dream sequence or whatever.

Um, but right after that, Jimmy wakes up naked outside, which is classic werewolf. Yeah.

Todd: I love that actually, bunny, the neighbor’s watering his lawn and looks over and he gets them. He does an amazing job of like, he’s done it a thousand times of scaling. His house from the outside instead of just running in the front and getting up to a second story window leaps into the window without, without once showing his junk.

And that was a feat that, that probably required multiple retakes to get that one.

Craig: It was cute. It was, it was like he was naked and it was, it was too cute to even be hot, like, Aw, Yeah

Todd: like this, I think it’s the next scene where he, uh, he, you know, she wakes up she’s downstairs. They’re kind of, he comes back in and he kind of starts talking to her and telling her, uh, you know, I think this is about werewolf ism or something like that. She’s like, Oh, you’re crazy. And all this stuff, and they’re, they’re chatting back and forth in the whole time they’re talking, he has casually pulled a Tupperware container out of the.

Fridge, which clearly has raw meat in it, but he’s eating it as though it was just cold cuts and even sits down at the table at one point, dumped some salt on it. It’s just eating it. And I’m waiting for this moment where she’s going to look appalled or like, do you realize what you’re doing? Or, you know, this is going to be called attention to in the moral of the movie.

And not only does that not happen, but a couple of times she leans over and takes a couple of pieces and eats it before she ends up leaving. Like neither of them even notice that this is weird. And I thought that was such a, in a dumber movie that would, you know, again, that would have happened. What I predicted would have happened.

And instead of this movie, it’s just a funny bit, that’s allowed to continue.

Craig: I thought it was lunch meat, but whatever, either it was pretty funny that was Rami. All right. Then she’s at work, you know, at Craig Kilborn or whatever. And we meet Joanie, Judy Greer, who we’ve talked about before. We’ve recently talked about her.

Cause she was in Halloween 2018. I said it then, and I’ll say it now. Judy Greer is an underrated actress. She is in so much. She works all the time. I love her. I think she’s great to be fair. She often plays very similar characters. And in this movie, she’s very, very similar to her character in 13, going on 30, which is a very cute movie.

I don’t only watch horror movies. I also like cute girl.

Yeah. 13 going on 30 is adorable. And she’s really funny in it. But she’s a bitch and it’s, it’s like, that’s they just establish like, okay, hi, I’m Joanie, I’m a bitch. Um, and she basically tells Ellie that her boyfriend is a ho. I heard that you’re dating Jake Taylor. Is that true? I hope it’s nothing serious.

Why not? I guess it was only a matter of time before he got to you. He always did prefer the former role. Okay. Well, I’ll see you tonight, Johnny. I’m only saying this because I care. Is there anything else, Johnny? No. Tonight don’t be late. Who are you and why are you?

But then she’s just, she’s sitting there talking to somebody. I think she’s. Talking to nice guy, Kyle, there’s just this random, nice

Todd: guy. Kyle Kyle is, is great in the movie. He’s the guy, his face. He looks like he’s halfway through the transformation into being aware. Well, you know what I mean? It’s like a little tall, it’s kind of Bodie and a muscular and just very chiseled, but also just a little too tall and a little too wide.

His nose is a little prominent and he looks good. Don’t get me wrong. But yeah. He’s definitely a, I feel like I would see him working out in the gym more often than I’d see him running around the late, late with Craig Kilborne and it’s so cute because Craig, you know, the middle, he meets her, they have all this witty dialogue.

Right. Cause obviously he’s good friends with Ellie and the first thing he says as well. Uh, Scott bales publishes is coming by. She’s a bitch. And then Scott bales publicist comes by. And basically now that she’s a bitch, and then afterwards he pops in and says to her, well, she was a real bitch. Wasn’t she?

It feels like, yeah, she was a bit,

this really gets hammered home in case it wasn’t obvious, basically all Kyle has to do for most of the movie.

Craig: Um, but while she’s standing there talking to him, she’s like, okay, What smells so good. Oh, geez. Smell that. He’s like, no, I don’t smell anything. And she goes, literally sniffing around the office dogs.

So she’s like, Dog like, and I love Christina Ricci. And I actually think that this was like her, her body movements. Like she’s moving, like she’s sniffing something out. I loved it. And she ends up in the bathroom and I was so afraid that she was going to be smelling somebody period. Paint. Gotcha.

Todd: Shoving her nose up in some woman’s crotch.

Craig: It ends up being a girl’s nose bleed. So, you know, obviously she’s, you know, smelling blood things are changing. The movie does not make any effort to try to hide from us. What is happening, it’s directly in your face. They are turning into werewolves. We know this moving

Todd: on and on, honestly, this is one thing that for me actually made the movie a little tedious.

I wouldn’t say I ever got bored with the movie, but I would say that there were times when I was like, okay, like I got it right there. Turning into werewolves. Of course they smell of bloods bothering them. They’re feeling weird. Fingernails are growing, whatever like that, like yeah. This, this kind of stuff is so well trod before that.

I didn’t need to see it play out so deliberately and dramatically through this movie. And there were some ways in which it was cute and it was fun. Maybe a slightly new take on things, but there were other ways like this, you know, I was just like, Oh, okay. You know, I too much of it bogged down. I think the pace of the film,

Craig: I, I think that’s fair.

I actually kind of appreciated it because I feel like in other movies, Like an American werewolf in London, which by the way is no comparison. That that is a great, great. Movie. Um, but why toy with your audience? We know this is a werewolf movie. Like just, I understand what you’re saying. Maybe it was a little much, but I appreciated the fact that it wasn’t trying it wasn’t there was, there’s no mystery.

We know what’s happening. So why try to treat it like a mystery to me

Todd: that that is kind of toying with the audience a little bit. It’s not toying, but it’s it’s I don’t want to say I was insulted, but I was like, I wasn’t surprised at any of this. These weren’t big surprise moments for me. Oh, she smells.

Blood. Okay. Oh, they’re eating raw meat. Okay. She’s feeling sick and has to go to the bathroom. And there’s kind of this really long scene where she’s in there and she flashes werewolf eyes, you know, again, I’m glad they weren’t trying to hide it from us. Like we didn’t know, but in the other hand it was like, it felt like it was padding for time.

It didn’t really advance the plot as far as I’m concerned. I mean, by now, even they kind of realized that they’re werewolves or at least I think so. Right. It’s not at this point. That she’s convinced that she’s a werewolf, but I think a few more of these episodes go down after she knows, like she doesn’t need any further proof.

Right. But we still have to see these episodes happen

Craig: anyway. Yeah, I get it. I don’t know. It, it didn’t bother me. I thought it was fine. And that’s one of the things that I liked about the movie is that it’s, it’s fast paced. It doesn’t slow down. It moves. You know, I have a very limited attention span, so that’s.

Always good for me. Um, that my next note is Jimmy goes to Sunnydale because he attends the same high school that Buffy did and that all the nine Oh two one Oh kids did, and Beau’s addicted to him again and throws more homophobic shit at him again. And that girl

Todd: is. Making eyes at him that girls could see

Craig: Bob blah, that girl, whatever we get that rooftop party, which is like a pita benefit or something.

And that’s where LA talks to Scott bale and women are just dripping off of. Her boyfriend Jake. And one of those women is Jenny Maya, who we saw in the opening scene and she ends up getting attacked by a werewolf in the parking garage, uh, after she leaves, which was a great scene. It is a great scene except for the shitty, Oh man, I’m very Kersey today.

Sorry. Except for the crappy CGI. And I so desperately would love to see the practical stuff if it exists. But, um, she gets chased around. It is it’s a very tense scene and she’s very clever in this scene, like in the way that she hides from the werewolf far more clever than I would be. Well,

Todd: I like that.

And you know, that’s, again, that’s kind of a hallmark of West Craven’s movies in general. Female protagonists are not stupid. You know, I mean, she’s not a protagonist, she’s just a character in the way, but she’s not doing really stupid things. She actually has some smarts and is not just going to sit around and be a victim.

And that was fun. That that’s what made that scene interesting to me actually was I felt, I knew she’s going to get eaten. It was entirely predictable, but it was fun to see, you know, that go down and. I think some of these shots were actually practical, mostly close of, I think the werewolf’s face clock kind of reaches in.

You can kind of tell that, no, this isn’t CGI. This is, this is an actual practical thing, but then it goes full on full body. He’s leaping from car to car and it’s like, yeah,

Craig: it’s pretty bad. And it, you know, it’s early 2000 CGI, so it looks like a video game and there’s nothing wrong with video games, but it doesn’t look real.

In this motion picture. No,

Todd: but you know, ends up in an elevator. And I thought that elevator scene was staged. I mean, how many horror movie scenes have we seen in a, in an elevator? Right. But this one I thought was pretty unique. I mean, she makes it in there, the doors close, but because the creature as it’s kind of going up.

To the second floor bangs the elevator door from the other side, it deforms it enough that it won’t go up any further and it kind of stops and it opens a little bit at the bottom. And so there’s this opening where he can reach in and lunge at her, but he can’t get in all the way. And I think. I think that was all mostly practical.

You know, I think that was a guy in a suit, but it still looked pretty good, but then, you know, he disappears and then you realize he’s up there on the second floor and there’s a little crack that he can get through. I, I really liked that elevator scene a lot. I was impressed. And apparently this was one of these scenes that got cut from the R her death was going to be super gory.

I think her torso ripped in half. Stuff like that, that doesn’t even show up apparently on the R rated version. Uh, that’s on available on DVD, but you can see a shot of it, I think, from an old Fangoria magazine. So that’s how we kind of know that

Craig: existed. Jimmy does more research and finds that. People who are werewolves are cursed and they have the Mark of the beast on their hand.

And it’s just like five dots on their hand that can be connected to, to make a pentagram,

Todd: right. Which he does, which he plays with a

Craig: marker to make sure.

Ellie has them too. And like weird things are going on. Like dogs are gathering outside of their house and Jimmy howls at them and they run away. Blah-blah-blah the next scene that I really like is Jimmy goes into the gym and is flirting with. The girl that he likes, I don’t remember his name. Bo’s girlfriend and Bo confronts him.

I don’t remember who lays down the challenge, but challenges him to wrestle or try out for the team or whatever. And Jimmy, Russell’s another guy first and it’s like, it’s kind of like Spiderman. Like it takes him a little while to like, realize. What he, what he’s capable of, but eventually once he does, he kicks that guy’s butt.

And then he wrestles bow and kicks his butt too. And he says something in front of the girlfriend. Oh, you really becoming transparent. We’ll have it a little identity intervention. Okay. Because all this is internalized homophobia is just giving you a way. But anyway, he wrestles bow and really a kind of silly scene.

Like he kind of turns into like a professional

Todd: wrestler WWF. Kind of

Craig: throwing them around and blah, blah, and basically cakes is, but that’s great. That’s cool. I liked it. It was funny. It felt like a Spiderman kinda thing. Ellie is at work and she’s very much on edge, but people are also. People are also making note of how hot both of them are getting the Ellie and the brother was cool, which is kind of funny, but she Tiffts with Joanie over.

Scott bale.

Todd: I can’t believe you’re saying these things. Right

Craig: know, and then she kind of wolfs out in the bathroom and just in the eyes, but one of her coworkers see

Todd: or whatever. Yeah. Well, don’t forget. There’s a, you know, as she walks into the office, apparently. Again, coincidentally and highly conveniently.

One of Craig Kilborn’s next sequences or whatever is going to be on psychics or something. And so there’s a bunch of, she walks in, says what’s with all the gypsies and it’s all these women dressed up as psychics. And of course, one of them is this same woman that we saw earlier at the boardwalk scene, who immediately looks up at her and runs towards her and chases her into a room.

Pulls up her hand and just says, you’re cursed by the beast and you need to be careful and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Kyle, nice guy, Kyle does his duty and comes in. All right. All right. Let’s pull you out of here. And Kyle says he goes away. One of the, one of the funniest lines in this whole movie, just it’s, it’s just in the background.

It’s kind of blink if you miss a lie, but he goes. Shouldn’t you psychically know when you’re annoying someone,

but I had forgotten about that. Also. It gets hilarious that, okay. First of all, it’s kinda dumb that that psychic happens to also be there. But the other thing is like Ellie just hears her say these things, which are so pertinent to her situation and what she’s going through right then that she’s. Not at all interested in chasing that woman down and learning more.

Craig: Yeah. She blows her off in a scene that they probably could have caught cut. Jimmy goes to talk to Jake. Like I don’t even get the sense that Jake and Ellie have been together that long. So why her little brother would have gone to talk to him. I’m not sure, but he goes and tells him. That he thinks they’re werewolves.

Todd: And what special knowledge would he think that he has just cause he’s setting up all four.

Craig: I mean, ultimately it is a set up, which is why I think that they kept it, but it’s, it’s stupid. Um, but Jake kind of blows them off zipper. The dog turns into a werewolf too, because he had bitten Jimmy that night prized

Todd: me.

I didn’t see that. I, it

Craig: surprised me too. And the CGI doesn’t look good, but I loved that sequence,

Todd: nonetheless, because I actually thought that Jimmy might eat the dog. Yeah. All about this meat and the dogs got it. And Jimmy’s kind of creeping under the table and he’s upset at the dog and having the meat.

And I thought, Oh dude, is he going to take a bite out of this dogs? But Craig is going to hate them.

Craig: I know. Cause it was a really. Sweet dog, but one of my favorite parts and it’s so cliche, Beau shows up on Jimmy’s doorstep and is like all of those things you said to me in the gym, how did you know?

It turns out that boat is gay and he tries to kiss. Jimmy and this, it should be so offensive and stupid, but Milo Ventimiglia is so cute. It’s delivery of it. I’m like I forgive you for being a. Dick. You’re cute. Let’s make out. Um, but they don’t and Jimmy’s like, no, you don’t get it. Like, I’m a werewolf.

And Bo’s like, okay, whatever. He’s like, seriously, like you’re, you’re not into me. It’s just because I’m the beast. And like, I’ve got this. Crazy sexual magnetism in bows, like EA you do

zipper the, the werewolf dog, like kind of attacks them. So they, they escape in a Bose car. I don’t remember where Ellie is. I think she’s at work, but she gets in her car and Jake confronts her and he smacks his hand on her window and we see that he has. The marks on his hands too, which

Todd: I knew. I mean, you could see that from a

Craig: mile away.

I know. Well, I feel like they tried to project it because like his character is worthless, otherwise like yeah, exactly has nothing else to do.

Todd: Like he keeps popping up and just in pointless scenes. Right,

Craig: right. And so, uh, she stabs him with a car key and runs away. And then it’s the night of the big open.

Beginning of the club, the horror themed club or whatever, and Bo and Jimmy sneak in as part of Lance bass,

2005

Todd: had to smile.

Craig: Jimmy Bo and Jake all end up in the mirror. Maze. Jake and Ellie ended up together and he’s trying to convince her that he’s not the bad guy. He says, there’s another one like me. I don’t know who it is, but it’s trying to get to me. He says I was born with this curse and I know how to control it.

And then in my notes, I have blah-blah-blah. I love you.

Todd: Exactly which has played out conveniently in this mirror, maze that you can pop into as part of this very packed nightclub conveniently at this moment only has the three of them in it.

Craig: But a werewolf breaks through the mirror and it’s going after Ellie Bo gets attacked. And I said, killed question Mark.

Wasn’t sure. And then the werewolf just busts out into the party in general and. Everybody runs away, but Ellie and Jimmy get trapped in there. Like they, somebody drops the security gate or something. And so they’re trapped in there. There’s a little fake out where they think that nice guy Kyle was the werewolf, but then he ends up getting killed.

Um, and then the reveal is that the real werewolf. Is bitchy Joanie.

Todd: I didn’t see that coming. She

Craig: caught werewolf ism from Jake because they had had a fling. And she said, I guess I got a little too rough. Okay. I’ll know what that means, but whatever. And there’s a cute one where Joanie and Ellie kind of catfight for a minute.

And, uh, Ellie peppers, Fraser, and runs away. Then Jake confronts, Joni. Um, but she can’t, her whole objective is that she wants him. So she’s taking out all of her comments  and she can’t kill him because it’s been established that if you break the bloodline right. Like everybody who’s been turned by that werewolf will be cured or whatever.

So she can’t attack him.

Todd: This was one of the biggest disappointments of the movie. Joanie goes to her transformation and it’s the first time we’ve ever seen a full werewolf transformation in this movie. And that is what these movies are about. You know, that’s. The centerpiece. That’s what we’re looking for.

And it’s all CGI and it looks like a fricking cartoon. It doesn’t look good. It’s just so disappointing. And I would love to have seen what that actually would have been like, you know, with under Rick Baker. And in this point, you know, they have this big battle sequence I think, running around, which is fun.

Yeah. It’s just what that CGI werewolf, most of the time, and then kind of bouncing around and stuff. I dunno. I was just kind of waiting for it to end. Really. I was surprised there were still almost. 20 minutes left in the movie. At this point, I thought we were coming up five. Right. And eventually it’s over the police show up

Craig: the police Burstyn they’re like, where’s the animal.

Jimmy is like, she’s up there somewhere. Cause she had jumped up on like to a second level balcony or something. He’s like it’s a werewolf and the cops look at them funny. They’re like, uh, okay, can you give us any other description? And Christina Ricci? It’s so funny. Funny, like, I think she’s intentionally doing it to try to taunt.

Oh yes. And fat thighs and bad skin.

Joanie is a werewolf full werewolf jumps out. It’s the open-end says liar and flips them off.

Oh, my God. I thought it was so funny and the cops shoot her like a bazillion times and she falls on the floor. Jimmy’s like, you have to cut off her head. And she pops up and a cop shoots her several times in the head. Christina Ricci’s like is she’s dead. And Jimmy’s like, well, her brain’s all over the floor.

So I’m guessing

Todd: that’s the end. That’s good enough.

Craig: And it turns out she is dead. Bo is alive in the maze we find out, but Jake is missing now, honestly like you, I thought, Oh, isn’t this over? Like, Joni’s the big, bad guy. They killed her kind of anticlimactically but it’s over right. New Ellie and Jimmy go home.

The house is all trashed because the werewolf dog tore it up or whatever, and they think it’s over, but it’s still the full moon and it’s nearing midnight. And we see like their veins kind of become dark and visible. And this silver PI server that Ellie tries to pick up from the floor burns her hands.

So. They’re not cured. They think they would be because they think that Joanie was the one that started all this. Right. But then Jake shows up and suddenly he’s a douche and suddenly he’s a douche. And this that’s why ski Dale rich rich left because he thought that it was too similar to the end of scream, where, you know, the heroine’s boyfriend in the very last moment and ends up being the bad guy.

Um, and he’s right. It’s the same. It’s

Todd: exactly the same.

Craig: I don’t know that I would have left a movie over it, but I can understand why he would be irritated. You know, like this isn’t what I signed up for. I wouldn’t have signed up for it if I would’ve known that I was just going to be doing the same thing again.

But Ellie and Jimmy both kind of start to go through. The change. And so Ellie and Jake fight, they all fight.

Todd: Yeah. It’s kind of long.

Craig: Well, it is, but I kind of liked it. You know, Jake wants to be with Ellie, but he says he’s going to kill Jimmy because there can only be one alpha male. They all fight all three of them.

There’s a cool part where Jimmy crawls around on the ceiling using his werewolf claws. I liked that Ellie ends up stabbing Jake with the silver PI server in the heart. And then she. Cuts off his head with a shovel, which is another scene that they drastically cut, uh, for the PG 13, but then unexplainably his body combusts.

And that’s pretty much it. And then there’s this, the ending was dumped that that’s my biggest complaint about the movie is. The last five minutes or so stupid zipper comes home, which that made me happy. Doug’s but he comes home because Brooke brought him on Brooke is the lame girl who has no purpose in the movie.

And now like she’s enamored with Jimmy and she kisses him. Like they don’t even know each other, but all right, let’s kiss whatever. And Bo’s there too, as though he’s delivering his. Your

Todd: old friend, Jimmy, he’s handing her off like a father in a wedding. It’s so weird. And there’s been no romance. My God.

Why was the scene there?

Craig: Bo Bo hugs, Jimmy, like they’re bros now. Like, and again, if not for the actor, if not for Milo Ventimiglia. I would have hated this, but he’s just so cute and charming. I just couldn’t. I was like, good. I’m glad you’re friends now, but they, they all go off like, Oh, well we killed the werewolf.

Let’s go get some pizza or whatever. And Ellie’s like, that’s fine. I’ll stay home and clean. V. And

that, that, that last four or five minutes was so corn ball. I did not care for it at all. However, up to that part, I found it to be a fun ride. It was fast paced. The actors and characters were likable. It just had. I don’t know how to describe it. Those movies from. The early aughts, those horror movies from the early aughts scream.

I know what you did last summer, urban legend. They had a very distinct cinematic look. And this movie has that. Exactly. And maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it wouldn’t work today. I don’t know, but I enjoyed it and I enjoyed the movie

Todd: overall. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun too. And I, I basically agree with everything you said.

We sat all at the beginning of the podcast, to be honest, if you want to go back and you even want to read the original script, you can do that. You can just go online and search for it. Uh, and there are people out there who have also summarized it. So you can read through all of it. It’s very different from this.

And again, I don’t think it would have revolutionized the genre even in its original form, but it sounded so much more interesting and complex. And edgy and with more interesting characters. So I joined you and hoping that someday somebody is going to dig this up and put out there what we know exists so that we can see this in

Craig: its original form.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

Todd: But here we are on our 250th episode at the end. We just really are grateful of the fact that we’re able to do this every week and that you, our listeners, some of you have been with us from the very beginning and it’s super flattering. We started out doing this for ourselves, but we learned as we went through it that we really feed off of the feedback from our listeners.

We love getting requests. We love on our Facebook page and on our website hearing you guys. Just kind of shoot back your opinions about the movies that we’ve done and where you differed from us and where you agreed with us and just your enthusiasm keeps us going and has kept us going all these four or five years now.

And, uh, we just want to thank you so much for that and we hope we can continue to do it.

Craig: Yep. You stole my thunder. I was going to say the exact same thing, so I won’t say it again, but I concur very grateful to all of you. So, uh, thank you for listening and, uh, we’re going to be around. For awhile as always same old spiel, you can find us everywhere.

Google to guys in a chainsaw podcast. We’re on pretty much any platform you can think of. Visit our Facebook page, visit our website. Talk to us, leave the search review. If you feel so inclined. We always love to hear from you. And, you know, we are thinking about trying to incorporate some new stuff into our repertoire as well.

So maybe there’ll be some new stuff to look forward to, but until that time I’m Craig and I’m Todd with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

A bloody-good time. This Wes Craven-produced short franchise is a special-effects extravaganza with a fun villain and an interesting premise: What would happen if you awakened a modern-day genie who wasn’t so blue and friendly?

Wishmaster (1997)

Episode 249, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Todd: And I’m Todd.

Craig: We decided though we have a growing list of requests to just kind of do something random. And in fact, this was just something that crossed my mind, actually, you know, we hadn’t picked anything. Uh, since the last time we talked and I happened to have this movie on DVD.

So I knew that it would be easy for us to come by.

Todd: So laziness basically brought us to here.

Craig: Pretty much. Okay. I mean, and so most of my decisions are made, frankly, but, uh, we decided to do 1997’s Wishmaster. Yes. I was just thinking, you know, We had talked about when we did Scream, how we had really hit most of the major franchises.

And then I thought about that statement and I thought, you know, there are really quite a few that we haven’t done. I mean, we haven’t done any Candyman. We haven’t done any Leprechaun. I, gosh, I don’t know :eprechaun. I don’t know if we’re ever going to get into that. Hey, I want to do.

Todd: I’m I’m really jonesing for Leprechaun in Space.

Craig: I don’t think I’ve ever seen Leprechaun in Space. I’ve seen the most of them. I don’t think I’ve seen that one. Wish master was a franchise in the late nineties and early two thousands. And. I saw them all and they played some of them on, uh, cable television, quite a bit there for awhile, especially the third and fourth ones, because I think that the third and fourth ones premiered on cable, I don’t think they even were straight to video.

I think that they were cable movie. Fair. But the, uh, first one came out in 1997 and I remembered liking it. Or at least I thought I remembered liking it, but I thought, Oh, you know, this is one of those stupid movies. That’ll be fun to goof on. And so I recommended it and I sat down to watch it. The first thing that pops up when you pop this movie on is West Craven presents, which I had completely forgotten.

Um, I had no idea that he was an executive producer on this movie. And so right from the beginning, I’m like, Oh, wow, well, that’s, that’s pretty cool. And then as I was watching it, I was, my thought was, this is really not a bad movie. Like there’s actually quite a bit of cool stuff going on here. And I completely forgotten that it is chock full of.

Excellent horror movie cameos. My God.

Todd: It sure is.

Craig: And so I was really pleasantly surprised. Now it’s not a perfect movie and I will be more than happy to tell you the things that I took issue with. Um, but over all, I was really kind of really pleasantly surprised to revisit this is this. A movie that you had seen Todd?

Yeah, I

Todd: had seen it. I had seen it probably about the time it came out. I think I probably rented it on DVD somewhere in the, when I was in college. Uh, probably around 97. So yeah, I I’d seen it before and I remembered a couple big scenes. The big showpiece scenes, basically of the movie being pretty wild and crazy, but it didn’t really stick in my head as a movie.

Like, yeah. Let’s, you know, let’s, let’s keep this one in rotation. It really kinda came and went and then I didn’t keep up at all with the rest of the series. So I didn’t even know. They’re like, gosh, they’re like five of them, right? Five or six or four 4k. Yeah. So at least, yeah. I didn’t even know there was more than two.

So, uh, it seems like, uh, they were, they were pumping them out in short succession after this, like every year or two after this for the next few years. And then it kinda stopped. I think they were probably trying to get. Another iconic horror movie villain going right, like another Freddy Krueger or Jason or something with this.

Uh, I’ve seen people reference him as almost like a cross between pinhead and Freddy Kruger. He’s got that. The wish master has that wit about him, that Freddy Kruger kind of has that malevolence, but also that dead serious kind of, well, actually his look isn’t too far off from the center bite. Look.

Really true. And the fact that he comes from another world, the, the, the space between worlds, basically as this mythical gin character, the evil genie, the more, uh, in keeping with the actual Persian legends of the genie as being a malevolent type, a trickster spirit, instead of a goofy, fun, happy, happy guy, like a Latin or one time, which came out around this time, too.

So, you know, it, it’s a, it’s an interesting take on that. And I was also surprised to see so many, so many cameos, I guess, to now watching this, uh, at 41 years old, having seen so many horror movies and being come very used to these faces. I probably recognized a lot more faces now than I did when I was watching it in 1996.

Oh

Craig: gosh. Yeah, I definitely did. I, there were several times I’m like, Oh, I know who that guy who was, that guy is somebody I would have to look them up. That’s right, right. So it was directed by Robert Kurtzman, who hasn’t done a ton as in terms of directing, but he’s a really well-established makeup guy. Uh, he did makeup on from dusk till Dawn Gerald’s game, the haunting of Hill house.

Dr. Sleep tusk. Some, some really big stuff, even, you know, Up to current day.

Todd: Well, he started out on night of the creeps, which we’ve done moved to Phantasm two. He did intruder clearly here with evil dead two and intruder. He, he crossed paths with the Raimi pigs and Sam Raimi actually is the one who recommended him to direct this movie.

As a matter of fact, and Ted Raimi of Sam’s brother plays a cameo role in this as

Craig: well. Yup. And it was written by a guy named, uh, Peter Atkins, who I didn’t recognize a lot of his work, but he got his start in a theater group in Canada, I think with Clive Barker and Doug Bradley because of his association with the two of them, then he did some work on some of the Hellraiser movies.

So, you know, these are folks that may not have some of the prominence of some of the directors and writers that we’ve talked about, but certainly have worked with some of the big guys in the genre. And it’s just, it’s a pretty simple story, really. I mean, it opens up, we see this like Alchemist or wizard or something, making a gemstone.

Uh, and it was really reminiscent to me of the opening scene of nightmare on Elm street. One where Freddie was making his glove, like it’s all close closeup and you just kind of see the process. And then we get this script on screen. One weeks, a gym shall be given three wishes upon the grounding of the third.

The unholy legions of the gin. So there’ll be free DePaul in the earth

and all

the gene. I didn’t realize until after I’d watched the movie and I was going back to research it that the narrator is Angus Scrimm. Who of course. We are huge fans of, so like you said, it is the source of our kind of genie legend. Um, but again, much more malevolent than it’s become, uh, in our culture.

Todd: It seems to be a very, um, Low bar to a cross there.

I mean, you only have to make a third wish and then basically the world is over and the gin takeover, right? Like throughout history, everyone’s only gotten as far as to, I mean, wow. That’s pretty impressive.

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, I feel like the SQL’s explore this more because it’s not like this gin is the only one in existence.

There are other ones too, but I don’t know. How the others are accessed. You know, this one eventually becomes trapped in this gym, which then it’s, it’s like the genie in the lamp, I guess somehow you have to summon it or whatever. It’s, it’s, it’s a little bit nebulous, but. Whatever it doesn’t matter. The opening scene is in Persia and 1127 AB and I just thought this opening scene just really set the bar super high for the movie.

I mean, it’s like in this courtyard kind of thing, I guess, and the gin. Basically just slaughters this entire courtyard full of people. And this is an effects movie. I mean, that’s what the movie is really, really all about. It’s these effects in there. I would say probably 95% practical. And in this opening scene, you’ve got this, Jen slaughtering, all these people, but in these, it’s not like he’s just running around with a sword, disemboweling people.

I mean, it’s all just this really creative stuff. Like yeah. One lady turns into a tree. Some other guy’s intestines are like bursting out of him and biting and attacking him a skeleton breaks out of this guy’s skin. And then is running around killing other people. One guy turns into a snake. I mean, it’s just this huge effects driven scene and it, and everything that follows, I just thought looked.

Fantastic. I just thought it was great. Like this is, this is so up my alley, these practical effects, I was just stoked from the get-go. Well, yeah, when

Todd: your director is, is basically running the special effects from his own special effects house, you would hope it would be that good. Right. And Greg Nicotero is also, was also on his crew at this time and eventually split off to do his own thing.

But Greg Nicotero also re you know, runs a lot of really great special effects for a lot of films, including. Oh, the walking dead. He’s the lead effects guy on the walking dead series. So the, the, I would say the only problem I had, well, the first, the first part of the movie is great. Like you said, it’s just an excuse to raid the effects shop for everything that you can find and try all these different things out.

It was just everything, but the kitchen sink. And then we kind of come back to that at the end of the movie as well. And then you write throughout the movie, we get a lot of very detailed Gore effects. I mean, one every five or six minutes, it seems like. And so that makes, they make sure that the deaths are really gory and really creative.

And that part of it’s good. I did feel like it really threw him in your face. Like it really lingered. It was a very, um, exploitive movie in that way. Just the Gore was. And the Gore effects were really front and center. So if that’s something that you like then, yeah. I mean, this is like a whole issue of Fangoria could be devoted to this movie and maybe was, but then again, the fact effects sometimes seem to just sort of overtake the movie.

It almost seems to be the point of the movie at times. And I know I got a little weary. I know that sounds crazy, right? Like it should be just like. Like bring it on. But for me after a little while, I got a little weary of all of it. The, the long lingering closeups of the Gore and the, you know, splitting of heads and things exploding and stuff like that.

It felt like a bit much to me at

Craig: times. Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, maybe I was just in the mood for it or maybe it was, you know, some latent nostalgia. I don’t know, but I, I just, uh, I was down for it. I thought it was really cool. And, and just because it was so the craft of it, it was done so well. And, and just so many, like you said, I mean, it’s just one after the other and had they been.

Effectively done then. Yeah, I definitely would have been rolling my eyes at it, but it just felt so skillful. I mean, they were fun to watch. They looked great. And I’ve said this before, but the, the older I get for whatever reason, super. Realistic like body horror, like a lot of blood and that kind of stuff.

It gets to me more than it used to it. Didn’t used to bother me at all. Um, but this, I mean, it’s fantasy it’s fantasy. No, you go ahead and it’s fun.

Todd: Good. As the special effects are, the practical effects are the visual effects, definitely show their age and it’s a shame really. For those to be juxtaposed in here at times, it kind of cheapens the movie a little bit, but it’s just more of a product of its time at this time.

I think they were really still experimenting with CGI and some of the CGI in this movie is really pretty lame. But you know, aside from that, like you said, the practical stuff is quite good. Right?

Craig: I agree with you. I mean, the, the visual effects, aren’t amazing, but they’re kind of few and far between, uh, at least as compared to the practical effects.

And so I was willing to forgive some of that. But anyway, in this opening scene, uh, we see the gin, the gin is played by Andrew div off, who I think just slays in this role. Uh he’s he’s got this kind of sinister look. The, the man, the actor has kind of this sinister look, he’s got these piercing eyes.

Andrew DevOps has been in a million things, but it hasn’t really establish. The level of fame where people are like, Oh yeah, that guy, you know, he plays smaller roles. Uh, most of the time I remember him, he was in a movie sometime in the nineties, I think called toy soldiers. And it had, um, Wil Wheaton. And who’s the guy from, he played the best friend in Lord of the rings.

I can’t think of his name. He’s in the Goonies. Uh, Sean Austin. Yeah. Sean Aston and

Todd: Oh God Lou Gossett Jr. Right? Wasn’t

Craig: he in that? Yeah. Yeah, he was, it wasn’t this movie. I don’t think made much of an impact, but I always liked it as a kid because it was one of those buddy movies. Like these teenage boys, like.

You know, fighting against bad guys. And those kinds of movies were always. Cool to me. He was in that. I remember him from that. He was also an air force one. He was in loss. He’s had an established career. He’s just not like an Atlas star, but he’s, he’s great in this role. And he has a great voice and they have him, you know, when he, he does.

Play like a human version of the character, but for the most part, he’s in this practical makeup, uh, that apparently took about, I think three and a half hours to put on every day and an hour and a half to take off something like that, which, you know, I’ve heard of other movies where the makeup takes.

Significantly longer than that, but it looks really good and he’s, I don’t know how to describe him. He’s just monstrous. And he’s got like, kind of almost these long flesh and bone kind of pony, tail things coming out of his head. And, um, he’s very defined as far as bone structure and he’s got these crazy colored eyes.

He looks great, but he’s like, Talking to this Prince of Persia or King of Persia or whatever. And all this mayhem is going on all around by all the names of God. This is not what I wanted. Then we should away it sorted one. We shit away. No one wishes. I pick your majesty silence. But by poor people, I must do you wish to hate on the entire world?

No, my wishes please. That I won’t and you without. Oh my my wish is all this creature needs and the wizard somehow traps the gin in this red stone. Um, I think they call it like a blood Opal or something later on. And then we cut to America in the present day where a man named Raymond Beaumont played by Robert England is an art collector or like an artifact collector or something like

Todd: that to some rich, rich guy, rich asshole.

Craig: Right. And, uh he’s and he plays that. Well quite well. Yeah. I’ve heard that Robert England is a really, really nice friendly guy, but he plays the sinister asshole role very well. And he’s, you know, like rubbing his hands together. Like I’ve waited 10 years for this.

Yeah. And this big crate that’s like coming off a ship and, uh, his assistant is Ted Raimi. Who, you know, the Raimi brothers are filmmakers for the most part, but we’ve seen Ted Raimi and other movies too. But, uh, as it happens, the Workman who is operating the crane that is unloading this artifact. His drunk, uh, his drinking and his drunk, any spills, his drink on the controls, which causes them to shush, uh, short out and it drops the crate drops and crushes, Ted Raimi, and, uh, the statues shatters.

And we, the audience see that inside this statue is this Jim, um, that we had seen before. And one of the random dock workers takes it and apparently takes it to a pawn shop because we see this pawn shop guy, bring it in to some business for appraisal. And this is where our main character Alexandra. Works.

And I guess this is kind of what she does. She appraises stuff. The main girl is played by a lady named. Tammy Lauren, not to be confused with the hideous, Tommy Lauren, but, um, and, and I, you know, she’s, she’s just kind of a recognizable face, but that may just be because she’s just kind of a generic, pretty lady, I guess.

I mean, she’s, she’s done tons of TV. She had a big stint on young and the restless, she was on home improvement. She’s done tons of stuff, but nothing that I specifically remembered her for. And I’ll go ahead and say, That my biggest complaint about this movie is that our heroine is not particularly engaging.

There’s, there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s not a bad actress. She’s fine. And she’s a beautiful woman. It’s just, well, for whatever reason, I just didn’t really. Connect with her that much. And that’s, you know, some of the heroines in these horror movies are not even great actors, but there’s just something about them.

Like for example, Heather laying in camp and the night run Elm street movies, Heather lay-in camp is not an amazing actress. She’s not, but. For whatever reason, I just find her very endearing and I like her and I care about her and she really carries the weight of some of those movies on her shoulders.

And I just didn’t get that. And I feel bad saying it because she didn’t do anything wrong. She’s fine. But I just didn’t connect with her very much. Well,

Todd: she doesn’t have much to do. I mean, for most of the movie, she’s just hanging around, getting visions and, and, and feeling that something is off. And, uh, it’s the gin.

When he gets released, who’s kind of working his way towards her. Right. Yeah. And the reason he’s working his way towards her is what I

Craig: think it’s because she she’s the one that released him. So she gets this gym. She’s like trying to appraise it. So she breathes on it and she rubs it. And so I guess that’s what like releases him

Todd: or whatever, but it doesn’t immediately release him.

I mean, like you’re right. The movie makes a big deal out of this, that, that she breeds on. It rubs it. Like it’s extremely significant, but then it’s not like he pops out. No, not yet. She gives the Juul to her friend, Nick who’s, um, Josh, sorry, who they kind of want to, they’re trying to get a relationship going or he’s interested in a relationship.

She’s not quite sure they’re really good friends. Right. And, uh, he works in the lab and he’s looking to put in the spectra spectrometer, spectro analysis machine or whatever. Yeah. And so late at night, you know, he turns on the machine and is analyzing the gym and it explodes and it kills him. Uh, but we see before.

The police get there. Uh, that actually the gin is now out, out in, in the smaller form, right? He’s in this little kind of creature that crawls across the ground doesn’t have legs. And the smaller version of, uh, the gin is actually played by a Verne Troyer. First film rolls. Yeah. Like, like his third film role was this one.

First one was Pinocchio’s revenge. You’ve seen that. Nothing too, too remarkable. Right. Uh, but yeah, he was in, in this one too.

Craig: Doesn’t kill Josh. It just, uh, badly, badly injures him. And then yes, this little, it reminds me of, um, The tequila worm from a Poltergeist or Poltergeist to whichever one it was, you know, it was just kind of this slithering thing, but it, it, it crawls up to Josh and says, I can take your pain away.

Do you wish it. And he says, yes. So to take his, that’s the thing, this is, it’s very much a monkey’s Paul kind of thing. Like you can wish for whatever you want to, but the gin is going to somehow make it horrible for you. And so it takes away his pain by killing him. And then, uh, it grows like it, it derives its power, uh, from these wishes.

And from the very beginning, it’s like, Alex Alexandra. She is somehow connected. To it, the gin or somehow. And so she has these visions. And so whenever it kills somebody, like she sees it, like she experiences it and it causes her great term.

Todd: It causes her to spring up in bed where she apparently lights candles at the foot of her bed before she goes to sleep, which is a bad idea. Yeah. She, throughout the whole movie, it’s really most of the movie from here on out. Well, they meet up is just her freaking out every time and really freaking out every time she gets one of these.

Well, and

Craig: it’s funny that you said she lights candle. She, she does. Fire is a big motif for her in this movie because apparently. Her parents were killed in a fire and she was there and she was able to save her younger sister, but she wasn’t able to save her parents. So that’s constantly on her mind and she has visions of fire all the time.

Doesn’t stop her from lighting candles. All over her house while she’s sleeping and also doesn’t stop her from smoking 4,000 cigarettes.

Todd: It’s so funny. It

Craig: totally dates this movie cause people don’t smoke in movies anymore. Cause smoking’s bad. Don’t it’s bad for you. Don’t do it. But. She does. She’s a big old smoker anyway, whatever random observations for me, but then kind of for a little while, you know, cuts to these scenes where I guess the gin is like trying to build his power or whatever.

And so he’s kind of going around, tricking people into making wishes. One of the first ones is this bum that he finds on the street. Played by buck flower,

Todd: love the guy that’s so iconic

Craig: and all of these horror movies often as above them. But gosh, at this point now that we’ve watched so many movies and now that I know who he is, every time he pops on, like, I get so excited and I’m like, ha ha

Todd: buck

Craig: flowers.

But, uh, he’s a, he’s a bum. And he’s like hanging outside a, uh, what’s the word F a pharmacy. And, um, the pharmacist comes out and yells at him and tells them to go away. And this was the guy that I’m like, That guy is familiar. I knowing who that guy is. And so I looked him up and it’s Reggie banister from all of the Phantasm movies.

So many cameos, they have a fight full, like it’s just profanity laced. I thought it was just, yes. Then buck flower bumps into the gin in an alley. And the gen tricks them into making a wish. And he says, you know, Eight and he’s got this great voice. Like what would you do it? He’s got this great, like, yeah.

Yeah. This is great. Like low gravelly voice. What would you have happen? Give it some thought.

Hey shit. Only get ganja.

You don’t want me to get cancer and die? That’s you wish? So of course the pharmacist immediately gets like, I don’t

Todd: even know what it’s, what is the some kind of, uh, like instant skin cancer and every cell in your body or

Craig: something. And so he just immediately dies.

Todd: It’s just, it’s a lot of airbag airbags and bubbles underneath his ladders underneath is his fake skin fun.

I

Craig: mean, I thought, uh, it’s cool. Yeah. The bum runs off in the gins, like enjoy your time while you still have a soul. So like, I guess he is collecting these people souls who make these wishes, but. Not right now.

Todd: I’ll get back. He’s going to wait just the right moment.

Craig: Right? Of course, Alex sees all this too.

Cause she sees everything that happens. The plot really, I guess in looking at my notes. It, it, it looks to me like the plot is kind of plotting at this point. And I guess it is, I think is, but there’s so much like, it feels fast paced because it’s so effects driven and they don’t really linger on any one scene for too long.

And, and yeah, so, I mean, she’s just kind of. You know, this weird stuff is happening to her. And so she’s just kind of trying to investigate and

Todd: figure out what’s going on. She seems to think that there’s something up with the gem, because that was what, you know, she left with him and went into headaches when it exploded and he had been killed and she had even seen when they were looking at it together, something weird inside.

So she decides to try to track down exactly where this sham came from. She presumably goes to the. Figures out that it came from the pawn shop, uh, from, from talking to Nick who she got it from. And then, um,

Craig: I dunno where you’re getting Nick you’re obsessed

Todd: with Nick. His name is the guy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Josh was her friend. Nick is the guy who’s all obsessed with money. Right. He was like, Oh right. His boss.

Craig: You’re right. You’re right. Sorry, go ahead.

Todd: So, yeah, she tracks it through Nick and then they go on, she ends up somehow finding the dock worker who stole it. And from there, he just mentioned that he got it from the statue and there she goes and meets up with Robert England’s character.

And that’s when he, we see his whole house, which looks suspiciously, like exactly the same set that we saw in the very beginning of the movie, kind of.

Craig: Really,

Todd: this is Lee similar, where he just has a, like you said, he’s like an old, rich, uh, asshole who collects, uh, all of these artifacts. And he has one, he says from every ancient civilization and that had a still right there was where that statue was going to go, but I’m still throwing a party for it.

And if you want, why don’t you come on out? Break your along. And I love all the little shades he’s throwing in here. Like, I didn’t know if he was going to try to molest her or what was going on here, but anyway, she collapses has another vision. Blah-blah-blah um, it’s all just basically leading up to this guy, uh, the gin of finding her.

So that’s, what’s kind of plotting, I think is her side of it maybe. Yeah. And I think what’s sort of plotting about it is we already know. Right. Like, we already know exactly where the gem came from. And so we’re just watching the first five minutes of the movie. In reverse for the next 20 minutes of the movie, interspersed with the gin stuff, which is way more interesting.

Know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, if it was a mystery like that, we were kind of engaged with too. We were kind of wondering, but even the folklore of the gin himself is spelled out to us in a few sentences in the beginning of the movie. So these scenes where she meets up with the folklorist and she basically says exactly the same thing to her true are like, Oh, okay.

Like, Tell me something new. Yeah. So I think, I think that’s why it felt plotting on that side.

Craig: That’s fair. I think that’s totally fair. But at the same time, I mean, even before we get there and I like that the lady that plays whoever she is, college professor, whatever that explains the gin. Legend. I, I think she’s bringing O’Hara.

But, um, even before that, like the gin goes to a Morgan gets a body, like he just doesn’t manifest into some human version of themselves. Like he goes and gets a body and he tricks the mortgage worker into he’s like, do you wish you didn’t see this? And the guy’s like, uh, yeah, makes it so the guy’s eyes are like, Stitched up and grown together.

Just these little things that are not really relevant to the plot at all. I mean, it’s just excuses for doing these. Makeup effects and practical effects. But in the moment I didn’t care cause they looked good and they looked cool and I, and I enjoyed seeing it, but he gets this, you know, human body. And it’s funny because then from that point on pretty much every woman who sees them, like takes off her panties and throws them at him, like he’s supposed to be like the hottest guy and he’s a handsome man.

He is, I just don’t know that he necessarily justifies the reaction that he immediately gets from every woman that he sees. For example, when he goes to get a suit, uh, in a, in a store and the gorgeous, uh, sales girl is totally flirting with them. And he eventually, you know, while she’s ringing him up, He like just makes money appear on the counter or whatever, and says something about how beautiful she is.

And don’t, you wish you could be beautiful forever. And she’s like, well, I guess he’s like, well, say it. She’s like, okay. I wish I could be beautiful forever. And then he turns her into a mannequin. I mean, it’s, it’s silly. Yeah. I don’t know.

Todd: I just, but it’s, it’s clever. I mean, it’s, it’s an interesting superpower, right?

Like it, it definitely gives him limitations. Like you said, he can’t go around with a sword and cut people. Like you get this idea, like he’s actually unable to do that. Right. So. He has to trick them into wishing for something in order to get his stuff done. And half of the time it’s these corny sort of silly ways, but it gets the job done.

And that’s probably what you’re stuck with. So, you know, when you’re, when you’re a gin, this is, this is the, the clay with which you work. Right.

Craig: Well, and that’s the thing too. Like he has to get them. To wish. And he asked to get them to wish for the right thing. And it always works out, but there’s at least one scene where it almost does it.

He’s trying to hunt her down, I guess, because she’s the one that led him out. He has to get her to make three wishes in order. For him to truly be freed and for all his breadth or, and to be freed and for them to take over the world or whatever, but he ends up at her job and it’s late at night. So it’s closed.

Of course. And there’s a security guard played by Kane hotter, again, another big horror guy. And at first he’s trying to get this security guard to wish and he does, but he just wishes. I wish you would go away or something like that. And you can tell by Andrew DevOps performance, that he’s really irritated by this because it’s like he has no choice.

But to do what was wished. So he turns around to leave, but no, I have to get inside. Well now you’d have to go through me. And that is something I would love to see. And this is what are those not practical effects. That’s just okay. Like he turns him into pretty bad glass, crystal or something and walks right through him.

And he shatters into a million pieces. I don’t know. Yeah. I mean, I can keep going a lot. Like it, he finally gets Alex’s location because he talks to Nick and he, you know, charms him with kind of a magic trick, turning something into gold or something. Yeah. But then, uh, Nick’s like, well, I can’t tell you where she is.

And he’s like, well, I’ll make it worth your while. What do you want? He’s like a million dollars. And then we just see this random scene where this sweet, old ladies getting on a plane and the person who’s taking her tickets, like, Oh, you forgot to sign for the insurance policy. And she’s like, Oh, Oh, I guess I better do that.

Cause it’ll go to my son, Nick.

Todd: So next shot is the plate explode.

Craig: But that’s the other thing that I like about the movie too, is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Like it’s goofy and it knows it’s goofy and that’s okay. Anyway, I like it. Then she goes and visits. Wendy, Wendy, I don’t even know who Wendy is.

Wendy is like a college professor or something.

Todd: She’s a professor of folklore. Yeah. But you

Craig: said who she was played by? What was this lady’s name? Uh, Jenny O’Hara. I recognized her right away too. And I’m not exactly sure what I specifically recognized her from, but I looked her up and she was in, I think it was M night Shyamalan.

Devil, uh, yes, the movie where they’re like all trapped in an elevator and one of them is the devil,

Todd: but she was in her alert.

Craig: I, I, I didn’t say she was the devil Todd, but I guess now I did spoiler

Todd: alert. She was in mystic river as well. Um, but she’s been all over television. I think that’s probably, probably, yeah, she has a very distinctive look. I recognized her as well, and I was embarrassed to note, to not be able to pinpoint where, but I just feel like I’ve probably just seen her as a bit character in a lot of different TV, TV shows.

Yeah. But I like her. Yeah. She was really good. She

Craig: she’s got a commanding presence. And, and then I don’t remember exactly what happens next, but what, what I do remember is that of eventual, like the gen tracks Alex down, because Alex like coaches, youth basketball, like I guess that we’re supposed to like, think that she’s a good person because she.

Coaches basketball. He tracks her down at a basketball game and he the agendas and he meets her sister. So, you know, we know that he knows that she has a sister, blah, blah, blah. But eventually Alex goes back to windy and I really liked that scene in Wendy’s apartment. I just thought it was really clever.

Of course I knew what was going on. But I didn’t know. And couldn’t remember if the first time I had seen it, that it was as obvious as it seemed this

Todd: time. It takes a little while to catch on because it’s just, you know, when he’s just explaining to her more about the mythology, but then she starts acting like, she’s like, Oh, do you want me to open the window?

Are you a little hot in here? And he’s like, no, I’m fine. It’s like, Oh, do you need something to drink? And she’s asking her it after about the second or third requests were, as the audience were like, Oh, this is, this is out of place. Something is up. Even Alex herself is, uh, saying no. Um, why are you asking me all of these things?

And it’s clearly, uh, becomes clear to us that she’s the gin in disguise. And that what’s happened is the gin has killed her as well, which, uh, he reveals himself to Alex. And basically says, you know, it’s time for you to make your three wishes and the way that he. Now help me out here because he compels her to make her three wishes, but not right away.

Oh, Oh yeah. Her first way he gives her a free one because she says, well, I just want to wish you dead. And so he says, all right, well, you can use that one. And, uh, he, she shoots himself through the. Chin blows his brains out and it immediately seals back up again. Uh, he says that, which is immortal, cannot be killed.

So that was your phrase, you know, now you’ve got your other three. Okay. And then she wishes herself to know. She says, uh, I always tell my students when she’s talking about her basketball it’s to know your know your opponent. So I want to know about you. And so he says, as you wish, and the way that he shows her about him as he puts her back in his little layer inside the Opal, which, which reminded me a little bit of a cube, it’s like, yeah, red, glowing walls, bottles, and passageways and everything.

So it’s not just him that was trapped in here, but he’s got a whole host of little monsters and creatures some little, again, a lot of these. Things are clearly just there to be more effects for us to OU and all over. And he’s got this little, almost looks like a cross between a bird and a dog. It’s all slimy and bony and it chases her around and she wishes herself out of it.

And back to her apartment without him there. And that’s what happens. So now she’s used her two

Craig: wishes. I know, and that was my least favorite part of the movie. First of all, the fact that the fact that he says, I’ll give you one free wish bullshit. Like who’s going to fall, like, first of all, why would he do that?

Secondly, even if he were telling the truth, I certainly wouldn’t believe that like, that’s bullshit. Like yeah, you say that. And then that’s just my wish. Like that’s dumb. Um, and then her first wishes, I want to know what you are. What more do you need to know? Like Wendy has explained this to you in great detail, like, and she doesn’t learn anything new.

She just gets chased around in the, by the hell hound and the gym world or whatever. She doesn’t learn anything new. And then that forces her into her second wish, which is just, I want to go home. And so now she’s too down, like, man, talk about wasting your wishes lame,

Todd: but it ups the ante because we know that if she can be convinced to do one more wish than life on earth, as we know it is over,

Craig: I know.

And we’re nearing the end of the movie. So I guess they had to stay.

Todd: Okay. They’d rather spend time on this boring investigation than I actually liked this part. I think.

Craig: So she wishes her way back home and she gets there and she finds a note from her sister saying, I waited for you as long as I could, but you never showed up.

So I went ahead and went to Beaumont’s party and the gin or on the phone, you know, as genie will and says, uh, we’re connected now, you know, anywhere you are. Uh, I’m there two or whatever. And we see that, you know, like she tries to raise to the party, but he’s, you know, right there, she stops the car and, and he’s right there outside her window and bus out or window or whatever.

She finally gets to the party and Tony Todd Candyman himself is the doorman slash bouncer. She runs up to him and she’s like, you gotta, you gotta help me. This guy’s following me. He’s trying to kill me or whatever. And so he lets her inside and then, uh, he has a conference, Tony Todd, as a confrontation with the gin and human form.

He’s in his human form now. And I thought that was funny. Like they kind of have a little pissing contest or

Todd: at first you think, yeah, he’s not going to be easily fooled. Uh, but then he says, this was the silliest. One of them all really, it is. He says to him, don’t you wish you had another job? And he’s like, what are you talking about?

I was like, no, no, really? You could don’t you wish you could escape is what he says. Yeah, I would. And then he says, as you wish, and then as he walks away, we see behind him, he’s in a, like a padlocked, a glass case with water in it. And he’s tied up with chains like it like Houdini. Yeah. You know, one of his illusions and he’s like, he said, he, as he walks away, he says, Houdini only took three minutes to escape.

Yeah. Oh,

Craig: that’s so silly. It really was that’s that’s the silliest one. Plus it kind of, I mean, I get the whole monkeys pie idea. Like your wish gets turned around on you or whatever, but if your wishes, I wish I could escape one would think that he would be able to escape. I don’t know. No you’re whatever.

You’re a hundred percent it’s it’s still, you know, it’s a funny. Visual. And it gives an opportunity for us to see Tony Todd young, thin, you know, probably relatively early in his career. I don’t remember that

Todd: from Candyman. Yeah. I think it was around the same time,

Craig: but anyway. Okay. So, uh, they go there in the party and Alex is running around, looking for Shannon, her sister.

Shannon for no reason is being kind of standoffish because she finally finds her Alex find her and she’s like, we have to leave right now. We have to go and go. And Shannon’s like, no, I’m fine. Dang,

Todd: like

Craig: you would think these two seemingly close, like they live together. Uh, Alex saved her from a fire. You know, one would think that Shannon might trust her sister a little bit, but no, it’s like, no, I’m staying.

Did you see Beaumont’s new friend? He’s so hot and, and they look. And Beaumont is talking to the gin and his human form. And then we cut to their conversation. They’re commenting on the party. I remember a certain potentate whose last party he was talked about for centuries. What do you mean? It went down in history.

Yes, God. I’d love to host a party like that. And he’s talking about the opening scene that we saw. And then again, it’s just, it’s the impetus for this huge effects driven slaughter of this party. And it’s so much fun like this. Isn’t a great movie. I mean, it’s not a great movie, but these moments, um, are just so much fun to watch.

And I loved all the stuff that was going on. In what probably boils down to five minutes. But if that,

Todd: Oh, I dunno. It was, I think it was probably more like 10. It’s very, very, um, uh, dead, alive style where everything just goes crazy and it’s blood and guts and Gore and things, crazy things happening everywhere.

Statues are coming to life. The cops show up and they’re trying to, trying to shoot at the statues and the statues are exploding, but they’re also cutting people to ribbons. The director himself. Robert Kurtzman, uh, has a cameo in here as well as a guy who’s standing around too close to the piano and the piano starts playing itself and all the.

Wire spring out of it and wrap around his arms and his face and his head, and basically pull his head off. It’s just a mess of, of this stuff. And it’s fun. You’re right. It’s just a gratuitous out the yin yang. And, uh, and in the meantime, she’s running around Alex and eventually gets cornered by the gin.

Yeah,

Craig: that you mentioned that piano wire scene, there’s a making of documentary on the DVD, or at least the DVD that I have, I saw you can also find it on YouTube. It’s really not all that informative, but they do show how they did some of these practical effects and the way that they did. That piano wire effect.

They show that in great detail and it looks really cool. And the director, you know, I have no idea how old he is, but he certainly was very young at heart. And was, he said that he’s not much of an actor, but give him any opportunity to die on film and he’ll to it. It was really cool to see how they did that.

There were some other things, there are lots of fire effects in this movie, and lots of them are here in this final scene. And there’s lots of behind the scene footage of that. And they had some really close calls with explosions and things like there was one scene it’s here at the end. I don’t remember exactly when it is, but a man is engulfed in fire and runs and jumps out.

A window. Well, the first time they lit this guy up, you know, and he was in a fire suit and all the safety precautions, you know, all, all that was. Set, but he went to jump out the window and it didn’t break and he just bounced off it and, uh, fell back onto the floor. And, you know, they they’re shooting all this behind the scenes and you see that they urgently had to get the fire extinguishers to put them out because.

Everything was supposed to happen on the other side of the wall and it didn’t break. And there was another scene where there was some sort of explosion, a statue or something was supposed to explode. And they set charges at various levels in the statue, I think from top to bottom. And they were supposed to explode in sequence, but the first explosion was so hot that it caused the lower charges to malfunction.

And both of them exploded at the same time. And there was a big fire. And you see it happen and you see them put the, put it out and there’s so much smoke, but then what’s really interesting to see as the aftermath, like the cameras were right there to capture it and the aftermath they show the cameras or just completely melted.

Yeah. And, uh, I guess there was so much smoke that day that they were forced by the fire Marshall to shut down. Shooting for the rest of the day. But anyway, that documentary it’s only like 20 minutes is on YouTube if you’re interested. Yeah. So basically it comes down to the same scenario, Mario. The, the opening scene was where the gin has Alex cornered and he basically says, You can wish all this away.

And the stakes are especially high because he’s got Shannon trapped in a painting and she’s burning. And so, uh, in order to save her sister and herself, it’s a double-edged sword because even if she wishes to save them in this moment, Supposedly that unleashes hell on earth. So, you know, what’s the point?

What do you do? But she’s very clever. She thinks really hard

Todd: about her final

Craig: wish. And she liked flashes back to all this research research that she’s done. And, um, she sees the article about the initial accident that released the stone and she flashes on this name in the text. I wish, I wish

I wish Mickey Tourette. Hadn’t been drinking on the job two days ago. Initially the gin is like, ha, she made her wish. And then he’s like, Oh wait, damn,

because that means the stone never got released from the statue. And so he never got freed. And as everything goes back in time, we see that doc scene again, but this time the guy’s not drunk, so everything’s fine. The assistant doesn’t get squashed. The stone doesn’t get broken. I don’t really understand this because like, Are we supposed to think that Alex is still aware of what happened?

I

Todd: know it, it seems like the movie’s kind of implying that because the next scene is between her and her friend, Josh, and instead of being real tentative about their relationship, she kind of has this knowing smile and she’s like, yeah, let’s go out. And then she kisses him. Yeah. And so that was, yeah, you’re right.

It feels like it’s a knowing Alex, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be, she could just have had a change of heart over the last day. Yeah,

Craig: I guess, or I don’t know, maybe something inherent about her character was changed even as she doesn’t remember. I don’t know. But then it flat she’s back to Beaumont’s house and the pedestal where the statue is always supposed to be.

And now it is there and the camera like zooms into the statue and into the stone. And we see the gin sitting on his. Thrown just trapped within and that’s the end. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. I mean, you’re fine, obviously. It’s yeah. That’s what I thought you were going to say. Todd’s review

Todd: is it was fine.

It’s fine. I mean, I got everything to say about it that you said about it. It was a. It was a lot of fun to see all the different Gore effects and things. Uh, it did get a little plotting in the middle. It was a rather simple story. And some of it was a little hokey and cheesy, but it was a unique concept.

And again, this idea of that this character’s powers are better than just a guy running around slashing people or a guy running around, making magical things happen. It’s it’s cool. It’s sort of like the vampire trying to convince you to invite him into his home. Right. There’s that moment there where you kind of root for the.

The human, like, Oh, don’t let them, don’t let them do it. Don’t let them do it, man. You have more power than you realize. It’s just your words. And then they say something like, I want this or I wish this, and then it’s all over for them. Right. So there’s that aspect. I didn’t think the monkey’s paw aspect of it was as clever.

Is it. Could have been, I, I suppose, but I can’t write a movie, you know, so who knows what I would come up with, but it just would have been neat if those aspects were just a little more like clever twists, like a little more Twilight Zoney, but that’s just a small thing. And I thought the, the character himself was pretty cool.

I liked, you know, his eyes, his physicality, that, you know, the makeup and everything apparently was a huge pain to get into and out of. Like three hours to get into it, hour and a half to get out of it every day, but they really designed a cool creature. But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, the story was rather simple and kind of silly at times.

So it wasn’t one that I’m going to probably go back and watch too often. Not one I’m going to buy on DVD, Craig. So to be

Craig: fair, to be fair, I bought it when our last. Video rental store closed down and they were liquidating all of their stuff. And so I got in on a double disc with wish master too, for like a dollar.

Todd: Have you seen the second

Craig: one? I have. I’ve seen all of, well, the second one is pretty good. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I liked the first one, but I still enjoyed it and yeah. Um, I think that that’s largely because of Andrew div off. I mean, even in the gins human form is cool. Yeah. He’s still very menacing.

I mean, he’s got that great voice. He’s got these piercing eyes and, and they, they do, you know, he plays both forms. In the second one. Also the first movie was made on a $5 million budget. Uh, six months start to finish. They shot it in 33 days and it grossed 16 million. So, you know, they, they went forward with the, uh, second one.

And the second one, I think. The fans of the first one came out for the second one. So it said, okay, too well enough for them to Greenlight a third one, Andrew DevOp was on board to reprise the role for the third one, but he wrote a treatment for the script and the studio rejected it in favor of a different script that div off hated.

And so he left and they replaced him with an actor named John Novak and they shot wish master three and four back, two back. Oh, one of those. Yeah, like a weekend between, uh, the two and three and four aren’t as good. They’re not as clever at all. They lean more into the fantasy. There’s a lot less Gore. Um, I still watched them and I didn’t hate them, but they’re obviously lower quality.

I mean, they feel like made for cable movies because they are overall, you know, this first one I think was pretty ambitious and, and considering the fact that it was shot so quickly on a relatively meager budget, I mean, 5 million. I’ll never have $5 million, but that’s a fairly low budget, especially for such an effects driven movie.

And it did pretty well. I’m kind of surprised. I feel like this franchise is forgotten. I never hear anybody talk about it. I never see anything about it. And that surprises me because I think that it was clever. I don’t know. I have an appreciation for it. I don’t think that it’s amazing. I don’t think it’s a great movie.

But, uh, if you’re a horror fan, uh, I think at least the first one and maybe the first two, um, are worth checking out. They’re fun, little rides, you know, they’re popcorn movies, they’re fun, popcorn movies. And I would recommend them. I like them and

Todd: check out the cameos.

Craig: Oh gosh. Yeah. It’s worth it for the cameos alone.

Anyway, those of you out there in internet land, let us know what you think about this movie. I’d be interested in if I’m the only one who, uh, remembers it fondly and still thinks of it. Of course, we are happy to talk to you about whatever you’d want to talk about. We are very much open to it. Plus, we’ve got kind of a long list of requests that we’re working on now, but if you’ve got something you would like for us to talk about, we will put you on the list and we will try to get to you as soon as we can.

You can find all of our back episodes anywhere where you can find podcasts, just Google “Two Guys and a Chainsaw podcast”, and you’ll find this all over the place. Check out our YouTube page. Uh, we’re not doing a whole lot with it yet, but, uh, the more subscribers we can get, the more we may be able to do with that.

And then hopefully we can broaden our viewership a little bit more until we meet again. I am Craig and I’m Todd with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Blacula is one of the most respected “blaxploitation” horror films to come out of the 70’s, and the first blaxploitation horror film for us to tackle. Directed by a William Crain, a black director, and helmed by the Shakespearean actor William Marshall, it’s essentially your standard Dracula story transported to an urban setting. And it’s not nearly as bad as its goofy title would lead you to think.

Blacula (1972)

Episode 248, 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: So this month is February and in the United States, since I’m actually not sure how long it’s been, but it has been established. You wary is celebrated as black history month, where in the schools and I’m out and about, and in our daily events and lives, we celebrate the contributions of African-Americans in the United States and catch up a little bit on the pitiful job that we’ve done so far in doing that.

And remembering and acknowledging the contributions of black Americans and what they’ve done for us. So we hear on a two guys in a chainsaw. I don’t know. I just, I came out to Craig one time and I said, you know, of course we just did a Valentine’s day thing. We love to do these holiday things. But there is a whole genre of film that we’ve touched on and dipped into just a little bit that is geared, especially towards, uh, African-Americans in the horror industry.

Uh, obviously there is a period of time in the seventies, late seventies called blaxploitation cinema, which a couple hundred movies I’ve actually think more than 400 films were released, where it was suddenly realized African-Americans, uh, there, there might be a market for movies. Believe it or not starring them with them in it, with stories that, uh, speak to them or that they care about, you know, after being relegated to really, really poor roles in Hollywood, like a mammy type made roles, like in gone with the wind or sidekick roles, or they’re just a lot of these tropes that we have and a horror cinema has been no better at that.

However, uh, in the late seventies, there were some opportunities there. I mean quite honestly, to make money. And that is the sort of mixed bag that we dive into. When we talk about blaxploitation cinema, it’s black and exploitation meshed together, right. It’s sort of a double-edged sword here in preparation for this art, uh, for this episode, because another reason why Craig and I don’t try to dive too deep into this stuff is that we’re two of the whitest guys.

You probably like the white, easiest white guy. We are. We are wonder bread. Okay. This is what we are. So, you know, it makes us a little nervous that we might say something that w that just displays our ignorance. We’re certain that we have a lot of ignorance about this topic, but, um, you know, I, I said to Craig, and I think he agrees as part of the point of black history month.

And part of the point of. Having a podcast and talking about these kinds of things is that we try to gain a better understanding and in order to gain a better understanding and better yourself, sometimes you have to take some risks and you need to step out and have these conversations that at first may be difficult or uncomfortable, but they’re conversations worth having.

And, uh, I mean, come on, it’s just. These are just movies. All right. I don’t want to make this sound like super serious. Like we’re doing serious work here because we’re going to talk about black Hills. So, uh, little silly putting this preface in there, but I feel like we kind of need to get all that out there because we know we’ll probably put our foot in our mouth a little bit.

In just talking about this because we have to talk about it in the context in which it appeared. It is widely recognized as one of the very first hor uh, it isn’t, but it’s widely recognized as one of the most influential blaxploitation horror films to come out of the seventies that really set a tone and open up some doors for people that otherwise were closed.

And of all of those horror films of blaxploitation films that did come out, it’s probably. Still to this date regarded as one of the best. It doesn’t mean it’s a great movie, but in the context of everything else, it is. I think we have a lot to talk about here. I don’t know about you, Craig. Uh, I had seen black, uh, black, yellow back in high school, I think with some friends.

And at the time I remembered watching it and I was expecting a certain kind of movie. When you hear exploitation and you see movies like shaft and Superfly and stuff like that, that were more in the action. John Rez of this time period, lots of sacks. Lots of nudity, lots of violence. And it’s just kind of a mile a minute.

And I was expecting something like that with this movie. I think when I first went in, Oh, it’s going to be, you know, Dracula going down to the hood and like banging girls and like, you know, there’s going to be shootouts and cops running after him and stuff. I don’t know, but it’s definitely not. It’s not quite that.

I do remember going, Oh, This movie’s a little better than I thought it would be. I just remembered being surprised. So I hadn’t seen it since then. I was really happy to come back and revisit it at this time. And I needed a lot of help, you know, for us to begin to talk about this. So I actually went on shutter and found out that there is a little documentary there.

Called a horror noir. It is a cool documentary. It’s about an hour and a half long. And it, it talks with, um, interviews with black historians, filmmakers and actors, many people from these movies. They interviewed the director of this film, William Crane, who himself is black. It was fascinating. I, I highly recommend that if you enjoy this conversation or you want to kind of go out and learn more about this stuff and you have shutter.

Here we are promoting shutter again, get on there and find the documentary horror. Nawara it really opened my eyes up. And I think, um, the podcast is probably going to be a little more substantive, uh, as a result of watching that. How about you, Craig? What’s your history with this movie?

Craig: I had never seen it before.

Uh, I don’t know, like, I wasn’t really familiar with it. I’d heard the title, but I think. That I had intentionally shied away from blaxploitation films because the exploitation part of it made me feel very uncomfortable to the point that I thought, like these movies aren’t for me, like not just as a matter of taste, but like they’re not made for me.

They’re not, I’m not the intended audience. I just. So, you know, in preparation for this, I did just the tiniest bit of research. I am not going to pretend to be an expert on any of this at all, but as it turns out, though, these movies are exploitive. They also on the flip side were kind of the first opportunity.

In Hollywood for black directors and black actors. And, and, you know, in every aspect of filmmaking, it was kind of the first opportunity for people of color, to not only take advantage of their abilities as writers, directors, actors, et cetera. But to be the central focus,

Todd: to be the heroes, to

Craig: be the heroes and the, and there are elements of it that are stereotypical, but you can say that I suppose, of any movie or any genre, there’s always stereotypes, especially in horror, you know, horror is, you know, rooted in

Todd: stereotypes.

By its nature. Horror is exploitative. You know, I mean, it that’s pretty much the whole genre. Right, right.

Craig: But here though, there are those elements and, and, and certainly elements that are worthy of criticism, you know, the focus on violence and the stereotypes of certain characters like pimps and criminals and, and violence and that kind of stuff.

Also provided an opportunity for real representation of people of color, not just to play the villain, not just to play the bad guy, but to also be main characters and heroes and to have real storylines. And I guess I was just unaware of that. I thought that these movies and, and I’m. I’m not well-versed in them.

Like I haven’t seen any of the other big ones, like shaft, you know, I’ve, I’ve seen. There are still some elements, some filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, who’s a big fan of blaxploitation films. Uh, he still incorporates elements of these films into his work. So I’ve seen some of his work that incorporates those elements and like even silly things.

Like, I don’t remember one of those Austin power movies. With a Beyonce. I think it was gold member or whatever. Like her role in that movie is very reminiscent of the like Pam Greer kind of character. So I I’ve seen some of those more contemporary ones, but I was afraid that even by indulging them, I would be in some way.

I, it just didn’t feel right. And now that I’m more aware that really largely the black community embraced these movies for the opportunities that they provided, I’m a little bit more open to it. Now, all that being said. They still, these films still faced wide criticism for their stereotypical nature and the NAACP, and some other organizations were opposed to at least elements of these movies, but I’m kind of glad that I’m dipping my toe into the.

Pool with this movie, because I really felt that why there, while there are certainly stereotypical elements going on here, the heroes in the movie are heroes and even Prince Manuel de. Black ULA. He’s a nuanced character and he’s a sympathetic character and watching the movie didn’t make me feel dirty.

I thought that it might, and it didn’t.

Todd: Right, right. That’s reassuring. So that’s good. Yeah. I mean, before this we’ve done, what Def by temptation. Uh, we did tales from the hood. We did get out. I mean, those are almost three completely different. Era’s right there. Def by temptation, late eighties, early nineties tales from the hood mid nineties, get out very modern.

Those are not blaxploitation movies. When we say blaxploitation, we’re very definitely talking about yeah, it’s a specific genre, right? Yeah. And, and like you said, it’s a double-edged sword there with how this, how these films came out. I mean, AIP. Is the company that made this film, the owners producer AIP is Samuel Z.

Arkoff this guy, basically they would, I ride the coattails of whatever was popular at the time. They were not there to lead, you know, in front with their pictures. They were seeing, Oh, action movies with a big car chases are big right now. So let’s go and as cheaply as possible. Make a bunch of action movies with big car chases, get them out to the drive ins, get them out to the, you know, the theaters where people are and see what sticks and try to make some money from these kind of like Roger Corman, except Roger Corman, a few steps above on that.

On that level. He was actually breaking ground and doing things, but still it’s all about making money. So these films are generally low investment and low quality and William Crane, the director of this movie. Now the script came, he didn’t write it. As grape came along, two guys, John Taurus, Raymond Conich.

I was looking for information on them to even see if they were black. And I couldn’t find that information according to IMD B those two together only wrote this movie and the SQL screen black ULA screen, which by the way, Pam Grier’s first appearance, uh, was in scream, black ulous scream. So both of these films actually are quite well-regarded of both this one and the SQL, but anyway, William Crane was an up and coming black director and he got the opportunity.

He was asked to come in and direct this movie. He found out he wasn’t happy with the script that he found. It was originally going to be called count. Brown is in town. And the main character’s name was going to be Andrew Brown, which is the same name as the character from Amos and Andy and that’s problematic Amos and Andy was a radio show that was pretty racist in its depiction of black characters.

So he wanted to come in and change this. And it was his idea to make this Prince, um, mama wall day. He completely roots it in the time he says Prince mumble all day goes to visit count Dracula. 1790s with his queen, I guess a wife or whatever. And they go to Dracula’s castle in Transylvania. And apparently in this world, Dracula himself either has influenced with, or is somehow involved in the slave trade.

From Africa. And so he goes there to, can try to convince Dracula, to use his influence, to stop that. And Dracula’s like nice idea, but no, I think there’s some good things about slavery and by the way, uh, I think your wife is pretty hot and, uh, what a buyer I want to buy or, yeah. Pretty it’s pretty horrific.

And so that becomes the origin story. That was one of the changes that, you know, what are the big changes that he made, but otherwise, in this film, although you’ll see an almost all black cast, there are white people in the film. Of course he said, otherwise on the set behind the scenes, I found a lot of

Craig: tangible resistance and maybe even tangible resentment.

Yeah. Well, for racism, I mean, nobody’s going to show your crew was. Predominantly white or everybody was white right now. I can’t remember anyone

Todd: else black. There was on that set the changes he wanted to make both visually into the script and the story he really had to fight for. And he had to really try to convince even the higher ups that, you know, just let me do this.

I know what I’m doing. And, uh, it seems like at the end of the day, he pretty much got what he asked for and it’s probably, but yeah, even before these genres, you know, you have black people in these tropes, there’s the magical Negro trope where there’s a black character in the movie that, you know, brings in some mystical wisdom and then they give the white characters, just the.

Exact information, they need to be able to succeed. And then you have the sacrificial Negro where it’s sort of an extension of the faithful servant trope. Like the mammy who’s doesn’t care about herself and her plight. You know, she just wants to make the white person happy and that’s her life has to serve them.

You know, we see this a lot in horror movies too, where the black character comes in and sacrifices themselves. So the white character can continue to live. The first to die is the trope to write in the horror movies that we get a lot of. Right. I mean, there are a lot of examples and there are a lot of exams samples where this isn’t always true.

We know actually a lot of horror movies that we’ve done here even back in the day, you know, people under the stairs West Craven was pretty good at that. He has a young black kid and Kincaid and nightmare on Elm street. Three puts up a pretty good fight. So. You know, it’s not across everything, but, uh, these movies are very much fun to watch because the people in charge of these are like, we’re tired of this.

So we don’t want this. We want to make a movie where we’re the heroes and, uh, this is our subject matter and let’s go forward with it

Craig: even more than it just being about like, Oh, what we need a black hero. Like just outside of that context, like, why can’t there just be a movie. With mostly black people, like, yeah, exactly.

Right. Why, why is that such a challenging concept? Or why was it, but like you said before, it’s like Hollywood was like, Hmm. You know, who might be interested in watching movies, black people, maybe we should make some black people movies. Like how is that just dawning on people? Like, that’s why it makes me somewhat uncomfortable even talk about, I’m glad that things are getting better.

And I really do think. That things are getting better, but with the events that have transpired recently in America, you know, last summer, With George Floyd and the black lives matter movement. It was just so eye opening to me because in the wake of president Obama’s presidency, I just really thought that we had moved so far as a culture, a way from those stupid.

Racist beliefs and actions and traditions and, and, and then things I’m puzzled because I don’t know if things changed or if things had never changed as much as I thought that they had. And it’s been disciplined. Pointing, frankly, gosh, I don’t want to get this. This podcast is isn’t it? Yeah. This pike and this podcast is be fun and entertaining.

I don’t want to make it too serious or, or bring people down, but. Personally, I’ve just been very disappointed in America as a civilization and a culture in terms of race relations. And it’s made me very sad and it’s made me do a lot of self-reflection because I’ve always considered myself to be a progressive, you know, minded person and, and see that so much hate and, and.

Prejudice and discrimination still exists all around me. Whereas I’ve kind of been, I guess, had my head in the clouds a little bit thinking that things were better than they are. It makes me feel guilty, but more than that, because it’s not about me, it just makes me want to be better. And so I’ve done a lot of self-reflection and have tried to recognize ways that.

I can be more proactive. And that’s one of the things that we talked about, you know, folks, I’ll be really honest with you when Todd proposed this. I said, bro, I don’t know. You know, like I ju I just don’t know that we are the people. To tackle something like this. And, and Todd said, well, but you’re a literature teacher.

You deal with this kind of stuff all the time. And I do, I just, I just, I worry so much. About my own ignorance and, and exposing it because I do, I want to be proactive and I do want to be an advocate and I do want to be an ally. And I just worry that I’m gonna, like you said, put my foot in my mouth or say something.

That I shouldn’t because I can’t, I cannot, nor will I ever be able to speak to the black experience. I can’t. So the only thing that I can do is, you know, speak from my own experience and hope that people know that I have the best of intentions. Yes. While we talk about this silly movie, which ultimately.

Is, you know, just, it just it’s, it’s just Dracula, but he’s black. Like that’s

Todd: really well. And actually that’s, what’s kind of great about the movie. I think it is what it is. I guess it’s for better, for worse. If you really like Dracula and you really like the Dracula story and you’ll want to see another version of it, this will be a fun movie for

Craig: you.

Well, and if you like the hammer films, I feel like this is, is much in line with those it’s though it’s set in an urban setting. It feels very much like those hammer pictures, it’s kind of traditional storytelling. There’s really nothing unexpected here. And in fact, you know, like I said, it’s, I’m so glad that they inserted that.

Opening scene in Transylvania with Dracula and included that part about, you know, wanting to stop the slave trade and then Dracula himself being a racist. Totally. Lucy’s the slave trade

Todd: slavery has mattered. I believe.

Craig: Barbara is from the standpoint of the slave,

Todd: perhaps intriguing and delightful for mine, I would willingly pay for so beautiful. In addition to my household, as your delicious

Craig: wife.

Oh no. In South France, it is a compliment for a man of my station to look with

Todd: desire.

Craig: The Prince who is very unreasonable is not the right word, but diplomatic, like he carries himself very well.

Todd: He’s gentlemen. Yeah.

Craig: He’s a very much gentlemen and has been very much a gentlemen in his dealings with Dracula.

And, but, and then even when he’s in. Salted. Like he makes it clear that he takes that as insult, but he just says, we’ll be going now. And it’s established right away. It’s, it’s a tragic love story. And I have to say, okay, we should talk about this since it’s a horror podcast. First Dracula says you’re not going anywhere.

And he calls in some henchmen and these henchmen start, uh, fighting with Manuel day and Dracula kind of holds the wife. Back, but then like the brides of Dracula come in and I love the vampire design in this it’s classic it’s classic vampire design. It’s very much old school, very, you know, hammer almost, even, even.

Uh, huh, it looks, it looks great. It’s super traditional, but it looks great. They come in and Dracula bites, Manuel de and, and curses him and gives him this whole long speech about how you’re going to be damned to have this blood lust forever. But I’m going to lock you in this coffin so you can never satisfy your thirst.

And then he. Tells the wife, I’m going to lock you in here and you can be comforted by his cries from inside the coffin until you die. But it’s established much like in Dracula that it’s also kind of this tragic romance, this tragic love story. Um, and it follows that same beat when he ends up coming back.

There’s a woman that he encounters right away who. It’s played by the same actress clearly is the embodiment of his old love. And that’s right from the source material. And that’s the thrust of the movie. It is. Yeah. It’s so traditional everything else. I don’t know, it’s almost secondary to the very traditional elements of the story.

And it’s, it’s compelling. It’s not a great movie, but it’s as compelling as any of the other hundreds

Todd: I’ve seen was, you know, it’s funny that you say that because I sat down, it is rated PG, by the way, there’s a little bit of blood, but not much, you know, it’s just vampires biting each other. So I sat down and watched it with my wife and.

One thing that I mentioned to her, I was like, you know, as I was kind of watching this movie, I was getting bored because it is a little bit more of a drama, you know, than anything else. And the action’s not high, but I said, you know what? I guess that’s Dracula. Oh yeah. It comes out at night kind of stalking and seductive and whatever it takes his time, maybe he gets invited into the house.

Maybe he doesn’t, but he can’t, unless you invite him in. And then, and then the morning comes and then for, you know, the next 15, 20 minutes, it’s a bunch of people talking. Because it’s daytime, Dracula’s sleeping until nighttime comes again. And then Dracula’s, you know, the threat again somehow, but it’s just always, they always end up being very talky plotty type movies, heavy drama, heavy, heavy plot, trying to figure out where is he?

Oh, there’s another victim. Let’s examine the victim. Now let’s figure out, you know, I mean, They’re kind of like that. And so this movie is really no different, I think from a lot of those other Dracula movies in its pacing. And again, a little bit in its tone, the actor who plays Dracula, William Marshall, he is a classically trained Shakespearian actor, mostly on the stage.

He started on Broadway in 1944 in 1950. He understudied was Boris Karloff. As captain hook and the Broadway production of Peter pan, I didn’t even know Boris Karloff was captain hook and the Broadway production of Peter pan. Um, but he’s most well-known for playing Othello on stage in at least six different stage productions.

And has probably, I think to this day is regarded as maybe one of the best Othello’s of, of all time.

Craig: I can see that he has a very commanding presence. In fact, I would say that based on my limited. Experience with him in this movie. I would say that maybe he’s more suited for the stage. Yeah, he has that kind of presence.

Yeah. He’s very stagey and like dig in there. So like when he comes back and he eventually finds her name, Uh, was Luva in the past. It’s Tina in our present day, which is in the seventies. Eventually he kind of woos her. It doesn’t take very much, she’s clearly drawn to him, but eventually they come back together and they have scenes.

Where they kiss and eventually make love. Now there’s not a sex scene. We just see them post coitus. But, um, in those scenes where they kiss, it was cringy to me really was there was no, no chemistry or passion at all. Like. Like, let’s just kind of close the lips, mash our face.

Todd: It’s almost like the camera knew that too.

Cause it would just kind of stay behind one of their heads. So you couldn’t even really see it.

Craig: But that said he, he does have. Uh, a very theatrical presence that almost makes him, uh, it kind of makes him stand out in this movie. Well, but I guess that makes sense. I mean, he’s supposed to be from the 18 hundreds, 17 hundreds or whatever. So he would have a different effect than modern

Todd: people that the kind of classical Bela Lugosi vampire.

Anyway, you know, he’s a, he’s a gentleman above all things. He’s also six foot five. So, I mean, he literally towers above everybody in this movie and you don’t always notice it, you know, based on the camera angles, but in some of these fight scenes, when he comes across them, it’s like, it’s like the tall man, you know, he just comes up to him with his hand and around their neck and lifts them up off the ground and just shuts people around.

And by the way, the fight scenes are pretty bad. I mean, ultimately I kind of want to, if I’m going to talk about like the cinematography as a whole and the. Aging of the S the scenes and all that. I do think it’s pretty wanting in the technical department right there. I didn’t find the fight scenes terribly convincing or, or really thrilling.

There’s a chase scene in there. That’s like, Ugh, no, it’s not even exciting. And so, yeah, there’s, there’s, it has these kinds of problems where I don’t feel like the movie really elevate really. Almost never has like a moment where you’re kind of like, Oh, okay, cool. Like there’s something exciting happening.

Craig: Well, and it’s a mystery kind of, you know, black I’m a wall day. There are several things that I want to talk about. You know, like I said, the plot is, so I don’t want to say non-essential because you know, it’s a movie you want to plot, but if you know the story of Dracula, it’s, it’s pretty straightforward, just set in an urban place.

But there are things that. I found interesting. And one of those things that I found interesting is the way that black ULA gets to Los Angeles. I love this. So apparently, you know, after the. Scenes in the beginning, in the 18 hundreds and 17 hundreds, whatever it is, then we jump to modern day, still in Transylvania, where apparently a real estate agent is trying to sell off Dracula’s estate because Dracula and his gang have been killed years and years ago by van Helsing.

And they’re trying to sell off as a state. And I guess they’re having difficulty selling it off. I don’t know. So these. Two gay guys from Los Angeles are. Buying this property. And like, they make it, the, the realtor like reveals that this was Dracula’s place and all these bad things happen there. And they exploit that say, Oh, well, in that case, I think we need to re negotiate a lower price.

And the guy’s like, okay, whatever, just take it. And so they negotiate the lower price and as they’re signing the contract, one of the guys. You idiot it. Yeah. Yeah. He dumb ass. Like we’re going to make a fortune off of all of this. Literally feel the legend is yeah. The Dracula legend is huge in America.

And the guy’s like, uh, no, it’s not a legend. It was real. And they’re like, okay. What I found interesting about it was, whereas this is a blaxploitation movie. I was shocked to see a representation of one. And they are established as a couple and to an interracial gay couple in 1972. Like you couldn’t have gotten away with that in a mainstream movie.

And I think that, that goes to show that where there is. Prejudice and intolerance for one thing that extends to other things. Yeah. And when you tackle that head on you open the door, not just to the group that you’re focusing on, but to other marginalized groups. As well, um, which is great. And of course, these guys are very a feminine and stereotypical, but it didn’t bother me.

And I have to, you know, I, I don’t want to draw parallels too much because again, it’s not the same and I cannot speak from a place of oppression. The black people can speak from, but I wonder if my feelings about that kind of representation of homosexual people as a homosexual man, I was happy to see it.

It didn’t bother me so much that it was stereotypical. I was just glad to be invited to, does that make sense?

Todd: Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Yeah, I hear what you’re saying. I

Craig: don’t know. So anyway, I just found it interesting and, and it wasn’t like, it wasn’t a big deal. Like nobody really made nobody made any big deal about it yet.

Like later after they come back and they open the thing and they both get bit and eventually come back. Everybody thinks they’re dead, but they eventually come back as vampires. Yes.

Todd: There’s some comments made we’ve been on that

Craig: missing battery board. Nothing, no fingerprints, no signs of right-hand Andre, not a thing without hell is Wanda dead.

They call them fat eggs and it’s um, yeah, several times. Yeah. And, and I don’t like that. I don’t like that word, but I also understand. That it was a different time and people used those words just as in the movie. I don’t think any white people use it, but black people use the N word in this movie too. It was a different time.

I don’t like it, but I understand that it was a different time and it just didn’t. In that context, it didn’t really bother me. In fact, I was actually surprised by how casually it was presented. Like they just are this gay couple there’s it just

Todd: is. Yeah. You know, it wasn’t laid out for you in a big dramatic way.

It was just that’s. Yeah. No special attention was really called to it. Except for the fact of course, like you said, it’s a bit of a stereotypical portrayal. But, you know, I mean, there are people like that too. Right. So it’s okay. Yeah. So Bobby, I think Bobby and Billy are the two, uh, Bobby I thought was like a black Richard Simmons.

That’s what he looks like to me.

Craig: Take the, the

Afro.

Todd: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s something about his smile too. I don’t know. Anyway, um, Bobby, uh, is laying in repose and they get visited by a Dr. Gordon Thomas and, uh, two women who turn out to be his wife and then his wife’s sister, his wife has Michelle and his sister is Tina. I guess they know Bobby somehow just from

Craig: the neighborhood.

I think. He,

Todd: uh, being a police, they call him doctor, I guess he’s like a police detective. He’s like, um, like the CSI guy or whatever. Yeah. Like,

Craig: um,

Todd: yeah, he’s a little curious about how he died. And, um, the coroner men says, well, at the family’s request, we haven’t embalmed him yet, but you know, I did try to cover up these odd neck wounds.

And so he says neck wounds and he looks over and he sees the neck wounds again, this is this sort of typical vampire thing. And that’s, so that sets him off. Sort of on his quest after the second person shows up dead, who is a cab driver? I loved that

Craig: part.

Todd: That was great.

Craig: That was mama while they sees them visit.

And he sees Tina who looks just like his wife. So he follows her and she gets scared and she runs away and he chases her. She drops her purse, then like she gets away, but he’s running across the street and he gets hit by a cab and the. The cab driver is a woman, a black woman. She gets out she’s like you dummy, what were you doing?

Like, it was just such fun need dialogue, but then he kind of vamps out on our a little bit, or at least starts like looking at. Thirsty or whatever. Just got to be around here where, I mean, I bet you she’s worried right now. I’m looking for you, but why don’t you the bag over me and go get, I bet you, I bet she’s called the hospital now.

Listen, take your hands off of me. I don’t know. The interaction was so. Humorous to me. And he does end up biting her and then she’s dead or undead or whatever. The

Todd: most sexily dressed cab driver I’ve ever seen. Yes. Yeah.

Craig: It was hot and sassy. I

Todd: liked her. She was hot. Yeah. She ended up dying, which is interesting too, because.

Uh, you know, there are little moments in this movie that continue to kind of remind you and kind of push your buttons of the racism. Like you said, I don’t think it’s ever gone as far as anybody using the, any white person using the N word. But interestingly enough, the coroner, when they examine the body, one of the first comments he makes, when he looks down at her detective Gordon, by the way is black.

Um, the coroner is not, he asked me she’s

Craig: looking for something, you know what I mean? Looking for something.

Todd: Yeah, Sam, get me a cup of coffee with you. All right. I can take

Craig: a hint. Uh,

Todd: and I thought, Oh yeah, that’s interesting. You know, it’s this kind of plays with this notion that, well, a, you know, a woman who dresses up in a quote unquote super sexy way is looking for guys to get on her, but also like black women in the U S have historically also been hyper-sexualized.

And I felt like there was a little bit of that, you know, kind of nudging right there. There they’re little comments like that. That kind of remind you. Oh yeah. There’s. There’s like racism going on here, even though the white characters and the black characters in this movie, like in the police station are, are clearly working together.

There doesn’t seem to be any of that kind of tension. These little comments undermine that. Right.

Craig: I just think that that’s such an excellent. Commentary on society. And I doubt that they were going for social commentary. It’s just a representation of how things were and probably how things are like Dr. E you are using his last name.

We’re going to confuse people because I always called him Dr. Thomas cause everybody, his first name is Thomas. Um, but he works closely with this white detective and they seem to have a very solid rapport, you know, like mutual respect for one another. But when Thomas, you know, he’s talking about all of these different deaths and he’s like, I know they’re connected somehow.

I know there’s some connection and his white friend is like, but a lot of Panther

Todd: activity,

Craig: legged Panthers, come on, Jack. Don’t cop out. To get interior decorators and a lady cab driver Panthers. Come on. Uh, no. Why? Why wouldn’t you just automatically think, but like, I just feel like it’s that dynamic, like the white guy just automatically jumps to, Oh well it’s gang related or it’s black Panther related or what?

Like, they just jumped to these racist. Conclusions, but I also liked that there was a strong black voice there to say, no, you idiot. What is wrong with you?

Todd: It’s funny. I didn’t realize, uh, until later that, um, I had to kind of put all this together because I was still trying to work out the relationship with the girls. It’s just not spelled out for you right at the beginning, but actually his wife. Also works with him. So here she is,  again, to see a black person in a role like this just wasn’t that common this time as well.

So she, by the way, she’s gorgeous that woman, I want to be my girlfriend. And, uh, I just couldn’t stop thinking about that. The whole movie. Her eyes are piercing and her name is Denise, Nicholas, and she’s still with us. And she was working all the way up until 2004. And she has a gosh, a huge filmography of television and movies.

That pretty much, I mean, he, she did a couple TV series before this movie, but then after this movie, she was doing a lot more. I think this movie had a lot to do with boosting her career a bit. I mean, she’s like in the love boat and Benson and all the, I mean, she looked familiar to me, so I got to know. Oh, and then, um, in 1990 there was a bill Cosby movie called ghost dad, and she was Joan in ghost dad.

So. Yeah, she probably would look familiar to you too. And then I’ve got to say that the chief, uh, his name is Gordon Pinsent and he is probably the most accomplished of everybody here. He’s also still with us and still working. He’s got 150 credits to his name and, uh, he’s very recognizable. At least I thought he was, and he’s been.

All over television and movies, just like anything you can imagine this guy’s been in. So it’s interesting that this movie as low budget, as cheap as it was still ended up with these stars that either were already making names for themselves at the time, or would therefore then go on to make some names for themselves.

Yeah, I

Craig: saw that too. I looked, you know, I didn’t know any of these actors. I thought some of them looked somewhat familiar, but I, you know, I looked at their pages, their Wikipedia pages and, and most of them, the lead people that I looked at had, you know, dozens, if not, you know, a hundred or more credits, these are solid working actors.

Um, w one of the things that I thought was fine. Okay. So basically what happens. At this point is Manuel de is, is in pursuit of Tina and Dr. Thomas is investigating the murders. And I think that this is really kind of stupid.

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: everybody, all of our main characters just happened to be. Super close knit.

Like exactly like there in a group of like five or six people who are around each other all the time, Manuel, they goes to the club that they hang out at and meets up with them. Tina’s immediately. Enamored with him for, I guess, because of like, what do they call that would have vampires have thrall or

Todd: what it’s the only thing you could have, you could say.

I mean, why else would she be so enamored with this guy? Right, right,

Craig: right. This weird, much older than her man who walks around wearing a Cape. Um, But they’re all very, very closely tied to one another. When I said they all meet at this club, I think we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about the musical.

Numbers. Yes. Um, there, there are musical performances in this club, these like R and B numbers and, and the score is very like funk and R and B too, which is typical as I understand it, of these movies. Um, and it’s good, you know, I like it. I thought that the first. Time, we were in the club and they basically gave us a full live music video.

I thought it was a little excessive. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the music. I thought the music was great. I just thought it was like, okay, I get it. I don’t

Todd: need to see them.

Craig: Um, yeah, but they’re all very closely knit and there’s a photographer in the club, like one of the old fashioned kind of like cigarette girls.

Who’s like in like a skimpy. Kind of costume and she’s going around taking pictures and she takes pictures. She takes a picture of Tina and mama Waldo is like trying to get away from her. Like he doesn’t want his picture taken and she goes back home to develop the pictures. And I love me a dark room scene, by the way.

I just love that red lighting. I love it realizes that, uh, he doesn’t appear in the images and the pictures and she hears something that’s going on. And this, I think. There are two, but this I think was my favorite shot of the movie where her, her dark room, isn’t really a room. It’s just a curtain off place in her apartment.

And she hears something and she throws open the curtains and mama while they is standing there in full vamp mode. And when he vamps out, he like grows like. Pork chop sideburns and a beard. It’s kind of weird

Todd: eyebrows. Yeah.

Craig: But he’s, he’s standing there with his arms outstretched and I don’t know how they did it.

I don’t know if they did it with a Dolly or if he just stood on a skateboard and they pulled it or what, but he just very quickly glides towards her very menacing and she’s screaming and it’s, you know, in this red light. And I actually found that moment, which is maybe all of them. Three seconds legitimately scary.

If I had seen that when I was a kid, I think I might’ve had knife

Todd: Ruth. You, there are a few jump scares in this movie. They’re not all effective, but that was probably the, one of the most effective ones I thought.

Craig: Yeah. There’s another one where like they’ve got the cab driver. On ice in the morgue. Eventually Dr. Thomas figures out that they’re vampires, he digs up one of the gay guys, one of the gay guys bodies went missing, but the other gay guy was, was married or not married.

Um,

and, and they dug him up. And as soon as they dug him up, he jumped out and he was a vampire and they staked him right away. And so. Uh, Dr. Thomas knows it’s vampires now. And so he calls the Morgan, tells the. Dumb more attendance and pull the cab driver off ice, which he does, but he doesn’t lock the door as he was adamantly instructed to do.

And so like, while he’s on the phone with somebody else, that lady bursts out of the room, that she is screaming and, you know, again with like her arms out and all vamped out, I thought that was scary too. That was the second. My second favorite part.

Todd: That scene was awesome. And actually the director, William Crane talked about that in the documentary.

He said, you know, when he was filming this. Sometimes he wasn’t getting a lot of help from people. And when he walked into that police station, he saw this really long hallway. He was like, I need a fast speed camera, which is basically a slow motion. Camera pulls the poles, the film through really quickly at a high frame rate, which then you play back at a slower frame rate.

And it gives you slow motion. He kept asking for an asking for an asking for it and they weren’t going to give it to him. And then on the day that they went to film that suddenly another van pulled up and offloaded a high-speed camera for him. And it’s because up top they started seeing the dailies and liking what they saw.

So they decided to give him that. And it’s a great effect right? In slow motion. It was

Craig: really cool. Yeah. There’s kind of a cool showdown in like, okay, so they, the police spot, Bobby, who was the gay guy whose body went missing and they follow him and they track him down to like this abandoned warehouse.

It’s not abandoned. I guess it’s just a warehouse. It’s where big gay guys had had all of Dracula’s stuff. Taken, they went in there and I expected they were going to just find him, but they had talked about how vampirism spreads like wildfire when they get in there. They do find Bobby, but there’s also like probably a dozen or more other vampires.

Again, looking fantastic. It’s old-school makeup and like big fangs. And the makeup is just a lot of shading and green and blue and stuff. Yeah. And, and like really highlighting the cheekbones and making them, you know, look exactly. Um, but it looks fantastic and I love it. And there’s this big showdown in a big fight and they ended up throwing unlit oil lamps on the floor that just then,

okay. And I don’t know, but I mean, it was cool. It was cool to see all these vampires running around and golfed and flames. Yeah. Eventually the guy figures out that it’s Memorial day, who he knows because he’s, he’s dating his sister in

Todd: law. Not only does he know, but his sister knew a long time. His sister-in-law knew a long time ago.

I mean, cause he goes over to her apartment and through his charms or whatever tells him everything. He just lays it all out in one long monologue and like this crazy thing. Yeah. I’m actually from the 17 hundreds and I was his Prince and I went to see Dracula. I mean, he lays out everything and my, why don’t you feel it too?

You know, and all that. And then she was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then they like have sex. And so she’s smitten with him, but they have. All started camping out together at the chief’s house. So that has been kind of keeping the sister separated from him. And I’m not sure he knows exactly where she is or at least he doesn’t get to her once they

Craig: figure it all out.

Like, uh, mama Waldo and Tina are together in her apartment. But Dr. Thomas in with the police and Manuel de fleas, and like, they try to talk to Tina. They’re like, Listen, I don’t care how you feel about him. He’s a bad guy. He’s killed a bunch of people and like, she feels kind of conflicted for a second, but then she’s in her room and we’ve also seen the black ULA can turn into a bat and fly around.

He’s like up on top of a building and I guess he reaches out to her. Telepathically and tells her to meet him. And she does, she goes out the window and they meet up and they’re going to re I, it just seems like they’re going to run away together. Dr. Thomas and the police somehow track them down to this old building.

I don’t know, like. The whole building’s not underground, but the part of it that they’re in is, and it

Todd: looks chemical facility. I imagine they, they wanted a big Gothic type end sequence for this, but of course, to make it urban, what’s the most Gothic kind of like passageways and crazy stuff. You could find.

It’s it’s this big, underground chemical processing facility that more or less looks like, uh, you know, we’re, Freddie has his showdown in all these pipes and. Ramps and staircases and stuff everywhere.

Craig: Yeah, really? Mama Waldy and Tina, they’re just trying to get away, but they’re running away and a cop starts shooting at them and shoots Tina in the back.

Like, yeah, dude,

Todd: that was messed up. It was

Craig: messed up. And I felt it, it was sad and like mama, while they kneels down over and he’s like, do you know

if this is the only way you will be with me? And he bites her bit while he’s biting her? It looked to me like she died. Like he had tried to turn her, but it was too late. And that’s what it seems like happened because then he stands up and he yells Dr. Thomas, uh, I curse you and everybody else that’s helping you.

And everybody who is in this building will die. And then he goes around and, and starts picking them off one by one. And I don’t remember everything he does. He electrocutes one, he throws one off. Like a big ledge

Todd: and he plays donkey Kong on another one, tossing barrels from the top of

Craig: and meanwhile, Dr. Thomas and his police chief. Friend are looking around and they find a coffin and they assume he’s in it. So Dr. Thomas opens it while the police chief like has a stake held up above his head. And as soon as they open it, he stabs the stake down and it’s not mama Waldy it’s vampire Tina.

So apparently the change did work. But now she’s staked and she’s dead at which point mama, while they shows back up and he’s like, well, I don’t have any reason to live.

Todd: I was kind of lame, right. I mean, it was a little pathetic. I mean, I get it, I get the whole notion, but he just gives up and, uh, I guess he would he’s didn’t want to be a vampire.

This isn’t Dracula, right? This is black ULA and a Uganda gave up his chance and he climbed up the staircase. And actually, I thought it was a pretty good, well edited sequence of shots with the sun, him. And they did these interesting things with the sunlight. It was one of the more RD points of the movie, but at the ad, he just collapses at the top of the staircase on the ground, outside in the middle of this industrial facility.

It was so sadly anticlimactic and maybe that’s. The point that it would just kind of be that pathetic. But, um, he, yeah, he dissolves away. His face kind of dissolves away and them to a bone and then we get the end credits and that’s it. I, you know, like I said before, the movie was boring at times, but I think a it’s because of seeing.

Dracula story. I know what’s going to happen more or less. And then B Dracula is kind of a low key story anyway. So, uh, you know, would naturally be action packed and filled with a, with, with a lot of scares all the time. And then, you know, this other part of it was. How quickly he just seduces Tina and she just goes along with it.

You know, she’s just like little silly. I mean, that happens so early in the movie that this point then when it gets to her having this mental power over her and he’s a bat and then she’s kind of wandering around and they’re trying to find her before Dracul can get to her. I was kind of like, eh, let them get her, you know, it seems like they’d be happy together there.

She knows what she’s getting into. They’re both kind of fine

Craig: with it. She’s a grown woman. Yeah,

Todd: exactly. So that tension really wasn’t there for me. And so, um, it just became a tragic love story, I guess you

Craig: could call it. And all of, all of that, you know, the seduction of this reincarnation of the timeless love or whatever, I mean, that’s true to the store to Bram.

Stoker’s. Source material. Arguably, it’s more nuanced in the novel, but there’s no nuance here, but I mean, it’s, it’s not necessarily any more believable. So yeah, I mean it had its silly elements overall. I just thought. It was, as far as movies go, it was fine. I didn’t love it. I, you know, it, it felt very much a product of its time.

It felt like an older movie that, like you said, the cinematography is pretty pedestrian. There’s nothing special to talk about it. There’s not much by way of effects. I liked the makeup, but it wasn’t like it was. Extraordinary. Um, there were some interesting things, uh, that they did with lighting. I think what’s most notable is, you know, the fact that, uh, this is, uh, uh, a black film starring primarily black actors with a black director.

And in that respect very different than. Other things that were happening in 1972 and four, I was going to say surprisingly, but that’s not what I meant. People were surprised at the time. That it did very well. It was one of the highest grossing films of 1972. Um, it was very successful and critically well received for the most part.

Todd: It was, I think it was a mixed bag on the critical, but yeah, a lot of people, a number of critics at the time, you know, were really impressed by it. But I mean, I think it’s worth pointing out. It can’t be that high grossing without white people going to see it too, you know? I mean, it wasn’t just. And, and it was the true of a lot of these movies, big reason why they were so successful as, Hey, it turned out, you know, what maybe white people also would like to see these, this kind of story and these kinds of characters.

And so, uh, it really was groundbreaking in that way. And, um, mama wall day ended up being the first black vampire to appear in films. So it is it’s pretty historical. And then he went on. I mean, I don’t know if you recognized him, but, uh, did you ever watch PeeWee’s Playhouse growing up? On Saturday morning.

Yes.

I think of cartoons, buddy.

Craig: Clarius I knew I recognized him. I missed that because his list of things he’s been in was so long, I skimmed through it. I totally missed that. Hilarious. You know, that ultimately how fortunate we are that, uh, These types of movies, regardless of their exploitative nature paved the way for not just black people, but people of color, nonwhite people to have a place in Hollywood and cinema in general.

And we have a long way to go. As far as race relations, go. In the United States. I’m so sad to say it it’s embarrassing, frankly, but we have a long way to go. But I do think that progress is, is hopefully being made and will continue to be made. And there are a lot of prominent names in cinema and in the entertainment industry.

Uh, a lot of black voices, voices of people of color. We are seeing, you know, some reemergence of horror films because that’s really, you know what I watch, I, I’m not going to speak for other genres, but that, that are made by people of color, focus on people of color, Jordan Peele, you know, with get out and us and, and he’s got all kinds of other.

Projects in the works. You know, I feel like he’s trailblazing in that way, but he’s not alone. It’s necessary. Uh, there needs to be that kind of representation. And it’s not just about representation. It’s about the fact that. People of different cultures and races and backgrounds have voices and have something to say, and it’s not just, they’re not just black movies, they’re movies and the whitest of white guys like you and I they’re there for our consumption too.

And they should be, and they need to be, and, and, you know, it just makes things feel more inclusive. And the more of that, that we can get. The better. So I hope to continue to see that kind of, um, representation and that’s that’s for any minority group, any disenfranchised group, not necessarily just people of color, but specifically people of color.

I want to see more of it. I know that most people do. Um, and I’m glad that it’s happening. Well,

Todd: we need more stories in the world, period, as many, right? And is widely varied as possible from these stories. We gain perspective. I don’t know how true this is, but there are studies, obviously there was a pretty famous study that was done fairly recently.

I read about a few years ago and I would like to think that this is true anyway, because I am a reader. It said that people who read. Uh, tend to be more empathetic postulating. Why that might be is if you actually literally spend time in someone else’s head in someone else’s story and someone else’s narrative for awhile, you can begin to see things from their perspective, perhaps.

And then that opens you up to the ability to do that on a regular basis. And so yeah, the more stories we have from the widest variety of places we have, I think just in general, as a population, as a race, as a human race, right. The more empathetic we can be and maybe solve a lot of these problems. So I

Craig: I agree. A hundred percent.

Todd: All right. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us. Online, two guys that read forties at.com, just Google us two guys in the chainsaw. You can also find our Facebook page and our Twitter feed, send us requests and, uh, just drop us a line.

Let us know what you will want to hear and what you thought of our episode until next time. I’m Todd and I’m Craig with two guys and a chainsaw.

Happy Valentine’s Day! February 14th is coming, and that means curling up with a loved one to watch a group of miners and their girlfriends get pickaxed to bits by a crazed killer in retaliation for an incident that happened on Valentine’s Day 20 years ago. Or at least, that’s how WE celebrate the holiday. How about you?

My Bloody Valentine (1981)

Episode 247, 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, you know Craig, in as many years as we’ve been doing this podcast and coming up close to our 250th episode. Most of our listeners know that, when it comes time for holiday seasons, we try to find horror movies that fit.

We like to do these themed movies around the holidays. And I tell you what every single time February 14th comes and goes. I look back and go crap. Why have we not done my bloody Valentine yet? Yeah,

Craig: I know. It’s weird. Like we’re, we’re kind of big dorks about our holiday themes. It’s it’s, it’s pretty shocking.

I’m pretty sure this is our first Valentine’s day episode.

Todd: There aren’t that many to choose from as far as I know. I mean, we’re all, I always say that. And then we’re kind of surprised when we go looking, but this one is very much definitely geared towards Valentine’s day and we’re doing the 1981 version, not the, my bloody Valentine 3d remake that was done.

What, like a decade ago, something like that. Because of course we like to do the originals and this movie really came on the heels of a lot of holiday theme movies. In fact, that’s what the producers had in mind actually a year before this was Friday the 13th, right? Yeah. And then there was, you know, black Christmas and prom night and, or actually I think it was released this very same year.

These very same producers did a happy birthday to me, which, uh, we’ll have to do also. I remember seeing that one on the shelves and, uh, wanting to see it never did and thought. I don’t know. Well, we do it for your birthday or my birthday. How are we gonna, I don’t know. It will

Craig: flip a coin

Todd: so stupid, but anyway, this movie is apparently Quentin Tarantino’s. Favorite slasher film. Didn’t do that well on release. I mean it wasn’t horrible. I think it had a budget of about $2.3 million and it made 5.6 million. But considering that Friday, the 13th, the year before also released by paramount made like three times that much, they considered it a disappointment.

And so when they were approached for a sequel, It just didn’t happen. Um, and again, it wasn’t until 2009, I think somewhere

Craig: around there. I don’t know. I mean, the director didn’t even pitch a sequel until like 2000 something. Right. Like, I’m pretty sure they didn’t pitch it

Todd: until way late. It’s true. But the movie kind of sets itself up.

I mean, it, it ends in a way that it has to SQL, could be made and I’m sure they had that in mind and clearly didn’t go anywhere at the time. Yeah. Nor did it many years later. Yeah.

Craig: I saw the remake. Did you know

Todd: how was it? Uh,

Craig: I remember it being okay. And that’s about all I remember about it. It was, you know, it’s one of those movies that I saw once I thought it was okay.

I was never compelled to see it again. It had a lot of really beautiful people in it, and I remember it being kind of. Twisty. And so I was, I had not seen this original, the sitting down to watch this for the podcast was the first time I had seen this. And because I had remembered the first one being kind of twisty, I expected this one to be twisty too.

And it was. Kind of, but there’s just kind of like, you know, one kind of twist at the end that, I mean, if you’re not terribly dense, you can kind of figure out, I guess, I don’t know. I guess I’m terribly dense because I didn’t know, by the end who the killer was, I had suspicions. And then when it. Was revealed.

I was like, Oh yeah,

that works

Todd: pinned on two guys. And then as the movie went on, I thought, okay, maybe it’s not him. Or maybe it is him. And I was bouncing back and forth. And one of the other, you know, killer ended up being one of those two guys. So I can’t take a lot of credit for that 50, 50, um, proposition there. I, you know, I think you do a little more research for these before going into the movie than I tend to do.

I don’t know how much research you did for this movie before you went in. But, um, I always that afterwards we both go in and we read up a lot more about it. And one of my go-to is, is Roger Ebert. Yeah. I like to see if he reviewed the movie at that time. And he and gene Siskel on their television program indeed reviewed this movie and.

It’s a riot because they just hate everything about it. And what they really hate is that this time, 1981, that this was just another formulaic slasher movie to them.

Craig: Yeah. Was it only two years ago that we were praising a movie called Halloween. We thought it was kind of nice. Had some style and whip to it.

This movie is about the seventh direct

Todd: rip off of Halloween and new year’s

Craig: Eve or prom night, Friday, the 13th terror train. We’re all on the same formula. Something terrible happens 20 years ago, 10 years ago, then there’s a party and all the teenagers get together in the same place. They all train or the old deserted mind or something.

And the buzzard maniac comes down on him with a knife or a pickax or something. It’s. First of all it’s disgusting. Secondly, it’s so appallingly lacking in imagination. You would think that they could at least come up with a new discussing angle. Yeah. I’m sitting there. Why

Todd: these people get involved in these films?

I mean, what are the women think who are getting pickaxes thrown at them? What do they think they’re contributing to art? And I also, as you rattled off that list of names, I’m thinking of all those hours, we’ve both logged in movie theaters, slumped over in our seats, just shaking our heads. Well, I wish this trend will really end.

Not teenagers in this movie, actually, they’re adults in this movie, which is I couldn’t for

Craig: the life of me, figure out how old these people were supposed to be. In my, in my notes, I kept referring to them as the kids, because like, that’s their stereotypical, like they’re the kids of the slasher movie, but some of them look like they’re in their forties.

So no idea.

Todd: Well, they’re like adults that act like 13 year olds, the way that some of the drama between, you know, there’s a little love triangle angle in here and stuff like that. And I was kind of rolling my eyes at some of this stuff, how silly and overly dramatic these people were towards each other.

Craig: And it’s really stupid on the one hand, but on another hand, I feel like it’s and not to get too deep about it, but like, it almost seemed a little bit cultural because it’s like these people live in this tiny mining town where it seems like the mine is where you’re going to work. If you’re a

Todd: dude. Yeah.

And I liked that about

Craig: this. Yeah, I did too. I kind of understood the dynamic. Like it seemed to me like most of these men and I guess the, the women that follow them around, it almost seems like they’re kind of suspended in time in their lives. So, you know, like they graduate high school and then they work in the mine.

That’s just it. So maybe there’s not a whole lot of opportunity for mature growth and maturation, right? Like they’re just kind of suspended there, you

Todd: know, point. And I’m glad you brought that up because that was one of the things, you know, both you and I have spent a considerable amount of our lives and childhoods in small Midwestern.

Town that is in many ways, culturally, not unlike this place. And I thought that the representation of it at times it was a little bit of a Groaner. Like there’s one point in which these guys all get together in a junkyard and they’re hanging out in the junkyard and they’re like grilling meat on somebody’s radiator of their car and playing karma.

That’s uh, I don’t know who’s who wrote that in, but that’s a little

Craig: silly, I don’t know. It’s quaint like  and you’re right. Like, no, in my Midwestern hometown, I don’t believe that people stand around a car engine to heat up their sandwiches, but there definitely is. You know, kind of a small town culture where people congregate, you know, in fields or on old farms or whatever, like that’s what kids do.

Or when I was their age, I don’t know if they still do. Maybe they’re just on their phones now. I don’t know. But yeah, that, I mean, just kind of getting together and hanging out and drinking. Like you, that was, that was very typical of my high school experience.

Todd: Yeah. I mean, and this was filmed in Nova Scotia and a town, apparently that is full of mines, like abandoned mines,

Craig: this story that they filmed it in this actual small mining town and the small mining town was so excited by the prospect of.

Uh, movie filming in their town. They thought it was going to draw in tourism. Like it was going to stimulate their economy and they were so excited about it, that they spent like $50,000 to totally clean up. Their mind to make it look as good as it could. And the whole reason that the induction team had chosen this place was because of the look of the mine.

They wanted it to look, you know, kind of run down and the town spent all this money to clean it up. And then the production company came in and spent even more money. Like $75,000 to put it back the way it was before

Todd: I’m going to get black. Breguet dirt. Devin’s crazy, right.

Craig: Oh, I love it. That’s such a great story.

Todd: Great story. But yeah, works. I mean, for me, the setting worked and maybe because I’m familiar with these people, I thought there were some, there were some silly moments, like I mentioned about the junkyard scene where it’s a little over the top, but. Honestly, like you said, the relationship between these people kind of suspended from before the bar that they go to, you know, the kind of dive bar where it seems like everybody gathers the characters in here and the kinds of things that a small town like this gets excited about, you know, every small town has their festival or two a that’s just cute and quaint.

And this one, this town is Valentine’s. Bluff. It makes a big deal. A lot of Valentine’s day, I loved this. I thought all of this stuff was actually kind of nice and set it apart a little bit from those other horror movies where you don’t see much of the relationship between the characters. It’s just like, Oh, these, these are a whole bunch of couples and young people that got together and they’re at a summer camp and then they get killed.

The setting drew me in and the mine. Setting really drew me in like the descent, you know, I’m, I’m watching this movie and half of it, I’m thinking, just being down there in that mind is scary. It’s deepest as they are, especially toward the end of the movie where they’re running away and they got to go through all this crazy stuff.

Sometimes just the. The fact that they have to crawl through these difficult passages that could collapse on them. These dangerous sections of the mind that have been closed off. At one point, they have to climb a ladder. That’s just in a shaft that’s I don’t know what miles deep or something, and I could not handle that.

All of that kind of work. I mean, it doesn’t work. Don’t get me wrong to the same level of the descent. But, um, it was present in there and always kind of in the back of my mind, that little bit of claustrophobia and that worked for me too. I appreciated

Craig: that. Yeah. And I appreciate the fact that they, they filmed this.

In minds, the, these were real minds that they filmed it in and they even had to be careful with the type of lighting equipment that they used, because there really was a legitimate threat of like methane explosions. Crazy. And that’s cool. It looks cool. It didn’t give me descent vibes just because the descent was so claustrophobic and this is actually very open.

Like the shafts are quite large and they get into some areas where it’s, you know, these huge underground rooms and caverns or whatever. So I didn’t get that claustrophobic feel, but the realism of it. Was cool. Yeah. And I liked that, that scene that you’re talking about when they’re climbing the ladder. I don’t know that I would have appreciated that this much, Todd let’s travel down memory lane second to the delight.

Of our listeners who will have no idea what we’re talking about. Did

Todd: this last during ghost keeper, when we were trying to kill time, tell me about that trip to Nova Scotia.

Craig: Me Todd and I went to the same university and we both participated in performances, musical and theatrical performances. And one of our main performance spaces was an auditorium, which was run by a dear friend of ours. Randy. And in that auditorium on the stage, I’m sure that all, you know, theaters are like this, but at one point I was in another play in an adjoining theater.

Um, but I had a lot of downtime and so I was just exploring lot. And I explored the tunnels underneath the university, but that’s a story for another podcast. This story is about how one time I gave myself the courage to climb the ladder into the flies above the auditorium.

Todd: You know what I’m saying? I know the ladder you’re talking about and you would make, and

Craig: like it had, it had bars like all around it.

So like, I guess to maybe potentially catch you if you fell backwards or something, but it was so high. And I remember getting hit half way up looking down and be like, what am I do? This is a nightmare. But considering that, that was maybe two, three stories maybe. Um, and, and thinking about these, I was so annoyed with this one girl who was.

Freaking out the whole time that they were climbing up this ladder,

the shut up, just keep climbing in the back of my mind. I’m like I get it because I didn’t tell him this. It is scary as hell.

Todd: Oh, I’ve done this too. I, you know, I was renovating a building once and we had, um, a multi-level of scaffolding out in front. And by the time I got close to the top and I was just cheerfully climbing and I realized where I was and how little was around me.

And how far I had to go to the ground. I was doing exactly what she did. My arm was like grip and lift around Nepal. I’m like, Oh shit, what do I do now?

I’m not, you know, Heights are just not my friend in those types of situations. I’m not a fan of Heights. So, but you know, the cinematography. Is quite good. And for the fact that they filmed all this down in this dark mind, a lot of these horror movies that we watch, there’s just so much darkness. You just can’t see what’s going on or appreciate it.

They did a really good job. I think of lighting this in, in shooting this in a way that you could see what was going on, but it still had tons of Atmos. I mean, yeah. The movie starts out in the middle, which is great. There are these very cantilevered shots and this angle kind of coming up at them. They’re really off-kilter of these two people who are going through the mind and we don’t see who they are because they’re, you know, in head to toe, like not just mine gear, but they have what’s this like a face mask kind of gas mask kind of oxygen mask.

Yeah, I guess with these glass, you know, it’s kind of a cross between the old timey, uh, goggles that Wright, biplane pilots used to wear. Right. But then connected to just a mouth thing, like a cane and fricking bathroom with a hose, with a hose. And the sounds, the Darth Vader sounds coming from it just they’re breathing with a helmet and then these full body suits, they’re like Hasbro black hazmat suits, essentially gloves on boots.

And they’re just walking in there, they’re carrying axes and they get to this deep. Part of the mine and they turn around and face each other. And your first twist of the movie is a, one of them starts disrobing. And it turns out as a woman, a

Craig: beautiful woman with no top on, like, why doesn’t she have a shirt on underneath?

I mean, she’s not totally topless. She has a bra on, but I just have. Beautiful woman with heart tattoo on breast

Todd: and lots of habits. My favorite part

Craig: about this scene. It’s like she takes off her mask and kind of disrobed to the waist. And then she’s like kind of being seductive with the other guy. And she goes to take off his mask, but he won’t let her.

And so she’s like stroking his face and then she starts fondling his face hose the most Justin way you can possibly imagine. And I thought that it was so. Funny. Like she was like strongly and slowly jerking off his face. Oh my God.

Todd: So funny getting heavier. Right. And the guy has

The guy had stabbed an ax to the wall. Like it’s an ax with the back end of it. Yeah. Pick ax. Then they’re con she’s a kind of, I think kind of about to take his mask off or whatever. And then it’s quite sudden that suddenly you realize he’s pushed her up against the wall over the point of that pickax, because all you see is kind of scream and the point of the pickax come out of her chest, right.

Where that. Heart tattoo is that was a effective opening scene.

Craig: Good opening. I liked it. It left me with questions. Is this girl, why does nobody noticed that she’s missing later? Like why

Todd: did they come this far down just to make out

Craig: right. But. You’re right. I thought it was a great opening. Um, and then we get into the main point of the movie and it’s like two days before Valentine’s day and we meet all these miners.

These guys are our main characters and there’s a shower scene. Like, so I guess they come out of the mind. And this may be true. I don’t know. I’ve never worked in a mine. I’ve never toured a mine, but like, it’s kind of a whole facility. Like they’ve got like a rec room and they’ve got like a shower room, probably

Todd: true.

It’s all above ground.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they come out of the mines and they’re all covered. It never says what kind of mind this is. People suppose that it’s a coal mine, which would make sense. It’s fine. It doesn’t really matter, but they come out and they’re all dirty. And so they all shower together.

There’s

Todd: lots of byplay

Craig: it’s so right. It’s so silly. Like it

Todd: is pretty

Craig: silly. I. For my own reasons avoided the communal showers in high school. But I can’t imagine that there were really like this. I mean, these are grown men again, again, they’re cut. I mean, they do this every day and again, they may be kind of suspended in like late adolescents, high school age, or whatever, as far as their maturity goes, but like there

Todd: goofing around,

Craig: messing around and like, Like touching each other and pushing each other around and snap and towels and stuff.

I’m like, do you guys do this every day? It’s this really amusing all the time I read it, that all of these dudes were really. Naked. And I thought what a lost opportunity, because we only see them from the chest up.

Todd: Well, there’s no nudity in this movie, which blew me away. I couldn’t believe. Not only did they have all these naked guys, but they had a bunch of beautiful girls.

None of whom I think were wearing bras. I noticed that, but. Not a single boob. And again, like we said, last week, we don’t care, you know, ultimately, but it’s just kind of shocking for an early eighties horror movie. That’s trying to check all the boxes, you know, and compete with Friday the 13th. Right.

Craig: That’s something else that’s interesting about this movie is that it is rated R and in fact, they had to edit it. Heavily to get an R rating. And it’s not that graphic, like you said, there’s no nudity. I don’t even remember there being a ton of swearing. Now, some of the death scenes are somewhat graphic, but certainly not more so than other movies of the time.

Apparently there had been a lot of backlash against the graphic violence in Friday the 13th. And. Right before the release of this movie, or right before they sent it to the NPAA John Lennon had been killed and there had been a lot of scrutiny about violence in film. So they had to cut seemingly everything.

Like I didn’t read about this until after I had watched a movie. And when I was watching the movie, I noticed because it’s obvious. That every kill scene, Luke, the quality of the footage changes drastically. So any, any time there’s graphic violence on the screen, it’s a significantly different and significantly lesser quality.

I read after that, they had made them cut all that. And I thought, well, no wonder the movie tanked. They cut off all of the good stuff. Like if I had watched this and. All of those scenes had been absent. I would have thought it was a piece of shit.

Todd: In fact, I read one of the contemporary reviews and it was basically trashing the movie saying, Oh, it’s just like all those other movies that are coming out now, but at least they had the good taste to have most of the violence happen off screen.

And I’m like, yeah, well, you know, you insert the three minutes of footage. I think it’s two and a half minutes of footage was restored. The director originally said that like nine minutes. Had to be cut from the movie to gain MPA approval, but then later on, uh, Lionsgate licensed the film from paramount to release a special edition DV, a Blu-ray I think just to prepare for their, my bloody Valentine 3d coming out in 2009.

And when they did that, they actually restored about two and a half minutes actually. And that’s what we saw. So those little restored bits were from prints and not found in the original negative. So that’s why they, you know, were changed in, but it’s good for us because we can see what was missing. And it turns out that.

The director admitted later, he said they restored almost everything. As far as the, the Gore and stuff goes and the extra six minutes or whatever, um, was just like additional scenes between the characters, nothing gory, nothing bloody. And he said, this film is now I think, what does he say? 85% of what it’s supposed to be.

And 90% of how scary it’s supposed

Craig: to be. I don’t know. Yeah, there, there was one scene that was too far deteriorated for them. To put back in, which is unfortunate because we see the aftermath of it and it’s very, it’s gruesome. But the thing that bothers me about that now is that people who saw this originally really missed out because not only why, yeah, I’m going into a horror film, I want to see the carnage.

That’s one thing, but the special effects are really quite well done. I mean, they’re, they’re, they’re practical effects and it’s very, very obvious that. You know, in places they were using dummies and things, but I don’t care. I like that stuff. And just the notion of it being completely absent. I mean, without it.

You could show this on TV in the afternoon. Yeah.

Todd: A hundred percent. Right? There’s not even, I think there was one F-bomb in the movie. You blew up that out and you’ve got a PG movie and to be fair, those, okay. So we’re talking about the unedited version that we saw compared to even compared to a lot of the contemporary stuff at this time, these are pretty brutal scenes.

The kills are creative and we’ll be going through them in a moment I promise, but the kills are creative and they’re pretty brutal and extended. And at least one of them turned my stomach a bit. At least one of them was like, okay, that’s really disturbing. So it actually had that going for it. Yeah. Uh, so it’s a, it’s a real shame, you know, as a horror movie that it did, it got, you know, neutered in that way.

Craig: And I made a lot of the guys showering. It’s not important. I just thought it was such a silly scene, but it establishes, you know, all these guys basically who are going to be falling around. The only significant thing that happens in there is that one guy makes a joke about the fact that, okay, so there’s one, this main guy named TJ.

Who apparently has been gone for reasons that we don’t know initially, but it’s so stupid. Who cares? Like I tried to, well, he tried to escape his small town life and go off to the West coast or something, but he failed miserably. Like I have no idea, you know, what he was trying to do. I hope he wasn’t trying to be an actor because he’s.

Ugly.

Todd: Let me, let me put out a theory that I haven’t read anywhere online, but I was thinking about during the whole movie, I was like of all of these hardcore heavy miners TG seems like the least quote, unquote, manly of the group. At one point he has like a scarf tied around his neck and I thought. Maybe what they were trying to imply is that he went out to the West coast to escape his very conservative, not so liberal town and try to make it in a big city where he might be more accepted.

Is that a big stretch

or was it just, I mean, I thought it was quite noticeable. His delivery, everything kind of about him was a

Craig: little, I don’t

Todd: know. Uh, I mean he has a girlfriend or a girlfriend that he left behind named Sarah, uh, and Sarah. The thing that we hear about in the shower here is that he left and since then Axel has, uh, taken Sarah they’re dating.

And that’s pretty much it, I guess, just kind of in the early throws of dating. And so when TJ comes back, he’s kind of pissed and there’s a little bit of this triangle, this kind of love story between the three of them, but it’s, it’s really

Craig: silly. It was so convoluted. It was so stupid and unnecessary.

Like it was just unnecessary plot complications. Like nobody cares about this stupid law triangle. They, they work it so

Todd: hard. They do. But I think I’ll argue that they did it for a reason because later in the story, the two of them are forced to kind of be together to kind of help save the day.

Craig: I appreciated that, that when they both realized that Sarah was in danger, they.

Through their differences aside and they worked together to try to help their friends. Great, fine. I know it, I mean, it’s so typical and cliched and like there were scenes throughout the movie where like at first, you know, Axel, first of all is a very attractive man. He’s very tall masculine. Very good looking.

Whereas TJ, I thought was. Kind of ugly

Todd: axle. He is working hard. This man has tons of credits, not just working, but directing. He was in scanners before this. And now it seems like he’s been doing a lot of work in animation. He was working on the Simpsons. Rug rats

Craig: doing like back behind the scenes production

Todd: stuff or voicing directing many episodes.

Wow, good for him. Yeah. And I think he kind of started on the Simpsons, like in the literal animation, like he was an in-between or something like that and kind of got into directing. So yeah, he’s, he’s still working. It’s kind of cool. I liked

Craig: the actor. In fact, like I couldn’t tell what the movie, I think that the movie wanted us to want Sarah to get back with TJ.

Like, you know, they they’re like these star crossed lovers who had hit a bump in the road, but now they’re gonna get back together. I like to axle. I thought he was a cool guy. I thought that she was kind of a dope for even. You know, this guy, TJ, they have this whole scene where first of all, he abducted her from her

Todd: job.

Oh, TJ.

Craig: And he takes her to like their spot, which. Is this beautiful scenic spot near this sea. I don’t know water

Todd: be a Lake there in Nova Scotia. Right. And we’re not supposed to know that.

Craig: Give me a chance. You still want me to go away? I will. I have to tell you that. I love you. I want you back. What was I supposed to know that Jessie?

I honestly didn’t think you were ever coming back

here. Then he kisses her and she’s receptive to it. And so like, then it’s the whole lot, like who is she going to pick? And like, TJ even like throws it in Axel’s face and like tries to force her to choose between them publicly. And she’s like, you’re a right. Dick Goff

Todd: so clunky, right? Because on the one hand, she seems to be like, you know, TJ don’t do this, but on the other hand, she’s perfectly willing to submit to his charms or whatever, not really charms, but you know, his come-ons and his anger and whatever.

And, and then even between axle and TJ, it’s not even always clear where they are. Dan did, or the intensity of how they feel about this. You know, they have these sort of casual conversations, like, Oh, we got something we need to talk about don’t we? Yeah, I guess we do. And then they have these like intense anger at each other for just a, he looked at her, you know, well,

Craig: and their friends even comment on it.

Like you guys are going to have to work this out. And at some point, TJ is like, I just don’t know what to do. I actually really liked the guy, but I, you know, like we’re in competition for this girl. Like, it’s so sad. Stupid and high school and juvenile, but, you know, I suppose if you were in the throws of it, it would be upsetting.

There’s even one point it’s right after the confrontation, where after TJ and Sarah have kissed and they’re all at this Valentine’s day party, which we should probably get to pretty soon, but then all of a sudden Axel’s being really kind of aggressive and rough. With her, which I didn’t like

Todd: he was kind of a Dick sometimes.

I wouldn’t say he was a great guy.

Craig: Well, he was getting the short end of the stick. He had this girlfriend and then the old boyfriend comes back and she’s being interested. Like, I’d be pissed too. There’s this whole confrontation. And she basically tells them that they’re both dicks and to knock it off and axle goes outside.

And like, it was, I don’t know if it’s out of character, but I actually kind of appreciate it. Like he went outside, he’s drunk, but he goes outside and he just. Sits down on a crate and cries. Thank you. Big Bush guy, you know, is crying about losing his girl. And I actually felt sympathy for him. I. I wanted to give him a hug,

Todd: did want to hug TJ. I know. Yeah. I didn’t really feel for that guy

Craig: either the whole. Okay. So the whole story is, and I feel like it’s fine that we’re getting to it so late because it’s

Todd: so simple. It is a lot of stuff happens, but the story is simple. Yes. They’re throwing

Craig: a Valentine’s day dance.

Everybody’s excited about it. The kids are excited about it. The town’s excited about it. The whole town is decorated. They’re decorating this dance hall, but then the police officer has the talk with the lady who’s in charge of the decorating committee. And she’s like, it’s so exciting. The first dance in 20 years.

And he’s like, well, move let’s maybe not talk about that. And then we get a flashback. The reason that this is the first Valentine’s dance in 20 years is because 20 years ago they had a Valentine’s day dance as they had traditionally every year. And everybody was super excited about it. So excited about it, that the people in the mine, there were two supervisors.

And they were waiting for the last crew to come up and they were so excited about the dance that they just couldn’t wait. And so they left and they didn’t check the methane levels. And there was an explosion that trapped five minors in the mine. They went through a rescue process, but when they finally reached the men.

I don’t know, a week, two weeks later, something like that, only one of them had survived and he had survived by eating the rest of them and he was totally crazy. His name was Harry Morgan, so they institutionalized him and he was institutionalized for a year, but then he was released and he came back the next year to the Valentine’s day dance.

And. Killed those two supervisors and warned the town that if they ever through a Valentine’s day dance again, he would come back and kill people. And so now they’re throwing this Valentine’s day dance and all of a sudden these, these heart shaped boxes keep showing up. And it is it’s kitschy. And I really

Todd: like it to commit.

You’re making a Valentine’s movie. You got to have as much one-time stuff as possible.

Craig: It’s it’s funny because it’s consistent. Like it happens throughout the movie. Like people keep getting these boxes and the chief of police gets the first one or the mayor. I think it’s the mayor. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

Yeah. Gets it. And there’s a human heart in it. Presumably from that girl that we saw get killed in the opening scene and this just keeps happening and the mayor and the chief and police decide that they have to shut down the Valentine’s day dance. And before they do that, there are more kills. The sweet, old lady.

Gets killed. And gosh, I don’t want to rush through the kill scenes cause they’re

Todd: great.

Craig: Yeah. They’re fantastic. The one where she gets killed she’s in a laundry mat, I guess that she owns that she owns it. It’s all decorated for Valentine’s day, by the way, pretty

Todd: overly decorated for a laundromat. Don’t shit.

That’s a little,

Craig: it’s a little lower top, but it’s atmospheric. I like it. And all of these boxes also come with a poem that rhymes. I I’m making this up, but I loved that. They like had a poet on the writing team and they wrote all these poems. So they all come with a poem. And so like she reads her poem and then she hears somebody in like the minor is there and he’s always in his full, minor regalia.

I don’t remember how he kills her. He pickaxes most people when the police chief finds her, he finds. The box or something. And then he notices that like a lot of the Valentine’s day decorations are hanging upside down, which is weird and he notices a weird smell and he’s just looking around. And then out of one of the dryers pops her body, which looks like a dead body.

That’s been in an industrial dryer for hours. Like it’s all. Yeah. Burned and nasty, like it’s, it looks so

Todd: good. Her heart’s been cut out and there in its place is a little heart shaped Valentine that he, he had, he pulls out and reads. It happened once it

Craig: happened twice. Cancel a dancer. It’ll happen thrice.

Right, right. It’s so silly. I love it. And also the other thing. It’s that these kids, these 40 year old kids hang out at this bar with the creepiest bartender ever in the whole

Todd: world named happy, who

Craig: just recites like folklore poems at them in a really angry way.

Todd: Well, the he’s the, the gas station attendant.

He’s the character of the gas station at 10 minute and all these movies. Who’s warning those kids not to do it, but they do it anyway. This time of year,

Craig: bad things coming. My word to here, you were the 14th value

Todd: your life. He’s where we get the flashback from. And then again, later when the is canceled, they’re all back at the bar going well, we’ve still got to do something like we can’t just have the dance canceled.

Maybe we can throw a party. Instead. TJ has ideas to do it at the mine. His father is the owner of the mine. Forget about having a party at all tomorrow

Craig: night. You’ll be sorry, not path piss on Harry warden and that damn old legend. We’re going to have ourselves apart. Don’t you go down a note? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Oh God. Comedy. Gold so funny. And so then he decides that he’s going to teach those little buggers a lesson, and he goes out to the mine and breaks in and like sets up something to scare them. Like he sets up like a minor dummy behind a door so that when you open the door, it pulls a rope which causes the minors.

Pick ax. It’s like lunged at you. Like it doesn’t look dangerous, but it certainly would scare somebody. But then he tests it 26, five times

Todd: cackling, happily with himself after each

Craig: open. And then the last time you like starts to walk away cackling himself and he’s like, Oh, hold on. I better check it one more time.

And then he goes back to check it. And the actual miner is there. And kills him another great kill shot where right. The pickax, the guy puts it up through the bar guy’s chin and it comes out of his eye socket with the eyeball impaled on the end of it. And it’s all practical and it’s grainy because it was originally cut.

But. Oh, it looks so good. I just thought it was great. I loved all these kills. I loved all the effects.

Todd: Absolutely. If you want to know how many ways you can get penetrated with a kick Axe, this movie has your answer for sure. Then they all, you know, all the kids and loads of extra, probably from the town suddenly pile into that, the rec room of the, of the mine.

Yeah. And they’re all bringing their food and stuff. And for once we see an actual thrown together party, as opposed to say night of the demons where the holiday parties being thrown, supposedly makeshift in this little room and they’ve brought decorations, look them up and stuff. I was actually surprised that we didn’t.

You know, Valentine’s hearts and things hanging

Craig: everywhere, right? No, no. I’ve been to this party where you show up in some of bad, you know, like just some like conference room and you just sit and drink. Like I’ve been to that part. My favorite part, there are so many good parts. What my favorite parts of this movie is, there’s this one guy, he’s this cute guy.

He doesn’t have any part other than this part, but he come like, he he’s like. Apparently he shaved and that impresses one of his friends and he was like, Oh, well I want to be fresh faced for the ladies or something. I don’t even remember what he says, but like they make a point out of the fact that he’s fresh faced and young.

And then he’s like, hold on a second. I have the munchies. He goes into the back and there is an enormous pot of boiling. Hotdog

the that’s the food that they have at the party and the enormous pot of Jaya, hot dogs that he’s just standing over. And then the minor grabs him by the back of the neck and puts his. Face in the VAT of the boiling hot dogs and drowns him in it. And I never, in my life thought that I would see death by hotdog water.

And it just, I was, it was so funny to

Todd: me. It was especially funny the followup, because later on in the party, we see two girls who are in there chatting, poured hot dogs out, and I’m thinking, okay, what’s the gag. What’s the gag. And eyeball is the head in there. And she pulls out a heart and it’s all cooked.

Yeah. She’s like, Ooh, gross. They’re like, Aw, that must be something that a Howard Howard, the goofy guy. Would do. And the, the dude who says this is opening up the fridge to get a six pack of beer, but his back is to the fridge and he just absolutely reaches in to get it and unbeknownst to all of them, but we can all see clearly is the rest of his body.

His whole corpse is sitting there in the fridge, perfectly lit. And then the door shuts. And I was like, Oh, that’s a cool gag. I thought

Craig: it was so funny that the boiling hot dog. I, I, I couldn’t get over that. That’s so funny. My grandmother boiled hot dogs who boiled hot dogs,

I don’t know, different time. But that guy that you were talking about that opened the refrigerator. The reason that he’s there is because he was getting beer because he had been making out with this chick Sylvia in a different part of the, the mind, like the, the showers. And, and like the locker room outside the showers and everything was going great or whatever, but she told him to go get some beers.

So he did while he was gone, the minor terrorizes her, I didn’t really understand this setup, but it looked cool. Nonetheless, apparently their gear that they wear in the mines, like their suits that they wear are suspended on this. Big aerial system above the locker room and to release them, they just have to pull a rope and then they fall down or whatever.

I don’t get it, but it looked cool. Cinematically.

Todd: I was thinking at this moment, if I were putting a haunted house together, And I have done that. Yeah. This would be one of the rooms where these, you know, she’s kind of stumbling around and she’s kind of confused and she’s bumping into these clothes, which are going up and down kind of swinging around.

And then the minor grabs her, picks her up, runs into the shower where he has already turned on all of the hot water. And I thought, Oh, is he just going to like sculpt her to death or something? I thought he’s going to hang her up on a hook, but he takes her in there. And impales her through the mat while the back of the head and out the mouth.

On one of these pipes that is basically a shower head there aren’t proper shower heads. They’re just sort of pipes. That was a really disturbing scene. The way it was shot, it was kind of POV from him. So as soon as he picks her up, you’re just seeing her face looking straight at you and the camera screaming, very distressed.

Oh God, her acting was great. You know, by the way, this actress, even though she was, had a very small role in this movie, her name is Helen UDI and she has a ton. Of acting credits. She has been in so many movies and so much television, including she was a regular of, she was, I guess, Myra being on Dr. Quinn medicine woman.

Now she’s doing all of those budget horror movies. It’s like it for a year, but she was pretty and God, that was incredibly good. And then the aftermath, which, you know, we get to see an extended cut is, uh, Johnny comes back in with his beer and he finds her and she’s. Still there hanging and the water is coming out of her mouth.

It’s really good. Really good.

Craig: Another thing that I liked about the movie too, is that he does find her and eventually somebody finds the body in the refrigerator too. So all of the kids, the remaining kids who are still at the party freak out and leave. Like, I’m like, well, that’s, that’s an easy way to narrow it down.

There had been a group of kids, I think about six of them, including Sarah, who had decided to go down into the mine just for shits and grants.

Todd: I’m like, yeah. Right. Huh.

Craig: Well, I mean, I kind of get it. Like they wanted to ride in the train car. I would take our ride in the train car.

Todd: I’ve toured a mind. We sat in the train car and they took us back into near somewhere in Arizona.

I think. That was fun. I was a kid. I remember that being cool, but we all had to wear hard hats and you know, all these miners are just fine. Just taking these women down there.

Craig: No, they’re not supposed to TJ warns. That means like the, you know, the rule, no women in the mind, they take them down.

Todd: No, that’s hilarious.

The rule is no women in the mind. I think the rule should be no non miners in the mind.

Craig: Right? Or maybe no drunk kids in the mind, like,

Todd: yeah. And they’re led down there by Hollis. Who’s kind of this bigger guy has got a mustache and glasses on. He was my favorite. Oh, he was fun. This guy also, dude, has a ton of work behind him, including a movie we’ve done.

Do you remember unknown, unknown origin about the crazy rat that runs around. Yes, he is the trap salesman. He’s the guy who comes in and sells them those traps.

Craig: So funny. I liked him. He was the thing that I liked about him was this cast. It’s not a cast full of models. Many of them are very attractive. But some of them are just normal looking people.

And Hollis is one of those people. Who’s very normal looking. However, he’s a cool guy. Everybody likes him. There’s one point when TJ and axle get in a fight and Hollis, single handedly breaks them up. Like he, he seems like the coolest of them. That’s true. That’d be the one that I wouldn’t, I would most want to be friends with, but anyway, they’re down there and they’re looking around and.

I think we see that the minor is down there too, or at least there’s suggestion and one couple veers off from them. Like they’re going to make out and meet up with them later or whatever. And that’s the one kill scene that we don’t see. We do see the

Todd: aftermath. She says, Hey Hollis, we’re going to meet you in 10 minutes over at the main shaft.

And I was like, yeah, I think they’re heading straight for the main shaft. Right?

Craig: Well, that’s 10 minutes. Like, I mean, I, I guess. No, your strengths and weaknesses.

And who am I kidding? 10 minutes. That sounds about right. Anyway,

Todd: it always seems longer than it is

Craig: like this movie, but they, we don’t see them killed, but we see the aftermath of it later. They are both impaled within an enormous drill and they filmed the scene. And apparently it was very elaborate with the minor drilling this thing into them while they were getting it on. Uh, it’s unfortunate that it’s lost.

I would have loved to have seen it, but even the aftermath, uh, is pretty gruesome. And then they’re all down there with the minor and they get picked off one by one pretty much. And TJ and axle get down there too. The only thing that frustrated me about this was that they keep. Finding each other and then intentionally splitting off from each other again.

Todd: So stupid always makes no sense, but TJ and axle, this is what I said earlier. They decide that they’ve got to band together and go down there. Cause they’re like, Sarah’s down there. And it’s like, yeah, you know, a whole bunch of your other friends are down there too. So, you know, but anyway, Sarah is down there, so we got to get down there and they go into this elevator and I’m just marveling at how awesome the scenery is.

In these, these shots. It’s great. And the music too is quite good. I dunno, the music was just was great. And, uh, we’ve done a couple movies, also, the musician Paul’s Zaza. Uh, he did prom night before this ghost keeper, which we just recently did and talked about the music there, curtains and popcorn. As well as some non horror movies like Porky’s and a Christmas story, you know, he worked closely with Bob Clark and in a lot of the, actually these Canadian productions around this, this time, the music of the cast and the crew, you go even through some of these actors profiles.

And you’ll see that they’ve worked on a lot of the same projects, particularly around this time. And since then, so, um, it’s I guess, a smaller circle or especially was back then when Canada was really a place to, to shoot movies and to some degree still is. Yeah, I love the music in this movie. I thought it was perfect.

Honestly, they

Craig: put a lot of attention into it. I mean, they, they had a plan. They wanted every kill to have kind of its own musical motif and they wanted it. To have songs that they could put on a soundtrack that would potentially gain traction on the radio, but they ran out of money. So that never happened.

They, they threw some stuff together. Like there’s a cool kind of folky song over the

Todd: end credits. That was a nice surprise. I couldn’t,

Craig: I, I kinda, I liked it

in a place known that the Spanish

German began every woman and man always time.

But anyway, they’re all down there. They start getting picked off. Hollis gets a nail gun to the head twice. Yeah. And still stumbles around for awhile and stumbles until he finds the rest of his group. And they’re all horrified. Peggy Patty, Patty. Is that her name? Yeah, the annoying lady. Like she’s just paralyzed with fear, but it’s so obnoxious because she’s just holding them all back.

She eventually ends up getting. Pick axed and the gut Howard dies off screen. I think this is when they are climbing up the ladder in the shaft. I think it was like a blink and you miss it kind of thing. And I did, what I know is that his body drops down right next to them in a noose. But then I guess the force of the drop causes

Todd: his head to pop off.

Yeah. Yeah. He doesn’t, it doesn’t make physical sense, but I think that was the idea. Yeah. And at

Craig: this point it really just seems like the minor is kind of tormenting them. So we still got TJ and axle and Sarah, I think those are the only ones that are left. At one point axle tells them to go ahead. It sounds like he gets attacked behind them and they look back and they were on like this bridge over this water and they see bubbles coming up and there.

And TJ is like, there’s nothing I can do for him. That’s 60 feet deep, like he’s gone. So he’s gone. They continue going forward. And then TJ tells Sarah to go ahead. And then we hear something happened to him, like a cave in or something, and then he’s gone. And so then Sarah’s by herself and she’s getting chased by the miner and then TJ miraculously reappears.

And there’s. The minor is following them, like right behind them. They can see him. TJ starts the tr the mine train going back up. They all jump on it. And TJ in the minor are fighting on the train. So it was cool. I wish it had been a little cooler, like it’s so cool in theory,

Todd: but

Craig: fight choreography. Wasn’t that?

Todd: Yeah. It’s not like a Indiana Jones on the runaway mind car ride going through there, which is kind of what they were going for a little bit, you know, it’s that classic climb across the train cars until you get to the end and you have to stand and fight, and then they fight a little bit, but they end up knocking each other off.

Then they have to kind of finish their fight in the hallway where. Almost star Wars style when they’re having this shootout. And then they have to go into the garbage dump as TJ is fighting off the guy and Sarah’s behind him. He’s like points to a passage to like go in there. It’s the do not enter part of the, yeah.

Oh God. And then they have they’re backed in there and that’s kind of where they have their final fights. And I thought that this fight scene was really cool because it was very claustrophobic. It’s in this cramped space, but also because it’s do not enter area, we know it’s dangerous. And as they’re swinging the pickax and stuff around they’re knocking supports down and knocking bricks and things away, it’s pretty intense.

I thought for a lower budget movie, it was, it was effective.

Craig: Anyway. Oh, yeah, it was fine. And Sarah helps out, you know, in the fight a little bit, but what ends up happening is there’s a cave-in and the miner gets pinned under the caveman. And so TJ and Sarah go out, the police have all arrived at this point,

Todd: not before Sarah had managed to rip the mask off of the miner.

Oh, right, right. And we see that it’s axle and we get. You’re like, Oh, it’s excellent. And of course immediately what goes through your head is why is it axle?

Craig: Because TJ, TJ asks on screen why? And then we’re immediately answered with a

Todd: flashback. It’s so stupid, but fine. You know, I guess we could have waited for the explanation later cause we do get it again, but.

Basically Axel was a kid. Um, and it, his dad was one of the two supervisors, I guess, who were killed when, um, Harry warden had come back that year later and murdered them and he saw it happen quite gruesomely. I might add while he was curled up under the bed, blood splattered on his face and everything.

So, uh, yeah, so he was mentally crazy. Yeah,

Craig: it was crazy. He was just biding his time.

Todd: This is the thing, like I thought the TG, right. I thought that Jay at one point might be the killer because of the way he was kind of disappearing and coming back. And he was a little weird, but then Axel, at one point I thought he might be the killer too.

So when the both of them ended up together with the girls and they were each kind of disappearing for weird reasons, I had kind of input implicated one or the other, and then I thought it would be something, you know, cool. Like their motivation is, well, maybe at the, about the girl, maybe there’s something a little bit more to this love triangle.

We don’t really know yet, but no, he’s just crazy. So,

Craig: yeah, and, and I was really tipped off when Axel died off screen ceremoniously, unceremoniously, and we didn’t see like die off screen. That’s one thing, but we don’t even see the aftermath suspicious. Um, so I was curious, there was actually a part of me that was hoping that it was just going to be straight forward, that it was just going to be that Harry, whatever his name was like, he escaped from the mental institution and he’s back and he’s killing people and that’s all there is to it.

But I don’t know, it was a cute twist. And the cops come in, they’re trying to dig us. And they, they find his arm and his fingers are moving like he’s alive. And Sarah runs back in and she’s like, I have to say

right. Y um, But like, she reaches down, like she’s going to like caress his hand or whatever. And we see that under the rocks, he’s sawing his arm off.

Todd: So our knife,

Craig: you know, and he does, and then he jumps up and he’s like, ha ha. I got away. I’ll be back. With what are

you like way down in the shaft? It was like all of a sudden he’s just loony too, but it was really funny and that’s just. It like that’s the ed, like he runs away down the shaft and that is the end. And then the credits roll with that fun folk song that is very much tied to the events of the movie. Oh, I liked it.

I don’t know. You know, honestly, even as far as slasher movies go, I don’t think this one’s great. Like it’s all right. It’s fine. It has. Some interesting elements. I did like the kills and it was fun that it was like, so Valentine’s day theme, but nothing aside from the special effects that were mostly cut.

From the original release. There wasn’t anything that I was like, Oh man, this is so good. Like it was fairly standard fare, but it was, it was fun anyway

Todd: for a paint by numbers, kind of slasher, like, you know, so many of these at this time were Friday the 13th, the burning, we did intruder, you know, this one.

All kinds of the same, right? They follow exactly that same formula that Roger Ebert filled out. But I thought this one had enough of these interesting elements. The mine, the town was a lot more authentic and real to me. That’s true. Then the locations are in most of these and then just the kitschy ness.

The deliberate kitchenettes of making this as Valentine’s easy as possible. And he’s carving their hearts out and putting them in heart shaped boxes to give to people. I mean, that was kind of charming. And then, like you said, with the uncut version, God, you got to see the uncut version. You can’t watch the cut version.

It loses half of its entertainment value. The kills are great. And like you said, the practical effects are a cut above, you know, many of them. Uh, at this time. And so put all that together and I can see why paramount at the time, thought this might be a bit of a hit for what it was amongst this. Sub genre of films that they were aiming for.

So it’s for me, is going to stand out in this sub genre of films that we go through early eighties, late seventies of these slasher films that follow the same formula. At least the foremost is slightly different here and it’s different enough and entertaining enough in the movies competently done enough.

And some cases, you know, just flat out beautiful and, and also disturbing that, uh, I, I mean, I agree with you. It’s not a great movie on, you know, compared to the rest of cinema, but right. In that narrow area, it really stands out and I’m so glad we watched it. And now I’m kind of curious to see the remake.

Craig: Yeah, it’s just, okay.

Todd: Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us online to 2guys.red40 net.com. You can also search for our Facebook page. Shoot us a note there, or drop us a message on Twitter. If you liked this movie and you want to tell us about it, please let us know.

And also if you have requests for films that you’d like to do in the future until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

In the last of our series of tribute episodes to famous people who have passed on, we salute Tanya Roberts, one of Charlie’s Angels who made her seventh film with screen legend Chuck Connors, trying to reimagine himself as a Boris Karloff-style villain. The result is an incredibly odd yet creepy horror flick that managed to give us quite a bit to chat about. Thanks, Ryan, for the suggestion!

Tourist Trap (1979)

Episode 246, 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: So we’re about to wrap up our tribute episodes here of people that we lost in 2020. Today’s actress actually made it to 2021, but soon died in the hospital of complications related to, I believe, a urinary tract infection that just went from bad to worse and had her on a ventilator.

And sadly, her long-time husband couldn’t even visit her in the hospital because of the COVID restrictions. So it’s so sad.

Craig: Yeah. It is pretty sad.

Todd: Yeah. Right. But anyway, let’s not talk about the sadness. Let’s talk about the life of one Tanya Roberts. Tanya Roberts was born Victoria Leigh Blum, but changed her name to Tanya Roberts to kick off her modeling and acting career.

She started out as a model in the seventies.

Craig: Big surprise because she’s ugly as sin. No, she’s stunningly gorgeous

Todd: Oh my gosh. And especially in this movie as well, it just, I mean, she, her eyes sparkle and she’s. Yeah, she’s quite nice. Um, she didn’t always get the best reviews for her acting. I thought that in this movie, which is 1979 tourist trap also, by the way, recommended to us by Ryan.

Thank you, Ryan, for that. And as soon as you saw that she had died, you had mentioned on our Facebook page that we ought to do a tribute to her. Uh, this is a, I think one of the only horror movies she’s done, she’s most known for coming in. I think at the last season of Charlie’s angels. Yeah, replacing one of the other actresses in a bid to kind of revitalize the series as it was declining, but that didn’t quite work.

She was a bond girl. I believe she was a geologist in a view to a

Craig: kill and with the, uh, with the whole Charlie’s angels thing in those later seasons. They were switching girls out, you know, people were leaving, coming and going and, and she was the last one. But to her credit, she was a big fan favorite.

And the whole last season really revolved around her. She was. The center of most of the storylines, uh, in that season. And, and she was well-received. So there’s that,

Todd: you know, she was in some movies like the Beastmaster. Um, I think one of her earliest films is, uh, was a remake of a, was an R rated remake of a pornographic movie called forced entry.

Right. If you could imagine, but this one, a tourist trap was 1979 and it was produced by Charles band. We know Charles band pretty well. His line of productions is a mile long, and this is probably one of his earlier ones. I think maybe one is a fifth or six productions. You guys know him as a producer of a lot, like the puppet master series.

Yeah, the dolls, a lot of movies, actually, that we’ve kind of enjoyed. And then a lot of movies that are just playing dumb and straight to video face the thing

Craig: like, yeah, I mean, as a producer, he’s just so prolific. Like he’s put out so many movies and they’re pretty low budget and some of them are pretty schlocky, but it’s kind of hit and miss, like you and I have enjoyed.

A lot of those moves we have for

Todd: various reasons.

Craig: Right. And, and of course, of course, when we talk about them, there’s always criticism, but there’s also a lot of entertainment value in a lot of his movies. So I don’t know, you know, Of course, I certainly don’t have my finger on the pulse of like, you know, Hollywood elites and how those people view these types of productions or whatever, but from a public perspective, from a fan perspective, I’ve really kind of come to respect.

Charles band, uh, just yes, some of those movies are bad, but some of them are a lot of fun. And this one, I wouldn’t say it’s one of my favorites, but it’s very interesting. Yeah.

Todd: It’s nothing. If not interesting. Yes, for sure. It’s really all over the map. I mean, I feel like this movie is cobbled together from a lot of other movies.

Honestly, you got. A little bit of Texas chainsaw massacre in there. A little bit of house of wax, a little bit of psycho, and then some weird kind of the fury type character stuff almost in the area. Yeah. It’s just so all over the map that I think it was a little confusing for me at first to put a pin in what was going on and maybe that’s.

To the movies credit in a way. I mean, it sounds kind of derivative. And so maybe it is kind of derivative, you know, but in deriving its material from all of these different places and putting together something very odd and strange strangely compelling to watch at times a little boring at other times, um, it is in its own way.

A little original. Yeah. So. And, you know, that could be said, the screenplay was written by a David Smolar and a J Larry, Carol, and a was originally pitched to Charles band. And they really wanted John Carpenter to direct this. But John Carpenter was too expensive. So it came back and they said, look, Charles band himself said, look, David woosh Mueller, why don’t you direct this movie instead?

So this was actually his very first directing a gig. But then after that, David Smolar went on to do puppet master. Um, he did a horror movie called the arrival, possessed a bunch of episodes of silk stocking, sun TV, and just a lot of random stuff, but mostly kind of in this lower budget television or, you know, direct to video horror kind of thing.

So he said that he learned a lot. Directing this movie about just how to do that, how to direct actors and how to direct actresses. So for a first time director working with, uh, some stars, the male antagonist in this movie is very, very well known. Chuck Connors. Uh, who’s kind of a legend of the screen and television, honestly.

Yeah. I always visually, depending on the role he’s in, yeah. The makeup and his age, he, he kind of pass us off for Charlton Heston a little bit, you know, he’s, he’s got some of that, uh, that look in his eye. He’s got a much more square jaw. He, he was a cowboy in a lot of movies.

Craig: Yeah. W was he on Bonanza? I don’t know.

I, I remember he he’s, he screams cowboy boots. He does. Um, and, and maybe that’s because the thing that I am most familiar with him from, um, is old yeller. Yeah. Yeah. Old yeller was a movie that they used to show us. Grade school all the time. Oh my God. And, uh, he, he was in that and he’s fine in this movie.

Um, Stephen King is a big fan of this movie or at least was, uh, back in the day when he wrote his non-fiction book, dance macabre about horror. And he really liked this movie and he thought that the special effects were really compelling. And the story was interesting. He wasn’t terribly fond of Chuck Connors.

Uh, performance, but he said it’s not because I don’t think that Chuck Connors is a good actor. I just think that he was maybe a little bit miscast in this movie and I don’t agree. I think he’s fine in this movie, but I know that their, the, their first pick for his role was Jack plants. And I totally understand why Jack Lance didn’t take.

The bar, but had he had, had he taken the part? I think he might’ve brought a little bit of gravitas that, uh, Chuck Connors just doesn’t quite have, like, he’s almost there and I do enjoy him in this movie. I think he does a good job, especially since here we go. We’re three minutes in 10 minutes in whatever.

Ultimately, he’s kind of playing a dual role and it’s kind of a surprise. I mean, I think it’s. Projected a little bit, I don’t know. He’s creepy. I like the duality of his role because on the one hand he plays this very helpful charming country kind of guy. And then on the other hand, he’s this total freaking weirdo.

Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. Which is good. I mean, you know, a lot of people when they’re casting these movies will purposely cast unknowns, right? Because they don’t want the baggage that comes with the actors prior work or whatever they’ve carved out for themselves. In this case, it kind of works to the advantage, right.

Of having this well-known actor who is usually, um, kind of a hero type character, jovial friendly kind of macho guy, but, you know, he has that type and he always has, and, and at this time he was, had this notion anyway, that he could reinvent himself as a sort of Boris Karloff type of villain, you know, who could play villain than a bunch of movies.

And then he did, he could play the villain. A few other films after this and maybe fulfilled his goal, at least varying his output a little bit more and being able to prove he can do that. Like you said, it’s. I don’t know. Um, and some of it’s descriptive, it gets into cheesy territory at times. But when you were talking about what is essentially a Norman Bates type character, right?

Yeah. It’s, it’s gonna, you gotta play crazy, you know, and you can kind of forgive about anything because we don’t know what his particular psychosis is. And we, we get some ideas of where it’s come from as the movie progresses. And I think the movie does actually a pretty good job. Of feeding us drip by drip, a little bit more of his backstory as it goes along.

I think

Craig: that I would have found the movie more boring if it weren’t for the fact that the villain is so. Odd. So weird,

so weird that it’s compelling. Okay. So this is a slasher movie, basically, and, and it’s, it’s very typical. Like you said, Texas chainsaw, massacre, house of wax, or at least the remake of house of magic. Of wax, where you’ve got a group of people, young people, I would, you know, 20 somethings or whatever, and they’re out for a good time.

And one of them gets a flat tire there. They’re traveling in two cars. The lead car gets a flat tire and the guy. Whose car that is Woody. I just have like this buff, handsome guy. I wish they would. I wish they would have killed off Jerry first instead of Woody, because he was hot. I

Todd: was just going to say, the minute that came on the screen, I was like, Oh, Craig’s going to like this movie.

And then he gets killed off and I’m like, Oh, well maybe we’ll. Well, I mean, he’s like half shirtless muscular. His shirt is pink. He’s got

Craig: white cat abs for days,

Todd: just rolling a tire down the street. Right. Pick. And I guess,

Craig: so he’s just rolling this tire down the road and he comes up. On this place, like, it looks like a service station, but it looks like it’s abandoned.

So since nobody’s there, he goes in the back and it looks like somebody is sleeping like on a Cotter, a bed, but when he goes and tries to wake it up and yeah, he’s hearing like weird kind of creepy voices. And when he tries to wake the person up a mannequin, like pops up and laughs, and then I don’t know how you could explain.

These events any other way than right away. It appears supernatural because the door slams and locks and nobody’s there. The windows are opening and closing by themselves, keeping him out a mannequin breaks through the window. Another one pops out of the. Closet, the mannequins are like laughing creepily, and then a cabinet starts rattling and lights are flashing and then debris starts flying out of the cabinet at Woody.

And it looks really cool, like projectile flying out of this cabinet. And I read that the way that they did it was that they suspended the cabinet from the ceiling and just threw things straight down, just dropped them and change you change the camera perspective. Um, but it looks really cool, but eventually.

A pipe shoots out and stabs him through the back. And then we just hear some weird man voice grumbling, like he’s saying things, but I couldn’t even make out what he was

Todd: saying. So bizarre because you’re trying to put your, you’re trying to put your finger what’s happening, you know, and of course the movie’s called tourist trap.

And so you’re thinking that. He’s kind of gotten locked in the little puzzle room, you know, I mean, there’s nobody around, but then these things are happening and coming out. So my first reaction was, Oh, okay. All these mannequins and things. They’re all mechanical devices and you know, the door auto locks and that and the window.

And then once things start shooting out of the cabinets, I mean, you’re like, well, okay, this is clearly supernatural, the way this is going down. And I didn’t even understand how his. Arm got caught in the door. It’s like he poked a hole in it. It was trying to trying to open it from the other side, but something was holding his arm on the other side.

It, it’s just really unclear except that all this crazy haunted house type shit is happening in the middle of the day. And, uh, once that pipe goes, you know, goes into his back, it’s like, He’s dead and the camera

Craig: and we never see him again. Yeah.

Todd: And the camera just does this extremely slow pan down from his shocked face down to the pipe and blood is already dripping out the end of it and across the floor and up and out the windows and you’re waiting for reveal, you know, you’re waiting for something.

And then all we hear is that it’s that sound of the laughter or whatever, mumbling, and then boom, we’re back with the other car, which is driving down the street and meets up with the person that he left at the car, uh, who was Eileen. And we have a few other people in the car, uh, who are traveling together.

So this is Jerry. And Molly and Molly is like this prim proper, you know, she’s the girl you’re thinking, okay, she’s going to be the final girl because she’s just almost comically. Right. She’s she has like a hat on knowing.

Craig: So it looks like she stepped right out of the little house on the prayer. Like it’s ridiculous.

She even, I mean, she literally kind of looks like Nellie Olsen from little house on the river. She’s obviously. So prim and whereas the other girls, you know, Eileen. Looks like a typical girl. She’s, she’s very spunky. I liked her and I liked that actress, but then you’ve got Becky, right? Isn’t that? That’s that’s

Todd: the Becky is Tanya Roberts.

Craig: Yeah. And she is like, she’s a sex pot, but at the same time, like not trashy, like she’s very, very curvy. And of course she’s wearing, you know, Skin tight, like halter top and tight little cutoff, Jean shorts or whatever. Very, very sexy, but also. She seems nice.

Todd: Like

Craig: she’s, she’s not trashy in her appearance and it doesn’t matter ultimately, but like, since we’re talking about her, you know, I just, I think that’s to her credit, she’s very sexy without being trashy looking.

And she’s beautiful

Todd: to look at. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I mean, I’m not ashamed to admit. I was, I was hoping we were going to see some nudity in this movie and shockingly, we didn’t, I guess there was supposed to be yeah. With the director too shy to bring it up until the scene where they all go skinny dipping, which isn’t about, you know, another minute later.

And, uh, they were all like, uh, no, we’re not doing that. So they’re all just submerged enough in the, in the water to, uh, to cover up all the, uh, the naughty bits as it were, but you know, her dirty pillows, but, you know,

Craig: uh, which is, which is fine. Like, of course it’s, you know, it’s it’s yeah. I, it doesn’t bother me at all.

Nudity of course does not bother me at all. But the lack of nudity doesn’t bother me either. And you know, there’s still plenty of eye candy for the male gaze. These are beautiful women. Um, we don’t have to see them totally new to appreciate their beauty. Uh, but. Thank you

Todd: for putting that disclaimer out there, Craig

I am, we are two guys in a chain saw and I endorse this message.

Craig: But the other thing that that leads to is that this movie is rated PG. Um, and we don’t do a lot of PG rated movies. On this podcast. This was also before Poulter Geist when the PG 13 rating came into existence. Um, but the filmmakers, I don’t remember if it was the producer or the director really felt that.

That PG rating killed them. If they had somehow gotten an AR and they were surprised because they thought that the content was disturbing enough that it warranted an R. Um, but I guess because of the lack of sex and nudity and really because there is violence, but it’s not,

Todd: no, it’s a little brutal, but it’s

Craig: brutal.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, I think that it did work out a little bit to their favor and that they got some play on syndication on television, out of this movie, apparently because of the rating. So, you know, maybe it made a little bit more money than it would have otherwise. I mean, there’s a lot of creepiness, you know, it’s funny.

I just put together just today. Hey, everybody check out our [email protected], 40 net.com where I just put up a page called family-friendly horror movies. Where I just went back and categorized these movies that, you know, what was it a last, last year? Right. We had the whole month where we did quote unquote kid friendly, gateway, horror, that kind of stuff.

And as I was going back and categorizing our content and remembering it, these are, it’s still a horror movies right there by, by definition, they’re going to be scary and I have disturbing things. And the most of them have some level of degree of violence in them, or, you know, whether it happens on screen or off screen, some blood even right.

Even a little bit of annuities, some language, but still, you know, depending on the age of your kids and depending on the maturity level, the people in your house and things like that, a lot of these. Movies that we’ve done a good 25 of them. I found, I would say, go and check it out first before you show it to your know your twelve-year-old.

Sure. But based on your own values, but in a general sense, they’re not like the kind of stuff that we normally do here, where heads are getting lopped off and, you know, arms as ridiculous as it can be sometimes. It’s still brutal and graphic and gross. Right? Um, this is definitely one of those movies that you could watch with your family.

It could come on TV and it would be just fine, although it’s still, still,

Craig: it is. And, and I think that there’s like, Some nightmarish stuff in here. Like, not that I would ever have any reason or call too, but I could probably show this at school without having to send home a permission slip. I mean, it’s PG, there’s not, there’s no graphic violence really, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not some nightmarish stuff like the villain.

Is is really very creepy. I wouldn’t want, I wouldn’t one him poking up in my dreams. Yeah. Okay. So it’s PG. All right. Anyway, so they’re all back together. And so they’re basically, now that the second car has caught up, they. Continue down the road and they’re looking for Woody and they find his tire abandoned and they see all these signs for like Sloss sins, lost Oasis.

And one of the girls like, Oh, these tourist traps are all alike, blah, blah, blah. Great get the title. They find his tire and they drive by and as they drive by, I feel like the winds from their drive by like uncovers the sign that they don’t see that says like close to the public out, which is kind of weird.

And I read who put up that sign. Is it somebody who knows the dangerous things that are going down here or. Another speculation is that it might be the villain himself, because like you said, it kind of appears to be this Norman Bates type of thing where he kind of has a dual personality where one of his personas.

Is kindly and the other is murderous. So maybe he put it up himself, who knows, but they pull up to this place and the Jeep dies for no apparent reason. And I wouldn’t have thought much of that except for then, while they’re sitting there. For absolutely no reason. The headlight shatters

Todd: too. They don’t even notice it.

Right. I mean, they’re more concerned about the deep and I’m thinking, Oh, what are they going to notice the headlights shattering? How’s this working and how’s this significant. And did it get shot out? It didn’t, I mean, it’s so weird, right? It’s like, okay, clearly there’s some supernatural thing happening

Craig: here.

Exactly. And ultimately that’s what you figure out that there is something supernatural going on here and it’s bizarre and it doesn’t really come to light until later, but it’s obvious that something supernatural is happening. We do get a little bit of an explanation. It’s not laid out for us. Like, Oh, here’s the exact science of why all this is happening.

We just find out later that this guy has telekinetic powers. Why we don’t know what’s the extent of what he can do. We don’t know, like really he can just do stuff and apparently he can disable their car to keep them there. Yeah. And

Todd: so then they, you know, they kind of get out of the car and the girls wander over the Hill and that’s when they discover, Oh my gosh, there’s this beautiful, beautiful waterfall and a pond there.

Eileen says, Oh, I think we should go swimming. And Molly comes up in her bonnet and it’s like, but we don’t have swimming suits. And they’re like, well, that shit that never doesn’t need to stop us. Oh God, but it’s even in the beginning, right? The main character Mr. Slossen comes in and in, in is pretty creepy because the girls are skinny dipping on his property.

Molly is there. She’s the one who notices these legs come over the Hill first and she’s a little closer to the shore. And so he looks down at her and starts talking to her and. Ask her her name. So, I mean, you know, he is almost, he’s doing this as though he doesn’t have three beautiful naked girls in front of him and he’s just chatting with them.

Used to be, I

Craig: charge 75 cents a day. Just not, no more though used to be out at 25 30 visitors a day. And the government decided to

Todd: mill

Craig: that new

Todd: highway. It’s the old story, right. Of though they put in that highway and I guess folks just want to go fast nowadays and they don’t have time to slow down

Craig: facts.

He says something like ever since they put in the highway, we’ve lost all our business or something, which is a line lifted directly from psycho. Yeah. But this, this part is funny to me because yet he does show up and I suppose you could consider it creepy that this man, you know, is like leering over these girls.

But again, like you said, they’re under the water. They’re not fully exposed and he’s very friendly. He’s not mean he’s not admonishing them. He’s not yelling at them. He’s friendly. Uh, and it’s funny to me. Because as silly as this situation may sound, my maternal grand father was a country, man. He was a farmer.

He was educated through the eighth grade and then he went off and fought in world war II and came back and was a farmer his whole life. And he owned a lot of property. And this happened to him more than once that he would have to go out and chase off. Skinny dipping kids. Off of his property and he was always nice about it too.

You know, I’m glad you’re having fun naked kids, but

Todd: okay. Fair enough.

Craig: He skedaddled,

Todd: what do you got a good thing, you know? When you, if you build it, they will come.

Craig: Exactly. Apparently if you live in the country and you have a pond, beautiful women will come and swim naked at him. The

Todd: things you learned too late in life,

Craig: it’s. And it’s also, I mean, he’s kind of charming, you know, it’s cute.

He’s like y’all bus leave for, it gets dark. Well, this here hole fills up with water moccasins. If you feel something wiggling around your feet, it’s just the early ones come to find a good

Todd: spot,

Craig: but they get out and they’re talking about. Him and, and they go back to the Jeep and he’s there waiting for them at the Jeep. And they’re all together. Now Jerry’s with them too. And he looks at the car and he says, Oh, there’s something wrong with it. We’ll need tools. So he takes them back. I thought he was going to be taking them back to his house.

Cause that’s what he says. But it actually turns out to be like this roadside attraction, the Slawson museum. And he says he lives there.

Todd: He does say

Craig: he lives there. That’s which is weird because somebody also notices that there’s a big house. Just down the way. And he’s like, Oh, nobody lives there, but Navy.

And they’re like Davey and he’s like, uh, David Crockett and he’s got this whole, like, it’s small. It’s not big, but it’s like, it looks like an old timey. I know they still exist, but you don’t see them very much, but those, you know, kind of Midwestern roadside attractions where you go in and tourist traps.

Tourist traps. Exactly. But they’re kind of fun. You know, I’ve always been kind of intrigued by these. Places. Um, they’re very kitschy and like

Todd: a wall drug or something like that, right? Yeah.

Craig: I’ve never been to wall drug, but I hear it’s amazing. Oh man. And I got to go get me a raccoon skin cap from wall drug at some point in my life.

Have

Todd: you ever been to that house on the rock?

Craig: I’ve S I’ve driven

Todd: by it, but I haven’t been, Oh my God. That is the tourist trap to end all tourist traps. It’s the most amazing, incredible thing I’ve probably ever seen in my life. I could go on and on about how some of the rock. Oh yeah.

Craig: But this place like it’s, it seems like mostly mannequins, but he also talks about wax Fe years and he talks about how his brother.

Had been super, super talented at making these wax figures and they do stuff like they, he can flip switches and like, they’ll move. And like he’s got the Davy Crockett, one that like raises its rifle and fires and startles all of them. And he’s like, Oh yeah, that’s always a popular one with the kids or whatever.

And it’s not particularly impressive. Really. Like it mostly just looks like mannequins, but yeah, there’s, I don’t know. It’s kitschy fun, kind of

Todd: fun. I mean it, again, it’s this sort of thing that appeals to people in a different time and back when that was, you know, well, we didn’t have high-tech animatronics.

This kind of thing was kind of cute. I love how he goes in and he’s got like a Dr. Pepper vending machine and he just opens it up. Like you’re going to change the stuff out and pulls the beers.

It’s so funny. You know, actually he goes back into talking about his brother-in-law a little bit more talks about himself. You know, that how he was men went into the Navy and got kicked out of there. And then he got kicked out of jail and he got kicked out about anything else in his life. And he and his wife just settled down and did this thing.

And his brother is really talented making these wax figures and all that. Um, and he’s still around. He’s just kind of what he says.

Craig: He says as he’s off in the big city, Oh, he’s off in the big city making his living doing this. So supposedly he’s not around. Well, so then Slawson leaves the girls and goes with Jerry to fix.

The Jeep and he warns the girls not to wander outside, but this is after they’ve already noticed that there’s that house out there. So as soon as they leave, Eileen’s like, you know what, screw that. I’m going to go up to the house and see if there’s a phone. And she goes over there and she hears. A man talking and she finds all these rooms filled with mannequins and dummies, and she starts hearing somebody whispering her name and she’s looking around and this creepy figure, it’s a big person.

So I immediately thought it was a. Man, this creepy guy in this really creepy mask shows up. I don’t even know how really to describe the mask because it’s not, I don’t want to say Phantom of the opera because it’s not like that. But similar. I mean, it covers his whole face, but it’s like two pieces.

There’s like a face plate and then like a chin plate so that he can still. Talk and his mouth moves, but it’s

Todd: very creepy. It’s very evocative of those wooden ventriloquist dummies, right? Where like, like the jaw itself, but just below the mouth kind of opens up and goes back and forth. Whereas everything else, like the cheeks down to the, to the jaw line are stationary.

Right. I thought it was kind of nice actually, that, that mask then, um, is evoked in the mannequins around the house because all these mannequins, they don’t look like. I mean, I think they’re supposed to, but not many of them look like finely detailed wax figures that look almost real. They mostly just look like, like department store mannequins, but then later on their jaw detaches, like the same way and their mouths open up in this very unnatural way, which is super creepy.

I mean, I think that could give you

Craig: nightmares. It could, but that’s one of the things that I really like about this movie is that for the most. Part, they just look like mannequins, but oftentimes you see a lot of them at the same time. Like you’re looking down a hallway or something and like they’re lining the hallway and most of them just look like mannequins, but I thought that it was really cool filmmaking that every once in a while they would clearly stick.

So, so some of them of them are strikingly lifelike because they are real people. And that, that only increases like in frequency as you move throughout, but it’s jarring to kind of scan these mannequins and just kind of notice. Wait a second. That’s a

Todd: person it’s funny that you call it cool filmmaking instead of cheap filmmaking.

Yeah, but it is

Craig: cheap, but it has an excellent impact. I thought, I thought it was really creepy.

Todd: It’s true. Especially because you still really are not sure what’s going on because you’ve seen all this mechanical stuff, but then we seen this like supernatural stuff and you don’t really know what it’s all about.

And. They play with that a little bit in this movie, I think. And whether it’s intentional or it’s just, you know, low budget that kind of happens to work for the movie. You’re right. It’s like seeing what may be humans in there, because this is always in the back of your mind, right? I mean, who hasn’t seen?

Well, maybe many people haven’t seen like the original house of wax with Vincent Price, but it’s, you’re always wondering, okay, well, people are going to die. They’re all these mannequins. Maybe they’re actually people, you know, maybe they’re actually people covered up and then. As she walks into here, the eyes of these dummies are following her.

They’re turning and looking at her. They look really good. Could they be people, but just the eyes are able to move, you know? Um, it’s, it’s really unsettling to see this happening. I mean, it’s derivative and it’s kind of. Classic haunted house type stuff, but it works, I think, in, in this setting. So this guy enters in you’re right.

He’s got this mask and he’s running around breaking things. And then like, again, the supernatural it’s like he’s looking in different directions and it’s causing dummies to, to fall off the wall on her, or, you know, look at her. Uh, and the chair. Just shoot right up to her, which she flops down in and it spins around.

And I think at this point I was like, okay, there must we’re we’re saying that he’s telekinetic. This was the moment where I realized, all right, then he must be telekinetic. And so at least. Some of what’s going on here. Isn’t supernatural at all. He’s just controlling it, but would he be controlling the individual eyes of all these dummies?

Just for fun. That was still kind of going through my mind. Like maybe there’s still more to these dummies in that. And so it just added to this hodgepodge feel of the movie, you

Craig: know, it kind of explains it later. So I feel like maybe I should hold off on talking about it, but, but I lean gets. Apparently strangled by her own scarf, no hands pulling it.

Just, you see it being tightened around her neck, then the other girls Marvel at a mannequin and. The place where they are that little chop and they touch it. And they say that it feels like real flesh, which I thought would pan out to be something, but they never really addressed that. And then Slawson comes back and says that Jerry took the truck to town super suspicious, super suspicious.

And he talks about that mannequin that they’re looking at. And he says that it was. His wife and that she had died of cancer and he loved her so much. And so he made this

Todd: figure of her or whatever, a good cook, a good worker, a good everything. Just like a woman. Shouldn’t be it’s

Craig: creepy. Like he’s got her, like it’s, it’s creepy.

Uh, he’s got her on display. In, I don’t like, it looks like a doll box, almost like an open front and all around. Yeah. It’s kind of, I don’t know. You know,

Todd: they’re like, Oh, she looked beautiful and he says she is beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What does he mean? Right? Is that, is she in there somewhere or is she somewhere else?

You know, it’s, it’s, it’s weird

Craig: notices that Eileen has gone and they say she went outside. So he goes out looking for, and he goes to the house and this part is weird. Because he in the house, he’s like, Davey, are you there? Davey, Davey? Like, he’s looking for somebody as it turns out, we find out that there is no Davey.

He is Davey. He’s both. But this suggests to me that there is some disassociation, maybe he really believes that they are two different people. It’s odd, but he finds Eileen and like she’s been turned into a mannequin. Weird

Todd: creepy. That was weird. I wasn’t sure how to parse that.

Craig: I mean, it makes no sense logically, but I think that it’s kind of explained in the end, he’s got these telekinetic powers.

We, again, we just don’t know what the. Extent or limits of his powers are because he can do some weird shit, but I feel like that’s jumping the gun. Okay. The whole

Todd: back.

Craig: Well, but Becky and. Yeah. And, and they want to, they decide they want to go look for Eileen too, because Slawson

Todd: hasn’t come back. They leave and they go down to the house and they hear Eileen’s laugh from inside.

And they’re like, Oh, okay. Eileen is in there with Woody. So even though Molly is really, really reluctant to go in, uh, Becky just goes up and decides to climb the trellis on the outside because there’s a light on it. Stairs, I guess she decides that’s better than trying the front door and Molly who I thought in like three triple takes, uh, starts to walk to the woods.

Turns around, looks back, walks through the woods, turns around and looks back, walks through the woods, turns around, looks back. Um, and finally decides now she’s not gonna, she’s not gonna go. And I think she actually goes back. Doesn’t she to the, yeah, she does the museum. While Becky goes inside now. I don’t know about you, but I felt like the movie was very dark, like visually dark.

Sometimes it was kind of hard to see, and it was, it was very stylistically lit, but at times I just couldn’t even see exactly what was going on and I’m not even sure that was helpful, but yeah, he, she goes in there and just like the others, she hears somebody whispering her name and it’s just, she’s surrounded by a room full of ma mannequins.

And she goes to that chair. Um, there’s this mannequin there with the scarf tied around its neck. She turns around the chair or looks, it looks at the other side and it looks like again, sort of like Eileen, but it’s got that mask thing on and it reaches up and scares her. Now was that him? Or was that? No.

Craig: No, because he sh no, it wasn’t. He, because he shows up behind him and eventually he kind of jumps, well, she sees Eileen, but then she also sees. Him in a seat. And he, she spins him around and he does jump up at her. Um, but she, she runs away and the door slams on its own. And then she’s struggling with the door.

But when she opens it, tons of mannequins, like fall on her and she’s all bruised up. And the creepy guy. Who the production people ended up calling plaster face as a play on Leatherface, which is pretty funny. She hits him with a mannequin arm and like, she hits him and he’s out for a second. But then this I, this is the weirdest part of the movie I was telling Alan about this last night.

I’m like, then the mannequins all look at them. Her and open their mouths and sing. And they do this several times throughout the movie. And increasingly more as the movie goes on, like a mannequin will turn its head. Its jaw will fall open. Okay. Uh, And they’re like Harvard icing with each other

and it is really super weird, like weird .

Todd: It’s strange, you know, and this is where the movie diverge is a little bit for me, as far as like, it, it’s no longer creepy. It’s just weird after you see enough of these mannequins and their mouths opening and this thing, it’s, it’s almost like a little bit too much for me anyway.

And that’s when I was like, okay, I’ve just more puzzled than anything at what is going on. And. Who’s moving these as he still moving them. Is there still something to them that I don’t know, but, um, they’re kind of piling on her and like literally piling on her, like just sort of falling on it, I guess, while he’s kind of knocked out, he must still be controlling them, but he

Craig: supposedly out.

But this is where, like the movie kind of hits it’s I don’t want to say hits its stride because it’s been fine, but this is where things just kind of go off the wall. Yeah, really. We see the creepy mask face guy carry Becky down into the basement where Jerry is tied up to a post. And there’s a girl that we don’t know, tied to a table.

And at this point, mass guy starts talking right. Eddie jocks had this really weird voice.

Todd: You know what, you know what it reminds me of, it reminded me of new year’s evil. You remember that one

Craig: evil.

So like he talks to this girl on the table who we don’t know. And he’s like your show pretty. Why don’t you like me? So weird. And the girl after he goes upstairs, the girl’s like, he’s crazy. We’re all going to die. He’s going to kill us. He, I was just getting gas and he grabbed me. I never even saw him coming.

And like the creepy guy gets himself all made up in a top hat and a Cape and gloves and stuff. And he comes back with booze and he’s like, I’m going to have him piety. And he straps her head down. He starts plastering her face, but he narrates. It’s not a whole thing like yours, the plastic

jar.

Isn’t it.

You’re won’t be able to breathe.

And then finally, like he covers up her mouth and nose and she dies. And he says, now you’re one of us, but Jerry chewing

Todd: through his ropes, literally like a cartoon

Craig: character let’s get out

Todd: and he attacks him. Let me just say like, This is very, um, kind of Phantom of the opera kind of abominable Dr. Phibes vibe and the music here.

The music is like a score from another era.

Craig: It’s so bizarre. Because it’s so bizarre. I really like it.

Todd: I mean, of course this movies from another era, but I mean, another era from this movie, like this score felt like it fit in oftentimes more with like, 1950s, Vincent Price movies, this overlap

Craig: babes in Toyland or,

Todd: yeah, it’s weird. The gamut, like even in the earlier part of the movie, it’s, it’s kind of bouncy and groovy.

It was scored actually by a man named Pino Dinaija, which they had to convince to do because he had scored Carrie a couple years before this and he did Parana. Uh, he went on to do like dressed, to kill the howling a ton. I mean, this guy’s huge in the S you know, as far as scoring scored Hercules body double a lot of horror movies, a lot of Italian films, some jello picks a couple that we’ve already seen all the way up through the eighties and nineties.

Thousands. He’s still scoring movies now. And they producers of the film or the, I think the director of the film was ultimately kind of disappointed. They really wanted more of a synth type score, you know, like John Carpenter kind of Halloween type score, and they got this kind of minimalist or Kestrel kind of score that when you hear it, especially in moments like this, Oh, it’s totally Kerry.

You know, it’s like the fury it’s like Carey. Well, of course he scored some Brian DePalma’s movies. It sounds so much like that. And it sometimes just feels a little out of place with, what’s supposed to be, you’re thinking a grittier, late seventies, early eighties, freaky, Texas chainsaw massacre kind of movie, but it never really reaches that level.

And part of that I think has Gore. I

Craig: liked C I liked the score just because it was so bizarre that it had almost like a jarring thing. In fact, like it caused unease. Like it made me uneasy just because it was so weird and strange. I don’t know. I meant to say something about it at the very beginning, because at the very beginning, it’s almost like clock work or machine work, like cliquey, clanky kind of stuff.

Todd: Yeah. Bouncy and kind of groovy too. I mean, you know, it’s really weird. Yeah. But you’re right. So, so that was so corny though. You know, I’m going to put this on your face, but it’s not going to kill you, even though I’m covering your nose and mouth what’s going to happen is your heart is going to beat so fast.

It’s going to explode and you’re going to die from fright. Like really? Maybe it just has telekinetic powers made that happen. Cause I don’t think that’s actually a medical. Medically reliable way to kill somebody. You know what I mean? But

Craig: yeah. And I mean, he literally, he’s just putting pizza though. Yeah.

Literally. That’s what it is. Yeah. Okay. But it’s just so strange. Like he’s so odd that it worked for me, like. I thought that it was very creepy. The next, I feel like 10, 15 minutes is a lot of him just chasing people

Todd: around. It’s important to note though, that when, after his fight with Jerry, he like fricking lifts Jerry up the wall.

Like he’s a superhuman.

Craig: People can do that in movies.

Todd: Yeah, they do that all the time, but then he, again, like Jerry’s bound up again and he’s sitting at the table and he goes on to a lot, a long diatribe again about his brother. And he’s just talking about, you know, Oh yeah. His brother thinks he’s more handsome than me.

He makes me wear this mask on my face because I’m actually more handsome than him. And I hate my brother and I want to kill my brother. And it goes on like that. And I’m thinking, could the movie be that simple, that. Yeah, this is just his crazy brother, Davey. I, I that’s, that’s kinda what I was thinking was happening here.

And I was like, okay, he’s got this telekinetic brother.

Craig: It’s where that comes in because he drops a key and Jerry sees it and he tries to retrieve it. But the mask face guy sees and moves it with his mind. And then he explains, I have this power and my brother doesn’t like me to use it. And he goes on to say, But it feels good when I use it, he says, but it also scares me because sometimes I don’t even know what I’m doing.

So like he does it it’s as though he doesn’t even have full control of it, which I think explains why some of the times where it appears, where he’s out, he continues to still have this. Influence. Like he doesn’t even under, he doesn’t even understand it. He can seemingly do just about anything, but again, lots of running around, running through the forest, he chases Molly through a forest.

She jumps over a fence. He has a mannequin head. That talks. And he keeps saying like, meet my friend. Korozzin at her. It’s so weird. Yeah.

Todd: It’s just a point at which she gets picked up by Slawson. Like Slawson just suddenly pops up. It was like, what are you doing here? Oh my gosh, we’ve got to get you to safety.

And, and he, you know, picks her up in his truck and he drives her back and she says, Oh, I’ve been chased by this guy who was wearing a mask. And he goes, Oh my God, that’s my brother.

Craig: He goes on a whole thing. Like, Oh, he always wanted to be like me. He always wanted everything I had in college. The opposite.

Todd: It’s just a parallel dialogue we heard before. Yeah. And it’s too much really. I mean, it’s just too much explanation through dialogue with these things. Anyway, you know, uh, he takes her back to the, um, the museum. And even though she’s never shot a gun before in her life, Just hands or a rifle and says, now you stand out here while I go inside.

And if he comes, you know, you shoot him and she’s like, well, I’ve never shot anything. He’s like, Oh, you just aim it and pull the trigger. Well, it is a shotgun actually. So I guess that’s maybe all you need to know. If you don’t care about kickback, I

Craig: was just, yeah, like if it’s like a 22, that’d be fine.

Todd: But then he shows up the mass

Craig: guy,

Todd: creepy guy immediately shows up and starts walking towards her and she shoots him twice.

At point blank range and each time he just kind of stands up and comes towards her more. So she whacks him in the face with the rifle and the face mask shatters and it’s Slawson. So, uh, you’re like, Oh, okay. And for me, this was actually a bit of a reveal. I mean, Me too. I kind of thought maybe, but I was, you know, it was just one of many little possible explanations, but I was, I was genuinely a bit shocked to see that that was him.

And even for a moment, I thought, well, maybe they’re just twins or something played by the same actor because they play a trick on you. You know, even in the credits, uh, they show a different name, uh, which is just a nonexistent name who plays Davey. But yeah, so, uh, she goes running. She kind of runs away.

She kind of backs into the forest and just sort of absentmindedly backs into a pond and suddenly inexplicably behind her. Like he’s been waiting under the water this whole time. He slowly rises up with this spooky, evil, goofy movie villain grin on his face, wild eyes and grabs her and takes her. I thought

Craig: it makes no sense, but it looks really cool.

Like it looks very creepy. Yeah. When he comes up out of the water behind her and she’s totally oblivious, totally creepy. Anyway, they all end up back at the place. And like now he, we know he’s both people. And so now he’s totally weird and he’s like putting on different masks and playing with dolls and the mannequins it’s, he interacts with them.

Like he has dinner with one of them and it. Talks to him. And he puts food in its mouth and then its head falls off. So like it’s bizarre. Like he can completely animate these things. And Jerry and Becky are running around and Becky ends up getting killed. One of those shooting mannequins. Shoots or, or no throws a knife in the back of her head that he has Molly and Molly wakes up like a fever dream.

And she sees some woman like taking care of her. Ultimately it ends up being a mannequin, but it looks like a real person. And I’ve read that. That was the director’s wife. Uh, who played that role and she had lines and he cut them and she never forgave him.

I thought that was hilarious, but it just turns out that it’s just this really surreal thing where he’s controlling all of these mannequins and they can move about and talk and do all kinds of weird things. And it ends up in a showdown where. Jerry, uh, he’s got Molly. Oh. And this part was super creepy.

He’s like, you’re so pretty. And wasn’t my wife pretty, and you remind me of her and he puts a mask of the wife on her face and then tries to kiss her. And it’s so creepy and uncomfortable and she’s crying. Um, but then Jerry shows up and like comes in. It’s like, come on, I’m gonna take you out of here. And Slossen is just standing there.

She’s like, come on, Jerry. And it’s like he can’t move and Slawson walks over him and to him and just takes his arm off. Like he’s a mannequin and then grabs his head, grabs the actor’s head and twists it. And in a cut, obviously it becomes a mannequin and he pulls his head off and throws it down. And then what happens in this part?

It’s like we come to realize, apparently he can make these mannequins turn into people. Yeah. And he can make them do things. And I I’ve skipped things because we’re nearing the end of our time. And like, there’s a great part where Becky and Jerry pretend to be mannequins and kind of fool him. And this is where it gets really creepy, where you really can’t tell which ones are people in, which ones are mannequins and, and I’ll never let.

This kind of cameo go Linnea. Quigley is a uncredited mannequin in this movie. Um, and she’s my girl. So I’ll, I’ll always, yeah, I got her out so bizarre and like he picks up one of the mannequins, a lady mannequin, and he starts dancing with it. And like in various cuts, it’s a mannequin. And then it’s a real woman and all of the mannequins are like laughing at, uh, Molly and eventually.

She grabs an ax and, uh, axes Slawson in the neck, and then he dies and all of the activity. And, but, and then it just closes up on her face and she screams. And the last shot of the movie is her driving away in the Jeep with all of her friends, but their mannequins don’t love that, that last shot of the movie as grainy as it is.

Might be my favorite because she’s got this big smile on her face. It’s almost like she’s just mad. Mm.

I rushed through it. That last part, like Slawson talks about how he had killed his brother and his wife, because he had found them cheating and blah-blah-blah, but, and then he’s also like, but I didn’t really want to kill them. Like they try to make him like, he’s crazy, but kind of sympathetic. But not then, whatever, but you know, ultimately in the end I thought.

It was a creepy movie. It was death. I found it very creepy, all of the mannequins doing their, uh, and like turning their heads and their jaws dropping and moving about. And then ultimately like turning into animated people. Um, it was very creepy though. The whole plot point of. This masked killer, also having these unexplainable telekinetic powers, like you said, it is a hodgepodge of so many things, Texas chainsaw, massacre, psycho carry all of these things.

But in being that hodgepodge, it’s, it’s unique and it’s unlike anything else I’ve seen in some ways. Um, and though I don’t think it’s a great movie. I don’t think the production value is great. The acting is fine, nothing amazing. Um, but I think it’s just a, uh, an interesting Jim of, uh, a horror movie. And for, for real horror fans, I would say, Oh yeah, Y,

Todd: you know, it is a hodgepodge, like you said, there’s nothing you’ve ever seen.

Like it yet. There’s so many things you’ve already seen, like it, but it like, like we said earlier, it just, the, the, the whole is the sum of its parts is just, uh, utterly bizarre. And it feels like a movie that I would have seen on a Saturday afternoon after cartoons on TV. Um, it just has that feel I really late night.

Yeah. I wouldn’t say it ever really scared me too much, but you know, it was creepy. And I suppose, yeah, if I was younger and I’d watch it or less experienced with horror movies, it would have provided some nightmare fuel. Yeah. Ultimately, I mean, yeah. I think again, if you’re a whore fan or a fan of Tanya Roberts or Chuck Connors or any of these people yeah.

You know, watch it, but I wouldn’t say put it high on your list unless you’re just into this kind of thing. Things kind of weirdo, psycho killer kind of movies. That’s not going to be gross or gory it’s, it’s very PG and it’s also the seeds, right? A future Charles band productions. This movie became a cult hit, uh, at, for a while.

And, uh, probably has influenced, you know, puppet, master dolls, demonic toys, you know, those. Themes that he keeps revisiting and continues to milk, you know? And so, uh, th this idea had legs and he’s explored these in different forms forms. I think even with the same director, right. Uh, he did a lot of the puppet master movies, and I think wrote, wrote one of them, if not the first one.

So. Yeah, very, very interesting film and a nice tribute to Tanya Roberts. She’s she’s in a lot of this movie. She’s a perfectly fine actress. May she rest in peace? Yeah. Yeah. May she rest in peace? I was really disappointed to hear that those electric blue eyes of hers are. Basically just contacts and she wore those pretty much her whole career,

Craig: whatever she looks good,

Todd: no big deal.

Right. Do what you gotta do. Thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us online to guys. I read 40 net.com. You can also just search for two guys and a chainsaw on Facebook. We have a Twitter account as well. Let us know what you thought of this film to give us some other suggestions of movies.

And until next time I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Ennio Morricone passed away last year, leaving behind music scored for more than 400 films and television – which made him the most prolific composer of all time. His score for Once Upon A Time In The West is one of the best-selling film scores of all time, at an estimated 10 million copies sold.

Needless to say, we had a lot to choose from for our tribute episode to this legendary contributor to cinema history, and indeed we have already covered several films he has scored, such as The Thing, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, and Exorcist 2: The Heretic. We chose the Jaws knock-off “Orca” because…well, it’s a movie we’d always wanted to check out. And boy, were we pleasantly surprised.

Orca (1977)

2 Guys and a Chainsaw, Episode 245

Todd: hello and welcome to another episode of two guys in the chainsaw. I’m Todd. And I’m Craig, once again, this week, we continue our series of tributes to people who we lost last year in 2021 person. I think about midway through the year. Last year may not be known to too many people, but you’ve definitely heard his music.

Ennio Morricone and he was a pretty famous and extremely prolific composer of film scores, especially during the sixties and seventies. Uh, well into the eighties, starting out, of course, in Italian cinema and crossing over into a ton, a ton of productions. And so, uh, yeah, we lost him last year and we have done some films, uh, on this podcast that he has scored and he did in fact score a couple geology picks that, uh, I would love to get to, but knowing that, uh, Craig would probably send a glove to kill her to my house, to murder me.

If I made him go through another jello pick. Eventually so soon after we did Tena Bray a couple of weeks ago, uh, I decided, uh, to pick one that both he and I were very interested in seeing, and this is 1970 sevens Orca, the killer whale, basically a jaws knockoff produced by Dino de Laurentiis, who specialized in this sort of thing.

The, I guess the story that I read was that a dealer entas called Luciano. Vincent. Zoney a writer that he collaborated with or worked with quite a, quite a lot in the middle of the night and was like, Hey, we need to do some kind of jaws thing. And the guy had admitted that he had seen jaws and started to research killer whales and found that there’s a lot of subject matter.

There there’s a lot you can play with on the killer whale angle. Maybe even argue that they’re a little more dangerous than great white sharks are. And so they took that and ran with it and came up with what I think. Ends up being I’m more Moby Dick than jaws. Yeah. It has its moments. I was really excited to see this movie just because it’s the film that I grew up hearing a lot about, you know, we just kinda knew it was there.

Maybe it showed up on TV every once in awhile knew about it as this jaws knockoff, I always intended to see and never got to see until now. So, uh, here we are, we’re able to talk about the movie, talk about the score behind it and tribute to Ennio Morricone. How about you, Craig? Had you seen it? No,

Craig: I hadn’t.

Uh, like you said, just like you, I had been aware of it and had thought that it was, you know, kind of a jaws, not. Off whatever killer whale, terrorizing people in this small community. When we were talking about, you know, doing this tribute, you did throw out a couple of things and to be fair to me, I said, we can do whatever you want.

If you want to do another giallo a week. Yeah. I’ve

Todd: been married long enough to know sometimes when people say something

you might want to think twice about, uh, following them down

Craig: now. No, it’s fine. You very graciously said. And I just said, I’ve always been interested in seeing this just because I knew it existed. And I don’t know. I it’s not as though I necessarily. Heard a lot about it. I just knew that it was out there and I just expected that being a jaws knockoff, that it was going to be bad.

And that’s what I said to you. I’m like, dude, pick what you want. Orca is going to be bad. I want to see it eventually, but it’s going to be bad. And then I watched it. And I didn’t think it was that bad. I

Todd: thought it was perfectly fine. I mean, to be honest, you’re absolutely right. It’s probably better than a lot of the sequels to jaws ended up being.

Craig: It is. And really in terms of. A lot of things, really, there were things that I really liked about it. Like there’s a lot of real life whale footage and underwater photography, and it looks really good. And even the fake whales that they use looks shockingly real. Like I read that, uh, they used a couple of big fake.

Rubber, I guess whales. But when they were transporting one of them, they got stopped by animal advocacy groups who thought that they were actually transporting real live animals. That’s how realistic they looked. And they used footage, um, of real whales from like, uh, uh, SeaWorld type place. It wasn’t SeaWorld, but a place like that.

And obviously you can tell that some of the footage, like with the whales jumping out of the water and stuff, you can tell that it’s super imposed over other settings. But for the most part, the whales look surprisingly real. They did have to do a lot of edit cuts for like attack sequences and stuff. And those don’t look so convincing, but yeah.

Other than that, it looks pretty good. And I was surprisingly moved in parts of this. Like there were parts that kind of upset me visually. And, uh, I don’t know. I was just, I was very surprised. I don’t think it’s a great movie. It’s not a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but I was really pleasantly surprised.

I went into it, expecting it to be really bad and it really wasn’t.

Todd: I completely agree with you. And you know, you have some very competent people working on this movie. You’re the director, Michael Anderson is kind of a classic director from the fifties. And, uh, he did Logan’s run the year before this, which is a movie I’ve always enjoyed.

The writer has written a ton of stuff for a few dollars, more the sequel to a fistful of dollars, and then the good, the bad and the ugly. Even up into the eighties, he wrote raw deal, which was a Schwartzenegger action pick. And then of course, you know, it’s a Dino de Laurentiis production. So the production value is pretty good.

It’s, you know, it’s, it’s sort of lower high budget. Good. Right. There’s there’s some stuff it’s kind of fake, but then there’s some surprisingly good scenes and things where you think, okay. Yeah, they clearly spent a bit of money on this one. And then the act heirs, uh, Richard Harris is the star. And, you know, he is just a veteran of even by this point stage and screen and up until he played the Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter movies.

Oh my gosh. That’s

Craig: so funny. I couldn’t figure out where I knew him from and I totally forgotten that he was in

Todd: that. Yeah. Um, great, uh, Irish actor and then, uh, this happens to be Bo Derek’s a screen debut. It’s not the first movie she played in, but the first movie that she played and didn’t get released until after this movie was released.

So, uh, this was her first appearance on the screen and she has a bit part, but she’s, she looks pretty. She looks very pretty. Yeah, it’s really nice. She doesn’t have a lot to do, but she does look pretty. Even Robert Carradine has a small part in here who plays, uh, a guy named Ken. And, uh, I was like, Oh yeah, of course.

He’s one of the carotenes right. I think he’s John Carradine son. Those of us again from the eighties will remember him. He’s the main guy. He’s the main nerd and revenge of the nerds. The dude with a goofy. Oh yeah. Yeah. Gosh, that’s so funny. I had no idea. Yeah. You know, he’s got a blink, almost a blanket if you’d, and you’d miss it roll.

It’s like he’s in the beginning and then you never see him for awhile. And then towards the end he pops in and I was like, who’s that guy? Oh, that’s right. That’s the beginning of the movie,

Craig: he looks very different than he looks in revenge of the nerds. Like he’s so nerdy in that movie, he looks totally different.

I would have never recognized him.

Todd: Yeah. So, I mean, you know, there’s some great stars in this films. Very good stars. And then of course the score Ennio Morricone and it’s a lovely score. I think

Craig: really is. I have to say like the, the movie opens up with just this, uh, with whale song. First of all over the initial opening credits.

And then it’s just a lot of shots of orcas jumping out of the water. You know, ever since the release of Blackfish, I’ve been very, very torn about these. Marine attractions like SeaWorld and stuff. But when I was a kid, my parents took me to sea world. Well, actually we went to Orlando, Florida, and we went to like all of the amusement parks, Disney, universal MGM.

You know, all of these parks, but our favorite by far was SeaWorld. We just absolutely loved it. And we saw the Orca shows and they were amazing to see these enormous. Creatures that could just perform, literally perform these incredible feats, you know, jumping out of the water. And of course this was in the eighties when the, um, trainers were still allowed to swim and perform with them.

So jumping out of the water with a trainer balanced on their nose and, you know, diving off. You know, when they’re at the peak of their jump. And sometimes if you were lucky you would, they would do like meet and greets with the whales and you would get to pet them and stuff. And I think that I got to do that.

I don’t remember. I was a little, little kid, so I don’t remember if I got to like, sit on a dolphin or pet one of the whales or what, but it was just such a. Uh, an amazing experience. And now knowing what I know about the conditions that those animals are kept in, and it’s really quite sad, you know, but yeah, I got, I’m still torn about it because it’s such, it’s one of my fondest childhood memories.

But, uh, anyway, you get all this great footage of them jumping and swimming, underwater scored by this orchestral score. That’s very beautiful and really highlights the beauty of the natural setting and these majestic creatures even had we not been. Thinking about the score, because this was attribute, I would have noticed it because it’s very fitting and it really does the lot to set the mood, not only in the beginning, but in later, like heart-wrenching parts of the movie too,

Todd: I found was great in the very, very beginning.

I mean, one of the first things we see before we would see too much of the whales is, uh, just an oscilloscope, you know, and we hear the sounds of the whales talking to each other as they’re recorded. And there’s a very minimalistic. Kind of score underneath this, that gradually builds to the orchestral score, but I thought it was really neat what he did there, where he used trumpets and the trumpet sound like the whales.

It was a really cool, like a mimicking of the whale sounds with the trumpets. And we don’t hear that again, really, I think in the rest of the movie, but it was a really interesting way to bring the music into that. You know, the film very, very slowly and very gradually. Visual does, we’ve got this bear Sol scope on the screen and then slowly but surely we start to see all this beautiful, wonderful underwater footage and above water.

What is, which I might add? We’re going to see a lot more of it. Yeah. Later here’s one particular shot. And when you watch it, you almost, you have to laugh, especially at the beginning because it’s one of those too good to be true shots where there’s like a sun setting, but it’s kind of dark outside and there.

Two whales at the same time, leap up into the air and arch backwards and go back up, which you can tell is the same shot. It’s just been reversed. Yeah. Like do whales. And you could tell it sort of superimposed over the scene. That was probably shot at like, you know, Marine world or wherever. And then that very same shot gets super imposed, like five more times truly.

In the rest of the movie, but it’s fine because it’s the seventh, it’s the late seventies, it’s the best they could do with what they had. And I thought it was acceptable because there’s so much footage.

Craig: It’s not CGI, frankly. I would rather see that than CGI.

Todd: Exactly. So somebody is recording these sounds, and then we see the beach and there’s a recorder, nice little reel to reel recorder, following a line down into the water.

And then there’s a scuba diver under the water. Who’s going down to either adjust the equipment or maybe retrieve the microphone and a is frightened by a shark. And this shark starts a threatening this diver, and he’s trying to hide from the shark and you think the sharks going to kind of get him and then a boat comes in and sort of scares the shark away.

And the boat is the, the Bumbo. And uh, here on the bumper is our main character. Nolan. Nolan is the grizzled Seafarer dashing in the movie, in his mid forties or whatever, who is out there hunting for each. Is he hunting sharks at this point? Or is he actually legit

Craig: hunting? No, he’s hunting that it’s a great white shark and he’s hunting it, but not to kill it.

He wants to capture it because Marine world or. You know, whatever one of those places, gosh, the best word I can come up with is, has put a bounty out. They, they, they want to capture alive specimen. Uh, and so that’s what, um, he’s trying to do, but he’s interrupted by Ken who’s in a small boat, like a buoy with a motor who comes up and says you can’t shoot at it.

Or, I don’t know if there’s a diver down. Right. Um, and the diver comes up and you kept referring him. Yeah. It’s, it’s a chick. Her name is Rachel and, and she is a scientist. I think, you know, she’s studying the whales. It’s, it’s kind of a weird scene. Like Ken takes her, he pulls her into his little buoy and then he takes her over to the fishing boat and she boards the fishing boat and then he goes, I guess he’s going back to shore.

I don’t know, but something happens and he falls out of the boat.

Todd: Like the way I would fall out of a boat, it just looks super clumsy, but he falls into the water and of course there’s that shark and now it’s dangerous, right? The sharks coming at him and then suddenly out of the blue, this killer whale comes in and takes out the shark.

And I thought this was so great. This is this movie’s like middle finger to jaws. Like, Oh, you think jaws is scary, you know, we’re about to talk. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. It’s and it’s funny. Cause like the, you see the killer whale approaching very quickly and then like it knocks the shark and like shoots it like 40 feet into the air.

Todd: You know, the killer whales in this movie do nothing better than pushing stuff around. Really. They are really good at bumping up against things and pushing them around.

So it’s great,

Craig: but it kills it. And so everybody’s. Fine. And then we cut, like Rachel’s like giving a seminar or something and she’s talking about killer whales and she has a whole monologue, but she talks about how they’re the most powerful animal in the world. But she also makes a point of saying that they have a profound.

Instinct for vengeance

Todd: a couple times, right? Like, Ooh, is this for shadowing or something? I don’t know. Yep. The most amazing

Craig: thing about these creatures is neither their gentleness nor their violence, but their brains slides via scan.

Todd: She shows us picture of this brain of an, or of an Orca as compared to a humans.

And it’s at least as big and. Uh, maybe he’s even got a lot more folds in it, which would indicate pretty, pretty high intelligence, like Moby Dick. You’re going to learn a lot about killer whales in this movie in a very short amount of time. Actually the producer and director and of black fish referenced Orca several times, I guess, in that movie, I don’t remember.

I did see black. It was quite a while ago, but I got in this dialogue there on the, in this article where they were talking about, you know, the misconceptions and the, kind of the balance that you kind of have to have when you approach this, because they’re not called killer whales because they run around and kill things.

It’s because they kill whales. Orca is we’ll actually take down whales bigger than themselves. Sometimes called the wolves of the sea, but also they’re very closely related to dolphins. We all know dolphins are super intelligent. And so there are these lovable aspects of them as well. They are playful.

They do have these sort of family groups. One thing that the movie also emphasize as, as, as we, as we get in, which becomes very, very important is that, um, they will find a mate. For life. Yeah. But that’s not true. It’s not true. Yeah. It’s like the, the, the, actually the males are just like, uh, they basically kind of like dolphins, like they just bang everybody and everything.

And usually not even with their consent. Well, I,

Craig: I, I was actually really fascinated. I was fascinated by this because they made such a point of saying that they’re monogamous and they stay with their same partner and with their families, their whole life. And that’s not true, but I mean, it’s kind of based in reality because they do.

Stay in their own pods, but male orcas stay in their mother’s pod. And then female orcas go outside of their pods to mate, we suppose to avoid inbreeding. But they, I guess science thought that, uh, orcas were monogamous because they stayed with the same women all their life. But. Those are their mothers and sisters that they don’t mate with and, and other females come in and meet with them and then go back to their own pods.

But for the purpose of the movie, it works well and it’s believable. And the whole setup is that this Nolan guy, when he realizes that he’s not going to get his shark and he sees. You know how vicious these killer whales can be. He’s like, Oh, well, okay. Instead I’ll capture a killer whale. They go out looking for them and find them immediately.

But again, it’s this beautiful footage of this pot of whales swimming together. And it is, it’s really majestic to see these huge groups of these normous animals swimming together, you know, surfacing in unity. And, and this is all real footage and it looks really cool. And for the purpose of the movie, because they look so majestic and because we’ve been fed this line about how they stay together, even though it’s a little bit off factually, you know, I felt sentimental about them.

Like, like I didn’t want, I didn’t want this guy to go out and. Hurt, any one of them that even one of his lady, crew members, I think it’s Bo Derek says, you know, they mate for life and he’s like, Oh no, really? I didn’t know that. And she’s like, so if we take one, we could be breaking up a family and he’s just like, Hm, you know, that’s a real head scratcher or

Todd: whatever, but go ahead and load up the syringe.

Yeah.

Craig: Load up the syringe. Uh, and they find the pod and he just kind of very recklessly captain Ahab style, crawls up on the perch and points his harpoon and shoots any grazes, a male. And that it’s an important plot point. Like he takes a chunk out of it’s fin convenient for us. Yeah. Convenient for us.

But the harpoon ends up hitting a female. And I swear, like, I don’t know if you felt the same way, but this almost made me sick, like physically sick. Yeah. It was very brutal. And because I don’t know if this is realistic or not. I do know that whales do vocalize, but in this moment, like this, this whale is screaming.

It upsets, even him even normal. It is like, yeah. And, uh, it’s screaming and it’s thrashing and it gets all tangled up in the rope and the male is looking on and they drag this female in. Well, she

Todd: also. Is like coming up against, uh, the propeller of the boat.

Craig: Yeah. It like, they, they say she’s trying to kill

Todd: herself.

Yeah. I’m not sure about that. That was kind of weird, but yeah, he pulls him up. It pulls her up out of the water. And this is so interesting, the way that this was filmed, where they have this whale up by the tail, you know, hanging and as they’re dragging it over and across. Oh, hanging over the boat. She’s still alive.

She’s a, you know, got in her mouth is moving. And like you said, it’s a pretty realistic and it’s not thrashing around, but it probably wouldn’t be, but it’s just enough, you know, to be realistic enough. And you’re like, Oh God, and there’s blood there and everything. And the mail. Whale, his head is like above water.

Like he’s watching what’s going on and also kind of screaming. And I mean, almost to the point where it was a little cheesy.

Craig: Yes, it definitely was, but it still got me. I mean, you know that I’m an animal lover and just to see an animal in pain and clearly in fear. And I know it’s fake. I know it’s a movie.

But it just kinda, it was a gut punch and then it’s hanging there bleeding, and this part is probably super unrealistic. Um, but it expels it expels an unborn. Fetus, and this is fake. Like it’s totally fake, but it looks real. Like they really did a good job with these effects. Cause it looks real and it expels this fetus.

And when Rachel had been doing her lecture, she had shown pictures. Of a four month old whale fetus. And she had made note of how much it looks like a human fetus. And I have no idea if that’s true, but the picture that she showed it did very much look like a human fetus. And so when the whale expels, it, it doesn’t look like a person, but.

It will, it has some kind of human characteristics and it clearly freaks Nolan out and he’s like, yeah, get it off the boat, get it off, uses a hose to spray it off the boat. But at the same time, God, this is traumatic.

Todd: It is traumatic. And there’s these close-ups on the whales, I, which is another thing we’re going to get a lot more of.

Um, like it’s looking at him and I know at one point, no, one’s face a superimposed in the eye. Like I see you you’ve arrived working, but once again, like you mentioned, the thing that really got me about this scene is this, all of this really disturbs Nolan, like. Clearly, every bit of it has been disturbing him from the moment he harpooned that thing and it started screaming to, they brought it up on board to the reaction of, of the male.

And then this is, which just is like the cherry on top, just flops out unceremoniously, which again, it was kind of silly, but it was just this entire disaster. This guy who’s. Presumably his career is he’s out there. He’s a fishermen, you know, I mean, he’s not experienced with whales obviously, but he’s clearly an experienced guy at harpooning.

Other things. The worst possible thing is happening right in front of him. And it bothers the heck out of him. And I think that did a lot to instantly get on his side in this, it, it did a lot to instantly make him a sympathetic character. I think in this movie, which was essential, really. I think for it going on, like, I didn’t want him to be callous, but he had to be bullied into doing what he needed to do.

It takes some convincing, but it’s not because he didn’t, doesn’t give a crap about animals or at least in this particular circumstance.

Craig: Well, that, that surprised me about the movie because I did expect him to just be this callous guy and I expected like. You know, if there was going to be, you know, this whale that was out for vengeance against him or whatever, that he was just going to be the captain Ahab type that was, you know, hard ass, right.

Me

Todd: against you, we’re going to catch a kind of thing. And

Craig: it, it surprised me and that it’s not that at all, like he’s immediately regretful. Like I already had a preconceived notion of him just from his kind of cocky attitude from the beginning, but then it. Shifts and he’s, he’s clearly remorseful for what he’s done.

He doesn’t really understand the gravity of a at first, but he talks to Rachel about it. And she explains, you know, these deep connections that these whales have and he kind of feels bad. And then they, so the whale is hanging there and then it’s nighttime. And then the male whale starts battering the boat.

And so no one says, is the female still alive? And somebody says, I can’t imagine how, but yes she is. And he’s like drop her back in, you know, get her off the boat. And so they do, but right. As soon as they do the, the boat is already kind of tipped because of the weight of the whale and the barrage of the beatings from the mail.

One of the crew people is hanging from like one of those lookout posts or

Todd: something. I don’t know where it’s like the mast. Yeah. Where he cut her down from, it’s like a horizontal mass. Yeah.

Craig: And the male jumps up and grabs him and kills him. Uh, and. Fine. Not eat some, but grabs him and he’s dead. Yeah.

Todd: Bites them right off the side and T you know, takes them down. Oh. And, and I think this is the point actually where the male surfaces again, and looks at Nolan and no one’s face is in his eye. And Nolan looks at the whale and he kind of realizes, Oh my God, you know, it’s goofy.

Craig: But for this type of movie, it worked like every day.

Todd: Cause the next scene, the next scene is long. And it’s basically sinus coming up and this whale is pushing the female along. And the music here is almost like a funeral

Craig: dirge

Todd: Oh my God. And it, and it, this is so long and so dramatic and actually so well filmed, I thought, I thought it was never.

Craig: Sad. It felt like a funeral because the male is pushing the female, but the rest of the pod is with him. It felt like a few. Now I have no idea of anything. No, that’s a lie. I was going to say, I have no idea.

If anything like this really happens, it does whales do mourn their dead. There was a recorded instance of a mother whale who had given birth. And I don’t remember if the. If the calf was still born or if it died soon after birth, but she pushed it for, I think. Hundreds of miles on the migration. Um, and scientists had no idea why she would do that.

And they just eventually came to the conclusion that she was mourning and like, Oh, it’s deep. And you know, as I eat my cheeseburgers every day, I try not to think about. Animals having those kind of feelings, but clearly some of them do and, uh, the way that they treat it with the cinematography and the score it’s emotionally impactful.

I was moved.

Todd: Yeah. I mean, your cheeseburger had a mom. I know,

Craig: but what I, what I was getting to about Nolan, uh, feeling guilty, he talks to Rachel and she explained some of these things to him, but then he goes to the crew member’s funeral and he talks to a priest. What I was meaning to ask you, like, can you commit a sin against an animal? You can commit a sin against a blade of grass.

Sins are really against oneself. From that point on, he understands kind of the weight of what he has done. Plus he’s reminded because the whales coming to get him.

Todd: Exactly. Well, they, he ends up here on the shore where the whale had basically beached, uh, the female. And so they’re in this kind of fishing town and he’s docked there and you meet the doctor and he meets the priest, but he also meets a guy named Jacob who’s.

Probably a native of the area or something. Maybe that’s the idea anyway, but he’s will Samson who I know. Yeah. From Poltergeist two and a one flew over the Cuckoo’s nest, I was just instantly recognizable and I thought, Oh yeah, this is this guy. Who’s in all these movies. And I went to IMD B and I’m like, no, he has actually not been in a lot of movies.

He’s just been in like, Three or four high profile films. Huh?

Craig: Yeah. I recognized him right away. Uh he’s he’s chief Brompton and one flew over the Cuckoo’s nest. I mean, that’s, that’s an amazing movie and amazing role. And I really enjoyed him in Poltergeist too. Yeah, me too. He doesn’t have a whole lot to do here, except for that.

He can tell Nolan some of the natives. Mythology about, uh, these killer whales

Todd: and I’ll be happy memories and more about how they have vengeance and all that

Craig: stuff. And he tells them if I were you, I would stay far from this territory. But, uh, he doesn’t and, and the Harbor master comes and talks to him too.

I assume it’s the Harbor master his name’s Al Swain. He says he’s in charge around these parts or whatever, the local

Todd: fisherman’s union.

Craig: Yeah. And he warns him. Like, it’s interesting how he approached him because he’s not outwardly threatening, but. His meaning is very clear and he warns him that some people around here think that Orca is in the area will drive away their fish, which is their livelihood.

Basically what he’s telling him is get the hell out of here. You know, like you brought this scourge on us. Get it out of here. And immediately after that, we see that the Orca is in the Harbor and it comes up and just destroys all of the fishing boats except. Except for Nolan’s.

Todd: Yeah, crazy. Right. It punches holes in the bottom of a ball.

It’s crazy. The scene. Once again, they’re not coming, going after him, like with pitchforks and trying to get him out of there. It’s like just strongly suggested that he leave. And a little bit later on the Al guy says to him, we decided we’re going to fix up your boat first. Uh, so that you can, uh, take off, he ends up kind of drunk and he’s, you know, he’s kind of trying to figure out what to do because they’re burying the whale.

I guess they want him to leave. In the meantime, he has a discussion with, with her and then the guy says, Hey, the whale was spotted up by the North. Point Rachel, you know, says, don’t go to North point. Don’t go up there while he goes up there to

Craig: after he was like, uh, no, I totally won’t the very next CD’s there.

This scene of any of them I thought was kind of silly, but I still didn’t hate it. Like. Dark. And there’s just a red light on the end of the dock. And like, he, he looks out and he doesn’t see anything. So he turns around and then he hears a splash. So he turns back and that happens. Like

Todd: it goes a

Craig: long while and then he turns back and he finally sees it. And it’s. Surfaces and it screams at him. Like it gives

Todd: him the stink eye again

Craig: and just, you know, the orcas head sticking up out of the dark water illuminated by this red light screaming at him. And I think again, you kind of see Nolan’s.

Reflection in his eyes. It’s, it’s heavy handed, but I don’t know. It didn’t bother me. I was into this movie

Todd: and there’s a quick cut of a car going off the road. That’s just pops in and pops out. And then we’re in the next scene where he wakes up the next morning and I was like, car went off. What was this about the car going off the road?

And then I realized, Oh, it must be some. Vision or some flashback or something we’re going to get, it’s going to be explained later, he wakes up in the home in which he is staying in, which is a house that’s completely up on stilts over the outside edge of the shore. And the minute I swear to you, the minute I saw him, because this is the thing that I’m always thinking about in these jaws.

Killer whale movies is like, you know, if you don’t go on the water, you’re absolutely

Craig: fine out of the water. You dumb ass,

Todd: you know? So the minute I saw that they were in this house on stilts, over the sea, I was like, Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, I see where this is going to go. I’m sure that somehow the whale’s gonna attack this house and I wasn’t disappointed, but first he comes out of the house and stands out there and Jacob tells him he really should go hunt the whale because everyone’s super pissed at

Craig: him.

There’s a really funny story about like Will’s voodoo doll. Yeah. They have this shaman. So a small skin whale, and Stephanie with deliverers of birds, they make this water on it and throw it into the sea. With some words, if all has been done, right. The monster spirit flies out. Let me smell and he was dead.

I was hoping for that scene, but they don’t do that.

Well, then there’s a silly scene where Nolan like sets up a dummy of himself at the end of the pier. And it says, though, he’s going to shoot it. But Rachel shows up and says, Oh no, you can’t do this. The whale wants to, he’s not going to show up because he wants to fight.

Todd: That he’s going to go look the way on the, I apologize.

You said they were intelligent. I I’m just going to wait until these services. I’m going to look him in the eye and apologize. No, Pete steps. My apologies.

Craig: Oh gosh, that was so like, he was going to shoot it, but then he realized he didn’t want to sit. He just wanted to talk to it. Like some point later in the movie. It’s implied that he could like understand the whale now, like she asks him like, what is he thinking? And he’s like, he’s thinking this, like he can understand, but it’s really funny.

But it turns out that he wants to apologize because he says the same thing happens to me. He understands why the whale is so angry because the same thing happened to him. His wife. Was pregnant. I was pregnant. Yeah. And on her way to the hospital, I guess, to give birth, she was killed by a drunk driver. So it explains why he was so upset by that whole fetus episode, but how convenient, right?

Oh gosh, super convenient. But he does. I mean, he’s. He legitimately feels bad. Okay. And then the Orca blows up the whole town.

Todd: He knows, he just knows how everything works. You just services out of the water and knock some gas pipes away, which, you know, run around, I guess, to some buildings. And then he bangs the bottom of another building. A lantern fall down and light it up. But not only does it just, actually, this was a cool scene, right?

Because it’s all practical. It just flames are just going all across the entire Bay and everything. That’s there right up the mountain to where there’s like oil refinery or something. Right. Thing, completely explodes.

Craig: And the whale just revels in it. Like it’s out off the coast, like jumping out of the water, like it’s so happy.

Todd: Arching through the air kind of thing that we saw earlier. Super

Craig: he’s really proud of himself. Like he blew up the whole tap. Oh

Todd: man.

Craig: So the Harbor asked guy or the lead fishermen or whatever shows up or no, he calls him in a very ominous call and says your boat will be done in the morning. You and your crew need to get out of here.

And if you don’t, there’s going to be trouble, basically. So Nolan tells the crew to get out of town. And one of them, the guy goes off to like fuel up the car or something. I don’t know. And Nolan called me Rachel and tells him that he’s going to go after the whale. And then she somehow talks him out of it.

Like it’s a whole psychology thing. Like. I didn’t even get it. Like, I kind of lost her train of thought, like he’s just dangerous and angry. And like, who do you owe more to the whale? Are these towns people? And he’s like, Oh, I guess the whale, like what I like, you know,

Todd: Yeah, it was weird. It was so weird because it, you know, early and he even says this, you know, earlier you were trying to tell me that, you know, I need to go out and, you know, make events with it and whatever.

And she’s like, well earlier I just told you that because I didn’t think you were remorseful enough. Yeah, but I didn’t really mean it now that I see you’re remorseful, I’m telling you, you shouldn’t go. It was, it was dumb, but you know, she’s going to be along for the ride. And then Jacob just kind of offhandedly offers that he can, he can help too.

He tells the, uh, who’s this guy, we haven’t even mentioned this

Craig: guy, Ken it’s, um, Paul.

Todd: Played by Peter Hooton. Yeah. Paul, the male crew member. Who’s kind of banging in bodark Nick’s character the whole time. He runs into Jacob at the gas thing and Jacob’s like, look, you’ve got to tell him he’s got to get out of town and I’ll even go with you guys to help out

Craig: well, but the townspeople aren’t going to just let them leave.

Like they’re, they’re forcing them to leave. On the boat because they want them to take the whale with them. Right. Paul is trying to gas up the car so that he can take Bo Derek

Todd: and

Craig: take it out there, but they’re not going to let them go. And Jacob says he has to fight it, but I’ll help if you want. And then the whale attacks.

The house, which I assumed that he would. And I was surprised that he hadn’t already, he knocks out the supports underneath. I don’t remember the girl’s name is Annie Bo. Derek is Annie. And, um, she had been injured before when the whale, it like hit the boat. She had broken her ankle or something. So she’s in a cast.

So the house is. Tilted because the supports have been knocked out. So it’s tilted down towards the ocean and she is sliding down and they try to rescue her, but the whale jumps up and bites her leg and then celebrates

Todd: again.

Craig: And, and then Nolan very dramatically said

Todd: Oh, it’s so dramatic, but it’s cool. It’s cool. Dramatic. I mean, it’s exactly what you expected. There were two things here, first of all. Once again, like the production value of this movie was pretty high to have this very elaborate. Um, and I think, well filmed and very tense scene of them. I knew she was going to get it.

I actually, I thought the whale was just going to Chomper. This movie has no qualms killing people off. And that was, you know, that was refreshing.

Craig: And I thought she was dead because the attack scenes are very brief. They’re super, super quick because they have to do interesting things with. Cutting because obviously, you know, they’re not filming real wheels, attacking people.

So they’re very quick cuts. I saw that it got. That it chomped her. And I just assumed that she was dead, but he says later Nolan says later, like three people dead and one poor girl named for the rest of her life or whatever. So she’s

Todd: not dead. The other thing, you know, speaking to the score is there’s an interesting choice being made here.

You know, the jaws score is pretty iconic because it really builds this tension. Every time jaws is coming, there’s that dah, dah, dah dah data. And you’d think that a movie that’s kind of ripping off jaws would really try it out. Up that overdramatized, especially because this score does go into this sort of dramatic territory in these quiet and nice scenes.

But here, when the, when the whale is coming, all we hear are whale sounds and this kind of minimalist, um, It’s like a screeching or scratching over, I don’t know, steel drums or

Craig: something.

Todd: why is it the piano? I’m not sure exactly what it is and it’s repeated multiple times through the movie, but, um, I think it was a good choice. I mean, at least. It made the movie stand out a little bit, made it a little different from jaws. I don’t know. I think one could argue that maybe there’s not as much suspense in this movie that maybe it’s not as suspenseful as it could be.

Craig: I don’t know. I think, I think it’s fair that it may not be that suspenseful, but. It’s it’s fast paced. Like it, it’s never boring for sure. It moves, you know, me and my attention span, as we’ve said a million times for me, the biggest sin of a movie, any movie, but especially a horror movie is if it’s boring and this movie is not boring, it moves and moves.

I mean the next, so then the next day they leave. And the orcas shows up and there’s some stupid dynamite accident that I don’t even understand. Like, I didn’t understand that either like Nolan, Nolan, he, they, they find the whale or the whale finds them or whatever. And then he’s going to throw some dynamite in the water.

No, I don’t. I don’t know if. That was to disable the whale. I mean, I know that unethical people fish that way, you know, because the shockwaves stun or killed the fish, but Rachel, like, won’t let him, so she’s like fighting him and she knocks the dynamite back onto the boat and then she has to run and it ends up in the water anyway, and nothing comes of it.

So, yeah. It’s just kind of stupid. I don’t know. But then I loved this part. Like the whale. I couldn’t figure out what it was doing. Like it taunts them, like it’s, it’s putting it in. Tail fin up above the water and like waving at them. And then it puts its, you know, side fin up and is like waving at them.

But apparently no one can understand it now. And it knows that it’s telling them just to follow them to follow it.

Todd: It’s so hilarious. It’s it’s cartoonish, right?

Craig: It is it’s silly, but whatever I was totally down and then I don’t know, Ken is like, In the lifeboat, for some reason that I didn’t understand, and the whale jumps up and eats hand.

And so I keep saying, eat it does it just comes to them. And then the, the whale, like Rachel and Nolan are in the. Underbelly or whatever you call it of the boat and they can hear the whale song. And like I said before, it’s just like, what is it thinking? And he’s like, he’s saying, you’re my drunk driver.

Yeah. Like, he totally understands why it’s mad at him. Yeah.

Todd: The notion, the whole thing here is that he’s kind of also getting obsessive and crazy, you know, it’s, it’s the most dickish kind of thing. And then the other crew members kind of play this up too. Like Paul talks to Rachel and says, you’re getting to be as crazy as Nolan once again, for reasons I don’t quite understand.

And then he kind of puts together. He says, no one says, Oh, it’s leading us up North. I mean they’re, they must be going on for days just following this whale. And even after it’s killed one of their crew members and Paul mentions, you know, Hey, do you know if no one radioed in that, that Ken was killed because surely they would have, you know, required us to turn back and just store.

And we haven’t yet, but he somehow puts together, Oh, the whales leading us up North to where their ice flows to take us into this waters where it’s going to damage our ship. But then he also says, Ah, but he’s not as smart as I thought he was, because if he goes there and he’s going to be underneath the ice, he won’t be able to surface and to breathe.

Craig: Okay. But they keep following him and like, it is silly. It doesn’t make any sense. And I really don’t know where they started out, but they very quickly get into Arctic waters with icebergs everywhere. And as silly as that may be, it looks fantastic. And I was, I was. You know, it was a great place for the final act of, of this piece.

And it looks, uh, it looks treacherous. Jacob talks about Jacobs with them, by the way, he talks about how they’re, they don’t have enough fuel to get back. And Nolan’s like, well, once it’s all done, you guys can call for a helicopter or whatever. Rachel’s like, what do you mean you guys can call back? And he just looks on I’m honestly, like he knows he’s not.

You’re going to survive this or whatever. Right. And so there’s. Tons of, uh, icebergs and stuff. And Nolan tells he doesn’t tell a story, but he just says that in his attempt to capture the shark and in his attempt to capture the whale, all he wanted to do was raised enough money to go back home because he realized that the sea life.

It wasn’t for him or whatever. And he says, tomorrow will be the day, you know, prophetically. And then he says like, obviously the whale loved his family more than I loved mine. Okay.

Todd: I can write this off a little bit. And just by saying, he’s just going a little crazy, right? So his stupidity of it is maybe just Nolan going crazy and being stupid. I’ll, I’ll be generous enough to the writer to, to say that they get into some issue right there going through the ice flows or whatever they’re re ramming into things.

And Paul decides he’s going to split. I guess he starts, he goes up to one of the hanging lifeboats and he starts tossing things onto it. Isn’t

Craig: that? Didn’t I already say that. Didn’t I say he got

Todd: eaten. Sure. I thought you were talking about Ken. Ken got eaten the first time, right? Who gets eaten first?

Paul or Ken? I can’t remember. They both get eat about the same way they’re in some lights that then. The Orca comes up and eats them

Craig: on this particular outing. Only whichever one of them is not already eaten. It gets eaten well. And I don’t know if it’s Paul or Ken, but I was reading, you know, like in the trivia or whatever, that it’s ironic, that can get killed by the whale because the whale had rescued him from the shark.

Oh yeah. You’re in the movie.

Todd: The whale doesn’t like him anymore.

Craig: He rescued him earlier, but now he’s like, screw you. If you’re going to hang out with my arch nemesis. And so the morning comes and Jacob is like, he holds a gun on Nolan and he’s like, we’re going back or whatever. But then the Orca pushes an iceberg. Slow.

And Nolan’s like, get me the harpoon. He has to come up for air and he does it. It’s, uh, a hand a hand held like spear harpoon, like surely they don’t even really make those anymore. Who is. Who is harpooning whales with handheld Spears, Nolan, apparently. Um, but he, he does harpoon it like right above its head and it cries, but then the iceberg hits the boat.

Jacob is crushed and killed by falling ice from the iceberg. The boat, totally sinks and Nolan and Rachel jump onto like an ice float and what I was thinking, it was like, it really doesn’t matter how this turns out at this point, because you’re dead. Like, what are you going to do? Floating on? Like this 15 by 15 ice float in the Arctic ocean.

Nobody knows you’re there late. The whale can get you, or you can freeze to death. Like, these are your

Todd: options. We know he’s dead, but we also know Rachel’s going to be alive because we’ve been hearing Rachel narrate every now and then the whole thing, the whole thing. Yeah. Which was kind of annoying. I thought that sheep and the movie a little bit, like she just said there was nothing that she said that wasn’t already obvious, uh, distinctly didn’t need to happen, but yeah, but this part, I mean, it was so classic adventure movie, right.

I loved it. That’s what I loved about it. Like, yeah. I’d like now we’re on the ice flow. I can, they’re running around. And the whales poking bashing up through the bottom and they’re running. And then like, they get kind of on land to this ice cave, but he slips and falls down a back onto the ice float, which cracks away.

And the, and the whale pushes him on this ice flow almost again, like, like, like a Looney tunes, cartoon, you know, this one guy’s out on this sheet of ice it’s floating away and he can’t get back on the land. And then. It comes up and it comes over the edge. And I just looked, I was watching this with my wife and she was like, ah, yeah, in the whale.

Yeah. Politically tips this thing up on its edge. And he slides down at like a slide and I thought it was going to be straight into the whale’s mouth or something, you know, I did too, but it didn’t happen. He falls in the water.

Craig: What I was thinking like as, as old timey adventure movie, as this was. These killer whales are super smart and they do this shit.

I have seen actual footage of them doing this. Like they will get sea lions or whatever. You know, trapped on these ice floats and then their entire pods will organize and we’ll systematically like swim at them to tip them off. And it’s crazy. They are really smart and they are ruthless killer. I mean, they’re hunters, it’s its nature there, you know?

They need to eat too. It’s just crazy how innovative they can be. So as, as cartoonish as this looks, I was like, yeah, that, that will, could really do

sure. But it gets him down into the water and then it’s circling him and it uses its tail to throw it up. Out of, to throw Nolan up out of the water against an ice wall and he dies and sinks into the water. And I thought, Oh, well, that was silly too. And then I was reading. I think they do that too. Oh really?

Yes. They do that to see lions and stuff. Stuff, they will flip them out of the water with their tails against rocks or icebergs or whatever to stun or kill them. And then they’ll eat them. Isn’t that crazy?

Todd: The dolphins also like kill sea lions somehow, and then play with their corpses, like bat them around like, like balls.

Yeah,

Craig: they’ll straight up rape you.

Todd: Oh, well really I’ve swung with a

Craig: diamond. I haven’t had the experience, but they will,

Todd: will don’t turn your back on a dolphin. I don’t

Craig: know, but he dies and sinks into the water. And then the whale looks at Rachel with a tear and it’s out literally. Yes, let’s do it. And then it, it leaves it lets her go and a helicopter arrives.

Uh, what well, helicopter

Todd: coverup there was, you know, earlier Jacob had called an SOS or a may day, and he had said, I’m going to put it on auto repeat or something. So I think the implication is some time between him doing that. And the five minutes later, when the boat sunk, it was enough to call somebody.

So, uh, so yeah, but yeah, you’re right. That comes over. And then the last bit is a cool bit of underwater photography where the whale is. You know, going under the ice and his, some of his POV, you have him POV of from him. And some of it is of him. And it kind of looks like the whales trying to get up through the ice, but CAD.

And because earlier we had heard. You know, Nolan surmised that the whale might get trapped under the ice and not be able to get up. The implication that I got was that maybe the whale to also do

Craig: well, I read that that was supposed to be the implication, but my feelings about it were that it was. So distraught, like by this series of events that it intentionally killed itself.

That’s that’s that, that was how I, so it

Todd: could join it’s wife and son and heaven.

Craig: Okay. I guess I hope so. I don’t know that poor whale, the poor whale is the victim in this whole thing. I mean, that was seriously, that scene was traumatic than the. Him just there in the water, helpless watching his mate, you know, in, in such a horrifying circumstance.

I re like it really tugged at my heartstrings.

Todd: It’s so funny when we, when we talk about these movies, Craig, in this violence towards animals, w we’ll just kind of breeze right through. Yeah. So, you know, we’re at hostel and the guys, you know, teamed up and his arm gets cut off and they take pliers to his balls and rip out this girl’s eyes and move on it.

Tugs at your heartstrings, like, uh, this dog getting kicked across a room might. So

Craig: for the most, most part animals, you know, they don’t do anything to deserve it. Those Bedlam or hostel movies are all kind of jerks out scare what happens to them. But, um, these whales were just minding their business. They weren’t hurting anybody.

Todd: He really awaiting the birth of their, their new site so that dad could go leave him and. To his own pot and rape a few other whales. I,

Craig: uh, I have to say, I was really pleasantly surprised by this movie. I enjoyed it and I didn’t expect to at all, if anything, I thought, Oh, this will be really fun to talk about.

Cause it’ll be so bad. We’ll have fun goofing on it. And then I was watching him like, I actually kinda liked this. And like you said, it, I do think it’s better than some of the jaws sequels.

Todd: Yeah. I mean, it was bad in, in, in many ways though, but it overcame that with just, and, and you know, now that we’ve talked about this and I think we’re going to get comments tomorrow because we have been kind of really hitting the.

Fun parts and really talking about how cool some of these set pieces in these scenes are and how emotional some of the bits are, and kind of glossing over the fact that in between all of that, it can be a bit of a slog. It does move, but there are, there’s a lot of downtime of just kind of brooding and thinking, you know, talking about the whale and talking

Craig: no more so than in jaws.

Yeah, I would, I would say that maybe even, maybe even then in jaws, like the action jaws is a great movie and I am not trying to disparage it in any way, but the action with the shark. Until the end is kind of few and far between, um, and here stuff is happening all the time. Yes. There are moments and scenes of talking that are somewhat unnecessary.

Cause it’s not like we don’t understand what’s going on. But I have to disagree with you on that part. I didn’t feel that way at all. Jaws.

Todd: The first one though, is it’s a smarter movie. And so I think that those bits in between are more compelling. And in this movie, if you’re not, it’s more character driven.

Yeah. Yeah. And in this movie, if you’re not buying into it, like we were, and if you’re not willing to just forego some of the cheesiness and you can’t really get over that. Then I think you probably would think that these bits in between are dumb and slow, you know? Fair enough. But, so, yeah, I just want to put that out there because people are probably going to comment on it that, you know, it really just depends on what you’re willing to deal with to put up with and the mindset you’re in.

I like you thought it was a lot of fun and in many ways, just a very classic adventure story. These set big set pieces that they had. Um, I too was pleasantly surprised. I thought it would be way stupider and way more eye rolling than it is. And, you know, I think a lot of pieces go into that. Obviously the acting is, is pretty, is pretty great.

Yep. And it was fun to see these actors that we know and that we love the story was interesting and different from jaws, which made it good. Yeah. It wasn’t. Yeah. Super exploitative, I would say, um, it had some strong character elements to it. And once again, a great score, uh, to lift it up, uh, that you just can’t say a bad thing about, so a fitting tribute, I think, to any  for, for this

Craig: year.

Agreed. I very much enjoyed it.

Todd: All right. Well, thank you very much for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. You can find us online, just search for two guys in a chainsaw. Find our Facebook page, our homepage, two guys at red 49. Leave us a comment there. I’ll give us some requests, which you’d like us to do.

And we have at least one more tribute episode coming up before we might get to some quests. We might get to some other steam episodes. We’re just not sure. So let us know what you want. We always enjoy chatting and talking with you until next time. I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Thanks to Hailee for submitting a request for this week’s tribute to Joel Schumacher, who passed away last year. Stylistically, Flatliners in some ways is the quintessential 90’s movie, including this ensemble of young up-and-coming stars at their prime. Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, with even a Baldwin brother thrown in there for good measure.

Flatliners (1990)

Episode 244, 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. We continue our tributes, the reef this month by paying tribute. You to a director, who’s put out some very notorious films over the years, definitely made his stamp on cinema and has had a very, very interesting past.

His name is Joel Schumacher and he died of a heart attack last year. And today’s film that we’re reviewing is a request from one of our listeners, Hailey. She wanted us to do Flatliners. Now, Flatliners, I think is one of those films that Joel Schumacher did just before he started doing Batman movies, I think.

And. I believe it was Kiefer Sutherland that called this movie St. Elmo’s funeral or the breadth

Craig: breakfast club dies. Yeah.

Todd: And you can kind of see why this is, this is sort of like a nineties brat pack movie. It certainly doesn’t start any of the original brat pack, but it’s got Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin bacon, Oliver.

What’s his name? Oliver Platt Pratt Oliver. Oliver Platt and one of the Baldwins. Yeah. And, uh, so you know, these guys, especially, um, this was a few years after Joel Schumacher did the lost boys and we have reviewed the lost boys in the spoon on the show before. And, uh, we had nothing but great things to say about it.

It was certainly his previous work with Kiefer Sutherland. I think that brought, that helped him bring Kiefer Sutherland back into this movie to do. A very good role. I think this, he said that the reason that he chose Kiefer Sutherland for this role was just his intensity coming through as sort of our main protagonist, if you will, of this, otherwise, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a ensemble film really.

Craig: Yeah, well, and, and Schumacher and Sutherland worked together several more times after this, too. I think that they must have had a really positive working

Todd: relationship. Yeah. You know, I, I’ve always known the name, Joel Schumacher. I’ve known that he’s done a lot of movies when I was going through his Uber guar man.

So many of these movies, um, were not only mainstream heads, but some of them have really left a profound impact on me. He did a Batman forever. Which, you know, Tim Burton did the first two Batman movies and Tim Burton really is credited, I think could be credited with bringing superhero movies really back into the mainstream.

After Superman. He just took Batman. The idea of the dark night. And really gave a style to that movie. And remember, God, remember that movie when it came out, it was huge. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it was an event and it was also a superhero movie, like we’d never seen before. And certainly Batman, like most of us had never seen him before on screen, dark and brooding.

And the style that he brought to that film was just incredible. Then he followed it up with Batman returns and Batman returns. He was given a hundred percent creative control over that. Tim Burton was, and it didn’t turn out so well for him. Um, it just wasn’t as popular. It wasn’t as highly regarded. It didn’t make as much money.

Although I think it’s a great movie, actually. I really like it. I do too. Then the reins were handed over to Joel Schumacher for the third one, Batman forever and yeah. Once again, he just added a whole new style to the franchise with Batman forever. Jim Carrey was the Riddler in that one. And I remember just really enjoying that, really enjoying the style that he brought to it that still had some of that darkness, but add a little bit of comedy and color to it.

I felt like. Anyway, it struck a pretty good balance. And I haven’t seen that movie in ages, but I do remember

Craig: liking it. I remember enjoying it at the time, but if we’re going to be honest, I feel like Joel Schumacher is kind of credited with killing the Batman franchise for the time. Certainly

Todd: was with the followup to that.

Right. Batman and Robin, which was. A nightmare of a movie. I mean, you’re right. Is, is actually put on the list as one of the worst films ever. I don’t think it deserves that,

Craig: but, but it was really goofy, like really goofy, you know, that was the whole nipples on the bats and Arnold Schwartzenegger dropping one liners every five seconds.

Like it. It’s like, there are things that I enjoyed about it. I remember enjoying Uma Thurman has poison IV. It was okay. But it was very different. It was, it was very light and kind of hokey, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. I just think that it moved so far away from Burton’s image that it just kind of left a bad taste in people’s mouth and it really did kind of kill the franchise for awhile.

It

Todd: really did. And, uh, and it was like a total. Cash grab. It seemed purposely to take it in a direction that they could sell toys,

Craig: right? Oh, absolutely. And they did. And they partnered with McDonald’s and had a happy meal toys and the like, yeah. I mean, it was a total marketing deal, but.  but that’s Hollywood, you know, and, and Joel, Schumacher Schumacher is a Hollywood director, like you said, lost boys.

He also did St. Elmo’s fire, which I haven’t seen since I was a kid. I remember thinking was edgy

Todd: was for the time, you know, I saw it when I was in college, which was, you know, many years after it came out and I didn’t feel like it aged too well. In fact, the movie really irritated me, but for its time, anyway, it made a lasting impression and it had a killer theme song

Craig: and he wrote that too.

Oh, I didn’t know. He wrote that. So, um, but then after, right after Flatliners, he did dying young, which he, which was a big hit movie, but it was a total like depressing, you know, Kleenex type movie. And, um, he even said that he really didn’t feel like he was the right director for it, but he did it as a favor to Julia Roberts because he had so enjoyed working with her on this movie.

And then he did other. Movies that I enjoyed falling down with Michael Douglas. Fantastic in kind of a dark movie, but, but quite good. Uh, the client, I liked, um, eight millimeter with Nick cage. I think it was, was pretty good. Eight

Todd: millimeter. No, I mean, eight millimeter was good, but for, you know, that was one of the movies that had a deep, emotional impact on me.

I mean, it’s super dark, super dark felt like I had to take a shower afterwards. I thought about it for weeks. Um, I don’t even know if I’ll ever go back and watch eight millimeter again, it was so disturbing.

Craig: I don’t remember. What was it about? Was it about snuff films? Is that what it was about? Yes.

Todd: Nicholas cage, snuff films. He just goes into super dark territory and really never lets up. It’s really depressing.

Craig: Last one that he did, that I was familiar with was the live action musical film, musical of the Phantom of the opera, which. I don’t remember being a fan of, but I’m not really a big fan of that show.

So it doesn’t really surprise me, but it was huge. Like it was a big production, um, and a big deal when it came out, you believe

Todd: that this guy got his start with like musicals and stuff. Like he was a costume designer. Oh really? Yeah. He did some costume design then production design. Um, I think he wrote a screenplay for the, of course line that never actually got produced.

He wrote the Wiz. Yeah. He wrote the screenplay for the Wiz and he wrote carwash, which is kind of a comedy that came out before that. And one of, one of Mr T’s first and only starring roles, uh, was a movie called DC cab, which totally bombed, but that’s kind of interesting. Um, but he had a really depressing childhood.

I think he had just a horrible like parents as far as, um, his father died when he was four. Um, and then his mother raised him in long Island and during his youth, like he started drinking alcohol. By the time he was nine, he was using LSD. Math graduated from Parsons school of design and studied the fashion Institute of technology.

And he became a designer for Revlon in 1966. This is how he started out and he was super in debt. By the time his mother died, uh, and lost, had lost teeth weighed really nothing. He was just wasting away from drugs. Then just, you know, kind of decided to get a self-worth as quote and I’m reading from Wikipedia here.

I got myself respect back, getting a good day’s pay for a good day’s work. And he just became a costume designer on a bunch of movies, a few, a Woody Allen movie sleeper, and just kind of worked his way up. And, uh, after he took over as the director of the incredible shrinking woman, replacing John Landis who left the movie after they cut the budget for it, he was at least had a directing job and it was St.

Elmo’s fire. That he wrote and directed that gave him the regular steady work that, uh, kind of rocketed him through. Um, what we now know is  so very, very good, interesting guy, more interesting than I ever realized, because I think he’s been pretty quiet and secretive about his life more or less, but yeah.

So here we are, we’re doing Flatliners and it’s great that Hayley, uh, happened to request this movie. Nah, uh, around the time that, um, that he died. So, uh, we’re happy to do this as a request and also as a tribute. And, uh, I do remember watching this movie once when I was in high school, this was kind of one of those, I think it was more or less one of those rental store staples.

I know that at a lot of parties, I went to friends, had rented it and we’d watched it and we talked about it every now and then what I had remembered from the movie having not seen it in what, 30 years it’s been 30 years is that it was just. Really dark and really, um, depressing and gloomy. And I remembered it anyway as being maybe even.

Deep and a little hard to follow, at least from my teenage brain or whatever, watching it now. I agree it is dark and gloomy, but it’s certainly not hard to follow. No, in fact, it’s quite straightforward and that might be one of my major criticisms with it is it’s, it’s really exploring some very. Deep territory, but it doesn’t actually seem to go that deep on it.

Like it doesn’t have so much to say about the subject of life after death. It’s just a little more campy and it would probably come across as more campy. If the acting wasn’t so good and the production, wasn’t just so super stylized. I think, uh, if it weren’t for those two things, this would come across, you know, at its core, the, the plot of this is, is pretty camp.

That’s what I would say. I’ll

Craig: agree with you. I remember when it came out too, I remember just like, this was one of those movies. It was like, it was a cool movie. Like it was really cool. And like all these, these people that were in it, I didn’t realize that this came out the same year as pretty woman. I was thinking that Julia Roberts was already a little bit.

More well-established as a great, big, huge star too. Pretty woman. I mean, she had worked before that, but that, that established her as, as this huge movie star, but Kiefer Sutherland had been working for a while and of course comes from an acting families, dads. Very famous too. And, um, Kevin bacon had been around for a while.

The Baldwins were, you know, a famous family. All of her plat stands out a little bit as maybe not being, maybe not having the same kind of clout that these guys had, but a very good actor, nonetheless. Um, and like you said, it is, it, that’s what I thought. I like it kinda like a new nineties brat pack. But not

or the behind the scenes stuff of this too, you know, like, um, Kiefer Sutherland and Julia Roberts started a love affair. And like, they were this Hollywood kind of it couple for a second and they were going to get married. And then she called off the wedding at the last minute. So there was a lot of drama going on there, but it was just a cool movie and it was.

I don’t know. It’s just kind of an interesting concept because. It doesn’t specifically adhere to any genre formula. Um, there are definitely horror elements, but there are also scifi elements. It’s also very much a human drama. Um, of all of these people dealing with their demons in the literally I guess, and figuratively, but they were all young and sexy, like Kiefer Sutherland.

Yeah, just a sexy guy. I mean, he still is. He’s just kind of got this charisma, this dark charisma about him, William Baldwin. I mean, all of them, they’re just these, these beautiful people in this interesting environment. And like you said, the production value is so good. It’s very. Nineties lately. So nineties, which is great and lots of really cool work with the cinematography amazing set design, like set design to the point where it’s unbelievable that they would always be in these amazing occasions.

Yes. Surrounded by this Gothic, incredible architecture and statues. And. Artwork. And like it’s saying

Todd: it’s a medical school, like in a museum

and it was filmed in Chicago. And I think the, um, the, yeah, mostly in Chicago, of course the interiors were mostly sets I believe, but, you know, loyal. Loyola university there on the Lake. And I think it’s meant to evoke some of the grand architecture of the old world’s fair exhibition area that, you know, was there exterior shots and, and it’s just, it’s so Gothic.

Right. And the settings are. Let’s see the room where they do all this flat lining and we’re even where they are dissecting cadavers. It just evokes like a church. Oh gosh. Yeah. And their images and frescoes on the wall of God and their gargoyles and big statues of angels and things looking over them like, like they’re somewhere where the stuff that they’re dealing with is really larger than life and holier than them.

Whereas the same time the lighting is just, it is maybe the extreme example of this teal and orange thing that is it’s so cliche, right? This teal and orange kind of go back and forth this movie it’s, that’s all it is. There’s almost no daylight in this movie. Everything either takes place at dusk or at night time.

And the screen is either a wash in teal or. Orange. And sometimes both that plus the architecture and the sets that they’re in and that, that coloring and just the darkness of it just adds to this really oppressive nature. Like I watch this movie I’m never quite comfortable. It’s just always moving first of all.

And it really doesn’t stop to take a breath and the camera never stops moving. And when the camera stops moving the lighting, doesn’t stop moving. Like if there’s a still. Camera shot in the whole movie. Then you’re going to start seeing like, with light sweeping across the screen or some kind of action going on, it’s just very well thought out and very well set there.

And I do feel like you said, like, this is like the quintessential nineties movie, almost like it set the stage for what cinematography would be like for like the next 10 years in these hot hip kind of films, you know? Uh

Craig: huh. But at the same time, as we say all of that, it works like, yeah. I didn’t feel like it felt cliched or overly grandiose, like in the world of the movie, it works and it’s very atmospheric and it sets a re like it sets the mood very well.

And it makes the story feel Gothic, which I think is appropriate to the story. I had heard somebody had described the story as like Frankenstein in reverse and based on the plot. You know, that makes sense, but it has that feel, you know, it almost feels like these events are taking place in an old castle or something, you know, it it’s just that kind of feeling.

Um, and it works. And I, and I think you’re right, that it’s a combination of everything and the acting is a big part of it. These are believable characters, even though some of them, especially Kiefer Sutherland’s character. And up, not that you can’t really tell from the beginning, but, uh, he ends up being deeply flawed, but nonetheless, I cared about these people, uh, and I was really interested in what was going to happen to them.

I thought they were incredibly stupid. Yeah.

Todd: But reckless and

Craig: stupid, reckless and stupid. But. They’re also young and ambitious and those things kind of go together, right? If you’re a young, young, and ambitious, often you are reckless and stupid. And sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn’t. And.

The thing, I, if I have any criticism of this movie, it’s that these guys are too lucky. They’re just too lucky. Yeah. There’s no way they could have gotten through this movie. I am sure most people who listened to us. You know, this was a big movie, so I’m sure most people have seen it. But what these young medical students do is they’re interested in what happens in the afterlife.

So they killed themselves medically and then resurrect them selves, medically. Uh, it’s not. Implausible it could happen, but every time they do it and they do it multiple times, um, every time they do it, they just barely get them back. And like, that’s what that’s, every time it happens in my notes and they barely get him back early, get her back like.

Todd: And yet, as soon as it’s done, they’re like bidding on. Who’s going to go next. Me, me, me, me next. I’ll go for two minutes to 2230. Okay. You’re you got the next one. That kind of thing until one’s like, yeah, I’ll do it for five minutes. It’s like, it just feels insane

Craig: is insane. And I think that it’s kind of supposed to be, I think that they get carried away and I think that we’re yeah.

Supposed to under their, their curiosity in them, their ambition allow them to get carried away and they do have different motivations, you know, keep her Southern one’s character Nelson, his motive really. His fame. He wants to be the guy that discovers the secrets of life and death, and he wants the claim and the attention that’s going to come along with that.

A couple of the other characters. Yeah. Well, Kevin Bacon’s character, David, he’s more of like the skeptic cynic atheist one, his. Curiosity is more genuinely not academic, but he just, he really wants to know, you know, like everybody talks about there’s supposed to be these things that happen when you die.

And he just seems to be genuinely curious almost from like a pragmatic academic kind of sets. Julia Roberts is damaged and is motivated. She’s lost. She says people, but it turns out it’s really just one person in particular. She’s lost people in her life and she wants to be assured that they have gone on to someplace better.

So they have various motivations, but nonetheless, their motivations drive them to do very reckless and stupid things. But it does make for very high drama and the movie is long. It’s almost a full two hours, but. It doesn’t feel long. It’s very fast paced, like crazy fast paced.

Todd: Yeah, it really is. And it’s so funny that you kind of get to know these characters so well and care about them so much because usually in a movie where the plot flies forward this quickly, there’s little time for that.

And then you don’t really. I feel it it’s just a credit, I think, to the writing and also the acting that you really get a sense for these people right off the bat. Like you said, Nelson, he’s the, he’s like the go-getter really ambitious guy. And it’s interesting because it starts the movie off with what we’re going to get.

A lot of, which is the sweeping shots. Just, I mean, even indoors, these shots sweep across furniture and dollies. Through doorways and things like that, even when people were just having a conversation, the image moves just as much as the plot does and it’s, you know, goes across the Chicago Lake and all that, which I thought was kind of interesting too.

Cause the lost boys starts out too. Doesn’t it? With the sweeping shot coming down

Craig: from the sky. Yeah. And it swings in on keeper Sutherland who is just looking like they’re capitalizing so much on his coolness. And he is very cool and he looks very cool. You know, he’s in like a trench coat, he’s got his blonde hair, Zack and his sunglasses, and he’s just standing on the shore and he says, he’s a good dude

Todd: to no one in particular.

And then all we get is really it’s like assembling the Avengers. Really? Yes. Clearly, he’s talked with the other, his other classmates here about this, but we have, uh, Joe, uh, Joe Hurley, who was, um, um, who’s what, uh, uh, Baldwin, the Baldwin boy, right?

Craig: Yeah. William Baldwin, handsome, handsome guy,

Todd: really handsome guy.

And he’s taking full advantage of it in this, in this movie because, uh, his thing is that he’s just, um, Likes to sleep around a lot, but not just that, but he likes to film women without their knowledge. So he has a camera set up in the roof of his studio apartment or whatever, and a whole stack of videotapes where he’s videotaped all of his conquest and he happens to be engaged, to be married as well.

Right. So he calls him up and says, Hey, don’t forget to bring your camera. And we meet David. David is Kevin Bacon’s character. He’s like an orderly, or I guess he’s on his, um, he didn’t call it his

Craig: internship or his rounds or whatever they call. I don’t remember what

Todd: they call him. And he seems to. Be the guy who wants to leap in and do things, uh, that maybe he’s not supposed to before the doctor gets there, it’s like a person having an emergency or whatever.

And he leaps in and tries to start an emergency surgery on him. Then the doctor comes in and they apparently kind of boot him out. Right. He’s booted out by this point. Yeah. He’s repelling out of his apartment window. That was silly. No real reason, right. Getting into his army style, like literal army surplus truck that he’s got with a canvas, you know, back on it and everything.

When, um, he’s approached by Nelson saying, Hey, are you going to do me on this prod? Join me on this project. And he, he kind of refuses, but you know, he ends up coming in at the last,

Craig: yeah, everybody, everybody is reluctant. I mean, they all know. I feel like the way the story is set up, we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen or what Nelson is proposing.

We’re given little hints here and there, but pretty much everybody, if they don’t outright refuse, they’re at least very, very reluctant. And they realize that not only is it dangerous, but they could also get in huge trouble and get kicked out of school, which would be an end to their. Careers. Yeah. And they’re all very reluctant, but ultimately at the last minute, they’re all like, okay,

Todd: why not? And I love the way the first one goes down too. We’ll get to that a second. But, uh, and then Rachel, uh, who’s played by Julia Roberts. She’s clearly, like you said before, she’s very interested in the afterlife, maybe. Maybe has been for a while because you see her sitting down at the bed of a woman who’s dying.

It seems like she’s in the cancer ward or something and doing her rounds and she’s sitting down and there’s this woman here that she’s just asking her, her feelings and the woman’s sharing her feelings about death and dying. And there are other patients there who are telling her about their near death experiences and what happened to them.

I

Craig: was legally dead. Four and a half minutes, but I didn’t see no tomorrow. And I didn’t see no light. Oh, why did? And it was so beautiful. I was in this God, in this tunnel and, and this light and then this like a guide and a chariot. And. Music, Terry,

Todd: I think they’d better get you off medication then there’s Randy Steckel, Oliver Platt he’s by far the one who’s almost the least on board throughout the entire thing.

He’s like the voice of reason that nobody listens to, I guess,

Craig: kind of. And ultimately he’s also the only one that doesn’t ever go through with it. Not because he doesn’t consider it by the time that he might be. Sort of open to it. He talks about it briefly. At one point he said, I might do it. I might still do it.

But soon thereafter, they realized that it has bad side effects. So he never actually ends up doing it. And Oliver Platt is a funny guy and I think that’s kind of his, his role in this group. He’s supposed to be kind of the. Goofy one he’s he’s all the time dictating his like autobiography into one of those little handheld cassette recorders.

And it’s funny, like it’s very self-indulgent, but at the same time for us as the audience funny, and, and they’re a good group, they’re believable as classmates, maybe not necessarily best of friends, but they know that they’ve worked closely together. Probably for a long time and they know each other, well,

Todd: they have their strength.

The one guy is just a video taper. He’s chronicling. It is kind of, again, dictating what’s going on and more like a recording thing, but helping out on the sides. And then it seems like the most medically capable of them all is supposed to be David. Right. Kevin, Kevin Bacon’s character, who just seems to know all the right things to do and is willing to do them, especially when things come to a head and love, you know, what is, what is believable as their relationship?

What is it so believable as to how they come together and do this first thing, and just like, keep her Southern wind storms into this giant chamber where he’s got this equipment that he’s just kind of pulling together, like going, gonna take

Craig: me down with nitrous. So the independence and the refrigerated blanket, I got some Sheltie five w in the cooler, when my body temperature hits 86 degrees.

If you’re going to hit me with 200 joules electric, Cara was stop my heart. When the hardest dad,

Todd: I think the mask off like, okay, I hope somebody is actually writing this down.

Craig: What I read was that they did a lot of, um, consulting with. Actual medical professionals. And so most there are some mistakes made in the filmmaking, but most of what they do is.

Medically sound. They’re going to use drugs to slow down the, their metabolic system. And then they’re going to put a cooling blanket on them to lower their body temperature. And that has something to do with protecting them from brain damage. And then they’re going to use a defibrillator to stop their heart.

And then. After a certain period of time, the first time, it’s what? Just like a minute, like, yeah. And then they’re going to revive them with, they’re going to restart their heart with the defibrillator. And drugs if necessary. They all get together for this first time and Steckel and Joe object, but everybody else at the last minute, David and Rachel are on board and they do it to keep her Sutherland.

They kill him. And every time this happens, which is multiple times throughout the movie, we get to see what each of them sees. And what Nelson sees is first very beautiful. He’s again, another one of those, you know, sweeping flying shots over a field of flowers and there are kids playing and a dog running with them and it all looks very nice and innocent.

And till it starts to literally. In the vision or experience, whatever it is, starts to get dark and windy. And then you see kind of these ominous visions of a tree and a little boy in a hoodie. And then my next note is they barely get them.

Todd: I know you’ll be repeating several times.

Craig: They worked to get him back and like, they think everything’s going to be fine, but you know, and this happens every single time. If he doesn’t come back as quickly as they thought he would. And it’s, it’s very high stress and high tension, but they do get him back. And the other thing, uh, I don’t know, it’s not really a criticism because it’s a movie and you gotta keep them moving, moving.

But for the most part, aside from being a little shaken up. They’re always just fine. Sort of. I would imagine that if you were clinically dead for a few minutes, you might need some rest.

Todd: Have you ever been clinically dead for a few minutes? How would you know? I feel like after some nights of drinking, I could have been pronounced clinically dead. And my mornings after that are horrible. So, uh, but it’s, it’s a movie, but yeah, they just wrap a blanket around them and drive out to a very smoky, dark Chicago street in the back of David’s pickup.

And as he’s sitting there, you know, he says to David, he says, I have these heightened senses. You know, it says, I can hear the traffic and I can hear the hum of the streetlights and I can even hear something else. And the others go inside, I guess, to get some food or whatever, while he’s sitting out there.

And he has his first vision in real life. He’s looking down this alley and the lights and things kind of come on and he sees this dog limping along and you can tell it’s the dog from his, from his dream, but it’s bandaged on, you know, what’s back half and it’s really limping and he calls out and then somebody else kind of snaps him out of it.

And he looks, and the dog’s not actually there. What is going to happen later on is he’s going to be haunted by much worse visions. And this is something that, this is what I remember the most of this movie. This is what actually kind of terrified me was Nelson’s. Post traumatic stress that he goes through after this thing, very

Craig: first time after Nelson goes, Rachel immediately says, I next and somebody always jumps in and says, no, me and that, like you said before, then they bid like, well, I’ll do it for a minute five.

Well, I’ll do it for a minute 20. And Joe wins with a minute 30 and this happens at least the next time too, that she says. I’m next in somebody, somebody jumps the line. It’s interesting with her as the only woman in this group of men. Yeah. It’s an interesting dynamic because I think that they all respect her.

Uh, I don’t think that that’s an issue at all. They all have much respect for her, but the only one of them that doesn’t hit on her is. Oliver Platt’s character. Um, even though the Baldwin brother is engaged to be married to a woman who seems very nice and who he genuinely seems to love, he’s just a womanizer and you know, not a great person, but they all hit on her and she just takes it in stride.

Now I. If I were her, I guess, I don’t know. I’ve never been a stunningly beautiful woman, but if I were her, I would like tell them to knock it off. Like you don’t all need to be hitting on me all the time. Like I’m not a prize for one of you to win, but she just goes along with it and it’s not like it’s totally skeevy.

It actually seems like the way that they’ve tried to set it up is that Nelson and David both genuinely. Have interest in feelings for, I think that they’re supposed to be set up as romantic rivals and, and there is there’s clear tension between them. Um, especially as David and Rachel start to get closer, Nelson is visibly bothered and, and makes offhanded comments, um, about it.

But I think that Nelson and David are also just set up to be foils. In the movie. Yeah. Nelson is presented as the protagonist and he’s very ambitious and he has these, you know, really interesting ideas. He’s the one that starts everything. And he seems very much the leader, but as he falls farther and farther into the rabbit hole of all of this, he kind of starts to lose it.

And David, who is the skeptic from the beginning? Really emerges as their rock, their, their moral center that ultimately they all end up turning to. And he’s not necessarily the hero. I wouldn’t say there’s a hero of the movie, but he ends up being the one who is more. Practical and well clearheaded about it.

Clearheaded. Yeah. That’s

Todd: yeah. He’s the one that reorients, people gets very practical about it. And then when he he’s also happens to end up becoming the one who figures out how to make their visions of things go away. I mean, this is what happens. They each go under it. Everything happens to the same way to each of these people.

Joe goes under next, and then he has dislike. Super sexy, erotic, kind of like a flashes to all of the women he’s bad at or whatever. Um, actually seems like the most pleasant of all of these experiences.

Craig: One thing that I liked about this movie was that each of their experiences was very unique. It wasn’t, there were similarities, like all of them seemed to have, it was kind of a life flashing before your eyes kind of thing.

Like from in utero, Through birth and childhood, but then it focused on whatever their interest or issue was. And his is that, you know, I don’t even know if we identified sex addiction in the nineties, but that’s kind of what it’s implying that he’s kind of this sex addict. And so his is. Ultimately very erotic, but not unpleasant.

And when he comes out of it every time any of them come out of it, they’re asked to describe it. And they all say it’s very difficult to put into words. Um, but he says there definitely is activity beyond death. And he said, Something that I thought was really interesting. He said, there’s something vaguely feminine guiding me.

And I just thought that that was very interesting from this guy who is such a womanizer. That that’s what he felt, that it wasn’t. Negative, but that he was guided by something vaguely feminine. I just thought that was interesting, right? The

Todd: guy who, who takes advantage of women, uh, you know, becomes the one who needs a, a female guide in the afterlife or ends up with a female guide.

Yeah. Yeah. Truly

Craig: David, at this point, Thinks they’re full of shit. He thinks that they’re just seeing what they want to see. That it’s not, that there’s really anything there that it’s just maybe brain activity or something. And, but again, Rachel says me next and David says, no, I’m going to go. And they bid again and they end up at two 20 and David wins and then they have a talk.

And I really liked this talk where they talk about. Death and David is an atheist and he doesn’t believe that there’s anything after life. And Rachel it’s as though she wants desperately to believe, but she’s uncertain. And that’s why she’s so adamant that she wants to do this, but David wants to do it because he says.

If I do it, I’m not going to go in wanting to find something like, you know, if it’s there, it’s there. If it’s not, it’s not, I’m not going to be influenced by wanting to find something. So if there’s nothing there and I come back and I can say that nothing happened, then we can deduce that it’s just your brain doing whatever you want it to do.

I think really. His true purpose in wanting to go next is to try to prevent Rachel from doing it at all.

Todd: Yeah. There’s like a protectiveness thing, right? Going on here, where that as the woman she’s being protected by these, these three guys, I feel like that in a sense as well, you know, by these guys, it might be a little problematic,

Craig: but it is today, but especially Kevin bacon and I can excuse the writing.

Because the acting is so good that I genuinely believe that he really cares about her. And he really is just trying to protect her. Now that’s not to say that women need protection from men. I don’t believe, or maybe they do need protection from men, from some guys they don’t necessarily. Needs to be protected by men.

Right. Right. But, uh, you know, it is what it is that leads up to when things get really interesting with Nelson, because up till now he’s had these visions, but it progresses at this point. And I thought this scene with him, First of all, it was a little heavy handed with him walking down this very shady alley in Chicago.

Now I live in Chicago very briefly, and there definitely are parts of town that you don’t want to walk through by yourself at night. Um, but he wears a trench coat and smokes a cigarette. So,

Todd: so nobody’s supposed to be there

Craig: walking down this alley. Filled with hookers and people shooting up about, and yes, you might see those things, but you’re not going to see an alley full of it.

Todd: Huddled around trashcan fires.

Craig: Lady hobo is talking to herself, but it ends up. Looking at him and calling him by name as in the end? No, that’s when he sees and hears that injured dog again, and he starts to follow it and things get

Todd: crazy. Yeah. He goes down into a what must be an abandoned subway line or something it’s kind of it’s underground, but I don’t know what it was.

He sees the injured dog and he’s kind of calling after and following it, but then there’s another shadow. And as he walks across, a kid is in front of him and he looks down and is like, Hey, and he kid’s wearing a hoodie and looks up at him. And I think what, he pulls out a bat and starts to beat him. Well, no, at this

Craig: point, yeah, he just kicks the crap out of him.

This is a little, a little tiny kid in a hoodie and we’ve seen him before. In the vision, this is the kid from his vision, but Nelson doesn’t seem to recognize him, but the kid kicks the shit out of him. And I just thought that was a really interesting turn to the movie because it’s one thing to be haunted by visions.

It’s a completely other thing. When these visions can kick the shit out of you. Yeah.

Todd: And there’s no question because the next shot is he’s in front of a mirror, sewing up his eye. So he’s definitely getting beat up and of course shaken, but he doesn’t say anything to anybody about this.

Craig: Meanwhile, um, Joe, the Baldwin, uh, is, is now also having visions and what he is seeing is his sex tapes pop up on any screen.

That’s around and we don’t get the impression that anybody else can see them, but obviously it’s haunting him. Um, but then on Halloween night, David, they do David and he has a trippy vision of like his friends and again in utero and then flying over mountains. Cause he’s a climber or whatever. And then he sees a little.

Black girl. And I feel like at this point he just sees her. So we don’t really know the context. Meanwhile, while, while he’s under Nelson is acting crazy and like a total Dick, like already David is staying under longer than anybody else. But when it comes time to try to bring him back, Nelson’s like, Oh, let’s give him another 20 seconds.

And they’re all looking at him like, are you fricking crazy? And he kind of argues with them and it’s like, I’m just kidding. But it doesn’t really seem like he is kidding. No, but, but they do bring him back and he thinks that it was just a dream or memories. He thinks that it must’ve just been electrical activity, remaining electrical activity in his brain.

But Nelson says, no, we had you hooked up to the EKG or EEG or whatever it is, the reads. Brainwaves. He said, if there was any electricity, it would have read it. So it’s not that. And I guess David just kind of accepts that at which point Nelson says he wants to go again and Rachel is like, Pardon? My French, fuck you.

I’ve already been bumped twice. I’m going. And Nelson’s like, Nope, this was my idea. You all are riding on my coattails. I’m doing it. And Rachel says, you know, do whatever you want, but I’m not going to help. And all of the other guys back her up. So, uh, she gets to go next. Joe continues to be haunted by the video.

Nelson gets beat up again. By the kid with a hockey stick. He like knocked some of his teeth

Todd: out. And once again, when Rachel goes under David rushes in to try to stop it early, again, trying to kind of be her savior or whatever, because

Craig: he realizes that it’s got bad side effects that Nelson hasn’t told them about

Todd: because while he was riding the train and kind of a flashback to that same vision that he had when he was under.

He sees this girl only, it’s this weird kind of vision where the train goes dark and she starts walking towards him and she’s calling him all kinds of names. He of course recognizes her as a girl that he used to bully when he was her, which was a hard

Craig: scene to watch. Wasn’t it like when he remembers the bullying?

Uh, it was so bad. I couldn’t even tell if the bullying was. Racially based, but it was very difficult. It was so sad and uncomfortable to watch this cute little black girl being taunted, not physically abused in this memory, but being taunted by these other kids. And I don’t even think, you know, David was white and I think that there was another white kid, but I think that there were other black kids involved too.

So I don’t know if it was racially based, but it was very uncomfortable and I felt so bad. And so I under. Stood why David, like he genuinely feels bad. Like I did something really bad and that’s why this is

Todd: happening. And, and, you know, he clearly is the more moral, I guess, you know, if the guys between him and Nelson, like we said earlier, being the moral center of the movie, he comes across that way too, because his first thought in all this is, I’ve got to go and fix this.

And, uh, he thinks this is a way he can make the vision stop is to actually go. And visit this girl. He looks her up and finds her in her house before he goes there. I believe that Joe comes home and his fiance is there because he’s called her previously. And he sounded a little, a panicked on edge and said, I love you.

And I don’t know what I’m going to do. And, and, uh, she ends up coming, but she comes to his apartment before he gets there. And she has seen all of his tapes. Yeah, she says, I can’t trust you anymore. I just can’t do this.

Craig: I loved this scene though, too. I just thought it was such great writing because she starts to storm out.

And she says, the thing that I hate is that you’re going to think I left because you had sex with all those women and that’s not why I’m leaving. She said, I think that maybe I could have. Dealt with that. I could have worked through that, but the fact that these women trusted you and you showed them so little respect and you used them and taped them without their knowledge, that’s what I can’t live with.

And he leaves. And so I do feel that there’s a morale, you know, there’s a morality play going on here. The, these people are being faced with. They’re Sans for lack of a better word, but I think that Joe doesn’t get much of the story. He doesn’t get much focused, but I think the implication is that he realizes what he’s been doing.

Somebody puts a mirror up in front of his face, basically is what happened. And he realizes that he’s a Dick. Um, and hopefully moving forward, he will change. The same thing happens with. David, you know, he realizes that he had done something wrong and he wants to fix it. Now, the other two, when Rachel goes under, she has all these visions of her father who had, I assume, uh, served in Vietnam and was coming home and we see his coming home party.

But then. Um, she walks as a little girl. She walks into this room that apparently she wasn’t supposed to, and she sees her father from behind and you can’t tell what he’s doing. Um, but the, her mother calls her back and says, you’re not supposed to go in there. And then the father storms out and runs downstairs and the mother looks at her and says something like it’s your fault or something like that.

And the dad goes outside and shoots himself in his car. And so that’s what. Rachel is haunted by, she feels like it was her fault. And so her visions, which start immediately because she had plans to be under for like four minutes, something like that. But again, they barely got her back. Um, and so she ended up being under far longer than any of the rest of them, like five plus minutes.

And, uh, so her vision started immediately and it’s her dad. She’s seeing her dad everywhere and it’s, it’s haunting and of all of them. Probably the most sad. Yeah. But it comes down to your right. David basically figures out what they have to do, which is write their wrongs.

Todd: Yeah. It’s I feel like it’s kind of a ghost story in reverse, right?

I, they say it’s Frankenstein and reverse. I feel it’s like a ghost story in reverse. These people are their own ghosts. Right. They come back from the dead and now they have to write some wrongs that they can. Be at peace.

Craig: Something else that I think is interesting about this movie and something that’s debatable because it’s not laid right out there.

I don’t think that these people or visions that they’re seeing are ghosts at all. I think that these are. Their own manifestations of guilt. Um, fact, this isn’t, you know, like the, the young girl that David had bullied, she’s not even dead, so it’s not like she could come back and haunt him. This is them.

They’re they’re doing this to themselves. They’re

Todd: haunting themselves. Yeah. Yeah, their guilt is haunting them basically. And so, yeah, so that, so David goes with, um, Nelson Nelson’s in the car and in the truck, he looks up, this woman goes and finds her as an adult and spend some time with her and her kids and apologizes for what he did.

And you can tell this is going to stop his visions. Uh, however, in the car while he’s in there, Nelson. And hasn’t yet another encounter with Billy Mahoney who picks up a pickax and, uh, is trying to wrestle with him in the back of the truck. And he has locked the doors and things with Billy Mahoney shown up, back there.

Anyway, I thought this was hilarious. Uh, then, you know, Kevin Bacon’s character gets there in about the Nick of time, but, uh, he tries the driver’s side window and it’s locked. He goes to the other side when it wants locked and I’m thinking. Why are you even doing this? Just go to the canvas back that you have, but instead he picks a rocket smashes through his own window just to climb over and into the back there.

Craig: And then later in the movie, the window’s totally fixed. Oh,

Todd: I haven’t noticed that, but you can see, I mean, Kiefer Sutherland is still there. He’s wrestling with this pickax and there’s nothing there. Right? So it’s definitely, well, it’s probably coming from inside of him. Right. He then has to explain what’s going on.

And he, you know, once he sees the David’s kind of fixed it, then he knows what to do. And this is when he goes in, admits what he did. He brings the whole crew out to the woods and they’re in the woods is a tombstone. And he tells the story of how he chased that he and some friends chased this boy up a tree and they were throwing rocks at them.

And the last rock that he threw at this kid knocked him down. He fell down dead and the tree limb came down on him and also came down on his dog, which is why we were seeing the injured dog visions earlier and stuff too. Um, and so he says, I’ve got to go back under because. You know, he can’t apologize to this kid.

Craig: Well, yeah, I mean, he, he doesn’t tell them that he just says, I know what I have to do. And he runs away and he abandons them. And David who has been staying with Rachel has to leave her to go pick them up because, um, Nelson abandoned them in David’s absence. Rachel has another vision, but I really liked the way that they played this because they, she.

Julia Roberts. I really liked the way that she played this because in the vision, you can tell that she’s still very nervous, but she doesn’t seem scared right. In the vision. She, you know, reinvisioning this scene that we had seen before where she now. As Julia Roberts walks up to this forbidden room and she goes all the way in and she sees the, what her father is doing is shooting up.

I’m sure that he had become an addict in his service, which was not terribly uncommon at that time. And it’s actually a very sweet scene where the dad apologizes to her and they embrace and she cries and the cinematography is so cool. The light. And the space change, like the lights soften and the room kind of expands.

It’s very cool. Nelson calls. Rachel. She’s done with her vision. He calls her and apologized to her and says, please apologize. To the others. And at the same time, they all figure out that he is going to go flat line alone. Like that’s going to be how he’s redeemed. I guess he’s going to face David in the afterlife, or you’re not David face Billy in the afterlife,

Todd: which is kind of weird.

Like, was he planning on just hoping that his, with his cryptic message would bring his friends there so they could revive him? I mean, he doesn’t have like an auto revive system. You think he was just killing himself? I think it was suicide.

Craig: Oh yeah. Yeah. He felt that he had to kill himself. That that was his only path to redemption.

Um, kind of, I F I, for NY kind of, that makes sense does flatline himself, uh, with drugs and he has visions of Billy, but this time he’s in Billy’s place. He’s the one. That’s being chased and he’s the one in the tree and Billy’s throwing rocks at him. Meanwhile, the other people all have figured this out and they arrive and they are desperately trying to revive him to the point where they inject something.

Adrenaline, I guess, directly into his heart.

Todd: It was popular in the nineties as a way to

Craig: remember. I mean, it’s a real thing, but it’s, it’s definitely. Uh, last Russ, I guess this, you know, it is last resort. Cause uh, Rachel says he called me, but it’s been at least nine minutes. So, you know, he’s been dead for awhile and uh, in his vision, dream, whatever you want to call it.

David falls out of the tree and appears to die at which point he’s been out 12 minutes and David is pounding on his chest desperately trying to save him, but everybody else says stop. And they do. They stop trying and Steckel just stands there, very stoically and says, we are all responsible for this, but then they, you know, they talk for 15 seconds and David says, no, he doesn’t deserve this.

And he shocks him again. And this time in the dream. Nelson wakes up and Billy and champ, the dog are standing there with a bright light behind him looking at him. And Billy just smiles at him and turns away and walks into the light. At which point it seems like Nelson has a choice as though he could follow billions the light.

But he also hears his friend’s voices behind him. So he turns and runs towards their voices. And that’s

Todd: what makes us a mainstream film. It all kind of ends happy. Everybody’s redeemed and Willa.

Craig: They do. And it’s a little bit cliched, but at the same time, I kind of liked that notion that when Nelson is down for long enough, Ultimately, he does see that bright light.

That everybody in these near-death experiences says they see, I don’t know, I’m not a deeply religious person, but I would like to think that there’s something after death. I don’t know if I believe that maybe we just snuff out. I don’t know, but it would be it’s, it’s a comforting thought to think that there’s something after.

Um, and I feel like the movie ended on. A high note, like, yes, there is there, there is something, there is redemption and that’s, you know, it’s a pleasant note to leave it on. And I, I don’t know. I was really excited to see this because I remember seeing it in the nineties and really liking it. So I was excited to watch it again.

I think I remembered it more fondly than I ultimately ended up feeling about it this time around. I liked it. It was good. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because at the time those people, the actors were so hot, you know, not just physically though. Yes. True. But you know, they were huge actors. It was a big movie.

People were talking about it. It was mainstream horror and it is super fast paced. It is good. I still like it. I do. I honestly do. I do still think it’s a good movie. I think maybe my expectations going back or a little bit too high. I wasn’t disappointed, but I didn’t end up walking away feeling as fond of it as I expected to.

Todd: I also remembered it. Fondly than, you know, this time around watching it. I actually still think it’s a very stylish and cool movie. Surprisingly, it’s not as dated as some of these previously stylish and cool movies that we’ve seen that turn out to be a little silly, like, Ooh, that’s so eighties or that’s.

Oh, so nineties, um, I feel like this one could have been made yesterday more or less and probably a lot of that’s due to, they really went back and right. It’s practically a period piece with the set design and all that. Stuff, you know, the setting and everything like that. So in that respect, I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t, I didn’t feel it was any less of a cool movie, but I maybe it’s my age, or maybe it’s just the, the entire premise that is underneath it.

As I said, when we started out is just, it’s, it’s pretty campy. And the movie doesn’t have a lot of the depth and things to say that I. I think I remembered feeling back when I was in high school watching this like, Oh, this is deeper. It’s kind of got some interesting things. It’s, it’s really quite simply, you know, these people had this, have these issues in their past, and then they have to resolve them.

And, uh, the whole near-death experience and their visions and things are just kind of the layer on top of that really. But, uh, still pretty awesome filmmaking as well. I think a very fitting tribute to Joel Schumacher. It’s got his stamp all over it, you know, all over it. He’s got a clear style here.

Craig: Good one.

I mean, even those can’t be Batman, Batman movies, stylish. They are very stylish and yeah. Arguably, they’re very different from the Tim Burton stuff, which is what people I think had come to expect and were wanting more of. But it’s not like Juul Schumacher set a precedent by making that man can’t be Batman was campy.

Yeah, it’s super campy. Um, so it’s not like, you know, Oh, he did something, you know, totally off the beaten path. He didn’t, but, and it was very stylized and it looked, I mean, if you were just looking at set pieces and lighting and cinematography, if you were just looking at the visual aspect of it, it looked cool.

He’s a cartoonish, but fine. Yeah. I would be, even though I don’t think Joel Schumacher had anything. Thing to do with it. I would be very interested in seeing the remake of this movie starring Elliot page. I actually, after watching this yesterday, I looked to see if it was streaming anywhere and it is, but not for free.

And I just wasn’t ready to shell out $3.

Todd: You cheap ass,

Craig: the rebuttal. I’d be really interested to see it. It is a remake it’s described as a remake, but I think. And I may be wrong and, you know, we record these things and then they’re out there forever. So if I’m wrong, I’m sorry. But I think when the remake came out, it leaked that I think that Kiefer Sutherland makes an appearance in.

Remake as Nelson. I hear he does. Yeah. So I think that the remake exists in the same universe, uh, as, as this one. And I would like to see it. I love Elliot page. Um, I think he’s great and everything. So I’ll have to check that out at some point, but yes, I do think that this was a fitting tribute to Joel Schumacher.

And I do like this movie. And if you haven’t seen it, I would recommend it. If for no other reason, you get to see some of these big stars in their heyday. It’s so weird. These were some of the biggest stars of our generation, Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, William Baldwin, William Baldwin never had the success of his brother, uh, Alec, but.

Rising stars and watching this, I just couldn’t help asking myself why don’t we still see more of these people? Like it is still major celebrities. They just don’t work as much as I would expect them to. And maybe that’s by their own choice. I don’t know. It was just something to think about anyway.

Totally a time capsule of the nineties. Huge stars. So yeah, if you haven’t seen it, I would definitely recommend it.

Todd: I agree. And thank you so much for the request on this as well. Thank you for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us online. Search for two guys and a chainsaw, and you’ll find our website and our Facebook page and our YouTube channel, which is getting quite a bit of love lately.

Thank you guys for that. Please subscribe to us there. If you haven’t already to help boost our numbers up there, we’d love it. If you’d leave an honest review for us as well on any one of these, a podcast aggregator places like Apple podcasts. Very much. Appreciate that until next time. I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

For the second of our tribute series this month, we’re killing two birds with one stone by honoring two people we lost last year.

John Saxon was a longstanding veteran of screen and TV, with more than 200 credits to his name, perhaps most prominent in the horror community for his role as Nancy’s mother in the Nightmare on Elm Street series.

Daria Nicolodi may not be a household name in the USA, but as a frequent collaborator and lover of Dario Argento, she had a role in some of his most notorious Italian horror and giallo pics, including a star turn in Deep Red and as the co-writer of Suspiria.

Tenebrae (1982)

Episode 243, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, here we are three weeks now in today. The new year. And after our new year’s episode, we said that we were going to do some tribute episodes, tribute to the people that we lost in 2020 that we weren’t able to get to in 2020.

So last week we did David Prouse who had played Darth Vader in the earlier star Wars films. And, uh, this week where we got a twofer, two people who are, should be pretty well known to the horror community, maybe one more than the John Saxon and Aria Nicolodi both died last year, John sax and I believe of pneumonia, but anyway, Daria Nicolodi is.

A fixture in some of the most popular of Dario Argento films. She is the writer of Suspiria. She was supposed to star in that movie, but, uh, she got an injury and they brought in someone else to star in that film, but she did write the picture. Um, and that’s. Pretty significant because she was in a relationship with Dario Argento.

They have a daughter together, AZA Argento, who is an actress and writer and director in her own. Right. So she was in quite a few of his films. In fact, he met her when he was casting for deep red and she ended up starring in it. And that was the beginning of their relationship. She’s been in a few movies, actually that we’ve done, we’ve done deep red, we’ve done phenomena.

And she started an opera and we did opera as well. So, uh, today we’re going to do another Dario Argento movie, Tena Bray. Many people say this is one of his best films. And it also happens to have a role for another actor that we lost last year. John Saxon. John Saxon may be more well-known to the American crowd has been, has over 200 film roles and television roles to his name, very striking kind of leading man type guy in the early sixties, played a ton of different roles and then had quite a bit of a turn at horror.

He was, of course Nancy’s father in nightmare on Elm street and reply reprised that role a couple times during the series, a black Christmas, one of our all-time favorites. He is the police, the detective in there. And in this film, he plays a role that honestly, I he’s played a lot of stuff. Right. And I have not seen hardly any of his.

Huge repertoire of films, but the horror ones. So I’m used to seeing him as a very more somber, serious kind of driven guy and all these police roles. So for me, anyway, it was really nice to see him have a role as a literary agent in this movie where he’s just kind of, um, Schmoozing smiling, energetic guy.

And I was a side of him I hadn’t seen before. So even though his part isn’t so large in this film, I think it’s a fitting tribute considering we’ve done some of his more popular ones already, you know, Craig, uh, you know, uh, I love Argento. We’ve done four or five. This will maybe be the fifth film of his that we’ve done so far.

And I believe that when you come into these Italian horror films, it’s a bit of a mixed bag for you. Sometimes you really like them. Sometimes they’re a little too weird. Uh, sometimes they’re quite frankly quite stupid, but Argento is a little bit higher on the top of the pack with his films. And this is definitely a classic Argento.

Jolo. Uh, right down to the gloved hands and the killer POV and the mystery. And then one of his calling cards, usually the mystery solved by something that one of the characters needs to go back and remember, you know, something they saw that they had to kind of piece together. And I was really hoping that that would be the case in this one.

And it was in fact, which is fun because whenever you’re watching a mystery, you do kind of want to have a. Fighting chance at being able to figure it out. Right. And so I have confidence most of the time watching his films that. At least as giallo pictures that when there’s a mystery involved, I pay really, really close attention and try to figure it out by the end.

I have to admit this one had a couple twists that I didn’t see in it. Uh, there was a point at which I kind of thought I had it figured out and didn’t, and then there was a point where it’s revealed who the killer was and then it also kind of, there’s a twist there toward the end as well. So, um, if you haven’t seen this movie yet, uh, if the beginning of us talking about it, Starts to inspire you to go see it.

You probably should just go see it if you don’t want spoilers, because we will be hinting at if not outright spoiling it, especially by the end of the podcast. Definitely. So I’ve never seen this before, but it had been on my list for a long time. It’s a 1982 film. I had never seen it before, but it had been on my list forever.

So I was super happy and eager for the opportunity to cram another Dario, Argento, jello pic in the mix. Cause I’m always in the mood for these kind of movies, even if you are not. So, uh, have you ever heard of this before? Had you ever seen it before? I

Craig: heard it? It, it, uh, is on. Shutter, uh, and, and maybe other streaming prep platforms.

I don’t know. All I know is that I’ve scrolled past it many times, and I knew exactly what it was. Um, and you’re right. This, these, these films just, aren’t my cup of tea. I, um, my sister called me. Yesterday. And she’s a fan of the podcast. She’s listened to all of them. She’s co-hosted with us at least once or twice.

And. I said, I, you know, I, I have to get up early tomorrow to do the podcast and she’s like, Oh, what movie are you doing this week? And I said, Todd’s making us do another one. That’s dumb ass job.

Uh,

Todd: come on, Greg, tell me how you really feel. Don’t hold back. I

Craig: can take it. I can take it out. I get it. I get it. It’s it is a particular genre and I understand why it has its fans. I get it. It’s just not so much for me. And I think that part of what bothers me about them is after a while they all kind of start to seem the same.

Some creeper and black gloves sneaks around and talks. In a breathy voice and kills a bunch of people. And then in the end, you know, it’s very twisty and you figure out who it is and whatever. I mean, they, they all seem very similar to me. That’s not to say that. I don’t think that there is very skillful filmmaking going on.

I do think that there is skillful filmmaking going on. Just not my cup of tea and these actors, uh, who were paying tribute to, it’s funny that you say we’ve seen several movies that Darian Nikolay Nickelodeon was in because. I didn’t remember her. I didn’t recognize her. That’s not to say that she’s not good.

She is. She’s, she’s perfectly fine. She’s a good actress in this movie, John Saxon, I am more familiar with and a bigger fan of really just because of the nightmare movies. And I, I loved him as Nancy’s dad in. Nightmare one and three. Um, I really enjoyed him and then, you know, a new nightmare is very meta and any place himself in that movie.

And then, you know, at the climax of the movie, when reality starts to blur, he. Goes back and plays the character of Nancy’s father again. And I was a big fan of his, and I haven’t seen a lot of his other movies, but I just, he’s one of those faces that just pops up and you’re like, Oh, John Saxon.

Todd: Yeah. He’s kind of like a beefcake, you know,

Craig: he’s handsome and charming and yeah.

And he’s Italian. And he had a long career. He was discovered at like 16 or something, I think by a filmmaker who invited him to audition for a role. And then he went on to act steadily and in his early career, Um, as was the case for many darker complected Italian actors of the day, he ended up playing a lot of minority roles, like Hispanic roles or even native American roles, you know, back before we knew better than to.

Do that. And then his career continued and he was very successful. You know, he wasn’t necessarily a leading man, but he had a, a strong presence, a very handsome face, and he was a good actor. And I liked him. It’s always the case. These people. Who were familiar with from different films and different periods of our lives.

We don’t know them, but when we hear that we’ve lost them. Um, it’s sad. It’s, it’s, it’s not, you know, maybe on the same level. Losing somebody that, you know, personally are close to, but you feel a connection to these people and you feel the loss when they’re gone. And so I was glad for the opportunity, um, to be able to do this.

And, and you picked the movie and you picked it largely because we could kill two birds with one stone Franklin. Um, I’m sure that there, yeah, I I’m sure that there are probably. More compelling John Saxon performances that we could have talked about. But like you said, the ones that I’m most familiar with, we’ve already done.

He doesn’t have a huge role in this movie, but he’s charming and handsome. And so. It’s fitting the movie itself, I thought was okay. It was typical. It was exactly what I expected it to be. It was twisty. It did keep me guessing even by the end. I didn’t know who the killer was. I thought I had it figured out a couple of times I was wrong.

Ultimately, when it was revealed who it was, I kind of felt a little stupid. I kind of felt like that should have been more obvious than it was, but. Anyway, well, tonight

Todd: your enthusiasm just comes through loud and clear. And admittedly, obviously we approach these movies in different ways because this is comfort food for me. Uh, as I’ve said before, when I probably like a broken record, every time we do a giallo pick is that I am always. In the mood for these, like, I’m always in the mood for like a 1960s Godzilla picture.

There’s something about the style and the setting. And they’re almost always filmed in Europe and around those seventies and sixties and up like this one into the early eighties. So I get to see a foreign country and I get to see it at a particular time when it was kind of cool and hip and the fashion is kind of fun.

And then. There is, like you said, a very recognizable style, which I love about it. You know, there’s always cool camera work. There’s always some crazy tracking shots in there. Air

Craig: and beautiful locations. Always

Todd: beautiful. Crazy cool, beautiful locations. Uh, and then just a certain mood, a certain atmosphere.

And it it’s this it’s this mystery that you have to solve. And I love a mystery as well. The problem with a lot of these movies is that oftentimes the mystery doesn’t make a lot of sense. Sometimes the directors are so caught up in style and trying to do something that the, either it’s dumb or, you know, there’s some nonsensical way that the character comes to their conclusion.

Like they stumble on a book in a library that gives them a clue, you know, something really out there. But this movie I particularly liked maybe more so than, than any of the other giallo pictures we watch. I mean, yeah. It is a very straightforward, easy to follow makes, perfect sense kind of plot. And I thought the situations were, were realistic and reasonable and the things that happen could happen and the way that they come to the conclusion and the sort of the case goes along.

Makes sense to me. You know, I mean, there’s maybe one or two little coincidental things that kind of happened, but, uh, overall y’all it was something that I was engrossed in and I was following, I was really, really just trying to figure it out, who did it through the whole thing. And then of course we always get Gore, you know, some brutal stuffs in this movie, man, maybe more so than some of the other ones of his, like really gory at one point and then, and some nudity and I’m always a fan I’m a fan of, of nudity and Gore.

Two. Great, wonderful, lovely things. So, uh, yeah. So anyway, this movie hit all the buttons for me, to be honest, I know work, I’m going to drag you through this episode and this is going to be me talking about how much I enjoyed it and you’re going to be like, yeah. Okay, Todd, I get what you’re saying, but just didn’t hit those buttons for me.

Fair enough. Am I right?

Craig: Yeah. I mean, the stuff that you mentioned, I agree the cinematography is good. Always, like I said, the locations, it makes me want to travel. I, you know, I want to see Italy and all of this beautiful architecture and the Gore. Is very, very typical in this movie compared to Argento those other movies and, and the other jellos, you know, lot, lots of that bright shockingly red blood, lots of throat cutting and people getting impaled on things.

And, uh, it’s typical and it, it looks great. I don’t have any criticism of it in that area. The, as far as. Uh, the realism of the plot, there wasn’t anything that was, jarringly unrealistic about it, but I think that I would need to watch it again, which I’m not going to. I think that I would need to watch it again to satisfy myself because when the killer was revealed, I was like, Wait a second.

Like I kept thinking it, it felt like the killer would have had to be in more of that one place at one time at some points. And, and, and part of that also again, I would have to, um, review it because, and here we go, sign out. Now, if you’re not interested in spoilers because. Ultimately, there’s not just one killer in this movie.

Um, there’s more than one. So that’s the trick they pull. Yeah. I would have to really go back and pay attention to where in the timeline things happen to figure it out. But there’s one scene in particular. I was like, It’s kind of iffy to me that the killer could pull this off kind of being in two places at one time.

But anyway, I mean, I feel like every week we Jabber and Jabber more in the beginning before we get into the plot and we’re like, okay, here’s what happened? Here’s what

Todd: happened.

Sorry. I feel like we’re, at that point, let’s jump in into the fire. As the pages of the book, get tossed into the fire. Uh, the movie just starts right out, right away with those gloved hands. It’s holding a book called Tena Bray by a God, an author named Peter Neil, who is going to be our main actor in this whole thing is played by an actor named Anthony Francesca.

As this gloved hand is tearing pages out of this book and throwing it into the fire. He’s reading, the impulse

Craig: had become irresistible. There was only one answer to the fury that tortured him. And so he committed his first act of murder. He had broken the most deep rooted taboo and found not guilt, not anxiety or fear, but freedom, every humiliation, which stood in his way.

Could be swept aside by this simple act of annihilation.

Todd: And that is the theme that sort of frames our film. And we’re going to come back to that quote, uh, toward the end of the movie as well. And you know, for me anyway, the other thing I love about these movies and Dari or CentOS in particular is the fricking awesome music.

The music kicks off with this fantastic. Fantastic title that I absolutely love

Definitely not a score by goblin this time around, but it has that feel that progressive rock tunes that are a little creepy and a little fun and upbeat that come in at just the right moments in this movie. And that’s what kicks it off for us as well here. Yeah.

Craig: I enjoyed the Synthi score of these movies.

It’s fun. And so you’re right. You know, we need this guy, Peter McNeely author of the book that this gloved killer or presumably is obsessing over. And he first read, this is unknown rides his bike to the airport. Um, like in it, like in a jogging suit that he then changes out of to put his suit on for the flight.

Who does that weird. Um, and he gets a telephone call from somebody and we only hear his side of it. And the woman that he’s talking to her name is Jane. It sounds like a tense conversation, but he just kind of brushes her off and he leaves. And he goes to Rome and he’s in Rome for like, uh, a publicity tour for his book, I guess.

Yup. Yup. And then we move away from him and we see this gorgeous woman in a store. I don’t know where this was, but she’s just in a store and we get the classic geology killer POV shot, some heavy breather watches. This woman. Shoplift a book she gets caught and to get out of it, she gives the bookstore owner or manager her address to come by any time.

It’s like, like really like just own a stranger for a book, like go to a library.

But she goes back to her apartment and then she’s murdered. And I don’t remember specifically how I didn’t make note of it, but what I do know is that the pages of a book, presumably to Nebraska. No it is, they say later it is, are shoved into her mouth, right after that, the killer slips a note for Peter under the door.

And I don’t even remember if he reads it at that point. No. Gosh, I don’t know. I have to, I have to confess, I watched it first half hour of this book in like five to 10 minute increments. On break at work.

So I don’t really remember the first part very well. So you may have to kind of help me

Todd: out. I may jump in here then. Um, so he goes to a press meeting and he encounters a couple of characters. There’s a guy. Uh, who was interviewing him, he’s like a television journalist or whatever. He’s got a TV show and he’s interviewing him.

And there’s also a woman who comes in and interrupts them. And she’s also a journalist, but she claims that his book is sexist and tells him that all his books are sexist. Why are your books? So sexist women get killed in them, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She, her name is Tilda and she’s very off-putting.

And then John Saxon jumps in. As his agent, why don’t we do this?

Craig: Set up a separate interview with you and Mr. Neil, I let him really come to grips with your magazine’s attitude. Huh? He just got off a plane and well, how would that be? Okay.

Todd: I, uh, I think it’s time. And then he goes back to his hotel room and he meets and we meet and his secretary.

And this is the woman played by Daria. And Anna is pretty and nice and his secretary, and right away, you get this impression that they’ve got some connection there that’s more than just professional. Although later we find out they haven’t. Maybe they haven’t really acted on it yet. Right. But they’re awfully touchy, feely with each other, uh, hands on shoulders.

They speak very sweetly to each other. Uh, and they’re there and they also mentioned, uh, Hey, Jane called, you know, but blah, blah, blah. So there’s something about some woman Jane, right?

Craig: Yeah. And there’s another you’re right. I, I. Felt that there was some sort of pre-established relationship between Ann and Peter too.

And I wasn’t sure what it was. There’s also this other kid, like, I don’t know, he couldn’t have been more than 20. Um, I’m not really sure why he’s there. I guess he’s supposed to be peers assistant or chauffeur. Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: He’s somebody that, um, he’s kind of a handler that, um, I believe that his, uh, well bull is the name of the agent that the agent put together for him to, uh, kind of help him around Rome or whatever.

He’s staying at like a, like a, I think it’s somebody’s home or somebody’s apartment or something like that, that they’ve rented out. I don’t think it’s a hotel proper. No,

Craig: it seems like an apartment building.

Todd: Yeah, but his bag was kind of taken from him at the airport, but then sort of dropped a few feet away from him.

And by the time he finally opens up his bag, he sees inside, there are some like blue looks like bloody clothing. I feel like the movie actually does move pretty quickly. At least the plot does because immediately the inspector is right there at his door and says, Hey, um, you know, we found this dead woman, this is what happened.

And the reason we’re talking to you is because the killer had stuffed pages of your book in his mouth. That’s when

Craig: they find the letter right in the letter, says something like there was only one answer to the fury that tortured him. Like . From his book, like the killer is taking his cues from the book and then the killer calls the apartment.

And it’s really weird. The killer’s voice, like, it sounds like the killer is kind of trying to disguise their voice, but it sounds like so

Todd: woman. Yes, it does. It does sound like a woman, which kind of

Craig: threw me. Hello, Peter Neil speaking. Not anxiety, but those words, 46 freedom

we’ve just

Todd: begun. It does throw you. And I think there’s kind of a reason for that. And so we basically have this setup that says a classic, right? The cops were like, we need your help to help was fine. This guy, this, this person. So as soon as the killer calls and the got them on the phone, the police run out there, uh, to try to find the person hot pursuit, but, uh, don’t find them.

And, and the, the police detective has this assistant. And she’s female and she doesn’t have a huge role to play. But I think it’s funny, maybe just more aside of the times that he turns and he looks at her and he’s like, got the way, huh? I couldn’t get him.

Craig: I should have a tough male assistant to run fast.

Todd: You’d

Craig: hate it. You’d have nothing to bitch about.

Todd: And then we get this shot. Uh, it’s this cutaway shot to a couple pills on a table and some bubbling water and the gurgling water in the background and a glass of water and a closeup on a guy’s eye and he’s groaning. And, and there’s a shadow on the wall. It looks like this man’s kind of in pain and we get a completely odd seemingly out of the blue vision.

And I think that’s what this is. It’s those of the vision, or later we kind of find out probably a little bit from this guy’s past

Craig: was very confused. I didn’t know what was going on. Like you see the killer, like agonizing and like he takes some pills or whatever, and then. We do get this weird scene and it’s so bizarre.

It’s this gorgeous, gorgeous woman like standing on a beach and she pulls her top down. She’s stunningly. Beautiful. I read that this was played by a trans actress. She’s she’s just amazingly beautiful, but pulls her top-down and then I thought that somehow I had. I thought that somehow switched tabs.

Cause I’m like, wait, is this porn? Cause like she kneels down, she kneels down on the beach and like these guys all surround her and she’s like caressing them and like rubbing her head up against their crotch little areas. And then another guy shows up. And, and slaps her and she runs, but then like the other guys attack the guy that had slapped her.

And then the guy that gets attacked, she like puts her shoe on his head and sticks or heel in his mouth. And her shoes are super important. Like we get these red shoe. Uh, flashback several times throughout the movie, but then that’s it. And it cuts away and I’m like, what was that? Like? It was totally not just in my mind, but like in the movie, very surreal and dreamlike and I didn’t even know what was going.

Yeah. Yeah. It throws you in several more times. It’s weird and it’s explained in the end, but it’s so out of context here that it’s very confusing and iterating. Yeah.

Todd: It always happens right after this, you know? Close up of some pills. It’s like somebody is taking some pills and whatever. And then at the, after this shot, you know, we get more of this shadow of this man sort of agonizing.

I pretty much figured at this point that somebody we don’t know who is troubled by visions of this, whether they’re real, whether it’s something that’s happened in the past or, or whether it’s just some symbolic thing we’re seeing his or her fever dream. Right going on. Right. But then now we go back to Tilda.

Tilda is the woman who earlier was really antagonistic to him, the journalist and she and her, we later found out roommate slash lover are in a bar. And, um, here’s her lover, a female. And, uh, Barely. No, no, no woman in this movie, I think wears a bra. I’m not complaining. Maybe it’s just a sign of the times or whatever, but there are moments at which like, how do these people walk around in public?

Like her nipples are like popping out of this thing right. And left as she walks, you know what I’m saying? Or am I just focused on the wrong things?

Craig: Well, no, you’re focused on exactly what the filmmaker wants you to be focused on. I mean, you know, when she. W when she gets back to her apartment, I like she has first, she and her lover are like together in a bar or something and her lesbian lover, but her lover like picks up a dude, but I love this.

She’s kind of like mad

Todd: about it. Yeah. She’s mad about it. But the dialogue and the bar is hilarious. She tells ’em. He doesn’t have

Craig: a place. So I’m taking him back to us. Oh, Christ. What’s bugging you. I thought we agree. Okay. No ties, but you don’t have to rub my face in it. Not your face, honey. Not tonight.

I know. So

Todd: dirty, it was

Craig: dirty and silly, but like then, so Tilda goes home and her lover is there having had her tryst and they’re still kind of fighting. And like the, the lover is for the next 10 minutes, she’s draped in a sheet draped draped, so that her amazing breasts are on full display. Yeah. Um, for, for the next 10 minutes.

And, and look, I can appreciate the beauty of the female form and this woman is curvy and like, wow. If I looked like her, I’d have my tits out all the time too. I

Todd: get it. But. But you know, her acting not so great.

Both of them is, is definitely the worst act. Probably the worst acting in the whole movie. It’s pretty bad. This is a very cringey exchange between the two of them. But their house is like, An insane, like postmodern crazy. It’s like blocks stacked upon blocks and it’s incredible house this place. And they have this tall staircase that she’s walks up, uh, to go to her room and Tilda is downstairs.

It looks out the window and then inexplicably, just some music starts playing. This happens a lot, actually in our Gentiles movies. I remember specifically one scene, a phenomena where the main character is out in the forest. And suddenly there’s kind of like a magical thing dancing around in front of her, some fireflies, and she kind of walks through the forest and suddenly this super pumping music comes in, even though there’s nothing super pumping happening on the screen and we get this.

Awesome. I don’t know. What is it like three minute tracking shot that starts outside of her window and slides up the house and kind of takes us past some of the other windows where we can see, you know, her lover upstairs, moving from room to room and then across the roof and really close into the roof tiles as we had across the roof, down the other side of the house.

And finally it ends up, uh, in front of a window where we see these gloved hands, clipping away, some shutters. On one of the windows clearly, uh, getting into the house. It’s so stylized. I love this thing because I just sit there and wait, you’re waiting for something to happen. And it’s like a good three minutes while this is sweeping around.

And just, what is it going to reveal? You know? And the music just is great. I think I read that this scene took like three days to be completed. Just this one shot. So, yeah. So then, um, This is our next murder. It’s like a double murder. The first girl gets killed.

Craig: He Tilda first, he slits her throat downstairs and then the lover kind of hears something.

So she comes downstairs, she sees, uh, Tilda dead. And so she runs back up the stairs, but the killer’s right behind her and then kills her too. But then he photographs the bodies, which is interesting because the next thing that we see is that he has. Photo lab where he’s got all of these like pictures and he’s also got like files on women.

So this isn’t random, like he’s choosing people for a particular reason.

Todd: He even whispers. And again, it sounds like a woman’s voice. But whispers filthy nasty pervert before he kills this girl.

Craig: Right? Well, and I feel like we failed to say that when, when, um, Peter was being interviewed by the. TV personality or whatever.

I think his name was Berti. His last name is bear or something like that. But he had said to him, he’s about human possession and its effects on society. And I’d like to know how you see the effects of deviant behavior on our lives. Well, first of all, it isn’t just about that. Two of the victims of deviance.

No, wait a minute, wait a minute. Who says that? Deviance? Well, when one is gay, but so what I mean, he’s portrayed is perfectly happy. In fact, His relationship with Sheila’s motivation is to eliminate what he calls corruption and that it seems to be what’s happening here. There’s a whole scene where the landlord’s daughter comes over to Peter’s apartment to turn on his water.

And she tells him to visit Carol at the bookstore on the corner, which I thought would surely be significant that he never does visit Carol at the bookstore or the quarter. So I don’t know what that was all about, but, um, the killer slipped. And Anne comes back over and the killer slips an another envelope under the door.

And the message is in Latin, but Peter apparently can read Latin and translates it to so passes the glory of Lesbos. It’s a little odd in the nose.

Todd: Yeah, just a little bit, but it tells the cops that they’re, they’re definitely all connected. You know, also Peter thinks he sees Jane’s car outside the window.

Boom. So there’s this, this Jane character who keeps possibly popping in that carrot. Peter’s a little, a little obsessed with the fact that he tries to call her a couple times more and doesn’t get a reply and is a little obsessed with the fact that she may be there in. In Rome for some reason. And we still don’t really even know who Jane is.

It’s clearly somebody who he had a relationship with and maybe cut it off or something like that. But yeah, I mean, it’s good. It adding all these possibilities, right? Who’s this Jane character, the film did a decent enough job of introducing us to enough people that it could be and throwing in a lot of suspicion amongst different folks, this journalist, you know, that Jane character and then Maria, the girl.

Who is the landlord’s daughter, whatever gets dropped off in a what looks like just a random, bad neighborhood, but I guess it’s near to her house, but it’s nighttime.

Craig: But hold on a second. Can you explain this to me? Cause I was really confused because Maria leaves Peter’s apartment with Johnny, the nice assistant boy, and they leave together on a motorcycle.

And then the next time we see her, she’s fighting. With some guy she’s sitting on the back of some guy’s motorcycle and she’s fighting with him and she gets kicked off. But that wasn’t

Todd: Johnny one. It wasn’t Johnny. Yeah. It was really confusing. You’re right. It was just another guy on a motorcycle later in the day.

I guess she,

Craig: I guess she just really likes motorcycles

Todd: the only way to get around and in Italy these days, you know,

Craig: I liked the scene though. I really liked the scene where. She gets off and she’s walking alone at night, which obviously is always not very smart for young women, but she sees this Doberman behind a fence and it’s barking at her and she just walks away.

But then she turns around, did somebody let it. Out or did it just happen to get out? Did not that I miss

Todd: something. I th well, she kind of, yeah, antagonizes the dog, right. It’s barking at her. And she kind of kicks back at it through the fence a few times you get the impression, like she’s just full of a lot of spit and vinegar at first.

I thought maybe somebody let it out, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think what actually happened was as we see later, a demonstration of this dog can fricking climb fences.

Oh

Craig: my gosh. Yeah. This is like a. Stunt dog. That’s crazy. Like, cause it, she jumps over one fence and the dog jumps over it and I’m like, I believe that.

But then she scales like this eight foot tall fence. I’m like, there’s no way this dog is getting over this. And the dog walks up to the fence, looks at it. Turns around walks like 12 feet back and then sprints at the fence and like scales it and gets older. It’s

Todd: amazing. I was impressed rest

Craig: by this dog and it attacks her.

She gets attacked by the dog. Um, and she ends up, she’s running away. And she ends up in this kind of opulent backyard at this door that we have seen. We know that this is the killer’s photo lab.

Yeah. Um, and, and she gets attacked again by the dog, right outside the door, but she escapes inside and she finds all of those pictures. And papers, but the killer isn’t there. So she, I thought this was really smart of her. Actually, she, she takes a lot of the papers and photographs and folds them up and sticks them in her skirt.

And then she goes up into the house and it’s a, it’s an extravagant house. Clearly somebody wealthy lives there. Um, but the killer shows up. And of course he’s all in silhouette and all black. And in that womanly voice, he Horsley whispers, spy, bad little spy, and he chases her and I thought for sure she was going to get away, but she doesn’t.

She gets an ax to the gut. Yeah, but, and, and the next morning, Peter gets a new letter where the killer explains that he’s upset that he had to kill that girl, but he will continue to kill all the deviance culminating with, uh, the, the corrupter, which it’s suggested that Peter. Is the corrupter. And so he’s going to be the last

Todd: victim.

And, and let me just talk really quick about this chasing. I thought it was fantastic. I loved it really tense, really spooky. And there’s something about that POV, you know, when you’re through their eyes and this girl’s running away, that kind of gets under your skin. There’s a lot of tension building up to this.

Two, because we’ve saw this key, you know, just, you just see this random image of a key dangling and you’re not really sure why. Uh, and then before that the, we had seen a killer going through his files and he’s got a file and one of them says prostitutes, blah, blah, blah. And, uh, we see a bunch of prostitutes on the street and a car pull up and these legs get out of the car and then.

That image of that key again. And then as though the killer wants to check something, he’s fumbling around his pocket and you clearly sees it as key as missing. So when she renders up and sees it gets to that door, okay, this is the key. This is the door. This guy is going to be back soon. So it’s, it’s very much foreshadowed that this girl is in danger in like three or four different ways before the chasing even happens.

And I love that about, it’s just very, very good filmmaking. It’s really interesting how he like this with those sort of flashback images with the girl, with the red shoe, he throws these things at you that just don’t make sense at the moment, which kind of forces you to pay attention and engage your brain, I think.

And then. At least in this case, you know, after about five more minutes and then you, you start to piece together why you saw those images and what they mean. Right. Instead of just a very straightforward way of doing it, I really liked that kept me engaged in the film, the way that he does

Craig: this. You’re right.

You’re right. You know, that, that whole series of things, to me, it seemed a little bit heavy handed. Like we see the killer, you know, for accidentally leave the keys and then we see him realize that he is, it, it was unnecessary for, I mean, it was suspenseful, but it was unnecessary for me because I knew the door.

So when she got to the door, I knew that she was going into the killers layer. Um, but whatever. She gets killed. Um, and at this point, Peter remembers

Todd: the guy, the, the news reporter. Yes.

Craig: Yes. He put, he starts to put it together and that’s the thing too. Like every time he talks to the inspector, which he does somewhat regularly, the inspector is kind of like, look, you know, you’re this murder, mystery writer.

Can’t you help me figure this out. And he’s like, well, I’m trying to figure it out. And at this point he’s like, Oh, that reporter kept asking me about perverts and deviance. Um, I think that there’s something there he says, but if I tell the police. They won’t believe me, but if I figure it out on my own, then what a story that will be that the murder mystery guy solved this crime.

So he and Johnny decided to go check out the crime scene and they go there and it’s that big opulent house that we had seen before. So we know they’re at the right place. And Peter hangs back for some reason. And Johnny goes up to the. You know, pretty much right up to the porch where there are big, you know, glass, doors and windows, so he can see inside and Berti comes in.

It is his house. So it seems like it must be him, but then all of a sudden his lights go out and Johnny can only see Berti like, there’s like a. Shrub or a big plant in front of the other side of the window, but he sees somebody approach Verdi and he hears you were right. It was me. I killed them all in that same voice that we’ve heard throughout.

And then Berti gets axed, right? Like in the head straight to the head he’s dead. So we feel like it can’t be him and, and. Johnny is like freaked out by this. I mean, he’s standing like six feet away. I didn’t understand. It even seems like the killer knows that he’s there. Cause like, I feel like the killer like throws something through the glass or something and then Johnny runs away and goes back to find Peter.

And when he finds Peter, Peter has been knocked out on the grounds by a rock and like he’s got a big. Gash in the back of his head, like Anne tells him when eventually he goes back to his apartment to clean up. She’s like, you should go to the hospital. I was like, yeah, you should go to the hospital. You got a

Todd: hole in the back of your head,

but he just puts a bandaid on it. And he’s fine.

Well, in the meantime, and, uh, has, has actually seen almost, she’s almost certain of a Jane. Again, this woman kind of across the street, pop into her car and drive off. She’s like, this is Jane. Uh, anyway, she goes back to Peter’s apartment and Peter asks and if she would stay the night and this is where they kiss and the way they’re talking about it, it’s clear that, or she says outright, you know, Oh, I’ve never slept in the hotel, the same place with you before and they kiss.

And so you get this impression that, yeah, they haven’t really consummated anything before now, but. But they are now.

Craig: I know, but it’s kind of lame. Like she’s like, yeah, you have to promise me that when we wake up tomorrow, none of this ever happened. Like, Oh God grow up

Todd: both.

Craig: I know she, she says like we was six years together and we’ve never spent the night together.

And when he asked her to spend the night, he’s like, just as friends. And then like the second she’s in her pajamas, he’s putting the moves on her and she’s totally into it. And it’s five and she’s like tomorrow it’ll be as though nothing happened. Okay. I mean, come on. Like, if you want to hook up, that’s fine.

Just do it. Don’t be babies about it. Anyway. So, I mean, we don’t see anything other than them kissing, but it’s implied that they hook up and then we get another one of those weird red shoe girl fantasies. Where this beautiful red shoe girl is walking through like a botanical garden or something. I don’t know.

And the killer presumably is watching her from behind a tree foliage as he’s prone to do, but then he approaches, but then he approaches her and stabs her in that. The end of it, Peter then goes back to Bomer John Saxon and says, I want to get out of here and had suggested that like, maybe we should just go back to America or whatever.

And Peter goes to Bomer and says, look, you know, I think maybe I should just get out of here. And Bomer says, yeah, but you know, it’s your publicity tour. You need this deal or whatever. I don’t know. He says, but all I’ll put you up in like a secret suite somewhere, which it seemed like Peter kind of agrees to.

And then Peter leaves and then boulmer opens a secret door in his office to reveal Jane and they. Make out and as it turns out, Bomer has been having an affair with Jane. Why they feel the need to keep it a secret? I don’t know, because it doesn’t seem like Peter has any interest in Jane and in fact wants to be rid of her.

Yeah. And at this point also, I thought, Oh, it’s them like, they’re doing it. Like Bulmers doing it because he says to, um, Jane, it won’t be long. I promise. And then they make, they make plans to have lunch later. And then Peter goes back to the crime scene to talk to the inspector and they have a whole talk about like the hound of the Baskerville.

Well, you know, there’s a sentence in a Conan Doyle book. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however, improbable must

Todd: be the truth. The hound of the basket bins. Yes. And the detective actually asked him to leave town at this point. And he says, yeah, you know, that’s a good idea. I was really, and he

Craig: says, he’s going to, when he does, we see him get on a plane and leave,

Todd: we get to see Jane go home.

She goes, I guess, to her home, somebody’s home and finds a package to her by the door. And when she opens up the package, there are red shoes inside and she seems, I don’t know, kind of puzzled by it, but she thinks it’s a present from Bulmer. I think the meantime Bomer is out in this Piazza. Waiting for Jane and she’s apparently super late or something.

Uh, he’s looking around, he can’t see her, he can’t find her and we get a couple more shots of these pills. Somebody, you know, walks into a bar and gets a glass of water to down them with, uh, and this heavy sort of breathing. And, and this is a kind of a neat scene. I really liked how all this played out.

It’s super specific. Well, cause you know, something’s going to happen, but it’s this wide open Piazza. Tons of people and lots of little drama going on here and there, it

Craig: felt like that was intentional. Yeah. Yeah. Like there was something weird about it. Like everywhere you look and it’s not just in the scene, it happens a couple of other times too, in the background, or, you know, as Bomer is just casually observing people, there’s.

There’s conflicts going on everywhere. Like he sees these lovers fighting. And then on the other side of him, he sees a couple of guys kind of almost getting in a fist fight. It almost felt like a zombie movie, like these little hints of discord happening all around. And it doesn’t really. Ended up being all that significant, but I didn’t know if it was supposed to be an atmospheric or, or what it was a little bit bizarre because of that scene with him just sitting there, looking around, goes on for a while.

Yeah, it does. And then he’s just sitting there and, um, we’re expecting Jane to show up, but we instead get the POV approaching him. We don’t know who it is, but it appears to be. Somebody that he knows, like you see recognition in his face right before he then gets stabbed in the middle of the day in the middle of this busy Piazza and nobody bats an eye even notices for a while.

Todd: Yeah, the it’s, there’s a woman kind of approaching him. He does this little fake out, right? There’s this woman who’s walking just in his direction. Who’s just had an argument with a guy and then you get a POV towards him. That seems like it’s maybe from that woman. But then after he gets stabbed, then the woman is still approaching.

We see. And she looks down and horror and screams and people start to, you know, gather around while he’s twitching on the ground. But yeah, you’re right. It’s a little improbable maybe. That this person could have taken off. And then in the crowd, you know, we just get a shot of feet and we see these red shoes walking up.

Which is presumably Jane looking down, turning around and, and slowly walking away. And that’s interesting, right? Like, what’s that

Craig: right? I mean, it’s presumably Jane, but we still don’t really know. And then this is the point where Peter says goodbye to Johnny and he leaves blah, blah, blah. And then yeah.

Johnny, even though he has been averse to going back to the crime scene before, because he was so traumatized by it, he goes back by himself because he just feels like there’s just a piece missing. He can’t remember everything and there’s just a missing piece. And, and he stands in the same place that you was standing when he saw Berti get murdered.

We get to see his recollection of it. And we realized that that. What he had heard. Yes, it was me. I killed them all. That was actually Berti saying it, not the person who killed Berti. And so we Berti was the original murderer and Johnny says, Out loud. Exactly what I was thinking. So who killed him? Like, and it’s just been killing people since then.

Yeah. And so Johnny goes back to his car and he gets strangled in his car, but before he dies, he’s able to turn around and he sees the killer. And again, we can tell by his reaction that it’s somebody that he knows. So presumably this is somebody that we know too.

Todd: Yeah. It’s

Craig: twisty J it is twisty Jane, randomly calls and looking for Peter.

And she says, and again, like I get it, it’s supposed to be twisty and red herrings. And, um, you know, we’re not supposed to, we’re supposed to be confused, but. Jane says to Anne that she was looking for Peter, but she says it’s like, there were two people in me and sometimes the other one just takes over.

Where are you? Jane? Are you enrolled? Yeah, help me please. Don’t let me kill myself. Tell me where you are. Jane. I’ll come around. All right. And apartment number 11. I’ll be right. Brown. Give me a few minutes. I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I want it to all right. So I guess Anne’s going to go over there and we see Jane sitting in her apartment with a gun, and I have no idea what’s happening here.

I don’t know if she’s sitting there with a gun because like she’s threatening to kill herself. I don’t know if she’s sitting there with a gun because she’s trying to lure an there to kill her because she’s jealous. I have no. Idea, but she’s sitting there in front of this big window and it’s storming and there’s lightning outside.

And out of nowhere, an ax comes through, breaks through the window and chops her arm off and she jumps up and like spins around and blood just splatters, like. Paints the entire white wall behind her and it looks fantastic.

Todd: It’s insane. I read it. It looks so good. I read in the trivia, the Quentin Tarantino said the murder of Jane via acts in this scene is his favorite onscreen death scene of all time.

Because of its intense imagery and the fact that she paints the wall with blood, which makes sense, because if you think about later, have you ever seen kill bill? Have you ever seen the, uh, yeah. Oh yeah. You remember kill bill wood? Uh, the big scene, uh, the big fight scene. I think it’s in the first one in, you know, it’s, it’s the, it’s the martial arts kind of extravaganza and the place where Lucy Lu’s character is and he’s chopping people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. His arms off right left and their arms are just spraying blood everywhere. Like it’s no tomorrow. Oh, I had forgotten about that. It’s a common trope in martial arts movies to some particular Hong Kong action movies had this aesthetic of the geysers of blood that would just shoot out of somebody.

But

Craig: what was that movie? Tokyo Gore police. Do you remember that?

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Okay. That was there too. And then there’s the trippy red shoe girl murder fantasy again. And then some man’s hands. Take the shoes, I guess, from Jane’s apartment. So it’s the killer and the killer is still in the house. Like, because Anna, we know that Ann is coming, so a car pulls up and a woman walks in and immediately she gets axed from behind, from behind.

And then the killer, we, it, I, I liked this part just because. It focused on the killer’s shoes and then it started to pan up and I’m like, Oh, here it is. We’re going to find out who it is, who is, who is it? Who is it? And it was Peter. And at this point I assumed it must be because everybody else that we know is dead.

So unless it was going to be okay, Unless it was going to be the detective. It had to be

Todd: Peter. I’d be there. I thought it was everybody at some point, you know, to be honest, but yeah, Peter, Peter is the obvious one, but then the detective enters, Peter comes up to the body cause he thinks he might’ve accidentally killed Ann.

Craig: Right. It’s the lady

Todd: inspector. The inspector comes in with a gun and trained on Peter and Ann enters as well and explains that he figured it out. Peter spins around, well, it starts walking away from them. And then he like spins around, reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a razorblade. Now, maybe we’ve neglected to mention this, but almost all the people in this film to this point, by the way, have also been killed by razorblades or axes.

Yeah, even though it hasn’t been Peter doing the killing until

Craig: recently, right. Only since Bertie, the original guy. And it’s revealed at this point that Peter is nuts and they, they talk about it and talk about later. Yeah. And what’s his name? Germani the inspector I think kind of explains. Or maybe Peter says it.

I don’t remember that he wanted to kill Jane and Volmer and he wanted Berti to take the fall for it. And they had had a discussion about this earlier about how he, Peter had said to the inspector, like, it seems like somebody’s already dead, who shouldn’t be dead or somebody who’s supposed to be dead isn’t yet.

Like, things haven’t worked out right. This doesn’t, it doesn’t make sense to me because. Peter figured out that Berti was the killer and he wanted bear T to take the fall for Jane and Bomer, who Peter wanted dead. Then why did Peter kill Berti before. He could frame them for the murders that didn’t, I don’t understand that.

Todd: That’s a very good point. I don’t understand that either. He loses his alibi, write that in there. I just think, you know, he’s just crazy and he can’t control himself anymore.

Craig: He can’t control himself. And he talks about how, you know, killing all these people has and, you know, solving the initial mystery and then killing these people felt like writing a book, but like, he’s just clearly unhinged, but it’s kind of like, you know, he was.

Taking over the narrative or whatever, but you’re right. He pulls out this, you know, a straight razor and slits his own throat. And so Germani and, and go out. In sit in his car, Germani explains that they had figured out that it must be Peter because they looked into his file. And it turns out that on his record, it showed that this young woman, the red shoe woman had been murdered and he was a suspect, but they hadn’t been able to pin it on him or something.

And he says, you know, if he did do it, this must have been something that had haunted him, um, for his entire life, which all adds up. You know, that’s why we’ve been seeing the flashbacks and the pills.

Todd: And it neatly brings back the quote from the beginning of the movie. And this is how the detective piece it together too, because the detective had actually been reading Peter’s book and, you know, at one point he says to him, yeah, I finished your book.

And actually, as opposed to the other ones of yours, I actually knew who did it by the end. But you know, the part of the quote that we had heard was everything he did could be swept away by one simple act annihilation. That’s the end of the quote. So at the beginning of the quote, kind of explains why Peter did it.

He got a taste for the murder. He realized that he could do it again, but then the end of the quote makes him think. And I had the exact same thought too, as soon as he said that, I was like, wait a second. So does that mean also that somehow Peter swept his own problems away by his killing himself, which then the detective just kind of looks at her and goes.

You know, can you just wait here for a moment and I’m going to go inside and he goes inside and Peter’s body is not there. It’s great. And he, he picks up on the floor is just, uh, like a bloody rag and this razor blade. And when he picks up the razorblades, he’s, there’s a little button on it and blood squirts out of the.

Oh, fake blood, of course, squirts out of the little holes in the razor. So it’s a totally fake razory fake the death. Now the detective gets it here,

Craig: right? Yes. Uh, Peter axes him and so, and sitting out in the car by herself. So she goes back in. And Peter is waiting for her as though he’s going to kill her too.

Now, I guess he he’s just unhinged and enough that he doesn’t care anymore, but there’s been this huge sculpture right by the door the whole time that looks like it’s just made of, I don’t know. Things that we’re obviously into, right? Yeah. I mean, it’s just like a death. Like if this thing falls on you, if you trip and fall into it, you’re going to be impaled and die.

And that’s exactly what happens and opens the door and knocks over this sculpture. It completely impales Peter and pins him to the wall. And there’s really kind of an uncomfortable scene where he’s trying to pull it out. But I guess because of the blood or sweat or whatever his hands are. Slippery. And he just can’t even pull it out and he’s pinned there to the wall as an screams and screams and screams and screams and it, and it just fades to black and her screaming just continues for like the next five seconds of credits over the credits, which is a little bit silly.

But at the same time, I thought. I, I kind of liked it. Like just I’m like, she’s just shrieking.

Todd: I loved it. Yeah. It was great. You know, this is a thing that seems like our gentle, how many Argentum movies have we seen where they’re these crazy abstract sculptures that had some way fall on somebody or stab somebody or something

Craig: like that.

Oh, and I know, and as soon as I saw it, the very first time, I’m like, mm, somebody getting impaled on that thing.

Todd: You read my mind.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, so overall the mystery was fine. I, like I said, by the time the killer was revealed, there were so few options of who it could be that I wasn’t. Entirely shocked, but I felt like, you know, they did a good job of keeping it suspenseful and keeping me guessing.

I thought I had figured it out a couple of times. I thought that it was, um, the agent. Um, I thought that the agents and Jane were in on it together and then, you know, that ended up falling apart. So I was surprised. And, um, I, you know, I think the movie. As I understand why people say and why this movie is considered one of his best.

It is good. I don’t even know if it’s my favorite. One of the ones that we’ve seen, which one was it, where, um, it all ended up hinging on a painting that a guy saw in the very beginning. I believe that was deeper. I think that I enjoyed that one more, but this one was fine. The, these movies are not necessarily my cup of tea, but as far I understand what they are.

I understand the formula they adhere to and. It’s fine. And as far as this movie is concerned, I thought it was fine. The, the people that were paying tribute to Daria , I didn’t feel like she had a whole heck of a lot to do. She kind of felt like a side character a little bit. She’s she’s pretty and, and totally fine in the movie.

Um, John Saxon, again, there are other movies that we could have talked about where he played a more prominent role, but we’ve already talked about our favorites and, and we’ve been very complimentary. Of him when we’ve done that. So I hope that we have paid our due diligence and paid our respects, um, to John Saxon.

He’s a fairly minor character in this movie, but handsome and charming and young. And, uh, I enjoyed his performance overall for what it is. I give the movie a thumbs up. And if you are into these types of movies and you haven’t seen this, I would recommend it if you’re like me. And it’s just not really your cup of tea.

I think that you like me are going to find it to be more of the same. Yeah. I mean, that’s where I stand on it.

Todd: Well, obviously I have a different perspective on it, just because I’m a huge fan of these kinds of movies. And I’ve seen a lot, so many of them, this is really far up there on my list. Now I’m S I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to watch it, but it’s also, you know, there’s nothing supernatural about it.

It’s very much this giallo style, crime type picture, and there are a ton of crime movies out there, and many of them that we’ve reviewed with this style. I think the thing that sets this one apart for me is its straightforwardness. And it’s really tight plotting. It was more twisty than these things tend to get.

There’s always a twist or two, but sometimes a twist or a little improbable, or the plot goes in directions that are, things are just a little improbable or too neat or too coincidental or just plain wacky. And this movie is so mainstream in the way that you could have potentially figured it out.

Everybody has a great shot of figuring this out before they go into watch it. And I felt that way through the whole movie, like this is a film I could trust. And I think that it. It was very skillfully done, you know, dropping those little hints and those little notes and those little red herrings in there.

I was following it more closely than I tend to follow this stuff. Sometimes I just give up, you know, I’m like, I’ll figure it out. I’ll see who it was at the end. But here I was really engaged and really trying hard and really engaging my brain. And I think part of it’s due the plot and part of it, as I said earlier, it’s just due to the weight.

Some of the images are put together the way the film is edited. I think it engages your brain that way throws a few odd things at you that you’re not quite sure what they mean, but you’re kind of engaged, trying to find out. And then it satisfies that every at every moment. So there’s by the time of the end of the movie, you’re really not sure left with any questions, but that begs the question.

Craig, you said that there was one thing that you thought. You somebody couldn’t be in one place. What was that?

Craig: When bear T got murdered? Now I realized that, um, Peter stayed back in the yard while Johnny went and witnessed it happening. So it’s not like he had to be in two places at the same time, but then he knocked himself out in the back of the head with a rock, like, yeah.

That’s a little, that seems a little improbable to me. Yeah. But whatever, I don’t care. I’m not looking for perfect realism in these movies. It’s fine. It’s I will concede that. It’s possible. I guess. I mean, I, I don’t think that it would be physically or psychologically possible for me. To strike myself that hard in the back of the head with a rock.

But maybe if you’re crazy, you can do those kinds of things. So it’s fine.

Todd: As the medication wears off. Right. Well, thank you for listening to our tribute to John Saxon. Undaria Nickelodeon. They, they put their Mark on cinema and we have other people to pay tribute to in the next week or two. So please stay tuned.

If you enjoyed this, please share this podcast with a friend. You can find this online. There’s two guys. And a chainsaw is all you need to Google and you’ll find our Facebook page, our website, our YouTube channel. You can leave us a comment in any one of those places. Let us know what you thought of this film and give us requests for films to do in the future until next time.

I’m Todd and I’m Craig’s with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

This week we kick off a small series of tribute episodes that we didn’t manage to get to last year. Looking back at 2020, one of the more prominent film industry figures who passed on was David Prowse. He may not be a household name, and you may not even have recognized him if you passed him on the street. But he was certainly a big part of your life if you were ever a Star Wars fan, as his performance as Darth Vader captivated generations.

The champion bodybuilder from Bristol didn’t do too much film work outside of that iconic franchise, but thankfully for us he put in a couple turns as Frankenstein’s monster for the Hammer House of Horror in the 70’s. Enjoy today’s homage to the superior of the two roles.

Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1974)

Episode 242, 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, hello 2021. We’re so happy. Happy that the new year has come, even though it’s just an arbitrary day based on the movements, planets and things in the sky, uh, doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re out of the woods yet, as far as things go.

But I think with the new year, there’s always kind of a new hope that, uh, things are going to get better. And so that’s one of these rituals we claim to, um, another one of the rituals we cling to here on two guys in a chainsaw is giving tribute to people who have recently passed away. Who have been a strong influence or act or director, or somehow connected to the horror film community.

And last year we of course saw a few more deaths than usual. And while we were able to get some tribute episodes in, we still found a few prominent actors and directors that we didn’t have a chance to squeeze in before the end of the year. So, uh, here we are at the beginning of the year and we thought, what better way following our new year’s episode than to look back at 2020.

And so, uh, One of the most famous stars, I guess you could say. Um, although maybe many people wouldn’t know him. If he, they walked by him down the street, uh, certainly has been a part of almost all of our childhoods and a huge part of pop culture is David Prouse. Uh, David Prouse is most famous for playing Darth Vader.

In star Wars, the original star Wars trilogy. He was a six foot, six inch tall bodybuilder from Bristol. Uh, he was born in 1935 and much like Arnold Schwartzenegger and Lou Ferrigno and, and folks like that, who actually, he did know personally. He got into filmmaking. Although he did that before they did one of his very first forays into film was with a company called hammer, a hammer.

You folks may know we’ve done. I think one hammer film, right Craig one or two. Yeah, only one that I can remember. Yeah. Many so far. Although there is a huge catalog for us to hit real quick about hammer films. It is a studio that came into being around the fifties and, uh, they, I think their very first big hit, although they did stuff besides horror, horror turned out to be their niche.

After the curse of Frankenstein came out in 1957. Have you seen the curse of Frankenstein? Craig by chance.

Craig: No, no, I haven’t. I’ve not seen many hammer films at all. I mean, these are the movies that my dad grew up on, but by the time I came around, you know, even he was kind of past those, but yeah, I feel like the hammer pictures and the universal monsters, you know, those.

We’re kind of our fathers and even grandfather’s generation. And I just haven’t delved very much into them.

Todd: Yeah, you’re right. Well, the, definitely the universal monsters are our grandfather’s generation and maybe our fathers as kids seeing them on TV or something like that. Although the universal monsters did go well into, I guess, that I guess, into the sixties, When our parents were, uh, were, were young, younger in high school.

And, uh, and they were all filmed in black and white. And one of the innovations that hammer did was basically they took the Frankenstein story and change it as much as possible so that they wouldn’t get sued by universal for making copycat. Uh, and released the curse of Frankenstein, starring Peter Cushing.

And what they did was they made Frankenstein into a Dick. They made a, and remember Frankenstein’s not the monster Frankenstein. Victor Von Frankenstein is the guy who makes. The monster scientist. Yeah. Yeah. The scientist and, you know, those that older picture with universal was sort of, um, misunderstood genius, you know, kind of brooding by himself in his lab.

But this guy that Peter Cushing plays as Baron Von Frankenstein is a sort of self-absorbed narcissistic, almost sociopathic character doesn’t really care about. Anyone is totally focused on his research and his science. And is really willing to do anything to get it. And basically has very few morals, if any.

Right. And so that was a pretty powerful twist on the story. And by filming it in color and also upping the Gore w adding the Gore, I would say, and then in later years, when the British sensors allowed it at throwing a lot of nudity in there, um, this became, you know, what made. Hammer films wildly successful, very similar in a way to what Roger Corman did in the States.

In fact, you could say Roger Corman copied from hammer, especially with his Edgar Allen Poe’s series that he did, uh, in the fifties and sixties hammer was known at the time was one of the most copied film studios ever is what people call it because they were so successful with this formula. And this formula for the longest time was running these Gothic.

Horror films, where you have these huge lavish sets. Most of them take place in castles and they’re period pieces, but with this sort of classic monster fare and this edge of having more Gore and being in color and fantastic actors in their stable, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee with the Dracula series ran for the longest time.

But by the time we come to this movie that we’ve chosen. Which is Frankenstein and the monster from hell. They were not doing too hot. This film came out in, uh, several years after it was filmed. It was filmed in 1972, I think, or 71, but didn’t really hit most theaters until 74 had a very short release wasn’t well received critically.

And it was actually not only the last. In the Frankenstein series that hammer did, but one of the last hammer films ever before the company kind of went under. So by the time they came to make this film, they weren’t doing too well money wise and they were struggling and trying to find some new formulas and new ways to make money in the States.

This was released in an, a double bill with a movie called captain Kronos vampire Hunter, which I would love to see sometime, which was their, their attempt at really kind of like creating a franchise. Again, uh, taking a different take with the vampire Hunter van Helsing kind of story. Um, but that also didn’t do too well either.

Although I hear it’s worth a watch that movie, I don’t know. We’ll, we’ll probably get to it at some point when we do our vampire series. Uh, but anyway, what I’m trying to say is, um, this is sort of the tail end of these, of these movies and. David Prouse approached hammer in the midst of them doing these Frankenstein movies and asked to play Frankenstein in one of their films, like walked into the offices and says, you guys need to have me as Frankenstein.

And, uh, for a while, they, they really weren’t listening to him. And had Frankenstein played by different Frankenstein’s monster. I’m sorry, played by different characters in all the other films. But then he got apart in casino Royale, which is kind of a James Bond spoof that came out a couple of years before this.

He had a brief stint as a Frankenstein’s monster in that, which was just a little cameo type role, but he was tall and imposing and had more of the universal style Flathead look. Um, they said, all right. Yeah, we’ll hire you. And they hired him for not this film. But the one that came before it and I’m bringing up because when I was looking at the tumor movies that we could watch, I was trying to debate between which of these two Frankenstein movies that David Prouse started with hammer.

We would see that we had our choice between this one and the one that came, uh, just a couple years before it called the horror of Frankenstein. And at first I thought the horror of Frankenstein sounded interesting because this was another one of their attempts to kind of reboot their series. They, uh, hired a, uh, an author who wrote the script and basically rewrote their original curse of Frankenstein story, but with a younger lead and a little more of like a sarcastic wit and a lot more humor.

So I watched it. I said, Craig, let’s do this one. Let’s watch the horror Frankenstein. And I found it and sent it to him. And I think I watched it before he did. Right. Did you?

Craig: Yeah, I didn’t get around

Todd: to it. Good. Okay. Because it’s not a bad movie for what it is, but as far as the tribute to David Prouse, we wouldn’t have been happy with it because he comes in, you know, about 20 minutes from the end as the monster.

And he really gets to do nothing but lumber around and kill people mindlessly. Uh, it’s just not a very good showcase of any bit of acting talent whatsoever, not his fault, you know, just the way that they had the monster in that movie. So, uh, I said quick, quick, quick, uh, this movie Frankenstein and the monster from hell is available on Amazon prime for free.

If you have Amazon prime. So we watched it and I’m so glad man, after watching the two of these films, I’m glad that at least this one is going to be a more fitting tribute to David Prouse. We’re going to be able to talk about him and his acting in this film a lot more and better than we would have from the horror of Frankenstein.

He’s the only actor by the way, to have. Played Frankenstein more than once in the hammer film, Frankenstein series. But then after this, I think a few years after this, he reunited with Peter Cushing and played his iconic role of Darth Vader. And that by far is of course the movie that people remember him for the most.

And, and he didn’t do much acting after that. Yeah. Right. God. So there’s my really long-winded intro.

Craig: Um, yeah, and, and of course I don’t eat when you told me that, uh, David Prouse had died and I was like, Oh, that’s sad. Who’s David pressed. I, you know, I wouldn’t have known him from anything, but of course our generation.

Star Wars. It was huge. And not that it’s not still, but not to the extent that it was in the eighties when we were growing up.

Todd: And yeah, it’s insane. Darth Vader

Craig: is one of the iconic villains of our time. And, you know, David Prouse, he didn’t voice the character. James Earl Jones of course, voice to the character did David Prouse.

Okay. So when, um, When Luke unmasks Vader right before he dies. Is that David brows?

Todd: I

Craig: don’t think it was, was it?

Todd: No. No.

Craig: So you never, I mean, you never even see the guy, but he’s huge and he’s imposing and. I don’t know, even know what to say about it. I think that it takes, and some might disagree with me. I don’t know.

You put a guy in a big, scary suit is a huge guy. Um, some people might think, you know, basically he was a hanger for the costume, but I don’t feel that way. I feel without his, without his physical presence, that character would have been something entirely different. And, uh, so he’s an icon in my mind. For that reason, this is presumably the only other thing I have seen him in as far as I know, um, I know that he was also famous in England for playing a superhero type.

Character that like went around the country, teaching kids about like roads safety

did that for decades and was very popular, uh, in that character. And I also know that there was a little bit of controversy with his role in star Wars. I don’t know if he was difficult to work with. Most, everything you read is rumors and there are conflicting stories on them. Either side that rumor has it, that he initially wasn’t pleased that he wasn’t going to be voicing the character and that he was vocally critical of that decision.

And George Lucas, you know, you can find quotes from him where he says that, uh, this guy, David Prouse just, um, burned too many bridges to continue on. I mean, I guess. He was in the whole trilogy, the original trilogy. Um, but I guess there was some tension there. Ultimately I think that Prouse was. You know, very gracious about his opportunity to play the role.

And he was very gracious with meeting with fans at conventions and star Wars events and stuff like that. And, and I think that he embraced it regardless of whatever tension there may have been while he was playing it. But, uh, that’s, you know, that’s what I know him from. And now of course I’ve seen this and, uh, you know, you asked me about.

What my experiences with hammer and I, I just, I haven’t seen many of them. I’m very much aware of them. I, I just it’s, you know, this, this isn’t a surprise to you. I’m just really not drawn to these older movies. That’s not to say that I don’t find them interesting from a historical perspective, it’s just not.

What I choose to watch for entertainment. Yeah. Um, so I was interested to watch this and it was an interesting movie. I wish that I knew more about the ones that proceeded it, because if the ones that preceded it are like this. I am not surprised that this was the last one, because I think that my biggest complaint and I, and I don’t have many complaints really about the movie, but my biggest complaint is that this is just the Frankenstein story.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In a mental institution,

Todd: that’s it? Yeah.

Craig: Instead of Igor being E uh, physically mutated. Kind of character, which I read the book at high school. I don’t even remember it. I think I remember it being boring, but, uh, you know, in the original old movies, black and white, you know, Igor’s this hunchback kind of character.

Instead of that, we’ve got a beautiful female mute who is

Todd: who surprisingly is, is covered up. Considerably. Well, I’m so surprised. I was shocked not to see cleavage in this. I mean, I’m telling you, if you had seen the movie before, there is so much sex, Frankenstein, Frankenstein is getting it on like every 15 minutes with his assistant in that movie who is a 16 year old servant at his house.

Yes. It’s Crow who used to bank his father. Yeah. Oh my gosh, that movie it is, I mean, there is cleavage throughout no nudity, surprisingly, no nudity for as much sex and, and innuendo is there is there is in it, but when she ever make a point of every time, this woman bends over, there’s just full on Cleveland, right there in front of the camera.

It’s so gratuitous.

Craig: Yeah, no, this movie is pretty modest in that respect.

Todd: It is surprising. There, there is

Craig: some Gore, some fun practical effects going on, but I don’t know. I I’ll be interested to hear what you. Thought about it and I’m not going to say I didn’t like it. It’s just, I don’t know. It, the story was so familiar.

It, it just didn’t do much. There, there wasn’t enough different and new and innovative about it. To really peak my interest. It was fine, but I’ve seen Frankenstein.

Todd: There was, there was nothing new and innovative about this 1974 film to really get you there, Craig away from the zone

Craig: in terms of the story.

Todd: Yeah, I know what you’re saying. It is. Yeah, you’re right. It is, it is almost a hash for hash kind of retelling of the Frankenstein story yet again, in a mental institution with these small tweaks. I, you know, I think also. Uh, obviously it’s a different time. People had a taste for these kinds of Gothic overdone productions, you know, for a while.

And they were cranking them out like crazy. And, uh, I’m, I’ve always been a big fan of these because a, like I told you before my dad was into this kind of stuff, not so much the whore, he was a lot more into the science fiction, but this kind of thing would pop up every now and then, especially on network television.

On Saturday afternoons, right after the cartoons were done, it would be exactly this kind of film. It would either be a hammer film, or a Roger Corman, Gothic film, you know, starring Vincent Price, like one of his ed ground poll ones. Uh, and so I think just for me growing up with that as one of my first introductions to horror, even at the time as a kid, I can’t say that really scared me.

They’re not really scary films. I would say. Some of them have some pretty creepy things going on. And, uh, some themes that are kind of messed up and, you know, the vampire ones, especially the doesn’t take much for vampires to be, you know, creepy and scary. But at the end of the day, you know, we’ve moved on from this kind of thing.

And part of the problem, really what, why this movie didn’t do so well as everybody in 1974 was losing a taste for this stuff. I mean, they’ve been done to death and, uh, you had nightmare. What was it a night of the living dead, I think was in 1968. So not, not long before this and Rosemary’s baby. The omen came after this.

So we were, we were leaving this older style of horror, the monster movies, and getting more into the cerebral kind of psychological horror. Oh, the Exorcist. Was a year or two before this. So, I mean, come on following the exorcism and stuff, who’s going to come out and watch, you know, Frankenstein once again, going through his lab and creating a monster.

Craig: Right. And I’m already second guessing my own criticism because. Somebody, you know, your son’s generation will look back at the movies that we grew up with. And they’ll say the same thing that I just said, you know, th they’ll they’ll look at Friday the 13th, one through 40 and say, well, they were all pretty much the same.

Well, they were. They were all pretty much the same. Um, so you know, it, it’s not even a fair criticism. I don’t want to get too down on it. It it’s, it’s got a charm to it. I did like the Gothic atmosphere. I liked the score. Um, the acting is, is perfectly fine.

Todd: We’ll be acting fantastic. I think

Craig: so. Yeah. Uh, Peter Cushing.

I don’t know. I just, I felt like his character was a little bit flat, but you know, his, his Victor Frankenstein characters a little bit flat and then. It was kind of, I don’t know the way that it starts as you’ve got this young scientist, Dr. Helder played by Shane Bryant, who looked like a young James Spader to me beginning.

He is doing experiments. He he’s following in Frankenstein’s footsteps. In fact, he’s using his. He’s using Frankenstein’s books, um, to do these experiments, trying to put together a man and he’s hired a grave Digger who gets caught by the police and then the PO you know, that leads them to him. Dr. Helder and he ends up being arrested and tried for sorcery.

Yeah. In fact,

Todd: we have a precedent to your case. I find that some years ago a certain pattern was sentenced by this court for a very similar offense. Baron who that is no concern of yours Frankenstein. You appear to have heard of him. I’m not surprised I have all his books, his lectures, the Academy to return to your case.

As I say, I have decided to extend my leniency to its limits. I only sentencing you to be committed to the state asylum for the criminally insane for a period of five years.

Craig: And as soon as he gets there, he meets the lame bumbling. Nasty director of the asylum. And he asks him about Frankenstein and the director says, Oh, Oh, well, yeah, he was, he was here, but he’s dead.

I’ll show you the grave. Like lame.

Todd: Well, you didn’t like. I mean, this is John Stratton, he’s he? He’s a iconic guy. He’s been in a thousand things and a very well-respected actor. I thought, you know, I mean, I thought that he played, I mean, I think the character was supposed to be over the top. He was for sure, but I thought he.

Played it really well. He just feels not just shady, also a little bumper bumbling and lecherous, all kinds of, at the same times, it’s a sweat furrowing from his brow every, the whole time he’s on screen. I kind of liked this. I mean, I like this character is, and I thought he was a likable person, but I, I really enjoyed this character on the screen.

I thought he was interestingly drawn, maybe more interesting, more interesting than Victor Frankenstein. I don’t know maybe, but. You don’t agree, huh?

Craig: Well, I mean, I don’t know the guy, I don’t know what else he’s been in. It was a little cartoonish, but so what, you know, it’s a Frankenstein movie, that’s fine.

And, and he’s meant to be villainous and being a little bit cartoonish as a villain is, you know, it’s par for the course. It didn’t bother me. And, and he’s, he’s not in the movie a lot. I mean, he’s a side character, but anyway, so the guards, um, I guess that. Uh, held her is acting a little bit too uppity for their liking.

So they take him and to humiliate him, I guess, um, hose them down with a fire hose. And it’s a long scene where he’s getting. Host down in front of these other inmates who, and the other inmates. It’s funny, anytime you see these types of movies with people in a mental institution, like they’re just so comically drawn.

Um, but it’s typical. It’s not bad. It’s just very. Typical. And that’s when Frankenstein shows up,

Todd: I would say in a movie like this, it’s kind of what I want to see anyway, you know, it’s like an old fashioned review, but did you find it funny that did they have modern style firehose? It was back then.

Craig: I don’t know.

Todd: What is it supposed to be? 17th century or something? They’re turning this like super high pressure fire hose on him. That they have in the basement of this asylum might

Craig: that’s powerful enough to bloody him. Yeah.

Todd: Scrape and scratch him up and give him welts and stuff. Yeah, it’s weird. But yeah, you’re right.

Frankenstein makes dramatic entrance

Craig: and he shows up and, and the, the deal is that Frankenstein and the doctor faked Frankenstein’s death. So that then Frankenstein could be like the asylum. Physician. And he goes by Dr. Victor. Now it’s suggested very early on that Frankenstein has some dirt on the director, which is how he was able to finagle this position, but whatever.

So now he’s the physician at the asylum and Peter Cushing is dressed to the nines, you know, like in coat tails and, you know, he looks great and he’s got a great. Presence also. And then it just goes from there.

Todd: I don’t know. We meet

Craig: Sarah. Who’s the beautiful moot

Todd: kind of walks out of the inmates, right?

Like at first I thought she was one of the inmates. Cause she’s watching this guy get hosed down. And then as soon as Frankenstein shows up, he calls her out from the crowd and says, Sarah, come over, come with me and vantage up his wounds. And I thought that’s strange. And then they go to the director’s office real quick and he knocks on the door.

Victor is actually going to report that those two guys did that to the, to Simon. And it’s interesting, like he hears noises in there when he opens the door, a girl comes out kind of holding her close. I mean, this guy’s like. Raping an inmate clearly. I mean, what a scumbag guy and, uh, and Frankenstein dresses him up and down for it.

So I thought it was an interesting dynamic between those two to kind of scummy people. But one of them has the pretense of respectability because he’s a serious scientist. And anyway, it’s kind of a means to an end for him anyway. Uh, and so they’re able to kind of, I help you, you help me, but even Frankenstein’s got his limits, I, you know what, I’m not sure what those limits are, but I guess it was, uh, these are his patients, right?

These are his patients. And so he’s kind of protective of his patients in a way, but he’s still going to use them to meet his. What he, what he wants to do his, his real work, which is his scientific work. And so Simon is actually kind of a protege of his, because he’s doing similar, he’s been doing similar work, why he got the, you know, the grave, robbery and stuff.

And so it’s a great privilege for him to be in the presence of this doctor. And so at first I thought this was this I thought was interesting. He’s very quick. And I thought convincingly. So to endear himself to the doctor, because the guy knows what he’s doing. I mean, he’s able to hold his own next to Frankenstein.

He manages to convince Frankenstein to let him be his assistant. I’ll let you walk around with me and let me show you the place. And so that’s when he takes him with him along with the mute Sarah, on his rounds. Through the asylum. And so we get to meet the different characters in there. Got it. I have says my own special patients.

I shall continue to treat them myself special. In what ways in that they interest me and see, shall I be allowed to see them

Craig: as Schneider, the

Todd: red disk indicates that the patient is dangerous. And I thought this was clever writing too. And as soon as he opens the door, it shows an empty cell, but the camera view through the, is through the window, outside the building, through, into the cell. And we see that the bars have been mangled and bent back.

And he says, uh, this guy in here, uh, what was his name? Schneider.

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t remember, but he was just like this super, super strong guy. And. That’s why the bars are bad. He was able to escape, but his cell was like 30 feet above the ground. So, um, he fell, supposedly do his death. Does he tells him he died first.

Todd: He says he fell down to his death and it was kind of his body, but his body wouldn’t quit. And so he gave him, the guy wanted to die. He gave him a whole bunch of sedatives drugs and whatever, and brought him back to the lab and he tells him. That it had took him four days or something before he finally passed on that and that his body is buried out in the cemetery, which to keep by the insane asylum, you don’t come to think of it.

There are a lot of movies we’ve seen where there’s a cemetery right next to an attached to, and somehow associated with this insane asylum. That’s pretty messed up. Is that a real historical? I

Craig: don’t know, but you’re right. We have seen it in several movies.

Todd: Oh, anyway. Yeah. So, uh, so that, that, that’s this guy’s story.

Um, he’s not there supposedly dead. And then he moves on to another room and we meet the professor. Who’s sitting there playing a violin and Simon has really taken with his song. What is this? I don’t think I’ve heard this piece. And he says, well, it’s it’s angel. I wrote it for him. Angel and everybody, all the inmates in the asylum are taken by Sarah and her nickname.

There is angel. And so it seems like she just has this magical quality about her. That no matter what’s going on, just her very presence is able to calm people down.

Craig: She’s the perfect woman. She’s sweet and pretty. And she doesn’t talk.

Todd: Just, I would agree with you, but my wife’s probably going to listen to this later.

So I don’t need her hearing that

Craig: I’m obviously just kidding, but like, that’s kind of how she’s presented. Like you, she doesn’t speak. She’s very beautiful and she’s just so helpful. Like

Todd: she

Craig: is the doctor’s assistant too, but she’s also obviously very compassionate with all of these other inmates, which, and so I.

Assume she was an inmate as well. And honestly, I’m really not certain. In the end, whether she wasn’t,

Todd: she kind of is because we learn later.

Craig: She, yeah, she has a backstory that we learned later.

Todd: That’s right. All right. I’ll save that for later. There’s a reason she’s mute. And apparently the doctor knows. How to fix that.

There’s apparently a way to fix that, but he’s not doing it anyway. Uh, so then there, the, the, so the professor’s written a song and he also has mathematical equations all over the walls and Simon understands music well, but he doesn’t understand math. He hates math and the guy says, Oh, if only you could understand what’s on the wall, you would see it’s just as beautiful.

It’s like poetry. It’s just as beautiful as the music I’m playing. And so we leave him and a wonder, why what’s wrong with this guy? And, uh, the only thing is the Dr. Frankenstein tells us, yeah. He had a couple of violent episodes right. In the past.

Craig: Yeah. And he says, um, next time you see the director, be sure to ask him about the time that the professor attacked him and why.

And that is significant later on, even though it’s just kind of thrown away here. Um, but yeah, so there’s the professor and he’s. I’m feeling really guilty about what I said about Sarah. She’s really,

Todd: there goes Craig backtracking on one of his jokes.

Craig: I know it was, it was a really importation joke.

Todd: This woman, well, we might as well say that.

I mean, the actress was a bond girl. He was a in live and let die. Roger. Moore’s very first bond girl and she was in some, Oh, Way sexier roles than this, uh, before this film, that’s why I’m surprised she didn’t do nudity here, but

Craig: well, and kindness, I don’t know, kind of surprises me that if she had that level of.

Uh, experience that she would take a mute role in a hammer picture?

Todd: Well, I mean, I think she did the bond role. Was it before this? I think it was after this Madeline Smith, by the way is her name. Um, and I think before this, she had was in a couple of other hammer movies. One of those was. The vampire lovers.

If I’m not mistaken, she was in theater of blood.

Craig: You know, she is mute. She is, she speaks, I think like one word or something at the end, but she’s on screen almost all the time. She’s a major character, but then this, the, the another guy that they meet is this guy, another. Very gentle sympathetic type older gentlemen, who, um, has all of these, uh, carvings in his room and held her, asks what’s wrong with him.

And he says, Oh, well, you know, he was a genius, skilled craftsman, but then his brain just atrophied.

And so he can’t do it anymore. And like,

Todd: it’s so funny too, because he’s got this little wooden carving. And as though this is the very first time he’s ever seen Zara. He hands it over to her and she takes it as like this special gift, like, come on. I, uh,

Craig: I that’s one of the things that I liked about this part of the movie, both of those characters, the professor and this guy, the craftsmen were very sympathetic.

I felt bad for them. You know, they were. Locked in these tiny concrete cells. And they clearly had a desire for human connection. They were particularly drawn to Sarah, not in a lecherous way at all. Um, and I felt that well,

Todd: I actually, I also was really impressed with the way Simon dealt with them. He was super professional, seemed also like very caring, really the same with Victor Frankenstein in this part of the movie where they all come across as genuinely caring about these patients.

And a competent and sort of professional, you know, it’s not like in a lot of these movies where it’s, you know, these guys are just beat around and mistreated by people don’t know what they’re doing.

Craig: Yeah. But see, I would say that even in the scenes where Frankenstein is very professional, but he seems to have a more academic interest in the patients than a human.

Todd: That’s true.

Craig: And I think that’s important and Simon’s here.

Todd: He did say Simon is more sympathetic. He’s not that far off. Right? I mean, he also seems to be a little more focused on academia, maybe a little less humanly. I don’t know.

Craig: Right. The thing is okay. So what it comes down to basically is eventually, you know, I don’t know if held her suspect something’s going on or what, but he’s kind of snooping around and he finds Frankenstein secret lab.

He finds Sarah coming out of it and. He goes in and he starts looking around and Sarah runs and gets Frankenstein. So Frankenstein’s there too. And basically

Todd: what he sees,

Craig: held or gets him to confess.

Todd: Yeah, that’s right. What he sees, what get some suspicious with somethings going on as he wakes up and.

Early one morning and he sees a, uh, down below they’re carrying a coffin by a grid, the graveyard to bury it. And somebody slips in the coffin spills open inside of it is the craftsman guy, but his hands have clearly been cut off and quickly. They close it up and go. And so he’s like, that’s weird. And then you’re right.

He explores and finds, um, Frank and Frankenstein’s furious. He walks in and, you know, actually I really liked the design of Frankenstein’s little secret room because. It’s like if you were to even stumble into it, in fact, when he first walks into it, it seems kind of like, Oh, it’s like a dining room, right?

There’s a little fireplace there. There’s a long table that you might eat at. There’s some scientific equipment on, you know, a couple of the tables, but nothing really big. And then some curtains on the other end the room. But that long looks like a, like a dinner table has straps hanging down below it that are like attached to the table that.

It took me a second to notice, actually it wasn’t until the second camera swipe around that I realized it had those straps hanging down. It was a nice touch. I thought it was kind of an interesting design. It wasn’t your standard, you know, you’d expect. Okay. The secret room is going to look like a fricking madman’s, you know, layer and it wasn’t that at all.

Or maybe they just didn’t have the budget for it. I don’t

Craig: know. Um, but it, it almost seems as though when Helder sees that body and sees that his hands are missing and Frankenstein had. Made a big deal about, Oh, have you ever looked at his hands? Have you ever seen hands like that? The hands like that?

Like he’d made a huge deal out of it. And when the often gets dropped, it’s Frankenstein that like sh you know, shakily like looks around and make sure it gets closed up again. I think that’s what makes him suspicious. And as it turns out he’s right, and basically Frankenstein just confesses to him and.

And shows him the monster, right?

Todd: Yeah. But you know what? I really liked this moment. I mean, when you talk about Peter Cushing’s performance being a little flat, I felt like there was a look, there was a very strong, intense exchange between the two of them before he finally relents and swings, open that curtain to show the monster.

But it was kind of like just his eyes went through about three different stages. And finally we’re like, Okay. If this is what you want, I’ll show you. And auntie auntie does and the monster. Okay. So this is where David Prouse comes in. So at least he comes in a little earlier in the film here where we’re almost an hour in of an hour and a half film.

And God, the cost, it was terrible.

Craig: Oh, it’s awful. He, it looks like it, it looks like a costume shop, Bigfoot, costumers.

Todd: And why, why is really, why is it covered in hair? I, I do not for the life of now understand why he kind of looks like a gorilla and it doesn’t move very well. And his face, it is like a mask to the point where his mouth doesn’t move at all when he talks.

And so he has to kind of grunt when he talks our, he only says like small words and he says them quietly and slowly. And that’s the only way it’s kind of convincing that this is a real mouth,

Craig: right. And there are little eye holes for his eyes. Initially. He doesn’t have eyes. Um, because as it turns out, the monster is that big guy who broke out of his cell.

Yup. Um, and, and Frankenstein says, well, you know, I sedated him. So they would think he was dead. But then I. Brought him back in or something. I don’t know. But when he had fallen out of the cell, he had landed on like a spiked fence or something. So his eyeballs had gotten. Popped out. And I guess his hands had been messed up or whatever, and they’ve already sewn the craftsman’s hands onto him, but Heller’s like, ah, it doesn’t look like he did a very good job and Frankenstein’s like, well, I’m still a brilliant surgeon in my mind, but, and he pulls his gloves off and his hands are all burned.

I don’t know if that’s, if there’s a backstory there from a previous entry in the series.

Todd: I don’t know.

Craig: Um, but he can’t. He says he can’t do that kind of delicate work. So he’s just been, Sarah’s been doing it under his instruction, but uh, held her, fixes it. He fixes the hands. Um, and now he’s going to be the new guy and.

They need the, I guess he already has some eyeballs,

Todd: right? I mean, well, you mean he fixes the monsters hands.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. I’m sorry. Yes, yes,

Todd: yes. He fixes the Monster’s hands. And in this scene where he fixes the Monster’s hands, I think this is where he first proves himself, right? Like, yeah, I can do this.

I don’t think it was in the version that we saw, but there is a deleted bit from this scene that sometimes shows up where Peter Cushing’s character Frankenstein. Bites down on one of the veins in his arm to kind of clamp it while Simon does his surgery. And apparently that was a little too gross for some people I read about that.

Craig: And that’s funny because I read about it and then I. Was looking for it in the movie and then I forgot all about it. It didn’t happen. I also read that supposedly it was human blood that they were using for those effects.

Todd: That’s weird. I mean, if that’s the rule. Oh my gosh. Why? What come on. Why would you do that?

Yeah. Super girl. Well, the movie is gory for its time. From now, it’s kind of cute to think that people thought this was really gory, but it’s still gory. I mean, there’s still some blood gushing and some open wounds and severed arms and hands, and my wife would be grossed out at it. She doesn’t like that kind of stuff.

Yeah. W w the eyeballs kind of harken back to the beginning, right? Because when he was in his lab, when Simon was in his little makeshift lab, kind of doing his own experiments, he had a whole jar full of eyeballs. I feel like

Craig: the crux of the conflict in the movie is that Simon Helder admires Dr.

Frankenstein and wants to emulate and continue his work. But in working with him, he finds him to be unethical. And he has a problem with that because as it turns out, You know, Frankenstein’s special patients. He’s basically farming them. You know, like he’s, he’s farming the different parts that he wants.

And it’s a little bit vague as to whether or not he is actually killing these people for their parts, or if he’s just setting up scenarios for them to die. So he can get their parts because, um, after the hands and the eyes. And I think, like I said, I think they just had eyes on hand

Todd: do the guy’s job.

Craig: I don’t remember them taking.

Yeah. They didn’t take them from anybody, but after that he’s like no

Todd: needs is another brain preferably the brain of a genius. Well, you won’t find one here, except of course the professors. But he seems perfectly fit. You could live for another 10 years more. He could indeed you wouldn’t kill it. You’ll think I would do that.

Craig: And then the very next scene, a guard finds the professor hung by his own violin strings. And when. That’s reported to Frankenstein in Simon’s presence. Frankenstein’s like, Oh, well I guess the brain problems fix

Todd: them very nonchalantly, right to nonchalantly. But later Simon finds a note. Um, he, the, the violin that he played in his, in it’s sitting there in a violin case in Frankenstein’s lab, and there’s some papers crumpled up kind of inside the case.

And he pulls out one of them and he opens it up and looks at it. And it is. His chart, I guess, or whatever his records and Frankenstein had written at the bottom of it in curable. And so Simon approaches him and said, did you just leave this out for him to see, you know, to cause him to do this and frankincense a little cagey about it, but finally he, more or less admits to it.

Craig: Well, and that’s the thing like Simon was doing these things too, but he was taking dead bodies from the cemetery. He wasn’t harvesting things from life people, and he seems to be bothered by that. Not bothered enough to not continue on with it. At this point, they do the brain transplant, which is whole

Todd: brain transplant is awesome.

Craig: Oh brain transplants.

Todd: Yeah. Well the whole idea of brain transplants is silly, but I mean, this seed was great. I mean, they just linger. They take every step, remember eyes without a face. Do you remember that one? Yeah. Where we saw the face removal in great detail. Yes, transplant surgery. This was kind of the same.

I was thinking about that where they, you know, they cut through the skull and the blood’s coming down and, you know, dabbing that away. And then they saw the skull and then they take the skull cap off and the brain is there. And the doctor’s like, I mean, what does this take? 10 minutes. He’s holding the brain.

He’s like now separate right here. And now sever these nerves over here. And the whole time, just this brain with Frankenstein’s hand on his. Front and center in all of its gory detail up close in the middle of the screen, it

Craig: kind of looked like macaroni and cheese.

Todd: It didn’t make you hungry.

Craig: It didn’t look real, but it looked like it was, it was fun affair and it was bloody and gory and, you know, I don’t know.

I liked it. I did, I enjoyed it a lot, but I mean, it’s just so silly, you know, like they’re wearing these big, like auto mechanic, rubber gloves and just, you know, handling the brain and like dropping it into a little VAT of like bubbling water

Todd: and it’s out, you know, kind of thing.

Craig: Frankenstein. We’ll just like, pick it up and like admire it.

And he’s like, Oh, this is, and then they, they do end up putting it in the monster. Yeah,

Todd: that was great too. Cause cause it’s, it’s got again, then putting it into the monster and then the camera pans down to a big bowl that they have at the bottom where they’re throwing their. Bloody rags into, and all you see is that bowl and Frankenstein’s feet.

And then he tosses a bloody rag down there. And then the brain just like the, the old brain from the monster, just flops down in there, like they don’t, and then he screwed us over it,

Craig: like. Kick like frustratedly like kicks it away, like stomps on and

Todd: kicks it away. Yeah. Kicks it away. It’s so funny.

Craig: But that’s when the movie, I actually got more interesting to me because it works.

I mean, it’s ridiculous, you know, the, they say he’s going to wake up in 10 days, but really he wakes up in 10 seconds and he’s fully conscious and aware and. Prouse under all of this latex, the really kind of the only thing that you can see of him aside from his hulking body is his eyes. And he does a good job of acting with his eyes when the monster wakes up, because he’s had the brain transplant.

Now he is the professor in this big. Disgusting body. And he looks, and he sees his hairy torso and he sees that his hands aren’t his hands and he feels his face. He gets up and he looks in the mirror and he’s obviously distraught as you would be. And I felt bad for him. And that’s something that I liked about the movie was that it did play much like the book where the monster.

Is a victim in all of this. Um, didn’t ask for this, didn’t want this. And, and really is just being used as literally as a science experiment. And, uh,

Todd: yeah, it’s really hammered home because he doesn’t get up and smash the lab. But, you know, apart in, in anger, he sits there with his head in his hands, crying and saying.

Y Y and then Frankenstein walks up. Who

Craig: am

Todd: I?

You’ve done it. This young man.

And who is this?

Got it. You’ve made it work. You’ve done it.

Craig: We did it.

Todd: The three of us. You did Byron Frankenstein.

Craig: No one

Todd: else. No one has ever done this before. No one in this world now, perhaps they’ll accept and understand what I’m trying to achieve. Of course they will. Let’s drink to that. They’re having this whole conversation, 12 feet away from the monster.

Well, he’s far in the background with his head in his hands and congratulating and patting each other on the back, and then they walk out of the room and just leave him there. Right. It’s so sad. And then they begin training them like, Oh, you’re going to teach you, you know, I guess things just aren’t quite working right.

A well for him. So he’s kind of, kind of learned things over again, even like math and stuff. And so, uh, you know, that he’s pushing them to learn all this stuff and to write all, all these math equations and the monster just looks at him and says, eat I’m hungry. And he’s like, I’ll feed you later. And he smashes the Blackboard and.

Frankenstein’s like, okay, well maybe we can get you some food now. Then Victor says that he’s failed. He says what’s happening is the opposite of what I thought instead of the brain learning to control the body, the body’s rejecting the brain. And so his brains is just deteriorating and eventually it’s going to be nothing in this whole experiment is lost.

That’s okay. But there is a solution. Oh, there isn’t. Solution. So in the next scene, Sarah is asleep next to the monster and Simon wakes her up, comes in and wakes her up with a kiss to the forehead and the Monster’s eyes. He’s laying down to the monster, his, but his eyes happen to be open and he sees this happen and he gets.

Angry Simon ushers Sarah out of the room. And then there’s this great little fight scene with a great jump scare, where Simon, as soon as Simon’s ushered Sarah out of the room, he throws a giant bottle across the room, Adam, with shatters on his wallet. I jumped and then he picks up this broken bottle and is approaching Simon with it, trying to stab him.

Finally, the monster gets subdued by Frankenstein in this amazing. Amazing action. Movie sequence where 59 year old Peter cushioning leaps up upon the table, jumps onto the back of this monster and puts a coat over his head and wrestles him to the ground. He’s got some chloroform or something in the coat that he uses to put them out.

But. Oh, my gosh, man, this guy jumping onto a six foot six, uh, David Prouse and wrestling him to the ground. I was like, Oh, be careful. He looks so frail.

Craig: Well, I mean, Peter Cushing is just dwarfed by this guy. I mean, it makes him look like a tiny, tiny little person, but yeah, they get him subdued again and Frankenstein tells the whole, you know, the body is taking over the brain or whatever, and he’s like, But, you know, the brain and the body can be regenerated or something.

And Simon’s like, Oh really? How? And he’s like, well, if we mate him and Simon, it’s like what?

Todd: He’s like, yeah. If

Craig: we mate him then like his. Brain and body will be passed on and to a new form and blah, blah, blah. And Simon’s like made him with who? And he’s like, well, Sarah,

Todd: I know first you’re going, Oh my God, this is disgusting, but it gets worse

Craig: at this point.

We already know that Frankenstein is. Is unhinged and completely unethical, but this is just what seals the deal. And I think it’s what seals the deal for assignment two. Like he doesn’t vocally object too much, but it’s obvious that he’s not going to allow this to happen. I think that he says. I’m going to tell the prison director and that’s where we get Sarah’s backstory.

It turns out that the prison director is Sarah’s dad and that he had tried to rape her, which is the trauma that caused her to be mute. And I like, first of all, that’s a disgusting backstory. And secondly, why on earth would she stay there and work in the asylum? For her rapey dad, like,

Todd: yeah. Yeah. That doesn’t ring true.

Craig: Yes. Frankenstein is protecting her or something. I who using her really is more like it, but nonetheless, but held her assignment is going to put an into it, you know, he’s not going to let it happen. So he poisons the monster. And then he goes to stab the monster, but Sarah shows up and screams. They lock him in the lab and she tells him, she tells Simon to go get help.

And so he goes off, but then Frankenstein returns he’s been out on an errand or something. And he walks in the lab and we see the monster kind of like rear up and roar or something, but then it cuts away. So we don’t really know what happened to Frankenstein. And then we see the monster outside digging up a grave.

It turns out that he’s digging up. His body, the professor’s body. I don’t know why just to see it. I guess that there’s chaos at the asylum. All of the inmates are, you know, running around and the monster is, you know, once he’s dug up his grave, then he breaks in and he kills the director, which good. That guy was an asshole.

Anyway,

Todd: that’s pretty gory scene.

Craig: Yeah. He stabs him or cuts. He cuts his throat and then the guards. Find the monster and shoot him. And this is in front of all of the inmates and the monster reaches out a hand to Sarah. And I, I don’t remember if he says help or if he just reaches out and she goes to reach out to him too.

But the inmates, somebody in the background, I don’t know if it was one of the guards or one of the other inmates, somebody in the background screams, he’s gonna kill her. And so all of the inmates attack him and literally tear him.

Todd: Yeah. There’s throwing bits of them everywhere. They all kind of back away and he’s just there in a big kind of gory mess.

Craig: Yeah. And ultimately it’s sad. Again, he didn’t ask for this. Yes. He’s committed some violent acts, but mostly either in self-defense or just for being angry for the way that he’s being treated. I felt bad for him. Frankenstein runs in and, and we see that. There must’ve been a tussle with him in the monster because he’s kind of injured, but he’s okay.

And he sends all the patients back to their rooms and says, it’s all over now. You know, everybody go back to your rooms, whatever. And then the last scene is just Frankenstein and held her in the lab and Frankenstein keeps talking about, Oh yeah, well that poor, guy’s probably better off getting killed.

Being dead is the best thing that could have happened to him. But next time. We’ll do it different next time will be better and held her is like next time. And he’s like, Oh yeah, next time.

Todd: And

Craig: that’s, that’s, that’s really where the movie ends.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: It’s just over with Frankenstein, obviously. Still crazy planning on doing this again.

How many times has he done this and failed at this point? Like he even says at one point when the monster wakes up, he’s like, Oh, I haven’t felt this good since the first time. Oh, that was so long ago. Like.

Todd: Dude

Craig: get a new hobby,

Todd: right? Science is all about experimentation Craig and a consistency and a, you have to fail, fail so many times before you can finally succeed.

So, uh, he’s actually being a very good scientist in this way. Just, um, if he had some morals and had a different, some, you don’t know, study a cure for cancer or something like that, and not this, it would have been better.

Craig: So do you know anything about. Frankenstein versus Sherlock Holmes or vice-versa I don’t remember which one it was.

Todd: No, but that sounds awesome. What is this?

Craig: It’s I just saw when I was looking at IMD B and I was looking at what the actors have been in Shane Bryant, who plays Dr. Helder reprises, the role of Dr. Helder in Frankenstein versus Sherlock Holmes again, or vice versa. And it was slated to come out in 2016. It looks like it was filmed.

I think there may even be a trailer,

Todd: no way.

Craig: I don’t think

Todd: it ever came out. It says, w I’m looking it up right now. Sherlock Holmes versus Frankenstein says it’s in development. I don’t know. Yeah, no, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about that. All I know is this was the last one. Not only was this, the last Frankenstein movie that hammer did, but, uh, also, uh, Terence Fisher, the guy who directed it directed like 50 or 60 movies for hammer.

And this was his very last, before he died. Um, not long after this movie, I think it was like 80, 81, something like that. And then the franchise kind of died in hammer, kind of fell through. You might remember. They’d also tried to do something wacky with their vampire series and, and team up with the Shaw brothers.

And they did that seven golden vampires. Remember that one? Oh yeah, we did that one. That was a fun. I mean, it was fun to talk about it’s kind of a goofball musi, but yeah. Um, they tried really, really hard, but none of that really succeeded. And so, uh, that all kind of came to a close and we didn’t get to see Peter Cushing plank.

Frankenstein. I’ve only seen the curse of Frankenstein and that was a long time ago. And then of course, the movie before this, that didn’t have Peter Cushing in it. Yeah. I would kind of be interested in seeing what the other sequels were like, at least one or two others. Just to see, like you said, it can’t be just the same story over and over again.

I mean, they must have done some other stuff with it. So I’m curious to see what that was. But I’ll never convince you to sit down and watch another one.

It’s okay. Okay. We can go to the horror vampire ones. Uh, we can go to the hammer anthologies, which are quite good. We can do a lot of hammer stuff that is going to make you roll your eyes. Uh,

Craig: I, uh, I didn’t love this movie, you know, I, it, it pretty much was what I expected it to be, and that’s fine. But if I had to, you know, identify a favorite part, it would be Proust.

Um, I think that. It was a pretty captivating performance in some small moments. And I really did feel sympathy for the monster. I felt bad for him. I felt ultimately he was the victim in this whole thing. It’s not like there were any kind of major differences, but he played it differently. Before. And after the brain transplant, before the brain transplant, he was just kind of brutish.

Um, and then after he was sad and, and a little bit softer now, there were moments where he exploded and they, they had said the professor had. Violent tendencies. They just didn’t come out very often. Um, and so it was in keeping with his character that he would have these, you know, blow ups or whatever. Um, but there was some subtlety in the performance and even under all that makeup and either under that hideous mask, just even in his eyes, there was some subtlety to his performance.

And, uh, I enjoyed that. I enjoyed his performance, the movie, I could take her leave, but I’m glad that I saw it. For

Todd: his performance. Oh yeah. I mean, as much nuance as you can get under that heavy costume with that horrible mask and everything and the script you’re right. I, this was the only part of the movie for me that I felt any real emotion and the rest of it was kind of no, you know, it’s just, it’s not bad.

It’s just a story. And it’s well told by. A lot of, you know, talented actors and beautiful sets and things like that. But, and it’s got its moments of thematic horror as well as some gruesomeness to it as well. You know, it’s just got a little bit of everything in there. And I think probably for the time, it was a lot more shocking than it is for us today.

Otherwise it’s kind of a slow burn. I mean, you’ve got to kind of be in the mood for a lot more drama than you’re going to get horror in a movie as well as many of the films like this, to be honest. So. Yeah, but, but David Prouse is a standout in this whole thing. Along with Peter Cushing, I really liked Peter Cushing.

And then, you know, as fate would have it, the two of them would walk right off this set and walk straight into star Wars. And, uh, that would be the thing that, uh, that puts him on the map. And, uh, Good for him. Good for him. Well, thank you so much for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this, please share with a friend.

We have a few more episodes coming up, or we’re going to be paying tributes to a couple other industry. People that we lost last year, stay tuned for that. You can find us online and leave us a note and a comment somewhere on our Facebook page or on our website, just Google two guys and a chainsaw saying you ought to be able to find it.

Until next time. I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

After years of doing this podcast, we’ve been really scraping the bottom of the barrel to find New Years-themed horror films. The old abandoned-lodge-in-the-Canadian-mountains theme is on full display in the odd 1982 film, Ghostkeeper. An unfortunate production history led to an interesting discussion that even WE can’t believe lasted about an hour.

Help us ring in 2021 right by firing up this film – or any other film, really, would probably be better – to forget the year that was 2020. Cheers!

Ghostkeeper (1982)

Episode 241, 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, after coming out of a rather fun month, I think we, we had, I just want to take a moment to just say, I think we had some great holiday movies.

Craig: Me too. It

Todd: was a bar fight. Yeah. And we finally got to do Scrooged, you know, which is like, I mean, I feel like we could end this podcast now and you’d be a happy man.

Craig: I would, but I don’t want to, I don’t want it.

Todd: No, no, we’re starting a new year, a new fresh year. And the end is not insight. As far as we’re concerned here we are new year’s time looking for a film that has a new year’s theme. And I think eventually we’ll run out of these much, much quicker than the other holidays.

We try to theme this movie that we’re doing this week has actually been on my list for a while. Now it comes up. Every time we’re looking for a new year’s movie and, uh, we always seem to pass over it this time. Craig gave me the option of choosing the film since he has chosen the last two or three. And, uh, I for better for worse picked 1980 twos, ghost keeper, a Canadian film.

And, uh, it was actually shot as a tax shelter, which a lot of movies were apparently. Um, back in those days, there were a lot of rich people in the oil industry up there, and they were looking for ways to basically, you know, save on taxes and, and, um, creatively spend their money. Right. And it was very common at that time for them to use movies as a tax shelter.

If the movie didn’t make money, they could just write it off. This was, um, a pretty big boom for the Canadian film department. And a lot of these horror movies around this time actually were filmed in Canada, but most of them were made to look like. You know, summer camps and American settings, um, you know, Toronto is supposed to double for New York, that kind of thing.

This is one of the first movies we’ve reviewed. I think that’s a Canadian film that actually unabashedly seems to take place in Canada. It’s basically almost like the shining, but up in the mountains of Canada in a much smaller lodge and a much. Crappy or film.

Yeah, you texted me. You said, uh, I don’t even know why I let you pick movies anymore,

Craig: so I know what kind of conversations

Todd: and we’re going to get into here now this, before we even begin. But, um, anyway, this, this movie, like I said, has been on my radar for awhile, just because I’ve run across it in lists of films that take place in new year’s time.

Mostly because I think there’s so few of them that it ends up on all these lists and the reviews are pretty mixed about it. It’s one of those things that has been fairly obscure for awhile. Cause it had a very, very short run in theaters. It was not successful, but has. Over the years apparently gained a bit of a cult following.

So that’s what they claim anyway. And there is a blue Ray release that has been out. And I think that’s the transfer that we watched. So anyway, it was my first time seeing it. Of course. Craig, how about you as you even heard of this one before, except for me talking about it every year. I

Craig: don’t even remember that.

No.

Todd: Yeah, you completely dismissive it. Every single time. I don’t expect you to remember you asshole.

Craig: Yeah, no, I don’t. I don’t remember. I’d never heard of it. I don’t know what to say. Uh, it’s a movie that you recommend.

Todd: All right.

Craig: Okay. So here’s how Todd sold this movie to me. Oh, okay. I’m gonna, I’m gonna do it like text

Todd: Todd.

Craig: Here’s the movie I wanted. You. Me. Okay. That’s cool. You know, I’ve picked the last couple of whatever. Todd cool Todd, to be fair. There is a new year’s movie about a bunch of hot gay guys, but let’s do this instead. Me. Okay.

Then me watching this movie. We go to watch a movie about a bunch of hot gay guys who watch this seriously.

Todd: I’m sure you’d. There are no shortage of films of hot gay guys that you have.

Craig: I

Todd: just have this feeling.

Craig: Yeah,

Todd: we don’t have to get too deep into true confessions.

Craig: No. Yeah. It takes place in Canada. Have you ever been to Canada? Taught,

Todd: let me tell you about my trips to Canada. Back in 1983, we went to Toronto. Uh, it was. Fun. I was a kid. We didn’t go to the mountains. It wasn’t snowing at the time. Um, back when we lived in Michigan, we went to Canada while back, uh, what was that?

Oh, saw Sharon Lois and Bram in concert by accident in an amusement park. Do you remember that? The elephant show? That was a great Canadian production. Do you remember?

Craig: Gosh, no, I don’t remember. I mean, the name sounds really familiar.

Todd: Maybe that was just a Michigan thing or kind of a regional deal because we got a lot of Cate Canadian TV, but it was, I

Craig: don’t know.

The name sounds familiar. Yeah. I, uh, when I was a little tiny kid, um, my parents took me to Niagara falls. Oh yeah. I’ve been there and that’s the only time I’ve ever been in Canada. Cause I think that sits right there on the border. Um, and uh, My mom tells this story that like I was teeny, she was pregnant with my sister.

So I was like two, three years old. And, uh, she tells the story that by the end of the trip, my wrist was bruised because. She was holding onto it so tight because I have no idea what Niagara falls is like. Now I can’t tell you about this. It says something about the movie. Um, but she said that, uh, at the time at Niagara falls, like there were just like li like little tiny rails that separated you from the fall.

And she was just mortified that I was. Getting to go over some. So my ruses, my, my wrist was bruised from her holding it. And the only reason that I ask is because I can’t imagine what we’re going to have to save, dude. It was so bad. Okay. No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

Todd: let me worried. Go on, go on. You got another Niagara falls story.

Go on. Let’s hear it.

Craig: No, like, you know, one of my favorite things about doing this is, you know, reading. Like behind the scenes stuff. And, and there’s nothing about this in the IMDP trivia, there are only like two items and one of them is that halfway through the movie, they ran out of money. So they were just like, they just threw out this grant and just like winged it.

And you can totally tell, like, it’s I, I feel okay. So the very first thing you see in the movie, Is this text on the screen that says in the Indian legends of North America, there exists a creature called Windigo a ghost to live human flesh, very

Todd: promising, very promising. He became great. Yeah.

Craig: And so you think that’s what the movie’s going to be about and it’s not at all.

Like, there’s like a, there’s like this gross creepy guy locked up in a room somewhere that I guess is supposed to be the wind to go. He’s just locked up in that room the whole time, like nothing ever happened.

Todd: Right. It’s maybe, you know, I managed to do a little bit more digging and I found an interview with the director, the writer, writer, director of this actually, uh, his name is, uh,

Craig: Jim Mecca.

Chuck.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. He started out in LA I think then moved to Canada to take advantage of all these productions that were going on with, for these tax shelters and had written a bunch of stuff and ended up, you know, getting, uh, he said like about a hundred thousand dollars from six different people, um, to go out and shoot this movie.

And then the producer somehow at one point came up and said, you know, I don’t know if people backed out or what happened, but. Uh, they suddenly just didn’t have any money anymore and they could just scrap the whole thing and probably still write it off. I mean, it probably would have been just fine with all these people, but he said, no, we made the decision to go, just to plow through it.

So he literally threw out the script and he said, we just kept shooting and I was just making up scenes. As we went along, I guess, just to run out the film and get these actors paid and, you know, uh, finish out their contracts and whatnot. And you’re right. It does show, however, I would argue that if you didn’t know that, and I didn’t know it going in, I only knew that after the fact, I was like, Oh yeah, that makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Then you, you, I feel you could have cut out. Some of those scenes with that creature and still made a movie that probably still wouldn’t have been scary or wouldn’t have really worked, but still would have been interesting. I found the movie as it is, and this is how we have to review it right as it is.

All right. The plot and everything was bad, but. The cinematography was compelling. The editing was interesting. The acting, except for like a couple people was actually pretty good for what it was, which was a lot of people kind of staring off into space and staring at each other, wandering around the rooms, pensively, you know, there’s a lot of shots of just.

Long shots of nothing happening, right. Just people wandering around or driving through the snow and stuff like that. It’s clearly like stretching for time, almost more than anything, but trying to build atmosphere and part of what keeps it going. I think, man, if there hadn’t been a score underneath it, the whole thing, I don’t think there’s a second guy goes by in this movie without.

The score underneath it and it’s not bad. It’s creepy and atmospheric. I could say a theorial that worked for me. That part worked for

Craig: me. I didn’t mind it. I mean, it was very typical of the time and it almost felt like made for TV. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know how to just be you’re right. It was all the time and it was.

Yeah, actually, I read that it was reused, uh, for like prom night or something. We got something like that

Todd: as Paul’s the guy who wrote the score, he’s composed like 95, you know, he has 95 credits on there. He was a, he composed a lot of stuff for Bob Clark. A lot of his movies, including black Christmas murder by decree.

I was, I was constantly getting little shades of black Christmas in this movie I have to say. And it turns out that the editor on this movie also edited almost all of Bob Clark’s. Earlier films, black Christmas, a murder by decree, which kind of makes sense. I feel like they’re just some, call-outs straight away to black Christmas in some of this.

Craig: It’s definitely got that vibe, like mid to late seventies vibe and that’s fine. And like you said, the cinematography is compelling. Like, I mean, it was all right. I think a lot of that just had to do with the fact that the outdoor. Shots were just pretty like, you know, it’s a snowy landscape, it’s mountainous and foresty and you know, that’s, that’s nice.

Um, as far as the interiors, it’s lots of shots down long hallways and, you know, shots in like hotel lobbies. I thought of. The shining too, just because, you know, it’s a resort in the mountains at winter time. So yeah, it reminded me of that. We watched another new year’s movie. I have no idea. I think it was new.

Year’s where a bunch of people went to a lodge and it ended up being haunted. And do you remember that? I have no idea what it was, but it reminded me of that. It does kind of have the feel of like those seventies kind of slashers. And I feel like they were going for something you need. And it just didn’t pan out.

Like, like you said, the whole idea of the Windigo that guy, they could have cut all those scenes and it would have made absolutely no difference because that really barely plays into the plot at all. I mean, I guess in the finished product, It serves as the motivation for why people are getting killed.

Like they have two people, like one person gets killed in the whole movie or two, maybe. I don’t know, like, like they’re feeding this thing in the cellar. Like it’s like in like an ice sell or

Todd: something

Craig: like that, but that’s why people

Todd: are made of ice.

Craig: Yeah. Made of ice. Like ice Briggs. That’s why people have to get killed.

So this thing can eat or whatever. I don’t know. I feel like it was a good, uh, it was a decent idea. And you said the acting isn’t bad and you’re right, it’s fine. And there are only what, like seven people in the whole movie and it’s okay. And it reminds you very much of. Seventies films. There’s a blonde in the movie named Chrissy who I wish had been played by Linnea Quigley, because it’s the NOLA Neha quickly roll.

There’s a lead couple Marty and Jenny, and they’re not bad actors, but they’re both assholes. And so like, I didn’t Marty more so than Jenny, I guess Marty’s a total Dick. I let’s just, let’s just do this. Let’s go. Well, there’s not much to tell. I know nothing happened. I think we can

Todd: please. Breeze through it, right?

Like the, just spend a whole hell of a lot of time. Probably a good first 15 minutes of the movie, just on their ski dues or their, yeah. Their ski dues skiing. Yeah. Through the snow, in these beautiful surroundings. But it’s like, man, that camera led lingers on that scene till they have moved from one side of the screen.

All the way to the other in every single circumstance. And it’s pretty, I mean, it’s pretty look at that. Those exterior shots will look great on the big screen.

Craig: There are things about the movie that just, yes, I agree with all of that. Uh, it bothered me that Chrissy rode her snowmobile sitting on her knees, like who does that?

Like, I don’t understand

Todd: many people do that. Maybe it’s like a thing, like if you’re extra sporty, it’s part of the challenges.

Craig: I I’ve never written a snowmobile. So what the,

Todd: yeah. What do you know? Come on. Hey, you

Craig: barely been to Canada.

Todd: Come on. I’m clearly the expert in this area.

Craig: It starts out with Marty and Jenny at this mountain store.

And like, I. Cut. It’s, it’s the same thing. You see it, uh, in all of these horror movies, they’re in this mountain store with this, you know, shopkeeper who seemed kind of familiar to me, but I looked at his stuff and I didn’t recognize anything that he was in. He’s just the typical grandfatherly, old man, whatever.

And Chrissy ends up joining them and she’s like, it’s so boring. Back at the lodge. Some people are getting ready for the party. You better stay with the roads is these

Todd: moms can be tricky.

Craig: We can

Todd: handle ourselves. Yeah,

Craig: they’re dangerous. How can mountains be dangerous? They’re so beautiful, but Gramps, uh,

Todd: we’re not going to get lost around worse things

Craig: out there than getting lost.

You know,

Todd: it’s the typical

Craig: warning from the gas station guy. Like, Oh, whatever you do, don’t go over there. Of course, that’s exactly what they do. And they find the other on their snow mobiles and they find an, an old road that’s like private properties stay out and they’re like, Oh, let’s go

Todd: check this out.

Except for Jenny. Who’s like, I’m not sure if we should go. W w well, what’s wrong with that? Marty’s like, cause just like, well, it’s just the sign that says private property do not enter.

Craig: Oh, nobody’s been up here for years. I was sure it’s fine. And so they, they do go up there and then they find. Uh, pristine mountain lodge.

Todd: Yes,

Craig: the deer lodge. And they’re like, what is this? And. Chrissy’s snow, Christy crashes, her snowmobile, and then it’s broken. And like it’s snowing really heavily. I did appreciate, like they had to climb a snowbank to get in.

Like there, I assume they filmed it on location. It looked like real snow, and they really like had to struggle to get up there. Um, but then they get up there and like it’s an abandoned. Ski lodge, but you would have thought that it had been abandoned yesterday, like everything’s up and running and clean and warm

Todd: crazy.

Well, it is, like you said a little bit, and this is probably what you were talking about. Little bit of shades of bloody new year, right? That was the one you were thinking of where it comes across that lodge. And part of the mystery is like, why is this is everything so crisp and clean, even though it hasn’t been here, but here it’s only been like five years.

Right. They look at the register and Marty’s like, Oh, the last person here checked in five years ago and they’re like, well, why is it still warm? Who turns on the furnace? So that’s somebody must

Craig: be here.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: But that’s the thing. They know that somebody has to be there, but they’re not particularly concerned about it.

Like they just make themselves comfortable

Todd: and they want,

Craig: everybody goes looking around. Right.

Todd: And then there’s a creepy scene. And I thought this was. You know, again, something that had promised, but didn’t end up panning out. Jenny goes up and she sees a room that has a coat hanger hooked over the door so that the door remains open.

Like it can’t be shut because the coat hangers in the way and the door is like, you know, kind of banging. It’s like clear that there’s like the windows open or something on the other side and it’s pretty creepy. And she goes in and when she goes into that room, Sure enough, the window is open and she goes to close it.

And then there’s a quick insert cut of like these, this crazy. I was a scraggly hair over it, like looking at her from somewhere

Craig: and whispering her name.

Todd: Yeah, that was weird. I thought, Oh God, this is freaky. And it exactly like black Christmas, right? It’s it was the same. I shot. Yeah, that you get at the end of that, you know, even with the gut, with the person, kind of always

Craig: praying over it and

Todd: things like that, but then she leaves the room and then they go downstairs and they have a fire.

And my God, this fireside scene

Craig: it’s painful. And like Marty sings a song like a, like, uh, it’s not like he sings the whole thing, but it goes on for too long. And plus. It’s a familiar too. And like, I, uh, you know, like

Todd: it

Craig: was familiar, it

Todd: was a take on the Frito Bandido song is what it was supposed to be

Craig: seeing.

That’s the only version of it that I know. And I didn’t know if that was a spoof or if

Todd: this was this,

Craig: the way that he sings it. I steal them and, or I’ll visit them and rape them and screw them. And then, uh, if you saw the go,

Todd: the girls are just like, , it’s gross. Well, and he also sick. He sings it super slow, right?

Like it’s like, it’s like the director, like, all right, we’ve got to burn a lot of film here. Normally the song is at one 20 beats per minute. Can you, can you knock it down to maybe, I don’t know, 80 and it’s so painful.

Craig: And then. Out of nowhere,

Todd: really out of nowhere,

Craig: Chrissy decides to tell them a long story about how she, she prostituted herself out to a teacher.

16 for $40. Like, I swear this, there’s no context for this at all. Like, she’s just like, Hey, did you ever want to tell somebody something that you never thought you dealt? And they’re like, no, she’s like, okay, well I will.

Todd: And then when she found

Craig: about when I was 16, I really got the urge to sell my body.

Like what?

Todd: And then once she’s done with this story, she says, I don’t know what made me tell you that I’m thinking. Yeah, me neither. I have no idea.

Craig: That was not a good story, but I wouldn’t tell it again. If I

Todd: were to

Craig: keep that to yourself. But what did I think she was trying to be sexy? Like, I think like throughout this whole, like throughout the whole thing, it’s so dumb.

Like it’s the, you know, these, this first half hour, like Jenny and Marty are a couple apparently, but obviously Chrissy is kind of flirting with Marty and he’s totally into it. And then there’s a scene at some point. Okay. This scene comes later because another character pops up, but this scene comes later where Jenny is like, do you want to sleep with her?

And he’s like, uh, I don’t know, I can do whatever I want. Right. I got to live my life. You got to live your life. Like, that’s the deal, right? Why are you such a bitch?

Todd: Almost exactly.

Craig: Word for word what he said.

Todd: I’m like, all right. Clearly he wants an open relationship and they have not talked about this yet.

Oh

Craig: God. It’s so weird.

Todd: Girls are staring, like you said, they’re staring at each other. She’s Jenny staring at Marty and staring at this girl. There’s a lot of staring and these looks being thrown back and forth. And again, Up to this point, I’m thinking something interesting is building it’s a little slow about it.

And some of it’s kind of stupid, but there is some tension here. There’s a bit of an atmosphere and a bit of a mystery. And we’ve seen somebody with a crazy eye whispering one of the characters names. And the director said that they did shoot this in sequence just out of coincidence. So when the money ran out, it’s the stuff in the later part of the movie that you know, was just thrown in all of this stuff.

Was pretty much as written, you know, the first half of the movie. So for,

Craig: for better. Well, the thing that, like, I feel like they had a story in mind, like they were building something, but then they just abandoned it, like for, you know, whether it was financial reasons that I just wanted to wrap it up. I don’t know, like, it felt like they were building something like after their little fireside chat, Marty goes to look for more wine and he gets attacked by somebody and screams.

And so the girls run in and it ends up being this old lady. And I have to say that if there’s, if I’m going to say anything positive about this movie, which is hard for me to do, I found this actress compelling. Like she was interesting. And I kind of wished that, I mean, she has. A lot to do, I suppose. I just feel like in a better movie, she could have been really compelling.

She was interesting looking or acting was interesting.

Todd: She was apparently a very well-known stage actress in Alberta at the time, maybe one of the most. Accomplished of the actors in this whole movie with the rest of them, pretty much. Didn’t go on to do much of anything else, except for the Jenny character.

She went on to do a few more movies and some TV, but that was about it. She had a look, I thought the Jenny character had a look that was super familiar, but I just think it’s because most of the brunettes from the seventies and these movies all had the same hairstyle and the same makeup. She,

Craig: well, yeah, she looked very eighties, nighttime.

Soap.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Dallas or knots landing.

Todd: Like that’s what she looked like at that point. From the soap guy. Yeah. You can pinpoint that better than ,

Craig: but she was pretty and like, I wanted to like her, but she was just, I don’t know. She was weird and annoying too. And Marty was such a Dick to her and she’s always like, yeah, you’re right.

I am a bitch. Sorry, go ahead and go. That other girl, not a problem.

Todd: It’d be the scene. It might be later, but she keeps bringing up or he keeps needling her about her being crazy. And she’s like, don’t say that, you know, that hurts me. And, and he’s like, why are you worried that you’re going to turn into your mother?

There’s this implication throughout that her mother is crazy. And so she’s worried that she’s going to be crazy, like her mother. And we’ve seen that before in other films too. Right.

Craig: Rude. But it’s so frustrating because it really amounts to nothing. Like it could have been something interesting and it feels in the movie.

Like they’re exploring that. Like, is she really hearing voices whispering her name? Is she somehow connected to this place? Because it seems like the old lady who really is, she doesn’t explain anything. She’s just totally evasive. Like they ask her questions and she just kind of skirts around it and they were just like, okay, well, I guess you’re here.

So whatever it seems like immediately, she feels some connection to Jenny or she knows. Something about Jenny. And it seems like in concept, there was something that made Jenny special and like maybe she was drawn to this place or they knew she was coming or something, but it never really plays out. Like, if you want to try to kind of piece things together in your mind, you can maybe think

Todd: of a better movie, right?

Like

Craig: she’s. There’s something about her. She’s a special kind of person and this lady. Recognizes it,

Todd: well, she flat out says it this point, but it doesn’t play it. Well, Chrissy gets up and goes to the bathroom, something happens. And then later Jenny goes looking for Chrissy and she runs into the old lady.

Uh, you know, there’s a lot of this people wander around pretty much all night long. Yeah. With their candles in the hallway. I know

Craig: you’re on. Okay. One,

what do you mean. Yeah, that’d be tough to handle this job. You gotta be ready every minute and I’m getting too old for it. For

Todd: what? And the implication is maybe she takes care of the hotel, but it’s set in such a sinister way that, you know, there’s more to it than that. Or that’s not even what she actually does.

So instantly there’s this, you know, I mean, this is total foreshadowing, right. That something’s going to happen. Like whatever she does, she’s looking for a replacement.

Craig: Right, right. But that part of the movie seems to have been excised. So, and not entirely like it’s there, but it’s so. I mean, just hanging on by a thread like it’s inconsequential.

So it kind of makes it, it’s also very much like burnt offerings, right?

Todd: Like

Craig: we need a new person to take care of this place or to feed. In, in that case to feed the house. But in this case to feed the ice

Todd: monster, the dude in a coat,

Craig: a little bit of makeup on that kind of makes him look a little bit gross, but there’s no indication like if he’s supposed to be a wind to go, first of all, that also bothered me because we’ve done movies.

That dealt with windows before, and I’ve never heard them described as a ghost that lives on human flesh. I don’t know. I didn’t do any research, so I don’t know what the Windigo is supposed to be, but it’s a native American myth, or I guess in this case, native Canadian.

Todd: It’s supposed to be a ghost that wakes up when somebody consumes human flesh.

Craig: So

Todd: yeah, when cannibalism happens, it awakens this ghost and it’s basically, I guess, like, you know, everybody’s punishment for the fact that this, that this happened. So I’m playing a game called until Dawn on the PS four right now that deals with this directly. And it’s actually a pretty fun way, way more fun than this movie

Craig: was it was it.

Bone Tomahawk was that the

Todd: bone Tomahawk was one of them because it dealt with a whole tribe. But then the one that was really good, I love was ravenous.

Craig: Oh yeah. That’s what I’m thinking of. That’s what I’m thinking of. Yeah. And there’s talk of when to go in a pet cemetery too. I don’t even remember if it was in the movie.

I just remember it from the book, but whatever the old lady says that she’s lived there all her life and they’re like, well, it must be. Tough being all alone and she’s like, no one’s ever alone in the mountains. And they ask her what she means. And she’s like, well, my boys here in the mountains and he keeps me company.

Okay. Meanwhile, the whole time that she’s telling this story, she’s eating a sandwich. Where did she get lettuce? I know that was bothering

Todd: me so much, but also the sandwich looks so good. I turned to my wife who was not watching this with me. And I was like, I could really go for a BLT right now.

Craig: Is there any way

Todd: we could scratch up enough lettuce for a BLT?

Craig: These were the things I was thinking about during this movie that tells you how entertaining it was. Like, wait a minute there, this abandoned. Resort in the middle of the Canadian wilderness, but she has fresh crispy lettuce sandwich.

Todd: No, she could have made them a sandwich too. I mean, come on. They’re standing right there, staring at her, watching a REIT, the sandwich. Ah, what a shame. So anyway, uh, so she’s been creeping around and, um, Chrissy, Chrissy goes off to take a bath and I thought, for sure, okay, well, here’s we get our topless moments and things like that.

And this is where they creatively shot around actual nudity, which was surprising for a movie like this.

Craig: It’s also surprising that this movie is rated R there’s no nudity. There’s very little graphic violence. I mean, there’s definitely suggested violence, but very, it’s not graphic at all. I mean, I have no idea why I traded our it’s weird.

Todd: It was a different time, Craig. It was a different time. And so she goes into her top and I thought this sequence was quite good. You know, we’ve heard about her son. And so now there’s this other character, the legs and whatnot, walking through the hallway, creeping towards her as she’s getting into her bath.

And. Sitting in her bath. And of course, because it’s a horror movie. When you take a bath, you have to light like five candles and have them sitting somewhere in the bathroom. So, you know, he blows his candle out and he opens the door behind her and that blows the candle flames back and forth a little bit, a little breeze comes into the room, but she barely notices it.

And then he kind of closes the door and she turns around and doesn’t see him there. And then suddenly he’s standing over her and he grabs her and takes her out. And I thought that was a bit of a shocking. Thing. I mean projected from a mile away, but, uh, nonetheless, you know, okay. We got our first w I thought kill because he pushes her down under the wire and then Jenny gets up and wanders in there and doesn’t see Chrissy and runs into the old woman.

And then Marty gets up looking for Chrissy and she’s not there. And then they seem fairly unconcerned. For most of the rest of the film that Chrissy is just,

Craig: they kind of act like they care for a second. Like they get up the next morning. Um, Was the old lady smoking weed through the whole movie. Like it, it probably was just supposed to be hand-rolled cigarettes, but it definitely, I don’t know.

It looked like a dude to me. And while her son, presumably I guess is killing. Chrissy or so we think like, just like you, I thought that he drowned her, but we see just minutes later, him carrying her down to the ice. Base

Todd: layer the ice house

Craig: and any slits her throat. That’s probably the most graphic part is when he slit her throat and she bleeds and he throws her into this, um, whatever it is, I mean, it just looks like a guy that they,

Todd: yeah.

I mean, that’s the problem.

Craig: When the disfigurement that he has could just be frostbite, like it doesn’t look like much of anything. And that’s what I thought when you said this scene. Was kind of compelling, I guess, because it’s one of the only action scenes that we get, but I’m like, if you have a castle freak, just like use the castle freak, you don’t need some random guy who we don’t know and who looks totally normal.

I’m just like, you know, good luck mountain man kind of guy.

Todd: Yeah. Just

Craig: show up. Kind of drown this girl and then throw her in her room. And then he shows up later to chase Jenny around for a while, but that’s it like, there’s no characterization. Yeah,

Todd: their lackeys for this thing, I guess, or they’re supposed to be protectors.

And I think that’s the, where the title goes to keep keeper comes from. If this guy in a coat in the basement is the ghost, then you know, this mother is the ghost keeper and there’s some mythology behind it. We don’t really get it. But, uh, the, actually the director in the interview said that that was when they ran out of the bunny.

Like they ran out of the money and the producer said you have one day. With your monster, you have a monster movie. And you’ve got one day to shoot with the monster. And so the, all they did was just put him in that room and shoot a whole bunch of different angles on them is all they had all they could do.

And then that point, you know, like I said, he had to redo the entire ending, which there was intended to be a long chase scene, you know, face to face with the monster. All of this stuff was part of the ending. The monster was supposed to be, isn’t supposed to be a monster movie and now there’s not. Hardly any monster in it at all.

And what monster there is, like you said, it’s super baffling.

Craig: I almost feel like it could have been interesting because the monster could have been sympathetic. Like I wanted to know more about him. I wanted to, because he doesn’t even look monstrous. Like he looks. Scared and sad. So I wanted to know, you know, what, what is his story?

And if, if, as the movie projects from the very beginning that Jenny is going to be his new caretaker. It’s almost like a beauty and the beast kind of situation. Like I thought it was going to be kind of a sympathetic deal, but it’s, it’s just thrown away, just thrown away,

Todd: just abandoned really? And that’s a shame.

Yeah. I would have also liked to have known if the monster, when he was 16, felt the need to sell his body or something. What is it nice to chat with the monster

Craig: a little bit more than need? She just

Todd: felt like, like it

Craig: once when I was 16. Yeah. I had this uncontrollable urge to want to do it for money, you know?

Like being a hooker.

Todd: Okay.

Craig: And then, uh, so Jenny and Marty ended up together and she apologizes to him for the fight that they had, where he was such a Dick. God, what did he say? I wrote it down. He said to her, you live your life the way you want. Just remember who pays the bills, dude. Yeah. You are such a

Todd: dad.

She just. Laps it up. She’s like, yeah. Okay.

Craig: And then she apologizes to him later and he’s like, Oh, sorry, I get that way. And then she’s like, maybe I’m going through some kind of stage or something. You know, I’m afraid of being crazy. I don’t want to be like my mother, which again is a moot point because we get nothing about the backstory.

And it’s like, she’s super concerned about this, but we know nothing about

Todd: they, they tell us outright way too many times. Like she should not be the one saying this out loud. It should be delivered to us in another way. And, uh, and like you said, it, it means nothing ultimately, but. Once again, as we’ve said about a lot of things in this movie, they’re setting up something kind of compelling.

I mean their relationship, uh, of this guy who’s kind of overbearing and she just kind of takes it and, you know, she’s weak and whatever. However, this mother said that she’s actually strong. She can tell that she’s strong inside. You know, there’s an interesting bit of tension or whatever going on here, but it’s really not skillfully done.

And I think that the Marty’s acting has a lot to do with that too. He does come across as a Dick. He’s written as a Dick, but. Some of it’s just a little over the top. Just something about his performance doesn’t ring true to me. And so every time he was smirking and smiling and smuggling and all over the place, I’m like this isn’t a real guy.

This is a guy acting like a Dick.

Craig: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, he’s super, cocksure like, he’s just, I don’t know. It didn’t bother me as far as the acting goes. He just, and, and to be fair, I, you know, cause I say this about hot girls all the time. He’s a good looking guy and charming in some ways, I guess, but just.

A jerk. But if you were to watch this movie, which I do not recommend, but if you were, you would see him and you would say, I’ve known guys like that. Like maybe fun to be around sometimes. But if you actually get to know him, really just a Dick, like you don’t want to be his friend kind of like you. Yeah.

The more time you spend with them.

I ain’t just kidding. I really like

Todd: everything, but my laugh, right?

No,

Craig: you’re one of my best friends.

Todd: Tell me more about me, Craig. Let’s wrap this up.

Craig: No, we may as well. Oh God, I don’t know. So Jenny walks around and she hears the old woman talking to somebody it’s her son, but Jenny doesn’t know that. The old lady’s like, you’re doing good. It’ll be fine. He needed us. I’m not mad at you or whatever.

Okay. And so then it’s morning and Marty goes out and I thought, Oh, this snowmobile that was already broken. Still won’t start surprise, surprise. But apparently it’s been one of the snowmobiles. Gone and Chrissy is gone and the remaining snowmobile has been sabotage. Like one court has been pulled out of it.

And that was so funny to me, like. He opens up like the hood or whatever of this snowmobile. And he sees that one cord has been disconnected and I wanted to be like, dude, just plug it back in.

Todd: Can you at least try that?

Craig: No, he just rips it out and throws it out into the snow. Like seriously, one side of this court has been pulled out from somewhere, look around, right.

See where it goes, plug it back in. Oh God. So he goes in and he confronts to a woman. He’s like, what the hell is going on here, crystal, your mobile are gone and somebody’s food my machine. And she plays dumb. And he

Todd: goes, and she’s cutting meat too, which I thought, Oh, that’s interesting. You know, it looks like a huge rack of ribs and whatnot.

There’s this part of Mexico. It was like, it wasn’t her. It was it Chrissy, you know? Um,

Craig: it could have been, I suppose. Um, cause we did see just in shadow silhouette. Presumably the sun chopping up something within ax, which Marty later finds the bloody ax, but then he also blood drips on his hand and he looks up and it’s a deer that’s been slaughtered, which, you know, that’s reasonable, whatever.

I don’t know. My impression was that they fed the girl to the castle freak. So yeah. Whatever. I don’t know. It’s it’s all just so hodgepodge, but the old lady though, she’s a little bit short with Marty. Sometimes she’s always super nice to Jenny and like, anytime she’s around Jenny, she smiles. Um, and she gives Jenny some tea.

You know what I think you don’t even work for this place. You’ve made it. You are somehow, but you don’t work here. What’s done is done. You can’t change it last night. I heard he talking to somebody else. We never see anybody else around where’d Chrissy.

And then she just walks out and goes and sits in the lobby, which looks very much like the shining. Like it’s just these huge windows. At not, excuse me, I should clarify that it’s not as big and luxurious, but in style it kind of looks like it. Cause there’s just like a line of chairs sitting in front of these windows, overlooking the winter landscape and she sits in front of it in her vision starts going wobbly.

I assume the old lady drugged her with the tea. Yeah. And then the old lady in the sun enter behind her and she briefly sees them. But then she. Passes out. And that was a good party and action. Great shots that

Todd: wasn’t bad. Marty’s in the shed, he’s looking for things and that’s when he encounters the deer.

And then Jenny wakes up in a random room. Uh, and there’s a book in front of her conveniently placed

Craig: in legends of Canada

Todd: as though this were a video game. Oh, there is a book that she just opens up and, you know, to the bookmark page and, uh, says something about it. Flood legends, tell of a flesh eating giant.

That’s usually kept by a female and she’s like kept by a female, puts it all together in her head.

Craig: And there are newspaper clippings of like missing Explorer parties in the mountains or whatever. Yeah. In, in 30 seconds, she kind of, sort of puts it together as best you can from this non-story.

Todd: Okay. Now she’s got to break out of this room or whatever, but no, the next shot just shows her wandering around the hallways and presumably the basement where they just left her and she.

I guess breaks the lock with her hands or it’s

Craig: get that, like, there was a lock on it, but she just fiddles with it for a second. It opens like maybe the key is in the lock. I don’t know because it takes her all of two seconds. It’s it’s a padlock on a door and she literally just. Fingers it for a

Todd: second,

Craig: it’s open

Todd: just a sec.

Like this is this wind to go or whatever. Some, you know, beast of legend or, and they’ve got like a cheap ass padlock on Dawn, right in the basement. She opens the door, looks in, we see the same shot of him staring back at her and she’s like, Oh shit. She just closes the door again. And then a sound of a chainsaw comes from behind and she starts getting chased by the sun.

With the chainsaw, uh, down the hallway, I’m like cool chainsaw chasing scene. This is interesting. And he chases her into the house and up the stairs and suddenly somewhere in the midst of this chase, he doesn’t have the chainsaw.

Craig: He, it dies when he’s on the stairway. It dies.

Todd: What a shame

Craig: I know. Well, and so.

He chases her around for awhile, whatever. And then she goes out like onto a fire escape. And when he comes out, she pushes him. And she’s only on the second story. So I was thinking, Oh, you know, big deal. She pushes him down and he’s going to land in the snow big deal. But lucky for her, there’s a iron.

Fence with spikes and he lands on that. Uh, this is the part that drives me crazy. Okay. So Marty sees this happen and reunites with her and she’s like trying to explain to him. What’s going on, but apparently he just thinks she’s crazy. And then he loses his God damn like out of nowhere, all of a sudden he is just bat shit crazy and like painting his face with engine grease.

And he does this whole monologue that I can only imagine was improvised because it doesn’t make any sense.

Todd: Yes.

Craig: And it’s long and it’s just to establish that he has a Ostet and he’s got a hold of her, like they’re face-to-face, but he has a hold of her by the back of her hair. And another reason that I think that this was improvised is she has no idea how to react to him.

Todd: She has nothing to do.

Craig: No. So she just kind of stands there in shocked horror for a good two minutes. And he’s violent. Like he’s. Thrashing her head up and down and around. And this poor actress, I’m like, good Lord.

Todd: Give her something like to do. Yeah, this was so painful. This was so painful to watch the scene.

Craig: And it just ends up with him saying I got to go get help. And she’s like, yeah. No don’t and then he just trots off into the wilderness. She chases out his gloves without his hat. She chases after him for a little while, but then he just pushes her down like three times

Todd: in the snow

Craig: and just keeps walking off.

That’s it. And the monologue is about how like his dad is so perfect and he want to do impresses. It doesn’t make any sense and it’s so stupid and it doesn’t make any sense that he just snaps out of nowhere.

Todd: It’s crazy. And then. Out of nowhere. Suddenly the old man from the store is walking through the snow and he looks at the sign and he looks at the tracks and he just, Oh boy,

Craig: shakes his head.

Like all

Todd: those crazy kids

Craig: goes up to the lodge.

Todd: And, uh, as he’s approaching the lodge, we see the woman who’s totally mugging, you know, opens the door, looks at him, gets a big evil grin on her face and closes it. And I’m thinking, Oh, is this the. This is their scat man Carruthers scene, right. He’s going to go in and that’s exactly what it was.

He goes into the lodge, you know, it’s a good five or eight minutes of this. And, uh, as soon as he gets in there, he goes into one room and she’s around the corner with a knife and just stabbed him in the chest. And then that’s it. That’s it for this?

Craig: Yeah. Well, it’s, it’s that scene from the shining too, with Dick Halleran, like Dick Halleran knows something is going on and, um, he’s going to go up and be the hero.

And then as soon as he steps in the door, Jack Nicholson axes him in the chest and then that’s it like

Todd: stab me in Caruthers, I guess. I’ve maybe I have the wrong name. I don’t know,

Craig: that sounded familiar to me too. Sorry, who’s just going with

God. It’s so silly. But Jenny goes back. Jenny goes back to the lodge because you remember she had seen earlier, she had like stumbled into a. Cleaning closet or something. And there was a shotgun in there and she, she remembers that Sarah. So she goes in, she gets the gun, she ends up meeting the old lady in the hall and the old lady does this whole again, it’s very much like the shining wind Jack is trying to like, he’s got the, whatever it is, the ax or whatever it is behind his back.

This woman has the. Nice behind her back. This foot-long knife that she’s carrying around. And, um, she’s like, you wouldn’t kill me. That’s something a crazy person would do. You don’t want to be crazy like your mom. And Jenny’s like, how do you know that? And she’s like, I know a lot of things, you know who I am.

I’m your mother come to mother and. It could have been compelling if there was anything to back it up. But why does this crazy old lady know that Jenny has a crazy mom? Why does she know that she would be moved by any of this? It doesn’t make any sense. Well,

Todd: actually, to be fair, she does overhear her talking about this in the hallway.

She’s she’s on the other side of the door, like smiling and listening. Sitting wall. Um, Jenny is explaining to, uh, Marty about how she doesn’t want to be a mom. So, yeah, but you’re right. You’re right. I mean, it’s just, this all kind of comes on quick and fast and hard at the end. And, uh, Jenny shoots her, uh, and then Jenny spends a really, really long time going back into that main room in the lodge, getting a.

I guess picking up the same tea she had before. So I don’t know if she’s going to be out again. Um, Oh, she does go downstairs to the wind to go opens the door, to hop in on our friend. Basically assure him. Don’t worry. I’ll look after you.

Craig: Yeah. It’s all right, Jenny. We’ll look after you now. What’s meanwhile, like.

Oh, okay. Well, and then she goes out and finds Marty frozen to death against a tree looking like he’s doing a Jack Torrance, impersonation, frozen against the tree. And however, the actor is clearly. Breathing, hold your breath for one second.

And, and she talks to it cause seriously, like the camera is on him for like a second and he is clearly breathing. Anyway. Um, and she says, Jim, you should have listened to Jenny. You should have been nicer to Jenny. I have to go now, but don’t worry, Marty, I’ll be back for you. And then she walks back into the lodge and she sits.

And frankly, I’m thinking, you know, this sucked, but she gets to live in this huge heated well-stocked apparently lodge in the mountains. Cool, whatever. And then she hears whispering, and it sounds like the old woman, and it’s saying it’s over, isn’t it. You done fine. You’ll see, Jenny. It’ll be like, it always was.

You’ll see. Fades of black, the end.

I have no idea what’s happening.

Todd: I wish I could. I wish I could tell you. I mean, it is what it is, right. We, we got to get, we’ve got to review it as it is, but the fact of the matter is even the director was just making shit up after a while and, uh, doing his best saying, look, if the movie. You can’t be what we intended to be, which was this monster movie.

At least we can make it something super creepy and atmospheric and hope that that, you know, works. And so, like you said, there’s a little bit of everything in here. There’s a little bit of burn offerings with the ending. You know, there’s a lot of the shining in here. Uh, I, you know, shades of black Christmas and stuff and, uh, and yeah, that is what it is.

The movie was written around this lodge. It’s kind of a shame because. It seems like, uh, the director, his friend apparently is his parents or whatever owned this lodge. And it also was closed for the winter. So they were able to shoot there. And he said also when we were outside all, every time snow fell, that was real, all the snow outdoor scenes.

We were super lucky. That everything looked great. When we went outside to film,

Craig: I would totally go to that lodge.

Todd: I wouldn’t do it. And I kind of wish I’d seen more of it, you know, I’m, you know, it would have been kinda nice. It’s most of it’s just rooms and hallways and that one, you know, lobby area and.

And the dead

Craig: kitchen. It was very, I say, it’s gorgeous. It’s not luxurious. It’s very rustic, but it looks very isolated in the Canadian mountains. Like, ah, it’s beautiful. I would totally go there.

Todd: So yeah. So, you know, that’s what it is. And, um, I think. You know, all things said and done. I think it was atmospheric until it, you know, your other brain kicks in and is like, yeah, but where’s this going?

And why doesn’t any of this make sense? I think it was well edited and God more power to them to be able to pull something together. That is semi coherent. And at least doesn’t feel like a completely different movie halfway through, you know, that they did it. The, the direct, uh, the, the, um, the, I don’t, I’m trying hard.

Aren’t I

Craig: it’s so funny when, when what you have the good things you have to say about it was, I mean, they made a movie.

Todd: I guess what I’m trying to get to is that, you know, they still, I just wanted to remind everyone there were talented people, the helm behind this doing, trying to salvage this, and this is sometimes what just has to happen in the industry. You know, like I said, the editor of this movie, you know, was, was, did porkies too, uh, after this did Porky’s before it, and then went on to do a Christmas story.

The same year that this movie came out. Oh, Yeah, then he edited rhinestone, but you know, at least we know what that means.

Craig: I liked rhinestone.

Todd: I know you did.

Craig: We’ve done popcorn. I

Todd: liked it. Did that. Uh, you know, he’s been successful working guy. And then again, Oh, the, uh, composer that we were talking about earlier that right after this went to do curtains.

Oh, no.

Craig: See, and that’s what I would say. Technically it is not bad. Technically. It’s not bad. It’s fine. It’s serviceable. We’ve definitely seen worse. Even story-wise we’ve seen worse. It’s just not, it fell apart. Like it just fell apart and it’s too bad. It may be, it could have been something, I don’t know. I don’t think it was ever going to be a masterpiece, but, um, There were some interesting ideas there.

It just didn’t work. And I didn’t like it and I wouldn’t recommend it. And I much rather would have. Watched a bunch of hot shirtless gay guys running around, getting killed. That would have been way more up my alley, but whatever, that’s what I get. What I let you pick the movies. There weren’t even any boobs,

Todd: like,

Craig: jeez, I’m super disappointed.

Todd: I was, I was, I saw the blonde as like, all right. At least we’re seeing the blonde girls boobs. Nope, Nope, Nope. Linnaeus. Where are you when we need you?

Craig: She would have been perfect in this role. And she would have been much more compelling that whole hooker story. Would’ve been much more compelling if Lynette Quiggly had been telling it.

And. They only mentioned new year’s like one time,

Todd: twice I counted. They were

Craig: so good pick or new year’s movie, Todd. Yeah. But look at here, here we are.

Todd: Uh, we’ve we’ve put almost an hour into this and, uh, we, we had to fill it out a little bit with some summer vacation stories, but, uh, did you think we would get to this point?

Craig: No, but as always, I did, you know, when we watch these types of movies, like, especially when you pick them, which is usually like, when I’m watching them, I’m like you asshole, I hate you. But then. When we talk about it, it’s I enjoy talking to you and a bit about

Todd: shirtless guys.

Craig: It was fun to talk about. We had some good laughs.

So, uh, I hope that, uh, our listeners enjoy that. And don’t watch this.

Todd: God, at least it wasn’t another movie about some pandemic going on or,

Craig: Oh, thank God.

Todd: Well, thank you all for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend happy new year to everybody. We’re looking forward to bringing you more and more episodes as we go through this year, 2021.

We wish you and everybody else a much better. 2021 than your 2020 was

Craig: gotta be better than 2020. And I am optimum.

Todd: Me too. Use your favorite podcast software or platform to subscribe to our episodes. Also get to our YouTube channel. We’re closely approaching a hundred subscribers there until next time.

I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig

Todd: with two guys and a chainsaw.